Virgin of the Sun

Rider Haggard Henry

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pubOne.info present you this new edition. Some five-and-thirty years ago it was our custom to discuss many matters, among them, I think, the history and romance of the vanished Empires of Central America.

Informations

• Publié par: Pub One Info
• Date de parution: 06 novembre 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9782819946120
• Langue: English

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THE VIRGIN OF THE SUN
By H. Rider Haggard
First Published in 1922.
DEDICATION
My Dear Little,
Some five-and-thirty years ago it was our custom todiscuss many matters, among them, I think, the history and romanceof the vanished Empires of Central America.
In memory of those far-off days will you accept atale that deals with one of them, that of the marvellous Incas ofPeru; with the legend also that, long before the Spanish Conquerorsentered on their mission of robbery and ruin, there in thatundiscovered land lived and died a White God risen from thesea?
Ever sincerely yours, H. Rider Haggard. Ditchingham,Oct. 24, 1921.
James Stanley Little, Esq.
THE VIRGIN OF THE SUN
INTRODUCTORY There are some who find great interest,and even consolation, amid the worries and anxieties of life in thecollection of relics of the past, drift or long-sunk treasures thatthe sea of time has washed up upon our modern shore.
The great collectors are not of this class. Havinglarge sums at their disposal, these acquire any rarity that comesupon the market and add it to their store which in due course,perhaps immediately upon their deaths, also will be put upon themarket and pass to the possession of other connoisseurs. Nor arethe dealers who buy to sell again and thus grow wealthy. Nor arethe agents of museums in many lands, who purchase for the nationalbenefit things that are gathered together in certain great publicbuildings which perhaps, some day, though the thought makes oneshiver, will be looted or given to the flames by enemies or byfurious, thieving mobs.
Those that this Editor has in mind, from one of whomindeed he obtained the history printed in these pages, belong to aquite different category, men of small means often, who collect oldthings, for the most part at out-of-the-way sales or privately,because they love them, and sometimes sell them again because theymust. Frequently these old things appeal, not because of anyintrinsic value that they may have, not even for their beauty, forthey may be quite unattractive even to the cultivated eye, butrather for their associations. Such folk love to reflect upon andto speculate about the long-dead individuals who have owned therelics, who have supped their soup from the worn Elizabethan spoon,who have sat at the rickety oak table found in a kitchen or anout-house, or upon the broken, ancient chair. They love to think ofthe little children whose skilful, tired hands wrought the fadedsampler and whose bright eyes smarted over its innumerablestitches.
Who, for instance, was the May Shore (“Fairy”broidered in a bracket underneath, was her pet name), who finishedyonder elaborate example on her tenth birthday, the 1st of May—doubtless that is where she got her name— in the year 1702, and onwhat far shore does she keep her birthdays now? None will everknow. She has vanished into the great sea of mystery whence shecame, and there she lives and has her being, forgotten upon earth,or sleeps and sleeps and sleeps. Did she die young or old, marriedor single? Did she ever set her children to work othersamplers, or had she none? was she happy or unhappy, was she homelyor beautiful? Was she a sinner or a saint? Again none will everknow. She was born on the 1st of May, 1692, and certainly she diedon some date unrecorded. So far as human knowledge goes that is allher history, just as much or as little as will be left of most ofus who breathe to-day when this earth has completed two hundred andeighteen more revolutions round the sun.
But the kind of collector alluded to can best beexemplified in the individual instance of him from whom themanuscript was obtained, of which a somewhat modernized version isprinted on these pages. He has been dead some years, leaving nokin; and under his will, such of his motley treasures as it caredto accept went to a local museum, while the rest and his otherproperty were sold for the benefit of a mystical brotherhood, forthe old fellow was a kind of spiritualist. Therefore, there is noharm in giving his plebeian name, which was Potts. Mr. Potts had asmall draper's shop in an undistinguished and rarely visitedcountry town in the east of England, which shop he ran with thehelp of an assistant almost as old and peculiar as himself. Whetherhe made anything out of it or whether he lived upon private meansis now unknown and does not matter. Anyway, when there wassomething of antiquarian interest or value to be bought, generallyhe had the money to pay for it, though at times, in order to do so,he was forced to sell something else. Indeed these were the onlyoccasions when it was possible to purchase anything, indifferenthosiery excepted, from Mr. Potts.
Now, I, the Editor, who also love old things, and towhom therefore Mr. Potts was a sympathetic soul, was aware of thisfact and entered into an arrangement with the peculiar assistant towhom I have alluded, to advise me of such crises which arosewhenever the local bank called Mr. Potts's attention to the stateof his account. Thus it came about that one day I received thefollowing letter:—
Sir,
The Guv'nor has gone a bust upon some cracked china,the ugliest that ever I saw though no judge. So if you want to getthat old tall clock at the first price or any other of his rubbish,I think now is your chance. Anyhow, keep this dark as peragreement.
Your obedient, Tom.
(He always signed himself Tom, I suppose to mystify,although I believe his real name was Betterly. )
The result of this epistle was a long anddisagreeable bicycle ride in wet autumn weather, and a visit to theshop of Mr. Potts. Tom, alias Betterly, who was trying to sell somemysterious undergarments to a fat old woman, caught sight of me,the Editor aforesaid, and winked. In a shadowed corner of the shopsat Mr. Potts himself upon a high stool, a wizened little old manwith a bent back, a bald head, and a hooked nose upon which wereset a pair of enormous horn-rimmed spectacles that accentuated hisgeneral resemblance to an owl perched upon the edge of itsnest-hole. He was busily engaged in doing nothing, and in staringinto nothingness as, according to Tom, was his habit when communingwith what he, Tom, called his “dratted speerits. ”
“Customer! ” said Tom in a harsh voice. “Sorry todisturb you at your prayers, Guv'nor, but not having two pair ofhands I can't serve a crowd, ” meaning the old woman of theundergarments and myself.
Mr. Potts slid off his stool and prepared foraction. When he saw, however, who the customer was he bristled—that is the only word for it. The truth is that although between usthere was an inward and spiritual sympathy, there was also anoutward and visible hostility. Twice I had outbid Mr. Potts at alocal auction for articles which he desired. Moreover, after thefashion of every good collector he felt it to be his duty to hateme as another collector. Lastly, several times I had offered himsmaller sums for antiques upon which he set a certain monetaryvalue. It is true that long ago I had given up this bargaining forthe reason that Mr. Potts would never take less than he asked.Indeed he followed the example of the vendor of the Sibylline booksin ancient Rome. He did not destroy the goods indeed after thefashion of that person and demand the price of all of them for theone that remained, but invariably he put up his figure by 10 percent. and nothing would induce him to take off one farthing.
“What do you want, sir? ” he said grumpily.“Vests, hose, collars, or socks? ”
“Oh, socks, I think, ” I replied at hazard, thinkingthat they would be easiest to carry, whereupon Mr. Potts producedsome peculiarly objectionable and shapeless woollen articles whichhe almost threw at me, saying that they were all he had in stock.Now I detest woollen socks and never wear them. Still, I made apurchase, thinking with sympathy of my old gardener whose feet theywould soon be scratching, and while the parcel was being tied up,said in an insinuating voice, “Anything fresh upstairs, Mr. Potts?”
“No, sir, ” he answered shortly, “at least, notmuch, and if there were what's the use of showing them to you afterthe business about that clock? ”
“It was £15 you wanted for it, Mr. Potts? ” Iasked.
“No, sir, it was £17 and now it's 10 per cent. on tothat; you can work out the sum for yourself. ”
“Well, let's have another look at it, Mr. Potts, ” Ireplied humbly, whereon with a grunt and a muttered injunction toTom to mind the shop, he led the way upstairs.
Now the house in which Mr. Potts dwelt had once beenof considerable pretensions and was very, very old, Elizabethan, Ishould think, although it had been refronted with a horrible stuccoto suit modern tastes. The oak staircase was good though narrow,and led to numerous small rooms upon two floors above, some ofwhich rooms were panelled and had oak beams, now whitewashed likethe panelling— at least they had once been whitewashed, probably inthe last generation.
These rooms were literally crammed with every sortof old furniture, most of it decrepit, though for many of thearticles dealers would have given a good price. But at dealers Mr.Potts drew the line; not one of them had ever set a foot upon thatoaken stair. To the attics the place was filled with this furnitureand other articles such as books, china, samplers with the glassbroken, and I know not what besides, piled in heaps upon the floor.Indeed where Mr. Potts slept was a mystery; either it must havebeen under the counter in his shop, or perhaps at nights heinhabited a worm-eaten Jacobean bedstead which stood in an attic,for I observed a kind of pathway to it running through a number oflegless chairs, also some dirty blankets between the moth-riddledcurtains.
Not far from this bedstead, propped in anintoxicated way against the sloping wall of the old house, stoodthe clock which I desired. It was one of the first “regulator”clocks with a wooden pendulum, used by the maker himself to checkthe time-keeping of all his other clocks,