CHAPTER VI.

_THE LIFE OF A SOLITARY._

And soon we feel the want of one kind heart To love what's well, and to forgive what's ill In us.

Maurice Grey had at last been successful in his weary seeking after loneliness. Whether he had gained happiness thereby is scarcely so easy to say; certainly his surroundings could not possibly have been more beautiful or peace-inspiring.

On an Alpine meadow green with a vivid brightness, spangled in the spring and early summer with many-colored fragrant flowers, bounded on one side by a wood, the home of ferns and moss and lovely things of every shape and hue, overtopped on the other by a ridge of mountains that, rising sheer from the soft greenness, towered into white ice-fields and shoulders and pinnacles of virgin snow, he had found in the summer of that year a tumble-down chalet. It was large and tolerably commodious, evidently intended to be something superior to the ordinary dwelling of the Swiss herdsman.

Maurice Grey was tired of hotel-life when he came upon this treasure trove. Life in the mountains, with the constant companionship of ignorant tourists, would-be enthusiasts and _blase_ fashionables (for Maurice, though touched and charmed by Nature's beauty, had not arrived at the higher point of seeing beauty in humanity), was scarcely the life of solitude he had been seeking.

In the inane vapidity of travellers' talk all the impressions which Nature's loveliness had been writing on his soul seemed to pass into cynicism and irritability. He would get away from the charmed circle--he would break loose once and for ever from the galling fetters with which his kind would chain him. This chalet was the very thing to suit him. He had come upon it in the course of a long, solitary ramble which was taking him into ground untrodden apparently by the ordinary tourist. It led to no point of special interest, there was nothing remarkable to distinguish it from thousands of Alpine meadows in the vicinity, it was intersected by no well-frequented path.

Maurice Grey set inquiries on foot. He found that the neglected chalet had been intended for a small pension; that the proprietor, who was a farmer, had sustained an unexpected loss in cattle, and had thus been unable to complete and furnish it; that he would be only too delighted to let it on very moderate terms to any one who would take the trouble of making it habitable.

On the very next day Maurice found out the farmer, and an arrangement was entered into highly to the satisfaction of both. It took a very short time to fit up the small abode, or two rooms on the ground floor, with the few articles an Englishman would find necessary--a wooden bed and a large bath, a table and chair, one leather-backed arm-chair, rough shelves with a selection of books that he had ordered in one of the German towns through which he had passed, writing-materials and his beloved pipe, sole companion of his solitude.

These were all, save the kitchen utensils, which his new servant, a German who could do everything, had procured for him, and with these Maurice Grey settled down to a hermit's life. It was scarcely the life to suit him. There was too much vigor and manhood in his frame, too many cravings in the heart he had thought dead, for the death-in-life of one cut off from the society of his fellows to be bearable for any length of time. During the long hours of the day, when even his servant was absent seeking at the nearest village for the daily necessaries of their life, Maurice Grey, the sociable, lively Englishman, would sit like a patriarch at the door of his tent and look out--not on his children and children's children playing on the green sward, but on the savage grandeur of the mountains, on shaggy pines rising head above head like a great army on the hillside, on the flash of torrents, their fall scarcely heard in the far distance, scattering their white foam into the sunshine, on radiant ice-rivers sweeping down between dark gray rocks. And the wonder entered into his soul. But the illusion faded, for, all grand and glorious as it was, there was yet in it nothing to lay hold upon the heart or satisfy its wants.

Sometimes the stillness would grow so oppressive that even the tinkling of the cattle-bells, notifying the approach of the sleepy, quiet animal, would be a relief to the man's brain And then he would rush into the wood. There was sound enough there--the rustling of leaves, the chirping of grasshoppers, the movement and ceaseless murmur of life various and multiform.

At times Maurice Grey would enjoy it, but not always, for in the midst of this rich profusion of Nature his was a life apart. More than once he was mortified, even in those first days, when solitude had a certain novelty, to discover how instinctively his step would quicken and his heart grow lighter when in the evening, his hour for dinner drawing near, he could look forward to seeing at the door of his chalet the familiar face of his servant and only companion. He was too proud, however, to betray himself even to Karl, and in spite of everything was determined to persevere. He would give the new life a fair trial. Happily, Maurice had a resource in his pen. In his youth he had cherished ambitious dreams of distinguishing himself in the world of letters. In these hours of solitude the desire returned--not, indeed, with a like force, for the cry of the miserable, the _cui bono?_ of a sick soul, was at the heart of it.

If the grandeur of Nature could inspire him with high thoughts--if as a poet he could breathe out any one of these, sending it forth a living image of beauty into the world--why and for whom should he do it? For men and women? For _their_ enjoyment, _their_ false praise? Maurice Grey, as it will be seen, had not lost his cynicism in his solitude. But he wrote as he had never written before. He transcribed his strange, wild dreams that were formed in the ice-caverns, and clothed the woods and hills with legends, dismal, gloomy, awe-inspiring, that had drunk from the bitter waters of his own dark soul.

As days and weeks passed on that soul grew darker. Even the faithful Karl, who was strongly attached to his English master, began to fear his strange moods and wonder vaguely at his caprices, recalling the weird maerchen that had fed his boyhood in his Black Forest home--of men haunted with the spirit of evil, condemned to wander for ever, seeking rest and finding none; of ghosts that had taken to themselves a fleshly home, and living with human beings had been considered human themselves, till the dark fear of betraying their origin in some unwary moment had driven them to the wilds, there to batten on horrors till the startled flesh should forsake, once and for ever, the naked, shivering ghost.

Karl grew afraid of his own shadow. Indeed, only his visits (and he took care they should be of daily recurrence) to inhabited places kept him sane and capable. So absolute is the truth, old as humanity itself, that "it is not well for man to dwell alone."

For Maurice Grey where was the helpmate to be found? Not upon earth, if perfection such as he sought in his lofty idealism was to be its necessary accompaniment. He had broken his idol for a flaw in its fair whiteness, and what wonder that he found it difficult--nay, impossible--to replace it?

Not that Maurice, to do him justice, had ever sought to replace his idol by any creature outside of him in the world of men and women. It may be, however, that his dream was wilder and more vain. For he looked within instead of without--looked to the poor trembling self for that satisfaction and peace which life with one who was (though he had not known it) verily his other self, by reason of her tenderness and warm womanly sympathy, might have brought him.

Maurice and Margaret had been alike wrong in this, that they had sought in the transitory and fleeting what is impalpable and enduring. Happiness springs not from the dust, and happiness abiding is only to be found outside of ourselves, outside of humanity, outside even of the world.

This they were learning, the husband and wife, each in the secret place of a stricken heart--learning it with stormy seas and vast plains and snow-clad mountains between them. Sometimes it would dawn upon Maurice, in the midst of a dream of impossible bliss, that he had been seeking the good in a wrong channel--that perhaps it might be found when and where he least thought to meet it. And the idea would make him tremble as with a sudden inspiration his eyes would seek the blue vault above, so restful in its calm transcendent purity.

And so the long summer months, laden with beauty, passed by him. Days he had of musing, when his soul, entering in upon itself, would strive painfully for the secret of Nature's abiding joy--days of inspiration, when after a restless night dreams and imaginings would shape themselves into burning words which he would trace with a poet's tremulous joy--days of moody abstraction, when even the blue heavens irritated him by their calm beauty, when the white snow-peaks glared and dazzled and robed themselves in dark palls: days too he had when a better spirit seemed to be taking possession of him, when the spirit of good brooded over his soul, when from the everlasting paean of hill and vale, of rustling leaves, rushing torrents and tuneful birds the shadow of a peace that might yet be his descended on his soul. And still Karl came and went, leaving the hermit in the morning, returning with early evening, ministering to his necessities and preventing him from feeling the hardships that might have been his lot in the strange life he had chosen.

If the truth must be told, the imaginative German half expected at times, as he entered the dark gorges which led to his master's dwelling, to find that in his absence companion-ghosts had spirited him away. But such an occurrence never happened, and the man began to take heart and breathe more freely.

Unhappily, the summer-time could not last for ever. Autumn came, and on this particular occasion an early autumn fell upon the valley. Bleak winds began to moan and sigh among the hills, the mountains robed themselves in gray, impenetrable mist, the leaves shuddered and fell by myriads.

Maurice Grey was an Englishman. He had always prided himself on his independence of externals, but hitherto he had been well occupied, mentally or physically, in such a season. This coming on of autumn was very different from any former experience. To be absolutely alone, or shut up with a servant who only at intervals shows a scared face; a blanket, damp, white, clinging, about the house, and entering in by every nook and cranny; nothing visible but walls of chilly vapor rising in billowy folds about dark, formless giants, that are known to be snow-mountains only because they have been visible before,--is sufficiently depressing; but add to all this a mental life unhealthily alive and sensitive, an absence of present joys, with the memory of past happiness rising at times to mock the heart by its fairness, the sting of a remorseful conscience, physical powers fast decaying under the unspeakable horrors of a lonely, unloved life, and I think it will be allowed that Maurice Grey would have been more than human if even his intellect had not begun to fail him.

It was such a morning as that I have been describing; he sat before his desk; his pipe was on the table before him, books were scattered on every side, a manuscript was open, the pen was in the ink; but he was doing literally nothing, not even attempting to beguile his dreariness with that friend of the forlorn--a pipe. His folded arms rested listlessly on the table; he was looking out into the thick mists with a dreary hopelessness that in a man seemed miserable beyond compare. He was not even thinking. It was as though a gloomy abstraction had seized upon his soul.

The door grated on its hinge--it was not particularly well hung--but Maurice did not hear the sound. He was like a man who was under the influence of some strong narcotic, plunged in visions that shut out the external world. Karl was the intruder. He peeped cautiously into the room, took a back-view of his master's position, then steered noiselessly round to the front (Maurice was painfully irritable in these moods) and gained a side-view of his face. It resulted in an ominous shake of the head and a bold move. Creeping still nearer, Karl touched his master on the arm, then sprang back, for the angry frown gathered on his brow.

Karl had been observing him, and Maurice had a vague fear that in his moody fit he had been ridiculous. An Englishman hates to be absurd, even to a valet, and Maurice Grey, as he glanced at the repentant German brimful of apologies that were only waiting a suitable outlet, felt his choler rising. "How many times have I ordered you," he said angrily, "not to come in here without knocking?"

"Meinherr did not hear," replied the submissive youth.

"Then you should have knocked again or gone away. By Heaven! do you think me incapable of taking care of myself? Speak, idiot! what is the meaning of this intrusion?"

The frightened German extended his arms apologetically: "Meinherr must condescend to hear that, as this weather has lasted some days, we are nearly out of provision."

"Go to Grindelwald to-day."

"Impossible. Meinherr will please to take the trouble of observing how thick are these mists."

"Then why, in the name of all that's sensible, do you annoy me? Can I make provisions?"

"No, but meinherr might wish to know why his table shall be so poorly provided this day, and--" The man hemmed.

"And--what? Go on, can't you?"

"Meinherr should also know that weather like this at present never lasts very long about here."

"So much the better. Is that all you wished to tell me?"

"Meinherr would for the few days be so much better at the hotel. If he should please we might go there to-morrow and rest till the weather shall be a little more clear. There are not a great many people travelling just now. Meinherr would have a good apartment and would be very little annoyed."

The poor man's voice trembled with fear and anxiety. It was one word for his master and several for himself. Karl was beginning to feel that he could scarcely bear another week of such horrors as those to which he had lately been exposed. His master himself, by his dark moodiness and mysterious surroundings, peculiarly awe-inspiring, his only companion; the dark gorges and mountain-caverns yawning round him like so many graves; no creature to whom he could unfold the tale of the fears that beset him,--nothing less than such a combination could have emboldened the submissive Karl to make the proposition which he had advanced in so timorous a manner.

After the murder was out he stood silent, aghast at his own audacity, waiting for the torrent of angry words with which the Englishman would answer him.

To his surprise no such answer came. Maurice rose from his seat and burst into a loud laugh. The diversion had been salutary: "You would make a first-rate special pleader, Karl. A word for me and a dozen for yourself, eh? Well, what are we to do? Some one must be left in charge here. Since you are so anxious about my welfare, I had better go to Grindelwald and leave you behind me."

Karl smiled pleasantly. Matters were taking a favorable turn.

"Meinherr is pleased to joke. He would most certainly require the services of a valet in Grindelwald as well as here, and no one else would understand his ways so well. I spoke--it is perhaps a few days since--to an old woman who is well known in the village. She would be very glad for a small sum to look after the chalet. Meinherr will excuse this liberty. I feared for him the severity of the winter season."

"All right, Karl. Poor fellow!" he added, gently, "I fear you lead a hard kind of life here, and you are a faithful servant. Well, let it be so. You shall have a little change."

By these sudden flashes of kindliness, these glimpses of a better nature, Maurice had endeared himself to his servant. To be harshly treated was too common to the German to be in any way food for complaint, but for a master to consider him, to take a kindly interest in his feelings, was something quite new. His heart warmed to this proud Englishman who was considerate enough to give him his due meed of thanks and praise.

At Maurice's last remark he pressed eagerly forward, his eyes glistening: "Not for worlds if at all inconvenient to meinherr. What is good enough for him should, it is quite certain, be good enough for his servant."

Maurice smiled: "I begin to think you are right, my good Karl; a change will do me good, as well as you. I left a portmanteau at the hotel, so we shall not require to take anything with us. If by to-morrow the mist has at all cleared we shall start for Grindelwald."

The next day rose bright and clear. Maurice and his servant left the chalet early in the morning, locking the door carefully, as Maurice had a deep regard for his books and manuscripts, and taking with them the key, which was to be given to the old Swiss woman, destined heiress to the horrors of the lonely place.

Happily, Marie was endowed neither with an overflow of imagination nor highly-strung nerves. With her small grandchild to wait upon her, and plenty of coffee, sausage and black bread, she could be happy anywhere.