Part 7 (1/2)
I sat down where Mr. Gulliver directed me, and was not displeased with the warmth of the fire, despite the sun. I was cold after that long, watery lullaby, and cold too with exhaustion after running so far at the heels of the creature who had found me. And I dwelt in a kind of dream on the transparent flames, and watched vacantly the seething pot, and smelt till slowly appet.i.te returned the smoke of the stuff that bubbled beneath its lid.
Mr. Gulliver himself brought me my platter of this pottage, and though it tasted of nothing in my experience--a kind of sweet, cloying meat--I was so tired of the fruits to which enterprise had as yet condemned me, I ate of it hungrily and heartily. Yet not so fast as that the young ”Gulliver” had not finished his before me, and sat at length watching every mouthful I took from beneath his sun-enticing thatch of hair. Ever and again he would toss up his chin with a shrill guffaw, or stoop his head till his eyeb.a.l.l.s were almost hidden beneath their thick lashes, so regarding me for minutes together with a delightful simulation of intelligence, yet with that peculiar wistful affection his master had himself exhibited at first sight of me.
But when our meal was done, Mr. Gulliver ordered him about his business. Without a murmur, with one last, long, brotherly glance at me, he withdrew. And presently after I heard from afar his high, melancholy ”cooee,” and the crack of his thong in the afternoon air as he hastened out to his charges.
My companion did not stir. Only the flames waved silently along the logs. The beam of sunlight drew across the floor. The crisp air of the pasture flowed through the window. What wonder, then, that, sitting on my stool, I fell asleep!
VIII
_If I see all, ye're nine to ane!_
--OLD BALLAD.
I was awoke by a sustained sound as of an orator speaking in an unknown tongue, and found myself in a sunny-shadowy loft, whither I suppose I must have been carried in my sleep. In a delicious languor between sleeping and waking I listened with imperturbable curiosity awhile to that voice of the unknown. Indeed, I was dozing again when a different sound, enormous, protracted, abruptly aroused me. I got up, hot and trembling, not yet quite my own master, to discover its cause.
Through a narrow slit between the timbers I could view the country beneath me, far and wide. I saw near at hand the c.u.mbrous gate of the stockade ajar, and at a little distance on the farther side Mr.
Gulliver and his half-human servant standing. In front of them was an empty s.p.a.ce--a narrow semicircle of which Gulliver was the centre. And beyond--wild-eyed, dishevelled, stretching their necks as if to see, inclining their heads as if to hearken, ranging in mult.i.tude almost to the sky's verge--stood a.s.sembled, it seemed to me, all the horses of the universe.
Even in my first sensation of fear admiration irresistibly stirred.
The superb freedom of their unbridled heads, the sun-nurtured arrogance of their eyes, the tumultuous, sea-like tossing of crest and tail, their keenness and ardour and might, and also in simple truth their numbers--how could one marvel if this solitary fanatic dreamed they heard him and understood?
Unarmed, bareheaded, he faced the brutal discontent of his people.
Words I could not distinguish; but there was little chance of misapprehending the haughty anguish with which he threatened, pleaded, cajoled. Clear and unfaltering his voice rose and fell. He dealt out fearlessly, foolishly, to that long-snouted, little-brained, wild-eyed mult.i.tude, reason beyond their instinct, persuasion beyond their savagery, love beyond their heed.
But even while I listened, one thing I knew those sleek malcontents heard too--the Spirit of man in that small voice of his--perplexed, perhaps, and perverted, and out of tether; but none the less unconquerable and sublime.
What less, thought I, than power unearthly could long maintain that stern, impa.s.sable barrier of green vacancy between their hoofs and him? And I suppose for the very reason that these were beasts of a long-sharpened sagacity, wild-hearted, rebellious, yet not the slaves of impulse, he yet kept himself their king who was, in fact, their captive.
”Houyhnhnms?” I heard him cry; ”pah--Yahoos!” His voice fell; he stood confronting in silence that vast circ.u.mference of restless beauty. And again broke out inhuman, inarticulate, immeasurable revolt. Far across over the tossing host, rearing, leaping, craning dishevelled heads, went pealing and eddying that hostile, brutal voice.
Gulliver lifted his hand, and a tempestuous silence fell once more.
”Yahoos! Yahoos!” he bawled again. Then he turned, and pa.s.sed back into his hideous garden. The gate was barred and bolted behind him.
Thus loosed and unrestrained, surged as if the wind drove them, that concourse upon the stockade. Heavy though its timbers were, they seemed to stoop at the impact. A kind of fury rose in me. I l.u.s.ted to go down and face the mutiny of the brutes; bit, and saddle, and scourge into obedience man's serfs of the centuries. I watched, on fire, the flame of the declining sun upon those sleek, vehement creatures of the dust. And then, I know not by what subtle irony, my zeal turned back--turned back and faded away into simple longing for my lost friend, my peaceful beast-of-evening, Rosinante. I sat down again in the litter of my bed and earnestly wished myself home; wished, indeed, if I must confess it, for the familiar face of my Aunt Sophia, my books, my bed. If these were this land's horses, I thought, what men might here be met! The unsavouriness, the solitude, the neighing and tumult and prancing induced in me nothing but dulness at last and disgust.
But at length, dismissing all such folly, at least from my face, I lifted the trap-door and descended the steep ladder into the room beneath.
Mr. Gulliver sat where I had left him. Defeat stared from his eyes.
Lines of insane thought disfigured his face. Yet he sat, stubborn and upright, heedless of the uproar, heedless even that the late beams of the sun had found him out in his last desolation. So I too sat down without speech, and waited till he should come up out of his gloom, and find a friend in a stranger.
But day waned; the sunlight went out of the great wooden room; the tumult diminished; and finally silence and evening shadow descended on the beleaguered house. And I was looking out of the darkened window at a star that had risen and stood s.h.i.+ning in the sky, when I was startled by a voice so low and so different from any I had yet heard that I turned to convince myself it was indeed Mr. Gulliver's.
”And the people of the Yahoos, Traveller,” he said, ”do they still lie, and flatter, and bribe, and spill blood, and l.u.s.t, and covet? Are there yet in the country whence you come the breadless bellies, the sores and rags and lamentations of the poor? Ay, Yahoo, and do vicious men rule, and attain riches; and impious women pomp and flattery?--hypocrites, pandars, envious, treacherous, proud?” He stared with desolate sorrow and wrath into my eyes.
Words in disorder flocked to my tongue. I grew hot and eager, yet by some instinct held my peace. The fluttering of the dying flames, the starry darkness, silence itself; what were we who sat together?
Transient shadows both, phantom, unfathomable, mysterious as these.