The Blue Flower [19]
shrine?"
"To Canterbury," I answered, "to find a night's, or a
month's, lodging at the inn. My journey is a ramble, it has
neither terminus nor time-table."
"Then let me commend to you something vastly better than
the tender mercies of the Canterbury Inn. Come with me to the
school on Hilltop, where I am a teacher. It is a thousand
feet above the village--purer air, finer view, and pleasanter
company. There is plenty of room in the house, for it is
vacation-time. Master Isaac Ward is always glad to entertain
guests."
There was something so sudden and unconventional about the
invitation that I was reluctant to accept it; but he gave it
naturally and pressed it with earnest courtesy, assuring me
that it was in accordance with Master Ward's custom, that he
would be much disappointed to lose the chance of talking with
an interesting traveller, that he would far rather let me pay
him for my lodging than have me go by, and so on--so that at
last I consented.
Three minutes' walking from the deserted clearing brought
us into a travelled road. It circled the breast of the
mountain, and as we stepped along it in the dusk I learned
something of my companion. His name was Edward Keene; he
taught Latin and Greek in the Hilltop School; he had studied for
the ministry, but had given it up, I gathered, on account of a
certain loss of interest, or rather a diversion of interest in
another direction. He spoke of himself with an impersonal
candour.
"Preachers must be always trying to persuade men," he
said. "But what I care about is to know men. I don't care
what they do. Certainly I have no wish to interfere with them
in their doings, for I doubt whether anyone can really change
them. Each tree bears its own fruit, you see, and by their
fruits you know them."
"What do you say to grafting? That changes the fruit,
surely?"
"Yes, but a grafted tree is not really one tree. It is
two trees growing together. There is a double life in it, and
the second life, the added life, dominates the other. The
stock becomes a kind of animate soil for the graft to grow
in."
Presently the road dipped into a little valley and rose
again, breasting the slope of a wooded hill which thrust
itself out from the steeper flank of the mountain-range. Down
the hill-side a song floated to meet us--that most noble lyric of
old Robert Herrick:
Bid me to live, and I will live
Thy Protestant to be;
Or bid me love, and I will give
A loving heart to thee.
It was a girl's voice, fresh and clear, with a note of
tenderness in it that thrilled me. Keene's pace quickened.
And soon the singer came in sight, stepping lightly down the
road, a shape of slender whiteness on the background of
gathering night. She was beautiful even in that dim light,
with brown eyes and hair, and a face that seemed to breathe
purity and trust. Yet there was a trace of anxiety in it, or
so I fancied, that gave it an appealing charm.
"You have come at last, Edward," she cried, running
forward and putting her hand in his. "It is late. You have
been out all day; I began to be afraid."
"Not too late," he answered; "there was no need for fear,
Dorothy. I am not alone, you see." And keeping her hand, he
introduced me to the daughter of Master Ward.
It was easy to guess the relation between these two young
people who walked beside me in the dusk. It needed no words
to say that they were lovers. Yet it would have needed many
words to define the sense, that came to me gradually, of
something singular in the tie that bound them together. On
his part there was a certain tone of half-playful
condescension toward her such as one might use to a lovely
child, which seemed to match but ill with her unconscious
attitude of watchful care, of tender solicitude for
him--almost like the manner of an elder sister. Lovers they
surely were, and acknowledged lovers, for their frankness of
demeanour sought no concealment; but I felt that there must be
A little rift within the lute,
"To Canterbury," I answered, "to find a night's, or a
month's, lodging at the inn. My journey is a ramble, it has
neither terminus nor time-table."
"Then let me commend to you something vastly better than
the tender mercies of the Canterbury Inn. Come with me to the
school on Hilltop, where I am a teacher. It is a thousand
feet above the village--purer air, finer view, and pleasanter
company. There is plenty of room in the house, for it is
vacation-time. Master Isaac Ward is always glad to entertain
guests."
There was something so sudden and unconventional about the
invitation that I was reluctant to accept it; but he gave it
naturally and pressed it with earnest courtesy, assuring me
that it was in accordance with Master Ward's custom, that he
would be much disappointed to lose the chance of talking with
an interesting traveller, that he would far rather let me pay
him for my lodging than have me go by, and so on--so that at
last I consented.
Three minutes' walking from the deserted clearing brought
us into a travelled road. It circled the breast of the
mountain, and as we stepped along it in the dusk I learned
something of my companion. His name was Edward Keene; he
taught Latin and Greek in the Hilltop School; he had studied for
the ministry, but had given it up, I gathered, on account of a
certain loss of interest, or rather a diversion of interest in
another direction. He spoke of himself with an impersonal
candour.
"Preachers must be always trying to persuade men," he
said. "But what I care about is to know men. I don't care
what they do. Certainly I have no wish to interfere with them
in their doings, for I doubt whether anyone can really change
them. Each tree bears its own fruit, you see, and by their
fruits you know them."
"What do you say to grafting? That changes the fruit,
surely?"
"Yes, but a grafted tree is not really one tree. It is
two trees growing together. There is a double life in it, and
the second life, the added life, dominates the other. The
stock becomes a kind of animate soil for the graft to grow
in."
Presently the road dipped into a little valley and rose
again, breasting the slope of a wooded hill which thrust
itself out from the steeper flank of the mountain-range. Down
the hill-side a song floated to meet us--that most noble lyric of
old Robert Herrick:
Bid me to live, and I will live
Thy Protestant to be;
Or bid me love, and I will give
A loving heart to thee.
It was a girl's voice, fresh and clear, with a note of
tenderness in it that thrilled me. Keene's pace quickened.
And soon the singer came in sight, stepping lightly down the
road, a shape of slender whiteness on the background of
gathering night. She was beautiful even in that dim light,
with brown eyes and hair, and a face that seemed to breathe
purity and trust. Yet there was a trace of anxiety in it, or
so I fancied, that gave it an appealing charm.
"You have come at last, Edward," she cried, running
forward and putting her hand in his. "It is late. You have
been out all day; I began to be afraid."
"Not too late," he answered; "there was no need for fear,
Dorothy. I am not alone, you see." And keeping her hand, he
introduced me to the daughter of Master Ward.
It was easy to guess the relation between these two young
people who walked beside me in the dusk. It needed no words
to say that they were lovers. Yet it would have needed many
words to define the sense, that came to me gradually, of
something singular in the tie that bound them together. On
his part there was a certain tone of half-playful
condescension toward her such as one might use to a lovely
child, which seemed to match but ill with her unconscious
attitude of watchful care, of tender solicitude for
him--almost like the manner of an elder sister. Lovers they
surely were, and acknowledged lovers, for their frankness of
demeanour sought no concealment; but I felt that there must be
A little rift within the lute,