Images de page
PDF
ePub

and brutal murder. Therefore there might be either the duel until one is killed— nobody calls that murder-after the good old fashion, or there might be the duel after the Western fashion, in which each man goes armed with the understanding that each may fire at sight. What would the Master say to such an arrangement? There was another method still-but Gilbert put this aside. How if the man refused the duello? One cannot always compel another to become a target. Well the police were looking for him. There was a long list of crimes. If one were driven to the thing-it was not a pretty thing-there might be submitted a plain offer, an alternative—either arrest and trial on many charges, imprisonment, probably for life; or the simple duel unto death, with the equal risks for both men. Which?

Gilbert dropped his revolver into his breast pocket. He had to deal with an unknown quantity; things might be rushed upon him: the man evidently suspected him. He would wait, if possible, for a day or two, and see more of this Community. The decision was like a reprieve. His eyes ceased to see red; he remembered the duties of the House; he made his bed, brushed his boots, swept out his room, and went downstairs and into the open. In the clear, strong light of the early morning-the sunrise in May is not so early there as here--he observed how beautifully the House, so hideous in itself, was situated. Behind it stretched the Berkshire hills, a lovely range covered with woods; a broad and shallow stream, clear, bright, and evidently filled with fish, ran winding through the estate; cornfields, meadows, orchards, coppice, covered the ground; only the ugly buildingsthe workshops and sheds and farm buildings, the engine room-all the places, which in England would have been venerable and beautiful with thatch and ivy and gables and windows, marred the scene. Already the tramp of heavy boots on the stairs showed that most of the men were up and going out to work. They were moving slowly and singly, not in pairs, towards the workshops. He was to work for his living as well. What work would he be expected to do?

Not knowing what to do or where to apply, he repaired, as one of the unemployed, to the hall. There he saw the Master sitting at the end of the table, quite alone, with books-the account-books of the House-spread out before him. Even in a monastery these must be kept-the hard, practical, matter-of-fact books of expenditure and receipt. The House, like every other place, was run as a matter of business. It had to pay expenses. I suppose that it was a shock to the recluse, when he entered his hermitage and took possession, to learn that, after all, it had to pay expenses. Living costs at least so much, however much one may macerate. And even the hermit has got, somehow, from somebody, to get that amount as a minimum in cash or in kind.

Gilbert stood before the Master like a schoolboy waiting for a task. The Master looked up. The prophetic light was gone. The prophetic light was gone. He was engaged in the daily task of ascertaining that both ends met. It was a prosperous Community; there was even a margin. But there were branches which did not pay; and these irritated the Master. This occupation robbed him of his dignity: he now looked like an old clerk, say, in a country brewery, where the clerks are not expected to wear black cloth coats; he seemed to be one who had done nothing all his life but add up figures.

"You want work, do you?" he said irritably. "It's more than some of them seem to want, then. I hope you mean to work, Brother Gilbert; you can't It's against the spirit of the House. And it isn't fair on

meditate all day long.

the others."

"I understood yesterday that work is to be a servant and not a master."

"Certainly.

You

But while you work, remember that you are not at play. work partly to subdue and fatigue the body, partly to occupy the mind, partlywhich some seem to forget-to keep the House going. Well! what can you do? You have the look of a gentleman." Certainly the Master looked and spoke with greater dignity as a Prophet. "Well, I suppose you can do nothing except go out with a gun to kill God's creatures. That is all the English gentleman of my time

could do."

"I do not know any trade, to be sure; but you have a large garden. I think I might be of some use in the garden. Or, if not in the garden, I believe I understand something about horses."

"Oh! You are a gardener?”

Gilbert did not set him right. Why should he? The Master had been so long out of the world that he had forgotten most things.

"Well, I'm glad to hear it. The other Englishman here-Brother Charleswho was also a gentleman once, and is now-something else, whatever he is, cannot do anything at all. I was brought up to the turnery trade myself, before I became a preacher in the Baptist connection where I first found light. Whenever I do any work now I always go back to the old trade. I was a good worker oncevery good. Very well, you shall go into the garden. I am glad to find that you are not a gentleman. We don't want fine gentlemen here. Yet you've just the same manner as my good and worthy friend, Cicely's father, who was my earliest disciple. And he was a gentleman. You might have been too proud for the Community. My dear friend and brother, in spite of his faith, found it difficult to remember that we are all equal here."

"I will try to remember the equality."

"As for me," the Master continued; "it is my daily work to keep the accounts. I am too old to need Fatigue. We've got a farm and a garden and workshops: we grow and make all we want, except our tea and coffee and a few other things; we sell everything that is over to get these simple luxuries-which are really necessaries. The body, you see, must be kept satisfied and in good temper-if possible without pain-while the soul inhabits it. Those who practise austerities and privations become mere slaves to a tortured body. Pain is a hindrance. They think it is a help; the more they suffer the better they think themselves. We cultivate painlessness. So that we work in order to exercise the body; yet work, as I told you last night, must be a servant, not a master. And temptation comes in there, as well, because one may fall into the habit of slovenly work, one may become lazy. And we have to live by our work."

Gilbert sat down beside him.

"Tell me more," he said, "about the House-how you live and how you get on." The Master pushed away his books with alacrity and leaned back in his chair, folding his hands, as becomes one who is going to tell a story. And Authority returned to him.

"It is pleasant," he said, "to remember how we have grown and from what we have sprung. I told you that I was in the turnery trade, at first, in Clerkenwell ; little as you would think it now. I got conviction and entered the ministry-a Baptist connection it was and I had a call. There I received the light—”

[ocr errors][merged small]

"As light always comes, with a sudden flash. Of course they wouldn't have me any longer. I wanted to convert the service of song and prayer and preaching into Meditation; they could not understand Meditation-so I had to go. Then I made the acquaintance of those two shining ones, Cicely's parents "-he cast his eyes

[graphic][merged small]

upwards as if he saw them. Doubtless he did see them. "They joined me, and we came here to lead by ourselves the Life of Meditation."

"So that was how you began."

"That was twenty years ago. I had just those two disciples, Cicely's parents. Her father bought the land. He had brought over enough money for that; the rest he left behind for anybody to take who chose. We put up a log hut and we began. . . ." He paused. "Ah! That beginning!"

"You suffered privations?"

"We had no money: we had a hard struggle-my two disciples, man and wife -and I we cleared the ground, we grew things, we lived on bread and potatoes with a little bacon; I went back to my turnery; he made traps and such notions, and peddled them. Then the baby came. That is the girl Cicely-my daughter, as I call her. The mother died-I think the hard life killed her; but the baby thrived. And her father died, but only four or five years ago. In Meditation I can see them both, every day: I converse with them, I share their happiness, I am mounting with them side by side. Otherwise, I should desire to go hence and be no more seen." The strange light that they used to call Enthusiasm returned to his eyes, and continued there. "We got on," he continued. "Everything began to prosper with us. The blessing of increase lay upon our fields and our gardens like the sunshine of this beautiful land. Our little homestead grew; we attracted

people, the report and fame of us went about the world; here was a Community aiming solely at the Perfect Life, refusing to take money except for their needs, living in equality, despising the toys of Outside; in such a country as this, where the people are naturally inclined to religion, and yet are prone to fall into moneygetting, the example is wholesome; and in a country like this of political equality, such a Community is sure to attract.

"So they came: they were curious at first, not being able to understand the contempt of wealth; but some remained. You are curious; you want to be pleased with us; but there are things which you do not understand. Wait in patience

for a little. Our people are free to depart, but they remain. Nowhere else have they the same freedom from care. Some of us have been city clerks, hard-worked and badly paid, always in anxiety about the daily bread; here we have no such anxiety. Some have been tormented while in the world by ambition and disappointment, here there are no ambitions; some by injury and wrong"-Gilbert changed colour-"here there are no such emotions. Some have fallen into habits of vice, drunkenness, gambling, and I know not what; here there are no temptations. You have yourself doubtless found some of these hindrances in the world."

"Truly."

"Well, everybody works at something; there is a town three or four miles away which takes all we have to sell; we have a name for honesty and good work; people who buy our jam don't get glucose and they don't get parsnips. A good name for thorough honesty is worth something, I can tell you."

"I suppose so."

"We have no rent to pay, no wages, no partners, no servants; we only have to keep ourselves. I have calculated that if every one earned-over and above what we consume for ourselves two dollars and a half every week, that we should do very well. But it is difficult to get this average of work out of them. Some of them, if they could, would be for ever meditating. We do not want money—I desire never to see money in the House. What we cannot exchange we put into a bank and exchange from that place."

The Master in his simplicity could not understand that having money in a bank was exactly the same thing as having it in the House.

"Have you any money, young man?"

"Yes: that is, there may be a little, somewhere." He coloured slightly, being a young man of great possessions.

"Leave it there. Never ask after it-let it go. That is what my first disciples did. They just left their money behind them.”

"I thought of offering a gift of money to the House," said Gilbert. “I fear, however, that it would not be accepted."

"It would not. Go, instead, and work. Young man, there is something, I know not, standing between you and the gate of the Upward Path. Until that obstacle is removed I fear that Meditation will be impossible for you. work."

Go now and

He sighed, drew the books down again; obviously resisted a powerful temptation to meditate; and became again the clerk and accountant.

Outside, work was now going on in full swing. Gilbert looked into the workshops, where a great number of industries were carried on, the most important appearing to be the turning of chair legs. There were, however, many other trades: there were dressmakers, sempstresses, shoemakers, saddlers, carpenters, upholsterers, bookbinders, decorators, turners, cabinet-makers; and others. Some of them worked listlessly, even sitting beside their work, with hanging hands and eyes far

away; they were the spirits who would fain pass their whole time in the trance which they called Meditation; others worked steadily, after the manner of good and trained workmen; others, again, worked by fits and starts, feverishly; these were the restless, unsatisfied souls, those who had to dance in order to invite the sleep of Meditation.

No one spoke to his neighbour; there was the whirr of the engine from the engine room; there was the sound of the work itself; there was the click of the tools; but there was no voice. No one spoke. It was like a Carthusian House, save that there was no Rule. If you think of it, to those who never read, who have no connection with the outer world; to whom there comes no news of the outer world; who have no longer brothers or sisters, parents, or enemies, or friends; who try to bury and forget the Past; who use no form of prayer and have no litanies to chant and no services to attend; to whom one day is like another, save that one may be cold and one may be hot; to these people there is nothing to talk about. Why should they talk? In a Benedictine monastery there are the ambitions and the offices of the house; here there are no offices and no ambitions. Nobody appeared to notice him: one expects, in such a house, a flocking of the members to the new comer, if only to congratulate him upon his arrival or to ask why he has come, or what news he brings from the outer world, or if it is true, as reported, that the devil is dead. There was no notice taken of him at all.

He left the workshops and looked round the farm-yard, and was enabled to understand why his neighbour, Brother Silas, suggested that occupation at supper. He repaired to the scene of his labours. He was to be a gardener.

Of all human occupations gardening is by far the most interesting. The gardener not only cultivates the soil, making it produce delicious peaches, strawberries, plums and pears, apples and quinces; radishes and cabbages; roses and lilies; corn and barley; but he also cultivates many most useful human faculties-such as patience, self-sacrifice, observation, perseverance, memory, forethought and many other things. It is not without meaning that Adam is said to have been a gardener. For my own part, I have never been able to understand why kings and the great ones of the earth, who have often become watchmakers, carpenters, cabinet-makers, chemists, poets and painters, have never become gardeners. They always have a garden of their own-yea, a back garden and a front garden; they have every opportunity of self-improvement by means of the garden; yet so far as we have got in history the kings and the great ones of the earth have neglected that opportunity.

The gardens covered a large area; there were flower-farms, kitchen-farms, and fruit-farms. It was the month of May, when things are growing and blossoming, and ripening fast. The splendid sun of America warmed the buds and flowers through and through; it never fails; our own summers grow cold and wet for twenty years on end; but in the States the summer sun fails not, any more than the winter ice and snow. In the gardens were employed a good many of the members, men and women. Like the men in the workshops, they spoke not at

all to each other.

With a hoe in his hand, which he held as one who never brandished that instrument before, Brother Charles stood over a piece of ground. Now and then he stuck his hoe into the earth; for the most part he gazed at his work with a a kind of loathing. Never was disgust written upon human face more plainly.

Not far from him the girl Cicely was at work among the rose-bushes. Presently she drew nearer to the man with the hoe. Now, he was exactly the opposite of Bunyan's man with the muck-rake; for Bunyan's friend raked with zeal with his eyes cast down, but this man did not rake at all-he looked upwards and sidewards

« PrécédentContinuer »