by John Buchan
Without an effort he rose to the occasion. Now was the opportunity for a master-mind, which had never yet met its match among the boys of his restricted acquaintance. He set himself tooth and nail to the wall. Projecting stone and mossy interstices gave him foothold. In a trice he had gained the top and was looking into a sort of refined Elysium, a paradise within a paradise. A broad pond had been formed by the stream, whereon sailed a swan and some brave-liveried ducks, and near whose margin floated water-lilies, yellow and white. Cleanshaven turf fell away from the edge, barred by the shadows of trees and bright in many places with half-opened heather. Beyond the water were little glades of the greenest grass, through which came a glimpse of stone and turret. The Jacobite’s breath went quick and fast. Things were becoming, he felt, altogether too true to nature. He had come straight upon a castle without so much as a mishap. The burden of his good fortune bore heavily on him; and he was strongly tempted to retreat. But in the end romance prevailed; with wavering footsteps he crept along the edge, ready at a glance to flop among the reeds.
But these violent tactics were not needed. Sleep seemed to have fallen upon the race of grooms and gardeners. Nothing stirred save a linnet, which came down to drink, and a moorhen which scuttled across the pool. Grasshoppers were chirping in the silence, and the faraway sound of a bell came clear and thin through the air. In a little he came to where the pond ceased and the stream began once more, not like the stream in the meadows below, but a slow, dark current among trees and steep mossy banks. Once more the adventurer’s heart beat irresolutely; once more his courage prevailed. He scrambled below trailing branches, slipped oftentimes into the shallows, and rolled among red earth till the last vestige of green was gone from his corduroys. But harsh is the decree of fate. Again he came to a barrier — this time a waterfall of great sound and volume.
Joy filled the heart of the Jacobite. This was the water-slide in the Bagworthy wood, and at the top must be the Doone’s valley. So with boldness and skill he addressed himself to the ascent. I have no inkling what the real cascade in Devon is like, but I will take my oath it was not more perilous than this. The black rocks were slippery with ooze, few helping boughs of trees were at hand, and the pool at the bottom yawned horrific and deep. But the Jacobite was skilled in such breakneck ventures. With the ease of a practised climber he swung himself from one foothold to another till he gripped the great rock which stood midway in the stream just at the summit, and, dripping and triumphant, raised himself to the dry land.
And there before him on a fallen trunk, in the most lovely dell that nature ever conceived, sat the Lady.
For a moment the Jacobite, notwithstanding his expectations, was staggered. Then his training asserted itself. He pulled a torn cap from his head, and ‘I thought you would be here,’ said he.
‘Who are you?’ said the Lady, with the curiosity of her sex, ‘and where do you come from?’
The Jacobite reflected. It was only consistent with tradition, he felt, to give some account of himself. So he proceeded compendiously to explain his birth, his antecedents, his calling, and his adventures of the day. He was delighted with the princess now he had found her. She was tall and lithe, with hair like gold, and the most charming eyes. She wore a dress of white, like a true princess, and a great hat, made according to the most correct canons of romance. She had been reading in a little book, which lay face downward at her feet. He thought of all his special heroines, Helen of Troy and Ariadne, Joan of Arc, the Queen of Scots, Rosalind, and Amy Robsart, and that most hapless and beautiful of dames, the wife of the Secretary Murray. He inwardly decided that the Lady was most like the last, which indeed was only fitting, seeing that tradition said that this place was once her home.
O, you delightful boy,’ said the Lady. ‘I never met any one like you before. Tell me what you think of me.’
‘You’re all right,’ said the wanderer, ‘only where do you come from? I hope you’re not going to disappear.’
‘No, indeed,’ said she. ‘I come from a place to which you will go some day, a big, stupid town, where the finest and the worst things in the world are to be found. I’m here to escape from it for a little.’ The Jacobite was keenly interested in this account of his prospective dwelling-place.
‘What are the fine things?’ he asked. ‘Ships and palaces and dogs and guns and — oh, you know what I mean?’
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘these things are there. And the people take very little interest in them. What they chiefly like is money.’
The Jacobite pulled out his halfpenny, and regarded it with critical interest.
‘Yes,’ she went on, ‘and lots of people don’t go to bed much at night, but they put on fine clothes and go to other people’s houses and have dinner and talk, even when they would rather be at home.’
The Jacobite looked philosophically at his clothes. They could not be called fine. He wasn’t given to talking to people whom he didn’t like, and he told the Lady so.
‘And there are others, who rule the country and don’t know anything about it, and are only good for making long speeches.’
‘But,’ said the Jacobite, incredulously, ‘don’t they know how to fight, or how do they rule if they don’t?’
‘They don’t know how to fight,’ said the Lady sadly; ‘and more, they say fighting is wrong, and want to settle everything by talking.’ The Jacobite looked mournfully skyward. If this was true, his future was dismal indeed. He had much skill in fighting, but talk he held in deep contempt.
‘But there must be heaps of knights and cavaliers left; or are they all gone to heaven?’ said he.
The Lady sighed. ‘There are some, but very few, I am afraid. And these mostly go away to foreign lands, where there is still fighting, or they hunt lions and tigers, or they stay at home very sad. And people say there is no such place as heaven, but that all that is left for us when we die is a “period of sensationless, objective existence”. Do you know what that means?’
‘No,’ said the Jacobite, stoutly, ‘and I don’t care. What awful rot!’
‘And they say that there never were such things as fairies, and that all the stories about Hector and Ulysses and William Tell and Arthur are nonsense. But we know better.’
‘Yes,’ said he, ‘we know better. They’re true to us, and it is only to stupids that they’re not true.’
‘Good,’ said the Lady. ‘There was once a man called Horace, who lived long ago, who said the same thing. You will read his book some day.’ And she repeated softly to herself,
Prætulerim scriptor delirus inersque videri,
Dum mea delectent mala me vel denique fallant,
Quam sapere et ringi.
But the Jacobite saw the slanting sun over the treetops, and he knew it was time to go home.
‘I am afraid I must go,’ he said mournfully. ‘When I grow up I will stop all that nonsense. I will hang a lot of them and banish others, and then you will like it, won’t you? Will you have some treacle toffy? It is very good.’
‘Thank you,’ said the Lady, ‘it is good.’
‘Good-bye,’ said he, ‘I will come and see you when I grow up and go to the place you spoke of.’
‘Yes, I am sure you will,’ said she, and gave him her hand.
He bent low and kissed it in true cavalier fashion.
‘There is the road up there,’ she said, ‘it’s your quickest way.’ And she looked after him as he disappeared through the trees.
The road ran east and west, and as the sun bent aslant it, it was one great belt of golden light. The Jacobite was wonderfully elated. What an afternoon he had had, just like a bit out of a book! Now there remained for him the three miles of a walk home; then tea with fresh butter and cakes such as his heart rejoiced in; and then the delights of taking the horses to drink, and riding his pony to the smithy. The prospect was soothing and serene. A mellow gaiety diffused through his being.
And yet he could not get rid of the Lady’s news. Ah! There was a tru
e princess for you, one who agreed with him in everything; but how sad was the tale she told! Would he ever have to meet such misfortune? He felt that some day he would, and the notion pained him. But he turned back for a moment to look to the westward. The crimson heart of evening was glowing like a furnace; the long shafts of orange light were lengthening, and the apple-green was growing over the blue. Somehow or other the sight gave him heart. The valiant West, that home of El Dorados and golden cities, whither all the romance of life seems to flee, raised his sinking courage. He would, alone, like Douglas among the Saracens, lift the standard and rout all foolish and feeble folks. Some day, when he was great and tall, he would ride into the city where the Lady dwelt, and, after he had scattered her enemies, would marry her and live happy for evermore.
That for the future. For the present home and tea and a summer evening.
An Individualist
Scholar Gipsies, 1896
THE AFTERNOON WAS fast waning to twilight, and the man who for the last few hours had been alternately sleeping in the heather and dabbling in the rocky pools of the burn awoke to the consciousness of time. He rose and looked around him. Hills crowded upon hills, blue, purple, and black; distant spaces of green meadow; barren pines waving desolately on a scarp; many streams falling in a chain of cascades to the glens; and over all a June sky, clear, deep, and tender. The place was goodly, and the idleness which is inseparable from the true enjoyment of afternoon weather dragged heavily upon him to keep him where he was.
He had come out that morn with his mind a chaos of many cares. Projects, fragments of wise and foolish thoughts, a thousand halfconceptions, had crowded upon him thick and fast, for the habit of unceasing mental toil is not shaken off in an hour. But June and the near presence of great hills are wondrous correctives; they are like an inverted spy-glass, which makes large things seem of the smallest; and ere long he found himself aimless and thoughtless. The drift of clouds, the twitter of mountain linnets, seemed all in the world of moment, and he would have gladly bartered his many plans for some share in this wild lore. And so for that day there was one pervert from the gospel of success in life, till lengthening shadows came and he gathered together his wits and laughed at his folly.
With lingering regrets he set off homewards, and the vista before him was one of work awaiting and a whole host of anxieties. Yet for once in a while he had been at peace, and to don the harness again was not so repellent, now that he had found how it could be shaken off at will. So he went along the grassy hill-path whistling an old air, till he had gained the edge of the decline, and lo! before him went another wayfarer.
It was the figure of a man about the middle height, with a forward stoop, and a walk which was neither shuffle nor stride, but the elegant lounge of the idler. His general aspect was one of breeding and ease; it was not till a nearer approach that one perceived the contradiction of the details. For all things about him were in rags, from the torn cap to the fragmentary shoes, and the pristine excellence of the cloth only served to accentuate its present state of defection. He also whistled as he walked, and his roving eyes devoured the manifold landscape. Then some other mood seemed to take him, and he flung himself on the short hill grass, lying back with his head on his hands.
At the sound of the other’s footsteps he sat up and greeted him.
‘Good-day,’ said the tramp, civilly. ‘Do you go far?’ Then, as if he had forgotten himself, he went back to his Scots. ‘I was wonderin’ if ye could tell me the time o’ day, sir,’ he said, hastily.
The other stopped short and looked at the stranger before him. Something in his frank eye and strange appearance attracted him, for he did not go on, but glanced at his watch and sat down beside him. Darkness was not yet, and the air was as soft as mid-day.
For a few minutes there was silence, and the one broke it with a laugh. ‘I seem to have come into a new land to-day,’ he said. ‘All things have seemed enchanted, and I scarcely know whether I am sleeping or waking. I suppose it is the weather and those great hills.’ And even as he spoke he found himself wondering at himself for speaking thus in such company.
But the other reassured him. ‘Good,’ said he, and again he dropped the dialect. ‘At last I have found some one like-minded. You are a — ?’
‘Oh, I am a man of affairs, busy from year’s end to year’s end. For eleven months I am chained, but for once in a while I am free. And you — ?’
‘Oh!,’ and the tramp laughed. ‘Ulysses, you know. A wanderer is man from his birth. I see we have not so much in common.’
‘No,’ said the other, ‘I am afraid we have not. You see I believe really at the bottom of my heart in getting on in life, and doing one’s duty, and that sort of thing. I see that you have no such prejudices.’
‘Not a bit of it,’ and the tramp whistled lackadaisically. ‘It’s all a question of nature. Some men - well, some, you know, are born to be good citizens. Others lack the domestic virtues. How does the thing go?
Non ilium tectis ullæ, non moenibus urbes
Accepere, neque ipse manus feritate dedisset,
Pastorum et solis exegit montibus ævum.
‘Brunck emends the passage, but the words are good as they are. In them you have my character and watchword.’
‘It is the character of many,’ said the other. ‘We can all hear the Piper if we listen, but some of us stop our ears against him. For myself, this hill air makes me daft, and the smell of heather and burning wood, and the sound of water and the wind. I can sympathise with you. And now I am going back to toil, and it will be very hard for days, till the routine lays its spell over me once more.’
‘And for what good?’ asked the wayfarer. ‘I apologise for asking you the foolish question, but it is the inevitable one in my philosophy.’
‘Oh,’ said the other, ‘I can scarcely tell. For the sake of feeling that one is fighting in the ranks of life and not skulking from the battle line; that one is doing the work for which God has given him talents; to know that one is mixing with men, and playing his part well in the human tragi-comedy. These reasons and many others.’
‘Hum,’ said the tramp. ‘Again I must say, “temper of mind”. You will excuse me if I say that they do not commend themselves to me. I cannot see the necessity for making the world a battle-field. It is a pilgrimage, if you like, where it is a man’s duty and best wisdom to choose the easiest course. All the pleasure in life can be got apart from the turmoil of the market-place — love and kindness, the taste of bread to a hungry man and water to a thirsty, the delight of rest when tired, and the pleasure of motion when fresh and alert, and, above all, the thousand things of nature.’
You chose the life? You were not born to it?’
Born to it?’ and the wayfarer laughed again. ‘No, I was very little born to it. I shall not trouble you with my story, it is too old-fashioned to amuse you. I had good prospects, as people say, but, as I have said, I lacked the civil virtues. I was too restless to stay long anywhere and too rich to have any need, and the upshot of it all is — this!’ And he fingered lovingly the multiform rents in his coat.
Below them, as they talked, ran the sandy hill-road, with its white gravel glistening in the westering sunlight. Far down lay a cottage, which was as clear as if it had been not a score of yards away. Thither a man was walking, a shepherd in his Sabbath clothes, who had been to the country town and was returning laden with many parcels. Distant as it was, the whole scene lay plain before the two. A child, a little girl, ran from the cottage at her father’s approach, and clung lovingly to his knee. Then with childish strength she clutched a package, and in another second the pair had entered the house. By some simultaneous impulse both men had directed their eyes to the place and had seen the whole of the little comedy.
And lo! to the other’s amazement the tramp’s eyes glistened as he looked.
‘You do not believe in the domestic virtues?’ said the one very slowly.
‘Not I,’ said the tramp. ‘I have
told you that I don’t. The essence of social life, civil and domestic, is bearing one another’s burdens and sharing one another’s pleasures. I am an individualist with all my heart. I grant you things would come to a pretty pass if all were of my way of thinking; but there — it is a matter of temperament, and such temperaments are scarce.’
‘Is it not,’ said his interrogator, ‘the old question whether man or nature is the more productive study? You cannot maintain that these hills afford the same view-ground of character as the city and the bustle of life. I speak solely as a spectator. I do not even ask you to go down and mix with the crowd and taste its life.’ And there seemed no incongruity in talking thus to the man of the wayside and many tatters.
‘No, no,’ said the other. ‘God forbid that I should talk so callously of the sorrows and toils of my fellows. I do not seek to scrutinise the character of others. All my concern is with myself. It is not a man’s duty to seek out his kind and strive with them and live among them. All that he must do is to play his part well as he may chance upon them. It is not richness and fulness of life that I want. I am not ambitious. Ease, ataraxia, you know, is enough for me.’
‘But the rewards?’ said the one, questioningly.
‘Ah, the rewards! You cannot know them.’ And the man’s voice took a new tone. His eyes lit up, and, looking over the darkening valley, he spoke to his comrade many things, and sang in his ear ever so sweetly the ‘Song of the Open Road’. He told of the changes of the season — the rigours of winter, the early flush of spring, the mellow joys of summer, and autumn with her pomp and decay. He told of clear starlit nights, when the hill breezes blow over the moors and the birds wake the sleeper; of windy mornings, when the mist trails from the hills and dun clouds scud across the sky; of long hot days in the heather among the odours of thyme and bog-myrtle and the lark’s clear song. Then he changed his tune, and spoke of the old romance of the wayside, that romance which gipsies and wanderers feel, of motion amid rest, of ease in the hurry of the seasons, of progress over the hills and far away, into that land unknown which dawns upon the sight with each new morrow. And he spoke, too, of the human element in it all which is so dear to the man versed in its mysteries, of heroism amid the sordid, the pathetic in the coarse, the kindly in the most repulsive. And as he spoke he grew eloquent with it all, and his hearer marvelled at such words, till he looked away from the rags to the keen, eager face, and then he marvelled no more.