Part 3

Little need be told of the infancy of these boys: traditions remain, as in other cases, of their likeness to each other, needing different coloured ribbons to distinguish them; and of the old man's anxious doting care over them. Many a pretty group, doubtless, they made, on warm summer afternoons, on the shady terrace; but the old grandfather died when they were seven years old, and slept with his father beneath the Chapel floor. After the funeral, Eustace Inglesant had intended taking both the children back with him to London, but he had discovered--or fancied he had discovered--that the youngest was sickly, and would be better for the country air; and therefore kept him at Westacre, when he returned to the city with his brother. The truth appears to be that he was a worldly, selfish man, and while fully conscious of the advantage of an heir, he was by no means desirous of giving himself more trouble than was necessary about either of his children. The old Priory, however, was, at this time, not a bad place to bring up a child in, though it had been neglected during the last ten or eleven years; though the woods were overgrown, and the oaks came up, in places, close to the house; though the Prior's fish-ponds had transformed themselves into a large pool or lake; though the garden was a tangled wilderness, and centaury, woodsorrel, and sour herbs covered the ground; though the old courtyard and the Chapel itself were mouldering and ruinous, yet the air of the rich vales in the north of Wiltshire is more healthy than that of the higher downs, which are often covered with fogs when the vales are clear, and the sky is bright and serene. It was remarked that people lived longer in the valleys than at places that would be supposed peculiarly healthy on the hills; that they sang better in the churches; and that books and rooms were not so damp and mouldy in the low situations as they were in those which stood very high, with no river or marsh near them. The fogs at times, indeed, came down into the valleys; and in the courtyard of the Priory dim forms had been seen flitting through the mist, in reality the shadows of the spectators thrown upon the mist itself, from the light of a lanthorn. Such sights as these in such a place, so haunted by the memories of the past, gave rise to many strange stories--to which young Inglesant listened with wonder, as he did, also, to others of the _ignis fatuus_, which, called by the people "Kit of the Candlestick," used, about Michaelmas, to be very common on the downs, and to wander down to the valleys across the low boggy grounds--stories of its leading travellers astray, and fascinating them. The boy grew up among such strange stories, and lived, indeed, in the old world that was gone for ever. His grandfather's dimly remembered anecdotes were again and again recalled by others, all of the same kind, which he heard every day. Stories of the rood in the Chapel, of the mass wafer with its mysterious awfulness and power, of the processions and midnight singing at the Priory. The country was full of the scattered spoil of the monasteries; old and precious manuscripts were used everywhere by the schoolboys for covering their books, and for the covers of music; and the glovers of Malmsbury wrapped their goods in them. In the churchyards the yew-trees stood thick and undecayed, scarcely grown again from the last lopping to supply bows for the archers of the King's army. The story was common of the Becket's path, along which he had been used to pass when cure priest at Winterbourn, and which could be seen through the deepest snow, or if ploughed up and sown with corn. Indeed the path itself could be seen within a pleasant ride across the downs from Westacre.

The boy's first instructor was the old curate of the Chapel, who taught him his Church Catechism and his latin grammar. This man appears to have been one of those ministers so despised by the Puritans as "mere grammar scholars," who knew better how to read a homily than to make a sermon; yet John Inglesant learnt of him more good lessons than he did, as he himself owned, afterwards from many popular sermons; and in his old age he acknowledged that he believed the only thing that had kept him back in after years, and under great temptations, from formally joining the communion of the Church of Rome, was some faint prejudice, some lingering dislike, grounded on the old man's teaching. Other teachers, of a different kind, the child had in plenty. The old servants who still remained in the house; the woodsmen and charcoal burners; the village girls whom the housekeeper hired from year to year at Malmsbury fair; the old housekeeper who had been his mother's maid, and whom the boy looked on as his mother, and who could coax him to her lap when he was quite a tall boy, by telling him stories of his mother; one or two falconers or huntsmen who lingered about the place, or watched the woods for game for the gentry around. When he was ten years old, in 1632, the curate of the Chapel died; and Mr. Inglesant did not at once replace him, for reasons which will appear presently. John led a broken scholastic life for a year, going to school when it was fine enough to make a pleasant walk attractive to ----, where the Vicar taught some boys their grammar and latin Terence in the Church itself; and where there was a tradition that the great antiquary, Master Camden, Clarencieux King of Arms, coming on his survey to examine the Church, found him, and spoke to him and his scholars. At the end of a year, however, his father coming into the country, arranged for him to go to school at Ashley, where he was to stay in the house with the Vicar, a famous schoolmaster in the west country. This gentleman, who was a delicate and little person, and had an easy and attractive way of teaching, was a Greek scholar and a Platonist, a Rosicrucian and a believer in alchemy and astrology. He found in little Inglesant an apt pupil, an apprehensive and inquisitive boy, mild of spirit, and very susceptible of fascination, strongly given to superstition and romance: of an inventive imagination though not a retentive memory; given to day dreaming, and,--what is more often found in children than some may think, though perhaps they could not name it,--metaphysical speculation. The Vicar taught his boys in the hall of his Vicarage--a large room with a porch, and armorial bearings in the stained glass in the windows. Out of this opened a closet or parlour where he kept his books, and in this he would sit after school was over, writing his learned treatises, most of which he would read to John Inglesant, some of them in latin. This, with his readings in Plato, assisted by his eager interest, gave John, as he grew older, a considerable acquaintance with both languages, so that he could read most books in either of them, and turn over the remnants of the old world learning that still remained in the Prior's Library, with that lazy facility which always gives a meaning, though often an incorrect one--not always a matter of regret to an imaginative reader, as adding a charm, and, where his own thought is happy, a beauty. Here he imbibed that mysterious Platonic philosophy, which--seen through the reflected rays of Christianity--becomes, as his master taught him, in some sort a foreshadowing of it, as the innocent and heroic life of Socrates, commended and admired by Christians as well as heathens, together with his august death, may be thought, in some measure, to have borne the image of Christ; and, indeed, not without some mystery of purpose, and preparation of men for Christianity, has been so magnified among men. Here, too, he eagerly drank in his master's Rosicrucian theories of spiritual existences; of the vital congruity and three several vehicles of the soul; the terrestrial, in which the soul should be so trained that she may stay as short a time as possible in the second or aerial, but proceed at once to the third, the etherial, or celestial; "that heavenly chariot, carrying us, in triumph, to the great happiness of the soul of man." Of the aerial genii, and souls separate, and of their converse with one another, and with mankind. Of their dress, beauty, and outward form; of their pleasures and entertainments, from the Divinest harmony of the higher orders, who, with voices perfectly imitating the passionate utterance of their devout minds, melt their souls into Divine Love, and lose themselves in joy in God; while all nature is transformed by them to a quintessence of crystalline beauty by the chemical power of the spirit of nature, acting on pure essences. Of the feastings and wild dances of the lower and deeply lapsed, in whom some sad and fantastic imitation of the higher orders is to be traced; and of those aerial wanderers to whom poetical philosophers or philosophical poets have given the rivers and springs--the mountains and groves; with the Dii Tutelares of cities and countries; and the Lares familiares, who love the warmth of families and the homely converse of men. These studies are but a part of the course of which occult chemistry and the lore of the stars form a part; and that mysterious Platonism which teaches that Pindar's story of the Argo is only a secret recipe for the philosopher's stone; and which pretends that at this distance of time the life of Priam can be read more surely in the stars than in history.

More than three years passed in these pursuits, when Inglesant,--now a tall, handsome, dreamy-looking boy of fourteen, was suddenly recalled to Westacre by his father, who had unexpectedly arrived from London. His master, who was very fond of him, gave him many words of learned advice; for he expected, as proved to be the case, that his school-days--at least as far as he was concerned,--were ended. He concluded with these words:--

"I have done my best to show you those hidden truths which the heathen divines knew as well as we; how much more, then, ought we to follow them, who have the light of Christ! Do not talk of these things, but keep them in your heart; hear what all men say, but follow no man: there is nothing in the world of any value but the Divine Light,--follow it. What it is no man can tell you; but I have told you many times, and you know very well it is not here nor there, as men shall tell you, for all men say they have it who are ignorant of its very nature. It will reveal itself when the time shall come. If you go to the Court, as I think you will, attach yourself wholly to the King and the Church party, the foundations of whose power are in the Divine will. I foresee dark clouds overhanging the Church, but let not these affright you; behind, the Divine Light shineth--the Light that shineth from the hill of God. I have taught you to clear your soul from the mists of carnal error, but I have never told you to act freely in this world: you are not placed here to reason (as the sectaries and precisians do), but to obey. Remember it is the very seal of a gentleman--to obey: remember the Divine words of Plato, in the Crito, when Socrates was about to suffer; how he refused, when urged, to break those laws under which he was falsely condemned. Let those words ring in your ears as they did in his; so that, like the worshippers of Cybele, who heard only the flutes, you shall hear nothing but the voice of God, speaking to you in that rank in which He has placed you, through those captains whom He has ordained to the command. Whenever--and in whatever place--the Divine Light shall appear to you, be assured it will never teach you anything contrary to this."

There was no horse sent for John, but he was obliged to ride in an uncomfortable manner before the serving man who was sent to fetch him; children, and especially younger sons, being treated as little better than servants, and they were indeed often tyrannised over by the latter. When he reached Westacre, he was told his father was in one of the rooms in the new wing of the house, and on entering, he found him in company with three other persons. One of these was the newly appointed curate of the Church, whom Johnny had never yet seen; the other was a fine, handsomely dressed man, with a lofty, high-bred look, and in the window was a beautiful boy of about John's own age, in the costly dress of a page. Inglesant knew that this must be his brother Eustace; and after humbly receiving his father's rather cold greeting, he hastened to embrace him, and he returned the greeting with warmth. But his father immediately presented him to the gentleman who stood by him; telling him that this gentleman would probably spend some time at Westacre, and that it was chiefly that he should attend him, that he had sent for him home; charging him, at the same time, to serve and obey him implicitly, as he would his father or the King.

"He is a mere country lad," he said, "very different from his brother, but he is young, and may be useful in after days."

The gentleman looked at Johnny kindly, with a peculiar expression which the boy had never before seen, penetrating and alluring at the same time.

"He is, as you say, Esquire, a country lad, and wants the fine clothes of my friend the page, nevertheless he is a gallant and gentle boy, and were he attired as finely, would not shame you, Mr. Inglesant, more than he does. And I warrant," he continued, "this one is good at his books."

And sitting down, he drew Johnny on his knee, and taking from his pocket a small book, he said: "Here, my friend, let us see how you can read in this."

It was the Phaedo of Plato, which Johnny knew nearly by heart, and he immediately began, with almost breathless rapidity, to construe with, here and there, considerable freedom, till the gentleman stopped him with a laugh. "Gently, gently, my friend. I saw you were a scholar, but not that you were a complete Platonist! I fear your master is one who looks more to the Divine sense than to the grammar! But never mind, you and I shall be much together, and as you are so fond of Plato, you shall read him with me. You shall go to your brother, who, if he cannot read 'In Phaedone,' can tell you many wonderful things of the Court and the city that no doubt you will hear very gladly;" and letting Johnny go, he turned to his father, saying, in an undertone, which, however, the boy heard; "The lad is apt, indeed! more so than any of us could have dreamt; no fitter soil, I could wager, we could have found in England!"

Johnny went to his brother, and they left the room together. The two boys,--as the two children had been,--were remarkably alike; the more so as this likeness of form and feature, which to a casual observer appeared exact, was consistent with a very remarkable difference of expression and manner--the difference being, as it were, contained in the likeness without destroying it. Their affection for each other, which continued through life, was something of the same nature, arising apparently from instinct and nature, apart from inclination. Their tastes and habits being altogether different, they pursued their several courses quite contentedly, without an effort to be more united, but once united, or once recalled to each other's presence or recollection even in the most accidental manner, they manifested a violent and overpowering attachment to each other. On the present occasion they wandered through the gardens and neighbourhood of the Priory; and as the strange gentleman had foretold, Johnny took the greatest interest in the conversation of his brother, whom, indeed, he both now and afterwards most unfeignedly admired, and to whose patronage he invariably submitted with perfect satisfaction. Eustace, who had lately been admitted one of the junior supernumerary pages to the King, talked incessantly of the King's state and presence chamber, of the yeomen of the guard, of the pageants and masques, and of banquets, triumphs, interviews, nuptials, tilts, and tournaments; the innumerable delights of the city; of the stage players, tumblers, fiddlers, inn-keepers, fencers, jugglers, dancers, mountebanks, bear-wardens; of sweet odours and perfumes, generous wines, the most gallant young men, the fairest ladies, the rarest beauties the world could afford, the costly and curious attire, exquisite music, all delights and pleasures which, to please the senses, could possibly be devised; galleries and terraces, rowing on the Thames, with music, on a pleasant evening, with the goodly palaces, and the birds singing on the banks.

All this Johnny listened to with admiration, and made little reply to his brother's disparaging remarks on the miserable life he had led in the country, or to his sage advice to endeavour, by some means, to come to London to the Court.

Johnny remembered his master's counsel, and was silent on his own pleasures and pursuits. His pleasant walks by the brook side, pleasant shade by the sweet silver streams, good air, and sweet smell of fine, fresh meadow flowers, his walks among orchards, gardens, green thickets, and such-like pleasant places, in some solitary groves between wood and water, meditating on some delightful and pleasant subject--he thought his brother would only ridicule these things. It is true the next day when they went to the Avon to see an otter hunted, Johnny occupied the foremost place for a time; he was known to the keepers, and to two or three gentlemen who were at the sport, and was familiar with the terms in tracing the mark of the otter, and following through all the craft of the hunting, tracing the marks in the soft and moist places to see which way the head of the chase was turned. He carried his otter spear as well as any of the company, while the hounds came trailing and chanting along by the river-side, venting every tree root, every osier bed and tuft of bulrushes, and sometimes taking to the water, and beating it like spaniels. But as soon as the otter, escaping from the spears, was killed by the dogs, or, having by its wonderful sagacity and craft avoided the dogs, was killed by the spears, Eustace assumed his superior place, coming forward to talk to the gentlemen, who were delighted with him, while Johnny fell back into the quiet, dreamy boy again.

The two brothers were left together for several days, their father, with the strange gentleman--whose name Eustace told Johnny was Hall--having departed on horseback, on a visit to a gentleman in Gloucestershire. Eustace observed great caution in speaking of Mr. Hall, telling Johnny he would know all about him soon from himself. The boys passed the time happily enough. Johnny's affection for his brother increased every day, and withstood not only Eustace's patronage, but--what must have been much more hard to bear--the different way in which the servants treated the two boys. Eustace, who, though only a few minutes older than his brother, was the heir, was treated with great deference and respect; which might possibly also be owing to his being a stranger and to his Court breeding. Johnny, on the contrary, though he was quite as tall as his brother, they treated like a child: the housekeeper took him up to bed when it pleased her; the old butler would have caned him without hesitation had he thought he deserved it; and the maids alternately petted and scolded him, the first of which was more disagreeable to him than the last. The hard condition of children, and especially of younger brothers, is a common theme of the writers of the period, and Johnny's experience was not different from that of others. His disposition, however, was not injured by it, though it may have made him still fonder of retirement and of day-dreaming than he would have been. This hard discipline made him resolve to be silent on those wonderful secrets and the learning that his master had taught him, and to meditate increasingly upon them in his heart. He delighted more and more in wandering by the river-side, building castles in the air, and acting an infinite variety of parts. When his brother left him, this became still more delightful to him, and but for other influences he might have gone on in this fascinating habit till he realised Burton's terrible description, and from finding these contemplations and fantastical conceits so delightful at first, might have become the slave of vain and unreal fancies, which may be as terrible and dismal as pleasing and delightful.

After about a fortnight's absence, Mr. Inglesant and Mr. Hall returned from their visit, or visits, for they appeared to have stayed at several places; and the next day Eustace and his father departed for London. His father displayed more affection than usual on leaving Johnny behind him, assuring him of his love, and that if he heard a good account of him from Mr. Hall, he should come up to London and see the Court. Eustace's grief at losing his brother again was much lessened by his joy at returning to his congenial life in London; but Johnny watched him from the old gatehouse in front of the Priory with a sad heart.

While he is standing looking after his father and brother, as they ride up the hill by the same path which the Prior came down that fine summer morning long years before, we will take a moment's time to explain certain events of which he was perfectly ignorant, but which were about to close about him and involve him in a labyrinth from which he may have been said never to have issued during his life. We call ourselves free agents;--was this slight, delicate boy a free agent, with a mind and spirit so susceptible, that the least breath affected them: around whom the throng of national contention was about to close; on whom the intrigue of a great religious party was about to seize, involving him in a whirlpool and rapid current of party strife and religious rancour? Must not the utmost that can be hoped,--that can be even rationally wished for--be, that by the blessing of the Divine guidance, he may be able to direct his path a little towards the Light?