life here is a dog’s life. You are ticketed as the man――who was found
out. Now there’s very little risk in this; practically none. For if
the thing fails I don’t think the law can touch you. Of course your
reputation would be gone; but then you’ve damaged that already, and he
doesn’t forget it, any more than you do, does he?”
“Naturally he does not.”
“If it succeeds, and I think it will, then I will give you enough of
the proceeds to give you a real “fresh start” in America. My name will
never appear; it will never be traced who paid you the money; you will
simply reserve a sum agreed on between us. That’s tempting to you,
isn’t it? It means freedom, and a clean record in another country.
That’s tempting?”
“I think so. Will you give me twenty-four hours to think it over?”
“As long as you like in moderation.”
“It’s only that I feel rather played out and tired, that’s all. I funk
at anything that is fresh; anything that needs thought and smartness.”
“Ask for a holiday; rest and think it over.”
So the man asked for a holiday, and was granted forty-eight hours; not
more, because there was haste to produce the world-compelling pamphlet.
He thought he would walk five miles to the forest, and live two days
and nights in solitude under the open sky. He started in the dark,
with a knapsack strapped to his shoulders. It was dawn when he reached
the forest, and crossed a stretch of heath, whence the sea could be
smelt, salt and pungent; and the island, too, could be seen, lying,
indigo-blue, in the clear distance.
It was a very clear dawn, as clear as crystal, and sights and sounds
and smells had a bell-like clean-cut purity that struck the soul
at first hand, so that one hardly realised the perception of them
came by way of the body. There was a winding ribbon-like road, which
crossed the heath after it crept out of the thick forest, and along
it a red-painted mailcart went. Behind the cart ran an old dog, lured
neither to the right nor to the left in his steady following. The cart
clattered over a railless wooden bridge which crossed a slow stream in
which watergrasses waved; there were two moor-fowl swimming on it, and
its banks were shining with water forget-me-nots.
He passed the mailcart and crossed the bridge; then he reached the
woods and left the road. He wanted a quiet place in which to think;
he had brought with him, in his knapsack, bread and cheese and
apples,――enough food for two days. He walked down a turf path, climbed
a gate, walked through two straight pine avenues, and gained the “open
forest,” a great silent glade solemn and wonderful in the breathless
waiting of dawn. Here companies of rabbits were feeding; here were huge
spring-flushed oaks, twisted thorns, delicate birches glowing with the
marvel of young leafage. Here too was gorse ablaze with the fire of
God, and on the top-most twig of a larch, outlined against the sky, was
a thrush, a-quiver with a passion of song, telling a marvellous secret
of the heart of things, as only those can tell who do not understand
the uttermost meaning of their speech.
He had walked through the place looking at nothing until now; he had an
important decision to make. But now he stopped as though a great hand
had gripped him, and he stared at the bird with his eyes half-shut.
It was so clear; he could see the little feathers a-tremble at its
quivering throat, as the notes bubbled up like drops of bright water
from a well of joy.
He stared and listened till the thrush flew away.
He came to a little grove of holly trees; and there, on the round
circle of oozing wood where a great apple tree had been felled, he lay
down and ate some bread and an apple. Then he went to sleep, and when
he woke it was noon; the glade was a marvel of dappled shade and shine.
There was a blue tit swinging on the holly bough above him; and a fox
was trotting demurely through the fern a few yards away. It was all
sacredly, wonderfully still. The place taught nothing; said nothing;
it was itself――it was what it was. That was all.
He heard a quick patter of rain; and the leaves shone with diamonds; he
watched them a-glitter in the sun, when it shone forth again. A drove
of shaggy cream-coloured cattle came by, crashing through the tangle,
and passing the little grove of hollies, all a-shine in the sun, where
he lay.
When they passed he rose and wandered down a turf alley till the
pines hid the wide stretch of the open forest; then he lay with
his face hidden on the great cushions of the moss; and listened
half-unconsciously to the silence――the wonderful sounding silence――of
the wood.
There was a big beech tree near; it blazed with the green fire of
spring; at its foot were the shining sticky brown sheaths that once
shielded the young leaves. The oaks were pink, they were as rosy as the
dawn sky when he reached the forest. From the wood――only he was too
tired to rise and seek them――he could smell some late primroses yet
lingering on the sweet wet earth, from which the young grass sprang.
He heard a wood-pigeon’s slow, sleepy note a-purr from a little grove
of larches. Presently, with a strong beat of blue-grey wings the bird
flew between him and the sky. Then a jay swung silently from the pines
and perched on a bough above him; the conscienceless bird chuckled and
preened his feathers; a tiny blue black-barred wonder fluttered down on
the man’s chest.
Lying so, he could see the stiff, straight stems of the uncurling
bracken, quite differently from the fashion in which they are seen
when they are looked at from above; they stood rank by rank, straight,
stiff, and green, with their little brown cowled heads bent like monks
in prayer.
There was a much bigger life than his unfolding its affairs there
in the wood; and it made no turmoil or fuss about it; it lived and
reasoned not; it kept the commandments because it was not aware they
were apart from itself. And what were the commandments of the wood?
Certainly they were kept, whatever they were, for the place was full of
beauty and of rest.
The shadows grew long; it was time to eat some bread and cheese; he ate
some, and drank from a little stream. It struck him he had not been
thinking of the things he came there to think about; but after all he
should probably accept the offer, and he was very tired. He had not
realised before how much he was over-worked. To-morrow he would think.
In the meantime he would walk through the darkening pine avenue, and
see the dusk, like a purple-robed giant, stalk over the land.
He walked on and on; the pine walks were unending. Each walk was cut
and crossed by another vista of mystery; and always there was some hint
of wonders veiling unseen marvels. Sometimes a milky-white bush of
blackthorn; sometimes a little stream; sometimes a circle of great dead
oaks like frosted silver, all ringed about by frost-bleached grass,
through which the new green blades were pushing, and walled by dark
pines touched by the little sticky buds of spring growth. Sometimes
there was a pool of water shimmering in the shadow of the trees, set
about with rose-pink blossoming bog-myrtle, and white bog-cotton, and
wonderful little flat leaves shining like emeralds.
But at last he reached the gate. Beyond the gate was a stretch of
green heather; and thereon forest ponies feeding, and cows with
sleepily tolling bells. On it, too, great raised mounds; bracken and
heather-clothed barrows where rabbits burrowed in the grave of some
long-dead fighter. To the right was a curved line of woods that seemed
to be made of dusky red and green jewels. Before him was the island
glowing like sapphire; in the foreground on the open barren heath was
a little dark wind-twisted pine clear-cut against the sky; and the sky
ablaze with the colour that is the parting blessing of the Lord of
Light.
It was a pale sky of dream-blue; in the west it shone with crimson and
orange flame, fading into green like a breath of some secret mystery
of tenderness, and pinks like a dream of the love of God; and a violet
so faint, pure, and holy that the heart quivered at the sight of it.
Colour that speaks the tongue of the gods when thought falls dead and
the sound of speech is mere hollowness.
When the colour faded big purple clouds began to drift up over the pale
yellow sky until it was all a wonderful thick purple-blue darkness in
which sounds were both clear and muffled; faraway sounds were clear,
and sounds close at hand were muffled and eerie; pale milk-grey lights
began to slide through the darkness.
There were no stars; only the warm, dark, sweet-smelling half-silence.
He could not see a yard before his face, and yet he felt the darkness
was a big, far-reaching space about him.
There was a dry ditch among the pines; it was full of yellow-brown
pine-needles. He lay down there and heard the noises of the night; the
snapping of twigs, the rustle of little night-prowling beasts. Once a
badger stole by; once a night-bird shrieked; the owls called hoo-hoo
in the branches. Once there echoed a cry of pain and fear through the
wood, the death-shriek of some tiny citizen. Once a night-jar purred in
the tree above his head; and once the magic of the nightingale trembled
through the warm dark air in a limpid river of sound.
At last he slept; and he woke to a wild rush of rain. The wood was full
of a pale cool light; the pine-needles dripped; he heard the gurgle of
a hurry of water in the ditch beyond the gate. He got up; the livid
greenish-purple clouds were rushing across the sky; the island was
veiled in a white mist of rain; the forest ponies galloped for some
scant shelter; some of the herd turned disconsolate noses from the
rush of waters; some squealed and kicked and bit at each other; others
endured in meekness. A big ants’ nest near the gate was flooded; pools
stood in the heather; and a heap of cream-white foam swirled on the
brown water in the ditch.
Light wisps of cloud fled across the background of livid green-purple.
He stood under shelter of the trees and watched the storm.
It passed; the clouds flew seawards; the sky grew a pale even grey;
then a cool, soft wind began to blow. The east grew faint pink, then
yellow-grey; then a long line of light quivered over the heather. The
new day had come. The birds were stirring and singing; the rabbits
hopped out to feed; a stoat darted across the track; and the clang of a
cow-bell echoed across the moor.
He found the slowly moving stream he crossed yesterday; there he
bathed; then he ate some of the food he had brought with him. Finally
he walked down a path of silver-grey sand, skirting a wood of oaks.
It waxed very warm and still; there were no clouds; the air shimmered
over the heather; white and little brown butterflies skipped over it;
the island was veiled in a soft white haze with violet shadows in it.
Snakes slid out into the open to sun themselves; the air was full of
slanting gleams of gossamer and little drifting lives of insects that
lived a day and never knew the night.
He sat among the pines and saw the brown lizards and the squirrels and
watched the golden lights flit over the dry pine-needles; the boles of
the trees shone red, and in among the far-off oaks was a mist of pale
green.
In the afternoon he walked through the oak wood over dry leaves of last
year, and cushions of bright emerald moss, set with scarlet, purple,
and orange fungi.
At sunset he stood by a little clearing; it was near a ranger’s
cottage. He could smell woodsmoke and see its swaying blue column rise
above the thatched roof covered with stonecrop and little ferns. Here
were rows of hives where lived the bees whose soft organ-like drone he
had heard mingling with the ’cellos of the pines.
The sky was less brilliant than it had been the night before; it was
bluish-white and the long slender clouds on the horizon were violet and
pink. The sky grew paler and more pale; the silver of the evening star
glimmered out, a tiny point of light. The pines were very dark; they
looked black against the sky; a bat flickered over them.
He walked over the moor to the shore; he saw the ghost-white of the
foam, and heard the rush and draw of the tide on the smooth pebbles.
The moon was up when he walked back.
This night he did not try to sleep; not because he was worried and
thoughtful; he had not thought all day, and he did not think all
night. It was very still and cloudless, and the moon was full; when
it set the sky was solemnest blue; the stars and the white fire made
the mystery of space more wonderful. It was one of those nights which
are living symbols of largest patience; of breadth that includes
all things, of silence whose root is the wisdom that knows; of that
mighty indifference that is indifferent because of its tenderness
rather than its coldness. A night sky that was a symbol of a Holy
Catholic Church of the entire universe; not tolerant――because, after
all, tolerance is a little, narrow, patronising invention of man’s
aggressive superiority. That which is all-inclusive is not tolerant; it
is omnipotent, omniscient, Alpha and Omega; the first but also the last.
He did not think of these things; he never mused on such matters; he
did not think at all that night nor notice anything particularly. He
sat under the sky, his hands clasping his knees; he was not sleepy,
because to be out of doors two days and nights after a life spent
chiefly within walls is apt quite naturally to cause wakefulness.
He saw three shooting stars slide through the blue heart of the night.
At dawn he saw a fox, a vixen, and four little furry creatures with
sharp, bright eyes; they played together and rolled in the heather
without fear of man. He began wandering through the wood looking for
birds’ nests; he found four before the sun rose.
When it rose he began to walk back, for the forty-eight hours’ holiday
from the world-compelling pamphlet was ended.
He reached the house at seven o’clock; had a bath, dressed himself,
ate a moderate breakfast, and began to open and arrange his employer’s
letters. That was at 8.30.
At nine o’clock his employer’s guest on his way to breakfast looked
into the library. He nodded, came in, and shut the door.
“Good morning, Dexter,” he said. “You’ve got back, I see. I suppose I
know your answer?”
“No, I believe you don’t; for I think I’ll go on here.”
“You don’t mean that?”
“I do.”
“Afraid?”
“No.”
“Moral scruples?”
“No.”
“What then?”
The other hesitated, because he really did not know the answer. At last
he said:
“I have my Sundays free. And I think I should miss the forest if I went
away. I haven’t any other reason――that I know of.”
L’ENVOI
Power of the wave and the light,
Power of the wind and the dawn,
Fanned by the strength of thy breath
Man’s soul is born.
Power of the song of the lark,
Power of the gold of the corn,
By perfume and silence and speech
Man’s soul is born.
Power of the whispering rain,
Power of the day when it dies,
By magic of sunset and dusk
Man’s soul doth rise!
Power of the stars and the night,
When singing and sighing shall cease
By the unknown span of thy rest
Man’s soul knows peace!
THE BREATH UPON THE SLAIN
Shall these bones live? God knows.
The prophet saw such clothed with flesh and skin.
A wind blew on them, and Life entered in;
They shook and rose.
Shorten the time, O Lord! Blot out their sin!
Let Life begin!
CHRISTINA ROSSETTI.
The wind was blowing through the heather, singing softly from the
distant sea. The tiny tinkling sound of the purple bells was like faint
music of faery.
They lay on an ancient barrow――three men on a summer holiday by the
southern sea.
One was a thin, nervous-looking man, who knew much of the purlieus of
the “primrose path,” wherein he strayed to gather up its wreckage and
mend it if he might, by the power of a God in whom he said he did not
believe.
The second was an ascetic, devout, and hard-working priest of the
Anglican Church.
The third was a man still young, but looking even younger than his
years. Dennis Barra was his name; a man with a smooth, boyish face,
strange yellow-grey eyes, and thick hair streaked a little with grey;
it gave the effect of dark hair lightly powdered, and added to the lack
of modernity about the face. It was not a modern face; it had delicate
irregular features, and a wide, thin-lipped mouth; the face looked
curiously luminous in the strong sunlight.
The first man――Ralph Ingram――was speaking.
“No, Cardew,” he said to the priest, “I tell you if I did not hold to
that belief I should go mad. If it be not thus, the world is based on
injustice. If we climb a ladder rung by rung, if we work out the result
of our deeds――that’s just. But no other theory is. What! a man murders
and wipes out all his past by ‘grace at the last,’ ‘forgiveness of
sins’ and ‘faith’ which his victim never had.
“You speak of these things as though they were outer contracts or a
mental attitude,” said the priest, “whereas they are real spiritual
forces, definite powers of the unseen. I do not see that you can
parcel out guilt thus, according to your system. If life be as you
say it is, the fine threads of cause and effect, of will, speech,
thought, impulse, action, are endless. It appears to me that by pushing
‘causes’ so far back, you have complicated everything so hopelessly
that you need some universal solvent to melt the bonds. If you accept
Adam as collective man rather than as an individual ancestor, then
Man――collective, heavenly man――has chosen his own lot; he has chosen
his fall. His true life is elsewhere; in some mysterious Eden of the
spirit he views all our inequalities with a wider view. Our misfortunes
may be his opportunity; and our happiness his slough of despond. The
view of man spiritual and man carnal may be diametrically opposed. His
justice may be your injustice.”
“Well! I should as soon believe in the sea-serpent as in the doctrine
of regeneration, grace, and faith.”
At this point Dennis Barra laughed.
“Are you laughing at Ingram or at me?” said the priest.
“I was laughing because I believe I once saw a sea-serpent off the
coast of Scotland, and I would say so if I were not afraid of Ingram.
And I was also laughing because I thought you didn’t see that your
views fit and where they fit. Ingram believes in the law which governed
the past and governs the majority in the present; you believe in a
possibility of the present――the certain law of the future.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Well! because it struck me it was true! And regeneration is a
possibility, regeneration of body and soul; and grace is a fact, and
the swift transmutation of the sinner into the saint I believe to be
possible.”
“Are these things facts? I don’t believe they are.”
“Will you believe me if I tell you a story?”
“If you vouch for it.”
“I do vouch for it. I know it’s true. There was a man once who had
just come out of prison. He deserved his punishment. His friends cut
him――quite justly; and he did not greatly care, save that he was angry.
He had some means; he was not in want; he was independent both of work
and friends. He drank a little when he came out of prison, not much. He
would drink for a day or two, and then keep sober for a week. In the
place where he was, a mission was being held; and with no great result.”
“They needed you there, Barra!”
The young man smiled.
“The people were indifferent. Something was lacking. The mission was
to last a week. The clergy paraded the streets each night with a cross
and the choir and banners. On the third night the man of whom I speak
joined the procession and entered the church. It was a gloomy church;
the singing was bad; the preacher had little power. There was nothing
to stir the emotions. It was dull; the man was just sitting there,
bored. He was thinking he would go out, when something――Something, I
say――Some one――stood beside him. He saw no one, but some one was there;
and that some one laid a hand upon his head. What that touch did to
him he did not know; he never knew. It revolutionised him mentally,
morally, yes, and bodily. There came to that man a bodily change, as
though he was fused and re-made in a crucible of the spirit,――a cup
of the Holy Graal. The only words which were clear to him were: ‘The
Fire of the Sacred Heart, the Fire of the Heart of the Ascended.’ They
were not spoken, but he knew they were there. And he knew too, that he,
the drunkard, the criminal, the man fresh from gaol, must speak to the
people. It was not a case of what spiritualists call ‘control.’ No;
but God had laid a measure of His power in the trembling hands of that
sinner, and said to him: ‘Own thy sins in humbleness, and then――not
thyself but Myself; give Me to my children!’
“He stood up and walked to the pulpit steps; the preacher was just
coming down and he laid his hand on his arm and said: ‘Let me speak to
them.’
“It seems little less than a miracle; for it was a church of the
Established Church in England and he an unknown layman. But the
preacher let him stand on the altar steps and speak. He told them very
quietly and briefly who he was, and what was his character, and that he
was sorry; and then he spoke.
“He had not spoken for three minutes before the women were sobbing, and
the men were white as ashes, and many of them shaking like reeds in a
wind. There was a great ‘revival,’ and people laid themselves, body,
soul, and spirit, at the Feet of God.”
“It must have been such a power as I have known you wield over people,
Barra.”
“It was the Fire of the Lord that had struck one man, and he passed it
on. Of course some went back; but others didn’t, and their lives were
changed. But what I want to make you see is that what happened to that
man could happen to all men; and his sins and his past were made naught
when God’s Hand touched him. It didn’t matter so much that he didn’t
know how it was done. It was done. That is a living Power that could
work in the world at any minute if the time was ripe; and if and when
it does we shall have a new heaven and a new earth.”
“It seems to me hard that this fellow’s sins and past were blotted
out, and not those of the other poor wretches. Why should he escape
suffering he had earned by the touch of a hand on his head? You say he
deserved what he got. I daresay he deserved much more. Most likely he
was a scoundrel who deserved the cat.”
“Very likely he did. He never thought anything else. He always admitted
his sins. But don’t mistake. I never said he escaped suffering. The
sins of the other poor wretches were blotted out _in him_ for the time
being only, of course. They swept into him like a tide of foulness
and anguish, and the Fire burned them. They were its fuel; so that it
swept out in a fuller flood and touched the people with its power and
cleansed them. Escaped suffering! People who feel the burden of their
own sins and sorrows to be too much to bear, little realise what it
means to feel other people’s as well. Do you know there are simple,
unlearned, unknown women, secluded from the world, who _pray_ the
temptations of the strong (the ‘vibrations’ or ‘magnetisms,’ to use
the popular shibboleth) into their own bodily frames, and then endure
their anguish to ease others’ burdens? They _endure_ them, I say;
they offer them to be transmuted in their own bodies and souls by the
spiritual force they call the Blood of Christ; and that Force flows out
from them to the people for whom they pray. That is true, possible,
a fact. Many a time, maybe, have those very people laughed at their
inactive lives, simple faith, superstitious creeds, and all the rest
of it. They’d be wallowing deep in mud, many of those strong ones, if
it were not for that very superstitious creed that prompts the women’s
prayers. That is the real meaning of the Cross to these women; that is
the vital, poignant meaning to them of being crucified with Christ.”
The wind muttered in the heather, and the corncrake called from a
distant field. The speaker’s voice deepened a little; but it was quite
steady, there was in it neither emotion nor excitement.
The priest raised himself a little on his elbow and looked at him
thoughtfully. He did not speak.
“Barra,” said Ralph Ingram, “do you _know_ this story of your inspired
criminal to be true?”
“I know it to be true,” said Dennis Barra, quietly, “I know it, because
I was the man!”
THE GLAMOUR-LAND
He follows on for ever, when all your chase is done,
He follows after shadows, the King of Ireland’s son.
――――(?)