No More Learning

I
go from village to village and from hill to hill, and whenever I come
across a good cock I steal him and take him into the woods, and I keep
him there under a basket, until I get another good cock, and then I set
them to fight. The people say I am an innocent, and do not do me any
harm, and never ask me to do any work but go a message now and then. It
is because I am an innocent that they send me to get the crowns: anyone
else would steal them; and they dare not come back themselves, for now
that you are not with them they are afraid of the wood-thieves. Did you
ever hear how, when the wood-thieves are christened, the wolves are
made their godfathers, and their right arms are not christened at all? '

'If you will not take these crowns, my good lad, I have nothing for
you, I fear, unless you would have that old coat of mail which I shall
soon need no more. '

'There was something I wanted: yes, I remember now,' said the lad. 'I
want you to tell me why you fought like the champions and giants in the
stories and for so little a thing. Are you indeed a man like us? Are
you not rather an old wizard who lives among these hills, and will not
a wind arise presently and crumble you into dust? '

'I will tell you of myself,' replied the knight, 'for now that I am
the last of the fellowship, I may tell all and witness for God. Look
at the Rose of Rubies on my helmet, and see the symbol of my life and
of my hope. ' And then he told the lad this story, but with always
more frequent pauses; and, while he told it, the Rose shone a deep
blood-colour in the firelight, and the lad stuck the cock's feathers in
the earth in front of him, and moved them about as though he made them
actors in the play.

'I live in a land far from this, and was one of the Knights of Saint
John,' said the old man; 'but I was one of those in the Order who
always longed for more arduous labours in the service of the Most High.
At last there came to us a knight of Palestine, to whom the truth of
truths had been revealed by God Himself. He had seen a great Rose of
Fire, and a Voice out of the Rose had told him how men would turn from
the light of their own hearts, and bow down before outer order and
outer fixity, and that then the light would cease, and none escape the
curse except the foolish good man who could not, and the passionate
wicked man who would not, think.
Already, the Voice told him, the
wayward light of the heart was shining out upon the world to keep it
alive, with a less clear lustre, and that, as it paled, a strange
infection was touching the stars and the hills and the grass and the
trees with corruption, and that none of those who had seen clearly
the truth and the ancient way could enter into the Kingdom of God,
which is in the Heart of the Rose, if they stayed on willingly in the
corrupted world; and so they must prove their anger against the Powers
of Corruption by dying in the service of the Rose of God. While the
knight of Palestine was telling us these things we seemed to see in a
vision a crimson Rose spreading itself about him, so that he seemed to
speak out of its heart, and the air was filled with fragrance. By this
we knew that it was the very Voice of God which spoke to us by the
knight, and we gathered about him and bade him direct us in all things,
and teach us how to obey the Voice. So he bound us with an oath, and
gave us signs and words whereby we might know each other even after
many years, and he appointed places of meeting, and he sent us out in
troops into the world to seek good causes, and die in doing battle for
them. At first we thought to die more readily by fasting to death in
honour of some saint; but this he told us was evil, for we did it for
the sake of death, and thus took out of the hands of God the choice
of the time and manner of our death, and by so doing made His power
the less. We must choose our service for its excellence, and for this
alone, and leave it to God to reward us at His own time and in His own
manner. And after this he compelled us to eat always two at a table to
watch each other lest we fasted unduly, for some among us said that
if one fasted for a love of the holiness of saints and then died, the
death would be acceptable. And the years passed, and one by one my
fellows died in the Holy Land, or in warring upon the evil princes of
the earth, or in clearing the roads of robbers; and among them died the
knight of Palestine, and at last I was alone. I fought in every cause
where the few contended against the many, and my hair grew white, and a
terrible fear lest I had fallen under the displeasure of God came upon
me. But, hearing at last how this western isle was fuller of wars and
rapine than any other land, I came hither, and I have found the thing I
sought, and, behold! I am filled with a great joy. '

Thereat he began to sing in Latin, and, while he sang, his voice grew
fainter and fainter. Then his eyes closed, and his lips fell apart, and
the lad knew he was dead. 'He has told me a good tale,' he said, 'for
there was fighting in it, but I did not understand much of it, and it
is hard to remember so long a story. '

And, taking the knight's sword, he began to dig a grave in the soft
clay. He dug hard, and a faint light of dawn had touched his hair and
he had almost done his work when a cock crowed in the valley below.