Part 3

If a stranger passed the tent of Hóseyn, he cried "A churl's!" Or haply "God help the man who has neither salt nor bread!" --"Nay," would a friend exclaim, "he needs nor pity nor scorn More than who spends small thought on the shore-sand, picking pearls, --Holds but in light esteem the seed-sort, bears instead On his breast a moon-like prize, some orb which of night makes morn.

"What if no flocks and herds enrich the son of Sinán? They went when his tribe was mulct, ten thousand camels the due, Blood-value paid perforce for a murder done of old. 'God gave them, let them go! But never since time began, Muléykeh, peerless mare, owned master the match of you, And you are my prize, my Pearl: I laugh at men's land and gold!'

"So in the pride of his soul laughs Hóseyn--and right, I say. Do the ten steeds run a race of glory? Outstripping all, Ever Muléykeh stands first steed at the victor's staff. Who started, the owner's hope, gets shamed and named, that day. 'Silence,' or, last but one, is 'The Cuffed,' as we used to call Whom the paddock's lord thrusts forth. Right, Hóseyn, I say, to laugh!"

"Boasts he Muléykeh the Pearl?" the stranger replies: "Be sure On him I waste nor scorn nor pity, but lavish both On Duhl the son of Sheybán, who withers away in heart For envy of Hóseyn's luck. Such sickness admits no cure. A certain poet has sung, and sealed the same with an oath, 'For the vulgar--flocks and herds! The Pearl is a prize apart.'"

Lo, Duhl the son of Sheybán comes riding to Hóseyn's tent, And he casts his saddle down, and enters and "Peace!" bids he. "You are poor, I know the cause: my plenty shall mend the wrong. 'Tis said of your Pearl--the price of a hundred camels spent In her purchase were scarce ill paid: such prudence is far from me Who proffer a thousand. Speak! Long parley may last too long."

Said Hóseyn, "You feed young beasts a many, of famous breed, Slit-eared, unblemished, fat, true offspring of Múzennem: There stumbles no weak-eyed she in the line as it climbs the hill. But I love Muléykeh's face: her forefront whitens indeed Like a yellowish wave's cream-crest. Your camels--go gaze on them! Her fetlock is foam-splashed too. Myself am the richer still."

A year goes by: lo, back to the tent again rides Duhl. "You are open-hearted, ay--moist-handed, a very prince. Why should I speak of sale? Be the mare your simple gift! My son is pined to death for her beauty: my wife prompts 'Fool, Beg for his sake the Pearl! Be God the rewarder, since God pays debts seven for one: who squanders on Him shows thrift.'"

Said Hóseyn, "God gives each man one life, like a lamp, then gives That lamp due measure of oil: lamp lighted--hold high, wave wide Its comfort for others to share! once quench it, what help is left? The oil of your lamp is your son: I shine while Muléykeh lives. Would I beg your son to cheer my dark if Muléykeh died? It is life against life: what good avails to the life-bereft?"

Another year, and--hist! What craft is it Duhl designs? He alights not at the door of the tent as he did last time, But, creeping behind, he gropes his stealthy way by the trench Half-round till he finds the flap in the folding, for night combines With the robber--and such is he: Duhl, covetous up to crime, Must wring from Hóseyn's grasp the Pearl, by whatever the wrench.

"He was hunger-bitten, I heard: I tempted with half my store, And a gibe was all my thanks. Is he generous like Spring dew? Account the fault to me who chaffered with such an one! He has killed, to feast chance comers, the creature he rode: nay, more-- For a couple of singing-girls his robe has he torn in two: I will beg! Yet I nowise gained by the tale of my wife and son.

"I swear by the Holy House, my head will I never wash Till I filch his Pearl away. Fair dealing I tried, then guile, And now I resort to force. He said we must live or die: Let him die, then,--let me live! Be bold--but not too rash! I have found me a peeping-place: breast, bury your breathing while I explore for myself! Now, breathe! He deceived me not, the spy!

"As he said--there lies in peace Hóseyn--how happy! Beside Stands tethered the Pearl: thrice winds her headstall about his wrist: 'Tis therefore he sleeps so sound--the moon through the roof reveals. And, loose on his left, stands too that other, known far and wide, Buhéyseh, her sister born: fleet is she yet ever missed The winning tail's fire-flash a-stream past the thunderous heels.

"No less she stands saddled and bridled, this second, in case some thief Should enter and seize and fly with the first, as I mean to do. What then? The Pearl is the Pearl: once mount her we both escape." Through the skirt-fold in glides Duhl,--so a serpent disturbs no leaf In a bush as he parts the twigs entwining a nest: clean through, He is noiselessly at his work: as he planned, he performs the rape.

He has set the tent-door wide, has buckled the girth, has clipped The headstall away from the wrist he leaves thrice bound as before, He springs on the Pearl, is launched on the desert like bolt from bow. Up starts our plundered man: from his breast though the heart be ripped, Yet his mind has the mastery: behold, in a minute more, He is out and off and away on Buhéyseh, whose worth we know!

And Hóseyn--his blood turns flame, he has learned long since to ride, And Buhéyseh does her part,--they gain--they are gaining fast On the fugitive pair, and Duhl has Ed-Dárraj to cross and quit, And to reach the ridge El-Sabán,--no safety till that he spied! And Buhéyseh is, bound by bound, but a horse-length off at last, For the Pearl has missed the tap of the heel, the touch of the bit.

She shortens her stride, she chafes at her rider the strange and queer: Buhéyseh is mad with hope--beat sister she shall and must, Though Duhl, of the hand and heel so clumsy, she has to thank. She is near now, nose by tail--they are neck by croup--joy! fear! What folly makes Hóseyn shout "Dog Duhl, Damned son of the Dust, Touch the right ear and press with your foot my Pearl's left flank!"

And Duhl was wise at the word, and Muléykeh as prompt perceived Who was urging redoubled pace, and to hear him was to obey, And a leap indeed gave she, and evanished for evermore. And Hóseyn looked one long last look as who, all bereaved, Looks, fain to follow the dead so far as the living may: Then he turned Buhéyseh's neck slow homeward, weeping sore.

And, lo, in the sunrise, still sat Hóseyn upon the ground Weeping: and neighbours came, the tribesmen of Bénu-Asád In the vale of green Er-Rass, and they questioned him of his grief; And he told from first to last how, serpent-like, Duhl had wound His way to the nest, and how Duhl rode like an ape, so bad! And how Buhéyseh did wonders, yet Pearl remained with the thief.

And they jeered him, one and all: "Poor Hóseyn is crazed past hope! How else had he wrought himself his ruin, in fortune's spite? To have simply held the tongue were a task for boy or girl, And here were Muléykeh again, the eyed like an antelope, The child of his heart by day, the wife of his breast by night!"-- "And the beaten in speed!" wept Hóseyn. "You never have loved my Pearl."

TRAY.

Sing me a hero! Quench my thirst Of soul, ye bards!

Quoth Bard the first: "Sir Olaf, the good knight, did don His helm and eke his habergeon"... Sir Olaf and his bard--!

"That sin-scathed brow" (quoth Bard the second), "That eye wide ope as though Fate beckoned My hero to some steep, beneath Which precipice smiled tempting death"... You too without your host have reckoned!

"A beggar-child" (let's hear this third!) "Sat on a quay's edge: like a bird Sang to herself at careless play, And fell into the stream. 'Dismay! Help, you the standers-by!' None stirred.

"Bystanders reason, think of wives And children ere they risk their lives. Over the balustrade has bounced A mere instinctive dog, and pounced Plumb on the prize. 'How well he dives!

"'Up he comes with the child, see, tight In mouth, alive too, clutched from quite A depth of ten feet--twelve, I bet! Good dog! What, off again? There's yet Another child to save? All right!

"'How strange we saw no other fall! It's instinct in the animal. Good dog! But he's a long while under: If he got drowned I should not wonder-- Strong current, that against the wall!

"'Here he comes, holds in mouth this time --What may the thing be? Well, that's prime! Now, did you ever? Reason reigns In man alone, since all Tray's pains Have fished--the child's doll from the slime!'

"And so, amid the laughter gay, Trotted my hero off,--old Tray,-- Till somebody, prerogatived With reason, reasoned: 'Why he dived, His brain would show us, I should say.

"'John, go and catch--or, if needs be, Purchase--that animal for me! By vivisection, at expense Of half-an-hour and eighteenpence, How brain secretes dog's soul, we'll see!'"

A TALE.

What a pretty tale you told me Once upon a time --Said you found it somewhere (scold me!) Was it prose or was it rhyme, Greek or Latin? Greek, you said, While your shoulder propped my head.

Anyhow there's no forgetting This much if no more, That a poet (pray, no petting!) Yes, a bard, sir, famed of yore, Went where suchlike used to go, Singing for a prize, you know.

Well, he had to sing, nor merely Sing but play the lyre; Playing was important clearly Quite as singing: I desire, Sir, you keep the fact in mind For a purpose that's behind.

There stood he, while deep attention Held the judges round, --Judges able, I should mention, To detect the slightest sound Sung or played amiss: such ears Had old judges, it appears!

None the less he sang out boldly, Played in time and tune, Till the judges, weighing coldly Each note's worth, seemed, late or soon, Sure to smile "In vain one tries Picking faults out: take the prize!"

When, a mischief! Were they seven Strings the lyre possessed? Oh, and afterwards eleven, Thank you! Well, sir,--who had guessed Such ill luck in store?--it happed One of those same seven strings snapped.

All was lost, then! No! a cricket (What "cicada?" Pooh!) --Some mad thing that left its thicket For mere love of music--flew With its little heart on fire, Lighted on the crippled lyre.

So that when (Ah, joy!) our singer For his truant string Feels with disconcerted finger, What does cricket else but fling Fiery heart forth, sound the note Wanted by the throbbing throat?

Ay, and ever to the ending, Cricket chirps at need, Executes the hand's intending, Promptly, perfectly,--indeed Saves the singer from defeat With her chirrup low and sweet.

Till, at ending, all the judges Cry with one assent "Take the prize--a prize who grudges Such a voice and instrument? Why, we took your lyre for harp, So it shrilled us forth F sharp!"

Did the conqueror spurn the creature, Once its service done? That's no such uncommon feature In the case when Music's son Finds his Lotte's power too spent For aiding soul-development.

No! This other, on returning Homeward, prize in hand, Satisfied his bosom's yearning: (Sir, I hope you understand!) --Said "Some record there must be Of this cricket's help to me!"

So, he made himself a statue: Marble stood, life-size; On the lyre, he pointed at you, Perched his partner in the prize; Never more apart you found Her, he throned, from him, she crowned.

That's the tale: its application? Somebody I know Hopes one day for reputation Through his poetry that's--Oh, All so learned and so wise And deserving of a prize!

If he gains one, will some ticket, When his statue's built, Tell the gazer "'Twas a cricket Helped my crippled lyre, whose lilt Sweet and low, when strength usurped Softness' place i' the scale, she chirped?

"For as victory was nighest, While I sang and played,-- With my lyre at lowest, highest, Right alike,--one string that made 'Love' sound soft was snapt in twain, Never to be heard again,--

"Had not a kind cricket fluttered, Perched upon the place Vacant left, and duly uttered 'Love, Love, Love,' whene'er the bass Asked the treble to atone For its somewhat sombre drone."

But you don't know music! Wherefore Keep on casting pearls To a--poet? All I care for Is--to tell him that a girl's "Love" comes aptly in when gruff Grows his singing. (There, enough!)

GOLD HAIR.

Oh, the beautiful girl, too white, Who lived at Pornic, down by the sea, Just where the sea and the Loire unite! And a boasted name in Brittany She bore, which I will not write.

Too white, for the flower of life is red: Her flesh was the soft seraphic screen Of a soul that is meant (her parents said) To just see earth, and hardly be seen, And blossom in heaven instead.

Yet earth saw one thing, one how fair! One grace that grew to its full on earth: Smiles might be sparse on her cheek so spare, And her waist want half a girdle's girth, But she had her great gold hair.

Hair, such a wonder of flix and floss, Freshness and fragrance--floods of it, too! Gold, did I say? Nay, gold's mere dross: Here, Life smiled, "Think what I meant to do!" And Love sighed, "Fancy my loss!"

So, when she died, it was scarce more strange Than that, when delicate evening dies, And you follow its spent sun's pallid range, There's a shoot of colour startles the skies With sudden, violent change,--

That, while the breath was nearly to seek, As they put the little cross to her lips, She changed; a spot came out on her cheek, A spark from her eye in mid-eclipse, And she broke forth, "I must speak!"

"Not my hair!" made the girl her moan-- "All the rest is gone or to go; But the last, last grace, my all, my own, Let it stay in the grave, that the ghosts may know! Leave my poor gold hair alone!"

The passion thus vented, dead lay she; Her parents sobbed their worst on that; All friends joined in, nor observed degree: For indeed the hair was to wonder at, As it spread--not flowing free,

But curled around her brow, like a crown, And coiled beside her cheeks, like a cap, And calmed about her neck--ay, down To her breast, pressed flat, without a gap I' the gold, it reached her gown.

All kissed that face, like a silver wedge 'Mid the yellow wealth, nor disturbed its hair: E'en the priest allowed death's privilege, As he planted the crucifix with care On her breast, 'twixt edge and edge.

And thus was she buried, inviolate Of body and soul, in the very space By the altar; keeping saintly state In Pornic church, for her pride of race, Pure life and piteous fate.

And in after-time would your fresh tear fall, Though your mouth might twitch with a dubious smile, As they told you of gold, both robe and pall, How she prayed them leave it alone awhile, So it never was touched at all.

Years flew; this legend grew at last The life of the lady; all she had done, All been, in the memories fading fast Of lover and friend, was summed in one Sentence survivors passed:

To wit, she was meant for heaven, not earth; Had turned an angel before the time: Yet, since she was mortal, in such dearth Of frailty, all you could count a crime Was--she knew her gold hair's worth.

* * * * *

At little pleasant Pornic church, It chanced, the pavement wanted repair, Was taken to pieces: left in the lurch, A certain sacred space lay bare, And the boys began research.

'Twas the space where our sires would lay a saint, A benefactor,--a bishop, suppose, A baron with armour-adornments quaint, Dame with chased ring and jewelled rose, Things sanctity saves from taint;

So we come to find them in after-days When the corpse is presumed to have done with gauds Of use to the living, in many ways: For the boys get pelf, and the town applauds, And the church deserves the praise.

They grubbed with a will: and at length--_O cor Humanum, pectora cæca_, and the rest!-- They found--no gaud they were prying for, No ring, no rose, but--who would have guessed?-- A double Louis-d'or!

Here was a case for the priest: he heard, Marked, inwardly digested, laid Finger on nose, smiled, "There's a bird Chirps in my ear:" then, "Bring a spade, Dig deeper!"--he gave the word.

And lo, when they came to the coffin-lid, Or rotten planks which composed it once, Why, there lay the girl's skull wedged amid A mint of money, it served for the nonce To hold in its hair-heaps hid!

Hid there? Why? Could the girl be wont (She the stainless soul) to treasure up Money, earth's trash and heaven's affront? Had a spider found out the communion-cup, Was a toad in the christening-font?

Truth is truth: too true it was. Gold! She hoarded and hugged it first, Longed for it, leaned o'er it, loved it--alas-- Till the humour grew to a head and burst, And she cried, at the final pass,--

"Talk not of God, my heart is stone! Nor lover nor friend--be gold for both! Gold I lack; and, my all, my own, It shall hide in my hair. I scarce die loth If they let my hair alone!"

Louis-d'or, some six times five, And duly double, every piece. Now, do you see? With the priest to shrive, With parents preventing her soul's release By kisses that kept alive,--

With heaven's gold gates about to ope, With friends' praise, gold-like, lingering still, An instinct had bidden the girl's hand grope For gold, the true sort--"Gold in heaven, if you will; But I keep earth's too, I hope."

Enough! The priest took the grave's grim yield: The parents, they eyed that price of sin As if _thirty pieces_ lay revealed On the place _to bury strangers in_, The hideous Potter's Field.

But the priest bethought him: "'Milk that's spilt' --You know the adage! Watch and pray! Saints tumble to earth with so slight a tilt! It would build a new altar; that, we may!" And the altar therewith was built.

Why I deliver this horrible verse? As the text of a sermon, which now I preach: Evil or good may be better or worse In the human heart, but the mixture of each Is a marvel and a curse.

The candid incline to surmise of late That the Christian faith proves false, I find; For our Essays-and-Reviews' debate Begins to tell on the public mind, And Colenso's words have weight:

I still, to suppose it true, for my part, See reasons and reasons; this, to begin: 'Tis the faith that launched point-blank her dart At the head of a lie--taught Original Sin, The Corruption of Man's Heart.

DONALD.

Do you happen to know in Ross-shire Mount Ben ... but the name scarce matters: Of the naked fact I am sure enough, Though I clothe it in rags and tatters.

You may recognise Ben by description; Behind him--a moor's immenseness: Up goes the middle mount of a range, Fringed with its firs in denseness.

Rimming the edge, its fir-fringe, mind! For an edge there is, though narrow; From end to end of the range, a strip Of path runs straight as an arrow.

And the mountaineer who takes that path Saves himself miles of journey He has to plod if he crosses the moor Through heather, peat, and burnie.

But a mountaineer he needs must be, For, look you, right in the middle Projects bluff Ben--with an end in _ich_-- Why planted there, is a riddle:

Since all Ben's brothers little and big Keep rank, set shoulder to shoulder, And only this burliest out must bulge Till it seems--to the beholder

From down in the gully,--as if Ben's breast, To a sudden spike diminished, Would signify to the boldest foot "All further passage finished!"

Yet the mountaineer who sidles on And on to the very bending, Discovers, if heart and brain be proof, No necessary ending.

Foot up, foot down, to the turn abrupt Having trod, he, there arriving, Finds--what he took for a point was breadth A mercy of Nature's contriving.

So, he rounds what, when 'tis reached, proves straight, From one side gains the other: The wee path widens--resume the march, And he foils you, Ben my brother!

But Donald--(that name, I hope, will do)-- I wrong him if I call "foiling" The tramp of the callant, whistling the while As blithe as our kettle's boiling.

He had dared the danger from boyhood up, And now,--when perchance was waiting A lass at the brig below,--'twixt mount And moor would he standing debating?

Moreover this Donald was twenty-five, A glory of bone and muscle: Did a fiend dispute the right of way, Donald would try a tussle.

Lightsomely marched he out of the broad On to the narrow and narrow; A step more, rounding the angular rock, Reached the front straight as an arrow.

He stepped it, safe on the ledge he stood, When--whom found he full-facing? What fellow in courage and wariness too, Had scouted ignoble pacing,

And left low safety to timid mates, And made for the dread dear danger, And gained the height where--who could guess He would meet with a rival ranger?

'Twas a gold-red stag that stood and stared, Gigantic and magnific, By the wonder--ay, and the peril--struck Intelligent and pacific:

For a red deer is no fallow deer Grown cowardly through park-feeding; He batters you like a thunderbolt If you brave his haunts unheeding.

I doubt he could hardly perform _volte-face_ Had valour advised discretion: You may walk on a rope, but to turn on a rope No Blondin makes profession.

Yet Donald must turn, would pride permit, Though pride ill brooks retiring: Each eyed each--mute man, motionless beast-- Less fearing than admiring.

These are the moments when quite new sense, To meet some need as novel, Springs up in the brain: it inspired resource: --"Nor advance nor retreat but--grovel!"

And slowly, surely, never a whit Relaxing the steady tension Of eye-stare which binds man to beast,-- By an inch and inch declension,

Sank Donald sidewise down and down: Till flat, breast upwards, lying At his six-foot length, no corpse more still, --"If he cross me! The trick's worth trying."

Minutes were an eternity; But a new sense was created In the stag's brain too; he resolves! Slow, sure, With eye-stare unabated,

Feelingly he extends a foot Which tastes the way ere it touches Earth's solid and just escapes man's soft, Nor hold of the same unclutches

Till its fellow foot, light as a feather whisk, Lands itself no less finely: So a mother removes a fly from the face Of her babe asleep supinely.

And now 'tis the haunch and hind-foot's turn --That's hard: can the beast quite raise it? Yes, traversing half the prostrate length, His hoof-tip does not graze it.

Just one more lift! But Donald, you see, Was sportsman first, man after: A fancy lightened his caution through, --He wellnigh broke into laughter:

"It were nothing short of a miracle! Unrivalled, unexampled-- All sporting feats with this feat matched Were down and dead and trampled!"

The last of the legs as tenderly Follows the rest: or never Or now is the time! His knife in reach, And his right hand loose--how clever!