The Shining Pyramid (collection)/In Convertendo
IN CONVERTENDO
At last Ambrose Meyrick caught that famous train from Lupton to Birmingham. He had waited for many years, he had yearned and sickened for the sight of the old land of his fathers, he had not allowed the memory of Gwent to fail; and now, when the whistle sounded and the train began to move out of the station, he was astonished to find himself so little uplifted by the granting of his desires. He looked up with a kind of sober joy at the railway bridge on which the poor little boy had stood so often, for so many hours, straining his eyes towards the West. He remembered that one day, when the earth burned as with fire, and his heart and soul and body were faint almost to death; he remembered how he had been refreshed by the vision of the mountain, by the wind that breathed new life into him. It was curious, he thought, how, against his own desire and his own faith, he had ceased to take daily account of such a merciful marvel as this, which should have been a perpetual talisman, a constant defence against all weariness and sickness and despair, an hourly reminder that the world was not given up entirely to the powers of darkness. He understood the difficulty of the great Act of Faith, which must be renewed day by day, again and again, by a constant exercise of the will, or else the abyss, the fall into the black pit of nonsense and despair which most people spoke of as the world, "and not half a bad place either, if you take it the right way." It was so simple, the "not half a bad place" creed; one fell in with it so easily, without any conscious effort of acquiescence; one conformed even against one's own steadfast convictions unless these were continually renewed and proclaimed. One knew better, perhaps—one had been vouchsafed sure proofs from within and from without; and yet it was so entirely natural to believe that man is sustained by loaves from the baker and meat from the butcher, and to take one's measures accordingly. As the train sped away to the West and the South he resolved that this should be amended, that for the future he would daily remind himself that he was fed not by baker's bread and butcher's meat, but by miracles and wonders.
But the past year had been given over to that process of dryness and fear which is called the Purgative Way. It is needful, but it lacks all refreshment and unction, speaking more of unworthiness and darkness than of light and compassions. He feared, indeed, lest he should have bowed down too low in the temple of the false gods of Lupton—though the motive had been good; but he had tried to listen sympathetically to the Doctor's sermons. And what a course it had been during the last term! The main point enforced had been that one could not arrange one's life in separate compartments without relation the one to the other, that all life was of infinite and equal importance, that the games and the school-work were to be regarded just as seriously as the pursuits and labours of later years.
"Do not let us mistake," said the preacher one Sunday morning; "we are already inhabitants of Eternity. Here at Lupton, in school and in the playing-fields, in our sports and in our studies, each action is of eternal import, each action forms part of that character which will be our ever lasting possession."
And the whole gist of the series was that every boy who wished to be a plausible and successful humbug in after-life had better set about his great task immediately.
"Remember," said the Doctor, "we are not in the Dark Ages now. None among us will ever be called upon to be the minister of a capricious and arbitrary sovereign. There is no one here whose gift of statesmanship will be exercised in concocting measures against the liberties of the people; there is no one whose military ability will be utilised in deeds of savage and remorseless oppression. We are not in the Dark Ages. There may be future prelates in your ranks for all I know; but the Bishop of to-day is successor in name only to the mediæval hierophant.
"No. We are to serve a sovereign who wears no visible crown. . . . Remember once and for all that popularity, in its true sense, is a noble aim —nay, it is the noblest of all aims. What wonder that the Jewish populace cried 'Hosanna'! He had compassion on the multitude. The common people heard Him gladly. . . . Let us all beware; we are not to work for cliques, for small and select aristocratic bodies, however exquisite their tastes, however high their standards; we are to work for, to speak to, the 'multitude'—the 'common people'; we are to win popularity."
Ambrose shuddered and laughed at the recollection of this discourse and of others like it—it was clear that he had had enough of such follies; it was time for him to leave behind Lupton and all its ways. Already it seemed to belong to things departed. He would return for a little while at the end of the holidays and go through such formalities as were necessary, but Lupton was over—its foolish routine, its magazines of cant, its dull pedantries, its sense of being at the centre of all things; it was all past and performed, and lay in his mind like the recollection of a tedious and unimportant play that one has witnessed and would willingly forget. Behind him all this weariness, its dolours and its languors, its pains and longings; before him was the Land of Desire, the end, and the goal, and the Perfection.
When the train reached Hereford, Lupton had vanished from his mind and all recollection of it. He had been exiled and he was returning, and when the great hills rose up before him a strange emotion beat within his breast. He did not know the precise boundary of the counties, but at the sign of the hills he took off his hat, worshipping the dear soil of Gwent; the land had an unutterable word for him, and all his being made answer. The whole earth kept that day a great festival; he could almost have said: Montes exultaverunt ut arietes; et colles sicut agni ovium. It was a day of soft sunshine behind a delicate veil; the land was all in a golden, wonderful radiance, and the clear streams glittered in the light, and the leaves of the trees danced with exultation in a wind blowing from the west. He looked out of the carriage window with a gaze of such ardour and delight as lovers know. Qui convertit petram in stagna aquarum: et rupem in fontes aquarum.
His sojourn in the dry and stony land was ended; there rushed the translucent brook down from the mountain-side, from the very heart of the rock; he fancied that he could hear the sound of the pouring waters and their voice of gladness. There was the glen that led to the wild country; the land of green bubbling wells, and the far purple fields of heather, and the world of golden, scented gorse, where the great rocks looked like magic Druid rings. He and his father had climbed by that little path—so many years ago—to see a church of very old religion and the well of an old saint.
The brook rushed on; the line ran parallel with it for some miles. He feasted his eyes on that wonderful clear stream; he had seen no such sight since the day on which he had left Gwent, for about Lupton most of the rivers and brooks were poisonous sewers, and even the unpolluted waters were dull and muddy and sluggish as they crawled through dull fields. Here was quick crystal, which sang Lætare as it poured from the hill into the valley; its pools were a shining darkness; its ripples were of silver light—it was pure as the dawn upon the mountains; it was as if the great alchemy of God had transmuted the hard, inner most rocks with all their secrets into that rejoicing brightness.
On his left hand now rose the Hill of the Apparition of St. Michael the Archangel—a strange, riven height, venerated by the people before the coming of the "Black Hag of Geneva, who sends body and soul quick to hell." Here, they said, in the old days those who knew would sometimes go apart, climbing the red height till they came to the Chapel of the Archangel, a very small and ancient place, of which the foundations still remained, standing in a thick wood of ash-trees. This observance, it has been said, furnishes the explanation of the curious poem by Morvran called "The Sovereignty of the Ash." Ambrose, as he gazed up towards the mountain, could see the wood, the boughs of the ash-trees tossing in the wind, and he remembered the poem, a strange piece of metrical ingenuity in the original, which had served as a model to many generations of bards, though none had ever equalled it in the complexity of its structure. In its lines Morvran had mingled alliteration and rhyme and assonance in a wonderful manner, and, as the poets said, besides all this there were "inspiration and unction" of such a singular magic that it was some times spoken of as "The Supreme Incantation of Morvran." The poem represents all the trees as contending for the honour of sovereignty:
As the first hues of the dawn above the forest of Caerrhiu,
There appeared a red blossom out of the shadow of the trees.
The Rose spoke: it was like the clear chant of the angels—
Though I am least of the trees of the wood,
Though I am hidden and overshadowed in the wood,
Though I dwell often in obscurity,
Yet I claim principality in this assemblage:
Because I am a native of the Old Garden,
Because I typify the accomplishment of the Saints,
Because in my blossom is hidden the Great Mystery,
Because I waft abroad sweet odours of Paradise,
Ancient relics of the lost kingdom.
The Hazel boasts that its boughs are the "quire of the birds of God," the Wych-elm of its potency in magic, the Oak has borne sway from all ages, the White Thorn is the "shining house of Merlin," the Yew has "an honourable station near the altars of the saints"; and so the poem ranges through all the trees of the wood, till the Ash triumphs:
Because I keep watch over the shrine of the Chief Angel,
Because beneath my boughs shone the Majesty of Heaven.
Because I was a veil to the Glorious Appearance,
Because I was visited by Heaven's principal warrior :
Mihangel is my advocate, the bearer of the Offering
Unto the supreme altar of the Most High.
Ambrose was murmuring these last lines to himself as the train passed the base of the Mount of Apparition, and the man who had got in at Hereford glanced round nervously and looked at the cord of communication. Ambrose saw the glance and, understanding it, was amused to think that if he had told the man in the corner a filthy story he would have been thought a very pleasant companion.
But he looked longingly at the boughs of the ash tossing in the wind on the far mountain-side, thinking of the stories told of those who retired to this shrine in "the Dark Ages." Before what was called "the flaming picture of the Chief Angel" these vowed persons would remain three whole days and nights in silent devotion, rapt, so the legends said, far out of the earthly regions and raised to the heavenly places, "to the state of Paradise," so that when they came down again to the valleys and lower places of the world they were as those who had voyaged to the Blessed Isles, since their garments were scented with celestial odours, and about them was the visible shining of light.
The train rushed on through the rich and happy meadows, by the wild thickets, by the shimmering fields of corn, by the old white farms; before his eyes now rose that well-remembered and venerable Mynydd Mawr; high upon it he could see the line of straggling beeches, and the walls of Cradock's house gleaming in the sunlight. His heart thrilled at the thought of that which rested there concealed in a dark place—of the Holy Cup in its glistering veils of samite; it was as yesterday that he bent before those ghostly splendours, and saw the images of immortal things that showed in the crystal mirror of the Blessed Work. The Golden Wood, resounding with the magic summons of the bells, the far-lifted sanctuary of Corarbennic high above the ninth wave, the vision of the saints of Britain sailing on the Faery Sea to Avalon. He could scarce see the great dome of the mountain above him, scarce rejoice in the deep woods below, scarce fix his eyes on the white walls by the beeches, for the recollection of the clearer marvels that had appeared before him. He felt as though a voice cried to him from that place; the Cup seemed to summon him to kneel once more and to behold new visions.
Cradock's house passed out of sight, and there surged up the great wall of Mynydd Maen, and far down to the south Twyn Barlwm, the lofty height that looks far over land and sea, where the wind is like strong wine. He sank back in the seat, and wondered how he could have borne that long and weary exile. Facti sumus sicut consolati. Venientes autem venient cum exultatione: portantes manipulos suos.
And he wondered still more deeply by what compassions he had been preserved in that house of folly which he had inhabited, which he had entered, helpless and defenceless, a little lonely child. How was it that he had not been ruined utterly, that he had not become a "practical" man, longing for the time when he should be able to do some great work in the world—say, by sitting in the House of Commons? There were lads of his own age who were already bubbling over with enthusiasm in the cause of Humanity, who were already beginning to count the rewards that really earnest, disinterested work for one's fellow-men seldom fails to procure; they pointed to young Haslee, an old Luptonian, who had changed sides twice, and was certain to be in the next Cabinet of his party, though he was barely thirty. Many of the boys, taking the Doctor's solemn warnings to heart, had already made friends who would be useful in later life—useful, that is, in forwarding them in their desire to Do some Good in the World. Ah! how had he escaped from this cess pool, from the teaching of the masters and the companionship of the boys, without losing his soul for ever?