Lucas Malet

“ This is the song of the pine forest, and from it you may learn this lesson: that the life of the tree and of beast and bird are subject to the same three great laws as the life of man—the law of growth, of obedience, and of self-sacrifice. And perhaps, when you are older, if you take care to avoid that spirit of conceit and impudence which, as we have already said, gets people into such trouble with Nature, you may come to see that these three laws are after all but one, bound for ever together by the golden cord of love. ”

“ Then it sings of the happy spring-time, when the forest is girdled about with a band of flowers; while the birds build and call to each other among the high branches; and the squirrel helps his wife to make her snug nest for the little, brown squirrel-babies that are to be; and the dormice wake up from their long winter sleep, and sit in the sunshine and comb their whiskers with their dainty, little paws. ”

“ Such observations, little Peter, are sharp discipline; and teach humility more thoroughly than any penance the priest can lay on you. Oh, yes! no doubt it is a capital thing to be mad. It saves you a deal of trouble—nobody cares for you, nurses you when you're sick, feeds you when you're hungry, mourns for you when you die.'
Paqualin laughed again, and getting up stretched his long, ungainly limbs, and shook himself till his hair hung like a red cloud about his stooping shoulders. ”

“ Poor little Peter had lain just like that, quite still and quiet, in bed ever since his father and the charcoal-burner had placed him there when they had got home from that terrible walk in the snow, about four o'clock in the morning. The ice-fairies, who really are very elegant people and not at all disagreeable when you know them, had come at sunrise and spread the most beautiful patterns—crowns and crosses, and stars and diamonds, and ice flowers of a hundred exquisite shapes—all over the window panes ”

“ But when we are children it is not easy to think of any one person or one thing for long together. There are such lots of things to think about, that one chases another out of our heads very quickly. And so Peter soon gave up puzzling himself about the charcoal-burner, and began counting the sparks as they flew out of the blazing, crackling, pine logs up the wide chimney. ”

“ Paul is apprenticed to an engineer in Paris, and lives among whirling machines in the great, crowded workshops; and his employers are much impressed with his ability and talent, and prophesy that he will make a name for himself some day. Cincinnatus is quite an old cat now, and his whiskers are almost white; but he still sits opposite the glowing wood fire in the kitchen, and blinks his big, yellow eyes and reflects on the superiority of cats to men. ”

“ Go away, John Paqualin, go away. How on earth did you get here? I've only been downstairs three minutes giving some necessary instructions to Gustavus.—He really is beside himself with joy, poor fellow.—Go away, I say; if Peter woke up suddenly he would have a fit at seeing you. Look at yourself in the looking-glass, and you'll understand why, fast enough. A rush of blood to the head from fright and the child would be dead. And if half the stories one hears of you are true, there is enough down on the wrong side of your account already without adding wilful murder. ”

“ For, you see, he had often heard his father praise the virtues of the Ancient Romans, their courage and endurance; and so Peter had got the notion into his head that it is rather a grand thing not to mind what is uncomfortable and disagreeable, and that it is rather a shameful and unworthy thing to grumble and make a fuss, and cry when your chilblains itch, or you happen to bump your head against the table, or when your legs ache, as his legs began to ache now, with the length and steepness of the hill. ”

“ When the rough winds are up and at play, and the pine-trees shout and sing together in a mighty chorus, while the hoarse voice of them is like the roar of the sea upon a rocky coast, then you may learn the secret of the forest. ”

“ There are a number of things in this world that it is very much the best to be ignorant about if you can possibly manage it. Cincinnatus, anyway, understood it well enough, so he tucked his fore legs under his chest, until nothing was visible of them but just the furry elbows, and laid his tail neatly along his soft side, and settled himself down on the warm sheet, with his eyes more than half shut, purring all the while as loud as if he had got a small steam-engine inside him. ”

“ And John Paqualin turned on the lad, his eyes glowing like live coals.
'Ah! it is noble and generous in a handsome fellow like you to taunt me and scoff at me! Heaven pay you back in your own coin.'
Eliza gave a scream, and seized Gustavus by the arm as though she required protection from some most fearful danger.
'For the love of the saints, ma'am, let us go on, and get out of the way of this wild animal,' she said, in a very loud whisper. 'He looks wicked enough to commit a crime. Keep off, Gustavus! ”

“ Do not let your wife and children go. The snow will be here before evening, and the way will be difficult to find, and the house door will stand open long into the night before the feet of those you love cross the threshold.'
The charcoal-burner spoke as though he was so certain of the truth of that which he said, and his voice sounded so sad, that poor little Peter felt quite dismayed. Even Eliza had no opprobrious observation to make, and as for Gustavus, he stood with his big mouth wide open, staring as if he saw a ghost. ”

“ Paqualin laughed. His laugh was cracked and shrill, like his voice; and Peter was always a trifle startled by it somehow.
[Pg 39]
'Never hear them, little Peter,' he cried, 'never hear them. A few men will call you a poet, but most men will only call you mad, if you do.'
'What is mad?' asked Peter. He felt very much interested. 'Is it a good or a bad thing?'
The charcoal-burner looked round at the boy sharply, with his mouth a little open. His strange eyes were glowing dull red. ”

“ For when the nights are long and the days are short, and the sunlight is feeble as a sick man's smile, the North Wind wakes from his summer sleep and calls to his brother the East Wind, and they go forth over the earth driving the heavy-laden snow-clouds before them, and the pale snow-fairies who do their will. ”

“ WHICH PROVES THAT EVEN PHILOSOPHIC POLITICIANS MAY HAVE TO ADMIT THEMSELVES IN THE WRONG.
But now it is quite time for us to go back to the old, wooden farm-house on the edge of the forest, and see what Master Lepage, and Gustavus, and that intelligent and experienced person, Cincinnatus, are doing, while the rest of the household are wandering, alas! not without growing alarm, and even suffering, in the darkness and cold and snow. ”

“ Paul, with a pocket-knife and a number of bits of wood on the table before him, was making a model of a force-pump. And Susan Lepage sat in the chimney corner knitting, little Peter on a stool at her feet resting his head against her knees. He was getting so sleepy that his eyes would shut though he tried very hard to keep them open. Sometimes his poor, little head nodded over all on one side; and then he woke up with a great start, dreaming that he had tumbled out of the old pear-tree in the garden, bump, on to the ground. ”

“ On the edge of this moorland, before leaving the shelter of the pines, Paqualin stopped.
'Shout,' he said, turning to the others, 'shout your loudest. The frost has caught me by the throat, and squeezed my crooked windpipe till I am as hoarse as a raven. ”

“ And who are the Time Spirit's geese?—Well, if you really want to know, they are all the little poets, and little painters, and little musicians, and little players and all the little inventors of little theories, and little writers of little books, who spend their time in diligently trying to persuade themselves and others that they are great writers of great books, and discoverers of a universal panacea for the healing of the nations; and that, in short, they are not any of them geese at all, but as fine swans as you can see on any river or pond in the three kingdoms. ”

“ No one to love you but the fire when you feed it with branches, or the [Pg 41] swine when you drive them back to their stye in the twilight.'
Now, to tell the truth, poor little Peter was becoming rather confused and nervous, with all this wild, incomprehensible talk of the charcoal-burner's. He had never seen his friend in this strange humour before. And he felt as much alarmed and embarrassed as he would have done if that well-conducted animal Cincinnatus had suddenly turned upon him, with bristling hair and a great tail, spitting and swearing, in the middle of their innocent games of play. ”

“ You can find your way like a [Pg 128] hound, they say, by night or day, through the forest. Will you come with me and help me?'
Paqualin stood in front of the fire; the snow on his hair and cloak melted and ran down, forming a little pool of water about his ill-shod feet.
'I am not over and above fond of you, Francis Lepage,' he said presently, 'as you most likely know already. Love and hatred alike can tell their own story without much need of spoken words. I think you a vain man and a hard one; but your wife is as pitiful as the saints in heaven. ”

“ Eliza advanced, creaking across the boarded floor, towards the charcoal-burner. He had risen to his feet.
'There is no answer,' he said, in a low voice. 'You fool, learn your lesson. God doesn't want your wretched, worthless soul, John Paqualin. Who are you, indeed, that you should try to strike a bargain with the Almighty, and offer such miserable refuse and offscourings as your life in place of that of the pure and sinless child there?'
He looked back towards the bed.
'Good-bye,' he said, 'dear, little Peter. When you are gone there will be nothing left on earth to love me ”

“ The forest opens out in places into wide spaces of waste moorland. Across these by daylight or in fine weather it is easy enough to find the right road; but on such an evening as I am telling you about it is by no means easy. On the edge of the moorland, Susan Lepage called to Antony to stop.
'Go slowly,' she said, 'and pray be careful. If we once mistake the path we may find ourselves in a sad plight. I wish your father was with us! Go on in front,' she added, turning to Paul, 'and I will follow you.'
Now his mother's words rather nettled Antony. ”

“ You may learn the many uses of the trees in your school books, when men have cut them down or grubbed them up, or poked holes in their poor sides to let the turpentine run out. But you can only learn the secret of the forest itself by listening humbly and reverently for it to speak to you. For Nature is a very great lady, grander and more magnificent than all the queens who have lived in sumptuous palaces and reigned over famous kingdoms since the world began ”

“ And the dream was so vivid that it took him quite a minute and a half to remember where he was, and to realise that he was sitting on his own little stool in the kitchen, instead of lying on the asparagus bed under the pear-tree. But sleepy or not, Peter was determined not to go to bed till he had heard the news from Nullepart.
The longest waiting must needs end at last. [Pg 28] There was a sound of brisk footsteps, the door was thrown open, and Antony entered the kitchen, with the rush and bustle of a healthy, young whirlwind. ”

“ But Susan Lepage sighed as she turned from the doorway.
'Poor, unhappy one,' she said. 'God gave thee thy fair soul, but who gave thee thy ungainly body?'
Then she reproved Eliza for her conduct in various matters which had nothing in the world to do with her remarks upon the charcoal-burner. Even the best of women are not always quite logical.
Meanwhile little Peter had sat down on his stool by the fire. For a little while he sat very still, for he was thinking over the visit of his friend John Paqualin. ”

“ But he described, with great animation, how the workmen and the good sisters were busy in the church; how bright everybody said the Virgin's blue mantle would be, how there was real straw in [Pg 30] the stable, how charmingly natural the cattle and the donkey looked, and how ingeniously a lamp would be arranged—just like the star, in fact—to shine above the manger. Peter felt satisfied again. But he was still a little hurt; so he sat quiet and rubbed Cincinnatus' head in silence, though there were a hundred and one questions he was longing to ask. ”

“ You have not got a dog to do the work for you, and so you'll take me. Ah, well! I've known the dog's place pretty well all my life long;—the kicks and the cuffs, and the grudging crust from the master's table; and then the "Here! my good fellow, good cur, here! nose down, tail up, the scent's cold, but still you're sharp enough to find it; and sweat and faint to catch the hare that will make your owner a savoury supper, while you slink home to the dirty straw and the mouldy crust again." ”

“ And then the forest sings of man—how he comes with axe and saw, and hammer and iron wedges, and lays low the tallest of its children, and binds them with ropes and chains, and hauls them away to be his bond-servants and slaves. ”

“ For you see Cincinnatus was not a common cat; being first cousin once removed, indeed, to the Sacristan's cat at Nullepart—who knew all the feast and fast days in the church calendar as well as the Sacristan himself, and had not eaten a mouse on a Friday for I cannot say how long. When you have a scholar in the family it obliges you to be dignified. ”