Chapter 3

When man and maid, all unafraid, ‘Sat out’ upon the stairs, No spectre dread, with feet of lead, Came past them unawares. I know not why, but alway I Have found that it is so, That when the glum Researchers come The brutes of bogeys—go!

TO THE GENTLE READER

‘A French writer (whom I love well) speaks of three kinds of companions,—men, women, and books.’

SIR JOHN DAVYS.

THREE kinds of companions, men, women, and books, Were enough, said the elderly Sage, for his ends. And the women we deem that he chose for their looks, And the men for their cellars: the books were his friends: ‘Man delights me not,’ often, ‘nor woman,’ but books Are the best of good comrades in loneliest nooks.

For man will be wrangling—for woman will fret About anything infinitesimal small: Like the Sage in our Plato, I’m ‘anxious to get On the side’—on the sunnier side—‘of a wall.’ Let the wind of the world toss the nations like rooks, If only you’ll leave me at peace with my Books.

And which are my books? why, ’tis much as you please, For, given ’tis a book, it can hardly be wrong, And Bradshaw himself I can study with ease, Though for choice I might call for a Sermon or Song; And Locker on London, and Sala on Cooks, ‘Tom Brown,’ and Plotinus, they’re all of them Books.

There’s Fielding to lap one in currents of mirth; There’s Herrick to sing of a flower or a fay; Or good Maître Françoys to bring one to earth, If Shelley or Coleridge have snatched one away: There’s Müller on Speech, there is Gurney on Spooks, There is Tylor on Totems, there’s all sorts of Books.

There’s roaming in regions where every one’s been, Encounters where no one was ever before, There’s ‘Leaves’ from the Highlands we owe to the Queen, There’s Holly’s and Leo’s adventures in Kôr: There’s Tanner who dwelt with Pawnees and Chinooks, You can cover a great deal of country in Books.

There are books, highly thought of, that nobody reads, There is Geusius’ dearly delectable tome Of the Cannibal—he on his neighbour who feeds— And in blood-red morocco ’tis bound, by Derome; There’s Montaigne here (a Foppens), there’s Roberts (on Flukes), There’s Elzevirs, Aldines, and Gryphius’ Books.

There’s Bunyan, there’s Walton, in early editions, There’s many a quarto uncommonly rare; There’s quaint old Quevedo adream with his visions, There’s Johnson the portly, and Burton the spare; There’s Boston of Ettrick, who preached of the ‘Crooks In the Lots’ of us mortals, who bargain for Books.

There’s Ruskin to keep one exclaiming ‘What next?’ There’s Browning to puzzle, and Gilbert to chaff, And Marcus Aurelius to soothe one if vexed, And good MARCUS TVAINUS to lend you a laugh; There be capital tomes that are filled with fly-hooks, And I’ve frequently found them the best kind of Books.

THE SONNET

POET, beware! The sonnet’s primrose path Is all too tempting for thy feet to tread. Not on this journey shalt thou earn thy bread, Because the sated reader roars in wrath: ‘Little indeed to say the singer hath, And little sense in all that he hath said; Such rhymes are lightly writ but hardly read, And naught but stubble is his aftermath!’

Then shall he cast that bonny book of thine Where the extreme waste-paper basket gapes, There shall thy futile fancies peak and pine, With other minor poets, pallid shapes, Who come a long way short of the divine, Tormented souls of imitative apes.

THE TOURNAY OF THE HEROES

HO, warders, cry a tournay! ho, heralds, call the knights! What gallant lance for old Romance ’gainst modern fiction fights? The lists are set, the Knights are met, I ween, a dread array, St. Chad to shield, a stricken field shall we behold to-day! First to the Northern barriers pricks Roland of Roncesvaux, And by his side, in knightly pride, Wilfred of Ivanhoe, The Templar rideth by his rein, two gallant foes were they; And proud to see, _le brave Bussy_ his colours doth display.

Ready at need he comes with speed, William of Deloraine, And Hereward the Wake himself is pricking o’er the plain. The good knight of La Mancha’s here, here is Sir Amyas Leigh, And Eric of the gold hair, pride of Northern chivalry. There shines the steel of Alan Breck, the sword of Athos shines, Dalgetty on Gustavus rides along the marshalled lines, With many a knight of sunny France the Cid has marched from Spain, And Götz the Iron-handed leads the lances of Almain.

But who upon the Modern side are champions? With the sleeve Adorned of his false lady-love, rides glorious David Grieve, A bookseller sometime was he, in a provincial town, But now before his iron mace go horse and rider down. Ho, Robert Elsmere! count thy beads; lo, champion of the fray, With brandished colt, comes Felix Holt, all of the Modern day. And Silas Lapham’s six-shooter is cocked: the Colonel’s spry! There spurs the wary Egoist, defiance in his eye; There Zola’s ragged regiment comes, with dynamite in hand, And Flaubert’s crew of country doctors devastate the land. On Robert Elsmere Friar Tuck falls with his quarter-staff, _Nom Dé_! to see the clerics fight might make the sourest laugh! They meet, they shock, full many a knight is smitten on the crown, So keep us good St. Geneviève, Umslopogaas is down! About the mace of David Grieve his blood is flowing red, Alas for ancient chivalry, _le brave Bussy_ is sped! Yet where the sombre Templar rides the Modern caitiffs fly, The Mummer (of _The Mummer’s Wife_) has got it in the eye, From Felix Holt his patent Colt hath not averted fate, And Silas Lapham’s smitten fair, right through his gallant pate. There Dan Deronda reels and falls, a hero sore surprised; _Ha_, _Beauséant_! still may such fate befall the Circumcised! The Egoist is flying fast from him of Ivanhoe: Beneath the axe of Skalagrim fall prigs at every blow: The ragged Zolaists have fled, screaming ‘_We are betrayed_,’ But loyal Alan Breck is shent, stabbed through the Stuart plaid; In sooth it is a grimly sight, so fast the heroes fall, Three volumes fell could scarcely tell the fortunes of them all. At length but two are left on ground, and David Grieve is one. _Ma foy_, what deeds of derring-do that bookseller hath done! The other, mark the giant frame, the great portentous fist! ’Tis Porthos! David Grieve may call on Kuenen an he list. The swords are crossed; _Doublez_, _dégagez_, _vite_! great Porthos calls, And David drops, that secret _botte_ hath pierced his overalls! And goodly Porthos, as of old the famed Orthryades, Raises the trophy of the fight, then falling on his knees, He writes in gore upon his shield, ‘Romance, Romance, has won!’ And blood-red on that stricken field goes down the angry sun. Night falls upon the field of death, night on the darkling lea: Oh send us such a tournay soon, and send me there to see!

BALLAD OF THE PHILANTHROPIST

POMONA Road and Gardens, N., Were pure as they were fair— In other districts much I fear, That vulgar language shocks the ear, But brawling wives or noisy men Were never heard of _there_.

No burglar fixed his dread abode In that secure retreat, There were no public-houses nigh, But chapels low and churches high, You might have thought Pomona Road A quite ideal beat!

Yet that was not at all the view Taken by B. 13. That active and intelligent Policeman deemed that he was meant Profound detective deeds to do, And that repose was mean.

Now there was nothing to detect Pomona Road along— None faked a cly, nor cracked a crib, Nor prigged a wipe, nor told a fib,— Minds cultivated and select Slip rarely into wrong!

Thus bored to desolation went The Peeler on his beat; He know not Love, he did not care, If Love be born on mountains bare; Nay, crime to punish, or prevent, Was more than dalliance sweet!

The weary wanderer, day by day, Was marked by Howard Fry— A neighbouring philanthropist, Who saw what that Policeman missed— A sympathetic ‘Well-a-day’ He’d moan, and pipe his eye.

‘What _can_ I do,’ asked Howard Fry, ‘To soothe that brother’s pain? His glance when first we met was keen, Most martial and erect his mien’ (What mien may mean, I know not I) ‘But _he_ must joy again.’

‘I’ll start on a career of crime, I will,’ said Howard Fry— He spake and acted! Deeds of bale (With which I do not stain my tale) He wrought like mad time after time, Yet wrought them blushfully.

And now when ’buses night by night Were stopped, conductors slain, When youths and men, and maids unwed, Were stabbed or knocked upon the head, Then B. 13 grew sternly bright, And was himself again!

Pomona Road and Gardens, N., Are now a name of fear. Commercial travellers flee in haste, Revolvers girt about the waist Are worn by city gentlemen Who have their mansions near.

But B. 13 elated goes, Detection in his eye; While Howard Fry does deeds of bale (With which I do not stain my tale) To lighten that Policeman’s woes, But does them blushfully.

MORAL

Such is Philanthropy, my friends, Too often such her plan, She shoots, and stabs, and robs, and flings Bombs, and all sorts of horrid things. Ah, not to serve her private ends, But for the good of Man!

NEIGES D’ANTAN

IN ERCILDOUNE

IN light of sunrise and sunsetting, The long days lingered, in forgetting That ever passion, keen to hold What may not tarry, was of old Beyond the doubtful stream whose flood Runs red waist-high with slain men’s blood.

Was beauty once a thing that died? Was pleasure never satisfied? Was rest still broken by the vain Desire of action, bringing pain, To die in vapid rest again? All this was quite forgotten, there No winter brought us cold and care, Nor spring gave promise unfulfilled, Nor, with the heavy summer killed, The languid days droop autumnwards. So magical a season guards The constant prime of a green June. So slumbrous is the river’s tune, That knows no thunder of rushing rains, Nor ever in the summer wanes, Like waters of the summer-time In lands far from the fairy clime.

Alas! no words can bring the bloom Of Fairyland, the lost perfume. The sweet low light, the magic air, To minds of who have not been there: Alas! no words, nor any spell Can lull the heart that knows too well The towers that by the river stand, The lost fair world of Fairyland.

Ah, would that I had never been The lover of the Fairy Queen. Or would that I again might be Asleep below the Eildon Tree, And see her ride the forest way As on that morning of the May!

Or would that through the little town, The grey old place of Ercildoune, And all along the sleepy street The soft fall of the white deer’s feet Came, with the mystical command, That I must back to Fairy Land!

FOR A ROSE’S SAKE

FRENCH FOLK-SONG

I LAVED my hands By the water-side, With willow leaves My hands I dried.

The nightingale sang On the bough of a tree, Sing, sweet nightingale, It is well with thee.

Thou hast heart’s delight, I have sad heart’s sorrow, For a false false maid That will wed to-morrow.

It is all for a rose That I gave her not, And I would that it grew In the garden plot,

And I would the rose-tree Were still to set, That my love Marie Might love me yet!

THE BRIGAND’S GRAVE

MODERN GREEK

THE moon came up above the hill, The sun went down the sea, ‘Go, maids, and draw the well-water, But, lad, come here to me.

Gird on my jack, and my old sword, For I have never a son, And you must be the chief of all When I am dead and gone.

But you must take my old broadsword, And cut the green boughs of the tree, And strew the green boughs on the ground, To make a soft death-bed for me.

And you must bring the holy priest, That I may sainèd be, For I have lived a roving life Fifty years under the greenwood tree.

And you shall make a grave for me, And dig it deep and wide, That I may turn about and dream With my old gun by my side.

And leave a window to the east And the swallows will bring the spring, And all the merry month of May The nightingales will sing.’

THE NEW-LIVERIED YEAR

FROM CHARLES D’ORLÉANS

THE year has changed his mantle cold Of wind, of rain, of bitter air, And he goes clad in cloth of gold Of laughing suns and season fair; No bird or beast of wood or wold But doth in cry or song declare ‘The year has changed his mantle cold!’ All founts, all rivers seaward rolled Their pleasant summer livery wear With silver studs on broidered vair, The world puts off its raiment old, The year has changed his mantle cold.

MORE STRONG THAN DEATH

FROM VICTOR HUGO

SINCE I have set my lips to your full cup, my sweet, Since I my pallid face between your hands have laid, Since I have known your soul and all the bloom of it, And all the perfume rare, now buried in the shade,

Since it was given to me to hear one happy while The words wherein your heart spoke all its mysteries, Since I have seen you weep, and since I have seen you smile, Your lips upon my lips, and your eyes upon my eyes;

Since I have known above my forehead glance and gleam, A ray, a single ray of your star veiled always, Since I have felt the fall upon my lifetime’s stream Of one rose-petal plucked from the roses of your days;

I now am bold to say to the swift-changing hours, Pass, pass upon your way, for I grow never old. Fleet to the dark abyss with all your fading flowers, One rose that none may pluck within my heart I hold.

Your flying wings may smite, but they can never spill The cup fulfilled of love from which my lips are wet, My heart has far more fire than you have frost to chill. My soul more love than you can make my soul forget.

SILENTIA LUNAE

FROM RONSARD

HIDE this one night thy crescent, kindly Moon, So shall Endymion faithful prove, and rest Loving and unawakened on thy breast; So shall no foul enchanter importune Thy quiet course, for now the night is boon, And through the friendly night unseen I fare Who dread the face of foemen unaware, And watch of hostile spies in the bright noon.

Thou know’st, O Moon, the bitter power of Love. ’Tis told how shepherd Pan found ways to move With a small gift thy heart; and of your grace, Sweet stars, be kind to this not alien fire, Because on earth ye did not scorn desire, Bethink ye, now ye hold your heavenly place.

HIS LADY’S TOMB

FROM RONSARD

AS in the gardens, all through May, the Rose, Lovely, and young, and rich apparelled, Makes sunrise jealous of her rosy red, When dawn upon the dew of dawning glows; Graces and Loves within her breast repose, The woods are faint with the sweet odour shed, Till rains and heavy suns have smitten dead The languid flower and the loose leaves unclose,—

So this, the perfect beauty of our days, When heaven and earth were vocal of her praise, The fates have slain, and her sweet soul reposes: And tears I bring, and sighs, and on her tomb Pour milk, and scatter buds of many a bloom, That, dead as living, Rose may be with roses.

THE POET’S APOLOGY

NO, the Muse has gone away, Does not haunt me much to-day. Everything she had to say Has been said! ’Twas not much at any time She could hitch into a rhyme, Never was the Muse sublime, Who has fled!

Any one who takes her in May observe she’s rather thin; Little more than bone and skin Is the Muse; Scanty sacrifice she won When her very best she’d done, And at her they poked their fun, In Reviews.

‘Rhymes,’ in truth, ‘are stubborn things.’ And to Rhyme she clung, and clings, But whatever song she sings Scarcely sells. If her tone be grave, they say ‘Give us something rather gay.’ If she’s skittish, then they pray ‘Something else!’

Much she loved, for wading shod, To go forth with line and rod, Loved the heather, and the sod, Loved to rest On the crystal river’s brim Where she saw the fishes swim, And she heard the thrushes’ hymn, By the Test!

She, whatever way she went, Friendly was and innocent, Little need the Bard repent Of her lay. Of the babble and the rhyme, And the imitative chime That amused him on a time,— Now he’s grey.

NOTES

Page 1.

Jeanne d’Arc is said to have led a Scottish force at Lagny, when she defeated the Burgundian, Franquet d’Arras. A Scottish artist painted her banner; he was a James Polwarth, or a Hume of Polwarth, according to a conjecture of Mr. Hill Burton’s. A monk of Dunfermline, who continued Fordun’s Chronicle, avers that he was with the Maiden in her campaigns, and at her martyrdom. He calls her _Puella a spiritu sancto excitata_. Unluckily his manuscript breaks off in the middle of a sentence. At her trial, Jeanne said that she had only once seen her own portrait: it was in the hands of a Scottish archer. The story of the white dove which passed from her lips as they opened to her last cry of _Jesus_! was reported at the trial for her Rehabilitation (1450–56).

Page 2. _One of that Name_.

Two archers of the name of Lang, Lain, or Laing were in the French service about 1507. See the book on the Scottish Guard, by Father Forbes Leith, S. J.

_Thy Church unto the Maid Denies_.

These verses were written, curiously enough, the day before the Maiden was raised to the rank of ‘Venerable,’ a step towards her canonisation, which, we trust, will not be long delayed. It is not easy for any one to understand the whole miracle of the life and death of Jeanne d’Arc, and the absolutely unparalleled grandeur and charm of her character, without studying the full records of both her trials, as collected and published by M. Quicherat, for the Société de l’Histoire de France.

Page 4. _How they held the Bass_.

This story is versified from the account in _Memoirs of the Rev. John Blackader_, by Andrew Crichton, Minister of the Gospel. Second Edition. Edinburgh, 1826. Dunbar was retained as a prisoner, when negotiations for surrender, in 1691, were broken off by Middleton’s return with supplies. Halyburton was, it seems, captured later, and only escaped hanging by virtue of the terms extorted by Middleton. Patrick Walker tells the tale of Peden and the girl. Wodrow, in his _Analecta_, has the story of the Angel, or other shining spiritual presence, which is removed from its context in the ballad. The sufferings from weak beer are quoted in Mr. Blackader’s Memoirs. Mitchell was the undeniably brave Covenanter who shot at Sharp, and hit the Bishop of the Orkneys. He was tortured, and, by an act of perjury (probably unconscious) on the part of Lauderdale, was hanged. The sentiments of the poem are such as an old cavalier, surviving to 1743, might perhaps have entertained. ‘Wullie Wanbeard’ is a Jacobite name for the Prince of Orange, perhaps invented only by the post-Jacobite sentiment of the early nineteenth century.

Page 44. _Rousseau’s delight_.

The _pervenche_, or periwinkle.

Page 64.

One of the college bells of St. Salvator, mentioned by Ferguson, is called ‘Kate Kennedy’; the heroine is unknown, but Bishop Kennedy founded the College. ‘Kate Kennedy’s Day’ was a kind of carnival, probably a survival from that festivity.

Page 77. _The Disappointment_.

As a matter of fact the Haunted House Committee of the Society for Psychical Research have never succeeded in seeing a ghost.

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