The Youth of Parnassus and Other Stories Part 2

"Once, Gerard says, these churches were filled in the morning and evening light with labouring people kneeling in silent prayer. But that, of course, was in the Dark Ages. Gerard thinks that the world has done nothing but go back since the Middle Ages; certainly he does hate everything that is modern. How he will detest Parna.s.sus City, if he comes to see me there, as he says he will. It has been bad for him, I am sure, living out of the world, as he has lived, among old memories and dreams of his own. He is a Catholic, you know, but he respects my religion; he knows, of course, what my views are, and we never talk about theology. There is a friend of his I meet sometimes a priest, and I suppose a Jesuit. But he seems really quite a cultivated person."

Foley took up another letter: They had ridden out, Sutton wrote, to an old country house and park, where Charles I. had stayed once, while Parliament was being held in Oxford. The house, all save one wing, now a farm-house, had been torn down; but on the hill overlooking the lake, in the midst of the green shade of beeches, the chapel was still standing, abandoned now, and almost untouched, save by decay and time, since the polite court of the Stuarts had said their worldly devotions there. What rich brocades, what hushed gallantries and frivolous prayers had once rustled and whispered under the graceful high arches of those pews! But birds had their nests there now, he said, while through the decaying roof the rain dripped down on the frail woodwork, the cla.s.sic columns and fading colours of this deserted place of elegant wors.h.i.+p and old fas.h.i.+on.

The American Puritan confessed to a certain tenderness for the generous lost cause, for the fine futile courage of the gay Cavaliers and lovely forgotten ladies. And as they rode homeward through the twilight, his companion sang s.n.a.t.c.hes of some old Cavalier songs--tunes with a certain pathos and grace in their gallant wistful music.

XVI.

Then there was a long letter, dating from the autumn after this delightful summer, in which he wrote again about Anthony a Wood, the old Oxford antiquary. He had been reading Wood's diaries, finding in them, he said, in spite of their old-fas.h.i.+oned pedantry and long genealogies, a vivid picture of the University and Wood's life in it, two hundred years ago. A calm life, Sutton described it, in curious contrast to the times in which Wood lived, when the academic quiet was so often disturbed by armies, and royal visits, and great events; and the noise of tumults in the Oxford streets, and troops marching by, reaching the old antiquary's ears, would draw him from the chronicles of the past, to look with blinking eyes from his library window on the turmoil and disquiet of contemporary history. For his life was spent in his own study, or in "Bodlie's Library," or among the dusty archives of the Colleges, reading and transcribing the monastic registers, the old ma.n.u.scripts and histories. Sutton quoted from his diary a sentence in which he speaks of the exceeding pleasure he took in "poring on such books."

"Heraldry, musick, and painting did so much crowd upon him, that he could not avoid them, and could never give a reason why he should delight in those studies more than in others, so prevalent was nature."

"My pen cannot enough describe," he writes in his enthusiasm, when he first read Dugdale's _Antiquities of Warwicks.h.i.+re_, "how A. Wood's tender affections and insatiable desire of knowledge were ravish'd and melted down by the reading of that book. What by music and rare books that he found in the public library, his life at this time and after was a perfect Elysium."

"Wood often went for long, solitary walks, collecting arms and monumental inscriptions from the churches, and visiting all the ruined religious Houses and old halls in the country about Oxford. He describes in his diary how, as he returned towards Oxford in the evening, 'after he had taken his rambles about the country to collect monuments,' he would hear the bells of Merton, his own College, ringing clearly in the distance."

"Wood had small love for the Puritans," Sutton wrote, "who in his lifetime were so long in power; and in his record of contemporary events, sudden deaths, and alleged appearances of the devil, he more than once mentions their destruction of antiquities, their contempt for the Fathers and Schoolmen, and hatred of all authority, and 'everything that smelt of an Academy, never rejoicing more than when he could trample on the gowne, and bring humane learning and arts into disgrace.'"

"Then came the Restoration, and almost the last event that Wood records is the revival of Catholicism under James II. Wood himself was suspected of being a Papist; his writings had made him enemies, and before he died he was expelled from the University, and his book burned by order of the Vice-Chancellor's Court."

"And yet, on the whole, his life was a happy one," Sutton said, writing, it was plain, with a certain envy for the tranquil occupations and lettered tastes of the old Oxford antiquary.

XVII.

The next two letters that Foley found (and they were the last) were dated in the Long Vacation, nearly a year later. Either Sutton had not written again for some time, or Foley had lost the letters. It was the American's third summer in England; as before, he had stayed in Oxford.

He described the quiet afternoons he spent in the College garden; how he seemed to be alone with Oxford and the past, and how even the city noises, which came in over the walls--the rattle of carts, the shrill, faint voices of newsboys, crying the world's events--only added a deeper hush to the stillness and solitude within, the sunlight on the gra.s.s, the shadows of the trees.

He remembered how homesick he had been the first summer he had spent in Oxford, and how he had longed to go back. But now that his work was almost finished, and he was soon to go to America, he could not help admitting that he shrank a little from it--felt a certain reluctance, after all. He would watch, as he had watched before, the tourists who now and then came into the quiet garden. Then he had enjoyed seeing them, and wished he could talk to them; but now!...

And one day some people whom he had known in Indiana came in. He spoke to them, showed them about, and tried to be friendly, and yet they seemed so far away somehow! He hated himself for it, and tried to believe that it was all the fault of Oxford and its fastidious standards; he had let himself be too much influenced, but when he got back to Parna.s.sus again, he hoped he should see things as he used to see them, and feel the same towards the Sloc.u.ms and all his old friends.

But in the last letter, "It will never be the same now," Sutton had written; "I have come too far and stayed too long. At first I was always thinking of Parna.s.sus City; I would dream of it at night, and wake in the morning to wonder at the strangeness of my dim little windows and the voices of the rooks outside. But then it began to fade, and gradually everything changed. And yet, poor fool that I was, all the time I tried to think that I was preparing myself to go back. Of course I _shall_ go back; if I can't be a Minister, I can still teach in their university, perhaps--I _must_ do something to help them, it would be treachery if I did not. But my heart will be far away from it all, I know. I try to think of the excellent people there, and how fatally kind they have been to me; but when I shut my eyes, I can see nothing but the ugly church, the wooden 'university,' and a great sun-baked street, with spa.r.s.e houses and dusty trees straggling off on the prairie. How can I ever live there now? And yet, if I had never come away, I might have been happy. Why did they send me to Oxford, I wonder. Yet was it not my fate? It seems to me that I _must_ have come here sometime!"

XVIII.

With this the letters ended. From the undergraduates Foley had heard how Sutton tried to study history, but failed rather badly in it. What had happened afterwards he had not heard, save by vague report. He only knew that Sutton was still in Oxford.

But no wonder he had stayed there, Foley thought, remembering the pa.s.sion for the place that breathed in Sutton's letters, his growing preoccupation with, and interest in, everything that was ecclesiastical and ancient. Indeed, the beauty and antiquity of Oxford, the libraries and cloisters and old places he haunted, now seemed to have grown into an almost necessary part of the American's environment, the needful background of his life. As if, like old Anthony a Wood, one could not imagine him living anywhere except in Oxford, walking through its almost doorless streets, or on the lawns of its College gardens, and ordering his studies and ways by the sound of its bells. Why then should he not stay there; was it anything more than a false conscience that had made him feel he ought to go back to America?

The next morning, as if in answer to this question, Foley received an unexpected visit from Abel, Dr. Joseph's a.s.sistant. He had come, he said, to find out where Sutton was; they were a good deal worried about him; they must be allowed to see him again before he took any step.

Foley was greatly surprised at the way Abel spoke; he knew nothing of the American's whereabouts, he said; they had told him at his lodgings the night before that he was away from Oxford.

"Yes, I know, I saw your card there. But I supposed you would know where he has gone, or would be willing to tell me how I could find out. We have heard again from America, and really, for your own sakes you must allow us to see him once."

With still greater astonishment Foley protested that he knew nothing; he had feared Sutton might be in trouble, but having just returned, after two years abroad, he had no idea of what the trouble was. His a.s.surances were so evidently sincere, that Abel, who had looked at him suspiciously at first, now shut the door and came forward into the room. The trouble was that Sutton had absolutely refused to go back to America. They might have known it would happen, he added; and, in answer to a question of Foley's, he gave his version of all that had occurred.

Sutton had come to Oxford with a letter from Dr. Turnpenny, his pastor and guardian, requesting Dr. Joseph to see that he should live under some kind of care and protection. Dr. Joseph, as their own buildings were not yet finished, had arranged with the Warden of St. Mary's that the young man should enter that College and live there, while he carried on his theological work with his own tutors.

It was a mistake; Abel had thought it a mistake all along. With another man it might not have mattered; but Sutton, thrown into the society of rich young men, who had no sympathy with his ideas, and who ridiculed his ways, had not been able to withstand their influence. And just when he was on the point of ordination, he had thrown it all over; said he no longer believed in Methodism, or wished to be a minister. He had stayed for another year in Oxford, studying, or pretending to study, history; but he could not have worked very seriously; the examiners said, indeed, that his papers were full of the most absurd ideas. And now he refused to go back to America at all. Abel didn't know who it was who had tried to pervert him; it was reported to be the Jesuits--and there was a man called Gerard, Sir Philip Gerard--; but at any rate they ought to know what trouble they had made.

Foley said he was certain there had been no deliberate attempt to pervert Sutton. If any of his friends had tried to influence him, it was probably because they believed in culture, and thought it would help him in his work.

"Help him to be a minister out in Indiana! How could the ideas of a narrow university set and its expensive tastes help a man for that?"

"But everyone surely was the better for being cultivated!" Foley exclaimed.

Even to this Abel could not agree entirely; he admitted that of course culture had its charm and value; only in cases it might be dangerous, he thought. But how could that be? Foley asked, and for a moment, in their discussion of the larger question, they almost forgot Sutton. Abel thought that an undue cultivation of taste, of the sense of beauty, without an equal training of the reason, would make you into a narrow and fastidious person, judging things by the eyes and ears, and caring only for what was well-expressed and beautiful. And surely for the most part, he said, (and he seemed anxious to be fair and moderate,) for the most part it was the ideals of the past, the out-worn, romantic, and old-fas.h.i.+oned things, that had had time to be well-expressed, while the modern--"But all this has very little to do with Sutton!" he said, stopping suddenly.

"Oh, I don't know, isn't he the kind of person you mean--a sensitive poetic person--"

"Eliaphet Sutton! he never wrote poetry, did he?"

"No, I don't mean exactly that. Only it seems to me natural enough that a man of his temperament, coming to Oxford from an ugly new town, should not want to go back."

"Temperament!" Abel exclaimed, as if the word annoyed him. Then more quietly he added that he did not think anything could excuse Sutton for behaving in the way he had behaved. Why he himself had come to Oxford from a new town that was probably as ugly as Parna.s.sus City. They were angry enough in Parna.s.sus, you couldn't talk of temperaments out there!

It had really broken Dr. Turnpenny's heart. "If you could only see his letters! No, after spending all the old man's money--"

"His money?" Foley asked.

"Yes, didn't you know? He was sent over on a subscription got up by the Methodist church there, and Dr. Turnpenny, who had adopted him and brought him up, gave all his savings. He was to go back of course, and help support Dr. Turnpenny. He was engaged to a girl out there too. And now he says he won't go back. But really he must, it doesn't matter what he says. It's the only honest and decent thing for him to do."

"Indeed he must go back," exclaimed Foley. "I hadn't the least idea!--"

XIX.

Foley went to Sutton's rooms again, but for several days he could hear nothing of him. One evening, however, when he was sitting in the garden, happening to look up, he saw the melancholy figure of the American coming down the garden path. Now that he actually saw Sutton, and was vividly aware of the atmosphere of reserve and solitude that enveloped him, Foley shrank from saying the things that he felt he ought to say.

And yet someone must speak to him; someone must tell him his duty, and make him go back to the good simple people who had cared for him, supported him, and who relied on him so much!

He had been away, Sutton said, as the two young men walked slowly down the garden path. It was very still there in the twilight; and they were alone, shut in as it seemed, and very remote from the world outside.

"Have you decided yet when you are going home?" Foley asked.

"Home?"

"Yes; home to America."

"I don't know," Sutton replied. After a moment he added, in the same quiet voice, "perhaps I shall never go back."

"Then you have found some occupation in England?"

Sutton shook his head.

But didn't he think he ought to go back then, Foley asked. One had duties--and, trying to speak more lightly, he added, "You must have learned a great deal, Eliaphet, after studying all these years. Oughtn't you to go back and teach them out there?"

"I have nothing to teach them--nothing they would be willing to learn."