III_Aylwin_笔趣阁

Between my new companion, Wilderspin, and myself there was an awkward

silence for some time. He was evidently in a brown study. I had ample

opportunity for examining his face. Deeply impressed upon his forehead

there was, as I now perceived, an ancient scar of a peculiar shape. At

last, a lovely bit of scenery broke the spell, and conversation began

to flow freely.

We had nearly got within sight of the encampment when he said,

'I am in some perplexity, sir, about the various branches of your

family. Aylwin, I need not tell you, was the name of the greatest man

of this age, and I am anxious to know what is exactly your connection

with him.'

'You surprise me,' I said. 'Out of our own family, in its various

branches, there is, I have been told, no very large number of

Aylwins, and I had no idea that one of them had become famous.'

'I did not say famous, sir, but great; two very different words. Yet,

in a certain deep sense, it may be said of Philip Aylwin's name that

since his lamented death it has even become famous. The Aylwinians

(of which body I am, as you are no doubt aware, founder and

president) are, I may say, becoming--'

'Philip Aylwin!' I said. 'Why, that was my father. He famous!'

The recollection of the essay upon 'Hamalet and Hamlet,' the thought

of the brass-rubbings, the kneecaps and mittens, came before me in an

irresistibly humorous light, and I could not repress a smile. Then

arose upon me the remembrance of the misery that had fallen upon

Winnie and myself from his monomania and what seemed to me his

superstitious folly, and I could not withhold an angry scowl. Then

came the picture of the poor scarred breast, the love-token, and the

martyrdom that came to him who had too deeply loved, and smile and

frown both passed from my face as I murmured,--'Poor father! he

famous!

'Philip Aylwin's son!' said Wilderspin, staring at me. Then, raising

his hat as reverentially to me as if I had been the son of

Shakespeare himself, he said, 'Mr. Aylwin, since Mary Wilderspin went

home to heaven, the one great event of my life has been the reading

of _The Veiled Queen_, your father's book of inspired wisdom upon the

modern Renascence of Wonder in the mind of Man. To apply his

principles to Art, sir--to give artistic rendering to the profound

idea hinted at in the marvellous vignette on the title-page of his

third edition--has been, for some time past, the proud task of my

life. And you are the great man's son! Astonishing! Although his

great learning overwhelms my mind and appals my soul (whom, indeed,

should it not overwhelm and appal?) there is not a pamphlet of his

that I do not know intimately, almost by heart.'

'Including the paper on "Hamlet and Hamalet, and the wide region of

Nowhere"?'

'Including that and everything.'

'Did you know him, Mr. Wilderspin?'

'Not in the flesh; in the spirit, who knows him so well? Your mother

I have had the pleasure of meeting at the house of Lord Sleaford, and

indeed I have had the distinguished honour of painting her portrait;

but the great author of _The Veiled Queen_--the inspired designer of

the vignette symbolical of the Renascence of Wonder in Art--I never

had the rapture of seeing. This very day, the anniversary of his

birth,' he continued, 'is a great day in the Aylwinian calendar.'

'My father's birthday? Why, so it is!'

'Mr. Aylwin, is it possible that the anniversary of a day so

momentous for the world is forgotten--forgotten by the very issue of

the great man's loins?'

'The fact is,' said I, in some confusion, 'I have been living with

the Gypsies, and, you see, Mr. Wilderspin, the passage of time--'

'The son of Philip Aylwin a Gypsy!' murmured Wilderspin meditatively,

and unconscious evidently that he was speaking aloud--'a Gypsy! Still

it would surely be a mistake to suppose,' he continued, perfectly

oblivious now of my presence, 'that the vagaries of his son can

really bring shame upon the head of the father.'

'But, by God!' I cried, 'it is no mistake that the vagaries of the

father can bring shame and sorrow and misery upon the child. I could

name a couple of fathers--sleeping very close to each other

now--whose vagaries--'

My sudden anger was carrying me away; but I stopped, recollecting

myself.

'Doubtless,' said Wilderspin, 'there are fathers and fathers. The son

of Philip Aylwin has assuredly a right to be critical in regard to

all other fathers than his own.'

I looked in his face; the expression of solemn earnestness was quite

unmistakable.

'It is not you,' I said, 'it is Heaven, or else it is the blind

jester Circumstance, that is playing this joke upon me!'

'To your honoured father,' he continued, taking not the slightest

notice of my interjection, 'I owe everything. From his grave he

supports my soul; from his grave he gives me ideas; from his grave

he makes my fame. How should I fail to honour his son, even though

he--'

Of course he was going to add--'even though he be a vagabond

associating with vagabonds,'--but he left the sentence unfinished.

'I confess, Mr. Wilderspin,' said I, 'that you speak in such enigmas

that it would be folly for me to attempt to answer you.'

'I wish,' said Wilderspin, 'that all enigmas were as soluble as this.

Let me ask you a question, sir. When you stood before my picture,

"Faith and Love," in Bond Street, did you not perceive that both it

and the predella were inspired entirely by your father's great work,

_The Veiled Queen_, or rather that they are mere pictorial

renderings and illustrations of that grand effort of man's soul in

its loftiest development?'

I had never heard of the picture in question. As for the book, my

father, perceiving my great dislike of mysticism, had always shrunk

from showing me any effusion of his that was not of a simply

antiquarian kind. In Switzerland, however, after his death, while

waiting for the embalmer to finish his work, I had become, during a

few days' reading, acquainted with _The Veiled Queen_. It was a new

edition containing an 'added chapter,' full of subtle spiritualistic

symbols. Amid what had seemed to me mere mystical jargon about the

veil of Isis being uplifted, not by Man's reason, not by such

researches as those of Darwin, Huxley, Spencer, and the continental

evolutionists, but by Faith and Love, I had come across passages of

burning eloquence.

'I am sorry to say,' I replied, 'that my Gypsy wanderings are again

answerable for my shortcomings. I have not yet seen your picture.

When I do see it I--'

'Not seen "Faith and Love" and the equally wonderful predella at the

foot of it!' he exclaimed incredulously. 'Ah, but you have been

living among the Gypsies. It is the greatest picture of the modern

world; for, Mr. Aylwin, it renders in Art the inevitable attitude of

its own time and country towards the unseen world, and renders it as

completely as did the masterpiece of Polygnotus in the Lesche of the