The Germ Part 8

Throughout this scene, as through the whole book, no opportunity is overlooked for giving individuality to the persons introduced: Sir Hector, of whom we lose sight henceforward, the attache, the Guards-man, are not mere names, but characters: it is not enough to say that two tables were set apart "for keeper and gillie and peasant:" there is something to be added yet; and with others a.s.sembled around them were "Pipers five or six; _among them the young one, the drunkard_."

The morrow's conversation of the reading party turns on "n.o.ble ladies and rustic girls, their partners." And here speaks out Hewson the chartist:

"'Never (of course you will laugh, but of course all the same I shall say it,) Never, believe me, revealed itself to me the s.e.xual glory, Till, in some village fields, in holidays now getting stupid, One day sauntering long and listless, as Tennyson has it, Long and listless strolling, ungainly in hobbydihoyhood, Chanced it my eye fell aside on a capless bonnetless maiden, Bending with three-p.r.o.nged fork in a garden uprooting potatoes.

Was it the air? who can say? or herself? or the charm of the labor?

But a new thing was in me, and longing delicious possessed me, Longing to take her and lift her, and put her away from her slaving.

Was it to clasp her in lifting, or was it to lift her by clasping, Was it embracing or aiding was most in my mind? Hard question.

But a new thing was in me: I too was a youth among maidens.

Was it the air? who can say? But, in part, 'twas the charm of the labor.'"

And he proceeds in a rapture to talk on the beauty of household service.

Hereat Arthur remarks: "'Is not all this just the same that one hears at common room breakfasts, Or perhaps Trinity-wines, about Gothic buildings and beauty?'"--p. 13.

The character of Hobbes, called into energy by this observation, is perfectly developed in the lines succeeding:

"And with a start from the sofa came Hobbes; with a cry from the sofa, There where he lay, the great Hobbes, contemplative, corpulent, witty; Author forgotten and silent of currentest phrase and fancy; Mute and exuberant by turns, a fountain at intervals playing, Mute and abstracted, or strong and abundant as rain in the tropics; Studious; careless of dress; in.o.bservant; by smooth persuasions Lately decoyed into kilt on example of Hope and the Piper, Hope an Antinous mere, Hyperion of calves the Piper.....

"'Ah! could they only be taught,' he resumed, 'by a Pugin of women How even churning and washing, the dairy, the scullery duties, Wait but a touch to redeem and convert them to charms and attractions; Scrubbing requires for true grace but frank and artistical handling, And the removal of slops to be ornamentally treated!"--pp. 13, 14.

Here, in the tutor's answer to Hewson, we come on the moral of the poem, a moral to be pursued through commonplace lowliness of station and through high rank, into the habit of life which would be, in the one, not petty,--in the other, not overweening,--in any, calm and dignified.

"'You are a boy; when you grow to a man, you'll find things alter.

You will learn to seek the good, to scorn the attractive, Scorn all mere cosmetics, as now of rank and fashion, Delicate hands, and wealth, so then of poverty also, Poverty truly attractive, more truly, I bear you witness.

Good, wherever found, you will choose, be it humble or stately, Happy if only you find, and, finding, do not lose it.'"--p. 14.

When the discussion is ended, the party propose to separate, some proceeding on their tour; and Philip Hewson will be of these.

"'Finally, too,' from the kilt and the sofa said Hobbes in conclusion, 'Finally Philip must hunt for that home of the probable poacher, Hid in the Braes of Lochaber, the Bothie of what-did-he-call-it.

Hopeless of you and of us, of gillies and marquises hopeless, Weary of ethic and logic, of rhetoric yet more weary, There shall he, smit by the charm of a lovely potatoe-uprooter, Study the question of s.e.x in the Bothie of what-did-he-call-it."'--p.18.

The action here becomes divided; and, omitting points of detail, we must confine ourselves to tracing the development of the idea in which the subject of the poem consists.

Philip and his companions, losing their road, are received at a farm, where they stay for three days: and this experience of himself begins. He comes prepared; and, if he seems to love the "golden-haired Katie," it is less that she is "the youngest and comeliest daughter" than because of her position, and that in that she realises his preconceived wishes. For three days he is with her and about her; and he remains when his friends leave the farm-house.

But his love is no more than the consequence of his principles; it is his own will unconsidered and but half understood. And a letter to Adam tells how it had an end:

"'I was walking along some two miles from the cottage, Full of my dreamings. A girl went by in a party with others: She had a cloak on,--was stepping on quickly, for rain was beginning; But, as she pa.s.sed, from the hood I saw her eyes glance at me:-- So quick a glance, so regardless I, that, altho' I felt it, You couldn't properly say our eyes met; she cast it, and left it.

It was three minutes, perhaps, ere I knew what it was. I had seen her Somewhere before, I am sure; but that wasn't it,--not its import.

No; it had seemed to regard me with simple superior insight, Quietly saying to herself: 'Yes, there he is still in his fancy......

Doesn't yet see we have here just the things he is used to elsewhere, And that the things he likes here, elsewhere he wouldn't have looked at; People here, too, are people, and not as fairy-land creatures.

He is in a trance, and possessed,--I wonder how long to continue.

It is a shame and pity,--and no good likely to follow.'-- Something like this; but, indeed, I cannot the least define it.

Only, three hours thence, I was off and away in the moor-land, Hiding myself from myself, if I could, the arrow within me.'"--p.29.

Philip Hewson has been going on

"Even as cloud pa.s.sing subtly unseen from mountain to mountain, Leaving the crest of Benmore to be palpable next on Benvohrlich, Or like to hawk of the hill, which ranges and soars in its hunting, Seen and unseen by turns."...... And these are his words in the mountains:......

"'Surely the force that here sweeps me along in its violent impulse, Surely my strength shall be in her, my help and protection about her, Surely in inner-sweet gladness and vigor of joy shall sustain her; Till, the brief winter o'erpast, her own true sap in the springtide Rise, and the tree I have bared be verdurous e'en as aforetime: Surely it may be, it should be, it must be. Yet, ever and ever, 'Would I were dead,' I keep saying, 'that so I could go and uphold her.'"--pp. 26, 27.

And, meanwhile, Katie, among the others, is dancing and smiling still on some one who is to her all that Philip had ever been.

When Hewson writes next, his experience has reached its second stage.

He is at Balloch, with the aunt and the cousin of his friend Hope: and the lady Maria has made his beliefs begin to fail and totter, and he feels for something to hold firmly. He seems to think, at one moment, that the mere knowledge of the existence of such an one ought to compensate for lives of drudgery hemmed in with want; then he turns round on himself with, "How shall that be?" And, at length, he appeases his questions, saying that it must and should be so, if it is.

After this, come sc.r.a.ps of letters, crossed and recrossed, from the Bothie of Toper-na-fuosich. In his travelling towards home, a horse cast a shoe, and the were directed to David Mackaye. Hewson is still in the clachan hard by when he urges his friend to come to him: and he comes.

"There on the blank hill-side, looking down through the loch to the ocean; There, with a runnel beside, and pine-trees twain before it, There, with the road underneath, and in sight of coaches and steamers, Dwelling of David Mackaye and his daughters, Elspie and Bella, Sends up a column of smoke the Bothie of Toper-na-fuosich.....

"So on the road they walk, by the sh.o.r.e of the salt sea-water, Silent a youth and maid, the elders twain conversing."--pp. 36, 37.

"Ten more days, with Adam, did Philip abide at the changehouse; Ten more nights they met, they walked with father and daughter.

Ten more nights; and, night by night, more distant away were Philip and she; every night less heedful, by habit, the father."--pp. 38, 39.

From this point, we must give ourselves up to quotation; and the narrow s.p.a.ce remaining to us is our only apology to the reader for making any omission whatever in these extracts.

"For she confessed, as they sat in the dusk, and he saw not her blushes, Elspie confessed, at the sports, long ago, with her father, she saw him, When at the door the old man had told him the name of the Bothie; There, after that, at the dance; yet again at the dance in Rannoch; And she was silent, confused. Confused much rather Philip Buried his face in his hands, his face that with blood was bursting.

Silent, confused; yet by pity she conquered here fear, and continued: 'Katie is good and not silly: be comforted, Sir, about her; Katie is good and not silly; tender, but not, like many, Carrying off, and at once, for fear of being seen, in the bosom Locking up as in a cupboard, the pleasure that any man gives them, Keeping it out of sight as a prize they need be ashamed of: That is the way, I think, Sir, in England more than in Scotland.

No; she lives and takes pleasure in all, as in beautiful weather; Sorry to lose it; but just as we would be to lose fine weather.....

There were at least five or six,--not there; no, that I don't say, But in the country about,--you might just as well have been courting.

That was what gave me much pain; and (you won't remember that tho'), Three days after, I met you, beside my Uncle's walking; And I was wondering much, and hoped you wouldn't notice; So, as I pa.s.sed, I couldn't help looking. You didn't know me; But I was glad when I heard, next day, you were gone to the teacher.'

"And, uplifting his face at last, with eyes dilated, Large as great stars in mist, and dim with dabbled lashes.

Philip, with new tears starting,

'You think I do not remember,'

Said, 'suppose that I did not observe. Ah me! shall I tell you?

Elspie, it was your look that sent me away from Rannoch.'....

And he continued more firmly, altho' with stronger emotion.

'Elspie, why should I speak it? You cannot believe it, and should not.

Why should I say that I love, which I all but said to another?

Yet, should I dare, should I say, Oh Elspie you only I love, you, First and sole in my life that has been, and surely that shall be; Could, oh could, you believe it, oh Elspie, believe it, and spurn not?

Is it possible,--possible, Elspie?'

'Well,' she answered, Quietly, after her fashion, still knitting; 'Well, I think of it.

Yes, I don't know, Mr. Philip; but only it feels to me strangely,-- Like to the high new bridge they used to build at, below there, Over the burn and glen, on the road. You won't understand me.....

Sometimes I find myself dreaming at nights about arches and bridges; Sometimes I dream of a great invisible hand coming down, and Dropping a great key-stone in the middle.'....

"But while she was speaking,-- So it happened,--a moment she paused from her work, and, pondering, Laid her hand on her lap. Philip took it, she did not resist.

So he retained her fingers, the knitting being stopped. But emotion Came all over her more and more, from his hand, from her heart, and Most from the sweet idea and image her brain was renewing.

So he retained her hand, and, his tears down-dropping on it, Trembling a long time, kissed it at last: and she ended.

And, as she ended, up rose he, saying: 'What have I heard? Oh!

What have I done, that such words should be said to me? Oh! I see it, See the great key-stone coming down from the heaven of heavens.'

And he fell at her feet, and buried his face in her ap.r.o.n.

"But, as, under the moon and stars, they went to the cottage, Elspie sighed and said: 'Be patient, dear Mr. Philip; Do not do anything hasty. It is all so soon, so sudden.

Do not say anything yet to any one.'

'Elspie,' he answered, "Does not my friend go on Friday? I then shall see nothing of you: Do not I myself go on Monday? 'But oh!' he said, 'Elspie, Do as I bid you, my child; do not go on calling me _Mr._ Might I not just as well be calling you _Miss Elspie?_ Call me, this heavenly night, for once, for the first time, Philip.'

"'Philip,' she said, and laughed, and said she could not say it.