It is uncertain how the Faun came to be in Wiltshire. Perhaps he came
over with the Roman legionaries to live with his friends in camp,
talking to them of Lucretius, or Garganus or of the slopes of Etna; they
in the joy of their recall forgot to take him on board, and he wept in
exile; but at last he found that our hills also understood his sorrows,
and rejoiced when he was happy. Or, perhaps he came to be there because
he had been there always. There is nothing particularly classical about
a faun: it is only that the Greeks and Italians have ever had the
sharpest eyes. You will find him in the "Tempest" and the "Benedicite;"
and any country which has beech clumps and sloping grass and very clear
streams may reasonably produce him.
How I came to see him is a more difficult question. For to see him there
is required a certain quality, for which truthfulness is too cold a name
and animal spirits too coarse a one, and he alone knows how this quality
came to be in me. No man has the right to call himself a fool, but I may
say that I then presented the perfect semblance of one. I was facetious
without humour and serious without conviction. Every Sunday I would
speak to my rural parishioners about the other world in the tone of one
who has been behind the scenes, or I would explain to them the errors of
the Pelagians, or I would warn them against hurrying from one
dissipation to another. Every Tuesday I gave what I called "straight
talks to my lads"--talks which led straight past anything awkward. And
every Thursday I addressed the Mothers' Union on the duties of wives or
widows, and gave them practical hints on the management of a family of
ten.
I took myself in, and for a time I certainly took in Emily. I have never
known a girl attend so carefully to my sermons, or laugh so heartily at
my jokes. It is no wonder that I became engaged. She has made an
excellent wife, freely correcting her husband's absurdities, but
allowing no one else to breathe a word against them; able to talk about
the sub-conscious self in the drawing-room, and yet have an ear for the
children crying in the nursery, or the plates breaking in the scullery.
An excellent wife--better than I ever imagined. But she has not married
me.
Had we stopped indoors that afternoon nothing would have happened.
It was all owing to Emily's mother, who insisted on our tea-ing
out. Opposite the village, across the stream, was a small chalk
down, crowned by a beech copse, and a few Roman earth-works. (I
lectured very vividly on those earthworks: they have since proved
to be Saxon.) Hither did I drag up a tea-basket and a heavy rug for
Emily's mother, while Emily and a little friend went on in front.
The little friend--who has played all through a much less important
part than he supposes--was a pleasant youth, full of intelligence and
poetry, especially of what he called the poetry of earth. He longed
to wrest earth's secret from her, and I have seen him press his face
passionately into the grass, even when he has believed himself to be
alone. Emily was at that time full of vague aspirations, and, though
I should have preferred them all to centre in me, yet it seemed
unreasonable to deny her such other opportunities for self-culture as
the neighbourhood provided.
It was then my habit, on reaching the top of any eminence, to exclaim
facetiously "And who will stand on either hand and keep the bridge with
me?" at the same moment violently agitating my arms or casting my
wide-awake eyes at an imaginary foe. Emily and the friend received my
sally as usual, nor could I detect any insincerity in their mirth. Yet I
was convinced that some one was present who did not think I had been
funny, and any public speaker will understand my growing uneasiness.
I was somewhat cheered by Emily's mother, who puffed up exclaiming,
"Kind Harry, to carry the things! What should we do without you, even
now! Oh, what a view! Can you see the dear Cathedral? No. Too hazy. Now
_I'm_ going to sit _right_ on the rug." She smiled mysteriously. "The
downs in September, you know."
We gave some perfunctory admiration to the landscape, which is indeed
only beautiful to those who admire land, and to them perhaps the most
beautiful in England. For here is the body of the great chalk spider who
straddles over our island--whose legs are the south downs and the north
downs and the Chilterns, and the tips of whose toes poke out at Cromer
and Dover. He is a clean creature, who grows as few trees as he can, and
those few in tidy clumps, and he loves to be tickled by quickly flowing
streams. He is pimpled all over with earth-works, for from the beginning
of time men have fought for the privilege of standing on him, and the
oldest of our temples is built upon his back.
But in those days I liked my country snug and pretty, full of
gentlemen's residences and shady bowers and people who touch their hats.
The great sombre expanses on which one may walk for miles and hardly
shift a landmark or meet a genteel person were still intolerable to me.
I turned away as soon as propriety allowed and said "And may I now
prepare the cup that cheers?"
Emily's mother replied: "Kind man, to help me. I always do say that tea
out is worth the extra effort. I wish we led simpler lives." We agreed
with her. I spread out the food. "Won't the kettle stand? Oh, but _make_
it stand." I did so. There was a little cry, faint but distinct, as of
something in pain.
"How silent it all is up here!" said Emily.
I dropped a lighted match on the grass, and again I heard the little
cry.
"What is that?" I asked.
"I only said it was so silent," said Emily.
"Silent, indeed," echoed the little friend.
Silent! the place was full of noises. If the match had fallen in a
drawing-room it could not have been worse, and the loudest noise came
from beside Emily herself. I had exactly the sensation of going to a
great party, of waiting to be announced in the echoing hall, where I
could hear the voices of the guests, but could not yet see their faces.
It is a nervous moment for a self-conscious man, especially if all the
voices should be strange to him, and he has never met his host.
"My dear Harry!" said the elder lady, "never mind about that match.
That'll smoulder away and harm no one. Tea-ee-ee! I always say--and you
will find Emily the same--that as the magic hour of five approaches, no
matter how good a lunch, one begins to feel a sort of----"
Now the Faun is of the kind who capers upon the Neo-Attic reliefs, and
if you do not notice his ears or see his tail, you take him for a man
and are horrified.
"Bathing!" I cried wildly. "Such a thing for our village lads, but I
quite agree--more supervision--I blame myself. Go away, bad boy, go
away!"
"What will he think of next!" said Emily, while the creature beside her
stood up and beckoned to me. I advanced struggling and gesticulating
with tiny steps and horrified cries, exorcising the apparition with my
hat. Not otherwise had I advanced the day before, when Emily's nieces
showed me their guinea pigs. And by no less hearty laughter was I
greeted now. Until the strange fingers closed upon me, I still thought
that here was one of my parishioners and did not cease to exclaim, "Let
me go, naughty boy, let go!" And Emily's mother, believing herself to
have detected the joke, replied, "Well I must confess they are naughty
boys and reach one even on the rug: the downs in September, as I said
before."
Here I caught sight of the tail, uttered a wild shriek and fled into the
beech copse behind.
"Harry would have been a born actor," said Emily's mother as I left
them.
I realized that a great crisis in my life was approaching, and that if I
failed in it I might permanently lose my self-esteem. Already in the
wood I was troubled by a multitude of voices--the voices of the hill
beneath me, of the trees over my head, of the very insects in the bark
of the tree. I could even hear the stream licking little pieces out of
the meadows, and the meadows dreamily protesting. Above the din--which
is no louder than the flight of a bee--rose the Faun's voice saying,
"Dear priest, be placid, be placid: why are you frightened?"
"I am not frightened," said I--and indeed I was not. "But I am grieved:
you have disgraced me in the presence of ladies."
"No one else has seen me," he said, smiling idly. "The women have tight
boots and the man has long hair. Those kinds never see. For years I have
only spoken to children, and they lose sight of me as soon as they grow
up. But you will not be able to lose sight of me, and until you die you
will be my friend. Now I begin to make you happy: lie upon your back or
run races, or climb trees, or shall I get you blackberries, or
harebells, or wives----"
In a terrible voice I said to him, "Get thee behind me!" He got behind
me. "Once for all," I continued, "let me tell you that it is vain to
tempt one whose happiness consists in giving happiness to others."
"I cannot understand you," he said ruefully. "What is to tempt?"
"Poor woodland creature!" said I, turning round. "How could you
understand? It was idle of me to chide you. It is not in your little
nature to comprehend a life of self-denial. Ah! if only I could reach
you!"
"You have reached him," said the hill.
"If only I could touch you!"
"You have touched him," said the hill.
"But I will never leave you," burst out the Faun. "I will sweep out your
shrine for you, I will accompany you to the meetings of matrons. I will
enrich you at the bazaars."
I shook my head. "For these things I care not at all. And indeed I was
minded to reject your offer of service altogether. There I was wrong.
You shall help me--you shall help me to make others happy."
"Dear priest, what a curious life! People whom I have never
seen--people who cannot see me--why should I make them happy?"
"My poor lad--perhaps in time you will learn why. Now begone: commence.
On this very hill sits a young lady for whom I have a high regard.
Commence with her. Aha! your face falls. I thought as much. You _cannot_
do anything. Here is the conclusion of the whole matter!"
"I can make her happy," he replied, "if you order me; and when I have
done so, perhaps you will trust me more."
Emily's mother had started home, but Emily and the little friend still
sat beside the tea-things--she in her white piqué dress and biscuit
straw, he in his rough but well-cut summer suit. The great pagan figure
of the Faun towered insolently above them.
The friend was saying, "And have you never felt the appalling loneliness
of a crowd?"
"All that," replied Emily, "have I felt, and very much more--"
Then the Faun laid his hands upon them. They, who had only intended a
little cultured flirtation, resisted him as long as they could, but were
gradually urged into each other's arms, and embraced with passion.
"Miscreant!" I shouted, bursting from the wood. "You have betrayed me."
"I know it: I care not," cried the little friend. "Stand aside. You are
in the presence of that which you do not understand. In the great
solitude we have found ourselves at last."
"Remove your accursed hands!" I shrieked to the Faun.
He obeyed and the little friend continued more calmly: "It is idle to
chide. What should you know, poor clerical creature, of the mystery of
love of the eternal man and the eternal woman, of the self-effectuation
of a soul?"
"That is true," said Emily angrily. "Harry, you would never have made me
happy. I shall treat you as a friend, but how could I give myself to a
man who makes such silly jokes? When you played the buffoon at tea, your
hour was sealed. I must be treated seriously: I must see infinities
broadening around me as I rise. You may not approve of it, but so I am.
In the great solitude I have found myself at last."
"Wretched girl!" I cried. "Great solitude! O pair of helpless
puppets----"
The little friend began to lead Emily away, but I heard her whisper to
him: "Dear, we can't possibly leave the basket for Harry after this: and
mother's rug; do you mind having that in the other hand?"
So they departed and I flung myself upon the ground with every
appearance of despair.
"Does he cry?" said the Faun.
"He does not cry," answered the hill. "His eyes are as dry as pebbles."
My tormentor made me look at him. "I see happiness at the bottom of your
heart," said he.
"I trust I have my secret springs," I answered stiffly. And then I
prepared a scathing denunciation, but of all the words I might have
said, I only said one and it began with "D."
He gave a joyful cry, "Oh, now you really belong to us. To the end of
your life you will swear when you are cross and laugh when you are
happy. Now laugh!"
There was a great silence. All nature stood waiting, while a curate
tried to conceal his thoughts not only from nature but from himself. I
thought of my injured pride, of my baffled unselfishness, of Emily, whom
I was losing through no fault of her own, of the little friend, who just
then slipped beneath the heavy tea basket, and that decided me, and I
laughed.
That evening, for the first time, I heard the chalk downs singing to
each other across the valleys, as they often do when the air is quiet
and they have had a comfortable day. From my study window I could see
the sunlit figure of the Faun, sitting before the beech copse as a man
sits before his house. And as night came on I knew for certain that not
only was he asleep, but that the hills and woods were asleep also. The
stream, of course, never slept, any more than it ever freezes. Indeed,
the hour of darkness is really the hour of water, which has been
somewhat stifled all day by the great pulsings of the land. That is why
you can feel it and hear it from a greater distance in the night, and
why a bath after sundown is most wonderful.
The joy of that first evening is still clear in my memory, in spite of
all the happy years that have followed. I remember it when I ascend my
pulpit--I have a living now--and look down upon the best people sitting
beneath me pew after pew, generous and contented, upon the worse people,
crowded in the aisles, upon the whiskered tenors of the choir, and the
high-browed curates and the church-wardens fingering their bags, and the
supercilious vergers who turn late comers from the door. I remember it
also when I sit in my comfortable bachelor rectory, amidst the carpet
slippers that good young ladies have worked for me, and the oak brackets
that have been carved for me by good young men; amidst my phalanx of
presentation teapots and my illuminated testimonials and all the other
offerings of people who believe that I have given them a helping hand,
and who really have helped me out of the mire themselves. And though I
try to communicate that joy to others--as I try to communicate anything
else that seems good--and though I sometimes succeed, yet I can tell no
one exactly how it came to me. For if I breathed one word of that, my
present life, so agreeable and profitable, would come to an end, my
congregation would depart, and so should I, and instead of being an
asset to my parish, I might find myself an expense to the nation.
Therefore in the place of the lyrical and rhetorical treatment, so
suitable to the subject, so congenial to my profession, I have been
forced to use the unworthy medium of a narrative, and to delude you by
declaring that this is a short story, suitable for reading in the train.