uncle. Two bettermen never sat upon a chair!” He placed the papers in my hand, all
save that one which spoke of him. Ah, David, what with the flute
and the pen, banishment was no pain to thee! … He placed the
papers, save that one, in my hands, and I, womanlike, asked again
for all. “Some day,” said he, “come, and I will read it to you.
Nay, I will give you a taste of it now,” he added, as he brought
forth the writing. “Thus it reads.”
Here are thy words, Davy. What think thee of them now?
“As I dwell in this house I know Soolsby as I never knew him when he
lived, and though, up here, I spent many an hour with him. Men
leave their impressions on all around them. The walls which have
felt their look and their breath, the floor which has taken their
footsteps, the chairs in which they have sat, have something of
their presence. I feel Soolsby here at times so sharply that it
would seem he came again and was in this room, though he is dead and
gone. I ask him how it came he lived here alone; how it came that
he made chairs, he, with brains enough to build great houses or
great bridges; how it was that drink and he were such friends; and
how he, a Catholic, lived here among us Quakers, so singular,
uncompanionable, and severe. I think it true, and sadly true, that
a man with a vice which he is able to satisfy easily and habitually,
even as another satisfies a virtue, may give up the wider actions of
the world and the possibilities of his life for the pleasure which
his one vice gives him, and neither miss nor desire those greater
chances of virtue or ambition which he has lost. The simplicity of
a vice may be as real as the simplicity of a virtue.”
Ah, David, David, I know not what to think of those strange words;
but old Soolsby seemed well to understand thee, and he called thee
“a first-best gentleman.” Is my story long? Well, it was so
strange, and it fixed itself upon my mind so deeply, and thy
writings at the hut have been so much in my hands and in my mind,
that I have put it all down here. When I asked Soolsby how it came
he had been rumoured dead, he said that he himself had been the
cause of it; but for what purpose he would not say, save that he was
going a long voyage, and had made up his mind to return no more. “I
had a friend,” he said, “and I was set to go and see that friend
again. … But the years go on, and friends have an end. Life
spills faster than the years,” he said. And he would say no more,
but would walk with me even to my father’s door. “May the Blessed
Virgin and all the Saints be with you,” he said at parting, “if you
will have a blessing from them. And tell him who is beyond and away
in Egypt that old Soolsby’s busy making a chair for him to sit in
when the scarlet cloth is spread, and the East and West come to
salaam before him. Tell him the old man says his fluting will be
heard.”
And now, David, I have told thee all, nearly. Remains to say that
thy one letter did our hearts good. My father reads it over and
over, and shakes his head sadly, for, truth is, he has a fear that
the world may lay its hand upon thee. One thing I do observe, his
heart is hard set against Lord Eglington. In degree it has ever
been so; but now it is like a constant frown upon his forehead. I
see him at his window looking out towards the Cloistered House; and
if our neighbour comes forth, perhaps upon his hunter, or now in his
cart, or again with his dogs, he draws his hat down upon his eyes
and whispers to himself. I think he is ever setting thee off
against Lord Eglington; and that is foolish, for Eglington is but a
man of the earth earthy. His is the soul of the adventurer.
Now what more to be set down? I must ask thee how is thy friend Ebn
Ezra Bey? I am glad thee did find all he said was true, and that in
Damascus thee was able to set a mark by my uncle’s grave. But that
the Prince Pasha of Egypt has set up a claim against my uncle’s
property is evil news; though, thanks be to God, as my father says,
we have enough to keep us fed and clothed and housed. But do thee
keep enough of thy inheritance to bring thee safe home again to
those who love thee. England is ever grey, Davy, but without thee
it is grizzled—all one “Quaker drab,” as says the Philistine. But
it is a comely and a good land, and here we wait for thee.
In love and remembrance.
I am thy mother’s sister, thy most loving friend.
FAITH.
David received this letter as he was mounting a huge white Syrian donkey to ride to the Mokattam Hills, which rise sharply behind Cairo, burning and lonely and large. The cities of the dead Khalifas and Mamelukes separated them from the living city where the fellah toiled, and Arab, Bedouin, Copt strove together to intercept the fruits of his toiling, as it passed in the form of taxes to the Palace of the Prince Pasha; while in the dark corners crouched, waiting, the cormorant usurers—Greeks, Armenians, and Syrians, a hideous salvage corps, who saved the house of a man that they might at last walk off with his shirt and the cloth under which he was carried to his grave.
