Figures of Earth | Page 5

whom they have
never been able altogether to love, or entirely to sympathize with, or to
view quite without distrust.
There are several ways of accounting for this fact,--ranging from the
hurtful as well as beneficent aspect of the storm-god, to the natural
inability of a poet to understand a man who succeeds in everything: but
the fact is, after all, of no present importance save that it may well have
prompted Lewistam to scamp his dealings with this always somewhat
ambiguous Manuel, and so to omit the hereinafter included legends, as
unsuited to the clearer and sunnier atmosphere of the Popular Tales.
For my part, I am quite content, in this Comedy of Appearances, to
follow the old romancers' lead. "Such and such things were said and
done by our great Manuel," they say to us, in effect: "such and such
were the appearances, and do you make what you can of them."
I say that, too, with the addition that in real life, also, such is the
fashion in which we are compelled to deal with all happenings and with
all our fellows, whether they wear or lack the gaudy name of heroism.
Dumbarton Grange
October, 1920

[Illustration]
PART ONE
THE BOOK OF CREDIT
TO

WILSON FOLLETT

Then _answered the Magician dredefully: Manuel, Manuel, now I shall
shewe unto thee many bokes of Nygromancy, and howe thou shalt cum
by it lyghtly and knowe the practyse therein. And, moreouer, I shall
shewe and informe you so that thou shall have thy Desyre, whereby my
thynke it is a great Gyfte for so lytyll a doynge_.

I
How Manuel Left the Mire
They of Poictesme narrate that in the old days when miracles were as
common as fruit pies, young Manuel was a swineherd, living modestly
in attendance upon the miller's pigs. They tell also that Manuel was
content enough: he knew not of the fate which was reserved for him.
Meanwhile in all the environs of Rathgor, and in the thatched villages
of Lower Targamon, he was well liked: and when the young people
gathered in the evening to drink brandy and eat nuts and gingerbread,
nobody danced more merrily than Squinting Manuel. He had a quiet
way with the girls, and with the men a way of solemn, blinking
simplicity which caused the more hasty in judgment to consider him a
fool. Then, too, young Manuel was very often detected smiling sleepily
over nothing, and his gravest care in life appeared to be that figure
which Manuel had made out of marsh clay from the pool of Haranton.
This figure he was continually reshaping and realtering. The figure
stood upon the margin of the pool; and near by were two stones
overgrown with moss, and supporting a cross of old worm-eaten wood,
which commemorated what had been done there.
One day, toward autumn, as Manuel was sitting in this place, and
looking into the deep still water, a stranger came, and he wore a fierce
long sword that interfered deplorably with his walking.

"Now I wonder what it is you find in that dark pool to keep you staring
so?" the stranger asked, first of all.
"I do not very certainly know," replied Manuel "but mistily I seem to
see drowned there the loves and the desires and the adventures I had
when I wore another body than this. For the water of Haranton, I must
tell you, is not like the water of other fountains, and curious dreams
engender in this pool."
"I speak no ill against oneirologya, although broad noon is hardly the
best time for its practise," declared the snub-nosed stranger. "But what
is that thing?" he asked, pointing.
"It is the figure of a man, which I have modeled and re-modeled, sir,
but cannot seem to get exactly to my liking. So it is necessary that I
keep laboring at it until the figure is to my thinking and my desire."
"But, Manuel, what need is there for you to model it at all?"
"Because my mother, sir, was always very anxious for me to make a
figure in the world, and when she lay a-dying I promised her that I
would do so, and then she put a geas upon me to do it."
"Ah, to be sure! but are you certain it was this kind of figure she
meant?"
"Yes, for I have often heard her say that, when I grew up, she wanted
me to make myself a splendid and admirable young man in every
respect. So it is necessary that I make the figure of a young man, for my
mother was not of these parts, but a woman of Ath Cliath, and so she
put a geas upon me--"
"Yes, yes, you had mentioned this geas, and