Читать книгу Little Hearts - Marjorie Lowry Christie Pickthall - Страница 8

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After any sacrament there should surely follow a time of well-being, a quiet time, when the soul walks beside still waters in green pastures of comfort; and when the body, poor brute, too little counted on in such heavenly seasons, may at least share in these profits like a dog at the shepherd’s heel. And that some such spiritual spring followed for Mr. Sampson, against all reason, on Anthony Oakshott’s coming, the entries in the philosophy book seem to show. Friendship means more to young men than to any other age or state of humanity, and it must needs mean more to Michael Sampson than to the rest of his kind.

“It may be questioned,” he wrote about this time, “by such as do carry Inquiry to the very Sill of Impiety, if the high path of earthly Poverty does not lead, by any Alley or Byway, to the Stews of spiritual Poverty. For at the Extremest, that path is so narrow there is scarce room to tread it in Company, and that is an evil in the teeth of the Law. For man is not a Solitary but a Kindly Soul. Kind—kin—he needs, and so hath been provisioned for in the comfortable Reason of God. Let none despair if he seem locked for ever in Loneliness. For as God reminds us that nothing may sever us from His Regard, so neither War, nor Separateness, nor Death may sever us from those lesser Loves which partake of His Nature and flourish up in His care like Posies in the Shadow of a Rock. Is the heart that answered mine Dust? I live. Do the eyes of a friend forget me? Mine remember. Is he gone from my hand? My hand is yet filled of him, and I may answer ‘All’s well’ to the Watchman of Souls. For Love of any righteous sort is Singular in that it may be broken, yet keep the Whole to every Part. It is the best Thing God gives, and perhaps the one Thing even He may not take away.”

There is something here in the margin about “a Cravat newly starched, for which I owe a Penny to Alison Sweetly.” So the thoughts of this gentle season were not all spiritual. He goes on:

“Where it is held the inheritance of the Fool to eat and drink and be merry in the Day that alone is possessed of him without thought of the requiring Night: there is also bidden us that we take no thought for any Morrow. So it is desirable for the follower of Poverty to house under his small roof of the Present, for ever falling to decay and for ever rebuilded, and to burden himself with no care of the Future. The darkness of the Morrow is as the darkness of Death; let him then front it with a merry face if it lies in his Nature. And let him beware. For while the Stomach go empty, the Soul may be full fed, may sit at ease in the house of the Sun, be drunk with Laughter, and suffer Pride like a Surfeit. And while he is least embarrassed with worldly goods, and so most secure of his holy Mistress, his hand may fall on so light a thing as the bridle of an horse, and straightway lose hers.”

From notes in the margin it may be gathered that Mr. Sampson had been galloping the mare in the paddock and had fallen off at the gate. Follows this queer outburst:—

“O Strength and Beauty of the Flesh, which ere we may properly appraise, we stand to lose utterly: in which we go clad for a little, and as soon as we set any Value on that fine Cleading, we behold it wither. Consider, O Beauty, to what an Almshouse ye shall presently come, where ye shall wear a Clod, go shod with Ashes, and learn long upon the tongue the taste of Earth. Consider, O Strength, that in a little while the Spider shall weave a Web across you, and you shall not be able to break it, that the Leaf shall fall on your lips, and there shall be no Breath to heave it away. So consider, O Beauty and Strength, and tread this Path of Poverty with a still heart. Never lift your eyes from that Way. For to the Inn of Denial even Beauty must come, and Strength lie down by that Road’s side.”

There are a great many notes here in the margin, hurried and smeared with ink. “Mem. Must not inadvertently betray to Malachi that I took of the best Flour to try and Powder me with, and made a great Mess of it.” “Query. Why is she called Periwinkle, and why are the Human Bones of such perishable Stuff?” Then very large and plain: “Curse all the Stuarts.” Just here, too, the philosophy book forsakes its high calling and abruptly becomes a mere journal, a fireside gossip.

“Have been in great Distress and unease about Tony. As his strength returns, he insists on going about the Forest in what he calls a Disguise—namely, with his Coat off, his Hair loose, a Bandage over one eye, and a Slouch in his Deportment. This he does greatly Relish, but it affords much concern to me and to Malachi, and we are in Misery till he choose to return. For however he may Smut himself at the Bake-oven, there is that in him which no living Soul, even if blind by Dispensation, could Stomach in a Charcoal-Burner. This morning he so Departed, as Malachi duly informed me, having found a shilling loose in the lining of his Waistcoat, and being determined, as he said, to do a little honest Trading, and show us how this establishment might be started upon a foundation of pure Profit. He did not appear with full daylight. I broke my fast alone, and was hard put to it to obtain of Malachi the commonest Service. It was not till near noon that we saw Tony running across the paddock. We ran to meet him, and I can answer for it that my heart was knocking against my Teeth in the expectation of more Soldiers. He, however, with his Shirt curiously bulged, and all over Feathers, said no more than, ‘Quick, they’re scratching me Cruel,’ and delivered into our hands two immature speckled Fowl. ‘They are to be the making of us,’ said he, when we had him safely clapped within doors. And when we inquired of him further—‘Eggs, of course,’ he said; ‘only you must not eat them All, Mick, or there will be none for the Future. I bought them of a Tinker,’ he said, ‘who had doubtless Stole them: and they kept getting away from me on the road. But we’ll have a Poultry yard by the Summer,’ he said. I fell to thinking what might hap by the Summer, as I often do at his Speeches. Meanwhile the birds were fighting under the Table, and Malachi watching them. ‘Asking your pardon, sir,’ says he, ‘but you’ll get no eggs nor yet poultry yards from them, they’re both Cockerels.’ We had them for dinner, though they were most singular Small when Plucked, and not worth a Shilling. But, as Tony says, If a man never risk his luck, how shall he better it?”

Here also comes the cry on the page: “God help us, but who would take me for the peaceful poor Soul I was a month ago?”

Mr. Sampson was indeed learning much and rapidly.

In the giving of love there is an education, in the return of it a further one. If, in his sad inexperience, Mr. Sampson had given rashly, he seemed to have given not unworthily. His new friend did not fail him. Brave and gay he must needs have been; Mr. Sampson found him clean in a soiled age, gentle in a brutal one; and he had with him that last appeal, of a bright thing shadowed. At this time Mr. Sampson took his own sentiments very seriously. He looked on young Mr. Oakshott as David might first have raised eyes to his young prince, who was so lovely and so pleasant. Pleasant they found Mr. Oakshott in all his ways. And he cannot be denied a sort of loveliness.

It was, perhaps, only the common quality he shared with everything quick and young and kind, but in some degree that gave him an uncommon grace. When he lay in Mr. Sampson’s bed he had shown none of it; now it informed him. He was eager, as if he feared that some cup might pass from him before he had well tasted of it. The heels of his soul were always winged, whatever might be the case with its shoulders. Mr. Sampson had caged a shining bird; perhaps, for the glitter of those Hermes feathers, might take it for an angel.

It is singular to think how little these two knew of each other. “Friendship and all Love,” wrote Mr. Sampson, on one of those days when the philosophy book was keeping to the slippery heights with a palpable effort and falling therefrom frequently, “do build a World for themselves and inhabit there, asking nothing of what went before the Bubble of their own blowing, and as little as Possible of what will come after. But even a Bubble needs Nourishment if it is not to Dissolve into its Parent Air, and it is by the Mercy of Heaven that the fine weather holds so late, for the Faggots are near done. Tony seems to do well on that narrow Fare I should Dread to set before him, did he not meet it with so fine a Grace and so excellent an Appetite. He knows I would give him Better, but I have no Means; neither hath he. What then? We are blessed alike in the giving and the taking. When it is safe, he will write to his Friends, and obtain of them Resources for his Journey to France, which I fear will not ensue without Difficulty. Meanwhile he is well advised to lie Quiet, the Military being still about Betsworth, and word out of a dangerous Fugitive with a Letter from the P... and a Plague on him. Whether Tony has such a Letter, I do not seek to know. He has suffered some Hurt in these Matters, as I think, some Injury of Soul too deep to be handled by any; and if I do but turn in speech like a Weathercock to the stormy quarter, he becomes Bleak and ill at ease and leaves me. If I could wish this otherwise, I call myself friendship’s Glutton. For I hold in my hands his Honour and his Life, and I am not myself wholly Open with him. It is but a foul little blind Shame like a Maggot that I hide, yet I cannot Purge it away, even on my knees. And in despite of all, Time goes with as sweet a Content as he were shod with Silver and had sworn away his Reaping hook. Only I could wish I were better supplied with clean Hose, Tony having worn the Heels out of the pair I lent him, and Malachi being but slow at the knitting.”

These were bubble-days, all-complete, all-containing, frail as breath, full of that strange and eager peace which would hold commerce neither with yesterday nor to-morrow. The philosophy book is full of little incident and reflection like the bosom of a small stream. But such streams may flood very suddenly if their source is in the hills. And on an evening Mr. Sampson sat himself down and inscribed one staring entry on a blank page. “O miserable Wretch,” he wrote with a shaking hand, “well for you, and born of God’s utmost Compassion, that this be but the Reproach of Words writ upon Paper, and not of the Blood of Abel crying from the Ground.” The material connection of ideas is not difficult. In some passion that did away with humour, Mr. Sampson had immortalised his mood with red ink.

Nor, in the light of later happenings, can he be absolved of a certain enjoyment.

He had an honest hunger to hear of that bright World of which he was as ignorant as any monk, and Mr. Oakshott was pleasantly eager to satisfy him on this point; gave him indeed full measure, pressed down and running over. Mr. Sampson, who believed, for instance, that no women were wicked unless men had first broken their hearts for them, heard some strange stories. He would sit on the edge of the cucumber frame of mild mornings, staring at his guest like a hooked fish; while that young gentleman, very keen at so grave a business, and with his talking eyes that helped him like a Frenchman’s gestures, would show the proper carriage of a handkerchief, the correct deportment in a card-room, or the latest mode of drinking tea with a lady. Mr. Sampson said that the life of fashion was the life of chains, and sighed. Mr. Oakshott agreed, but held that such chains were like butter on a cat’s paw, and kept one too busy for discontent. Mr. Sampson preferred freedom in life and death. Mr. Oakshott, catching at the last thought, said that a man’s behaviour at a wedding was not near so important as his behaviour in a quarrel, and that you were never so civil to a fellow as when you hoped to kill him. Mr. Sampson, in the interests of philosophy, would like to know how it was done.

“What, killing a man?”

“No. Any butcher may show you so much with a cleaver. But that sharp steel of the soul which in an instant may sever the artery of friendship, stop the pulse of trust, turn men into murderers.” Philosophy, as usual, lent some warmth to her disciple. “I am a man of peace, and I confess I cannot understand your points of honour. Could my friend hurt me on any point of honour—as you have related to me—with a witless word, sufficient to warrant me driving the point of a sword into his lungs the next morning? Folly, sir. I would put my sword under my arm and wish him good-bye until he was of a better mind.” Mr. Sampson picked up a clod of earth and threw it at a blackbird, and his warmth with it. “But that,” he finished, with his rare smile, “is the counsel of one who is a man of peace in all things, and who would have a better use for his sword.”

Tony, who had been listening very kindly, tilting himself to and fro on his heels and toes, looked down at his host and dusted some straw from his cuff. His voice took on a sudden drawl: “I do not suppose you’d put your sword to that use——”

Mr. Sampson looked up sharply.

“—if you had one.”

Mr. Sampson lifted up his voice like a trumpet.

“What do you mean by that, sir?”

Mr. Oakshott fetched his gaze from the roof of the barn. “You’d be more like,” he explained sweetly, “to use it for a pea-stick.”

Mr. Sampson choked. But the storm might have passed if Tony had not pulled out his handkerchief and, still with that cool stare of his, used it.

Something rolled and broke like thunder in Michael Sampson’s brain. He heard himself saying: “I’ll soon show you, sir, if I have one or not.” .. Then, with no apparent interval, found himself mounting the stairs in a fury, and wondering all the way up where the devil his sword was, where he’d seen it last. Had it been in Malachi’s hand, and connected disgracefully with a rusty side of bacon? He used some words not found in any philosophy book, and flung into the sealed room, the sacred room, his dead cousin’s. There was a sword there. He snatched it from the table. Perhaps it would serve, if it were not rusted home. He was still struggling hotly with the sheath as he strode up to the cucumber frame.

Tony had a harness buckle in hand, which he was busy polishing with the handkerchief. He looked up with a grin. “That’s how it’s done, Michael.”

Mr. Sampson stopped. Shame drenched him with the cool sting of a wave. He came to himself—saw himself a murderer, no less. The sword he flung sheathed into a patch of groundsel, and himself out of the gate and into the woods, for all Tony’s calling. He stayed there all day with his new knowledge of himself, returning only at night; and then, in Malachi’s words, walked off his legs. He said nothing, nor did Tony, respecting a shame he did not understand.

But that same night Malachi heard noises in the little attic where the roof was broken and he kept his jams and conserves of sloe and blackberry for coolness. He went up and surprised his master, very pale and wild, with a bright sword in his hand, making passes at the shelf where the little pots were.

One pot was broken on the floor, and the blade stained a deadly crimson of the veins of currants. Malachi disarmed Mr. Sampson without a word, and led him to his blankets in the loft, afterwards scraping up the spilt jam with a spoon. Mr. Sampson ate it later, and was reminded in no other way of his momentary madness. Some days after Tony offered him fencing lessons; they were refused at first with horror, but in time became an established fact; and the hollows of the old house rang to the stamp and clash of that mimic war. This would be about November. The frosts set in then, silvered the glades, made Michael Sampson shiver in the loft and the mare Periwinkle dance in the stable. The paddock was not enough for her these stinging days. They decided, against all risks, to gallop her in the forest. The hurt hoof was sound again, but there remained the bitter question of new shoes, which she sorely needed. Mr. Oakshott found another shilling, and set about the finding of a smith.