Dawn - H. Rider Haggard (books for men to read .txt) 📗

venture to advise you, but I pass his advice on; it is that of a very good man."

"Have you, then, no dread of death, or, rather, of what lies beyond it?"

She turned her eyes upon him with something of wonder in them.

"And why," she said, "should I, who am immortal, fear a change that I know has no power to harm me, that can, on the contrary, only bring me nearer to the purpose of my being? Certainly I shrink from death itself, as we all must, but of the dangers beyond I have no fear. Pleasant as this world is at times, there is something in us all that strives to rise above it, and, if I knew that I must die within this hour, I believe that I could meet my fate without a qualm. I am sure that when our trembling hands have drawn the veil from Death, we shall find His features, passionless indeed, but very beautiful."

Arthur looked at her with astonishment, wondering what manner of woman this could be, who, in the first flush of youth and beauty, could face the great unknown without a tremor. When he spoke again, it was with something of envious bitterness.

"Ah! it is very well for you, whose life has been so pure and free from evil, but it is different for me, with all my consciousness of sins and imperfections. For me, and thousands like me, strive as we will, immortality has terrors as well as hopes. It is, and always will be, human to fear the future, for human nature never changes. You know the lines in 'Hamlet.' It is

"'that the dread of something after death,-- The undiscovered country from whose bourn No traveller returns,--puzzles the will And makes us rather bear those ills we have Than fly to others that we know not of. Thus conscience does make cowards of us all.'

"They are true, and, while men last, they always will be true."

"Oh! Arthur," she answered, earnestly, and for the first time addressing him in conversation by his Christian name, "how limited your trust must be in the mercy of a Creator, whose mercy is as wide as the ocean, that you can talk like that! You speak of me, too, as better than yourself--how am I better? I have my bad thoughts and do bad things as much as you, and, though they may not be the same, I am sure they are quite as black as yours, since everybody must be responsible according to their characters and temptations. I try, however, to trust in God to cover my sins, and believe that, if I do my best, He will forgive me, that is all. But I have no business to preach to you, who are older and wiser than I am."

"If," he broke in, laying his hand involuntarily upon her own, "you knew--although I have never spoken of them to any one before, and could not speak of them to anybody but yourself--how these things weigh upon my mind, you would not say that, but would try to teach me your faith."

"How can I teach you, Arthur, when I have so much to learn myself?" she answered, simply, and from that moment, though she did not know it as yet, she loved him.

This conversation--a very curious one, Arthur thought to himself afterwards, for two young people on a spring morning--having come to an end, nothing more was said for some while, and they took their way down the hill, varying the route in order to pass through the little hamlet of Bratham. Under a chestnut-tree that stood upon the village green, Arthur noticed, not a village blacksmith, but a small crowd, mostly composed of children, gathered round somebody. On going to see who it was, he discovered a battered-looking old man with an intellectual face, and the remnants of a gentlemanlike appearance, playing on the violin. A very few touches of his bow told Arthur, who knew something of music, that he was in the presence of a performer of no mean merit. Seeing the quality of his two auditors, and that they appreciated his performance, the player changed his music, and from a village jig passed to one of the more difficult opera airs, which he executed in brilliant fashion.

"Bravo!" cried Arthur, as the last notes thrilled and died away; "I see you understand how to play the fiddle."

"Yes, sir, and so I should, for I have played first violin at Her Majesty's Opera before now. Name what you like, and I will play it you. Or, if you like it better, you shall hear the water running in a brook, the wind passing through the trees, or the waves falling on the beach. Only say the word."

Arthur thought for a moment.

"It is a beautiful day, let us have a contrast--give us the music of a storm."

The old man considered a while.

"I understand, but you set a difficult subject even for me," and taking up his bow he made several attempts at beginning. "I can't do it," he said, "set something else."

"No, no, try again, that or nothing."

Again he started, and this time his genius took possession of him. The notes fell very softly at first, but with an ominous sound, then rose and wailed like the rising of the wind. Next the music came in gusts, the rain pattered, and the thunder roared, till at length the tempest seemed to spend its force and pass slowly away into the distance.

"There, sir, what do you say to that--have I fulfilled your expectations?"

"Write it down and it will be one of the finest pieces of violin music in the country."

"Write it down. The divine 'afflatus' is not to be caged, sir, it comes and goes. I could never write that music down."

Arthur felt in his pocket without answering, and found five shillings.

"If you will accept this?" he said.

"Thank you, sir, very much. I am gladder of five shillings now than I once was of as many pounds;" and he rose to go.

"A man of your talent should not be wandering about like this."

"I must earn a living somehow, for all Talleyrand's witticism to the contrary," was the curious answer.

"Have you no friends?"

"No, sir, this is my only friend; all the rest have deserted me," and he tapped his violin and was gone.

"Lord, sir," said a farmer, who was standing by, "he's gone to get drunk; he is the biggest old drunkard in the countryside, and yet they do say he was gentleman once, and the best fiddler in London; but he can't be depended on, so no one will hire him now."

"How sad," said Angela, as they moved homewards.

"Yes, and what music that was; I never heard any with such imagination before. You have a turn that way, Angela; you should try to put it into words, it would make a poem."

"I complain like the old man, that you set a difficult subject," she said; "but I will try, if you will promise not to laugh at the result."

"If you succeed on paper only half so well as he did on the violin, your verses will be worth listening to, and I certainly shall not laugh."

CHAPTER XXV

 

On the following day the somewhat curious religious conversation between Arthur and Angela--a conversation which, begun on Arthur's part out of curiosity, had ended on both sides very much in earnest-- the weather broke up and the grand old English climate reasserted its treacherous supremacy. From summer weather the inhabitants of the county of Marlshire suddenly found themselves plunged into a spell of cold that was by contrast almost Arctic. Storms of sleet drove against the window-panes, and there was even a very damaging night-frost, while that dreadful scourge, which nobody in his senses except Kingsley can ever have liked, the east wind, literally pervaded the whole place, and went whistling through the surrounding trees and ruins in a way calculated to make even a Laplander shiver.

Under these cheerless circumstances our pair of companions--for as yet they were, ostensibly at any rate, nothing more--gave up their outdoor excursions and took to rambling over the disused rooms in the old house, and hunting up many a record, some of them valuable and curious enough, of long-forgotten Caresfoots, and even of the old priors before them; a splendidly illuminated missal being amongst the latter prizes. When this amusement was exhausted, they sat together over the fire in the nursery, and Angela translated to him from her favourite classical authors, especially Homer, with an ease and fluency of expression that, to Arthur, was little short of miraculous. Or, when they got tired of that, he read to her from standard writers, which, elaborate as her education had been, in certain respects, she had scarcely yet even opened, notably Shakespeare and Milton. Needless to say, herself imbued with a strong poetic feeling, these immortal writers were a source of intense delight to her.

"How is it that Mr. Fraser never gave you Shakespeare to read?" asked Arthur one day, as he shut up the volume, having come to the end of "Hamlet."

"He said that I should be better able to appreciate it when my mind had been prepared to do so by the help of a classical and mathematical education, and that it would be 'a mistake to cloy my mental palate with sweets before I had learnt to appreciate their flavours.'"

"There is some sense in that," remarked Arthur. "By the way, how are the verses you promised to write me getting on? Have you done them yet?"

"I have done something," she answered, modestly, "but I really do not think that they are worth producing. It is very tiresome of you to have remembered about them."

Arthur, however, by this time knew enough of Angela's abilities to be sure that her "something" would be something more or less worth hearing, and mildly insisted on their production, and then, to her confusion, on her reading them aloud. They ran as follows, and whatever Angela's opinion of them may have been, the reader shall judge of them for himself:

A STORM ON THE STRINGS

"The minstrel sat in his lonely room, Its walls were bare, and the twilight grey Fell and crept and gathered to gloom; It came like the ghost of the dying day, And the chords fell hushed and low. Pianissimo!

"His arm was raised, and the violin Quivered and shook with the strain it bore, While the swelling forth of the sounds within Rose with a sweetness unknown before, And the chords fell soft and low. Piano!

"The first cold flap of the tempest's wings Clashed with the silence before the storm, The raindrops pattered across the strings As the gathering thunder-clouds took form-- Drip, drop, high and low. Staccato!

"Heavily rolling the thunder roared, Sudden and jagged the lightning played, Faster and faster the raindrops poured, Sobbing and surging the tree-crests swayed, Cracking and crashing above, below. Crescendo!

"The wind tore howling across the wold, And tangled his train in the groaning trees, Wrapped the dense clouds in his mantle cold, Then shivered and died in a wailing breeze, Whistling and weeping high and low, Sostenuto!

"A pale sun broke from the driving cloud, And flashed in the raindrops serenely cool: At the touch