Orpheus in Mayfair, and Other Stories and Sketches Part 9

The ancients, he thought, knew how to bear misfortune.

Levius fit patientia Quidquid corrigere est nefas.

As the words occurred to him he thought how much better equipped he was for the bitter trial, since had he not the certain hope of another life, and of meeting his beloved in the s.p.a.ces of endless felicity? Surely then he should be able to bear his sorrow with as great a fort.i.tude as the pagan poets, who looked forward to nothing but the dust; to whom the fabled dim country beyond the Styx was a cheerless dream, and to whom a living dog upon the earth was more worthy of envy than the King of all Elysium. He must learn of the ancients.

The magic of the lemon-coloured dawn had vanished now before the swift daylight. Many bells were ringing in the city, and the first signs of life were stirring in the streets. He searched for a little book, and read of the consolation which Cicero gave to Laelius in the _De Amicitia_. But he had not read many lines before he closed the book. His wound was too fresh for the balm of reason and philosophy.

"Later," he thought, "this will strengthen and help me, but not to-day; to-day my wound must bleed and be allowed to bleed, for all the philosophy in the world cannot lessen the fact that yesterday she was and to-day she is not."

He felt a desire to escape from his room, which had been the chapel of such holy prayers, the shrine where so many fervent tapers of hope had burnt, where so sweet an incense of dream had risen. He left his room and hurried down the narrow stone stairs into the street. As he left the house he turned to his right and walked on till he reached Or San Michele; there he turned to his right again and walked straight on till he reached the churches of Santa Reparata and San Giovanni. He entered San Giovanni and said a brief prayer; then he took the nearest street, east of Santa Reparata, to the Porta a ballo, and found himself beyond the walls of the city. He walked towards Fiesole.

The glory of the sunrise was still in the sky, the fragrance of the dawning summer (it was the 11th of June) was in the air. He walked towards the East. The corn on the hills was green, and pink wild roses fringed every plot of wheat. The gra.s.s was wet with dew. The city glittered in the plain beneath, clean and fresh in the dazzling air; it seemed a part of the pageant of summer, an unreal piece of imagery, distinct and clear-cut, yet miraculous, like a mirage seen in mid-ocean.

"Truly," he thought, "this is the city of the flower, and the lily is its fitting emblem."

But while his heart went out towards his native town he felt a sharp pang as he remembered that the flower of flowers, the queen of the lilies, had been mowed down by the scythe, and the city which to him had heretofore been an altar was now a tomb. The lovely Virgilian dirge,

Manibus date lilia plenis . . .

His saltem acc.u.mulem donis et fungar inani Munere,

rang in his ears, and he thought that he too must bring a gift and scatter lilies on her grave; handfuls of lilies; but they must be unfading flowers, wet with immortal tears. He pondered on this gift.

It must be a gift of song, a temple built in verse. But he was still unsatisfied. No dirge, however tender and solemn; no elegy, however soft and majestic; no song, however piteous, could be a sufficient offering for the glorious being who had died in her youth and beauty. But what could he fashion or build? He thought with envy of Arnolfo and of Giotto: the one with his bricks could have built a tomb which would prove to be one of the wonders of the world, and the other with his brush could have fixed her features for ever, for the wonder of future generations. And yet was not his instrument the most potent of all, his vehicle the most enduring? Stones decayed, and colours faded, but verse remained, outliving bronze and marble. Yes, his monument should be more lasting than all the masterpieces of Giotto, than all the proud designs of Arnolfo; but how should it be?

He had reached a narrow lane at the foot of a steep hill covered with corn and dotted with olives. He lay down under a hedge in the shade.

The sun was shining on two large bramble bushes which grew on the hedge opposite him. Above him, on his right, was a tall cypress tree standing by itself, and the corn plots stretched up behind him till they reached the rocky summits tufted with firs. Between the two bramble bushes a spider had spun a large web, and he was sitting in the midst of it awaiting his prey. But the bramble and the web were still wet with the morning dew, whose little drops glistened in the sunshine like diamonds.

Every tiny thread and filament of the web was dewy and lit by the newly-awakened sun. He lay on his back in the shade and pondered on the shape and nature of his gift of song, and on the deathless flowers that he must grow and gather and lay upon her tomb.

The spider's web caught his eye, and from where he lay the sight was marvellous. The spider seemed like a small globe of fire in the midst of a number of concentric silvery lines studded with dewy gems; it was like a miniature sun in the midst of a system of gleaming stars. The delicate web with its shining films and dewdrops seemed to him as he lay there to be a vision of the whole universe, with all its worlds and stars revolving around the central orb of light. It was as though a veil had been torn away and he were looking on the naked glory of the spheres, the heart of Heaven, the very home of G.o.d.

He looked and looked, his whole spirit filled with ineffable awe and breathless humility. He lay gazing on the chance miracle of nature till a pa.s.sing cloud obscured the sun, and the spider's web wore once more its ordinary appearance. Then he arose with tears in his eyes and gave a great sigh of thankfulness.

"I have found it," he thought, "I will say of her what has never yet been said of any woman. I will paint all h.e.l.l, all Purgatory, and all that is in them, to make more glorious the glory of her abode, and I will reveal to man that glory. I will show her in the circle of spotless flame, among the rivers and rings of eternal light, which revolve around the inmost heart, the fiery rose, and move obedient to the Love which moves the sun." And his thought shaped itself into verse and he murmured to himself:

L'amor che muove il sole e l'altre stelle.

EDWARD II. AT BERKELEY CASTLE BY AN EYE-WITNESS (With apologies to Mr.

H. Belloc)

The King had not slept for three nights. He looked at his face in the muddy pool of water which had settled in the worn flagstones of his prison floor, and noticed that his beard was of a week's growth. Beads of sweat stood on his forehead, and his eyes were bloodshot. In the room next door, which was the canteen, the soldiers were playing on a drum.

Over the tall hills the dawn was ruffling the clouds. There was a faint glimmer on the waters of the river. The footsteps of the gaolers were heard on the outer rampart. At seven o'clock they brought the King a good dinner: they allowed him burgundy from France, and yellow mead, and white bread baked in the ovens of the Abbey, although he was constrained to drink out of pewter, and plates were forbidden him. Eustace, his page, timidly offered him music. The King bade him sing the "Lay of the Suss.e.x La.s.s," which begins thus:

Triumphant, oh! triumphant now she stands, Above my Suss.e.x, and above my sea!

She stretches out her thin ulterior hands Across the morning . . .

But the King, to whom memories were portentous, called for another song and Eustace sang a stave of that ballad which was made on the Pyrenees, and which is still unfinished (for the modern world has no need of these things), telling of how Lord Raymond drank in a little tent with Charlemagne:

Enormous through the morning the tall battalions run: The men who fought with Charlemagne are very dearly done; The wine is dark beneath the night, the stars are in the sky, The hammer's in the blacksmith's hand in case he wants to try.

We'll ride to Fontarabia, we'll storm the stubborn wall, And I call.

And Uriel and his Seraphim are hammering a shield; And twice along the valley has the horn of Roland pealed; And Cleopatra on the Nile, Iseult in Brittany, And Lancelot in Camelot, and Drake upon the sea; And behind the young Republic are the fellows with the flag, And I brag!

The King listlessly opened his eyes and said that he had no stomach for such song, and from the next door came the mutter of the drums. For on that night--which was Candlemas--Thursday, or as we should now call it "Friday"--the gaolers were keeping holiday, and drinking English beer brewed in Suss.e.x; for the beer of West England was not to their liking, as any one who has walked down the old Roman Road through Daglingworth, Brimpsfield, and Birdlip towards Cardigan on a warm summer's day can know. For a man may tramp that road and stop and ask for drink at an inn, and receive nothing but Imperialist whisky, and drinks that annoy rather than satisfy the great thirst of a Christian.

Outside, a little breeze had crept out of the West. The morning star was paling over the Quantock Hills, and the King was mortally weary. "This day three years ago," he thought, "I was spurred and harnessed for the lists in a tunic of mail, with an emerald on my shoulder-strap, and I was tilting with my lord of Cleremont before Queen Isabella of France.

The birds were singing in Touraine, and the sun was beating on the lists; and the minstrels of Val-es-Dunes were chanting the song of the men who died for the Faith when they stormed Jerusalem. What is the lilt of that song," said the King, "which the singers of Val-es-Dunes sang?"

And Eustace pondered, for his memory was weak and he was overwrought by nights of watching and days of vigilance; but presently he touched his strings and sang:

The captains came from Normandy In clamorous ships across the sea; And from the trees in Gascony The masts were cloven, tall and free.

And Turpin swung the helm and sang; And stars like all the bells at Brie From cloudy steeples rang.

The rotten leaves are whirling down Dishevelled from September's crown; The Emperors have left the town; The Weald of Suss.e.x, burnt and brown, Is trampled by the kings.

And Harmuth gallops up the Down, And, as he rides, he sings.

He sings of battles and of wine, Of boats that leap the bellowing brine, Of April eyes that smile and shine, Of Raymond and Lord Catiline And Carthage by the sea, Of saints, and of the Muses Nine That dwell in Gascony.

And to the King, as he heard this stave, came visions of his youth; of how he had galloped from Woodstock to Stonesfield on a night of June within eleven hours, with a company of minstrels, and of how during that long feast at Arundel he made a song in the vernacular in praise of St.

Anselm. And he remembered that he owed a candle to that saint. For he had vowed that if the wife of Westermain should meet him after the tournament he would burn a tall candle at Canterbury before Michaelmas.

But this had escaped his mind, for it had been tossed hither and thither during days of conflict which had come later, and he was not loth to believe that the neglect of this service and the idle vow had been corner-stone of his misfortunes, and had helped to bring about his miserable plight.

While these threads of memory glimmered in his mind the small tallow rush-light which lit the dungeon flickered and went out. The chapel clock struck six. The King made a gesture which meant that the time of music was over, and Eustace went back to the canteen, where the men of the guard were playing at dice by the light of smoky rush-lights. The King lay down on his wooden pallet, whose linen was delicate and of lawn, embroidered with his own cipher and crown. The pillow, which was stuffed with scented rushes, was delicious to the cheek, and yielding.

All that night in London Queen Isabella had been waiting for the news from France. A storm was blowing across the Channel, and the ships (their pilots were Germans, and bungled in reading the stars) making for the port turned back towards Dunquerque. It was a storm such as, if you are in a small boat, turns you back from Broughty Ferry to the Goodwin Sands. The Queen, who took counsel of no one, was in two minds as to her daring deed, and her hostage trembled in an uncertain grasp. In Saxony the banished favourites talked wildly, cursing the counsels of London; but Saxony was heedless and unmoved. And Piers Gaveston spoke heated words in vain.

The King, who was in that lethargic state of slumber, between sleep and waking, heard a shuffle of steps beyond the door; a cold sweat broke once more on his forehead, and he waved his left hand listlessly.

Outside the sun had risen, and a broad daylight flooded the wet meadows and the br.i.m.m.i.n.g tide of the Severn, catching the sails of the boats that were heeling and trembling on the ripple of the water, which was stirred by the South wind. The King looked towards the window with weariness, expecting, as far as his lethargy allowed, the advent of another monotonous day.

The door opened. The faces he saw by the gaoler's torch were not those he expected. The King, I say, looked towards them, and his hands trembled, and the moisture on them glistened. They were dark, and one of them was concealed by a silken mask.

Three men entered the dungeon. In the hands of the foremost of the three glowed a red-hot iron, which was to be the manner of his doom.

THE ISLAND

"Perhaps we had better not land after all," said Lewis as he was stepping into the boat; "we can explore this island on our way home."

"We had much better land now," said Stewart; "we shall get to Teneriffe to-morrow in any case. Besides, an island that's not on the chart is too exciting a thing to wait for."

Lewis gave in to his younger companion, and the two ornithologists, who were on their way to the Canary Islands in search of eggs, were rowed to sh.o.r.e.

"They had better fetch us at sunset," said Lewis as they landed.

"Perhaps we shall stay the night," responded Stewart.