IV

YESTERDAY a funeral passed, from the workhouse 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.

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 wayworn 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.

Very pleasant art thou, O Brother Death, thy love is wonderful, passing

the love of women.

* * * * *

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.

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.

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 _driven_, 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.

[Illustration: A little lonely cottage]

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

"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.

I hailed the old man, and both turned aside; but he gazed at me without

remembrance.

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."

"But you're never going to take it to E----?"

"Ay, but I be, and comin' back alone, if the Lord be marciful. The

missus has been terrible bad this two months 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."

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.

V

THERE 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.

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.

Surely she hears some voice, that lonely old woman on whom is set the

seal of great silence?

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?

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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 foot-stool of God wrapped in a fold

of His living robe, the while night smoothes our tired face with her

healing hands.

[Illustration: The reeded waters of the sequestered pool]

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

[Illustration: The monastery where the Bedesmen of St. Hugh watch and

pray]

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.

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.

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.

He listened with courteous intelligence.

"You hold a roadmender has a vocation?" he asked.

"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."

Parson nodded his head.

"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."

O wise parson, so to read the lesson of the road!

"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."

"Robert Louis Stevenson was a roadmender," said the wise parson.

"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."

Parson nodded.

"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.

"Try some of this baccy," he said; "Sherwood of Magdalen sent it me

from some outlandish place."

I accepted gratefully. It was such tobacco as falls to the lot of few

roadmenders.

He rose to go.

"I wish I could come and break stones," he said, a little wistfully.

"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."

We shook hands, and he went down the road and out of my life.

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.

Ah, well! I am no Browning Junior, and Sherwood's name is not Sherwood.