University of Virginia Library

BOOK FOURTH

THE HOWFF

PAUL GAUNT

In the still old town
Where the minster towers
Toll the passing hours
To the chiming College Crown,
Sat the sister and her brother
In their quiet room,
Amid the gathering gloom
Of murky storm-girt weather;
She restless fingers twitching,
And he absorbed in sketching.
With a long, low wail
Moaned the fateful sea,
Foretelling woeful tale
Of wreck and misery
By and by to be:
And the fisher-women,
Gathering in bands,
With the cry of human
Anguish wrung their hands,
Gazing seaward ever
With a yearning and a shiver,
As they searched the wave and spray
For the boats that sailed away
At the dawning of the day.
Deep wrapt up in scheming
Was his inventive brain,
While his sister, fondly dreaming,
Seemed to nurse an aching pain,
And the women's eyes were streaming
Tears upon the sand like rain.
But mastered by the craving
Of inventive thought,
How the sea was raving
Then he heeded not,
Nor how hearts were braving,
Or trembling, at their lot.
On a forehead massive
Brooded thought serene;
Seemed his face impassive,
And features sharp and lean—
Features thin and pale and lean;
Fingers long and steady
Held pencil ever ready
For some new machine
Shaping in his brain, I ween.
And her restless fingers twitched
As he brooded on, and sketched,
And the fisher-women gazed
From the sand-dunes, numb and dazed;
But he neither felt nor wondered
At the anguish of their pain,
Only silent sat, and pondered!
Tracing o'er and o'er again
Novel figures from his brain.
So he often found relief
From the bitter thought of grief
Which his heart was keen to feel,
But his hand was weak to heal;
And the world was all forgot
In his novel forms of thought,
Though its passion and its pain
Gave the hint on which he wrought.
Then his sister, turning slowly,
With a wistful melancholy,
As of one with listening weary,
As of one with waiting dreary,
As of one who had a pain
Lying where a joy had lain,
Said, “The sky is wild and eerie,
And I fear there will be sorrow
On the sea, and on the land
A dread of the to-morrow,
And the forms upon the sand.
I am heavy as I think;
I am dull and scarce know why;
But I feel as on the brink
Of some unknown misery.
Shall I sing? You must be weary:
And that pencil-scratch is dreary
With its monotone. I'll hum
Something just as it will come,
Something just as it is sent—
Never mind the instrument.”

Milly Gaunt's Song

—Late, late.

Paul.

Milly sings again

—Row, Burnie, Row

Paul.
—There, that's how a girl should sing. I've been forgetting,
While puzzling out notions that nobody heeds,
Stupid owl that I am! not to see you were fretting,
While I sit here all day, neither gaining nor getting,
With the fancies an idle head breeds.
Yet there's something in this one, I think; but it's true,
I always think that while the fancy is new.

Milly.
—Yes, Paul, I'm sure there is,
There's always something in it:
Only leave it for a minute,
For it's worse than loneliness
When you sit beside me silent,
Like some shadowy mountain island
Washed by waves I cannot see,
Hid in canopy of clouds,
Peopled too by shining crowds
That speak to you, but not to me.
It's like waiting—don't you see?—
By some veilèd mystery.
Don't go back, now, to your scheming;
It will do you good to rest;
Thought will drift away to dreaming
In a brain too hardly pressed:
And this strike so long has been
That my little purse grows lean.

Paul.

Milly.
—Ah! well, I do not know;
I hope it may be so.
But I judge by what I see,
And my heart is failing me.
Have you heard young Darrel's song
Of the famine of the coal?
Some will have it he is wrong,
Though he sings with all his soul,
Till my blood is tingling hot,
Thinking of the poor man's lot.

Song—

The Coal Famine

Milly.
—So Darrel sings his song;
Some will have it he is wrong,
Who are also wise and good,
Yet the poet's eye sees more
Than is often understood
By the Reason we adore.
Listen to the cry bewildering
Of the women at the doors,
And the wail of the small children
Lying hungry on the floors,
While the lads draw in their breath
With their lips as white as death.
Great their patience to endure,
And if strikes will bring a cure
To their ills, why, fight it out:
But for aught that's come about
Hitherto, to me they seem
The lean kine in Pharaoh's dream,
Eating up the bigger wage
By their idleness and debt,
Hurrying down another stage
To a sorrow deeper yet.
Oh I do not understand—
We women never do—
But I somehow think the land
Was kindlier to the hand
Of the workman long ago,
When the furnace ne'er was quenched.
And the work was never flinched,
Nor the bellows ceased to blow
On the cinders all aglow.

Paul.

Just then on the creaking stair
A weary step was heard,
And she started from her chair
With an eager, wistful air,
And her heaving bosom stirred,
But she uttered not a word,
Only drew a long breath in
Till her parted lips grew thin,
Only flushed o'er all her face,
With a look of tender grace,
As a worn and haggard man
Dragged his form into the room,
Coming from the murky gloom
With a ghastly face and wan,
And great eyes all aflame.
Seemed the gaunt and lanky form
Like the spirit of the storm,
Haggard at the work he came
To perform.
Then Paul: “Why, Milly dear,
It is Lyell; what is wrong?
He is wet and ill, I fear;
But we'll give him hearty cheer:
Welcome, brother, come along:
Never welcomer to me
Face of one long lost at sea
Coming unexpectedly.”
Austen.

Paul, with sorrow, caught the tone
Of the sorrow of his friend;
Yet he made as if its moan
Were a thing for mirth alone,
And it seemed that he would spend
All his shafts of homely wit
And of ridicule on it.
To think of Lyell with a file
Grinding slowly at a wheel!
Or with hod of lime or tile,
Tramping where the gangways reel!
Or smiting with a hammer,
'Mid the clangour and the clamour
Of the anvil and the bellows
And the smithy, and the fellows
Who can nothing more than play
Mighty hammers, day by day!
He, the scholar of his year,
Knowing Latin, knowing Greek,
Knowing all you'd care to hear,
Knowing all that sages speak
Of number and of form,
Of the laws that guide the storm,
Of fluids and their powers,
And of how they may be ours!—
Laughing light, and chuckling low
As he tossed it to and fro,
Paul kept playing with the thought,
Mocking at it, scorning it,
Jesting with the kind of wit
Which a loving heart will hit,
Though of humour knowing nought.
Then he said that one who knew him
Had lately spoken to him
Something about editing
A newspaper—which, of course,
Was ridiculous, and worse—
But it was the very thing
For Austen with his free
Flowing pen, and fresh discourse.
Oh the pleasure it would be,
Reading leaders every night
Sparkling with a modern light,
Yet with wisdom from the ages
Mellowing all the thoughtful pages!
Would not Milly surely like
Austen's papers on the strike?
And perhaps himself might pen
Just a letter now and then.
In silence Austen heard,
Never uttering a word,
But the strong lip gave a quiver,
And his head bowed very low,
And there was a tremulous shiver,
Like the ripple on a river
When a passing wind doth blow,
And the tears began to flow—
Tears that sorrow failed to bring,
But the touch of love unsealed,
Like the coming of a spring
That awoke the heart it healed.
And the others did not speak,
For they knew that words are weak
As the drip of falling rain
'Mid the silence of our pain,
And in his grief they saw
Something touching them with awe,
Something more than natural grief,
Something more than met the eye,
Something mad for the relief
Of a helpful sympathy.
Now, because the strain was o'er,
He yielded to the throng
Of better thoughts that rushed along
Through every open door,
And every chamber of his mind,
Uncontrolled and unconfined.
Wild, without, the wind was roaring,
Wild, without, the rain was pouring,
Battering on the window pane;
And the sullen waves were crashing
Loud amid the angry dashing
Of the drifting sleet and rain.
Wild the anguish of his pain,
Yet they bade it not to cease,
For it was the way of peace.
Left alone, ere long, she went
Softly to her instrument,
Touched a chord or two, and then
Deftly warbled forth a strain,
Not without its shade of pain.

Milly (alone) sings—

So she went Drifting