Chapter IX: Epilogue: To Dipsychus (2)

Oh, if they knew and considered, unhappy ones! oh, could they see,
could
But for a moment discern, how the blood of true gallantry kindles,
How the old knightly religion, the chivalry semi-quixotic
Stirs in the veins of a man at seeing some delicate woman
Serving him, toiling—for him, and the world; some tenderest girl, now
Over-weighted, expectant, of him, is it? who shall, if only
Duly her burden be lightened, not wholly removed from her, mind you
Lightened if but by the love, the devotion man only can offer,
Grand on her pedestal rise as urn-bearing statue of Hellas;—
Oh, could they feel at such moments how man’s heart, as into Eden
Carried anew, seems to see, like the gardener of earth uncorrupted,
Eve from the hand of her Maker advancing, an help meet for him,
Eve from his own flesh taken, a spirit restored to his spirit,
Spirit but not spirit only, himself whatever himself is,
Unto the mystery’s end sole helpmate meet to be with him;—
Oh, if they saw it and knew it; we soon should see them abandon
Boudoir, toilette, carriage, drawing-room, and ball-room,
Satin for worsted exchange, gros-de-naples for plain linsey-woolsey,
Sandals of silk for clogs, for health lackadaisical fancies!
So, feel women, not dolls; so feel the sap of existence
Circulate up through their roots from the far-away centre of all things.
Circulate up from the depths to the bud on the twig that is topmost!
Yes, we should see them delighted, delighted ourselves in the seeing,
Bending with blue cotton gown skirted up over striped linsey-woolsey,
Milking the kine in the field, like Rachel, watering cattle,
Rachel, when at the well the predestined beheld and kissed her,
Or, with pail upon head, like Dora beloved of Alexis,
Comely, with well-poised pail over neck arching soft to the shoulders,
Comely in gracefullest act, one arm uplifted to stay it,
Home from the river or pump moving stately and calm to the laundry;
Ay, doing household work, as many sweet girls I have looked at,
Needful household work, which some one, after all, must do,
Needful, graceful therefore, as washing, cooking, and scouring,
Or, if you please, with the fork in the garden uprooting potatoes.—
Or,—high-kilted perhaps, cried Lindsay, at last successful,
Lindsay this long time swelling with scorn and pent-up fury,
Or high-kilted perhaps, as once at Dundee I saw them,
Petticoats up to the knees, or even, it might be, above them,
Matching their lily-white legs with the clothes that they trod in the
wash-tub!
Laughter ensued at this; and seeing the Tutor embarrassed,
It was from them, I suppose, said Arthur, smiling sedately,
Lindsay learnt the tune we all have learnt from Lindsay,
_For oh, he was a roguey, the Piper o’ Dundee_.
Laughter ensued again; and the Tutor, recovering slowly,
Said, Are not these perhaps as doubtful as other attractions?
There is a truth in your view, but I think extremely distorted;
Still there is a truth, I own, I understand you entirely.
While the Tutor was gathering his purposes, Arthur continued,
Is not all this the same that one hears at common-room breakfasts,
Or perhaps Trinity wines, about Gothic buildings and Beauty?
And with a start from the sofa came Hobbes; with a cry from the sofa,
Where he was laid, the great Hobbes, contemplative, corpulent, witty,
Author forgotten and silent of currentest phrases and fancies,
Mute and exuberant by turns, a fountain at intervals playing,
Mute and abstracted, or strong and abundant as rain in the tropics;
Studious; careless of dress; inobservant; by smooth persuasions
Lately decoyed into kilt on example of Hope and the Piper,
Hope an Antinoüs mere, Hyperion of calves the Piper.
Beautiful! cried he up-leaping, analogy perfect to madness!
O inexhaustible source of thought, shall I call it, or fancy!
Wonderful spring, at whose touch doors fly, what a vista disclosing!
Exquisite germ; Ah no, crude fingers shall not soil thee;
Rest, lovely pearl, in my brain, and slowly mature in the oyster.
While at the exquisite pearl they were laughing and corpulent oyster,
Ah, could they only be taught, he resumed, by a Pugin of women,
How even churning and washing, the dairy, the scullery duties,
Wait but a touch to redeem and convert them to charms and attractions,
Scrubbing requires for true grace but frank and artistical handling,
And the removal of slops to be ornamentally treated.
Philip who speaks like a book, (retiring and pausing he added,)
Philip, here, who speaks—like a folio say’st thou, Piper?
Philip shall write us a book, a Treatise upon _The Laws of_
_Architectural Beauty in Application to Women_;
Illustrations, of course, and a Parker’s Glossary pendent.
Where shall in specimen seen be the sculliony stumpy-columnar
(Which to a reverent taste is perhaps the most moving of any),
Rising to grace of true woman in English the Early and Later,
Charming us still in fulfilling the Richer and Loftier stages,
Lost, ere we end, in the Lady-Debased and the Lady-Flamboyant:
Whence why in satire and spite too merciless onward pursue her
Hither to hideous close, Modern-Florid, modern-fine-lady?
No, I will leave it to you, my Philip, my Pugin of women.
Leave it to Arthur, said Adam, to think of, and not to play with.
You are young, you know, he said, resuming, to Philip,
You are young, he proceeded, with something of fervour to Hewson.
You are a boy; when you grow to a man you’ll find things alter.
You will then seek only the good, will scorn the attractive,
Scorn all mere cosmetics, as now of rank and fashion,
Delicate hands, and wealth, so then of poverty also,
Poverty truly attractive, more truly, I bear you witness.
Good, wherever it’s found, you will choose, be it humble or stately,
Happy if only you find, and finding do not lose it.
Yes, we must seek what is good, it always and it only;
Not indeed absolute good, good for us, as is said in the Ethics,
That which is good for ourselves, our proper selves, our best selves.
Ah, you have much to learn, we can’t know all things at twenty.
Partly you rest on truth, old truth, the duty of Duty,
Partly on error, you long for equality.
Ay, cried the Piper,
That’s what it is, that confounded _égalité_, French manufacture,
He is the same as the Chartist who spoke at a meeting in Ireland,
_What, and is not one man, fellow-men, as good as another?_
_Faith_, replied Pat, _and a deal better too_!
So rattled the Piper:
But undisturbed in his tenor, the Tutor.
Partly in error
Seeking equality, _is not one woman as good as another_?
I with the Irishman answer, _Yes, better too_; the poorer
Better full oft than richer, than loftier better the lower,
Irrespective of wealth and of poverty, pain and enjoyment,
Women all have their duties, the one as well as the other;
Are all duties alike? Do all alike fulfil them?
However noble the dream of equality, mark you, Philip,
Nowhere equality reigns in all the world of creation,
Star is not equal to star, nor blossom the same as blossom;
Herb is not equal to herb, any more than planet to planet.
There is a glory of daisies, a glory again of carnations;
Were the carnation wise, in gay parterre by greenhouse,
Should it decline to accept the nurture the gardener gives it,
Should it refuse to expand to sun and genial summer,
Simply because the field-daisy that grows in the grass-plat beside it,
Cannot, for some cause or other, develop and be a carnation?
Would not the daisy itself petition its scrupulous neighbour?
Up, grow, bloom, and forget me; be beautiful even to proudness,
E’en for the sake of myself and other poor daisies like me.
Education and manners, accomplishments and refinements,
Waltz, peradventure, and polka, the knowledge of music and drawing
All these things are Nature’s, to Nature dear and precious,
We have all something to do, man, woman alike, I own it;
We all have something to do, and in my judgment should do it
In our station; not thinking about it, but not disregarding;
Holding it, not for enjoyment, but simply because we are in it.
Ah! replied Philip, Alas! the noted phrase of the Prayer-book,
_Doing our duty in that state of life to which God has called us_,
Seems to me always to mean, when the little rich boys say it,
Standing in velvet frock by mamma’s brocaded flounces,
Eyeing her gold-fastened book and the watch and chain at her bosom,
Seems to me always to mean, Eat, drink, and never mind others.
Nay, replied Adam, smiling, so far your economy leads me,
Velvet and gold and brocade are nowise to my fancy.
Nay, he added, believe me, I like luxurious living
Even as little as you, and grieve in my soul not seldom,
More for the rich indeed than the poor, who are not so guilty.
So the discussion closed; and, said Arthur, Now it is my turn,
How will my argument please you? To-morrow we start on our travel.
And took up Hope the chorus,
To-morrow we start on our travel.
Lo, the weather is golden, the weather-glass, say they, rising;
Four weeks here have we read; four weeks will we read hereafter;
Three weeks hence will return and think of classes and classics.
Fare ye well, meantime, forgotten, unnamed, undreamt of,
History, Science, and Poets! lo, deep in dustiest cupboard,
Thookydid, Oloros’ son, Halimoosian, here lieth buried!
Slumber in Liddell-and-Scott, O musical chaff of old Athens,
Dishes, and fishes, bird, beast, and sesquipedalian blackguard!
Sleep, weary ghosts, be at peace and abide in your lexicon-limbo!
Sleep, as in lava for ages your Herculanean kindred,
Sleep, for aught that I care, ‘the sleep that knows no waking,’
Æschylus, Sophocles, Homer, Herodotus, Pindar, and Plato.
Three weeks hence be it time to exhume our dreary classics.
And in the chorus joined Lindsay, the Piper, the Dialectician,
Three weeks hence we return to the _shop_ and the _wash-hand-stand basin_
(These are the Piper’s names for the bathing-place and the cottage).
Three weeks hence unbury _Thicksides_ and _hairy_ Aldrich.
But the Tutor inquired, the grave man, nick-named Adam,
Who are they that go, and when do they promise returning?
And a silence ensued, and the Tutor himself continued,
Airlie remains, I presume, he continued, and Hobbes and Hewson.
Answer was made him by Philip, the poet, the eloquent speaker:
Airlie remains, I presume, was the answer, and Hobbes, peradventure;
Tarry let Airlie May-fairly, and Hobbes, brief-kilted hero,
Tarry let Hobbes in kilt, and Airlie ‘abide in his breeches;’
Tarry let these, and read, four Pindars apiece an’ it like them!
Weary of reading am I, and weary of walks prescribed us;
Weary of Ethic and Logic, of Rhetoric yet more weary,
Eager to range over heather unfettered of gillie and marquis,
I will away with the rest, and bury my dismal classics.
And to the Tutor rejoining, Be mindful; you go up at Easter,
This was the answer returned by Philip, the Pugin of women.
Good are the Ethics I wis; good absolute, not for me, though;
Good, too, Logic, of course; in itself, but not in fine weather.
Three weeks hence, with the rain, to Prudence, Temperance, Justice,
Virtues Moral and Mental, with Latin prose included;
Three weeks hence we return to cares of classes and classics.
I will away with the rest, and bury my dismal classics.
But the Tutor inquired, the grave man, nick-named Adam,
Where do you mean to go, and whom do you mean to visit?
And he was answered by Hope, the Viscount, His Honour, of Ilay.
Kitcat, a Trinity _coach_, has a party at Drumnadrochet,
Up on the side of Loch Ness, in the beautiful valley of Urquhart;
Mainwaring says they will lodge us, and feed us, and give us a lift too
Only they talk ere long to remove to Glenmorison. Then at
Castleton, high in Braemar, strange home, with his earliest party,
Harrison, fresh from the schools, has James and Jones and Lauder.
Thirdly, a Cambridge man I know, Smith, a senior wrangler,
With a mathematical score hangs-out at Inverary.
Finally, too, from the kilt and the sofa said Hobbes in conclusion,
Finally, Philip must hunt for that home of the probable poacher,
Hid in the braes of Lochaber, the Bothie of _What-did-he-call-it_.
Hopeless of you and of us, of gillies and marquises hopeless,
Weary of Ethic and Logic, of Rhetoric yet more weary,
There shall he, smit by the charm of a lovely potato-uprooter,
Study the question of sex in the Bothie of _What-did-he-call-it_.

III

_Namque canebat uti——_

So in the golden morning they parted and went to the westward.
And in the cottage with Airlie and Hobbes remained the Tutor;
Reading nine hours a day with the Tutor, Hobbes and Airlie;
One between bathing and breakfast, and six before it was dinner
(Breakfast at eight, at four, after bathing again, the dinner),
Finally, two after walking and tea, from nine to eleven.
Airlie and Adam at evening their quiet stroll together
Took on the terrace-road, with the western hills before them;
Hobbes, only rarely a third, now and then in the cottage remaining,
E’en after dinner, eupeptic, would rush yet again to his reading;
Other times, stung by the œstrum of some swift-working conception,
Ranged, tearing on in his fury, an Io-cow through the mountains,
Heedless of scenery, heedless of bogs, and of perspiration,
On the high peaks, unwitting, the hares and ptarmigan starting.
And the three weeks past, the three weeks, three days over,
Nither letter had come, nor casual tidings any,
And the pupils grumbled, the Tutor became uneasy,
And in the golden weather they wondered, and watched to the westward.
There is a stream (I name not its name, lest inquisitive tourist
Hunt it, and make it a lion, and get it at last into guide-books),
Springing far off from a loch unexplored in the folds of great mountains,
Falling two miles through rowan and stunted alder, enveloped
Then for four more in a forest of pine, where broad and ample
Spreads, to convey it, the glen with heathery slopes on both sides:
Broad and fair the stream, with occasional falls and narrows;
But, where the glen of its course approaches the vale of the river,
Met and blocked by a huge interposing mass of granite,
Scarce by a channel deep-cut, raging up, and raging onward,
Forces its flood through a passage so narrow a lady would step it.
There, across the great rocky wharves, a wooden bridge goes,
Carrying a path to the forest; below, three hundred yards, say,
Lower in level some twenty-five feet, through flats of shingle,
Stepping-stones and a cart-track cross in the open valley.
But in the interval here the boiling pent-up water
Frees itself by a final descent, attaining a basin,
Ten feet wide and eighteen long, with whiteness and fury
Occupied partly, but mostly pellucid, pure, a mirror;
Beautiful there for the colour derived from green rocks under;
Beautiful, most of all, where beads of foam uprising
Mingle their clouds of white with the delicate hue of the stillness,
Cliff over cliff for its sides, with rowan and pendent birch boughs,
Here it lies, unthought of above at the bridge and pathway,
Still more enclosed from below by wood and rocky projection.
You are shut in, left alone with yourself and perfection of water,
Hid on all sides, left alone with yourself and the goddess of bathing.
Here, the pride of the plunger, you stride the fall and clear it;
Here, the delight of the bather, you roll in beaded sparklings,
Here into pure green depth drop down from lofty ledges.
Hither, a month agone, they had come, and discovered it; hither
(Long a design, but long unaccountably left unaccomplished),
Leaving the well-known bridge and pathway above to the forest,
Turning below from the track of the carts over stone and shingle,
Piercing a wood, and skirting a narrow and natural causeway
Under the rocky wall that hedges the bed of the streamlet,
Rounded a craggy point, and saw on a sudden before them
Slabs of rock, and a tiny beach, and perfection of water,
Picture-like beauty, seclusion sublime, and the goddess of bathing.
There they bathed, of course, and Arthur, the Glory of headers,
Leapt from the ledges with Hope, he twenty feet, he thirty;
There, overbold, great Hobbes from a ten-foot height descended,
Prone, as a quadruped, prone with hands and feet protending;
There in the sparkling champagne, ecstatic, they shrieked and shouted.
‘Hobbes’s gutter’ the Piper entitles the spot, profanely,
Hope ‘the Glory’ would have, after Arthur, the Glory of headers:
But, for before they departed, in shy and fugitive reflex,
Here in the eddies and there did the splendour of Jupiter glimmer;
Adam adjudged it the name of Hesperus, star of the evening.
Hither, to Hesperus, now, the star of evening above them,
Come in their lonelier walk the pupils twain and Tutor;
Turned from the track of the carts, and passing the stone and shingle,
Piercing the wood, and skirting the stream by the natural causeway,
Rounded the craggy point, and now at their ease looked up; and
Lo, on the rocky ledge, regardant, the Glory of headers,
Lo, on the beach, expecting the plunge, not cigarless, the Piper,—
And they looked, and wondered, incredulous, looking yet once more.
Yes, it was he, on the ledge, bare-limbed, an Apollo, down-gazing,
Eyeing one moment the beauty, the life, ere he flung himself in it,
Eyeing through eddying green waters the green-tinting floor underneath
them,
Eyeing the bead on the surface, the bead, like a cloud rising to it,
Drinking-in, deep in his soul, the beautiful hue and the clearness,
Arthur, the shapely, the brave, the unboasting, the Glory of headers;
Yes, and with fragrant weed, by his knapsack, spectator and critic,
Seated on slab by the margin, the Piper, the Cloud-compeller.
Yes, they were come; were restored to the party, its grace and its
gladness,
Yes, were here, as of old; the light-giving orb of the household,
Arthur, the shapely, the tranquil, the strength-and-contentment
diffusing,
In the pure presence of whom none could quarrel long, nor be pettish,
And, the gay fountain of mirth, their dearly beloved of Pipers;
Yes, they were come, were here: but Hewson and Hope—where they then?
Are they behind, travel-sore, or ahead, going straight, by the pathway?
And from his seat and cigar spoke the Piper, the Cloud-compeller.
Hope with the uncle abideth for shooting. Ah me, were I with him!
Ah, good boy that I am, to have stuck to my word and my reading!
Good, good boy to be here, far away, who might be at Balloch!
Only one day to have stayed who might have been welcome for seven,
Seven whole days in castle and forest—gay in the mazy
Moving, imbibing the rosy, and pointing a gun at the horny!
And the Tutor impatient, expectant, interrupted.
Hope with the uncle, and Hewson—with him? or where have you left him?
And from his seat and cigar spoke the Piper, the Cloud-compeller.
Hope with the uncle, and Hewson—Why, Hewson we left in Rannoch,
By the lochside and the pines, in a farmer’s house,—reflecting—
Helping to shear,[8] and dry clothes, and bring in peat from the
peat-stack.
And the Tutor’s countenance fell; perplexed, dumb-foundered
Stood he,—slow and with pain disengaging jest from earnest.
He is not far from home, said Arthur from the water,
He will be with us to-morrow, at latest, or the next day.
And he was even more reassured by the Piper’s rejoinder.
Can he have come by the mail, and have got to the cottage before us?
So to the cottage they went, and Philip was not at the cottage;
But by the mail was a letter from Hope, who himself was to follow.
Two whole days and nights succeeding brought not Philip,
Two whole days and nights exhausted not question and story.
For it was told, the Piper narrating, corrected of Arthur,
Often by word corrected, more often by smile and motion,
How they had been to Iona, to Staffa, to Skye, to Culloden,
Seen Loch Awe, Loch Tay, Loch Fyne, Loch Ness, Loch Arkaig,
Been up Ben-nevis, Ben-more, Ben-cruachan, Ben-muick-dhui;
How they had walked, and eaten, and drunken, and slept in kitchens
Slept upon floors of kitchens, and tasted the real Glenlivat,
Walked up perpendicular hills, and also down them,
Hither and thither had been, and this and that had witnessed,
Left not a thing to be done, and had not a copper remaining.
For it was told withal, he telling, and he correcting,
How in the race they had run, and beaten the gillies of Rannoch,
How in forbidden glens, in Mar and midmost Athol,
Philip insisting hotly, and Arthur and Hope compliant,
They had defied the keepers; the Piper alone protesting,
Liking the fun, it was plain, in his heart, but tender of game-law;
Yea, too, in Meäly glen, the heart of Lochiel’s fair forest,
Where Scotch firs are darkest and amplest, and intermingle
Grandly with rowan and ash—in Mar you have no ashes,
There the pine is alone, or relieved by the birch and the alder—
How in Meäly glen, while stags were starting before, they
Made the watcher believe they were guests from Achnacarry.
And there was told moreover, he telling, the other correcting,
Often by word, more often by mute significant motion,
Much of the Cambridge _coach_ and his pupils at Inverary,
Huge barbarian pupils, Expanded in Infinite Series,
Firing-off signal guns (great scandal) from window to window
(For they were lodging perforce in distant and numerous houses),
Signals, when, one retiring, another should go to the Tutor:—
Much too of Kitcat, of course, and the party at Drumnadrochet,
Mainwaring, Foley, and Fraser, their idleness horrid and dog-cart;
Drumnadrochet was _seedy_, Glenmorison _adequate_, but at
Castleton, high in Braemar, were the _clippingest_ places for bathing;
One by the bridge in the village, indecent, the _Town Hall_ christened.
Where had Lauder howbeit been bathing, and Harrison also,
Harrison even, the Tutor; another like Hesperus here, and
Up the water of Eye, half-a-dozen at least, all _stunners_.
And it was told, the Piper narrating and Arthur correcting,
Colouring he, dilating, magniloquent, glorying in picture,
He to a matter-of-fact still softening, paring, abating,
He to the great might-have-been upsoaring, sublime and ideal,
He to the merest it-was restricting, diminishing, dwarfing,
River to streamlet reducing, and fall to slope subduing:
So was it told, the Piper narrating, corrected of Arthur,
How under Linn of Dee, where over rocks, between rocks,
Freed from prison the river comes, pouring, rolling, rushing,
Then at a sudden descent goes sliding, gliding, unbroken,
Falling, sliding, gliding, in narrow space collected,
Save for a ripple at last, a sheeted descent unbroken,—
How to the element offering their bodies, downshooting the fall, they
Mingled themselves with the flood and the force of imperious water.
And it was told too, Arthur narrating, the Piper correcting,
How, as one comes to the level, the weight of the downward impulse
Carries the head under water, delightful, unspeakable; how the
Piper, here ducked and blinded, got stray, and borne-off by the current
Wounded his lily-white thighs, below, at the craggy corner.
And it was told, the Piper resuming, corrected of Arthur,
More by word than motion, change ominous, noted of Adam,
How at the floating-bridge of Laggan, one morning at sunrise,
Came, in default of the ferryman, out of her bed a brave lassie;
And as Philip and she together were turning the handles,
Winding the chain by which the boat works over the water
Hands intermingled with hands, and at last, as they stepped from the
boatie,
Turning about, they saw lips also mingle with lips; but
That was flatly denied and loudly exclaimed at by Arthur:
How at the General’s hut, the Inn by the Foyers Fall, where
Over the loch looks at you the summit of Méalfourvónie,
How here too he was hunted at morning, and found in the kitchen
Watching the porridge being made, pronouncing them smoked for certain,
Watching the porridge being made, and asking the lassie that made them
What was the Gaelic for _girl_, and what was the Gaelic for _pretty_;
How in confusion he shouldered his knapsack, yet blushingly stammered,
Waving a hand to the lassie, that blushingly bent o’er the porridge,
Something outlandish—_Slan_-something, _Slan leat_, he believed, _Caleg
Looach_—
That was the Gaelic, it seemed, for ‘I bid you good-bye, bonnie lassie;
Arthur admitted it true, not of Philip, but of the Piper.
And it was told by the Piper, while Arthur looked out at the window,
How in thunder and in rain—it is wetter far to the westward—
Thunder and rain and wind, losing heart and road, they were welcomed,
Welcomed, and three days detained at a farm by the lochside of Rannoch;
How in the three days’ detention was Philip observed to be smitten,
Smitten by golden-haired Katie, the youngest and comeliest daughter;
Was he not seen, even Arthur observed it, from breakfast to bedtime,
Following her motions with eyes ever brightening, softening ever?
Did he not fume, fret, and fidget to find her stand waiting at table?
Was he not one mere St. Vitus’ dance, when he saw her at nightfall
Go through the rain to fetch peat, through beating rain to the
peat-stack?
How too a dance, as it happened, was given by Grant of Glenurchie,
And with the farmer they went as the farmer’s guests to attend it;
Philip stayed dancing till daylight,—and evermore with Katie;
How the whole next afternoon he was with her away in the shearing,[9]
And the next morning ensuing was found in the ingle beside her
Kneeling, picking the peats from her apron,—blowing together,
Both, between laughing, with lips distended, to kindle the embers;
Lips were so near to lips, one living cheek to another,—
Though, it was true, he was shy, very shy,—yet it wasn’t in nature,
Wasn’t in nature, the Piper averred, there shouldn’t be kissing;
So when at noon they had packed up the things, and proposed to be
starting,
Philip professed he was lame, would leave in the morning and follow;
Follow he did not; do burns, when you go up a glen, follow after?
Follow, he had not, nor left; do needles leave the loadstone?
Nay, they had turned after starting, and looked through the trees at
the corner,
Lo, on the rocks by the lake there he was, the lassie beside him,
Lo, there he was, stooping by her, and helping with stones from the water
Safe in the wind to keep down the clothes she would spread for the
drying.
There they had left him, and there, if Katie was there, was Philip,
There drying clothes, making fires, making love, getting on too by
this time,
Though he was shy, so exceedingly shy.
You may say so, said Arthur,
For the first time they had known with a peevish intonation,—
Did not the Piper himself flirt more in a single evening,
Namely, with Janet the elder, than Philip in all our sojourn?
Philip had stayed, it was true; the Piper was loth to depart too,
Harder his parting from Janet than e’en from the keeper at Balloch;
And it was certain that Philip was lame.
Yes, in his excuses,
Answered the Piper, indeed!—
But tell me, said Hobbes interposing,
Did you not say she was seen every day in her beauty and bedgown
Doing plain household work, as washing, cooking, scouring?
How could he help but love her? nor lacked there perhaps the attraction
That, in a blue cotton print tucked up over striped linsey-woolsey,
Barefoot, barelegged, he beheld her, with arms bare up to the elbows,
Bending with fork in her hand in a garden uprooting potatoes?
Is not Katie as Rachel, and is not Philip a Jacob?
Truly Jacob, supplanting a hairy Highland Esau?
Shall he not, love-entertained, feed sheep for the Laban of Rannoch?
Patriarch happier he, the long servitude ended of wooing,
If when he wake in the morning he find not a Leah beside him!
But the Tutor inquired, who had bit his lip to bleeding,
How far off is the place? who will guide me thither to-morrow?

But by the mail, ere the morrow, came Hope, and brought new tidings;
Round by Rannoch had come, and Philip was not at Rannoch;
He had left at noon, an hour ago.
With the lassie?
With her? the Piper exclaimed. Undoubtedly! By great Jingo’
And upon that he arose, slapping both his thighs like a hero,
Partly for emphasis only, to mark his conviction, but also
Part in delight at the fun, and the joy of eventful living.
Hope couldn’t tell him, of course, but thought it improbable wholly;
Janet, the Piper’s friend, he had seen, and she didn’t say so,
Though she asked a good deal about Philip, and where he was gone to;
One odd thing, by the bye, he continued, befell me while with her;
Standing beside her, I saw a girl pass; I thought I had seen her,
Somewhat remarkable-looking, elsewhere; and asked what her name was;
Elspie Mackaye, was the answer, the daughter of David! she’s stopping
Just above here, with her uncle. And David Mackaye, where lives he?
It’s away west, she said; they call it Tober-na vuolich.

IV

_Ut vidi, ut perii, ut me malus abstulit error._

So in the golden weather they waited. But Philip returned not.
Sunday six days thence a letter arrived in his writing.—
But, O Muse, that encompassest Earth like the ambient ether,
Swifter than steamer or railway or magical missive electric,
Belting like Ariel the sphere with the star-like trail of thy travel,
Thou with thy Poet, to mortals mere post-office second-hand knowledge
Leaving, wilt seek in the moorland of Rannoch the wandering hero.
There is it, there, or in lofty Lochaber, where, silent upheaving,
Heaving from ocean to sky, and under snow-winds of September,
Visibly whitening at morn to darken by noon in the shining,
Rise on their mighty foundations the brethren huge of Ben-nevis?
There, or westward away, where roads are unknown to Loch Nevish,
And the great peaks look abroad over Skye to the westernmost islands?
There is it? there? or there? we shall find our wandering hero?
Here, in Badenoch, here, in Lochaber anon, in Lochiel, in
Knoydart, Moydart, Morrer, Ardgower, and Ardnamurchan,
Here I see him and here: I see him; anon I lose him!
Even as cloud passing subtly unseen from mountain to mountain,
Leaving the crest of Ben-more to be palpable next on Ben-vohrlich,
Or like to hawk of the hill which ranges and soars in its hunting,
Seen and unseen by turns, now here, now in ether eludent.
Wherefore, as cloud of Ben-more or hawk over-ranging the mountains,
Wherefore in Badenoch drear, in lofty Lochaber, Lochiel, and
Knoydart, Moydart, Morrer, Ardgower, and Ardnamurchan,
Wandereth he who should either with Adam be studying logic,
Or by the lochside of Rannoch on Katie his rhetoric using;
He who, his three weeks past, past now long ago, to the cottage
Punctual promised return to cares of classes and classics.
He who, smit to the heart by that youngest comeliest daughter,
Bent, unregardful of spies, at her feet, spreading clothes from her
wash-tub?
Can it be with him through Badenoch, Morrer, and Ardnamurchan;
Can it be with him he beareth the golden-haired lassie of Rannoch?
This fierce, furious walking—o’er mountain-top and moorland,
Sleeping in shieling and bothie, with drover on hill-side sleeping,
Folded in plaid, where sheep are strewn thicker than rocks by Loch Awen,
This fierce, furious travel unwearying—cannot in truth be
Merely the wedding tour succeeding the week of wooing!
No, wherever be Katie, with Philip she is not; I see him,
Lo, and he sitteth alone, and these are his words in the mountain.
Spirits escaped from the body can enter and be with the living;
Entering unseen, and retiring unquestioned, they bring,—do they feel
too?—
Joy, pure joy, as they mingle and mix inner essence with essence;
Would I were dead, I keep saying, that so I could go and uphold her!
Joy, pure joy, bringing with them, and, when they retire, leaving after
No cruel shame, no prostration, despondency; memories rather,
Sweet happy hopes bequeathing. Ah! wherefore not thus with the living?
Would I were dead, I keep saying, that so I could go and uphold her!
Is it impossible, say you, these passionate fervent impulsions,
These projections of spirit to spirit, these inward embraces,
Should in strange ways, in her dreams, should visit her, strengthen
her, shield her?
Is it possible, rather, that these great floods of feeling
Setting-in daily from me towards her should, impotent wholly,
Bring neither sound nor motion to that sweet shore they heave to?
Efflux here, and there no stir nor pulse of influx!
Would I were dead, I keep saying, that so I could go and uphold her!
Surely, surely, when sleepless I lie in the mountain lamenting,
Surely, surely, she hears in her dreams a voice, ‘I am with thee,’
Saying, ‘although not with thee; behold, for we mated our spirits
Then, when we stood in the chamber, and knew not the words we were
saying;’
Yea, if she felt me within her, when not with one finger I touched her
Surely she knows it, and feels it while sorrowing here in the moorland.
Would I were dead, I keep saying, that so I could go and uphold her!
Spirits with spirits commingle and separate; lightly as winds do,
Spice-laden South with the ocean-born zephyr! they mingle and sunder;
No sad remorses for them, no visions of horror and vileness.
Would I were dead, I keep saying, that so I could go and uphold her!
Surely the force that here sweeps me along in its violent impulse,
Surely my strength shall be in her, my help and protection about her,
Surely in inner-sweet gladness and vigour of joy shall sustain her,
Till, the brief winter o’er-past, her own true sap in the springtide
Rise, and the tree I have bared be verdurous e’en as aforetime!
Surely it may be, it should be, it must be. Yet ever and ever,
Would I were dead, I keep saying, that so I could go and uphold her!
No, wherever be Katie, with Philip she is not: behold, for
Here he is sitting alone, and these are his words in the mountain.
And, at the farm on the lochside of Rannoch, in parlour and kitchen,
Hark! there is music—the flowing of music, of milk, and of whisky;
Lo, I see piping and dancing! and whom in the midst of the battle
Cantering loudly along there, or, look you, with arms uplifted,
Whistling, and snapping his fingers, and seizing his gay-smiling Janet,
Whom?—whom else but the Piper? the wary precognisant Piper,
Who, for the love of gay Janet, and mindful of old invitation,
Putting it quite as a duty and urging grave claims to attention,
True to his night had crossed over: there goeth he, brimful of music,
Like a cork tossed by the eddies that foam under furious lasher,
Like to skiff, lifted, uplifted, in lock, by the swift-swelling sluices,
So with the music possessing him, swaying him, goeth he, look you,
Swinging and flinging, and stamping and tramping, and grasping and
clasping
Whom but gay Janet?—Him rivalling, Hobbes, briefest-kilted of heroes,
Enters, O stoutest, O rashest of creatures, mere fool of a Saxon,
Skill-less of philabeg, skill-less of reel too,—the whirl and the twirl
o’t:
Him see I frisking, and whisking, and ever at swifter gyration
Under brief curtain revealing broad acres—not of broad cloth.
Him see I there and the Piper—the Piper what vision beholds not?
Him and His Honour with Arthur, with Janet our Piper, and is it,
Is it, O marvel of marvels! he too in the maze of the mazy,
Skipping, and tripping, though stately, though languid, with head on one
shoulder,
Airlie, with sight of the waistcoat the golden-haired Katie consoling?
Katie, who simple and comely, and smiling and blushing as ever,
What though she wear on that neck a blue kerchief remembered as Philip’s,
Seems in her maidenly freedom to need small consolement of waistcoats!—
Wherefore in Badenoch then, far-away, in Lochaber, Lochiel, in
Knoydart, Moydart, Morrer, Ardgower, or Ardnamurchan,
Wanders o’er mountain and moorland, in shieling or bothie is sleeping,
He, who,—and why should he not then? capricious? or is it rejected?
Might to the piping of Rannoch be pressing the thrilling fair fingers,
Might, as he clasped her, transmit to her bosom the throb of his
own—yea,—
Might in the joy of the reel be wooing and winning his Katie?
What is it Adam reads far off by himself in the cottage?
Reads yet again with emotion, again is preparing to answer?
What is it Adam is reading? What was it Philip had written?
There was it writ, how Philip possessed undoubtedly had been,
Deeply, entirely possessed by the charm of the maiden of Rannoch;
Deeply as never before! how sweet and bewitching he felt her
Seen still before him at work, in the garden, the byre, the kitchen;
How it was beautiful to him to stoop at her side in the shearing,
Binding uncouthly the ears that fell from her dexterous sickle,
Building uncouthly the stooks,[10] which she laid by her sickle to
straighten,
How at the dance he had broken through shyness; for four days after
Lived on her eyes, unspeaking what lacked not articulate speaking;
Felt too that she too was feeling what he did.—Howbeit they parted!
How by a kiss from her lips he had seemed made nobler and stronger,
Yea, for the first time in life a man complete and perfect,
So forth! much that before has been heard of.—Howbeit they parted!
What had ended it all, he said, was singular, very.—
I was walking along some two miles off from the cottage
Full of my dreamings—a girl went by in a party with others;
She had a cloak on, was stepping on quickly, for rain was beginning;
But as she passed, from her hood I saw her eyes look at me.
So quick a glance, so regardless I, that although I had felt it,
You couldn’t properly say our eyes met. She cast it, and left it:
It was three minutes perhaps ere I knew what it was. I had seen her
Somewhere before I am sure, but that wasn’t it; not its import;
No, it had seemed to regard me with simple superior insight,
Quietly saying to itself—Yes, there he is still in his fancy,
Letting drop from him at random as things not worth his considering
All the benefits gathered and put in his hands by fortune,
Loosing a hold which others, contented and unambitious,
Trying down here to keep up, know the value of better than he does,
What is this? was it perhaps?—Yes, there he is still in his fancy,
Doesn’t yet see we have here just the things he is used to elsewhere;
People here too are people and not as fairy-land creatures;
He is in a trance, and possessed; I wonder how long to continue;
It is a shame and a pity—and no good likely to follow.—
Something like this, but indeed I cannot attempt to define it.
Only, three hours thence I was off and away in the moorland,
Hiding myself from myself if I could; the arrow within me.
Katie was not in the house, thank God: I saw her in passing,
Saw her, unseen myself, with the pang of a cruel desertion;
What she thinks about it, God knows! poor child; may she only
Think me a fool and a madman, and no more worth her remembering!
Meantime all through the mountains I hurry and know not whither,
Tramp along here, and think, and know not what I should think.
Tell me then, why, as I sleep amid hill-tops high in the moorland,
Still in my dreams I am pacing the streets of the dissolute city,
Where dressy girls slithering by upon pavements give sign for accosting,
Paint on their beautiless cheeks, and hunger and shame in their bosoms;
Hunger by drink, and by that which they shudder yet burn for, appeasing,—
Hiding their shame—ah God!—in the glare of the public gas-lights?
Why, while I feel my ears catching through slumber the run of the
streamlet,
Still am I pacing the pavement, and seeing the sign for accosting,
Still am I passing those figures, not daring to look in their faces?
Why, when the chill, ere the light, of the daybreak uneasily wakes me,
Find I a cry in my heart crying up to the heaven of heavens,
No, Great Unjust Judge! she is purity; I am the lost one.
You will not think that I soberly look for such things for sweet Katie;
No, but the vision is on me; I now first see how it happens,
Feel how tender and soft is the heart of a girl; how passive
Fain would it be, how helpless; and helplessness leads to destruction.
Maiden reserve torn from off it, grows never again to reclothe it,
Modesty broken through once to immodesty flies for protection.
Oh, who saws through the trunk, though he leave the tree up in the
forest,
When the next wind casts it down,—is _his_ not the hand that smote it?
This is the answer, the second, which, pondering long with emotion,
There by himself in the cottage the Tutor addressed to Philip.
I have perhaps been severe, dear Philip, and hasty; forgive me;
For I was fain to reply ere I wholly had read through your letter;
And it was written in scraps with crossings and counter-crossings
Hard to connect with each other correctly, and hard to decipher;
Paper was scarce, I suppose: forgive me; I write to console you.
Grace is given of God, but knowledge is bought in the market;
Knowledge needful for all, yet cannot be had for the asking.
There are exceptional beings, one finds them distant and rarely,
Who, endowed with the vision alike and the interpretation,
See, by the neighbours’ eyes and their own still motions enlightened,
In the beginning the end, in the acorn the oak of the forest,
In the child of to-day its children to long generations,
In a thought or a wish a life, a drama, an epos.
There are inheritors, is it? by mystical generation
Heiring the wisdom and ripeness of spirits gone by; without labour
Owning what others by doing and suffering earn; what old men
After long years of mistake and erasure are proud to have come to,
Sick with mistake and erasure possess when possession is idle.
Yes, there is power upon earth, seen feebly in women and children,
Which can, laying one hand on the cover, read off, unfaltering,
Leaf after leaf unlifted, the words of the closed book under,
Words which we are poring at, hammering at, stumbling at, spelling.
Rare is this; wisdom mostly is bought for a price in the market;—
Rare is this; and happy, who buys so much for so little,
As I conceive have you, and as I will hope has Katie.
Knowledge is needful for man,—needful no less for woman,
Even in Highland glens, were they vacant of shooter and tourist.
Not that, of course, I mean to prefer your blindfold hurry
Unto a soul that abides most loving yet most withholding;
Least unfeeling though calm, self-contained yet most unselfish;
Renders help and accepts it, a man among men that are brothers,
Views, not plucks the beauty, adores, and demands no embracing,
So in its peaceful passage whatever is lovely and gracious
Still without seizing or spoiling, itself in itself reproducing.
No, I do not set Philip herein on the level of Arthur;
No, I do not compare still tarn with furious torrent,
Yet will the tarn overflow, assuaged in the lake be the torrent.
Women are weak, as you say, and love of all things to be passive,
Passive, patient, receptive, yea, even of wrong and misdoing,
Even to force and misdoing with joy and victorious feeling
Patient, passive, receptive; for that is the strength of their being,
Like to the earth taking all things, and all to good converting.
Oh ’tis a snare indeed!—Moreover, remember it, Philip,
To the prestige of the richer the lowly are prone to be yielding,
Think that in dealing with them they are raised to a different region,
Where old laws and morals are modified, lost, exist not;
Ignorant they as they are, they have but to conform and be yielding.
But I have spoken of this already, and need not repeat it.
You will not now run after what merely attracts and entices,
Every-day things highly-coloured, and common-place carved and gilded.
You will henceforth seek only the good: and seek it, Philip,
Where it is—not more abundant, perhaps, but—more easily met with;
Where you are surer to find it, less likely to run into error,
In your station, not thinking about it, but not disregarding.
So was the letter completed: a postscript afterward added,
Telling the tale that was told by the dancers returning from Rannoch.
So was the letter completed: but query, whither to send it?
Not for the will of the wisp, the cloud, and the hawk of the moorland,
Ranging afar thro’ Lochaber, Lochiel, and Knoydart, and Moydart,
Have even latest extensions adjusted a postal arrangement.
Query resolved very shortly, when Hope, from his chamber descending,
Came with a note in his hand from the Lady, his aunt, at the Castle;
Came and revealed the contents of a missive that brought strange tidings;
Came and announced to the friends, in a voice that was husky with wonder,
Philip was staying at Balloch, was there in the room with the Countess,
Philip to Balloch had come and was dancing with Lady Maria.
Philip at Balloch, he said, after all that stately refusal,
He there at last—O strange! O marvel, marvel of marvels!
Airlie, the Waistcoat, with Katie, we left him this morning at Rannoch;
Airlie with Katie, he said, and Philip with Lady Maria.
And amid laughter Adam paced up and down, repeating
Over and over, unconscious, the phrase which Hope had lent him,
Dancing at Balloch, you say, in the Castle, with Lady Maria.

V

——_Putavi_
_Stultus ego huic nostræ similem._

So in the cottage with Adam the pupils five together
Duly remained, and read, and looked no more for Philip,
Philip at Balloch shooting and dancing with Lady Maria.
Breakfast at eight, and now, for brief September daylight,
Luncheon at two, and dinner at seven, or even later,
Five full hours between for the loch and the glen and the mountain,—
So in the joy of their life and glory of shooting-jackets,
So they read and roamed, the pupils five with Adam.
What if autumnal shower came frequent and chill from the westward,
What if on browner sward with yellow leaves besprinkled,
Gemming the crispy blade, the delicate gossamer gemming,
Frequent and thick lay at morning the chilly beads of hoar-frost,
Duly in _matutine_ still, and daily, whatever the weather,
Bathed in the rain and the frost and the mist with the Glory of headers
Hope. Thither also at times, of cold and of possible gutters
Careless, unmindful, unconscious, would Hobbes, or ere they departed,
Come, in heavy pea-coat his trouserless trunk enfolding,
Come, under coat over-brief those lusty legs displaying,
All from the shirt to the slipper the natural man revealing.
Duly there they bathed and daily, the twain or the trio,
Where in the morning was custom, where over a ledge of granite
Into a granite basin the amber torrent descended;
Beautiful, very, to gaze in ere plunging; beautiful also,
Perfect as picture, as vision entrancing that comes to the sightless,
Through the great granite jambs the stream, the glen, and the mountain,
Beautiful, seen by snatches in intervals of dressing,
Morn after morn, unsought for, recurring; themselves too seeming
Not as spectators, accepted into it, immingled, as truly
Part of it as are the kine in the field lying there by the birches.
So they bathed, they read, they roamed in glen and forest;
Far amid blackest pines to the waterfall they shadow,
Far up the long, long glen to the loch, and the loch beyond it,
Deep, under huge red cliffs, a secret; and oft by the starlight,
Or the aurora, perchance, racing home for the eight o’clock mutton.
So they bathed, and read, and roamed in heathery Highland;
There in the joy of their life and glory of shooting-jackets
Bathed and read and roamed, and looked no more for Philip.