I was the master-mason of a church that was built more than six hundred
years ago; it is now two hundred years since that church vanished from
the face of the earth; it was destroyed utterly,--no fragment of it was
left; not even the great pillars that bore up the tower at the cross,
where the choir used to join the nave. No one knows now even where it
stood, only in this very autumn-tide, if you knew the place, you would
see the heaps made by the earth-covered ruins heaving the yellow corn
into glorious waves, so that the place where my church used to be is as
beautiful now as when it stood in all its splendour. I do not remember
very much about the land where my church was; I have quite forgotten the
name of it, but I know it was very beautiful, and even now, while I am
thinking of it, comes a flood of old memories, and I almost seem to see
it again,--that old beautiful land! only dimly do I see it in spring and
summer and winter, but I see it in autumn-tide clearly now; yes, clearer,
clearer, oh! so bright and glorious! yet it was beautiful too in spring,
when the brown earth began to grow green: beautiful in summer, when the
blue sky looked so much bluer, if you could hem a piece of it in between
the new white carving; beautiful in the solemn starry nights, so solemn
that it almost reached agony--the awe and joy one had in their great
beauty. But of all these beautiful times, I remember the whole only of
autumn-tide; the others come in bits to me; I can think only of parts of
them, but all of autumn; and of all days and nights in autumn, I remember
one more particularly. That autumn day the church was nearly finished
and the monks, for whom we were building the church, and the people, who
lived in the town hard by, crowded round us oftentimes to watch us
carving.
Now the great Church, and the buildings of the Abbey where the monks
lived, were about three miles from the town, and the town stood on a hill
overlooking the rich autumn country: it was girt about with great walls
that had overhanging battlements, and towers at certain places all along
the walls, and often we could see from the churchyard or the Abbey
garden, the flash of helmets and spears, and the dim shadowy waving of
banners, as the knights and lords and men-at-arms passed to and fro along
the battlements; and we could see too in the town the three spires of the
three churches; and the spire of the Cathedral, which was the tallest of
the three, was gilt all over with gold, and always at night-time a great
lamp shone from it that hung in the spire midway between the roof of the
church and the cross at the top of the spire. The Abbey where we built
the Church was not girt by stone walls, but by a circle of poplar trees,
and whenever a wind passed over them, were it ever so little a breath, it
set them all a-ripple; and when the wind was high, they bowed and swayed
very low, and the wind, as it lifted the leaves, and showed their silvery
white sides, or as again in the lulls of it, it let them drop, kept on
changing the trees from green to white, and white to green; moreover,
through the boughs and trunks of the poplars, we caught glimpses of the
great golden corn sea, waving, waving, waving for leagues and leagues;
and among the corn grew burning scarlet poppies, and blue corn-flowers;
and the corn-flowers were so blue, that they gleamed, and seemed to burn
with a steady light, as they grew beside the poppies among the gold of
the wheat. Through the corn sea ran a blue river, and always green
meadows and lines of tall poplars followed its windings. The old Church
had been burned, and that was the reason why the monks caused me to build
the new one; the buildings of the Abbey were built at the same time as
the burned-down Church, more than a hundred years before I was born, and
they were on the north side of the Church, and joined to it by a cloister
of round arches, and in the midst of the cloister was a lawn, and in the
midst of that lawn, a fountain of marble, carved round about with flowers
and strange beasts, and at the edge of the lawn, near the round arches,
were a great many sun-flowers that were all in blossom on that autumn
day, and up many of the pillars of the cloister crept passion-flowers and
roses. Then farther from the Church, and past the cloister and its
buildings, were many detached buildings, and a great garden round them,
all within the circle of the poplar trees; in the garden were trellises
covered over with roses, and convolvolus, and the great-leaved fiery
nasturium; and specially all along by the poplar trees were there
trellises, but on these grew nothing but deep crimson roses; the
hollyhocks too were all out in blossom at that time, great spires of
pink, and orange, and red, and white, with their soft, downy leaves. I
said that nothing grew on the trellises by the poplars but crimson roses,
but I was not quite right, for in many places the wild flowers had crept
into the garden from without; lush green briony, with green-white
blossoms, that grows so fast, one could almost think that we see it grow,
and deadly nightshade, La bella donna, O! so beautiful; red berry, and
purple, yellow-spiked flower, and deadly, cruel-looking, dark green leaf,
all growing together in the glorious days of early autumn. And in the
midst of the great garden was a conduit, with its sides carved with
histories from the Bible, and there was on it too, as on the fountain in
the cloister, much carving of flowers and strange beasts. Now the Church
itself was surrounded on every side but the north by the cemetery, and
there were many graves there, both of monks and of laymen, and often the
friends of those, whose bodies lay there, had planted flowers about the
graves of those they loved. I remember one such particularly, for at the
head of it was a cross of carved wood, and at the foot of it, facing the
cross, three tall sun-flowers; then in the midst of the cemetery was a
cross of stone, carved on one side with the Crucifixion of our Lord Jesus
Christ, and on the other with our Lady holding the Divine Child. So that
day, that I specially remember, in autumn-tide, when the Church was
nearly finished, I was carving in the central porch of the west front;
(for I carved all those bas-reliefs in the west front with my own hand;)
beneath me my sister Margaret was carving at the flower-work, and the
little quatrefoils that carry the signs of the zodiac and emblems of the
months: now my sister Margaret was rather more than twenty years old at
that time, and she was very beautiful, with dark brown hair and deep calm
violet eyes. I had lived with her all my life, lived with her almost
alone latterly, for our father and mother died when she was quite young,
and I loved her very much, though I was not thinking of her just then, as
she stood beneath me carving. Now the central porch was carved with a
bas-relief of the Last Judgment, and it was divided into three parts by
horizontal bands of deep flower-work. In the lowest division, just over
the doors, was carved The Rising of the Dead; above were angels blowing
long trumpets, and Michael the Archangel weighing the souls, and the
blessed led into heaven by angels, and the lost into hell by the devil;
and in the topmost division was the Judge of the world.
All the figures in the porch were finished except one, and I remember
when I woke that morning my exultation at the thought of my Church being
so nearly finished; I remember, too, how a kind of misgiving mingled with
the exultation, which, try all I could, I was unable to shake off; I
thought then it was a rebuke for my pride, well, perhaps it was. The
figure I had to carve was Abraham, sitting with a blossoming tree on each
side of him, holding in his two hands the corners of his great robe, so
that it made a mighty fold, wherein, with their hands crossed over their
breasts, were the souls of the faithful, of whom he was called Father: I
stood on the scaffolding for some time, while Margaret's chisel worked on
bravely down below. I took mine in my hand, and stood so, listening to
the noise of the masons inside, and two monks of the Abbey came and stood
below me, and a knight, holding his little daughter by the hand, who
every now and then looked up at him, and asked him strange questions. I
did not think of these long, but began to think of Abraham, yet I could
not think of him sitting there, quiet and solemn, while the
Judgment-Trumpet was being blown; I rather thought of him as he looked
when he chased those kings so far; riding far ahead of any of his
company, with his mail-hood off his head, and lying in grim folds down
his back, with the strong west wind blowing his wild black hair far out
behind him, with the wind rippling the long scarlet pennon of his lance;
riding there amid the rocks and the sands alone; with the last gleam of
the armour of the beaten kings disappearing behind the winding of the
pass; with his company a long, long way behind, quite out of sight,
though their trumpets sounded faintly among the clefts of the rocks; and
so I thought I saw him, till in his fierce chase he lept, horse and man,
into a deep river, quiet, swift, and smooth; and there was something in
the moving of the water-lilies as the breast of the horse swept them
aside, that suddenly took away the thought of Abraham and brought a
strange dream of lands I had never seen; and the first was of a place
where I was quite alone, standing by the side of a river, and there was
the sound of singing a very long way off, but no living thing of any kind
could be seen, and the land was quite flat, quite without hills, and
quite without trees too, and the river wound very much, making all kinds
of quaint curves, and on the side where I stood there grew nothing but
long grass, but on the other side grew, quite on to the horizon, a great
sea of red corn-poppies, only paths of white lilies wound all among them,
with here and there a great golden sun-flower. So I looked down at the
river by my feet, and saw how blue it was, and how, as the stream went
swiftly by, it swayed to and fro the long green weeds, and I stood and
looked at the river for long, till at last I felt some one touch me on
the shoulder, and, looking round, I saw standing by me my friend Amyot,
whom I love better than any one else in the world, but I thought in my
dream that I was frightened when I saw him, for his face had changed so,
it was so bright and almost transparent, and his eyes gleamed and shone
as I had never seen them do before. Oh! he was so wondrously beautiful,
so fearfully beautiful! and as I looked at him the distant music swelled,
and seemed to come close up to me, and then swept by us, and fainted
away, at last died off entirely; and then I felt sick at heart, and
faint, and parched, and I stooped to drink of the water of the river, and
as soon as the water touched my lips, lo! the river vanished, and the
flat country with its poppies and lilies, and I dreamed that I was in a
boat by myself again, floating in an almost land-locked bay of the
northern sea, under a cliff of dark basalt. I was lying on my back in
the boat, looking up at the intensely blue sky, and a long low swell from
the outer sea lifted the boat up and let it fall again and carried it
gradually nearer and nearer towards the dark cliff; and as I moved on, I
saw at last, on the top of the cliff, a castle, with many towers, and on
the highest tower of the castle there was a great white banner floating,
with a red chevron on it, and three golden stars on the chevron;
presently I saw too on one of the towers, growing in a cranny of the worn
stones, a great bunch of golden and blood-red wall-flowers, and I watched
the wall-flowers and banner for long; when suddenly I heard a trumpet
blow from the castle, and saw a rush of armed men on to the battlements,
and there was a fierce fight, till at last it was ended, and one went to
the banner and pulled it down, and cast it over the cliff in to the sea,
and it came down in long sweeps, with the wind making little ripples in
it;--slowly, slowly it came, till at last it fell over me and covered me
from my feet till over my breast, and I let it stay there and looked
again at the castle, and then I saw that there was an amber-coloured
banner floating over the castle in place of the red chevron, and it was
much larger than the other: also now, a man stood on the battlements,
looking towards me; he had a tilting helmet on, with the visor down, and
an amber-coloured surcoat over his armour: his right hand was
ungauntletted, and he held it high above his head, and in his hand was
the bunch of wallflowers that I had seen growing on the wall; and his
hand was white and small like a woman's, for in my dream I could see even
very far-off things much clearer than we see real material things on the
earth: presently he threw the wallflowers over the cliff, and they fell
in the boat just behind my head, and then I saw, looking down from the
battlements of the castle, Amyot. He looked down towards me very
sorrowfully, I thought, but, even as in the other dream, said nothing; so
I thought in my dream that I wept for very pity, and for love of him, for
he looked as a man just risen from a long illness, and who will carry
till he dies a dull pain about with him. He was very thin, and his long
black hair drooped all about his face, as he leaned over the battlements
looking at me: he was quite pale, and his cheeks were hollow, but his
eyes large, and soft, and sad. So I reached out my arms to him, and
suddenly I was walking with him in a lovely garden, and we said nothing,
for the music which I had heard at first was sounding close to us now,
and there were many birds in the boughs of the trees: oh, such birds!
gold and ruby, and emerald, but they sung not at all, but were quite
silent, as though they too were listening to the music. Now all this
time Amyot and I had been looking at each other, but just then I turned
my head away from him, and as soon as I did so, the music ended with a
long wail, and when I turned again Amyot was gone; then I felt even more
sad and sick at heart than I had before when I was by the river, and I
leaned against a tree, and put my hands before my eyes. When I looked
again the garden was gone, and I knew not where I was, and presently all
my dreams were gone. The chips were flying bravely from the stone under
my chisel at last, and all my thoughts now were in my carving, when I
heard my name, "Walter," called, and when I looked down I saw one
standing below me, whom I had seen in my dreams just before--Amyot. I
had no hopes of seeing him for a long time, perhaps I might never see him
again, I thought, for he was away (as I thought) fighting in the holy
wars, and it made me almost beside myself to see him standing close by me
in the flesh. I got down from my scaffolding as soon as I could, and all
thoughts else were soon drowned in the joy of having him by me; Margaret,
too, how glad she must have been, for she had been betrothed to him for
some time before he went to the wars, and he had been five years away;
five years! and how we had thought of him through those many weary days!
how often his face had come before me! his brave, honest face, the most
beautiful among all the faces of men and women I have ever seen. Yes, I
remember how five years ago I held his hand as we came together out of
the cathedral of that great, far-off city, whose name I forget now; and
then I remember the stamping of the horses' feet; I remember how his hand
left mine at last, and then, some one looking back at me earnestly as
they all rode on together--looking back, with his hand on the saddle
behind him, while the trumpets sang in long solemn peals as they all rode
on together, with the glimmer of arms and the fluttering of banners, and
the clinking of the rings of the mail, that sounded like the falling of
many drops of water into the deep, still waters of some pool that the
rocks nearly meet over; and the gleam and flash of the swords, and the
glimmer of the lance-heads and the flutter of the rippled banners that
streamed out from them, swept past me, and were gone, and they seemed
like a pageant in a dream, whose meaning we know not; and those sounds
too, the trumpets, and the clink of the mail, and the thunder of the
horse-hoofs, they seemed dream-like too--and it was all like a dream that
he should leave me, for we had said that we should always be together;
but he went away, and now he is come back again.
We were by his bed-side, Margaret and I; I stood and leaned over him, and
my hair fell sideways over my face and touched his face; Margaret kneeled
beside me, quivering in every limb, not with pain, I think, but rather
shaken by a passion of earnest prayer. After some time (I know not how
long), I looked up from his face to the window underneath which he lay; I
do not know what time of the day it was, but I know that it was a
glorious autumn day, a day soft with melting, golden haze: a vine and a
rose grew together, and trailed half across the window, so that I could
not see much of the beautiful blue sky, and nothing of town or country
beyond; the vine leaves were touched with red here and there, and three
over-blown roses, light pink roses, hung amongst them. I remember
dwelling on the strange lines the autumn had made in red on one of the
gold-green vine leaves, and watching one leaf of one of the over-blown
roses, expecting it to fall every minute; but as I gazed, and felt
disappointed that the rose leaf had not fallen yet, I felt my pain
suddenly shoot through me, and I remembered what I had lost; and then
came bitter, bitter dreams,--dreams which had once made me happy,--dreams
of the things I had hoped would be, of the things that would never be
now; they came between the fair vine leaves and rose blossoms, and that
which lay before the window; they came as before, perfect in colour and
form, sweet sounds and shapes. But now in every one was something
unutterably miserable; they would not go away, they put out the steady
glow of the golden haze, the sweet light of the sun through the vine
leaves, the soft leaning of the full blown roses. I wandered in them for
a long time; at last I felt a hand put me aside gently, for I was
standing at the head of--of the bed; then some one kissed my forehead,
and words were spoken--I know not what words. The bitter dreams left me
for the bitterer reality at last; for I had found him that morning lying
dead, only the morning after I had seen him when he had come back from
his long absence--I had found him lying dead, with his hands crossed
downwards, with his eyes closed, as though the angels had done that for
him; and now when I looked at him he still lay there, and Margaret knelt
by him with her face touching his: she was not quivering now, her lips
moved not at all as they had done just before; and so, suddenly those
words came to my mind which she had spoken when she kissed me, and which
at the time I had only heard with my outward hearing, for she had said,
"Walter, farewell, and Christ keep you; but for me, I must be with him,
for so I promised him last night that I would never leave him any more,
and God will let me go." And verily Margaret and Amyot did go, and left
me very lonely and sad.
It was just beneath the westernmost arch of the nave, there I carved
their tomb: I was a long time carving it; I did not think I should be so
long at first, and I said, "I shall die when I have finished carving it,"
thinking that would be a very short time. But so it happened after I had
carved those two whom I loved, lying with clasped hands like husband and
wife above their tomb, that I could not yet leave carving it; and so that
I might be near them I became a monk, and used to sit in the choir and
sing, thinking of the time when we should all be together again. And as
I had time I used to go to the westernmost arch of the nave and work at
the tomb that was there under the great, sweeping arch; and in process of
time I raised a marble canopy that reached quite up to the top of the
arch, and I painted it too as fair as I could, and carved it all about
with many flowers and histories, and in them I carved the faces of those
I had known on earth (for I was not as one on earth now, but seemed quite
away out of the world). And as I carved, sometimes the monks and other
people too would come and gaze, and watch how the flowers grew; and
sometimes too as they gazed, they would weep for pity, knowing how all
had been. So my life passed, and I lived in that Abbey for twenty years
after he died, till one morning, quite early, when they came into the
church for matins, they found me lying dead, with my chisel in my hand,
underneath the last lily of the tomb.