Sir John Constantine by Prosper Paleologus Constantine

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"_Et in saecula saeculo--o--rum. Amen!_" Master Fiennes spun the
coin, pocketed it, and went off whistling schoolwards over the meads.

My father linked his arm in mine and we followed, I asking, and the
three of them answering, a hundred questions of home. But why, or on
what business, we were riding to London on the morrow my father would
not tell. "Nay, lad," said he, "take your Bible and read that Isaac
asked no questions on the way to Moriah."

"My uncle, who overheard this, considered it for a while, and said--

"The difference is that you are not going to sacrifice Prosper."

The three were to lie that night at the George Inn, where they had
stabled their horses; and at the door of the Head-master's house,
where we Commoners lodged, they took leave of me, my father
commending me to God and good dreams. That they were happy ones I
need not tell.

He was up and abroad early next morning, in time to attend chapel,
where by the vigour of his responses he set the nearer boys
tittering; two of whom I afterwards fought for it, though with what
result I cannot remember. The service, which we urchins heeded
little, left him pensive as we walked together towards the inn, and
he paused once or twice, with eyes downcast on the cobbles, and
muttered to himself.

"I am striving to recollect my Morning Lines, lad," he confessed at
length, with a smile; "and thus, I think, they go. The great Sir
Henry Wotton, you have heard me tell of, in the summer before his
death made a journey hither to Winchester; and as he returned towards
Eton he said to a friend that went with him: 'How useful was that
advice of an old monk that we should perform our devotions in a
constant place, because we so meet again with the very thoughts which
possessed us at our last being there.' And, as Walton tells,
'I find it,'" he said, "'thus far experimentally true, that at my now
being in that school and seeing that very place where I sat when I
was a boy occasioned me to remember those very thoughts of my youth
which then possessed me: sweet thoughts indeed--'"

Here my father paused. "Let me be careful, now. I should be perfect
in the words, having read them more than a hundred times.
'Sweet thoughts indeed,'" said he, "'that promised my growing years
numerous pleasures, without mixture of cares; and those to be enjoyed
when time--which I therefore thought slow-paced--had changed my youth
into manhood. But age and experience have taught me these were but
empty hopes, for I have always found it true, as my Saviour did
foretell, _Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof_.
Nevertheless, I saw there a succession of boys using the same
recreations, and, questionless, possessed with the same thoughts that
then possessed me. Thus one generation succeeds another, both in
their lives, recreations, hopes, fears, and death.'"

"But I would not have you, lad," he went on, "to pay too much heed to
these thoughts, which will come to you in time, for as yet you are
better without 'em. Nor were they my only thoughts: for having
brought back my own sacrifice, which I had sometime hoped might be so
great, but now saw to be so little, at that moment I looked down to
your place in chapel and perceived that I had brought belike the best
offering of all. So my hope--thank God!--sprang anew as I saw you
there standing vigil by what bright armour you guessed not, nor in
preparation for what high warfare." He laid a hand on my shoulder.
"Your chapel to-day, child, has been the longer by a sermon.
There, there! forget all but the tail on't."

We rode out of Winchester with a fine clatter, all four of us upon
hired nags, the Cornish horses being left in the stables to rest;
and after crossing the Hog's Back, baited at Guildford.
A thunderstorm in the night had cleared the weather, which, though
fine, was cooler, with a brisk breeze playing on the uplands; and
still as we went my spirits sang with the larks overhead, so blithe
was I to be sitting in saddle instead of at a scob, and riding to
London between the blown scents of hedgerow and hayfield and
beanfield, all fragrant of liberty yet none of them more delicious to
a boy than the mingled smell of leather and horseflesh. Billy Priske
kept up a chatter beside me like a brook's. He had never till now
been outside of Cornwall but in a fishing-boat, and though he had
come more than two hundred miles each new prospect was a marvel to
him. My father told me that, once across the Tamar ferry, being told
that he was now in Devonshire, he had sniffed and observed the air to
be growing "fine and stuffy;" and again, near Holt Forest, where my
father announced that we were crossing the border between Hampshire
and Surrey, he drew rein and sat for a moment looking about him and
scratching his head.

"The Lord's ways be past finding out," he murmured. "Not so much as
a post!"

"Why _should_ there be a post?" demanded my uncle. "Why, sir, for
the men of Hampshire and the men of Surrey to fight over and curse
one another by on Ash Wednesdays. But where there's no landmark a
plain man can't remove it, and where he can't remove it I don't see
how he can be cursed for it."

"'Twould be a great inconvenience, as you say, Billy, if, for the
sake of argument, the men of Hampshire wanted to curse the men of
Surrey."

"They couldn't do it"--Billy shook his head--"for the sake of
argument or any other sake; and therefore I say, though not one to
dictate to the Lord, that if a river can't be managed hereabouts--
and, these two not being Devon and Cornwall, a whole river might be
overdoing things--there ought to be some little matter of a
trout-stream, or at the least a notice-board."

"The fellow's right," said my father. "Man would tire too soon of
his natural vices; so we invent new ones for him by making laws and
boundaries."

"Surely and virtues too," suggested my uncle, as we rode forward
again. "You will not deny that patriotism is a virtue?"

"Not I," said my father; "nor that it is the finest invention of
all."

I remember the Hog's Back and the breeze blowing there because on the
highest rise we came on a gibbet and rode around it to windward on
the broad turfy margin of the road; and also because the sight put my
father in mind of a story which he narrated on the way down to
Guildford.

THE STORY OF OUR LADY OF THE ROSARY.

"It is told," began my father, "in a sermon of the famous Vieyras--"

"For what was he famous?" asked my uncle.

"For being a priest, and yet preaching so good a sermon on love. It
is told in it that in the kingdom of Valencia there lived an hidalgo,
young and rich, who fell in love with a virtuous lady, ill treated by
her husband: and she with him, howbeit without the least thought of
evil. But, as evil suspects its like, so this husband doubted the
fidelity which was his without his deserving, and laid a plot to be
revenged. On the pretext of the summer heats he removed with his
household to a country house; and there one day he entered a room
where his wife sat alone, turned the key, and, drawing out a dagger,
ordered her to write what he should dictate. She, being innocent,
answered him that there was no need of daggers, but she would write,
as her duty was, what he commanded: which was, a letter to the young
hidalgo telling him that her husband had left home on business; that
if her lover would come, she was ready to welcome him; and that, if
he came secretly the next night, he would find the garden gate open,
and a ladder placed against the window. This she wrote and signed,
seeing no escape; and, going to her own room, commended her fears and
her weakness to the Virgin.

"The young hidalgo, on receiving the letter (very cautiously
delivered), could scarcely believe his bliss, but prepared, as you
will guess, to embrace it. Having dressed himself with care, at the
right hour he mounted his horse and rode out towards his lady's
house. Now, he was a devout youth, as youths go, and on his way he
remembered--which was no little thing on such an occasion--that since
morning he had not said over his rosary as his custom was.
So he began to tell it bead by bead, when a voice near at hand said
'Halt, Cavalier!' He drew his sword and peered around him in the
darkness, but could see no one, and was fumbling his rosary again
when again the voice spoke, saying, 'Look up, Cavalier!' and looking
up, he beheld against the night a row of wayside gibbets, and rode in
among them to discover who had called him. To his horror one of the
malefactors hanging there spoke down to him, begging to be cut loose;
'and,' said the poor wretch, 'if you will light the heap of twigs at
your feet and warm me by it, your charity shall not be wasted.'
For Christian charity then the youth, having his sword ready, cut him
down, and the gallows knave fell on his feet and warmed himself at
the lit fire. 'And now,' said he, being warmed, 'you must take me up
behind your saddle; for there is a plot laid to-night from which I
only can deliver you.' So they mounted and rode together to the
house, where, having entered the garden by stealth, they found the
ladder ready set. 'You must let me climb first,' said the knave; and
had no sooner reached the ladder's top than two or three pistol shots
were fired upon him from the window and as many hands reached out and
stabbed him through and through until he dropped into the ditch;
whence, however, he sprang on his feet, and catching our hidalgo by
the arm hurried him back through the garden to the gate where his
horse stood tethered. There they mounted and rode away into safety,
the dead behind the living. 'All this is enchantment to me,' said
the youth as they went. 'But I must thank you, my friend; for
whether dead or alive--and to my thinking you must be doubly dead--
you have rendered me a great service.' 'You may say a mass for me,
and thank you,' the dead man answered; 'but for the service you must
thank the Mother of God, who commanded me and gave me power to
deliver you, and has charged me to tell you the reason of her
kindness: which is, that every day you say her rosary.' 'I do thank
her and bless her then,' replied the youth, 'and henceforth will I
say her rosary not once daily but thrice, for that she hath preserved
my life to-night.'"

"A very proper resolution," said my uncle.

"And I hope, sir, he kept it," chimed in Billy Priske; "good
Protestant though I be."

"The story is not ended," said my father. "The dead man--they were
dismounted now and close under the gallows--looked at the young man
angrily, and said he, 'I doubt Our Lady's pains be wasted, after all.
Is it possible, sir, you think she sent me to-night to save your
life?' 'For what else?' inquired the youth. 'To save your soul,
sir, and your lady's; both of which (though you guessed not or forgot
it) stood in jeopardy just now, so that the gate open to you was
indeed the gate of Hell. Pray hang me back as you found me," he
concluded, 'and go your ways for a fool.'"

"Now see what happened. The murderers in the house, coming down to
bury the body and finding it not, understood that the young man had
not come alone; from which they reasoned that his servants had
carried him off and would publish the crime. They therefore, with
their master, hurriedly fled out of the country. The lady betook
herself to a religious house, where in solitude questioning herself
she found that in will, albeit not in act, she had been less than
faithful. As for the hidalgo, he rode home and shut himself within
doors, whence he came forth in a few hours as a man from a
sepulchre--which, indeed, to his enemies he evidently was when they
heard that he was abroad and unhurt whom they had certainly stabbed
to death; and to his friends almost as great a marvel when they
perceived the alteration of his life; yea, and to himself the
greatest of all, who alone knew what had passed, and, as by
enchantment his life had taken this turn, so spent its remainder like
a man enchanted rather than converted. I am told," my father
concluded, "though the sermon says nothing about it, that he and the
lady came in the end, and as by an accident, to be buried side by
side, at a little distance, in the Chapel of Our Lady of Succour in
the Cathedral church of Valencia, and there lie stretched--two
parallels of dust--to meet only at the Resurrection when the desires
of all dust shall be purged away."

With this story my father beguiled the road down into Guildford, and
of his three listeners I was then the least attentive.
Years afterwards, as you shall learn, I had reason to remember it.

At Guildford, where we fed ourselves and hired a relay of horses, I
took Billy aside and questioned him (forgetting the example of Isaac)
why we were going to London and on what business. He shook his head.

"Squire knows," said he. "As for me, a still tongue keeps a wise
head, and moreover I know not. Bain't it enough for 'ee to be quit
of school and drinking good ale in the kingdom o' Guildford?
Very well, then."

"Still, one cannot help wondering," said I, half to myself; but Billy
dipped his face stolidly within his pewter.

"The last friend a man should want to take up with is his Future,"
said he, sagely. "I knows naught about en but what's to his
discredit--as that I shall die sooner or later, a thing that goes
against my stomach; or that at the best I shall grow old, which runs
counter to my will. He's that uncomfortable, too, you can't please
him. Take him hopeful, and you're counting your chickens; take him
doleful, and foreboding is worse than witchcraft. There was a
Mevagissey man I sailed with as a boy--and your father's tale just
now put me in mind of him--paid half a crown to a conjurer, one time,
to have his fortune told; which was, that he would marry the ugliest
maid in the parish. Whereby it preyed on his mind till he hanged
hisself. Whereby along comes the woman in the nick o' time, cuts him
down, an' marries him out o' pity while he's too weak to resist.
That's your Future; and, as I say, I keeps en at arm's length."

With this philosophy of Billy I had to be content and find my own
guesses at the mystery. But as the afternoon wore on I kept no hold
on any speculation for more than a few minutes. I was saddle-weary,
drowsed with sunburn and the moving landscape over which the sun,
when I turned, swam in a haze of dust. The villages crowded closer,
and at the entry of each I thought London was come; but anon the
houses thinned and dwindled and we were between hedgerows again.
So it lasted, village after village, until with the shut of night,
when the long shadows of our horses before us melted into dusk, a
faint glow opened on the sky ahead and grew and brightened.
I knew it: but even as I saluted it my chin dropped forward and I
dozed. In a dream I rode through the lighted streets, and at the
door of our lodgings my father lifted me down from the saddle.

CHAPTER III.

I ACQUIRE A KINGDOM.

"_Gloucester_. The trick of that voice I do well remember:
Is't not the king?"
"_Lear_. Ay, every inch a king."
_King Lear_.

From our lodgings, which were in Bond Street, we sallied forth next
morning to view the town; my father leading us first by way of St.
James's and across the Park to the Abbey, and on the way holding
discourse to which I recalled myself with difficulty from London's
shows and wonders--his Majesty's tall guards at the palace gates, the
gorgeous promenaders in the Mall, the swans and wild fowl on the
lake.

"I wish you to remark, my dear child," said he, "that between a
capital and solitude there is no third choice; nor, I would add, can
a mind extract the best of solitude unless it bring urbanity to the
wilderness. Your rustic is no philosopher, and your provincial
townsman is the devil: if you would meditate in Arden, your company
must be the Duke, Jaques, Touchstone--courtiers all--or, again,
Rosalind, the Duke's daughter, if you would catch the very mood of
the forest. I tell you this, child, that you may not be misled by my
example (which has a reason of its own and, I trust, an excuse) into
shunning your destiny though it lead and keep you in cities and among
crowds; for we have it on the word of no less busy a man than the
Emperor Marcus Aurelius that to seek out private retiring-rooms for
the soul such as country villages, the sea-shore, mountains, is but a
mistaken simplicity, seeing that at what time soever a man will it is
in his power to retire into himself and be at rest, dwelling within
the walls of a city as in a shepherd's fold of the mountain. So also
the sainted Juan de Avila tells us that a man who trusts in God may,
if he take pains, recollect God in streets and public places better
than will a hermit in his cell; and the excellent Archbishop of
Cambrai, writing to the Countess of Gramont, counselled her to
practise recollection and give a quiet thought to God at dinner times
in a lull of the conversation, or again when she was driving or
dressing or having her hair arranged; these hindrances (said he)
profited more than any _engouement_ of devotion.

"But," he went on, "to bear yourself rightly in a crowd you must
study how one crowd differs from another, and how in one city you may
have that great orderly movement of life (whether of business or of
pleasure) which is the surrounding joy of princes in their palaces,
and an insensate mob, which is the most brutal and vilest aspect of
man. For as in a thronged street you may learn the high meaning of
citizenship, so in a mob you may unlearn all that makes a man
dignified. Yet even the mob you should study in a capital, as
Shakespeare did in his 'Julius Caesar' and 'Coriolanus;' for only so
can you know it in its quiddity. I conjure you, child, to get your
sense of men from their capital cities."

He had something to tell of almost every great house we passed.
He seemed--he that had saluted no one as we crossed the Mall, saluted
of none--to walk this quarter of London with a proprietary tread; and
by and by, coming to the river, he waved an arm and broke into
panegyric.

"Other capitals have had their turn, and others will overtake and
outstrip her; but where is one in these times to compare with London?
Where in Europe will you see streets so well ordered, squares so
spacious, houses so comfortable, yet elegant, as in this mile east
and south of Hyde Park? Where such solid, self-respecting wealth as
in our City? Where such merchant-princes and adventurers as your
Whittingtons and Greshams? Where half its commerce? and where a
commerce touched with one tithe of its imagination? Where such a
river, for trade as for pageants? On what other shore two buildings
side by side so famous, the one for just laws, civil security,
liberty with obedience, the other for heroic virtues resumed, with
their propagating dust, into the faith which sowed all and, having
reaped, renews?"

In the Abbey--where my Uncle Gervase was forced to withdraw behind a
pillar and rub Billy Priske's neck, which by this time had a crick in
it--my father's voice, as he moved from tomb to tomb, deepened to a
regal solemnity. He repeated Beaumont's great lines--

"Mortality, behold and fear!
What a change of flesh is here!"

laying a hand on my shoulder the while; and in the action I
understood that this and all his previous discourse was addressed to
me with a purpose, and that somehow our visit to London had to do
with that purpose.

"Here they lie had realms and lands
Who now want strength to stir their hands;
Where from their pulpits seal'd with dust
They preach 'In greatness is no trust' . . .
Here are sands, ignoble things,
Dropt from the ruin'd sides of kings. . . ."

I must have fallen a-wondering while he quoted in a low sonorous
voice, like a last echo of the great organ, rolling among the arches;
for as it ceased I came to myself with a start and found his eyes
searching me; also his hold on my shoulder had stiffened, and he held
me from him at arm's length.

"And yet," said he, as if to himself, "this dust is the strongest man
can build with; and we must build in our generation--quickly,
trusting in the young firm flesh; yes, quickly--and trusting--though
we know what its end must be."

These last words he muttered, and afterwards seemed to fall into a
meditation, which lasted until we found ourselves outside the Abbey
and in the light again.

From Westminster we took boat to Blackfriars, and, landing there,
walked up through the crowded traffic to a gateway opening into
Clement's Inn. I did not know its name at the time, nor did I regard
the place as we entered, being yet fascinated with the sight of
Temple Bar and of the heads of four traitors above it on poles,
blackening in the sun; but within the courtyard we turned to the
right and mounted a staircase to the head of the second flight and to
a closed door on which my father knocked. A clerk opened, and
presently we passed through an office into a well-sized room where,
from amid a pile of books, a grave little man rose, reached for his
wig, and, having adjusted it, bowed to us.

"Good morning! Good morning, gentlemen! Ah--er--Sir John
Constantine, I believe?"

My father bowed. "At your service, Mr. Knox. You received my
letter, then? Let me present my brother-in-law and man of affairs,
Mr. Gervase Arundel, who will discuss with you the main part of our
business; also my son here, about whom I wrote to you."

"Eh? Eh?" Mr. Knox, after bowing to my uncle, put on his
spectacles, took them off, wiped them, put them on again, and
regarded me benevolently. "Eh? so this is the boy--h'm--Jasper, I
believe?"

"Prosper," my father corrected.

"Ah, to be sure--Prosper--and I hope he will, I'm sure." Mr. Knox
chuckled at his mild little witticism and twinkled at me jocosely.
"Your letter, Sir John? Yes, to be sure, I received it. What you
propose is practicable, though irregular."

"Irregular?"

"Not legally irregular--oh no, not in the least. Legally the thing's
as simple as A B C. The man has only to take the benefit of the Act
of Insolvency, assign his estate to his creditors, and then--
supposing that they are agreed--"

"There can be no question of their agreement or disagreement.
His creditors do not exist. As I told you, I have paid them off,
bought up all their debts, and the yes or no rests with me alone."

"Quite so; I was merely putting it as the Act directs. Very well
then, supposing _you_ agree, nothing more is necessary than an
appearance--a purely formal appearance--at the Old Bailey, and your
unfortunate friend--"

"Pardon me," my father put in; "he is not my friend."

"Eh?" . . . Mr. Knox removed his spectacles, breathed on them, and
rubbed them, while he regarded my father with a bewildered air.
"You'll excuse me . . . but I must own myself entirely puzzled.
Even for a friend's sake, as I was about to protest, your conduct,
sir, would be Quixotic; yes, yes, Quixotic in the highest degree, the
amount being (as you might say) princely, and the security--"
Mr. Knox paused and expressed his opinion of the security by a
pitying smile. "But if," he resumed, "this man be not even your
friend, then, my dear sir, I can merely wonder."

For a moment my father seemed about to argue with him, but checked
himself.

"None the less the man is very far from being my friend," he answered
quietly.

"But surely--surely, sir, you cannot be doing this in any hope to
recover what he already owes you! That were indeed to throw the
helve after the hatchet. Nay, sir, it were madness--stark madness!"

My father glanced at my uncle Gervase, who stood pulling his lip;
then, with an abrupt motion, he turned on Mr. Knox again.

"You have seen him? You delivered my letter?"

"I did."

"What was his answer?"

Mr. Knox shrugged his shoulders. "He jumped at it, of course."

"And the boy, here! What did he say about the boy?"

"Well, to speak truth, Sir John, he seemed passably amused by the
whole business. The fact is, prison has broken him up. A fine
figure he must have been in his time, but a costly one to maintain
. . . as tall as yourself, Sir John, if not taller; and florid, as
one may say; the sort of man that must have exercise and space and a
crowd to admire him, not to mention wine and meats and female
society. The Fleet has broken down all that. Even with liberty I
wouldn't promise him another year of life; and, unless I'm mistaken,
he knows his case. A rare actor, too! It wouldn't surprise me if
he'd even deceived himself. But the mask's off. Your offer
overjoyed him; that goes without saying. In spite of all your past
generosity, this new offer obviously struck him for the moment as too
good to be true. But I cannot say, Sir John, that he made any
serious effort to keep up the imposture or pretend that the security
which he can offer is more than a sentimental one. Not to put too
fine a point on it, he ordered in a couple of bottles of wine at my
expense, and over the second I left him laughing."

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