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diff --git a/old/5265.txt b/old/5265.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2cda102 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/5265.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8977 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Ball and The Cross, by G.K. Chesterton + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Ball and The Cross + +Author: G.K. Chesterton + +Release Date: March, 2004 [EBook #5265] +Posting Date: March 24, 2009 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BALL AND THE CROSS *** + + + + +Produced by Ben Crowder + + + + + + + +THE BALL AND THE CROSS + +G.K. Chesterton + + + +CONTENTS + + I. A Discussion Somewhat in the Air + II. The Religion of the Stipendiary Magistrate + III. Some Old Curiosities + IV. A Discussion at Dawn + V. The Peacemaker + VI. The Other Philosopher + VII. The Village of Grassley-in-the-Hole + VIII. An Interlude of Argument + IX. The Strange Lady + X. The Swords Rejoined + XI. A Scandal in the Village + XII. The Desert Island + XIII. The Garden of Peace + XIV. A Museum of Souls + XV. The Dream of MacIan + XVI. The Dream of Turnbull + XVII. The Idiot +XVIII. A Riddle of Faces + XIX. The Last Parley + XX. Dies Irae + + + + +I. A DISCUSSION SOMEWHAT IN THE AIR + +The flying ship of Professor Lucifer sang through the skies like a +silver arrow; the bleak white steel of it, gleaming in the bleak +blue emptiness of the evening. That it was far above the earth was no +expression for it; to the two men in it, it seemed 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 look +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 other 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 have been mistaken for a +tricycle turned upside-down was the inexpressibly important 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, however, 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 back 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 crushing 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 creditable or even glorious circumstance, that the old monk had been +intellectual enough to detect their fallacy; the only misfortune +was that nobody in the modern world was intellectual enough even to +understand their argument. The old monk, 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 said, made himself quite +happy while he was in a mountain hermitage in the society 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 endeavouring 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?" + +"An entertaining 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 that is sacred and merciful. Well, now +you are in the sky, you know better. Phrase 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 alone in the +heavens, surrounded by the heavens. You know the truth, and the truth +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 out 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 will come when you +will all hide in them, to escape the horror of the stars." + +"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 fact 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 study 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 truth 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----" + +"Oh! get on," cried Lucifer, boisterously. + +"Well, in point 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." + +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, could 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 'Lucifer, 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 shining 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 astonished 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 the 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 shock in the fact that there +was no shock. It was as if they had cloven into ancient 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 oblongs 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 the fog on fire. Beside the +ship and beneath it (for it swung just under the ball), the immeasurable +dome itself shot out and down into the dark like a combination of +voiceless cataracts. Or it was like some cyclopean sea-beast sitting +above 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 dark 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 talking about?" + +"Why this," cried Lucifer, smiting the ball again, "here is the only +symbol, my boy. 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 vengeance. What could possibly express your +philosophy and my philosophy better than the shape of that cross and +the shape of this ball? This globe is reasonable; that 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 +globe 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 irreconcilable 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 contradiction in terms." + +"What you say is perfectly true," said Michael, with serenity. "But we +like contradictions in terms. Man is a contradiction in terms; he is a +beast whose 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 with one limb longer than +the rest. I say man is a quadruped who only uses two of his legs." + +The Professor frowned thoughtfully for an instant, and said: "Of +course everything is relative, 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 higher. 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 is 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 fruit should be at the top of the tree, not at the +bottom of it." + +"Oh!" said 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?" + +"It sums up my whole allegory," said the professor. + +"Well, that is really very interesting," resumed Michael slowly, +"because I think 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 would fall down," said the monk, looking wistfully into the +void. + +Lucifer made an angry 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 slowness 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 history 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 said, 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 lived 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 interminable 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 paling 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 and 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 +cross-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 constructed 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 looking at him with a bitten lip. + +"Is that story really true?" he asked. + +"Oh, no," 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 breaking 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 every man his madness. You are mad on the cross. Let it +save you." + +And with a herculean 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 beams of the cross and saved +himself from falling. At the same instant Lucifer drove down a lever and +the ship shot up with him in it alone. + +"Ha! ha!" he yelled, "what sort of a support do you find it, old +fellow?" + +"For practical 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 have 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," 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 jesting 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 fundamental fact of the matter know that +paradox is a thing which belongs not to religion only, but to all vivid +and violent practical crises of human living. This kind 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 all 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 was a happy and healthy old +gentleman and therefore he was quite careless about it. And he felt as +every man feels in the taut moment of such terror that his chief danger +was terror itself; his only possible strength would be a coolness +amounting 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 to 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 escape; if he were wise he would +stop where he was till he dropped from the cross like a stone. And this +antinomy kept on repeating itself in his mind, a contradiction as large +and staring as the immense contradiction of the Cross; 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 fighters, +and hunters, and climbers of cliffs. He knew that even his animal life +could only 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 about philosophical inconsistencies. But such +extreme states are dangerous things to dogmatize about. Frequently they +produce a certain useless and joyless activity 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 again in that damnable darkness there began to grow +a strange dawn as of grey and pale silver. And of this ultimate +resignation or certainty it is even less possible 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 +will 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, indeed, it is good news. It +seems almost as if there were some equality among things, some balance +in all possible contingencies which we are not permitted to know 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 satisfaction 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 continue it. But +six times before he reached the highest of the outer galleries terror +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 whole 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 paused 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 mind 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 float in an endless felicity about the man. He +thought how nice it would be if he had 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 same 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 most +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 distant fashion some remarks that this beautiful solid +man seemed to be making to him; remarks about something or other being +after hours and against orders. He also 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 heaven. + +At length Michael sated himself with the mere sensual music of the voice +of the man in buttons. He began to listen to what he said, and even to +make some attempt at answering a question which appeared to have been +put several times and was now put with 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 were a +malefactor, he began suddenly to speak to him with a sort of eager +and feverish 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 (slight 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 stepped through +it, and the unaccountable man in buttons leapt after him and pinioned +him where he stood. But he only wished to stand; to stand and stare. +He had stepped 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 seraphim, 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 world. Michael felt almost as if he were a god, and all the +voices were hurled at him. + +"No, the pretty 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 serpentine staircase. He had no notion where or at +what level he was. He was still full of the cold splendour of space, +and of what a French writer has brilliantly named the "vertigo of the +infinite," when another door opened, and with a shock indescribable he +found himself on the familiar level, in a street full of faces, with the +houses and even the lamp-posts above his head. He felt suddenly 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 were a thing with which something satisfactory could be done. +He felt the full warmth of that pleasure from which the proud shut +themselves out; the pleasure which not only goes with humiliation, but +which almost is humiliation. Men who have 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 like 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 unendurable 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 dingy 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 very 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 would 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 before I broke the window." + +Michael felt he knew not how. The whole peace of the world was pent up +painfully in his heart. The 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 all. 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 sweet 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 three words he spoke in a voice like a silver trumpet, +held men as still as stones. 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 constable to spare to take care of him?" + +There was a constable to spare. Two other constables attended to the +tall young man in grey; a fourth 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 shall follow him in an ensuing +chapter. And they took the happiest man in the world away to an asylum. + + + + +II. THE RELIGION OF THE STIPENDIARY MAGISTRATE + +The editorial office 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 with 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 +that he hung in conspicuous places the most thrilling scientific +calculations about the width of the throat of a whale. Was it nothing +to them all they that passed by? Did his sudden and splendid and truly +sincere indignation never stir any 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 foot of +it were alike remote from the world. The shop and the Cross were equally +uplifted and alone in the empty heavens. + +To the little man who edited _The Atheist_, a fiery little Scotchman, +with fiery, red hair and beard, 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 said 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 more +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 discouraged Turnbull. The socialists +said he was cursing priests when he should be cursing capitalists. +The artists said that the soul was most spiritual, not when freed from +religion, but when freed from morality. Year after year went by, and at +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 window. + +He was a young man, 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 historic 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 answered 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 +employment, 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 surprised 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 truly graven on their +hearts, was the great and comforting statement that Queen Anne is dead. +This faith was as fundamental as his faith, that Our Lady was alive. 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 them 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 hills; 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 angels 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 nearer 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 remainder +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 and left the stars by accident. + +His private tradition 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 hand 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 son and the +last left alive, had refused to attend on Queen Victoria in Scotland. +And Evan himself had been of one piece with his progenitors; and was not +dead with them, but alive in the twentieth century. He was not in the +least the pathetic 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. After 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 among 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 Folk 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 information accumulated by the author with +that tired clearness of the mind which children have on heavy summer +afternoons--that tired clearness which leads them to go 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 +adventures. 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 named Sho (sometimes pronounced Ji), and +that he was described as being very powerful, a striking similarity to +some expressions about Jahveh, who is also 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 examples 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 read it again and then +again. Then he did understand it. The glass fell in ringing fragments +on to the pavement, and Evan sprang over the barrier into the shop, +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 fight, you crapulous coward. You dirty lunatic, stand up, will +you? Have you any weapons here?" + +"Are you mad?" asked Turnbull, glaring. + +"Are you?" 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 like 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 found himself in the +presence of the police. + +The policemen, after some ponderous questionings, collared both the two +enthusiasts. They were more respectful, however, to the young man who +had smashed the window, than to the miscreant who had had his window +smashed. There was an air of refined mystery about Evan MacIan, which +did not exist in the irate little shopkeeper, an air 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 Vane, 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, sentimental 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 +husbands. 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 treated serious crimes against mere order or property +with a humane flippancy. Hence, 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 +generally 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 and 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," said the magistrate, angrily, "it is most undesirable that +things of that sort should be spoken about--a--in public, and in an +ordinary Court of Justice. 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--well, 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 are not," said Evan, "but I am." + +"We are wondering from the point," said the police magistrate, pulling +himself together. + +"May I ask why you smashed this worthy citizen's window?" + +Evan turned a little 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 impress me. The most religious people are +not those who talk about it. (Applause.) You answer the questions and do +nothing else." + +"I did nothing else," said Evan, with a slight smile. + +"Eh," cried 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 have no other answer." Vane continued to gaze at him with a sternness +not habitual to him. + +"You are not going the right way to work, Sir," he said, with severity. +"You are 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 not 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 because their opinions do not agree with yours? This man only +gave expression to his sincere belief." + +"So did I," 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 broke into a contemptuous laugh. + +"Oh, you want a nurse to look after you," he said. "You must pay L10." + +Evan MacIan plunged 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 +any brute superiority. I will fight him like a gentleman; I will fight +him as our 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 said 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 of 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 homely, +because in the heart of it there is a home; to me this cruel world is +kindly, 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 devil 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 recovered his voice and his presence of mind. The first +part of the speech, the bombastic 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 bind 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 +voice of Turnbull himself clove in for the first time. + +"Might I suggest," he said, "That I, your worship, can settle to some +extent 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 police 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 takes 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 fight a man +in Fleet Street, about whether the Virgin Mary had a parallel in +Mesopotamian 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 satisfied that there will be no duel with me in it." + +Mr. Cumberland Vane 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 should 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 punishment 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 modern world regarded +his world as a bubble. No cruelty could have shown it, but their +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 eyes 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 guessed 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 boiled them, and did they ever deny +their faith? Do you think we don't want to fight? Night and day I have +prayed--I have longed--for an atheist revolution--I have longed to see +your blood and ours on the streets. Let it be yours or mine?" + +"But you said..." began MacIan. + +"I know," 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 coppers for half a decade. If you wanted to fight, why +did you tell that ass you wanted 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 shall 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 the Blessed Lady you have blasphemed; I swear it +by the seven swords in her heart. I swear it by the Holy Island where my +fathers are, by the honour of my mother, 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." + + + + +III. SOME OLD CURIOSITIES + +The evening sky, a dome of solid gold, unflaked even by a single sunset +cloud, steeped the meanest sights of London in a strange and mellow +light. It made a little greasy street 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 Piety 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 pawnshop 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 front +window had a glimmer of bronze and blue steel, lit, as by a few stars, +by the sparks of what were alleged to be jewels; for it was in brief, +a shop of bric-a-brac 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 the 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 +door that opened on the street and a back door that opened on an odd +green square 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 place. + +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 been 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 tests 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 called +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 already 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 were in his shop that evening could +come upon no trace of a Scotch accent. + +These two Scotchmen in this shop were careful purchasers, but +free-handed payers. One of them who 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 much in the background in +comparison that he looked almost ghostly in his grey cloak or plaid, a +tall, sallow, silent young man. + +The two Scotchmen were interested in seventeenth-century swords. They +were fastidious about them. 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 purposes, seems carrying +realism rather far. + +"These will do," said the strange person with the red beard. "And +perhaps I had better pay for them at once. And as you are the +challenger, Mr. MacIan, perhaps you had better explain the situation." + +The tall Scotchman 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 sense 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 recovered 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, what 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--yes," said Gordon. + +"And don't you 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 you 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 hard 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," 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 say, or I kill you where you stand." + +The man was too frightened to scream, but he struggled wildly, while +Evan MacIan, whose long, 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 nothing 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 thing on the floor. + +"And now," said Turnbull, twirling his fiery moustache and fingering his +sword, "let us go into the garden. What an exquisite summer evening!" + +MacIan said nothing, but lifting his sword from the counter went out +into the sun. + +The brilliant light 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 which 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 +standards of the Saracens." + +"Jerusalem!" 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 together with a clear sound like a bell. The instant +the blades touched, each felt them tingle to their very points with a +personal vitality, as if they were two naked 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 lunged +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 Turnbull 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 dark 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 shade the better fencer of the two, he +found the other's point pass his face twice 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 sanity 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 machine. +Whenever Turnbull's sword sought to go over that other mere white streak +it seemed to 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 sound of the struggle there broke +into the silent evening a bellowing human voice, nasal, raucous, at the +highest pitch of pain. "Help! Help! Police! Murder! Murder!" The gag was +broken; and the tongue of terror was loose. + +"Keep on!" 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 swords but all other noises around it, but even through +its rending din there seemed 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 atheist, with his grey eyes at their +widest and wildest, was staring straight over his shoulder at the little +archway of shop that opened on the street beyond. And he saw the archway +blocked and blackened with strange figures. + +"We must bolt, MacIan," he said abruptly. "And there isn't a damned +second to lose either. Do as I do." + +With a bound he was 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 sword 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 thoroughfare that they could see the vague masses of vehicles +going by, and could even see 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 +indifference 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. Might 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: "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 St. 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 pavement), 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 doors, 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 it, but he was still suspicious and began: + +"Very sorry, sir, but..." and with that the catlike Turnbull tore him +out of his seat 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 bugle. "And get inside with the swords." + +And just as the red 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 through seven streets and three or four squares before +anything further happened. Then, 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 have 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." + +MacIan leant his white and rather weary face back upon the cushions in +order to speak up through the open door. + +"Mr. Turnbull," he said, "I have nothing to add to what I have said +before. 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 vastness 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 felt 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 your 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 +angry with bad men. But a good man in the wrong--why one thirsts for his +blood. Yes, you open for me a vista of thought." + +"Don't run into anything," said Evan, immovably. + +"There's something in that view of yours, too," said Turnbull, and shut +down the trap. + +They sped on through 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 twist 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 remember +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 Evan 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 settled +that in the conventional language honour is not satisfied. Our action +must at least go further than it has gone under recent interrupted +conditions. That, I believe, is understood." + +"Perfectly," replied the other with his bootlace in his teeth. + +"Under those conditions," continued Turnbull, his voice coming through +the hole with 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 you 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 oddest and most exact sense of the term, brothers--in arms." + +"Mr. MacIan," replied Turnbull, calmly, "no more need be said." And 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." + +"Thank you," answered Evan. "You are very kind." And he began to smoke +in the cab. + + + + +IV. A DISCUSSION AT DAWN + +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 happen badly, +should happen successfully or happen unsuccessfully, should happen to +the advantage of this party or the advantage of that part, but whose +interest simply is that things should happen. + +It is the one great weakness of journalism as a picture of our modern +existence, that it must be 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 that 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 the +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 not 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 the religious fanatic who broke a window on Ludgate Hill +was alone enough to set 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 were 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 correspondence afterwards which +lasted for months, about whether police magistrates ought to mention +religion. The _Daily Mail_ in its dull, sensible way, headed the events, +"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 for 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 blood, prospectively, and were +in the mood for more; everything in the matter prepared 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 two heroes +of the Police Court had literally been found fighting in a London back +garden, with a shopkeeper bound and gagged in the front of the house, +the editors and 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 blossoms 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 began, "There will +be little difference among our readers or among all truly English and +law-abiding men touching the, etc. etc." The _Daily Mail_ said, "People +must learn, in the modern world, to keep their theological differences +to themselves. The fracas, etc. etc." The _Daily News_ started, "Nothing +could be more inimical to the cause of true religion than, etc. 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 goloshes. + +And the morning after that, the editors and the newspapers were in such +a state, that, as the phrase 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 monstrous and omnipresent, +as do in our time the unimportant doings of the sect of the +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 Highland +costume. And a song, consisting of an unimaginable number of verses, +in which his name was rhymed with flat iron, the British Lion, sly 'un, +dandelion, Spion (With Kop in the next line), was sung to crowded houses +every night. The papers 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, Epping Forest, Westminster Abbey, rolled up +in carpets at Shoolbreds, locked up in safes in Chancery Lane. Yes, the +papers were very interesting, and Mr. Turnbull 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 the east had been broken with a bar of grey; the bar +of grey was split with a sword 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 and it lay at their +feet, the splendid monstrosity that it is. Its bewildering squares and +parallelograms were compact and perfect as a Chinese puzzle; an enormous +hieroglyphic which man must decipher or die. There fell upon both of +them, but upon Turnbull more than the other, because he know more what +the scene signified, that quite indescribable sense as of a sublime and +passionate and heart-moving futility, 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 applied to anything other than +the best. Turnbull, the old idealistic democrat, had so often reviled +the democracy and reviled them justly for their supineness, their +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 they are. Their achievement seemed all the more heroic +and divine, because it seemed 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 common and incredible London +man, this workman on a tram in Battersea, his clerk on 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, but there was that about his blind and +mystical stare that told one, so to speak, 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 householders coming out +into their doorways. + +"Yes," he said, with a sort of stupidity. "It's a very big place." + +There was a somewhat 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, and 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 land 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 collected, in various places, for their flight, were +strewn indiscriminately round them. The two swords with which they had +lately sought each other's lives were flung 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 disorder +finally, there were strewn on top of everything, the most disorderly +of modern things, 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 pipe. + +"There's a lot about us," he said. "Do you mind if I light up?" + +"Why should I mind?" asked MacIan. + +Turnbull eyed with 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 first time, perhaps, for many generations, the English are +really more angry about 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 said 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, like 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 those 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 but the Dreyfus +case. Oh, I know it's funny. They let starving children, who don'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 army and navy to prevent them. For half a year or more, you +and I, Mr. MacIan, will 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 Home Rule, or complains of sky signs. +Therefore, do not imagine, in your innocence, that we have only to melt +away among those English hills as a Highland cateran 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 under the stars as if we were in Africa. Last and most +important we must not dream 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 +will prevent the duel, if it is only by locking us both up in asylums +for the rest of our days." + +MacIan was looking 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 your 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 rate. We have provisions for at +least two days and two nights, three days if we do it carefully. We may +be able to get fifty or sixty miles away without even walking into an +inn door. I have the biscuits and the tinned meat, and the milk. You +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 earth is the matter?" asked Turnbull, staring in some anger. + +Evan made no reply. + +"What the deuce 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 voice, "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 devil are you talking about?" asked Turnbull. + +MacIan broke out with a queer and living voice. + +"We must fight 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 confounded fool," repeated Turnbull. "Put that thing up again, +you ass; people will come out of that house at the first clash of the +steel." + +"One of us will be dead before they come," said the other, hoarsely, +"for this is the hour God meant." + +"Well, I never thought much of God," said the editor of _The Atheist_, +losing all patience. "And I think less now. Never mind what God meant. +Kindly enlighten my pagan darkness as to what the devil _you_ mean." + +"The hour will 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 have begun to like you." + +Turnbull's face had a sudden spasm in the sunlight, a change so +instantaneous that it left no trace 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 misunderstand something that he +understood perfectly well. + +"Your affection 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 well 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 contemptuous 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 what I mean. You mean the same yourself. We must fight now or +else----" + +"Or else?" 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, just now," continued Turnbull, presently, "that if we did not +fight now, 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 been weak, justice had not been done." + +"Justice," answered Turnbull, with a thoughtful smile, "but we are +talking about your feelings. And what do you mean by justice, apart from +your feelings?" + +MacIan made a gesture of weary recognition! "Oh, Nominalism," he said, +with a sort of sigh, "we had all that out in the twelfth century." + +"I wish we could 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 thought 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," said Evan, thoughtfully, "I do not say that. It may not be the +devil, it may 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 outside 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 trust 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," 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 time 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 something 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." + +Turnbull's face wore 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 each 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 moment Turnbull suddenly and calmly dropped his +sword. Evan stared round in an unusual bewilderment, and then realized +that a large man in pale clothes and a Panama hat was strolling serenely +towards them. + + + + +V. THE PEACEMAKER + +When the combatants, 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 altered it instantaneously and recovered +their original pose, but they had both made it, they had both seen it, +and they both knew what it was. It was not a movement 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 +pitilessly 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 that 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 you'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 beard 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 was +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 even 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 was 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 out of so heavy and hearty a type of man was, as I +have said, startlingly shrill and deferential. + +"I'm sure you'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 young, 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 duelling, 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 tell 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 Roman Catholics?" + +"No," said 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 wandering 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," said MacIan, speaking for the first time. + +"Well, really, really!" said the peacemaker. + +"Murder is a sin," said the immovable Highlander. "There is no sin of +bloodshed." + +"Well, we won't quarrel about a word," said the other, pleasantly. + +"Why on earth not?" said MacIan, with a sudden asperity. "Why shouldn't +we quarrel 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 argue 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 +difference 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 violent 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 +shown 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 against my principles to call in the police against +you, because the police are still on a lower moral plane, so to speak, +because, in short, the police undoubtedly sometimes employ force. +Tolstoy has shown that violence merely breeds violence in the person +towards whom it is used, whereas Love, on the other hand, breeds 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 word 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 police. Mr. MacIan, shall we engage?" MacIan plucked his sword +out of the grass. + +"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 loved 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 know 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 it 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 guard. Turnbull was busy settling something loose in his +elaborate hilt, and the pause was broken by the stranger. + +"Suppose I call the police?" he said, with a heated face. + +"And deny your 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 being 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 and clear out!" + +"It's a serious 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 the trees, they heard him murmuring in a sing-song +voice, "New occasions teach new duties," out of a poem by James Russell +Lowell. + +"Ah," said MacIan, drawing a deep breath. "Don't you believe in prayer +now? I prayed 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 would send an angel to my aid." + +"Well?" inquired the other, finishing his mending and wrapping the rest +of the string round his hand to get a firmer grip. + +"Well?" + +"Well, that man was an angel," said MacIan. + +"I didn't know 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 abyss 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 +fighting, and you will become like That. Give up vows and dogmas, and +fixed things, and 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 magnet of a mad sword. Suddenly, furious +as they were, they were frozen for a moment 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, quietly. "The police are coming up the hill." + + + + +VI. THE OTHER PHILOSOPHER + +Between high hedges 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 steady 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 deep 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 the evening's stillness over the empty +country-side, and these two figures fleeing 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 easily, 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 you 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. They will look like your friend, Cardinal Manning." + +"But they won'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 head 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 put the mounted police on us," said Turnbull, shortly. "Good +Lord, one would 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 might 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 goblins. + +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 enormous 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 wholly 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, which was still practical but a shade more +quiet. + +"Do you see that summer-house-looking thing over there?" he asked +shortly. "That will do for us very well." + +Keeping himself free from the tangle of the hedge he strolled across +a triangle of obscure kitchen garden, and approached a dismal shed or +lodge a yard or two beyond it. It was 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 quite 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 echo of their eluded pursuers had died in the distant +uplands, Turnbull began to unpack 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 broken. And it was broken +by three heavy blows of a stick delivered upon the door. + +Turnbull looked up in the act of opening a tin and stared silently at +his companion. MacIan's long, lean mouth had shut hard. + +"Who the devil 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 and on consideration did not resemble the ordinary +effects of knocking on a door for 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 picked up a sword as he stepped to open it. + +He paused one moment 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 heraldic 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 big that the two ends showed on each +side of his neck like unnatural stunted wings. 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 reference 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 cane defensively. + +"Let me see," said Turnbull, looking round to MacIan with the same +blandness. "Who are we?" + +"Come out," screamed the little man with the stick. + +"Certainly," 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 tolerably 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," said the man, indignantly, "I'm in my own garden." + +"Oh," said MacIan, simply, "I apologize." + +Turnbull was coolly 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," said MacIan. "We were just going to fight." + +"To fight!" repeated the man. + +"We had better tell this gentleman the whole business," broke in +Turnbull. Then turning to the stranger he said firmly, "I am sorry, sir, +but we have something to do that must be done. And I may as well tell +you at the beginning and to avoid 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 had a dawning expression of understanding and stooped and +picked up the unused bottle of wine, eyeing it curiously. + +Turnbull continued: + +"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 forced 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 essential 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 think 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 Christian persecutions. If you like, we are attempting +a mutual martyrdom. The papers have posted up every town against us. +Scotland Yard has fortified every police station with our enemies; we +are driven therefore to the edge of a lonely lane, and indirectly to +taking liberties with your summer-house in order to arrange 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 slung 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 best Beaune within fifty miles of here. Come up. You're the very +men I wanted to see." + +Even Turnbull, with his typical invulnerability, was a little taken +aback by this boisterous and almost brutal hospitality. + +"Why...sir..." he began. + +"Come up! Come 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 choice 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 see 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 ferrule 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 +door?" + +The little man stared an instant and then said: "Yes," and Turnbull +broke into a guffaw. + +"Come on!" cried the little man, tucking his stick under his arm and +taking quite suddenly 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 tradition 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!" 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 that 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 all the energies of +the West. The ornaments that shone and shimmered on every side of them +were subtly mixed from many periods and lands, but were all oriental. +Cruel Assyrian bas-reliefs ran along the sides of the passage; cruel +Turkish swords 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 and 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 will probably die tomorrow. Make arrangements, +please." + +The negro bowed and 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 heavy. 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, which could be heard +through the open window. A moment or two later he leapt to his feet and +came out into the sunlight, still munching toast, his own sword stuck +under his arm like a walking-stick. + +Their eccentric host 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 house, and they waited for his +emergence, stamping the garden in silence--the garden of tall, fresh +country flowers, in the midst of which the monstrous South Sea 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 start, 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 saint in a trance or +ecstasy. Yet when Turnbull's tread broke a twig, he was on his 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 +knee. Let us go on to the lawn behind." + +And he ducked rapidly round the statue to an open space of grass on the +other side of it. + +"This will do us best, Mr. MacIan," said he. Then he made a gesture +towards the heavy stone 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 with 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 +think that this blank thing is his real face, watching, though it cannot +be watched. He! he! Yes, I think he looks nice from behind. He looks +more cruel from behind, don't you think?" + +"What the devil is the thing?" asked Turnbull gruffly. + +"It is the only Thing there is," answered the other. "It is Force." + +"Oh!" said 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. Perhaps 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 altar. Only rabbits and cats, +sometimes." + +In the stillness MacIan made a sudden movement, unmeaning apparently, +and then remained rigid. + +"But today, today," continued the small man in a shrill voice. "Today +his hour is come. Today his will is done on earth as it is in heaven. +Men, men, men will bleed before 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 seemed 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 are 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 that 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 that 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 Wimpey. 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. They 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 temple 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 fact. 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 that +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 sword 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. + +The little man turned 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 Wimpey, with blazing eyes. + +Wimpey staggered back a few paces like a man struggling with his own +limbs. Then he felt the furious Scotchman coming at him like an express +train, doubling his size every second, with eyes as big as windows and +a sword as bright as the sun. Something broke 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 the 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. The 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 they ran, kept up a cheery +bellowing and waved their swords. Up three slanting meadows, 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 waded disconsolately to the other side +and drew himself on to the bank. And Turnbull 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 face of MacIan, +and unholy sounds came from within. He had never practised laughing, 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 kind 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 talking. They kill wild animals in +the wild woods, but they don't kill cats to the God of Victory. They +don't----" He broke off and suddenly spat on the ground. + +"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 agreed with all that." + +"With all that about doing as one likes, and the individual, and Nature +loving the strongest, and all the things which that cockroach talked +about." + +Turnbull's big blue-grey eyes stood open with a grave astonishment. + +"Do you really 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 mean 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 chased an Oxford Fellow across five meadows--all under the +impression that I am such 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 round quite suddenly, and set off towards the village. + +"Come along," he cried. "Come down to the village. Come down to the +nearest decent inhabitable pub. This is a case for beer." + +"I do not quite 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 thought 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-Hole was a rude parallelogram of buildings, with two +thoroughfares which might have 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 parallelogram 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 public house, a sweetstuff +shop, a very small public house, and an illegible signpost. 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 lay a little above and beyond the village, with a +square grey tower dominating it decisively. + +But even the church 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 insisted 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 +solemnity 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 long 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," said Turnbull, lifting his tankard, "the fool who wanted us to +be friends 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 understand, 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 not merely that I do not believe that nature can guide us. +It is that I do not believe that nature exists." + +"Exists?" said MacIan in his monotonous way, settling his pewter pot on +the table. + +"Yes, in a real sense nature does not exist. I mean that nobody can +discover what the original 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 interfering 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." + +"And in the same way," said MacIan almost dreamily, "the superhuman, the +supernatural 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 +case of the supernatural is simple. The supernatural does not exist." + +"Quite so," said MacIan in a rather dull voice; "you said the same about +the natural. If the natural does not exist the supernatural obviously +can't." And he yawned a little over his ale. + +Turnbull turned for some reason a little red and remarked quickly, "That +may be jolly clever, 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----" + +"You would bump 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 suddenly and strangely cool. + +"Turnbull," 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 for 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 difference 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, but 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 the 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 difference was that a man's will was special and divine. A man's +free will, I heard, was supernatural." + +"Rubbish!" said Turnbull. + +"Oh," said MacIan patiently, "then if a man's free will isn't +supernatural, why do your materialists deny that it exists?" + +Turnbull was silent for a moment. Then he began to speak, but MacIan +continued with the same steady voice and sad eyes: + +"So what I feel 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," said MacIan grimly; "that man who talked about love, for +instance." + +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 learnt 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 local, 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 along the dim village road, down which the last straggler +from the inn was trailing his way. + +"What you say 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 like the distinction between the human and the divine, or +the human and the animal. It was more like the distinction between one +animal and another. But----" + +"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," 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 +dawn; 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 compared 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 facts 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 into a kind of laugh. "Ask that intoxicated +turnip-eater----" he began. + +"Yes--which of us is right," cried MacIan violently. "Oh, you have long +words and I have long words; and I talk of every man being the image of +God; and you talk 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 catch him up." + +And in gigantic strides the long, lean Highlander whirled away into the +grey twilight, Turnbull 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 some unspecified King William, who (it +appeared) lived in London town and who after 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 quite 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 elderly 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 greeting 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!" 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 sufficient. MacIan resumed in some encouragement: + +"You think as I do, I hope; you think that a man should be connected +with the Church; with the common Christian----" + +The old man extended a quivering stick in the direction of a distant +hill. + +"There's the church," he said thickly. "Grassley old church that is. +Pulled down it was, in the old squire's time, and----" + +"I mean," explained MacIan elaborately, "that you think that there +should be someone typifying religion, a priest----" + +"Priests!" 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," 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 want, 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 want 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," 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 sword. "And you have kept close to something the whole world of today +tries to forget." + +"Good night." + +And the old man went 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 even 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 Turnbull and MacIan came out of a low, scrubby wood +on to the empty and desolate flats. They had walked all night. + +They had walked all night and talked all night also, and if the subject +had been capable of being 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 coldness 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. And 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 always be absorbed from the +presence and the phrases of any man of great mental vitality. He had at +last begun thoroughly to understand what are the grounds upon which 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 heretics 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 heretics invented a complete cosmos of his own +which the next heretic smashed entirely 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 Nestorius, 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 ignore 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 you 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 any +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 farthest. 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 accumulations of authority. They may be progressing uphill and +down; they may be growing steadily better or steadily worse; but they +have steadily increased in certain 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; +"and no doubt the first owes a great deal to the second." + +"If you pressed 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 notions of the Church as the persecutor of +science was a generalization from Galileo. 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 great 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 +continually 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 the calculations of physical science, their net result can be tested. +Granted that 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 cannot see the supreme virtue which is the result +of all your theologies and sacraments." + +"Catholic virtue 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 artistic. 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, when it is really beyond the +times; it is waiting till the last fad shall have seen 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 you 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, whether he is an M.D.--anything but +that. When a soldier enlists to die for his country 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 creed +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 because 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 Pagans 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 tell you. The Church +is the only thing on earth that can perpetuate a type of virtue and make +it something more than a fashion. The thing is so plain and historical +that I hardly think you will ever deny it. You cannot deny that it is +perfectly 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 Assisi. 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 stand still here in this meadow +and _be_ an English gentleman of Elizabeth? The austere republican of +the eighteenth century, with his stern patriotism and his simple 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 +revolutionary 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 instant 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 proletarian 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 last? +Empires break; industrial conditions change; the suburbs will not last +for ever. What 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 admired +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 kind. 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 longer a mere piece +of floating poetry. But if you, and a few feverish men, in top hats, +running about in a street in London, choose to differ as to the ideal +itself, 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 whole legend and tradition of Europe, from the +lion who will not touch virgins, from 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 +canvass and consider the idea; but having considered it, I think Fleet +Street is right, 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 have to be represented by some ruder symbol. +Every man feels the need of some element 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 atmosphere in which +a man can be so passionate as Sir Lancelot and as pure as Sir +Galahad. 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," replied MacIan with a singular smile. "It has been very well +put by one 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 thing, 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 these 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. + + + + +IX. THE STRANGE LADY + +Moonrise with a great 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 companions trudged across the moonlit plain +for half an hour in full silence. Then MacIan stopped suddenly and +planted his sword-point in the ground like one who plants 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 you're thinking the same as I am," he said; "how long are we +to be on this 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 what I meant," said MacIan, and stared steadily at the heavy +hilt of his standing sword, which in the slight wind swayed on its +tempered steel like some huge thistle on its stalk. + +"That is what 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 Elijah, 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 sign 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. + +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 shone in the moon. + +As old chess-players open every game with established gambits, they +opened with a thrust and parry, 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 his 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 cry was repeated. This time it was +certain that it was human and that it was female. + +MacIan stood rolling 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 rather 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 over 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 when you scampered over it; and Turnbull +was twice nearly flung on his face. MacIan, 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 the road. A somewhat larger light-green +motor-car was tipped half-way into a ditch 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 bolt 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 mass of warm brown hair went out in two +wings or waves on each side of her forehead; and even at that distance +it could be seen that her profile was of the aquiline 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 world 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 irrelevant 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 +instinct and dilemmas with a glance; he saw the crux of the situation in +the road, and 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 common ruffian (such as attacks ladies +in novels) is ever so savage and ruthless as 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 novelty to the poor +ruffian as it is to the rich. When they came within hail and heard the +voices, they confirmed all Turnbull's anticipations. The man in the +middle 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, and 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 almost senile laughter. + +By the time the two champions came up, things had grown more serious. +The intoxication of the man talking to the chauffeur had taken one of +its perverse and catlike jumps into mere screaming spite and rage. He +lifted his stick and struck at the chauffeur, 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, kicked him as he +lay. The drunkard got to his feet again; but the chauffeur did not. + +The man who had kicked kept a kind of half-witted conscience or +cowardice, for he stood staring at the senseless body and murmuring +words of inconsequent self-justification, 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, +continued 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, turned 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 enemy from behind. The whole +had not taken a second; and an instant after MacIan was in the midst of +them. + +Turnbull had tossed 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 more 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 the +revellers picked the stick out of the ditch and ran in upon MacIan, +calling to his companion to assist him. + +"I haven't got a stick," grumbled the disarmed man, and looked vaguely +about the ditch. + +"Perhaps," said MacIan, politely, "you would like this one." With the +word the drunkard found his hand that had grasped the stick suddenly +twisted and empty; and the stick lay at the feet of his companion on the +other side of the road. 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 back of the car and talking with +melodious rationality. + +At length Turnbull's opponent began to back before the battery of his +heavy hands, still fighting, 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 in a loop of grass and he +went over in a flat and comfortable position from which 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 enemies +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 struggling 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 car 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. The white moonlight on the road, when he +was not looking at it, gave him a vision 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 +overwhelming 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 back 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 instantaneous arrest of speech +might need more explaining; but she may well have been stunned with +the squalid attack and the abrupt rescue. Yet it was she who remembered +herself first and suddenly called out with self-accusing horror: + +"Oh, that poor, poor man!" + +They both swung round 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 think you ought to drive home alone, ma'am," he said, gruffly. +"There seem to be a lot of rowdy parties along this road, and the man +will be no use for 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 disturbed. 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 the car; but the girl cast an eye at MacIan, who +stood in the road for an instant as if rooted like a tree. Then he also +tumbled his long legs into the tonneau, 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 world. 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 heard. 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 feelings, 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 seemed 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 +indescribable made him also relapse into silence. + +All this time MacIan had been in a sort of monstrous delirium, like some +fabulous hero snatched up into 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 the least as if he were +dreaming; rather the other way; as waking was more actual than dreaming, +so this seemed by another degree more actual than waking itself. But it +was another life altogether, like a cosmos with a new dimension. + +He felt he had been hurled into some new incarnation: into the midst +of new relations, wrongs and 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 visible facts, +as a curtain hangs on four of five fixed nails. The fact that the lady +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 only the brown hair of her head but the black +fur on her cap. All these facts were to him certain and incredible, like +sacraments. + +When they had driven 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 moonlight picked out a piece or two of pewter +ornament on his blue uniform; and as they 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) stung her for the first time into speech. + +"What can they 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 driving nobly," said MacIan, and his words (which had no +meaning whatever) sounded hoarse and ungainly even in his own ears. + +They passed the next 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." + +MacIan sat motionless for a few moments and then turned up at his +companion a face that was as white 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 should you--no, I must tell her, of course----" + +And he leant forward 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 person 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 furry black cap did not turn by a section of +the compass. + +"We are chased 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," began MacIan, again blunderingly, "this gentleman wrote in +his newspaper that Our Lady was a common woman, a bad woman, and so we +agreed to fight; and we were fighting quite a little time ago--but that +was before we saw you." + +The young lady driving her car had half turned her face to listen; and +it was not a reverent 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 that 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," said the stumbling spokesman, "I was angry with him when he +insulted the 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 lips 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 not 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 passion, 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 right. My uncle was a Swedenborgian." + +MacIan sat with bowed head, listening hungrily to her voice but hardly +to her words, and seeing his 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 rather 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 +demonstration"; 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." +And she sighed again. + +She drove in silence 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 chauffeur had been forced to bring the car to a staggering +stoppage, for a file of fat, 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 gentlemen 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, not 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 Adult 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. "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 anyone in the company of a great lady; to refuse one +of her minor requests was quite 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 that, after so many half duels, they were +now to surrender at last. MacIan, the blood thundering in his brain +at the thought of that instant of farewell, bent over, 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 young 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 over 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 they +could see the sergeant furiously making notes. + +The open door, still left loose on its hinges, swung and banged quite +crazily as they went whizzing 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 black 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 villages, 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 secrets which they left behind them +with their dust. Sometimes even a slouching rustic 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 the door he had +flung open flapped loose like a flag. Turnbull, after a few minutes 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 when 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 seemed as dark +as ever; then they saw the black shape of a tower or tree against it and +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 +direction; but Turnbull, who had spent a year on the Hampshire coast in +his youth, began to recognize the unmistakable but quite indescribable +villages of the English 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. + + + + +X. THE SWORDS REJOINED + +As they came over the hill and down on the other side of it, it is not +too much to say that the whole 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 bottom 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 sunrise opened +above them like some cosmic explosion, shining and shattering and yet +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 blue 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 down at this rate we shall be over the sea cliff," he said. + +"How glorious!" said MacIan. + +When, however, they 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 of a few trees, and quietly, yet +astonishingly, stopped. A belated light was burning 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 the sun. + +Evan seemed startled by the stillness, like one who had been born amid +sound and speed. He wavered 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 opened 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 leave 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 that 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 into 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 silence and the sunrise had their healing effect, for when +the extraordinary lady spoke 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 those men." + +"But why?" 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, though 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 want 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 pause, 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 way 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----" + +"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 concern 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 rolled his eyes in masculine bewilderment. Then came +the final change in this Proteus, and she put out both her hands for an +instant and said in a low tone on which 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 that 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 hers 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 restless with this rigidity, and at last, +after calling his companion twice or thrice, 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 unclean thing nor the +dread of a dangerous one, but was a spasm of awe and separation from +something from which he was now sundered as by the sword of God. He did +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 air; 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 God'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, even with your blow upon her cheek. But the +honour of this earth has just this about it, that it can make a man's +heart like iron. I am from the Lords of the Isles 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 +foremost." + +"She wants us 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 sleep and all her habits and dignity flung away on the +other side of England in the 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 seem as if we ought to do something after all she has done this +night." + +"I never liked 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 chauffeur to his room. The mere sight of them +made the two wanderers flee as from a too 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 which he would be likely or +qualified to answer. But no answer came; a silence sank 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 the 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 made 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 where everything being innocent will be +intelligible; a world where even our bodies, 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 brittle; 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 cut out of some strange blood-red celestial metal, of +which the mere gold of this 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 along 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 feet 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 easily 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 which grew greener, redder, or more golden, in the +growing sunlight of the morning. Life, too, of the more moving sort rose +at the sun on every side of them. Birds 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 were 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, according +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 upon 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 had a pause too important +for speech. Turnbull eyed the coast curiously for a moment, 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 the 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 stood 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, enclosed 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 if 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 had 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 incredible 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 and +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 that he could write whole books about the feelings of a +single bird. He felt that for 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 recovered himself, and remembered his +affairs. Both men saluted, and iron rang upon iron. It was exactly +at the same moment that he realized that his enemy's left ankle 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 again 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 and 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 noticed it," said Turnbull with equal sobriety. "What view do +you take of the development?" + +Evan threw away his 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 now 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," 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 extraordinary childish ecstasy. "Oh, I'm sure that you really believe +in God!" + +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 noisy 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 court of death and that all +the gates were sealed. + +He drank in the last green and the last red and the last gold, those +unique and indescribable things 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 foam flowed over their knees. + +Then MacIan stepped 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 deuce do you mean?" asked the other, staring. + +"I've only just 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 oblige 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, shaving his shoulder by a hair. By this time the +waves were well up Turnbull's thigh, and what was worse, they were +beginning to roll and break heavily around them. + +MacIan parried this 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 him heavily +like a hammer of water. One leg gave way, he was swung round and sucked +into the retreating sea, still gripping his sword. + +MacIan put his sword between his teeth and plunged after his +disappearing enemy. He had the sense of having the whole universe on top +of him as crest after crest struck him down. 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 leg 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 merely 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, caught hold of the bow. The boat pitched +forward with its stern in the air for just 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 being +drowned. After ten minutes' aimless tossing in the empty fishing-boat he +recovered, 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 had 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 night 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. But +it was piercingly cold, and there was, from time to time, a splutter of +rain like 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 outfit the brandy alone had remained to him, +and he gave it to his freezing companion 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 Highlander began to pull really hard upon the oars, Turnbull +craned his dripping red head 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 bank of shingle, made of loose little +pebbles such as children like, but slanting 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 watery dawn +crawling up behind it, the fence really seemed to say to our philosophic +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 when 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 breakwater 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 come within hail of human fields or roads; nor had +they any notion of what fields or roads they would be. Their boots were +beginning to break up and the confusion of stones tried them severely, +so that they were glad to lean on their swords, 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 such lyrical meditations, but he was in an even worse +temper. + +At length they came to a pale ribbon of road, edged by a shelf of rough +and almost colourless turf; and a few feet up the slope there stood +grey and weather-stained, one of those big wayside crucifixes which are +seldom seen except in Catholic countries. + +MacIan put his hand to his head and found that his bonnet was not there. +Turnbull gave one glance 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 MacIan in his attitude of prayer, Turnbull began to look +right and left very sharply, 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 hedge 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 months, 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!" 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, like 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. Look 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!" repeated MacIan, and his eyes awoke again in his head like +large lamps lighted. + +"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 +been in rebellion for liberty and reason. France, that has always +assailed superstition 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," said 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 march of Catholicism, as brain after +brain surrenders to it, Brunetiere, Coppee, Hauptmann, Barres, Bourget, +Lemaitre." + +"France!" 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," said MacIan, "which is one cataract of clear faith from St. +Louis to Our 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, where reason and religion clash in one continual tournament. +France, above all, where men understand the pride and passion which have +plucked our blades from their 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 even 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 afterwards the two bright, blood-thirsty weapons made the sign +of the cross in horrible parody upon each other. + +They had not touched 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 appeared 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 had 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 +policeman. + +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 of a stout constable out of Clapham on top of a +dreary and deserted hill in France. 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 one 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 cause. When he saw it, cool as he was, he staggered +back. + +"What the devil are you doing here?" he called out in a high, shrill +voice of authority, like one who finds a tramp in his own larder. + +"Well, sir," said the sergeant in command, with that sort of heavy +civility shown only to the evidently guilty, "seems to me we might ask +what are you doing here?" + +"We are having an affair of honour," said Turnbull, as if it were +the most rational thing in the world. "If the French police like to +interfere, let them interfere. 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 heard that they were spry enough in their own way." + +"Well, sir," said the sergeant reflectively, "you see, sir, the French +police 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," 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 say may be used against you at your +trial." + +"Quite so," 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 MacIan 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 found 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 found +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 seeing Turnbull's trick, ran along the edge of the +road after him. Then MacIan finally 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 impetus 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 high breakwater farther on upon the beach, turned +sharply, and scrambled up a line of ribbed rocks, crowned with a +thicket, crawled through it, scratching their hands and faces, and +dropped into another road; and there found that they could 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 another 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 appeared 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 behind, 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," 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 VILLAGE + +In the little hamlet of Haroc, in the Isle of St. Loup, there lived a +man who--though living under 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 him 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 John Bull's. He +was by name Pierre Durand; he was by trade a wine merchant; he was by +politics a conservative republican; he had been brought up a Catholic, +had always thought and acted as an agnostic, and was very mildly +returning to the Church in his later years. He had a genius (if one can +even use so wild a word in connexion with so tame a person) a genius for +saying the conventional thing 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 faintest 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 reserve the strongest arguments. If you had asked him +about government, he would have 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 young 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 +announcing 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 all 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 +happens. 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 little villa which was furnished well with comfortable +chairs and tables and highly uncomfortable classical pictures and +medallions. The art in his home contained 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 unnecessary, 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 beginning. She had very +broad, low, and level brows, which seemed even lower because her warm +yellow hair clustered down to her eyebrows; and she had a face just +plump enough not to look as powerful as it was. Anything that was heavy +in all this was abruptly lightened by two large, light china-blue eyes, +lightened all of a sudden as if it had been lifted into the air by two +big blue butterflies. The 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 and leonine and innocent +head. + +Both the father and the daughter were of the sort that would normally +have avoided all observation; that is, all observation in that +extraordinary modern world which calls out everything except strength. +Both of them had strength below the surface; they were like quiet +peasants owning enormous and unquarried mines. The father with his +square face and grey side whiskers, the daughter with her square face +and golden fringe of hair, were both stronger than they know; stronger +than anyone knew. The father believed in civilization, in the storied +tower we have erected to affront nature; that is, the father believed in +Man. The daughter believed 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, but 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 silent energy went to. He would have stared still more +doubtfully if he had been told that it all went into her prayers. + +The conventions of the Isle of St. Loup were necessarily a compromise +or confusion between those 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 unmistakable 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 umbrella 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 youth. + +His name was Camille 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 everyone knows everyone in so small +a place, Madeleine certainly knew him to speak to; 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 through +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 spoke 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 interest arose suddenly as a squall arises with the +extraordinary affair that occurred 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 the +non-committal name of Count Gregory. He treated everybody with complete +civility and almost 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 dandy 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 into the peacock colours of the +dim green grass and the dark blue sky. Even Durand was invisible instead +of being merely reverentially remote; and Madeleine set forth through +the patch of black forest alone. She was not in the least afraid of +loneliness, because she was not afraid of devils. I think they were +afraid 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. The 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 shall 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 spout 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-woods 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 first 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 came 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 young 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 man 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 easy smile. + +"This need go 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." + +"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 allow me to see you home," said Bert to the girl, in a gruff +and almost stifled voice; "I think we have only a little way to go." + +"Only a little way," she said, and smiled once more that night, in +spite of fatigue and 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 out 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 was 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 +affair 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 the 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 Durand 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 Madeleine 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 begun: "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 world says about anybody. I +want to talk to you about what you are going to do." + +Bert saw in front of him the inevitable heroine of the novels trying to +prevent bloodshed; and his pale firm face became implacable. + +"I would do anything but that for you," he said; "but no man can be +called less than a man." + +She looked at him for a moment with a face openly puzzled, and then +broke into an odd and beautiful 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 sure it is not the best thing to fight. It would be +better to forgive--if one could 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 same 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 that as you always go to church--I thought you would communicate +this morning." + +Bert stepped backward 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 women in our village risk it whenever they have a baby. You men are +the other half 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 was by no means placid. Before that incomplete gesture +and frankly pleading face he retreated as if from the jaws of a dragon. +His dark black hair and beard looked 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 say 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 do it at all." + +Bert seemed to crush 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 must and will say everything. You are the happiest +and honestest thing I ever saw 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 priest 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 is 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 am 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 flung 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 chestnut curls and a short +chestnut beard. + +"Now you know the truth," he answered, with hard eyes. "I am a cad who +has played 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 truth 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." + +"I saw something 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 you 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 telling 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 it 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 said. + +James Turnbull made a little step backward, and for the first time in +his life there seemed to break out and blaze in his head thoughts that +were not his own. + +"Why, how silly of them," cried out Madeleine, with quite a schoolgirl +gaiety, "why, 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 down 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 fight. You pretend to be a Catholic commercial +traveller from France. Poor Mr. MacIan has to pretend to be a dissolute +nobleman from nowhere. Your scheme succeeds; 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 throw 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-place opened before him he saw Count Gregory, that +distinguished foreigner, standing and smoking in elegant meditation +at the corner of the local cafe. He immediately made his way rapidly +towards him, considering that a consultation 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 was 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: "Come 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 the 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 very 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 openly +embarrassed apologies that made them understand each other as readily +and as quickly and as much as two men talking French in the middle of +China. The nearest expression 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 figure he ran forward again and said with a sort of shouting +and ear-shattering whisper: "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 with extraordinary sagacity. + +"We really are in a hurry, as you say," said MacIan, summoning a +sufficiently pleasant smile, "so if you will let us pass----" + +"I'll tell you 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 you'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 should 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 that we would give our ears for it." + +"You'll find it in harbour," said Wilkinson, struggling with his speech. +"Left side 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 peace 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 somehow tumbled into +the yacht called the _Gibson Girl_ and had somehow pushed off from the +Isle of St. Loup. + + + + +XII. THE DESERT ISLAND + +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 fairy 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 managing such a vessel; but +MacIan had a practical knowledge of the sea in much smaller and quite +different boats, while Turnbull had an abstract knowledge of science 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 +definitely ran into anything, either a boat, a rock, a quicksand, or a +man-of-war. Apart from this negative description, their voyage would be +difficult to describe. It took at least a fortnight, and MacIan, who +was certainly the shrewder sailor of the two, realized that they were +sailing west into the Atlantic and were probably 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 least, that they +were far enough into that awful gulf between us and America to make +it unlikely that they would soon see land again. It was therefore with +legitimate excitement that one rainy morning after daybreak they +saw that distinct shape of a solitary island standing up against the +encircling strip of silver which 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 there were any Atlantic islands so far beyond the Scillies--Good +Lord, it can't be Madeira, yet?" + +"I thought you 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." + +"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 seemed to be nothing in particular, at least +on this side of the island, except shoals 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 amateur 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 shore 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. Wilkinson'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 survivor will be in a proper frame of mind for potted prawns." + +MacIan looked down at the rows of tins and bottles, and the cloud of +doubt still lowered upon his face. + +"You will permit 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, which 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 earth 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 thinking 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 made at least no movement of dissent. + +"We could drink 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 there 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 sand 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 islet, the purple but cloudy poetry which was his +native element was piled up at its 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 fight up here, Turnbull," said MacIan, "when the time comes. +And till the 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. Before 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 down and lunched plentifully in a nest of loose rocks. In +the same place that night they supped more plentifully still. The smoke +of Mr. Wilkinson's cigars went 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 fancies 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 records and cast loose their bottle. They +never ascended to the ominous plateau; they 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 +Turnbull 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 afternoon, the sun sinking over the sea, rayed like the +very head of Apollo, when Turnbull 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 his with bent head +and eyes reading the ground. He had not even troubled to throw 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 speck of land or sail; the same as Turnbull had first +seen it, except that the tide 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 island 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 +land; 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 anything but what was baffling or menacing in this +brown gigantic arm of the earth stretched out into the sea to seize him. + +"MacIan," 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 finish 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 want 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 must 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 down 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 wanderers 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 ahead 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 two 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 seen a native." + +"A native?" repeated his companion, whose scenery had of late been +chiefly of shellfish, "what the deuce! Do you mean an oyster?" + +"No," said MacIan, stopping and breathing hard, "I mean a savage. A +black man." + +"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 his 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 over the disputed sand-hill. Then five minutes passed, +and then seven minutes; and 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 when he came within +three feet of MacIan's face, that that observer of mankind fully +realized that Mr. James Turnbull was roaring with laughter. + +"You are quit right," sobbed that wholly demoralized journalist. "He's +black, oh, 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 you 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 face are a lovely colour--and the nigger----" And he +was overtaken once more. + +"Well, well, well," said Evan, stamping each monosyllable on the sand, +"what about the nigger?" + +"Well, the truth 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 like to see a chart of our fortnight's cruise in +Wilkinson's yacht." + +MacIan had no smile 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 over 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 clerks on a +holiday, to all of whom, whether directly or indirectly, our composition +gave enormous literary pleasure. Buck up, old man, this story of ours is +a switchback. 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. Come, I am quite reconciled--let us enjoy the +farce." + +But MacIan said nothing, and an instant afterwards Turnbull himself +called out in an entirely changed voice: "Oh, this is damnable! This is +not to be borne!" + +MacIan followed his 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 take the turn of the sand-hill with the smooth +solemnity of a railway train. + + + + +XIII. THE GARDEN OF PEACE + +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 break 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 between 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. They 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 +sea-grass. They had no easy business, however; for the bottle which they +had so innocently 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 door with the shoulder; it was only +when they vanished crashing into the underworld 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 going heavily homeward, just as if all these +things were bits of written advice that he could read. + +Then he said: "The best place we can go to is to bed. If we can get some +sleep in this 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 like 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, sleep 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 sleep, I'm afraid," said Evan, in a heavy, almost submissive, +voice of apology. "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 the 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 wool. 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 with +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. Their 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 guitars. +They had all the advantages that invisibility and silence can add to +speed. + +A hundred and fifty yards behind them down the centre of the empty +road the first of their pursuers came pounding and panting--a fat but +powerful policeman who had distanced all the rest. He came on at a +splendid pace for so portly a figure; but, like all 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 found breath to say something to MacIan. MacIan nodded. + +Pursuer and pursued 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 together, 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 +die 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 foam. But higher yet behind them, and +readier to catch the first coming of the sun, 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. Here, +however, it was MacIan's turn to have the advantage; for, though less +light-limbed and feline, he was longer and stronger in the arms. In two +seconds he had tugged 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 perch, and the two began +cautiously to shift along the wall in the direction by which they had +come, doubling on their tracks to throw off the last pursuit. MacIan +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 nightmare 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 big 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 also 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 them to see the edge of a well-clipped lawn. +Though the white vapour was still a veil, 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 and emerald +draperies. As it thinned yet farther they saw that it was only flowers; +but flowers in such insolent mass and magnificence as can seldom be seen +out of the tropics. Purple and crimson rhododendrons rose arrogantly, +like rampant heraldic animals against their burning background of +laburnum gold. The roses 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 golden sunlight gradually conquered the +mists, it had really something of the sensational sweetness of the slow +opening of the gates of Eden. MacIan, whose 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-beds, the two realized, not without an abrupt +re-examination of their position, that they were not alone in the +garden. + +Down the centre of the central garden path, preceded by a blue cloud +from a cigarette, was walking 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-grey tweed, so subdued that +the pattern was imperceptible--a costume that was casual 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 head 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 is, 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 grounds inside the wall belong to you?" + +The man in the panama looked at the ground and smoked thoughtfully for a +few moments, after which he said, with a sort of matured conviction: + +"Yes, certainly; 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 large proprietor." + +Turnbull's eye grew 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 that 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, and the other continued with increased +confidence: + +"One sometimes 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 nothing's allowed but posters of pills. But in a gentleman's +garden, now----" + +The strange gentleman smiled again and said, easily enough: "Do you want +to fight? What do you want to fight about?" + +MacIan had understood 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 man who in his own back garden wears good +clothes and spoils them with a bad hat is not the kind of man who has +an abstract horror of illegal actions of violence or the evasion of +the police. But a man may understand ragging and yet be very 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 earth 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 being 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 fighting 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 longer like a telescope. + +"About God?" he queried, in a key completely new. + +"Look here!" cried Turnbull, taking his turn roughly, "I'll tell you +what 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-stick and tries to smash me. To this I naturally +object. I suggest that if it comes to that we should both have sticks. +He improves on the suggestion and proposes that we should both have +steel-pointed sticks. The police (with characteristic unreasonableness) +will not accept either of our proposals; the result is that we run +about dodging the police and have jumped over our garden wall into your +magnificent garden to throw ourselves on your magnificent hospitality." + +The face of the old 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 really want to fight with drawn swords in my garden," he asked, +"about whether there is really a God?" + +"Why not?" 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 +Zoological Gardens were founded." + +"In this garden! In my presence!" cried the stranger, stamping up and +down the gravel and choking with laughter, "whether there is a God!" +And he went stamping up and down the garden, making it echo with his +unintelligible laughter. Then he came back to them more composed and +wiping his eyes. + +"Why, how small the world is!" he cried at last. "I can settle the whole +matter. Why, I am God!" + +And he suddenly began 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 right 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! Quite 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 beyond that and the sea beyond that and all the rest of the +earth. So does the moon. So do the sun and stars." And he added, with a +smile of apology: "You see, I'm God." + +Turnbull and MacIan 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 walls 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 rhododendrons. He had the look of a prosperous banker, +wore a good tall silk hat, was almost 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. + + + + +XIV. A MUSEUM OF SOULS + +The man with the good hat and the jumping elbow went by very quickly; +yet the man with the bad hat, who thought he was God, overtook him. He +ran after him and jumped over a bed 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 order to whisper: "This poor gentleman is mad; +he thinks he is Edward VII." 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 meet 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 malady of laughter. + +"Yes, you and I are both seconds--and these two gentlemen can obviously +fight in front of us. 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 bitter 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 natural and +restful nooks and also the great wall of stone--more awful than the wall +of China--from which no flesh could flee. + +Turnbull was moodily 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 cat, the huge, heavy man in the black hat and +frock-coat had crept across the lawn 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 sharp. 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----" + +Something in Turnbull 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 eagerly 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 blow up +that palace of delusions with dynamite; and in some wild way, which I +will 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 +expressions 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? What do you mean by it?" + +The unhappy lunatic 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 like 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 representative of omnipotence looked as if he had left most of these +things to his subordinates; 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 not appropriate to me that I should have God for my +second. God is not good enough. I dislike and I deny the divine right of +kings. But I dislike more and I deny more the divine right of divinity." + +Then after a pause in which he swallowed his passion, he said to MacIan: +"You have got the right 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 silk 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 doubt 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 round on his heel. "Well, really," he said, "I thought at +least you were a loyal subject." + +"I am the only loyal subject," answered the Gael. "For nearly thirty +years I have walked these islands and have not found another." + +"You are always hard to follow," remarked Turnbull, genially, "and +sometimes so much 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 arms 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 have you ever done to us?" he continued in harsher and +harsher accents, forcing 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 freedom 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 fairly turned tail and was trundling away down the +path. MacIan strode after him still 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 stepping swiftly across +the lawn. + +The advancing figure walked with a stoop, and yet somehow flung his +forked and narrow beard forward. 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 his 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-glasses 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 expensive 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 wait for breakfast. It spoils one's temper so much." + +"Quite so," replied Turnbull, seriously. + +"There seems almost to have been a little quarrelling here," said the +man with the goatish beard. + +"It is rather a long story," said Turnbull, smiling. "Originally, it +might be called a phase in the quarrel between science and religion." + +The new-comer started slightly, and Turnbull replied to the question on +his face. + +"Oh, yes," he said, "I am science!" + +"I congratulate you heartily," answered the other, "I am Doctor Quayle." + +Turnbull's eyes did not move, but he realized that the man in the panama +hat had lost all his ease of a landed proprietor and had withdrawn to +a distance of thirty yards, where he stood glaring with all the +contraction of fear and hatred that can stiffen a cat. + + * * * + +MacIan was sitting somewhat disconsolately on a stump of tree, his large +black head half buried 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 hope, 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 hymns 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 one 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 naturally prefer a bright part," said MacIan, wearily. "Protoplasm +is not worth going mad about." + +"At least," 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 smile and he said, quite calmly: + +"No, the idea is older; it was Satan who first said that he was God." + +"Then, what," asked Turnbull, very slowly, as he softly picked a flower, +"what is the difference between Christ and Satan?" + +"It is quite simple," replied the Highlander. "Christ descended into +hell; Satan 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 only 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 MacIan. + +"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, +anyhow. What I want to point out is, that your faith does end in asylums +and my science 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 really believe it?" asked the other. + +"Scores of them, I should say," answered MacIan. "Fellows who have +read medical books 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 +about 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 things 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.'" + +"What can he have meant?" said the atheist, with all his logic awake. +"Obviously one should not trust any God that one can improve on." + +"It is the way 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 parents, because a physical partiality will then +distort the judgement of the educator." + +"Oh, dear!" said Turnbull, laughing, "you have certainly come across a +pretty bad case, and incidentally proved your own. I suppose some men do +lose their wits through science as through love and other good things." + +"And he says," went on MacIan, monotonously, "that he cannot see why +anyone 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 and fetch him," said MacIan, calmly; "I left the poor fellow +wandering about by the nasturtium bed." + +MacIan vanished, and in a few moments returned, trailing with him his +own discovery among lunatics, 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. Turnbull sprang to his feet +and was like one who is speechless through choking a sudden shout of +laughter. + +"Why, you great donkey," he shouted, in an ear-shattering whisper, +"that's not one 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 inquiringly: "One of the doctors?" + +"Oh, you know what I mean," said Turnbull, impatiently. "The medical +authorities 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," 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 the very time he appointed to talk with us about +our--well, our exeat." + +"But what can it matter?" asked the wondering MacIan. "He can't keep us +in the asylum. We're not mad." + +"Jackass!" 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 letters to this reference and telegrams to that; and at the +first word of who we are, 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 childish 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 the pointed beard was already slanting it forward at a +more than usually acute angle, with the smile that expressed expectancy. + +"I hope I do not hurry you, gentlemen," he said, with the faintest +suggestion of a sneer 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 elsewhere, and my friend here was just drawing my attention +to some of them." + +"Quite so! Quite so!" said the doctor, hurriedly. "If you really want +to put anything before me, I can give you a few moments in my +consulting-room." + +He led them rapidly 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 down with a polite impatience on his professional perch; +MacIan remained standing, but Turnbull threw himself almost with luxury +into a hard wooden arm-chair. + +"This is a most absurd business, Doctor," he said, "and I am ashamed to +take up the 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 startled with what we found on the +other side." + +"Quite so!" said the doctor, mildly. "I can understand that you were +startled." + +Turnbull had expected 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 perfection; in fact, Turnbull was busy making up +these personal and topographical particulars. 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 +interrupt your important duties. I suppose there will be someone to let +us out?" + +"No," said the doctor, still smiling steadily and pleasantly, "there +will be no one to let you out." + +"Can we let ourselves out, then?" asked Turnbull, in some surprise. + +"Why, of course not," said the beaming scientist; "think how dangerous +that would be in a place like this." + +"Then, how the devil are we to get out?" cried Turnbull, losing his +manners for the first time. + +"It is a question of time, of receptivity, and treatment," said the +doctor, arching 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, we're not mad people!" + +"We don't use the crude phrase," said the doctor, smiling at his +patent-leather boots. + +"But you _can't_ think us mad," thundered MacIan. "You never saw us +before. You know nothing about us. You haven't even examined us." + +The doctor threw back his head and beard. "Oh, yes," he said, "very +thoroughly." + +"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 ought to see the documents." + +He went across to the curious mock book-shelves and took down one of +the flat mahogany cases. This he opened with a curious key at his +watch-chain, and laying back a flap revealed a quire of foolscap covered +with close but quite clear writing. The first three 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 angry eagle face over it; yet something blurred it and +he could never swear he saw it distinctly. He saw something that began: +"Prenatal influences predisposing to mania. Grandfather believed in +return of the Stuarts. Mother carried bone of St. Eulalia with which she +touched children in sickness. Marked religious mania at early age----" + +Evan fell back and fought for his speech. "Oh!" he burst out at last. +"Oh! if all 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 enjoy 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, you 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 wood. + +This also he unlocked 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 name, 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, MacIan, 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 the time, and I understand it now." + +"What do you mean?" asked Evan. + +"No man by will 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 word. + + + + +XV. THE DREAM OF MACIAN + +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 insulting 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 hard 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 +snowball. 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 toned down all the colours of the garden until +almost the strongest tints to be seen were the strong soft blue of the +sky and the large lemon moon. He was walking 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 bright 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 one 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 virginity is not inappropriate; for, as +it grew larger and larger and lower and lower, Evan saw that the only +figure in it was robed in white from head to foot and crowned with +snow-white hair, on which the moonshine lay like a benediction. The +figure 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 father 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 mother the moon. But the face of Luna seemed as +witless as his own; there is no help 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 sort 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 what 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 nothing to break its regularity except a rather +long chin with a cleft in it, and this rather added distinction than +lessened beauty. His strong, well-opened eyes were very 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," 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 rose 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 moon. + +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 stand. 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 grasping peers and the +boorish moralities of Knox. It is Richard, the last Plantagenet, +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!" said the old man; "he has returned." + +"Is the war still raging?" asked MacIan. + +"It rages like 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 once more taught and ruled as is best; they are happy +knights, happy squires, happy servants, happy serfs, if you will; but +free at last of that load of vexation 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." + +They were driving through the air towards one region of the sky where +the hollow of night seemed 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 seemed 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 cross, 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 another 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 order of chivalry thrown in three circles round the cross. +MacIan drew in his breath, as children do at anything they think utterly +beautiful. For he could imagine nothing that so echoed his own visions +of pontifical or chivalric art as this white dome sitting like a vast +silver tiara over London, ringed with a triple crown of swords. + +As they went sailing 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 the streets in +order. The mounted men were not common policemen, but knights with spurs +and plume whose smooth and splendid armour glittered like diamond rather +than steel. Only in one place--at the corner of Bouverie Street--did +there appear 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 his sword. + +"The soldier had no business to do that," said MacIan, sharply. "The old +man was moving as quickly as he could." + +"We attach great 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 people 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 prow 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 armies 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," continued he, in the prow, "you must allow for a certain high +spirit and 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 great 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 since 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," said MacIan, "I am going to jump over the side." + +"Do you desire death?" + +"No," said 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. + + + + +XVI. THE DREAM OF TURNBULL + +Turnbull was walking 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, like 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 content 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 made 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 memory from a lady in Jersey, and the little +red-bearded man on this windy evening was in a dangerous frame of mind. + +Plain and positive 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 and 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 garden, a drift of red +leaves, like the leaves of autumn, as in parody of the red and 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 shape, which +is unusual with clouds shaken off; also its shape was of an odd sort. + +Turnbull continued to stare at it, and in a little time occurred that +crucial instant when a thing, however incredible, is accepted as a fact. +The copper cloud was tumbling down 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, that it was not itself +of the colour of copper; only, being burnished like a mirror, 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 airy 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 which 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 top 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 tightened +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 himself 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 that his lean brown +body was bare to the belt of his loose white trousers; the other that +through hygiene, affectation, or whatever other cause, he had a scarlet +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 chin. 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 with 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 legs 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 had a singular bleak +brilliancy which was of no particular colour. + +"Excuse my not 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 +pockets, "I am bound to expect lunatics inside these four walls; but I +do bar their 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 pistol shot. + +"I have already told you," said the man, lowering his voice and speaking +with evident sincerity; "I want you." + +"What do you want with me?" + +"I want exactly 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 the 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 stranger silently indicated the rope that +led to the machine, he found himself pausing and saying: "I can't leave +MacIan behind in this den." + +"We are going to destroy the Pope and all the kings," said the +new-comer. "Would it be wiser to take him with us?" + +Somehow the muttering Turnbull found himself in the flying ship also, +and it swung up into the sunset. + +"All the great 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 regicide. The boys never really dared to defy the +schoolmaster." + +"Whom do you mean by the schoolmaster?" asked Turnbull. + +"You know whom 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 sunset. But when they looked down at the earth +they saw it growing darker and darker. The lunatic asylum in its large +rectangular grounds spread below them in a foreshortened and infantile +plan, and looked for the first time the grotesque thing that it was. +But the clear colours of the plan were growing darker every 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 +risen 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 light 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 everything 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. That 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 think 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 only 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 meditation, at the end of which he said suddenly: + +"So MacIan converted you?" + +Turnbull sprang up 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 the 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 flying ship. + +"I am an atheist," he said, in a stifled voice. "I have always been an +atheist. 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 nothing in God's name." + +Turnbull spat over the edge of the car and fell back furiously into his +seat. + +The other continued 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 pretend 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 does 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 brought 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 himself back in his reposeful attitude, and said: + +"It is the last war, because if it does not cure the world for ever, it +will destroy it." + +"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 his 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 still standing erect, but +the cross was stricken and had fallen sideways. Then only he cared to +look down into the streets, and saw that they were inflamed with uproar +and tossing passions. + +"We arrive at 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," 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 mention it," said Turnbull. + +The flying ship had come down upon a sort of curve, and was now rising +again. The higher and higher it rose the broader and broader became the +scenes of flame and desolation underneath. + +Ludgate Hill indeed 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, full 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 people really risen?" he asked, breathlessly. "What are they +fighting about?" + +"The programme is rather elaborate," said his entertainer with some +indifference. "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 down 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 were in flames, like prairies or forests on +fire. + +"Dr. Hertz has convinced everybody," said Turnbull's cicerone in a +smooth voice, "that nothing can really be done with the real slums. His +celebrated maxim has been quite adopted. I mean the three celebrated +sentences: 'No man should be unemployed. Employ the employables. Destroy +the unemployables.'" + +There was a silence, 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 see, 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 permit me to say," said Turnbull, after reflection, "that I +don't like all 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 air 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!" repeated the unknown in a tone quite indescribable. Then he +added with a more 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. +"Yes, 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 applaud 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 pale. The other went on with enthusiasm. + +"Life, yes, Life is indeed sacred!" he cried; "but new lives for old! +Good lives for 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 with a sort of precision. "I want to go back to exactly the +same lunatic asylum from which I came." + +"Why?" asked the unknown. + +"Because I want 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 said, 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. It is all a nightmare. I say as a fact of dogma and +faith that it is all a nightmare. And I will be a martyr for my faith as +much as St. Catherine, for I will jump out of this ship and risk waking +up safe in bed." + +After swaying twice with the swaying vessel he dived over the side as +one dives into the sea. For 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 asylum, and the last red of the sunset had not yet +disappeared. + + + + +XVII. THE IDIOT + +Evan MacIan was standing a few yards off looking at him in absolute +silence. + +He had not the moral 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 perhaps any need to ask it. The two men +came slowly towards each other, and found the 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 you 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 had suddenly disappeared. + +"I will be plain with you gentlemen," he said, abruptly; "you know +quite well we do our best for everybody here. Your cases have been under +special consideration, 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 answered, looking at his desk and playing with a key: "Well, +in certain cases that 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 garden 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 from you. I believe you to be a low, gibbering degenerate. Let +us see the head of the asylum." + +"See the head of the asylum," repeated Dr. Quayle. "Certainly not." + +The tall Highlander, bending over him, put one hand on his shoulder with +fatherly interest. + +"You don't seem 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 could 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 +institution." + +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 the +asylum if you particularly want to." He almost ran out of the room, +and the two followed swiftly on his flying coat tails. He knocked at an +ordinary varnished door in the corridor. When a voice said, "Come in," +MacIan's breath 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 light of which was just sufficient +to show a slender, well-bred figure in an ordinary 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 +entered, 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 MacIan 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 for some nameless reason +they were more inclined to laugh. A mixture of mad irony 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 cold +avenues lined with glazed tiles, different only in being of different +lengths and set at different angles. They were so many and so monotonous +that to escape back by them would have been far harder than fleeing from +the Hampton Court maze. Only 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. After 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 weary 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 here, sir," said the leader of the officials, quite +respectfully, "and you in here." + +But before the doors had clanged upon their dazed victims, MacIan had +been able to say to Turnbull 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. Hence 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 were hung up on the left wall, very dusty. It +was, however, long enough for a man to walk one thirty-fifth part of a +mile if he traversed it entirely. On the same 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 open 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 Turnbull 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. Turnbull'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 objection was that he had +nothing to walk towards, nothing to feast about, and no reason whatever +for drawing the breath of life. + +Even the shape of his cell especially irritated him. It was a long, +narrow parallelogram, which had a flat wall at one end and ought to +have had a flat wall at the other; but that 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 unconsciously it was his instinct to examine outlets, and he +found himself paying particular attention to the row of holes which let +in the air into his last house of life. 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 near Margate. +One evening while he was engaged in the fifth investigation he noticed +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 found 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 long as it +is quite solid means a general safety, but if there is one leak it means +concentrated poison--an explosion of deathly germs like dynamite, a +spirit of stink. Thus, 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 shopkeeper than out of an automatic +machine. But if you did manage to steal the chocolate, 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 his 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 about an iron peg or spike that stood out from the wall, the +object of which he does not know to this day. Then he had a period of +mere madness not to be written 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 man 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 moods, sane or insane, intolerant or stoical, he +never really doubted this: that the machine held him as light and as +hopelessly as he had from his birth been held 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 many of his Robinson +Crusoe moods he thought kindly of MacIan as of some quarrelsome +school-fellow who had long been dead. He thought of leaving in the cell +when he died a rigid 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 changed. 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 imprisonment, 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 protests in +the rock. Here the white and slippery walls escaped even from bearing +witness. 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 living thing could enter in. Then James +Turnbull looked up and saw the high invincible 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 cosmos in which +he believed. But all the time he had never once doubted that the five +sides of his cell were for him the wall of the world henceforward, and +it gave him 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 everything together and how easily, therefore, a +pipe here or there may leak. + +Turnbull thrust his 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, and 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 above 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," said MacIan, and his voice shuddered; "it was a great deal too +exciting." + +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 expect it's the same as mine," said the other voice. + +"I am sure it'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 the left wall more than the damned desolation or the +damned cocoa. Have you got one in your cell?" + +"Not now," replied MacIan with serenity. "I've pulled it out." + +His fellow-prisoner 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 loose in the socket. Even now I've got it out I can't discover +what it was for. But 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 meaning 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 that 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 cleaned 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 exact place where there had been before the tiny ventilation +holes. Turnbull tumbled somehow into MacIan's apartment, and his first +glance found out that the iron 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 was 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 can the door of it be?" said his companion, even more +puzzled; "the doors 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 horrible 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 Nero. They have filled England with frenzy and galloping in order +to capture us and wipe us out--in order to kill us. And they have killed +us, for you and I have 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 they would feel for Jack the Ripper, yet +it is not we whom the people of this place hate most." + +A cold and quivering 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 superstition either. + +"There is another man more fearful and hateful," went on MacIan, in his +low monotone voice, "and they have buried him even deeper. God knows how +they did it, for he was let in by neither door nor window, nor lowered +through any opening 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 turned 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 oblong cell exactly like the other two except that it was +doorless, and except that 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, only 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 +beside 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 huge grey-and-white beard not unlike +the plumage of an owl. This extraordinary beard 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 fall off +whenever he moved. One talks trivially of a face like parchment, but +this 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 in 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 baby. They looked as if they had only an +instant before been fitted into his head. + +Everything depended so obviously upon whether this buried monster spoke +that Turnbull did not know or care whether he himself had spoken. He +said something or nothing. And then 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 very 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 crow of laughter: "And that's a head come through it." + +The hilarious energy 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 without 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 air. + +"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?" 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 person opened his broad blue eyes and fixed Turnbull with +a stare extraordinarily severe. "You are quite sure," he said, "I cannot +help you?" + +"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 all 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 sure 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 notion 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 heavy 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 machinery 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, "he did ask you whether he could help you." + +All this wilderness 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 when, 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 the 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, and feel existence itself as an adorable adventure not yet +begun. As they found this shining escape out of that hellish labyrinth +they both had simultaneously the sensation of being babes unborn, of +being asked by God if they would like to live upon the earth. They were +looking in at one of the seven gates of Eden. + +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, was 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 trees. 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 smilingly regarding them; +and his chin seemed to grow longer and longer as he smiled. + + + + +XVIII. A RIDDLE OF FACES + +Just behind him stood 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 face. 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 one's friends bores one at last. You don't suppose I should have let +these lunatics 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 shall still be their easy master. +Let them take the wings of the morning and abide 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, and 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 thing for people to see. + +"Might I speak 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 round with great abruptness to the other two doctors, and +said, harshly: "What 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 is 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 the 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 garden again?" + +"I understand," said Hutton, with arched eyebrows, "that your complaint +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 come 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 that; in fact, you weren't meant to." + +"Heard of all what?" asked the impatient inquirer. + +"There's a new 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 village 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 mean to say," cried Turnbull, with a vibrant snort, "that that +proposal was 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 +afraid of the House of Lords. But----" + +"Well?" inquired Turnbull, stamping again. + +"He is afraid of you," said Hutton, simply. "Why, didn't you know?" + +MacIan, who had not 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----" + +"I mean to say 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." 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 round 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 there seemed to be many more people, +whether patients or attendants, walking about in it. + +From behind the two 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 marked 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 certain +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 doctors 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 +magistrate 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 Vane 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 battery, wasn't it?--a fellow broke your window. A tall +fellow--McSomething--case made rather a noise afterwards." + +"MacIan is the name, sir," said Turnbull, respectfully; "I have him here +with me." + +"Eh!" said Vane very sharply. "Confound him! Has he got anything to do +with this game?" + +"Mr. Vane," said Turnbull, pacifically, "I will not pretend that either +he or I acted quite decorously on that occasion. You were very lenient +with us, and did not 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 know 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 bless us and save us!" he gasped, at length; "I'm not here +as an official 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: "Why, you haven't got any to lose." But he fortunately +remembered the remains of his desperate diplomacy. + +"This can't go on," he said, positively. "Men like MacIan and I may +suffer unjustly all our lives, but a man like you must have influence." + +"There is only 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 Vane laughed outright. "What put the country into such a +state?" he asked. "Why, you did. When you were fool enough to agree to +fight MacIan, after all, everybody was ready to believe that the Bank of +England might paint itself 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?" said the editor of _The Atheist_ with a bursting heart. "I am +sorry you did not tell me so at the time." + +He walked away very 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 been locked up as a lunatic. + +The garden of the madhouse was so perfectly planned, and answered so +exquisitely to every hour 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 unique dawn or its special sunset +while the rest of the earthly globe rolled through 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 +daffodil. It was of that innocent lonely yellow which has never heard of +orange, though 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 hardly traceable upon that delicate +yellow. MacIan, I say, will remember this tender and transparent +evening, partly because of its virgin gold and silver, and partly +because he passed beneath it through the most horrible instant of his +life. + +Turnbull was sitting 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 shocked out of his idle mood of awe by +seeing MacIan break from behind the bushes and 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 one 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 viper 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 own 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 right, 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 the other's pain, he did not notice that he spoke with the +affection of a father. + +"I am mad, Turnbull," said Evan, with a dead clearness of speech, and +leant back against the garden seat. + +"Nonsense," 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 any mood, though it opened heaven or hell. But to see things--to see +them walking 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 here in this hell yard." + +Between trying to look scornful and really looking startled, Turnbull's +face was confused enough to emit no speech, and Evan went on in +monotonous sincerity: + +"I saw her walk 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 +have 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 dark 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----" + +"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 coolly, 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 less than the average masculine one, +being in fact merely overturned by the rushing riddle of the events. + +Evan does not know to this day what particular question he asked, but +he vividly remembers that she answered, and every line or fluctuation of +her face as she said it. + +"Oh, don't you know?" she said, smiling, and suddenly lifting her level +brown eyebrows. "Haven't you heard the news? I'm a lunatic." + +Then she added after 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 said: "What the devil in hell does all this +nonsense mean?" + +"Really," said the young lady, and laughed. + +"I beg your pardon," said the unhappy young man, rather wildly, "but +what I mean is, why are you here in an asylum?" + +The young woman broke again into one of the maddening and mysterious +laughs of femininity. Then she composed her features, and replied with +equal dignity: "Well, if it comes 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 isolated as a new Adam and Eve in a +pretty ornamental Eden, the lady did not relax by 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," 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 quite sure now that he himself was not mad, and the +fact rather added to his perplexity. + +Then he drew nearer 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 development of events obliged him +to transfer his researches to the equally interesting subject of +hollyhocks, which grew some fifty feet farther along the path. The +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 short time. Having rapidly absorbed all the +important principles affecting the growth 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 and 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 really always to be like this," he said, thickly, "it would +not matter if we were here for ever." + +"You tried to kill yourself four times for me," she said, unsteadily, +"and I have been chained up as a madwoman for you. I really think that +after that----" + +"Yes, I know," said Evan in a low voice, looking down. "After that we +belong to each other. We are sort of sold to each other--until the stars +fall." Then he looked up suddenly, and said: "By the way, what is your +name?" + +"My name is Beatrice Drake," she replied with complete gravity. "You can +see it on my certificate of lunacy." + + + + +XIX. THE LAST PARLEY + +Turnbull walked away, wildly trying to explain to himself the presence +of two personal acquaintances 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 know 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 arms 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 innocent 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 sitting on the gravel bowed with urbanity, and said: "Quite +at your service. Not to be confused with the Wilkinsons of Cumberland; +and as I say, old boy, what 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." + +"I am really horribly sorry," began Turnbull, in the last stage of bated +bewilderment and exasperation, "but really----" + +"Oh, I can see you can't have it on you at the moment," said Mr. +Wilkinson with much intellectual magnanimity. + +"Well, the fact is----" began Turnbull again, and then the phrase was +frozen on his mouth, 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; "and 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 +telling 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, poor 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 guilt, "it's rather a feather in my cap. I discovered +the only existing case of perdinavititis." + +"But this won'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 point 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, however, and pulling out his pencil +and notebook wrote down feverishly: "Singular development in the +Elenthero-maniac, Turnbull. Sudden manifestation of Rapinavititis--the +delusion that one has stolen a ship. First case ever recorded." + +Turnbull stood for an instant staggered into stillness. Then he ran +raging round the garden to find 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 definitely +desire. He merely wallowed in memories, chiefly in material memories; +words said with a certain cadence or trivial turns of the neck or wrist. +Into the middle of his 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 the glittering sword-point +planted upon his breast he was in far less danger. For 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 agony of interrogation. + +"Are you hurt, Turnbull?" he asked, anxiously. + +"I am dying," answered the other quite calmly. "I am in the quite +literal 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 person 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 silence he cried with a rending sincerity: "Are you really +there, Evan? Have you 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 two 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 like that--it's the end of something. All the +people are crowding into one corner. 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 silence 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 +occur?" + +"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 spikes 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 give 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 wiped his brow as if he were literally doing heavy +labour. Then he went on: + +"I am a little mad; but, after all, it is only a little madness. When +hundreds of high-minded 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 has gone into captivity in order +to take us captive. All England has turned into a lunatic asylum in +order to prove us lunatics. Compared with the general public, 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 visions 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 the 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 +mad--the Church or the world? Which is madder, the Spanish priest who +permitted tyranny, or the Prussian sophist who admired it? Which is +madder, the Russian priest who discourages righteous rebellion, or the +Russian novelist who forbids it? That 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 the 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 world +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 been 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 knew that for the first time he was listening +seriously. + +"The world has 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 judged 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; we +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 +have 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 its 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 showed queerly even in its shadow upon +the path. + +"You see that is not so easy," said MacIan between his teeth. + +They looked up into 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 in 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 windows. There is too much talking in this garden; we intend to +close it. You will be accommodated indoors." + +"Ah!" said 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 the same almost fairy fatalism as his +companion. In some strange way it did seem that the more smoothly they +yielded, the more swiftly would events sweep on to some great collision. + + + + +XX. DIES IRAE + +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 concealed machinery which ran like a network of nerves +over the whole fabric, there had been shot out under every window-ledge +rows and rows of polished-steel cylinders, the cold miracles of modern +gunnery. They commanded the whole garden 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 regiment 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 leapt 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 dream. + +Within a few feet of him at one corner of the square of standing people +stood the girl he had known 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 honest 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 eyesight took in +all the other staring faces, and he saw all the faces he had ever seen +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. Gordon, the corpulent Jew shopkeeper whom they had once gagged +in his own shop. There 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. Vane, the magistrate. There was not +only Miss Drake of the motor-car, but also Miss Drake's chauffeur. +Nothing wild or unfamiliar could have produced upon Turnbull 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; and when Turnbull saw him he saw +the last and worst marvel of that monstrous night. He remembered Durand; +he remembered his monotonous, everlasting lucidity, his 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 which always made all human blood turn bitter. The +Master was standing in the middle 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 really 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 indeed a cosy party," he said, with glittering eyes. + +The Master evidently meant to say more, but before he could say anything +M. Durand had stepped right up to him and was speaking. + +He was speaking exactly as a French bourgeois speaks to the manager of a +restaurant. That is, 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 customary. 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 such pleasures +and powers as he would have had even in the savage state, the social +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 machinery 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 myself? 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 said, "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 irrelevant; 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 were happy in being able to +announce that this alleged Crucifixion never occurred at all." + +MacIan lifted his head and looked at the Master steadily, but Turnbull +did not look up. + +"This, we found, was the only way with all superstitions," continued the +speaker; "it was necessary to deny them historically, and we have done +it with great success in the case of miracles and such things. Now +within our own time there arose 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 Highland eccentric who wanted to +fight for the Virgin." + +MacIan, quite white, 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, that 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 heroes. 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 drank the +health of a duellist were imprisoned for drunkenness. But the popular +excitement about the alleged duel continued, and we had to fall back on +our old historical 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 was 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 explosion. + +"The whole story 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 curiosity 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 faces of the Jew shopkeeper and the Magdalen Don started +out of the crowd in their indignation, but the speaker continued: + +"One poor woman 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 speed 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 all. 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 artistic 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 shall have no more trouble," said Dr. Quayle pleasantly +enough, and addressing Turnbull, who was leaning heavily upon the back +of a chair. + +Still looking down, 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 crash which sent one of its wooden legs +loose along the floor and crammed the doctor 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 as of +something quite fresh and frightful. + +Two of the three passages leading out of the hall were choked with blue +smoke. Another instant and the hall was full of the fog of it, and red +sparks began to swarm like scarlet bees. + +"The place is 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 should 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 taken a stride forward and stood there shaken and +terrible. "Now," he cried, panting, "now is the judgement of the world. +The doctors will leave 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, will 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 the 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 and subordinates of the asylum rushed away across +the garden pursued by the smoke. 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 thing 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 struck 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 had 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 voice 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 Cross 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 singed 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 the 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. Their +incessant shrieking and crackling was like a mob shouting against an +orator. Yet through all that deafening density MacIan thought he heard +a small and separate sound. 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!" said Turnbull, and lifted one finger from his clenched hand. + +"Or else he is shrieking with pain," protested MacIan. "I will not +endure it." + +"Listen!" 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 rampart 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, but it seemed to be something about +playing in the golden hay. + +"Good Lord!" cried Turnbull, bitterly, "there seem to be some advantages +in really being an idiot." Then advancing to the fringe of the fire he +called 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 Heaven! that is not the way," cried Evan, suddenly. "Father," he +shouted, "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," cried MacIan, once more, "come out of it and save us all!" +Turnbull was staring at him as he cried. + +The tall and steady 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 fire 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 directions. For while one half of the huge fire +sloped one way towards the inland heights, 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 mass, 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 over his head opened down the middle, and, reeling back +in two great golden billows, hung on each side as huge and harmless as +two sloping hills lie on each side of a valley. Down the centre of this +trough, or chasm, a little path ran, cleared 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 Turnbull saw this he suddenly put out a hand and seemed to +support himself on the strong shoulder of Madeleine Durand. Then after a +moment's hesitation he put his other hand on the shoulder of MacIan. +His blue eyes looked extraordinarily brilliant and beautiful. In many +sceptical papers and magazines afterwards he was sadly 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 was a fact. But he was unlike the writers in the magazines +precisely in this--that he preferred a fact even to materialism. + +As the little singing 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 instant 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 cloud nor bird. +Far, far away up in those huge hollows of space something was flying +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 like the breast of a bird. Everyone knew it was a flying +ship, and everyone knew whose. + +As they stared upward 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, spread 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. + +"They are gone!" screamed Beatrice, hiding her head. "O God! The are +lost!" + +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 with 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. + + + + + + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Ball and The Cross, by G.K. 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