Wilfrid Cumbermede

‘Don’t suppose you deceive me,’ I said. ‘I know well enough my mare did not kick you before you struck her. Then she lashed out, of course.’

I waited for no reply, but turned and rode back to the church, the door of which, in my haste, I had left open. I locked it, replaced the key, and then rode quietly home.

But as I went, I began to feel that I had done wrong. No doubt, Mr Coningham deserved it, but the law was not in my hands. No man has a right to punish another. Vengeance belongs to a higher region, and the vengeance of God is a very different thing from the vengeance of man. However it may be softened with the name of retribution, revenge runs into all our notions of justice; and until we love purely, so it must ever be.

All I had gained was self-rebuke, and another enemy. Having reached home, I read the Manual of Epictetus right through before I laid it down, and, if it did not teach me to love my enemies, it taught me at least to be ashamed of myself. Then I wrote to Mr Coningham, saying I was sorry I had spoken to him as I did, and begging him to let by-gones be by-gones; assuring him that, if ever I moved in the matter of our difference, he should be the first to whom I applied for assistance.

He returned me no answer.

CHAPTER LXIII. A COLLISION

And now came a dreary time of re-action. There seemed nothing left for me to do, and I felt listless and weary. Something kept urging me to get away and hide myself, and I soon made up my mind to yield to the impulse and go abroad. My intention was to avoid cities, and, wandering from village to village, lay my soul bare to the healing influences of nature. As to any healing in the power of Time, I despised the old bald-pate as a quack who performed his seeming cures at the expense of the whole body. The better cures attributed to him are not his at all, but produced by the operative causes whose servant he is. A thousand holy balms require his services for their full action, but they, and not he, are the saving powers. Along with Time I ranked, and with absolute hatred shrunk from—all those means which offered to cure me by making me forget. From a child I had a horror of forgetting; it always seemed to me like a loss of being, like a hollow scooped out of my very existence—almost like the loss of identity. At times I even shrunk from going to sleep, so much did it seem like yielding to an absolute death—a death so deep that the visible death is but a picture or type of it. If I could have been sure of dreaming, it would have been different, but in the uncertainty it seemed like consenting to nothingness. That one who thus felt should ever have been tempted to suicide, will reveal how painful if not valueless his thoughts and feelings—his conscious life—must have grown to him; and that the only thing which withheld him from it should be the fear that no death, but a more intense life might be the result, will reveal it yet more clearly. That in that sleep I might at least dream—there was the rub.

All such relief, in a word, as might come of a lowering of my life, either physically, morally, or spiritually, I hated, detested, despised. The man who finds solace for a wounded heart in self-indulgence may indeed be capable of angelic virtues, but in the mean time his conduct is that of the devils who went into the swine rather than be bodiless. The man who can thus be consoled for the loss of a woman could never have been worthy of her, possibly would not have remained true to her beyond the first delights of possession. The relief to which I could open my door must be such alone as would operate through the enlarging and elevating of what I recognized as myself. Whatever would make me greater, so that my torture, intensified, it might well be, should yet have room to dash itself hither and thither without injuring the walls of my being, would be welcome. If I might become so great that, my grief yet stinging me to agony, the infinite I of me should remain pure and calm, God-loving and man-cherishing, then I should be saved. God might be able to do more for me—I could not tell: I looked for no more. I would myself be such as to inclose my pain in a mighty sphere of out-spacing life, in relation to which even such sorrow as mine should be but a little thing. Such deliverance alone, I say, could I consent with myself to accept, and such alone, I believed, would God offer me—for such alone seemed worthy of him, and such alone seemed not unworthy of me.

The help that Nature could give me, I judged to be of this ennobling kind. For either nature was nature in virtue of having been born (nata) of God, or she was but a phantasm of my own brain—against which supposition the nature in me protested with the agony of a tortured man. To nature, then, I would go. Like the hurt child who folds himself in the skirt of his mother’s velvet garment, I would fold myself in the robe of Deity.

But to give honour and gratitude where both are due, I must here confess obligation with a willing and thankful heart. The Excursion of Wordsworth was published ere I was born, but only since I left college had I made acquaintance with it: so long does it take for the light of a new star to reach a distant world! To this book I owe so much that to me it would alone justify the conviction that Wordsworth will never be forgotten. That he is no longer the fashion, militates nothing against his reputation. We, the old ones, hold fast by him for no sentimental reminiscence of the fashion of our youth, but simply because his humanity has come into contact with ours. The men of the new generation have their new loves and worships: it remains to be seen to whom the worthy amongst them will turn long ere the frosts of age begin to gather and the winds of the human autumn to blow. Wordsworth will recede through the gliding ages until, with the greater Chaucer, and the greater Shakspere, and the greater Milton, he is yet a star in the constellated crown of England.

Before I was able to leave home, however, a new event occurred.

I received an anonymous letter, in a hand-writing I did not recognize. Its contents were as follows:—

‘SIR,—Treachery is intended you. If you have anything worth watching, watch it.’

For one moment—so few were the places in which through my possessions I was vulnerable—I fancied the warning might point to Lilith, but I soon dismissed the idea. I could make no inquiries, for it had been left an hour before my return from a stroll by an unknown messenger. I could think of nothing besides but the register, and if this was what my correspondent aimed at, I had less reason to be anxious concerning it, because of the attested copy, than my informant probably knew. Still its safety was far from being a matter of indifference to me. I resolved to ride over to Umberden Church, and see if it was as I had left it.

The twilight was fast thickening into darkness when I entered the gloomy building. There was light enough, however, to guide my hand to the right volume, and by carrying it to the door, I was able to satisfy myself that it was as I had left it.

Thinking over the matter once more as I stood, I could not help wishing that the book were out of danger just for the present; but there was hardly a place in the bare church where it was possible to conceal it. At last I thought of one—half groped my way to the pulpit, ascended its creaking stair, lifted the cushion of the seat, and laid the book, which was thin, open in the middle, and flat on its face, under it. I then locked the door, mounted, and rode off.

It was now more than dusk. Lilith was frolicsome, and, rejoicing in the grass under her feet, broke into a quick canter along the noiseless, winding lane. Suddenly there was a great shock, and I lay senseless.

I came to myself under the stinging blows of a whip, only afterwards recognized as such, however. I sprung staggering to my feet, and rushed at the dim form of an assailant, with such a sudden and, I suppose, unexpected assault, that he fell under me. Had he not fallen I should have had little chance with him, for, as I now learned by his voice, it was Sir Geoffrey Brotherton.

‘Thief! Swindler! Sneak!’ he cried, making a last harmless blow at me as he fell.

All the wild beast in my nature was roused. I had no weapon—not even a whip, for Lilith never needed one. It was well, for what I might have done in the first rush of blood to my reviving brain, I dare hardly imagine. I seized him by the throat with such fury that, though far the stronger, he had no chance as he lay. I kneeled on his chest. He struggled furiously, but could not force my gripe from his throat. I soon perceived that I was strangling him, and tightened my grasp.

His efforts were already growing feebler, when I became aware of a soft touch apparently trying to take hold of my hair. Glancing up without relaxing my hold, I saw the white head of Lilith close to mine. Was it the whiteness—was it the calmness of the creature—I cannot pretend to account for the fact, but the same instant before my mind’s eye rose the vision of one standing speechless before his accusers, bearing on his form the marks of ruthless blows. I did not then remember that just before I came out I had been gazing, as I often gazed, upon an Ecce Homo of Albert Dürer’s that hung in my room. Immediately my heart awoke within me. My whole being still trembling with passionate struggle and gratified hate, a rush of human pity swept across it. I took my hand from my enemy’s throat, rose, withdrew some paces, and burst into tears. I could have embraced him, but I dared not even minister to him for the insult at would appear. He did not at once rise, and when he did, he stood for a few moments, half-unconscious, I think, staring at me. Coming to himself, he felt for and found his whip—I thought with the intention of attacking me again, but he moved towards his horse, which was quietly eating the grass, now wet with dew. Gathering its bridle from around its leg, he mounted, and rode back the way he had come.

I lingered for a while utterly exhausted. I was trembling in every limb. The moon rose and began to shed her low yellow light over the hazel copse, filling the lane with brightness and shadow. Lilith, seeming-in her whiteness to gather a tenfold share of the light upon herself, was now feeding as gently as if she had known nothing of the strife, and I congratulated myself that the fall had not injured her. But as she took a step forward in her feeding, I discovered to my dismay that she was quite lame. For my own part I was now feeling the ache of numerous and severe bruises. When I took Lilith by the bridle to lead her away, I found that neither of us could manage more than two miles an hour. I was very uneasy about her. There was nothing for it, however, but make the best of our way to Gastford. It was no little satisfaction to think, as we hobbled along, that the accident had happened through no carelessness of mine, beyond that of cantering in the dark, for I was on my own side of the road. Had Geoffrey been on his, narrow as the lane was, we might have passed without injury.

It was so late when we reached Gastford, that we had to rouse the ostler before I could get Lilith attended to. I bathed the injured leg, of which the shoulder seemed wrenched; and having fed her, but less plentifully than usual, I left her to her repose. In the morning she was considerably better, but I resolved to leave her where she was, and, sending a messenger for Styles to come and attend to her, I hired a gig, and went to call on my new friend the rector of Umberden.

I told him all that had happened, and where I had left the volume. He said he would have a chest made in which to secure the whole register, and, meanwhile, would himself go to the church and bring that volume home with him. It is safe enough now, as any one may find who wishes to see it—though the old man has long passed away.

Lilith remained at Gastford a week before I judged it safe for her to come home. The injury, however, turned out to be a not very serious one.

Why should I write of my poor mare—but that she was once hers all for whose hoped perusal I am writing this? No, there is even a better reason: I shall never, to all my eternity, forget, even if I should never see her again, which I do not for a moment believe, what she did for me that evening. Surely she deserves to appear in her own place in my story!

Of course I was exercised in my mind as to who had sent me the warning. There could be no more doubt that I had hit what it intended, and had possibly preserved the register from being once more tampered with. I could think only of one. I have never had an opportunity of inquiring, and for her sake I should never have asked the question, but I have little doubt it was Clara. Who else could have had a chance of making the discovery, and at the same time would have cared to let me know it? Also she would have cogent reason for keeping such a part in the affair a secret. Probably she had heard her father informing Geoffrey; but he might have done so with no worse intention than had informed his previous policy.

CHAPTER LXIV. YET ONCE

I am drawing my story to a close. Almost all that followed bears so exclusively upon my internal history, that I will write but one incident more of it. I have roamed the world, and reaped many harvests. In the deepest agony I have never refused the consolations of Nature or of Truth. I have never knowingly accepted any founded in falsehood, in forgetfulness, or in distraction. Let such as have no hope in God drink of what Lethe they can find; to me it is a river of Hell and altogether abominable. I could not be content even to forget my sins. There can be but one deliverance from them, namely, that God and they should come together in my soul. In his presence I shall serenely face them. Without him I dare not think of them. With God a man can confront anything; without God, he is but the withered straw which the sickle of the reaper has left standing on a wintry field. But to forget them would be to cease and begin anew, which to one aware of his immortality is a horror.

If comfort profound as the ocean has not yet overtaken and infolded me, I see how such may come—perhaps will come. It must be by the enlarging of my whole being in truth, in God, so as to give room for the storm to rage, yet not destroy; for the sorrow to brood, yet not kill; for the sunshine of love to return after the east wind and black frost of bitterest disappointment; for the heart to feel the uttermost tenderness while the arms go not forth to embrace; for a mighty heaven of the unknown, crowded with the stars of endless possibilities, to dawn when the sun of love has vanished, and the moon of its memory is too ghastly to give any light: it is comfort such and thence that I think will one day possess me. Already has not its aurora brightened the tops of my snow-covered mountains? And if yet my valleys lie gloomy and forlorn, is not light on the loneliest peak a sure promise of the coming day?

Only once again have I looked in Mary’s face. I will record the occasion, and then drop my pen.

About five years after I left home, I happened in my wanderings to be in one of my favourite Swiss valleys—high and yet sheltered. I rejoiced to be far up in the mountains, yet behold the inaccessible peaks above me—mine, though not to be trodden by foot of mine—my heart’s own, though never to yield me a moment’s outlook from their lofty brows; for I was never strong enough to reach one mighty summit. It was enough for me that they sent me down the glad streams from the cold bosoms of their glaciers—the offspring of the sun and the snow; that I too beheld the stars to which they were nearer than I.

One lovely morning I had wandered a good way from the village—a place little frequented by visitors, where I had a lodging in the house of the syndic—when I was overtaken by one of the sudden fogs which so frequently render those upper regions dangerous. There was no path to guide me back to my temporary home, but, a hundred yards or so beneath where I had been sitting, lay that which led down to one of the best known villages of the canton, where I could easily find shelter. I made haste to descend.

After a couple of hours’ walking, during which the fog kept following me, as if hunting me from its lair, I at length arrived at the level of the valley, and was soon in one of those large hotels which in Summer are crowded as bee-hives, and in Winter forsaken as a ruin. The season for travellers was drawing to a close, and the house was full of homeward-bound guests.

For the mountains will endure but a season of intrusion. If travellers linger too long within their hospitable gates, their humour changes, and, with fierce winds and snow and bitter sleet, they will drive them forth, preserving their Winter privacy for the bosom friends of their mistress, Nature. Many is the Winter since those of my boyhood which I have spent amongst the Alps; and in such solitude I have ever found the negation of all solitude, the one absolute Presence. David communed with his own heart on his bed and was still—there finding God: communing with my own heart in the Winter-valleys of Switzerland I found at least what made me cry out: ‘Surely this is the house of God; this is the gate of heaven!’ I would not be supposed to fancy that God is in mountains, and not in plains—that God is in the solitude, and not in the city: in any region harmonious with its condition and necessities, it is easier, for the heart to be still, and in its stillness to hear the still small voice.

Dinner was going on at the table-d’hôte. It was full, but a place was found for me in a bay-window. Turning to the one side, I belonged to the great world, represented by the Germans, Americans, and English, with a Frenchman and Italian here and there, filling the long table; turning to the other, I knew myself in a temple of the Most High, so huge that it seemed empty of men. The great altar of a mighty mountain rose, massy as a world, and ethereal as a thought, into the upturned gulf of the twilight air—its snowy peak, ever as I turned to look, mounting up and up to its repose. I had been playing with my own soul, spinning it between the sun and the moon, as it were, and watching now the golden and now the silvery side, as I glanced from the mountain to the table, and again from the table to the mountain, when all at once I discovered that I was searching the mountain for something—I did not know what. Whether any tones had reached me, I cannot tell;—a man’s mind may, even through his senses, be marvellously moved without knowing whence the influence comes;—but there I was searching the face of the mountain for something, with a want which had not begun to explain itself. From base to peak my eyes went flitting and resting and wandering again upwards. At last they reached the snowy crown, from which they fell into the infinite blue beyond. Then, suddenly, the unknown something I wanted was clear. The same moment I turned to the table. Almost opposite was a face—pallid, with parted lips and fixed eyes—gazing at me. Then I knew those eyes had been gazing at me all the time I had been searching the face of the mountain. For one moment they met mine and rested; for one moment, I felt as if I must throw myself at her feet, and clasp them to my heart; but she turned her eyes away, and I rose and left the house.

The mist was gone, and the moon was rising. I walked up the mountain path towards my village. But long ere I reached it the sun was rising. With his first arrow of slenderest light, the tossing waves of my spirit began to lose their white tops, and sink again towards a distant calm; and ere I saw the village from the first point of vision, I had made the following verses. They are the last I will set down.

I know that I cannot move thee
To an echo of my pain,
Or a thrill of the storming trouble
That racks my soul and brain;

That our hearts through all the ages
Shall never sound in tune;
That they meet no more in their cycles
Than the parted sun and moon.

But if ever a spirit flashes
Itself on another soul,
One day, in thy stillness, a vapour
Shall round about thee roll;

And the lifting of the vapour
Shall reveal a world of pain,
Of frosted suns, and moons that wander
Through misty mountains of rain.

Thou shalt know me for one live instant—
Thou halt know me—and yet not love:
I would not have thee troubled,
My cold, white-feathered dove!

I would only once come near thee—Myself,