A Daughter Of The Druids E-Book

Alice K. Hopkins

• Herausgeber: Jazzybee Verlag
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 311

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2014

Beschreibung

The heroine, Allice de Kymber. inherited, along with the traditional beliefs of her Druid ancestry, a love of astronomy. Her experiments in that science lead her to be suspected of witchcraft, and finally to flee England. The story gives the details of her night and of the romantic episode between a scientific man and a visionary woman. A most weird and fascinating story based upon the astral sciences of old Britain, the ancient ceremonial worship which was termed "Druidism."

Leseprobe

A Daughter of the Druids

A. K. Hopkins

Contents:

A Daughter of the Druids

Introduction

I – An Ancient Name

II – Allice de Kymber

III – Ursula's Lesson

IV – A Home Sybil

V – Hugh

VI – Finding the Key

VII – Yule-Tide at Kymber

VIII – What Old Sol said

IX – Mutterings of the Storm

X – Night in the Coombe

XI – A Witch Hunt

XII – A Belted Knight

XIII – Flight

XIV – The Old Cromlech

XV – Sainte Marie's

XVI – Enfranchisement

A Daughter of the Druids, A. K. Hopkins

Jazzybee Verlag Jürgen Beck

86450 Altenmünster, Loschberg 9

Germany

ISBN: 9783849644901

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A Daughter of the Druids

Introduction

THE Civil Records of England for the year 1408 make mention of the will of Allice de Kymber being offered for probate. Thus we find the earliest English record of Kymber as a place name. It is supposed to have belonged to an estate which changed names with its change of holder.

We have made use of this old name as it suited our purpose to do so because of its Kymric origin.

The stem or root of this ancient patronymic, which antedates even the time of Homer, is variously spelled Kym, Kim, Cim, Cimb, and Cumr; for K and C are interchangeable in this name, while the letters i, y, and n have all the same power in the middle of the syllable.

The word Kym means to turn, to revolve, to rotate, and, singularly enough, as a family cognomen in England it is earliest associated with the wheelwright's craft.

Since Adam gave names to the animals, man has never called things amiss, but always in accordance with some inherent quality or principle which they were originally intended to represent, because this was in the mind of the Maker. We believe, with the ancients, that the significance of names extends even to the human family; for we find indubitable proof of the same in the Scriptures, where names are always expressive of qualities or principles. Every recurrence of the same arrangement of letters (in whatever connection) we hold to have the same significance.

Hence, if the early bearers of this name in Kymry land were in the old time engaged in making cart wheels or chariot wheels for the people, it proves to us that they were prime factors in the world's higher progress, as were those who first bore this ancient and honored patronymic.

A. K. H.

I – An Ancient Name

AMONG the mountains of ancient Cumbria stood the baronial mansion de Kymber. Here, for generations, had dwell those bearing this old name, and claiming direct descent from the North Kymry, or the Celtic Britons who settled this portion of England; a race that history traces across' the German ocean from their home in the North.

Their traditions, which are still current, also affirm that before they settled here they dwelt in the "summer country" from which they had escaped by ship, at the time of a great flood.

The de Kymbers, who still bore that old race name, claimed to have been lords of the soil since the days when, under the leadership of "Hugh the Mighty," their ancestors took Britain without arms; so their hereditary acres were doubly dear to them for the traditions with which these were associated.

They affirmed that the family and race patronymic had been borne by their ancestors since the time Druidism received its death-blow in Britain, when the flower of the Kymry had perished in defence of their ancient faith.

A prediction that the name of Kym should never die out, but should come down the ages borne by a distinct and peculiar people, was said to have been made by the Druid priestess of this venerable faith, who, with hundreds of its adherents, laid down her life in a final stand for their ancient rites.

But although their sacred groves were destroyed and their temples desecrated by barbarian invaders, the Celtic Britons remained unconquered; for, in the mountains and plains of Cumbria and Cornwall, the North Kymry long maintained their independence, as well as their ancient form of worship.

Names of places in these countries still witness to the prolonged sovereignty of this people, while their uncultivated hills and plains are even today covered with Druidical remains. Here the Celtic or Kymric Britons defended themselves and their ancient inheritance long after the rest of England had submitted to Saxon rule.

The subjugation of this race was, indeed, never accomplished, as is attested by the fact that its language and literature still survive. History is unable to affirm what finally became of this heroic people whose civil codes and customs are today incorporated into all our institutions.

The prophecy of the Druid seeress, to which reference has been made, at least held good at the time of which we write, for representatives of the old name still survived, among the more prominent of whom was the Baron Hugh de Kymber. This title had been borne by three generations, having been conferred upon Egbert de Kymber (the grandfather of the present Baron) for services rendered to the crown.

Into the possession of the said Egbert had at the same time come hundreds of acres of the ancient Kymric domains, which had descended intact to his son and grandson.

Notwithstanding the old blood had been crossed by the colder and more languid Saxon element, the Northern stream still retained its native vigor, as was apparent from age to age in some scion of this house, showing itself in certain characteristics, which, like family resemblances, could be traced throughout the line.

The present Baron de Kymber had in early life been left a widower with two children, and, though the son and daughter who had been to him as the very apple of his eye were now grown to man's and woman's estate, he had not sought to fill their mother's place in his home; for he had regarded his marriage as a union that was not for this world alone.

The ancient Druids were said to have held death in contempt or with indifference because of their unquestioning belief in immortality. The faith of his race in this respect was strong in the heart of the Baron de Kymber, and in all the years which had intervened since his loss, he had never considered himself free to form any other relation than the one which was still sacred to him.

His children had felt the deprivation of a mother's care far less from the fact of their father's devotion; while they were also fortunate in the circumstance that all the servants and dependants of Kymber were old retainers of the family, faithful and loyal to its interests as only long association and community of feeling insure.

The manor house of Kymber was a rambling, commodious structure, built of the rough stone of that region, and originally without architectural pretentions. In the time of the present Baron's father, a turret had been added on the north corner, at which the old mansion had assumed something of a feudal aspect.

Its forest acres, however, made the Barony de Kymber of no small note in that region, for the grand old trees with which it was thickly wooded had been held sacred from the axe for many generations.

No Druid ancestor of the Baron de Kymber had ever a greater love and veneration for the forest temples of nature than had he for the oaks and beeches that reared their stately forms on the mountain side.' These had stood as sentinels of a past with which he was not cognizant, and where they would still stand when he should have passed from the stage of action. To have felled any of the timber on his lands would have been, in this man's estimation, to desecrate a sanctuary.

Nothing disturbed the Baron more than to find that any of his trees had suffered from the storms which at intervals swept that mountainous region.

So the forest growth of de Kymber was not interfered with, and its leafy coverts grew denser from year to year, creating a somber shade in which the Baron delighted, a taste that his friends could neither appreciate nor understand.

Probably a forest shade so entire and continuous could not today be found in any civilized land, so completely does the present age bow at the shrine of the goddess Utilitaria.

The Baron never saw a money value in the monarchs of Kymber, and, while holding them by right of inheritance, he seemed not to consider that they were other than a trust which had come down to him from the long ago.

Tender of all things that had life was this man to whom the suffering of the world was ever present like a personal grief, from which he could escape only as he was able to enter deeply into communion with Nature. In her woody solitudes this burden was sometimes lifted from his heart; for here was granted him a glimpse of the great plan which must eventually bring order out of present chaos. At such moments his faith grew strong in a better day, — the return of the Golden Age, traditions of which his race had always held.

Had not the ancient people claimed to have originally known in the "summer country" a state or condition of life the opposite of that which at present obtains, — where Nature smiled upon her children, and age and sickness were unknown? What did their race traditions mean but that once, somewhere on this planet, man had lived in accordance with God's laws, and so in that harmony with nature which is known only in the Edenic state.

And if once, then again could man have the same experience, since it depended upon himself to bring this condition about.

His friends rallied him on what they termed his Utopian dreams, putting aside and ruling out as impracticable his suggestions for the amelioration of existing ills, until he held his peace regarding those matters which lay nearest his heart. Since it was idle to remonstrate where his was the only dissenting voice, he no longer mingled with his peers in those councils where his birth and position entitled him to a hearing.

Long since had this man come to a realization of the fact that the world's objective point was not his. It was as if he had attained the pole while the rest of his fellow-men were at the equator, so his was the opposite aspect from that which was afforded them. While his pole-star was directly overhead, theirs was still on the horizon.

In the Baron's self-communings over the fact of his turned-about vision, which put him at so great a disadvantage with his age, he did not take into account the Hyperborean origin of his race. In other words, it did not occur to him as the reason of this that he had sprung from the ancient Illuminati, or the people of the pole, —the Kyms or Kimmerians, whose light was not that of the sun, but of the interior vision.

Somewhere along in the centuries his race had accepted the new faith of Christianity, but they had grafted on to this the tenets of the old, never losing sight of that vital truth which had been the life of the former, namely, that the coming of the Christ was to restore the ancient order; for, that man had lapsed from an Edenic state was the very foundation of their race traditions. In Arthur, their great Kymric leader, they had looked for this consummation, not any more fully apprehending than the world does today that the second coming of .the Christ will be in the hearts of men.

"Well, Janet, how have things gone in my absence, and where is Hartkyn tonight?"

As the Baron asked this question he pushed aside the small round stand upon which the old housekeeper had served him his evening repast, for he had returned unexpectedly from Carlisle, whence, he was not looked for before the morrow.

Hartkyn, the old English term of endearment, was: the pet name which Janet had given her nursling.

"Things be mostly as usual, your Worship. If ye be askin' for the bairn, I'm thinkin' ye'll find her in the tower, sin' she's sure to be there o'nights. Naething gangs on up yon that she willna ken," replied the old nurse, giving a vigorous brush to the already tidied hearth as she spoke.

"You do not mean that Allice spends her sleeping hours in scanning the heavens? She must not injure her health in her zeal for knowledge. You should see to that, Janet."

"I didna speer if it war fer nawlege or no that taks her nightly to the tower room. I ony ken she's that daft oboot the stars that mony's the night she gangs not to the bed till marning; but't is in her blude, an ye canna turn them as is born to't."

"What nonsense are you talking, Janet? No one is born to anything. We are not the puppets of fate. We make our own lives, and whatever they are is very largely the result of our own will and act. Hartkyn will listen to reason in this matter. She was never a headstrong or disobedient child," said the Baron, speaking more sharply than was his wont to the old servant whose faithful and untiring service had been given to his children.

"No, that she war not; though the bairn didna lack o' spirit, wi' all her gentle-like ways. But I wouldna be henderin' what mayhap is laid on her. Ye canna say it's no faite, your Worship, sin' the Lord surely kens what He's aboot; an He didna send a Lion-bairn to this hoose fer naught. Ye certain mind tha auld rhyme yer fayther wouldna haive ony o' his'n forgete. I heered the mistress speer him aboot it one tyme, an' I 'm certain she mynded its meanin', too, fer jest ,afore the bairn cam she say to me,' Janet, my baby will be the first Lion-child for three generations of de Kymbers,' an' when I speered her what that might mean, she said tha meanin' was in tha auld rhyme, and then she speket an' I seen it had ta'en holt on her."

The Baron was visibly affected by this reminder of his wife, who had lived only long enough after the birth of her child to learn that it was a daughter who had come of the lineage referred to, a lineage anciently held to be royal. In other words, a child of the sun, which the old kings claimed to be when born in the sun's sign, or that of the Lion.

"I know," returned the Baron, "that our race has always held a great regard for the midsummer sign, or the Heart-month of August. It was the sacred month of the Hebrews and Egyptians, because that of the overshadowing. Its symbolical expression is zeal, courage, enthusiasm, or the nobler and more august qualities of the heart and spirit. The rhyming prophecy to which you allude runs in this way, — "' When a Lion-child comes in To the ancient house of Kym, He will bring the mystic lore Which the fathers had of yore; For they shall in every age Read aright the starry page.'"

"Yes, and that's what the bairn be always a doin'; but why shouldna she if tha auld rhyme be true. Tha Lion means a power o'ripenin', your fayther user to say; and when tha bairn cam it war liker to gatherin' time nor midsummer so to tha fore war every growin' thing. "' She willna be ony o'yer half-fledged birdlings, fer she haiv come wi' wings,' I said when I first seen her, an' so in truth she had. Ye neer wist her creep tha step, an ye couldna mair holt her doon than tha eagle's young. Ye needna tell me some are na born to soar and some to crawl."

In her indignant refutation of the charge of talking nonsense, Janet had indulged in a volubility without precedent in all her years of service in the Baron's house.

"I see that you think the Lion rampant a fitting blazonry for your nursling, the ancient insignia and symbol of royalty," said the Baron, who appreciated the old nurse's fondness for the child she had reared.

"Yes, an' tha Lord think just that same too, else He hadna sent her when he did; for seed-time an' harvest an' winter an' summer are na mixt up in His plan," was the old servant's response.

Leaving Janet, who liked nothing better than to talk of her bairn, as she called the child so early left motherless, the Baron made his way to the turret room, to find his daughter.

II – Allice de Kymber

As we have before said, the tower of Kymber manor had been added in the time of the Baron's father. Here had been fitted up an observatory opening to the four cardinal points of the compass, and furnished with such appliances for the study of the heavenly bodies as that age afforded.

Traditionally the de Kymbers had been students of the heavenly science, though not from the astronomical stand-point of today; and not only had the taste descended to the present generation, but so had also a wealth of arcane lore on the subject.

Here were works which would delight the soul of a savant of this science, had he the key to the same; but without this he might as well possess the whole Hermetic library of antiquity, so far as being able to grasp its sealed and hidden treasures.

Could profane astronomy read even the alphabet of this heavenly wisdom, its students would not attribute to any mortal monarch India's mystical conception of that royalty, "whose standard is the sun, whose retinue is the moon, whose lance is Mars; his pen, Mercury; his attendant, Venus; his signet, Jupiter; and his sentinel, Saturn."

Allice de Kymber heard her father's step on the turret stair, but, being at the moment intent upon an observation, she did not at once turn to greet him.

Surpassing fair at all times, she now sat bathed in the soft moonlight which flooded the room, giving to her finely moulded features a sheen that made her face unearthly in its beauty.

The Baron paused for a moment on the threshold, as if he would make sure that the figure wrapped as it were in a veil of light was not a visitant from some other realm.

"It is you, then, Allice, and not a spirit?" he said, as she turned and faced him.

"It is I, papa, spirit and body, too; but when did you come home, and why did not Mammy Jan call me?"

"I returned a little while since, and Janet has waited upon me. I found it was not necessary to spend the night in Carlisle, and so I am here.

You, I see, are

 "' Arectyng your syght towarde the zodiake

The sygns Twelve for to behold afarre.'"

"Yes, but I am sorry you had to come and find me." This was said with a tender caress of the face which, for a moment, bent over her.

"I thought I would come up and participate in your game of bo-peep," said the Baron, seating himself in the comfortable arm-chair which he always occupied on his visits to the "star chamber," as he facetiously called the tower room.

"I saw your brother Hugh, and he promised to send Ursula to Kymber next month, as you desired.

He seemed to see no reason why she could not come on such a visit."

"Then Clarissa must have removed her interdict," Allice returned; "for she refused to allow the child a recess from her studies. Clarissa need have no fears that Ursula will not keep up with her lessons, if she does spend a week or two every season here. I want Hugh's little daughter to associate her childhood with the old place so she may be as fond of it as her father and I were, besides, a town life must always starve a nature like Ursula's."

"Has the game of eye-spy begun?" the Baron presently asked; for there had stolen over the sweet face a pensive, thoughtful expression which he wished to dispel.

"I came up to see the occultation of Antares by the moon, which will come off shortly," Allice answered, roused from her reverie; "but while waiting Luna's movements I was looking at the nebula in Cancer. Is it not significant, papa, that this star cluster bears the name of the Manger and the Beehive, terms so pregnant with meaning in connection with the symbolism of this sign? It is wonderful how completely the ancient truths are hidden in the letter. How little the world realizes that in the every-day phrases and expressions will yet be found a mine of precious pearls."

"Yes," returned the Baron; "the word "sacred" and the word " profane " are nearer kin than people dream; but the Evangelist covered the whole ground in giving us the sublime, though as yet dark, saying, ' In the beginning was the Word.' I do not follow you, however, in the association of the Manger with the sign Cancer."

"You know, papa, this sign was always called by the ancients the Northern Gate, or the Gate of Men. When we remember that Cancer is the breast sign, we see the significance of its symbolism, for, 'with the first breath man becomes a living being. The term Manger, as associated with this sign, which is also the starting point of each great cycle, suggests the mystery of the incarnation which takes place in the birth of every child. In other words, the offspring of a divine paternity, but mothered by Nature, is wrapped in the swaddling bands of the flesh and laid in a manger. Like the Babe in Bethlehem, he shares with the animal life about him even the very air that he breathes. Cancer is peculiarly the symbol of the incarnation, as the Chaldean philosophy taught, and hence it is the manger wherein the Christ is laid.

"' Call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven,' were the words of Him who knew whereof He spake.

"Here is symbolized the taking up the cross of the flesh, or the physical body, which are the conditions of earth life into which man comes, and which is expressed in the principle of Cancer, or the breast sign. Is it not significant in this connection that the head of the Hydra always rises with the sign Cancer?"

"Yes, the monster of greed and desire, which is man's inheritance through the flesh, does indeed assail the child in the cradle, as the myth tells us — that bequest of Juno, or Nature, who imposes the first Herculean labor," the Baron said thoughtfully.

"Cancer has always been rightly called 'the dark constellation,'" Allice returned; "not that it has so few bright stars (the reason generally assigned), but because it has never given its light to the world.

Like the pot-hook characters which designate this sign, it has proven an unreadable hieroglyphic to the savants. God ever chooses the so-called simple and foolish things to confound the wise and prudent. To me, there is not a more interesting stargroup in the heavens than that of the Crab."

"Very naturally, daughter, do you find the symbol of the Crab interesting, for you have not so untiringly investigated the ancient Kymric traditions without learning that they all cluster about those long-ago periods of time when the sun was in the two most northern symbols, the Lion and the Crab. The first was that of the great solstice, the summer of the race, in which man reached his higher tropic, and halted for a season ere starting again on the path of declination for another round of the circle. The s-u-n and the s-o-n always commence their declension in the sign of the backward-moving Crab."

"Yes, papa, and the Crab still holds this secret in its grip, —the fact that it is at the breast, or the sign Cancer, that man individually and collectively' starts upon his progress through matter, the declension which must precede his right ascension.

"It is significant," Allice added, musingly, "that the Scarabaeus, with its encased and folded wings, was Egypt's symbol for the breast sign. Here is a wonderful analogy to the powers with which man comes into the world, powers that are fettered by the thrall of the flesh which must be thrown off before his metamorphosis is accomplished. He too, like the Scarabaeus, has to outgrow and put away his bonds when he also mounts into that higher region of existence where the mystery of his grub life is solved. Here is the manger because here the Son comes into the swaddling clothes of matter. The fathers of the church recognized that Jesus had accomplished this metamorphosis when they called him the Scarabaeus."

"I see the connection in your mind," returned the Baron. "The breast of the grand body, like the maternal breast, is indeed the starting-point of the race, where man enters upon his material existence, which is, in truth, a declension, since his home is heaven."

"Very properly did the ancient Druids reckon all their years and ages from the sign Cancer," the Baron added; "for this was their own starting-point in the great cycle. In other words, their race had attained supremacy in the sun-period of Cancer.

When the moon was six days old in Cancer (just before its first quarter) was when they always gathered the sacred mistletoe. This was the 'all heal' fruit of Jove's tree, the oak, which was their own family tree. This golden bough of the oak was the mystic branch that won the way to Elysium, as Virgil tells us; and the cyclic poets understood what they were talking of when they handled this subject."

"Do you know, papa, why the Druids gathered the golden fruit of the oak in the first quarter of the moon rather than at any other time?"

"This doubtless was the period of its perfect maturity; but the sacredness with which they regarded it had to do with the mystic truth that it was the fruit of the sun's and the moon's conjunction. In her first quarter, Luna has just issued from her conjunction with the great luminary, which last was to the Druids the symbol of spirit, or the fecundating principle of life, while Luna typified the feminine or gestative attribute of nature. Hence, the mistletoe, which bloomed at this time, was symbolic of the issue of the divine overshadowing. Naturally did they regard it as the 'all heal' fruit, by which man might win his way to Elysium."

"Every phenomenon of the visible world had to them a significance which they interpreted. Every position of the moon had its symbolical expression as did every feature of nature. What of this has survived is no longer known as the ancient wisdom. For instance, it is from the quarterings of the moon that we get the quarterings of heraldry. The Druids were the people of the first quarter, or the first fruits of the great conjunction of spirit and matter. They also belonged to the first quarter of this cycle. Hence, the first quarter of the shield has always been the home position or place of honor."

"Then the crescent moon was peculiarly their symbol, and that is why the Druid priests always wore it on their robes," Alice returned thoughtfully.

After this neither spoke for a time. Alice was occupied with the obscuration of Antares, and when this star of the Scorpion issued from Luna's disk, she gave a little sigh.

"What is it, love?" asked her father, who had not been unobservant of the shadow which had stolen over her face.

"I was thinking of the evil and suffering which human passion has wrought. How fittingly is the sting of sin typified by the poisonous venom of the scorpion's bite. This produces a lethargy of the senses as sin does of the soul."

A moment afterward this cloud seemed to have passed from her spirit; for she said, with her usual brightness of manner, — "You know, papa, that right ascension is always reckoned from Aries, or the sign of the Ram. Did it ever occur to you that this physical law veils a spiritual one, — that from Aries all real or higher progress must begin?"

"I do not understand," the Baron replied. "What has the symbol of the Ram to do with man's advancement?"

'Everything," was the other's response. "Do you not see that the sign Aries marks the function of the cerebrum, the attribute of reason and of the physical and mental sensations?" she asked, pointing to the opposite wall, where hung the ancient zodiacal figure, with all the signs apportioned to their respective places in the body.

"Antiquity did not assign this symbol of the Ram to the superior brain, and also to the organs of mental and physical vision, without a mystic significance. It is through the attributes here symbolized that all human advancement is made. In other words, through the Ram-function, man, too, commences his right ascension; for there is no law of the heavenly bodies which does not hold good of the race."

"The cerebrum is, as you say, the sensorium of the whole organism, where all sensation is first cognized. Yes, this attribute is in truth the battering-ram in which the human forces are centered; for the head, as with the ram, is man's organ of attack and defence," said the Baron, who a moment afterwards added, — "In this function, which is symbolized by the Ram, takes place the subtlest expenditure of force, or the primal element of being. One of the best established premises of science is that where work is done, force is always in some way diffused. In this attribute we have a practical illustration of this law, for, in the exercise of thought and reason, man makes the noblest offering of his powers. In this sense, the cerebrum becomes the altar of sacrifice, and whether its fires shall burn upward or downward is decided by the use made of the life force, or parent-principle; for force is, indeed, the great first cause of all things.

"Yes, right ascension, or upward progress, must ever be reckoned from Aries, or the principle here indicated. Naturally has the ram always been an emblem of sacrifice. Here is profound mystical teaching. The fleece of the ram is indeed always clothing humanity."

"You know it is claimed, papa, that, by a nice calculation between Arietis in the horn of the Ram and the moon, a skilful navigator, if lost on an unknown sea, may find his way to any meridian or harbor on the earth's surface. Just so may man, if astray on the sea of life, by bringing to bear reason and faith (or Arietis and the moon) steer his course safely for the heavenly port."

"I recognize that the horn of the Ram is an appropriate figure or trope to signify reason, which is also an emanation from the head; but what is your ground for regarding the moon as symbolic of faith?" the Baron asked, unable to follow his child in this higher flight.

"Why, as you said a little while since, papa, the moon is symbolic of the negative or receptive principle. Luna is a fair type of the mind, for they neither of them reflect their own light, but only what they borrow from their great luminaries.

"Just as the earth, in turning away from the sun, brings upon itself its night, or state of non-luminosity, so did man, in turning away from the more direct light of the spirit, find himself obliged to depend upon its reflected light which intellect affords him. Half of his nature, however, is always, like the earth, illuminated; but it is that other half which is not apparent. Therefore the moon is a fitting symbol of the enlightened mind, and hence of faith, which is the highest action of the mind — its rising above the horizon line. Like the moon, however, it must rise before it can illuminate man's night. So you see, papa, that between Arietis and the moon the sea of life is safely sailed, as the heavens are ever declaring."

"How long have you been finding these meanings in the stars, my daughter? If I mistake not you have the key to the great enigma," said the Baron gravely.

"The veiled or mystic significance of the starry symbols has been apparent to me for a long time.

Only of late, however, has it become a coherent message. Symbolism is the ancient language of our race, papa, and it is to me like the recovery of my mother-tongue. I am sure that the early Druids had this same knowledge, for Caesar himself tells us that they were proficients in the most sublime philosophy, and that they interpreted the mysteries of religion from the signs and stars of heaven."

The remonstrance which had been on the Baron's lips as he came up the turret stairs remained unspoken. He saw, with Janet, that interference on his part would be like that of the fool, who walks rough shod where angels fear to tread. He could not clip the wings that bore his child into that higher atmosphere of thought which seemed her native air.

"Shall I tell you, papa, the message that Mira, the Wonderful, brought me last night? rather, it was this morning, for I had come up here, as I often do, just before daylight. I had been studying this star of the Whale for some time; but its real significance did not dawn upon me till then. It seemed big with portent at the moment, for I never saw it brighter; and it suddenly brought to me the dawn indeed."

"I perceive," said her father, smiling, "that you are a true disciple of Dis, or the night, which reveals what the day conceals."

"Yes, papa, we have but to look upward in our night of sense to be fully illuminated, as did the Druid priests, who claimed to be disciples and children of Dis. It is significant that the very word means to separate or put apart."

"They were, indeed, Nature's own children," replied the Baron; "the heralds of her earliest teaching. But tell me about the Whale. What did the sea monster have to proffer my Andromeda?"

"It was no menace that Cetus offered me, papa, but simply light, which the Whale has always furnished to the world. It is significant that the star Mira, so distinguished for its variable brightness, is situated in the head of the Whale; the very place where, in the animal, is found the sperm oil, and also, the sperma ceti (or sperm of ceti).

The mystic Cetus it is, indeed, as the Latin name affirms.

"The ancients well knew what they were doing when they gave to this group of stars the hieroglyphic of the whale — which is the symbol of natural or material science.

"Like the monster of the deep, so has natural science afforded man the flickering and uncertain light by which he has come up the ages; while constantly reversing its premises, still leading on.

Like the artificial light of the present day, science throws near objects into strong relief, leaving the more distant in obscurity, meanwhile distorting and making formidable mere shadows, because lighting but a step at a time. Natural science, like the candle held in the hand, illuminates the way only as man himself advances.

"But Mira, the Wonderful, has been all the while bidding the world look up at the heavenly mirage, where material science finds reflected its double, or complement, which is destined yet to fully illumine the way, because its light is from, above.

"As the myth tells us, Andromeda, the divine maid, significant, of intuition, or the soul's consciousness, is ever at the mercy of man's disposal of the light. It is the sperm of the whale that illuminates; so also is it the same divine oil that lights the lamp of intellect."

"Do you take Reason to be symbolized in Perseus, the hero who frees Andromeda?" the Baron asked.

"Yes; Reason, armed by Athena and shod by Mercury, can alone gain the victory over the Gorgon, Sense; for the Medusa head is the medulla oblongata which registers only the physical impressions, not the soul's monitions. The very name 'Perseus' suggests the heroic pursuit of the Gorgon head which makes man insensate with its stony charm. Overcoming of the importunate demands of sense brings about his betrothal with the divine maid, or the soul's consciousness, which is here signified. Perhaps you do not remember, papa, that the constellations of Perseus and Cetus both belong to the sign Aries, of which they are decans or parts."

"From the Latin word decan we get the term decade, do we not?" the Baron asked.

"Yes, and here it implies a third part of the sign. The decans of a sign appear upon the meridian with it, and so the ancient order has always been kept. The decans and signs cannot be separated, as the world has more than once proved.

In the middle ages it appears that an attempt was made to substitute David, with the head of Goliath, in the place of the rescuer Perseus, with the head of Medusa; but the voice of the people, which is ever the voice of God, was raised against it, and thus the divine record remained unbroken."