Part 92

"Well, something like seven hundred years ago a poor man, a poet and travelling musician, was riding over that pass and down into that very region of the Dolomites. He made his living by stopping at the stronghold-castles of those times and entertaining the powerful of the earth by singing his poems set to music of his own making. Sometimes he got a suit of cast-off clothes in payment; sometimes only bed and board for a time. But he kept on singing his little poems and making more of them as he grew rich in experience of men and things; for he never grew rich in gold--money was the last thing they ever gave him. So he continued long his wandering life, singing his songs in courtyard and castle hall until they sang their way into the hearts of the men of his generation. And while he wandered, he gained a wonderful knowledge of life and its ways among rich and poor, high and low; and, pondering the things he had seen and the many ways of this world, he said to himself, that day when he was riding over the Brenner Pass, the same thing that you have just said--in almost the same words:--'Many a man calls God "Father" who won't acknowledge me for a brother.'

"I don't know how he reconciled facts--for your fact seems plain enough--nor do I know how you can reconcile them; but what I do know is this:--that man, poor in this world's goods, but rich in experience and in a natural endowment of poetic thought and musical ability, kept on making poems, kept on singing them, despite that fact to which he had given expression as he fared over the Brenner; despite the fact that a suit of cast-off clothes was all he got for his entertainment of those who would not call him 'brother.' Discouraged at times--for he was very human--he kept on giving the best that was in him, doing the work appointed for him in this world--and doing it with a whole heart Godwards and Christwards, despite his poverty, despite the broken promises of the great to reward him pecuniarily, despite the world, despite facts, Szchenetzy! He sang when he was young of earthly love and in middle age of heavenly love, and his songs are cherished, for their beauty of wisdom and love, in the hearts of men to this day."

He smiled genially across the sea of faces to Szchenetzy.

"Come up some night with your violin, Szchenetzy, and we will try over some of those very songs that the Germans have set to music of their own, those words of Walter of the Bird-Meadow--so they called him then, and men keep on calling him that even to this day."

He turned again to the screen.

"What is to be thrown on the screen now--in rapid succession for our hour is brief--I call our Marble Quarry. Just think of it! quarried by the same hard work which you all know, by which you earn your daily bread; sculptured into forms of exceeding beauty by the same hard toil of other hands. And behind all the toil there is the soul of art, ever seeking expression through the human instrument of the practised hand that quarries, then sculptures, then places, and builds! I shall give a word or two of explanation in regard to time and locality; next month we will take the subjects one by one."

There flashed upon the screen and in quick succession, although the men protested and begged for an extension of exposures, the noble Pisan group and Niccola Pisano's pulpit in the baptistery--the horses from the Parthenon frieze--the Zeus group from the great altar at Pergamos--Theseus and the Centaur--the Wrestlers--the Discus Thrower and, last, the exquisite little church of Saint Mary of the Thorn,--the Arno's jewel, the seafarers' own,--that looks out over the Pisan waters to the Mediterranean.

It was a magnificent showing. No words from Father Honore were needed to bring home to his audience the lesson of the Marble Quarry.

"I call the next series, which will be shown without explanation and merely named, other members of the Brotherhood of Stone. We study them separately later on in the summer."

The cathedrals of York, Amiens, Westminster, Cologne, Mayence, St. Mark's--a noble array of man's handiwork, were thrown upon the screen. The men showed their appreciation by thunderous applause.

The screen was again a blank; then it filled suddenly with the great Upper Quarry in The Gore. The granite ledges sloped upward to meet the blue of the sky. The great steel derricks and their crisscrossing cables cast curiously foreshortened shadows on the gleaming white expanse. Here and there a group of men showed dark against a ledge. In the centre, one of the monster derricks held suspended in its chains a forty-ton block of granite just lifted from its eternal bed. Beside it a workman showed like a pigmy.

Some one proposed a three times three for the home quarries. The men rose to their feet and the cheers were given with a will. The ringing echo of the last had not died away when the quarry vanished, and in its place stood the finished cathedral of A.--the work which the hands of those present were to create. It was a reproduction of the architect's water-color sketch.

The men still remained standing; they gave no outward expression to their admiration; that, indeed, although evident in their faces, was overshadowed by something like awe. Their hands were to be the instruments by which this great creation of the mind of man should become a fact. Without those hands the architect's idea could not be materialized; without the "idea" their daily work would fail.

The truth went home to each man present--even to that unknown one beneath the gallery who, when the men had risen to cheer, shrank farther into his dark corner and drew short sharp breaths. The Past would not down at his bidding; he was beginning to feel his weakness when he had most need of strength.

He did not hear Father Honore's parting words:--"Here you find the third crystal--strength, solidity, the bedrock of endeavor. Take these three home with you:--the pure crystal of human love and trust, the heart believing in its Maker, the strength of good character. There you have the three that make for equality in this world--and nothing else does. Good night, my friends."

Father Honore got home from the lecture a little before nine. He renewed the fire, drew up a chair to the hearth, took his violin from its case and, seating himself before the springing blaze, made ready to play for a while in the firelight. This was always his refreshment after a successful evening with the men. He drew his thumb along the bow--

There was a knock at the door. He rose and flung it wide with a human enough gesture of impatience; his well-earned rest was disturbed too soon. He failed to recognize the man who was standing bareheaded on the step.

"Father Honore, I've come home--don't you know me, Champney?"

There was no word in response, but his hands were grasped hard--he was drawn into the room--the door was shut on the chill wind of that March night. Then the two men stood silent, gazing into each other's eyes, while the firelight leaped and showed to each the other's face--the priest's working with a powerful emotion he was struggling to control; Champney Googe's apparently calm, but in reality tense with anxiety. He spoke first:

"I want to know about my mother--is she well?"

Father Honore found his voice, an uncertain one but emphatic; it left no room for further anxiety in the questioner's mind.

"Yes, well, thank God, and looking forward to this--but it's so soon! I don't understand--when did you come?"

He kept one hand on Champney's as if fearing to lose him, with the other he pulled forward a chair from the wall and placed it near his own; he sat down and drew Champney into the other beside him.

"I came up on the afternoon train; I got out yesterday."

"It's so unexpected. The chaplain wrote me last month that there was a prospect of this within the next six months, but I had no idea it would be so soon--neither, I am sure, had he."

"Nor I--I don't know that I feel sure of it yet. Has my mother any idea of this?"

"I wasn't at liberty to tell her--the communication was confidential. Still she knows that it is customary to shorten the--" he caught up his words.

"--Term for exemplary conduct?" Champney finished for him.