Chapter I: HAD wandered into a tangle of slummy streets, and began to think (3)

Such little incidents, in a world of battles and of plagues: of violent death by sea and land! Yet this quiet life, too, has difficulties and needs: its changes must be gone through with a ready pleasure and a mind unhesitating. For, trivial though they be in aspect and amount, yet the consecration of them, to be an holy discipline of experience, is so much the greater an attempt: it is an art. Each thing, be it man, or book, or place, should have its rights, when it encounters me: each has its proper quality, its peculiar spirit, not to be misinterpreted by me in carelessness, nor overlooked with impatience. That is clear: but neither must I vaunt my just view of common life. Meditation, at twilight, by the window looking toward the bare downs, is very different from that anxious examination of motives, dear to sedulous souls. My meditation is only still life: the clouds of smoke go up, grey and blue; the earlier stars come out, above the sunset and the melancholy downs; and deep, mournful bells ring slowly among the valley trees. Then, if my day have been successful, what peace follows, and how profound a charm! The little things of the day, sudden glances of light upon grey stone, pleasant snatches of organ music from the church, quaint rustic sights in some near village: they come back upon me, gentle touches of happiness, airs of repose. And when the mysteries come about me, the fearfulness of life, and the shadow of night; then, have I not still the blue, grey clouds, _occultis de rebus quo referam_? So I escape the tribulations of doubt, those gloomy tribulations: and I live in the strength of dreams, which never doubt.

Is it all a delusion? But that is a foolish wonder: nothing is a delusion, except the extremes of pleasure and of pain. Take what you will of the world; its crowds, or its calms: there is nothing altogether wrong to every one. Lucretius, upon his watch-tower, deny it as he may, found some exultation and delight in the lamentable prospect below: it filled him with a magnificent darkness of soul, a princely compassion at heart. And Milton, in his evil days, felt himself to be tragic and austere: he knew it, not as a proud boast, but as a proud fact. No! life is never wrong, altogether, to every one: you and I, he and she, priest and penitent, master and slave: one with another, we compose a very glory of existence before the unseen Powers. Therefore, I believe in my measured way of life; its careful felicities, fashioned out of little things: to you, the change of Ministries, and the accomplishment of conquests, bring their wealth of rich emotion: to me, who am apart from the louder concerns of life, the flowering of the limes, and the warm autumn rains, bring their pensive beauty and a store of memories.

Is it I, am indolent? Is it you, are clamorous? Why should it be either? Let us say, I am the lover of quiet things, and you are enamoured of mighty events. Each, without undue absorption in his taste, relishes the savour of a different experience.

But I think, I am no egoist: no melancholy spectator of things, cultivating his intellect with old poetry, nourishing his senses upon rural nature. There are times, when the swarms of men press hard upon a solitary; he hears the noise of the streets, the heavy vans of merchandise, the cry of the railway whistle: and in a moment, his thoughts travel away, to London, to Liverpool; to great docks and to great ships; and away, till he is watching the dissimilar bustle of Eastern harbours, and hearing the discordant sounds of Chinese workmen. The blue smoke curls and glides away, with blue pagodas, and snowy almond bloom, and cherry flowers, circling and gleaming in it, like a narcotic vision. O magic of tobacco! Dreams are there, and superb images, and a somnolent paradise. Sometimes, the swarms of humanity press wearily and hardly; with a cruel insistence, crushing out my right to happiness. I think, rather I brood, upon the fingers that deftly rolled the cigarette, upon the people in tobacco plantations, upon all the various commerce involved in its history: how do they all fare, those many workers? Strolling up and down, devouring my books through their lettered backs; remembering the workers with leather, paper, ink, who toiled at them, they frighten me from the peace. What a full world it is! What endless activities there are! And, oh, Nicomachean Ethics! how much conscious pleasure is in them all! Things, mere tangible things, have a terrible power of education: of calling out from the mind innumerable thoughts and sympathies. Like childish catechisms and categories--_Whence have we sago?_--plain substances introduce me to swarms of men, before unrealised. And they all lived and died, and cared for their children, or not, and led reasonable lives, or not: and, without any alternative, had casual thoughts and constant passions. Did each one of them ever stop in his work, and think that the world revolved about him alone; and all was his, and for him? Most men may have thought so, and shivered a little afterwards; and worked on steadily. Or did each one of them ever think that he was always beset with companions, hordes of men and women, necessary and inevitable? Then, he must have struggled a little in his mind, as a man fights for air, and worked on steadily. It does not do: this interrogation of mysteries, which are also facts. Nor am I called upon, from without or from within, to write an Essay upon the Problem of Economic Distribution. _Præsentia temnis!_ Nature says to me: it is the stir of the world, and the great play of forces, that I am wailing, to no end. Let the great life continue, and the sun shine upon bright palaces; and geraniums, red geraniums, glow at the windows of dingy courts; death and sorrow come upon both, and upon me. And on all sides there is infinite tenderness; the invincible good-will, which says kind and cheerful things to every one sometimes, by a friend’s mouth; the humane pieties of the world, which make glad the _Civitas Dei_, and make endurable the _Regnum Hominis_. I need not make myself miserable.

Full night at last; the dead of night, as dull folk have it; ignorant persons, who know nothing of nocturnal beauty, of night’s lively magic. It was a good thought, to come out of my lonely room, to look at the cloisters by moonlight, and to wander round the Close, under the black shadows of the buttresses, while the moon is white upon their strange pinnacles. There is no noise, but only a silence, which seems very old; old, as the grey monuments and the weathered arches. The wreathing, blue tobacco clouds look thin and pale, like breath upon a dark frosty night; they drift about these old precincts, with a kind of uncertainty and discomfort; one would think, they wanted a rich Mediterranean night, heavy odours of roses, and very fiery stars. Instead, they break upon mouldering traceries, and doleful cherubs of the last century; upon sunken headstones, and black oak doors with ironwork over them. Perhaps the cigarette is southern and Latin, southern and Oriental, after all; and I am a dreamer, out of place in this northern grey antiquity. If it be so, I can taste the subtle pleasures of contrast: and, dwelling upon the singular features of this old town, I can make myself a place in it, as its conscious critic and adopted alien. There is a curious apprehension of enjoyment, a genuine touch of luxury, in this nocturnal visit to these old northern things! I consider, with satisfaction, how the Stuart king, who spurned tobacco contumeliously, put a devoted faith in witches, those northern daughters of the devil; northern, and very different from the dames of Thessaly; from the crones of Propertius, and of Horace, and of Apuleius the Golden. Who knows, but I may hear strange voices in the near aisle before cockcrow? By night, night in the north, happen cold and dismal things; and then, what a night is this! Chilly stars, and wild, grey clouds, flying over a misty moon.

At last, here comes a great and solemn sound; the commanding bells of the cathedral tower, in their iron, midnight toll. Through the sombre strokes, and striking into their long echoes, pierce the thin cries of bats, that wheel in air, like lost creatures who hate themselves; the uncanny flitter-mice! They trace superb, invisibles circles on the night; crying out faintly and plaintively, with no sort of delight in their voices: things of keen teeth, furry bodies, and skeleton wings covered scantily in leather. The big moths, too: they blunder against my face, and dash red trails of fire off my cigarette; so busily they spin about the darkness. _Sadducismus triumphatus!_ Yes, truly: here are little, white spirits awake and at some faery work; white, as heather upon the Cornish cliffs is white, and all innocent, rare things in heaven and earth. There is nothing dreadful, it seems, about this night, and this place; no glorious fury of evil spirits, doing foul and ugly things; only the quiet town asleep under a wild sky, and gentle creatures of the night moving about ancient places. And the wind rises, with a sound of the sea, murmuring over the earth and sighing away to the sea: the trembling sea, beyond the downs, which steals into the land by great creeks and glimmering channels; with swaying, taper masts along them, and lantern lights upon black barges. Certainly, this is no Lucretian night: not that tremendous

_Nox, et noctis signa severa
Noctivagæque faces cæli, flammæque volantes._

Rather, it reminds me of the Miltonic night, which is peopled alluringly with

“faery elves,
Whose midnight revels by a forest side
Or fountain, some belated peasant sees,
Or dreams he sees, while overhead the moon
Sits arbitress:”

a Miltonic night, and a Shakespearean dawn; for the white morning has just peered along the horizon, white morning, with dusky flames behind it; and the spirits, the visions, vanish away, “following darkness, like a dream.”

The streets are very still, with that silence of sleeping cities, which seems ready to start into confused cries; as though the Smiter of the Firstborn were travelling through the households. There is the Catholic chapel, in its Georgian, quaint humility; recalling an age of beautiful, despised simplicity; the age of French emigrant old priests and vicars-apostolic, who stood for the Supreme Pontiff, in grey wigs. The sweet limes are swaying against its singular, umbered windows, with their holy saints and prophets in last-century design; ruffled, querulous persons looking very bluff and blown. I wonder, how it would be inside; I suppose, night has a little weakened that lingering smell of daily incense, which seems so immemorial and so sad. Wonderful grace of the mighty Roman Church! This low square place, where the sanctuary is poor and open, without any mystical touch of retirement and of loftiness, has yet the unfailing charm, the venerable mystery, which attend the footsteps of the Church; the same air of command, the same look of pleading, fill this homely, comfortable shrine, which simple country gentlemen set up for the ministrations of harassed priests, in an age of no enthusiasm. I like to think that this quiet chapel, in the obedience of Rome, in communion with that supreme apostolate, is always open to me upon this winding little by-street; it fills me with perfect memories, and it seems to bless me.

But here is a benediction of light! the quick sun, reddening half the heavens, and rising gloriously. In the valley, clusters of elm rock and swing with the breeze, quivering for joy: far away, the bare uplands roll against the sunrise, calm and pastoral; _otia dia_ of the morning. Surely the hours have gone well, and according to my preference; one dying into another, as the tobacco clouds die. My meditations, too, have been peaceful enough; and, though solitary, I have had fine companions. What would the moral philosophers, those puzzled sages, think of me? An harmless hedonist? An amateur in morals, who means well, though meaning very little? Nay! let the moralist by profession give, to whom he will, _sa musique, sa flamme_: to any practical person, who is a wise shareholder and zealous vestryman. For myself, my limited and dreamy self, I eschew these upright businesses; upright memories and meditations please me more, and to live with as little action as may be. Action: why do they talk of action? Match me, for pure activity, one evening of my dreams, when life and death fill my mind with their messengers, and the days of old come back to me. And now, homewards, for a little sleep; that profound and rich slumber at early dawn which is my choice delight. A sleep, bathed in musical impressions, and filled with fresh dreams, all impossible and happy; four hours, and five, and six perhaps: then the cathedral matin bell will chime in with my fancies, and I shall wake harmoniously. I shall feel infinitely cheerful, after the spirit of the _Compleat Angler_; I shall remember that I was once at Ware, and at Amwell, those placid haunts of Walton. A conviction of beauty, and contentment in life will lay hold on me, more than commonly; it is probable that I shall read _The Spectator_, and Addison, rather than Steele, at breakfast. And I know which paper it will be: it will be about _Will Wimble_ coming up to the house, with two or three hazel twigs in his hand, fresh cut in _Sir Roger’s_ woods. Or, if I prove faithful to my great Lucretius: the man, not the book, for I read him in the Giuntine: I will read that marvellous _It ver et Venus_; that dancing masque of beauty. For _L’Allegro_, I do not read that; it is read aloud to me by the morning, with exquisite, bright cadences. After my honey from the flowers of a very rustic farm, and my coffee, from some wonderful Eastern place; and my eggs, marked by the careful housewife as she took them from her henhouse, covered with stonecrop over its old tiles; after all these delicates, now comes the first cigarette, pungent and exhilarating. As the grey blue clouds go up, the ruddy sunlight glows through them, straight as an arrow through the gold. Away they wander, out of the window, flung back upon the air, against the roses, and disappear in the buoyant morning.

My thoughts go with them, into the morning, into all the mornings over the world. They travel through the lands, and across the seas, and are everywhere at home, enjoying the presence of life. And past things, old histories, are turned to pleasant recollections: a _pot-pourri_, justly seasoned, and subtly scented; the evil humours and the monstrous tyrannies pass away, and leave only the happiness and the peace.

Call me, my dear friend, what reproachful name you please; but, by your leave, the world is better for my cheerfulness. True, should the terrible issues come upon me, demanding high courage, and finding but good temper, then give me your prayers, for I have my misdoubts. Till then, let me cultivate my place in life, nurturing its comelier flowers; taking the little things of time with a grateful relish and a mind at rest. So hours and years pass into hours and years, gently, and surely, and orderly; as these clouds, grey and blue clouds, of tobacco smoke, pass up to the air, and away upon the wind; incense of a goodly savour, cheering the thoughts of my heart, before passing away, to disappear at last.

Reiselust

By Annie Macdonell

NAY, Love, but stay thy blame;
For if men have their claim,
The day’s but theirs--
Poor gift, the day of heat and cares!
Thou hast the night, the calm cool night,
When the soul’s garden blooms in sight,
With roses tinted by the moon’s soft smile,
On that far fringed horizon isle.
The night, the long sweet night is thine,
Then I awake, and find thee, soul of mine.

Ah, rushing hours beneath the sun!
Ah, fevered crying haste, have done!
Yet let your coursing swifter run!
Now let the still night fall.
I hear the water lapping ’gainst the wall,
I open wide my door unto the sea
Whence Death, thy keeper, brings thee back to me.
So mild he waits without, yet laughs at Life,
That cannot give her hirelings such a wife.

Day, have I not paid the toll?
My body given the whole
That will let pass my soul?
The roses of the morn lie thick on my Love’s bier,
And she is risen; she is no longer here.
A star upon the stern she beckons me.
Sweet Death, one dawn, let me go back with thee,
Sweet Death, take me from out the noisy light
Into thy night, thy comforting still night.

Yea, soon, for my Love’s sake,
Sweet Death my hand will take,
And I shall not awake
Till past the blooming isle.
Then shall my eyelids quiver ’neath her smile,
And I shall gaze, and from my Love’s clear eyes
Shall learn her slow wide learning, and be wise,
Shall learn the speech they speak across the sea:
’Tis a large language my Love speaks to me.

Then far beyond to sail,
And further further coasts to hail,
And ventures shall not fail.
And missionary dreams my Love and I
We’ll hover mid the world’s troubled sky,
And sleeping men to discontent shall tease,
To venture further skies and wider seas.

Have I not guessed the meaning of the dark?
Thy hand, O Death! To-night let me embark.

“To Every Man a Damsel or Two”

By C. S.

HE wandered up the carpeted steps, rather afraid all the while of the two tall men in uniform who opened the great doors wide to let him into the soft warm light and babble of voices within. At the top he paused, and slowly unbuttoned his overcoat, not knowing which way to turn; but the crowd swept him up, and carried him round, until he found himself leaning against a padded wall of plush, looking over a sea of heads at the stage far beneath. He turned round, and stood watching the happy crowd, which laughed, and talked, and nodded ceaselessly to itself. Near him, on a sofa, with a table before her, was a woman spreading herself out like some great beautiful butterfly on a bed of velvet pansies. He stood admiring her half unconsciously for some time, and at last, remembering that he was tired and sleepy, and seeing that there was still plenty of room, he threaded his way across and sat down.

The butterfly began tossing a wonderful little brown satin shoe, and tapping it against the leg of the table. Then the parasol slipped across him, and fell to the ground. He hastened to pick it up, lifting his hat as he did so. She seemed surprised, and glancing at a man leaning against the wall, caught his eye, and they both laughed. He blushed a good deal, and wondered what he had done wrong. She spread herself out still further in his direction, and cast side glances at him from under her Gainsborough.

“What were you laughing at just now?” he said impulsively.

“My dear boy, when?”

“With that man.”

“Which man?”

“It doesn’t matter,” he said, blushing again.

She looked up, and winked at the man leaning against the wall.

“Have I offended you by speaking to you?” he said, looking with much concern into her eyes.

She put a little scented net of a handkerchief up to her mouth, and went into uncontrollable fits of laughter.

“What a funny boy you are!” she gasped. “Do do it again.”

He looked at her in amazement, and moved a little further away.

“I’m going to tell the waiter to bring me a port--after that last bit of business.”

“I don’t understand all this,” he said desperately: “I wish I had never spoken to you; I wish I had never come in here at all.”

“You’re very rude all of a sudden. Now don’t be troublesome and say you’re too broke to pay for drinks,” she added as the waiter put the port down with great deliberation opposite her, and held out the empty tray respectfully to him. He stared.

“Why don’t you pay, you cuckoo?”

Mechanically he put down a florin, and the waiter counted out the change.

There was a pause. She fingered the stem of her wine-glass, taking little sips, and watching him all the while.

“How often have you been here before?” she said, suddenly catching at his sleeve. “You must tell me. I fancy I know your face: surely I’ve met you before somewhere?”

“This is the first time I have ever been to a music-hall,” he said doggedly.

She drank off her port directly.

“Come--come away at once. Yes, all right--I’m coming with you; so go along.”

“But I’ve only just paid to come in,” he said hesitatingly.

“Never mind the paying,” and she stamped her little satin foot, “but do as I tell you, and go.” And taking his arm, she led him through the doors down to the steps, where the wind blew cold, and the gas jets roared fitfully above.

“Go,” she said, pushing him out, “and never come here again; stick to the theatres, you will like them best.” And she ran up the steps and was gone.

He rushed after her. The two tall men in uniform stepped before the doors.

“No re-admission, sir,” said one, bowing respectfully and touching his cap.

“But that lady,” he said, bewildered, and looking from one to the other.

The men laughed, and one of them, shrugging his shoulders, pointed to the box-office.

He turned, and walked down the steps. Was it all a dream? He glanced at his coat. The flower in his buttonhole had gone.

A Song and a Tale

By Nora Hopper

I--Lament of the Last Leprechaun

FOR the red shoon of the Shee,
For the falling o’ the leaf,
For the wind among the reeds,
My grief!

For the sorrow of the sea,
For the song’s unquickened seeds,
For the sleeping of the Shee,
My grief!

For dishonoured whitethorn-tree,
For the runes that no man reads,
Where the grey stones face the sea,
My grief!

Lissakeole, that used to be
Filled with music night and noon,
For their ancient revelry,
My grief!

For the empty fairy shoon,
Hollow rath and yellow leaf;
Hands unkissed to sun or moon:
My grief--my grief!

II--Aonan-na-Righ

AONAN-NA-RIGH they called him in Tir Ailella[I.]--“Darling of the King”--but it was in idle sport, for Cathal the Red hated the son of his old age as men now have forgotten to hate; and once Aonan had sprung from his sleep with a sharp skene thrust through his arm, that had meant to drink his life-blood; and once again he had found himself alone in the heart of the battle, and he had scarcely won out of the press with his life--and with the standard of the Danish enemy. Thus it was seen that neither did the Danish spears love the “King’s Darling”; and the sennachies made a song of this, and it was chanted before the King for the first time when he sat robed and crowned for the Beltane feast, and Aonan stood at his left hand, pouring out honey-wine into his father’s cup. And before he drank, Cathal the King stared hard at the cup-bearer, and the red light that burned in his eyes was darkened because of the likeness in Aonan’s face to his mother Acaill (dead and buried long since), whom Cathal had loved better than his first wife Eiver, who was a king’s daughter, and better than the Danish slave Astrild, who bore him five sons, elder and better-loved than Aonan, for all the base blood in their veins. And of these, two were dead in the battle that had spared Aonan, and there were left to Cathal the King only the Druid Coloman, and Toran the boaster, and Guthbinn of the sweet voice, who as yet was too young to fight.

“Drink, Aonan-na-Righ,” shrilled Astrild from her seat at the King’s left hand. “Drink: lest there be death in the cup.”

Aonan took up the golden cup, and gave her back smile for smile. “I drink,” he said, “to my mother, Acaill of Orgiall.”

But the King snatched the cup from his fingers, and dashed it down on the board, so that the yellow mead spilled and stained Astrild’s cloak; but she did not dare complain, for there was the red light in Cathal’s eyes that was wont to make the boldest afraid.

“Bring me another cup,” he said to one that stood near. “And now, will none of ye do honour to the toast of Aonan-na-Righ? Bring ye also a cup for the prince; and, Guthbinn, put your harp aside.”

So in silence they drank to the memory of Acaill of Orgiall, and afterwards they sought to spin together the threads of their broken mirth, but not easily, for Astrild, who was wont to be gayest, sat pale, with her hand on the knife hidden in her breast; and the King sat dumb and frowning, thinking, as Astrild knew, of dead Acaill: how he had loved and hated her, and, having slain her father and brothers, and brought her to Dunna Scaith a Golden Hostage wearing a golden chain, he had wedded her for her beauty’s sake; and how until her child was born she had never so much as smiled or frowned for him; and how, when her babe lay in her arms, she sent for her husband, and said: “I thank thee, Cathal, who hast set me free by means of this babe. I bless thee for this last gift of thine, who for all thine other gifts have cursed thee.” And Cathal remembered how he had held babe and mother to his heart, and said: “Good to hear soft words from thy mouth at last, O Acaill! Speak again to me, and softly.” But she had not answered, for her first soft words to him were her last. And Astrild, watching him, saw his face grow black and angry, and she smiled softly to herself, and aloud she said:

“Oh, Guthbinn, sing again, and sing of thy brothers who fell to-day--sing of Oscar, the swift in battle, and Uaithne, of the dark eyes. And will my lord give leave that I, their mother, go to weep for them in my own poor house where they were born?”

“No,” said Cathal. “I bought you and your tears, girl, with gold rings, from Ocaill of Connaught. Sing to me now, and keep thy tears for to-morrow.” So Astrild drove back her sorrow, and began to sing, while her son Guthbinn plucked slow music from his harpstrings.

“Earrach, Samhradh, Foghmhar, and Geimhridh,
Are over all and done:
And now the web forgets the weaver,
And earth forgets the sun.
I sowed no seed, and pulled no blossom,
Ate not of the green corn:
With empty hands and empty bosom,
Behold, I stand forlorn.
Windflower I sang, and Flower o’ Sorrow,
Half-Summer, World’s Delight:
I took no thought o’ the coming morrow,
No care for the coming night.”

Guthbinn’s hand faltered on the harpstrings, and the singer stopped swiftly: but King Cathal stayed the tears in her heart with an angry word. “Have I had not always had my will? And it is not my will now for you to weep.” So Astrild sat still, and she looked at her sons: but Toran was busy boasting of the white neck and blue eyes of the new slave-girl he had won, and Coloman was dreaming, as he sat with his eyes on the stars that showed through the open door: and only Guthbinn met her eyes and answered them, though he seemed to be busy with his harp. And presently Cathal rose up, bidding all keep their seats and finish out the feast, but Astrild and Aonan he bade follow him. And so they went into the farthest chamber of the House of Shields, which looked upon a deep ditch. Now the end of the chamber was a wall of wattles, and here there was cut a door that led out on a high bank which overlooked the ditch. And the King went out upon the bank, where there was a chair placed ready for him, and Astrild sat at his knee, and Aonan-na-Righ stood a little way off. And Cathal sat still for a time, holding Astrild’s hand in his, and presently he said: “Who put the death in the cup to-night, Astrild, thou or Guthbinn?” And Astrild tried to draw her hand away and to rise, but he held her in her place, and asked again, “Guthbinn, or thou?” until she answered him sullenly as she knelt, “King, it was I.”

“Belike, Guthbinn’s hand did thy bidding,” he said, in laughing fashion. “Was the death for me or for Aonan yonder, thou Red-Hair?”

And Astrild laughed as she answered, “For Aonan-na-Righ, my lord.” And then she shrieked and sought to rise, for she saw death in the king’s face as it bent over her.

“If thou hadst sought to slay thy master, Red-Hair, I might have forgiven thee,” Cathal said; “but what had my son to do with thee, my light-o’-love?”

“Give me a day,” Astrild said desperately, “and I will kill father and son, and set the light-o’-love’s children on your throne, Cathal.”

“I doubt it not, my wild-cat, but I will not give ye the day:” Cathal laughed. “Good courage, girl--and call thy Danish gods to aid, for there is none other to help thee, now.”

“What will my lord do?” Aonan said quickly, as the Dane turned a white face and flaming eyes to him. “Wouldst kill her?”

“Ay,” said Cathal the King. “But first she shall leave her beauty behind her, lest she meet thy mother in the Land of Youth, and Acaill be jealous.”

“Leave her beauty and breath, lord,” Aonan said, drawing nearer. “If my mother Acaill lived she would not have her slain. My king, she pleased thee once; put her from thee if she vexes thee now; but leave her life, since something thou owest her.”

“She would have slain thee to-day, Aonan, and if I have dealt ill by thee, I let no other deal thus. Yet if thou prayest me for thy life, girl, for love of Acaill I will give it thee.”

And Cathal laughed, for he knew the Dane would not plead in that name. Astrild laughed too. “Spare thy breath, son of Acaill,” she said scornfully. “To-morrow the cord may be round thy neck, and thou be in need of breath; now lord, the cord for mine----”

Cathal smiled grimly.

“Blackheart,” he said, “thou hast no lack of courage. Now up,” and he loosened her hands, “and fly if thou wilt--swim the ditch, and get thee to Drumcoll-choille--and Guthbinn shall die in thy stead. What! Thou wouldst liefer die? Back then to yonder chamber, where my men will deal with thee as I have ordered, and be as patient as in thee lies. A kiss first, Red-Hair; and hearken from yonder chamber if thou wilt, while Aonan sings a dirge for thee.”

She went; and presently there rang from within the chamber the shrill scream of a woman’s agony, and Cathal laughed to see Aonan’s face turn white. “She is not as patient as thou,” he said, “but she will learn. Keep thou my word to her, Aonan; sing a dirge for her beauty a-dying.”

“I cannot sing,” Aonan-na-Righ said, shivering as there rose another shriek. “Let them slay her, my lord, and have done.”

“My will runs otherwise,” said Cathal, smiling. “Sing, if thou lovest thy life.”

“My lord knows that I do not,” Aonan answered; and Cathal smiled again.

“Belike not; but sing and lessen the Dane’s punishment. When the song is finished she shall be released, and even tended well.”

So Aonan sang the song of the Dane-land over the water, and the Danes that died in the Valley of Keening--which is now called Waterford; of the white skin and red hair of Astrild; of her grace and daring; of the sons that lay dead on the battle-place; of Coloman the dreamer that read the stars; and of the beautiful boy whose breast was a nest of nightingales. And then he sang--more softly--of the Isle of the Noble where Acaill dwelt, and how she would have shadowed Astrild with her pity if she had lived; and then he stopped singing and knelt before the King, dumb for a moment with the passion of his pity, for from the open door they could hear a woman moaning still.

“Lord,” he said, “make an end. My life for hers--if a life the King must have; or my pain for hers--if the King must needs feed his ears with cries.”

“Graciously spoken, and like Acaill’s son,” King Cathal said. “And Astrild shall be set free. You within the chamber take the Dane to her son the lord Coloman’s keeping; and thou, my son Aonan, tarry here till I return. I may have a fancy to send thee with a message to thy mother before dawn. Nay, but come with me, and we will go see Coloman, and ask how his mother does. Give me thine arm to lean on; I am tired, Aonan, I am old, and an end has come to my pleasure in slaying.... Coloman!”

They were in Coloman’s chamber now, and the Druid turned from star-gazing to greet the King, with a new dark look in his gentle face. “Coloman, how does thy mother do now? She had grown too bold in her pride, but we did not slay her because of Aonan here. How works our medicine that we designed to temper her beauty?”

“Well, lord. No man will kiss my mother’s beauty more.”

“Good: now she will turn her feet into ways of gentleness, perhaps. Thou holdest me a grudge for this medicine o’ mine, my son Coloman?”

“Lord, she is my mother,” the Druid said, looking down.

“The scars will heal,” Cathal said; “but--Aonan here has only seen her beautiful. Coloman, wouldst thou have him see her scarred and foul to see?”

“No, lord,” the Druid said fiercely. Cathal laughed.

“Have a gift of me, then, O Coloman,” he said. “Spare him from sight of a marred beauty, in what way thou canst. I give thee his eyes for thy mother’s scars.”

The two young men looked at each other steadily: then Aonan spoke. “Take the payment that the King offers thee, Coloman, without fear: a debt is a debt.”

“And the debt is heavy.”

Coloman said hoarsely: “Lord, wilt thou go and leave Aonan-na-Righ to me? And wilt thou send to me thy cunning men, Flathartach and Fadhar? I must have help.”

“Aonan-na-Righ will not hinder thee, Coloman,” said the King, mockingly. “He desires greatly to meet with his mother: and do thou commend me also to the Lady Eivir, whom I wedded first, and who loved me well.”

“Call me also to thy mother’s memory,” Toran the boaster cried presently, when all was made ready, and Coloman bade draw the irons from the brazier--“if thou goest so far, Darling of the King.”

“I will remember,” Aonan said: and then fire and flesh met.

* * * * *

At the next Beltane feast Cathal the Red slept beside Acaill in the burial-place of the kings at Brugh, and Guthbinn sat in the high seat, Toran the boaster at his right hand. But Coloman the Druid stood on the tower-top, reading the faces of the stars; and along the road that wound its dusty way to the country of the Golden Hostages there toiled two dark figures: a woman and a man. Now the woman was hooded and masked, but under the grey hood the moonlight found a gleam of ruddy hair; and the man she led by the hand and watched over as a mother watches her son. Yet the woman was Danish Astrild, and the blind man was Aonan-na-Righ.

FOOTNOTE:

[I.] Now Tirerrill, Co. Sligo.

“De Profundis”

By S. Cornish Watkins

The hot white road winds on and on before,
The hot white road fades into haze behind,
With clinging dust each hedge is powdered o’er,
The sun is high, no shelter can we find.
A dusty bird upon a dusty spray
Sings o’er and o’er a little dreary song,
There is no rest, no rest, the livelong day,
And we are weary, and the way is long.

We know not whence we come, or whither wend,
What goal may be to which our journey draws,
Fate binds this burden on us, and the end
We know not, care not, and we must not pause.
A motley train we move. The young, the old,
Women and men, with feeble steps or strong,
Driven, like herded sheep, from fold to fold--
Oh, we are weary, and the way is long.

Vain whispers have we known, and hopes as vain;
And one, he bore a banner with a cross,
And spake wild words of comfort after pain,
And future gain to balance present loss.
But where he is we wot not. We have lost
All hopes we had, all faiths or right or wrong,
We have been shaken, shattered, tempest-tost,
And we are weary, and the way is long.

Yet still, within each bosom smoulders there
Some little spark that might have been divine,
Something that will not let us quite despair,
Something we cannot, if we would, resign.
Some day the spark may quicken and may guide,
And fire the soul within us, dead so long,
So may there be, when falls the eventide,
A joyous ending to a grievous song.

Two Pictures

By P. Wilson Steer

I. The Mirror
II. Skirt Dancing

A Study in Sentimentality

By Hubert Crackanthorpe

A PHANTOM regiment of giant mist-pillars swept silently across the valley; beaded drops loaded each tuft of coarse, dull-tinted grass; the peat-hags gaped like black, dripping flesh-wounds in the earth’s side; the distance suggested rectangular fields and wooded slopes--vague, grey, phantasmagoric; and down over everything floated the damp of fine rain.

Alec’s heavy tread crunched the turfed bridle-path rhythmically, and from the stiff rim of his clerical hat the water dribbled on to his shoulders.

It was a rugged, irregular, almost uncouth face, and now the features were vacantly huddled in a set expression, obviously habitual. The cheeks were hunched up, almost concealing the small eyes; a wet wisp of hair straggled over the puckered forehead, and the ragged, fair moustache was spangled by the rain.

At his approach the sheep scampered up the fell-side; then, stood staring through the mist in anxious stupidity. And Alec, shaking the water from his hat, strode forward with an almost imperceptible gleam on his face. It was so that he liked the valley--all colourless and blurred, with the sky close overhead, like a low, leaden ceiling.

By-and-by, a cluster of cottages loomed ahead--a choppy pool of black slate roofs, wanly a-glimmer in the wet. As he entered the village, a group of hard-featured men threw him a curt chorus of greetings, to which he raised his stick in response, mechanically.

He mounted the hill. Three furnace-chimneys craned their thin necks to grime the sky with a dribbling, smoky breath; high on a bank of coal-dust, blurred silhouettes of trucks stood waiting in forlorn strings; women, limp, with unkempt hair, and loose, bedraggled skirts, stood round the doorways in gossiping groups.

“Which is Mrs. Matheson’s?” he stopped to ask.

“There--oop there, Mr. Burkett--by yon ash--where them childer’s standin’,” they answered, all speaking together, eagerly. “Look ye! that be Mrs. Matheson herself.”

Alec went up to the woman. His face clouded a little, and the puffs from his pipe came briskly in rapid succession.

“Mrs. Matheson, I’ve only just heard----Tell me, how did it happen?” he asked gently.

She was a stout, red-faced woman, and her eyes were all bloodshot with much crying. She wiped them hastily with the corner of her apron before answering.

“It was there, Mr. Burkett, by them rails. He was jest playin’ aboot in t’ road wi’ Arnison’s childer. At half-past one, t’ grandmoother stepped across to fetch me a jug o’ fresh water an’ she see’d him settin’ in door there. Then--mabbee twenty minutes later--t’ rain coome on an’ I thought to go to fetch him in. But I could’na see na sign of him anywhere. We looked oop and doon, and thought, mabbee, he’d toddled roond to t’ back. An’ then, all at once, Dan Arnison called to us that he was leein’ in t’ water, doon in beck-pool. An’ Dan ran straight doon, an’ carried him oop to me; but ’twas na use. He was quite cold and drownded. An’ I went----” But the sobs, rising thickly, swallowed the rest.

Alec put his hand on her shoulder soothingly.

“Ay, I know’d ye’d be grieved, Mr. Burkett. He was the bonniest boy in all t’ parish.”

She lifted the apron to her eyes again, while he crossed to the railings. The wood of the posts was splintered and worm-eaten, and the lower rail was broken away. Below, the rock shelved down some fifteen feet to the beck-pool, black and oily-looking.

“It’s a very dangerous place,” he said, half to himself.

“Ay, Mr. Burkett, you’re right,” interrupted a bent and wizened old woman, tottering forward.

“This be grandmoother, Mr. Burkett,” Mrs. Matheson explained. “’Twas grandmoother that see’d him last----”

“Ay, Mr. Burkett,” the old woman began in a high, tremulous treble. “When I went fer to fill t’ jug fer Maggie he was a-settin’ on t’ steps there playin with t’ kitten, an’ he called after me, ‘Nanny!’ quite happy-like; but I took na notice, but jest went on fer t’ water. I shawed Mr. Allison the broken rail last month, when he was gittin’ t’ rents, and I told him he ought to put it into repair, with all them wee childer playin’ all daytime on t’ road. Didn’t I, Maggie?” Mrs. Matheson assented incoherently. “An’ he was very civil-like, was Mr. Allison, and he said he’d hev’ it seen to. It’s alus that way, Mr. Burkett,” the old woman concluded, shaking her head wisely. “Folks wait till some accident occurs, and then they think to bestir themselves.”

Alec turned to the mother, and touched her thick, nerveless hand.

“There, there, Mrs. Matheson, don’t take on so,” he said.

At his touch her sobbing suddenly ceased, and she let her apron fall.

“Will ye na coome inside, Mr. Burkett?” she asked.

And they all three went in together.

The little room had been scrubbed and tidied, and a number of chairs, ranged round the table, blocked the floor.

“We’ve bin busy all marnin’, gitting’ things a bit smartened oop for t’ inquest. T’ coroner’s cooming at twelve,” the grandmother explained.

“Will ye coome oopstairs, Mr. Burkett--jest--jest to tak’ a look at him?” Mrs. Matheson asked in a subdued voice.

Alec followed her, squeezing his burly frame up the narrow, creaking staircase.

The child lay on the clean, white bed. A look of still serenity slept on his pallid face. His tawny curls were smoothed back, and some snowdrops were scattered over the coverlet. All was quite simple.

Mrs. Matheson stood in the doorway, struggling noisily with her sobs.

“It is God’s will,” Alec said quietly.

“He was turned four last week,” she blurted out. “Ye’ll excuse me, Mr. Burkett, but I’m that overdone that I jest canna’ help myself,” and she sank into a chair.

He knelt by the dead child’s side and prayed, while the slow rise and fall of the mother’s sobs filled the room. When he rose his eyes were all moist.

“God will help you, if you ask Him. His ways are secret. We cannot understand His purpose. But have faith in Him. He has done it for the best,” he said.

“Ay, I know, I know, Mr. Burkett. But ye see he was the youngest, and that bonny----”

“Let me try to comfort you,” he said.

* * * * *

When they came downstairs again, her face was calmer and her voice steadier. The coroner, a dapper man with a bright-red tie, was taking off his gloves and macintosh; the room was fast filling with silent figures, and the old grandmother was hobbling to and fro with noisy, excited importance.

“Will ye na’ stay for t’ inquest?”

Alec shook his head. “No, I can’t stop now. I have a School-board meeting to go to. But I will come up this afternoon.”

“Thank’ee, Mr. Burkett, God bless thee,” said Mrs. Matheson.

He shook hands with the coroner, who was grumbling concerning the weather; then strode out back down the valley.

Though long since he had grown familiar with the aspects of suffering, that scene in the cottage, by reason of its very simplicity, had affected him strangely. His heart was full of slow sorrow for the woman’s trouble, and the image of the child, lying beautiful in its death-sleep, passed and repassed in his mind.

By-and-bye, the moaning of the wind, the whirling of lost leaves, the inky shingle-beds that stained the fell-sides, inclined his thoughts to a listless brooding.

Life seemed dull, inevitable, draped in sombre, drifting shadows, like the valley-head. Yet in all good he saw the hand of God, a mysterious, invisible force, ever imperiously at work beneath the ravages of suffering and of sin.

It was close upon six o’clock when he reached home. He was drenched to the skin, and as he sat before the fire, dense clouds of steam rose from his mud-stained boots and trousers.

“Now, Mr. Burkett, jest ye gang and tak off them things, while I make yer tea. Ye’ll catch yer death one of these days--I know ye will. I sometimes think ye haven’t more sense than a boy, traipsin’ about all t’ day in t’ wet, and niver takin’ yer meals proper-like.”

A faint smile flickered across his face. He was used to his landlady’s scoldings.

“A child was drowned yesterday in the beck up at Beda Cottages. I had to go back there this afternoon to arrange about the funeral,” he mumbled, half-apologetically.

Mrs. Parkin snorted defiantly, bustling round the table as she spread the cloth. Presently she broke out again:

“An’ noo, ye set there lookin’ as white as a bogle. Why don’t ye go an’ git them wet clothes off. Ye’re fair wringin’.”

He obeyed; though the effort to rise was great. He felt curiously cold: his teeth were clacking, and the warmth from the flames seemed delicious.

In his bedroom a dizziness caught him, and it was a moment before he could recognise the familiar objects. And he realised that he was ill, and looked at himself in the glass with a dull, scared expression. He struggled through his dressing however, and went back to his tea. But, though he had eaten nothing since the morning, he had no appetite; so, from sheer force of habit, he lit a pipe, wheeling his chair close to the fire.

And, as the heat penetrated him, his thoughts spun aimlessly round the day’s events, till these gradually drifted into the background of his mind, as it were, and he and they seemed to have become altogether detached. His forehead was burning, and a drowsy, delicious sense of physical weakness was stealing over his limbs. He was going to be ill, he remembered; and it was with vague relief that he looked forward to the prospect of long days of monotonous inactivity, long days of repose from the daily routine of fatigue. The details of each day’s work, the accomplishment of which, before, had appeared so indispensable, now, he felt in his lassitude, had faded to insignificance. Mrs. Parkin was right: he had been overdoing himself; and with a clear conscience he would take a forced holiday in bed. Things in the parish would get along without him till the end of the week. There was only the drowned child’s funeral, and, if he could not go, Milner, the neighbouring vicar, would take it for him. His pipe slipped from his hand to the hearthrug noiselessly, and his head sank forward....

He was dreaming of the old churchyard. The trees were rocking their slim, bare arms; drip, drip, drip, the drops pattered on to the tombstones, tight-huddled in the white, wet light of the moon; the breath of the old churchyard tasted warm and moist, like the reek of horses after a long journey.

The child’s funeral was finished. Mrs. Matheson had cried noisily into her apron; the mourners were all gone now; and alone, he sat down on the fresh-dug grave. By the moonlight he tried to decipher the names carved on the slabs; but most of the letters had faded away, and moss-cushions had hidden the rest. Then he found it--“George Matheson, aged four years and five days,” and underneath were carved Mrs. Matheson’s words: “He was the bonniest boy in all the parish.” He sat on, with the dread of death upon him, the thought of that black senselessness ahead, possessing him, so sudden, so near, so intimate, that it seemed entirely strange to have lived on, forgetful of it. By-and-bye, he saw her coming towards him--Ethel, like a figure from a picture, wearing a white dress that trailed behind her, a red rose pinned at the waist, and the old smile on her lips. And she came beside him, and told him how her husband had gone away for ever, and he understood at once that he and she were betrothed again, as it had been five years ago. He tried to answer her, but somehow the words would not come; and, as he was striving to frame them, there came a great crash. A bough clattered down on the tombstones; and with a start he awoke.

A half-burned coal was smoking in the fender. He felt as if he had been sleeping for many hours.

He fell to stupidly watching the red-heat, as it pulsed through the caves of coal, to imagining himself climbing their ashen mountain-ridges, across dark defiles, up the face of treacherous precipices....

Hundreds of times, here, in this room, in this chair, before this fire, he had sat smoking, picturing the old scenes to himself, musing of Ethel Fulton (Ethel Winn she had been then; but, after her marriage, he had forced himself to think of her as bearing her husband’s name--that was a mortification from which he had derived a sort of bitter satisfaction). But now, with the long accumulation of his solitude--five years he had been vicar of Scarsdale--he had grown so unconscious of self, so indifferent to the course of his own existence, that every process of his mind had, from sheer lack of external stimulation, stagnated, till, little by little, the growth of mechanical habit had come to mould its shape and determine its limitations. And hence, not for a moment had he ever realised the grip that this habit of sentimental reminiscence had taken on him, nor the grotesque extent of its futile repetition. Such was the fervour of his attitude towards his single chapter of romance.

Five years ago, she and he had promised their lives to one another. And the future had beckoned them onward, gaily, belittling every obstacle in its suffusion of glad, alluring colour. He was poor: he had but his curate’s stipend, and she was used to a regular routine of ease. But he would have tended her wants, waiting on her, watching over her, indefatigably; chastening all the best that was in him, that he might lay it at her feet. And together, hand in hand, they would have laboured in God’s service. At least so it seemed to him now.

Then had come an enforced separation; and later, after a prolonged, unaccountable delay, a letter from her explaining, in trite, discursive phrases, how it could never be--it was a mistake--she had not known her own mind--now she could see things clearer--she hoped he would forgive and forget her.

A wild determination to go at once to her, to plead with her, gripped him; but for three days he was helpless, bound fast by parish duties. And when at last he found himself free, he had already begun to perceive the hopelessness of such an errand, and, with crushed and dogged despair, to accept his fate as irrevocable.

In his boyhood--at the local grammar-school, where his ugliness had made him the butt of his class, and later, at an insignificant Oxford college, where, to spare his father, whose glebe was at the time untenanted, he had set himself grimly to live on an impossibly slender allowance--at every turn of his life, he had found himself at a disadvantage with his fellows. Thus he had suffered much, dumbly--meekly many would have said--without a sign of resentment, or desire for retaliation. But all the while, in his tenacious, long-suffering way, he was stubbornly inuring himself to an acceptance of his own disqualifications. And so, once rudely awakened from his dream of love, he wondered with heavy curiosity at his faith in its glamorous reality, and, remembering the tenour of his life, suffered bitterly like a man befooled by his own conceit.