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THE MYSTICS
A Novel
by
KATHERINE CECIL THURSTON
Author of
"The Masquerader" "The Gambler"
Illustrated
[Illustration: See Chap. VII "THE PROPHET WITH HIS FIXED GAZE UPON THE
SCITSYM"]
Harper & Brothers Publishers
New York and London
MCMVII
Copyright, 1904, by Katherine Cecil Thurston.
All rights reserved.
Published April, 1907.
To my Cousin
Nancy Inez Pollock
ILLUSTRATIONS
"THE PROPHET WITH HIS FIXED GAZE UPON THE SCITSYM" _Frontispiece_
"THE FIGURE OF HIS UNCLE ... SHOWED TALL AND
ANGULAR IN THE APERTURE" _Facing p._ 20
"HE ... GATHERED THE FIRST SHEAF OF LEAVES INTO
HIS FINGERS" " 40
"ACROSS THE PROPHET'S BREAST, IN MARKS OF A CRUEL
LACERATION, RAN THE SYMBOLIC OCTAGONAL FIGURE OF
THE MYSTIC SECT" " 56
"WITH A FRESH BURST OF TEARS, SHE TURNED AND FLUNG
HERSELF UPON THE COUCH" " 116
"HER HAND WAS TREMBLING AS SHE RAISED THE HEAVY
KNOCKER" " 136
"'I AM IN NEED OF HELP ... AND YOU CAN HELP ME'" " 146
"SHE SAW THE FIGURE OF THE PROPHET ... ATTENDED BY
THE PRECURSOR AND THE SIX ARCH-MYSTICS" " 158
THE MYSTICS
CHAPTER I
Of all the sensations to which the human mind is a prey, there is none
so powerful in its finality, so chilling in its sense of an impending
event as the knowledge that Death--grim, implacable Death--has cast his
shadow on a life that custom and circumstance have rendered familiar.
Whatever the personal feeling may be--whether dismay, despair, or
relief--no man or woman can watch that advancing shadow without a
quailing at the heart, an individual shrinking from the terrible,
natural mystery that we must all face in turn--each for himself and each
alone.
In a gaunt house on the loneliest point where the Scottish coast
overlooks the Irish Sea, John Henderson was watching his uncle die. In
the plain, whitewashed room where the sick man lay, a fire was burning
and a couple of oil-lamps shed an uncertain glow; but outside, the wind
roared inland from the shore, and the rain splashed in furious showers
against the windows of the house. It was a night of tumult and darkness;
but neither the old man who lay waiting for the end nor the young man
who watched that end approaching gave any heed to the turmoil of the
elements. Each was self-engrossed.
Except for an occasional rasping cough, or a slow, indrawn breath, no
sign came from the small iron bedstead on which the dying man lay. His
hard, emaciated face was set in an impenetrable mask; his glazed eyes
were fixed immovably on a distant portion of the ceiling; and his hands
lay clasped upon his breast, covering some object that depended from
his neck.
He had lain thus since the doctor from the neighboring town had braved
the rising storm and ridden over to see him in the fall of the evening;
and no accentuation of the gale that lashed the house, no increase in
the roar of the ocean three hundred yards away, had power to interrupt
his lethargy.
In curious contrast was the expression that marked his nephew's face. An
extraordinary suppressed energy was visible in every line of John
Henderson's body as he sat crouching over the fire; and a look of
irrepressible excitement smoldered in the eyes that gazed into the
glowing coals. He was barely twenty-three years old, but the
self-control that comes from endurance and privation sat unmistakably on
his knitted brows and closed lips. He was neither handsome of feature
nor graceful of figure, yet there was something more striking and
interesting than either grace or beauty in the strong, youthful form
and the strong, intelligent face. For a long time he retained his
crouching seat on the wooden stool that stood before the hearth; then at
last the activity at work within his mind made further inaction
intolerable. He rose and turned towards the bed.
The dying man lay motionless, awaiting the final summons with that
aloofness that suggests a spirit already partially extricated from its
covering of flesh. His glassy eyes were still fixed and immovable save
for an occasional twitching of the eyelids; his pallid lips were drawn
back from his strong, prominent teeth; and the skin about his temples
looked shrivelled and sallow. The doctor's parting words came sharply to
the younger man's mind.
"Sit still and watch him--you can do no more."
He reiterated this injunction many times mentally as he stood
contemplating the man who for seven interminable years had ruled,
repressed, and worked him as he might have worked a well-constructed,
manageable machine; and a sudden rush of joy, of freedom and recompense
flooded his heart and set his pulses throbbing. He momentarily lost
sight of the grim shadow hovering over the house. The sense of
emancipation rose tumultuously, over-ruling even the immense solemnity
of approaching Death.
John Henderson had known little of the easy, pleasant paths of
life, carpeted by wealth and sheltered by influence. His most
childish and distant recollections carried him back to days of
anxious poverty. His father, the elder son of a wealthy Scottish
landowner, had quarrelled with his father, and at the age of
twenty left his home, disinherited in favor of his younger brother.
Possessed of a peculiar temperament--passionate, headstrong, dogged
in his resolves, he had shaken the dust of Scotland from his feet;
sworn never to be beholden to either father or brother for the
fraction of a penny, and had gone out into the world to seek his
fortune. But the fortune had been far to seek. For years he had
followed the sea; for years he had toiled on land; but in every
undertaking failure stalked him. Finally, at the age of fifty, he
touched success for the first time. He fell in love and found his
love returned. But here again the irony of fate was constant in its
pursuit. The object of his choice was the daughter of an artist, a
man as needy, as entirely unfortunate as he himself.
But love at fifty is sometimes as blind as love at twenty-five. With an
improvidence that belied his nationality, Alick Henderson married after
a courtship as brief as it was happy. For a year he shared the
hap-hazard life of his wife and father-in-law; then Nature saw fit to
alter the small _ménage_. The artist died, and almost at the same time
little John was born.
With the coming of the child, Henderson conceived a new impetus and also
a new sense of bitterness and self-reproach. A homeless failure may
tramp the face of the earth and feel no shame; but the unsuccessful man
who is a husband and a father moves upon a different plane. He has
ties--responsibilities--something for which he must answer to himself.
There is pathos in the picture of a man setting forth at fifty-one to
conquer the world anew; and its grim futility is not good to look upon.
Henderson had failed for himself, and he failed equally for others. The
years that followed his marriage were but the unwinding of a pitifully
old story. Before his boy was ten years old he had run the gamut of
humiliation; he had done everything that the pinch of poverty could
demand, except apply for aid to his brother Andrew. This even the
faithful, patient wife who had stood stanch in all his trials never
dared to suggest.
In this atmosphere John learned to look upon life. A naturally
high-spirited and courageous child, he gradually fell under that spell
of premature understanding that is the portion of a mind forced too soon
to realize the significance of ways and means. Day by day his serious
eyes grew to comprehend the lines that marked his mother's beloved face;
to know the cost at which his own education, his own wants, were
supplied by the tired, silent father, who, despite his shabby clothes
and prematurely broken air, seemed perpetually to move in the glamour of
a past romance; and gradually, steadily, passionately, as these things
came home to him, there grew up in his youthful mind a desire to
compensate by his own future for the struggle he daily witnessed.
Many were the nights when--his lessons for the next day finished, and
his father away at one of the many precarious tasks that kept the
household together--he would draw close to his mother, as she sat
industriously sewing, and beg her for the hundredth time to recount the
story of the grim Scotch home where his father had lost his birthright;
of the stern old grandfather who had died inexorably unforgiving; of the
unknown uncle of whom rumor told many eccentric stories. And, roused by
the recital, his boyish face would flush, his boyish mind leap forward
towards the future.
"'Twill all come back, mother!" he would cry. "'Twill all come back!
I'll win it back!"
And, with a sobbing laugh, his mother would drop her sewing and draw him
to her heart in a sudden yearning of love and pride.
In such surroundings and in such an atmosphere he passed sixteen years;
then the first upheaval of his life took place. His father died.
His first recollection--when the terrible necessities of the event were
past, and his own grief and consternation had partially subsided--was
the remembrance of his mother calling him to her room; of her kissing
him, crying over him and telling him of the resolve she had taken to
write and make known his existence to his uncle in Scotland.
The confession at first overwhelmed him. His own pride, his sense of
loyalty to his father's memory prompted him to cry out against the idea
as against a sacrilege. Then slowly his boyish, immature mind grasped
something of the nobility that prompted the decision--something of the
inexpressible love that counted sentiment and personal dignity as
nothing beside his own future; and in a passion of gratitude he flung
his arms about his mother, repeating the old childish vows with a new
and deeper force.
So the letter to Scotland was despatched; and a time of sharp suspense
followed for mother and son. Then, one never-to-be-forgotten day, the
answer arrived.
Andrew Henderson wrote unemotionally. He expressed formal regret for his
brother's death, but evinced no interest in his sister-in-law's
position. He briefly described himself as living an isolated life in a
small house on the sea-coast, a dozen miles from the family home which
had remained untenanted since his father's death. He admitted that with
advancing years the duties of life had begun to weigh upon him,
diverting his mind and time from the graver pursuits to which his life
was devoted; finally he grudgingly suggested that, should his nephew
care to undertake the duties of secretary at a salary of sixty pounds a
year, he might find a home with him.
The immediate feeling that followed the reading of the letter was
fraught with chilling disappointment. On the moment, pride again
asserted itself, urging a swift refusal of the rich man's proposal; then
once more the patience that had kept Mrs. Henderson brave and gentle
during seventeen years of wearing poverty made itself felt. All thought
of personal grievance faded from her mind as she pointed out the urgent
necessity of John's being seen and known by this uncle, whose only
relation and ostensible heir he was. She talked for long, wisely and
kindly--as mothers talk out of the unselfish fulness of their
hearts--and with every word the golden castles of her imagination rose
tower on tower to form the citadel in which her son was to reign
supreme.
So wisely and so lovingly did she talk that she persuaded not only the
boy, but herself, into the belief that he had but to reach Scotland to
make his inheritance sure; and before the day closed she wrote to Andrew
Henderson accepting his offer. A week later the whole light of her life
went out, as she watched the train steam out of the station, carrying
John northward.
Upon the days that followed his arrival in Scotland there is no need to
dwell. He came as a stranger, and as a stranger he was introduced by
his uncle to the routine of work expected of him. No mention was made of
his recent loss, no suggestion was given that his mother should make her
double bereavement easier by visits to her son. Whatever of hope or
sentiment he had brought with him, he was left to destroy or smother as
best he could.
The first week resolved itself into one round of boyish homesickness and
desolation; then gradually, as the marvellous healing properties of
youth began to stir, a new feeling awakened in his mind--a sense of
curiosity concerning the strange old man whom fate, by a twist of the
wheel, had made the arbiter of his life. Even to one so young and
inexperienced, it was impossible to know Andrew Henderson and not to
feel that some strange peculiarity set him apart from other men. In his
ascetic face, in his large, light-blue eyes, in his extraordinary air of
abstraction and aloofness from mundane things, there was something that
fascinated and repelled; and with a wondering interest the boy studied
these things, trying in his unformed way to reconcile them with his
narrow experience of human nature.
For many weeks he sought without success for some key to the attitude of
this new-found relative. Then one evening--when solution seemed least
near--the key, metaphorically speaking, fell at his feet. Returning home
from a ramble over the headland, his observant eye was caught by the
sight of a narrow foot-track that, crossing the main pathway of the
cliff, wound steeply upward and seemingly lost itself in a tangle of
gorse and bracken. Stirred by a boyish desire for exploration, he
paused, turned into this obscure track, and incontinently began its
ascent.
For some hundreds of yards it led upward in a sharp incline; and with
its added steepness, the ardor of the explorer warmed. With impetuous
haste he climbed the last dozen yards; when, as the anticipated summit
was reached, he halted in abrupt, dismayed surprise; for with alarming
suddenness the land broke off short, disclosing a deep gap or fissure,
carpeted with heather and surrounded by natural protecting walls of
rock, in the centre of which was set a miniature chapel built of dark
stone.
At sight of the little edifice, he thrilled with adventurous surprise.
There was something mysterious, something almost fine in the sight of
the small temple, with the setting sun gleaming on its solid walls, its
low, massive door and round window of thick stained glass. He leaned out
over the shelving rock, staring down upon it with wide, astonished eyes;
then the natural instinct of the boy overtopped every other feeling.
With a quick-movement of excitement and expectation, he began to descend
into the hollow.
But though he walked round the little building a dozen times, shook the
heavy door and peered ineffectually into the opaque window, nothing
rewarded his curiosity, and after half an hour of diligent endeavor he
was compelled to return home no wiser than when he had first stood on
the summit of the path and looked down into the rocky cleft.
All that evening, however, the thought of his discovery remained with
him. At the eight-o'clock supper of porridge, vegetables, and fruit
which he shared with his uncle, he chafed under the silence of his
companion and at the air of calm indifference that the whitewashed room
with its raftered ceiling seemed to wear; and it was with a sigh of
satisfaction that he rose from table and bade his uncle a formal
good-night.
With the same suggestion of relief, he watched the old man light his
candle and ascend the bare stairs to his own room; then prompted by the
impulse he never neglected, he went into the study to write the daily
letter that made his mother's existence bearable.
He wrote for nearly an hour, omitting no detail of the evening's
discovery. Then, as he closed and sealed the letter, a clock on the
mantel-piece struck ten. The sound had an oddly hollow and chilly effect
in the bare, carpetless room; and unconsciously he raised his head and
glanced about him. His ideas, still stirred by his adventure, were more
prone than usual to the suggestion of outward things; and for almost the
first time since his arrival, he felt drawn to study his intimate
surroundings. With a new curiosity he let his eyes wander from the
severe book-shelves to the ugly iron safe that stood in the most
prominent position in the room; and from the safe his glance turned to
the revolving bookcase by his uncle's favorite chair, in which lay the
volumes that were in daily use. Following an impulse he had never
previously been conscious of, he crossed the room, and drawing three
books, at hap-hazard from the case, studied their titles.
_The Indissoluble Essence_, he read; _The Soul in Relation to the Human
Mind_; _The Mystic Influence_.
He stood for a space gazing at the sombre covers, but making no attempt
to dip into their pages; then a sudden look of comprehension sprang into
his eyes. The oddly built stone chapel took on a new and more personal
meaning. With a quick gesture he thrust the books back into their place,
extinguished the lamp, and softly left the room. Gaining the hall, he
did not turn towards the stairs; but tiptoeing to the table, picked up
his cap, crossed the hall noiselessly and opened the outer door.
The warmth of the August day was still heavy on the air as he stepped
into the open; a great copper-colored moon hung low over the sea, and a
soft, filmy haze lay over both land and water. Without hesitation he
turned into the cliff path, and followed it until his quick eyes caught
the indistinct foot-track that he had discovered earlier in the evening.
With the same decision, the same suggestion of anticipation, he stepped
rapidly forward and once more began the sharp ascent.
The impetus of his curiosity carried him forward; he mounted the path in
hot haste; then, as he gained the summit, he halted again, but in new
surprise. In the hazy, mellow moonlight, the small building stood out
sharp and dark as on his previous visit, but from the round,
stained-glass window a flood of light--crimson, rose-color, and
gold--poured out into the night.