Moreover, Mr. Gulliver, it appeared, had returned during the night to his first mistrust of my company. He made no sign he saw me, and left his uncouth servant to attend on me. For him, indeed, I began to feel a kind of affection springing up; he seemed so eager to befriend me. And whose is the heart quite hardened against a simple admiration? I rose very gladly when, after having stuffed a wallet with food, he signed to me to follow him. I turned to Mr. Gulliver and held out my hand.

"I wish, sir, I might induce you to accompany me," I said. "Some day we would win our way back to the country we have abandoned. I have known and loved your name, sir, since first I browsed on pictures—Being measured for your first coat in Lilliput by the little tailors:—Straddling the pinnacled city. Ay, sir, and when the farmers picked you up 'twixt finger and thumb from among their cornstalks...."

I had talked on in hope to see his face relax; but he made no sign he saw or heard me. I very speedily dropped my hand and went out. But when my guide and I had advanced about thirty yards from the stockade, I cast a glance over my shoulder towards the house that had given me shelter. It rose, sad-coloured and solitary, between the green and blue. But, if it was not fancy, Mr. Gulliver stood looking down on me from the very window whence I had looked down on him. And there I do not doubt he stayed till his fellow-yahoo had passed across his inhospitable lands out of his sight for ever.

I was glad to be gone, and did not, at first, realise that the least danger lay before us. But soon, observing the extraordinary vigilance and caution my companion showed, I began to watch and hearken, too. Evidently our departure had not passed unseen. Far away to left and to right of us I descried at whiles now a few, now many, swift-moving shapes. But whether they were advancing with us, or gathering behind us, in hope to catch their tyrant alone and unaware, I could not properly distinguish.

Once, for a cause not apparent to me, my guide raised himself to his full height, and, thrusting back his head, uttered a most piercing cry. After that, however, we saw no more for a while of the beasts that haunted our journey.

All morning, till the sun was high, and the air athrob with heat and stretched like a great fiddlestring to a continuous, shrill vibration, we went steadily forward. And when at last I was faint with heat and thirst, my companion lifted me up like a child on to his back and set off again at his great, easy stride. It was useless to protest. I merely buried my hands in his yellow hair to keep my balance in such a camel-like motion.

A little after noon we stayed to rest by a shallow brook, beneath a cluster of trees scented, though not in blossom, like an English hawthorn. There we ate our meal, or rather I ate and my companion watched, running out ever and again for a wider survey, and returning to me like a faithful dog, to shout snatches of his inconceivable language at me.

Sometimes I seemed to catch his meaning, bidding me take courage, have no fear, he would protect me. And once he shaded his eyes and pointed afar with extreme perturbation, whining or murmuring while he stared.

Again we set off from beneath the sweet-scented shade, and now no doubt remained that I was the object of very hostile evolutions. Sometimes these smooth-hooved battalions would advance, cloudlike, to within fifty yards of us, and, snorting, ruffle their manes and wheel swiftly away; only once more in turn to advance, and stand, with heads exalted, gazing wildly on us till we were passed on a little. But my guide gave them very little heed. Did they pause a moment too long in our path, or gallop down on us but a stretch or two beyond the limit his instinct had set for my safety, he whirled his thong above his head, and his yell resounded, and like a shadow upon wheat the furious companies melted away.

Evidently these were not the foes he looked for, but a subtler, a more indomitable. It was at last, I conjectured, at scent, or sight, or rumour of these that he suddenly swept me on to his shoulders again, and with a great sneeze or bellow leapt off at a speed he had, as yet, given me no hint of.

Looking back as best I could, I began to discern somewhat to the left of us a numerous herd in pursuit, sorrel in colour, and of a more magnificent aspect than those forming the other bands. It was obvious, too, despite their plunging and rearing, that they were gaining on us—drew, indeed, so near at last that I could count the foremost of them, and mark (not quite callously) their power and fleetness and symmetry, even the sun's gold upon their reddish skins.

Then in a flash my captor set me down, toppled me over (in plain words) into the thick herbage, and, turning, rushed bellowing, undeviating towards their leaders, till it seemed he must inevitably be borne down beneath their brute weight, and so—farewell to summer. But almost at the impact, the baffled creatures reared, neighing fearfully in consort, and at the gibberish hurled back on them by their flamed-eyed master, broke in rout, and fled.

Whereupon, unpausing, he ran back to me, only just in time to rescue me from the nearer thunder yet of those who had seized the very acme of their opportunity to beat out my brains.

It was a long and arduous and unequal contest. I wished very heartily I could bear a rather less passive part. But this fearless creature scarcely heeded me; used me like a helpless child, half tenderly, half roughly, displaying ever and again over his shoulder only a fleeting glance of the shallow glories of his eyes, as if to reassure me of his power and my safety.

But the latter, those distant savannahs will bear witness, seemed forlorn enough. My eyes swam with weariness of these crested, earth-disdaining battalions. I sickened of the heat of the sun, the incessant sidelong jolting, the amazing green. But on we went, fleet and stubborn, into ever-thickening danger. How feeble a quarry amid so many hunters!

Two things grew clearer to me each instant. First, that every movement and feint of our pursuers was of design. Not a beast that wheeled but wheeled to purpose; while the main body never swerved, thundered superbly on toward the inevitable end. And next I perceived with even keener assurance that my guide knew his country and his enemy and his own power and aim as perfectly and consummately; knew, too—this was the end.

Far distant in front of us there appeared to be a break in the level green, a fringe of bushes, rougher ground. For this refuge he was making, and from this our mutinous Houyhnhnms meant to keep us.

There was no pausing now, not a glance behind. His every effort was bent on speed. Speed indeed it was. The wind roared in my ears. Yet above its surge I heard the neighing and squealing, the ever-approaching shudder of hoofs. My eyes distorted all they looked on. I seemed now floating twenty feet in air; now skimming within touch of ground. Now that sorrel squadron behind me swelled and nodded; now dwindled to an extreme minuteness of motion.

Then, of a sudden, a last, shrill paean rose high; the hosts of our pursuers paused, billow-like, reared, and scattered—my poor Yahoo leapt clear.

For an instant once again in this wild journey I was poised, as it were, in space, then fell with a crash, still clutched, sure and whole, to the broad shoulders of my rescuer.

When my first confusion had passed away, I found that I was lying in a dense green glen at the foot of a cliff. For some moments I could think of nothing but my extraordinary escape from destruction. Within reach of my hand lay the creature who had carried me, huddled and motionless; and to left and to right of me, and one a little nearer the base of the cliff, five of those sorrel horses that had been chief of our pursuers. One only of them was alive, and he, also, broken and unable to rise—unable to do else than watch with fierce, untamed, glazing eyes (a bloody froth at his muzzle,) every movement and sign of life I made.

I myself, though bruised and bleeding, had received no serious injury. But my Yahoo would rise no more. His master was left alone amidst his people. I stooped over him and bathed his brow and cheeks with the water that trickled from the cliffs close at hand. I pushed back the thick strands of matted yellow hair from his eyes. He made no sign. Even while I watched him the life of the poor beast near at hand welled away: he whinnied softly, and dropped his head upon the bracken. I was alone in the unbroken silence.

It seemed a graceless thing to leave the carcasses of these brave creatures uncovered there. So I stripped off branches of the trees, and gathered bundles of fern and bracken, with which to conceal awhile their bones from wolf and fowl. And him whom I had begun to love I covered last, desiring he might but return, if only for a moment, to bid me his strange farewell.

This done, I pushed through the undergrowth from the foot of the sunny cliffs, and after wandering in the woods, came late in the afternoon, tired out, to a ruinous hut. Here I rested, refreshing myself with the unripe berries that grew near by.

I remained quite still in this mouldering hut looking out on the glens where fell the sunlight. Some homely bird warbled endlessly on in her retreat, lifted her small voice till every hollow resounded with her content. Silvery butterflies wavered across the sun's pale beams, sipped, and flew in wreaths away. The infinite hordes of the dust raised their universal voice till, listening, it seemed to me their tiny Babel was after all my own old, far-off English, sweet of the husk.

Fate leads a man through danger to his delight. Me she had led among woods. Nameless though many of the cups and stars and odours of the flowers were to me, unfamiliar the little shapes that gamboled in fur and feather before my face, here dwelt, mummy of all earth's summers, some old ghost of me, sipper of sap, coucher in moss, quieter than dust.

So sitting, so rhapsodising, I began to hear presently another sound—the rich, juicy munch-munch of jaws, a little blunted maybe, which yet, it seemed, could never cry Enough! to these sweet, succulent grasses. I made no sign, waited with eyes towards the sound, and pulses beating as if for a sweetheart. And soon, placid, unsurprised, at her extreme ease, loomed into sight who but my ox-headed Rosinante in these dells, cropping her delightful way along in search of her drowned master.

I could but whistle and receive the slow, soft scrutiny of her familiar eyes. I fancied even her bland face smiled, as might elderliness on youth. She climbed near with bridle broken and trailing, thrust out her nose to me, and so was mine again.

Sunlight left the woods. Wind passed through the upper branches. So, with rain in the air, I went forward once more; not quite so headily, perhaps, yet, I hope, with undiminished courage, like all earth's travellers before me, who have deemed truth potent as modesty, and themselves worth scanning print after.



IX

A ... shop of rarities.

—GEORGE HERBERT.

A little before darkness fell we struck into a narrow road traversing the wood. This, though apparently not much frequented, would at least lead me into lands inhabited, so turning my face to the West, that I might have light to survey as long as any gleamed in the sky, I trudged on. But I went slow enough: Rosinante was lame; I like a stranger to my body, it was so bruised and tumbled.

The night was black, and a thin rain falling when at last I emerged from the interminable maze of lanes into which the wood-road had led me. And glad I was to descry what seemed by the many lights shining from its windows to be a populous village. A gay village also, for song came wafted on the night air, rustic and convivial.

Hereabouts I overtook a figure on foot, who, when I addressed him, turned on me as sharply as if he supposed the elms above him were thick with robbers, or that mine was a voice out of the unearthly hailing him.

I asked him the name of the village we were approaching. With small dark eyes searching my face in the black shadow of night, he answered in a voice so strange and guttural that I failed to understand a word. He shook his fingers in the air; pointed with the cudgel he carried under his arm now to the gloom behind us, now to the homely galaxy before us, and gabbled on so fast and so earnestly that I began to suppose he was a little crazed.

One word, however, I caught at last from all this jargon, and that often repeated with a little bow to me, and an uneasy smile on his white face—"Mishrush, Mishrush!" But whether by this he meant to convey to me his habitual mood, or his own name, I did not learn till afterwards. I stopped in the heavy road and raised my hand.

"An inn," I cried in his ear, "I want lodging, supper—a tavern, an inn!" as if addressing a child or a natural.

He began gesticulating again, evidently vain of having fully understood me. Indeed, he twisted his little head upon his shoulders to observe Rosinante gauntly labouring on. "'Ame!—'ame!" he cried with a great effort.

I nodded.

"Ah!" he cried piteously.

He led me, after a few minutes' journey, into the cobbled yard of a bright-painted inn, on whose signboard a rising sun glimmered faintly gold, and these letters standing close above it—"The World's End."

Mr. "Mishrush" seemed not a little relieved at nearing company after his lonely walk; triumphant, too, at having guided me hither so cunningly. He lifted his nimble cudgel in the air and waved it conceitedly to and fro in time to the song that rose beyond the window. "Fau'ow er Wur'!—Fau'ow er Wur'!" he cried delightedly again and again in my ear, eager apparently for my approval. So we stood, then, beneath the starless sky, listening to the rich choragium of the "World's End." They sang in unison, sang with a kind of forlorn heat and enthusiasm. And when the song was ended, and the roar of applause over, Night, like a darkened water whelmed silently in, engulfed it to the echo:

Follow the World— She bursts the grape, And dandles man In her green lap; She moulds her Creature From the clay, And crumbles him To dust away: Follow the World!

One Draught, one Feast, One Wench, one Tomb; And thou must straight To ashes come: Drink, eat, and sleep; Why fret and pine? Death can but snatch What ne'er was thine: Follow the World!

It died away, I say, and an ostler softly appeared out of the shadow. Into his charge, then, I surrendered Rosinante, and followed my inarticulate acquaintance into the noise and heat and lustre of the Inn.

It was a numerous company there assembled. But their voices fell to a man on the entry of a stranger. They scrutinised me, not uncivilly, but closely, seeking my badge, as it were by which to recognise and judge me ever after.

Mr. Mistrust, as I presently discovered my guide's name indeed to be, was volubly explaining how I came into his company. They listened intently to what, so far as I could gather, might be Houyhnhnmish or Double-Dutch. And then, as if to show me to my place forthwith, a great fleshy fellow that sat close beside the hearth this summer evening continued in a loud voice the conversation I had interrupted.

Whereupon Mr. Mistrust with no little confidence commended me in dumb show to the landlady of the Inn, a Mrs. Nature, if I understood him aright. This person was still comely, though of uncertain age, wore cherry ribbons, smiled rather vacantly from vague, wonderful, indescribable eyes that seemed to change colour, like the chameleon, according to that they dwelt on.

I am afraid, as much to my amusement as wonder, I discovered that this landlady of so much apparent bonhomie was a deaf-mute. If victuals, or drink, or bed were required, one must chalk it down on a little slate she carried at her girdle for the purpose. Indeed, the absence of two of her three chief senses had marvellously sharpened the remaining one. Her eyes were on all, vaguely dwelling, lightly gone, inscrutable, strangely fascinating. She moved easily and soundlessly (as fat women may), and I doubt if ever mug or pot of any of that talkative throng remained long empty, except at the tippler's reiterated request.

She laid before me an excellent supper on a little table somewhat removed beside a curtained window. And while I ate I watched, and listened, not at all displeased with my entertainment.

The room in which we sat was low-ceiled and cheerful, but rather close after the rainy night-air. Gay pictures beautified the walls. Here a bottle, a cheese, grapes, a hare, a goblet—in a clear brown light that made the guest's mouth water to admire. Here a fine gentleman toasting a simpering chambermaid. Above the chimney-piece a bloated old man in vineleaves that might be Silenus. And over against the door of the parlour what I took to be a picture of Potiphar's wife, she looked out of the paint so bold and beauteous and craftily. Birds and fishes in cases stared glassily,—owl and kestrel, jack and eel and gudgeon. All was clean and comfortable as a hospitable inn can be.

But they who frequented it interested me much more—as various and animated a gathering as any I have seen. Yet in some peculiar manner they seemed one and all not to the last tittle quite of this world. They were, so to speak, more earthy, too definite, too true to the mould, like figures in a bleak, bright light viewed out of darkness. Certainly not one of them was at first blush prepossessing. Yet who finds much amiss with the fox at last, though all he seems to have be cunning?

Near beside me, however, sat retired a man a little younger and more at his ease than most of the many there, and as busy with his eyes and ears as I. His name, I learned presently, was Reverie; and from him I gathered not a little information regarding the persons who talked and sipped around us.

He told me at whiles that his house was not in the village, but in a valley some few miles distant across the meadows; that he sat out these bouts of argument and slander for the sheer delight he had in gathering the myriad strands of that strange rope Opinion; that he lived (heart, soul, and hope) well-nigh alone; that he deeply mistrusted this place, and the company we were in, yet not for its mistress's sake, who was at least faithful to her instincts, candid to the candid, made no favourites, and, eventually, compelled order. He told me also that if friends he had, he deemed it wiser not to name them, since the least sibilant of the sound of the voice incites to treachery; and in conclusion, that of all men he was acquainted with, one at least never failed to right his humour; and that one was yonder flabby, pallid fellow with the velvet collar to his coat, and the rings on his fingers, and the gold hair, named Pliable, who sat beside Mr. Stubborn on the settle by the fire.

When, then, I had finished my supper, I drew in my chair a little closer to Mr. Reverie's and, having scribbled my wants on the Landlady's slate, turned my attention to the talk.

At the moment when I first began to listen attentively they seemed to be in heated dispute concerning the personal property of a certain Mr. Christian, who was either dead or had inexplicably disappeared. Mr. Obstinate, I gathered, had taken as his right this Christian's "easy-chair"; a gentleman named Smoothman most of his other goods for a debt; while a Parson Decorum had appropriated as heretical his books and various peculiar MSS.

But there now remained in question a trifling sum of money which a Mr. Liar loudly demanded in payment of an "affair of honour." This, however, he seemed little likely to obtain, seeing that an elderly uncle by marriage of Christian's, whose name was Office, was as eager and affable and frank about the sum as he was bent on keeping it; and rattled the contents of his breeches' pocket in sheer bravado of his means to go to law for it.

"He left a bare pittance, the merest pittance," he said. "What could there be of any account? Christian despised money, professed to despise it. That alone would prove my wretched nephew queer in the head—despised money!

"Tush, friend!" cried Obstinate from his corner. "Whether the money is yours, or neighbour Liar's—and it is as likely as not neither's—that talk about despising money's what but a silly lie? 'Twas all sour grapes—sour grapes. He had cunning enough for envy, and pride enough for shame; and at last there was naught but cunning left wherewith to patch up a clout for him and his shame to be gone in. I watched him set out on his pestilent pilgrimage, crazed and stubborn, and not a groat to call his own."

"Yet I have heard say he came of a moneyed stock," said Pliable. "The Sects of Privy Opinion were rare wealthy people, and they, so 'tis said, were his kinsmen. Truth is, for aught I know, Christian must have been in some degree a very liberal rascal, with all his faults." He tittered.

"Oh! he was liberal enough," said Mr. Malice suavely: "why, even on setting out, he emptied his wife's purse into a blind beggar's hat!—his that used to bleat, 'Cast thy bread—cast thy bread upon the waters!' whensoever he spied Christian stepping along the street. They say," he added, burying his clever face in his mug, "the Heavenly Jerusalem lieth down by the weir."

"But we must not contemn a man for his poverty, neighbours," said Liar, gravely composing his hairless face. "Christian's was a character of beautiful simplicity—beautiful! How many rickety children did he leave behind him?"

A shrill voice called somewhat I could not quite distinguish, for at that moment a youth rose abruptly near by, and went hastily out.

Obstinate stared roundly. "Thou hast a piercing voice, friend Liar!"

"I did but seek the truth," said Liar.

"But whether or no, Christian believed in it—verily he seemed to believe in it. Was it not so, neighbour Obstinate?" enquired Pliable, stroking his leg.

"Believed in what, my friend?" said Obstinate, in a dull voice.

"About Mount Zion, and the Crowns of Glory, and the Harps of Gold, and such like," said Pliable uneasily—"at least, it is said so; so 'tis said."

"Believed!" retorted a smooth young man who seemed to feel the heat, and sat by the staircase door. "That's an easy task—to believe, sir. Ask any pretty minikin!"

"And I'd make bold to enquire of yonder Liveloose," said a thick, monotonous voice (a Mr. Dull's, so Reverie informed me), "if mebbe he be referring to one of his own, or that fellow Sloth's devilish fairy tales? I know one yet he'll eat again some day."

At which remark all laughed consumedly, save Dull.

"Well, one thing Christian had, and none can deny it," said Pliable, a little hotly, "and that was Imagination? I shan't forget the tales he was wont to tell: what say you, Superstition?"

Mr. Superstition lifted dark, rather vacant eyes on Pliable. "Yes, yes," he said: "Flame, and sigh, and lamentation. My God, my God, gentlemen!"

"Oo-ay, Oo-ay," yelped the voice of Mistrust, startled out of silence.

"Oo-ay," whistled Malice, under his breath.

"Tush, tush!" broke in Obstinate again, and snapped his fingers in the air. "And what is this precious Imagination? Whither doth it conduct a man, but to beggary, infamy, and the mad-house? Look ye to it, friend Pliable! 'Tis a devouring flame; give it but wind and leisure, the fairest house is ashes."

"Ashes; ashes!" mocked one called Cruelty, who had more than once taken my attention with his peculiar contortions—"talking of ashes, what of Love-the-log Faithful, Master Tongue-stump? What of Love-the-log Faithful?"

At which Liveloose was so extremely amused, the tears stood in his eyes for laughing.

I looked round for Mistrust, and easily recognised my friend by his hare-like face, and the rage in his little active eyes. But unfortunately, as I turned to enquire somewhat of Reverie, Liveloose suddenly paused in his merriment with open mouth; and the whole company heard my question, "But who was Love-the-log Faithful?"

I was at once again the centre of attention, and Mr. Obstinate rose very laboriously from his settle and held out a great hand to me.

"I'm pleased to meet thee," he said, with a heavy bow. "There's a dear heart with my good neighbour Superstition yonder who will present a very fair account of that misguided young man. Madam Wanton, here's a young gentleman that never heard tell of our old friend Love-the-log."

A shrill peal of laughter greeted this sally.

"Why, Faithful was a young gentleman, sir," explained the woman civilly enough, "who preferred his supper hot."

"Oh, Madam Wanton, my dear, my dear!" cried a long-nosed woman nearly helpless with amusement.

I saw Superstition gazing darkly at me. He shook his head as I was about to reply, so I changed my retort. "Who, then, was Mr. Christian?" I enquired simply.

At that the house shook with the roar of laughter that went up.



X

... Large draughts of intellectual day.

—RICHARD CRASHAW.

"Believe me, neighbours," said Malice softly, when this uproar was a little abated, "there is nought so strange in the question. It meaneth only that this young gentleman hath not enjoyed the pleasure of your company before. Will it amaze you to learn, my friends, that Christian is like to be immortal only because you talk him out of the grave? One brief epitaph, gentlemen, would let him rot."

"Nay, but I'll tell the gentleman who Christian was, and with pleasure," cried a lucid, rather sallow little man that had sat quietly smiling and listening. "My name, let me tell you, is Atheist, sir; and Christian was formerly a very near neighbour of an old friend of my family's—Mr. Sceptic. They lived, sir—at least in those days—opposite to one another."

"He is a great talker," whispered Reverie in my ear. But the company evidently found his talk to their taste. They sat as still and attentive around him, as though before an extemporary preacher.

"Well, sir," continued Atheist, "being, in a sense, neighbours, Christian in his youth would often confide in my friend; though, assuredly, Sceptic never sought his confidences. And it seemeth he began to be perturbed and troubled over the discovery that it is impossible—at least in this plain world—to eat your cake, yet have it. And by some ill chance he happened at this time on a mouldy old folio in my friend's house that had been the property of his maternal grandmother—the subtlest old tome you ever set eyes on, though somewhat too dark and extravagant and heady for a sober man of the world like me. 'Twas called the Bible, sir—a collection of legends and fables of all times, tongues, and countries threaded together, mighty ingeniously I grant, and in as plausible a style as any I know, if a little lax and flowery in parts.

"Well, Christian borroweth the book of my friend—never to return it. And being feeble and credulous, partly by reason of his simple wits, and partly by reason of the sad condition a froward youth had reduced him to, he accepts the whole book—from Apple to Vials—for truth. In fact, 'he ate the little book,' as one of the legendary kings it celebrates had done before him."

"Ay," broke in Cruelty wildly, "and has ever since gotten the gripes."

Atheist inclined his head. "Putting it coarsely, gentlemen, such was the case," he said. "And away at his wit's end he hasteneth, waning and shivering, to a great bog or quagmire—that my friend Pliable will answer to—and plungeth in. 'Tis the same story repeated. He could be temperate in nought. I knew the bog well; but I knew the stepping-stones better. Believe me, I have traversed the narrow way this same Christian took, seeking the harps and pearls and the elixir vitae, these many years past. The book inciteth ye to it. It sets a man's heart on fire—that's weak enough to read it—with its pomp, and rhetoric, and far-away promises, and lofty counsels. Oh, fine words, who is not their puppet! I climbed 'Difficulty.' I snapped my fingers at the grinning Lions. I passed cautiously through the 'Valley of the Shadow'—wild scenery, sir! I visited that prince of bubbles also, Giant Despair, in his draughty castle. And—though boasting be far from me!—fetched Liveloose's half-brother out of a certain charnel-house near by.

"Thus far, sir, I went. But I have not yet found the world so barren of literature as to write a book about it. I have not yet found the world so barren of ingratitude as to seek happiness by stabbing in the back every friend I ever had. I have not yet forsaken wife and children; neighbours and kinsmen; home, ease, and tenderness, for a whim, a dream, a passing qualm. No, sir; 'tis this Christian's ignorant hardness-of-heart that is his bane. Knowing little, he prateth much. He would pinch and contract the Universe to his own fantastical pattern. He is tedious, he is pragmatical, and—I affirm it in all sympathy and sorrow—he is crazed. Malice, haply, is a little sharp at times. And neighbour Obstinate dealeth full weight with his opinions. But this Christian Flown-to-Glory, as the urchins say, pinks with a bludgeon. He cannot endure an honest doubt. He distorteth a mere difference of opinion into a roaring Tophet. And because he is helpless, solitary, despised in the world; because he is impotent to refute, and too stubborn to hear and suffer people a little higher and weightier, a leetle wiser than he—why, beyond the grave he must set his hope in vengeance. Beyond the grave—bliss for his own shade; fire and brimstone, eternal woe for theirs. Ay, and 'tis not but for a season will he vex us, but for ever, and for ever, and for ever—if he knoweth in the least what he meaneth by the phrase. And this he calls 'Charity.'

"Yes, sirs, beyond the grave he would condemn us, beyond the grave—a place of peace whereto I deem there are not many here but will be content at length to come; and I not least content, when my duty is done, my children provided for, and my last suspicion of fear and folly suppressed.

"To conclude, sir—and beshrew me, gentlemen, how time doth fly in talk!—this Christian goeth his way. We, each in accord with his caprice and conscience, go ours. We envy him not his vapours, his terrors, or his shameless greed of reward. Why, then, doth he envy us our wealth, our success, our gaiety, our content? He raves. He is haunted. What is man but as grass, and the flower of grass? Come the sickle, he is clean gone. I can but repeat it, sir, our poor neighbour was crazed: 'tis Christian in a word."

A sigh, a murmur of satisfaction and relief, rose from the company, as if one and all had escaped by Mr. Atheist's lucidity out of a very real peril.

I thanked him for his courtesy, and in some confusion turned to Reverie with the remark that I thought I now recollected to have heard Christian's name, but understood he had indeed arrived, at last, at the Celestial City for which he had set out.

"Celestial twaddle, sir!" cried Mr. Obstinate hoarsely. "He went stark, staring mad, and now is dust, as we shall soon all be, that's certain."

Then Cruelty rose out of his chair and elbowed his way to the door. He opened it and looked out.

"I would," he said, "I had known of this Christian before he started. Step you down to Vanity Fair, Sir Stranger, if the mood take you; and we'll show you as pretty a persuasion against pilgrimage as ever you saw." He opened his mouth where he stood between me and the stars. "... There's many more!" he added with difficulty, as if his rage was too much for him. He spat into the air and went out.

Presently after Liveloose rose up, smiling softly, and groped after him.

A little silence followed their departure.

"You must tell your friend, Mr. Reverie," said Atheist good-humouredly, "that Mr. Cruelty says more than he means. To my mind he is mistaken—too energetic; but his intentions are good."

"He's a staunch, dependable fellow," said Obstinate, patting down the wide cuffs he wore.

But even at that moment a stranger softly entered the inn out of the night. His face was of the grey of ashes, and he looked once round on us all with a still, appalling glance that silenced the words on my lips.

We sat without speech—Obstinate yawning, Atheist smiling lightly, Superstition nibbling his nails, Reverie with chin drawn a little back, Pliable bolt upright, like a green and white wand, Mistrust blinking his little thin lids; but all with eyes fixed on this stranger, who deemed himself, it seemed, among friends.

He turned his back on us and sipped his drink under the heedless, deep, untroubled gaze of Mrs. Nature, and passed out softly and harmlessly as he had come in.

Reverie stood up like a man surprised and ill at ease. He turned to me. "I know him only by repute, by hearsay," he said with an effort. "He is a stranger to us all, indeed, sir—to all."

Obstinate, with a very flushed face, thrust his hand into his breeches' pocket. "Nay, sir," he said, "my purse is yet here. What more would you have?"

At which Pliable laughed, turning to the women.

I put on my hat and followed Reverie to the door.

"Excuse me, sir," I said, "but I have no desire to stay in this house over-night. And if you would kindly direct me to the nearest way out of the village, I will have my horse saddled now and be off."

And then I noticed that Superstition stood in the light of the doorway looking down on us.

"There's Christian's way," he said, as if involuntarily....

"Lodge with me to-night," Reverie answered, "and in the morning you shall choose which way to go you will."

I thanked him heartily and turned in to find Rosinante.

The night was now fine, but moist and sultry, and misty in the distance. It was late, too, for few candles gleamed beneath the moonlight from the windows round about the smooth village-green. Even as we set out, I leading Rosinante by her bridle, and Superstition on my left hand, out of heavenly Leo a bright star wheeled, fading as it fell. And soon high hedges hid utterly the "World's End" behind us, out of sight and sound.

I observed when the trees had laid their burdened branches overhead, and the thick-flowered bushes begun to straiten our way, that this Mr. Superstition who had desired to accompany us was of a very different courage from that his manner at the inn seemed to profess.

He walked with almost as much caution and ungainliness as Mistrust, his deep and shining eyes busily searching the gloom to left and right of him. Indeed, those same dark eyes of his reminded me not a little of Mrs. Nature's, they were so full of what they could not tell.

He was on foot; my new friend Reverie, like myself, led his horse, a pale, lovely creature with delicate nostrils and deep-smouldering eyes.

"You must think me very bold to force my company on you," said Superstition awkwardly, turning to Reverie, "but my house is never so mute with horror as in these moody summer nights when thunder is in the air. See there!" he cried.

As if the distant sky had opened, the large, bright, harmless lightning quivered and was gone, revealing on the opposing hills forest above forest unutterably dark and still.

"Surely," I said, "that is not the way Christian took?"

"They say," Reverie answered, "the Valley of the Shadow of Death lies between those hills."

"But Atheist," I said, "that acid little man, did he indeed walk there alone?"

"I have heard," muttered Superstition, putting out his hand, "'tis fear only that maketh afraid. Atheist has no fear."

"But what of Cruelty," I said, "and Liveloose?"

"Why," answered Superstition, "Cruelty works cunningest when he is afraid; and Liveloose never talks about himself. None the less there's not a tree but casts a shadow. I met once an earnest yet very popular young gentleman of the name of Science, who explained almost everything on earth to me so clearly, and patiently, and fatherly, I thought I should evermore sleep in peace. But we met at noon. Believe me, sir, I would have followed Christian and his friend Hopeful very willingly long since; for as for Cruelty and Obstinate and all that clumsy rabble, I heed them not. Indeed my cousin Mistrust did go, and as you see returned with a caution; and a poor young school-fellow of mine, Jack Ignorance, came to an awful end. But it is because I owe partly to Christian and not all to myself this horrible solitude in which I walk that I dare not risk a deeper. It would be, I feel sure. And so I very willingly beheld Faithful burned; it restored my confidence. And here, sir," he added, almost with gaiety, "lives my friend Mrs. Simple, a widow. She enjoys my company and my old fables, and we keep the blinds down against these mountains, and candles burning against the brighter lightnings."

So saying, Superstition bade us good-night and passed down a little by-lane on our left towards a country cottage, like a dreaming bower of roses beneath the moon.

But Reverie and I continued on as if the moon herself as patiently pursued us. And by-and-by we came to a house called Gloom, whose gardens slope down with plashing fountains and glimmering banks of flowers into the shadow and stillness of a broad valley, named beneath the hills of Silence, Peace.



XI

His soul shall taste the sadness of her might, And be among her cloudy trophies hung.

—JOHN KEATS.

Even as we entered the gates of Mr. Reverie's house beneath embowering chestnuts, there advanced across the moonlit spaces to meet us a figure on foot like ourselves, leading his horse. He was in armour, yet unarmed. His steel glittered cold and blue; his fingers hung ungauntleted; and on his pale face dwelt a look never happy warrior wore yet. He seemed a man Mars lends to Venus out of war to unhappy idleness. The disillusionment of age was in his face: yet he was youthful, I suppose; scarce older than Mercutio, and once, perhaps, as light of wit.

He took my hand in a grasp cold and listless, and smiled from mirthless eyes.

Yet there was something strangely taking in this solitary knight-at-arms. She for whom he does not fight, I thought, must have somewhat of the immortals to grace her warrior with. And if it were only shadows that beset him and obscured his finer heart, shadows they were of myrtle and rhododendron, with voices shrill and small as the sparrows', and eyes of the next-to-morning stars.

Indeed, these gardens whispered, and the wind at play in the air seemed to bear far-away music, dying and falling.

We entered the house and sat down to supper in a low room open to the night. Reverie recounted our evening's talk. "I wish," he said, turning to his friend, "you would accompany Mr. Brocken and me one night to the 'World's End' to hear these fellows talk. Such arrogance, such assurance, such bigotry and blindness and foxiness!—yet, on my word, a kind of gravity with it all, as if the scarecrows had some real interest in the devil's tares they guard. Come now, let it be a bargain between us, and leave this endless search awhile."

But the solitary knight shook his head. "They would jeer me out of knowledge," he said. "Why, Reverie, the children cease their play when I pass, and draw their tops and marbles out of the dust, and gaze till I am hid from sight."

"It is fancy, only fancy," replied Reverie; "children stare at all things new to them in the world. How else could they recognise and learn again—how else forget? But as for this rabble's mockery, there is a she-bear left called Oblivion which is their mistress, and will some day silence every jeer."

The solitary knight shook his head again, eyeing me solemnly as if in hope to discern in my face the sorcery that held himself in thrall.

The few wax tapers gave but light enough to find the way from goblet to mouth. As for Reverie's wine, I ask no other, for it had the poppy's scarlet, and overcame weariness so subtly I almost forgot these were the hours of sleep we spent in waking; forgot, too, as if of the lotus, all thought of effort and hope.

After all, thought I as I sipped, effort is the flaw that proves men mortal; while as for hope, who would seek a seed that floats on every wind and smothers the world with weeds that bear no fruit? It was, in fact, fare very different from the ale and cheese of the "World's End."

"But you yourself," I said to Mr. Reverie presently; "in all the talk at the inn you kept a very scrupulous silence—discreet enough, I own. But now, what truly was this Christian of whom we heard so much? and why, may I ask, do his neighbours slander the dead? You yourselves, did you ever meet with him?" I turned from one to the other of my companions as they glanced uneasily each at each.

"Well, sir," said Reverie rather deliberately, "I have met him and talked with him. I often think of him, in spite of myself. Yet he was a man of little charm. He certainly had a remarkable gift for estranging his friends. He was a foe to the most innocent compromise. For myself, I found not much humour in him, no eye for grace or art, and a limited imagination that was yet his absolute master. Nevertheless, as you hint, these fellows, no more than I, can forget him. Nor you?" He turned to the other.

"Christian," he replied, "I remember him. We were friends a little while. Faithful I knew also. Faithful was to the last my friend. Ah! Reverie, then—how many years ago!—there was a child we loved, all three: do you remember? I see the low, green wall, cool from how many a summer's shadows, the clusters of green apples on the bough. And in the early morning we would go, carrying torn-off branches, and shouting our songs through the fields, till we came to the shadow and the hush of the woods. Ay, Reverie, and we would burst in on silence, each his heart beating, and play there. And perhaps it was Hopeful who would steal away from us, and the others play on; or perhaps you into the sunlight that maddened the sheltered bird to flit and sing in the orchard where the little child we loved played—not yet sad, but how much beloved; not yet weary of passing shadows, and simple creatures, and boy's rough gifts and cold hands. But I—with me it was ever evening, when the blackbird bursts harshly away. Then it was so still in the orchard, and in the curved bough so solitary, that the nightingale, cowering, would almost for fear begin to sing, and stoop to the bending of the bough, her sidelong eyes in shade; while the stars began to stand in the stations above us, ever bright, and all the night was peace. Then would I dream on—dream of the face I loved, Innocence, O Innocence!"

It was a strange outburst. His voice rose almost to a chant, full of a forlorn music. But even as he ceased, we heard in the following silence, above the plashing of the restless fountains, beyond, far and faint, a wild and stranger music welling. And I saw from the porch that looks out from the house called Gloom, "La belle Dame sans Merci" pass riding with her train, who rides in beauty beneath the huntress, heedless of disguise. Across from far away, like leaves of autumn, skirred the dappled deer. The music grew, timbrel and pipe and tabor, as beneath the glances of the moon the little company sped, transient as a rainbow, elusive as a dream. I saw her maidens bound and sandalled, with all their everlasting flowers; and advancing soundless, unreal, the silver wheels of that unearthly chariot amid the Fauns. On, on they gamboled, hoof in yielding turf, blowing reed melodies, mocking water, their lips laid sidelong, their eyes aleer along the smoothness of their flutes.

And when I turned again to my companions, with I know not what old folly in my eyes, I know not what unanswerable cry in my heart, Reverie alone was at my side. I seemed to see the long fringes of the lake, the sedge withered, the grey waters restless in the bonds of the wind, tuneless and chill; all these happy gardens swept bare and flowerless; and the far hills silent in the unattainable dawn.

"She pipes, he follows," said Reverie; "she sets the tune, he dances. Yet, sir, on my soul, I believe it is the childish face of that same Innocence we kept tryst with long ago he pursues on and on, through what sad labyrinths we, who dream not so wildly, cannot by taking thought come to guess."

* * * * *

The next two days passed serenely and quietly at Reverie's. We read together, rode, walked, and talked together, and listened in the evening to music. For a sister of Reverie's lived not far distant, who visited him while I was there, and took supper with us, delighting us with her wit and spirit and her youthful voice.

But though Reverie more than once suggested it, I could not bring myself to return to the "World's End" and its garrulous company. Whether it was the moist, grey face of Mr. Cruelty I most abhorred, or Stubborn's slug-like eye, or the tongue-stump of my afflicted guide, I cannot say.

Moreover, I had begun to feel a very keen curiosity to see the way that had lured Christian on with such graceless obstinacy. They had spoken of remorse, poverty, pride, world-failure, even insanity, even vice: but these appeared to me only such things as might fret a man to set violently out on, not to persist in such a course; or likelier yet, to abandon hope, to turn back from heights that trouble or confusion set so far, and made seem dreams.

How could I help, too, being amused to think how vastly strange these fellows considered a man's venturing whither his star beckoned; though that star were only power, only fame, only beauty, only peace? What wonder they were many?

Not far from this place, Reverie informed me, were pitched the booths of Vanity Fair. This, by his account, was a place one ought to visit, if only for the satisfaction of leaving it behind. But I have heard more animated accounts of it elsewhere.

As for Reverie himself, he seemed only desirous to contemplate; never to taste, to win, or to handle. He needed but refuse reality to what shocked or teased him, to find it harmless and entertaining. He was a dreamer whom the heat and shout of battle could not offend.

Perhaps he perceived my restlessness to be gone, for he himself suggested that I should stay till the next morning, and then, if I so pleased, he would see me a mile or two on my way.

"For the Pitiless Lady," he said, smiling, "takes many disguises, sometimes of the sun, sometimes of evening, sometimes of night; and I would at least save you from the fate that has made my poor friend a phantom before he is a shade."



XII

The many men, so beautiful! And they all dead did lie.

—S.T. Coleridge.

So Reverie, as he had promised, rode out with me a few miles to see me on my way. Above the gloom and stillness of the valley the scene began to change again. I was glad as I could be to view once more the tossing cornfields and the wind at play with shadow. Near and far, woods and pastures smoked beneath the sun. I know not through how many arches of the elms and green folds of the meadows I kept watch on the chimneys of a farmhouse above its trees.

But Reverie, the further we journeyed, the less he said. I almost chafed to see his heedless eyes turned upon some inward dream, while here, like life itself, stood cloud and oak, warbled bird and brook beneath the burning sun. I saw again in memory the silver twilight of the moon, and the crazy face of Love's Warrior, haunter of shade. Let him but venture into the open, I thought, hear again the distant lowing of the oxen, the rooks cawing in the elms, see again the flocks upon the hillside!

I suppose this was her home my heart had turned to. This was my dust; night's was his. For me the wild rose and the fields of harvest; for him closed petals, the chantry of the night wind, phantom lutes and voices. And, as if he had overheard my thoughts, Reverie turned at the cross-ways.

"You will come back again," he said. "They tell me in distant lands men worship Time, set up a shrine to him in every street, and treasure his emblem next their hearts. There, they say, even the lover babbles of hours, and the dreamer measures sleep with a pendulum. Well, my house is secluded, and the world is far; and to me Time is naught. Return, sir, then, when it pleases you. Besides," he added, smiling faintly, "there is always company at the World's End."

The crisp sunbeams rained upon his pale and delicate horse, its equal-plaited mane, on the darkness of his cloak, that dream-delighted face. Here smouldered gold, here flushed crimson, and here the curved damaskening of his bridle glistened and gleamed. He was a strange visitant to the open day, between the green hedges, beneath the enormous branching of the elms. And there I bade him farewell.

Some day, perhaps, I shall return as he has foretold, for it is ever easy to find again the house of Reverie—to them who have learned the way.

On I journeyed, then, following as I had been directed the main road to Vanity Fair. But whether it is that the Fair is more difficult to arrive at than to depart from, or is really a hard day's journey even from the gay parlour of the World's End, it already began to be evening, and yet no sign of bunting or booth or clamour or smoke.

And it was at length to a noiseless Fair, far from all vanity, that I came at sunset—the cypresses of a solitary graveyard. I was tired out and desired only rest; so dismounting and leading Rosinante, I turned aside willingly into its peace.

It seemed I had entered a new earth. The lane above had wandered on in the gloaming of its hedges and over-arching trees. Here, all the clouds of sunset stood, caught up in burning gold. Even as I paused, dazzled a moment by the sudden radiance, from height to height the wild bright rose of evening ran. Not a tottering stone, black, well-nigh shapeless with age, not a green bush, but seemed to dwell unconsumed in its own fire above this desolate ground. The trees that grew around me—willow and yew, thorn and poplar—were but flaming cages for the wild birds that perched in their branches.

Above these sound-dulled mansions trod lightly, as if of thought, Rosinante's gilded shoes. I wandered on in a strange elation of mind, filled with a desperate desire ever to remember how flamed this rose between earth and sky, how throbbed this jargon of delight. And turning as if in hope to share my enthusiasm, a childish peal of laughter showed me I was not alone.

Beneath a canopy of holly branches and yew two children sat playing. The nearer child's hair was golden, glistening round his face of roses, and he it was who had laughed, tumbling on the sward. But the face of the further child was white almost as crystal, and the dark hair that encircled his head with its curved lines seemed as it were the shadow of the gold it showed beside. These children, it was plain, had been running and playing across the tombs; but now they were stooping together at some earnest sport. To me, even if they had seen me, they as yet paid no heed.

I passed slowly towards them, deeming them at first of solitude's creation, my eyes dazzled so with the sun. But as I approached, so the branches beneath which they played gradually disparted, and I saw not far distant from them one sitting who evidently had these jocund boys in charge.

I could not but hesitate awhile as I surveyed them. These were no mortal children playing naked amid the rose of evening: nor she who sat veiled and beautiful beneath the ruinous tombs. I turned with sudden dismay to depart from their presence unobserved as I had entered; but the children had now espied me, and came running, filled with wonder of Rosinante and the stranger beside her.

They stayed at a little distance from us with dwelling eyes and parted lips. Then the fairer and, as it seemed to me, elder of the brothers stooped and plucked a few blades of grass and proffered them, half fearfully, to the beast that amazed him. But the other gave less heed to Rosinante, fixed the filmy lustre of his eyes on me, his wonderful young face veiled with that wisdom which is in all children, and of an immutable gravity.

But by this time, she who it seemed had the charge of these children had followed them with her eyes. To her then, leaving Rosinante in an ecstasy of timidity before such god-like boys, I addressed myself.

So might a traveller lost beneath strange stars address unanswering Night. She, however, raised a compassionate face to me and listened with happy seriousness as to a child returned in safety at evening from some foolhardy venture. Yet there seemed only a deeper youthfulness in her face for all its eternity of brooding on her beauteous children. Narrow leaves of olive formed her chaplet. The darker wine-colours of the sea changed in her eyes. There was no sense of gloom or sorrowfulness in her company. I began to see how the same still breast might bear celestial children so diverse as these, whose names, she told me presently, were Sleep and Death.

I looked at the two children at play, "Ah! now," I said, almost involuntarily "the golden boy who has caught my horse's bridle in his hand, is not he Sleep? and he who considers his brother's boldness—that one is Death?"

She smiled with lovely vanity, and told me how strange of heart young children are. How they will alter and vary, never the same for long together, but led by indiscoverable caprices and obedient to some further will. She smiled and said how that sometimes, when the birds hush suddenly from song, Sleep would creep tenderly and sadly to her knees, and Death clasp her roguishly, as if in some secret with the beams of morning. So would they change, one to the likeness of the other. But Sleep was, perhaps, of the gentler disposition; a little obstinate and headstrong; at times, indeed, beyond all cajolery; yet very sweet of impulse and ardent to make amends. But Death's caprices baffled even her. He seemed now so pitiless and unlovely of heart; and now, as if possessed, passionate and swift; and now would break away burning from her arms in an infinite tenderness.

But best she loved them when there came a transient peace to both; and looking upon them laid embraced in the shadow-casting moonbeam, not even she could undoubtingly touch the brow of each beneath their likened hair, and say this is the elder, and this the dreamless younger of the boys.

Seeing, too, my eyes cast upon the undecipherable letters of the tomb by which we sat, she told me how that once, near before dawn, she had awoke in the twilight to find their places empty where the children had lain at her side, and had sought on, at last to find them even here, weeping and quarrelling, and red with anger. Little by little, and with many tears, she had gleaned the cause of their quarrel—how that, like very children, they had run a race at cockcrow, and all these stones and the slender bones and ashes beneath to be the prize; and how that, running, both had come together to the goal set, and both had claimed the victory.

"Yet both seem happy now to share it," I said, "or how else were they comforted?" Nor did I consider before she told me that they will run again when they be grown men, Sleep and Death, in just such a thick darkness before dawn; and one called Love will then run with them, who is very vehement and fleet of foot, and never turns aside, nor falters. He who then shall win may ask a different prize. For truth to tell, she said, only children can find delight for long in dust and ruin.

At that moment Death himself came hastening to his mother, and, taking her hand, turned to the enormous picture of the skies as if in some faint apprehension. But Sleep saw nothing amiss, lay at full length among the "cool-rooted flowers," while Rosinante grazed beside him.

I told her also, in turn, of my journey; and that although transient, or everlasting, solace of all restlessness and sorrow and too-wild happiness may be found in them, yet men think not often on these divine children.

"As for this one," I said, looking down into the pathless beauty of Death's grey eyes, "some fear, some mock, some despise him; some violently, some without complaint pursue; most men would altogether dismiss, and forget him. He is but a child, no older than the sea, no stranger than the mountains, pure and cold as the water-springs. Yet to the bolster of fever his vision flits; and pain drags a heavy net to snare him; and silence is his echoing gallery; and the gold of Sleep his final veil. They shall play on; and see, lady, flame has left the clouds; the birds are at rest. The earth breathes in, and it is day; and exhales her breath, and it is night. Let them then play secret and innocent between her breasts, comfort her with silence above the tempest of her heart.... But I!—what am I?—a traveller, footsore and far."

And then it was that I became conscious of a warm, sly, youthful hand in mine, and turned, half in dread, to see only happy Sleep laughing under his glistening hair into my eyes. I strove in vain against his sorcery; rolled foolish orbs on that pure, starry face; and then I smelled as it were rain, and heard as it were tempestuous forest-trees—fell asleep among the tombs.



XIII

I warmed both hands before the fire of life.

—WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR.

Surely some hueless poppy blossomed in the darkness of those ruins, or the soulless ashes of the dead breathe out a drowsy influence. Never have I slept so heavily, yet never perhaps beneath so cold a tester. Sunbeams streaming between the crests of the cypresses awoke me. I leapt up as if a hundred sentinels had shouted—where none kept visible watch.

An odour of a languid sweetness pervaded the air. There was no wind to stir the dew-besprinkled trees. The old, scarred gravestones stood in a thick sunshine, afloat with bees. But Rosinante had preferred to survey sunshine out of shade. In lush grass I found her, the picture of age, foot crook'd, and head dejected.

Yet she followed me uncomplaining along these narrow avenues of silence, and without more ado turned her trivial tail on Death and his dim flocks, and well-nigh scampered me off into the vivid morning. Soon afterwards, with Hunger in the saddle, we began to climb a road almost precipitous, and stony in the extreme. Often enough we breathed ourselves as best we could in the still, sultry air, and rested on the sun-dappled slopes. But at length we came out upon the crest, and surveyed in the first splendour of day a region of extraordinary grandeur.

Beneath a clear sky to the east stood a range of mountains, cold and changeless beneath their snows. At my feet a great river flowed, broken here and there with isles in the bright flood. The dark champaign that flanked its shores was of an unusual verdure. Mystery and peril brooded on those distant ravines, the vapours of their far-descending cataracts. In such abysmal fastnesses as these the Hyrcan tiger might hide his surly generations. This was an air for the sun-disdaining eagle, a country of transcendent brightness, its flowers strangely pure and perfect, its waters more limpid, its grazing herds, its birds, its cedar trees, the masters of their kind.

Yet not on these nearer glories my eyes found rest. But, with a kind of heartache, I gazed, as it were towards home, upon the distant waters of the sea. Here, on the crest of this green hill, was silence. There, too, was profounder silence on the sea's untrampled floor. Whence comes that angel out of nought whispering into the ear strange syllables? I know not; but so seemed I to stand—a shattered instrument in the world, past all true music, o'er which none the less the invisible lute-master stooped. Could I but catch, could I but in words express the music his bent fingers intended, the mystery, the peace—well; then I should indeed journey solitary on the face of the earth, a changeling in its cities.

I half feared to descend into a country so diverse from any I had yet seen. Hitherto at least I had encountered little else than friendliness. But here—doves in eyries! I stood, twisting my fingers in Rosinante's mane, debating and debating. And she turned her face to me, and looked with age into my eyes: and I know not how woke courage in me again.

"On then?" I said, on the height. And the gentle beast leaned forward and coughed into the valley what might indeed be "Yea!"

So we began to descend. Down we went, alone, yet not unhappy, until in a while I discovered, about a hundred yards in advance of me, another traveller on the road, ambling easily along at an equal pace with mine. I know not how far I followed in his track debating whether to overtake and to accost him, or to follow on till a more favourable chance offered.

But Chance—avenger of all shilly-shally—settled the matter offhand. For my traveller, after casting one comprehensive glance towards the skies, suddenly whisked off at a canter that quickly carried him out of sight.

A chill wind had begun to blow, lifting in gusts dust into the air and whitening the tree-tops. As suddenly, calm succeeded. A cloud of flies droned fretfully about my ears. And I watched advancing, league-high, transfigured with sunbeams, the enormous gloom of storm. The sun smote from a silvery haze upon its peaks and gorges. Wind, far above the earth, moaned, and fell; only to sound once more in the distance in a mournful trumpeting. Lightnings played along the desolate hills. The sun was darkened. A vast flight of snowy, arrow-winged birds streamed voiceless beneath his place. And day withdrew its boundaries, spread to the nearer forests a bright amphitheatre, fitful with light, whereof it seemed to me Rosinante with her poor burden was the centre and the butt. I confess I began to dread lest even my mere surmise of danger should engage the piercing lightnings; as if in the mystery of life storm and a timorous thought might yet be of a kin.

We hastened on at the most pathetic of gallops. Nor seemed indeed the beauteous lightning to regard at all that restless mote upon the cirque of its entranced fairness. In an instantaneous silence I heard a tiny beat of hoofs; in instantaneous gloom recognised almost with astonishment my own shape bowed upon the saddle. It was a majestic entry into a kingdom so far-famed.

The storm showed no abatement when at last I found shelter. From far away I had espied in the immeasurable glare a country barn beneath trees. Arrived there, I almost fell off my horse into as incongruous and lighthearted a company as ever was seen.

In the midst of the floor of the barn, upon a heap of hay, sat a fool in motley blowing with all his wind into a pipe. It was a cunning tune he played too, rich and heady. And so seemed the company to find it, dancers—some thirty or more—capering round him with all the abandon heart can feel and heel can answer to. As for pose, he whose horse now stood smoking beside my own first drew my attention—a smooth, small-bearded, solemn man, a little beyond his prime. He lifted his toes with such inimitable agility, postured his fingers so daintily, conducted his melon-belly with so much elegance, and exhaled such a warm joy in the sport that I could look at nothing else at first for delight in him.

But there were slim maids too among the plumper and ruddier, like crocuses, like lilac, like whey, with all their fragrance and freshness and lightness. Such eyes adazzle dancing with mine, such nimble and discreet ankles, such gimp English middles, and such a gay delight in the mere grace of the lilting and tripping beneath rafters ringing loud with thunder, that Pan himself might skip across a hundred furrows for sheer envy to witness.

As for the jolly rustics that were jogging their wits away with such delightful gravity, but little time was given me to admire them ere I also was snatched into the ring, and found brown eyes dwelling with mine, and a hand like lettuces in the dog-days. Round and about we skipped in the golden straw, amidst treasuries of hay, puffing and spinning. And the quiet lightnings quivered between the beams, and the monstrous "Ah!" of the thunder submerged the pipe's sweetness. Till at last all began to gasp and blow indeed, and the nodding Fool to sip, and sip, as if in extremis over his mouthpiece. Then we rested awhile, with a medley of shrill laughter and guffaws, while the rain streamed lightning-lit upon the trees and tore the clouds to tatters.

With some little circumstance my traveller picked his way to me, and with a grave civility bowed me a sort of general welcome. Whereupon ensued such wit and banter as made me thankful when the opening impudence of a kind of jig set the heels and the petticoats of the company tossing once more. We danced the lightning out, and piped the thunder from the skies. And by then I was so faint with fasting, and so deep in love with at least five young country faces, that I scarcely knew head from heels; still less, when a long draught of a kind of thin, sweet ale had mounted to its sphere.

Away we all trooped over the flashing fields, noisy as jays in the fresh, sweet air, some to their mowing, some to their milking, but more, indeed, I truly suspect, to that exquisite Nirvana from which the tempest's travail had aroused them. I waved my hand, striving in vain to keep my eyes on one blest, beguiling face of all that glanced behind them. But, she gone, I turned into the rainy lane once more with my new acquaintance, discreeter, but not less giddy, it seemed, than I.

We had not far to go—past a meadow or two, a low green wall, a black fish-pool—and soon the tumbledown gables of a house came into view. My companion waved his open fingers at the crooked casements and peered into my face.

"Ah!" he said, "we will talk, we will talk, you and I: I view it in your eye, sir—clear and full and profound—such ever goes with eloquence. 'Tis my delight. What are we else than beasts?—beasts that perish? I never tire; I never weary;—give me to dance and to sing, but ever to talk: then am I at ease. Heaven is just. Enter, sir—enter!"

He led me by a shady alley into his orchard, and thence to a stable, where we left Rosinante at hob-a-nob with his mare over a friendly bottle of hay. And we ourselves passed into the house, and ascended a staircase into an upper chamber. This chamber was raftered, its walls hung with an obscure tapestry, its floor strewn with sand, and its lozenged casement partly shuttered against the blaze of sunshine that flowed across the forests far away to the west.

My friend eyed me brightly and busily as a starling. "You danced fine, sir," he said. "Oh! it is a pleasure to me. Ay, and now I come to consider it, methought I did hear hoofs behind me that might yet be echo. No, but I did not think: 'twas but my ear cried to his dreaming master. Ever dreaming; God help at last the awakening! But well met, well met, I say again. I am cheered. And you but just in time! Nay, I would not have missed him for a ransom. So—so—this leg, that leg; up now—hands over down we go! Lackaday, I am old bones for such freaks. Once!... 'Memento mori!' say I, and smell the shower the sweeter for it. Be seated, sir, bench or stool, wheresoever you'd be. You're looking peaked. That burden rings in my skull like a bagpipe. Toot-a-tootie, toot-a-toot! Och, sad days!"

We devoured our meal of cold meats and pickled fish, fruit and junket and a kind of harsh cheese, as if in contest for a wager. And copious was the thin spicy wine with which we swam it home. Ever and again my host would desist, to whistle, or croon (with a packed mouth) in the dismallest of tenors, a stave or two of the tune we had danced to, bobbing head and foot in sternest time. Then a great vacancy would overspread his face turned to the window, as suddenly to gather to a cheerful smile, and light, irradiated, once more on me. Then down would drop his chin over his plate, and away go finger and spoon among his victuals in a dance as brisk and whole-hearted as the other.

He took me out again into his garden after supper, and we walked beneath the trees.

"'Tis bliss to be a bachelor, sir," he said, gazing on the resinous trunk of an old damson tree. "I gorge, I guzzle; I am merry, am melancholy; studious, harmonical, drowsy,—and none to scold or deny me. For the rest, why, youth is vain: yet youth had pleasure—innocence and delight. I chew the cud of many a peaceful acre. Ay, I have nibbled roses in my time. But now, what now? I have lived so long far from courts and courtesy, grace and fashion, and am so much my own close and indifferent friend—Why! he is happy who has solitude for housemate, company for guest. I say it, I say it; I marry daily wives of memory's fashioning, and dream at peace."

It seemed an old bone he picked with Destiny.

"There's much to be said," I replied as profoundly as I could.

The air he now lulled youth asleep with was a very cheerless threnody, but he brightened once more at praise of his delightful orchard.

"You like it, sir? You speak kindly, sir. It is my all; root and branch: how many a summer's moons have I seen shine hereon! I know it—there is bliss to come;—miraculous Paradise for men even dull as I. Yet 'twill be strange to me—without my house and orchard. Age tends to earth, sir, till even an odour may awake the dead—a branch in the air call with its fluttering a face beyond Time to vanquish dear. 'Soul, soul,' I cry, 'forget thy dust, forget thy vaunting ashes!'—and speak in vain. So's life!"

And when we had gone in again, and candles had been lit in his fresh and narrow chamber, seeing a viol upon a chest, I begged a little music.

He quite eagerly, with a boyish peal of laughter, complied; and sat down with a very solemn face, his brows uplifted, and sang between the candles to a pathetic air this doggerel:—

There's a dark tree and a sad tree, Where sweet Alice waits, unheeded, For her lover long-time absent, Plucking rushes by the river.

Let the bird sing, let the buck sport, Let the sun sink to his setting; Not one star that stands in darkness Shines upon her absent lover.

But his stone lies 'neath the dark tree, Cold to bosom, deaf to weeping; And 'tis gathering moss she touches, Where the locks lay of her lover.

"A dolesome thing," he said; "but my mother was wont to sing it to the virginals. 'Cold to bosom,'" he reiterated with a plangent cadence; "I remember them all, sir; from the cradle I had a gift for music." And then, with an ample flirt of his bow, he broke, all beams and smiles, into this ingenuous ditty:

The goodman said, "'Tis time for bed, Come, mistress, get us quick to pray; Call in the maids From out the glades Where they with lovers stray, With love, and love do stray."

"Nay, master mine, The night is fine, And time's enough all dark to pray; 'Tis April buds Bedeck the woods Where simple maids away With love, and love do stray.

"Now we are old, And nigh the mould, 'Tis meet on feeble knees to pray; When once we'd roam, 'Twas else cried, 'Come, And sigh the dusk away, With love, and love to stray.'"

So they gat in To pray till nine; Then called, "Come maids, true maids, away! Kiss and begone, Ha' done, ha' done, Until another day With love, and love to stray!"

Oh, it were best If so to rest Went man and maid in peace away! The throes a heart May make to smart Unless love have his way, In April woods to stray!—

In April woods to stray!

And that finished with another burst of laughter, he set very adroitly to the mimicry of beasts and birds upon his frets. Never have I seen a face so consummately the action's. His every fibre answered to the call; his eyebrows twitched like an orator's; his very nose was plastic.

"Hst!" he cried softly; "hither struts chanticleer!" "Cock-a-diddle-doo!" crowed the wire. "Now, prithee, Dame Partlett!" and down bustled a hen from an egg like cinnamon. A cat with kittens mewed along the string, anxious and tender.

"A woodpecker," he cried, directing momentarily a sedulous, clear eye on me. And lo, "inviolable quietness" and the smooth beech-boughs! "And thus," he said, sitting closer, "the martlets were wont to whimper about the walls of the castle of Inverness, the castle of Macbeth."

"Macbeth!" I repeated—"Macbeth!"

"Ay," he said, "it was his seat while yet a simple soldier—flocks and flocks of them, wheeling hither, thither, in the evening air, crying and calling."

I listened in a kind of confusion. "... And Duncan," I said....

He eyed me with immense pleasure, and nodded with brilliant eyes on mine.

"What looking man was he?" I said at last as carelessly as I dared. "... The King, you mean,—of Scotland."

He magnanimously ignored my confusion, and paused to build his sentence.

"'Duncan'?" he said. "The question calls him straight to mind. A lean-locked, womanish countenance; sickly, yet never sick; timid, yet most obdurate; more sly than politic. An ignis fatuus, sir, in a world of soldiers." His eye wandered.... "'Twas a marvellous sanative air, crisp and pure; but for him, one draught and outer darkness. I myself viewed his royal entry from the gallery—pacing urbane to slaughter; and I uttered a sigh to see him. 'Why, sir, do you sigh to see the king?' cried one softly that stood by. 'I sigh, my lord,' I answered to the instant, 'at sight of a monarch even Duncan's match!'"

He looked his wildest astonishment at me.

"Not, I'd have you remember—not that 'twas blood I did foresee.... To kill in blood a man, and he a king, so near to natural death ... foul, foul!"

"And Macbeth?" I said presently—"Macbeth...?"

He laid down his viol with prolonged care.

"His was a soul, sir, nobler than his fate. I followed him not without love from boyhood—a youth almost too fine of spirit; shrinking from all violence, over-nicely; eloquent, yet chary of speech, and of a dark profundity of thought. The questions he would patter!—unanswerable, searching earth and heaven through.... And who now was it told me the traitor Judas's hair was red?—yet not red his, but of a reddish chestnut, fine and bushy. Children have played their harmless hands at hide-and-seek therein. O sea of many winds!

"For come gloom on the hills, floods, discolouring mist; breathe but some grandam's tale of darkness and blood and doubleness in his hearing: all changed. Flame kindled; a fevered unrest drove him out; and Ambition, that spotted hound of hell, strained at the leash towards the Pit.

"So runs the world—the ardent and the lofty. We are beyond earth's story as 'tis told, sir. All's shallower than the heart of man.... Indeed, 'twas one more shattered altar to Hymen."

"'Hymen!'" I said.

He brooded long and silently, clipping his small beard. And while he was so brooding, a mouse, a moth, dust—I know not what, stirred the listening strings of his viol to sound, and woke him with a start.

"I vowed, sir, then, to dismiss all memory of such unhappy deeds from mind—never to speak again that broken lady's name. Oh! I have seen sad ends—pride abased, splendour dismantled, courage to terror come, guilt to a crying guilelessness."

"'Guilelessness?'" I said. "Lady Macbeth at least was past all changing."

The doctor stood up and cast a deep scrutiny on me, which yet, perhaps, was partly on himself.

"Perceive, sir," he said, "this table—broader, longer, splendidly burdened; and all adown both sides the board, thanes and their ladies, lords, and gentlemen, guests bidden to a royal banquet. 'Twas then in that bleak and dismal country—the Palace of Forres. Torches flared in the hall; to every man a servant or two: we sat in pomp."

He paused again, and gravely withdrew behind the tapestry.

"And presently," he cried therefrom, suiting his action to the word, "to the blast of hautboys enters the king in state thus, with his attendant lords. And with all that rich and familiar courtesy of which he was master in his easier moods he passed from one to another, greeting with supple dignity on his way, till he came at last softly to the place prepared for him at table. And suddenly—shall I ever forget, it, sir?—it seemed silence ran like a flame from mouth to mouth as there he stood, thus, marble-still, his eyes fixed in a leaden glare. And he raised his face and looked once round on us all with a forlorn astonishment and wrath, like one with a death-wound—I never saw the like of such a face.

"Whereat, beseeching us to be calm, and pay no heed, the queen laid her hand on his and called him. And his orbs rolled down once more upon the empty place, and stuck as if at grapple with some horror seen within. He muttered aloud in peevish altercation—once more to heave up his frame, to sigh and shake himself, and lo!—"

The viol-strings rang to his "lo!"

"Lo, sir, the Unseen had conquered. His lip sagged into his beard, he babbled with open mouth, and leaned on his lady with such an impotent and slavish regard as I hope never to see again man pay to woman.... We thought no more of supper after that....

"But what do I—?" The doctor laid a cautioning finger on his mouth.

"The company was dispersed, the palace gloomy with night (and they were black nights at Forres!), and on the walls I heard the sentinel's replying.... In the wood's last glow I entered and stood in his self-same station before the empty stool. And even as I stood thus, my hair creeping, my will concentred, gazing with every cord at stretch, fell a light, light footfall behind me." He glanced whitely over his shoulder.

"Sir, it was the queen come softly out of slumber on my own unquiet errand."

The doctor strode to the door, and peered out like a man suspicious or guilty of treachery. It was indeed a house of broken silences. And there, in the doorway, he seemed to be addressing his own saddened conscience.

"With all my skill, and all a leal man's gentleness, I solaced and persuaded, and made an oath, and conducted her back to her own chamber unperceived. How weak is sleep!... It was a habit, sir, contracted in childhood, long dormant, that Evil had woke again. The Past awaits us all. So run Time's sands, till mercy's globe is empty and ..."

He stooped and whispered it across to me: "... A child, a comparative child, shrunk to an anatomy, her beauty changed, ghostly of youth and all its sadness, baffled by a word, slave to a doctor's nod! None knew but I, and, at the last, one of her ladies—a gentle, faithful, and fearful creature. Nor she till far beyond all mischief....

"Wild deeds are done. But to have blood on the hands, a cry in the ears, and one same glassy face eye to eye, that nothing can dim, nor even slumber pacify—dreams, dreams, intangible, enorm! Forefend them, God, from me!"

He stood a moment as if he were listening; then turned, smiling irresolutely, and eyed me aimlessly. He seemed afraid of his own house, askance at his own furniture. Yet, though I scarce know why, I felt he had not told me the whole truth. Something fidelity had yet withheld from vanity. I longed to enquire further. I put aside how many burning questions awhile!



XIV

And if we gang to sea, master, I fear we'll come to harm.

—OLD BALLAD.

By and by less anxious talk soothed him. Indeed it was he who suggested one last bright draught of air beneath his trees before retiring. Down we went again with some unnecessary clatter. And here were stars between the fruited boughs, silvery Capella and the Twins, and low on the sky's moonlit border Venus excellently bright.

He asked me whither I proposed going, if I needs must go; besought there and then in the ambrosial night-air the history of my wanderings—a mere nine days' wonder; and told me how he himself much feared and hated the sea.

He questioned me also with not a little subtilty (and double-dealing too, I fancied,) regarding my own country, and of things present, and things real. In fact nothing, I think, so much flattered his vanity—unless it was my wonder at Dame Partlett's clucking on his viol-strings—as to learn himself was famous even so far as to ages yet unborn. He gazed on the simple moon with limpid, amiable eyes, and caught my fingers in his.

How, then, could I even so much as hint to enquire which century indeed was his, who had no need of any? How could I abash that kindly vanity of his by adding also that, however famous, he must needs be to all eternity—nameless?

We conversed long and earnestly in the coolness. He very frankly counselled me not to venture unconducted further into this country. The land of Tragedy was broad. And though on this side it lay adjacent to the naive and civil people of Comedy; on the further, in the shadow of those bleak, unfooted mountains, lurked unnatural horror and desolation, and cruelty beyond all telling.

He very kindly offered me too, if I was indeed bent on seeking the sea, an old boat, still seaworthy, that lay in a creek in the river near by, from which he was wont to fish. As for Rosinante, he supposed a rest would be by no means unwelcome to so faithful a friend. He himself rode little, being indolent, and a happier host than guest; and when I returned here, she should be stuffed with dainties awaiting me.

To this I cordially and gratefully agreed; and also even more cordially to remain with him the next day; and the next night after that to take my watery departure.

So it was. And a courteous, versatile, and vivacious companion I found him. Rare tales he told me, too, of better days than these, and rarest of his own never-more-returning youth. He loved his childhood, talked on of it with an artless zeal, his eyes a nest of singing-birds. How contrite he was for spirit lost, and daring withheld, and hope discomfited! How simple and urbane concerning his present lowly demands on life, on love, and on futurity! All this, too, with such packed winks and mirth and mourning, that I truly said good-night for the second time to him with a rather melancholy warmth, since to-morrow ... who can face unmoved that viewless sphinx? Moreover, the sea is wide, has fishes in plenty, but never too many coraled grottoes once poor mariners.



XV

'Tis now full tide 'tween night and day.

—JOHN WEBSTER.

On the stroke of two next morning the doctor conducted me down to the creek in the river-bank where he kept his boat. There was little light but of the stars in the sky; nothing stirring. She floated dim and monstrous on the softly-running water, a navy in germ, and could have sat without danger thirty men like me. We stood on the bank, side by side, eyeing her vacancy. And (I can answer for myself) night-thoughts rose up in us at sight of her. Was it indeed only wind in the reeds that sighed around us? only the restless water insistently whispering and calling? only of darkness were these forbidding shadows?

I looked up sharply at the doctor from such pensive embroidery, and found him as far away as I. He nodded and smiled, and we shook hands on the bank in the thick mist.

"There's biscuits and a little meat, wine, and fruit," he said in an undertone. "God be with you, sir! I sadly mistrust the future. ... 'Tis ever my way, at parting."

We said good-bye again, to the dream-cry of some little fluttering creature of the rushes. And well before dawn I was floating midstream, my friend a memory, Rosinante in clover, and my travels, so far as this brief narrative will tell, nearly ended.

I saw nothing but a few long-haired, grazing cattle on my voyage, that eyed me but cursorily. I passed unmolested among the waterfowl, between the never-silent rushes, beneath a sky refreshed and sweetened with storm. The boat was enormously heavy and made slow progress. When too the tide began to flow I must needs push close in to the bank and await the ebb. But towards evening of the third day I began to approach the sea.

I listened to the wailing of its long-winged gulls; snuffed with how broad-nostrilled a gusto that savour not even pinewoods can match, nor any wild flower disguise; and heard at last the sound that stirs beneath all music—the deep's loud-falling billow.

I pushed ashore, climbed the sandy bank, and moored my boat to an ash tree at the waterside. And after scrambling some little distance over dunes yet warm with the sun, I came out at length, and stood like a Greek before the sea.

Here my bright river disembogued in noise and foam. Far to either side of me stretched the faint gold horns of a bay; and beyond me, almost violet in the shadow of its waves, the shipless sea.

I looked on the breaking water with a divided heart. Its light, salt airs, its solitary beauty, its illimitable reaches seemed tidings of a region I could remember only as one who, remembering that he has dreamed, remembers nothing more. Larks rose, singing, behind me. In a calm, golden light my eager river quarrelled with its peace. Here indeed was solitude!

It was in searching sea and cliff for the least sign of life that I thought I descried on the furthest extremity of the nearer of the horns of the bay the spires and smouldering domes of a little city. If I gazed intently, they seemed to vanish away, yet still to shine above the azure if, raising my eyes, I looked again.

So, caring not how far I must go so long as my path lay beside these breaking waters, I set out on the firm, white sands to prove this city the mirage I deemed it.

What wonder, then, my senses fell asleep in that vast lullaby! And out of a daydream almost as deep as that in which I first set out, I was suddenly aroused by a light tapping sound, distinct and regular between the roaring breakers.

I lifted my eyes to find the city I was seeking evanished away indeed. But nearer at hand a child was playing upon the beach, whose spade among the pebbles had caused the birdlike noise I had heard.

So engrossed was she with her building in the sand that she had not heard me approaching. She laboured on at the margin of the cliff's shadow where the sea-birds cried, answering Echo in the rocks. So solitary and yet so intent, so sedate and yet so eager a little figure she seemed in the long motionlessness of the shore, by the dark heedlessness of the sea, I hesitated to disturb her.

Who of all Time's children could this be playing uncompanioned by the sea? And at a little distance betwixt me and her in the softly-mounded sand her spade had already scrawled in large, ungainly capitals, the answer—"Annabel Lee." The little flounced black frock, the tresses of black hair, the small, beautiful dark face—this then was Annabel Lee; and that bright, phantom city I had seen—that was the vanishing mockery of her kingdom.

I called her from where I stood—"Annabel Lee!" She lifted her head and shook back her hair, and gazed at me startled and intent. I went nearer.

"You are a very lonely little girl," I said.

"I am building in the sand," she answered.

"A castle?"

She shook her head.

"It was in dreams," she said, flushing darkly.

"What kind of dream was it in then?"

"Oh! I often dream it; and I build it in the sand. But there's never time: the sea comes back."

"Was the tide quite high when you began?" I asked; for now it was low.

"Just that much from the stones," she said; "I waited for it ever so long."

"It has a long way to come yet," I said; "you will finish it this time, I dare say."

She shook her head and lifted her spade.

"Oh no; it is much bigger, more than twice. And I haven't the seaweed, or the shells, and it comes back very, very quickly."

"But where is the little boy you play with down here by the sea?"

She glanced at me swiftly and surely; and shook her head again.

"He would help you."

"He didn't in my dream," she said doubtfully. She raised long, stealthy eyes to mine, and spoke softly and deliberately. "Besides, there isn't any little boy."

"None, Annabel Lee?" I said.

"Why," she answered, "I have played here years and years and years, and there are only the gulls and terns and cormorants, and that!" She pointed with her spade towards the broken water.

"You know all their names then?" I said.

"Some I know," she answered with a little frown, and looked far out to sea. Then, turning her eyes, she gazed long at me, searchingly, forlornly on a stranger. "I am going home now," she said.

I looked at the house of sand and smiled. But she shook her head once more.

"It never could be finished," she said firmly, "though I tried and tried, unless the sea would keep quite still just once all day, without going to and fro. And then," she added with a flash of anger—"then I would not build."

"Well," said I, "when it is nearly finished, and the water washes up, and up, and washes it away, here is a flower that came from Fairyland. And that, dear heart, is none so far away."

She took the purple flower I had plucked in Ennui's garden in her slim, cold hand.

"It's amaranth," she said; and I have never seen so old a little look in a child's eyes.

"And all the flowers' names too?" I said.

She frowned again. "It's amaranth," she said, and ran off lightly and so deftly among the rocks and in the shadow that was advancing now even upon the foam of the sea, that she had vanished before I had time to deter, or to pursue her. I sought her awhile, until the dark rack of sunset obscured the light, and the sea's voice changed; then I desisted.

It was useless to remain longer beneath the looming caves, among the stones of so inhospitable a shore. I was a stranger to the tides. And it was clear high-water would submerge the narrow sands whereon I stood.

Yet I cannot describe how loth I was to leave to night's desolation the shapeless house of a child. What fate was this that had set her to such profitless labour on the uttermost shores of "Tragedy"? What history lay behind, past, or, as it were, never to come? What gladness too high for earth had nearly once been hers? Her sea-mound took strange shapes in the gloom—light foliage of stone, dark heaviness of granite, wherein rumour played of all that restless rustling; small cries, vast murmurings from those green meadows, old as night.

I turned, even ran away, at last. I found my boat in the gloaming where I had left her, safe and sound, except that all the doctor's good things had been nosed and tumbled by some hungry beast in my absence. I stood and thought vacantly of Crusoe, and pig, and guns. But what use to delay? I got in.

If it were true, as the excellent doctor had informed me, that seamen reported islands not far distant from these shores, chance might bear me blissfully to one of these. And if not true ... I turned a rather startled face to the water, and made haste not to think. Fortune pierces deep, and baits her hooks with sceptics. Away I went, bobbing mightily over the waves that leapt and wrestled where sea and river met. These safely navigated, I rowed the great creature straight forward across the sea, my face towards dwindling land, my prow to Scorpio.



XVI

Art thou pale for weariness.

—PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

The constellations of summer wheeled above me; and thus between water and starry sky I tossed solitary in my boat. The faint lustre of the sultry night hung like a mist from heaven to earth. Far away above the countries I had left perhaps for ever, the quiet lightnings played innocently in the heights.

I rowed steadily on, guiding myself by some much ruddier star on the horizon. The pale phosphorescence on the wave, the simple sounds as of fish stirring in the water—the beauty and wonder of Night's dwelling-place seemed beyond content of mortality.

I leaned on my oars in the midst of the deep sea, and seemed to hear, as it were, the mighty shout of Space. Faint and enormous beams of light trembled through the sky. And once I surprised a shadow as of wings sweeping darkly across, star on to glittering star, shaking the air, stilling the sea with the cold dews of night.