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THE NEW ABELARD

A Romance

By Robert Buchanan

Author Of ‘The Shadow Of The Sword’ ‘God And The Man’ Etc.

In Three Volumes--Vol. I.

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London: Chatto & Windus, Piccadilly

1884



_DEDICATION_

TO MY DEAR FATHER

THE LATE ROBERT BUCHANAN

SOCIALIST LECTURER, REFORMER, AND POET I INSCBIBE

‘THE NEW ABELARD’




PREFATORY NOTE.

The leading character in this book is represented, dramatically, as
resembling, both in his strength and weakness, the great Abelard of
history. For this very reason he is described as failing miserably,
where a stronger man might never have foiled, in grasping the Higher
Rationalism as a law for life. He is, in fact, not meant for an ideal
hero, but for an ardent intellectual man, hopelessly biased against
veracity both by temperament and hereditary superstition.

I make this explanation in order to be beforehand with those who will
possibly hasten to explain to my readers that my philosophy of life is
at best retrograde, my modern thinker an impressionable spoony, and my
religious outlook taken in the shadow of the Churches and reading no
farther than the cloudy horizons of Ober-Ammergau.

Robert Buchanan.

London: March 12, 1884.




THE NEW ABELARD


PROEM

               Shipwreck... What succour?--

                   On the gnawing rocks

               The ship grinds to and fro with thunder-shocks,

               And thro’ her riven sides with ceaseless rush

               The foam-fleck’d waters gush:

               Above, the soot-black sky; around, the roar

               Of surges smiting on some unseen shore;

               Beneath, the burial-place of rolling waves--

               Flowerless, for ever shifting, wind-dug graves!


               A moment on the riven deck he stands,

               Praying to Heaven with wild uplifted hands,

               Then sees across the liquid wall afar

               A glimmer like a star;

               The lighthouse gleam! Upon the headland black

               The beacon burns and fronts the stormy wrack--

               Sole speck of light on gulfs of darkness, where

               Thunder the sullen breakers of despair...


               The ship is gone... Now in that gulf of death

               He swims and struggles on with failing breath:

               He grasps a plank--it sinks--too frail to upbear

               His leaden load of care;

               Another and another--straws!--they are gone!

               He cries aloud, stifles, and struggles on;

               For still thro’ voids of gloom his straining sight

               Sees the sad glimmer of a steadfast light!


               He gains the rocks... What shining hands are these,

               Reached out to pluck him from the cruel seas?

               What shape is this, that clad in raiment blest

               Now draws him to its breast!...

               Ah, Blessed One, still keeping, day and night,

               The lamp well trimm’d, the heavenly beacon bright,

               He knows Thee now!--he feels the sheltering gleam--

               And lo! the night of storm dissolves in dream!




CHAPTER I.--THE TWO.


               _Miriam_. But whither goest thou?

               _Walter._ On the highest peak,

               Among the snows, there grows a pale blue flower--

               The village maidens call it _Life-in-Death_,

               The old men _Sleep-no-more_; I have sworn to pluck it;

               Many have failed upon the same wild quest,

               And left their bleaching bones among the crags.

               If I should fail------------------------------------

               _Miriam._ Let me go with thee, “Walter!

               Let me not here i’ the valley--let us find

               The blessed flower together, dear, or die!

                        The Sorrowful Shepherdess.


On a windy night in the month of May, the full moon was flashing from
cloud to cloud, each so small that it began to melt instantaneously
beneath her hurried breath; and, in the fulness of the troubled light
that she was shedding, the bright tongues of the sea were creeping up
closer and closer through the creeks of the surrounding land, till they
quivered like quicksilver under the walls of Mossleigh Abbey, standing
dark and lonely amongst the Fens.

It was a night when, even in that solitude, everything seemed
m