Monday Illustrated Word: untitled story by unknown writer (in English)

art by unknown artist - Science Cosmics #5 - Fox, June 1940.

 

 

Good Reading: "Tu Ha’ ’l Viso Più Dolce che la Sapa" by Michelangelo Buonarroti (in Italian)

  Tu ha’ ’l viso più dolce che la sapa,
e passato vi par sù la lumaca,
tanto ben lustra, e più bel c’una rapa;
e’ denti bianchi come pastinaca,
in modo tal che invaghiresti ’l papa;
e gli occhi del color dell’utriaca;
e’ cape’ bianchi e biondi più che porri:
ond’io morrò, se tu non mi soccorri.
  La tua bellezza par molto più bella
che uomo che dipinto in chiesa sia:
la bocca tua mi par una scarsella
di fagiuo’ piena, si com’è la mia;
le ciglia paion tinte alla padella
e torte più c’un arco di Sorìa;
le gote ha’ rosse e bianche, quando stacci,
come fra cacio fresco e’ rosolacci.
  Quand’io ti veggo, in su ciascuna poppa
mi paion duo cocomer in un sacco,
ond’io m’accendo tutto come stoppa,
bench’io sia dalla zappa rotto e stracco.
Pensa: s’avessi ancor la bella coppa,
ti seguirrei fra l’altre me’ c’un bracco;
dunche s’i massi aver fussi possibile,
io fare’ oggi qui cose incredibile.

Friday's Sung Word: "Por Esta Vez Passa" by Noel Rosa (in Portuguese).

Por esta vez passa
Por esta vez passa
Mas não volte a minha casa
Assim cheirando a cachaça

Já é coisa bem sabida
Que a Dona Manuela
Ou acaba com a bebida (como é?)
Ou a bebida com ela

Acabou-se o parati
Em casa de Dona Sônia
Por isso, Dona Didi (que foi?)
Só bebe água da colônia

Diz o artigo nacional:
"O brasil vai ter valor"
Por isso Seu Amaral (qual?)
Só bebe álcool motor

You can listen "Por Esta Vez Passa" sung by Noel Rosa here.

Thursday's Serial: "Bébée" or "Two Little Wooden Shoes" by Ouida (in English) - VII

CHAPTER XIV.

The next day, waking with a radiant little soul as a bird in a forest wakes in summer Bébée was all alone in the lane by the swans' water. In the gray of the dawn all the good folk except herself and lame old Jehan had tramped off to a pilgrimage, Liége way, which the bishop of the city had enjoined on all the faithful as a sacred duty.

Bébée doing her work, singing, thinking how good God was, and dreaming over a thousand fancies of the wonderful stories he had told her, and of the exquisite delight that would lie for her in watching for him all through the shining hours, Bébée felt her little heart leap like a squirrel as the voice that was the music of heaven to her called through the stillness,—"Good day, pretty one! you are as early as the lark, Bébée. I go to Mayence, so I thought I would look at you one moment as I pass."

Bébée ran down through the wet grass in a tumult of joy. She had never seen him so early in the day—never so early as this, when nobody was up and stirring except birds and beasts and peasant folk.

She did not know how pretty she looked herself; like a rain-washed wild rose; her feet gleaming with dew, her cheeks warm with health and joy; her sunny clustering hair free from the white cap and tumbling a little about her throat, because she had been stooping over the carnations.

Flamen loosed the wicket latch, and thought there might be better ways of spending the day than in the gray shadows of old Mechlin.

"Will you give me a draught of water?" he asked her as he crossed the garden.

"I will give you breakfast," said Bébée, happy as a bird. She felt no shame for the smallness of her home; no confusion at the poverty of her little place; such embarrassments are born of self-consciousness, and Bébée had no more self-consciousness than her own sweet, gray lavender-bush blowing against the door.

The lavender-bush has no splendor like the roses, has no colors like the hollyhocks; it is a simple, plain, gray thing that the bees love and that the cottagers cherish, and that keeps the moth from the homespun linen, and that goes with the dead to their graves.

It has many virtues and infinite sweetness, but it does not know it or think of it; and if the village girls ever tell it so, it fancies they only praise it out of kindness as they put its slender fragrant spears away in their warm bosoms. Bébée was like her lavender, and now that this beautiful Purple Emperor butterfly came from the golden sunbeams to find pleasure for a second in her freshness, she was only very grateful, as the lavender-bush was to the village girls.

"I will give you your breakfast," said Bébée, flushing rosily with pleasure, and putting away the ivy coils that he might enter.

"I have very little, you know," she added, wistfully. "Only goat's milk and bread; but if that will do—and there is some honey—and if you would eat a salad, I would cut one fresh."

He did enter, and glanced round him with a curious pity and wonder both in one.

It was such a little, small, square place; and its floor was of beaten clay; and its unceiled roof he could have touched; and its absolute poverty was so plain,—and yet the child looked so happy in it, and was so like a flower, and was so dainty and fresh, and even so full of grace.

She stood and looked at him with frank and grateful eyes; she could hardly believe that he was here; he, the stranger of Rubes' land, in her own little rush-covered home.

But she was not embarrassed by it; she was glad and proud.

There is a dignity of peasants as well as of kings,—the dignity that comes from all absence of effort, all freedom from pretence. Bébée had this, and she had more still than this: she had the absolute simplicity of childhood with her still.

Some women have it still when they are four-score.

She could have looked at him forever, she was so happy; she cared nothing now for those dazzling dahlias—he had left them; he was actually here—here in her own, little dear home, with the cocks looking in at the threshold, and the sweet-peas nodding at the lattice, and the starling crying, "Bonjour! Bonjour!"

"You are tired, I am sure you must be tired," she said, pulling her little bed forward for him to sit on, for there were only two wooden stools in the hut, and no chair at all.

Then she took his sketching-easel and brushes from his hand, and would have kneeled and taken the dust off his boots if he would have let her; and went hither and thither gladly and lightly, bringing him a wooden bowl of milk and the rest of the slender fare, and cutting as quick as thought fresh cresses and lettuce from her garden, and bringing him, as the crown of all, Father Francis's honey-comb on vine-leaves, with some pretty sprays of box and mignonette scattered about it—doing all this with a swift, sweet grace that robbed the labor of all look of servitude, and looking at him ever and again with a smile that said as clearly as any words, "I cannot do much, but what I do, I do with all my heart."

There was something in the sight of her going and coming in those simple household errands, across the sunlit floor, that moved him as some mountain air sung on an alp by a girl driving her cows to pasture may move a listener who indifferent has heard the swell of the organ of La Hague, or the recitative of a great singer in San Carlo.

The gray lavender blowing at the house door has its charm for those who are tired of the camellias that float in the porcelain bowls of midnight suppers.

This man was not good. He was idle and vain, and amorous and cold, and had been spoiled by the world in which he had passed his days; but he had the temper of an artist: he had something, too, of a poet's fancy; he was vaguely touched and won by this simple soul that looked at him out of Bébée's eyes with some look that in all its simplicity had a divine gleam in it that made him half ashamed.

He had known women by the thousand, good women and bad; women whom he had dealt ill with and women who had dealt ill with him; but this he had not known—this frank, fearless, tender, gay, grave, innocent, industrious little life, helping itself, feeding itself, defending itself, working for itself and for others, and vaguely seeking all the while some unseen light, some unknown god, with a blind faith so infinitely ignorant and yet so infinitely pathetic.

"All the people are gone on a pilgrimage," she explained to him when he asked her why her village was so silent this bright morning. "They are gone to pray for a fine harvest, and that she wants herself as well—it costs seven francs apiece. They take their food with them; they go and laugh and eat in the fields. I think it is nonsense. One can say one's prayers just as well here. Mère Krebs thinks so too, but then she says, 'If I do not go, it will look ill; people will say I am irreligious; and as we make so much by flour, God would think it odd for me to be absent; and, besides, it is only seven francs there and back; and if it does please Heaven, that is cheap, you know. One will get it over and over again in Paradise.' That is what Mere Krebs says. But, for me, I think it is nonsense. It cannot please God to go by train and eat galette and waste a whole day in getting dusty.

"When I give the Virgin my cactus flower, I do give up a thing I love, and I let it wither on her altar instead of pleasing me in bloom here all the week, and then, of course, she sees that I have done it out of gratitude. But that is different: that I am sorry to do, and yet I am glad to do it out of love. Do you not know?"

"Yes, I know very well. But is the Virgin all that you love like this?"

"No; there is the garden, and there is Antoine—he is dead, I know. But I think that we should love the dead all the better, not the less, because they cannot speak or say that they are angry; and perhaps one pains them very much when one neglects them, and if they are ever so sad, they cannot rise and rebuke one—that is why I would rather forget the flowers for the Church than I would the flowers for his grave, because God can punish me, of course, if he like, but Antoine never can—any more—now."

"You are logical in your sentiment, my dear," said Flamen, who was more moved than he cared to feel. "The union is a rare one in your sex. Who taught you to reason?"

"No one. And I do not know what to be logical means. Is it that you laugh at me?"

"No. I do not laugh. And your pilgrims—they are gone for all day?"

"Yes. They are gone to the Sacred Heart at St. Marie en Bois. It is on the way to Liége. They will come back at nightfall. And some of them will be sure to have drunk too much, and the children will get so cross. Prosper Bar, who is a Calvinist, always says, 'Do not mix up prayer and play; you would not cut a gherkin in your honey'; but I do not know why he called prayer a gherkin, because it is sweet enough—sweeter than anything, I think. When I pray to the Virgin to let me see you next day, I go to bed quite happy, because she will do it, I know, if it will be good for me."

"But if it were not good for you, Bébée? Would you cease to wish it then?"

He rose as he spoke, and went across the floor and drew away her hand that was parting the flax, and took it in his own and stroked it, indulgently and carelessly, as a man may stroke the soft fur of a young cat.

Leaning against the little lattice and looking down on her with musing eyes, half smiling, half serious, half amorous, half sad, Bébée looked up with a sudden and delicious terror that ran through her as the charm of the snake's gaze runs through the bewildered bird.

"Would you cease to wish it if it were not good?" he asked again.

Bébée's face grew pale and troubled. She left her hand in his because she did not think any shame of his taking it. But the question suddenly flung the perplexity and darkness of doubt into the clearness of her pure child's conscience. All her ways had been straight and sunlit before her.

She had never had a divided duty.

The religion and the pleasure of her simple little life had always gone hand-in-hand, greeting one another, and never for an instant in conflict. In any hesitation of her own she had always gone to Father Francis, and he had disentangled the web for her and made all plain.

But here was a difficulty in which she could never go to Father Francis.

Right and wrong, duty and desire, were for the first time arrayed before her in their ghastly and unending warfare.

It frightened her with a certain breathless sense of peril—the peril of a time when in lieu of that gentle Mother of Roses whom she kneeled to among the flowers, she would only see a dusky shadow looming between her and the beauty of life and the light of the sun.

What he said was quite vague to her. She attached no definite danger to his words. She only thought—to see him was so great a joy—if Mary forbade it, would she not take it if she could notwithstanding, always, always, always?

He kept her hand in his, and watched with contentment the changing play of the shade and sorrow, the fear and fascination, on her face.

"You do not know, Bébée?" he said at length, knowing well himself; so much better than ever she knew. "Well, dear, that is not flattering to me. But it is natural. The good Virgin of course gives you all you have, food, and clothes, and your garden, and your pretty plump chickens; and I am only a stranger. You could not offend her for me; that is not likely."

The child was cut to the heart by the sadness and humility of words of whose studied artifice she had no suspicion.

She thought that she seemed to him ungrateful and selfish, and yet all the mooring-ropes that held her little boat of life to the harbor of its simple religion seemed cut away, and she seemed drifting helpless and rudderless upon an unknown sea.

"I never did do wrong—that I know," she said, timidly, and lifted her eyes to his with an unconscious appeal in them.

"But—I do not see why it should be wrong to speak with you. You are good, and you lend me beautiful things out of other men's minds that will make me less ignorant: Our Lady could not be angry with that—she must like it."

"Our Lady?—oh, poor little simpleton!—where will her reign be when Ignorance has once been cut down root and branch?" he thought to himself: but he only answered,—

"But whether she like it or not, Bébée?—you beg the question, my dear; you are—you are not so frank as usual—think, and tell me honestly?"

He knew quite well, but it amused him to see the perplexed trouble that this, the first divided duty of her short years, brought with it.

Bébée looked at him, and loosened her hand from his, and sat quite still.

Her lips had a little quiver in them.

"I think." she said at last, "I think—if it be wrong, still I will wish it—yes. Only I will not tell myself it is right. I will just say to Our Lady, 'I am wicked, perhaps, but I cannot help it' So, I will not deceive her at all; and perhaps in time she may forgive. But I think you only say it to try me. It cannot, I am sure, be wrong—any more than it is to talk to Jeannot or to Bac."

He had driven her into the subtleties of doubt, but the honest little soul in her found a way out, as a flower in a cellar finds its way through the stones to light.

He plucked the ivy leaves and threw them at the chickens on the bricks without, with a certain impatience in the action. The simplicity and the directness of the answer disarmed him; he was almost ashamed to use against her the weapons of his habitual warfare. It was like a maître d'armes fencing with bare steel against a little naked child armed with a blest palm-sheaf.

When she had thus brought him all she had, and he to please her had sat down to the simple food, she gathered a spray of roses and set it in a pot beside him, then left him and went and stood at a little distance, waiting, with her hands lightly crossed on her chest, to see if there were anything that he might want.

He ate and drank well to please her, looking at her often as he did so.

"I break your bread, Bébée," he said, with a tone that seemed strange to her,—"I break your bread. I must keep Arab faith with you."

"What is that?"

"I mean—I must never betray you."

"Betray me How could you?"

"Well—hurt you in any way."

"Ah, I am sure you would never do that."

He was silent, and looked at the spray of roses.

"Sit down and spin," he said impatiently. "I am ashamed to see you stand there, and a woman never looks so well as when she spins. Sit down, and I will eat the good things you have brought me. But I cannot if you stand and look."

"I beg your pardon. I did not know," she said, ashamed lest she should have seemed rude to him; and she drew out her wheel under the light of the lattice, and sat down to it, and began to disentangle the threads.

It was a pretty picture—the low, square casement; the frame of ivy, the pink and white of the climbing sweet-peas: the girl's head; the cool, wet leaves: the old wooden spinning-wheel, that purred like a sleepy cat.

"I want to paint you as Gretchen, only it will be a shame." he said.

"Who is Gretchen?"

"You shall read of her by-and-by. And you live here all by yourself?"

"Since Antoine died—yes."

"And are never dull?"

"I have no time, and I do not think I would be if I had time—there is so much to think of, and one never can understand."

"But you must be very brave and laborious to do all your work yourself. Is it possible a child like you can spin, and wash, and bake, and garden, and do everything?"

"Oh, many do more than I. Babette's eldest daughter is only twelve, and she does much more, because she has all the children to look after; and they are very, very poor; they often have nothing but a stew of nettles and perhaps a few snails, days together."

"That is lean, bare, ugly, gruesome poverty; there is plenty of that everywhere. But you, Bébée—you are an idyll."

Bébée looked across the hut and smiled, and broke her thread. She did not know what he meant, but if she were anything that pleased him, it was well.

"Who were those beautiful women?" she said suddenly, the color mounting into her cheeks.

"What women, my dear?"

"Those I saw at the window with you, the other night—they had jewels."

"Oh!—women, tiresome enough. If I had seen you, I would have dropped you some fruit. Poor little Bébée! Did you go by, and I never knew?"

"You were laughing—"

"Was I?"

"Yes, and they were beautiful."

"In their own eyes; not in mine."

"No?"

She stopped her spinning and gazed at him with wistful, wondering eyes. Could it be that they were not beautiful to him? those deep red, glowing, sun-basked dahlia flowers?

"Do you know," she said very softly, with a flush of penitence that came and went, "when I saw them, I hated them; I confessed it to Father Francis next day. You seemed so content with, them, and they looked so gay and glad there—and then the jewels! Somehow, I seemed to myself such a little thing, and so ugly and mean. And yet, do you know—"

"And yet—well?"

"They did not look to me good—those women," said Bébée, thoughtfully, looking across at him in deprecation of his possible anger. "They were great people, I suppose, and they appeared very happy; but though I seemed nothing to myself after them, still I think I would not change."

"You are wise without books, Bébée."

"Oh, no, I am not wise at all. I only feel. And give me books; oh, pray, give me books! You do not know; I will learn so fast; and I will not neglect anything, that I promise. The neighbors and Jeannot say that I shall let the flowers die, and the hut get dirty, and never spin or prick Annémie's patterns; but that is untrue. I will do all, just as I have done, and more too, if only you will give me things to read, for I do think when one is happy, one ought to work more—not less."

"But will these books make you happy? If you ask me the truth, I must tell you—no. You are happy as you are, because you know nothing else than your own little life; for ignorance is happiness, Bébée, let sages, ancient and modern, say what they will. But when you know a little, you will want to know more: and when you know much, you will want to see much also, and then—and then—the thing will grow—you will be no longer content. That is, you will be unhappy."

Bébée watched him with wistful eyes.

"Perhaps that is true. No doubt it is true, if you say it. But you know all the world seems full of voices that I hear, but that I cannot understand; it is with me as I should think it is with people who go to foreign countries and do not know the tongue that is spoken when they land; and it makes me unhappy, because I cannot comprehend, and so the books will not make me more so, but less. And as for being content—when I thought you were gone away out of the city, last night, I thought I would never be able to pray any more, because I hated myself, and I almost hated the angels, and I told Mary that she was cruel, and she turned her face from me—as it seemed, forever."

She spoke quite quietly and simply, spinning as she spoke, and looking across at him with earnest eyes, that begged him to believe her. She was saying the pure truth, but she did not know the force or the meaning of that truth.

He listened with a smile; it was not new to him; he knew her heart much better than she knew it herself, but there was an unconsciousness, and yet a strength, in the words that touched him though.

He threw the leaves away, irritably, and told her to leave off her spinning.

"Some day I shall paint you with that wheel as I painted the Broodhuis.

Will you let me, Bébée?"

"Yes."

She answered him as she would have answered if he had told her to go on pilgrimage from one end of the Low Countries to the other.

"What were you going to do to-day?"

"I am going into the market with the flowers; I go every day."

"How much will you make?"

"Two or three francs, if I am lucky."

"And do you never have a holiday?"

"Oh, yes; but not often, you know, because it is on the fete days that the people want the most flowers."

"But in the winter?"

"Then I work at the lace."

"Do you never go into the woods?"

"I have been once or twice; but it loses a whole day."

"You are afraid of not earning?"

"Yes. Because I am afraid of owing people anything."

"Well, give up this one day, and we will make holiday. The people are out; they will not know. Come into the forest, and we will dine at a café in the woods; and we will be as poetic as you like, and I will tell you a tale of one called Rosalind, who pranked herself in boy's attire, all for love, in the Ardennes country yonder. Come, it is the very day for the forest; it will make me a lad again at Meudon, when the lilacs were in bloom. Poor Paris! Come."

"Do you mean it?"

The color was bright in her face, her heart was dancing, her little feet felt themselves already on the fresh green turf.

She had no thought that there could be any harm in it. She would have gone with Jeannot or old Bac.

"Of course I mean it. Come. I was going to Mayence to see the Magi and Van Dyck's Christ. We will go to Soignies instead, and study green leaves. I will paint your face by sunlight. It is the best way to paint you. You belong to the open air. So should Gretchen; or how else should she have the blue sky in her eyes?"

"But I have only wooden shoes!"

Her face was scarlet as she glanced at her feet; he who had wanted to give her the silk stockings—how would he like to be seen walking abroad with those two clumsy, clattering, work-a-day, little sabots?

"Never mind. My dear, in my time I have had enough of satin shoes and of silver gilt heels; they click-clack as loud as yours, and cost much more to those who walk with them, not to mention that they will seldom deign to walk at all. Your wooden shoes are picturesque. Paganini made a violin out of a wooden shoe. Who knows what music may lurk in yours, only you have never heard it. Perhaps I have. It was Bac who gave you the red shoes that was the barbarian, not I. Come."

"You really mean it?"

"Come."

"But they will miss me at market."

"They will think you are gone on the pilgrimage: you need never tell them you have not."

"But if they ask me?"

"Does it never happen that you say any other thing than the truth?"

"Any other thing than the truth! Of course not. People take for granted that one tells truth; it would be very base to cheat them. Do you really mean that I may come?—in the forest!—and you will tell me stories like those you give me to read?"

"I will tell you a better story. Lock your hut, Bébée, and come."

"And to think you are not ashamed!"

"Ashamed?"

"Yes, because of my wooden shoes."

Was it possible? Bébée thought, as she ran out into the garden and locked the door behind her, and pushed the key under the waterbutt as usual, being quite content with that prudent precaution against robbers which had served Antoine all his days. Was it possible, this wonderful joy?—her cheeks were like her roses, her eyes had a brilliance like the sun; the natural grace and mirth of the child blossomed in a thousand ways and gestures.

As she went by the shrine in the wall, she bent her knee a moment and made the sign of the cross; then she gathered a little moss-rose that nodded close under the border of the palisade, and turned and gave it to him.

"Look, she sends you this. She is not angry, you see, and it is much more pleasure when she is pleased—do you not know?"

He shrank a little as her fingers touched him.

"What a pity you had no mother, Bébée!" he said, on an impulse of emotion, of which in Paris he would have been more ashamed than of any guilt.

Good Reading: "The Visit" by Ralph Waldo Emerson (in English)

 THE VISIT

Askest, 'How long thou shalt stay?'
Devastator of the day!
Know, each substance and relation,
Thorough nature's operation,
Hath its unit, bound and metre;
And every new compound
Is some product and repeater,—
Product of the earlier found.
But the unit of the visit,
The encounter of the wise,—
Say, what other metre is it
Than the meeting of the eyes?
Nature poureth into nature
Through the channels of that feature,
Riding on the ray of sight,
Fleeter far than whirlwinds go,
Or for service, or delight,
Hearts to hearts their meaning show,
Sum their long experience,
And import intelligence.
Single look has drained the breast;
Single moment years confessed.
The duration of a glance
Is the term of convenance,
And, though thy rede be church or state,
Frugal multiples of that.
Speeding Saturn cannot halt;
Linger,—thou shalt rue the fault:
If Love his moment overstay,
Hatred's swift repulsions play.

Tuesday's Serial "The Mystery of the Sea" by Bram Stoker (in English) - X

 CHAPTER XXI - THE OLD FAR WEST AND THE NEW

Presently Marjory jumped up and said:

“Now you must get your wheel and come over to Crom. I am burning to show it to you!” We crossed the little isthmus and climbed the rocks above the Reivie o’ Pircappies. As we topped the steep path I almost fell back with the start I gave.

There sat Gormala MacNiel, fixed and immovable as though she were of stone. She looked so unconcerned that I began to suspect her. At first she seemed not to notice us; but I could see that she was looking at us under her eyelashes. I was anxious to find out how long she had been there, so I said, mentioning her name in order that Marjory might know who she was:

“Why, Gormala, what has become of you? I thought you were off again to the Islands. We haven’t seen you for a long time.” She replied in her usual uncompromising way:

“I hae nae doot that ye thocht me far, gin ye did na see me. Aye! Aye! the time has been lang; but I could wait: I could wait!”

“What were you waiting for?” Marjory’s voice seemed almost as that of a being from another world. It was so fresh, so true, so independent that it seemed at variance with Gormala and her whole existence. As a man beside two women, I felt more as a spectator than as a participant, and my first general impression was that the New World was speaking to the Old. Gormala seemed to me absolutely flabbergasted. She stared, and looked in a dazed way, at the girl, standing up as she did so with the instinctive habit, ingrained through centuries of custom, of an inferior to a superior. Then she moved her hand across her forehead, as though to clear her brain, before she replied:

“What was I waitin’ for? I’ll tell ye, an ye will. I was waitin’ for the fulfillment o’ the Doom. The Voices hae spoken; and what they hae said, will be. There be them that would stand in the way o’ Fate, and would try to hinder the comin’ that must be. But they will fail; they will fail! They can no more block the river o’ time wi’ ony deeds o’ mon, than they can dam the spate wi’ a bairn’s playtoy.” Again came Marjory’s searching question, with all the mystery-dispelling freshness of her unfettered youth; and indeed it seemed as if the Old-world mystery could not hold its dignity in the face of overt, direct questioning:

“By the way, what was it that the Doom said? Was it anything that an American girl can understand?” Gormala gazed at her in manifest wonder. To her, reared in the atmosphere of the Old Far West, this product of the New Far West seemed like a being of another world. Had Marjory been less sweet in her manner than she was, or less fair to look upon, less dignified, or less grave, the old woman would probably have shown hostility at once. But it seemed to me impossible that even a witch-woman could be hostile to Marjory to-day. She looked so sweet, and kind and happy; so bright and joyous; so much like the incarnation of ideal girlhood, that criticism was disarmed, and hostility could not force a way into the charmed circle of that radiant presence. To me, her attitude towards Gormala was incomprehensible. She knew Gormala, for I had told her of who and what the Seer was, and of the prophecies and warnings that she had already uttered; and yet from her manner she appeared ignorant of all concerning both her and them. She was not conciliatory after the manner of the young who wish to please the old, or to ingratiate themselves with them. She was not hostile, as would be one who had determined on opposition. About her or her manner there was nothing hard, or frivolous or contradictory. And yet it was apparent to me that she had some fixed, determined purpose of her own; and it became before long apparent to me also, that the other woman knew, or at any rate suspected, such an existence, though she could neither comprehend nor locate it. Gormala seemed once, twice, as though she were about to speak, but hesitated; at last with an effort she spoke out:

“The Voice o’ the Doom no sounds in words such as mortals can hear. It is spoken in sounds that are heard of the inner ear. What matter the words, when the ear that hearkens can understan’!”

“But,” said Marjory, “could I not be told the words, or if there were no actual words, could you not give me in your own words what the sounds uttered seemed to you to mean?” To anyone but a Seer such a request would seem reasonable enough; but visionaries who have a receptive power of their own, and who learn by means whose methods are unconscious to them, can hardly undertake to translate the dim, wide-stretching purpose of the powers of the Unknown into bald, narrow, human speech. Gormala’s brows wrinkled up in thought; then a scowl of disappointment swept over her face. In an angry tone she turned to me and said:

“Wha be yon lassie that questions so blithely the truth o’ the Voice that is kent by ye an’ me? Why dinna ye tak her awa’ before she mocks me, an’ in me the Doom; an’ I speak oot to her?” Marjory spoke up for herself.

“Please do not think it a liberty to ask you; but I should like so much to know exactly what was said. It is so easy for people to confuse ideas when words are loosely used. Don’t you find it so?” I do not think Gormala MacNiel had any humour at all; if she had, I had certainly never seen any trace of it. Had it been there it would have surely saved her from anger; for there was something delicious in the way in which Marjory put her question, as though to one of her own kind and holding the same views as herself on general matters. Gormala did not like it. Though there was a blank in her mind as to the existence of humour, she must have felt conscious of the blank. She could not understand the other woman; and for a little while sought refuge in a silence composed of about equal parts of sulk and dignity. But Marjory was not content with silence; she pressed home her question in the most polite but most matter of fact way, till I could see the Witch-woman mentally writhe. I should have interfered, for I did not want any unpleasant scene in which Marjory must have a part; but I felt that the girl had some purposeful meaning in her persistence. Had Gormala had a pause in the attack she would, I felt, have gone away and bided her time: but in such a pushing of the matter as Marjory braced herself to, there could be no withdrawal, unless under defeat. Gormala looked round now and again, as one, man or animal, does when hunted; but each time she restrained herself by an effort. At last her temper began to rise; her face flushed, and the veins, of passion stood out on her forehead. Her eyes flashed, and white marks began to come and go about the face, especially round the nose. I could see from the leap of fire in Marjory’s eyes that this was what she was waiting for. She lowered her voice, and the tone of her speaking, till both matter and manner were icily chill; but all the time she persisted in her matter-of-fact questioning.

At last Gormala’s temper broke, and she turned on the girl in such a fury that for a few seconds I thought she was going to attack her physically. I stood ready to hold her off if necessary. At the first moment the passion in her was so great that she spoke in Gaelic; blind, white-hot fury will not allow a choice of tongues. The savage in her was speaking, and it spoke in the tongue it knew best. Of course neither of us could understand it, and we only stood smiling. Marjory smiled deliberately as though to exasperate her; I smiled because Marjory was smiling. Presently, through the tumult of her passion, Gormala began to realise that we did not understand her; and, with an effort which shook her, began to speak in English. With the English which she had, came intention and the restraint which it implies. Her phrases were not common curses, but rather a picturesque half prophecy with a basis of hate. The gravamen of her charge was that Marjory had scoffed against the Doom and Fate and the Voices. To me, who had suffered the knowledge to which she appealed, the attack was painful. What was charged was a sort of natural sacrilege; and it wounded me and angered me to see Marjory made the subject of any attack. I was about to interfere, when with a gesture, which the Witch-woman did not see, she warned me to silence. She struck into the furious woman’s harangue with quiet, incisive, cultured voice which made the other pause:

“Indeed you do me a wrong; I scoffed at nothing. I should not scoff at your religion any more than I should at my own. I only asked you a few questions as to facts which seemed to touch a friend of mine.” The point of this speech which, strange to say, affected the woman most was regarding her religion:

“Wha be ye, ye hizzie, that wad daur to misca’ me that is a Christian woman all my days. What be your releegion, that ye try to shame me wi’ mine.” Marjory said deliberately, but with all the outward appearance of courtesy:

“But I did not know that in the scheme of the Christian belief there were such things as the Doom and the Voice and Fate!” The old woman towered up; for a moment she was all Seer and Prophet. Her words thrilled through me; and I could see through Marjory also. Though she held herself proudly, her lips grew pale:

“Then learn while ye may that there be lesser powers as well as greater in the scheme o’ God’s warld, and o’ His working o’ the wonders therein. Ye may scoff at me wha’ am after all but an aud wife; though one to whom are Visions given, and in whose ears the Voice has spoken. Ye may pride yersel’ that yer ignorance is mair than the knowledge o’ ithers. Ye may doot the truths that hae been garnered oot o’ centuries o’ dour experience, an’ tak’ the cloak o’ yer ignorance as an answer to a’ the mysteries that be. But mark me weel! the day will come—it is no far aff the noo—when ye will wring yer honds, and pray wi’ all the power an’ bitter grief o’ yer soul for some licht to guide ye that ye no hae had yet!” She paused and stood in a sort of trance, stiffening all over like a pointer at mark. Then she raised one hand high over her head, so that the long arm seemed to extend her gaunt form to an indefinite length. With a far-away solemn voice she spoke:

“I see ye too, though no by yer lanes, in the wild tide-race amang the rocks in the dark nicht, mid leaping waves. An’ lo! o’er the waste o’ foam is a floatin’ shrood!” Then she stopped, and in a few seconds came back to herself. In the meantime Marjory, whose lips had grown white as death, though she never lost her proud bearing, groped blindly for my hand and held it hard. She never for a moment took her eyes off the other.

When Gormala was quite her own woman again, she turned without a word and walked away in her gaunt, stately manner, feeling I am sure, as we did, that she did not go without the honours of war. Marjory continued to watch her until she had passed up the track, and had disappeared behind the curve of the hill.

Then, all at once, she seemed to collapse in a faint; and had I not held her hand, and so was able to draw her into my arms, she must have fallen to the ground.

In a wonderfully short time she recovered her senses, and then with a great effort stood up; though she still had to steady herself by my hand. When she was all right again she said to me:

“I suppose you wonder why I attacked her like that. Oh! yes, I did attack her; I meant to,” for she saw the question in my eyes. “It was because she was so hostile to you. What right had she to force you to do anything? She is harmful to you, Archie. I know it! I know it! I know it! and I determined not to let her have her way. And besides,”—this with a shy loving look at me, “as she is hostile to you she must be to me also. I want to be with you, even in the range of the hate and the love of others. That is to be one; and as we are to fight together I must share your lot in all!” I took her in my arms, and for some divine moments, our hearts beat together.

In those moments my mind was made up as to the wishes of Adams. How could I refuse in any way to fight the battle, as she might wish it fought, of a girl who so loyally shared my lot!

Then we arranged that I should go home for my bicycle, and meet Marjory at the bridge by the Parish Church.

 

CHAPTER XXII - CROM CASTLE

When I rejoined Marjory, we went up the high road and then turned off by a by-way which took us round innumerable slopes and mounds, so characteristic of this part of Aberdeen. The entire county, seen from high places, looks bare and open; but it has its hills and hollows in endless variety. From the cross road we turned up another and still another, till I lost my bearings entirely.

The part of the country where we now were was a sort of desolation of cultivation; endless low hills clad with fields of wheat and barley with never a house to be seen, except some far off cottage or the homestead of a laird perched on the top of a hill. At last we entered through an open gateway with broken pillars, still bearing the remains of some armorial device in statuary. There was an avenue, fringed with tall trees on either side, and beyond a broad belt of undergrowth. The avenue wound round and round in an endless series of curves. From the gate where we entered was a thick, close wood nearly a quarter of a mile in width. Here the trees stood so close, and their locking branches made such a screen, that it was quite gloomy within. Here too the road was made in perpetual curves, so that it was not possible to see far ahead. Indeed I remarked to Marjory as we rode along:

“No wonder you chose this as a place to hide in; it looks as if it was made for concealment. It is a regular Rosamund’s Bower!”

When we had passed through the wood, we came out on a great piece of level ground with a wide mound some twenty feet high, in the midst of it. On this was built of granite, a crenelated castle. It was not very high, but extended wide in a square, with a low arched doorway in front of us through which it might be possible to drive with care. The doorway was closed by two gates; first a massive network of interlocking steel bars of seemingly foreign workmanship, and secondly great gates of oak fortified with steel bands and massive bosses of hammered iron. Before going in, Marjory took me right round the castle and I saw that it was the same on all four sides. It was built by the points of the compass; but there was no gateway except on one side. The ordinary way of entering was by a more modern door on the south side. From inside the castle it was not possible to see anywhere beyond the wood. Even from the stone roof, made for defence, where Marjory took me, it was only possible to get a glimpse through the tree tops here and there of round-topped hills yellow with ripening grain or crowned with groves of scanty wind-swept pine trees. Altogether it was as gloomy a place as I had ever seen. It was cut off altogether from the outer world; one might remain in it for a life-time unknown.

Inside it was, if possible, more gloomy. Small rooms almost everywhere, except the great hall, and one room at the top facing the south side which lay just under the roof and which was lined with old oak. Here there were quite a number of windows such as Marjory had described, all of them, though wide on the inner side, narrowed to mere slits on the outer. In castles and houses built, like this, for defence, it did not do to allow opportunities to an attacking force to send missiles within.

Mrs. Jack and Marjory had made this their living room, and here were all the pretty treasures and knick-knacks which they had gathered on their travels. The old lady welcomed me warmly. Then Marjory took her aside and told her something in whispers. I could guess what it was; but any doubts I might have had were dispelled when she came over and kissed me and said:

“Indeed, I congratulate you with all my heart. You have won the best, and sweetest, and dearest girl that ever drew breath. I have been with her all my life; and I have not found a flaw in her yet. And I am glad that it is you whom she has chosen. Somehow, I wished it from the first moment I saw you. That you may both be happy, I pray the good Lord God! And I know you will; for you are true, and Marjory has a heart of gold.”

“A heart of gold!” Her words had given me more than pleasure; but the last phrase pulled my joy up short. A cold shiver ran through me. A golden man had been a part of the prophecy of the Mystery of the Sea; and only a little while ago Gormala had in her vision seen Marjory struggling in the tide-race with a shroud in the air.

I think Marjory felt something of the same kind, for she looked at me anxiously and grew a little pale. She said nothing, however, and I thought it better to pass the matter by. Although Marjory had heard the expression of the Witch-woman’s vision, and though I had told her of my first experience of the old rhyming prophecy, the former was at a time when neither I myself nor the whole mystery was of any special importance to her. She might not have remembered it; I trusted that this was so.

However, we could not either of us be sad for long to-day. Our joy was too fresh to be dimmed by any thought of gloom, except momentarily as a mirror is by a passing breath.

Tea in the old oak room was a delight, with the afternoon sun coming in slantwise through the narrow windows and falling in lines of light across the floor. Marjory made the tea and served me; and each time I took anything from her hand our fingers met, she no more than myself avoiding the touch. Then, leaving the old lady upstairs, she took me through the various rooms; and in her pretty, impulsive way she told me all the romances which she had already woven about them in her brain. She came and saw me off; with her kiss of good-bye on my lips I rode back through the gloomy wood, feeling as proud and valiant as a knight of old.

I found my way to Ellon and went on the train to Aberdeen, for I felt it due to Adams that I should see him at once. It was impossible to write all I had to say; and besides I wanted to retain his good will, and to arrange for securing his aid, if he would consent to do so under our altered conditions.

I found him in his room hard at work. He was writing something which I suppose he considered important, for he put it carefully away and locked his despatch box before we began to talk. Of course it might have been only his diplomatic habit; but he seemed grave over it. I entered at once on the matter between us, for I thought to get the disagreeable side over first and let concessions and alterations follow:

“I am sorry, Sam, I shall not be able to help you with information regarding Miss Drake.”

“Why? Haven’t you heard from her?”

“It is not that; but I am not free to do what you wish.” Adams looked at me for a long time. Then he said quietly:

“I see. You have your orders! Well, I am sorry for it; it may bring dreadful harm to her, and I daresay to you too, now. Say, old chap, is that decision of yours final? The matter is more grave than I thought when I saw you last. We have had more information, and they are pressing us from Washington to take all precautions we can. Come, won’t you help me—help her?”

“I can’t, the way you say. Sam Adams, you know I would do anything I could for you; but in this matter I am pledged. I have been given a secret, and I must keep it honourably at all hazards. But look here, I am anxious all the same. Can’t you trust me a little bit and tell me what to look for. I won’t give you away; and I may be able to carry out your wishes as to helping to guard her, though I have to do it in my own way.” He smiled, though very bitterly and ironically. I was glad to see the smile anyhow, for we were old and tried friends and I should not like there to be any break between us. Besides I wanted his help; his knowledge now, and his resources later on, if need should be. He was an official, and the matter was an official one though his heart was in it; it was not as if his personal feelings or his honour had been involved.

“Well,” he said, “you have a fine gall anyhow! You refuse point blank to give me the slightest help, though I ask it on all grounds, official for America, personal as I am in charge, and for the sake of your own girl; and then you expect me to tell you all I can. Well, look here, I’ll tell you anything that will help you as soon as I know it, if you will keep me advised of exactly where you are—so—so that I may be able to find you if I wish.”

I told him heartily that I would keep him posted as to my movements. Then, as there was nothing to remain for, I said good-bye—a good-bye, I am glad to say, given and taken with our old heartiness. Before I went I said:

“Sam, you know how a message can find me if there[192] is anything you should think it well to tell me.” To which he replied:

“All right, Archie, I’ll remember. You understand that as I shall have to work this racket alone I must do it in my own way: otherwise we shall have complications. But if there is anything I can do on your side, I shall do it all the same. You know how to reach me. If you send for me I shall come any hour of the day or night. And say, old chap, I go heeled!” he pointed to his pistol pocket. “Let me advise you to do the same just at present!”

I took his advice and bought in Aberdeen, before returning to Cruden, two of the finest revolvers I could get. One of them was made for a lady; the other I always carried myself from that day forward.

Monday Illustrated Word: untitled story by Jack Kirby (in English)

art by Jack Kirby - Science Comics #4 - Fox, May 1940.