The Pilgrim's Regress Page 7

  Then a third voice spoke.

  ‘You have neither of you any chance at all unless I carry you down.’

  Both the young men turned at the sound. An old woman was seated in a kind of rocky chair at the very edge of the precipice.

  ‘Oh, it’s you, Mother Kirk, is it?’ said Vertue, and added in an undertone to John, ‘I have seen her about the cliffs more than once. Some of the country people say she is second-sighted, and some that she is crazy.’

  ‘I shouldn’t trust her,’ said John in the same tone. ‘She looks to me much more like a witch.’ Then he turned to the old woman and said aloud: ‘And how could you carry us down, mother? We would be more fit to carry you.’

  ‘I could do it, though,’ said Mother Kirk, ‘by the power that the Landlord has given me.’

  ‘So you believe in the Landlord, too?’ said John.

  ‘How can I not, dear,’ said she, ‘when I am his own daughter-in-law?’

  ‘He does not give you very fine clothes,’ said John, glancing at the old woman’s country cloak.

  ‘They’ll last my time,’ said the old woman placidly.

  ‘We ought to try her,’ whispered Vertue to John. ‘As long as there is any chance we are not allowed to neglect it.’ But John frowned at him to be silent and addressed the old woman again.

  ‘Do you not think this Landlord of yours is a very strange one?’ he said.

  ‘How so?’ said she.

  ‘Why does he make a road like this running up to the very edge of a precipice—unless it is to encourage travellers to break their necks in the dark?’

  ‘Oh, bless you, he never left it like that,’ said the old woman. ‘It was a good road all round the world when it was new, and all this gorge is far later than the road.’

  ‘You mean,’ said Vertue, ‘that there has been some sort of catastrophe.’

  ‘Well,’ said Mother Kirk, ‘I see there will be no getting you down tonight, so I may as well tell you the story. Come and sit down by me. You are neither of you so wise that you need be ashamed of listening to an old wives’ tale.’

  II

  Mother Kirk’s Story

  WHEN THEY WERE SEATED, the old woman told the following story:—

  ‘You must know that once upon a time there were no tenants in this country at all, for the Landlord used to farm it himself. There were only the animals and the Landlord used to look after them, he and his sons and daughters. Every morning they used to come down from the mountains and milk the cows and lead out the sheep to pasture. And they needed less watching, for all the animals were tamer then; and there were no fences needed, for if a wolf got in among the flocks he would do them no harm. And one day the Landlord was going home from his day’s work when he looked round on the country, and the beasts, and saw how the crops were springing, and it came into his head that the whole thing was too good to keep to himself. So he decided to let the country to tenants, and his first tenant was a young married man. But first the Landlord made a farm in the very centre of the land where the soil was the best and the air most wholesome, and that was the very spot where you are sitting now. They were to have the whole land, but that was too much for them to keep under cultivation. The Landlord’s idea was that they could work the farm and leave the rest as a park for the time being: but later they could divide the park up into holdings for their children. For you must know that he drew up a very different lease from the kind you have nowadays. It was a lease in perpetuity on his side, for he promised never to turn them out; but on their side, they could leave when they chose, as long as one of their sons was there, to take the farm on, and then they could go up to live with him in the mountains. He thought that would be a good thing because it would broaden the minds of his own mountain children to mix with strangers. And they thought so too. But before he put the tenants in possession there was one thing he had to do. Up to this time the country had been full of a certain fruit which the Landlord had planted for the refreshment of himself and his children, if they were thirsty during the day as they worked down here. It was a very good fruit and up in the mountains they say it is even more plentiful: but it is very strong and only those who are mountain-bred ought to eat it, for only they can digest it properly. Hitherto, while there were only beasts in the land, it had done no harm for these mountain-apples to be growing in every thicket; for you know that an animal will eat nothing but what is good for it. But now that there were to be men in the land, the Landlord was afraid that they might do themselves an injury; yet it was not to be thought of that he should dig up every sapling of that tree and make the country into a desert. So he decided that it was best to be frank with the young people, and when he found a great big mountain-apple tree growing in the very centre of the farm he said, “So much the better. If they are to learn sense, they may as well learn it from the beginning: and if they will not, there’s no help for it. For if they did not find mountain-apples on the farm, they would soon find them somewhere else.” So he left the apple tree standing, and put the man and his wife into their farm: but before he left them he explained the whole affair to them—as much of it could be explained—and warned them on no account to eat any of the apples. Then he went home. And for a time the young man and his wife behaved very well, tending the animals and managing their farm, and abstaining from the mountain-apples; and for all I know they might never have done otherwise if the wife had not somehow made a new acquaintance. This new acquaintance was a landowner himself. He had been born in the mountains and was one of our Landlord’s own children, but he had quarrelled with his father and set up on his own, and now had built up a very considerable estate in another country. His estate marches, however, with this country: and as he was a great land-grabber he always wanted to take this bit in—and he has very nearly succeeded.’

  ‘I’ve never met any tenants of his,’ said John.

  ‘Not tenants in chief, my dear,’ said the old woman. ‘And so you didn’t know them. But you may have met the Clevers, who are tenants of Mr. Mammon: and he is a tenant of the Spirit of the Age: who holds directly of the Enemy.’

  ‘I am sure the Clevers would be very surprised,’ said John, ‘to hear that they had a Landlord at all. They would think this enemy, as you call him, no less a superstition than your Landlord.’

  ‘But this is how business is managed,’ said Mother Kirk. ‘The little people do not know the big people to whom they belong. The big people do not intend that they should. No important transference of property could be carried out if all the small people at the bottom knew what was really happening. But this is not part of my story. As I was saying, the enemy got to know the farmer’s wife: and, however he did it, or whatever he said to her, it wasn’t long before he persuaded her that the one thing she needed was a nice mountain-apple. And she took one and ate it. And then—you know how it is with husbands—she made the farmer come round to her mind. And at the moment he put out his hand and plucked the fruit there was an earthquake, and the country cracked open all the way across from North to South: and ever since, instead of the farm, there has been this gorge, which the country people call the Grand Canyon. But in my language its name is Peccatum Adae.’

  III

  The Self-Sufficiency of Vertue

  ‘AND I SUPPOSE,’ said John sourly, ‘the Landlord was so annoyed that it was he who invented the rules and the black hole?’

  ‘The story is not quite so simple as that,’ said the old woman, ‘so many things happened after the eating of the apple. For one thing, the taste created such a craving in the man and the woman that they thought they could never eat enough of it; and they were not content with all the wild apple trees, but planted more and more, and grafted mountain-apple on to every other kind of tree so that every fruit should have a dash of that taste in it. They succeeded so well that the whole vegetable system of the country is now infected: and there is hardly a fruit or a root in the land—certainly none this side of the canyon—that has not a little mountain-apple i
n it. You have never tasted anything that was quite free from it.’

  ‘And what has that got to do with the card of rules?’ said John.

  ‘Everything,’ said Mother Kirk. ‘In a country where all the food is more or less poisoned—but some of it very much less than more—you need very complicated rules indeed to keep healthy.’

  ‘Meanwhile,’ said Vertue, ‘we are not getting on with our journey.’

  ‘I will carry you down in the morning, if you like,’ said Mother Kirk. ‘Only mind you, it is a dangerous place, and you must do exactly as I tell you.’

  ‘If the place is so dangerous—’ began John, when Vertue, who had been struck by the woman’s last words, suddenly broke in:

  ‘I am afraid it is no use, mother,’ he said; ‘I cannot put myself under anyone’s orders. I must be the captain of my soul and the master of my fate. But thank you for your offer.’

  ‘You are right,’ said John hastily, and added in a whisper. ‘The old creature is clearly insane. Our real business is to explore this chasm North and South until we find some place where the descent is practicable.’

  Vertue had risen.

  ‘We are thinking, mother,’ he said, ‘that we should like to make sure for ourselves that there is no place where we cannot get down without being carried. You see my own legs have served me so far—and I should not like to start being carried now.’

  ‘It will do you no harm to try,’ answered Mother Kirk. ‘And I should not wonder if you find a way down. Getting up the other side is another question, to be sure; but perhaps we shall meet again when it comes to that.’

  By this time it was quite dark. The two young men bade good night to the woman and drew back along the main road to discuss their plans. Two by-roads branched off from it about a quarter of a mile from the precipice: and as that which went to the north seemed rather the better, and also pointed a little backward and away from the cliffs (which John was anxious not to skirt in the darkness), they turned northward. It was a fine starlit night and grew colder as they proceeded.

  IV

  Mr. Sensible

  WHEN THEY HAD WALKED rather more than a mile John drew Vertue’s attention to a light a little back from the road: and I saw them follow it till they came to a gateway and after that to a door, and there they knocked.

  ‘Whose house is this?’ said Vertue when the servant opened to them.

  ‘This is Mr. Sensible’s house,’ said the servant. ‘And if you are benighted travellers he will receive you gladly.’

  Then he brought them into a room where a lamp was burning clearly, but not very brightly, and an old gentleman was seated by a blazing wood fire with his dog at his feet and his book on his knees and a jig-saw puzzle at one side of him spread out on a wooden frame, and on the other a chessboard with the pieces set for a problem. He rose to greet them very cordially but not hastily.

  ‘You are very welcome, gentlemen,’ said Mr. Sensible. ‘Pray come and warm yourselves. Drudge’ (and here he called to the servant) ‘make some supper ready for three: the usual supper, Drudge. I shall not be able to offer you luxury, gentlemen. The wine of my own country, cowslip wine, shall be your drink. It will be rough to your palates, but to mine the draught that I owe to my own garden and my own kitchen will always have a flavour beyond Hippocrene. The radishes, also of my own growing, I think I may venture to praise. But I see by your looks that I have already betrayed my foible. I confess that my garden is my pride. But what then? We are all children, and I reckon him the wisest among us that can make most sport out of the toys suitable to that condition, without seeking to go beyond it. Regum oequabit opes animis. Contentment, my friends, contentment is the best riches. Do not let the dog tease you, sir. He has mange. Down, Rover! Alas, Rover! thou little knowest that sentence is passed upon thee.’

  ‘You are surely not going to destroy him, sir?’ said John.

  ‘He begins to ail,’ said Mr. Sensible. ‘And it would be foolish to keep him longer. What would you? Omnes eodem cogimur. He has lain in the sun and hunted fleas enough, and now, poor fellow, he must go quo dives Tullus et Ancus. We must take life on the terms it is given us.’

  ‘You will miss your old companion.’

  ‘Why, as to that you know, the great art of life is to moderate our passions. Objects of affection are like other belongings. We must love them enough to enrich our lives while we have them—not enough to impoverish our lives when they are gone. You see this puzzle here. While I am engaged on it it seems to me of sovereign importance to fit the pieces together: when it is done I think of it no more: and if I should fail to do it, why I would not break my heart. Confound that Drudge. Hi! whoreson, are we to wait all night for our supper?’

  ‘Coming, sir,’ said Drudge from the kitchen.

  ‘I think the fellow goes to sleep over his pots and pans,’ said Mr. Sensible, ‘but let us occupy the time by continuing our conversation. Good conversation I reckon among the finer sweets of life. But I would not include diatribe or lecturing or persistent discussion under that head. Your doctrinaire is the bane of all talk. As I sit here listening to your opinions—nullius addictus—and following the ball wherever it rolls, I defy system. I love to explore your minds en deshabille. Nothing comes amiss—j’aime le jeu, l’amour, les livres, la musique, la ville et la champagne—enfin tout! Chance is, after all, our best guide—need I call a better witness than the fortunate cast of the dice which has brought you beneath my roof to-night?’

  ‘It wasn’t exactly chance,’ said Vertue, who had been restlessly waiting to speak. ‘We are on a journey and we are looking for a way to cross the Grand Canyon.’

  ‘Haud equidem invideo,’ said the old gentleman. ‘You do not insist on my accompanying you?’

  ‘We hadn’t thought of it,’ said John.

  ‘Why then I am very willing that you should go!’ cried Mr. Sensible with a burst of melodious laughter. ‘And yet to what end? I often amuse myself with speculating on that curious restlessness in the mind which drives us, specially in youth, to climb up a mountain merely in order that we may then climb down, or to cross the seas in order that we may pay an inn-keeper for setting before us worse cheer than we might eat in our own house. Caelum non animum mutamus. Not that I would repress the impulse, you understand, any more than I would starve any other part of my nature. Here again, the secret of happiness lies in knowing where to stop. A moderate allowance of travelling—enough to quiet, without satiating, a liberal curiosity—is very well. One brings back a few rarities to store in one’s inner cabinet against a dull day. But the Grand Canyon—surely a modest tour along the cliffs on this side of it would give you much the same sort of scenery, and save your necks.’

  ‘It wasn’t scenery we were looking for,’ said John. ‘I am trying to find the Island in the West.’

  ‘You refer, no doubt, to some aesthetic experience. There again—I would not urge a young man to shut his eyes to that sort of thing. Who has not felt immortal longings at the lengthening of the shadow or the turning of the leaf? Who has not stretched out his hands for the ulterior shore? Et ego in Arcadia! We have all been fools once—aye, and are glad to have been fools too. But our imaginations, like our appetites, need discipline: not, heaven help us, in the interest of any transcendental ethic, but in the interests of our own solid good. That wild impulse must be tasted, not obeyed. The bees have stings, but we rob them of their honey. To hold all that urgent sweetness to our lips in the cup of one perfect moment, missing no faintest ingredient in the flavour of its , yet ourselves, in a sense, unmoved—this is the true art. This tames in the service of the reasonable life even those pleasures whose loss might seem to be the heaviest, yet necessary, price we paid for rationality. Is it an audacity to hint that for the corrected palate the taste of the draught even owes its last sweetness to the knowledge that we have wrested it from an unwilling source? To cut off pleasures from the consequences and conditions which they have by nature, detaching, as it were, the precious phrase
from its irrelevant context, is what distinguishes the man from the brute and the citizen from the savage. I cannot join with those moralists who inveigh against the Roman emetics in their banquets: still less with those who would forbid the even more beneficent contraceptive devices of our later times. That man who can eat as taste, not nature, prompts him and yet fear no aching belly, or who can indulge in Venus and fear no impertinent bastard, is a civilized man. In him I recognize Urbanity—the note of the centre.’

  ‘Do you know of any way across the canyon?’ said Vertue abruptly.

  ‘I do not,’ said their host, ‘for I have never made inquiries. The proper study of mankind is man, and I have always left useless speculations alone. Suppose that there were a way across, to what purpose should I use it? Why should I scramble down this side and up the other to find after my labours the same soil still beneath me and the same heaven above? It would be laughable to suppose that the country beyond the gorge can be any different from the country on this side of it. Eadem sunt omnia semper. Nature had already done all she can for our comfort and amusement, and the man who does not find content at home will seek it vainly abroad. Confound that fellow! Drudge! ! Will you bring us our supper or do you prefer to have every bone in your body broken?’

  ‘Coming, sir,’ said Drudge from the kitchen.

  ‘There might be different people on the other side of the canyon,’ suggested John in the momentary pause that followed.

  ‘That is even less likely,’ said Mr. Sensible. ‘Human nature is always the same. The dress and the manners may vary, but I detect the unchanging heart beneath the shifting disguises. If there are men beyond the canyon, rest assured that we know them already. They are born and they die: and in the interval between they are the same lovable rascals that we know at home.’