It was very quiet and cool in the Quaker Meeting-house, though outside
there was the rustle of leaves, the low din of the bees, the whistle
of a bird, or the even tread of horses’ hoofs as they journeyed on the
London road. The place was full. For a half-hour the worshippers had sat
voiceless. They were waiting for the spirit to move some one to speak.
As they waited, a lady entered and glided into a seat. Few saw, and
these gave no indication of surprise, though they were little used
to strangers, and none of the name borne by this lady had entered the
building for many years. It was Hylda.
At last the silence was broken. The wizened Elder, with eyes upon the
ceiling and his long white chin like ivory on his great collar, began to
pray, sitting where he was, his hands upon his knees. He prayed for all
who wandered “into by and forbidden paths.” He prayed for one whose work
was as that of Joseph, son of Jacob; whose footsteps were now upon the
sea, and now upon the desert; whose way was set among strange gods and
divers heresies--“‘For there must also be heresies, that they which are
approved may be made manifest among the weak.’” A moment more, and
then he added: “He hath been tried beyond his years; do Thou uphold his
hands. Once with a goad did we urge him on, when in ease and sloth he
was among us, but now he spurreth on his spirit and body in too great
haste. O put Thy hand upon the bridle, Lord, that He ride soberly upon
Thy business.”
There was a longer silence now, but at last came the voice of Luke
Claridge.
“Father of the fatherless,” he said, “my days are as the sands in the
hour-glass hastening to their rest; and my place will soon be empty. He
goeth far, and I may not go with him. He fighteth alone, like him that
strove with wild beasts at Ephesus; do Thou uphold him that he may bring
a nation captive. And if a viper fasten on his hand, as chanced to Paul
of old, give him grace to strike it off without hurt. O Lord, he is
to me, Thy servant, as the one ewe lamb; let him be Thine when Thou
gatherest for Thy vineyard!”
“And if a viper fasten on his hand--” David passed his hand across his
forehead and closed his eyes. The beasts at Ephesus he had fought, and
he would fight them again--there was fighting enough to do in the land
of Egypt. And the viper would fasten on his hand--it had fastened on his
hand, and he had struck it off; but it would come again, the dark thing
against which he had fought in the desert.
Their prayers had unnerved him, had got into that corner of his nature
where youth and its irresponsibility loitered yet. For a moment he was
shaken, and then, looking into the faces of the Elders, said: “Friends,
I go again upon paths that lead into the wilderness. I know not if I
ever shall return. Howsoe’er that may be, I shall walk with firmer step
because of all ye do for me.”
He closed his eyes and prayed: “O God, I go into the land of ancient
plagues and present pestilence. If it be Thy will, bring me home to this
good land, when my task is done. If not, by Thy goodness let me be as a
stone set by the wayside for others who come after; and save me from the
beast and from the viper. ‘Thou art faithful, who wilt not suffer us
to be tempted above that we are able; but wilt with the temptation also
make a way of escape, that we may be able to bear it!’”
He sat down, and all grew silent again; but suddenly some one sobbed
aloud-sobbed, and strove to stay the sobbing, and could not, and,
getting up, hastened towards the door.
It was Faith. David heard, and came quickly after her. As he took her
arm gently, his eyes met those of Hylda. She rose and came out also.
“Will thee take her home?” he said huskily. “I can bear no more.”
Hylda placed her arm round Faith, and led her out under the trees and
into the wood. As they went, Faith looked back.
“Oh, forgive me, forgive me, Davy,” she said softly.
Three lights burned in Hamley: one in the Red Mansion, one in the
Cloistered House, and one in Soolsby’s hut upon the hill. In the Red
Mansion old Luke Claridge, his face pale with feeling, his white
hair tumbling about, his head thrust forward, his eyes shining, sat
listening, as Faith read aloud letters which Benn Claridge had written
from the East many years before. One letter, written from Bagdad, he
made her read twice. The faded sheet had in it the glow and glamour of
the East; it was like a heart beating with life; emotion rose and fell
in it like the waves of the sea. Once the old man interrupted Faith.
“Davy--it is as though Davy spoke. It is like Davy--both Claridge, both
Claridge,” he said. “But is it not like Davy? Davy is doing what it was
in Benn’s heart to do. Benn showed the way; Benn called, and Davy came.”
He laid both hands upon his knees and raised his eyes. “O Lord, I have
sought to do according to Thy will,” he whispered. He was thinking of a
thing he had long hidden. Through many years he had no doubt, no qualm;
but, since David had gone to Egypt, some spirit of unquiet had worked
in him. He had acted against the prayer of his own wife, lying in her
grave--a quiet-faced woman, who had never crossed him, who had never
shown a note of passion in all her life, save in one thing concerning
David. Upon it, like some prophetess, she had flamed out. With the
insight which only women have where children are concerned, she had told
him that he would live to repent of what he had done. She had died soon
after, and was laid beside the deserted young mother, whose days had
budded and blossomed, and fallen like petals to the ground, while yet it
was the spring.
Luke Claridge had understood neither, not his wife when she had said:
“Thee should let the Lord do His own work, Luke,” nor his dying daughter
Mercy, whose last words had been: “With love and sorrow I have sowed;
he shall reap rejoicing--my babe. Thee will set him in the garden in the
sun, where God may find him--God will not pass him by. He will take him
by the hand and lead him home.” The old man had thought her touched by
delirium then, though her words were but the parable of a mind fed by
the poetry of life, by a shy spirit, to which meditation gave fancy and
farseeing. David had come by his idealism honestly. The half-mystical
spirit of his Uncle Benn had flowed on to another generation through
the filter of a woman’s sad soul. It had come to David a pure force, a
constructive and practical idealism.
Now, as Faith read, there were ringing in the old man’s ears the words
which David’s mother had said before she closed her eyes and passed
away: “Set him in the garden in the sun, where God may find him--God
will not pass him by.” They seemed to weave themselves into the
symbolism of Benn Claridge’s letter, written from the hills of Bagdad.
“But,” the letter continued, “the Governor passed by with his suite, the
buckles of the harness of his horses all silver, his carriage shining
with inlay of gold, his turban full of precious stones. When he had
passed, I said to a shepherd standing by, ‘If thou hadst all his wealth,
shepherd, what wouldst thou do?’ and he answered, ‘If I had his wealth,
I would sit on the south side of my house in the sun all day and every
day.’ To a messenger of the Palace, who must ever be ready night and day
to run at his master’s order, I asked the same. He replied, ‘If I had
all the Effendina’s wealth, I would sleep till I died.’ To a blind
beggar, shaking the copper in his cup in the highways, pleading dumbly
to those who passed, I made similar inquisition, and he replied ‘If the
wealth of the exalted one were mine, I would sit on the mastaba by the
bake-house, and eat three times a day, save at Ramadan, when I would
bless Allah the compassionate and merciful, and breakfast at sunset with
the flesh of a kid and a dish of dates.’ To a woman at the door of a
tomb hung with relics of hundreds of poor souls in misery, who besought
the buried saint to intercede for her with Allah, I made the same
catechism, and she answered, ‘Oh, effendi, if his wealth were mine, I
would give my son what he has lost.’ ‘What has he lost, woman?’ said
I; and she answered: ‘A little house with a garden, and a flock of
ten goats, a cow and a dovecote, his inheritance of which he has been
despoiled by one who carried a false debt ‘gainst his dead father.’ And
I said to her: ‘But if thy wealth were as that of the ruler of the city,
thy son would have no need of the little house and garden and the flock
of goats, and a cow and a dovecote.’ Whereupon she turned upon me in
bitterness, and said: ‘Were they not his own as the seed of his father?
Shall not one cherish that which is his own, which cometh from seed
to seed? Is it not the law?’ ‘But,’ said I, ‘if his wealth were thine,
there would be herds of cattle, and flocks of sheep, and carpets spread,
and the banquet-tables, and great orchards.’ But she stubbornly shook
her head. ‘Where the eagle built shall not the young eagle nest? How
should God meet me in the way and bless him who stood not by his birth
right? The plot of ground was the lad’s, and all that is thereon. I pray
thee, mock me not.’ God knows I did not mock her, for her words were
wisdom. So did it work upon me that, after many days, I got for the lad
his own again, and there he is happier, and his mother happier, than the
Governor in his palace. Later I did learn some truths from the shepherd,
the messenger, and the beggar, and the woman with the child; but chiefly
from the woman and the child. The material value has no relation to the
value each sets upon that which is his own. Behind this feeling lies the
strength of the world. Here on this hill of Bagdad I am thinking these
things. And, Luke, I would have thee also think on my story of the woman
and the child. There is in it a lesson for thee.”
When Luke Claridge first read this letter years before, he had put
it from him sternly. Now he heard it with a soft emotion. He took the
letter from Faith at last and put it in his pocket. With no apparent
relevancy, and laying his hand on Faith’s shoulder, he said:
“We have done according to our conscience by Davy--God is our witness,
so!”
She leaned her cheek against his hand, but did not speak.
In Soolsby’s hut upon the hill David sat talking to the old chair-maker.
Since his return he had visited the place several times, only to find
Soolsby absent. The old man, on awaking from his drunken sleep, had been
visited by a terrible remorse, and, whenever he had seen David coming,
had fled into the woods. This evening, however, David came in the dark,
and Soolsby was caught.
When David entered first, the old man broke down. He could not speak,
but leaned upon the back of a chair, and though his lips moved, no sound
came forth. But David took him by the shoulders and set him down, and
laughed gently in his face, and at last Soolsby got voice and said:
“Egyptian! O Egyptian!”
Then his tongue was loosened and his eye glistened, and he poured out
question after question, many pertinent, some whimsical, all frankly
answered by David. But suddenly he stopped short, and his eyes sank
before the other, who had laid a hand upon his knee.
“But don’t, Egyptian, don’t! Don’t have aught to do with me. I’m only a
drunken swine. I kept sober four years, as she knows--as the Angel down
yonder in the Red Mansion knows; but the day you came, going out to meet
you, I got drunk--blind drunk. I had only been pretending all the time.
I was being coaxed along--made believe I was a real man, I suppose.
But I wasn’t. I was a pillar of sand. When pressure came I just broke
down--broke down, Egyptian. Don’t be surprised if you hear me grunt.
It’s my natural speech. I’m a hog, a drink-swilling hog. I wasn’t decent
enough to stay sober till you had said ‘Good day,’ and ‘How goes it,
Soolsby?’ I tried it on; it was no good. I began to live like a man, but
I’ve slipped back into the ditch. You didn’t know that, did you?”
David let him have his say, and then in a low voice said: “Yes, I
knew thee had been drinking, Soolsby.” He started. “She told you--Kate
Heaver--”
“She did not tell me. I came and found you here with her. You were
asleep.”
“A drunken sweep!” He spat upon the ground in disgust at himself.
“I ought never have comeback here,” he added. “It was no place for me.
But it drew me. I didn’t belong; but it drew me.”
“Thee belongs to Hamley. Thee is an honour to Hamley, Soolsby.”
Soolsby’s eyes widened; the blurred look of rage and self-reproach in
them began to fade away.
“Thee has made a fight, Soolsby, to conquer a thing that has had thee by
the throat. There’s no fighting like it. It means a watching every hour,
every minute--thee can never take the eye off it. Some days it’s easy,
some days it’s hard, but it’s never so easy that you can say, ‘There is
no need to watch.’ In sleep it whispers and wakes you; in the morning,
when there are no shadows, it casts a shadow on the path. It comes
between you and your work; you see it looking out of the eyes of a
friend. And one day, when you think it has been conquered, that you have
worn it down into oblivion and the dust, and you close your eyes and
say, ‘I am master,’ up it springs with fury from nowhere you can see,
and catches you by the throat; and the fight begins again. But you sit
stronger, and the fight becomes shorter; and after many battles, and
you have learned never to be off guard, to know by instinct where every
ambush is, then at last the victory is yours. It is hard, it is bitter,
and sometimes it seems hardly worth the struggle. But it is--it is worth
the struggle, dear old man.”
Soolsby dropped on his knees and caught David by the arms. “How did you
know-how did you know?” he asked hoarsely. “It’s been just as you say.
You’ve watched some one fighting?”
“I have watched some one fighting--fighting,” answered David clearly,
but his eyes were moist.
“With drink, the same as me?”
“No, with opium--laudanum.”
“Oh, I’ve heard that’s worse, that it makes you mad, the wanting it.”
“I have seen it so.”
“Did the man break down like me?”
“Only once, but the fight is not yet over with him.”
“Was he--an Englishman?”
David inclined his head. “It’s a great thing to have a temptation to
fight, Soolsby. Then we can understand others.”
“It’s not always true, Egyptian, for you have never had temptation to
fight. Yet you know it all.”
“God has been good to me,” David answered, putting a hand on the old
man’s shoulder. “And thee is a credit to Hamley, friend. Thee will never
fall again.”
“You know that--you say that to me! Then, by Mary the mother of God, I
never will be a swine again,” he said, getting to his feet.
“Well, good-bye, Soolsby. I go to-morrow,” David said presently.
Soolsby frowned; his lips worked. “When will you come back?” he asked
eagerly.
David smiled. “There is so much to do, they may not let me come--not
soon. I am going into the desert again.”
Soolsby was shaking. He spoke huskily. “Here is your place,” he said.
“You shall come back--Oh, but you shall come back, here, where you
belong.”
David shook his head and smiled, and clasped the strong hand again. A
moment later he was gone. From the door of the but Soolsby muttered to
himself:
“I will bring you back. If Luke Claridge doesn’t, then I will bring you
back. If he dies, I will bring you--no, by the love of God, I will bring
you back while he lives!”
...........................
Two thousand miles away, in a Nile village, women sat wailing in dark
doorways, dust on their heads, black mantles covering their faces. By
the pond where all the people drank, performed their ablutions, bathed
their bodies and rinsed their mouths, sat the sheikh-el-beled, the
village chief, taking counsel in sorrow with the barber, the holy man,
and others. Now speaking, now rocking their bodies to and fro, in the
evening sunlight, they sat and watched the Nile in flood covering the
wide wastes of the Fayoum, spreading over the land rich deposits of
earth from the mountains of Abyssinia. When that flood subsided there
would be fields to be planted with dourha and onions and sugar-cane; but
they whose strong arms should plough and sow and wield the sickle, the
youth, the upstanding ones, had been carried off in chains to serve in
the army of Egypt, destined for the far Soudan, for hardship, misery,
and death, never to see their kindred any more. Twice during three
months had the dread servant of the Palace come and driven off
their best like sheep to the slaughter. The brave, the stalwart, the
bread-winners, were gone; and yet the tax-gatherer would come and press
for every impost--on the onion-field, the date-palm, the dourha-field,
and the clump of sugar-cane, as though the young men, the toilers,
were still there. The old and infirm, the children, the women, must now
double and treble their labour. The old men must go to the corvee, and
mend the banks of the Nile for the Prince and his pashas, providing
their own food, their own tools, their own housing, if housing there
would be--if it was more than sleeping under a bush by the riverside, or
crawling into a hole in the ground, their yeleks their clothes by day,
their only covering at night.
They sat like men without hope, yet with the proud, bitter mien of
those who had known good and had lost it, had seen content and now were
desolate.
Presently one--a lad--the youngest of them, lifted up his voice and
began to chant a recitative, while another took a small drum and beat
it in unison. He was but just recovered from an illness, or he had gone
also in chains to die for he knew not what, leaving behind without hope
all that he loved:
“How has the cloud fallen, and the leaf withered on the tree,
The lemon-tree, that standeth by the door.
The melon and the date have gone bitter to the taste,
The weevil, it has eaten at the core
The core of my heart, the mildew findeth it.
My music, it is but the drip of tears,
The garner empty standeth, the oven hath no fire,
Night filleth me with fears.
O Nile that floweth deeply, hast thou not heard his voice?
His footsteps hast thou covered with thy flood?
He was as one who lifteth up the yoke,
He was as one who taketh off the chain,
As one who sheltereth from the rain,
As one who scattereth bread to the pigeons flying.
His purse was at his side, his mantle was for me,
For any who passeth were his mantle and his purse,
And now like a gourd is he withered from our eyes.
His friendship, it was like a shady wood
Whither has he gone?--Who shall speak for us?
Who shall save us from the kourbash and the stripes?
Who shall proclaim us in the palace?
Who shall contend for us in the gate?
The sakkia turneth no more; the oxen they are gone;
The young go forth in chains, the old waken in the night,
They waken and weep, for the wheel turns backward,
And the dark days are come again upon us--
Will he return no more?
His friendship was like a shady wood,
O Nile that floweth deeply, hast thou not heard his voice?
Hast thou covered up his footsteps with thy flood?
The core of my heart, the mildew findeth it!”
Another-an old man-took up the strain, as the drum kept time to the beat
of the voice with its undulating call and refrain:
“When his footsteps were among us there was peace; War entered not the
village, nor the call of war. Now our homes are as those that have
no roofs. As a nest decayed, as a cave forsaken, As a ship that lieth
broken on the beach, Is the house where we were born. Out in the desert
did we bury our gold, We buried it where no man robbed us, for his arm
was strong. Now are the jars empty, gold did not avail To save our young
men, to keep them from the chains. God hath swallowed his voice, or the
sea hath drowned it, Or the Nile hath covered him with its flood; Else
would he come when our voices call. His word was honey in the prince’s
ear Will he return no more?”
And now the sheikh-el-beled spoke. “It hath been so since Nahoum Pasha
passed this way four months agone. He hath changed all. War will not
avail. David Pasha, he will come again. His word is as the centre of
the world. Ye have no hope, because ye see the hawks among the starving
sheep. But the shepherd will return from behind the hill, and the hawks
will flee away.
“... Behold, once was I in the desert. Listen, for mine are the words
of one who hath travelled far--was I not at Damascus and Palmyra and
Bagdad, and at Medina by the tomb of Mahomet?”
Reverently he touched the green turban on his head, evidence of his
journey to Mahomet’s tomb. “Once in the desert I saw afar off an oasis
of wood and water, and flying things, and houses where a man might rest.
And I got me down from my camel, and knelt upon my sheepskin, and gave
thanks in the name of Allah. Thereupon I mounted again and rode on
towards that goodly place. But as I rode it vanished from my sight. Then
did I mourn. Yet once again I saw the trees, and flocks of pigeons and
waving fields, and I was hungry and thirsty, and longed exceedingly. Yet
got I down, and, upon my sheep-skin, once more gave thanks to Allah. And
I mounted thereafter in haste and rode on; but once again was I mocked.
Then I cried aloud in my despair. It was in my heart to die upon the
sheep-skin where I had prayed; for I was burned up within, and there
seemed naught to do but say malaish, and go hence. But that goodly sight
came again. My heart rebelled that I should be so mocked. I bent down
my head upon my camel that I might not see, yet once more I loosed the
sheep-skin. Lifting up my heart, I looked again, and again I took hope
and rode on. Farther and farther I rode, and lo! I was no longer mocked;
for I came to a goodly place of water and trees, and was saved. So shall
it be with us. We have looked for his coming again, and our hearts
have fallen and been as ashes, for that he has not come. Yet there be
mirages, and one day soon David Pasha will come hither, and our pains
shall be eased.”
“Aiwa, aiwa--yes, yes,” cried the lad who had sung to them.
“Aiwa, aiwa,” rang softly over the pond, where naked children stooped to
drink.
The smell of the cooking-pots floated out from the mud-houses near by.
“Malaish,” said one after another, “I am hungry. He will come
again-perhaps to-morrow.” So they moved towards the houses over the way.
One cursed his woman for wailing in the doorway; one snatched the lid
from a cooking-pot; one drew from an oven cakes of dourha, and gave them
to those who had none; one knelt and bowed his forehead to the ground in
prayer; one shouted the name of him whose coming they desired.
So was David missed in Egypt.