It is one o'clock in the morning--and I have been going to bed at nine!
You will wonder what has happened to so outrageously disturb the
rigorous routine governing my night hours, and I shall tell you, for
that is the purpose of this chronicle.
It is now three days since I went to Hebron. After leaving the priest's
house I came on down the hill, trudged back to the river to get my coat
and garden seed, then turned homeward. The sun was hot by this time, my
clothes quickly dried on me, and I have felt no bad effects since.
Another sign, it seems to me, of my increasing physical sturdiness.
These three days have passed without sight or sound of a soul. I have
pottered about my yard, mowing down the insistent heterogeneous growth
which daily now threatens to take me; clearing a broad space about my
precious well--whose water, by the way, is sparkling, clear and
cold--and this morning spading in my garden for two hours or more.
I cannot explain that which follows, but a little before nine, as I was
preparing to light my bedtime pipe and sit down for a chuckle with that
old pagan monk, Rabelais, I felt the call to go up. As I said, I can
offer no explanation. But all of us have been subject, many times in our
lives, to sudden, inexplicable yearnings; silent longings as powerful
and real as though a voice had spoken them. There is no need to
specialize. You, if you have a spark of temperament, will understand,
because you will have experienced something of the sort. You have felt
that mysterious tugging toward a certain thing, when there was nothing
on earth to incite it. What was it? I felt it to-night as I held my pipe
in one hand and a lighted match in the other; felt it growing and
expanding until it became a fierce desire. I tossed my half-burned match
among the logs in the fireplace, put my filled pipe in my pocket, and
with something akin to awe sobering my face, drew my cap on my head and
walked softly outdoors.
It was a perfect moonless May night. I had never seen the stars brighter
or nearer. I felt that by tiptoeing I might almost reach them. And their
number amazed me. The sky was looking down at me with a million eyes,
and each eye was a voice which said "Come up! Come up!" I went, not
stopping to question, analyze, or combat. Something irresistible urged
me to surmount the peak, and I bent to the climb. As I came out of the
Stygian gloom of the belt of evergreens I knew that some subtle change
had taken place. The atmosphere had a different feel; a different smell.
There was no wind, but when I swept my gaze around I saw many horizon
clouds; jagged, mountainous looking outlines, with floating fragments
everywhere. Some of the cloud fragments would touch and merge even as I
watched them. I did not know the significance, if there was any. I
turned to the slope again. Before the last steep stretch I halted the
second time. Far as I could see the perspective was bounded by a black,
towering wall, which seemed to grow taller every moment. This wall was
topped by fantastic turrets and towers which swayed, lengthened,
expanded, or disappeared at will. Still there was no wind, even at the
great height to which I had already come. The day had been suffering
hot, and the perspiration was streaming from me. I breathed softly, and
listened. No sound but the monotonous call of the night insects, except
from a point far below, like the muffled cry of a lost soul pleading for
grace, the ineffably sad tones of a whip-poor-will pulsed dimly through
the dark. I turned my face upward. The calm stars still called, and I
answered.
Presently I could go no further. I stood on the apex of my high hill, a
jubilation of spirit making my breast to heave in deeper breaths than my
exertion had caused. Then, ere I knew what I was about I had flung my
arms out and up, toward the vast deeps from which had come the still
summons I had felt in the quiet peace of the Lodge. I felt unreal; I was
trembling. I knew not what impended, but the air was charged with an
electrical tenseness, and the pall of utter silence which hung over the
world was pregnant with import. My arms dropped, and a sweet calm stole
over me. Slowly I turned my gaze in every direction. That mammoth wall
of blackness encircled the earth in an unbroken line, and was now
quickly mounting to the zenith. How grand the sight! I bared my head
before the majesty of it. How like battlements and ramparts the grim
expanses appeared, crowned with their changing towers! And to make the
comparison still more true, I now saw the flash of cannon through the
jagged embrasures, and caught the distant thunder of their detonations.
Quickly the conflict grew. North, south, east and west, and all between,
the batteries of the sky unveiled. Not loud, as yet, but perpetual, and
furious in the very absence of thunderous sound. There were constant
growlings and incessant flashings, as back and forth over the aerial
battleground the challenges were sent and answered. Now, a girdle of
glory, the lightning zoned the middle sky, and ever upward, as though
propelled by forces set in the earth beneath, the walls arose, blotting
out stars by the thousands, and steadily converging toward a common
meeting point directly overhead. Then, for the first time, I knew that
the Harpist of the Wood had awakened.
The unnatural stillness was disturbed by motion which became a breath of
music. I leaned forward involuntarily, my lips apart, my hands
out-thrust from me in the attitude one unconsciously assumes when
listening intently. From the thick darkness hundreds of feet below I
caught the first faint pianissimo notes from a million strings, all
attuned by the unerring touch of Nature. In gentle waftures of sound the
vast prelude arose, filling my soul with an eerie delight, and causing
me to draw a deep, shuddering breath. Then I crept to the rim of the
peak and sat down, both humbled and exalted. Faintly now I sensed the
reason of that imperious call to come up. Each succeeding measure struck
by the invisible Harpist became louder, sweeter, and more stupendous. It
seemed as if all creation was one mighty instrument, and a
myriad-fingered master was sweeping the throbbing strings. The clouds
were now a canopy without a rent. From a dozen points at once the
lightning flashed and staggered and reeled in dazzling splendor across
the sable field. There were no terrific thunder crashes. But, like the
pedal bass of a pipe organ, there was the ever present subdued
reverberation like far-off guns fired in unison. Then the strength and
skill of the Harpist increased simultaneously, and waves of barbaric
melody rushed upward. There was shriek and groan; there were living
voices awfully mingled in one wild chorus, and in brief lulls trembling
tones as sweet as a mother's good-night song to her babe. Flute-like and
full of delicate color a cadenza breathing of sylvan joys rippled forth,
and as its last bubbling notes yet fluttered like apple-blossoms of
sound against my ravished ears, they were drowned and whelmed by a
crashing diapason of majestic harmony which rushed on wide wings over
leagues and leagues of forest; a thundering gamut fearfully blended into
an oratorio inexpressibly sublime! Wild and shrill came a fife-like call
from the west, whistling out of the gloom in a quivering cadence of
victorious escape. Then it was blended with a multitudinous legion of
loosened chords, and dashed over me as a surging, resplendent sea of
mind-numbing melody.
So the oratorio advanced, and I sat enthralled.
The lightning increased. Not for the space of a single breath was
darkness absolute. In the vivid flashes I could see the bending
tree-tops far below, and the tossing, swaying, writhing branches. And
ever in my ears was the awful roll of that supernatural music; so full,
so deep, so filling all the universe with its changing rhythm! There was
something of the ocean's voice in it all, when the wind whips it to
fury. I sat dazed, imperfectly comprehending what was passing, but aware
all the time of a physical sensation of exquisite pleasure. Music had
always wrought upon me thus, but before the presence of this new and
strange manifestation my sensibilities were quickened twentyfold. I did
not know till later that I was on the peak three hours. I would have
said it was only a few minutes.
When all was over, and the strings of the Harp were still again, or
vibrating only as an echo, I got on my feet, dizzy and weak. All was
dark. The lightning, too, had ceased. But as I turned my eyes upward, a
rent showed in the cloud canopy, and through this a blood-red meteor
fell burning toward the earth. So I knew that the Maestro was pleased
with the performance, and from the blooming fields above had cast down a
flower in token of His favor.