Chapter 2.II. Waldo's Stranger.
Waldo lay on his stomach on the red sand. The small ostriches he herdedwandered about him, pecking at the food he had cut, or at pebbles anddry sticks. On his right lay the graves; to his left the dam; in hishand was a large wooden post covered with carvings, at which he worked.Doss lay before him basking in the winter sunshine, and now and againcasting an expectant glance at the corner of the nearest ostrich camp.The scrubby thorn-trees under which they lay yielded no shade, but nonewas needed in that glorious June weather, when in the hottest part ofthe afternoon the sun was but pleasantly warm; and the boy carved on,not looking up, yet conscious of the brown serene earth about him andthe intensely blue sky above.
Presently, at the corner of the camp, Em appeared, bearing a coveredsaucer in one hand and in the other a jug, with a cup in the top. Shewas grown into a premature little old woman of sixteen, ridiculouslyfat. The jug and saucer she put down on the ground before the dog andhis master and dropped down beside them herself, panting and out ofbreath.
"Waldo, as I came up the camps I met some one on horseback, and I dobelieve it must be the new man that is coming."
The new man was an Englishman to whom the Boer-woman had hired half thefarm.
"Hum!" said Waldo.
"He is quite young," said Em, holding her side, "and he has brown hair,and beard curling close to his face, and such dark blue eyes. And,Waldo, I was so ashamed! I was just looking back to see, you know, andhe happened just to be looking back too, and we looked right into eachother's faces; and he got red, and I got so red. I believe he is the newman."
"Yes," said Waldo.
"I must go now. Perhaps he has brought us letters from the post fromLyndall. You know she can't stay at school much longer, she must comeback soon. And the new man will have to stay with us till his house isbuilt. I must get his room ready. Good-bye!"
She tripped off again, and Waldo carved on at his post. Doss lay withhis nose close to the covered saucer, and smelt that some one had madenice little fat cakes that afternoon. Both were so intent on theiroccupation that not till a horse's hoofs beat beside them in the sanddid they look up to see a rider drawing in his steed.
He was certainly not the stranger whom Em had described. A dark,somewhat French-looking little man of eight-and-twenty, rather stout,with heavy, cloudy eyes and pointed moustaches. His horse was a fierycreature, well caparisoned; a highly-finished saddlebag hung from thesaddle; the man's hands were gloved, and he presented the appearance-anappearance rare on that farm--of a well-dressed gentleman.
In an uncommonly melodious voice he inquired whether he might be allowedto remain there for an hour. Waldo directed him to the farmhouse, butthe stranger declined. He would merely rest under the trees and give hishorse water. He removed the saddle and Waldo led the animal away to thedam. When he returned, the stranger had settled himself under the trees,with his back against the saddle. The boy offered him of the cakes. Hedeclined, but took a draught from the jug; and Waldo lay down not faroff and fell to work again. It mattered nothing if cold eyes saw it. Itwas not his sheep-shearing machine. With material loves, as with human,we go mad once, love out, and have done. We never get up the trueenthusiasm a second time. This was but a thing he had made, labouredover, loved and liked--nothing more--not his machine.
The stranger forced himself lower down in the saddle and yawned. It wasa drowsy afternoon, and he objected to travel in these out-of-the-worldparts. He liked better civilised life, where at every hour of the day aman may look for his glass of wine, and his easy-chair, and paper; whereat night he may lock himself into his room with his books and a bottleof brandy, and taste joys mental and physical. The world said ofhim--the all-knowing, omnipotent world, whom no locks can bar, who hasthe cat-like propensity of seeing best in the dark--the world said,that better than the books he loved the brandy, and better than booksor brandy that which it had been better had he loved less. But for theworld he cared nothing; he smiled blandly in its teeth. All life is adream; if wine and philosophy and women keep the dream from becoming anightmare, so much the better. It is all they are fit for, all they canbe used for. There was another side to his life and thought; but of thatthe world knew nothing, and said nothing, as the way of the wise worldis.
The stranger looked from beneath his sleepy eyelids at the brown earththat stretched away, beautiful in spite of itself in that June sunshine;looked at the graves, the gables of the farmhouse showing over the stonewalls of the camps, at the clownish fellow at his feet, and yawned. Buthe had drunk of the hind's tea, and must say something.
"Your father's place I presume?" he inquired sleepily.
"No; I am only a servant."
"Dutch people?"
"Yes."
"And you like the life?"
The boy hesitated.
"On days like these."
"And why on these?"
The boy waited.
"They are very beautiful."
The stranger looked at him. It seemed that as the fellow's dark eyeslooked across the brown earth they kindled with an intense satisfaction;then they looked back at the carving.
What had that creature, so coarse-clad and clownish, to do with thesubtle joys of the weather? Himself, white-handed and delicate, hemight hear the music with shimmering sunshine and solitude play on thefinely-strung chords of nature; but that fellow! Was not the ear in thatgreat body too gross for such delicate mutterings?
Presently he said:
"May I see what you work at?"
The fellow handed his wooden post. It was by no means lovely. The menand birds were almost grotesque in their laboured resemblance to nature,and bore signs of patient thought. The stranger turned the thing over onhis knee.
"Where did you learn this work?"
"I taught myself."
"And these zigzag lines represent--"
"A mountain."
The stranger looked.
"It has some meaning, has it not?"
The boy muttered confusedly.
"Only things."
The questioner looked down at him--the huge, unwieldy figure, in sizea man's, in right of his childlike features and curling hair a child's;and it hurt him--it attracted him and it hurt him. It was somethingbetween pity and sympathy.
"How long have you worked at this?"
"Nine months."
From his pocket the stranger drew his pocket-book, and took somethingfrom it. He could fasten the post to his horse in some way, and throw itaway in the sand when at a safe distance.
"Will you take this for your carving?"
The boy glanced at the five-pound note and shook his head.
"No; I cannot."
"You think it is worth more?" asked the stranger with a little sneer.
He pointed with his thumb to a grave.
"No; it is for him."
"And who is there?" asked the stranger.
"My father."
The man silently returned the note to his pocket-book, and gave thecarving to the boy; and, drawing his hat over his eyes, composed himselfto sleep. Not being able to do so, after a while he glanced over thefellow's shoulder to watch him work. The boy carved letters into theback.
"If," said the stranger, with his melodious voice, rich with a sweetnessthat never showed itself in the clouded eyes--for sweetness will lingeron in the voice long after it has died out in the eyes--"if for such apurpose, why write that upon it?"
The boy glanced round at him, but made no answer. He had almostforgotten his presence.
"You surely believe," said the stranger, "that some day, sooner orlater, these graves will open, and those Boer-uncles with their wiveswalk about here in the red sand, with the very fleshly legs with whichthey went to sleep? Then why say, 'He sleeps forever?' You believe hewill stand up again?"
"Do you?" asked the boy, lifting for an instant his heavy eyes to thestranger's face.
Half taken aback the stranger laughed. It was as though a curious littletadpole which he h
eld under his glass should suddenly lift its tail andbegin to question him.
"I?--no." He laughed his short thick laugh. "I am a man who believesnothing, hopes nothing, fears nothing, feels nothing. I am beyond thepale of humanity; no criterion of what you should be who live here amongyour ostriches and bushes."
The next moment the stranger was surprised by a sudden movement on thepart of the fellow, which brought him close to the stranger's feet. Soonafter he raised his carving and laid it across the man's knee.
"Yes, I will tell you," he muttered; "I will tell you all about it."
He put his finger on the grotesque little mannikin at the bottom (ah!that man who believed nothing, hoped nothing, felt nothing; how he lovedhim!), and with eager finger the fellow moved upward, explaining overfantastic figures and mountains, to the crowning bird from whose wingdropped a feather. At the end he spoke with broken breath--short words,like one who utters things of mighty import.
The stranger watched more the face than the carving; and there was nowand then a show of white teeth beneath the moustaches as he listened.
"I think," he said blandly, when the boy had done, "that I partlyunderstand you. It is something after this fashion, is it not?" (Hesmiled.) "In certain valleys there was a hunter." (He touched thegrotesque little figure at the bottom.) "Day by day he went to hunt forwild-fowl in the woods; and it chanced that once he stood on the shoresof a large lake. While he stood waiting in the rushes for the comingof the birds, a great shadow fell on him, and in the water he saw areflection. He looked up to the sky; but the thing was gone. Then aburning desire came over him to see once again that reflection in thewater, and all day he watched and waited; but night came and it had notreturned. Then he went home with his empty bag, moody and silent. Hiscomrades came questioning about him to know the reason, but he answeredthem nothing; he sat alone and brooded. Then his friend came to him, andto him he spoke.
"'I have seen today,' he said, 'that which I never saw before--a vastwhite bird, with silver wings outstretched, sailing in the everlastingblue. And now it is as though a great fire burnt within my breast. Itwas but a sheen, a shimmer, a reflection in the water; but now I desirenothing more on earth than to hold her.'
"His friend laughed.
"'It was but a beam playing on the water, or the shadow of your ownhead. Tomorrow you will forget her,' he said.
"But tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow the hunter walked alone.He sought in the forest and in the woods, by the lakes and among therushes, but he could not find her. He shot no more wild fowl; what werethey to him?
"'What ails him?' said his comrades.
"'He is mad,' said one.
"'No; but he is worse,' said another; 'he would see that which none ofus have seen, and make himself a wonder.'
"'Come, let us forswear his company,' said all.
"So the hunter walked alone.
"One night, as he wandered in the shade, very heartsore and weeping, anold man stood before him, grander and taller than the sons of men.
"'Who are you?' asked the hunter.
"'I am Wisdom,' answered the old man; 'but some men call me Knowledge.All my life I have grown in these valleys; but no man sees me till hehas sorrowed much. The eyes must be washed with tears that are to beholdme; and, according as a man has suffered, I speak.'
"And the hunter cried:
"'Oh, you who have lived here so long, tell me, what is that great wildbird I have seen sailing in the blue? They would have me believe she isa dream; the shadow of my own head.'
"The old man smiled.
"'Her name is Truth. He who has once seen her never rests again. Tilldeath he desires her.'
"And the hunter cried:
"'Oh, tell me where I may find her.'
"But the old man said:
"'You have not suffered enough,' and went.
"Then the hunter took from his breast the shuttle of Imagination, andwound on it the thread of his Wishes; and all night he sat and wove anet.
"In the morning he spread the golden net upon the ground, and into ithe threw a few grains of credulity, which his father had left him, andwhich he kept in his breast-pocket. They were like white puff-balls, andwhen you trod on them a brown dust flew out. Then he sat by to see whatwould happen. The first that came into the net was a snow-whitebird, with dove's eyes, and he sang a beautiful song--'A human-God! ahuman-God! a human-God!' it sang. The second that came was black andmystical, with dark, lovely eyes, that looked into the depths of yoursoul, and he sang only this--'Immortality!'
"And the hunter took them both in his arms for he said--
"'They are surely of the beautiful family of Truth.'
"Then came another, green and gold, who sang in a shrill voice, like onecrying in the marketplace,--'Reward after Death! Reward after Death!'
"And he said--
"'You are not so fair; but you are fair too,' and he took it.
"And others came, brightly coloured, singing pleasant songs, tillall the grains were finished. And the hunter gathered all his birdstogether, and built a strong iron cage called a new creed, and put allhis birds in it.
"Then the people came about dancing and singing.
"'Oh, happy hunter!' they cried. 'Oh, wonderful man! Oh, delightfulbirds! Oh, lovely songs!'
"No one asked where the birds had come from, nor how they had beencaught; but they danced and sang before them. And the hunter too wasglad, for he said:
"'Surely Truth is among them. In time she will moult her feathers, and Ishall see her snow-white form.'
"But the time passed, and the people sang and danced; but the hunter'sheart grew heavy. He crept alone, as of old, to weep; the terribledesire had awakened again in his breast. One day, as he sat aloneweeping, it chanced that Wisdom met him. He told the old man what he haddone.
"And Wisdom smiled sadly.
"'Many men,' he said, 'have spread that net for Truth; but they havenever found her. On the grains of credulity she will not feed; in thenet of wishes her feet cannot be held; in the air of these valleys shewill not breathe. The birds you have caught are of the brood of Lies.Lovely and beautiful, but still lies; Truth knows them not.'
"And the hunter cried out in bitterness--
"'And must I then sit still, to be devoured of this great burning?'
"And the old man said,
"'Listen, and in that you have suffered much and wept much, I will tellyou what I know. He who sets out to search for Truth must leave thesevalleys of superstition forever, taking with him not one shred that hasbelonged to them. Alone he must wander down into the Land of AbsoluteNegation and Denial; he must abide there; he must resist temptation;when the light breaks he must arise and follow it into the country ofdry sunshine. The mountains of stern reality will rise before him; hemust climb them; beyond them lies Truth.'
"'And he will hold her fast! he will hold her in his hands!' the huntercried.
"Wisdom shook his head.
"'He will never see her, never hold her. The time is not yet.'
"'Then there is no hope?' cried the hunter.
"'There is this,' said Wisdom: 'Some men have climbed on thosemountains; circle above circle of bare rock they have scaled; and,wandering there, in those high regions, some have chanced to pick up onthe ground one white silver feather, dropped from the wing of Truth. Andit shall come to pass,' said the old man, raising himself propheticallyand pointing with his finger to the sky, 'it shall come to pass, thatwhen enough of those silver feathers shall have been gathered by thehands of men, and shall have been woven into a cord, and the cord into anet, that in that net Truth may be captured. Nothing but Truth can holdTruth.'
"The hunter arose. 'I will go,' he said.
"But wisdom detained him.
"'Mark you well--who leaves these valleys never returns to them. Thoughhe should weep tears of blood seven days and nights upon the confines,he can never put his foot across them. Left--they are left forever. Uponthe road which you would travel there is no reward offer
ed. Who goes,goes freely--for the great love that is in him. The work is his reward.'
"'I go' said the hunter; 'but upon the mountains, tell me, which pathshall I take?'
"'I am the child of The-Accumulated-Knowledge-of-Ages,' said the man; 'Ican walk only where many men have trodden. On these mountains few feethave passed; each man strikes out a path for himself. He goes at his ownperil: my voice he hears no more. I may follow after him, but cannot gobefore him.'
"Then Knowledge vanished.
"And the hunter turned. He went to his cage, and with his hands brokedown the bars, and the jagged iron tore his flesh. It is sometimeseasier to build than to break.
"One by one he took his plumed birds and let them fly. But when he cameto his dark-plumed bird he held it, and looked into its beautiful eyes,and the bird uttered its low, deep cry--'Immortality!'
"And he said quickly: 'I cannot part with it. It is not heavy; it eatsno food. I will hide it in my breast; I will take it with me.' And heburied it there and covered it over with his cloak.
"But the thing he had hidden grew heavier, heavier, heavier--till it layon his breast like lead. He could not move with it. He could not leavethose valleys with it. Then again he took it out and looked at it.
"'Oh, my beautiful! my heart's own!' he cried, 'may I not keep you?'
"He opened his hands sadly.
"'Go!' he said. 'It may happen that in Truth's song one note is likeyours; but I shall never hear it.'
"Sadly he opened his hand, and the bird flew from him forever.
"Then from the shuttle of imagination he took the thread of his wishes,and threw it on the ground; and the empty shuttle he put into hisbreast, for the thread was made in those valleys, but the shuttle camefrom an unknown country. He turned to go, but now the people came abouthim, howling.
"'Fool, hound, demented lunatic!' they cried. 'How dared you break yourcage and let the birds fly?'
"The hunter spoke; but they would not hear him.
"'Truth! who is she? Can you eat her? can you drink her? Who has everseen her? Your birds were real: all could hear them sing! Oh, fool! vilereptile! atheist!' they cried, 'you pollute the air.'
"'Come, let us take up stones and stone him,' cried some.
"'What affair is it of ours?' said others. 'Let the idiot go,' and wentaway. But the rest gathered up stones and mud and threw at him. At last,when he was bruised and cut, the hunter crept away into the woods. Andit was evening about him."
At every word the stranger spoke the fellow's eyes flashed back onhim--yes, and yes, and yes! The stranger smiled. It was almost worththe trouble of exerting oneself, even on a lazy afternoon, to win thosepassionate flashes, more thirsty and desiring than the love-glances of awoman.
"He wandered on and on," said the stranger, "and the shade grew deeper.He was on the borders now of the land where it is always night. Then hestepped into it, and there was no light there. With his hands he groped;but each branch as he touched it broke off, and the earth was coveredwith cinders. At every step his foot sank in, and a fine cloud ofimpalpable ashes flew up into his face; and it was dark. So he sat downupon a stone and buried his face in his hands, to wait in the Land ofNegation and Denial till the light came.
"And it was night in his heart also.
"Then from the marshes to his right and left cold mists arose and closedabout him. A fine, imperceptible rain fell in the dark, and great dropsgathered on his hair and clothes. His heart beat slowly, and a numbnesscrept through all his limbs. Then, looking up, two merry wisp lightscame dancing. He lifted his head to look at them. Nearer, nearer theycame. So warm, so bright, they danced like stars of fire. They stoodbefore him at last. From the centre of the radiating flame in one lookedout a woman's face, laughing, dimpled, with streaming yellow hair. Inthe centre of the other were merry laughing ripples, like the bubbles ona glass of wine. They danced before him.
"'Who are you,' asked the hunter, 'who alone come to me in my solitudeand darkness?'
"'We are the twins Sensuality,' they cried. 'Our father's name isHuman-Nature, and our mother's name is Excess. We are as old as thehills and rivers, as old as the first man; but we never die,' theylaughed.
"'Oh, let me wrap my arms about you!; cried the first; 'they are softand warm. Your heart is frozen now, but I will make it beat. Oh, come tome!'
"'I will pour my hot life into you,' said the second; 'your brain isnumb, and your limbs are dead now; but they shall live with a fiercefree life. Oh, let me pour it in!'
"'Oh, follow us,' they cried, 'and live with us. Nobler hearts thanyours have sat here in this darkness to wait, and they have come tous and we to them; and they have never left us, never. All else is adelusion, but we are real, we are real, we are real. Truth is a shadow;the valleys of superstition are a farce: the earth is of ashes, thetrees all rotten; but we--feel us--we live! You cannot doubt us. Feel ushow warm we are! Oh, come to us! Come with us!'
"Nearer and nearer round his head they hovered, and the cold dropsmelted on his forehead. The bright light shot into his eyes, dazzlinghim, and the frozen blood began to run. And he said:
"'Yes, why should I die here in this awful darkness? They are warm, theymelt my frozen blood!' and he stretched out his hands to take them.
"Then in a moment there arose before him the image of the thing he hadloved, and his hand dropped to his side.
"'Oh, come to us!' they cried.
"But he buried his face.
"'You dazzle my eyes,' he cried, 'you make my heart warm; but you cannotgive me what I desire. I will wait here--wait till I die. Go!'
"He covered his face with his hands and would not listen; and when helooked up again they were two twinkling stars, that vanished in thedistance.
"And the long, long night rolled on.
"All who leave the valley of superstition pass through that dark land;but some go through it in a few days, some linger there for months, somefor years, and some die there."
The boy had crept closer; his hot breath almost touched the stranger'shand; a mystic wonder filled his eyes.
"At last for the hunter a faint light played along the horizon, and herose to follow it; and he reached that light at last, and stepped intothe broad sunshine. Then before him rose the almighty mountains ofDry-facts and Realities. The clear sunshine played on them, and the topswere lost in the clouds. At the foot many paths ran up. An exultant cryburst from the hunter. He chose the straightest and began to climb;and the rocks and ridges resounded with his song. They had exaggerated;after all, it was not so high, nor was the road so steep! A few days, afew weeks, a few months at most, and then the top! Not one feather onlywould he pick up; he would gather all that other men had found--weavethe net--capture Truth--hold her fast--touch her with his hands--claspher!
"He laughed in the merry sunshine, and sang loud. Victory was very near.Nevertheless, after a while the path grew steeper. He needed all hisbreath for climbing, and the singing died away. On the right and leftrose huge rocks, devoid of lichen or moss, and in the lava-like earthchasms yawned. Here and there he saw a sheen of white bones. Now too thepath began to grow less and less marked; then it became a mere trace,with a footmark here and there; then it ceased altogether. He sang nomore, but struck forth a path for himself, until it reached a mightywall of rock, smooth and without break, stretching as far as the eyecould see. 'I will rear a stair against it; and, once this wall climbed,I shall be almost there,' he said bravely; and worked. With his shuttleof imagination he dug out stones; but half of them would not fit, andhalf a month's work would roll down because those below were ill chosen.But the hunter worked on, saying always to himself, 'Once this wallclimbed, I shall be almost there. This great work ended!'
"At last he came out upon the top, and he looked about him. Far belowrolled the white mist over the valleys of superstition, and above himtowered the mountains. They had seemed low before; they were of animmeasurable height now, from crown to foundation surrounded by walls ofrock, that rose tier above tier in mi
ghty circles. Upon them playedthe eternal sunshine. He uttered a wild cry. He bowed himself on tothe earth, and when he rose his face was white. In absolute silence hewalked on. He was very silent now. In those high regions the rarefiedair is hard to breathe by those born in the valleys; every breath hedrew hurt him, and the blood oozed out from the tips of his fingers.Before the next wall of rock he began to work. The height of this seemedinfinite, and he said nothing. The sound of his tool rang night and dayupon the iron rocks into which he cut steps. Years passed over him,yet he worked on; but the wall towered up always above him to heaven.Sometimes he prayed that a little moss or lichen might spring up onthose bare walls to be a companion to him; but it never came." Thestranger watched the boy's face.
"And the years rolled on; he counted them by the steps he had cut--afew for a year--only a few. He sang no more; he said no more, 'I will dothis or that'--he only worked. And at night, when the twilight settleddown, there looked out at him from the holes and crevices in the rocksstrange wild faces.
"'Stop your work, you lonely man, and speak to us,' they cried.
"'My salvation is in work, if I should stop but for one moment youwould creep down upon me,' he replied. And they put out their long necksfurther.
"'Look down into the crevice at your feet,' they said. 'See what liethere--white bones! As brave and strong a man as you climbed to theserocks.' And he looked up. He saw there was no use in striving; he wouldnever hold Truth, never see her, never find her. So he lay down here,for he was very tired. He went to sleep forever. He put himself tosleep. Sleep is very tranquil. You are not lonely when you are asleep,neither do your hands ache, nor your heart. And the hunter laughedbetween his teeth.
"'Have I torn from my heart all that was dearest; have I wandered alonein the land of night; have I resisted temptation; have I dwelt where thevoice of my kind is never heard, and laboured alone, to lie down and befood for you, ye harpies?'
"He laughed fiercely; and the Echoes of Despair slunk away, for thelaugh of a brave, strong heart is as a death blow to them.
"Nevertheless they crept out again and looked at him.
"'Do you know that your hair is white?' they said, 'that your handsbegin to tremble like a child's? Do you see that the point of yourshuttle is gone?--it is cracked already. If you should ever climb thisstair,' they said, 'it will be your last. You will never climb another.'
"And he answered, 'I know it!' and worked on.
"The old, thin hands cut the stones ill and jaggedly, for the fingerswere stiff and bent. The beauty and the strength of the man was gone.
"At last, an old, wizened, shrunken face looked out above the rocks. Itsaw the eternal mountains rise with walls to the white clouds; but itswork was done.
"The old hunter folded his tired hands and lay down by the precipicewhere he had worked away his life. It was the sleeping time at last.Below him over the valleys rolled the thick white mist. Once it broke;and through the gap the dying eyes looked down on the trees and fieldsof their childhood. From afar seemed borne to him the cry of his ownwild birds, and he heard the noise of people singing as they danced. Andhe thought he heard among them the voices of his old comrades; andhe saw far off the sunlight shine on his early home. And great tearsgathered in the hunter's eyes.
"'Ah! They who die there do not die alone,' he cried.
"Then the mists rolled together again; and he turned his eyes away.
"'I have sought,' he said, 'for long years I have laboured; but I havenot found her. I have not rested, I have not repined, and I have notseen her; now my strength is gone. Where I lie down worn out other menwill stand, young and fresh. By the steps that I have cut they willclimb; by the stairs that I have built they will mount. They will neverknow the name of the man who made them. At the clumsy work they willlaugh; when the stones roll they will curse me. But they will mount, andon my work; they will climb, and by my stair! They will find her, andthrough me! And no man liveth to himself and no man dieth to himself.'
"The tears rolled from beneath the shrivelled eyelids. If Truth hadappeared above him in the clouds now he could not have seen her, themist of death was in his eyes.
"'My soul hears their glad step coming,' he said; 'and they shall mount!they shall mount!' He raised his shrivelled hand to his eyes.
"Then slowly from the white sky above, through the still air, camesomething falling, falling, falling. Softly it fluttered down, anddropped on to the breast of the dying man. He felt it with his hands. Itwas a feather. He died holding it."
The boy had shaded his eyes with his hand. On the wood of the carvinggreat drops fell. The stranger must have laughed at him, or remainedsilent. He did so.
"How did you know it?" the boy whispered at last. "It is not writtenthere--not on that wood. How did you know it?"
"Certainly," said the stranger, "the whole of the story is not writtenhere, but it is suggested. And the attribute of all true art, thehighest and the lowest, is this--that it rays more than it says, andtakes you away from itself. It is a little door that opens into aninfinite hall where you may find what you please. Men, thinking todetract, say: 'People read more in this or that work of genius thanwas ever written in it,' not perceiving that they pay the highestcompliment. If we pick up the finger and nail of a real man, we candecipher a whole story--could almost reconstruct the creature again,from head to foot. But half the body of a Mumboo-jumbow idol leaves usutterly in the dark as to what the rest was like. We see what we see,but nothing more. There is nothing so universally intelligible as truth.It has a thousand meanings, and suggests a thousand more."
He turned over the wooden thing.
"Though a man should carve it into matter with the least possiblemanipulative skill, it will yet find interpreters. It is the soul thatlooks out with burning eyes through the most gross fleshly filament.Whosoever should portray truly the life and death of a littleflower--its birth, sucking in of nourishment, reproduction of its kind,withering and vanishing--would have shaped a symbol of all existence.All true facts of nature or the mind are related. Your little carvingrepresents some mental facts as they really are, therefore fiftydifferent true stories might be read from it. What your work wantsis not truth, but beauty of external form, the other half of art." Heleaned almost gently toward the boy. "Skill may come in time, but youwill have to work hard. The love of beauty and the desire for it mustbe born in a man; the skill to reproduce it he must make. He must workhard."
"All my life I have longed to see you," the boy said.
The stranger broke off the end of his cigar, and lit it. The boy liftedthe heavy wood from the stranger's knee and drew yet nearer him. Inthe dog-like manner of his drawing near there was something superblyridiculous, unless one chanced to view it in another light. Presentlythe stranger said, whiffing, "Do something for me."
The boy started up.
"No; stay where you are. I don't want you to go anyowhere; I want you totalk to me. Tell me what you have been doing all your life."
The boy slunk down again. Would that the man had asked him to root upbushes with his hands for his horse to feed on; or to run to the far endof the plain for the fossils that lay there, or to gather the flowersthat grew on the hills at the edge of the plain; he would have run andbeen back quickly--but now!
"I have never done anything," he said.
"Then tell me of that nothing. I like to know what other folks have beendoing whose word I can believe. It is interesting. What was the firstthing you ever wanted very much?"
The boy waited to remember, then began hesitatingly, but soon the wordsflowed. In the smallest past we find an inexhaustible mine when once webegin to dig at it.
A confused, disordered story--the little made large and the large small,and nothing showing its inward meaning. It is not till the pasthas receded many steps that before the clearest eyes it falls intoco-ordinate pictures. It is not till the I we tell of has ceased toexist that it takes its place among other objective realities, andfinds its true niche in the picture. The pre
sent and the near past isa confusion, whose meaning flashes on us as it slinks away into thedistance.
The stranger lit one cigar from the end of another, and puffed andlistened with half-closed eyes.
"I will remember more to tell you if you like," said the boy.
He spoke with that extreme gravity common to all very young things whofeel deeply. It is not till twenty that we learn to be in deadly earnestand to laugh. The stranger nodded, while the fellow sought for somethingmore to relate. He would tell all to this man of his--all that he knew,all that he had felt, his inmost sorest thought. Suddenly the strangerturned upon him.
"Boy," he said, "you are happy to be here."
Waldo looked at him. Was his delightful one ridiculing him? Here, withthis brown earth and these low hills, while the rare wonderful world layall beyond. Fortunate to be here?
The stranger read his glance.
"Yes," he said; "here with the karoo-bushes and red sand. Do you wonderwhat I mean? To all who have been born in the old faith there comes atime of danger, when the old slips from us, and we have not yet plantedour feet on the new. We hear the voice from Sinai thundering no more,and the still small voice of reason is not yet heard. We have proved thereligion our mothers fed us on to be a delusion; in our bewilderment wesee no rule by which to guide our steps day by day; and yet every day wemust step somewhere."
The stranger leaned forward and spoke more quickly. "We have never oncebeen taught by word or act to distinguish between religion and the morallaws on which it has artfully fastened itself, and from which it hassucked its vitality. When we have dragged down the weeds and creepersthat covered the solid wall and have found them to be rotten wood, weimagine the wall itself to be rotten wood too. We find it is solid andstanding only when we fall headlong against it. We have been taught thatall right and wrong originate in the will of an irresponsible being.It is some time before we see how the inexorable 'Thou shalt and shaltnot,' are carved into the nature of things. This is the time of danger."
His dark, misty eyes looked into the boy's.
"In the end experience will inevitably teach us that the laws for a wiseand noble life have a foundation infinitely deeper than the fiat of anybeing, God or man, even in the groundwork of human nature.
"She will teach us that whoso sheddeth man's blood, though by man hisblood be not shed, though no man avenge and no hell await, yet everydrop shall blister on his soul and eat in the name of the dead. She willteach that whoso takes a love not lawfully his own, gathers a flowerwith a poison on its petals; that whoso revenges, strikes with a swordthat has two edges--one for his adversary, one for himself; that wholives to himself is dead, though the ground is not yet on him; that whowrongs another clouds his own sun; and that who sins in secretstands accursed and condemned before the one Judge who deals eternaljustice--his own all-knowing self.
"Experience will teach us this, and reason will show us why it must beso; but at first the world swings before our eyes, and no voice criesout, 'This is the way, walk ye in it!' You are happy to be here, boy!When the suspense fills you with pain you build stone walls and digearth for relief. Others have stood where you stand today, and have feltas you feel; and another relief has been offered them, and they havetaken it.
"When the day has come when they have seen the path in which they mightwalk, they have not the strength to follow it. Habits have fastened onthem from which nothing but death can free them; which cling closer thanhis sacerdotal sanctimony to a priest; which feed on the intellectlike a worm, sapping energy, hope, creative power, all that makes a manhigher than a beast--leaving only the power to yearn, to regret, and tosink lower in the abyss.
"Boy," he said, and the listener was not more unsmiling now than thespeaker, "you are happy to be here! Stay where you are. If you everpray, let it be only the one old prayer--'Lead us not into temptation.'Live on here quietly. The time may yet come when you will be that whichother men have hoped to be and never will be now."
The stranger rose, shook the dust from his sleeve, and ashamed at hisown earnestness, looked across the bushes for his horse.
"We should have been on our way already," he said. "We shall have a longride in the dark tonight."
Waldo hastened to fetch the animal; but he returned leading it slowly.The sooner it came the sooner would its rider be gone.
The stranger was opening his saddlebag, in which were a bright Frenchnovel and an old brown volume. He took the last and held it out to theboy.
"It may be of some help to you," he said, carelessly. "It was a gospelto me when I first fell on it. You must not expect too much; but it maygive you a centre round which to hang your ideas, instead of lettingthem lie about in a confusion that makes the head ache. We of thisgeneration are not destined to eat and be satisfied as our fathers were;we must be content to go hungry."
He smiled his automaton smile, and rebuttoned the bag. Waldo thrust thebook into his breast, and while he saddled the horse the stranger madeinquiries as to the nature of the road and the distance to the nextfarm.
When the bags were fixed, Waldo took up his wooden post and beganto fasten it on to the saddle, tying it with the little blue cottonhandkerchief from his neck. The stranger looked on in silence. When itwas done the boy held the stirrup for him to mount.
"What is your name?" he inquired, ungloving his right hand when he wasin the saddle.
The boy replied:
"Well, I trust we shall meet again some day, sooner or later."
He shook hands with the ungloved hand; then drew on the glove, andtouched his horse, and rode slowly away. The boy stood to watch him.
Once when the stranger had gone half across the plain he looked back.
"Poor devil," he said, smiling and stroking his moustache. Then helooked to see if the little blue handkerchief were still safely knotted."Poor devil!"
He smiled, and then he sighed wearily, very wearily.
And Waldo waited till the moving speck had disappeared on the horizon;then he stooped and kissed passionately a hoof-mark in the sand. Thenhe called his young birds together, and put his book under his arm, andwalked home along the stone wall. There was a rare beauty to him in thesunshine that evening.
The Story of an African Farm Page 17
