Part 46

Hearken, Thor of the Thunder! We are not here for a jest-- For wager, warfare, or plunder, Or to put your power to test. This work is none of our wishing-- We would stay at home if we might-- But our master is wrecked out fishing, We go to find him tonight.

For we hold that in all disaster-- As the Gods Themselves have said-- A man must stand by his master Till one of the two is dead.

That is our way of thinking, Now you can do as you will, While we try to save her from sinking, And hold her head to it still. Bale her and keep her moving, Or she’ll break her back in the trough... Who said the weather’s improving, And the swells are taking off?

Sodden, and chafed and aching, Gone in the loins and knees-- No matter--the day is breaking, And there’s far less weight to the seas! Up mast, and finish baling-- In oars, and out with the mead-- The rest will be two-reef sailing... That was a night indeed! But we hold that in all disaster (And faith, we have found it true!) If only you stand by your master, The Gods will stand by you!

A DOCTOR OF MEDICINE

An Astrologer’s Song

To the Heavens above us Oh, look and behold The planets that love us All harnessed in gold! What chariots, what horses, Against us shall bide While the Stars in their courses Do fight on our side?

All thought, all desires, That are under the sun, Are one with their fires, As we also are one; All matter, all spirit, All fashion, all frame, Receive and inherit Their strength from the same.

(Oh, man that deniest All power save thine own, Their power in the highest Is mightily shown. Not less in the lowest That power is made clear. Oh, man, if thou knowest, What treasure is here!)

Earth quakes in her throes And we wonder for why! But the blind planet knows When her ruler is nigh; And, attuned since Creation, To perfect accord, She thrills in her station And yearns to her Lord.

The waters have risen, The springs are unbound-- The floods break their prison, And ravin around. No rampart withstands ‘em, Their fury will last, Till the Sign that commands ‘em Sinks low or swings past.

Through abysses unproven, And gulfs beyond thought, Our portion is woven, Our burden is brought. Yet They that prepare it, Whose Nature we share, Make us who must bear it Well able to bear.

Though terrors o’ertake us We’ll not be afraid, No Power can unmake us Save that which has made. Nor yet beyond reason Nor hope shall we fall-- All things have their season, And Mercy crowns all.

Then, doubt not, ye fearful-- The Eternal is King-- Up, heart, and be cheerful, And lustily sing: What chariots, what horses, Against us shall bide While the Stars in their courses Do fight on our side?

A Doctor of Medicine

They were playing hide-and-seek with bicycle lamps after tea. Dan had hung his lamp on the apple tree at the end of the hellebore bed in the walled garden, and was crouched by the gooseberry bushes ready to dash off when Una should spy him. He saw her lamp come into the garden and disappear as she hid it under her cloak. While he listened for her footsteps, somebody (they both thought it was Phillips the gardener) coughed in the corner of the herb-beds.

‘All right,’ Una shouted across the asparagus; ‘we aren’t hurting your old beds, Phippsey!’

She flashed her lantern towards the spot, and in its circle of light they saw a Guy Fawkes-looking man in a black cloak and a steeple-crowned hat, walking down the path beside Puck. They ran to meet him, and the man said something to them about rooms in their head. After a time they understood he was warning them not to catch colds.

‘You’ve a bit of a cold yourself, haven’t you?’ said Una, for he ended all his sentences with a consequential cough. Puck laughed.

‘Child,’ the man answered, ‘if it hath pleased Heaven to afflict me with an infirmity--’

‘Nay, nay,’ Puck struck In, ‘the maid spoke out of kindness. I know that half your cough is but a catch to trick the vulgar; and that’s a pity. There’s honesty enough in you, Nick, without rasping and hawking.’

‘Good people’--the man shrugged his lean shoulders--‘the vulgar crowd love not truth unadorned. Wherefore we philosophers must needs dress her to catch their eye or--ahem!---their ear.’

‘And what d’you think of that?’ said Puck solemnly to Dan.

‘I don’t know,’ he answered. ‘It sounds like lessons.’

‘Ah--well! There have been worse men than Nick Culpeper to take lessons from. Now, where can we sit that’s not indoors?’

‘In the hay-mow, next to old Middenboro,’ Dan suggested. ‘He doesn’t mind.’

‘Eh?’ Mr Culpeper was stooping over the pale hellebore blooms by the light of Una’s lamp. ‘Does Master Middenboro need my poor services, then?’

‘Save him, no!’ said Puck. ‘He is but a horse--next door to an ass, as you’ll see presently. Come!’