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diff --git a/705-h/705-h.htm b/705-h/705-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..8af6542 --- /dev/null +++ b/705-h/705-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,3057 @@ +<!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" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII" /> +<title>The Roadmender, by Michael Fairless</title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + P { margin-top: .75em; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + P.gutsumm { margin-left: 5%;} + P.poetry {margin-left: 3%; } + .GutSmall { font-size: 0.7em; } + H1, H2 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + } + H3, H4, H5 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + } + BODY{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + table { border-collapse: collapse; } +table {margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto;} + td { vertical-align: top; border: 1px solid black;} + td p { margin: 0.2em; } + .blkquot {margin-left: 4em; margin-right: 4em;} /* block indent */ + + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + + .pagenum {position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: small; + text-align: right; + font-weight: normal; + color: gray; + } + img { border: none; } + img.dc { float: left; width: 50px; height: 50px; } + p.gutindent { margin-left: 2em; } + div.gapspace { height: 0.8em; } + div.gapline { height: 0.8em; width: 100%; border-top: 1px solid;} + div.gapmediumline { height: 0.3em; width: 40%; margin-left:30%; + border-top: 1px solid; } + div.gapmediumdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 40%; margin-left:30%; + border-top: 1px solid; border-bottom: 1px solid;} + div.gapshortdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 20%; + margin-left: 40%; border-top: 1px solid; + border-bottom: 1px solid; } + div.gapdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 50%; + margin-left: 25%; border-top: 1px solid; + border-bottom: 1px solid;} + div.gapshortline { height: 0.3em; width: 20%; margin-left:40%; + border-top: 1px solid; } + .citation {vertical-align: super; + font-size: .8em; + text-decoration: none;} + img.floatleft { float: left; + margin-right: 1em; + margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.5em; } + img.floatright { float: right; + margin-left: 1em; margin-top: 0.5em; + margin-bottom: 0.5em; } + img.clearcenter {display: block; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; margin-top: 0.5em; + margin-bottom: 0.5em} + --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> +</head> +<body> +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Roadmender, by Michael Fairless + + +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 Roadmender + + +Author: Michael Fairless + + + +Release Date: February 5, 2013 [eBook #705] +[This file was first posted on November 6, 1996] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ROADMENDER*** +</pre> +<p>Transcribed from the 1911 Duckworth and Co. edition by David +Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org</p> +<h1>The Roadmender</h1> +<p style="text-align: center"><span +class="GutSmall">By</span></p> +<p style="text-align: center">Michael Fairless</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="GutSmall">Author +of</span><br /> +<span class="GutSmall">“The Gathering of Brother +Hilarius”</span></p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p0b.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Decorative graphic" +title= +"Decorative graphic" +src="images/p0s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center">London</p> +<p style="text-align: center">Duckworth & Co.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">3 Henrietta Street, W.C.<br /> +1911</p> +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p>This series of papers appeared in <i>The Pilot</i> and is now +republished by permission of the Editor.</p> +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center">A. M. D. G.</p> +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="GutSmall">TO</span><br +/> +MY MOTHER:<br /> +<span class="GutSmall">AND TO EARTH, MY MOTHER,</span><br /> +<span class="GutSmall">WHOM I LOVE.</span></p> +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> +<table> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="GutSmall">PAGE</span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">The Roadmender</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page1">1</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Out of the Shadow</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page61">61</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">At the White Gate</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page119">119</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +<h2><a name="page1"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 1</span>The +Roadmender</h2> +<h3><a name="page3"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 3</span>CHAPTER +I</h3> +<p>I <span class="smcap">have</span> attained my ideal: I am a +roadmender, some say stonebreaker. Both titles are correct, +but the one is more pregnant than the other. All day I sit +by the roadside on a stretch of grass under a high hedge of +saplings and a tangle of traveller’s joy, woodbine, +sweetbrier, and late roses. Opposite me is a white gate, +seldom used, if one may judge from the trail of honeysuckle +growing tranquilly along it: I know now that whenever and +wherever I die my soul will pass out through this white gate; and +then, thank God, I shall not have need to undo that trail.</p> +<p>In our youth we discussed our ideals freely: I wonder how many +beside myself have attained, or would understand my +attaining. After all, what do we ask of life, here or +indeed hereafter, but leave to serve, to live, to commune with +our fellowmen and with ourselves; and from the lap of earth to +look up into the face of God? All these gifts are mine as I +sit by the winding white road and serve the footsteps of my +fellows. There is no room in my life for avarice or +anxiety; I who serve at the altar live of the altar: I lack +nothing but have nothing over; and when the winter of life comes +I shall join the company of weary old men who sit on the sunny +side of the workhouse wall and wait for the tender mercies of +God.</p> +<p>Just now it is the summer of things; there is life and music +everywhere—in the stones themselves, and I live to-day +beating out the rhythmical hammer-song of The Ring. There +is real physical joy in the rise and swing of the arm, in the jar +of a fair stroke, the split and scatter of the quartz: I am +learning to be ambidextrous, for why should Esau sell his +birthright when there is enough for both? Then the +rest-hour comes, bringing the luxurious ache of tired but not +weary limbs; and I lie outstretched and renew my strength, +sometimes with my face deep-nestled in the cool green grass, +sometimes on my back looking up into the blue sky which no wise +man would wish to fathom.</p> +<p>The birds have no fear of me; am I not also of the brown +brethren in my sober fustian livery? They share my +meals—at least the little dun-coated Franciscans do; the +blackbirds and thrushes care not a whit for such simple food as +crumbs, but with legs well apart and claws tense with purchase +they disinter poor brother worm, having first mocked him with +sound of rain. The robin that lives by the gate regards my +heap of stones as subject to his special inspection. He +sits atop and practises the trill of his summer song until it +shrills above and through the metallic clang of my strokes; and +when I pause he cocks his tail, with a humorous twinkle of his +round eye which means—“What! shirking, big +brother?”—and I fall, ashamed, to my mending of +roads.</p> +<p>The other day, as I lay with my face in the grass, I heard a +gentle rustle, and raised my head to find a hedge-snake watching +me fearless, unwinking. I stretched out my hand, picked it +up unresisting, and put it in my coat like the husbandman of +old. Was he so ill-rewarded, I wonder, with the kiss that +reveals secrets? My snake slept in peace while I hammered +away with an odd quickening of heart as I thought how to me, as +to Melampus, had come the messenger—had come, but to ears +deafened by centuries of misrule, blindness, and oppression; so +that, with all my longing, I am shut out of the wondrous world +where walked Melampus and the Saint. To me there is no +suggestion of evil in the little silent creatures, harmless, or +deadly only with the Death which is Life. The beasts who +turn upon us, as a rule maul and tear unreflectingly; with the +snake there is the swift, silent strike, the tiny, tiny wound, +then sleep and a forgetting.</p> +<p>My brown friend, with its message unspoken, slid away into the +grass at sundown to tell its tale in unstopped ears; and I, my +task done, went home across the fields to the solitary cottage +where I lodge. It is old and decrepit—two rooms, with +a quasi-attic over them reached by a ladder from the kitchen and +reached only by me. It is furnished with the luxuries of +life, a truckle bed, table, chair, and huge earthenware pan which +I fill from the ice-cold well at the back of the cottage. +Morning and night I serve with the Gibeonites, their curse my +blessing, as no doubt it was theirs when their hearts were purged +by service. Morning and night I send down the moss-grown +bucket with its urgent message from a dry and dusty world; the +chain tightens through my hand as the liquid treasure responds to +the messenger, and then with creak and jangle—the welcome +of labouring earth—the bucket slowly nears the top and +disperses the treasure in the waiting vessels. The +Gibeonites were servants in the house of God, ministers of the +sacrament of service even as the High Priest himself; and I, +sharing their high office of servitude, thank God that the ground +was accursed for my sake, for surely that curse was the womb of +all unborn blessing.</p> +<p>The old widow with whom I lodge has been deaf for the last +twenty years. She speaks in the strained high voice which +protests against her own infirmity, and her eyes have the +pathetic look of those who search in silence. For many +years she lived alone with her son, who laboured on the farm two +miles away. He met his death rescuing a carthorse from its +burning stable; and the farmer gave the cottage rent free and a +weekly half-crown for life to the poor old woman whose dearest +terror was the workhouse. With my shilling a week rent, and +sharing of supplies, we live in the lines of comfort. Of +death she has no fears, for in the long chest in the kitchen lie +a web of coarse white linen, two pennies covered with the same to +keep down tired eyelids, decent white stockings, and a white +cotton sun-bonnet—a decorous death-suit truly—and +enough money in the little bag for self-respecting burial. +The farmer buried his servant handsomely—good man, he knew +the love of reticent grief for a ‘kind’ +burial—and one day Harry’s mother is to lie beside +him in the little churchyard which has been a cornfield, and may +some day be one again.</p> +<h3><a name="page10"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +10</span>CHAPTER II</h3> +<p><span class="smcap">On</span> Sundays my feet take ever the +same way. First my temple service, and then five miles +tramp over the tender, dewy fields, with their ineffable earthy +smell, until I reach the little church at the foot of the +grey-green down. Here, every Sunday, a young priest from a +neighbouring village says Mass for the tiny hamlet, where all are +very old or very young—for the heyday of life has no part +under the long shadow of the hills, but is away at sea or in +service. There is a beautiful seemliness in the extreme +youth of the priest who serves these aged children of God. +He bends to communicate them with the reverent tenderness of a +son, and reads with the careful intonation of far-seeing +love. To the old people he is the son of their old age, +God-sent to guide their tottering footsteps along the highway of +foolish wayfarers; and he, with his youth and strength, wishes no +better task. Service ended, we greet each other +friendly—for men should not be strange in the acre of God; +and I pass through the little hamlet and out and up on the grey +down beyond. Here, at the last gate, I pause for breakfast; +and then up and on with quickening pulse, and evergreen memory of +the weary war-worn Greeks who broke rank to greet the great blue +Mother-way that led to home. I stand on the summit hatless, +the wind in my hair, the smack of salt on my cheek, all round me +rolling stretches of cloud-shadowed down, no sound but the shrill +mourn of the peewit and the gathering of the sea.</p> +<p>The hours pass, the shadows lengthen, the sheep-bells clang; +and I lie in my niche under the stunted hawthorn watching the to +and fro of the sea, and Æolus shepherding his white sheep +across the blue. I love the sea with its impenetrable +fathoms, its wash and undertow, and rasp of shingle sucked +anew. I love it for its secret dead in the Caverns of +Peace, of which account must be given when the books are opened +and earth and heaven have fled away. Yet in my love there +is a paradox, for as I watch the restless, ineffective waves I +think of the measureless, reflective depths of the still and +silent Sea of Glass, of the dead, small and great, rich or poor, +with the works which follow them, and of the Voice as the voice +of many waters, when the multitude of one mind rends heaven with +alleluia: and I lie so still that I almost feel the kiss of White +Peace on my mouth. Later still, when the flare of the +sinking sun has died away and the stars rise out of a veil of +purple cloud, I take my way home, down the slopes, through the +hamlet, and across miles of sleeping fields; over which night has +thrown her shifting web of mist—home to the little attic, +the deep, cool well, the kindly wrinkled face with its listening +eyes—peace in my heart and thankfulness for the rhythm of +the road.</p> +<p>Monday brings the joy of work, second only to the Sabbath of +rest, and I settle to my heap by the white gate. Soon I +hear the distant stamp of horsehoofs, heralding the grind and +roll of the wheels which reaches me later—a heavy +flour-waggon with a team of four great gentle horses, gay with +brass trappings and scarlet ear-caps. On the top of the +craftily piled sacks lies the white-clad waggoner, a pink in his +mouth which he mumbles meditatively, and the reins looped over +the inactive whip—why should he drive a willing team that +knows the journey and responds as strenuously to a cheery chirrup +as to the well-directed lash? We greet and pass the time of +day, and as he mounts the rise he calls back a warning of coming +rain. I am already white with dust as he with flour, +sacramental dust, the outward and visible sign of the stir and +beat of the heart of labouring life.</p> +<p>Next to pass down the road is an anxious ruffled hen, her +speckled breast astir with maternal troubles. She walks +delicately, lifting her feet high and glancing furtively from +side to side with comb low dressed. The sight of man, the +heartless egg-collector, from whose haunts she has fled, wrings +from her a startled cluck, and she makes for the white gate, +climbs through, and disappears. I know her feelings too +well to intrude. Many times already has she hidden herself, +amassed four or five precious treasures, brooding over them with +anxious hope; and then, after a brief desertion to seek the +necessary food, she has returned to find her efforts at +concealment vain, her treasures gone. At last, with the +courage of despair she has resolved to brave the terrors of the +unknown and seek a haunt beyond the tyranny of man. I will +watch over her from afar, and when her mother-hope is fulfilled I +will marshal her and her brood back to the farm where she +belongs; for what end I care not to think, it is of the mystery +which lies at the heart of things; and we are all God’s +beasts, says St Augustine.</p> +<p>Here is my stone-song, a paraphrase of the Treasure Motif.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p15b.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Music score: F# dotted crotchet, F# quaver, F# quaver, F# dotted +crotchet, D crotchet, E crotchet. This bar is then repeated once +more" +title= +"Music score: F# dotted crotchet, F# quaver, F# quaver, F# dotted +crotchet, D crotchet, E crotchet. This bar is then repeated once +more" +src="images/p15s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>What a wonderful work Wagner has done for humanity in +translating the toil of life into the readable script of +music! For those who seek the tale of other worlds his +magic is silent; but earth-travail under his wand becomes +instinct with rhythmic song to an accompaniment of the elements, +and the blare and crash of the bottomless pit itself. The +Pilgrim’s March is the sad sound of footsore men; the San +Graal the tremulous yearning of servitude for richer, deeper +bondage. The yellow, thirsty flames lick up the willing +sacrifice, the water wails the secret of the river and the sea; +the birds and beasts, the shepherd with his pipe, the underground +life in rocks and caverns, all cry their message to this +nineteenth-century toiling, labouring world—and to me as I +mend my road.</p> +<p>Two tramps come and fling themselves by me as I eat my noonday +meal. The one, red-eyed, furtive, lies on his side with +restless, clutching hands that tear and twist and torture the +living grass, while his lips mutter incoherently. The other +sits stooped, bare-footed, legs wide apart, his face grey, almost +as grey as his stubbly beard; and it is not long since Death +looked him in the eyes. He tells me querulously of a two +hundred miles tramp since early spring, of search for work, +casual jobs with more kicks than halfpence, and a brief but +blissful sojourn in a hospital bed, from which he was dismissed +with sentence passed upon him. For himself, he is +determined to die on the road under a hedge, where a man can see +and breathe. His anxiety is all for his fellow; <i>he</i> +has said he will “do for a man”; he wants to +“swing,” to get out of his “dog’s +life.” I watch him as he lies, this Ishmael and +would-be Lamech. Ignorance, hunger, terror, the exhaustion +of past generations, have done their work. The man is mad, +and would kill his fellowman.</p> +<p>Presently we part, and the two go, dogged and footsore, down +the road which is to lead them into the great silence.</p> +<h3><a name="page18"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +18</span>CHAPTER III</h3> +<p><span class="smcap">Yesterday</span> was a day of +encounters.</p> +<p>First, early in the morning, a young girl came down the road +on a bicycle. Her dressguard was loose, and she stopped to +ask for a piece of string. When I had tied it for her she +looked at me, at my worn dusty clothes and burnt face; and then +she took a Niphetos rose from her belt and laid it shyly in my +dirty disfigured palm. I bared my head, and stood hat in +hand looking after her as she rode away up the hill. Then I +took my treasure and put it in a nest of cool dewy grass under +the hedge. <i>Ecce ancilla Domini</i>.</p> +<p>My next visitor was a fellow-worker on his way to a job at the +cross-roads. He stood gazing meditatively at my heap of +stones.</p> +<p>“Ow long ’ave yer bin at this job that y’ere +in such a hurry?”</p> +<p>I stayed my hammer to answer—“Four +months.”</p> +<p>“Seen better days?”</p> +<p>“Never,” I said emphatically, and punctuated the +remark with a stone split neatly in four.</p> +<p>The man surveyed me in silence for a moment; then he said +slowly, “Mean ter say yer like crackin’ these blamed +stones to fill ’oles some other fool’s +made?”</p> +<p>I nodded.</p> +<p>“Well, that beats everything. Now, I +’<i>ave</i> seen better days; worked in a big brewery over +near Maidstone—a town that, and something doing; and now, +’ere I am, ’ammering me ’eart out on these +blasted stones for a bit o’ bread and a pipe o’ baccy +once a week—it ain’t good enough.” He +pulled a blackened clay from his pocket and began slowly filling +it with rank tobacco; then he lit it carefully behind his +battered hat, put the spent match back in his pocket, rose to his +feet, hitched his braces, and, with a silent nod to me, went on +to his job.</p> +<p>Why do we give these tired children, whose minds move slowly, +whose eyes are holden that they cannot read the Book, whose +hearts are full of sore resentment against they know not what, +such work as this to do—hammering their hearts out for a +bit of bread? All the pathos of unreasoning labour rings in +these few words. We fit the collar on unwilling necks; and +when their service is over we bid them go out free; but we break +the good Mosaic law and send them away empty. What wonder +there is so little willing service, so few ears ready to be +thrust through against the master’s door.</p> +<p>The swift stride of civilisation is leaving behind individual +effort, and turning man into the Dæmon of a machine. +To and fro in front of the long loom, lifting a lever at either +end, paces he who once with painstaking intelligence drove the +shuttle. <i>Then</i> he tasted the joy of completed work, +that which his eye had looked upon, and his hands had handled; +now his work is as little finished as the web of Penelope. +Once the reaper grasped the golden corn stems, and with dexterous +sweep of sickle set free the treasure of the earth. Once +the creatures of the field were known to him, and his eye caught +the flare of scarlet and blue as the frail poppies and sturdy +corn-cockles laid down their beauty at his feet; now he sits +serene on Juggernaut’s car, its guiding Dæmon, and +the field is silent to him.</p> +<p>As with the web and the grain so with the wood and stone in +the treasure-house of our needs. The ground was accursed +<i>for our sake</i> that in the sweat of our brow we might eat +bread. Now the many live in the brain-sweat of the few; and +it must be so, for as little as great King Cnut could stay the +sea until it had reached the appointed place, so little can we +raise a barrier to the wave of progress, and say, “Thus far +and no further shalt thou come.”</p> +<p>What then? This at least; if we live in an age of +mechanism let us see to it that we are a race of intelligent +mechanics; and if man is to be the Dæmon of a machine let +him know the setting of the knives, the rise of the piston, the +part that each wheel and rod plays in the economy of the whole, +the part that he himself plays, co-operating with it. Then, +when he has lived and served intelligently, let us give him of +our flocks and of our floor that he may learn to rest in the +lengthening shadows until he is called to his work above.</p> +<p>So I sat, hammering out my thoughts, and with them the +conviction that stonebreaking should be allotted to minor poets +or vagrant children of nature like myself, never to such tired +folk as my poor mate at the cross-roads and his fellows.</p> +<p>At noon, when I stopped for my meal, the sun was baking the +hard white road in a pitiless glare. Several waggons and +carts passed, the horses sweating and straining, with drooping, +fly-tormented ears. The men for the most part nodded +slumberously on the shaft, seeking the little shelter the cart +afforded; but one shuffled in the white dust, with an occasional +chirrup and friendly pressure on the tired horse’s +neck.</p> +<p>Then an old woman and a small child appeared in sight, both +with enormous sun-bonnets and carrying baskets. As they +came up with me the woman stopped and swept her face with her +hand, while the child, depositing the basket in the dust with +great care, wiped her little sticky fingers on her +pinafore. Then the shady hedge beckoned them and they came +and sat down near me. The woman looked about seventy, tall, +angular, dauntless, good for another ten years of hard +work. The little maid—her only grandchild, she told +me—was just four, her father away soldiering, and the +mother died in childbed, so for four years the child had known no +other guardian or playmate than the old woman. She was not +the least shy, but had the strange self-possession which comes +from associating with one who has travelled far on life’s +journey.</p> +<p>“I couldn’t leave her alone in the house,” +said her grandmother, “and she wouldn’t leave the +kitten for fear it should be lonesome”—with a +humorous, tender glance at the child—“but it’s +a long tramp in the heat for the little one, and we’ve +another mile to go.”</p> +<p>“Will you let her bide here till you come back?” I +said. “She’ll be all right by me.”</p> +<p>The old lady hesitated.</p> +<p>“Will ’ee stay by him, dearie?” she +said.</p> +<p>The small child nodded, drew from her miniature pocket a piece +of sweetstuff, extracted from the basket a small black cat, and +settled in for the afternoon. Her grandmother rose, took +her basket, and, with a nod and “Thank ’ee kindly, +mister,” went off down the road.</p> +<p>I went back to my work a little depressed—why had I not +white hair?—for a few minutes had shown me that I was not +old enough for the child despite my forty years. She was +quite happy with the little black cat, which lay in the small lap +blinking its yellow eyes at the sun; and presently an old man +came by, lame and bent, with gnarled twisted hands, leaning +heavily on his stick.</p> +<p>He greeted me in a high, piping voice, limped across to the +child, and sat down. “Your little maid, +mister?” he said.</p> +<p>I explained.</p> +<p>“Ah,” he said, “I’ve left a little +darlin’ like this at ’ome. It’s +’ard on us old folks when we’re one too many; but the +little mouths must be filled, and my son, ’e said ’e +didn’t see they could keep me on the arf-crown, with +another child on the way; so I’m tramping to N—, to +the House; but it’s a ’ard pinch, leavin’ the +little ones.”</p> +<p>I looked at him—a typical countryman, with white hair, +mild blue eyes, and a rosy, childish, unwrinkled face.</p> +<p>“I’m eighty-four,” he went on, “and +terrible bad with the rheumatics and my chest. Maybe +it’ll not be long before the Lord remembers me.”</p> +<p>The child crept close and put a sticky little hand confidingly +into the tired old palm. The two looked strangely alike, +for the world seems much the same to those who leave it behind as +to those who have but taken the first step on its circular +pathway.</p> +<p>“’Ook at my kitty,” she said, pointing to +the small creature in her lap. Then, as the old man touched +it with trembling fingers she went on—“’Oo +isn’t my grandad; he’s away in the sky, but +I’ll kiss ’oo.”</p> +<p>I worked on, hearing at intervals the old piping voice and the +child-treble, much of a note; and thinking of the blessings +vouchsafed to the simple old age which crowns a harmless +working-life spent in the fields. The two under the hedge +had everything in common and were boundlessly content together, +the sting of the knowledge of good and evil past for the one, and +for the other still to come; while I stood on the battlefield of +the world, the flesh, and the devil, though, thank God, with my +face to the foe.</p> +<p>The old man sat resting: I had promised him a lift with my +friend the driver of the flour-cart, and he was almost due when +the child’s grandmother came down the road.</p> +<p>When she saw my other visitor she stood amazed.</p> +<p>“What, Richard Hunton, that worked with my old man years +ago up at Ditton, whatever are you doin’ all these miles +from your own place?”</p> +<p>“Is it Eliza Jakes?”</p> +<p>He looked at her dazed, doubtful.</p> +<p>“An’ who else should it be? Where’s +your memory gone, Richard Hunton, and you not such a great age +either? Where are you stayin’?”</p> +<p>Shame overcame him; his lips trembled, his mild blue eyes +filled with tears. I told the tale as I had heard it, and +Mrs Jakes’s indignation was good to see.</p> +<p>“Not keep you on ’alf a crown! Send you to +the House! May the Lord forgive them! You +wouldn’t eat no more than a fair-sized cat, and not long +for this world either, that’s plain to see. No, +Richard Hunton, you don’t go to the House while I’m +above ground; it’d make my good man turn to think of +it. You’ll come ’ome with me and the little +’un there. I’ve my washin’, and a bit put +by for a rainy day, and a bed to spare, and the Lord and the +parson will see I don’t come to want.”</p> +<p>She stopped breathless, her defensive motherhood in arms.</p> +<p>The old man said quaveringly, in the pathetic, grudging phrase +of the poor, which veils their gratitude while it testifies their +independence, “Maybe I might as well.” He rose +with difficulty, picked up his bundle and stick, the small child +replaced the kitten in its basket, and thrust her hand in her new +friend’s.</p> +<p>“Then ’oo <i>is</i> grandad tum back,” she +said.</p> +<p>Mrs Jakes had been fumbling in her pocket, and extracted a +penny, which she pressed on me.</p> +<p>“It’s little enough, mister,” she said.</p> +<p>Then, as I tried to return it: “Nay, I’ve enough, +and yours is poor paid work.”</p> +<p>I hope I shall always be able to keep that penny; and as I +watched the three going down the dusty white road, with the child +in the middle, I thanked God for the Brotherhood of the Poor.</p> +<h3><a name="page30"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +30</span>CHAPTER IV</h3> +<p><span class="smcap">Yesterday</span> a funeral passed, from +the work-house at N—, a quaint sepulture without +solemnities. The rough, ungarnished coffin of stained deal +lay bare and unsightly on the floor of an old market-cart; a +woman sat beside, steadying it with her feet. The husband +drove; and the most depressed of the three was the horse, a +broken-kneed, flea-bitten grey. It was pathetic, this +bringing home in death of the old father whom, while he lived, +they had been too poor to house; it was at no small sacrifice +that they had spared him that terror of old age, a pauper’s +grave, and brought him to lie by his wife in our quiet +churchyard. They felt no emotion, this husband and wife, +only a dull sense of filial duty done, respectability preserved; +and above and through all, the bitter but necessary counting the +cost of this last bed.</p> +<p>It is strange how pagan many of us are in our beliefs. +True, the funeral libations have made way for the comfortable +bake-meats; still, to the large majority Death is Pluto, king of +the dark Unknown whence no traveller returns, rather than Azrael, +brother and friend, lord of this mansion of life. Strange +how men shun him as he waits in the shadow, watching our puny +straining after immortality, sending his comrade sleep to prepare +us for himself. When the hour strikes he comes—very +gently, very tenderly, if we will but have it so—folds the +tired hands together, takes the way-worn feet in his broad strong +palm; and lifting us in his wonderful arms he bears us swiftly +down the valley and across the waters of Remembrance.</p> +<p>Very pleasant art thou, O Brother Death, thy love is +wonderful, passing the love of women.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">* * * * *</p> +<p>To-day I have lived in a whirl of dust. To-morrow is the +great annual Cattle Fair at E—, and through the long hot +hours the beasts from all the district round have streamed in +broken procession along my road, to change hands or to die. +Surely the lordship over creation implies wise and gentle rule +for intelligent use, not the pursuit of a mere immediate end, +without any thought of community in the great sacrament of +life.</p> +<p>For the most part mystery has ceased for this working Western +world, and with it reverence. Coventry Patmore says: +“God clothes Himself actually and literally with His whole +creation. Herbs take up and assimilate minerals, beasts +assimilate herbs, and God, in the Incarnation and its proper +Sacrament, assimilates us, who, says St Augustine, ‘are +God’s beasts.’” It is man in his blind +self-seeking who separates woof from weft in the living garment +of God, and loses the more as he neglects the outward and visible +signs of a world-wide grace.</p> +<p>In olden days the herd led his flock, going first in the post +of danger to defend the creatures he had weaned from their +natural habits for his various uses. Now that good +relationship has ceased for us to exist, man drives the beasts +before him, means to his end, but with no harmony between end and +means. All day long the droves of sheep pass me on their +lame and patient way, no longer freely and instinctively +following a protector and forerunner, but <i>driven</i>, impelled +by force and resistless will—the same will which once went +before without force. They are all trimmed as much as +possible to one pattern, and all make the same sad plaint. +It is a day on which to thank God for the unknown tongue. +The drover and his lad in dusty blue coats plod along stolidly, +deaf and blind to all but the way before them; no longer wielding +the crook, instrument of deliverance, or at most of gentle +compulsion, but armed with a heavy stick and mechanically dealing +blows on the short thick fleeces; without evil intent because +without thought—it is the ritual of the trade.</p> +<p>Of all the poor dumb pilgrims of the road the bullocks are the +most terrible to see. They are not patient, but go most +unwillingly with lowered head and furtive sideways motion, in +their eyes a horror of great fear. The sleek cattle, knee +deep in pasture, massed at the gate, and stared mild-eyed and +with inquiring bellow at the retreating drove; but these passed +without answer on to the Unknown, and for them it spelt +death.</p> +<p>Behind a squadron of sleek, well-fed cart-horses, formed in +fours, with straw braid in mane and tail, came the ponies, for +the most part a merry company. Long strings of rusty, +shaggy two-year-olds, unbroken, unkempt, the short Down grass +still sweet on their tongues; full of fun, frolic, and +wickedness, biting and pulling, casting longing eyes at the +hedgerows. The boys appear to recognise them as kindred +spirits, and are curiously forbearing and patient. Soon +both ponies and boys vanish in a white whirl, and a long line of +carts, which had evidently waited for the dust to subside, comes +slowly up the incline. For the most part they carry the +pigs and fowls, carriage folk of the road. The latter are +hot, crowded, and dusty under the open netting; the former for +the most part cheerfully remonstrative.</p> +<p>I drew a breath of relief as the noise of wheels died away and +my road sank into silence. The hedgerows are no longer +green but white and choked with dust, a sight to move good sister +Rain to welcome tears. The birds seem to have fled before +the noisy confusion. I wonder whether my snake has seen and +smiled at the clumsy ruling of the lord he so little heeds? +I turned aside through the gate to plunge face and hands into the +cool of the sheltered grass that side the hedge, and then rested +my eyes on the stretch of green I had lacked all day. The +rabbits had apparently played and browsed unmindful of the stir, +and were still flirting their white tails along the hedgerows; a +lark rose, another and another, and I went back to my road. +Peace still reigned, for the shadows were lengthening, and there +would be little more traffic for the fair. I turned to my +work, grateful for the stillness, and saw on the white stretch of +road a lone old man and a pig. Surely I knew that tall +figure in the quaint grey smock, surely I knew the face, furrowed +like nature’s face in springtime, and crowned by a round, +soft hat? And the pig, the black pig walking decorously +free? Ay, I knew them.</p> +<p>In the early spring I took a whole holiday and a long tramp; +and towards afternoon, tired and thirsty, sought water at a +little lonely cottage whose windows peered and blinked under +overhanging brows of thatch. I had, not the water I asked +for, but milk and a bowl of sweet porridge for which I paid only +thanks; and stayed for a chat with my kindly hosts. They +were a quaint old couple of the kind rarely met with +nowadays. They enjoyed a little pension from the Squire and +a garden in which vegetables and flowers lived side by side in +friendliest fashion. Bees worked and sang over the thyme +and marjoram, blooming early in a sunny nook; and in a homely sty +lived a solemn black pig, a pig with a history.</p> +<p>It was no common utilitarian pig, but the honoured guest of +the old couple, and it knew it. A year before, their +youngest and only surviving child, then a man of five-and-twenty, +had brought his mother the result of his savings in the shape of +a fine young pig: a week later he lay dead of the typhoid that +scourged Maidstone. Hence the pig was sacred, cared for and +loved by this Darby and Joan.</p> +<p>“Ee be mos’ like a child to me and the mother, +an’ mos’ as sensible as a Christian, ee be,” +the old man had said; and I could hardly credit my eyes when I +saw the tall bent figure side by side with the black pig, coming +along my road on such a day.</p> +<p>I hailed the old man, and both turned aside; but he gazed at +me without remembrance.</p> +<p>I spoke of the pig and its history. He nodded +wearily. “Ay, ay, lad, you’ve got it; +’tis poor Dick’s pig right enow.”</p> +<p>“But you’re never going to take it to +E—?”</p> +<p>“Ay, but I be, and comin’ back alone, if the Lord +be marciful. The missus has been terrible bad this two +mouths and more; Squire’s in foreign parts; and food-stuffs +such as the old woman wants is hard buying for poor folks. +The stocking’s empty, now ’tis the pig must go, and I +believe he’d be glad for to do the missus a turn; she were +terrible good to him, were the missus, and fond, too. I +dursn’t tell her he was to go; she’d sooner starve +than lose poor Dick’s pig. Well, we’d best be +movin’; ’tis a fairish step.”</p> +<p>The pig followed comprehending and docile, and as the quaint +couple passed from sight I thought I heard Brother Death stir in +the shadow. He is a strong angel and of great pity.</p> +<h3><a name="page40"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +40</span>CHAPTER V</h3> +<p><span class="smcap">There</span> is always a little fire of +wood on the open hearth in the kitchen when I get home at night; +the old lady says it is “company” for her, and sits +in the lonely twilight, her knotted hands lying quiet on her lap, +her listening eyes fixed on the burning sticks.</p> +<p>I wonder sometimes whether she hears music in the leap and +lick of the fiery tongues, music such as he of Bayreuth draws +from the violins till the hot energy of the fire spirit is on us, +embodied in sound.</p> +<p>Surely she hears some voice, that lonely old woman on whom is +set the seal of great silence?</p> +<p>It is a great truth tenderly said that God builds the nest for +the blind bird; and may it not be that He opens closed eyes and +unstops deaf ears to sights and sounds from which others by these +very senses are debarred?</p> +<p>Here the best of us see through a mist of tears men as trees +walking; it is only in the land which is very far off and yet +very near that we shall have fulness of sight and see the King in +His beauty; and I cannot think that any listening ears listen in +vain.</p> +<p>The coppice at our back is full of birds, for it is far from +the road and they nest there undisturbed year after year. +Through the still night I heard the nightingales calling, +calling, until I could bear it no longer and went softly out into +the luminous dark.</p> +<p>The little wood was manifold with sound, I heard my little +brothers who move by night rustling in grass and tree. A +hedgehog crossed my path with a dull squeak, the bats shrilled +high to the stars, a white owl swept past me crying his hunting +note, a beetle boomed suddenly in my face; and above and through +it all the nightingales sang—and sang!</p> +<p>The night wind bent the listening trees, and the stars yearned +earthward to hear the song of deathless love. Louder and +louder the wonderful notes rose and fell in a passion of melody; +and then sank to rest on that low thrilling call which it is said +Death once heard, and stayed his hand.</p> +<p>They will scarcely sing again this year, these nightingales, +for they are late on the wing as it is. It seems as if on +such nights they sang as the swan sings, knowing it to be the +last time—with the lavish note of one who bids an eternal +farewell.</p> +<p>At last there was silence. Sitting under the big beech +tree, the giant of the coppice, I rested my tired self in the lap +of mother earth, breathed of her breath and listened to her voice +in the quickening silence until my flesh came again as the flesh +of a little child, for it is true recreation to sit at the +footstool of God wrapped in a fold of His living robe, the while +night smoothes our tired face with her healing hands.</p> +<p>The grey dawn awoke and stole with trailing robes across +earth’s floor. At her footsteps the birds roused from +sleep and cried a greeting; the sky flushed and paled conscious +of coming splendour; and overhead a file of swans passed with +broad strong flight to the reeded waters of the sequestered +pool.</p> +<p>Another hour of silence while the light throbbed and flamed in +the east; then the larks rose harmonious from a neighbouring +field, the rabbits scurried with ears alert to their morning +meal, the day had begun.</p> +<p>I passed through the coppice and out into the fields +beyond. The dew lay heavy on leaf and blade and gossamer, a +cool fresh wind swept clear over dale and down from the sea, and +the clover field rippled like a silvery lake in the breeze.</p> +<p>There is something inexpressibly beautiful in the unused day, +something beautiful in the fact that it is still untouched, +unsoiled; and town and country share alike in this +loveliness. At half-past three on a June morning even +London has not assumed her responsibilities, but smiles and glows +lighthearted and smokeless under the caresses of the morning +sun.</p> +<p>Five o’clock. The bell rings out crisp and clear +from the monastery where the Bedesmen of St Hugh watch and pray +for the souls on this labouring forgetful earth. Every hour +the note of comfort and warning cries across the land, tells the +Sanctus, the Angelus, and the Hours of the Passion, and calls to +remembrance and prayer.</p> +<p>When the wind is north, the sound carries as far as my road, +and companies me through the day; and if to His dumb children God +in His mercy reckons work as prayer, most certainly those who +have forged through the ages an unbroken chain of supplication +and thanksgiving will be counted among the stalwart labourers of +the house of the Lord.</p> +<p>Sun and bell together are my only clock: it is time for my +water drawing; and gathering a pile of mushrooms, children of the +night, I hasten home.</p> +<p>The cottage is dear to me in its quaint untidiness and want of +rectitude, dear because we are to be its last denizens, last of +the long line of toilers who have sweated and sown that others +might reap, and have passed away leaving no trace.</p> +<p>I once saw a tall cross in a seaboard churchyard, inscribed, +“To the memory of the unknown dead who have perished in +these waters.” There might be one in every village +sleeping-place to the unhonoured many who made fruitful the land +with sweat and tears. It is a consolation to think that +when we look back on this stretch of life’s road from +beyond the first milestone, which, it is instructive to remember, +is always a grave, we may hope to see the work of this world with +open eyes, and to judge of it with a due sense of proportion.</p> +<p>A bee with laden honey-bag hummed and buzzed in the hedge as I +got ready for work, importuning the flowers for that which he +could not carry, and finally giving up the attempt in despair +fell asleep on a buttercup, the best place for his weary little +velvet body. In five minutes—they may have been five +hours to him—he awoke a new bee, sensible and +clear-sighted, and flew blithely away to the hive with his +sufficiency—an example this weary world would be wise to +follow.</p> +<p>My road has been lonely to-day. A parson came by in the +afternoon, a stranger in the neighbourhood, for he asked his +way. He talked awhile, and with kindly rebuke said it was +sad to see a man of my education brought so low, which shows how +the outside appearance may mislead the prejudiced observer. +“Was it misfortune?” “Nay, the best of +good luck,” I answered, gaily.</p> +<p>The good man with beautiful readiness sat down on a heap of +stones and bade me say on. “Read me a sermon in +stone,” he said, simply; and I stayed my hand to read.</p> +<p>He listened with courteous intelligence.</p> +<p>“You hold a roadmender has a vocation?” he +asked.</p> +<p>“As the monk or the artist, for, like both, he is +universal. The world is his home; he serves all men alike, +ay, and for him the beasts have equal honour with the men. +His soul is ‘bound up in the bundle of life’ with all +other souls, he sees his father, his mother, his brethren in the +children of the road. For him there is nothing unclean, +nothing common; the very stones cry out that they +serve.”</p> +<p>Parson nodded his head.</p> +<p>“It is all true,” he said; “beautifully +true. But need such a view of life necessitate the work of +roadmending? Surely all men should be +roadmenders.”</p> +<p>O wise parson, so to read the lesson of the road!</p> +<p>“It is true,” I answered; “but some of us +find our salvation in the actual work, and earn our bread better +in this than in any other way. No man is dependent on our +earning, all men on our work. We are ‘rich beyond the +dreams of avarice’ because we have all that we need, and +yet we taste the life and poverty of the very poor. We are, +if you will, uncloistered monks, preaching friars who speak not +with the tongue, disciples who hear the wise words of a silent +master.”</p> +<p>“Robert Louis Stevenson was a roadmender,” said +the wise parson.</p> +<p>“Ay, and with more than his pen,” I +answered. “I wonder was he ever so truly great, so +entirely the man we know and love, as when he inspired the chiefs +to make a highway in the wilderness. Surely no more fitting +monument could exist to his memory than the Road of Gratitude, +cut, laid, and kept by the pure-blooded tribe kings of +Samoa.”</p> +<p>Parson nodded.</p> +<p>“He knew that the people who make no roads are ruled out +from intelligent participation in the world’s +brotherhood.” He filled his pipe, thinking the while, +then he held out his pouch to me.</p> +<p>“Try some of this baccy,” he said; “Sherwood +of Magdalen sent it me from some outlandish place.”</p> +<p>I accepted gratefully. It was such tobacco as falls to +the lot of few roadmenders.</p> +<p>He rose to go.</p> +<p>“I wish I could come and break stones,” he said, a +little wistfully.</p> +<p>“Nay,” said I, “few men have such weary +roadmending as yours, and perhaps you need my road less than most +men, and less than most parsons.”</p> +<p>We shook hands, and he went down the road and out of my +life.</p> +<p>He little guessed that I knew Sherwood, ay, and knew him too, +for had not Sherwood told me of the man he delighted to +honour.</p> +<p>Ah, well! I am no Browning Junior, and Sherwood’s +name is not Sherwood.</p> +<h3><a name="page50"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +50</span>CHAPTER VI</h3> +<p><span class="smcap">Awhile</span> ago I took a holiday; +mouched, played truant from my road. Jem the waggoner +hailed me as he passed—he was going to the mill—would +I ride with him and come back atop of the full sacks?</p> +<p>I hid my hammer in the hedge, climbed into the great waggon +white and fragrant with the clean sweet meal, and flung myself +down on the empty flour bags. The looped-back tarpaulin +framed the long vista of my road with the downs beyond; and I lay +in the cool dark, caressed by the fresh breeze in its +thoroughfare, soothed by the strong monotonous tramp of the great +grey team and the music of the jangling harness.</p> +<p>Jem walked at the leaders’ heads; it is his rule when +the waggon is empty, a rule no “company” will make +him break. At first I regretted it, but soon discovered I +learnt to know him better so, as he plodded along, his thickset +figure slightly bent, his hands in his pockets, his whip under +one arm, whistling hymn tunes in a low minor, while the great +horses answered to his voice without touch of lash or guiding +rein.</p> +<p>I lay as in a blissful dream and watched my road unfold. +The sun set the pine-boles aflare where the hedge is sparse, and +stretched the long shadows of the besom poplars in slanting bars +across the white highway; the roadside gardens smiled friendly +with their trim-cut laurels and rows of stately +sunflowers—a seemly proximity this, Daphne and Clytie, +sisters in experience, wrapped in the warm caress of the god +whose wooing they need no longer fear. Here and there we +passed little groups of women and children off to work in the +early cornfields, and Jem paused in his fond repetition of +“The Lord my pasture shall prepare” to give them +good-day.</p> +<p>It is like Life, this travelling backwards—that which +has been, alone visible—like Life, which is after all, +retrospective with a steady moving on into the Unknown, Unseen, +until Faith is lost in Sight and experience is no longer the +touchstone of humanity. The face of the son of Adam is set +on the road his brothers have travelled, marking their landmarks, +tracing their journeyings; but with the eyes of a child of God he +looks forward, straining to catch a glimpse of the jewelled walls +of his future home, the city “Eternal in the +Heavens.”</p> +<p>Presently we left my road for the deep shade of a narrow +country way where the great oaks and beeches meet overhead and no +hedge-clipper sets his hand to stay nature’s profusion; and +so by pleasant lanes scarce the waggon’s width across, now +shady, now sunny, here bordered by thickset coverts, there giving +on fruitful fields, we came at length to the mill.</p> +<p>I left Jem to his business with the miller and wandered down +the flowery meadow to listen to the merry clack of the stream and +the voice of the waters on the weir. The great wheel was at +rest, as I love best to see it in the later afternoon; the splash +and churn of the water belong rather to the morning hours. +It is the chief mistake we make in portioning out our day that we +banish rest to the night-time, which is for sleep and recreating, +instead of setting apart the later afternoon and quiet twilight +hours for the stretching of weary limbs and repose of tired mind +after a day’s toil that should begin and end at five.</p> +<p>The little stone bridge over the mill-stream is almost on a +level with the clear running water, and I lay there and gazed at +the huge wheel which, under multitudinous forms and uses, is one +of the world’s wonders, because one of the few things we +imitative children have not learnt from nature. Is it +perchance a memory out of that past when Adam walked clear-eyed +in Paradise and talked with the Lord in the cool of the +day? Did he see then the flaming wheels instinct with +service, wondrous messengers of the Most High vouchsafed in +vision to the later prophets?</p> +<p>Maybe he did, and going forth from before the avenging sword +of his own forging to the bitterness of an accursed earth, took +with him this bright memory of perfect, ceaseless service, and so +fashioned our labouring wheel—pathetic link with the time +of his innocency. It is one of many unanswered questions, +good to ask because it has no answer, only the suggestion of a +train of thought: perhaps we are never so receptive as when with +folded hands we say simply, “This is a great +mystery.” I watched and wondered until Jem called, +and I had to leave the rippling weir and the water’s side, +and the wheel with its untold secret.</p> +<p>The miller’s wife gave me tea and a crust of home-made +bread, and the miller’s little maid sat on my knee while I +told the sad tale of a little pink cloud separated from its +parents and teazed and hunted by mischievous little airs. +To-morrow, if I mistake not, her garden will be wet with its +tears, and, let us hope, point a moral; for the tale had its +origin in a frenzied chicken driven from the side of an anxious +mother, and pursued by a sturdy, relentless figure in a white +sun-bonnet.</p> +<p>The little maid trotted off, greatly sobered, to look somewhat +prematurely for the cloud’s tears; and I climbed to my +place at the top of the piled-up sacks, and thence watched +twilight pass to starlight through my narrow peep, and, so +watching, slept until Jem’s voice hailed me from Dreamland, +and I went, only half awake, across the dark fields home.</p> +<p>Autumn is here and it is already late. He has painted +the hedges russet and gold, scarlet and black, and a tangle of +grey; now he has damp brown leaves in his hair and frost in his +finger-tips.</p> +<p>It is a season of contrasts; at first all is stir and bustle, +the ingathering of man and beast; barn and rickyard stand filled +with golden treasure; at the farm the sound of threshing; in wood +and copse the squirrels busied ’twixt tree and storehouse, +while the ripe nuts fall with thud of thunder rain. When +the harvesting is over, the fruit gathered, the last rick +thatched, there comes a pause. Earth strips off her bright +colours and shows a bare and furrowed face; the dead leaves fall +gently and sadly through the calm, sweet air; grey mists drape +the fields and hedges. The migratory birds have left, save +a few late swallows; and as I sit at work in the soft, still +rain, I can hear the blackbird’s melancholy trill and the +thin pipe of the redbreast’s winter song—the air is +full of the sound of farewell.</p> +<p>Forethought and preparation for the Future which shall be; +farewell, because of the Future which may never be—for us; +“Man, thou hast goods laid up for many years, and it is +well; but, remember, this night <i>thy</i> soul may be +required”; is the unvoiced lesson of autumn. There is +growing up among us a great fear; it stares at us white, +wide-eyed, from the faces of men and women alike—the fear +of pain, mental and bodily pain. For the last twenty years +we have waged war with suffering—a noble war when fought in +the interest of the many, but fraught with great danger to each +individual man. It is the fear which should not be, rather +than the ‘hope which is in us,’ that leads men in +these days to drape Death in a flowery mantle, to lay stress on +the shortness of parting, the speedy reunion, to postpone their +good-byes until the last moment, or avoid saying them altogether; +and this fear is a poor, ignoble thing, unworthy of those who are +as gods, knowing good and evil. We are still paying the +price of that knowledge; suffering in both kinds is a substantial +part of it, and brings its own healing. Let us pay like +men, our face to the open heaven, neither whimpering like +children in the dark, nor lulled to unnecessary oblivion by some +lethal drug; for it is manly, not morbid, to dare to taste the +pungent savour of pain, the lingering sadness of farewell which +emphasises the aftermath of life; it should have its place in all +our preparation as a part of our inheritance we dare not be +without.</p> +<p>There is an old couple in our village who are past work. +The married daughter has made shift to take her mother and the +parish half-crown, but there is neither room nor food for the +father, and he must go to N—. If husband and wife +went together, they would be separated at the workhouse +door. The parting had to come; it came yesterday. I +saw them stumbling lamely down the road on their last journey +together, walking side by side without touch or speech, seeing +and heeding nothing but a blank future. As they passed me +the old man said gruffly, “’Tis far eno’; +better be gettin’ back”; but the woman shook her +head, and they breasted the hill together. At the top they +paused, shook hands, and separated; one went on, the other turned +back; and as the old woman limped blindly by I turned away, for +there are sights a man dare not look upon. She passed; and +I heard a child’s shrill voice say, “I come to look +for you, gran”; and I thanked God that there need be no +utter loneliness in the world while it holds a little child.</p> +<p>Now it is my turn, and I must leave the wayside to serve in +the sheepfolds during the winter months. It is scarcely a +farewell, for my road is ubiquitous, eternal; there are green +ways in Paradise and golden streets in the beautiful City of +God. Nevertheless, my heart is heavy; for, viewed by the +light of the waning year, roadmending seems a great and wonderful +work which I have poorly conceived of and meanly performed: yet I +have learnt to understand dimly the truths of three great +paradoxes—the blessing of a curse, the voice of silence, +the companionship of solitude—and so take my leave of this +stretch of road, and of you who have fared along the white +highway through the medium of a printed page.</p> +<p>Farewell! It is a roadmender’s word; I cry you +Godspeed to the next milestone—and beyond.</p> +<h2><a name="page61"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 61</span>OUT OF +THE SHADOW</h2> +<h3><a name="page63"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +63</span>CHAPTER I</h3> +<p>I <span class="smcap">am</span> no longer a roadmender; the +stretch of white highway which leads to the end of the world will +know me no more; the fields and hedgerows, grass and leaf stiff +with the crisp rime of winter’s breath, lie beyond my +horizon; the ewes in the folding, their mysterious eyes quick +with the consciousness of coming motherhood, answer +another’s voice and hand; while I lie here, not in the +lonely companionship of my expectations, but where the shadow is +bright with kindly faces and gentle hands, until one kinder and +gentler still carries me down the stairway into the larger +room.</p> +<p>But now the veil was held aside and one went by crowned with +the majesty of years, wearing the ermine of an unstained rule, +the purple of her people’s loyalty. Nations stood +with bated breath to see her pass in the starlit mist of her +children’s tears; a monarch—greatest of her time; an +empress—conquered men called mother; a +woman—Englishmen cried queen; still the crowned captive of +her people’s heart—the prisoner of love.</p> +<p>The night-goers passed under my window in silence, neither +song nor shout broke the welcome dark; next morning the workmen +who went by were strangely quiet.</p> +<blockquote><p>‘<span class="smcap">Victoria Dei Gratia +Britanniarum Regina</span>.’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Did they think of how that legend would disappear, and of all +it meant, as they paid their pennies at the coffee-stall? +The feet rarely know the true value and work of the head; but all +Englishmen have been and will be quick to acknowledge and revere +Victoria by the grace of God a wise woman, a great and loving +mother.</p> +<p>Years ago, I, standing at a level crossing, saw her +pass. The train slowed down and she caught sight of the +gatekeeper’s little girl who had climbed the barrier. +Such a smile as she gave her! And then I caught a quick +startled gesture as she slipped from my vision; I thought +afterwards it was that she feared the child might fall. +Mother first, then Queen; even so rest came to her—not in +one of the royal palaces, but in her own home, surrounded by the +immediate circle of her nearest and dearest, while the world kept +watch and ward.</p> +<p>I, a shy lover of the fields and woods, longed always, should +a painless passing be vouchsafed me, to make my bed on the +fragrant pine needles in the aloneness of a great forest; to lie +once again as I had lain many a time, bathed in the bitter +sweetness of the sun-blessed pines, lapped in the manifold +silence; my ear attuned to the wind of Heaven with its call from +the Cities of Peace. In sterner mood, when Love’s +hand held a scourge, I craved rather the stress of the moorland +with its bleaker mind imperative of sacrifice. To rest +again under the lee of Rippon Tor swept by the strong +peat-smelling breeze; to stare untired at the long cloud-shadowed +reaches, and watch the mist-wraiths huddle and shrink round the +stones of blood; until my sacrifice too was accomplished, and my +soul had fled. A wild waste moor; a vast void sky; and +naught between heaven and earth but man, his sin-glazed eyes +seeking afar the distant light of his own heart.</p> +<p>With years came counsels more profound, and the knowledge that +man was no mere dweller in the woods to follow the footsteps of +the piping god, but an integral part of an organised whole, in +which Pan too has his fulfilment. The wise Venetians knew; +and read pantheism into Christianity when they set these words +round Ezekiel’s living creatures in the altar vault of St +Mark’s:—</p> +<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Quaeque sub obscuris de Cristo +Dicta figuris</span><br /> +<span class="smcap">His aperire datur et in his, Deus ipse +notatur</span>.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>“Thou shalt have none other gods but me.” If +man had been able to keep this one commandment perfectly the +other nine would never have been written; instead he has +comprehensively disregarded it, and perhaps never more than now +in the twentieth century. Ah, well! this world, in spite of +all its sinning, is still the Garden of Eden where the Lord +walked with man, not in the cool of evening, but in the heat and +stress of the immediate working day. There is no angel now +with flaming sword to keep the way of the Tree of Life, but +tapers alight morning by morning in the Hostel of God to point us +to it; and we, who are as gods knowing good and evil, partake of +that fruit “whereof whoso eateth shall never die”; +the greatest gift or the most awful penalty—Eternal +Life.</p> +<p>I then, with my craving for tree and sky, held that a great +capital with its stir of life and death, of toil and strife and +pleasure, was an ill place for a sick man to wait in; a place to +shrink from as a child shrinks from the rude blow of one out of +authority. Yet here, far from moor and forest, hillside and +hedgerow, in the family sitting-room of the English-speaking +peoples, the London much misunderstood, I find the fulfilment by +antithesis of all desire. For the loneliness of the +moorland, there is the warmth and companionship of London’s +swift beating heart. For silence there is sound—the +sound and stir of service—for the most part far in excess +of its earthly equivalent. Against the fragrant incense of +the pines I set the honest sweat of the man whose lifetime is the +measure of his working day. “He that loveth not his +brother whom he hath seen, how shall he love God whom he hath not +seen?” wrote Blessed John, who himself loved so much that +he beheld the Lamb as it had been slain from the beginning when +Adam fell, and the City of God with light most precious. +The burden of corporate sin, the sword of corporate sorrow, the +joy of corporate righteousness; thus we become citizens in the +Kingdom of God, and companions of all his creatures. +“It is not good that the man should be alone,” said +the Lord God.</p> +<p>I live now as it were in two worlds, the world of sight, and +the world of sound; and they scarcely ever touch each +other. I hear the grind of heavy traffic, the struggle of +horses on the frost-breathed ground, the decorous jolt of +omnibuses, the jangle of cab bells, the sharp warning of bicycles +at the corner, the swift rattle of costers’ carts as they +go south at night with their shouting, goading crew. All +these things I hear, and more; but I see no road, only the silent +river of my heart with its tale of wonder and years, and the +white beat of seagulls’ wings in strong inquiring +flight.</p> +<p>Sometimes there is naught to see on the waterway but a +solitary black hull, a very Stygian ferry-boat, manned by a +solitary figure, and moving slowly up under the impulse of the +far-reaching sweeps. Then the great barges pass with their +coffined treasure, drawn by a small self-righteous +steam-tug. Later, lightened of their load, and waiting on +wind and tide, I see them swooping by like birds set free; tawny +sails that mind me of red-roofed Whitby with its northern fleet; +black sails as of some heedless Theseus; white sails that sweep +out of the morning mist “like restless +gossameres.” They make the bridge, which is just +within my vision, and then away past Westminster and Blackfriars +where St Paul’s great dome lifts the cross high over a +self-seeking city; past Southwark where England’s poet +illuminates in the scroll of divine wisdom the sign of the +Tabard; past the Tower with its haunting ghosts of history; past +Greenwich, fairy city, caught in the meshes of riverside mist; +and then the salt and speer of the sea, the companying with great +ships, the fresh burden.</p> +<p>At night I see them again, silent, mysterious; searching the +darkness with unwinking yellow stare, led by a great green +light. They creep up under the bridge which spans the river +with its watching eyes, and vanish, crying back a warning note as +they make the upper reach, or strident hail, as a chain of +kindred phantoms passes, ploughing a contrary tide.</p> +<p>Throughout the long watches of the night I follow them; and in +the early morning they slide by, their eyes pale in the twilight; +while the stars flicker and fade, and the gas lamps die down into +a dull yellow blotch against the glory and glow of a new day.</p> +<h3><a name="page72"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +72</span>CHAPTER II</h3> +<p><span class="smcap">February</span> is here, February +fill-dyke; the month of purification, of cleansing rains and +pulsing bounding streams, and white mist clinging insistent to +field and hedgerow so that when her veil is withdrawn greenness +may make us glad.</p> +<p>The river has been uniformly grey of late, with no wind to +ruffle its surface or to speed the barges dropping slowly and +sullenly down with the tide through a blurring haze. I +watched one yesterday, its useless sails half-furled and no sign +of life save the man at the helm. It drifted stealthily +past, and a little behind, flying low, came a solitary seagull, +grey as the river’s haze—a following bird.</p> +<p>Once again I lay on my back in the bottom of the tarry old +fishing smack, blue sky above and no sound but the knock, knock +of the waves, and the thud and curl of falling foam as the old +boat’s blunt nose breasted the coming sea. Then Daddy +Whiddon spoke.</p> +<p>“A follerin’ bürrd,” he said.</p> +<p>I got up, and looked across the blue field we were ploughing +into white furrows. Far away a tiny sail scarred the great +solitude, and astern came a gull flying slowly close to the +water’s breast.</p> +<p>Daddy Whiddon waved his pipe towards it.</p> +<p>“A follerin’ bürrd,” he said, again; +and again I waited; questions were not grateful to him.</p> +<p>“There be a carpse there, sure enough, a carpse +driftin’ and shiftin’ on the floor of the sea. +There be those as can’t rest, poor sawls, and her’ll +be mun, her’ll be mun, and the sperrit of her is with the +bürrd.”</p> +<p>The clumsy boom swung across as we changed our course, and the +water ran from us in smooth reaches on either side: the bird flew +steadily on.</p> +<p>“What will the spirit do?” I said.</p> +<p>The old man looked at me gravely.</p> +<p>“Her’ll rest in the Lard’s time, in the +Lard’s gude time—but now her’ll just be +follerin’ on with the bürrd.”</p> +<p>The gull was flying close to us now, and a cold wind swept the +sunny sea. I shivered: Daddy looked at me curiously.</p> +<p>“There be reason enough to be cawld if us did but knaw +it, but I he mos’ used to ’em, poor +sawls.” He shaded his keen old blue eyes, and looked +away across the water. His face kindled. “There +be a skule comin’, and by my sawl ’tis mackerel they +be drivin’.”</p> +<p>I watched eagerly, and saw the dark line rise and fall in the +trough of the sea, and, away behind, the stir and rush of +tumbling porpoises as they chased their prey.</p> +<p>Again we changed our tack, and each taking an oar, pulled +lustily for the beach.</p> +<p>“Please God her’ll break inshore,” said +Daddy Whiddon; and he shouted the news to the idle waiting men +who hailed us.</p> +<p>In a moment all was stir, for the fishing had been +slack. Two boats put out with the lithe brown seine. +The dark line had turned, but the school was still behind, +churning the water in clumsy haste; they were coming in.</p> +<p>Then the brit broke in silvery leaping waves on the shelving +beach. The threefold hunt was over; the porpoises turned +out to sea in search of fresh quarry; and the seine, dragged by +ready hands, came slowly, stubbornly in with its quivering +treasure of fish. They had sought a haven and found none; +the brit lay dying in flickering iridescent heaps as the +bare-legged babies of the village gathered them up; and far away +over the water I saw a single grey speck; it was the following +bird.</p> +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p>The curtain of river haze falls back; barge and bird are alike +gone, and the lamplighter has lit the first gas-lamp on the far +side of the bridge. Every night I watch him come, his +progress marked by the great yellow eyes that wake the +dark. Sometimes he walks quickly; sometimes he loiters on +the bridge to chat, or stare at the dark water; but he always +comes, leaving his watchful deterrent train behind him to police +the night.</p> +<p>Once Demeter in the black anguish of her desolation searched +for lost Persephone by the light of Hecate’s torch; and +searching all in vain, spurned beneath her empty feet an earth +barren of her smile; froze with set brows the merry brooks and +streams; and smote forest, and plain, and fruitful field, with +the breath of her last despair, until even Iambe’s laughing +jest was still. And then when the desolation was complete, +across the wasted valley where the starveling cattle scarcely +longed to browse, came the dreadful chariot—and +Persephone. The day of the prisoner of Hades had dawned; +and as the sun flamed slowly up to light her thwarted eyes the +world sprang into blossom at her feet.</p> +<p>We can never be too Pagan when we are truly Christian, and the +old myths are eternal truths held fast in the Church’s +net. Prometheus fetched fire from Heaven, to be slain +forever in the fetching; and lo, a Greater than Prometheus came +to fire the cresset of the Cross. Demeter waits now +patiently enough. Persephone waits, too, in the faith of +the sun she cannot see: and every lamp lit carries on the crusade +which has for its goal a sunless, moonless, city whose light is +the Light of the world.</p> +<blockquote><p>“Lume è lassù, che visibile +face<br /> +lo creatore a quella creatura,<br /> +che solo in lui vedere ha la sua pace.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Immediately outside my window is a lime tree—a little +black skeleton of abundant branches—in which sparrows +congregate to chirp and bicker. Farther away I have a +glimpse of graceful planes, children of moonlight and mist; their +dainty robes, still more or less unsullied, gleam ghostly in the +gaslight athwart the dark. They make a brave show even in +winter with their feathery branches and swinging tassels, whereas +my little tree stands stark and uncompromising, with its horde of +sooty sparrows cockney to the last tail feather, and a pathetic +inability to look anything but black. Rain comes with +strong caressing fingers, and the branches seem no whit the +cleaner for her care; but then their glistening blackness mirrors +back the succeeding sunlight, as a muddy pavement will sometimes +lap our feet in a sea of gold. The little wet sparrows are +for the moment equally transformed, for the sun turns their +dun-coloured coats to a ruddy bronze, and cries Chrysostom as it +kisses each shiny beak. They are dumb Chrysostoms; but they +preach a golden gospel, for the sparrows are to London what the +rainbow was to eight saved souls out of a waste of waters—a +perpetual sign of the remembering mercies of God.</p> +<p>Last night there was a sudden clatter of hoofs, a shout, and +then silence. A runaway cab-horse, a dark night, a wide +crossing, and a heavy burden: so death came to a poor +woman. People from the house went out to help; and I heard +of her, the centre of an unknowing curious crowd, as she lay +bonnetless in the mud of the road, her head on the kerb. A +rude but painless death: the misery lay in her life; for this +woman—worn, white-haired, and wrinkled—had but fifty +years to set against such a condition. The policeman +reported her respectable, hard-working, living apart from her +husband with a sister; but although they shared rooms, they +“did not speak,” and the sister refused all +responsibility; so the parish buried the dead woman, and thus +ended an uneventful tragedy.</p> +<p>Was it her own fault? If so, the greater pathos. +The lonely souls that hold out timid hands to an unheeding world +have their meed of interior comfort even here, while the sons of +consolation wait on the thresh-hold for their footfall: but God +help the soul that bars its own door! It is kicking against +the pricks of Divine ordinance, the ordinance of a triune God; +whether it be the dweller in crowded street or tenement who is +proud to say, “I keep myself to myself,” or Seneca +writing in pitiful complacency, “Whenever I have gone among +men, I have returned home less of a man.” Whatever +the next world holds in store, we are bidden in this to seek and +serve God in our fellow-men, and in the creatures of His making +whom He calls by name.</p> +<p>It was once my privilege to know an old organ-grinder named +Gawdine. He was a hard swearer, a hard drinker, a hard +liver, and he fortified himself body and soul against the world: +he even drank alone, which is an evil sign.</p> +<p>One day to Gawdine sober came a little dirty child, who clung +to his empty trouser leg—he had lost a limb years +before—with a persistent unintelligible request. He +shook the little chap off with a blow and a curse; and the child +was trotting dismally away, when it suddenly turned, ran back, +and held up a dirty face for a kiss.</p> +<p>Two days later Gawdine fell under a passing dray which +inflicted terrible internal injuries on him. They patched +him up in hospital, and he went back to his organ-grinding, +taking with him two friends—a pain which fell suddenly upon +him to rack and rend with an anguish of crucifixion, and the +memory of a child’s upturned face. Outwardly he was +the same save that he changed the tunes of his organ, out of +long-hoarded savings, for the jigs and reels which children hold +dear, and stood patiently playing them in child-crowded alleys, +where pennies are not as plentiful as elsewhere.</p> +<p>He continued to drink; it did not come within his new code to +stop, since he could “carry his liquor well;” but he +rarely, if ever, swore. He told me this tale through the +throes of his anguish as he lay crouched on a mattress on the +floor; and as the grip of the pain took him he tore and bit at +his hands until they were maimed and bleeding, to keep the ready +curses off his lips.</p> +<p>He told the story, but he gave no reason, offered no +explanation: he has been dead now many a year, and thus would I +write his epitaph:—</p> +<p>He saw the face of a little child and looked on God.</p> +<h3><a name="page83"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +83</span>CHAPTER III</h3> +<p>“<span class="smcap">Two</span> began, in a low voice, +‘Why, the fact is, you see, Miss, this here ought to have +been a <i>red</i> rose-tree, and we put a white one in by +mistake.’”</p> +<p>As I look round this room I feel sure Two, and Five, and +Seven, have all been at work on it, and made no mistakes, for +round the walls runs a frieze of squat standard rose-trees, red +as red can be, and just like those that Alice saw in the +Queen’s garden. In between them are Chaucer’s +name-children, prim little daisies, peering wideawake from green +grass. This same grass has a history which I have +heard. In the original stencil for the frieze it was purely +conventional like the rest, and met in spikey curves round each +tree; the painter, however, who was doing the work, was a lover +of the fields; and feeling that such grass was a travesty, he +added on his own account dainty little tussocks, and softened the +hard line into a tufted carpet, the grass growing irregularly, +bent at will by the wind.</p> +<p>The result from the standpoint of conventional art is indeed +disastrous; but my sympathy and gratitude are with the +painter. I see, as he saw, the far-reaching robe of living +ineffable green, of whose brilliance the eye never has too much, +and in whose weft no two threads are alike; and shrink as he did +from the conventionalising of that windswept glory.</p> +<p>The sea has its crested waves of recognisable form; the river +its eddy and swirl and separate vortices; but the grass! +The wind bloweth where it listeth and the grass bows as the wind +blows—“thou canst not tell whither it +goeth.” It takes no pattern, it obeys no recognised +law; it is like a beautiful creature of a thousand wayward moods, +and its voice is like nothing else in the wide world. It +bids you rest and bury your tired face in the green coolness, and +breathe of its breath and of the breath of the good earth from +which man was taken and to which he will one day return. +Then, if you lend your ear and are silent minded, you may hear +wondrous things of the deep places of the earth; of life in +mineral and stone as well as in pulsing sap; of a green world as +the stars saw it before man trod it under foot—of the +emerald which has its place with the rest in the City of God.</p> + +<blockquote><p> “What +if earth<br /> +Be but the shadow of heaven, and things therein,<br /> +Each to each other like, more than on earth to +thought?”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>It is a natural part of civilisation’s lust of +re-arrangement that we should be so ready to conventionalise the +beauty of this world into decorative patterns for our pilgrim +tents. It is a phase, and will melt into other phases; but +it tends to the increase of artificiality, and exists not only in +art but in everything. It is no new thing for jaded +sentiment to crave the spur of the unnatural, to prefer the +clever imitation, to live in a Devachan where the surroundings +appear that which we would have them to be; but it is an +interesting record of the pulse of the present day that ‘An +Englishwoman’s Love Letters’ should have taken +society by storm in the way it certainly has.</p> +<p>It is a delightful book to leave about, with its vellum +binding, dainty ribbons, and the hallmark of a great +publisher’s name. But when we seek within we find +love with its thousand voices and wayward moods, its shy graces +and seemly reticences, love which has its throne and robe of +state as well as the garment of the beggar maid, love which is +before time was, which knew the world when the stars took up +their courses, presented to us in gushing outpourings, the +appropriate language of a woman’s heart to the boor she +delights to honour.</p> +<p>“It is woman who is the glory of man,” says the +author of ‘The House of Wisdom and Love,’ +“<i>Regina mundi</i>, greater, because so far the less; and +man is her head, but only as he serves his queen.” +Set this sober aphorism against the school girl love-making which +kisses a man’s feet and gaily refuses him the barren honour +of having loved her first.</p> +<p>There is scant need for the apologia which precedes the +letters; a few pages dispels the fear that we are prying into +another’s soul. As for the authorship, there is a +woman’s influence, an artist’s poorly concealed bias +in the foreign letters; and for the rest a man’s +blunders—so much easier to see in another than to avoid +oneself—writ large from cover to cover. King +Cophetua, who sends “profoundly grateful +remembrances,” has most surely written the letters he would +wish to receive.</p> +<p>“Mrs Meynell!” cries one reviewer, +triumphantly. Nay, the saints be good to us, what has Mrs +Meynell in common with the “Englishwoman’s” +language, style, or most unconvincing passion? Men can +write as from a woman’s heart when they are minded to do so +in desperate earnestness—there is Clarissa Harlowe and +Stevenson’s Kirstie, and many more to prove it; but when a +man writes as the author of the “Love Letters” +writes, I feel, as did the painter of the frieze, that +pattern-making has gone too far and included that which, like the +grass, should be spared such a convention.</p> +<p>“I quite agree with you,” said the Duchess, +“and the moral of that is—‘Be what you would +seem to be’—or, if you’d like to put it more +simply—‘never imagine yourself not to be otherwise +than what it might appear to others that what you were or might +have been was not otherwise than what you had been would have +appeared to them to be otherwise.’” And so by +way of the Queen’s garden I come back to my room again.</p> +<p>My heart’s affections are still centred on my old attic, +with boarded floor and white-washed walls, where the sun blazoned +a frieze of red and gold until he travelled too far towards the +north, the moon streamed in to paint the trees in inky wavering +shadows, and the stars flashed their glory to me across the +years. But now sun and moon greet me only indirectly, and +under the red roses hang pictures, some of them the dear +companions of my days. Opposite me is the Arundel print of +the Presentation, painted by the gentle “Brother of the +Angels.” Priest Simeon, a stately figure in green and +gold, great with prophecy, gazes adoringly at the Bambino he +holds with fatherly care. Our Lady, in robe of red and veil +of shadowed purple, is instinct with light despite the sombre +colouring, as she stretches out hungering, awe-struck hands for +her soul’s delight. St Joseph, dignified guardian and +servitor, stands behind, holding the Sacrifice of the Poor to +redeem the First-begotten.</p> +<p>St Peter Martyr and the Dominican nun, gazing in rapt +contemplation at the scene, are not one whit surprised to find +themselves in the presence of eternal mysteries. In the +Entombment, which hangs on the opposite wall, St Dominic comes +round the corner full of grievous amaze and tenderest sympathy, +but with no sense of shock or intrusion, for was he not +“famigliar di Cristo”? And so he takes it all +in; the stone bed empty and waiting; the Beloved cradled for the +last time on His mother’s knees to be washed, lapped round, +and laid to rest as if He were again the Babe of Bethlehem. +He sees the Magdalen anointing the Sacred Feet; Blessed John +caring for the living and the Dead; and he, Dominic—hound +of the Lord—having his real, living share in the anguish +and hope, the bedding of the dearest Dead, who did but leave this +earth that He might manifest Himself more completely.</p> +<p>Underneath, with a leap across the centuries, is +Rossetti’s picture; Dante this time the onlooker, Beatrice, +in her pale beauty, the death-kissed one. The same idea +under different representations; the one conceived in childlike +simplicity, the other recalling, even in the photograph, its +wealth of colour and imagining; the one a world-wide ideal, the +other an individual expression of it.</p> +<p>Beatrice was to Dante the inclusion of belief. She was +more to him than he himself knew, far more to him after her death +than before. And, therefore, the analogy between the +pictures has at core a common reality. “It is +expedient for you that I go away,” is constantly being said +to us as we cling earthlike to the outward expression, rather +than to the inward manifestation—and blessed are those who +hear and understand, for it is spoken only to such as have been +with Him from the beginning. The eternal mysteries come +into time for us individually under widely differing forms. +The tiny child mothers its doll, croons to it, spends herself +upon it, why she cannot tell you; and we who are here in our +extreme youth, never to be men and women grown in this world, +nurse our ideal, exchange it, refashion it, call it by many +names; and at last in here or hereafter we find in its naked +truth the Child in the manger, even as the Wise Men found Him +when they came from the East to seek a great King. There is +but one necessary condition of this finding; we must follow the +particular manifestation of light given us, never resting until +it rests—over the place of the Child. And there is +but one insurmountable hindrance, the extinction of or drawing +back from the light truly apprehended by us. We forget +this, and judge other men by the light of our own soul.</p> +<p>I think the old bishop must have understood it. He is my +friend of friends as he lies opposite my window in his alabaster +sleep, clad in pontifical robes, with unshod feet, a little +island of white peace in a many-coloured marble sea. The +faithful sculptor has given every line and wrinkle, the heavy +eyelids and sunken face of tired old age, but withal the smile of +a contented child.</p> +<p>I do not even know my bishop’s name, only that the work +is of the thirteenth century; but he is good to company with +through the day, for he has known darkness and light and the +minds of many men; most surely, too, he has known that God +fulfils Himself in strange ways, so with the shadow of his feet +upon the polished floor he rests in peace.</p> +<h3><a name="page94"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +94</span>CHAPTER IV</h3> +<p><span class="smcap">On</span> Sunday my little tree was limned +in white and the sparrows were craving shelter at my window from +the blizzard. Now the mild thin air brings a breath of +spring in its wake and the daffodils in the garden wait the +kisses of the sun. Hand-in-hand with memory I slip away +down the years, and remember a day when I awoke at earliest dawn, +for across my sleep I had heard the lusty golden-throated +trumpeters heralding the spring.</p> +<p>The air was sharp-set; a delicate rime frosted roof and road; +the sea lay hazy and still like a great pearl. Then as the +sky stirred with flush upon flush of warm rosy light, it passed +from misty pearl to opal with heart of flame, from opal to +gleaming sapphire. The earth called, the fields called, the +river called—that pied piper to whose music a man cannot +stop his ears. It was with me as with the Canterbury +pilgrims:—</p> +<blockquote><p>“So priketh hem nature in hir corages;<br /> +Than longen folk to gon on pilgrimages.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Half an hour later I was away by the early train that carries +the branch mails and a few workmen, and was delivered at the +little wayside station with the letters. The kind air went +singing past as I swung along the reverberating road between the +high tree-crowned banks which we call hedges in merry Devon, with +all the world to myself and the Brethren. A great blackbird +flew out with a loud “chook, chook,” and the red of +the haw on his yellow bill. A robin trilled from a low +rose-bush; two wrens searched diligently on a fallen tree for +breakfast, quite unconcerned when I rested a moment beside them; +and a shrewmouse slipped across the road followed directly by its +mate. March violets bloomed under the sheltered hedge with +here and there a pale primrose; a frosted bramble spray still +held its autumn tints clinging to the semblance of the past; and +great branches of snowy blackthorn broke the barren hedgeway as +if spring made a mock of winter’s snows.</p> +<p>Light of heart and foot with the new wine of the year I sped +on again, stray daffodils lighting the wayside, until I heard the +voice of the stream and reached the field gate which leads to the +lower meadows. There before me lay spring’s pageant; +green pennons waving, dainty maids curtseying, and a host of +joyous yellow trumpeters proclaiming ‘Victory’ to an +awakened earth. They range in serried ranks right down to +the river, so that a man must walk warily to reach the +water’s edge where they stand gazing down at themselves in +fairest semblance like their most tragic progenitor, and, rising +from the bright grass in their thousands, stretch away until they +melt in a golden cloud at the far end of the misty mead. +Through the field gate and across the road I see them, starring +the steep earth bank that leads to the upper copse, gleaming like +pale flames against the dark tree-boles. There they have +but frail tenure; here, in the meadows, they reign supreme.</p> +<p>At the upper end of the field the river provides yet closer +sanctuary for these children of the spring. Held in its +embracing arms lies an island long and narrow, some thirty feet +by twelve, a veritable untrod Eldorado, glorious in gold from end +to end, a fringe of reeds by the water’s edge, and save for +that—daffodils. A great oak stands at the +meadow’s neck, an oak with gnarled and wandering roots +where a man may rest, for it is bare of daffodils save for a +group of three, and a solitary one apart growing close to the old +tree’s side. I sat down by my lonely little sister, +blue sky overhead, green grass at my feet decked, like the +pastures of the Blessèd, in glorious sheen; a sea of +triumphant, golden heads tossing blithely back as the wind swept +down to play with them at his pleasure.</p> +<p>It was all mine to have and to hold without severing a single +slender stem or harbouring a thought of covetousness; mine, as +the whole earth was mine, to appropriate to myself without the +burden and bane of worldly possession. “Thou sayest +that I am—a King,” said the Lord before Pilate, and +“My kingdom is not of this world.” We who are +made kings after His likeness possess all things, not after this +world’s fashion but in proportion to our poverty; and when +we cease to toil and spin, are arrayed as the lilies, in a glory +transcending Solomon’s. Bride Poverty—she who +climbed the Cross with Christ—stretched out eager hands to +free us from our chains, but we flee from her, and lay up +treasure against her importunity, while Amytas on his seaweed bed +weeps tears of pure pity for crave-mouth Cæsar of great +possessions.</p> +<p>Presently another of spring’s lovers cried across the +water “Cuckoo, cuckoo,” and the voice of the stream +sang joyously in unison. It is free from burden, this merry +little river, and neither weir nor mill bars its quick way to the +sea as it completes the eternal circle, lavishing gifts of +coolness and refreshment on the children of the meadows.</p> +<p>It has its birth on the great lone moor, cradled in a +wonderful peat-smelling bog, with a many-hued coverlet of soft +mosses—pale gold, orange, emerald, tawny, olive and white, +with the red stain of sun-dew and tufted cotton-grass. +Under the old grey rocks which watch it rise, yellow-eyed +tormantil stars the turf, and bids “Godspeed” to the +little child of earth and sky. Thus the journey begins; and +with ever-increasing strength the stream carves a way through the +dear brown peat, wears a fresh wrinkle on the patient stones, and +patters merrily under a clapper bridge which spanned its breadth +when the mistletoe reigned and Bottor, the grim rock idol, +exacted the toll of human life that made him great. On and +on goes the stream, for it may not stay; leaving of its freshness +with the great osmunda that stretches eager roots towards the +running water; flowing awhile with a brother stream, to part +again east and west as each takes up his separate burden of +service—my friend to cherish the lower meadows in their +flowery joyance—and so by the great sea-gate back to sky +and earth again.</p> +<p>The river of God is full of water. The streets of the +City are pure gold. Verily, here also having nothing we +possess all things.</p> +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p>The air was keen and still as I walked back in the early +evening, and a daffodil light was in the sky as if Heaven +mirrored back earth’s radiance. Near the station some +children flitted past, like little white miller moths homing +through the dusk. As I climbed the hill the moon rode high +in a golden field—it was daffodils to the last.</p> +<h3><a name="page101"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +101</span>CHAPTER V</h3> +<p><span class="smcap">The</span> seagulls from the upper reaches +pass down the river in sober steady flight seeking the open +sea. I shall miss the swoop and circle of silver wings in +the sunlight and the plaintive call which sounds so strangely +away from rock and shore, but it is good to know that they have +gone from mudbank and murky town back to the free airs of their +inheritance, to the shadow of sun-swept cliffs and the curling +crest of the wind-beaten waves, to brood again over the great +ocean of a world’s tears.</p> +<p>My little tree is gemmed with buds, shy, immature, but full of +promise. The sparrows busied with nest-building in the +neighbouring pipes and gutters use it for a vantage ground, and +crowd there in numbers, each little beak sealed with long golden +straw or downy feather.</p> +<p>The river is heavy with hay barges, the last fruits of +winter’s storehouse; the lengthening days slowly and +steadily oust the dark; the air is loud with a growing clamour of +life: spring is not only proclaimed, but on this Feast she is +crowned, and despite the warring wind the days bring their meed +of sunshine. We stand for a moment at the meeting of the +ways, the handclasp of Winter and Spring, of Sleep and Wakening, +of Life and Death; and there is between them not even the thin +line which Rabbi Jochanan on his death-bed beheld as all that +divided hell from heaven.</p> +<p>“<i>Sphæra cujus centrum ubique</i>, +<i>circumferentia nullibus</i>,” was said of Mercury, that +messenger of the gods who marshalled reluctant spirits to the +Underworld; and for Mercury we may write Life with Death as its +great sacrament of brotherhood and release, to be dreaded only as +we dread to partake unworthily of great benefits. Like all +sacraments it has its rightful time and due solemnities; the +horror and sin of suicide lie in the presumption of free will, +the forestalling of a gift,—the sin of Eve in Paradise, who +took that which might only be given at the hand of the +Lord. It has too its physical pains, but they are those of +a woman in travail, and we remember them no more for joy that a +child-man is born into the world naked and not ashamed: beholding +ourselves as we are we shall see also the leaves of the Tree of +Life set for the healing of the nations.</p> +<p>We are slowly, very slowly, abandoning our belief in sudden +and violent transitions for a surer and fuller acceptance of the +doctrine of evolution; but most of us still draw a sharp line of +demarcation between this world and the next, and expect a radical +change in ourselves and our surroundings, a break in the chain of +continuity entirely contrary to the teaching of nature and +experience. In the same way we cling to the specious +untruth that we can begin over and over again in this world, +forgetting that while our sorrow and repentance bring sacramental +gifts of grace and strength, God Himself cannot, by His own +limitation, rewrite the Past. We are in our sorrow that +which we have made ourselves in our sin; our temptations are +there as well as the way of escape. We are in the image of +God. We create our world, our undying selves, our heaven, +or our hell. “<i>Qui creavit te sine te non salvabit +te sine te</i>.” It is stupendous, magnificent, and +most appalling. A man does not change as he crosses the +threshold of the larger room. His personality remains the +same, although the expression of it may be altered. Here we +have material bodies in a material world—there, perhaps, +ether bodies in an ether world. There is no indecency in +reasonable speculation and curiosity about the life to +come. One end of the thread is between our fingers, but we +are haunted for the most part by the snap of Atropos’ +shears.</p> +<p>Socrates faced death with the magnificent calm bred of +dignified familiarity. He had built for himself a desired +heaven of colour, light, and precious stones—the +philosophic formula of those who set the spiritual above the +material, and worship truth in the beauty of holiness. He +is not troubled by doubts or regrets, for the path of the just +lies plain before his face. He forbids mourning and +lamentations as out of place, obeys minutely and cheerily the +directions of his executioner, and passes with unaffected dignity +to the apprehension of that larger truth for which he had +constantly prepared himself. His friends may bury him +provided they will remember they are not burying Socrates; and +that all things may be done decently and in order, a cock must go +to Æsculapius.</p> +<p>Long before, in the days of the Captivity, there lived in +godless, blood-shedding Nineveh an exiled Jew whose father had +fallen from the faith. He was a simple man, child-like and +direct; living the careful, kindly life of an orthodox Jew, +suffering many persecutions for conscience’ sake, and in +constant danger of death. He narrates the story of his life +and of the blindness which fell on him, with gentle placidity, +and checks the exuberance of his more emotional wife with the +assurance of untroubled faith. Finally, when his pious +expectations are fulfilled, his sight restored, and his son +prosperously established beside him, he breaks into a prayer of +rejoicing which reveals the secret of his confident +content. He made use of two great faculties: the sense of +proportion, which enabled him to apprise life and its accidents +justly, and the gift of in-seeing, which led Socrates after him, +and Blessed John in lonely exile on Patmos, to look through the +things temporal to the hidden meanings of eternity.</p> +<p>“Let my soul bless God the great King,” he cries; +and looks away past the present distress; past the Restoration +which was to end in fresh scattering and confusion; past the +dream of gold, and porphyry, and marble defaced by the eagles and +emblems of the conqueror; until his eyes are held by the +Jerusalem of God, “built up with sapphires, and emeralds, +and precious stones,” with battlements of pure gold, and +the cry of ‘Alleluia’ in her streets.</p> +<p>Many years later, when he was very aged, he called his son to +him and gave him as heritage his own simple rule of life, adding +but one request: “Keep thou the law and the commandments, +and shew thyself merciful and just, that it may go well with +thee. . . . Consider what alms doeth, and how righteousness doth +deliver. . . . And bury me decently, and thy mother with +me.” Having so said, he went his way quietly and +contentedly to the Jerusalem of his heart.</p> +<p>It is the simple note of familiarity that is wanting in us; +that by which we link world with world. Once, years ago, I +sat by the bedside of a dying man in a wretched garret in the +East End. He was entirely ignorant, entirely quiescent, and +entirely uninterested. The minister of a neighbouring +chapel came to see him and spoke to him at some length of the +need for repentance and the joys of heaven. After he had +gone my friend lay staring restlessly at the mass of decrepit +broken chimney pots which made his horizon. At last he +spoke, and there was a new note in his voice:—</p> +<p>“Ee said as ’ow there were golding streets in them +parts. I ain’t no ways particler wot they’re +made of, but it’ll feel natral like if there’s +chimleys too.”</p> +<p>The sun stretched a sudden finger and painted the chimney pots +red and gold against the smoke-dimmed sky, and with his face +alight with surprised relief my friend died.</p> +<p>We are one with the earth, one in sin, one in +redemption. It is the fringe of the garment of God. +“If I may but touch the hem,” said a certain +woman.</p> +<p>On the great Death-day which shadows the early spring with a +shadow of which it may be said <i>Umbra Dei est Lux</i>, the +earth brought gifts of grief, the fruit of the curse, barren +thorns, hollow reed, and the wood of the cross; the sea made +offering of Tyrian purple; the sky veiled her face in great +darkness, while the nation of priests crucified for the last time +their Paschal lamb. “I will hear, saith the Lord; I +will hear the heavens, and they shall hear the earth, and the +earth shall hear the corn and wine and oil, and they shall hear +Jezreel, and I will sow her unto me in the earth; and I will have +mercy upon her that had not obtained mercy, and I will say unto +them which were not my people, ‘Thou art my people,’ +and they shall say ‘Thou art my God.’”</p> +<p>The second Adam stood in the garden with quickening feet, and +all the earth pulsed and sang for joy of the new hope and the new +life quickening within her, to be hers through the pains of +travail, the pangs of dissolution. The Tree of Life bears +Bread and Wine—food of the wayfaring man. The day of +divisions is past, the day of unity has dawned. One has +risen from the dead, and in the Valley of Achor stands wide the +Door of Hope—the Sacrament of Death.</p> +<blockquote><p>Scio Domine, et vere scio . . . quia non sum +dignus accedere ad tantum mysterium propter nimia peccata mea et +infinitas negligentias meas. Sed scio . . . quia tu potes +me facere dignum.</p> +</blockquote> +<h3><a name="page111"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +111</span>CHAPTER VI</h3> +<p>“<span class="smcap">Anytus</span> and Meletus can kill +me, but they cannot hurt me,” said Socrates; and Governor +Sancho, with all the itch of newly-acquired authority, could not +make the young weaver of steel-heads for lances sleep in +prison. In the Vision of Er the souls passed straight +forward under the throne of necessity, and out into the plains of +forgetfulness, where they must severally drink of the river of +unmindfulness whose waters cannot be held in any vessel. +The throne, the plain, and the river are still here, but in the +distance rise the great lone heavenward hills, and the wise among +us no longer ask of the gods Lethe, but rather remembrance. +Necessity can set me helpless on my back, but she cannot keep me +there; nor can four walls limit my vision. I pass out from +under her throne into the garden of God a free man, to my +ultimate beatitude or my exceeding shame. All day long this +world lies open to me; ay, and other worlds also, if I will but +have it so; and when night comes I pass into the kingdom and +power of the dark.</p> +<p>I lie through the long hours and watch my bridge, which is set +with lights across the gloom; watch the traffic which is for me +but so many passing lamps telling their tale by varying height +and brightness. I hear under my window the sprint of +over-tired horses, the rattle of uncertain wheels as the +street-sellers hasten south; the jangle of cab bells as the +theatre-goers take their homeward way; the gruff altercation of +weary men, the unmelodious song and clamorous laugh of women +whose merriment is wearier still. Then comes a time of +stillness when the light in the sky waxes and wanes, when the +cloud-drifts obscure the stars, and I gaze out into blackness set +with watching eyes. No sound comes from without but the +voice of the night-wind and the cry of the hour. The clock +on the mantelpiece ticks imperatively, for a check has fallen on +the familiarity which breeds a disregard of common things, and a +reason has to be sought for each sound which claims a +hearing. The pause is wonderful while it lasts, but it is +not for long. The working world awakes, the poorer brethren +take up the burden of service; the dawn lights the sky; +remembrance cries an end to forgetting.</p> +<p>Sometimes in the country on a night in early summer you may +shut the cottage door to step out into an immense darkness which +palls heaven and earth. Going forward into the embrace of +the great gloom, you are as a babe swaddled by the hands of night +into helpless quiescence. Your feet tread an unseen path, +your hands grasp at a void, or shrink from the contact they +cannot realise; your eyes are holden; your voice would die in +your throat did you seek to rend the veil of that impenetrable +silence.</p> +<p>Shut in by the intangible dark, we are brought up against +those worlds within worlds blotted out by our concrete daily +life. The working of the great microcosm at which we peer +dimly through the little window of science; the wonderful, +breathing earth; the pulsing, throbbing sap; the growing +fragrance shut in the calyx of to-morrow’s flower; the +heart-beat of a sleeping world that we dream that we know; and +around, above, and interpenetrating all, the world of dreams, of +angels and of spirits.</p> +<p>It was this world which Jacob saw on the first night of his +exile, and again when he wrestled in Peniel until the break of +day. It was this world which Elisha saw with open eyes; +which Job knew when darkness fell on him; which Ezekiel gazed +into from his place among the captives; which Daniel beheld as he +stood alone by the great river, the river Hiddekel.</p> +<p>For the moment we have left behind the realm of question and +explanation, of power over matter and the exercise of bodily +faculties; and passed into darkness alight with visions we cannot +see, into silence alive with voices we cannot hear. Like +helpless men we set our all on the one thing left us, and lift up +our hearts, knowing that we are but a mere speck among a myriad +worlds, yet greater than the sum of them; having our roots in the +dark places of the earth, but our branches in the sweet airs of +heaven.</p> +<p>It is the material counterpart of the ‘Night of the +Soul.’ We have left our house and set forth in the +darkness which paralyses those faculties that make us men in the +world of men. But surely the great mystics, with all their +insight and heavenly love, fell short when they sought freedom in +complete separateness from creation instead of in perfect unity +with it. The Greeks knew better when they flung +Ariadne’s crown among the stars, and wrote Demeter’s +grief on a barren earth, and Persephone’s joy in the +fruitful field. For the earth is gathered up in man; he is +the whole which is greater than the sum of its parts. +Standing in the image of God, and clothed in the garment of God, +he lifts up priestly hands and presents the sacrifice of redeemed +earth before the throne of the All-Father. “Dust and +ashes and a house of devils,” he cries; and there comes +back for answer, “<i>Rex concupiscet decorem +tuam</i>.”</p> +<p>The Angel of Death has broad wings of silence and mystery with +which he shadows the valley where we need fear no evil, and where +the voice which speaks to us is as the “voice of doves, +tabering upon their breasts.” It is a place of +healing and preparation, of peace and refreshing after the +sharply-defined outlines of a garish day. Walking there we +learn to use those natural faculties of the soul which are +hampered by the familiarity of bodily progress, to apprehend the +truths which we have intellectually accepted. It is the +place of secrets where the humility which embraces all attainable +knowledge cries “I know not”; and while we proclaim +from the house-tops that which we have learnt, the manner of our +learning lies hid for each one of us in the sanctuary of our +souls.</p> +<p>The Egyptians, in their ancient wisdom, act in the desert a +great androsphinx, image of mystery and silence, staring from +under level brows across the arid sands of the sea-way. The +Greeks borrowed and debased the image, turning the inscrutable +into a semi-woman who asked a foolish riddle, and hurled herself +down in petulant pride when Œdipus answered aright. +So we, marring the office of silence, question its mystery; +thwart ourselves with riddles of our own suggesting; and turn +away, leaving our offering but half consumed on the altar of the +unknown god. It was not the theft of fire that brought the +vengeance of heaven upon Prometheus, but the mocking +sacrifice. Orpheus lost Eurydice because he must see her +face before the appointed time. Persephone ate of the +pomegranate and hungered in gloom for the day of light which +should have been endless.</p> +<p>The universe is full of miracle and mystery; the darkness and +silence are set for a sign we dare not despise. The pall of +night lifts, leaving us engulphed in the light of immensity under +a tossing heaven of stars. The dawn breaks, but it does not +surprise us, for we have watched from the valley and seen the +pale twilight. Through the wondrous Sabbath of faithful +souls, the long day of rosemary and rue, the light brightens in +the East; and we pass on towards it with quiet feet and opening +eyes, bearing with us all of the redeemed earth that we have made +our own, until we are fulfilled in the sunrise of the great +Easter Day, and the peoples come from north and south and east +and west to the City which lieth foursquare—the Beatific +Vision of God.</p> +<blockquote><p>Vere Ierusalem est illa civitas<br /> +Cuius pax iugis et summa iucunditas;<br /> +Ubi non prævenit rem desiderium,<br /> +Nec desiderio minus est præmium.</p> +</blockquote> +<h2><a name="page119"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 119</span>AT +THE WHITE GATE</h2> +<h3><a name="page121"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +121</span>CHAPTER I</h3> +<p>A <span class="smcap">great</span> joy has come to me; one of +those unexpected gifts which life loves to bestow after we have +learnt to loose our grip of her. I am back in my own place +very near my road—the white gate lies within my distant +vision; near the lean grey Downs which keep watch and ward +between the country and the sea; very near, nay, in the lap of +Mother Earth, for as I write I am lying on a green carpet, +powdered yellow and white with the sun’s own flowers; +overhead a great sycamore where the bees toil and sing; and +sighing shimmering poplars golden grey against the blue. +The day of Persephone has dawned for me, and I, set free like +Demeter’s child, gladden my eyes with this foretaste of +coming radiance, and rest my tired sense with the scent and sound +of home. Away down the meadow I hear the early scythe song, +and the warm air is fragrant with the fallen grass. It has +its own message for me as I lie here, I who have obtained yet one +more mercy, and the burden of it is life, not death.</p> +<p>I remember when, taking a grace from my road, I helped to mow +Farmer Marler’s ten-acre field, rich in ripe upstanding +grass. The mechanism of the ancient reaper had given way +under the strain of the home meadows, and if this crop was to be +saved it must be by hand. I have kept the record of those +days of joyous labour under a June sky. Men were hard to +get in our village; old Dodden, who was over seventy, volunteered +his services—he had done yeoman work with the scythe in his +youth—and two of the farm hands with their master completed +our strength.</p> +<p>We took our places under a five o’clock morning sky, and +the larks cried down to us as we stood knee-deep in the fragrant +dew-steeped grass, each man with his gleaming scythe poised ready +for its sweeping swing. Old Dodden led by right of age and +ripe experience; bent like a sickle, brown and dry as a nut, his +face a tracery of innumerable wrinkles, he has never ailed a day, +and the cunning of his craft was still with him. At first +we worked stiffly, unreadily, but soon the monotonous motion +possessed us with its insistent rhythm, and the grass bowed to +each sibilant swish and fell in sweet-smelling swathes at our +feet. Now and then a startled rabbit scurried through the +miniature forest to vanish with white flick of tail in the +tangled hedge; here and there a mother lark was discovered +sitting motionless, immovable upon her little brood; but save for +these infrequent incidents we paced steadily on with no speech +save the cry of the hone on the steel and the swish of the +falling swathes. The sun rose high in the heaven and burnt +on bent neck and bare and aching arms, the blood beat and drummed +in my veins with the unwonted posture and exercise; I worked as a +man who sees and hears in a mist. Once, as I paused to whet +my scythe, my eye caught the line of the untroubled hills strong +and still in the broad sunshine; then to work again in the +labouring, fertile valley.</p> +<p>Rest time came, and wiping the sweat from brow and blade we +sought the welcome shadow of the hedge and the cool sweet oatmeal +water with which the wise reaper quenches his thirst. +Farmer Marler hastened off to see with master-eye that all went +well elsewhere; the farm men slept tranquilly, stretched at full +length, clasped hands for pillow; and old Dodden, sitting with +crooked fingers interlaced to check their trembling betrayal of +old age, told how in his youth he had “swep” a +four-acre field single-handed in three days—an almost +impossible feat—and of the first reaping machine in these +parts, and how it brought, to his thinking, the ruin of +agricultural morals with it. “’Tis again +nature,” he said, “the Lard gave us the land +an’ the seed, but ’Ee said that a man should +sweat. Where’s the sweat drivin’ round +wi’ two horses cuttin’ the straw down an’ +gatherin’ it again, wi’ scarce a hand’s turn +i’ the day’s work?”</p> +<p>Old Dodden’s high-pitched quavering voice rose and fell, +mournful as he surveyed the present, vehement as he recorded the +heroic past. He spoke of the rural exodus and shook his +head mournfully. “We old ’uns were content +wi’ earth and the open sky like our feythers before us, but +wi’ the children ’tis first machines to save +doin’ a hand’s turn o’ honest work, an’ +then land an’ sky ain’t big enough seemin’ly, +nor grand enough; it must be town an’ a paved street, +an’ they sweat their lives out atwixt four walls an’ +call it seein’ life—’tis death an’ worse +comes to the most of ’em. Ay, ’tis better to +stay by the land, as the Lard said, till time comes to lie under +it.” I looked away across the field where the hot air +throbbed and quivered, and the fallen grass, robbed already of +its freshness, lay prone at the feet of its upstanding +fellows. It is quite useless to argue with old Dodden; he +only shakes his head and says firmly, “An old man, +seventy-five come Martinmass knows more o’ life than a +young chap, stands ter reason”; besides, his epitome of the +town life he knows nothing of was a just one as far as it went; +and his own son is the sweeper of a Holborn crossing, and many +other things that he should not be; but that is the +parson’s secret and mine.</p> +<p>We took rank again and swept steadily on through the hot still +hours into the evening shadows, until the sinking sun set a +<i>Gloria</i> to the psalm of another working day. Only a +third of the field lay mown, for we were not skilled labourers to +cut our acre a day; I saw it again that night under the moonlight +and the starlight, wrapped in a shroud of summer’s +mist.</p> +<p>The women joined us on the third day to begin haymaking, and +the air was fragrant of tossed and sun-dried grass. One of +them walked apart from the rest, without interest or freedom of +movement; her face, sealed and impassive, was aged beyond the +vigour of her years. I knew the woman by sight, and her +history by hearsay. We have a code of morals here—not +indeed peculiar to this place or people—that a wedding is +‘respectable’ if it precedes child-birth by a bare +month, tolerable, and to be recognised, should it succeed the +same by less than a year (provided the pair are not living in the +same village); but the child that has never been +‘fathered’ and the wife without a ring are +‘anathema,’ and such in one was Elizabeth +Banks. She went away a maid and came back a year ago with a +child and without a name. Her mother was dead, her father +and the village would have none of her: the homing instinct is +very strong, or she would scarcely have returned, knowing the +traditions of the place. Old Dodden, seeing her, grumbled +to me in the rest-time.—“Can’t think what the +farmer wants wi’ Lizzie Banks in ’is +field.” “She must live,” I said, +“and by all showing her life is a hard one.” +“She ’ad the makin’ of ’er bed,” he +went on, obstinately. “What for do she bring her +disgrace home, wi’ a fatherless brat for all folks to +see? We don’t want them sort in our village. +The Lord’s hand is heavy, an’ a brat’s a curse +that cannot be hid.”</p> +<p>When tea-time came I crossed the field to look for a missing +hone, and saw Elizabeth Banks far from the other women, busied +with a bundle under the hedge. I passed close on my search, +and lo! the bundle was a little boy. He lay smiling and +stretching, fighting the air with his small pink fists, while the +wind played with his curls. “A curse that cannot be +hid,” old Dodden had said. The mother knelt a moment, +devouring him with her eyes, then snatched him to her with aching +greed and covered him with kisses. I saw the poor, plain +face illumined, transfigured, alive with a mother’s love, +and remembered how the word came once to a Hebrew +prophet:—</p> +<blockquote><p>Say unto your brethren Ammi, and to your sisters +Ruhamah.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>The evening sky was clouding fast, the sound of rain was in +the air; Farmer Marler shook his head as he looked at the grass +lying in ordered rows. I was the last to leave, and as I +lingered at the gate drinking in the scent of the field and the +cool of the coming rain, the first drops fell on my upturned face +and kissed the poor dry swathes at my feet, and I was glad.</p> +<p>David, child of the fields and the sheepfolds, his kingship +laid aside, sees through the parted curtain of the years the +advent of his greater Son, and cries in his psalm of the +hilltops, his last prophetic prayer:—</p> +<blockquote><p>He shall come down like rain upon the mown +grass.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Even so He came, and shall still come. Three days ago +the field, in its pageant of fresh beauty, with shimmering blades +and tossing banners, greeted sun and shower alike with joy for +the furtherance of its life and purpose; now, laid low, it hears +the young grass whisper the splendour of its coming green; and +the poor swathes are glad at the telling, but full of grief for +their own apparent failure. Then in great pity comes the +rain, the rain of summer, gentle, refreshing, penetrating, and +the swathes are comforted, for they know that standing to greet +or prostrate to suffer, the consolations of the former and the +latter rain are still their own, with tender touch and cool +caress. Then, once more parched by the sun, they are borne +away to the new service their apparent failure has fitted them +for; and perhaps as they wait in the dark for the unknown that is +still to come they hear sometimes the call of the distant rain, +and at the sound the dry sap stirs afresh—they are not +forgotten and can wait.</p> +<p>“<i>Say unto your sisters Ruhamah</i>,” cries the +prophet.</p> +<p>“<i>He shall come down like rain on the mown +grass</i>,” sang the poet of the sheepfolds.</p> +<p>“<i>My ways are not your ways</i>, <i>saith the +Lord</i>.”</p> +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p>I remember how I went home along the damp sweet-scented lanes +through the grey mist of the rain, thinking of the mown field and +Elizabeth Banks and many, many more; and that night, when the sky +had cleared and the nightingale sang, I looked out at the moon +riding at anchor, a silver boat in a still blue sea ablaze with +the headlights of the stars, and the saying of the herdsman of +Tekoa came to me—as it has come oftentimes +since:—</p> +<blockquote><p>Seek Him that maketh the seven stars and Orion, +and turneth the shadow of death into the morning, and maketh the +day dark with night; that calleth for the waters of the sea and +poureth them out upon the face of earth; the Lord is His +name.</p> +</blockquote> +<h3><a name="page132"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +132</span>CHAPTER II</h3> +<p><span class="smcap">This</span> garden is an epitome of peace; +sun and wind, rain, flowers, and birds gather me into the +blessedness of their active harmony. The world holds no +wish for me, now that I have come home to die with my own people, +for verify I think that the sap of grass and trees must run in my +veins, so steady is their pull upon my heart-strings. +London claimed all my philosophy, but the country gives all, and +asks of me only the warm receptivity of a child in its +mother’s arms.</p> +<p>When I lie in my cool light room on the garden level, I look +across the bright grass—<i>il verde smalto</i>—to a +great red rose bush in lavish disarray against the dark +cypress. Near by, amid a tangle of many-hued corn-flowers I +see the promise of coming lilies, the sudden crimson of a +solitary pæony; and in lowlier state against the poor +parched earth glow the golden cups of the eschseholtzias. +Beyond the low hedge lies pasture bright with buttercups, where +the cattle feed. Farther off, where the scythe has been +busy, are sheep, clean and shorn, with merry, well-grown lambs; +and in the farthest field I can see the great horses moving in +slow steady pace as the farmer turns his furrow.</p> +<p>The birds are noisy comrades and old friends, from the lark +which chants the dew-steeped morning, to the nightingale that +breaks the silence of the most wonderful nights. I hear the +wisdom of the rooks in the great elms; the lifting lilt of the +linnet, and the robin’s quaint little summer song. +The starlings chatter ceaselessly, their queer strident voices +harsh against the melodious gossip of the other birds; the +martins shrill softly as they swoop to and fro busied with their +nesting under the caves; thrush and blackbird vie in friendly +rivalry like the Meister-singer of old; sometimes I hear the +drawling cry of a peacock strayed from the great house, or the +laugh of the woodpecker; and at night the hunting note of the owl +reaches me as he sweeps by in search of prey.</p> +<p>To-day I am out again; and the great sycamore showers honey +and flowers on me as I lie beneath it. Sometimes a bee +falls like an over-ripe fruit, and waits awhile to clean his +pollen-coated legs ere he flies home to discharge his +burden. He is too busy to be friendly, but his great +velvety cousin is much more sociable, and stays for a gentle rub +between his noisy shimmering wings, and a nap in the hollow of my +hand, for he is an idle friendly soul with plenty of time at his +own disposal and no responsibilities. Looking across I can +watch the martins at work; they have a starling and a sparrow for +near neighbours in the wooden gutter. One nest is already +complete all but the coping, the other two are a-building: I +wonder whether I or they will be first to go south through the +mist.</p> +<p>This great tree is a world in itself, and the denizens appear +full of curiosity as to the Gulliver who has taken up his abode +beneath it. Pale green caterpillars and spiders of all +sizes come spinning down to visit me, and have to be persuaded +with infinite difficulty to ascend their threads again. +There are flies with beautiful iridescent wings, beetles of all +shapes, some of them like tiny jewels in the sunlight. +Their nomenclature is a sealed book to me; of their life and +habits I know nothing; yet this is but a little corner of the +cosmos I am leaving, and I feel not so much desire for the beauty +to come, as a great longing to open my eyes a little wider during +the time which remains to me in this beautiful world of +God’s making, where each moment tells its own tale of +active, progressive life in which there is no undoing. +Nature knows naught of the web of Penelope, that acme of anxious +pathetic waiting, but goes steadily on in ever widening circle +towards the fulfilment of the mystery of God.</p> +<p>There are, I take it, two master-keys to the secrets of the +universe, viewed <i>sub specie æternitatis</i>, the +Incarnation of God, and the Personality of Man; with these it is +true for us as for the pantheistic little man of contemptible +speech, that “all things are ours,” yea, even unto +the third heaven.</p> +<p>I have lost my voracious appetite for books; their language is +less plain than scent and song and the wind in the trees; and for +me the clue to the next world lies in the wisdom of earth rather +than in the learning of men. “<i>Libera me ab fuscina +Hophni</i>,” prayed the good Bishop fearful of religious +greed. I know too much, not too little; it is realisation +that I lack, wherefore I desire these last days to confirm in +myself the sustaining goodness of God, the love which is our +continuing city, the New Jerusalem whose length, breadth, and +height are all one. It is a time of exceeding peace. +There is a place waiting for me under the firs in the quiet +churchyard; thanks to my poverty I have no worldly anxieties or +personal dispositions; and I am rich in friends, many of them +unknown to me, who lavishly supply my needs and make it ideal to +live on the charity of one’s fellow-men. I am most +gladly in debt to all the world; and to Earth, my mother, for her +great beauty.</p> +<p>I can never remember the time when I did not love her, this +mother of mine with her wonderful garments and ordered +loveliness, her tender care and patient bearing of man’s +burden. In the earliest days of my lonely childhood I used +to lie chin on hand amid the milkmaids, red sorrel, and heavy +spear-grass listening to her many voices, and above all to the +voice of the little brook which ran through the meadows where I +used to play: I think it has run through my whole life also, to +lose itself at last, not in the great sea but in the river that +maketh glad the City of God. Valley and plain, mountain and +fruitful field; the lark’s song and the speedwell in the +grass; surely a man need not sigh for greater loveliness until he +has read something more of this living letter, and knelt before +that earth of which he is the only confusion.</p> +<p>It is a grave matter that the word religion holds such away +among us, making the very gap seem to yawn again which the +Incarnation once and for ever filled full. We have banished +the protecting gods that ruled in river and mountain, tree and +grove; we have gainsayed for the most part folk-lore and myth, +superstition and fairy-tale, evil only in their abuse. We +have done away with mystery, or named it deceit. All this +we have done in an enlightened age, but despite this policy of +destruction we have left ourselves a belief, the grandest and +most simple the world has ever known, which sanctifies the water +that is shed by every passing cloud; and gathers up in its great +central act vineyard and cornfield, proclaiming them to be that +Life of the world without which a man is dead while he +liveth. Further, it is a belief whose foundations are the +most heavenly mystery of the Trinity, but whose centre is a +little Child: it sets a price upon the head of the sparrow, and +reckons the riches of this world at their true value; it points +to a way of holiness where the fool shall not err, and the sage +may find the realisation of his far-seeking; and yet, despite its +inclusiveness, it is a belief which cannot save the birds from +destruction, the silent mountains from advertisement, or the +stream from pollution, in an avowedly Christian land. John +Ruskin scolded and fought and did yeoman service, somewhat +hindered by his over-good conceit of himself; but it is not the +worship of beauty we need so much as the beauty of +holiness. Little by little the barrier grows and +‘religion’ becomes a <i>rule</i> of life, not life +itself, although the Bride stands ready to interpret, likened in +her loveliness to the chief treasures of her +handmaid-Earth. There is more truth in the believing cry, +“Come from thy white cliffs, O Pan!” than in the +religion that measures a man’s life by the letter of the +Ten Commandments, and erects itself as judge and ruler over him, +instead of throwing open the gate of the garden where God walks +with man from morning until morning.</p> +<p>As I write the sun is setting; in the pale radiance of the sky +above his glory there dawns the evening star; and earth like a +tired child turns her face to the bosom of the night.</p> +<h3><a name="page141"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +141</span>CHAPTER III</h3> +<p><span class="smcap">Once</span> again I have paid a rare visit +to my tree to find many things changed since my last sojourn +there. The bees are silent, for the honey-laden flowers of +the sycamore are gone and in their place hang dainty two-fold +keys. The poplar has lost its metallic shimmer, the +chestnut its tall white candles; and the sound of the wind in the +fully-leaved branches is like the sighing of the sea. The +martins’ nests are finished, and one is occupied by a +shrill-voiced brood; but for the most part the birds’ +parental cares are over, and the nestlings in bold flight no +longer flutter on inefficient wings across the lawn with +clamorous, open bill. The robins show promise of their +ruddy vests, the slim young thrush is diligently practising +maturer notes, and soon Maid June will have fled.</p> +<p>It is such a wonderful world that I cannot find it in my heart +to sigh for fresh beauty amid these glories of the Lord on which +I look, seeing men as trees walking, in my material impotence +which awaits the final anointing. The marigolds with their +orange suns, the lilies’ white flame, the +corncockle’s blue crown of many flowers, the +honeysuckle’s horn of fragrance—I can paraphrase +them, name, class, dissect them; and then, save for the purposes +of human intercourse, I stand where I stood before, my world +bounded by my capacity, the secret of colour and fragrance still +kept. It is difficult to believe that the second lesson +will not be the sequence of the first, and death prove a +“feast of opening eyes” to all these wonders, instead +of the heavy-lidded slumber to which we so often liken it. +“Earth to earth?” Yes, “dust thou art, +and unto dust thou shalt return,” but what of the +rest? What of the folded grave clothes, and the Forty +Days? If the next state be, as it well might, space of four +dimensions, and the first veil which will lift for me be the +material one, then the “other” world which is hidden +from our grosser material organism will lie open, and declare +still further to my widening eyes and unstopped ears the glory +and purpose of the manifold garment of God. Knowledge will +give place to understanding in that second chamber of the House +of Wisdom and Love. Revelation is always measured by +capacity: “Open thy mouth wide,” and it shall be +filled with a satisfaction that in itself is desire.</p> +<p>There is a child here, a happy quiet little creature holding +gently to its two months of life. Sometimes they lay it +beside me, I the more helpless of the two—perhaps the more +ignorant—and equally dependent for the supply of my +smallest need. I feel indecently large as I survey its +minute perfections and the tiny balled fist lying in my great +palm. The little creature fixes me with the wise wide stare +of a soul in advance of its medium of expression; and I, gazing +back at the mystery in those eyes, feel the thrill of contact +between my worn and sustained self and the innocence of a little +white child. It is wonderful to watch a woman’s +rapturous familiarity with these newcomers. A man’s +love has far more awe in it, and the passionate animal instinct +of defence is wanting in him. “A woman shall be saved +through the child-bearing,” said St Paul; not necessarily +her own, but by participation in the great act of motherhood +which is the crown and glory of her sex. She is the +“prisoner of love,” caught in a net of her own +weaving; held fast by little hands which rule by impotence, +pursued by feet the swifter for their faltering.</p> +<p>It seems incredible that this is what a woman will barter for +the right to “live her own life”—surely the +most empty of desires. Man—<i>vir</i>, +woman—<i>femina</i>, go to make up <i>the</i> +man—<i>homo</i>. There can be no comparison, no +rivalry between them; they are the complement of each other, and +a little child shall lead them. It is easy to understand +that desire to shelter under the dear mantle of motherhood which +has led to one of the abuses of modern Romanism. I met an +old peasant couple at Bornhofen who had tramped many weary miles +to the famous shrine of Our Lady to plead for their only +son. They had a few pence saved for a candle, and +afterwards when they told me their tale the old woman heaved a +sigh of relief, “Es wird bald gut gehen: Die da, Sie +versteht,” and I saw her later paying a farewell visit to +the great understanding Mother whom she could trust. +Superstitious misapprehension if you will, but also the +recognition of a divine principle.</p> +<p>It was Behmen, I believe, who cried with the breath of +inspiration, “Only when I know God shall I know +myself”; and so man remains the last of all the riddles, to +be solved it may be only in Heaven’s perfection and the +light of the Beatific Vision. “Know thyself” is +a vain legend, the more so when emphasised by a skull; and so I +company with a friend and a stranger, and looking across at the +white gate I wonder concerning the quiet pastures and still +waters that lie beyond, even as Brother Ambrose wondered long +years ago in the monastery by the forest.</p> +<blockquote><p>The Brother Ambrose was ever a saintly man +approved of God and beloved by the Brethren. To him one +night, as he lay abed in the dormitory, came the word of the +Lord, saying, “Come, and I will show thee the Bride, the +Lamb’s wife.” And Brother Ambrose arose and was +carried to a great and high mountain, even as in the Vision of +Blessed John. ’Twas a still night of many stars, and +Brother Ambrose, looking up, saw a radiant path in the heavens; +and lo! the stars gathered themselves together on either side +until they stood as walls of light, and the four winds lapped him +about as in a mantle and bore him towards the wondrous gleaming +roadway. Then between the stars came the Holy City with +roof and pinnacle aflame, and walls aglow with such colours as no +earthly limner dreams of, and much gold. Brother Ambrose +beheld the Gates of Pearl, and by every gate an angel with wings +of snow and fire, and a face no man dare look on because of its +exceeding radiance.</p> +<p>Then as Brother Ambrose stretched out his arms because of his +great longing, a little grey cloud came out of the north and hung +between the walls of light, so that he no longer beheld the +Vision, but only heard a sound as of a great multitude crying +‘Alleluia’; and suddenly the winds came about him +again, and lo! he found himself in his bed in the dormitory, and +it was midnight, for the bell was ringing to Matins; and he rose +and went down with the rest. But when the Brethren left the +choir Brother Ambrose stayed fast in his place, hearing and +seeing nothing because of the Vision of God; and at Lauds they +found him and told the Prior.</p> +<p>He questioned Brother Ambrose of the matter, and when he heard +the Vision bade him limn the Holy City even as he had seen it; +and the Precentor gave him uterine vellum and much fine gold and +what colours he asked for the work. Then Brother Ambrose +limned a wondrous fair city of gold with turrets and spires; and +he inlaid blue for the sapphire, and green for the emerald, and +vermilion where the city seemed aflame with the glory of God; but +the angels he could not limn, nor could he set the rest of the +colours as he saw them, nor the wall of stars on either hand; and +Brother Ambrose fell sick because of the exceeding great longing +he had to limn the Holy City, and was very sad; but the Prior +bade him thank God, and remember the infirmity of the flesh, +which, like the little grey cloud, veiled Jerusalem to his +sight.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>As I write the monastery bell hard by rings out across the +lark’s song. They still have time for visions behind +those guarding walls, but for most of us it is not so. We +let slip the ideal for what we call the real, and the golden +dreams vanish while we clutch at phantoms: we speed along +life’s pathway, counting to the full the sixty minutes of +every hour, yet the race is not to the swift nor the battle to +the strong. Lying here in this quiet backwater it is hard +to believe that the world without is turbulent with storm and +stress and the ebb and flow of uncertain tides. The little +yellow cat rolling on its back among the daisies, the staid +tortoise making a stately meal off the buttercups near me, these +are great events in this haven of peace. And yet, looking +back to the working days, I know how much goodness and loving +kindness there is under the froth and foam. If we do not +know ourselves we most certainly do not know our brethren: that +revelation awaits us, it may be, first in Heaven. To have +faith is to create; to have hope is to call down blessing; to +have love is to work miracles. Above all let us see +visions, visions of colour and light, of green fields and broad +rivers, of palaces laid with fair colours, and gardens where a +place is found for rosemary and rue.</p> +<p>It is our prerogative to be dreamers, but there will always be +men ready to offer us death for our dreams. And if it must +be so let us choose death; it is gain, not loss, and the gloomy +portal when we reach it is but a white gate, the white gate maybe +we have known all our lives barred by the tendrils of the +woodbine.</p> +<h3><a name="page150"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +150</span>CHAPTER IV</h3> +<p><span class="smcap">Rain</span>, rain, rain: the little +flagged path outside my window is a streaming way, where the +coming raindrops meet again the grey clouds whose storehouse they +have but just now left. The grass grows greener as I watch +it, the burnt patches fade, a thousand thirsty beads are uplifted +for the cooling draught.</p> +<p>The great thrush that robs the raspberry canes is busy; +yesterday he had little but dust for his guerdon, but now fresh, +juicy fruit repays him as he swings to and fro on the pliant +branches. The blackbirds and starlings find the worms an +easy prey—poor brother worm ever ready for sacrifice. +I can hear the soft expectant chatter of the family of martins +under the roof; there will be good hunting, and they know it, for +the flies are out when the rain is over, and there are clamorous +mouths awaiting. My little brown brothers, the sparrows, +remain my chief delight. Of all the birds these nestle +closest to my heart, be they grimy little cockneys or their trim +and dainty country cousins. They come day by day for their +meed of crumbs spread for them outside my window, and at this +season they eat leisurely and with good appetite, for there are +no hungry babies pestering to be fed. Very early in the +morning I hear the whirr and rustle of eager wings, and the tap, +tap, of little beaks upon the stone. The sound carries me +back, for it was the first to greet me when I rose to draw water +and gather kindling in my roadmender days; and if I slip back +another decade they survey me, reproving my laziness, from the +foot of the narrow bed in my little attic overseas.</p> +<p>Looking along the roadway that we have travelled we see the +landmarks, great and small, which have determined the direction +of our feet. For some those of childhood stand out above +all the rest; but I remember few notable ones, and those few the +emphatic chord of the universe, rather than any commerce with my +fellows. There was the night of my great disappointment, +when I was borne from my comfortable bed to see the wonders of +the moon’s eclipse. Disappointment was so great that +it sealed my lips; but, once back on my pillow, I sobbed for +grief that I had seen a wonder so far below my expectation. +Then there was a night at Whitby, when the wind made speech +impossible, and the seas rushed up and over the great lighthouse +like the hungry spirits of the deep. I like better to +remember the scent of the first cowslip field under the warm side +of the hedge, when I sang to myself for pure joy of their colour +and fragrance. Again, there were the bluebells in the +deserted quarry like the backwash of a southern sea, and below +them the miniature forest of sheltering bracken with its quaint +conceits; and, crowned above all, the day I stood on Watcombe +Down, and looked across a stretch of golden gorse and new-turned +blood-red field, the green of the headland, and beyond, the +sapphire sea.</p> +<p>Time sped, and there came a day when I first set foot on +German soil and felt the throb of its paternity, the beat of our +common Life. England is my mother, and most dearly do I +love her swelling breasts and wind-swept, salt-strewn hair. +Scotland gave me my name, with its haunting derivation handed +down by brave men; but Germany has always been to me the +Fatherland <i>par excellence</i>. True, my love is limited +to the southern provinces, with their medieval memories; for the +progressive guttural north I have little sympathy, but the Rhine +claimed me from the first, calling, calling, with that wonderful +voice which speaks of death and life, of chivalry and greed of +gold. If you would have the river’s company you +should wander, a happy solitary, along its banks, watching its +gleaming current in the early morning, its golden glory as it +answers the farewell of parting day. Then, in the silence +of the night, you can hear the wash and eddy calling one to +another, count the heart-beats of the great bearer of burdens, +and watch in the moonlight the sisters of the mist as they lament +with wringing hands the days that are gone.</p> +<p>The forests, too, are ready with story hid in the fastness of +their solitude, and it is a joy to think that those great pines, +pointing ever upwards, go for the most part to carry the sails of +great ships seeking afar under open sky. The forest holds +other wonders still. It seems but last night that I +wandered down the road which led to the little unheeded village +where I had made my temporary home. The warm-scented breath +of the pines and the stillness of the night wrapped me in great +content; the summer lightning leapt in a lambent arch across the +east, and the stars, seen dimly through the sombre tree crests, +were outrivalled by the glow-worms which shone in countless +points of light from bank and hedge; even two charcoal-burners, +who passed with friendly greeting, had wreathed their hats with +the living flame. The tiny shifting lamps were everywhere; +pale yellow, purely white, or green as the underside of a +northern wave. By day but an ugly, repellent worm; but +darkness comes, and lo, a star alight. Nature is full for +us of seeming inconsistencies and glad surprises. The +world’s asleep, say you; on your ear falls the +nightingale’s song and the stir of living creatures in bush +and brake. The mantle of night falls, and all unattended +the wind leaps up and scatters the clouds which veil the constant +stars; or in the hour of the great dark, dawn parts the curtain +with the long foregleam of the coming day. It is hard to +turn one’s back on night with her kiss of peace for tired +eye-lids, the kiss which is not sleep but its neglected +forerunner. I made my way at last down to the vine-girt +bridge asleep under the stars and up the winding stairs of the +old grey tower; and a stone’s-throw away the Rhine slipped +quietly past in the midsummer moonlight. Switzerland came +in its turn, unearthly in its white loveliness and glory of lake +and sky. But perhaps the landmark which stands out most +clearly is the solitary blue gentian which I found in the short +slippery grass of the Rigi, gazing up at the sky whose blue could +not hope to excel it. It was my first; and what need of +another, for finding one I had gazed into the mystery of +all. This side the Pass, snow and the blue of heaven; later +I entered Italy through fields of many-hued lilies, her past +glories blazoned in the flowers of the field.</p> +<p>Now it is a strangely uneventful road that leads to my White +Gate. Each day questions me as it passes; each day makes +answer for me “not yet.” There is no material +preparation to be made for this journey of mine into a far +country—a simple fact which adds to the +‘unknowableness’ of the other side. Do I travel +alone, or am I one of a great company, swift yet unhurried in +their passage? The voices of Penelope’s suitors +shrilled on the ears of Ulysses, as they journeyed to the +nether-world, like nocturnal birds and bats in the +inarticulateness of their speech. They had abused the gift, +and fled self-condemned. Maybe silence commends itself as +most suitable for the wayfarers towards the sunrise—silence +because they seek the Word—but for those hastening towards +the confusion they have wrought there falls already the sharp +oncoming of the curse.</p> +<p>While we are still here the language of worship seems far, and +yet lies very nigh; for what better note can our frail tongues +lisp than the voice of wind and sea, river and stream, those +grateful servants giving all and asking nothing, the soft whisper +of snow and rain eager to replenish, or the thunder proclaiming a +majesty too great for utterance? Here, too, stands the +angel with the censer gathering up the fragrance of teeming earth +and forest-tree, of flower and fruit, and sweetly pungent herb +distilled by sun and rain for joyful use. Here, too, come +acolytes lighting the dark with tapers—sun, moon, and +stars—gifts of the Lord that His sanctuary may stand ever +served.</p> +<p>It lies here ready to our hand, this life of adoration which +we needs must live hand in hand with earth, for has she not borne +the curse with us? But beyond the white gate and the trail +of woodbine falls the silence greater than speech, darkness +greater than light, a pause of “a little while”; and +then the touch of that healing garment as we pass to the King in +His beauty, in a land from which there is no return.</p> +<p>At the gateway then I cry you farewell.</p> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ROADMENDER***</p> +<pre> + + +***** This file should be named 705-h.htm or 705-h.zip****** + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/7/0/705 + + + +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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