The Secret Rose Page 3

  OUT OF THE ROSE.

  One winter evening an old knight in rusted chain-armour rode slowlyalong the woody southern slope of Ben Bulben, watching the sun go downin crimson clouds over the sea. His horse was tired, as after a longjourney, and he had upon his helmet the crest of no neighbouring lord orking, but a small rose made of rubies that glimmered every moment to adeeper crimson. His white hair fell in thin curls upon his shoulders,and its disorder added to the melancholy of his face, which was the faceof one of those who have come but seldom into the world, and always forits trouble, the dreamers who must do what they dream, the doers whomust dream what they do.

  After gazing a while towards the sun, he let the reins fall upon theneck of his horse, and, stretching out both arms towards the west, hesaid, 'O Divine Rose of Intellectual Flame, let the gates of thy peacebe opened to me at last!' And suddenly a loud squealing began in thewoods some hundreds of yards further up the mountain side. He stoppedhis horse to listen, and heard behind him a sound of feet and of voices.'They are beating them to make them go into the narrow path by thegorge,' said someone, and in another moment a dozen peasants armed withshort spears had come up with the knight, and stood a little apart fromhim, their blue caps in their hands. Where do you go with thespears?' he asked; and one who seemed the leader answered: 'A troop ofwood-thieves came down from the hills a while ago and carried off thepigs belonging to an old man who lives by Glen Car Lough, and we turnedout to go after them. Now that we know they are four times more than weare, we follow to find the way they have taken; and will presently tellour story to De Courcey, and if he will not help us, to Fitzgerald; forDe Courcey and Fitzgerald have lately made a peace, and we do not knowto whom we belong.'

  'But by that time,' said the knight, 'the pigs will have been eaten.'

  'A dozen men cannot do more, and it was not reasonable that the wholevalley should turn out and risk their lives for two, or for two dozenpigs.'

  'Can you tell me,' said the knight, 'if the old man to whom the pigsbelong is pious and true of heart?'

  'He is as true as another and more pious than any, for he says a prayerto a saint every morning before his breakfast.'

  'Then it were well to fight in his cause,' said the knight, 'and if youwill fight against the wood-thieves I will take the main brunt of thebattle, and you know well that a man in armour is worth many like thesewood-thieves, clad in wool and leather.'

  And the leader turned to his fellows and asked if they would take thechance; but they seemed anxious to get back to their cabins.

  'Are the wood-thieves treacherous and impious?'

  'They are treacherous in all their dealings,' said a peasant, 'and noman has known them to pray.'

  'Then,' said the knight, 'I will give five crowns for the head of everywood-thief killed by us in the fighting'; and he bid the leader show theway, and they all went on together. After a time they came to where abeaten track wound into the woods, and, taking this, they doubled backupon their previous course, and began to ascend the wooded slope of themountains. In a little while the path grew very straight and steep,and the knight was forced to dismount and leave his horse tied to atree-stem. They knew they were on the right track: for they could seethe marks of pointed shoes in the soft clay and mingled with them thecloven footprints of the pigs. Presently the path became still moreabrupt, and they knew by the ending of the cloven foot-prints that thethieves were carrying the pigs. Now and then a long mark in the clayshowed that a pig had slipped down, and been dragged along for a littleway. They had journeyed thus for about twenty minutes, when a confusedsound of voices told them that they were coming up with the thieves. Andthen the voices ceased, and they understood that they had been overheardin their turn. They pressed on rapidly and cautiously, and in about fiveminutes one of them caught sight of a leather jerkin half hidden by ahazel-bush. An arrow struck the knight's chain-armour, but glanced offharmlessly, and then a flight of arrows swept by them with the buzzingsound of great bees. They ran and climbed, and climbed and ran towardsthe thieves, who were now all visible standing up among the busheswith their still quivering bows in their hands: for they had only theirspears and they must at once come hand to hand. The knight was in thefront and smote down first one and then another of the wood-thieves. Thepeasants shouted, and, pressing on, drove the wood-thieves before themuntil they came out on the flat top of the mountain, and there they sawthe two pigs quietly grubbing in the short grass, so they ran about themin a circle, and began to move back again towards the narrow path: theold knight coming now the last of all, and striking down thief afterthief. The peasants had got no very serious hurts among them, for he haddrawn the brunt of the battle upon himself, as could well be seen fromthe bloody rents in his armour; and when they came to the entrance ofthe narrow path he bade them drive the pigs down into the valley, whilehe stood there to guard the way behind them. So in a moment he wasalone, and, being weak with loss of blood, might have been ended thereand then by the wood-thieves he had beaten off, had fear not made thembegone out of sight in a great hurry.

  An hour passed, and they did not return; and now the knight could standon guard no longer, but had to lie down upon the grass. A half-hourmore went by, and then a young lad with what appeared to be a number ofcock's feathers stuck round his hat, came out of the path behind him,and began to move about among the dead thieves, cutting their heads off,Then he laid the heads in a heap before the knight, and said: 'O greatknight, I have been bid come and ask you for the crowns you promisedfor the heads: five crowns a head. They bid me tell you that they haveprayed to God and His Mother to give you a long life, but that they arepoor peasants, and that they would have the money before you die. Theytold me this over and over for fear I might forget it, and promised tobeat me if I did.'

  The knight raised himself upon his elbow, and opening a bag that hung tohis belt, counted out the five crowns for each head. There were thirtyheads in all.

  'O great knight,' said the lad, 'they have also bid me take all care ofyou, and light a fire, and put this ointment upon your wounds.' And hegathered sticks and leaves together, and, flashing his flint and steelunder a mass of dry leaves, had made a very good blaze. Then, drawing ofthe coat of mail, he began to anoint the wounds: but he did it clumsily,like one who does by rote what he had been told. The knight motioned himto stop, and said: 'You seem a good lad.'

  'I would ask something of you for myself.'

  'There are still a few crowns,' said the knight; 'shall I give them toyou?'

  'O no,' said the lad. 'They would be no good to me. There is only onething that I care about doing, and I have no need of money to do it. Igo from village to village and from hill to hill, and whenever I comeacross a good cock I steal him and take him into the woods, and I keephim there under a basket until I get another good cock, and then I setthem to fight. The people say I am an innocent, and do not do me anyharm, and never ask me to do any work but go a message now and then. Itis because I am an innocent that they send me to get the crowns: anyoneelse would steal them; and they dare not come back themselves, for nowthat you are not with them they are afraid of the wood-thieves. Did youever hear how, when the wood-thieves are christened, the wolves are madetheir god-fathers, and their right arms are not christened at all?'

  'If you will not take these crowns, my good lad, I have nothing for you,I fear, unless you would have that old coat of mail which I shall soonneed no more.'

  'There was something I wanted: yes, I remember now,' said the lad. 'Iwant you to tell me why you fought like the champions and giants in thestories and for so little a thing. Are you indeed a man like us? Areyou not rather an old wizard who lives among these hills, and will not awind arise presently and crumble you into dust?'

  'I will tell you of myself,' replied the knight, 'for now that I am thelast of the fellowship, 'I may tell all and witness for God. Look atthe Rose of Rubies on my helmet, and see the symbol of my life and ofmy hope.' And then he told the lad this story, but with alwaysmore frequent pause
s; and, while he told it, the Rose shone a deepblood-colour in the firelight, and the lad stuck the cock's feathers inthe earth in front of him, and moved them about as though he made themactors in the play.

  'I live in a land far from this, and was one of the Knights of St.John,' said the old man; 'but I was one of those in the Order who alwayslonged for more arduous labours in the service of the Most High. At lastthere came to us a knight of Palestine, to whom the truth of truths hadbeen revealed by God Himself. He had seen a great Rose of Fire, and aVoice out of the Rose had told him how men would turn from the light oftheir own hearts, and bow down before outer order and outer fixity, andthat then the light would cease, and none escape the curse except thefoolish good man who could not, and the passionate wicked man who wouldnot, think. Already, the Voice told him, the wayward light of the heartwas shining out upon the world to keep it alive, with a less clearlustre, and that, as it paled, a strange infection was touching thestars and the hills and the grass and the trees with corruption, andthat none of those who had seen clearly the truth and the ancient waycould enter into the Kingdom of God, which is in the Heart of the Rose,if they stayed on willingly in the corrupted world; and so they mustprove their anger against the Powers of Corruption by dying in theservice of the Rose of God. While the Knight of Palestine was tellingus these things we seemed to see in a vision a crimson Rose spreadingitself about him, so that he seemed to speak out of its heart, and theair was filled with fragrance. By this we knew that it was the veryVoice of God which spoke to us by the knight, and we gathered abouthim and bade him direct us in all things, and teach us how to obey theVoice. So he bound us with an oath, and gave us signs and words wherebywe might know each other even after many years, and he appointed placesof meeting, and he sent us out in troops into the world to seek goodcauses, and die in doing battle for them. At first we thought to diemore readily by fasting to death in honour of some saint; but this hetold us was evil, for we did it for the sake of death, and thus took outof the hands of God the choice of the time and manner of our death, andby so doing made His power the less. We must choose our service for itsexcellence, and for this alone, and leave it to God to reward us at Hisown time and in His own manner. And after this he compelled us to eatalways two at a table to watch each other lest we fasted unduly, forsome among us said that if one fasted for a love of the holiness ofsaints and then died, the death would be acceptable. And the yearspassed, and one by one my fellows died in the Holy Land, or in warringupon the evil princes of the earth, or in clearing the roads of robbers;and among them died the knight of Palestine, and at last I was alone. Ifought in every cause where the few contended against the many, andmy hair grew white, and a terrible fear lest I had fallen under thedispleasure of God came upon me. But, hearing at last how this westernisle was fuller of wars and rapine than any other land, I came hither,and I have found the thing I sought, and, behold! I am filled with agreat joy.'

  Thereat he began to sing in Latin, and, while he sang, his voice grewfainter and fainter. Then his eyes closed, and his lips fell apart, andthe lad knew he was dead. 'He has told me a good tale,' he said, 'forthere was fighting in it, but I did not understand much of it, and it ishard to remember so long a story.'

  And, taking the knight's sword, he began to dig a grave in the softclay. He dug hard, and a faint light of dawn had touched his hair and hehad almost done his work when a cock crowed in the valley below. 'Ah,'he said, 'I must have that bird'; and he ran down the narrow path to thevalley.