THE pilgrims were human beings.
Otherwise they would have acted
differently. They had come a
long and difficult journey, and
now when the journey was nearly
finished, and they learned that
the main thing they had come
for had ceased to exist, they
didn't do as horses or cats or
angle-worms would probably have
done -- turn back and get at
something profitable -- no, anxious
as they had before been to see
the miraculous fountain, they
were as much as forty times as
anxious now to see the place
where it had used to be. There
is no accounting for human
beings.
We made good time; and a couple
of hours before sunset we stood
upon the high confines of the
Valley of Holiness, and our eyes
swept it from end to end and
noted its features. That is,
its large features. These were
the three masses of buildings.
They were distant and isolated
temporalities shrunken to toy
constructions in the lonely waste
of what seemed a desert -- and
was. Such a scene is always mournful,
it is so impressively still,
and looks so steeped in death.
But there was a sound here which
interrupted the stillness only
to add to its mournfulness; this
was the faint far sound of tolling
bells which floated fitfully
to us on the passing breeze,
and so faintly, so softly, that
we hardly knew whether we heard
it with our ears or with our
spirits.
We reached the monastery before
dark, and there the males were
given lodging, but the women
were sent over to the nunnery.
The bells were close at hand
now, and their solemn booming
smote upon the ear like a message
of doom. A superstitious despair
possessed the heart of every
monk and published itself in
his ghastly face. Everywhere,
these black-robed, soft-sandaled,
tallow-visaged specters appeared,
flitted about and disappeared,
noiseless as the creatures of
a troubled dream, and as uncanny.
The old abbot's joy to see
me was pathetic. Even to tears;
but he did the shedding himself.
He said:
"Delay not,
son, but get to thy saving
work. An we bring
not the water back again, and
soon, we are ruined, and the
good work of two hundred years
must end. And see thou do it
with enchantments that be holy,
for the Church will not endure
that work in her cause be done
by devil's magic."
"When I work,
Father, be sure there will
be no devil's work
connected with it. I shall use
no arts that come of the devil,
and no elements not created by
the hand of God. But is Merlin
working strictly on pious lines?"
"Ah, he said
he would, my son, he said he
would, and took oath
to make his promise good."
"Well, in that
case, let him proceed."
"But surely
you will not sit idle by, but
help?"
"It will not
answer to mix methods, Father;
neither would
it be professional courtesy.
Two of a trade must not underbid
each other. We might as well
cut rates and be done with it;
it would arrive at that in the
end. Merlin has the contract;
no other magician can touch it
till he throws it up."
"But I will
take it from him; it is a terrible
emergency and
the act is thereby justified.
And if it were not so, who will
give law to the Church? The Church
giveth law to all; and what she
wills to do, that she may do,
hurt whom it may. I will take
it from him; you shall begin
upon the moment."
"It may not
be, Father. No doubt, as you
say, where power
is supreme, one can do as one
likes and suffer no injury; but
we poor magicians are not so
situated. Merlin is a very good
magician in a small way, and
has quite a neat provincial reputation.
He is struggling along, doing
the best he can, and it would
not be etiquette for me to take
his job until he himself abandons
it."
The abbot's face lighted.
"Ah, that is
simple. There are ways to persuade
him to abandon
it."
"No-no, Father,
it skills not, as these people
say. If he were
persuaded against his will, he
would load that well with a malicious
enchantment which would balk
me until I found out its secret.
It might take a month. I could
set up a little enchantment of
mine which I call the telephone,
and he could not find out its
secret in a hundred years. Yes,
you perceive, he might block
me for a month. Would you like
to risk a month in a dry time
like this?"
"A month! The
mere thought of it maketh me
to shudder. Have
it thy way, my son. But my heart
is heavy with this disappointment.
Leave me, and let me wear my
spirit with weariness and waiting,
even as I have done these ten
long days, counterfeiting thus
the thing that is called rest,
the prone body making outward
sign of repose where inwardly
is none."
Of course, it would have been
best, all round, for Merlin to
waive etiquette and quit and
call it half a day, since he
would never be able to start
that water, for he was a true
magician of the time; which is
to say, the big miracles, the
ones that gave him his reputation,
always had the luck to be performed
when nobody but Merlin was present;
he couldn't start this well with
all this crowd around to see;
a crowd was as bad for a magician's
miracle in that day as it was
for a spiritualist's miracle
in mine; there was sure to be
some skeptic on hand to turn
up the gas at the crucial moment
and spoil everything. But I did
not want Merlin to retire from
the job until I was ready to
take hold of it effectively myself;
and I could not do that until
I got my things from Camelot,
and that would take two or three
days.
My presence gave the monks
hope, and cheered them up a good
deal; insomuch that they ate
a square meal that night for
the first time in ten days. As
soon as their stomachs had been
properly reinforced with food,
their spirits began to rise fast;
when the mead began to go round
they rose faster. By the time
everybody was half-seas over,
the holy community was in good
shape to make a night of it;
so we stayed by the board and
put it through on that line.
Matters got to be very jolly.
Good old questionable stories
were told that made the tears
run down and cavernous mouths
stand wide and the round bellies
shake with laughter; and questionable
songs were bellowed out in a
mighty chorus that drowned the
boom of the tolling bells.
At last I ventured a story
myself; and vast was the success
of it. Not right off, of course,
for the native of those islands
does not, as a rule, dissolve
upon the early applications of
a humorous thing; but the fifth
time I told it, they began to
crack in places; the eight time
I told it, they began to crumble;
at the twelfth repetition they
fell apart in chunks; and at
the fifteenth they disintegrated,
and I got a broom and swept them
up. This language is figurative.
Those islanders -- well, they
are slow pay at first, in the
matter of return for your investment
of effort, but in the end they
make the pay of all other nations
poor and small by contrast.
I was at the well next day
betimes. Merlin was there, enchanting
away like a beaver, but not raising
the moisture. He was not in a
pleasant humor; and every time
I hinted that perhaps this contract
was a shade too hefty for a novice
he unlimbered his tongue and
cursed like a bishop -- French
bishop of the Regency days, I
mean.
Matters were
about as I expected to find
them. The "fountain" was
an ordinary well, it had been
dug in the ordinary way, and
stoned up in the ordinary way.
There was no miracle about it.
Even the lie that had created
its reputation was not miraculous;
I could have told it myself,
with one hand tied behind me.
The well was in a dark chamber
which stood in the center of
a cut-stone chapel, whose walls
were hung with pious pictures
of a workmanship that would have
made a chromo feel good; pictures
historically commemorative of
curative miracles which had been
achieved by the waters when nobody
was looking. That is, nobody
but angels; they are always on
deck when there is a miracle
to the fore -- so as to get put
in the picture, perhaps. Angels
are as fond of that as a fire
company; look at the old masters.
The well-chamber was dimly
lighted by lamps; the water was
drawn with a windlass and chain
by monks, and poured into troughs
which delivered it into stone
reservoirs outside in the chapel
-- when there was water to draw,
I mean -- and none but monks
could enter the well-chamber.
I entered it, for I had temporary
authority to do so, by courtesy
of my professional brother and
subordinate. But he hadn't entered
it himself. He did everything
by incantations; he never worked
his intellect. If he had stepped
in there and used his eyes, instead
of his disordered mind, he could
have cured the well by natural
means, and then turned it into
a miracle in the customary way;
but no, he was an old numskull,
a magician who believed in his
own magic; and no magician can
thrive who is handicapped with
a superstition like that.
I had an idea that the well
had sprung a leak; that some
of the wall stones near the bottom
had fallen and exposed fissures
that allowed the water to escape.
I measured the chain -- 98 feet.
Then I called in couple of monks,
locked the door, took a candle,
and made them lower me in the
bucket. When the chain was all
paid out, the candle confirmed
my suspicion; a considerable
section of the wall was gone,
exposing a good big fissure.
I almost regretted that my
theory about the well's trouble
was correct, because I had another
one that had a showy point or
two about it for a miracle. I
remembered that in America, many
centuries later, when an oil
well ceased to flow, they used
to blast it out with a dynamite
torpedo. If I should find this
well dry and no explanation of
it, I could astonish these people
most nobly by having a person
of no especial value drop a dynamite
bomb into it. It was my idea
to appoint Merlin. However, it
was plain that there was no occasion
for the bomb. One cannot have
everything the way he would like
it. A man has no business to
be depressed by a disappointment,
anyway; he ought to make up his
mind to get even. That is what
I did. I said to myself, I am
in no hurry, I can wait; that
bomb will come good yet. And
it did, too.
When I was above ground again,
I turned out the monks, and let
down a fish-line; the well was
a hundred and fifty feet deep,
and there was forty-one feet
of water in it I I called in
a monk and asked:
"How deep is
the well?"
"That, sir,
I wit not, having never been
told."
"How does the
water usually stand in it?"
"Near to the
top, these two centuries, as
the testimony goeth,
brought down to us through our
predecessors."
It was true -- as to recent
times at least -- for there was
witness to it, and better witness
than a monk; only about twenty
or thirty feet of the chain showed
wear and use, the rest of it
was unworn and rusty. What had
happened when the well gave out
that other time? Without doubt
some practical person had come
along and mended the leak, and
then had come up and told the
abbot he had discovered by divination
that if the sinful bath were
destroyed the well would flow
again. The leak had befallen
again now, and these children
would have prayed, and processioned,
and tolled their bells for heavenly
succor till they all dried up
and blew away, and no innocent
of them all would ever have thought
to drop a fish-line into the
well or go down in it and find
out what was really the matter.
Old habit of mind is one of the
toughest things to get away from
in the world. It transmits itself
like physical form and feature;
and for a man, in those days,
to have had an idea that his
ancestors hadn't had, would have
brought him under suspicion of
being illegitimate. I said to
the monk:
"It is a difficult
miracle to restore water in
a dry well,
but we will try, if my brother
Merlin fails. Brother Merlin
is a very passable artist, but
only in the parlor-magic line,
and he may not succeed; in fact,
is not likely to succeed. But
that should be nothing to his
discredit; the man that can do
THIS kind of miracle knows enough
to keep hotel."
"Hotel? I mind
not to have heard --"
"Of hotel?
It's what you call hostel.
The man that can do this
miracle can keep hostel. I can
do this miracle; I shall do this
miracle; yet I do not try to
conceal from you that it is a
miracle to tax the occult powers
to the last strain."
"None knoweth
that truth better than the
brotherhood, indeed;
for it is of record that aforetime
it was parlous difficult and
took a year. Natheless, God send
you good success, and to that
end will we pray."
As a matter of business it
was a good idea to get the notion
around that the thing was difficult.
Many a small thing has been made
large by the right kind of advertising.
That monk was filled up with
the difficulty of this enterprise;
he would fill up the others.
In two days the solicitude would
be booming.
On my way home at noon, I met
Sandy. She had been sampling
the hermits. I said:
"I would like
to do that myself. This is
Wednesday. Is there a
matinee?"
"A which, please
you, sir?"
"Matinee. Do
they keep open afternoons?"
"Who?"
"The hermits,
of course."
"Keep open?"
"Yes, keep
open. Isn't that plain enough?
Do they knock off
at noon?"
"Knock off?"
"Knock off?
-- yes, knock off. What is
the matter with knock
off? I never saw such a dunderhead;
can't you understand anything
at all? In plain terms, do they
shut up shop, draw the game,
bank the fires --"
"Shut up shop,
draw --"
"There, never
mind, let it go; you make me
tired. You can't
seem to understand the simplest
thing."
I would I might
please thee, sir, and it is
to me dole and
sorrow that I fail, albeit sith
I am but a simple damsel and
taught of none, being from the
cradle unbaptized in those deep
waters of learning that do anoint
with a sovereignty him that partaketh
of that most noble sacrament,
investing him with reverend state
to the mental eye of the humble
mortal who, by bar and lack of
that great consecration seeth
in his own unlearned estate but
a symbol of that other sort of
lack and loss which men do publish
to the pitying eye with sackcloth
trappings whereon the ashes of
grief do lie bepowdered and bestrewn,
and so, when such shall in the
darkness of his mind encounter
these golden phrases of high
mystery, these shut-up-shops,
and draw-the-game, and bank-the-fires,
it is but by the grace of God
that he burst not for envy of
the mind that can beget, and
tongue that can deliver so great
and mellow-sounding miracles
of speech, and if there do ensue
confusion in that humbler mind,
and failure to divine the meanings
of these wonders, then if so
be this miscomprehension is not
vain but sooth and true, wit
ye well it is the very substance
of worshipful dear homage and
may not lightly be misprized,
nor had been, an ye had noted
this complexion of mood and mind
and understood that that I would
I could not, and that I could
not I might not, nor yet nor
might NOR could, nor might-not
nor could-not, might be by advantage
turned to the desired WOULD,
and so I pray you mercy of my
fault, and that ye will of your
kindness and your charity forgive
it, good my master and most dear
lord."
I couldn't make it all out
-- that is, the details -- but
I got the general idea; and enough
of it, too, to be ashamed. It
was not fair to spring those
nineteenth century technicalities
upon the untutored infant of
the sixth and then rail at her
because she couldn't get their
drift; and when she was making
the honest best drive at it she
could, too, and no fault of hers
that she couldn't fetch the home
plate; and so I apologized. Then
we meandered pleasantly away
toward the hermit holes in sociable
converse together, and better
friends than ever.
I was gradually coming to have
a mysterious and shuddery reverence
for this girl; nowadays whenever
she pulled out from the station
and got her train fairly started
on one of those horizonless transcontinental
sentences of hers, it was borne
in upon me that I was standing
in the awful presence of the
Mother of the German Language.
I was so impressed with this,
that sometimes when she began
to empty one of these sentences
on me I unconsciously took the
very attitude of reverence, and
stood uncovered; and if words
had been water, I had been drowned,
sure. She had exactly the German
way; whatever was in her mind
to be delivered, whether a mere
remark, or a sermon, or a cyclopedia,
or the history of a war, she
would get it into a single sentence
or die. Whenever the literary
German dives into a sentence,
that is the last you are going
to see of him till he emerges
on the other side of his Atlantic
with his verb in his mouth.
We drifted from hermit to hermit
all the afternoon. It was a most
strange menagerie. The chief
emulation among them seemed to
be, to see which could manage
to be the uncleanest and most
prosperous with vermin. Their
manner and attitudes were the
last expression of complacent
self-righteousness. It was one
anchorite's pride to lie naked
in the mud and let the insects
bite him and blister him unmolested;
it was another's to lean against
a rock, all day long, conspicuous
to the admiration of the throng
of pilgrims and pray; it was
another's to go naked and crawl
around on all fours; it was another's
to drag about with him, year
in and year out, eighty pounds
of iron; it was another's to
never lie down when he slept,
but to stand among the thorn-bushes
and snore when there were pilgrims
around to look; a woman, who
had the white hair of age, and
no other apparel, was black from
crown to heel with forty-seven
years of holy abstinence from
water. Groups of gazing pilgrims
stood around all and every of
these strange objects, lost in
reverent wonder, and envious
of the fleckless sanctity which
these pious austerities had won
for them from an exacting heaven.
By and by we went to see one
of the supremely great ones.
He was a mighty celebrity; his
fame had penetrated all Christendom;
the noble and the renowned journeyed
from the remotest lands on the
globe to pay him reverence. His
stand was in the center of the
widest part of the valley; and
it took all that space to hold
his crowds.
His stand was a pillar sixty
feet high, with a broad platform
on the top of it. He was now
doing what he had been doing
every day for twenty years up
there -- bowing his body ceaselessly
and rapidly almost to his feet.
It was his way of praying. I
timed him with a stop watch,
and he made 1,244 revolutions
in 24 minutes and 46 seconds.
It seemed a pity to have all
this power going to waste. It
was one of the most useful motions
in mechanics, the pedal movement;
so I made a note in my memorandum
book, purposing some day to apply
a system of elastic cords to
him and run a sewing machine
with it. I afterward carried
out that scheme, and got five
years' good service out of him;
in which time he turned out upward
of eighteen thousand first-rate
tow-linen shirts, which was ten
a day. I worked him Sundays and
all; he was going, Sundays, the
same as week days, and it was
no use to waste the power. These
shirts cost me nothing but just
the mere trifle for the materials
-- I furnished those myself,
it would not have been right
to make him do that -- and they
sold like smoke to pilgrims at
a dollar and a half apiece, which
was the price of fifty cows or
a blooded race horse in Arthurdom.
They were regarded as a perfect
protection against sin, and advertised
as such by my knights everywhere,
with the paint-pot and stencil-plate;
insomuch that there was not a
cliff or a bowlder or a dead
wall in England but you could
read on it at a mile distance:
"Buy the only
genuine St. Stylite; patronized
by the Nobility. Patent
applied for."
There was more money in the
business than one knew what to
do with. As it extended, I brought
out a line of goods suitable
for kings, and a nobby thing
for duchesses and that sort,
with ruffles down the forehatch
and the running-gear clewed up
with a featherstitch to leeward
and then hauled aft with a back-stay
and triced up with a half-turn
in the standing rigging forward
of the weather-gaskets. Yes,
it was a daisy.
But about that time I noticed
that the motive power had taken
to standing on one leg, and I
found that there was something
the matter with the other one;
so I stocked the business and
unloaded, taking Sir Bors de
Ganis into camp financially along
with certain of his friends;
for the works stopped within
a year, and the good saint got
him to his rest. But he had earned
it. I can say that for him.
When I saw him that first time
-- however, his personal condition
will not quite bear description
here. You can read it in the
Lives of the Saints. *
[* All the details concerning
the hermits, in this chapter,
are from Lecky -- but greatly
modified. This book not being
a history but only a tale, the
majority of the historian's frank
details were too strong for reproduction
in it. - EDITOR] |