The Works of Fiona Macleod Part 3

"No."

"Then how can we two wed, for I am mortal. My very life depends on the Body. A falling branch, a whelming wave, a sudden ill, and in a moment that which was is not. He, the Body, is suddenly become inert, motionless, cold, the perquisite of the Grave, the sport of the maggot and the worm: and I--I am a subsided wave, a vanished spiral of smoke, a little fugitive wind-eddy abruptly ended."

"You know not what is the end any more than I do. In a moment we are translated."

"Ah, is it so with you? O Soul, I thought that you had a profound surety!"

"I know nothing: I believe."

"Then it may be with you as with us?"

"I know little: I believe."

"When I am well I believe in new, full, rich, wonderful life--in life in the spiritual as well as the mortal sphere. And the Body, when he is ill, he, too, thinks of that which is your heritage. But if _you_ are not sure--if _you_ know nothing--may it not be that you, too, have fed upon dreams, and have dallied with Will-o'-the-wisp, and are an idle-blown flame even as I am, and have only a vaster spiritual outlook?

May it not be that you, O Soul, are but a spiritual nerve in the dark, confused, brooding mind of Humanity? May it not be that you and I and the Body go down unto one end?"

"Not so. There is the word of G.o.d."

"We read it differently."

"Yet the Word remains."

"You believe in the immortal life?--You believe in Eternity?"

"Yes."

"Then what is Eternity?"

"Already you have asked me that!"

"You believe in Eternity. What is Eternity?"

"Continuity."

"And what are the things of Eternity?"

"Immortal desires."

"Then what need for us who are mortal to occupy ourselves with what must be for ever beyond us?"

Thereat, with a harsh laugh, the Will arose, and throwing his garments from him, plunged into the sunlit green water, with sudden cries of joy calling to the Body, who was still rejoicefully swimming in the sun-dazzle as he breasted the tide.

An hour later we rose, and, silent again, once more resumed our way.

IV

It was about the middle of the afternoon that we moved inland, because of a difficult tract of cliff and bouldered sh.o.r.e. We followed the course of a brown torrent, and were soon under the shadow of the mountain. The ewes and lambs made incessantly that mournful crying, which in mountain solitudes falls from ledge to ledge as though it were no other than the ancient sorrow of the hills.

Thence we emerged, walking among boulders green with moss and grey with lichen, often isled among bracken and shadowed by the wind-wavering birches, or the finger-leafed rowans already heavy with cl.u.s.ters of ruddy fruit. Sometimes we spoke of things which interested us: of the play of light and shadow in the swirling brown torrent along whose banks we walked, and by whose grayling-haunted pools we lingered often, to look at the beautiful shadowy unrealities of the perhaps not less shadowy reality which they mirrored: of the solemn dusk of the pines; of the mauve shadows which slanted across the scanty corn that lay in green patches beyond lonely crofts; of the travelling purple phantoms of phantom clouds, to us invisible, over against the mountain-b.r.e.a.s.t.s; of a solitary seamew, echoing the wave in that inland stillness.

All these things gave us keen pleasure. The Body often laughed joyously, and talked of chasing the shadow till it should turn and leap into him, and he be a wild creature of the woods again, and be happy, knowing nothing but the incalculable hour. It is an old belief of the Gaelic hill-people.

"If one yet older be true," said the Will, speaking to the Soul, "you and Shadow are one and the same. Nay, the mystery of the Trinity is symbolised here again--as in us three; for there is an ancient forgotten word of an ancient forgotten people, which means alike the Breath, the Shadow, and the Soul."[1]

As we walked onward we became more silent. It was about the sixth hour from noon that we saw a little coast-town lying amid green pastures, overhung, as it seemed, by the tremulous blue band of the sea-line. The Body was glad, for here were friends, and he wearied for his kind. The Will and the Soul, too, were pleased, for now they shared the common lot of mortality, and knew weariness as well as hunger and thirst. So we moved towards the blue smoke of the homes.

"The home of a wild dove, a branch swaying in the wind, is sweet to it; and the green bracken under a granite rock is home to a tired hind; and so we, who are wayfarers idler than these, which blindly obey the law, may well look to yonder village as our home for to-night."

So spoke the Soul.

The Body laughed blithely. "Yes," he added, "it is a cheerier home than the green bracken. Tell me, have you ever heard of The Three Companions of Night?"

"The Three Companions of Night? I would take them to be Prayer, and Hope, and Peace."

"So says the Soul--but what do _you_ say, O Will?"

"I would take them to be Dream, and Rest, and Longing."

"We are ever different," replied the Body, with a sigh, "for the Three Companions of whom I speak are Laughter, and Wine, and Love."

"Perhaps we mean the same thing," muttered the Will, with a smile of bitter irony.

We thought much of these words as we pa.s.sed down a sandy lane hung with honeysuckles, which were full of little birds who made a sweet chittering.

Prayer, and Hope, and Peace; Dream, and Rest, and Longing; Laughter, and Wine, and Love: were these a.n.a.logues of the Heart's Desire?

When we left the lane, where we saw a glow-worm emitting a pale fire as he moved through the green dusk in the shadow of the hedge, we came upon a white devious road. A young man stood by a pile of stones. He stopped his labour and looked at us. One of us spoke to him.

"Why is it that a man like yourself, young and strong, should be doing this work, which is for broken men?"

"Why are you breathing?" he asked abruptly.

"We breathe to live," answered the Body, smiling blithely.

"Well, I break stones to live."

"Is it worth it?"

"It's better than death."

"Yes," said the Body slowly, "it is better than death."

"Tell me," asked the Soul, "why is it better than death?"

"Who wants not to want?"

"Ah--it is the need to want, then, that is strongest!"