British writer (1884-1941)
It was the most exciting thing possible. Zachary Tan's was the curiosity shop of Treliss and famous even twenty years ago throughout the south country. It is still there, I believe, although Zachary himself is dead and with him has departed most of the atmosphere of the place, and it is now smart and prosperous, although in those days it was dark and dingy enough. No one knew whence Zachary had come, and he was one of the mysteries of a place that deals, even now, in mysteries.
he decided at last (and he was very young for so terrible a discovery) that it was because his father liked beating him that he was afraid. He knew that his father liked it because he had watched his mouth and had heard the noise that came through his lips. And this, again, was rather strange because his father did not look as though he would like it; he had a cold face like a stone and was always in black clothes, but he did not, as a rule, show that he was pleased or angry or sorry — he never showed things.
But, concerning the Traveller who would enter the House of Courage there are many lands that must be passed on the road before he rest there. There is, first, the Land of Lacking All Things — that is hard to cross. There is, Secondly, the Land of Having All Things. There is the Traveller's Fortitude most hardly tested. There is, Thirdly, The Land of Losing All Those Things that One Hath Possessed. That is a hard country indeed for the memory of the pleasantness of those earlier joys redoubleth the agony of lacking them. But at the end there is a Land of ice and snow that few travellers have compassed, and that is the Land of Knowing What One Hath Missed…. The Bird was in the hand and one let it go … that is the hardest agony of all the journey … but if these lands be encountered and surpassed then doth the Traveller at length possess his soul and is master of it … this is the Meaning and Purpose of Life.
He had, behind him, defeat. Look at it as he might, he had been a failure at Dawson's — he had not done the things that he had been put there to do — and yet through the disaster he knew that in so far as he had refused to bend to the storm so far there had been victory; of that at any rate he was sure.
"Tisn't life that matters, but the Courage yer bring to it…." That, of course, at once explained everything. It explained his own father and his home, it explained poor Mrs. Prothero and her two sons who were drowned, it explained Stephen's cousin who was never free from the most painful rheumatics, and it explained Stephen himself who was never afraid of any one or anything. Peter stared at Frosted Moses, whose white beard was shining in the fire-place and his boots were like large black boats; but the old man was drawing at his pipe, and had made his remark apparently in connection with nothing at all. Peter was also disappointed to see that the room at large had paid no attention to the declaration. Courage. That was what they were all there for, and soon, later in the evening, he would take his beating like a man, and would not cry out as he had done the last time.
But before it became a question of individuals there is the place to be considered. This Dawson's of twenty years ago does not exist now nor, let us pray the Fates, are there others like it. It is not only with bitterness that a boy whom Dawson's had formed would look back on it but also with a dim, confused wonder that he had escaped with a straight soul and a straight body from that Place. There were many, very many indeed, who did not escape, and it would indeed have been better for them all had they died before they were old enough to test its hospitality. If any of those into whose hands this story of Peter may fall were, by the design of God, themselves trained by the place of which I speak, they will understand that all were not as fortunate as Peter — and for those others there should be sympathy….
"God! Is there a God, do you think, Henry?"
"Yes," he answered. "I think there is One, but of what kind He is I don't know."
"There must be... There must be... To go out like this when one's heart and soul are at their strongest. And He is loving, I can't but fancy. He smiles, perhaps, at the importance we give to death and pain. So short a time it must seem to Him that we are here... But if He isn't... If there is nothing more- What a cruel, cold game for Something to play with us-"
Henry knew then that Duncombe was sure he would not survive the operation. An aching longing to do something for him held him, but a power greater than either of them had caught him and he could only sit and stare at the colours as they came flocking into the garden with the evening sky, at the white line that was suddenly drawn above the garden wall, at two stars that were thrown like tossed diamonds into the branches of the mulberry.
"Yes- I know God exists," something that was not Henry's body whispered.
"God must exist to explain all the love that there is in the world," he said.
Had it not been for Stephen Brant Peter knew that he would not have been allowed there at all. The Order of the Kitchen was jealously guarded and Sam Figgis, the Inn-keeper, would have considered so small a child a nuisance, but Stephen was the most popular man in the county, and he had promised that Peter would be quiet — and he was quiet, even at that age; no one could be so quiet as Peter when he chose. And then they liked the boy after a time. He was never in the way, and he was wonderfully wise for his years: he was a strong kid, too, and had muscles….
He could not see all of the room because there were depths that the darkness seized and filled, and the great fiery place, with its black-stained settle, was full of mysterious shadows. A huge fire was burning and leaping in the fastnesses of that stone cavity, and it was by the light of this alone that the room was illumined — and this had the effect as Peter noticed, of making certain people, like Mother Figgis and Jane Clewer, quite monstrous, and fantastic with their skirts and hair and their shadows on the wall. Before Frosted Moses had said that sentence about Courage, Peter had been taking the room in. Because he had been there very often before he knew every flagstone in the floor and every rafter in the roof and all the sporting pictures on the walls, and the long shining row of mugs and coloured plates by the fire-place and the cured hams hanging from the ceiling … but to-night was Christmas Eve and a very especial occasion, and he was sure to be beaten when he got home, and so must make the very most of his time.
No one knew where he found his treasures, for he was always in his shop, smiling and amiable, but sometimes gentlemen would come from London, and he had strange friends like Mr. Andreas Morelli, concerning whose life a book has already been written. Zachary Tan's shop became at last the word in Treliss for all that was strange and unusual — the strongest link with London and other curious places. He had a little back room behind his shop, where he would welcome his friends, give them something to drink and talk about the world. He was always so friendly that people thought that he must wish for things in return, but he never asked for anything, nor did he speak about himself at all.