XIII
_I warmed both hands before the fire of life._
--WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR.
Surely some hueless poppy blossomed in the darkness of those ruins, orthe soulless ashes of the dead breathe out a drowsy influence. Neverhave I slept so heavily, yet never perhaps beneath so cold a tester.Sunbeams streaming between the crests of the cypresses awoke me. Ileapt up as if a hundred sentinels had shouted--where none keptvisible watch.
An odour of a languid sweetness pervaded the air. There was no wind tostir the dew-besprinkled trees. The old, scarred gravestones stood ina thick sunshine, afloat with bees. But Rosinante had preferred tosurvey sunshine out of shade. In lush grass I found her, the pictureof age, foot crook'd, and head dejected.
Yet she followed me uncomplaining along these narrow avenues ofsilence, and without more ado turned her trivial tail on Death and hisdim flocks, and well-nigh scampered me off into the vivid morning.Soon afterwards, with Hunger in the saddle, we began to climb a roadalmost precipitous, and stony in the extreme. Often enough we breathedourselves as best we could in the still, sultry air, and rested on thesun-dappled slopes. But at length we came out upon the crest, andsurveyed in the first splendour of day a region of extraordinarygrandeur.
Beneath a clear sky to the east stood a range of mountains, cold andchangeless beneath their snows. At my feet a great river flowed,broken here and there with isles in the bright flood. The darkchampaign that flanked its shores was of an unusual verdure. Mysteryand peril brooded on those distant ravines, the vapours of theirfar-descending cataracts. In such abysmal fastnesses as these theHyrcan tiger might hide his surly generations. This was an air for thesun-disdaining eagle, a country of transcendent brightness, itsflowers strangely pure and perfect, its waters more limpid, itsgrazing herds, its birds, its cedar trees, the masters of their kind.
Yet not on these nearer glories my eyes found rest. But, with a kindof heartache, I gazed, as it were towards home, upon the distantwaters of the sea. Here, on the crest of this green hill, was silence.There, too, was profounder silence on the sea's untrampled floor.Whence comes that angel out of nought whispering into the ear strangesyllables? I know not; but so seemed I to stand--a shatteredinstrument in the world, past all true music, o'er which none the lessthe invisible lute-master stooped. Could I but catch, could I but inwords express the music his bent fingers intended, the mystery, thepeace--well; then I should indeed journey solitary on the face of theearth, a changeling in its cities.
I half feared to descend into a country so diverse from any I had yetseen. Hitherto at least I had encountered little else thanfriendliness. But here--doves in eyries! I stood, twisting my fingersin Rosinante's mane, debating and debating. And she turned her face tome, and looked with age into my eyes: and I know not how woke couragein me again.
"On then?" I said, on the height. And the gentle beast leaned forwardand coughed into the valley what might indeed be "Yea!"
So we began to descend. Down we went, alone, yet not unhappy, until ina while I discovered, about a hundred yards in advance of me, anothertraveller on the road, ambling easily along at an equal pace withmine. I know not how far I followed in his track debating whether toovertake and to accost him, or to follow on till a more favourablechance offered.
But Chance--avenger of all shilly-shally--settled the matter offhand.For my traveller, after casting one comprehensive glance towards theskies, suddenly whisked off at a canter that quickly carried him outof sight.
A chill wind had begun to blow, lifting in gusts dust into the air andwhitening the tree-tops. As suddenly, calm succeeded. A cloud offlies droned fretfully about my ears. And I watched advancing,league-high, transfigured with sunbeams, the enormous gloom of storm.The sun smote from a silvery haze upon its peaks and gorges. Wind, farabove the earth, moaned, and fell; only to sound once more in thedistance in a mournful trumpeting. Lightnings played along thedesolate hills. The sun was darkened. A vast flight of snowy,arrow-winged birds streamed voiceless beneath his place. And daywithdrew its boundaries, spread to the nearer forests a brightamphitheatre, fitful with light, whereof it seemed to me Rosinantewith her poor burden was the centre and the butt. I confess I began todread lest even my mere surmise of danger should engage the piercinglightnings; as if in the mystery of life storm and a timorous thoughtmight yet be of a kin.
We hastened on at the most pathetic of gallops. Nor seemed indeed thebeauteous lightning to regard at all that restless mote upon thecirque of its entranced fairness. In an instantaneous silence I hearda tiny beat of hoofs; in instantaneous gloom recognised almost withastonishment my own shape bowed upon the saddle. It was a majesticentry into a kingdom so far-famed.
The storm showed no abatement when at last I found shelter. From faraway I had espied in the immeasurable glare a country barn beneathtrees. Arrived there, I almost fell off my horse into as incongruousand lighthearted a company as ever was seen.
In the midst of the floor of the barn, upon a heap of hay, sat a foolin motley blowing with all his wind into a pipe. It was a cunning tunehe played too, rich and heady. And so seemed the company to find it,dancers--some thirty or more--capering round him with all the abandonheart can feel and heel can answer to. As for pose, he whose horse nowstood smoking beside my own first drew my attention--a smooth,small-bearded, solemn man, a little beyond his prime. He lifted histoes with such inimitable agility, postured his fingers so daintily,conducted his melon-belly with so much elegance, and exhaled such awarm joy in the sport that I could look at nothing else at first fordelight in him.
But there were slim maids too among the plumper and ruddier, likecrocuses, like lilac, like whey, with all their fragrance andfreshness and lightness. Such eyes adazzle dancing with mine, suchnimble and discreet ankles, such gimp English middles, and such a gaydelight in the mere grace of the lilting and tripping beneath raftersringing loud with thunder, that Pan himself might skip across ahundred furrows for sheer envy to witness.
As for the jolly rustics that were jogging their wits away with suchdelightful gravity, but little time was given me to admire them ere Ialso was snatched into the ring, and found brown eyes dwelling withmine, and a hand like lettuces in the dog-days. Round and about weskipped in the golden straw, amidst treasuries of hay, puffing andspinning. And the quiet lightnings quivered between the beams, andthe monstrous "Ah!" of the thunder submerged the pipe's sweetness.Till at last all began to gasp and blow indeed, and the nodding Foolto sip, and sip, as if _in extremis_ over his mouthpiece. Then werested awhile, with a medley of shrill laughter and guffaws, while therain streamed lightning-lit upon the trees and tore the clouds totatters.
With some little circumstance my traveller picked his way to me, andwith a grave civility bowed me a sort of general welcome. Whereuponensued such wit and banter as made me thankful when the openingimpudence of a kind of jig set the heels and the petticoats of thecompany tossing once more. We danced the lightning out, and piped thethunder from the skies. And by then I was so faint with fasting, andso deep in love with at least five young country faces, that Iscarcely knew head from heels; still less, when a long draught of akind of thin, sweet ale had mounted to its sphere.
Away we all trooped over the flashing fields, noisy as jays in thefresh, sweet air, some to their mowing, some to their milking, butmore, indeed, I truly suspect, to that exquisite _Nirvana_ from whichthe tempest's travail had aroused them. I waved my hand, striving invain to keep my eyes on one blest, beguiling face of all that glancedbehind them. But, she gone, I turned into the rainy lane once morewith my new acquaintance, discreeter, but not less giddy, it seemed,than I.
We had not far to go--past a meadow or two, a low green wall, a blackfish-pool--and soon the tumbledown gables of a house came into view.My companion waved his open fingers at the crooked casements andpeered into my face.
"Ah!" he said, "we will talk, we will talk, you and I: I view it inyour eye, sir--clear and full and profound--such ever goes witheloquence. 'Tis my delight. What
are we else than beasts?--beasts thatperish? I never tire; I never weary;--give me to dance and to sing,but ever to talk: then am I at ease. Heaven is just. Enter,sir--enter!"
He led me by a shady alley into his orchard, and thence to a stable,where we left Rosinante at hob-a-nob with his mare over a friendlybottle of hay. And we ourselves passed into the house, and ascended astaircase into an upper chamber. This chamber was raftered, its wallshung with an obscure tapestry, its floor strewn with sand, and itslozenged casement partly shuttered against the blaze of sunshine thatflowed across the forests far away to the west.
My friend eyed me brightly and busily as a starling. "You danced fine,sir," he said. "Oh! it is a _pleasure_ to me. Ay, and now I come toconsider it, methought I did hear hoofs behind me that might yet beecho. No, but I did _not_ think: 'twas but my ear cried to hisdreaming master. Ever dreaming; God help at last the awakening! Butwell met, well met, I say again. I am cheered. And you but just intime! Nay, I would not have missed him for a ransom. So--so--this leg,that leg; up now--hands over down we go! Lackaday, I am old bones forsuch freaks. Once!... '_Memento mori_!' say I, and smell the showerthe sweeter for it. Be seated, sir, bench or stool, wheresoever you'dbe. You're looking peaked. That burden rings in my skull like abagpipe. Toot-a-tootie, toot-a-toot! Och, sad days!"
We devoured our meal of cold meats and pickled fish, fruit and junketand a kind of harsh cheese, as if in contest for a wager. And copiouswas the thin spicy wine with which we swam it home. Ever and again myhost would desist, to whistle, or croon (with a packed mouth) in thedismallest of tenors, a stave or two of the tune we had danced to,bobbing head and foot in sternest time. Then a great vacancy wouldoverspread his face turned to the window, as suddenly to gather to acheerful smile, and light, irradiated, once more on me. Then downwould drop his chin over his plate, and away go finger and spoon amonghis victuals in a dance as brisk and whole-hearted as the other.
He took me out again into his garden after supper, and we walkedbeneath the trees.
"'Tis bliss to be a bachelor, sir," he said, gazing on the resinoustrunk of an old damson tree. "I gorge, I guzzle; I am merry, ammelancholy; studious, harmonical, drowsy,--and none to scoldor deny me. For the rest, why, youth is vain: yet youth hadpleasure--innocence and delight. I chew the cud of many a peacefulacre. Ay, I have nibbled roses in my time. But now, what now? I havelived so long far from courts and courtesy, grace and fashion, and amso much my own close and indifferent friend--Why! he is happy who hassolitude for housemate, company for guest. I say it, I say it; I marrydaily wives of memory's fashioning, and dream at peace."
It seemed an old bone he picked with Destiny.
"There's much to be said," I replied as profoundly as I could.
The air he now lulled youth asleep with was a very cheerlessthrenody, but he brightened once more at praise of his delightfulorchard.
"You like it, sir? You speak kindly, sir. It is my all; root andbranch: how many a summer's moons have I seen shine hereon! I knowit--there is bliss to come;--miraculous Paradise for men even dull asI. Yet 'twill be strange to me--without my house and orchard. Agetends to earth, sir, till even an odour may awake the dead--a branchin the air call with its fluttering a face beyond Time to vanquishdear. 'Soul, soul,' I cry, 'forget thy dust, forget thy vauntingashes!'--and speak in vain. So's life!"
And when we had gone in again, and candles had been lit in his freshand narrow chamber, seeing a viol upon a chest, I begged a littlemusic.
He quite eagerly, with a boyish peal of laughter, complied; and satdown with a very solemn face, his brows uplifted, and sang between thecandles to a pathetic air this doggerel:--
There's a dark tree and a sad tree, Where sweet Alice waits, unheeded, For her lover long-time absent, Plucking rushes by the river.
Let the bird sing, let the buck sport, Let the sun sink to his setting; Not one star that stands in darkness Shines upon her absent lover.
But his stone lies 'neath the dark tree, Cold to bosom, deaf to weeping; And 'tis gathering moss she touches, Where the locks lay of her lover.
"A dolesome thing," he said; "but my mother was wont to sing it to thevirginals. 'Cold to bosom,'" he reiterated with a plangent cadence; "Iremember them all, sir; from the cradle I had a gift for music." Andthen, with an ample flirt of his bow, he broke, all beams and smiles,into this ingenuous ditty:
The goodman said, "'Tis time for bed, Come, mistress, get us quick to pray; Call in the maids From out the glades Where they with lovers stray, With love, and love do stray."
"Nay, master mine, The night is fine, And time's enough all dark to pray; 'Tis April buds Bedeck the woods Where simple maids away With love, and love do stray.
"Now we are old, And nigh the mould, 'Tis meet on feeble knees to pray; When once we'd roam, 'Twas else cried, 'Come, And sigh the dusk away, With love, and love to stray.'"
So they gat in To pray till nine; Then called, "Come maids, true maids, away! Kiss and begone, Ha' done, ha' done, Until another day With love, and love to stray!"
Oh, it were best If so to rest Went man and maid in peace away! The throes a heart May make to smart Unless love have his way, In April woods to stray!--
In April woods to stray!
And that finished with another burst of laughter, he set very adroitlyto the mimicry of beasts and birds upon his frets. Never have I seena face so consummately the action's. His every fibre answered to thecall; his eyebrows twitched like an orator's; his very nose wasplastic.
"Hst!" he cried softly; "hither struts chanticleer!""Cock-a-diddle-doo!" crowed the wire. "Now, prithee, Dame Partlett!"and down bustled a hen from an egg like cinnamon. A cat with kittensmewed along the string, anxious and tender.
"A woodpecker," he cried, directing momentarily a sedulous, clear eyeon me. And lo, "inviolable quietness" and the smooth beech-boughs!"And thus," he said, sitting closer, "the martlets were wont towhimper about the walls of the castle of Inverness, the castle ofMacbeth."
"Macbeth!" I repeated--"Macbeth!"
"Ay," he said, "it was his seat while yet a simple soldier--flocks andflocks of them, wheeling hither, thither, in the evening air, cryingand calling."
I listened in a kind of confusion. "... And Duncan," I said....
He eyed me with immense pleasure, and nodded with brilliant eyes onmine.
"What looking man was he?" I said at last as carelessly as I dared."... The King, you mean,--of Scotland."
He magnanimously ignored my confusion, and paused to build hissentence.
"'Duncan'?" he said. "The question calls him straight to mind. Alean-locked, womanish countenance; sickly, yet never sick; timid, yetmost obdurate; more sly than politic. An _ignis fatuus_, sir, in aworld of soldiers." His eye wandered.... "'Twas a marvellous sanativeair, crisp and pure; but for him, one draught and outer darkness. Imyself viewed his royal entry from the gallery--pacing urbane toslaughter; and I uttered a sigh to see him. 'Why, sir, do you sigh tosee the king?' cried one softly that stood by. 'I sigh, my lord,' Ianswered to the instant, 'at sight of a monarch even Duncan's match!'"
He looked his wildest astonishment at me.
"Not, I'd have you remember--not that 'twas blood I did foresee.... Tokill in blood a man, and he a king, so near to natural death ...foul, foul!"
"And Macbeth?" I said presently--"Macbeth...?"
He laid down his viol with prolonged care.
"His was a soul, sir, nobler than his fate. I followed him not withoutlove from boyhood--a youth almost too fine of spirit; shrinkingfrom all violence, over-nicely; eloquent, yet chary of speech,and of a dark profundity of thought. The questions he wouldpatter!--unanswerable, searching earth and heaven through.... And whonow was it told me the traitor Judas's hair was red?--yet not red his,but of a reddish chestnut, fine a
nd bushy. Children have played theirharmless hands at hide-and-seek therein. O sea of many winds!
"For come gloom on the hills, floods, discolouring mist; breathe butsome grandam's tale of darkness and blood and doubleness in hishearing: all changed. Flame kindled; a fevered unrest drove him out;and Ambition, that spotted hound of hell, strained at the leashtowards the Pit.
"So runs the world--the ardent and the lofty. We are beyond earth'sstory as 'tis told, sir. All's shallower than the heart of man....Indeed, 'twas one more shattered altar to Hymen."
"'Hymen!'" I said.
He brooded long and silently, clipping his small beard. And while hewas so brooding, a mouse, a moth, dust--I know not what, stirred thelistening strings of his viol to sound, and woke him with a start.
"I vowed, sir, then, to dismiss all memory of such unhappy deeds frommind--never to speak again that broken lady's name. Oh! I have seensad ends--pride abased, splendour dismantled, courage to terror come,guilt to a crying guilelessness."
"'Guilelessness?'" I said. "Lady Macbeth at least was past allchanging."
The doctor stood up and cast a deep scrutiny on me, which yet,perhaps, was partly on himself.
"Perceive, sir," he said, "this table--broader, longer, splendidlyburdened; and all adown both sides the board, thanes and theirladies, lords, and gentlemen, guests bidden to a royal banquet. 'Twasthen in that bleak and dismal country--the Palace of Forres. Torchesflared in the hall; to every man a servant or two: we sat in pomp."
He paused again, and gravely withdrew behind the tapestry.
"And presently," he cried therefrom, suiting his action to the word,"to the blast of hautboys enters the king in state thus, with hisattendant lords. And with all that rich and familiar courtesy of whichhe was master in his easier moods he passed from one to another,greeting with supple dignity on his way, till he came at last softlyto the place prepared for him at table. And suddenly--shall I everforget, it, sir?--it seemed silence ran like a flame from mouth tomouth as there he stood, thus, marble-still, his eyes fixed in aleaden glare. And he raised his face and looked once round on us allwith a forlorn astonishment and wrath, like one with a death-wound--Inever saw the like of such a face.
"Whereat, beseeching us to be calm, and pay no heed, the queen laidher hand on his and called him. And his orbs rolled down once moreupon the empty place, and stuck as if at grapple with some horror seenwithin. He muttered aloud in peevish altercation--once more to heaveup his frame, to sigh and shake himself, and lo!--"
The viol-strings rang to his "lo!"
"Lo, sir, the Unseen had conquered. His lip sagged into his beard, hebabbled with open mouth, and leaned on his lady with such an impotentand slavish regard as I hope never to see again man pay to woman....We thought no more of supper after that....
"But what do I--?" The doctor laid a cautioning finger on his mouth.
"The company was dispersed, the palace gloomy with night (and theywere black nights at Forres!), and on the walls I heard the sentinel'sreplying.... In the wood's last glow I entered and stood in hisself-same station before the empty stool. And even as I stood thus, myhair creeping, my will concentred, gazing with every cord at stretch,fell a light, light footfall behind me." He glanced whitely over hisshoulder.
"Sir, it was the queen come softly out of slumber on my own unquieterrand."
The doctor strode to the door, and peered out like a man suspicious orguilty of treachery. It was indeed a house of broken silences. Andthere, in the doorway, he seemed to be addressing his own saddenedconscience.
"With all my skill, and all a leal man's gentleness, I solaced andpersuaded, and made an oath, and conducted her back to her own chamberunperceived. How weak is sleep!... It was a habit, sir, contracted inchildhood, long dormant, that Evil had woke again. The Past awaits usall. So run Time's sands, till mercy's globe is empty and ..."
He stooped and whispered it across to me: "... A child, a comparativechild, shrunk to an anatomy, her beauty changed, ghostly of youth andall its sadness, baffled by a word, slave to a doctor's nod! Noneknew but I, and, at the last, one of her ladies--a gentle, faithful,and fearful creature. Nor she till far beyond all mischief....
"Wild deeds are done. But to have blood on the hands, a cry in theears, and one same glassy face eye to eye, that nothing can dim, noreven slumber pacify--dreams, dreams, intangible, enorm! Forefend them,God, from me!"
He stood a moment as if he were listening; then turned, smilingirresolutely, and eyed me aimlessly. He seemed afraid of his ownhouse, askance at his own furniture. Yet, though I scarce know why, Ifelt he had not told me the whole truth. Something fidelity had yetwithheld from vanity. I longed to enquire further. I put aside howmany burning questions awhile!