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from The house of souls, Knopf, New York (1906, 1922 ed.)
"SORCERY and sanctity," said Ambrose, "these are the only realities. Each is an ecstasy, a withdrawal from the common life."
Cotgrave listened, interested. He had been brought by a friend to this mouldering house in a northern suburb, through an old garden to the room where Ambrose the recluse dozed and dreamed over his books.
"Yes," he went on, "magic is justified of her children. I There are many, I think, who eat dry crusts and drink water, with a joy infinitely sharper than anything within the experience of the 'practical' epicure."
"You are speaking of the saints?"
"Yes, and of the sinners, too. I think you are falling into the very general error of confining the spiritual world to the supremely good; but the supremely wicked, necessarily, have their portion in it. The merely carnal, sensual man can no more be a great sinner than he can be a great saint. Most of us are just indifferent, mixed-up creatures; we muddle through the world without realizing the meaning and the inner sense of things, and, consequently, our wickedness and our goodness are alike second-rate, unimportant."
"And you think the great sinner, then, will be an ascetic, as well as the great saint?"
"Great people of all kinds forsake the imperfect copies and go to the perfect originals. I have no doubt but that many of the very highest among the saints have never done a 'good action' (using the words in their ordinary sense). And, on the other hand, there have been those who have sounded the very depths of sin, who all their lives have never done an 'ill deed.'"
He went out of the room for a moment, and Cotgrave, in high delight, turned to his friend and thanked him for the introduction.
"He's grand," he said. "I never saw that kind of lunatic before."
Ambrose returned with more whisky and helped the two men in a liberal manner. He abused the teetotal sect with ferocity, as he handed the seltzer, and pouring out a glass of water for himself, was about to resume his monologue, when Cotgrave broke in--
"I can't stand it, you know," he said, "your paradoxes are too monstrous. A man may be a great sinner and yet never do anything sinful! Come!"
"You're quite wrong," said Ambrose. "I never make paradoxes; I wish I could. I merely said that a man may have an exquisite taste in Romanée Conti, and yet never have even smelt four ale. That's all, and it's more like a truism than a paradox, isn't it? Your surprise at my remark is due to the fact that you haven't realized what sin is. Oh, yes, there is a sort of connexion between Sin with the capital letter, and actions which are commonly called sinful: with murder, theft, adultery, and so forth. Much the same connexion that there is between the A, B, C and fine literature. But I believe that the misconception--it is all but universal--arises in great measure from our looking at the matter through social spectacles. We think that a man who does evil to us and to his neighbours must be very evil. So he is, from a social standpoint; but can't you realize that Evil in its essence is a lonely thing, a passion of the solitary, individual soul? Really, the average murderer, quâ murderer, is not by any means a sinner in the true sense of the word. He is simply a wild beast that we have to get rid of to save our own necks from his knife. I should class him rather with tigers than with sinners."
"It seems a little strange."
"I think not. The murderer murders not from positive qualities, but from negative ones; he lacks something which non-murderers possess. Evil, of course, is wholly positive--only it is on the wrong side. You may believe me that sin in its proper sense is very rare; it is probable that there have been far fewer sinners than saints. Yes, your standpoint is all very well for practical, social purposes; we are naturally inclined to think that a person who is very disagreeable to us must be a very great sinner! It is very disagreeable to have one's pocket picked, and we pronounce the thief to be a very great sinner. In truth, he is merely an undeveloped man. He cannot be a saint, of course; but he may be, and often is, an infinitely better creature than thousands who have never broken a single commandment. He is a great nuisance to us, I admit, and we very properly lock him up if we catch him; but between his troublesome and unsocial action and evil--Oh, the connexion is of the weakest."
It was getting very late. The man who had brought Cotgrave had probably heard all this before, since he assisted with a bland and judicious smile, but Cotgrave began to think that his "lunatic" was turning into a sage.
"Do you know," he said, "you interest me immensely? You think, then, that we do not understand the real nature of evil?"
"No, I don't think we do. We over-estimate it and we under-estimate it. We take the very numerous infractions of our social 'bye-laws'--the very necessary and very proper regulations which keep the human company together--and we get frightened at the prevalence of 'sin' and 'evil.' But this is really nonsense. Take theft, for example. Have you any horror at the thought of Robin Hood, of the Highland caterans of the seventeenth century, of the moss-troopers, of the company promoters of our day?
"Then, on the other hand, we underrate evil. We attach such an enormous importance to the 'sin' of meddling with our pockets (and our wives) that we have quite forgotten the awfulness of real sin."
"And what is sin?" said Cotgrave.
"I think I must reply to your question by another. What would your feelings be, seriously, if your cat or your dog began to talk to you, and to dispute with you in human accents? You would be overwhelmed with horror. I am sure of it. And if the roses in your garden sang a weird song, you would go mad. And suppose the stones in the road began to swell and grow before your eyes, and if the pebble that you noticed at night had shot out stony blossoms in the morning?
"Well, these examples may give you some notion of what sin really is."
"Look here," said the third man, hitherto placid, "you two seem pretty well wound up. But I'm going home. I've missed my tram, and I shall have to walk."
Ambrose and Cotgrave seemed to settle down more profoundly when the other had gone out into the early misty morning and the pale light of the lamps.
"You astonish me," said Cotgrave. "I had never thought of that. If that is really so, one must turn everything upside down. Then the essence of sin really is----"
"In the taking of heaven by storm, it seems to me," said Ambrose. "It appears to me that it is simply an attempt to penetrate into another and higher sphere in a forbidden manner. You can understand why it is so rare. There are few, indeed, who wish to penetrate into other spheres, higher or lower, in ways allowed or forbidden. Men, in the mass, are amply content with life as they find it. Therefore there are few saints, and sinners (in the proper sense) are fewer still, and men of genius, who partake sometimes of each character, are rare also. Yes; on the whole, it is, perhaps, harder to be a great sinner than a great saint."
"There is something profoundly unnatural about Sin? Is that what you mean?"
"Exactly. Holiness requires as great, or almost as great, an effort; but holiness works on lines that were natural once; it is an effort to recover the ecstasy that was before the Fall. But sin is an effort to gain the ecstasy and the knowledge that pertain alone to angels and in making this effort man becomes a demon. I told you that the mere murderer is not therefore a sinner; that is true, but the sinner is sometimes a murderer. Gilles de Raiz is an instance. So you see that while the good and the evil are unnatural to man as he now is--to man the social, civilized being--evil is unnatural in a much deeper sense than good. The saint endeavours to recover a gift which he has lost; the sinner tries to obtain something which was never his. In brief, he repeats the Fall."
"But are you a Catholic?" said Cotgrave.
"Yes; I am a member of the persecuted Anglican Church."
"Then, how about those texts which seem to reckon as sin that which you would set down as a mere trivial dereliction?"
"Yes; but in one place the word 'sorcerers' comes in the same sentence, doesn't it? That seems to me to give the key-note. Consider: can you imagine for a moment that a false statement which saves an innocent man's life is a sin? No; very good, then, it is not the mere liar who is excluded by those words; it is, above all, the 'sorcerers' who use the material life, who use the failings incidental to material life as instruments to obtain their infinitely wicked ends. And let me tell you this: our higher senses are so blunted, we are so drenched with materialism, that we should probably fail to recognize real wickedness if we encountered it."
"But shouldn't we experience a certain horror--a terror such as you hinted we would experience if a rose tree sang--in the mere presence of an evil man?"
"We should if we were natural: children and women feel this horror you speak of, even animals experience it. But with most of us convention and civilization and education have blinded and deafened and obscured the natural reason. No, sometimes we may recognize evil by its hatred of the good--one doesn't need much penetration to guess at the influence which dictated, quite unconsciously, the 'Blackwood' review of Keats--but this is purely incidental; and, as a rule, I suspect that the Hierarchs of Tophet pass quite unnoticed, or, perhaps, in certain cases, as good but mistaken men."
"But you used the word 'unconscious' just now, of Keats' reviewers. Is wickedness ever unconscious?"
"Always. It must be so. It is like holiness and genius in this as in other points; it is a certain rapture or ecstasy of the soul; a transcendent effort to surpass the ordinary bounds. So, surpassing these, it surpasses also the understanding, the faculty that takes note of that which comes before it. No, a man may be infinitely and horribly wicked and never suspect it But I tell you, evil in this, its certain and true sense, is rare, and I think it is growing rarer."
"I am trying to get hold of it all," said Cotgrave. From what you say, I gather that the true evil differs generically from that which we call evil?"
"Quite so. There is, no doubt, an analogy between the two; a resemblance such as enables us to use, quite legitimately, such terms as the 'foot of the mountain' and the 'leg of the table.' And, sometimes, of course, the two speak, as it were, in the same language. The rough miner, or 'puddler,' the untrained, undeveloped 'tiger-man,' heated by a quart or two above his usual measure, comes home and kicks his irritating and injudicious wife to death. He is a murderer. And Gilles de Raiz was a murderer. But you see the gulf that separates the two? The 'word,' if I may so speak, is accidentally the same in each case, but the 'meaning' is utterly different. It is flagrant 'Hobson Jobson' to confuse the two, or rather, it is as if one supposed that Juggernaut and the Argonauts had something to do etymologically with one another. And no doubt the same weak likeness, or analogy, runs between all the 'social' sins and the real spiritual sins, and in some cases, perhaps, the lesser may be 'schoolmasters' to lead one on to the greater--from the shadow to the reality. If you are anything of a Theologian, you will see the importance of all this."
"I am sorry to say," remarked Cotgrave, "that I have devoted very little of my time to theology. Indeed, I have often wondered on what grounds theologians have claimed the title of Science of Sciences for their favourite study; since the 'theological' books I have looked into have always seemed to me to be concerned with feeble and obvious pieties, or with the kings of Israel and Judah. I do not care to hear about those kings."
Ambrose grinned.
"We must try to avoid theological discussion," he said. "I perceive that you would be a bitter disputant. But perhaps the 'dates of the kings' have as much to do with theology as the hobnails of the murderous puddler with evil."
"Then, to return to our main subject, you think that sin is an esoteric, occult thing?"
"Yes. It is the infernal miracle as holiness is the supernal. Now and then it is raised to such a pitch that we entirely fail to suspect its existence; it is like the note of the great pedal pipes of the organ, which is so deep that we cannot hear it. In other cases it may lead to the lunatic asylum, or to still stranger issues. But you must never confuse it with mere social misdoing. Remember how the Apostle, speaking of the 'other side,' distinguishes between 'charitable' actions and charity. And as one may give all one's goods to the poor, and yet lack charity; so, remember, one may avoid every crime and yet be a sinner"
"Your psychology is very strange to me," said Cotgrave, "but I confess I like it, and I suppose that one might fairly deduce from your premisses the conclusion that the real sinner might very possibly strike the observer as a harmless personage enough?"
"Certainly, because the true evil has nothing to do with social life or social laws, or if it has, only incidentally and accidentally. It is a lonely passion of the soul--or a passion of the lonely soul--whichever you like. If, by chance, we understand it, and grasp its full significance, then, indeed, it will fill us with horror and with awe. But this emotion is widely distinguished from the fear and the disgust with which we regard the ordinary criminal, since this latter is largely or entirely founded on the regard which we have for our own skins or purses. We hate a murder, because we know that we should hate to be murdered, or to have any one that we like murdered. So, on the 'other side,' we venerate the saints, but we don't 'like' them as well as our friends. Can you persuade yourself that you would have 'enjoyed' St. Paul's company? Do you think that you and I would have 'got on' with Sir Galahad?
"So with the sinners, as with the saints. If you met a very evil man, and recognized his evil; he would, no doubt, fill you with horror and awe; but there is no reason why you should 'dislike' him. On the contrary, it is quite possible that if you could succeed in putting the sin out of your mind you might find the sinner capital company, and in a little while you might have to reason yourself back into horror. Still, how awful it is. If the roses and the lilies suddenly sang on this coming morning; if the furniture began to move in procession, as in De Maupassant's tale!"
"I am glad you have come back to that comparison," said Cotgrave, "because I wanted to ask you what it is that corresponds in humanity to these imaginary feats of inanimate things. In a word--what is sin? You have given me, I know, an abstract definition, but I should like a concrete example."
"I told you it was very rare," said Ambrose, who appeared willing to avoid the giving of a direct answer. "The materialism of the age, which has done a good deal to suppress sanctity, has done perhaps more to suppress evil. We find the earth so very comfortable that we have no inclination either for ascents or descents. It would seem as if the scholar who decided to 'specialize' in Tophet, would be reduced to purely antiquarian researches. No palæontologist could show you a live pterodactyl."
"And yet you, I think, have 'specialized,' and I believe that your researches have descended to our modern times."
"You are really interested, I see. Well, I confess, that I have dabbled a little, and if you like I can show you something that bears on the very curious subject we have been discussing."
Ambrose took a candle and went away to a far, dim corner of the room. Cotgrave saw him open a venerable bureau that stood there, and from some secret recess he drew out a parcel, and came back to the window where they had been sitting.
Ambrose undid a wrapping of paper, and produced a green pocket-book.
"You will take care of it?" he said. "Don't leave it lying about. It is one of the choicer pieces in my collection, and I should be very sorry if it were lost."
He fondled the faded binding.
"I knew the girl who wrote this," he said. "When you read it, you will see how it illustrates the talk we have had to-night. There is a sequel, too, but I won't talk of that.
"There was an odd article in one of the reviews some months ago," he began again, with the air of a man who changes the subject. "It was written by a doctor--Dr. Coryn, I think, was the name. He says that a lady, watching her little girl playing at the drawing-room window, suddenly saw the heavy sash give way and fall on the child's fingers. The lady fainted, I think, but at any rate the doctor was summoned, and when he had dressed the child's wounded and maimed fingers he was summoned to the mother. She was groaning with pain, and it was found that three fingers of her hand, corresponding with those that had been injured on the child's hand, were swollen and inflamed, and later, in the doctor's language, purulent sloughing set in."
Ambrose still handled delicately the green volume.
"Well, here it is," he said at last, parting with difficulty, it seemed, from his treasure.
"You will bring it back as soon as you have read it," he said, as they went out into the hall, into the old garden, faint with the odour of white lilies.
There was a broad red band in the east as Cotgrave turned to go, and from the high ground where he stood he saw that awful spectacle of London in a dream.
The morocco binding of the book was faded, and the colour had grown faint, but there were no stains nor bruises nor marks of usage. The book looked as if it had been bought "on a visit to London" some seventy or eighty years ago, and had somehow been forgotten and suffered to lie away out of sight. There was an old, delicate, lingering odour about it, such an odour as sometimes haunts an ancient piece of furniture for a century or more. The end-papers, inside the binding, were oddly decorated with coloured patterns and faded gold. It looked small, but the paper was fine, and there were many leaves, closely covered with minute, painfully formed characters.
I found this book (the manuscript began) in a
drawer in the old bureau that stands on the landing. It was
a very rainy day and I could not go out, so in the afternoon
I got a candle and rummaged in the bureau. Nearly all the
drawers were full of old dresses, but one of the small ones
looked empty, and I found this book hidden right at the
back. I wanted a book like this, so I took it to write in.
It is full of secrets. I have a great many other books of
secrets I have written, hidden in a safe place, and I am
going to write here many of the old secrets and some new
ones; but there are some I shall not put down at all. I must
not write down the real names of the days and months which I
found out a year ago, nor the way to make the Aklo letters,
or the Chian language, or the great beautiful Circles, nor
the Mao Games, nor the chief songs. I may write something
about all these things but not the way to do them, for
peculiar reasons. And I must not say who the Nymphs are, or
the Dôls, or Jeelo, or what voolas mean. All these are
most secret secrets, and I am glad when I remember what they
are, and how many wonderful languages I know, but there are
some things that I call the secrets of the secrets of the
secrets that I dare not think of unless I am quite alone,
and then I shut my eyes, and put my hands over them and
whisper the word, and the Alala comes. I only do this at
night in my room or in certain woods that I know, but I must
not describe them, as they are secret woods. Then there are
the Ceremonies, which are all of them important, but some
are more delightful than others-- When I was very small, and mother was alive,
I can remember remembering things before that, only it has
all got confused. But I remember when I was five or six I
heard them talking about me when they thought I was not
noticing. They were saying how queer I was a year or two
before, and how nurse had called my mother to come and
listen to me talking all to myself, and I was saying words
that nobody could understand. I was speaking the Xu
language, but I only remember a very few of the words, as it
was about the little white faces that used to look at me
when I was lying in my cradle. They used to talk to me, and
I learnt their language and talked to them in it about some
great white place where they lived, where the trees and the
grass were all white, and there were white hills as high up
as the moon, and a cold wind. I have often dreamed of it
afterwards, but the faces went away when I was very little.
But a wonderful thing happened when I was about five. My
nurse was carrying me on her shoulder; there was a field of
yellow corn, and we went through it, it was very hot. Then
we came to a path through a wood, and a tall man came after
us, and went with us till we came to a place where there was
a deep pool, and it was very dark and shady. Nurse put me
down on the soft moss under a tree, and she said: "She
can't get to the pond now." So they left me there, and
I sat quite still and watched, and out of the water and out
of the wood came two wonderful white people, and they began
to play and dance and sing. They were a kind of creamy white
like the old ivory figure in the drawing-room; one was a
beautiful lady with kind dark eyes, and a grave face, and
long black hair, and she smiled such a strange sad smile at
the other, who laughed and came to her. They played
together, and danced round and round the pool, and they sang
a song till I fell asleep. Nurse woke me up when she came
back, and she was looking something like the lady had
looked, so I told her all about it, and asked her why she
looked like that. At first she cried, and then she looked
very frightened, and turned quite pale. She put me down on
the grass and stared at me, and I could see she was shaking
all over. Then she said I had been dreaming, but I knew I
hadn't. Then she made me promise not to say a word about it
to anybody, and if I did I should be thrown into the black
pit. I was not frightened at all, though nurse was, and I
never forgot about it, because when I shut my eyes and it
was quite quiet, and I was all alone, I could see them
again, very faint and far away, but very splendid; and
little bits of the song they sang came into my head, but I
couldn't sing it.
I was thirteen, nearly fourteen, when I had a
very singular adventure, so strange that the day on which it
happened is always called the White Day. My mother had been
dead for more than a year, and in the morning I had lessons,
but they let me go out for walks in the afternoon. And this
afternoon I walked a new way, and a little brook led me into
a new country, but I tore my frock getting through some of
the difficult places, as the way was through many bushes,
and beneath the low branches of trees, and up thorny
thickets on the hills, and by dark woods full of creeping
thorns. And it was a long, long way. It seemed as if I was
going on for ever and ever, and I had to creep by a place
like a tunnel where a brook must have been, but all the
water had dried up, and the floor was rocky, and the bushes
had grown overhead till they met, so that it was quite dark.
And I went on and on through that dark place; it was a long,
long way. And I came to a hill that I never saw before. I
was in a dismal thicket full of black twisted boughs that
tore me as I went through them, and I cried out because I
was smarting all over, and then I found that I was climbing,
and I went up and up a long way, till at last the thicket
stopped and I came out crying just under the top of a big
bare place, where there were ugly grey stones lying all
about on the grass, and here and there a little twisted,
stunted tree came out from under a stone, like a snake. And
I went up, right to the top, a long way. I never saw such
big ugly stones before; they came out of the earth some of
them, and some looked as if they had been rolled to where
they were, and they went on and on as far as I could see, a
long, long way. I looked out from them and saw the country,
but it was strange. It was winter time, and there were black
terrible woods hanging from the hills all round; it was like
seeing a large room hung with black curtains, and the shape
of the trees seemed quite different from any I had ever seen
before. I was afraid. Then beyond the woods there were other
hills round in a great ring, but I had never seen any of
them; it all looked black, and everything had a voor over
it. It was all so still and silent, and the sky was heavy
and grey and sad, like a wicked voorish dome in Deep Dendo.
I went on into the dreadful rocks. There were hundreds and
hundreds of them. Some were like horrid-grinning men; I
could see their faces as if they would jump at me out of the
stone, and catch hold of me, and drag me with them back into
the rock, so that I should always be there. And there were
other rocks that were like animals, creeping, horrible
animals, putting out their tongues, and others were like
words that I could not say, and others like dead people
lying on the grass. I went on among them, though they
frightened me, and my heart was full of wicked songs that
they put into it; and I wanted to make faces and twist
myself about in the way they did, and I went on and on a
long way till at last I liked the rocks, and they didn't
frighten me any more. I sang the songs I thought of; songs
full of words that must not be spoken or written down. Then
I made faces like the faces on the rocks, and I twisted
myself about like the twisted ones, and I lay down flat on
the ground like the dead ones, and I went up to one that was
grinning, and put my arms round him and hugged him. And so I
went on and on through the rocks till I came to a round
mound in the middle of them. It was higher than a mound, it
was nearly as high as our house, and it was like a great
basin turned upside down, all smooth and round and green,
with one stone, like a post, sticking up at the top. I
climbed up the sides, but they were so steep I had to stop
or I should have rolled all the way down again, and I should
have knocked against the stones at the bottom, and perhaps
been killed. But I wanted to get up to the very top of the
big round mound, so I lay down flat on my face, and took
hold of the grass with my hands and drew myself up, bit by
bit, till I was at the top Then I sat down on the stone in
the middle, and looked all round about. I felt I had come
such a long, long way, just as if I were a hundred miles
from home, or in some other country, or in one of the
strange places I had read about in the "Tales of the
Genie" and the "Arabian Nights," or as if I
had gone across the sea, far away, for years and I had found
another world that nobody had ever seen or heard of before,
or as if I had somehow flown through the sky and fallen on
one of the stars I had read about where everything is dead
and cold and grey, and there is no air, and the wind doesn't
blow. I sat on the stone and looked all round and down and
round about me. It was just as if I was sitting on a tower
in the middle of a great empty town, because I could see
nothing all around but the grey rocks on the ground. I
couldn't make out their shapes any more, but I could see
them on and on for a long way, and I looked at them, and
they seemed as if they had been arranged into patterns, and
shapes, and figures. I knew they couldn't be. because I had
seen a lot of them coming right out of the earth, joined to
the deep rocks below, so I looked again, but still I saw
nothing but circles, and small circles inside big ones, and
pyramids, and domes, and spires, and they seemed all to go
round and round the place where I was sitting, and the more
I looked, the more I saw great big rings of rocks, getting
bigger and bigger, and I stared so long that it felt as if
they were all moving and turning, like a great wheel, and I
was turning, too, in the middle. I got quite dizzy and queer
in the head, and everything began to be hazy and not clear,
and I saw little sparks of blue light, and the stones looked
as if they were springing and dancing and twisting as they
went round and round and round. I was frightened again, and
I cried out loud, and jumped up from the stone I was sitting
on, and fell down. When I got up I was so glad they all
looked still, and I sat down on the top and slid down the
mound, and went on again. I danced as I went in the peculiar
way the rocks had danced when I got giddy, and I was so glad
I could do it quite well, and I danced and danced along, and
sang extraordinary songs that came into my head. At last I
came to the edge of that great flat hill, and there were no
more rocks, and the way went again through a dark thicket in
a hollow. It was just as bad as the other one I went through
climbing up, but I didn't mind this one, because I was so
glad I had seen those singular dances and could imitate
them. I went down, creeping through the bushes, and a tall
nettle stung me on my leg, and made me burn, but I didn't
mind it, and I tingled with the boughs and the thorns, but I
only laughed and sang. Then I got out of the thicket into a
close valley, a little secret place like a dark passage that
nobody ever knows of, because it was so narrow and deep and
the woods were so thick round it. There is a steep bank with
trees hanging over it, and there the ferns keep green all
through the winter, when they are dead and brown upon the
hill, and the ferns there have a sweet, rich smell like what
oozes out of fir trees. There was a little stream of water
running down this valley, so small that I could easily step
across it. I drank the water with my hand, and it tasted
like bright, yellow wine, and it sparkled and bubbled as it
ran down over beautiful red and yellow and green stones, so
that it seemed alive and all colours at once. I drank it,
and I drank more with my hand, but I couldn't drink enough,
so I lay down and bent my head and sucked the water up with
my lips. It tasted much better, drinking it that way, and a
ripple would come up to my mouth and give me a kiss, and I
laughed, and drank again, and pretended there was a nymph,
like the one in the old picture at home, who lived in the
water and was kissing me. So I bent low down to the water,
and put my lips softly to it, and whispered to the nymph
that I would come again. I felt sure it could not be common
water, I was so glad when I got up and went on; and I danced
again and went up and up the valley, under hanging hills.
And when I came to the top, the ground rose up in front of
me, tall and steep as a wall, and there was nothing but the
green wall and the sky. I thought of "for ever and for
ever, world without end, Amen"; and I thought I must
have really found the end of the world, because it was like
the end of everything, as if there could be nothing at all
beyond, except the kingdom of Voor, where the light goes
when it is put out, and the water goes when the sun takes it
away. I began to think of all the long, long way I had
journeyed, how I had found a brook and followed it, and
followed it on, and gone through bushes and thorny thickets,
and dark woods full of creeping thorns. Then I had crept up
a tunnel under trees, and climbed a thicket, and seen all
the grey rocks, and sat in the middle of them when they
turned round, and then I had gone on through the grey rocks
and come down the hill through the stinging thicket and up
the dark valley, all a long, long way. I wondered how I
should get home again, if I could ever find the way, and if
my home was there any more, or if it were turned and
everybody in it into grey rocks, as in the "Arabian
Nights." So I sat down on the grass and thought what I
should do next. I was tired, and my feet were hot with
walking, and as I looked about I saw there was a wonderful
well just under the high, steep wall of grass. All the
ground round it was covered with bright, green, dripping
moss; there was every kind of moss there, moss like
beautiful little ferns, and like palms and fir trees, and it
was all green as jewellery, and drops of water hung on it
like diamonds. And in the middle was the great well, deep
and shining and beautiful, so clear that it looked as if I
could touch the red sand at the bottom, but it was far
below. I stood by it and looked in, as if I were looking in
a glass. At the bottom of the well, in the middle of it, the
red grains of sand were moving and stirring all the time,
and I saw how the water bubbled up, but at the top it was
quite smooth, and full and brimming. It was a great well,
large like a bath, and with the shining, glittering green
moss about it, it looked like a great white jewel, with
green jewels all round. My feet were so hot and tired that I
took off my boots and stockings, and let my feet down into
the water, and the water was soft and cold, and when I got
up I wasn't tired any more, and I felt I must go on, farther
and farther, and see what was on the other side of the wall.
I climbed up it very slowly, going sideways all the time,
and when I got to the top and looked over, I was in the
queerest country I had seen, stranger even than the hill of
the grey rocks. It looked as if earth-children had been
playing there with their spades, as it was all hills and
hollows, and castles and walls made of earth and covered
with grass. There were two mounds like big beehives, round
and great and solemn, and then hollow basins, and then a
steep mounting wall like the ones I saw once by the seaside
where the big guns and the soldiers were. I nearly fell into
one of the round hollows, it went away from under my feet so
suddenly, and I ran fast down the side and stood at the
bottom and looked up. It was strange and solemn to look up.
There was nothing but the grey, heavy sky and the sides of
the hollow; everything else had gone away, and the hollow
was the whole world, and I thought that at night it must be
full of ghosts and moving shadows and pale things when the
moon shone down to the bottom at the dead of the night, and
the wind wailed up above. It was so strange and solemn and
lonely, like a hollow temple of dead heathen gods. It
reminded me of a tale my nurse had told me when I was quite
little; it was the same nurse that took me into the wood
where I saw the beautiful white people. And I remembered how
nurse had told me the story one winter night, when the wind
was beating the trees against the wall, and crying and
moaning in the nursery chimney. She said there was,
somewhere or other, a hollow pit, just like the one I was
standing in, everybody was afraid to go into it or near it,
it was such a bad place. But once upon a time there was a
poor girl who said she would go into the hollow pit, and
everybody tried to stop her, but she would go. And she went
down into the pit and came back laughing, and said there was
nothing there at all, except green grass and red stones, and
white stones and yellow flowers. And soon after people saw
she had most beautiful emerald earrings, and they asked how
she got them, as she and her mother were quite poor. But she
laughed, and said her earrings were not made of emeralds at
all, but only of green grass. Then, one day, she wore on her
breast the reddest ruby that any one had ever seen, and it
was as big as a hen's egg, and glowed and sparkled like a
hot burning coal of fire. And they asked how she got it, as
she and her mother were quite poor. But she laughed, and
said it was not a ruby at all, but only a red stone. Then
one day she wore round her neck the loveliest necklace that
any one had ever seen, much finer than the queen's finest,
and it was made of great bright diamonds, hundreds of them,
and they shone like all the stars on a night in June. So
they asked her how she got it, as she and her mother were
quite poor. But she laughed, and said they were not diamonds
at all, but only white stones. And one day she went to the
Court, and she wore on her head a crown of pure angel-gold,
so nurse said, and it shone like the sun, and it was much
more splendid than the crown the king was wearing himself,
and in her ears she wore the emeralds, and the big ruby was
the brooch on her breast, and the great diamond necklace was
sparkling on her neck. And the king and queen thought she
was some great princess from a long way off, and got down
from their thrones and went to meet her, but somebody told
the king and queen who she was, and that she was quite poor.
So the king asked why she wore a gold crown, and how she got
it, as she and her mother were so poor. And she laughed, and
said it wasn't a gold crown at all, but only some yellow
flowers she had put in her hair. And the king thought it was
very strange, and said she should stay at the Court, and
they would see what would happen next. And she was so lovely
that everybody said that her eyes were greener than the
emeralds, that her lips were redder than the ruby, that her
skin was whiter than the diamonds, and that her hair was
brighter than the golden crown. So the king's son said he
would marry her, and the king said he might. And the bishop
married them, and there was a great supper, and after- wards
the king's son went to his wife's room. But just when he had
his hand on the door, he saw a tall, black man, with a
dreadful face, standing in front of the door, and a voice
said--
Then the king's son fell down on the ground in a fit. And
they came and tried to get into the room, but they couldn't,
and they hacked at the door with hatchets, but the wood had
turned hard as iron, and at last everybody ran away, they
were so frightened at the screaming and laughing and
shrieking and crying that came out of the room. But next day
they went in, and found there was nothing in the room but
thick black smoke, because the black man had come and taken
her away. And on the bed there were two knots of faded grass
and a red stone, and some white stones, and some faded
yellow flowers. I remembered this tale of nurse's while I
was standing at the bottom of the deep hollow; it was so
strange and solitary there, and I felt afraid. I could not
see any stones or flowers, but I was afraid of bringing them
away without knowing, and I thought I would do a charm that
came into my head to keep the black man away. So I stood
right in the very middle of the hollow, and I made sure that
I had none of those things on me, and then I walked round
the place, and touched my eyes, and my lips, and my hair in
a peculiar manner, and whispered some queer words that nurse
taught me to keep bad things away. Then I felt safe and
climbed up out of the hollow, and went on through all those
mounds and hollows and walls, till I came to the end, which
was high above all the rest, and I could see that all the
different shapes of the earth were arranged in patterns,
something like the grey rocks, only the pattern was
different. It was getting late, and the air was indistinct,
but it looked from where I was standing something like two
great figures of people lying on the grass. And I went on,
and at last I found a certain wood, which is too secret to
be described, and nobody knows of the passage into it, which
I found out in a very curious manner, by seeing some little
animal run into the wood through it. So I went after the
animal by a very narrow dark way, under thorns and bushes,
and it was almost dark when I came to a kind of open place
in the middle. And there I saw the most wonderful sight I
have ever seen, but it was only for a minute, as I ran away
directly, and crept out of the wood by the passage I had
come by, and ran and ran as fast as ever I could, because I
was afraid, what I had seen was so wonderful and so strange
and beautiful. But I wanted to get home and think of it, and
I did not know what might not happen if I stayed by the
wood. I was hot all over and trembling, and my heart was
beating, and strange cries that I could not help came from
me as I ran from the wood. I was glad that a great white
moon came up from over a round hill and showed me the way,
so I went back through the mounds and hollows and down the
close valley, and up through the thicket over the place of
the grey rocks, and so at last I got home again. My father
was busy in his study, and the servants had not told about
my not coming home, though they were frightened, and
wondered what they ought to do, so I told them I had lost my
way, but I did not let them find out the real way I had
been. I went to bed and lay awake all through the night,
thinking of what I had seen. When I came out of the narrow
way, and it looked all shining, though the air was dark, it
seemed so certain, and all the way home I was quite sure
that I had seen it, and I wanted to be alone in my room, and
be glad over it all to myself, and shut my eyes and pretend
it was there, and do all the things I would have done if I
had not been so afraid. But when I shut my eyes the sight
would not come, and I began to think about my adventures all
over again, and I remembered how dusky and queer it was at
the end, and I was afraid it must be all a mistake, because
it seemed impossible it could happen. It seemed like one of
nurse's tales, which I didn't really believe in, though I
was frightened at the bottom of the hollow; and the stories
she told me when I was little came back into my head, and I
wondered whether it was really there what I thought I had
seen, or whether any of her tales could have happened a long
time ago. It was so queer; I lay awake there in my room at
the back of the house, and the moon was shining on the other
side towards the river, so the bright light did not fall
upon the wall. And the house was quite still. I had heard my
father come upstairs, and just after the clock struck
twelve, and after the house was still and empty, as if there
was nobody alive in it. And though it was all dark and
indistinct in my room, a pale glimmering kind of light shone
in through the white blind, and once I got up and looked
out, and there was a great black shadow of the house
covering the garden, looking like a prison where men are
hanged; and then beyond it was all white; and the wood shone
white with black gulfs between the trees. It was still and
clear, and there were no clouds on the sky. I wanted to
think of what I had seen but I couldn't, and I began to
think of all the tales that nurse had told me so long ago
that I thought I had forgotten, but they all came back, and
mixed up with the thickets and the grey rocks and the
hollows in the earth and the secret wood, till I hardly knew
what was new and what was old, or whether it was not all
dreaming. And then I remembered that hot summer afternoon,
so long ago, when nurse left me by myself in the shade, and
the white people came out of the water and out of the wood,
and played, and danced, and sang, and I began to fancy that
nurse told me about something like it before I saw them,
only I couldn't recollect exactly what she told me. Then I
wondered whether she had been the white lady, as I
remembered she was just as white and beautiful, and had the
same dark eyes and black hair; and sometimes she smiled and
looked like the lady had looked, when she was telling me
some of her stories, beginning with "Once on a
time," or "In the time of the fairies." But I
thought she couldn't be the lady, as she seemed to have gone
a different way into the wood, and I didn't think the man
who came after us could be the other, or I couldn't have
seen that wonderful secret in the secret wood. I thought of
the moon: but it was afterwards when I was in the middle of
the wild land, where the earth was made into the shape of
great figures, and it was all walls, and mysterious hollows,
and smooth round mounds, that I saw the great white moon
come up over a round hill. I was wondering about all these
things, till at last I got quite frightened, because I was
afraid something had happened to me, and I remembered
nurse's tale of the poor girl who went into the hollow pit,
and was carried away at last by the black man. I knew I had
gone into a hollow pit too, and perhaps it was the same, and
I had done something dreadful. So I did the charm over
again, and touched my eyes and my lips and my hair in a
peculiar manner, and said the old words from the fairy
language, so that I might be sure I had not been carried
away. I tried again to see the secret wood, and to creep up
the passage and see what I had seen there, but somehow I
couldn't, and I kept on thinking of nurse's stories. There
was one I remembered about a young man who once upon a time
went hunting, and all the day he and his hounds hunted
everywhere, and they crossed the rivers and went into all
the woods, and went round the marshes, but they couldn't
find anything at all, and they hunted all day till the sun
sank down and began to set behind the mountain. And the
young man was angry because he couldn't find anything, and
he was going to turn back, when just as the sun touched the
mountain, he saw come out of a brake in front of him a
beautiful white stag. And he cheered to his hounds, but they
whined and would not follow, and he cheered to his horse,
but it shivered and stood stock still, and the young man
jumped off the horse and left the hounds and began to follow
the white stag all alone. And soon it was quite dark, and
the sky was black, without a single star shining in it, and
the stag went away into the darkness. And though the man had
brought his gun with him he never shot at the stag, because
he wanted to catch it, and he was afraid he would lose it in
the night. But he never lost it once, though the sky was so
black and the air was so dark, and the stag went on and on
till the young man didn't know a bit where he was. And they
went through enormous woods where the air was full of
whispers and a pale, dead light came out from the rotten
trunks that were lying on the ground, and just as the man
thought he had lost the stag, he would see it all white and
shining in front of him, and he would run fast to catch it,
but the stag always ran faster, so he did not catch it. And
they went through the enormous woods, and they swam across
rivers, and they waded through black marshes where the
ground bubbled, and the air was full of will-o'-the-wisps,
and the stag fled away down into rocky narrow valleys, where
the air was like the smell of a vault, and the man went
after it. And they went over the great mountains and the man
heard the wind come down from the sky, and the stag went on
and the man went after. At last the sun rose and the young
man found he was in a country that he had never seen before;
it was a beautiful valley with a bright stream running
through it, and a great, big round hill in the middle. And
the stag went down the valley, towards the hill, and it
seemed to be getting tired and went slower and slower, and
though the man was tired, too, he began to run faster, and
he was sure he would catch the stag at last. But just as
they got to the bottom of the hill, and the man stretched
out his hand to catch the stag, it vanished into the earth,
and the man began to cry; he was so sorry that he had lost
it after all his long hunting. But as he was crying he saw
there was a door in the hill, just in front of him, and he
went in, and it was quite dark, but he went on, as he
thought he would find the white stag. And all of a sudden it
got light, and there was the sky, and the sun shining, and
birds singing in the trees, and there was a beautiful
fountain. And by the fountain a lovely lady was sitting, who
was the queen of the fairies, and she told the man that she
had changed herself into a stag to bring him there because
she loved him so much. Then she brought out a great gold
cup, covered with jewels, from her fairy palace, and she
offered him wine in the cup to drink. And he drank, and the
more he drank the more he longed to drink, because the wine
was enchanted. So he kissed the lovely lady, and she became
his wife, and he stayed all that day and all that night in
the hill where she lived, and when he woke he found he was
lying on the ground, close to where he had seen the stag
first, and his horse was there and his hounds were there
waiting, and he looked up, and the sun sank behind the
mountain. And he went home and lived a long time, but he
would never kiss any other lady because he had kissed the
queen of the fairies, and he would never drink common wine
any more, because he had drunk enchanted wine. And sometimes
nurse told me tales that she had heard from her
great-grandmother, who was very old, and lived in a cottage
on the mountain all alone, and most of these tales were
about a hill where people used to meet at night long ago,
and they used to play all sorts of strange games and do
queer things that nurse told me of, but I couldn't
understand, and now, she said, everybody but her
great-grandmother had forgotten all about it, and nobody
knew where the hill was, not even her great-grandmother. But
she told me one very strange story about the hill, and I
trembled when I remembered it. She said that people always
went there in summer, when it was very hot, and they had to
dance a good deal. It would be all dark at first, and there
were trees there, which made it much darker, and people
would come, one by one, from all directions, by a secret
path which nobody else knew, and two persons would keep the
gate, and every one as they came up had to give a very
curious sign, which nurse showed me as well as she could,
but she said she couldn't show me properly. And all kinds of
people would come; there would be gentle folks and village
folks, and some old people and boys and girls, and quite
small children, who sat and watched. And it would all be
dark as they came in, except in one corner where some one
was burning something that smelt strong and sweet, and made
them laugh, and there one would see a glaring of coals, and
the smoke mounting up red. So they would all come in, and
when the last had come there was no door any more, so that
no one else could get in, even if they knew there was
anything beyond. And once a gentleman who was a stranger and
had ridden a long way, lost his path at night, and his horse
took him into the very middle of the wild country, where
everything was up- side down, and there were dreadful
marshes and great stones everywhere, and holes underfoot,
and the trees looked like gibbet-posts, because they had
great black arms that stretched out across the way. And this
strange gentleman was very frightened, and his horse began
to shiver all over, and at last it stopped and wouldn't go
any farther, and the gentleman got down and tried to lead
the horse, but it wouldn't move, and it was all covered with
a sweat, like death. So the gentleman went on all alone,
going farther and farther into the wild country, till at
last he came to a dark place, where he heard shouting and
singing and crying, like nothing he had ever heard before.
It all sounded quite close to him, but he couldn't get in,
and so he began to call, and while he was calling, something
came behind him, and in a minute his mouth and arms and legs
were all bound up, and he fell into a swoon. And when he
came to himself, he was lying by the roadside, just where he
had first lost his way, under a blasted oak with a black
trunk, and his horse was tied beside him. So he rode on to
the town and told the people there what had happened, and
some of them were amazed; but others knew. So when once
everybody had come, there was no door at all for anybody
else to pass in by. And when they were all inside, round in
a ring, touching each other, some one began to sing in the
darkness, and some one else would make a noise like thunder
with a thing they had on purpose, and on still nights people
would hear the thundering noise far, far away beyond the
wild land, and some of them, who thought they knew what it
was, used to make a sign on their breasts when they woke up
in their beds at dead of night and heard that terrible deep
noise, like thunder on the mountains. And the noise and the
singing would go on and on for a long time, and the people
who were in a ring swayed a little to and fro; and the song
was in an old, old language that nobody knows now, and the
tune was queer. Nurse said her great-grandmother had known
some one who remembered a little of it, when she was quite a
little girl, and nurse tried to sing some of it to me, and
it was so strange a tune that I turned all cold and my flesh
crept as if I had put my hand on something dead. Sometimes
it was a man that sang and some- times it was a woman, and
sometimes the one who sang it did it so well that two or
three of the people who were there fell to the ground
shrieking and tearing with their hands. The singing went on,
and the people in the ring kept swaying to and fro for a
long time, and at last the moon would rise over a place they
called the Tole Deol, and came up and showed them swinging
and swaying from side to side, with the sweet thick smoke
curling up from the burning coals, and floating in circles
all around them. Then they had their supper. A boy and a
girl brought it to them; the boy carried a great cup of
wine, and the girl carried a cake of bread, and they passed
the bread and the wine round and round, but they tasted
quite different from common bread and common wine, and
changed everybody that tasted them. Then they all rose up
and danced, and secret things were brought out of some
hiding place, and they played extraordinary games, and
danced round and round and round in the moonlight, and
sometimes people would suddenly disappear and never be heard
of afterwards, and nobody knew what had happened to them.
And they drank more of that curious wine, and they made
images and worshipped them, and nurse showed me how the
images were made one day when we were out for a walk, and we
passed by a place where there was a lot of wet clay. So
nurse asked me if I would like to know what those things
were like that they made on the hill, and I said yes. Then
she asked me if I would promise never to tell a living soul
a word about it, and if I did I was to be thrown into the
black pit with the dead people, and I said I wouldn't tell
anybody, and she said the same thing again and again, and I
promised. So she took my wooden spade and dug a big lump of
clay and put it in my tin bucket, and told me to say if any
one met us that I was going to make pies when I went home.
Then we went on a little way till we came to a little brake
growing right down into the road, and nurse stopped, and
looked up the road and down it, and then peeped through the
hedge into the field on the other side, and then she said,
"Quick!" and we ran into the brake, and crept in
and out among the bushes till we had gone a good way from
the road. Then we sat down under a bush, and I wanted so
much to know what nurse was going to make with the clay, but
before she would begin she made me promise again not to say
a word about it, and she went again and peeped through the
bushes on every side, though the lane was so small and deep
that hardly anybody ever went there. So we sat down, and
nurse took the clay out of the bucket, and began to knead it
with her hands, and do queer things with it, and turn it
about. And she hid it under a big dock-leaf for a minute or
two and then she brought it out again, and then she stood up
and sat down, and walked round the clay in a peculiar
manner, and all the time she was softly singing a sort of
rhyme, and her face got very red. Then she sat down again,
and took the clay in her hands and began to shape it into a
doll, but not like the dolls I have at home, and she made
the queerest doll I had ever seen, all out of the wet clay,
and hid it under a bush to get dry and hard, and all the
time she was making it she was singing these rhymes to
herself, and her face got redder and redder. So we left the
doll there, hidden away in the bushes where nobody would
ever find it. And a few days later we went the same walk,
and when we came to that narrow, dark part of the lane where
the brake runs down to the bank, nurse made me promise all
over again, and she looked about, just as she had done
before, and we crept into the bushes till we got to the
green place where the little clay man was hidden. I remember
it all so well, though I was only eight, and it is eight
years ago now as I am writing it down, but the sky was a
deep violet blue, and in the middle of the brake where we
were sitting there was a great elder tree covered with
blossoms, and on the other side there was a clump of
meadowsweet, and when I think of that day the smell of the
meadowsweet and elder blossom seems to fill the room, and if
I shut my eyes I can see the glaring blue sky, with little
clouds very white floating across it, and nurse who went
away long ago sitting opposite me and looking like the
beautiful white lady in the wood. So we sat down and nurse
took out the clay doll from the secret place where she had
hidden it, and she said we must "pay our
respects," and she would show me what to do, and I must
watch her all the time. So she did all sorts of queer things
with the little clay man, and I noticed she was all
streaming with perspiration, though we had walked so slowly,
and then she told me to "pay my respects," and I
did everything she did because I liked her, and it was such
an odd game. And she said that if one loved very much, the
clay man was very good, if one did certain things with it,
and if one hated very much, it was just as good, only one
had to do different things, and we played with it a long
time, and pretended all sorts of things. Nurse said her
great-grandmother had told her all about these images, but
what we did was no harm at all, only a game. But she told me
a story about these images that frightened me very much, and
that was what I remembered that night when I was lying awake
in my room in the pale, empty darkness, thinking of what I
had seen and the secret wood. Nurse said there was once a
young lady of the high gentry, who lived in a great castle.
And she was so beautiful that all the gentlemen wanted to
marry her, because she was the loveliest lady that anybody
had ever seen, and she was kind to everybody, and everybody
thought she was very good. But though she was polite to all
the gentlemen who wished to marry her, she put them off, and
said she couldn't make up her mind, and she wasn't sure she
wanted to marry anybody at all. And her father, who was a
very great lord, was angry, though he was so fond of her,
and he asked her why she wouldn't choose a bachelor out of
all the handsome young men who came to the castle. But she
only said she didn't love any of them very much, and she
must wait, and if they pestered her, she said she would go
and be a nun in a nunnery. So all the gentlemen said they
would go away and wait for a year and a day, and when a year
and a day were gone, they would come back again and ask her
to say which one she would marry. So the day was appointed
and they all went away; and the lady had promised that in a
year and a day it would be her wedding day with one of them.
But the truth was, that she was the queen of the people who
danced on the hill on summer nights, and on the proper
nights she would lock the door of her room, and she and her
maid would steal out of the castle by a secret passage that
only they knew of, and go away up to the hill in the wild
land. And she knew more of the secret things than any one
else, and more than any one knew before or after, because
she would not tell anybody the most secret secrets. She knew
how to do all the awful things, how to destroy young men,
and how to put a curse on people, and other things that I
could not understand. And her real name was the Lady Avelin,
but the dancing people called her Cassap, which meant
somebody very wise, in the old language. And she was whiter
than any of them and taller, and her eyes shone in the dark
like burning rubies; and she could sing songs that none of
the others could sing, and when she sang they all fell down
on their faces and worshipped her. And she could do what
they called shib-show, which was a very wonderful
enchantment. She would tell the great lord, her father, that
she wanted to go into the woods to gather flowers, so he let
her go, and she and her maid went into the woods where
nobody came, and the maid would keep watch. wen the lady
would lie down under the trees and begin to sing a
particular song, and she stretched out her arms, and from
every part of the wood great serpents would come, hissing
and gliding in and out among the trees, and shooting out
their forked tongues as they crawled up to the lady. And
they all came to her, and twisted round her, round her body,
and her arms, and her neck, till she was covered with
writhing serpents, and there was only her head to be seen.
And she whispered to them, and she sang to them, and they
writhed round and round, faster and faster, till she told
them to go. And they all went away directly, back to their
holes, and on the lady's breast there would be a most
curious, beautiful stone, shaped something like an egg, and
coloured dark blue and yellow, and red, and green, marked
like a serpent's scales. It was called a glame stone, and
with it one could do all sorts of wonderful things, and
nurse said her great-grandmother had seen a glame stone with
her own eyes, and it was for all the world shiny and scaly
like a snake. And the lady could do a lot of other things as
well, but she was quite fixed that she would not be married.
And there were a great many gentlemen who wanted to marry
her, but there were five of them who were chief, and their
names were Sir Simon, Sir John, Sir Oliver, Sir Richard, and
Sir Rowland. All the others believed she spoke the truth,
and that she would choose one of them to be her man when a
year and a day was done; it was only Sir Simon, who was very
crafty, who thought she was deceiving them all, and he vowed
he would watch and try if he could find out anything. And
though he was very wise he was very young, and he had a
smooth, soft face like a girl's, and he pre- tended, as the
rest did, that he would not come to the castle for a year
and a day, and he said he was going away beyond the sea to
foreign parts. But he really only went a very little way,
and came back dressed like a servant girl, and so he got a
place in the castle to wash the dishes. And he waited and
watched, and he listened and said nothing, and he hid in
dark places, and woke up at night and looked out, and he
heard things and he saw things that he thought were very
strange. And he was so sly that he told the girl that waited
on the lady that he was really a young man, and that he had
dressed up as a girl because he loved her so very much and
wanted to be in the same house with her, and the girl was so
pleased that she told him many things, and he was more than
ever certain that the Lady Avelin was deceiving him and the
others. And he was so clever, and told the servant so many
lies, that one night he managed to hide in the Lady Avelin's
room behind the curtains. And he stayed quite still and
never moved, and at last the lady came. And she bent down
under the bed, and raised up a stone, and there was a hollow
place underneath, and out of it she took a waxen image, just
like the clay one that I and nurse had made in the brake.
And all the time her eyes were burning like rubies. And she
took the little wax doll up in her arms and held it to her
breast, and she whispered and she murmured, and she took it
up and she laid it down again, and she held it high, and she
held it low, and she laid it down again. And she said,
"Happy is he that begat the bishop, that ordered the
clerk, that married the man, that had the wife, that
fashioned the hive, that harboured the bee, that gathered
the wax that my own true love was made of." And she
brought out of an aumbry a great golden bowl, and she
brought out of a closet a great jar of wine, and she poured
some of the wine into the bowl, and she laid her mannikin
very gently in the wine, and washed it in the wine all over.
Then she went to a cupboard and took a small round cake and
laid it on the image's mouth, and then she bore it softly
and covered it up. And Sir Simon, who was watching all the
time, though he was terribly frightened, saw the lady bend
down and stretch out her arms and whisper and sing, and then
Sir Simon saw beside her a handsome young man, who kissed
her on the lips. And they drank wine out of the golden bowl
together, and they ate the cake together. But when the sun
rose there was only the little wax doll, and the lady hid it
again under the bed in the hollow place. So Sir Simon knew
quite well what the lady was, and he waited and he watched,
till the time she had said was nearly over, and in a week
the year and a day would be done. And one night, when he was
watching behind the curtains in her room, he saw her making
more wax dolls. And she made five, and hid them away. And
the next night she took one out, and held it up, and filled
the golden bowl with water, and took the doll by the neck
and held it under the water. Then she said--
And the next day news came to the castle that Sir Richard
had been drowned at the ford. And at night she took another
doll and tied a violet cord round its neck and hung it up on
a nail. Then she said--
And the next day news came to the castle that Sir Rowland
had been hanged by robbers in the wood. And at night she
took another doll, and drove her bodkin right into its
heart. Then she said--
And the next day news came to the castle that Sir Oliver
had fought in a tavern, and a stranger had stabbed him to
the heart. And at night she took another doll, and held it
to a fire of charcoal till it was melted. Then she said--
And the next day news came to the castle that Sir John
had died in a burning fever. So then Sir Simon went out of
the castle and mounted his horse and rode away to the bishop
and told him everything. And the bishop sent his men, and
they took the Lady Avelin, and everything she had done was
found out. So on the day after the year and a day, when she
was to have been married, they carried her through the town
in her smock, and they tied her to a great stake in the
market-place, and burned her alive before the bishop with
her wax image hung round her neck. And people said the wax
man screamed in the burning of the flames. And I thought of
this story again and again as I was lying awake in my bed,
and I seemed to see the Lady Avelin in the market-place,
with the yellow flames eating up her beautiful white body.
And I thought of it so much that I seemed to get into the
story myself, and I fancied I was the lady, and that they
were coming to take me to be burnt with fire, with all the
people in the town looking at me. And I wondered whether she
cared, after all the strange things she had done, and
whether it hurt very much to be burned at the stake. I tried
again and again to forget nurse's stories, and to remember
the secret I had seen that afternoon, and what was in the
secret wood, but I could only see the dark and a glimmering
in the dark, and then it went away, and I only saw myself
running, and then a great moon came up white over a dark
round hill. Then all the old stories came back again, and
the queer rhymes that nurse used to sing to me; and there
was one beginning "Halsy cumsy Helen musty," that
she used to sing very softly when she wanted me to go to
sleep. And I began to sing it to myself inside of my head,
and I went to sleep.
The next morning I was very tired and sleepy,
and could hardly do my lessons, and I was very glad when
they were over and I had had my dinner, as I wanted to go
out and be alone. It was a warm day, and I went to a nice
turfy hill by the river, and sat down on my mother's old
shawl that I had brought with me on purpose. The sky was
grey, like the day before, but there was a kind of white
gleam behind it, and from where I was sitting I could look
down on the town, and b it was all still and quiet and
white, like a picture. I remembered that it was on that hill
that nurse taught me to play an old game called "Troy
Town," in which one had to dance, and wind in and out
on a pattern in the grass, and then when one had danced and
turned long enough the other person asks you questions, and
you can't help answering whether you want to or not, and
whatever you are told to do you feel you have to do it.
Nurse said there used to be a lot of games like that that
some people knew of, and there was one by which people could
be turned into anything you liked and an old man her
great-grandmother had seen had known a girl who had been
turned into a large snake. And there was another very
ancient game of dancing and winding and turning, by which
you could take a person out of himself and hide him away as
long as you liked, and his body went walking about quite
empty, without any sense in it. But I came to that hill
because I wanted to think of what had happened the day
before, and of the secret of the wood. From the place where
I was sitting I could see beyond the town, into the opening
I had found, where a little brook had led me into an unknown
country. And I pretended I was following the brook over
again, and I went all the way in my mind, and at last I
found the wood, and crept into it under the bushes, and then
in the dusk I saw something that made me feel as if I were
filled with fire, as if I wanted to dance and sing and fly
up into the air, because I was changed and wonderful. But
what I saw was not changed at all, and had not grown old,
and I wondered again and again how such things could happen,
and whether nurse's stories were really true, because in the
daytime in the open air everything seemed quite different
from what it was at night, when I was frightened, and
thought I was to be burned alive. I once told my father one
of her little tales, which was about a ghost, and asked him
if it was true, and he told me it was not true at all, and
that only common, ignorant people believed in such rubbish.
He was very angry with nurse for telling me the story, and
scolded her, and after that I promised her I would never
whisper a word of what she told me, and if I did I should be
bitten by the great black snake that lived in the pool in
the wood. And all alone on the hill I wondered what was
true. I had seen something very amazing and very lovely, and
I knew a story, and if I had really seen it, and not made it
up out of the dark, and the black bough, and the bright
shining that was mounting up to the sky from over the great
round hill, but had really seen it in truth, then there were
all kinds of wonderful and lovely and terrible things to
think of, so I longed and trembled, and I burned and got
cold. And I looked down on the town, so quiet and still,
like a little white picture, and I thought over and over if
it could be true. I was a long time before I could make up
my mind to anything; there was such a strange fluttering at
my heart that seemed to whisper to me all the time that I
had not made it up out of my head, and yet it seemed quite
impossible, and I knew my father and everybody would say it
was dreadful rubbish. I never dreamed of telling him or
anybody else a word about it, because I knew it would be of
no use, and I should only get laughed at or scolded, so for
a long time I was very quiet, and went about thinking and
wondering; and at night I used to dream of amazing things,
and sometimes I woke up in the early morning and held out my
arms with a cry. And I was frightened, too, because there
were dangers, and some awful thing would happen to me,
unless I took great care, if the story were true. These old
tales were always in my head, night and morning, and I went
over them and told them to myself over and over again, and
went for walks in the places where nurse had told them to
me; and when I sat in the nursery by the fire in the
evenings I used to fancy nurse was sitting in the other
chair, and telling me some wonderful story in a low voice,
for fear anybody should be listening. But she used to like
best to tell me about things when we were right out in the
country, far from the house, because she said she was
telling me such secrets, and walls have ears. And if it was
something more than ever secret, we had to hide in brakes or
woods; and I used to think it was such fun creeping along a
hedge, and going very softly, and then we would get behind
the bushes or run into the wood all of a sudden, when we
were sure that none was watching us; so we knew that we had
our secrets quite all to ourselves, and nobody else at all
knew anything about them. Now and then, when we had hidden
ourselves as I have described, she used to show me all sorts
of odd things. One day, I remember, we were in a hazel
brake, over-looking the brook, and we were so snug and warm,
as though it was April; the sun was quite hot, and the
leaves were just coming out. Nurse said she would show me
something funny that would make me laugh, and then she
showed me, as she said, how one could turn a whole house
upside down, without anybody being able to find out, and the
pots and pans would jump about, and the china would be
broken, and the chairs would tumble over of themselves. I
tried it one day in the kitchen, and I found I could do it
quite well, and a whole row of plates on the dresser fell
off it, and cook's little work-table tilted up and turned
right over "before her eyes," as she said, but she
was so frightened and turned so white that I didn't do it
again, as I liked her. And afterwards, in the hazel copse,
when she had shown me how to make things tumble about, she
showed me how to make rapping noises, and I learnt how to do
that, too. Then she taught me rhymes to say on certain
occasions, and peculiar marks to make on other occasions,
and other things that her great-grandmother had taught her
when she was a little girl herself. And these were all the
things I was thinking about in those days after the strange
walk when I thought I had seen a great secret, and I wished
nurse were there for me to ask her about it, but she had
gone away more than two years before, and nobody seemed to
know what had become of her, or where she had gone. But I
shall always remember those days if I live to be quite old,
because all the time I felt so strange, wondering and
doubting, and feeling quite sure at one time, and making up
my mind, and then I would feel quite sure that such things
couldn't happen really, and it began all over again. But I
took great care not to do certain things that might be very
dangerous. So I waited and wondered for a long time, and
though I was not sure at all, I never dared to try to find
out. But one day I became sure that all that nurse said was
quite true, and I was all alone when I found it out. I
trembled all over with joy and terror, and as fast as I
could I ran into one of the old brakes where we used to
go--it was the one by the lane, where nurse made the little
clay man--and I ran into it, and I crept into it; and when I
came to the place where the elder was, I covered up my face
with my hands and lay down flat on the grass, and I stayed
there for two hours without moving, whispering to myself
delicious, terrible things, and saying some words over and
over again. It was all true and wonderful and splendid, and
when I remembered the story I knew and thought of what I had
really seen, I got hot and I got cold, and the air seemed
full of scent, and flowers, and singing. And first I wanted
to make a little clay man, like the one nurse had made so
long ago, and I had to invent plans and stratagems, and to
look about, and to think of things beforehand, because
nobody must dream of anything that I was doing or going to
do, and I was too old to carry clay about in a tin bucket.
At last I thought of a plan, and I brought the wet clay to
the brake, and did everything that nurse had done, only I
made a much finer image than the one she had made; and when
it was finished I did everything that I could imagine and
much more than she did, because it was the likeness of
something far better. And a few days later, when I had done
my lessons early, I went for the second time by the way of
the little brook that had led me into a strange country. And
I followed the brook, and went through the bushes, and
beneath the low branches of trees, and up thorny thickets on
the hill, and by dark woods full of creeping thorns, a long,
long way. Then I crept through the dark tunnel where the
brook had been and the ground was stony, till at last I came
to the thicket that climbed up the hill, and though the
leaves were coming out upon the trees, everything looked
almost as black as it was on the first day that I went
there. And the thicket was just the same, and I went up
slowly till I came out on the big bare hill, and began to
walk among the wonderful rocks. I saw the terrible voor
again on everything, for though the sky was brighter, the
ring of wild hills all around was still dark, and the
hanging woods looked dark and dreadful, and the strange
rocks were as grey as ever; and when I looked down on them
from the great mound, sitting on the stone, I saw all their
amazing circles and rounds within rounds, and I had to sit
quite still and watch them as they began to turn about me,
and each stone danced in its place, and they seemed to go
round and round in a great whirl, as if one were in the
middle of all the stars and heard them rushing through the
air. So I went down among the rocks to dance with them and
to sing extraordinary songs; and I went down through the
other thicket, and drank from the bright stream in the close
and secret valley, putting my lips down to the bubbling
water; and then I went on till I came to the deep, brimming
well among the glittering moss, and I sat down. I looked
before me into the secret darkness of the valley, and behind
me was the great high wall of grass, and all around me there
were the hanging woods that made the valley such a secret
place. I knew there was nobody here at all besides myself,
and that no one could see me. So I took off my boots and
stockings, and let my feet down into the water, saying the
words that I knew. And it was not cold at all, as I
expected, but warm and very pleasant, and when my feet were
in it I felt as if they were in silk, or as if the nymph
were kissing them. So when I had done, I said the other
words and made the signs, and then I dried my feet with a
towel I had brought on purpose, and put on my stockings and
boots. Then I climbed up the steep wall, and went into the
place where there are the hollows, and the two beautiful
mounds, and the round ridges of land, and all the strange
shapes. I did not go down into the hollow this time, but I
turned at the end, and made out the figures quite plainly,
as it was lighter, and I had remembered the story I had
quite forgotten before, and in the story the two figures are
called Adam and Eve, and only those who know the story
understand what they mean. So I went on and on till I came
to the secret wood which must not be described, and I crept
into it by the way I had found. And when I had gone about
halfway I stopped, and turned round, and got ready, and I
bound the handkerchief tightly round my eyes, and made quite
sure that I could not see at all, not a twig, nor the end of
a leaf, nor the light of the sky, as it was an old red silk
handkerchief with large yellow spots, that went round twice
and covered my eyes, so that I could see nothing. Then I
began to go on, step by step, very slowly. My heart beat
faster and faster, and something rose in my throat that
choked me and made me want to cry out, but I shut my lips,
and went on. Boughs caught in my hair as I went, and great
thorns tore me; but I went on to the end of the path. Then I
stopped, and held out my arms and bowed, and I went round
the first time, feeling with my hands, and there was
nothing. I went round the second time, feeling with my
hands, and there was nothing. Then I went round the third
time, feeling with my hands, and the story was all true, and
I wished that the years were gone by, and that I had not so
long a time to wait before I was happy for ever and ever.
Nurse must have been a prophet like those we
read of in the Bible. Everything that she said began to come
true, and since then other things that she told me of have
happened. That was how I came to know that her stories were
true and that I had not made up the secret myself out of my
own head. But there was another thing that happened that
day. I went a second time to the secret place. It was at the
deep brimming well, and when I was standing on the moss I
bent over and looked in, and then I knew who the white lady
was that I had seen come out of the water in the wood long
ago when I was quite little. And I trembled all over,
because that told me other things. Then I remembered how
sometime after I had seen the white people in the wood,
nurse asked me more about them, and I told her all over
again, and she listened, and said nothing for a long, long
time, and at last she said, "You will see her
again." So I understood what had happened and what was
to happen. And I understood about the nymphs; how I might
meet them in all kinds of places, and they would always help
me, and I must always look for them, and find them in all
sorts of strange shapes and appearances. And without the
nymphs I could never have found the secret, and without them
none of the other things could happen. Nurse had told me all
about them long ago, but she called them by another name,
and I did not know what she meant, or what her tales of them
were about, only that they were very queer. And there were
two kinds, the bright and the dark, and both were very
lovely and very wonderful, and some people saw only one
kind, and some only the other, but some saw them both. But
usually the dark appeared first, and the bright ones came
afterwards, and there were extraordinary tales about them.
It was a day or two after I had come home from the secret
place that I first really knew the nymphs. Nurse had shown
me how to call them, and I had tried, but I did not know
what she meant, and so I thought it was all nonsense. But I
made up my mind I would try again, so I went to the wood
where the pool was, where I saw the white people, and I
tried again. The dark nymph, Alanna, came, and she turned
the pool of water into a pool of fire. . . .
"That's a very queer story," said
Cotgrave, handing back the green book to the recluse,
Ambrose. "I see the drift of a good deal, but there are
many things that I do not grasp at all. On the last page,
for example, what does she mean by 'nymphs'?"
"Well, I think there are references
throughout the manuscript to certain 'processes' which have
been handed down by tradition from age to age. Some of these
processes are just beginning to come within the purview of
science, which has arrived at them--or rather at the steps
which lead to them--by quite different paths. I have
interpreted the reference to 'nymphs' as a reference to one
of these processes."
"And you believe that there are such
things?"
"Oh, I think so. Yes, I believe I could
give you convincing evidence on that point. I am afraid you
have neglected the study of alchemy? It is a pity, for the
symbolism, at all events, is very beautiful, and moreover if
you were acquainted with certain books on the subject, I
could recall to your mind phrases which might explain a good
deal in the manuscript that you have been reading."
"Yes; but I want to know whether you
seriously think that there is any foundation of fact beneath
these fancies. Is it not all a department of poetry; a
curious dream with which man has indulged himself?"
"I can only say that it is no doubt
better for the great mass of people to dismiss it all as a
dream. But if you ask my veritable belief--that goes quite
the other way. No; I should not say belief, but rather
knowledge. I may tell you that I have known cases in which
men have stumbled quite by accident on certain of these
'processes,' and have been astonished by wholly unexpected
results. In the cases I am thinking of there could have been
no possibility of 'suggestion' or sub-conscious action of
any kind. One might as well suppose a schoolboy 'suggesting'
the existence of &Aelig;schylus to himself, while he plods
mechanically through the declensions.
"But you have noticed the
obscurity," Ambrose went on, "and in this
particular case it must have been dictated by instinct,
since the writer never thought that her manuscripts would
fall into other hands. But the practice is universal, and
for most excellent reasons. Powerful and sovereign
medicines, which are, of necessity, virulent poisons also,
are kept in a locked cabinet. The child may find the key by
chance, and drink herself dead; but in most cases the search
is educational, and the phials contain precious elixirs for
him who has patiently fashioned the key for himself."
"You do not care to go into
details?"
"No, frankly, I do not. No, you must
remain unconvinced. But you saw how the manuscript
illustrates the talk we had last week?"
"Is this girl still alive?"
"No. I was one of those who found her. I
knew the father well; he was a lawyer, and had always left
her very much to herself. He thought of nothing but deeds
and leases, and the news came to him as an awful surprise.
She was missing one morning; I suppose it was about a year
after she had written what you have read. The servants were
called, and they told things, and put the only natural
interpretation on them--a perfectly erroneous one.
"They discovered that green book
somewhere in her room, and I found her in the place that she
described with so much dread, lying on the ground before the
image."
"It was an image?"
"Yes, it was hidden by the thorns and
the thick undergrowth that had surrounded it. It was a wild,
lonely country; but you know what it was like by her
description, though of course you will understand that the
colours have been heightened. A child's imagination always
makes the heights higher and the depths deeper than they
really are; and she had, unfortunately for herself,
something more than imagination. One might say, perhaps,
that the picture in her mind which she succeeded in a
measure in putting into words, was the scene as it would
have appeared to an imaginative artist. But it is a strange,
desolate land."
"And she was dead?"
"Yes. She had poisoned herself--in time.
No; there was not a word to be said against her in the
ordinary sense. You may recollect a story I told you the
other night about a lady who saw her child's fingers crushed
by a window?"
"And what was this statue?"
"Well, it was of Roman workmanship, of a
stone that with the centuries had not blackened, but had
become white and luminous. The thicket had grown up about it
and concealed it, and in the Middle Ages the followers of a
very old tradition had known how to use it for their own
purposes. In fact it had been incorporated into the
monstrous mythology of the Sabbath. You will have noted that
those to whom a sight of that shining whiteness had been
vouchsafed by chance, or rather, perhaps, by apparent
chance, were required to blindfold themselves on their
second approach. That is very significant."
"And is it there still?"
"I sent for tools, and we hammered it
into dust and fragments."
"The persistence of tradition never
surprises me," Ambrose went on after a pause. "I
could name many an English parish where such traditions as
that girl had listened to in her childhood are still
existent in occult but unabated vigour. No, for me, it is
the 'story' not the 'sequel,' which is strange and awful,
for I have always believed that wonder is of the soul."
(End.)
Venture not upon your life,
This is mine own wedded wife.
Sir Dickon, Sir Dickon, your day is done,
You shall be drowned in the water wan.
Sir Rowland, your life has ended its span,
High on a tree I see you hang.
Sir Noll, Sir Noll, so cease your life,
Your heart piercèd with the knife.
Sir John, return, and turn to clay,
In fire of fever you waste away.
EPILOGUE