Part 27

“Yes, I have thought of all that,” said Dodson, “and I have made some inquiries of the firm. But of course it is going to cost money.”

“Money!” said the old man.

“A lot of money. I have talked to Octavius about it. I am on very good terms with Octavius, and as a sort of special favour to me, Octavius says Crumpett and Hawker will break through their invariable rule of not publishing on commission; and they are prepared to place their imprint--their very valuable imprint--on poor Luney’s poem, providing it is written grammatically--you know Crumpett and Hawker would not publish the Laureate himself if he failed to write grammatically--and also, providing that its tendency is not too agnostic, that is to say, agnosticism impinging on paganism, that is to say that it contains a definite idea of God--these are Octavius’s own words I am using--and further that it is not open to the charge of immorality in any shape or form, in other words, as Octavius says, that it is the kind of thing that any young girl may place in the hands of her grandmother. Well, now, everything being all right, Crumpett and Hawker are prepared to put it in hand at once, and to print two hundred and fifty copies--they won’t do less--and to issue the poem in three volumes at one guinea net. The cost, however, will be two hundred pounds, which must be borne by the author. For this sum they will use good paper, clear type, and they will bind it in superior cloth, and they will send out fifty copies for review to the leading London and provincial journals; but Octavius assures me that Crumpett and Hawker will touch the book only on these terms, and on no other.”

The old man gave a gasp of consternation.

“Two hundred pounds,” he said weakly, “two hundred pounds!”

“Yes,” said Dodson, “two hundred pounds is a lot of money; but it will have to be found if poor Luney is to hold his book in his hands before he dies.”

“I have not a tithe of that great sum among the whole of my worldly possessions,” said the old man forlornly.

“Nor I,” said Dodson. “I have hardly a red cent. laid by, because you know I have now to support my people; but if I could lay my hands at this moment on two hundred pounds, poor Luney’s book should be through the press before he hears his name called.”

“Come into the shop,” said the old man feebly, “and tell me if you think some of the venerable tomes on the shelves might produce that--that large sum.”

Dodson entered the shop and the old man struck a match and lit the gas. A very brief examination of what Dodson conceived to be a useless mass of lumber, for all the volumes were very black, faded, dusty, and stained with time, sufficed to enable him to form a verdict.

“I don’t suppose,” said he with a candour which numbed the old man’s veins, “the whole lot together would fetch two hundred pence. I never saw such a collection--never!”

“I must pray for a miracle to happen again,” said the old man. “One happened to us on a day.”

“Did it indeed?” said Dodson.

“Yes,” said the old man. “The great Achilles was threatened with expulsion from his little room. Unless I, his custodian, could obtain the sum of twenty pounds by a certain day, it was ordained that he should be cast out into the streets of the great city. Yet on the eve of that day, when all hope had been abandoned, a man out of the street, a street-person, walked into this shop, looked upon all these shelves, and took down one after another of these venerable tomes, and paying over to me the sum of two hundred pounds, walked out of the shop with one of these old volumes in his care.”

“What was the old volume?” said Dodson, with an air of keen interest.

“A Shakespeare of the first folio,” said the old man.

Dodson gave a low whistle.

“Oh, was it?” he said. “Then I should think that that street-person was not such a bad judge after all.” James Dodson turned his attention again to the shelves, in which were many gaps, with a livelier curiosity. “There don’t appear to be many first-folio Shakespeares left now,” he said in a tone of keen disappointment. “But it is no good supposing that there would be; these things have been pretty well gone through. Some street-person has picked all the pearls these many years, I expect. All that is left is hardly worth carting away. As I say, all that remains on your shelves, old man, would barely fetch two hundred pence.”

“Can we do nothing to obtain the sum of two hundred pounds?” said the old man. “Surely in this extremity a miracle must happen to us again.”

“I am no believer in miracles myself,” said James Dodson. “I have no faith in ghosts, spiritualism and sea-serpents either. But it is clear to my mind that that two hundred pounds has got to be found somehow; yet it looks as though a miracle _will_ have to happen before it turns up.”

“And the hours are so brief,” said the old man in his impotence. “Each day is beyond price; the great Achilles grows frail.”

For a space Dodson was plunged in deep thought. He was not of the mettle that yields lightly to despair.

“By the way,” he said, “what was that very funny-looking old volume I saw on the table in your little room--you know, the funny old volume that seemed to have its pages scrawled over in red ink? Well, now it has struck me that those pages--I didn’t look at them carefully--were of the finest vellum of the sort they don’t make now-a-days. If that is the case a dealer might be willing to pay a good price for it, if the red scrawl was nicely cleaned off.”

At these words, uttered with singular carelessness, the old man staggered back against the counter of the shop. He trembled in every limb, his face was piteous to see.

“You mean the Book of the Ages,” he said. His voice seemed unrelated to anything in nature.

“I don’t know what you call it,” said Dodson, “but it looks very heavy and well-bound, and I dare say it is valuable in its way. Vellum of the old monastic sort fetches a rare good price now-a-days if you know where to take it. I shall send a chap with a handcart for it to-morrow, and he shall take it to Temple and Ward, the dealers in Bond Street, and we will see what can be raised.”

“The Book of the Ages!” said the old man hoarsely; “the Book of the Ages!”

“Yes,” said Dodson indifferently, “the Book of the Ages--rather a good name for it. If that vellum is as old as I think it is, and that red scrawl is nicely got off, and the edges are trimmed, and the surface is cleaned up a bit, there may be money in it. People do buy such rum things now-a-days by way of curios, and they don’t seem to mind paying fancy prices for them either.”

“The Book of the Ages!” the old man repeated. In his peering eyes were a horror and a consternation that were truly dreadful, yet they were totally unnoticed by his visitor.

“Of course, you know,” Dodson continued, pursuing this new idea, which, remote as it was, seemed to afford the only prospect of obtaining two hundred pounds, “I shall have to pitch a tale about it to the dealers. I must fix up some sort of a history, you know, about its being found in the tomb of the Pharaohs, or its being the very identical sheepskin upon which the Scriptures were written. But you must leave that to me. I shall go round and see Temple and Ward to-morrow, and you can lay to it, old man, that I shall have thought of something by then. But, in the meantime, if you really do believe that miracles happen--I wish I could believe it myself--you had better think about it, old man, as much as you possibly can, for I’ve read somewhere that when you do want a thing to happen, it is a good plan to keep your mind on it all the time.”

Before the old man could consent to a suggestion which he did not know how to derive the power to sanction, the voice of him who sat in the little room was heard to summon James Dodson.

“Why don’t you come to me?” said the voice from within. “I can hear the voice of my friend. Why don’t you come to me with the printed sheets?”

In some trepidation Dodson obeyed a summons, which sounded almost imperious upon the lips of him from whom it proceeded.

“The printed sheets,” said the dying poet, stretching out his hands. “Please place the printed sheets into my hands. I would have my father read what is printed there, because this little treatise must go forth without fault or sully.”

“They have not started to print it yet, old boy,” said Jimmy Dodson dismally.

“Why--why is that?” cried the dying poet, with a consternation that was almost petulant. “Do they not know that a term has been placed to my days, that the sands of life are running out in the glass?”

“Yes, old boy, they know all about that,” said Jimmy Dodson; “they know all about that, and--and----”

“And--and!” said the stricken poet with an imperiousness that was regal. “Are these the words that are brought to me by one whom I love?” In a controlled excitement, that was almost stern, the stricken man raised himself in his chair. “Your arm, Jimmy,” he said, with a look of such authority that it filled the unhappy Dodson with dismay. “Lead me to the printers. I must speak to them myself.”

The poet sank back in his chair in the tender arms of his friend. The little strength that remained to him was no longer sufficient to bear his frame.

“Yes, old boy,” said Jimmy Dodson, “be quite calm, and sit there quietly. There is no need for you to excite yourself. I--I will go round to the printers early to-morrow and--and I--I will tell them just what you say. I will see that they hurry, although by nature, old boy, printers, as you know, are dreadfully slow.”

“So be it,” said the poet, with an expression of noble magnanimity upon his beautiful face; “do not think that I reproach you--it would break my heart.”

At these words Dodson, who, throughout his interview with the father, had remained so calm and self-secure, now turned away hastily from him who was sightless, with a half-strangled sob.

“You do not tell me in what manner Crumpett and Hawker received our little treatise,” said the poet.

Dodson found it a great matter to recover his wise self-possession, but by the time the poet had repeated the question he had regained it.

“Why--why, in what manner could they receive it, old boy?” said Jimmy Dodson. “What _could_ they say to it? What does a religious chap say to the Bible? What does a scholar say to Homer? What does everybody say to Shakespeare?”

“It is almost more than I can realize,” said the poet, with a look of rapture that seemed to sear the veins of his unhappy friend.

LI

Dodson promised bravely, recklessly, despairingly that the next time he entered the little room he would bring the first printed sheets of the book. For the poet’s insistence that each line must undergo a rigorous scrutiny before it was given to the world was reiterated again and again that evening with an imperiousness that, in one formerly so gentle and timid, astonished its witness beyond measure.

“Luney, old boy,” said Jimmy Dodson in a rather bewildered manner after several of these austere reminders, “I am not accustomed to move in royal circles, I have never been spoken to by a king, but if ever I was, old boy, I should expect him to speak to me just like that. You make me feel, old boy, that I have no right to call you Luney any longer--it seems almost like an act of presumption--you make me feel, old boy, that I ought to address you as ‘my lord,’ or as ‘sire’.”

The poet laughed a strange, rarefied note of laughter.

“Ah, dear Jimmy,” he said, “in the presence of the faithful we will not insist on our royalty too much.”

Dodson could frame no reply. Such words appeared to transcend those bounds indicated by human intelligence which the speaker had seemed to overstep so many times already. But, to the amazement of the beholder, the white-haired old man, who all this time had sat at the table with his eyes pressed devoutly to the Book of the Ages, rose at these words of the dying poet, and with a grave deliberation sank upon his knees before him who was blind.

“My liege,” said the old man humbly, “I would not have you consider your servants to be insensible of your quality if they do not address you in the fashion which it would seem to demand. Sire, your servants do not esteem your royalty to be the less because they do not wear its livery upon their lips.”

Smiling his secret and beautiful smile, the dying poet extended his right hand, so white, so fragile, and so transparent towards the aged man, his father, with the sweet air of a great prince, and the old man, still kneeling, bore it to his lips.

Ever smiling in the same manner, the dying poet then extended the fragile hand again, this time towards the astonished Jimmy Dodson, whose every faculty seemed to be atrophied by so strange a situation.

“We would have thee also make obeisance, faithful servant,” said the poet gently. “It is not for this insignificant flesh that we seek thy homage; it is not to appease an unworthy pride, which too often devours princes, that we would crave thy vassalage. Rather it is that we would have all who are gentle and simple offer their devotion to that which alone makes the life of man comprehensible, of which this broken clay is the too frail custodian.”

With a shamefaced trepidation, which only recently he had been taught to feel, James Dodson sank to his knees before his dying friend, and, in the fashion of the white-haired old man, he bore the fragile hand to his lips. He then rose, and, without venturing to give a look to either of the occupants of the little room, he made a headlong flight through the shop into the all-enfolding, ever-welcome darkness of the streets.

LII

The poet and his father passed that night together, as they had passed so many others, in the little room. The blind man, seated by the fire, alternately dreamed and mused, while his father conned the book which was spread open on the table. For the last time he conned it with the blood like water in his veins. Yet in him now was the mute acceptance of those who have passed through the whole gamut of their suffering, upon whom experience has nothing more to confer.

In the dead of the night, while the dying poet was murmuring strange words in his sleep, the old man took for the last time from their receptacle the chalice, the bistoury and the stylus. A hundred times had his flesh been pierced in vain by that inexorable point, yet again this night he made trial of it, and for the last time.

And now his trial was not without reward. No sooner had he dipped the stylus in the red blood of his veins than it began to traverse the page. For the first time since those fingers had grasped the pen, the fruit of eighty years of vicissitude upon the wonderful earth flowed to the parchment. Line by line grew the writing. That which he had laboured these long years to express, that for which he had prayed, fasted and kept vigil, was now born without a pang in this brief but magic hour.

Faint with joy, yet also filled with a nameless fear, the old man addressed the poet as soon as he awoke.

“Achilles,” he said, “wilt thou write thy page in the Book of the Ages, in order that our dynasty may continue itself?”

“Nay, my father,” said the poet, with a noble conviction; “it is not for me to inscribe my page in the Book. For are not the conditions fulfilled by which our dynasty shall cease? A thousand years, my father, has it striven to affirm itself; and it is written that in the magic hour it shall achieve its apotheosis, it shall be effaced, in obedience to Universal Law. Yet be of good courage, O my father, for it perishes only to achieve re-embodiment in an ampler notation. In the hour this little treatise upon human life is wrought, the archives of our dynasty are as seed scattered broadcast upon the four winds for the service of all the peoples in the world.”

Such words of high authority proceeding from those revered lips filled the old man with a courage and a resolute acceptance of that which was about to befall, which he had never hoped to achieve.

“Is it seemly, O Achilles,” said the old man, having derived a vital strength from the poet’s wisdom, “to efface the means by which a new lustre is given to the heavens?”

“It is as seemly, O my father,” the poet answered, “as it is to pluck the ripe fruit from the stalk.”

It was therefore in no mood of passion, of wild soul-searching, that the old man yielded those magic parchments which for a thousand years had been as the archives of his race. He bowed to the decree of fate with that calm acceptancy which, in the end, had ever been the crown that awaited each individual destiny.

Yet, when this volume, which was a thousand years old, had passed for ever from the precincts of the little room, he did not reveal the marvellous circumstance to him who was blind.

However, in the evening of that day, the poet said, as if armed by a prophetic vision, “My father, why dost thou turn no more to the Book of the Ages?”

The old man took the poet’s fragile hand to his lips with a humble gesture of obeisance.

“Because, O Achilles,” he said, “is it not seemly, since thou thyself wouldst have it so, that when the ripe fruit is plucked the stalk shall be discarded?”

“Verily, my father, thy wisdom is commendable,” said the poet, speaking in the perfect simplicity of the blood royal.

LIII

After the Book of the Ages had been dispersed among the great world out of doors, many were the days that elapsed ere the dying poet’s faithful emissary was seen again in the little room. The old man was thrown into a fever of dread lest so strange an envoy should never return; but even in the extremity of his fears he was consoled by the noble courage of the poet. From day to day he who kept the chimney-side, and whose hours could be numbered as they passed, retained a superhuman serenity throughout the whole of this cruel period, which seemed to gnaw at the vitals of both. In his invincible fortitude he even sought to assuage the distress of the aged man, his father.

“He will never return, O Achilles,” wailed the old man.

“Our honest servant will not fail one who is the comrade of kingly death, O my father,” said the blind poet, smiling in his faith.

“Must I pray for a miracle, Achilles?” said the old man, who looked to him in all things now.

“We would have thee be of good faith, my father,” said the poet. “Never yet was a destiny but that it fulfilled itself. The printing-presses are groaning under these pages of ours. To-morrow they will be strown like autumn leaves all about the floor of this little room.”

Yet the morrow came and the emissary did not return. Another morrow dawned and yet he came not. Day succeeded day; the dying poet became as one who has scarce the strength to raise his limbs; the sands grew less and less in the glass; yet still no breathless messenger issued forth from the streets of the great city.

In this long-drawn suspense such an anguish of despair besieged the old man, that again and again he turned to the poet for the sustenance which it was his to give.

“Be of good courage, O my father,” said the dying poet, yet at this time the whole of his right side was become paralyzed, so that he could no longer raise his right hand.

After listening full many weary nights and days for the ever-expected tap upon the shutters of the shop, there came at last the familiar sound in a December evening.

With unsteady limbs the old man went forth to unbar the door. Upon the threshold stood Dodson, worn and pale.

“Do not tell me the miracle has not happened,” cried the old man in a high, quavering tone.

“Yes, the miracle has happened,” said Dodson in a voice that was thin and unstrung.

“And--and they have printed the mighty pages?” cried the old man.

“Yes,” said Dodson, “they are printing the cursed pages. I have the proofs of the first volume under my coat. The others will be through the press in a few days.”

The old man gave a cry of joy.

“Then the miracle has happened for the second time,” he said. “The Book of the Ages was cherished by the world of men.”

“Call it what you like,” said Dodson. “Call it a miracle, call it a business transaction, or call it a daylight robbery, or anything you please. I can only say that James Dodson had to scour heaven and earth to get that miserable two hundred pounds. I lied to the dealer; I drew up a false pedigree for those infernal pages of parchments; I cajoled them into believing that black was white; I proved to their satisfaction that that cursed writing in red ink was that of the Pharaohs, and was supposed to be indelible, because, do what they would with their chemicals, they could not get it to come off.”

“Oh yes, yes,” said the old man, breathing heavily. “I should have made it known to you that the writing in the Book of the Ages can never be effaced.”