The Weavers, Complete - Gilbert Parker
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THE WEAVERS
By Gilbert Parker
CONTENTS
BOOK I
I. AS THE SPIRIT MOVED
II. THE GATES OF THE WORLD
III. BANISHED
IV. THE CALL
BOOK II
V. THE WIDER WAY
VI. "HAST THOU NEVER BILLED A MANY"
VII. THE COMPACT
VIII. FOR HIS SOUL'S SAKE AND THE LAND'S SAKE
IX. THE LETTER, THE NIGHT, AND THE WOMAN
X. THE FOUR WHO KNEW
XI. AGAINST THE HOUR OF MIDNIGHT
XII. THE JEHAD AND THE LIONS
XIII. ACHMET THE ROPEMAKER STRIKES
XIV. BEYOND THE PALE
BOOK III
XV. SOOLSBY'S HAND UPON THE CURTAIN
XVI. THE DEBT AND THE ACCOUNTING
XVII. THE WOMAN OF THE CROSS-ROADS
XVIII. TIME, THE IDOL-BREAKER
XIX. SHARPER THAN A SWORD
XX. EACH AFTER HIS OWN ORDER
XXI. "THERE IS NOTHING HIDDEN WHICH SHALL NOT BE REVEALED"
XXII. AS IN A GLASS DARKLY
XXIII. THE TENTS OF CUSHAN
XXIV. THE QUESTIONER
XXV. THE VOICE THROUGH THE DOOR
XXVI. "I OWE YOU NOTHING"
XXVII. THE AWAKENING
BOOK IV
XXVIII. NAHOUM TURNS THE SCREW
XXIX. THE RECOIL
XXX. LACEY MOVES
XXXI. THE STRUGGLE IN THE DESERT
XXXII. FORTY STRIPES SAVE ONE
XXXIII. THE DARK INDENTURE
XXXIV. NAHOUM DROPS THE MASK
BOOK V
XXXV. THE FLIGHT OF THE WOUNDED
XXXVI. "IS IT ALWAYS SO-IN LIFE?"
XXXVII. THE FLYING SHUTTLE
XXXVIII. JASPER KIMBER SPEAKS
XXXIX. FAITH JOURNEYS TO LONDON
BOOK VI
XL. HYLDA SEEKS NAHOUM
XLI. IN THE LAND OF SHINAR
XLII. THE LOOM OF DESTINY
INTRODUCTION
When I turn over the hundreds of pages of this book, I have a feeling
that I am looking upon something for which I have no particular
responsibility, though it has a strange contour of familiarity. It is as
though one looks upon a scene in which one had lived and moved, with the
friendly yet half-distant feeling that it once was one's own possession
but is so no longer. I should think the feeling to be much like that of
the old man whose sons, gone to distant places, have created their own
plantations of life and have themselves become the masters of
possessions. Also I suppose that when I read the story through again from
the first page to the last, I shall recreate the feeling in which I lived
when I wrote it, and it will become a part of my own identity again. That
distance between himself and his work, however, which immediately begins
to grow as soon as a book leaves the author's hands for those of the
public, is a thing which, I suppose, must come to one who produces a work
of the imagination. It is no doubt due to the fact that every piece of
art which has individuality and real likeness to the scenes and character
it is intended to depict is done in a kind of trance. The author, in
effect, self-hypnotises himself, has created an atmosphere which is
separate and apart from that of his daily surroundings, and by virtue of
his imagination becomes absorbed in that atmosphere. When the book is
finished and it goes forth, when the imagination is relaxed and the
concentration of mind is withdrawn, the atmosphere disappears, and then.
One experiences what I feel when I take up 'The Weavers' and, in a sense,
wonder how it was done, such as it is.
The frontispiece of the English edition represents a scene in the House
of Commons, and this brings to my mind a warning which was given me
similar to that on my entering new fields outside the one in which I
first made a reputation in fiction. When, in a certain year, I determined
that I would enter the House of Commons I had many friends who, in
effect, wailed and gnashed their teeth. They said that it would be the
death of my imaginative faculties; that I should never write anything any
more; that all the qualities which make literature living and compelling
would disappear. I thought this was all wrong then, and I know it is all
wrong now. Political life does certainly interfere with the amount of
work which an author may produce. He certainly cannot write a book every
year and do political work as well, but if he does not attempt to do the
two things on the same days, as it were, but in blocks of time devoted to
each separately and respectively, he will only find, as I have found,
that public life the conflict of it, the accompanying attrition of mind,
the searching for the things which will solve the problems of national
life, the multitudinous variations of character with which one comes in
contact, the big issues suddenly sprung upon the congregation of
responsible politicians, all are stimulating to the imagination,
invigorating to the mind, and marvellously freshening to every literary
instinct. No danger to the writer lies in doing political work, if it
does not sap his strength and destroy his health. Apart from that, he
should not suffer. The very spirit of statesmanship is imagination,
vision; and the same quality which enables an author to realise humanity
for a book is necessary for him to realise humanity in the crowded
chamber of a Parliament.
So far as I can remember, whatever was written of The Weavers, no critic
said that it lacked imagination. Some critics said it was too crowded
with incident; that there was enough incident in it for two novels; some
said that the sweep was too wide, but no critic of authority declared
that the book lacked vision or the vivacity of a living narrative. It is
not likely that I shall ever write again a novel of Egypt, but I have
made my contribution to Anglo-Egyptian literature, and I do not think I
failed completely in showing the greatness of soul which enabled one man
to keep the torch of civilisation, of truth, justice, and wholesome love
alight in surroundings as offensive to civilisation as was Egypt in the
last days of Ismail Pasha--a time which could be well typified by the
words put by Bulwer Lytton in the mouth of Cardinal Richelieu:
"I found France rent asunder,
Sloth in the mart and schism in the temple;
Broils festering to rebellion; and weak laws
Rotting away with rust in antique sheaths.
I have re-created France; and, from the ashes
Of the old feudal and decrepit carcase,
Civilisation on her luminous wings
Soars, phoenix-like, to Jove!"
Critics and readers have endeavoured to identify the main characteristics
of The Weavers with figures in Anglo-Egyptian and official public life.
David Claridge was, however, a creature of the imagination. It has been
said that he was drawn from General Gordon. I am not conscious of having
taken Gordon for David's prototype, though, as I was saturated with all
that had been written about Gordon, there is no doubt that something of
that great man may have found its way into the character of David
Claridge. The true origin of David Claridge, however, may be found in a
short story called 'All the World's Mad', in Donovan Pasha, which was
originally published by Lady Randolph Churchill in an ambitious but
defunct magazine called 'The Anglo-Saxon Review'. The truth is that David
Claridge had his origin in a fairly close understanding of, and interest
in, Quaker life. I had Quaker relatives through the marriage of a
connection of my mother, and the original of Benn Claridge, the uncle of
David, is still alive, a very old man, who in my boyhood days wore the
broad brim and the straight preacher-like coat of the old-fashioned
Quaker. The grandmother of my wife was also a Quaker, and used the "thee"
and "thou" until the day of her death.
Here let me say that criticism came to me from several quarters both in
England and America on the use of these words thee and thou, and
statements were made that the kind of speech which I put into David
Claridge's mouth was not Quaker speech. For instance, they would not have
it that a Quaker would say, "Thee will go with me"--as though they were
ashamed of the sweet inaccuracy of the objective pronoun being used in
the nominative; but hundreds of times I have myself heard Quakers use
"thee" in just such a way in England and America. The facts are, however,
that Quakers differ extensively in their habits, and there grew up in
England among the Quakers in certain districts a sense of shame for false
grammar which, to say the least, was very childish. To be deliberately
and boldly ungrammatical, when you serve both euphony and simplicity, is
merely to give archaic charm, not to be guilty of an offence. I have
friends in Derbyshire who still say "Thee thinks," etc., and I must
confess that the picture of a Quaker rampant over my deliberate use of
this well-authenticated form of speech produced to my mind only the
effect of an infuriated sheep, when I remembered the peaceful attribute
of Quaker life and character. From another quarter came the assurance
that I was wrong when I set up a tombstone with a name upon it in a
Quaker graveyard. I received a sarcastic letter from a lady on the
borders of Sussex and Surrey upon this point, and I immediately sent her
a first-class railway ticket to enable her to visit the Quaker churchyard
at Croydon, in Surrey, where dead and gone Quakers have tombstones by the
score, and inscriptions on them also. It is a good thing to be accurate;
it is desperately essential in a novel. The average reader, in his
triumph at discovering some slight error of detail, would consign a
masterpiece of imagination, knowledge of life and character to the
rubbish-heap.
I believe that 'The Weavers' represents a wider outlook of life, closer
understanding of the problems which perplex society, and a clearer view
of the verities than any previous book written by me, whatever its
popularity may have been. It appealed to the British public rather more
than 'The Right of Way', and the great public of America and the Oversea
Dominions gave it a welcome which enabled it to take its place beside
'The Right of Way', the success of which was unusual.
NOTE
This book is not intended to be an historical novel, nor are its
characters meant to be identified with well-known persons connected with
the history of England or of Egypt; but all that is essential in the tale
is based upon, and drawn from, the life of both countries. Though Egypt
has greatly changed during the past generation, away from Cairo and the
commercial centres the wheels of social progress have turned but slowly,
and much remains as it was in the days of which this book is a record in
the spirit of the life, at least.
G. P.
"Dost thou spread the sail, throw the spear, swing the axe, lay
thy hand upon the plough, attend the furnace door, shepherd the
sheep upon the hills, gather corn from the field, or smite the
rock in the quarry? Yet, whatever thy task, thou art even as
one who twists the thread and throws the shuttle, weaving the
web of Life. Ye are all weavers, and Allah the Merciful, does
He not watch beside the loom?"
BOOK I
CHAPTER I
AS THE SPIRIT MOVED
The village lay in a valley which had been the bed of a great river in
the far-off days when Ireland, Wales and Brittany were joined together
and the Thames flowed into the Seine. The place had never known turmoil
or stir. For generations it had lived serenely.
Three buildings in the village stood out insistently, more by the
authority of their appearance and position than by their size. One was a
square, red-brick mansion in the centre of the village, surrounded by a
high, redbrick wall enclosing a garden. Another was a big, low, graceful
building with wings. It had once been a monastery. It was covered with
ivy, which grew thick and hungry upon it, and it was called the
Cloistered House. The last of the three was of wood, and of no great
size--a severely plain but dignified structure, looking like some
council-hall of a past era. Its heavy oak doors and windows with diamond
panes, and its air of order, cleanliness and serenity, gave it a
commanding influence in the picture. It was the key to the history of the
village--a Quaker Meeting-house.
Involuntarily the village had built itself in such a way that it made a
wide avenue from the common at one end to the Meeting-house on the
gorse-grown upland at the other. With a demure resistance to the will of
its makers the village had made itself decorative. The people were
unconscious of any attractiveness in themselves or in their village.
There were, however, a few who felt the beauty stirring around them.
These few, for their knowledge and for the pleasure which it brought,
paid the accustomed price. The records of their lives were the only
notable history of the place since the days when their forefathers
suffered for the faith.
One of these was a girl--for she was still but a child when she died; and
she had lived in the Red Mansion with the tall porch, the wide garden
behind, and the wall of apricots and peaches and clustering grapes. Her
story was not to cease when she was laid away in the stiff graveyard
behind the Meeting-house. It was to go on in the life of her son, whom to
bring into the world she had suffered undeserved, and loved with a
passion more in keeping with the beauty of the vale in which she lived
than with the piety found on the high-backed seats in the Quaker
Meeting-house. The name given her on the register of death was Mercy
Claridge, and a line beneath said that she was the daughter of Luke
Claridge, that her age at passing was nineteen years, and that "her soul
was with the Lord."
Another whose life had given pages to the village history was one of
noble birth, the Earl of Eglington. He had died twenty years after the
time when Luke Claridge, against the then custom of the Quakers, set up a
tombstone to Mercy Claridge's memory behind the Meeting-house. Only
thrice in those twenty years had he slept in a room of the Cloistered
House. One of those occasions was the day on which Luke Claridge put up
the grey stone in the graveyard, three years after his daughter's death.
On the night of that day these two men met face to face in the garden of
the Cloistered House. It was said by a passer-by, who had involuntarily
overheard, that Luke Claridge had used harsh and profane words to Lord
Eglington, though he had no inkling of the subject of the bitter talk. He
supposed, however, that Luke had gone to reprove the other for a wasteful
and wandering existence; for desertion of that Quaker religion to which
his grandfather, the third Earl of Eglington, had turned in the second
half of his life, never visiting his estates in Ireland, and residing
here among his new friends to his last day. This listener--John Fairley
was his name--kept his own counsel. On two other occasions had Lord
Eglington visited the Cloistered House in the years that passed, and
remained many months. Once he brought his wife and child. The former was
a cold, blue-eyed Saxon of an old family, who smiled distantly upon the
Quaker village; the latter, a round-headed, warm-faced youth, with a
bold, menacing eye, who probed into this and that, rushed here and there
as did his father; now built a miniature mill; now experimented at some
peril in the laboratory which had been arranged in the Cloistered House
for scientific experiments; now shot partridges in the fields where
partridges had not been shot for years; and was as little in the picture
as his adventurous father, though he wore a broad-brimmed hat, smiling
the while at the pain it gave to the simple folk around him.
And yet once more the owner of the Cloistered House returned alone. The
blue-eyed lady was gone to her grave; the youth was abroad. This time he
came to die. He was found lying on the floor of his laboratory with a
broken retort in fragments beside him. With his servant, Luke Claridge
was the first to look upon him lying in the wreck of his last experiment,
a spirit-lamp still burning above him, in the grey light of a winter's
morning. Luke Claridge closed the eyes, straightened the body, and
crossed the hands over the breast which had been the laboratory of many
conflicting passions of life.
The dead man had left instructions that his body should be buried in the
Quaker graveyard, but Luke Claridge and the Elders prevented that--he had
no right to the privileges of a Friend; and, as the only son was afar,
and no near relatives pressed the late Earl's wishes, the ancient family
tomb in Ireland received all that was left of the owner of the Cloistered
House, which, with the estates in Ireland and the title, passed to the
wandering son.
CHAPTER II
THE GATES OF THE WORLD
Stillness in the Meeting-house, save for the light swish of one
graveyard-tree against the window-pane, and the slow breathing of the
Quaker folk who filled every corner. On the long bench at the upper end
of the room the Elders sat motionless, their hands on their knees,
wearing their hats; the women in their poke-bonnets kept their gaze upon
their laps. The heads of all save three were averted, and they were Luke
Claridge, his only living daughter, called Faith, and his dead daughter's
son David, who kept his eyes fixed on the window where the twig flicked
against the pane. The eyes of Faith, who sat on a bench at one side,
travelled from David to her father constantly; and if, once or twice, the
plain rebuke of Luke Claridge's look compelled her eyes upon her folded
hands, still she was watchful and waiting, and seemed demurely to defy
the convention of unblinking silence. As time went on, others of her sex
stole glances at Mercy's son from the depths of their bonnets; and at
last, after over an hour, they and all were drawn to look steadily at the
young man upon whose business this Meeting of Discipline had been called.
The air grew warmer and warmer, but no one became restless; all seemed as
cool of face and body as the grey gowns and coats with grey steel buttons
which they wore.
At last a shrill voice broke the stillness. Raising his head, one of the
Elders said: "Thee will stand up, friend." He looked at David.
With a slight gesture of relief the young man stood up. He was good to
look at-clean-shaven, broad of brow, fine of figure, composed of
carriage, though it was not the composure of the people by whom he was
surrounded. They were dignified, he was graceful; they were consistently
slow of movement, but at times his quick gestures showed that he had not
been able to train his spirit to that passiveness by which he lived
surrounded. Their eyes were slow and quiet, more meditative than
observant; his were changeful in expression, now abstracted, now dark and
shining as though some inner fire was burning. The head, too, had a habit
of coming up quickly with an almost wilful gesture, and with an air
which, in others, might have been called pride.
"What is thy name?" said another owl-like Elder to him.
A gentle, half-amused smile flickered at the young man's lips for an
instant, then, "David Claridge--still," he answered.
His last word stirred the meeting. A sort of ruffle went through the
atmosphere, and now every eye was fixed and inquiring. The word was
ominous. He was there on his trial, and for discipline; and it was
thought by all that, as many days had passed since his offence was
committed, meditation and prayer should have done their work. Now,
however, in the tone of his voice, as it clothed the last word, there was
something of defiance. On the ear of his grandfather, Luke Claridge, it
fell heavily. The old man's lips closed tightly, he clasped his hands
between his knees with apparent self-repression.
The second Elder who had spoken was he who had once heard Luke Claridge
use profane words in the Cloistered House. Feeling trouble ahead, and
liking the young man and his brother Elder, Luke Claridge, John Fairley
sought now to take the case into his own hands.
"Thee shall never find a better name, David," he said, "if thee live a
hundred years. It hath served well in England. This thee didst do. While
the young Earl of Eglington was being brought home, with noise and
brawling, after his return to Parliament, thee mingled among the
brawlers; and because some evil words were said of thy hat and thy
apparel, thee laid about thee, bringing one to the dust, so that his life
was in peril for some hours to come. Jasper Kimber was his name."
"Were it not that the smitten man forgave thee, thee would now be in a
prison cell," shrilly piped the Elder who had asked his name.
"The fight was fair," was the young man's reply. "Though I am a Friend,
the man was English."
"Thee was that day a son of Belial," rejoined the shrill Elder. "Thee did
use thy hands like any heathen sailor--is it not the truth?"
"I struck the man. I punished him--why enlarge?"
"Thee is guilty?"
"I did the thing."
"That is one charge against thee. There are others. Thee was seen to
drink of spirits in a public-house at Heddington that day. Twice--thrice,
like any drunken collier."
"Twice," was the prompt correction.
There was a moment's pause, in which some women sighed and others folded
and unfolded their hands on their laps; the men frowned.
"Thee has been a dark deceiver," said the shrill Elder again, and with a
ring of acrid triumph; "thee has hid these things from our eyes many
years, but in one day thee has uncovered all. Thee--"
"Thee is charged," interposed Elder Fairley, "with visiting a play this
same day, and with seeing a dance of Spain following upon it."
"I did not disdain the music," said the young man drily; "the flute, of
all instruments, has a mellow sound." Suddenly his eyes darkened, he
became abstracted, and gazed at the window where the twig flicked softly
against the pane, and the heat of summer palpitated in the air. "It has
good grace to my ear," he added slowly.
Luke Claridge looked at him intently. He began to realize that there were
forces stirring in his grandson which had no beginning in Claridge blood,
and were not nurtured in the garden with the fruited wall. He was not
used to problems; he had only a code, which he had rigidly kept. He had
now a glimmer of something beyond code or creed.
He saw that the shrill Elder was going to speak. He intervened. "Thee is
charged, David," he said coldly, "with kissing a woman--a stranger and a
wanton--where the four roads meet 'twixt here and yonder town." He
motioned towards the hills.
"In the open day," added the shrill Elder, a red spot burning on each
withered cheek.
"The woman was comely," said the young man, with a tone of irony,
recovering an impassive look.
A strange silence fell, the women looked down; yet they seemed not so
confounded as the men. After a moment they watched the young man with
quicker flashes of the eye.
"The answer is shameless," said the shrill Elder. "Thy life is that of a
carnal hypocrite."
The young man said nothing. His face had become very pale, his lips were
set, and presently he sat down and folded his arms.
"Thee is guilty of all?" asked John Fairley.
His kindly eye was troubled, for he had spent numberless hours in this
young man's company, and together they had read books of travel and
history, and even the plays of Shakespeare and Marlowe, though drama was
anathema to the Society of Friends--they did not realize it in the life
around them. That which was drama was either the visitation of God or the
dark deeds of man, from which they must avert their eyes. Their own
tragedies they hid beneath their grey coats and bodices; their dirty
linen they never washed in public, save in the scandal such as this where
the Society must intervene. Then the linen was not only washed, but duly
starched, sprinkled, and ironed.
"I have answered all. Judge by my words," said David gravely.
"Has repentance come to thee? Is it thy will to suffer that which we may
decide for thy correction?" It was Elder Fairley who spoke. He was
determined to control the meeting and to influence its judgment. He loved
the young man.
David made no reply; he seemed lost in thought. "Let the discipline
proceed--he hath an evil spirit," said the shrill Elder.
"His childhood lacked in much," said Elder Fairley patiently.
To most minds present the words carried home--to every woman who had a
child, to every man who had lost a wife and had a motherless son. This
much they knew of David's real history, that Mercy Claridge, his mother,
on a visit to the house of an uncle at Portsmouth, her mother's brother,
had eloped with and was duly married to the captain of a merchant ship.
They also knew that, after some months, Luke Claridge had brought her
home; and that before her child was born news came that the ship her
husband sailed had gone down with all on board. They knew likewise that
she had died soon after David came, and that her father, Luke Claridge,
buried her in her maiden name, and brought the boy up as his son, not
with his father's name but bearing that name so long honoured in England,
and even in the far places of the earth--for had not Benn Claridge,
Luke's brother, been a great carpet-merchant, traveller, and explorer in
Asia Minor, Egypt, and the Soudan--Benn Claridge of the whimsical speech,
the pious life? All this they knew; but none of them, to his or her
knowledge, had ever seen David's father. He was legendary; though there
was full proof that the girl had been duly married. That had been laid
before the Elders by Luke Claridge on an occasion when Benn Claridge, his
brother was come among them again from the East.