The matter hinges entirely upon whether or not Robert Herrick was
insane. Sir Thomas Browne always preferred to think that he was;
whereas Philip Borsdale perversely considered the answer to be
optional. Perversely, Sir Thomas protested, because he said that to
believe in Herrick's sanity was not conducive to your own.
This much is certain: the old clergyman, a man of few friends and no
intimates, enjoyed in Devon, thanks to his time-hallowed reputation for
singularity, a certain immunity. In and about Dean Prior, for
instance, it was conceded in 1674 that it was unusual for a divine of
the Church of England to make a black pig--and a pig of peculiarly
diabolical ugliness, at that--his ordinary associate; but Dean Prior
had come long ago to accept the grisly brute as a concomitant of Dr.
Herrick's presence almost as inevitable as his shadow. It was no crime
to be fond of dumb animals, not even of one so inordinately
unprepossessing; and you allowed for eccentricities, in any event, in
dealing with a poet.
For Totnes, Buckfastleigh, Dean Prior--all that part of Devon, in
fact--complacently basked in the reflected glory of Robert Herrick.
People came from a long distance, now that the Parliamentary Wars were
over, in order just to see the writer of the _Hesperides_ and the
_Noble Numbers_. And such enthusiasts found in Robert Herrick a
hideous dreamy man, who, without ever perpetrating any actual
discourtesy, always managed to dismiss them, somehow, with a sense of
having been rebuffed.
Sir Thomas Browne, that ardent amateur of the curious, came into Devon,
however, without the risk of incurring any such fate, inasmuch as the
knight traveled westward simply to discuss with Master Philip Borsdale
the recent doings of Cardinal Alioneri. Now, Philip Borsdale, as Sir
Thomas knew, had been employed by Herrick in various transactions here
irrelevant. In consequence, Sir Thomas Browne was not greatly
surprised when, on his arrival at Buckfastleigh, Borsdale's
body-servant told him that Master Borsdale had left instructions for
Sir Thomas to follow him to Dean Prior. Browne complied, because his
business with Borsdale was of importance.
Philip Borsdale was lounging in Dr. Herrick's chair, intent upon a
lengthy manuscript, alone and to all appearances quite at home. The
state of the room Sir Thomas found extraordinary; but he had graver
matters to discuss; and he explained the results of his mission without
extraneous comment.
"Yes, you have managed it to admiration," said Philip Borsdale, when
the knight had made an end. Borsdale leaned back and laughed,
purringly, for the outcome of this affair of the Cardinal and the Wax
Image meant much to him from a pecuniary standpoint. "Yet it is odd a
prince of any church which has done so much toward the discomfiture of
sorcery should have entertained such ideas. It is also odd to note the
series of coincidences which appears to have attended this Alioneri's
practises."
"I noticed that," said Sir Thomas. After a while he said: "You think,
then, that they must have been coincidences?"
"MUST is a word which intelligent people do not outwear by too constant
usage."
And "Oh----?" said the knight, and said that alone, because he was
familiar with the sparkle now in Borsdale's eyes, and knew it heralded
an adventure for an amateur of the curious.
"I am not committing myself, mark you, Sir Thomas, to any statement
whatever, beyond the observation that these coincidences were
noticeable. I add, with superficial irrelevance, that Dr. Herrick
disappeared last night."
"I am not surprised," said Sir Thomas, drily. "No possible antics
would astonish me on the part of that unvenerable madman. When I was
last in Totnes, he broke down in the midst of a sermon, and flung the
manuscript of it at his congregation, and cursed them roundly for not
paying closer attention. Such was never my ideal of absolute decorum
in the pulpit. Moreover, it is unusual for a minister of the Church of
England to be accompanied everywhere by a pig with whom he discusses
the affairs of the parish precisely as if the pig were a human being."
"The pig--he whimsically called the pig Corinna, sir, in honor of that
imaginary mistress to whom he addressed so many verses--why, the pig
also has disappeared. Oh, but of course that at least is simply a
coincidence. . . . I grant you it was an uncanny beast. And I grant
you that Dr. Herrick was a dubious ornament to his calling. Of that I
am doubly certain to-day," said Borsdale, and he waved his hand
comprehensively, "in view of the state in which--you see--he left this
room. Yes, he was quietly writing here at eleven o'clock last night
when old Prudence Baldwin, his housekeeper, last saw him. Afterward
Dr. Herrick appears to have diverted himself by taking away the mats
and chalking geometrical designs upon the floor, as well as by burning
some sort of incense in this brasier."
"But such avocations, Philip, are not necessarily indicative of sanity.
No, it is not, upon the whole, an inevitable manner for an elderly
parson to while away an evening."
"Oh, but that was only a part, sir. He also left the clothes he was
wearing--in a rather peculiarly constructed heap, as you can see.
Among them, by the way, I found this flattened and corroded bullet.
That puzzled me. I think I understand it now." Thus Borsdale, as he
composedly smoked his churchwarden. "In short, the whole affair is as
mysterious----"
Here Sir Thomas raised his hand. "Spare me the simile. I detect a
vista of curious perils such as infinitely outshines verbal brilliancy.
You need my aid in some insane attempt." He considered. He said: "So!
you have been retained?"
"I have been asked to help him. Of course I did not know of what he
meant to try. In short, Dr. Herrick left this manuscript, as well as
certain instructions for me. The last are--well! unusual."
"Ah, yes! You hearten me. I have long had my suspicions as to this
Herrick, though. . . . And what are we to do?"
"I really cannot inform you, sir. I doubt if I could explain in any
workaday English even what we will attempt to do," said Philip
Borsdale. "I do say this: You believe the business which we have
settled, involving as it does the lives of thousands of men and women,
to be of importance. I swear to you that, as set against what we will
essay, all we have done is trivial. As pitted against the business we
will attempt to-night, our previous achievements are suggestive of the
evolutions of two sand-fleas beside the ocean. The prize at which this
adventure aims is so stupendous that I cannot name it."
"Oh, but you must, Philip. I am no more afraid of the local
constabulary than I am of the local notions as to what respectability
entails. I may confess, however, that I am afraid of wagering against
unknown odds."
Borsdale reflected. Then he said, with deliberation: "Dr. Herrick's
was, when you come to think of it, an unusual life. He is--or perhaps
I ought to say he was--upward of eighty-three. He has lived here for
over a half-century, and during that time he has never attempted to
make either a friend or an enemy. He was--indifferent, let us say.
Talking to Dr. Herrick was, somehow, like talking to a man in a
fog. . . . Meanwhile, he wrote his verses to imaginary women--to
Corinna and Julia, to Myrha, Electra and Perilla--those lovely, shadow
women who never, in so far as we know, had any real existence----"
Sir Thomas smiled. "Of course. They are mere figments of the poet,
pegs to hang rhymes on. And yet--let us go on. I know that Herrick
never willingly so much as spoke with a woman."
"Not in so far as we know, I said." And Borsdale paused. "Then, too,
he wrote such dainty, merry poems about the fairies. Yes, it was all
of fifty years ago that Dr. Herrick first appeared in print with his
_Description of the King and Queen of the Fairies_. The thought seems
always to have haunted him."
The knight's face changed, a little by a little. "I have long been an
amateur of the curious," he said, strangely quiet. "I do not think
that anything you may say will surprise me inordinately."
"He had found in every country in the world traditions of a race who
were human--yet more than human. That is the most exact fashion in
which I can express his beginnings. On every side he found the notion
of a race who can impinge on mortal life and partake of it--but always
without exercising the last reach of their endowments. Oh, the
tradition exists everywhere, whether you call these occasional
interlopers fauns, fairies, gnomes, ondines, incubi, or demons. They
could, according to these fables, temporarily restrict themselves into
our life, just as a swimmer may elect to use only one arm--or, a more
fitting comparison, become apparent to our human senses in the fashion
of a cube which can obtrude only one of its six surfaces into a plane.
You follow me, of course, sir?--to the triangles and circles and
hexagons this cube would seem to be an ordinary square. Conceiving
such a race to exist, we might talk with them, might jostle them in the
streets, might even intermarry with them, sir--and always see in them
only human beings, and solely because of our senses' limitations."
"I comprehend. These are exactly the speculations that would appeal to
an unbalanced mind--is that not your thought, Philip?"
"Why, there is nothing particularly insane, Sir Thomas, in desiring to
explore in fields beyond those which our senses make perceptible. It
is very certain these fields exist; and the question of their extent I
take to be both interesting and important."
Then Sir Thomas said: "Like any other rational man, I have
occasionally thought of this endeavor at which you hint. We exist--you
and I and all the others--in what we glibly call the universe. All
that we know of it is through what we entitle our five senses, which,
when provoked to action, will cause a chemical change in a few ounces
of spongy matter packed in our skulls. There are no grounds for
believing that this particular method of communication is adequate, or
even that the agents which produce it are veracious. Meanwhile, we are
in touch with what exists through our five senses only. It may be that
they lie to us. There is, at least, no reason for assuming them to be
infallible."
"But reflection plows a deeper furrow, Sir Thomas. Even in the
exercise of any one of these five senses it is certain that we are
excelled by what we vaingloriously call the lower forms of life. A dog
has powers of scent we cannot reach to, birds hear the crawling of a
worm, insects distinguish those rays in the spectrum which lie beyond
violet and red, and are invisible to us; and snails and fish and
ants--perhaps all other living creatures, indeed--have senses which man
does not share at all, and has no name for. Granted that we human
beings alone possess the power of reasoning, the fact remains that we
invariably start with false premises, and always pass our judgments
when biased at the best by incomplete reports of everything in the
universe, and very possibly by reports which lie flat-footedly."
You saw that Browne was troubled. Now he rose. "Nothing will come of
this. I do not touch upon the desirability of conquering those fields
at which we dare only to hint. No, I am not afraid. I dare assist you
in doing anything Dr. Herrick asks, because I know that nothing will
come of such endeavors. Much is permitted us--'but of the fruit of the
tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, to us who are
no more than human, Ye shall not eat of it.'"
"Yet Dr. Herrick, as many other men have done, thought otherwise. I,
too, will venture a quotation. 'Didst thou never see a lark in a cage?
Such is the soul in the body: this world is like her little turf of
grass, and the heavens o'er our heads, like her looking-glass, only
gives us a miserable knowledge of the small compass of our prison.'
Many years ago that lamentation was familiar. What wonder, then, that
Dr. Herrick should have dared to repeat it yesterday? And what wonder
if he tried to free the prisoner?"
"Such freedom is forbidden," Sir Thomas stubbornly replied. "I have
long known that Herrick was formerly in correspondence with John
Heydon, and Robert Flood, and others of the Illuminated, as they call
themselves. There are many of this sect in England, as we all know;
and we hear much silly chatter of Elixirs and Philosopher's Stones in
connection with them. But I happen to know somewhat of their real aims
and tenets. I do not care to know any more than I do. If it be true
that all of which man is conscious is just a portion of a curtain, and
that the actual universe in nothing resembles our notion of it, I am
willing to believe this curtain was placed there for some righteous and
wise reason. They tell me the curtain may be lifted. Whether this be
true or no, I must for my own sanity's sake insist it can never be
lifted."
"But what if it were not forbidden? For Dr. Herrick asserts he has
already demonstrated that."
Sir Thomas interrupted, with odd quickness. "True, we must bear it in
mind the man never married--Did he, by any chance, possess a crystal of
Venice glass three inches square?"
And Borsdale gaped. "I found it with his manuscript. But he said
nothing of it. . . . How could you guess?"
Sir Thomas reflectively scraped the edge of the glass with his
finger-nail. "You would be none the happier for knowing, Philip. Yes,
that is a blood-stain here. I see. And Herrick, so far as we know,
had never in his life loved any woman. He is the only poet in history
who never demonstrably loved any woman. I think you had better read me
his manuscript, Philip."
This Philip Borsdale did.
Then Sir Thomas said, as quiet epilogue: "This, if it be true, would
explain much as to that lovely land of eternal spring and daffodils and
friendly girls, of which his verses make us free. It would even
explain Corinna and Herrick's rapt living without any human ties. For
all poets since the time of AEschylus, who could not write until he was
too drunken to walk, have been most readily seduced by whatever
stimulus most tended to heighten their imaginings; so that for the sake
of a song's perfection they have freely resorted to divers artificial
inspirations, and very often without evincing any undue
squeamishness. . . . I spoke of AEschylus. I am sorry, Philip, that
you are not familiar with ancient Greek life. There is so much I could
tell you of, in that event, of the quaint cult of Kore, or Pherephatta,
and of the swine of Eubouleus, and of certain ambiguous maidens, whom
those old Grecians fabled--oh, very ignorantly fabled, my lad, of
course--to rule in a more quietly lit and more tranquil world than we
blunder about. I think I could explain much which now seems
mysterious--yes, and the daffodils, also, that Herrick wrote of so
constantly. But it is better not to talk of these sinister delusions
of heathenry." Sir Thomas shrugged. "For my reward would be to have
you think me mad. I prefer to iterate the verdict of all logical
people, and formally to register my opinion that Robert Herrick was
indisputably a lunatic."
Borsdale did not seem perturbed. "I think the record of his
experiments is true, in any event. You will concede that their results
were startling? And what if his deductions be the truth? what if our
limited senses have reported to us so very little of the universe, and
even that little untruthfully?" He laughed and drummed impatiently
upon the table. "At least, he tells us that the boy returned. I
fervently believe that in this matter Dr. Herrick was capable of any
crime except falsehood. Oh, no I depend on it, he also will return."
"You imagine Herrick will break down the door between this world and
that other inconceivable world which all of us have dreamed of! To me,
my lad, it seems as if this Herrick aimed dangerously near to
repetition of the Primal Sin, for all that he handles it like a problem
in mechanical mathematics. The poet writes as if he were instructing a
dame's school as to the advisability of becoming omnipotent."
"Well, well! I am not defending Dr. Herrick in anything save his desire
to know the truth. In this respect at least, he has proven himself to
be both admirable and fearless. And at worst, he only strives to do
what Jacob did at Peniel," said Philip Borsdale, lightly. "The
patriarch, as I recall, was blessed for acting as he did. The legend
is not irrelevant, I think."
They passed into the adjoining room.
Thus the two men came into a high-ceiled apartment, cylindrical in
shape, with plastered walls painted green everywhere save for the
quaint embellishment of a large oval, wherein a woman, having an
eagle's beak, grasped in one hand a serpent and in the other a knife.
Sir Thomas Browne seemed to recognize this curious design, and gave an
ominous nod.
Borsdale said: "You see Dr. Herrick had prepared everything. And much
of what we are about to do is merely symbolical, of course. Most
people undervalue symbols. They do not seem to understand that there
could never have been any conceivable need of inventing a periphrasis
for what did not exist."
Sir Thomas Browne regarded Borsdale for a while intently. Then the
knight gave his habitual shrugging gesture. "You are braver than I,
Philip, because you are more ignorant than I. I have been too long an
amateur of the curious. Sometimes in over-credulous moments I have
almost believed that in sober verity there are reasoning beings who are
not human--beings that for their own dark purposes seek union with us.
Indeed, I went into Pomerania once to talk with John Dietrick of
Ramdin. He told me one of those relations whose truth we dread, a tale
which I did not dare, I tell you candidly, even to discuss in my
_Vulgar Errors_. Then there is Helgi Thorison's history, and that of
Leonard of Basle also. Oh, there are more recorded stories of this
nature than you dream of, Philip. We have only the choice between
believing that all these men were madmen, and believing that ordinary
human life is led by a drugged animal who drowses through a purblind
existence among merciful veils. And these female creatures--these
Corinnas, Perillas, Myrhas, and Electras--can it be possible that they
are always striving, for their own strange ends, to rouse the sleeping
animal and break the kindly veils?--and are they permitted to use such
amiable enticements as Herrick describes? Oh, no, all this is just a
madman's dream, dear lad, and we must not dare to consider it
seriously, lest we become no more sane than he."
"But you will aid me?" Borsdale said.
"Yes, I will aid you, Philip, for in Herrick's case I take it that the
mischief is consummated already; and we, I think, risk nothing worse
than death. But you will need another knife a little later--a knife
that will be clean."
"I had forgotten." Borsdale withdrew, and presently returned with a
bone-handled knife. And then he made a light. "Are you quite ready,
sir?"
Sir Thomas Browne, that aging amateur of the curious, could not resist
a laugh.
And then they sat about proceedings of which, for obvious reasons, the
details are best left unrecorded. It was not an unconscionable while
before they seemed to be aware of unusual phenomena. But as Sir Thomas
always pointed out, in subsequent discussions, these were quite
possibly the fruitage of excited imagination.
"Now, Philip!--now, give me the knife!" cried Sir Thomas Browne. He
knew for the first time, despite many previous mischancy happenings,
what real terror was.
The room was thick with blinding smoke by this, so that Borsdale could
see nothing save his co-partner in this adventure. Both men were
shaken by what had occurred before. Borsdale incuriously perceived
that old Sir Thomas rose, tense as a cat about to pounce, and that he
caught the unstained knife from Borsdale's hand, and flung it like a
javelin into the vapor which encompassed them. This gesture stirred
the smoke so that Borsdale could see the knife quiver and fall, and
note the tiny triangle of unbared plaster it had cut in the painted
woman's breast. Within the same instant he had perceived a naked man
who staggered.
"_Iz adu kronyeshnago_----!" The intruder's thin, shrill wail was that
of a frightened child. The man strode forward, choked, seemed to grope
his way. His face was not good to look at. Horror gripped and tore at
every member of the cadaverous old body, as a high wind tugs at a flag.
The two witnesses of Herrick's agony did not stir during the instant
wherein the frenzied man stooped, moving stiffly like an ill-made toy,
and took up the knife.
"Oh, yes, I knew what he was about to do," said Sir Thomas Browne
afterward, in his quiet fashion. "I did not try to stop him. If
Herrick had been my dearest friend, I would not have interfered. I had
seen his face, you comprehend. Yes, it was kinder to let him die. It
was curious, though, as he stood there hacking his chest, how at each
stab he deliberately twisted the knife. I suppose the pain distracted
his mind from what he was remembering. I should have forewarned
Borsdale of this possible outcome at the very first, I suppose. But,
then, which one of us is always wise?"
So this adventure came to nothing. For its significance, if any,
hinged upon Robert Herrick's sanity, which was at best a disputable
quantity. Grant him insane, and the whole business, as Sir Thomas was
at large pains to point out, dwindles at once into the irresponsible
vagaries of a madman.
"And all the while, for what we know, he had been hiding somewhere in
the house. We never searched it. Oh, yes, there is no doubt he was
insane," said Sir Thomas, comfortably.
"Faith! what he moaned was gibberish, of course----"
"Oddly enough, his words were intelligible. They meant in Russian 'Out
of the lowest hell.'"
"But, why, in God's name, Russian?"
"I am sure I do not know," Sir Thomas replied; and he did not appear at
all to regret his ignorance.
But Borsdale meditated, disappointedly. "Oh, yes, the outcome is
ambiguous, Sir Thomas, in every way. I think we may safely take it as
a warning, in any event, that this world of ours, whatever its
deficiencies, was meant to be inhabited by men and women only."
"Now I," was Sir Thomas's verdict, "prefer to take it as a warning that
insane people ought to be restrained."
"Ah, well, insanity is only one of the many forms of being abnormal.
Yes, I think it proves that all abnormal people ought to be restrained.
Perhaps it proves that they are very potently restrained," said Philip
Borsdale, perversely.
Perversely, Sir Thomas always steadfastly protested, because he said
that to believe in Herrick's sanity was not conducive to your own.
So Sir Thomas shrugged, and went toward the open window. Without the
road was a dazzling gray under the noon sun, for the sky was cloudless.
The ordered trees were rustling pleasantly, very brave in their
autumnal liveries. Under a maple across the way some seven laborers
were joking lazily as they ate their dinner. A wagon lumbered by, the
driver whistling. In front of the house a woman had stopped to
rearrange the pink cap of the baby she was carrying. The child had
just reached up fat and uncertain little arms to kiss her. Nothing
that Browne saw was out of ordinary, kindly human life.
"Well, after all," said Sir Thomas, upon a sudden, "for one, I think it
is an endurable world, just as it stands."
And Borsdale looked up from a letter he had been reading. It was from
a woman who has no concern with this tale, and its contents were of no
importance to any one save Borsdale.
"Now, do you know," said Philip Borsdale, "I am beginning to think you
the most sensible man of my acquaintance! Oh, yes, beyond doubt it is
an endurable sun-nurtured world--just as it stands. It makes it doubly
odd that Dr. Herrick should have chosen always to
'Write of groves, and twilights, and to sing
The court of Mab, and of the Fairy King,
And write of Hell.'"
Sir Thomas touched his arm, protestingly. "Ah, but you have forgotten
what follows, Philip--
'I sing, and ever shall,
Of Heaven,--and hope to have it after all.'"
"Well! I cry Amen," said Borsdale. "But I wish I could forget the old
man's face."
"Oh, and I also," Sir Thomas said. "And I cry Amen with far more
heartiness, my lad, because I, too, once dreamed of--of Corinna, shall
we say?"