Rewards and Fairies

‘He told me he could judge by the look of the creature’s coat and the way it sniffed what weather was brewing. Quite possible. One need not put down everything one does not understand to the work of bad spirits – or good ones, for that matter.’ He nodded towards Puck, who nodded gaily in return.

‘I say so,’ he went on, ‘because to a certain extent I have been made a victim of that habit of mind. Some while after I was settled at Selsea, King Ethelwalch and Queen Ebba ordered their people to be baptized. I fear I’m too old to believe that a whole nation can change its heart at the King’s command, and I had a shrewd suspicion that their real motive was to get a good harvest. No rain had fallen for two or three years, but as soon as we had finished baptizing, it fell heavily, and they all said it was a miracle.’

‘And was it?’ Dan asked.

‘Everything in life is a miracle, but’ – the Archbishop twisted the heavy ring on his finger – ‘I should be slow – ve-ry slow should I be – to assume that a certain sort of miracle happens whenever lazy and improvident people say they are going to turn over a new leaf if they are paid for it. My friend Meon had sent his slaves to the font, but he had not come himself, so the next time I rode over – to return a manuscript – I took the liberty of asking why. He was perfectly open about it. He looked on the King’s action as a heathen attempt to curry favour with the Christians’ God through me the Archbishop, and he would have none of it. "My dear man,” I said, “admitting that that is the case, surely you, as an educated person, don’t believe in Wotan and all the other hobgoblins any more than Padda here.” The old seal was hunched up on his ox-hide behind his master’s chair.

‘“Even if I don’t,” he said, “why should I insult the memory of my fathers’ Gods? I have sent you a hundred and three of my rascals to christen. Isn’t that enough?”

‘“By no means,” I answered. “I want you.”

‘“He wants us! What do you think of that, Padda?” He pulled the seal’s whiskers till it threw back its head and roared, and he pretended to interpret. “No! Padda says he won’t be baptized yet awhile. He says you’ll stay to dinner and come fishing with me to-morrow, because you’re overworked and need a rest.”

‘“I wish you’d keep yon brute in its proper place,” I said, and Eddi, my chaplain, agreed.

‘“I do,” said Meon. “I keep him just next my heart. He can’t tell a lie, and he doesn’t know how to love any one except me. It ’ud be the same if I were dying on a mud-bank, wouldn’t it, Padda?”

‘“Augh! Augh!” said Padda, and put up his head to be scratched.

‘Then Meon began to tease Eddi: “Padda says, if Eddi saw his Archbishop dying on a mud*-bank Eddi would tuck up his gown and run. Padda knows Eddi can run too! Padda came into Wittering Church last Sunday – all wet – to hear the music, and Eddi ran out.”

‘My good Eddi rubbed his hands and his shins together, and flushed. "Padda is a child of the Devil, who is the father of lies!” he cried, and begged my pardon for having spoken. I forgave him.

‘“Yes. You are just about stupid enough for a musician,” said Meon. “But here he is. Sing a hymn to him, and see if he can stand it. You’ll find my small harp beside the fireplace.”

‘Eddi, who is really an excellent musician, played and sang for quite half an hour. Padda shuffled off his ox-hide, hunched himself on his flippers before him, and listened with his head thrown back. Yes – yess! A rather funny sight! Meon tried not to laugh, and asked Eddi if he were satisfied.

‘It takes some time to get an idea out of my good Eddi’s head. He looked at me.

‘“Do you want to sprinkle him with holy water, and see if he flies up the chimney? Why not baptize him?” said Meon.

‘Eddi was really shocked. I thought it was bad taste myself.

‘“That’s not fair,” said Meon. “You call him a demon and a familiar spirit because he loves his master and likes music, and when I offer you a chance to prove it you won’t take it. Look here! I’ll make a bargain. I’ll be baptized if you’ll baptize Padda too. He’s more of a man than most of my slaves.”

‘“One doesn’t bargain – or joke – about these matters,” I said. He was going altogether too far.

‘“Quite right,” said Meon; “I shouldn’t like any one to joke about Padda. Padda, go down to the beach and bring us to-morrow’s weather!”

‘My good Eddi must have been a little over-tired with his day’s work. "I am a servant of the Church,” he cried. “My business is to save souls, not to enter into fellowships and understandings with accursed beasts.”

‘“Have it your own narrow way,” said Meon. “Padda, you needn’t go.” The old fellow flounced back to his ox-hide at once.

‘“Man could learn obedience at least from that creature,” said Eddi, a little ashamed of himself. Christians should not curse.

‘“Don’t begin to apologise just when I am beginning to like you,” said Meon. “We’ll leave Padda behind to-morrow – out of respect to your feelings. Now let’s go to supper. We must be up early to-morrow for the whiting.”

‘The next was a beautiful crisp autumn morning – a weather breeder, if I had taken the trouble to think; but it’s refreshing to escape from kings and converts for half a day. We three went by ourselves in Meon’s smallest boat, and we got on the whiting near an old wreck, a mile or so off shore. Meon knew the marks to a yard, and the fish were keen. Yes – yess! A perfect morning’s fishing! If a bishop can’t be a fisherman, who can?’ He twiddled his ring again. ‘We stayed there a little too long, and while we were getting up our stone, down came the fog. After some discussion, we decided to row for the land. The ebb was just beginning to make round the point, and sent us all ways at once like a coracle.’

‘Selsea Bill,’ said Puck under his breath. ‘The tides run something furious there.’

‘I believe you,’ said the Archbishop. ‘Meon and I have spent a good many evenings arguing as to where exactly we drifted. All I know is we found ourselves in a little rocky cove that had sprung up round us out of the fog, and a swell lifted the boat on to a ledge, and she broke up beneath our feet. We had just time to shuffle through the weed before the next wave. The sea was rising.

‘“It’s rather a pity we didn’t let Padda go down to the beach last night,” said Meon. “He might have warned us this was coming.”

‘“Better fall into the hands of God than the hands of demons,” said Eddi, and his teeth chattered as he prayed. A nor’-west breeze had just got up – distinctly cool.

‘“Save what you can of the boat,” said Meon; “we may need it,” and we had to drench ourselves again, fishing out stray planks.’

‘What for?’ said Dan.

‘For firewood. We did not know when we should get off. Eddi had flint and steel, and we found dry fuel in the old gulls’ nests and lit a fire. It smoked abominably, and we guarded it with boat-planks up-ended between the rocks. One gets used to that sort of thing if one travels. Unluckily I’m not so strong as I was. I fear I must have been a trouble to my friends. It was blowing a full gale before midnight. Eddi wrung out his cloak, and tried to wrap me in it, but I ordered him on his obedience to keep it. However, he held me in his arms all the first night, and Meon begged his pardon for what he’d said the night before – about Eddi running away if he found me on a sandbank, you remember.

‘“You are right in half your prophecy,” said Eddi. “I have tucked up my gown, at any rate.” (The wind had blown it over his head.) “Now let us thank God for His mercies.”

‘“Hum!” said Meon. “If this gale lasts, we stand a very fair chance of dying of starvation.”

‘“If it be God’s will that we live, God will provide,” said Eddi. “At least help me to sing to Him.” The wind almost whipped the words out of his mouth, but he braced himself against a rock and sang psalms.

‘I’m glad I never concealed my opinion – from myself – that Eddi was a better man than I. Yet I have worked hard in my time – very hard! Yes – yess! So the morning and the evening were our second day on that islet. There was rainwater in the rock pools, and, as a Churchman, I knew how to fast, but I admit we were hungry. Meon fed our fire chip by chip to eke it out, and they made me sit over it, the dear fellows, when I was too weak to object. Meon held me in his arms the second night, just like a child. My good Eddi was a little out of his senses, and imagined himself teaching a York choir to sing. Even so, he was beautifully patient with them.

‘I heard Meon whisper, “If this keeps up we shall go to our Gods. I wonder what Wotan will say to me. He must know I don’t believe in him. On the other hand, I can’t do what Ethelwalch finds so easy – curry favour with your God at the last minute, in the hope of being saved – as you call it. How do you advise, Bishop?”

‘“My dear man,” I said, “if that is your honest belief, I take it upon myself to say you had far better not curry favour with any God. But if it’s only your Jutish pride that holds you back, lift me up, and I’ll baptize you even now.”

‘“Lie still,” said Meon. “I could judge better if I were in my own hall. But to desert one’s fathers’ Gods – even if one doesn’t believe in them – in the middle of a gale, isn’t quite – What would you do yourself?”

‘I was lying in his arms, kept alive by the warmth of his big, steady heart. It did not seem to me the time or the place for subtle arguments, so I answered, “No, I certainly should not desert my God.” I don’t see even now what else I could have said.

‘“Thank you. I’ll remember that, if I live,” said Meon, and I must have drifted back to my dreams about Northumbria and beautiful France, for it was broad daylight when I heard him calling on Wotan in that high, shaking heathen yell that I detest so.

‘“Lie quiet. I’m giving Wotan his chance,” he said. Our dear Eddi ambled up, still beating time to his imaginary choir.

‘“Yes. Call on your Gods,” he cried, “and see what gifts they will send you. They are gone on a journey, or they are hunting.”

‘I assure you the words were not out of his mouth when old Padda shot from the top of a cold wrinkled swell, drove himself over the weedy ledge, and landed fair in our laps with a rock-cod between his teeth. I could not help smiling at Eddi’s face. “A miracle! A miracle!” he cried, and kneeled down to clean the cod.

‘“You’ve been a long time winding us, my son,” said Meon. “Now fish – fish for all our lives. We’re starving, Padda.”

‘The old fellow flung himself quivering like a salmon backward into the boil of the currents round the rocks, and Meon said, “We’re safe. I’ll send him to fetch help when this wind drops. Eat and be thankful.”

‘I never tasted anything so good as those rock-codlings we took from Padda’s mouth and half roasted over the fire. Between his plunges Padda would hunch up and purr over Meon with the tears running down his face. I never knew before that seals could weep for joy – as I have wept.

‘“Surely,” said Eddi, with his mouth full, “God has made the seal the loveliest of His creatures in the water. Look how Padda breasts the current! He stands up against it like a rock; now watch the chain of bubbles where he dives; and now – there is his wise head under that rock ledge! Oh, a blessing be on thee, my little brother Padda!”

‘“You said he was a child of the Devil!” Meon laughed.

‘“There I sinned,” poor Eddi answered. “Call him here, and I will ask his pardon. God sent him out of the storm to humble me, a fool.”

‘“I won’t ask you to enter into fellowships and understandings with any accursed brute,” said Meon, rather unkindly. “Shall we say he was sent to our Bishop as the ravens were sent to your prophet Elijah?”

‘“Doubtless that is so,” said Eddi. “I will write it so if I live to get home.”

‘“No – no!” I said. “Let us three poor men kneel and thank God for His mercies.”

‘We kneeled, and old Padda shuffled up and thrust his head under Meon’s elbows. I laid my hand upon it and blessed him. So did Eddi.

‘“And now, my son,” I said to Meon, “shall I baptize thee?”

‘“Not yet,” said he. “Wait till we are well ashore and at home. No God in any Heaven shall say that I came to him or left him because I was wet and cold. I will send Padda to my people for a boat. Is that witchcraft, Eddi?”

‘“Why, no. Surely Padda will go and pull them to the beach by the skirts of their gowns as he pulled me in Wittering Church to ask me to sing. Only then I was afraid, and did not understand,” said Eddi.

‘“You are understanding now,” said Meon, and at a wave of his arm off went Padda to the mainland, making a wake like a war-boat till we lost him in the rain. Meon’s people could not bring a boat across for some hours; even so it was ticklish work among the rocks in that tideway. But they hoisted me aboard, too stiff to move, and Padda swam behind us, barking and turning somersaults all the way to Manhood End!’

‘Good old Padda!’ murmured Dan.

‘When we were quite rested and re-clothed, and his people had been summoned – not an hour before – Meon offered himself to be baptized.’

‘Was Padda baptized too?’ Una asked.

‘No, that was only Meon’s joke. But he sat blinking on his ox-hide in the middle of the hall. When Eddi (who thought I wasn’t looking) made a little cross in holy water on his wet muzzle, he kissed Eddi’s hand. A week before Eddi wouldn’t have touched him. That was a miracle, if you like! But seriously, I was more glad than I can tell you to get Meon. A rare and splendid soul that never looked back – never looked back!’ The Archbishop half closed his eyes.

‘But, sir,’ said Puck, most respectfully, ‘haven’t you left out what Meon said afterwards?’ Before the Bishop could speak he turned to the children and went on: ‘Meon called all his fishers and ploughmen and herdsmen into the hall and he said: “Listen, men! Two days ago I asked our Bishop whether it was fair for a man to desert his fathers’ Gods in a time of danger. Our Bishop said it was not fair. You needn’t shout like that, because you are all Christians now. My red war-boat’s crew will remember how near we all were to death when Padda fetched them over to the Bishop’s islet. You can tell your mates that even in that place, at that time, hanging on the wet, weedy edge of death, our Bishop, a Christian, counselled me, a heathen, to stand by my fathers’ Gods. I tell you now that a faith which takes care that every man shall keep faith, even though he may save his soul by breaking faith, is the faith for a man to believe in. So I believe in the Christian God, and in Wilfrid His Archbishop, and in the Church that Wilfrid rules. You have been baptized once by the King’s orders. I shall not have you baptized again; but if I find any more old women being sent to Wotan, or any girls dancing on the sly before Balder, or any men talking about Thun or Lok or the rest, I will teach you with my own hands how to keep faith with the Christian God. Go out quietly; you’ll find a couple of beefs on the beach.” Then of course they shouted “Hurrah!” which meant “Thor help us!” and – I think you laughed, sir?’

‘I think you remember it all too well,’ said the Archbishop, smiling. ‘It was a joyful day for me. I had learned a great deal on that rock where Padda found us. Yes – yess! One should deal kindly with all the creatures of God, and gently with their masters. But one learns late.’

He rose, and his gold-embroidered sleeves rustled thickly.

The organ clacked and took deep breaths.

‘Wait a minute,’ Dan whispered. ‘She’s going to do the trumpety one. It takes all the wind you can pump. It’s in Latin, sir.’

‘There is no other tongue,’ the Archbishop answered.

‘It’s not a real hymn,’ Una explained. ‘She does it as a treat after her exercises. She isn’t a real organist, you know. She just comes down here sometimes, from the Albert Hall.’

‘Oh, what a miracle of a voice!’ said the Archbishop.

It rang out suddenly from a dark arch of lonely noises – every word spoken to the very end.

‘Dies Irae, dies illaSolvet saeclum in favillaTeste David cum Sibylla.’

The Archbishop caught his breath and moved forward.

The music carried on by itself a while.

‘Now it’s calling all the light out of the windows,’ Una whispered to Dan.

‘I think it’s more like a horse neighing in battle,’ he whispered back. The voice cried:

‘Tuba mirum spargens sonumPer sepulchra regionum.’

Deeper and deeper the organ dived down, but far below its deepest note they heard Puck’s voice joining in the last line:

‘Coget omnes ante thronum.’

As they looked in wonder, for it sounded like the dull jar of one of the very pillars shifting, the little fellow turned and went out through the south door.

‘Now’s the sorrowful part, but it’s very beautiful.’ Una found herself speaking to the empty chair in front of her.

‘What are you doing that for?’ Dan said behind her. ‘You spoke so politely too.’

‘I don’t know … I thought …’ said Una. ‘Funny!’

‘’Tisn’t. It’s the part you like best,’ Dan grunted.

The music had turned soft – full of little sounds that chased each other on wings across the broad gentle flood of the main tune. But the voice was ten times lovelier than the music.

‘Recordare Jesu pie,Quod sum causa Tuae viae,Ne me perdas illâ die!’

There was no more. They moved out into the centre-aisle.

‘‘That you?’ the Lady called as she shut the lid. ‘I thought I heard you, and I played it on purpose.’

‘Thank you awfully,’ said Dan. ‘We hoped you would, so we waited. Come on, Una, it’s pretty nearly dinner-time.’

SONG OF THE RED WAR-BOAT

Shove off from the wharf-edge! Steady!Watch for a smooth! Give way!If she feels the lop alreadyShe’ll stand on her head in the bay.It’s ebb – it’s dusk – it’s blowing,The shoals are a mile of white,But (snatch her along!) we’re goingTo find our master to-night.For we hold that in all disasterOf shipwreck, storm, or sword,A man must stand by his masterWhen once he has pledged his word!Raging seas have we rowed in,But we seldom saw them thus;Our master is angry with Odin —Odin is angry with us!Heavy odds have we taken,But never before such odds.The Gods know they are forsaken,We must risk the wrath of the Gods!Over the crest she flies from,Into its hollow she drops,Crouches and clears her eyes fromThe wind-torn breaker-tops,Ere out on the shrieking shoulderOf a hill-high surge she drives.Meet her! Meet her and hold her!Pull for your scoundrel lives!The thunders bellow and clamourThe harm that they mean to do;There goes Thor’s own HammerCracking the dark in two!Close! But the blow has missed her,Here comes the wind of the blow!Row or the squall’ll twist herBroadside on to it! —Row!Hearken, Thor of the Thunder!We are not here for a jest —For wager, warfare, or plunder,Or to put your power to test.This work is none of our wishing —We would stay at home if we might —But our master is wrecked out fishing,We go to find him to-night.For we hold that in all disaster —As the Gods Themselves have said —A man must stand by his masterTill one of the two is dead.That is our way of thinking,Now you can do as you will,While we try to save her from sinking,And hold her head to it still.Bale her and keep her moving,Or she’ll break her back in the trough …Who said the weather’s improving,Or the swells are taking off?Sodden, and chafed and aching,Gone in the loins and knees —No matter – the day is breaking,And there’s far less weight to the seas!Up mast, and finish baling —In oars, and out with the mead —The rest will be two-reef sailing …That was a night indeed!But we hold that in all disaster(And faith, we have found it true!)If only you stand by your master,The Gods will stand by you!

A Doctor of Medicine

AN ASTROLOGER’S SONG

To the Heavens above usO look and beholdThe Planets that love usAll harnessed in gold!What chariots, what horses,Against us shall bideWhile the Stars in their coursesDo fight on our side?All thought, all desires,That are under the sun,Are one with their fires,As we also are one;All matter, all spirit,All fashion, all frame,Receive and inheritTheir strength from the same.(Oh, man that deniestAll power save thine own,Their power in the highestIs mightily shown.Not less in the lowestThat power is made clear.Oh, man, if thou knowest,What treasure is here!)Earth quakes in her throesAnd we wonder for why!But the blind planet knowsWhen her ruler is nigh;And, attuned since Creation,To perfect accord,She thrills in her stationAnd yearns to her Lord.The waters have risen,The springs are unbound —The floods break their prison,And ravin around.No rampart withstands ’em,Their fury will last,Till the Sign that commands ’emSinks low or swings past.Through abysses unproven,And gulfs beyond thought,Our portion is woven,Our burden is brought.Yet They that prepare it,Whose Nature we share,Make us who must bear itWell able to bear.Though terrors o’ertake usWe’ll not be afraid,No power can unmake usSave that which has made.Nor yet beyond reasonNor hope shall we fall —All things have their season,And Mercy crowns all.Then, doubt not, ye fearful —The Eternal is King —Up, heart, and be cheerful,And lustily sing: —What chariots, what horses,Against us shall bideWhile the Stars in their coursesDo fight on our side?

A Doctor of Medicine

They were playing hide-and-seek with bicycle lamps after tea. Dan had hung his lamp on the apple tree at the end of the hellebore bed in the walled garden, and was crouched by the gooseberry bushes ready to dash off when Una should spy him. He saw her lamp come into the garden and disappear as she hid it under her cloak. While he listened for her footsteps, somebody (they both thought it was Phillips the gardener) coughed in the corner of the herb-beds.

‘All right,’ Una shouted across the asparagus; ‘we aren’t hurting your old beds, Phippsey!’

She flashed her lantern towards the spot, and in its circle of light they saw a Guy Fawkes-looking man in a black cloak and a steeple-crowned hat, walking down the path beside Puck. They ran to meet him, and the man said something to them about rooms in their head. After a time they understood he was warning them not to catch colds.

‘You’ve a bit of a cold yourself, haven’t you?’ said Una, for he ended all his sentences with a consequential cough. Puck laughed.

‘Child,’ the man answered, ‘if it hath pleased Heaven to afflict me with an infirmity – ’

‘Nay, nay,’ Puck struck in, ‘the maid spoke out of kindness. I know that half your cough is but a catch to trick the vulgar; and that’s a pity. There’s honesty enough in you, Nick, without rasping and hawking.’

‘Good people’ – the man shrugged his lean shoulders – ’the vulgar crowd love not truth unadorned. Wherefore we philosophers must needs dress her to catch their eye or – ahem! – their ear.’

‘And what d’you think of that?’ said Puck solemnly to Dan.

‘I don’t know,’ he answered. ‘It sounds like lessons.’

‘Ah – well! There have been worse men than Nick Culpeper to take lessons from. Now, where can we sit that’s not indoors?’

‘In the hay-mow, next to old Middenboro,’ Dan suggested. ‘He doesn’t mind.’

‘Eh?’ Mr. Culpeper was stooping over the pale hellebore blooms by the light of Una’s lamp. ‘Does Master Middenboro need my poor services, then?’

‘Save him, no!’ said Puck. ‘He is but a horse – next door to an ass, as you’ll see presently. Come!’

Their shadows jumped and slid on the fruit-tree walls. They filed out of the garden by the snoring pig-pound and the crooning hen-house, to the shed where Middenboro the old lawn-mower pony lives. His friendly eyes showed green in the light as they set their lamps down on the chickens’ drinking-trough outside, and pushed past to the hay-mow. Mr. Culpeper stooped at the door.

‘Mind where you lie,’ said Dan. ‘This hay’s full of hedge-brishings.’

‘In! in!’ said Puck. ‘You’ve lain in fouler places than this, Nick. Ah! Let us keep touch with the stars!’ He kicked open the top of the half door, and pointed to the clear sky. ‘There be the planets you conjure with! What does your wisdom make of that wandering and variable star behind those apple boughs?’

The children smiled. A bicycle that they knew well was being walked down the steep lane.

‘Where?’ Mr. Culpeper leaned forward quickly. ‘That? Some countryman’s lantern.’

‘Wrong, Nick,’ said Puck. ‘’Tis a singular bright star in Virgo, declining towards the house of Aquarius the water-carrier, who hath lately been afflicted by Gemini. Aren’t I right, Una?’