The Roadmender Part 1

The Roadmender.

by Michael Fairless.

CHAPTER I

I HAVE attained my ideal: I am a roadmender, some say stonebreaker. Both t.i.tles are correct, but the one is more pregnant than the other. All day I sit by the roadside on a stretch of gra.s.s under a high hedge of saplings and a tangle of traveller's joy, woodbine, sweetbrier, and late roses. Opposite me is a white gate, seldom used, if one may judge from the trail of honeysuckle growing tranquilly along it: I know now that whenever and wherever I die my soul will pa.s.s out through this white gate; and then, thank G.o.d, I shall not have need to undo that trail.

In our youth we discussed our ideals freely: I wonder how many beside myself have attained, or would understand my attaining. After all, what do we ask of life, here or indeed hereafter, but leave to serve, to live, to commune with our fellowmen and with ourselves; and from the lap of earth to look up into the face of G.o.d? All these gifts are mine as I sit by the winding white road and serve the footsteps of my fellows. There is no room in my life for avarice or anxiety; I who serve at the altar live of the altar: I lack nothing but have nothing over; and when the winter of life comes I shall join the company of weary old men who sit on the sunny side of the workhouse wall and wait for the tender mercies of G.o.d.

Just now it is the summer of things; there is life and music everywhere-in the stones themselves, and I live to-day beating out the rhythmical hammer-song of The Ring. There is real physical joy in the rise and swing of the arm, in the jar of a fair stroke, the split and scatter of the quartz: I am learning to be ambidextrous, for why should Esau sell his birthright when there is enough for both? Then the rest-hour comes, bringing the luxurious ache of tired but not weary limbs; and I lie outstretched and renew my strength, sometimes with my face deep-nestled in the cool green gra.s.s, sometimes on my back looking up into the blue sky which no wise man would wish to fathom.

The birds have no fear of me; am I not also of the brown brethren in my sober fustian livery? They share my meals-at least the little dun-coated Franciscans do; the blackbirds and thrushes care not a whit for such simple food as crumbs, but with legs well apart and claws tense with purchase they disinter poor brother worm, having first mocked him with sound of rain. The robin that lives by the gate regards my heap of stones as subject to his special inspection. He sits atop and practises the trill of his summer song until it shrills above and through the metallic clang of my strokes; and when I pause he c.o.c.ks his tail, with a humorous twinkle of his round eye which means-"What! s.h.i.+rking, big brother?"-and I fall, ashamed, to my mending of roads.

The other day, as I lay with my face in the gra.s.s, I heard a gentle rustle, and raised my head to find a hedge-snake watching me fearless, unwinking. I stretched out my hand, picked it up unresisting, and put it in my coat like the husbandman of old. Was he so ill-rewarded, I wonder, with the kiss that reveals secrets? My snake slept in peace while I hammered away with an odd quickening of heart as I thought how to me, as to Melampus, had come the messenger-had come, but to ears deafened by centuries of misrule, blindness, and oppression; so that, with all my longing, I am shut out of the wondrous world where walked Melampus and the Saint. To me there is no suggestion of evil in the little silent creatures, harmless, or deadly only with the Death which is Life. The beasts who turn upon us, as a rule maul and tear unreflectingly; with the snake there is the swift, silent strike, the tiny, tiny wound, then sleep and a forgetting.

My brown friend, with its message unspoken, slid away into the gra.s.s at sundown to tell its tale in unstopped ears; and I, my task done, went home across the fields to the solitary cottage where I lodge. It is old and decrepit-two rooms, with a quasi-attic over them reached by a ladder from the kitchen and reached only by me. It is furnished with the luxuries of life, a truckle bed, table, chair, and huge earthenware pan which I fill from the ice-cold well at the back of the cottage. Morning and night I serve with the Gibeonites, their curse my blessing, as no doubt it was theirs when their hearts were purged by service. Morning and night I send down the moss-grown bucket with its urgent message from a dry and dusty world; the chain tightens through my hand as the liquid treasure responds to the messenger, and then with creak and jangle-the welcome of labouring earth-the bucket slowly nears the top and disperses the treasure in the waiting vessels. The Gibeonites were servants in the house of G.o.d, ministers of the sacrament of service even as the High Priest himself; and I, sharing their high office of servitude, thank G.o.d that the ground was accursed for my sake, for surely that curse was the womb of all unborn blessing.

The old widow with whom I lodge has been deaf for the last twenty years.

She speaks in the strained high voice which protests against her own infirmity, and her eyes have the pathetic look of those who search in silence. For many years she lived alone with her son, who laboured on the farm two miles away. He met his death rescuing a carthorse from its burning stable; and the farmer gave the cottage rent free and a weekly half-crown for life to the poor old woman whose dearest terror was the workhouse. With my s.h.i.+lling a week rent, and sharing of supplies, we live in the lines of comfort. Of death she has no fears, for in the long chest in the kitchen lie a web of coa.r.s.e white linen, two pennies covered with the same to keep down tired eyelids, decent white stockings, and a white cotton sun-bonnet-a decorous death-suit truly-and enough money in the little bag for self-respecting burial. The farmer buried his servant handsomely-good man, he knew the love of reticent grief for a 'kind'

burial-and one day Harry's mother is to lie beside him in the little churchyard which has been a cornfield, and may some day be one again.

CHAPTER II

ON Sundays my feet take ever the same way. First my temple service, and then five miles tramp over the tender, dewy fields, with their ineffable earthy smell, until I reach the little church at the foot of the grey-green down. Here, every Sunday, a young priest from a neighbouring village says Ma.s.s for the tiny hamlet, where all are very old or very young-for the heyday of life has no part under the long shadow of the hills, but is away at sea or in service. There is a beautiful seemliness in the extreme youth of the priest who serves these aged children of G.o.d.

He bends to communicate them with the reverent tenderness of a son, and reads with the careful intonation of far-seeing love. To the old people he is the son of their old age, G.o.d-sent to guide their tottering footsteps along the highway of foolish wayfarers; and he, with his youth and strength, wishes no better task. Service ended, we greet each other friendly-for men should not be strange in the acre of G.o.d; and I pa.s.s through the little hamlet and out and up on the grey down beyond. Here, at the last gate, I pause for breakfast; and then up and on with quickening pulse, and evergreen memory of the weary war-worn Greeks who broke rank to greet the great blue Mother-way that led to home. I stand on the summit hatless, the wind in my hair, the smack of salt on my cheek, all round me rolling stretches of cloud-shadowed down, no sound but the shrill mourn of the peewit and the gathering of the sea.

The hours pa.s.s, the shadows lengthen, the sheep-bells clang; and I lie in my niche under the stunted hawthorn watching the to and fro of the sea, and aeolus shepherding his white sheep across the blue. I love the sea with its impenetrable fathoms, its wash and undertow, and rasp of s.h.i.+ngle sucked anew. I love it for its secret dead in the Caverns of Peace, of which account must be given when the books are opened and earth and heaven have fled away. Yet in my love there is a paradox, for as I watch the restless, ineffective waves I think of the measureless, reflective depths of the still and silent Sea of Gla.s.s, of the dead, small and great, rich or poor, with the works which follow them, and of the Voice as the voice of many waters, when the mult.i.tude of one mind rends heaven with alleluia: and I lie so still that I almost feel the kiss of White Peace on my mouth. Later still, when the flare of the sinking sun has died away and the stars rise out of a veil of purple cloud, I take my way home, down the slopes, through the hamlet, and across miles of sleeping fields; over which night has thrown her s.h.i.+fting web of mist-home to the little attic, the deep, cool well, the kindly wrinkled face with its listening eyes-peace in my heart and thankfulness for the rhythm of the road.

Monday brings the joy of work, second only to the Sabbath of rest, and I settle to my heap by the white gate. Soon I hear the distant stamp of horsehoofs, heralding the grind and roll of the wheels which reaches me later-a heavy flour-waggon with a team of four great gentle horses, gay with bra.s.s trappings and scarlet ear-caps. On the top of the craftily piled sacks lies the white-clad waggoner, a pink in his mouth which he mumbles meditatively, and the reins looped over the inactive whip-why should he drive a willing team that knows the journey and responds as strenuously to a cheery chirrup as to the well-directed lash? We greet and pa.s.s the time of day, and as he mounts the rise he calls back a warning of coming rain. I am already white with dust as he with flour, sacramental dust, the outward and visible sign of the stir and beat of the heart of labouring life.

Next to pa.s.s down the road is an anxious ruffled hen, her speckled breast astir with maternal troubles. She walks delicately, lifting her feet high and glancing furtively from side to side with comb low dressed. The sight of man, the heartless egg-collector, from whose haunts she has fled, wrings from her a startled cluck, and she makes for the white gate, climbs through, and disappears. I know her feelings too well to intrude.

Many times already has she hidden herself, ama.s.sed four or five precious treasures, brooding over them with anxious hope; and then, after a brief desertion to seek the necessary food, she has returned to find her efforts at concealment vain, her treasures gone. At last, with the courage of despair she has resolved to brave the terrors of the unknown and seek a haunt beyond the tyranny of man. I will watch over her from afar, and when her mother-hope is fulfilled I will marshal her and her brood back to the farm where she belongs; for what end I care not to think, it is of the mystery which lies at the heart of things; and we are all G.o.d's beasts, says St Augustine.

Here is my stone-song, a paraphrase of the Treasure Motif.

[Picture: Music score: F# dotted crotchet, F# quaver, F# quaver, F# dotted crotchet, D crotchet, E crotchet. This bar is then repeated once more]

What a wonderful work Wagner has done for humanity in translating the toil of life into the readable script of music! For those who seek the tale of other worlds his magic is silent; but earth-travail under his wand becomes instinct with rhythmic song to an accompaniment of the elements, and the blare and crash of the bottomless pit itself. The Pilgrim's March is the sad sound of footsore men; the San Graal the tremulous yearning of servitude for richer, deeper bondage. The yellow, thirsty flames lick up the willing sacrifice, the water wails the secret of the river and the sea; the birds and beasts, the shepherd with his pipe, the underground life in rocks and caverns, all cry their message to this nineteenth-century toiling, labouring world-and to me as I mend my road.

Two tramps come and fling themselves by me as I eat my noonday meal. The one, red-eyed, furtive, lies on his side with restless, clutching hands that tear and twist and torture the living gra.s.s, while his lips mutter incoherently. The other sits stooped, bare-footed, legs wide apart, his face grey, almost as grey as his stubbly beard; and it is not long since Death looked him in the eyes. He tells me querulously of a two hundred miles tramp since early spring, of search for work, casual jobs with more kicks than halfpence, and a brief but blissful sojourn in a hospital bed, from which he was dismissed with sentence pa.s.sed upon him. For himself, he is determined to die on the road under a hedge, where a man can see and breathe. His anxiety is all for his fellow; _he_ has said he will "do for a man"; he wants to "swing," to get out of his "dog's life." I watch him as he lies, this Ishmael and would-be Lamech. Ignorance, hunger, terror, the exhaustion of past generations, have done their work.

The man is mad, and would kill his fellowman.

Presently we part, and the two go, dogged and footsore, down the road which is to lead them into the great silence.

CHAPTER III

YESTERDAY was a day of encounters.

First, early in the morning, a young girl came down the road on a bicycle. Her dressguard was loose, and she stopped to ask for a piece of string. When I had tied it for her she looked at me, at my worn dusty clothes and burnt face; and then she took a Niphetos rose from her belt and laid it shyly in my dirty disfigured palm. I bared my head, and stood hat in hand looking after her as she rode away up the hill. Then I took my treasure and put it in a nest of cool dewy gra.s.s under the hedge.

_Ecce ancilla Domini_.

My next visitor was a fellow-worker on his way to a job at the cross-roads. He stood gazing meditatively at my heap of stones.

"Ow long 'ave yer bin at this job that y'ere in such a hurry?"

I stayed my hammer to answer-"Four months."

"Seen better days?"

"Never," I said emphatically, and punctuated the remark with a stone split neatly in four.

The man surveyed me in silence for a moment; then he said slowly, "Mean ter say yer like crackin' these blamed stones to fill 'oles some other fool's made?"

I nodded.

"Well, that beats everything. Now, I '_ave_ seen better days; worked in a big brewery over near Maidstone-a town that, and something doing; and now, 'ere I am, 'ammering me 'eart out on these blasted stones for a bit o' bread and a pipe o' baccy once a week-it ain't good enough." He pulled a blackened clay from his pocket and began slowly filling it with rank tobacco; then he lit it carefully behind his battered hat, put the spent match back in his pocket, rose to his feet, hitched his braces, and, with a silent nod to me, went on to his job.

Why do we give these tired children, whose minds move slowly, whose eyes are holden that they cannot read the Book, whose hearts are full of sore resentment against they know not what, such work as this to do-hammering their hearts out for a bit of bread? All the pathos of unreasoning labour rings in these few words. We fit the collar on unwilling necks; and when their service is over we bid them go out free; but we break the good Mosaic law and send them away empty. What wonder there is so little willing service, so few ears ready to be thrust through against the master's door.

The swift stride of civilisation is leaving behind individual effort, and turning man into the Daemon of a machine. To and fro in front of the long loom, lifting a lever at either end, paces he who once with painstaking intelligence drove the shuttle. _Then_ he tasted the joy of completed work, that which his eye had looked upon, and his hands had handled; now his work is as little finished as the web of Penelope. Once the reaper grasped the golden corn stems, and with dexterous sweep of sickle set free the treasure of the earth. Once the creatures of the field were known to him, and his eye caught the flare of scarlet and blue as the frail poppies and st.u.r.dy corn-c.o.c.kles laid down their beauty at his feet; now he sits serene on Juggernaut's car, its guiding Daemon, and the field is silent to him.

As with the web and the grain so with the wood and stone in the treasure-house of our needs. The ground was accursed _for our sake_ that in the sweat of our brow we might eat bread. Now the many live in the brain-sweat of the few; and it must be so, for as little as great King c.n.u.t could stay the sea until it had reached the appointed place, so little can we raise a barrier to the wave of progress, and say, "Thus far and no further shalt thou come."

What then? This at least; if we live in an age of mechanism let us see to it that we are a race of intelligent mechanics; and if man is to be the Daemon of a machine let him know the setting of the knives, the rise of the piston, the part that each wheel and rod plays in the economy of the whole, the part that he himself plays, co-operating with it. Then, when he has lived and served intelligently, let us give him of our flocks and of our floor that he may learn to rest in the lengthening shadows until he is called to his work above.

So I sat, hammering out my thoughts, and with them the conviction that stonebreaking should be allotted to minor poets or vagrant children of nature like myself, never to such tired folk as my poor mate at the cross-roads and his fellows.

At noon, when I stopped for my meal, the sun was baking the hard white road in a pitiless glare. Several waggons and carts pa.s.sed, the horses sweating and straining, with drooping, fly-tormented ears. The men for the most part nodded slumberously on the shaft, seeking the little shelter the cart afforded; but one shuffled in the white dust, with an occasional chirrup and friendly pressure on the tired horse's neck.

Then an old woman and a small child appeared in sight, both with enormous sun-bonnets and carrying baskets. As they came up with me the woman stopped and swept her face with her hand, while the child, depositing the basket in the dust with great care, wiped her little sticky fingers on her pinafore. Then the shady hedge beckoned them and they came and sat down near me. The woman looked about seventy, tall, angular, dauntless, good for another ten years of hard work. The little maid-her only grandchild, she told me-was just four, her father away soldiering, and the mother died in childbed, so for four years the child had known no other guardian or playmate than the old woman. She was not the least shy, but had the strange self-possession which comes from a.s.sociating with one who has travelled far on life's journey.

"I couldn't leave her alone in the house," said her grandmother, "and she wouldn't leave the kitten for fear it should be lonesome"-with a humorous, tender glance at the child-"but it's a long tramp in the heat for the little one, and we've another mile to go."

"Will you let her bide here till you come back?" I said. "She'll be all right by me."

The old lady hesitated.

"Will 'ee stay by him, dearie?" she said.

The small child nodded, drew from her miniature pocket a piece of sweetstuff, extracted from the basket a small black cat, and settled in for the afternoon. Her grandmother rose, took her basket, and, with a nod and "Thank 'ee kindly, mister," went off down the road.