CHAPTER VI. THE SEXTON'S COTTAGE
We had been for some time walking over a rocky moorland covered withdry plants and mosses, when I descried a little cottage in the farthestdistance. The sun was not yet down, but he was wrapt in a gray cloud.The heath looked as if it had never been warm, and the wind blewstrangely cold, as if from some region where it was always night.
"Here we are at last!" said the raven. "What a long way it is! In halfthe time I could have gone to Paradise and seen my cousin--him, youremember, who never came back to Noah! Dear! dear! it is almost winter!"
"Winter!" I cried; "it seems but half a day since we left home!"
"That is because we have travelled so fast," answered the raven. "Inyour world you cannot pull up the plumb-line you call gravitation, andlet the world spin round under your feet! But here is my wife's house!She is very good to let me live with her, and call it the sexton'scottage!"
"But where is your churchyard--your cemetery--where you make yourgraves, I mean?" said I, seeing nothing but the flat heath.
The raven stretched his neck, held out his beak horizontally, turned itslowly round to all the points of the compass, and said nothing.
I followed the beak with my eyes, and lo, without church or graves, allwas a churchyard! Wherever the dreary wind swept, there was the raven'scemetery! He was sexton of all he surveyed! lord of all that was laidaside! I stood in the burial-ground of the universe; its compass theunenclosed heath, its wall the gray horizon, low and starless! I hadleft spring and summer, autumn and sunshine behind me, and come to thewinter that waited for me! I had set out in the prime of my youth, andhere I was already!--But I mistook. The day might well be long in thatregion, for it contained the seasons. Winter slept there, the nightthrough, in his winding-sheet of ice; with childlike smile, Spring cameawake in the dawn; at noon, Summer blazed abroad in her gorgeous beauty;with the slow-changing afternoon, old Autumn crept in, and died at thefirst breath of the vaporous, ghosty night.
As we drew near the cottage, the clouded sun was rushing down thesteepest slope of the west, and he sank while we were yet a few yardsfrom the door. The same instant I was assailed by a cold that seemedalmost a material presence, and I struggled across the threshold as iffrom the clutches of an icy death. A wind swelled up on the moor, andrushed at the door as with difficulty I closed it behind me. Then allwas still, and I looked about me.
A candle burned on a deal table in the middle of the room, and the firstthing I saw was the lid of a coffin, as I thought, set up against thewall; but it opened, for it was a door, and a woman entered. She was allin white--as white as new-fallen snow; and her face was as white as herdress, but not like snow, for at once it suggested warmth. I thought herfeatures were perfect, but her eyes made me forget them. The life ofher face and her whole person was gathered and concentrated in her eyes,where it became light. It might have been coming death that made herface luminous, but the eyes had life in them for a nation--large, anddark with a darkness ever deepening as I gazed. A whole night-heavenlay condensed in each pupil; all the stars were in its blackness, andflashed; while round it for a horizon lay coiled an iris of the eternaltwilight. What any eye IS, God only knows: her eyes must have beencoming direct out of his own! the still face might be a primevalperfection; the live eyes were a continuous creation.
"Here is Mr. Vane, wife!" said the raven.
"He is welcome," she answered, in a low, rich, gentle voice. Treasuresof immortal sound seemed to be buried in it.
I gazed, and could not speak.
"I knew you would be glad to see him!" added the raven.
She stood in front of the door by which she had entered, and did notcome nearer.
"Will he sleep?" she asked.
"I fear not," he replied; "he is neither weary nor heavy laden."
"Why then have you brought him?"
"I have my fears it may prove precipitate."
"I do not quite understand you," I said, with an uneasy foreboding as towhat she meant, but a vague hope of some escape. "Surely a man must do aday's work first!"
I gazed into the white face of the woman, and my heart fluttered. Shereturned my gaze in silence.
"Let me first go home," I resumed, "and come again after I have found ormade, invented, or at least discovered something!"
"He has not yet learned that the day begins with sleep!" said thewoman, turning to her husband. "Tell him he must rest before he can doanything!"
"Men," he answered, "think so much of having done, that they fall asleepupon it. They cannot empty an egg but they turn into the shell, and liedown!"
The words drew my eyes from the woman to the raven.
I saw no raven, but the librarian--the same slender elderly man, in arusty black coat, large in the body and long in the tails. I had seenonly his back before; now for the first time I saw his face. It wasso thin that it showed the shape of the bones under it, suggesting theskulls his last-claimed profession must have made him familiar with. Butin truth I had never before seen a face so alive, or a look so keen orso friendly as that in his pale blue eyes, which yet had a haze aboutthem as if they had done much weeping.
"You knew I was not a raven!" he said with a smile.
"I knew you were Mr. Raven," I replied; "but somehow I thought you abird too!"
"What made you think me a bird?"
"You looked a raven, and I saw you dig worms out of the earth with yourbeak."
"And then?"
"Toss them in the air." "And then?"
"They grew butterflies, and flew away."
"Did you ever see a raven do that? I told you I was a sexton!"
"Does a sexton toss worms in the air, and turn them into butterflies?"
"Yes."
"I never saw one do it!"
"You saw me do it!--But I am still librarian in your house, for I neverwas dismissed, and never gave up the office. Now I am librarian here aswell."
"But you have just told me you were sexton here!"
"So I am. It is much the same profession. Except you are a true sexton,books are but dead bodies to you, and a library nothing but a catacomb!"
"You bewilder me!"
"That's all right!"
A few moments he stood silent. The woman, moveless as a statue, stoodsilent also by the coffin-door.
"Upon occasion," said the sexton at length, "it is more convenient toput one's bird-self in front. Every one, as you ought to know, has abeast-self--and a bird-self, and a stupid fish-self, ay, and a creepingserpent-self too--which it takes a deal of crushing to kill! In truthhe has also a tree-self and a crystal-self, and I don't know how manyselves more--all to get into harmony. You can tell what sort a man is byhis creature that comes oftenest to the front."
He turned to his wife, and I considered him more closely. He was abovethe ordinary height, and stood more erect than when last I saw him. Hisface was, like his wife's, very pale; its nose handsomely encased thebeak that had retired within it; its lips were very thin, and even theyhad no colour, but their curves were beautiful, and about them quivereda shadowy smile that had humour in it as well as love and pity.
"We are in want of something to eat and drink, wife," he said; "we havecome a long way!"
"You know, husband," she answered, "we can give only to him that asks."
She turned her unchanging face and radiant eyes upon mine.
"Please give me something to eat, Mrs. Raven," I said, "andsomething--what you will--to quench my thirst."
"Your thirst must be greater before you can have what will quench it,"she replied; "but what I can give you, I will gladly."
She went to a cupboard in the wall, brought from it bread and wine, andset them on the table.
We sat down to the perfect meal; and as I ate, the bread and wineseemed to go deeper than the hunger and thirst. Anxiety and discomfortvanished; expectation took their place.
I grew very sleepy, and now first felt weary.
"I have earned neither food nor sleep, Mrs. Raven," I
said, "but youhave given me the one freely, and now I hope you will give me the other,for I sorely need it."
"Sleep is too fine a thing ever to be earned," said the sexton; "it mustbe given and accepted, for it is a necessity. But it would be perilousto use this house as a half-way hostelry--for the repose of a night,that is, merely."
A wild-looking little black cat jumped on his knee as he spoke. Hepatted it as one pats a child to make it go to sleep: he seemed to mepatting down the sod upon a grave--patting it lovingly, with an inwardlullaby.
"Here is one of Mara's kittens!" he said to his wife: "will you give itsomething and put it out? she may want it!"
The woman took it from him gently, gave it a little piece of bread, andwent out with it, closing the door behind her.
"How then am I to make use of your hospitality?" I asked.
"By accepting it to the full," he answered.
"I do not understand."
"In this house no one wakes of himself."
"Why?"
"Because no one anywhere ever wakes of himself. You can wake yourself nomore than you can make yourself."
"Then perhaps you or Mrs. Raven would kindly call me!" I said, stillnowise understanding, but feeling afresh that vague foreboding.
"We cannot."
"How dare I then go to sleep?" I cried.
"If you would have the rest of this house, you must not trouble yourselfabout waking. You must go to sleep heartily, altogether and outright."My soul sank within me.
The sexton sat looking me in the face. His eyes seemed to say, "Will younot trust me?" I returned his gaze, and answered,
"I will."
"Then come," he said; "I will show you your couch."
As we rose, the woman came in. She took up the candle, turned to theinner door, and led the way. I went close behind her, and the sextonfollowed.
Lilith: A Romance Page 6