Part 6

“Then, don’t you see,” went on Cruikshank, finding his feet once more. “Then they all separated, went into different countries, and when they saw a cow in France they called it _vache_—it’s quite simple.”

“Oh, yes, I see that part of it,” said Bellwattle. You have only to say to a woman—and moreover be it in the proper tone of voice—that a thing is quite simple and she will see it through and through. I have known Bellwattle understand a proposition of Euclid by telling her it was quite simple.

As I say, “If that point is the centre of this circle, all lines drawn from that point to the circumference must be equal; that’s quite simple, isn’t it?”

And she has replied, “Oh—quite—I see that—but who says it’s the centre?”

If I say Euclid, she then asks me if I believe everything which people tell me.

In this manner she saw Cruikshank’s point about the people in France calling a cow _vache_. But after seeing it, she was silent for a long time. She was giving it due consideration. I knew that another question was to come. At last she looked up.

“But can you explain,” said she, “how they happened to hit upon the same animal? I know _vache_ means cow, but how did the people in France know that it should be that particular animal that they were to call _vache_? They might have called a pig _vache_, and then we should all have been topsy-turvy.”

I ran my fingers through my hair.

“My God!” said I——

“It’s no good swearing,” said Bellwattle, “I can see you don’t know.”

XVIII

THE NIGHT THE POPE DIED

XVIII

THE NIGHT THE POPE DIED

It comes back into my mind now, as an echo that is lost among the hills, that night in Ardmore in Ireland, that night when they heard the Pope was dead. I can hear the low, deep note of the sea, monotonous and even as the beating of a heavy drum when the waves rolled up the boat cove, or leapt upon the rocks that crouch to meet the sea beneath the Holy Well. I can see the clouds, great banks of grey, as though a furnace were smouldering below the horizon, I can see them hanging in sullen wet masses, hanging low over the white crests that were breaking away by Helvic Head. I can see the dank, dark coils of seaweed lying, like the hair of women that are drowned, along the dim curved line of the strand. And around the first head, where the bay spreads wide into the great Atlantic, the sound of a rushing wind, muted by the hills, dimly reaches my ears.

It seems fitting that when any great catastrophe falls upon the trembling little people of this world there should be sounded an ominous note—a discord struck upon that great orchestra of the elements. It is the only true accompaniment to the sorrows of mankind, when the thunder bursts, the lightning rends the raiment of the sky and the winds play wildly on their shrillest instruments.

There was no thunder, no lightning that night, but all across the bay and round the headlands you might have felt the despairing sense of foreboding, the heavy hour before a storm, when the very ground seems angry beneath your feet.

Such was the night in Ardmore when they heard the Pope was dead.

In one moment the whole Roman Catholic world had been robbed of its father; the great Church of Christ was without its head on earth. From that moment and for the anxious days to come they were as orphans, knowing not where to turn. The Pope was dead. But there was none to cry in the market-place, there was none to stand upon the chapel steps and shout, “Long live the Pope!”

The Pope was dead. There was no Pope.

You must have seen the silent, questioning faces to have known what such a loss could mean. Around the counters in the public-houses the fishermen sat, afraid to drink. The women crept into their cottages and shut the doors. Presently little flickers of light glowed from each window—candle flames trembling as the draughts of wind caught their feeble glow.

It was as though the spirit of that old aristocrat, with his death-like head and piercing eyes, were making its way to Heaven through the little street of Ardmore, and these few feeble glimmers were set out, tiny beacons, to point his road.

For an hour they were burning before there came from the village courthouse the sounds of instruments being blown, all those weird, unearthly noises which tell you that a village band is about to play.

In ten minutes they were ready—the public-houses were empty. In ten minutes they were putting their instruments to their lips; their cheeks were swelling with the first ready breath to start. A little crowd of boys and girls were surrounding them ready to march by their sides; and then, with a one—two—three, they began. The little solemn, serious crowd strode forth.

Up by the post-office they went, round by the Protestant Church, along down Coffee Lane to where stands the seawall hung with its festoons of red-brown nets. Then through the main street they marched and round again the same route as before.

And ever as they marched, like the band of an army playing the death march at the funeral of their chief, they played the same grim tune—the grimmest tune at such a time I think I have ever heard—“Good-bye, Dolly, I must leave you.” It was the only tune they knew.

After the second round of their journey, the playing ceased while the players gained their breath. In silence then, they tramped over the same ground, the little crowd, eager for the music again, still following at their heels.

When they reached the top of Coffee Lane once more, where the road runs up to meet the Holy Well and wanders from there in a thin straggling path around the wild cliff-heads, there came an elderly woman and a child out of the darkness.

Seven miles they had walked around that dangerous path from the little fishing hamlet of Whiting Bay—seven miles over a way where a goat must choose its steps, where at moments the sheer cliff rushes down four hundred feet to meet the sea—seven miles in that chill darkness with never a lantern’s light to guide their feet—seven miles with hearts throbbing, hope rising and falling, whispering a word to each other now and then, always straining on—seven miles just to learn the truth.

As they came out of the shadows, the woman stopped. The clarionet-player was wetting his lips, fitting his fingers with infinite care upon the notes of his instrument. She caught his arm before he could raise it to his mouth.

“What is ut?” she asked.

“Shure, the Pope’s dead,” he whispered back.

And then, with its one—two—three once more, the band struck up again. The woman and the child stood there silently under a cottage window, the light of the burning candle within making pin-points in their eyes, while in their ears echoed and re-echoed the words, “The Pope is dead,” mingling with the refrain, “Good-bye, Dolly, I must leave you.”

XIX

ART

XIX

ART

It was explained to me the other day, the meaning of this elusive little word of three letters. All my pre-conceived opinions were dashed to the ground and, in the space of half an hour, I was taught the modern appreciation of the meaning of that word—Art.

It chanced I wanted a copy of that picture by Furze, “Diana of the Uplands”—Furze whom the gods loved or envied, I don’t know which. I wanted a copy of it to hang in my bedroom in a little farmhouse in the country. I wanted to hang it near my bed so that when I woke of a morning, I could start straight away across the Uplands, feeling the generous give of the heather beneath my feet, tasting the freshening draught of wind in my nostrils, taking into my limbs the energy of those hounds ever ready to strain away from their leash and leave their mistress a speck upon a dim horizon.

It chanced that I wanted all that—which is not a little. But these are the real good things of life which are so seldom bought because they are so cheap. A small print-seller’s in Regent Street was good enough for me.

I walked in. On the threshold I was met by a little serving-maid with a chubby red face and a brand-new green apron.

“Yes?” said she.

It opened the conversation excellently.

“I want a coloured print of ‘Diana of the Uplands,’” said I.

She hurried to a portfolio and began turning over coloured prints at an incredible speed. Before she had found it, she looked up.

“Will you have it plain?” she asked, “or with a B.A.M.?”

“A B.A.M.?” said I. I could not describe to you the effect of those three mysterious letters. It sounded almost improper. “You ought not to say things like that to me,” I continued solemnly. “Supposing I said that you were a V.P.G.”

She became at a loss between confusion and amusement.

“I forgot,” she said, apologetically. “I’m new here, and that’s what we call them. It means British Art Mount.”

At that moment there came another serving-maid in a green apron.

“What is it you want, sir?” she asked.

“Oh, I’m being attended to, thank you,” I replied.

“Yes, but this young lady’s new to the shop,” she said; “she’s not quite used to serving yet.”

“She’s doing very well indeed,” said I. “She’s already nearly persuaded me to buy a thing I don’t want—a thing I don’t even know the meaning of.”

The little girl with the chubby cheeks wriggled her shoulders with delight.

“I asked him if he wanted a B.A.M.,” she explained.

The other looked quite shocked.

“You know I’ve told you not to say that,” she said. “You’d better go up to Miss Nelson, she wants you upstairs.”

The little maid departed. I was left with her more elderly and more experienced sister in trade. In a moment she had discovered the picture in question and had laid it out for my approval. I did approve; and then she asked me if I wanted it framed.

“If you do framing here, I shall be very glad,” said I.

“Then what sort of frame would you like?” she asked.

I hesitated. I was trying to see it in my mind’s eye on that bedroom wall; see it when the sun was pouring in through the open window; when the rain was pattering against the panes, and the sky was grey. Therefore, while I made up my mind—just, perhaps, to conceal from her the fact that I could be in doubt about such a matter—I asked her what she would suggest.

She drew herself up, conscious of the state of importance which she had attained with my question.

“Well,” she said, and her head hung thoughtfully on one side—“that depends on what room it’s for. Is it for the dining-room or the drawing-room?”

Now what possessed me, I do not know; but when I thought of that little farmhouse in the valley between the Uplands, the words dining-room and drawing-room sounded ridiculous. There is just a sitting-room—and a small sitting-room—that is all. This dining-room and drawing-room seemed nonsensical, and what with one thing and another it put me in a nonsensical mood.

“’Tis for the cook’s bedroom,” said I.

If only you had seen her face! It fell like a stone over a cliff and, what is more, it never seemed to reach the bottom of that expression of bewilderment.

“Oh,” she replied—“I see. Well, then, I’m sure I couldn’t advise you. Tastes differ—don’t they?”

“So I’ve heard,” said I. “But I wish you would advise me, all the same. I’m quite ignorant about these things. I’m only a farmer. I’ve just come up to London for the day and I’ve been given this commission for—well, she’s more than the cook—she’s the housekeeper. She didn’t tell me anything about the frame. What frame would you suggest? I thought a nice rosewood one; but you know much better about these sort of things than I do.”

“A rosewood one won’t be bad,” said she, in a quaint little tone of voice that gently patronised me. “A rosewood one’ll do,” she repeated; “but it’s not Art.”

That phrase had an electrical sound to me; and when I say electrical, I mean, beside the shock of it, something which neither you nor I nor any of us understand.

“Why isn’t it Art?” I asked quickly. “You mustn’t think me foolish,” I added, “but really I suppose I’m what you call a country bumpkin; I know nothing about these things. Why isn’t it Art?”

“Just——it isn’t,” she replied, and she took down a sample of black moulding and a sample of gold; then she laid a sample of rosewood on one side of the picture. “There,” she said, “that’s your cook’s taste.” She did not quite like to call it mine. Then she laid the other two samples on the other sides of the print—“and that’s Art.”

I looked at the picture, then I looked at her. Then I looked back at the picture again.

“But how do you know it’s Art?” said I.

She pulled herself up still straighter and she answered, with all the confidence in the world—

“Because I’ve been taught—that’s why. Because I’ve been educated to it. I haven’t spent five years here amongst all these pictures without learning what’s Art and what isn’t.”

“And now you know?” said I.

She nodded her head heavily with wisdom.

“But are you sure you’ve been taught right?” I went on. “How are you to know that the people who taught you knew?”

“’Cos they’ve been in the business all their lives,” she replied. “’Cos they’ve found out what the public like and they give it to them. It’s like one person learning music on a grand piano and another learning music on a cheap cottage piano. Do you mean to tell me that the one as learns on the grand piano isn’t going to be a better musician than the one as learns on the cottage?”

“It’s more likely that they’d be a better judge of pianos,” said I.

She told me I was talking silly and which frame would I have.

“I’m trying not to talk silly,” I assured her. “I mean every word I say, only I haven’t been educated as you have. You must remember that, and make allowances. I only said that about the piano because I knew a lady who had a satinwood Blüthner grand piano, and she never played on it from one day to another, so that she did not even know what a good piano was, and much less did she know about music.”

“I wish she’d give it to me,” said the little serving-maid.

“I wish she would,” said I; “then perhaps you’d admit that there was something in what I said, after all. But, joking aside, if you’ve been taught what is Art and what isn’t, couldn’t you teach me? I love the country. I think the fields of corn that grow up on my land every year are beautiful. And when I see them getting ripe and being gathered, then going out to feed the whole world—you here in the cities, who don’t know the gold of a ripening field of corn—every single one of you, all fed from those wonderful fields that have waves like the sea when the winds blow across them—things like that I know about—things like that I appreciate.”

“Oh—well—that’s Nature,” said she. “We were talking about Art. Art’s holdin’ the mirror up to Nature—see.”

“Then what’s the matter with the mirror?” I asked.

“What mirror?”

“The mirror of Art?”

“Why there’s nothing the matter with it.”

“Well—I don’t know,” said I, “but it seems to me as if so many people have been taught to look into it, that it has become dulled with their breath and won’t reflect anything now.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” she said.

“I don’t believe I know myself,” I replied. “I haven’t been taught like you have.”

“Well—which frame would you like?” she asked a little testily.

“I’m afraid my housekeeper’ll be annoyed if I don’t take the rosewood one,” said I.

XX

THE VALUE OF IDLENESS

XX

THE VALUE OF IDLENESS

“If you want to be quiet,” said my friend, “you had better go and sit up in the old mill.”

I acquiesced at once.

“Just give me a table and a chair,” said I. “I shall be quite comfortable.”

“Are you going to write?” he asked.

I nodded my head.

“What?”

“An essay.”

“On what?”

“The Value of Idleness.”

“You’ll do that well,” said he, and he told the gardener to take up to the mill all that I required.

So here am I, writing the Value of Idleness in the little oak-beamed loft of an old mill.

To do nothing is to be receptive of everything. Idleness of the body alone will serve you not at all. It is only when the mind—but to follow the mood, to understand the drift of this philosophy of idleness, you must see, as I see it, this old white mill in which I sit and write.

Last night, as we walked out in the garden, the moon was in her chariot, whirling in a mad race through the heavens. In and out of a thousand clouds she rode recklessly.

She carries news, thought I, and were she the daughter of Nimshi, she could not drive more furiously.

And there, under her shifting light, with great arms raised appealingly into the wind, stood the old wind-mill, just at the end of the little red-brick path which runs through an avenue of gnarled apple trees.

I touched my friend’s arm and pointed.

“She’s very beautiful,” said I.

“She’s very old,” said he.

Then I suddenly saw in her the figure of a patient woman, who has given up her youth, appealing with passionate arms to God to grant her rest. Another moment and there came a faint moaning sigh falling upon my ears—a sigh like the fluttering of an autumn leaf that eddies slowly to the ground.

“What is that?” I asked.

“The wind-mill,” said my friend. “She’s crying to be set free, to have her arms unloosed.”

As he said that, I saw her as a tired woman no longer. She became majestic in her agony then. So it seemed to me must the women in Siberia cry at night with faces turned, and hands stretched forth towards their native Russia.

“How long has she been idle?” I inquired.

“Oh—many, many years,” said he.

It was this which made me think of writing the Value of Idleness. So here am I, writing my essay on Idleness in the little oak-beamed loft of an old mill.

You cannot think how silent it is. I feel away and above the world. From the wee square window between the beams I can see the miller’s cottage with its broad sloping roof of old red tiles, leaning down until it nearly touches the ground. But beyond that, on one side, stretches the whole weald of Kent and, on the other, lie the Romney marshes spreading forth to meet the sea. And there is the sea—that faint, far margin of blue—a chaplet upon the smooth, broad forehead of the world.

Yet silent and still as it all is, I can nevertheless hear voices. Upon the great oak shaft, the tireless vertebra of this goddess of the wind, there are two initials carved by some patient hand. L.B. are the letters cut, and following them comes the date—1790. There is a voice to be heard from that, if you do but listen well. I can see one of those young millers who, when never a leaf was rustling on the trees and the air was still in a breathless calm, I can see him sitting there in a moment of idleness, carving out his initials and the date in deep, bold characters. Then saying aloud to himself, “Maybe there’ll be some as’ll read that in a hundred years, and wonder who be I.”

I can hear the incisions of his knife as he cut into the stern hard oak, the little silences, the little grunts of his breath as he laboured over each letter. No—for all its stillness, there are voices in this old mill. Up the oak ladder that leads through the ceiling to another floor I can just see the great heavy wheel that turned the shaft. It is grey even now with the dust of flour and, as its sharp teeth gleam down at me out of the darkness, the echoes of those rumbling sounds when the wind was high and the sails were racing round, comes faintly to my ears like thunder afar off.

So here am I, in the midst of these silent voices of the mill—here am I, writing an essay on the Value of Idleness.

“Idleness of the body,” I had begun, “will serve you not at all. It is only when the mind is yielding to the drug of laziness as well, that your ears are attuned to the silent voices and you can speak——”

What was that?

A sudden clatter, a beating of sudden wings around my head!

Only a bat. I watch it as it circles round the old loft. The evening is beginning to fall; I see the cows being driven home along the road. A soft greyness is wrapping its fine web about the world and this little creature is venturing forth from its hiding-place before the day is yet quite dead.

What a wonderful house to live in—this old, old mill! I scarcely wonder at the beauty and simplicity of the “Lettres de mon Moulin” as I sit here with the upper half of the creaking door wide open, and the far hills stretching out to sleep as the night draws round about them.

But now, as the grey light grows deeper and twilight hangs upon a frail thread ere it drops into the lap of darkness; now, as though it were a herald of the night to come, a wind springs up across the land. I hear it as its first whispers begin to tell their secrets in the corners and the crevices. Yet it whispers not for long. Soon, with a loud, insistent voice, it is crying its importunate passion to the mill. But she is chained. The fetters cling unmercifully to her arms. She cannot move. Again and again the wind envelops her in its embrace, but she makes no answer to its passion. Only now and again there comes her faint, despairing cry—the cry of a woman in pain—the cry of a woman in prison. I feel so sorely tempted to set her free, just to see her great generous arms sweeping in a joyous abandonment of life before the wind she loves so well.

And here am I, in this old, old silent mill, writing an essay on the Value of Idleness.

Night is on the verge now. The words run into one another upon the paper. It is so dark that my pen wanders from the faint ruled line and sets out on its own account across the dim grey page.

At last comes the voice of my friend far below.

“Have you finished your idleness yet?”

“It’s finished,” say I with a sense of loss of the moments that have been mine—mine and this dear, sad woman’s in prison. I bolt the doors and come down.

“Come and read it to me now,” says he.

And I read it all.

* * * * *

“But there’s nothing about idleness,” he said. “Where’s the Value of Idleness?”

“Here,” said I, and I threw the papers across to him. “It’s all Idleness. To do nothing is to be receptive of everything. I’ve been doing nothing.”

XXI

THE SPIRIT OF COMPETITION

XXI

THE SPIRIT OF COMPETITION

Not a few are there to applaud this spirit of competition, this modern endeavour to do things well, not because they are worth doing, but from the desire to do them better than other people.

Yet it is a canker that eats its way into the heart of everything. Bellwattle, in her happiest mood of distinction, would call it one of the laws of God. But whether it be a law of God or of Nature; whether, in fact, it be a law at all and not simply one of these fungoid growths of civilisation, it is a deceptive matter whichever way you look at it.

You would imagine, whether you were Jesuit or not, that the end would justify the means in such a question as this. You might believe that, so long as the thing were done well, it would matter little, if at all, the motive which prompted its well-doing. Yet this is just where the subtle poison of it lurks. For it is not of necessity doing a thing well, to do it better than any one else. The moment you begin to work like this, you create a false standard, lowering the value of everything you do. It is not the spirit of charity to give more than your next door neighbour. That is the spirit of competition. The spirit of charity it is to give the last penny you can spare. The widow’s mite is charity. The millionaire’s thousand is bombast.

But this confusion of terms—this confusion of motives is so growing into the language we speak that words, which once were so priceless, are become like weapons worn out and blunted. There is but little edge left to any words now. They will cut nothing.

And so this spirit of competition is a fetish to-day. We do not speak of having done a thing as well as we can do it, but of having done it better than this man or that.

“I bet you,” says the actor, “I could play that part better than the man who plays it now.”

“Do you mean to tell me,” says the politician, “that the speech I made last Friday wasn’t as good as Disraeli at his best?”