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Page 34
So saying, Superstition bade us good-night and passed down a little
by-lane on our left towards a country cottage, like a dreaming bower
of roses beneath the moon.
But Reverie and I continued on as if the moon herself as patiently
pursued us. And by-and-by we came to a house called Gloom, whose
gardens slope down with plashing fountains and glimmering banks of
flowers into the shadow and stillness of a broad valley, named beneath
the hills of Silence, Peace.
XI
_His soul shall taste the sadness of her might,
And be among her cloudy trophies hung._
--JOHN KEATS.
Even as we entered the gates of Mr. Reverie's house beneath embowering
chestnuts, there advanced across the moonlit spaces to meet us a
figure on foot like ourselves, leading his horse. He was in armour,
yet unarmed. His steel glittered cold and blue; his fingers hung
ungauntleted; and on his pale face dwelt a look never happy warrior
wore yet. He seemed a man Mars lends to Venus out of war to unhappy
idleness. The disillusionment of age was in his face: yet he was
youthful, I suppose; scarce older than Mercutio, and once, perhaps, as
light of wit.
He took my hand in a grasp cold and listless, and smiled from
mirthless eyes.
Yet there was something strangely taking in this solitary
knight-at-arms. She for whom he does not fight, I thought, must have
somewhat of the immortals to grace her warrior with. And if it were
only shadows that beset him and obscured his finer heart, shadows they
were of myrtle and rhododendron, with voices shrill and small as the
sparrows', and eyes of the next-to-morning stars.
Indeed, these gardens whispered, and the wind at play in the air
seemed to bear far-away music, dying and falling.
We entered the house and sat down to supper in a low room open to the
night. Reverie recounted our evening's talk. "I wish," he said,
turning to his friend, "you would accompany Mr. Brocken and me one
night to the 'World's End' to hear these fellows talk. Such arrogance,
such assurance, such bigotry and blindness and foxiness!--yet, on my
word, a kind of gravity with it all, as if the scarecrows had some
real interest in the devil's tares they guard. Come now, let it be a
bargain between us, and leave this endless search awhile."
But the solitary knight shook his head. "They would jeer me out of
knowledge," he said. "Why, Reverie, the children cease their play
when I pass, and draw their tops and marbles out of the dust, and gaze
till I am hid from sight."
"It is fancy, only fancy," replied Reverie; "children stare at all
things new to them in the world. How else could they recognise and
learn again--how else forget? But as for this rabble's mockery, there
is a she-bear left called Oblivion which is their mistress, and will
some day silence every jeer."
The solitary knight shook his head again, eyeing me solemnly as if in
hope to discern in my face the sorcery that held himself in thrall.
The few wax tapers gave but light enough to find the way from goblet
to mouth. As for Reverie's wine, I ask no other, for it had the
poppy's scarlet, and overcame weariness so subtly I almost forgot
these were the hours of sleep we spent in waking; forgot, too, as if
of the lotus, all thought of effort and hope.
After all, thought I as I sipped, effort is the flaw that proves men
mortal; while as for hope, who would seek a seed that floats on every
wind and smothers the world with weeds that bear no fruit? It was, in
fact, fare very different from the ale and cheese of the "World's End."
"But you yourself," I said to Mr. Reverie presently; "in all the talk
at the inn you kept a very scrupulous silence--discreet enough, I own.
But now, what truly _was_ this Christian of whom we heard so much? and
why, may I ask, do his neighbours slander the dead? You yourselves,
did you ever meet with him?" I turned from one to the other of my
companions as they glanced uneasily each at each.
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