This power is
but vague, slight, tenuous, and dissipatory, still there it is: though
of course its poor effect is to that of the _Benedictio major_ what a
cat's-paw in the Solent is to a north-east snorter on Lindsey Deeps.
I am sorry to have been at such length, but it is necessary to have
these things thrashed out once for all. So now you see how I, being on
pilgrimage, could give a kind of little creeping blessing to the
people on the way, though, as St Louis said to the Hascisch-eaters,
_'May it be a long time before you can kiss my bones.'_
So I entered the 'Sun' inn and saw there a woman sewing, a great
dull-faced man like an ox, and a youth writing down figures in a
little book. I said -
'Good morning, madam, and sirs, and the company. Could you give me a
little red wine?' Not a head moved.
True I was very dirty and tired, and they may have thought me a
beggar, to whom, like good sensible Christians who had no nonsense
about them, they would rather have given a handsome kick than a cup of
cold water. However, I think it was not only my poverty but a native
churlishness which bound their bovine souls in that valley.
I sat down at a very clean table. I notice that those whom the Devil
has made his own are always spick and span, just as firemen who have
to go into great furnaces have to keep all their gear highly polished.
I sat down at it, and said again, still gently -
'It is, indeed, a fine country this of yours. Could you give me a
little red wine?'
Then the ox-faced man who had his back turned to me, and was the worst
of the lot, said sulkily, not to me, but to the woman -
'He wants wine.'
The woman as sulkily said to me, not looking me in the eyes -
'How much will you pay?'
I said, 'Bring the wine. Set it here. See me drink it. Charge me your
due.'
I found that this brutal way of speaking was just what was needed for
the kine and cattle of this pen. She skipped off to a cupboard, and
set wine before me, and a glass. I drank quite quietly till I had had
enough, and asked what there was to pay. She said 'Threepence,' and I
said 'Too much,' as I paid it. At this the ox-faced man grunted and
frowned, and I was afraid; but hiding my fear I walked out boldly and
slowly, and made a noise with my stick upon the floor of the hall
without. Neither did I bid them farewell. But I made a sign at the
house as I left it. Whether it suffered from this as did the house at
Dorchester which the man in the boat caused to wither in one night, is
more than I can tell.
The road led straight across the valley and approached the further
wall of hills. These I saw were pierced by one of the curious gaps
which are peculiar to limestone ranges. Water cuts them, and a torrent
ran through this one also. The road through it, gap though it was,
went up steeply, and the further valley was evidently higher than the
one I was leaving. It was already evening as I entered this narrow
ravine; the sun only caught the tops of the rock-walls. My fatigue was
very great, and my walking painful to an extreme, when, having come to
a place where the gorge was narrowest and where the two sides were
like the posts of a giant's stile, where also the fifth ridge of the
Jura stood up beyond me in the further valley, a vast shadow, I sat
down wearily and drew what not even my exhaustion could render
unremarkable.
While I was occupied sketching the slabs of limestone, I heard wheels
coming up behind me, and a boy in a waggon stopped and hailed me.
What the boy wanted to know was whether I would take a lift, and this
he said in such curious French that I shuddered to think how far I had
pierced into the heart of the hills, and how soon I might come to
quite strange people. I was greatly tempted to get into his cart, but
though I had broken so many of my vows one remained yet whole and
sound, which was that I would ride upon no wheeled thing. Remembering
this, therefore, and considering that the Faith is rich in
interpretation, I clung on to the waggon in such a manner that it did
all my work for me, and yet could not be said to be actually carrying
me. _Distinguo_. The essence of a vow is its literal meaning. The
spirit and intention are for the major morality, and concern Natural
Religion, but when upon a point of ritual or of dedication or special
worship a man talks to you of the Spirit and Intention, and complains
of the dryness of the Word, look at him askance. He is not far removed
from Heresy.
I knew a man once that was given to drinking, and I made up this rule
for him to distinguish between Bacchus and the Devil. To wit: that he
should never drink what has been made and sold since the
Reformation - I mean especially spirits and champagne. Let him (said I)
drink red wine and white, good beer and mead - if he could get
it - liqueurs made by monks, and, in a word, all those feeding,
fortifying, and confirming beverages that our fathers drank in old
time; but not whisky, nor brandy, nor sparkling wines, not absinthe,
nor the kind of drink called gin.
