Henry Brocken by Walter J. de la Mare

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IX

_A ... shop of rarities._

--GEORGE HERBERT.

A little before darkness fell we struck into a narrow road traversing
the wood. This, though apparently not much frequented, would at least
lead me into lands inhabited, so turning my face to the West, that I
might have light to survey as long as any gleamed in the sky, I
trudged on. But I went slow enough: Rosinante was lame; I like a
stranger to my body, it was so bruised and tumbled.

The night was black, and a thin rain falling when at last I emerged
from the interminable maze of lanes into which the wood-road had led
me. And glad I was to descry what seemed by the many lights shining
from its windows to be a populous village. A gay village also, for
song came wafted on the night air, rustic and convivial.

Hereabouts I overtook a figure on foot, who, when I addressed him,
turned on me as sharply as if he supposed the elms above him were
thick with robbers, or that mine was a voice out of the unearthly
hailing him.

I asked him the name of the village we were approaching. With small
dark eyes searching my face in the black shadow of night, he answered
in a voice so strange and guttural that I failed to understand a word.
He shook his fingers in the air; pointed with the cudgel he carried
under his arm now to the gloom behind us, now to the homely galaxy
before us, and gabbled on so fast and so earnestly that I began to
suppose he was a little crazed.

One word, however, I caught at last from all this jargon, and that
often repeated with a little bow to me, and an uneasy smile on his
white face--"Mishrush, Mishrush!" But whether by this he meant to
convey to me his habitual mood, or his own name, I did not learn till
afterwards. I stopped in the heavy road and raised my hand.

"An inn," I cried in his ear, "I want lodging, supper--a tavern, an
inn!" as if addressing a child or a natural.

He began gesticulating again, evidently vain of having fully
understood me. Indeed, he twisted his little head upon his shoulders
to observe Rosinante gauntly labouring on. "'Ame!--'ame!" he cried
with a great effort.

I nodded.

"Ah!" he cried piteously.

He led me, after a few minutes' journey, into the cobbled yard of a
bright-painted inn, on whose signboard a rising sun glimmered faintly
gold, and these letters standing close above it--"The World's End."

Mr. "Mishrush" seemed not a little relieved at nearing company after
his lonely walk; triumphant, too, at having guided me hither so
cunningly. He lifted his nimble cudgel in the air and waved it
conceitedly to and fro in time to the song that rose beyond the
window. "Fau'ow er Wur'!--Fau'ow er Wur'!" he cried delightedly again
and again in my ear, eager apparently for my approval. So we stood,
then, beneath the starless sky, listening to the rich _choragium_ of
the "World's End." They sang in unison, sang with a kind of forlorn
heat and enthusiasm. And when the song was ended, and the roar of
applause over, Night, like a darkened water whelmed silently in,
engulfed it to the echo:

Follow the World--
She bursts the grape,
And dandles man
In her green lap;
She moulds her Creature
From the clay,
And crumbles him
To dust away:
Follow the World!

One Draught, one Feast,
One Wench, one Tomb;
And thou must straight
To ashes come:
Drink, eat, and sleep;
Why fret and pine?
Death can but snatch
What ne'er was thine:
Follow the World!

It died away, I say, and an ostler softly appeared out of the shadow.
Into his charge, then, I surrendered Rosinante, and followed my
inarticulate acquaintance into the noise and heat and lustre of the
Inn.

It was a numerous company there assembled. But their voices fell to a
man on the entry of a stranger. They scrutinised me, not uncivilly,
but closely, seeking my badge, as it were by which to recognise and
judge me ever after.

Mr. Mistrust, as I presently discovered my guide's name indeed to be,
was volubly explaining how I came into his company. They listened
intently to what, so far as I could gather, might be Houyhnhnmish or
Double-Dutch. And then, as if to show me to my place forthwith, a
great fleshy fellow that sat close beside the hearth this summer
evening continued in a loud voice the conversation I had interrupted.

Whereupon Mr. Mistrust with no little confidence commended me in dumb
show to the landlady of the Inn, a Mrs. Nature, if I understood him
aright. This person was still comely, though of uncertain age, wore
cherry ribbons, smiled rather vacantly from vague, wonderful,
indescribable eyes that seemed to change colour, like the chameleon,
according to that they dwelt on.

I am afraid, as much to my amusement as wonder, I discovered that this
landlady of so much apparent _bonhomie_ was a deaf-mute. If victuals,
or drink, or bed were required, one must chalk it down on a little
slate she carried at her girdle for the purpose. Indeed, the absence
of two of her three chief senses had marvellously sharpened the
remaining one. Her eyes were on all, vaguely dwelling, lightly gone,
inscrutable, strangely fascinating. She moved easily and soundlessly
(as fat women may), and I doubt if ever mug or pot of any of that
talkative throng remained long empty, except at the tippler's
reiterated request.

She laid before me an excellent supper on a little table somewhat
removed beside a curtained window. And while I ate I watched, and
listened, not at all displeased with my entertainment.

The room in which we sat was low-ceiled and cheerful, but rather
close after the rainy night-air. Gay pictures beautified the walls.
Here a bottle, a cheese, grapes, a hare, a goblet--in a clear brown
light that made the guest's mouth water to admire. Here a fine
gentleman toasting a simpering chambermaid. Above the chimney-piece a
bloated old man in vineleaves that might be Silenus. And over against
the door of the parlour what I took to be a picture of Potiphar's wife,
she looked out of the paint so bold and beauteous and craftily. Birds
and fishes in cases stared glassily,--owl and kestrel, jack and eel
and gudgeon. All was clean and comfortable as a hospitable inn can be.

But they who frequented it interested me much more--as various and
animated a gathering as any I have seen. Yet in some peculiar manner
they seemed one and all not to the last tittle quite of this world.
They were, so to speak, more earthy, too definite, too true to the
mould, like figures in a bleak, bright light viewed out of darkness.
Certainly not one of them was at first blush prepossessing. Yet who
finds much amiss with the fox at last, though all he seems to have be
cunning?

Near beside me, however, sat retired a man a little younger and more
at his ease than most of the many there, and as busy with his eyes and
ears as I. His name, I learned presently, was Reverie; and from him I
gathered not a little information regarding the persons who talked and
sipped around us.

He told me at whiles that his house was not in the village, but in a
valley some few miles distant across the meadows; that he sat out
these bouts of argument and slander for the sheer delight he had in
gathering the myriad strands of that strange rope Opinion; that he
lived (heart, soul, and hope) well-nigh alone; that he deeply
mistrusted this place, and the company we were in, yet not for its
mistress's sake, who was at least faithful to her instincts, candid to
the candid, made no favourites, and, eventually, compelled order. He
told me also that if friends he had, he deemed it wiser not to name
them, since the least sibilant of the sound of the voice incites to
treachery; and in conclusion, that of all men he was acquainted with,
one at least never failed to right his humour; and that one was yonder
flabby, pallid fellow with the velvet collar to his coat, and the
rings on his fingers, and the gold hair, named Pliable, who sat beside
Mr. Stubborn on the settle by the fire.

When, then, I had finished my supper, I drew in my chair a little
closer to Mr. Reverie's and, having scribbled my wants on the
Landlady's slate, turned my attention to the talk.

At the moment when I first began to listen attentively they seemed to
be in heated dispute concerning the personal property of a certain Mr.
Christian, who was either dead or had inexplicably disappeared. Mr.
Obstinate, I gathered, had taken as his right this Christian's
"easy-chair"; a gentleman named Smoothman most of his other goods for
a debt; while a Parson Decorum had appropriated as heretical his
books and various peculiar MSS.

But there now remained in question a trifling sum of money which a Mr.
Liar loudly demanded in payment of an "affair of honour." This,
however, he seemed little likely to obtain, seeing that an elderly
uncle by marriage of Christian's, whose name was Office, was as eager
and affable and frank about the sum as he was bent on keeping it; and
rattled the contents of his breeches' pocket in sheer bravado of his
means to go to law for it.

"He left a bare pittance, the merest pittance," he said. "What could
there be of any account? Christian despised money, professed to
despise it. That alone would prove my wretched nephew queer in the
head--despised _money_!

"Tush, friend!" cried Obstinate from his corner. "Whether the money is
yours, or neighbour Liar's--and it is as likely as not neither's--that
talk about despising money's what but a silly lie? 'Twas all sour
grapes--sour grapes. He had cunning enough for envy, and pride enough
for shame; and at last there was naught but cunning left wherewith to
patch up a clout for him and his shame to be gone in. I watched him
set out on his pestilent pilgrimage, crazed and stubborn, and not a
groat to call his own."

"Yet I have heard say he came of a moneyed stock," said Pliable. "The
Sects of Privy Opinion were rare wealthy people, and they, so 'tis
said, were his kinsmen. Truth is, for aught I know, Christian must
have been in some degree a very liberal rascal, with all his faults."
He tittered.

"Oh! he was liberal enough," said Mr. Malice suavely: "why, even on
setting out, he emptied his wife's purse into a blind beggar's
hat!--his that used to bleat, 'Cast thy bread--cast thy bread upon the
waters!' whensoever he spied Christian stepping along the street. They
say," he added, burying his clever face in his mug, "the Heavenly
Jerusalem lieth down by the weir."

"But we must not contemn a man for his poverty, neighbours," said
Liar, gravely composing his hairless face. "Christian's was a
character of beautiful simplicity--beautiful! _How_ many rickety
children did he leave behind him?"

A shrill voice called somewhat I could not quite distinguish, for at
that moment a youth rose abruptly near by, and went hastily out.

Obstinate stared roundly. "Thou hast a piercing voice, friend Liar!"

"I did but seek the truth," said Liar.

"But whether or no, Christian believed in it--verily he seemed to
believe in it. Was it not so, neighbour Obstinate?" enquired Pliable,
stroking his leg.

"Believed in what, my friend?" said Obstinate, in a dull voice.

"About Mount Zion, and the Crowns of Glory, and the Harps of Gold, and
such like," said Pliable uneasily--"at least, it is said so; so 'tis said."

"Believed!" retorted a smooth young man who seemed to feel the heat,
and sat by the staircase door. "That's an easy task--to believe, sir.
Ask any pretty minikin!"

"And I'd make bold to enquire of yonder Liveloose," said a thick,
monotonous voice (a Mr. Dull's, so Reverie informed me), "if mebbe he
be referring to one of his own, or that fellow Sloth's devilish fairy
tales? I know one yet he'll eat again some day."

At which remark all laughed consumedly, save Dull.

"Well, one thing Christian had, and none can deny it," said Pliable, a
little hotly, "and that was Imagination? _I_ shan't forget the tales
he was wont to tell: what say you, Superstition?"

Mr. Superstition lifted dark, rather vacant eyes on Pliable. "Yes,
yes," he said: "Flame, and sigh, and lamentation. My God, my God,
gentlemen!"

"Oo-ay, Oo-ay," yelped the voice of Mistrust, startled out of silence.

"Oo-ay," whistled Malice, under his breath.

"Tush, tush!" broke in Obstinate again, and snapped his fingers in the
air. "And what is this precious Imagination? Whither doth it conduct a
man, but to beggary, infamy, and the mad-house? Look ye to it, friend
Pliable! 'Tis a devouring flame; give it but wind and leisure, the
fairest house is ashes."

"Ashes; ashes!" mocked one called Cruelty, who had more than once
taken my attention with his peculiar contortions--"talking of ashes,
what of Love-the-log Faithful, Master Tongue-stump? What of
Love-the-log Faithful?"

At which Liveloose was so extremely amused, the tears stood in his
eyes for laughing.

I looked round for Mistrust, and easily recognised my friend by his
hare-like face, and the rage in his little active eyes. But
unfortunately, as I turned to enquire somewhat of Reverie, Liveloose
suddenly paused in his merriment with open mouth; and the whole
company heard my question, "But who was Love-the-log Faithful?"

I was at once again the centre of attention, and Mr. Obstinate rose
very laboriously from his settle and held out a great hand to me.

"I'm pleased to meet thee," he said, with a heavy bow. "There's a dear
heart with my good neighbour Superstition yonder who will present a
very fair account of that misguided young man. Madam Wanton, here's a
young gentleman that never heard tell of our old friend Love-the-log."

A shrill peal of laughter greeted this sally.

"Why, Faithful was a young gentleman, sir," explained the woman
civilly enough, "who preferred his supper hot."

"Oh, Madam Wanton, my dear, my dear!" cried a long-nosed woman nearly
helpless with amusement.

I saw Superstition gazing darkly at me. He shook his head as I was
about to reply, so I changed my retort. "Who, then, was Mr.
Christian?" I enquired simply.

At that the house shook with the roar of laughter that went up.

X

... _Large draughts of intellectual day._

--RICHARD CRASHAW.

"Believe me, neighbours," said Malice softly, when this uproar was a
little abated, "there is nought so strange in the question. It meaneth
only that this young gentleman hath not enjoyed the pleasure of your
company before. Will it amaze you to learn, my friends, that Christian
is like to be immortal only because you _talk_ him out of the grave?
One brief epitaph, gentlemen, would let him rot."

"Nay, but I'll tell the gentleman who Christian was, and with
pleasure," cried a lucid, rather sallow little man that had sat
quietly smiling and listening. "My name, let me tell you, is Atheist,
sir; and Christian was formerly a very near neighbour of an old friend
of my family's--Mr. Sceptic. They lived, sir--at least in those
days--opposite to one another."

"He is a great talker," whispered Reverie in my ear. But the company
evidently found his talk to their taste. They sat as still and
attentive around him, as though before an extemporary preacher.

"Well, sir," continued Atheist, "being, in a sense, neighbours,
Christian in his youth would often confide in my friend; though,
assuredly, Sceptic never sought his confidences. And it seemeth he
began to be perturbed and troubled over the discovery that it is
impossible--at least in this plain world--to eat your cake, yet have
it. And by some ill chance he happened at this time on a mouldy old
folio in my friend's house that had been the property of his maternal
grandmother--the subtlest old tome you ever set eyes on, though
somewhat too dark and extravagant and heady for a sober man of the
world like me. 'Twas called the Bible, sir--a collection of legends
and fables of all times, tongues, and countries threaded together,
mighty ingeniously I grant, and in as plausible a style as any I
know, if a little lax and flowery in parts.

"Well, Christian borroweth the book of my friend--never to return it.
And being feeble and credulous, partly by reason of his simple wits,
and partly by reason of the sad condition a froward youth had reduced
him to, he accepts the whole book--from Apple to Vials--for truth. In
fact, 'he ate the little book,' as one of the legendary kings it
celebrates had done before him."

"Ay," broke in Cruelty wildly, "and has ever since gotten the gripes."

Atheist inclined his head. "Putting it coarsely, gentlemen, such was
the case," he said. "And away at his wit's end he hasteneth, waning
and shivering, to a great bog or quagmire--that my friend Pliable will
answer to--and plungeth in. 'Tis the same story repeated. He could be
temperate in nought. _I_ knew the bog well; but I knew the
stepping-stones better. Believe me, I have traversed the narrow way
this same Christian took, seeking the harps and pearls and the _elixir
vitae_, these many years past. The book inciteth ye to it. It sets a
man's heart on fire--that's weak enough to read it--with its pomp, and
rhetoric, and far-away promises, and lofty counsels. Oh, fine words,
who is not their puppet! I climbed 'Difficulty.' I snapped my fingers
at the grinning Lions. I passed cautiously through the 'Valley of the
Shadow'--wild scenery, sir! I visited that prince of bubbles also,
Giant Despair, in his draughty castle. And--though boasting be far
from me!--fetched Liveloose's half-brother out of a certain
charnel-house near by.

"_Thus far_, sir, I went. But I have not yet found the world so barren
of literature as to write a book about it. I have not yet found the
world so barren of ingratitude as to seek happiness by stabbing in the
back every friend I ever had. I have not yet forsaken wife and
children; neighbours and kinsmen; home, ease, and tenderness, for a
whim, a dream, a passing qualm. No, sir; 'tis this Christian's
ignorant hardness-of-heart that is his bane. Knowing little, he
prateth much. He would pinch and contract the Universe to his own
fantastical pattern. He is tedious, he is pragmatical, and--I affirm
it in all sympathy and sorrow--he is crazed. Malice, haply, is a
little sharp at times. And neighbour Obstinate dealeth full weight
with his opinions. But this Christian Flown-to-Glory, as the urchins
say, pinks with a bludgeon. He cannot endure an honest doubt. He
distorteth a mere difference of opinion into a roaring Tophet. And
because he is helpless, solitary, despised in the world; because he is
impotent to refute, and too stubborn to hear and suffer people a
little higher and weightier, a leetle wiser than he--why, beyond the
grave he must set his hope in vengeance. Beyond the grave--bliss for
his own shade; fire and brimstone, eternal woe for theirs. Ay, and
'tis not but for a season will he vex us, but for ever, and for ever,
and for ever--if he knoweth in the least what he meaneth by the
phrase. And this he calls 'Charity.'

"Yes, sirs, beyond the grave he would condemn us, beyond the grave--a
place of peace whereto I deem there are not many here but will be
content at length to come; and I not least content, when my duty is
done, my children provided for, and my last suspicion of fear and
folly suppressed.

"To conclude, sir--and beshrew me, gentlemen, how time doth fly in
talk!--this Christian goeth his way. We, each in accord with his
caprice and conscience, go ours. We envy him not his vapours, his
terrors, or his shameless greed of reward. Why, then, doth he envy us
our wealth, our success, our gaiety, our content? He raves. He is
haunted. What is man but as grass, and the flower of grass? Come the
sickle, he is clean gone. I can but repeat it, sir, our poor neighbour
was crazed: 'tis Christian in a word."

A sigh, a murmur of satisfaction and relief, rose from the company, as
if one and all had escaped by Mr. Atheist's lucidity out of a very
real peril.

I thanked him for his courtesy, and in some confusion turned to
Reverie with the remark that I thought I now recollected to have heard
Christian's name, but understood he had indeed arrived, at last, at
the Celestial City for which he had set out.

"Celestial twaddle, sir!" cried Mr. Obstinate hoarsely. "He went
stark, staring mad, and now is dust, as we shall soon all be, that's
certain."

Then Cruelty rose out of his chair and elbowed his way to the door. He
opened it and looked out.

"I would," he said, "I had known of this Christian before he started.
Step you down to Vanity Fair, Sir Stranger, if the mood take you; and
we'll show you as pretty a persuasion against pilgrimage as ever you
saw." He opened his mouth where he stood between me and the stars.
"... There's many more!" he added with difficulty, as if his rage was
too much for him. He spat into the air and went out.

Presently after Liveloose rose up, smiling softly, and groped after
him.

A little silence followed their departure.

"You must tell your friend, Mr. Reverie," said Atheist
good-humouredly, "that Mr. Cruelty says more than he means. To my mind
he is mistaken--too energetic; but his intentions are good."

"He's a staunch, dependable fellow," said Obstinate, patting down the
wide cuffs he wore.

But even at that moment a stranger softly entered the inn out of the
night. His face was of the grey of ashes, and he looked once round on
us all with a still, appalling glance that silenced the words on my
lips.

We sat without speech--Obstinate yawning, Atheist smiling lightly,
Superstition nibbling his nails, Reverie with chin drawn a little
back, Pliable bolt upright, like a green and white wand, Mistrust
blinking his little thin lids; but all with eyes fixed on this
stranger, who deemed himself, it seemed, among friends.

He turned his back on us and sipped his drink under the heedless,
deep, untroubled gaze of Mrs. Nature, and passed out softly and
harmlessly as he had come in.

Reverie stood up like a man surprised and ill at ease. He turned to
me. "I know him only by repute, by hearsay," he said with an effort.
"He is a stranger to us all, indeed, sir--to all."

Obstinate, with a very flushed face, thrust his hand into his
breeches' pocket. "Nay, sir," he said, "my purse is yet here. What
more would you have?"

At which Pliable laughed, turning to the women.

I put on my hat and followed Reverie to the door.

"Excuse me, sir," I said, "but I have no desire to stay in this house
over-night. And if you would kindly direct me to the nearest way out
of the village, I will have my horse saddled now and be off."

And then I noticed that Superstition stood in the light of the doorway
looking down on us.

"There's Christian's way," he said, as if involuntarily....

"Lodge with me to-night," Reverie answered, "and in the morning you
shall choose which way to go you will."

I thanked him heartily and turned in to find Rosinante.

The night was now fine, but moist and sultry, and misty in the
distance. It was late, too, for few candles gleamed beneath the
moonlight from the windows round about the smooth village-green. Even
as we set out, I leading Rosinante by her bridle, and Superstition on
my left hand, out of heavenly Leo a bright star wheeled, fading as it
fell. And soon high hedges hid utterly the "World's End" behind us,
out of sight and sound.

I observed when the trees had laid their burdened branches overhead,
and the thick-flowered bushes begun to straiten our way, that this Mr.
Superstition who had desired to accompany us was of a very different
courage from that his manner at the inn seemed to profess.

He walked with almost as much caution and ungainliness as Mistrust,
his deep and shining eyes busily searching the gloom to left and right
of him. Indeed, those same dark eyes of his reminded me not a little
of Mrs. Nature's, they were so full of what they could not tell.

He was on foot; my new friend Reverie, like myself, led his horse, a
pale, lovely creature with delicate nostrils and deep-smouldering
eyes.

"You must think me very bold to force my company on you," said
Superstition awkwardly, turning to Reverie, "but my house is never so
mute with horror as in these moody summer nights when thunder is in
the air. See there!" he cried.

As if the distant sky had opened, the large, bright, harmless
lightning quivered and was gone, revealing on the opposing hills
forest above forest unutterably dark and still.

"Surely," I said, "that is not the way Christian took?"

"They say," Reverie answered, "the Valley of the Shadow of Death lies
between those hills."

"But Atheist," I said, "_that_ acid little man, did he indeed walk
there alone?"

"I have heard," muttered Superstition, putting out his hand, "'tis
fear only that maketh afraid. Atheist has no fear."

"But what of Cruelty," I said, "and Liveloose?"

"Why," answered Superstition, "Cruelty works cunningest when he is
afraid; and Liveloose never talks about himself. None the less there's
not a tree but casts a shadow. I met once an earnest yet very popular
young gentleman of the name of Science, who explained almost
everything on earth to me so clearly, and patiently, and fatherly, I
thought I should evermore sleep in peace. But we met at noon. Believe
me, sir, I would have followed Christian and his friend Hopeful very
willingly long since; for as for Cruelty and Obstinate and all that
clumsy rabble, I heed them not. Indeed my cousin Mistrust _did_ go,
and as you see returned with a caution; and a poor young school-fellow
of mine, Jack Ignorance, came to an awful end. But it is because I owe
partly to Christian and not all to myself this horrible solitude in
which I walk that I dare not risk a deeper. It would be, I feel sure.
And so I very willingly beheld Faithful burned; it restored my
confidence. And here, sir," he added, almost with gaiety, "lives my
friend Mrs. Simple, a widow. She enjoys my company and my old fables,
and we keep the blinds down against these mountains, and candles
burning against the brighter lightnings."

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