by Howard Pyle
Hence again the story resumed.
Colonel Singelsby had not before noticed the two men who were with Sandy, now he observed them more closely. They were tall, middle-aged men, with serious, placid, unemotional faces. Each carried a long white staff, the end of which rested upon the ground. There was about them something somehow different from anything Colonel Singelsby had ever seen before. They were most quiet, courteous men, but there was that in their personal appearance that was singularly unpleasant to Colonel Singelsby. Why, he could not tell, for they were evidently gentlemen, and, from their bearing, men of influence. He turned to Sandy again.
“How has it been with you since you have been here?” said he.
“It has been very hard with me,” said Sandy, patiently; “very hard indeed; but I hope and believe now that the worst is over, and that by-and-by I shall be happy, and not have any more trouble.”
“I trust so, indeed,” said the Colonel; “but do not hope for too much, Sandy. Even the best men coming to this world are not likely to be rid of their troubles at once, and it is not to be hoped for that you, after your ill-spent life, should find your lot easier than theirs.”
“I know, sir,” said Sandy, “and I am very sorry.”
There was a meek acceptance of the Colonel’s dictum that grated somehow unpleasantly upon the Colonel’s ears. He would rather that Sandy had made some protest against that dictum. He approached half a step and looked more keenly at the other, and then for the first time he saw that some great, some radical, some tremendous change had happened. The man before him was no doubt Sandy Graff, but all that was low-browed, evil, foul, was gone, as though it had been washed away, and in its place was a translucent, patient meekness, almost like — There was something so terribly vital in that change that Colonel Singelsby shuddered before it. He looked and looked, and then he passed the back of his hand across his eyes. “All this is very unreal,” said he, turning to his friend the minister. “It is like a dream. I begin to feel as though nothing was real. Surely it is not possible that magic changes can go on, and yet I cannot understand all these things in the least.”
For answer, the reverend gentleman shrugged his shoulders almost sourly.
“Gentlemen,” said Colonel Singelsby, turning abruptly upon Sandy’s escort, “let me ask you is this a certain man whom I used to know as Sandy Graff?”
One of the men nodded his head.
“And will you tell me,” said he, “another thing? Will you kindly tell me where you are taking him?”
“We are about to take him,” said the man, looking steadily at the Colonel as he answered— “we are about to take him to the outskirts of the First Kingdom.”
At the answer Colonel Singelsby actually fell back a pace in his amazement. It was almost as though a blow had fallen upon him. “The outskirts of the First Kingdom?” said he. “Did I understand you? The outskirts of the First Kingdom? Surely there is some mistake here! It is not possible that this man, who died only yesterday, filthy and polluted with iniquity, stinking in the nostrils of God with ten thousand indulged and gratified lusts — it is not possible that you intend taking him to that land, passing by me, who all my life have lived to my best endeavors in love to God and my neighbor?”
It was the voice of his minister that broke the answer. “Yes, they do,” said he, sharply; “that is just what they do mean. They do mean to take him, and they do mean to leave us, for such is the law in this dreadful place. We, the children of light, are nothing, and they, the fuel of hell, are everything. Have I not been telling you so?”
Colonel Singelsby had almost forgotten the presence of his acquaintance. He felt very angry at his interference, and somehow he could no longer govern his anger as he used to do. He turned upon him and fixed him with a frown, and then he observed for the first time that a little crowd had begun gathering, and now stood looking on, some curious and unsmiling, some grinning. The Colonel drew himself to his height, and looked haughtily about him. They who grinned began laughing. And now, at last, it was come Colonel Singelsby’s turn to feel as Sandy Graff had felt — as though all that was happening to him was happening in some hideous nightmare dream. As in a dream, the balancing weights of reasoning and morality began to melt before the heat of that which burned within; as in a dream, the uncurbed inner motives began to strive furiously. Then a sudden fierce anger, quite like the savage irrational anger of an ugly dream, flamed up quickly and fiercely. He opened his lips as though to vent his rage, but for an instant his tottering reason regained a momentary poise. Checking himself with an effort ten thousand times greater than that he would have used in his former state and in the world, he bowed his head upon his breast and stood for a little while with fingers interlocked, clinching his trembling hands together. So he stood for a while, brooding, until at last Sandy and his escort made a motion as if to pass by. Then he spoke again.
“Stop a bit!” said he, looking up— “stop a bit!” His voice was hoarse and constrained, and he looked neither to the right nor to the left, but straight at that one of the men to whom he had spoken before. “Sir,” said he, and then clearing his husky voice— “sir,” again, “I have learned a lesson — the greatest lesson of my life! I have looked into my heart, and I have seen — I have seen myself — God help me, gentlemen! — I — maybe I am no better than this man.”
The crowd, which had been increasing, as crowds do, began to jeer at the words, for, like most crowds, it was of a nether sort, and enjoyed the unusual sight of the gentleman and the aristocrat abasing and humiliating himself before the reformed drunkard.
At the sound of that ugly jeering laugh Colonel Singelsby quivered as though under the cut of a lancet, but he never removed his eyes from the man to whom he spoke. For a moment or two he bit his nether lip in his effort for self-control, and then repeated, in a louder and perhaps harsher voice, “I am no better than this man!” He paused for a moment, and the crowd ceased its jeering to hear what he had to say. “I ask only this,” he said, “that you will take me where you are taking him, and that I may enjoy such happiness as he is about to enjoy.”
Instantly a great roar of laughter went up from the crowd, which had now gathered to some twenty or thirty souls. The man to whom Colonel Singelsby had spoken shook his head calmly and impassively.
“It cannot be,” said he.
Colonel Singelsby turned white to the very lips, his eyes blazed, and his breath came thick and heavily. His nostrils twitched spasmodically, but still, with a supreme effort — a struggle so terrible that few men happily may ever know it or experience it — he once more controlled the words that sprang to his lips and struggled for utterance. He swallowed and swallowed convulsively. “Sir,” said he at last, in a voice so hoarse, so horribly constrained, that it seemed almost to rend him as it forced utterance— “sir, surely I am mistaken in what I understand; it is little I ask you, and surely not unjust. Yesterday this man was a vile, debauched drunkard; surely that does not make him fitter for heaven! Yesterday I was a God-fearing, law-abiding man, surely that does not make me unfit! I am not unfit, am I?”
“You are not yet fit for heaven,” answered the man, with impassive calmness. And again, for the third time, the crowd roared with evil laughter.
Within Colonel Singelsby’s soul that fiery flood was now lashing dreadfully close to the summit of its barriers. His face was as livid as death, and his hands were clinched till the nails cut into his palm. “Let me understand for once and for all, for I confess I cannot understand all this. You say he is to go, and that I am not to go! Is it, then, God’s will and God’s justice that because this man for twenty years has led a life of besotted sin and indulgence, and because I for sixty years have feared God and loved my neighbor, that he is to be chosen and I am to be left?”
The man did not reply in words, but in the steady look of his unwinking eyes the other read his answer.
“Then,” gasped Colonel Singelsby, and as he spoke he shook his clinched and trembl
ing fist against the still, blue sky overhead— “then, if that be God’s justice, may it be damned, for I want none of it.”
Then came the end, swiftly, completely. For the fourth time the crowd laughed, and at the sound those floodgates so laboriously built up during a lifetime of abstinence were suddenly burst asunder and fell crashing, and a burning flood of hell’s own rage and madness rushed roaring and thundering into his depicted, empty soul, flaming, blazing, consuming like straws every precept of righteousness, every fear of God, and Colonel Edward Singelsby, the one-time Christian gentleman, the one-time upright son of grace, the one-time man of law and God, was transformed instantly and terribly into — what? Was it a livid devil from hell? He cursed the jeering crowd, and at the sound of his own curses a blindness fell upon him, and he neither knew what he said nor what he did. His good old friend, who had accompanied him so far and until now had stood by him, suddenly turned, and maybe fearing lest some thunderbolt of vengeance should fall upon them from heaven and consume them all, he elbowed himself out of the crowd and hurried away. As for the wretched madman, in his raging fury, it was not the men who had forbidden him heaven whom he strove to rend and tear limb from limb, but poor, innocent, harmless Sandy Graff. The crowd swayed and jostled this way and that, and as madness begets madness, the curses that fell from one pair of lips found an echo in curses that leaped from others. Sandy shrunk back appalled before the hell-blast that breathed upon him, and he felt his wife clutch him closer. Only two of those that were there stood unmoved; they were the two men who acted as Sandy’s escort. As the tide of madness seemed to swell higher, they calmly stepped forward and crossed their staves before their charge. There was something in their action full of significance for those who knew. Instantly the crowd melted away like snow under a blast of fire. Had there not been two men present more merciful than the rest, it is hard to say what terrible thing might not have happened to Colonel Edward Singelsby — deaf and dumb and blind to everything but his own rage. These two clutched him by the arms and dragged him back.
“God, man!” they cried, “what are you doing? Do you not see they are angels?”
They dragged him back to a bench that stood near, and there held him, whilst he still beat the air with his fist and cried out hoarse curses, and even as they so held him, two other men came — two men dark, silent, sinister — and led him away.
Then the other and his wife and his two escorts passed by and out of the gate of the town, and away towards the mountain that stood still and blue in the distance.
So far I read, and then I could bear to read no more, but placed my hand upon the open page of the book. “What is this dreadful thing?” I cried. “Is, then, a man punished for truth and justice and virtue and righteousness? Is it, then, true that the evil are rewarded, and that the good are punished so dreadfully?”
Then the man who held the book spoke again. “Take away thy hand and read,” said he.
Then I took away my hand, and read as he bade me, and found these words:
“How can God fill with His own that which is already filled by man? First it must be emptied before it may be filled with the true good of righteousness and truth, of humility and love, of peace and joy. O thou foolish one who judgest but from the appearance of things, how long will it be before thou canst understand that while some may be baptized with water to cleanliness and repentance, others are baptized with living fire to everlasting life, and that they alone are the children of God?”
Then again I read these words:
“Woe to thee, thou who deniest the laws of God and man! Woe to thee, thou who walkest in the darkness of the shadow of sin and evil! But ten thousand times woe to thee, thou who pilest Pelion of self-good upon Ossa of self-truth, not that thou mayst scale therefrom the gate of Heaven, but that thou mayst hide thyself beneath from the eye of the Living God! By-and-by His Day shall come! His Terrible Lightning shall flash from the East to the West! His Dreadful Flaming Thunder-bolt shall fall, riving thy secret fastnesses to atoms, and leaving thee, poor worm, writhing in the dazzling effulgence of His Light, and shrivelling beneath the consuming flame of His Loving-kindness!”
Then the leaf was turned, and there before me lay the answer to that first question, “What shall a man do that he may gain the kingdom of Heaven?” There stood the words, plain and clear. But I did not dare to read them, but turning, left that place, shutting the door to behind me.
Never have I found that door or entered that room again, but by-and-by I know that I shall find them both once more, and shall then and there read the answer that forever stands written in that book, for it still lies open at the very page, and he upon whose knees it rests is Israfeel, the Angel of Death.
But what of the sequel? Is there a sequel? Are we, then, to suffer ourselves to do evil for the sake of shunning pain in the other world? I trow not! He who sets his foot to climb must never look backward and downward. He who suffers most must reach the highest. There must be another part of the story which lies darkly and dimly behind the letter. One can see, faintly and dimly but nevertheless clearly, what the poor man was to enjoy — the poor man who from without appeared to be so evil, and yet within was not really evil. One can see a vision faint and dim of a simple little house cooled by the dewy shade of green trees forever in foliage; one can see pleasant meadows and gardens forever green, stretching away to the banks of a smooth-flowing river in whose level bosom rests a mirrored image of that which lies beyond its farther bank — a great town with glistering walls and gleaming spires reaching tower above tower and height above height into the blazing blue, the awful serenity of a heavenly sky. One can know that toward that town the poor man who had sinned and repented would in the evenings gaze and wonder until his soul, now ploughed clean for new seed, might learn the laws that would make it indeed an inhabitant of that place. It is a serene and beautiful vision, but not different from that which all may see, and enjoy even, in part, in this world.
But how was it with that other man — with that good man who had never sinned until his earthly body was stripped away that he might sin and fall in the spirit — sin and fall to a depth so profound that even one furtive look into that awful abysm makes the minds of common men to reel and stagger? When that God-sent blast of fire should have burned out the selfhood that clung to the very vitals of his soul, what then? Who is there that with unwinking eyes may gaze into the effulgent brilliancy of the perfect angelhood? He who sweats drops of salt in his life’s inner struggles shall, maybe, eat good bread in the dew of it, but he who sweats drops of blood in agony shall, when his labor is done, sit him, maybe, at the King’s table, and feast upon the Flesh of Life and the very Wine of Truth.
Was it so with that man who never sinned until all his hell was let loose at once upon him?
THE DIE OF FATE
Harper’s Monthly Magazine May 1912
IN THE OLD, old days of long ago there lived near to Florence and a little off from San Domenico a well-to-do farmer by name Niccolo Ramselli. He dwelt in a cheerful, pleasant farm-house, but in those days it was like a fallen pear, looking rich and beautiful, perhaps, but decayed at the heart when you bit into it. For grief and sorrow were within this fair exterior. The reason was this: that the son of the house, a young man of twenty, lay dying there of the fever.
Niccolo Ramselli, the father, sat on a green-painted bench close beside the door. He sat with his elbows on his knees, his eyes fixed upon the ground between his feet, sunk in melancholy thought, without a sparkle of hope to illuminate the darkness of his soul.
The doctor was inside the house at that moment visiting the sick man, and Niccolo was waiting for him to come out again.
At last the door opened and the doctor came forth. He shook his head slowly from side to side as he came forth from the doorway, and moved his lips as though he were communing with himself.
Niccolo looked up from where he sat, “Well,” he said, “what have you to say to-day? How is Sebastiano? Is the boy better
?”
The physician shook his head. “No,” he said, “I cannot say he is better.”
“Is he worse, then?” said Niccolo.
The physician still shook his head. “No,” said he, “I cannot say that, either. He is thin and dried like to a skeleton lying upon the bed. His pulse is high and his breath comes quickly. I shall be surprised if he lives until this time tomorrow.”
Niccolo’s head sank down still lower between his shoulders, and again he stared at the ground. “Well.” he said, “then the bottom is out of the bucket, and it will carry no more water from the well.” the physician stopped shaking his head and began nodding it slowly up and down. “Hah, well,” said he, “it is a sad business. He will never sit in front of the fire to warm his shins again.”
Niccolo did not say anything to this. He was gazing again upon the ground in front of him. He heaved a great sigh. His son was going to die. What would he do then? He was a widower, and his son was almost a man. He himself was old. If God should take Sebastiano to Himself, he, Niccolo, would be left like a horse with three legs. He wiped his eyes upon his shirt-sleeve. “This is a very sad business,” said he, choking as he spoke, as though his words were like hard nuts in his throat, “and I had just bought him a suit of clothes and paid a great deal for them, too.” He wiped his eyes again with his shirt - sleeve, for trouble knocked at his heart as though it were the devil’s kettledrum. Then he got up from where he sat and stood staring at the earth as though he saw pins there. The doctor went away, leaving him standing there in front of the green bench.