CHAPTER IV.
THE SWORD AND THE SOUL.
One of the very earliest of all Dam’s memories in after life—for in a few years he forgot India absolutely—was of the Sword (that hung on the oak-panelled wall of the staircase by the portrait of a cavalier), and of a gentle, sad-eyed lady, Auntie Yvette, who used to say:—
“Yes, sonny darling, it is more than two-hundred-and-fifty years old. It belonged to Sir Seymour Stukeley, who carried the King’s Standard at Edgehill and died with that sword in his hand … You shall wear a sword some day.”
(He did—with a difference.)
The sword grew into the boy’s life and he would rather have owned it than the mechanical steamboat with real brass cannon for which he prayed to God so often, so earnestly, and with such faith. On his seventh birthday he preferred a curious request, which had curious consequences.
“Can I take the sword to bed with me to-night, Dearest, as it is my birthday?” he begged. “I won’t hurt it.”
And the sword was taken down from the oak-panelled wall, cleaned, and laid on the bed in his room.
“Promise you will not try to take it out of the sheath, sonny darling,” said the gentle, sad-eyed lady as she kissed him “Good night”.
“I promise, Dearest,” replied the boy, and she knew that she need have no fear.
He fell asleep fondling and cuddling the sword that had pierced the hearts of many men and defended the honour of many ancestors, and dreamed, with far greater vividness and understanding, the dream he had so often dreamt before.
Frequently as he dreamed it during his chequered career, it was henceforth always most vivid and real. It never never varied in the slightest detail, and he generally dreamed it on the night before some eventful, dangerful day on which he risked his life or fought for it.
Of the early dreamings, of course, he understood little, but while he was still almost a boy he most fully understood the significance of every word, act, and detail of the marvellous, realistic dream.
It began with a view of a camp of curious little bell-tents about which strode remarkable, big-booted, long-haired, bedizened men—looking strangely effeminate and strangely fierce, with their feathered hats, curls, silk sashes, velvet coats, and with their long swords, cruel faces, and savage oaths.
Some wore steel breastplates, like that of the suit of armour in the hall, and steel helmets. The sight of the camp thrilled the boy in his dream, and yet he knew that he had seen it all before actually, and in real life—in some former life.
Beside one of a small cluster of tents that stood well apart from the rest sat a big man who instantly reminded the boy of his dread “Grandfather,” whom he would have loved to have loved had he been given the chance.
The big man was even more strangely attired than those others who clumped and clattered about the lower part of the camp.
Fancy a great big strong man with long curls, a lace collar, and a velvet coat—like a kid going to a party!
The velvet coat had the strangest sleeves, too—made to button to the elbow and full of slits that seemed to have been mended underneath with blue silk. There was a regular pattern of these silk-mended slits about the body of the coat, too, and funny silk-covered buttons.
On his head the man had a great floppy felt hat with a huge feather—a hat very like one that Dearest wore, only bigger.
One of his long curls was tied with a bow of ribbon—like young Lucille wore—and the boy felt quite uncomfortable as he noted it. A grown man—the silly ass! And, yes! he had actually got lace round the bottoms of his quaint baggy knickerbockers—as well as lace cuffs!
The boy could see it, where one of the great boots had sagged down below the knee.
Extraordinary boots they were, too. Nothing like “Grumper’s” riding-boots. They were yellowish in colour, and dull, not nicely polished, and although the square-toed, ugly foot part looked solid as a house, the legs were more like wrinkled leather stockings, and so long that the pulled-up one came nearly to the hip.
Spurs had made black marks on the yellow ankles, and saddle and stirrup-leather had rubbed the legs….
And a sash! Whoever heard of a grown-up wearing a sash? It was a great blue silk thing, wound round once or twice, and tied with a great bow, the ends of which hung down in front.
Of all the Pip-squeaks!
And yet the big man’s face was not that of a Pip-squeak—far from it. It was very like Grumper’s in fact.
The boy liked the face. It was strong and fierce, thin and clean-cut—marred only, in his estimation, by the funny little tuft of hair on the lower lip. He liked the wavy, rough, up-turned moustache, but not that silly tuft. How nice he would look with his hair cut, his lower lip shaved, and his ridiculous silks, velvet, and lace exchanged for a tweed shooting-suit or cricketing-flannels! How Grumper, Father, Major Decies, and even Khodadad Khan and the sepoys would have laughed at the get-up. Nay, they would have blushed for the fellow—a Sahib, a gentleman—to tog himself up so!
The boy also liked the man’s voice when he turned towards the tent and called:—
“Lubin, you drunken dog, come hither,” a call which brought forth a servant-like person, who, by reason of his clean-shaven face and red nose, reminded the boy of Pattern the coachman.
He wore a dark cloth suit, cotton stockings, shoes that had neither laces nor buttons, but fastened with a kind of strap and buckle, and, queer creature, a big Eton collar!
“Sword and horse, rascal,” said the gentleman, “and warn Digby for duty. Bring me wine and a manchet of bread.”
The man bowed and re-entered the tent, to emerge a moment later bearing the Sword.
How the cut-steel hilt sparkled and shone! How bright and red the leather scabbard—now black, dull, cracked and crumbling. But it was unmistakeably the Sword.
It hung from a kind of broad cross-belt and was attached to it by several parallel buckled straps—not like Father’s Sam Browne belt at all.
As the gentleman rose from his stool (he must have been over six feet in height) Lubin passed the cross-belt over his head and raised left arm so that it rested on his right shoulder, and the Sword hung from hip to heel.
To the boy it had always seemed such a huge, unwieldy thing. At this big man’s side it looked—just right.
Lubin then went off at a trot to where long lines of bay horses pawed the ground, swished their tails, tossed their heads, and fidgeted generally….
From a neighbouring tent came the sounds of a creaking camp-bed, two feet striking the ground with violence, and a prodigious, prolonged yawn.
A voice then announced that all parades should be held in Hell, and that it was better to be dead than damned. Why should gentlemen drill on a fine evening while the world held wine and women?
After a brief space, occupied with another mighty yawn, it loudly and tunefully requested some person or persons unknown to superintend its owner’s obsequies.
“Lay a garland on my hearse
Of the dismal yew;
Maidens, willow branches bear;
Say I died true.
My love was false, but I was firm
From my hour of birth.
Upon my buried body lie
Lightly, gentle earth….”
“May it do so soon,” observed the tall gentleman distinctly.
“What ho, without there! That you, Seymour, lad?” continued the voice. “Tarry a moment. Where’s that cursed …” and sounds of hasty search among jingling accoutrements were followed by a snatch of song of which the boy instantly recognized the words. He had often heard Dearest sing them.
“Drink to me only with thine eyes
And I will pledge with mine:
Or leave a kiss within the cup
And I’ll not look for wine.
The thirst that from the soul doth rise
Doth ask a drink divine;
But might I of Jove’s nectar sup,
I would not change for thine.”
Lubin appeared, bearing a funny, fat, black bottle, a black cup (both appeared to be of leather), and a kind of leaden plate on which was a small funnily-shaped loaf of bread.
“’Tis well you want none,” observed the tall gentleman, “I had asked you to help me crush a flask else,” and on the word the singer emerged from the tent.
“Jest not on solemn subjects, Seymour,” he said soberly, “Wine may carry me over one more pike-parade…. Good lad…. Here’s to thee…. Why should gentlemen drill?… I came to fight for the King, not to … But, isn’t this thy day for de Warrenne? Oh, ten million fiends! Plague and pest! And I cannot see thee stick him, Seymour …” and the speaker dashed the black drinking-vessel violently on the ground, having carefully emptied it.
The boy did not much like him.
His lace collar was enormous and his black velvet coat was embroidered all over with yellow silk designs, flowers, and patterns. It was like the silly mantel-borders and things that Mrs. Pont, the housekeeper, did in her leisure time. (“Cruel-work” she called it, and the boy quite agreed.)
This man’s face was pink and fair, his hair golden.
“Warn him not of the hilt-thrust, Seymour, lad,” he said suddenly. “Give it him first—for a sneering, bullying, taverning, chambering knave.”
The tall gentleman glanced at his down-flung cup, raised his eyebrows, and drank from the bottle.
“Such would annoy you, Hal, of course,” he murmured.
A man dressed in what appeared to be a striped football jersey under a leather waistcoat and steel breast-plate, high boots and a steel helmet led up a great horse.
The boy loved the horse. It was very like “Fire”.
The gentleman (called Seymour) patted it fondly, stroked his nose, and gave it a piece of his bread.
“Well, Crony Long-Face?” he said fondly.
He then put his left foot in the great box-stirrup and swung himself into the saddle—a very different kind of saddle from those with which the boy was familiar.
It reminded him of Circuses and the Lord Mayor’s Show. It was big enough for two and there was a lot of velvet and stuff about it and a fine gold C.R.—whatever that might mean—on a big pretty cloth under it (perhaps the gentleman’s initials were C.R. just as his own were D. de W. and on some of his things).
The great fat handle of a great fat pistol stuck up on each side of the front of the saddle.
“Follow,” said the gentleman to the iron-bound person, and moved off at a walk towards a road not far distant.
“Stap him! Spit him, Seymour,” called the pink-faced man, “and warn him not of the hilt-thrust.”
As he passed the corner of the camp, two men with great axe-headed spear things performed curious evolutions with their cumbersome weapons, finally laying the business ends of them on the ground as the gentleman rode by.
He touched his hat to them with his switch.
Continuing for a mile or so, at a walk, he entered a dense coppice and dismounted.
“Await me,” he said to his follower, gave him the curb-rein, and walked on to an open glade a hundred yards away.
(It was a perfect spot for Red Indians, Smugglers, Robin Hood, Robinson Crusoe or any such game, the boy noted.)
Almost at the same time, three other men entered the clearing, two together, and one from a different quarter.
“For the hundredth time, Seymour, lad, mention not the hilt-thrust, as you love me and the King,” said this last one quietly as he approached the gentleman; and then the two couples behaved in a ridiculous manner with their befeathered hats, waving them in great circles as they bowed to each other, and finally laying them on their hearts before replacing them.
“Mine honour is my guide, Will,” answered the gentleman called Seymour, somewhat pompously the boy considered, though he did not know the word.
Sir Seymour then began to remove the slashed coat and other garments until he stood in his silk stockings, baggy knickerbockers, and jolly cambric shirt—nice and loose and free at the neck as the boy thought.
He rolled up his right sleeve, drew the sword, and made one or two passes—like Sergeant Havlan always did before he began fencing.
The other two men, meantime, had been behaving somewhat similarly—talking together earnestly and one of them undressing.
The one who did this was a very powerful-looking man and the arm he bared reminded the boy of that of a “Strong Man” he had seen recently at Monksmead Fair, in a tent, and strangely enough his face reminded him of that of his own Father.
He had a nasty face though, the boy considered, and looked like a bounder because he had pimples, a swelly nose, a loud voice, and a swanky manner. The boy disapproved of him wholly. It was like his cheek to resemble Father, as well as to have the same name.
His companion came over to the gentleman called Will, carrying the strong man’s bared sword and, bowing ridiculously (with his hat, both hands, and his feet) said:—
“Shall we measure, Captain Ormonde Delorme?”
Captain Delorme then took the sword from Sir Seymour, bowed as the other had done, and handed him the sword with a mighty flourish, hilt first.
It proved to be half an inch shorter than the other, and Captain Delorme remarked that his Principal would waive that.
He and the strong man’s companion then chose a spot where the grass was very short and smooth, where there were no stones, twigs or inequalities, and where the light of the setting sun fell sideways upon the combatants—who tip-toed gingerly, and rather ridiculously, in their stockinged feet, to their respective positions. Facing each other, they saluted with their swords and then stood with the right arm pointing downwards and across the body so that the hilt of the sword was against the right thigh and the blade directed to the rear.
“One word, Sir Matthew de Warrenne,” said Sir Seymour as they paused in this attitude. “If my point rests for a second on your hilt you are a dead man.”
Sir Matthew laughed in an ugly manner and replied:—
“And what is your knavish design now, Sir Seymour Stukeley?”
“My design was to warn you of an infallible trick of fence, Sir Matthew. It now is to kill you—for the insult, and on behalf of … your own unhappy daughter.”
The other yawned and remarked to his friend:—
“I have a parade in half an hour.”
“On guard,” cried the person addressed, drawing his sword and striking an attitude.
“Play,” cried Captain Delorme, doing similarly.
Both principals crouched somewhat, held their swords horizontal, with point to the adversary’s breast and hilt drawn back, arm sharply bent—for both, it appeared, had perfected the Art of Arts in Italy.
These niceties escaped the boy in his earlier dreamings of the dream—but the time came when he could name every pass, parry, invitation, and riposte.
The strong man suddenly threw his sword-hand high and towards his left shoulder, keeping his sword horizontal, and exposing the whole of his right side.
Sir Seymour lunged hard for his ribs, beneath the right arm-pit and, as the other’s sword swooped down to catch his, twist it over, and riposte, he feinted, cleared the descending sword, and thrust at the throat. A swift ducking crouch let the sword pass over the strong man’s head, and only a powerful French circular parry saved the life of Sir Seymour Stukeley.
As the boy realized later, he fought Italian in principle, and used the best of French parries, ripostes, and tricks, upon occasion—and his own perfected combination of the two schools made him, according to Captain Delorme, the best fencer in the King’s army. So at least the Captain said to the other second, as they amicably chatted while their friends sought to slay each other before their hard, indifferent-seeming eyes.
To the boy their talk conveyed little—as yet.
The duellists stepped back as the “phrase” ended, and then Sir Seymour gave an “invitation,” holding his sword-arm wide to the right of his body. Sir Matthew lunged, his sword was caught, carried out to the left, and held there as Sir Seymour’s blade slid inward along it. Just in time, Sir Matthew’s inward pressure carried Sir Seymour’s sword clear to the right again. Sir Matthew disengaged over, and, as the sudden release brought Sir Seymour’s sword springing in, he thrust under that gentleman’s right arm and scratched his side.
As he recovered his sword he held it for a moment with the point raised toward Sir Seymour’s face. Instantly Sir Seymour’s point tinkled on his hilt, and Captain Delorme murmured “Finis” beneath his breath.
Sir Stukeley Seymour’s blade shot in, Sir Matthew’s moved to parry, and the point of the advancing sword flickered under his hand, turned upward, and pierced his heart.
“Yes,” said Captain Delorme, as the stricken man fell, “if he parries outward the point goes under, if he anticipates a feint it comes straight in, and if he parries a lunge-and-feint-under, he gets feint-over before he can come up. I have never seen Stukeley miss when once he rests on the hilt. Exit de Warrenne—and Hell the worse for it——” and the boy awoke.
He kissed the sword and fell asleep again.
One day, when receiving his morning fencing and boxing lessons of Sergeant Havlan, he astonished that warrior (and made a bitter enemy of him) by warning him against allowing his blade to rest on the Sergeant’s hilt, and by hitting him clean and fair whenever it was allowed to happen. Also, by talking of “the Italian school of fence” and of “invitations”—the which were wholly outside the fencing-philosophy of the French-trained swordsman. At the age of fifteen the boy was too good for the man who had been the best that Aldershot had known, who had run a salle d’armes for years, and who was much sought by ambitious members of the Sword Club.
The Sword, from the day of that newly vivid dream, became to the boy what his Symbol is to the religious fanatic, and he was content to sit and stare at it, musing, for hours.
The sad-eyed, sentimental lady encouraged him and spoke of Knights, Chivalry, Honour, Noblesse Oblige, and Ideals such as the nineteenth century knew not and the world will never know again.
“Be a real and true Knight, sonny darling,” she would say, “and live to help. Help women—God knows they need it. And try to be able to say at the end of your life, ‘I have never made a woman weep’. Yes—be a Knight and have ‘Live pure, Speak true, Right wrong’ on your shield. Be a Round Table Knight and ride through the world bravely. Your dear Father was a great swordsman. You may have the sword down and kiss it, the first thing every morning—and you must salute it every night as you go up to bed. You shall wear a sword some day.”
(Could the poor lady but have foreseen!)
She also gave him over-copiously and over-early of her simple, fervent, vague Theology, and much Old and New Testament History, with the highest and noblest intentions—and succeeded in implanting a deep distrust and dislike of “God” in his acutely intelligent mind.
To a prattling baby, Mother should be God enough—God and all the angels and paradise in one … (but he had never known a mother and Nurse Beaton had ever been more faithfully conscientious in deed than tenderly loving in manner).
She filled his soul with questionings and his mouth with questions which she could not answer, and which he answered for himself. The questions sometimes appalled her.
If God so loved the world, why did He let the Devil loose in it?
If God could do anything, why didn’t He lay the Devil out with one hand?
If He always rewarded the Good and punished the Bad, why was Dearest so unhappy, and drunken Poacher Iggulsby so very gay and prosperously naughty?
He knew too that his dead Father had not been “good,” for he heard servant-talk, and terrible old “Grandfather” always forgot that “Little Pitchers have Long Ears”.
If God always answered devout and faith-inspired prayer, why did He not
1. Save Caiaphas the cat when earnestly prayed for—having been run over by Pattern in the dog-cart, coming out of the stables?
2. Send the mechanical steam-boat so long and earnestly prayed for, with Faith and Belief?
3. Help the boy to lead a higher and a better life, to eat up his crusts and fat as directed, to avoid chivvying the hens, inking his fingers, haunting the stables, stealing green apples in the orchard, tearing his clothes, and generally doing evil with fire, water, mud, stones and other tempting and injurious things?
And was it entirely decent of God to be eternally spying on a fellow, as appeared to be His confirmed habit?
As for that awful heart-rending Crucifixion, was that the sort of thing for a Father to look on at…. As bad as that brutal old Abraham with Isaac his son … were all “Good” Fathers like that …?
And nightmare dreams of Hell—a Hell in which there was a Snake—wrought no improvement.
And the Bible! How strangely and dully they talked, and what people! That nasty Jacob and Esau business, those horrid Israelites, the Unfaithful Steward; the Judge who let himself be pestered into action; those poor unfortunate swine that were made to rush violently down the steep place into the sea; Ananias and Sapphira. No—not a nice book at all.
The truth is that Theology, at the age of seven, is not commendable—setting aside the question of whether (at any age) Theology is a web of words, ritual, dogma, tradition, invention, shibboleth; a web originally spun by interested men to obscure God from their dupes.
So the boy worshipped Dearest and distrusted and disliked the God she gave him, a big sinister bearded Man who hung spread-eagled above the world, covering the entire roof of the Universe, and watched, watched, watched, with unwinking, all-seeing eye, and remembered with unforgetting, unrelenting mind. Cruel. Ungentlemanly. Jealous! Cold.
Also the boy fervently hoped it might never be his lot to go to Heaven—a shockingly dreary place where it was always Sunday and one must, presumably, be very quiet except when singing hymns. A place tenanted by white-robed Angels, unsympathetic towards dirty-faced little sinners who tore their clothes. Angels, cold, superior, unhuggable, haughty, given to ecstatic throes, singers of Hallelujah and other silly words—always praising.
How he loathed and dreaded the idea of Dearest being an Angel! Fancy sweet Dearest or his own darling Lucille with silly wings (like a beastly goose or turkey in dear old Cook’s larder), with a long trumpet, perhaps, in a kind of night-gown, flying about the place, it wasn’t decent at all—Dearest and Lucille, whom he adored and hugged—unsympathetic, cold, superior, unhuggable, haughty; and the boy who was very, very tender-hearted, would throw his arms round Dearest’s neck and hug and hug and hug, for he abhorred the thought of her becoming a beastly angel.
Surely, if God knew His business, Dearest would be always happy and bright and live ever so long, and be ever so old, forty years and more.
And Dearest, fearing that her idolized boy might grow up a man like—well, like “Grumper” had been—hard, quarrelsome, adventurous, flippant, wicked, pleasure-loving, drunken, Godless … redoubled her efforts to Influence-the-child’s-mind-for-good by means of the Testaments and Theology, the Covenant, the Deluge, Miracles, the Immaculate Conception, the Last Supper, the Resurrection, Pentecost, Creeds, Collects, Prayers.
And the boy’s mind weighed these things deliberately, pondered them, revolted—and rejected them one and all.
Dearest had been taken in….
He said the prayers she taught him mechanically, and when he felt the need of real prayer—(as he did when he had dreamed of the Snake)—he always began, “If you are there, God, and are a good, kind God” … and concluded, “Yours sincerely, Damocles de Warrenne”.
He got but little comfort, however, for his restless and logical mind asked:—
“If God knows best and will surely do what is best, why bother Him? And if He does not and will not, why bother yourself?”
But Dearest succeeded, at any rate, in filling his young soul with a love of beauty, romance, high adventure, honour, and all physical, mental, and moral cleanliness.
She taught him to use his imagination, and she made books a necessity. She made him a gentleman in soul—as distinct from a gentleman in clothes, pocket, or position.
She gave him a beautiful veneration for woman that no other woman was capable of destroying—though one or two did their best. Then the sad-eyed lady was superseded and her professional successor, Miss Smellie, the governess, finding the boy loved the Sword, asked Grumper to lock it away for the boy’s Good.
Also she got Grumper to dismiss Nurse Beaton for impudence and not “knowing her place”.
But Damocles entered into an offensive and defensive alliance with Lucille, on whom he lavished the whole affection of his deeply, if undemonstratively, affectionate nature, and the two “hunted in couples,” sinned and suffered together, pooled their resources and their wits, found consolation in each other when harried by Miss Smellie, spent every available moment in each other’s society and, like the Early Christians, had all things in common.
On birthdays, “high days and holidays” he would ask “Grumper” to let him have the Sword for an hour or two, and would stand with it in his hand, rapt, enthralled, ecstatic. How strange it made one feel! How brave, and anxious to do fine deeds. He would picture himself bearing an unconscious Lucille in his left arm through hostile crowds, while with the Sword he thrust and hewed, parried and guarded…. Who could fear anything with the Sword in his hand, the Sword of the Dream! How glorious to die wielding it, wielding it in a good cause … preferably on behalf of Lucille, his own beloved little pal, staunch, clever, and beautiful. And he told Lucille tales of the Sword and of how he loved it!