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The Ball And The Cross
By
G. K. Chesterton
Contents
I. A
DISCUSSION SOMEWHAT IN THE AIR
II.
THE RELIGION OF THE STIPENDIARY MAGISTRATE.
VII.
THE VILLAGE OF GRASSLEY-IN-THE-HOLE.
VIII.
AN INTERLUDE OF ARGUMENT
I. A DISCUSSION SOMEWHAT =
IN
THE AIR
The flying ship of
Professor Lucifer sang through the skies like a silver arrow; the bleak whi=
te
steel of it, gleaming in the bleak blue emptiness of the evening. That it w=
as
far above the earth was no expression for it; to the two men in it, it seem=
ed
to be far above the stars. The professor had himself invented the flying
machine, and had also invented nearly everything in it. Every sort of tool =
or
apparatus had, in consequence, to the full, that fantastic and distorted lo=
ok which
belongs to the miracles of science. For the world of science and evolution =
is
far more nameless and elusive and like a dream than the world of poetry and
religion; since in the latter images and ideas remain themselves eternally,
while it is the whole idea of evolution that identities melt into each othe=
r as
they do in a nightmare.
All the tools of
Professor Lucifer were the ancient human tools gone mad, grown into
unrecognizable shapes, forgetful of their origin, forgetful of their names.
That thing which looked like an enormous key with three wheels was really a
patent and very deadly revolver. That object which seemed to be created by =
the
entanglement of two corkscrews was really the key. The thing which might ha=
ve
been mistaken for a tricycle turned upside-down was the inexpressibly impor=
tant
instrument to which the corkscrew was the key. All these things, as I say, =
the professor
had invented; he had invented everything in the flying ship, with the
exception, perhaps, of himself. This he had been born too late actually to
inaugurate, but he believed at least, that he had considerably improved it.=
There was, howeve=
r,
another man on board, so to speak, at the time. Him, also, by a curious
coincidence, the professor had not invented, and him he had not even very
greatly improved, though he had fished him up with a lasso out of his own b=
ack
garden, in Western Bulgaria, with the pure object of improving him. He was =
an
exceedingly holy man, almost entirely covered with white hair. You could see
nothing but his eyes, and he seemed to talk with them. A monk of immense
learning and acute intellect he had made himself happy in a little stone hut
and a little stony garden in the Balkans, chiefly by writing the most crush=
ing
refutations of exposures of certain heresies, the last professors of which =
had
been burnt (generally by each other) precisely 1,119 years previously. They=
were
really very plausible and thoughtful heresies, and it was really a creditab=
le
or even glorious circumstance, that the old monk had been intellectual enou=
gh
to detect their fallacy; the only misfortune was that nobody in the modern
world was intellectual enough even to understand their argument. The old mo=
nk,
one of whose names was Michael, and the other a name quite impossible to
remember or repeat in our Western civilization, had, however, as I have sai=
d,
made himself quite happy while he was in a mountain hermitage in the societ=
y of
wild animals. And now that his luck had lifted him above all the mountains =
in the
society of a wild physicist, he made himself happy still.
"I have no
intention, my good Michael," said Professor Lucifer, "of endeavou=
ring
to convert you by argument. The imbecility of your traditions can be quite
finally exhibited to anybody with mere ordinary knowledge of the world, the
same kind of knowledge which teaches us not to sit in draughts or not to
encourage friendliness in impecunious people. It is folly to talk of this or
that demonstrating the rationalist philosophy. Everything demonstrates it.
Rubbing shoulders with men of all kinds----"
"You will forgive me," said the monk, meekly from under loads of white beard, "but I fear I do not understand; was it in order that I might rub my shoulder against men of all kinds that you put me inside this thing?"<= o:p>
"An entertai=
ning
retort, in the narrow and deductive manner of the Middle Ages," replied
the Professor, calmly, "but even upon your own basis I will illustrate=
my
point. We are up in the sky. In your religion and all the religions, as far=
as
I know (and I know everything), the sky is made the symbol of everything th=
at
is sacred and merciful. Well, now you are in the sky, you know better. Phra=
se
it how you like, twist it how you like, you know that you know better. You =
know
what are a man's real feelings about the heavens, when he finds himself alo=
ne
in the heavens, surrounded by the heavens. You know the truth, and the trut=
h is
this. The heavens are evil, the sky is evil, the stars are evil. This mere
space, this mere quantity, terrifies a man more than tigers or the terrible
plague. You know that since our science has spoken, the bottom has fallen o=
ut
of the Universe. Now, heaven is the hopeless thing, more hopeless than any
hell. Now, if there be any comfort for all your miserable progeny of morbid
apes, it must be in the earth, underneath you, under the roots of the grass=
, in
the place where hell was of old. The fiery crypts, the lurid cellars of the
underworld, to which you once condemned the wicked, are hideous enough, but=
at
least they are more homely than the heaven in which we ride. And the time w=
ill
come when you will all hide in them, to escape the horror of the stars.&quo=
t;
"I hope you =
will
excuse my interrupting you," said Michael, with a slight cough, "=
but
I have always noticed----"
"Go on, pray=
go
on," said Professor Lucifer, radiantly, "I really like to draw out
your simple ideas."
"Well, the f=
act
is," said the other, "that much as I admire your rhetoric and the
rhetoric of your school, from a purely verbal point of view, such little st=
udy
of you and your school in human history as I have been enabled to make has =
led
me to--er--rather singular conclusion, which I find great difficulty in
expressing, especially in a foreign language."
"Come,
come," said the Professor, encouragingly, "I'll help you out. How=
did
my view strike you?"
"Well, the t=
ruth
is, I know I don't express it properly, but somehow it seemed to me that you
always convey ideas of that kind with most eloquence, when--er--when----&qu=
ot;
"Oh! get
on," cried Lucifer, boisterously.
"Well, in po=
int
of fact when your flying ship is just going to run into something. I thought
you wouldn't mind my mentioning it, but it's running into something now.&qu=
ot;
Lucifer exploded =
with
an oath and leapt erect, leaning hard upon the handle that acted as a helm =
to
the vessel. For the last ten minutes they had been shooting downwards into
great cracks and caverns of cloud. Now, through a sort of purple haze, coul=
d be
seen comparatively near to them what seemed to be the upper part of a huge,
dark orb or sphere, islanded in a sea of cloud. The Professor's eyes were
blazing like a maniac's.
"It is a new
world," he cried, with a dreadful mirth. "It is a new planet and =
it
shall bear my name. This star and not that other vulgar one shall be 'Lucif=
er,
sun of the morning.' Here we will have no chartered lunacies, here we will =
have
no gods. Here man shall be as innocent as the daisies, as innocent and as
cruel--here the intellect----"
"There
seems," said Michael, timidly, "to be something sticking up in the
middle of it."
"So there is=
,"
said the Professor, leaning over the side of the ship, his spectacles shini=
ng
with intellectual excitement. "What can it be? It might of course be
merely a----"
Then a shriek
indescribable broke out of him of a sudden, and he flung up his arms like a=
lost
spirit. The monk took the helm in a tired way; he did not seem much astonis=
hed
for he came from an ignorant part of the world in which it is not uncommon =
for
lost spirits to shriek when they see the curious shape which the Professor =
had
just seen on the top of the mysterious ball, but he took the helm only just=
in
time, and by driving it hard to the left he prevented the flying ship from
smashing into St. Paul's Cathedral.
A plain of
sad-coloured cloud lay along the level of the top of the Cathedral dome, so
that the ball and the cross looked like a buoy riding on a leaden sea. As t=
he
flying ship swept towards it, this plain of cloud looked as dry and definite
and rocky as any grey desert. Hence it gave to the mind and body a sharp and
unearthly sensation when the ship cut and sank into the cloud as into any
common mist, a thing without resistance. There was, as it were, a deadly sh=
ock
in the fact that there was no shock. It was as if they had cloven into anci=
ent
cliffs like so much butter. But sensations awaited them which were much
stranger than those of sinking through the solid earth. For a moment their =
eyes
and nostrils were stopped with darkness and opaque cloud; then the darkness=
warmed
into a kind of brown fog. And far, far below them the brown fog fell until =
it
warmed into fire. Through the dense London atmosphere they could see below =
them
the flaming London lights; lights which lay beneath them in squares and obl=
ongs
of fire. The fog and fire were mixed in a passionate vapour; you might say =
that
the fog was drowning the flames; or you might say that the flames had set t=
he
fog on fire. Beside the ship and beneath it (for it swung just under the ba=
ll),
the immeasurable dome itself shot out and down into the dark like a combina=
tion
of voiceless cataracts. Or it was like some cyclopean sea-beast sitting abo=
ve
London and letting down its tentacles bewilderingly on every side, a
monstrosity in that starless heaven. For the clouds that belonged to London=
had
closed over the heads of the voyagers sealing up the entrance of the upper =
air.
They had broken through a roof and come into a temple of twilight.
They were so near=
to
the ball that Lucifer leaned his hand against it, holding the vessel away, =
as
men push a boat off from a bank. Above it the cross already draped in the d=
ark
mists of the borderland was shadowy and more awful in shape and size.
Professor Lucifer
slapped his hand twice upon the surface of the great orb as if he were
caressing some enormous animal. "This is the fellow," he said,
"this is the one for my money."
"May I with =
all
respect inquire," asked the old monk, "what on earth you are talk=
ing
about?"
"Why this,&q=
uot;
cried Lucifer, smiting the ball again, "here is the only symbol, my bo=
y.
So fat. So satisfied. Not like that scraggy individual, stretching his arms=
in
stark weariness." And he pointed up to the cross, his face dark with a
grin. "I was telling you just now, Michael, that I can prove the best =
part
of the rationalist case and the Christian humbug from any symbol you liked =
to
give me, from any instance I came across. Here is an instance with a vengea=
nce.
What could possibly express your philosophy and my philosophy better than t=
he
shape of that cross and the shape of this ball? This globe is reasonable; t=
hat
cross is unreasonable. It is a four-legged animal, with one leg longer than=
the
others. The globe is inevitable. The cross is arbitrary. Above all the glob=
e is
at unity with itself; the cross is primarily and above all things at enmity
with itself. The cross is the conflict of two hostile lines, of irreconcila=
ble
direction. That silent thing up there is essentially a collision, a crash, a
struggle in stone. Pah! that sacred symbol of yours has actually given its =
name
to a description of desperation and muddle. When we speak of men at once
ignorant of each other and frustrated by each other, we say they are at
cross-purposes. Away with the thing! The very shape of it is a contradictio=
n in
terms."
"What you sa=
y is
perfectly true," said Michael, with serenity. "But we like
contradictions in terms. Man is a contradiction in terms; he is a beast who=
se
superiority to other beasts consists in having fallen. That cross is, as you
say, an eternal collision; so am I. That is a struggle in stone. Every form=
of
life is a struggle in flesh. The shape of the cross is irrational, just as =
the
shape of the human animal is irrational. You say the cross is a quadruped w=
ith
one limb longer than the rest. I say man is a quadruped who only uses two of
his legs."
The Professor fro=
wned
thoughtfully for an instant, and said: "Of course everything is relati=
ve,
and I would not deny that the element of struggle and self-contradiction,
represented by that cross, has a necessary place at a certain evolutionary
stage. But surely the cross is the lower development and the sphere the hig=
her.
After all it is easy enough to see what is really wrong with Wren's
architectural arrangement."
"And what is
that, pray?" inquired Michael, meekly.
"The cross i=
s on
top of the ball," said Professor Lucifer, simply. "That is surely
wrong. The ball should be on top of the cross. The cross is a mere barbaric
prop; the ball is perfection. The cross at its best is but the bitter tree =
of
man's history; the ball is the rounded, the ripe and final fruit. And the f=
ruit
should be at the top of the tree, not at the bottom of it."
"Oh!" s=
aid
the monk, a wrinkle coming into his forehead, "so you think that in a
rationalistic scheme of symbolism the ball should be on top of the cross?&q=
uot;
"It sums up =
my
whole allegory," said the professor.
"Well, that =
is
really very interesting," resumed Michael slowly, "because I thin=
k in
that case you would see a most singular effect, an effect that has generally
been achieved by all those able and powerful systems which rationalism, or =
the
religion of the ball, has produced to lead or teach mankind. You would see,=
I
think, that thing happen which is always the ultimate embodiment and logical
outcome of your logical scheme."
"What are you
talking about?" asked Lucifer. "What would happen?"
"I mean it w=
ould
fall down," said the monk, looking wistfully into the void.
Lucifer made an a=
ngry
movement and opened his mouth to speak, but Michael, with all his air of
deliberation, was proceeding before he could bring out a word.
"I once knew=
a
man like you, Lucifer," he said, with a maddening monotony and slownes=
s of
articulation. "He took this----"
"There is no=
man
like me," cried Lucifer, with a violence that shook the ship.
"As I was
observing," continued Michael, "this man also took the view that =
the
symbol of Christianity was a symbol of savagery and all unreason. His histo=
ry
is rather amusing. It is also a perfect allegory of what happens to
rationalists like yourself. He began, of course, by refusing to allow a
crucifix in his house, or round his wife's neck, or even in a picture. He s=
aid,
as you say, that it was an arbitrary and fantastic shape, that it was a
monstrosity, loved because it was paradoxical. Then he began to grow fiercer
and more eccentric; he would batter the crosses by the roadside; for he liv=
ed
in a Roman Catholic country. Finally in a height of frenzy he climbed the
steeple of the Parish Church and tore down the cross, waving it in the air,=
and
uttering wild soliloquies up there under the stars. Then one still summer
evening as he was wending his way homewards, along a lane, the devil of his
madness came upon him with a violence and transfiguration which changes the
world. He was standing smoking, for a moment, in the front of an interminab=
le
line of palings, when his eyes were opened. Not a light shifted, not a leaf
stirred, but he saw as if by a sudden change in the eyesight that this pali=
ng
was an army of innumerable crosses linked together over hill and dale. And =
he
whirled up his heavy stick and went at it as if at an army. Mile after mile=
along
his homeward path he broke it down and tore it up. For he hated the cross a=
nd
every paling is a wall of crosses. When he returned to his house he was a
literal madman. He sat upon a chair and then started up from it for the cro=
ss-bars
of the carpentry repeated the intolerable image. He flung himself upon a bed
only to remember that this, too, like all workmanlike things, was construct=
ed
on the accursed plan. He broke his furniture because it was made of crosses=
. He
burnt his house because it was made of crosses. He was found in the
river."
Lucifer was looki=
ng
at him with a bitten lip.
"Is that sto=
ry
really true?" he asked.
"Oh, no,&quo=
t;
said Michael, airily. "It is a parable. It is a parable of you and all
your rationalists. You begin by breaking up the Cross; but you end by break=
ing
up the habitable world. We leave you saying that nobody ought to join the
Church against his will. When we meet you again you are saying that no one =
has
any will to join it with. We leave you saying that there is no such place as
Eden. We find you saying that there is no such place as Ireland. You start =
by
hating the irrational and you come to hate everything, for everything is
irrational and so----"
Lucifer leapt upon
him with a cry like a wild beast's. "Ah," he screamed, "to e=
very
man his madness. You are mad on the cross. Let it save you."
And with a hercul=
ean
energy he forced the monk backwards out of the reeling car on to the upper =
part
of the stone ball. Michael, with as abrupt an agility, caught one of the be=
ams
of the cross and saved himself from falling. At the same instant Lucifer dr=
ove
down a lever and the ship shot up with him in it alone.
"Ha! ha!&quo=
t;
he yelled, "what sort of a support do you find it, old fellow?"
"For practic=
al
purposes of support," replied Michael grimly, "it is at any rate a
great deal better than the ball. May I ask if you are going to leave me
here?"
"Yes, yes. I
mount! I mount!" cried the professor in ungovernable excitement.
"Altiora peto. My path is upward."
"How often h=
ave
you told me, Professor, that there is really no up or down in space?" =
said
the monk. "I shall mount up as much as you will."
"Indeed,&quo=
t;
said Lucifer, leering over the side of the flying ship. "May I ask what
you are going to do?"
The monk pointed
downward at Ludgate Hill. "I am going," he said, "to climb up
into a star."
Those who look at=
the
matter most superficially regard paradox as something which belongs to jest=
ing
and light journalism. Paradox of this kind is to be found in the saying of =
the
dandy, in the decadent comedy, "Life is much too important to be taken
seriously." Those who look at the matter a little more deeply or
delicately see that paradox is a thing which especially belongs to all
religions. Paradox of this kind is to be found in such a saying as "The
meek shall inherit the earth." But those who see and feel the fundamen=
tal
fact of the matter know that paradox is a thing which belongs not to religi=
on
only, but to all vivid and violent practical crises of human living. This k=
ind
of paradox may be clearly perceived by anybody who happens to be hanging in
mid-space, clinging to one arm of the Cross of St. Paul's.
Father Michael in
spite of his years, and in spite of his asceticism (or because of it, for a=
ll I
know), was a very healthy and happy old gentleman. And as he swung on a bar
above the sickening emptiness of air, he realized, with that sort of dead
detachment which belongs to the brains of those in peril, the deathless and
hopeless contradiction which is involved in the mere idea of courage. He wa=
s a
happy and healthy old gentleman and therefore he was quite careless about i=
t.
And he felt as every man feels in the taut moment of such terror that his c=
hief
danger was terror itself; his only possible strength would be a coolness am=
ounting
to carelessness, a carelessness amounting almost to a suicidal swagger. His=
one
wild chance of coming out safely would be in not too desperately desiring t=
o be
safe. There might be footholds down that awful facade, if only he could not
care whether they were footholds or no. If he were foolhardy he might escap=
e;
if he were wise he would stop where he was till he dropped from the cross l=
ike
a stone. And this antinomy kept on repeating itself in his mind, a
contradiction as large and staring as the immense contradiction of the Cros=
s;
he remembered having often heard the words, "Whosoever shall lose his =
life
the same shall save it." He remembered with a sort of strange pity that
this had always been made to mean that whoever lost his physical life should
save his spiritual life. Now he knew the truth that is known to all fighter=
s, and
hunters, and climbers of cliffs. He knew that even his animal life could on=
ly
be saved by a considerable readiness to lose it.
Some will think it
improbable that a human soul swinging desperately in mid-air should think a=
bout
philosophical inconsistencies. But such extreme states are dangerous things=
to
dogmatize about. Frequently they produce a certain useless and joyless acti=
vity
of the mere intellect, thought not only divorced from hope but even from
desire. And if it is impossible to dogmatize about such states, it is still
more impossible to describe them. To this spasm of sanity and clarity in
Michael's mind succeeded a spasm of the elemental terror; the terror of the
animal in us which regards the whole universe as its enemy; which, when it =
is victorious,
has no pity, and so, when it is defeated has no imaginable hope. Of that ten
minutes of terror it is not possible to speak in human words. But then agai=
n in
that damnable darkness there began to grow a strange dawn as of grey and pa=
le
silver. And of this ultimate resignation or certainty it is even less possi=
ble
to write; it is something stranger than hell itself; it is perhaps the last=
of
the secrets of God. At the highest crisis of some incurable anguish there w=
ill
suddenly fall upon the man the stillness of an insane contentment. It is not
hope, for hope is broken and romantic and concerned with the future; this is
complete and of the present. It is not faith, for faith by its very nature =
is
fierce, and as it were at once doubtful and defiant; but this is simply a
satisfaction. It is not knowledge, for the intellect seems to have no
particular part in it. Nor is it (as the modern idiots would certainly say =
it
is) a mere numbness or negative paralysis of the powers of grief. It is not
negative in the least; it is as positive as good news. In some sense, indee=
d,
it is good news. It seems almost as if there were some equality among thing=
s,
some balance in all possible contingencies which we are not permitted to kn=
ow
lest we should learn indifference to good and evil, but which is sometimes
shown to us for an instant as a last aid in our last agony.
Michael certainly
could not have given any sort of rational account of this vast unmeaning sa=
tisfaction
which soaked through him and filled him to the brim. He felt with a sort of
half-witted lucidity that the cross was there, and the ball was there, and =
the
dome was there, that he was going to climb down from them, and that he did =
not
mind in the least whether he was killed or not. This mysterious mood lasted
long enough to start him on his dreadful descent and to force him to contin=
ue
it. But six times before he reached the highest of the outer galleries terr=
or had
returned on him like a flying storm of darkness and thunder. By the time he=
had
reached that place of safety he almost felt (as in some impossible fit of
drunkenness) that he had two heads; one was calm, careless, and efficient; =
the
other saw the danger like a deadly map, was wise, careful, and useless. He =
had
fancied that he would have to let himself vertically down the face of the w=
hole
building. When he dropped into the upper gallery he still felt as far from =
the
terrestrial globe as if he had only dropped from the sun to the moon. He pa=
used
a little, panting in the gallery under the ball, and idly kicked his heels,
moving a few yards along it. And as he did so a thunderbolt struck his soul=
. A
man, a heavy, ordinary man, with a composed indifferent face, and a prosaic
sort of uniform, with a row of buttons, blocked his way. Michael had no min=
d to
wonder whether this solid astonished man, with the brown moustache and the
nickel buttons, had also come on a flying ship. He merely let his mind floa=
t in
an endless felicity about the man. He thought how nice it would be if he ha=
d to
live up in that gallery with that one man for ever. He thought how he would
luxuriate in the nameless shades of this man's soul and then hear with an
endless excitement about the nameless shades of the souls of all his aunts =
and
uncles. A moment before he had been dying alone. Now he was living in the s=
ame
world with a man; an inexhaustible ecstasy. In the gallery below the ball
Father Michael had found that man who is the noblest and most divine and mo=
st lovable
of all men, better than all the saints, greater than all the heroes--man
Friday.
In the confused
colour and music of his new paradise, Michael heard only in a faint and dis=
tant
fashion some remarks that this beautiful solid man seemed to be making to h=
im;
remarks about something or other being after hours and against orders. He a=
lso
seemed to be asking how Michael "got up" there. This beautiful man
evidently felt as Michael did that the earth was a star and was set in heav=
en.
At length Michael
sated himself with the mere sensual music of the voice of the man in button=
s.
He began to listen to what he said, and even to make some attempt at answer=
ing
a question which appeared to have been put several times and was now put wi=
th
some excess of emphasis. Michael realized that the image of God in nickel
buttons was asking him how he had come there. He said that he had come in
Lucifer's ship. On his giving this answer the demeanour of the image of God
underwent a remarkable change. From addressing Michael gruffly, as if he we=
re a
malefactor, he began suddenly to speak to him with a sort of eager and feve=
rish
amiability as if he were a child. He seemed particularly anxious to coax him
away from the balustrade. He led him by the arm towards a door leading into=
the
building itself, soothing him all the time. He gave what even Michael (slig=
ht
as was his knowledge of the world) felt to be an improbable account of the
sumptuous pleasures and varied advantages awaiting him downstairs. Michael
followed him, however, if only out of politeness, down an apparently
interminable spiral of staircase. At one point a door opened. Michael stepp=
ed
through it, and the unaccountable man in buttons leapt after him and pinion=
ed him
where he stood. But he only wished to stand; to stand and stare. He had ste=
pped
as it were into another infinity, out under the dome of another heaven. But
this was a dome of heaven made by man. The gold and green and crimson of its
sunset were not in the shapeless clouds but in shapes of cherubim and serap=
him,
awful human shapes with a passionate plumage. Its stars were not above but =
far
below, like fallen stars still in unbroken constellations; the dome itself =
was
full of darkness. And far below, lower even than the lights, could be seen
creeping or motionless, great black masses of men. The tongue of a terrible
organ seemed to shake the very air in the whole void; and through it there =
came
up to Michael the sound of a tongue more terrible; the dreadful everlasting
voice of man, calling to his gods from the beginning to the end of the worl=
d.
Michael felt almost as if he were a god, and all the voices were hurled at =
him.
"No, the pre=
tty
things aren't here," said the demi-god in buttons, caressingly. "=
The
pretty things are downstairs. You come along with me. There's something that
will surprise you downstairs; something you want very much to see."
Evidently the man=
in
buttons did not feel like a god, so Michael made no attempt to explain his
feelings to him, but followed him meekly enough down the trail of the serpe=
ntine
staircase. He had no notion where or at what level he was. He was still ful=
l of
the cold splendour of space, and of what a French writer has brilliantly na=
med
the "vertigo of the infinite," when another door opened, and with=
a
shock indescribable he found himself on the familiar level, in a street ful=
l of
faces, with the houses and even the lamp-posts above his head. He felt sudd=
enly
happy and suddenly indescribably small. He fancied he had been changed into=
a child
again; his eyes sought the pavement seriously as children's do, as if it we=
re a
thing with which something satisfactory could be done. He felt the full war=
mth
of that pleasure from which the proud shut themselves out; the pleasure whi=
ch
not only goes with humiliation, but which almost is humiliation. Men who ha=
ve
escaped death by a hair have it, and men whose love is returned by a woman
unexpectedly, and men whose sins are forgiven them. Everything his eye fell=
on
it feasted on, not aesthetically, but with a plain, jolly appetite as of a =
boy
eating buns. He relished the squareness of the houses; he liked their clean=
angles
as if he had just cut them with a knife. The lit squares of the shop windows
excited him as the young are excited by the lit stage of some promising
pantomime. He happened to see in one shop which projected with a bulging
bravery on to the pavement some square tins of potted meat, and it seemed l=
ike
a hint of a hundred hilarious high teas in a hundred streets of the world. =
He
was, perhaps, the happiest of all the children of men. For in that unendura=
ble
instant when he hung, half slipping, to the ball of St. Paul's, the whole
universe had been destroyed and re-created.
Suddenly through =
all
the din of the dark streets came a crash of glass. With that mysterious
suddenness of the Cockney mob, a rush was made in the right direction, a di=
ngy
office, next to the shop of the potted meat. The pane of glass was lying in
splinters about the pavement. And the police already had their hands on a v=
ery
tall young man, with dark, lank hair and dark, dazed eyes, with a grey plaid
over his shoulder, who had just smashed the shop window with a single blow =
of
his stick.
"I'd do it
again," said the young man, with a furious white face. "Anybody w=
ould
have done it. Did you see what it said? I swear I'd do it again." Then=
his
eyes encountered the monkish habit of Michael, and he pulled off his grey
tam-o'-shanter with the gesture of a Catholic.
"Father, did=
you
see what they said?" he cried, trembling. "Did you see what they
dared to say? I didn't understand it at first. I read it half through befor=
e I
broke the window."
Michael felt he k=
new
not how. The whole peace of the world was pent up painfully in his heart. T=
he
new and childlike world which he had seen so suddenly, men had not seen at =
all.
Here they were still at their old bewildering, pardonable, useless quarrels,
with so much to be said on both sides, and so little that need be said at a=
ll.
A fierce inspiration fell on him suddenly; he would strike them where they
stood with the love of God. They should not move till they saw their own sw=
eet
and startling existence. They should not go from that place till they went =
home
embracing like brothers and shouting like men delivered. From the Cross from
which he had fallen fell the shadow of its fantastic mercy; and the first t=
hree
words he spoke in a voice like a silver trumpet, held men as still as stone=
s.
Perhaps if he had spoken there for an hour in his illumination he might have
founded a religion on Ludgate Hill. But the heavy hand of his guide fell
suddenly on his shoulder.
"This poor
fellow is dotty," he said good-humouredly to the crowd. "I found =
him
wandering in the Cathedral. Says he came in a flying ship. Is there a const=
able
to spare to take care of him?"
There was a const=
able
to spare. Two other constables attended to the tall young man in grey; a fo=
urth
concerned himself with the owner of the shop, who showed some tendency to be
turbulent. They took the tall young man away to a magistrate, whither we sh=
all
follow him in an ensuing chapter. And they took the happiest man in the wor=
ld
away to an asylum.
II. THE RELIGION OF THE
STIPENDIARY MAGISTRATE
The editorial off=
ice
of The Atheist had for some years past become less and less prominently
interesting as a feature of Ludgate Hill. The paper was unsuited to the
atmosphere. It showed an interest in the Bible unknown in the district, and=
a
knowledge of that volume to which nobody else on Ludgate Hill could make any
conspicuous claim. It was in vain that the editor of The Atheist filled his
front window with fierce and final demands as to what Noah in the Ark did w=
ith
the neck of the giraffe. It was in vain that he asked violently, as for the
last time, how the statement "God is Spirit" could be reconciled =
with
the statement "The earth is His footstool." It was in vain that he
cried with an accusing energy that the Bishop of London was paid L12,000 a =
year
for pretending to believe that the whale swallowed Jonah. It was in vain th=
at
he hung in conspicuous places the most thrilling scientific calculations ab=
out
the width of the throat of a whale. Was it nothing to them all they that pa=
ssed
by? Did his sudden and splendid and truly sincere indignation never stir an=
y of
the people pouring down Ludgate Hill? Never. The little man who edited The =
Atheist
would rush from his shop on starlit evenings and shake his fist at St. Paul=
's
in the passion of his holy war upon the holy place. He might have spared his
emotion. The cross at the top of St. Paul's and The Atheist shop at the foo=
t of
it were alike remote from the world. The shop and the Cross were equally up=
lifted
and alone in the empty heavens.
To the little man=
who
edited The Atheist, a fiery little Scotchman, with fiery, red hair and bear=
d,
going by the name of Turnbull, all this decline in public importance seemed=
not
so much sad or even mad, but merely bewildering and unaccountable. He had s=
aid
the worst thing that could be said; and it seemed accepted and ignored like=
the
ordinary second best of the politicians. Every day his blasphemies looked m=
ore glaring,
and every day the dust lay thicker upon them. It made him feel as if he were
moving in a world of idiots. He seemed among a race of men who smiled when =
told
of their own death, or looked vacantly at the Day of Judgement. Year after =
year
went by, and year after year the death of God in a shop in Ludgate became a
less and less important occurrence. All the forward men of his age discoura=
ged
Turnbull. The socialists said he was cursing priests when he should be curs=
ing
capitalists. The artists said that the soul was most spiritual, not when fr=
eed
from religion, but when freed from morality. Year after year went by, and a=
t least
a man came by who treated Mr. Turnbull's secularist shop with a real respect
and seriousness. He was a young man in a grey plaid, and he smashed the win=
dow.
He was a young ma=
n,
born in the Bay of Arisaig, opposite Rum and the Isle of Skye. His high,
hawklike features and snaky black hair bore the mark of that unknown histor=
ic
thing which is crudely called Celtic, but which is probably far older than =
the
Celts, whoever they were. He was in name and stock a Highlander of the
Macdonalds; but his family took, as was common in such cases, the name of a
subordinate sept as a surname, and for all the purposes which could be answ=
ered
in London, he called himself Evan MacIan. He had been brought up in some
loneliness and seclusion as a strict Roman Catholic, in the midst of that
little wedge of Roman Catholics which is driven into the Western Highlands.=
And
he had found his way as far as Fleet Street, seeking some half-promised emp=
loyment,
without having properly realized that there were in the world any people who
were not Roman Catholics. He had uncovered himself for a few moments before=
the
statue of Queen Anne, in front of St. Paul's Cathedral, under the firm
impression that it was a figure of the Virgin Mary. He was somewhat surpris=
ed
at the lack of deference shown to the figure by the people bustling by. He =
did
not understand that their one essential historical principle, the one law t=
ruly
graven on their hearts, was the great and comforting statement that Queen A=
nne
is dead. This faith was as fundamental as his faith, that Our Lady was aliv=
e.
Any persons he had talked to since he had touched the fringe of our fashion=
or
civilization had been by a coincidence, sympathetic or hypocritical. Or if =
they
had spoken some established blasphemies, he had been unable to understand t=
hem
merely owing to the preoccupied satisfaction of his mind.
On that fantastic
fringe of the Gaelic land where he walked as a boy, the cliffs were as
fantastic as the clouds. Heaven seemed to humble itself and come closer to =
the
earth. The common paths of his little village began to climb quite suddenly=
and
seemed resolved to go to heaven. The sky seemed to fall down towards the hi=
lls;
the hills took hold upon the sky. In the sumptuous sunset of gold and purple
and peacock green cloudlets and islets were the same. Evan lived like a man=
walking
on a borderland, the borderland between this world and another. Like so many
men and nations who grow up with nature and the common things, he understood
the supernatural before he understood the natural. He had looked at dim ang=
els
standing knee-deep in the grass before he had looked at the grass. He knew =
that
Our Lady's robes were blue before he knew the wild roses round her feet were
red. The deeper his memory plunged into the dark house of childhood the nea=
rer
and nearer he came to the things that cannot be named. All through his life=
he
thought of the daylight world as a sort of divine debris, the broken remain=
der of
his first vision. The skies and mountains were the splendid off-scourings of
another place. The stars were lost jewels of the Queen. Our Lady had gone a=
nd
left the stars by accident.
His private tradi=
tion
was equally wild and unworldly. His great-grandfather had been cut down at
Culloden, certain in his last instant that God would restore the King. His
grandfather, then a boy of ten, had taken the terrible claymore from the ha=
nd
of the dead and hung it up in his house, burnishing it and sharpening it for
sixty years, to be ready for the next rebellion. His father, the youngest s=
on
and the last left alive, had refused to attend on Queen Victoria in Scotlan=
d. And
Evan himself had been of one piece with his progenitors; and was not dead w=
ith
them, but alive in the twentieth century. He was not in the least the pathe=
tic
Jacobite of whom we read, left behind by a final advance of all things. He =
was,
in his own fancy, a conspirator, fierce and up to date. In the long, dark
afternoons of the Highland winter, he plotted and fumed in the dark. He drew
plans of the capture of London on the desolate sand of Arisaig.
When he came up to
capture London, it was not with an army of white cockades, but with a stick=
and
a satchel. London overawed him a little, not because he thought it grand or
even terrible, but because it bewildered him; it was not the Golden City or
even hell; it was Limbo. He had one shock of sentiment, when he turned that
wonderful corner of Fleet Street and saw St. Paul's sitting in the sky.
"Ah," he
said, after a long pause, "that sort of thing was built under the
Stuarts!" Then with a sour grin he asked himself what was the
corresponding monument of the Brunswicks and the Protestant Constitution. A=
fter
some warning, he selected a sky-sign of some pill.
Half an hour
afterwards his emotions left him with an emptied mind on the same spot. And=
it
was in a mood of mere idle investigation that he happened to come to a
standstill opposite the office of The Atheist. He did not see the word
"atheist", or if he did, it is quite possible that he did not know
the meaning of the word. Even as it was, the document would not have shocked
even the innocent Highlander, but for the troublesome and quite unforeseen =
fact
that the innocent Highlander read it stolidly to the end; a thing unknown a=
mong
the most enthusiastic subscribers to the paper, and calculated in any case =
to
create a new situation.
With a smart
journalistic instinct characteristic of all his school, the editor of The
Atheist had put first in his paper and most prominently in his window an
article called "The Mesopotamian Mythology and its Effects on Syriac F=
olk
Lore." Mr. Evan MacIan began to read this quite idly, as he would have
read a public statement beginning with a young girl dying in Brighton and
ending with Bile Beans. He received the very considerable amount of informa=
tion
accumulated by the author with that tired clearness of the mind which child=
ren
have on heavy summer afternoons--that tired clearness which leads them to g=
o on
asking questions long after they have lost interest in the subject and are =
as
bored as their nurse. The streets were full of people and empty of adventur=
es.
He might as well know about the gods of Mesopotamia as not; so he flattened=
his
long, lean face against the dim bleak pane of the window and read all there=
was
to read about Mesopotamian gods. He read how the Mesopotamians had a god na=
med
Sho (sometimes pronounced Ji), and that he was described as being very
powerful, a striking similarity to some expressions about Jahveh, who is al=
so
described as having power. Evan had never heard of Jahveh in his life, and
imagining him to be some other Mesopotamian idol, read on with a dull
curiosity. He learnt that the name Sho, under its third form of Psa, occurs=
in
an early legend which describes how the deity, after the manner of Jupiter =
on
so many occasions, seduced a Virgin and begat a hero. This hero, whose name=
is not
essential to our existence, was, it was said, the chief hero and Saviour of=
the
Mesopotamian ethical scheme. Then followed a paragraph giving other example=
s of
such heroes and Saviours being born of some profligate intercourse between =
God
and mortal. Then followed a paragraph--but Evan did not understand it. He r=
ead
it again and then again. Then he did understand it. The glass fell in ringi=
ng
fragments on to the pavement, and Evan sprang over the barrier into the sho=
p, brandishing
his stick.
"What is
this?" cried little Mr. Turnbull, starting up with hair aflame. "=
How
dare you break my window?"
"Because it =
was
the quickest cut to you," cried Evan, stamping. "Stand up and fig=
ht,
you crapulous coward. You dirty lunatic, stand up, will you? Have you any
weapons here?"
"Are you
mad?" asked Turnbull, glaring.
"Are you?&qu=
ot;
cried Evan. "Can you be anything else when you plaster your own house =
with
that God-defying filth? Stand up and fight, I say."
A great light like
dawn came into Mr. Turnbull's face. Behind his red hair and beard he turned
deadly pale with pleasure. Here, after twenty lone years of useless toil, he
had his reward. Someone was angry with the paper. He bounded to his feet li=
ke a
boy; he saw a new youth opening before him. And as not unfrequently happens=
to
middle-aged gentlemen when they see a new youth opening before them, he fou=
nd
himself in the presence of the police.
The policemen, af=
ter
some ponderous questionings, collared both the two enthusiasts. They were m=
ore
respectful, however, to the young man who had smashed the window, than to t=
he
miscreant who had had his window smashed. There was an air of refined myste=
ry
about Evan MacIan, which did not exist in the irate little shopkeeper, an a=
ir
of refined mystery which appealed to the policemen, for policemen, like most
other English types, are at once snobs and poets. MacIan might possibly be =
a gentleman,
they felt; the editor manifestly was not. And the editor's fine rational
republican appeals to his respect for law, and his ardour to be tried by his
fellow citizens, seemed to the police quite as much gibberish as Evan's
mysticism could have done. The police were not used to hearing principles, =
even
the principles of their own existence.
The police
magistrate, before whom they were hurried and tried, was a Mr. Cumberland V=
ane,
a cheerful, middle-aged gentleman, honourably celebrated for the lightness =
of
his sentences and the lightness of his conversation. He occasionally worked
himself up into a sort of theoretic rage about certain particular offenders,
such as the men who took pokers to their wives, talked in a loose, sentimen=
tal
way about the desirability of flogging them, and was hopelessly bewildered =
by
the fact that the wives seemed even more angry with him than with their hus=
bands.
He was a tall, spruce man, with a twist of black moustache and incomparable
morning dress. He looked like a gentleman, and yet, somehow, like a stage
gentleman.
He had often trea=
ted
serious crimes against mere order or property with a humane flippancy. Henc=
e,
about the mere breaking of an editor's window, he was almost uproarious.
"Come, Mr.
MacIan, come," he said, leaning back in his chair, "do you genera=
lly
enter you friends' houses by walking through the glass?" (Laughter.)
"He is not my
friend," said Evan, with the stolidity of a dull child.
"Not your
friend, eh?" said the magistrate, sparkling. "Is he your brother-=
in-law?"
(Loud and prolonged laughter.)
"He is my
enemy," said Evan, simply; "he is the enemy of God."
Mr. Vane shifted
sharply in his seat, dropping the eye-glass out of his eye in a momentary a=
nd
not unmanly embarrassment.
"You mustn't
talk like that here," he said, roughly, and in a kind of hurry, "=
that
has nothing to do with us."
Evan opened his
great, blue eyes; "God," he began.
"Be quiet,&q=
uot;
said the magistrate, angrily, "it is most undesirable that things of t=
hat
sort should be spoken about--a--in public, and in an ordinary Court of Just=
ice.
Religion is--a--too personal a matter to be mentioned in such a place."=
;
"Is it?"
answered the Highlander, "then what did those policemen swear by just
now?"
"That is no
parallel," answered Vane, rather irritably; "of course there is a
form of oath--to be taken reverently--reverently, and there's an end of it.=
But
to talk in a public place about one's most sacred and private sentiments--w=
ell,
I call it bad taste. (Slight applause.) I call it irreverent. I call it
irreverent, and I'm not specially orthodox either."
"I see you a=
re
not," said Evan, "but I am."
"We are
wondering from the point," said the police magistrate, pulling himself
together.
"May I ask w=
hy
you smashed this worthy citizen's window?"
Evan turned a lit=
tle
pale at the mere memory, but he answered with the same cold and deadly
literalism that he showed throughout.
"Because he
blasphemed Our Lady."
"I tell you =
once
and for all," cried Mr. Cumberland Vane, rapping his knuckles angrily =
on
the table, "I tell you, once and for all, my man, that I will not have=
you
turning on any religious rant or cant here. Don't imagine that it will impr=
ess
me. The most religious people are not those who talk about it. (Applause.) =
You
answer the questions and do nothing else."
"I did nothi=
ng
else," said Evan, with a slight smile.
"Eh," c=
ried
Vane, glaring through his eye-glass.
"You asked me
why I broke his window," said MacIan, with a face of wood. "I
answered, 'Because he blasphemed Our Lady.' I had no other reason. So I hav=
e no
other answer." Vane continued to gaze at him with a sternness not habi=
tual
to him.
"You are not
going the right way to work, Sir," he said, with severity. "You a=
re
not going the right way to work to--a--have your case treated with special
consideration. If you had simply expressed regret for what you had done, I
should have been strongly inclined to dismiss the matter as an outbreak of
temper. Even now, if you say that you are sorry I shall only----"
"But I am no=
t in
the least sorry," said Evan, "I am very pleased."
"I really
believe you are insane," said the stipendiary, indignantly, for he had
really been doing his best as a good-natured man, to compose the dispute.
"What conceivable right have you to break other people's windows becau=
se
their opinions do not agree with yours? This man only gave expression to his
sincere belief."
"So did I,&q=
uot;
said the Highlander.
"And who are
you?" exploded Vane. "Are your views necessarily the right ones? =
Are
you necessarily in possession of the truth?"
"Yes," =
said
MacIan.
The magistrate br=
oke
into a contemptuous laugh.
"Oh, you wan=
t a
nurse to look after you," he said. "You must pay L10."
Evan MacIan plung=
ed
his hands into his loose grey garment and drew out a queer looking leather
purse. It contained exactly twelve sovereigns. He paid down the ten, coin by
coin, in silence, and equally silently returned the remaining two to the
receptacle. Then he said, "May I say a word, your worship?"
Cumberland Vane
seemed half hypnotized with the silence and automatic movements of the
stranger; he made a movement with his head which might have been either
"yes" or "no". "I only wished to say, your
worship," said MacIan, putting back the purse in his trouser pocket,
"that smashing that shop window was, I confess, a useless and rather
irregular business. It may be excused, however, as a mere preliminary to
further proceedings, a sort of preface. Wherever and whenever I meet that
man," and he pointed to the editor of The Atheist, "whether it be
outside this door in ten minutes from now, or twenty years hence in some
distant country, wherever and whenever I meet that man, I will fight him. Do
not be afraid. I will not rush at him like a bully, or bear him down with a=
ny
brute superiority. I will fight him like a gentleman; I will fight him as o=
ur
fathers fought. He shall choose how, sword or pistol, horse or foot. But if=
he
refuses, I will write his cowardice on every wall in the world. If he had s=
aid
of my mother what he said of the Mother of God, there is not a club of clean
men in Europe that would deny my right to call him out. If he had said it o=
f my
wife, you English would yourselves have pardoned me for beating him like a =
dog
in the market place. Your worship, I have no mother; I have no wife. I have
only that which the poor have equally with the rich; which the lonely have
equally with the man of many friends. To me this whole strange world is hom=
ely,
because in the heart of it there is a home; to me this cruel world is kindl=
y,
because higher than the heavens there is something more human than humanity=
. If
a man must not fight for this, may he fight for anything? I would fight for=
my
friend, but if I lost my friend, I should still be there. I would fight for=
my
country, but if I lost my country, I should still exist. But if what that d=
evil
dreams were true, I should not be--I should burst like a bubble and be gone=
. I
could not live in that imbecile universe. Shall I not fight for my own
existence?"
The magistrate re=
covered
his voice and his presence of mind. The first part of the speech, the bomba=
stic
and brutally practical challenge, stunned him with surprise; but the rest of
Evan's remarks, branching off as they did into theoretic phrases, gave his
vague and very English mind (full of memories of the hedging and compromise=
in
English public speaking) an indistinct sensation of relief, as if the man,
though mad, were not so dangerous as he had thought. He went into a sort of
weary laughter.
"For Heaven's
sake, man," he said, "don't talk so much. Let other people have a
chance (laughter). I trust all that you said about asking Mr. Turnbull to
fight, may be regarded as rubbish. In case of accidents, however, I must bi=
nd
you over to keep the peace."
"To keep the
peace," repeated Evan, "with whom?"
"With Mr.
Turnbull," said Vane.
"Certainly
not," answered MacIan. "What has he to do with peace?"
"Do you mean=
to
say," began the magistrate, "that you refuse to..." The voic=
e of
Turnbull himself clove in for the first time.
"Might I
suggest," he said, "That I, your worship, can settle to some exte=
nt
this absurd matter myself. This rather wild gentleman promises that he will=
not
attack me with any ordinary assault--and if he does, you may be sure the po=
lice
shall hear of it. But he says he will not. He says he will challenge me to a
duel; and I cannot say anything stronger about his mental state than to say
that I think that it is highly probable that he will. (Laughter.) But it ta=
kes
two to make a duel, your worship (renewed laughter). I do not in the least =
mind
being described on every wall in the world as the coward who would not figh=
t a
man in Fleet Street, about whether the Virgin Mary had a parallel in Mesopo=
tamian
mythology. No, your worship. You need not trouble to bind him over to keep =
the
peace. I bind myself over to keep the peace, and you may rest quite satisfi=
ed
that there will be no duel with me in it."
Mr. Cumberland Va=
ne
rolled about, laughing in a sort of relief.
"You're like=
a
breath of April, sir," he cried. "You're ozone after that fellow.
You're perfectly right. Perhaps I have taken the thing too seriously. I sho=
uld
love to see him sending you challenges and to see you smiling. Well,
well."
Evan went out of =
the
Court of Justice free, but strangely shaken, like a sick man. Any punishmen=
t of
suppression he would have felt as natural; but the sudden juncture between =
the
laughter of his judge and the laughter of the man he had wronged, made him =
feel
suddenly small, or at least, defeated. It was really true that the whole mo=
dern
world regarded his world as a bubble. No cruelty could have shown it, but t=
heir
kindness showed it with a ghastly clearness. As he was brooding, he suddenly
became conscious of a small, stern figure, fronting him in silence. Its eye=
s were
grey and awful, and its beard red. It was Turnbull.
"Well,
sir," said the editor of The Atheist, "where is the fight to be? =
Name
the field, sir."
Evan stood
thunderstruck. He stammered out something, he knew not what; he only guesse=
d it
by the answer of the other.
"Do I want to
fight? Do I want to fight?" cried the furious Free-thinker. "Why,=
you
moonstruck scarecrow of superstition, do you think your dirty saints are the
only people who can die? Haven't you hung atheists, and burned them, and bo=
iled
them, and did they ever deny their faith? Do you think we don't want to fig=
ht?
Night and day I have prayed--I have longed--for an atheist revolution--I ha=
ve
longed to see your blood and ours on the streets. Let it be yours or
mine?"
"But you
said..." began MacIan.
"I know,&quo=
t;
said Turnbull scornfully. "And what did you say? You damned fool, you =
said
things that might have got us locked up for a year, and shadowed by the cop=
pers
for half a decade. If you wanted to fight, why did you tell that ass you wa=
nted
to? I got you out, to fight if you want to. Now, fight if you dare."
"I swear to =
you,
then," said MacIan, after a pause. "I swear to you that nothing s=
hall
come between us. I swear to you that nothing shall be in my heart or in my =
head
till our swords clash together. I swear it by the God you have denied, by t=
he
Blessed Lady you have blasphemed; I swear it by the seven swords in her hea=
rt.
I swear it by the Holy Island where my fathers are, by the honour of my mot=
her,
by the secret of my people, and by the chalice of the Blood of God."
The atheist drew =
up
his head. "And I," he said, "give my word."
The evening sky, a
dome of solid gold, unflaked even by a single sunset cloud, steeped the mea=
nest
sights of London in a strange and mellow light. It made a little greasy str=
eet
of St. Martin's Lane look as if it were paved with gold. It made the
pawnbroker's half-way down it shine as if it were really that Mountain of P=
iety
that the French poetic instinct has named it; it made the mean pseudo-French
bookshop, next but one to it, a shop packed with dreary indecency, show for=
a
moment a kind of Parisian colour. And the shop that stood between the pawns=
hop
and the shop of dreary indecency, showed with quite a blaze of old world
beauty, for it was, by accident, a shop not unbeautiful in itself. The fron=
t window
had a glimmer of bronze and blue steel, lit, as by a few stars, by the spar=
ks
of what were alleged to be jewels; for it was in brief, a shop of bric-a-br=
ac
and old curiosities. A row of half-burnished seventeenth-century swords ran
like an ornate railing along the front of the window; behind was a darker
glimmer of old oak and old armour; and higher up hung the most extraordinary
looking South Sea tools or utensils, whether designed for killing enemies or
merely for cooking them, no mere white man could possibly conjecture. But t=
he
romance of the eye, which really on this rich evening, clung about the shop,
had its main source in the accident of two doors standing open, the front d=
oor
that opened on the street and a back door that opened on an odd green squar=
e of
garden, that the sun turned to a square of gold. There is nothing more
beautiful than thus to look as it were through the archway of a house; as if
the open sky were an interior chamber, and the sun a secret lamp of the pla=
ce.
I have suggested =
that
the sunset light made everything lovely. To say that it made the keeper of =
the
curiosity shop lovely would be a tribute to it perhaps too extreme. It would
easily have made him beautiful if he had been merely squalid; if he had bee=
n a
Jew of the Fagin type. But he was a Jew of another and much less admirable
type; a Jew with a very well-sounding name. For though there are no hard te=
sts
for separating the tares and the wheat of any people, one rude but efficient
guide is that the nice Jew is called Moses Solomon, and the nasty Jew is ca=
lled
Thornton Percy. The keeper of the curiosity shop was of the Thornton Percy
branch of the chosen people; he belonged to those Lost Ten Tribes whose
industrious object is to lose themselves. He was a man still young, but alr=
eady
corpulent, with sleek dark hair, heavy handsome clothes, and a full, fat,
permanent smile, which looked at the first glance kindly, and at the second
cowardly. The name over his shop was Henry Gordon, but two Scotchmen who we=
re
in his shop that evening could come upon no trace of a Scotch accent.
These two Scotchm=
en
in this shop were careful purchasers, but free-handed payers. One of them w=
ho
seemed to be the principal and the authority (whom, indeed, Mr. Henry Gordon
fancied he had seen somewhere before), was a small, sturdy fellow, with fine
grey eyes, a square red tie and a square red beard, that he carried
aggressively forward as if he defied anyone to pull it. The other kept so m=
uch
in the background in comparison that he looked almost ghostly in his grey c=
loak
or plaid, a tall, sallow, silent young man.
The two Scotchmen
were interested in seventeenth-century swords. They were fastidious about t=
hem.
They had a whole armoury of these weapons brought out and rolled clattering
about the counter, until they found two of precisely the same length.
Presumably they desired the exact symmetry for some decorative trophy. Even
then they felt the points, poised the swords for balance and bent them in a
circle to see that they sprang straight again; which, for decorative purpos=
es,
seems carrying realism rather far.
"These will
do," said the strange person with the red beard. "And perhaps I h=
ad
better pay for them at once. And as you are the challenger, Mr. MacIan, per=
haps
you had better explain the situation."
The tall Scotchma=
n in
grey took a step forward and spoke in a voice quite clear and bold, and yet
somehow lifeless, like a man going through an ancient formality.
"The fact is,
Mr. Gordon, we have to place our honour in your hands. Words have passed
between Mr. Turnbull and myself on a grave and invaluable matter, which can
only be atoned for by fighting. Unfortunately, as the police are in some se=
nse
pursuing us, we are hurried, and must fight now and without seconds. But if=
you
will be so kind as to take us into your little garden and see far play, we
shall feel how----"
The shopman recov=
ered
himself from a stunning surprise and burst out:
"Gentlemen, =
are
you drunk? A duel! A duel in my garden. Go home, gentlemen, go home. Why, w=
hat
did you quarrel about?"
"We
quarrelled," said Evan, in the same dead voice, "about
religion." The fat shopkeeper rolled about in his chair with enjoyment=
.
"Well, this =
is a
funny game," he said. "So you want to commit murder on behalf of
religion. Well, well my religion is a little respect for humanity,
and----"
"Excuse
me," cut in Turnbull, suddenly and fiercely, pointing towards the
pawnbroker's next door. "Don't you own that shop?"
"Why--er--ye=
s,"
said Gordon.
"And don't y=
ou
own that shop?" repeated the secularist, pointing backward to the
pornographic bookseller.
"What if I
do?"
"Why,
then," cried Turnbull, with grating contempt. "I will leave the
religion of humanity confidently in your hands; but I am sorry I troubled y=
ou
about such a thing as honour. Look here, my man. I do believe in humanity. =
I do
believe in liberty. My father died for it under the swords of the Yeomanry.=
I
am going to die for it, if need be, under that sword on your counter. But if
there is one sight that makes me doubt it it is your foul fat face. It is h=
ard
to believe you were not meant to be ruled like a dog or killed like a
cockroach. Don't try your slave's philosophy on me. We are going to fight, =
and
we are going to fight in your garden, with your swords. Be still! Raise your
voice above a whisper, and I run you through the body."
Turnbull put the
bright point of the sword against the gay waistcoat of the dealer, who stood
choking with rage and fear, and an astonishment so crushing as to be greater
than either.
"MacIan,&quo=
t;
said Turnbull, falling almost into the familiar tone of a business partner,
"MacIan, tie up this fellow and put a gag in his mouth. Be still, I sa=
y,
or I kill you where you stand."
The man was too
frightened to scream, but he struggled wildly, while Evan MacIan, whose lon=
g,
lean hands were unusually powerful, tightened some old curtain cords round =
him,
strapped a rope gag in his mouth and rolled him on his back on the floor.
"There's not=
hing
very strong here," said Evan, looking about him. "I'm afraid he'll
work through that gag in half an hour or so."
"Yes," =
said
Turnbull, "but one of us will be killed by that time."
"Well, let's
hope so," said the Highlander, glancing doubtfully at the squirming th=
ing
on the floor.
"And now,&qu=
ot;
said Turnbull, twirling his fiery moustache and fingering his sword, "=
let
us go into the garden. What an exquisite summer evening!"
MacIan said nothi=
ng,
but lifting his sword from the counter went out into the sun.
The brilliant lig=
ht
ran along the blades, filling the channels of them with white fire; the
combatants stuck their swords in the turf and took off their hats, coats,
waistcoats, and boots. Evan said a short Latin prayer to himself, during wh=
ich
Turnbull made something of a parade of lighting a cigarette which he flung =
away
the instant after, when he saw MacIan apparently standing ready. Yet MacIan=
was
not exactly ready. He stood staring like a man stricken with a trance.
"What are you
staring at?" asked Turnbull. "Do you see the bobbies?"
"I see
Jerusalem," said Evan, "all covered with the shields and standard=
s of
the Saracens."
"Jerusalem!&=
quot;
said Turnbull, laughing. "Well, we've taken the only inhabitant into
captivity."
And he picked up =
his
sword and made it whistle like a boy's wand.
"I beg your
pardon," said MacIan, dryly. "Let us begin."
MacIan made a
military salute with his weapon, which Turnbull copied or parodied with an
impatient contempt; and in the stillness of the garden the swords came toge=
ther
with a clear sound like a bell. The instant the blades touched, each felt t=
hem
tingle to their very points with a personal vitality, as if they were two n=
aked
nerves of steel. Evan had worn throughout an air of apathy, which might have
been the stale apathy of one who wants nothing. But it was indeed the more
dreadful apathy of one who wants something and will care for nothing else. =
And
this was seen suddenly; for the instant Evan engaged he disengaged and lung=
ed with
an infernal violence. His opponent with a desperate promptitude parried and
riposted; the parry only just succeeded, the riposte failed. Something big =
and
unbearable seemed to have broken finally out of Evan in that first murderous
lunge, leaving him lighter and cooler and quicker upon his feet. He fell to
again, fiercely still, but now with a fierce caution. The next moment Turnb=
ull
lunged; MacIan seemed to catch the point and throw it away from him, and was
thrusting back like a thunderbolt, when a sound paralysed him; another sound
beside their ringing weapons. Turnbull, perhaps from an equal astonishment,
perhaps from chivalry, stopped also and forebore to send his sword through =
his exposed
enemy.
"What's
that?" asked Evan, hoarsely.
A heavy scraping
sound, as of a trunk being dragged along a littered floor, came from the da=
rk
shop behind them.
"The old Jew=
has
broken one of his strings, and he's crawling about," said Turnbull.
"Be quick! We must finish before he gets his gag out."
"Yes, yes,
quick! On guard!" cried the Highlander. The blades crossed again with =
the
same sound like song, and the men went to work again with the same white and
watchful faces. Evan, in his impatience, went back a little to his wildness=
. He
made windmills, as the French duellists say, and though he was probably a s=
hade
the better fencer of the two, he found the other's point pass his face twic=
e so
close as almost to graze his cheek. The second time he realized the actual
possibility of defeat and pulled himself together under a shock of the sani=
ty
of anger. He narrowed, and, so to speak, tightened his operations: he fenced
(as the swordsman's boast goes), in a wedding ring; he turned Turnbull's
thrusts with a maddening and almost mechanical click, like that of a machin=
e. Whenever
Turnbull's sword sought to go over that other mere white streak it seemed t=
o be
caught in a complex network of steel. He turned one thrust, turned another,
turned another. Then suddenly he went forward at the lunge with his whole
living weight. Turnbull leaped back, but Evan lunged and lunged and lunged
again like a devilish piston rod or battering ram. And high above all the s=
ound
of the struggle there broke into the silent evening a bellowing human voice,
nasal, raucous, at the highest pitch of pain. "Help! Help! Police! Mur=
der!
Murder!" The gag was broken; and the tongue of terror was loose.
"Keep on!&qu=
ot;
gasped Turnbull. "One may be killed before they come."
The voice of the
screaming shopkeeper was loud enough to drown not only the noise of the swo=
rds
but all other noises around it, but even through its rending din there seem=
ed
to be some other stir or scurry. And Evan, in the very act of thrusting at
Turnbull, saw something in his eyes that made him drop his sword. The athei=
st,
with his grey eyes at their widest and wildest, was staring straight over h=
is
shoulder at the little archway of shop that opened on the street beyond. An=
d he
saw the archway blocked and blackened with strange figures.
"We must bol=
t,
MacIan," he said abruptly. "And there isn't a damned second to lo=
se
either. Do as I do."
With a bound he w=
as
beside the little cluster of his clothes and boots that lay on the lawn; he
snatched them up, without waiting to put any of them on; and tucking his sw=
ord
under his other arm, went wildly at the wall at the bottom of the garden and
swung himself over it. Three seconds after he had alighted in his socks on =
the
other side, MacIan alighted beside him, also in his socks and also carrying
clothes and sword in a desperate bundle.
They were in a
by-street, very lean and lonely itself, but so close to a crowded thoroughf=
are
that they could see the vague masses of vehicles going by, and could even s=
ee
an individual hansom cab passing the corner at the instant. Turnbull put his
fingers to his mouth like a gutter-snipe and whistled twice. Even as he did=
so
he could hear the loud voices of the neighbours and the police coming down =
the
garden.
The hansom swung
sharply and came tearing down the little lane at his call. When the cabman =
saw
his fares, however, two wild-haired men in their shirts and socks with naked
swords under their arms, he not unnaturally brought his readiness to a rigid
stop and stared suspiciously.
"You talk to=
him
a minute," whispered Turnbull, and stepped back into the shadow of the
wall.
"We want
you," said MacIan to the cabman, with a superb Scotch drawl of indiffe=
rence
and assurance, "to drive us to St. Pancras Station--verra quick."=
"Very sorry,
sir," said the cabman, "but I'd like to know it was all right. Mi=
ght
I arst where you come from, sir?"
A second after he
spoke MacIan heard a heavy voice on the other side of the wall, saying: &qu=
ot;I
suppose I'd better get over and look for them. Give me a back."
"Cabby,"
said MacIan, again assuming the most deliberate and lingering lowland Scotch
intonation, "if ye're really verra anxious to ken whar a' come fra', I=
'll
tell ye as a verra great secret. A' come from Scotland. And a'm gaein' to S=
t.
Pancras Station. Open the doors, cabby."
The cabman stared,
but laughed. The heavy voice behind the wall said: "Now then, a better=
back
this time, Mr. Price." And from the shadow of the wall Turnbull crept =
out.
He had struggled wildly into his coat (leaving his waistcoat on the pavemen=
t),
and he was with a fierce pale face climbing up the cab behind the cabman.
MacIan had no glimmering notion of what he was up to, but an instinct of
discipline, inherited from a hundred men of war, made him stick to his own =
part
and trust the other man's.
"Open the do=
ors,
cabby," he repeated, with something of the obstinate solemnity of a
drunkard, "open the doors. Did ye no hear me say St. Pancras
Station?"
The top of a
policeman's helmet appeared above the garden wall. The cabman did not see i=
t,
but he was still suspicious and began:
"Very sorry,
sir, but..." and with that the catlike Turnbull tore him out of his se=
at
and hurled him into the street below, where he lay suddenly stunned.
"Give me his
hat," said Turnbull in a silver voice, that the other obeyed like a bu=
gle.
"And get inside with the swords."
And just as the r=
ed
and raging face of a policeman appeared above the wall, Turnbull struck the
horse with a terrible cut of the whip and the two went whirling away like a
boomerang.
They had spun thr=
ough
seven streets and three or four squares before anything further happened. T=
hen,
in the neighbourhood of Maida Vale, the driver opened the trap and talked
through it in a manner not wholly common in conversations through that
aperture.
"Mr.
MacIan," he said shortly and civilly.
"Mr.
Turnbull," replied his motionless fare.
"Under
circumstances such as those in which we were both recently placed there was=
no
time for anything but very abrupt action. I trust therefore that you have no
cause to complain of me if I have deferred until this moment a consultation
with you on our present position or future action. Our present position, Mr.
MacIan, I imagine that I am under no special necessity of describing. We ha=
ve
broken the law and we are fleeing from its officers. Our future action is a
thing about which I myself entertain sufficiently strong views; but I have =
no
right to assume or to anticipate yours, though I may have formed a decided
conception of your character and a decided notion of what they will probably
be. Still, by every principle of intellectual justice, I am bound to ask you
now and seriously whether you wish to continue our interrupted relations.&q=
uot;
MacIan leant his
white and rather weary face back upon the cushions in order to speak up thr=
ough
the open door.
"Mr.
Turnbull," he said, "I have nothing to add to what I have said be=
fore.
It is strongly borne in upon me that you and I, the sole occupants of this
runaway cab, are at this moment the two most important people in London,
possibly in Europe. I have been looking at all the streets as we went past,=
I
have been looking at all the shops as we went past, I have been looking at =
all
the churches as we went past. At first, I felt a little dazed with the vast=
ness
of it all. I could not understand what it all meant. But now I know exactly
what it all means. It means us. This whole civilization is only a dream. You
and I are the realities."
"Religious
symbolism," said Mr. Turnbull, through the trap, "does not, as you
are probably aware, appeal ordinarily to thinkers of the school to which I
belong. But in symbolism as you use it in this instance, I must, I think,
concede a certain truth. We must fight this thing out somewhere; because, as
you truly say, we have found each other's reality. We must kill each other-=
-or
convert each other. I used to think all Christians were hypocrites, and I f=
elt
quite mildly towards them really. But I know you are sincere--and my soul is
mad against you. In the same way you used, I suppose, to think that all
atheists thought atheism would leave them free for immorality--and yet in y=
our
heart you tolerated them entirely. Now you know that I am an honest man, and
you are mad against me, as I am against you. Yes, that's it. You can't be a=
ngry
with bad men. But a good man in the wrong--why one thirsts for his blood. Y=
es,
you open for me a vista of thought."
"Don't run i=
nto
anything," said Evan, immovably.
"There's
something in that view of yours, too," said Turnbull, and shut down the
trap.
They sped on thro=
ugh
shining streets that shot by them like arrows. Mr. Turnbull had evidently a
great deal of unused practical talent which was unrolling itself in this
ridiculous adventure. They had got away with such stunning promptitude that=
the
police chase had in all probability not even properly begun. But in case it
had, the amateur cabman chose his dizzy course through London with a strange
dexterity. He did not do what would have first occurred to any ordinary
outsider desiring to destroy his tracks. He did not cut into by-ways or twi=
st
his way through mean streets. His amateur common sense told him that it was
precisely the poor street, the side street, that would be likely to remembe=
r and
report the passing of a hansom cab, like the passing of a royal procession.=
He
kept chiefly to the great roads, so full of hansoms that a wilder pair than
they might easily have passed in the press. In one of the quieter streets E=
van
put on his boots.
Towards the top of
Albany Street the singular cabman again opened the trap.
"Mr.
MacIan," he said, "I understand that we have now definitely settl=
ed that
in the conventional language honour is not satisfied. Our action must at le=
ast
go further than it has gone under recent interrupted conditions. That, I
believe, is understood."
"Perfectly,&=
quot;
replied the other with his bootlace in his teeth.
"Under those
conditions," continued Turnbull, his voice coming through the hole wit=
h a
slight note of trepidation very unusual with him, "I have a suggestion=
to
make, if that can be called a suggestion, which has probably occurred to yo=
u as
readily as to me. Until the actual event comes off we are practically in the
position if not of comrades, at least of business partners. Until the event
comes off, therefore I should suggest that quarrelling would be inconvenient
and rather inartistic; while the ordinary exchange of politeness between man
and man would be not only elegant but uncommonly practical."
"You are
perfectly right," answered MacIan, with his melancholy voice, "in
saying that all this has occurred to me. All duellists should behave like
gentlemen to each other. But we, by the queerness of our position, are
something much more than either duellists or gentlemen. We are, in the odde=
st
and most exact sense of the term, brothers--in arms."
"Mr.
MacIan," replied Turnbull, calmly, "no more need be said." A=
nd
he closed the trap once more.
They had reached
Finchley Road before he opened it again.
Then he said,
"Mr. MacIan, may I offer you a cigar. It will be a touch of realism.&q=
uot;
"Thank
you," answered Evan. "You are very kind." And he began to sm=
oke in
the cab.
IV. A DISCUSSION AT DAWN<=
/span>
The duellists had
from their own point of view escaped or conquered the chief powers of the
modern world. They had satisfied the magistrate, they had tied the tradesman
neck and heels, and they had left the police behind. As far as their own
feelings went they had melted into a monstrous sea; they were but the fare =
and
driver of one of the million hansoms that fill London streets. But they had
forgotten something; they had forgotten journalism. They had forgotten that
there exists in the modern world, perhaps for the first time in history, a
class of people whose interest is not that things should happen well or hap=
pen
badly, should happen successfully or happen unsuccessfully, should happen t=
o the
advantage of this party or the advantage of that part, but whose interest
simply is that things should happen.
It is the one gre=
at
weakness of journalism as a picture of our modern existence, that it must b=
e a
picture made up entirely of exceptions. We announce on flaring posters that=
a
man has fallen off a scaffolding. We do not announce on flaring posters tha=
t a
man has not fallen off a scaffolding. Yet this latter fact is fundamentally
more exciting, as indicating that that moving tower of terror and mystery, a
man, is still abroad upon the earth. That the man has not fallen off a
scaffolding is really more sensational; and it is also some thousand times =
more
common. But journalism cannot reasonably be expected thus to insist upon th=
e permanent
miracles. Busy editors cannot be expected to put on their posters, "Mr.
Wilkinson Still Safe," or "Mr. Jones, of Worthing, Not Dead
Yet." They cannot announce the happiness of mankind at all. They cannot
describe all the forks that are not stolen, or all the marriages that are n=
ot
judiciously dissolved. Hence the complete picture they give of life is of
necessity fallacious; they can only represent what is unusual. However
democratic they may be, they are only concerned with the minority.
The incident of t=
he
religious fanatic who broke a window on Ludgate Hill was alone enough to se=
t them
up in good copy for the night. But when the same man was brought before a
magistrate and defied his enemy to mortal combat in the open court, then the
columns would hardly hold the excruciating information, and the headlines w=
ere
so large that there was hardly room for any of the text. The Daily Telegraph
headed a column, "A Duel on Divinity," and there was a correspond=
ence
afterwards which lasted for months, about whether police magistrates ought =
to
mention religion. The Daily Mail in its dull, sensible way, headed the even=
ts, "Wanted
to fight for the Virgin." Mr. James Douglas, in The Star, presuming on=
his
knowledge of philosophical and theological terms, described the Christian's
outbreak under the title of "Dualist and Duellist." The Daily News
inserted a colourless account of the matter, but was pursued and eaten up f=
or
some weeks, with letters from outlying ministers, headed "Murder and
Mariolatry." But the journalistic temperature was steadily and
consistently heated by all these influences; the journalists had tasted blo=
od,
prospectively, and were in the mood for more; everything in the matter prep=
ared
them for further outbursts of moral indignation. And when a gasping reporter
rushed in in the last hours of the evening with the announcement that the t=
wo
heroes of the Police Court had literally been found fighting in a London ba=
ck garden,
with a shopkeeper bound and gagged in the front of the house, the editors a=
nd
sub-editors were stricken still as men are by great beatitudes.
The next morning,=
five
or six of the great London dailies burst out simultaneously into great blos=
soms
of eloquent leader-writing. Towards the end all the leaders tended to be the
same, but they all began differently. The Daily Telegraph, for instance beg=
an,
"There will be little difference among our readers or among all truly
English and law-abiding men touching the, etc. etc." The Daily Mail sa=
id,
"People must learn, in the modern world, to keep their theological
differences to themselves. The fracas, etc. etc." The Daily News start=
ed,
"Nothing could be more inimical to the cause of true religion than, et=
c.
etc." The Times began with something about Celtic disturbances of the =
equilibrium
of Empire, and the Daily Express distinguished itself splendidly by omitting
altogether so controversial a matter and substituting a leader about golosh=
es.
And the morning a=
fter
that, the editors and the newspapers were in such a state, that, as the phr=
ase
is, there was no holding them. Whatever secret and elvish thing it is that
broods over editors and suddenly turns their brains, that thing had seized =
on
the story of the broken glass and the duel in the garden. It became monstro=
us
and omnipresent, as do in our time the unimportant doings of the sect of th=
e Agapemonites,
or as did at an earlier time the dreary dishonesties of the Rhodesian
financiers. Questions were asked about it, and even answered, in the House =
of
Commons. The Government was solemnly denounced in the papers for not having
done something, nobody knew what, to prevent the window being broken. An
enormous subscription was started to reimburse Mr. Gordon, the man who had =
been
gagged in the shop. Mr. MacIan, one of the combatants, became for some
mysterious reason, singly and hugely popular as a comic figure in the comic
papers and on the stage of the music hall. He was always represented (in
defiance of fact), with red whiskers, and a very red nose, and in full High=
land
costume. And a song, consisting of an unimaginable number of verses, in whi=
ch
his name was rhymed with flat iron, the British Lion, sly 'un, dandelion, S=
pion
(With Kop in the next line), was sung to crowded houses every night. The pa=
pers
developed a devouring thirst for the capture of the fugitives; and when they
had not been caught for forty-eight hours, they suddenly turned the whole
matter into a detective mystery. Letters under the heading, "Where are
They," poured in to every paper, with every conceivable kind of
explanation, running them to earth in the Monument, the Twopenny Tube, Eppi=
ng
Forest, Westminster Abbey, rolled up in carpets at Shoolbreds, locked up in
safes in Chancery Lane. Yes, the papers were very interesting, and Mr. Turn=
bull
unrolled a whole bundle of them for the amusement of Mr. MacIan as they sat=
on
a high common to the north of London, in the coming of the white dawn.
The darkness in t=
he
east had been broken with a bar of grey; the bar of grey was split with a s=
word
of silver and morning lifted itself laboriously over London. From the spot
where Turnbull and MacIan were sitting on one of the barren steeps behind
Hampstead, they could see the whole of London shaping itself vaguely and
largely in the grey and growing light, until the white sun stood over it an=
d it
lay at their feet, the splendid monstrosity that it is. Its bewildering squ=
ares
and parallelograms were compact and perfect as a Chinese puzzle; an enormou=
s hieroglyphic
which man must decipher or die. There fell upon both of them, but upon Turn=
bull
more than the other, because he know more what the scene signified, that qu=
ite
indescribable sense as of a sublime and passionate and heart-moving futilit=
y,
which is never evoked by deserts or dead men or men neglected and barbarous,
which can only be invoked by the sight of the enormous genius of man applie=
d to
anything other than the best. Turnbull, the old idealistic democrat, had so
often reviled the democracy and reviled them justly for their supineness, t=
heir
snobbishness, their evil reverence for idle things. He was right enough; for
our democracy has only one great fault; it is not democratic. And after
denouncing so justly average modern men for so many years as sophists and as
slaves, he looked down from an empty slope in Hampstead and saw what gods t=
hey
are. Their achievement seemed all the more heroic and divine, because it se=
emed
doubtful whether it was worth doing at all. There seemed to be something
greater than mere accuracy in making such a mistake as London. And what was=
to
be the end of it all? what was to be the ultimate transformation of this co=
mmon
and incredible London man, this workman on a tram in Battersea, his clerk o=
n an
omnibus in Cheapside? Turnbull, as he stared drearily, murmured to himself =
the
words of the old atheistic and revolutionary Swinburne who had intoxicated =
his
youth:
"And still we ask if God or man =
Can
loosen thee Lazarus; =
Bid
thee rise up republican, =
And
save thyself and all of us. =
But
no disciple's tongue can say =
If
thou can'st take our sins away."
Turnbull shivered
slightly as if behind the earthly morning he felt the evening of the world,=
the
sunset of so many hopes. Those words were from "Songs before
Sunrise". But Turnbull's songs at their best were songs after sunrise,=
and
sunrise had been no such great thing after all. Turnbull shivered again in =
the
sharp morning air. MacIan was also gazing with his face towards the city, b=
ut
there was that about his blind and mystical stare that told one, so to spea=
k,
that his eyes were turned inwards. When Turnbull said something to him about
London, they seemed to move as at a summons and come out like two household=
ers
coming out into their doorways.
"Yes," =
he
said, with a sort of stupidity. "It's a very big place."
There was a somew=
hat
unmeaning silence, and then MacIan said again:
"It's a very=
big
place. When I first came into it I was frightened of it. Frightened exactly=
as
one would be frightened at the sight of a man forty feet high. I am used to=
big
things where I come from, big mountains that seem to fill God's infinity, a=
nd
the big sea that goes to the end of the world. But then these things are all
shapeless and confused things, not made in any familiar form. But to see the
plain, square, human things as large as that, houses so large and streets so
large, and the town itself so large, was like having screwed some devil's
magnifying glass into one's eye. It was like seeing a porridge bowl as big =
as a
house, or a mouse-trap made to catch elephants."
"Like the la=
nd
of the Brobdingnagians," said Turnbull, smiling.
"Oh! Where is
that?" said MacIan.
Turnbull said
bitterly, "In a book," and the silence fell suddenly between them
again.
They were sitting=
in
a sort of litter on the hillside; all the things they had hurriedly collect=
ed,
in various places, for their flight, were strewn indiscriminately round the=
m.
The two swords with which they had lately sought each other's lives were fl=
ung
down on the grass at random, like two idle walking-sticks. Some provisions =
they
had bought last night, at a low public house, in case of undefined
contingencies, were tossed about like the materials of an ordinary picnic, =
here
a basket of chocolate, and there a bottle of wine. And to add to the disord=
er finally,
there were strewn on top of everything, the most disorderly of modern thing=
s,
newspapers, and more newspapers, and yet again newspapers, the ministers of=
the
modern anarchy. Turnbull picked up one of them drearily, and took out a pip=
e.
"There's a l=
ot
about us," he said. "Do you mind if I light up?"
"Why should I
mind?" asked MacIan.
Turnbull eyed wit=
h a
certain studious interest, the man who did not understand any of the verbal
courtesies; he lit his pipe and blew great clouds out of it.
"Yes," =
he
resumed. "The matter on which you and I are engaged is at this moment
really the best copy in England. I am a journalist, and I know. For the fir=
st
time, perhaps, for many generations, the English are really more angry abou=
t a
wrong thing done in England than they are about a wrong thing done in
France."
"It is not a
wrong thing," said MacIan.
Turnbull laughed.
"You seem unable to understand the ordinary use of the human language.=
If
I did not suspect that you were a genius, I should certainly know you were a
blockhead. I fancy we had better be getting along and collecting our
baggage."
And he jumped up =
and
began shoving the luggage into his pockets, or strapping it on to his back.=
As
he thrust a tin of canned meat, anyhow, into his bursting side pocket, he s=
aid
casually:
"I only meant
that you and I are the most prominent people in the English papers."
"Well, what =
did
you expect?" asked MacIan, opening his great grave blue eyes.
"The papers =
are
full of us," said Turnbull, stooping to pick up one of the swords.
MacIan stooped and
picked up the other.
"Yes," =
he
said, in his simple way. "I have read what they have to say. But they
don't seem to understand the point."
"The point of
what?" asked Turnbull.
"The point of
the sword," said MacIan, violently, and planted the steel point in the
soil like a man planting a tree.
"That is a
point," said Turnbull, grimly, "that we will discuss later. Come
along."
Turnbull tied the
last tin of biscuits desperately to himself with string; and then spoke, li=
ke a
diver girt for plunging, short and sharp.
"Now, Mr.
MacIan, you must listen to me. You must listen to me, not merely because I =
know
the country, which you might learn by looking at a map, but because I know =
the
people of the country, whom you could not know by living here thirty years.
That infernal city down there is awake; and it is awake against us. All tho=
se
endless rows of windows and windows are all eyes staring at us. All those
forests of chimneys are fingers pointing at us, as we stand here on the
hillside. This thing has caught on. For the next six mortal months they will
think of nothing but us, as for six mortal months they thought of nothing b=
ut
the Dreyfus case. Oh, I know it's funny. They let starving children, who do=
n't want
to die, drop by the score without looking round. But because two gentlemen,
from private feelings of delicacy, do want to die, they will mobilize the a=
rmy
and navy to prevent them. For half a year or more, you and I, Mr. MacIan, w=
ill
be an obstacle to every reform in the British Empire. We shall prevent the
Chinese being sent out of the Transvaal and the blocks being stopped in the
Strand. We shall be the conversational substitute when anyone recommends Ho=
me
Rule, or complains of sky signs. Therefore, do not imagine, in your innocen=
ce,
that we have only to melt away among those English hills as a Highland cate=
ran
might into your god-forsaken Highland mountains. We must be eternally on our
guard; we must live the hunted life of two distinguished criminals. We must
expect to be recognized as much as if we were Napoleon escaping from Elba. =
We must
be prepared for our descriptions being sent to every tiny village, and for =
our
faces being recognized by every ambitious policeman. We must often sleep un=
der
the stars as if we were in Africa. Last and most important we must not drea=
m of
effecting our--our final settlement, which will be a thing as famous as the
Phoenix Park murders, unless we have made real and precise arrangements for=
our
isolation--I will not say our safety. We must not, in short, fight until we
have thrown them off our scent, if only for a moment. For, take my word for=
it,
Mr. MacIan, if the British Public once catches us up, the British Public wi=
ll
prevent the duel, if it is only by locking us both up in asylums for the re=
st
of our days."
MacIan was lookin=
g at
the horizon with a rather misty look.
"I am not at=
all
surprised," he said, "at the world being against us. It makes me =
feel
I was right to----"
"Yes?" =
said
Turnbull.
"To smash yo=
ur
window," said MacIan. "I have woken up the world."
"Very well,
then," said Turnbull, stolidly. "Let us look at a few final facts.
Beyond that hill there is comparatively clear country. Fortunately, I know =
the
part well, and if you will follow me exactly, and, when necessary, on your
stomach, we may be able to get ten miles out of London, literally without
meeting anyone at all, which will be the best possible beginning, at any ra=
te.
We have provisions for at least two days and two nights, three days if we d=
o it
carefully. We may be able to get fifty or sixty miles away without even wal=
king
into an inn door. I have the biscuits and the tinned meat, and the milk. Yo=
u have
the chocolate, I think? And the brandy?"
"Yes," =
said
MacIan, like a soldier taking orders.
"Very well,
then, come on. March. We turn under that third bush and so down into the
valley." And he set off ahead at a swinging walk.
Then he stopped
suddenly; for he realized that the other was not following. Evan MacIan was
leaning on his sword with a lowering face, like a man suddenly smitten still
with doubt.
"What on ear=
th
is the matter?" asked Turnbull, staring in some anger.
Evan made no repl=
y.
"What the de=
uce
is the matter with you?" demanded the leader, again, his face slowly
growing as red as his beard; then he said, suddenly, and in a more human vo=
ice,
"Are you in pain, MacIan?"
"Yes,"
replied the Highlander, without lifting his face.
"Take some
brandy," cried Turnbull, walking forward hurriedly towards him.
"You've got it."
"It's not in=
the
body," said MacIan, in his dull, strange way. "The pain has come =
into
my mind. A very dreadful thing has just come into my thoughts."
"What the de=
vil
are you talking about?" asked Turnbull.
MacIan broke out =
with
a queer and living voice.
"We must fig=
ht
now, Turnbull. We must fight now. A frightful thing has come upon me, and I
know it must be now and here. I must kill you here," he cried, with a =
sort
of tearful rage impossible to describe. "Here, here, upon this blessed
grass."
"Why, you
idiot," began Turnbull.
"The hour has
come--the black hour God meant for it. Quick, it will soon be gone.
Quick!"
And he flung the
scabbard from him furiously, and stood with the sunlight sparkling along his
sword.
"You confoun=
ded
fool," repeated Turnbull. "Put that thing up again, you ass; peop=
le
will come out of that house at the first clash of the steel."
"One of us w=
ill
be dead before they come," said the other, hoarsely, "for this is=
the
hour God meant."
"Well, I nev=
er
thought much of God," said the editor of The Atheist, losing all patie=
nce.
"And I think less now. Never mind what God meant. Kindly enlighten my
pagan darkness as to what the devil you mean."
"The hour wi=
ll
soon be gone. In a moment it will be gone," said the madman. "It =
is
now, now, now that I must nail your blaspheming body to the earth--now, now
that I must avenge Our Lady on her vile slanderer. Now or never. For the
dreadful thought is in my mind."
"And what
thought," asked Turnbull, with frantic composure, "occupies what =
you
call your mind?"
"I must kill=
you
now," said the fanatic, "because----"
"Well,
because," said Turnbull, patiently.
"Because I h=
ave
begun to like you."
Turnbull's face h=
ad a
sudden spasm in the sunlight, a change so instantaneous that it left no tra=
ce
behind it; and his features seemed still carved into a cold stare. But when=
he
spoke again he seemed like a man who was placidly pretending to misundersta=
nd something
that he understood perfectly well.
"Your affect=
ion
expresses itself in an abrupt form," he began, but MacIan broke the
brittle and frivolous speech to pieces with a violent voice. "Do not
trouble to talk like that," he said. "You know what I mean as wel=
l as
I know it. Come on and fight, I say. Perhaps you are feeling just as I
do."
Turnbull's face
flinched again in the fierce sunlight, but his attitude kept its contemptuo=
us
ease.
"Your Celtic
mind really goes too fast for me," he said; "let me be permitted =
in
my heavy Lowland way to understand this new development. My dear Mr. MacIan,
what do you really mean?"
MacIan still kept=
the
shining sword-point towards the other's breast.
"You know wh=
at I
mean. You mean the same yourself. We must fight now or else----"
"Or else?&qu=
ot;
repeated Turnbull, staring at him with an almost blinding gravity.
"Or else we =
may
not want to fight at all," answered Evan, and the end of his speech was
like a despairing cry.
Turnbull took out=
his
own sword suddenly as if to engage; then planting it point downwards for a
moment, he said, "Before we begin, may I ask you a question?"
MacIan bowed
patiently, but with burning eyes.
"You said, j=
ust
now," continued Turnbull, presently, "that if we did not fight no=
w,
we might not want to fight at all. How would you feel about the matter if we
came not to want to fight at all?"
"I should
feel," answered the other, "just as I should feel if you had drawn
your sword, and I had run away from it. I should feel that because I had be=
en
weak, justice had not been done."
"Justice,&qu= ot; answered Turnbull, with a thoughtful smile, "but we are talking about = your feelings. And what do you mean by justice, apart from your feelings?"<= o:p>
MacIan made a ges=
ture
of weary recognition! "Oh, Nominalism," he said, with a sort of s=
igh,
"we had all that out in the twelfth century."
"I wish we c=
ould
have it out now," replied the other, firmly. "Do you really mean =
that
if you came to think me right, you would be certainly wrong?"
"If I had a =
blow
on the back of my head, I might come to think you a green elephant,"
answered MacIan, "but have I not the right to say now, that if I thoug=
ht
that I should think wrong?"
"Then you are
quite certain that it would be wrong to like me?" asked Turnbull, with=
a
slight smile.
"No," s=
aid
Evan, thoughtfully, "I do not say that. It may not be the devil, it ma=
y be
some part of God I am not meant to know. But I had a work to do, and it is
making the work difficult."
"And I
suppose," said the atheist, quite gently, "that you and I know all
about which part of God we ought to know."
MacIan burst out =
like
a man driven back and explaining everything.
"The Church =
is
not a thing like the Athenaeum Club," he cried. "If the Athenaeum
Club lost all its members, the Athenaeum Club would dissolve and cease to
exist. But when we belong to the Church we belong to something which is out=
side
all of us; which is outside everything you talk about, outside the Cardinals
and the Pope. They belong to it, but it does not belong to them. If we all =
fell
dead suddenly, the Church would still somehow exist in God. Confound it all,
don't you see that I am more sure of its existence than I am of my own
existence? And yet you ask me to trust my temperament, my own temperament,
which can be turned upside down by two bottles of claret or an attack of the
jaundice. You ask me to trust that when it softens towards you and not to t=
rust
the thing which I believe to be outside myself and more real than the blood=
in
my body."
"Stop a
moment," said Turnbull, in the same easy tone, "Even in the very =
act
of saying that you believe this or that, you imply that there is a part of
yourself that you trust even if there are many parts which you mistrust. If=
it
is only you that like me, surely, also, it is only you that believe in the
Catholic Church."
Evan remained in =
an
unmoved and grave attitude. "There is a part of me which is divine,&qu=
ot;
he answered, "a part that can be trusted, but there are also affections
which are entirely animal and idle."
"And you are
quite certain, I suppose," continued Turnbull, "that if even you
esteem me the esteem would be wholly animal and idle?" For the first t=
ime
MacIan started as if he had not expected the thing that was said to him. At
last he said:
"Whatever in earth or heaven it is that has joined us two together, it seems to be somet= hing which makes it impossible to lie. No, I do not think that the movement in me towards you was...was that surface sort of thing. It may have been something deeper...something strange. I cannot understand the thing at all. But understand this and understand it thoroughly, if I loved you my love might = be divine. No, it is not some trifle that we are fighting about. It is not some superstition or some symbol. When you wrote those words about Our Lady, you= were in that act a wicked man doing a wicked thing. If I hate you it is because = you have hated goodness. And if I like you...it is because you are good."<= o:p>
Turnbull's face w=
ore
an indecipherable expression.
"Well, shall=
we
fight now?" he said.
"Yes," =
said
MacIan, with a sudden contraction of his black brows, "yes, it must be
now."
The bright swords
crossed, and the first touch of them, travelling down blade and arm, told e=
ach
combatant that the heart of the other was awakened. It was not in that way =
that
the swords rang together when they had rushed on each other in the little
garden behind the dealer's shop.
There was a pause,
and then MacIan made a movement as if to thrust, and almost at the same mom=
ent
Turnbull suddenly and calmly dropped his sword. Evan stared round in an unu=
sual
bewilderment, and then realized that a large man in pale clothes and a Pana=
ma
hat was strolling serenely towards them.
When the combatan=
ts,
with crossed swords, became suddenly conscious of a third party, they each =
made
the same movement. It was as quick as the snap of a pistol, and they altere=
d it
instantaneously and recovered their original pose, but they had both made i=
t,
they had both seen it, and they both knew what it was. It was not a movemen=
t of
anger at being interrupted. Say or think what they would, it was a movement=
of
relief. A force within them, and yet quite beyond them, seemed slowly and p=
itilessly
washing away the adamant of their oath. As mistaken lovers might watch the
inevitable sunset of first love, these men watched the sunset of their first
hatred.
Their hearts were
growing weaker and weaker against each other. When their weapons rang and
riposted in the little London garden, they could have been very certain tha=
t if
a third party had interrupted them something at least would have happened. =
They
would have killed each other or they would have killed him. But now nothing
could undo or deny that flash of fact, that for a second they had been glad=
to
be interrupted. Some new and strange thing was rising higher and higher in =
their
hearts like a high sea at night. It was something that seemed all the more
merciless, because it might turn out an enormous mercy. Was there, perhaps,
some such fatalism in friendship as all lovers talk about in love? Did God =
make
men love each other against their will?
"I'm sure yo=
u'll
excuse my speaking to you," said the stranger, in a voice at once eager
and deprecating.
The voice was too
polite for good manners. It was incongruous with the eccentric spectacle of=
the
duellists which ought to have startled a sane and free man. It was also
incongruous with the full and healthy, though rather loose physique of the =
man
who spoke. At the first glance he looked a fine animal, with curling gold b=
eard
and hair, and blue eyes, unusually bright. It was only at the second glance
that the mind felt a sudden and perhaps unmeaning irritation at the way in
which the gold beard retreated backwards into the waistcoat, and the way in
which the finely shaped nose went forward as if smelling its way. And it wa=
s only,
perhaps, at the hundredth glance that the bright blue eyes, which normally
before and after the instant seemed brilliant with intelligence, seemed as =
it
were to be brilliant with idiocy. He was a heavy, healthy-looking man, who
looked all the larger because of the loose, light coloured clothes that he
wore, and that had in their extreme lightness and looseness, almost a touch=
of
the tropics. But a closer examination of his attire would have shown that e=
ven
in the tropics it would have been unique; but it was all woven according to=
some
hygienic texture which no human being had ever heard of before, and which w=
as
absolutely necessary even for a day's health. He wore a huge broad-brimmed =
hat,
equally hygienic, very much at the back of his head, and his voice coming o=
ut
of so heavy and hearty a type of man was, as I have said, startlingly shrill
and deferential.
"I'm sure yo=
u'll
excuse my speaking to you," he said. "Now, I wonder if you are in
some little difficulty which, after all, we could settle very comfortably
together? Now, you don't mind my saying this, do you?"
The face of both
combatants remained somewhat solid under this appeal. But the stranger,
probably taking their silence for a gathering shame, continued with a kind =
of
gaiety:
"So you are =
the
young men I have read about in the papers. Well, of course, when one is you=
ng,
one is rather romantic. Do you know what I always say to young people?"=
;
A blank silence
followed this gay inquiry. Then Turnbull said in a colourless voice:
"As I was
forty-seven last birthday, I probably came into the world too soon for the
experience."
"Very good, =
very
good," said the friendly person. "Dry Scotch humour. Dry Scotch
humour. Well now. I understand that you two people want to fight a duel. I
suppose you aren't much up in the modern world. We've quite outgrown duelli=
ng,
you know. In fact, Tolstoy tells us that we shall soon outgrow war, which he
says is simply a duel between nations. A duel between nations. But there is=
no
doubt about our having outgrown duelling."
Waiting for some
effect upon his wooden auditors, the stranger stood beaming for a moment and
then resumed:
"Now, they t=
ell
me in the newspapers that you are really wanting to fight about something
connected with Roman Catholicism. Now, do you know what I always say to Rom=
an
Catholics?"
"No," s=
aid
Turnbull, heavily. "Do they?" It seemed to be a characteristic of=
the
hearty, hygienic gentleman that he always forgot the speech he had made the
moment before. Without enlarging further on the fixed form of his appeal to=
the
Church of Rome, he laughed cordially at Turnbull's answer; then his wanderi=
ng
blue eyes caught the sunlight on the swords, and he assumed a good-humoured
gravity.
"But you know
this is a serious matter," he said, eyeing Turnbull and MacIan, as if =
they
had just been keeping the table in a roar with their frivolities. "I am
sure that if I appealed to your higher natures...your higher natures. Every=
man
has a higher nature and a lower nature. Now, let us put the matter very
plainly, and without any romantic nonsense about honour or anything of that
sort. Is not bloodshed a great sin?"
"No," s=
aid
MacIan, speaking for the first time.
"Well, reall=
y,
really!" said the peacemaker.
"Murder is a
sin," said the immovable Highlander. "There is no sin of bloodshe=
d."
"Well, we wo=
n't
quarrel about a word," said the other, pleasantly.
"Why on earth
not?" said MacIan, with a sudden asperity. "Why shouldn't we quar=
rel
about a word? What is the good of words if they aren't important enough to
quarrel over? Why do we choose one word more than another if there isn't any
difference between them? If you called a woman a chimpanzee instead of an
angel, wouldn't there be a quarrel about a word? If you're not going to arg=
ue
about words, what are you going to argue about? Are you going to convey your
meaning to me by moving your ears? The Church and the heresies always used =
to
fight about words, because they are the only things worth fighting about. I=
say
that murder is a sin, and bloodshed is not, and that there is as much diffe=
rence
between those words as there is between the word 'yes' and the word 'no'; or
rather more difference, for 'yes' and 'no', at least, belong to the same
category. Murder is a spiritual incident. Bloodshed is a physical incident.=
A
surgeon commits bloodshed.
"Ah, you're a
casuist!" said the large man, wagging his head. "Now, do you know
what I always say to casuists...?"
MacIan made a vio=
lent
gesture; and Turnbull broke into open laughter. The peacemaker did not seem=
to
be in the least annoyed, but continued in unabated enjoyment.
"Well,
well," he said, "let us get back to the point. Now Tolstoy has sh=
own
that force is no remedy; so you see the position in which I am placed. I am
doing my best to stop what I'm sure you won't mind my calling this really
useless violence, this really quite wrong violence of yours. But it's again=
st
my principles to call in the police against you, because the police are sti=
ll
on a lower moral plane, so to speak, because, in short, the police undoubte=
dly
sometimes employ force. Tolstoy has shown that violence merely breeds viole=
nce
in the person towards whom it is used, whereas Love, on the other hand, bre=
eds
Love. So you see how I am placed. I am reduced to use Love in order to stop=
you.
I am obliged to use Love."
He gave to the wo=
rd
an indescribable sound of something hard and heavy, as if he were saying
"boots". Turnbull suddenly gripped his sword and said, shortly,
"I see how you are placed quite well, sir. You will not call the polic=
e.
Mr. MacIan, shall we engage?" MacIan plucked his sword out of the gras=
s.
"I must and =
will
stop this shocking crime," cried the Tolstoian, crimson in the face.
"It is against all modern ideas. It is against the principle of love. =
How
you, sir, who pretend to be a Christian..."
MacIan turned upon
him with a white face and bitter lip. "Sir," he said, "talk
about the principle of love as much as you like. You seem to me colder than=
a
lump of stone; but I am willing to believe that you may at some time have l=
oved
a cat, or a dog, or a child. When you were a baby, I suppose you loved your
mother. Talk about love, then, till the world is sick of the word. But don't
you talk about Christianity. Don't you dare to say one word, white or black,
about it. Christianity is, as far as you are concerned, a horrible mystery.
Keep clear of it, keep silent upon it, as you would upon an abomination. It=
is
a thing that has made men slay and torture each other; and you will never k=
now
why. It is a thing that has made men do evil that good might come; and you =
will
never understand the evil, let alone the good. Christianity is a thing that=
could
only make you vomit, till you are other than you are. I would not justify i=
t to
you even if I could. Hate it, in God's name, as Turnbull does, who is a man=
. It
is a monstrous thing, for which men die. And if you will stand here and talk
about love for another ten minutes it is very probable that you will see a =
man
die for it."
And he fell on gu=
ard.
Turnbull was busy settling something loose in his elaborate hilt, and the p=
ause
was broken by the stranger.
"Suppose I c=
all
the police?" he said, with a heated face.
"And deny yo=
ur
most sacred dogma," said MacIan.
"Dogma!"
cried the man, in a sort of dismay. "Oh, we have no dogmas, you
know!"
There was another
silence, and he said again, airily:
"You know, I
think, there's something in what Shaw teaches about no moral principles bei=
ng
quite fixed. Have you ever read The Quintessence of Ibsenism? Of course he =
went
very wrong over the war."
Turnbull, with a
bent, flushed face, was tying up the loose piece of the pommel with string.
With the string in his teeth, he said, "Oh, make up your damned mind a=
nd
clear out!"
"It's a seri=
ous
thing," said the philosopher, shaking his head. "I must be alone =
and
consider which is the higher point of view. I rather feel that in a case so
extreme as this..." and he went slowly away. As he disappeared among t=
he
trees, they heard him murmuring in a sing-song voice, "New occasions t=
each
new duties," out of a poem by James Russell Lowell.
"Ah," s=
aid
MacIan, drawing a deep breath. "Don't you believe in prayer now? I pra=
yed
for an angel."
"An hour
ago," said the Highlander, in his heavy meditative voice, "I felt=
the
devil weakening my heart and my oath against you, and I prayed that God wou=
ld
send an angel to my aid."
"Well?"
inquired the other, finishing his mending and wrapping the rest of the stri=
ng
round his hand to get a firmer grip.
"Well?"=
"Well, that =
man
was an angel," said MacIan.
"I didn't kn=
ow
they were as bad as that," answered Turnbull.
"We know that
devils sometimes quote Scripture and counterfeit good," replied the
mystic. "Why should not angels sometimes come to show us the black aby=
ss
of evil on whose brink we stand. If that man had not tried to stop us...I
might...I might have stopped."
"I know what=
you
mean," said Turnbull, grimly.
"But then he
came," broke out MacIan, "and my soul said to me: 'Give up fighti=
ng,
and you will become like That. Give up vows and dogmas, and fixed things, a=
nd
you may grow like That. You may learn, also, that fog of false philosophy. =
You
may grow fond of that mire of crawling, cowardly morals, and you may come to
think a blow bad, because it hurts, and not because it humiliates. You may =
come
to think murder wrong, because it is violent, and not because it is unjust.=
Oh,
you blasphemer of the good, an hour ago I almost loved you! But do not fear=
for
me now. I have heard the word Love pronounced in his intonation; and I know=
exactly
what it means. On guard!'"
The swords caught=
on
each other with a dreadful clang and jar, full of the old energy and hate; =
and
at once plunged and replunged. Once more each man's heart had become the ma=
gnet
of a mad sword. Suddenly, furious as they were, they were frozen for a mome=
nt
motionless.
"What noise =
is
that?" asked the Highlander, hoarsely.
"I think I
know," replied Turnbull.
"What?...
What?" cried the other.
"The student=
of
Shaw and Tolstoy has made up his remarkable mind," said Turnbull, quie=
tly.
"The police are coming up the hill."
Between high hedg=
es
in Hertfordshire, hedges so high as to create a kind of grove, two men were
running. They did not run in a scampering or feverish manner, but in the st=
eady
swing of the pendulum. Across the great plains and uplands to the right and
left of the lane, a long tide of sunset light rolled like a sea of ruby,
lighting up the long terraces of the hills and picking out the few windows =
of
the scattered hamlets in startling blood-red sparks. But the lane was cut d=
eep
in the hill and remained in an abrupt shadow. The two men running in it had=
an impression
not uncommonly experienced between those wild green English walls; a sense =
of
being led between the walls of a maze.
Though their pace=
was
steady it was vigorous; their faces were heated and their eyes fixed and
bright. There was, indeed, something a little mad in the contrast between t=
he
evening's stillness over the empty country-side, and these two figures flee=
ing
wildly from nothing. They had the look of two lunatics, possibly they were.=
"Are you all
right?" said Turnbull, with civility. "Can you keep this up?"=
;
"Quite easil=
y,
thank you," replied MacIan. "I run very well."
"Is that a
qualification in a family of warriors?" asked Turnbull.
"Undoubtedly.
Rapid movement is essential," answered MacIan, who never saw a joke in=
his
life.
Turnbull broke out
into a short laugh, and silence fell between them, the panting silence of
runners.
Then MacIan said:
"We run better than any of those policemen. They are too fat. Why do y=
ou
make your policemen so fat?"
"I didn't do
much towards making them fat myself," replied Turnbull, genially,
"but I flatter myself that I am now doing something towards making them
thin. You'll see they will be as lean as rakes by the time they catch us. T=
hey
will look like your friend, Cardinal Manning."
"But they wo=
n't
catch us," said MacIan, in his literal way.
"No, we beat
them in the great military art of running away," returned the other.
"They won't catch us unless----"
MacIan turned his
long equine face inquiringly. "Unless what?" he said, for Turnbull
had gone silent suddenly, and seemed to be listening intently as he ran as a
horse does with his ears turned back.
"Unless
what?" repeated the Highlander.
"Unless they=
do--what
they have done. Listen." MacIan slackened his trot, and turned his hea=
d to
the trail they had left behind them. Across two or three billows of the up =
and
down lane came along the ground the unmistakable throbbing of horses' hoofs=
.
"They have p=
ut the
mounted police on us," said Turnbull, shortly. "Good Lord, one wo=
uld
think we were a Revolution."
"So we
are," said MacIan calmly. "What shall we do? Shall we turn on them
with our points?"
"It may come=
to
that," answered Turnbull, "though if it does, I reckon that will =
be
the last act. We must put it off if we can." And he stared and peered
about him between the bushes. "If we could hide somewhere the beasts m=
ight
go by us," he said. "The police have their faults, but thank God
they're inefficient. Why, here's the very thing. Be quick and quiet. Follow
me."
He suddenly swung
himself up the high bank on one side of the lane. It was almost as high and
smooth as a wall, and on the top of it the black hedge stood out over them =
as
an angle, almost like a thatched roof of the lane. And the burning evening =
sky
looked down at them through the tangle with red eyes as of an army of gobli=
ns.
Turnbull hoisted
himself up and broke the hedge with his body. As his head and shoulders rose
above it they turned to flame in the full glow as if lit up by an immense
firelight. His red hair and beard looked almost scarlet, and his pale face =
as
bright as a boy's. Something violent, something that was at once love and
hatred, surged in the strange heart of the Gael below him. He had an
unutterable sense of epic importance, as if he were somehow lifting all
humanity into a prouder and more passionate region of the air. As he swung
himself up also into the evening light he felt as if he were rising on enor=
mous
wings.
Legends of the
morning of the world which he had heard in childhood or read in youth came =
back
upon him in a cloudy splendour, purple tales of wrath and friendship, like
Roland and Oliver, or Balin and Balan, reminding him of emotional
entanglements. Men who had loved each other and then fought each other; men=
who
had fought each other and then loved each other, together made a mixed but
monstrous sense of momentousness. The crimson seas of the sunset seemed to =
him
like a bursting out of some sacred blood, as if the heart of the world had
broken.
Turnbull was whol=
ly
unaffected by any written or spoken poetry; his was a powerful and prosaic
mind. But even upon him there came for the moment something out of the earth
and the passionate ends of the sky. The only evidence was in his voice, whi=
ch
was still practical but a shade more quiet.
"Do you see =
that
summer-house-looking thing over there?" he asked shortly. "That w=
ill
do for us very well."
Keeping himself f=
ree
from the tangle of the hedge he strolled across a triangle of obscure kitch=
en
garden, and approached a dismal shed or lodge a yard or two beyond it. It w=
as a
weather-stained hut of grey wood, which with all its desolation retained a =
tag
or two of trivial ornament, which suggested that the thing had once been a =
sort
of summer-house, and the place probably a sort of garden.
"That is qui=
te
invisible from the road," said Turnbull, as he entered it, "and it
will cover us up for the night."
MacIan looked at =
him
gravely for a few moments. "Sir," he said, "I ought to say
something to you. I ought to say----"
"Hush,"
said Turnbull, suddenly lifting his hand; "be still, man."
In the sudden
silence, the drumming of the distant horses grew louder and louder with
inconceivable rapidity, and the cavalcade of police rushed by below them in=
the
lane, almost with the roar and rattle of an express train.
"I ought to =
tell
you," continued MacIan, still staring stolidly at the other, "that
you are a great chief, and it is good to go to war behind you."
Turnbull said
nothing, but turned and looked out of the foolish lattice of the little
windows, then he said, "We must have food and sleep first."
When the last ech= o of their eluded pursuers had died in the distant uplands, Turnbull began to un= pack the provisions with the easy air of a man at a picnic. He had just laid out= the last items, put a bottle of wine on the floor, and a tin of salmon on the window-ledge, when the bottomless silence of that forgotten place was broke= n. And it was broken by three heavy blows of a stick delivered upon the door.<= o:p>
Turnbull looked u=
p in
the act of opening a tin and stared silently at his companion. MacIan's lon=
g,
lean mouth had shut hard.
"Who the dev=
il
can that be?" said Turnbull.
"God
knows," said the other. "It might be God."
Again the sound of
the wooden stick reverberated on the wooden door. It was a curious sound an=
d on
consideration did not resemble the ordinary effects of knocking on a door f=
or
admittance. It was rather as if the point of a stick were plunged again and
again at the panels in an absurd attempt to make a hole in them.
A wild look sprang
into MacIan's eyes and he got up half stupidly, with a kind of stagger, put=
his
hand out and caught one of the swords. "Let us fight at once," he
cried, "it is the end of the world."
"You're
overdone, MacIan," said Turnbull, putting him on one side. "It's =
only
someone playing the goat. Let me open the door."
But he also picke=
d up
a sword as he stepped to open it.
He paused one mom=
ent
with his hand on the handle and then flung the door open. Almost as he did =
so
the ferrule of an ordinary bamboo cane came at his eyes, so that he had
actually to parry it with the naked weapon in his hands. As the two touched,
the point of the stick was dropped very abruptly, and the man with the stick
stepped hurriedly back.
Against the heral=
dic
background of sprawling crimson and gold offered him by the expiring sunset,
the figure of the man with the stick showed at first merely black and
fantastic. He was a small man with two wisps of long hair that curled up on
each side, and seen in silhouette, looked like horns. He had a bow tie so b=
ig
that the two ends showed on each side of his neck like unnatural stunted wi=
ngs.
He had his long black cane still tilted in his hand like a fencing foil and
half presented at the open door. His large straw hat had fallen behind him =
as
he leapt backwards.
"With refere=
nce
to your suggestion, MacIan," said Turnbull, placidly, "I think it
looks more like the Devil."
"Who on earth
are you?" cried the stranger in a high shrill voice, brandishing his c=
ane
defensively.
"Let me
see," said Turnbull, looking round to MacIan with the same blandness.
"Who are we?"
"Come out,&q=
uot;
screamed the little man with the stick.
"Certainly,&=
quot;
said Turnbull, and went outside with the sword, MacIan following.
Seen more fully, =
with
the evening light on his face, the strange man looked a little less like a
goblin. He wore a square pale-grey jacket suit, on which the grey butterfly=
tie
was the only indisputable touch of affectation. Against the great sunset his
figure had looked merely small: seen in a more equal light it looked tolera=
bly
compact and shapely. His reddish-brown hair, combed into two great curls,
looked like the long, slow curling hair of the women in some pre-Raphaelite=
pictures.
But within this feminine frame of hair his face was unexpectedly impudent, =
like
a monkey's.
"What are you
doing here?" he said, in a sharp small voice.
"Well,"
said MacIan, in his grave childish way, "what are you doing here?"=
;
"I," sai=
d
the man, indignantly, "I'm in my own garden."
"Oh," s=
aid
MacIan, simply, "I apologize."
Turnbull was cool=
ly
curling his red moustache, and the stranger stared from one to the other,
temporarily stunned by their innocent assurance.
"But, may I
ask," he said at last, "what the devil you are doing in my summer=
-house?"
"Certainly,&=
quot;
said MacIan. "We were just going to fight."
"To fight!&q=
uot;
repeated the man.
"We had bett=
er
tell this gentleman the whole business," broke in Turnbull. Then turni=
ng
to the stranger he said firmly, "I am sorry, sir, but we have somethin=
g to
do that must be done. And I may as well tell you at the beginning and to av=
oid
waste of time or language, that we cannot admit any interference."
"We were just
going to take some slight refreshment when you interrupted us..."
The little man ha=
d a
dawning expression of understanding and stooped and picked up the unused bo=
ttle
of wine, eyeing it curiously.
Turnbull continue=
d:
"But that
refreshment was preparatory to something which I fear you will find less
comprehensible, but on which our minds are entirely fixed, sir. We are forc=
ed
to fight a duel. We are forced by honour and an internal intellectual need.=
Do
not, for your own sake, attempt to stop us. I know all the excellent and
ethical things that you will want to say to us. I know all about the essent=
ial
requirements of civil order: I have written leading articles about them all=
my
life. I know all about the sacredness of human life; I have bored all my
friends with it. Try and understand our position. This man and I are alone =
in
the modern world in that we think that God is essentially important. I thin=
k He
does not exist; that is where the importance comes in for me. But this man
thinks that He does exist, and thinking that very properly thinks Him more
important than anything else. Now we wish to make a great demonstration and
assertion--something that will set the world on fire like the first Christi=
an
persecutions. If you like, we are attempting a mutual martyrdom. The papers
have posted up every town against us. Scotland Yard has fortified every pol=
ice
station with our enemies; we are driven therefore to the edge of a lonely l=
ane,
and indirectly to taking liberties with your summer-house in order to arran=
ge
our..."
"Stop!"
roared the little man in the butterfly necktie. "Put me out of my
intellectual misery. Are you really the two tomfools I have read of in all =
the
papers? Are you the two people who wanted to spit each other in the Police
Court? Are you? Are you?"
"Yes," =
said
MacIan, "it began in a Police Court."
The little man sl=
ung
the bottle of wine twenty yards away like a stone.
"Come up to =
my
place," he said. "I've got better stuff than that. I've got the b=
est
Beaune within fifty miles of here. Come up. You're the very men I wanted to
see."
Even Turnbull, wi=
th
his typical invulnerability, was a little taken aback by this boisterous and
almost brutal hospitality.
"Why...sir..=
."
he began.
"Come up! Co=
me
in!" howled the little man, dancing with delight. "I'll give you a
dinner. I'll give you a bed! I'll give you a green smooth lawn and your cho=
ice
of swords and pistols. Why, you fools, I adore fighting! It's the only good
thing in God's world! I've walked about these damned fields and longed to s=
ee
somebody cut up and killed and the blood running. Ha! Ha!"
And he made sudden
lunges with his stick at the trunk of a neighbouring tree so that the ferru=
le
made fierce prints and punctures in the bark.
"Excuse
me," said MacIan suddenly with the wide-eyed curiosity of a child,
"excuse me, but..."
"Well?"
said the small fighter, brandishing his wooden weapon.
"Excuse
me," repeated MacIan, "but was that what you were doing at the do=
or?"
The little man st=
ared
an instant and then said: "Yes," and Turnbull broke into a guffaw=
.
"Come on!&qu=
ot;
cried the little man, tucking his stick under his arm and taking quite sudd=
enly
to his heels. "Come on! Confound me, I'll see both of you eat and then
I'll see one of you die. Lord bless me, the gods must exist after all--they
have sent me one of my day-dreams! Lord! A duel!"
He had gone flying
along a winding path between the borders of the kitchen garden, and in the
increasing twilight he was as hard to follow as a flying hare. But at length
the path after many twists betrayed its purpose and led abruptly up two or
three steps to the door of a tiny but very clean cottage. There was nothing
about the outside to distinguish it from other cottages, except indeed its
ominous cleanliness and one thing that was out of all the custom and tradit=
ion
of all cottages under the sun. In the middle of the little garden among the
stocks and marigolds there surged up in shapeless stone a South Sea Island
idol. There was something gross and even evil in that eyeless and alien god=
among
the most innocent of the English flowers.
"Come in!&qu=
ot;
cried the creature again. "Come in! it's better inside!"
Whether or no it =
was
better inside it was at least a surprise. The moment the two duellists had
pushed open the door of that inoffensive, whitewashed cottage they found th=
at
its interior was lined with fiery gold. It was like stepping into a chamber=
in
the Arabian Nights. The door that closed behind them shut out England and a=
ll
the energies of the West. The ornaments that shone and shimmered on every s=
ide
of them were subtly mixed from many periods and lands, but were all orienta=
l. Cruel
Assyrian bas-reliefs ran along the sides of the passage; cruel Turkish swor=
ds
and daggers glinted above and below them; the two were separated by ages and
fallen civilizations. Yet they seemed to sympathize since they were both
harmonious and both merciless. The house seemed to consist of chamber within
chamber and created that impression as of a dream which belongs also to the
Arabian Nights themselves. The innermost room of all was like the inside of=
a
jewel. The little man who owned it all threw himself on a heap of scarlet a=
nd
golden cushions and struck his hands together. A negro in a white robe and
turban appeared suddenly and silently behind them.
"Selim,"
said the host, "these two gentlemen are staying with me tonight. Send =
up
the very best wine and dinner at once. And Selim, one of these gentlemen wi=
ll
probably die tomorrow. Make arrangements, please."
The negro bowed a=
nd
withdrew.
Evan MacIan came =
out
the next morning into the little garden to a fresh silver day, his long face
looking more austere than ever in that cold light, his eyelids a little hea=
vy.
He carried one of the swords. Turnbull was in the little house behind him,
demolishing the end of an early breakfast and humming a tune to himself, wh=
ich
could be heard through the open window. A moment or two later he leapt to h=
is
feet and came out into the sunlight, still munching toast, his own sword st=
uck under
his arm like a walking-stick.
Their eccentric h=
ost
had vanished from sight, with a polite gesture, some twenty minutes before.
They imagined him to be occupied on some concerns in the interior of the ho=
use,
and they waited for his emergence, stamping the garden in silence--the gard=
en
of tall, fresh country flowers, in the midst of which the monstrous South S=
ea
idol lifted itself as abruptly as the prow of a ship riding on a sea of red=
and
white and gold.
It was with a sta=
rt,
therefore, that they came upon the man himself already in the garden. They =
were
all the more startled because of the still posture in which they found him.=
He
was on his knees in front of the stone idol, rigid and motionless, like a s=
aint
in a trance or ecstasy. Yet when Turnbull's tread broke a twig, he was on h=
is
feet in a flash.
"Excuse
me," he said with an irradiation of smiles, but yet with a kind of
bewilderment. "So sorry...family prayers...old fashioned...mother's kn=
ee.
Let us go on to the lawn behind."
And he ducked rap=
idly
round the statue to an open space of grass on the other side of it.
"This will d=
o us
best, Mr. MacIan," said he. Then he made a gesture towards the heavy s=
tone
figure on the pedestal which had now its blank and shapeless back turned
towards them. "Don't you be afraid," he added, "he can still=
see
us."
MacIan turned his
blue, blinking eyes, which seemed still misty with sleep (or sleeplessness)
towards the idol, but his brows drew together.
The little man wi=
th
the long hair also had his eyes on the back view of the god. His eyes were =
at
once liquid and burning, and he rubbed his hands slowly against each other.=
"Do you
know," he said, "I think he can see us better this way. I often t=
hink
that this blank thing is his real face, watching, though it cannot be watch=
ed.
He! he! Yes, I think he looks nice from behind. He looks more cruel from
behind, don't you think?"
"What the de=
vil
is the thing?" asked Turnbull gruffly.
"It is the o=
nly
Thing there is," answered the other. "It is Force."
"Oh!" s=
aid
Turnbull shortly.
"Yes, my
friends," said the little man, with an animated countenance, fluttering
his fingers in the air, "it was no chance that led you to this garden;
surely it was the caprice of some old god, some happy, pitiless god. Perhap=
s it
was his will, for he loves blood; and on that stone in front of him men have
been butchered by hundreds in the fierce, feasting islands of the South. In
this cursed, craven place I have not been permitted to kill men on his alta=
r.
Only rabbits and cats, sometimes."
In the stillness
MacIan made a sudden movement, unmeaning apparently, and then remained rigi=
d.
"But today, =
today,"
continued the small man in a shrill voice. "Today his hour is come. To=
day
his will is done on earth as it is in heaven. Men, men, men will bleed befo=
re
him today." And he bit his forefinger in a kind of fever.
Still, the two
duellists stood with their swords as heavily as statues, and the silence se=
emed
to cool the eccentric and call him back to more rational speech.
"Perhaps I
express myself a little too lyrically," he said with an amicable
abruptness. "My philosophy has its higher ecstasies, but perhaps you a=
re
hardly worked up to them yet. Let us confine ourselves to the unquestioned.=
You
have found your way, gentlemen, by a beautiful accident, to the house of the
only man in England (probably) who will favour and encourage your most
reasonable project. From Cornwall to Cape Wrath this county is one horrible,
solid block of humanitarianism. You will find men who will defend this or t=
hat
war in a distant continent. They will defend it on the contemptible ground =
of
commerce or the more contemptible ground of social good. But do not fancy t=
hat
you will find one other person who will comprehend a strong man taking the
sword in his hand and wiping out his enemy. My name is Wimpey, Morrice Wimp=
ey.
I had a Fellowship at Magdalen. But I assure you I had to drop it, owing to=
my
having said something in a public lecture infringing the popular prejudice
against those great gentlemen, the assassins of the Italian Renaissance. Th=
ey
let me say it at dinner and so on, and seemed to like it. But in a public
lecture...so inconsistent. Well, as I say, here is your only refuge and tem=
ple
of honour. Here you can fall back on that naked and awful arbitration which=
is
the only thing that balances the stars--a still, continuous violence. Vae
Victis! Down, down, down with the defeated! Victory is the only ultimate fa=
ct.
Carthage was destroyed, the Red Indians are being exterminated: that is the
single certainty. In an hour from now that sun will still be shining and th=
at grass
growing, and one of you will be conquered; one of you will be the conqueror.
When it has been done, nothing will alter it. Heroes, I give you the
hospitality fit for heroes. And I salute the survivor. Fall on!"
The two men took
their swords. Then MacIan said steadily: "Mr. Turnbull, lend me your s=
word
a moment."
Turnbull, with a
questioning glance, handed him the weapon. MacIan took the second sword in =
his
left hand and, with a violent gesture, hurled it at the feet of little Mr.
Wimpey.
"Fight!"=
; he
said in a loud, harsh voice. "Fight me now!"
Wimpey took a step
backward, and bewildered words bubbled on his lips.
"Pick up that sword and fight me," repeated MacIan, with brows as black as thunder.<= o:p>
The little man tu=
rned
to Turnbull with a gesture, demanding judgement or protection.
"Really,
sir," he began, "this gentleman confuses..."
"You stinking
little coward," roared Turnbull, suddenly releasing his wrath.
"Fight, if you're so fond of fighting! Fight, if you're so fond of all
that filthy philosophy! If winning is everything, go in and win! If the weak
must go to the wall, go to the wall! Fight, you rat! Fight, or if you won't
fight--run!"
And he ran at Wim=
pey,
with blazing eyes.
Wimpey staggered =
back
a few paces like a man struggling with his own limbs. Then he felt the furi=
ous
Scotchman coming at him like an express train, doubling his size every seco=
nd,
with eyes as big as windows and a sword as bright as the sun. Something bro=
ke
inside him, and he found himself running away, tumbling over his own feet in
terror, and crying out as he ran.
"Chase
him!" shouted Turnbull as MacIan snatched up the sword and joined in t=
he
scamper. "Chase him over a county! Chase him into the sea! Shoo! Shoo!
Shoo!"
The little man
plunged like a rabbit among the tall flowers, the two duellists after him.
Turnbull kept at his tail with savage ecstasy, still shooing him like a cat.
But MacIan, as he ran past the South Sea idol, paused an instant to spring =
upon
its pedestal. For five seconds he strained against the inert mass. Then it
stirred; and he sent it over with a great crash among the flowers, that
engulfed it altogether. Then he went bounding after the runaway.
In the energy of =
his
alarm the ex-Fellow of Magdalen managed to leap the paling of his garden. T=
he
two pursuers went over it after him like flying birds. He fled frantically =
down
a long lane with his two terrors on his trail till he came to a gap in the
hedge and went across a steep meadow like the wind. The two Scotchmen, as t=
hey
ran, kept up a cheery bellowing and waved their swords. Up three slanting m=
eadows,
down four slanting meadows on the other side, across another road, across a
heath of snapping bracken, through a wood, across another road, and to the =
brink
of a big pool, they pursued the flying philosopher. But when he came to the
pool his pace was so precipitate that he could not stop it, and with a kind=
of
lurching stagger, he fell splash into the greasy water. Getting dripping to=
his
feet, with the water up to his knees, the worshipper of force and victory w=
aded
disconsolately to the other side and drew himself on to the bank. And Turnb=
ull
sat down on the grass and went off into reverberations of laughter. A second
afterwards the most extraordinary grimaces were seen to distort the stiff f=
ace
of MacIan, and unholy sounds came from within. He had never practised laugh=
ing,
and it hurt him very much.
VII. THE VILLAGE OF
GRASSLEY-IN-THE-HOLE
At about half past
one, under a strong blue sky, Turnbull got up out of the grass and fern in
which he had been lying, and his still intermittent laughter ended in a kin=
d of
yawn.
"I'm
hungry," he said shortly. "Are you?"
"I have not
noticed," answered MacIan. "What are you going to do?"
"There's a
village down the road, past the pool," answered Turnbull. "I can =
see
it from here. I can see the whitewashed walls of some cottages and a kind of
corner of the church. How jolly it all looks. It looks so--I don't know what
the word is--so sensible. Don't fancy I'm under any illusions about Arcadian
virtue and the innocent villagers. Men make beasts of themselves there with
drink, but they don't deliberately make devils of themselves with mere talk=
ing.
They kill wild animals in the wild woods, but they don't kill cats to the G=
od
of Victory. They don't----" He broke off and suddenly spat on the grou=
nd.
"Excuse
me," he said; "it was ceremonial. One has to get the taste out of
one's mouth."
"The taste of
what?" asked MacIan.
"I don't know
the exact name for it," replied Turnbull. "Perhaps it is the South
Sea Islands, or it may be Magdalen College."
There was a long =
pause,
and MacIan also lifted his large limbs off the ground--his eyes particularly
dreamy.
"I know what=
you
mean, Turnbull," he said, "but... I always thought you people agr=
eed
with all that."
"With all th=
at
about doing as one likes, and the individual, and Nature loving the stronge=
st,
and all the things which that cockroach talked about."
Turnbull's big
blue-grey eyes stood open with a grave astonishment.
"Do you real=
ly
mean to say, MacIan," he said, "that you fancied that we, the
Free-thinkers, that Bradlaugh, or Holyoake, or Ingersoll, believe all that
dirty, immoral mysticism about Nature? Damn Nature!"
"I supposed =
you
did," said MacIan calmly. "It seems to me your most conclusive
position."
"And you mea=
n to
tell me," rejoined the other, "that you broke my window, and
challenged me to mortal combat, and tied a tradesman up with ropes, and cha=
sed
an Oxford Fellow across five meadows--all under the impression that I am su=
ch
an illiterate idiot as to believe in Nature!"
"I supposed =
you
did," repeated MacIan with his usual mildness; "but I admit that I
know little of the details of your belief--or disbelief."
Turnbull swung ro=
und
quite suddenly, and set off towards the village.
"Come
along," he cried. "Come down to the village. Come down to the nea=
rest
decent inhabitable pub. This is a case for beer."
"I do not qu=
ite
follow you," said the Highlander.
"Yes, you
do," answered Turnbull. "You follow me slap into the inn-parlour.=
I
repeat, this is a case for beer. We must have the whole of this matter out =
thoroughly
before we go a step farther. Do you know that an idea has just struck me of
great simplicity and of some cogency. Do not by any means let us drop our
intentions of settling our differences with two steel swords. But do you not
think that with two pewter pots we might do what we really have never thoug=
ht
of doing yet--discover what our difference is?"
"It never
occurred to me before," answered MacIan with tranquillity. "It is=
a
good suggestion."
And they set out =
at
an easy swing down the steep road to the village of Grassley-in-the-Hole.
Grassley-in-the-H=
ole
was a rude parallelogram of buildings, with two thoroughfares which might h=
ave
been called two high streets if it had been possible to call them streets. =
One
of these ways was higher on the slope than the other, the whole parallelogr=
am
lying aslant, so to speak, on the side of the hill. The upper of these two
roads was decorated with a big public house, a butcher's shop, a small publ=
ic
house, a sweetstuff shop, a very small public house, and an illegible signp=
ost.
The lower of the two roads boasted a horse-pond, a post office, a gentleman=
's
garden with very high hedges, a microscopically small public house, and two=
cottages.
Where all the people lived who supported all the public houses was in this,=
as
in many other English villages, a silent and smiling mystery. The church la=
y a
little above and beyond the village, with a square grey tower dominating it
decisively.
But even the chur=
ch
was scarcely so central and solemn an institution as the large public house,
the Valencourt Arms. It was named after some splendid family that had long =
gone
bankrupt, and whose seat was occupied by a man who had invented a hygienic
bootjack; but the unfathomable sentimentalism of the English people insiste=
d in
regarding the Inn, the seat and the sitter in it, as alike parts of a pure =
and
marmoreal antiquity. And in the Valencourt Arms festivity itself had some s=
olemnity
and decorum; and beer was drunk with reverence, as it ought to be. Into the
principal parlour of this place entered two strangers, who found themselves=
, as
is always the case in such hostels, the object, not of fluttered curiosity =
or
pert inquiry, but of steady, ceaseless, devouring ocular study. They had lo=
ng
coats down to their heels, and carried under each coat something that looked
like a stick. One was tall and dark, the other short and red-haired. They
ordered a pot of ale each.
"MacIan,&quo=
t;
said Turnbull, lifting his tankard, "the fool who wanted us to be frie=
nds
made us want to go on fighting. It is only natural that the fool who wanted=
us
to fight should make us friendly. MacIan, your health!"
Dusk was already
dropping, the rustics in the tavern were already lurching and lumbering out=
of
it by twos and threes, crying clamorous good nights to a solitary old toper
that remained, before MacIan and Turnbull had reached the really important =
part
of their discussion.
MacIan wore an
expression of sad bewilderment not uncommon with him. "I am to underst=
and,
then," he said, "that you don't believe in nature."
"You may say=
so
in a very special and emphatic sense," said Turnbull. "I do not
believe in nature, just as I do not believe in Odin. She is a myth. It is n=
ot
merely that I do not believe that nature can guide us. It is that I do not
believe that nature exists."
"Exists?&quo=
t;
said MacIan in his monotonous way, settling his pewter pot on the table.
"Yes, in a r=
eal
sense nature does not exist. I mean that nobody can discover what the origi=
nal
nature of things would have been if things had not interfered with it. The
first blade of grass began to tear up the earth and eat it; it was interfer=
ing
with nature, if there is any nature. The first wild ox began to tear up the
grass and eat it; he was interfering with nature, if there is any nature. In
the same way," continued Turnbull, "the human when it asserts its
dominance over nature is just as natural as the thing which it destroys.&qu=
ot;
"And in the =
same
way," said MacIan almost dreamily, "the superhuman, the supernatu=
ral
is just as natural as the nature which it destroys."
Turnbull took his
head out of his pewter pot in some anger.
"The
supernatural, of course," he said, "is quite another thing; the c=
ase
of the supernatural is simple. The supernatural does not exist."
"Quite so,&q=
uot;
said MacIan in a rather dull voice; "you said the same about the natur=
al.
If the natural does not exist the supernatural obviously can't." And he
yawned a little over his ale.
Turnbull turned f=
or
some reason a little red and remarked quickly, "That may be jolly clev=
er,
for all I know. But everyone does know that there is a division between the
things that as a matter of fact do commonly happen and the things that don'=
t.
Things that break the evident laws of nature----"
"Which does =
not
exist," put in MacIan sleepily. Turnbull struck the table with a sudden
hand.
"Good Lord in
heaven!" he cried----
"Who does not
exist," murmured MacIan.
"Good Lord in heaven!" thundered Turnbull, without regarding the interruption. "= ;Do you really mean to sit there and say that you, like anybody else, would not recognize the difference between a natural occurrence and a supernatural one--if there could be such a thing? If I flew up to the ceiling----"<= o:p>
"You would b=
ump
your head badly," cried MacIan, suddenly starting up. "One can't =
talk
of this kind of thing under a ceiling at all. Come outside! Come outside and
ascend into heaven!"
He burst the door
open on a blue abyss of evening and they stepped out into it: it was sudden=
ly
and strangely cool.
"Turnbull,&q=
uot;
said MacIan, "you have said some things so true and some so false that=
I
want to talk; and I will try to talk so that you understand. For at present=
you
do not understand at all. We don't seem to mean the same things by the same
words."
He stood silent f=
or a
second or two and then resumed.
"A minute or=
two
ago I caught you out in a real contradiction. At that moment logically I was
right. And at that moment I knew I was wrong. Yes, there is a real differen=
ce
between the natural and the supernatural: if you flew up into that blue sky
this instant, I should think that you were moved by God--or the devil. But =
if
you want to know what I really think...I must explain."
He stopped again,
abstractedly boring the point of his sword into the earth, and went on:
"I was born =
and
bred and taught in a complete universe. The supernatural was not natural, b=
ut
it was perfectly reasonable. Nay, the supernatural to me is more reasonable
than the natural; for the supernatural is a direct message from God, who is
reason. I was taught that some things are natural and some things divine. I
mean that some things are mechanical and some things divine. But there is t=
he
great difficulty, Turnbull. The great difficulty is that, according to my
teaching, you are divine."
"Me!
Divine?" said Turnbull truculently. "What do you mean?"
"That is just
the difficulty," continued MacIan thoughtfully. "I was told that
there was a difference between the grass and a man's will; and the differen=
ce
was that a man's will was special and divine. A man's free will, I heard, w=
as
supernatural."
"Rubbish!&qu=
ot;
said Turnbull.
"Oh," s=
aid
MacIan patiently, "then if a man's free will isn't supernatural, why do
your materialists deny that it exists?"
Turnbull was sile=
nt
for a moment. Then he began to speak, but MacIan continued with the same st=
eady
voice and sad eyes:
"So what I f=
eel
is this: Here is the great divine creation I was taught to believe in. I can
understand your disbelieving in it, but why disbelieve in a part of it? It =
was
all one thing to me. God had authority because he was God. Man had authority
because he was man. You cannot prove that God is better than a man; nor can=
you
prove that a man is better than a horse. Why permit any ordinary thing? Why=
do
you let a horse be saddled?"
"Some modern
thinkers disapprove of it," said Turnbull a little doubtfully.
"I know,&quo=
t;
said MacIan grimly; "that man who talked about love, for instance.&quo=
t;
Turnbull made a
humorous grimace; then he said: "We seem to be talking in a kind of
shorthand; but I won't pretend not to understand you. What you mean is this:
that you learnt about all your saints and angels at the same time as you le=
arnt
about common morality, from the same people, in the same way. And you mean =
to
say that if one may be disputed, so may the other. Well, let that pass for =
the
moment. But let me ask you a question in turn. Did not this system of yours,
which you swallowed whole, contain all sorts of things that were merely loc=
al,
the respect for the chief of your clan, or such things; the village ghost, =
the family
feud, or what not? Did you not take in those things, too, along with your
theology?"
MacIan stared alo=
ng
the dim village road, down which the last straggler from the inn was traili=
ng
his way.
"What you sa=
y is
not unreasonable," he said. "But it is not quite true. The
distinction between the chief and us did exist; but it was never anything l=
ike
the distinction between the human and the divine, or the human and the anim=
al.
It was more like the distinction between one animal and another. But----&qu=
ot;
"Well?"
said Turnbull.
MacIan was silent=
.
"Go on,"
repeated Turnbull; "what's the matter with you? What are you staring
at?"
"I am
staring," said MacIan at last, "at that which shall judge us both=
."
"Oh, yes,&qu=
ot;
said Turnbull in a tired way, "I suppose you mean God."
"No, I
don't," said MacIan, shaking his head. "I mean him."
And he pointed to=
the
half-tipsy yokel who was ploughing down the road.
"What do you
mean?" asked the atheist.
"I mean
him," repeated MacIan with emphasis. "He goes out in the early da=
wn;
he digs or he ploughs a field. Then he comes back and drinks ale, and then =
he
sings a song. All your philosophies and political systems are young compare=
d to
him. All your hoary cathedrals, yes, even the Eternal Church on earth is new
compared to him. The most mouldering gods in the British Museum are new fac=
ts
beside him. It is he who in the end shall judge us all."
And MacIan rose to
his feet with a vague excitement.
"What are you
going to do?"
"I am going =
to
ask him," cried MacIan, "which of us is right."
Turnbull broke in= to a kind of laugh. "Ask that intoxicated turnip-eater----" he began.<= o:p>
"Yes--which =
of
us is right," cried MacIan violently. "Oh, you have long words an=
d I
have long words; and I talk of every man being the image of God; and you ta=
lk
of every man being a citizen and enlightened enough to govern. But if every=
man
typifies God, there is God. If every man is an enlightened citizen, there is
your enlightened citizen. The first man one meets is always man. Let us cat=
ch
him up."
And in gigantic
strides the long, lean Highlander whirled away into the grey twilight, Turn=
bull
following with a good-humoured oath.
The track of the
rustic was easy to follow, even in the faltering dark; for he was enlivening
his wavering walk with song. It was an interminable poem, beginning with so=
me
unspecified King William, who (it appeared) lived in London town and who af=
ter
the second rise vanished rather abruptly from the train of thought. The rest
was almost entirely about beer and was thick with local topography of a qui=
te
unrecognizable kind. The singer's step was neither very rapid, nor, indeed,=
exceptionally
secure; so the song grew louder and louder and the two soon overtook him.
He was a man elde=
rly
or rather of any age, with lean grey hair and a lean red face, but with that
remarkable rustic physiognomy in which it seems that all the features stand=
out
independently from the face; the rugged red nose going out like a limb; the
bleared blue eyes standing out like signals.
He gave them gree=
ting
with the elaborate urbanity of the slightly intoxicated. MacIan, who was
vibrating with one of his silent, violent decisions, opened the question
without delay. He explained the philosophic position in words as short and
simple as possible. But the singular old man with the lank red face seemed =
to
think uncommonly little of the short words. He fixed with a fierce affection
upon one or two of the long ones.
"Atheists!&q=
uot;
he repeated with luxurious scorn. "Atheists! I know their sort, master.
Atheists! Don't talk to me about 'un. Atheists!"
The grounds of his
disdain seemed a little dark and confused; but they were evidently sufficie=
nt.
MacIan resumed in some encouragement:
"You think a=
s I
do, I hope; you think that a man should be connected with the Church; with =
the
common Christian----"
The old man exten=
ded
a quivering stick in the direction of a distant hill.
"There's the
church," he said thickly. "Grassley old church that is. Pulled do=
wn
it was, in the old squire's time, and----"
"I mean,&quo=
t;
explained MacIan elaborately, "that you think that there should be som=
eone
typifying religion, a priest----"
"Priests!&qu=
ot;
said the old man with sudden passion. "Priests! I know 'un. What they =
want
in England? That's what I say. What they want in England?"
"They want
you," said MacIan.
"Quite so,&q=
uot;
said Turnbull, "and me; but they won't get us. MacIan, your attempt on=
the
primitive innocence does not seem very successful. Let me try. What you wan=
t,
my friend, is your rights. You don't want any priests or churches. A vote, a
right to speak is what you----"
"Who says I
a'n't got a right to speak?" said the old man, facing round in an
irrational frenzy. "I got a right to speak. I'm a man, I am. I don't w=
ant
no votin' nor priests. I say a man's a man; that's what I say. If a man a'n=
't a
man, what is he? That's what I say, if a man a'n't a man, what is he? When I
sees a man, I sez 'e's a man."
"Quite so,&q=
uot;
said Turnbull, "a citizen."
"I say he's a
man," said the rustic furiously, stopping and striking his stick on the
ground. "Not a city or owt else. He's a man."
"You're
perfectly right," said the sudden voice of MacIan, falling like a swor=
d.
"And you have kept close to something the whole world of today tries to
forget."
"Good
night."
And the old man w=
ent
on wildly singing into the night.
"A jolly old
creature," said Turnbull; "he didn't seem able to get much beyond
that fact that a man is a man."
"Has anybody=
got
beyond it?" asked MacIan.
Turnbull looked at
him curiously. "Are you turning an agnostic?" he asked.
"Oh, you do =
not
understand!" cried out MacIan. "We Catholics are all agnostics. We
Catholics have only in that sense got as far as realizing that man is a man.
But your Ibsens and your Zolas and your Shaws and your Tolstoys have not ev=
en
got so far."
VIII. AN INTERLUDE OF
ARGUMENT
Morning broke in
bitter silver along the grey and level plain; and almost as it did so Turnb=
ull
and MacIan came out of a low, scrubby wood on to the empty and desolate fla=
ts.
They had walked all night.
They had walked a=
ll
night and talked all night also, and if the subject had been capable of bei=
ng
exhausted they would have exhausted it. Their long and changing argument had
taken them through districts and landscapes equally changing. They had
discussed Haeckel upon hills so high and steep that in spite of the coldnes=
s of
the night it seemed as if the stars might burn them. They had explained and
re-explained the Massacre of St. Bartholomew in little white lanes walled in
with standing corn as with walls of gold. They had talked about Mr. Kensit =
in
dim and twinkling pine woods, amid the bewildering monotony of the pines. A=
nd
it was with the end of a long speech from MacIan, passionately defending the
practical achievements and the solid prosperity of the Catholic tradition, =
that
they came out upon the open land.
MacIan had learnt
much and thought more since he came out of the cloudy hills of Arisaig. He =
had
met many typical modern figures under circumstances which were sharply
symbolic; and, moreover, he had absorbed the main modern atmosphere from the
mere presence and chance phrases of Turnbull, as such atmospheres can alway=
s be
absorbed from the presence and the phrases of any man of great mental vital=
ity.
He had at last begun thoroughly to understand what are the grounds upon whi=
ch
the mass of the modern world solidly disapprove of her creed; and he threw =
himself
into replying to them with a hot intellectual enjoyment.
"I begin to
understand one or two of your dogmas, Mr. Turnbull," he had said
emphatically as they ploughed heavily up a wooded hill. "And every one=
that
I understand I deny. Take any one of them you like. You hold that your here=
tics
and sceptics have helped the world forward and handed on a lamp of progress=
. I
deny it. Nothing is plainer from real history than that each of your hereti=
cs
invented a complete cosmos of his own which the next heretic smashed entire=
ly
to pieces. Who knows now exactly what Nestorius taught? Who cares? There are
only two things that we know for certain about it. The first is that Nestor=
ius,
as a heretic, taught something quite opposite to the teaching of Arius, the
heretic who came before him, and something quite useless to James Turnbull,=
the
heretic who comes after. I defy you to go back to the Free-thinkers of the =
past
and find any habitation for yourself at all. I defy you to read Godwin or
Shelley or the deists of the eighteenth century of the nature-worshipping
humanists of the Renaissance, without discovering that you differ from them
twice as much as you differ from the Pope. You are a nineteenth-century
sceptic, and you are always telling me that I ignore the cruelty of nature.=
If
you had been an eighteenth-century sceptic you would have told me that I ig=
nore
the kindness and benevolence of nature. You are an atheist, and you praise =
the
deists of the eighteenth century. Read them instead of praising them, and y=
ou
will find that their whole universe stands or falls with the deity. You are=
a materialist,
and you think Bruno a scientific hero. See what he said and you will think =
him
an insane mystic. No, the great Free-thinker, with his genuine ability and
honesty, does not in practice destroy Christianity. What he does destroy is=
the
Free-thinker who went before. Free-thought may be suggestive, it may be
inspiriting, it may have as much as you please of the merits that come from
vivacity and variety. But there is one thing Free-thought can never be by a=
ny possibility--Free-thought
can never be progressive. It can never be progressive because it will accept
nothing from the past; it begins every time again from the beginning; and it
goes every time in a different direction. All the rational philosophers have
gone along different roads, so it is impossible to say which has gone farth=
est.
Who can discuss whether Emerson was a better optimist than Schopenhauer was=
pessimist?
It is like asking if this corn is as yellow as that hill is steep. No; there
are only two things that really progress; and they both accept accumulation=
s of
authority. They may be progressing uphill and down; they may be growing
steadily better or steadily worse; but they have steadily increased in cert=
ain
definable matters; they have steadily advanced in a certain definable
direction; they are the only two things, it seems, that ever can progress. =
The
first is strictly physical science. The second is the Catholic Church."=
;
"Physical
science and the Catholic Church!" said Turnbull sarcastically; "a=
nd
no doubt the first owes a great deal to the second."
"If you pres=
sed
that point I might reply that it was very probable," answered MacIan
calmly. "I often fancy that your historical generalizations rest
frequently on random instances; I should not be surprised if your vague not=
ions
of the Church as the persecutor of science was a generalization from Galile=
o. I
should not be at all surprised if, when you counted the scientific
investigations and discoveries since the fall of Rome, you found that a gre=
at
mass of them had been made by monks. But the matter is irrelevant to my
meaning. I say that if you want an example of anything which has progressed=
in the
moral world by the same method as science in the material world, by continu=
ally
adding to without unsettling what was there before, then I say that there is
only one example of it. And that is Us."
"With this
enormous difference," said Turnbull, "that however elaborate be t=
he
calculations of physical science, their net result can be tested. Granted t=
hat
it took millions of books I never read and millions of men I never heard of=
to
discover the electric light. Still I can see the electric light. But I cann=
ot
see the supreme virtue which is the result of all your theologies and
sacraments."
"Catholic vi=
rtue
is often invisible because it is the normal," answered MacIan.
"Christianity is always out of fashion because it is always sane; and =
all
fashions are mild insanities. When Italy is mad on art the Church seems too
Puritanical; when England is mad on Puritanism the Church seems too artisti=
c.
When you quarrel with us now you class us with kingship and despotism; but =
when
you quarrelled with us first it was because we would not accept the divine
despotism of Henry VIII. The Church always seems to be behind the times, wh=
en
it is really beyond the times; it is waiting till the last fad shall have s=
een
its last summer. It keeps the key of a permanent virtue."
"Oh, I have
heard all that!" said Turnbull with genial contempt. "I have heard
that Christianity keeps the key of virtue, and that if you read Tom Paine y=
ou
will cut your throat at Monte Carlo. It is such rubbish that I am not even
angry at it. You say that Christianity is the prop of morals; but what more=
do
you do? When a doctor attends you and could poison you with a pinch of salt=
, do
you ask whether he is a Christian? You ask whether he is a gentleman, wheth=
er
he is an M.D.--anything but that. When a soldier enlists to die for his cou=
ntry
or disgrace it, do you ask whether he is a Christian? You are more likely to
ask whether he is Oxford or Cambridge at the boat race. If you think your c=
reed
essential to morals why do you not make it a test for these things?"
"We once did
make it a test for these things," said MacIan smiling, "and then =
you
told us that we were imposing by force a faith unsupported by argument. It
seems rather hard that having first been told that our creed must be false
because we did use tests, we should now be told that it must be false becau=
se
we don't. But I notice that most anti-Christian arguments are in the same
inconsistent style."
"That is all
very well as a debating-club answer," replied Turnbull good-humouredly,
"but the question still remains: Why don't you confine yourself more to
Christians if Christians are the only really good men?"
"Who talked =
of
such folly?" asked MacIan disdainfully. "Do you suppose that the
Catholic Church ever held that Christians were the only good men? Why, the =
Catholics
of the Catholic Middle Ages talked about the virtues of all the virtuous Pa=
gans
until humanity was sick of the subject. No, if you really want to know what=
we
mean when we say that Christianity has a special power of virtue, I will te=
ll
you. The Church is the only thing on earth that can perpetuate a type of vi=
rtue
and make it something more than a fashion. The thing is so plain and histor=
ical
that I hardly think you will ever deny it. You cannot deny that it is perfe=
ctly
possible that tomorrow morning, in Ireland or in Italy, there might appear a
man not only as good but good in exactly the same way as St. Francis of Ass=
isi.
Very well, now take the other types of human virtue; many of them splendid.=
The
English gentleman of Elizabeth was chivalrous and idealistic. But can you s=
tand
still here in this meadow and be an English gentleman of Elizabeth? The aus=
tere
republican of the eighteenth century, with his stern patriotism and his sim=
ple
life, was a fine fellow. But have you ever seen him? have you ever seen an =
austere
republican? Only a hundred years have passed and that volcano of revolution=
ary
truth and valour is as cold as the mountains of the moon. And so it is and =
so
it will be with the ethics which are buzzing down Fleet Street at this inst=
ant as
I speak. What phrase would inspire the London clerk or workman just now?
Perhaps that he is a son of the British Empire on which the sun never sets;
perhaps that he is a prop of his Trades Union, or a class-conscious proleta=
rian
something or other; perhaps merely that he is a gentleman when he obviously=
is
not. Those names and notions are all honourable; but how long will they las=
t? Empires
break; industrial conditions change; the suburbs will not last for ever. Wh=
at
will remain? I will tell you. The Catholic Saint will remain."
"And suppose=
I
don't like him?" said Turnbull.
"On my theory
the question is rather whether he will like you: or more probably whether he
will ever have heard of you. But I grant the reasonableness of your query. =
You
have a right, if you speak as the ordinary man, to ask if you will like the
saint. But as the ordinary man you do like him. You revel in him. If you
dislike him it is not because you are a nice ordinary man, but because you =
are
(if you will excuse me) a sophisticated prig of a Fleet Street editor. That=
is
just the funny part of it. The human race has always admired the Catholic
virtues, however little it can practise them; and oddly enough it has admir=
ed most
those of them that the modern world most sharply disputes. You complain of
Catholicism for setting up an ideal of virginity; it did nothing of the kin=
d.
The whole human race set up an ideal of virginity; the Greeks in Athene, the
Romans in the Vestal fire, set up an ideal of virginity. What then is your =
real
quarrel with Catholicism? Your quarrel can only be, your quarrel really only
is, that Catholicism has achieved an ideal of virginity; that it is no long=
er a
mere piece of floating poetry. But if you, and a few feverish men, in top h=
ats,
running about in a street in London, choose to differ as to the ideal itsel=
f,
not only from the Church, but from the Parthenon whose name means virginity,
from the Roman Empire which went outwards from the virgin flame, from the w=
hole
legend and tradition of Europe, from the lion who will not touch virgins, f=
rom
the unicorn who respects them, and who make up together the bearers of your=
own
national shield, from the most living and lawless of your own poets, from
Massinger, who wrote the Virgin Martyr, from Shakespeare, who wrote Measure=
for
Measure--if you in Fleet Street differ from all this human experience, does=
it
never strike you that it may be Fleet Street that is wrong?"
"No,"
answered Turnbull; "I trust that I am sufficiently fair-minded to canv=
ass
and consider the idea; but having considered it, I think Fleet Street is ri=
ght,
yes--even if the Parthenon is wrong. I think that as the world goes on new
psychological atmospheres are generated, and in these atmospheres it is
possible to find delicacies and combinations which in other times would hav=
e to
be represented by some ruder symbol. Every man feels the need of some eleme=
nt
of purity in sex; perhaps they can only typify purity as the absence of sex.
You will laugh if I suggest that we may have made in Fleet Street an atmosp=
here
in which a man can be so passionate as Sir Lancelot and as pure as Sir Gala=
had.
But, after all, we have in the modern world erected many such atmospheres. =
We
have, for instance, a new and imaginative appreciation of children."
"Quite so,&q=
uot;
replied MacIan with a singular smile. "It has been very well put by on=
e of
the brightest of your young authors, who said: 'Unless you become as little
children ye shall in no wise enter the kingdom of heaven.' But you are quite
right; there is a modern worship of children. And what, I ask you, is this
modern worship of children? What, in the name of all the angels and devils,=
is
it except a worship of virginity? Why should anyone worship a thing merely
because it is small or immature? No; you have tried to escape from this thi=
ng,
and the very thing you point to as the goal of your escape is only the thing
again. Am I wrong in saying that these things seem to be eternal?"
And it was with t=
hese
words that they came in sight of the great plains. They went a little way in
silence, and then James Turnbull said suddenly, "But I cannot believe =
in
the thing." MacIan answered nothing to the speech; perhaps it is
unanswerable. And indeed they scarcely spoke another word to each other all
that day.
Moonrise with a g=
reat
and growing moon opened over all those flats, making them seem flatter and
larger than they were, turning them to a lake of blue light. The two compan=
ions
trudged across the moonlit plain for half an hour in full silence. Then Mac=
Ian
stopped suddenly and planted his sword-point in the ground like one who pla=
nts
his tent-pole for the night. Leaving it standing there, he clutched his
black-haired skull with his great claws of hands, as was his custom when
forcing the pace of his brain. Then his hands dropped again and he spoke.
"I'm sure yo=
u're
thinking the same as I am," he said; "how long are we to be on th=
is
damned seesaw?"
The other did not
answer, but his silence seemed somehow solid as assent; and MacIan went on
conversationally. Neither noticed that both had instinctively stood still
before the sign of the fixed and standing sword.
"It is hard =
to
guess what God means in this business. But he means something--or the other
thing, or both. Whenever we have tried to fight each other something has
stopped us. Whenever we have tried to be reconciled to each other, something
has stopped us again. By the run of our luck we have never had time to be
either friends or enemies. Something always jumped out of the bushes."=
Turnbull nodded
gravely and glanced round at the huge and hedgeless meadow which fell away
towards the horizon into a glimmering high road.
"Nothing will
jump out of bushes here anyhow," he said.
"That is wha=
t I
meant," said MacIan, and stared steadily at the heavy hilt of his stan=
ding
sword, which in the slight wind swayed on its tempered steel like some huge
thistle on its stalk.
"That is wha=
t I
meant; we are quite alone here. I have not heard a horse-hoof or a footstep=
or
the hoot of a train for miles. So I think we might stop here and ask for a
miracle."
"Oh! might
we?" said the atheistic editor with a sort of gusto of disgust.
"I beg your
pardon," said MacIan, meekly. "I forgot your prejudices." He
eyed the wind-swung sword-hilt in sad meditation and resumed: "What I =
mean
is, we might find out in this quiet place whether there really is any fate =
or
any commandment against our enterprise. I will engage on my side, like Elij=
ah,
to accept a test from heaven. Turnbull, let us draw swords here in this
moonlight and this monstrous solitude. And if here in this moonlight and
solitude there happens anything to interrupt us--if it be lightning striking
our sword-blades or a rabbit running under our legs--I will take it as a si=
gn
from God and we will shake hands for ever."
Turnbull's mouth
twitched in angry humour under his red moustache. He said: "I will wait
for signs from God until I have any signs of His existence; but God--or
Fate--forbid that a man of scientific culture should refuse any kind of
experiment."
"Very well, then," said MacIan, shortly. "We are more quiet here than anywhere else; let us engage." And he plucked his sword-point out of the turf.<= o:p>
Turnbull regarded=
him
for a second and a half with a baffling visage almost black against the
moonrise; then his hand made a sharp movement to his hip and his sword shon=
e in
the moon.
As old chess-play=
ers
open every game with established gambits, they opened with a thrust and par=
ry,
orthodox and even frankly ineffectual. But in MacIan's soul more formless
storms were gathering, and he made a lunge or two so savage as first to
surprise and then to enrage his opponent. Turnbull ground his teeth, kept h=
is
temper, and waiting for the third lunge, and the worst, had almost spitted =
the
lunger when a shrill, small cry came from behind him, a cry such as is not =
made
by any of the beasts that perish.
Turnbull must have
been more superstitious than he knew, for he stopped in the act of going
forward. MacIan was brazenly superstitious, and he dropped his sword. After
all, he had challenged the universe to send an interruption; and this was an
interruption, whatever else it was. An instant afterwards the sharp, weak c=
ry
was repeated. This time it was certain that it was human and that it was
female.
MacIan stood roll=
ing
those great blue Gaelic eyes that contrasted with his dark hair. "It is
the voice of God," he said again and again.
"God hasn't =
got
much of a voice," said Turnbull, who snatched at every chance of cheap
profanity. "As a matter of fact, MacIan, it isn't the voice of God, but
it's something a jolly sight more important--it is the voice of man--or rat=
her
of woman. So I think we'd better scoot in its direction."
MacIan snatched up
his fallen weapon without a word, and the two raced away towards that part =
of
the distant road from which the cry was now constantly renewed.
They had to run o=
ver
a curve of country that looked smooth but was very rough; a neglected field
which they soon found to be full of the tallest grasses and the deepest
rabbit-holes. Moreover, that great curve of the countryside which looked so
slow and gentle when you glanced over it, proved to be highly precipitous w=
hen
you scampered over it; and Turnbull was twice nearly flung on his face. Mac=
Ian,
though much heavier, avoided such an overthrow only by having the quick and
incalculable feet of the mountaineer; but both of them may be said to have
leapt off a low cliff when they leapt into the road.
The moonlight lay=
on
the white road with a more naked and electric glare than on the grey-green
upland, and though the scene which it revealed was complicated, it was not
difficult to get its first features at a glance.
A small but very =
neat
black-and-yellow motor-car was standing stolidly, slightly to the left of t=
he
road. A somewhat larger light-green motor-car was tipped half-way into a di=
tch
on the same side, and four flushed and staggering men in evening dress were
tipped out of it. Three of them were standing about the road, giving their
opinions to the moon with vague but echoing violence. The fourth, however, =
had already
advanced on the chauffeur of the black-and-yellow car, and was threatening =
him
with a stick. The chauffeur had risen to defend himself. By his side sat a
young lady.
She was sitting b=
olt
upright, a slender and rigid figure gripping the sides of her seat, and her
first few cries had ceased. She was clad in close-fitting dark costume, a m=
ass
of warm brown hair went out in two wings or waves on each side of her foreh=
ead;
and even at that distance it could be seen that her profile was of the aqui=
line
and eager sort, like a young falcon hardly free of the nest.
Turnbull had
concealed in him somewhere a fund of common sense and knowledge of the worl=
d of
which he himself and his best friends were hardly aware. He was one of those
who take in much of the shows of things absent-mindedly, and in an irreleva=
nt
reverie. As he stood at the door of his editorial shop on Ludgate Hill and
meditated on the non-existence of God, he silently absorbed a good deal of
varied knowledge about the existence of men. He had come to know types by i=
nstinct
and dilemmas with a glance; he saw the crux of the situation in the road, a=
nd
what he saw made him redouble his pace.
He knew that the =
men
were rich; he knew that they were drunk; and he knew, what was worst of all,
that they were fundamentally frightened. And he knew this also, that no com=
mon
ruffian (such as attacks ladies in novels) is ever so savage and ruthless a=
s a
coarse kind of gentleman when he is really alarmed. The reason is not
recondite; it is simply because the police-court is not such a menacing nov=
elty
to the poor ruffian as it is to the rich. When they came within hail and he=
ard
the voices, they confirmed all Turnbull's anticipations. The man in the mid=
dle
of the road was shouting in a hoarse and groggy voice that the chauffeur had
smashed their car on purpose; that they must get to the Cri that evening, a=
nd
that he would jolly well have to take them there. The chauffeur had mildly
objected that he was driving a lady. "Oh! we'll take care of the
lady," said the red-faced young man, and went off into gurgling and al=
most
senile laughter.
By the time the t=
wo
champions came up, things had grown more serious. The intoxication of the m=
an
talking to the chauffeur had taken one of its perverse and catlike jumps in=
to
mere screaming spite and rage. He lifted his stick and struck at the chauff=
eur,
who caught hold of it, and the drunkard fell backwards, dragging him out of=
his
seat on the car. Another of the rowdies rushed forward booing in idiot
excitement, fell over the chauffeur, and, either by accident or design, kic=
ked
him as he lay. The drunkard got to his feet again; but the chauffeur did no=
t.
The man who had
kicked kept a kind of half-witted conscience or cowardice, for he stood sta=
ring
at the senseless body and murmuring words of inconsequent self-justificatio=
n,
making gestures with his hands as if he were arguing with somebody. But the
other three, with a mere whoop and howl of victory, were boarding the car on
three sides at once. It was exactly at this moment that Turnbull fell among
them like one fallen from the sky. He tore one of the climbers backward by =
the
collar, and with a hearty push sent him staggering over into the ditch upon=
his
nose. One of the remaining two, who was too far gone to notice anything, co=
ntinued
to clamber ineffectually over the high back of the car, kicking and pouring
forth a rivulet of soliloquy. But the other dropped at the interruption, tu=
rned
upon Turnbull and began a battering bout of fisticuffs. At the same moment =
the
man crawled out of the ditch in a masquerade of mud and rushed at his old e=
nemy
from behind. The whole had not taken a second; and an instant after MacIan =
was
in the midst of them.
Turnbull had toss=
ed
away his sheathed sword, greatly preferring his hands, except in the avowed
etiquette of the duel; for he had learnt to use his hands in the old
street-battles of Bradlaugh. But to MacIan the sword even sheathed was a mo=
re
natural weapon, and he laid about him on all sides with it as with a stick.=
The
man who had the walking-stick found his blows parried with promptitude; and=
a
second after, to his great astonishment, found his own stick fly up in the =
air
as by a conjuring trick, with a turn of the swordsman's wrist. Another of t=
he revellers
picked the stick out of the ditch and ran in upon MacIan, calling to his
companion to assist him.
"I haven't g=
ot a
stick," grumbled the disarmed man, and looked vaguely about the ditch.=
"Perhaps,&qu=
ot;
said MacIan, politely, "you would like this one." With the word t=
he
drunkard found his hand that had grasped the stick suddenly twisted and emp=
ty;
and the stick lay at the feet of his companion on the other side of the roa=
d.
MacIan felt a faint stir behind him; the girl had risen to her feet and was
leaning forward to stare at the fighters. Turnbull was still engaged in
countering and pommelling with the third young man. The fourth young man was
still engaged with himself, kicking his legs in helpless rotation on the ba=
ck
of the car and talking with melodious rationality.
At length Turnbul=
l's
opponent began to back before the battery of his heavy hands, still fightin=
g,
for he was the soberest and boldest of the four. If these are annals of
military glory, it is due to him to say that he need not have abandoned the
conflict; only that as he backed to the edge of the ditch his foot caught i=
n a
loop of grass and he went over in a flat and comfortable position from whic=
h it
took him a considerable time to rise. By the time he had risen, Turnbull had
come to the rescue of MacIan, who was at bay but belabouring his two enemie=
s handsomely.
The sight of the liberated reserve was to them like that of Blucher at
Waterloo; the two set off at a sullen trot down the road, leaving even the
walking-stick lying behind them in the moonlight. MacIan plucked the strugg=
ling
and aspiring idiot off the back of the car like a stray cat, and left him
swaying unsteadily in the moon. Then he approached the front part of the ca=
r in
a somewhat embarrassed manner and pulled off his cap.
For some solid
seconds the lady and he merely looked at each other, and MacIan had an
irrational feeling of being in a picture hung on a wall. That is, he was
motionless, even lifeless, and yet staringly significant, like a picture. T=
he
white moonlight on the road, when he was not looking at it, gave him a visi=
on
of the road being white with snow. The motor-car, when he was not looking at
it, gave him a rude impression of a captured coach in the old days of
highwaymen. And he whose whole soul was with the swords and stately manners=
of
the eighteenth century, he who was a Jacobite risen from the dead, had an o=
verwhelming
sense of being once more in the picture, when he had so long been out of the
picture.
In that short and
strong silence he absorbed the lady from head to foot. He had never really
looked at a human being before in his life. He saw her face and hair first,
then that she had long suede gloves; then that there was a fur cap at the b=
ack
of her brown hair. He might, perhaps, be excused for this hungry attention.=
He
had prayed that some sign might come from heaven; and after an almost savage
scrutiny he came to the conclusion that his one did. The lady's instantaneo=
us
arrest of speech might need more explaining; but she may well have been stu=
nned
with the squalid attack and the abrupt rescue. Yet it was she who remembere=
d herself
first and suddenly called out with self-accusing horror:
"Oh, that po=
or,
poor man!"
They both swung r=
ound
abruptly and saw that Turnbull, with his recovered sword under his arm-pit,=
was
already lifting the fallen chauffeur into the car. He was only stunned and =
was
slowly awakening, feebly waving his left arm.
The lady in long
gloves and the fur cap leapt out and ran rapidly towards them, only to be
reassured by Turnbull, who (unlike many of his school) really knew a little
science when he invoked it to redeem the world. "He's all right,"
said he; "he's quite safe. But I'm afraid he won't be able to drive the
car for half an hour or so."
"I can drive=
the
car," said the young woman in the fur cap with stony practicability.
"Oh, in that
case," began MacIan, uneasily; and that paralysing shyness which is a =
part
of romance induced him to make a backward movement as if leaving her to
herself. But Turnbull was more rational than he, being more indifferent.
"I don't thi=
nk
you ought to drive home alone, ma'am," he said, gruffly. "There s=
eem
to be a lot of rowdy parties along this road, and the man will be no use fo=
r an
hour. If you will tell us where you are going, we will see you safely there=
and
say good night."
The young lady
exhibited all the abrupt disturbance of a person who is not commonly distur=
bed.
She said almost sharply and yet with evident sincerity: "Of course I am
awfully grateful to you for all you've done--and there's plenty of room if
you'll come in."
Turnbull, with the
complete innocence of an absolutely sound motive, immediately jumped into t=
he
car; but the girl cast an eye at MacIan, who stood in the road for an insta=
nt
as if rooted like a tree. Then he also tumbled his long legs into the tonne=
au,
having that sense of degradedly diving into heaven which so many have known=
in
so many human houses when they consented to stop to tea or were allowed to =
stop
to supper. The slowly reviving chauffeur was set in the back seat; Turnbull=
and
MacIan had fallen into the middle one; the lady with a steely coolness had =
taken
the driver's seat and all the handles of that headlong machine. A moment
afterwards the engine started, with a throb and leap unfamiliar to Turnbull,
who had only once been in a motor during a general election, and utterly
unknown to MacIan, who in his present mood thought it was the end of the wo=
rld.
Almost at the same instant that the car plucked itself out of the mud and
whipped away up the road, the man who had been flung into the ditch rose
waveringly to his feet. When he saw the car escaping he ran after it and
shouted something which, owing to the increasing distance, could not be hea=
rd.
It is awful to reflect that, if his remark was valuable, it is quite lost to
the world.
The car shot on up
and down the shining moonlit lanes, and there was no sound in it except the
occasional click or catch of its machinery; for through some cause or other=
no
soul inside it could think of a word to say. The lady symbolized her feelin=
gs,
whatever they were, by urging the machine faster and faster until scattered
woodlands went by them in one black blotch and heavy hills and valleys seem=
ed
to ripple under the wheels like mere waves. A little while afterwards this =
mood
seemed to slacken and she fell into a more ordinary pace; but still she did=
not
speak. Turnbull, who kept a more common and sensible view of the case than
anyone else, made some remark about the moonlight; but something indescriba=
ble
made him also relapse into silence.
All this time Mac=
Ian had
been in a sort of monstrous delirium, like some fabulous hero snatched up i=
nto
the moon. The difference between this experience and common experiences was
analogous to that between waking life and a dream. Yet he did not feel in t=
he
least as if he were dreaming; rather the other way; as waking was more actu=
al
than dreaming, so this seemed by another degree more actual than waking its=
elf.
But it was another life altogether, like a cosmos with a new dimension.
He felt he had be=
en
hurled into some new incarnation: into the midst of new relations, wrongs a=
nd
rights, with towering responsibilities and almost tragic joys which he had =
as
yet had no time to examine. Heaven had not merely sent him a message; Heaven
itself had opened around him and given him an hour of its own ancient and
star-shattering energy. He had never felt so much alive before; and yet he =
was
like a man in a trance. And if you had asked him on what his throbbing
happiness hung, he could only have told you that it hung on four or five vi=
sible
facts, as a curtain hangs on four of five fixed nails. The fact that the la=
dy had
a little fur at her throat; the fact that the curve of her cheek was a low =
and
lean curve and that the moonlight caught the height of her cheek-bone; the =
fact
that her hands were small but heavily gloved as they gripped the
steering-wheel; the fact that a white witch light was on the road; the fact
that the brisk breeze of their passage stirred and fluttered a little not o=
nly
the brown hair of her head but the black fur on her cap. All these facts we=
re
to him certain and incredible, like sacraments.
When they had dri=
ven
half a mile farther, a big shadow was flung across the path, followed by its
bulky owner, who eyed the car critically but let it pass. The silver moonli=
ght
picked out a piece or two of pewter ornament on his blue uniform; and as th=
ey
went by they knew it was a sergeant of police. Three hundred yards farther =
on
another policeman stepped out into the road as if to stop them, then seemed=
to
doubt his own authority and stepped back again. The girl was a daughter of =
the rich;
and this police suspicion (under which all the poor live day and night) stu=
ng
her for the first time into speech.
"What can th=
ey
mean?" she cried out in a kind of temper; "this car's going like a
snail."
There was a short
silence, and then Turnbull said: "It is certainly very odd, you are
driving quietly enough."
"You are dri=
ving
nobly," said MacIan, and his words (which had no meaning whatever) sou=
nded
hoarse and ungainly even in his own ears.
They passed the n=
ext
mile and a half swiftly and smoothly; yet among the many things which they
passed in the course of it was a clump of eager policemen standing at a
cross-road. As they passed, one of the policemen shouted something to the
others; but nothing else happened. Eight hundred yards farther on, Turnbull
stood up suddenly in the swaying car.
"My God,
MacIan!" he called out, showing his first emotion of that night. "=
;I
don't believe it's the pace; it couldn't be the pace. I believe it's us.&qu=
ot;
MacIan sat motion=
less
for a few moments and then turned up at his companion a face that was as wh=
ite
as the moon above it.
"You may be
right," he said at last; "if you are, I must tell her."
"I will tell=
the
lady if you like," said Turnbull, with his unconquered good temper.
"You!" =
said
MacIan, with a sort of sincere and instinctive astonishment. "Why shou=
ld
you--no, I must tell her, of course----"
And he leant forw=
ard
and spoke to the lady in the fur cap.
"I am afraid,
madam, that we may have got you into some trouble," he said, and even =
as
he said it it sounded wrong, like everything he said to this particular per=
son
in the long gloves. "The fact is," he resumed, desperately, "=
;the
fact is, we are being chased by the police." Then the last flattening =
hammer
fell upon poor Evan's embarrassment; for the fluffy brown head with the fur=
ry
black cap did not turn by a section of the compass.
"We are chas=
ed
by the police," repeated MacIan, vigorously; then he added, as if
beginning an explanation, "You see, I am a Catholic."
The wind whipped =
back
a curl of the brown hair so as to necessitate a new theory of aesthetics
touching the line of the cheek-bone; but the head did not turn.
"You see,&qu=
ot;
began MacIan, again blunderingly, "this gentleman wrote in his newspap=
er
that Our Lady was a common woman, a bad woman, and so we agreed to fight; a=
nd
we were fighting quite a little time ago--but that was before we saw you.&q=
uot;
The young lady
driving her car had half turned her face to listen; and it was not a revere=
nt
or a patient face that she showed him. Her Norman nose was tilted a trifle =
too
high upon the slim stalk of her neck and body.
When MacIan saw t=
hat
arrogant and uplifted profile pencilled plainly against the moonshine, he
accepted an ultimate defeat. He had expected the angels to despise him if he
were wrong, but not to despise him so much as this.
"You see,&qu=
ot;
said the stumbling spokesman, "I was angry with him when he insulted t=
he
Mother of God, and I asked him to fight a duel with me; but the police are =
all trying
to stop it."
Nothing seemed to
waver or flicker in the fair young falcon profile; and it only opened its l=
ips
to say, after a silence: "I thought people in our time were supposed to
respect each other's religion."
Under the shadow =
of
that arrogant face MacIan could only fall back on the obvious answer: "=
;But
what about a man's irreligion?" The face only answered: "Well, you
ought to be more broadminded."
If anyone else in=
the
world had said the words, MacIan would have snorted with his equine neigh of
scorn. But in this case he seemed knocked down by a superior simplicity, as=
if
his eccentric attitude were rebuked by the innocence of a child. He could n=
ot
dissociate anything that this woman said or did or wore from an idea of
spiritual rarity and virtue. Like most others under the same elemental pass=
ion,
his soul was at present soaked in ethics. He could have applied moral terms=
to
the material objects of her environment. If someone had spoken of "her
generous ribbon" or "her chivalrous gloves" or "her
merciful shoe-buckle," it would not have seemed to him nonsense.
He was silent, and
the girl went on in a lower key as if she were momentarily softened and a
little saddened also. "It won't do, you know," she said; "you
can't find out the truth in that way. There are such heaps of churches and
people thinking different things nowadays, and they all think they are righ=
t.
My uncle was a Swedenborgian."
MacIan sat with b=
owed
head, listening hungrily to her voice but hardly to her words, and seeing h=
is
great world drama grow smaller and smaller before his eyes till it was no
bigger than a child's toy theatre.
"The time's =
gone
by for all that," she went on; "you can't find out the real thing
like that--if there is really anything to find----" and she sighed rat=
her
drearily; for, like many of the women of our wealthy class, she was old and
broken in thought, though young and clean enough in her emotions.
"Our
object," said Turnbull, shortly, "is to make an effective demonst=
ration";
and after that word, MacIan looked at his vision again and found it smaller
than ever.
"It would be=
in
the newspapers, of course," said the girl. "People read the
newspapers, but they don't believe them, or anything else, I think." A=
nd
she sighed again.
She drove in sile=
nce
a third of a mile before she added, as if completing the sentence:
"Anyhow, the whole thing's quite absurd."
"I don't
think," began Turnbull, "that you quite realize----Hullo! hullo--=
hullo--what's
this?"
The amateur chauf=
feur
had been forced to bring the car to a staggering stoppage, for a file of fa=
t,
blue policemen made a wall across the way. A sergeant came to the side and
touched his peaked cap to the lady.
"Beg your
pardon, miss," he said with some embarrassment, for he knew her for a
daughter of a dominant house, "but we have reason to believe
that the gentleme=
n in
your car are----" and he hesitated for a polite phrase.
"I am Evan
MacIan," said that gentleman, and stood up in a sort of gloomy pomp, n=
ot
wholly without a touch of the sulks of a schoolboy.
"Yes, we will
get out, sergeant," said Turnbull, more easily; "my name is James
Turnbull. We must not incommode the lady."
"What are you
taking them up for?" asked the young woman, looking straight in front =
of
her along the road.
"It's under =
the
new act," said the sergeant, almost apologetically. "Incurable
disturbers of the peace."
"What will
happen to them?" she asked, with the same frigid clearness.
"Westgate Ad=
ult
Reformatory," he replied, briefly.
"Until
when?"
"Until they =
are
cured," said the official.
"Very well,
sergeant," said the young lady, with a sort of tired common sense. &qu=
ot;I
am sure I don't want to protect criminals or go against the law; but I must
tell you that these gentlemen have done me a considerable service; you won't
mind drawing your men a little farther off while I say good night to them. =
Men
like that always misunderstand."
The sergeant was
profoundly disquieted from the beginning at the mere idea of arresting anyo=
ne
in the company of a great lady; to refuse one of her minor requests was qui=
te
beyond his courage. The police fell back to a few yards behind the car.
Turnbull took up the two swords that were their only luggage; the swords th=
at,
after so many half duels, they were now to surrender at last. MacIan, the b=
lood
thundering in his brain at the thought of that instant of farewell, bent ov=
er,
fumbled at the handle and flung open the door to get out.
But he did not get
out. He did not get out, because it is dangerous to jump out of a car when =
it
is going at full speed. And the car was going at full speed, because the yo=
ung
lady, without turning her head or so much as saying a syllable, had driven =
down
a handle that made the machine plunge forward like a buffalo and then fly o=
ver
the landscape like a greyhound. The police made one rush to follow, and then
dropped so grotesque and hopeless a chase. Away in the vanishing distance t=
hey could
see the sergeant furiously making notes.
The open door, st=
ill
left loose on its hinges, swung and banged quite crazily as they went whizz=
ing
up one road and down another. Nor did MacIan sit down; he stood up stunned =
and
yet staring, as he would have stood up at the trumpet of the Last Day. A bl=
ack
dot in the distance sprang up a tall black forest, swallowed them and spat =
them
out again at the other end. A railway bridge grew larger and larger till it
leapt upon their backs bellowing, and was in its turn left behind. Avenues =
of poplars
on both sides of the road chased each other like the figures in a zoetrope.=
Now
and then with a shock and rattle they went through sleeping moonlit village=
s,
which must have stirred an instant in their sleep as at the passing of a
fugitive earthquake. Sometimes in an outlying house a light in one erratic,
unexpected window would give them a nameless hint of the hundred human secr=
ets
which they left behind them with their dust. Sometimes even a slouching rus=
tic
would be afoot on the road and would look after them, as after a flying
phantom. But still MacIan stood up staring at earth and heaven; and still t=
he
door he had flung open flapped loose like a flag. Turnbull, after a few min=
utes
of dumb amazement, had yielded to the healthiest element in his nature and =
gone
off into uncontrollable fits of laughter. The girl had not stirred an inch.=
After another half
mile that seemed a mere flash, Turnbull leant over and locked the door. Evan
staggered at last into his seat and hid his throbbing head in his hands; and
still the car flew on and its driver sat inflexible and silent. The moon had
already gone down, and the whole darkness was faintly troubled with twilight
and the first movement of beasts and fowls. It was that mysterious moment w=
hen
light is coming as if it were something unknown whose nature one could not
guess--a mere alteration in everything. They looked at the sky and it seeme=
d as
dark as ever; then they saw the black shape of a tower or tree against it a=
nd knew
that it was already grey. Save that they were driving southward and had
certainly passed the longitude of London, they knew nothing of their direct=
ion;
but Turnbull, who had spent a year on the Hampshire coast in his youth, beg=
an
to recognize the unmistakable but quite indescribable villages of the Engli=
sh
south. Then a white witch fire began to burn between the black stems of the
fir-trees; and, like so many things in nature, though not in books on
evolution, the daybreak, when it did come, came much quicker than one would
think. The gloomy heavens were ripped up and rolled away like a scroll,
revealing splendours, as the car went roaring up the curve of a great hill;=
and
above them and black against the broadening light, there stood one of those
crouching and fantastic trees that are first signals of the sea.
As they came over=
the
hill and down on the other side of it, it is not too much to say that the w=
hole
universe of God opened over them and under them, like a thing unfolding to =
five
times its size. Almost under their feet opened the enormous sea, at the bot=
tom
of a steep valley which fell down into a bay; and the sea under their feet
blazed at them almost as lustrous and almost as empty as the sky. The sunri=
se
opened above them like some cosmic explosion, shining and shattering and ye=
t silent;
as if the world were blown to pieces without a sound. Round the rays of the=
victorious
sun swept a sort of rainbow of confused and conquered colours--brown and bl=
ue
and green and flaming rose-colour; as though gold were driving before it all
the colours of the world. The lines of the landscape down which they sped, =
were
the simple, strict, yet swerving, lines of a rushing river; so that it was
almost as if they were being sucked down in a huge still whirlpool. Turnbull
had some such feeling, for he spoke for the first time for many hours.
"If we go do=
wn
at this rate we shall be over the sea cliff," he said.
"How
glorious!" said MacIan.
When, however, th=
ey
had come into the wide hollow at the bottom of that landslide, the car took=
a
calm and graceful curve along the side of the sea, melted into the fringe o=
f a
few trees, and quietly, yet astonishingly, stopped. A belated light was bur=
ning
in the broad morning in the window of a sort of lodge- or gate-keepers'
cottage; and the girl stood up in the car and turned her splendid face to t=
he
sun.
Evan seemed start=
led
by the stillness, like one who had been born amid sound and speed. He waver=
ed
on his long legs as he stood up; he pulled himself together, and the only
consequence was that he trembled from head to foot. Turnbull had already op=
ened
the door on his side and jumped out.
The moment he had
done so the strange young woman had one more mad movement, and deliberately
drove the car a few yards farther. Then she got out with an almost cruel
coolness and began pulling off her long gloves and almost whistling.
"You can lea=
ve
me here," she said, quite casually, as if they had met five minutes
before. "That is the lodge of my father's place. Please come in, if you
like--but I understood that you had some business."
Evan looked at th=
at
lifted face and found it merely lovely; he was far too much of a fool to see
that it was working with a final fatigue and that its austerity was agony. =
He
was even fool enough to ask it a question. "Why did you save us?"=
he
said, quite humbly.
The girl tore off=
one
of her gloves, as if she were tearing off her hand. "Oh, I don't
know," she said, bitterly. "Now I come to think of it, I can't
imagine."
Evan's thoughts, =
that
had been piled up to the morning star, abruptly let him down with a crash i=
nto
the very cellars of the emotional universe. He remained in a stunned silence
for a long time; and that, if he had only known, was the wisest thing that =
he
could possibly do at the moment.
Indeed, the silen=
ce
and the sunrise had their healing effect, for when the extraordinary lady s=
poke
again, her tone was more friendly and apologetic. "I'm not really
ungrateful," she said; "it was very good of you to save me from t=
hose
men."
"But why?&qu=
ot;
repeated the obstinate and dazed MacIan, "why did you save us from the
other men? I mean the policemen?"
The girl's great
brown eyes were lit up with a flash that was at once final desperation and =
the
loosening of some private and passionate reserve.
"Oh, God
knows!" she cried. "God knows that if there is a God He has turned
His big back on everything. God knows I have had no pleasure in my life, th=
ough
I am pretty and young and father has plenty of money. And then people come =
and
tell me that I ought to do things and I do them and it's all drivel. They w=
ant
you to do work among the poor; which means reading Ruskin and feeling self-=
righteous
in the best room in a poor tenement. Or to help some cause or other, which
always means bundling people out of crooked houses, in which they've always
lived, into straight houses, in which they often die. And all the time you =
have
inside only the horrid irony of your own empty head and empty heart. I am to
give to the unfortunate, when my whole misfortune is that I have nothing to
give. I am to teach, when I believe nothing at all that I was taught. I am =
to
save the children from death, and I am not even certain that I should not be
better dead. I suppose if I actually saw a child drowning I should save it.=
But
that would be from the same motive from which I have saved you, or destroyed
you, whichever it is that I have done."
"What was the
motive?" asked Evan, in a low voice.
"My motive is
too big for my mind," answered the girl.
Then, after a pau=
se,
as she stared with a rising colour at the glittering sea, she said: "It
can't be described, and yet I am trying to describe it. It seems to me not =
only
that I am unhappy, but that there is no way of being happy. Father is not
happy, though he is a Member of Parliament----" She paused a moment and
added with a ghost of a smile: "Nor Aunt Mabel, though a man from India
has told her the secret of all creeds. But I may be wrong; there may be a w=
ay
out. And for one stark, insane second, I felt that, after all, you had got =
the
way out and that was why the world hated you. You see, if there were a way =
out,
it would be sure to be something that looked very queer."
Evan put his hand=
to
his forehead and began stumblingly: "Yes, I suppose we do seem----&quo=
t;
"Oh, yes, you
look queer enough," she said, with ringing sincerity. "You'll be =
all
the better for a wash and brush up."
"You forget =
our
business, madam," said Evan, in a shaking voice; "we have no conc=
ern
but to kill each other."
"Well, I
shouldn't be killed looking like that if I were you," she replied, with
inhuman honesty.
Evan stood and ro=
lled
his eyes in masculine bewilderment. Then came the final change in this Prot=
eus,
and she put out both her hands for an instant and said in a low tone on whi=
ch
he lived for days and nights:
"Don't you
understand that I did not dare to stop you? What you are doing is so mad th=
at
it may be quite true. Somehow one can never really manage to be an
atheist."
Turnbull stood
staring at the sea; but his shoulders showed that he heard, and after one
minute he turned his head. But the girl had only brushed Evan's hand with h=
ers
and had fled up the dark alley by the lodge gate.
Evan stood rooted
upon the road, literally like some heavy statue hewn there in the age of the
Druids. It seemed impossible that he should ever move. Turnbull grew restle=
ss
with this rigidity, and at last, after calling his companion twice or thric=
e,
went up and clapped him impatiently on one of his big shoulders. Evan winced
and leapt away from him with a repulsion which was not the hate of an uncle=
an
thing nor the dread of a dangerous one, but was a spasm of awe and separati=
on
from something from which he was now sundered as by the sword of God. He di=
d not
hate the atheist; it is possible that he loved him. But Turnbull was now
something more dreadful than an enemy: he was a thing sealed and devoted--a
thing now hopelessly doomed to be either a corpse or an executioner.
"What is the
matter with you?" asked Turnbull, with his hearty hand still in the ai=
r;
and yet he knew more about it than his innocent action would allow.
"James,"
said Evan, speaking like one under strong bodily pain, "I asked for Go=
d's
answer and I have got it--got it in my vitals. He knows how weak I am, and =
that
I might forget the peril of the faith, forget the face of Our Lady--yes, ev=
en
with your blow upon her cheek. But the honour of this earth has just this a=
bout
it, that it can make a man's heart like iron. I am from the Lords of the Is=
les
and I dare not be a mere deserter. Therefore, God has tied me by the chain =
of
my worldly place and word, and there is nothing but fighting now."
"I think I
understand you," said Turnbull, "but you say everything tail fore=
most."
"She wants u=
s to
do it," said Evan, in a voice crushed with passion. "She has hurt
herself so that we might do it. She has left her good name and her good sle=
ep
and all her habits and dignity flung away on the other side of England in t=
he
hope that she may hear of us and that we have broken some hole into
heaven."
"I thought I
knew what you mean," said Turnbull, biting his beard; "it does se=
em
as if we ought to do something after all she has done this night."
"I never lik=
ed
you so much before," said MacIan, in bitter sorrow.
As he spoke, three
solemn footmen came out of the lodge gate and assembled to assist the chauf=
feur
to his room. The mere sight of them made the two wanderers flee as from a t=
oo
frightful incongruity, and before they knew where they were, they were well
upon the grassy ledge of England that overlooks the Channel. Evan said
suddenly: "Will they let me see her in heaven once in a thousand
ages?" and addressed the remark to the editor of The Atheist, as on wh=
ich
he would be likely or qualified to answer. But no answer came; a silence sa=
nk
between the two.
Turnbull strode
sturdily to the edge of the cliff and looked out, his companion following,
somewhat more shaken by his recent agitation.
"If that's t=
he view
you take," said Turnbull, "and I don't say you are wrong, I think=
I
know where we shall be best off for the business. As it happens, I know this
part of the south coast pretty well. And unless I am mistaken there's a way
down the cliff just here which will land us on a stretch of firm sand where=
no
one is likely to follow us."
The Highlander ma=
de a
gesture of assent and came also almost to the edge of the precipice. The
sunrise, which was broadening over sea and shore, was one of those rare and
splendid ones in which there seems to be no mist or doubt, and nothing but a
universal clarification more and more complete. All the colours were
transparent. It seemed like a triumphant prophecy of some perfect world whe=
re
everything being innocent will be intelligible; a world where even our bodi=
es,
so to speak, may be as of burning glass. Such a world is faintly though
fiercely figured in the coloured windows of Christian architecture. The sea
that lay before them was like a pavement of emerald, bright and almost brit=
tle;
the sky against which its strict horizon hung was almost absolutely white, =
except
that close to the sky line, like scarlet braids on the hem of a garment, lay
strings of flaky cloud of so gleaming and gorgeous a red that they seemed c=
ut
out of some strange blood-red celestial metal, of which the mere gold of th=
is
earth is but a drab yellow imitation.
"The hand of
Heaven is still pointing," muttered the man of superstition to himself.
"And now it is a blood-red hand."
The cool voice of=
his
companion cut in upon his monologue, calling to him from a little farther a=
long
the cliff, to tell him that he had found the ladder of descent. It began as=
a
steep and somewhat greasy path, which then tumbled down twenty or thirty fe=
et
in the form of a fall of rough stone steps. After that, there was a rather
awkward drop on to a ledge of stone and then the journey was undertaken eas=
ily
and even elegantly by the remains of an ornamental staircase, such as might
have belonged to some long-disused watering-place. All the time that the two
travellers sank from stage to stage of this downward journey, there closed =
over
their heads living bridges and caverns of the most varied foliage, all of w=
hich
grew greener, redder, or more golden, in the growing sunlight of the mornin=
g.
Life, too, of the more moving sort rose at the sun on every side of them. B=
irds
whirred and fluttered in the undergrowth, as if imprisoned in green cages.
Other birds were shaken up in great clouds from the tree-tops, as if they w=
ere
blossoms detached and scattered up to heaven. Animals which Turnbull was too
much of a Londoner and MacIan too much of a Northerner to know, slipped by
among the tangle or ran pattering up the tree-trunks. Both the men, accordi=
ng to
their several creeds, felt the full thunder of the psalm of life as they had
never heard it before; MacIan felt God the Father, benignant in all His
energies, and Turnbull that ultimate anonymous energy, that Natura Naturans,
which is the whole theme of Lucretius. It was down this clamorous ladder of
life that they went down to die.
They broke out up=
on a
brown semicircle of sand, so free from human imprint as to justify Turnbull=
's
profession. They strode out upon it, stuck their swords in the sand, and ha=
d a
pause too important for speech. Turnbull eyed the coast curiously for a mom=
ent,
like one awakening memories of childhood; then he said abruptly, like a man=
remembering
somebody's name: "But, of course, we shall be better off still round t=
he
corner of Cragness Point; nobody ever comes there at all." And picking=
up
his sword again, he began striding towards a big bluff of the rocks which s=
tood
out upon their left. MacIan followed him round the corner and found himself=
in
what was certainly an even finer fencing court, of flat, firm sand, enclose=
d on
three sides by white walls of rock, and on the fourth by the green wall of =
the
advancing sea.
"We are quite
safe here," said Turnbull, and, to the other's surprise, flung himself
down, sitting on the brown beach.
"You see, I =
was
brought up near here," he explained. "I was sent from Scotland to
stop with my aunt. It is highly probable that I may die here. Do you mind i=
f I
light a pipe?"
"Of course, =
do
whatever you like," said MacIan, with a choking voice, and he went and
walked alone by himself along the wet, glistening sands.
Ten minutes
afterwards he came back again, white with his own whirlwind of emotions;
Turnbull was quite cheerful and was knocking out the end of his pipe.
"You see, we
have to do it," said MacIan. "She tied us to it."
"Of course, =
my
dear fellow," said the other, and leapt up as lightly as a monkey.
They took their
places gravely in the very centre of the great square of sand, as if they h=
ad
thousands of spectators. Before saluting, MacIan, who, being a mystic, was =
one
inch nearer to Nature, cast his eye round the huge framework of their heroic
folly. The three walls of rock all leant a little outward, though at various
angles; but this impression was exaggerated in the direction of the incredi=
ble
by the heavy load of living trees and thickets which each wall wore on its =
top
like a huge shock of hair. On all that luxurious crest of life the risen an=
d victorious
sun was beating, burnishing it all like gold, and every bird that rose with
that sunrise caught a light like a star upon it like the dove of the Holy
Spirit. Imaginative life had never so much crowded upon MacIan. He felt tha=
t he
could write whole books about the feelings of a single bird. He felt that f=
or
two centuries he would not tire of being a rabbit. He was in the Palace of
Life, of which the very tapestries and curtains were alive. Then he recover=
ed
himself, and remembered his affairs. Both men saluted, and iron rang upon i=
ron.
It was exactly at the same moment that he realized that his enemy's left an=
kle
was encircled with a ring of salt water that had crept up to his feet.
"What is the
matter?" said Turnbull, stopping an instant, for he had grown used to
every movement of his extraordinary fellow-traveller's face.
MacIan glanced ag=
ain
at that silver anklet of sea-water and then looked beyond at the next
promontory round which a deep sea was boiling and leaping. Then he turned a=
nd
looked back and saw heavy foam being shaken up to heaven about the base of
Cragness Point.
"The sea has=
cut
us off," he said, curtly.
"I have noti=
ced
it," said Turnbull with equal sobriety. "What view do you take of=
the
development?"
Evan threw away h=
is
weapon, and, as his custom was, imprisoned his big head in his hands. Then =
he
let them fall and said: "Yes, I know what it means; and I think it is =
the
fairest thing. It is the finger of God--red as blood--still pointing. But n=
ow
it points to two graves."
There was a space
filled with the sound of the sea, and then MacIan spoke again in a voice
pathetically reasonable: "You see, we both saved her--and she told us =
both
to fight--and it would not be just that either should fail and fall alone,
while the other----"
"You mean,&q=
uot;
said Turnbull, in a voice surprisingly soft and gentle, "that there is
something fine about fighting in a place where even the conqueror must
die?"
"Oh, you have got it right, you have got it right!" cried out Evan, in an extraordin= ary childish ecstasy. "Oh, I'm sure that you really believe in God!"<= o:p>
Turnbull answered=
not
a word, but only took up his fallen sword.
For the third time
Evan MacIan looked at those three sides of English cliff hung with their no=
isy
load of life. He had been at a loss to understand the almost ironical
magnificence of all those teeming creatures and tropical colours and smells
that smoked happily to heaven. But now he knew that he was in the closed co=
urt
of death and that all the gates were sealed.
He drank in the l=
ast
green and the last red and the last gold, those unique and indescribable th=
ings
of God, as a man drains good wine at the bottom of his glass. Then he turned
and saluted his enemy once more, and the two stood up and fought till the f=
oam
flowed over their knees.
Then MacIan stepp=
ed
backward suddenly with a splash and held up his hand. "Turnbull!"=
he
cried; "I can't help it--fair fighting is more even than promises. And
this is not fair fighting."
"What the de=
uce
do you mean?" asked the other, staring.
"I've only j=
ust
thought of it," cried Evan, brokenly. "We're very well matched--it
may go on a good time--the tide is coming up fast--and I'm a foot and a half
taller. You'll be washed away like seaweed before it's above my breeches. I=
'll
not fight foul for all the girls and angels in the universe."
"Will you ob=
lige
me," said Turnbull, with staring grey eyes and a voice of distinct and
violent politeness; "will you oblige me by jolly well minding your own
business? Just you stand up and fight, and we'll see who will be washed away
like seaweed. You wanted to finish this fight and you shall finish it, or I=
'll
denounce you as a coward to the whole of that assembled company."
Evan looked very
doubtful and offered a somewhat wavering weapon; but he was quickly brought
back to his senses by his opponent's sword-point, which shot past him, shav=
ing
his shoulder by a hair. By this time the waves were well up Turnbull's thig=
h,
and what was worse, they were beginning to roll and break heavily around th=
em.
MacIan parried th=
is
first lunge perfectly, the next less perfectly; the third in all human
probability he would not have parried at all; the Christian champion would =
have
been pinned like a butterfly, and the atheistic champion left to drown like=
a
rat, with such consolation as his view of the cosmos afforded him. But just=
as
Turnbull launched his heaviest stroke, the sea, in which he stood up to his
hips, launched a yet heavier one. A wave breaking beyond the others smote h=
im
heavily like a hammer of water. One leg gave way, he was swung round and su=
cked
into the retreating sea, still gripping his sword.
MacIan put his sw=
ord
between his teeth and plunged after his disappearing enemy. He had the sens=
e of
having the whole universe on top of him as crest after crest struck him dow=
n.
It seemed to him quite a cosmic collapse, as if all the seven heavens were
falling on him one after the other. But he got hold of the atheist's left l=
eg
and he did not let it go.
After some ten
minutes of foam and frenzy, in which all the senses at once seemed blasted =
by
the sea, Evan found himself laboriously swimming on a low, green swell, with
the sword still in his teeth and the editor of The Atheist still under his =
arm.
What he was going to do he had not even the most glimmering idea; so he mer=
ely
kept his grip and swam somehow with one hand.
He ducked
instinctively as there bulked above him a big, black wave, much higher than=
any
that he had seen. Then he saw that it was hardly the shape of any possible
wave. Then he saw that it was a fisherman's boat, and, leaping upward, caug=
ht
hold of the bow. The boat pitched forward with its stern in the air for jus=
t as
much time as was needed to see that there was nobody in it. After a moment =
or
two of desperate clambering, however, there were two people in it, Mr. Evan
MacIan, panting and sweating, and Mr. James Turnbull, uncommonly close to b=
eing
drowned. After ten minutes' aimless tossing in the empty fishing-boat he re=
covered,
however, stirred, stretched himself, and looked round on the rolling waters.
Then, while taking no notice of the streams of salt water that were pouring
from his hair, beard, coat, boots, and trousers, he carefully wiped the wet=
off
his sword-blade to preserve it from the possibilities of rust.
MacIan found two =
oars
in the bottom of the deserted boat and began somewhat drearily to row.
=
* =
* =
*
A rainy twilight =
was
clearing to cold silver over the moaning sea, when the battered boat that h=
ad
rolled and drifted almost aimlessly all night, came within sight of land,
though of land which looked almost as lost and savage as the waves. All nig=
ht
there had been but little lifting in the leaden sea, only now and then the =
boat
had been heaved up, as on a huge shoulder which slipped from under it; such
occasional sea-quakes came probably from the swell of some steamer that had
passed it in the dark; otherwise the waves were harmless though restless. B=
ut it
was piercingly cold, and there was, from time to time, a splutter of rain l=
ike
the splutter of the spray, which seemed almost to freeze as it fell. MacIan,
more at home than his companion in this quite barbarous and elemental sort =
of
adventure, had rowed toilsomely with the heavy oars whenever he saw anything
that looked like land; but for the most part had trusted with grim
transcendentalism to wind and tide. Among the implements of their first out=
fit
the brandy alone had remained to him, and he gave it to his freezing compan=
ion
in quantities which greatly alarmed that temperate Londoner; but MacIan came
from the cold seas and mists where a man can drink a tumbler of raw whisky =
in a
boat without it making him wink.
When the Highland=
er
began to pull really hard upon the oars, Turnbull craned his dripping red h=
ead
out of the boat to see the goal of his exertions. It was a sufficiently
uninviting one; nothing so far as could be seen but a steep and shelving ba=
nk
of shingle, made of loose little pebbles such as children like, but slantin=
g up
higher than a house. On the top of the mound, against the sky line, stood up
the brown skeleton of some broken fence or breakwater. With the grey and wa=
tery
dawn crawling up behind it, the fence really seemed to say to our philosoph=
ic adventurers
that they had come at last to the other end of nowhere.
Bent by necessity=
to
his labour, MacIan managed the heavy boat with real power and skill, and wh=
en
at length he ran it up on a smoother part of the slope it caught and held so
that they could clamber out, not sinking farther than their knees into the
water and the shingle. A foot or two farther up their feet found the beach
firmer, and a few moments afterwards they were leaning on the ragged breakw=
ater
and looking back at the sea they had escaped.
They had a dreary
walk across wastes of grey shingle in the grey dawn before they began to co=
me
within hail of human fields or roads; nor had they any notion of what field=
s or
roads they would be. Their boots were beginning to break up and the confusi=
on
of stones tried them severely, so that they were glad to lean on their swor=
ds,
as if they were the staves of pilgrims. MacIan thought vaguely of a weird
ballad of his own country which describes the soul in Purgatory as walking =
on a
plain full of sharp stones, and only saved by its own charities upon earth.=
If
ever thou gavest hosen and shoon =
Every
night and all, =
Sit
thee down and put them on, =
And
Christ receive thy soul.
Turnbull had no s=
uch
lyrical meditations, but he was in an even worse temper.
At length they ca= me to a pale ribbon of road, edged by a shelf of rough and almost colourless t= urf; and a few feet up the slope there stood grey and weather-stained, one of th= ose big wayside crucifixes which are seldom seen except in Catholic countries.<= o:p>
MacIan put his ha=
nd
to his head and found that his bonnet was not there. Turnbull gave one glan=
ce
at the crucifix--a glance at once sympathetic and bitter, in which was
concentrated the whole of Swinburne's poem on the same occasion.
O
hidden face of man, whereover =
The
years have woven a viewless veil, =
If
thou wert verily man's lover =
What
did thy love or blood avail? =
Thy
blood the priests mix poison of, =
And
in gold shekels coin thy love.
Then, leaving Mac=
Ian
in his attitude of prayer, Turnbull began to look right and left very sharp=
ly,
like one looking for something. Suddenly, with a little cry, he saw it and =
ran
forward. A few yards from them along the road a lean and starved sort of he=
dge
came pitifully to an end. Caught upon its prickly angle, however, there was=
a
very small and very dirty scrap of paper that might have hung there for mon=
ths,
since it escaped from someone tearing up a letter or making a spill out of a
newspaper. Turnbull snatched at it and found it was the corner of a printed
page, very coarsely printed, like a cheap novelette, and just large enough =
to
contain the words: "et c'est elle qui----"
"Hurrah!&quo=
t;
cried Turnbull, waving his fragment; "we are safe at last. We are free=
at
last. We are somewhere better than England or Eden or Paradise. MacIan, we =
are
in the Land of the Duel!"
"Where do you
say?" said the other, looking at him heavily and with knitted brows, l=
ike
one almost dazed with the grey doubts of desolate twilight and drifting sea=
.
"We are in
France!" cried Turnbull, with a voice like a trumpet, "in the land
where things really happen--Tout arrive en France. We arrive in France. Loo=
k at
this little message," and he held out the scrap of paper. "There'=
s an
omen for you superstitious hill folk. C'est elle qui--Mais oui, mais oui, c=
'est
elle qui sauvera encore le monde."
"France!&quo=
t;
repeated MacIan, and his eyes awoke again in his head like large lamps ligh=
ted.
"Yes,
France!" said Turnbull, and all the rhetorical part of him came to the
top, his face growing as red as his hair. "France, that has always bee=
n in
rebellion for liberty and reason. France, that has always assailed supersti=
tion
with the club of Rabelais or the rapier of Voltaire. France, at whose first
council table sits the sublime figure of Julian the Apostate. France, where=
a
man said only the other day those splendid unanswerable words"--with a
superb gesture--"'we have extinguished in heaven those lights that men
shall never light again.'"
"No," s=
aid
MacIan, in a voice that shook with a controlled passion. "But France,
which was taught by St. Bernard and led to war by Joan of Arc. France that =
made
the crusades. France that saved the Church and scattered the heresies by the
mouths of Bossuet and Massillon. France, which shows today the conquering m=
arch
of Catholicism, as brain after brain surrenders to it, Brunetière,
Coppée, Hauptmann, Barrès, Bourget, Lemaître."
"France!&quo=
t;
asserted Turnbull with a sort of rollicking self-exaggeration, very unusual
with him, "France, which is one torrent of splendid scepticism from
Abelard to Anatole France."
"France,&quo=
t;
said MacIan, "which is one cataract of clear faith from St. Louis to O=
ur
Lady of Lourdes."
"France at
least," cried Turnbull, throwing up his sword in schoolboy triumph,
"in which these things are thought about and fought about. France, whe=
re
reason and religion clash in one continual tournament. France, above all, w=
here
men understand the pride and passion which have plucked our blades from the=
ir
scabbards. Here, at least, we shall not be chased and spied on by sickly
parsons and greasy policemen, because we wish to put our lives on the game.
Courage, my friend, we have come to the country of honour."
MacIan did not ev=
en
notice the incongruous phrase "my friend", but nodding again and
again, drew his sword and flung the scabbard far behind him in the road.
"Yes," =
he
cried, in a voice of thunder, "we will fight here and He shall look on=
at
it."
Turnbull glanced =
at
the crucifix with a sort of scowling good-humour and then said: "He may
look and see His cross defeated."
"The cross
cannot be defeated," said MacIan, "for it is Defeat."
A second afterwar=
ds
the two bright, blood-thirsty weapons made the sign of the cross in horrible
parody upon each other.
They had not touc=
hed
each other twice, however, when upon the hill, above the crucifix, there
appeared another horrible parody of its shape; the figure of a man who appe=
ared
for an instant waving his outspread arms. He had vanished in an instant; but
MacIan, whose fighting face was set that way, had seen the shape momentarily
but quite photographically. And while it was like a comic repetition of the
cross, it was also, in that place and hour, something more incredible. It h=
ad
been only instantaneously on the retina of his eye; but unless his eye and =
mind
were going mad together, the figure was that of an ordinary London policema=
n.
He tried to
concentrate his senses on the sword-play; but one half of his brain was
wrestling with the puzzle; the apocalyptic and almost seraphic apparition o=
f a
stout constable out of Clapham on top of a dreary and deserted hill in Fran=
ce.
He did not, however, have to puzzle long. Before the duellists had exchanged
half a dozen passes, the big, blue policeman appeared once more on the top =
of
the hill, a palpable monstrosity in the eye of heaven. He was waving only o=
ne
arm now and seemed to be shouting directions. At the same moment a mass of =
blue
blocked the corner of the road behind the small, smart figure of Turnbull, =
and
a small company of policemen in the English uniform came up at a kind of
half-military double.
Turnbull saw the
stare of consternation in his enemy's face and swung round to share its cau=
se.
When he saw it, cool as he was, he staggered back.
"What the de=
vil
are you doing here?" he called out in a high, shrill voice of authorit=
y,
like one who finds a tramp in his own larder.
"Well,
sir," said the sergeant in command, with that sort of heavy civility s=
hown
only to the evidently guilty, "seems to me we might ask what are you d=
oing
here?"
"We are havi=
ng
an affair of honour," said Turnbull, as if it were the most rational t=
hing
in the world. "If the French police like to interfere, let them interf=
ere.
But why the blue blazes should you interfere, you great blue blundering
sausages?"
"I'm afraid,
sir," said the sergeant with restraint, "I'm afraid I don't quite
follow you."
"I mean, why
don't the French police take this up if it's got to be taken up? I always h=
eard
that they were spry enough in their own way."
"Well,
sir," said the sergeant reflectively, "you see, sir, the French p=
olice
don't take this up--well, because you see, sir, this ain't France. This is =
His
Majesty's dominions, same as 'Ampstead 'eath."
"Not
France?" repeated Turnbull, with a sort of dull incredulity.
"No, sir,&qu=
ot;
said the sergeant; "though most of the people talk French. This is the
island called St. Loup, sir, an island in the Channel. We've been sent down
specially from London, as you were such specially distinguished criminals, =
if
you'll allow me to say so. Which reminds me to warn you that anything you s=
ay
may be used against you at your trial."
"Quite so,&q=
uot;
said Turnbull, and lurched suddenly against the sergeant, so as to tip him =
over
the edge of the road with a crash into the shingle below. Then leaving MacI=
an
and the policemen equally and instantaneously nailed to the road, he ran a
little way along it, leapt off on to a part of the beach, which he had foun=
d in
his journey to be firmer, and went across it with a clatter of pebbles. His
sudden calculation was successful; the police, unacquainted with the various
levels of the loose beach, tried to overtake him by the shorter cut and fou=
nd themselves,
being heavy men, almost up to their knees in shoals of slippery shingle. Two
who had been slower with their bodies were quicker with their minds, and se=
eing
Turnbull's trick, ran along the edge of the road after him. Then MacIan fin=
ally
awoke, and leaving half his sleeve in the grip of the only man who tried to
hold him, took the two policemen in the small of their backs with the impet=
us
of a cannon-ball and, sending them also flat among the stones, went tearing
after his twin defier of the law.
As they were both
good runners, the start they had gained was decisive. They dropped over a h=
igh
breakwater farther on upon the beach, turned sharply, and scrambled up a li=
ne
of ribbed rocks, crowned with a thicket, crawled through it, scratching the=
ir
hands and faces, and dropped into another road; and there found that they c=
ould
slacken their speed into a steady trot. In all this desperate dart and
scramble, they still kept hold of their drawn swords, which now, indeed, in=
the
vigorous phrase of Bunyan, seemed almost to grow out of their hands.
They had run anot=
her
half mile or so when it became apparent that they were entering a sort of
scattered village. One or two whitewashed cottages and even a shop had appe=
ared
along the side of the road. Then, for the first time, Turnbull twisted round
his red bear to get a glimpse of his companion, who was a foot or two behin=
d,
and remarked abruptly: "Mr. MacIan, we've been going the wrong way to =
work
all along. We're traced everywhere, because everybody knows about us. It's =
as
if one went about with Kruger's beard on Mafeking Night."
"What do you
mean?" said MacIan, innocently.
"I mean,&quo=
t;
said Turnbull, with steady conviction, "that what we want is a little
diplomacy, and I am going to buy some in a shop."
XI. A SCANDAL IN THE VILL=
AGE
In the little ham=
let
of Haroc, in the Isle of St. Loup, there lived a man who--though living und=
er
the English flag--was absolutely untypical of the French tradition. He was
quite unnoticeable, but that was exactly where he was quite himself. He was=
not
even extraordinarily French; but then it is against the French tradition to=
be
extraordinarily French. Ordinary Englishmen would only have thought him a
little old-fashioned; imperialistic Englishmen would really have mistaken h=
im
for the old John Bull of the caricatures. He was stout; he was quite
undistinguished; and he had side-whiskers, worn just a little longer than J=
ohn
Bull's. He was by name Pierre Durand; he was by trade a wine merchant; he w=
as
by politics a conservative republican; he had been brought up a Catholic, h=
ad
always thought and acted as an agnostic, and was very mildly returning to t=
he
Church in his later years. He had a genius (if one can even use so wild a w=
ord
in connexion with so tame a person) a genius for saying the conventional th=
ing
on every conceivable subject; or rather what we in England would call the
conventional thing. For it was not convention with him, but solid and manly
conviction. Convention implies cant or affectation, and he had not the fain=
test
smell of either. He was simply an ordinary citizen with ordinary views; and=
if
you had told him so he would have taken it as an ordinary compliment. If you
had asked him about women, he would have said that one must preserve their =
domesticity
and decorum; he would have used the stalest words, but he would have in res=
erve
the strongest arguments. If you had asked him about government, he would ha=
ve
said that all citizens were free and equal, but he would have meant what he
said. If you had asked him about education, he would have said that the you=
ng
must be trained up in habits of industry and of respect for their parents.
Still he would have set them the example of industry, and he would have been
one of the parents whom they could respect. A state of mind so hopelessly
central is depressing to the English instinct. But then in England a man an=
nouncing
these platitudes is generally a fool and a frightened fool, announcing them=
out
of mere social servility. But Durand was anything but a fool; he had read a=
ll
the eighteenth century, and could have defended his platitudes round every
angle of eighteenth-century argument. And certainly he was anything but a
coward: swollen and sedentary as he was, he could have hit any man back who
touched him with the instant violence of an automatic machine; and dying in=
a
uniform would have seemed to him only the sort of thing that sometimes happ=
ens.
I am afraid it is impossible to explain this monster amid the exaggerative
sects and the eccentric clubs of my country. He was merely a man.
He lived in a lit=
tle
villa which was furnished well with comfortable chairs and tables and highly
uncomfortable classical pictures and medallions. The art in his home contai=
ned
nothing between the two extremes of hard, meagre designs of Greek heads and
Roman togas, and on the other side a few very vulgar Catholic images in the
crudest colours; these were mostly in his daughter's room. He had recently =
lost
his wife, whom he had loved heartily and rather heavily in complete silence=
, and
upon whose grave he was constantly in the habit of placing hideous little
wreaths, made out of a sort of black-and-white beads. To his only daughter =
he
was equally devoted, though he restricted her a good deal under a sort of
theoretic alarm about her innocence; an alarm which was peculiarly unnecess=
ary,
first, because she was an exceptionally reticent and religious girl, and
secondly, because there was hardly anybody else in the place.
Madeleine Durand =
was
physically a sleepy young woman, and might easily have been supposed to be
morally a lazy one. It is, however, certain that the work of her house was =
done
somehow, and it is even more rapidly ascertainable that nobody else did it.=
The
logician is, therefore, driven back upon the assumption that she did it; and
that lends a sort of mysterious interest to her personality at the beginnin=
g.
She had very broad, low, and level brows, which seemed even lower because h=
er
warm yellow hair clustered down to her eyebrows; and she had a face just pl=
ump
enough not to look as powerful as it was. Anything that was heavy in all th=
is
was abruptly lightened by two large, light china-blue eyes, lightened all o=
f a
sudden as if it had been lifted into the air by two big blue butterflies. T=
he
rest of her was less than middle-sized, and was of a casual and comfortable
sort; and she had this difference from such girls as the girl in the motor-=
car,
that one did not incline to take in her figure at all, but only her broad a=
nd
leonine and innocent head.
Both the father a=
nd
the daughter were of the sort that would normally have avoided all observat=
ion;
that is, all observation in that extraordinary modern world which calls out
everything except strength. Both of them had strength below the surface; th=
ey
were like quiet peasants owning enormous and unquarried mines. The father w=
ith
his square face and grey side whiskers, the daughter with her square face a=
nd
golden fringe of hair, were both stronger than they know; stronger than any=
one
knew. The father believed in civilization, in the storied tower we have ere=
cted
to affront nature; that is, the father believed in Man. The daughter believ=
ed
in God; and was even stronger. They neither of them believed in themselves;=
for
that is a decadent weakness.
The daughter was
called a devotee. She left upon ordinary people the impression--the somewhat
irritating impression--produced by such a person; it can only be described =
as
the sense of strong water being perpetually poured into some abyss. She did=
her
housework easily; she achieved her social relations sweetly; she was never
neglectful and never unkind. This accounted for all that was soft in her, b=
ut
not for all that was hard. She trod firmly as if going somewhere; she flung=
her
face back as if defying something; she hardly spoke a cross word, yet there=
was
often battle in her eyes. The modern man asked doubtfully where all this si=
lent
energy went to. He would have stared still more doubtfully if he had been t=
old
that it all went into her prayers.
The conventions of
the Isle of St. Loup were necessarily a compromise or confusion between tho=
se
of France and England; and it was vaguely possible for a respectable young =
lady
to have half-attached lovers, in a way that would be impossible to the
bourgeoisie of France. One man in particular had made himself an unmistakab=
le
figure in the track of this girl as she went to church. He was a short,
prosperous-looking man, whose long, bushy black beard and clumsy black umbr=
ella
made him seem both shorter and older than he really was; but whose big, bold
eyes, and step that spurned the ground, gave him an instant character of yo=
uth.
His name was Cami=
lle
Bert, and he was a commercial traveller who had only been in the island an =
idle
week before he began to hover in the tracks of Madeleine Durand. Since ever=
yone
knows everyone in so small a place, Madeleine certainly knew him to speak t=
o;
but it is not very evident that she ever spoke. He haunted her, however;
especially at church, which was, indeed, one of the few certain places for
finding her. In her home she had a habit of being invisible, sometimes thro=
ugh insatiable
domesticity, sometimes through an equally insatiable solitude. M. Bert did =
not
give the impression of a pious man, though he did give, especially with his
eyes, the impression of an honest one. But he went to Mass with a simple
exactitude that could not be mistaken for a pose, or even for a vulgar
fascination. It was perhaps this religious regularity which eventually drew
Madeleine into recognition of him. At least it is certain that she twice sp=
oke
to him with her square and open smile in the porch of the church; and there=
was
human nature enough in the hamlet to turn even that into gossip.
But the real inte=
rest
arose suddenly as a squall arises with the extraordinary affair that occurr=
ed
about five days after. There was about a third of a mile beyond the village=
of
Haroc a large but lonely hotel upon the London or Paris model, but commonly
almost entirely empty. Among the accidental group of guests who had come to=
it
at this season was a man whose nationality no one could fix and who bore th=
e non-committal
name of Count Gregory. He treated everybody with complete civility and almo=
st
in complete silence. On the few occasions when he spoke, he spoke either
French, English, or once (to the priest) Latin; and the general opinion was
that he spoke them all wrong. He was a large, lean man, with the stoop of an
aged eagle, and even the eagle's nose to complete it; he had old-fashioned
military whiskers and moustache dyed with a garish and highly incredible
yellow. He had the dress of a showy gentleman and the manners of a decayed
gentleman; he seemed (as with a sort of simplicity) to be trying to be a da=
ndy
when he was too old even to know that he was old. Ye he was decidedly a
handsome figure with his curled yellow hair and lean fastidious face; and he
wore a peculiar frock-coat of bright turquoise blue, with an unknown order =
pinned
to it, and he carried a huge and heavy cane. Despite his silence and his
dandified dress and whiskers, the island might never have heard of him but =
for
the extraordinary event of which I have spoken, which fell about in the
following way:
In such casual
atmospheres only the enthusiastic go to Benediction; and as the warm blue
twilight closed over the little candle-lit church and village, the line of
worshippers who went home from the former to the latter thinned out until it
broke. On one such evening at least no one was in church except the quiet,
unconquerable Madeleine, four old women, one fisherman, and, of course, the
irrepressible M. Camille Bert. The others seemed to melt away afterwards in=
to
the peacock colours of the dim green grass and the dark blue sky. Even Dura=
nd
was invisible instead of being merely reverentially remote; and Madeleine s=
et
forth through the patch of black forest alone. She was not in the least afr=
aid
of loneliness, because she was not afraid of devils. I think they were afra=
id
of her.
In a clearing of =
the
wood, however, which was lit up with a last patch of the perishing sunlight,
there advanced upon her suddenly one who was more startling than a devil. T=
he
incomprehensible Count Gregory, with his yellow hair like flame and his face
like the white ashes of the flame, was advancing bareheaded towards her,
flinging out his arms and his long fingers with a frantic gesture.
"We are alone
here," he cried, "and you would be at my mercy, only that I am at
yours."
Then his frantic
hands fell by his sides and he looked up under his brows with an expression
that went well with his hard breathing. Madeleine Durand had come to a halt=
at
first in childish wonder, and now, with more than masculine self-control,
"I fancy I know your face, sir," she said, as if to gain time.
"I know I sh=
all
not forget yours," said the other, and extended once more his ungainly
arms in an unnatural gesture. Then of a sudden there came out of him a spou=
t of
wild and yet pompous phrases. "It is as well that you should know the
worst and the best. I am a man who knows no limit; I am the most callous of
criminals, the most unrepentant of sinners. There is no man in my dominions=
so
vile as I. But my dominions stretch from the olives of Italy to the fir-woo=
ds
of Denmark, and there is no nook of all of them in which I have not done a =
sin.
But when I bear you away I shall be doing my first sacrilege, and also my f=
irst
act of virtue." He seized her suddenly by the elbow; and she did not
scream but only pulled and tugged. Yet though she had not screamed, someone=
astray
in the woods seemed to have heard the struggle. A short but nimble figure c=
ame
along the woodland path like a humming bullet and had caught Count Gregory a
crack across the face before his own could be recognized. When it was
recognized it was that of Camille, with the black elderly beard and the you=
ng
ardent eyes.
Up to the moment =
when
Camille had hit the Count, Madeleine had entertained no doubt that the Count
was merely a madman. Now she was startled with a new sanity; for the tall m=
an
in the yellow whiskers and yellow moustache first returned the blow of Bert=
, as
if it were a sort of duty, and then stepped back with a slight bow and an e=
asy
smile.
"This need g=
o no
further here, M. Bert," he said. "I need not remind you how far it
should go elsewhere."
"Certainly, =
you
need remind me of nothing," answered Camille, stolidly. "I am glad
that you are just not too much of a scoundrel for a gentleman to fight.&quo=
t;
"We are
detaining the lady," said Count Gregory, with politeness; and, making a
gesture suggesting that he would have taken off his hat if he had had one, =
he
strode away up the avenue of trees and eventually disappeared. He was so
complete an aristocrat that he could offer his back to them all the way up =
that
avenue; and his back never once looked uncomfortable.
"You must al=
low
me to see you home," said Bert to the girl, in a gruff and almost stif=
led
voice; "I think we have only a little way to go."
"Only a litt=
le
way," she said, and smiled once more that night, in spite of fatigue a=
nd
fear and the world and the flesh and the devil. The glowing and transparent
blue of twilight had long been covered by the opaque and slatelike blue of
night, when he handed her into the lamp-lit interior of her home. He went o=
ut
himself into the darkness, walking sturdily, but tearing at his black beard=
.
All the French or
semi-French gentry of the district considered this a case in which a duel w=
as
natural and inevitable, and neither party had any difficulty in finding
seconds, strangers as they were in the place. Two small landowners, who were
careful, practising Catholics, willingly undertook to represent that strict
church-goer Camille Burt; while the profligate but apparently powerful Count
Gregory found friends in an energetic local doctor who was ready for social
promotion and an accidental Californian tourist who was ready for anything.=
As
no particular purpose could be served by delay, it was arranged that the af=
fair
should fall out three days afterwards. And when this was settled the whole
community, as it were, turned over again in bed and thought no more about t=
he
matter. At least there was only one member of it who seemed to be restless,=
and
that was she who was commonly most restful. On the next night Madeleine Dur=
and
went to church as usual; and as usual the stricken Camille was there also. =
What
was not so usual was that when they were a bow-shot from the church Madelei=
ne
turned round and walked back to him. "Sir," she began, "it is
not wrong of me to speak to you," and the very words gave him a jar of
unexpected truth; for in all the novels he had ever read she would have beg=
un:
"It is wrong of me to speak to you." She went on with wide and
serious eyes like an animal's: "It is not wrong of me to speak to you,
because your soul, or anybody's soul, matters so much more than what the wo=
rld
says about anybody. I want to talk to you about what you are going to do.&q=
uot;
Bert saw in front=
of
him the inevitable heroine of the novels trying to prevent bloodshed; and h=
is
pale firm face became implacable.
"I would do
anything but that for you," he said; "but no man can be called le=
ss
than a man."
She looked at him=
for
a moment with a face openly puzzled, and then broke into an odd and beautif=
ul
half-smile.
"Oh, I don't
mean that," she said; "I don't talk about what I don't understand=
. No
one has ever hit me; and if they had I should not feel as a man may. I am s=
ure
it is not the best thing to fight. It would be better to forgive--if one co=
uld
really forgive. But when people dine with my father and say that fighting a
duel is mere murder--of course I can see that is not just. It's all so
different--having a reason--and letting the other man know--and using the s=
ame
guns and things--and doing it in front of your friends. I'm awfully stupid,=
but
I know that men like you aren't murderers. But it wasn't that that I
meant."
"What did you
mean?" asked the other, looking broodingly at the earth.
"Don't you
know," she said, "there is only one more celebration? I thought t=
hat
as you always go to church--I thought you would communicate this morning.&q=
uot;
Bert stepped back=
ward
with a sort of action she had never seen in him before. It seemed to alter =
his
whole body.
"You may be
right or wrong to risk dying," said the girl, simply; "the poor w=
omen
in our village risk it whenever they have a baby. You men are the other hal=
f of
the world. I know nothing about when you ought to die. But surely if you are
daring to try and find God beyond the grave and appeal to Him--you ought to=
let
Him find you when He comes and stands there every morning in our little
church."
And placid as she
was, she made a little gesture of argument, of which the pathos wrung the
heart.
M. Camille Bert w=
as
by no means placid. Before that incomplete gesture and frankly pleading fac=
e he
retreated as if from the jaws of a dragon. His dark black hair and beard lo=
oked
utterly unnatural against the startling pallor of his face. When at last he
said something it was: "O God! I can't stand this!" He did not sa=
y it
in French. Nor did he, strictly speaking, say it in English. The truth
(interesting only to anthropologists) is that he said it in Scotch.
"There will =
be
another mass in a matter of eight hours," said Madeleine, with a sort =
of
business eagerness and energy, "and you can do it then before the
fighting. You must forgive me, but I was so frightened that you would not d=
o it
at all."
Bert seemed to cr=
ush
his teeth together until they broke, and managed to say between them: "=
;And
why should you suppose that I shouldn't do as you say--I mean not to do it =
at
all?"
"You always =
go
to Mass," answered the girl, opening her wide blue eyes, "and the
Mass is very long and tiresome unless one loves God."
Then it was that =
Bert
exploded with a brutality which might have come from Count Gregory, his
criminal opponent. He advanced upon Madeleine with flaming eyes, and almost
took her by the two shoulders. "I do not love God," he cried,
speaking French with the broadest Scotch accent; "I do not want to find
Him; I do not think He is there to be found. I must burst up the show; I mu=
st
and will say everything. You are the happiest and honestest thing I ever sa=
w in
this godless universe. And I am the dirtiest and most dishonest."
Madeleine looked =
at
him doubtfully for an instant, and then said with a sudden simplicity and
cheerfulness: "Oh, but if you are really sorry it is all right. If you=
are
horribly sorry it is all the better. You have only to go and tell the pries=
t so
and he will give you God out of his own hands."
"I hate your
priest and I deny your God!" cried the man, "and I tell you God i=
s a
lie and a fable and a mask. And for the first time in my life I do not feel
superior to God."
"What can it=
all
mean?" said Madeleine, in massive wonder.
"Because I a=
m a
fable also and a mask," said the man. He had been plucking fiercely at=
his
black beard and hair all the time; now he suddenly plucked them off and flu=
ng
them like moulted feathers in the mire. This extraordinary spoliation left =
in
the sunlight the same face, but a much younger head--a head with close ches=
tnut
curls and a short chestnut beard.
"Now you know
the truth," he answered, with hard eyes. "I am a cad who has play=
ed a
crooked trick on a quiet village and a decent woman for a private reason of=
his
own. I might have played it successfully on any other woman; I have hit the=
one
woman on whom it cannot be played. It's just like my damned luck. The plain
truth is," and here when he came to the plain truth he boggled and
blundered as Evan had done in telling it to the girl in the motor-car.
"The plain t=
ruth
is," he said at last, "that I am James Turnbull the atheist. The
police are after me; not for atheism but for being ready to fight for it.&q=
uot;
"I saw somet=
hing
about you in a newspaper," said the girl, with a simplicity which even
surprise could never throw off its balance.
"Evan MacIan
said there was a God," went on the other, stubbornly, "and I say
there isn't. And I have come to fight for the fact that there is no God; it=
is
for that that I have seen this cursed island and your blessed face."
"You want me
really to believe," said Madeleine, with parted lips, "that you
think----"
"I want you =
to
hate me!" cried Turnbull, in agony. "I want you to be sick when y=
ou
think of my name. I am sure there is no God."
"But there
is," said Madeleine, quite quietly, and rather with the air of one tel=
ling
children about an elephant. "Why, I touched His body only this
morning."
"You touched=
a
bit of bread," said Turnbull, biting his knuckles. "Oh, I will say
anything that can madden you!"
"You think i=
t is
only a bit of bread," said the girl, and her lips tightened ever so
little.
"I know it is
only a bit of bread," said Turnbull, with violence.
She flung back her
open face and smiled. "Then why did you refuse to eat it?" she sa=
id.
James Turnbull ma=
de a
little step backward, and for the first time in his life there seemed to br=
eak
out and blaze in his head thoughts that were not his own.
"Why, how si=
lly
of them," cried out Madeleine, with quite a schoolgirl gaiety, "w=
hy,
how silly of them to call you a blasphemer! Why, you have wrecked your whole
business because you would not commit blasphemy."
The man stood, a
somewhat comic figure in his tragic bewilderment, with the honest red head =
of
James Turnbull sticking out of the rich and fictitious garments of Camille
Bert. But the startled pain of his face was strong enough to obliterate the
oddity.
"You come do=
wn
here," continued the lady, with that female emphasis which is so
pulverizing in conversation and so feeble at a public meeting, "you and
your MacIan come down here and put on false beards or noses in order to fig=
ht.
You pretend to be a Catholic commercial traveller from France. Poor Mr. Mac=
Ian
has to pretend to be a dissolute nobleman from nowhere. Your scheme succeed=
s;
you pick a quite convincing quarrel; you arrange a quite respectable duel; =
the
duel you have planned so long will come off tomorrow with absolute certainty
and safety. And then you throw off your wig and throw up your scheme and th=
row
over your colleague, because I ask you to go into a building and eat a bit =
of bread.
And then you dare to tell me that you are sure there is nothing watching us.
Then you say you know there is nothing on the very altar you run away from.=
You
know----"
"I only
know," said Turnbull, "that I must run away from you. This has got
beyond any talking." And he plunged along into the village, leaving his
black wig and beard lying behind him on the road.
As the market-pla=
ce
opened before him he saw Count Gregory, that distinguished foreigner, stand=
ing
and smoking in elegant meditation at the corner of the local café. He
immediately made his way rapidly towards him, considering that a consultati=
on
was urgent. But he had hardly crossed half of that stony quadrangle when a
window burst open above him and a head was thrust out, shouting. The man wa=
s in
his woollen undershirt, but Turnbull knew the energetic, apologetic head of=
the
sergeant of police. He pointed furiously at Turnbull and shouted his name. A
policeman ran excitedly from under an archway and tried to collar him. Two =
men
selling vegetables dropped their baskets and joined in the chase. Turnbull
dodged the constable, upset one of the men into his own basket, and bounding
towards the distinguished foreign Count, called to him clamorously: "C=
ome
on, MacIan, the hunt is up again."
The prompt reply =
of
Count Gregory was to pull off his large yellow whiskers and scatter them on=
the
breeze with an air of considerable relief. Then he joined the flight of
Turnbull, and even as he did so, with one wrench of his powerful hands rent=
and
split the strange, thick stick that he carried. Inside it was a naked
old-fashioned rapier. The two got a good start up the road before the whole
town was awakened behind them; and half-way up it a similar transformation =
was
seen to take place in Mr. Turnbull's singular umbrella.
The two had a long
race for the harbour; but the English police were heavy and the French
inhabitants were indifferent. In any case, they got used to the notion of t=
he
road being clear; and just as they had come to the cliffs MacIan banged into
another gentleman with unmistakable surprise. How he knew he was another
gentleman merely by banging into him, must remain a mystery. MacIan was a v=
ery
poor and very sober Scotch gentleman. The other was a very drunk and very
wealthy English gentleman. But there was something in the staggered and ope=
nly embarrassed
apologies that made them understand each other as readily and as quickly an=
d as
much as two men talking French in the middle of China. The nearest expressi=
on
of the type is that it either hits or apologizes; and in this case both
apologized.
"You seem to=
be
in a hurry," said the unknown Englishman, falling back a step or two in
order to laugh with an unnatural heartiness. "What's it all about,
eh?" Then before MacIan could get past his sprawling and staggering fi=
gure
he ran forward again and said with a sort of shouting and ear-shattering wh=
isper:
"I say, my name is Wilkinson. You know--Wilkinson's Entire was my
grandfather. Can't drink beer myself. Liver." And he shook his head wi=
th
extraordinary sagacity.
"We really a=
re
in a hurry, as you say," said MacIan, summoning a sufficiently pleasan=
t smile,
"so if you will let us pass----"
"I'll tell y=
ou
what, you fellows," said the sprawling gentleman, confidentially, while
Evan's agonized ears heard behind him the first paces of the pursuit, "=
;if
you really are, as you say, in a hurry, I know what it is to be in a
hurry--Lord, what a hurry I was in when we all came out of Cartwright's
rooms--if you really are in a hurry"--and he seemed to steady his voice
into a sort of solemnity--"if you are in a hurry, there's nothing like=
a
good yacht for a man in a hurry."
"No doubt yo=
u're
right," said MacIan, and dashed past him in despair. The head of the
pursuing host was just showing over the top of the hill behind him. Turnbull
had already ducked under the intoxicated gentleman's elbow and fled far in
front.
"No, but look
here," said Mr. Wilkinson, enthusiastically running after MacIan and
catching him by the sleeve of his coat. "If you want to hurry you shou=
ld
take a yacht, and if"--he said, with a burst of rationality, like one
leaping to a further point in logic--"if you want a yacht--you can have
mine."
Evan pulled up
abruptly and looked back at him. "We are really in the devil of a
hurry," he said, "and if you really have a yacht, the truth is th=
at
we would give our ears for it."
"You'll find=
it
in harbour," said Wilkinson, struggling with his speech. "Left si=
de
of harbour--called Gibson Girl--can't think why, old fellow, I never lent it
you before."
With these words =
the
benevolent Mr. Wilkinson fell flat on his face in the road, but continued to
laugh softly, and turned towards his flying companion a face of peculiar pe=
ace
and benignity. Evan's mind went through a crisis of instantaneous casuistry=
, in
which it may be that he decided wrongly; but about how he decided his
biographer can profess no doubt. Two minutes afterwards he had overtaken
Turnbull and told the tale; ten minutes afterwards he and Turnbull had some=
how
tumbled into the yacht called the Gibson Girl and had somehow pushed off fr=
om
the Isle of St. Loup.
Those who happen =
to
hold the view (and Mr. Evan MacIan, now alive and comfortable, is among the
number) that something supernatural, some eccentric kindness from god or fa=
iry
had guided our adventurers through all their absurd perils, might have found
his strongest argument perhaps in their management or mismanagement of Mr.
Wilkinson's yacht. Neither of them had the smallest qualification for manag=
ing
such a vessel; but MacIan had a practical knowledge of the sea in much smal=
ler
and quite different boats, while Turnbull had an abstract knowledge of scie=
nce
and some of its applications to navigation, which was worse. The presence of
the god or fairy can only be deduced from the fact that they never definite=
ly
ran into anything, either a boat, a rock, a quicksand, or a man-of-war. Apa=
rt
from this negative description, their voyage would be difficult to describe=
. It
took at least a fortnight, and MacIan, who was certainly the shrewder sailo=
r of
the two, realized that they were sailing west into the Atlantic and were pr=
obably
by this time past the Scilly Isles. How much farther they stood out into the
western sea it was impossible to conjecture. But they felt certain, at leas=
t,
that they were far enough into that awful gulf between us and America to ma=
ke it
unlikely that they would soon see land again. It was therefore with legitim=
ate
excitement that one rainy morning after daybreak they saw that distinct sha=
pe
of a solitary island standing up against the encircling strip of silver whi=
ch
ran round the skyline and separated the grey and green of the billows from =
the
grey and mauve of the morning clouds.
"What can it
be?" cried MacIan, in a dry-throated excitement. "I didn't know t=
here
were any Atlantic islands so far beyond the Scillies--Good Lord, it can't be
Madeira, yet?"
"I thought y=
ou
were fond of legends and lies and fables," said Turnbull, grimly.
"Perhaps it's Atlantis."
"Of course, = it might be," answered the other, quite innocently and gravely; "but= I never thought the story about Atlantis was very solidly established."<= o:p>
"Whatever it=
is,
we are running on to it," said Turnbull, equably, "and we shall be
shipwrecked twice, at any rate."
The naked-looking
nose of land projecting from the unknown island was, indeed, growing larger=
and
larger, like the trunk of some terrible and advancing elephant. There seeme=
d to
be nothing in particular, at least on this side of the island, except shoal=
s of
shellfish lying so thick as almost to make it look like one of those toy
grottos that the children make. In one place, however, the coast offered a
soft, smooth bay of sand, and even the rudimentary ingenuity of the two ama=
teur
mariners managed to run up the little ship with her prow well on shore and =
her bowsprit
pointing upward, as in a sort of idiotic triumph.
They tumbled on s=
hore
and began to unload the vessel, setting the stores out in rows upon the sand
with something of the solemnity of boys playing at pirates. There were Mr.
Wilkinson's cigar-boxes and Mr. Wilkinson's dozen of champagne and Mr.
Wilkinson's tinned salmon and Mr. Wilkinson's tinned tongue and Mr. Wilkins=
on's
tinned sardines, and every sort of preserved thing that could be seen at the
Army and Navy stores. Then MacIan stopped with a jar of pickles in his hand=
and
said abruptly:
"I don't know
why we're doing all this; I suppose we ought really to fall to and get it
over."
Then he added more
thoughtfully: "Of course this island seems rather bare and the
survivor----"
"The question
is," said Turnbull, with cheerful speculation, "whether the survi=
vor
will be in a proper frame of mind for potted prawns."
MacIan looked dow=
n at
the rows of tins and bottles, and the cloud of doubt still lowered upon his
face.
"You will pe=
rmit
me two liberties, my dear sir," said Turnbull at last: "The first=
is
to break open this box and light one of Mr. Wilkinson's excellent cigars, w=
hich
will, I am sure, assist my meditations; the second is to offer a penny for =
your
thoughts; or rather to convulse the already complex finances of this island=
by
betting a penny that I know them."
"What on ear=
th
are you talking about?" asked MacIan, listlessly, in the manner of an
inattentive child.
"I know what=
you
are really thinking, MacIan," repeated Turnbull, laughing. "I know
what I am thinking, anyhow. And I rather fancy it's the same."
"What are you
thinking?" asked Evan.
"I am thinki=
ng
and you are thinking," said Turnbull, "that it is damned silly to
waste all that champagne."
Something like the
spectre of a smile appeared on the unsmiling visage of the Gael; and he mad=
e at
least no movement of dissent.
"We could dr=
ink
all the wine and smoke all the cigars easily in a week," said Turnbull;
"and that would be to die feasting like heroes."
"Yes, and th=
ere
is something else," said MacIan, with slight hesitation. "You see=
, we
are on an almost unknown rock, lost in the Atlantic. The police will never
catch us; but then neither may the public ever hear of us; and that was one=
of
the things we wanted." Then, after a pause, he said, drawing in the sa=
nd
with his sword-point: "She may never hear of it at all."
"Well?"
inquired the other, puffing at his cigar.
"Well,"
said MacIan, "we might occupy a day or two in drawing up a thorough and
complete statement of what we did and why we did it, and all about both our
points of view. Then we could leave one copy on the island whatever happens=
to
us and put another in an empty bottle and send it out to sea, as they do in=
the
books."
"A good
idea," said Turnbull, "and now let us finish unpacking."
As MacIan, a tall,
almost ghostly figure, paced along the edge of sand that ran round the isle=
t,
the purple but cloudy poetry which was his native element was piled up at i=
ts
thickest upon his soul. The unique island and the endless sea emphasized the
thing solely as an epic. There were no ladies or policemen here to give him=
a
hint either of its farce or its tragedy.
"Perhaps when
the morning stars were made," he said to himself, "God built this
island up from the bottom of the world to be a tower and a theatre for the
fight between yea and nay."
Then he wandered =
up
to the highest level of the rock, where there was a roof or plateau of level
stone. Half an hour afterwards, Turnbull found him clearing away the loose =
sand
from this table-land and making it smooth and even.
"We will fig=
ht
up here, Turnbull," said MacIan, "when the time comes. And till t=
he
time comes this place shall be sacred."
"I thought of
having lunch up here," said Turnbull, who had a bottle of champagne in=
his
hand.
"No, no--not=
up
here," said MacIan, and came down from the height quite hastily. Befor=
e he
descended, however, he fixed the two swords upright, one at each end of the
platform, as if they were human sentinels to guard it under the stars.
Then they came do=
wn
and lunched plentifully in a nest of loose rocks. In the same place that ni=
ght
they supped more plentifully still. The smoke of Mr. Wilkinson's cigars wen=
t up
ceaseless and strong smelling, like a pagan sacrifice; the golden glories of
Mr. Wilkinson's champagne rose to their heads and poured out of them in fan=
cies
and philosophies. And occasionally they would look up at the starlight and =
the
rock and see the space guarded by the two cross-hilted swords, which looked
like two black crosses at either end of a grave.
In this primitive=
and
Homeric truce the week passed by; it consisted almost entirely of eating,
drinking, smoking, talking, and occasionally singing. They wrote their reco=
rds
and cast loose their bottle. They never ascended to the ominous plateau; th=
ey
had never stood there save for that single embarrassed minute when they had=
had
no time to take stock of the seascape or the shape of the land. They did not
even explore the island; for MacIan was partly concerned in prayer and Turn=
bull
entirely concerned with tobacco; and both these forms of inspiration can be
enjoyed by the secluded and even the sedentary. It was on a golden afternoo=
n,
the sun sinking over the sea, rayed like the very head of Apollo, when Turn=
bull
tossed off the last half-pint from the emptied Wilkinsonian bottle, hurled =
the
bottle into the sea with objectless energy, and went up to where his sword
stood waiting for him on the hill. MacIan was already standing heavily by h=
is
with bent head and eyes reading the ground. He had not even troubled to thr=
ow a
glance round the island or the horizon. But Turnbull being of a more active=
and
birdlike type of mind did throw a glance round the scene. The consequence of
which was that he nearly fell off the rock.
On three sides of
this shelly and sandy islet the sea stretched blue and infinite without a s=
peck
of land or sail; the same as Turnbull had first seen it, except that the ti=
de
being out it showed a few yards more of slanting sand under the roots of the
rocks. But on the fourth side the island exhibited a more extraordinary
feature. In fact, it exhibited the extraordinary feature of not being an is=
land
at all. A long, curving neck of sand, as smooth and wet as the neck of the =
sea
serpent, ran out into the sea and joined their rock to a line of low,
billowing, and glistening sand-hills, which the sinking sea had just bared =
to
the sun. Whether they were firm sand or quicksand it was difficult to guess;
but there was at least no doubt that they lay on the edge of some larger la=
nd;
for colourless hills appeared faintly behind them and no sea could be seen
beyond.
"Sakes
alive!" cried Turnbull, with rolling eyes; "this ain't an island =
in
the Atlantic. We've butted the bally continent of America."
MacIan turned his
head, and his face, already pale, grew a shade paler. He was by this time
walking in a world of omens and hieroglyphics, and he could not read anythi=
ng
but what was baffling or menacing in this brown gigantic arm of the earth
stretched out into the sea to seize him.
"MacIan,&quo=
t;
said Turnbull, in his temperate way, "whatever our eternal interrupted
tete-a-tetes have taught us or not taught us, at least we need not fear the
charge of fear. If it is essential to your emotions, I will cheerfully fini=
sh
the fight here and now; but I must confess that if you kill me here I shall=
die
with my curiosity highly excited and unsatisfied upon a minor point of
geography."
"I do not wa=
nt
to stop now," said the other, in his elephantine simplicity, "but=
we
must stop for a moment, because it is a sign--perhaps it is a miracle. We m=
ust
see what is at the end of the road of sand; it may be a bridge built across=
the
gulf by God."
"So long as =
you
gratify my query," said Turnbull, laughing and letting back his blade =
into
the sheath, "I do not care for what reason you choose to stop."
They clambered do=
wn
the rocky peninsula and trudged along the sandy isthmus with the plodding
resolution of men who seemed almost to have made up their minds to be wande=
rers
on the face of the earth. Despite Turnbull's air of scientific eagerness, he
was really the less impatient of the two; and the Highlander went on well a=
head
of him with passionate strides. By the time they had walked for about half =
an
hour in the ups and downs of those dreary sands, the distance between the t=
wo
had lengthened and MacIan was only a tall figure silhouetted for an instant=
upon
the crest of some sand-dune and then disappearing behind it. This rather
increased the Robinson Crusoe feeling in Mr. Turnbull, and he looked about
almost disconsolately for some sign of life. What sort of life he expected =
it
to be if it appeared, he did not very clearly know. He has since confessed =
that
he thinks that in his subconsciousness he expected an alligator.
The first sign of
life that he did see, however, was something more extraordinary than the
largest alligator. It was nothing less than the notorious Mr. Evan MacIan
coming bounding back across the sand-heaps breathless, without his cap and
keeping the sword in his hand only by a habit now quite hardened.
"Take care,
Turnbull," he cried out from a good distance as he ran, "I've see=
n a
native."
"A native?&q=
uot;
repeated his companion, whose scenery had of late been chiefly of shellfish,
"what the deuce! Do you mean an oyster?"
"No," s=
aid
MacIan, stopping and breathing hard, "I mean a savage. A black man.&qu=
ot;
"Why, where =
did
you see him?" asked the staring editor.
"Over
there--behind that hill," said the gasping MacIan. "He put up his=
black
head and grinned at me."
Turnbull thrust h=
is
hands through his red hair like one who gives up the world as a bad riddle.
"Lord love a duck," said he, "can it be Jamaica?"
Then glancing at =
his
companion with a small frown, as of one slightly suspicious, he said: "=
;I
say, don't think me rude--but you're a visionary kind of fellow--and then we
drank a great deal. Do you mind waiting here while I go and see for myself?=
"
"Shout if you
get into trouble," said the Celt, with composure; "you will find =
it
as I say."
Turnbull ran off
ahead with a rapidity now far greater than his rival's, and soon vanished o=
ver
the disputed sand-hill. Then five minutes passed, and then seven minutes; a=
nd
MacIan bit his lip and swung his sword, and the other did not reappear.
Finally, with a Gaelic oath, Evan started forward to the rescue, and almost=
at
the same moment the small figure of the missing man appeared on the ridge
against the sky.
Even at that
distance, however, there was something odd about his attitude; so odd that
MacIan continued to make his way in that direction. It looked as if he were
wounded; or, still more, as if he were ill. He wavered as he came down the
slope and seemed flinging himself into peculiar postures. But it was only w=
hen
he came within three feet of MacIan's face, that that observer of mankind f=
ully
realized that Mr. James Turnbull was roaring with laughter.
"You are quit
right," sobbed that wholly demoralized journalist. "He's black, o=
h,
there's no doubt the black's all right--as far as it goes." And he went
off again into convulsions of his humorous ailment.
"What ever is
the matter with you?" asked MacIan, with stern impatience. "Did y=
ou
see the nigger----"
"I saw the
nigger," gasped Turnbull. "I saw the splendid barbarian Chief. I =
saw
the Emperor of Ethiopia--oh, I saw him all right. The nigger's hands and fa=
ce
are a lovely colour--and the nigger----" And he was overtaken once mor=
e.
"Well, well,=
well,"
said Evan, stamping each monosyllable on the sand, "what about the
nigger?"
"Well, the t=
ruth
is," said Turnbull, suddenly and startlingly, becoming quite grave and
precise, "the truth is, the nigger is a Margate nigger, and we are now=
on
the edge of the Isle of Thanet, a few miles from Margate."
Then he had a
momentary return of his hysteria and said: "I say, old boy, I should l=
ike
to see a chart of our fortnight's cruise in Wilkinson's yacht."
MacIan had no smi=
le
in answer, but his eager lips opened as if parched for the truth. "You
mean to say," he began----
"Yes, I mean=
to
say," said Turnbull, "and I mean to say something funnier still. I
have learnt everything I wanted to know from the partially black musician o=
ver
there, who has taken a run in his war-paint to meet a friend in a quiet pub
along the coast--the noble savage has told me all about it. The bottle
containing our declaration, doctrines, and dying sentiments was washed up on
Margate beach yesterday in the presence of one alderman, two bathing-machine
men, three policemen, seven doctors, and a hundred and thirteen London cler=
ks
on a holiday, to all of whom, whether directly or indirectly, our compositi=
on gave
enormous literary pleasure. Buck up, old man, this story of ours is a switc=
hback.
I have begun to understand the pulse and the time of it; now we are up in a
cathedral and then we are down in a theatre, where they only play farces. C=
ome,
I am quite reconciled--let us enjoy the farce."
But MacIan said
nothing, and an instant afterwards Turnbull himself called out in an entire=
ly
changed voice: "Oh, this is damnable! This is not to be borne!"
MacIan followed h=
is
eye along the sand-hills. He saw what looked like the momentary and waving
figure of the nigger minstrel, and then he saw a heavy running policeman ta=
ke
the turn of the sand-hill with the smooth solemnity of a railway train.
Up to this instant
Evan MacIan had really understood nothing; but when he saw the policeman he=
saw
everything. He saw his enemies, all the powers and princes of the earth. He
suddenly altered from a staring statue to a leaping man of the mountains.
"We must bre=
ak
away from him here," he cried, briefly, and went like a whirlwind over=
the
sand ridge in a straight line and at a particular angle. When the policeman=
had
finished his admirable railway curve, he found a wall of failing sand betwe=
en
him and the pursued. By the time he had scaled it thrice, slid down twice, =
and
crested it in the third effort, the two flying figures were far in front. T=
hey
found the sand harder farther on; it began to be crusted with scraps of turf
and in a few moments they were flying easily over an open common of rank se=
a-grass.
They had no easy business, however; for the bottle which they had so innoce=
ntly
sent into the chief gate of Thanet had called to life the police of half a
county on their trail. From every side across the grey-green common figures
could be seen running and closing in; and it was only when MacIan with his =
big
body broke down the tangled barrier of a little wood, as men break down a d=
oor
with the shoulder; it was only when they vanished crashing into the underwo=
rld
of the black wood, that their hunters were even instantaneously thrown off =
the
scent.
At the risk of
struggling a little longer like flies in that black web of twigs and trunks,
Evan (who had an instinct of the hunter or the hunted) took an incalculable
course through the forest, which let them out at last by a forest
opening--quite forgotten by the leaders of the chase. They ran a mile or two
farther along the edge of the wood until they reached another and somewhat
similar opening. Then MacIan stood utterly still and listened, as animals
listen, for every sound in the universe. Then he said: "We are quit of
them." And Turnbull said: "Where shall we go now?"
MacIan looked at =
the
silver sunset that was closing in, barred by plumy lines of purple cloud; he
looked at the high tree-tops that caught the last light and at the birds go=
ing
heavily homeward, just as if all these things were bits of written advice t=
hat
he could read.
Then he said:
"The best place we can go to is to bed. If we can get some sleep in th=
is
wood, now everyone has cleared out of it, it will be worth a handicap of two
hundred yards tomorrow."
Turnbull, who was
exceptionally lively and laughing in his demeanour, kicked his legs about l=
ike
a schoolboy and said he did not want to go to sleep. He walked incessantly =
and
talked very brilliantly. And when at last he lay down on the hard earth, sl=
eep
struck him senseless like a hammer.
Indeed, he needed=
the
strongest sleep he could get; for the earth was still full of darkness and a
kind of morning fog when his fellow-fugitive shook him awake.
"No more sle=
ep,
I'm afraid," said Evan, in a heavy, almost submissive, voice of apolog=
y.
"They've gone on past us right enough for a good thirty miles; but now
they've found out their mistake, and they're coming back."
"Are you
sure?" said Turnbull, sitting up and rubbing his red eyebrows with his
hand.
The next moment, =
however,
he had jumped up alive and leaping like a man struck with a shock of cold
water, and he was plunging after MacIan along the woodland path. The shape =
of
their old friend the constable had appeared against the pearl and pink of t=
he
sunrise. Somehow, it always looked a very funny shape when seen against the
sunrise.
=
* =
* =
*
A wash of weary
daylight was breaking over the country-side, and the fields and roads were =
full
of white mist--the kind of white mist that clings in corners like cotton wo=
ol.
The empty road, along which the chase had taken its turn, was overshadowed =
on
one side by a very high discoloured wall, stained, and streaked green, as w=
ith seaweed--evidently
the high-shouldered sentinel of some great gentleman's estate. A yard or two
from the wall ran parallel to it a linked and tangled line of lime-trees,
forming a kind of cloister along the side of the road. It was under this
branching colonnade that the two fugitives fled, almost concealed from their
pursuers by the twilight, the mist and the leaping zoetrope of shadows. The=
ir
feet, though beating the ground furiously, made but a faint noise; for they=
had
kicked away their boots in the wood; their long, antiquated weapons made no
jingle or clatter, for they had strapped them across their backs like guita=
rs. They
had all the advantages that invisibility and silence can add to speed.
A hundred and fif=
ty
yards behind them down the centre of the empty road the first of their purs=
uers
came pounding and panting--a fat but powerful policeman who had distanced a=
ll
the rest. He came on at a splendid pace for so portly a figure; but, like a=
ll
heavy bodies in motion, he gave the impression that it would be easier for =
him
to increase his pace than to slacken it suddenly. Nothing short of a brick =
wall
could have abruptly brought him up. Turnbull turned his head slightly and f=
ound
breath to say something to MacIan. MacIan nodded.
Pursuer and pursu=
ed
were fixed in their distance as they fled, for some quarter of a mile, when
they came to a place where two or three of the trees grew twistedly togethe=
r,
making a special obscurity. Past this place the pursuing policeman went
thundering without thought or hesitation. But he was pursuing his shadow or=
the
wind; for Turnbull had put one foot in a crack of the tree and gone up it as
quickly and softly as a cat. Somewhat more laboriously but in equal silence=
the
long legs of the Highlander had followed; and crouching in crucial silence =
in
the cloud of leaves, they saw the whole posse of their pursuers go by and d=
ie
into the dust and mists of the distance.
The white vapour =
lay,
as it often does, in lean and palpable layers; and even the head of the tree
was above it in the half-daylight, like a green ship swinging on a sea of f=
oam.
But higher yet behind them, and readier to catch the first coming of the su=
n,
ran the rampart of the top of the wall, which in their excitement of escape
looked at once indispensable and unattainable, like the wall of heaven. Her=
e, however,
it was MacIan's turn to have the advantage; for, though less light-limbed a=
nd
feline, he was longer and stronger in the arms. In two seconds he had tugge=
d up
his chin over the wall like a horizontal bar; the next he sat astride of it,
like a horse of stone. With his assistance Turnbull vaulted to the same per=
ch,
and the two began cautiously to shift along the wall in the direction by wh=
ich
they had come, doubling on their tracks to throw off the last pursuit. MacI=
an could
not rid himself of the fancy of bestriding a steed; the long, grey coping of
the wall shot out in front of him, like the long, grey neck of some nightma=
re
Rosinante. He had the quaint thought that he and Turnbull were two knights =
on
one steed on the old shield of the Templars.
The nightmare of =
the
stone horse was increased by the white fog, which seemed thicker inside the
wall than outside. They could make nothing of the enclosure upon which they
were partial trespassers, except that the green and crooked branches of a b=
ig
apple-tree came crawling at them out of the mist, like the tentacles of some
green cuttlefish. Anything would serve, however, that was likely to confuse
their trail, so they both decided without need of words to use this tree al=
so
as a ladder--a ladder of descent. When they dropped from the lowest branch =
to
the ground their stockinged feet felt hard gravel beneath them.
They had alighted=
in
the middle of a very broad garden path, and the clearing mist permitted the=
m to
see the edge of a well-clipped lawn. Though the white vapour was still a ve=
il,
it was like the gauzy veil of a transformation scene in a pantomime; for
through it there glowed shapeless masses of colour, masses which might be
clouds of sunrise or mosaics of gold and crimson, or ladies robed in ruby a=
nd
emerald draperies. As it thinned yet farther they saw that it was only flow=
ers;
but flowers in such insolent mass and magnificence as can seldom be seen ou=
t of
the tropics. Purple and crimson rhododendrons rose arrogantly, like rampant
heraldic animals against their burning background of laburnum gold. The ros=
es
were red hot; the clematis was, so to speak, blue hot. And yet the mere
whiteness of the syringa seemed the most violent colour of all. As the gold=
en
sunlight gradually conquered the mists, it had really something of the
sensational sweetness of the slow opening of the gates of Eden. MacIan, who=
se
mind was always haunted with such seraphic or titanic parallels, made some =
such
remark to his companion. But Turnbull only cursed and said that it was the =
back
garden of some damnable rich man.
When the last haze
had faded from the ordered paths, the open lawns, and the flaming flower-be=
ds,
the two realized, not without an abrupt re-examination of their position, t=
hat
they were not alone in the garden.
Down the centre of
the central garden path, preceded by a blue cloud from a cigarette, was wal=
king
a gentleman who evidently understood all the relish of a garden in the very
early morning. He was a slim yet satisfied figure, clad in a suit of pale-g=
rey
tweed, so subdued that the pattern was imperceptible--a costume that was ca=
sual
but not by any means careless. His face, which was reflective and somewhat =
over-refined,
was the face of a quite elderly man, though his stringy hair and moustache =
were
still quite yellow. A double eye-glass, with a broad, black ribbon, drooped
from his aquiline nose, and he smiled, as he communed with himself, with a
self-content which was rare and almost irritating. The straw panama on his =
head
was many shades shabbier than his clothes, as if he had caught it up by
accident.
It needed the full
shock of the huge shadow of MacIan, falling across his sunlit path, to rouse
him from his smiling reverie. When this had fallen on him he lifted his hea=
d a
little and blinked at the intruders with short-sighted benevolence, but with
far less surprise than might have been expected. He was a gentleman; that i=
s,
he had social presence of mind, whether for kindness or for insolence.
"Can I do
anything for you?" he said, at last.
MacIan bowed.
"You can extend to us your pardon," he said, for he also came of a
whole race of gentlemen--of gentlemen without shirts to their backs. "=
I am
afraid we are trespassing. We have just come over the wall."
"Over the
wall?" repeated the smiling old gentleman, still without letting his
surprise come uppermost.
"I suppose I=
am
not wrong, sir," continued MacIan, "in supposing that these groun=
ds
inside the wall belong to you?"
The man in the pa=
nama
looked at the ground and smoked thoughtfully for a few moments, after which=
he said,
with a sort of matured conviction:
"Yes, certai=
nly;
the grounds inside the wall really belong to me, and the grounds outside the
wall, too."
"A large
proprietor, I imagine," said Turnbull, with a truculent eye.
"Yes,"
answered the old gentleman, looking at him with a steady smile. "A lar=
ge
proprietor."
Turnbull's eye gr=
ew
even more offensive, and he began biting his red beard; but MacIan seemed to
recognize a type with which he could deal and continued quite easily:
"I am sure t=
hat
a man like you will not need to be told that one sees and does a good many
things that do not get into the newspapers. Things which, on the whole, had
better not get into the newspapers."
The smile of the
large proprietor broadened for a moment under his loose, light moustache, a=
nd
the other continued with increased confidence:
"One sometim=
es
wants to have it out with another man. The police won't allow it in the
streets--and then there's the County Council--and in the fields even nothin=
g's
allowed but posters of pills. But in a gentleman's garden, now----"
The strange gentl=
eman
smiled again and said, easily enough: "Do you want to fight? What do y=
ou
want to fight about?"
MacIan had unders=
tood
his man pretty well up to that point; an instinct common to all men with the
aristocratic tradition of Europe had guided him. He knew that the kind of m=
an
who in his own back garden wears good clothes and spoils them with a bad ha=
t is
not the kind of man who has an abstract horror of illegal actions of violen=
ce
or the evasion of the police. But a man may understand ragging and yet be v=
ery
far from understanding religious ragging. This seeming host of theirs might=
comprehend
a quarrel of husband and lover or a difficulty at cards or even escape from=
a
pursuing tailor; but it still remained doubtful whether he would feel the e=
arth
fail under him in that earthquake instant when the Virgin is compared to a
goddess of Mesopotamia. Even MacIan, therefore (whose tact was far from bei=
ng
his strong point), felt the necessity for some compromise in the mode of
approach. At last he said, and even then with hesitation:
"We are figh=
ting
about God; there can be nothing so important as that."
The tilted
eye-glasses of the old gentleman fell abruptly from his nose, and he thrust=
his
aristocratic chin so far forward that his lean neck seemed to shoot out lon=
ger
like a telescope.
"About
God?" he queried, in a key completely new.
"Look
here!" cried Turnbull, taking his turn roughly, "I'll tell you wh=
at
it's all about. I think that there's no God. I take it that it's nobody's
business but mine--or God's, if there is one. This young gentleman from the
Highlands happens to think that it's his business. In consequence, he first
takes a walking-stick and smashes my shop; then he takes the same walking-s=
tick
and tries to smash me. To this I naturally object. I suggest that if it com=
es
to that we should both have sticks. He improves on the suggestion and propo=
ses
that we should both have steel-pointed sticks. The police (with characteris=
tic
unreasonableness) will not accept either of our proposals; the result is th=
at
we run about dodging the police and have jumped over our garden wall into y=
our magnificent
garden to throw ourselves on your magnificent hospitality."
The face of the o=
ld
gentleman had grown redder and redder during this address, but it was still
smiling; and when he broke out it was with a kind of guffaw.
"So you real=
ly
want to fight with drawn swords in my garden," he asked, "about
whether there is really a God?"
"Why not?&qu=
ot;
said MacIan, with his simple monstrosity of speech; "all man's worship
began when the Garden of Eden was founded."
"Yes,
by----!" said Turnbull, with an oath, "and ended when the Zoologi=
cal
Gardens were founded."
"In this gar=
den!
In my presence!" cried the stranger, stamping up and down the gravel a=
nd
choking with laughter, "whether there is a God!" And he went stam=
ping
up and down the garden, making it echo with his unintelligible laughter. Th=
en
he came back to them more composed and wiping his eyes.
"Why, how sm=
all
the world is!" he cried at last. "I can settle the whole matter. =
Why,
I am God!"
And he suddenly b=
egan
to kick and wave his well-clad legs about the lawn.
"You are
what?" repeated Turnbull, in a tone which is beyond description.
"Why, God, of
course!" answered the other, thoroughly amused. "How funny it is =
to
think that you have tumbled over a garden wall and fallen exactly on the ri=
ght
person! You might have gone floundering about in all sorts of churches and
chapels and colleges and schools of philosophy looking for some evidence of=
the
existence of God. Why, there is no evidence, except seeing him. And now you=
've
seen him. You've seen him dance!"
And the obliging =
old
gentleman instantly stood on one leg without relaxing at all the grave and
cultured benignity of his expression.
"I understood
that this garden----" began the bewildered MacIan.
"Quite so! Q=
uite
so!" said the man on one leg, nodding gravely. "I said this garden
belonged to me and the land outside it. So they do. So does the country bey=
ond
that and the sea beyond that and all the rest of the earth. So does the moo=
n.
So do the sun and stars." And he added, with a smile of apology: "=
;You
see, I'm God."
Turnbull and MacI=
an
looked at him for one moment with a sort of notion that perhaps he was not =
too
old to be merely playing the fool. But after staring steadily for an instant
Turnbull saw the hard and horrible earnestness in the man's eyes behind all=
his
empty animation. Then Turnbull looked very gravely at the strict gravel wal=
ls
and the gay flower-beds and the long rectangular red-brick building, which =
the
mist had left evident beyond them. Then he looked at MacIan.
Almost at the same
moment another man came walking quickly round the regal clump of rhododendr=
ons.
He had the look of a prosperous banker, wore a good tall silk hat, was almo=
st
stout enough to burst the buttons of a fine frock-coat; but he was talking =
to
himself, and one of his elbows had a singular outward jerk as he went by.
The man with the =
good
hat and the jumping elbow went by very quickly; yet the man with the bad ha=
t,
who thought he was God, overtook him. He ran after him and jumped over a be=
d of
geraniums to catch him.
"I beg your
Majesty's pardon," he said, with mock humility, "but here is a
quarrel which you ought really to judge."
Then as he led the
heavy, silk-hatted man back towards the group, he caught MacIan's ear in or=
der
to whisper: "This poor gentleman is mad; he thinks he is Edward VII.&q=
uot;
At this the self-appointed Creator slightly winked. "Of course you won=
't
trust him much; come to me for everything. But in my position one has to me=
et
so many people. One has to be broadminded."
The big banker in=
the
black frock-coat and hat was standing quite grave and dignified on the lawn,
save for his slight twitch of one limb, and he did not seem by any means
unworthy of the part which the other promptly forced upon him.
"My dear
fellow," said the man in the straw hat, "these two gentlemen are
going to fight a duel of the utmost importance. Your own royal position and=
my
much humbler one surely indicate us as the proper seconds. Seconds--yes,
seconds----" and here the speaker was once more shaken with his old ma=
lady
of laughter.
"Yes, you an=
d I
are both seconds--and these two gentlemen can obviously fight in front of u=
s.
You, he-he, are the king. I am God; really, they could hardly have better
supporters. They have come to the right place."
Then Turnbull, who
had been staring with a frown at the fresh turf, burst out with a rather bi=
tter
laugh and cried, throwing his red head in the air:
"Yes, by God,
MacIan, I think we have come to the right place!" And MacIan answered,
with an adamantine stupidity:
"Any place is
the right place where they will let us do it."
There was a long
stillness, and their eyes involuntarily took in the landscape, as they had
taken in all the landscapes of their everlasting combat; the bright, square
garden behind the shop; the whole lift and leaning of the side of Hampstead
Heath; the little garden of the decadent choked with flowers; the square of
sand beside the sea at sunrise. They both felt at the same moment all the
breadth and blossoming beauty of that paradise, the coloured trees, the nat=
ural
and restful nooks and also the great wall of stone--more awful than the wal=
l of
China--from which no flesh could flee.
Turnbull was mood= ily balancing his sword in his hand as the other spoke; then he started, for a mouth whispered quite close to his ear. With a softness incredible in any c= at, the huge, heavy man in the black hat and frock-coat had crept across the la= wn from his own side and was saying in his ear: "Don't trust that second = of yours. He's mad and not so mad, either; for he frightfully cunning and shar= p. Don't believe the story he tells you about why I hate him. I know the story he'll tell; I overheard it when the housekeeper was talking to the postman. It's too long to talk about now, and I expect we're watched, but----"<= o:p>
Something in Turn=
bull
made him want suddenly to be sick on the grass; the mere healthy and heathen
horror of the unclean; the mere inhumane hatred of the inhuman state of
madness. He seemed to hear all round him the hateful whispers of that place,
innumerable as leaves whispering in the wind, and each of them telling eage=
rly
some evil that had not happened or some terrific secret which was not true.=
All
the rationalist and plain man revolted within him against bowing down for a
moment in that forest of deception and egotistical darkness. He wanted to b=
low
up that palace of delusions with dynamite; and in some wild way, which I wi=
ll
not defend, he tried to do it.
He looked across =
at
MacIan and said: "Oh, I can't stand this!"
"Can't stand
what?" asked his opponent, eyeing him doubtfully.
"Shall we say
the atmosphere?" replied Turnbull; "one can't use uncivil express=
ions
even to a--deity. The fact is, I don't like having God for my second."=
"Sir!" =
said
that being in a state of great offence, "in my position I am not used =
to
having my favours refused. Do you know who I am?"
The editor of The
Atheist turned upon him like one who has lost all patience, and exploded:
"Yes, you are God, aren't you?" he said, abruptly, "why do we
have two sets of teeth?"
"Teeth?"
spluttered the genteel lunatic; "teeth?"
"Yes,"
cried Turnbull, advancing on him swiftly and with animated gestures, "=
why
does teething hurt? Why do growing pains hurt? Why are measles catching? Why
does a rose have thorns? Why do rhinoceroses have horns? Why is the horn on=
the
top of the nose? Why haven't I a horn on the top of my nose, eh?" And =
he struck
the bridge of his nose smartly with his forefinger to indicate the place of=
the
omission and then wagged the finger menacingly at the Creator.
"I've often
wanted to meet you," he resumed, sternly, after a pause, "to hold=
you
accountable for all the idiocy and cruelty of this muddled and meaningless
world of yours. You make a hundred seeds and only one bears fruit. You make=
a
million worlds and only one seems inhabited. What do you mean by it, eh? Wh=
at
do you mean by it?"
The unhappy lunat=
ic
had fallen back before this quite novel form of attack, and lifted his
burnt-out cigarette almost like one warding off a blow. Turnbull went on li=
ke a
torrent.
"A man died
yesterday in Ealing. You murdered him. A girl had the toothache in Croydon.=
You
gave it her. Fifty sailors were drowned off Selsey Bill. You scuttled their
ship. What have you got to say for yourself, eh?"
The representativ=
e of
omnipotence looked as if he had left most of these things to his subordinat=
es;
he passed a hand over his wrinkling brow and said in a voice much saner than
any he had yet used:
"Well, if you
dislike my assistance, of course--perhaps the other gentleman----"
"The other
gentleman," cried Turnbull, scornfully, "is a submissive and loyal
and obedient gentleman. He likes the people who wear crowns, whether of
diamonds or of stars. He believes in the divine right of kings, and it is
appropriate enough that he should have the king for his second. But it is n=
ot
appropriate to me that I should have God for my second. God is not good eno=
ugh.
I dislike and I deny the divine right of kings. But I dislike more and I de=
ny
more the divine right of divinity."
Then after a paus=
e in
which he swallowed his passion, he said to MacIan: "You have got the r=
ight
second, anyhow."
The Highlander did
not answer, but stood as if thunderstruck with one long and heavy thought. =
Then
at last he turned abruptly to his second in the silk hat and said: "Who
are you?"
The man in the si=
lk
hat blinked and bridled in affected surprise, like one who was in truth
accustomed to be doubted.
"I am King
Edward VII," he said, with shaky arrogance. "Do you doubt my word=
?"
"I do not do=
ubt
it in the least," answered MacIan.
"Then,
why," said the large man in the silk hat, trembling from head to foot,
"why do you wear your hat before the king?"
"Why should I
take it off," retorted MacIan, with equal heat, "before a usurper=
?"
Turnbull swung ro=
und
on his heel. "Well, really," he said, "I thought at least you
were a loyal subject."
"I am the on=
ly
loyal subject," answered the Gael. "For nearly thirty years I have
walked these islands and have not found another."
"You are alw=
ays
hard to follow," remarked Turnbull, genially, "and sometimes so m=
uch
so as to be hardly worth following."
"I alone am
loyal," insisted MacIan; "for I alone am in rebellion. I am ready=
at
any instant to restore the Stuarts. I am ready at any instant to defy the
Hanoverian brood--and I defy it now even when face to face with the actual
ruler of the enormous British Empire!"
And folding his a=
rms and
throwing back his lean, hawklike face, he haughtily confronted the man with=
the
formal frock-coat and the eccentric elbow.
"What right =
had
you stunted German squires," he cried, "to interfere in a quarrel
between Scotch and English and Irish gentlemen? Who made you, whose fathers
could not splutter English while they walked in Whitehall, who made you the
judge between the republic of Sidney and the monarchy of Montrose? What had
your sires to do with England that they should have the foul offering of the
blood of Derwentwater and the heart of Jimmy Dawson? Where are the corpses =
of
Culloden? Where is the blood of Lochiel?" MacIan advanced upon his
opponent with a bony and pointed finger, as if indicating the exact pocket =
in
which the blood of that Cameron was probably kept; and Edward VII fell back=
a
few paces in considerable confusion.
"What good h=
ave
you ever done to us?" he continued in harsher and harsher accents, for=
cing
the other back towards the flower-beds. "What good have you ever done,=
you
race of German sausages? Yards of barbarian etiquette, to throttle the free=
dom
of aristocracy! Gas of northern metaphysics to blow up Broad Church bishops
like balloons. Bad pictures and bad manners and pantheism and the Albert
Memorial. Go back to Hanover, you humbug? Go to----"
Before the end of
this tirade the arrogance of the monarch had entirely given way; he had fai=
rly
turned tail and was trundling away down the path. MacIan strode after him s=
till
preaching and flourishing his large, lean hands. The other two remained in =
the
centre of the lawn--Turnbull in convulsions of laughter, the lunatic in
convulsions of disgust. Almost at the same moment a third figure came stepp=
ing
swiftly across the lawn.
The advancing fig=
ure
walked with a stoop, and yet somehow flung his forked and narrow beard forw=
ard.
That carefully cut and pointed yellow beard was, indeed, the most emphatic
thing about him. When he clasped his hands behind him, under the tails of h=
is
coat, he would wag his beard at a man like a big forefinger. It performed
almost all his gestures; it was more important than the glittering eye-glas=
ses
through which he looked or the beautiful bleating voice in which he spoke. =
His face
and neck were of a lusty red, but lean and stringy; he always wore his expe=
nsive
gold-rim eye-glasses slightly askew upon his aquiline nose; and he always
showed two gleaming foreteeth under his moustache, in a smile so perpetual =
as
to earn the reputation of a sneer. But for the crooked glasses his dress was
always exquisite; and but for the smile he was perfectly and perennially
depressed.
"Don't you
think," said the new-comer, with a sort of supercilious entreaty,
"that we had better all come into breakfast? It is such a mistake to w=
ait
for breakfast. It spoils one's temper so much."
"Quite so,&q=
uot;
replied Turnbull, seriously.
"There seems
almost to have been a little quarrelling here," said the man with the
goatish beard.
"It is rathe=
r a
long story," said Turnbull, smiling. "Originally, it might be cal=
led
a phase in the quarrel between science and religion."
The new-comer sta=
rted
slightly, and Turnbull replied to the question on his face.
"Oh, yes,&qu=
ot;
he said, "I am science!"
"I congratul=
ate
you heartily," answered the other, "I am Doctor Quayle."
Turnbull's eyes d=
id
not move, but he realized that the man in the panama hat had lost all his e=
ase
of a landed proprietor and had withdrawn to a distance of thirty yards, whe=
re
he stood glaring with all the contraction of fear and hatred that can stiff=
en a
cat.
=
* =
* =
*
MacIan was sitting
somewhat disconsolately on a stump of tree, his large black head half burie=
d in
his large brown hands, when Turnbull strode up to him chewing a cigarette. =
He
did not look up, but his comrade and enemy addressed him like one who must =
free
himself of his feelings.
"Well, I hop=
e,
at any rate," he said, "that you like your precious religion now.=
I
hope you like the society of this poor devil whom your damned tracts and hy=
mns
and priests have driven out of his wits. Five men in this place, they tell =
me,
five men in this place who might have been fathers of families, and every o=
ne
of them thinks he is God the Father. Oh! you may talk about the ugliness of
science, but there is no one here who thinks he is Protoplasm."
"They natura=
lly
prefer a bright part," said MacIan, wearily. "Protoplasm is not w=
orth
going mad about."
"At least,&q=
uot;
said Turnbull, savagely, "it was your Jesus Christ who started all this
bosh about being God."
For one instant
MacIan opened the eyes of battle; then his tightened lips took a crooked sm=
ile
and he said, quite calmly:
"No, the ide=
a is
older; it was Satan who first said that he was God."
"Then,
what," asked Turnbull, very slowly, as he softly picked a flower, &quo=
t;what
is the difference between Christ and Satan?"
"It is quite
simple," replied the Highlander. "Christ descended into hell; Sat=
an
fell into it."
"Does it make
much odds?" asked the free-thinker.
"It makes all
the odds," said the other. "One of them wanted to go up and went =
down;
the other wanted to go down and went up. A god can be humble, a devil can o=
nly
be humbled."
"Why are you
always wanting to humble a man?" asked Turnbull, knitting his brows.
"It affects me as ungenerous."
"Why were you
wanting to humble a god when you found him in this garden?" asked MacI=
an.
"That was an
extreme case of impudence," said Turnbull.
"Granting the
man his almighty pretensions, I think he was very modest," said MacIan.
"It is we who are arrogant, who know we are only men. The ordinary man=
in
the street is more of a monster than that poor fellow; for the man in the
street treats himself as God Almighty when he knows he isn't. He expects the
universe to turn round him, though he knows he isn't the centre."
"Well,"
said Turnbull, sitting down on the grass, "this is a digression, anyho=
w.
What I want to point out is, that your faith does end in asylums and my sci=
ence
doesn't."
"Doesn't it,=
by
George!" cried MacIan, scornfully. "There are a few men here who =
are
mad on God and a few who are mad on the Bible. But I bet there are many more
who are simply mad on madness."
"Do you real=
ly
believe it?" asked the other.
"Scores of t=
hem,
I should say," answered MacIan. "Fellows who have read medical bo=
oks
or fellows whose fathers and uncles had something hereditary in their
heads--the whole air they breathe is mad."
"All the
same," said Turnbull, shrewdly, "I bet you haven't found a madman=
of
that sort."
"I bet I
have!" cried Evan, with unusual animation. "I've been walking abo=
ut
the garden talking to a poor chap all the morning. He's simply been broken =
down
and driven raving by your damned science. Talk about believing one is God--=
why,
it's quite an old, comfortable, fireside fancy compared with the sort of th=
ings
this fellow believes. He believes that there is a God, but that he is better
than God. He says God will be afraid to face him. He says one is always
progressing beyond the best. He put his arm in mine and whispered in my ear=
, as
if it were the apocalypse: 'Never trust a God that you can't improve on.'&q=
uot;
"What can he
have meant?" said the atheist, with all his logic awake. "Obvious=
ly
one should not trust any God that one can improve on."
"It is the w=
ay
he talks," said MacIan, almost indifferently; "but he says rummier
things than that. He says that a man's doctor ought to decide what woman he
marries; and he says that children ought not to be brought up by their pare=
nts,
because a physical partiality will then distort the judgement of the
educator."
"Oh, dear!&q=
uot;
said Turnbull, laughing, "you have certainly come across a pretty bad
case, and incidentally proved your own. I suppose some men do lose their wi=
ts
through science as through love and other good things."
"And he
says," went on MacIan, monotonously, "that he cannot see why anyo=
ne
should suppose that a triangle is a three-sided figure. He says that on some
higher plane----"
Turnbull leapt to=
his
feet as by an electric shock. "I never could have believed," he
cried, "that you had humour enough to tell a lie. You've gone a bit too
far, old man, with your little joke. Even in a lunatic asylum there can't be
anybody who, having thought about the matter, thinks that a triangle has not
got three sides. If he exists he must be a new era in human psychology. But=
he
doesn't exist."
"I will go a=
nd fetch
him," said MacIan, calmly; "I left the poor fellow wandering abou=
t by
the nasturtium bed."
MacIan vanished, =
and
in a few moments returned, trailing with him his own discovery among lunati=
cs,
who was a slender man with a fixed smile and an unfixed and rolling head. He
had a goatlike beard just long enough to be shaken in a strong wind. Turnbu=
ll
sprang to his feet and was like one who is speechless through choking a sud=
den
shout of laughter.
"Why, you gr=
eat
donkey," he shouted, in an ear-shattering whisper, "that's not on=
e of
the patients at all. That's one of the doctors."
Evan looked back =
at
the leering head with the long-pointed beard and repeated the word inquirin=
gly:
"One of the doctors?"
"Oh, you know
what I mean," said Turnbull, impatiently. "The medical authoritie=
s of
the place."
Evan was still
staring back curiously at the beaming and bearded creature behind him.
"The mad
doctors," said Turnbull, shortly.
"Quite so,&q=
uot;
said MacIan.
After a rather
restless silence Turnbull plucked MacIan by the elbow and pulled him aside.=
"For goodness
sake," he said, "don't offend this fellow; he may be as mad as ten
hatters, if you like, but he has us between his finger and thumb. This is t=
he
very time he appointed to talk with us about our--well, our exeat."
"But what ca=
n it
matter?" asked the wondering MacIan. "He can't keep us in the asy=
lum.
We're not mad."
"Jackass!&qu=
ot;
said Turnbull, heartily, "of course we're not mad. Of course, if we are
medically examined and the thing is thrashed out, they will find we are not
mad. But don't you see that if the thing is thrashed out it will mean lette=
rs
to this reference and telegrams to that; and at the first word of who we ar=
e,
we shall be taken out of a madhouse, where we may smoke, to a jail, where we
mayn't. No, if we manage this very quietly, he may merely let us out at the
front door as stray revellers. If there's half an hour of inquiry, we are
cooked."
MacIan looked at =
the
grass frowningly for a few seconds, and then said in a new, small and child=
ish
voice: "I am awfully stupid, Mr. Turnbull; you must be patient with
me."
Turnbull caught
Evan's elbow again with quite another gesture. "Come," he cried, =
with
the harsh voice of one who hides emotion, "come and let us be tactful =
in
chorus."
The doctor with t=
he pointed
beard was already slanting it forward at a more than usually acute angle, w=
ith
the smile that expressed expectancy.
"I hope I do=
not
hurry you, gentlemen," he said, with the faintest suggestion of a snee=
r at
their hurried consultation, "but I believe you wanted to see me at half
past eleven."
"I am most
awfully sorry, Doctor," said Turnbull, with ready amiability; "I
never meant to keep you waiting; but the silly accident that has landed us =
in
your garden may have some rather serious consequences to our friends elsewh=
ere,
and my friend here was just drawing my attention to some of them."
"Quite so! Q=
uite
so!" said the doctor, hurriedly. "If you really want to put anyth=
ing
before me, I can give you a few moments in my consulting-room."
He led them rapid=
ly
into a small but imposing apartment, which seemed to be built and furnished
entirely in red-varnished wood. There was one desk occupied with carefully
docketed papers; and there were several chairs of the red-varnished
wood--though of different shape. All along the wall ran something that might
have been a bookcase, only that it was not filled with books, but with flat,
oblong slabs or cases of the same polished dark-red consistency. What those
flat wooden cases were they could form no conception.
The doctor sat do=
wn
with a polite impatience on his professional perch; MacIan remained standin=
g,
but Turnbull threw himself almost with luxury into a hard wooden arm-chair.=
"This is a m=
ost
absurd business, Doctor," he said, "and I am ashamed to take up t=
he
time of busy professional men with such pranks from outside. The plain fact=
is,
that he and I and a pack of silly men and girls have organized a game across
this part of the country--a sort of combination of hare and hounds and hide=
and
seek--I dare say you've heard of it. We are the hares, and, seeing your high
wall look so inviting, we tumbled over it, and naturally were a little star=
tled
with what we found on the other side."
"Quite so!&q=
uot;
said the doctor, mildly. "I can understand that you were startled.&quo=
t;
Turnbull had expe=
cted
him to ask what place was the headquarters of the new exhilarating game, and
who were the male and female enthusiasts who had brought it to such perfect=
ion;
in fact, Turnbull was busy making up these personal and topographical parti=
culars.
As the doctor did not ask the question, he grew slightly uneasy, and risked=
the
question: "I hope you will accept my assurance that the thing was an
accident and that no intrusion was meant."
"Oh, yes,
sir," replied the doctor, smiling, "I accept everything that you
say."
"In that
case," said Turnbull, rising genially, "we must not further inter=
rupt
your important duties. I suppose there will be someone to let us out?"=
"No," s=
aid
the doctor, still smiling steadily and pleasantly, "there will be no o=
ne
to let you out."
"Can we let
ourselves out, then?" asked Turnbull, in some surprise.
"Why, of cou=
rse
not," said the beaming scientist; "think how dangerous that would=
be
in a place like this."
"Then, how t=
he
devil are we to get out?" cried Turnbull, losing his manners for the f=
irst
time.
"It is a
question of time, of receptivity, and treatment," said the doctor, arc=
hing
his eyebrows indifferently. "I do not regard either of your cases as
incurable."
And with that the=
man
of the world was struck dumb, and, as in all intolerable moments, the word =
was
with the unworldly.
MacIan took one
stride to the table, leant across it, and said: "We can't stop here, w=
e're
not mad people!"
"We don't use
the crude phrase," said the doctor, smiling at his patent-leather boot=
s.
"But you can=
't
think us mad," thundered MacIan. "You never saw us before. You kn=
ow
nothing about us. You haven't even examined us."
The doctor threw =
back
his head and beard. "Oh, yes," he said, "very thoroughly.&qu=
ot;
"But you can=
't
shut a man up on your mere impressions without documents or certificates or
anything?"
The doctor got
languidly to his feet. "Quite so," he said. "You certainly o=
ught
to see the documents."
He went across to=
the
curious mock book-shelves and took down one of the flat mahogany cases. Thi=
s he
opened with a curious key at his watch-chain, and laying back a flap reveal=
ed a
quire of foolscap covered with close but quite clear writing. The first thr=
ee
words were in such large copy-book hand that they caught the eye even at a
distance. They were: "MacIan, Evan Stuart."
Evan bent his ang=
ry
eagle face over it; yet something blurred it and he could never swear he sa=
w it
distinctly. He saw something that began: "Prenatal influences predispo=
sing
to mania. Grandfather believed in return of the Stuarts. Mother carried bon=
e of
St. Eulalia with which she touched children in sickness. Marked religious m=
ania
at early age----"
Evan fell back and
fought for his speech. "Oh!" he burst out at last. "Oh! if a=
ll
this world I have walked in had been as sane as my mother was."
Then he compressed
his temples with his hands, as if to crush them. And then lifted suddenly a
face that looked fresh and young, as if he had dipped and washed it in some
holy well.
"Very
well," he cried; "I will take the sour with the sweet. I will pay=
the
penalty of having enjoyed God in this monstrous modern earth that cannot en=
joy
man or beast. I will die happy in your madhouse, only because I know what I
know. Let it be granted, then--MacIan is a mystic; MacIan is a maniac. But =
this
honest shopkeeper and editor whom I have dragged on my inhuman escapades, y=
ou
cannot keep him. He will go free, thank God, he is not down in any damned
document. His ancestor, I am certain, did not die at Culloden. His mother, =
I swear,
had no relics. Let my friend out of your front door, and as for me----"=
;
The doctor had
already gone across to the laden shelves, and after a few minutes'
short-sighted peering, had pulled down another parallelogram of dark-red wo=
od.
This also he unlo=
cked
on the table, and with the same unerring egotistic eye on of the company saw
the words, written in large letters: "Turnbull, James."
Hitherto Turnbull
himself had somewhat scornfully surrendered his part in the whole business;=
but
he was too honest and unaffected not to start at his own name. After the na=
me,
the inscription appeared to run: "Unique case of Eleutheromania.
Parentage, as so often in such cases, prosaic and healthy. Eleutheromaniac
signs occurred early, however, leading him to attach himself to the
individualist Bradlaugh. Recent outbreak of pure anarchy----"
Turnbull slammed =
the
case to, almost smashing it, and said with a burst of savage laughter:
"Oh! come along, MacIan; I don't care so much, even about getting out =
of
the madhouse, if only we get out of this room. You were right enough, MacIa=
n,
when you spoke about--about mad doctors."
Somehow they found
themselves outside in the cool, green garden, and then, after a stunned
silence, Turnbull said: "There is one thing that was puzzling me all t=
he
time, and I understand it now."
"What do you
mean?" asked Evan.
"No man by w=
ill
or wit," answered Turnbull, "can get out of this garden; and yet =
we
got into it merely by jumping over a garden wall. The whole thing explains
itself easily enough. That undefended wall was an open trap. It was a trap =
laid
for two celebrated lunatics. They saw us get in right enough. And they will=
see
that we do not get out."
Evan gazed at the
garden wall, gravely for more than a minute, and then he nodded without a w=
ord.
XV. THE DREAM OF MACIAN=
span>
The system of
espionage in the asylum was so effective and complete that in practice the
patients could often enjoy a sense of almost complete solitude. They could
stray up so near to the wall in an apparently unwatched garden as to find it
easy to jump over it. They would only have found the error of their
calculations if they had tried to jump.
Under this insult=
ing
liberty, in this artificial loneliness, Evan MacIan was in the habit of
creeping out into the garden after dark--especially upon moonlight nights. =
The
moon, indeed, was for him always a positive magnet in a manner somewhat har=
d to
explain to those of a robuster attitude. Evidently, Apollo is to the full as
poetical as Diana; but it is not a question of poetry in the matured and
intellectual sense of the word. It is a question of a certain solid and
childish fancy. The sun is in the strict and literal sense invisible; that =
is
to say, that by our bodily eyes it cannot properly be seen. But the moon is=
a
much simpler thing; a naked and nursery sort of thing. It hangs in the sky
quite solid and quite silver and quite useless; it is one huge celestial sn=
owball.
It was at least some such infantile facts and fancies which led Evan again =
and
again during his dehumanized imprisonment to go out as if to shoot the moon=
.
He was out in the
garden on one such luminous and ghostly night, when the steady moonshine to=
ned
down all the colours of the garden until almost the strongest tints to be s=
een
were the strong soft blue of the sky and the large lemon moon. He was walki=
ng
with his face turned up to it in that rather half-witted fashion which might
have excused the error of his keepers; and as he gazed he became aware of
something little and lustrous flying close to the lustrous orb, like a brig=
ht
chip knocked off the moon. At first he thought it was a mere sparkle or
refraction in his own eyesight; he blinked and cleared his eyes. Then he
thought it was a falling star; only it did not fall. It jerked awkwardly up=
and
down in a way unknown among meteors and strangely reminiscent of the works =
of
man. The next moment the thing drove right across the moon, and from being
silver upon blue, suddenly became black upon silver; then although it passed
the field of light in a flash its outline was unmistakable though eccentric=
. It
was a flying ship.
The vessel took o=
ne
long and sweeping curve across the sky and came nearer and nearer to MacIan,
like a steam-engine coming round a bend. It was of pure white steel, and in=
the
moon it gleamed like the armour of Sir Galahad. The simile of such virginit=
y is
not inappropriate; for, as it grew larger and larger and lower and lower, E=
van
saw that the only figure in it was robed in white from head to foot and cro=
wned
with snow-white hair, on which the moonshine lay like a benediction. The fi=
gure
stood so still that he could easily have supposed it to be a statue. Indeed=
, he
thought it was until it spoke.
"Evan,"
said the voice, and it spoke with the simple authority of some forgotten fa=
ther
revisiting his children, "you have remained here long enough, and your
sword is wanted elsewhere."
"Wanted for
what?" asked the young man, accepting the monstrous event with a queer=
and
clumsy naturalness; "what is my sword wanted for?"
"For all that
you hold dear," said the man standing in the moonlight; "for the
thrones of authority and for all ancient loyalty to law."
Evan looked up at=
the
lunar orb again as if in irrational appeal--a moon calf bleating to his mot=
her
the moon. But the face of Luna seemed as witless as his own; there is no he=
lp
in nature against the supernatural; and he looked again at the tall marble
figure that might have been made out of solid moonlight.
Then he said in a
loud voice: "Who are you?" and the next moment was seized by a so=
rt
of choking terror lest his question should be answered. But the unknown
preserved an impenetrable silence for a long space and then only answered:
"I must not say who I am until the end of the world; but I may say wha=
t I
am. I am the law."
And he lifted his
head so that the moon smote full upon his beautiful and ancient face.
The face was the =
face
of a Greek god grown old, but not grown either weak or ugly; there was noth=
ing
to break its regularity except a rather long chin with a cleft in it, and t=
his rather
added distinction than lessened beauty. His strong, well-opened eyes were v=
ery
brilliant but quite colourless like steel.
MacIan was one of
those to whom a reverence and self-submission in ritual come quite easy, and
are ordinary things. It was not artificial in him to bend slightly to this
solemn apparition or to lower his voice when he said: "Do you bring me
some message?"
"I do bring =
you
a message," answered the man of moon and marble. "The king has
returned."
Evan did not ask =
for
or require any explanation. "I suppose you can take me to the war,&quo=
t;
he said, and the silent silver figure only bowed its head again. MacIan
clambered into the silver boat, and it rose upward to the stars.
To say that it ro=
se
to the stars is no mere metaphor, for the sky had cleared to that occasional
and astonishing transparency in which one can see plainly both stars and mo=
on.
As the white-robed
figure went upward in his white chariot, he said quite quietly to Evan:
"There is an answer to all the folly talked about equality. Some stars=
are
big and some small; some stand still and some circle around them as they st=
and.
They can be orderly, but they cannot be equal."
"They are all
very beautiful," said Evan, as if in doubt.
"They are all
beautiful," answered the other, "because each is in his place and
owns his superior. And now England will be beautiful after the same fashion.
The earth will be as beautiful as the heavens, because our kings have come =
back
to us."
"The
Stuart----" began Evan, earnestly.
"Yes,"
answered the old man, "that which has returned is Stuart and yet older
than Stuart. It is Capet and Plantagenet and Pendragon. It is all that good=
old
time of which proverbs tell, that golden reign of Saturn against which gods=
and
men were rebels. It is all that was ever lost by insolence and overwhelmed =
in
rebellion. It is your own forefather, MacIan with the broken sword, bleeding
without hope at Culloden. It is Charles refusing to answer the questions of=
the
rebel court. It is Mary of the magic face confronting the gloomy and graspi=
ng
peers and the boorish moralities of Knox. It is Richard, the last Plantagen=
et, giving
his crown to Bolingbroke as to a common brigand. It is Arthur, overwhelmed =
in
Lyonesse by heathen armies and dying in the mist, doubtful if ever he shall
return."
"But
now----" said Evan, in a low voice.
"But now!&qu=
ot;
said the old man; "he has returned."
"Is the war
still raging?" asked MacIan.
"It rages li=
ke
the pit itself beyond the sea whither I am taking you," answered the
other. "But in England the king enjoys his own again. The people are o=
nce
more taught and ruled as is best; they are happy knights, happy squires, ha=
ppy
servants, happy serfs, if you will; but free at last of that load of vexati=
on
and lonely vanity which was called being a citizen."
"Is England,
indeed, so secure?" asked Evan.
"Look out and
see," said the guide. "I fancy you have seen this place before.&q=
uot;
They were driving
through the air towards one region of the sky where the hollow of night see=
med
darkest and which was quite without stars. But against this black background
there sprang up, picked out in glittering silver, a dome and a cross. It se=
emed
that it was really newly covered with silver, which in the strong moonlight=
was
like white flame. But, however, covered or painted, Evan had no difficult in
knowing the place again. He saw the great thoroughfare that sloped upward to
the base of its huge pedestal of steps. And he wondered whether the little =
shop
was still by the side of it and whether its window had been mended.
As the flying ship
swept round the dome he observed other alterations. The dome had been
redecorated so as to give it a more solemn and somewhat more ecclesiastical
note; the ball was draped or destroyed, and round the gallery, under the cr=
oss,
ran what looked like a ring of silver statues, like the little leaden images
that stood round the hat of Louis XI. Round the second gallery, at the base=
of
the dome, ran a second rank of such images, and Evan thought there was anot=
her
round the steps below. When they came closer he saw that they were figures =
in
complete armour of steel or silver, each with a naked sword, point upward; =
and
then he saw one of the swords move. These were not statues but an armed ord=
er
of chivalry thrown in three circles round the cross. MacIan drew in his bre=
ath,
as children do at anything they think utterly beautiful. For he could imagi=
ne
nothing that so echoed his own visions of pontifical or chivalric art as th=
is
white dome sitting like a vast silver tiara over London, ringed with a trip=
le
crown of swords.
As they went sail=
ing
down Ludgate Hill, Evan saw that the state of the streets fully answered his
companion's claim about the reintroduction of order. All the old blackcoated
bustle with its cockney vivacity and vulgarity had disappeared. Groups of
labourers, quietly but picturesquely clad, were passing up and down in
sufficiently large numbers; but it required but a few mounted men to keep t=
he
streets in order. The mounted men were not common policemen, but knights wi=
th
spurs and plume whose smooth and splendid armour glittered like diamond rat=
her than
steel. Only in one place--at the corner of Bouverie Street--did there appea=
r to
be a moment's confusion, and that was due to hurry rather than resistance. =
But
one old grumbling man did not get out of the way quick enough, and the man =
on
horseback struck him, not severely, across the shoulders with the flat of h=
is
sword.
"The soldier=
had
no business to do that," said MacIan, sharply. "The old man was
moving as quickly as he could."
"We attach g=
reat
importance to discipline in the streets," said the man in white, with a
slight smile.
"Discipline =
is
not so important as justice," said MacIan.
The other did not
answer.
Then after a swift
silence that took them out across St. James's Park, he said: "The peop=
le
must be taught to obey; they must learn their own ignorance. And I am not
sure," he continued, turning his back on Evan and looking out of the p=
row
of the ship into the darkness, "I am not sure that I agree with your
little maxim about justice. Discipline for the whole society is surely more
important than justice to an individual."
Evan, who was also
leaning over the edge, swung round with startling suddenness and stared at =
the
other's back.
"Discipline =
for
society----" he repeated, very staccato, "more important--justice=
to
individual?"
Then after a long
silence he called out: "Who and what are you?"
"I am an
angel," said the white-robed figure, without turning round.
"You are not=
a
Catholic," said MacIan.
The other seemed =
to
take no notice, but reverted to the main topic.
"In our armi=
es
up in heaven we learn to put a wholesome fear into subordinates."
MacIan sat craning
his neck forward with an extraordinary and unaccountable eagerness.
"Go on!"=
; he
cried, twisting and untwisting his long, bony fingers, "go on!"
"Besides,&qu=
ot;
continued he, in the prow, "you must allow for a certain high spirit a=
nd
haughtiness in the superior type."
"Go on!"
said Evan, with burning eyes.
"Just as the
sight of sin offends God," said the unknown, "so does the sight of
ugliness offend Apollo. The beautiful and princely must, of necessity, be
impatient with the squalid and----"
"Why, you gr=
eat
fool!" cried MacIan, rising to the top of his tremendous stature,
"did you think I would have doubted only for that rap with a sword? I =
know
that noble orders have bad knights, that good knights have bad tempers, that
the Church has rough priests and coarse cardinals; I have known it ever sin=
ce I
was born. You fool! you had only to say, 'Yes, it is rather a shame,' and I
should have forgotten the affair. But I saw on your mouth the twitch of your
infernal sophistry; I knew that something was wrong with you and your
cathedrals. Something is wrong; everything is wrong. You are not an angel. =
That
is not a church. It is not the rightful king who has come home."
"That is
unfortunate," said the other, in a quiet but hard voice, "because=
you
are going to see his Majesty."
"No," s=
aid
MacIan, "I am going to jump over the side."
"Do you desi=
re
death?"
"No," s=
aid
Evan, quite composedly, "I desire a miracle."
"From whom do
you ask it? To whom do you appeal?" said his companion, sternly. "=
;You
have betrayed the king, renounced his cross on the cathedral, and insulted =
an
archangel."
"I appeal to
God," said Evan, and sprang up and stood upon the edge of the swaying
ship.
The being in the =
prow
turned slowly round; he looked at Evan with eyes which were like two suns, =
and
put his hand to his mouth just too late to hide an awful smile.
"And how do =
you
know," he said, "how do you know that I am not God?"
MacIan screamed.
"Ah!" he cried. "Now I know who you really are. You are not =
God.
You are not one of God's angels. But you were once."
The being's hand
dropped from his mouth and Evan dropped out of the car.
Turnbull was walk=
ing
rather rampantly up and down the garden on a gusty evening chewing his cigar
and in that mood when every man suppresses an instinct to spit. He was not,=
as
a rule, a man much acquainted with moods; and the storms and sunbursts of
MacIan's soul passed before him as an impressive but unmeaning panorama, li=
ke
the anarchy of Highland scenery. Turnbull was one of those men in whom a
continuous appetite and industry of the intellect leave the emotions very
simple and steady. His heart was in the right place; but he was quite conte=
nt
to leave it there. It was his head that was his hobby. His mornings and
evenings were marked not by impulses or thirsty desires, not by hope or by =
heart-break;
they were filled with the fallacies he had detected, the problems he had ma=
de
plain, the adverse theories he had wrestled with and thrown, the grand
generalizations he had justified. But even the cheerful inner life of a
logician may be upset by a lunatic asylum, to say nothing of whiffs of memo=
ry
from a lady in Jersey, and the little red-bearded man on this windy evening=
was
in a dangerous frame of mind.
Plain and positiv=
e as
he was, the influence of earth and sky may have been greater on him than he
imagined; and the weather that walked the world at that moment was as red a=
nd
angry as Turnbull. Long strips and swirls of tattered and tawny cloud were
dragged downward to the west exactly as torn red raiment would be dragged. =
And
so strong and pitiless was the wind that it whipped away fragments of
red-flowering bushes or of copper beech, and drove them also across the gar=
den,
a drift of red leaves, like the leaves of autumn, as in parody of the red a=
nd
driven rags of cloud.
There was a sense=
in
earth and heaven as of everything breaking up, and all the revolutionist in
Turnbull rejoiced that it was breaking up. The trees were breaking up under=
the
wind, even in the tall strength of their bloom: the clouds were breaking up=
and
losing even their large heraldic shapes. Shards and shreds of copper cloud
split off continually and floated by themselves, and for some reason the
truculent eye of Turnbull was attracted to one of these careering cloudlets,
which seemed to him to career in an exaggerated manner. Also it kept its sh=
ape,
which is unusual with clouds shaken off; also its shape was of an odd sort.=
Turnbull continue=
d to
stare at it, and in a little time occurred that crucial instant when a thin=
g,
however incredible, is accepted as a fact. The copper cloud was tumbling do=
wn
towards the earth, like some gigantic leaf from the copper beeches. And as =
it
came nearer it was evident, first, that it was not a cloud, and, second, th=
at
it was not itself of the colour of copper; only, being burnished like a mir=
ror,
it had reflected the red-brown colours of the burning clouds. As the thing =
whirled
like a windswept leaf down towards the wall of the garden it was clear that=
it
was some sort of air-ship made of metal, and slapping the air with big broad
fins of steel. When it came about a hundred feet above the garden, a shaggy,
lean figure leapt up in it, almost black against the bronze and scarlet of =
the
west, and, flinging out a kind of hook or anchor, caught on to the green
apple-tree just under the wall; and from that fixed holding ground the ship
swung in the red tempest like a captive balloon.
While our friend
stood frozen for an instant by his astonishment, the queer figure in the ai=
ry
car tipped the vehicle almost upside down by leaping over the side of it,
seemed to slide or drop down the rope like a monkey, and alighted (with
impossible precision and placidity) seated on the edge of the wall, over wh=
ich
he kicked and dangled his legs as he grinned at Turnbull. The wind roared in
the trees yet more ruinous and desolate, the red tails of the sunset were
dragged downward like red dragons sucked down to death, and still on the to=
p of
the asylum wall sat the sinister figure with the grimace, swinging his feet=
in
tune with the tempest; while above him, at the end of its tossing or tighte=
ned cord,
the enormous iron air-ship floated as light and as little noticed as a baby=
's
balloon upon its string.
Turnbull's first
movement after sixty motionless seconds was to turn round and look at the
large, luxuriant parallelogram of the garden and the long, low rectangular
building beyond. There was not a soul or a stir of life within sight. And he
had a quite meaningless sensation, as if there never really had been any one
else there except he since the foundation of the world.
Stiffening in him=
self
the masculine but mirthless courage of the atheist, he drew a little nearer=
to
the wall and, catching the man at a slightly different angle of the evening
light, could see his face and figure quite plain. Two facts about him stood=
out
in the picked colours of some piratical schoolboy's story. The first was th=
at
his lean brown body was bare to the belt of his loose white trousers; the o=
ther
that through hygiene, affectation, or whatever other cause, he had a scarle=
t handkerchief
tied tightly but somewhat aslant across his brow. After these two facts had
become emphatic, others appeared sufficiently important. One was that under=
the
scarlet rag the hair was plentiful, but white as with the last snows of
mortality. Another was that under the mop of white and senile hair the face=
was
strong, handsome, and smiling, with a well-cut profile and a long cloven ch=
in.
The length of this lower part of the face and the strange cleft in it (which
gave the man, in quite another sense from the common one, a double chin)
faintly spoilt the claim of the face to absolute regularity, but it greatly=
assisted
it in wearing the expression of half-smiling and half-sneering arrogance wi=
th
which it was staring at all the stones, all the flowers, but especially at =
the
solitary man.
"What do you
want?" shouted Turnbull.
"I want you,
Jimmy," said the eccentric man on the wall, and with the very word he =
had
let himself down with a leap on to the centre of the lawn, where he bounded
once literally like an India-rubber ball and then stood grinning with his l=
egs
astride. The only three facts that Turnbull could now add to his inventory =
were
that the man had an ugly-looking knife swinging at his trousers belt, that =
his
brown feet were as bare as his bronzed trunk and arms, and that his eyes ha=
d a
singular bleak brilliancy which was of no particular colour.
"Excuse my n=
ot
being in evening dress," said the newcomer with an urbane smile. "=
;We
scientific men, you know--I have to work my own engines--electrical
engineer--very hot work."
"Look
here," said Turnbull, sturdily clenching his fists in his trousers poc=
kets,
"I am bound to expect lunatics inside these four walls; but I do bar t=
heir
coming from outside, bang out of the sunset clouds."
"And yet you
came from the outside, too, Jim," said the stranger in a voice almost
affectionate.
"What do you
want?" asked Turnbull, with an explosion of temper as sudden as a pist=
ol
shot.
"I have alre=
ady
told you," said the man, lowering his voice and speaking with evident
sincerity; "I want you."
"What do you
want with me?"
"I want exac=
tly
what you want," said the new-comer with a new gravity. "I want the
Revolution."
Turnbull looked at
the fire-swept sky and the wind-stricken woodlands, and kept on repeating t=
he
word voicelessly to himself--the word that did indeed so thoroughly express=
his
mood of rage as it had been among those red clouds and rocking tree-tops.
"Revolution!" he said to himself. "The Revolution--yes, that=
is
what I want right enough--anything, so long as it is a Revolution."
To some cause he
could never explain he found himself completing the sentence on the top of =
the
wall, having automatically followed the stranger so far. But when the stran=
ger
silently indicated the rope that led to the machine, he found himself pausi=
ng
and saying: "I can't leave MacIan behind in this den."
"We are goin=
g to
destroy the Pope and all the kings," said the new-comer. "Would i=
t be
wiser to take him with us?"
Somehow the mutte=
ring
Turnbull found himself in the flying ship also, and it swung up into the
sunset.
"All the gre=
at
rebels have been very little rebels," said the man with the red scarf.
"They have been like fourth-form boys who sometimes venture to hit a
fifth-form boy. That was all the worth of their French Revolution and regic=
ide.
The boys never really dared to defy the schoolmaster."
"Whom do you
mean by the schoolmaster?" asked Turnbull.
"You know wh=
om I
mean," answered the strange man, as he lay back on cushions and looked=
up
into the angry sky.
They seemed rising
into stronger and stronger sunlight, as if it were sunrise rather than suns=
et.
But when they looked down at the earth they saw it growing darker and darke=
r.
The lunatic asylum in its large rectangular grounds spread below them in a
foreshortened and infantile plan, and looked for the first time the grotesq=
ue
thing that it was. But the clear colours of the plan were growing darker ev=
ery
moment. The masses of rose or rhododendron deepened from crimson to violet.=
The
maze of gravel pathways faded from gold to brown. By the time they had rise=
n a
few hundred feet higher nothing could be seen of that darkening landscape
except the lines of lighted windows, each one of which, at least, was the l=
ight
of one lost intelligence. But on them as they swept upward better and braver
winds seemed to blow, and on them the ruby light of evening seemed struck, =
and
splashed like red spurts from the grapes of Dionysus. Below them the fallen
lights were literally the fallen stars of servitude. And above them all the=
red
and raging clouds were like the leaping flags of liberty.
The man with the
cloven chin seemed to have a singular power of understanding thoughts; for,=
as
Turnbull felt the whole universe tilt and turn over his head, the stranger =
said
exactly the right thing.
"Doesn't it =
seem
as if everything were being upset?" said he; "and if once everyth=
ing
is upset, He will be upset on top of it."
Then, as Turnbull
made no answer, his host continued:
"That is the
really fine thing about space. It is topsy-turvy. You have only to climb far
enough towards the morning star to feel that you are coming down to it. You
have only to dive deep enough into the abyss to feel that you are rising. T=
hat
is the only glory of this universe--it is a giddy universe."
Then, as Turnbull=
was
still silent, he added:
"The heavens=
are
full of revolution--of the real sort of revolution. All the high things are
sinking low and all the big things looking small. All the people who think =
they
are aspiring find they are falling head foremost. And all the people who th=
ink
they are condescending find they are climbing up a precipice. That is the
intoxication of space. That is the only joy of eternity--doubt. There is on=
ly
one pleasure the angels can possibly have in flying, and that is, that they=
do
not know whether they are on their head or their heels."
Then, finding his
companion still mute, he fell himself into a smiling and motionless meditat=
ion,
at the end of which he said suddenly:
"So MacIan
converted you?"
Turnbull sprang u=
p as
if spurning the steel car from under his feet. "Converted me!" he=
cried.
"What the devil do you mean? I have known him for a month, and I have =
not
retracted a single----"
"This
Catholicism is a curious thing," said the man of the cloven chin in
uninterrupted reflectiveness, leaning his elegant elbows over the edge of t=
he
vessel; "it soaks and weakens men without their knowing it, just as I =
fear
it has soaked and weakened you."
Turnbull stood in=
an
attitude which might well have meant pitching the other man out of the flyi=
ng
ship.
"I am an
atheist," he said, in a stifled voice. "I have always been an ath=
eist.
I am still an atheist." Then, addressing the other's indolent and
indifferent back, he cried: "In God's name what do you mean?"
And the other
answered without turning round:
"I mean noth=
ing
in God's name."
Turnbull spat over
the edge of the car and fell back furiously into his seat.
The other continu=
ed
still unruffled, and staring over the edge idly as an angler stares down at=
a
stream.
"The truth is
that we never thought that you could have been caught," he said; "=
;we
counted on you as the one red-hot revolutionary left in the world. But, of
course, these men like MacIan are awfully clever, especially when they pret=
end
to be stupid."
Turnbull leapt up
again in a living fury and cried: "What have I got to do with MacIan? I
believe all I ever believed, and disbelieve all I ever disbelieved. What do=
es
all this mean, and what do you want with me here?"
Then for the first
time the other lifted himself from the edge of the car and faced him.
"I have brou=
ght
you here," he answered, "to take part in the last war of the
world."
"The last
war!" repeated Turnbull, even in his dazed state a little touchy about
such a dogma; "how do you know it will be the last?"
The man laid hims=
elf
back in his reposeful attitude, and said:
"It is the l=
ast
war, because if it does not cure the world for ever, it will destroy it.&qu=
ot;
"What do you
mean?"
"I only mean
what you mean," answered the unknown in a temperate voice. "What =
was
it that you always meant on those million and one nights when you walked
outside your Ludgate Hill shop and shook your hand in the air?"
"Still I do =
not
see," said Turnbull, stubbornly.
"You will
soon," said the other, and abruptly bent downward one iron handle of h=
is
huge machine. The engine stopped, stooped, and dived almost as deliberately=
as
a man bathing; in their downward rush they swept within fifty yards of a big
bulk of stone that Turnbull knew only too well. The last red anger of the
sunset was ended; the dome of heaven was dark; the lanes of flaring light in
the streets below hardly lit up the base of the building. But he saw that it
was St. Paul's Cathedral, and he saw that on the top of it the ball was sti=
ll
standing erect, but the cross was stricken and had fallen sideways. Then on=
ly
he cared to look down into the streets, and saw that they were inflamed with
uproar and tossing passions.
"We arrive a=
t a
happy moment," said the man steering the ship. "The insurgents are
bombarding the city, and a cannon-ball has just hit the cross. Many of the
insurgents are simple people, and they naturally regard it as a happy
omen."
"Quite so,&q=
uot;
said Turnbull, in a rather colourless voice.
"Yes,"
replied the other. "I thought you would be glad to see your prayer
answered. Of course I apologize for the word prayer."
"Don't menti=
on
it," said Turnbull.
The flying ship h=
ad
come down upon a sort of curve, and was now rising again. The higher and hi=
gher
it rose the broader and broader became the scenes of flame and desolation
underneath.
Ludgate Hill inde=
ed
had been an uncaptured and comparatively quiet height, altered only by the
startling coincidence of the cross fallen awry. All the other thoroughfares=
on
all sides of that hill were full of the pulsation and the pain of battle, f=
ull
of shaking torches and shouting faces. When at length they had risen high
enough to have a bird's-eye view of the whole campaign, Turnbull was already
intoxicated. He had smelt gunpowder, which was the incense of his own
revolutionary religion.
"Have the pe=
ople
really risen?" he asked, breathlessly. "What are they fighting
about?"
"The program=
me
is rather elaborate," said his entertainer with some indifference. &qu=
ot;I
think Dr. Hertz drew it up."
Turnbull wrinkled=
his
forehead. "Are all the poor people with the Revolution?" he asked=
.
The other shrugged
his shoulders. "All the instructed and class-conscious part of them
without exception," he replied. "There were certainly a few
districts; in fact, we are passing over them just now----"
Turnbull looked d=
own
and saw that the polished car was literally lit up from underneath by the
far-flung fires from below. Underneath whole squares and solid districts we=
re
in flames, like prairies or forests on fire.
"Dr. Hertz h=
as
convinced everybody," said Turnbull's cicerone in a smooth voice,
"that nothing can really be done with the real slums. His celebrated m=
axim
has been quite adopted. I mean the three celebrated sentences: 'No man shou=
ld
be unemployed. Employ the employables. Destroy the unemployables.'"
There was a silen=
ce,
and then Turnbull said in a rather strained voice: "And do I understand
that this good work is going on under here?"
"Going on
splendidly," replied his companion in the heartiest voice. "You s=
ee,
these people were much too tired and weak even to join the social war. They
were a definite hindrance to it."
"And so you =
are
simply burning them out?"
"It does seem
absurdly simple," said the man, with a beaming smile, "when one
thinks of all the worry and talk about helping a hopeless slave population,
when the future obviously was only crying to be rid of them. There are happy
babes unborn ready to burst the doors when these drivellers are swept
away."
"Will you pe=
rmit
me to say," said Turnbull, after reflection, "that I don't like a=
ll
this?"
"And will you
permit me to say," said the other, with a snap, "that I don't like
Mr. Evan MacIan?"
Somewhat to the
speaker's surprise this did not inflame the sensitive sceptic; he had the a=
ir
of thinking thoroughly, and then he said: "No, I don't think it's my
friend MacIan that taught me that. I think I should always have said that I
don't like this. These people have rights."
"Rights!&quo=
t;
repeated the unknown in a tone quite indescribable. Then he added with a mo=
re
open sneer: "Perhaps they also have souls."
"They have
lives!" said Turnbull, sternly; "that is quite enough for me. I
understood you to say that you thought life sacred."
"Yes,
indeed!" cried his mentor with a sort of idealistic animation. "Y=
es,
indeed! Life is sacred--but lives are not sacred. We are improving Life by
removing lives. Can you, as a free-thinker, find any fault in that?"
"Yes," =
said
Turnbull with brevity.
"Yet you app=
laud
tyrannicide," said the stranger with rationalistic gaiety. "How
inconsistent! It really comes to this: You approve of taking away life from=
those
to whom it is a triumph and a pleasure. But you will not take away life from
those to whom it is a burden and a toil."
Turnbull rose to =
his
feet in the car with considerable deliberation, but his face seemed oddly p=
ale.
The other went on with enthusiasm.
"Life, yes, =
Life
is indeed sacred!" he cried; "but new lives for old! Good lives f=
or
bad! On that very place where now there sprawls one drunken wastrel of a
pavement artist more or less wishing he were dead--on that very spot there
shall in the future be living pictures; there shall be golden girls and boys
leaping in the sun."
Turnbull, still
standing up, opened his lips. "Will you put me down, please?" he
said, quite calmly, like on stopping an omnibus.
"Put you
down--what do you mean?" cried his leader. "I am taking you to the
front of the revolutionary war, where you will be one of the first of the
revolutionary leaders."
"Thank
you," replied Turnbull with the same painful constraint. "I have =
heard
about your revolutionary war, and I think on the whole that I would rather =
be
anywhere else."
"Do you want=
to
be taken to a monastery," snarled the other, "with MacIan and his
winking Madonnas."
"I want to be
taken to a madhouse," said Turnbull distinctly, giving the direction w=
ith
a sort of precision. "I want to go back to exactly the same lunatic as=
ylum
from which I came."
"Why?"
asked the unknown.
"Because I w=
ant
a little sane and wholesome society," answered Turnbull.
There was a long =
and
peculiar silence, and then the man driving the flying machine said quite
coolly: "I won't take you back."
And then Turnbull
said equally coolly: "Then I'll jump out of the car."
The unknown rose =
to
his full height, and the expression in his eyes seemed to be made of ironies
behind ironies, as two mirrors infinitely reflect each other. At last he sa=
id,
very gravely: "Do you think I am the devil?"
"Yes," =
said
Turnbull, violently. "For I think the devil is a dream, and so are you=
. I
don't believe in you or your flying ship or your last fight of the world. I=
t is
all a nightmare. I say as a fact of dogma and faith that it is all a nightm=
are.
And I will be a martyr for my faith as much as St. Catherine, for I will ju=
mp
out of this ship and risk waking up safe in bed."
After swaying twi=
ce
with the swaying vessel he dived over the side as one dives into the sea. F=
or
some incredible moments stars and space and planets seemed to shoot up past=
him
as the sparks fly upward; and yet in that sickening descent he was full of =
some
unnatural happiness. He could connect it with no idea except one that half
escaped him--what Evan had said of the difference between Christ and Satan;
that it was by Christ's own choice that He descended into hell.
When he again
realized anything, he was lying on his elbow on the lawn of the lunatic asy=
lum,
and the last red of the sunset had not yet disappeared.
Evan MacIan was
standing a few yards off looking at him in absolute silence.
He had not the mo=
ral
courage to ask MacIan if there had been anything astounding in the manner of
his coming there, nor did MacIan seem to have any question to ask, or perha=
ps
any need to ask it. The two men came slowly towards each other, and found t=
he
same expression on each other's faces. Then, for the first time in all their
acquaintance, they shook hands.
Almost as if this
were a kind of unconscious signal, it brought Dr. Quayle bounding out of a =
door
and running across the lawn.
"Oh, there y=
ou
are!" he exclaimed with a relieved giggle. "Will you come inside,
please? I want to speak to you both."
They followed him
into his shiny wooden office where their damning record was kept. Dr. Quayle
sat down on a swivel chair and swung round to face them. His carved smile h=
ad
suddenly disappeared.
"I will be p=
lain
with you gentlemen," he said, abruptly; "you know quite well we do
our best for everybody here. Your cases have been under special considerati=
on,
and the Master himself has decided that you ought to be treated specially
and--er--under somewhat simpler conditions."
"You mean
treated worse, I suppose," said Turnbull, gruffly.
The doctor did not
reply, and MacIan said: "I expected this." His eyes had begun to
glow.
The doctor answer=
ed,
looking at his desk and playing with a key: "Well, in certain cases th=
at
give anxiety--it is often better----"
"Give
anxiety," said Turnbull, fiercely. "Confound your impudence! What=
do
you mean? You imprison two perfectly sane men in a madhouse because you have
made up a long word. They take it in good temper, walk and talk in your gar=
den
like monks who have found a vocation, are civil even to you, you damned
druggists' hack! Behave not only more sanely than any of your patients, but
more sanely than half the sane men outside, and you have the soul-stifling
cheek to say that they give anxiety."
"The head of=
the
asylum has settled it all," said Dr. Quayle, still looking down.
MacIan took one of
his immense strides forward and stood over the doctor with flaming eyes.
"If the head=
has
settled it let the head announce it," he said. "I won't take it f=
rom
you. I believe you to be a low, gibbering degenerate. Let us see the head of
the asylum."
"See the hea=
d of
the asylum," repeated Dr. Quayle. "Certainly not."
The tall Highland=
er,
bending over him, put one hand on his shoulder with fatherly interest.
"You don't s=
eem
to appreciate the peculiar advantages of my position as a lunatic," he
said. "I could kill you with my left hand before such a rat as you cou=
ld
so much as squeak. And I wouldn't be hanged for it."
"I certainly
agree with Mr. MacIan," said Turnbull with sobriety and perfect
respectfulness, "that you had better let us see the head of the instit=
ution."
Dr. Quayle got to=
his
feet in a mixture of sudden hysteria and clumsy presence of mind.
"Oh,
certainly," he said with a weak laugh. "You can see the head of t=
he asylum
if you particularly want to." He almost ran out of the room, and the t=
wo
followed swiftly on his flying coat tails. He knocked at an ordinary varnis=
hed
door in the corridor. When a voice said, "Come in," MacIan's brea=
th
went hissing back through his teeth into his chest. Turnbull was more
impetuous, and opened the door.
It was a neat and
well-appointed room entirely lined with a medical library. At the other end=
of
it was a ponderous and polished desk with an incandescent lamp on it, the l=
ight
of which was just sufficient to show a slender, well-bred figure in an ordi=
nary
medical black frock-coat, whose head, quite silvered with age, was bent over
neat piles of notes. This gentleman looked up for an instant as they entere=
d,
and the lamplight fell on his glittering spectacles and long, clean-shaven
face--a face which would have been simply like an aristocrat's but that a
certain lion poise of the head and long cleft in the chin made it look more
like a very handsome actor's. It was only for a flash that his face was thus
lifted. Then he bent his silver head over his notes once more, and said,
without looking up again:
"I told you,=
Dr.
Quayle, that these men were to go to cells B and C."
Turnbull and MacI=
an
looked at each other, and said more than they could ever say with tongues or
swords. Among other things they said that to that particular Head of the
institution it was a waste of time to appeal, and they followed Dr. Quayle =
out
of the room.
The instant they
stepped out into the corridor four sturdy figures stepped from four sides,
pinioned them, and ran them along the galleries. They might very likely have
thrown their captors right and left had they been inclined to resist, but f=
or
some nameless reason they were more inclined to laugh. A mixture of mad iro=
ny
with childish curiosity made them feel quite inclined to see what next twist
would be taken by their imbecile luck. They were dragged down countless col=
d avenues
lined with glazed tiles, different only in being of different lengths and s=
et
at different angles. They were so many and so monotonous that to escape bac=
k by
them would have been far harder than fleeing from the Hampton Court maze. O=
nly
the fact that windows grew fewer, coming at longer intervals, and the fact =
that
when the windows did come they seemed shadowed and let in less light, showed
that they were winding into the core or belly of some enormous building. Af=
ter
a little time the glazed corridors began to be lit by electricity.
At last, when they
had walked nearly a mile in those white and polished tunnels, they came with
quite a shock to the futile finality of a cul-de-sac. All that white and we=
ary
journey ended suddenly in an oblong space and a blank white wall. But in the
white wall there were two iron doors painted white on which were written,
respectively, in neat black capitals B and C.
"You go in h=
ere,
sir," said the leader of the officials, quite respectfully, "and =
you
in here."
But before the do=
ors
had clanged upon their dazed victims, MacIan had been able to say to Turnbu=
ll
with a strange drawl of significance: "I wonder who A is."
Turnbull made an
automatic struggle before he allowed himself to be thrown into the cell. He=
nce
it happened that he was the last to enter, and was still full of the
exhilaration of the adventures for at least five minutes after the echo of =
the
clanging door had died away.
Then, when silence
had sunk deep and nothing happened for two and a half hours, it suddenly
occurred to him that this was the end of his life. He was hidden and sealed=
up
in this little crack of stone until the flesh should fall off his bones. He=
was
dead, and the world had won.
His cell was of an
oblong shape, but very long in comparison with its width. It was just wide
enough to permit the arms to be fully extended with the dumb-bells, which w=
ere
hung up on the left wall, very dusty. It was, however, long enough for a ma=
n to
walk one thirty-fifth part of a mile if he traversed it entirely. On the sa=
me
principle a row of fixed holes, quite close together, let in to the cells by
pipes what was alleged to be the freshest air. For these great scientific
organizers insisted that a man should be healthy even if he was miserable. =
They
provided a walk long enough to give him exercise and holes large enough to =
give
him oxygen. There their interest in human nature suddenly ceased. It seemed
never to have occurred to them that the benefit of exercise belongs partly =
to
the benefit of liberty. They had not entertained the suggestion that the op=
en
air is only one of the advantages of the open sky. They administered air in
secret, but in sufficient doses, as if it were a medicine. They suggested
walking, as if no man had ever felt inclined to walk. Above all, the asylum=
authorities
insisted on their own extraordinary cleanliness. Every morning, while Turnb=
ull
was still half asleep on his iron bedstead which was lifted half-way up the
wall and clamped to it with iron, four sluices or metal mouths opened above=
him
at the four corners of the chamber and washed it white of any defilement. T=
urnbull's
solitary soul surged up against this sickening daily solemnity.
"I am buried
alive!" he cried, bitterly; "they have hidden me under mountains.=
I
shall be here till I rot. Why the blazes should it matter to them whether I=
am
dirty or clean."
Every morning and
evening an iron hatchway opened in his oblong cell, and a brown hairy hand =
or
two thrust in a plate of perfectly cooked lentils and a big bowl of cocoa. =
He
was not underfed any more than he was underexercised or asphyxiated. He had
ample walking space, ample air, ample and even filling food. The only objec=
tion
was that he had nothing to walk towards, nothing to feast about, and no rea=
son
whatever for drawing the breath of life.
Even the shape of=
his
cell especially irritated him. It was a long, narrow parallelogram, which h=
ad a
flat wall at one end and ought to have had a flat wall at the other; but th=
at
end was broken by a wedge or angle of space, like the prow of a ship. After
three days of silence and cocoa, this angle at the end began to infuriate
Turnbull. It maddened him to think that two lines came together and pointed=
at
nothing. After the fifth day he was reckless, and poked his head into the
corner. After twenty-five days he almost broke his head against it. Then he
became quite cool and stupid again, and began to examine it like a sort of =
Robinson
Crusoe.
Almost unconsciou=
sly
it was his instinct to examine outlets, and he found himself paying particu=
lar
attention to the row of holes which let in the air into his last house of l=
ife.
He soon discovered that these air-holes were all the ends and mouths of long
leaden tubes which doubtless carried air from some remote watering-place ne=
ar
Margate. One evening while he was engaged in the fifth investigation he not=
iced
something like twilight in one of these dumb mouths, as compared with the
darkness of the others. Thrusting his finger in as far as it would go, he f=
ound
a hole and flapping edge in the tube. This he rent open and instantly saw a
light behind; it was at least certain that he had struck some other cell.
It is a
characteristic of all things now called "efficient", which means =
mechanical
and calculated, that if they go wrong at all they go entirely wrong. There =
is
no power of retrieving a defeat, as in simpler and more living organisms. A
strong gun can conquer a strong elephant, but a wounded elephant can easily
conquer a broken gun. Thus the Prussian monarchy in the eighteenth century,=
or
now, can make a strong army merely by making the men afraid. But it does it
with the permanent possibility that the men may some day be more afraid of
their enemies than of their officers. Thus the drainage in our cities so lo=
ng
as it is quite solid means a general safety, but if there is one leak it me=
ans concentrated
poison--an explosion of deathly germs like dynamite, a spirit of stink. Thu=
s,
indeed, all that excellent machinery which is the swiftest thing on earth in
saving human labour is also the slowest thing on earth in resisting human
interference. It may be easier to get chocolate for nothing out of a shopke=
eper
than out of an automatic machine. But if you did manage to steal the chocol=
ate,
the automatic machine would be much less likely to run after you.
Turnbull was not =
long
in discovering this truth in connexion with the cold and colossal machinery=
of
this great asylum. He had been shaken by many spiritual states since the
instant when he was pitched head foremost into that private cell which was =
to
be his private room till death. He had felt a high fit of pride and poetry,
which had ebbed away and left him deadly cold. He had known a period of mere
scientific curiosity, in the course of which he examined all the tiles of h=
is
cell, with the gratifying conclusion that they were all the same shape and =
size;
but was greatly puzzled about the angle in the wall at the end, and also ab=
out
an iron peg or spike that stood out from the wall, the object of which he d=
oes
not know to this day. Then he had a period of mere madness not to be writte=
n of
by decent men, but only by those few dirty novelists hallooed on by the
infernal huntsman to hunt down and humiliate human nature. This also passed,
but left behind it a feverish distaste for many of the mere objects around =
him.
Long after he had returned to sanity and such hopeless cheerfulness as a ma=
n might
have on a desert island, he disliked the regular squares of the pattern of =
wall
and floor and the triangle that terminated his corridor. Above all, he had a
hatred, deep as the hell he did not believe in, for the objectless iron peg=
in
the wall.
But in all his mo=
ods,
sane or insane, intolerant or stoical, he never really doubted this: that t=
he
machine held him as light and as hopelessly as he had from his birth been h=
eld
by the hopeless cosmos of his own creed. He knew well the ruthless and
inexhaustible resources of our scientific civilization. He no more expected
rescue from a medical certificate than rescue from the solar system. In man=
y of
his Robinson Crusoe moods he thought kindly of MacIan as of some quarrelsom=
e school-fellow
who had long been dead. He thought of leaving in the cell when he died a ri=
gid
record of his opinions, and when he began to write them down on scraps of
envelope in his pocket, he was startled to discover how much they had chang=
ed.
Then he remembered the Beauchamp Tower, and tried to write his blazing
scepticism on the wall, and discovered that it was all shiny tiles on which
nothing could be either drawn or carved. Then for an instant there hung and
broke above him like a high wave the whole horror of scientific imprisonmen=
t,
which manages to deny a man not only liberty, but every accidental comfort =
of
bondage. In the old filthy dungeons men could carve their prayers or protes=
ts
in the rock. Here the white and slippery walls escaped even from bearing wi=
tness.
The old prisoners could make a pet of a mouse or a beetle strayed out of a
hole. Here the unpierceable walls were washed every morning by an automatic
sluice. There was no natural corruption and no merciful decay by which a li=
ving
thing could enter in. Then James Turnbull looked up and saw the high invinc=
ible
hatefulness of the society in which he lived, and saw the hatefulness of
something else also, which he told himself again and again was not the cosm=
os
in which he believed. But all the time he had never once doubted that the f=
ive sides
of his cell were for him the wall of the world henceforward, and it gave hi=
m a
shock of surprise even to discover the faint light through the aperture in =
the
ventilation tube. But he had forgotten how close efficiency has to pack eve=
rything
together and how easily, therefore, a pipe here or there may leak.
Turnbull thrust h=
is
first finger down the aperture, and at last managed to make a slight further
fissure in the piping. The light that came up from beyond was very faint, a=
nd
apparently indirect; it seemed to fall from some hole or window higher up. =
As
he was screwing his eye to peer at this grey and greasy twilight he was
astonished to see another human finger very long and lean come down from ab=
ove
towards the broken pipe and hook it up to something higher. The lighted
aperture was abruptly blackened and blocked, presumably by a face and mouth,
for something human spoke down the tube, though the words were not clear.
"Who is
that?" asked Turnbull, trembling with excitement, yet wary and quite
resolved not to spoil any chance.
After a few
indistinct sounds the voice came down with a strong Argyllshire accent:
"I say,
Turnbull, we couldn't fight through this tube, could we?"
Sentiments beyond
speech surged up in Turnbull and silenced him for a space just long enough =
to
be painful. Then he said with his old gaiety: "I vote we talk a little
first; I don't want to murder the first man I have met for ten million
years."
"I know what=
you
mean," answered the other. "It has been awful. For a mortal month=
I
have been alone with God."
Turnbull started,=
and
it was on the tip of his tongue to answer: "Alone with God! Then you do
not know what loneliness is."
But he answered,
after all, in his old defiant style: "Alone with God, were you? And I
suppose you found his Majesty's society rather monotonous?"
"Oh, no,&quo=
t;
said MacIan, and his voice shuddered; "it was a great deal too excitin=
g."
After a very long
silence the voice of MacIan said: "What do you really hate most in your
place?"
"You'd think=
I
was really mad if I told you," answered Turnbull, bitterly.
"Then I expe=
ct
it's the same as mine," said the other voice.
"I am sure i=
t's
not the same as anybody's," said Turnbull, "for it has no rhyme or
reason. Perhaps my brain really has gone, but I detest that iron spike in t=
he
left wall more than the damned desolation or the damned cocoa. Have you got=
one
in your cell?"
"Not now,&qu=
ot;
replied MacIan with serenity. "I've pulled it out."
His fellow-prison=
er
could only repeat the words.
"I pulled it=
out
the other day when I was off my head," continued the tranquil Highland
voice. "It looked so unnecessary."
"You must be
ghastly strong," said Turnbull.
"One is, when
one is mad," was the careless reply, "and it had worn a little lo=
ose
in the socket. Even now I've got it out I can't discover what it was for. B=
ut
I've found out something a long sight funnier."
"What do you
mean?" asked Turnbull.
"I have found
out where A is," said the other.
Three weeks
afterwards MacIan had managed to open up communications which made his mean=
ing
plain. By that time the two captives had fully discovered and demonstrated =
that
weakness in the very nature of modern machinery to which we have already
referred. The very fact that they were isolated from all companions meant t=
hat
they were free from all spies, and as there were no gaolers to be bribed, so
there were none to be baffled. Machinery brought them their cocoa and clean=
ed
their cells; that machinery was as helpless as it was pitiless. A little
patient violence, conducted day after day amid constant mutual suggestion, =
opened
an irregular hole in the wall, large enough to let in a small man, in the e=
xact
place where there had been before the tiny ventilation holes. Turnbull tumb=
led
somehow into MacIan's apartment, and his first glance found out that the ir=
on
spike was indeed plucked from its socket, and left, moreover, another ragged
hole into some hollow place behind. But for this MacIan's cell was the
duplicate of Turnbull's--a long oblong ending in a wedge and lined with cold
and lustrous tiles. The small hole from which the peg had been displaced wa=
s in
that short oblique wall at the end nearest to Turnbull's. That individual
looked at it with a puzzled face.
"What is in
there?" he asked.
MacIan answered
briefly: "Another cell."
"But where c=
an
the door of it be?" said his companion, even more puzzled; "the d=
oors
of our cells are at the other end."
"It has no
door," said Evan.
In the pause of
perplexity that followed, an eerie and sinister feeling crept over Turnbull=
's
stubborn soul in spite of himself. The notion of the doorless room chilled =
him
with that sense of half-witted curiosity which one has when something horri=
ble
is half understood.
"James
Turnbull," said MacIan, in a low and shaken voice, "these people =
hate
us more than Nero hated Christians, and fear us more than any man feared Ne=
ro.
They have filled England with frenzy and galloping in order to capture us a=
nd
wipe us out--in order to kill us. And they have killed us, for you and I ha=
ve
only made a hole in our coffins. But though this hatred that they felt for =
us
is bigger than they felt for Bonaparte, and more plain and practical than t=
hey
would feel for Jack the Ripper, yet it is not we whom the people of this pl=
ace
hate most."
A cold and quiver=
ing impatience
continued to crawl up Turnbull's spine; he had never felt so near to
superstition and supernaturalism, and it was not a pretty sort of superstit=
ion
either.
"There is
another man more fearful and hateful," went on MacIan, in his low mono=
tone
voice, "and they have buried him even deeper. God knows how they did i=
t,
for he was let in by neither door nor window, nor lowered through any openi=
ng
above. I expect these iron handles that we both hate have been part of some
damned machinery for walling him up. He is there. I have looked through the
hole at him; but I cannot stand looking at him long, because his face is tu=
rned
away from me and he does not move."
Al Turnbull's
unnatural and uncompleted feelings found their outlet in rushing to the
aperture and looking into the unknown room.
It was a third ob=
long
cell exactly like the other two except that it was doorless, and except tha=
t on
one of the walls was painted a large black A like the B and C outside their=
own
doors. The letter in this case was not painted outside, because this prison=
had
no outside.
On the same kind =
of
tiled floor, of which the monotonous squares had maddened Turnbull's eye and
brain, was sitting a figure which was startlingly short even for a child, o=
nly
that the enormous head was ringed with hair of a frosty grey. The figure was
draped, both insecurely and insufficiently, in what looked like the remains=
of
a brown flannel dressing-gown; an emptied cup of cocoa stood on the floor b=
eside
it, and the creature had his big grey head cocked at a particular angle of
inquiry or attention which amid all that gathering gloom and mystery struck=
one
as comic if not cocksure.
After six still
seconds Turnbull could stand it no longer, but called out to the dwarfish
thing--in what words heaven knows. The thing got up with the promptitude of=
an
animal, and turning round offered the spectacle of two owlish eyes and a hu=
ge
grey-and-white beard not unlike the plumage of an owl. This extraordinary b=
eard
covered him literally to his feet (not that that was very far), and perhaps=
it
was as well that it did, for portions of his remaining clothing seemed to f=
all
off whenever he moved. One talks trivially of a face like parchment, but th=
is
old man's face was so wrinkled that it was like a parchment loaded with
hieroglyphics. The lines of his face were so deep and complex that one could
see five or ten different faces besides the real one, as one can see them i=
n an
elaborate wall-paper. And yet while his face seemed like a scripture older =
than
the gods, his eyes were quite bright, blue, and startled like those of a ba=
by.
They looked as if they had only an instant before been fitted into his head=
.
Everything depend=
ed
so obviously upon whether this buried monster spoke that Turnbull did not k=
now
or care whether he himself had spoken. He said something or nothing. And th=
en
he waited for this dwarfish voice that had been hidden under the mountains =
of
the world. At last it did speak, and spoke in English, with a foreign accent
that was neither Latin nor Teutonic. He suddenly stretched out a long and v=
ery
dirty forefinger, and cried in a voice of clear recognition, like a child's=
: "That's
a hole."
He digested the
discovery for some seconds, sucking his finger, and then he cried, with a c=
row
of laughter: "And that's a head come through it."
The hilarious ene=
rgy
in this idiot attitude gave Turnbull another sick turn. He had grown to
tolerate those dreary and mumbling madmen who trailed themselves about the
beautiful asylum gardens. But there was something new and subversive of the
universe in the combination of so much cheerful decision with a body withou=
t a
brain.
"Why did they
put you in such a place?" he asked at last with embarrassment.
"Good place.
Yes," said the old man, nodding a great many times and beaming like a
flattered landlord. "Good shape. Long and narrow, with a point. Like
this," and he made lovingly with his hands a map of the room in the ai=
r.
"But that's =
not
the best," he added, confidentially. "Squares very good; I have a
nice long holiday, and can count them. But that's not the best."
"What is the
best?" asked Turnbull in great distress.
"Spike is the
best," said the old man, opening his blue eyes blazing; "it sticks
out."
The words Turnbull
spoke broke out of him in pure pity. "Can't we do anything for you?&qu=
ot;
he said.
"I am very
happy," said the other, alphabetically. "You are a good man. Can I
help you?"
"No, I don't
think you can, sir," said Turnbull with rough pathos; "I am glad =
you
are contented at least."
The weird old per=
son
opened his broad blue eyes and fixed Turnbull with a stare extraordinarily
severe. "You are quite sure," he said, "I cannot help you?&q=
uot;
"Quite sure,
thank you," said Turnbull with broken brevity. "Good day."
Then he turned to
MacIan who was standing close behind him, and whose face, now familiar in a=
ll
its moods, told him easily that Evan had heard the whole of the strange
dialogue.
"Curse those
cruel beasts!" cried Turnbull. "They've turned him to an imbecile
just by burying him alive. His brain's like a pin-point now."
"You are sur=
e he
is a lunatic?" said Evan, slowly.
"Not a
lunatic," said Turnbull, "an idiot. He just points to things and =
says
that they stick out."
"He had a no=
tion
that he could help us," said MacIan moodily, and began to pace towards=
the
other end of his cell.
"Yes, it was=
a
bit pathetic," assented Turnbull; "such a Thing offering help, and
besides---- Hallo! Hallo! What's the matter?"
"God Almighty
guide us all!" said MacIan.
He was standing h=
eavy
and still at the other end of the room and staring quietly at the door which
for thirty days had sealed them up from the sun. Turnbull, following the
other's eye, stared at the door likewise, and then he also uttered an
exclamation. The iron door was standing about an inch and a half open.
"He said----=
"
began Evan, in a trembling voice--"he offered----"
"Come along,=
you
fool!" shouted Turnbull with a sudden and furious energy. "I see =
it
all now, and it's the best stroke of luck in the world. You pulled out that
iron handle that had screwed up his cell, and it somehow altered the machin=
ery
and opened all the doors."
Seizing MacIan by=
the
elbow he bundled him bodily out into the open corridor and ran him on till =
they
saw daylight through a half-darkened window.
"All the
same," said Evan, like one answering in an ordinary conversation, &quo=
t;he
did ask you whether he could help you."
All this wilderne=
ss
of windowless passages was so built into the heart of that fortress of fear
that it seemed more than an hour before the fugitives had any good glimpse =
of
the outer world. They did not even know what hour of the day it was; and wh=
en,
turning a corner, they saw the bare tunnel of the corridor end abruptly in a
shining square of garden, the grass burning in that strong evening sunshine
which makes it burnished gold rather than green, the abrupt opening on to t=
he
earth seemed like a hole knocked in the wall of heaven. Only once or twice =
in
life is it permitted to a man thus to see the very universe from outside, a=
nd
feel existence itself as an adorable adventure not yet begun. As they found
this shining escape out of that hellish labyrinth they both had simultaneou=
sly
the sensation of being babes unborn, of being asked by God if they would li=
ke
to live upon the earth. They were looking in at one of the seven gates of E=
den.
Turnbull was the
first to leap into the garden, with an earth-spurning leap like that of one=
who
could really spread his wings and fly. MacIan, who came an instant after, w=
as
less full of mere animal gusto and fuller of a more fearful and quivering
pleasure in the clear and innocent flower colours and the high and holy tre=
es.
With one bound they were in that cool and cleared landscape, and they found
just outside the door the black-clad gentleman with the cloven chin smiling=
ly
regarding them; and his chin seemed to grow longer and longer as he smiled.=
XVIII. A RIDDLE OF FACES<=
/span>
Just behind him s=
tood
two other doctors: one, the familiar Dr. Quayle, of the blinking eyes and
bleating voice; the other, a more commonplace but much more forcible figure=
, a
stout young doctor with short, well-brushed hair and a round but resolute f=
ace.
At the sight of the escape these two subordinates uttered a cry and sprang
forward, but their superior remained motionless and smiling, and somehow the
lack of his support seemed to arrest and freeze them in the very gesture of=
pursuit.
"Let them
be," he cried in a voice that cut like a blade of ice; and not only of
ice, but of some awful primordial ice that had never been water.
"I want no
devoted champions," said the cutting voice; "even the folly of on=
e's
friends bores one at last. You don't suppose I should have let these lunati=
cs
out of their cells without good reason. I have the best and fullest reason.
They can be let out of their cell today, because today the whole world has
become their cell. I will have no more medieval mummery of chains and doors.
Let them wander about the earth as they wandered about this garden, and I s=
hall
still be their easy master. Let them take the wings of the morning and abid=
e in
the uttermost parts of the sea--I am there. Whither shall they go from my
presence and whither shall they flee from my spirit? Courage, Dr. Quayle, a=
nd
do not be downhearted; the real days of tyranny are only beginning on this =
earth."
And with that the
Master laughed and swung away from them, almost as if his laugh was a bad t=
hing
for people to see.
"Might I spe=
ak
to you a moment?" said Turnbull, stepping forward with a respectful
resolution. But the shoulders of the Master only seemed to take on a new and
unexpected angle of mockery as he strode away.
Turnbull swung ro=
und
with great abruptness to the other two doctors, and said, harshly: "Wh=
at
in snakes does he mean--and who are you?"
"My name is
Hutton," said the short, stout man, "and I am--well, one of those
whose business it is to uphold this establishment."
"My name is
Turnbull," said the other; "I am one of those whose business it i=
s to
tear it to the ground."
The small doctor
smiled, and Turnbull's anger seemed suddenly to steady him.
"But I don't=
want
to talk about that," he said, calmly; "I only want to know what t=
he
Master of this asylum really means."
Dr. Hutton's smile
broke into a laugh which, short as it was, had the suspicion of a shake in =
it.
"I suppose you think that quite a simple question," he said.
"I think it a
plain question," said Turnbull, "and one that deserves a plain
answer. Why did the Master lock us up in a couple of cupboards like jars of
pickles for a mortal month, and why does he now let us walk free in the gar=
den
again?"
"I
understand," said Hutton, with arched eyebrows, "that your compla=
int is
that you are now free to walk in the garden."
"My complaint
is," said Turnbull, stubbornly, "that if I am fit to walk freely =
now,
I have been as fit for the last month. No one has examined me, no one has c=
ome
near me. Your chief says that I am only free because he has made other
arrangements. What are those arrangements?"
The young man with
the round face looked down for a little while and smoked reflectively. The
other and elder doctor had gone pacing nervously by himself upon the lawn. =
At
length the round face was lifted again, and showed two round blue eyes with=
a
certain frankness in them.
"Well, I don=
't
see that it can do any harm to tell you know," he said. "You were
shut up just then because it was just during that month that the Master was
bringing off his big scheme. He was getting his bill through Parliament, and
organizing the new medical police. But of course you haven't heard of all t=
hat;
in fact, you weren't meant to."
"Heard of all
what?" asked the impatient inquirer.
"There's a n=
ew
law now, and the asylum powers are greatly extended. Even if you did escape
now, any policeman would take you up in the next town if you couldn't show a
certificate of sanity from us."
"Well,"
continued Dr. Hutton, "the Master described before both Houses of
Parliament the real scientific objection to all existing legislation about
lunacy. As he very truly said, the mistake was in supposing insanity to be
merely an exception or an extreme. Insanity, like forgetfulness, is simply a
quality which enters more or less into all human beings; and for practical
purposes it is more necessary to know whose mind is really trustworthy than
whose has some accidental taint. We have therefore reversed the existing
method, and people now have to prove that they are sane. In the first villa=
ge
you entered, the village constable would notice that you were not wearing on
the left lapel of your coat the small pewter S which is now necessary to any
one who walks about beyond asylum bounds or outside asylum hours."
"You mean to
say," said Turnbull, "that this was what the Master of the asylum
urged before the House of Commons?"
Dr. Hutton nodded
with gravity.
"And you mea=
n to
say," cried Turnbull, with a vibrant snort, "that that proposal w=
as
passed in an assembly that calls itself democratic?"
The doctor showed=
his
whole row of teeth in a smile. "Oh, the assembly calls itself Socialist
now," he said, "But we explained to them that this was a question=
for
men of science."
Turnbull gave one
stamp upon the gravel, then pulled himself together, and resumed: "But=
why
should your infernal head medicine-man lock us up in separate cells while he
was turning England into a madhouse? I'm not the Prime Minister; we're not =
the
House of Lords."
"He wasn't
afraid of the Prime Minister," replied Dr. Hutton; "he isn't afra=
id
of the House of Lords. But----"
"Well?"
inquired Turnbull, stamping again.
"He is afrai=
d of
you," said Hutton, simply. "Why, didn't you know?"
MacIan, who had n=
ot
spoken yet, made one stride forward and stood with shaking limbs and shining
eyes.
"He was afraid!" began Evan, thickly. "You mean to say that we----"<= o:p>
"I mean to s=
ay
the plain truth now that the danger is over," said Hutton, calmly;
"most certainly you two were the only people he ever was afraid of.&qu=
ot;
Then he added in a low but not inaudible voice: "Except one--whom he
feared worse, and has buried deeper."
"Come
away," cried MacIan, "this has to be thought about."
Turnbull followed=
him
in silence as he strode away, but just before he vanished, turned and spoke
again to the doctors.
"But what has
got hold of people?" he asked, abruptly. "Why should all England =
have
gone dotty on the mere subject of dottiness?"
Dr. Hutton smiled=
his
open smile once more and bowed slightly. "As to that also," he
replied, "I don't want to make you vain."
Turnbull swung ro=
und
without a word, and he and his companion were lost in the lustrous leafage =
of
the garden. They noticed nothing special about the scene, except that the
garden seemed more exquisite than ever in the deepening sunset, and that th=
ere
seemed to be many more people, whether patients or attendants, walking abou=
t in
it.
From behind the t=
wo
black-coated doctors as they stood on the lawn another figure somewhat
similarly dressed strode hurriedly past them, having also grizzled hair and=
an
open flapping frock-coat. Both his decisive step and dapper black array mar=
ked
him out as another medical man, or at least a man in authority, and as he
passed Turnbull the latter was aroused by a strong impression of having seen
the man somewhere before. It was no one that he knew well, yet he was certa=
in that
it was someone at whom he had at sometime or other looked steadily. It was
neither the face of a friend nor of an enemy; it aroused neither irritation=
nor
tenderness, yet it was a face which had for some reason been of great
importance in his life. Turning and returning, and making detours about the
garden, he managed to study the man's face again and again--a moustached,
somewhat military face with a monocle, the sort of face that is aristocratic
without being distinguished. Turnbull could not remember any particular doc=
tors
in his decidedly healthy existence. Was the man a long-lost uncle, or was he
only somebody who had sat opposite him regularly in a railway train? At that
moment the man knocked down his own eye-glass with a gesture of annoyance;
Turnbull remembered the gesture, and the truth sprang up solid in front of =
him.
The man with the moustaches was Cumberland Vane, the London police magistra=
te
before whom he and MacIan had once stood on their trial. The magistrate must
have been transferred to some other official duties--to something connected
with the inspection of asylums.
Turnbull's heart =
gave
a leap of excitement which was half hope. As a magistrate Mr. Cumberland Va=
ne
had been somewhat careless and shallow, but certainly kindly, and not
inaccessible to common sense so long as it was put to him in strictly
conventional language. He was at least an authority of a more human and
refreshing sort than the crank with the wagging beard or the fiend with the
forked chin.
He went straight =
up
to the magistrate, and said: "Good evening, Mr. Vane; I doubt if you
remember me."
Cumberland Vane
screwed the eye-glass into his scowling face for an instant, and then said
curtly but not uncivilly: "Yes, I remember you, sir; assault or batter=
y,
wasn't it?--a fellow broke your window. A tall fellow--McSomething--case ma=
de
rather a noise afterwards."
"MacIan is t=
he
name, sir," said Turnbull, respectfully; "I have him here with
me."
"Eh!" s=
aid
Vane very sharply. "Confound him! Has he got anything to do with this
game?"
"Mr. Vane,&q=
uot;
said Turnbull, pacifically, "I will not pretend that either he or I ac=
ted
quite decorously on that occasion. You were very lenient with us, and did n=
ot
treat us as criminals when you very well might. So I am sure you will give =
us
your testimony that, even if we were criminals, we are not lunatics in any
legal or medical sense whatever. I am sure you will use your influence for
us."
"My
influence!" repeated the magistrate, with a slight start. "I don'=
t quite
understand you."
"I don't kno=
w in
what capacity you are here," continued Turnbull, gravely, "but a
legal authority of your distinction must certainly be here in an important =
one.
Whether you are visiting and inspecting the place, or attached to it as some
kind of permanent legal adviser, your opinion must still----"
Cumberland Vane
exploded with a detonation of oaths; his face was transfigured with fury and
contempt, and yet in some odd way he did not seem specially angry with
Turnbull.
"But Lord bl=
ess
us and save us!" he gasped, at length; "I'm not here as an offici=
al
at all. I'm here as a patient. The cursed pack of rat-catching chemists all=
say
that I've lost my wits."
"You!"
cried Turnbull with terrible emphasis. "You! Lost your wits!"
In the rush of his
real astonishment at this towering unreality Turnbull almost added: "W=
hy,
you haven't got any to lose." But he fortunately remembered the remain=
s of
his desperate diplomacy.
"This can't =
go
on," he said, positively. "Men like MacIan and I may suffer unjus=
tly
all our lives, but a man like you must have influence."
"There is on=
ly
one man who has any influence in England now," said Vane, and his high
voice fell to a sudden and convincing quietude.
"Whom do you
mean?" asked Turnbull.
"I mean that
cursed fellow with the long split chin," said the other.
"Is it really
true," asked Turnbull, "that he has been allowed to buy up and
control such a lot? What put the country into such a state?"
Mr. Cumberland Va=
ne
laughed outright. "What put the country into such a state?" he as=
ked.
"Why, you did. When you were fool enough to agree to fight MacIan, aft=
er
all, everybody was ready to believe that the Bank of England might paint it=
self
pink with white spots."
"I don't
understand," answered Turnbull. "Why should you be surprised at my
fighting? I hope I have always fought."
"Well,"
said Cumberland Vane, airily, "you didn't believe in religion, you see=
--so
we thought you were safe at any rate. You went further in your language than
most of us wanted to go; no good in just hurting one's mother's feelings, I
think. But of course we all knew you were right, and, really, we relied on
you."
"Did you?&qu=
ot; said
the editor of The Atheist with a bursting heart. "I am sorry you did n=
ot
tell me so at the time."
He walked away ve=
ry
rapidly and flung himself on a garden seat, and for some six minutes his own
wrongs hid from him the huge and hilarious fact that Cumberland Vane had be=
en
locked up as a lunatic.
The garden of the
madhouse was so perfectly planned, and answered so exquisitely to every hou=
r of
daylight, that one could almost fancy that the sunlight was caught there
tangled in its tinted trees, as the wise men of Gotham tried to chain the
spring to a bush. Or it seemed as if this ironic paradise still kept its un=
ique
dawn or its special sunset while the rest of the earthly globe rolled throu=
gh
its ordinary hours. There was one evening, or late afternoon, in particular,
which Evan MacIan will remember in the last moments of death. It was what
artists call a daffodil sky, but it is coarsened even by reference to a daf=
fodil.
It was of that innocent lonely yellow which has never heard of orange, thou=
gh
it might turn quite unconsciously into green. Against it the tops, one might
say the turrets, of the clipt and ordered trees were outlined in that shade=
of
veiled violet which tints the tops of lavender. A white early moon was hard=
ly
traceable upon that delicate yellow. MacIan, I say, will remember this tend=
er
and transparent evening, partly because of its virgin gold and silver, and
partly because he passed beneath it through the most horrible instant of hi=
s life.
Turnbull was sitt=
ing
on his seat on the lawn, and the golden evening impressed even his positive
nature, as indeed it might have impressed the oxen in a field. He was shock=
ed
out of his idle mood of awe by seeing MacIan break from behind the bushes a=
nd
run across the lawn with an action he had never seen in the man before, with
all his experience of the eccentric humours of this Celt. MacIan fell on the
bench, shaking it so that it rattled, and gripped it with his knees like on=
e in
dreadful pain of body. That particular run and tumble is typical only of a =
man
who has been hit by some sudden and incurable evil, who is bitten by a vipe=
r or
condemned to be hanged. Turnbull looked up in the white face of his friend =
and
enemy, and almost turned cold at what he saw there. He had seen the blue but
gloomy eyes of the western Highlander troubled by as many tempests as his o=
wn
west Highland seas, but there had always been a fixed star of faith behind =
the
storms. Now the star had gone out, and there was only misery.
Yet MacIan had the
strength to answer the question where Turnbull, taken by surprise, had not =
the
strength to ask it.
"They are ri=
ght,
they are right!" he cried. "O my God! they are right, Turnbull. I
ought to be here!"
He went on with
shapeless fluency as if he no longer had the heart to choose or check his
speech. "I suppose I ought to have guessed long ago--all my big dreams=
and
schemes--and everyone being against us--but I was stuck up, you know."=
"Do tell me
about it, really," cried the atheist, and, faced with the furnace of t=
he
other's pain, he did not notice that he spoke with the affection of a fathe=
r.
"I am mad,
Turnbull," said Evan, with a dead clearness of speech, and leant back
against the garden seat.
"Nonsense,&q=
uot;
said the other, clutching at the obvious cue of benevolent brutality,
"this is one of your silly moods."
MacIan shook his
head. "I know enough about myself," he said, "to allow for a=
ny
mood, though it opened heaven or hell. But to see things--to see them walki=
ng
solid in the sun--things that can't be there--real mystics never do that,
Turnbull."
"What
things?" asked the other, incredulously.
MacIan lowered his
voice. "I saw her," he said, "three minutes ago--walking her=
e in
this hell yard."
Between trying to
look scornful and really looking startled, Turnbull's face was confused eno=
ugh
to emit no speech, and Evan went on in monotonous sincerity:
"I saw her w=
alk
behind those blessed trees against that holy sky of gold as plain as I can =
see
her whenever I shut my eyes. I did shut them, and opened them again, and she
was still there--that is, of course, she wasn't---- She still had a little =
fur
round her neck, but her dress was a shade brighter than when I really saw
her."
"My dear
fellow," cried Turnbull, rallying a hearty laugh, "the fancies ha=
ve
really got hold of you. You mistook some other poor girl here for her."=
;
"Mistook some
other----" said MacIan, and words failed him altogether.
They sat for some
moments in the mellow silence of the evening garden, a silence that was
stifling for the sceptic, but utterly empty and final for the man of faith.=
At
last he broke out again with the words: "Well, anyhow, if I'm mad, I'm
glad I'm mad on that."
Turnbull murmured
some clumsy deprecation, and sat stolidly smoking to collect his thoughts; =
the
next instant he had all his nerves engaged in the mere effort to sit still.=
Across the clear
space of cold silver and a pale lemon sky which was left by the gap in the
ilex-trees there passed a slim, dark figure, a profile and the poise of a d=
ark
head like a bird's, which really pinned him to his seat with the point of
coincidence. With an effort he got to his feet, and said with a voice of
affected insouciance: "By George! MacIan, she is uncommonly like----&q=
uot;
"What!"
cried MacIan, with a leap of eagerness that was heart-breaking, "do you
see her, too?" And the blaze came back into the centre of his eyes.
Turnbull's tawny
eyebrows were pulled together with a peculiar frown of curiosity, and all at
once he walked quickly across the lawn. MacIan sat rigid, but peered after =
him
with open and parched lips. He saw the sight which either proved him sane or
proved the whole universe half-witted; he saw the man of flesh approach that
beautiful phantom, saw their gestures of recognition, and saw them against =
the
sunset joining hands.
He could stand it=
no
longer, but ran across to the path, turned the corner and saw standing quite
palpable in the evening sunlight, talking with a casual grace to Turnbull, =
the
face and figure which had filled his midnights with frightfully vivid or
desperately half-forgotten features. She advanced quite pleasantly and cool=
ly,
and put out her hand. The moment that he touched it he knew that he was sane
even if the solar system was crazy.
She was entirely
elegant and unembarrassed. That is the awful thing about women--they refuse=
to
be emotional at emotional moments, upon some such ludicrous pretext as there
being someone else there. But MacIan was in a condition of criticism much l=
ess
than the average masculine one, being in fact merely overturned by the rush=
ing
riddle of the events.
Evan does not kno=
w to
this day what particular question he asked, but he vividly remembers that s=
he
answered, and every line or fluctuation of her face as she said it.
"Oh, don't y=
ou
know?" she said, smiling, and suddenly lifting her level brown eyebrow=
s.
"Haven't you heard the news? I'm a lunatic."
Then she added af=
ter
a short pause, and with a sort of pride: "I've got a certificate."=
;
Her manner, by the
matchless social stoicism of her sex, was entirely suited to a drawing-room,
but Evan's reply fell somewhat far short of such a standard, as he only sai=
d:
"What the devil in hell does all this nonsense mean?"
"Really,&quo=
t;
said the young lady, and laughed.
"I beg your
pardon," said the unhappy young man, rather wildly, "but what I m=
ean
is, why are you here in an asylum?"
The young woman b=
roke
again into one of the maddening and mysterious laughs of femininity. Then s=
he
composed her features, and replied with equal dignity: "Well, if it co=
mes
to that, why are you?"
The fact that
Turnbull had strolled away and was investigating rhododendrons may have been
due to Evan's successful prayers to the other world, or possibly to his own
pretty successful experience of this one. But though they two were as isola=
ted
as a new Adam and Eve in a pretty ornamental Eden, the lady did not relax b=
y an
inch the rigour of her badinage.
"I am locked=
up
in the madhouse," said Evan, with a sort of stiff pride, "because=
I
tried to keep my promise to you."
"Quite so,&q=
uot;
answered the inexplicable lady, nodding with a perfectly blazing smile,
"and I am locked up because it was to me you promised."
"It is
outrageous!" cried Evan; "it is impossible!"
"Oh, you can=
see
my certificate if you like," she replied with some hauteur.
MacIan stared at =
her
and then at his boots, and then at the sky and then at her again. He was qu=
ite
sure now that he himself was not mad, and the fact rather added to his
perplexity.
Then he drew near=
er
to her, and said in a dry and dreadful voice: "Oh, don't condescend to
play the fool with such a fool as me. Are you really locked up here as a
patient--because you helped us to escape?"
"Yes," =
she
said, still smiling, but her steady voice had a shake in it.
Evan flung his big
elbow across his forehead and burst into tears.
The pure lemon of=
the
sky faded into purer white as the great sunset silently collapsed. The birds
settled back into the trees; the moon began to glow with its own light. Mr.
James Turnbull continued his botanical researches into the structure of the
rhododendron. But the lady did not move an inch until Evan had flung up his
face again; and when he did he saw by the last gleam of sunlight that it was
not only his face that was wet.
Mr. James Turnbull
had all his life professed a profound interest in physical science, and the
phenomena of a good garden were really a pleasure to him; but after
three-quarters of an hour or so even the apostle of science began to find
rhododendrus a bore, and was somewhat relieved when an unexpected developme=
nt
of events obliged him to transfer his researches to the equally interesting
subject of hollyhocks, which grew some fifty feet farther along the path. T=
he ostensible
cause of his removal was the unexpected reappearance of his two other
acquaintances walking and talking laboriously along the way, with the black
head bent close to the brown one. Even hollyhocks detained Turnbull but a s=
hort
time. Having rapidly absorbed all the important principles affecting the gr=
owth
of those vegetables, he jumped over a flower-bed and walked back into the
building. The other two came up along the slow course of the path talking a=
nd
talking. No one but God knows what they said (for they certainly have
forgotten), and if I remembered it I would not repeat it. When they parted =
at
the head of the walk she put out her hand again in the same well-bred way,
although it trembled; he seemed to restrain a gesture as he let it fall.
"If it is re=
ally
always to be like this," he said, thickly, "it would not matter i=
f we
were here for ever."
"You tried to
kill yourself four times for me," she said, unsteadily, "and I ha=
ve
been chained up as a madwoman for you. I really think that after that----&q=
uot;
"Yes, I
know," said Evan in a low voice, looking down. "After that we bel=
ong
to each other. We are sort of sold to each other--until the stars fall.&quo=
t;
Then he looked up suddenly, and said: "By the way, what is your name?&=
quot;
"My name is
Beatrice Drake," she replied with complete gravity. "You can see =
it
on my certificate of lunacy."
Turnbull walked a=
way,
wildly trying to explain to himself the presence of two personal acquaintan=
ces
so different as Vane and the girl. As he skirted a low hedge of laurel, an
enormously tall young man leapt over it, stood in front of him, and almost =
fell
on his neck as if seeking to embrace him.
"Don't you k=
now
me?" almost sobbed the young man, who was in the highest spirits.
"Ain't I written on your heart, old boy? I say, what did you do with my
yacht?"
"Take your a=
rms
off my neck," said Turnbull, irritably. "Are you mad?"
The young man sat
down on the gravel path and went into ecstasies of laughter. "No, that=
's
just the fun of it--I'm not mad," he replied. "They've shut me up=
in
this place, and I'm not mad." And he went off again into mirth as inno=
cent
as wedding-bells.
Turnbull, whose
powers of surprise were exhausted, rolled his round grey eyes and said,
"Mr. Wilkinson, I think," because he could not think of anything =
else
to say.
The tall man sitt=
ing
on the gravel bowed with urbanity, and said: "Quite at your service. N=
ot
to be confused with the Wilkinsons of Cumberland; and as I say, old boy, wh=
at
have you done with my yacht? You see, they've locked me up here--in this
garden--and a yacht would be a sort of occupation for an unmarried man.&quo=
t;
"I am really
horribly sorry," began Turnbull, in the last stage of bated bewilderme=
nt
and exasperation, "but really----"
"Oh, I can s=
ee
you can't have it on you at the moment," said Mr. Wilkinson with much
intellectual magnanimity.
"Well, the f=
act
is----" began Turnbull again, and then the phrase was frozen on his mo=
uth,
for round the corner came the goatlike face and gleaming eye-glasses of Dr.
Quayle.
"Ah, my dear=
Mr.
Wilkinson," said the doctor, as if delighted at a coincidence; "a=
nd
Mr. Turnbull, too. Why, I want to speak to Mr. Turnbull."
Mr. Turnbull made
some movement rather of surrender than assent, and the doctor caught it up
exquisitely, showing even more of his two front teeth. "I am sure Mr.
Wilkinson will excuse us a moment." And with flying frock-coat he led
Turnbull rapidly round the corner of a path.
"My dear
sir," he said, in a quite affectionate manner, "I do not mind tel=
ling
you--you are such a very hopeful case--you understand so well the scientific
point of view; and I don't like to see you bothered by the really hopeless =
cases.
They are monotonous and maddening. The man you have just been talking to, p=
oor
fellow, is one of the strongest cases of pure idee fixe that we have. It's =
very
sad, and I'm afraid utterly incurable. He keeps on telling everybody"-=
-and
the doctor lowered his voice confidentially--"he tells everybody that =
two
people have taken is yacht. His account of how he lost it is quite
incoherent."
Turnbull stamped =
his
foot on the gravel path, and called out: "Oh, I can't stand this.
Really----"
"I know, I
know," said the psychologist, mournfully; "it is a most melancholy
case, and also fortunately a very rare one. It is so rare, in fact, that in=
one
classification of these maladies it is entered under a heading by
itself--Perdinavititis, mental inflammation creating the impression that one
has lost a ship. Really," he added, with a kind of half-embarrassed gu=
ilt,
"it's rather a feather in my cap. I discovered the only existing case =
of
perdinavititis."
"But this wo=
n't
do, doctor," said Turnbull, almost tearing his hair, "this really
won't do. The man really did lose a ship. Indeed, not to put too fine a poi=
nt
on it, I took his ship."
Dr. Quayle swung
round for an instant so that his silk-lined overcoat rustled, and stared
singularly at Turnbull. Then he said with hurried amiability: "Why, of
course you did. Quite so, quite so," and with courteous gestures went
striding up the garden path. Under the first laburnum-tree he stopped, howe=
ver,
and pulling out his pencil and notebook wrote down feverishly: "Singul=
ar
development in the Elenthero-maniac, Turnbull. Sudden manifestation of
Rapinavititis--the delusion that one has stolen a ship. First case ever
recorded."
Turnbull stood fo=
r an
instant staggered into stillness. Then he ran raging round the garden to fi=
nd
MacIan, just as a husband, even a bad husband, will run raging to find his =
wife
if he is full of a furious query. He found MacIan stalking moodily about the
half-lit garden, after his extraordinary meeting with Beatrice. No one who =
saw
his slouching stride and sunken head could have known that his soul was in =
the
seventh heaven of ecstasy. He did not think; he did not even very definitel=
y desire.
He merely wallowed in memories, chiefly in material memories; words said wi=
th a
certain cadence or trivial turns of the neck or wrist. Into the middle of h=
is
stationary and senseless enjoyment were thrust abruptly the projecting elbow
and the projecting red beard of Turnbull. MacIan stepped back a little, and=
the
soul in his eyes came very slowly to its windows. When James Turnbull had t=
he
glittering sword-point planted upon his breast he was in far less danger. F=
or
three pulsating seconds after the interruption MacIan was in a mood to have
murdered his father.
And yet his whole
emotional anger fell from him when he saw Turnbull's face, in which the eyes
seemed to be bursting from the head like bullets. All the fire and fragrance
even of young and honourable love faded for a moment before that stiff agon=
y of
interrogation.
"Are you hur=
t,
Turnbull?" he asked, anxiously.
"I am
dying," answered the other quite calmly. "I am in the quite liter=
al
sense of the words dying to know something. I want to know what all this can
possibly mean."
MacIan did not
answer, and he continued with asperity: "You are still thinking about =
that
girl, but I tell you the whole thing is incredible. She's not the only pers=
on
here. I've met the fellow Wilkinson, whose yacht we lost. I've met the very
magistrate you were hauled up to when you broke my window. What can it
mean--meeting all these old people again? One never meets such old friends
again except in a dream."
Then after a sile=
nce
he cried with a rending sincerity: "Are you really there, Evan? Have y=
ou
ever been really there? Am I simply dreaming?"
MacIan had been
listening with a living silence to every word, and now his face flamed with=
one
of his rare revelations of life.
"No, you good
atheist," he cried; "no, you clean, courteous, reverent, pious old
blasphemer. No, you are not dreaming--you are waking up."
"What do you
mean?"
"There are t=
wo
states where one meets so many old friends," said MacIan; "one is=
a
dream, the other is the end of the world."
"And you
say----"
"I say this =
is
not a dream," said Evan in a ringing voice.
"You really =
mean
to suggest----" began Turnbull.
"Be silent! =
or I
shall say it all wrong," said MacIan, breathing hard. "It's hard =
to
explain, anyhow. An apocalypse is the opposite of a dream. A dream is falser
than the outer life. But the end of the world is more actual than the world=
it
ends. I don't say this is really the end of the world, but it's something l=
ike
that--it's the end of something. All the people are crowding into one corne=
r.
Everything is coming to a point."
"What is the
point?" asked Turnbull.
"I can't see
it," said Evan; "it is too large and plain."
Then after a sile=
nce
he said: "I can't see it--and yet I will try to describe it. Turnbull,
three days ago I saw quite suddenly that our duel was not right after
all."
"Three days
ago!" repeated Turnbull. "When and why did this illumination occu=
r?"
"I knew I was
not quite right," answered Evan, "the moment I saw the round eyes=
of
that old man in the cell."
"Old man in =
the
cell!" repeated his wondering companion. "Do you mean the poor old
idiot who likes spikes to stick out?"
"Yes," =
said
MacIan, after a slight pause, "I mean the poor old idiot who likes spi=
kes
to stick out. When I saw his eyes and heard his old croaking accent, I knew
that it would not really have been right to kill you. It would have been a
venial sin."
"I am much
obliged," said Turnbull, gruffly.
"You must gi=
ve
me time," said MacIan, quite patiently, "for I am trying to tell =
the
whole truth. I am trying to tell more of it than I know."
"So you see I
confess"--he went on with laborious distinctness--"I confess that=
all
the people who called our duel mad were right in a way. I would confess it =
to
old Cumberland Vane and his eye-glass. I would confess it even to that old =
ass
in brown flannel who talked to us about Love. Yes, they are right in a way.=
I
am a little mad."
He stopped and wi=
ped
his brow as if he were literally doing heavy labour. Then he went on:
"I am a litt=
le
mad; but, after all, it is only a little madness. When hundreds of high-min=
ded
men had fought duels about a jostle with the elbow or the ace of spades, the
whole world need not have gone wild over my one little wildness. Plenty of
other people have killed themselves between then and now. But all England h=
as
gone into captivity in order to take us captive. All England has turned int=
o a
lunatic asylum in order to prove us lunatics. Compared with the general pub=
lic,
I might positively be called sane."
He stopped again,=
and
went on with the same air of travailing with the truth:
"When I saw
that, I saw everything; I saw the Church and the world. The Church in its
earthly action has really touched morbid things--tortures and bleeding visi=
ons
and blasts of extermination. The Church has had her madnesses, and I am one=
of
them. I am the massacre of St. Bartholomew. I am the Inquisition of Spain. =
I do
not say that we have never gone mad, but I say that we are fit to act as
keepers to our enemies. Massacre is wicked even with a provocation, as in t=
he
Bartholomew. But your modern Nietzsche will tell you that massacre would be
glorious without a provocation. Torture should be violently stopped, though=
the
Church is doing it. But your modern Tolstoy will tell you that it ought not=
to
be violently stopped whoever is doing it. In the long run, which is most ma=
d--the
Church or the world? Which is madder, the Spanish priest who permitted tyra=
nny,
or the Prussian sophist who admired it? Which is madder, the Russian priest=
who
discourages righteous rebellion, or the Russian novelist who forbids it? Th=
at
is the final and blasting test. The world left to itself grows wilder than =
any
creed. A few days ago you and I were the maddest people in England. Now, by
God! I believe we are the sanest. That is the only real question--whether t=
he
Church is really madder than the world. Let the rationalists run their own
race, and let us see where they end. If the world has some healthy balance
other than God, let the world find it. Does the world find it? Cut the worl=
d loose,"
he cried with a savage gesture. "Does the world stand on its own end? =
Does
it stand, or does it stagger?"
Turnbull remained
silent, and MacIan said to him, looking once more at the earth: "It
staggers, Turnbull. It cannot stand by itself; you know it cannot. It has b=
een
the sorrow of your life. Turnbull, this garden is not a dream, but an
apocalyptic fulfilment. This garden is the world gone mad."
Turnbull did not =
move
his head, and he had been listening all the time; yet, somehow, the other k=
new
that for the first time he was listening seriously.
"The world h=
as
gone mad," said MacIan, "and it has gone mad about Us. The world
takes the trouble to make a big mistake about every little mistake made by =
the
Church. That is why they have turned ten counties to a madhouse; that is why
crowds of kindly people are poured into this filthy melting-pot. Now is the
judgement of this world. The Prince of this World is judged, and he is judg=
ed
exactly because he is judging. There is at last one simple solution to the
quarrel between the ball and the cross----"
Turnbull for the
first time started.
"The ball
and----" he repeated.
"What is the
matter with you?" asked MacIan.
"I had a
dream," said Turnbull, thickly and obscurely, "in which I saw the
cross struck crooked and the ball secure----"
"I had a
dream," said MacIan, "in which I saw the cross erect and the ball
invisible. They were both dreams from hell. There must be some round earth =
to
plant the cross upon. But here is the awful difference--that the round world
will not consent even to continue round. The astronomers are always telling=
us
that it is shaped like an orange, or like an egg, or like a German sausage.
They beat the old world about like a bladder and thump it into a thousand
shapeless shapes. Turnbull, we cannot trust the ball to be always a ball; w=
e cannot
trust reason to be reasonable. In the end the great terrestrial globe will =
go
quite lop-sided, and only the cross will stand upright."
There was a long
silence, and then Turnbull said, hesitatingly: "Has it occurred to you
that since--since those two dreams, or whatever they were----"
"Well?"
murmured MacIan.
"Since
then," went on Turnbull, in the same low voice, "since then we ha=
ve
never even looked for our swords."
"You are
right," answered Evan almost inaudibly. "We have found something
which we both hate more than we ever hated each other, and I think I know i=
ts
name."
Turnbull seemed to
frown and flinch for a moment. "It does not much matter what you call
it," he said, "so long as you keep out of its way."
The bushes broke =
and
snapped abruptly behind them, and a very tall figure towered above Turnbull
with an arrogant stoop and a projecting chin, a chin of which the shape sho=
wed
queerly even in its shadow upon the path.
"You see tha=
t is
not so easy," said MacIan between his teeth.
They looked up in=
to
the eyes of the Master, but looked only for a moment. The eyes were full of=
a
frozen and icy wrath, a kind of utterly heartless hatred. His voice was for=
the
first time devoid of irony. There was no more sarcasm in it than there is i=
n an
iron club.
"You will be
inside the building in three minutes," he said, with pulverizing
precision, "or you will be fired on by the artillery at all the window=
s.
There is too much talking in this garden; we intend to close it. You will be
accommodated indoors."
"Ah!" s=
aid
MacIan, with a long and satisfied sigh, "then I was right."
And he turned his
back and walked obediently towards the building. Turnbull seemed to canvass=
for
a few minutes the notion of knocking the Master down, and then fell under t=
he
same almost fairy fatalism as his companion. In some strange way it did see=
m that
the more smoothly they yielded, the more swiftly would events sweep on to s=
ome
great collision.
As they advanced
towards the asylum they looked up at its rows on rows of windows, and
understood the Master's material threat. By means of that complex but conce=
aled
machinery which ran like a network of nerves over the whole fabric, there h=
ad
been shot out under every window-ledge rows and rows of polished-steel
cylinders, the cold miracles of modern gunnery. They commanded the whole ga=
rden
and the whole country-side, and could have blown to pieces an army corps.
This silent
declaration of war had evidently had its complete effect. As MacIan and
Turnbull walked steadily but slowly towards the entrance hall of the
institution, they could see that most, or at least many, of the patients had
already gathered there as well as the staff of doctors and the whole regime=
nt
of keepers and assistants. But when they entered the lamp-lit hall, and the
high iron door was clashed to and locked behind them, yet a new amazement l=
eapt
into their eyes, and the stalwart Turnbull almost fell. For he saw a sight
which was indeed, as MacIan had said--either the Day of Judgement or a drea=
m.
Within a few feet=
of
him at one corner of the square of standing people stood the girl he had kn=
own
in Jersey, Madeleine Durand. She looked straight at him with a steady smile
which lit up the scene of darkness and unreason like the light of some hone=
st
fireside. Her square face and throat were thrown back, as her habit was, and
there was something almost sleepy in the geniality of her eyes. He saw her
first, and for a few seconds saw her only; then the outer edge of his eyesi=
ght
took in all the other staring faces, and he saw all the faces he had ever s=
een for
weeks and months past. There was the Tolstoyan in Jaeger flannel, with the
yellow beard that went backward and the foolish nose and eyes that went
forward, with the curiosity of a crank. He was talking eagerly to Mr. Gordo=
n,
the corpulent Jew shopkeeper whom they had once gagged in his own shop. The=
re
was the tipsy old Hertfordshire rustic; he was talking energetically to
himself. There was not only Mr. Vane the magistrate, but the clerk of Mr. V=
ane,
the magistrate. There was not only Miss Drake of the motor-car, but also Mi=
ss
Drake's chauffeur. Nothing wild or unfamiliar could have produced upon Turn=
bull
such a nightmare impression as that ring of familiar faces. Yet he had one =
intellectual
shock which was greater than all the others. He stepped impulsively forward
towards Madeleine, and then wavered with a kind of wild humility. As he did=
so
he caught sight of another square face behind Madeleine's, a face with long
grey whiskers and an austere stare. It was old Durand, the girls' father; a=
nd
when Turnbull saw him he saw the last and worst marvel of that monstrous ni=
ght.
He remembered Durand; he remembered his monotonous, everlasting lucidity, h=
is
stupefyingly sensible views of everything, his colossal contentment with
truisms merely because they were true. "Confound it all!" cried
Turnbull to himself, "if he is in the asylum, there can't be anyone
outside." He drew nearer to Madeleine, but still doubtfully and all the
more so because she still smiled at him. MacIan had already gone across to =
Beatrice
with an air of fright.
Then all these
bewildered but partly amicable recognitions were cloven by a cruel voice wh=
ich
always made all human blood turn bitter. The Master was standing in the mid=
dle
of the room surveying the scene like a great artist looking at a completed
picture. Handsome as he looked, they had never seen so clearly what was rea=
lly
hateful in his face; and even then they could only express it by saying that
the arched brows and the long emphatic chin gave it always a look of being =
lit
from below, like the face of some infernal actor.
"This is ind=
eed
a cosy party," he said, with glittering eyes.
The Master eviden=
tly
meant to say more, but before he could say anything M. Durand had stepped r=
ight
up to him and was speaking.
He was speaking
exactly as a French bourgeois speaks to the manager of a restaurant. That i=
s,
he spoke with rattling and breathless rapidity, but with no incoherence, and
therefore with no emotion. It was a steady, monotonous vivacity, which came=
not
seemingly from passion, but merely from the reason having been sent off at a
gallop. He was saying something like this:
"You refuse =
me
my half-bottle of Medoc, the drink the most wholesome and the most customar=
y.
You refuse me the company and obedience of my daughter, which Nature herself
indicates. You refuse me the beef and mutton, without pretence that it is a
fast of the Church. You now forbid me the promenade, a thing necessary to a
person of my age. It is useless to tell me that you do all this by law. Law
rests upon the social contract. If the citizen finds himself despoiled of s=
uch
pleasures and powers as he would have had even in the savage state, the soc=
ial contract
is annulled."
"It's no good
chattering away, Monsieur," said Hutton, for the Master was silent.
"The place is covered with machine-guns. We've got to obey our orders,=
and
so have you."
"The machine=
ry
is of the most perfect," assented Durand, somewhat irrelevantly;
"worked by petroleum, I believe. I only ask you to admit that if such
things fall below the comfort of barbarism, the social contract is annulled=
. It
is a pretty little point of theory."
"Oh! I dare
say," said Hutton.
Durand bowed quite
civilly and withdrew.
"A cosy
party," resumed the Master, scornfully, "and yet I believe some of
you are in doubt about how we all came together. I will explain it, ladies =
and
gentlemen; I will explain everything. To whom shall I specially address mys=
elf?
To Mr. James Turnbull. He has a scientific mind."
Turnbull seemed to
choke with sudden protest. The Master seemed only to cough out of pure
politeness and proceeded: "Mr. Turnbull will agree with me," he s=
aid,
"when I say that we long felt in scientific circles that great harm was
done by such a legend as that of the Crucifixion."
Turnbull growled
something which was presumably assent.
The Master went on
smoothly: "It was in vain for us to urge that the incident was irrelev=
ant;
that there were many such fanatics, many such executions. We were forced to
take the thing thoroughly in hand, to investigate it in the spirit of
scientific history, and with the assistance of Mr. Turnbull and others we w=
ere
happy in being able to announce that this alleged Crucifixion never occurre=
d at
all."
MacIan lifted his
head and looked at the Master steadily, but Turnbull did not look up.
"This, we fo=
und,
was the only way with all superstitions," continued the speaker; "=
;it
was necessary to deny them historically, and we have done it with great suc=
cess
in the case of miracles and such things. Now within our own time there aros=
e an
unfortunate fuss which threatened (as Mr. Turnbull would say) to galvanize =
the
corpse of Christianity into a fictitious life--the alleged case of a Highla=
nd
eccentric who wanted to fight for the Virgin."
MacIan, quite whi=
te,
made a step forward, but the speaker did not alter his easy attitude or his
flow of words. "Again we urged that this duel was not to be admired, t=
hat
it was a mere brawl, but the people were ignorant and romantic. There were
signs of treating this alleged Highlander and his alleged opponent as heroe=
s.
We tried all other means of arresting this reactionary hero worship. Working
men who betted on the duel were imprisoned for gambling. Working men who dr=
ank
the health of a duellist were imprisoned for drunkenness. But the popular e=
xcitement
about the alleged duel continued, and we had to fall back on our old histor=
ical
method. We investigated, on scientific principles, the story of MacIan's
challenge, and we are happy to be able to inform you that the whole story of
the attempted duel is a fable. There never was any challenge. There never w=
as
any man named MacIan. It is a melodramatic myth, like Calvary."
Not a soul moved =
save
Turnbull, who lifted his head; yet there was the sense of a silent explosio=
n.
"The whole s=
tory
of the MacIan challenge," went on the Master, beaming at them all with=
a
sinister benignity, "has been found to originate in the obsessions of a
few pathological types, who are now all fortunately in our care. There is, =
for
instance, a person here of the name of Gordon, formerly the keeper of a cur=
iosity
shop. He is a victim of the disease called Vinculomania--the impression that
one has been bound or tied up. We have also a case of Fugacity (Mr. Whimpey=
),
who imagines that he was chased by two men."
The indignant fac=
es
of the Jew shopkeeper and the Magdalen Don started out of the crowd in their
indignation, but the speaker continued:
"One poor wo=
man
we have with us," he said, in a compassionate voice, "believes she
was in a motor-car with two such men; this is the well-known illusion of sp=
eed
on which I need not dwell. Another wretched woman has the simple egotistic
mania that she has caused the duel. Madeleine Durand actually professes to =
have
been the subject of the fight between MacIan and his enemy, a fight which, =
if
it occurred at all, certainly began long before. But it never occurred at a=
ll.
We have taken in hand every person who professed to have seen such a thing,=
and
proved them all to be unbalanced. That is why they are here."
The Master looked
round the room, just showing his perfect teeth with the perfection of artis=
tic
cruelty, exalted for a moment in the enormous simplicity of his success, and
then walked across the hall and vanished through an inner door. His two
lieutenants, Quayle and Hutton, were left standing at the head of the great
army of servants and keepers.
"I hope we s=
hall
have no more trouble," said Dr. Quayle pleasantly enough, and addressi=
ng
Turnbull, who was leaning heavily upon the back of a chair.
Still looking dow=
n,
Turnbull lifted the chair an inch or two from the ground. Then he suddenly
swung it above his head and sent it at the inquiring doctor with an awful c=
rash
which sent one of its wooden legs loose along the floor and crammed the doc=
tor
gasping into a corner. MacIan gave a great shout, snatched up the loose
chair-leg, and, rushing on the other doctor, felled him with a blow. Twenty
attendants rushed to capture the rebels; MacIan flung back three of them and
Turnbull went over on top of one, when from behind them all came a shriek a=
s of
something quite fresh and frightful.
Two of the three
passages leading out of the hall were choked with blue smoke. Another insta=
nt
and the hall was full of the fog of it, and red sparks began to swarm like
scarlet bees.
"The place i=
s on
fire!" cried Quayle with a scream of indecent terror. "Oh, who can
have done it? How can it have happened?"
A light had come =
into
Turnbull's eyes. "How did the French Revolution happen?" he asked=
.
"Oh, how sho=
uld
I know!" wailed the other.
"Then I will
tell you," said Turnbull; "it happened because some people fancied
that a French grocer was as respectable as he looked."
Even as he spoke,=
as
if by confirmation, old Mr. Durand re-entered the smoky room quite placidly,
wiping the petroleum from his hands with a handkerchief. He had set fire to=
the
building in accordance with the strict principles of the social contract.
But MacIan had ta=
ken
a stride forward and stood there shaken and terrible. "Now," he
cried, panting, "now is the judgement of the world. The doctors will l=
eave
this place; the keepers will leave this place. They will leave us in charge=
of
the machinery and the machine-guns at the windows. But we, the lunatics, wi=
ll
wait to be burned alive if only we may see them go."
"How do you =
know
we shall go?" asked Hutton, fiercely.
"You believe
nothing," said MacIan, simply, "and you are insupportably afraid =
of
death."
"So this is
suicide," sneered the doctor; "a somewhat doubtful sign of sanity=
."
"Not at
all--this is vengeance," answered Turnbull, quite calmly; "a thing
which is completely healthy."
"You think t=
he
doctors will go," said Hutton, savagely.
"The keepers
have gone already," said Turnbull.
Even as they spoke
the main doors were burst open in mere brutal panic, and all the officers a=
nd
subordinates of the asylum rushed away across the garden pursued by the smo=
ke.
But among the ticketed maniacs not a man or woman moved.
"We hate
dying," said Turnbull, with composure, "but we hate you even more.
This is a successful revolution."
In the roof above
their heads a panel shot back, showing a strip of star-lit sky and a huge t=
hing
made of white metal, with the shape and fins of a fish, swinging as if at
anchor. At the same moment a steel ladder slid down from the opening and st=
ruck
the floor, and the cleft chin of the mysterious Master was thrust into the
opening. "Quayle, Hutton," he said, "you will escape with
me." And they went up the ladder like automata of lead.
Long after they h=
ad
clambered into the car, the creature with the cloven face continued to leer
down upon the smoke-stung crowd below. Then at last he said in a silken voi=
ce
and with a smile of final satisfaction:
"By the way,=
I
fear I am very absent minded. There is one man specially whom, somehow, I
always forget. I always leave him lying about. Once I mislaid him on the Cr=
oss
of St. Paul's. So silly of me; and now I've forgotten him in one of those
little cells where your fire is burning. Very unfortunate--especially for
him." And nodding genially, he climbed into his flying ship.
MacIan stood
motionless for two minutes, and then rushed down one of the suffocating
corridors till he found the flames. Turnbull looked once at Madeleine, and
followed.
=
* =
* =
*
MacIan, with sing=
ed
hair, smoking garments, and smarting hands and face, had already broken far
enough through the first barriers of burning timber to come within cry of t=
he
cells he had once known. It was impossible, however, to see the spot where =
the
old man lay dead or alive; not now through darkness, but through scorching =
and
aching light. The site of the old half-wit's cell was now the heart of a
standing forest of fire--the flames as thick and yellow as a cornfield. The=
ir incessant
shrieking and crackling was like a mob shouting against an orator. Yet thro=
ugh
all that deafening density MacIan thought he heard a small and separate sou=
nd.
When he heard it he rushed forward as if to plunge into that furnace, but
Turnbull arrested him by an elbow.
"Let me
go!" cried Evan, in agony; "it's the poor old beggar's voice--he's
still alive, and shouting for help."
"Listen!&quo=
t;
said Turnbull, and lifted one finger from his clenched hand.
"Or else he =
is
shrieking with pain," protested MacIan. "I will not endure it.&qu=
ot;
"Listen!&quo=
t;
repeated Turnbull, grimly. "Did you ever hear anyone shout for help or
shriek with pain in that voice?"
The small shrill
sounds which came through the crash of the conflagration were indeed of an =
odd
sort, and MacIan turned a face of puzzled inquiry to his companion.
"He is
singing," said Turnbull, simply.
A remaining rampa=
rt
fell, crushing the fire, and through the diminished din of it the voice of =
the
little old lunatic came clearer. In the heart of that white-hot hell he was
singing like a bird. What he was singing it was not very easy to follow, bu=
t it
seemed to be something about playing in the golden hay.
"Good
Lord!" cried Turnbull, bitterly, "there seem to be some advantage=
s in
really being an idiot." Then advancing to the fringe of the fire he ca=
lled
out on chance to the invisible singer: "Can you come out? Are you cut
off?"
"God help us
all!" said MacIan, with a shudder; "he's laughing now."
At whatever stage=
of
being burned alive the invisible now found himself, he was now shaking out
peals of silvery and hilarious laughter. As he listened, MacIan's two eyes
began to glow, as if a strange thought had come into his head.
"Fool, come =
out
and save yourself!" shouted Turnbull.
"No, by Heav=
en!
that is not the way," cried Evan, suddenly. "Father," he sho=
uted,
"come out and save us all!"
The fire, though =
it
had dropped in one or two places, was, upon the whole, higher and more
unconquerable than ever. Separate tall flames shot up and spread out above =
them
like the fiery cloisters of some infernal cathedral, or like a grove of red
tropical trees in the garden of the devil. Higher yet in the purple hollow =
of
the night the topmost flames leapt again and again fruitlessly at the stars,
like golden dragons chained but struggling. The towers and domes of the
oppressive smoke seemed high and far enough to drown distant planets in a
London fog. But if we exhausted all frantic similes for that frantic scene,=
the
main impression about the fire would still be its ranked upstanding rigidity
and a sort of roaring stillness. It was literally a wall of fire.
"Father,&quo=
t;
cried MacIan, once more, "come out of it and save us all!" Turnbu=
ll
was staring at him as he cried.
The tall and stea=
dy
forest of fire must have been already a portent visible to the whole circle=
of
land and sea. The red flush of it lit up the long sides of white ships far =
out
in the German Ocean, and picked out like piercing rubies the windows in the
villages on the distant heights. If any villagers or sailors were looking
towards it they must have seen a strange sight as MacIan cried out for the =
third
time.
That forest of fi=
re
wavered, and was cloven in the centre; and then the whole of one half of it
leaned one way as a cornfield leans all one way under the load of the wind.
Indeed, it looked as if a great wind had sprung up and driven the great fire
aslant. Its smoke was no longer sent up to choke the stars, but was trailed=
and
dragged across county after county like one dreadful banner of defeat.
But it was not the
wind; or, if it was the wind, it was two winds blowing in opposite directio=
ns.
For while one half of the huge fire sloped one way towards the inland heigh=
ts,
the other half, at exactly the same angle, sloped out eastward towards the =
sea.
So that earth and ocean could behold, where there had been a mere fiery mas=
s, a
thing divided like a V--a cloven tongue of flame. But if it were a prodigy =
for those
distant, it was something beyond speech for those quite near. As the echoes=
of
Evan's last appeal rang and died in the universal uproar, the fiery vault o=
ver
his head opened down the middle, and, reeling back in two great golden bill=
ows,
hung on each side as huge and harmless as two sloping hills lie on each sid=
e of
a valley. Down the centre of this trough, or chasm, a little path ran, clea=
red
of all but ashes, and down this little path was walking a little old man
singing as if he were alone in a wood in spring.
When James Turnbu=
ll
saw this he suddenly put out a hand and seemed to support himself on the st=
rong
shoulder of Madeleine Durand. Then after a moment's hesitation he put his o=
ther
hand on the shoulder of MacIan. His blue eyes looked extraordinarily brilli=
ant
and beautiful. In many sceptical papers and magazines afterwards he was sad=
ly
or sternly rebuked for having abandoned the certainties of materialism. All=
his
life up to that moment he had been most honestly certain that materialism w=
as a
fact. But he was unlike the writers in the magazines precisely in this--tha=
t he
preferred a fact even to materialism.
As the little sin=
ging
figure came nearer and nearer, Evan fell on his knees, and after an instant
Beatrice followed; then Madeleine fell on her knees, and after a longer ins=
tant
Turnbull followed. Then the little old man went past them singing down that
corridor of flames. They had not looked at his face.
When he had passed
they looked up. While the first light of the fire had shot east and west,
painting the sides of ships with fire-light or striking red sparks out of
windowed houses, it had not hitherto struck upward, for there was above it =
the
ponderous and rococo cavern of its own monstrous coloured smoke. But now the
fire was turned to left and right like a woman's hair parted in the middle,=
and
now the shafts of its light could shoot up into empty heavens and strike
anything, either bird or cloud. But it struck something that was neither cl=
oud
nor bird. Far, far away up in those huge hollows of space something was fly=
ing swiftly
and shining brightly, something that shone too bright and flew too fast to =
be
any of the fowls of the air, though the red light lit it from underneath li=
ke
the breast of a bird. Everyone knew it was a flying ship, and everyone knew
whose.
As they stared up= ward the little speck of light seemed slightly tilted, and two black dots dropped from the edge of it. All the eager, upturned faces watched the two dots as = they grew bigger and bigger in their downward rush. Then someone screamed, and no one looked up any more. For the two bodies, larger every second flying, spr= ead out and sprawling in the fire-light, were the dead bodies of the two doctors whom Professor Lucifer had carried with him--the weak and sneering Quayle, = the cold and clumsy Hutton. They went with a crash into the thick of the fire.<= o:p>
"They are
gone!" screamed Beatrice, hiding her head. "O God! The are lost!&=
quot;
Evan put his arm
about her, and remembered his own vision.
"No, they are
not lost," he said. "They are saved. He has taken away no souls w=
ith
him, after all."
He looked vaguely
about at the fire that was already fading, and there among the ashes lay two
shining things that had survived the fire, his sword and Turnbull's, fallen
haphazard in the pattern of a cross.