Produced by Suzanne Shell, Dave Morgan and PG Distributed Proofreaders
Three More John Silence Stories
BY ALGERNON BLACKWOOD
To M.L.W. The Original of John Silence
and
My Companion in Many Adventures
Contents
Case I: Secret Worship
Case II: The Camp of the Dog
Case III: A Victim of Higher Space
CASE I: SECRET WORSHIP
Harris, the silk merchant, was in South Germany on his way home from abusiness trip when the idea came to him suddenly that he would take themountain railway from Strassbourg and run down to revisit his old schoolafter an interval of something more than thirty years. And it was tothis chance impulse of the junior partner in Harris Brothers of St.Paul's Churchyard that John Silence owed one of the most curious casesof his whole experience, for at that very moment he happened to betramping these same mountains with a holiday knapsack, and fromdifferent points of the compass the two men were actually convergingtowards the same inn.
Now, deep down in the heart that for thirty years had been concernedchiefly with the profitable buying and selling of silk, this school hadleft the imprint of its peculiar influence, and, though perhaps unknownto Harris, had strongly coloured the whole of his subsequent existence.It belonged to the deeply religious life of a small Protestant community(which it is unnecessary to specify), and his father had sent him thereat the age of fifteen, partly because he would learn the Germanrequisite for the conduct of the silk business, and partly because thediscipline was strict, and discipline was what his soul and body neededjust then more than anything else.
The life, indeed, had proved exceedingly severe, and young Harrisbenefited accordingly; for though corporal punishment was unknown, therewas a system of mental and spiritual correction which somehow made thesoul stand proudly erect to receive it, while it struck at the very rootof the fault and taught the boy that his character was being cleaned andstrengthened, and that he was not merely being tortured in a kind ofpersonal revenge.
That was over thirty years ago, when he was a dreamy and impressionableyouth of fifteen; and now, as the train climbed slowly up the windingmountain gorges, his mind travelled back somewhat lovingly over theintervening period, and forgotten details rose vividly again before himout of the shadows. The life there had been very wonderful, it seemed tohim, in that remote mountain village, protected from the tumults of theworld by the love and worship of the devout Brotherhood that ministeredto the needs of some hundred boys from every country in Europe. Sharplythe scenes came back to him. He smelt again the long stone corridors,the hot pinewood rooms, where the sultry hours of summer study werepassed with bees droning through open windows in the sunshine, andGerman characters struggling in the mind with dreams of Englishlawns--and then the sudden awful cry of the master in German--
"Harris, stand up! You sleep!"
And he recalled the dreadful standing motionless for an hour, book inhand, while the knees felt like wax and the head grew heavier than acannon-ball.
The very smell of the cooking came back to him--the daily _Sauerkraut_,the watery chocolate on Sundays, the flavour of the stringy meat servedtwice a week at _Mittagessen_; and he smiled to think again of thehalf-rations that was the punishment for speaking English. The veryodour of the milk-bowls,--the hot sweet aroma that rose from the soakingpeasant-bread at the six-o'clock breakfast,--came back to him pungently,and he saw the huge _Speisesaal_ with the hundred boys in their schooluniform, all eating sleepily in silence, gulping down the coarse breadand scalding milk in terror of the bell that would presently cut themshort--and, at the far end where the masters sat, he saw the narrow slitwindows with the vistas of enticing field and forest beyond.
And this, in turn, made him think of the great barnlike room on the topfloor where all slept together in wooden cots, and he heard in memorythe clamour of the cruel bell that woke them on winter mornings at fiveo'clock and summoned them to the stone-flagged _Waschkammer_, where boysand masters alike, after scanty and icy washing, dressed in completesilence.
From this his mind passed swiftly, with vivid picture-thoughts, to otherthings, and with a passing shiver he remembered how the loneliness ofnever being alone had eaten into him, and how everything--work, meals,sleep, walks, leisure--was done with his "division" of twenty other boysand under the eyes of at least two masters. The only solitude possiblewas by asking for half an hour's practice in the cell-like music rooms,and Harris smiled to himself as he recalled the zeal of his violinstudies.
Then, as the train puffed laboriously through the great pine foreststhat cover these mountains with a giant carpet of velvet, he found thepleasanter layers of memory giving up their dead, and he recalled withadmiration the kindness of the masters, whom all addressed as Brother,and marvelled afresh at their devotion in burying themselves for yearsin such a place, only to leave it, in most cases, for the still rougherlife of missionaries in the wild places of the world.
He thought once more of the still, religious atmosphere that hung overthe little forest community like a veil, barring the distressful world;of the picturesque ceremonies at Easter, Christmas, and New Year; of thenumerous feast-days and charming little festivals. The _Beschehr-Fest_,in particular, came back to him,--the feast of gifts at Christmas,--whenthe entire community paired off and gave presents, many of which hadtaken weeks to make or the savings of many days to purchase. And then hesaw the midnight ceremony in the church at New Year, with the shiningface of the _Prediger_ in the pulpit,--the village preacher who, on thelast night of the old year, saw in the empty gallery beyond the organloft the faces of all who were to die in the ensuing twelve months, andwho at last recognised himself among them, and, in the very middle ofhis sermon, passed into a state of rapt ecstasy and burst into a torrentof praise.
Thickly the memories crowded upon him. The picture of the small villagedreaming its unselfish life on the mountain-tops, clean, wholesome,simple, searching vigorously for its God, and training hundreds of boysin the grand way, rose up in his mind with all the power of anobsession. He felt once more the old mystical enthusiasm, deeper thanthe sea and more wonderful than the stars; he heard again the windssighing from leagues of forest over the red roofs in the moonlight; heheard the Brothers' voices talking of the things beyond this life asthough they had actually experienced them in the body; and, as he sat inthe jolting train, a spirit of unutterable longing passed over hisseared and tired soul, stirring in the depths of him a sea of emotionsthat he thought had long since frozen into immobility.
And the contrast pained him,--the idealistic dreamer then, the man ofbusiness now,--so that a spirit of unworldly peace and beauty known onlyto the soul in meditation laid its feathered finger upon his heart,moving strangely the surface of the waters.
Harris shivered a little and looked out of the window of his emptycarriage. The train had long passed Hornberg, and far below the streamstumbled in white foam down the limestone rocks. In front of him, domeupon dome of wooded mountain stood against the sky. It was October, andthe air was cool and sharp, woodsmoke and damp moss exquisitely mingledin it with the subtle odours of the pines. Overhead, between the tips ofthe highest firs, he saw the first stars peeping, and the sky was aclean, pale amethyst that seemed exactly the colour all these memoriesclothed themselves with in his mind.
He leaned back in his corner and sighed. He was a heavy man, and he hadnot known sentiment for years; he was a big man, and it took much tomove him, literally and figuratively; he was a man in whom the dreams ofGod that haunt the soul in youth, though overlaid by the scum thatgathers in the fight for money, had not, as with the majority, utterlydied the death.
; He came back into this little neglected pocket of the years, where somuch fine gold had collected and lain undisturbed, with all hissemispiritual emotions aquiver; and, as he watched the mountain-topscome nearer, and smelt the forgotten odours of his boyhood, somethingmelted on the surface of his soul and left him sensitive to a degree hehad not known since, thirty years before, he had lived here with hisdreams, his conflicts, and his youthful suffering.
A thrill ran through him as the train stopped with a jolt at a tinystation and he saw the name in large black lettering on the grey stonebuilding, and below it, the number of metres it stood above the level ofthe sea.
"The highest point on the line!" he exclaimed. "How well I rememberit--Sommerau--Summer Meadow. The very next station is mine!"
And, as the train ran downhill with brakes on and steam shut off, he puthis head out of the window and one by one saw the old familiar landmarksin the dusk. They stared at him like dead faces in a dream. Queer, sharpfeelings, half poignant, half sweet, stirred in his