Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida Part 17

Ambrose bent his head, silently.

"When wur't?"

"Last simmar-time, i' th' aftermath."

"It were a ston' as killed him?"

"Ay," said Ambrose, softly shading his eyes with his hand from the sun that streamed through the aisles of pine.

"How wur't?"

"They was a blastin'. He'd allus thoct as he'd dee that way, you know.

They pit mair pooder i' quarry than common; and the ston' it split, and roared, and crackit, wi' a noise like tha crack o' doom. And one bit on 't, big as ox, were shot i' th' air, an' fell, unlookit for like, and dang him tew the groun', and crus.h.i.t him,--a-lyin' richt athwart his brist."

"An' they couldna stir it?"

"They couldna. I heerd tha other min screech richt tew here, an' I knew what it wur, tha shrill screech comin' jist i' top o' tha blastin' roar; an' I ran, an' ran--na gaze-hound fleeter. An' we couldna raise it--me an' Tam, an' Job, an' Gideon o' the Mere, an' Moses Legh o' Wissen Edge, a' strong min and i' our prime. We couldna stir it, till Moses o' Wissen Edge he thoct o' pittin' fir-poles underneath--poles as was sharp an'

slim i' thur ends, an' stout an' hard further down. Whin tha poles was weel thrust under we heaved, an' heaved, an' heaved, and got it slanted o' one side, and drawed him out; an' thin it were too late, too late! A'

tha brist was crus.h.i.t in--frushed flesh and bone together. He jist muttered i' his throat, 'Tha little la.s.s, tha little la.s.s!' and then he turned him on his side, and hid his face upo' the sod. When we raised him he wur dead."

The voice of Ambrose sank very low; and where he leaned over his smithy door the tears fell slowly down his sun-bronzed cheeks.

"Alack a day!" sighed Daffe, softly. "Sure a better un niver drew breath i' the varsal world!"

"An' that's trew," Ambrose made answer, his voice hushed and very tender.

"He was varra changed like," murmured Daffe, his hand wandering amongst the golden blossoms of the stonecrop. "He niver were the same crittur arter the la.s.s went awa'. He niver were the same--niver. Ta seemed tew mak an auld man o' him a' at once."

"It did," said Ambrose, brokenly. "He couldna bear tew look na tew spik to nane o' us. He were bent i' body, an' gray o' head, that awfu' night when he kem back fra' the waking. It were fearfu' tew see; and we couldna dew naught. Th' ony thing as he'd take tew were Trust."

"Be dog alive?"

"Na. Trust he'd never quit o' Ben's grave. He wouldna take bit na drop.

He wouldna be touchit; not whin he was clem would he be tempted awa'.

And he died--jist tha fifth day arter his master."

"An' the wench? Hev' 'ee e'er heerd on her?"

"Niver--niver. Mappen she's dead and gone tew. She broke Ben's heart for sure; long ere tha ston' crus.h.i.t life out o't."

"And wheer may he lie?"

Ambrose clenched his brawny hand, his eyes darkened, his swarthy face flushed duskily.

"Wheer? What think 'ee, Daffe? When we took o' him up for the burial, ta tha church ower theer beyant tha wood, the pa.s.son he stoppit us, a' tha gate of tha buryin' field. The pa.s.son he med long words, and sed as how a unb'liever sud niver rest i' blessed groun', sin he willna iver enter into the sight o' tha Lord. He sed as how Ben were black o' heart and wicked o' mind, an' niver set fute i' church-door, and niver ate o' tha sacrament bread, and niver not thocht o' G.o.d nor o' Devil; an' he wouldna say tha rites o'er him an' 'twere iver so, an' he wouldna let him lie i' tha holy earth, nor i' tha pale o' tha graveyard. Well, we couldna gae agin him--we poor min, an' he a squire and pa.s.son tew. Sae we took him back, five weary mile; and we brocht him here, and we dug his grave under them pines, and we pit a cross o' tha bark to mark the place, and we laid old Trust, when he died, by his side. I were mad with grief like, thin; it were awfu' ta ha' him forbad Christian burial."

"Dew it matter?" asked the gentle Daffe, wistfully. He had never been within church-doors himself.

Ambrose gave a long troubled sigh.

"Aweel! at first it seemed awfu'--awfu'! And to think as Ben 'ud niver see the face o' his G.o.d was mair fearfu' still. But as time gees on and on--I can see his grave fra' here, tha cross we cut is tha glimmer o'

white on that stem ayont,--it dew seem as 'tis fitter like fer him to lie i' tha fresh free woods, wi' tha birds a' chirmin' abuve him, an' a'

tha forest things as he minded a flyin', an' nestin', an' runnin', an'

rejoicin' arount him. 'Tis allus so still there, an' peacefu'. 'Tis blue and blue now, wi' tha hy'cinths; and there's one bonnie mavis as dew make her home wi' each spring abuve the gravestone. 'Bout not meetin'

his G.o.d, I dunno--I darena saw nowt anent it--but, for sure, it dew seem to me that we canna meet Him no better, nor fairer, than wi' lips that ha ne'er lied to man nor to woman, and wi' hands as niver hae harmed the poor dumb beasts nor the prattlin' birds. It dew seem so. I canna tell."

As the words died off his lips the sun fell yet more brightly through the avenues of the straight, dark, odorous pines; sweet silent winds swept up the dewy scents of mosses, and of leaves, and of wild hyacinths; and on the stillness of that lonely place there came one tremulous, tender sound. It was the sound of the mavis singing.

"I canna tell; but for sure it is well with him?" said Ambrose; and he bared his head, and bowed it humbly, as though in the voice of the mavis he heard the answer of G.o.d:

"It is well."

Ah! I trust that it may be so for you; that the sweetness of your arrogant dreams of an unshared eternity be not wholly a delusion; that for you--although to us you do deny it--there may be found pity, atonement, compensation, in some great Hereafter.

"I have heard a very great many men and women call the crows carrion birds, and the jackals carrion beasts, with an infinite deal of disgust and much fine horror at what they were pleased to term 'feasting on corpses;' but I never yet heard any of them admit their own appet.i.te for the rotten 'corpse' of a pheasant, or the putrid haunch of a deer, to be anything except the choice taste of an epicure!"

"But they do cook the corpses!" I remonstrated; whereupon she grinned with more meaning than ever.

"Exactly what I am saying, my dear. Their love of synonyms has made them forget that they are _carnivori_, because they talk so sweetly of the _cuisine_. A poor, blundering, honest, ignorant lion only kills and eats when the famine of his body forces him to obey that law of slaughter which is imposed on all created things, from the oyster to the man, by what we are told is the beautiful and beneficent economy of Creation. Of course, the lion is a brutal and bloodthirsty beast of prey, to be hunted down off the face of the earth as fast as may be. Whereas man--what does he do? He devours the livers of a dozen geese in one _pate_; he has lobsters boiled alive, that the scarlet tint may look tempting to his palate; he has fish cut up or fried in all its living agonies, lest he should lose one _nuance_ of its flavour; he has the calf and the lamb killed in their tender age, that he may eat dainty sweetbreads; he has quails and plovers slaughtered in the nesting-season, that he may taste a slice of their b.r.e.a.s.t.s; he crushes oysters in his teeth whilst life is in them; he has scores of birds and animals slain for one dinner, that he may have the numberless dishes which fashion exacts; and then--all the time talking softly of _rissole_ and _mayonnaise_, of _consomme_ and _entremet_, of _croquette_ and _cotelette_--the dear _gourmet_ discourses on his charming science, and thanks G.o.d that he is not as the parded beasts that prey!"

"Well," said I, sulkily, for I am fond myself of a good _vol-au-vent_,--"well, you have said that eating is a law in the economies--or the waste--of creation. Is it not well to clothe a distasteful and barbaric necessity in a refining guise and under an elegant nomenclature?"

"Sophist!" said Fanfreluche, with much scorn, though she herself is as keen an epicure and as suave a sophist, for that matter, as I know,--"I never denied that it was well for men to cheat themselves, through the art of their cooks, into believing that they are not brutes and beasts of prey--it is well exceedingly--for their vanity. Life is sustained only by the destruction of life. Cookery, the divine, can turn this horrible fact into a poetic idealism; can twine the butcher's knife with lilies, and hide the carca.s.s under roses. But I do a.s.suredly think that, when they sit down every night with their _menu_ of twenty services, they should not call the poor lion bad names for eating an antelope once a fortnight."

And, with the true consistency of preachers, Fanfreluche helped herself to a Madeira stewed kidney which stood amongst other delicacies on the deserted luncheon table.

"If this play should succeed it will be a triumph of true art," said another critical writer to Dudley Moore.

That great personage tapped his Louis-Quinze snuffbox with some impatience.

"Pardon me, but it is not possible to have art at all on the stage. Art is a pure idealism. You can have it in a statue, a melody, a poem; but you cannot have it on the stage, which is at its highest but a graphic realism. The very finest acting is only fine in proportion as it is an exact reproduction of physical life. How, then, can it be art, which is only great in proportion as it escapes from the physical life into the spiritual?"

"But may not dramatic art escape thither also?" asked the critic, who was young, and deferred to him.

"Impossible, sir. It is shackled with all the forms of earth, and--worse still--with all its shams and commonplaces. When we read _Oth.e.l.lo_, we only behold the tempest of the pa.s.sions and the wreck of a great soul; but when we see _Oth.e.l.lo_, we are affronted by the colour of the Moor's skin, and are brought face to face with the vulgarities of the bolster!"

"Then there is no use in a stage at all?"

"I am not prepared to conclude that. It is agreeable to a vast number of people: as a Frith or an O'Neil is agreeable to a vast number of people to whom an Ary Scheffer or a Delaroche would be unintelligible. It is better, perhaps, that this vast number should look at Friths and O'Neils than that they should never look on any painting at all. Now the stage paints rudely, often tawdrily; still it does paint. It is better than nothing. I take it that the excellence, as the end, of histrionic art is to portray, to the minds of the many, poetic conceptions which, without such realistic rendering, would remain unknown and impalpable to all save the few. Histrionic art is at its greatest only when it is the follower and the interpreter of literature; the actor translates the poet's meanings into the common tongue that is understood of the people.

But how many on the miserable stage of this country have ever had either humility to perceive, or capability to achieve this?"

The other critic smiled.

"I imagine not one, in our day. Their view of their profession is similar to Mrs. Delamere's, when Max Moncrief wrote that sparkling comedy for her. 'My dear,' she said to him, 'why did you trouble yourself to put all that wit and sense into it? We didn't want _that_. I shall wear all my diamonds, and I have ordered three splendid new dresses!'"