CHAPTER III.
THE HERMIT OF THE WELL.
THE thorough and deep investigation of those principles from which welearn the immortality of the soul, and the nature of its proper ends,leads the mind through such a course of reflection and of study; itis attended with so many exalting, purifying, and, if I may so say,etherealizing thoughts,--that I do believe no man has ever pursued it,and not gone back to the world a better and a nobler man than he wasbefore. Nay, so deeply must these elevating and refining studies beconned, so largely and sensibly must they enter the intellectual system,that I firmly think that even a sensualist who has only consideredthe subject with a view to convince himself that he is clay, and hastherefore an excuse to the curious conscience for his grosser desires;nay, should he come to his wished-for yet desolate conclusion, fromwhich the abhorrent nature shrinks and recoils, I do nevertheless firmlythink, should the study have been long and deep, that he would wonder tofind his desires had lost their poignancy and his objects their charm.He would descend from the Alp he had climbed to the low level on whichhe formerly deemed it a bliss to dwell, with the feeling of one who,having long drawn in high places an empyreal air, has become unable toinhale the smoke and the thick vapour he inhaled of yore. His soul oncearoused would stir within him, though he felt it not, and though he grewnot a believer, he would cease to be only the voluptuary.
I meant at one time to have here stated the arguments which hadperplexed me on one side, and those which afterwards convinced me onthe other. I do not do so for many reasons, one of which will suffice;namely, the evident and palpable circumstance that a dissertation ofthat nature would, in a biography like the present, be utterly out ofplace and season. Perhaps, however, at a later period of life, Imay collect my own opinions on the subject into a separate work, andbequeath that work to future generations, upon the same conditions asthe present memoir.
One day I was favoured by a visit from one of the monks at theneighbouring abbey. After some general conversation he asked me if I hadyet encountered the Hermit of the Well?
"No," said I, and I was going to add, that I had not even heard of him,"but I now remember that the good people of the house have more thanonce spoken to me of him as a rigid and self-mortifying recluse."
"Yes," said the holy friar; "Heaven forbid that I should say aughtagainst the practice of the saints and pious men to deny unto themselvesthe lusts of the flesh, but such penances may be carried too far.However, it is an excellent custom, and the Hermit of the Well is anexcellent creature. _Santa Maria!_ what delicious stuff is that Hungarywine your scholarship was pleased to bestow upon our father Abbot. Hesuffered me to taste it the eve before last. I had been suffering witha pain in the reins, and the wine acted powerfully upon me as anefficacious and inestimable medicine. Do you find, my Son, that it borethe journey to your lodging here as well as to the convent cellars?"
"Why, really, my Father, I have none of it here; but the people of thehouse have a few flasks of a better wine than ordinary, if you willdeign to taste it in lieu of the Hungary wine."
"Oh--oh!" said the monk, groaning, "my reins trouble me much: perhapsthe wine may comfort me!" and the wine was brought.
"It is not of so rare a flavour as that which you sent to our reverendfather," said the monk, wiping his mouth with his long sleeve."Hungary must be a charming place; is it far from hence? It joins theheretical,--I pray your pardon, it joins the continent of England, Ibelieve?"
"Not exactly, Father; but whatever its topography, it is a rarecountry--for those who like it! But tell me of this Hermit of the Well.How long has he lived here? and how came he by his appellation? Of whatcountry is he? and of what birth?"
"You ask me too many questions at once, my Son. The country of the holyman is a mystery to us all. He speaks the Tuscan dialect well, but witha foreign accent. Nevertheless, though the wine is not of Hungary, ithas a pleasant flavour. I wonder how the rogues kept it so snugly fromthe knowledge and comfort of their pious brethren of the monastery!"
"And how long has the Hermit lived in your vicinity?"
"Nearly eight years, my Son. It was one winter's evening that he cameto our convent in the dress of a worldly traveller, to seek ourhospitality, and a shelter for the night, which was inclement andstormy. He stayed with us a few days, and held some conversation withour father Abbot; and one morning, after roaming in the neighbourhood tolook at the old stones and ruins, which is the custom of travellers,he returned, put into our box some alms, and two days afterwards heappeared in the place he now inhabits and in the dress he assumes."
"And of what nature, my Father, is the place, and of what fashion thedress?"
"Holy Saint Francis!" exclaimed the Father, with a surprise so greatthat I thought at first it related to the wine, "Holy Saint Francis!have you not seen the well yet?"
"No, Father, unless you speak of the fountain about a mile and a quarterdistant."
"Tusk--tusk!" said the good man, "what ignoramuses you travellers are!You affect to know what kind of slippers Prester John wears and to havebeen admitted to the bed-chamber of _the Pagoda of China_; and yet, whenone comes to sound you, you are as ignorant of everything a man of reallearning knows as an Englishman is of his missal. Why, I thought thatevery fool in every country had heard of the Holy Well of St. Francis,situated exactly two miles from our famous convent, and that every foolin the neighbourhood had seen it."
"What the fools, my Father, whether in this neighbourhood or any other,may have heard or seen, I, who profess not ostensibly to belong to sogoodly an order, cannot pretend to know; but be assured that theHoly Well of St. Francis is as unfamiliar to me as the Pagoda ofChina--Heaven bless _him_--is to you."
Upon this the learned monk, after expressing due astonishment, offeredto show it to me; and as I thought I might by acquiescence get rid ofhim the sooner, and as, moreover, I wished to see the Abbot, to whomsome books for me had been lately sent, I agreed to the offer.
The well, said the monk, lay not above a mile out of the customary wayto the monastery; and after _we_ had finished the flask of wine, wesallied out on our excursion,--the monk upon a stately and strong ass,myself on foot.
The Abbot, on granting me his friendship and protection, had observedthat I was not the only stranger and recluse on whom his favour wasbestowed. He had then mentioned the Hermit of the Well, as an eccentricand strange being, who lived an existence of rigid penance, harmless toothers, painful only to himself. This story had been confirmed in thefew conversations I had ever interchanged with my host and hostess, whoseemed to take a peculiar pleasure in talking of the Solitary; and fromthem I had heard also many anecdotes of his charity towards the poor andhis attention to the sick. All these circumstances came into my mind asthe good monk indulged his loquacity upon the subject, and my curiositybecame at last somewhat excited respecting my fellow recluse.
I now learned from the monk that the post of Hermit of the Well was anoffice of which the present anchorite was by no means the first tenant.The well was one of those springs, frequent in Catholic countries, towhich a legend and a sanctity are attached; and twice a year--oncein the spring, once in the autumn--the neighbouring peasants flockedtogether, on a stated day, to drink, and lose their diseases. Asthe spring most probably did possess some medicinal qualities, a fewextraordinary cures had occurred, especially among those pious personswho took not biennial, but constant draughts; and to doubt its holinesswas downright heresy.
Now, hard by this well was a cavern, which, whether first formedby nature or art, was now, upon the whole, constructed into a verycommodious abode; and here, for years beyond the memory of man, somesolitary person had fixed his abode to dispense and to bless the water,to be exceedingly well fed by the surrounding peasants, to wear a longgown of serge or sackcloth, and to be called the Hermit of the Well.So fast as each succeeding anchorite died there were enough candidateseager to supply his place; for it was no bad _metier_ to some pennilessimposter to become the quack and patentee of a holy specific.
The choiceof these candidates always rested with the superior of the neighbouringmonastery; and it is not impossible that he made an indifferently goodpercentage upon the annual advantages of his protection and choice.
At the time the traveller appeared, the former hermit had just departedthis life, and it was, therefore, to the vacancy thus occasioned thathe had procured himself to be elected. The incumbent appeared quite of adifferent mould from the former occupants of the hermitage. He accepted,it is true, the gifts laid at regular periods upon a huge stone betweenthe hermitage and the well, but he distributed among the donors alms farmore profitable than their gifts. He entered no village, borne upon anass laden with twin sacks, for the purpose of sanctimoniously robbingthe inhabitants; no profane songs were ever heard resounding from hisdwelling by the peasant incautiously lingering at a late hour toonear its vicinity; my guide, the monk, complained bitterly of hisunsociability, and no scandalous legend of nymph-like comforters anddamsel visitants haunting the sacred dwelling escaped from the garrulousfriar's well-loaded budget.
"Does he study much?" said I, with the interest of a student.
"I fear me not," quoth the monk. "I have had occasion often to enter hisabode, and I have examined all things with a close eye,--for, praisedbe the Lord, I have faculties more than ordinarily clear andobservant,--but I have seen no books therein, excepting a missal, anda Latin or Greek Testament, I know not well which; nay, so incurious orunlearned is the holy man that he rejected even a loan of the 'Life ofSaint Francis,' notwithstanding it has many and rare pictures, to saynothing of its most interesting and amazing tales."
More might the monk have said, had we not now suddenly entered a thickand sombre wood. A path cut through it was narrow, and only capable ofadmitting a traveller on foot or horseback; and the boughs overhead wereso darkly interlaced that the light scarcely, and only in broken anderratic glimmerings, pierced the canopy.
"It is the wood," said the monk, crossing himself, "wherein thewonderful adventure happened to Saint Francis, which I will one daynarrate at length to you."
"And we are near the well, I suppose?" said I.
"It is close at hand," answered the monk.
In effect we had not proceeded above fifty yards before the path broughtus into a circular space of green sod, in the midst of which was a smallsquare stone building, of plain but not inelegant shape, and evidentlyof great antiquity. At one side of this building was an iron handle, forthe purpose of raising water, that cast itself into a stone basin,to which was affixed by a strong chain an iron cup. An inscription inmonkish Latin was engraved over the basin, requesting the traveller topause and drink, and importing that what that water was to the body,faith was to the soul; near the cistern was a rude seat, formed by thetrunk of a tree. The door of the well-house was of iron, and secured bya chain and lock; perhaps the pump was so contrived that only a certainquantum of the sanctified beverage could be drawn up at a time, withoutapplication to some mechanism within; and wayfarers were therebyprevented from helping themselves _ad libitum_, and thus depriving theanchorite of the profit and the necessity of his office.
It was certainly a strange, lonely, and wild place; and the green sward,round as a fairy ring, in the midst of trees, which, black, close, andhuge, circled it like a wall; and the solitary gray building in thecentre, gaunt and cold, startled the eye with the abruptness of itsappearance, and the strong contrast made by its wan hues to the darkverdure and forest gloom around it.
I took a draught of the water, which was very cold and tasteless, andreminded the monk of his disorder in the reins, to which a similarpotation might possibly be efficacious. To this suggestion the monkanswered that he would certainly try the water some other time; but thatat present the wine he had drunk might pollute its divine properties. Sosaying, he turned off the conversation by inviting me to follow him tothe hermitage.
In our way thither he pointed out a large fragment of stone, andobserved that the water would do me evil instead of good if I forgot toremunerate its guardian. I took the hint, and laid a piece of silver onthe fragment.
A short journey through the wood brought us to the foot of a hillcovered with trees, and having at its base a strong stone door, theentrance to the excavated home of the anchorite. The monk gently tappedthrice at this door, but no answer came. "The holy man is from home,"said he, "let us return."
We did so; and the monk, keeping behind me, managed, as he thoughtunseen, to leave the stone as naked as we had found it! We now struckthrough another path in the wood, and were soon at the convent. I didnot lose the opportunity to question the Abbot respecting his tenant:I learned from him little more than the particulars I have alreadynarrated, save that in concluding his details, he said:--
"I can scarcely doubt but that the Hermit is, like yourself, a personof rank; his bearing and his mien appear to denote it. He has given,and gives yearly, large sums to the uses of the convent: and, thoughhe takes the customary gifts of the pious villagers, it is only bymy advice and for the purpose of avoiding suspicion. Should he beconsidered rich, it might attract cupidity; and there are enough boldhands and sharp knives in the country to place the wealthy and theunguarded in some peril. Whoever he may be--for he has not confided hissecret to me--I do not doubt but that he is doing penance for some greatcrime; and, whatever be the crime, I suspect that its earthly punishmentis nearly over. The Hermit is naturally of a delicate and weak frame,and year after year I have marked him sensibly wearing away; so thatwhen I last saw him, three days since, I was shocked at the visibleravages which disease or penance had engraven upon him. If ever Deathwrote legibly, its characters are in that brow and cheek."
"Poor man! Know you not even whom to apprise of his decease when he isno more?"
"I do not yet; but the last time I saw him he told me that he foundhimself drawing near his end, and that he should not quit life withouttroubling me with one request."
After this the Abbot spoke of other matters, and my visit expired.
Interested in the recluse more deeply than I acknowledged to myself,I found my steps insensibly leading me homeward by the more circuitousroad which wound first by the holy well. I did not resist the impulse,but walked musingly onward by the waning twilight, for the day was nowover, until I came to the well. As I emerged from the wood, I startedinvoluntarily and drew back. A figure, robed from head to foot in a longsable robe, sat upon the rude seat beside the well; sat so still, somotionless, that coming upon it abruptly in that strange place, theheart beat irregularly at an apparition so dark in hue and so death-likein its repose. The hat, large, broad, and overhanging, which suited thecostume, was lying on the ground; and the face, which inclined upward,seemed to woo the gentle air of the quiet and soft skies. I approached afew steps, and saw the profile of the countenance more distinctly thanI had done before. It was of a marble whiteness; the features, thoughsharpened and attenuated by disease, were of surpassing beauty; the hairwas exceedingly, almost effeminately, long, and hung in waves of perfectjet on either side; the mouth was closed firmly, and deep lines orrather furrows were traced from its corners to either nostril. Thestranger's beard, of a hue equally black as the hair, was dishevelledand neglected, but not very long; and one hand, which lay on the sablerobe, was so thin and wan you might have deemed the very starlight couldhave shone through it. I did not doubt that it was the recluse whom Isaw; I drew near and accosted him.
"Your blessing, holy Father, and your permission to taste the healing ofyour well."
Sudden as was my appearance, and abrupt my voice, the Hermit evinced byno startled gesture a token of surprise. He turned very slowly round,cast upon me an indifferent glance, and said, in a sweet and very lowtone,--
"You have my blessing, Stranger: there is water in the cistern; drink,and be healed."
I dipped the bowl in the basin, and took sparingly of the water. In theaccent and tone of the stranger, my ear, accustomed to the dialects ofmany nations, recognized something English; I resolved, therefore, toaddress h
im in my native tongue, rather than the indifferent Italian inwhich I had first accosted him.
"The water is fresh and cooling: would, holy Father, that it couldpenetrate to a deeper malady than the ills of flesh; that it couldassuage the fever of the heart, or lave from the wearied mind the dustwhich it gathers from the mire and travail of the world."
Now the Hermit testified surprise; but it was slight and momentary. Hegazed upon me more attentively than he had done before, and said, aftera pause,--
"My countryman! and in this spot! It is not often that the Englishpenetrate into places where no ostentatious celebrity dwells to satecuriosity and flatter pride. My countryman: it is well, and perhapsfortunate. Yes," he said, after a second pause, "yes; it were indeeda boon, had the earth a fountain for the wounds which fester and thedisease which consumes the heart."
"The earth has oblivion, Father, if not a cure."
"It is false!" cried the Hermit, passionately, and starting wildlyfrom his seat; "the earth has _no_ oblivion. The grave,--is _that_forgetfulness? No, no: _there is no grave for the soul_! The deeds pass;the flesh corrupts: but the memory passes not, and withers not. From ageto age, from world to world, through eternity, throughout creation, itis perpetuated; and immortality,--a curse,--_a hell_!"
Surprised by the vehemence of the Hermit, I was still more startled bythe agonizing and ghastly expression of his face.
"My Father," said I, "pardon me if I have pressed upon a sore. I alsohave that within which, did a stranger touch it, would thrill my wholeframe with torture, and I would fain ask from your holy, soothing, andpious comfort, something of alleviation or of fortitude."
The Hermit drew near to me; he laid his thin hand upon my arm, andlooked long and wistfully in my face. It was then that a suspicioncrept through me which after observation proved to be true, that thewanderings of those dark eyes and the meaning of that blanched brow weretinctured with insanity.
"Brother and fellow man," said he, mournfully, "hast thou in truthsuffered? and dost thou still smart at the remembrance? We are friendsthen. If thou hast suffered as much as I have, I will fall down and dohomage to thee as a superior; for pain has its ranks, and I think attimes that none ever climbed the height that I have done. Yet you looknot like one who has had nights of delirium, and days in which the heartlay in the breast, as a corpse endowed with consciousness might liein the grave, feeling the worm gnaw it, and the decay corrupt, and yetincapable of resistance or of motion. Your cheek is thin, but firm; youreye is haughty and bright; you have the air of one who has lived withmen, and struggled and not been vanquished in the struggle. Suffered!No, man, no,--_you_ have not suffered!"
"My Father, it is not in the countenance that Fate graves her records. Ihave, it is true, contended with my fellows; and if wealth and honour bethe premium, not in vain: but I have not contended against Sorrow witha like success; and I stand before you, a being who, if passion be atormentor and the death of the loved a loss, has borne that which themost wretched will not envy."
Again a fearful change came over the face of the recluse: he grasped myarm more vehemently, "You speak my own sorrows; you utter my own curse;I will see you again; you may do my last will better than yon monks. CanI trust you? If you have in truth known misfortune, I will! I will! yea,even to the outpouring--merciful, merciful God, what would I say,--whatwould I reveal!"
Suddenly changing his voice, he released me, and said, touching hisforehead with a meaning gesture and a quiet smile, "You say you are myrival in pain. Have you ever known the rage and despair of the heartmount _here_? It is a wonderful thing to be calm as I am now, when thatrising makes itself felt in fire and torture!"
"If there be aught, Father, which a man who cares not what country hevisit, or what deed--so it be not of guilt or shame--he commit, can dotowards the quiet of your soul, say it, and I will attempt your will."
"You are kind, my Son," said the Hermit, resuming his first melancholyand dignified composure of mien and bearing; "and there is something inyour voice which seems to me like a tone that I have heard in youth. Doyou live near at hand?"
"In the valley, about four miles hence; I am, like yourself, a fugitivefrom the world."
"Come to me then to-morrow at eve; to-morrow! No, that is a holy eve,and I must keep it with scourge and prayer. The next at sunset. I shallbe collected then, and I would fain know more of you than I do. Blessyou, my Son; adieu."
"Yet stay, Father, may I not conduct you home?"
"No; my limbs are weak, but I trust they can carry me to that home, tillI be borne thence to my last. Farewell! the night grows, and man fillseven these shades with peril. The eve after next, at sunset, we meetagain."
So saying, the hermit waved his hand, and I stood apart, watching hisreceding figure, until the trees cloaked the last glimpse from my view.I then turned homeward, and reached my cottage in safety, despite of thehermit's caution. But I did not retire to rest: a powerful foreboding,rather than suspicion, that, in the worn and wasted form which I hadbeheld, there was identity with one whom I had not met for years, andwhom I had believed to be no more, thrillingly possessed me.
"Can--can it be?" thought I. "Can grief have a desolation, orremembrance an agony, sufficient to create so awful a change? And of allhuman beings, for that one to be singled out; that one in whom passionand sin were, if they existed, nipped in their earliest germ, andseemingly rendered barren of all fruit! If too, almost against theevidence of sight and sense, an innate feeling has marked in that mostaltered form the traces of a dread recognition, would not his memoryhave been yet more vigilant than mine? Am I so changed that he shouldhave looked me in the face so wistfully, and found there naught save thelineaments of a stranger?" And, actuated by this thought, I placed thelight by the small mirror which graced my chamber. I recalled, as Igazed, my features as they had been in earliest youth. "No," I said,with a sigh, "there is nothing here that he should recognize."
And I said aright: my features, originally small and delicate, had grownenlarged and prominent. The long locks of my youth (for only upon stateoccasions did my early vanity consent to the fashion of the day) weresucceeded by curls, short and crisped; the hues, alternately pale andhectic, that the dreams of romance had once spread over my cheek,had settled into the unchanging bronze of manhood; the smooth lip andunshaven chin were clothed with a thick hair; the once unfurrowed browwas habitually knit in thought; and the ardent, restless expression thatboyhood wore had yielded to the quiet unmoved countenance of one inwhom long custom has subdued all outward sign of emotion, and manyand various events left no prevalent token of the mind save that of anhabitual but latent resolution. My frame, too, once scarcely less slightthan a woman's, was become knit and muscular; and nothing was left bywhich, in the foreign air, the quiet brow, and the athletic form, myvery mother could have recognized the slender figure and changeable faceof the boy she had last beheld. The very sarcasm of the eye was gone;and I had learned the world's easy lesson,--the dissimulation ofcomposure.
I have noted one thing in others, and it was particularly noticeablein me; namely, that few who mix very largely with men, and with thecourtier's or the citizen's design, ever retain the key and tone oftheir original voice. The voice of a young man is as yet modulated bynature, and expresses the passion of the moment; that of the maturedpupil of art expresses rather the customary occupation of his life.Whether he aims at persuading, convincing, or commanding others, hisvoice irrevocably settles into the key he ordinarily employs; and, aspersuasion is the means men chiefly employ in their commerce with eachother, especially in the regions of a court, so a tone of artificialblandness and subdued insinuation is chiefly that in which the accentsof worldly men are clothed; the artificial intonation, long continued,grows into nature, and the very pith and basis of the original soundfritter themselves away. The change was great in me, for at that timewhich I brought in comparison with the present my age was one in whichthe voice is yet confused and undecided, struggling between the accentsof youth and b
oyhood; so that even this most powerful and unchangingof all claims upon the memory was in a great measure absent in me; andnothing but an occasional and rare tone could have produced even thatfaint and unconscious recognition which the Hermit had confessed.
I must be pardoned these egotisms, which the nature of my story rendersnecessary.
With what eager impatience did I watch the hours to the appointedinterview with the Hermit languish themselves away! However, before thattime arrived and towards the evening of the next day, I was surprised bythe rare honour of a visit from Anselmo himself. He came attended by twoof the mendicant friars of his order, and they carried between them abasket of tolerable size, which, as mine hostess afterwards informed me,with many a tear, went back somewhat heavier than it came, from theload of certain _receptacula_ of that rarer wine which she had had theevening before the indiscreet hospitality to produce.
The Abbot came to inform me that the Hermit had been with him thatmorning, making many inquiries respecting me. "I told him," said he,"that I was acquainted with your name and birth, but that I was undera solemn promise not to reveal them, without your consent; and I am nowhere, my Son, to learn from you whether that consent may be obtained?"
"Assuredly not, holy Father!" said I, hastily; nor was I contented untilI had obtained a renewal of his promise to that effect. This seemed togive the Abbot some little chagrin: perhaps the Hermit had offered areward for my discovery. However, I knew that Anselmo, though a gripingwas a trustworthy man, and I felt safe in his renewed promise. I saw himdepart with great satisfaction, and gave myself once more to conjecturesrespecting the strange recluse.
As the next evening I prepared to depart towards the hermitage, I tookpeculiar pains to give my person a foreign and disguised appearance. Aloose dress, of rude and simple material, and a high cap of fur, werepretty successful in accomplishing this purpose. And, as I gave the lastlook at the glass before I left the house, I said inly, "If there be anytruth in my wild and improbable conjecture respecting the identity ofthe anchorite, I think time and this dress are sufficient wizards tosecure me from a chance of discovery. I will keep a guard upon my wordsand tones, until, if my thought be verified, a moment fit for unmaskingmyself arrives. But would to God that the thought be groundless! Insuch circumstances, and after such an absence, to meet _him_! No; andyet--Well, this meeting will decide."