II

Of the life that Paul lived with Mark I must not here tell; but

before he grew to full manhood he had learned his art well. Mark was a

strict master, but not impatient. The only thing that angered him was

carelessness or listlessness; and Paul was an apt and untiring pupil,

and learnt so easily and deftly that Mark was often astonished. "How

did you learn that?" he said one day suddenly to Paul when the boy was

practising on the lute, and played a strange soft cadence, of a kind

that Mark had never heard. The boy was startled by the question, for

he had not thought that Mark was listening to him. He looked up with a

blush and turned his eyes on Mark. "Is it not right?" he said. "I did

not learn it; it comes from somewhere in my mind."

Paul learnt to play several instruments, both wind and string.

Sometimes he loved one sort the best, sometimes the other. The wind

instruments of wood had to him a kind of soft magic, like the voice of

a gentle spirit, a spirit that dwelt in lonely unvisited places, and

communed more with things of earth than the hearts of men. In the

flutes and bassoons seemed to him to dwell the voices of airs that

murmured in the thickets, the soft gliding of streams, the crooning of

serene birds, the peace of noonday, the welling of clear springs, the

beauty of little waves, the bright thoughts of stars. Sometimes in

certain modes, they could be sad, but it was the sadness of lonely

homeless things, old dreaming spirits of wind and wave, not the

sadness of such things as had known love and lost what they had loved,

but the melancholy of such forlorn beings as by their nature were shut

out from the love that dwells about the firelit hearth and the old

roofs of homesteads. It was the sadness of the wind that wails in

desolate places, knowing that it is lonely, but not knowing what it

desires; or the soft sighing of trees that murmur all together in a

forest, dreaming each its own dream, but with no thought of

comradeship or desire.

The metal instruments, out of which the cunning breath could draw

bright music, seemed to him soulless too in a sort, but shrill and

enlivening. These clarions and trumpets spoke to him of brisk morning

winds, or the cold sharp plunge of green waves that leap in triumph

upon rocks. To such sounds he fancied warriors marching out at

morning, with the joy of fight in their hearts, meaning to deal great

blows, to slay and be slain, and hardly thinking of what would come

after, so sharp and swift an eagerness of spirit held them; but these

instruments he loved less.

Best of all he loved the resounding strings that could be twanged by

the quill, or swept into a heavenly melody by the finger-tips, or

throb beneath the strongly drawn bow. In all of these lay the secrets

of the heart; in these Paul heard speak the bright dreams of the

child, the vague hopes of growing boy or girl, the passionate desires

of love, the silent loyalty of equal friendship, the dreariness of the

dejected spirit, whose hopes have set like the sun smouldering to his

fall, the rebellious grief of the heart that loses what it loves, the

darkening fears that begin to roll about the ageing mind, like clouds

that weep on mountain tops, and the despair of sinners, finding the

evil too strong.

Best of all it was when all these instruments could conspire together

to weave a sudden dream of beauty that seemed to guard a secret. What

was the secret? It seemed so near to Paul sometimes, as if he were

like a man very near the edge of some mountain from which he may peep

into an unknown valley. Sometimes it was far away. But it was there,

he doubted not, though it hid itself. It was like a dance of fairies

in a forest glade, which a man could half discern through the

screening leaves; but, when he gains the place, he sees nothing but

tall flowers with drooping bells, bushes set with buds, large-leaved

herbs, all with a silent, secret, smiling air, as though they said,

"We have seen, we could tell."

Paul seemed very near this baffling secret at times; in the dewy

silence of mornings, just before the sun comes up, when familiar woods

and trees stand in a sort of musing happiness; at night when the sky

is thickly sown with stars, or when the moon rises in a soft hush and

silvers the sleeping pool; or when the sun goes down in a rich pomp,

trailing a great glow of splendour with him among cloudy islands, all

flushed with fiery red. When the sun withdrew himself thus, flying and

flaring to the west, behind the boughs of leafless trees, what was the

hidden secret presence that stood there as it were finger on lip,

inviting yet denying? Paul knew within himself that if he could but

say or sing this, the world would never forget. But he could not yet.

Then, too, Paul learned the magic of words, the melodious accent of

letters, sometimes so sweet, sometimes so harsh; then the growing

phrase, the word that beckons as it were other words to join it

trippingly; the thought that draws the blood to the brain, and sets

the heart beating swiftly--he learned the words that sound like

far-off bells, or that wake a gentle echo in the spirit, the words

that burn into the heart, and make the hearer ashamed of all that is

hard and low. But he learned, too, that the craftsman in words must

not build up his song word by word, as a man fetches bricks to make a

wall; but that he must see the whole thought clear first, in a kind of

divine flash, so that when he turns for words to write it, he finds

them piled to his hand.

All these things Paul learnt, and day by day he suffered all the sweet

surprises and joys of art. There were days that were not so, when the

strings jangled aimlessly, and seemed to have no soul in them; days

when it appeared that the cloud could not lift, as though light and

music together were dead in the world--but these days were few; and

Paul growing active and strong, caring little what he ate and drank,

tasting no wine, because it fevered him at first, and then left him

ill at ease, knowing no evil or luxurious thoughts, sleeping lightly

and hardly, found his spirits very pure and plentiful; or if he was

sad, it was a clear sadness that had something beautiful within it,

and dwelt not on any past grossness of his own, but upon the thought

that all beautiful things can but live for a time, and must then be

laid away in the darkness and in the cold.

So Paul grew up knowing neither friendship nor love, only stirred at

the sight of a beautiful face, a shapely hand, or a slender form; by a

grateful wonder for what was so fair; untainted by any desire to

master it, or make it his own; living only for his art, and with a

sort of blind devotion to Mark, whom he soon excelled, though he knew

it not. Mark once said to him, when Paul had made a song of some old

forgotten sorrow, "How do you know all this, boy? You have not

suffered, you have not lived!" "Oh," said Paul gaily, knowing it to be

praise, "my heart tells me it is so."

Paul, too, as he grew to manhood, found himself with a voice that was

not loud, but true--a voice that thrilled those who heard it through

and through; but it seemed strange that he felt not what he made other

men feel; rather his music was like a still pool that can reflect all

that is above it, the sombre tree, the birds that fly over, the starry

silence of the night, the angry redness of the dawn.

It was on one of his journeys with Mark that the news of Mistress

Alison's death reached him. Mark told him very carefully and tenderly,

and while he repeated the three or four broken words in which Mistress

Alison had tried to send a last message to Paul--for the end had come

very suddenly--Mark himself found his voice falter, and his eyes fill

with tears. Paul had, at that sight, cried a little; but his life at

the House of Heritage seemed to have faded swiftly out of his

thoughts; he was living very intently in the present, scaling, as it

were, day by day, with earnest effort, the steep ladder of song. He

thought a little upon Mistress Alison, and on all her love and

goodness: but it was with a tranquil sorrow, and not with the grief

and pain of loss. Mark was very gentle with him for awhile; and this

indeed did shame Paul a little, to find himself being used so lovingly

for a sorrow which he was hardly feeling. But he said to himself that

sorrow must come unbidden, and that it was no sorrow that was made

with labour and intention. He was a little angered with himself for

his dullness--but then song was so beautiful, that he could think of

nothing else; he was dazzled.

A little while after, Mark asked him whether, as they were near at

hand, he would turn aside to see Mistress Alison's grave. And Paul

said, "No; I would rather feel it were all as it used to be!"--and

then seeing that Mark looked surprised and almost grieved, Paul, with

the gentle hypocrisy of childhood, said, "I cannot bear it yet," which

made Mark silent, and he said no more, but used Paul more gently than

ever.

One day Mark said to him, very gravely, as if he had long been

pondering the matter, "It is time for me to take another pupil, Paul.

I have taught you all I know; indeed you have learned far more than I

can teach." Then he told him that he had arranged all things meetly.

That there was a certain Duke who lacked a minstrel, and that Paul

should go and abide with him. That he should have his room at the

castle, and should be held in great honour, making music only when he

would. And then Mark would have added some words of love, for he loved

Paul as a son. But Paul seemed to have no hunger in his heart, no

thought of the days they had spent together; so Mark said them not.

But he added very gently, "And one thing, Paul, I must tell you. You

will be a great master--indeed you are so already--and I can tell you

nothing about the art that you do not know. But one thing I will tell

you--that you have a human heart within you that is not yet awake: and

when it awakes, it will be very strong; so that a great combat, I

think, lies before you. See that it overcome you not!" And Paul said

wondering, "Oh, I have a heart, but it is altogether given to song."

And so Mark was silent.

Then Paul went to the Duke's Castle of Wresting and abode with him

year after year. Here, too, he made no friend; he was gracious with

all, and of a lofty courtesy, so that he was had in reverence; and he

made such music that the tears would come into the eyes of those who

heard him, and they would look at each other, and wonder how Paul

could thus tell the secret hopes of the heart. There were many women

in the castle, great ladies, young maidens, and those that attended on

them. Some of these would have proffered love to Paul, but their

glances fell before a certain cold, virginal, almost affronted look,

that he turned to meet any smile or gesture that seemed to hold in it

any personal claim, or to offer any gift but that of an equal and

serene friendship. As a maiden of the castle once said, provoked by

his coldness, "Sir Paul seems to have everything to say to all of us,

but nothing to any one of us." He was kind to all with a sort of great

and distant courtesy that was too secure even to condescend. And so

the years passed away.