{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_46830/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_46830","id":"gutenberg_46830","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/46830","summary":null,"tags":["Category: British Literature","Category: Novels","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Fiction","Short stories"],"text":"THE ROADMENDER\n\n[Illustration: Rolling stretches of cloud-shadowed down]\n\n\n\n\nTHE ROADMENDER\n\n    BY MICHAEL FAIRLESS\n\n\n    ILLUSTRATED WITH TWENTY\n    PHOTOGRAPHS BY WILL F. TAYLOR\n\n\n    NEW YORK\n    E. P. DUTTON & CO.\n    1922\n\n\n\n\n    _Printed in Great Britain\n    by Turnbull & Spears, Edinburgh_\n\n\n\n\n    A. M. D. G.\n\n\n    TO\n    MY MOTHER\n    AND TO EARTH, MY MOTHER\n    WHOM I LOVE\n\n\n\n\nFOREWORD TO THIS EDITION\n\n\nTHE country amid which Margaret Fairless Barber (\"Michael Fairless\")\nwrote \"The Roadmender\" is that central part of Sussex drained by the\nriver Adur, perhaps the least known of the three main rivers, Ouse,\nAdur and Arun, which breach the South Downs. From Chanctonbury Ring to\nDitchling Beacon the Downs belong to the Adur, and this is the country\nof the Roadmender. Here, from under the \"stunted hawthorn,\" the eye\nlooks down on the one side to the \"little church\" on the Weald, and on\nthe other to the more distant \"to and fro of the sea.\" Over all this\nWealden valley the \"long grey downs\" keep watch, and on the inland side\na constant companion of the roads is the spire of \"the monastery where\nthe Bedesmen of St Hugh watch and pray.\"\n\nMichael Fairless wrote Parts I and II of \"The Roadmender\" in a\nfarmhouse at Mock Bridge on the Adur near Henfield, and here in her\nlast days she lay writing \"The White Gate,\" looking out over the\n\"pasture bright with buttercups where the cattle feed.\" Here she\ndied, and she was carried to the grave \"under the firs in the quiet\nchurchyard\" at Ashhurst, two miles away across the river.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\n                         PAGE\n    THE ROADMENDER          1\n\n    OUT OF THE SHADOW      47\n\n    AT THE WHITE GATE      91\n\n\n\n\nILLUSTRATIONS\n\n\n  ROLLING STRETCHES OF CLOUD-SHADOWED DOWN                _Frontispiece_\n\n                                                           TO FACE PAGE\n  THE WHITE WINDING ROAD                                              2\n\n  THE SOLITARY COTTAGE                                                6\n\n  THE LITTLE CHURCH AT THE FOOT OF THE GREY-GREEN DOWN                8\n\n  MY NICHE UNDER THE STUNTED HAWTHORN                                10\n\n  \u00c6OLUS SHEPHERDING HIS WHITE SHEEP                                  12\n\n  A LITTLE LONELY COTTAGE WHOSE WINDOWS PEERED AND\n      BLINKED UNDER OVERHANGING BROWS OF THATCH                      26\n\n  THE REEDED WATERS OF THE SEQUESTERED POOL                          32\n\n  THE MONASTERY WHERE THE BEDESMEN OF ST HUGH WATCH\n      AND PRAY                                                       34\n\n  THE SUN STRETCHED THE LONG SHADOWS IN SLANTING\n      BARS ACROSS THE WHITE HIGHWAY                                  38\n\n  THE GREAT WHEEL WAS AT REST                                        40\n\n  THE CRISP RIME OF WINTER'S BREATH                                  48\n\n  THE ALONENESS OF A GREAT FOREST                                    50\n\n  THE FIELD-GATE THAT LEADS TO THE LOWER MEADOWS                     72\n\n  A HOST OF JOYOUS YELLOW TRUMPETERS                                 74\n\n  IN THE DISTANCE RISE THE GREAT LONE HEAVENWARD\n      HILLS                                                          84\n\n  THE LINE OF THE UNTROUBLED HILLS STRONG AND\n      STILL IN THE BROAD SUNSHINE                                    94\n\n  BELOW THE LOW HEDGE LIES PASTURE BRIGHT WITH\n      BUTTERCUPS, WHERE THE CATTLE FEED                             100\n\n  THE GREAT HORSES MOVING IN SLOW STEADY PACE\n      AS THE FARMER TURNS HIS FURROW                                102\n\n  THERE IS A PLACE WAITING FOR ME UNDER THE\n      FIRS IN THE QUIET CHURCHYARD                                  104\n\n\n\n\nTHE ROADMENDER\n\n\n[Illustration: The white winding road]\n\n\n\n\nI\n\n\nI HAVE attained my ideal: I am a roadmender, some say stonebreaker.\nBoth titles are correct, but the one is more pregnant than the other.\nAll day I sit by the roadside on a stretch of grass under a high hedge\nof saplings and a tangle of traveller's joy, woodbine, sweetbriar, and\nlate roses. Opposite me is a white gate, seldom used, if one may judge\nfrom the trail of honeysuckle growing tranquilly along it: I know now\nthat whenever and wherever I die my soul will pass out through this\nwhite gate; and then, thank God, I shall not have need to undo that\ntrail.\n\nIn our youth we discussed our ideals freely: I wonder how many beside\nmyself have attained, or would understand my attaining. After all,\nwhat do we ask of life, here or indeed hereafter, but leave to serve,\nto live, to commune with our fellow-men and with ourselves; and from\nthe lap of earth to look up into the face of God? All these gifts are\nmine as I sit by the winding white road and serve the footsteps of my\nfellows. There is no room in my life for avarice or anxiety; I who\nserve at the altar live of the altar: I lack nothing but have nothing\nover; and when the winter of life comes I shall join the company of\nweary old men who sit on the sunny side of the workhouse wall and wait\nfor the tender mercies of God.\n\nJust now it is the summer of things; there is life and music\neverywhere--in the stones themselves, and I live to-day beating out\nthe rhythmical hammer-song of The Ring. There is real physical joy in\nthe rise and swing of the arm, in the jar of a fair stroke, the split\nand scatter of the quartz: I am learning to be ambidextrous, for why\nshould Esau sell his birthright when there is enough for both? Then the\nrest-hour comes, bringing the luxurious ache of tired but not weary\nlimbs; and I lie outstretched and renew my strength, sometimes with my\nface deep-nestled in the cool green grass, sometimes on my back looking\nup into the blue sky which no wise man would wish to fathom.\n\nThe birds have no fear of me; am I not also of the brown brethren in\nmy sober fustian livery? They share my meals--at least the little\ndun-coated Franciscans do; the blackbirds and thrushes care not a whit\nfor such simple food as crumbs, but with legs well apart and claws\ntense with purchase they disinter poor brother worm, having first\nmocked him with sound of rain. The robin that lives by the gate regards\nmy heap of stones as subject to his special inspection. He sits atop\nand practises the trill of his summer song until it shrills above and\nthrough the metallic clang of my strokes; and when I pause he cocks\nhis tail, with a humorous twinkle of his round eye which means--\"What!\nshirking, big brother?\"--and I fall, ashamed, to my mending of roads.\n\nThe other day, as I lay with my face in the grass, I heard a gentle\nrustle, and raised my head to find a hedge-snake watching me fearless,\nunwinking. I stretched out my hand, picked it up unresisting, and put\nit in my coat like the husbandman of old. Was he so ill-rewarded, I\nwonder, with the kiss that reveals secrets? My snake slept in peace\nwhile I hammered away with an odd quickening of heart as I thought\nhow to me, as to Melampus, had come the messenger--had come, but to\nears deafened by centuries of misrule, blindness, and oppression; so\nthat, with all my longing, I am shut out of the wondrous world where\nwalked Melampus and the Saint. To me there is no suggestion of evil in\nthe little silent creatures, harmless, or deadly only with the Death\nwhich is Life. The beasts who turn upon us, as a rule maul and tear\nunreflectingly; with the snake there is the swift, silent strike, the\ntiny, tiny wound, then sleep and a forgetting.\n\n[Illustration: The solitary cottage]\n\nMy brown friend, with its message unspoken, slid away into the grass at\nsundown to tell its tale in unstopped ears; and I, my task done, went\nhome across the fields to the solitary cottage where I lodge. It is\nold and decrepit--two rooms, with a quasi-attic over them reached by a\nladder from the kitchen and reached only by me. It is furnished with\nthe luxuries of life, a truckle bed, table, chair, and huge earthenware\npan which I fill from the ice-cold well at the back of the cottage.\nMorning and night I serve with the Gibeonites, their curse my blessing,\nas no doubt it was theirs when their hearts were purged by service.\nMorning and night I send down the moss-grown bucket with its urgent\nmessage from a dry and dusty world; the chain tightens through my hand\nas the liquid treasure responds to the messenger, and then with creak\nand jangle--the welcome of labouring earth--the bucket slowly nears the\ntop and disperses the treasure in the waiting vessels. The Gibeonites\nwere servants in the house of God, ministers of the sacrament of\nservice even as the High Priest himself; and I, sharing their high\noffice of servitude, thank God that the ground was accursed for my\nsake, for surely that curse was the womb of all unborn blessing.\n\nThe old widow with whom I lodge has been deaf for the last twenty\nyears. She speaks in the strained high voice which protests against\nher own infirmity, and her eyes have the pathetic look of those who\nsearch in silence. For many years she lived alone with her son, who\nlaboured on the farm two miles away. He met his death rescuing a\ncart-horse from its burning stable; and the farmer gave the cottage\nrent free and a weekly half-crown for life to the poor old woman whose\ndearest terror was the workhouse. With my shilling a week rent, and\nsharing of supplies, we live in the lines of comfort. Of death she has\nno fears, for in the long chest in the kitchen lie a web of coarse\nwhite linen, two pennies covered with the same to keep down tired\neyelids, decent white stockings, and a white cotton sun-bonnet--a\ndecorous death-suit truly--and enough money in the little bag for\nself-respecting burial. The farmer buried his servant handsomely--good\nman, he knew the love of reticent grief for a 'kind' burial--and one\nday Harry's mother is to lie beside him in the little churchyard which\nhas been a cornfield, and may some day be one again.\n\n\n\n\nII\n\n\n[Illustration: The little church at the foot of the grey-green down]\n\nON Sundays my feet take ever the same way. First my temple service,\nand then five miles tramp over the tender, dewy fields, with their\nineffable earthly smell, until I reach the little church at the foot\nof the grey-green down. Here, every Sunday, a young priest from a\nneighbouring village says Mass for the tiny hamlet, where all are\nvery old or very young--for the heyday of life has no part under the\nlong shadow of the hills, but is away at sea or in service. There is\na beautiful seemliness in the extreme youth of the priest who serves\nthese aged children of God. He bends to communicate them with the\nreverent tenderness of a son, and reads with the careful intonation\nof far-seeing love. To the old people he is the son of their old\nage, God-sent to guide their tottering footsteps along the highway\nof foolish wayfarers; and he, with his youth and strength, wishes no\nbetter task. Service ended, we greet each other friendly--for men\nshould not be strange in the acre of God; and I pass through the little\nhamlet and out and up on the grey down beyond. Here, at the last gate,\nI pause for breakfast; and then up and on with quickening pulse,\nand evergreen memory of the weary war-worn Greeks who broke rank to\ngreet the great blue Mother-way that led to home. I stand on the summit\nhatless, the wind in my hair, the smack of salt on my cheek, all round\nme rolling stretches of cloud-shadowed down, no sound but the shrill\nmourn of the peewit and the gathering of the sea.\n\nThe hours pass, the shadows lengthen, the sheep-bells clang; and I lie\nin my niche under the stunted hawthorn watching the to and fro of the\nsea, and \u00c6olus shepherding his white sheep across the blue. I love the\nsea with its impenetrable fathoms, its wash and undertow, and rasp of\nshingle sucked anew. I love it for its secret dead in the Caverns of\nPeace, of which account must be given when the books are opened and\nearth and heaven have fled away. Yet in my love there is a paradox, for\nas I watch the restless, ineffective waves I think of the measureless,\nreflective depths of the still and silent Sea of Glass, of the dead,\nsmall and great, rich or poor, with the works which follow them, and\nof the Voice as the voice of many waters, when the multitude of one\nmind rends heaven with alleluia: and I lie so still that I almost feel\nthe kiss of White Peace on my mouth. Later still, when the flare of\nthe sinking sun has died away and the stars rise out of a veil of\npurple cloud, I take my way home, down the slopes, through the hamlet,\nand across miles of sleeping fields over which night has thrown her\nshifting web of mist--home to the little attic, the deep, cool well,\nthe kindly wrinkled face with its listening eyes--peace in my heart and\nthankfulness for the rhythm of the road.\n\n[Illustration: My niche under the stunted hawthorn]\n\nMonday brings the joy of work, second only to the Sabbath of rest,\nand I settle to my heap by the white gate. Soon I hear the distant\nstamp of horsehoofs, heralding the grind and roll of the wheels which\nreaches me later--a heavy flour-waggon with a team of four great gentle\nhorses, gay with brass trappings and scarlet earcaps. On the top of the\ncraftily piled sacks lies the white-clad waggoner, a pink in his mouth\nwhich he mumbles meditatively, and the reins looped over the inactive\nwhip--why should he drive a willing team that knows the journey and\nresponds as strenuously to a cheery chirrup as to the well-directed\nlash? We greet and pass the time of day, and as he mounts the rise he\ncalls back a warning of coming rain. I am already white with dust as he\nwith flour, sacramental dust, the outward and visible sign of the stir\nand beat of the heart of labouring life.\n\nNext to pass down the road is an anxious ruffled hen, her speckled\nbreast astir with maternal troubles. She walks delicately, lifting\nher feet high and glancing furtively from side to side with comb low\ndressed. The sight of man, the heartless egg-collector, from whose\nhaunts she has fled, wrings from her a startled cluck, and she makes\nfor the white gate, climbs through, and disappears. I know her feelings\ntoo well to intrude. Many times already has she hidden herself, amassed\nfour or five precious treasures, brooding over them with anxious hope;\nand then, after a brief desertion to seek the necessary food, she has\nreturned to find her efforts at concealment vain, her treasures gone.\nAt last, with the courage of despair she has resolved to brave the\nterrors of the unknown and seek a haunt beyond the tyranny of man. I\nwill watch over her from afar, and when her mother-hope is fulfilled I\nwill marshal her and her brood back to the farm where she belongs; for\nwhat end I care not to think, it is of the mystery which lies at the\nheart of things; and we are all God's beasts, says St Augustine.\n\nHere is my stone-song, a paraphrase of the Treasure Motif.\n\n[Illustration: Music]\n\nWhat a wonderful work Wagner has done for humanity in translating the\ntoil of life into the readable script of music! For those who seek\nthe tale of other worlds his magic is silent; but earth-travail under\nhis wand becomes instinct with rhythmic song to an accompaniment of\nthe elements, and the blare and crash of the bottomless pit itself.\nThe Pilgrims' March is the sad sound of footsore men; the San Graal\nthe tremulous yearning of servitude for richer, deeper bondage. The\nyellow, thirsty flames lick up the willing sacrifice, the water wails\nthe secret of the river and the sea; the birds and beasts, the shepherd\nwith his pipe, the underground life in rocks and caverns, all cry their\nmessage to this nineteenth-century toiling, labouring world--and to me\nas I mend my road.\n\n[Illustration: \u00c6olus shepherding his white sheep]\n\nTwo tramps come and fling themselves by me as I eat my noonday meal.\nThe one, red-eyed, furtive, lies on his side with restless, clutching\nhands that tear and twist and torture the living grass, while his lips\nmutter incoherently. The other sits stooped, bare-footed, legs wide\napart, his face grey, almost as grey as his stubbly beard; and it is\nnot long since Death looked him in the eyes. He tells me querulously\nof a two hundred miles tramp since early spring, of search for work,\ncasual jobs with more kicks than halfpence, and a brief but blissful\nsojourn in a hospital bed, from which he was dismissed with sentence\npassed upon him. For himself, he is determined to die on the road\nunder a hedge, where a man can see and breathe. His anxiety is all for\nhis fellow; _he_ has said he will \"do for a man\"; he wants to \"swing,\"\nto get out of his \"dog's life.\" I watch him as he lies, this Ishmael\nand would-be Lamech. Ignorance, hunger, terror, the exhaustion of past\ngenerations, have done their work. The man is mad, and would kill his\nfellow-man.\n\nPresently we part, and the two go, dogged and footsore, down the road\nwhich is to lead them into the great silence.\n\n\n\n\nIII\n\n\nYESTERDAY was a day of encounters.\n\nFirst, early in the morning, a young girl came down the road on a\nbicycle. Her dressguard was loose, and she stopped to ask for a piece\nof string. When I had tied it for her she looked at me, at my worn\ndusty clothes and burnt face; and then she took a Niphetos rose from\nher belt and laid it shyly in my dirty disfigured palm. I bared my\nhead, and stood hat in hand looking after her as she rode away up the\nhill. Then I took my treasure and put it in a nest of cool dewy grass\nunder the hedge. _Ecce ancilla Domini._\n\nMy next visitor was a fellow-worker on his way to a job at the\ncross-roads. He stood gazing meditatively at my heap of stones.\n\n\"'Ow long 'ave yer bin at this job that y'ere in such a hurry?\"\n\nI stayed my hammer to answer--\"Four months.\"\n\n\"Seen better days?\"\n\n\"Never,\" I said emphatically, and punctuated the remark with a stone\nsplit neatly in four.\n\nThe man surveyed me in silence for a moment; then he said slowly,\n\"Mean ter say yer like crackin' these blamed stones to fill 'oles some\nother fool's made?\"\n\nI nodded.\n\n\"Well, that beats everything. Now, I '_ave_ seen better days; worked in\na big brewery over near Maidstone--a town that, and something doing;\nand now, 'ere I am, 'ammering me 'eart out on these blasted stones for\na bit o' bread and a pipe o' baccy once a week--it ain't good enough.\"\nHe pulled a blackened clay from his pocket and began slowly filling it\nwith rank tobacco; then he lit it carefully behind his battered hat,\nput the spent match back in his pocket, rose to his feet, hitched his\nbraces, and, with a silent nod to me, went on to his job.\n\nWhy do we give these tired children, whose minds move slowly, whose\neyes are holden that they cannot read the Book, whose hearts are full\nof sore resentment against they know not what, such work as this to\ndo--hammering their hearts out for a bit of bread? All the pathos of\nunreasoning labour rings in these few words. We fit the collar on\nunwilling necks; and when their service is over we bid them go out\nfree; but we break the good Mosaic law and send them away empty. What\nwonder there is so little willing service, so few ears ready to be\nthrust through against the master's door.\n\nThe swift stride of civilisation is leaving behind individual effort,\nand turning man into the D\u00e6mon of a machine. To and fro in front of\nthe long loom, lifting a lever at either end, paces he who once with\npainstaking intelligence drove the shuttle. _Then_ he tasted the joy\nof completed work, that which his eye had looked upon, and his hands\nhad handled; now his work is as little finished as the web of Penelope.\nOnce the reaper grasped the golden corn stems, and with dexterous sweep\nof sickle set free the treasure of the earth. Once the creatures of\nthe field were known to him, and his eye caught the flare of scarlet\nand blue as the frail poppies and sturdy corn-cockles laid down their\nbeauty at his feet; now he sits serene on Juggernaut's car, its guiding\nD\u00e6mon, and the field is silent to him.\n\nAs with the web and the grain so with the wood and stone in the\ntreasure-house of our needs. The ground was accursed _for our sake_\nthat in the sweat of our brow we might eat bread. Now the many live in\nthe brain-sweat of the few; and it must be so, for as little as great\nKing Cnut could stay the sea until it had reached the appointed place,\nso little can we raise a barrier to the wave of progress, and say,\n\"Thus far and no further shalt thou come.\"\n\nWhat then? Tins at least; if we live in an age of mechanism let us see\nto it that we are a race of intelligent mechanics; and if man is to be\nthe D\u00e6mon of a machine let him know the setting of the knives, the rise\nof the piston, the part that each wheel and rod plays in the economy of\nthe whole, the part that he himself plays, co-operating with it. Then,\nwhen he has lived and served intelligently, let us give him of our\nflocks and of our floor that he may learn to rest in the lengthening\nshadows until he is called to his work above.\n\nSo I sat, hammering out my thoughts, and with them the conviction that\nstonebreaking should be allotted to minor poets or vagrant children of\nnature like myself, never to such tired folk as my poor mate at the\ncross-roads and his fellows.\n\nAt noon, when I stopped for my meal, the sun was baking the hard white\nroad in a pitiless glare. Several waggons and carts passed, the horses\nsweating and straining, with drooping, fly-tormented ears. The men for\nthe most part nodded slumberously on the shaft, seeking the little\nshelter the cart afforded; but one shuffled in the white dust, with an\noccasional chirrup and friendly pressure on the tired horse's neck.\n\nThen an old woman and a small child appeared in sight, both with\nenormous sun-bonnets and carrying baskets. As they came up with me\nthe woman stopped and swept her face with her hand, while the child,\ndepositing the basket in the dust with great care, wiped her little\nsticky fingers on her pinafore. Then the shady hedge beckoned them and\nthey came and sat down near me. The woman looked about seventy, tall,\nangular, dauntless, good for another ten years of hard work. The little\nmaid--her only grandchild, she told me--was just four, her father away\nsoldiering, and the mother died in childbed, so for four years the\nchild had known no other guardian or playmate than the old woman. She\nwas not the least shy, but had the strange self-possession which comes\nfrom associating with one who has travelled far on life's journey.\n\n\"I couldn't leave her alone in the house,\" said her grandmother, \"and\nshe wouldn't leave the kitten for fear it should be lonesome\"--with a\nhumorous, tender glance at the child--\"but it's a long tramp in the\nheat for the little one, and we've another mile to go.\"\n\n\"Will you let her bide here till you come back?\" I said. \"She'll be all\nright by me.\"\n\nThe old lady hesitated.\n\n\"Will 'ee stay by him, dearie?\" she said.\n\nThe small child nodded, drew from her miniature pocket a piece of\nsweetstuff, extracted from the basket a small black cat, and settled in\nfor the afternoon. Her grandmother rose, took her basket, and, with a\nnod and \"Thank 'ee kindly, mister,\" went off down the road.\n\nI went back to my work a little depressed--why had I not white\nhair?--for a few minutes had shown me that I was not old enough for the\nchild despite my forty years. She was quite happy with the little black\ncat, which lay in the small lap blinking its yellow eyes at the sun;\nand presently an old man came by, lame and bent, with gnarled twisted\nhands, leaning heavily on his stick.\n\nHe greeted me in a high, piping voice, limped across to the child, and\nsat down.\n\n\"Your little maid, mister?\" he said.\n\nI explained.\n\n\"Ah,\" he said, \"I've left a little darlin' like this at 'ome. It's 'ard\non us old folks when we're one too many; but the little mouths must be\nfilled, and my son, 'e said 'e didn't see they could keep me on the\narf-crown, with another child on the way; so I'm tramping to N----, to\nthe House; but it's a 'ard pinch, leavin' the little ones.\"\n\nI looked at him--a typical countryman, with white hair, mild blue eyes,\nand a rosy, childish, unwrinkled face.\n\n\"I'm eighty-four,\" he went on, \"and terrible bad with the rheumatics\nand my chest. Maybe it'll not be long before the Lord remembers me.\"\n\nThe child crept close and put a sticky little hand confidingly into\nthe tired old palm. The two looked strangely alike, for the world seems\nmuch the same to those who leave it behind as to those who have but\ntaken the first step on its circular pathway.\n\n\"'Ook at my kitty,\" she said, pointing to the small creature in her\nlap. Then, as the old man touched it with trembling fingers she went\non--\"'Oo isn't my grandad; he's away in the sky, but I'll kiss 'oo.\"\n\nI worked on, hearing at intervals the old piping voice and the\nchild-treble, much of a note; and thinking of the blessings vouchsafed\nto the simple old age which crowns a harmless working-life spent in\nthe fields. The two under the hedge had everything in common and were\nboundlessly content together, the sting of the knowledge of good and\nevil past for the one, and for the other still to come; while I stood\non the battlefield of the world, the flesh, and the devil, though,\nthank God, with my face to the foe.\n\nThe old man sat resting: I had promised him a lift with my friend\nthe driver of the flour-cart, and he was almost due when the child's\ngrandmother came down the road.\n\nWhen she saw my other visitor she stood amazed.\n\n\"What, Richard Hunton, that worked with my old man years ago up at\nDitton, whatever are you doin' all these miles from your own place?\"\n\n\"Is it Eliza Jakes?\"\n\nHe looked at her dazed, doubtful.\n\n\"An' who else should it be? Where's your memory gone, Richard Hunton,\nand you not such a great age either? Where are you stayin'?\"\n\nShame overcame him; his lips trembled, his mild blue eyes filled with\ntears. I told the tale as I had heard it, and Mrs Jakes's indignation\nwas good to see.\n\n\"Not keep you on 'alf a crown! Send you to the House! May the Lord\nforgive them! You wouldn't eat no more than a fair-sized cat, and not\nlong for this world either, that's plain to see. No, Richard Hunton,\nyou don't go to the House while I'm above ground; it'd make my good man\nturn to think of it. You'll come 'ome with me and the little 'un there.\nI've my washin', and a bit put by for a rainy day, and a bed to spare,\nand the Lord and the parson will see I don't come to want.\"\n\nShe stopped breathless, her defensive motherhood in arms.\n\nThe old man said quaveringly, in the pathetic, grudging phrase of\nthe poor, which veils their gratitude while it testifies their\nindependence, \"Maybe I might as well.\" He rose with difficulty, picked\nup his bundle and stick, the small child replaced the kitten in its\nbasket, and thrust her hand in her new friend's.\n\n\"Then 'oo _is_ grandad tum back,\" she said.\n\nMrs Jakes had been fumbling in her pocket, and extracted a penny, which\nshe pressed on me.\n\n\"It's little enough, mister,\" she said.\n\nThen, as I tried to return it: \"Nay, I've enough, and yours is poor\npaid work.\"\n\nI hope I shall always be able to keep that penny; and as I watched the\nthree going down the dusty white road, with the child in the middle, I\nthanked God for the Brotherhood of the Poor.\n\n\n\n\nIV\n\n\nYESTERDAY a funeral passed, from the workhouse at N----, a quaint\nsepulture without solemnities. The rough, ungarnished coffin of stained\ndeal lay bare and unsightly on the floor of an old market-cart; a woman\nsat beside, steadying it with her feet. The husband drove; and the most\ndepressed of the three was the horse, a broken-kneed, flea-bitten grey.\nIt was pathetic, this bringing home in death of the old father whom,\nwhile he lived, they had been too poor to house; it was at no small\nsacrifice that they had spared him that terror of old age, a pauper's\ngrave, and brought him to lie by his wife in our quiet churchyard. They\nfelt no emotion, this husband and wife, only a dull sense of filial\nduty done, respectability preserved; and above and through all, the\nbitter but necessary counting the cost of this last bed.\n\nIt is strange how pagan many of us are in our beliefs. True, the\nfuneral libations have made way for the comfortable bake-meats; still,\nto the large majority Death is Pluto, king of the dark Unknown whence\nno traveller returns, rather than Azrael, brother and friend, lord\nof this mansion of life. Strange how men shun him as he waits in the\nshadow, watching our puny straining after immortality, sending his\ncomrade sleep to prepare us for himself. When the hour strikes he\ncomes--very gently, very tenderly, if we will but have it so--folds\nthe tired hands together, takes the wayworn feet in his broad strong\npalm; and lifting us in his wonderful arms he bears us swiftly down the\nvalley and across the waters of Remembrance.\n\nVery pleasant art thou, O Brother Death, thy love is wonderful, passing\nthe love of women.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nTo-day I have lived in a whirl of dust. To-morrow is the great annual\nCattle Fair at E----, and through the long hot hours the beasts from\nall the district round have streamed in broken procession along my\nroad, to change hands or to die. Surely the lordship over creation\nimplies wise and gentle rule for intelligent use, not the pursuit of\na mere immediate end, without any thought of community in the great\nsacrament of life.\n\nFor the most part mystery has ceased for this working Western world,\nand with it reverence. Coventry Patmore says: \"God clothes Himself\nactually and literally with His whole creation. Herbs take up and\nassimilate minerals, beasts assimilate herbs, and God, in the\nIncarnation and its proper Sacrament, assimilates us, who, says St\nAugustine, 'are God's beasts.'\" It is man in his blind self-seeking who\nseparates woof from weft in the living garment of God, and loses the\nmore as he neglects the outward and visible signs of a world-wide grace.\n\nIn olden days the herd led his flock, going first in the post of danger\nto defend the creatures he had weaned from their natural habits for\nhis various uses. Now that good relationship has ceased for us to\nexist, man drives the beasts before him, means to his end, but with no\nharmony between end and means. All day long the droves of sheep pass\nme on their lame and patient way, no longer freely and instinctively\nfollowing a protector and forerunner, but _driven_, impelled by force\nand resistless will--the same will which once went before without\nforce. They are all trimmed as much as possible to one pattern, and all\nmake the same sad plaint. It is a day on which to thank God for the\nunknown tongue. The drover and his lad in dusty blue coats plod along\nstolidly, deaf and blind to all but the way before them; no longer\nwielding the crook, instrument of deliverance, or at most of gentle\ncompulsion, but armed with a heavy stick and mechanically dealing\nblows on the short thick fleeces; without evil intent because without\nthought--it is the ritual of the trade.\n\n[Illustration: A little lonely cottage]\n\nOf all the poor dumb pilgrims of the road the bullocks are the most\nterrible to see. They are not patient, but go most unwillingly with\nlowered head and furtive sideways motion, in their eyes a horror of\ngreat fear. The sleek cattle, knee deep in pasture, massed at the gate,\nand stared mild-eyed and with inquiring bellow at the retreating drove;\nbut these passed without answer on to the Unknown, and for them it\nspelt death.\n\nBehind a squadron of sleek, well-fed cart-horses, formed in fours, with\nstraw braid in mane and tail, came the ponies, for the most part a\nmerry company. Long strings of rusty, shaggy two-year-olds, unbroken,\nunkempt, the short Down grass still sweet on their tongues; full of\nfun, frolic, and wickedness, biting and pulling, casting longing eyes\nat the hedgerows. The boys appear to recognise them as kindred spirits,\nand are curiously forbearing and patient. Soon both ponies and boys\nvanish in a white whirl, and a long line of carts, which had evidently\nwaited for the dust to subside, comes slowly up the incline. For the\nmost part they carry the pigs and fowls, carriage folk of the road. The\nlatter are hot, crowded, and dusty under the open netting; the former\nfor the most part cheerfully remonstrative.\n\nI drew a breath of relief as the noise of wheels died away and my\nroad sank into silence. The hedgerows are no longer green but white\nand choked with dust, a sight to move good sister Rain to welcome\ntears. The birds seem to have fled before the noisy confusion. I wonder\nwhether my snake has seen and smiled at the clumsy ruling of the lord\nhe so little heeds? I turned aside through the gate to plunge face and\nhands into the cool of the sheltered grass that side the hedge, and\nthen rested my eyes on the stretch of green I had lacked all day. The\nrabbits had apparently played and browsed unmindful of the stir, and\nwere still flirting their white tails along the hedgerows; a lark rose,\nanother and another, and I went back to my road. Peace still reigned,\nfor the shadows were lengthening, and there would be little more\ntraffic for the fair. I turned to my work, grateful for the stillness,\nand saw on the white stretch of road a lone old man and a pig. Surely I\nknew that tall figure in the quaint grey smock, surely I knew the face,\nfurrowed like nature's face in springtime, and crowned by a round, soft\nhat? And the pig, the black pig walking decorously free? Ay, I knew\nthem.\n\nIn the early spring I took a whole holiday and a long tramp; and\ntowards afternoon, tired and thirsty, sought water at a little lonely\ncottage whose windows peered and blinked under overhanging brows of\nthatch. I had, not the water I asked for, but milk and a bowl of sweet\nporridge for which I paid only thanks; and stayed for a chat with my\nkindly hosts. They were a quaint old couple of the kind rarely met with\nnowadays. They enjoyed a little pension from the Squire and a garden in\nwhich vegetables and flowers lived side by side in friendliest fashion.\nBees worked and sang over the thyme and marjoram, blooming early in a\nsunny nook; and in a homely sty lived a solemn black pig, a pig with a\nhistory.\n\nIt was no common utilitarian pig, but the honoured guest of the\nold couple, and it knew it. A year before, their youngest and only\nsurviving child, then a man of five-and-twenty, had brought his mother\nthe result of his savings in the shape of a fine young pig: a week\nlater he lay dead of the typhoid that scourged Maidstone. Hence the pig\nwas sacred, cared for and loved by this Darby and Joan.\n\n\"Ee be mos' like a child to me and the mother, an' mos' as sensible as\na Christian, ee be,\" the old man had said; and I could hardly credit my\neyes when I saw the tall bent figure side by side with the black pig,\ncoming along my road on such a day.\n\nI hailed the old man, and both turned aside; but he gazed at me without\nremembrance.\n\nI spoke of the pig and its history. He nodded wearily. \"Ay, ay, lad,\nyou've got it; 'tis poor Dick's pig right enow.\"\n\n\"But you're never going to take it to E----?\"\n\n\"Ay, but I be, and comin' back alone, if the Lord be marciful. The\nmissus has been terrible bad this two months and more; Squire's in\nforeign parts; and food-stuffs such as the old woman wants is hard\nbuying for poor folks. The stocking's empty, now 'tis the pig must\ngo, and I believe he'd be glad for to do the missus a turn; she were\nterrible good to him, were the missus, and fond, too. I dursn't tell\nher he was to go; she'd sooner starve than lose poor Dick's pig. Well,\nwe'd best be movin'; 'tis a fairish step.\"\n\nThe pig followed comprehending and docile, and as the quaint couple\npassed from sight I thought I heard Brother Death stir in the shadow.\nHe is a strong angel and of great pity.\n\n\n\n\nV\n\n\nTHERE is always a little fire of wood on the open hearth in the kitchen\nwhen I get home at night; the old lady says it is \"company\" for her,\nand sits in the lonely twilight, her knotted hands lying quiet on her\nlap, her listening eyes fixed on the burning sticks.\n\nI wonder sometimes whether she hears music in the leap and lick of the\nfiery tongues, music such as he of Bayreuth draws from the violins till\nthe hot energy of the fire spirit is on us, embodied in sound.\n\nSurely she hears some voice, that lonely old woman on whom is set the\nseal of great silence?\n\nIt is a great truth tenderly said that God builds the nest for the\nblind bird; and may it not be that He opens closed eyes and unstops\ndeaf ears to sights and sounds from which others by these very senses\nare debarred?\n\nHere the best of us see through a mist of tears men as trees walking;\nit is only in the land which is very far off and yet very near that\nwe shall have fulness of sight and see the King in His beauty; and I\ncannot think that any listening ears listen in vain.\n\nThe coppice at our back is full of birds, for it is far from the road\nand they nest there undisturbed year after year. Through the still\nnight I heard the nightingales calling, calling, until I could bear it\nno longer and went softly out into the luminous dark.\n\nThe little wood was manifold with sound, I heard my little brothers who\nmove by night rustling in grass and tree. A hedgehog crossed my path\nwith a dull squeak, the bats shrilled high to the stars, a white owl\nswept past me crying his hunting note, a beetle boomed suddenly in my\nface; and above and through it all the nightingales sang--and sang!\n\nThe night wind bent the listening trees, and the stars yearned\nearthward to hear the song of deathless love. Louder and louder the\nwonderful notes rose and fell in a passion of melody; and then sank to\nrest on that low thrilling call which it is said Death once heard, and\nstayed his hand.\n\nThey will scarcely sing again this year, these nightingales, for they\nare late on the wing as it is. It seems as if on such nights they sang\nas the swan sings, knowing it to be the last time--with the lavish note\nof one who bids an eternal farewell.\n\nAt last there was silence. Sitting under the big beech tree, the giant\nof the coppice, I rested my tired self in the lap of mother earth,\nbreathed of her breath and listened to her voice in the quickening\nsilence until my flesh came again as the flesh of a little child, for\nit is true recreation to sit at the foot-stool of God wrapped in a fold\nof His living robe, the while night smoothes our tired face with her\nhealing hands.\n\n[Illustration: The reeded waters of the sequestered pool]\n\nThe grey dawn awoke and stole with trailing robes across earth's floor.\nAt her footsteps the birds roused from sleep and cried a greeting; the\nsky flushed and paled conscious of coming splendour; and overhead a\nfile of swans passed with broad strong flight to the reeded waters of\nthe sequestered pool.\n\nAnother hour of silence while the light throbbed and flamed in the\neast; then the larks rose harmonious from a neighbouring field, the\nrabbits scurried with ears alert to their morning meal, the day had\nbegun.\n\nI passed through the coppice and out into the fields beyond. The dew\nlay heavy on leaf and blade and gossamer, a cool fresh wind swept clear\nover dale and down from the sea, and the clover field rippled like a\nsilvery lake in the breeze.\n\nThere is something inexpressibly beautiful in the unused day, something\nbeautiful in the fact that it is still untouched, unsoiled; and town\nand country share alike in this loveliness. At half-past three on\na June morning even London has not assumed her responsibilities, but\nsmiles and glows lighthearted and smokeless under the caresses of the\nmorning sun.\n\nFive o'clock. The bell rings out crisp and clear from the monastery\nwhere the Bedesmen of St Hugh watch and pray for the souls on this\nlabouring forgetful earth. Every hour the note of comfort and warning\ncries across the land, tells the Sanctus, the Angelus, and the Hours of\nthe Passion, and calls to remembrance and prayer.\n\nWhen the wind is north, the sound carries as far as my road, and\ncompanies me through the day; and if to His dumb children God in His\nmercy reckons work as prayer, most certainly those who have forged\nthrough the ages an unbroken chain of supplication and thanksgiving\nwill be counted among the stalwart labourers of the house of the Lord.\n\nSun and bell together are my only clock: it is time for my water\ndrawing; and gathering a pile of mushrooms, children of the night, I\nhasten home.\n\nThe cottage is dear to me in its quaint untidiness and want of\nrectitude, dear because we are to be its last denizens, last of the\nlong line of toilers who have sweated and sown that others might reap,\nand have passed away leaving no trace.\n\nI once saw a tall cross in a seaboard churchyard, inscribed, \"To the\nmemory of the unknown dead who have perished in these waters.\" There\nmight be one in every village sleeping-place to the unhonoured many who\nmade fruitful the land with sweat and tears. It is a consolation to\nthink that when we look back on this stretch of life's road from beyond\nthe first milestone, which, it is instructive to remember, is always a\ngrave, we may hope to see the work of this world with open eyes, and to\njudge of it with a due sense of proportion.\n\n[Illustration: The monastery where the Bedesmen of St. Hugh watch and\npray]\n\nA bee with laden honey-bag hummed and buzzed in the hedge as I got\nready for work, importuning the flowers for that which he could not\ncarry, and finally giving up the attempt in despair fell asleep on a\nbuttercup, the best place for his weary little velvet body. In five\nminutes--they may have been five hours to him--he awoke a new bee,\nsensible and clear-sighted, and flew blithely away to the hive with his\nsufficiency--an example this weary world would be wise to follow.\n\nMy road has been lonely to-day. A parson came by in the afternoon, a\nstranger in the neighbourhood, for he asked his way. He talked awhile,\nand with kindly rebuke said it was sad to see a man of my education\nbrought so low, which shows how the outside appearance may mislead the\nprejudiced observer. \"Was it misfortune?\" \"Nay, the best of good\nluck,\" I answered, gaily.\n\nThe good man with beautiful readiness sat down on a heap of stones and\nbade me say on. \"Read me a sermon in stone,\" he said, simply; and I\nstayed my hand to read.\n\nHe listened with courteous intelligence.\n\n\"You hold a roadmender has a vocation?\" he asked.\n\n\"As the monk or the artist, for, like both, he is universal. The world\nis his home; he serves all men alike, ay, and for him the beasts have\nequal honour with the men. His soul is 'bound up in the bundle of life'\nwith all other souls, he sees his father, his mother, his brethren in\nthe children of the road. For him there is nothing unclean, nothing\ncommon; the very stones cry out that they serve.\"\n\nParson nodded his head.\n\n\"It is all true,\" he said; \"beautifully true. But need such a view of\nlife necessitate the work of roadmending? Surely all men should be\nroadmenders.\"\n\nO wise parson, so to read the lesson of the road!\n\n\"It is true,\" I answered; \"but some of us find our salvation in the\nactual work, and earn our bread better in this than in any other way.\nNo man is dependent on our earning, all men on our work. We are 'rich\nbeyond the dreams of avarice' because we have all that we need, and\nyet we taste the life and poverty of the very poor. We are, if you\nwill, uncloistered monks, preaching friars who speak not with the\ntongue, disciples who hear the wise words of a silent master.\"\n\n\"Robert Louis Stevenson was a roadmender,\" said the wise parson.\n\n\"Ay, and with more than his pen,\" I answered. \"I wonder was he ever so\ntruly great, so entirely the man we know and love, as when he inspired\nthe chiefs to make a highway in the wilderness. Surely no more fitting\nmonument could exist to his memory than the Road of Gratitude, cut,\nlaid, and kept by the pure-blooded tribe kings of Samoa.\"\n\nParson nodded.\n\n\"He knew that the people who make no roads are ruled out from\nintelligent participation in the world's brotherhood.\" He filled his\npipe, thinking the while, then he held out his pouch to me.\n\n\"Try some of this baccy,\" he said; \"Sherwood of Magdalen sent it me\nfrom some outlandish place.\"\n\nI accepted gratefully. It was such tobacco as falls to the lot of few\nroadmenders.\n\nHe rose to go.\n\n\"I wish I could come and break stones,\" he said, a little wistfully.\n\n\"Nay,\" said I, \"few men have such weary roadmending as yours, and\nperhaps you need my road less than most men, and less than most\nparsons.\"\n\nWe shook hands, and he went down the road and out of my life.\n\nHe little guessed that I knew Sherwood, ay, and knew him too, for had\nnot Sherwood told me of the man he delighted to honour.\n\nAh, well! I am no Browning Junior, and Sherwood's name is not Sherwood.\n\n\n\n\nVI\n\n\nAWHILE ago I took a holiday; mouched, played truant from my road. Jem\nthe waggoner hailed me as he passed--he was going to the mill--would I\nride with him and come back atop of the full sacks?\n\n[Illustration: The sun stretched the long shadows in slanting bars\nacross the white highway]\n\nI hid my hammer in the hedge, climbed into the great waggon white and\nfragrant with the clean sweet meal, and flung myself down on the empty\nflour bags. The looped-back tarpaulin framed the long vista of my road\nwith the downs beyond; and I lay in the cool dark, caressed by the\nfresh breeze in its thoroughfare, soothed by the strong monotonous\ntramp of the great grey team and the music of the jangling harness.\n\nJem walked at the leaders' heads; it is his rule when the waggon is\nempty, a rule no \"company\" will make him break. At first I regretted\nit, but soon discovered I learnt to know him better so, as he plodded\nalong, his thickset figure slightly bent, his hands in his pockets,\nhis whip under one arm, whistling hymn tunes in a low minor, while the\ngreat horses answered to his voice without touch of lash or guiding\nrein.\n\nI lay as in a blissful dream and watched my road unfold. The sun set\nthe pine-boles aflare where the hedge is sparse, and stretched the long\nshadows of the besom poplars in slanting bars across the white highway;\nthe roadside gardens smiled friendly with their trim-cut laurels and\nrows of stately sunflowers--a seemly proximity this, Daphne and Clytie,\nsisters in experience, wrapped in the warm caress of the god whose\nwooing they need no longer fear. Here and there we passed little groups\nof women and children off to work in the early cornfields, and Jem\npaused in his fond repetition of \"The Lord my pasture shall prepare\" to\ngive them good-day.\n\nIt is like Life, this travelling backwards--that which has been, alone\nvisible--like Life, which is after all, retrospective with a steady\nmoving on into the Unknown, Unseen, until Faith is lost in Sight and\nexperience is no longer the touchstone of humanity. The face of the son\nof Adam is set on the road his brothers have travelled, marking their\nlandmarks, tracing their journeyings; but with the eyes of a child of\nGod he looks forward, straining to catch a glimpse of the jewelled\nwalls of his future home, the city \"Eternal in the Heavens.\"\n\nPresently we left my road for the deep shade of a narrow country way\nwhere the great oaks and beeches meet overhead and no hedge-clipper\nsets his hand to stay nature's profusion; and so by pleasant lanes\nscarce the waggon's width across, now shady, now sunny, here bordered\nby thickset coverts, there giving on fruitful fields, we came at length\nto the mill.\n\n[Illustration: The great wheel was at rest]\n\nI left Jem to his business with the miller and wandered down the\nflowery meadow to listen to the merry clack of the stream and the voice\nof the waters on the weir. The great wheel was at rest, as I love best\nto see it in the later afternoon; the splash and churn of the water\nbelong rather to the morning hours. It is the chief mistake we make in\nportioning out our day that we banish rest to the night-time, which is\nfor sleep and recreating, instead of setting apart the later afternoon\nand quiet twilight hours for the stretching of weary limbs and repose\nof tired mind after a day's toil that should begin and end at five.\n\nThe little stone bridge over the mill-stream is almost on a level\nwith the clear running water, and I lay there and gazed at the huge\nwheel which, under multitudinous forms and uses, is one of the world's\nwonders, because one of the few things we imitative children have not\nlearnt from nature. Is it perchance a memory out of that past when Adam\nwalked clear-eyed in Paradise and talked with the Lord in the cool of\nthe day? Did he see then the flaming wheels instinct with service,\nwondrous messengers of the Most High vouchsafed in vision to the later\nprophets?\n\nMaybe he did, and going forth from before the avenging sword of his\nown forging to the bitterness of an accursed earth, took with him this\nbright memory of perfect, ceaseless service, and so fashioned our\nlabouring wheel--pathetic link with the time of his innocency. It is\none of many unanswered questions, good to ask because it has no answer,\nonly the suggestion of a train of thought: perhaps we are never so\nreceptive as when with folded hands we say simply, \"This is a great\nmystery.\" I watched and wondered until Jem called, and I had to leave\nthe rippling weir and the water's side, and the wheel with its untold\nsecret.\n\nThe miller's wife gave me tea and a crust of homemade bread, and the\nmiller's little maid sat on my knee while I told the sad tale of a\nlittle pink cloud separated from its parents and teazed and hunted\nby mischievous little airs. To-morrow, if I mistake not, her garden\nwill be wet with its tears, and, let us hope, point a moral; for the\ntale had its origin in a frenzied chicken driven from the side of an\nanxious mother, and pursued by a sturdy, relentless figure in a white\nsun-bonnet.\n\nThe little maid trotted off, greatly sobered, to look somewhat\nprematurely for the cloud's tears; and I climbed to my place at the top\nof the piled-up sacks, and thence watched twilight pass to starlight\nthrough my narrow peep, and, so watching, slept until Jem's voice\nhailed me from Dreamland, and I went, only half awake, across the dark\nfields home.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nAutumn is here and it is already late. He has painted the hedges russet\nand gold, scarlet and black, and a tangle of grey; now he has damp\nbrown leaves in his hair and frost in his finger-tips.\n\nIt is a season of contrasts; at first all is stir and bustle, the\ningathering of man and beast; barn and rickyard stand filled with\ngolden treasure; at the farm the sound of threshing; in wood and copse\nthe squirrels busied 'twixt tree and storehouse, while the ripe nuts\nfall with thud of thunder rain. When the harvesting is over, the fruit\ngathered, the last rick thatched, there comes a pause. Earth strips\noff her bright colours and shows a bare and furrowed face; the dead\nleaves fall gently and sadly through the calm, sweet air; grey mists\ndrape the fields and hedges. The migratory birds have left, save a few\nlate swallows; and as I sit at work in the soft, still rain, I can hear\nthe blackbird's melancholy trill and the thin pipe of the redbreast's\nwinter song--the air is full of the sound of farewell.\n\nForethought and preparation for the Future which shall be; farewell,\nbecause of the Future which may never be--for us; \"Man, thou hast\ngoods laid up for many years, and it is well; but, remember, this\nnight _thy_ soul may be required\"; is the unvoiced lesson of autumn.\nThere is growing up among us a great fear; it stares at us white,\nwide-eyed, from the faces of men and women alike--the fear of pain,\nmental and bodily pain. For the last twenty years we have waged war\nwith suffering--a noble war when fought in the interest of the many,\nbut fraught with great danger to each individual man. It is the fear\nwhich should not be, rather than the 'hope which is in us,' that leads\nmen in these days to drape Death in a flowery mantle, to lay stress\non the shortness of parting, the speedy reunion, to postpone their\ngood-byes until the last moment, or avoid saying them altogether; and\nthis fear is a poor, ignoble thing, unworthy of those who are as gods,\nknowing good and evil. We are still paying the price of that knowledge;\nsuffering in both kinds is a substantial part of it, and brings its\nown healing. Let us pay like men, our face to the open heaven, neither\nwhimpering like children in the dark, nor lulled to unnecessary\noblivion by some lethal drug; for it is manly, not morbid, to dare to\ntaste the pungent savour of pain, the lingering sadness of farewell\nwhich emphasises the aftermath of life; it should have its place in\nall our preparation as a part of our inheritance we dare not be without.\n\nThere is an old couple in our village who are past work. The married\ndaughter has made shift to take her mother and the parish half-crown,\nbut there is neither room nor food for the father, and he must go to\nN----. If husband and wife went together, they would be separated at\nthe workhouse door. The parting had to come; it came yesterday. I saw\nthem stumbling lamely down the road on their last journey together,\nwalking side by side without touch or speech, seeing and heeding\nnothing but a blank future. As they passed me the old man said gruffly,\n\"'Tis far eno'; better be gettin' back\"; but the woman shook her head,\nand they breasted the hill together. At the top they paused, shook\nhands, and separated; one went on, the other turned back; and as the\nold woman limped blindly by I turned away, for there are sights a man\ndare not look upon. She passed; and I heard a child's shrill voice say,\n\"I come to look for you, gran\"; and I thanked God that there need be no\nutter loneliness in the world while it holds a little child.\n\nNow it is my turn, and I must leave the wayside to serve in the\nsheepfolds during the winter months. It is scarcely a farewell, for\nmy road is ubiquitous, eternal; there are green ways in Paradise and\ngolden streets in the beautiful City of God. Nevertheless, my heart\nis heavy; for, viewed by the light of the waning year, roadmending\nseems a great and wonderful work which I have poorly conceived of and\nmeanly performed: yet I have learnt to understand dimly the truths of\nthree great paradoxes--the blessing of a curse, the voice of silence,\nthe companionship of solitude--and so take my leave of this stretch of\nroad, and of you who have fared along the white highway through the\nmedium of a printed page.\n\nFarewell! It is a roadmender's word; I cry you Godspeed to the next\nmilestone--and beyond.\n\n\n\n\nOUT OF THE SHADOW\n\n[Illustration: The crisp rime of winter's breath]\n\n\n\n\nI\n\n\nI AM no longer a roadmender; the stretch of white highway which leads\nto the end of the world will know me no more; the fields and hedgerows,\ngrass and leaf stiff with the crisp rime of winter's breath, lie\nbeyond my horizon; the ewes in the folding, their mysterious eyes\nquick with the consciousness of coming motherhood, answer another's\nvoice and hand; while I lie here, not in the lonely companionship of\nmy expectations, but where the shadow is bright with kindly faces and\ngentle hands, until one kinder and gentler still carries me down the\nstairway into the larger room.\n\nBut now the veil was held aside and one went by crowned with the\nmajesty of years, wearing the ermine of an unstained rule, the\npurple of her people's loyalty. Nations stood with bated breath\nto see her pass in the starlit mist of her children's tears; a\nmonarch--greatest of her time; an empress--conquered men called mother;\na woman--Englishmen cried queen; still the crowned captive of her\npeople's heart--the prisoner of love.\n\nThe night-goers passed under my window in silence, neither song nor\nshout broke the welcome dark; next morning the workmen who went by were\nstrangely quiet.\n\n    'VICTORIA DEI GRATIA BRITANNIARUM REGINA.'\n\nDid they think of how that legend would disappear, and of all it meant,\nas they paid their pennies at the coffee-stall? The feet rarely know\nthe true value and work of the head; but all Englishmen have been and\nwill be quick to acknowledge and revere Victoria by the grace of God a\nwise woman, a great and loving mother.\n\n[Illustration: The aloneness of a great forest]\n\nYears ago, I, standing at a level crossing, saw her pass. The train\nslowed down, and she caught sight of the gatekeeper's little girl\nwho had climbed the barrier. Such a smile as she gave her! And then\nI caught a quick startled gesture as she slipped from my vision; I\nthought afterwards it was that she feared the child might fall. Mother\nfirst, then Queen; even so rest came to her--not in one of the royal\npalaces, but in her own home, surrounded by the immediate circle of her\nnearest and dearest, while the world kept watch and ward.\n\nI, a shy lover of the fields and woods, longed always, should a\npainless passing be vouchsafed me, to make my bed on the fragrant pine\nneedles in the aloneness of a great forest; to lie once again as I had\nlain many a time, bathed in the bitter sweetness of the sun-blessed\npines, lapped in the manifold silence; my ear attuned to the wind of\nHeaven with its call from the Cities of Peace. In sterner mood, when\nLove's hand held a scourge, I craved rather the stress of the moorland\nwith its bleaker mind imperative of sacrifice. To rest again under the\nlee of Rippon Tor swept by the strong peat-smelling breeze; to stare\nuntired at the long cloud-shadowed reaches, and watch the mist-wraiths\nhuddle and shrink round the stones of blood; until my sacrifice too\nwas accomplished, and my soul had fled. A wild waste moor; a vast void\nsky; and naught between heaven and earth but man, his sin-glazed eyes\nseeking afar the distant light of his own heart.\n\nWith years came counsels more profound, and the knowledge that man was\nno mere dweller in the woods to follow the footsteps of the piping\ngod, but an integral part of an organised whole, in which Pan too\nhas his fulfilment. The wise Venetians knew; and read pantheism into\nChristianity when they set these words round Ezekiel's living creatures\nin the altar vault of St Mark's:--\n\n    QUAEQUE SUB OBSCURIS DE CRISTO DICTA FIGURIS\n    HIS APERIRE DATUR ET IN HIS, DEUS IPSE NOTATUR.\n\n\"Thou shalt have none other gods but me.\" If man had been able to keep\nthis one commandment perfectly the other nine would never have been\nwritten; instead he has comprehensively disregarded it, and perhaps\nnever more than now in the twentieth century. Ah, well! this world,\nin spite of all its sinning, is still the Garden of Eden where the\nLord walked with man, not in the cool of evening, but in the heat and\nstress of the immediate working day. There is no angel now with naming\nsword to keep the way of the Tree of Life, but tapers alight morning\nby morning in the Hostel of God to point us to it; and we, who are as\ngods knowing good and evil, partake of that fruit \"whereof whoso eateth\nshall never die\"; the greatest gift or the most awful penalty--Eternal\nLife.\n\nI then, with my craving for tree and sky, held that a great capital\nwith its stir of life and death, of toil and strife and pleasure, was\nan ill place for a sick man to wait in; a place to shrink from as a\nchild shrinks from the rude blow of one out of authority. Yet here, far\nfrom moor and forest, hillside and hedgerow, in the family sitting-room\nof the English-speaking peoples, the London much misunderstood, I\nfind the fulfilment by antithesis of all desire. For the loneliness\nof the moorland, there is the warmth and companionship of London's\nswift beating heart. For silence there is sound--the sound and stir\nof service--for the most part far in excess of its earthly equivalent.\nAgainst the fragrant incense of the pines I set the honest sweat of the\nman whose lifetime is the measure of his working day. \"He that loveth\nnot his brother whom he hath seen, how shall he love God whom he hath\nnot seen?\" wrote Blessed John, who himself loved so much that he beheld\nthe Lamb as it had been slain from the beginning when Adam fell, and\nthe City of God with light most precious. The burden of corporate sin,\nthe sword of corporate sorrow, the joy of corporate righteousness; thus\nwe become citizens in the Kingdom of God, and companions of all his\ncreatures. \"It is not good that the man should be alone,\" said the Lord\nGod.\n\nI live now as it were in two worlds, the world of sight, and the world\nof sound; and they scarcely ever touch each other. I hear the grind of\nheavy traffic, the struggle of horses on the frost-breathed ground, the\ndecorous jolt of omnibuses, the jangle of cab bells, the sharp warning\nof bicycles at the corner, the swift rattle of costers' carts as they\ngo south at night with their shouting, goading crew. All these things\nI hear, and more; but I see no road, only the silent river of my heart\nwith its tale of wonder and years, and the white beat of seagulls'\nwings in strong inquiring flight.\n\nSometimes there is naught to see on the waterway but a solitary black\nhull, a very Stygian ferry-boat, manned by a solitary figure, and\nmoving slowly up under the impulse of the far-reaching sweeps. Then\nthe great barges pass with their coffined treasure, drawn by a small\nself-righteous steam-tug. Later, lightened of their load, and waiting\non wind and tide, I see them swooping by like birds set free; tawny\nsails that mind me of red-roofed Whitby with its northern fleet; black\nsails as of some heedless Theseus; white sails that sweep out of the\nmorning mist \"like restless gossameres.\" They make the bridge, which is\njust within my vision, and then away past Westminster and Blackfriars\nwhere St Paul's great dome lifts the cross high over a self-seeking\ncity; past Southwark where England's poet illuminates in the scroll of\ndivine wisdom the sign of the Tabard; past the Tower with its haunting\nghosts of history; past Greenwich, fairy city, caught in the meshes of\nriverside mist; and then the salt and speer of the sea, the companying\nwith great ships, the fresh burden.\n\nAt night I see them again, silent, mysterious; searching the darkness\nwith unwinking yellow stare, led by a great green light. They creep\nup under the bridge which spans the river with its watching eyes, and\nvanish, crying back a warning note as they make the upper reach, or\nstrident hail, as a chain of kindred phantoms passes, ploughing a\ncontrary tide.\n\nThroughout the long watches of the night I follow them; and in the\nearly morning they slide by, their eyes pale in the twilight; while the\nstars flicker and fade, and the gas lamps die down into a dull yellow\nblotch against the glory and glow of a new day.\n\n\n\n\nII\n\n\nFEBRUARY is here, February fill-dyke; the month of purification, of\ncleansing rains and pulsing bounding streams, and white mist clinging\ninsistent to field and hedgerow so that when her veil is withdrawn\ngreenness may make us glad.\n\nThe river has been uniformly grey of late, with no wind to ruffle\nits surface or to speed the barges dropping slowly and sullenly down\nwith the tide through a blurring haze. I watched one yesterday, its\nuseless sails half-furled and no sign of life save the man at the helm.\nIt drifted stealthily past, and a little behind, flying low, came a\nsolitary seagull, grey as the river's haze--a following bird.\n\nOnce again I lay on my back in the bottom of the tarry old fishing\nsmack, blue sky above and no sound but the knock, knock of the waves,\nand the thud and curl of falling foam as the old boat's blunt nose\nbreasted the coming sea. Then Daddy Whiddon spoke.\n\n\"A follerin' b\u00fcrrd,\" he said.\n\nI got up, and looked across the blue field we were ploughing into white\nfurrows. Far away a tiny sail scarred the great solitude, and astern\ncame a gull flying slowly close to the water's breast.\n\nDaddy Whiddon waved his pipe towards it.\n\n\"A follerin' b\u00fcrrd,\" he said, again; and again I waited; questions were\nnot grateful to him.\n\n\"There be a carpse there, sure enough, a carpse driftin' and shiftin'\non the floor of the sea. There be those as can't rest, poor sawls, and\nher'll be mun, her'll be mun, and the sperrit of her is with the b\u00fcrrd.\"\n\nThe clumsy boom swung across as we changed our course, and the water\nran from us in smooth reaches on either side: the bird flew steadily on.\n\n\"What will the spirit do?\" I said.\n\nThe old man looked at me gravely.\n\n\"Her'll rest in the Lard's time, in the Lard's gude time--but now\nher'll just be follerin' on with the b\u00fcrrd.\"\n\nThe gull was flying close to us now, and a cold wind swept the sunny\nsea. I shivered: Daddy looked at me curiously.\n\n\"There be reason enough to be cawld if us did but knaw it, but I be\nmos' used to 'em, poor sawls.\" He shaded his keen old blue eyes, and\nlooked away across the water. His face kindled. \"There be a skule\ncomin', and by my sawl 'tis mackerel they be drivin'.\"\n\nI watched eagerly, and saw the dark line rise and fall in the trough\nof the sea, and, away behind, the stir and rush of tumbling porpoises\nas they chased their prey.\n\nAgain we changed our tack, and each taking an oar, pulled lustily for\nthe beach.\n\n\"Please God her'll break inshore,\" said Daddy Whiddon; and he shouted\nthe news at the idle men waiting who hailed us.\n\nIn a moment all was stir, for the fishing had been slack. Two boats\nput out with the lithe brown seine. The dark line had turned, but the\nschool was still behind, churning the water in clumsy haste; they were\ncoming in.\n\nThen the brit broke in silvery leaping waves on the shelving beach. The\nthree-fold hunt was over; the porpoises turned out to sea in search\nof fresh quarry; and the seine, dragged by ready hands, came slowly,\nstubbornly in with its quivering treasure of fish. They had sought a\nhaven and found none; the brit lay dying in the flickering iridescent\nheaps as the bare-legged babies of the village gathered them up; and\nfar away over the water I saw a single grey speck; it was the following\nbird.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe curtain of river haze falls back; barge and bird are alike gone,\nand the lamplighter has lit the first gas-lamp on the far side of the\nbridge. Every night I watch him come, his progress marked by the great\nyellow eyes that wake the dark. Sometimes he walks quickly; sometimes\nhe loiters on the bridge to chat, or stare at the dark water; but he\nalways comes, leaving his watchful deterrent train behind him to police\nthe night.\n\nOnce Demeter in the black anguish of her desolation searched for lost\nPersephone by the light of Hecate's torch; and searching all in vain,\nspurned beneath her empty feet an earth barren of her smile; froze\nwith set brows the merry brooks and streams; and smote forest, and\nplain, and fruitful field, with the breath of her last despair, until\neven Iambe's laughing jest was still. And then when the desolation was\ncomplete, across the wasted valley where the starveling cattle scarcely\nlonged to browse, came the dreadful chariot--and Persephone. The day of\nthe prisoner of Hades had dawned; and as the sun flamed slowly up to\nlight her thwarted eyes the world sprang into blossom at her feet.\n\nWe can never be too Pagan when we are truly Christian, and the old\nmyths are eternal truths held fast in the Church's net. Prometheus\nfetched fire from Heaven, to be slain forever in the fetching; and\nlo, a Greater than Prometheus came to fire the cresset of the Cross.\nDemeter waits now patiently enough. Persephone waits, too, in the faith\nof the sun she cannot see: and every lamp lit carries on the crusade\nwhich has for its goal a sunless, moonless, city whose light is the\nLight of the world.\n\n    \"Lume \u00e8 lass\u00f9, che visibile face\n     lo creatore a quella creatura,\n     che solo in lui vedere ha la sua pace.\"\n\nImmediately outside my window is a lime tree--a little black skeleton\nof abundant branches--in which sparrows congregate to chirp and bicker.\nFarther away I have a glimpse of graceful planes, children of moonlight\nand mist; their dainty robes, still more or less unsullied, gleam\nghostly in the gaslight athwart the dark. They make a brave show even\nin winter with their feathery branches and swinging tassels, whereas my\nlittle tree stands stark and uncompromising, with its horde of sooty\nsparrows cockney to the last tail feather, and a pathetic inability\nto look anything but black. Rain comes with strong caressing fingers,\nand the branches seem no whit the cleaner for her care; but then their\nglistening blackness mirrors back the succeeding sunlight, as a muddy\npavement will sometimes lap our feet in a sea of gold. The little wet\nsparrows are for the moment equally transformed, for the sun turns\ntheir dun-coloured coats to a ruddy bronze, and cries Chrysostom as it\nkisses each shiny beak. They are dumb Chrysostoms; but they preach a\ngolden gospel, for the sparrows are to London what the rainbow was to\neight saved souls out of a waste of waters--a perpetual sign of the\nremembering mercies of God.\n\nLast night there was a sudden clatter of hoofs, a shout, and then\nsilence. A runaway cab-horse, a dark night, a wide crossing, and a\nheavy burden: so death came to a poor woman. People from the house went\nout to help; and I heard of her, the centre of an unknowing curious\ncrowd, as she lay bonnetless in the mud of the road, her head on the\nkerb. A rude but painless death: the misery lay in her life; for this\nwoman--worn, white-haired, and wrinkled--had but fifty years to set\nagainst such a condition. The policeman reported her respectable,\nhard-working, living apart from her husband with a sister; but although\nthey shared rooms, they \"did not speak,\" and the sister refused all\nresponsibility; so the parish buried the dead woman, and thus ended an\nuneventful tragedy.\n\nWas it her own fault? If so, the greater pathos. The lonely souls that\nhold out timid hands to an unheeding world have their meed of interior\ncomfort even here, while the sons of consolation wait on the threshold\nfor their footfall: but God help the soul that bars its own door! It\nis kicking against the pricks of Divine ordinance, the ordinance of a\ntriune God; whether it be the dweller in crowded street or tenement\nwho is proud to say, \"I keep myself to myself,\" or Seneca writing in\npitiful complacency, \"Whenever I have gone among men, I have returned\nhome less of a man.\" Whatever the next world holds in store, we are\nbidden in this to seek and serve God in our fellow-men, and in the\ncreatures of His making whom He calls by name.\n\nIt was once my privilege to know an old organ-grinder named Gawdine.\nHe was a hard swearer, a hard drinker, a hard liver, and he fortified\nhimself body and soul against the world: he even drank alone, which is\nan evil sign.\n\nOne day to Gawdine sober came a little dirty child, who clung to his\nempty trouser leg--he had lost a limb years before--with a persistent\nunintelligible request. He shook the little chap off with a blow and\na curse; and the child was trotting dismally away, when it suddenly\nturned, ran back, and held up a dirty face for a kiss.\n\nTwo days later Gawdine fell under a passing dray which inflicted\nterrible internal injuries on him. They patched him up in hospital, and\nhe went back to his organ-grinding, taking with him two friends--a\npain which fell suddenly upon him to rack and rend with an anguish\nof crucifixion, and the memory of a child's upturned face. Outwardly\nhe was the same save that he changed the tunes of his organ, out of\nlong-hoarded savings, for the jigs and reels which children hold dear,\nand stood patiently playing them in child-crowded alleys, where pennies\nare not as plentiful as elsewhere.\n\nHe continued to drink; it did not come within his new code to stop,\nsince he could \"carry his liquor well\"; but he rarely, if ever, swore.\nHe told me this tale through the throes of his anguish as he lay\ncrouched on a mattress on the floor; and as the grip of the pain took\nhim he tore and bit at his hands until they were maimed and bleeding,\nto keep the ready curses off his lips.\n\nHe told the story, but he gave no reason, offered no explanation: he\nhas been dead now many a year, and thus would I write his epitaph:--\n\nHe saw the face of a little child and looked on God.\n\n\n\n\nIII\n\n\n\"TWO began, in a low voice, 'Why, the fact is, you see, Miss, this here\nought to have been a _red_ rose-tree, and we put a white one in by\nmistake.'\"\n\nAs I look round this room I feel sure Two, and Five, and Seven, have\nall been at work on it, and made no mistakes, for round the walls runs\na frieze of squat standard rose-trees, red as red can be, and just\nlike those that Alice saw in the Queen's garden. In between them are\nChaucer's name-children, prim little daisies, peering wideawake from\ngreen grass. This same grass has a history which I have heard. In the\noriginal stencil for the frieze it was purely conventional like the\nrest, and met in spikey curves round each tree; the painter, however,\nwho was doing the work, was a lover of the fields; and feeling that\nsuch grass was a travesty, he added on his own account dainty little\ntussocks, and softened the hard line into a tufted carpet, the grass\ngrowing irregularly, bent at will by the wind.\n\nThe result from the standpoint of conventional art is indeed\ndisastrous; but my sympathy and gratitude are with the painter. I see,\nas he saw, the far-reaching robe of living ineffable green, of whose\nbrilliance the eye never has too much, and in whose weft no two threads\nare alike; and shrink as he did from the conventionalising of that\nwind-swept glory.\n\nThe sea has its crested waves of recognisable form; the river its eddy\nand swirl and separate vortices; but the grass! The wind bloweth where\nit listeth and the grass bows as the wind blows--\"thou canst not tell\nwhither it goeth.\" It takes no pattern, it obeys no recognised law; it\nis like a beautiful creature of a thousand wayward moods, and its voice\nis like nothing else in the wide world. It bids you rest and bury your\ntired face in the green coolness, and breathe of its breath and of the\nbreath of the good earth from which man was taken and to which he will\none day return. Then, if you lend your ear and are silent minded, you\nmay hear wondrous things of the deep places of the earth; of life in\nmineral and stone as well as in pulsing sap; of a green world as the\nstars saw it before man trod it under foot--of the emerald which has\nits place with the rest in the City of God.\n\n                            \"What if earth\n    Be but the shadow of heaven, and things therein,\n    Each to each other like, more than on earth is thought?\"\n\nIt is a natural part of civilisation's lust of re-arrangement that we\nshould be so ready to conventionalise the beauty of this world into\ndecorative patterns for our pilgrim tents. It is a phase, and will melt\ninto other phases; but it tends to the increase of artificiality, and\nexists not only in art but in everything. It is no new thing for jaded\nsentiment to crave the spur of the unnatural, to prefer the clever\nimitation, to live in a Devachan where the surroundings appear that\nwhich we would have them to be; but it is an interesting record of the\npulse of the present day that 'An Englishwoman's Love Letters' should\nhave taken society by storm in the way it certainly has.\n\nIt is a delightful book to leave about, with its vellum binding, dainty\nribbons, and the hallmark of a great publisher's name. But when we seek\nwithin we find love with its thousand voices and wayward moods, its shy\ngraces and seemly reticences, love which has its throne and robe of\nstate as well as the garment of the beggar maid, love which is before\ntime was, which knew the world when the stars took up their courses,\npresented to us in gushing outpourings, the appropriate language of a\nwoman's heart to the boor she delights to honour.\n\n\"It is woman who is the glory of man,\" says the author of 'The House\nof Wisdom and Love,' \"_Regina mundi_, greater, because so far the less;\nand man is her head, but only as he serves his queen.\" Set this sober\naphorism against the school girl love-making which kisses a man's feet\nand gaily refuses him the barren honour of having loved her first.\n\nThere is scant need for the apologia which precedes the letters; a\nfew pages dispels the fear that we are prying into another's soul.\nAs for the authorship, there is a woman's influence, an artist's\npoorly concealed bias in the foreign letters; and for the rest a man's\nblunders--so much easier to see in another than to avoid oneself--writ\nlarge from cover to cover. King Cophetua, who sends his \"profoundly\ngrateful remembrances,\" has most surely written the letters he would\nwish to receive.\n\n\"Mrs Meynell!\" cries one reviewer, triumphantly. Nay, the saints be\ngood to us, what has Mrs Meynell in common with the \"Englishwoman's\"\nlanguage, style, or most unconvincing passion? Men can write as\nfrom a woman's heart when they are minded to do so in desperate\nearnestness--there is Clarissa Harlowe and Stevenson's Kirstie, and\nmany more to prove it; but when a man writes as the author of the\n\"Love Letters\" writes, I feel, as did the painter of the frieze, that\npattern-making has gone too far and included that which, like the\ngrass, should be spared such a convention.\n\n\"I quite agree with you,\" said the Duchess, \"and the moral of that\nis--'Be what you would seem to be'--or, if you'd like to put it more\nsimply--'never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what it\nmight appear to others that what you were or might have been was not\notherwise than what you had been would have appeared to them to be\notherwise.'\" And so by way of the Queen's garden I come back to my room\nagain.\n\nMy heart's affections are still centred on my old attic, with boarded\nfloor and whitewashed walls, where the sun blazoned a frieze of red and\ngold until he travelled too far towards the north, the moon streamed\nin to paint the trees in inky wavering shadows, and the stars flashed\ntheir glory to me across the years. But now sun and moon greet me only\nindirectly: and under the red roses hang pictures, some of them the\ndear companions of my days. Opposite me is the Arundel print of the\nPresentation, painted by the gentle \"Brother of the Angels.\" Priest\nSimeon, a stately figure in green and gold, great with prophecy, gazes\nadoringly at the Bambino he holds with fatherly care. Our Lady, in robe\nof red and veil of shadowed purple, is instinct with light despite the\nsombre colouring, as she stretches out hungering, awe-struck hands for\nher soul's delight. St Joseph, dignified guardian and servitor, stands\nbehind, holding the Sacrifice of the Poor to redeem the First-begotten.\n\nSt Peter Martyr and the Dominican nun, gazing in rapt contemplation\nat the scene, are not one whit surprised to find themselves in the\npresence of eternal mysteries. In the Entombment, which hangs on the\nopposite wall, St Dominic comes round the corner full of grievous\namaze and tenderest sympathy, but with no sense of shock or intrusion,\nfor was he not \"famigliar di Cristo\"? And so he takes it all in; the\nstone bed empty and waiting; the Beloved cradled for the last time on\nHis mother's knees to be washed, lapped round, and laid to rest as if\nHe were again the Babe of Bethlehem. He sees the Magdalen anointing\nthe Sacred Feet; Blessed John caring for the living and the Dead; and\nhe, Dominic--hound of the Lord--having his real, living share in the\nanguish and hope, the bedding of the dearest Dead, who did but leave\nthis earth that He might manifest Himself more completely.\n\nUnderneath, with a leap across the centuries, is Rossetti's picture;\nDante this time the onlooker, Beatrice, in her pale beauty, the\ndeath-kissed one. The same idea under different representations; the\none conceived in childlike simplicity, the other recalling, even in the\nphotograph, its wealth of colour and imagining; the one a world-wide\nideal, the other an individual expression of it.\n\nBeatrice was to Dante the inclusion of belief. She was more to him\nthan he himself knew, far more to him after her death than before.\nAnd, therefore, the analogy between the pictures has at core a common\nreality. \"It is expedient for you that I go away,\" is constantly being\nsaid to us as we cling earthlike to the outward expression, rather\nthan to the inward manifestation--and blessed are those who hear and\nunderstand, for it is spoken only to such as have been with Him from\nthe beginning. The eternal mysteries come into time for us individually\nunder widely differing forms. The tiny child mothers its doll, croons\nto it, spends herself upon it, why she cannot tell you; and we who are\nhere in our extreme youth, never to be men and women grown in this\nworld, nurse our ideal, exchange it, refashion it, call it by many\nnames; and at last in here or hereafter we find in its naked truth the\nChild in the manger, even as the Wise Men found Him when they came from\nthe East to seek a great King. There is but one necessary condition\nof this finding; we must follow the particular manifestation of light\ngiven us, never resting until it rests--over the place of the Child.\nAnd there is but one insurmountable hindrance, the extinction of or\ndrawing back from the light truly apprehended by us. We forget this,\nand judge other men by the light of our own soul.\n\nI think the old bishop must have understood it. He is my friend of\nfriends as he lies opposite my window in his alabaster sleep, clad in\npontifical robes, with unshod feet, a little island of white peace in\na many-coloured marble sea. The faithful sculptor has given every line\nand wrinkle, the heavy eyelids and sunken face of tired old age, but\nwithal the smile of a contented child.\n\nI do not even know my bishop's name, only that the work is of the\nthirteenth century; but he is good to company with through the day, for\nhe has known darkness and light and the minds of many men; most surely,\ntoo, he has known that God fulfils Himself in strange ways, so with the\nshadow of his feet upon the polished floor he rests in peace.\n\n\n\n\nIV\n\n\nON Sunday my little tree was limned in white and the sparrows were\ncraving shelter at my window from the blizzard. Now the mild thin air\nbrings a breath of spring in its wake and the daffodils in the garden\nwait the kisses of the sun. Hand-in-hand with memory I slip away down\nthe years, and remember a day when I awoke at earliest dawn, for across\nmy sleep I had heard the lusty golden-throated trumpeters heralding the\nspring.\n\n[Illustration: The field-gate that leads to the lower meadows]\n\nThe air was sharp-set; a delicate rime frosted roof and road; the sea\nlay hazy and still like a great pearl. Then as the sky stirred with\nflush upon flush of warm rosy light, it passed from misty pearl to\nopal with heart of flame, from opal to gleaming sapphire. The earth\ncalled, the fields called, the river called--that pied piper to whose\nmusic a man cannot stop his ears. It was with me as with the Canterbury\npilgrims:--\n\n    \"So priketh hem nature in hir corages;\n     Than longen folk to gon on pilgrimages.\"\n\nHalf an hour later I was away by the early train that carries\nthe branch mails and a few workmen, and was delivered at the little\nwayside station with the letters. The kind air went singing past as I\nswung along the reverberating road between the high tree-crowned banks\nwhich we call hedges in merry Devon, with all the world to myself and\nthe Brethren. A great blackbird flew out with a loud \"chook, chook,\"\nand the red of the haw on his yellow bill. A robin trilled from a\nlow rose-bush; two wrens searched diligently on a fallen tree for\nbreakfast, quite unconcerned when I rested a moment beside them; and a\nshrewmouse slipped across the road followed directly by its mate. March\nviolets bloomed under the sheltered hedge with here and there a pale\nprimrose; a frosted bramble spray still held its autumn tints clinging\nto the semblance of the past; and great branches of snowy blackthorn\nbroke the barren hedgeway as if spring made a mock of winter's snows.\n\nLight of heart and foot with the new wine of the year I sped on again,\nstray daffodils lighting the wayside, until I heard the voice of the\nstream and reached the field gate which leads to the lower meadows.\nThere before me lay spring's pageant; green pennons waving, dainty\nmaids curtseying, and a host of joyous yellow trumpeters proclaiming\n'Victory' to an awakened earth. They range in serried ranks right down\nto the river, so that a man must walk warily to reach the water's edge\nwhere they stand gazing down at themselves in fairest semblance like\ntheir most tragic progenitor, and, rising from the bright grass in\ntheir thousands, stretch away until they melt in a golden cloud at the\nfar end of the misty mead. Through the field gate and across the road I\nsee them, starring the steep earth bank that leads to the upper copse,\ngleaming like pale flames against the dark tree-boles. There they have\nbut frail tenure; here, in the meadows, they reign supreme.\n\n[Illustration: A host of joyous yellow trumpeters]\n\nAt the upper end of the field the river provides yet closer sanctuary\nfor these children of the spring. Held in its embracing arms lies an\nisland long and narrow, some thirty feet by twelve, a veritable untrod\nEldorado, glorious in gold from end to end, a fringe of reeds by the\nwater's edge, and save for that--daffodils. A great oak stands at the\nmeadow's neck, an oak with gnarled and wandering roots where a man\nmay rest, for it is bare of daffodils save for a group of three, and\na solitary one apart growing close to the old tree's side. I sat down\nby my lonely little sister, blue sky overhead, green grass at my feet\ndecked, like the pastures of the Bless\u00e8d, in glorious sheen; a sea of\ntriumphant, golden heads tossing blithely back as the wind swept\ndown to play with them at his pleasure.\n\nIt was all mine to have and to hold without severing a single slender\nstem or harbouring a thought of covetousness; mine, as the whole earth\nwas mine, to appropriate to myself without the burden and bane of\nworldly possession. \"Thou sayest that I am--a King,\" said the Lord\nbefore Pilate, and \"My kingdom is not of this world.\" We who are made\nkings after His likeness possess all things, not after this world's\nfashion but in proportion to our poverty; and when we cease to toil and\nspin, are arrayed as the lilies, in a glory transcending Solomon's.\nBride Poverty--she who climbed the Cross with Christ--stretches out\neager hands to free us from our chains, but we flee from her, and lay\nup treasure against her importunity, while Amytas on his seaweed bed\nweeps tears of pure pity for crave-mouth C\u00e6sar of great possessions.\n\nPresently another of spring's lovers cried across the water \"Cuckoo,\ncuckoo,\" and the voice of the stream sang joyously in unison. It is\nfree from burden, this merry little river, and neither weir nor mill\nbars its quick way to the sea as it completes the eternal circle,\nlavishing gifts of coolness and refreshment on the children of the\nmeadows.\n\nIt has its birth on the great lone moor, cradled in a wonderful\npeat-smelling bog, with a many-hued coverlet of soft mosses--pale\ngold, orange, emerald, tawny, olive and white, with the red stain of\nsun-dew and tufted cotton-grass. Under the old grey rocks which watch\nit rise, yellow-eyed tormantil stars the turf, and bids \"Godspeed\" to\nthe little child of earth and sky. Thus the journey begins; and with\never-increasing strength the stream carves a way through the dear brown\npeat, wears a fresh wrinkle on the patient stones, and patters merrily\nunder a clapper bridge which spanned its breadth when the mistletoe\nreigned and Bottor, the grim rock idol, exacted the toll of human life\nthat made him great. On and on goes the stream, for it may not stay;\nleaving of its freshness with the great osmunda that stretches eager\nroots towards the running water; flowing awhile with a brother stream,\nto part again east and west as each takes up his separate burden of\nservice--my friend to cherish the lower meadows in their flowery\njoyance--and so by the great sea-gate back to sky and earth again.\n\nThe river of God is full of water. The streets of the City are pure\ngold. Verily, here also having nothing we possess all things.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe air was keen and still as I walked back in the early evening, and\na daffodil light was in the sky as if Heaven mirrored back earth's\nradiance. Near the station some children flitted past, like little\nwhite miller moths homing through the dusk. As I climbed the hill the\nmoon rode high in a golden field--it was daffodils to the last.\n\n\n\n\nV\n\n\nTHE seagulls from the upper reaches pass down the river in sober steady\nflight seeking the open sea. I shall miss the swoop and circle of\nsilver wings in the sunlight and the plaintive call which sounds so\nstrangely away from rock and shore, but it is good to know that they\nhave gone from mudbank and murky town back to the free airs of their\ninheritance, to the shadow of sun-swept cliffs and the curling crest of\nthe wind-beaten waves, to brood again over the great ocean of a world's\ntears.\n\nMy little tree is gemmed with buds, shy, immature, but full of promise.\nThe sparrows busied with nest-building in the neighbouring pipes and\ngutters use it for a vantage ground, and crowd there in numbers, each\nlittle beak sealed with long golden straw or downy feather.\n\nThe river is heavy with hay barges, the last fruits of winter's\nstorehouse; the lengthening days slowly and steadily oust the dark;\nthe air is loud with a growing clamour of life: spring is not only\nproclaimed, but on this Feast she is crowned, and despite the warring\nwind the days bring their meed of sunshine. We stand for a moment at\nthe meeting of the ways, the handclasp of Winter and Spring, of Sleep\nand Wakening, of Life and Death; and there is between them not even\nthe thin line which Rabbi Jochanan on his death-bed beheld as all that\ndivided hell from heaven.\n\n\"_Sph\u00e6ra cujus centrum ubique, circumferentia nullibi_,\" was said of\nMercury, that messenger of the gods who marshalled reluctant spirits\nto the Underworld; and for Mercury we may write Life with Death as\nits great sacrament of brotherhood and release, to be dreaded only as\nwe dread to partake unworthily of great benefits. Like all sacraments\nit has its rightful time and due solemnities; the horror and sin of\nsuicide lie in the presumption of free will, the forestalling of a\ngift,--the sin of Eve in Paradise, who took that which might only be\ngiven at the hand of the Lord. It has too its physical pains, but they\nare those of a woman in travail, and we remember them no more for\njoy that a child-man is born into the world naked and not ashamed:\nbeholding ourselves as we are we shall see also the leaves of the Tree\nof Life set for the healing of the nations.\n\nWe are slowly, very slowly, abandoning our belief in sudden and\nviolent transitions for a surer and fuller acceptance of the doctrine\nof evolution; but most of us still draw a sharp line of demarcation\nbetween this world and the next, and expect a radical change in\nourselves and our surroundings, a break in the chain of continuity\nentirely contrary to the teaching of nature and experience. In the same\nway we cling to the specious untruth that we can begin over and over\nagain in this world, forgetting that while our sorrow and repentance\nbring sacramental gifts of grace and strength, God Himself cannot, by\nHis own limitation, rewrite the Past. We are in our sorrow that which\nwe have made ourselves in our sin; our temptations are there as well\nas the way of escape. We are in the image of God. We create our world,\nour undying selves, our heaven, or our hell. \"_Qui creavit te sine te\nnon salvabit te sine te._\" It is stupendous, magnificent, and most\nappalling. A man does not change as he crosses the threshold of the\nlarger room. His personality remains the same, although the expression\nof it may be altered. Here we have material bodies in a material\nworld--there, perhaps, ether bodies in an ether world. There is no\nindecency in reasonable speculation and curiosity about the life to\ncome. One end of the thread is between our fingers, but we are haunted\nfor the most part by the snap of Atropos' shears.\n\nSocrates faced death with the magnificent calm bred of dignified\nfamiliarity. He had built for himself a desired heaven of colour,\nlight, and precious stones--the philosophic formula of those who set\nthe spiritual above the material, and worship truth in the beauty of\nholiness. He is not troubled by doubts or regrets, for the path of the\njust lies plain before his face. He forbids mourning and lamentations\nas out of place, obeys minutely and cheerily the directions of his\nexecutioner, and passes with unaffected dignity to the apprehension of\nthat larger truth for which he had constantly prepared himself. His\nfriends may bury him provided they will remember they are not burying\nSocrates; and that all things may be done decently and in order, a cock\nmust go to \u00c6sculapius.\n\nLong before, in the days of the Captivity, there lived in godless,\nblood-shedding Nineveh an exiled Jew whose father had fallen from\nthe faith. He was a simple man, child-like and direct; living the\ncareful, kindly life of an orthodox Jew, suffering many persecutions\nfor conscience' sake, and in constant danger of death. He narrates the\nstory of his life and of the blindness which fell on him, with gentle\nplacidity, and checks the exuberance of his more emotional wife with\nthe assurance of untroubled faith. Finally, when his pious expectations\nare fulfilled, his sight restored, and his son prosperously\nestablished beside him, he breaks into a prayer of rejoicing which\nreveals the secret of his confident content. He made use of two great\nfaculties: the sense of proportion, which enabled him to apprise life\nand its accidents justly, and the gift of inseeing, which led Socrates\nafter him, and Blessed John in lonely exile on Patmos, to look through\nthe things temporal to the hidden meanings of eternity.\n\n\"Let my soul bless God the great King,\" he cries; and looks away past\nthe present distress; past the Restoration which was to end in fresh\nscattering and confusion; past the dream of gold, and porphyry, and\nmarble defaced by the eagles and emblems of the conqueror; until his\neyes are held by the Jerusalem of God, \"built up with sapphires, and\nemeralds, and precious stones,\" with battlements of pure gold, and the\ncry of 'Alleluia' in her streets.\n\nMany years later, when he was very aged, he called his son to him\nand gave him as heritage his own simple rule of life, adding but one\nrequest: \"Keep thou the law and the commandments, and shew thyself\nmerciful and just, that it may go well with thee. . . .. Consider\nwhat alms doeth, and how righteousness doth deliver. . . . And bury\nme decently, and thy mother with me.\" Having so said, he went his way\nquietly and contentedly to the Jerusalem of his heart.\n\nIt is the simple note of familiarity that is wanting in us; that by\nwhich we link world with world. Once, years ago, I sat by the bedside\nof a dying man in a wretched garret in the East End. He was entirely\nignorant, entirely quiescent, and entirely uninterested. The minister\nof a neighbouring chapel came to see him and spoke to him at some\nlength of the need for repentance and the joys of heaven. After he had\ngone my friend lay staring restlessly at the mass of decrepit broken\nchimney pots which made his horizon. At last he spoke, and there was a\nnew note in his voice:--\n\n\"Ee said as 'ow there were golding streets in them parts. I ain't no\nways particler wot they're made of, but it'll feel natral like if\nthere's chimleys too.\"\n\nThe sun stretched a sudden finger and painted the chimney pots red\nand gold against the smoke-dimmed sky, and with his face alight with\nsurprised relief my friend died.\n\nWe are one with the earth, one in sin, one in redemption. It is the\nfringe of the garment of God. \"If I may but touch the hem,\" said a\ncertain woman.\n\nOn the great Death-day which shadows the early spring with a shadow of\nwhich it may be said _Umbra Dei est Lux_, the earth brought gifts of\ngrief, the fruit of the curse, barren thorns, hollow reed, and the wood\nof the cross; the sea made offering of Tyrian purple; the sky veiled\nher face in great darkness, while the nation of priests crucified for\nthe last time their Paschal lamb. \"I will hear, saith the Lord; I will\nhear the heavens, and they shall hear the earth, and the earth shall\nhear the corn and wine and oil, and they shall hear Jezreel, and I will\nsow her unto me in the earth; and I will have mercy upon her that had\nnot obtained mercy, and I will say unto them which were not my people,\n'Thou art my people,' and they shall say 'Thou art my God.'\"\n\n[Illustration: In the distance rise the great lone heavenward hills]\n\nThe second Adam stood in the garden with quickening feet, and all\nthe earth pulsed and sang for joy of the new hope and the new life\nquickening within her, to be hers through the pains of travail, the\npangs of dissolution. The Tree of Life bears Bread and Wine--food of\nthe wayfaring man. The day of divisions is past, the day of unity has\ndawned. One has risen from the dead, and in the Valley of Achor stands\nwide the Door of Hope--the Sacrament of Death.\n\n    Scio Domine, et vere scio . . . quia non sum dignus\n    accedere ad tantum mysterium propter nimia peccata mea\n    et infinitas negligentias meas. Sed scio . . . quia tu\n    potes me facere dignum.\n\n\n\n\nVI\n\n\n\"ANYTUS and Meletus can kill me, but they cannot hurt me,\" said\nSocrates; and Governor Sancho, with all the itch of newly-acquired\nauthority, could not make the young weaver of steel-heads for lances\nsleep in prison. In the Vision of Er the souls passed straight\nforward under the throne of necessity, and out into the plains of\nforgetfulness, where they must severally drink of the river of\nunmindfulness whose waters cannot be held in any vessel. The throne,\nthe plain, and the river are still here, but in the distance rise the\ngreat lone heavenward hills, and the wise among us no longer ask of the\ngods Lethe, but rather remembrance. Necessity can set me helpless on my\nback, but she cannot keep me there; nor can four walls limit my vision.\nI pass out from under her throne into the garden of God a free man, to\nmy ultimate beatitude or my exceeding shame. All day long this world\nlies open to me; ay, and other worlds also, if I will but have it so;\nand when night comes I pass into the kingdom and power of the dark.\n\nI lie through the long hours and watch my bridge, which is set with\nlights across the gloom; watch the traffic which is for me but so many\npassing lamps telling their tale by varying height and brightness.\nI hear under my window the sprint of over-tired horses; the rattle\nof uncertain wheels as the street-sellers hasten south; the jangle\nof cab bells as the theatre-goers take their homeward way; the gruff\naltercation of weary men, the unmelodious song and clamorous laugh of\nwomen whose merriment is wearier still. Then comes a time of stillness\nwhen the light in the sky waxes and wanes, when the cloud-drifts\nobscure the stars, and I gaze out into blackness set with watching\neyes. No sound comes from without but the voice of the night-wind and\nthe cry of the hour. The clock on the mantelpiece ticks imperatively,\nfor a check has fallen on the familiarity which breeds a disregard\nof common things, and a reason has to be sought for each sound which\nclaims a hearing. The pause is wonderful while it lasts, but it is not\nfor long. The working world awakes, the poorer brethren take up the\nburden of service; the dawn lights the sky; remembrance cries an end to\nforgetting.\n\nSometimes in the country on a night in early summer you may shut the\ncottage door to step out into an immense darkness which palls heaven\nand earth. Going forward into the embrace of the great gloom, you are\nas a babe swaddled by the hands of night into helpless quiescence. Your\nfeet tread an unseen path, your hands grasp at a void, or shrink from\nthe contact they cannot realise; your eyes are holden; your voice would\ndie in your throat did you seek to rend the veil of that impenetrable\nsilence.\n\nShut in by the intangible dark, we are brought up against those worlds\nwithin worlds blotted out by our concrete daily life. The working of\nthe great microcosm at which we peer dimly through the little window of\nscience; the wonderful, breathing earth; the pulsing, throbbing sap;\nthe growing fragrance shut in the calyx of to-morrow's flower; the\nheartbeat of a sleeping world that we dream that we know; and around,\nabove, and interpenetrating all, the world of dreams, of angels and of\nspirits.\n\nIt was this world which Jacob saw on the first night of his exile,\nand again when he wrestled in Peniel until the break of day. It was\nthis world which Elisha saw with open eyes; which Job knew when\ndarkness fell on him; which Ezekiel gazed into from his place among the\ncaptives; which Daniel beheld as he stood alone by the great river, the\nriver Hiddekel.\n\nFor the moment we have left behind the realm of question and\nexplanation, of power over matter and the exercise of bodily faculties;\nand passed into darkness alight with visions we cannot see, into\nsilence alive with voices we cannot hear. Like helpless men we set our\nall on the one thing left us, and lift up our hearts, knowing that we\nare but a mere speck among a myriad worlds, yet greater than the sum\nof them; having our roots in the dark places of the earth, but our\nbranches in the sweet airs of heaven.\n\nIt is the material counterpart of the 'Night of the Soul.' We have left\nour house and set forth in the darkness which paralyses those faculties\nthat make us men in the world of men. But surely the great mystics,\nwith all their insight and heavenly love, fell short when they sought\nfreedom in complete separateness from creation instead of in perfect\nunity with it. The Greeks knew better when they flung Ariadne's crown\namong the stars, and wrote Demeter's grief on a barren earth, and\nPersephone's joy in the fruitful field. For the earth is gathered up\nin man; he is the whole which is greater than the sum of its parts.\nStanding in the image of God, and clothed in the garment of God, he\nlifts up priestly hands and presents the sacrifice of redeemed earth\nbefore the throne of the All-Father. \"Dust and ashes and a house of\ndevils,\" he cries; and there comes back for answer, \"_Rex concupiscet\ndecorem tuam_.\"\n\nThe Angel of Death has broad wings of silence and mystery with which\nhe shadows the valley where we need fear no evil, and where the voice\nwhich speaks to us is as the \"voice of doves, tabering upon their\nbreasts.\" It is a place of healing and preparation, of peace and\nrefreshing after the sharply-defined outlines of a garish day. Walking\nthere we learn to use those natural faculties of the soul which are\nhampered by the familiarity of bodily progress, to apprehend the truths\nwhich we have intellectually accepted. It is the place of secrets\nwhere the humility which embraces all attainable knowledge cries \"I\nknow not\"; and while we proclaim from the housetops that which we have\nlearnt, the manner of our learning lies hid for each one of us in the\nsanctuary of our souls.\n\nThe Egyptians, in their ancient wisdom, set in the desert a great\nandrosphinx, image of mystery and silence, staring from under level\nbrows across the arid sands of the sea-way. The Greeks borrowed and\ndebased the image, turning the inscrutable into a semi-woman who\nasked a foolish riddle, and hurled herself down in petulant pride\nwhen Oedipus answered aright. So we, marring the office of silence,\nquestion its mystery; thwart ourselves with riddles of our own\nsuggesting; and turn away, leaving our offering but half consumed\non the altar of the unknown god. It was not the theft of fire that\nbrought the vengeance of heaven upon Prometheus, but the mocking\nsacrifice. Orpheus lost Eurydice because he must see her face before\nthe appointed time. Persephone ate of the pomegranate and hungered in\ngloom for the day of light which should have been endless.\n\nThe universe is full of miracle and mystery; the darkness and silence\nare set for a sign we dare not despise. The pall of night lifts,\nleaving us engulphed in the light of immensity under a tossing heaven\nof stars. The dawn breaks, but it does not surprise us, for we have\nwatched from the valley and seen the pale twilight. Through the\nwondrous Sabbath of faithful souls, the long day of rosemary and rue,\nthe light brightens in the East; and we pass on towards it with quiet\nfeet and opening eyes, bearing with us all of the redeemed earth that\nwe have made our own, until we are fulfilled in the sunrise of the\ngreat Easter Day, and the peoples come from north and south and east\nand west to the City which lieth foursquare--the Beatific Vision of God.\n\n    Vere Ierusalem est illa civitas\n    Cuius pax iugis et summa iucunditas;\n    Ubi non pr\u00e6venit rem desiderium,\n    Nec desiderio minus est pr\u00e6mium.\n\n\n\n\nAT THE WHITE GATE\n\n\n\n\nI\n\n\nA GREAT joy has come to me; one of those unexpected gifts which life\nloves to bestow after we have learnt to loose our grip of her. I am\nback in my own place very near my road--the white gate lies within my\ndistant vision; near the lean grey Downs which keep watch and ward\nbetween the country and the sea; very near, nay, in the lap of Mother\nEarth, for as I write I am lying on a green carpet, powdered yellow and\nwhite with the sun's own flowers; overhead a great sycamore where the\nbees toil and sing; and sighing shimmering poplars golden grey against\nthe blue. The day of Persephone has dawned for me, and I, set free\nlike Demeter's child, gladden my eyes with this foretaste of coming\nradiance, and rest my tired sense with the scent and sound of home.\nAway down the meadow I hear the early scythe song, and the warm air is\nfragrant with the fallen grass. It has its own message for me as I lie\nhere, I who have obtained yet one more mercy, and the burden of it is\nlife, not death.\n\nI remember when, taking a grace from my road, I helped to mow Farmer\nMarler's ten-acre field, rich in ripe upstanding grass. The mechanism\nof the ancient reaper had given way under the strain of the home\nmeadows, and if this crop was to be saved it must be by hand. I have\nkept the record of those days of joyous labour under a June sky. Men\nwere hard to get in our village; old Dodden, who was over seventy,\nvolunteered his services--he had done yeoman work with the scythe in\nhis youth--and two of the farm hands with their master completed our\nstrength.\n\n[Illustration: The line of the untroubled hills strong and still in the\nbroad sunshine]\n\nWe took our places under a five o'clock morning sky, and the larks\ncried down to us as we stood knee-deep in the fragrant dew-steeped\ngrass, each man with his gleaming scythe poised ready for its sweeping\nswing. Old Dodden led by right of age and ripe experience; bent like\na sickle, brown and dry as a nut, his face a tracery of innumerable\nwrinkles, he has never ailed a day, and the cunning of his craft was\nstill with him. At first we worked stiffly, unreadily, but soon the\nmonotonous motion possessed us with its insistent rhythm, and the grass\nbowed to each sibilant swish and fell in sweet-smelling swathes at our\nfeet. Now and then a startled rabbit scurried through the miniature\nforest to vanish with white flick of tail in the tangled hedge; here\nand there a mother lark was discovered sitting motionless, immovable\nupon her little brood; but save for these infrequent incidents we\npaced steadily on with no speech save the cry of the hone on the steel\nand the swish of the falling swathes. The sun rose high in the heaven\nand burnt on bent neck and bare and aching arms, the blood beat and\ndrummed in my veins with the unwonted posture and exercise; I worked\nas a man who sees and hears in a mist. Once, as I paused to whet my\nscythe, my eye caught the line of the untroubled hills strong and still\nin the broad sunshine; then to work again in the labouring, fertile\nvalley.\n\nRest time came, and wiping the sweat from brow and blade we sought\nthe welcome shadow of the hedge and the cool sweet oatmeal water with\nwhich the wise reaper quenches his thirst. Farmer Marler hastened off\nto see with master-eye that all went well elsewhere; the farm men slept\ntranquilly, stretched at full length, clasped hands for pillow; and\nold Dodden, sitting with crooked fingers interlaced to check their\ntrembling betrayal of old age, told how in his youth he had \"swep\"\na four-acre field single-handed in three days--an almost impossible\nfeat--and of the first reaping machine in these parts, and how it\nbrought, to his thinking, the ruin of agricultural morals with it.\n\"'Tis again nature,\" he said, \"the Lard gave us the land an' the seed,\nbut Ee said that a man should sweat. Where's the sweat drivin' round\nwi' two horses cuttin' the straw down an' gatherin' it again, wi'\nscarce a hand's turn i' the day's work?\"\n\nOld Dodden's high-pitched quavering voice rose and fell, mournful as\nhe surveyed the present, vehement as he recorded the heroic past. He\nspoke of the rural exodus and shook his head mournfully. \"We old 'uns\nwere content wi' earth and the open sky like our feythers before us,\nbut wi' the children 'tis first machines to save doin' a hand's turn\no' honest work, an' then land an' sky ain't big enough seemin'ly, nor\ngrand enough; it must be town an' a paved street, an' they sweat their\nlives out atwixt four walls an' call it seein' life--'tis death an'\nworse comes to the most of 'em. Ay, 'tis better to stay by the land, as\nthe Lard said, till time comes to lie under it.\" I looked away across\nthe field where the hot air throbbed and quivered, and the fallen\ngrass, robbed already of its freshness, lay prone at the feet of its\nupstanding fellows. It is quite useless to argue with old Dodden; he\nonly shakes his head and says firmly, \"An old man, seventy-five come\nMartinmass knows more o' life than a young chap, stands ter reason\";\nbesides, his epitome of the town life he knows nothing of was a just\none as far as it went; and his own son is the sweeper of a Holborn\ncrossing, and many other things that he should not be; but that is the\nparson's secret and mine.\n\nWe took rank again and swept steadily on through the hot still hours\ninto the evening shadows, until the sinking sun set a _Gloria_ to the\npsalm of another working day. Only a third of the field lay mown, for\nwe were not skilled labourers to cut our acre a day; I saw it again\nthat night under the moonlight and the starlight, wrapped in a shroud\nof summer's mist.\n\nThe women joined us on the third day to begin haymaking, and the air\nwas fragrant of tossed and sun-dried grass. One of them walked apart\nfrom the rest, without interest or freedom of movement; her face,\nsealed and impassive, was aged beyond the vigour of her years. I\nknew the woman by sight, and her history by hearsay. We have a code\nof morals here--not indeed peculiar to this place or people--that a\nwedding is 'respectable' if it precedes childbirth by a bare month,\ntolerable, and to be recognised, should it succeed the same by less\nthan a year (provided the pair are not living in the same village);\nbut the child that has never been 'fathered' and the wife without a\nring are 'anathema,' and such an one was Elizabeth Banks. She went away\na maid and came back a year ago with a child and without a name. Her\nmother was dead, her father and the village would have none of her: the\nhoming instinct is very strong, or she would scarcely have returned,\nknowing the traditions of the place. Old Dodden, seeing her, grumbled\nto me in the rest-time.--\"Can't think what the farmer wants wi' Lizzie\nBanks in 'is field.\" \"She must live,\" I said, \"and by all showing her\nlife is a hard one.\" \"She 'ad the makin' of 'er bed,\" he went on,\nobstinately. \"What for do she bring her disgrace home, wi' a fatherless\nbrat for all folks to see? We don't want them sort in our village. The\nLord's hand is heavy, an' a brat's a curse that cannot be hid.\"\n\nWhen tea-time came I crossed the field to look for a missing hone, and\nsaw Elizabeth Banks far from the other women, busied with a bundle\nunder the hedge. I passed close on my search, and lo! the bundle was\na little boy. He lay smiling and stretching, fighting the air with\nhis small pink fists, while the wind played with his curls. \"A curse\nthat cannot be hid,\" old Dodden had said. The mother knelt a moment,\ndevouring him with her eyes, then snatched him to her with aching greed\nand covered him with kisses. I saw the poor, plain face illumined,\ntransfigured, alive with a mother's love, and remembered how the word\ncame once to a Hebrew prophet:--\n\n    Say unto your brethren Ammi, and to your sisters Ruhamah.\n\nThe evening sky was clouding fast, the sound of rain was in the air;\nFarmer Marler shook his head as he looked at the grass lying in\nordered rows. I was the last to leave, and as I lingered at the gate\ndrinking in the scent of the field and the cool of the coming rain, the\nfirst drops fell on my upturned face and kissed the poor dry swathes at\nmy feet, and I was glad.\n\nDavid, child of the fields and the sheepfolds, his kingship laid\naside, sees through the parted curtain of the years the advent of his\ngreater Son, and cries in his psalm of the hilltops, his last prophetic\nprayer:--\n\n    He shall come down like rain upon the mown grass.\n\nEven so He came, and shall still come. Three days ago the field,\nin its pageant of fresh beauty, with shimmering blades and tossing\nbanners, greeted sun and shower alike with joy for the furtherance of\nits life and purpose; now, laid low, it hears the young grass whisper\nthe splendour of its coming green; and the poor swathes are glad at\nthe telling, but full of grief for their own apparent failure. Then\nin great pity comes the rain, the rain of summer, gentle, refreshing,\npenetrating, and the swathes are comforted, for they know that standing\nto greet or prostrate to suffer, the consolations of the former and the\nlatter rain are still their own, with tender touch and cool caress.\nThen, once more parched by the sun, they are borne away to the new\nservice their apparent failure has fitted them for; and perhaps as\nthey wait in the dark for the unknown that is still to come they hear\nsometimes the call of the distant rain, and at the sound the dry sap\nstirs afresh--they are not forgotten and can wait.\n\n[Illustration: Below the low hedge lies pasture bright with buttercups,\nwhere the cattle feed]\n\n\"_Say unto your sisters Ruhamah_,\" cries the prophet.\n\n\"_He shall come down like rain upon the mown grass_,\" sang the poet of\nthe sheepfolds.\n\n\"_My ways are not your ways, saith the Lord._\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nI remember how I went home along the damp sweet-scented lanes through\nthe grey mist of the rain, thinking of the mown field and Elizabeth\nBanks and many, many more; and that night, when the sky had cleared\nand the nightingale sang, I looked out at the moon riding at anchor,\na silver boat in a still blue sea ablaze with the head-lights of the\nstars, and the saying of the herdsman of Tekoa came to me--as it has\ncome oftentimes since:--\n\n    Seek Him that maketh the seven stars and Orion, and\n    turneth the shadow of death into the morning, and\n    maketh the day dark with night; that calleth for the\n    waters of the sea and poureth them out upon the face of\n    earth; the Lord is His name.\n\n\n\n\nII\n\n\nTHIS garden is an epitome of peace; sun and wind, rain, flowers, and\nbirds gather me into the blessedness of their active harmony. The world\nholds no wish for me, now that I have come home to die with my own\npeople, for verily I think that the sap of grass and trees must run in\nmy veins, so steady is their pull upon my heart-strings. London claimed\nall my philosophy, but the country gives all, and asks of me only the\nwarm receptivity of a child in its mother's arms.\n\nWhen I lie in my cool light room on the garden level, I look across the\nbright grass--_il verde smalto_--to a great red rose bush in lavish\ndisarray against the dark cypress. Near by, amid a tangle of many-hued\ncorn-flowers I see the promise of coming lilies, the sudden crimson of\na solitary p\u00e6ony; and in lowlier state against the poor parched earth\nglow the golden cups of the eschscholtzias. Beyond the low hedge lies\npasture bright with buttercups, where the cattle feed. Farther off,\nwhere the scythe has been busy, are sheep, clean and shorn, with merry,\nwell-grown lambs; and in the farthest field I can see the great horses\nmoving in slow steady pace as the farmer turns his furrow.\n\n[Illustration: The great horses moving in slow steady pace as the\nfarmer turns his furrow]\n\nThe birds are noisy comrades and old friends, from the lark which\nchants the dew-steeped morning, to the nightingale that breaks the\nsilence of the most wonderful nights. I hear the wisdom of the rooks in\nthe great elms; the lifting lilt of the linnet, and the robin's quaint\nlittle summer song. The starlings chatter ceaselessly, their queer\nstrident voices harsh against the melodious gossip of the other birds;\nthe martins shrill softly as they swoop to and fro busied with their\nnesting under the eaves; thrush and blackbird vie in friendly rivalry\nlike the Meister-singer of old; sometimes I hear the drawling cry of a\npeacock strayed from the great house, or the laugh of the woodpecker;\nand at night the hunting note of the owl reaches me as he sweeps by in\nsearch of prey.\n\nTo-day I am out again; and the great sycamore showers honey and flowers\non me as I lie beneath it. Sometimes a bee falls like an over-ripe\nfruit, and waits awhile to clean his pollen-coated legs ere he flies\nhome to discharge his burden. He is too busy to be friendly, but his\ngreat velvety cousin is much more sociable, and stays for a gentle\nrub between his noisy shimmering wings, and a nap in the hollow of my\nhand, for he is an idle friendly soul with plenty of time at his own\ndisposal and no responsibilities. Looking across I can watch the\nmartins at work; they have a starling and a sparrow for near neighbours\nin the wooden gutter. One nest is already complete all but the coping,\nthe other two are a-building: I wonder whether I or they will be first\nto go south through the mist.\n\nThis great tree is a world in itself, and the denizens appear full of\ncuriosity as to the Gulliver who has taken up his abode beneath it.\nPale green caterpillars and spiders of all sizes come spinning down to\nvisit me, and have to be persuaded with infinite difficulty to ascend\ntheir threads again. There are flies with beautiful iridescent wings,\nbeetles of all shapes, some of them like tiny jewels in the sunlight.\nTheir nomenclature is a sealed book to me; of their life and habits\nI know nothing; yet this is but a little corner of the cosmos I am\nleaving, and I feel not so much desire for the beauty to come, as a\ngreat longing to open my eyes a little wider during the time which\nremains to me in this beautiful world of God's making, where each\nmoment tells its own tale of active, progressive life in which there is\nno undoing. Nature knows naught of the web of Penelope, that acme of\nanxious pathetic waiting, but goes steadily on in ever widening circle\ntowards the fulfilment of the mystery of God.\n\nThere are, I take it, two master-keys to the secrets of the universe,\nviewed _sub specie \u00e6ternitatis_, the Incarnation of God, and the\nPersonality of Man; with these it is true for us as for the pantheistic\nlittle man of contemptible speech, that \"all things are ours,\" yea,\neven unto the third heaven.\n\n[Illustration: There is a place waiting for me under the firs in the\nquiet churchyard]\n\nI have lost my voracious appetite for books; their language is less\nplain than scent and song and the wind in the trees; and for me the\nclue to the next world lies in the wisdom of earth rather than in the\nlearning of men. \"_Libera me ab fuscina Hophni_,\" prayed the good\nBishop fearful of religious greed. I know too much, not too little;\nit is realisation that I lack, wherefore I desire these last days to\nconfirm in myself the sustaining goodness of God, the love which is our\ncontinuing city, the New Jerusalem whose length, breadth, and height\nare all one. It is a time of exceeding peace. There is a place waiting\nfor me under the firs in the quiet churchyard; thanks to my poverty I\nhave no worldly anxieties or personal dispositions; and I am rich in\nfriends, many of them unknown to me, who lavishly supply my needs and\nmake it ideal to live on the charity of one's fellow-men. I am most\ngladly in debt to all the world; and to Earth, my mother, for her great\nbeauty.\n\nI can never remember the time when I did not love her, this mother of\nmine with her wonderful garments and ordered loveliness, her tender\ncare and patient bearing of man's burden. In the earliest days of my\nlonely childhood I used to lie chin on hand amid the milkmaids, red\nsorrel, and heavy spear-grass listening to her many voices, and above\nall to the voice of the little brook which ran through the meadows\nwhere I used to play: I think it has run through my whole life also, to\nlose itself at last, not in the great sea but in the river that maketh\nglad the City of God. Valley and plain, mountain and fruitful field;\nthe lark's song and the speedwell in the grass; surely a man need not\nsigh for greater loveliness until he has read something more of this\nliving letter, and knelt before that earth of which he is the only\nconfusion.\n\nIt is a grave matter that the word religion holds such sway among us,\nmaking the very gap seem to yawn again which the Incarnation once and\nfor ever filled full. We have banished the protecting gods that ruled\nin river and mountain, tree and grove; we have gainsayed for the most\npart folk-lore and myth, superstition and fairy-tale, evil only in\ntheir abuse. We have done away with mystery, or named it deceit. All\nthis we have done in an enlightened age, but despite this policy of\ndestruction we have left ourselves a belief, the grandest and most\nsimple the world has ever known, which sanctifies the water that is\nshed by every passing cloud; and gathers up in its great central act\nvineyard and cornfield, proclaiming them to be that Life of the world\nwithout which a man is dead while he liveth. Further, it is a belief\nwhose foundations are the most heavenly mystery of the Trinity, but\nwhose centre is a little Child: it sets a price upon the head of the\nsparrow, and reckons the riches of this world at their true value;\nit points to a way of holiness where the fool shall not err, and the\nsage may find the realisation of his far-seeking; and yet, despite\nits inclusiveness, it is a belief which cannot save the birds from\ndestruction, the silent mountains from advertisement, or the stream\nfrom pollution, in an avowedly Christian land. John Ruskin scolded\nand fought and did yeoman service, somewhat hindered by his over-good\nconceit of himself; but it is not the worship of beauty we need so\nmuch as the beauty of holiness. Little by little the barrier grows and\n'religion' becomes a _rule_ of life, not life itself, although the\nBride stands ready to interpret, likened in her loveliness to the chief\ntreasures of her handmaid--Earth. There is more truth in the believing\ncry, \"Come from thy white cliffs, O Pan!\" than in the religion that\nmeasures a man's life by the letter of the Ten Commandments, and erects\nitself as judge and ruler over him, instead of throwing open the gate\nof the garden where God walks with man from morning until morning.\n\nAs I write the sun is setting; in the pale radiance of the sky above\nhis glory there dawns the evening star; and earth like a tired child\nturns her face to the bosom of the night.\n\n\n\n\nIII\n\n\nONCE again I have paid a rare visit to my tree to find many things\nchanged since my last sojourn there. The bees are silent, for the\nhoney-laden flowers of the sycamore are gone and in their place hang\ndainty two-fold keys. The poplar has lost its metallic shimmer, the\nchestnut its tall white candles; and the sound of the wind in the\nfully-leaved branches is like the sighing of the sea. The martins'\nnests are finished, and one is occupied by a shrill-voiced brood; but\nfor the most part the birds' parental cares are over, and the nestlings\nin bold flight no longer flutter on inefficient wings across the lawn\nwith clamorous, open bill. The robins show promise of their ruddy\nvests, the slim young thrush is diligently practising maturer notes,\nand soon Maid June will have fled.\n\nIt is such a wonderful world that I cannot find it in my heart to sigh\nfor fresh beauty amid these glories of the Lord on which I look, seeing\nmen as trees walking, in my material impotence which awaits the final\nanointing. The marigolds with their orange suns, the lilies' white\nflame, the corncockle's blue crown of many flowers, the honeysuckle's\nhorn of fragrance--I can paraphrase them, name, class, dissect them;\nand then, save for the purposes of human intercourse, I stand where I\nstood before, my world bounded by my capacity, the secret of colour and\nfragrance still kept. It is difficult to believe that the second lesson\nwill not be the sequence of the first, and death prove a \"feast of\nopening eyes\" to all these wonders, instead of the heavy-lidded slumber\nto which we so often liken it. \"Earth to earth?\" Yes, \"dust thou art,\nand unto dust thou shalt return,\" but what of the rest? What of the\nfolded grave clothes, and the Forty Days? If the next state be, as it\nwell might, space of four dimensions, and the first veil which will\nlift for me be the material one, then the \"other\" world which is hidden\nfrom our grosser material organism will lie open, and declare still\nfurther to my widening eyes and unstopped ears the glory and purpose of\nthe manifold garment of God. Knowledge will give place to understanding\nin that second chamber of the House of Wisdom and Love. Revelation is\nalways measured by capacity: \"Open thy mouth wide,\" and it shall be\nfilled with a satisfaction that in itself is desire.\n\nThere is a child here, a happy quiet little creature holding gently\nto its two months of life. Sometimes they lay it beside me, I the\nmore helpless of the two--perhaps the more ignorant--and equally\ndependent for the supply of my smallest need. I feel indecently large\nas I survey its minute perfections and the tiny balled fist lying in\nmy great palm. The little creature fixes me with the wise wide stare\nof a soul in advance of its medium of expression; and I, gazing back\nat the mystery in those eyes, feel the thrill of contact between my\nworn and sin-stained self and the innocence of a little white child.\nIt is wonderful to watch a woman's rapturous familiarity with these\nnewcomers. A man's love has far more awe in it, and the passionate\nanimal instinct of defence is wanting in him. \"A woman shall be saved\nthrough the child-bearing,\" said St Paul; not necessarily her own, but\nby participation in the great act of motherhood which is the crown and\nglory of her sex. She is the \"prisoner of love,\" caught in a net of her\nown weaving; held fast by little hands which rule by impotence, pursued\nby feet the swifter for their faltering.\n\nIt seems incredible that this is what a woman will barter for the right\nto \"live her own life\"--surely the most empty of desires. Man--_vir_,\nwoman--_femina_, go to make up _the_ man--_homo_. There can be no\ncomparison, no rivalry between them; they are the complement of each\nother, and a little child shall lead them. It is easy to understand\nthat desire to shelter under the dear mantle of motherhood which has\nled to one of the abuses of modern Romanism. I met an old peasant\ncouple at Bornhofen who had tramped many weary miles to the famous\nshrine of Our Lady to plead for their only son. They had a few pence\nsaved for a candle, and afterwards when they told me their tale the\nold woman heaved a sigh of relief, \"Es wird bald gut gehen: Die\nda, Sie versteht,\" and I saw her later paying a farewell visit to\nthe great understanding Mother whom she could trust. Superstitious\nmisapprehension if you will, but also the recognition of a divine\nprinciple.\n\nIt was Behmen, I believe, who cried with the breath of inspiration,\n\"Only when I know God shall I know myself\"; and so man remains the last\nof all the riddles, to be solved it may be only in Heaven's perfection\nand the light of the Beatific Vision. \"Know thyself\" is a vain legend,\nthe more so when emphasised by a skull; and so I company with a\nfriend and a stranger, and looking across at the white gate I wonder\nconcerning the quiet pastures and still waters that lie beyond, even as\nBrother Ambrose wondered long years ago in the monastery by the forest.\n\n    The Brother Ambrose was ever a saintly man approved\n    of God and beloved by the Brethren. To him one night,\n    as he lay abed in the dormitory, came the word of the\n    Lord, saying, \"Come, and I will show thee the Bride,\n    the Lamb's wife.\" And Brother Ambrose arose and was\n    carried to a great and high mountain, even as in the\n    Vision of Blessed John. 'Twas a still night of many\n    stars, and Brother Ambrose, looking up, saw a radiant\n    path in the heavens; and lo! the stars gathered\n    themselves together on either side until they stood as\n    walls of light, and the four winds lapped him about as\n    in a mantle and bore him towards the wondrous gleaming\n    roadway. Then between the stars came the Holy City with\n    roof and pinnacle aflame, and walls aglow with such\n    colours as no earthly limner dreams of, and much gold.\n    Brother Ambrose beheld the Gates of Pearl, and by every\n    gate an angel with wings of snow and fire, and a face\n    no man dare look on because of its exceeding radiance.\n\n    Then as Brother Ambrose stretched out his arms because\n    of his great longing, a little grey cloud came out\n    of the north and hung between the walls of light, so\n    that he no longer beheld the Vision, but only heard a\n    sound as of a great multitude crying 'Alleluia'; and\n    suddenly the winds came about him again, and lo! he\n    found himself in his bed in the dormitory, and it was\n    midnight, for the bell was ringing to Matins; and he\n    rose and went down with the rest. But when the Brethren\n    left the choir Brother Ambrose stayed fast in his\n    place, hearing and seeing nothing because of the Vision\n    of God; and at Lauds they found him and told the Prior.\n\n    He questioned Brother Ambrose of the matter, and when\n    he heard the Vision bade him limn the Holy City even\n    as he had seen it; and the Precentor gave him uterine\n    vellum and much fine gold and what colours he asked for\n    the work. Then Brother Ambrose limned a wondrous fair\n    city of gold with turrets and spires; and he inlaid\n    blue for the sapphire, and green for the emerald, and\n    vermilion where the city seemed aflame with the glory\n    of God; but the angels he could not limn, nor could he\n    set the rest of the colours as he saw them, nor the\n    wall of stars on either hand; and Brother Ambrose\n    fell sick because of the exceeding great longing he\n    had to limn the Holy City, and was very sad; but the\n    Prior bade him thank God, and remember the infirmity of\n    the flesh, which, like the little grey cloud, veiled\n    Jerusalem to his sight.\n\nAs I write the monastery bell hard by rings out across the lark's song.\nThey still have time for visions behind those guarding walls, but for\nmost of us it is not so. We let slip the ideal for what we call the\nreal, and the golden dreams vanish while we clutch at phantoms: we\nspeed along life's pathway, counting to the full the sixty minutes of\nevery hour, yet the race is not to the swift nor the battle to the\nstrong. Lying here in this quiet backwater it is hard to believe that\nthe world without is turbulent with storm and stress and the ebb and\nflow of uncertain tides. The little yellow cat rolling on its back\namong the daisies, the staid tortoise making a stately meal off the\nbuttercups near me, these are great events in this haven of peace. And\nyet, looking back to the working days, I know how much goodness and\nloving kindness there is under the froth and foam. If we do not know\nourselves we most certainly do not know our brethren: that revelation\nawaits us, it may be, first in Heaven. To have faith is to create; to\nhave hope is to call down blessing; to have love is to work miracles.\nAbove all let us see visions, visions of colour and light, of green\nfields and broad rivers, of palaces laid with fair colours, and gardens\nwhere a place is found for rosemary and rue.\n\nIt is our prerogative to be dreamers, but there will always be men\nready to offer us death for our dreams. And if it must be so let us\nchoose death; it is gain, not loss, and the gloomy portal when we reach\nit is but a white gate, the white gate maybe we have known all our\nlives barred by the tendrils of the woodbine.\n\n\n\n\nIV\n\n\nRAIN, rain, rain: the little flagged path outside my window is a\nstreaming way, where the coming raindrops meet again the grey clouds\nwhose storehouse they have but just now left. The grass grows greener\nas I watch it, the burnt patches fade, a thousand thirsty heads are\nuplifted for the cooling draught.\n\nThe great thrush that robs the raspberry canes is busy; yesterday he\nhad little but dust for his guerdon, but now fresh, juicy fruit repays\nhim as he swings to and fro on the pliant branches. The blackbirds\nand starlings find the worms an easy prey--poor brother worm ever\nready for sacrifice. I can hear the soft expectant chatter of the\nfamily of martins under the roof; there will be good hunting, and they\nknow it, for the flies are out when the rain is over, and there are\nclamorous mouths awaiting. My little brown brothers, the sparrows,\nremain my chief delight. Of all the birds these nestle closest to my\nheart, be they grimy little cockneys or their trim and dainty country\ncousins. They come day by day for their meed of crumbs spread for them\noutside my window, and at this season they eat leisurely and with\ngood appetite, for there are no hungry babies pestering to be fed.\nVery early in the morning I hear the whirr and rustle of eager wings,\nand the tap, tap, of little beaks upon the stone. The sound carries\nme back, for it was the first to greet me when I rose to draw water\nand gather kindling in my roadmender days; and if I slip back another\ndecade they survey me, reproving my laziness, from the foot of the\nnarrow bed in my little attic overseas.\n\nLooking along the roadway that we have travelled we see the landmarks,\ngreat and small, which have determined the direction of our feet. For\nsome those of childhood stand out above all the rest; but I remember\nfew notable ones, and those few the emphatic chord of the universe,\nrather than any commerce with my fellows. There was the night of my\ngreat disappointment, when I was borne from my comfortable bed to see\nthe wonders of the moon's eclipse. Disappointment was so great that\nit sealed my lips; but, once back on my pillow, I sobbed for grief\nthat I had seen a wonder so far below my expectation. Then there was\na night at Whitby, when the wind made speech impossible, and the seas\nrushed up and over the great lighthouse like the hungry spirits of the\ndeep. I like better to remember the scent of the first cowslip field\nunder the warm side of the hedge, when I sang to myself for pure joy\nof their colour and fragrance. Again, there were the bluebells in the\ndeserted quarry like the backwash of a southern sea, and below them the\nminiature forest of sheltering bracken with its quaint conceits; and,\ncrowned above all, the day I stood on Watcombe Down, and looked across\na stretch of golden gorse and new-turned blood-red field, the green of\nthe headland, and beyond, the sapphire sea.\n\nTime sped, and there came a day when I first set foot on German soil\nand felt the throb of its paternity, the beat of our common life.\nEngland is my mother, and most dearly do I love her swelling breasts\nand wind-swept, salt-strewn hair. Scotland gave me my name, with\nits haunting derivation handed down by brave men; but Germany has\nalways been to me the Fatherland _par excellence_. True, my love is\nlimited to the southern provinces, with their medi\u00e6val memories; for\nthe progressive guttural north I have little sympathy, but the Rhine\nclaimed me from the first, calling, calling, with that wonderful voice\nwhich speaks of death and life, of chivalry and greed of gold. If you\nwould have the river's company you should wander, a happy solitary,\nalong its banks, watching its gleaming current in the early morning,\nits golden glory as it answers the farewell of parting day. Then, in\nthe silence of the night, you can hear the wash and eddy calling one\nto another, count the heart-beats of the great bearer of burdens, and\nwatch in the moonlight the sisters of the mist as they lament with\nwringing hands the days that are gone.\n\nThe forests, too, are ready with story hid in the fastness of their\nsolitude, and it is a joy to think that those great pines, pointing\never upwards, go for the most part to carry the sails of great ships\nseeking afar under open sky. The forest holds other wonders still.\nIt seems but last night that I wandered down the road which led to\nthe little unheeded village where I had made my temporary home. The\nwarm-scented breath of the pines and the stillness of the night wrapped\nme in great content; the summer lightning leapt in a lambent arch\nacross the east, and the stars, seen dimly through the sombre tree\ncrests, were outrivalled by the glow-worms which shone in countless\npoints of light from bank and hedge; even two charcoal-burners, who\npassed with friendly greeting, had wreathed their hats with the living\nflame. The tiny shifting lamps were everywhere; pale yellow, purely\nwhite, or green as the underside of a northern wave. By day but an\nugly, repellent worm; but darkness comes, and lo, a star alight. Nature\nis full for us of seeming inconsistencies and glad surprises. The\nworld's asleep, say you; on your ear falls the nightingale's song and\nthe stir of living creatures in bush and brake. The mantle of night\nfalls, and all unattended the wind leaps up and scatters the clouds\nwhich veil the constant stars; or in the hour of the great dark, dawn\nparts the curtain with the long foregleam of the coming day. It is hard\nto turn one's back on night with her kiss of peace for tired eye-lids,\nthe kiss which is not sleep but its neglected forerunner. I made my\nway at last down to the vine-girt bridge asleep under the stars and up\nthe winding stairs of the old grey tower; and a stone's-throw away the\nRhine slipped quietly past in the midsummer moonlight.\n\nSwitzerland came in its turn, unearthly in its white loveliness and\nglory of lake and sky. But perhaps the landmark which stands out\nmost clearly is the solitary blue gentian which I found in the short\nslippery grass of the Rigi, gazing up at the sky whose blue could\nnot hope to excel it. It was my first; and what need of another, for\nfinding one I had gazed into the mystery of all. This side the Pass,\nsnow and the blue of heaven; later I entered Italy through fields of\nmany-hued lilies, her past glories blazoned in the flowers of the field.\n\nNow it is a strangely uneventful road that leads to my White Gate. Each\nday questions me as it passes; each day makes answer for me \"not yet.\"\nThere is no material preparation to be made for this journey of mine\ninto a far country--a simple fact which adds to the 'unknowableness'\nof the other side. Do I travel alone, or am I one of a great company,\nswift yet unhurried in their passage? The voices of Penelope's\nsuitors shrilled on the ears of Ulysses, as they journeyed to the\nnether-world, like nocturnal birds and bats in the inarticulateness of\ntheir speech. They had abused the gift, and fled self-condemned. Maybe\nsilence commends itself as most suitable for the wayfarers towards the\nsunrise--silence because they seek the Word--but for those hastening\ntowards the confusion they have wrought there falls already the sharp\noncoming of the curse.\n\nWhile we are still here the language of worship seems far, and yet\nlies very nigh; for what better note can our frail tongues lisp than\nthe voice of wind and sea, river and stream, those grateful servants\ngiving all and asking nothing, the soft whisper of snow and rain eager\nto replenish, or the thunder proclaiming a majesty too great for\nutterance? Here, too, stands the angel with the censer gathering up\nthe fragrance of teeming earth and forest-tree, of flower and fruit,\nand sweetly pungent herb distilled by sun and rain for joyful use.\nHere, too, come acolytes lighting the dark with tapers--sun, moon, and\nstars--gifts of the Lord that His sanctuary may stand ever served.\n\nIt lies here ready to our hand, this life of adoration which we needs\nmust live hand in hand with earth, for has she not borne the curse\nwith us? But beyond the white gate and the trail of woodbine falls the\nsilence greater than speech, darkness greater than light, a pause of \"a\nlittle while\"; and then the touch of that healing garment as we pass to\nthe King in His beauty, in a land from which there is no return.\n\nAt the gateway then I cry you farewell.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nTranscriber's Notes:\n\nPage 79, \"Sphoephera\" changed to \"Sph\u00e6ra\" (Sph\u00e6ra cujus centrum)","title":"The Roadmender","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":25449}