Complete Works of Robert Louis Stevenson (Illustrated) (421 page)

‘And what is the sea?’ asked Will.

‘The sea!’ cried the miller.  ‘Lord help us all, it is the greatest thing God made!  That is where all the water in the world runs down into a great salt lake.  There it lies, as flat as my hand and as innocent-like as a child; but they do say when the wind blows it gets up into water-mountains bigger than any of ours, and swallows down great ships bigger than our mill, and makes such a roaring that you can hear it miles away upon the land.  There are great fish in it five times bigger than a bull, and one old serpent as lone as our river and as old as all the world, with whiskers like a man, and a crown of silver on her head.’

Will thought he had never heard anything like this, and he kept on asking question after question about the world that lay away down the river, with all its perils and marvels, until the old miller became quite interested himself, and at last took him by the hand and led him to the hilltop that overlooks the valley and the plain.  The sun was near setting, and hung low down in a cloudless sky.  Everything was defined and glorified in golden light.  Will had never seen so great an expanse of country in his life; he stood and gazed with all his eyes.  He could see the cities, and the woods and fields, and the bright curves of the river, and far away to where the rim of the plain trenched along the shining heavens.  An over-mastering emotion seized upon the boy, soul and body; his heart beat so thickly that he could not breathe; the scene swam before his eyes; the sun seemed to wheel round and round, and throw off, as it turned, strange shapes which disappeared with the rapidity of thought, and were succeeded by others.  Will covered his face with his hands, and burst into a violent fit of tears; and the poor miller, sadly disappointed and perplexed, saw nothing better for it than to take him up in his arms and carry him home in silence.

From that day forward Will was full of new hopes and longings.  Something kept tugging at his heart-strings; the running water carried his desires along with it as he dreamed over its fleeting surface; the wind, as it ran over innumerable tree-tops, hailed him with encouraging words; branches beckoned downward; the open road, as it shouldered round the angles and went turning and vanishing fast and faster down the valley, tortured him with its solicitations.  He spent long whiles on the eminence, looking down the rivershed and abroad on the fat lowlands, and watched the clouds that travelled forth upon the sluggish wind and trailed their purple shadows on the plain; or he would linger by the wayside, and follow the carriages with his eyes as they rattled downward by the river.  It did not matter what it was; everything that went that way, were it cloud or carriage, bird or brown water in the stream, he felt his heart flow out after it in an ecstasy of longing.

We are told by men of science that all the ventures of mariners on the sea, all that counter-marching of tribes and races that confounds old history with its dust and rumour, sprang from nothing more abstruse than the laws of supply and demand, and a certain natural instinct for cheap rations.  To any one thinking deeply, this will seem a dull and pitiful explanation.  The tribes that came swarming out of the North and East, if they were indeed pressed onward from behind by others, were drawn at the same time by the magnetic influence of the South and West.  The fame of other lands had reached them; the name of the eternal city rang in their ears; they were not colonists, but pilgrims; they travelled towards wine and gold and sunshine, but their hearts were set on something higher.  That divine unrest, that old stinging trouble of humanity that makes all high achievements and all miserable failure, the same that spread wings with Icarus, the same that sent Columbus into the desolate Atlantic, inspired and supported these barbarians on their perilous march.  There is one legend which profoundly represents their spirit, of how a flying party of these wanderers encountered a very old man shod with iron.  The old man asked them whither they were going; and they answered with one voice: ‘To the Eternal City!’  He looked upon them gravely.  ‘I have sought it,’ he said, ‘over the most part of the world.  Three such pairs as I now carry on my feet have I worn out upon this pilgrimage, and now the fourth is growing slender underneath my steps.  And all this while I have not found the city.’  And he turned and went his own way alone, leaving them astonished.

And yet this would scarcely parallel the intensity of Will’s feeling for the plain.  If he could only go far enough out there, he felt as if his eyesight would be purged and clarified, as if his hearing would grow more delicate, and his very breath would come and go with luxury.  He was transplanted and withering where he was; he lay in a strange country and was sick for home.  Bit by bit, he pieced together broken notions of the world below: of the river, ever moving and growing until it sailed forth into the majestic ocean; of the cities, full of brisk and beautiful people, playing fountains, bands of music and marble palaces, and lighted up at night from end to end with artificial stars of gold; of the great churches, wise universities, brave armies, and untold money lying stored in vaults; of the high-flying vice that moved in the sunshine, and the stealth and swiftness of midnight murder.  I have said he was sick as if for home: the figure halts.  He was like some one lying in twilit, formless preexistence, and stretching out his hands lovingly towards many-coloured, many-sounding life.  It was no wonder he was unhappy, he would go and tell the fish: they were made for their life, wished for no more than worms and running water, and a hole below a falling bank; but he was differently designed, full of desires and aspirations, itching at the fingers, lusting with the eyes, whom the whole variegated world could not satisfy with aspects.  The true life, the true bright sunshine, lay far out upon the plain.  And O! to see this sunlight once before he died! to move with a jocund spirit in a golden land! to hear the trained singers and sweet church bells, and see the holiday gardens!  ‘And O fish!’ he would cry, ‘if you would only turn your noses down stream, you could swim so easily into the fabled waters and see the vast ships passing over your head like clouds, and hear the great water-hills making music over you all day long!’  But the fish kept looking patiently in their own direction, until Will hardly knew whether to laugh or cry.

Hitherto the traffic on the road had passed by Will, like something seen in a picture: he had perhaps exchanged salutations with a tourist, or caught sight of an old gentleman in a travelling cap at a carriage window; but for the most part it had been a mere symbol, which he contemplated from apart and with something of a superstitious feeling.  A time came at last when this was to be changed.  The miller, who was a greedy man in his way, and never forewent an opportunity of honest profit, turned the mill-house into a little wayside inn, and, several pieces of good fortune falling in opportunely, built stables and got the position of post master on the road.  It now became Will’s duty to wait upon people, as they sat to break their fasts in the little arbour at the top of the mill garden; and you may be sure that he kept his ears open, and learned many new things about the outside world as he brought the omelette or the wine.  Nay, he would often get into conversation with single guests, and by adroit questions and polite attention, not only gratify his own curiosity, but win the goodwill of the travellers.  Many complimented the old couple on their serving-boy; and a professor was eager to take him away with him, and have him properly educated in the plain.  The miller and his wife were mightily astonished and even more pleased.  They thought it a very good thing that they should have opened their inn.  ‘You see,’ the old man would remark, ‘he has a kind of talent for a publican; he never would have made anything else!’  And so life wagged on in the valley, with high satisfaction to all concerned but Will.  Every carriage that left the inn-door seemed to take a part of him away with it; and when people jestingly offered him a lift, he could with difficulty command his emotion.  Night after night he would dream that he was awakened by flustered servants, and that a splendid equipage waited at the door to carry him down into the plain; night after night; until the dream, which had seemed all jollity to him at first, began to take on a colour of gravity, and the nocturnal summons and waiting equipage occupied a place in his mind as something to be both feared and hoped for.

One day, when Will was about sixteen, a fat young man arrived at sunset to pass the night.  He was a contented-looking fellow, with a jolly eye, and carried a knapsack.  While dinner was preparing, he sat in the arbour to read a book; but as soon as he had begun to observe Will, the book was laid aside; he was plainly one of those who prefer living people to people made of ink and paper.  Will, on his part, although he had not been much interested in the stranger at first sight, soon began to take a great deal of pleasure in his talk, which was full of good nature and good sense, and at last conceived a great respect for his character and wisdom.  They sat far into the night; and about two in the morning Will opened his heart to the young man, and told him how he longed to leave the valley and what bright hopes he had connected with the cities of the plain.  The young man whistled, and then broke into a smile.

‘My young friend,’ he remarked, ‘you are a very curious little fellow to be sure, and wish a great many things which you will never get.  Why, you would feel quite ashamed if you knew how the little fellows in these fairy cities of yours are all after the same sort of nonsense, and keep breaking their hearts to get up into the mountains.  And let me tell you, those who go down into the plains are a very short while there before they wish themselves heartily back again.  The air is not so light nor so pure; nor is the sun any brighter.  As for the beautiful men and women, you would see many of them in rags and many of them deformed with horrible disorders; and a city is so hard a place for people who are poor and sensitive that many choose to die by their own hand.’

‘You must think me very simple,’ answered Will.  ‘Although I have never been out of this valley, believe me, I have used my eyes.  I know how one thing lives on another; for instance, how the fish hangs in the eddy to catch his fellows; and the shepherd, who makes so pretty a picture carrying home the lamb, is only carrying it home for dinner.  I do not expect to find all things right in your cities.  That is not what troubles me; it might have been that once upon a time; but although I live here always, I have asked many questions and learned a great deal in these last years, and certainly enough to cure me of my old fancies.  But you would not have me die like a dog and not see all that is to be seen, and do all that a man can do, let it be good or evil? you would not have me spend all my days between this road here and the river, and not so much as make a motion to be up and live my life? — I would rather die out of hand,’ he cried, ‘than linger on as I am doing.’

‘Thousands of people,’ said the young man, ‘live and die like you, and are none the less happy.’

‘Ah!’ said Will, ‘if there are thousands who would like, why should not one of them have my place?’

It was quite dark; there was a hanging lamp in the arbour which lit up the table and the faces of the speakers; and along the arch, the leaves upon the trellis stood out illuminated against the night sky, a pattern of transparent green upon a dusky purple.  The fat young man rose, and, taking Will by the arm, led him out under the open heavens.

‘Did you ever look at the stars?’ he asked, pointing upwards.

‘Often and often,’ answered Will.

‘And do you know what they are?’

‘I have fancied many things.’

‘They are worlds like ours,’ said the young man.  ‘Some of them less; many of them a million times greater; and some of the least sparkles that you see are not only worlds, but whole clusters of worlds turning about each other in the midst of space.  We do not know what there may be in any of them; perhaps the answer to all our difficulties or the cure of all our sufferings: and yet we can never reach them; not all the skill of the craftiest of men can fit out a ship for the nearest of these our neighbours, nor would the life of the most aged suffice for such a journey.  When a great battle has been lost or a dear friend is dead, when we are hipped or in high spirits, there they are unweariedly shining overhead.  We may stand down here, a whole army of us together, and shout until we break our hearts, and not a whisper reaches them.  We may climb the highest mountain, and we are no nearer them.  All we can do is to stand down here in the garden and take off our hats; the starshine lights upon our heads, and where mine is a little bald, I dare say you can see it glisten in the darkness.  The mountain and the mouse.  That is like to be all we shall ever have to do with Arcturus or Aldebaran.  Can you apply a parable?’ he added, laying his hand upon Will’s shoulder.  ‘It is not the same thing as a reason, but usually vastly more convincing.’

Will hung his head a little, and then raised it once more to heaven.  The stars seemed to expand and emit a sharper brilliancy; and as he kept turning his eyes higher and higher, they seemed to increase in multitude under his gaze.

‘I see,’ he said, turning to the young man.  ‘We are in a rat-trap.’

‘Something of that size.  Did you ever see a squirrel turning in a cage? and another squirrel sitting philosophically over his nuts?  I needn’t ask you which of them looked more of a fool.’

CHAPTER II.  THE PARSON’S MARJORY.

After some years the old people died, both in one winter, very carefully tended by their adopted son, and very quietly mourned when they were gone.  People who had heard of his roving fancies supposed he would hasten to sell the property, and go down the river to push his fortunes.  But there was never any sign of such in intention on the part of Will.  On the contrary, he had the inn set on a better footing, and hired a couple of servants to assist him in carrying it on; and there he settled down, a kind, talkative, inscrutable young man, six feet three in his stockings, with an iron constitution and a friendly voice.  He soon began to take rank in the district as a bit of an oddity: it was not much to be wondered at from the first, for he was always full of notions, and kept calling the plainest common-sense in question; but what most raised the report upon him was the odd circumstance of his courtship with the parson’s Marjory.