{"collection":"myth-cosmogony","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_49614/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_49614","id":"gutenberg_49614","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/49614","summary":null,"tags":["Category: British Literature","Category: Mythology, Legends & Folklore","Category: Poetry","English literature -- Irish authors","Nobel Prizes in Literature"],"text":"THE COLLECTED WORKS OF WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS\n\n[Illustration: _Emery Walker, Ph. sc._\n\n_From a drawing by J. B. Yeats_]\n\n\n\n\n    THE SECRET ROSE. ROSA ALCHEMICA.\n    THE TABLES OF THE LAW. THE\n    ADORATION OF THE MAGI. JOHN\n    SHERMAN AND DHOYA :: BEING THE\n    SEVENTH VOLUME OF THE COLLECTED\n    WORKS IN VERSE & PROSE\n    OF WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS :: IMPRINTED\n    AT THE SHAKESPEARE\n    HEAD PRESS STRATFORD-ON-AVON\n    MCMVIII\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\n                                                     PAGE\n    THE SECRET ROSE:\n      DEDICATION                                        3\n      TO THE SECRET ROSE                                5\n      THE CRUCIFIXION OF THE OUTCAST                    7\n      OUT OF THE ROSE                                  20\n      THE WISDOM OF THE KING                           31\n      THE HEART OF THE SPRING                          42\n      THE CURSE OF THE FIRES AND OF THE SHADOWS        51\n      THE OLD MEN OF THE TWILIGHT                      61\n      WHERE THERE IS NOTHING, THERE IS GOD             69\n      OF COSTELLO THE PROUD, OF OONA THE DAUGHTER OF\n          DERMOTT AND OF THE BITTER TONGUE             78\n\n    ROSA ALCHEMICA                                    103\n\n    THE TABLES OF THE LAW                             141\n\n    THE ADORATION OF THE MAGI                         165\n\n\n    EARLY STORIES.\n\n    JOHN SHERMAN                                      183\n\n    DHOYA                                             283\n\n\n\n\nTHE SECRET ROSE\n\n\n\n\n    As for living, our servants will do that for\n    us.\u2014_Villiers de L\u2019Isle Adam._\n\n    Helen, when she looked in her mirror, seeing the\n    withered wrinkles made in her face by old age,\n    wept, and wondered why she had twice been carried\n    away.\u2014_Leonardo da Vinci._\n\n\n\n\n_My Dear A.E.--I dedicate this book to you because, whether you think\nit well or ill written, you will sympathize with the sorrows and the\necstasies of its personages, perhaps even more than I do myself.\nAlthough I wrote these stories at different times and in different\nmanners, and without any definite plan, they have but one subject,\nthe war of spiritual with natural order; and how can I dedicate such\na book to anyone but to you, the one poet of modern Ireland who has\nmoulded a spiritual ecstasy into verse? My friends in Ireland sometimes\nask me when I am going to write a really national poem or romance,\nand by a national poem or romance I understand them to mean a poem or\nromance founded upon some famous moment of Irish history, and built\nup out of the thoughts and feelings which move the greater number of\npatriotic Irishmen. I on the other hand believe that poetry and romance\ncannot be made by the most conscientious study of famous moments and\nof the thoughts and feelings of others, but only by looking into that\nlittle, infinite, faltering, eternal flame that we call ourselves. If\na writer wishes to interest a certain people among whom he has grown\nup, or fancies he has a duty towards them, he may choose for the\nsymbols of his art their legends, their history, their beliefs, their\nopinions, because he has a right to choose among things less than\nhimself, but he cannot choose among the substances of art. So far,\nhowever, as this book is visionary it is Irish; for Ireland, which is\nstill predominantly Celtic, has preserved with some less excellent\nthings a gift of vision, which has died out among more hurried and\nmore successful nations: no shining candelabra have prevented us from\nlooking into the darkness, and when one looks into the darkness there\nis always something there._\n\n                                                 _W. B. YEATS._\n\n\n_TO THE SECRET ROSE_\n\n   _Far off, most secret, and inviolate Rose,\n    Enfold me in my hour of hours; where those\n    Who sought thee at the Holy Sepulchre,\n    Or in the wine-vat, dwell beyond the stir\n    And tumult of defeated dreams; and deep\n    Among pale eyelids heavy with the sleep\n    Men have named beauty. Your great leaves enfold\n    The ancient beards, the helms of ruby and gold\n    Of the crowned Magi; and the king whose eyes\n    Saw the Pierced Hands and Rood of Elder rise\n    In druid vapour and make the torches dim;\n    Till vain frenzy awoke and he died; and him\n    Who met Fand walking among flaming dew,\n    By a grey shore where the wind never blew,\n    And lost the world and Emir for a kiss;\n    And him who drove the gods out of their liss\n    And till a hundred morns had flowered red\n    Feasted, and wept the barrows of his dead;\n    And the proud dreaming king who flung the crown\n    And sorrow away, and calling bard and clown\n    Dwelt among wine-stained wanderers in deep woods;\n    And him who sold tillage and house and goods,\n    And sought through lands and islands numberless years\n    Until he found with laughter and with tears\n    A woman of so shining loveliness\n    That men threshed corn at midnight by a tress,\n    A little stolen tress. I too await\n    The hour of thy great wind of love and hate.\n    When shall the stars be blown about the sky,\n    Like the sparks blown out of a smithy, and die?\n    Surely thine hour has come, thy great wind blows,\n    Far off, most secret, and inviolate Rose?_\n\n\nTHE CRUCIFIXION OF THE OUTCAST\n\nA MAN, with thin brown hair and a pale face, half ran, half walked,\nalong the road that wound from the south to the town of Sligo. Many\ncalled him Cumhal, the son of Cormac, and many called him the Swift,\nWild Horse; and he was a gleeman, and he wore a short parti-coloured\ndoublet, and had pointed shoes, and a bulging wallet. Also he was of\nthe blood of the Ernaans, and his birth-place was the Field of Gold;\nbut his eating and sleeping places were the four provinces of Eri, and\nhis abiding place was not upon the ridge of the earth. His eyes strayed\nfrom the Abbey tower of the White Friars and the town battlements to\na row of crosses which stood out against the sky upon a hill a little\nto the eastward of the town, and he clenched his fist, and shook it at\nthe crosses. He knew they were not empty, for the birds were fluttering\nabout them; and he thought how, as like as not, just such another\nvagabond as himself was hanged on one of them; and he muttered: \u2018If it\nwere hanging or bowstringing, or stoning or beheading, it would be bad\nenough. But to have the birds pecking your eyes and the wolves eating\nyour feet! I would that the red wind of the Druids had withered in\nhis cradle the soldier of Dathi, who brought the tree of death out of\nbarbarous lands, or that the lightning, when it smote Dathi at the foot\nof the mountain, had smitten him also, or that his grave had been dug\nby the green-haired and green-toothed merrows deep at the roots of the\ndeep sea.\u2019\n\nWhile he spoke, he shivered from head to foot, and the sweat came\nout upon his face, and he knew not why, for he had looked upon many\ncrosses. He passed over two hills and under the battlemented gate, and\nthen round by a left-hand way to the door of the Abbey. It was studded\nwith great nails, and when he knocked at it, he roused the lay brother\nwho was the porter, and of him he asked a place in the guest-house.\nThen the lay brother took a glowing turf on a shovel, and led the way\nto a big and naked outhouse strewn with very dirty rushes; and lighted\na rush-candle fixed between two of the stones of the wall, and set\nthe glowing turf upon the hearth and gave him two unlighted sods and\na wisp of straw, and showed him a blanket hanging from a nail, and a\nshelf with a loaf of bread and a jug of water, and a tub in a far\ncorner. Then the lay brother left him and went back to his place by\nthe door. And Cumhal the son of Cormac began to blow upon the glowing\nturf that he might light the two sods and the wisp of straw; but the\nsods and the straw would not light, for they were damp. So he took off\nhis pointed shoes, and drew the tub out of the corner with the thought\nof washing the dust of the highway from his feet; but the water was so\ndirty that he could not see the bottom. He was very hungry, for he had\nnot eaten all that day; so he did not waste much anger upon the tub,\nbut took up the black loaf, and bit into it, and then spat out the\nbite, for the bread was hard and mouldy. Still he did not give way to\nhis anger, for he had not drunken these many hours; having a hope of\nheath beer or wine at his day\u2019s end, he had left the brooks untasted,\nto make his supper the more delightful. Now he put the jug to his lips,\nbut he flung it from him straightway, for the water was bitter and\nill-smelling. Then he gave the jug a kick, so that it broke against\nthe opposite wall, and he took down the blanket to wrap it about him\nfor the night. But no sooner did he touch it than it was alive with\nskipping fleas. At this, beside himself with anger, he rushed to the\ndoor of the guest-house, but the lay brother, being well accustomed to\nsuch outcries, had locked it on the outside; so he emptied the tub and\nbegan to beat the door with it, till the lay brother came to the door\nand asked what ailed him, and why he woke him out of sleep. \u2018What ails\nme!\u2019 shouted Cumhal, \u2018are not the sods as wet as the sands of the Three\nRosses? and are not the fleas in the blanket as many as the waves of\nthe sea and as lively? and is not the bread as hard as the heart of a\nlay brother who has forgotten God? and is not the water in the jug as\nbitter and as ill-smelling as his soul? and is not the foot-water the\ncolour that shall be upon him when he has been charred in the Undying\nFires?\u2019 The lay brother saw that the lock was fast, and went back to\nhis niche, for he was too sleepy to talk with comfort. And Cumhal went\non beating at the door, and presently he heard the lay brother\u2019s foot\nonce more, and cried out at him, \u2018O cowardly and tyrannous race of\nfriars, persecutors of the bard and the gleeman, haters of life and\njoy! O race that does not draw the sword and tell the truth! O race\nthat melts the bones of the people with cowardice and with deceit!\u2019\n\n\u2018Gleeman,\u2019 said the lay brother, \u2018I also make rhymes; I make many\nwhile I sit in my niche by the door, and I sorrow to hear the bards\nrailing upon the friars. Brother, I would sleep, and therefore I make\nknown to you that it is the head of the monastery, our gracious abbot,\nwho orders all things concerning the lodging of travellers.\u2019\n\n\u2018You may sleep,\u2019 said Cumhal, \u2018I will sing a bard\u2019s curse on the\nabbot.\u2019 And he set the tub upside down under the window, and stood\nupon it, and began to sing in a very loud voice. The singing awoke the\nabbot, so that he sat up in bed and blew a silver whistle until the lay\nbrother came to him. \u2018I cannot get a wink of sleep with that noise,\u2019\nsaid the abbot. \u2018What is happening?\u2019\n\n\u2018It is a gleeman,\u2019 said the lay brother, \u2018who complains of the sods,\nof the bread, of the water in the jug, of the foot-water, and of the\nblanket. And now he is singing a bard\u2019s curse upon you, O brother\nabbot, and upon your father and your mother, and your grandfather and\nyour grandmother, and upon all your relations.\u2019\n\n\u2018Is he cursing in rhyme?\u2019\n\n\u2018He is cursing in rhyme, and with two assonances in every line of his\ncurse.\u2019\n\nThe abbot pulled his night-cap off and crumpled it in his hands, and\nthe circular brown patch of hair in the middle of his bald head looked\nlike an island in the midst of a pond, for in Connaught they had not\nyet abandoned the ancient tonsure for the style then coming into use.\n\u2018If we do not somewhat,\u2019 he said, \u2018he will teach his curses to the\nchildren in the street, and the girls spinning at the doors, and to the\nrobbers upon Ben Bulben.\u2019\n\n\u2018Shall I go, then,\u2019 said the other, \u2018and give him dry sods, a fresh\nloaf, clean water in a jug, clean foot-water, and a new blanket, and\nmake him swear by the blessed Saint Benignus, and by the sun and moon,\nthat no bond be lacking, not to tell his rhymes to the children in the\nstreet, and the girls spinning at the doors, and the robbers upon Ben\nBulben?\u2019\n\n\u2018Neither our blessed Patron nor the sun and moon would avail at all,\u2019\nsaid the abbot; \u2018for to-morrow or the next day the mood to curse\nwould come upon him, or a pride in those rhymes would move him, and\nhe would teach his lines to the children, and the girls, and the\nrobbers. Or else he would tell another of his craft how he fared in the\nguest-house, and he in his turn would begin to curse, and my name would\nwither. For learn there is no steadfastness of purpose upon the roads,\nbut only under roofs, and between four walls. Therefore I bid you go\nand awaken Brother Kevin, Brother Dove, Brother Little Wolf, Brother\nBald Patrick, Brother Bald Brandon, Brother James and Brother Peter.\nAnd they shall take the man, and bind him with ropes, and dip him in\nthe river that he may cease to sing. And in the morning, lest this but\nmake him curse the louder, we will crucify him.\u2019\n\n\u2018The crosses are all full,\u2019 said the lay brother.\n\n\u2018Then we must make another cross. If we do not make an end of him\nanother will, for who can eat and sleep in peace while men like him\nare going about the world? Ill should we stand before blessed Saint\nBenignus, and sour would be his face when he comes to judge us at\nthe Last Day, were we to spare an enemy of his when we had him under\nour thumb! Brother, the bards and the gleemen are an evil race, ever\ncursing and ever stirring up the people, and immoral and immoderate in\nall things, and heathen in their hearts, always longing after the Son\nof Lir, and Aengus, and Bridget, and the Dagda, and Dana the Mother,\nand all the false gods of the old days; always making poems in praise\nof those kings and queens of the demons, Finvaragh, whose home is\nunder Cruachmaa, and Red Aodh of Cnocna-Sidhe, and Cleena of the Wave,\nand Aoibhell of the Grey Rock, and him they call Donn of the Vats of\nthe Sea; and railing against God and Christ and the blessed Saints.\u2019\nWhile he was speaking he crossed himself, and when he had finished he\ndrew the nightcap over his ears, to shut out the noise, and closed his\neyes, and composed himself to sleep.\n\nThe lay brother found Brother Kevin, Brother Dove, Brother Little Wolf,\nBrother Bald Patrick, Brother Bald Brandon, Brother James and Brother\nPeter sitting up in bed, and he made them get up. Then they bound\nCumhal, and they dragged him to the river, and they dipped him in it at\nthe place which was afterwards called Buckley\u2019s Ford.\n\n\u2018Gleeman,\u2019 said the lay brother, as they led him back to the\nguest-house, \u2018why do you ever use the wit which God has given you to\nmake blasphemous and immoral tales and verses? For such is the way of\nyour craft. I have, indeed, many such tales and verses well nigh by\nrote, and so I know that I speak true! And why do you praise with rhyme\nthose demons, Finvaragh, Red Aodh, Cleena, Aoibhell and Donn? I, too,\nam a man of great wit and learning, but I ever glorify our gracious\nabbot, and Benignus our Patron, and the princes of the province.\nMy soul is decent and orderly, but yours is like the wind among the\nsalley gardens. I said what I could for you, being also a man of many\nthoughts, but who could help such a one as you?\u2019\n\n\u2018Friend,\u2019 answered the gleeman, \u2018my soul is indeed like the wind, and\nit blows me to and fro, and up and down, and puts many things into my\nmind and out of my mind, and therefore am I called the Swift, Wild\nHorse.\u2019 And he spoke no more that night, for his teeth were chattering\nwith the cold.\n\nThe abbot and the friars came to him in the morning, and bade him get\nready to be crucified, and led him out of the guest-house. And while he\nstill stood upon the step a flock of great grass-barnacles passed high\nabove him with clanking cries. He lifted his arms to them and said, \u2018O\ngreat grass-barnacles, tarry a little, and mayhap my soul will travel\nwith you to the waste places of the shore and to the ungovernable sea!\u2019\nAt the gate a crowd of beggars gathered about them, being come there\nto beg from any traveller or pilgrim who might have spent the night in\nthe guest-house. The abbot and the friars led the gleeman to a place\nin the woods at some distance, where many straight young trees were\ngrowing, and they made him cut one down and fashion it to the right\nlength, while the beggars stood round them in a ring, talking and\ngesticulating. The abbot then bade him cut off another and shorter\npiece of wood, and nail it upon the first. So there was his cross for\nhim; and they put it upon his shoulder, for his crucifixion was to be\non the top of the hill where the others were. A half-mile on the way he\nasked them to stop and see him juggle for them; for he knew, he said,\nall the tricks of Aengus the Subtle-hearted. The old friars were for\npressing on, but the young friars would see him: so he did many wonders\nfor them, even to the drawing of live frogs out of his ears. But after\na while they turned on him, and said his tricks were dull and a shade\nunholy, and set the cross on his shoulders again. Another half-mile\non the way, and he asked them to stop and hear him jest for them, for\nhe knew, he said, all the jests of Conan the Bald, upon whose back a\nsheep\u2019s wool grew. And the young friars, when they had heard his merry\ntales, again bade him take up his cross, for it ill became them to\nlisten to such follies. Another half-mile on the way, he asked them to\nstop and hear him sing the story of White-breasted Deirdre, and how\nshe endured many sorrows, and how the sons of Usna died to serve her.\nAnd the young friars were mad to hear him, but when he had ended they\ngrew angry, and beat him for waking forgotten longings in their hearts.\nSo they set the cross upon his back, and hurried him to the hill.\n\nWhen he was come to the top, they took the cross from him, and began to\ndig a hole to stand it in, while the beggars gathered round, and talked\namong themselves. \u2018I ask a favour before I die,\u2019 says Cumhal.\n\n\u2018We will grant you no more delays,\u2019 says the abbot.\n\n\u2018I ask no more delays, for I have drawn the sword, and told the truth,\nand lived my vision, and am content.\u2019\n\n\u2018Would you, then, confess?\u2019\n\n\u2018By sun and moon, not I; I ask but to be let eat the food I carry in my\nwallet. I carry food in my wallet whenever I go upon a journey, but I\ndo not taste of it unless I am well-nigh starved. I have not eaten now\nthese two days.\u2019\n\n\u2018You may eat, then,\u2019 says the abbot, and he turned to help the friars\ndig the hole.\n\nThe gleeman took a loaf and some strips of cold fried bacon out of his\nwallet and laid them upon the ground. \u2018I will give a tithe to the\npoor,\u2019 says he, and he cut a tenth part from the loaf and the bacon.\n\u2018Who among you is the poorest?\u2019 And thereupon was a great clamour, for\nthe beggars began the history of their sorrows and their poverty, and\ntheir yellow faces swayed like Gara Lough when the floods have filled\nit with water from the bogs.\n\nHe listened for a little, and, says he, \u2018I am myself the poorest,\nfor I have travelled the bare road, and by the edges of the sea; and\nthe tattered doublet of particoloured cloth upon my back and the\ntorn pointed shoes upon my feet have ever irked me, because of the\ntowered city full of noble raiment which was in my heart. And I have\nbeen the more alone upon the roads and by the sea because I heard in\nmy heart the rustling of the rose-bordered dress of her who is more\nsubtle than Aengus, the Subtle-hearted, and more full of the beauty of\nlaughter than Conan the Bald, and more full of the wisdom of tears than\nWhite-breasted Deirdre, and more lovely than a bursting dawn to them\nthat are lost in the darkness. Therefore, I award the tithe to myself;\nbut yet, because I am done with all things, I give it unto you.\u2019\n\nSo he flung the bread and the strips of bacon among the beggars,\nand they fought with many cries until the last scrap was eaten. But\nmeanwhile the friars nailed the gleeman to his cross, and set it\nupright in the hole, and shovelled the earth in at the foot, and\ntrampled it level and hard. So then they went away, but the beggars\nstared on, sitting round the cross. But when the sun was sinking, they\nalso got up to go, for the air was getting chilly. And as soon as they\nhad gone a little way, the wolves, who had been showing themselves on\nthe edge of a neighbouring coppice, came nearer, and the birds wheeled\ncloser and closer. \u2018Stay, outcasts, yet a little while,\u2019 the crucified\none called in a weak voice to the beggars, \u2018and keep the beasts and the\nbirds from me.\u2019 But the beggars were angry because he had called them\noutcasts, so they threw stones and mud at him, and went their way. Then\nthe wolves gathered at the foot of the cross, and the birds flew lower\nand lower. And presently the birds lighted all at once upon his head\nand arms and shoulders, and began to peck at him, and the wolves began\nto eat his feet. \u2018Outcasts,\u2019 he moaned, \u2018have you also turned against\nthe outcast?\u2019\n\n\nOUT OF THE ROSE\n\nONE winter evening an old knight in rusted chain-armour rode slowly\nalong the woody southern slope of Ben Bulben, watching the sun go down\nin crimson clouds over the sea. His horse was tired, as after a long\njourney, and he had upon his helmet the crest of no neighbouring lord\nor king, but a small rose made of rubies that glimmered every moment to\na deeper crimson. His white hair fell in thin curls upon his shoulders,\nand its disorder added to the melancholy of his face, which was the\nface of one of those who have come but seldom into the world, and\nalways for its trouble, the dreamers who must do what they dream, the\ndoers who must dream what they do.\n\nAfter gazing a while towards the sun, he let the reins fall upon the\nneck of his horse, and, stretching out both arms towards the west, he\nsaid, \u2018O Divine Rose of Intellectual Flame, let the gates of thy peace\nbe opened to me at last!\u2019 And suddenly a loud squealing began in the\nwoods some hundreds of yards further up the mountain side. He stopped\nhis horse to listen, and heard behind him a sound of feet and of\nvoices. \u2018They are beating them to make them go into the narrow path by\nthe gorge,\u2019 said someone, and in another moment a dozen peasants armed\nwith short spears had come up with the knight, and stood a little apart\nfrom him, their blue caps in their hands.\n\n\u2018Where do you go with the spears?\u2019 he asked; and one who seemed the\nleader answered: \u2018A troop of wood-thieves came down from the hills a\nwhile ago and carried off the pigs belonging to an old man who lives by\nGlen Car Lough, and we turned out to go after them. Now that we know\nthey are four times more than we are, we follow to find the way they\nhave taken; and will presently tell our story to De Courcey, and if he\nwill not help us, to Fitzgerald; for De Courcey and Fitzgerald have\nlately made a peace, and we do not know to whom we belong.\u2019\n\n\u2018But by that time,\u2019 said the knight, \u2018the pigs will have been eaten.\u2019\n\n\u2018A dozen men cannot do more, and it was not reasonable that the whole\nvalley should turn out and risk their lives for two, or for two dozen\npigs.\u2019\n\n\u2018Can you tell me,\u2019 said the knight, \u2018if the old man to whom the pigs\nbelong is pious and true of heart?\u2019\n\n\u2018He is as true as another and more pious than any, for he says a prayer\nto a saint every morning before his breakfast.\u2019\n\n\u2018Then it were well to fight in his cause,\u2019 said the knight, \u2018and if you\nwill fight against the wood-thieves I will take the main brunt of the\nbattle, and you know well that a man in armour is worth many like these\nwood-thieves, clad in wool and leather.\u2019\n\nAnd the leader turned to his fellows and asked if they would take the\nchance; but they seemed anxious to get back to their cabins.\n\n\u2018Are the wood-thieves treacherous and impious?\u2019\n\n\u2018They are treacherous in all their dealings,\u2019 said a peasant, \u2018and no\nman has known them to pray.\u2019\n\n\u2018Then,\u2019 said the knight, \u2018I will give five crowns for the head of every\nwood-thief killed by us in the fighting\u2019; and he bid the leader show\nthe way, and they all went on together. After a time they came to where\na beaten track wound into the woods, and, taking this, they doubled\nback upon their previous course, and began to ascend the wooded slope\nof the mountains. In a little while the path grew very straight and\nsteep, and the knight was forced to dismount and leave his horse tied\nto a tree-stem. They knew they were on the right track: for they could\nsee the marks of pointed shoes in the soft clay and mingled with them\nthe cloven footprints of the pigs. Presently the path became still\nmore abrupt, and they knew by the ending of the cloven footprints that\nthe thieves were carrying the pigs. Now and then a long mark in the\nclay showed that a pig had slipped down, and been dragged along for a\nlittle way. They had journeyed thus for about twenty minutes, when a\nconfused sound of voices told them that they were coming up with the\nthieves. And then the voices ceased, and they understood that they had\nbeen overheard in their turn. They pressed on rapidly and cautiously,\nand in about five minutes one of them caught sight of a leather jerkin\nhalf hidden by a hazel-bush. An arrow struck the knight\u2019s chain-armour,\nbut glanced off harmlessly, and then a flight of arrows swept by them\nwith the buzzing sound of great bees. They ran and climbed, and climbed\nand ran towards the thieves, who were now all visible standing up\namong the bushes with their still quivering bows in their hands: for\nthey had only their spears, and they must at once come hand to hand.\nThe knight was in the front, and smote down first one and then another\nof the wood-thieves. The peasants shouted, and, pressing on, drove\nthe wood-thieves before them until they came out on the flat top of\nthe mountain, and there they saw the two pigs quietly grubbing in the\nshort grass, so they ran about them in a circle, and began to move back\nagain towards the narrow path: the old knight coming now the last of\nall, and striking down thief after thief. The peasants had got no very\nserious hurts among them, for he had drawn the brunt of the battle upon\nhimself, as could well be seen from the bloody rents in his armour; and\nwhen they came to the entrance of the narrow path he bade them drive\nthe pigs down into the valley, while he stood there to guard the way\nbehind them. So in a moment he was alone, and, being weak with loss of\nblood, might have been ended there and then by the wood-thieves he had\nbeaten off, had fear not made them begone out of sight in a great hurry.\n\nAn hour passed, and they did not return; and now the knight could stand\non guard no longer, but had to lie down upon the grass. A half-hour\nmore went by, and then a young lad, with what appeared to be a number\nof cock\u2019s feathers stuck round his hat, came out of the path behind\nhim, and began to move about among the dead thieves, cutting their\nheads off. Then he laid the heads in a heap before the knight, and\nsaid: \u2018O great knight, I have been bid come and ask you for the crowns\nyou promised for the heads: five crowns a head. They bid me tell you\nthat they have prayed to God and His Mother to give you a long life,\nbut that they are poor peasants, and that they would have the money\nbefore you die. They told me this over and over for fear I might forget\nit, and promised to beat me if I did.\u2019\n\nThe knight raised himself upon his elbow, and opening a bag that hung\nto his belt, counted out the five crowns for each head. There were\nthirty heads in all.\n\n\u2018O great knight,\u2019 said the lad, \u2018they have also bid me take all care of\nyou, and light a fire, and put this ointment upon your wounds.\u2019 And he\ngathered sticks and leaves together, and, flashing his flint and steel\nunder a mass of dry leaves, had made a very good blaze. Then, drawing\noff the coat of mail, he began to anoint the wounds: but he did it\nclumsily, like one who does by rote what he had been told. The knight\nmotioned him to stop, and said: \u2018You seem a good lad.\u2019\n\n\u2018I would ask something of you for myself.\u2019\n\n\u2018There are still a few crowns,\u2019 said the knight; \u2018shall I give them to\nyou?\u2019\n\n\u2018O no,\u2019 said the lad. \u2018They would be no good to me. There is only one\nthing that I care about doing, and I have no need of money to do it. I\ngo from village to village and from hill to hill, and whenever I come\nacross a good cock I steal him and take him into the woods, and I keep\nhim there under a basket, until I get another good cock, and then I set\nthem to fight. The people say I am an innocent, and do not do me any\nharm, and never ask me to do any work but go a message now and then. It\nis because I am an innocent that they send me to get the crowns: anyone\nelse would steal them; and they dare not come back themselves, for now\nthat you are not with them they are afraid of the wood-thieves. Did you\never hear how, when the wood-thieves are christened, the wolves are\nmade their godfathers, and their right arms are not christened at all?\u2019\n\n\u2018If you will not take these crowns, my good lad, I have nothing for\nyou, I fear, unless you would have that old coat of mail which I shall\nsoon need no more.\u2019\n\n\u2018There was something I wanted: yes, I remember now,\u2019 said the lad. \u2018I\nwant you to tell me why you fought like the champions and giants in the\nstories and for so little a thing. Are you indeed a man like us? Are\nyou not rather an old wizard who lives among these hills, and will not\na wind arise presently and crumble you into dust?\u2019\n\n\u2018I will tell you of myself,\u2019 replied the knight, \u2018for now that I am\nthe last of the fellowship, I may tell all and witness for God. Look\nat the Rose of Rubies on my helmet, and see the symbol of my life and\nof my hope.\u2019 And then he told the lad this story, but with always\nmore frequent pauses; and, while he told it, the Rose shone a deep\nblood-colour in the firelight, and the lad stuck the cock\u2019s feathers in\nthe earth in front of him, and moved them about as though he made them\nactors in the play.\n\n\u2018I live in a land far from this, and was one of the Knights of Saint\nJohn,\u2019 said the old man; \u2018but I was one of those in the Order who\nalways longed for more arduous labours in the service of the Most High.\nAt last there came to us a knight of Palestine, to whom the truth of\ntruths had been revealed by God Himself. He had seen a great Rose of\nFire, and a Voice out of the Rose had told him how men would turn from\nthe light of their own hearts, and bow down before outer order and\nouter fixity, and that then the light would cease, and none escape the\ncurse except the foolish good man who could not, and the passionate\nwicked man who would not, think. Already, the Voice told him, the\nwayward light of the heart was shining out upon the world to keep it\nalive, with a less clear lustre, and that, as it paled, a strange\ninfection was touching the stars and the hills and the grass and the\ntrees with corruption, and that none of those who had seen clearly\nthe truth and the ancient way could enter into the Kingdom of God,\nwhich is in the Heart of the Rose, if they stayed on willingly in the\ncorrupted world; and so they must prove their anger against the Powers\nof Corruption by dying in the service of the Rose of God. While the\nknight of Palestine was telling us these things we seemed to see in a\nvision a crimson Rose spreading itself about him, so that he seemed to\nspeak out of its heart, and the air was filled with fragrance. By this\nwe knew that it was the very Voice of God which spoke to us by the\nknight, and we gathered about him and bade him direct us in all things,\nand teach us how to obey the Voice. So he bound us with an oath, and\ngave us signs and words whereby we might know each other even after\nmany years, and he appointed places of meeting, and he sent us out in\ntroops into the world to seek good causes, and die in doing battle for\nthem. At first we thought to die more readily by fasting to death in\nhonour of some saint; but this he told us was evil, for we did it for\nthe sake of death, and thus took out of the hands of God the choice\nof the time and manner of our death, and by so doing made His power\nthe less. We must choose our service for its excellence, and for this\nalone, and leave it to God to reward us at His own time and in His own\nmanner. And after this he compelled us to eat always two at a table to\nwatch each other lest we fasted unduly, for some among us said that\nif one fasted for a love of the holiness of saints and then died, the\ndeath would be acceptable. And the years passed, and one by one my\nfellows died in the Holy Land, or in warring upon the evil princes of\nthe earth, or in clearing the roads of robbers; and among them died the\nknight of Palestine, and at last I was alone. I fought in every cause\nwhere the few contended against the many, and my hair grew white, and a\nterrible fear lest I had fallen under the displeasure of God came upon\nme. But, hearing at last how this western isle was fuller of wars and\nrapine than any other land, I came hither, and I have found the thing I\nsought, and, behold! I am filled with a great joy.\u2019\n\nThereat he began to sing in Latin, and, while he sang, his voice grew\nfainter and fainter. Then his eyes closed, and his lips fell apart, and\nthe lad knew he was dead. \u2018He has told me a good tale,\u2019 he said, \u2018for\nthere was fighting in it, but I did not understand much of it, and it\nis hard to remember so long a story.\u2019\n\nAnd, taking the knight\u2019s sword, he began to dig a grave in the soft\nclay. He dug hard, and a faint light of dawn had touched his hair and\nhe had almost done his work when a cock crowed in the valley below.\n\u2018Ah,\u2019 he said, \u2018I must have that bird\u2019; and he ran down the narrow path\nto the valley.\n\n\nTHE WISDOM OF THE KING\n\nTHE High-Queen of the Island of Woods had died in childbirth, and her\nchild was put to nurse with a woman who lived in a hut of mud and\nwicker, within the border of the wood. One night the woman sat rocking\nthe cradle, and pondering over the beauty of the child, and praying\nthat the gods might grant him wisdom equal to his beauty. There came\na knock at the door, and she got up, not a little wondering, for the\nnearest neighbours were in the dun of the High-King a mile away; and\nthe night was now late. \u2018Who is knocking?\u2019 she cried, and a thin voice\nanswered, \u2018Open! for I am a crone of the grey hawk, and I come from the\ndarkness of the great wood.\u2019 In terror she drew back the bolt, and a\ngrey-clad woman, of a great age, and of a height more than human, came\nin and stood by the head of the cradle. The nurse shrank back against\nthe wall, unable to take her eyes from the woman, for she saw by the\ngleaming of the firelight that the feathers of the grey hawk were upon\nher head instead of hair. But the child slept, and the fire danced, for\nthe one was too ignorant and the other too full of gaiety to know what\na dreadful being stood there. \u2018Open!\u2019 cried another voice, \u2018for I am a\ncrone of the grey hawk, and I watch over his nest in the darkness of\nthe great wood.\u2019 The nurse opened the door again, though her fingers\ncould scarce hold the bolts for trembling, and another grey woman, not\nless old than the other, and with like feathers instead of hair, came\nin and stood by the first. In a little, came a third grey woman, and\nafter her a fourth, and then another and another and another, until\nthe hut was full of their immense bodies. They stood a long time in\nperfect silence and stillness, for they were of those whom the dropping\nof the sand has never troubled, but at last one muttered in a low thin\nvoice: \u2018Sisters, I knew him far away by the redness of his heart under\nhis silver skin\u2019; and then another spoke: \u2018Sisters, I knew him because\nhis heart fluttered like a bird under a net of silver cords\u2019; and then\nanother took up the word: \u2018Sisters, I knew him because his heart sang\nlike a bird that is happy in a silver cage.\u2019 And after that they sang\ntogether, those who were nearest rocking the cradle with long wrinkled\nfingers; and their voices were now tender and caressing, now like the\nwind blowing in the great wood, and this was their song:\n\n    Out of sight is out of mind:\n    Long have man and woman-kind,\n    Heavy of will and light of mood,\n    Taken away our wheaten food,\n    Taken away our Altar stone;\n    Hail and rain and thunder alone,\n    And red hearts we turn to grey,\n    Are true till Time gutter away.\n\nWhen the song had died out, the crone who had first spoken, said: \u2018We\nhave nothing more to do but to mix a drop of our blood into his blood.\u2019\nAnd she scratched her arm with the sharp point of a spindle, which\nshe had made the nurse bring to her, and let a drop of blood, grey as\nthe mist, fall upon the lips of the child; and passed out into the\ndarkness. Then the others passed out in silence one by one; and all the\nwhile the child had not opened his pink eyelids or the fire ceased to\ndance, for the one was too ignorant and the other too full of gaiety to\nknow what great beings had bent over the cradle.\n\nWhen the crones were gone, the nurse came to her courage again, and\nhurried to the dun of the High-King, and cried out in the midst of the\nassembly hall that the Sidhe, whether for good or evil she knew not,\nhad bent over the child that night; and the king and his poets and men\nof law, and his huntsmen, and his cooks, and his chief warriors went\nwith her to the hut and gathered about the cradle, and were as noisy as\nmagpies, and the child sat up and looked at them.\n\nTwo years passed over, and the king died fighting against the Fer Bolg;\nand the poets and the men of law ruled in the name of the child, but\nlooked to see him become the master himself before long, for no one\nhad seen so wise a child, and tales of his endless questions about\nthe household of the gods and the making of the world went hither and\nthither among the wicker houses of the poor. Everything had been well\nbut for a miracle that began to trouble all men; and all women, who,\nindeed, talked of it without ceasing. The feathers of the grey hawk\nhad begun to grow in the child\u2019s hair, and though his nurse cut them\ncontinually, in but a little while they would be more numerous than\never. This had not been a matter of great moment, for miracles were a\nlittle thing in those days, but for an ancient law of Eri that none\nwho had any blemish of body could sit upon the throne; and as a grey\nhawk was a wild thing of the air which had never sat at the board, or\nlistened to the songs of the poets in the light of the fire, it was not\npossible to think of one in whose hair its feathers grew as other than\nmarred and blasted; nor could the people separate from their admiration\nof the wisdom that grew in him a horror as at one of unhuman blood. Yet\nall were resolved that he should reign, for they had suffered much from\nfoolish kings and their own disorders, and moreover they desired to\nwatch out the spectacle of his days; and no one had any other fear but\nthat his great wisdom might bid him obey the law, and call some other,\nwho had but a common mind, to reign in his stead.\n\nWhen the child was seven years old the poets and the men of law were\ncalled together by the chief poet, and all these matters weighed and\nconsidered. The child had already seen that those about him had hair\nonly, and, though they had told him that they too had had feathers\nbut had lost them because of a sin committed by their forefathers,\nthey knew that he would learn the truth when he began to wander into\nthe country round about. After much consideration they decreed a new\nlaw commanding every one upon pain of death to mingle artificially\nthe feathers of the grey hawk into his hair; and they sent men with\nnets and slings and bows into the countries round about to gather a\nsufficiency of feathers. They decreed also that any who told the truth\nto the child should be flung from a cliff into the sea.\n\nThe years passed, and the child grew from childhood into boyhood and\nfrom boyhood into manhood, and from being curious about all things\nhe became busy with strange and subtle thoughts which came to him in\ndreams, and with distinctions between things long held the same and\nwith the resemblance of things long held different. Multitudes came\nfrom other lands to see him and to ask his counsel, but there were\nguards set at the frontiers, who compelled all that came to wear the\nfeathers of the grey hawk in their hair. While they listened to him\nhis words seemed to make all darkness light and filled their hearts\nlike music; but, alas, when they returned to their own lands his words\nseemed far off, and what they could remember too strange and subtle\nto help them to live out their hasty days. A number indeed did live\ndifferently afterwards, but their new life was less excellent than the\nold: some among them had long served a good cause, but when they heard\nhim praise it and their labour, they returned to their own lands to\nfind what they had loved less lovable and their arm lighter in the\nbattle, for he had taught them how little a hair divides the false and\ntrue; others, again, who had served no cause, but wrought in peace the\nwelfare of their own households, when he had expounded the meaning of\ntheir purpose, found their bones softer and their will less ready for\ntoil, for he had shown them greater purposes; and numbers of the young,\nwhen they had heard him upon all these things, remembered certain words\nthat became like a fire in their hearts, and made all kindly joys and\ntraffic between man and man as nothing, and went different ways, but\nall into vague regret.\n\nWhen any asked him concerning the common things of life; disputes about\nthe mear of a territory, or about the straying of cattle, or about the\npenalty of blood; he would turn to those nearest him for advice; but\nthis was held to be from courtesy, for none knew that these matters\nwere hidden from him by thoughts and dreams that filled his mind like\nthe marching and counter-marching of armies. Far less could any know\nthat his heart wandered lost amid throngs of overcoming thoughts and\ndreams, shuddering at its own consuming solitude.\n\nAmong those who came to look at him and to listen to him was the\ndaughter of a little king who lived a great way off; and when he\nsaw her he loved, for she was beautiful, with a strange and pale\nbeauty unlike the women of his land; but Dana, the great mother, had\ndecreed her a heart that was but as the heart of others, and when she\nconsidered the mystery of the hawk feathers she was troubled with a\ngreat horror. He called her to him when the assembly was over and\ntold her of her beauty, and praised her simply and frankly as though\nshe were a fable of the bards; and he asked her humbly to give him\nher love, for he was only subtle in his dreams. Overwhelmed with his\ngreatness, she half consented, and yet half refused, for she longed to\nmarry some warrior who could carry her over a mountain in his arms. Day\nby day the king gave her gifts; cups with ears of gold and findrinny\nwrought by the craftsmen of distant lands; cloth from over sea, which,\nthough woven with curious figures, seemed to her less beautiful than\nthe bright cloth of her own country; and still she was ever between a\nsmile and a frown; between yielding and withholding. He laid down his\nwisdom at her feet, and told how the heroes when they die return to\nthe world and begin their labour anew; how the kind and mirthful Men\nof Dea drove out the huge and gloomy and misshapen People from Under\nthe Sea; and a multitude of things that even the Sidhe have forgotten,\neither because they happened so long ago or because they have not time\nto think of them; and still she half refused, and still he hoped,\nbecause he could not believe that a beauty so much like wisdom could\nhide a common heart.\n\nThere was a tall young man in the dun who had yellow hair, and was\nskilled in wrestling and in the training of horses; and one day when\nthe king walked in the orchard, which was between the foss and the\nforest, he heard his voice among the salley bushes which hid the waters\nof the foss. \u2018My blossom,\u2019 it said, \u2018I hate them for making you weave\nthese dingy feathers into your beautiful hair, and all that the bird\nof prey upon the throne may sleep easy o\u2019 nights\u2019; and then the low,\nmusical voice he loved answered: \u2018My hair is not beautiful like yours;\nand now that I have plucked the feathers out of your hair I will put\nmy hands through it, thus, and thus, and thus; for it casts no shadow\nof terror and darkness upon my heart.\u2019 Then the king remembered many\nthings that he had forgotten without understanding them, doubtful\nwords of his poets and his men of law, doubts that he had reasoned\naway, his own continual solitude; and he called to the lovers in a\ntrembling voice. They came from among the salley bushes and threw\nthemselves at his feet and prayed for pardon, and he stooped down and\nplucked the feathers out of the hair of the woman and then turned away\ntowards the dun without a word. He strode into the hall of assembly,\nand having gathered his poets and his men of law about him, stood upon\nthe da\u00efs and spoke in a loud, clear voice: \u2018Men of law, why did you\nmake me sin against the laws of Eri? Men of verse, why did you make\nme sin against the secrecy of wisdom, for law was made by man for the\nwelfare of man, but wisdom the gods have made, and no man shall live by\nits light, for it and the hail and the rain and the thunder follow a\nway that is deadly to mortal things? Men of law and men of verse, live\naccording to your kind, and call Eocha of the Hasty Mind to reign over\nyou, for I set out to find my kindred.\u2019 He then came down among them,\nand drew out of the hair of first one and then another the feathers\nof the grey hawk, and, having scattered them over the rushes upon the\nfloor, passed out, and none dared to follow him, for his eyes gleamed\nlike the eyes of the birds of prey; and no man saw him again or heard\nhis voice. Some believed that he found his eternal abode among the\ndemons, and some that he dwelt henceforth with the dark and dreadful\ngoddesses, who sit all night about the pools in the forest watching the\nconstellations rising and setting in those desolate mirrors.\n\n\nTHE HEART OF THE SPRING\n\nA VERY old man, whose face was almost as fleshless as the foot of a\nbird, sat meditating upon the rocky shore of the flat and hazel-covered\nisle which fills the widest part of the Lough Gill. A russet-faced boy\nof seventeen years sat by his side, watching the swallows dipping for\nflies in the still water. The old man was dressed in threadbare blue\nvelvet, and the boy wore a frieze coat and a blue cap, and had about\nhis neck a rosary of blue beads. Behind the two, and half hidden by\ntrees, was a little monastery. It had been burned down a long while\nbefore by sacrilegious men of the Queen\u2019s party, but had been roofed\nanew with rushes by the boy, that the old man might find shelter in his\nlast days. He had not set his spade, however, into the garden about it,\nand the lilies and the roses of the monks had spread out until their\nconfused luxuriancy met and mingled with the narrowing circle of the\nfern. Beyond the lilies and the roses the ferns were so deep that a\nchild walking among them would be hidden from sight, even though he\nstood upon his toes; and beyond the fern rose many hazels and small oak\ntrees.\n\n\u2018Master,\u2019 said the boy, \u2018this long fasting, and the labour of beckoning\nafter nightfall with your rod of quicken wood to the beings who dwell\nin the waters and among the hazels and oak-trees, is too much for\nyour strength. Rest from all this labour for a little, for your hand\nseemed more heavy upon my shoulder and your feet less steady under\nyou to-day than I have known them. Men say that you are older than\nthe eagles, and yet you will not seek the rest that belongs to age.\u2019\nHe spoke in an eager, impulsive way, as though his heart were in the\nwords and thoughts of the moment; and the old man answered slowly and\ndeliberately, as though his heart were in distant days and distant\ndeeds.\n\n\u2018I will tell you why I have not been able to rest,\u2019 he said. \u2018It is\nright that you should know, for you have served me faithfully these\nfive years and more, and even with affection, taking away thereby a\nlittle of the doom of loneliness which always falls upon the wise. Now,\ntoo, that the end of my labour and the triumph of my hopes is at hand,\nit is the more needful for you to have this knowledge.\u2019\n\n\u2018Master, do not think that I would question you. It is for me to keep\nthe fire alight, and the thatch close against the rain, and strong,\nlest the wind blow it among the trees; and it is for me to take the\nheavy books from the shelves, and to lift from its corner the great\npainted roll with the names of the Sidhe, and to possess the while an\nincurious and reverent heart, for right well I know that God has made\nout of His abundance a separate wisdom for everything which lives, and\nto do these things is my wisdom.\u2019\n\n\u2018You are afraid,\u2019 said the old man, and his eyes shone with a momentary\nanger.\n\n\u2018Sometimes at night,\u2019 said the boy, \u2018when you are reading, with the\nrod of quicken wood in your hand, I look out of the door and see, now\na great grey man driving swine among the hazels, and now many little\npeople in red caps who come out of the lake driving little white cows\nbefore them. I do not fear these little people so much as the grey man;\nfor, when they come near the house, they milk the cows, and they drink\nthe frothing milk, and begin to dance; and I know there is good in the\nheart that loves dancing; but I fear them for all that. And I fear the\ntall white-armed ladies who come out of the air, and move slowly hither\nand thither, crowning themselves with the roses or with the lilies,\nand shaking about their living hair, which moves, for so I have heard\nthem tell each other, with the motion of their thoughts, now spreading\nout and now gathering close to their heads. They have mild, beautiful\nfaces, but, Aengus, son of Forbis, I fear all these beings, I fear the\npeople of the Sidhe, and I fear the art which draws them about us.\u2019\n\n\u2018Why,\u2019 said the old man, \u2018do you fear the ancient gods who made the\nspears of your father\u2019s fathers to be stout in battle, and the little\npeople who came at night from the depth of the lakes and sang among\nthe crickets upon their hearths? And in our evil day they still watch\nover the loveliness of the earth. But I must tell you why I have fasted\nand laboured when others would sink into the sleep of age, for without\nyour help once more I shall have fasted and laboured to no good end.\nWhen you have done for me this last thing, you may go and build your\ncottage and till your fields, and take some girl to wife, and forget\nthe ancient gods. I have saved all the gold and silver pieces that were\ngiven to me by earls and knights and squires for keeping them from\nthe evil eye and from the love-weaving enchantments of witches, and\nby earls\u2019 and knights\u2019 and squires\u2019 ladies for keeping the people of\nthe Sidhe from making the udders of their cattle fall dry, and taking\nthe butter from their churns. I have saved it all for the day when my\nwork should be at an end, and now that the end is at hand you shall not\nlack for gold and silver pieces enough to make strong the roof-tree of\nyour cottage and to keep cellar and larder full. I have sought through\nall my life to find the secret of life. I was not happy in my youth,\nfor I knew that it would pass; and I was not happy in my manhood, for\nI knew that age was coming; and so I gave myself, in youth and manhood\nand age, to the search for the Great Secret. I longed for a life\nwhose abundance would fill centuries, I scorned the life of fourscore\nwinters. I would be--nay, I _will_ be!--like the Ancient Gods of the\nland. I read in my youth, in a Hebrew manuscript I found in a Spanish\nmonastery, that there is a moment after the Sun has entered the Ram\nand before he has passed the Lion, which trembles with the Song of the\nImmortal Powers, and that whosoever finds this moment and listens to\nthe Song shall become like the Immortal Powers themselves; I came back\nto Ireland and asked the fairy men, and the cow-doctors, if they knew\nwhen this moment was; but though all had heard of it, there was none\ncould find the moment upon the hour-glass. So I gave myself to magic,\nand spent my life in fasting and in labour that I might bring the Gods\nand the Fairies to my side; and now at last one of the Fairies has told\nme that the moment is at hand. One, who wore a red cap and whose lips\nwere white with the froth of the new milk, whispered it into my ear.\nTo-morrow, a little before the close of the first hour after dawn, I\nshall find the moment, and then I will go away to a southern land and\nbuild myself a palace of white marble amid orange trees, and gather the\nbrave and the beautiful about me, and enter into the eternal kingdom\nof my youth. But, that I may hear the whole Song, I was told by the\nlittle fellow with the froth of the new milk on his lips, that you must\nbring great masses of green boughs and pile them about the door and the\nwindow of my room; and you must put fresh green rushes upon the floor,\nand cover the table and the rushes with the roses and the lilies of the\nmonks. You must do this to-night, and in the morning at the end of the\nfirst hour after dawn, you must come and find me.\u2019\n\n\u2018Will you be quite young then?\u2019 said the boy.\n\n\u2018I will be as young then as you are, but now I am still old and tired,\nand you must help me to my chair and to my books.\u2019\n\nWhen the boy had left Aengus son of Forbis in his room, and had lighted\nthe lamp which, by some contrivance of the wizard\u2019s, gave forth a sweet\nodour as of strange flowers, he went into the wood and began cutting\ngreen boughs from the hazels, and great bundles of rushes from the\nwestern border of the isle, where the small rocks gave place to gently\nsloping sand and clay. It was nightfall before he had cut enough for\nhis purpose, and well-nigh midnight before he had carried the last\nbundle to its place, and gone back for the roses and the lilies. It was\none of those warm, beautiful nights when everything seems carved of\nprecious stones. Sleuth Wood away to the south looked as though cut out\nof green beryl, and the waters that mirrored them shone like pale opal.\nThe roses he was gathering were like glowing rubies, and the lilies had\nthe dull lustre of pearl. Everything had taken upon itself the look of\nsomething imperishable, except a glow-worm, whose faint flame burnt\non steadily among the shadows, moving slowly hither and thither, the\nonly thing that seemed alive, the only thing that seemed perishable as\nmortal hope. The boy gathered a great armful of roses and lilies, and\nthrusting the glow-worm among their pearl and ruby, carried them into\nthe room, where the old man sat in a half-slumber. He laid armful after\narmful upon the floor and above the table, and then, gently closing\nthe door, threw himself upon his bed of rushes, to dream of a peaceful\nmanhood with his chosen wife at his side, and the laughter of children\nin his ears. At dawn he rose, and went down to the edge of the lake,\ntaking the hour-glass with him. He put some bread and a flask of wine\nin the boat, that his master might not lack food at the outset of his\njourney, and then sat down to wait until the hour from dawn had gone\nby. Gradually the birds began to sing, and when the last grains of\nsand were falling, everything suddenly seemed to overflow with their\nmusic. It was the most beautiful and living moment of the year; one\ncould listen to the spring\u2019s heart beating in it. He got up and went to\nfind his master. The green boughs filled the door, and he had to make\na way through them. When he entered the room the sunlight was falling\nin flickering circles on floor and walls and table, and everything\nwas full of soft green shadows. But the old man sat clasping a mass of\nroses and lilies in his arms, and with his head sunk upon his breast.\nOn the table, at his left hand, was a leathern wallet full of gold\nand silver pieces, as for a journey, and at his right hand was a long\nstaff. The boy touched him and he did not move. He lifted the hands but\nthey were quite cold, and they fell heavily.\n\n\u2018It were better for him,\u2019 said the lad, \u2018to have told his beads and\nsaid his prayers like another, and not to have spent his days in\nseeking amongst the Immortal Powers what he could have found in his own\ndeeds and days had he willed. Ah, yes, it were better to have said his\nprayers and kissed his beads!\u2019 He looked at the threadbare blue velvet,\nand he saw it was covered with the pollen of the flowers, and while he\nwas looking at it a thrush, who had alighted among the boughs that were\npiled against the window, began to sing.\n\n\nTHE CURSE OF THE FIRES AND OF THE SHADOWS\n\nONE summer night, when there was peace, a score of Puritan troopers\nunder the pious Sir Frederick Hamilton, broke through the door of the\nAbbey of the White Friars which stood over the Gara Lough at Sligo. As\nthe door fell with a crash they saw a little knot of friars gathered\nabout the altar, their white habits glimmering in the steady light of\nthe holy candles. All the monks were kneeling except the abbot, who\nstood upon the altar steps with a great brazen crucifix in his hand.\n\u2018Shoot them!\u2019 cried Sir Frederick Hamilton, but none stirred, for\nall were new converts, and feared the crucifix and the holy candles.\nThe white lights from the altar threw the shadows of the troopers up\non to roof and wall. As the troopers moved about, the shadows began\na fantastic dance among the corbels and the memorial tablets. For a\nlittle while all was silent, and then five troopers who were the\nbody-guard of Sir Frederick Hamilton lifted their muskets, and shot\ndown five of the friars. The noise and the smoke drove away the mystery\nof the pale altar lights, and the other troopers took courage and\nbegan to strike. In a moment the friars lay about the altar steps,\ntheir white habits stained with blood. \u2018Set fire to the house!\u2019 cried\nSir Frederick Hamilton, and at his word one went out, and came in\nagain carrying a heap of dry straw, and piled it against the western\nwall, and, having done this, fell back, for the fear of the crucifix\nand of the holy candles was still in his heart. Seeing this, the five\ntroopers who were Sir Frederick Hamilton\u2019s body-guard darted forward,\nand taking each a holy candle set the straw in a blaze. The red tongues\nof fire rushed up and flickered from corbel to corbel and from tablet\nto tablet, and crept along the floor, setting in a blaze the seats and\nbenches. The dance of the shadows passed away, and the dance of the\nfires began. The troopers fell back towards the door in the southern\nwall, and watched those yellow dancers springing hither and thither.\n\nFor a time the altar stood safe and apart in the midst of its white\nlight; the eyes of the troopers turned upon it. The abbot whom they\nhad thought dead had risen to his feet and now stood before it with\nthe crucifix lifted in both hands high above his head. Suddenly he\ncried with a loud voice, \u2018Woe unto all who smite those who dwell within\nthe Light of the Lord, for they shall wander among the ungovernable\nshadows, and follow the ungovernable fires!\u2019 And having so cried he\nfell on his face dead, and the brazen crucifix rolled down the steps\nof the altar. The smoke had now grown very thick, so that it drove the\ntroopers out into the open air. Before them were burning houses. Behind\nthem shone the painted windows of the Abbey filled with saints and\nmartyrs, awakened, as from a sacred trance, into an angry and animated\nlife. The eyes of the troopers were dazzled, and for a while could\nsee nothing but the flaming faces of saints and martyrs. Presently,\nhowever, they saw a man covered with dust who came running towards\nthem. \u2018Two messengers,\u2019 he cried, \u2018have been sent by the defeated Irish\nto raise against you the whole country about Manor Hamilton, and if you\ndo not stop them you will be overpowered in the woods before you reach\nhome again! They ride north-east between Ben Bulben and Cashel-na-Gael.\u2019\n\nSir Frederick Hamilton called to him the five troopers who had first\nfired upon the monks and said, \u2018Mount quickly, and ride through the\nwoods towards the mountain, and get before these men, and kill them.\u2019\n\nIn a moment the troopers were gone, and before many moments they had\nsplashed across the river at what is now called Buckley\u2019s Ford, and\nplunged into the woods. They followed a beaten track that wound along\nthe northern bank of the river. The boughs of the birch and quicken\ntrees mingled above, and hid the cloudy moonlight, leaving the pathway\nin almost complete darkness. They rode at a rapid trot, now chatting\ntogether, now watching some stray weasel or rabbit scuttling away\nin the darkness. Gradually, as the gloom and silence of the woods\noppressed them, they drew closer together, and began to talk rapidly;\nthey were old comrades and knew each other\u2019s lives. One was married,\nand told how glad his wife would be to see him return safe from this\nharebrained expedition against the White Friars, and to hear how\nfortune had made amends for rashness. The oldest of the five, whose\nwife was dead, spoke of a flagon of wine which awaited him upon an\nupper shelf; while a third, who was the youngest, had a sweetheart\nwatching for his return, and he rode a little way before the others,\nnot talking at all. Suddenly the young man stopped, and they saw that\nhis horse was trembling. \u2018I saw something,\u2019 he said, \u2018and yet I do not\nknow but it may have been one of the shadows. It looked like a great\nworm with a silver crown upon his head.\u2019 One of the five put his hand\nup to his forehead as if about to cross himself, but remembering that\nhe had changed his religion he put it down, and said: \u2018I am certain\nit was but a shadow, for there are a great many about us, and of very\nstrange kinds.\u2019 Then they rode on in silence. It had been raining in\nthe earlier part of the day, and the drops fell from the branches,\nwetting their hair and their shoulders. In a little they began to talk\nagain. They had been in many battles against many a rebel together,\nand now told each other over again the story of their wounds, and\nso awakened in their hearts the strongest of all fellowships, the\nfellowship of the sword, and half forgot the terrible solitude of the\nwoods.\n\nSuddenly the first two horses neighed, and then stood still, and would\ngo no further. Before them was a glint of water, and they knew by the\nrushing sound that it was a river. They dismounted, and after much\ntugging and coaxing brought the horses to the river-side. In the midst\nof the water stood a tall old woman with grey hair flowing over a grey\ndress. She stood up to her knees in the water, and stooped from time to\ntime as though washing. Presently they could see that she was washing\nsomething that half floated. The moon cast a flickering light upon it,\nand they saw that it was the dead body of a man, and, while they were\nlooking at it, an eddy of the river turned the face towards them, and\neach of the five troopers recognized at the same moment his own face.\nWhile they stood dumb and motionless with horror, the woman began to\nspeak, saying slowly and loudly: \u2018Did you see my son? He has a crown of\nsilver on his head, and there are rubies in the crown.\u2019 Then the oldest\nof the troopers, he who had been most often wounded, drew his sword and\ncried: \u2018I have fought for the truth of my God, and need not fear the\nshadows of Satan,\u2019 and with that rushed into the water. In a moment he\nreturned. The woman had vanished, and though he had thrust his sword\ninto air and water he had found nothing.\n\nThe five troopers remounted, and set their horses at the ford, but all\nto no purpose. They tried again and again, and went plunging hither\nand thither, the horses foaming and rearing. \u2018Let us,\u2019 said the old\ntrooper, \u2018ride back a little into the wood, and strike the river\nhigher up.\u2019 They rode in under the boughs, the ground-ivy crackling\nunder the hoofs, and the branches striking against their steel caps.\nAfter about twenty minutes\u2019 riding they came out again upon the river,\nand after another ten minutes found a place where it was possible to\ncross without sinking below the stirrups. The wood upon the other\nside was very thin, and broke the moonlight into long streams. The\nwind had arisen, and had begun to drive the clouds rapidly across the\nface of the moon, so that thin streams of light seemed to be dancing\na grotesque dance among the scattered bushes and small fir-trees. The\ntops of the trees began also to moan, and the sound of it was like the\nvoice of the dead in the wind; and the troopers remembered the belief\nthat tells how the dead in purgatory are spitted upon the points of the\ntrees and upon the points of the rocks. They turned a little to the\nsouth, in the hope that they might strike the beaten path again, but\nthey could find no trace of it.\n\nMeanwhile, the moaning grew louder and louder, and the dance of the\nwhite moon-fires more and more rapid. Gradually they began to be\naware of a sound of distant music. It was the sound of a bagpipe,\nand they rode towards it with great joy. It came from the bottom of\na deep, cup-like hollow. In the midst of the hollow was an old man\nwith a red cap and withered face. He sat beside a fire of sticks, and\nhad a burning torch thrust into the earth at his feet, and played an\nold bagpipe furiously. His red hair dripped over his face like the\niron rust upon a rock. \u2018Did you see my wife?\u2019 he cried, looking up a\nmoment; \u2018she was washing! she was washing!\u2019 \u2018I am afraid of him,\u2019 said\nthe young trooper, \u2018I fear he is one of the Sidhe.\u2019 \u2018No,\u2019 said the old\ntrooper, \u2018he is a man, for I can see the sun-freckles upon his face.\nWe will compel him to be our guide\u2019; and at that he drew his sword,\nand the others did the same. They stood in a ring round the piper, and\npointed their swords at him, and the old trooper then told him that\nthey must kill two rebels, who had taken the road between Ben Bulben\nand the great mountain spur that is called Cashel-na-Gael, and that he\nmust get up before one of them and be their guide, for they had lost\ntheir way. The piper turned, and pointed to a neighbouring tree, and\nthey saw an old white horse ready bitted, bridled, and saddled. He\nslung the pipe across his back, and, taking the torch in his hand, got\nupon the horse, and started off before them, as hard as he could go.\n\nThe wood grew thinner and thinner, and the ground began to slope up\ntoward the mountain. The moon had already set, and the little white\nflames of the stars had come out everywhere. The ground sloped more\nand more until at last they rode far above the woods upon the wide\ntop of the mountain. The woods lay spread out mile after mile below,\nand away to the south shot up the red glare of the burning town. But\nbefore and above them were the little white flames. The guide drew rein\nsuddenly, and pointing upwards with the hand that did not hold the\ntorch, shrieked out, \u2018Look; look at the holy candles!\u2019 and then plunged\nforward at a gallop, waving the torch hither and thither. \u2018Do you hear\nthe hoofs of the messengers?\u2019 cried the guide. \u2018Quick, quick! or they\nwill be gone out of your hands!\u2019 and he laughed as with delight of the\nchase. The troopers thought they could hear far off, and as if below\nthem, rattle of hoofs; but now the ground began to slope more and more,\nand the speed grew more headlong moment by moment. They tried to pull\nup, but in vain, for the horses seemed to have gone mad. The guide\nhad thrown the reins on to the neck of the old white horse, and was\nwaving his arms and singing a wild Gaelic song. Suddenly they saw the\nthin gleam of a river, at an immense distance below, and knew that they\nwere upon the brink of the abyss that is now called Lug-na-Gael, or in\nEnglish the Stranger\u2019s Leap. The six horses sprang forward, and five\nscreams went up into the air, a moment later five men and horses fell\nwith a dull crash upon the green slopes at the foot of the rocks.\n\n\nTHE OLD MEN OF THE TWILIGHT\n\nAT the place, close to the Dead Man\u2019s Point, at the Rosses, where\nthe disused pilot-house looks out to sea through two round windows\nlike eyes, a mud cottage stood in the last century. It also was a\nwatchhouse, for a certain old Michael Bruen, who had been a smuggler\nin his day, and was still the father and grandfather of smugglers,\nlived there, and when, after nightfall, a tall schooner crept over the\nbay from Roughley, it was his business to hang a horn lanthorn in the\nsouthern window, that the news might travel to Dorren\u2019s Island, and\nfrom thence, by another horn lanthorn, to the village of the Rosses.\nBut for this glimmering of messages, he had little communion with\nmankind, for he was very old, and had no thought for anything but for\nthe making of his soul, at the foot of the Spanish crucifix of carved\noak that hung by his chimney, or bent double over the rosary of stone\nbeads brought to him in a cargo of silks and laces out of France. One\nnight he had watched hour after hour, because a gentle and favourable\nwind was blowing, and _La M\u00e8re de Mis\u00e9ricorde_ was much overdue; and\nhe was about to lie down upon his heap of straw, seeing that the dawn\nwas whitening the east, and that the schooner would not dare to round\nRoughley and come to an anchor after daybreak; when he saw a long line\nof herons flying slowly from Dorren\u2019s Island and towards the pools\nwhich lie, half choked with reeds, behind what is called the Second\nRosses. He had never before seen herons flying over the sea, for they\nare shore-keeping birds, and partly because this had startled him out\nof his drowsiness, and more because the long delay of the schooner\nkept his cupboard empty, he took down his rusty shot-gun, of which the\nbarrel was tied on with a piece of string, and followed them towards\nthe pools.\n\nWhen he came close enough to hear the sighing of the rushes in the\noutermost pool, the morning was grey over the world, so that the tall\nrushes, the still waters, the vague clouds, the thin mist lying among\nthe sand-heaps, seemed carved out of an enormous pearl. In a little he\ncame upon the herons, of whom there were a great number, standing with\nlifted legs in the shallow water; and crouching down behind a bank of\nrushes, looked to the priming of his gun, and bent for a moment over\nhis rosary to murmur: \u2018Patron Patrick, let me shoot a heron; made into\na pie it will support me for nearly four days, for I no longer eat as\nin my youth. If you keep me from missing I will say a rosary to you\nevery night until the pie is eaten.\u2019 Then he lay down, and, resting his\ngun upon a large stone, turned towards a heron which stood upon a bank\nof smooth grass over a little stream that flowed into the pool; for he\nfeared to take the rheumatism by wading, as he would have to do if he\nshot one of those which stood in the water. But when he looked along\nthe barrel the heron was gone, and, to his wonder and terror, a man of\ninfinitely great age and infirmity stood in its place. He lowered the\ngun, and the heron stood there with bent head and motionless feathers,\nas though it had slept from the beginning of the world. He raised the\ngun, and no sooner did he look along the iron than that enemy of all\nenchantment brought the old man again before him, only to vanish when\nhe lowered the gun for the second time. He laid the gun down, and\ncrossed himself three times, and said a _Paternoster_ and an _Ave\nMaria_, and muttered half aloud: \u2018Some enemy of God and of my patron\nis standing upon the smooth place and fishing in the blessed water,\u2019\nand then aimed very carefully and slowly. He fired, and when the smoke\nhad gone saw an old man, huddled upon the grass and a long line of\nherons flying with clamour towards the sea. He went round a bend of the\npool, and coming to the little stream looked down on a figure wrapped\nin faded clothes of black and green of an ancient pattern and spotted\nwith blood. He shook his head at the sight of so great a wickedness.\nSuddenly the clothes moved and an arm was stretched upwards towards\nthe rosary which hung about his neck, and long wasted fingers almost\ntouched the cross. He started back, crying: \u2018Wizard, I will let no\nwicked thing touch my blessed beads\u2019; and the sense of a great danger\njust escaped made him tremble.\n\n\u2018If you listen to me,\u2019 replied a voice so faint that it was like a\nsigh, \u2018you will know that I am not a wizard, and you will let me kiss\nthe cross before I die.\u2019\n\n\u2018I will listen to you,\u2019 he answered, \u2018but I will not let you touch my\nblessed beads,\u2019 and sitting on the grass a little way from the dying\nman, he reloaded his gun and laid it across his knees and composed\nhimself to listen.\n\n\u2018I know not how many generations ago we, who are now herons, were the\nmen of learning of the King Leaghaire; we neither hunted, nor went to\nbattle, nor listened to the Druids preaching, and even love, if it\ncame to us at all, was but a passing fire. The Druids and the poets\ntold us, many and many a time, of a new Druid Patrick; and most among\nthem were fierce against him, while a few thought his doctrine merely\nthe doctrine of the gods set out in new symbols, and were for giving\nhim welcome; but we yawned in the midst of their tale. At last they\ncame crying that he was coming to the king\u2019s house, and fell to their\ndispute, but we would listen to neither party, for we were busy with\na dispute about the merits of the Great and of the Little Metre; nor\nwere we disturbed when they passed our door with sticks of enchantment\nunder their arms, travelling towards the forest to contend against his\ncoming, nor when they returned after nightfall with torn robes and\ndespairing cries; for the click of our knives writing our thoughts in\nOgham filled us with peace and our dispute filled us with joy; nor\neven when in the morning crowds passed us to hear the strange Druid\npreaching the commandments of his god. The crowds passed, and one, who\nhad laid down his knife to yawn and stretch himself, heard a voice\nspeaking far off, and knew that the Druid Patrick was preaching within\nthe king\u2019s house; but our hearts were deaf, and we carved and disputed\nand read, and laughed a thin laughter together. In a little we heard\nmany feet coming towards the house, and presently two tall figures\nstood in the door, the one in white, the other in a crimson robe; like\na great lily and a heavy poppy; and we knew the Druid Patrick and our\nKing Leaghaire. We laid down the slender knives and bowed before the\nking, but when the black and green robes had ceased to rustle, it was\nnot the loud rough voice of King Leaghaire that spoke to us, but a\nstrange voice in which there was a rapture as of one speaking from\nbehind a battlement of Druid flame: \u201cI preached the commandments of the\nMaker of the world,\u201d it said; \u201cwithin the king\u2019s house and from the\ncentre of the earth to the windows of Heaven there was a great silence,\nso that the eagle floated with unmoving wings in the white air, and\nthe fish with unmoving fins in the dim water, while the linnets and\nthe wrens and the sparrows stilled their ever-trembling tongues in\nthe heavy boughs, and the clouds were like white marble, and the\nrivers became their motionless mirrors, and the shrimps in the far-off\nsea-pools were still, enduring eternity in patience, although it was\nhard.\u201d And as he named these things, it was like a king numbering his\npeople. \u201cBut your slender knives went click, click! upon the oaken\nstaves, and, all else being silent, the sound shook the angels with\nanger. O, little roots, nipped by the winter, who do not awake although\nthe summer pass above you with innumerable feet. O, men who have no\npart in love, who have no part in song, who have no part in wisdom,\nbut dwell with the shadows of memory where the feet of angels cannot\ntouch you as they pass over your heads, where the hair of demons cannot\nsweep about you as they pass under your feet, I lay upon you a curse,\nand change you to an example for ever and ever; you shall become grey\nherons and stand pondering in grey pools and flit over the world in\nthat hour when it is most full of sighs, having forgotten the flame of\nthe stars and not yet found the flame of the sun; and you shall preach\nto the other herons until they also are like you, and are an example\nfor ever and ever; and your deaths shall come to you by chance and\nunforeseen, that no fire of certainty may visit your hearts.\u201d\u2019\n\nThe voice of the old man of learning became still, but the voteen\nbent over his gun with his eyes upon the ground, trying in vain to\nunderstand something of this tale; and he had so bent, it may be for a\nlong time, had not a tug at his rosary made him start out of his dream.\nThe old man of learning had crawled along the grass, and was now trying\nto draw the cross down low enough for his lips to reach it.\n\n\u2018You must not touch my blessed beads,\u2019 cried the voteen, and struck\nthe long withered fingers with the barrel of his gun. He need not have\ntrembled, for the old man fell back upon the grass with a sigh and was\nstill. He bent down and began to consider the black and green clothes,\nfor his fear had begun to pass away when he came to understand that\nhe had something the man of learning wanted and pleaded for, and now\nthat the blessed beads were safe, his fear had nearly all gone; and\nsurely, he thought, if that big cloak, and that little tight-fitting\ncloak under it, were warm and without holes, Saint Patrick would take\nthe enchantment out of them and leave them fit for human use. But the\nblack and green clothes fell away wherever his fingers touched them,\nand while this was a new wonder, a slight wind blew over the pool and\ncrumbled the old man of learning and all his ancient gear into a little\nheap of dust, and then made the little heap less and less until there\nwas nothing but the smooth green grass.\n\n\nWHERE THERE IS NOTHING, THERE IS GOD.\n\nTHE little wicker houses at Tullagh, where the Brothers were accustomed\nto pray, or bend over many handicrafts, when twilight had driven them\nfrom the fields, were empty, for the hardness of the winter had brought\nthe brotherhood together in the little wooden house under the shadow\nof the wooden chapel; and Abbot Malathgeneus, Brother Dove, Brother\nBald Fox, Brother Peter, Brother Patrick, Brother Bittern, Brother\nFair-brows, and many too young to have won names in the great battle,\nsat about the fire with ruddy faces, one mending lines to lay in the\nriver for eels, one fashioning a snare for birds, one mending the\nbroken handle of a spade, one writing in a large book, and one shaping\na jewelled box to hold the book; and among the rushes at their feet lay\nthe scholars, who would one day be Brothers, and whose school-house\nit was, and for the succour of whose tender years the great fire was\nsupposed to leap and flicker. One of these, a child of eight or nine\nyears, called Olioll, lay upon his back looking up through the hole\nin the roof, through which the smoke went, and watching the stars\nappearing and disappearing in the smoke with mild eyes, like the eyes\nof a beast of the field. He turned presently to the Brother who wrote\nin the big book, and whose duty was to teach the children, and said,\n\u2018Brother Dove, to what are the stars fastened?\u2019 The Brother, rejoicing\nto see so much curiosity in the stupidest of his scholars, laid down\nthe pen and said, \u2018There are nine crystalline spheres, and on the first\nthe Moon is fastened, on the second the planet Mercury, on the third\nthe planet Venus, on the fourth the Sun, on the fifth the planet Mars,\non the sixth the planet Jupiter, on the seventh the planet Saturn;\nthese are the wandering stars; and on the eighth are fastened the fixed\nstars; but the ninth sphere is a sphere of the substance on which the\nbreath of God moved in the beginning.\u2019\n\n\u2018What is beyond that?\u2019 said the child.\n\n\u2018There is nothing beyond that; there is God.\u2019\n\nAnd then the child\u2019s eyes strayed to the jewelled box, where one great\nruby was gleaming in the light of the fire, and he said, \u2018Why has\nBrother Peter put a great ruby on the side of the box?\u2019\n\n\u2018The ruby is a symbol of the love of God.\u2019\n\n\u2018Why is the ruby a symbol of the love of God?\u2019\n\n\u2018Because it is red, like fire, and fire burns up everything, and where\nthere is nothing, there is God.\u2019\n\nThe child sank into silence, but presently sat up and said, \u2018There is\nsomebody outside.\u2019\n\n\u2018No,\u2019 replied the Brother. \u2018It is only the wolves; I have heard them\nmoving about in the snow for some time. They are growing very wild, now\nthat the winter drives them from the mountains. They broke into a fold\nlast night and carried off many sheep, and if we are not careful they\nwill devour everything.\u2019\n\n\u2018No, it is the footstep of a man, for it is heavy; but I can hear the\nfootsteps of the wolves also.\u2019\n\nHe had no sooner done speaking than somebody rapped three times, but\nwith no great loudness.\n\n\u2018I will go and open, for he must be very cold.\u2019\n\n\u2018Do not open, for it may be a man-wolf, and he may devour us all.\u2019\n\nBut the boy had already drawn back the heavy wooden bolt, and all the\nfaces, most of them a little pale, turned towards the slowly-opening\ndoor.\n\n\u2018He has beads and a cross, he cannot be a man-wolf,\u2019 said the child,\nas a man with the snow heavy on his long, ragged beard, and on the\nmatted hair, that fell over his shoulders and nearly to his waist, and\ndropping from the tattered cloak that but half-covered his withered\nbrown body, came in and looked from face to face with mild, ecstatic\neyes. Standing some way from the fire, and with eyes that had rested at\nlast upon the Abbot Malathgeneus, he cried out, \u2018O blessed abbot, let\nme come to the fire and warm myself and dry the snow from my beard and\nmy hair and my cloak; that I may not die of the cold of the mountains\nand anger the Lord with a wilful martyrdom.\u2019\n\n\u2018Come to the fire,\u2019 said the abbot, \u2018and warm yourself, and eat the\nfood the boy Olioll will bring you. It is sad indeed that any for whom\nChrist has died should be as poor as you.\u2019\n\nThe man sat over the fire, and Olioll took away his now dripping cloak\nand laid meat and bread and wine before him; but he would eat only of\nthe bread, and he put away the wine, asking for water. When his beard\nand hair had begun to dry a little and his limbs had ceased to shiver\nwith the cold, he spoke again.\n\n\u2018O blessed abbot, have pity on the poor, have pity on a beggar who has\ntrodden the bare world this many a year, and give me some labour to do,\nthe hardest there is, for I am the poorest of God\u2019s poor.\u2019\n\nThen the Brothers discussed together what work they could put him to,\nand at first to little purpose, for there was no labour that had not\nfound its labourer in that busy community; but at last one remembered\nthat Brother Bald Fox, whose business it was to turn the great quern in\nthe quern-house, for he was too stupid for anything else, was getting\nold for so heavy a labour; and so the beggar was put to the quern from\nthe morrow.\n\nThe cold passed away, and the spring grew to summer, and the quern\nwas never idle, nor was it turned with grudging labour, for when any\npassed the beggar was heard singing as he drove the handle round. The\nlast gloom, too, had passed from that happy community, for Olioll, who\nhad always been stupid and unteachable, grew clever, and this was the\nmore miraculous because it had come of a sudden. One day he had been\neven duller than usual, and was beaten and told to know his lesson\nbetter on the morrow or be sent into a lower class among little boys\nwho would make a joke of him. He had gone out in tears, and when he\ncame the next day, although his stupidity, born of a mind that would\nlisten to every wandering sound and brood upon every wandering light,\nhad so long been the byword of the school, he knew his lesson so well\nthat he passed to the head of the class, and from that day was the best\nof scholars. At first Brother Dove thought this was an answer to his\nown prayers to the Virgin, and took it for a great proof of the love\nshe bore him; but when many far more fervid prayers had failed to add a\nsingle wheatsheaf to the harvest, he began to think that the child was\ntrafficking with bards, or druids, or witches, and resolved to follow\nand watch. He had told his thought to the abbot, who bid him come to\nhim the moment he hit the truth; and the next day, which was a Sunday,\nhe stood in the path when the abbot and the Brothers were coming from\nvespers, with their white habits upon them, and took the abbot by the\nhabit and said, \u2018The beggar is of the greatest of saints and of the\nworkers of miracle. I followed Olioll but now, and by his slow steps\nand his bent head I saw that the weariness of his stupidity was over\nhim, and when he came to the little wood by the quern-house I knew by\nthe path broken in the under-wood and by the foot-marks in the muddy\nplaces that he had gone that way many times. I hid behind a bush where\nthe path doubled upon itself at a sloping place, and understood by the\ntears in his eyes that his stupidity was too old and his wisdom too new\nto save him from terror of the rod. When he was in the quern-house I\nwent to the window and looked in, and the birds came down and perched\nupon my head and my shoulders, for they are not timid in that holy\nplace; and a wolf passed by, his right side shaking my habit, his left\nthe leaves of a bush. Olioll opened his book and turned to the page\nI had told him to learn, and began to cry, and the beggar sat beside\nhim and comforted him until he fell asleep. When his sleep was of the\ndeepest the beggar knelt down and prayed aloud, and said, \u201cO Thou Who\ndwellest beyond the stars, show forth Thy power as at the beginning,\nand let knowledge sent from Thee awaken in his mind, wherein is nothing\nfrom the world, that the nine orders of angels may glorify Thy name\u201d;\nand then a light broke out of the air and wrapped Aodh, and I smelt the\nbreath of roses. I stirred a little in my wonder, and the beggar turned\nand saw me, and, bending low, said, \u201cO Brother Dove, if I have done\nwrong, forgive me, and I will do penance. It was my pity moved me\u201d;\nbut I was afraid and I ran away, and did not stop running until I came\nhere.\u2019\n\nThen all the Brothers began talking together, one saying it was such\nand such a saint, and one that it was not he but another; and one that\nit was none of these, for they were still in their brotherhoods, but\nthat it was such and such a one; and the talk was as near to quarreling\nas might be in that gentle community, for each would claim so great\na saint for his native province. At last the abbot said, \u2018He is none\nthat you have named, for at Easter I had greeting from all, and each\nwas in his brotherhood; but he is Aengus the Lover of God, and the\nfirst of those who have gone to live in the wild places and among\nthe wild beasts. Ten years ago he felt the burden of many labours\nin a brotherhood under the Hill of Patrick and went into the forest\nthat he might labour only with song to the Lord; but the fame of his\nholiness brought many thousands to his cell, so that a little pride\nclung to a soul from which all else had been driven. Nine years ago he\ndressed himself in rags, and from that day none has seen him, unless,\nindeed, it be true that he has been seen living among the wolves on the\nmountains and eating the grass of the fields. Let us go to him and\nbow down before him; for at last, after long seeking, he has found the\nnothing that is God; and bid him lead us in the pathway he has trodden.\nThey passed in their white habits along the beaten path in the wood,\nthe acolytes swinging their censers before them, and the abbot, with\nhis crozier studded with precious stones, in the midst of the incense;\nand came before the quern-house and knelt down and began to pray,\nawaiting the moment when the child would wake, and the Saint cease\nfrom his watch and come to look at the sun going down into the unknown\ndarkness, as his way was.\n\n\n    OF COSTELLO THE PROUD, OF OONA THE DAUGHTER OF DERMOTT\n    AND OF THE BITTER TONGUE.\n\nCOSTELLO had come up from the fields and lay upon the ground before\nthe door of his square tower, resting his head upon his hands and\nlooking at the sunset, and considering the chances of the weather.\nThough the customs of Elizabeth and James, now going out of fashion\nin England, had begun to prevail among the gentry, he still wore the\ngreat cloak of the native Irish; and the sensitive outlines of his face\nand the greatness of his indolent body had a commingling of pride and\nstrength which belonged to a simpler age. His eyes wandered from the\nsunset to where the long white road lost itself over the south-western\nhorizon and to a horseman who toiled slowly up the hill. A few more\nminutes and the horseman was near enough for his little and shapeless\nbody, his long Irish cloak, and the dilapidated bagpipes hanging from\nhis shoulders, and the rough-haired garron under him, to be seen\ndistinctly in the grey dusk. So soon as he had come within earshot, he\nbegan crying: \u2018Is it sleeping you are, Tumaus Costello, when better men\nbreak their hearts on the great white roads? Get up out of that, proud\nTumaus, for I have news! Get up out of that, you great omadhaun! Shake\nyourself out of the earth, you great weed of a man!\u2019\n\nCostello had risen to his feet, and as the piper came up to him seized\nhim by the neck of his jacket, and lifting him out of his saddle threw\nhim on to the ground.\n\n\u2018Let me alone, let me alone,\u2019 said the other, but Costello still shook\nhim.\n\n\u2018I have news from Dermott\u2019s daughter, Winny.\u2019 The great fingers were\nloosened, and the piper rose gasping.\n\n\u2018Why did you not tell me,\u2019 said Costello, \u2018that you came from her? You\nmight have railed your fill.\u2019\n\n\u2018I have come from her, but I will not speak unless I am paid for my\nshaking.\u2019\n\nCostello fumbled at the bag in which he carried his money, and it was\nsome time before it would open, for the hand that had overcome many men\nshook with fear and hope. \u2018Here is all the money in my bag,\u2019 he said,\ndropping a stream of French and Spanish money into the hand of the\npiper, who bit the coins before he would answer.\n\n\u2018That is right, that is a fair price, but I will not speak till I have\ngood protection, for if the Dermotts lay their hands upon me in any\nboreen after sundown, or in Cool-a-vin by day, I will be left to rot\namong the nettles of a ditch, or hung on the great sycamore, where they\nhung the horse-thieves last Beltaine four years.\u2019 And while he spoke he\ntied the reins of his garron to a bar of rusty iron that was mortared\ninto the wall.\n\n\u2018I will make you my piper and my body-servant,\u2019 said Costello, \u2018and no\nman dare lay hands upon the man, or the goat, or the horse, or the dog\nthat is Tumaus Costello\u2019s.\u2019\n\n\u2018And I will only tell my message,\u2019 said the other, flinging the saddle\non the ground, \u2018in the corner of the chimney with a noggin in my hand,\nand a jug of the Brew of the Little Pot beside me, for though I am\nragged and empty, my forebears were well clothed and full until their\nhouse was burnt and their cattle harried seven centuries ago by the\nDillons, whom I shall yet see on the hob of hell, and they screeching\u2019;\nand while he spoke the little eyes gleamed and the thin hands clenched.\n\nCostello led him into the great rush-strewn hall, where were none of\nthe comforts which had begun to grow common among the gentry, but a\nfeudal gauntness and bareness, and pointed to the bench in the great\nchimney; and when he had sat down, filled up a horn noggin and set it\non the bench beside him, and set a great black jack of leather beside\nthe noggin, and lit a torch that slanted out from a ring in the wall,\nhis hands trembling the while; and then turned towards him and said:\n\u2018Will Dermott\u2019s daughter come to me, Duallach, son of Daly?\u2019\n\n\u2018Dermott\u2019s daughter will not come to you, for her father has set women\nto watch her, but she bid me tell you that this day sennight will be\nthe eve of St. John and the night of her betrothal to Namara of the\nLake, and she would have you there that, when they bid her drink to him\nshe loves best, as the way is, she may drink to you, Tumaus Costello,\nand let all know where her heart is, and how little of gladness is in\nher marriage; and I myself bid you go with good men about you, for I\nsaw the horse-thieves with my own eyes, and they dancing the \u201cBlue\nPigeon\u201d in the air.\u2019 And then he held the now empty noggin towards\nCostello, his hand closing round it like the claw of a bird, and cried:\n\u2018Fill my noggin again, for I would the day had come when all the water\nin the world is to shrink into a periwinkle-shell, that I might drink\nnothing but Poteen.\u2019\n\nFinding that Costello made no reply, but sat in a dream, he burst out:\n\u2018Fill my noggin, I tell you, for no Costello is so great in the world\nthat he should not wait upon a Daly, even though the Daly travel the\nroad with his pipes and the Costello have a bare hill, an empty house,\na horse, a herd of goats, and a handful of cows.\u2019\n\n\u2018Praise the Dalys if you will,\u2019 said Costello as he filled the noggin,\n\u2018for you have brought me a kind word from my love.\u2019\n\nFor the next few days Duallach went hither and thither trying to raise\na bodyguard, and every man he met had some story of Costello, how he\nkilled the wrestler when but a boy by so straining at the belt that\nwent about them both that he broke the big wrestler\u2019s back; how when\nsomewhat older he dragged fierce horses through a ford in the Unchion\nfor a wager; how when he came to manhood he broke the steel horseshoe\nin Mayo; how he drove many men before him through Rushy Meadow at\nDrum-an-air because of a malevolent song they had about his poverty;\nand of many another deed of his strength and pride; but he could find\nnone who would trust themselves with any so passionate and poor in a\nquarrel with careful and wealthy persons like Dermott of the Sheep and\nNamara of the Lake.\n\nThen Costello went out himself, and after listening to many excuses\nand in many places, brought in a big half-witted fellow, who followed\nhim like a dog, a farm-labourer who worshipped him for his strength,\na fat farmer whose forefathers had served his family, and a couple of\nlads who looked after his goats and cows; and marshalled them before\nthe fire in the empty hall. They had brought with them their stout\ncudgels, and Costello gave them an old pistol apiece, and kept them\nall night drinking Spanish ale and shooting at a white turnip which\nhe pinned against the wall with a skewer. Duallach of the Pipes sat\non the bench in the chimney playing \u2018The Green Bunch of Rushes,\u2019 \u2018The\nUnchion Stream,\u2019 and \u2018The Princes of Breffeny\u2019 on his old pipes, and\nrailing now at the appearance of the shooters, now at their clumsy\nshooting, and now at Costello because he had no better servants. The\nlabourer, the half-witted fellow, the farmer and the lads were all well\naccustomed to Duallach\u2019s railing, for it was as inseparable from wake\nor wedding as the squealing of his pipes, but they wondered at the\nforbearance of Costello, who seldom came either to wake or wedding, and\nif he had would scarce have been patient with a scolding piper.\n\nOn the next evening they set out for Cool-a-vin, Costello riding a\ntolerable horse and carrying a sword, the others upon rough-haired\ngarrons, and with their stout cudgels under their arms. As they rode\nover the bogs and in the boreens among the hills they could see\nfire answering fire from hill to hill, from horizon to horizon, and\neverywhere groups who danced in the red light on the turf, celebrating\nthe bridal of life and fire. When they came to Dermott\u2019s house they\nsaw before the door an unusually large group of the very poor, dancing\nabout a fire, in the midst of which was a blazing cartwheel, that\ncircular dance which is so ancient that the gods, long dwindled to\nbe but fairies, dance no other in their secret places. From the door\nand through the long loop-holes on either side came the pale light of\ncandles and the sound of many feet dancing a dance of Elizabeth and\nJames.\n\nThey tied their horses to bushes, for the number so tied already showed\nthat the stables were full, and shoved their way through a crowd of\npeasants who stood about the door, and went into the great hall where\nthe dance was. The labourer, the half-witted fellow, the farmer and the\ntwo lads mixed with a group of servants who were looking on from an\nalcove, and Duallach sat with the pipers on their bench, but Costello\nmade his way through the dancers to where Dermott of the Sheep stood\nwith Namara of the Lake pouring Poteen out of a porcelain jug into horn\nnoggins with silver rims.\n\n\u2018Tumaus Costello,\u2019 said the old man, \u2018you have done a good deed\nto forget what has been, and to fling away enmity and come to the\nbetrothal of my daughter to Namara of the Lake.\u2019\n\n\u2018I come,\u2019 answered Costello, \u2018because when in the time of Costello De\nAngalo my forebears overcame your forebears and afterwards made peace,\na compact was made that a Costello might go with his body-servants and\nhis piper to every feast given by a Dermott for ever, and a Dermott\nwith his body-servants and his piper to every feast given by a Costello\nfor ever.\u2019\n\n\u2018If you come with evil thoughts and armed men,\u2019 said the son of Dermott\nflushing, \u2018no matter how strong your hands to wrestle and to swing the\nsword, it shall go badly with you, for some of my wife\u2019s clan have\ncome out of Mayo, and my three brothers and their servants have come\ndown from the Ox Mountains\u2019; and while he spoke he kept his hand inside\nhis coat as though upon the handle of a weapon.\n\n\u2018No,\u2019 answered Costello, \u2018I but come to dance a farewell dance with\nyour daughter.\u2019\n\nDermott drew his hand out of his coat and went over to a tall pale girl\nwho was now standing but a little way off with her mild eyes fixed upon\nthe ground.\n\n\u2018Costello has come to dance a farewell dance, for he knows that you\nwill never see one another again.\u2019\n\nThe girl lifted her eyes and gazed at Costello, and in her gaze was\nthat trust of the humble in the proud, the gentle in the violent,\nwhich has been the tragedy of woman from the beginning. Costello led\nher among the dancers, and they were soon drawn into the rhythm of the\nPavane, that stately dance which, with the Saraband, the Gallead, and\nthe Morrice dances, had driven out, among all but the most Irish of\nthe gentry, the quicker rhythms of the verse-interwoven, pantomimic\ndances of earlier days; and while they danced there came over them the\nunutterable melancholy, the weariness with the world, the poignant and\nbitter pity for one another, the vague anger against common hopes and\nfears, which is the exultation of love. And when a dance ended and the\npipers laid down their pipes and lifted their horn noggins, they stood\na little from the others waiting pensively and silently for the dance\nto begin again and the fire in their hearts to leap up and to wrap them\nanew; and so they danced and danced Pavane and Saraband and Gallead and\nMorrice through the night long, and many stood still to watch them,\nand the peasants came about the door and peered in, as though they\nunderstood that they would gather their children\u2019s children about them\nlong hence, and tell how they had seen Costello dance with Dermott\u2019s\ndaughter Oona, and become by the telling themselves a portion of\nancient romance; but through all the dancing and piping Namara of the\nLake went hither and thither talking loudly and making foolish jokes\nthat all might seem well with him, and old Dermott of the Sheep grew\nredder and redder, and looked oftener and oftener at the doorway to see\nif the candles there grew yellow in the dawn.\n\nAt last he saw that the moment to end had come, and, in a pause after a\ndance, cried out from where the horn noggins stood that his daughter\nwould now drink the cup of betrothal; then Oona came over to where he\nwas, and the guests stood round in a half-circle, Costello close to\nthe wall to the right, and the piper, the labourer, the farmer, the\nhalf-witted man and the two farm lads close behind him. The old man\ntook out of a niche in the wall the silver cup from which her mother\nand her mother\u2019s mother had drunk the toasts of their betrothals, and\npoured Poteen out of a porcelain jug and handed the cup to his daughter\nwith the customary words, \u2018Drink to him whom you love the best.\u2019\n\nShe held the cup to her lips for a moment, and then said in a clear\nsoft voice: \u2018I drink to my true love, Tumaus Costello.\u2019\n\nAnd then the cup rolled over and over on the ground, ringing like\na bell, for the old man had struck her in the face and the cup had\nfallen, and there was a deep silence.\n\nThere were many of Namara\u2019s people among the servants now come out of\nthe alcove, and one of them, a story-teller and poet, a last remnant of\nthe bardic order, who had a chair and a platter in Namara\u2019s kitchen,\ndrew a French knife out of his girdle and made as though he would\nstrike at Costello, but in a moment a blow had hurled him to the\nground, his shoulder sending the cup rolling and ringing again. The\nclick of steel had followed quickly, had not there come a muttering and\nshouting from the peasants about the door and from those crowding up\nbehind them; and all knew that these were no children of Queen\u2019s Irish\nor friendly Namaras and Dermotts, but of the wild Irish about Lough\nGara and Lough Cara, who rowed their skin coracles, and had masses\nof hair over their eyes, and left the right arms of their children\nunchristened that they might give the stouter blows, and swore only by\nSt. Atty and sun and moon, and worshipped beauty and strength more than\nSt. Atty or sun and moon.\n\nCostello\u2019s hand had rested upon the handle of his sword and his\nknuckles had grown white, but now he drew it away, and, followed by\nthose who were with him, strode towards the door, the dancers giving\nway before him, the most angrily and slowly, and with glances at the\nmuttering and shouting peasants, but some gladly and quickly, because\nthe glory of his fame was over him. He passed through the fierce\nand friendly peasant faces, and came where his good horse and the\nrough-haired garrons were tied to bushes; and mounted and bade his\nungainly bodyguard mount also and ride into the narrow boreen. When\nthey had gone a little way, Duallach, who rode last, turned towards\nthe house where a little group of Dermotts and Namaras stood next to a\nmore numerous group of countrymen, and cried: \u2018Dermott, you deserve to\nbe as you are this hour, a lantern without a candle, a purse without a\npenny, a sheep without wool, for your hand was ever niggardly to piper\nand fiddler and story-teller and to poor travelling people.\u2019 He had\nnot done before the three old Dermotts from the Ox Mountains had run\ntowards their horses, and old Dermott himself had caught the bridle of\na garron of the Namaras and was calling to the others to follow him;\nand many blows and many deaths had been had not the countrymen caught\nup still glowing sticks from the ashes of the fires and hurled them\namong the horses with loud cries, making all plunge and rear, and some\nbreak from those who held them, the whites of their eyes gleaming in\nthe dawn.\n\nFor the next few weeks Costello had no lack of news of Oona, for now\na woman selling eggs or fowls, and now a man or a woman on pilgrimage\nto the Well of the Rocks, would tell him how his love had fallen ill\nthe day after St. John\u2019s Eve, and how she was a little better or a\nlittle worse, as it might be; and though he looked to his horses and\nhis cows and goats as usual, the common and uncomely, the dust upon the\nroads, the songs of men returning from fairs and wakes, men playing\ncards in the corners of fields on Sundays and Saints\u2019 Days, the rumours\nof battles and changes in the great world, the deliberate purposes of\nthose about him, troubled him with an inexplicable trouble; and the\ncountry people still remember how when night had fallen he would bid\nDuallach of the Pipes tell, to the chirping of the crickets, \u2018The Son\nof Apple,\u2019 \u2018The Beauty of the World,\u2019 \u2018The King of Ireland\u2019s Son,\u2019 or\nsome other of those traditional tales which were as much a piper\u2019s\nbusiness as \u2018The Green Bunch of Rushes,\u2019 \u2018The Unchion Stream,\u2019 or \u2018The\nChiefs of Breffeny\u2019; and while the boundless and phantasmal world of\nthe legends was a-building, would abandon himself to the dreams of his\nsorrow.\n\nDuallach would often pause to tell how some clan of the wild Irish had\ndescended from an incomparable King of the Blue Belt, or Warrior of the\nOzier Wattle, or to tell with many curses how all the strangers and\nmost of the Queen\u2019s Irish were the seed of the misshapen and horned\nPeople from Under the Sea or of the servile and creeping Ferbolg;\nbut Costello cared only for the love sorrows, and no matter whither\nthe stories wandered, whether to the Isle of the Red Lough, where the\nblessed are, or to the malign country of the Hag of the East, Oona\nalone endured their shadowy hardships; for it was she and no king\u2019s\ndaughter of old who was hidden in the steel tower under the water\nwith the folds of the Worm of Nine Eyes round and about her prison;\nand it was she who won by seven years of service the right to deliver\nfrom hell all she could carry, and carried away multitudes clinging\nwith worn fingers to the hem of her dress; and it was she who endured\ndumbness for a year because of the little thorn of enchantment the\nfairies had thrust into her tongue; and it was a lock of her hair,\ncoiled in a little carved box, which gave so great a light that men\nthreshed by it from sundown to sunrise, and awoke so great a wonder\nthat kings spent years in wandering or fell before unknown armies in\nseeking to discover her hiding-place; for there was no beauty in the\nworld but hers, no tragedy in the world but hers: and when at last\nthe voice of the piper, grown gentle with the wisdom of old romance,\nwas silent, and his rheumatic steps had toiled upstairs and to bed,\nand Costello had dipped his fingers into the little delf font of\nholy water and begun to pray to Mary of the Seven Sorrows, the blue\neyes and star-covered dress of the painting in the chapel faded from\nhis imagination, and the brown eyes and homespun dress of Dermott\u2019s\ndaughter Winny came in their stead; for there was no tenderness in\nthe world but hers. He was of those ascetics of passion who keep\ntheir hearts pure for love or for hatred as other men for God, for\nMary and for the Saints, and who, when the hour of their visitation\narrives, come to the Divine Essence by the bitter tumult, the Garden\nof Gethsemane, and the desolate Rood ordained for immortal passions in\nmortal hearts.\n\nOne day a serving-man rode up to Costello, who was helping his two lads\nto reap a meadow, and gave him a letter, and rode away without a word;\nand the letter contained these words in English: \u2018Tumaus Costello,\nmy daughter is very ill. The wise woman from Knock-na-Sidhe has seen\nher, and says she will die unless you come to her. I therefore bid you\ncome to her, whose peace you stole by treachery.\u2014DERMOTT, THE SON OF\nDERMOTT.\u2019\n\nCostello threw down his scythe, and sent one of the lads for Duallach,\nwho had become woven into his mind with Oona, and himself saddled his\ngreat horse and Duallach\u2019s garron.\n\nWhen they came to Dermott\u2019s house it was late afternoon, and Lough\nGara lay down below them, blue, mirror-like, and deserted; and though\nthey had seen, when at a distance, dark figures moving about the door,\nthe house appeared not less deserted than the Lough. The door stood\nhalf open, and Costello knocked upon it again and again, so that a\nnumber of lake gulls flew up out of the grass and circled screaming\nover his head, but there was no answer.\n\n\u2018There is no one here,\u2019 said Duallach, \u2018for Dermott of the Sheep is\ntoo proud to welcome Costello the Proud,\u2019 and he threw the door open,\nand they saw a ragged, dirty, very old woman, who sat upon the floor\nleaning against the wall. Costello knew that it was Bridget Delaney,\na deaf and dumb beggar; and she, when she saw him, stood up and made\na sign to him to follow, and led him and his companion up a stair and\ndown a long corridor to a closed door. She pushed the door open and\nwent a little way off and sat down as before; Duallach sat upon the\nground also, but close to the door, and Costello went and gazed upon\nWinny sleeping upon a bed. He sat upon a chair beside her and waited,\nand a long time passed and still she slept on, and then Duallach\nmotioned to him through the door to wake her, but he hushed his\nvery breath, that she might sleep on, for his heart was full of that\nungovernable pity which makes the fading heart of the lover a shadow\nof the divine heart. Presently he turned to Duallach and said: \u2018It is\nnot right that I stay here where there are none of her kindred, for\nthe common people are always ready to blame the beautiful.\u2019 And then\nthey went down and stood at the door of the house and waited, but the\nevening wore on and no one came.\n\n\u2018It was a foolish man that called you Proud Costello,\u2019 Duallach cried\nat last; \u2018had he seen you waiting and waiting where they left none but\na beggar to welcome you, it is Humble Costello he would have called\nyou.\u2019\n\nThen Costello mounted and Duallach mounted, but when they had ridden a\nlittle way Costello tightened the reins and made his horse stand still.\nMany minutes passed, and then Duallach cried: \u2018It is no wonder that\nyou fear to offend Dermott of the Sheep, for he has many brothers and\nfriends, and though he is old, he is a strong man and ready with his\nhands, and he is of the Queen\u2019s Irish, and the enemies of the Gael are\nupon his side.\u2019\n\nAnd Costello answered flushing and looking towards the house: \u2018I swear\nby the Mother of God that I will never return there again if they do\nnot send after me before I pass the ford in the Brown River,\u2019 and he\nrode on, but so very slowly that the sun went down and the bats began\nto fly over the bogs. When he came to the river he lingered awhile upon\nthe bank among the flowers of the flag, but presently rode out into the\nmiddle and stopped his horse in a foaming shallow. Duallach, however,\ncrossed over and waited on a further bank above a deeper place. After a\ngood while Duallach cried out again, and this time very bitterly: \u2018It\nwas a fool who begot you and a fool who bore you, and they are fools of\nall fools who say you come of an old and noble stock, for you come of\nwhey-faced beggars who travelled from door to door, bowing to gentles\nand to serving-men.\u2019\n\nWith bent head, Costello rode through the river and stood beside him,\nand would have spoken had not hoofs clattered on the further bank and a\nhorseman splashed towards them. It was a serving-man of Dermott\u2019s, and\nhe said, speaking breathlessly like one who had ridden hard: \u2018Tumaus\nCostello, I come to bid you again to Dermott\u2019s house. When you had\ngone, his daughter Winny awoke and called your name, for you had been\nin her dreams. Bridget Delaney the Dummy saw her lips move and the\ntrouble upon her, and came where we were hiding in the wood above the\nhouse and took Dermott of the Sheep by the coat and brought him to his\ndaughter. He saw the trouble upon her, and bid me ride his own horse to\nbring you the quicker.\u2019\n\nThen Costello turned towards the piper Duallach Daly, and taking him\nabout the waist lifted him out of the saddle and hurled him against a\ngrey rock that rose up out of the river, so that he fell lifeless into\nthe deep place, and the waters swept over the tongue which God had made\nbitter, that there might be a story in men\u2019s ears in after time. Then\nplunging his spurs into the horse, he rode away furiously toward the\nnorth-west, along the edge of the river, and did not pause until he\ncame to another and smoother ford, and saw the rising moon mirrored in\nthe water. He paused for a moment irresolute, and then rode into the\nford and on over the Ox Mountains, and down towards the sea; his eyes\nalmost continually resting upon the moon which glimmered in the dimness\nlike a great white rose hung on the lattice of some boundless and\nphantasmal world. But now his horse, long dark with sweat and breathing\nhard, for he kept spurring it to an extreme speed, fell heavily,\nhurling him into the grass at the road-side. He tried to make it stand\nup, and failing in this, went on alone towards the moonlight; and came\nto the sea and saw a schooner lying there at anchor. Now that he could\ngo no further because of the sea, he found that he was very tired and\nthe night very cold, and went into a shebeen close to the shore and\nthrew himself down upon a bench. The room was full of Spanish and Irish\nsailors who had just smuggled a cargo of wine and ale, and were waiting\na favourable wind to set out again. A Spaniard offered him a drink in\nbad Gaelic. He drank it greedily and began talking wildly and rapidly.\n\nFor some three weeks the wind blew inshore or with too great violence,\nand the sailors stayed drinking and talking and playing cards, and\nCostello stayed with them, sleeping upon a bench in the shebeen, and\ndrinking and talking and playing more than any. He soon lost what\nlittle money he had, and then his horse, which some one had brought\nfrom the mountain boreen, to a Spaniard, who sold it to a farmer from\nthe mountains, and then his long cloak and his spurs and his boots of\nsoft leather. At last a gentle wind blew towards Spain, and the crew\nrowed out to their schooner, singing Gaelic and Spanish songs, and\nlifted the anchor, and in a little while the white sails had dropped\nunder the horizon. Then Costello turned homeward, his life gaping\nbefore him, and walked all day, coming in the early evening to the road\nthat went from near Lough Gara to the southern edge of Lough Cay. Here\nhe overtook a great crowd of peasants and farmers, who were walking\nvery slowly after two priests and a group of well-dressed persons,\ncertain of whom were carrying a coffin. He stopped an old man and\nasked whose burying it was and whose people they were, and the old man\nanswered: \u2018It is the burying of Oona, Dermott\u2019s daughter, and we are\nthe Namaras and the Dermotts and their following, and you are Tumaus\nCostello who murdered her.\u2019\n\nCostello went on towards the head of the procession, passing men who\nlooked at him with fierce eyes, and only vaguely understanding what\nhe had heard, for now that he had lost the understanding that belongs\nto good health, it seemed impossible that a gentleness and a beauty\nwhich had been so long the world\u2019s heart could pass away. Presently he\nstopped and asked again whose burying it was, and a man answered: \u2018We\nare carrying Dermott\u2019s daughter Winny whom you murdered, to be buried\nin the island of the Holy Trinity,\u2019 and the man stooped and picked up\na stone and cast it at Costello, striking him on the cheek and making\nthe blood flow out over his face. Costello went on scarcely feeling the\nblow, and coming to those about the coffin, shouldered his way into the\nmidst of them, and laying his hand upon the coffin, asked in a loud\nvoice: \u2018Who is in this coffin?\u2019\n\nThe three old Dermotts from the Ox Mountains caught up stones and bid\nthose about them do the same; and he was driven from the road, covered\nwith wounds, and but for the priests would surely have been killed.\n\nWhen the procession had passed on, Costello began to follow again, and\nsaw from a distance the coffin laid upon a large boat, and those about\nit get into other boats, and the boats move slowly over the water to\nInsula Trinitatis; and after a time he saw the boats return and their\npassengers mingle with the crowd upon the bank, and all disperse by\nmany roads and boreens. It seemed to him that Winny was somewhere on\nthe island smiling gently as of old, and when all had gone he swam\nin the way the boats had been rowed and found the new-made grave\nbeside the ruined Abbey of the Holy Trinity, and threw himself upon\nit, calling to Oona to come to him. Above him the square ivy leaves\ntrembled, and all about him white moths moved over white flowers, and\nsweet odours drifted through the dim air.\n\nHe lay there all that night and through the day after, from time to\ntime calling her to come to him, but when the third night came he had\nforgotten, worn out with hunger and sorrow, that her body lay in the\nearth beneath; but only knew she was somewhere near and would not come\nto him.\n\nJust before dawn, the hour when the peasants hear his ghostly voice\ncrying out, his pride awoke and he called loudly: \u2018Winny, daughter of\nDermott of the Sheep, if you do not come to me I will go and never\nreturn to the island of the Holy Trinity,\u2019 and before his voice had\ndied away a cold and whirling wind had swept over the island and he saw\nmany figures rushing past, women of the Sidhe with crowns of silver and\ndim floating drapery; and then Oona, but no longer smiling gently, for\nshe passed him swiftly and angrily, and as she passed struck him upon\nthe face crying: \u2018Then go and never return.\u2019\n\nHe would have followed, and was calling out her name, when the whole\nglimmering company rose up into the air, and, rushing together in the\nshape of a great silvery rose, faded into the ashen dawn.\n\nCostello got up from the grave, understanding nothing but that he had\nmade his beloved angry and that she wished him to go, and wading out\ninto the lake, began to swim. He swam on and on, but his limbs were too\nweary to keep him afloat, and her anger was heavy about him, and when\nhe had gone a little way he sank without a struggle, like a man passing\ninto sleep and dreams.\n\nThe next day a poor fisherman found him among the reeds upon the lake\nshore, lying upon the white lake sand with his arms flung out as\nthough he lay upon a rood, and carried him to his own house. And the\nvery poor lamented over him and sang the keen, and when the time had\ncome, laid him in the Abbey on Insula Trinitatis with only the ruined\naltar between him and Dermott\u2019s daughter, and planted above them two\nash-trees that in after days wove their branches together and mingled\ntheir trembling leaves.\n\n\n\n\nROSA ALCHEMICA\n\n\n    O blessed and happy he, who knowing the mysteries\n    of the gods, sanctifies his life, and purifies his\n    soul, celebrating orgies in the mountains with holy\n    purifications.\u2014_Euripides._\n\n\n\n\nROSA ALCHEMICA\n\n\nI\n\nIT is now more than ten years since I met, for the last time, Michael\nRobartes, and for the first time and the last time his friends\nand fellow students; and witnessed his and their tragic end, and\nendured those strange experiences, which have changed me so that my\nwritings have grown less popular and less intelligible, and driven\nme almost to the verge of taking the habit of St. Dominic. I had\njust published _Rosa Alchemica_, a little work on the Alchemists,\nsomewhat in the manner of Sir Thomas Browne, and had received many\nletters from believers in the arcane sciences, upbraiding what they\ncalled my timidity, for they could not believe so evident sympathy\nbut the sympathy of the artist, which is half pity, for everything\nwhich has moved men\u2019s hearts in any age. I had discovered, early in\nmy researches, that their doctrine was no merely chemical phantasy,\nbut a philosophy they applied to the world, to the elements and to\nman himself; and that they sought to fashion gold out of common metals\nmerely as part of an universal transmutation of all things into some\ndivine and imperishable substance; and this enabled me to make my\nlittle book a fanciful reverie over the transmutation of life into art,\nand a cry of measureless desire for a world made wholly of essences.\n\nI was sitting dreaming of what I had written, in my house in one of\nthe old parts of Dublin; a house my ancestors had made almost famous\nthrough their part in the politics of the city and their friendships\nwith the famous men of their generations; and was feeling an unwonted\nhappiness at having at last accomplished a long-cherished design, and\nmade my rooms an expression of this favourite doctrine. The portraits,\nof more historical than artistic interest, had gone; and tapestry, full\nof the blue and bronze of peacocks, fell over the doors, and shut out\nall history and activity untouched with beauty and peace; and now when\nI looked at my Crevelli and pondered on the rose in the hand of the\nVirgin, wherein the form was so delicate and precise that it seemed\nmore like a thought than a flower, or at the grey dawn and rapturous\nfaces of my Francesca, I knew all a Christian\u2019s ecstasy without his\nslavery to rule and custom; when I pondered over the antique bronze\ngods and goddesses, which I had mortgaged my house to buy, I had all a\npagan\u2019s delight in various beauty and without his terror at sleepless\ndestiny and his labour with many sacrifices; and I had only to go to\nmy bookshelf, where every book was bound in leather, stamped with\nintricate ornament, and of a carefully chosen colour: Shakespeare\nin the orange of the glory of the world, Dante in the dull red of\nhis anger, Milton in the blue grey of his formal calm; and I could\nexperience what I would of human passions without their bitterness and\nwithout satiety. I had gathered about me all gods because I believed\nin none, and experienced every pleasure because I gave myself to none,\nbut held myself apart, individual, indissoluble, a mirror of polished\nsteel: I looked in the triumph of this imagination at the birds of\nHera, glowing in the firelight as though they were wrought of jewels;\nand to my mind, for which symbolism was a necessity, they seemed the\ndoorkeepers of my world, shutting out all that was not of as affluent\na beauty as their own; and for a moment I thought as I had thought\nin so many other moments, that it was possible to rob life of every\nbitterness except the bitterness of death; and then a thought which had\nfollowed this thought, time after time, filled me with a passionate\nsorrow. All those forms: that Madonna with her brooding purity, those\nrapturous faces singing in the morning light, those bronze divinities\nwith their passionless dignity, those wild shapes rushing from despair\nto despair, belonged to a divine world wherein I had no part; and every\nexperience, however profound, every perception, however exquisite,\nwould bring me the bitter dream of a limitless energy I could never\nknow, and even in my most perfect moment I would be two selves, the\none watching with heavy eyes the other\u2019s moment of content. I had\nheaped about me the gold born in the crucibles of others; but the\nsupreme dream of the alchemist, the transmutation of the weary heart\ninto a weariless spirit, was as far from me as, I doubted not, it had\nbeen from him also. I turned to my last purchase, a set of alchemical\napparatus which, the dealer in the Rue le Peletier had assured me,\nonce belonged to Raymond Lully, and as I joined the _alembic_ to the\n_athanor_ and laid the _lavacrum maris_ at their side, I understood the\nalchemical doctrine, that all beings, divided from the great deep where\nspirits wander, one and yet a multitude, are weary; and sympathized,\nin the pride of my connoisseurship, with the consuming thirst for\ndestruction which made the alchemist veil under his symbols of lions\nand dragons, of eagles and ravens, of dew and of nitre, a search for an\nessence which would dissolve all mortal things. I repeated to myself\nthe ninth key of Basilius Valentinus, in which he compares the fire\nof the last day to the fire of the alchemist, and the world to the\nalchemist\u2019s furnace, and would have us know that all must be dissolved\nbefore the divine substance, material gold or immaterial ecstasy,\nawake. I had dissolved indeed the mortal world and lived amid immortal\nessences, but had obtained no miraculous ecstasy. As I thought of these\nthings, I drew aside the curtains and looked out into the darkness, and\nit seemed to my troubled fancy that all those little points of light\nfilling the sky were the furnaces of innumerable divine alchemists, who\nlabour continually, turning lead into gold, weariness into ecstasy,\nbodies into souls, the darkness into God; and at their perfect labour\nmy mortality grew heavy, and I cried out, as so many dreamers and men\nof letters in our age have cried, for the birth of that elaborate\nspiritual beauty which could alone uplift souls weighted with so many\ndreams.\n\n\nII\n\nMy reverie was broken by a loud knocking at the door, and I wondered\nthe more at this because I had no visitors, and had bid my servants\ndo all things silently, lest they broke the dream of my inner life.\nFeeling a little curious, I resolved to go to the door myself, and,\ntaking one of the silver candlesticks from the mantlepiece, began to\ndescend the stairs. The servants appeared to be out, for though the\nsound poured through every corner and crevice of the house there was\nno stir in the lower rooms. I remembered that because my needs were so\nfew, my part in life so little, they had begun to come and go as they\nwould, often leaving me alone for hours. The emptiness and silence\nof a world from which I had driven everything but dreams suddenly\noverwhelmed me, and I shuddered as I drew the bolt. I found before me\nMichael Robartes, whom I had not seen for years, and whose wild red\nhair, fierce eyes, sensitive, tremulous lips and rough clothes made\nhim look now, just as they used to do fifteen years before, something\nbetween a debauchee, a saint, and a peasant. He had recently come to\nIreland, he said, and wished to see me on a matter of importance;\nindeed, the only matter of importance for him and for me. His voice\nbrought up before me our student years in Paris, and remembering the\nmagnetic power he had once possessed over me, a little fear mingled\nwith much annoyance at this irrelevant intrusion, as I led the way up\nthe wide staircase, where Swift had passed joking and railing, and\nCurran telling stories and quoting Greek, in simpler days, before\nmen\u2019s minds, subtilized and complicated by the romantic movement in\nart and literature, began to tremble on the verge of some unimagined\nrevelation. I felt that my hand shook, and saw that the light of the\ncandle wavered and quivered more than it need have upon the M\u00e6nads on\nthe old French panels, making them look like the first beings slowly\nshaping in the formless and void darkness. When the door had closed,\nand the peacock curtain, glimmering like many-coloured flame, fell\nbetween us and the world, I felt, in a way I could not understand,\nthat some singular and unexpected thing was about to happen. I went\nover to the mantlepiece, and finding that a little chainless bronze\ncenser, set, upon the outside, with pieces of painted china by Orazio\nFontana, which I had filled with antique amulets, had fallen upon its\nside and poured out its contents, I began to gather the amulets into\nthe bowl, partly to collect my thoughts and partly with that habitual\nreverence which seemed to me the due of things so long connected with\nsecret hopes and fears. \u2018I see,\u2019 said Michael Robartes, \u2018that you are\nstill fond of incense, and I can show you an incense more precious than\nany you have ever seen,\u2019 and as he spoke he took the censer out of my\nhand and put the amulets in a little heap between the _athanor_ and the\n_alembic_. I sat down, and he sat down at the side of the fire, and sat\nthere for awhile looking into the fire, and holding the censer in his\nhand. \u2018I have come to ask you something,\u2019 he said, \u2018and the incense\nwill fill the room, and our thoughts, with its sweet odour while we\nare talking. I got it from an old man in Syria, who said it was made\nfrom flowers, of one kind with the flowers that laid their heavy purple\npetals upon the hands and upon the hair and upon the feet of Christ in\nthe Garden of Gethsemane, and folded Him in their heavy breath, until\nHe cried against the cross and his destiny.\u2019 He shook some dust into\nthe censer out of a small silk bag, and set the censer upon the floor\nand lit the dust which sent up a blue stream of smoke, that spread\nout over the ceiling, and flowed downwards again until it was like\nMilton\u2019s banyan tree. It filled me, as incense often does, with a faint\nsleepiness, so that I started when he said, \u2018I have come to ask you\nthat question which I asked you in Paris, and which you left Paris\nrather than answer.\u2019\n\nHe had turned his eyes towards me, and I saw them glitter in the\nfirelight, and through the incense, as I replied: \u2018You mean, will I\nbecome an initiate of your Order of the Alchemical Rose? I would not\nconsent in Paris, when I was full of unsatisfied desire, and now that I\nhave at last fashioned my life according to my desire, am I likely to\nconsent?\u2019\n\n\u2018You have changed greatly since then,\u2019 he answered. \u2018I have read your\nbooks, and now I see you among all these images, and I understand\nyou better than you do yourself, for I have been with many and many\ndreamers at the same cross-ways. You have shut away the world and\ngathered the gods about you, and if you do not throw yourself at their\nfeet, you will be always full of lassitude, and of wavering purpose,\nfor a man must forget he is miserable in the bustle and noise of the\nmultitude in this world and in time; or seek a mystical union with\nthe multitude who govern this world and time.\u2019 And then he murmured\nsomething I could not hear, and as though to someone I could not see.\n\nFor a moment the room appeared to darken, as it used to do when he was\nabout to perform some singular experiment, and in the darkness the\npeacocks upon the doors seemed to glow with a more intense colour. I\ncast off the illusion, which was, I believe, merely caused by memory,\nand by the twilight of incense, for I would not acknowledge that he\ncould overcome my now mature intellect; and I said: \u2018Even if I grant\nthat I need a spiritual belief and some form of worship, why should I\ngo to Eleusis and not to Calvary?\u2019 He leaned forward and began speaking\nwith a slightly rhythmical intonation, and as he spoke I had to\nstruggle again with the shadow, as of some older night than the night\nof the sun, which began to dim the light of the candles and to blot out\nthe little gleams upon the corner of picture-frames and on the bronze\ndivinities, and to turn the blue of the incense to a heavy purple;\nwhile it left the peacocks to glimmer and glow as though each separate\ncolour were a living spirit. I had fallen into a profound dream-like\nreverie in which I heard him speaking as at a distance. \u2018And yet there\nis no one who communes with only one god,\u2019 he was saying, \u2018and the\nmore a man lives in imagination and in a refined understanding, the\nmore gods does he meet with and talk with, and the more does he come\nunder the power of Roland, who sounded in the Valley of Roncesvalles\nthe last trumpet of the body\u2019s will and pleasure; and of Hamlet, who\nsaw them perishing away, and sighed; and of Faust, who looked for\nthem up and down the world and could not find them; and under the\npower of all those countless divinities who have taken upon themselves\nspiritual bodies in the minds of the modern poets and romance writers,\nand under the power of the old divinities, who since the Renaissance\nhave won everything of their ancient worship except the sacrifice of\nbirds and fishes, the fragrance of garlands and the smoke of incense.\nThe many think humanity made these divinities, and that it can unmake\nthem again; but we who have seen them pass in rattling harness, and\nin soft robes, and heard them speak with articulate voices while we\nlay in deathlike trance, know that they are always making and unmaking\nhumanity, which is indeed but the trembling of their lips.\u2019\n\nHe had stood up and begun to walk to and fro, and had become in my\nwaking dream a shuttle weaving an immense purple web whose folds had\nbegun to fill the room. The room seemed to have become inexplicably\nsilent, as though all but the web and the weaving were at an end in\nthe world. \u2018They have come to us; they have come to us,\u2019 the voice\nbegan again; \u2018all that have ever been in your reverie, all that you\nhave met with in books. There is Lear, his head still wet with the\nthunder-storm, and he laughs because you thought yourself an existence\nwho are but a shadow, and him a shadow who is an eternal god; and\nthere is Beatrice, with her lips half parted in a smile, as though all\nthe stars were about to pass away in a sigh of love; and there is the\nmother of the God of humility who cast so great a spell over men that\nthey have tried to unpeople their hearts that he might reign alone, but\nshe holds in her hand the rose whose every petal is a god; and there,\nO swiftly she comes! is Aphrodite under a twilight falling from the\nwings of numberless sparrows, and about her feet are the grey and white\ndoves.\u2019 In the midst of my dream I saw him hold out his left arm and\npass his right hand over it as though he stroked the wings of doves. I\nmade a violent effort which seemed almost to tear me in two, and said\nwith forced determination: \u2018You would sweep me away into an indefinite\nworld which fills me with terror; and yet a man is a great man just in\nso far as he can make his mind reflect everything with indifferent\nprecision like a mirror.\u2019 I seemed to be perfectly master of myself,\nand went on, but more rapidly: \u2018I command you to leave me at once,\nfor your ideas and phantasies are but the illusions that creep like\nmaggots into civilizations when they begin to decline, and into minds\nwhen they begin to decay.\u2019 I had grown suddenly angry, and seizing the\n_alembic_ from the table, was about to rise and strike him with it,\nwhen the peacocks on the door behind him appeared to grow immense; and\nthen the _alembic_ fell from my fingers and I was drowned in a tide\nof green and blue and bronze feathers, and as I struggled hopelessly\nI heard a distant voice saying: \u2018Our master Avicenna has written that\nall life proceeds out of corruption.\u2019 The glittering feathers had now\ncovered me completely, and I knew that I had struggled for hundreds of\nyears, and was conquered at last. I was sinking into the depth when\nthe green and blue and bronze that seemed to fill the world became a\nsea of flame and swept me away, and as I was swirled along I heard\na voice over my head cry, \u2018The mirror is broken in two pieces,\u2019 and\nanother voice answer, \u2018The mirror is broken in four pieces,\u2019 and a more\ndistant voice cry with an exultant cry, \u2018The mirror is broken into\nnumberless pieces\u2019; and then a multitude of pale hands were reaching\ntowards me, and strange gentle faces bending above me, and half wailing\nand half caressing voices uttering words that were forgotten the moment\nthey were spoken. I was being lifted out of the tide of flame, and\nfelt my memories, my hopes, my thoughts, my will, everything I held\nto be myself, melting away; then I seemed to rise through numberless\ncompanies of beings who were, I understood, in some way more certain\nthan thought, each wrapped in his eternal moment, in the perfect\nlifting of an arm, in a little circlet of rhythmical words, in dreaming\nwith dim eyes and half-closed eyelids. And then I passed beyond these\nforms, which were so beautiful they had almost ceased to be, and,\nhaving endured strange moods, melancholy, as it seemed, with the weight\nof many worlds, I passed into that Death which is Beauty herself, and\ninto that Loneliness which all the multitudes desire without ceasing.\nAll things that had ever lived seemed to come and dwell in my heart,\nand I in theirs; and I had never again known mortality or tears, had I\nnot suddenly fallen from the certainty of vision into the uncertainty\nof dream, and become a drop of molten gold falling with immense\nrapidity, through a night elaborate with stars, and all about me a\nmelancholy exultant wailing. I fell and fell and fell, and then the\nwailing was but the wailing of the wind in the chimney, and I awoke\nto find myself leaning upon the table and supporting my head with my\nhands. I saw the _alembic_ swaying from side to side in the distant\ncorner it had rolled to, and Michael Robartes watching me and waiting.\n\u2018I will go wherever you will,\u2019 I said, \u2018and do whatever you bid me, for\nI have been with eternal things.\u2019 \u2018I knew,\u2019 he replied, \u2018you must need\nanswer as you have answered, when I heard the storm begin. You must\ncome to a great distance, for we were commanded to build our temple\nbetween the pure multitude by the waves and the impure multitude of\nmen.\u2019\n\n\nIII\n\nI did not speak as we drove through the deserted streets, for my mind\nwas curiously empty of familiar thoughts and experiences; it seemed\nto have been plucked out of the definite world and cast naked upon\na shoreless sea. There were moments when the vision appeared on the\npoint of returning, and I would half-remember, with an ecstasy of joy\nor sorrow, crimes and heroisms, fortunes and misfortunes; or begin to\ncontemplate, with a sudden leaping of the heart, hopes and terrors,\ndesires and ambitions, alien to my orderly and careful life; and then\nI would awake shuddering at the thought that some great imponderable\nbeing had swept through my mind. It was indeed days before this feeling\npassed perfectly away, and even now, when I have sought refuge in the\nonly definite faith, I feel a great tolerance for those people with\nincoherent personalities, who gather in the chapels and meeting-places\nof certain obscure sects, because I also have felt fixed habits and\nprinciples dissolving before a power, which was _hysterica passio_\nor sheer madness, if you will, but was so powerful in its melancholy\nexultation that I tremble lest it wake again and drive me from my\nnew-found peace.\n\nWhen we came in the grey light to the great half-empty terminus, it\nseemed to me I was so changed that I was no more, as man is, a moment\nshuddering at eternity, but eternity weeping and laughing over a\nmoment; and when we had started and Michael Robartes had fallen asleep,\nas he soon did, his sleeping face, in which there was no sign of all\nthat had so shaken me and that now kept me wakeful, was to my excited\nmind more like a mask than a face. The fancy possessed me that the man\nbehind it had dissolved away like salt in water, and that it laughed\nand sighed, appealed and denounced at the bidding of beings greater or\nless than man. \u2018This is not Michael Robartes at all: Michael Robartes\nis dead; dead for ten, for twenty years perhaps,\u2019 I kept repeating to\nmyself. I fell at last into a feverish sleep, waking up from time to\ntime when we rushed past some little town, its slated roofs shining\nwith wet, or still lake gleaming in the cold morning light. I had been\ntoo preoccupied to ask where we were going, or to notice what tickets\nMichael Robartes had taken, but I knew now from the direction of the\nsun that we were going westward; and presently I knew also, by the way\nin which the trees had grown into the semblance of tattered beggars\nflying with bent heads towards the east, that we were approaching the\nwestern coast. Then immediately I saw the sea between the low hills\nupon the left, its dull grey broken into white patches and lines.\n\nWhen we left the train we had still, I found, some way to go, and\nset out, buttoning our coats about us, for the wind was bitter and\nviolent. Michael Robartes was silent, seeming anxious to leave me to\nmy thoughts; and as we walked between the sea and the rocky side of a\ngreat promontory, I realized with a new perfection what a shock had\nbeen given to all my habits of thought and of feelings, if indeed some\nmysterious change had not taken place in the substance of my mind, for\nthe grey waves, plumed with scudding foam, had grown part of a teeming,\nfantastic inner life; and when Michael Robartes pointed to a square\nancient-looking house, with a much smaller and newer building under its\nlee, set out on the very end of a dilapidated and almost deserted pier,\nand said it was the Temple of the Alchemical Rose, I was possessed with\nthe phantasy that the sea, which kept covering it with showers of white\nfoam, was claiming it as part of some indefinite and passionate life,\nwhich had begun to war upon our orderly and careful days, and was about\nto plunge the world into a night as obscure as that which followed\nthe downfall of the classical world. One part of my mind mocked this\nphantastic terror, but the other, the part that still lay half plunged\nin vision, listened to the clash of unknown armies, and shuddered at\nunimaginable fanaticisms, that hung in those grey leaping waves.\n\nWe had gone but a few paces along the pier when we came upon an old\nman, who was evidently a watchman, for he sat in an overset barrel,\nclose to a place where masons had been lately working upon a break in\nthe pier, and had in front of him a fire such as one sees slung under\ntinkers\u2019 carts. I saw that he was also a voteen, as the peasants say,\nfor there was a rosary hanging from a nail on the rim of the barrel,\nand as I saw I shuddered, and I did not know why I shuddered. We had\npassed him a few yards when I heard him cry in Gaelic, \u2018Idolaters,\nidolaters, go down to Hell with your witches and your devils; go down\nto Hell that the herrings may come again into the bay\u2019; and for some\nmoments I could hear him half screaming and half muttering behind us.\n\u2018Are you not afraid,\u2019 I said, \u2018that these wild fishing people may do\nsome desperate thing against you?\u2019\n\n\u2018I and mine,\u2019 he answered, \u2018are long past human hurt or help, being\nincorporate with immortal spirits, and when we die it shall be the\nconsummation of the supreme work. A time will come for these people\nalso, and they will sacrifice a mullet to Artemis, or some other\nfish to some new divinity, unless indeed their own divinities, the\nDagda, with his overflowing cauldron, Lug, with his spear dipped in\npoppy-juice lest it rush forth hot for battle, Aengus, with the three\nbirds on his shoulder, Bodb and his red swineherd, and all the heroic\nchildren of Dana, set up once more their temples of grey stone. Their\nreign has never ceased, but only waned in power a little, for the Sidhe\nstill pass in every wind, and dance and play at hurley, and fight their\nsudden battles in every hollow and on every hill; but they cannot build\ntheir temples again till there have been martyrdoms and victories, and\nperhaps even that long-foretold battle in the Valley of the Black Pig.\u2019\n\nKeeping close to the wall that went about the pier on the seaward side,\nto escape the driving foam and the wind, which threatened every moment\nto lift us off our feet, we made our way in silence to the door of the\nsquare building. Michael Robartes opened it with a key, on which I\nsaw the rust of many salt winds, and led me along a bare passage and\nup an uncarpeted stair to a little room surrounded with bookshelves.\nA meal would be brought, but only of fruit, for I must submit to a\ntempered fast before the ceremony, he explained, and with it a book on\nthe doctrine and method of the Order, over which I was to spend what\nremained of the winter daylight. He then left me, promising to return\nan hour before the ceremony. I began searching among the bookshelves,\nand found one of the most exhaustive alchemical libraries I have ever\nseen. There were the works of Morienus, who hid his immortal body\nunder a shirt of hair-cloth; of Avicenna, who was a drunkard and yet\ncontrolled numberless legions of spirits; of Alfarabi, who put so many\nspirits into his lute that he could make men laugh, or weep, or fall in\ndeadly trance as he would; of Lully, who transformed himself into the\nlikeness of a red cock; of Flamel, who with his wife Parnella achieved\nthe elixir many hundreds of years ago, and is fabled to live still in\nArabia among the Dervishes; and of many of less fame. There were very\nfew mystics but alchemical mystics, and because, I had little doubt, of\nthe devotion to one god of the greater number and of the limited sense\nof beauty, which Robartes would hold an inevitable consequence; but I\ndid notice a complete set of facsimiles of the prophetical writings of\nWilliam Blake, and probably because of the multitudes that thronged his\nillumination and were \u2018like the gay fishes on the wave when the moon\nsucks up the dew.\u2019 I noted also many poets and prose writers of every\nage, but only those who were a little weary of life, as indeed the\ngreatest have been everywhere, and who cast their imagination to us, as\na something they needed no longer now that they were going up in their\nfiery chariots.\n\nPresently I heard a tap at the door, and a woman came in and laid a\nlittle fruit upon the table. I judged that she had once been handsome,\nbut her cheeks were hollowed by what I would have held, had I seen her\nanywhere else, an excitement of the flesh and a thirst for pleasure,\ninstead of which it doubtless was an excitement of the imagination and\na thirst for beauty. I asked her some question concerning the ceremony,\nbut getting no answer except a shake of the head, saw that I must await\ninitiation in silence. When I had eaten, she came again, and having\nlaid a curiously wrought bronze box on the table, lighted the candles,\nand took away the plates and the remnants. So soon as I was alone,\nI turned to the box, and found that the peacocks of Hera spread out\ntheir tails over the sides and lid, against a background, on which were\nwrought great stars, as though to affirm that the heavens were a part\nof their glory. In the box was a book bound in vellum, and having upon\nthe vellum and in very delicate colours, and in gold, the alchemical\nrose with many spears thrusting against it, but in vain, as was shown\nby the shattered points of those nearest to the petals. The book was\nwritten upon vellum, and in beautiful clear letters, interspersed\nwith symbolical pictures and illuminations, after the manner of the\n_Splendor Solis_.\n\nThe first chapter described how six students, of Celtic descent,\ngave themselves separately to the study of alchemy, and solved, one\nthe mystery of the Pelican, another the mystery of the green Dragon,\nanother the mystery of the Eagle, another that of Salt and Mercury.\nWhat seemed a succession of accidents, but was, the book declared,\nthe contrivance of preternatural powers, brought them together in the\ngarden of an inn in the South of France, and while they talked together\nthe thought came to them that alchemy was the gradual distillation of\nthe contents of the soul, until they were ready to put off the mortal\nand put on the immortal. An owl passed, rustling among the vine-leaves\noverhead, and then an old woman came, leaning upon a stick, and,\nsitting close to them, took up the thought where they had dropped it.\nHaving expounded the whole principle of spiritual alchemy, and bid\nthem found the Order of the Alchemical Rose, she passed from among\nthem, and when they would have followed was nowhere to be seen. They\nformed themselves into an Order, holding their goods and making their\nresearches in common, and, as they became perfect in the alchemical\ndoctrine, apparitions came and went among them, and taught them more\nand more marvellous mysteries. The book then went on to expound so\nmuch of these as the neophyte was permitted to know, dealing at the\noutset and at considerable length with the independent reality of our\nthoughts, which was, it declared, the doctrine from which all true\ndoctrines rose. If you imagine, it said, the semblance of a living\nbeing, it is at once possessed by a wandering soul, and goes hither\nand hither working good or evil, until the moment of its death has\ncome; and gave many examples, received, it said, from many gods. Eros\nhad taught them how to fashion forms in which a divine soul could\ndwell, and whisper what they would into sleeping minds; and Ate, forms\nfrom which demonic beings could pour madness, or unquiet dreams, into\nsleeping blood; and Hermes, that if you powerfully imagined a hound at\nyour bedside it would keep watch there until you woke, and drive away\nall but the mightiest demons, but that if your imagination was weakly,\nthe hound would be weakly also, and the demons prevail, and the hound\nsoon die; and Aphrodite, that if you made, by a strong imagining, a\ndove crowned with silver and bad it flutter over your head, its soft\ncooing would make sweet dreams of immortal love gather and brood\nover mortal sleep; and all divinities alike had revealed with many\nwarnings and lamentations that all minds are continually giving birth\nto such beings, and sending them forth to work health or disease, joy\nor madness. If you would give forms to the evil powers, it went on,\nyou were to make them ugly, thrusting out a lip, with the thirsts of\nlife, or breaking the proportions of a body with the burdens of life;\nbut the divine powers would only appear in beautiful shapes, which\nare but, as it were, shapes trembling out of existence, folding up\ninto a timeless ecstasy, drifting with half-shut eyes, into a sleepy\nstillness. The bodiless souls who descended into these forms were what\nmen call the moods; and worked all great changes in the world; for just\nas the magician or the artist could call them when he would, so they\ncould call out of the mind of the magician or the artist, or if they\nwere demons, out of the mind of the mad or the ignoble, what shape\nthey would, and through its voice and its gestures pour themselves\nout upon the world. In this way all great events were accomplished; a\nmood, a divinity, or a demon, first descending like a faint sigh into\nmen\u2019s minds and then changing their thoughts and their actions until\nhair that was yellow had grown black, or hair that was black had grown\nyellow, and empires moved their border, as though they were but drifts\nof leaves. The rest of the book contained symbols of form, and sound,\nand colour, and their attribution to divinities and demons, so that the\ninitiate might fashion a shape for any divinity or any demon, and be as\npowerful as Avicenna among those who live under the roots of tears and\nof laughter.\n\n\nIV\n\nA couple of hours after sunset Michael Robartes returned and told me\nthat I would have to learn the steps of an exceedingly antique dance,\nbecause before my initiation could be perfected I had to join three\ntimes in a magical dance, for rhythm was the wheel of Eternity, on\nwhich alone the transient and accidental could be broken, and the\nspirit set free. I found that the steps, which were simple enough,\nresembled certain antique Greek dances, and having been a good dancer\nin my youth and the master of many curious Gaelic steps, I soon had\nthem in my memory. He then robed me and himself in a costume which\nsuggested by its shape both Greece and Egypt, but by its crimson colour\na more passionate life than theirs; and having put into my hands a\nlittle chainless censer of bronze, wrought into the likeness of a rose,\nby some modern craftsman, he told me to open a small door opposite\nto the door by which I had entered. I put my hand to the handle,\nbut the moment I did so the fumes of the incense, helped perhaps by\nhis mysterious glamour, made me fall again into a dream, in which I\nseemed to be a mask, lying on the counter of a little Eastern shop.\nMany persons, with eyes so bright and still that I knew them for more\nthan human, came in and tried me on their faces, but at last flung\nme into a corner with a little laughter; but all this passed in a\nmoment, for when I awoke my hand was still upon the handle. I opened\nthe door, and found myself in a marvellous passage, along whose sides\nwere many divinities wrought in a mosaic, not less beautiful than the\nmosaic in the Baptistery at Ravenna, but of a less severe beauty;\nthe predominant colour of each divinity, which was surely a symbolic\ncolour, being repeated in the lamps that hung from the ceiling, a\ncuriously-scented lamp before every divinity. I passed on, marvelling\nexceedingly how these enthusiasts could have created all this beauty in\nso remote a place, and half persuaded to believe in a material alchemy,\nby the sight of so much hidden wealth; the censer filling the air, as I\npassed, with smoke of ever-changing colour.\n\nI stopped before a door, on whose bronze panels were wrought great\nwaves in whose shadow were faint suggestions of terrible faces. Those\nbeyond it seemed to have heard our steps, for a voice cried: \u2018Is the\nwork of the Incorruptible Fire at an end?\u2019 and immediately Michael\nRobartes answered: \u2018The perfect gold has come from the _athanor_.\u2019 The\ndoor swung open, and we were in a great circular room, and among men\nand women who were dancing slowly in crimson robes. Upon the ceiling\nwas an immense rose wrought in mosaic; and about the walls, also in\nmosaic, was a battle of gods and angels, the gods glimmering like\nrubies and sapphires, and the angels of the one greyness, because, as\nMichael Robartes whispered, they had renounced their divinity, and\nturned from the unfolding of their separate hearts, out of love for a\nGod of humility and sorrow. Pillars supported the roof and made a kind\nof circular cloister, each pillar being a column of confused shapes,\ndivinities, it seemed, of the wind, who rose as in a whirling dance\nof more than human vehemence, and playing upon pipes and cymbals; and\nfrom among these shapes were thrust out hands, and in these hands were\ncensers. I was bid place my censer also in a hand and take my place\nand dance, and as I turned from the pillars towards the dancers, I\nsaw that the floor was of a green stone, and that a pale Christ on a\npale cross was wrought in the midst. I asked Robartes the meaning of\nthis, and was told that they desired \u2018To trouble His unity with their\nmultitudinous feet.\u2019 The dance wound in and out, tracing upon the floor\nthe shapes of petals that copied the petals in the rose overhead, and\nto the sound of hidden instruments which were perhaps of an antique\npattern, for I have never heard the like; and every moment the dance\nwas more passionate, until all the winds of the world seemed to have\nawakened under our feet. After a little I had grown weary, and stood\nunder a pillar watching the coming and going of those flame-like\nfigures; until gradually I sank into a half-dream, from which I was\nawakened by seeing the petals of the great rose, which had no longer\nthe look of mosaic, falling slowly through the incense-heavy air,\nand, as they fell, shaping into the likeness of living beings of an\nextraordinary beauty. Still faint and cloud-like, they began to dance,\nand as they danced took a more and more definite shape, so that I was\nable to distinguish beautiful Grecian faces and august Egyptian faces,\nand now and again to name a divinity by the staff in his hand or by a\nbird fluttering over his head; and soon every mortal foot danced by the\nwhite foot of an immortal; and in the troubled eyes that looked into\nuntroubled shadowy eyes, I saw the brightness of uttermost desire as\nthough they had found at length, after unreckonable wandering, the lost\nlove of their youth. Sometimes, but only for a moment, I saw a faint\nsolitary figure with a veiled face, and carrying a faint torch, flit\namong the dancers, but like a dream within a dream, like a shadow of\na shadow, and I knew by an understanding born from a deeper fountain\nthan thought, that it was Eros himself, and that his face was veiled\nbecause no man or woman from the beginning of the world has ever known\nwhat love is, or looked into his eyes, for Eros alone of divinities\nis altogether a spirit, and hides in passions not of his essence if he\nwould commune with a mortal heart. So that if a man love nobly he knows\nlove through infinite pity, unspeakable trust, unending sympathy; and\nif ignobly through vehement jealousy, sudden hatred, and unappeasable\ndesire; but unveiled love he never knows. While I thought these things,\na voice cried to me from the crimson figures: \u2018Into the dance! there\nis none that can be spared out of the dance; into the dance! into the\ndance! that the gods may make them bodies out of the substance of our\nhearts\u2019; and before I could answer, a mysterious wave of passion, that\nseemed like the soul of the dance moving within our souls, took hold of\nme, and I was swept, neither consenting nor refusing, into the midst. I\nwas dancing with an immortal august woman, who had black lilies in her\nhair, and her dreamy gesture seemed laden with a wisdom more profound\nthan the darkness that is between star and star, and with a love like\nthe love that breathed upon the waters; and as we danced on and on,\nthe incense drifted over us and round us, covering us away as in the\nheart of the world, and ages seemed to pass, and tempests to awake and\nperish in the folds of our robes and in her heavy hair.\n\nSuddenly I remembered that her eyelids had never quivered, and that her\nlilies had not dropped a black petal, or shaken from their places, and\nunderstood with a great horror that I danced with one who was more or\nless than human, and who was drinking up my soul as an ox drinks up a\nwayside pool; and I fell, and darkness passed over me.\n\n\nV\n\nI awoke suddenly as though something had awakened me, and saw that I\nwas lying on a roughly painted floor, and that on the ceiling, which\nwas at no great distance, was a roughly painted rose, and about me on\nthe walls half-finished paintings. The pillars and the censers had\ngone; and near me a score of sleepers lay wrapped in disordered robes,\ntheir upturned faces looking to my imagination like hollow masks; and\na chill dawn was shining down upon them from a long window I had not\nnoticed before; and outside the sea roared. I saw Michael Robartes\nlying at a little distance and beside him an overset bowl of wrought\nbronze which looked as though it had once held incense. As I sat thus,\nI heard a sudden tumult of angry men and women\u2019s voices mix with the\nroaring of the sea; and leaping to my feet, I went quickly to Michael\nRobartes, and tried to shake him out of his sleep. I then seized him\nby the shoulder and tried to lift him, but he fell backwards, and\nsighed faintly; and the voices became louder and angrier; and there\nwas a sound of heavy blows upon the door, which opened on to the pier.\nSuddenly I heard a sound of rending wood, and I knew it had begun to\ngive, and I ran to the door of the room. I pushed it open and came out\nupon a passage whose bare boards clattered under my feet, and found\nin the passage another door which led into an empty kitchen; and as I\npassed through the door I heard two crashes in quick succession, and\nknew by the sudden noise of feet and the shouts that the door which\nopened on to the pier had fallen inwards. I ran from the kitchen and\nout into a small yard, and from this down some steps which descended\nthe seaward and sloping side of the pier, and from the steps clambered\nalong the water\u2019s edge, with the angry voices ringing in my ears. This\npart of the pier had been but lately refaced with blocks of granite,\nso that it was almost clear of seaweed; but when I came to the old\npart, I found it so slippery with green weed that I had to climb up\non to the roadway. I looked towards the Temple of the Alchemical Rose,\nwhere the fishermen and the women were still shouting, but somewhat\nmore faintly, and saw that there was no one about the door or upon the\npier; but as I looked, a little crowd hurried out of the door and began\ngathering large stones from where they were heaped up in readiness for\nthe next time a storm shattered the pier, when they would be laid under\nblocks of granite. While I stood watching the crowd, an old man, who\nwas, I think, the voteen, pointed to me, and screamed out something,\nand the crowd whitened, for all the faces had turned towards me. I ran,\nand it was well for me that pullers of the oar are poorer men with\ntheir feet than with their arms and their bodies; and yet while I ran I\nscarcely heard the following feet or the angry voices, for many voices\nof exultation and lamentation, which were forgotten as a dream is\nforgotten the moment they were heard, seemed to be ringing in the air\nover my head.\n\nThere are moments even now when I seem to hear those voices of\nexultation and lamentation, and when the indefinite world, which has\nbut half lost its mastery over my heart and my intellect, seems about\nto claim a perfect mastery; but I carry the rosary about my neck, and\nwhen I hear, or seem to hear them, I press it to my heart and say: \u2018He\nwhose name is Legion is at our doors deceiving our intellects with\nsubtlety and flattering our hearts with beauty, and we have no trust\nbut in Thee\u2019; and then the war that rages within me at other times is\nstill, and I am at peace.\n\n\n\n\nTHE TABLES OF THE LAW\n\n\nI\n\n\u2018WILL you permit me, Aherne,\u2019 I said, \u2018to ask you a question, which I\nhave wanted to ask you for years, and have not asked because we have\ngrown nearly strangers? Why did you refuse the berretta, and almost\nat the last moment? When you and I lived together, you cared neither\nfor wine, women, nor money, and had thoughts for nothing but theology\nand mysticism.\u2019 I had watched through dinner for a moment to put my\nquestion, and ventured now, because he had thrown off a little of\nthe reserve and indifference which, ever since his last return from\nItaly, had taken the place of our once close friendship. He had just\nquestioned me, too, about certain private and almost sacred things, and\nmy frankness had earned, I thought, a like frankness from him.\n\nWhen I began to speak he was lifting to his lips a glass of that old\nwine which he could choose so well and valued so little; and while\nI spoke, he set it slowly and meditatively upon the table and held\nit there, its deep red light dyeing his long delicate fingers. The\nimpression of his face and form, as they were then, is still vivid\nwith me, and is inseparable from another and fanciful impression:\nthe impression of a man holding a flame in his naked hand. He was to\nme, at that moment, the supreme type of our race, which, when it has\nrisen above, or is sunken below, the formalisms of half-education and\nthe rationalisms of conventional affirmation and denial, turns away,\nunless my hopes for the world and for the Church have made me blind,\nfrom practicable desires and intuitions towards desires so unbounded\nthat no human vessel can contain them, intuitions so immaterial that\ntheir sudden and far-off fire leaves heavy darkness about hand and\nfoot. He had the nature, which is half monk, half soldier of fortune,\nand must needs turn action into dreaming, and dreaming into action;\nand for such there is no order, no finality, no contentment in this\nworld. When he and I had been students in Paris, we had belonged to a\nlittle group which devoted itself to speculations about alchemy and\nmysticism. More orthodox in most of his beliefs than Michael Robartes,\nhe had surpassed him in a fanciful hatred of all life, and this hatred\nhad found expression in the curious paradox--half borrowed from some\nfanatical monk, half invented by himself--that the beautiful arts were\nsent into the world to overthrow nations, and finally life herself, by\nsowing everywhere unlimited desires, like torches thrown into a burning\ncity. This idea was not at the time, I believe, more than a paradox,\na plume of the pride of youth; and it was only after his return to\nIreland that he endured the fermentation of belief which is coming upon\nour people with the reawakening of their imaginative life.\n\nPresently he stood up, saying: \u2018Come, and I will show you, for you at\nany rate will understand,\u2019 and taking candles from the table, he lit\nthe way into the long paved passage that led to his private chapel. We\npassed between the portraits of the Jesuits and priests--some of no\nlittle fame--his family had given to the Church; and engravings and\nphotographs of pictures that had especially moved him; and the few\npaintings his small fortune, eked out by an almost penurious abstinence\nfrom the things most men desire, had enabled him to buy in his travels.\nThe pictures that I knew best, for they had hung there longest,\nwhether reproductions or originals, were of the Sienese School, which\nhe had studied for a long time, claiming that it alone of the schools\nof the world pictured not the world but what is revealed to saints in\ntheir dreams and visions. The Sienese alone among Italians, he would\nsay, could not or would not represent the pride of life, the pleasure\nin swift movement or sustaining strength, or voluptuous flesh. They\nwere so little interested in these things that there often seemed to\nbe no human body at all under the robe of the saint, but they could\nrepresent by a bowed head, or uplifted face, man\u2019s reverence before\nEternity as no others could, and they were at their happiest when\nmankind had dwindled to a little group silhouetted upon a golden abyss,\nas if they saw the world habitually from far off. When I had praised\nsome school that had dipped deeper into life, he would profess to\ndiscover a more intense emotion than life knew in those dark outlines.\n\u2018Put, even Francesca, who felt the supernatural as deeply,\u2019 he would\nsay, \u2018beside the work of Siena, and one finds a faint impurity in his\nawe, a touch of ghostly terror, where love and humbleness had best\nbeen all.\u2019 He had often told me of his hope that by filling his mind\nwith those holy pictures he would help himself to attain at last to\nvision and ecstasy, and of his disappointment at never getting more\nthan dreams of a curious and broken beauty. But of late he had added\npictures of a different kind, French symbolistic pictures which he had\nbought for a few pounds from little-known painters, English and French\npictures of the School of the English Pre-Raphaelites; and now he stood\nfor a moment and said, \u2018I have changed my taste. I am fascinated a\nlittle against my will by these faces, where I find the pallor of souls\ntrembling between the excitement of the flesh and the excitement of the\nspirit, and by landscapes that are created by heightening the obscurity\nand disorder of nature. These landscapes do not stir the imagination\nto the energies of sanctity but as to orgaic dancing and prophetic\nfrenzy.\u2019 I saw with some resentment new images where the old ones had\noften made that long gray, dim, empty, echoing passage become to my\neyes a vestibule of Eternity.\n\nAlmost every detail of the chapel, which we entered by a narrow Gothic\ndoor, whose threshold had been worn smooth by the secret worshippers of\nthe penal times, was vivid in my memory; for it was in this chapel that\nI had first, and when but a boy, been moved by the medi\u00e6valism which\nis now, I think, the governing influence in my life. The only thing\nthat seemed new was a square bronze box which stood upon the altar\nbefore the six unlighted candles and the ebony crucifix, and was like\nthose made in ancient times of more precious substances to hold the\nsacred books. Aherne made me sit down on an oak bench, and having bowed\nvery low before the crucifix, took the bronze box from the altar, and\nsat down beside me with the box upon his knees.\n\n\u2018You will perhaps have forgotten,\u2019 he said, \u2018most of what you have\nread about Joachim of Flora, for he is little more than a name to even\nthe well read. He was an abbot in Cortale in the twelfth century,\nand is best known for his prophecy, in a book called _Expositio in\nApocalypsin_, that the Kingdom of the Father was passed, the Kingdom\nof the Son passing, the Kingdom of the Spirit yet to come. The\nKingdom of the Spirit was to be a complete triumph of the Spirit, the\n_spiritualis intelligentia_ he called it, over the dead letter. He\nhad many followers among the more extreme Franciscans, and these were\naccused of possessing a secret book of his called the _Liber Inducens\nin Evangelium \u00c6ternum_. Again and again groups of visionaries were\naccused of possessing this terrible book, in which the freedom of the\nRenaissance lay hidden, until at last Pope Alexander IV. had it found\nand cast into the flames. I have here the greatest treasure the world\ncontains. I have a copy of that book; and see what great artists have\nmade the robes in which it is wrapped. The greater portion of the book\nitself is illuminated in the Byzantine style, which so few care for\nto-day, but which moves me because these tall, emaciated angels and\nsaints seem to have less relation to the world about us than to an\nabstract pattern of flowing lines, that suggest an imagination absorbed\nin the contemplation of Eternity. Even if you do not care for so formal\nan art, you cannot help seeing that work where there is so much gold,\nand of that purple colour which has gold dissolved in it, was valued at\na great price in its day. But it was only at the Renaissance the labour\nwas spent upon it which has made it the priceless thing it is. The\nwooden boards of the cover show by the astrological allegories painted\nupon them, as by the style of painting itself, some craftsman of the\nschool of Francesco Cossi of Ferrara, but the gold clasps and hinges\nare known to be the work of Benvenuto Cellini, who made likewise the\nbronze box and covered it with gods and demons, whose eyes are closed,\nto signify an absorption in the inner light.\n\nI took the book in my hands and began turning over the gilded,\nmany-coloured pages, holding it close to the candle to discover the\ntexture of the paper.\n\n\u2018Where did you get this amazing book?\u2019 I said. \u2018If genuine, and I\ncannot judge by this light, you have discovered one of the most\nprecious things in the world.\u2019\n\n\u2018It is certainly genuine,\u2019 he replied. \u2018When the original was\ndestroyed, one copy alone remained, and was in the hands of a\nlute-player of Florence, and from him it passed to his son, and so\nfrom generation to generation until it came to the lute-player who\nwas father to Benvenuto Cellini, and from Benvenuto Cellini to that\nCardinal of Ferrara who released him from prison, and from him to\na natural son, so from generation to generation, the story of its\nwandering passing on with it, until it came into the possession of\nthe family of Aretino, and to Giulio Aretino, an artist and worker in\nmetals, and student of the kabalistic heresies of Pico della Mirandola.\nHe spent many nights with me at Rome, discussing philosophy; and at\nlast I won his confidence so perfectly that he showed me this, his\ngreatest treasure; and, finding how much I valued it, and feeling that\nhe himself was growing old and beyond the help of its teaching, he sold\nit to me for no great sum, considering its great preciousness.\u2019\n\n\u2018What is the doctrine?\u2019 I said. \u2018Some medi\u00e6val straw-splitting about\nthe nature of the Trinity, which is only useful to-day to show how many\nthings are unimportant to us, which once shook the world?\u2019\n\n\u2018I could never make you understand,\u2019 he said, with a sigh, \u2018that\nnothing is unimportant in belief, but even you will admit that this\nbook goes to the heart. Do you see the tables on which the commandments\nwere written in Latin?\u2019 I looked to the end of the room, opposite to\nthe altar, and saw that the two marble tablets were gone, and that\ntwo large empty tablets of ivory, like large copies of the little\ntablets we set over our desks, had taken their place. \u2018It has swept\nthe commandments of the Father away,\u2019 he went on, \u2018and displaced the\ncommandments of the Son by the commandments of the Holy Spirit. The\nfirst book is called _Fractura Tabularum_. In the first chapter it\nmentions the names of the great artists who made them graven things\nand the likeness of many things, and adored them and served them; and\nthe second the names of the great wits who took the name of the Lord\ntheir God in vain; and that long third chapter, set with the emblems\nof sanctified faces, and having wings upon its borders, is the praise\nof breakers of the seventh day and wasters of the six days, who yet\nlived comely and pleasant days. Those two chapters tell of men and\nwomen who railed upon their parents, remembering that their god was\nolder than the god of their parents; and that which has the sword of\nMichael for an emblem commends the kings that wrought secret murder and\nso won for their people a peace that was _amore somnoque gravata et\nvestibus versicoloribus_, heavy with love and sleep and many-coloured\nraiment; and that with the pale star at the closing has the lives of\nthe noble youths who loved the wives of others and were transformed\ninto memories, which have transformed many poorer hearts into sweet\nflames; and that with the winged head is the history of the robbers who\nlived upon the sea or in the desert, lives which it compares to the\ntwittering of the string of a bow, _nervi stridentis instar_; and those\ntwo last, that are fire and gold, are devoted to the satirists who bore\nfalse witness against their neighbours and yet illustrated eternal\nwrath, and to those that have coveted more than other men the house of\nGod, and all things that are His, which no man has seen and handled,\nexcept in madness and in dreams.\n\n\u2018The second book is called _Lex Secreta_, and describes the true\ninspiration of action, the only Eternal Evangel; and ends with a\nvision, which he saw among the mountains of La Sila, of his disciples\nsitting throned in the blue deep of the air, and laughing aloud, with\na laughter that was like the rustling of the wings of Time: _C\u0153lis in\nc\u0153ruleis ridentes sedebant discipuli mei super thronos: talis erat\nrisus, qualis temporis pennati susurrus._\u2019\n\n\u2018I know little of Joachim of Flora,\u2019 I said, \u2018except that Dante set him\nin Paradise among the great doctors. If he held a heresy so singular, I\ncannot understand how no rumours of it came to the ears of Dante; and\nDante made no peace with the enemies of the Church.\u2019\n\n\u2018Joachim of Flora acknowledged openly the authority of the Church, and\neven asked that all his published writings, and those to be published\nby his desire after his death, should be submitted to the censorship of\nthe Pope. He considered that those whose work was to live and not to\nreveal were children and that the Pope was their Father; but he taught\nin secret that certain others, and in always increasing numbers, were\nelected, not to live, but to reveal that hidden substance of God which\nis colour and music and softness and a sweet odour; and that these\nhave no father but the Holy Spirit. Just as poets and painters and\nmusicians labour at their works, building them with lawless and lawful\nthings alike, so long as they embody the beauty that is beyond the\ngrave, these children of the Holy Spirit labour at their moments with\neyes upon the shining substance on which Time has heaped the refuse of\ncreation; for the world only exists to be a tale in the ears of coming\ngenerations; and terror and content, birth and death, love and hatred,\nand the fruit of the Tree, are but instruments for that supreme art\nwhich is to win us from life and gather us into eternity like doves\ninto their dove-cots.\n\n\u2018I shall go away in a little while and travel into many lands, that I\nmay know all accidents and destinies, and when I return, will write\nmy secret law upon those ivory tablets, just as poets and romance\nwriters have written the principles of their art in prefaces; and when\nI know what principle of life, discoverable at first by imagination\nand instinct, I am to express, I will gather my pupils that they may\ndiscover their law in the study of my law, as poets and painters\ndiscover their own art of expression by the study of some Master. I\nknow nothing certain as yet but this--I am to become completely alive,\nthat is, completely passionate, for beauty is only another name for\nperfect passion. I shall create a world where the whole lives of men\nshall be articulated and simplified as if seventy years were but one\nmoment, or as they were the leaping of a fish or the opening of a\nflower.\u2019\n\nHe was pacing up and down, and I listened to the fervour of his words\nand watched the excitement of his gestures with not a little concern.\nI had been accustomed to welcome the most singular speculations, and\nhad always found them as harmless as the Persian cat who half closes\nher meditative eyes and stretches out her long claws before my fire.\nBut now I would battle in the interests of orthodoxy, even of the\ncommonplace: and yet could find nothing better to say than: \u2018It is\nnot necessary to judge everyone by the law, for we have also Christ\u2019s\ncommandment of love.\u2019\n\nHe turned and said, looking at me with shining eyes: \u2018Jonathan Swift\nmade a soul for the gentlemen of this city by hating his neighbour as\nhimself.\u2019\n\n\u2018At any rate, you cannot deny that to teach so dangerous a doctrine is\nto accept a terrible responsibility.\u2019\n\n\u2018Leonardo da Vinci,\u2019 he replied, \u2018has this noble sentence: \u201cThe hope\nand desire of returning home to one\u2019s former state is like the moth\u2019s\ndesire for the light; and the man who with constant longing awaits\neach new month and new year, deeming that the things he longs for are\never too late in coming, does not perceive that he is longing for his\nown destruction.\u201d How, then, can the pathway which will lead us into\nthe heart of God be other than dangerous? Why should you, who are no\nmaterialist, cherish the continuity and order of the world as those do\nwho have only the world? You do not value the writers who will express\nnothing unless their reason understands how it will make what is called\nthe right more easy; why, then, will you deny a like freedom to the\nsupreme art, the art which is the foundation of all arts? Yes, I shall\nsend out of this chapel saints, lovers, rebels and prophets: souls who\nwill surround themselves with peace, as with a nest made with grass;\nand others over whom I shall weep. The dust shall fall for many years\nover this little box; and then I shall open it; and the tumults, which\nare, perhaps, the flames of the last day, shall come from under the\nlid.\u2019\n\nI did not reason with him that night, because his excitement was great\nand I feared to make him angry; and when I called at his house a few\ndays later, he was gone and his house was locked up and empty. I have\ndeeply regretted my failure both to combat his heresy and to test the\ngenuineness of his strange book. Since my conversion I have indeed done\npenance for an error which I was only able to measure after some years.\n\n\nII\n\nI was walking along one of the Dublin quays, on the side nearest the\nriver, about ten years after our conversation, stopping from time\nto time to turn over the books upon an old bookstall, and thinking,\ncuriously enough, of the terrible destiny of Michael Robartes, and his\nbrotherhood; when I saw a tall and bent man walking slowly along the\nother side of the quay. I recognized, with a start, in a lifeless mask\nwith dim eyes, the once resolute and delicate face of Owen Aherne. I\ncrossed the quay quickly, but had not gone many yards before he turned\naway, as though he had seen me, and hurried down a side street; I\nfollowed, but only to lose him among the intricate streets on the north\nside of the river. During the next few weeks I inquired of everybody\nwho had once known him, but he had made himself known to nobody; and I\nknocked, without result, at the door of his old house; and had nearly\npersuaded myself that I was mistaken, when I saw him again in a narrow\nstreet behind the Four Courts, and followed him to the door of his\nhouse.\n\nI laid my hand on his arm; he turned quite without surprise; and indeed\nit is possible that to him, whose inner life had soaked up the outer\nlife, a parting of years was a parting from forenoon to afternoon.\nHe stood holding the door half open, as though he would keep me from\nentering; and would perhaps have parted from me without further words\nhad I not said: \u2018Owen Aherne, you trusted me once, will you not trust\nme again, and tell me what has come of the ideas we discussed in this\nhouse ten years ago?--but perhaps you have already forgotten them.\u2019\n\n\u2018You have a right to hear,\u2019 he said, \u2018for since I have told you the\nideas, I should tell you the extreme danger they contain, or rather the\nboundless wickedness they contain; but when you have heard this we must\npart, and part for ever, because I am lost, and must be hidden!\u2019\n\nI followed him through the paved passage, and saw that its corners were\nchoked, and the pictures gray, with dust and cobwebs; and that the\ndust and cobwebs which covered the ruby and sapphire of the saints on\nthe window had made it very dim. He pointed to where the ivory tablets\nglimmered faintly in the dimness, and I saw that they were covered with\nsmall writing, and went up to them and began to read the writing. It\nwas in Latin, and was an elaborate casuistry, illustrated with many\nexamples, but whether from his own life or from the lives of others\nI do not know. I had read but a few sentences when I imagined that a\nfaint perfume had begun to fill the room, and turning round asked Owen\nAherne if he were lighting the incense.\n\n\u2018No,\u2019 he replied, and pointed where the thurible lay rusty and empty on\none of the benches; as he spoke the faint perfume seemed to vanish, and\nI was persuaded I had imagined it.\n\n\u2018Has the philosophy of the _Liber Inducens in Evangelium \u00c6ternum_ made\nyou very unhappy?\u2019 I said.\n\n\u2018At first I was full of happiness,\u2019 he replied, \u2018for I felt a divine\necstasy, an immortal fire in every passion, in every hope, in every\ndesire, in every dream; and I saw, in the shadows under leaves, in the\nhollow waters, in the eyes of men and women, its image, as in a mirror;\nand it was as though I was about to touch the Heart of God. Then all\nchanged and I was full of misery, and I said to myself that I was\ncaught in the glittering folds of an enormous serpent, and was falling\nwith him through a fathomless abyss, and that henceforth the glittering\nfolds were my world; and in my misery it was revealed to me that man\ncan only come to that Heart through the sense of separation from it\nwhich we call sin, and I understood that I could not sin, because I\nhad discovered the law of my being, and could only express or fail to\nexpress my being, and I understood that God has made a simple and an\narbitrary law that we may sin and repent!\u2019\n\nHe had sat down on one of the wooden benches and now became silent, his\nbowed head and hanging arms and listless body having more of dejection\nthan any image I have met with in life or in any art. I went and stood\nleaning against the altar, and watched him, not knowing what I should\nsay; and I noticed his black closely-buttoned coat, his short hair,\nand shaven head, which preserved a memory of his priestly ambition,\nand understood how Catholicism had seized him in the midst of the\nvertigo he called philosophy; and I noticed his lightless eyes and his\nearth-coloured complexion, and understood how she had failed to do more\nthan hold him on the margin: and I was full of an anguish of pity.\n\n\u2018It may be,\u2019 he went on, \u2018that the angels whose hearts are shadows of\nthe Divine Heart, and whose bodies are made of the Divine Intellect,\nmay come to where their longing is always by a thirst for the divine\necstasy, the immortal fire, that is in passion, in hope, in desire, in\ndreams; but we whose hearts perish every moment, and whose bodies melt\naway like a sigh, must bow and obey!\u2019\n\nI went nearer to him and said: \u2018Prayer and repentance will make you\nlike other men.\u2019\n\n\u2018No, no,\u2019 he said, \u2018I am not among those for whom Christ died, and this\nis why I must be hidden. I have a leprosy that even eternity cannot\ncure. I have seen the whole, and how can I come again to believe that a\npart is the whole? I have lost my soul because I have looked out of the\neyes of the angels.\u2019\n\nSuddenly I saw, or imagined that I saw, the room darken, and faint\nfigures robed in purple, and lifting faint torches with arms that\ngleamed like silver, bending, above Owen Aherne; and I saw, or\nimagined that I saw, drops, as of burning gum, fall from the torches,\nand a heavy purple smoke, as of incense, come pouring from the flames\nand sweeping about us. Owen Aherne, more happy than I who have been\nhalf initiated into the Order of the Alchemical Rose, and protected\nperhaps by his great piety, had sunk again into dejection and\nlistlessness, and saw none of these things; but my knees shook under\nme, for the purple-robed figures were less faint every moment, and now\nI could hear the hissing of the gum in the torches. They did not appear\nto see me, for their eyes were upon Owen Aherne; now and again I could\nhear them sigh as though with sorrow for his sorrow, and presently I\nheard words which I could not understand except that they were words of\nsorrow, and sweet as though immortal was talking to immortal. Then one\nof them waved her torch, and all the torches waved, and for a moment it\nwas as though some great bird made of flames had fluttered its plumage,\nand a voice cried as from far up in the air: \u2018He has charged even his\nangels with folly, and they also bow and obey; but let your heart\nmingle with our hearts, which are wrought of divine ecstasy, and your\nbody with our bodies, which are wrought of divine intellect.\u2019 And at\nthat cry I understood that the Order of the Alchemical Rose was not of\nthis earth, and that it was still seeking over this earth for whatever\nsouls it could gather within its glittering net; and when all the faces\nturned towards me, and I saw the mild eyes and the unshaken eyelids, I\nwas full of terror, and thought they were about to fling their torches\nupon me, so that all I held dear, all that bound me to spiritual and\nsocial order, would be burnt up, and my soul left naked and shivering\namong the winds that blow from beyond this world and from beyond the\nstars; and then a faint voice cried, \u2018Why do you fly from our torches\nthat were made out of the trees under which Christ wept in the Garden\nof Gethsemane? Why do you fly from our torches that were made out of\nsweet wood, after it had perished from the world and come to us who\nmade it of old times with our breath?\u2019\n\nIt was not until the door of the house had closed behind my flight, and\nthe noise of the street was breaking on my ears, that I came back to\nmyself and to a little of my courage; and I have never dared to pass\nthe house of Owen Aherne from that day, even though I believe him to\nhave been driven into some distant country by the spirits whose name is\nlegion, and whose throne is in the indefinite abyss, and whom he obeys\nand cannot see.\n\n\n\n\nTHE ADORATION OF THE MAGI\n\n\nI WAS sitting reading late into the night a little after my last\nmeeting with Aherne, when I heard a light knocking on my front door. I\nfound upon the doorstep three very old men with stout sticks in their\nhands, who said they had been told I should be up and about, and that\nthey were to tell me important things. I brought them into my study,\nand when the peacock curtains had closed behind us, I set their chairs\nfor them close to the fire, for I saw that the frost was on their\ngreat-coats of frieze and upon the long beards that flowed almost to\ntheir waists. They took off their great-coats, and leaned over the\nfire warming their hands, and I saw that their clothes had much of the\ncountry of our time, but a little also, as it seemed to me, of the town\nlife of a more courtly time. When they had warmed themselves--and they\nwarmed themselves, I thought, less because of the cold of the night\nthan because of a pleasure in warmth for the sake of warmth--they\nturned towards me, so that the light of the lamp fell full upon their\nweather-beaten faces, and told the story I am about to tell. Now one\ntalked and now another, and they often interrupted one another, with\na desire, like that of countrymen, when they tell a story, to leave\nno detail untold. When they had finished they made me take notes of\nwhatever conversation they had quoted, so that I might have the exact\nwords, and got up to go. When I asked them where they were going, and\nwhat they were doing, and by what names I should call them, they would\ntell me nothing, except that they had been commanded to travel over\nIreland continually, and upon foot and at night, that they might live\nclose to the stones and the trees and at the hours when the immortals\nare awake.\n\nI have let some years go by before writing out this story, for I am\nalways in dread of the illusions which come of that inquietude of the\nveil of the Temple, which M. Mallarm\u00e9 considers a characteristic of our\ntimes; and only write it now because I have grown to believe that there\nis no dangerous idea which does not become less dangerous when written\nout in sincere and careful English.\n\nThe three old men were three brothers, who had lived in one of the\nwestern islands from their early manhood, and had cared all their lives\nfor nothing except for those classical writers and old Gaelic writers\nwho expounded an heroic and simple life; night after night in winter,\nGaelic story-tellers would chant old poems to them over the poteen; and\nnight after night in summer, when the Gaelic story-tellers were at work\nin the fields or away at the fishing, they would read to one another\nVirgil and Homer, for they would not enjoy in solitude, but as the\nancients enjoyed. At last a man, who told them he was Michael Robartes,\ncame to them in a fishing-boat, like St. Brandan drawn by some vision\nand called by some voice; and spoke of the coming again of the gods\nand the ancient things; and their hearts, which had never endured the\nbody and pressure of our time, but only of distant times, found nothing\nunlikely in anything he told them, but accepted all simply and were\nhappy. Years passed, and one day, when the oldest of the old men, who\ntravelled in his youth and thought sometimes of other lands, looked\nout on the grey waters, on which the people see the dim outline of the\nIslands of the Young--the Happy Islands where the Gaelic heroes live\nthe lives of Homer\u2019s Ph\u00e6acians--a voice came out of the air over the\nwaters and told him of the death of Michael Robartes. They were still\nmourning when the next oldest of the old men fell asleep while reading\nout the Fifth Eclogue of Virgil, and a strange voice spoke through him,\nand bid them set out for Paris, where a woman lay dying, who would\nreveal to them the secret names of the gods, which can be perfectly\nspoken only when the mind is steeped in certain colours and certain\nsounds and certain odours; but at whose perfect speaking the immortals\ncease to be cries and shadows, and walk and talk with one like men and\nwomen.\n\nThey left their island, at first much troubled at all they saw in the\nworld, and came to Paris, and there the youngest met a person in a\ndream, who told him they were to wander about at hazard until those who\nhad been guiding their footsteps had brought them to a street and a\nhouse, whose likeness was shown him in the dream. They wandered hither\nand thither for many days, but one morning they came into some narrow\nand shabby streets, on the south of the Seine, where women with pale\nfaces and untidy hair looked at them out of the windows; and just as\nthey were about to turn back because Wisdom could not have alighted in\nso foolish a neighbourhood, they came to the street and the house of\nthe dream. The oldest of the old men, who still remembered some of the\nmodern languages he had known in his youth, went up to the door and\nknocked, but when he had knocked, the next in age to him said it was\nnot a good house, and could not be the house they were looking for, and\nurged him to ask for some one that they knew was not there and go away.\nThe door was opened by an old over-dressed woman, who said, \u2018O, you are\nher three kinsmen from Ireland. She has been expecting you all day.\u2019\nThe old men looked at one another and followed her upstairs, passing\ndoors from which pale and untidy women thrust out their heads, and into\na room where a beautiful woman lay asleep in a bed, with another woman\nsitting by her.\n\nThe old woman said: \u2018Yes, they have come at last; now she will be able\nto die in peace,\u2019 and went out.\n\n\u2018We have been deceived by devils,\u2019 said one of the old men, \u2018for the\nimmortals would not speak through a woman like this.\u2019\n\n\u2018Yes,\u2019 said another, \u2018we have been deceived by devils, and we must go\naway quickly.\u2019\n\n\u2018Yes,\u2019 said the third, \u2018we have been deceived by devils, but let us\nkneel down for a little, for we are by the deathbed of one that has\nbeen beautiful.\u2019 They knelt down, and the woman who sat by the bed, and\nseemed to be overcome with fear and awe, lowered her head. They watched\nfor a little the face upon the pillow and wondered at its look, as of\nunquenchable desire, and at the porcelain-like refinement of the vessel\nin which so malevolent a flame had burned.\n\nSuddenly the second oldest of them crowed like a cock, and until the\nroom seemed to shake with the crowing. The woman in the bed still\nslept on in her death-like sleep, but the woman who sat by her head\ncrossed herself and grew pale, and the youngest of the old men cried\nout: \u2018A devil has gone into him, and we must begone or it will go into\nus also.\u2019 Before they could rise from their knees, a resonant chanting\nvoice came from the lips that had crowed and said: \u2018I am not a devil,\nbut I am Hermes the Shepherd of the Dead, and I run upon the errands of\nthe gods, and you have heard my sign, that has been my sign from the\nold days. Bow down before her from whose lips the secret names of the\nimmortals, and of the things near their hearts, are about to come, that\nthe immortals may come again into the world. Bow down, and understand\nthat when they are about to overthrow the things that are to-day and\nbring the things that were yesterday, they have no one to help them,\nbut one whom the things that are to-day have cast out. Bow down and\nvery low, for they have chosen for their priestess this woman in whose\nheart all follies have gathered, and in whose body all desires have\nawaked; this woman who has been driven out of Time and has lain upon\nthe bosom of Eternity. After you have bowed down the old things shall\nbe again, and another Argo shall carry heroes over sea, and another\nAchilles beleaguer another Troy.\u2019\n\nThe voice ended with a sigh, and immediately the old man awoke out of\nsleep, and said: \u2018Has a voice spoken through me, as it did when I fell\nasleep over my Virgil, or have I only been asleep?\u2019\n\nThe oldest of them said: \u2018A voice has spoken through you. Where has\nyour soul been while the voice was speaking through you?\u2019\n\n\u2018I do not know where my soul has been, but I dreamed I was under the\nroof of a manger, and I looked down and I saw an ox and an ass; and I\nsaw a red cock perching on the hay-rack; and a woman hugging a child;\nand three old men, in armour studded with rubies, kneeling with their\nheads bowed very low in front of the woman and the child. While I was\nlooking the cock crowed and a man with wings on his heels swept up\nthrough the air, and as he passed me, cried out: \u201cFoolish old men, you\nhad once all the wisdom of the stars.\u201d I do not understand my dream or\nwhat it would have us do, but you who have heard the voice out of the\nwisdom of my sleep know what we have to do.\u2019\n\nThen the oldest of the old men told him they were to take the\nparchments they had brought with them out of their pockets and spread\nthem on the ground. When they had spread them on the ground, they took\nout of their pockets their pens, made of three feathers, which had\nfallen from the wing of the old eagle that is believed to have talked\nof wisdom with St. Patrick.\n\n\u2018He meant, I think,\u2019 said the youngest, as he put their ink-bottles\nby the side of the rolls of parchment, \u2018that when people are good the\nworld likes them and takes possession of them, and so eternity comes\nthrough people who are not good or who have been forgotten. Perhaps\nChristianity was good and the world liked it, so now it is going away\nand the immortals are beginning to awake.\u2019\n\n\u2018What you say has no wisdom,\u2019 said the oldest, \u2018because if there are\nmany immortals, there cannot be only one immortal.\u2019\n\nThen the woman in the bed sat up and looked about her with wild eyes;\nand the oldest of the old men said: \u2018Lady, we have come to write down\nthe secret names,\u2019 and at his words a look of great joy came into her\nface. Presently she began to speak slowly, and yet eagerly, as though\nshe knew she had but a little while to live, and in the Gaelic of their\nown country; and she spoke to them many secret powerful names, and of\nthe colours, and odours, and weapons, and instruments of music and\ninstruments of handicraft belonging to the owners of those names; but\nmost about the Sidhe of Ireland and of their love for the Cauldron, and\nthe Whetstone, and the Sword, and the Spear. Then she tossed feebly\nfor a while and moaned, and when she spoke again it was in so faint a\nmurmur that the woman who sat by the bed leaned down to listen, and\nwhile she was listening the spirit went out of the body.\n\nThen the oldest of the old men said in French to the woman who was\nstill bending over the bed: \u2018There must have been yet one name which\nshe had not given us, for she murmured a name while the spirit was\ngoing out of the body,\u2019 and the woman said, \u2018She was but murmuring\nover the name of a symbolist painter she was fond of. He used to go to\nsomething he called the Black Mass, and it was he who taught her to see\nvisions and to hear voices. She met him for the first time a few months\nago, and we have had no peace from that day because of her talk about\nvisions and about voices. Why! It was only last night that I dreamed I\nsaw a man with a red beard and red hair, and dressed in red, standing\nby my bedside. He held a rose in one hand, and tore it in pieces with\nthe other hand, and the petals drifted about the room, and became\nbeautiful people who began to dance slowly. When I woke up I was all in\na heat with terror.\u2019\n\nThis is all the old men told me, and when I think of their speech and\nof their silence, of their coming and of their going, I am almost\npersuaded that had I gone out of the house after they had gone out of\nit, I should have found no footsteps on the snow. They may, for all I\nor any man can say, have been themselves immortals: immortal demons,\ncome to put an untrue story into my mind for some purpose I do not\nunderstand. Whatever they were, I have turned into a pathway which\nwill lead me from them and from the Order of the Alchemical Rose. I\nno longer live an elaborate and haughty life, but seek to lose myself\namong the prayers and the sorrows of the multitude. I pray best in poor\nchapels, where the frieze coats brush by me as I kneel, and when I pray\nagainst the demons I repeat a prayer which was made I know not how many\ncenturies ago to help some poor Gaelic man or woman who had suffered\nwith a suffering like mine.\n\n   _Seacht b-p\u00e0idreacha f\u00f3 seacht\n    Chuir Muire faoi n-a Mac,\n    Chuir Brighid faoi n-a brat,\n    Chuir Dia faoi n-a neart,\n    Eidir sinn \u2018san Sluagh Sidhe,\n    Eidir sinn \u2018san Sluagh Gaoith._\n\n    Seven paters seven times,\n    Send Mary by her Son,\n    Send Bridget by her mantle,\n    Send God by His strength,\n    Between us and the faery host,\n    Between us and the demons of the air.\n\n\n\n\nJOHN SHERMAN\n\nAND\n\nDHOYA:\n\nTWO EARLY STORIES\n\n\n    _Republished by kind permission of Mr. T. Fisher Unwin._\n\n\nHaving been persuaded somewhat against my judgment to include these\nearly stories, I have read them for the first time these many years.\nThey have come to interest me very deeply; for I am something of an\nastrologer, and can see in them a young man--was I twenty-three? and\nwe Irish ripen slowly--born when the Water-Carrier was on the horizon,\nat pains to overcome Saturn in Saturn\u2019s hour, just as I can see in\nmuch that follows his struggle with the still all-too-unconquered\nMoon, and at last, as I think, the summons of the prouder Sun. Sligo,\nwhere I had lived as a child and spent some months or weeks of every\nyear till long after, is Ballah, and Pool Dhoya is at the river mouth\nthere, and he who gave me all of Sherman that was not born at the\nrising of the Water-Carrier has still the bronze upon his face, and is\nat this moment, it may be, in his walled garden, wondering, as he did\ntwenty years ago, whether he will ever mend the broken glass of the\nconservatory, where I am not too young to recollect the vine-trees and\ngrapes that did not ripen.\n\n                                                  W. B. YEATS.\n\n    _November 14th, 1907._\n\n\n\n\nJOHN SHERMAN\n\n\nFIRST PART\n\nJOHN SHERMAN LEAVES BALLAH\n\n\nI\n\nIN the west of Ireland, on the 9th of December, in the town of Ballah,\nin the Imperial Hotel there was a single guest, clerical and youthful.\nWith the exception of a stray commercial traveller, who stopped once\nfor a night, there had been nobody for a whole month but this guest,\nand now he was thinking of going away. The town, full enough in summer\nof trout and salmon fishers, slept all winter like the bears.\n\nOn the evening of the 9th of December, in the coffee-room of the\nImperial Hotel, there was nobody but this guest. The guest was\nirritated. It had rained all day, and now that it was clearing up night\nhad almost fallen. He had packed his portmanteau; his stockings, his\nclothes-brush, his razor, his dress shoes were each in their corner,\nand now he had nothing to do. He had tried the paper that was lying on\nthe table. He did not agree with its politics.\n\nThe waiter was playing an accordion in a little room over the stairs.\nThe guest\u2019s irritation increased, for the more he thought about it\nthe more he perceived that the accordion was badly played. There was\na piano in the coffee-room; he sat down at it and played the tune\ncorrectly, as loudly as possible. The waiter took no notice. He did not\nknow that he was being played for. He was wholly absorbed in his own\nplaying, and besides he was old, obstinate, and deaf. The guest could\nstand it no longer. He rang for the waiter, and then, remembering that\nhe did not need anything, went out before he came.\n\nHe went through Martin\u2019s Street and Peter\u2019s Lane, and turned down by\nthe burnt house at the corner of the fish-market, picking his way\ntowards the bridge. The town was dripping, but the rain was almost\nover. The large drops fell seldomer and seldomer into the puddles. It\nwas the hour of ducks. Three or four had squeezed themselves under a\ngate, and were now splashing about in the gutter of the main street.\nThere was scarcely anyone abroad. Once or twice a countryman went by\nin yellow gaiters covered with mud and looked at the guest. Once an\nold woman with a basket of clothes, recognizing the Protestant curate\u2019s\n_locum tenens_, made a low curtsey.\n\nThe clouds gradually drifted away, the twilight deepened and the stars\ncame out. The guest, having bought some cigarettes, had spread his\nwaterproof on the parapet of the bridge and was now leaning his elbows\nupon it, looking at the river and feeling at last quite tranquil.\nHis meditations, he repeated, to himself, were plated with silver by\nthe stars. The water slid noiselessly, and one or two of the larger\nstars made little roadways of fire into the darkness. The light from a\ndistant casement made also its roadway. Once or twice a fish leaped.\nAlong the banks were the vague shadows of houses, seeming like phantoms\ngathering to drink.\n\nYes; he felt now quite contented with the world. Amidst his enjoyment\nof the shadows and the river--a veritable festival of silence--was\nmixed pleasantly the knowledge that, as he leant there with the light\nof a neighbouring gas-jet flickering faintly on his refined form and\nnervous face and glancing from the little medal of some Anglican order\nthat hung upon his watch-guard, he must have seemed--if there had been\nany to witness--a being of a different kind to the inhabitants--at once\nrough and conventional--of this half-deserted town. Between these two\nfeelings the unworldly and the worldly tossed a leaping wave of perfect\nenjoyment. How pleasantly conscious of his own identity it made him\nwhen he thought how he and not those whose birthright it was, felt most\nthe beauty of these shadows and this river! For him who had read much,\nseen operas and plays, known religious experiences, and written verse\nto a waterfall in Switzerland, and not for those who dwelt upon its\nborders for their whole lives, did this river raise a tumult of images\nand wonders. What meaning it had for them he could not imagine. Some\nmeaning surely it must have!\n\nAs he gazed out into the darkness, spinning a web of thoughts from\nhimself to the river, from the river to himself, he saw, with a corner\nof his eye, a spot of red light moving in the air at the other end of\nthe bridge. He turned towards it. It came closer and closer, there\nappearing behind it the while a man and a cigar. The man carried in one\nhand a mass of fishing-line covered with hooks, and in the other a tin\nporringer full of bait.\n\n\u2018Good evening, Howard.\u2019\n\n\u2018Good evening,\u2019 answered the guest, taking his elbows off the parapet\nand looking in a preoccupied way at the man with the hooks. It was only\ngradually he remembered that he was in Ballah among the barbarians, for\nhis mind had strayed from the last evening flies, making circles on\nthe water beneath, to the devil\u2019s song against \u2018the little spirits\u2019 in\n_Mefistofele_. Looking down at the stone parapet he considered a moment\nand then burst out--\n\n\u2018Sherman, how do you stand this place--you who have thoughts above mere\neating and sleeping and are not always grinding at the stubble mill?\nHere everybody lives in the eighteenth century--the squalid century.\nWell, I am going to-morrow, you know. Thank Heaven, I am done with your\ngrey streets and grey minds! The curate must come home, sick or well.\nI have a religious essay to write, and besides I should die. Think of\nthat old fellow at the corner there, our most important parishioner.\nThere are no more hairs on his head than thoughts in his skull. To\nmerely look at him is to rob life of its dignity. Then there is nothing\nin the shops but school-books and Sunday-school prizes. Excellent, no\ndoubt, for anyone who has not had to read as many as I have. Such a\nchoir! such rain!\u2019\n\n\u2018You need some occupation peculiar to the place,\u2019 said the other,\nbaiting his hooks with worms out of the little porringer. \u2018I catch\neels. You should set some night-lines too. You bait them with worms in\nthis way, and put them among the weeds at the edge of the river. In the\nmorning you find an eel or two, if you have good fortune, turning round\nand round and making the weeds sway. I shall catch a great many after\nthis rain.\u2019\n\n\u2018What a suggestion! Do you mean to stay here,\u2019 said Howard, \u2018till your\nmind rots like our most important parishioner\u2019s?\u2019\n\n\u2018No, no! To be quite frank with you,\u2019 replied the other, \u2018I have some\ngood looks and shall try to turn them to account by going away from\nhere pretty soon and trying to persuade some girl with money to fall in\nlove with me. I shall not be altogether a bad match, you see, because\nafter she has made me a little prosperous my uncle will die and make\nme much more so. I wish to be able always to remain a lounger. Yes, I\nshall marry money. My mother has set her heart on it, and I am not,\nyou see, the kind of person who falls in love inconveniently. For the\npresent--\u2019\n\n\u2018You are vegetating,\u2019 interrupted the other.\n\n\u2018No, I am seeing the world. In your big towns a man finds his minority\nand knows nothing outside its border. He knows only the people like\nhimself. But here one chats with the whole world in a day\u2019s walk, for\nevery man one meets is a class. The knowledge I am picking up may be\nuseful to me when I enter the great cities and their ignorance. But I\nhave lines to set. Come with me. I would ask you home, but you and my\nmother, you know, do not get on well.\u2019\n\n\u2018I could not live with anyone I did not believe in,\u2019 said Howard; \u2018you\nare so different from me. You can live with mere facts, and that is\nwhy, I suppose, your schemes are so mercenary. Before this beautiful\nriver, these stars, these great purple shadows, do you not feel like\nan insect in a flower? As for me, I also have planned my future. Not\ntoo near or too far from a great city, I see myself in a cottage\nwith diamond panes, sitting by the fire. There are books everywhere\nand etchings on the wall; on the table is a manuscript essay on some\nreligious matter. Perhaps I shall marry some day. Probably not, for I\nshall ask so much. Certainly I shall not marry for money, for I hold\nthat when we have lost the directness and sincerity of our nature we\nhave no compass. If we once break it the world grows trackless.\u2019\n\n\u2018Good-bye,\u2019 said Sherman, briskly; \u2018I have baited the last hook. Your\nschemes suit you, but a sluggish fellow like me, poor devil, who wishes\nto lounge through the world, would find them expensive.\u2019\n\nThey parted; Sherman to set his lines and Howard to his hotel in high\nspirits, for it seemed to him he had been eloquent. The billiard-room,\nwhich opened on the street, was lighted up. A few young men came round\nto play sometimes. He went in, for among these provincial youths he\nfelt distinguished; besides, he was a really good player. As he came\nin one of the players missed and swore. Howard reproved him with a\nlook. He joined the play for a time, and then catching sight through a\ndistant door of the hotel-keeper\u2019s wife putting a kettle on the hob he\nhurried off, and, drawing a chair to the fire, began one of those long\ngossips about everybody\u2019s affairs peculiar to the cloth.\n\nAs Sherman, having set his lines, returned home, he passed a\ntobacconist\u2019s--a sweet-shop and tobacconist\u2019s in one--the only shop\nin town, except public-houses, that remained open. The tobacconist\nwas standing in his door, and, recognizing one who dealt consistently\nwith a rival at the other end of the town, muttered: \u2018There goes that\nJack o\u2019 Dreams; been fishing most likely. Ugh!\u2019 Sherman paused for a\nmoment as he repassed the bridge and looked at the water, on which now\na new-risen and crescent moon was shining dimly. How full of memories\nit was to him! what playmates and boyish adventures did it not bring to\nmind! To him it seemed to say, \u2018Stay near to me,\u2019 as to Howard it had\nsaid, \u2018Go yonder, to those other joys and other sceneries I have told\nyou of.\u2019 It bade him who loved stay still and dream, and gave flying\nfeet to him who imagined.\n\n\nII\n\nThe house where Sherman and his mother lived was one of those bare\nhouses so common in country towns. Their dashed fronts mounting above\nempty pavements have a kind of dignity in their utilitarianism. They\nseem to say, \u2018Fashion has not made us, nor ever do its caprices pass\nour sand-cleaned doorsteps.\u2019 On every basement window is the same dingy\nwire blind; on every door the same brass knocker. Custom everywhere!\n\u2018So much the longer,\u2019 the blinds seem to say, \u2018have eyes glanced\nthrough us\u2019; and the knockers to murmur, \u2018And fingers lifted us.\u2019\n\nNo. 15, Stephens\u2019 Row, was in no manner peculiar among its twenty\nfellows. The chairs in the drawing-room facing the street were of heavy\nmahogany with horsehair cushions worn at the corners. On the round\ntable was somebody\u2019s commentary on the New Testament laid like the\nspokes of a wheel on a table-cover of American oilcloth with stamped\nJapanese figures half worn away. The room was seldom used, for Mrs.\nSherman was solitary because silent. In this room the dressmaker sat\ntwice a year, and here the rector\u2019s wife used every month or so to\ndrink a cup of tea. It was quite clean. There was not a fly-mark on the\nmirror, and all summer the fern in the grate was constantly changed.\nBehind this room and overlooking the garden was the parlour, where\ncane-bottomed chairs took the place of mahogany. Sherman had lived here\nwith his mother all his life, and their old servant hardly remembered\nhaving lived anywhere else; and soon she would absolutely cease to\nremember the world she knew before she saw the four walls of this\nhouse, for every day she forgot something fresh. The son was almost\nthirty, the mother fifty, and the servant near seventy. Every year they\nhad two hundred pounds among them, and once a year the son got a new\nsuit of clothes and went into the drawing-room to look at himself in\nthe mirror.\n\nOn the morning of the 10th of December Mrs. Sherman was down before her\nson. A spare, delicate-featured woman, with somewhat thin lips tightly\nclosed as with silent people, and eyes at once gentle and distrustful,\ntempering the hardness of the lips. She helped the servant to set the\ntable, and then, for her old-fashioned ideas would not allow her to\nrest, began to knit, often interrupting her knitting to go into the\nkitchen or to listen at the foot of the stairs. At last, hearing a\nsound upstairs, she put the eggs down to boil, muttering the while,\nand began again to knit. When her son appeared she received him with a\nsmile.\n\n\u2018Late again, mother,\u2019 he said.\n\n\u2018The young should sleep,\u2019 she answered, for to her he seemed still a\nboy.\n\nShe had finished her breakfast some time before the young man, and\nbecause it would have appeared very wrong to her to leave the table,\nshe sat on knitting behind the tea-urn: an industry the benefit of\nwhich was felt by many poor children--almost the only neighbours she\nhad a good word for.\n\n\u2018Mother,\u2019 said the young man, presently, \u2018your friend the _locum\ntenens_ is off to-day.\u2019\n\n\u2018A good riddance.\u2019\n\n\u2018Why are you so hard on him? He talked intelligently when here, I\nthought,\u2019 answered her son.\n\n\u2018I do not like his theology,\u2019 she replied, \u2018nor his way of running\nabout and flirting with this body and that body, nor his way of\nchattering while he buttons and unbuttons his gloves.\u2019\n\n\u2018You forget he is a man of the great world, and has about him a manner\nthat must seem strange to us.\u2019\n\n\u2018Oh, he might do very well,\u2019 she answered, \u2018for one of those Carton\ngirls at the rectory.\u2019\n\n\u2018That eldest girl is a good girl,\u2019 replied her son.\n\n\u2018She looks down on us all, and thinks herself intellectual,\u2019 she\nwent on. \u2018I remember when girls were content with their catechism\nand their Bibles and a little practice at the piano, maybe, for an\naccomplishment. What does any one want more? It is all pride.\u2019\n\n\u2018You used to like her as a child,\u2019 said the young man.\n\n\u2018I like all children.\u2019\n\nSherman having finished his breakfast, took a book of travels in one\nhand and a trowel in the other and went out into the garden. Having\nlooked under the parlour window for the first tulip shoots, he went\ndown to the further end and began covering some sea-kale for forcing.\nHe had not been long at work when the servant brought him a letter.\nThere was a stone roller at one side of the grass plot. He sat down\nupon it, and taking the letter between his finger and thumb began\nlooking at it with an air that said: \u2018Well! I know what you mean.\u2019 He\nremained long thus without opening it, the book lying beside him on the\nroller.\n\nThe garden--the letter--the book! You have there the three symbols of\nhis life. Every morning he worked in that garden among the sights and\nsounds of nature. Month by month he planted and hoed and dug there. In\nthe middle he had set a hedge that divided the garden in two. Above\nthe hedge were flowers; below it, vegetables. At the furthest end from\nthe house, lapping broken masonry full of wallflowers, the river said,\nmonth after month to all upon its banks, \u2018Hush!\u2019 He dined at two with\nperfect regularity, and in the afternoon went out to shoot or walk.\nAt twilight he set night-lines. Later on he read. He had not many\nbooks--a Shakespeare, Mungo Park\u2019s travels, a few two-shilling novels,\n_Percy\u2019s Reliques_, and a volume on etiquette. He seldom varied his\noccupations. He had no profession. The town talked of it. They said:\n\u2018He lives upon his mother,\u2019 and were very angry. They never let him\nsee this, however, for it was generally understood he would be a\ndangerous fellow to rouse; but there was an uncle from whom Sherman had\nexpectations who sometimes wrote remonstrating. Mrs. Sherman resented\nthese letters, for she was afraid of her son going away to seek his\nfortune--perhaps even in America. Now this matter preyed somewhat on\nSherman. For three years or so he had been trying to make his mind up\nand come to some decision. Sometimes when reading he would start and\npress his lips together and knit his brows for a moment.\n\nIt will now be seen why the garden, the book, and the letter were\nthe three symbols of his life, summing up as they did his love of\nout-of-door doings, his meditations, his anxieties. His life in the\ngarden had granted serenity to his forehead, the reading of his few\nbooks had filled his eyes with reverie, and the feeling that he was not\nquite a good citizen had given a slight and occasional trembling to his\nlips.\n\nHe opened the letter. Its contents were what he had long expected.\nHis uncle offered to take him into his office. He laid it spread\nout before him--a foot on each margin, right and left--and looked at\nit, turning the matter over and over in his mind. Would he go? would\nhe stay? He did not like the idea much. The lounger in him did not\nenjoy the thought of London. Gradually his mind wandered away into\nscheming--infinite scheming--what would he do if he went, what would he\ndo if he did not go?\n\nA beetle, attracted by the faint sunlight, had crawled out of its hole.\nIt saw the paper and crept on to it, the better to catch the sunlight.\nSherman saw the beetle but his mind was not occupied with it. \u2018Shall I\ntell Mary Carton?\u2019 he was thinking. Mary had long been his adviser and\nfriend. She was, indeed, everybody\u2019s adviser. Yes, he would ask her\nwhat to do. Then again he thought--no, he would decide for himself. The\nbeetle began to move. \u2018If it goes off the paper by the top I will ask\nher--if by the bottom I will not.\u2019\n\nThe beetle went off by the top. He got up with an air of decision and\nwent into the tool-house and began sorting seeds and picking out the\nlight ones, sometimes stopping to watch a spider; for he knew he must\nwait till the afternoon to see Mary Carton. The tool-house was a\nfavourite place with him. He often read there and watched the spiders\nin the corners.\n\nAt dinner he was preoccupied.\n\n\u2018Mother,\u2019 he said, \u2018would you much mind if we went away from this?\u2019\n\n\u2018I have often told you,\u2019 she answered, \u2018I do not like one place better\nthan another. I like them all equally little.\u2019\n\nAfter dinner he went again into the tool-house. This time he did not\nsort seeds--only watched the spiders.\n\n\nIII\n\nTowards evening he went out. The pale sunshine of winter flickered\non his path. The wind blew the straws about. He grew more and more\nmelancholy. A dog of his acquaintance was chasing rabbits in a field.\nHe had never been known to catch one, and since his youth had never\nseen one, for he was almost wholly blind. They were his form of the\neternal chimera. The dog left the field and followed with a friendly\nsniff.\n\nThey came together to the rectory. Mary Carton was not in. There was a\nchildren\u2019s practice in the school-house. They went thither.\n\nA child of four or five with a swelling on its face was sitting\nunder a wall opposite the school door, waiting to make faces at the\nProtestant children as they came out. Catching sight of the dog she\nseemed to debate in her mind whether to throw a stone at it or call\nit to her. She threw the stone and made it run. In after times he\nremembered all these things as though they were of importance.\n\nHe opened the latched green door and went in. About twenty children\nwere singing in shrill voices, standing in a row at the further end. At\nthe harmonium he recognised Mary Carton, who nodded to him and went on\nwith her playing. The whitewashed walls were covered with glazed prints\nof animals; at the further end was a large map of Europe; by a fire at\nthe near end was a table with the remains of tea. This tea was an idea\nof Mary\u2019s. They had tea and cake first, afterwards the singing. The\nfloor was covered with crumbs. The fire was burning brightly. Sherman\nsat down beside it. A child with a great deal of oil in her hair was\nsitting on the end of a form at the other side.\n\n\u2018Look,\u2019 she whispered, \u2018I have been sent away. At any rate they are\nfurther from the fire. They have to be near the harmonium. I would not\nsing. Do you like hymns? I don\u2019t. Will you have a cup of tea? I can\nmake it quite well. See, I did not spill a drop. Have you enough milk?\u2019\nIt was a cup full of milk--children\u2019s tea. \u2018Look, there is a mouse\ncarrying away a crumb. Hush!\u2019\n\nThey sat there, the child watching the mouse, Sherman pondering on his\nletter, until the music ceased and the children came tramping down the\nroom. The mouse having fled, Sherman\u2019s self-appointed hostess got up\nwith a sigh and went out with the others.\n\nMary Carton closed the harmonium and came towards Sherman. Her face and\nall her movements showed a gentle decision of character. Her glance was\nserene, her features regular, her figure at the same time ample and\nbeautifully moulded; her dress plain yet not without a certain air of\ndistinction. In a different society she would have had many suitors.\nBut she was of a type that in country towns does not get married\nat all. Its beauty is too lacking in pink and white, its nature in\nthat small assertiveness admired for character by the uninstructed.\nElsewhere she would have known her own beauty--as it is right that all\nthe beautiful should--and have learnt how to display it, to add gesture\nto her calm and more of mirth and smiles to her grave cheerfulness. As\nit was, her manner was much older than herself.\n\nShe sat down by Sherman with the air of an old friend. They had long\nbeen accustomed to consult together on every matter. They were such\ngood friends they had never fallen in love with each other. Perfect\nlove and perfect friendship are indeed incompatible; for the one is a\nbattlefield where shadows war beside the combatants, and the other a\nplacid country where Consultation has her dwelling.\n\nThese two were such good friends that the most gossiping townspeople\nhad given them up with a sigh. The doctor\u2019s wife, a faded beauty and\ndevoted romance reader, said one day, as they passed, \u2018They are such\ncold creatures\u2019; the old maid who kept the Berlin-wool shop remarked,\n\u2018They are not of the marrying sort\u2019; and now their comings and goings\nwere no longed noticed. Nothing had ever come to break in on their\nquiet companionship and give obscurity as a dwelling-place for the\nneeded illusions. Had one been weak and the other strong, one plain and\nthe other handsome, one guide and the other guided, one wise and the\nother foolish, love might have found them out in a moment, for love is\nbased on inequality as friendship is on equality.\n\n\u2018John,\u2019 said Mary Carton, warming her hands at the fire, \u2018I have had a\ntroublesome day. Did you come to help me teach the children to sing? It\nwas good of you: you were just too late.\u2019\n\n\u2018No,\u2019 he answered, \u2018I have come to be your pupil. I am always your\npupil.\u2019\n\n\u2018Yes, and a most disobedient one.\u2019\n\n\u2018Well, advise me this time at any rate. My uncle has written, offering\nme a hundred pounds a year to begin with in his London office. Am I to\ngo?\u2019\n\n\u2018You know quite well my answer,\u2019 she said.\n\n\u2018Indeed I do not. Why should I go? I am contented here. I am now making\nmy garden ready for spring. Later on there will be trout fishing and\nsaunters by the edge of the river in the evening when the bats are\nflickering about. In July there will be races. I enjoy the bustle. I\nenjoy life here. When anything annoys me I keep away from it, that is\nall. You know I am always busy. I have occupation and friends and am\nquite contented.\u2019\n\n\u2018It is a great loss to many of us, but you must go, John,\u2019 she said.\n\u2018For you know you will be old some day, and perhaps when the vitality\nof youth is gone you will feel that your life is empty and find that\nyou are too old to change it; and you will give up, perhaps, trying\nto be happy and likeable and become as the rest are. I think I can\nsee you,\u2019 she said, with a laugh, \u2018a hypochondriac, like Gorman, the\nretired excise officer, or with a red nose like Dr. Stephens, or\ngrowing like Peters, the elderly cattle merchant, who starves his\nhorse.\u2019\n\n\u2018They were bad material to begin with,\u2019 he answered, \u2018and, besides, I\ncannot take my mother away with me at her age, and I cannot leave her\nalone.\u2019\n\n\u2018What annoyance it may be,\u2019 she answered, \u2018will soon be forgotten. You\nwill be able to give her many more comforts. We women--we all like to\nbe dressed well and have pleasant rooms to sit in, and a young man at\nyour age should not be idle. You must go away from this little backward\nplace. We shall miss you, but you are clever and must go and work with\nother men and have your talents admitted.\u2019\n\n\u2018How emulous you would have me! Perhaps I shall be well-to-do some day;\nmeanwhile I only wish to stay here with my friends.\u2019\n\nShe went over to the window and looked out with her face turned from\nhim. The evening light cast a long shadow behind her on the floor.\nAfter some moments, she said, \u2018I see people ploughing on the slope of\nthe hill. There are people working on a house to the right. Everywhere\nthere are people busy,\u2019 and with a slight tremble in her voice she\nadded, \u2018and, John, nowhere are there any doing what they wish. One has\nto think of so many things--of duty and God.\u2019\n\n\u2018Mary, I didn\u2019t know you were so religious.\u2019\n\nComing towards him with a smile, she said, \u2018No more did I, perhaps.\nBut sometimes the self in one is very strong. One has to think a great\ndeal and reason with it. Yet I try hard to lose myself in things about\nme. These children now--I often lie awake thinking about them. That\nchild who was talking to you is often on my mind. I do not know what\nwill happen to her. She makes me unhappy. I am afraid she is not a good\nchild at all. I am afraid she is not taught well at home. I try hard to\nbe gentle and patient with her. I am a little displeased with myself\nto-day, so I have lectured you. There! I have made my confession. But,\u2019\nshe added, taking one of his hands in both hers and reddening, \u2018you\nmust go away. You must not be idle. You will gain everything.\u2019\n\nAs she stood there with bright eyes, the light of evening about her,\nSherman for perhaps the first time saw how beautiful she was, and was\nflattered by her interest. For the first time also her presence did not\nmake him at peace with the world.\n\n\u2018Will you be an obedient pupil?\u2019\n\n\u2018You know so much more than I do,\u2019 he answered, \u2018and are so much wiser.\nI will write to my uncle and agree to his offer.\u2019\n\n\u2018Now you must go home,\u2019 she said. \u2018You must not keep your mother\nwaiting for her tea. There! I have raked the fire out. We must not\nforget to lock the door behind us.\u2019\n\nAs they stood on the doorstep the wind blew a whirl of dead leaves\nabout them.\n\n\u2018They are my old thoughts,\u2019 he said; \u2018see, they are all withered.\u2019\n\nThey walked together silently. At the vicarage he left her and went\nhomeward.\n\nThe deserted flour-store at the corner of two roads, the house that\nhad been burnt hollow ten years before and still lifted its blackened\nbeams, the straggling and leafless fruit-trees rising above garden\nwalls, the church where he was christened--these foster-mothers of his\ninfancy seemed to nod and shake their heads over him.\n\n\u2018Mother,\u2019 he said, hurriedly entering the room, \u2018we are going to\nLondon.\u2019\n\n\u2018As you wish. I always knew you would be a rolling stone,\u2019 she\nanswered, and went out to tell the servant that as soon as she had\nfinished the week\u2019s washing they must pack up everything, for they were\ngoing to London.\n\n\u2018Yes, we must pack up,\u2019 said the old peasant; she did not stop peeling\nthe onion in her hand--she had not comprehended. In the middle of the\nnight she suddenly started up in bed with a pale face and a prayer to\nthe Virgin whose image hung over her head--she had now comprehended.\n\n\nIV\n\nOn January the 5th, about two in the afternoon, Sherman sat on the\ndeck of the steamer _Lavinia_ enjoying a period of sunshine between\ntwo showers. The steamer _Lavinia_ was a cattle-boat. It had been his\nwish to travel by some more expensive route, but his mother, with\nher old-fashioned ideas of duty, would not hear of it, and now, as\nhe foresaw, was extremely uncomfortable below, while he, who was a\ngood sailor, was pretty happy on deck, and would have been quite so\nif the pigs would only tire of their continual squealing. With the\nexception of a very dirty old woman sitting by a crate of geese, all\nthe passengers but himself were below. This old woman made the journey\nmonthly with geese for the Liverpool market.\n\nSherman was dreaming. He began to feel very desolate, and commenced\na letter to Mary Carton in his notebook to state this fact. He was\na laborious and unpractised writer, and found it helped him to make\na pencil copy. Sometimes he stopped and watched the puffin sleeping\non the waves. Each one of them had its head tucked in in a somewhat\ndifferent way. \u2018That is because their characters are different,\u2019 he\nthought.\n\nGradually he began to notice a great many corks floating by, one after\nthe other. The old woman saw them too, and said, waking out of a half\nsleep: \u2018Misther John Sherman, we will be in the Mersey before evening.\nWhy are ye goin\u2019 among them savages in London, Misther John? Why don\u2019t\nye stay among your own people--for what have we in this life but a\nmouthful of air?\u2019\n\n\nSECOND PART\n\nMARGARET LELAND\n\n\nI\n\nSherman and his mother rented a small house on the north side of St.\nPeter\u2019s Square, Hammersmith. The front windows looked out on to the\nold rank and green square, the windows behind on to a little patch\nof garden round which the houses gathered and pressed as though they\nalready longed to trample it out. In this garden was a single tall pear\ntree that never bore fruit.\n\nThree years passed by without any notable event. Sherman went every day\nto his office in Tower Hill Street, abused his work a great deal, and\nwas not unhappy perhaps. He was probably a bad clerk, but then nobody\nwas very exacting with the nephew of the head of the firm.\n\nThe firm of Sherman and Saunders, ship-brokers, was a long-established,\nold-fashioned house. Saunders had been dead some years and old Michael\nSherman ruled alone--an old bachelor full of family pride and pride\nin his wealth. He lived, for all that, in a very simple fashion. His\nmahogany furniture was a little solider than other people\u2019s perhaps.\nHe did not understand display. Display finds its excuse in some taste\ngood or bad, and in a long industrious life Michael Sherman had never\nfound leisure to form one. He seemed to live only from habit. Year by\nyear he grew more silent, gradually ceasing to regard anything but his\nfamily and his ships. His family were represented by his nephew and his\nnephew\u2019s mother. He did not feel much affection for them. He believed\nin his family--that was all. To remind him of the other goal of his\nthoughts hung round his private office pictures with such inscriptions\nas \u2018S.S. _Indus_ at the Cape of Good Hope,\u2019 \u2018The barque _Mary_ in the\nMozambique Channel,\u2019 \u2018The barque _Livingstone_ at Port Said,\u2019 and\nmany more. Every rope was drawn accurately with a ruler, and here and\nthere were added distant vessels sailing proudly by with all that\nindifference to perspective peculiar to the drawings of sailors. On\nevery ship was the flag of the firm spread out to show the letters.\n\nNo man cared for old Michael Sherman. Every one liked John. Both were\nsilent, but the young man had sometimes a talkative fit. The old man\nlived for his ledger, the young man for his dreams.\n\nIn spite of all these differences, the uncle was on the whole pleased\nwith the nephew. He noticed a certain stolidity that was of the family.\nIt sometimes irritated others. It pleased him. He saw a hundred\nindications besides that made him say, \u2018He is a true Sherman. We\nShermans begin that way and give up frivolity as we grow old. We are\nall the same in the end.\u2019\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nMrs. Sherman and her son had but a small round of acquaintances--a few\nrich people, clients of the house of Sherman and Saunders for the most\npart. Among these was a Miss Margaret Leland who lived with her mother,\nthe widow of the late Henry Leland, ship-broker, on the eastern side\nof St. Peter\u2019s Square. Their house was larger than the Shermans\u2019, and\nnoticeable among its fellows by the newly-painted hall-door. Within\non every side were bronzes and china vases and heavy curtains. In all\nwere displayed the curious and vagrant taste of Margaret Leland: the\nrich Italian and medi\u00e6val draperies of pre-Raphaelite taste jostling\nthe brightest and vulgarest products of more native and Saxon\nschools; vases of the most artistic shape and colour side by side\nwith artificial flowers and stuffed birds. This house belonged to the\nLelands. They had bought it in less prosperous days, and having altered\nit according to their taste and the need of their growing welfare could\nnot decide to leave it.\n\nSherman was an occasional caller at the Lelands, and had certainly a\nliking, though not a very deep one, for Margaret. As yet he knew little\nmore about her than that she wore the most fascinating hats, that the\nlate Lord Lytton was her favourite author, and that she hated frogs. It\nis clear that she did not know that a French writer on magic says the\nluxurious and extravagant hate frogs because they are cold, solitary,\nand dreary. Had she done so, she would have been more cautious about\nrevealing her tastes.\n\nFor the rest, John Sherman was forgetting the town of Ballah. He\ncorresponded indeed with Mary Carton, but his laborious letter-writing\nmade his letters fewer and fewer. Sometimes, too, he heard from Howard,\nwho had a curacy at Glasgow and was on indifferent terms with his\nparishioners. They objected to his way of conducting the services.\nHis letters were full of it. He would not give in, he said, whatever\nhappened. His conscience was involved.\n\n\nII\n\nOne afternoon Mrs. Leland called on Mrs. Sherman. She very often\ncalled--this fat, sentimental woman, moving in the midst of a cloud\nof scent. The day was warm, and she carried her too elaborate and\nheavy dress as a large caddis-fly drags its case with much labour and\npatience. She sat down on the sofa with obvious relief, leaning so\nheavily among the cushions that a clothes-moth fluttered out of an\nantimacassar, to be knocked down and crushed by Mrs. Sherman, who was\nvery quick in her movements.\n\nAs soon as she found her breath, Mrs. Leland began a long history of\nher sorrows. Her daughter Margaret had been jilted and was in despair,\nhad taken to her bed with every resolution to die, and was growing\npaler and paler. The hard-hearted man, though she knew he had heard,\ndid not relent. She knew he had heard because her daughter had told his\nsister all about it, and his sister had no heart, because she said it\nwas temper that ailed Margaret, and she was a little vixen, and that\nif she had not flirted with everybody the engagement would never have\nbeen broken off. But Mr. Sims had no heart clearly, as Miss Marriot and\nMrs. Eliza Taylor, her daughter\u2019s friends, said, when they heard, and\nLock, the butler, said the same too, and Mary Young, the housemaid,\nsaid so too--and she knew all about it, for Margaret used to read his\nletters to her often when having her hair brushed.\n\n\u2018She must have been very fond of him,\u2019 said Mrs. Sherman.\n\n\u2018She is so romantic, my dear,\u2019 answered Mrs. Leland, with a sigh. \u2018I am\nafraid she takes after an uncle on her father\u2019s side, who wrote poetry\nand wore a velvet jacket and ran away with an Italian countess who used\nto get drunk. When I married Mr. Leland people said he was not worthy\nof me, and that I was throwing myself away--and he in business, too!\nBut Margaret is so romantic. There was Mr. Walters, a gentleman-farmer,\nand Simpson who had a jeweller\u2019s shop--I never approved of him!--and\nMr. Samuelson, and the Hon. William Scott. She tired of them all except\nthe Hon. William Scott, who tired of her because someone told him she\nput belladonna in her eyes--and it is not true; and now there is Mr.\nSims!\u2019 She then cried a little, and allowed herself to be consoled by\nMrs. Sherman.\n\n\u2018You talk so intelligently and are so well informed,\u2019 she said at\nparting. \u2018I have made a very pleasant call,\u2019 and the caddis-worm toiled\nupon its way, arriving in time at other cups of tea.\n\n\nIII\n\nThe day after Mrs. Leland\u2019s call upon his mother, John Sherman,\nreturning home after his not very lengthy day in the office, saw\nMargaret coming towards him. She had a lawn-tennis racket under her\narm, and was walking slowly on the shady side of the road. She was a\npretty girl with quite irregular features, who though not really more\nthan pretty, had so much manner, so much of an air, that every one\ncalled her a beauty: a trefoil with the fragrance of a rose.\n\n\u2018Mr. Sherman,\u2019 she cried, coming smiling to meet him, \u2018I have been ill,\nbut could not stand the house any longer. I am going to the Square to\nplay tennis. Will you come with me?\u2019\n\n\u2018I am a bad player,\u2019 he said.\n\n\u2018Of course you are,\u2019 she answered; \u2018but you are the only person under a\nhundred to be found this afternoon. How dull life is!\u2019 she continued,\nwith a sigh. \u2018You heard how ill I have been? What do you do all day?\u2019\n\n\u2018I sit at a desk, sometimes writing, and sometimes, when I get lazy,\nlooking up at the flies. There are fourteen on the plaster of the\nceiling over my head. They died two winters ago. I sometimes think to\nhave them brushed off, but they have been there so long now I hardly\nlike to.\u2019\n\n\u2018Ah! you like them,\u2019 she said, \u2018because you are accustomed to them. In\nmost cases there is not much more to be said for our family affections,\nI think.\u2019\n\n\u2018In a room close at hand,\u2019 he went on, \u2018there is, you know, Uncle\nMichael, who never speaks.\u2019\n\n\u2018Precisely. You have an uncle who never speaks; I have a mother who\nnever is silent. She went to see Mrs. Sherman the other day. What did\nshe say to her?\u2019\n\n\u2018Nothing.\u2019\n\n\u2018Really! What a dull thing existence is!\u2019--this with a great sigh.\n\u2018When the Fates are weaving our web of life some mischievous goblin\nalways runs off with the dye-pot. Everything is dull and grey. Am I\nlooking a little pale? I have been so very ill.\u2019\n\n\u2018A little bit pale, perhaps,\u2019 he said, doubtfully.\n\nThe Square gate brought them to a stop. It was locked, but she had the\nkey. The lock was stiff, but turned easily for John Sherman.\n\n\u2018How strong you are,\u2019 she said.\n\nIt was an iridescent evening of spring. The leaves of the bushes had\nstill their faint green. As Margaret darted about at the tennis, a red\nfeather in her cap seemed to rejoice with its wearer. Everything was at\nonce gay and tranquil. The whole world had that unreal air it assumes\nat beautiful moments, as though it might vanish at a touch like an\niridescent soap-bubble.\n\nAfter a little Margaret said she was tired, and, sitting on a\ngarden-seat among the bushes, began telling him the plots of novels\nlately read by her. Suddenly she cried: \u2018The novel-writers were all\nserious people like you. They are so hard on people like me. They\nalways make us come to a bad end. They _say_ we are always acting,\nacting, acting; and what else do you serious people do? You act before\nthe world. I think, do you know, _we_ act before ourselves. All the\nold foolish kings and queens in history were like us. They laughed and\nbeckoned and went to the block for no very good purpose. I daresay the\nheadsmen were like you.\u2019\n\n\u2018We would never cut off so pretty a head.\u2019\n\n\u2018Oh, yes, you would--you would cut off mine to-morrow.\u2019 All this she\nsaid vehemently, piercing him with her bright eyes. \u2018You would cut off\nmy head to-morrow,\u2019 she repeated, almost fiercely; \u2018I tell you you\nwould.\u2019\n\nHer departure was always unexpected, her moods changed with so much\nrapidity. \u2018Look!\u2019 she said, pointing where the clock on St. Peter\u2019s\nchurch showed above the bushes. \u2018Five minutes to five. In five minutes\nmy mother\u2019s tea-hour. It is like growing old. I go to gossip. Good-bye.\u2019\n\nThe red feather shone for a moment among the bushes and was gone.\n\n\nIV\n\nThe next day and the day after, Sherman was followed by those bright\neyes. When he opened a letter at his desk they seemed to gaze at him\nfrom the open paper, and to watch him from the flies upon the ceiling.\nHe was even a worse clerk than usual.\n\nOne evening he said to his mother, \u2018Miss Leland has beautiful eyes.\u2019\n\n\u2018My dear, she puts belladonna in them.\u2019\n\n\u2018What a thing to say!\u2019\n\n\u2018I know she does, though her mother denies it.\u2019\n\n\u2018Well, she is certainly beautiful,\u2019 he answered.\n\n\u2018My dear, if she has an attraction for you, I don\u2019t want to discourage\nit. She is rich as girls go nowadays; and one woman has one fault,\nanother another: one\u2019s untidy, one fights with her servants, one fights\nwith her friends, another has a crabbed tongue when she talks of them.\u2019\n\nSherman became again silent, finding no fragment of romance in such a\ndiscourse.\n\nIn the next week or two he saw much of Miss Leland. He met her almost\nevery evening on his return from the office, walking slowly, her racket\nunder her arm. They played tennis much and talked more. Sherman began\nto play tennis in his dreams. Miss Leland told him all about herself,\nher friends, her inmost feelings; and yet every day he knew less about\nher. It was not merely that saying everything she said nothing, but\nthat continually there came through her wild words the sound of the\nmysterious flutes and viols of that unconscious nature which dwells\nso much nearer to woman than to man. How often do we not endow the\nbeautiful and candid with depth and mystery not their own? We do not\nknow that we but hear in their voices those flutes and viols playing to\nus of the alluring secret of the world.\n\nSherman had never known in early life what is called first love, and\nnow, when he had passed thirty, it came to him--that love more of the\nimagination than of either the senses or affections: it was mainly the\neyes that followed him.\n\nIt is not to be denied that as this love grew serious it grew\nmercenary. Now active, now latent, the notion had long been in\nSherman\u2019s mind, as we know, that he should marry money. A born\nlounger, riches tempted him greatly. When those eyes haunted him from\nthe fourteen flies on the ceiling, he would say, \u2018I should be rich;\nI should have a house in the country; I should hunt and shoot, and\nhave a garden and three gardeners; I should leave this abominable\noffice.\u2019 Then the eyes became even more beautiful. It was a new kind of\nbelladonna.\n\nHe shrank a little, however, from choosing even this pleasant pathway.\nHe had planned many futures for himself and learnt to love them all. It\nwas this that had made him linger on at Ballah for so long, and it was\nthis that now kept him undecided. He would have to give up the universe\nfor a garden and three gardeners. How sad it was to make substantial\neven the best of his dreams. How hard it was to submit to that\ndecree which compels every step we take in life to be a death in the\nimagination. How difficult it was to be so enwrapped in this one new\nhope as not to hear the lamentations that were going on in dim corners\nof his mind.\n\nOne day he resolved to propose. He examined himself in the glass in\nthe morning; and for the first time in his life smiled to see how\ngood-looking he was. In the evening before leaving the office he\npeered at himself in the mirror over the mantlepiece in the room where\ncustomers were received. The sun was blazing through the window full on\nhis face. He did not look so well. Immediately all courage left him.\n\nThat evening he went out after his mother had gone to bed and walked\nfar along the towing-path of the Thames. A faint mist half covered\naway the houses and factory chimneys on the further side; beside him\na band of osiers swayed softly, the deserted and full river lapping\ntheir stems. He looked on all these things with foreign eyes. He had no\nsense of possession. Indeed it seemed to him that everything in London\nwas owned by too many to be owned by anyone. Another river that he\ndid seem to possess flowed through his memory with all its familiar\nsights--boys riding in the stream to the saddle-girths, fish leaping,\nwater-flies raising their small ripples, a swan asleep, the wallflowers\ngrowing on the red brick of the margin. He grew very sad. Suddenly\na shooting star, fiery and vagabond, leaped from the darkness. It\nbrought his mind again in a moment to Margaret Leland. To marry her, he\nthought, was to separate himself from the old life he loved so well.\n\nCrossing the river at Putney, he hurried homewards among the\nmarket-gardens. Nearing home, the streets were deserted, the shops\nclosed. Where King Street joins the Broadway, entirely alone with\nitself, in the very centre of the road a little black cat was leaping\nafter its shadow.\n\n\u2018Ah!\u2019 he thought, \u2018it would be a good thing to be a little black cat.\nTo leap about in the moonlight and sleep in the sunlight, and catch\nflies, to have no hard tasks to do or hard decisions to come to, to be\nsimple and full of animal spirits.\u2019\n\nAt the corner of Bridge Road was a coffee-stall, the only sign of human\nlife. He bought some cold meat and flung it to the little black cat.\n\n\nV\n\nSome more days went by. At last, one day, arriving at the Square\nsomewhat earlier than usual, and sitting down to wait for Margaret on\nthe seat among the bushes, he noticed the pieces of a torn-up letter\nlying about. Beside him on the seat was a pencil, as though someone had\nbeen writing there and left it behind them. The pencil-lead was worn\nvery short. The letter had been torn up, perhaps in a fit of impatience.\n\nIn a half-mechanical way he glanced over the scraps. On one of them\nhe read: \u2018MY DEAR ELIZA,--What an incurable gossip my mother is. You\nheard of my misfortune. I nearly died-\u2014-\u2019 Here he had to search among\nthe scraps; at last he found one that seemed to follow. \u2018Perhaps you\nwill hear news from me soon. There is a handsome young man who pays me\nattention, and-\u2014-\u2019 Here another piece had to be found. \u2018I would take\nhim though he had a face like the man in the moon, and limped like the\ndevil at the theatre. Perhaps I am a little in love. Oh! friend of\nmy heart--\u2019 Here it broke off again. He was interested, and searched\nthe grass and the bushes for fragments. Some had been blown to quite\na distance. He got together several sentences now. \u2018I will not spend\nanother winter with my mother for anything. All this is, of course, a\nsecret. I had to tell somebody; secrets are bad for my health. Perhaps\nit will all come to nothing.\u2019 Then the letter went off into dress, the\nlast novel the writer had read, and so forth. A Miss Sims, too, was\nmentioned, who had said some unkind thing of the writer.\n\nSherman was greatly amused. It did not seem to him wrong to read--we do\nnot mind spying on one of the crowd, any more than on the personages of\nliterature. It never occurred to him that he, or any friend of his, was\nconcerned in these pencil scribblings.\n\nSuddenly he saw this sentence: \u2018Heigho! your poor Margaret is falling\nin love again; condole with her, my dear.\u2019\n\nHe started. The name \u2018Margaret,\u2019 the mention of Miss Sims, the style\nof the whole letter, all made plain the authorship. Very desperately\nashamed of himself, he got up and tore each scrap of paper into still\nsmaller fragments and scattered them far apart.\n\nThat evening he proposed and was accepted.\n\n\nVI\n\nFor several days there was a new heaven and a new earth. Miss Leland\nseemed suddenly impressed with the seriousness of life. She was\ngentleness itself; and as Sherman sat on Sunday mornings in his\npocket-handkerchief of a garden under the one tree, with its smoky\nstem, watching the little circles of sunlight falling from the leaves\nlike a shower of new sovereigns, he gazed at them with a longer and\nkeener joy than heretofore--a new heaven and a new earth, surely!\n\nSherman planted and dug and raked this pocket-handkerchief of a garden\nmost diligently, rooting out the docks and dandelions and mouse-ear and\nthe patches of untimely grass. It was the point of contact between his\nnew life and the old. It was far too small and unfertile and shaded-in\nto satisfy his love of gardener\u2019s experiments and early vegetables.\nPerforce this husbandry was too little complex for his affections to\ngather much round plant and bed. His garden in Ballah used to touch him\nlike the growth of a young family. Now he was content to satisfy his\nbarbaric sense of colour; right round were planted alternate hollyhock\nand sunflower, and behind them scarlet-runners showed their inch-high\ncloven shoots.\n\nOne Sunday it occurred to him to write to his friends on the matter\nof his engagement. He numbered them over. Howard, one or two less\nintimate, and Mary Carton. At that name he paused; he would not write\njust yet.\n\n\nVII\n\nOne Saturday there was a tennis party. Miss Leland devoted herself all\nday to a young Foreign Office clerk. She played tennis with him, talked\nwith him, drank lemonade with him, had neither thoughts nor words for\nanyone else. John Sherman was quite happy. Tennis was always a bore,\nand now he was not called upon to play. It had not struck him there was\noccasion for jealousy.\n\nAs the guests were dispersing, his betrothed came to him. Her manner\nseemed strange.\n\n\u2018Does anything ail you, Margaret?\u2019 he asked, as they left the Square.\n\n\u2018Everything,\u2019 she answered, looking about her with ostentatious\nsecrecy. \u2018You are a most annoying person. You have no feeling; you\nhave no temperament; you are quite the most stupid creature I was ever\nengaged to.\u2019\n\n\u2018What is wrong with you?\u2019 he asked, in bewilderment.\n\n\u2018Don\u2019t you see,\u2019 she replied, with a broken voice, \u2018I flirted all day\nwith that young clerk? You should have nearly killed me with jealousy.\nYou do not love me a bit! There is no knowing what I might do!\u2019\n\n\u2018Well, you know,\u2019 he said, \u2018it was not right of you. People might say,\n\u201cLook at John Sherman; how furious he must be!\u201d To be sure, I wouldn\u2019t\nbe furious a bit; but then they\u2019d go about saying I was. It would not\nmatter, of course; but you know it is not right of you.\u2019\n\n\u2018It is no use pretending you have feeling. It is all that miserable\nlittle town you come from, with its sleepy old shops and its sleepy\nold society. I would give up loving you this minute,\u2019 she added, with\na caressing look, \u2018if you had not that beautiful bronzed face. I will\nimprove you. To-morrow evening you must come to the opera.\u2019 Suddenly\nshe changed the subject. \u2018Do you see that little fat man coming out of\nthe Square and staring at me? I was engaged to him once. Look at the\nfour old ladies behind him, shaking their bonnets at me. Each has some\nstory about me, and it will be all the same in a hundred years.\u2019\n\nAfter this he had hardly a moment\u2019s peace. She kept him continually\ngoing to theatres, operas, parties. These last were an especial\ntrouble; for it was her wont to gather about her an admiring circle to\nlisten to her extravagancies, and he was no longer at the age when we\nenjoy audacity for its own sake.\n\n\nVIII\n\nGradually those bright eyes of his imagination, watching him from\nletters and from among the fourteen flies on the ceiling, had ceased to\nbe centres of peace. They seemed like two whirlpools, wherein the order\nand quiet of his life were absorbed hourly and daily.\n\nHe still thought sometimes of the country house of his dreams and of\nthe garden and the three gardeners, but somehow they had lost half\ntheir charm.\n\nHe had written to Howard and some others, and commenced, at last, a\nletter to Mary Carton. It lay unfinished on his desk; a thin coating of\ndust was gathering upon it.\n\nMrs. Leland called continually on Mrs. Sherman. She sentimentalized\nover the lovers, and even wept over them; each visit supplied the\nhousehold with conversation for a week.\n\nEvery Sunday morning--his letter-writing time--Sherman looked at his\nuncompleted letter. Gradually it became plain to him he could not\nfinish it. It had never seemed to him he had more than friendship\nfor Mary Carton, yet somehow it was not possible to tell her of this\nlove-affair.\n\nThe more his betrothed troubled him the more he thought about the\nunfinished letter. He was a man standing at the cross roads.\n\nWhenever the wind blew from the south he remembered his friend, for\nthat is the wind that fills the heart with memory.\n\nOne Sunday he removed the dust from the face of the letter almost\nreverently, as though it were the dust from the wheels of destiny. But\nthe letter remained unfinished.\n\n\nIX\n\nOne Wednesday in June Sherman arrived home an hour earlier than\nusual from his office, as his wont was the first Wednesday in every\nmonth, on which day his mother was at home to her friends. They had\nnot many callers. To-day there was no one as yet but a badly-dressed\nold lady his mother had picked up he knew not where. She had been\nlooking at his photograph album, and recalling names and dates\nfrom her own prosperous times. As she went out Miss Leland came in.\nShe gave the old lady in passing a critical look that made the poor\ncreature very conscious of a threadbare mantle, and went over to Mrs.\nSherman, holding out both hands. Sherman, who knew all his mother\u2019s\npeculiarities, noticed on her side a slight coldness; perhaps she did\nnot altogether like this beautiful dragon-fly.\n\n\u2018I have come,\u2019 said Miss Leland, \u2018to tell John that he must learn to\npaint. Music and society are not enough. There is nothing like art to\ngive refinement.\u2019 Then turning to John Sherman--\u2018My dear, I will make\nyou quite different. You are a dreadful barbarian, you know.\u2019\n\n\u2018What ails me, Margaret?\u2019\n\n\u2018Just look at that necktie! Nothing shows a man\u2019s cultivation like\nhis necktie! Then your reading! You never read anything but old books\nnobody wants to talk about. I will lend you three everyone has read\nthis month. You really must acquire small talk and change your necktie.\u2019\n\nPresently she noticed the photograph-book lying open on a chair.\n\n\u2018Oh!\u2019 she cried, \u2018I must have another look at John\u2019s beauties.\u2019\n\nIt was a habit of his to gather all manner of pretty faces. It came\nfrom incipient old bachelorhood, perhaps.\n\nMargaret criticised each photograph in turn with, \u2018Ah! she looks as if\nshe had some life in her!\u2019 or \u2018I do not like your sleepy eyelids,\u2019 or\nsome such phrase. The mere relations were passed by without a word. One\nface occurred several times--a quiet face. As Margaret came on this one\nfor the third time, Mrs. Sherman, who seemed a little resentful about\nsomething, said: \u2018That is his friend, Mary Carton.\u2019\n\n\u2018He told me about her. He has a book she gave him. So that is she? How\ninteresting! I pity these poor country people. It must be hard to keep\nfrom getting stupid.\u2019\n\n\u2018My friend is not at all stupid,\u2019 said Sherman.\n\n\u2018Does she speak with a brogue? I remember you told me she was very\ngood. It must be difficult to keep from talking platitudes when one is\nvery good.\u2019\n\n\u2018You are quite wrong about her. You would like her very much,\u2019 he\nreplied.\n\n\u2018She is one of those people, I suppose, who can only talk about their\nrelatives, or their families, or about their friends\u2019 children: how\nthis one has got the whooping-cough, and this one is getting well of\nthe measles!\u2019 She kept swaying one of the leaves between her finger\nand thumb impatiently. \u2018What a strange way she does her hair; and what\nan ugly dress!\u2019\n\n\u2018You must not talk that way about her--she is my great friend.\u2019\n\n\u2018Friend! friend!\u2019 she burst out. \u2018He thinks I will believe in\nfriendship between a man and a woman!\u2019\n\nShe got up, and said, turning round with an air of changing the\nsubject, \u2018Have you written to your friends about our engagement? You\nhad not done so when I asked you lately.\u2019\n\n\u2018I have.\u2019\n\n\u2018All?\u2019\n\n\u2018Well, not all.\u2019\n\n\u2018Your great friend, Miss \u2014\u2014 what do you call her?\u2019\n\n\u2018Miss Carton. I have not written to her.\u2019\n\nShe tapped impatiently with her foot.\n\n\u2018They were really old companions--that is all,\u2019 said Mrs. Sherman,\nwishing to mend matters. \u2018They were both readers; that brought them\ntogether. I never much fancied her. Yet she was well enough as a\nfriend, and helped, maybe, with reading, and the gardening, and\nhis good bringing-up, to keep him from the idle young men of the\nneighbourhood.\u2019\n\n\u2018You must make him write and tell her at once--you must, you must!\u2019\nalmost sobbed out Miss Leland.\n\n\u2018I promise,\u2019 he answered.\n\nImmediately returning to herself, she cried, \u2018If I were in her place\nI know what I would like to do when I got the letter. I know who I\nwould like to kill!\u2019--this with a laugh as she went over and looked at\nherself in the mirror on the mantlepiece.\n\n\nTHIRD PART\n\nJOHN SHERMAN REVISITS BALLAH\n\n\nI\n\nThe others had gone, and Sherman was alone in the drawing-room by\nhimself, looking through the window. Never had London seemed to him so\nlike a reef whereon he was cast away. In the Square the bushes were\ncovered with dust; some sparrows were ruffling their feathers on the\nside-walk; people passed, continually disturbing them. The sky was full\nof smoke. A terrible feeling of solitude in the midst of a multitude\noppressed him. A portion of his life was ending. He thought that soon\nhe would be no longer a young man, and now, at the period when the\ndesire of novelty grows less, was coming the great change of his life.\nHe felt he was of those whose granaries are in the past. And now this\npast would never renew itself. He was going out into the distance as\nthough with strange sailors in a strange ship.\n\nHe longed to see again the town where he had spent his childhood: to\nsee the narrow roads and mean little shops. And perhaps it would be\neasier to tell her who had been the friend of so many years of this\nengagement in his own person than by letter. He wondered why it was so\nhard to write so simple a thing.\n\nIt was his custom to act suddenly on his decisions. He had not made\nmany in his life. The next day he announced at the office that he would\nbe absent for three or four days. He told his mother he had business in\nthe country.\n\nHis betrothed met him on the way to the terminus, as he was walking,\nbag in hand, and asked where he was going. \u2018I am going on business to\nthe country,\u2019 he said, and blushed. He was creeping away like a thief.\n\n\nII\n\nHe arrived in the town of Ballah by rail, for he had avoided the slow\ncattle-steamer and gone by Dublin.\n\nIt was the forenoon, and he made for the Imperial Hotel to wait till\nfour in the evening, when he would find Mary Carton in the schoolhouse,\nfor he had timed his journey so as to arrive on Thursday, the day of\nthe children\u2019s practice.\n\nAs he went through the streets his heart went out to every familiar\nplace and sight: the rows of tumble-down thatched cottages; the slated\nroofs of the shops; the women selling gooseberries; the river bridge;\nthe high walls of the garden where it was said the gardener used to see\nthe ghost of a former owner in the shape of a rabbit; the street corner\nno child would pass at nightfall for fear of the headless soldier;\nthe deserted flour-store; the wharves covered with grass. All these\nhe watched with Celtic devotion, that devotion carried to the ends of\nthe world by the Celtic exiles, and since old time surrounding their\njourneyings with rumour of plaintive songs.\n\nHe sat in the window of the Imperial Hotel, now full of guests. He\ndid not notice any of them. He sat there meditating, meditating. Grey\nclouds covering the town with flying shadows rushed by like the old\nand dishevelled eagles that Maeldune saw hurrying towards the waters\nof life. Below in the street passed by country people, townspeople,\ntravellers, women with baskets, boys driving donkeys, old men with\nsticks; sometimes he recognized a face or was recognized himself, and\nwelcomed by some familiar voice.\n\n\u2018You have come home a handsomer gentleman than your father, Misther\nJohn, and he was a neat figure of a man, God bless him!\u2019 said the\nwaiter, bringing him his lunch; and in truth Sherman had grown\nhandsomer for these years away. His face and gesture had more of\ndignity, for on the centre of his nature life had dropped a pinch of\nexperience.\n\nAt four he left the hotel and waited near the schoolhouse till the\nchildren came running out. One or two of the elder ones he recognized\nbut turned away.\n\n\nIII\n\nMary Carton was locking the harmonium as he went in. She came to meet\nhim with a surprised and joyful air.\n\n\u2018How often I have wished to see you! When did you come? How well you\nremembered my habits to know where to find me. My dear John, how glad I\nam to see you!\u2019\n\n\u2018You are the same as when I left, and this room is the same, too.\u2019\n\n\u2018Yes,\u2019 she answered, \u2018the same, only I have had some new prints hung\nup--prints of fruits and leaves and bird-nests. It was only done last\nweek. When people choose pictures and poems for children they choose\nout such domestic ones. I would not have any of the kind; children are\nsuch undomestic animals. But, John, I am so glad to see you in this\nold schoolhouse again. So little has changed with us here. Some have\ndied and some have been married, and we are all a little older and the\ntrees a little taller.\u2019\n\n\u2018I have come to tell you I am going to be married.\u2019\n\nShe became in a moment perfectly white, and sat down as though attacked\nwith faintness. Her hand on the edge of the chair trembled.\n\nSherman looked at her, and went on in a bewildered, mechanical way: \u2018My\nbetrothed is a Miss Leland. She has a good deal of money. You know my\nmother always wished me to marry some one with money. Her father, when\nalive, was an old client of Sherman and Saunders. She is much admired\nin society.\u2019 Gradually his voice became a mere murmur. He did not seem\nto know that he was speaking. He stopped entirely. He was looking at\nMary Carton.\n\nEverything around him was as it had been some three years before. The\ntable was covered with cups and the floor with crumbs. Perhaps the\nmouse pulling at a crumb under the table was the same mouse as on that\nother evening. The only difference was the brooding daylight of summer\nand the ceaseless chirruping of the sparrows in the ivy outside. He\nhad a confused sense of having lost his way. It was just the same\nfeeling he had known as a child, when one dark night he had taken a\nwrong turning, and instead of arriving at his own house, found himself\nat a landmark he knew was miles from home.\n\nA moment earlier, however difficult his life, the issues were always\ndefinite; now suddenly had entered the obscurity of another\u2019s interest.\n\nBefore this it had not occurred to him that Mary Carton had any\nstronger feeling for him than warm friendship.\n\nHe began again, speaking in the same mechanical way: \u2018Miss Leland\nlives with her mother near us. She is very well educated and very well\nconnected, though she has lived always among business people.\u2019\n\nMiss Carton, with a great effort, had recovered her composure.\n\n\u2018I congratulate you,\u2019 she said. \u2018I hope you will be always happy. You\ncame here on some business for your firm, I suppose? I believe they\nhave some connection with the town still.\u2019\n\n\u2018I only came here to tell you I was going to be married.\u2019\n\n\u2018Do you not think it would have been better to have written?\u2019 she said,\nbeginning to put away the children\u2019s tea-things in a cupboard by the\nfireplace.\n\n\u2018It would have been better,\u2019 he answered, drooping his head.\n\nWithout a word, locking the door behind them, they went out. Without\na word they walked the grey streets. Now and then a woman or a child\ncurtseyed as they passed. Some wondered, perhaps, to see these old\nfriends so silent. At the rectory they bade each other good-bye.\n\n\u2018I hope you will be always happy,\u2019 she said. \u2018I will pray for you and\nyour wife. I am very busy with the children and old people, but I shall\nalways find a moment to wish you well in. Good-bye now.\u2019\n\nThey parted; the gate in the wall closed behind her. He stayed for a\nfew moments looking up at the tops of the trees and bushes showing over\nthe wall, and at the house a little way beyond. He stood considering\nhis problem--her life, his life. His, at any rate, would have incident\nand change; hers would be the narrow existence of a woman who, failing\nto fulfil the only abiding wish she has ever formed, seeks to lose\nherself in routine--mournfulest of things on this old planet.\n\nThis had been revealed: he loved Mary Carton, she loved him. He\nremembered Margaret Leland, and murmured she did well to be jealous.\nThen all her contemptuous words about the town and its inhabitants came\ninto his mind. Once they made no impression on him, but now the sense\nof personal identity having been disturbed by this sudden revelation,\nalien as they were to his way of thinking, they began to press in on\nhim. Mary, too, would have agreed with them, he thought; and might it\nbe that at some distant time weary monotony in abandonment would have\nso weighed down the spirit of Mary Carton that she would be merely one\nof the old and sleepy whose dulness filled the place like a cloud?\n\nHe went sadly towards the hotel; everything about him, the road, the\nsky, the feet wherewith he walked seeming phantasmal and without\nmeaning.\n\nHe told the waiter he would leave by the first train in the morning.\n\u2018What! and you only just come home?\u2019 the man answered. He ordered\ncoffee and could not drink it. He went out and came in again\nimmediately. He went down into the kitchen and talked to the servants.\nThey told him of everything that had happened since he had gone. He was\nnot interested, and went up to his room. \u2018I must go home and do what\npeople expect of me; one must be careful to do that.\u2019\n\nThrough all the journey home his problem troubled him. He saw the\nfigure of Mary Carton perpetually passing through a round of monotonous\nduties. He saw his own life among aliens going on endlessly, wearily.\n\nFrom Holyhead to London his fellow-travellers were a lady and her three\nyoung daughters, the eldest about twelve. The smooth faces shining with\nwell-being became to him ominous symbols. He hated them. They were\nsymbolic of the indifferent world about to absorb him, and of the vague\nsomething that was dragging him inch by inch from the nook he had made\nfor himself in the chimney-corner. He was at one of those dangerous\nmoments when the sense of personal identity is shaken, when one\u2019s past\nand present seem about to dissolve partnership. He sought refuge in\nmemory, and counted over every word of Mary\u2019s he could remember. He\nforgot the present and the future. \u2018Without love,\u2019 he said to himself,\n\u2018we would be either gods or vegetables.\u2019\n\nThe rain beat on the window of the carriage. He began to listen;\nthought and memory became a blank; his mind was full of the sound of\nrain-drops.\n\n\nFOURTH PART\n\nTHE REV. WILLIAM HOWARD\n\n\nI\n\nAfter his return to London Sherman for a time kept to himself, going\nstraight home from his office, moody and self-absorbed, trying not to\nconsider his problem--her life, his life. He often repeated to himself,\n\u2018I must do what people expect of me. It does not rest with me now--my\nchoosing time is over.\u2019 He felt that whatever way he turned he would do\na great evil to himself and others. To his nature all sudden decisions\nwere difficult, and so he kept to the groove he had entered upon. It\ndid not even occur to him to do otherwise. He never thought of breaking\nthis engagement off and letting people say what they would. He was\nbound in hopelessly by a chain of congratulations.\n\nA week passed slowly as a month. The wheels of the cabs and carriages\nseemed to be rolling through his mind. He often remembered the quiet\nriver at the end of his garden in the town of Ballah. How the weeds\nswayed there, and the salmon leaped! At the week\u2019s end came a note\nfrom Miss Leland, complaining of his neglecting her so many days. He\nsent a rather formal answer, promising to call soon. To add to his\nother troubles, a cold east wind arose and made him shiver continually.\n\nOne evening he and his mother were sitting silent, the one knitting,\nthe other half-asleep. He had been writing letters and was now in a\nreverie. Round the walls were one or two drawings, done by him at\nschool. His mother had got them framed. His eyes were fixed on a\ndrawing of a stream and some astonishing cows.\n\nA few days ago he had found an old sketchbook for children among some\nforgotten papers, which taught how to draw a horse by making three\novals for the basis of his body, one lying down in the middle, two\nstanding up at each end for flank and chest, and how to draw a cow by\nbasing its body on a square. He kept trying to fit squares into the\ncows. He was half inclined to take them out of their frames and retouch\non this new principle. Then he began somehow to remember the child with\nthe swollen face who threw a stone at the dog the day he resolved to\nleave home first. Then some other image came. His problem moved before\nhim in a disjointed way. He was dropping asleep. Through his reverie\ncame the click, click of his mother\u2019s needles. She had found some\nLondon children to knit for. He was at that marchland between waking\nand dreaming where our thoughts begin to have a life of their own--the\nregion where art is nurtured and inspiration born.\n\nHe started, hearing something sliding and rustling, and looked up to\nsee a piece of cardboard fall from one end of the mantelpiece, and,\ndriven by a slight gust of air, circle into the ashes under the grate.\n\n\u2018Oh,\u2019 said his mother, \u2018that is the portrait of the _locum tenens_.\u2019\nShe still spoke of the Rev. William Howard by the name she had first\nknown him by. \u2018He is always being photographed. They are all over the\nhouse, and I, an old woman, have not had one taken all my life. Take it\nout with the tongs.\u2019 Her son, after some poking in the ashes, for it\nhad fallen far back, brought out a somewhat dusty photograph. \u2018That,\u2019\nshe continued, \u2018is one he sent us two or three months ago. It has been\nlying in the letter-rack since.\u2019\n\n\u2018He is not so spick-and-span-looking as usual,\u2019 said Sherman, rubbing\nthe ashes off the photograph with his sleeve.\n\n\u2018By the by,\u2019 his mother replied, \u2018he has lost his parish, I hear. He\nis very medi\u00e6val, you know, and he lately preached a sermon to prove\nthat children who die unbaptized are lost. He had been reading up the\nsubject and was full of it. The mothers turned against him, not being\nso familiar with St. Augustine as he was. There were other reasons in\nplenty too. I wonder that anyone can stand that monkeyish fantastic\nfamily.\u2019\n\nAs the way is with so many country-bred people, the world for her was\ndivided up into families rather than individuals.\n\nWhile she was talking, Sherman, who had returned to his chair, leant\nover the table and began to write hurriedly. She was continuing her\ndenunciation when he interrupted with: \u2018Mother, I have just written\nthis letter to him:\u2014\n\n    \u2018\u201cMY DEAR HOWARD:\n\n    \u2018\u201cWill you come and spend the autumn with us? I hear\n    you are unoccupied just now. I am engaged to be\n    married, as you know; it will be a long engagement.\n    You will like my betrothed. I hope you will be great\n    friends.\n\n                               \u2018\u201cYours expectantly,\n                                       \u2019\u201cJOHN SHERMAN.\u201d\u2019\n\n\u2018You rather take me aback,\u2019 she said.\n\n\u2018I really like him,\u2019 he answered. \u2018You were always prejudiced against\nthe Howards. Forgive me, but I really want very much to have him here.\u2019\n\n\u2018Well, if you like him, I suppose I have no objection.\u2019\n\n\u2018I do like him. He is very clever,\u2019 said her son, \u2018and knows a great\ndeal. I wonder he does not marry. Do you not think he would make a good\nhusband?--for you must admit he is sympathetic.\u2019\n\n\u2018It is not difficult to sympathize with everyone if you have no true\nprinciples and convictions.\u2019\n\nPrinciples and convictions were her names for that strenuous\nconsistency attained without trouble by men and women of few ideas.\n\n\u2018I am sure you will like him better,\u2019 said the other, \u2018when you see\nmore of him.\u2019\n\n\u2018Is that photograph quite spoilt?\u2019 she answered.\n\n\u2018No; there was nothing on it but ashes.\u2019\n\n\u2018That is a pity, for one less would be something.\u2019\n\nAfter this they both became silent, she knitting, he gazing at the cows\nbrowsing at the edge of their stream, and trying to fit squares into\ntheir bodies; but now a smile played about his lips.\n\nMrs. Sherman looked a little troubled. She would not object to any\nvisitor of her son\u2019s, but quite made up her mind in no manner to put\nherself out to entertain the Rev. William Howard. She was puzzled as\nwell. She did not understand the suddenness of this invitation. They\nusually talked over things for weeks.\n\n\nII\n\nNext day his fellow-clerks noticed a decided improvement in Sherman\u2019s\nspirits. He had a lark-like cheerfulness and alacrity breaking out at\nodd moments. When evening came he called, for the first time since his\nreturn, on Miss Leland. She scolded him for having answered her note\nin such a formal way, but was sincerely glad to see him return to his\nallegiance. We have said he had sometimes, though rarely, a talkative\nfit. He had one this evening. The last play they had been to, the\nlast party, the picture of the year, all in turn he glanced at. She\nwas delighted. Her training had not been in vain. Her barbarian was\nlearning to chatter. This flattered her a deal.\n\n\u2018I was never engaged,\u2019 she thought, \u2018to a more interesting creature.\u2019\n\nWhen he had risen to go, Sherman said: \u2018I have a friend coming to visit\nme in a few days; you will suit each other delightfully. He is very\nmedi\u00e6val.\u2019\n\n\u2018Do tell me about him; I like everything medi\u00e6val.\u2019\n\n\u2018Oh,\u2019 he cried, with a laugh, \u2018his medi\u00e6valism is not in your line. He\nis neither a gay troubadour nor a wicked knight. He is a High Church\ncurate.\u2019\n\n\u2018Do not tell me anything more about him,\u2019 she answered; \u2018I will try to\nbe civil to him, but you know I never liked curates. I have been an\nagnostic for many years. You, I believe, are orthodox.\u2019\n\nAs Sherman was on his way home he met a fellow-clerk, and stopped him\nwith: \u2018Are you an agnostic?\u2019\n\n\u2018No. Why, what is that?\u2019\n\n\u2018Oh, nothing! Good-bye,\u2019 he made answer, and hurried on his way.\n\n\nIII\n\nThe letter reached the Rev. William Howard at the right moment,\narriving as it did in the midst of a crisis in his fortunes. In the\ncourse of a short life he had lost many parishes. He considered\nhimself a martyr, but was considered by his enemies a clerical coxcomb.\nHe had a habit of getting his mind possessed with some strange opinion,\nor what seemed so to his parishioners, and of preaching it while the\nnotion lasted in the most startling way. The sermon on unbaptized\nchildren was an instance. It was not so much that he thought it true as\nthat it possessed him for a day. It was not so much the thought as his\nown relation to it that allured him. Then, too, he loved what appeared\nto his parishioners to be the most unusual and dangerous practices. He\nput candles on the altar and crosses in unexpected places. He delighted\nin the intricacies of High Church costume, and was known to recommend\nconfession and prayers for the dead.\n\nGradually the anger of his parishioners would increase. The rector,\nthe washerwoman, the labourers, the squire, the doctor, the\nschool-teachers, the shoemakers, the butchers, the seamstresses,\nthe local journalist, the master of the hounds, the innkeeper, the\nveterinary surgeon, the magistrate, the children making mud pies,\nall would be filled with one dread--popery. Then he would fly for\nconsolation to his little circle of the faithful, the younger\nladies, who still repeated his fine sentiments and saw him in their\nimaginations standing perpetually before a wall covered with tapestry\nand holding a crucifix in some constrained and ancient attitude. At\nlast he would have to go, feeling for his parishioners a gay and lofty\ndisdain, and for himself that reverent approbation one gives to the\ncaptains who lead the crusade of ideas against those who merely sleep\nand eat. An efficient crusader he certainly was--too efficient, indeed,\nfor his efficiency gave to all his thoughts a certain over-completeness\nand isolation, and a kind of hardness to his mind. His intellect was\nlike a musician\u2019s instrument with no sounding-board. He could think\ncarefully and cleverly, and even with originality, but never in such\na way as to make his thoughts an illusion to something deeper than\nthemselves. In this he was the reverse of poetical, for poetry is\nessentially a touch from behind a curtain.\n\nThis conformation of his mind helped to lead him into all manner of\nneedless contests and to the loss of this last parish among much\nelse. Did not the world exist for the sake of these hard, crystalline\nthoughts, with which he played as with so many bone spilikins,\ndelighting in his own skill? and were not all who disliked them\nmerely--the many?\n\nIn this way it came about that Sherman\u2019s letter reached Howard at the\nright moment. Now, next to a new parish, he loved a new friend. A visit\nto London meant many. He had found he was, on the whole, a success at\nthe beginning of friendships.\n\nHe at once wrote an acceptance in his small and beautiful handwriting,\nand arrived shortly after his letter. Sherman, on receiving him,\nglanced at his neat and shining boots, the little medal at the\nwatch-chain and the well-brushed hat, and nodded as though in answer to\nan inner query. He smiled approval at the slight elegant figure in its\nblack clothes, at the satiny hair, and at the face, mobile as moving\nwaters.\n\nFor several days the Shermans saw little of their guest. He had friends\neverywhere to turn into enemies and acquaintances to turn into friends.\nHis days passed in visiting, visiting, visiting. Then there were\ntheatres and churches to see, and new clothes to be bought, over which\nhe was as anxious as a woman. Finally he settled down.\n\nHe passed his mornings in the smoking-room. He asked Sherman\u2019s leave\nto hang on the walls one or two religious pictures, without which he\nwas not happy, and to place over the mantelpiece, under the pipe-rack,\nan ebony crucifix. In one corner of the room he laid a rug neatly\nfolded for covering his knees on chilly days, and on the table a\nsmall collection of favourite books--a curious and carefully-chosen\ncollection, in which Cardinal Newman and Bourget, St. Chrysostom and\nFlaubert lived together in perfect friendship.\n\nEarly in his visit Sherman brought him to the Lelands. He was a\nsuccess. The three--Margaret, Sherman, and Howard--played tennis in the\nSquare. Howard was a good player, and seemed to admire Margaret. On\nthe way home Sherman once or twice laughed to himself. It was like the\nclucking of a hen with a brood of chickens. He told Howard, too, how\nwealthy Margaret was said to be.\n\nAfter this Howard always joined Sherman and Margaret at the tennis.\nSometimes, too, after a little, on days when the study seemed dull and\nlonely, and the unfinished essay on St. Chrysostom more than usually\nlaborious, he would saunter towards the Square before his friend\u2019s\narrival, to find Margaret now alone, now with an acquaintance or two.\nAbout this time also press of work, an unusual thing with him, began\nto delay Sherman in town half-an-hour after his usual time. In the\nevenings they often talked of Margaret--Sherman frankly and carefully,\nas though in all anxiety to describe her as she was; and Howard with\nsome enthusiasm: \u2018She has a religious vocation,\u2019 he said once, with a\nslight sigh.\n\nSometimes they played chess--a game that Sherman had recently become\ndevoted to, for he found it drew him out of himself more than anything\nelse.\n\nHoward now began to notice a curious thing. Sherman grew shabbier and\nshabbier, and at the same time more and more cheerful. This puzzled\nhim, for he had noticed that he himself was not cheerful when shabby,\nand did not even feel upright and clever when his hat was getting old.\nHe also noticed that when Sherman was talking to him he seemed to be\nkeeping some thought to himself. When he first came to know him long\nago in Ballah he had noticed occasionally the same thing, and set it\ndown to a kind of suspiciousness and over-caution, natural to one who\nlived in such an out-of-the-way place. It seemed more persistent now,\nhowever. \u2018He is not well-trained,\u2019 he thought; \u2018he is half a peasant.\nHe has not the brilliant candour of the man of the world.\u2019\n\nAll this while the mind of Sherman was clucking continually over its\nbrood of thoughts. Ballah was being constantly suggested to him. The\ngrey corner of a cloud slanting its rain upon Cheapside called to mind\nby some remote suggestion the clouds rushing and falling in cloven\nsurf on the seaward steep of a mountain north of Ballah. A certain\nstreet-corner made him remember an angle of the Ballah fish-market. At\nnight a lantern, marking where the road was fenced off for mending,\nmade him think of a tinker\u2019s cart, with its swing-can of burning coals,\nthat used to stop on market days at the corner of Peter\u2019s Lane at\nBallah. Delayed by a crush in the Strand, he heard a faint trickling\nof water near by; it came from a shop window where a little water-jet\nbalanced a wooden ball upon its point. The sound suggested a cataract\nwith a long Gaelic name, that leaped crying into the Gate of the Winds\nat Ballah. Wandering among these memories a footstep went to and fro\ncontinually, and the figure of Mary Carton moved among them like a\nphantom. He was set dreaming a whole day by walking down one Sunday\nmorning to the border of the Thames--a few hundred yards from his\nhouse--and looking at the osier-covered Chiswick eyot. It made him\nremember an old day-dream of his. The source of the river that passed\nhis garden at home was a certain wood-bordered and islanded lake,\nwhither in childhood he had often gone blackberry-gathering. At the\nfurther end was a little islet called Innisfree. Its rocky centre,\ncovered with many bushes, rose some forty feet above the lake. Often\nwhen life and its difficulties had seemed to him like the lessons of\nsome elder boy given to a younger by mistake, it had seemed good to\ndream of going away to that islet and building a wooden hut there and\nburning a few years out, rowing to and fro, fishing, or lying on the\nisland slopes by day, and listening at night to the ripple of the water\nand the quivering of the bushes--full always of unknown creatures--and\ngoing out at morning to see the island\u2019s edge marked by the feet of\nbirds.\n\nThese pictures became so vivid to him that the world about him--that\nHoward, Margaret, his mother even--began to seem far off. He hardly\nseemed aware of anything they were thinking and feeling. The light\nthat dazzled him flowed from the vague and refracting regions of hope\nand memory; the light that made Howard\u2019s feet unsteady was ever the\ntoo-glaring lustre of life itself.\n\n\nIV\n\nOn the evening of the 20th of June, after the blinds had been\npulled down and the gas lighted, Sherman was playing chess in the\nsmoking-room, right hand against left. Howard had gone out with a\nmessage to the Lelands. He would often say, \u2018Is there any message I\ncan deliver for you? I know how lazy you are, and will save you the\ntrouble.\u2019 A message was always found for him. A pile of books lent for\nSherman\u2019s improvement went home one by one.\n\n\u2018Look here,\u2019 said Howard\u2019s voice in the doorway, \u2018I have been watching\nyou for some time. You are cheating the red men most villainously. You\nare forcing them to make mistakes that the white men may win. Why, a\nfew such games would ruin any man\u2019s moral nature.\u2019\n\nHe was leaning against the doorway, looking, to Sherman\u2019s not too\ncritical eyes, an embodiment of all that was self-possessed and\nbrilliant. The great care with which he was dressed and his whole\nmanner seemed to say: \u2018Look at me; do I not combine perfectly the\nzealot with the man of the world?\u2019 He seemed excited to-night. He had\nbeen talking at the Lelands, and talking well, and felt that elation\nwhich brings us many thoughts.\n\n\u2018My dear Sherman,\u2019 he went on, \u2018do cease that game. It is very bad\nfor you. There is nobody alive who is honest enough to play a game\nof chess fairly out--right hand against left. We are so radically\ndishonest that we even cheat ourselves. We can no more play chess than\nwe can think altogether by ourselves with security. You had much better\nplay with me.\u2019\n\n\u2018Very well, but you will beat me; I have not much practice,\u2019 replied\nthe other.\n\nThey reset the men and began to play. Sherman relied most upon his\nbishops and queen. Howard was fondest of the knights. At first Sherman\nwas the attacking party, but in his characteristic desire to scheme\nout his game many moves ahead, kept making slips, and at last had to\ngive up, with his men nearly all gone and his king hopelessly cornered.\nHoward seemed to let nothing escape him. When the game was finished\nhe leant back in his chair and said, as he rolled a cigarette: \u2018You\ndo not play well.\u2019 It gave him satisfaction to feel his proficiency\nin many small arts. \u2018You do not do any of these things at all well,\u2019\nhe went on, with an insolence peculiar to him when excited. \u2018You\nhave been really very badly brought up and stupidly educated in that\nintolerable Ballah. They do not understand there any, even the least,\nof the arts of life; they only believe in information. Men who are\ncompelled to move in the great world, and who are also cultivated,\nonly value the personal acquirements--self-possession, adaptability,\nhow to dress well, how even to play tennis decently--you would be not\nso bad at that, by the by, if you practised--or how to paint or write\neffectively. They know that it is better to smoke one\u2019s cigarette with\na certain charm of gesture than to have by heart all the encyclopedias.\nI say this not merely as a man of the world, but as a teacher of\nreligion. A man when he rises from the grave will take with him only\nthe things that he is in himself. He will leave behind the things that\nhe merely possesses, learning and information not less than money and\nhigh estate. They will stay behind with his house and his clothes and\nhis body. A collection of facts will no more help him than a collection\nof stamps. The learned will not get into heaven as readily as the\nflute-player, or even as the man who smokes a cigarette gracefully.\nNow, you are not learned, but you have been brought up almost as badly\nas if you were. In that wretched town they told you that education was\nto know that Russia is bounded on the north by the Arctic Sea, and\non the west by the Baltic Ocean, and that Vienna is situated on the\nDanube, and that William the Third came to the throne in the year\n1688. They have never taught you any personal art. Even chess-playing\nmight have helped you at the day of judgment.\u2019\n\n\u2018I am really not a worse chess-player than you. I am only more\ncareless.\u2019\n\nThere was a slight resentment in Sherman\u2019s voice. The other noticed it,\nand said, changing his manner from the insolent air of a young beauty\nto a self-depreciatory one, which was wont to give him at times a very\ngenuine charm: \u2018It is really a great pity, for you Shermans are a deep\npeople, much deeper than we Howards. We are like moths or butterflies,\nor rather rapid rivulets, while you and yours are deep pools in the\nforest where the beasts go to drink. No! I have a better metaphor.\nYour mind and mine are two arrows. Yours has got no feathers, and mine\nhas no metal on the point. I don\u2019t know which is most needed for right\nconduct. I wonder where we are going to strike earth. I suppose it\nwill be all right some day when the world has gone by and they have\ncollected all the arrows into one quiver.\u2019\n\nHe went over to the mantelpiece to hunt for a match, as his cigarette\nhad gone out. Sherman had lifted a corner of the blind and was gazing\nover the roofs shining from a recent shower, and thinking how on such\na night as this he had sat with Mary Carton by the rectory fire\nlistening to the rain without and talking of the future and of the\ntraining of village children.\n\n\u2018Have you seen Miss Leland in her last new dress from Paris?\u2019 said\nHoward, making one of his rapid transitions. \u2018It is very rich in\ncolour, and makes her look a little pale, like Saint Cecilia. She is\nwonderful as she stands by the piano, a silver cross round her neck.\nWe have been talking about you. She complains to me. She says you are\na little barbarous. You seem to look down on style, and sometimes--you\nmust forgive me--even on manners, and you are quite without small talk.\nYou must really try and be worthy of that beautiful girl, with her\ngreat soul and religious genius. She told me quite sadly, too, that you\nare not improving.\u2019\n\n\u2018No,\u2019 said Sherman, \u2018I am not going forward; I am at present trying to\ngo sideways like the crabs.\u2019\n\n\u2018Be serious,\u2019 answered the other. \u2018She told me these things with the\nmost sad and touching voice. She makes me her confidant, you know, in\nmany matters, because of my wide religious experience. You must really\nimprove yourself. You must paint or something.\u2019\n\n\u2018Well, I will paint or something.\u2019\n\n\u2018I am quite serious, Sherman. Try and be worthy of her, a soul as\ngentle as Saint Cecilia\u2019s.\u2019\n\n\u2018She is very wealthy,\u2019 said Sherman. \u2018If she were engaged to you and\nnot to me you might hope to die a bishop.\u2019\n\nHoward looked at him in a mystified way and the conversation dropped.\nPresently Howard got up and went to his room, and Sherman, resetting\nthe chess-board, began to play again, and, letting longer and longer\npauses of reverie come between his moves, played far into the morning,\ncheating now in favour of the red men, now in favour of the white.\n\n\nV\n\nThe next afternoon Howard found Miss Leland sitting, reading in an\nalcove in her drawing-room, between a stuffed parroquet and a blue De\nMorgan jar. As he was shown in he noticed, with a momentary shock, that\nher features were quite commonplace. Then she saw him, and at once\nseemed to vanish wrapped in an exulting flame of life. She stood up,\nflinging the book on to the seat with some violence.\n\n\u2018I have been reading the \u201cImitation of Christ,\u201d and was just feeling\nthat I should have to become a theosophist or a socialist, or go and\njoin the Catholic Church, or do something. How delightful it is to see\nyou again! How is my savage getting on? It is so good of you to try\nand help me to reform him.\u2019\n\nThey talked on about Sherman, and Howard did his best to console her\nfor his shortcomings. Time would certainly improve her savage. Several\ntimes she gazed at him with those large dark eyes of hers, of which the\npupils to-day seemed larger than usual. They made him feel dizzy and\nclutch tightly the arm of his chair. Then she began to talk about her\nlife since childhood--how they got to the subject he never knew--and\nmade a number of those confidences which are so dangerous because so\nflattering. To love--there is nothing else worth living for; but then\nmen are so shallow. She had never found a nature deep as her own.\nShe would not pretend that she had not often been in love, but never\nhad any heart rung back to her the true note. As she spoke her face\nquivered with excitement. The exulting flame of life seemed spreading\nfrom her to the other things in the room. To Howard\u2019s eyes it seemed as\nthough the bright pots and stuffed birds and plush curtains began to\nglow with a light not of this world--to glimmer like the strange and\nchaotic colours the mystic Blake imagined upon the scaled serpent of\nEden. The light seemed gradually to dim his past and future, and to\nmake pale his good resolves. Was it not in itself that which all men\nare seeking, and for which all else exists?\n\nHe leant forward and took her hand, timidly and doubtingly. She did\nnot draw it away. He leant nearer and kissed her on the forehead. She\ngave a joyful cry, and, casting her arms round his neck, burst out,\n\u2018Ah! you--and I. We were made for each other. I hate Sherman. He is\nan egotist. He is a beast. He is selfish and foolish.\u2019 Releasing one\nof her arms she struck the seat with her hand, excitedly, and went\non, \u2018How angry he will be! But it serves him right! How badly he is\ndressing. He does not know anything about anything. But you--you--I\nknew you were meant for me the moment I saw you.\u2019\n\nThat evening Howard flung himself into a chair in the empty\nsmoking-room. He lighted a cigarette; it went out. Again he lighted\nit; again it went out. \u2018I am a traitor--and that good, stupid fellow,\nSherman, never to be jealous!\u2019 he thought. \u2018But then, how could I\nhelp it? And, besides, it cannot be a bad action to save her from a\nman she is so much above in refinement and feeling.\u2019 He was getting\ninto good-humour with himself. He got up and went over and looked\nat the photograph of Raphael\u2019s Madonna, which he had hung over the\nmantelpiece. \u2018How like Margaret\u2019s are her big eyes!\u2019\n\n\nVI\n\nThe next day when Sherman came home from his office he saw an envelope\nlying on the smoking-room table. It contained a letter from Howard,\nsaying that he had gone away, and that he hoped Sherman would forgive\nhis treachery, but that he was hopelessly in love with Miss Leland, and\nthat she returned his love.\n\nSherman went downstairs. His mother was helping the servant to set the\ntable.\n\n\u2018You will never guess what has happened,\u2019 he said. \u2018My affair with\nMargaret is over.\u2019\n\n\u2018I cannot pretend to be sorry, John,\u2019 she replied. She had long\nconsidered Miss Leland among accepted things, like the chimney-pots on\nthe roof, and submitted, as we do, to any unalterable fact, but had\nnever praised her or expressed liking in any way. \u2018She puts belladonna\nin her eyes, and is a vixen and a flirt, and I dare say her wealth is\nall talk. But how did it happen?\u2019\n\nHer son was, however, too excited to listen.\n\nHe went upstairs and wrote the following note:\n\n    \u2018MY DEAR MARGARET:\n\n    \u2018I congratulate you on a new conquest. There is no end\n    to your victories. As for me, I bow myself out with\n    many sincere wishes for your happiness, and remain,\n\n                                  Your friend,\n                                       JOHN SHERMAN.\u2019\n\nHaving posted this letter he sat down with Howard\u2019s note spread\nout before him, and wondered whether there was anything mean and\nsmall-minded in neatness--he himself was somewhat untidy. He had\noften thought so before, for their strong friendship was founded in a\ngreat measure on mutual contempt, but now immediately added, being in\ngood-humour with the world, \u2018He is much cleverer than I am. He must\nhave been very industrious at school.\u2019\n\nA week went by. He made up his mind to put an end to his London life.\nHe broke to his mother his resolve to return to Ballah. She was\ndelighted, and at once began to pack. Her old home had long seemed to\nher a kind of lost Eden, wherewith she was accustomed to contrast the\npresent. When, in time, this present had grown into the past it became\nan Eden in turn. She was always ready for a change, if the change came\nto her in the form of a return to something old. Others place their\nideals in the future; she laid hers in the past.\n\nThe only one this momentous resolution seemed to surprise was the old\nand deaf servant. She waited with ever-growing impatience. She would\nsit by the hour wool-gathering on the corner of a chair with a look\nof bewildered delight. As the hour of departure came near she sang\ncontinually in a cracked voice.\n\nSherman, a few days before leaving, was returning for the last time\nfrom his office when he saw, to his surprise, Howard and Miss Leland\ncarrying each a brown-paper bundle. He nodded good-humouredly, meaning\nto pass on.\n\n\u2018John,\u2019 she said, \u2018look at this brooch William gave me--a ladder\nleaning against the moon and a butterfly climbing up it. Is it not\nsweet? We are going to visit the poor.\u2019\n\n\u2018And I,\u2019 he said, \u2018am going to catch eels. I am leaving town.\u2019\n\nHe made his excuses, saying he had no time to wait, and hurried off.\nShe looked after him with a mournful glance, strange in anybody who had\nexchanged one lover for another more favoured.\n\n\u2018Poor fellow,\u2019 murmured Howard, \u2018he is broken-hearted.\u2019\n\n\u2018Nonsense,\u2019 answered Miss Leland, somewhat snappishly.\n\n\nFIFTH PART\n\nJOHN SHERMAN RETURNS TO BALLAH\n\n\nI\n\nThis being the homeward trip, SS. _Lavinia_ carried no cattle, but many\npassengers. As the sea was smooth and the voyage near its end, they\nlounged about the deck in groups. Two cattle-merchants were leaning\nover the taffrail smoking. In appearance they were something between\nbetting-men and commercial travellers. For years they had done all\ntheir sleeping in steamers and trains. A short distance from them a\nclerk from Liverpool, with a consumptive cough, walked to and fro, a\nlittle child holding his hand. Shortly he would be landed in a boat\nputting off from the shore for the purpose. He had come hoping that\nhis native air of Teeling Head would restore him. The little child\nwas a strange contrast--her cheeks ruddy with perfect health. Further\nforward, talking to one of the crew, was a man with a red face and\nslightly unsteady step. In the companion-house was a governess, past\nher first youth, very much afraid of sea-sickness. She had brought her\nluggage up and heaped it round her to be ready for landing. Sherman\nsat on a pile of cable looking out over the sea. It was just noon;\nSS. _Lavinia_, having passed by Tory and Rathlin, was approaching the\nDonegal cliffs. They were covered by a faint mist, which made them loom\neven vaster than they were. To westward the sun shone on a perfectly\nblue sea. Seagulls came out of the mist and plunged into the sunlight,\nand out of the sunlight and plunged into the mist. To the westward\ngannets were striking continually, and a porpoise showed now and then,\nhis fin and back gleaming in the sun. Sherman was more perfectly happy\nthan he had been for many a day, and more ardently thinking. All\nnature seemed full of a Divine fulfilment. Everything fulfilled its\nlaw--fulfilment that is peace, whether it be for good or for evil, for\nevil also has its peace, the peace of the birds of prey. Sherman looked\nfrom the sea to the ship and grew sad. Upon this thing, crawling slowly\nalong the sea, moved to and fro many mournful and slouching figures.\nHe looked from the ship to himself and his eyes filled with tears. On\nhimself, on these moving figures, hope and memory fed like flames.\n\nAgain his eyes gladdened, for he knew he had found his present. He\nwould live in his love and the day as it passed. He would live that\nhis law might be fulfilled. Now, was he sure of this truth--the saints\non the one hand, the animals on the other, live in the moment as it\npasses. Thitherward had his days brought him. This was the one grain\nthey had ground. To grind one grain is sufficient for a lifetime.\n\n\nII\n\nA few days later Sherman was hurrying through the town of Ballah. It\nwas Saturday, and he passed down through the marketing country people,\nand the old women with baskets of cakes and gooseberries and long\npieces of sugarstick shaped like walking-sticks, and called by children\n\u2018Peggie\u2019s leg.\u2019\n\nNow, as two months earlier, he was occasionally recognized and greeted,\nand, as before, went on without knowing, his eyes full of unintelligent\nsadness because the mind was making merry afar. They had the look we\nsee in the eyes of animals and dreamers. Everything had grown simple,\nhis problem had taken itself away. He was thinking what he would say\nto Mary Carton. Now they would be married, they would live in a small\nhouse with a green door and new thatch, and a row of beehives under\na hedge. He knew where just such a house stood empty. The day before\nhe and his mother had discussed, with their host of the Imperial\nHotel, this question of houses. They knew the peculiarities of every\nhouse in the neighbourhood, except two or three built while they were\naway. All day Sherman and his mother had gone over the merits of the\nfew they were told were empty. She wondered why her son had grown so\nunpractical. Once he was so easily pleased--the row of beehives and the\nnew thatch did not for her settle the question. She set it all down to\nMiss Leland and the plays, and the singing, and the belladonna, and\nremembered with pleasure how many miles of uneasy water lay between the\ntown of Ballah and these things.\n\nShe did not know what else beside the row of beehives and the new\nthatch her son\u2019s mind ran on as he walked among the marketing country\npeople, and the gooseberry sellers, and the merchants of \u2018Peggie\u2019s\nleg,\u2019 and the boys playing marbles in odd corners, and the men in\nwaistcoats with flannel sleeves driving carts, and the women driving\ndonkeys with creels of turf or churns of milk. Just now she was trying\nto remember whether she used to buy her wool for knitting at Miss\nPeter\u2019s or from Mrs. Macallough\u2019s at the bridge. One or other sold\nit a halfpenny a skein cheaper. She never knew what went on inside\nher son\u2019s mind, she had always her own fish to fry. Blessed are the\nunsympathetic. They preserve their characters in an iron bottle while\nthe most of us poor mortals are going about the planet vainly searching\nfor any kind of a shell to contain us, and evaporating the while.\n\nSherman began to mount the hill to the vicarage. He was happy. Because\nhe was happy he began to run. Soon the steepness of the hill made him\nwalk. He thought about his love for Mary Carton. Seen by the light of\nthis love everything that had happened to him was plain now. He had\nfound his centre of unity. His childhood had prepared him for this\nlove. He had been solitary, fond of favourite corners of fields, fond\nof going about alone, unhuman like the birds and the leaves, his heart\nempty. How clearly he remembered his first meeting with Mary. They were\nboth children. At a school treat they watched the fire-balloon ascend,\nand followed it a little way over the fields together. What friends\nthey became, growing up together, reading the same books, thinking the\nsame thoughts!\n\nAs he came to the door and pulled at the great hanging iron\nbell-handle, the fire-balloon reascended in his heart, surrounded with\ncheers and laughter.\n\n\nIII\n\nHe kept the servant talking for a moment or two before she went for\nMiss Carton. The old rector, she told him, was getting less and less\nable to do much work. Old age had come almost suddenly upon him.\nHe seldom moved from the fireside. He was getting more and more\nabsent-minded. Once lately he had brought his umbrella into the\nreading-desk. More and more did he leave all things to his children--to\nMary Carton and her younger sisters.\n\nWhen the servant had gone, Sherman looked round the somewhat gloomy\nroom. In the window hung a canary in a painted cage. Outside was a\nnarrow piece of shaded ground between the window and the rectory wall.\nThe laurel and holly bushes darkened the window a good deal. On a\ntable in the centre of the room were evangelistic books with gilded\ncovers. Round the mirror over the mantelpiece were stuck various parish\nannouncements, thrust between the glass and the gilding. On a small\nside-table was a copper ear-trumpet.\n\nHow familiar everything seemed to Sherman! Only the room seemed smaller\nthan it did three years before, and close to the table with the\near-trumpet, at one side of the fireplace before the arm-chair, was a\nnew threadbare patch in the carpet.\n\nSherman recalled how in this room he and Mary Carton had sat in winter\nby the fire, building castles in the air for each other. So deeply\nmeditating was he that she came in and stood unnoticed beside him.\n\n\u2018John,\u2019 she said at last, \u2018it is a great pleasure to see you so soon\nagain. Are you doing well in London?\u2019\n\n\u2018I have left London.\u2019\n\n\u2018Are you married, then? You must introduce me to your wife.\u2019\n\n\u2018I shall never be married to Miss Leland.\u2019\n\n\u2018What?\u2019\n\n\u2018She has preferred another--my friend William Howard. I have come here\nto tell you something, Mary.\u2019 He went and stood close to her and took\nher hand tenderly. \u2018I have always been very fond of you. Often in\nLondon, when I was trying to think of another kind of life, I used to\nsee this fireside and you sitting beside it, where we used to sit and\ntalk about the future. Mary--Mary,\u2019 he held her hand in both his--\u2018you\nwill be my wife?\u2019\n\n\u2018You do not love me, John,\u2019 she answered, drawing herself away. \u2018You\nhave come to me because you think it your duty. I have had nothing but\nduty all my life.\u2019\n\n\u2018Listen,\u2019 he said. \u2018I was very miserable; I invited Howard to stay with\nus. One morning I found a note on the smoking-room table to say that\nMargaret had accepted him, and I have come here to ask you to marry me.\nI never cared for anyone else.\u2019\n\nHe found himself speaking hurriedly, as though anxious to get the\nwords said and done with. It now seemed to him that he had done ill\nin this matter of Miss Leland. He had not before thought of it--his\nmind had always been busy with other things. Mary Carton looked at him\nwonderingly.\n\n\u2018John,\u2019 she said at last, \u2018did you ask Mr. Howard to stay with you on\npurpose to get him to fall in love with Miss Leland, or to give you an\nexcuse for breaking off your engagement, as you knew he flirted with\neveryone?\u2019\n\n\u2018Margaret seems very fond of him. I think they are made for each\nother,\u2019 he answered.\n\n\u2018Did you ask him to London on purpose?\u2019\n\n\u2018Well, I will tell you,\u2019 he faltered. \u2018I was very miserable. I had\ndrifted into this engagement I don\u2019t know how. Margaret glitters and\nglitters and glitters, but she is not of my kind. I suppose I thought,\nlike a fool, I should marry someone who was rich. I found out soon that\nI loved nobody but you. I got to be always thinking of you and of this\ntown. Then I heard that Howard had lost his curacy, and asked him up.\nI just left them alone and did not go near Margaret much. I knew they\nwere made for each other. Do not let us talk of them,\u2019 he continued,\neagerly. \u2018Let us talk about the future. I will take a farm and turn\nfarmer. I dare say my uncle will not give me anything when he dies\nbecause I have left his office. He will call me a ne\u2019er-do-weel, and\nsay I would squander it. But you and I--we will get married, will we\nnot? We will be very happy,\u2019 he went on, pleadingly. \u2018You will still\nhave your charities, and I shall be busy with my farm. We will surround\nourselves with a wall. The world will be on the outside, and on the\ninside we and our peaceful lives.\u2019\n\n\u2018Wait,\u2019 she said; \u2018I will give you your answer,\u2019 and going into the\nnext room returned with several bundles of letters. She laid them on\nthe table; some were white and new, some slightly yellow with time.\n\n\u2018John,\u2019 she said, growing very pale, \u2018here are all the letters you ever\nwrote me from your earliest boyhood.\u2019 She took one of the large candles\nfrom the mantelpiece, and, lighting it, placed it on the hearth.\nSherman wondered what she was going to do with it. \u2018I will tell you,\u2019\nshe went on, \u2018what I had thought to carry to the grave unspoken. I have\nloved you for a long time. When you came and told me you were going to\nbe married to another I forgave you, for man\u2019s love is like the wind,\nand I prayed that God might bless you both.\u2019 She leant down over the\ncandle, her face pale and contorted with emotion. \u2018All these letters\nafter that grew very sacred. Since we were never to be married they\ngrew a portion of my life, separated from everything and everyone--a\nsomething apart and holy. I re-read them all, and arranged them in\nlittle bundles according to their dates, and tied them with thread. Now\nI and you--we have nothing to do with each other any more.\u2019\n\nShe held the bundle of letters in the flame. He got up from his\nseat. She motioned him away imperiously. He looked at the flame in a\nbewildered way. The letters fell in little burning fragments about\nthe hearth. It was all like a terrible dream. He watched those steady\nfingers hold letter after letter in the candle flame, and watched the\ncandle burning on like a passion in the grey daylight of universal\nexistence. A draught from under the door began blowing the ash about\nthe room. The voice said--\n\n\u2018You tried to marry a rich girl. You did not love her, but knew she was\nrich. You tired of her as you tire of so many things, and behaved to\nher most wrongly, most wickedly and treacherously. When you were jilted\nyou came again to me and to the idleness of this little town. We had\nall hoped great things of you. You seemed good and honest.\u2019\n\n\u2018I loved you all along,\u2019 he cried. \u2018If you would marry me we would\nbe very happy. I loved you all along,\u2019 he repeated--this helplessly,\nseveral times over. The bird shook a shower of seed on his shoulder. He\npicked one of them from the collar of his coat and turned it over in\nhis fingers mechanically. \u2018I loved you all along.\u2019\n\n\u2018You have done no duty that came to you. You have tired of everything\nyou should cling to; and now you have come to this little town because\nhere is idleness and irresponsibility.\u2019\n\nThe last letter lay in ashes on the hearth. She blew out the candle,\nand replaced it among the photographs on the mantelpiece, and stood\nthere as calm as a portion of the marble.\n\n\u2018John, our friendship is over--it has been burnt in the candle.\u2019\n\nHe started forward, his mind full of appeals half-stifled with despair,\non his lips gathered incoherent words: \u2018She will be happy with Howard.\nThey were made for each other. I slipped into it. I always thought I\nshould marry someone who was rich. I never loved anyone but you. I did\nnot know I loved you at first. I thought about you always. You are the\nroot of my life.\u2019\n\nSteps were heard outside the door at the end of a passage. Mary Carton\nwent to the door and called. The steps turned and came nearer. With a\ngreat effort Sherman controlled himself. The door opened, and a tall,\nslight girl of twelve came into the room. A strong smell of garden\nmould rose from a basket in her hands, Sherman recognized the child who\nhad given him tea that evening in the schoolhouse three years before.\n\n\u2018Have you finished weeding the carrots?\u2019 said Mary Carton.\n\n\u2018Yes, Miss.\u2019\n\n\u2018Then you are to weed the small bed under the pear-tree by the\ntool-house. Do not go yet, child. This is Mr. Sherman. Sit down a\nlittle.\u2019\n\nThe child sat down on the corner of a chair with a scared look in her\neyes. Suddenly she said--\n\n\u2018Oh, what a lot of burnt paper!\u2019\n\n\u2018Yes; I have been burning some old letters.\u2019\n\n\u2018I think,\u2019 said John, \u2018I will go now.\u2019 Without a word of farewell he\nwent out, almost groping his way.\n\nHe had lost the best of all the things he held dear. Twice he had gone\nthrough the fire. The first time worldly ambition left him; the second,\nlove. An hour before the air had been full of singing and peace that\nwas resonant like joy. Now he saw standing before his Eden the angel\nwith the flaming sword. All the hope he had ever gathered about him had\ntaken itself off, and the naked soul shivered.\n\n\nIV\n\nThe road under his feet felt gritty and barren. He hurried away from\nthe town. It was late afternoon. Trees cast bands of shadow across the\nroad. He walked rapidly as if pursued. About a mile to the west of\nthe town he came on a large wood bordering the road and surrounding\na deserted house. Some local rich man once lived there, now it was\ngiven over to a caretaker who lived in two rooms in the back part. Men\nwere at work cutting down trees in two or three parts of the wood.\nMany places were quite bare. A mass of ruins--a covered well, and the\nwreckage of castle wall--that had been roofed with green for centuries,\nlifted themselves up, bare as anatomies. The sight intensified, by\nsome strange sympathy, his sorrow, and he hurried away as from a thing\naccursed of God.\n\nThe road led to the foot of a mountain, topped by a cairn supposed\nin popular belief to be the grave of Maeve, Mab of the fairies, and\nconsidered by antiquarians to mark the place where certain prisoners\nwere executed in legendary times as sacrifices to the moon.\n\nHe began to climb the mountain. The sun was on the rim of the sea. It\nstayed there without moving, for as he ascended he saw an ever-widening\ncircle of water.\n\nHe threw himself down upon the cairn. The sun sank under the sea. The\nDonegal headlands mixed with the surrounding blue. The stars grew out\nof heaven.\n\nSometimes he got up and walked to and fro. Hours passed. The stars,\nthe streams down in the valley, the wind moving among the boulders,\nthe various unknown creatures rustling in the silence--all these were\ncontained within themselves, fulfilling their law, content to be alone,\ncontent to be with others, having the peace of God or the peace of the\nbirds of prey. He only did not fulfil his law; something that was not\nhe, that was not nature, that was not God, had made him and her he\nloved its tools. Hope, memory, tradition, conformity, had been laying\nwaste their lives. As he thought this the night seemed to crush him\nwith its purple foot. Hour followed hour. At midnight he started up,\nhearing a faint murmur of clocks striking the hour in the distant town.\nHis face and hands were wet with tears, his clothes saturated with dew.\n\nHe turned homeward, hurriedly flying from the terrible firmament.\nWhat had this glimmering and silence to do with him--this luxurious\npresent? He belonged to the past and the future. With pace somewhat\nslackened, because of the furze, he came down into the valley. Along\nthe northern horizon moved a perpetual dawn, travelling eastward as the\nnight advanced. Once, as he passed a marsh near a lime-kiln, a number\nof small birds rose chirruping from where they had been clinging among\nthe reeds. Once, standing still for a moment where two roads crossed on\na hill-side, he looked out over the dark fields. A white stone rose in\nthe middle of a field, a score of yards in front of him. He knew the\nplace well; it was an ancient burying-ground. He looked at the stone,\nand suddenly filled by the terror of the darkness children feel, began\nagain his hurried walk.\n\nHe re-entered Ballah by the southern side. In passing he looked at the\nrectory. To his surprise a light burned in the drawing-room. He stood\nstill. The dawn was brightening towards the east, but all round him\nwas darkness, seeming the more intense to his eyes for their being\nfresh from the unshaded fields. In the midst of this darkness shone\nthe lighted window. He went over to the gate and looked in. The room\nwas empty. He was about to turn away when he noticed a white figure\nstanding close to the gate. The latch creaked and the gate moved slowly\non its hinges.\n\n\u2018John,\u2019 said a trembling voice, \u2018I have been praying, and a light has\ncome to me. I wished you to be ambitious--to go away and do something\nin the world. You did badly, and my poor pride was wounded. You do not\nknow how much I had hoped from you; but it was all pride--all pride and\nfoolishness. You love me. I ask no more. We need each other; the rest\nis with God.\u2019\n\nShe took his hand in hers, and began caressing it. \u2018We have been\nshipwrecked. Our goods have been cast into the sea.\u2019 Something in her\nvoice told of the emotion that divides the love of woman from the love\nof man. She looked upon him whom she loved as full of a helplessness\nthat needed protection, a reverberation of the feeling of the mother\nfor the child at the breast.\n\n\n\n\nDHOYA\n\n\nI\n\nLONG ago, before the earliest stone of the Pyramids was laid, before\nthe Bo tree of Buddha unrolled its first leaf, before a Japanese had\npainted on a temple wall the horse that every evening descended and\ntrampled the rice-fields, before the ravens of Thor had eaten their\nfirst worm together, there lived a man of giant stature and of giant\nstrength named Dhoya. One evening Fomorian galleys had entered the Bay\nof the Red Cataract, now the Bay of Ballah, and there deserted him.\nThough he rushed into the water and hurled great stones after them,\nthey were out of reach. From earliest childhood the Fomorians had held\nhim captive and compelled him to toil at the oar, but when his strength\nhad come his fits of passion made him a terror to all on board.\nSometimes he would tear the seats of the galley from under the rowers,\nand drive the rowers up into the shrouds, where they would cling until\nthe passion left him. \u2018The demons,\u2019 they said, \u2018have made him their\nown.\u2019 So they enticed him on shore, he having on his head a mighty\nstone pitcher to fill with water, and deserted him.\n\nWhen the last sail had dropped over the rim of the world, he rose from\nwhere he had flung himself down on the sands and hurried through the\nforest eastward. After a time he reached that lake among the mountains\nwhere in later times Diarmuid drove down four stakes and made thereon\na platform with four flags in the centre for a hearth, and placed over\nall a roof of wicker and skins, and hid his Grania, islanded thereon.\nStill eastward he went, what is now Bulben on one side, Cope\u2019s mountain\non the other, until at last he threw himself at full length in a deep\ncavern and slept. Henceforward he made this cavern his lair, issuing\nforth to hunt the deer or the bears or the mountain oxen. Slowly the\nyears went by, his fits of fury growing more and more frequent, though\nthere was no one but his own shadow to rave against. When his fury was\non him even the bats and owls, and the brown frogs that crept out of\nthe grass at twilight, would hide themselves--even the bats and owls\nand the brown frogs. These he had made his friends, and let them crawl\nand perch about him, for at times he would be very gentle, and they\ntoo were sullen and silent--the outcasts from they knew not what. But\nmost of all, things placid and beautiful feared him. He would watch for\nhours, hidden in the leaves, to reach his hand out slowly and carefully\nat last, and seize and crush some glittering halcyon.\n\nSlowly the years went by and human face he never saw, but sometimes,\nwhen the gentle mood was on him and it was twilight, a presence seemed\nto float invisibly by him and sigh softly, and once or twice he awoke\nfrom sleep with the sensation of a finger having rested for a moment\non his forehead, and would mutter a prayer to the moon that glimmered\nthrough the door of his cave before turning to sleep again. \u2018O moon,\u2019\nhe would say, \u2018that wanderest in the blue cave of the sky, more white\nthan the beard of Partholan, whose years were five hundred, sullen and\nsolitary, sleeping only on the floor of the sea: keep me from the evil\nspirits of the islands of the lake southward beyond the mountains, and\nthe evil spirits of the caves northward beyond the mountains, and the\nevil spirits who wave their torches by the mouth of the river eastward\nbeyond the valley, and the evil spirits of the pools westward beyond\nthe mountains, and I will offer you a bear and a deer in full horn, O\nsolitary of the cave divine, and if any have done you wrong I will\navenge you.\u2019\n\nGradually, however, he began to long for this mysterious touch.\n\nAt times he would make journeys into distant parts, and once the\nmountain bulls gathered together, proud of their overwhelming numbers\nand their white horns, and followed him with great bellowing westward,\nhe being laden with their tallest, well-nigh to his cave, and would\nhave gored him, but, pacing into a pool of the sea to his shoulders, he\nsaw them thunder away, losing him in the darkness. The place where he\nstood is called Pooldhoya to this day.\n\nSo the years went slowly by, and ever deeper and deeper came his\nmoodiness, and more often his fits of wrath. Once in his gloom he paced\nthe forests for miles, now this way, now that, until, returning in the\ntwilight, he found himself standing on a cliff southward of the lake\nthat was southward of the mountains. The moon was rising. The sound\nof the swaying of reeds floated from beneath, and the twittering of\nthe flocks of reed-wrens who love to cling on the moving stems. It was\nthe hour of votaries. He turned to the moon, then hurriedly gathered\na pile of leaves and branches, and making a fire cast thereon wild\nstrawberries and the fruit of the quicken-tree. As the smoke floated\nupwards a bar of faint purple clouds drifted over the moon\u2019s face--a\nrefusal of the sacrifice. Hurrying through the surrounding woods he\nfound an owl sleeping in the hollow of a tree, and returning cast him\non the fire. Still the clouds gathered. Again he searched the woods.\nThis time it was a badger that he cast among the flames. Time after\ntime he came and went, sometimes returning immediately with some live\nthing, at others not till the fire had almost burnt itself out. Deer,\nwild swine, birds, all to no purpose. Higher and higher he piled the\nburning branches, the flames and the smoke waved and circled like\nthe lash of a giant\u2019s whip. Gradually the nearer islands passed the\nrosy colour on to their more distant brethren. The reed-wrens of the\nfurthest reed beds disturbed amid their sleep must have wondered at the\nred gleam reflected in each other\u2019s eyes. Useless his night-long toil;\nthe clouds covered the moon\u2019s face more and more, until, when the long\nfire-lash was at its brightest, they drowned her completely in a surge\nof unbroken mist. Raging against the fire he scattered with his staff\nthe burning branches, and trampled in his fury the sacrificial embers\nbeneath his feet. Suddenly a voice in the surrounding darkness called\nhim softly by name. He turned. For years no articulate voice had\nsounded in his ears. It seemed to rise from the air just beneath the\nverge of the precipice. Holding by a hazel bush he leaned out, and for\na moment it seemed to him the form of a beautiful woman floated faintly\nbefore him, but changed as he watched to a little cloud of vapour;\nand from the nearest of the haunted islands there came assuredly a\nwhiff of music. Then behind him in the forest said the voice, \u2018Dhoya,\nmy beloved.\u2019 He rushed in pursuit; something white was moving before\nhim. He stretched out his hand; it was only a mass of white campion\ntrembling in the morning breeze, for an ashen morning was just touching\nthe mists on the eastern mountains. Beginning suddenly to tremble with\nsupernatural fear Dhoya turned homewards. Everything was changed; dark\nshadows seemed to come and go, and elfin chatter to pass upon the\nbreeze. But when he reached the shelter of the pine woods all was still\nas of old. He slackened his speed. Those solemn pine-trees soothed\nhim with their vast unsociability--many and yet each one alone. Once\nor twice, when in some glade further than usual from its kind arose a\npine-tree larger than the rest, he paused with bowed head to mutter an\nuncouth prayer to that dark outlaw. As he neared his cave and came from\nthe deep shade into the region of mountain-ash and hazel, the voices\nseemed again to come and go, and the shadows to circle round him, and\nonce a voice said, he imagined, in accents faint and soft as falling\ndew, \u2018Dhoya, my beloved.\u2019 But a few yards from the cave all grew\nsuddenly silent.\n\n\nII\n\nSlower and slower he went, with his eyes on the ground, bewildered\nby all that was happening. A few feet from the cave he stood still,\ncounting aimlessly the round spots of light made by the beams slanting\nthrough trees that hid with their greenness, as in the centre of the\nsea, that hollow rock. As over and over he counted them, he heard,\nfirst with the ear only, then with the mind also, a footstep going to\nand fro within the cave. Lifting his eyes he saw the same figure seen\non the cliff--the figure of a woman, beautiful and young. Her dress was\nwhite, save for a border of feathers dyed the fatal red of the spirits.\nShe had arranged in one corner the spears, and in the other the\nbrushwood and branches used for the fire, and spread upon the ground\nthe skins, and now began pulling vainly at the great stone pitcher of\nthe Fomorians.\n\nSuddenly she saw him and with a burst of laughter flung her arms round\nhis neck, crying, \u2018Dhoya, I have left my world far off. My people--on\nthe floor of the lake they are dancing and singing, and on the islands\nof the lake; always happy, always young, always without change. I have\nleft them for thee, Dhoya, for they cannot love. Only the changing,\nand moody, and angry, and weary can love. I am beautiful; love me,\nDhoya. Do you hear me? I left the places where they dance, Dhoya, for\nthee!\u2019 For long she poured out a tide of words, he answering at first\nlittle, then more and more as she melted away the silence of so many\ninarticulate years; and all the while she gazed on him with eyes, no\nardour could rob of the mild and mysterious melancholy that watches us\nfrom the eyes of animals--sign of unhuman reveries.\n\nMany days passed over these strangely-wedded ones. Sometimes when he\nasked her, \u2018Do you love me?\u2019 she would answer, \u2018I do not know, but\nI long for your love endlessly.\u2019 Often at twilight, returning from\nhunting, he would find her bending over a stream that flowed near to\nthe cave, decking her hair with feathers and reddening her lips with\nthe juice of a wild berry.\n\nHe was very happy secluded in that deep forest. Hearing the faint\nmurmurs of the western sea, they seemed to have outlived change. But\nChange is everywhere, with the tides and the stars fastened to her\nwheel. Every blood-drop in their lips, every cloud in the sky, every\nleaf in the world changed a little, while they brushed back their hair\nand kissed. All things change save only the fear of change. And yet\nfor his hour Dhoya was happy and as full of dreams as an old man or an\ninfant--for dreams wander nearest to the grave and the cradle.\n\nOnce, as he was returning home from hunting, by the northern edge of\nthe lake, at the hour when the owls cry to each other, \u2018It is time to\nbe abroad,\u2019 and the last flutter of the wind has died away, leaving\nunder every haunted island an image legible to the least hazel branch,\nthere suddenly stood before him a slight figure, at the edge of the\nnarrow sand-line, dark against the glowing water. Dhoya drew nearer. It\nwas a man leaning on his spear-staff, on his head a small red cap. His\nspear was slender and tipped with shining metal; the spear of Dhoya of\nwood, one end pointed and hardened in the fire. The red-capped stranger\nsilently raised that slender spear and thrust at Dhoya, who parried\nwith his pointed staff.\n\nFor a long while they fought. The last vestige of sunset passed away\nand the stars came out. Underneath them the feet of Dhoya beat up the\nground, but the feet of the other as he rushed hither and thither,\nmatching his agility with the mortal\u2019s mighty strength, made neither\nshadow nor footstep on the sands. Dhoya was wounded, and growing weary\na little, when the other leaped away, and, crouching down by the water,\nbegan: \u2018You have carried away by some spell unknown the most beautiful\nof our bands--you who have neither laughter nor singing. Restore her,\nDhoya, and go free.\u2019 Dhoya answered him no word, and the other rose and\nagain thrust at him with the spear. They fought to and fro upon the\nsands until the dawn touched with olive the distant sky, and then his\nanger-fit, long absent, fell on Dhoya, and he closed with his enemy and\nthrew him, and put his knee on his chest and his hands on his throat,\nand would have crushed all life out of him, when lo! he held beneath\nhis knee no more than a bundle of reeds.\n\nNearing home in the early morning he heard the voice he loved, singing:\n\n    Full moody is my love and sad,\n      His moods bow low his sombre crest,\n    I hold him dearer than the glad,\n      And he shall slumber on my breast.\n\n    My love hath many an evil mood,\n      Ill words for all things soft and fair,\n    I hold him dearer than the good,\n      My fingers feel his amber hair.\n\n    No tender wisdom floods the eyes\n      That watch me with their suppliant light--\n    I hold him dearer than the wise,\n      And for him make me wise and bright.\n\nAnd when she saw him she cried, \u2018An old mortal song heard floating from\na tent of skin, as we rode, I and mine, through a camping-place at\nnight.\u2019 From that day she was always either singing wild and melancholy\nsongs or else watching him with that gaze of animal reverie.\n\nOnce he asked, \u2018How old are you?\u2019\n\n\u2018A thousand years, for I am young.\u2019\n\n\u2018I am so little to you,\u2019 he went on, \u2018and you are so much to me--dawn,\nand sunset, tranquillity, and speech, and solitude.\u2019\n\n\u2018Am I so much?\u2019 she said; \u2018say it many times!\u2019 and her eyes seemed to\nbrighten and her breast heaved with joy.\n\nOften he would bring her the beautiful skins of animals, and she would\nwalk to and fro on them, laughing to feel their softness under her\nfeet. Sometimes she would pause and ask suddenly, \u2018Will you weep for me\nwhen we have parted?\u2019 and he would answer, \u2018I will die then\u2019; and she\nwould go on rubbing her feet to and fro in the soft skin.\n\nAnd so Dhoya grew tranquil and gentle, and Change seemed still to\nhave forgotten them, having so much on her hands. The stars rose and\nset watching them smiling together, and the tides ebbed and flowed,\nbringing mutability to all save them. But always everything changes,\nsave only the fear of Change.\n\n\nIII\n\nOne evening as they sat in the inner portion of the cave, watching\nthrough the opening the paling of the sky and the darkening of the\nleaves, and counting the budding stars, Dhoya suddenly saw stand before\nhim the dark outline of him he fought on the lake sand, and heard at\nthe same instant his companion sigh.\n\nThe stranger approached a little, and said, \u2018Dhoya, we have fought\nheretofore, and now I have come to play chess against thee, for well\nthou knowest, dear to the perfect warrior after war is chess.\u2019\n\n\u2018I know it,\u2019 answered Dhoya.\n\n\u2018And when we have played, Dhoya, we will name the stake.\u2019\n\n\u2018Do not play,\u2019 whispered his companion at his side.\n\nBut Dhoya, being filled with his anger-fit at the sight of his enemy,\nanswered, \u2018I will play, and I know well the stake you mean, and I name\nthis for mine, that I may again have my knee on your chest and my hands\non your throat, and that you will not again change into a bundle\nof wet reeds.\u2019 His companion lay down on a skin and began to cry a\nlittle. Dhoya felt sure of winning. He had often played in his boyhood,\nbefore the time of his anger-fits, with his masters of the galley; and\nbesides, he could always return to his hands and his weapons once more.\n\nNow the floor of the cave was of smooth, white sand, brought from\nthe seashore in his great Fomorian pitcher, to make it soft for his\nbeloved to walk upon; before it had been, as it now is, of rough clay.\nOn this sand the red-capped stranger marked out with his spear-point\na chess-board, and marked with rushes, crossed and recrossed each\nalternate square, fixing each end of the rush in the sand, until a\ncomplete board was finished of white and green squares, and then drew\nfrom a bag large chessmen of mingled wood and silver. Two or three\nwould have made an armful for a child. Standing each at his end they\nbegan to play. The game did not last long. No matter how carefully\nDhoya played, each move went against him. At last, leaping back from\nthe board, he cried, \u2018I have lost!\u2019 The two spirits were standing\ntogether at the entrance. Dhoya seized his spear, but slowly the\nfigures began to fade, first a star and then the leaves showed through\ntheir forms. Soon all had vanished away.\n\nThen, understanding his loss, he threw himself on the ground, and\nrolling hither and thither, roared like a wild beast. All night long he\nlay on the ground, and all the next day till nightfall. He had crumbled\nhis staff unconsciously between his fingers into small pieces, and now,\nfull of dull rage, the pointed end of the staff still in his hand,\narose and went forth westward. In a ravine of the northern mountain\nhe came on the tracks of wild horses. Soon one passed him fearlessly,\nknowing nothing of man. He drove the pointed end of the staff deep in\nthe flank, making a great wound, sending the horse rushing with short\nscreams down the mountain. Other horses passed him one by one, driven\nsouthward by a cold wind laden with mist, arisen in the night-time.\nTowards the end of the ravine stood one black and huge, the leader of\nthe herd. Dhoya leaped on his back with a loud cry that sent a raven\ncircling from the neighbouring cliff, and the horse, after vainly\nseeking to throw him, rushed off towards the north-west, over the\nheights of the mountains where the mists floated. The moon, clear\nsometimes of the flying clouds, from low down in the south-east, cast\na pale and mutable light, making their shadow rise before them on\nthe mists, as though they pursued some colossal demon, sombre on his\nblack charger. Then leaving the heights they rushed down that valley\nwhere, in far later times, Diarmuid hid in a deep cavern his Grania,\nand passed the stream where Muadhan, their savage servant, caught fish\nfor them on a hook baited with a quicken-berry. On over the plains,\non northward, mile after mile, the wild gigantic horse leaping cliff\nand chasm in his terrible race; on until the mountains of what is now\nDonegal rose before them--over these among the clouds, driving rain\nblowing in their faces from the sea, Dhoya knowing not whither he went,\nor why he rode. On--the stones loosened by the hoofs rumbling down into\nthe valleys--till far in the distance he saw the sea, a thousand feet\nbelow him; then, fixing his eyes thereon, and using the spear-point as\na goad, he roused his black horse into redoubled speed, until horse and\nrider plunged headlong into the Western Sea.\n\nSometimes the cotters on the mountains of Donegal hear on windy nights\na sudden sound of horses\u2019 hoofs, and say to each other, \u2018There goes\nDhoya.\u2019 And at the same hour men say if any be abroad in the valleys\nthey see a huge shadow rushing along the mountain.\n\n\n\n\n    _Printed by_ A. H. BULLEN, _at The Shakespeare Head Press,\n                       Stratford-on-Avon_.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nTranscriber\u2019s Notes:\n\nRepeated story titles were removed to avoid redundancy. Obvious\npunctuation errors repaired. Varied hyphenation was retained.","title":"The Collected Works in Verse and Prose of William Butler Yeats, Vol. 7 (of 8): The Secret Rose. Rosa Alchemica. The Tables of the Law. The Adoration of the Magi. John Sherman and Dhoya","tradition":"myth-cosmogony","translated_text":null,"word_count":61656}