On Nothing and Kindred Subjects (15 page)

But of how he came to selling tokens of little leaden soldiers at a
penny in front of the Exchange, and of how at last he even fell to
writing for the papers, I will not tell you; for,
imprimis
,
it has not happened yet, nor do I think it will, and in the second
place I am tired of writing.

It so happened that one day I was riding my horse Monster in the
Berkshire Hills right up above that White Horse which was dug they
say by this man and by that man, but no one knows by whom; for I was
seeing England, a delightful pastime, but a somewhat anxious one if
one is riding a horse. For if one is alone one can sleep where one
chooses and walk at one's ease, and eat what God sends one and spend
what one has; but when one is responsible for any other being
(especially a horse) there come in a thousand farradiddles, for of
everything that walks on earth, man (not woman—I use the word in
the restricted sense) is the freest and the most unhappy.

Well, then, I was riding my horse and exploring the Island of
England, going eastward of a summer afternoon, and I had so ridden
along the ridge of the hills for some miles when I came, as chance
would have it, upon a very extraordinary being.

He was a man like myself, but his horse, which was grazing by his
side, and from time to time snorting in a proud manner, was quite
unlike my own. This horse had all the strength of the horses of
Normandy, all the lightness, grace, and subtlety of the horses of
Barbary, all the conscious value of the horses that race for rich
men, all the humour of old horses that have seen the world and will
be disturbed by nothing, and all the valour of young horses who have
their troubles before them, and race round in paddocks attempting to
defeat the passing trains. I say all these things were in the horse,
and expressed by various movements of his body, but the list of
these qualities is but a hint of the way in which he bore himself;
for it was quite clearly apparent as I came nearer and nearer to
this strange pair that the horse before me was very different (as
perhaps was the man) from the beings that inhabit this island.

While he was different in all qualities that I have mentioned—or
rather in their combination—he also differed physically from most
horses that we know, in this, that from his sides and clapt along
them in repose was growing a pair of very fine sedate and noble
wings. So habited, with such an expression and with such gestures of
his limbs, he browsed upon the grass of Berkshire, which, if you
except the grass of Sussex and the grass perhaps of Hampshire, is
the sweetest grass in the world. I speak of the chalk-grass; as for
the grass of the valleys, I would not eat it in a salad, let alone
give it to a beast.

The man who was the companion rather than the master of this
charming animal sat upon a lump of turf singing gently to himself
and looking over the plain of Central England, the plain of the
Upper Thames, which men may see from these hills. He looked at it
with a mixture of curiosity, of memory, and of desire which was very
interesting but also a little pathetic to watch. And as he looked at
it he went on crooning his little song until he saw me, when with
great courtesy he ceased and asked me in the English language
whether I did not desire companionship.

I answered him that certainly I did, though not more than was
commonly the case with me, for I told him that I had had
companionship in several towns and inns during the past few days,
and that I had had but a few hours' bout of silence and of
loneliness.

"Which period," I added, "is not more than sufficient for a man of
my years, though I confess that in early youth I should have found
it intolerable."

When I had said this he nodded gravely, and I in my turn began to
wonder of what age he might be, for his eyes and his whole manner
were young, but there was a certain knowledge and gravity in his
expression and in the posture of his body which in another might
have betrayed middle age. He wore no hat, but a great quantity of
his own hair, which was blown about by the light summer wind upon
these heights. As he did not reply to me, I asked him a further
question, and said:

"I see you are gazing upon the plain. Have you interests or memories
in that view? I ask you without compunction so delicate a question
because it is as open to you to lie as it was to me when I lied to
them only yesterday morning, a little beyond Wayland's Cave, telling
them that I had come to make sure of the spot where St. George
conquered the Dragon, though, in truth, I had come for no such
purpose, and telling them that my name was so-and-so, whereas it was
nothing of the kind."

He brightened up at this, and said: "You are quite right in telling
me that I am free to lie if I choose, and I would be very happy to
lie to you if there were any purpose in so doing, but there is none.
I gaze upon this plain with the memories that are common to all men
when they gaze upon a landscape in which they have had a part in the
years recently gone by. That is, the plain fills me with a sort of
longing, and yet I cannot say that the plain has treated me
unjustly. I have no complaint against it. God bless the plain!"
After thinking a few moments, he added: "I am fond of Wantage;
Wallingford has done me no harm; Oxford gave me many companions; I
was not drowned at Dorchester beyond the Little Hills; and the best
of men gave me a true farewell in Faringdon yonder. Moreover, Cumnor
is my friend. Nevertheless, I like to indulge in a sort of sadness
when I look over this plain."

I then asked him whither he would go next.

He answered: "My horse flies, and I am therefore not bound to any
particular track or goal, especially in these light airs of summer
when all the heaven is open to me."

As he said this I looked at his mount and noticed that when he shook
his skin as horses will do in the hot weather to rid themselves of
flies, he also passed a little tremor through his wings, which were
large and goose-grey, and, spreading gently under that effort,
seemed to give him coolness.

"You have," said I, "a remarkable horse."

At this word he brightened up as men do when something is spoken of
that interests them nearly, and he answered: "Indeed, I have! and I
am very glad you like him. There is no such other horse to my
knowledge in England, though I have heard that some still linger in
Ireland and in France, and that a few foals of the breed have been
dropped of late years in Italy, but I have not seen them.

"How did you come by this horse?" said I; "if it is not trespassing
upon your courtesy to ask you so delicate a question."

"Not at all; not at all," he answered. "This kind of horse runs wild
upon the heaths of morning and can be caught only by Exiles: and I
am one…. Moreover, if you had come three or four years later than
you have I should have been able to give you an answer in rhyme, but
I am sorry to say that a pestilent stricture of the imagination, or
rather, of the compositive faculty so constrains me that I have not
yet finished the poem I have been writing with regard to the
discovery and service of this beast."

"I have great sympathy with you," I answered, "I have been at the
ballade of Val-ès-Dunes since the year 1897 and I have not yet
completed it."

"Well, then," he said, "you will be patient with me when I tell you
that I have but three verses completed." Whereupon without further
invitation he sang in a loud and clear voice the following verse:

  
It's ten years ago to-day you turned me out of doors
  To cut my feet on flinty lands and stumble down the shores.
  And I thought about the all in all …

"The '
all in all
,'" I said, "is weak."

He was immensely pleased with this, and, standing up, seized me by
the hand. "I know you now," he said, "for a man who does indeed
write verse. I have done everything I could with those three
syllables, and by the grace of Heaven I shall get them right in
time. Anyhow, they are the stop-gap of the moment, and with your
leave I shall reserve them, for I do not wish to put words like
'tumty tum' into the middle of my verse."

I bowed to him, and he proceeded:

  
And I thought about the all in all, and more than I could tell;
  But I caught a horse to ride upon and rode him very well.
  He had flame behind the eyes of him and wings upon his side—
       And I ride; and I ride!

"Of how many verses do you intend this metrical composition to be?"
said I, with great interest.

"I have sketched out thirteen," said he firmly, "but I confess that
the next ten are so embryonic in this year 1907 that I cannot sing
them in public." He hesitated a moment, then added: "They have many
fine single lines, but there is as yet no composition or unity about
them." And as he recited the words "composition" and "unity" he
waved his hand about like a man sketching a cartoon.

"Give me, then," said I, "at any rate the last two." For I had
rapidly calculated how many would remain of his scheme.

He was indeed pleased to be so challenged, and continued to sing:

  
And once atop of Lambourne Down, towards the hill of Clere,
  I saw the host of Heaven in rank and Michael with his spear
  And Turpin, out of Gascony, and Charlemagne the lord,
  And Roland of the Marches with his hand upon his sword
  For fear he should have need of it;—and forty more beside!
       And I ride; and I ride!
  For you that took the all in all…

"That again is weak," I murmured.

"You are quite right," he said gravely, "I will rub it out." Then he
went on:

  
For you that took the all in all, the things you left were
       three:
  A loud Voice for singing, and keen Eyes to see,
  And a spouting Well of Joy within that never yet was dried!
       And I ride!

He sang this last in so fierce and so exultant a manner that I was
impressed more than I cared to say, but not more than I cared to
show. As for him, he cared little whether I was impressed or not; he
was exalted and detached from the world.

There were no stirrups upon the beast. He vaulted upon it, and said
as he did so:

"You have put me into the mood, and I must get away!"

And though the words were abrupt, he
did
speak them with such
a grace that I will always remember them!

He then touched the flanks of his horse with his heels (on which
there were no spurs) and at once beating the air powerfully twice or
thrice with its wings it spurned the turf of Berkshire and made out
southward and upward into the sunlit air, a pleasing and a glorious
sight.

In a very little while they had dwindled to a point of light and
were soon mixed with the sky. But I went on more lonely along the
crest of the hills, very human, riding my horse Monster, a mortal
horse—I had almost written a human horse. My mind was full of
silence.

Some of those to whom I have related this adventure criticise it by
the method of questions and of cross-examination proving that it
could not have happened precisely where it did; showing that I left
the vale so late in the afternoon that I could not have found this
man and his mount at the hour I say I did, and making all manner of
comments upon the exact way in which the feathers (which they say
are those of a bird) grew out of the hide of the horse, and so
forth. There are no witnesses of the matter, and I go lonely, for
many people will not believe, and those who do believe believe too
much.

Once there was a Man who lived in a House at the Corner of a Wood
with an excellent landscape upon every side, a village about one
mile off, and a pleasant stream flowing over chalk and full of
trout, for which he used to fish.

This man was perfectly happy for some little time, fishing for the
trout, contemplating the shapes of clouds in the sky, and singing
all the songs he could remember in turn under the high wood, till
one day he found, to his annoyance, that there was strapped to his
back a Burden.

However, he was by nature of a merry mood, and began thinking of all
the things he had read about Burdens. He remembered an uncle of his
called Jonas (ridiculous name) who had pointed out that Burdens,
especially if borne in youth, strengthen the upper deltoid muscle,
expand the chest, and give to the whole figure an erect and graceful
poise. He remembered also reading in a book upon "Country Sports"
that the bearing of heavy weights is an excellent training for all
other forms of exercise, and produces a manly and resolute carriage,
very useful in golf, cricket and Colonial wars. He could not forget
his mother's frequent remark that a Burden nobly endured gave
firmness, and at the same time elasticity, to the character, and
altogether he went about his way taking it as kindly as he could;
but I will not deny that it annoyed him.

In a few days he discovered that during sleep, when he lay down, the
Burden annoyed him somewhat less than at other times, though the
memory of it never completely left him. He would therefore sleep for
a very considerable number of hours every day, sometimes retiring to
rest as early as nine o'clock, nor rising till noon of the next day.
He discovered also that rapid and loud conversation, adventure,
wine, beer, the theatre, cards, travel, and so forth made him forget
his Burden for the time being, and he indulged himself perhaps to
excess in all these things. But when the memory of his Burden would
return to him after each indulgence, whether working in his garden,
or fishing for trout, or on a lonely walk, he began reluctantly to
admit that, on the whole, he felt uncertainty and doubt as to
whether the Burden was really good for him.

In this unpleasing attitude of mind he had the good fortune one day
to meet with an excellent Divine who inhabited a neighbouring
parish, and was possessed of no less a sum than £29,000. This
Ecclesiastic, seeing his whilom jocund Face fretted with the Marks
of Care, put a hand gently upon his shoulder and said: