Sir John Constantine Part 18

My father laid a hand on his shoulder. "Tut, tut! Cannot you see that I was not reproaching, but rather daring to commend you for an exemplar? There is a slackness which comes of weak will; but there is another and a very n.o.ble slackness which proceeds from the two strongest things on earth, confidence and charity; charity, which naturally inclines to be long-suffering, and confidence which, having a.s.surance in its cause, dares to trust that natural inclination.

Dissent in the first generation is usually admirable and almost always respectable: men don't leave the Church for fun, but because they have thought and discovered, as they believe, something amiss in her--something which in nine cases out of ten she would be the better for considering. But dissent in the second and third generation usually rests on bad temper, which is not admirable at all, though often excusable because the Church's persecution has produced it.

Believe me, my dear Vicar, that if all the bishops followed your example and slept on their wrath against heresy, they would wake up and find nine-tenths of the heretics back in the fold. Indeed I wish your good lady would let you pack your nightcap and come with us.

You could hire a curate over from Falmouth."

"Could I write my pamphlet at sea?"

"No: but, better still, by the time you returned the necessity for it would be over."

The Vicar smiled. "_You_ counsel lethargy?--you, who in an hour or two start for Corsica, and with no more to-do than if bound on a picnic!"

"Ay, but for love," answered my father. "In love no man can be too prompt."

"I believe you, sir," hiccuped Mr. Fett, who had been drinking more than was good for him. "And so, begad, does your man Priske.

Did any one mark, just now, how like a shooting star he glided in the night from Venus' eye? Love, sir?" he turned to me. "The tender pa.s.sion? Is that our little game? Is _that_ the face that launched a thousand ships and burnt the topless towers of Ilium? O Troy!

O Helen! You'll permit me to add, with a glance at our friend Priske's predicament, O Dido! At five shillings _per diem_ I realize the twin ambitions of a life-time and combine the supercargo with the buck. Well, well! _cherchez la femme!_"

"You p.r.o.nounce it 'share-shay?'" inquired Mr. Badc.o.c.k. "Now I have seen it spelt the same as in 'church.'"

"The same as in ch--?" Mr. Fett fixed him with a gla.s.sy but reproachful eye. "Badc.o.c.k, you are premature, premature and indelicate."

Here my father interposed and, heading the talk back to the Methodists, soon had the Vicar and the little p.a.w.nbroker in full cry--parson and clerk antiphonal, "matched in mouth like bells"--on church discipline; which gave him opportunity, while Nat and I at our end of the table exchanged the converse and silences of friendship, to confer with my Uncle Gervase and run over a score of parting instructions on the management of the estate, the ordering of the household, and, in particular, the entertainment of our Trappist guests. Perceiving with the corner of his eye that we two were restless to leave the table, he pushed the bottle towards us.

"My lads," said he, "when the drinking tires let the talk no longer detain you."

We thanked him, and with a glance at Mr. Fett--who had fallen asleep with his head on his arms--stepped out upon the moonlit terrace.

I waited for Nat to speak and give me a chance to have it out with him, if he doubted (as he must, methought) my father's sanity.

But he gazed over the park at our feet, the rolling shadows of the woodland, the far estuary where one moonray trembled, and stretching out both hands drew the spiced night-air into his lungs with a sob.

"O Prosper!"

"You are wondering where to find your room?" said I, as he turned and glanced up at the grey glimmering facade. "The simplest way is to pick up the first lantern you see in the hall, light it, walk upstairs, enter what room you choose and take possession of its bed.

You have five hours to sleep, if you need sleep. Or shall I guide you?"

"No," said he; "the first is the only way in this enchanted house.

But I was thinking that by rights, while we are standing here, those windows should blaze with lights and break forth with the noise of dancing and minstrelsy. To such a castle, high against such a velvet night as this, would Sir Lancelot come, or Sir Gawain, or Sir Perceval, at the close of a hard day."

"Wait for the dawn, lad, and you will find it rather the castle overgrown with briers."

"And, in the heart of them, the Rose!"

"You will find no Sleeping Beauty, though you hunt through all its rooms. She lies yonder, Nat, somewhere out beyond the sea there."

"In a few hours we sail to her. O Prosper, and we will find her!

This is better than any dream, lad: and this is life!"

He gazed into my eyes for a moment in the moonlight, turned on his heel, and strode away from me toward the great door, which--like every door in the house--stood wide all the summer night. I was staring at the shadow of the porch into which he had disappeared, when my father touched my elbow.

"There goes a good lad," said he, quietly.

"And my best friend."

"He has sobered down strangely from the urchin I remember on Winchester meads; and in the sobering he has grown exalted.

A man might almost say," mused my father, "that the imp in him had shed itself off and taken flesh in that Master Fett I left snoring with his head on my dining-table. An earthy spirit, that Master Fett; earthy and yet somewhat inhuman. Your Nat Fiennes has the clue of life--if only Atropos do not slit it."

Here the Vicar came out to take his leave, winding about his neck and throat the comforter he always wore as a protective against the night-air. It appeared later that he was nettled by Mr. Badc.o.c.k's collapsing beneath the table just as they had reached No. XX. of the Thirty-nine Articles and pa.s.sed it through committee by consent.

"G.o.d bless you, lad!" said he, and shook my hand. "In seeking your kingdom you start some way ahead of Saul the son of Kish. You have already discovered your father's a.s.ses."

He trudged away across the dewy park and was soon lost in the darkness. In the dim haze under the moon, having packed Mr. Badc.o.c.k and Mr. Fett in a hand-cart, we trundled them down to the sh.o.r.e and lifted them aboard. They resisted not, nor stirred.

By three o'clock our dispositions were made and Captain Pomery professed himself ready to cast off. I returned to the house for the last time, to awake and fetch Nat Fiennes. As I crossed the wet sward the day broke and a lark sprang from the bracken and soared above me singing. But I went hanging my head, heavy with lack of sleep.

I tried five rooms and found them empty. In the sixth Nat lay stretched upon a tattered silk coverlet. He sprang up at my touch and felt for his sword.

"Past three o'clock and fine clear mornin'!" sang I, mimicking the Oxford watch, and with my foot the tap of his staff as he had used to pa.s.s along Holy well.

"Hey! now the day dawis, The jolly c.o.c.k crawis--"

"The wind will head us in the upper reach: but beyond it blows fair for Corsica!"

He leapt to his feet and laughed, blithe as the larks now chorussing outside the window. But my head was heavy, and somehow my heart too, as we walked down to the sh.o.r.e.

My Uncle Gervase stood on the gra.s.s-grown quay; my father on the deck. They had already said their goodbyes. With his right hand my uncle took mine, at the same time laying his left on my shoulder; and said he--

"Farewell, lad. The rivers in Corsica be short and eager, as I hear; and slight fishing in them near the coast, the banks being overgrown.

But it seems there are good trout, and in the mountain pools.

"Whether they be the same as our British trout I cannot discover.

I desire you to make certain. Also if the sardines of those parts be the same as our Cornish pilchards, but smaller. Belike they start from the Mediterranean Sea and reach their full size on our coasts.

"The migrations of fishes are even less understood than those of the birds. Yet both (being annual) will teach you, if you consider them, to think little of this parting. G.o.d knows, lad, how sorely I spare you.

"Do justice, observe mercy, and walk humbly before thy G.o.d. This if they should happen to make you king, as your father promises.

"They have an animal very like a sheep, but wilder and fiercer.

If you have the luck to shoot one, I shall be glad of his skin.

"'Twill be a job here, making two ends meet. But as our Lord said, Sufficient for the day is its evil. I have put a bottle of tar-water in your berth.

"I have often wished to set eyes on the Mediterranean Sea.

A sea without tides must be but half a sea--speaking with all respect to the Almighty, who made it.

"You will pick up the wind in the lower reach.

"There was a trick or two of fence I taught you aforetime.

I had meant to remind you of 'em. But enough, lad. Shake hands.

. . . The Lord have you in His keeping!"