If only he could have lived three hundred years the greater world would have begun to find out Iden and to idolize him, and make pilgrimages from over sea to Coombe Oaks, to hear him talk, for Iden could talk of the trees and gra.s.s, and all that the Earth bears, as if one had conversed face to face with the great G.o.d Pan himself.

But while Iden slumbered with his head against the panel--think, think, think--this shallow world of ours, this petty threescore years and ten, was slipping away. Already Amaryllis had marked with bitterness at heart the increasing stoop of the strong back.

Iden was like the great engineer who could never build a bridge, because he knew so well how a bridge ought to be built.

"Such a fuss over a mess of a gate," said Mrs. Iden, "making yourself ridiculous: I believe that carpenter is just taking advantage of you.

Why can't you go into town and see your father?--it would be a hundred pounds in your pocket"--as it would have been, no doubt. If only Mrs.

Iden had gone about her lecture in a pleasanter manner perhaps he would have taken her advice.

Resting upon the brown timber in the gra.s.s Amaryllis and Amadis could just see a corner of the old house through the spars of the new gate.

Coombe Oaks was a grown house, if you understand; a house that had grown in the course of many generations, not built to set order; it had grown like a tree that adapts itself to circ.u.mstances, and, therefore, like the tree it was beautiful to look at. There were windows in deep notches, between gables where there was no look-out except at the pears on the wall, awkward windows, quite bewildering. A workman came to mend one one day, and could not get at it. "Darned if I ever seed such a crooked picter of a house!" said he.

A kingfisher shot across above the golden surface of the b.u.t.tercups, straight for the brook, moving, as it seemed, without wings, so swiftly did he vibrate them, that only his azure hue was visible, drawn like a line of peac.o.c.k blue over the gold.

In the fitness of things Amaryllis ought not to have been sitting there like this, with Amadis lost in the sweet summer dream of love.

She ought to have loved and married a Launcelot du Lake, a hero of the mighty arm, only with the income of Sir Gorgius Midas: that is the proper thing.

But the fitness of things never comes to pa.s.s--everything happens in the Turkish manner.

Here was Amaryllis, very strong and full of life, very, very young and inexperienced, very poor and without the least expectation whatever (for who could reconcile the old and the older Iden?), the daughter of poor and embarra.s.sed parents, whom she wished and prayed to help in their coming old age. Here was Amaryllis, full of poetic feeling and half a painter at heart, full of generous sentiments--what a nature to be ground down in the sordidness of married poverty!

Here was Amadis, extremely poor, quite feeble, and unable to earn a shilling, just talking of seeing the doctor again about this fearful debility, full too, as he thought at least, of ideas--what a being to think of her!

Nothing ever happens in the fitness of things. If only now he could have regained the health and strength of six short months ago--if only that, but you see, he had not even that. He might get better; true--he _might_, I have tried 80 drugs and I am no better, I hope he will.

Could any blundering Sultan in the fatalistic East have put things together for them with more utter contempt of fitness? It is all in the Turkish manner, you see.

There they sat, happier and happier, and deeper and deeper in love every moment, on the brown timber in the long gra.s.s, their hearts as full of love as the meadow was of sunshine.

You have heard of the Sun's Golden Cup, in which after sunset he was carried over Ocean's stream, while we slumber in the night, to land again in the East and give us the joy of his rising. The great Golden Cup in which Hercules, too, was taken over; it was as if that Cup had been filled to the brim with the nectar of love and placed at the lips to drink, inexhaustible.

In the play of Faust--Alere's _Faust_--Goethe has put an interlude, an Intermezzo; I shall leave Amaryllis and Amadis in their Interlude in Heaven. Let the Play of Human Life, with its sorrows and its Dread, pause awhile; let Care go aside behind the wings, let Debt and Poverty unrobe, let Age stand upright, let Time stop still (oh, Miracle! as the Sun did in the Vale of Ajalon). Let us leave our lovers in the Interlude in Heaven.

And as I must leave them (I trust but for a little while) I will leave them on the brown oak timber, sap-stain brown, in the sunshine and dancing shadow of summer, among the long gra.s.s and the wild flowers.

CHISWICK PRESS:--C. WHITTINGHAM AND CO., TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE.

Duckworth & Co.'s "Crown" Library

The books included in this series are standard copyright works, issued in similar style at a uniform price, and are eminently suitable for the library and as prize volumes for advanced students.

Size, Demy 8vo. Cloth gilt, gilt top, 5_s._ net a volume.

_HANAUER, J. E._

=FOLK-LORE OF THE HOLY LAND: Moslem, Christian, and Jewish.= Edited by Marmaduke Pickthall.

_HEADLEY, F. W._

=LIFE AND EVOLUTION.= By F. W. Headley. With over 100 Ill.u.s.trations.

_OWEN, J. A., and BOULGER, G. S._

=THE COUNTRY MONTH BY MONTH.= By J. A. Owen and G. S. Boulger. With 20 Ill.u.s.trations.

_McCURDY, EDWARD_

=THE NOTE-BOOKS OF LEONARDO DA VINCI.= Edited by Edward McCurdy. With 14 Ill.u.s.trations.

_MAITLAND, F. W._

=THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF LESLIE STEPHEN.= A new and cheaper edition.

With a photogravure portrait. Demy 8vo. 5_s._ net.

_Other volumes will be announced in due course._

Books by Chas. G. D. Roberts

=THE KINDRED OF THE WILD:= a Book of Animal Life.

By Charles G. D. Roberts. With many Ill.u.s.trations by Charles Livingston Bull. Large crown, 8vo.

_Fifth Impression._ 6_s._ net.

=THE WATCHERS OF THE TRAILS.= By Charles G. D.

Roberts. With 48 Ill.u.s.trations by Charles Livingston Bull. Large crown 8vo. 6_s._ net.

Uniform with the above. _Fourth Impression._

=THE STORY OF RED FOX.= By Charles G. D. Roberts.

Ill.u.s.trated by Charles Livingston Bull. Uniform with the above. Large crown 8vo. _Third Impression._ 6_s._ net.

=THE HAUNTERS OF THE SILENCES.= By Charles G. D.