Old and gaunt,
hunger-bitten even it may be, with loose-jointed, bony limbs, and
yellow face; clinging, loyal and brave, to the quaint, delicate
fancies of his youth, that were dust and ashes to other men. In
the very haggard face you could find the quiet purity of the
child he had been, and the old child's smile, fresh and
credulous, on the mouth.
The Doctor had not spoken for a moment. It might be that he was
careless of the poetic lights with which Mr. Howth tenderly
decorated his old faith, or it might be, that even he, with the
terrible intentness of a real life-purpose in his brain, was
touched by the picture of the far old chivalry, dead long ago.
The master's voice grew low and lingering now. It was a labour
of love, this. Oh, it is so easy to go back out of the broil of
dust and meanness and barter into the clear shadow of that old
life where love and bravery stand eternal verities,--never to be
bought and sold in that dusty town yonder! To go back? To dream
back, rather. To drag out of our own hearts, as the hungry old
master did, whatever is truest and highest there, and clothe it
with name and deed in the dim days of chivalry. Make a poem of
it,--so much easier than to make a life!
Knowles shuffled uneasily, watching the girl keenly, to know how
the picture touched her. Was, then, she thought, this grand,
dead Past so shallow to him? These knights, pure, unstained,
searching until death for the Holy Grail, could he understand the
life-long agony, the triumph of their conflict over Self? These
women, content to live in solitude forever because they once had
loved, could any man understand that? Or the dead queen, dead
that the man she loved might be free and happy,--why, this WAS
life,--this death! But did pain, and martyrdom, and victory lie
back in the days of Galahad and Arthur alone? The homely face
grew stiller than before, looking out into the dun sweep of
moorland,--cold, unrevealing.
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