The Return of Don Quixote

“And where is that, I wonder?” said Rosamund in a low voice.

“How should we know,” cried Olive, “who have driven away the men who knew?”

A deep chasm of silence opened between them; and at last Rosamund said in her simple way; “I am very stupid. I shall have to try to think about what you mean. I’m sure you won’t mind if we don’t talk any more now.”

Olive went back slowly across the green courts and out of the shadow of the grey walls and found John Braintree waiting for her. They went away together, but were rather silent for the first part of the walk; then Olive said suddenly; “What a strange story all this is . . . I mean ever since I started poor Monkey ru

“I should have tried to get him his rights, I hope,” replied Braintree.

“Oh you are always so rabid about rights,” she said laughing with a faint impatience. “And poor Rosamund . . . you must admit you do talk a terrible lot about rights. Are you quite sure about them?”

“I hope to do a terrible lot about them before I’ve done,” replied the implacable politician.

“But do you,” she asked, “think anybody has really a right to be so happy?”

He laughed shortly and they went out along the grey road toward Milldyke.

CHAPTER XIX

THE RETURN OF DON QUIXOTE

Someday perhaps the story will be told of the adventures of the new Don Quixote and the new Sancho Panza, as they wandered about the winding roads of England. From the standpoint of the cold and satiric populace the story was rather that of the progress of the hansom cab, through scenes where hansom cabs very rarely figure. It was perhaps an unprecedented progress through forest glades and across desolate uplands; and as a method of travel chosen by a knight and his squire new even in the a

“They say I am behind the times,” said Herne, “and living in the days that Don Quixote dreamed of. They seemed to forget that they themselves are at least three hundred years behind the times and living in the days when Cervantes dreamed of Don Quixote. They are still living in the Renaissance; in what Cervantes naturally regarded as the New Birth. But I say that a baby that is three hundred years old is already getting on in life. It is time he was born again.”

“Is he to be born again,” asked Murrel, “as a medieval knight-errant?”

“Why not?” asked the other, “if the Renaissance man was born again as an Ancient Greek? Cervantes thought that Romance was dying and that Reason might reasonably take its place. But I say that in our time Reason is dying, in that sense; and it is old age is really less respectable than the old romance. We want to recur to the more simple and direct attack. What we want now is somebody who does believe in tilting at giants.”

“And who succeeds in tilting at windmills,” answered Murrel.

“Have you ever reflected,” said his friend, “what a good thing it would have been if he had smashed the windmills? From what I know now of medieval history, I should say his only mistake was in tilting at the mills instead of the millers. The miller was the middleman of the middle ages. He was the begi

“Don’t you think,” asked Murrel, “that modern things are too complicated to be dealt with in such a simple way?”

“I think,” replied Herne, “that modern things are too complicated to be dealt with except in a simple way.”

He rose from his feet and strode to and fro on the road with all the dreamy energy of his prototype. He seemed trying to tear his real meaning out of himself.

“Don’t you see,” he cried, “that is the moral of the whole thing. All your machinery has become so inhuman that it has become natural. In becoming a second nature, it has become as remote and indifferent and cruel as nature. The Knight is once more riding in the forest. Only he is lost in the wheels instead of in the woods. You have made your dead system on so large a scale that you do not yourselves know how or where it will hit. That’s the paradox! Things have grown incalculable by being calculated. You have tied men to tools so gigantic that they do not know on whom the strokes descend. You have justified the nightmare of Don Quixote. The mills really are giants.”

“Is there any method in that case,” demanded the other.

“Yes; and you found it,” replied Herne. “You did not bother about systems, when you saw a mad doctor was madder than the madman. It is you who lead and I who follow. You are not Sancho Panza. You are the other.”

He stretched out his hand with something of the old gesture.

“What I said on the judgment-seat I say again by the roadside. You are the only one of them born again. You are the knight that has returned.”

Douglas Murrel was abruptly and horribly abashed.

That compliment was perhaps the only thing that could have stung him into speech upon certain matters; for under all this tomfoolery he had something more than the reticence of his breed. As it was, he looked uncomfortable and said: “Look here, you mustn’t give me credit like that. I’m not on as Galahad in this scene. I hope I’d have done my best for the old Honkey; but I did like that girl; I liked her rather a lot.”

“Did you tell her so?” asked Herne in his obvious ma

“I couldn’t very well,” replied the other, “just when she was under sort of an obligation to me.”