Henry Brocken Part 12

--WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR.

Surely some hueless poppy blossomed in the darkness of those ruins, or the soulless ashes of the dead breathe out a drowsy influence. Never have I slept so heavily, yet never perhaps beneath so cold a tester.

Sunbeams streaming between the crests of the cypresses awoke me. I leapt up as if a hundred sentinels had shouted--where none kept visible watch.

An odour of a languid sweetness pervaded the air. There was no wind to stir the dew-besprinkled trees. The old, scarred gravestones stood in a thick sunshine, afloat with bees. But Rosinante had preferred to survey sunshine out of shade. In lush gra.s.s I found her, the picture of age, foot crook'd, and head dejected.

Yet she followed me uncomplaining along these narrow avenues of silence, and without more ado turned her trivial tail on Death and his dim flocks, and well-nigh scampered me off into the vivid morning.

Soon afterwards, with Hunger in the saddle, we began to climb a road almost precipitous, and stony in the extreme. Often enough we breathed ourselves as best we could in the still, sultry air, and rested on the sun-dappled slopes. But at length we came out upon the crest, and surveyed in the first splendour of day a region of extraordinary grandeur.

Beneath a clear sky to the east stood a range of mountains, cold and changeless beneath their snows. At my feet a great river flowed, broken here and there with isles in the bright flood. The dark champaign that flanked its sh.o.r.es was of an unusual verdure. Mystery and peril brooded on those distant ravines, the vapours of their far-descending cataracts. In such abysmal fastnesses as these the Hyrcan tiger might hide his surly generations. This was an air for the sun-disdaining eagle, a country of transcendent brightness, its flowers strangely pure and perfect, its waters more limpid, its grazing herds, its birds, its cedar trees, the masters of their kind.

Yet not on these nearer glories my eyes found rest. But, with a kind of heartache, I gazed, as it were towards home, upon the distant waters 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 strange syllables? I know not; but so seemed I to stand--a shattered instrument in the world, past all true music, o'er which none the less the invisible lute-master stooped. Could I but catch, could I but in words express the music his bent fingers intended, the mystery, the peace--well; then I should indeed journey solitary on the face of the earth, a changeling in its cities.

I half feared to descend into a country so diverse from any I had yet seen. Hitherto at least I had encountered little else than friendliness. But here--doves in eyries! I stood, twisting my fingers in Rosinante's mane, debating and debating. And she turned her face to me, and looked with age into my eyes: and I know not how woke courage in me again.

"On then?" I said, on the height. And the gentle beast leaned forward and coughed into the valley what might indeed be "Yea!"

So we began to descend. Down we went, alone, yet not unhappy, until in a while I discovered, about a hundred yards in advance of me, another traveller on the road, ambling easily along at an equal pace with mine. I know not how far I followed in his track debating whether to overtake and to accost him, or to follow on till a more favourable chance offered.

But Chance--avenger of all shilly-shally--settled the matter offhand.

For my traveller, after casting one comprehensive glance towards the skies, suddenly whisked off at a canter that quickly carried him out of sight.

A chill wind had begun to blow, lifting in gusts dust into the air and whitening the tree-tops. As suddenly, calm succeeded. A cloud of flies 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, far above the earth, moaned, and fell; only to sound once more in the distance in a mournful trumpeting. Lightnings played along the desolate hills. The sun was darkened. A vast flight of snowy, arrow-winged birds streamed voiceless beneath his place. And day withdrew its boundaries, spread to the nearer forests a bright amphitheatre, fitful with light, whereof it seemed to me Rosinante with her poor burden was the centre and the b.u.t.t. I confess I began to dread lest even my mere surmise of danger should engage the piercing lightnings; as if in the mystery of life storm and a timorous thought might yet be of a kin.

We hastened on at the most pathetic of gallops. Nor seemed indeed the beauteous lightning to regard at all that restless mote upon the cirque of its entranced fairness. In an instantaneous silence I heard a tiny beat of hoofs; in instantaneous gloom recognised almost with astonishment my own shape bowed upon the saddle. It was a majestic entry into a kingdom so far-famed.

The storm showed no abatement when at last I found shelter. From far away I had espied in the immeasurable glare a country barn beneath trees. Arrived there, I almost fell off my horse into as incongruous and lighthearted a company as ever was seen.

In the midst of the floor of the barn, upon a heap of hay, sat a fool in motley blowing with all his wind into a pipe. It was a cunning tune he played too, rich and heady. And so seemed the company to find it, dancers--some thirty or more--capering round him with all the abandon heart can feel and heel can answer to. As for pose, he whose horse now stood smoking beside my own first drew my attention--a smooth, small-bearded, solemn man, a little beyond his prime. He lifted his toes with such inimitable agility, postured his fingers so daintily, conducted his melon-belly with so much elegance, and exhaled such a warm joy in the sport that I could look at nothing else at first for delight in him.

But there were slim maids too among the plumper and ruddier, like crocuses, like lilac, like whey, with all their fragrance and freshness and lightness. Such eyes adazzle dancing with mine, such nimble and discreet ankles, such gimp English middles, and such a gay delight in the mere grace of the lilting and tripping beneath rafters ringing loud with thunder, that Pan himself might skip across a hundred furrows for sheer envy to witness.

As for the jolly rustics that were jogging their wits away with such delightful gravity, but little time was given me to admire them ere I also was s.n.a.t.c.hed into the ring, and found brown eyes dwelling with mine, and a hand like lettuces in the dog-days. Round and about we skipped in the golden straw, amidst treasuries of hay, puffing and spinning. And the quiet lightnings quivered between the beams, and the monstrous "Ah!" of the thunder submerged the pipe's sweetness.

Till at last all began to gasp and blow indeed, and the nodding Fool to sip, and sip, as if _in extremis_ over his mouthpiece. Then we rested awhile, with a medley of shrill laughter and guffaws, while the rain streamed lightning-lit upon the trees and tore the clouds to tatters.

With some little circ.u.mstance my traveller picked his way to me, and with a grave civility bowed me a sort of general welcome. Whereupon ensued such wit and banter as made me thankful when the opening impudence of a kind of jig set the heels and the petticoats of the company tossing once more. We danced the lightning out, and piped the thunder from the skies. And by then I was so faint with fasting, and so deep in love with at least five young country faces, that I scarcely knew head from heels; still less, when a long draught of a kind of thin, sweet ale had mounted to its sphere.

Away we all trooped over the flashing fields, noisy as jays in the fresh, sweet air, some to their mowing, some to their milking, but more, indeed, I truly suspect, to that exquisite _Nirvana_ from which the tempest's travail had aroused them. I waved my hand, striving in vain to keep my eyes on one blest, beguiling face of all that glanced behind them. But, she gone, I turned into the rainy lane once more with 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 black fish-pool--and soon the tumbledown gables of a house came into view.

My companion waved his open fingers at the crooked cas.e.m.e.nts and peered into my face.

"Ah!" he said, "we will talk, we will talk, you and I: I view it in your eye, sir--clear and full and profound--such ever goes with eloquence. 'Tis my delight. What are we else than beasts?--beasts that perish? 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-n.o.b with his mare over a friendly bottle of hay. And we ourselves pa.s.sed into the house, and ascended a staircase into an upper chamber. This chamber was raftered, its walls hung with an obscure tapestry, its floor strewn with sand, and its lozenged cas.e.m.e.nt partly shuttered against the blaze of sunshine that flowed 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 to consider it, methought I did hear hoofs behind me that might yet be echo. No, but I did _not_ think: 'twas but my ear cried to his dreaming master. Ever dreaming; G.o.d help at last the awakening! But well met, well met, I say again. I am cheered. And you but just in time! 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 for such freaks. Once!... '_Memento mori_!' say I, and smell the shower the sweeter for it. Be seated, sir, bench or stool, wheresoever you'd be. You're looking peaked. That burden rings in my skull like a bagpipe. Toot-a-tootie, toot-a-toot! Och, sad days!"

We devoured our meal of cold meats and pickled fish, fruit and junket and a kind of harsh cheese, as if in contest for a wager. And copious was the thin spicy wine with which we swam it home. Ever and again my host would desist, to whistle, or croon (with a packed mouth) in the dismallest of tenors, a stave or two of the tune we had danced to, bobbing head and foot in sternest time. Then a great vacancy would overspread his face turned to the window, as suddenly to gather to a cheerful smile, and light, irradiated, once more on me. Then down would drop his chin over his plate, and away go finger and spoon among his victuals in a dance as brisk and whole-hearted as the other.

He took me out again into his garden after supper, and we walked beneath the trees.

"'Tis bliss to be a bachelor, sir," he said, gazing on the resinous trunk of an old damson tree. "I gorge, I guzzle; I am merry, am melancholy; studious, harmonical, drowsy,--and none to scold or deny me. For the rest, why, youth is vain: yet youth had pleasure--innocence and delight. I chew the cud of many a peaceful acre. Ay, I have nibbled roses in my time. But now, what now? I have lived so long far from courts and courtesy, grace and fashion, and am so much my own close and indifferent friend--Why! he is happy who has solitude for housemate, company for guest. I say it, I say it; I marry daily 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 cheerless threnody, but he brightened once more at praise of his delightful orchard.

"You like it, sir? You speak kindly, sir. It is my all; root and branch: how many a summer's moons have I seen shine hereon! I know it--there is bliss to come;--miraculous Paradise for men even dull as I. Yet 'twill be strange to me--without my house and orchard. Age tends to earth, sir, till even an odour may awake the dead--a branch in the air call with its fluttering a face beyond Time to vanquish dear. 'Soul, soul,' I cry, 'forget thy dust, forget thy vaunting ashes!'--and speak in vain. So's life!"

And when we had gone in again, and candles had been lit in his fresh and narrow chamber, seeing a viol upon a chest, I begged a little music.

He quite eagerly, with a boyish peal of laughter, complied; and sat down with a very solemn face, his brows uplifted, and sang between the candles 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 the virginals. 'Cold to bosom,'" he reiterated with a plangent cadence; "I remember them all, sir; from the cradle I had a gift for music." And then, 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 adroitly to the mimicry of beasts and birds upon his frets. Never have I seen a face so consummately the action's. His every fibre answered to the call; his eyebrows twitched like an orator's; his very nose was plastic.

"Hst!" he cried softly; "hither struts chanticleer!"

"c.o.c.k-a-diddle-doo!" crowed the wire. "Now, prithee, Dame Partlett!"

and down bustled a hen from an egg like cinnamon. A cat with kittens mewed along the string, anxious and tender.