The Judgment House   By: Gilbert Parker (1862-1932)

by

Gilbert Parker

CONTENTS

I THE JASMINE FLOWER II THE UNDERGROUND WORLD III A DAUGHTER OF TYRE IV THE PARTNERS MEET V A WOMAN TELLS HER STORY VI WITHIN THE POWER HOUSE VII THREE YEARS LATER VIII "HE SHALL NOT TREAT ME SO" IX THE APPIAN WAY X AN ARROW FINDS A BREAST XI IN WALES, WHERE JIGGER PLAYS HIS PART XII THE KEY IN THE LOCK XIII "I WILL NOT SING" XIV THE BAAS XV THE WORLD WELL LOST XVI THE COMING OF THE BAAS XVII IS THERE NO HELP FOR THESE THINGS? XVIII LANDRASSY'S LAST STROKE XIX TO MORROW ... PREPARE! XX THE FURNACE DOOR XXI THE BURNING FIERY FURNACE XXII IN WHICH FELLOWES GOES A JOURNEY XXIII "MORE WAS LOST AT MOHACKSFIELD" XXIV ONE WHO CAME SEARCHING XXV WHEREIN THE LOST IS FOUND XXVI JASMINE'S LETTER XXVII KROOL XXVIII "THE BATTLE CRY OF FREEDOM" XXIX THE MENACE OF THE MOUNTAIN XXX "AND NEVER THE TWAIN SHALL MEET!" XXXI THE GREY HORSE AND ITS RIDER XXXII THE WORLD'S FOUNDLING XXXIII "ALAMACHTIG!" XXXIV "THE ALPINE FELLOW" XXXV AT BRINKWORT'S FARM XXXVI SPRINGS OF HEALING XXXVII UNDER THE GUN XXXVIII "PHEIDIPPIDES" XXXIX "THE ROAD IS CLEAR"

NOTE

Except where references to characters well known to all the world occur in these pages, this book does not present a picture of public or private individuals living or dead. It is not in any sense a historical novel. It is in conception and portraiture a work of the imagination.

"Strangers come to the outer wall (Why do the sleepers stir?) Strangers enter the Judgment House (Why do the sleepers sigh?) Slow they rise in their judgment seats, Sieve and measure the naked souls, Then with a blessing return to sleep. (Quiet the Judgment House.) Lone and sick are the vagrant souls (When shall the world come home?)"

"Let them fight it out, friend! things have gone too far, God must judge the couple: leave them as they are Whichever one's the guiltless, to his glory, And whichever one the guilt's with, to my story!

"Once more. Will the wronger, at this last of all, Dare to say, 'I did wrong,' rising in his fall? No? Let go, then! Both the fighters to their places! While I count three, step you back as many paces!"

"And the Sibyl, you know. I saw her with my own eyes at Cumae, hanging in a jar; and when the boys asked her, 'What would you, Sibyl?' she answered, 'I would die.'"

"So is Pheidippides happy for ever, the noble strong man Who would race like a God, bear the face of a God, whom a God loved so well: He saw the land saved he had helped to save, and was suffered to tell Such tidings, yet never decline, but, gloriously as he began So to end gloriously once to shout, thereafter to be mute: 'Athens is saved!' Pheidippides dies in the shout for his meed."

"Oh, never star Was lost here, but it rose afar."

THE JUDGMENT HOUSE

BOOK I

CHAPTER I

THE JASMINE FLOWER

The music throbbed in a voice of singular and delicate power; the air was resonant with melody, love and pain. The meanest Italian in the gallery far up beneath the ceiling, the most exalted of the land in the boxes and the stalls, leaned indulgently forward, to be swept by this sweet storm of song. They yielded themselves utterly to the power of the triumphant debutante who was making "Manassa" the musical feast of the year, renewing to Covent Garden a reputation which recent lack of enterprise had somewhat forfeited.