Henry Brocken Part 9

"Yet I have heard say he came of a moneyed stock," said Pliable. "The Sects of Privy Opinion were rare wealthy people, and they, so 'tis said, were his kinsmen. Truth is, for aught I know, Christian must have been in some degree a very liberal rascal, with all his faults."

He t.i.ttered.

"Oh! he was liberal enough," said Mr. Malice suavely: "why, even on setting out, he emptied his wife's purse into a blind beggar's hat!--his that used to bleat, 'Cast thy bread--cast thy bread upon the waters!' whensoever he spied Christian stepping along the street. They say," he added, burying his clever face in his mug, "the Heavenly Jerusalem lieth down by the weir."

"But we must not contemn a man for his poverty, neighbours," said Liar, gravely composing his hairless face. "Christian's was a character of beautiful simplicity--beautiful! _How_ many rickety children did he leave behind him?"

A shrill voice called somewhat I could not quite distinguish, for at that moment a youth rose abruptly near by, and went hastily out.

Obstinate stared roundly. "Thou hast a piercing voice, friend Liar!"

"I did but seek the truth," said Liar.

"But whether or no, Christian believed in it--verily he seemed to believe in it. Was it not so, neighbour Obstinate?" enquired Pliable, stroking his leg.

"Believed in what, my friend?" said Obstinate, in a dull voice.

"About Mount Zion, and the Crowns of Glory, and the Harps of Gold, and such like," said Pliable uneasily--"at least, it is said so; so 'tis said."

"Believed!" retorted a smooth young man who seemed to feel the heat, and sat by the staircase door. "That's an easy task--to believe, sir.

Ask any pretty minikin!"

"And I'd make bold to enquire of yonder Liveloose," said a thick, monotonous voice (a Mr. Dull's, so Reverie informed me), "if mebbe he be referring to one of his own, or that fellow Sloth's devilish fairy tales? I know one yet he'll eat again some day."

At which remark all laughed consumedly, save Dull.

"Well, one thing Christian had, and none can deny it," said Pliable, a little hotly, "and that was Imagination? _I_ shan't forget the tales he was wont to tell: what say you, Superst.i.tion?"

Mr. Superst.i.tion lifted dark, rather vacant eyes on Pliable. "Yes, yes," he said: "Flame, and sigh, and lamentation. My G.o.d, my G.o.d, gentlemen!"

"Oo-ay, Oo-ay," yelped the voice of Mistrust, startled out of silence.

"Oo-ay," whistled Malice, under his breath.

"Tush, tus.h.!.+" broke in Obstinate again, and snapped his fingers in the air. "And what is this precious Imagination? Whither doth it conduct a man, but to beggary, infamy, and the mad-house? Look ye to it, friend Pliable! 'Tis a devouring flame; give it but wind and leisure, the fairest house is ashes."

"Ashes; ashes!" mocked one called Cruelty, who had more than once taken my attention with his peculiar contortions--"talking of ashes, what of Love-the-log Faithful, Master Tongue-stump? What of Love-the-log Faithful?"

At which Liveloose was so extremely amused, the tears stood in his eyes for laughing.

I looked round for Mistrust, and easily recognised my friend by his hare-like face, and the rage in his little active eyes. But unfortunately, as I turned to enquire somewhat of Reverie, Liveloose suddenly paused in his merriment with open mouth; and the whole company heard my question, "But who was Love-the-log Faithful?"

I was at once again the centre of attention, and Mr. Obstinate rose very laboriously from his settle and held out a great hand to me.

"I'm pleased to meet thee," he said, with a heavy bow. "There's a dear heart with my good neighbour Superst.i.tion yonder who will present a very fair account of that misguided young man. Madam Wanton, here's a young gentleman that never heard tell of our old friend Love-the-log."

A shrill peal of laughter greeted this sally.

"Why, Faithful was a young gentleman, sir," explained the woman civilly enough, "who preferred his supper hot."

"Oh, Madam Wanton, my dear, my dear!" cried a long-nosed woman nearly helpless with amus.e.m.e.nt.

I saw Superst.i.tion gazing darkly at me. He shook his head as I was about to reply, so I changed my retort. "Who, then, was Mr.

Christian?" I enquired simply.

At that the house shook with the roar of laughter that went up.

X

... _Large draughts of intellectual day._

--RICHARD CRASHAW.

"Believe me, neighbours," said Malice softly, when this uproar was a little abated, "there is nought so strange in the question. It meaneth only that this young gentleman hath not enjoyed the pleasure of your company before. Will it amaze you to learn, my friends, that Christian is like to be immortal only because you _talk_ him out of the grave?

One brief epitaph, gentlemen, would let him rot."

"Nay, but I'll tell the gentleman who Christian was, and with pleasure," cried a lucid, rather sallow little man that had sat quietly smiling and listening. "My name, let me tell you, is Atheist, sir; and Christian was formerly a very near neighbour of an old friend of my family's--Mr. Sceptic. They lived, sir--at least in those days--opposite to one another."

"He is a great talker," whispered Reverie in my ear. But the company evidently found his talk to their taste. They sat as still and attentive around him, as though before an extemporary preacher.

"Well, sir," continued Atheist, "being, in a sense, neighbours, Christian in his youth would often confide in my friend; though, a.s.suredly, Sceptic never sought his confidences. And it seemeth he began to be perturbed and troubled over the discovery that it is impossible--at least in this plain world--to eat your cake, yet have it. And by some ill chance he happened at this time on a mouldy old folio in my friend's house that had been the property of his maternal grandmother--the subtlest old tome you ever set eyes on, though somewhat too dark and extravagant and heady for a sober man of the world like me. 'Twas called the Bible, sir--a collection of legends and fables of all times, tongues, and countries threaded together, mighty ingeniously I grant, and in as plausible a style as any I know, if a little lax and flowery in parts.

"Well, Christian borroweth the book of my friend--never to return it.

And being feeble and credulous, partly by reason of his simple wits, and partly by reason of the sad condition a froward youth had reduced him to, he accepts the whole book--from Apple to Vials--for truth. In fact, 'he ate the little book,' as one of the legendary kings it celebrates had done before him."

"Ay," broke in Cruelty wildly, "and has ever since gotten the gripes."

Atheist inclined his head. "Putting it coa.r.s.ely, gentlemen, such was the case," he said. "And away at his wit's end he hasteneth, waning and s.h.i.+vering, to a great bog or quagmire--that my friend Pliable will answer to--and plungeth in. 'Tis the same story repeated. He could be temperate in nought. _I_ knew the bog well; but I knew the stepping-stones better. Believe me, I have traversed the narrow way this same Christian took, seeking the harps and pearls and the _elixir vitae_, these many years past. The book inciteth ye to it. It sets a man's heart on fire--that's weak enough to read it--with its pomp, and rhetoric, and far-away promises, and lofty counsels. Oh, fine words, who is not their puppet! I climbed 'Difficulty.' I snapped my fingers at the grinning Lions. I pa.s.sed cautiously through the 'Valley of the Shadow'--wild scenery, sir! I visited that prince of bubbles also, Giant Despair, in his draughty castle. And--though boasting be far from me!--fetched Liveloose's half-brother out of a certain charnel-house near by.

"_Thus far_, sir, I went. But I have not yet found the world so barren of literature as to write a book about it. I have not yet found the world so barren of ingrat.i.tude as to seek happiness by stabbing in the back every friend I ever had. I have not yet forsaken wife and children; neighbours and kinsmen; home, ease, and tenderness, for a whim, a dream, a pa.s.sing qualm. No, sir; 'tis this Christian's ignorant hardness-of-heart that is his bane. Knowing little, he prateth much. He would pinch and contract the Universe to his own fantastical pattern. He is tedious, he is pragmatical, and--I affirm it in all sympathy and sorrow--he is crazed. Malice, haply, is a little sharp at times. And neighbour Obstinate dealeth full weight with his opinions. But this Christian Flown-to-Glory, as the urchins say, pinks with a bludgeon. He cannot endure an honest doubt. He distorteth a mere difference of opinion into a roaring Tophet. And because he is helpless, solitary, despised in the world; because he is impotent to refute, and too stubborn to hear and suffer people a little higher and weightier, a leetle wiser than he--why, beyond the grave he must set his hope in vengeance. Beyond the grave--bliss for his own shade; fire and brimstone, eternal woe for theirs. Ay, and 'tis not but for a season will he vex us, but for ever, and for ever, and for ever--if he knoweth in the least what he meaneth by the phrase. And this he calls 'Charity.'

"Yes, sirs, beyond the grave he would condemn us, beyond the grave--a place of peace whereto I deem there are not many here but will be content at length to come; and I not least content, when my duty is done, my children provided for, and my last suspicion of fear and folly suppressed.

"To conclude, sir--and beshrew me, gentlemen, how time doth fly in talk!--this Christian goeth his way. We, each in accord with his caprice and conscience, go ours. We envy him not his vapours, his terrors, or his shameless greed of reward. Why, then, doth he envy us our wealth, our success, our gaiety, our content? He raves. He is haunted. What is man but as gra.s.s, and the flower of gra.s.s? Come the sickle, he is clean gone. I can but repeat it, sir, our poor neighbour was crazed: 'tis Christian in a word."

A sigh, a murmur of satisfaction and relief, rose from the company, as if one and all had escaped by Mr. Atheist's lucidity out of a very real peril.

I thanked him for his courtesy, and in some confusion turned to Reverie with the remark that I thought I now recollected to have heard Christian's name, but understood he had indeed arrived, at last, at the Celestial City for which he had set out.

"Celestial twaddle, sir!" cried Mr. Obstinate hoa.r.s.ely. "He went stark, staring mad, and now is dust, as we shall soon all be, that's certain."

Then Cruelty rose out of his chair and elbowed his way to the door. He opened it and looked out.

"I would," he said, "I had known of this Christian before he started.

Step you down to Vanity Fair, Sir Stranger, if the mood take you; and we'll show you as pretty a persuasion against pilgrimage as ever you saw." He opened his mouth where he stood between me and the stars.

"... There's many more!" he added with difficulty, as if his rage was too much for him. He spat into the air and went out.