Presently after Liveloose rose up, smiling softly, and groped after him.

A little silence followed their departure.

"You must tell your friend, Mr. Reverie," said Atheist good-humouredly, "that Mr. Cruelty says more than he means. To my mind he is mistaken--too energetic; but his intentions are good."

"He's a staunch, dependable fellow," said Obstinate, patting down the wide cuffs he wore.

But even at that moment a stranger softly entered the inn out of the night. His face was of the grey of ashes, and he looked once round on us all with a still, appalling glance that silenced the words on my lips.

We sat without speech--Obstinate yawning, Atheist smiling lightly, Superst.i.tion nibbling his nails, Reverie with chin drawn a little back, Pliable bolt upright, like a green and white wand, Mistrust blinking his little thin lids; but all with eyes fixed on this stranger, who deemed himself, it seemed, among friends.

He turned his back on us and sipped his drink under the heedless, deep, untroubled gaze of Mrs. Nature, and pa.s.sed out softly and harmlessly as he had come in.

Reverie stood up like a man surprised and ill at ease. He turned to me. "I know him only by repute, by hearsay," he said with an effort.

"He is a stranger to us all, indeed, sir--to all."

Obstinate, with a very flushed face, thrust his hand into his breeches' pocket. "Nay, sir," he said, "my purse is yet here. What more would you have?"

At which Pliable laughed, turning to the women.

I put on my hat and followed Reverie to the door.

"Excuse me, sir," I said, "but I have no desire to stay in this house over-night. And if you would kindly direct me to the nearest way out of the village, I will have my horse saddled now and be off."

And then I noticed that Superst.i.tion stood in the light of the doorway looking down on us.

"There's Christian's way," he said, as if involuntarily....

"Lodge with me to-night," Reverie answered, "and in the morning you shall choose which way to go you will."

I thanked him heartily and turned in to find Rosinante.

The night was now fine, but moist and sultry, and misty in the distance. It was late, too, for few candles gleamed beneath the moonlight from the windows round about the smooth village-green. Even as we set out, I leading Rosinante by her bridle, and Superst.i.tion on my left hand, out of heavenly Leo a bright star wheeled, fading as it fell. And soon high hedges hid utterly the "World's End" behind us, out of sight and sound.

I observed when the trees had laid their burdened branches overhead, and the thick-flowered bushes begun to straiten our way, that this Mr.

Superst.i.tion who had desired to accompany us was of a very different courage from that his manner at the inn seemed to profess.

He walked with almost as much caution and ungainliness as Mistrust, his deep and shining eyes busily searching the gloom to left and right of him. Indeed, those same dark eyes of his reminded me not a little of Mrs. Nature's, they were so full of what they could not tell.

He was on foot; my new friend Reverie, like myself, led his horse, a pale, lovely creature with delicate nostrils and deep-smouldering eyes.

"You must think me very bold to force my company on you," said Superst.i.tion awkwardly, turning to Reverie, "but my house is never so mute with horror as in these moody summer nights when thunder is in the air. See there!" he cried.

As if the distant sky had opened, the large, bright, harmless lightning quivered and was gone, revealing on the opposing hills forest above forest unutterably dark and still.

"Surely," I said, "that is not the way Christian took?"

"They say," Reverie answered, "the Valley of the Shadow of Death lies between those hills."

"But Atheist," I said, "_that_ acid little man, did he indeed walk there alone?"

"I have heard," muttered Superst.i.tion, putting out his hand, "'tis fear only that maketh afraid. Atheist has no fear."

"But what of Cruelty," I said, "and Liveloose?"

"Why," answered Superst.i.tion, "Cruelty works cunningest when he is afraid; and Liveloose never talks about himself. None the less there's not a tree but casts a shadow. I met once an earnest yet very popular young gentleman of the name of Science, who explained almost everything on earth to me so clearly, and patiently, and fatherly, I thought I should evermore sleep in peace. But we met at noon. Believe me, sir, I would have followed Christian and his friend Hopeful very willingly long since; for as for Cruelty and Obstinate and all that clumsy rabble, I heed them not. Indeed my cousin Mistrust _did_ go, and as you see returned with a caution; and a poor young school-fellow of mine, Jack Ignorance, came to an awful end. But it is because I owe partly to Christian and not all to myself this horrible solitude in which I walk that I dare not risk a deeper. It would be, I feel sure.

And so I very willingly beheld Faithful burned; it restored my confidence. And here, sir," he added, almost with gaiety, "lives my friend Mrs. Simple, a widow. She enjoys my company and my old fables, and we keep the blinds down against these mountains, and candles burning against the brighter lightnings."

So saying, Superst.i.tion bade us good-night and pa.s.sed down a little by-lane on our left towards a country cottage, like a dreaming bower of roses beneath the moon.

But Reverie and I continued on as if the moon herself as patiently pursued us. And by-and-by we came to a house called Gloom, whose gardens slope down with plashing fountains and glimmering banks of flowers into the shadow and stillness of a broad valley, named beneath the hills of Silence, Peace.

XI

_His soul shall taste the sadness of her might, And be among her cloudy trophies hung._

--JOHN KEATS.

Even as we entered the gates of Mr. Reverie's house beneath embowering chestnuts, there advanced across the moonlit s.p.a.ces to meet us a figure on foot like ourselves, leading his horse. He was in armour, yet unarmed. His steel glittered cold and blue; his fingers hung ungauntleted; and on his pale face dwelt a look never happy warrior wore yet. He seemed a man Mars lends to Venus out of war to unhappy idleness. The disillusionment of age was in his face: yet he was youthful, I suppose; scarce older than Mercutio, and once, perhaps, as light of wit.

He took my hand in a grasp cold and listless, and smiled from mirthless eyes.

Yet there was something strangely taking in this solitary knight-at-arms. She for whom he does not fight, I thought, must have somewhat of the immortals to grace her warrior with. And if it were only shadows that beset him and obscured his finer heart, shadows they were of myrtle and rhododendron, with voices shrill and small as the sparrows', and eyes of the next-to-morning stars.

Indeed, these gardens whispered, and the wind at play in the air seemed to bear far-away music, dying and falling.

We entered the house and sat down to supper in a low room open to the night. Reverie recounted our evening's talk. "I wish," he said, turning to his friend, "you would accompany Mr. Brocken and me one night to the 'World's End' to hear these fellows talk. Such arrogance, such a.s.surance, such bigotry and blindness and foxiness!--yet, on my word, a kind of gravity with it all, as if the scarecrows had some real interest in the devil's tares they guard. Come now, let it be a bargain between us, and leave this endless search awhile."

But the solitary knight shook his head. "They would jeer me out of knowledge," he said. "Why, Reverie, the children cease their play when I pa.s.s, and draw their tops and marbles out of the dust, and gaze till I am hid from sight."

"It is fancy, only fancy," replied Reverie; "children stare at all things new to them in the world. How else could they recognise and learn again--how else forget? But as for this rabble's mockery, there is a she-bear left called Oblivion which is their mistress, and will some day silence every jeer."

The solitary knight shook his head again, eyeing me solemnly as if in hope to discern in my face the sorcery that held himself in thrall.

The few wax tapers gave but light enough to find the way from goblet to mouth. As for Reverie's wine, I ask no other, for it had the poppy's scarlet, and overcame weariness so subtly I almost forgot these were the hours of sleep we spent in waking; forgot, too, as if of the lotus, all thought of effort and hope.

After all, thought I as I sipped, effort is the flaw that proves men mortal; while as for hope, who would seek a seed that floats on every wind and smothers the world with weeds that bear no fruit? It was, in fact, fare very different from the ale and cheese of the "World's End."

"But you yourself," I said to Mr. Reverie presently; "in all the talk at the inn you kept a very scrupulous silence--discreet enough, I own.

But now, what truly _was_ this Christian of whom we heard so much? and why, may I ask, do his neighbours slander the dead? You yourselves, did you ever meet with him?" I turned from one to the other of my companions as they glanced uneasily each at each.

"Well, sir," said Reverie rather deliberately, "I have met him and talked with him. I often think of him, in spite of myself. Yet he was a man of little charm. He certainly had a remarkable gift for estranging his friends. He was a foe to the most innocent compromise.

For myself, I found not much humour in him, no eye for grace or art, and a limited imagination that was yet his absolute master.

Nevertheless, as you hint, these fellows, no more than I, can forget him. Nor you?" He turned to the other.