Chapter XXIX (3)

Road-trees sprout hamlets, dwellings grouped in greenery as if they were clusters of acorns or hazel-nuts, and these often are ripe old places, turning brown as nuts and acorns do, and blest with beautiful baptisms, names that a rambler reads upon slanting sign-posts or over rustical post-office doors. Many old place-names relate their own exegesis: I know a road that branches off at Headless Cross—the medieval picture and _chiaroscuro_ of the past in that! One sees the Lollards in the foreground of it, dourly hewing a saint’s head off the top of a stone shaft, the thatched village looking sleepily on.

For six undulant miles or so this road from Headless Cross goes dandling along to Tardebigg, through delightful Foxlydiate, and past the bald summit of Muskott’s Way. ‘Tardebigg,’ more recondite than ‘Headless Cross,’ I guess to have named the site of some manor-house or farmstead built so dawdlingly as never to have been finished—a bachelor or spinster bit of building that never made a home, and childless died into the inane. Or ‘Tardebigg’ may have named some hill of late-harvesting barley—there is always the delight of shies at the local truth for you, one can seldom be quite sure of a hit. Yet who was Muskott, that he should ever have owned a long strip of common-land which could never belong to any particular body? It is fudge; I do not believe there ever was such a Muskott—Onesimus, George, or Ebenezer as the case might be. I’ll warrant that Muskott’s Way was known as Muskets Way in days when Napoleon threatened invasion, for in days when Louis Napoleon’s colonels threatened it, the Rifle Corps had their shooting-range up Muskott’s Way. There magazine rifles are practised with at present, I do not doubt, and there in Wat Tyler’s time bowmen would loose at the butts. The place is a palimpsest, of our successive preparations for war.

As for the christening of Foxlydiate, the road-tree sways gracefully down just there, and was not _hlidh_ Early English for ‘slope’? There are other lyds and lydiates. ‘Foxlydiate’ may have meant the meet of the hunters—there are kennels near it still; but I think the name was anciently ‘Folks-lydiate,’ the hill of the ‘good folk’ or fays, and it is a superstitious little village yet. No stretch of country road used to live without its myth or chimera (of subtle contour often), its fable, its dreaming escape from the actual; a myriad perennial annals, vouched for by the affidavits of the aged, some of them puerile but some grim, lichen our by-ways; there is hardly a great house but when you pass the park-palings of split oak something romantical will come to mind, or be told in your ear. Beginning gay-coloured, as lichens often do, these sometimes darken; thus the legend at Foxlydiate is sombre and nocturnal now. The road there hears an equipage sometimes, after sunset, and this was once a fairy vehicle, I’ll warrant, perhaps a Cinderella’s coach; but it has become a nightmare now—the terror of ‘the Flying Hearse.’ Elms in platoons and companies shadow the road there, and there the bat of superstition flits through the twilight of the spirit; be there in the mood, and you may think you hear wheels rush uphill; smack of whip, snort of nag, clink of swingle-bar are heard, but no correspondent forms are visible; and that is salutary, the tradition says, for whoso _sees_ the Flying Hearse must die within the year. Many a time there I as a lad, driving home in the twilight, listened with the delight of half-sceptical terror, but I doubt if people harken for that fatal omnibus now. Tilth and foison of ghost story, aged jest, and fine old tradition no longer flourish; for towns and townsmen, spreading into the country—lichen of a sort—bring the long age of romantic rural faiths to an end.

Townsmen in Arcady are rarer of late, however. War-time depopulates the country roads. The motor-car (itself a flying hearse sometimes) is scarce there now. Solitary the rambler jogs along, alone with himself, except for the flight of the mated thrush or other father bird on service of commissariat; but in what ease of silence you may now pursue your errantry, and into what delight of the unexpected! There are folk who think they ramble, yet go nose in map, by rule and rote of road; but as well employ a guide and an alpenstock—to ramble is not to ken whither, and yet to home. There are plausible short-cuts that deceive you, I know, and branches of road-trees bring you to sudden corners, hedged-in dichotomies, curves and exfoliations that the Development Commissioners, most leisurely of Government Trustees, had not even so much as begun to think of improving away, some day, before the War. These may perplex you, or even be perilous with storming petrels; but there are natural dug-outs, trenches with high green banks.

Often from such elbows as these a lane goes trooping off, like a truant from school. Dusky ways you come to, and bright ones, russet or green tunnels over-arched that make noontide a twilight, or jolly and titupping lanes that caper away from corner alehouses with merry, drunken staggers. Or you pass between roofless colonnades, stately cloisters with tree-trunks for mullions; these are lanes that once were avenues, leading long ago to the gates and curtilage of some manor-house now razed. It is by ways such as these that you pass the minuter Auburns, deserted cottages which by the something maniac there is now about their thatch make you think of Barnaby Rudge. And sometimes the raven croaks above those ruined little atriums; oftener the curlew calls across lesser lanes still, that were ancient pack-horse tracks, or were foot-worn in the lang syne of some local trade now dead—the Salt-way, the Rush-way, or the Keg-way leading up from some cove of contraband. The ring-dove coos to narrower paths still—O Lubin and Chloe!—the recognised sweethearting footways where every generation has loitered and whispered with the erratic ache of love.

These divers cuts and tacks shorten apparent distance and cheat the tiring foot, for the way itself seems to wander with you, and each new corner to beckon you on. And this is a portion of that English form of great art which lets things develop as if they were vegetal, into a perfect beauty of anarchy, various and infinite; no Ordnance surveyor nor planner of garden cities would invent such foot-beguiling roads as these. Some of them can astound even the most experienced rambler, he almost can hear them chuckle at his surprise when he rounds into a new vista, and some of them seem to go about with the zeal of an antiquary, discovering and reconnecting the tracks of some Titan who trapesed through the quag there, before it had hardened after Noah’s flood. There are leafy labyrinths, too, mazy suburbs, _faubourgs_ of silent green cities, peopled by plants and shapes of leaves and scents so various, that in June, the schoolboy month, a man may rest there bewitched, ‘Tarrying and talked to by tongues aromatic,’ thinking himself a bodily translation, resolved into a forested world.

I suppose the skin-clad explorer of spaces we now name counties found no paths but the spoor of what a Boy Scout called ‘growly beasts.’ Between dens and water-breaks these tracks would go, and I never came to a ford without seeming to see some skin-clad explorer there before me, his tongue lapping water and his furtive eyes swivelling left and right for danger, since it was then always war-time for a man. In September, when great fleets of swallows gather in ports of departure, I have noticed them, myriad and midge-like in the air above and around—I cannot guess why—a ford. Water brings back some of the old feeling of mystery and danger into any journey, you spy the peril under the beauty as you come to a ferry, or to a string of white posts and chains that fence off a roadside burn.

How Shakespeare delighted in fords! He played with the word’s meaning again and again. Many a Warwickshire place he knew where ‘the shore was shelvy and shallow,’ and he—perhaps he most of all as most human of all—would be glad to get home to his shire. There was, and I hope is yet, a ford at the ‘beggarly Broome’ which he knew of, where the road pushed into the Avon abruptly, turned at a right angle midstream, splashed axle-deep thirty yards, and emerged uphill. And this used to be a place of delicious risk for a young palmer whose staff was a whip; for at any moment the gig might become a cockleshell, floating. It was a sacred water of danger to me; may Development Commissioners destroy it never, and least of all with some iron bridge, kept painted against the mollifying lichen of rust.

Splash went the fetlocks; or if you were afoot, under the lee of an old mill a lichened old boat swayed hooked, and across the echoing flow your cry went, ‘Ferry-oh!’ or ‘O-ver, miller!’—the very music of life. A ferry-boat is but a moving span, stepping-stones are a kind of ford, and bridges developed out of these, I think, for what were the piers at first but stepping-stones for a giant’s stride? Bridges—but pages and pages would not tell the rambler’s delight in those circumflex accents, those brooding brows bent over grey eyes of water wherein reflections lie deep, like thoughts that dream.

Such, Jean-Paul might have cried, in one of the conceits with which he rejoiced a dead old Germany, are the flowers and honey of a road-tree, with cottages like strawy hives, under linden-tresses murmurous of clustered delight; these be the joys that wing the rambler, so that away he goes bumbling tirelessly, as I do here, to the next blossoms, and the next. Life itself climbs and descends a road-tree, I suppose—the tree of Ygdrasil; but there can be continual breaking forth into new boughs of living if one carries Spring on into Autumn, keeping pretty young in spite of the impertinences of time. Has there not been grafting of road-trees, budding of fertile young stems into lichened old branches of ways?

But road-trees are deciduous, too, boughs and twigs of them withering for lack of the sap of daily use; with some sense of pathos a rambler obtrudes upon the hush of lanes long left unmetalled, where the latest wheel-marks are wan. He thus comes into places of pastoral indolence that once hummed with cultivation, where not even yet, in war-time, have farmers wakened their Sleepy Hollows up. Some of the elderliest by-roads are the loneliest, and seem to lie musing of their past; even a summer breeze can blow bleakly there, and in the lulls of it the silence waits, forlorn. There are very aged, lonesome ways which seem to shiver, Lear-like, and then the rambler thinks how all the hurriers and loiterers upon them in the past lie low. We too are in the tradition: ‘This great world itself shall so wear out to naught.’

Lear wandered the Roman roads of Britain; they set one thinking of strategic railways just now. In essence an old Latin militant broadway and a German route to the extravasation of blood are the same, I suppose. Both were pushed out like spears of offence, immense and excessive, and neither was a pleasant causeway for neighbourliness. Therefore a curse shall come upon the Prussian strategic paths, such as fell upon the Roman thoroughfares here long ago. Even yet these seem to march in arms among us, between the remains of sullen native forests—they are aliens still; listen along one of them yet, and you shall think you hear the clink of greaves or the centurion’s harsh command. These ancient roads can never be homely, they have never been naturalised, the little townships hold apart from them yet.

Follow Watling Street or the Fosse Way in rustic regions and you come upon few villages: our old horror of the Latin power seems to persist. British and Early-English field-folk huddled together in hamlets that developed like social islands, at the centre of cultivable common lands, connubial, away from forests of _ferae_ and thoroughfares of war. Even in York and Lancaster days villagers would use the great old roads as seldom as might be—they were marches for soldiery, stretches of savagery that husbandman and maid had better avoid. They thus became bristling frontiers, limits of peaceable excursion, confines of wapentakes or counties; in days when people were

‘Parish-bound with hedgerows as with bars,’

it would be risky to quit your township, and almost armed invasion to cross the great road. We English no more became Latin then than Teutonic later; always we have gone our own ways. Between Newark and Nottingham the Fosse marches straight, a noble Roman superb and haughty, but the other road, the true Englishman, wends devious and unsystematic: it developed as the British Empire did, out of paths and lanes of trade and gossip: they never set out to be a main road or an empire at all.

Somewhere and sometime all roads end, as must this wandering gossip of road-trees. It is good to jog on the footpath way and hent the stile even in war-time; when skylarks are mounted, why not out and listen, though from the same Sussex hill you faintly hear the great guns? The lyric blaze above persists, in spite of war. Is it unfeeling to forget the drumming streets, the drilling camps, and go listen how underwoods ring with wild hyacinths? That Death is Life’s fierce, Prussian neighbour we know more than ever, just now—but Life _has_ to be Death’s comrade in the whirling dream. The war will pass, though thick the lichen of it gather upon us meanwhile, sad-coloured and black. It is not heartless to look round the corner and over the hill meantime, and it is wisdom to lift up the heart in spite of all, as one plods towards the evening tent.

_MONSEIGNEUR._

(Suggested by a Provençal _conte_ of Alphonse Daudet’s.)

(_The scene is a bedchamber in MONSEIGNEUR’S palace in Provence, and the time is a morning in early spring, towards the close of the fifteenth century_.

_Behind the closely-drawn, heavily-embroidered curtains of his vast state-bed, lies the little MONSEIGNEUR, most desperately ill. Notwithstanding the gay and brilliant sunshine that floods the palace, in the open fireplace of MONSEIGNEUR’S bedchamber there is a blazing scented fire of logs piled; while all the windows, with their stained armorial bearings, and all the heavy tapestry hangings over the narrow doorways that lead to garde-robe and oratory and corridor, are mercilessly closed. One would say, indeed, that the Doctor and Nurse who are in attendance were bent on killing the child, if only by depriving him of the faintest flutter of the revivifying spring air without. Yet they fully believe they are doing the best for their patient, and now are giving him the drink he cries for, faintly and fretfully, from within the tightly-drawn bed-curtains, putting the cup into the thin little hand that closes on it so feverishly._

_Then the heavy hangings at the back are drawn, rattling sharply on their iron rings, and the Bishop of Langres enters. Behind him, in the blazing sunshine of the corridor, BEPPO waits for permission to follow him; a ragged, sunburnt, Spanish-looking little boy, who carries a bird’s-nest with young thrushes in it, over which, as he stands there motionless, he seems entirely absorbed._)

BISHOP (_as he enters_). Mother of God! The heat in this chamber!—Doctor Mabrise! (_at which the Doctor merely shrugs his shoulders, as if to say_: ‘What else can one do? In cases of fever!⸺’) But out of doors, my good Doctor, it is spring; the sun is hot enough already to split the stones. Is it really necessary?

DOCTOR (_severely_). Of course!

BISHOP (_in a low tone_). Tell me—how is the boy?

DOCTOR (_gloomily_). Very bad.

BISHOP. So?

DOCTOR. Passing rapidly, even beyond my skill! (_So he goes to the fire, and stirs it ill-humouredly to an even more furious activity._)

BISHOP. Already? (_Murmurs._) Then we must make haste.

(_Meanwhile the Nurse, as a hot little hand returns the drinking cup through the bed-curtains, softly asks_:)

NURSE. Is that better? (_To which the sick child within makes inarticulate, fretful reply. So she closes the curtains again tightly._) Try now to go to sleep again, and you will wake up quite well. (_Soothingly._) Quite well!

(_Then, with a profound obeisance to the Bishop, she goes to the table at the foot of the bed and replaces the cup among the many, many medicine bottles and phials of drugs; while outside, in the sunshine of the corridor, BEPPO chants tunefully and joyously over his birds’-nest._)

BEPPO. Mon-seig-neur!

(_He looks up startled as both Nurse and Doctor make angry, violent gestures towards him of ‘’Ssh! ’Ssh!’, and then at his good friend, the Bishop, wondering what wrong it is he has done. A slight pause, while no sound comes from the bed. Then the Nurse goes up to him, beckoning him angrily, and once he is within the chamber draws the heavy hangings again over the corridor entrance._)

NURSE (_in an angry whisper_). Bawling and singing, like a drunken gipsy!

BEPPO (_faces her with an engaging smile_). Mind my pretty nestlings. (_And chants over them, softly and melodiously._) They are for Mon-seig-neur!

NURSE (_in his face, sharply_). ’Ssh! Vagabond!

BEPPO (_while the Nurse goes to the bed and peeps through the curtains, chants again very softly over his birds’-nest_). For Mon-seig-neur!

NURSE (_turns towards them and whispers_). He is just off again. Fast asleep. (_So she sits and resumes her sewing at the foot of the bed, while the Bishop also glances through the curtains, and BEPPO, always absorbed over the birds’-nest, goes to show it to the Doctor._)

BISHOP (_with a heavy sigh_). The last of his race! It would have killed his father. (_Pause._)

BEPPO. Doctor Mabrise! Look!

DOCTOR. What are they?

BEPPO. Young thrushes. I found them this morning, in a great lilac-bush, below the Black Dog bastion. See! There are five.

DOCTOR (_gloomily_). They will die.

BEPPO. In this hot chamber? Ah! Before Monseigneur can even see them? _Malheur!_ (_As if at once to take them into the open air._)

BISHOP. Beppo! (_BEPPO pauses and looks up at him with a smile._) My poor boy! Thou art seeming very ragged and dirty this morning.

BEPPO. Truly? (_As he looks himself over._)

BISHOP. If thou art to play once more with Monseigneur, we must have thee washed.

BEPPO (_troubled_). Washed?

BISHOP. It will not hurt thee; it may even do thee some good. Nurse! Take our young friend here and wash him. Wash him well!

NURSE (_pleased with the commission, rises_). Ah!

BEPPO. Not with soap?

NURSE (_menacingly_). With soap and with pumice-stone. Come!

BISHOP. Leave me thy birds’-nest. And, Nurse, let him at the same time be neatly dressed. Perhaps in some old suit of Monseigneur’s.

BEPPO (_annoyed_). Old suit?

BISHOP. They are of the same age and height. And to play with Monseigneur in those rags!—(_As BEPPO still lingers._) Go, my child.

NURSE. Come! I will give thee the best washing!—

BEPPO (_with recovered spirits_). I am not afraid. Thou art only an old woman!

NURSE. Ah! Sayest thou?

BEPPO (_whispers, shaking a finger in her face_). ’Ssh, old woman! ’Ssh! (_So they leave the chamber, the Nurse angrily pushing him out in front of her._)

BISHOP (_tenderly, over BEPPO’S birds’-nest_). Little, hungry, weak birds! There is something infinitely pathetic, Doctor, in these young things of Nature.

DOCTOR (_gloomily_). So many of them die.

BISHOP. It seems so; even without the aid of a surgeon. (_He hands the Doctor the nest, who, not knowing what else to do with it, nor how to reply to the Bishop’s impertinence, places it on the ledge of the high and sloping couvre-feu over the fireplace._)

DOCTOR. There! The heat will do them good; nourish them. For heat is life. _Calor est vita optima._ (_Mumbling and muttering to himself._) Galen hath said it.—Galen!—

BISHOP (_after a long pause, softly_). Doctor Mabrise—tell me—is there no way, no hope, of keeping Monseigneur alive?

DOCTOR (_warming his thin brown hands in front of the fire_). My science knows none; she is at her wits’ end. And when science is at her wits’ end⸺

BISHOP (_drily_). Methinks she hath but a short road to travel!

DOCTOR (_piqued_). Then let the Church try, my good Bishop; let the Church try. For if ever there were need for one of your miracles⸺

BISHOP (_gravely_). Ah!

DOCTOR (_points to the bed_). There is your subject, ready for you; waiting. A dying child. You have my authority to begin.

BISHOP (_drily_). Then we will begin by opening the windows; we will admit some of this soft spring air. (_He unlatches and throws wide open one of the few windows of the bedchamber; while the Doctor, himself a poor consumptive, shivers and cowers over the fire._) You don’t like it?

DOCTOR (_angrily_). Seeing that all diseases enter by the mouth!

BISHOP (_amused_). What? In springtime? In Provence?

DOCTOR (_grumbles_). Especially in springtime. Always! (_Mumbling, with cloak drawn over his mouth._) Plague and fever!

BISHOP. At any rate, Doctor, you will agree with me that if Monseigneur dies it means ruin for the Duchy.

DOCTOR (_scornfully_). If?

BISHOP. There will infallibly be civil war here all through the summer. There will be neither harvest nor vintage!

DOCTOR (_shortly_). I agree.

BISHOP. And in the autumn, here, in the very palace of Monseigneur, will most surely be found securely seated that dangerous ruffian, the Comte de Poix. An infidel; a pronounced foe to Holy Church! While you and I, my good friend⸺

DOCTOR (_drily_). All the more reason, Bishop, for you to set to work at once with your miracle. You have my full permission—_plena auctoritas_—to begin.

BISHOP (_with a glance at the bed_). After all, Beppo is Monseigneur’s brother. You knew that, Doctor?

DOCTOR. Doubtless. What of it?

BISHOP. Beppo and he are of precisely the same age. They are not unlike—at a distance. And at a distance, for some few years, it will be that the people will always see him.

DOCTOR (_scoffs_). You don’t call that a miracle? To substitute one boy for the other?

BISHOP (_gently_). Not if it succeeds?

DOCTOR. Bishop! And Beppo? What will the people think has become of Beppo?

BISHOP. Only that he has run away again somewhere, and got lost.

DOCTOR. Lost!

BISHOP. Why, who is there ever gives him a moment’s thought here? Is he not a gipsy—a vagabond?

DOCTOR. And you propose to place him—in a palace?

BISHOP (_whispers_). ’Ssh! Monseigneur is waking. (_Goes to the bed and draws the curtains._) But how is this, Doctor? The boy is not undressed?

DOCTOR. He refused. He said that if he had to die he would die as his father did, in his clothes.

BISHOP. Brave lad! (_So he seats himself on the edge of the bed, outside of which the little MONSEIGNEUR lies, fully dressed, propped up by pillows. And after a while, as the Bishop leans forward and gently places his large peasant’s hand on the poor child’s small and scorching palm, MONSEIGNEUR turns towards him, feebly and languidly, and looks at him with wide-open, frightened eyes. Soothingly._) Well, Monseigneur? And how are we?

MONSEIGNEUR (_murmurs_). Bishop of Langres! Tell me—am I really going to die?

BISHOP (_gently_). To die! After all, what is it to die? It is only to go from one room to another. And to another, better!

MONSEIGNEUR (_fretfully_). I would rather stay here. Here are all my friends, and my soldiers, and my new cannon. Besides, to die in spring! So early in the year, when there is so much to do; when my people want me. (_Raising himself slightly._) Where is Beppo?

BISHOP. He will be here directly. He is only being washed.

MONSEIGNEUR (_smiles faintly_). Poor Beppo! That is not one of his favourite amusements.

BISHOP. You are fond of Beppo? Is it not so, Monseigneur?

MONSEIGNEUR. Very fond.

BISHOP. You would like to do something for him? How shall I say? Assure his future? (_On MONSEIGNEUR’S silence._) You understand what I mean, by assuring Beppo’s future?

MONSEIGNEUR. Of course! It means seeing that he has always somewhere to sleep, that he does not go so often hungry, and, in the winter, fireless; that he keeps himself clean. The difficulty will be to make him accept. (_Smiles._) He is such a vagabond.

BISHOP. Hitherto, no one has shown him any care.

MONSEIGNEUR. And yet—he is my brother.

BISHOP (_while the Doctor, who is listening, starts_). Monseigneur! You knew? But how? Since when?

MONSEIGNEUR. Since one day—a long time ago—when I was quite a child, and my father and my mother were quarrelling.

BISHOP. So?

MONSEIGNEUR. It seems, Messire, that when people quarrel—even before their own children—they will tell each other unpleasant truths.

BISHOP (_nods, gravely_). Sometimes.

MONSEIGNEUR. So it was that my mother told my father he ought to be ashamed of himself. He had so many little bastards.

BISHOP (_shocked, with raised hands_). Monseigneur!

MONSEIGNEUR. I did not understand. I had never heard the word. Therefore, one day I asked Lorrain, the big man-at-arms⸺ (_Pauses._)

BISHOP. And he told your lordship?

MONSEIGNEUR. He told me nothing. He only laughed. So did my father, when my mother charged him.—Aie! how well I remember!

BISHOP. But _Madame la Duchesse_, your mother? She did not laugh?

MONSEIGNEUR (_simply_). Not at all. She was very angry. She said it was a scandal; particularly, with poor Beppo. Do you know why, Bishop? (_Confidentially._) Because it seems he was born on the same day, the very same day, as I. Yet, somehow, she was not his mother. That was why she was so angry, I suppose?

BISHOP. Very likely. (_Pause, while the Doctor, after exchanging glances with the Bishop, resumes his seat by the fire_).

MONSEIGNEUR. Bishop!

BISHOP. Monseigneur?

MONSEIGNEUR. Do you think that if I gave my brother Beppo money—a great deal of money—he would die instead of me? Do you think the good God would mind?

BISHOP (_guardedly_). It would be difficult.

MONSEIGNEUR (_proudly_). After all, the good God is my cousin. Dukes are all cousins of the Almighty God, Bishop. Are they not?

BISHOP. They very often make the claim, Monseigneur. I do not know whether it has ever been allowed.

MONSEIGNEUR (_with dignity_). At least, Messire, I trust that in heaven I shall keep my proper rank? I shall not be required to mix with all the common people?

BISHOP. Common people, Monseigneur? It is not the common people, believe me, who rise to heaven at all. Indeed, one must have uncommon qualities!⸺

MONSEIGNEUR (_eagerly_). And then my fine clothes; my ermine and my velvet? Doubtless I shall be allowed to wear them?

BISHOP. Alas, my child, in heaven there are no distinctions; neither of rank nor of clothes. Sometimes I doubt whether even the sacred order of Bishops⸺

MONSEIGNEUR (_angrily_). Then what good to me is my birth? If I am to keep neither my rank nor my clothes, if I am not to be treated with proper respect, I might as well be Beppo! I will not die! I will not! I will not!

BISHOP. Monseigneur!

MONSEIGNEUR (_leaning on his elbow, screams_,) Lorrain! Lorrain! (_And while the Bishop rises, LORRAIN, the big man-at-arms, comes clanking in through the hangings from the corridor._)

LORRAIN (_hoarsely_). Monseigneur?

MONSEIGNEUR. Lorrain—listen! I have a duty for thee—at once!—a solemn duty!

LORRAIN. Name it, Monseigneur. It shall be done.

MONSEIGNEUR (_feverishly_). Lorrain—thou knowest Death, dost thou not? Thou hast often seen him?

LORRAIN. Death and I have often looked at each other, Monseigneur—many times!—straight in the eyes. I know him well.

MONSEIGNEUR. Good! Then take thy comrades, Lorrain—forty, fifty of thy stoutest men-at-arms—my Lansquenets! Post them at every door of this my palace; and if Death tries to enter, tell them to fire on him and kill him. My strictest orders!

LORRAIN. Monseigneur, it shall be done. He shall not enter. We ourselves will die first. (_Salutes and is going._)

MONSEIGNEUR (_faintly, as he lies back_). And, Lorrain⸺

LORRAIN. Monseigneur?

MONSEIGNEUR. Fill the courtyard with cannon. Our new cannon. The villain might come on horseback—and try to storm—the great staircase.

LORRAIN (_gravely_). Monseigneur, before Death enters the palace precincts, either on horseback or on foot, we will fire all the _grosses pièces_ on him and blow him back to hell. It shall be done! (_Whereupon MONSEIGNEUR, lying back on the pillows with closed eyes, makes a feeble little gesture of dismissal, and LORRAIN salutes and disappears. From outside in the corridor is heard the clank of armour; then LORRAIN’S hoarse voice ‘En avant, la garde! Mar-r-chez!’—while the Bishop returns to the bedside._)

BISHOP (_whispers_). Doctor! (_As the Doctor joins him and feels the child’s pulse._) How much longer?

DOCTOR. _Moriturus!_⸺Perhaps an hour.

BISHOP. Ah!

DOCTOR. If your miracle is to succeed!⸺

BISHOP. Beppo is coming. Let us leave them alone together. Come, Doctor, come.

DOCTOR. And the miracle? The famous miracle!

BISHOP. We shall see. Only give them time. Come.

DOCTOR (_with a scornful shrug_). Time?

(_So they go out into the corridor, and after a pause BEPPO enters, washed and combed, smartly dressed in one of Monseigneur’s discarded suits, out of which he seems indeed to swell, it being somewhat too small for him, with pride and satisfaction. For it is the first time in all his life that he has worn anything but rags; and for the first time, also, he looks like what in fact he is, MONSEIGNEUR’S brother._)

BEPPO (_as he swaggers gaily in_). Monseigneur enters! Monseigneur salutes with condescension the gay and gallant company assembled to welcome him! Monseigneur turns to the Court Physician, and in haughty tones⸺_Tiens!_ Where is the Court Physician? Doctor Mabrise? Where the plague have they put my birds’-nest? (_Screams._) Mabrise!—You old fool! (_Then he sees the nest on the ledge of the couvre-feu._) Ah! So near the fire? (_He jumps up on the footstool and takes the nest, while MONSEIGNEUR gradually recovers, and, raising himself on the pillows, watches him._) Dead! Every one of them dead! (_As he jumps off the footstool._) The wretch has killed my thrushes! My sweet, beautiful, living thrushes! _Ah, ça!_ (_As he draws his dagger_) Mabrise! Mabrise! (_and runs towards the corridor._)

MONSEIGNEUR. Beppo!

BEPPO. But he has killed my thrushes; the thrushes I brought thee! Look!

MONSEIGNEUR (_as he takes the nest_). So much the better. They will be all ready for me to play with—in heaven.

BEPPO (_crying with rage_). I did not bring them for thee to play with in heaven; but here, with me.

MONSEIGNEUR. Perhaps they have only swooned, as I did just now. Take them, Beppo, place them in the sunshine, by the window. It is very likely they will recover.

BEPPO (_whimpering_). Nay, I know they are dead. But, by Heaven, they shall be revenged!

MONSEIGNEUR. Beppo!

BEPPO (_as he places the nest in the sun on the window-ledge_). I will lie in wait for their murderer; and one night when he is crawling about the streets—like an old cat in the dusk, as I have so often seen him—I will creep up behind, and I will stab him in the back.

MONSEIGNEUR (_struggling to rise_). In the back? Beppo! Dost thou think that the action of a knight?

BEPPO. I am not a knight, but, like my mother, a gipsy, and I will stab him where I can.

MONSEIGNEUR (_feebly, on the edge of the bed_). Help me. Help me to the chair.

BEPPO (_as he helps him down off the bed, and into the Nurse’s chair_). One—two—three! So! (_Laughing._) Why, one would say thou wert drunk!

MONSEIGNEUR (_with a wan little smile_). Nay, Beppo! (_and lies back in the chair with closed eyes._)

BEPPO. Ah! Listen!

MONSEIGNEUR (_languidly_). Well?

BEPPO. In the courtyard! (_Running to the open window, he looks out._) Philippe! Cannon! The courtyard is full of cannon.

MONSEIGNEUR. I know. I ordered it.

BEPPO. But is there some attack? The Comte de Poix? Already?

MONSEIGNEUR. One never knows. The times are troublous.

BEPPO. But who will lead them, if thou art so ill?

MONSEIGNEUR (_smiles_). Why not thou? My brother?

BEPPO (_radiant_). To battle? Philippe!

MONSEIGNEUR. Sit, Beppo, and I will give thee charge. Sit at my feet here, like a scholar, and I will teach thee.

BEPPO. Monseigneur Philippe! (_And looks up at him, breathless with interest, admiration, and attention._) Go on now; teach me! I am ready.

MONSEIGNEUR (_gently_). Thou knowest thou art my brother? (_As BEPPO nods._) Who has told thee?

BEPPO (_laughs_). Everyone.

MONSEIGNEUR. Not in scorn?

BEPPO. Nay! They know better.

MONSEIGNEUR. My mother was a wronged lady, Beppo.

BEPPO. So was mine. Yet she never complained. She was too proud.

MONSEIGNEUR. Where is she now?

BEPPO. She is dead.

MONSEIGNEUR. Ah?

BEPPO. They killed her.

MONSEIGNEUR. Killed her?

BEPPO. The tribe. They said she had disgraced them. She was a princess.

MONSEIGNEUR. Then thou art indeed alone in the world, Beppo; for thy father, thy father and mine, is dead, too.

BEPPO (_stoutly_). I think it is a good thing to be alone in the world. One is all the stronger.

MONSEIGNEUR. To be hungry? Homeless? Friendless? Is that to be stronger?

BEPPO. It seems so. Am not I stronger than thou?

MONSEIGNEUR (_sighs_). Indeed!

BEPPO (_patronisingly_). If only they had let thee alone, Philippe; sent thee out hungry to play in the fields, sometimes to sleep there; kept thee away from that foolish book-learning; thou would’st not be so weak and languid. So childish! Thou would’st be strong like me. Strong as a mule!

MONSEIGNEUR (_tearfully_). Thou art a knave to say I am childish—a knave!—and when I am well again⸺

BEPPO (_boastfully_). See, Philippe, how strong I am, and how active. See how I can jump! (_As he jumps on to the settle by the fireplace, and vaults over the back._) _Holà_, there! _Holà!_ And I can dance—and run—and swim!

MONSEIGNEUR (_feebly and vindictively, drawing his dagger_). If I could only reach thee—with my dagger!

BEPPO. And I can fight, too! (_Laughing._) Why, thou dost not even hold thy weapon rightly. See, Philippe, it is so!—the point upwards! Not so! That is how women fight, with bodkins. This is how men fight. (_Stabbing at an imaginary foe._) Ha! Thou rapscallion! Thou mountebank! I will show thee!

MONSEIGNEUR. Beppo!

BEPPO. Let me but reach thee, thou coward! I will split thee!

MONSEIGNEUR (_screams_). Beppo! Beppo! (_As the Bishop hurries in from the corridor._)

BISHOP. Children! Children! Quarrelling? With daggers drawn? (_Severely._) Beppo?

BEPPO (_rather alarmed, explains_).} I was only just showing him—
} (_Together._)
MONSEIGNEUR (_crying with rage_). } He was teasing me!—teasing me.

BISHOP (_angrily_). Beppo!

BEPPO. I will not do it again. It was only to amuse him.

BISHOP (_aside, as he takes BEPPO by the ear_). Senseless! Dost not know he is dying?

BEPPO (_startled_). Dying?

BISHOP. Tease him no more, Beppo. Go; make friends with him; comfort him.

BEPPO (_distressed_). Dying? Oh, my Philippe! (_So he goes and throws himself on his knees before MONSEIGNEUR, huddled up, crying, in the Nurse’s chair._)

BISHOP. I shall be here, within earshot, in the oratory. And if I so much as hear thee!⸺Remember! (_And disappears through the hangings into the oratory._)

BEPPO (_gently_). Give me thy dagger, Philippe; let us be friends again. So! (_as he throws the daggers on the bed._) And if thou wilt, I will cure thee. (_Winningly._) Shall I, Philippe?

MONSEIGNEUR (_feebly_). When I am well again, brute, I will knock thy head.

BEPPO (_soothingly_). Thou shalt! Thou shalt! (_as he puts his head on MONSEIGNEUR’S lap._) Knock it now, if it pleases thee. (_MONSEIGNEUR gives him a feeble, vindictive little slap._) There! Is that better? Do it again. (_MONSEIGNEUR pushes him fretfully away._) And now I will cure thee; make thee one day as strong as I. Only thou must obey me. Art ready—to obey me? Thou art still crying, Philippe? Nay, but why?

MONSEIGNEUR. To think how I leave my poor Duchy! Defenceless! Ah, if only thou wert my true brother!—if only there were not the bar!

BEPPO (_laughs_). Why, then I might one day be duke. A droll duke; one that would need a deal of washing. Nay, I would not be duke, to be washed every day. (_Gravely._) But if duke I ever were—there are things I should know. (_With a wise nod._) Ah!

MONSEIGNEUR. What things?

BEPPO. About the poor, the hungry, the homeless, the old. It does not matter so much for me; I am young and can bear it. But the old!—To be old is dreadful; but to be old and hungry, in autumn without a roof, without a fire in winter! If I were duke, Philippe, dost thou know what I would do? (_As MONSEIGNEUR, lying back in the chair, feebly shakes his head._) In winter I would have all the old people here to live with me in the palace; feed them, and keep them warm.

MONSEIGNEUR. Ah? And in summer?

BEPPO. They should come here, too, and rest all day in the shade of the corridors, to keep them cool. And I would go about among them and fulfil all their wants, and make them laugh with my antics and gay stories. Not pity them! The poor do not like to be pitied.

MONSEIGNEUR (_wearily_). Thou art very ignorant, Beppo.

BEPPO. It is possible. Yet there are things I know one cannot learn from books. And of book-learning, Philippe, it seems to me that thou hast had too much.

MONSEIGNEUR. How can one have too much, if one is one day to be duke?

BEPPO (_laughs_). Nay!

MONSEIGNEUR. Call me the Bishop, Beppo.

BEPPO (_troubled_). The Bishop? But why?

MONSEIGNEUR (_fretfully_). Call him. (_So BEPPO rises, grumbling and muttering, and goes to the oratory doorway._)

BEPPO (_shouts ill-humouredly through the hangings_). Bishop of Langres!

BISHOP (_as he enters_). Monseigneur?

(_While BEPPO seizes the opportunity to steal away from them on tiptoe back to the open window and his birds’-nest. He almost screams with rapture to find that in the fresh air and broad, genial sunshine the nestlings are recovering, faintly stirring, ravenously opening their soft yellow beaks for food. Over them he is soon absorbed, touching them here and there and singing to them one of his many tuneful peasant songs._)

MONSEIGNEUR. Bishop of Langres—I have a charge for thee, a sacred charge.—Beppo, my brother.

BISHOP. Monseigneur?

MONSEIGNEUR. Let him be taught. Only see to it, Bishop, that they do not try to teach him too much. Weary him not with lessons, as they have so often wearied me.

BISHOP. And what would Monseigneur have him? A priest?

MONSEIGNEUR. I would have him a soldier and a gentleman; a leader of men. Bad times are ahead of us, Bishop, and it is possible—that one day—(_he pauses, and then calls._) Beppo! (_But BEPPO is too absorbed to hear him._)

BISHOP (_angrily_). Beppo! (_And BEPPO turns, startled, and on the Bishop’s gesture drags himself down to them unwillingly._)

MONSEIGNEUR. Beppo, I have determined to⸺(_He pauses; then, puzzled, to the Bishop._) What was it?

BISHOP. Assure his future.

MONSEIGNEUR. Yea, assure thy future. Thou shalt be taught to read (_at which BEPPO shifts his feet uneasily_)—and, if God will, some day to write. Thou shalt learn history, statecraft, poetry; to dance, to ride.

BEPPO (_defiantly_). I can do both already, to perfection.

MONSEIGNEUR (_fretfully_). To perfection!—when I myself have seen thee, lumping about like a servitor. Best of all, thou shall be taught courtly behaviour; to consider others; to be just and merciful, to speak the truth.

BEPPO (_shiftily_). I never lie.

MONSEIGNEUR. I hope not, but I do not altogether believe it. Even I have lied—I!—who have been taught so much.

BEPPO (_mutters_). There are certain things I do not call lies.

MONSEIGNEUR. Thou seest, Bishop, how ignorant he is? Take him, Messire, and teach him, and one day—doubtless—he will be all I might have been⸺

BISHOP. Monseigneur!

MONSEIGNEUR. If only they had not killed me, by teaching me so much. So many lessons; so little play! Promise me, Beppo, thou wilt always do thy best.

BEPPO (_lightly_). I promise.

MONSEIGNEUR (_fiercely_). Nay, not like that! Swear it! Or, by the Blood, I will come to thee at nightfall in thy bed—ride on thy throat—choke thee!

BEPPO (_terrified_). Philippe! I swear!

MONSEIGNEUR. Good Beppo! Kiss me!

BEPPO (_tearfully_). Willingly! Beloved Philippe! (_And while the boys affectionately embrace, to hide his emotion, the good Bishop leaves them and disappears through the hangings out into the corridor. Then BEPPO kneels lovingly at his brother’s feet._) And now it is my turn.

MONSEIGNEUR. To teach me?

BEPPO. To cure thee, as I said I would.

MONSEIGNEUR. And how?

BEPPO. Out there, in the sunshine. It has cured the thrushes, and why not thee?

MONSEIGNEUR (_languidly_). Ah! Out there?

BEPPO. It is the place I always go to, when I myself am feeling wretchedly.

MONSEIGNEUR. Wretchedly? Thou?

BEPPO. Sometimes.

MONSEIGNEUR (_tenderly_). Hungry?

BEPPO. Hunger is nothing. But to be restless, dissatisfied; not often, but still sometimes. To feel oneself a beggar, an outcast, friendless; to be neither of the palace nor the hovel, yet to know oneself a part of each. In a word, Philippe, to feel oneself nothing; just the foam on the surface of the river, the bubble that breaks and vanishes even before the broad stream is aware of its existence.

MONSEIGNEUR. Thou hast such feelings? Thou?

BEPPO. Sometimes. But when they come I take them where they always pass, and I am cured—as I will cure thee.

MONSEIGNEUR (_smiles_). And where is it?—this wonderful healing-place of thine.

BEPPO. Out there—not far—on the warm slope below the Black Dog bastion. Thou knowest it; beneath the great lilac bush, where this morning I found for thee the baby thrushes.

MONSEIGNEUR (_dreamily_). I know it well. Thence one can see for many, many leagues.

BEPPO (_eagerly_). Is it not so? The wandering river that looks like milk and steals away, a ribbon fading in the mist. The woods, the farms, the little towers of the châteaux; the distant steeple that points a finger for the country folk to God! And here and there the bright glint of sunlight one fancies striking on the spears of some brave knight’s company, riding and singing through the meadows; yet ’tis only gleaming on the window of some lonely, peaceful manor.

MONSEIGNEUR (_gently_). I think thou art a poet, Beppo.

BEPPO (_offended_). I hope not. I only tell thee what there is to see.

MONSEIGNEUR. I know it well. I saw it last in summer with my mother.

BEPPO. Now shalt thou see it in springtime, and with me; with all the orchard blossom, white and gay as brides with their bouquets. Come!

MONSEIGNEUR. Thou wilt take me there?

BEPPO. Aye! and cure thee of thy sickness. Thou wilt come?

MONSEIGNEUR (_yearningly_). If only thou wilt help me.

BEPPO. Walk but through the corridor, and I will carry thee down the great staircase and through the street and up the hill upon my back. And once there—under the lilac!—Come! (_As he helps MONSEIGNEUR to struggle to his feet._) Now, then! Give me thine arm. So! Thine round my neck, and mine around thy body—so!—like girls who love each other. (_Laughing._) Only we are men! _En avant! Marche!_

(_So they turn, laughing gaily, towards the hangings that mask the corridor; when suddenly is heard sharply and faintly from the courtyard below the brisk challenge of a sentinel—‘Qui va là?’ The boys pause and listen, while gradually nearer and louder each sentinel in turn rapidly repeats it—‘Qui va là?—Qui va là?’—until close outside, at the end of the corridor, a rough, hoarse voice shouts—‘On ne passe pas!’ Follows the dash of steel, and a short, sharp cry of terror. Then complete silence._)

MONSEIGNEUR (_in a frightened whisper_). Beppo!

BEPPO. But what is it? An alarm? Some thief? A gipsy?

MONSEIGNEUR (_trembling_). Nay, it is Death—for me!

BEPPO (_with his arms tightly round him_). Death?

MONSEIGNEUR. He hath broken into the palace. Ah, Lorrain! Lorrain!—false soldier! Beppo! I can feel him—drawing nearer, ever nearer! He is there, behind the hanging. It is Death!

BEPPO (_whispers_). Art thou sure? Shall I look?

MONSEIGNEUR. Aye, look. I dare not. (_And while BEPPO stands there, shaken and undecided_:) Darest thou not?

BEPPO. Yea, I dare! (_With fear in his heart, he marches boldly to the hanging and swiftly withdraws it, the iron rings rattling and rippling sharply backwards along the rod; and behold! the wall of the corridor that faces them appears wondrously illuminated and transfigured into the faint vision of a chapel; and there on a throne, under the dim high altar, the Angel of Death is seated, an austere and lonely figure, just visible under the mild and steady gleam of many a tall candle and hanging sanctuary lamp. There he sits waiting, as though the youthful Michelangelo had carved him there, with the dreadful dart!—And BEPPO sees it and screams._) Monseigneur Death! Nay, take me—I beseech thee! Take me—in my brother’s place. I am useless, friendless—a gipsy!—a vagabond!

MONSEIGNEUR. Nay, Beppo! I am still the duke here, and I do not permit it. It is for me he has come.

BEPPO. Philippe!

MONSEIGNEUR. Out of my way, brother; wouldst disgrace me before Him?

BEPPO. Philippe!

(_And the little MONSEIGNEUR draws himself to his full height, and, as though proudly entering the court and presence of some great rival power, bravely steps some of the few paces still left him towards the faint line, on the other side of which, only that he must cross it, there lies he knows not what. Only this he knows, that neither rank, nor ermine, nor soldiers, nor cannon will now avail him. So he boldly demands of the Figure that seems to look at him so kindly, full in the face_:)

MONSEIGNEUR. Thou wilt suffer me to kiss my brother first? To say good-bye? (_And as BEPPO still tries to hold him fast_:) Farewell, brother!—and remember! Nay, Beppo! (_And so he turns willingly towards the Angel, who now slowly rises to receive him._)

BEPPO (_as he beats the air passionately with his hands_). Philippe! Don’t leave me! Beloved Philippe!

MONSEIGNEUR. But see, Beppo! He knows my quality; after all, he rises to receive me! Ah, now—it is easy! See, Beppo; how easy it is! (_And the little MONSEIGNEUR passes into the Angel’s arms with a smile on his face and the happy laugh of a tired child who at last finds rest, and the vision fades; while BEPPO, with a desolating cry, tries to follow him, but his forces fail and he falls there in a swoon._

_The cry is so loud, so bitter, that the Nurse comes hurrying in._)

NURSE (_angrily_). Who is it, screaming so? (_She sees BEPPO._) Ah! Monseigneur! See!—he has fainted! Doctor! (_as the Doctor and the Bishop come quickly in from the corridor._) Monseigneur! (_Then she sees it is not MONSEIGNEUR, but BEPPO._) Nay! it is⸺

BISHOP (_with authority_). Monseigneur! Beppo has gone. I saw him. This time he has run away—for good.

NURSE (_puzzled_). Ah? (_As she helps the Doctor to carry BEPPO to the chair._)

BISHOP (_gaily_). He is better, Doctor, is he not? The crisis hath passed; he will recover?

DOCTOR (_doubtfully, bending over the inanimate BEPPO in the chair_). I think so—with care.

BISHOP. Ah! (_So he goes back into the corridor and shouts_:) The trumpets, Lorrain!—the trumpets! Sound a fanfare! A miracle! Monseigneur recovers. The Duchy is safe!

NURSE (_after a glance at the Doctor_). A miracle, indeed! (_And as the trumpets peal joyously and defiantly, she crosses herself and murmurs_:)—Monseigneur!

WALTER FRITH.

_THE CALL OF THE WEST._

_A SKETCH OF AN INDIAN REGIMENT._

Through the ‘Kutcha’[7] of the Derajat runs the Indus: it is a shifting river and its tremendous sword of water carves now this channel, now that, on its way to the sea. In 1914 many acres of trees fell before its silver blade in the wood of Turton’s Folly that skirts the approach to the cantonment of Dera Ismail Khan. The road to the railhead at Darya Khan ever shifts with the river’s whims, and is but a track across the drifting sand dunes of the desert. The Indus is a mighty traveller, and the bridge of boats is flung across her in a new place every autumn so that the road travels far from the obliterated line of the previous year. The folk whom one meets upon the road are nomads, or those persistent travellers the Powindahs, who pass over the desert and river in their thousands to leave no more trace than the clouds that travel with the wind. The history of the region is the history of hawk-like travellers; of Alexander the Great who came down the grim passes, horse, foot, and man; of raiders who travel right swiftly and of cavalry that pursues, to this very day. Only the city and the mountains speak of permanence, for the cantonment with its lines and its bungalows is but a halting ground for the soldier folk, who have no abiding place, but travel always like the shifting river and the sands and the winds of the Derajat.

In August 1914 every Sahib gripped his sword when he thought of home, but in the Derajat Brigade the declaration of war did little more than recall its officers from leave, and they came back many hundreds of miles to look at the mountains, whose tribesmen only respect a frontier that is held against them by armed men, as frowning follies that kept them back from real war. September saw a Punjab regiment marching towards those dark hills to take over the Gumal outposts, and another regiment marched back on relief into the cantonment. Very early in October the great conflict levied its first contribution; some sepoys and sowars of a Sikh regiment and a cavalry regiment left Dera Ismail Khan as reinforcements for other corps; leaves from the tree blown by the breeze to the war’s whirlwind. But the cantonment still only stood sentry over the lawless of the frontier hills, nor could move to the war. Then, on October 11, a summons came, and ran along the wires to the Punjabis’ headquarters at Tank, and to Khajuri Kach, and Jandola, and the smaller outposts, that for the first time in the history of the frontier a regiment was to march away from the hills to war, to travel like the Indus to the sea, and cross the pathless ocean to the West.