A Tramp's Sketches Part 5

Round the monastery, behold, the ruins of a great fort, slowly crumbling away under the hand of Time. No fleets now sail against Pitius, no pirates land on the barren cape--there is nothing to steal.

Even the monastery is without gold.

VI

I cannot forget this walk of gloom and mystery, and my stay in this strange, sleeping monastery of the Middle Ages. But over and against it stands the bright morning of Gudaout, four days later.

Gudaout is encompa.s.sed by the highest Caucasus--its only refuge is the sea. It is a place most wonderful in the pageantry of dawn. Picture my life of one evening and morning. I left Gudaout at the dusk, and having bought myself a pound of purple grapes, strolled out along the dusty high road eating them. I made my bed on the seash.o.r.e, and slept away the aches and pains of a heavy day's tramping. Next day, in that sort of reflection of last evening which comes before the morning, I rose, for the coldest of October breezes had come down to me from the mountains. The dawn was all gold--a new dawn, I thought. But when I stood on my feet I saw below the gold the lovely bosom of the East, a beautiful, soft bed of creamy rose. It was an elemental sunrise, a veritable _first_ morning.

Distant mountains lay wrapped in dissolving mists, and seemed like the multifarious tents of a great army encamped on a plain--for the smooth sea was like a plain. The chamber of the dawn seemed gigantic, the mountains having lifted up the roof of heaven higher than I had ever seen it before, the sea having taken it out to a far horizon.

I stood looking over the sh.o.r.e before sunrise, and far out in the bay were three high-masted feluccas, looking like ships of the Spanish Armada. At the water's edge, and yet silhouetted against the dawn sky, were Mahometans, washing themselves and praying--stark, black figures in the strange light.

I welcomed the sun.

He rose swiftly out of the waters, and shone across the bay, lighting up all the mountains that closed in north and south. He came full of promises, and after the coolness and damp of the night I had need of heat. I lay on a bank and gleaned sunshine. The morning came over the sea steadily, equably, like a good ship making for a sure harbour.

Then, ten miles from Gudaout, on a mountain, I looked out from the ruins of the Tower of Iver, over a vast resplendent sea, and saw below me the monastery of Novy Afon and all its buildings, looking like children's toys. That tower was a stronghold of Christianity in the third century, and it was strange to think that Crusaders and mediaeval warriors had looked out from the same tower, over the same glorious sea. a.s.suredly from the watch-tower of ancient Time all buildings and man's dwellings are but toys. I thought of that when I rowed across the river Phasis, and drank coffee at Poti on the site of Colchis. That Black Sea and that river were the same which Jason sailed with his heroes; and the Golden Fleece, those children's toy, has now, forsooth, become a head-gear in these parts.

We all pa.s.s away, but the sea remains the same; and all our empires and literatures, arts and towns, crumble and decay, and are proved toys. Our consolation lies in our unconquerable souls, our glorious after-life beyond this world. But the sea has an immortality in the here and now. I shall never understand its secret.

A stage is reached when I cease to look at the sea, and allow the sea to look into me, when I give it habitation in my being, and am thereby proved, by virtue of my soul, something mightier than it.

But in vain do we try to take the sea's mystery by storm. In vain do we search for its meaning with love. It lies beyond our mortal ken, deeper than ever plummet sounded.

"Is not the sea the very peac.o.c.k of peac.o.c.ks?" asks Nietzsche. "Even before the ugliest of all buffaloes it unfoldeth its tail and never wearieth of its lace fan of silver and gold." But the sea is not moved by slander. "Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean, roll!" sings Byron in praise, but the sea is not encouraged. It hearkeneth not, even unto kings. It is that which changes but is itself unchanged. It manifests itself continually in change, and yet it is itself ever the same, ever the same. It reveals itself to man in the majesty and terror of storm, or in the joyousness of peace; when with leaden eye it glowers upward at the leaden clouds, or when the rain sweeps over it in misery. But the secret of the sea lies beyond all these, hidden in the depths, profound, sublime.

II

I

HOSPITALITY

I

I imagine that whilst the prodigal son sat at meat with his father and their guests, there may have come to the door a weary tramp begging food and lodging. The elder brother would probably refuse hospitality, saying, "You are not even my sinning brother, and shall I harbour _you_?" The father in his wine might cry a welcome--"Let him come in for the sake of my son found this day; he also was a tramp upon the road." The prodigal would say to his steady-going, sober elder, "You say he is not your brother; but he is mine, he is my brother wanderer." "Oh, come in then," the elder brother would retort; "but you must do some work--we can't encourage laziness. You may have shelter and food, but to-morrow you must work with us in the fields till midday."

This counsel of the elder brother has endured, and is accounted wise.

But this type of hospitality is not of that sort that was rewarded, say, in Eager Heart. It is scarcely what the writer to the Hebrews intended when he said, "Let brotherly love continue. Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares." Of those who wander about the world there are many ordinary men who would be ready to do a morning's work for their board, but there are also G.o.ds in disguise. There are mysterious spirits who cannot reveal the necessities of their fate; souls whom if we could recognise in their celestial guise we should worship, falling down at their feet with the humility of the cry, "I am not worthy that thou shouldest come under my roof."

There is another important objection to the complexion of the elder brother's hospitality. Perhaps the tramp would of his own accord have volunteered to work with them next morning. If so, the tramp was deprived of his chance of giving in return. What would have been his gift has been made his price. He should not have been asked to pay.

No one asks a brother to pay for food and shelter. And are we not all brothers? True hospitality is a sign of the brotherhood of man, and the open threshold symbolises the open heart. Inhospitality is the sign that man will not recognise the stranger as his brother.

There are two sorts of hospitality, that which gives all it has and that which gives what you want--the former growing out of the latter.

The one is prodigal and overflowing generosity, almost embarra.s.sing in its lavishness, the other the simple and ordinary kindness that will always give what it has when there is need; the one the hospitality of Mary who poured out the precious ointment, the other the simple hospitality and homely kindness of Martha; the one is the glory of sacrifice and is of one day in a year or of one day in a life, the other is a sacred due and is of every day. The latter should at least be universal hospitality. It ought to be possible for man to wander where he will over this little world of ours and never fail to find free food and shelter and love. I know no greater shame in national development than the commercialisation of the meal and the night's lodging. It has been our great disinheritance.

But, of course, it would be folly to demand hospitality or to attempt to enforce it. It is like the drunken cobbler who said to his wife, "You don't love me, curse you, but by G.o.d you shall if I have to kill you first." Even if a paternal government made a law that hospitality was obligatory and that whoever asked a night's lodging must be given it, then at one blow the whole idea of hospitality would be annihilated. Hospitality must be something freely given, flowing genially outward from the heart. When in the _Merchant of Venice_ the Duke says, "Then must the Jew be merciful!" and Shylock asks with true Jewish commercialism, "On what compulsion must I, tell me that?" then Portia gives the eternal answer--

The quality of mercy is not strained, It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven Upon the place beneath: it is twice blessed; It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.

Need it be said mercy and hospitality are in many respects one and the same, and that when Portia says, "We do pray for mercy and that same prayer doth teach us all to render the deeds of mercy," it is like saying, "We pray for hospitality in heaven and that prayer teaches us to render hospitality here," like "Forgive us our trespa.s.ses as we forgive them that trespa.s.s against us." We shall never be homeless, either here or hereafter, if we love one another.

The shelter and food given one for the love of G.o.d are "sanctified creatures." Sleeping in a home for the love of G.o.d is more refreshing than sleeping at an inn for a price. One has been blessed and one has also blessed in return; for again, hospitality, like mercy, blesses both those who give and those who take. Throughout a night one has helped to const.i.tute a home, and the angels of the home have guarded one. One has lain not merely in a house but in a Christian home, not only in a home but in the temple of the heart.

It is sweet in a far-away land to be treated like a son or a brother, to be taken for granted, to be embraced by strange men and blessed by strange women. Sweet also is it for the far-away man to recognise a new son or a new brother in the wanderer whom he has received. I remember one night at the remote village of Seraphimo in Archangel Government, how a peasant put both hands on my shoulders and, looking into my eyes, exclaimed, "How like he is to us!"

II

Tramping across the Crimean moors I lost my way in the mist near the monastery of St. George, and was conducted by a peasant to the Greek village of Kalon, well known to old campaigners--it is between Sebastopol and Balaklava. The village remains the same to-day as it was in the days of the Crimean War, and the same families as lived there then, or their descendants, live there now. I visited the _starosta_, and he indicated a home where I might sleep the night. I was taken in by an aged Greek woman and entertained among her family.

They brought me bread and wine, and spread out the best couch for me.

The sons told me of hunting exploits with the bear and the wild boar; they told me how at Christmas time the wild turkeys fly overhead in such numbers that it is the easiest thing in the world to shoot one's Christmas dinner--and I thought that very convenient. When the sons were silent, or talking among themselves, the old dame told me about her youth: how she was only seventeen years old at the time of the war; how the English were the most handsome of all the soldiers, how the Turks were the most lazy and the most brutal, how the French and the Italians simpered; how the English soldiers were loved by the Greek girls, how they were also more generous than the other troops and gave freely clothes and tea and sugar and whatever was needed in the cottages and asked no money for it whatever; how in these days the little children played with the cannon-b.a.l.l.s, rolling them over the moors and up the village street--all manner of gossip the good old lady told me, beguiling the hours and my ears till it was bedtime.

Next day I offered to pay at least for my food, but the old lady, though poor, waved her hand and said, "Oh no, it is for the love of G.o.d!" How often have I had that said to me day after day in Russia, especially in the North!

Another day in Imeritia, when I pa.s.sed at evening through a little Caucasian village and was beginning to wonder where I should have my supper and find a night's lodging, a Georgian suddenly hailed me unexpectedly. He was sitting, not in his own house, but at a table in an inn. There were of course no windows to the inn, and all the company a.s.sembled could easily converse with the hors.e.m.e.n and pedestrians in the street below. He called out to me and I went up to him. A place was made for me at the table, and he ordered a chicken and a bottle of wine. I was just a little doubtful, for I had never seen the man before and his antic.i.p.ation of my needs was surprising, but I accepted his invitation, drank his health, and ate my meal. He looked at me very pleasantly, and he was more sensible than a Russian, the sort of person who is marvellously interested in you, but who is so gentle that he will ask no questions lest you find some pain in answering him. But I told him about myself. After the meal he took me along to his house and gave me a spare bed. All was very disorderly and he apologised, saying, "It is untidy, but I am a bachelor. What is a bachelor to do? If I were married all would be different." I spent a whole day with him, and in that short s.p.a.ce he conceived for me as it seemed an eternal friendship.

"You are very good," I said at parting. "You have been very hospitable. I don't know how to thank you...." He stopped my words.

"No, no," he said, "it is only natural; it is no doubt what any one would do for me in your country were I a stranger there."

"Would they?" I thought.

By the way, a curious example of inhospitality showed itself in this village where I met the Georgian. We were sitting round a pitcher of sweet rose-coloured wine, and one of us signalled to a rather morose Akhbasian prince who was pa.s.sing, but he took no notice. "He will not drink wine with us," said my friend. "His wife is so beautiful."

"What _do_ you mean?" I asked.

"His wife is very beautiful and he is as jealous of her as she is beautiful. He is like a dog who growls when he has suddenly got something very good in his mouth: he fears any familiarity on the part of other dogs."

As a tramp I have often felt how little I had to give materially for all the kindness I have received. But even such as myself have their opportunities of reciprocity, though they are of a humble kind. I call to mind a cold, wet day near Batoum, how I had a big bonfire by a stream under a bridge and I warmed myself, cooked food, and took shelter from the rain. A Caucasian man and woman, both tramps, came and sat by my fire a long while. The man took from his breast some green tobacco leaves, dried them by the fire, and put them in his pipe and smoked them. They spoke a language quite unintelligible to me and knew not a word of Russian. But they were nevertheless extremely demonstrative and told me all manner of things by signs and gestures.

Very poor, even starving, and I gave them some bread and beef and some hot rice pudding from my pot. In return the man gave me five and a half walnuts! We seemed like children playing at being tramps, but I felt a very lively affection for these strange wanderers who had come so trustingly to my little home under the bridge.

One of the beautiful things about hospitality is that though we do not pay the giver of it directly, we do really pay him in the long run.

A is hospitable to B, B to C, C to D, and so on, and at last Z is hospitable to A. It is largely a matter of "Forgive us our trespa.s.ses as we forgive them that trespa.s.s against us." It is significant that the Russian's parting word equivalent to our "G.o.d be with you" is "Forgive!"

III

When St. Peter said to the beggar, "Silver and gold have I none, but such as I have give I thee," it is not to be thought that he hadn't a few coppers to spare. He meant, "Silver and gold are not my gifts; I have something other and more precious." Thus the apostle indicated the deeper significance of charity.

There is hospitality of the mind as well as of the hand, though both spring from the heart. Hospitality of the hand is having a home with open doors, but that of the mind is having open the temple of the soul.