moss-grown crumbling tree, was a spirit-like being out of another world!
[Illustration: _And there, leaning against a moss-grown crumbling tree,
was a spirit-like being out of another world._]
No words can describe what Eric felt!
He only knew he was at the end of his way ... that all his wanderings
were not in vain--that something marvellous and unspeakably sweet had
suddenly flooded earth and sky, that the entire universe had become one
song of praise, one cry of hope, one yearning desire of fulfilment....
There, before him in all their wonder and perfection, were the face and
eyes that had stolen the peace from his soul and the art from his hands.
He fell on his knees, overcome by the surging emotion that filled heart
and brain.
He could not grasp this amazing miracle that completely overwhelmed his
being; the hermit's words alone rang in his ears: "It may not come in
splendid raiment with a crown on its head, but keep thy heart open as
well as thy eyes...." Yes, his eyes and heart both were open and a
glorious light swept over his life, like a warm wave before which all
resistance gives way, covering both past and future, with an immense
longing for perfect achievement.
And this was the vision that had been at last revealed to the eyes that
had searched with such tireless persistence, with such strong and
faithful belief in the ultimate crowning of their desire: A girl, slim
and ethereal, clad in the garment of poverty, a shirt-like dress over
which a colourless scarf had been many times wound till the delicate
figure resembled that of an Egyptian fresco; feet and arms were bare,
and of utmost perfection.
From under a wreath of fragile harebells streamed the most exquisite
tresses ever seen--rich brown in tone, but the sun had shone on them so
lovingly long, that a haze of golden red had been breathed over them by
all the rays that had ceaselessly caressed their softness.
She stood, her head thrown back; within her hand she held an old violin
on which she was playing like one in a far-off world, for whom neither
turmoil nor strife can exist, playing like an angel from the regions
above, where no sin and no sorrow can have place....
But her face. Oh! her face ... in truth it was not of this world!
A radiance seemed to illuminate it from within, a shine that could come
but from a soul in touch with the infinite, a soul full of light and
love and hope, that no material distance could sever from its perfect
communion with God. And then her eyes! Large and grey, with a far-away
look--eyes that see visions and dreams past the knowledge of man; starry
and clear, yet deep as a summer sea; eyes in which lay hidden all the
boundless illusions of our human race, mixed with a peace that has no
name.
Above her head the leaves rustled with a whispering sound; the flowers
trembled, shaking their bells in waves of blue. The last glow in the sky
fell slanting through the branches upon the girlish figure, till she
appeared to be a transparent apparition out of the legends of yore.
Serenely indifferent to the two who watched her in rapture and silence,
she played her heavenly music, a distant hymn to a being she alone could
see; and upon invisible wings the gentle evening breeze carried the
rippling notes far away into the fading red of the sky....
The old woman came quite near to Eric and whispered in his ear:
"They say that she is mad; but I know things that lie deeper than the
deepest ocean, which they never can understand; however, I shall teach
thee some of my wisdom: God has pressed His lips on her eyes, so she
ever sees visions we earthly mortals have not the power to conceive.
"She is not one of us! She is of a race as far removed from ours as the
sky is removed from the earth. But those that live in the dust, whose
feet move amidst the mud of the roads, cannot believe that a creature so
spotless and pure can exist in this world and yet never soil its
perfection!
"So they say she is daft and turn lightly away from a problem too deep
for the comfort of their shallow souls: for verily it is easier to
disbelieve what the common brain cannot fathom."
"But who is she?" queried Eric, with bated breath.
"Ah! that we shall never know.
"In a distant land far over the sea we were once wandering on a
rich-coloured autumn morning, and there we found, on the grey steps of a
church, an infant of marvellous beauty. Her pearly limbs were enfolded
in fine linen and lace. We had mercy upon the innocent babe, for our
hearts have not the colour of our faces; and since that blessed day she
has been the joy of our tribe and the pride of both young and old.
"But when she grew to the age when she could talk, not a syllable could
we understand. Her eyes for ever were searching the skies, and her words
spoke of things she alone could perceive. Even I, who am wise, could not
follow her sayings.
"But gradually an inner voice told me that there was something holy
about this stranger maiden, something which removed her far from us,
something that mortal hands should not touch.
"Then I understood that God had laid His hand upon her brain. Now she
seldom speaks, but always plays these heartrending notes. Hark, fair
stranger, listen if it is not unearthly and sweet."
Eric listened with all his soul; never before had such music come to his
ears.
It was full of tears, and sighs, and hopes, and dreams; it was heavenly
indeed, and yet a sobbing human chord pierced the whole, with a
never-ending cry for the things that every poor mortal needs. It rose
and fell, carried upon the changing tides of love and hope; it contained
a yearning effort, a boundless longing, towards that land of chimeras
and dreams beyond the boundaries of the earth.
Every chord seemed strung to a pulsing heart bound and fettered, yet
gasping to be free.
Then it changed into an intensity of peace, like the soft winds of night
descending slowly upon the heat and toil of the day; dying away into
fading notes always fainter and sweeter, like the first breath of spring
over sleeping woods, like the hushed voice of a great sadness that can
still hope and believe ... and then, quite suddenly, there was silence,
and only the summer breeze stirred amongst the boughs of the trees.
XXI
At last!
The fount of beauty, Fountain of all dreams,
Now am I come upon my long desire.
FIONA MACLEOD.
Each day Eric came to this spot of beauty to look upon the being who was
the realization of his soul's desire.
But the terrible mystery, that God allowed, was that this girl never
even seemed to see that he was there.
Eric Gundian, who was adored of all--Eric of the golden locks, Eric the
sweet-voiced,--could not make her eyes realize his presence.
The wandering people had received him into their hearts, as every man
did upon whom he turned and smiled. They gave him a tent and begged him
never more to depart.
But the living dream he had come so far to seek remained in a world of
her own, to which he could not find the key. The dark tribe felt no
rivalry towards this being of light who had so suddenly appeared in
their midst. They saw that he was a creature apart, made of another
clay, filled with another life; something that they could dearly love,
but never completely understand.
Like the rough seamen on the ship, they hoped he would for ever cast in
his lot with theirs and not depart as suddenly as he had come.
Zorka, the old fortune-teller, was his daily guide; and they all
considered it natural that this glorious youth should have fallen
beneath the spell of the mad girl, who was their greatest pride and
deepest grief.
Had they not sought in turn a smile from her lips, a look out of the
wonder of her eyes, and had she not always seen past them, far beyond,
into horizons all her own, never noticing the glowing worship that was
cast at her feet?
Now they watched with growing anxiety if this handsome stranger would
move her heart and bring her eyes down to this earth. They both hoped
and feared.
They longed that the miracle should come to pass, and yet, in the
deepest recesses of their hearts, there was not one who did not
jealously dread the moment when, perchance, she might turn in love to
this youth they knew was not as they. But none feared so much as old
Zorka the witch--because had she not read within the flames of the fire,
within the flight of the birds, within the forms of the smoke, within
the ripples of the wave-kissed sands, that this maiden was not for
earthly love, that the day when mortal lips should touch her with human
caress she would fade away like vapour on the sea!
Indeed she may have erred in the reading of the signs, but it would be
for the very first time in her life. So she cursed the day when she had
led this beautiful boy into the presence of the girl she adored. And
yet--and yet--can ever Fate be turned from the path upon which she
glides? Must not one and all drink from the cup which has been fashioned
for each separate lip?
Stella she had called the stranger maiden--Stella, because of her
shining orbs; and no doubt when God needed her amongst His other stars,
He would then take her for His very own. Ah, the wise woman, with her
weak and trembling hands, how could she change the course of the moving
worlds!
So she sat by her fire and stared into the bluey flames, her old head
bent, her knotted palms resting on her knees, puffing away at her pipe
of clay, seeing weird shapes in the smoke that rose quivering to the
sky.
So much had she seen, so much ... so much:
Lands of sunshine and regions of snow, storm-tossed waves and calmest
sea, visions of beauty and visions of pain; men that live in the clear
light of day and men that crawl in the shadows of night. She had seen
things that had their beginnings in joy, and things that ended in
sorrow, creatures that live and creatures that die, women that love and
others that hate. Murder she had seen; and her ears had heard the last
groaning sighs of the dying, as they had hearkened for the sounds of
hope when the human soul was being cast naked into this world of sorrow.
The beginnings and the ends. Yes, everything had come her way,--her eyes
were dim and tired from having seen all too much!
And now as she waited here not far from that island of promise, she knew
that the youthful wanderer was giving all his soul in an agony of hope
and expectation. She knew she was poor and helpless before these
mysteries of life; that at times even the wisest hands must hang in idle
rest.
Yes, day by day Eric came and sat beside this treasure he had found, and
yet it was still as far removed as in the days when he was only
dreaming.
Instead of in sleep, now his waking sight drank in the vision which was
part of his living being. But although he had poured out every
supplication and ardent prayer his mind could conceive, he never could
imprison a single look that he knew was conscious of his presence.
She sometimes would talk, but more often she would play upon her beloved
violin, and then Eric would feel that each drop of his blood was rushing
through his veins like a mountain torrent; or he would be possessed by
a frantic longing to be free of his body to soar with the music far up
into heaven.
It would happen that she would take hold of his hand and lead him to
places of strangest solitude, and there her visionary words would try to
describe the marvellous things her brain was seeing.
He followed the flight of her extraordinary thoughts; but each day he
was filled with deeper depression, knowing that never had she
consciously looked at his face, never had she realized that it was an
unusual companion who was now at her side, that she was alone with a
being consumed by love.
She talked in a confiding voice as a child speaks to its mother, or as
one that had the habit of conversing alone in the night.
The things she said, and conjured up before his eager mind, were
saturated with such unheard-of sweetness that Eric lived in a world he
had never known.
And so the days passed one by one; the bluebells faded and died, and
still Eric clung to the forlorn hope that Stella's eyes would suddenly
open and see him at her side. The gypsies folded their tents and moved
farther on, roaming from spot to spot.
Wherever they went Eric was always with them.
For hours he would walk in the dust of the roads, keeping pace with the
bare feet of the woman he loved.
The falcon was always there, and still flew like a white banner before
him, as it had done on the very first day. But now Eric no more followed
the shine on its wings; he was following a lowly maiden who held his
beating heart within her careless hand.
He passed through many villages such as Radu had described: the savage
dogs rushed out and surrounded their wandering procession, the
maize-thatched cottages had their doors wide open, and it was true that
the tall sunflowers could peep in at the tiny windows, and that the
maidens sat upon the thresholds drawing their tireless needles through
the snowy linen that lay in their laps.
The peasants looked at the earth-coloured travellers with glances of
disdain; and seldom did a kindly welcome greet them as they came.
Only for Eric they made an exception, and more than one dark-eyed girl
would have given much to keep him at her side.
Autumn was turning the leaves into glorious colours. The woods were a
never-ending marvel of red, gold, and brown. On the freshly reaped
maize-fields the Indian corn lay in small pyramids of ripest orange. The
peasants sat about in groups singing the songs of harvest, whilst the
early night did its best to hurry the glowing sunsets out of the flaming
sky.
Always smaller grew the hope in our wanderer's heart, always more weary
were the endless roads.
Stella still had her eyes turned upon things he could not see. He had
not been able to make her grasp the fact that she had a stranger at her
side.
Each day he brought her another wreath for her burnished tresses--a
wreath that he wound with his artist fingers from whatever flowers he
could find along his road.
They were becoming scarcer and rarer because of the descending autumn
that lay like a hush over the tired world. He made them of pale-tinted
crocuses that hung upon her forehead like tired sighs--he bound them
with the brightest leaves of the season that resembled the spreading
sunsets he so loved at the end of the day. Often he had plucked shining
berries that surrounded her waxen brow like heavy drops of blood. And
one day the wreath he brought her was all feathery and white, plaited
with the fluffy ghosts of the wild clematis that climbs over rock and
tree.
On a morning when the clouds hung heavy over their heads he pressed
above her lovely face a garland of sloe-berries entwined with grey
leaves of the weeping-willow; they fell about her delicate temples,
touching her rounded cheeks with loving caresses as a mother's hand
would do.
Once as she sat on a hard heap of stones, spent after the tramp of the
day, he left her to glean from the barren fields ripe ears of corn that
had been scattered by the reapers on their way.
He made them into a golden crown which he laid at her feet in the dust,
looking into her eyes, trembling under the weight of his love.
And always he found some lowly plant which he plucked with the thought
of bringing a smile to her lips. He even conjured into a circlet of
silver the star-shaped thistles that grew amongst the wilting grass, and
so that their prickles should not wound her delicate skin, he lined it
with soft green moss that lay close against her forehead, guarding it
from the slightest scratch.
But the days when he found neither flower nor plant he felt like a
beggar that dare not come before the face of his queen....
Often when the roving tribe had pitched their tents for the night,
Gundian would go and sit beside the fire with old Zorka the witch, and
he never wearied of the tales she told, listening, with interest that
was always new, to the quaint words that fell from her lips.
Zorka's heart had made him her own, and she dearly loved to have him at
her side; but never did she find the needed courage to urge him to
relinquish his quest; yet, as the days rolled by, she feared more and
more that the signs might really come true.
On a night when all was dark and still, the very old woman and the
beautiful youth sat side by side looking into the leaping flames.
Zorka raised her careworn face and scanned his thinning cheeks, his
sunken eyes, and the beautiful hands that were nervously clasped on his
knee. Her old heart ached with fearful desire for all that could not be.
"Son, my son!" she suddenly cried, "ah that I could tear the stars from
the sky and throw them before thy feet! Oh that I could drag down the
rays of the moon and hide them all in thy breaking heart to stop thy
longing! that I could draw out all the richness of the earth and give it
to thee, so that thou shouldst be at peace! But thus it is the wide
world over; we think we have reached our soul's desire, and then we
stand before it empty of all our hope."
As she spoke, sweet sounds of music came floating out of the dark--the
soft notes of a violin in which all the sorrow of the earth seemed
concentrated beneath the rippling cadence of joy.
Eric covered his face with his hands, and Zorka felt the burning tears
rise to her dim old eyes, but she brushed them hastily away with the
back of her hand.
"Dear young one," she said, "what can I do for thee? Hast thou not told
me that thou wast once a great artist with fairy fingers, and that thou
didst come all this endless way through joy, sorrow, and danger, in
search of a face ... and now.... Oh, I have guessed it since many a day
thou hast found that face--but where is thy art?
"Crave not for what thou canst not have, but cling to that which God has
given thee. If I get thee brush and colour wilt thou try and create that
face for a second time? Create it so that all should wonder how human
hands could ever have been able to paint so glorious a treasure. When we
cannot have the thing itself we must try and grasp its shadow."
"Oh!" cried Eric, "my old master said that the thing is God's."
"I do not know," said old Zorka, "if we pray to the same God, thou and
I. Human beings always need forms into which they press their worship,
but I, who am old, can tell thee this: there is but one God for all, and
each man shapes Him according to the depth and breadth of his own little
soul.
"When we are children and play on the ground we are taught to call Him
Father! When we grow up we long for Him as a friend, but if He keeps His
smile for others we curse Him and turn our backs and say we do not
believe He exists. But when grief and despair knock at our door, we long
to feel Him near us once more, but we have lost our way. We grope in the
dark, we hit our hands and our heads, we cry, and we moan, we stumble
and fall till we are laid low in the dust.
"Then it is long till again we look up. Our hair is bleached, our backs
are bent, our eyes are dim, and faltering our step; but gradually we see
all things as they were meant to be--we have left hope far behind, all
that shone and was sweet knows us no more; our way is without either
light or shade, it is grey and smooth like the ocean after the storm has
gone by.
"We believe that its colour will never be anything but grey; but one day
a faint light spreads very far over the most distant horizon and our
tired brain begins to perceive that that light is coming slowly towards
us, slowly--slowly--till it reaches our heart ... and that light means
peace that passeth all human understanding; peace, the ultimate promise
of that God we had cast away; peace, the blessing of our snow-white
hair, the last hope of our ended pilgrimage. But, my boy, wilt thou do
as I bid, and create with thy hands the face thou lovest so well?"
"I cannot, I cannot," sobbed Eric, his face all convulsed with pain; "I
have lost my art and lost my belief. I am now only one consuming
passionate desire."
"Dear one that I love," answered sadly the old nomad, "for what hast
thou climbed so high if thou now wilt not look up? I tell thee that if
thou wilt grasp the talent that belongs to thee thou shalt find a relief
beyond all thou darest to hope.
"I have been reading the signs out of the wind-swept clouds, and I know
that thus help will come to thee."
"Ah, but, Mother Zorka, tell me, will she ever look at me with eyes that
see?"
"Her eyes do see, my son, and although thy face be the fairest my old
brain has ever conceived, canst thou know if the vision her mind is for
ever adoring is not of a beauty far beyond our dreams?
"Certain flowers are not there to be plucked.
"Why the great Being of the skies has brought thee through pain and
danger, drawn thee into this distant land, to dash the full cup from thy
thirsty lips, after having smilingly led thee so far--is a mystery I
cannot explain.
"But dost realize what it would be if thou shouldst pluck the flower too
soon and thy touch be too rough, and the petals fall fading to the
ground; dost know how empty then thy hands would be?
"Do as I tell thee, make that heavenly face thy very own by drawing it
with the artist hands thy God has given thee! I love thee well, but I
have loved her longer than thee. If the day is to come when her heart
shall open to earthly passion, her eyes to the dear sight of thy face,
let that day be blessed and hold it fast if thou canst.
"I shall only look on; for that is the weary lot of those who live in
the past: but once more I tell thee, paint, oh, paint her face--the time
may come when it will be too late!
"But now go to thy tent, for I am tired and the night is cold."
Eric rose sadly and threaded his way through the sleeping camp, past the
fires that were burning low, past the patient groups of tired horses,
till he reached his bed.
But Zorka sat still many an hour, following the shadowy road of her
past, her dim eyes fixed upon the glowing ashes, speaking to the Being
who rules our destinies, and asking over again the eternal, unanswered
"Why?" looking up to the too distant sky which for ever keeps its
mystery to itself.
XXII
He seeks to know
The joy that is more great than joy
The beauty of the old green earth can give.
FIONA MACLEOD.
Zorka kept her promise; and one day, who knows whence, Eric found all he
needed for beginning the picture the old woman had commanded him to
paint.
The tents had been pitched quite near to a forest all shining and
shimmering in every shade of gold; gold under foot, gold overhead, gold
falling softly from every bough.
The sun threw his glinting rays upon all the beauty that was a last
glorious farewell Nature was taking from the departing year. The smoke
of the camps and the mist of the autumn mornings mingled like spirit
souls, and waved in moving vapours, veils that some fairy might have
hung over the branches to fill her dwelling with mystic shadows and
shades. From within the shelter of the wood, the great naked plain could
be seen as far as the eye could reach, but the waving ocean of corn was
a past dream of the summer months.
Now the fields and pastures looked desolate and barren, dark and cold,
even beneath the face of the kindly life-giving planet that shone down
upon it with a friendly face.
The rusty tents resembled dwarf pyramids standing upon some desert seen
from afar off.
But the forest was a palace fit for a king, fashioned out of lustrous
rays all woven together into a web of sunny yellows, and there sat Eric
for many an hour trying to make his picture live.
Stella never refused to let him take her hand, and followed him meekly
whither he led. He seated her upon a bank of grass, having first covered
it over and over with leaves of fiery red.
For her lovely feet he made a nest of warm green moss, and at her side
he laid a sycamore leaf full of jet-black bramble-berries as polished as
agate balls.
Out of their flexible branches he wound a wreath about her head; their
fading leaves made a many-tinted crown, more beautiful than a queen
could wear, all amber, topaz, and burnished gold, deep and rich in hue,
splashed in places as with stains of blood.
In and out among the rusty leaves he had plaited dark purple aster stars
that nestled among her waving hair. Whilst his nervous fingers were by
slow degrees laying hold of his forsaken art, Stella played him ancient
tunes of such melting sweetness that often his hot tears flowed down and
mixed in crystal rivulets with the colours on his palette. As she
played, all the visions of the days of his wanderings rose up out of the
distance and floated like shadows before his brain.