The Blessing of Pan Read online

  “So I believe, my lord.”

  “And you of course are satisfied that they have been.”

  “Well I think so. You see I have some that seem to be quite obvious. And if some, why not all? Allowing of course for a percentage of mistakes. They all come from the same level.”

  And in a moment they would have been debating the whole question of Man’s earliest weapons and tools. But from this also the Bishop waved Anwrel away.

  “And what do you find to do in the long evenings?”

  “Well, on Saturdays,” said Anwrel —

  “No, your leisure I mean.”

  “Well, I play chess sometimes, my lord. The doctor is a good player, and often looks in of an evening during the Winter.”

  “An excellent game,” said the Bishop. “An excellent game. It is not a game, it’s a science. A science that never did any man any harm yet. I recommend it to you. Are there others that you can play with besides the doctor?”

  “There’s the curate at Hooton,” said Anwrel. “Excellent,” answered the Bishop. “And what opening do you play?”

  “Usually the Ruy Lopez,” said Anwrel.

  “No doubt the best,” said the Bishop, “no doubt the best; and yet to get the most out of chess I know nothing, if Black will play it, to equal the Muzio. Really I recommend it to you whenever you have the move. I know that it has been held that, if Black play correctly, White’s sacrifice of the knight cannot be justified; but he must play correctly for twenty or thirty moves, and when will you meet so much absolute correctness in chess? No, I play the Muzio whenever I can, and I shall only give it up when I find a player whose correctness can stultify the terrific attack. It is a pearl among openings.”

  “I will play it, my lord. I certainly will,” said Anwrel.

  “That’s right,” said the Bishop, “and I’m sure you’ll enjoy it. Well, as you know, a Bishop’s time belongs to many people. I’m always in debt for several hours. My chaplain keeps my appointments in a book. I call it my overdraft on time. So I’m afraid...”

  “My lord,” exclaimed Anwrel, “before I go. There is one matter of gravest importance to me. I have just come from the cathedral.”

  “Yes?” said the Bishop encouragingly.

  “It is about the gargoyles, my lord. It is one in particular, looking to the South-East.”

  The Bishop’s smile died out. Some grave thought crossed his face, and a moment later he spoke again with all his persuasive authority. “I shouldn’t bother about that,” he said.

  “No, my lord?” said poor Anwrel.

  The Bishop shook his head. “And now...” Good Heavens! The interview was over. And he had got nothing but sanity, sanity, sanity, from three separate men. He was all alone with a problem that demanded the most stupendous effort of brains greater than his, if a doom was to be averted from a whole parish, and the greater the brain the more he got the tact and the sanity that was suited to wonted events and common difficulties. He was sick of sanity. And as he rose to go and saw far down the street out of the large palace window, he saw by an astounding coincidence, as it seemed to him, a man in a very curious assortment of clothes and a most remarkable hat walking that way with the aid of a queer stick, away from the cathedral.

  “Might I ask your lordship who that man is?” said Anwrel pointing away.

  The Bishop came nearer the window. “Oh, he,” he said. “I’m afraid he’s not quite right. Harmless, but not all there. He’s named Perkin. He’s lived here all his life.”

  “Well I must not detain your lordship,” said Anwrel hurriedly, and got out to the street in time to meet that curious man.

  So eager was Anwrel for a change from quiet tact, so useless to him in his desperate situation, that he went straight up to the wanderer in the remarkable hat and cheerily said to him, “Well?”

  “Hullo,” said the wanderer in as friendly a tone. And there they were like two old friends. “Everything all right?” asked Anwrel.

  “Ha, ha,” laughed the wanderer. “No.”

  “It’s the same with me,” said Anwrel.

  “Is it?” said the wanderer quickly. “Take care they don’t get after you.”

  “Who?” asked Anwrel.

  “The things that are after me,” the old man answered..

  “What’s the trouble?” asked Anwrel.

  “Hist,” said the other, and looked swiftly about him. “I’ll tell you”; and, looking once more to see that no one should hear him, “I lost my illusions.”

  “Lost your illusions?” said Anwrel, “Yes.”

  “How did that happen?”

  “I’ll tell you. I saw the mayor in all his robes one day. I just laughed at it all. I saw tall silk hats and laughed again: I do to this day. And I saw the cathedral with its coloured windows, and I laughed at that too. The illusion went out of everything. That’s how it happened.”

  “I see,” said Anwrel. “An agnostic, and probably a socialist, and I’m sorry to hear it. But that doesn’t make you mad. They do think you’re mad, don’t they? You won’t mind my saying this? Because I believe they think me a bit mad too.”

  “No,” said the old man, “that doesn’t make you mad. Not at once, it doesn’t. But when the illusions are gone; oh, man, that’s the time to beware. It’s the things that pour in on you then. They are what do it.”

  “Are you much troubled?” asked Anwrel.

  “Yes,” said the man. “You see my illusions are gone. They’re the only defence we have. And the woods of the night are full of all manner of things. When our illusions are down they all pour in.”

  “Tell me,” said Anwrel. “Does Pan ever trouble you?”

  “Oh, yes,” said the old man. “Him and hundreds more. The woods of the night are full of them.”

  “And they come and trouble you,” said Anwrel.

  “Trouble me!” said the old man. “Aye. I’ve no defence against them. Keep your illusions, man; keep your illusions. Why, many a time I can’t sleep all night long for thinking of the futility of the planets going round and round as uselessly as ours through the empty bleakness of Space. And hist! When you are in that mood they get to hear of it, and they come prowling and nosing through the woods of the night. And they get you, they get you when you’ve nothing to keep them out, if they have to come from the far side of Neptune to do it.”

  “Neptune,” said Anwrel. “You know something of astronomy then.”

  “Oh, yes,” said the old man. “I know lots of things. That’s the trouble. I knew too much. And so one day all my illusions went.”

  “Couldn’t you,” said Anwrel wistfully and gently, “couldn’t you get them back?”

  “Not now,” said the old man. “The woods of the night have sprouted up all over them.”

  A policeman was coming across the street to them, for that old man was not allowed to stand still for long, because he was so curious that, whenever he did, a crowd began to collect and would hinder the traffic.

  “Walk a little way with me,” said Anwrel drawing him from the direction of the policeman. “We have a lot in common, and I should like a talk with you. You see one of these things that troubles you troubles me. I have my illusions yet, but I fear that he is too strong for them. I’ve asked help of other men, but they give me common sense. Is common sense any good against these things, do you think?”

  “Ha, ha, ha,” laughed the wanderer. “Ha, ha, ha.”

  “Not so loud,” said Anwrel.

  “Ha, ha, ha,” the old man went on.

  “Then what can help me do you think?” asked Anwrel. “It’s Pan that is troubling me.”

  “There’s worse than him in the woods of the night,” said the wanderer.

  “Then what would you do?” asked Anwrel.

  “Why,” said the wanderer, “if your illusions are strong enough to keep him out. They’ll keep him out all right.”

  “Yes. Yes, of course,” said Anwrel. “But what if they’re weaker than he?”

 
“Why,” said the wanderer, “then; why, Pan was always friendly to Man. That’s you and me you know. We may have changed a lot this last two thousand years; but that’s you and me still. Why, I’d let him come nosing in.”

  “Not while I can fight him,” said Anwrel.

  “No,” said the wanderer. “Well, I’ll walk out soon and see how you’re getting on.”

  “But I live out at Wolding,” said Anwrel.

  “Well, I’ll walk over,” the old man said. “It will only take me a week, and I happen to be disengaged this year. And remember, there are worse than Pan in the woods of the night. Goodbye.”

  And he waved his arm like a plenipotentiary bidding farewell to a fleet.

  CHAPTER XXIV

  THE DEFECTION OF ST. ETHELBRUDA

  AT that the old man strode away. Anwrel followed at first, for he would have said more to him; but the wanderer went with such strides up a side street, the huge stick seeming to take a part in the striding, the left arm swinging wide and the frock coat flapping hugely, that Anwrel saw after a few steps that he could not keep up with that terrific gait. When he realised that, his hurried pace slowed down to purposeless drifting, and the drift carried him back towards the cathedral without any motive at all. Suddenly he realised that the 5.10 train must have gone. It mattered very little to him: he had no good news to bring back to Wolding: he had left a bag at the station, and would return next day. Again he was under the cathedral walls, looking up at the monstrous flock of grinning shapes that had passed at one time or another across the imagination of man. “Poor fellow,” he thought, “They’re all after old Perkin.” And then he reflected that here was the man to help him, the man through whose mind all these things rioted. The Bishop had the brains for it; but what was the good of that when those brains were resolutely closed to any considerations of such things whatever? And Hetley had the learning for it. But Hetley had heard nothing, and never would hear anything that was not shouted in his ear. Perkin, whatever his brains, had his attention fixed on probably every move of all those things that the Bishop, his chaplain, and Hetley all kept so carefully outside their knowledge. Yes, Perkin was the man. He must see him again.

  Thus seeking help in his loneliness had Anwrel come at last to such strange companionship.

  He fetched his bag from the station and, shunning the modern inconveniences of the Crozier, returned with it to the Green Man. And there the landlady welcomed him kindly, and looked after him herself; for he somehow seemed to her even more in need of being helped and looked after than he had when she saw him at lunch. A woman that seemed scarcely to have left the thirties behind her, even if she were more than half-way through the next decade; and entering this story with her few moments of kindness, and passing utterly out of it, like a shaft of sunlight briefly pouring its gold through a narrow window upon its way far hence.

  “Nice weather,” she said as he sat at his supper, and she came to see that he had all that he wanted.

  “Yes, indeed,” said Anwrel.

  “Very nice for the hay.”

  For a rural parish, of course, was written all over Anwrel; and she supposed his thoughts would be full of the hay just now. Yet what a pang she caused him. Duffin was not cutting his hay yet! A neglect unparalleled in his knowledge of Wolding. Were others delaying too? Would the hay ever be cut that year in Wolding at all?

  “Yes,” he said.

  And she saw that her remark had not been the right one, and was casting round for something more suitable. But he spoke again first.

  “I met a very interesting man in the street. I think he was called Perkin. I wonder if you know anything about him.”

  It was all he could talk of, for he had come desperately to Snichester to find help, and Perkin seemed the only man from whom he could ever have it. But she was looking as though the name conveyed nothing whatever to her.

  “He has rather a peculiar hat,” he added.

  “Oh, mad Perkin,” she said. “We all know him. He lives here. Sometimes in the Work-house, sometimes he’ll lodge at a cottage. He’s quite crazy.”

  “Yes. Yes,” muttered Anwrel. ‘Mr. Hetley. You know him? He comes into Snichester often I suppose?”

  “Oh, yes. A very clever gentleman, very clever indeed.”

  “Yes,” said Anwrel. “I suppose he is. They say the Bishop is very clever too.”

  “Oh, yes,” she answered. “They say he’s the cleverest we’ve had here for many a year.”

  Well, it was clear what side she was on. And, kind though she seemed, it was clear he would get no help from her, this man so urgently in need of help. It is terrible when from kindness itself, help cannot even be looked for. One is in a sore strait then. From Perking alone could it come: there was the will to help him, and there the knowledge. T’wards such he was being driven.

  He talked for a while with her of hay, of the cathedral, of the supply of tourists, of anything but what was in his mind. Then he said goodnight, and sat and smoked for a while, and thought prodigiously and to little purpose.

  In the bright morning he said farewell to the landlady of the Green Man, and walked with his bag to the station, and left Snichester.

  So struck was he by the old wanderer’s advice, for he leaned heavily now on any help he could get, that he sent no wire to Spelkins, as he had arranged, to tell him the train he would come by, but hired a fly at Seldham and drove part of the way to Wolding, stopping at the back of the downs, a not expensive journey: thence he could walk again to Ethelbruda’s tomb, and down the hill home. For it seemed to him wise to strengthen his illusions; and where better than at that miracle-working tomb, where lay, as tradition told, that enemy of the pagans, famed throughout all the diocese? Not miracle-working quite, perhaps; for its wonders were too small to be named miracles; but no one doubted in Wolding that, if you rubbed a wart on a certain part of the tomb that was always moist with old rain, the wart would go away in two or three days. So, leaving his bag at Seldham for the carter that drove to Wolding on Wednesdays and Saturdays, he drove to the foot of the downs, and there went up from the road, by a slope that could just be climbed without using one’s hands. When he got to the top he came to level fields, dipping every here and there into little valleys, that earlier in the year were marvellous places for primroses wherever they had the shelter of hedges or shaws. Across these fields he strolled, his thoughts full of the words of the crazed old wanderer of Snichester. And presently there was the tomb rising up before him, above a clump of brambles out in a field.

  And there he had intended to meditate long, until strong hopes and spiritual fortitudes should come to him in answer to his great need. He did not feel that Death had entirely annihilated, even here on earth, that mighty champion of the downland’s Christianity, for she worked for them still although with but humble wonders.

  He had barely seen the tomb when he noticed coming towards him a man who lived on the lonely edge of his parish in the unfrequented country far from Wolding, a small farmer with gnarled hands that had to do most of the work that his farm required.

  “Good morning, sir,” said the farmer.

  “Good morning, Welkin,” the vicar replied, not stopping, for he wanted to be alone.

  “She no longer cures warts, sir,” said Welkin.

  “What!” cried the vicar, almost with a tone of anguish.

  “She doesn’t cure warts any more.”

  Was it one of the illusions falling down already? He had come for help, and the champion was weaker at the very moment of his greatest need of her strength. All, all were failing him.

  “Oh, but are you sure?” he asked.

  “Came here last Friday, sir, and again on Saturday. Should be beginning to take effect by now.

  Friday and Saturday; the very days that so much had been happening in Wolding.

  “Try again, Welkin, try again,” said the vicar.

  “Just been trying, sir, but it won’t be any good.”

  Welkin went on and left the
vicar lonelier yet. Why! There was no limit to the help that he might have rightly demanded, to meet this terrible crisis. And everywhere they failed him. And here was Ethelbruda quietly falling asleep. Piqued, perhaps. And rightly, too. And yet how weak, how feeble, to turn to womanish pique at such a moment, when she should have risen in armour!

  These were the thoughts of the vicar: they were not just; but he was driven to them by his continual rebuffs from all that should have helped him.

  CHAPTER XXV

  THE DEFECTION OF MRS. END

  IT was late for lunch when the vicar came home, but Augusta had seen him coming down the hill and had waited till he got in. And almost the first question he asked was “Where are the letters?” For he had just missed the morning post the day before, though he had thought that it should have been in before he started; and now there should be that post and the evening post, as well as one this morning. He had been looking forward to this; for he set store by the change that the post would bring to any mood, with the news and the views of others, that might be at any distance from the cares that were vexing him. Not often did a post fulfil his expectations, and then one day a letter would come that would entirely absorb him for half an hour, perhaps for the whole morning. Upon what subject? Some trifle. It is not any intrinsic matter that there is in things themselves, on which their value depends to us, but it is on their power to awaken in us enthusiasm.

  A post-card comes for instance addressed to some elderly gentleman living alone, and nothing is on it but 36... QXKBP+. “From some foreign gentleman,” says the post-mistress. And her thoughts rise far from the fields in which folk speak English, and are awhile in strange lands with monkeys and cocoanuts, Russians and French and Italians, glimpsing things she will never see, abroad and afar where her lot will never take her; dreaming inaccurate nonsense, some might say; yet when she comes back in two moments to the counter of the dingy little post office she is the better for that short holiday of the spirit. “Arithmetic,” says the postman on his rounds, seeing the plus sign and the multiplication sign and the numbers. A drab thing to him. And if it takes him back for a moment to his youth, and the bright companions he had, it takes him back to a shadow that fell over him and them. It was all right at first when one added figures to figures, and the Spring mornings were brighter then than now; but when it came to adding and multiplying letters of the alphabet, that was a bit too much. No, the postcard fails to awaken any winged interest here. But when it comes to the villa, and the maid takes it. A single glance, and she knows. “Nihilists,” she says! A bright “Good morning,” to the postman, and her heart full of mystery and bombs. As blackguardly a code as was ever put together. And that quiet old gentleman: so he was in with them! The creaky boards of the villa creak now with a delightfully sinister meaning, and dingy corners now hide dreadful secrets. What will come of it all? Only the cook will know that. So the post-card is delivered with a wonderful outward calm, and away she goes to the kitchen. And the lonely old gentleman with his post-card, a change comes over him. Powers that that villa and all the neighbouring village have no use for muster and march to his mind. He has a name far from here, and amongst a few. And he sees that his strength is not deserting him. Of the hard-earned admiration that they accord him he sees he is worthy yet. “Wasting time that he can’t afford, in capturing pawns,” he mutters over his post-card. Then to his chess-board, and the room is silent.