A Traveller in Little Things | Page 7

was in bad health, and died when Ambrose
was fifteen and Cyril fourteen; from that time they were their own
masters and refused to have any division of their inheritance but
continued to live together; and had so continued for upwards of ten
years.
Shortly after hearing this history I met the brothers together at a house
in the village, and a greater contrast between two men it would be
impossible to imagine. They were alike only in both being big, well-
shaped, handsome, and well-dressed men, but in their faces they had
the stamp of widely separated classes, and differed as much as if they
had belonged to distinct species. Cyril, with a coarse, high-coloured
skin and the primitive features I have described; Ambrose, with a pale
dark skin of a silky texture, an oval face and classic features--forehead,
nose, mouth and chin, and his ears small and lying against his head, not
sticking out like handles as in his brother; he had black hair and grey
eyes. It was the face of an aristocrat, of a man of blue blood, or of good
blood, of an ancient family; and in his manner too he was a perfect
contrast to his brother and friend. There was no trace of vulgarity in
him; he was not self-conscious, not anxious to shine; he was modesty
itself, and in his speech and manner and appearance he was, to put it all
in one word, a gentleman.
Seeing them together I was more amazed than ever at the fact of their
extraordinary affection for each other, their perfect amity which had
lasted so many years without a rift, which nothing could break, as
people said, except a woman.
But the woman who would break or shatter it had not yet appeared on

the horizon, nor do I know whether she ever appeared or not, since after
leaving the neighbourhood I heard no more of the brothers de la Rosa.

V
A STORY OF LONG DESCENT
It was rudely borne in upon me that there was another side to the shield.
I was too much immersed in my own thoughts to note the peculiar
character of the small remote old-world town I came to in the afternoon;
next day was Sunday, and on my way to the church to attend morning
service, it struck me as one of the oldest-looking of the small old towns
I had stumbled upon in my rambles in this ancient land. There was the
wide vacant space where doubtless meetings had taken place for a
thousand years, and the steep narrow crooked medieval streets, and
here and there some stately building rising like a castle above the
humble cottage houses clustering round it as if for protection. Best of
all was the church with its noble tower where a peal of big bells were
just now flooding the whole place with their glorious noise.
It was even better when, inside, I rose from my knees and looked about
me, to find myself in an ideal interior, the kind I love best; rich in metal
and glass and old carved wood, the ornaments which the good Methody
would scornfully put in the hay and stubble category, but which owing
to long use and associations have acquired for others a symbolic and
spiritual significance. The beauty and richness were all the fresher for
the dimness, and the light was dim because it filtered through old
oxydised stained glass of that unparalleled loveliness of colour which
time alone can impart. It was, excepting in vastness, like a cathedral
interior, and in some ways better than even the best of these great fanes,
wonderful as they are. Here, recalling them, one could venture to
criticise and name their several deficits:--a Wells divided, a ponderous
Ely, a vacant and cold Canterbury, a too light and airy Salisbury, and so
on even to Exeter, supreme in beauty, spoilt by a monstrous organ in
the wrong place. That wood and metal giant, standing as a stone bridge
to mock the eyes' efforts to dodge past it and have sight of the exquisite

choir beyond, and of an east window through which the humble
worshipper in the nave might hope, in some rare mystical moment, to
catch a glimpse of the far Heavenly country beyond.
I also noticed when looking round that it was an interior rich in
memorials to the long dead--old brasses and stone tablets on the walls,
and some large monuments. By chance the most imposing of the tombs
was so near my seat that with little difficulty I succeeded in reading and
committing to memory the whole contents of the very long inscription
cut in deep letters on the hard white stone. It was to the memory of Sir
Ranulph Damarell, who died in