Part 6 (1/2)

”_Until her bosom must have made The bar she leaned on warm_

_almost without meaning_! Suffering Centipedes!” he cried indignantly.

”That man must have been brought up on the bottle!”

I think I may truthfully say that from that point on I listened to the old man breathlessly. Buchanan's monograph on ”The Fleshly School of Poetry” though wholly out of sympathy with my own views has long been a favorite bit of literary excoriation with me, comparable to Victor Hugo's incisive flaying of Napoleon III, and to have it spring up at me thus out of the alkali desert, through the medium of this beloved vagabond, was indeed an experience. Instead of conversing with my friend, I turned myself into what theatrical people call a ”feeder” for the time being, putting questions, and now and then venturing a remark sufficiently suggestive to keep him going. His voice as he ran on gathered in strength, and waxed tuneful and mellow, until, if I had closed my eyes, I could almost have brought myself to believe that it was our much-loved Mark Twain who was speaking with that musical drawl of his, shot through and through with that lyrical note which gave his voice such rare sweetness.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ”Suffering Centipedes!” he cried. ”That man must have been brought up on the bottle!”]

From Rossetti my new-found friend jumped to Whistler--to whom he referred as ”Jimmy”--thence to Watts, and from Watts to Ruskin; from Ruskin he ran on to Burne-Jones, and then harked back to Rossetti again.

Rossetti now seemed to become an obsession with him; only it was Rossetti the poet instead of Rossetti the painter to whom he referred.

In a few moments the stillness of that sordid coach was echoing to the sonnet of ”Lost Days”:

”The lost days of my life until to-day, What were they, could I see them on the street Lie as they fell? Would they be ears of wheat Sown once for food but trodden into clay?

Or golden coins squander'd and still to pay?

Or drops of blood dabbling the guilty feet?

Or such spill'd water as in dreams must cheat The undying throats of h.e.l.l, athirst alway?

I do not see them here; but after death G.o.d knows I know the faces I shall see-- Each one a murder'd self, with low last breath; 'I am thyself--what hast thou done to me?'

'And I--and I--thyself' (lo! each one saith)-- 'And thou thyself to all eternity.'”

His voice trembled as he finished, and a long silence followed.

”Pretty good stuff, that, eh?” he said, at length.

”Fine!” said I, suddenly afflicted with a poverty of language quite comparable to his own in the way of worldly goods.

”Takes you here, however,” said he, tapping his forehead. ”Makes you think--and somehow or other I--I don't like to think. I'd rather feel--and when it comes to that it's Christina Rossetti that takes you here.” He tapped his left breast over his heart. ”She's got all the rest of 'em skinned a mile, as far as I'm concerned. I love that 'Up Hill'

thing of hers--remember it?--

”Does the road wind up-hill all the way?

Yes, to the very end.

Will the day's journey take the whole long day?

From morn to night, my friend.

”But is there for the night a resting-place?

A roof for where the slow dark hours begin.

May not the darkness hide it from my face?

You cannot miss that Inn.

”Shall I meet other wayfarers at night?

Those who have gone before.

Then must I knock, or call when just in sight?