“That’s my brave liebchen! As soon as we see it our destroyers will approach — to the left, you say?”
“The town is to the left, and the deepest water,” said the girl.
“Good! Set the signal just here. If we see no light we shall know that the people have been warned, and we shall not fire. Run no risks for yourself. When you have put the light in position go home quickly — sleep, and think of nothing except me!” Here he kissed her with a kind of amused condescension, and put an arm round her waist. Then they turned again and walked away together along the down, quite unconscious of the hidden listener. She, meanwhile, had made up her mind. One sentence the man had said rang in her ears: “If we see no light, we shall know that the people have been warned, and we shall not fire.” Full of hazy ideas, she ran home, but said nothing to any one of her afternoon’s adventure. As soon as it grew dark she slipped secretly out of doors and ran to the downs. How fast her little feet flew! Breathless and giddy she ran on and on, lost to everything but the one idea in her mind, till at last she came to the spot where she had hidden herself a few hours before. There she lay down flat on the grass, panting like a frightened animal, and waited. All was wonderfully still. There was a pale, watery moon, and the slow wash of the sea sounded like the merest whisper, lapping the shore below.
Hush! A light footfall stirred the air. The girl watcher lifted herself very cautiously and peered round a hillock of grass. Yes. There was the tall, slim figure she expected to see, but now wrapped in a long cloak, and, walking stealthily, it came nearer, then stopped. The cloak was put back with one hand, showing the other hand holding a large lantern, lit, and burning with a vivid brightness. Slowly and carefully, without any hesitation, the girl who carried it set it down on the highest point of the grass, which rolled upward above the hollow of the land, and then walked away at a fairly rapid pace without looking back. Quickly as she moved, she went far too slowly for the impatience of the hidden witness of her action; never did she seem to pass quite out of sight, and all the time that her figure could be dimly discerned in the varying moonlight and shadow the lantern was burning like a red fire! At last, at last, she vanished. Hush! Was that the sound of a gun? Wild with her excitement and fear, the little unseen watcher sprang from her hiding-place, seized the lantern, broke open its glass with a stone, and extinguished the light Then she rushed at a mad speed home, carrying it with her as proof of her story, which filled her parents with amazement and incredulity.
But that night four enemy destroyers and attendant aeroplanes waited in vain for the “signal” which had been promised to them — the signal to bombard an undefended little coast town and slay hundreds of its innocent sleeping inhabitants, and the lives that were so cruelly threatened by the treachery of one English girl were saved by the quick intelligence and courage of another. Not all English women are true to their country — would they were! But the faithful souls are in the majority.
THE MYSTIC TUNE
AN IDYLL OF THE HEBRIDES
THERE are certain parts of the Western Hebrides where one may walk for many miles without meeting a human being save, possibly, a solitary shepherd or belated fisherman tramping slowly homeward to some village hidden among the mist-crowned hills. It is easy to lose one’s way but more than difficult to find it, especially if, as is often the case, the eyes of the mind become bewildered by the weird and almost tragic beauty of the natural scenery. The very ability to think is, in a sense, hypnotized out of practical considerations into a passive state of dreamy sufferance. In such a condition one may wander far, almost unconscious of time or distance — and so it chanced to me one late summer evening, when, after a day of persistent rain and drifting mist, the clouds suddenly cleared and the heavens seemed, as it were, torn open to display a wild glory of scarlet and gold flaring round the sinking sun. I found myself on the slope of a hill crowned with heather, glowing rose-purple in all the light flung broadcast by the western clearing of the sky — and all suddenly, as I stood watching the vibrating splendour, I heard the distant sound of a violin. The plaintive wail of the strings shivered through the air like the cry of a bird wounded in its flight, and I listened with a sense of pain that was akin to fear. For there was no one in sight — all the land lay bare and gleaming wet in the sunset glow, and on the sea there loomed a darkness of angry shadows contesting with broken teeth of white foam; but there was not a boat returning from the herring fishing, and not a sign of any habitation from which the call of the quivering strings could come. Still listening intently, I heard the music take a richer form — a tune of exquisite sweetness and irresistible appeal unfolded itself on the air like the petals of a flower, and its beauty enthralled me. I could not stay there on the hill and allow so divine and haunting a melody to escape me — I resolved that I must follow it and find the player. With this impulse upon me I ran down the hill, and still continued running for a time, the magic tune still sounding and going on before me as a guide, though I knew not, and thought not, as to where it might lead me. The sun was slowly sinking, and I felt that soon I might be more a lost wanderer than before if darkness fell before I could discover any shelter — but the Time called me on, and its irresistible, melancholy sweetness filled my soul, leaving no room for prudence concerning my own personal guidance or safety. Breathless with running, I presently slackened my heedless pace through the wet heather which tangled itself about my feet, and contented myself with a steady rapidity of walking, which brought me to a narrow path winding across a moor. Here the Tune seemed to grow louder and more persistent, and though I now began to think it was a fantastic illusion of sound in my own imagination I still went on, impelled almost unconsciously. All at once I perceived a small dull light twinkling microscopically among the gathering evening shadows, and making my way toward it, I came close upon a crofter’s cottage, set by itself, as it were, in a wilderness — the twinkling light gleaming like an eye from one opening of either a window or a door. As I quickened my steps and drew nearer the Tune came out, as it seemed, to meet me — it stretched its beautiful arms of melody forth to embrace and draw me to itself, and in the dying flares of the sunset I found I had reached my goal. The figure of a man, dimly silhouetted against the wall of the cottage, gradually took shape — a man, playing a violin of exquisite tone and power — such an instrument as any connoisseur would at once have envied. I checked myself in my hurried walk, and only ventured on, step by step, till I came within a few feet of the mysterious player who continued playing the same mysterious tune. There was still enough light in the sunset sky for us to see each other, and as I approached he looked at me without any apparent surprise or curiosity, drawing his bow across the strings with steady tenderness and purity. He had not the appearance of a native of the country — he wore the clothes of a man accustomed to cities and social observances, and his slim, well-poised figure gave an impression of athletic force and symmetry. I longed to speak — to ask if I might take shelter in the cottage, or haply find a guide to show me the way back to the village my walk had left so far behind me, but I dared not break the flowing of the Tune! All at once a voice, low and penetrating, spoke to me across the swaying melody —
“When she is asleep I will come to you.”
I could not understand this, but was content to wait, and gradually my eyes, becoming accustomed to the shadows gathered round and about the cottage, were able to see a little through the open door. There, by the glimmering embers of a peat fire, sat a woman, deeply sunk in an armchair, her feet supported on a wooden stool, and her hands moving up and down rhythmically were beating mechanical time to the Tune. I could not discern her features, but she seemed old and feeble, and the hands that never ceased their swaying motion were ghostly thin and spectral. I drew a few steps nearer the door and looked in more closely. There was something desolate and unearthly about that huddled figure — an embodied hopelessness, a helpless pitifulness, that chilled my blood and filled me with awe as well as compassion — surely, thought I, here was a human
wreck cast aside and left to be broken up by the tide of cruel circumstance and yet — the Tune! Like a living thing of tenderest sympathy it caressed all the air round that lonely and aged creature, giving light as it were to the deepening darkness, and speaking in soft accents of wordless rhythm which suggested a speech higher than human; and while I waited, leaning against the open door and listening, a long, shivering sigh came breathing out on the air, and a faint wailing voice murmured —
“He does not sing it as he used to sing! There is something gone — gone — gone!”
The spectral old hands waved beseechingly and then fell inert. The Tune, hovering in the evening mists like a winged creature, paused, and seemed to tremble — then went on softly, and yet more softly, while the player moved out of the shadows and, still playing, came to the door of the cottage and looked in. Watchfully he studied the huddled figure in the chair, drawing the bow delicately across the strings of his violin till the weary head fell back — then, with another long sigh of exhaustion, all movement ceased in a sleep that resembled more of a swoon than slumber. The player ceased, and the sudden silence in the darkening evening created a sense of such weird emptiness and desolation that it was almost unbearable. My eyes filled with tears, and I hesitated to speak. The man with the violin addressed me.
“You have missed your way?” he asked, gently. “I am sorry to have been so long without speaking to you, but I could not interrupt the Tune till she slept.” He waited, but still I could say nothing. He flicked a string or two of the violin with one finger half mechanically, and presently went on —
“She lost her grandson in the war — he was a friend of mine. And he was all she had — a bright, handsome lad of great musical genius. The tune I played was his favourite tune — it is a very old Gaelic melody. He used to whistle it, and above all, to sing it in a voice that would have made his fortune had he ever had the chance. He went out to Flanders as a gunner, and the very first day he took the field he was killed — just blown to bits like a handful of paper. She could never understand it. She does not believe he is dead. Since the armistice I have visited her regularly — she is all alone except for one woman of the moorlands who looks after her. All she cares for is the Tune. I play it for her whenever I can.”
“And you,” I said at last, “you are no relation?”
“No. I am a violinist by profession — I play in Paris, London, Berlin — you may have heard my name.”
He gave that name — one of the greatest renown in the European musical world.
“Oh!” I exclaimed. “You are that wonderful genius! You—”
He deprecated my enthusiasm by a slight wave of the hand.
“Not at all!” he said. “I am no genius, for I cannot even play the tune as he sang it!” He bent toward the sad and aged figure in the chair. “Yes, she is fast asleep now,” he continued. “And so she will forget — for a time! I have a professional engagement in Glasgow, and as long as it lasts, I shall come and play to her in all my spare hours. It is the only thing I can do for his sake!” He paused, then laid the violin down on a chair with the bow beside it. “Let me show you the way across the moor — you must have missed the direct path.”
“I followed the Time!” I said. “It seemed to pull me toward it!”
He smiled gravely.
“Yes? I am not surprised. It is a wonderful tune. It had its birth in the past, among the Highland bards of old, and no doubt it is weighted with many memories. But this last one is as poignant as any — glorious and hopeful youth struck down by the devilish wickedness of war, leaving helpless old age desolate and broken-hearted. The governments of this world have much to answer for — the Tune could tell them that its sorrow is only one of millions!”
We had walked away from the hut, and my companion put me on the straight road where I could see in the deepening shadows the twinkling lights of the little wayside hotel I had strayed from. I held out my hand, which he pressed warmly and kindly.
“When I hear you play again at Queen’s Hall,” I said, “I shall know your heart is even greater than your genius! I shall think of your goodness and sympathy for this poor, lonely old woman, and whatever you play, whether it be of Beethoven or any other great composer, I shall feel that the Tune is your real masterpiece!”
“The only masterpiece that is never mastered!” he replied, gently, with a smile. “For it has the soul of the dead in its melody, and however well I may try to play it, I fail! — for she will always say it is not as he sang it!”
LEAD, KINDLY LIGHT
THE Distinguished Scientist sat in his library alone. He was very dispirited and weary — the malady called “brain fag” had got hold of him. Nothing, not even a great discovery, which he had reason to think would be the crowning triumph of his life, seemed of any good purpose.
“If it would make humanity happier,” he mused, “then I should be easier in mind. But will it?”
He pushed aside one or two of the day’s newspapers wherein certain “sensations,” so-called, had been started to give impetus to declining sales — wearisome discussions on social subjects, kept up at the invitation of the various editors by fatuous-minded persons whose chief delight was to see themselves in print. Their opinions were perfectly valueless to the world, but no matter — they got into print. That was the great and only necessary thing. One of these newspaper “symposiums” had concerned the “conflict” between science and religion, and the Distinguished Scientist had read as much as he could stand of the would-be learned twaddle which offered no elucidation of any difficulty and led nowhere.
“They will never understand!” he said, addressing himself to the blank silence of the room. “They will never have sufficient humility or unselfishness to learn that science is religion, and religion science. There can be no ‘conflict’ between two halves of Divine unity.” He turned over the pages of a volume near at hand, entitled “The Science of Salvation,” and read, as he had often read before, the following passage:
“We know as little about ourselves at present as we do of the opposite side of the moon, which is always turned away from the earth. Thus, as it were, the face of one’s own self is always turned away. No fact in mentality is more apparent than that within each human personality there are two forces, powers, states, or conditions. One seeks to rise higher toward perfection; the other, in the opposite way, toward a lower grade or state. One leads to all that can be sensed as happiness here in bodies, brains, and personalities on earth; and the other to an equal degree of unhappiness. One leads to mental pain, the other to mental happiness. And likewise physical. One must be saved from one’s self. This is a literal fact as obscure and inexplicable as it may be. It is a fact as obdurate and rigid as is the fact that gravitation causes bodies to fall to the ground. The subject is one of the most profound in the entire career of man. Writers have declared that we are precisely as Nature made us — that we are living just as we are and as we ever have been — exactly according to our inherent natures. There is an opposite side to this tremendous question — the view that an incredible amount of work has been left on our minds and hands. The legacy of labour resting upon man is to conquer himself and the entire earth. He is to annihilate war, alcohol, disease, poverty, crime, pain, insanity, idiocy, poisons, deadly serpents, deadly bacteria and insects, and harmful plants and animals. He must save himself from sex-horrors, false relations, war, and the greed of gold — and that in a not far distant future — or he must retrograde.”
The Distinguished Scientist sighed and closed the book.
“True enough!” he said. “But truth is never accepted. If we present it to the people, we are scorned. But they will accept any lie!”
His sense of desolate “fag” increased. He thought of a trying experience he had gone through that afternoon when two American young men, representative “bounders” of New York State, had called upon him, ostensibly to pay their respects to a man of genius, but more obviously to assert themselves, and to make a
parlous exhibition of ignorance and impertinence combined which would have goaded to fury any less composed individual than the Distinguished Scientist, who, after long experience, had arrived at the conclusion that “young” America generally was a condition of bacterial life in a state of fermentation and evolvement. Nevertheless, their categorical inquiries and demands, not to say their comments on such information as he was able to give them, had decidedly bored and irritated him, and when he thought of them as specimens of modern humanity, he was not at all sure that he desired happiness for the race.
“Happiness should surely be for those who deserve it,” he thought. “There’s an old West Country maxim which says ‘If thee dussn’t work thee shassn’t eat,’ and that applies all through. Man, as I have just read, has a legacy of labour resting upon him — he is to annihilate war, alcohol, disease, poverty, crime, pain, insanity, and all the evils flesh has brought upon itself — and supposing all done that can be done, what then? Will real ‘happiness’ be ours? Shall we be satisfied? Will those who ‘feel immortal longings’ in them find fruition for their desires? I wonder! For example — if I give this new discovery of mine to the world, war will be — must be — annihilated. But will the greed and envy of men be likewise annihilated? Only if he can be saved from himself! No science — no ‘ray’ — no marvellous composition of elements can do that for him! Only the great uplifting of his whole mentality — the uplifting of love, humility, selflessness, and sacrifice. But your modern man asks — What is the use of love, humility, selflessness, or sacrifice? The best and kindest of natures are those that are the first to be betrayed — the most loving and loyal hearts are the first to be broken!”
A verse from a free translation of Omar Khayyam came into his mind —
If I were God I would not wait the years
Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli Page 964
