in other cases, of their likeness to each other, needing different
coloured ribbons to distinguish them; and of the old man's anxious
doting care over them. Many a pretty group, doubtless, they made, on
warm summer afternoons, on the shady terrace; but the old grandfather
died when they were seven years old, and slept with his father beneath
the Chapel floor. After the funeral, Eustace Inglesant had intended
taking both the children back with him to London, but he had
discovered--or fancied he had discovered--that the youngest was sickly,
and would be better for the country air; and therefore kept him at
Westacre, when he returned to the city with his brother. The truth
appears to be that he was a worldly, selfish man, and while fully
conscious of the advantage of an heir, he was by no means desirous of
giving himself more trouble than was necessary about either of his
children. The old Priory, however, was, at this time, not a bad place
to bring up a child in, though it had been neglected during the last ten
or eleven years; though the woods were overgrown, and the oaks came up,
in places, close to the house; though the Prior's fish-ponds had
transformed themselves into a large pool or lake; though the garden was
a tangled wilderness, and centaury, woodsorrel, and sour herbs covered
the ground; though the old courtyard and the Chapel itself were
mouldering and ruinous, yet the air of the rich vales in the north of
Wiltshire is more healthy than that of the higher downs, which are often
covered with fogs when the vales are clear, and the sky is bright and
serene. It was remarked that people lived longer in the valleys than at
places that would be supposed peculiarly healthy on the hills; that they
sang better in the churches; and that books and rooms were not so damp
and mouldy in the low situations as they were in those which stood very
high, with no river or marsh near them. The fogs at times, indeed, came
down into the valleys; and in the courtyard of the Priory dim forms had
been seen flitting through the mist, in reality the shadows of the
spectators thrown upon the mist itself, from the light of a lanthorn.
Such sights as these in such a place, so haunted by the memories of the
past, gave rise to many strange stories--to which young Inglesant
listened with wonder, as he did, also, to others of the _ignis fatuus_,
which, called by the people "Kit of the Candlestick," used, about
Michaelmas, to be very common on the downs, and to wander down to the
valleys across the low boggy grounds--stories of its leading travellers
astray, and fascinating them. The boy grew up among such strange
stories, and lived, indeed, in the old world that was gone for ever.
His grandfather's dimly remembered anecdotes were again and again
recalled by others, all of the same kind, which he heard every day.
Stories of the rood in the Chapel, of the mass wafer with its mysterious
awfulness and power, of the processions and midnight singing at the
Priory. The country was full of the scattered spoil of the monasteries;
old and precious manuscripts were used everywhere by the schoolboys for
covering their books, and for the covers of music; and the glovers of
Malmsbury wrapped their goods in them. In the churchyards the yew-trees
stood thick and undecayed, scarcely grown again from the last lopping to
supply bows for the archers of the King's army. The story was common of
the Becket's path, along which he had been used to pass when cure priest
at Winterbourn, and which could be seen through the deepest snow, or if
ploughed up and sown with corn. Indeed the path itself could be seen
within a pleasant ride across the downs from Westacre.
The boy's first instructor was the old curate of the Chapel, who taught
him his Church Catechism and his latin grammar. This man appears to have
been one of those ministers so despised by the Puritans as "mere grammar
scholars," who knew better how to read a homily than to make a sermon;
yet John Inglesant learnt of him more good lessons than he did, as he
himself owned, afterwards from many popular sermons; and in his old age
he acknowledged that he believed the only thing that had kept him back
in after years, and under great temptations, from formally joining the
communion of the Church of Rome, was some faint prejudice, some
lingering dislike, grounded on the old man's teaching. Other teachers,
of a different kind, the child had in plenty. The old servants who
still remained in the house; the woodsmen and charcoal burners; the
village girls whom the housekeeper hired from year to year at Malmsbury
fair; the old housekeeper who had been his mother's maid, and whom the
boy looked on as his mother, and who could coax him to her lap when he
was quite a tall boy, by telling him stories of his mother; one or two
falconers or huntsmen who lingered about the place, or watched the woods
for game for the gentry around. When he was ten years old, in 1632, the
curate of the Chapel died; and Mr. Inglesant did not at once replace
him, for reasons which will appear presently. John led a broken
scholastic life for a year, going to school when it was fine enough to
make a pleasant walk attractive to ----, where the Vicar taught some
boys their grammar and latin Terence in the Church itself; and where
there was a tradition that the great antiquary, Master Camden,
Clarencieux King of Arms, coming on his survey to examine the Church,
found him, and spoke to him and his scholars. At the end of a year,
however, his father coming into the country, arranged for him to go to
school at Ashley, where he was to stay in the house with the Vicar, a
famous schoolmaster in the west country. This gentleman, who was a
delicate and little person, and had an easy and attractive way of
teaching, was a Greek scholar and a Platonist, a Rosicrucian and a
believer in alchemy and astrology. He found in little Inglesant an apt
pupil, an apprehensive and inquisitive boy, mild of spirit, and very
susceptible of fascination, strongly given to superstition and romance:
of an inventive imagination though not a retentive memory; given to day
dreaming, and,--what is more often found in children than some may
think, though perhaps they could not name it,--metaphysical speculation.
The Vicar taught his boys in the hall of his Vicarage--a large room with
a porch, and armorial bearings in the stained glass in the windows. Out
of this opened a closet or parlour where he kept his books, and in this
he would sit after school was over, writing his learned treatises, most
of which he would read to John Inglesant, some of them in latin. This,
with his readings in Plato, assisted by his eager interest, gave John,
as he grew older, a considerable acquaintance with both languages, so
that he could read most books in either of them, and turn over the
remnants of the old world learning that still remained in the Prior's
Library, with that lazy facility which always gives a meaning, though
often an incorrect one--not always a matter of regret to an imaginative
reader, as adding a charm, and, where his own thought is happy, a
beauty. Here he imbibed that mysterious Platonic philosophy, which--seen
through the reflected rays of Christianity--becomes, as his master
taught him, in some sort a foreshadowing of it, as the innocent and
heroic life of Socrates, commended and admired by Christians as well as
heathens, together with his august death, may be thought, in some
measure, to have borne the image of Christ; and, indeed, not without
some mystery of purpose, and preparation of men for Christianity, has
been so magnified among men. Here, too, he eagerly drank in his
master's Rosicrucian theories of spiritual existences; of the vital
congruity and three several vehicles of the soul; the terrestrial, in
which the soul should be so trained that she may stay as short a time as
possible in the second or aerial, but proceed at once to the third, the
etherial, or celestial; "that heavenly chariot, carrying us, in triumph,
to the great happiness of the soul of man." Of the aerial genii, and
souls separate, and of their converse with one another, and with
mankind. Of their dress, beauty, and outward form; of their pleasures
and entertainments, from the Divinest harmony of the higher orders, who,
with voices perfectly imitating the passionate utterance of their devout
minds, melt their souls into Divine Love, and lose themselves in joy in
God; while all nature is transformed by them to a quintessence of
crystalline beauty by the chemical power of the spirit of nature, acting
on pure essences. Of the feastings and wild dances of the lower and
deeply lapsed, in whom some sad and fantastic imitation of the higher
orders is to be traced; and of those aerial wanderers to whom poetical
philosophers or philosophical poets have given the rivers and
springs--the mountains and groves; with the Dii Tutelares of cities and
countries; and the Lares familiares, who love the warmth of families and
the homely converse of men. These studies are but a part of the course
of which occult chemistry and the lore of the stars form a part; and
that mysterious Platonism which teaches that Pindar's story of the Argo
is only a secret recipe for the philosopher's stone; and which pretends
that at this distance of time the life of Priam can be read more surely
in the stars than in history.
More than three years passed in these pursuits, when Inglesant,--now a
tall, handsome, dreamy-looking boy of fourteen, was suddenly recalled to
Westacre by his father, who had unexpectedly arrived from London. His
master, who was very fond of him, gave him many words of learned advice;
for he expected, as proved to be the case, that his school-days--at
least as far as he was concerned,--were ended. He concluded with these
words:--
"I have done my best to show you those hidden truths which the heathen
divines knew as well as we; how much more, then, ought we to follow
them, who have the light of Christ! Do not talk of these things, but
keep them in your heart; hear what all men say, but follow no man: there
is nothing in the world of any value but the Divine Light,--follow it.
What it is no man can tell you; but I have told you many times, and you
know very well it is not here nor there, as men shall tell you, for all
men say they have it who are ignorant of its very nature. It will
reveal itself when the time shall come. If you go to the Court, as I
think you will, attach yourself wholly to the King and the Church party,
the foundations of whose power are in the Divine will. I foresee dark
clouds overhanging the Church, but let not these affright you; behind,
the Divine Light shineth--the Light that shineth from the hill of God.
I have taught you to clear your soul from the mists of carnal error, but
I have never told you to act freely in this world: you are not placed
here to reason (as the sectaries and precisians do), but to obey.
Remember it is the very seal of a gentleman--to obey: remember the
Divine words of Plato, in the Crito, when Socrates was about to suffer;
how he refused, when urged, to break those laws under which he was
falsely condemned. Let those words ring in your ears as they did in
his; so that, like the worshippers of Cybele, who heard only the flutes,
you shall hear nothing but the voice of God, speaking to you in that
rank in which He has placed you, through those captains whom He has
ordained to the command. Whenever--and in whatever place--the Divine
Light shall appear to you, be assured it will never teach you anything
contrary to this."
There was no horse sent for John, but he was obliged to ride in an
uncomfortable manner before the serving man who was sent to fetch him;
children, and especially younger sons, being treated as little better
than servants, and they were indeed often tyrannised over by the latter.
When he reached Westacre, he was told his father was in one of the rooms
in the new wing of the house, and on entering, he found him in company
with three other persons. One of these was the newly appointed curate
of the Church, whom Johnny had never yet seen; the other was a fine,
handsomely dressed man, with a lofty, high-bred look, and in the window
was a beautiful boy of about John's own age, in the costly dress of a
page. Inglesant knew that this must be his brother Eustace; and after
humbly receiving his father's rather cold greeting, he hastened to
embrace him, and he returned the greeting with warmth. But his father
immediately presented him to the gentleman who stood by him; telling him
that this gentleman would probably spend some time at Westacre, and that
it was chiefly that he should attend him, that he had sent for him home;
charging him, at the same time, to serve and obey him implicitly, as he
would his father or the King.
"He is a mere country lad," he said, "very different from his brother,
but he is young, and may be useful in after days."
The gentleman looked at Johnny kindly, with a peculiar expression which
the boy had never before seen, penetrating and alluring at the same
time.
"He is, as you say, Esquire, a country lad, and wants the fine clothes
of my friend the page, nevertheless he is a gallant and gentle boy, and
were he attired as finely, would not shame you, Mr. Inglesant, more than
he does. And I warrant," he continued, "this one is good at his books."
And sitting down, he drew Johnny on his knee, and taking from his pocket
a small book, he said: "Here, my friend, let us see how you can read in
this."
It was the Phaedo of Plato, which Johnny knew nearly by heart, and he
immediately began, with almost breathless rapidity, to construe with,
here and there, considerable freedom, till the gentleman stopped him
with a laugh. "Gently, gently, my friend. I saw you were a scholar, but
not that you were a complete Platonist! I fear your master is one who
looks more to the Divine sense than to the grammar! But never mind, you
and I shall be much together, and as you are so fond of Plato, you shall
read him with me. You shall go to your brother, who, if he cannot read
'In Phaedone,' can tell you many wonderful things of the Court and the
city that no doubt you will hear very gladly;" and letting Johnny go, he
turned to his father, saying, in an undertone, which, however, the boy
heard; "The lad is apt, indeed! more so than any of us could have
dreamt; no fitter soil, I could wager, we could have found in England!"
Johnny went to his brother, and they left the room together. The two
boys,--as the two children had been,--were remarkably alike; the more so
as this likeness of form and feature, which to a casual observer
appeared exact, was consistent with a very remarkable difference of
expression and manner--the difference being, as it were, contained in
the likeness without destroying it. Their affection for each other,
which continued through life, was something of the same nature, arising
apparently from instinct and nature, apart from inclination. Their
tastes and habits being altogether different, they pursued their several
courses quite contentedly, without an effort to be more united, but once
united, or once recalled to each other's presence or recollection even
in the most accidental manner, they manifested a violent and
overpowering attachment to each other. On the present occasion they
wandered through the gardens and neighbourhood of the Priory; and as the
strange gentleman had foretold, Johnny took the greatest interest in the
conversation of his brother, whom, indeed, he both now and afterwards
most unfeignedly admired, and to whose patronage he invariably submitted
with perfect satisfaction. Eustace, who had lately been admitted one of
the junior supernumerary pages to the King, talked incessantly of the
King's state and presence chamber, of the yeomen of the guard, of the
pageants and masques, and of banquets, triumphs, interviews, nuptials,
tilts, and tournaments; the innumerable delights of the city; of the
stage players, tumblers, fiddlers, inn-keepers, fencers, jugglers,
dancers, mountebanks, bear-wardens; of sweet odours and perfumes,
generous wines, the most gallant young men, the fairest ladies, the
rarest beauties the world could afford, the costly and curious attire,
exquisite music, all delights and pleasures which, to please the senses,
could possibly be devised; galleries and terraces, rowing on the Thames,
with music, on a pleasant evening, with the goodly palaces, and the
birds singing on the banks.
All this Johnny listened to with admiration, and made little reply to
his brother's disparaging remarks on the miserable life he had led in
the country, or to his sage advice to endeavour, by some means, to come
to London to the Court.
Johnny remembered his master's counsel, and was silent on his own
pleasures and pursuits. His pleasant walks by the brook side, pleasant
shade by the sweet silver streams, good air, and sweet smell of fine,
fresh meadow flowers, his walks among orchards, gardens, green thickets,
and such-like pleasant places, in some solitary groves between wood and
water, meditating on some delightful and pleasant subject--he thought
his brother would only ridicule these things. It is true the next day
when they went to the Avon to see an otter hunted, Johnny occupied the
foremost place for a time; he was known to the keepers, and to two or
three gentlemen who were at the sport, and was familiar with the terms
in tracing the mark of the otter, and following through all the craft of
the hunting, tracing the marks in the soft and moist places to see which
way the head of the chase was turned. He carried his otter spear as
well as any of the company, while the hounds came trailing and chanting
along by the river-side, venting every tree root, every osier bed and
tuft of bulrushes, and sometimes taking to the water, and beating it
like spaniels. But as soon as the otter, escaping from the spears, was
killed by the dogs, or, having by its wonderful sagacity and craft
avoided the dogs, was killed by the spears, Eustace assumed his superior
place, coming forward to talk to the gentlemen, who were delighted with
him, while Johnny fell back into the quiet, dreamy boy again.
The two brothers were left together for several days, their father, with
the strange gentleman--whose name Eustace told Johnny was Hall--having
departed on horseback, on a visit to a gentleman in Gloucestershire.
Eustace observed great caution in speaking of Mr. Hall, telling Johnny
he would know all about him soon from himself. The boys passed the time
happily enough. Johnny's affection for his brother increased every day,
and withstood not only Eustace's patronage, but--what must have been
much more hard to bear--the different way in which the servants treated
the two boys. Eustace, who, though only a few minutes older than his
brother, was the heir, was treated with great deference and respect;
which might possibly also be owing to his being a stranger and to his
Court breeding. Johnny, on the contrary, though he was quite as tall as
his brother, they treated like a child: the housekeeper took him up to
bed when it pleased her; the old butler would have caned him without
hesitation had he thought he deserved it; and the maids alternately
petted and scolded him, the first of which was more disagreeable to him
than the last. The hard condition of children, and especially of
younger brothers, is a common theme of the writers of the period, and
Johnny's experience was not different from that of others. His
disposition, however, was not injured by it, though it may have made him
still fonder of retirement and of day-dreaming than he would have been.
This hard discipline made him resolve to be silent on those wonderful
secrets and the learning that his master had taught him, and to meditate
increasingly upon them in his heart. He delighted more and more in
wandering by the river-side, building castles in the air, and acting an
infinite variety of parts. When his brother left him, this became still
more delightful to him, and but for other influences he might have gone
on in this fascinating habit till he realised Burton's terrible
description, and from finding these contemplations and fantastical
conceits so delightful at first, might have become the slave of vain and
unreal fancies, which may be as terrible and dismal as pleasing and
delightful.
After about a fortnight's absence, Mr. Inglesant and Mr. Hall returned
from their visit, or visits, for they appeared to have stayed at several
places; and the next day Eustace and his father departed for London.
His father displayed more affection than usual on leaving Johnny behind
him, assuring him of his love, and that if he heard a good account of
him from Mr. Hall, he should come up to London and see the Court.
Eustace's grief at losing his brother again was much lessened by his joy
at returning to his congenial life in London; but Johnny watched him
from the old gatehouse in front of the Priory with a sad heart.
While he is standing looking after his father and brother, as they ride
up the hill by the same path which the Prior came down that fine summer
morning long years before, we will take a moment's time to explain
certain events of which he was perfectly ignorant, but which were about
to close about him and involve him in a labyrinth from which he may have
been said never to have issued during his life. We call ourselves free
agents;--was this slight, delicate boy a free agent, with a mind and
spirit so susceptible, that the least breath affected them: around whom
the throng of national contention was about to close; on whom the
intrigue of a great religious party was about to seize, involving him in
a whirlpool and rapid current of party strife and religious rancour?
Must not the utmost that can be hoped,--that can be even rationally
wished for--be, that by the blessing of the Divine guidance, he may be
able to direct his path a little towards the Light?