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diff --git a/1718-0.txt b/1718-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9f8c94c --- /dev/null +++ b/1718-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6461 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook of Manalive, by G. K. Chesterton + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and +most other parts of the world 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. If you are not located in the United States, you +will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before +using this eBook. + +Title: Manalive + +Author: G. K. Chesterton + +Release Date: April, 1999 [eBook #1718] +[Most recently updated: April 28, 2023] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +Produced by: Jim Henry III, Martin Ward and David Widger + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MANALIVE *** + + + + +MANALIVE + +By G. K. Chesterton + + + + +THOMAS NELSON AND SONS +1912 + + +CONTENTS + + Part I — THE ENIGMAS OF INNOCENT SMITH + Chapter I — How the Great Wind Came to Beacon House + Chapter II — The Luggage of an Optimist + Chapter III — The Banner of Beacon + Chapter IV — The Garden of the God + Chapter V — The Allegorical Practical Joker + + Part II — THE EXPLANATIONS OF INNOCENT SMITH + Chapter I — The Eye of Death; or, the Murder Charge + Chapter II — The Two Curates; or, the Burglary Charge + Chapter III — The Round Road; or, the Desertion Charge + Chapter IV — The Wild Weddings; or, the Polygamy Charge + Chapter V — How the Great Wind Went from Beacon House + + + + +PART I +THE ENIGMAS OF INNOCENT SMITH + + + + +Chapter I +How the Great Wind Came to Beacon House + + +A wind sprang high in the west, like a wave of unreasonable happiness, +and tore eastward across England, trailing with it the frosty scent of +forests and the cold intoxication of the sea. In a million holes and +corners it refreshed a man like a flagon, and astonished him like a +blow. In the inmost chambers of intricate and embowered houses it woke +like a domestic explosion, littering the floor with some professor’s +papers till they seemed as precious as fugitive, or blowing out the +candle by which a boy read “Treasure Island” and wrapping him in +roaring dark. But everywhere it bore drama into undramatic lives, and +carried the trump of crisis across the world. Many a harassed mother in +a mean backyard had looked at five dwarfish shirts on the clothes-line +as at some small, sick tragedy; it was as if she had hanged her five +children. The wind came, and they were full and kicking as if five fat +imps had sprung into them; and far down in her oppressed subconscious +she half-remembered those coarse comedies of her fathers when the elves +still dwelt in the homes of men. Many an unnoticed girl in a dank +walled garden had tossed herself into the hammock with the same +intolerant gesture with which she might have tossed herself into the +Thames; and that wind rent the waving wall of woods and lifted the +hammock like a balloon, and showed her shapes of quaint clouds far +beyond, and pictures of bright villages far below, as if she rode +heaven in a fairy boat. Many a dusty clerk or cleric, plodding a +telescopic road of poplars, thought for the hundredth time that they +were like the plumes of a hearse; when this invisible energy caught and +swung and clashed them round his head like a wreath or salutation of +seraphic wings. There was in it something more inspired and +authoritative even than the old wind of the proverb; for this was the +good wind that blows nobody harm. + +The flying blast struck London just where it scales the northern +heights, terrace above terrace, as precipitous as Edinburgh. It was +round about this place that some poet, probably drunk, looked up +astonished at all those streets gone skywards, and (thinking vaguely of +glaciers and roped mountaineers) gave it the name of Swiss Cottage, +which it has never been able to shake off. At some stage of those +heights a terrace of tall gray houses, mostly empty and almost as +desolate as the Grampians, curved round at the western end, so that the +last building, a boarding establishment called “Beacon House,” offered +abruptly to the sunset its high, narrow and towering termination, like +the prow of some deserted ship. + +The ship, however, was not wholly deserted. The proprietor of the +boarding-house, a Mrs. Duke, was one of those helpless persons against +whom fate wars in vain; she smiled vaguely both before and after all +her calamities; she was too soft to be hurt. But by the aid (or rather +under the orders) of a strenuous niece she always kept the remains of a +clientele, mostly of young but listless folks. And there were actually +five inmates standing disconsolately about the garden when the great +gale broke at the base of the terminal tower behind them, as the sea +bursts against the base of an outstanding cliff. + +All day that hill of houses over London had been domed and sealed up +with cold cloud. Yet three men and two girls had at last found even the +gray and chilly garden more tolerable than the black and cheerless +interior. When the wind came it split the sky and shouldered the +cloudland left and right, unbarring great clear furnaces of evening +gold. The burst of light released and the burst of air blowing seemed +to come almost simultaneously; and the wind especially caught +everything in a throttling violence. The bright short grass lay all one +way like brushed hair. Every shrub in the garden tugged at its roots +like a dog at the collar, and strained every leaping leaf after the +hunting and exterminating element. Now and again a twig would snap and +fly like a bolt from an arbalist. The three men stood stiffly and +aslant against the wind, as if leaning against a wall. The two ladies +disappeared into the house; rather, to speak truly, they were blown +into the house. Their two frocks, blue and white, looked like two big +broken flowers, driving and drifting upon the gale. Nor is such a +poetic fancy inappropriate, for there was something oddly romantic +about this inrush of air and light after a long, leaden and unlifting +day. Grass and garden trees seemed glittering with something at once +good and unnatural, like a fire from fairyland. It seemed like a +strange sunrise at the wrong end of the day. + +The girl in white dived in quickly enough, for she wore a white hat of +the proportions of a parachute, which might have wafted her away into +the coloured clouds of evening. She was their one splash of splendour, +and irradiated wealth in that impecunious place (staying there +temporarily with a friend), an heiress in a small way, by name Rosamund +Hunt, brown-eyed, round-faced, but resolute and rather boisterous. On +top of her wealth she was good-humoured and rather good-looking; but +she had not married, perhaps because there was always a crowd of men +around her. She was not fast (though some might have called her +vulgar), but she gave irresolute youths an impression of being at once +popular and inaccessible. A man felt as if he had fallen in love with +Cleopatra, or as if he were asking for a great actress at the stage +door. Indeed, some theatrical spangles seemed to cling about Miss Hunt; +she played the guitar and the mandoline; she always wanted charades; +and with that great rending of the sky by sun and storm, she felt a +girlish melodrama swell again within her. To the crashing orchestration +of the air the clouds rose like the curtain of some long-expected +pantomime. + +Nor, oddly, was the girl in blue entirely unimpressed by this +apocalypse in a private garden; though she was one of most prosaic and +practical creatures alive. She was, indeed, no other than the strenuous +niece whose strength alone upheld that mansion of decay. But as the +gale swung and swelled the blue and white skirts till they took on the +monstrous contours of Victorian crinolines, a sunken memory stirred in +her that was almost romance—a memory of a dusty volume of _Punch_ in an +aunt’s house in infancy: pictures of crinoline hoops and croquet hoops +and some pretty story, of which perhaps they were a part. This +half-perceptible fragrance in her thoughts faded almost instantly, and +Diana Duke entered the house even more promptly than her companion. +Tall, slim, aquiline, and dark, she seemed made for such swiftness. In +body she was of the breed of those birds and beasts that are at once +long and alert, like greyhounds or herons or even like an innocent +snake. The whole house revolved on her as on a rod of steel. It would +be wrong to say that she commanded; for her own efficiency was so +impatient that she obeyed herself before any one else obeyed her. +Before electricians could mend a bell or locksmiths open a door, before +dentists could pluck a tooth or butlers draw a tight cork, it was done +already with the silent violence of her slim hands. She was light; but +there was nothing leaping about her lightness. She spurned the ground, +and she meant to spurn it. People talk of the pathos and failure of +plain women; but it is a more terrible thing that a beautiful woman may +succeed in everything but womanhood. + +“It’s enough to blow your head off,” said the young woman in white, +going to the looking-glass. + +The young woman in blue made no reply, but put away her gardening +gloves, and then went to the sideboard and began to spread out an +afternoon cloth for tea. + +“Enough to blow your head off, I say,” said Miss Rosamund Hunt, with +the unruffled cheeriness of one whose songs and speeches had always +been safe for an encore. + +“Only your hat, I think,” said Diana Duke, “but I dare say that is +sometimes more important.” + +Rosamund’s face showed for an instant the offence of a spoilt child, +and then the humour of a very healthy person. She broke into a laugh +and said, “Well, it would have to be a big wind to blow your head off.” + +There was another silence; and the sunset breaking more and more from +the sundering clouds, filled the room with soft fire and painted the +dull walls with ruby and gold. + +“Somebody once told me,” said Rosamund Hunt, “that it’s easier to keep +one’s head when one has lost one’s heart.” + +“Oh, don’t talk such rubbish,” said Diana with savage sharpness. + +Outside, the garden was clad in a golden splendour; but the wind was +still stiffly blowing, and the three men who stood their ground might +also have considered the problem of hats and heads. And, indeed, their +position, touching hats, was somewhat typical of them. The tallest of +the three abode the blast in a high silk hat, which the wind seemed to +charge as vainly as that other sullen tower, the house behind him. The +second man tried to hold on a stiff straw hat at all angles, and +ultimately held it in his hand. The third had no hat, and, by his +attitude, seemed never to have had one in his life. Perhaps this wind +was a kind of fairy wand to test men and women, for there was much of +the three men in this difference. + +The man in the solid silk hat was the embodiment of silkiness and +solidity. He was a big, bland, bored and (as some said) boring man, +with flat fair hair and handsome heavy features; a prosperous young +doctor by the name of Warner. But if his blondness and blandness seemed +at first a little fatuous, it is certain that he was no fool. If +Rosamund Hunt was the only person there with much money, he was the +only person who had as yet found any kind of fame. His treatise on “The +Probable Existence of Pain in the Lowest Organisms” had been +universally hailed by the scientific world as at once solid and daring. +In short, he undoubtedly had brains; and perhaps it was not his fault +if they were the kind of brains that most men desire to analyze with a +poker. + +The young man who put his hat off and on was a scientific amateur in a +small way, and worshipped the great Warner with a solemn freshness. It +was, in fact, at his invitation that the distinguished doctor was +present; for Warner lived in no such ramshackle lodging-house, but in a +professional palace in Harley Street. This young man was really the +youngest and best-looking of the three. But he was one of those +persons, both male and female, who seem doomed to be good-looking and +insignificant. Brown-haired, high-coloured, and shy, he seemed to lose +the delicacy of his features in a sort of blur of brown and red as he +stood blushing and blinking against the wind. He was one of those +obvious unnoticeable people: every one knew that he was Arthur +Inglewood, unmarried, moral, decidedly intelligent, living on a little +money of his own, and hiding himself in the two hobbies of photography +and cycling. Everybody knew him and forgot him; even as he stood there +in the glare of golden sunset there was something about him indistinct, +like one of his own red-brown amateur photographs. + +The third man had no hat; he was lean, in light, vaguely sporting +clothes, and the large pipe in his mouth made him look all the leaner. +He had a long ironical face, blue-black hair, the blue eyes of an +Irishman, and the blue chin of an actor. An Irishman he was, an actor +he was not, except in the old days of Miss Hunt’s charades, being, as a +matter of fact, an obscure and flippant journalist named Michael Moon. +He had once been hazily supposed to be reading for the Bar; but (as +Warner would say with his rather elephantine wit) it was mostly at +another kind of bar that his friends found him. Moon, however, did not +drink, nor even frequently get drunk; he simply was a gentleman who +liked low company. This was partly because company is quieter than +society: and if he enjoyed talking to a barmaid (as apparently he did), +it was chiefly because the barmaid did the talking. Moreover he would +often bring other talent to assist her. He shared that strange trick of +all men of his type, intellectual and without ambition—the trick of +going about with his mental inferiors. There was a small resilient Jew +named Moses Gould in the same boarding-house, a man whose negro +vitality and vulgarity amused Michael so much that he went round with +him from bar to bar, like the owner of a performing monkey. + +The colossal clearance which the wind had made of that cloudy sky grew +clearer and clearer; chamber within chamber seemed to open in heaven. +One felt one might at last find something lighter than light. In the +fullness of this silent effulgence all things collected their colours +again: the gray trunks turned silver, and the drab gravel gold. One +bird fluttered like a loosened leaf from one tree to another, and his +brown feathers were brushed with fire. + +“Inglewood,” said Michael Moon, with his blue eye on the bird, “have +you any friends?” + +Dr. Warner mistook the person addressed, and turning a broad beaming +face, said,— + +“Oh yes, I go out a great deal.” + +Michael Moon gave a tragic grin, and waited for his real informant, who +spoke a moment after in a voice curiously cool, fresh and young, as +coming out of that brown and even dusty interior. + +“Really,” answered Inglewood, “I’m afraid I’ve lost touch with my old +friends. The greatest friend I ever had was at school, a fellow named +Smith. It’s odd you should mention it, because I was thinking of him +to-day, though I haven’t seen him for seven or eight years. He was on +the science side with me at school— a clever fellow though queer; and +he went up to Oxford when I went to Germany. The fact is, it’s rather a +sad story. I often asked him to come and see me, and when I heard +nothing I made inquiries, you know. I was shocked to learn that poor +Smith had gone off his head. The accounts were a bit cloudy, of course, +some saying that he had recovered again; but they always say that. +About a year ago I got a telegram from him myself. The telegram, I’m +sorry to say, put the matter beyond a doubt.” + +“Quite so,” assented Dr. Warner stolidly; “insanity is generally +incurable.” + +“So is sanity,” said the Irishman, and studied him with a dreary eye. + +“Symptoms?” asked the doctor. “What was this telegram?” + +“It’s a shame to joke about such things,” said Inglewood, in his +honest, embarrassed way; “the telegram was Smith’s illness, not Smith. +The actual words were, ‘Man found alive with two legs.’” + +“Alive with two legs,” repeated Michael, frowning. “Perhaps a version +of alive and kicking? I don’t know much about people out of their +senses; but I suppose they ought to be kicking.” + +“And people in their senses?” asked Warner, smiling. + +“Oh, they ought to be kicked,” said Michael with sudden heartiness. + +“The message is clearly insane,” continued the impenetrable Warner. +“The best test is a reference to the undeveloped normal type. Even a +baby does not expect to find a man with three legs.” + +“Three legs,” said Michael Moon, “would be very convenient in this +wind.” + +A fresh eruption of the atmosphere had indeed almost thrown them off +their balance and broken the blackened trees in the garden. Beyond, all +sorts of accidental objects could be seen scouring the wind-scoured +sky—straws, sticks, rags, papers, and, in the distance, a disappearing +hat. Its disappearance, however, was not final; after an interval of +minutes they saw it again, much larger and closer, like a white panama, +towering up into the heavens like a balloon, staggering to and fro for +an instant like a stricken kite, and then settling in the centre of +their own lawn as falteringly as a fallen leaf. + +“Somebody’s lost a good hat,” said Dr. Warner shortly. + +Almost as he spoke, another object came over the garden wall, flying +after the fluttering panama. It was a big green umbrella. After that +came hurtling a huge yellow Gladstone bag, and after that came a figure +like a flying wheel of legs, as in the shield of the Isle of Man. + +But though for a flash it seemed to have five or six legs, it alighted +upon two, like the man in the queer telegram. It took the form of a +large light-haired man in gay green holiday clothes. He had bright +blonde hair that the wind brushed back like a German’s, a flushed eager +face like a cherub’s, and a prominent pointing nose, a little like a +dog’s. His head, however, was by no means cherubic in the sense of +being without a body. On the contrary, on his vast shoulders and shape +generally gigantesque, his head looked oddly and unnaturally small. +This gave rise to a scientific theory (which his conduct fully +supported) that he was an idiot. + +Inglewood had a politeness instinctive and yet awkward. His life was +full of arrested half gestures of assistance. And even this prodigy of +a big man in green, leaping the wall like a bright green grasshopper, +did not paralyze that small altruism of his habits in such a matter as +a lost hat. He was stepping forward to recover the green gentleman’s +head-gear, when he was struck rigid with a roar like a bull’s. + +“Unsportsmanlike!” bellowed the big man. “Give it fair play, give it +fair play!” And he came after his own hat quickly but cautiously, with +burning eyes. The hat had seemed at first to droop and dawdle as in +ostentatious langour on the sunny lawn; but the wind again freshening +and rising, it went dancing down the garden with the devilry of a _pas +de quatre_. The eccentric went bounding after it with kangaroo leaps +and bursts of breathless speech, of which it was not always easy to +pick up the thread: “Fair play, fair play... sport of kings... chase +their crowns... quite humane... tramontana... cardinals chase red +hats... old English hunting... started a hat in Bramber Combe... hat at +bay... mangled hounds... Got him!” + +As the wind rose out of a roar into a shriek, he leapt into the sky on +his strong, fantastic legs, snatched at the vanishing hat, missed it, +and pitched sprawling face foremost on the grass. The hat rose over him +like a bird in triumph. But its triumph was premature; for the lunatic, +flung forward on his hands, threw up his boots behind, waved his two +legs in the air like symbolic ensigns (so that they actually thought +again of the telegram), and actually caught the hat with his feet. A +prolonged and piercing yell of wind split the welkin from end to end. +The eyes of all the men were blinded by the invisible blast, as by a +strange, clear cataract of transparency rushing between them and all +objects about them. But as the large man fell back in a sitting posture +and solemnly crowned himself with the hat, Michael found, to his +incredulous surprise, that he had been holding his breath, like a man +watching a duel. + +While that tall wind was at the top of its sky-scraping energy, another +short cry was heard, beginning very querulous, but ending very quick, +swallowed in abrupt silence. The shiny black cylinder of Dr. Warner’s +official hat sailed off his head in the long, smooth parabola of an +airship, and in almost cresting a garden tree was caught in the topmost +branches. Another hat was gone. Those in that garden felt themselves +caught in an unaccustomed eddy of things happening; no one seemed to +know what would blow away next. Before they could speculate, the +cheering and hallooing hat-hunter was already halfway up the tree, +swinging himself from fork to fork with his strong, bent, grasshopper +legs, and still giving forth his gasping, mysterious comments. + +“Tree of life... Ygdrasil... climb for centuries perhaps... owls +nesting in the hat... remotest generations of owls... still usurpers... +gone to heaven... man in the moon wears it... brigand... not yours... +belongs to depressed medical man... in garden... give it up... give it +up!” + +The tree swung and swept and thrashed to and fro in the thundering wind +like a thistle, and flamed in the full sunshine like a bonfire. The +green, fantastic human figure, vivid against its autumn red and gold, +was already among its highest and craziest branches, which by bare luck +did not break with the weight of his big body. He was up there among +the last tossing leaves and the first twinkling stars of evening, still +talking to himself cheerfully, reasoningly, half apologetically, in +little gasps. He might well be out of breath, for his whole +preposterous raid had gone with one rush; he had bounded the wall once +like a football, swept down the garden like a slide, and shot up the +tree like a rocket. The other three men seemed buried under incident +piled on incident— a wild world where one thing began before another +thing left off. All three had the first thought. The tree had been +there for the five years they had known the boarding-house. Each one of +them was active and strong. No one of them had even thought of climbing +it. Beyond that, Inglewood felt first the mere fact of colour. The +bright brisk leaves, the bleak blue sky, the wild green arms and legs, +reminded him irrationally of something glowing in his infancy, +something akin to a gaudy man on a golden tree; perhaps it was only a +painted monkey on a stick. Oddly enough, Michael Moon, though more of a +humourist, was touched on a tenderer nerve, half remembered the old, +young theatricals with Rosamund, and was amused to find himself almost +quoting Shakespeare— + +“For valour. Is not love a Hercules, +Still climbing trees in the Hesperides?” + + +Even the immovable man of science had a bright, bewildered sensation +that the Time Machine had given a great jerk, and gone forward with +rather rattling rapidity. + +He was not, however, wholly prepared for what happened next. The man in +green, riding the frail topmost bough like a witch on a very risky +broomstick, reached up and rent the black hat from its airy nest of +twigs. It had been broken across a heavy bough in the first burst of +its passage, a tangle of branches in torn and scored and scratched it +in every direction, a clap of wind and foliage had flattened it like a +concertina; nor can it be said that the obliging gentleman with the +sharp nose showed any adequate tenderness for its structure when he +finally unhooked it from its place. When he had found it, however, his +proceedings were by some counted singular. He waved it with a loud +whoop of triumph, and then immediately appeared to fall backwards off +the tree, to which, however, he remained attached by his long strong +legs, like a monkey swung by his tail. Hanging thus head downwards +above the unhelmed Warner, he gravely proceeded to drop the battered +silk cylinder upon his brows. “Every man a king,” explained the +inverted philosopher, “every hat (consequently) a crown. But this is a +crown out of heaven.” + +And he again attempted the coronation of Warner, who, however, moved +away with great abruptness from the hovering diadem; not seeming, +strangely enough, to wish for his former decoration in its present +state. + +“Wrong, wrong!” cried the obliging person hilariously. “Always wear +uniform, even if it’s shabby uniform! Ritualists may always be untidy. +Go to a dance with soot on your shirt-front; but go with a shirt-front. +Huntsman wears old coat, but old pink coat. Wear a topper, even if it’s +got no top. It’s the symbol that counts, old cock. Take your hat, +because it is your hat after all; its nap rubbed all off by the bark, +dears, and its brim not the least bit curled; but for old sakes’ sake +it is still, dears, the nobbiest tile in the world.” + +Speaking thus, with a wild comfortableness, he settled or smashed the +shapeless silk hat over the face of the disturbed physician, and fell +on his feet among the other men, still talking, beaming and breathless. + +“Why don’t they make more games out of wind?” he asked in some +excitement. “Kites are all right, but why should it only be kites? Why, +I thought of three other games for a windy day while I was climbing +that tree. Here’s one of them: you take a lot of pepper—” + +“I think,” interposed Moon, with a sardonic mildness, “that your games +are already sufficiently interesting. Are you, may I ask, a +professional acrobat on a tour, or a travelling advertisement of Sunny +Jim? How and why do you display all this energy for clearing walls and +climbing trees in our melancholy, but at least rational, suburbs?” + +The stranger, so far as so loud a person was capable of it, appeared to +grow confidential. + +“Well, it’s a trick of my own,” he confessed candidly. “I do it by +having two legs.” + +Arthur Inglewood, who had sunk into the background of this scene of +folly, started and stared at the newcomer with his short-sighted eyes +screwed up and his high colour slightly heightened. + +“Why, I believe you’re Smith,” he cried with his fresh, almost boyish +voice; and then after an instant’s stare, “and yet I’m not sure.” + +“I have a card, I think,” said the unknown, with baffling solemnity—“a +card with my real name, my titles, offices, and true purpose on this +earth.” + +He drew out slowly from an upper waistcoat pocket a scarlet card-case, +and as slowly produced a very large card. Even in the instant of its +production, they fancied it was of a queer shape, unlike the cards of +ordinary gentlemen. But it was there only for an instant; for as it +passed from his fingers to Arthur’s, one or another slipped his hold. +The strident, tearing gale in that garden carried away the stranger’s +card to join the wild waste paper of the universe; and that great +western wind shook the whole house and passed. + + + + +Chapter II +The Luggage of an Optimist + + +We all remember the fairy tales of science in our infancy, which played +with the supposition that large animals could jump in the proportion of +small ones. If an elephant were as strong as a grasshopper, he could (I +suppose) spring clean out of the Zoological Gardens and alight +trumpeting upon Primrose Hill. If a whale could leap from the sea like +a trout, perhaps men might look up and see one soaring above Yarmouth +like the winged island of Laputa. Such natural energy, though sublime, +might certainly be inconvenient, and much of this inconvenience +attended the gaiety and good intentions of the man in green. He was too +large for everything, because he was lively as well as large. By a +fortunate physical provision, most very substantial creatures are also +reposeful; and middle-class boarding-houses in the lesser parts of +London are not built for a man as big as a bull and excitable as a +kitten. + +When Inglewood followed the stranger into the boarding-house, he found +him talking earnestly (and in his own opinion privately) to the +helpless Mrs. Duke. That fat, faint lady could only goggle up like a +dying fish at the enormous new gentleman, who politely offered himself +as a lodger, with vast gestures of the wide white hat in one hand, and +the yellow Gladstone bag in the other. Fortunately, Mrs. Duke’s more +efficient niece and partner was there to complete the contract; for, +indeed, all the people of the house had somehow collected in the room. +This fact, in truth, was typical of the whole episode. The visitor +created an atmosphere of comic crisis; and from the time he came into +the house to the time he left it, he somehow got the company to gather +and even follow (though in derision) as children gather and follow a +Punch and Judy. An hour ago, and for four years previously, these +people had avoided each other, even when they had really liked each +other. They had slid in and out of dismal and deserted rooms in search +of particular newspapers or private needlework. Even now they all came +casually, as with varying interests; but they all came. There was the +embarrassed Inglewood, still a sort of red shadow; there was the +unembarrassed Warner, a pallid but solid substance. There was Michael +Moon offering like a riddle the contrast of the horsy crudeness of his +clothes and the sombre sagacity of his visage. He was now joined by his +yet more comic crony, Moses Gould. Swaggering on short legs with a +prosperous purple tie, he was the gayest of godless little dogs; but +like a dog also in this, that however he danced and wagged with +delight, the two dark eyes on each side of his protuberant nose +glistened gloomily like black buttons. There was Miss Rosamund Hunt, +still with the fine white hat framing her square, good-looking face, +and still with her native air of being dressed for some party that +never came off. She also, like Mr. Moon, had a new companion, new so +far as this narrative goes, but in reality an old friend and a +protegee. This was a slight young woman in dark gray, and in no way +notable but for a load of dull red hair, of which the shape somehow +gave her pale face that triangular, almost peaked, appearance which was +given by the lowering headdress and deep rich ruff of the Elizabethan +beauties. Her surname seemed to be Gray, and Miss Hunt called her Mary, +in that indescribable tone applied to a dependent who has practically +become a friend. She wore a small silver cross on her very +business-like gray clothes, and was the only member of the party who +went to church. Last, but the reverse of least, there was Diana Duke, +studying the newcomer with eyes of steel, and listening carefully to +every idiotic word he said. As for Mrs. Duke, she smiled up at him, but +never dreamed of listening to him. She had never really listened to any +one in her life; which, some said, was why she had survived. + +Nevertheless, Mrs. Duke was pleased with her new guest’s concentration +of courtesy upon herself; for no one ever spoke seriously to her any +more than she listened seriously to any one. And she almost beamed as +the stranger, with yet wider and almost whirling gestures of +explanation with his huge hat and bag, apologized for having entered by +the wall instead of the front door. He was understood to put it down to +an unfortunate family tradition of neatness and care of his clothes. + +“My mother was rather strict about it, to tell the truth,” he said, +lowering his voice, to Mrs. Duke. “She never liked me to lose my cap at +school. And when a man’s been taught to be tidy and neat it sticks to +him.” + +Mrs. Duke weakly gasped that she was sure he must have had a good +mother; but her niece seemed inclined to probe the matter further. + +“You’ve got a funny idea of neatness,” she said, “if it’s jumping +garden walls and clambering up garden trees. A man can’t very well +climb a tree tidily.” + +“He can clear a wall neatly,” said Michael Moon; “I saw him do it.” + +Smith seemed to be regarding the girl with genuine astonishment. “My +dear young lady,” he said, “I was tidying the tree. You don’t want last +year’s hats there, do you, any more than last year’s leaves? The wind +takes off the leaves, but it couldn’t manage the hat; that wind, I +suppose, has tidied whole forests to-day. Rum idea this is, that +tidiness is a timid, quiet sort of thing; why, tidiness is a toil for +giants. You can’t tidy anything without untidying yourself; just look +at my trousers. Don’t you know that? Haven’t you ever had a spring +cleaning?” + +“Oh yes, sir,” said Mrs. Duke, almost eagerly. “You will find +everything of that sort quite nice.” For the first time she had heard +two words that she could understand. + +Miss Diana Duke seemed to be studying the stranger with a sort of spasm +of calculation; then her black eyes snapped with decision, and she said +that he could have a particular bedroom on the top floor if he liked: +and the silent and sensitive Inglewood, who had been on the rack +through these cross-purposes, eagerly offered to show him up to the +room. Smith went up the stairs four at a time, and when he bumped his +head against the ultimate ceiling, Inglewood had an odd sensation that +the tall house was much shorter than it used to be. + +Arthur Inglewood followed his old friend—or his new friend, for he did +not very clearly know which he was. The face looked very like his old +schoolfellow’s at one second and very unlike at another. And when +Inglewood broke through his native politeness so far as to say +suddenly, “Is your name Smith?” he received only the unenlightening +reply, “Quite right; quite right. Very good. Excellent!” Which appeared +to Inglewood, on reflection, rather the speech of a new-born babe +accepting a name than of a grown-up man admitting one. + +Despite these doubts about identity, the hapless Inglewood watched the +other unpack, and stood about his bedroom in all the impotent attitudes +of the male friend. Mr. Smith unpacked with the same kind of whirling +accuracy with which he climbed a tree—throwing things out of his bag as +if they were rubbish, yet managing to distribute quite a regular +pattern all round him on the floor. + +As he did so he continued to talk in the same somewhat gasping manner +(he had come upstairs four steps at a time, but even without this his +style of speech was breathless and fragmentary), and his remarks were +still a string of more or less significant but often separate pictures. + +“Like the day of judgement,” he said, throwing a bottle so that it +somehow settled, rocking on its right end. “People say vast universe... +infinity and astronomy; not sure... I think things are too close +together... packed up; for travelling... stars too close, really... +why, the sun’s a star, too close to be seen properly; the earth’s a +star, too close to be seen at all... too many pebbles on the beach; +ought all to be put in rings; too many blades of grass to study... +feathers on a bird make the brain reel; wait till the big bag is +unpacked... may all be put in our right places then.” + +Here he stopped, literally for breath—throwing a shirt to the other end +of the room, and then a bottle of ink so that it fell quite neatly +beyond it. Inglewood looked round on this strange, half-symmetrical +disorder with an increasing doubt. + +In fact, the more one explored Mr. Smith’s holiday luggage, the less +one could make anything of it. One peculiarity of it was that almost +everything seemed to be there for the wrong reason; what is secondary +with every one else was primary with him. He would wrap up a pot or pan +in brown paper; and the unthinking assistant would discover that the +pot was valueless or even unnecessary, and that it was the brown paper +that was truly precious. He produced two or three boxes of cigars, and +explained with plain and perplexing sincerity that he was no smoker, +but that cigar-box wood was by far the best for fretwork. He also +exhibited about six small bottles of wine, white and red, and +Inglewood, happening to note a Volnay which he knew to be excellent, +supposed at first that the stranger was an epicure in vintages. He was +therefore surprised to find that the next bottle was a vile sham claret +from the colonies, which even colonials (to do them justice) do not +drink. It was only then that he observed that all six bottles had those +bright metallic seals of various tints, and seemed to have been chosen +solely because they have the three primary and three secondary colours: +red, blue, and yellow; green, violet and orange. There grew upon +Inglewood an almost creepy sense of the real childishness of this +creature. For Smith was really, so far as human psychology can be, +innocent. He had the sensualities of innocence: he loved the stickiness +of gum, and he cut white wood greedily as if he were cutting a cake. To +this man wine was not a doubtful thing to be defended or denounced; it +was a quaintly coloured syrup, such as a child sees in a shop window. +He talked dominantly and rushed the social situation; but he was not +asserting himself, like a superman in a modern play. He was simply +forgetting himself, like a little boy at a party. He had somehow made +the giant stride from babyhood to manhood, and missed that crisis in +youth when most of us grow old. + +As he shunted his big bag, Arthur observed the initials I. S. printed +on one side of it, and remembered that Smith had been called Innocent +Smith at school, though whether as a formal Christian name or a moral +description he could not remember. He was just about to venture another +question, when there was a knock at the door, and the short figure of +Mr. Gould offered itself, with the melancholy Moon, standing like his +tall crooked shadow, behind him. They had drifted up the stairs after +the other two men with the wandering gregariousness of the male. + +“Hope there’s no intrusion,” said the beaming Moses with a glow of good +nature, but not the airiest tinge of apology. + +“The truth is,” said Michael Moon with comparative courtesy, “we +thought we might see if they had made you comfortable. Miss Duke is +rather—” + +“I know,” cried the stranger, looking up radiantly from his bag; +“magnificent, isn’t she? Go close to her—hear military music going by, +like Joan of Arc.” + +Inglewood stared and stared at the speaker like one who has just heard +a wild fairy tale, which nevertheless contains one small and forgotten +fact. For he remembered how he had himself thought of Jeanne d’Arc +years ago, when, hardly more than a schoolboy, he had first come to the +boarding-house. Long since the pulverizing rationalism of his friend +Dr. Warner had crushed such youthful ignorances and disproportionate +dreams. Under the Warnerian scepticism and science of hopeless human +types, Inglewood had long come to regard himself as a timid, +insufficient, and “weak” type, who would never marry; to regard Diana +Duke as a materialistic maidservant; and to regard his first fancy for +her as the small, dull farce of a collegian kissing his landlady’s +daughter. And yet the phrase about military music moved him queerly, as +if he had heard those distant drums. + +“She has to keep things pretty tight, as is only natural,” said Moon, +glancing round the rather dwarfish room, with its wedge of slanted +ceiling, like the conical hood of a dwarf. + +“Rather a small box for you, sir,” said the waggish Mr. Gould. + +“Splendid room, though,” answered Mr. Smith enthusiastically, with his +head inside his Gladstone bag. “I love these pointed sorts of rooms, +like Gothic. By the way,” he cried out, pointing in quite a startling +way, “where does that door lead to?” + +“To certain death, I should say,” answered Michael Moon, staring up at +a dust-stained and disused trapdoor in the sloping roof of the attic. +“I don’t think there’s a loft there; and I don’t know what else it +could lead to.” Long before he had finished his sentence the man with +the strong green legs had leapt at the door in the ceiling, swung +himself somehow on to the ledge beneath it, wrenched it open after a +struggle, and clambered through it. For a moment they saw the two +symbolic legs standing like a truncated statue; then they vanished. +Through the hole thus burst in the roof appeared the empty and lucid +sky of evening, with one great many-coloured cloud sailing across it +like a whole county upside down. + +“Hullo, you fellows!” came the far cry of Innocent Smith, apparently +from some remote pinnacle. “Come up here; and bring some of my things +to eat and drink. It’s just the spot for a picnic.” + +With a sudden impulse Michael snatched two of the small bottles of +wine, one in each solid fist; and Arthur Inglewood, as if mesmerized, +groped for a biscuit tin and a big jar of ginger. The enormous hand of +Innocent Smith appearing through the aperture, like a giant’s in a +fairy tale, received these tributes and bore them off to the eyrie; +then they both hoisted themselves out of the window. They were both +athletic, and even gymnastic; Inglewood through his concern for +hygiene, and Moon through his concern for sport, which was not quite so +idle and inactive as that of the average sportsman. Also they both had +a light-headed burst of celestial sensation when the door was burst in +the roof, as if a door had been burst in the sky, and they could climb +out on to the very roof of the universe. They were both men who had +long been unconsciously imprisoned in the commonplace, though one took +it comically, and the other seriously. They were both men, +nevertheless, in whom sentiment had never died. But Mr. Moses Gould had +an equal contempt for their suicidal athletics and their subconscious +transcendentalism, and he stood and laughed at the thing with the +shameless rationality of another race. + +When the singular Smith, astride of a chimney-pot, learnt that Gould +was not following, his infantile officiousness and good nature forced +him to dive back into the attic to comfort or persuade; and Inglewood +and Moon were left alone on the long gray-green ridge of the slate +roof, with their feet against gutters and their backs against +chimney-pots, looking agnostically at each other. Their first feeling +was that they had come out into eternity, and that eternity was very +like topsy-turvydom. One definition occurred to both of them—that he +had come out into the light of that lucid and radiant ignorance in +which all beliefs had begun. The sky above them was full of mythology. +Heaven seemed deep enough to hold all the gods. The round of the ether +turned from green to yellow gradually like a great unripe fruit. All +around the sunken sun it was like a lemon; round all the east it was a +sort of golden green, more suggestive of a greengage; but the whole had +still the emptiness of daylight and none of the secrecy of dusk. +Tumbled here and there across this gold and pale green were shards and +shattered masses of inky purple cloud, which seemed falling towards the +earth in every kind of colossal perspective. One of them really had the +character of some many-mitred, many-bearded, many-winged Assyrian +image, huge head downwards, hurled out of heaven—a sort of false +Jehovah, who was perhaps Satan. All the other clouds had preposterous +pinnacled shapes, as if the god’s palaces had been flung after him. + +And yet, while the empty heaven was full of silent catastrophe, the +height of human buildings above which they sat held here and there a +tiny trivial noise that was the exact antithesis; and they heard some +six streets below a newsboy calling, and a bell bidding to chapel. They +could also hear talk out of the garden below; and realized that the +irrepressible Smith must have followed Gould downstairs, for his eager +and pleading accents could be heard, followed by the half-humourous +protests of Miss Duke and the full and very youthful laughter of +Rosamund Hunt. The air had that cold kindness that comes after a storm. +Michael Moon drank it in with as serious a relish as he had drunk the +little bottle of cheap claret, which he had emptied almost at a +draught. Inglewood went on eating ginger very slowly and with a +solemnity unfathomable as the sky above him. There was still enough +stir in the freshness of the atmosphere to make them almost fancy they +could smell the garden soil and the last roses of autumn. Suddenly +there came from the darkening room a silvery ping and pong which told +them that Rosamund had brought out the long-neglected mandoline. After +the first few notes there was more of the distant bell-like laughter. + +“Inglewood,” said Michael Moon, “have you ever heard that I am a +blackguard?” + +“I haven’t heard it, and I don’t believe it,” answered Inglewood, after +an odd pause. “But I have heard you were—what they call rather wild.” + +“If you have heard that I am wild, you can contradict the rumour,” said +Moon, with an extraordinary calm; “I am tame. I am quite tame; I am +about the tamest beast that crawls. I drink too much of the same kind +of whisky at the same time every night. I even drink about the same +amount too much. I go to the same number of public-houses. I meet the +same damned women with mauve faces. I hear the same number of dirty +stories— generally the same dirty stories. You may assure my friends, +Inglewood, that you see before you a person whom civilization has +thoroughly tamed.” + +Arthur Inglewood was staring with feelings that made him nearly fall +off the roof, for indeed the Irishman’s face, always sinister, was now +almost demoniacal. + +“Christ confound it!” cried out Moon, suddenly clutching the empty +claret bottle, “this is about the thinnest and filthiest wine I ever +uncorked, and it’s the only drink I have really enjoyed for nine years. +I was never wild until just ten minutes ago.” And he sent the bottle +whizzing, a wheel of glass, far away beyond the garden into the road, +where, in the profound evening silence, they could even hear it break +and part upon the stones. + +“Moon,” said Arthur Inglewood, rather huskily, “you mustn’t be so +bitter about it. Everyone has to take the world as he finds it; of +course one often finds it a bit dull—” + +“That fellow doesn’t,” said Michael decisively; “I mean that fellow +Smith. I have a fancy there’s some method in his madness. It looks as +if he could turn into a sort of wonderland any minute by taking one +step out of the plain road. Who would have thought of that trapdoor? +Who would have thought that this cursed colonial claret could taste +quite nice among the chimney-pots? Perhaps that is the real key of +fairyland. Perhaps Nosey Gould’s beastly little Empire Cigarettes ought +only to be smoked on stilts, or something of that sort. Perhaps Mrs. +Duke’s cold leg of mutton would seem quite appetizing at the top of a +tree. Perhaps even my damned, dirty, monotonous drizzle of Old Bill +Whisky—” + +“Don’t be so rough on yourself,” said Inglewood, in serious distress. +“The dullness isn’t your fault or the whisky’s. Fellows who don’t— +fellows like me I mean—have just the same feeling that it’s all rather +flat and a failure. But the world’s made like that; it’s all survival. +Some people are made to get on, like Warner; and some people are made +to stick quiet, like me. You can’t help your temperament. I know you’re +much cleverer than I am; but you can’t help having all the loose ways +of a poor literary chap, and I can’t help having all the doubts and +helplessness of a small scientific chap, any more than a fish can help +floating or a fern can help curling up. Humanity, as Warner said so +well in that lecture, really consists of quite different tribes of +animals all disguised as men.” + +In the dim garden below the buzz of talk was suddenly broken by Miss +Hunt’s musical instrument banging with the abruptness of artillery into +a vulgar but spirited tune. + +Rosamund’s voice came up rich and strong in the words of some fatuous, +fashionable coon song:— + +“Darkies sing a song on the old plantation, +Sing it as we sang it in days long since gone by.” + + +Inglewood’s brown eyes softened and saddened still more as he continued +his monologue of resignation to such a rollicking and romantic tune. +But the blue eyes of Michael Moon brightened and hardened with a light +that Inglewood did not understand. Many centuries, and many villages +and valleys, would have been happier if Inglewood or Inglewood’s +countrymen had ever understood that light, or guessed at the first +blink that it was the battle star of Ireland. + +“Nothing can ever alter it; it’s in the wheels of the universe,” went +on Inglewood, in a low voice: “some men are weak and some strong, and +the only thing we can do is to know that we are weak. I have been in +love lots of times, but I could not do anything, for I remembered my +own fickleness. I have formed opinions, but I haven’t the cheek to push +them, because I’ve so often changed them. That’s the upshot, old +fellow. We can’t trust ourselves— and we can’t help it.” + +Michael had risen to his feet, and stood poised in a perilous position +at the end of the roof, like some dark statue hung above its gable. +Behind him, huge clouds of an almost impossible purple turned slowly +topsy-turvy in the silent anarchy of heaven. Their gyration made the +dark figure seem yet dizzier. + +“Let us...” he said, and was suddenly silent. + +“Let us what?” asked Arthur Inglewood, rising equally quick though +somewhat more cautiously, for his friend seemed to find some difficulty +in speech. + +“Let us go and do some of these things we can’t do,” said Michael. + +At the same moment there burst out of the trapdoor below them the +cockatoo hair and flushed face of Innocent Smith, calling to them that +they must come down as the “concert” was in full swing, and Mr. Moses +Gould was about to recite “Young Lochinvar.” + +As they dropped into Innocent’s attic they nearly tumbled over its +entertaining impedimenta again. Inglewood, staring at the littered +floor, thought instinctively of the littered floor of a nursery. He was +therefore the more moved, and even shocked, when his eye fell on a +large well-polished American revolver. + +“Hullo!” he cried, stepping back from the steely glitter as men step +back from a serpent; “are you afraid of burglars? or when and why do +you deal death out of that machine gun?” + +“Oh, that!” said Smith, throwing it a single glance; “I deal life out +of that,” and he went bounding down the stairs. + + + + +Chapter III +The Banner of Beacon + + +All next day at Beacon House there was a crazy sense that it was +everybody’s birthday. It is the fashion to talk of institutions as cold +and cramping things. The truth is that when people are in exceptionally +high spirits, really wild with freedom and invention, they always must, +and they always do, create institutions. When men are weary they fall +into anarchy; but while they are gay and vigorous they invariably make +rules. This, which is true of all the churches and republics of +history, is also true of the most trivial parlour game or the most +unsophisticated meadow romp. We are never free until some institution +frees us; and liberty cannot exist till it is declared by authority. +Even the wild authority of the harlequin Smith was still authority, +because it produced everywhere a crop of crazy regulations and +conditions. He filled every one with his own half-lunatic life; but it +was not expressed in destruction, but rather in a dizzy and toppling +construction. Each person with a hobby found it turning into an +institution. Rosamund’s songs seemed to coalesce into a kind of opera; +Michael’s jests and paragraphs into a magazine. His pipe and her +mandoline seemed between them to make a sort of smoking concert. The +bashful and bewildered Arthur Inglewood almost struggled against his +own growing importance. He felt as if, in spite of him, his photographs +were turning into a picture gallery, and his bicycle into a gymkhana. +But no one had any time to criticize these impromptu estates and +offices, for they followed each other in wild succession like the +topics of a rambling talker. + +Existence with such a man was an obstacle race made out of pleasant +obstacles. Out of any homely and trivial object he could drag reels of +exaggeration, like a conjurer. Nothing could be more shy and impersonal +than poor Arthur’s photography. Yet the preposterous Smith was seen +assisting him eagerly through sunny morning hours, and an indefensible +sequence described as “Moral Photography” began to unroll about the +boarding-house. It was only a version of the old photographer’s joke +which produces the same figure twice on one plate, making a man play +chess with himself, dine with himself, and so on. But these plates were +more hysterical and ambitious—as, “Miss Hunt forgets Herself,” showing +that lady answering her own too rapturous recognition with a most +appalling stare of ignorance; or “Mr. Moon questions Himself,” in which +Mr. Moon appeared as one driven to madness under his own legal +cross-examination, which was conducted with a long forefinger and an +air of ferocious waggery. One highly successful trilogy—representing +Inglewood recognizing Inglewood, Inglewood prostrating himself before +Inglewood, and Inglewood severely beating Inglewood with an umbrella— +Innocent Smith wanted to have enlarged and put up in the hall, like a +sort of fresco, with the inscription,— + +“Self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control— +These three alone will make a man a prig.” + TENNYSON. + + +Nothing, again, could be more prosaic and impenetrable than the +domestic energies of Miss Diana Duke. But Innocent had somehow +blundered on the discovery that her thrifty dressmaking went with a +considerable feminine care for dress—the one feminine thing that had +never failed her solitary self-respect. In consequence Smith pestered +her with a theory (which he really seemed to take seriously) that +ladies might combine economy with magnificence if they would draw light +chalk patterns on a plain dress and then dust them off again. He set up +“Smith’s Lightning Dressmaking Company,” with two screens, a cardboard +placard, and box of bright soft crayons; and Miss Diana actually threw +him an abandoned black overall or working dress on which to exercise +the talents of a modiste. He promptly produced for her a garment aflame +with red and gold sunflowers; she held it up an instant to her +shoulders, and looked like an empress. And Arthur Inglewood, some hours +afterwards cleaning his bicycle (with his usual air of being +inextricably hidden in it), glanced up; and his hot face grew hotter, +for Diana stood laughing for one flash in the doorway, and her dark +robe was rich with the green and purple of great decorative peacocks, +like a secret garden in the “Arabian Nights.” A pang too swift to be +named pain or pleasure went through his heart like an old-world rapier. +He remembered how pretty he thought her years ago, when he was ready to +fall in love with anybody; but it was like remembering a worship of +some Babylonian princess in some previous existence. At his next +glimpse of her (and he caught himself awaiting it) the purple and green +chalk was dusted off, and she went by quickly in her working clothes. + +As for Mrs. Duke, none who knew that matron could conceive her as +actively resisting this invasion that had turned her house upside down. +But among the most exact observers it was seriously believed that she +liked it. For she was one of those women who at bottom regard all men +as equally mad, wild animals of some utterly separate species. And it +is doubtful if she really saw anything more eccentric or inexplicable +in Smith’s chimney-pot picnics or crimson sunflowers than she had in +the chemicals of Inglewood or the sardonic speeches of Moon. Courtesy, +on the other hand, is a thing that anybody can understand, and Smith’s +manners were as courteous as they were unconventional. She said he was +“a real gentleman,” by which she simply meant a kind-hearted man, which +is a very different thing. She would sit at the head of the table with +fat, folded hands and a fat, folded smile for hours and hours, while +every one else was talking at once. At least, the only other exception +was Rosamund’s companion, Mary Gray, whose silence was of a much more +eager sort. Though she never spoke she always looked as if she might +speak any minute. Perhaps this is the very definition of a companion. +Innocent Smith seemed to throw himself, as into other adventures, into +the adventure of making her talk. He never succeeded, yet he was never +snubbed; if he achieved anything, it was only to draw attention to this +quiet figure, and to turn her, by ever so little, from a modesty to a +mystery. But if she was a riddle, every one recognized that she was a +fresh and unspoilt riddle, like the riddle of the sky and the woods in +spring. Indeed, though she was rather older than the other two girls, +she had an early morning ardour, a fresh earnestness of youth, which +Rosamund seemed to have lost in the mere spending of money, and Diana +in the mere guarding of it. Smith looked at her again and again. Her +eyes and mouth were set in her face the wrong way—which was really the +right way. She had the knack of saying everything with her face: her +silence was a sort of steady applause. + +But among the hilarious experiments of that holiday (which seemed more +like a week’s holiday than a day’s) one experiment towers supreme, not +because it was any sillier or more successful than the others, but +because out of this particular folly flowed all of the odd events that +were to follow. All the other practical jokes exploded of themselves, +and left vacancy; all the other fictions returned upon themselves, and +were finished like a song. But the string of solid and startling +events— which were to include a hansom cab, a detective, a pistol, and +a marriage licence—were all made primarily possible by the joke about +the High Court of Beacon. + +It had originated, not with Innocent Smith, but with Michael Moon. He +was in a strange glow and pressure of spirits, and talked incessantly; +yet he had never been more sarcastic, and even inhuman. He used his old +useless knowledge as a barrister to talk entertainingly of a tribunal +that was a parody on the pompous anomalies of English law. The High +Court of Beacon, he declared, was a splendid example of our free and +sensible constitution. It had been founded by King John in defiance of +the Magna Carta, and now held absolute power over windmills, wine and +spirit licences, ladies traveling in Turkey, revision of sentences for +dog-stealing and parricide, as well as anything whatever that happened +in the town of Market Bosworth. The whole hundred and nine seneschals +of the High Court of Beacon met once in every four centuries; but in +the intervals (as Mr. Moon explained) the whole powers of the +institution were vested in Mrs. Duke. Tossed about among the rest of +the company, however, the High Court did not retain its historical and +legal seriousness, but was used somewhat unscrupulously in a riot of +domestic detail. If somebody spilt the Worcester Sauce on the +tablecloth, he was quite sure it was a rite without which the sittings +and findings of the Court would be invalid; or if somebody wanted a +window to remain shut, he would suddenly remember that none but the +third son of the lord of the manor of Penge had the right to open it. +They even went to the length of making arrests and conducting criminal +inquiries. The proposed trial of Moses Gould for patriotism was rather +above the heads of the company, especially of the criminal; but the +trial of Inglewood on a charge of photographic libel, and his +triumphant acquittal upon a plea of insanity, were admitted to be in +the best tradition of the Court. + +But when Smith was in wild spirits he grew more and more serious, not +more and more flippant like Michael Moon. This proposal of a private +court of justice, which Moon had thrown off with the detachment of a +political humourist, Smith really caught hold of with the eagerness of +an abstract philosopher. It was by far the best thing they could do, he +declared, to claim sovereign powers even for the individual household. + +“You believe in Home Rule for Ireland; I believe in Home Rule for +homes,” he cried eagerly to Michael. “It would be better if every +father COULD kill his son, as with the old Romans; it would be better, +because nobody would be killed. Let’s issue a Declaration of +Independence from Beacon House. We could grow enough greens in that +garden to support us, and when the tax-collector comes let’s tell him +we’re self-supporting, and play on him with the hose.... Well, perhaps, +as you say, we couldn’t very well have a hose, as that comes from the +main; but we could sink a well in this chalk, and a lot could be done +with water-jugs.... Let this really be Beacon House. Let’s light a +bonfire of independence on the roof, and see house after house +answering it across the valley of the Thames! Let us begin the League +of the Free Families! Away with Local Government! A fig for Local +Patriotism! Let every house be a sovereign state as this is, and judge +its own children by its own law, as we do by the Court of Beacon. Let +us cut the painter, and begin to be happy together, as if we were on a +desert island.” + +“I know that desert island,” said Michael Moon; “it only exists in the +‘Swiss Family Robinson.’ A man feels a strange desire for some sort of +vegetable milk, and crash comes down some unexpected cocoa-nut from +some undiscovered monkey. A literary man feels inclined to pen a +sonnet, and at once an officious porcupine rushes out of a thicket and +shoots out one of his quills.” + +“Don’t you say a word against the ‘Swiss Family Robinson,’” cried +Innocent with great warmth. “It mayn’t be exact science, but it’s dead +accurate philosophy. When you’re really shipwrecked, you do really find +what you want. When you’re really on a desert island, you never find it +a desert. If we were really besieged in this garden, we’d find a +hundred English birds and English berries that we never knew were here. +If we were snowed up in this room, we’d be the better for reading +scores of books in that bookcase that we don’t even know are there; +we’d have talks with each other, good, terrible talks, that we shall go +to the grave without guessing; we’d find materials for everything— +christening, marriage, or funeral; yes, even for a coronation— if we +didn’t decide to be a republic.” + +“A coronation on ‘Swiss Family’ lines, I suppose,” said Michael, +laughing. “Oh, I know you would find everything in that atmosphere. If +we wanted such a simple thing, for instance, as a Coronation Canopy, we +should walk down beyond the geraniums and find the Canopy Tree in full +bloom. If we wanted such a trifle as a crown of gold, why, we should be +digging up dandelions, and we should find a gold mine under the lawn. +And when we wanted oil for the ceremony, why I suppose a great storm +would wash everything on shore, and we should find there was a Whale on +the premises.” + +“And so there IS a whale on the premises for all you know,” asseverated +Smith, striking the table with passion. “I bet you’ve never examined +the premises! I bet you’ve never been round at the back as I was this +morning— for I found the very thing you say could only grow on a tree. +There’s an old sort of square tent up against the dustbin; it’s got +three holes in the canvas, and a pole’s broken, so it’s not much good +as a tent, but as a Canopy—” And his voice quite failed him to express +its shining adequacy; then he went on with controversial eagerness: +“You see I take every challenge as you make it. I believe every blessed +thing you say couldn’t be here has been here all the time. You say you +want a whale washed up for oil. Why, there’s oil in that cruet-stand at +your elbow; and I don’t believe anybody has touched it or thought of it +for years. And as for your gold crown, we’re none of us wealthy here, +but we could collect enough ten-shilling bits from our own pockets to +string round a man’s head for half an hour; or one of Miss Hunt’s gold +bangles is nearly big enough to—” + +The good-humoured Rosamund was almost choking with laughter. “All is +not gold that glitters,” she said, “and besides—” + +“What a mistake that is!” cried Innocent Smith, leaping up in great +excitement. “All is gold that glitters— especially now we are a +Sovereign State. What’s the good of a Sovereign State if you can’t +define a sovereign? We can make anything a precious metal, as men could +in the morning of the world. They didn’t choose gold because it was +rare; your scientists can tell you twenty sorts of slime much rarer. +They chose gold because it was bright—because it was a hard thing to +find, but pretty when you’ve found it. You can’t fight with golden +swords or eat golden biscuits; you can only look at it—and you can look +at it out here.” + +With one of his incalculable motions he sprang back and burst open the +doors into the garden. At the same time also, with one of his gestures +that never seemed at the instant so unconventional as they were, he +stretched out his hand to Mary Gray, and led her out on to the lawn as +if for a dance. + +The French windows, thus flung open, let in an evening even lovelier +than that of the day before. The west was swimming with sanguine +colours, and a sort of sleepy flame lay along the lawn. The twisted +shadows of the one or two garden trees showed upon this sheen, not gray +or black, as in common daylight, but like arabesques written in vivid +violet ink on some page of Eastern gold. The sunset was one of those +festive and yet mysterious conflagrations in which common things by +their colours remind us of costly or curious things. The slates upon +the sloping roof burned like the plumes of a vast peacock, in every +mysterious blend of blue and green. The red-brown bricks of the wall +glowed with all the October tints of strong ruby and tawny wines. The +sun seemed to set each object alight with a different coloured flame, +like a man lighting fireworks; and even Innocent’s hair, which was of a +rather colourless fairness, seemed to have a flame of pagan gold on it +as he strode across the lawn towards the one tall ridge of rockery. + +“What would be the good of gold,” he was saying, “if it did not +glitter? Why should we care for a black sovereign any more than for a +black sun at noon? A black button would do just as well. Don’t you see +that everything in this garden looks like a jewel? And will you kindly +tell me what the deuce is the good of a jewel except that it looks like +a jewel? Leave off buying and selling, and start looking! Open your +eyes, and you’ll wake up in the New Jerusalem. + +“All is gold that glitters— + Tree and tower of brass; +Rolls the golden evening air + Down the golden grass. +Kick the cry to Jericho, + How yellow mud is sold; +All is gold that glitters, + For the glitter is the gold.” + + +“And who wrote that?” asked Rosamund, amused. + +“No one will ever write it,” answered Smith, and cleared the rockery +with a flying leap. + +“Really,” said Rosamund to Michael Moon, “he ought to be sent to an +asylum. Don’t you think so?” + +“I beg your pardon,” inquired Michael, rather sombrely; his long, +swarthy head was dark against the sunset, and, either by accident or +mood, he had the look of something isolated and even hostile amid the +social extravagance of the garden. + +“I only said Mr. Smith ought to go to an asylum,” repeated the lady. + +The lean face seemed to grow longer and longer, for Moon was +unmistakably sneering. “No,” he said; “I don’t think it’s at all +necessary.” + +“What do you mean?” asked Rosamund quickly. “Why not?” + +“Because he is in one now,” answered Michael Moon, in a quiet but ugly +voice. “Why, didn’t you know?” + +“What?” cried the girl, and there was a break in her voice; for the +Irishman’s face and voice were really almost creepy. With his dark +figure and dark sayings in all that sunshine he looked like the devil +in paradise. + +“I’m sorry,” he continued, with a sort of harsh humility. “Of course we +don’t talk about it much... but I thought we all really knew.” + +“Knew what?” + +“Well,” answered Moon, “that Beacon House is a certain rather singular +sort of house—a house with the tiles loose, shall we say? Innocent +Smith is only the doctor that visits us; hadn’t you come when he called +before? As most of our maladies are melancholic, of course he has to be +extra cheery. Sanity, of course, seems a very bumptious eccentric thing +to us. Jumping over a wall, climbing a tree—that’s his bedside manner.” + +“You daren’t say such a thing!” cried Rosamund in a rage. “You daren’t +suggest that I—” + +“Not more than I am,” said Michael soothingly; “not more than the rest +of us. Haven’t you ever noticed that Miss Duke never sits still—a +notorious sign? Haven’t you ever observed that Inglewood is always +washing his hands— a known mark of mental disease? I, of course, am a +dipsomaniac.” + +“I don’t believe you,” broke out his companion, not without agitation. +“I’ve heard you had some bad habits—” + +“All habits are bad habits,” said Michael, with deadly calm. “Madness +does not come by breaking out, but by giving in; by settling down in +some dirty, little, self-repeating circle of ideas; by being tamed. YOU +went mad about money, because you’re an heiress.” + +“It’s a lie,” cried Rosamund furiously. “I never was mean about money.” + +“You were worse,” said Michael, in a low voice and yet violently. “You +thought that other people were. You thought every man who came near you +must be a fortune-hunter; you would not let yourself go and be sane; +and now you’re mad and I’m mad, and serve us right.” + +“You brute!” said Rosamund, quite white. “And is this true?” + +With the intellectual cruelty of which the Celt is capable when his +abysses are in revolt, Michael was silent for some seconds, and then +stepped back with an ironical bow. “Not literally true, of course,” he +said; “only really true. An allegory, shall we say? a social satire.” + +“And I hate and despise your satires,” cried Rosamund Hunt, letting +loose her whole forcible female personality like a cyclone, and +speaking every word to wound. “I despise it as I despise your rank +tobacco, and your nasty, loungy ways, and your snarling, and your +Radicalism, and your old clothes, and your potty little newspaper, and +your rotten failure at everything. I don’t care whether you call it +snobbishness or not, I like life and success, and jolly things to look +at, and action. You won’t frighten me with Diogenes; I prefer +Alexander.” + +“Victrix causa deæ—” said Michael gloomily; and this angered her more, +as, not knowing what it meant, she imagined it to be witty. + +“Oh, I dare say you know Greek,” she said, with cheerful inaccuracy; +“you haven’t done much with that either.” And she crossed the garden, +pursuing the vanished Innocent and Mary. + +In doing so she passed Inglewood, who was returning to the house +slowly, and with a thought-clouded brow. He was one of those men who +are quite clever, but quite the reverse of quick. As he came back out +of the sunset garden into the twilight parlour, Diana Duke slipped +swiftly to her feet and began putting away the tea things. But it was +not before Inglewood had seen an instantaneous picture so unique that +he might well have snapshotted it with his everlasting camera. For +Diana had been sitting in front of her unfinished work with her chin on +her hand, looking straight out of the window in pure thoughtless +thought. + +“You are busy,” said Arthur, oddly embarrassed with what he had seen, +and wishing to ignore it. + +“There’s no time for dreaming in this world,” answered the young lady +with her back to him. + +“I have been thinking lately,” said Inglewood in a low voice, “that +there’s no time for waking up.” + +She did not reply, and he walked to the window and looked out on the +garden. + +“I don’t smoke or drink, you know,” he said irrelevantly, “because I +think they’re drugs. And yet I fancy all hobbies, like my camera and +bicycle, are drugs too. Getting under a black hood, getting into a dark +room—getting into a hole anyhow. Drugging myself with speed, and +sunshine, and fatigue, and fresh air. Pedalling the machine so fast +that I turn into a machine myself. That’s the matter with all of us. +We’re too busy to wake up.” + +“Well,” said the girl solidly, “what is there to wake up to?” + +“There must be!” cried Inglewood, turning round in a singular +excitement—“there must be something to wake up to! All we do is +preparations—your cleanliness, and my healthiness, and Warner’s +scientific appliances. We’re always preparing for something—something +that never comes off. I ventilate the house, and you sweep the house; +but what is going to HAPPEN in the house?” + +She was looking at him quietly, but with very bright eyes, and seemed +to be searching for some form of words which she could not find. + +Before she could speak the door burst open, and the boisterous Rosamund +Hunt, in her flamboyant white hat, boa, and parasol, stood framed in +the doorway. She was in a breathing heat, and on her open face was an +expression of the most infantile astonishment. + +“Well, here’s a fine game!” she said, panting. “What am I to do now, I +wonder? I’ve wired for Dr. Warner; that’s all I can think of doing.” + +“What is the matter?” asked Diana, rather sharply, but moving forward +like one used to be called upon for assistance. + +“It’s Mary,” said the heiress, “my companion Mary Gray: that cracked +friend of yours called Smith has proposed to her in the garden, after +ten hours’ acquaintance, and he wants to go off with her now for a +special licence.” + +Arthur Inglewood walked to the open French windows and looked out on +the garden, still golden with evening light. Nothing moved there but a +bird or two hopping and twittering; but beyond the hedge and railings, +in the road outside the garden gate, a hansom cab was waiting, with the +yellow Gladstone bag on top of it. + + + + +Chapter IV +The Garden of the God + + +Diana Duke seemed inexplicably irritated at the abrupt entrance and +utterance of the other girl. + +“Well,” she said shortly, “I suppose Miss Gray can decline him if she +doesn’t want to marry him.” + +“But she DOES want to marry him!” cried Rosamund in exasperation. +“She’s a wild, wicked fool, and I won’t be parted from her.” + +“Perhaps,” said Diana icily, “but I really don’t see what we can do.” + +“But the man’s balmy, Diana,” reasoned her friend angrily. “I can’t let +my nice governess marry a man that’s balmy! You or somebody MUST stop +it!—Mr. Inglewood, you’re a man; go and tell them they simply can’t.” + +“Unfortunately, it seems to me they simply can,” said Inglewood, with a +depressed air. “I have far less right of intervention than Miss Duke, +besides having, of course, far less moral force than she.” + +“You haven’t either of you got much,” cried Rosamund, the last stays of +her formidable temper giving way; “I think I’ll go somewhere else for a +little sense and pluck. I think I know some one who will help me more +than you do, at any rate... he’s a cantankerous beast, but he’s a man, +and has a mind, and knows it...” And she flung out into the garden, +with cheeks aflame, and the parasol whirling like a Catherine wheel. + +She found Michael Moon standing under the garden tree, looking over the +hedge; hunched like a bird of prey, with his large pipe hanging down +his long blue chin. The very hardness of his expression pleased her, +after the nonsense of the new engagement and the shilly-shallying of +her other friends. + +“I am sorry I was cross, Mr. Moon,” she said frankly. “I hated you for +being a cynic; but I’ve been well punished, for I want a cynic just +now. I’ve had my fill of sentiment—I’m fed up with it. The world’s gone +mad, Mr. Moon—all except the cynics, I think. That maniac Smith wants +to marry my old friend Mary, and she— and she—doesn’t seem to mind.” + +Seeing his attentive face still undisturbedly smoking, she added +smartly, “I’m not joking; that’s Mr. Smith’s cab outside. He swears +he’ll take her off now to his aunt’s, and go for a special licence. Do +give me some practical advice, Mr. Moon.” + +Mr. Moon took his pipe out of his mouth, held it in his hand for an +instant reflectively, and then tossed it to the other side of the +garden. “My practical advice to you is this,” he said: “Let him go for +his special licence, and ask him to get another one for you and me.” + +“Is that one of your jokes?” asked the young lady. “Do say what you +really mean.” + +“I mean that Innocent Smith is a man of business,” said Moon with +ponderous precision—“a plain, practical man: a man of affairs; a man of +facts and the daylight. He has let down twenty ton of good building +bricks suddenly on my head, and I am glad to say they have woken me up. +We went to sleep a little while ago on this very lawn, in this very +sunlight. We have had a little nap for five years or so, but now we’re +going to be married, Rosamund, and I can’t see why that cab...” + +“Really,” said Rosamund stoutly, “I don’t know what you mean.” + +“What a lie!” cried Michael, advancing on her with brightening eyes. +“I’m all for lies in an ordinary way; but don’t you see that to-night +they won’t do? We’ve wandered into a world of facts, old girl. That +grass growing, and that sun going down, and that cab at the door, are +facts. You used to torment and excuse yourself by saying I was after +your money, and didn’t really love you. But if I stood here now and +told you I didn’t love you—you wouldn’t believe me: for truth is in +this garden to-night.” + +“Really, Mr. Moon...” said Rosamund, rather more faintly. + +He kept two big blue magnetic eyes fixed on her face. “Is my name +Moon?” he asked. “Is your name Hunt? On my honour, they sound to me as +quaint and as distant as Red Indian names. It’s as if your name was +‘Swim’ and my name was ‘Sunrise.’ But our real names are Husband and +Wife, as they were when we fell asleep.” + +“It is no good,” said Rosamund, with real tears in her eyes; “one can +never go back.” + +“I can go where I damn please,” said Michael, “and I can carry you on +my shoulder.” + +“But really, Michael, really, you must stop and think!” cried the girl +earnestly. “You could carry me off my feet, I dare say, soul and body, +but it may be bitter bad business for all that. These things done in +that romantic rush, like Mr. Smith’s, they— they do attract women, I +don’t deny it. As you say, we’re all telling the truth to-night. +They’ve attracted poor Mary, for one. They attract me, Michael. But the +cold fact remains: imprudent marriages do lead to long unhappiness and +disappointment— you’ve got used to your drinks and things—I shan’t be +pretty much longer—” + +“Imprudent marriages!” roared Michael. “And pray where in earth or +heaven are there any prudent marriages? Might as well talk about +prudent suicides. You and I have dawdled round each other long enough, +and are we any safer than Smith and Mary Gray, who met last night? You +never know a husband till you marry him. Unhappy! of course you’ll be +unhappy. Who the devil are you that you shouldn’t be unhappy, like the +mother that bore you? Disappointed! of course we’ll be disappointed. I, +for one, don’t expect till I die to be so good a man as I am at this +minute— a tower with all the trumpets shouting.” + +“You see all this,” said Rosamund, with a grand sincerity in her solid +face, “and do you really want to marry me?” + +“My darling, what else is there to do?” reasoned the Irishman. “What +other occupation is there for an active man on this earth, except to +marry you? What’s the alternative to marriage, barring sleep? It’s not +liberty, Rosamund. Unless you marry God, as our nuns do in Ireland, you +must marry Man—that is Me. The only third thing is to marry yourself— +yourself, yourself, yourself—the only companion that is never +satisfied— and never satisfactory.” + +“Michael,” said Miss Hunt, in a very soft voice, “if you won’t talk so +much, I’ll marry you.” + +“It’s no time for talking,” cried Michael Moon; “singing is the only +thing. Can’t you find that mandoline of yours, Rosamund?” + +“Go and fetch it for me,” said Rosamund, with crisp and sharp +authority. + +The lounging Mr. Moon stood for one split second astonished; then he +shot away across the lawn, as if shod with the feathered shoes out of +the Greek fairy tale. He cleared three yards and fifteen daisies at a +leap, out of mere bodily levity; but when he came within a yard or two +of the open parlour windows, his flying feet fell in their old manner +like lead; he twisted round and came back slowly, whistling. The events +of that enchanted evening were not at an end. + +Inside the dark sitting-room of which Moon had caught a glimpse a +curious thing had happened, almost an instant after the intemperate +exit of Rosamund. It was something which, occurring in that obscure +parlour, seemed to Arthur Inglewood like heaven and earth turning head +over heels, the sea being the ceiling and the stars the floor. No words +can express how it astonished him, as it astonishes all simple men when +it happens. Yet the stiffest female stoicism seems separated from it +only by a sheet of paper or a sheet of steel. It indicates no +surrender, far less any sympathy. The most rigid and ruthless woman can +begin to cry, just as the most effeminate man can grow a beard. It is a +separate sexual power, and proves nothing one way or the other about +force of character. But to young men ignorant of women, like Arthur +Inglewood, to see Diana Duke crying was like seeing a motor-car +shedding tears of petrol. + +He could never have given (even if his really manly modesty had +permitted it) any vaguest vision of what he did when he saw that +portent. He acted as men do when a theatre catches fire—very +differently from how they would have conceived themselves as acting, +whether for better or worse. He had a faint memory of certain +half-stifled explanations, that the heiress was the one really paying +guest, and she would go, and the bailiffs (in consequence) would come; +but after that he knew nothing of his own conduct except by the +protests it evoked. + +“Leave me alone, Mr. Inglewood—leave me alone; that’s not the way to +help.” + +“But I can help you,” said Arthur, with grinding certainty; “I can, I +can, I can...” + +“Why, you said,” cried the girl, “that you were much weaker than me.” + +“So I am weaker than you,” said Arthur, in a voice that went vibrating +through everything, “but not just now.” + +“Let go my hands!” cried Diana. “I won’t be bullied.” + +In one element he was much stronger than she—the matter of humour. This +leapt up in him suddenly, and he laughed, saying: “Well, you are mean. +You know quite well you’ll bully me all the rest of my life. You might +allow a man the one minute of his life when he’s allowed to bully.” + +It was as extraordinary for him to laugh as for her to cry, and for the +first time since her childhood Diana was entirely off her guard. + +“Do you mean you want to marry me?” she said. + +“Why, there’s a cab at the door!” cried Inglewood, springing up with an +unconscious energy and bursting open the glass doors that led into the +garden. + +As he led her out by the hand they realized somehow for the first time +that the house and garden were on a steep height over London. And yet, +though they felt the place to be uplifted, they felt it also to be +secret: it was like some round walled garden on the top of one of the +turrets of heaven. + +Inglewood looked around dreamily, his brown eyes devouring all sorts of +details with a senseless delight. He noticed for the first time that +the railings of the gate beyond the garden bushes were moulded like +little spearheads and painted blue. He noticed that one of the blue +spears was loosened in its place, and hung sideways; and this almost +made him laugh. He thought it somehow exquisitely harmless and funny +that the railing should be crooked; he thought he should like to know +how it happened, who did it, and how the man was getting on. + +When they were gone a few feet across that fiery grass they realized +that they were not alone. Rosamund Hunt and the eccentric Mr. Moon, +both of whom they had last seen in the blackest temper of detachment, +were standing together on the lawn. They were standing in quite an +ordinary manner, and yet they looked somehow like people in a book. + +“Oh,” said Diana, “what lovely air!” + +“I know,” called out Rosamund, with a pleasure so positive that it rang +out like a complaint. “It’s just like that horrid, beastly fizzy stuff +they gave me that made me feel happy.” + +“Oh, it isn’t like anything but itself!” answered Diana, breathing +deeply. “Why, it’s all cold, and yet it feels like fire.” + +“Balmy is the word we use in Fleet Street,” said Mr. Moon. +“Balmy—especially on the crumpet.” And he fanned himself quite +unnecessarily with his straw hat. They were all full of little leaps +and pulsations of objectless and airy energy. Diana stirred and +stretched her long arms rigidly, as if crucified, in a sort of +excruciating restfulness; Michael stood still for long intervals, with +gathered muscles, then spun round like a teetotum, and stood still +again; Rosamund did not trip, for women never trip, except when they +fall on their noses, but she struck the ground with her foot as she +moved, as if to some inaudible dance tune; and Inglewood, leaning quite +quietly against a tree, had unconsciously clutched a branch and shaken +it with a creative violence. Those giant gestures of Man, that made the +high statues and the strokes of war, tossed and tormented all their +limbs. Silently as they strolled and stood they were bursting like +batteries with an animal magnetism. + +“And now,” cried Moon quite suddenly, stretching out a hand on each +side, “let’s dance round that bush!” + +“Why, what bush do you mean?” asked Rosamund, looking round with a sort +of radiant rudeness. + +“The bush that isn’t there,” said Michael—“the Mulberry Bush.” + +They had taken each other’s hands, half laughing and quite ritually; +and before they could disconnect again Michael spun them all round, +like a demon spinning the world for a top. Diana felt, as the circle of +the horizon flew instantaneously around her, a far aerial sense of the +ring of heights beyond London and corners where she had climbed as a +child; she seemed almost to hear the rooks cawing about the old pines +on Highgate, or to see the glowworms gathering and kindling in the +woods of Box Hill. + +The circle broke—as all such perfect circles of levity must break— and +sent its author, Michael, flying, as by centrifugal force, far away +against the blue rails of the gate. When reeling there he suddenly +raised shout after shout of a new and quite dramatic character. + +“Why, it’s Warner!” he shouted, waving his arms. “It’s jolly old +Warner— with a new silk hat and the old silk moustache!” + +“Is that Dr. Warner?” cried Rosamund, bounding forward in a burst of +memory, amusement, and distress. “Oh, I’m so sorry! Oh, do tell him +it’s all right!” + +“Let’s take hands and tell him,” said Michael Moon. For indeed, while +they were talking, another hansom cab had dashed up behind the one +already waiting, and Dr. Herbert Warner, leaving a companion in the +cab, had carefully deposited himself on the pavement. + +Now, when you are an eminent physician and are wired for by an heiress +to come to a case of dangerous mania, and when, as you come in through +the garden to the house, the heiress and her landlady and two of the +gentlemen boarders join hands and dance round you in a ring, calling +out, “It’s all right! it’s all right!” you are apt to be flustered and +even displeased. Dr. Warner was a placid but hardly a placable person. +The two things are by no means the same; and even when Moon explained +to him that he, Warner, with his high hat and tall, solid figure, was +just such a classic figure as OUGHT to be danced round by a ring of +laughing maidens on some old golden Greek seashore— even then he seemed +to miss the point of the general rejoicing. + +“Inglewood!” cried Dr. Warner, fixing his former disciple with a stare, +“are you mad?” + +Arthur flushed to the roots of his brown hair, but he answered, easily +and quietly enough, “Not now. The truth is, Warner, I’ve just made a +rather important medical discovery—quite in your line.” + +“What do you mean?” asked the great doctor stiffly—“what discovery?” + +“I’ve discovered that health really is catching, like disease,” +answered Arthur. + +“Yes; sanity has broken out, and is spreading,” said Michael, +performing a _pas seul_ with a thoughtful expression. “Twenty thousand +more cases taken to the hospitals; nurses employed night and day.” + +Dr. Warner studied Michael’s grave face and lightly moving legs with an +unfathomed wonder. “And is THIS, may I ask,” he said, “the sanity that +is spreading?” + +“You must forgive me, Dr. Warner,” cried Rosamund Hunt heartily. “I +know I’ve treated you badly; but indeed it was all a mistake. I was in +a frightfully bad temper when I sent for you, but now it all seems like +a dream—and—and Mr. Smith is the sweetest, most sensible, most +delightful old thing that ever existed, and he may marry any one he +likes—except me.” + +“I should suggest Mrs. Duke,” said Michael. + +The gravity of Dr. Warner’s face increased. He took a slip of pink +paper from his waistcoat pocket, with his pale blue eyes quietly fixed +on Rosamund’s face all the time. He spoke with a not inexcusable +frigidity. + +“Really, Miss Hunt,” he said, “you are not yet very reassuring. You +sent me this wire only half an hour ago: ‘Come at once, if possible, +with another doctor. Man—Innocent Smith—gone mad on premises, and doing +dreadful things. Do you know anything of him?’ I went round at once to +a distinguished colleague of mine, a doctor who is also a private +detective and an authority on criminal lunacy; he has come round with +me, and is waiting in the cab. Now you calmly tell me that this +criminal madman is a highly sweet and sane old thing, with +accompaniments that set me speculating on your own definition of +sanity. I hardly comprehend the change.” + +“Oh, how can one explain a change in sun and moon and everybody’s +soul?” cried Rosamund, in despair. “Must I confess we had got so morbid +as to think him mad merely because he wanted to get married; and that +we didn’t even know it was only because we wanted to get married +ourselves? We’ll humiliate ourselves, if you like, doctor; we’re happy +enough.” + +“Where is Mr. Smith?” asked Warner of Inglewood very sharply. + +Arthur started; he had forgotten all about the central figure of their +farce, who had not been visible for an hour or more. + +“I—I think he’s on the other side of the house, by the dustbin,” he +said. + +“He may be on the road to Russia,” said Warner, “but he must be found.” +And he strode away and disappeared round a corner of the house by the +sunflowers. + +“I hope,” said Rosamund, “he won’t really interfere with Mr. Smith.” + +“Interfere with the daisies!” said Michael with a snort. “A man can’t +be locked up for falling in love—at least I hope not.” + +“No; I think even a doctor couldn’t make a disease out of him. He’d +throw off the doctor like the disease, don’t you know? I believe it’s a +case of a sort of holy well. I believe Innocent Smith is simply +innocent, and that is why he is so extraordinary.” + +It was Rosamund who spoke, restlessly tracing circles in the grass with +the point of her white shoe. + +“I think,” said Inglewood, “that Smith is not extraordinary at all. +He’s comic just because he’s so startlingly commonplace. Don’t you know +what it is to be all one family circle, with aunts and uncles, when a +schoolboy comes home for the holidays? That bag there on the cab is +only a schoolboy’s hamper. This tree here in the garden is only the +sort of tree that any schoolboy would have climbed. Yes, that’s the +thing that has haunted us all about him, the thing we could never fit a +word to. Whether he is my old schoolfellow or no, at least he is all my +old schoolfellows. He is the endless bun-eating, ball-throwing animal +that we have all been.” + +“That is only you absurd boys,” said Diana. “I don’t believe any girl +was ever so silly, and I’m sure no girl was ever so happy, except—” and +she stopped. + +“I will tell you the truth about Innocent Smith,” said Michael Moon in +a low voice. “Dr. Warner has gone to look for him in vain. He is not +there. Haven’t you noticed that we never saw him since we found +ourselves? He was an astral baby born on all four of us; he was only +our own youth returned. Long before poor old Warner had clambered out +of his cab, the thing we called Smith had dissolved into dew and light +on this lawn. Once or twice more, by the mercy of God, we may feel the +thing, but the man we shall never see. In a spring garden before +breakfast we shall smell the smell called Smith. In the snapping of +brisk twigs in tiny fires we shall hear a noise named Smith. Everything +insatiable and innocent in the grasses that gobble up the earth like +babies at a bun feast, in the white mornings that split the sky as a +boy splits up white firwood, we may feel for one instant the presence +of an impetuous purity; but his innocence was too close to the +unconsciousness of inanimate things not to melt back at a mere touch +into the mild hedges and heavens; he—” + +He was interrupted from behind the house by a bang like that of a bomb. +Almost at the same instant the stranger in the cab sprang out of it, +leaving it rocking upon the stones of the road. He clutched the blue +railings of the garden, and peered eagerly over them in the direction +of the noise. He was a small, loose, yet alert man, very thin, with a +face that seemed made out of fish bones, and a silk hat quite as rigid +and resplendent as Warner’s, but thrust back recklessly on the hinder +part of his head. + +“Murder!” he shrieked, in a high and feminine but very penetrating +voice. “Stop that murderer there!” + +Even as he shrieked a second shot shook the lower windows of the house, +and with the noise of it Dr. Herbert Warner came flying round the +corner like a leaping rabbit. Yet before he had reached the group a +third discharge had deafened them, and they saw with their own eyes two +spots of white sky drilled through the second of the unhappy Herbert’s +high hats. The next moment the fugitive physician fell over a +flowerpot, and came down on all fours, staring like a cow. The hat with +the two shot-holes in it rolled upon the gravel path before him, and +Innocent Smith came round the corner like a railway train. He was +looking twice his proper size—a giant clad in green, the big revolver +still smoking in his hand, his face sanguine and in shadow, his eyes +blazing like all stars, and his yellow hair standing out all ways like +Struwelpeter’s. + +Though this startling scene hung but an instant in stillness, Inglewood +had time to feel once more what he had felt when he saw the other +lovers standing on the lawn—the sensation of a certain cut and coloured +clearness that belongs rather to the things of art than to the things +of experience. The broken flowerpot with its red-hot geraniums, the +green bulk of Smith and the black bulk of Warner, the blue-spiked +railings behind, clutched by the stranger’s yellow vulture claws and +peered over by his long vulture neck, the silk hat on the gravel, and +the little cloudlet of smoke floating across the garden as innocently +as the puff of a cigarette— all these seemed unnaturally distinct and +definite. They existed, like symbols, in an ecstasy of separation. +Indeed, every object grew more and more particular and precious because +the whole picture was breaking up. Things look so bright just before +they burst. + +Long before his fancies had begun, let alone ceased, Arthur had stepped +across and taken one of Smith’s arms. Simultaneously the little +stranger had run up the steps and taken the other. Smith went into +peals of laughter, and surrendered his pistol with perfect willingness. +Moon raised the doctor to his feet, and then went and leaned sullenly +on the garden gate. The girls were quiet and vigilant, as good women +mostly are in instants of catastrophe, but their faces showed that, +somehow or other, a light had been dashed out of the sky. The doctor +himself, when he had risen, collected his hat and wits, and dusting +himself down with an air of great disgust, turned to them in brief +apology. He was very white with his recent panic, but he spoke with +perfect self-control. + +“You will excuse us, ladies,” he said; “my friend and Mr. Inglewood are +both scientists in their several ways. I think we had better all take +Mr. Smith indoors, and communicate with you later.” + +And under the guard of the three natural philosophers the disarmed +Smith was led tactfully into the house, still roaring with laughter. + +From time to time during the next twenty minutes his distant boom of +mirth could again be heard through the half-open window; but there came +no echo of the quiet voices of the physicians. The girls walked about +the garden together, rubbing up each other’s spirits as best they +might; Michael Moon still hung heavily against the gate. Somewhere +about the expiration of that time Dr. Warner came out of the house with +a face less pale but even more stern, and the little man with the +fish-bone face advanced gravely in his rear. And if the face of Warner +in the sunlight was that of a hanging judge, the face of the little man +behind was more like a death’s head. + +“Miss Hunt,” said Dr. Herbert Warner, “I only wish to offer you my warm +thanks and admiration. By your prompt courage and wisdom in sending for +us by wire this evening, you have enabled us to capture and put out of +mischief one of the most cruel and terrible of the enemies of humanity— +a criminal whose plausibility and pitilessness have never been before +combined in flesh.” + +Rosamund looked across at him with a white, blank face and blinking +eyes. “What do you mean?” she asked. “You can’t mean Mr. Smith?” + +“He has gone by many other names,” said the doctor gravely, “and not +one he did not leave to be cursed behind him. That man, Miss Hunt, has +left a track of blood and tears across the world. Whether he is mad as +well as wicked, we are trying, in the interests of science, to +discover. In any case, we shall have to take him to a magistrate first, +even if only on the road to a lunatic asylum. But the lunatic asylum in +which he is confined will have to be sealed with wall within wall, and +ringed with guns like a fortress, or he will break out again to bring +forth carnage and darkness on the earth.” + +Rosamund looked at the two doctors, her face growing paler and paler. +Then her eyes strayed to Michael, who was leaning on the gate; but he +continued to lean on it without moving, with his face turned away +towards the darkening road. + + + + +Chapter V +The Allegorical Practical Joker + + +The criminal specialist who had come with Dr. Warner was a somewhat +more urbane and even dapper figure than he had appeared when clutching +the railings and craning his neck into the garden. He even looked +comparatively young when he took his hat off, having fair hair parted +in the middle and carefully curled on each side, and lively movements, +especially of the hands. He had a dandified monocle slung round his +neck by a broad black ribbon, and a big bow tie, as if a big American +moth had alighted on him. His dress and gestures were bright enough for +a boy’s; it was only when you looked at the fish-bone face that you +beheld something acrid and old. His manners were excellent, though +hardly English, and he had two half-conscious tricks by which people +who only met him once remembered him. One was a trick of closing his +eyes when he wished to be particularly polite; the other was one of +lifting his joined thumb and forefinger in the air as if holding a +pinch of snuff, when he was hesitating or hovering over a word. But +those who were longer in his company tended to forget these oddities in +the stream of his quaint and solemn conversation and really singular +views. + +“Miss Hunt,” said Dr. Warner, “this is Dr. Cyrus Pym.” + +Dr. Cyrus Pym shut his eyes during the introduction, rather as if he +were “playing fair” in some child’s game, and gave a prompt little bow, +which somehow suddenly revealed him as a citizen of the United States. + +“Dr. Cyrus Pym,” continued Warner (Dr. Pym shut his eyes again), “is +perhaps the first criminological expert of America. We are very +fortunate to be able to consult with him in this extraordinary case—” + +“I can’t make head or tail of anything,” said Rosamund. “How can poor +Mr. Smith be so dreadful as he is by your account?” + +“Or by your telegram,” said Herbert Warner, smiling. + +“Oh, you don’t understand,” cried the girl impatiently. “Why, he’s done +us all more good than going to church.” + +“I think I can explain to the young lady,” said Dr. Cyrus Pym. “This +criminal or maniac Smith is a very genius of evil, and has a method of +his own, a method of the most daring ingenuity. He is popular wherever +he goes, for he invades every house as an uproarious child. People are +getting suspicious of all the respectable disguises for a scoundrel; so +he always uses the disguise of—what shall I say—the Bohemian, the +blameless Bohemian. He always carries people off their feet. People are +used to the mask of conventional good conduct. He goes in for eccentric +good-nature. You expect a Don Juan to dress up as a solemn and solid +Spanish merchant; but you’re not prepared when he dresses up as Don +Quixote. You expect a humbug to behave like Sir Charles Grandison; +because (with all respect, Miss Hunt, for the deep, tear-moving +tenderness of Samuel Richardson) Sir Charles Grandison so often behaved +like a humbug. But no real red-blooded citizen is quite ready for a +humbug that models himself not on Sir Charles Grandison but on Sir +Roger de Coverly. Setting up to be a good man a little cracked is a new +criminal incognito, Miss Hunt. It’s been a great notion, and uncommonly +successful; but its success just makes it mighty cruel. I can forgive +Dick Turpin if he impersonates Dr. Busby; I can’t forgive him when he +impersonates Dr. Johnson. The saint with a tile loose is a bit too +sacred, I guess, to be parodied.” + +“But how do you know,” cried Rosamund desperately, “that Mr. Smith is a +known criminal?” + +“I collated all the documents,” said the American, “when my friend +Warner knocked me up on receipt of your cable. It is my professional +affair to know these facts, Miss Hunt; and there’s no more doubt about +them than about the Bradshaw down at the depot. This man has hitherto +escaped the law, through his admirable affectations of infancy or +insanity. But I myself, as a specialist, have privately authenticated +notes of some eighteen or twenty crimes attempted or achieved in this +manner. He comes to houses as he has to this, and gets a grand +popularity. He makes things go. They do go; when he’s gone the things +are gone. Gone, Miss Hunt, gone, a man’s life or a man’s spoons, or +more often a woman. I assure you I have all the memoranda.” + +“I have seen them,” said Warner solidly, “I can assure you that all +this is correct.” + +“The most unmanly aspect, according to my feelings,” went on the +American doctor, “is this perpetual deception of innocent women by a +wild simulation of innocence. From almost every house where this great +imaginative devil has been, he has taken some poor girl away with him; +some say he’s got a hypnotic eye with his other queer features, and +that they go like automata. What’s become of all those poor girls +nobody knows. Murdered, I dare say; for we’ve lots of instances, +besides this one, of his turning his hand to murder, though none ever +brought him under the law. Anyhow, our most modern methods of research +can’t find any trace of the wretched women. It’s when I think of them +that I am really moved, Miss Hunt. And I’ve really nothing else to say +just now except what Dr. Warner has said.” + +“Quite so,” said Warner, with a smile that seemed moulded in +marble—“that we all have to thank you very much for that telegram.” + +The little Yankee scientist had been speaking with such evident +sincerity that one forgot the tricks of his voice and manner— the +falling eyelids, the rising intonation, and the poised finger and +thumb—which were at other times a little comic. It was not so much that +he was cleverer than Warner; perhaps he was not so clever, though he +was more celebrated. But he had what Warner never had, a fresh and +unaffected seriousness— the great American virtue of simplicity. +Rosamund knitted her brows and looked gloomily toward the darkening +house that contained the dark prodigy. + +Broad daylight still endured; but it had already changed from gold to +silver, and was changing from silver to gray. The long plumy shadows of +the one or two trees in the garden faded more and more upon a dead +background of dusk. In the sharpest and deepest shadow, which was the +entrance to the house by the big French windows, Rosamund could watch a +hurried consultation between Inglewood (who was still left in charge of +the mysterious captive) and Diana, who had moved to his assistance from +without. After a few minutes and gestures they went inside, shutting +the glass doors upon the garden; and the garden seemed to grow grayer +still. + +The American gentleman named Pym seemed to be turning and on the move +in the same direction; but before he started he spoke to Rosamund with +a flash of that guileless tact which redeemed much of his childish +vanity, and with something of that spontaneous poetry which made it +difficult, pedantic as he was, to call him a pedant. + +“I’m vurry sorry, Miss Hunt,” he said; “but Dr. Warner and I, as two +quali-FIED practitioners, had better take Mr. Smith away in that cab, +and the less said about it the better. Don’t you agitate yourself, Miss +Hunt. You’ve just got to think that we’re taking away a monstrosity, +something that oughtn’t to be at all—something like one of those gods +in your Britannic Museum, all wings, and beards, and legs, and eyes, +and no shape. That’s what Smith is, and you shall soon be quit of him.” + +He had already taken a step towards the house, and Warner was about to +follow him, when the glass doors were opened again and Diana Duke came +out with more than her usual quickness across the lawn. Her face was +aquiver with worry and excitement, and her dark earnest eyes fixed only +on the other girl. + +“Rosamund,” she cried in despair, “what shall I do with her?” + +“With her?” cried Miss Hunt, with a violent jump. “O lord, he isn’t a +woman too, is he?” + +“No, no, no,” said Dr. Pym soothingly, as if in common fairness. “A +woman? no, really, he is not so bad as that.” + +“I mean your friend Mary Gray,” retorted Diana with equal tartness. +“What on earth am I to do with her?” + +“How can we tell her about Smith, you mean,” answered Rosamund, her +face at once clouded and softening. “Yes, it will be pretty painful.” + +“But I HAVE told her,” exploded Diana, with more than her congenital +exasperation. “I have told her, and she doesn’t seem to mind. She still +says she’s going away with Smith in that cab.” + +“But it’s impossible!” ejaculated Rosamund. “Why, Mary is really +religious. She—” + +She stopped in time to realize that Mary Gray was comparatively close +to her on the lawn. Her quiet companion had come down very quietly into +the garden, but dressed very decisively for travel. She had a neat but +very ancient blue tam-o’-shanter on her head, and was pulling some +rather threadbare gray gloves on to her hands. Yet the two tints fitted +excellently with her heavy copper-coloured hair; the more excellently +for the touch of shabbiness: for a woman’s clothes never suit her so +well as when they seem to suit her by accident. + +But in this case the woman had a quality yet more unique and +attractive. In such gray hours, when the sun is sunk and the skies are +already sad, it will often happen that one reflection at some +occasional angle will cause to linger the last of the light. A scrap of +window, a scrap of water, a scrap of looking-glass, will be full of the +fire that is lost to all the rest of the earth. The quaint, almost +triangular face of Mary Gray was like some triangular piece of mirror +that could still repeat the splendour of hours before. Mary, though she +was always graceful, could never before have properly been called +beautiful; and yet her happiness amid all that misery was so beautiful +as to make a man catch his breath. + +“O Diana,” cried Rosamund in a lower voice and altering her phrase; +“but how did you tell her?” + +“It is quite easy to tell her,” answered Diana sombrely; “it makes no +impression at all.” + +“I’m afraid I’ve kept everything waiting,” said Mary Gray +apologetically, “and now we must really say good-bye. Innocent is +taking me to his aunt’s over at Hampstead, and I’m afraid she goes to +bed early.” + +Her words were quite casual and practical, but there was a sort of +sleepy light in her eyes that was more baffling than darkness; she was +like one speaking absently with her eye on some very distant object. + +“Mary, Mary,” cried Rosamund, almost breaking down, “I’m so sorry about +it, but the thing can’t be at all. We—we have found out all about Mr. +Smith.” + +“All?” repeated Mary, with a low and curious intonation; “why, that +must be awfully exciting.” + +There was no noise for an instant and no motion except that the silent +Michael Moon, leaning on the gate, lifted his head, as it might be to +listen. Then Rosamund remaining speechless, Dr. Pym came to her rescue +in a definite way. + +“To begin with,” he said, “this man Smith is constantly attempting +murder. The Warden of Brakespeare College—” + +“I know,” said Mary, with a vague but radiant smile. “Innocent told +me.” + +“I can’t say what he told you,” replied Pym quickly, “but I’m very much +afraid it wasn’t true. The plain truth is that the man’s stained with +every known human crime. I assure you I have all the documents. I have +evidence of his committing burglary, signed by a most eminent English +curate. I have—” + +“Oh, but there were two curates,” cried Mary, with a certain gentle +eagerness; “that was what made it so much funnier.” + +The darkened glass doors of the house opened once more, and Inglewood +appeared for an instant, making a sort of signal. The American doctor +bowed, the English doctor did not, but they both set out stolidly +towards the house. No one else moved, not even Michael hanging on the +gate; but the back of his head and shoulders had still an indescribable +indication that he was listening to every word. + +“But don’t you understand, Mary,” cried Rosamund in despair; “don’t you +know that awful things have happened even before our very eyes. I +should have thought you would have heard the revolver shots upstairs.” + +“Yes, I heard the shots,” said Mary almost brightly; “but I was busy +packing just then. And Innocent had told me he was going to shoot at +Dr. Warner; so it wasn’t worth while to come down.” + +“Oh, I don’t understand what you mean,” cried Rosamund Hunt, stamping, +“but you must and shall understand what I mean. I don’t care how +cruelly I put it, if only I can save you. I mean that your Innocent +Smith is the most awfully wicked man in the world. He has sent bullets +at lots of other men and gone off in cabs with lots of other women. And +he seems to have killed the women too, for nobody can find them.” + +“He is really rather naughty sometimes,” said Mary Gray, laughing +softly as she buttoned her old gray gloves. + +“Oh, this is really mesmerism, or something,” said Rosamund, and burst +into tears. + +At the same moment the two black-clad doctors appeared out of the house +with their great green-clad captive between them. He made no +resistance, but was still laughing in a groggy and half-witted style. +Arthur Inglewood followed in the rear, a dark and red study in the last +shades of distress and shame. In this black, funereal, and painfully +realistic style the exit from Beacon House was made by a man whose +entrance a day before had been effected by the happy leaping of a wall +and the hilarious climbing of a tree. No one moved of the groups in the +garden except Mary Gray, who stepped forward quite naturally, calling +out, “Are you ready, Innocent? Our cab’s been waiting such a long +time.” + +“Ladies and gentlemen,” said Dr. Warner firmly, “I must insist on +asking this lady to stand aside. We shall have trouble enough as it is, +with the three of us in a cab.” + +“But it IS our cab,” persisted Mary. “Why, there’s Innocent’s yellow +bag on the top of it.” + +“Stand aside,” repeated Warner roughly. “And you, Mr. Moon, please be +so obliging as to move a moment. Come, come! the sooner this ugly +business is over the better—and how can we open the gate if you will +keep leaning on it?” + +Michael Moon looked at his long lean forefinger, and seemed to consider +and reconsider this argument. “Yes,” he said at last; “but how can I +lean on this gate if you keep on opening it?” + +“Oh, get out of the way!” cried Warner, almost good-humouredly. “You +can lean on the gate any time.” + +“No,” said Moon reflectively. “Seldom the time and the place and the +blue gate altogether; and it all depends whether you come of an old +country family. My ancestors leaned on gates before any one had +discovered how to open them.” + +“Michael!” cried Arthur Inglewood in a kind of agony, “are you going to +get out of the way?” + +“Why, no; I think not,” said Michael, after some meditation, and swung +himself slowly round, so that he confronted the company, while still, +in a lounging attitude, occupying the path. + +“Hullo!” he called out suddenly; “what are you doing to Mr. Smith?” + +“Taking him away,” answered Warner shortly, “to be examined.” + +“Matriculation?” asked Moon brightly. + +“By a magistrate,” said the other curtly. + +“And what other magistrate,” cried Michael, raising his voice, “dares +to try what befell on this free soil, save only the ancient and +independent Dukes of Beacon? What other court dares to try one of our +company, save only the High Court of Beacon? Have you forgotten that +only this afternoon we flew the flag of independence and severed +ourselves from all the nations of the earth?” + +“Michael,” cried Rosamund, wringing her hands, “how can you stand there +talking nonsense? Why, you saw the dreadful thing yourself. You were +there when he went mad. It was you that helped the doctor up when he +fell over the flower-pot.” + +“And the High Court of Beacon,” replied Moon with hauteur, “has special +powers in all cases concerning lunatics, flower-pots, and doctors who +fall down in gardens. It’s in our very first charter from Edward I: ‘Si +medicus quisquam in horto prostratus—’” + +“Out of the way!” cried Warner with sudden fury, “or we will force you +out of it.” + +“What!” cried Michael Moon, with a cry of hilarious fierceness. “Shall +I die in defence of this sacred pale? Will you paint these blue +railings red with my gore?” and he laid hold of one of the blue spikes +behind him. As Inglewood had noticed earlier in the evening, the +railing was loose and crooked at this place, and the painted iron staff +and spearhead came away in Michael’s hand as he shook it. + +“See!” he cried, brandishing this broken javelin in the air, “the very +lances round Beacon Tower leap from their places to defend it. Ah, in +such a place and hour it is a fine thing to die alone!” And in a voice +like a drum he rolled the noble lines of Ronsard— + +“Ou pour l’honneur de Dieu, ou pour le droit de mon prince, +Navré, poitrine ouverte, au bord de mon province.” + + +“Sakes alive!” said the American gentleman, almost in an awed tone. +Then he added, “Are there two maniacs here?” + +“No; there are five,” thundered Moon. “Smith and I are the only sane +people left.” + +“Michael!” cried Rosamund; “Michael, what does it mean?” + +“It means bosh!” roared Michael, and slung his painted spear hurtling +to the other end of the garden. “It means that doctors are bosh, and +criminology is bosh, and Americans are bosh— much more bosh than our +Court of Beacon. It means, you fatheads, that Innocent Smith is no more +mad or bad than the bird on that tree.” + +“But, my dear Moon,” began Inglewood in his modest manner, “these +gentlemen—” + +“On the word of two doctors,” exploded Moon again, without listening to +anybody else, “shut up in a private hell on the word of two doctors! +And such doctors! Oh, my hat! Look at ’em!—do just look at ’em! Would +you read a book, or buy a dog, or go to a hotel on the advice of twenty +such? My people came from Ireland, and were Catholics. What would you +say if I called a man wicked on the word of two priests?” + +“But it isn’t only their word, Michael,” reasoned Rosamund; “they’ve +got evidence too.” + +“Have you looked at it?” asked Moon. + +“No,” said Rosamund, with a sort of faint surprise; “these gentlemen +are in charge of it.” + +“And of everything else, it seems to me,” said Michael. “Why, you +haven’t even had the decency to consult Mrs. Duke.” + +“Oh, that’s no use,” said Diana in an undertone to Rosamund; “Auntie +can’t say ‘Bo!’ to a goose.” + +“I am glad to hear it,” answered Michael, “for with such a flock of +geese to say it to, the horrid expletive might be constantly on her +lips. For my part, I simply refuse to let things be done in this light +and airy style. I appeal to Mrs. Duke—it’s her house.” + +“Mrs. Duke?” repeated Inglewood doubtfully. + +“Yes, Mrs. Duke,” said Michael firmly, “commonly called the Iron Duke.” + +“If you ask Auntie,” said Diana quietly, “she’ll only be for doing +nothing at all. Her only idea is to hush things up or to let things +slide. That just suits her.” + +“Yes,” replied Michael Moon; “and, as it happens, it just suits all of +us. You are impatient with your elders, Miss Duke; but when you are as +old yourself you will know what Napoleon knew— that half one’s letters +answer themselves if you can only refrain from the fleshly appetite of +answering them.” + +He was still lounging in the same absurd attitude, with his elbow on +the grate, but his voice had altered abruptly for the third time; just +as it had changed from the mock heroic to the humanly indignant, it now +changed to the airy incisiveness of a lawyer giving good legal advice. + +“It isn’t only your aunt who wants to keep this quiet if she can,” he +said; “we all want to keep it quiet if we can. Look at the large +facts—the big bones of the case. I believe those scientific gentlemen +have made a highly scientific mistake. I believe Smith is as blameless +as a buttercup. I admit buttercups don’t often let off loaded pistols +in private houses; I admit there is something demanding explanation. +But I am morally certain there’s some blunder, or some joke, or some +allegory, or some accident behind all this. Well, suppose I’m wrong. +We’ve disarmed him; we’re five men to hold him; he may as well go to a +lock-up later on as now. But suppose there’s even a chance of my being +right. Is it anybody’s interest here to wash this linen in public? + +“Come, I’ll take each of you in order. Once take Smith outside that +gate, and you take him into the front page of the evening papers. I +know; I’ve written the front page myself. Miss Duke, do you or your +aunt want a sort of notice stuck up over your boarding-house—‘Doctors +shot here.’? No, no—doctors are rubbish, as I said; but you don’t want +the rubbish shot here. Arthur, suppose I am right, or suppose I am +wrong. Smith has appeared as an old schoolfellow of yours. Mark my +words, if he’s proved guilty, the Organs of Public Opinion will say you +introduced him. If he’s proved innocent, they will say you helped to +collar him. Rosamund, my dear, suppose I am right or wrong. If he’s +proved guilty, they’ll say you engaged your companion to him. If he’s +proved innocent, they’ll print that telegram. I know the Organs, damn +them.” + +He stopped an instant; for this rapid rationalism left him more +breathless than had either his theatrical or his real denunciation. But +he was plainly in earnest, as well as positive and lucid; as was proved +by his proceeding quickly the moment he had found his breath. + +“It is just the same,” he cried, “with our medical friends. You will +say that Dr. Warner has a grievance. I agree. But does he want +specially to be snapshotted by all the journalists _prostratus in +horto?_ It was no fault of his, but the scene was not very dignified +even for him. He must have justice; but does he want to ask for +justice, not only on his knees, but on his hands and knees? Does he +want to enter the court of justice on all fours? Doctors are not +allowed to advertise; and I’m sure no doctor wants to advertise himself +as looking like that. And even for our American guest the interest is +the same. Let us suppose that he has conclusive documents. Let us +assume that he has revelations really worth reading. Well, in a legal +inquiry (or a medical inquiry, for that matter) ten to one he won’t be +allowed to read them. He’ll be tripped up every two or three minutes +with some tangle of old rules. A man can’t tell the truth in public +nowadays. But he can still tell it in private; he can tell it inside +that house.” + +“It is quite true,” said Dr. Cyrus Pym, who had listened throughout the +speech with a seriousness which only an American could have retained +through such a scene. “It is true that I have been per-ceptibly less +hampered in private inquiries.” + +“Dr. Pym!” cried Warner in a sort of sudden anger. “Dr. Pym! you aren’t +really going to admit—” + +“Smith may be mad,” went on the melancholy Moon in a monologue that +seemed as heavy as a hatchet, “but there was something after all in +what he said about Home Rule for every home. Yes, there is something, +when all’s said and done, in the High Court of Beacon. It is really +true that human beings might often get some sort of domestic justice +where just now they can only get legal injustice—oh, I am a lawyer too, +and I know that as well. It is true that there’s too much official and +indirect power. Often and often the thing a whole nation can’t settle +is just the thing a family could settle. Scores of young criminals have +been fined and sent to jail when they ought to have been thrashed and +sent to bed. Scores of men, I am sure, have had a lifetime at Hanwell +when they only wanted a week at Brighton. There IS something in Smith’s +notion of domestic self-government; and I propose that we put it into +practice. You have the prisoner; you have the documents. Come, we are a +company of free, white, Christian people, such as might be besieged in +a town or cast up on a desert island. Let us do this thing ourselves. +Let us go into that house there and sit down and find out with our own +eyes and ears whether this thing is true or not; whether this Smith is +a man or a monster. If we can’t do a little thing like that, what right +have we to put crosses on ballot papers?” + +Inglewood and Pym exchanged a glance; and Warner, who was no fool, saw +in that glance that Moon was gaining ground. The motives that led +Arthur to think of surrender were indeed very different from those +which affected Dr. Cyrus Pym. All Arthur’s instincts were on the side +of privacy and polite settlement; he was very English and would often +endure wrongs rather than right them by scenes and serious rhetoric. To +play at once the buffoon and the knight-errant, like his Irish friend, +would have been absolute torture to him; but even the semi-official +part he had played that afternoon was very painful. He was not likely +to be reluctant if any one could convince him that his duty was to let +sleeping dogs lie. + +On the other hand, Cyrus Pym belonged to a country in which things are +possible that seem crazy to the English. Regulations and authorities +exactly like one of Innocent’s pranks or one of Michael’s satires +really exist, propped by placid policemen and imposed on bustling +business men. Pym knew whole States which are vast and yet secret and +fanciful; each is as big as a nation yet as private as a lost village, +and as unexpected as an apple-pie bed. States where no man may have a +cigarette, States where any man may have ten wives, very strict +prohibition States, very lax divorce States—all these large local +vagaries had prepared Cyrus Pym’s mind for small local vagaries in a +smaller country. Infinitely more remote from England than any Russian +or Italian, utterly incapable of even conceiving what English +conventions are, he could not see the social impossibility of the Court +of Beacon. It is firmly believed by those who shared the experiment, +that to the very end Pym believed in that phantasmal court and supposed +it to be some Britannic institution. + +Towards the synod thus somewhat at a standstill there approached +through the growing haze and gloaming a short dark figure with a walk +apparently founded on the imperfect repression of a negro breakdown. +Something at once in the familiarity and the incongruity of this being +moved Michael to even heartier outbursts of a healthy and humane +flippancy. + +“Why, here’s little Nosey Gould,” he exclaimed. “Isn’t the mere sight +of him enough to banish all your morbid reflections?” + +“Really,” replied Dr. Warner, “I really fail to see how Mr. Gould +affects the question; and I once more demand—” + +“Hello! what’s the funeral, gents?” inquired the newcomer with the air +of an uproarious umpire. “Doctor demandin’ something? Always the way at +a boarding-house, you know. Always lots of demand. No supply.” + +As delicately and impartially as he could, Michael restated his +position, and indicated generally that Smith had been guilty of certain +dangerous and dubious acts, and that there had even arisen an +allegation that he was insane. + +“Well, of course he is,” said Moses Gould equably; “it don’t need old +’Olmes to see that. The ’awk-like face of ’Olmes,” he added with +abstract relish, “showed a shide of disappointment, the sleuth-like +Gould ’avin’ got there before ’im.” + +“If he is mad,” began Inglewood. + +“Well,” said Moses, “when a cove gets out on the tile the first night +there’s generally a tile loose.” + +“You never objected before,” said Diana Duke rather stiffly, “and +you’re generally pretty free with your complaints.” + +“I don’t compline of him,” said Moses magnanimously, “the poor chap’s +’armless enough; you might tie ’im up in the garden here and ’e’d make +noises at the burglars.” + +“Moses,” said Moon with solemn fervour, “you are the incarnation of +Common Sense. You think Mr. Innocent is mad. Let me introduce you to +the incarnation of Scientific Theory. He also thinks Mr. Innocent is +mad.—Doctor, this is my friend Mr. Gould.—Moses, this is the celebrated +Dr. Pym.” The celebrated Dr. Cyrus Pym closed his eyes and bowed. He +also murmured his national war-cry in a low voice, which sounded like +“Pleased to meet you.” + +“Now you two people,” said Michael cheerfully, “who both think our poor +friend mad, shall jolly well go into that house over there and prove +him mad. What could be more powerful than the combination of Scientific +Theory with Common Sense? United you stand; divided you fall. I will +not be so uncivil as to suggest that Dr. Pym has no common sense; I +confine myself to recording the chronological accident that he has not +shown us any so far. I take the freedom of an old friend in staking my +shirt that Moses has no scientific theory. Yet against this strong +coalition I am ready to appear, armed with nothing but an +intuition—which is American for a guess.” + +“Distinguished by Mr. Gould’s assistance,” said Pym, opening his eyes +suddenly. “I gather that though he and I are identical in primary +di-agnosis there is yet between us something that cannot be called a +disagreement, something which we may perhaps call a—” He put the points +of thumb and forefinger together, spreading the other fingers +exquisitely in the air, and seemed to be waiting for somebody else to +tell him what to say. + +“Catchin’ flies?” inquired the affable Moses. + +“A divergence,” said Dr. Pym, with a refined sigh of relief; “a +divergence. Granted that the man in question is deranged, he would not +necessarily be all that science requires in a homicidal maniac—” + +“Has it occurred to you,” observed Moon, who was leaning on the gate +again, and did not turn round, “that if he were a homicidal maniac he +might have killed us all here while we were talking.” + +Something exploded silently underneath all their minds, like sealed +dynamite in some forgotten cellars. They all remembered for the first +time for some hour or two that the monster of whom they were talking +was standing quietly among them. They had left him in the garden like a +garden statue; there might have been a dolphin coiling round his legs, +or a fountain pouring out of his mouth, for all the notice they had +taken of Innocent Smith. He stood with his crest of blonde, blown hair +thrust somewhat forward, his fresh-coloured, rather short-sighted face +looking patiently downwards at nothing in particular, his huge +shoulders humped, and his hands in his trousers pockets. So far as they +could guess he had not moved at all. His green coat might have been cut +out of the green turf on which he stood. In his shadow Pym had +expounded and Rosamund expostulated, Michael had ranted and Moses had +ragged. He had remained like a thing graven; the god of the garden. A +sparrow had perched on one of his heavy shoulders; and then, after +correcting its costume of feathers, had flown away. + +“Why,” cried Michael, with a shout of laughter, “the Court of Beacon +has opened—and shut up again too. You all know now I am right. Your +buried common sense has told you what my buried common sense has told +me. Smith might have fired off a hundred cannons instead of a pistol, +and you would still know he was harmless as I know he is harmless. Back +we all go to the house and clear a room for discussion. For the High +Court of Beacon, which has already arrived at its decision, is just +about to begin its inquiry.” + +“Just a goin’ to begin!” cried little Mr. Moses in an extraordinary +sort of disinterested excitement, like that of an animal during music +or a thunderstorm. “Follow on to the ’Igh Court of Eggs and Bacon; ’ave +a kipper from the old firm! ’Is Lordship complimented Mr. Gould on the +’igh professional delicacy ’e had shown, and which was worthy of the +best traditions of the Saloon Bar— and three of Scotch hot, miss! Oh, +chase me, girls!” + +The girls betraying no temptation to chase him, he went away in a sort +of waddling dance of pure excitement; and had made a circuit of the +garden before he reappeared, breathless but still beaming. Moon had +known his man when he realized that no people presented to Moses Gould +could be quite serious, even if they were quite furious. The glass +doors stood open on the side nearest to Mr. Moses Gould; and as the +feet of that festive idiot were evidently turned in the same direction, +everybody else went that way with the unanimity of some uproarious +procession. Only Diana Duke retained enough rigidity to say the thing +that had been boiling at her fierce feminine lips for the last few +hours. Under the shadow of tragedy she had kept it back as +unsympathetic. “In that case,” she said sharply, “these cabs can be +sent away.” + +“Well, Innocent must have his bag, you know,” said Mary with a smile. +“I dare say the cabman would get it down for us.” + +“I’ll get the bag,” said Smith, speaking for the first time in hours; +his voice sounded remote and rude, like the voice of a statue. + +Those who had so long danced and disputed round his immobility were +left breathless by his precipitance. With a run and spring he was out +of the garden into the street; with a spring and one quivering kick he +was actually on the roof of the cab. The cabman happened to be standing +by the horse’s head, having just removed its emptied nose-bag. Smith +seemed for an instant to be rolling about on the cab’s back in the +embraces of his Gladstone bag. The next instant, however, he had +rolled, as if by a royal luck, into the high seat behind, and with a +shriek of piercing and appalling suddenness had sent the horse flying +and scampering down the street. + +His evanescence was so violent and swift, that this time it was all the +other people who were turned into garden statues. Mr. Moses Gould, +however, being ill-adapted both physically and morally for the purposes +of permanent sculpture, came to life some time before the rest, and, +turning to Moon, remarked, like a man starting chattily with a stranger +on an omnibus, “Tile loose, eh? Cab loose anyhow.” There followed a +fatal silence; and then Dr. Warner said, with a sneer like a club of +stone,— + +“This is what comes of the Court of Beacon, Mr. Moon. You have let +loose a maniac on the whole metropolis.” + +Beacon House stood, as has been said, at the end of a long crescent of +continuous houses. The little garden that shut it in ran out into a +sharp point like a green cape pushed out into the sea of two streets. +Smith and his cab shot up one side of the triangle, and certainly most +of those standing inside of it never expected to see him again. At the +apex, however, he turned the horse sharply round and drove with equal +violence up the other side of the garden, visible to all those in the +group. With a common impulse the little crowd ran across the lawn as if +to stop him, but they soon had reason to duck and recoil. Even as he +vanished up street for the second time, he let the big yellow bag fly +from his hand, so that it fell in the centre of the garden, scattering +the company like a bomb, and nearly damaging Dr. Warner’s hat for the +third time. Long before they had collected themselves, the cab had shot +away with a shriek that went into a whisper. + +“Well,” said Michael Moon, with a queer note in his voice; “you may as +well all go inside anyhow. We’ve got two relics of Mr. Smith at least; +his fiancee and his trunk.” + +“Why do you want us to go inside?” asked Arthur Inglewood, in whose red +brow and rough brown hair botheration seemed to have reached its limit. + +“I want the rest to go in,” said Michael in a clear voice, “because I +want the whole of this garden in which to talk to you.” + +There was an atmosphere of irrational doubt; it was really getting +colder, and a night wind had begun to wave the one or two trees in the +twilight. Dr. Warner, however, spoke in a voice devoid of indecision. + +“I refuse to listen to any such proposal,” he said; “you have lost this +ruffian, and I must find him.” + +“I don’t ask you to listen to any proposal,” answered Moon quietly; “I +only ask you to listen.” + +He made a silencing movement with his hand, and immediately the +whistling noise that had been lost in the dark streets on one side of +the house could be heard from quite a new quarter on the other side. +Through the night-maze of streets the noise increased with incredible +rapidity, and the next moment the flying hoofs and flashing wheels had +swept up to the blue-railed gate at which they had originally stood. +Mr. Smith got down from his perch with an air of absent-mindedness, and +coming back into the garden stood in the same elephantine attitude as +before. + +“Get inside! get inside!” cried Moon hilariously, with the air of one +shooing a company of cats. “Come, come, be quick about it! Didn’t I +tell you I wanted to talk to Inglewood?” + +How they were all really driven into the house again it would have been +difficult afterwards to say. They had reached the point of being +exhausted with incongruities, as people at a farce are ill with +laughing, and the brisk growth of the storm among the trees seemed like +a final gesture of things in general. Inglewood lingered behind them, +saying with a certain amicable exasperation, “I say, do you really want +to speak to me?” + +“I do,” said Michael, “very much.” + +Night had come as it generally does, quicker than the twilight had +seemed to promise. While the human eye still felt the sky as light +gray, a very large and lustrous moon appearing abruptly above a bulk of +roofs and trees, proved by contrast that the sky was already a very +dark gray indeed. A drift of barren leaves across the lawn, a drift of +riven clouds across the sky, seemed to be lifted on the same strong and +yet laborious wind. + +“Arthur,” said Michael, “I began with an intuition; but now I am sure. +You and I are going to defend this friend of yours before the blessed +Court of Beacon, and to clear him too—clear him of both crime and +lunacy. Just listen to me while I preach to you for a bit.” They walked +up and down the darkening garden together as Michael Moon went on. + +“Can you,” asked Michael, “shut your eyes and see some of those queer +old hieroglyphics they stuck up on white walls in the old hot +countries. How stiff they were in shape and yet how gaudy in colour. +Think of some alphabet of arbitrary figures picked out in black and +red, or white and green, with some old Semitic crowd of Nosey Gould’s +ancestors staring at it, and try to think why the people put it up at +all.” + +Inglewood’s first instinct was to think that his perplexing friend had +really gone off his head at last; there seemed so reckless a flight of +irrelevancy from the tropic-pictured walls he was asked to imagine to +the gray, wind-swept, and somewhat chilly suburban garden in which he +was actually kicking his heels. How he could be more happy in one by +imagining the other he could not conceive. Both (in themselves) were +unpleasant. + +“Why does everybody repeat riddles,” went on Moon abruptly, “even if +they’ve forgotten the answers? Riddles are easy to remember because +they are hard to guess. So were those stiff old symbols in black, red, +or green easy to remember because they had been hard to guess. Their +colours were plain. Their shapes were plain. Everything was plain +except the meaning.” + +Inglewood was about to open his mouth in an amiable protest, but Moon +went on, plunging quicker and quicker up and down the garden and +smoking faster and faster. “Dances, too,” he said; “dances were not +frivolous. Dances were harder to understand than inscriptions and +texts. The old dances were stiff, ceremonial, highly coloured but +silent. Have you noticed anything odd about Smith?” + +“Well, really,” cried Inglewood, left behind in a collapse of humour, +“have I noticed anything else?” + +“Have you noticed this about him,” asked Moon, with unshaken +persistency, “that he has done so much and said so little? When first +he came he talked, but in a gasping, irregular sort of way, as if he +wasn’t used to it. All he really did was actions—painting red flowers +on black gowns or throwing yellow bags on to the grass. I tell you that +big green figure is figurative— like any green figure capering on some +white Eastern wall.” + +“My dear Michael,” cried Inglewood, in a rising irritation which +increased with the rising wind, “you are getting absurdly fanciful.” + +“I think of what has just happened,” said Michael steadily. “The man +has not spoken for hours; and yet he has been speaking all the time. He +fired three shots from a six-shooter and then gave it up to us, when he +might have shot us dead in our boots. How could he express his trust in +us better than that? He wanted to be tried by us. How could he have +shown it better than by standing quite still and letting us discuss it? +He wanted to show that he stood there willingly, and could escape if he +liked. How could he have shown it better than by escaping in the cab +and coming back again? Innocent Smith is not a madman—he is a +ritualist. He wants to express himself, not with his tongue, but with +his arms and legs— with my body I thee worship, as it says in the +marriage service. I begin to understand the old plays and pageants. I +see why the mutes at a funeral were mute. I see why the mummers were +mum. They MEANT something; and Smith means something too. All other +jokes have to be noisy—like little Nosey Gould’s jokes, for instance. +The only silent jokes are the practical jokes. Poor Smith, properly +considered, is an allegorical practical joker. What he has really done +in this house has been as frantic as a war-dance, but as silent as a +picture.” + +“I suppose you mean,” said the other dubiously, “that we have got to +find out what all these crimes meant, as if they were so many coloured +picture-puzzles. But even supposing that they do mean something—why, +Lord bless my soul!—” + +Taking the turn of the garden quite naturally, he had lifted his eyes +to the moon, by this time risen big and luminous, and had seen a huge, +half-human figure sitting on the garden wall. It was outlined so +sharply against the moon that for the first flash it was hard to be +certain even that it was human: the hunched shoulders and outstanding +hair had rather the air of a colossal cat. It resembled a cat also in +the fact that when first startled it sprang up and ran with easy +activity along the top of the wall. As it ran, however, its heavy +shoulders and small stooping head rather suggested a baboon. The +instant it came within reach of a tree it made an ape-like leap and was +lost in the branches. The gale, which by this time was shaking every +shrub in the garden, made the identification yet more difficult, since +it melted the moving limbs of the fugitive in the multitudinous moving +limbs of the tree. + +“Who is there?” shouted Arthur. “Who are you? Are you Innocent?” + +“Not quite,” answered an obscure voice among the leaves. “I cheated you +once about a penknife.” + +The wind in the garden had gathered strength, and was throwing the tree +backwards and forwards with the man in the thick of it, just as it had +on the gay and golden afternoon when he had first arrived. + +“But are you Smith?” asked Inglewood as in an agony. + +“Very nearly,” said the voice out of the tossing tree. + +“But you must have some real names,” shrieked Inglewood in despair. +“You must call yourself something.” + +“Call myself something,” thundered the obscure voice, shaking the tree +so that all its ten thousand leaves seemed to be talking at once. “I +call myself Roland Oliver Isaiah Charlemagne Arthur Hildebrand Homer +Danton Michaelangelo Shakespeare Brakespeare—” + +“But, manalive!” began Inglewood in exasperation. + +“That’s right! that’s right!” came with a roar out of the rocking tree; +“that’s my real name.” And he broke a branch, and one or two autumn +leaves fluttered away across the moon. + + + + +PART II +THE EXPLANATIONS OF INNOCENT SMITH + + + + +Chapter I +The Eye of Death; or, the Murder Charge + + +The dining-room of the Dukes had been set out for the Court of Beacon +with a certain impromptu pomposity that seemed somehow to increase its +cosiness. The big room was, as it were, cut up into small rooms, with +walls only waist high—the sort of separation that children make when +they are playing at shops. This had been done by Moses Gould and +Michael Moon (the two most active members of this remarkable inquiry) +with the ordinary furniture of the place. At one end of the long +mahogany table was set the one enormous garden chair, which was +surmounted by the old torn tent or umbrella which Smith himself had +suggested as a coronation canopy. Inside this erection could be +perceived the dumpy form of Mrs. Duke, with cushions and a form of +countenance that already threatened slumber. At the other end sat the +accused Smith, in a kind of dock; for he was carefully fenced in with a +quadrilateral of light bedroom chairs, any of which he could have +tossed out the window with his big toe. He had been provided with pens +and paper, out of the latter of which he made paper boats, paper darts, +and paper dolls contentedly throughout the whole proceedings. He never +spoke or even looked up, but seemed as unconscious as a child on the +floor of an empty nursery. + +On a row of chairs raised high on the top of a long settee sat the +three young ladies with their backs up against the window, and Mary +Gray in the middle; it was something between a jury box and the stall +of the Queen of Beauty at a tournament. Down the centre of the long +table Moon had built a low barrier out of eight bound volumes of “Good +Words” to express the moral wall that divided the conflicting parties. +On the right side sat the two advocates of the prosecution, Dr. Pym and +Mr. Gould; behind a barricade of books and documents, chiefly (in the +case of Dr. Pym) solid volumes of criminology. On the other side, Moon +and Inglewood, for the defence, were also fortified with books and +papers; but as these included several old yellow volumes by Ouida and +Wilkie Collins, the hand of Mr. Moon seemed to have been somewhat +careless and comprehensive. As for the victim and prosecutor, Dr. +Warner, Moon wanted at first to have him kept entirely behind a high +screen in the corner, urging the indelicacy of his appearance in court, +but privately assuring him of an unofficial permission to peep over the +top now and then. Dr. Warner, however, failed to rise to the chivalry +of such a course, and after some little disturbance and discussion he +was accommodated with a seat on the right side of the table in a line +with his legal advisers. + +It was before this solidly-established tribunal that Dr. Cyrus Pym, +after passing a hand through the honey-coloured hair over each ear, +rose to open the case. His statement was clear and even restrained, and +such flights of imagery as occurred in it only attracted attention by a +certain indescribable abruptness, not uncommon in the flowers of +American speech. + +He planted the points of his ten frail fingers on the mahogany, closed +his eyes, and opened his mouth. “The time has gone by,” he said, “when +murder could be regarded as a moral and individual act, important +perhaps to the murderer, perhaps to the murdered. Science has +profoundly...” here he paused, poising his compressed finger and thumb +in the air as if he were holding an elusive idea very tight by its +tail, then he screwed up his eyes and said “modified,” and let it +go—“has profoundly Modified our view of death. In superstitious ages it +was regarded as the termination of life, catastrophic, and even tragic, +and was often surrounded by solemnity. Brighter days, however, have +dawned, and we now see death as universal and inevitable, as part of +that great soul-stirring and heart-upholding average which we call for +convenience the order of nature. In the same way we have come to +consider murder SOCIALLY. Rising above the mere private feelings of a +man while being forcibly deprived of life, we are privileged to behold +murder as a mighty whole, to see the rich rotation of the cosmos, +bringing, as it brings the golden harvests and the golden-bearded +harvesters, the return for ever of the slayers and the slain.” + +He looked down, somewhat affected with his own eloquence, coughed +slightly, putting up four of his pointed fingers with the excellent +manners of Boston, and continued: “There is but one result of this +happier and humaner outlook which concerns the wretched man before us. +It is that thoroughly elucidated by a Milwaukee doctor, our great +secret-guessing Sonnenschein, in his great work, ‘The Destructive +Type.’ We do not denounce Smith as a murderer, but rather as a +murderous man. The type is such that its very life— I might say its +very health—is in killing. Some hold that it is not properly an +aberration, but a newer and even a higher creature. My dear old friend +Dr. Bulger, who kept ferrets—” (here Moon suddenly ejaculated a loud +“hurrah!” but so instantaneously resumed his tragic expression that +Mrs. Duke looked everywhere else for the sound); Dr. Pym continued +somewhat sternly—“who, in the interests of knowledge, kept ferrets, +felt that the creature’s ferocity is not utilitarian, but absolutely an +end in itself. However this may be with ferrets, it is certainly so +with the prisoner. In his other iniquities you may find the cunning of +the maniac; but his acts of blood have almost the simplicity of sanity. +But it is the awful sanity of the sun and the elements—a cruel, an evil +sanity. As soon stay the iris-leapt cataracts of our virgin West as +stay the natural force that sends him forth to slay. No environment, +however scientific, could have softened him. Place that man in the +silver-silent purity of the palest cloister, and there will be some +deed of violence done with the crozier or the alb. Rear him in a happy +nursery, amid our brave-browed Anglo-Saxon infancy, and he will find +some way to strangle with the skipping-rope or brain with the brick. +Circumstances may be favourable, training may be admirable, hopes may +be high, but the huge elemental hunger of Innocent Smith for blood will +in its appointed season burst like a well-timed bomb.” + +Arthur Inglewood glanced curiously for an instant at the huge creature +at the foot of the table, who was fitting a paper figure with a cocked +hat, and then looked back at Dr. Pym, who was concluding in a quieter +tone. + +“It only remains for us,” he said, “to bring forward actual evidence of +his previous attempts. By an agreement already made with the Court and +the leaders of the defence, we are permitted to put in evidence +authentic letters from witnesses to these scenes, which the defence is +free to examine. Out of several cases of such outrages we have decided +to select one— the clearest and most scandalous. I will therefore, +without further delay, call on my junior, Mr. Gould, to read two +letters—one from the Sub-Warden and the other from the porter of +Brakespeare College, in Cambridge University.” + +Gould jumped up with a jerk like a jack-in-the-box, an academic-looking +paper in his hand and a fever of importance on his face. He began in a +loud, high, cockney voice that was as abrupt as a cock-crow:— + +“Sir,—Hi am the Sub-Warden of Brikespeare College, Cambridge—” + +“Lord have mercy on us,” muttered Moon, making a backward movement as +men do when a gun goes off. + +“Hi am the Sub-Warden of Brikespeare College, Cambridge,” proclaimed +the uncompromising Moses, “and I can endorse the description you gave +of the un’appy Smith. It was not alone my unfortunate duty to rebuke +many of the lesser violences of his undergraduate period, but I was +actually a witness to the last iniquity which terminated that period. +Hi happened to passing under the house of my friend the Warden of +Brikespeare, which is semi-detached from the College and connected with +it by two or three very ancient arches or props, like bridges, across a +small strip of water connected with the river. To my grive astonishment +I be’eld my eminent friend suspended in mid-air and clinging to one of +these pieces of masonry, his appearance and attitude indicatin’ that he +suffered from the grivest apprehensions. After a short time I heard two +very loud shots, and distinctly perceived the unfortunate undergraduate +Smith leaning far out of the Warden’s window and aiming at the Warden +repeatedly with a revolver. Upon seeing me, Smith burst into a loud +laugh (in which impertinence was mingled with insanity), and appeared +to desist. I sent the college porter for a ladder, and he succeeded in +detaching the Warden from his painful position. Smith was sent down. +The photograph I enclose is from the group of the University Rifle Club +prizemen, and represents him as he was when at the College.— Hi am, +your obedient servant, Amos Boulter. + +“The other letter,” continued Gould in a glow of triumph, “is from the +porter, and won’t take long to read. + +“Dear Sir,—It is quite true that I am the porter of Brikespeare +College, and that I ’elped the Warden down when the young man was +shooting at him, as Mr. Boulter has said in his letter. The young man +who was shooting at him was Mr. Smith, the same that is in the +photograph Mr. Boulter sends.— Yours respectfully, Samuel Barker.” + +Gould handed the two letters across to Moon, who examined them. But for +the vocal divergences in the matter of h’s and a’s, the Sub-Warden’s +letter was exactly as Gould had rendered it; and both that and the +porter’s letter were plainly genuine. Moon handed them to Inglewood, +who handed them back in silence to Moses Gould. + +“So far as this first charge of continual attempted murder is +concerned,” said Dr. Pym, standing up for the last time, “that is my +case.” + +Michael Moon rose for the defence with an air of depression which gave +little hope at the outset to the sympathizers with the prisoner. He did +not, he said, propose to follow the doctor into the abstract questions. +“I do not know enough to be an agnostic,” he said, rather wearily, “and +I can only master the known and admitted elements in such +controversies. As for science and religion, the known and admitted +facts are plain enough. All that the parsons say is unproved. All that +the doctors say is disproved. That’s the only difference between +science and religion there’s ever been, or will be. Yet these new +discoveries touch me, somehow,” he said, looking down sorrowfully at +his boots. “They remind me of a dear old great-aunt of mine who used to +enjoy them in her youth. It brings tears to my eyes. I can see the old +bucket by the garden fence and the line of shimmering poplars behind—” + +“Hi! here, stop the ’bus a bit,” cried Mr. Moses Gould, rising in a +sort of perspiration. “We want to give the defence a fair run—like +gents, you know; but any gent would draw the line at shimmering +poplars.” + +“Well, hang it all,” said Moon, in an injured manner, “if Dr. Pym may +have an old friend with ferrets, why mayn’t I have an old aunt with +poplars?” + +“I am sure,” said Mrs. Duke, bridling, with something almost like a +shaky authority, “Mr. Moon may have what aunts he likes.” + +“Why, as to liking her,” began Moon, “I—but perhaps, as you say, she is +scarcely the core of the question. I repeat that I do not mean to +follow the abstract speculations. For, indeed, my answer to Dr. Pym is +simple and severely concrete. Dr. Pym has only treated one side of the +psychology of murder. If it is true that there is a kind of man who has +a natural tendency to murder, is it not equally true”—here he lowered +his voice and spoke with a crushing quietude and earnestness—“is it not +equally true that there is a kind of man who has a natural tendency to +get murdered? Is it not at least a hypothesis holding the field that +Dr. Warner is such a man? I do not speak without the book, any more +than my learned friend. The whole matter is expounded in Dr. +Moonenschein’s monumental work, ‘The Destructible Doctor,’ with +diagrams, showing the various ways in which such a person as Dr. Warner +may be resolved into his elements. In the light of these facts—” + +“Hi, stop the ’bus! stop the ’bus!” cried Moses, jumping up and down +and gesticulating in great excitement. “My principal’s got something to +say! My principal wants to do a bit of talkin’.” + +Dr. Pym was indeed on his feet, looking pallid and rather vicious. “I +have strictly CON-fined myself,” he said nasally, “to books to which +immediate reference can be made. I have Sonnenschein’s ‘Destructive +Type’ here on the table, if the defence wish to see it. Where is this +wonderful work on Destructability Mr. Moon is talking about? Does it +exist? Can he produce it?” + +“Produce it!” cried the Irishman with a rich scorn. “I’ll produce it in +a week if you’ll pay for the ink and paper.” + +“Would it have much authority?” asked Pym, sitting down. + +“Oh, authority!” said Moon lightly; “that depends on a fellow’s +religion.” + +Dr. Pym jumped up again. “Our authority is based on masses of accurate +detail,” he said. “It deals with a region in which things can be +handled and tested. My opponent will at least admit that death is a +fact of experience.” + +“Not of mine,” said Moon mournfully, shaking his head. “I’ve never +experienced such a thing in all my life.” + +“Well, really,” said Dr. Pym, and sat down sharply amid a crackle of +papers. + +“So we see,” resumed Moon, in the same melancholy voice, “that a man +like Dr. Warner is, in the mysterious workings of evolution, doomed to +such attacks. My client’s onslaught, even if it occurred, was not +unique. I have in my hand letters from more than one acquaintance of +Dr. Warner whom that remarkable man has affected in the same way. +Following the example of my learned friends I will read only two of +them. The first is from an honest and laborious matron living off the +Harrow Road. + +“Mr. Moon, Sir,—Yes, I did throw a sorsepan at him. Wot then? It was +all I had to throw, all the soft things being porned, and if your +Docter Warner doesn’t like having sorsepans thrown at him, don’t let +him wear his hat in a respectable woman’s parler, and tell him to leave +orf smiling or tell us the joke.—Yours respectfully, Hannah Miles. + +“The other letter is from a physician of some note in Dublin, with whom +Dr. Warner was once engaged in consultation. He writes as follows:— + +“Dear Sir,—The incident to which you refer is one which I regret, and +which, moreover, I have never been able to explain. My own branch of +medicine is not mental; and I should be glad to have the view of a +mental specialist on my singular momentary and indeed almost automatic +action. To say that I ‘pulled Dr. Warner’s nose,’ is, however, +inaccurate in a respect that strikes me as important. That I punched +his nose I must cheerfully admit (I need not say with what regret); but +pulling seems to me to imply a precision of objective with which I +cannot reproach myself. In comparison with this, the act of punching +was an outward, instantaneous, and even natural gesture.— Believe me, +yours faithfully, Burton Lestrange. + +“I have numberless other letters,” continued Moon, “all bearing witness +to this widespread feeling about my eminent friend; and I therefore +think that Dr. Pym should have admitted this side of the question in +his survey. We are in the presence, as Dr. Pym so truly says, of a +natural force. As soon stay the cataract of the London water-works as +stay the great tendency of Dr. Warner to be assassinated by somebody. +Place that man in a Quakers’ meeting, among the most peaceful of +Christians, and he will immediately be beaten to death with sticks of +chocolate. Place him among the angels of the New Jerusalem, and he will +be stoned to death with precious stones. Circumstances may be beautiful +and wonderful, the average may be heart-upholding, the harvester may be +golden-bearded, the doctor may be secret-guessing, the cataract may be +iris-leapt, the Anglo-Saxon infant may be brave-browed, but against and +above all these prodigies the grand simple tendency of Dr. Warner to +get murdered will still pursue its way until it happily and +triumphantly succeeds at last.” + +He pronounced this peroration with an appearance of strong emotion. But +even stronger emotions were manifesting themselves on the other side of +the table. Dr. Warner had leaned his large body quite across the little +figure of Moses Gould and was talking in excited whispers to Dr. Pym. +That expert nodded a great many times and finally started to his feet +with a sincere expression of sternness. + +“Ladies and gentlemen,” he cried indignantly, “as my colleague has +said, we should be delighted to give any latitude to the defence—if +there were a defence. But Mr. Moon seems to think he is there to make +jokes— very good jokes I dare say, but not at all adapted to assist his +client. He picks holes in science. He picks holes in my client’s social +popularity. He picks holes in my literary style, which doesn’t seem to +suit his high-toned European taste. But how does this picking of holes +affect the issue? This Smith has picked two holes in my client’s hat, +and with an inch better aim would have picked two holes in his head. +All the jokes in the world won’t unpick those holes or be any use for +the defence.” + +Inglewood looked down in some embarrassment, as if shaken by the +evident fairness of this, but Moon still gazed at his opponent in a +dreamy way. “The defence?” he said vaguely—“oh, I haven’t begun that +yet.” + +“You certainly have not,” said Pym warmly, amid a murmur of applause +from his side, which the other side found it impossible to answer. +“Perhaps, if you have any defence, which has been doubtful from the +very beginning—” + +“While you’re standing up,” said Moon, in the same almost sleepy style, +“perhaps I might ask you a question.” + +“A question? Certainly,” said Pym stiffly. “It was distinctly arranged +between us that as we could not cross-examine the witnesses, we might +vicariously cross-examine each other. We are in a position to invite +all such inquiry.” + +“I think you said,” observed Moon absently, “that none of the +prisoner’s shots really hit the doctor.” + +“For the cause of science,” cried the complacent Pym, “fortunately +not.” + +“Yet they were fired from a few feet away.” + +“Yes; about four feet.” + +“And no shots hit the Warden, though they were fired quite close to him +too?” asked Moon. + +“That is so,” said the witness gravely. + +“I think,” said Moon, suppressing a slight yawn, “that your Sub-Warden +mentioned that Smith was one of the University’s record men for +shooting.” + +“Why, as to that—” began Pym, after an instant of stillness. + +“A second question,” continued Moon, comparatively curtly. “You said +there were other cases of the accused trying to kill people. Why have +you not got evidence of them?” + +The American planted the points of his fingers on the table again. “In +those cases,” he said precisely, “there was no evidence from outsiders, +as in the Cambridge case, but only the evidence of the actual victims.” + +“Why didn’t you get their evidence?” + +“In the case of the actual victims,” said Pym, “there was some +difficulty and reluctance, and—” + +“Do you mean,” asked Moon, “that none of the actual victims would +appear against the prisoner?” + +“That would be exaggerative,” began the other. + +“A third question,” said Moon, so sharply that every one jumped. +“You’ve got the evidence of the Sub-Warden who heard some shots; +where’s the evidence of the Warden himself who was shot at? The Warden +of Brakespeare lives, a prosperous gentleman.” + +“We did ask for a statement from him,” said Pym a little nervously; +“but it was so eccentrically expressed that we suppressed it out of +deference to an old gentleman whose past services to science have been +great.” + +Moon leaned forward. “You mean, I suppose,” he said, “that his +statement was favourable to the prisoner.” + +“It might be understood so,” replied the American doctor; “but, really, +it was difficult to understand at all. In fact, we sent it back to +him.” + +“You have no longer, then, any statement signed by the Warden of +Brakespeare.” + +“No.” + +“I only ask,” said Michael quietly, “because we have. To conclude my +case I will ask my junior, Mr. Inglewood, to read a statement of the +true story—a statement attested as true by the signature of the Warden +himself.” + +Arthur Inglewood rose with several papers in his hand, and though he +looked somewhat refined and self-effacing, as he always did, the +spectators were surprised to feel that his presence was, upon the +whole, more efficient and sufficing than his leader’s. He was, in +truth, one of those modest men who cannot speak until they are told to +speak; and then can speak well. Moon was entirely the opposite. His own +impudences amused him in private, but they slightly embarrassed him in +public; he felt a fool while he was speaking, whereas Inglewood felt a +fool only because he could not speak. The moment he had anything to say +he could speak; and the moment he could speak, speaking seemed quite +natural. Nothing in this universe seemed quite natural to Michael Moon. + +“As my colleague has just explained,” said Inglewood, “there are two +enigmas or inconsistencies on which we base the defence. The first is a +plain physical fact. By the admission of everybody, by the very +evidence adduced by the prosecution, it is clear that the accused was +celebrated as a specially good shot. Yet on both the occasions +complained of he shot from a distance of four or five feet, and shot at +him four or five times, and never hit him once. That is the first +startling circumstance on which we base our argument. The second, as my +colleague has urged, is the curious fact that we cannot find a single +victim of these alleged outrages to speak for himself. Subordinates +speak for him. Porters climb up ladders to him. But he himself is +silent. Ladies and gentlemen, I propose to explain on the spot both the +riddle of the shots and the riddle of the silence. I will first of all +read the covering letter in which the true account of the Cambridge +incident is contained, and then that document itself. When you have +heard both, there will be no doubt about your decision. The covering +letter runs as follows:— + +“Dear Sir,—The following is a very exact and even vivid account of the +incident as it really happened at Brakespeare College. We, the +undersigned, do not see any particular reason why we should refer it to +any isolated authorship. The truth is, it has been a composite +production; and we have even had some difference of opinion about the +adjectives. But every word of it is true.—We are, yours faithfully, + +“Wilfred Emerson Eames, +“Warden of Brakespeare College, Cambridge. +“Innocent Smith. + + +“The enclosed statement,” continued Inglewood, “runs as follows:— + +“A celebrated English university backs so abruptly on the river, that +it has, so to speak, to be propped up and patched with all sorts of +bridges and semi-detached buildings. The river splits itself into +several small streams and canals, so that in one or two corners the +place has almost the look of Venice. It was so especially in the case +with which we are concerned, in which a few flying buttresses or airy +ribs of stone sprang across a strip of water to connect Brakespeare +College with the house of the Warden of Brakespeare. + +“The country around these colleges is flat; but it does not seem flat +when one is thus in the midst of the colleges. For in these flat fens +there are always wandering lakes and lingering rivers of water. And +these always change what might have been a scheme of horizontal lines +into a scheme of vertical lines. Wherever there is water the height of +high buildings is doubled, and a British brick house becomes a +Babylonian tower. In that shining unshaken surface the houses hang head +downwards exactly to their highest or lowest chimney. The +coral-coloured cloud seen in that abyss is as far below the world as +its original appears above it. Every scrap of water is not only a +window but a skylight. Earth splits under men’s feet into precipitous +aerial perspectives, into which a bird could as easily wing its way +as—” + +Dr. Cyrus Pym rose in protest. The documents he had put in evidence had +been confined to cold affirmation of fact. The defence, in a general +way, had an indubitable right to put their case in their own way, but +all this landscape gardening seemed to him (Dr. Cyrus Pym) to be not up +to the business. “Will the leader of the defence tell me,” he asked, +“how it can possibly affect this case, that a cloud was cor’l-coloured, +or that a bird could have winged itself anywhere?” + +“Oh, I don’t know,” said Michael, lifting himself lazily; “you see, you +don’t know yet what our defence is. Till you know that, don’t you see, +anything may be relevant. Why, suppose,” he said suddenly, as if an +idea had struck him, “suppose we wanted to prove the old Warden +colour-blind. Suppose he was shot by a black man with white hair, when +he thought he was being shot by a white man with yellow hair! To +ascertain if that cloud was really and truly coral-coloured might be of +the most massive importance.” + +He paused with a seriousness which was hardly generally shared, and +continued with the same fluency: “Or suppose we wanted to maintain that +the Warden committed suicide—that he just got Smith to hold the pistol +as Brutus’s slave held the sword. Why, it would make all the difference +whether the Warden could see himself plain in still water. Still water +has made hundreds of suicides: one sees oneself so very—well, so very +plain.” + +“Do you, perhaps,” inquired Pym with austere irony, “maintain that your +client was a bird of some sort—say, a flamingo?” + +“In the matter of his being a flamingo,” said Moon with sudden +severity, “my client reserves his defence.” + +No one quite knowing what to make of this, Mr. Moon resumed his seat +and Inglewood resumed the reading of his document:— + +“There is something pleasing to a mystic in such a land of mirrors. For +a mystic is one who holds that two worlds are better than one. In the +highest sense, indeed, all thought is reflection. + +“This is the real truth, in the saying that second thoughts are best. +Animals have no second thoughts; man alone is able to see his own +thought double, as a drunkard sees a lamp-post; man alone is able to +see his own thought upside down as one sees a house in a puddle. This +duplication of mentality, as in a mirror, is (we repeat) the inmost +thing of human philosophy. There is a mystical, even a monstrous truth, +in the statement that two heads are better than one. But they ought +both to grow on the same body.” + +“I know it’s a little transcendental at first,” interposed Inglewood, +beaming round with a broad apology, “but you see this document was +written in collaboration by a don and a—” + +“Drunkard, eh?” suggested Moses Gould, beginning to enjoy himself. + +“I rather think,” proceeded Inglewood with an unruffled and critical +air, “that this part was written by the don. I merely warn the Court +that the statement, though indubitably accurate, bears here and there +the trace of coming from two authors.” + +“In that case,” said Dr. Pym, leaning back and sniffing, “I cannot +agree with them that two heads are better than one.” + +“The undersigned persons think it needless to touch on a kindred +problem so often discussed at committees for University Reform: the +question of whether dons see double because they are drunk, or get +drunk because they see double. It is enough for them (the undersigned +persons) if they are able to pursue their own peculiar and profitable +theme—which is puddles. What (the undersigned persons ask themselves) +is a puddle? A puddle repeats infinity, and is full of light; +nevertheless, if analyzed objectively, a puddle is a piece of dirty +water spread very thin on mud. The two great historic universities of +England have all this large and level and reflective brilliance. +Nevertheless, or, rather, on the other hand, they are puddles—puddles, +puddles, puddles, puddles. The undersigned persons ask you to excuse an +emphasis inseparable from strong conviction.” + +Inglewood ignored a somewhat wild expression on the faces of some +present, and continued with eminent cheerfulness:— + +“Such were the thoughts that failed to cross the mind of the +undergraduate Smith as he picked his way among the stripes of canal and +the glittering rainy gutters into which the water broke up round the +back of Brakespeare College. Had these thoughts crossed his mind he +would have been much happier than he was. Unfortunately he did not know +that his puzzles were puddles. He did not know that the academic mind +reflects infinity and is full of light by the simple process of being +shallow and standing still. In his case, therefore, there was something +solemn, and even evil about the infinity implied. It was half-way +through a starry night of bewildering brilliancy; stars were both above +and below. To young Smith’s sullen fancy the skies below seemed even +hollower than the skies above; he had a horrible idea that if he +counted the stars he would find one too many in the pool. + +“In crossing the little paths and bridges he felt like one stepping on +the black and slender ribs of some cosmic Eiffel Tower. For to him, and +nearly all the educated youth of that epoch, the stars were cruel +things. Though they glowed in the great dome every night, they were an +enormous and ugly secret; they uncovered the nakedness of nature; they +were a glimpse of the iron wheels and pulleys behind the scenes. For +the young men of that sad time thought that the god always comes from +the machine. They did not know that in reality the machine only comes +from the god. In short, they were all pessimists, and starlight was +atrocious to them— atrocious because it was true. All their universe +was black with white spots. + +“Smith looked up with relief from the glittering pools below to the +glittering skies and the great black bulk of the college. The only +light other than stars glowed through one peacock-green curtain in the +upper part of the building, marking where Dr. Emerson Eames always +worked till morning and received his friends and favourite pupils at +any hour of the night. Indeed, it was to his rooms that the melancholy +Smith was bound. Smith had been at Dr. Eames’s lecture for the first +half of the morning, and at pistol practice and fencing in a saloon for +the second half. He had been sculling madly for the first half of the +afternoon and thinking idly (and still more madly) for the second half. +He had gone to a supper where he was uproarious, and on to a debating +club where he was perfectly insufferable, and the melancholy Smith was +melancholy still. Then, as he was going home to his diggings he +remembered the eccentricity of his friend and master, the Warden of +Brakespeare, and resolved desperately to turn in to that gentleman’s +private house. + +“Emerson Eames was an eccentric in many ways, but his throne in +philosophy and metaphysics was of international eminence; the +university could hardly have afforded to lose him, and, moreover, a don +has only to continue any of his bad habits long enough to make them a +part of the British Constitution. The bad habits of Emerson Eames were +to sit up all night and to be a student of Schopenhauer. Personally, he +was a lean, lounging sort of man, with a blond pointed beard, not so +very much older than his pupil Smith in the matter of mere years, but +older by centuries in the two essential respects of having a European +reputation and a bald head. + +“‘I came, against the rules, at this unearthly hour,’ said Smith, who +was nothing to the eye except a very big man trying to make himself +small, ‘because I am coming to the conclusion that existence is really +too rotten. I know all the arguments of the thinkers that think +otherwise—bishops, and agnostics, and those sort of people. And knowing +you were the greatest living authority on the pessimist thinkers—’ + +“‘All thinkers,’ said Eames, ‘are pessimist thinkers.’ + +“After a patch of pause, not the first—for this depressing conversation +had gone on for some hours with alternations of cynicism and silence— +the Warden continued with his air of weary brilliancy: ‘It’s all a +question of wrong calculation. The moth flies into the candle because +he doesn’t happen to know that the game is not worth the candle. The +wasp gets into the jam in hearty and hopeful efforts to get the jam +into him. IN the same way the vulgar people want to enjoy life just as +they want to enjoy gin—because they are too stupid to see that they are +paying too big a price for it. That they never find happiness—that they +don’t even know how to look for it—is proved by the paralyzing +clumsiness and ugliness of everything they do. Their discordant colours +are cries of pain. Look at the brick villas beyond the college on this +side of the river. There’s one with spotted blinds; look at it! just go +and look at it!’ + +“‘Of course,’ he went on dreamily, ‘one or two men see the sober fact a +long way off—they go mad. Do you notice that maniacs mostly try either +to destroy other things, or (if they are thoughtful) to destroy +themselves? The madman is the man behind the scenes, like the man that +wanders about the coulisse of a theater. He has only opened the wrong +door and come into the right place. He sees things at the right angle. +But the common world—’ + +“‘Oh, hang the common world!’ said the sullen Smith, letting his fist +fall on the table in an idle despair. + +“‘Let’s give it a bad name first,’ said the Professor calmly, ‘and then +hang it. A puppy with hydrophobia would probably struggle for life +while we killed it; but if we were kind we should kill it. So an +omniscient god would put us out of our pain. He would strike us dead.’ + +“‘Why doesn’t he strike us dead?’ asked the undergraduate abstractedly, +plunging his hands into his pockets. + +“‘He is dead himself,’ said the philosopher; ‘that is where he is +really enviable.’ + +“‘To any one who thinks,’ proceeded Eames, ‘the pleasures of life, +trivial and soon tasteless, are bribes to bring us into a torture +chamber. We all see that for any thinking man mere extinction is the... +What are you doing?... Are you mad?... Put that thing down.’ + +“Dr. Eames had turned his tired but still talkative head over his +shoulder, and had found himself looking into a small round black hole, +rimmed by a six-sided circlet of steel, with a sort of spike standing +up on the top. It fixed him like an iron eye. Through those eternal +instants during which the reason is stunned he did not even know what +it was. Then he saw behind it the chambered barrel and cocked hammer of +a revolver, and behind that the flushed and rather heavy face of Smith, +apparently quite unchanged, or even more mild than before. + +“‘I’ll help you out of your hole, old man,’ said Smith, with rough +tenderness. ‘I’ll put the puppy out of his pain.’ + +“Emerson Eames retreated towards the window. ‘Do you mean to kill me?’ +he cried. + +“‘It’s not a thing I’d do for every one,’ said Smith with emotion; ‘but +you and I seem to have got so intimate to-night, somehow. I know all +your troubles now, and the only cure, old chap.’ + +“‘Put that thing down,’ shouted the Warden. + +“‘It’ll soon be over, you know,’ said Smith with the air of a +sympathetic dentist. And as the Warden made a run for the window and +balcony, his benefactor followed him with a firm step and a +compassionate expression. + +“Both men were perhaps surprised to see that the gray and white of +early daybreak had already come. One of them, however, had emotions +calculated to swallow up surprise. Brakespeare College was one of the +few that retained real traces of Gothic ornament, and just beneath Dr. +Eames’s balcony there ran out what had perhaps been a flying buttress, +still shapelessly shaped into gray beasts and devils, but blinded with +mosses and washed out with rains. With an ungainly and most courageous +leap, Eames sprang out on this antique bridge, as the only possible +mode of escape from the maniac. He sat astride of it, still in his +academic gown, dangling his long thin legs, and considering further +chances of flight. The whitening daylight opened under as well as over +him that impression of vertical infinity already remarked about the +little lakes round Brakespeare. Looking down and seeing the spires and +chimneys pendent in the pools, they felt alone in space. They felt as +if they were looking over the edge from the North Pole and seeing the +South Pole below. + +“‘Hang the world, we said,’ observed Smith, ‘and the world is hanged. +“He has hanged the world upon nothing,” says the Bible. Do you like +being hanged upon nothing? I’m going to be hanged upon something +myself. I’m going to swing for you... Dear, tender old phrase,’ he +murmured; ‘never true till this moment. I am going to swing for you. +For you, dear friend. For your sake. At your express desire.’ + +“‘Help!’ cried the Warden of Brakespeare College; ‘help!’ + +“‘The puppy struggles,’ said the undergraduate, with an eye of pity, +‘the poor puppy struggles. How fortunate it is that I am wiser and +kinder than he,’ and he sighted his weapon so as exactly to cover the +upper part of Eames’s bald head. + +“‘Smith,’ said the philosopher with a sudden change to a sort of +ghastly lucidity, ‘I shall go mad.’ + +“‘And so look at things from the right angle,’ observed Smith, sighing +gently. ‘Ah, but madness is only a palliative at best, a drug. The only +cure is an operation—an operation that is always successful: death.’ + +“As he spoke the sun rose. It seemed to put colour into everything, +with the rapidity of a lightning artist. A fleet of little clouds +sailing across the sky changed from pigeon-gray to pink. All over the +little academic town the tops of different buildings took on different +tints: here the sun would pick out the green enameled on a pinnacle, +there the scarlet tiles of a villa; here the copper ornament on some +artistic shop, and there the sea-blue slates of some old and steep +church roof. All these coloured crests seemed to have something oddly +individual and significant about them, like crests of famous knights +pointed out in a pageant or a battlefield: they each arrested the eye, +especially the rolling eye of Emerson Eames as he looked round on the +morning and accepted it as his last. Through a narrow chink between a +black timber tavern and a big gray college he could see a clock with +gilt hands which the sunshine set on fire. He stared at it as though +hypnotized; and suddenly the clock began to strike, as if in personal +reply. As if at a signal, clock after clock took up the cry: all the +churches awoke like chickens at cockcrow. The birds were already noisy +in the trees behind the college. The sun rose, gathering glory that +seemed too full for the deep skies to hold, and the shallow waters +beneath them seemed golden and brimming and deep enough for the thirst +of the gods. Just round the corner of the College, and visible from his +crazy perch, were the brightest specks on that bright landscape, the +villa with the spotted blinds which he had made his text that night. He +wondered for the first time what people lived in them. + +“Suddenly he called out with mere querulous authority, as he might have +called to a student to shut a door. + +“‘Let me come off this place,’ he cried; ‘I can’t bear it.’ + +“‘I rather doubt if it will bear you,’ said Smith critically; ‘but +before you break your neck, or I blow out your brains, or let you back +into this room (on which complex points I am undecided) I want the +metaphysical point cleared up. Do I understand that you want to get +back to life?’ + +“‘I’d give anything to get back,’ replied the unhappy professor. + +“‘Give anything!’ cried Smith; ‘then, blast your impudence, give us a +song!’ + +“‘What song do you mean?’ demanded the exasperated Eames; ‘what song?’ + +“‘A hymn, I think, would be most appropriate,’ answered the other +gravely. ‘I’ll let you off if you’ll repeat after me the words— + +“‘I thank the goodness and the grace + That on my birth have smiled. +And perched me on this curious place, + A happy English child.’ + + +“Dr. Emerson Eames having briefly complied, his persecutor abruptly +told him to hold his hands up in the air. Vaguely connecting this +proceeding with the usual conduct of brigands and bushrangers, Mr. +Eames held them up, very stiffly, but without marked surprise. A bird +alighting on his stone seat took no more notice of him than of a comic +statue. + +“‘You are now engaged in public worship,’ remarked Smith severely, ‘and +before I have done with you, you shall thank God for the very ducks on +the pond.’ + +“The celebrated pessimist half articulately expressed his perfect +readiness to thank God for the ducks on the pond. + +“‘Not forgetting the drakes,’ said Smith sternly. (Eames weakly +conceded the drakes.) ‘Not forgetting anything, please. You shall thank +heaven for churches and chapels and villas and vulgar people and +puddles and pots and pans and sticks and rags and bones and spotted +blinds.’ + +“‘All right, all right,’ repeated the victim in despair; ‘sticks and +rags and bones and blinds.’ + +“‘Spotted blinds, I think we said,’ remarked Smith with a rogueish +ruthlessness, and wagging the pistol-barrel at him like a long metallic +finger. + +“‘Spotted blinds,’ said Emerson Eames faintly. + +“‘You can’t say fairer than that,’ admitted the younger man, ‘and now +I’ll just tell you this to wind up with. If you really were what you +profess to be, I don’t see that it would matter to snail or seraph if +you broke your impious stiff neck and dashed out all your drivelling +devil-worshipping brains. But in strict biographical fact you are a +very nice fellow, addicted to talking putrid nonsense, and I love you +like a brother. I shall therefore fire off all my cartridges round your +head so as not to hit you (I am a good shot, you may be glad to hear), +and then we will go in and have some breakfast.’ + +“He then let off two barrels in the air, which the Professor endured +with singular firmness, and then said, ‘But don’t fire them all off.’ + +“‘Why not’ asked the other buoyantly. + +“‘Keep them,’ asked his companion, ‘for the next man you meet who talks +as we were talking.’ + +“It was at this moment that Smith, looking down, perceived apoplectic +terror upon the face of the Sub-Warden, and heard the refined shriek +with which he summoned the porter and the ladder. + +“It took Dr. Eames some little time to disentangle himself from the +ladder, and some little time longer to disentangle himself from the +Sub-Warden. But as soon as he could do so unobtrusively, he rejoined +his companion in the late extraordinary scene. He was astonished to +find the gigantic Smith heavily shaken, and sitting with his shaggy +head on his hands. When addressed, he lifted a very pale face. + +“‘Why, what is the matter?’ asked Eames, whose own nerves had by this +time twittered themselves quiet, like the morning birds. + +“‘I must ask your indulgence,’ said Smith, rather brokenly. ‘I must ask +you to realize that I have just had an escape from death.’ + +“‘YOU have had an escape from death?’ repeated the Professor in not +unpardonable irritation. ‘Well, of all the cheek—’ + +“‘Oh, don’t you understand, don’t you understand?’ cried the pale young +man impatiently. ‘I had to do it, Eames; I had to prove you wrong or +die. When a man’s young, he nearly always has some one whom he thinks +the top-water mark of the mind of man— some one who knows all about it, +if anybody knows. + +“‘Well, you were that to me; you spoke with authority, and not as the +scribes. Nobody could comfort me if YOU said there was no comfort. If +you really thought there was nothing anywhere, it was because you had +been there to see. Don’t you see that I HAD to prove you didn’t really +mean it?— or else drown myself in the canal.’ + +“‘Well,’ said Eames hesitatingly, ‘I think perhaps you confuse—’ + +“‘Oh, don’t tell me that!’ cried Smith with the sudden clairvoyance of +mental pain; ‘don’t tell me I confuse enjoyment of existence with the +Will to Live! That’s German, and German is High Dutch, and High Dutch +is Double Dutch. The thing I saw shining in your eyes when you dangled +on that bridge was enjoyment of life and not “the Will to Live.” What +you knew when you sat on that damned gargoyle was that the world, when +all is said and done, is a wonderful and beautiful place; I know it, +because I knew it at the same minute. I saw the gray clouds turn pink, +and the little gilt clock in the crack between the houses. It was THOSE +things you hated leaving, not Life, whatever that is. Eames, we’ve been +to the brink of death together; won’t you admit I’m right?’ + +“‘Yes,’ said Eames very slowly, ‘I think you are right. You shall have +a First!’ + +“‘Right!’ cried Smith, springing up reanimated. ‘I’ve passed with +honours, and now let me go and see about being sent down.’ + +“‘You needn’t be sent down,’ said Eames with the quiet confidence of +twelve years of intrigue. ‘Everything with us comes from the man on top +to the people just round him: I am the man on top, and I shall tell the +people round me the truth.’ + +“The massive Mr. Smith rose and went firmly to the window, but he spoke +with equal firmness. ‘I must be sent down,’ he said, ‘and the people +must not be told the truth.’ + +“‘And why not’ asked the other. + +“‘Because I mean to follow your advice,’ answered the massive youth, ‘I +mean to keep the remaining shots for people in the shameful state you +and I were in last night—I wish we could even plead drunkenness. I mean +to keep those bullets for pessimists—pills for pale people. And in this +way I want to walk the world like a wonderful surprise— to float as +idly as the thistledown, and come as silently as the sunrise; not to be +expected any more than the thunderbolt, not to be recalled any more +than the dying breeze. I don’t want people to anticipate me as a +well-known practical joke. I want both my gifts to come virgin and +violent, the death and the life after death. I am going to hold a +pistol to the head of the Modern Man. But I shall not use it to kill +him—only to bring him to life. I begin to see a new meaning in being +the skeleton at the feast.’ + +“‘You can scarcely be called a skeleton,’ said Dr. Eames, smiling. + +“‘That comes of being so much at the feast,’ answered the massive +youth. ‘No skeleton can keep his figure if he is always dining out. But +that is not quite what I meant: what I mean is that I caught a kind of +glimpse of the meaning of death and all that—the skull and cross-bones, +the _memento mori_. It isn’t only meant to remind us of a future life, +but to remind us of a present life too. With our weak spirits we should +grow old in eternity if we were not kept young by death. Providence has +to cut immortality into lengths for us, as nurses cut the bread and +butter into fingers.’ + +“Then he added suddenly in a voice of unnatural actuality, ‘But I know +something now, Eames. I knew it when I saw the clouds turn pink.’ + +“‘What do you mean?’ asked Eames. ‘What did you know?’ + +“‘I knew for the first time that murder is really wrong.’ + +“He gripped Dr. Eames’s hand and groped his way somewhat unsteadily to +the door. Before he had vanished through it he had added, ‘It’s very +dangerous, though, when a man thinks for a split second that he +understands death.’ + +“Dr. Eames remained in repose and rumination some hours after his late +assailant had left. Then he rose, took his hat and umbrella, and went +for a brisk if rotatory walk. Several times, however, he stood outside +the villa with the spotted blinds, studying them intently with his head +slightly on one side. Some took him for a lunatic and some for an +intending purchaser. He is not yet sure that the two characters would +be widely different. + +“The above narrative has been constructed on a principle which is, in +the opinion of the undersigned persons, new in the art of letters. Each +of the two actors is described as he appeared to the other. But the +undersigned persons absolutely guarantee the exactitude of the story; +and if their version of the thing be questioned, they, the undersigned +persons, would deucedly well like to know who does know about it if +they don’t. + +“The undersigned persons will now adjourn to ‘The Spotted Dog’ for +beer. Farewell. + +“(Signed) James Emerson Eames, “Warden of Brakespeare College, +Cambridge. + +“Innocent Smith.” + + + + +Chapter II +The Two Curates; or, the Burglary Charge + + +Arthur Inglewood handed the document he had just read to the leaders of +the prosecution, who examined it with their heads together. Both the +Jew and the American were of sensitive and excitable stocks, and they +revealed by the jumpings and bumpings of the black head and the yellow +that nothing could be done in the way of denial of the document. The +letter from the Warden was as authentic as the letter from the +Sub-Warden, however regrettably different in dignity and social tone. + +“Very few words,” said Inglewood, “are required to conclude our case in +this matter. Surely it is now plain that our client carried his pistol +about with the eccentric but innocent purpose of giving a wholesome +scare to those whom he regarded as blasphemers. In each case the scare +was so wholesome that the victim himself has dated from it as from a +new birth. Smith, so far from being a madman, is rather a mad doctor— +he walks the world curing frenzies and not distributing them. That is +the answer to the two unanswerable questions which I put to the +prosecutors. That is why they dared not produce a line by any one who +had actually confronted the pistol. All who had actually confronted the +pistol confessed that they had profited by it. That was why Smith, +though a good shot, never hit anybody. He never hit anybody because he +was a good shot. His mind was as clear of murder as his hands are of +blood. This, I say, is the only possible explanation of these facts and +of all the other facts. No one can possibly explain the Warden’s +conduct except by believing the Warden’s story. Even Dr. Pym, who is a +very factory of ingenious theories, could find no other theory to cover +the case.” + +“There are promising per-spectives in hypnotism and dual personality,” +said Dr. Cyrus Pym dreamily; “the science of criminology is in its +infancy, and—” + +“Infancy!” cried Moon, jerking his red pencil in the air with a gesture +of enlightenment; “why, that explains it!” + +“I repeat,” proceeded Inglewood, “that neither Dr. Pym nor any one else +can account on any other theory but ours for the Warden’s signature, +for the shots missed and the witnesses missing.” + +The little Yankee had slipped to his feet with some return of a +cock-fighting coolness. “The defence,” he said, “omits a coldly +colossal fact. They say we produce none of the actual victims. Wal, +here is one victim—England’s celebrated and stricken Warner. I reckon +he is pretty well produced. And they suggest that all the outrages were +followed by reconciliation. Wal, there’s no flies on England’s Warner; +and he isn’t reconciliated much.” + +“My learned friend,” said Moon, getting elaborately to his feet, “must +remember that the science of shooting Dr. Warner is in its infancy. Dr. +Warner would strike the idlest eye as one specially difficult to +startle into any recognition of the glory of God. We admit that our +client, in this one instance, failed, and that the operation was not +successful. But I am empowered to offer, on behalf of my client, a +proposal for operating on Dr. Warner again, at his earliest +convenience, and without further fees.” + +“’Ang it all, Michael,” cried Gould, quite serious for the first time +in his life, “you might give us a bit of bally sense for a chinge.” + +“What was Dr. Warner talking about just before the first shot?” asked +Moon sharply. + +“The creature,” said Dr. Warner superciliously, “asked me, with +characteristic rationality, whether it was my birthday.” + +“And you answered, with characteristic swank,” cried Moon, shooting out +a long lean finger, as rigid and arresting as the pistol of Smith, +“that you didn’t keep your birthday.” + +“Something like that,” assented the doctor. + +“Then,” continued Moon, “he asked you why not, and you said it was +because you didn’t see that birth was anything to rejoice over. Agreed? +Now is there any one who doubts that our tale is true?” + +There was a cold crash of stillness in the room; and Moon said, “Pax +populi vox Dei; it is the silence of the people that is the voice of +God. Or in Dr. Pym’s more civilized language, it is up to him to open +the next charge. On this we claim an acquittal.” + +It was about an hour later. Dr. Cyrus Pym had remained for an +unprecedented time with his eyes closed and his thumb and finger in the +air. It almost seemed as if he had been “struck so,” as the nurses say; +and in the deathly silence Michael Moon felt forced to relieve the +strain with some remark. For the last half-hour or so the eminent +criminologist had been explaining that science took the same view of +offences against property as it did of offences against life. “Most +murder,” he had said, “is a variation of homicidal mania, and in the +same way most theft is a version of kleptomania. I cannot entertain any +doubt that my learned friends opposite adequately con-ceive how this +must involve a scheme of punishment more tol’rant and humane than the +cruel methods of ancient codes. They will doubtless exhibit +consciousness of a chasm so eminently yawning, so thought-arresting, +so—” It was here that he paused and indulged in the delicate gesture to +which allusion has been made; and Michael could bear it no longer. + +“Yes, yes,” he said impatiently, “we admit the chasm. The old cruel +codes accuse a man of theft and send him to prison for ten years. The +tolerant and humane ticket accuses him of nothing and sends him to +prison for ever. We pass the chasm.” + +It was characteristic of the eminent Pym, in one of his trances of +verbal fastidiousness, that he went on, unconscious not only of his +opponent’s interruption, but even of his own pause. + +“So stock-improving,” continued Dr. Cyrus Pym, “so fraught with real +high hopes of the future. Science therefore regards thieves, in the +abstract, just as it regards murderers. It regards them not as sinners +to be punished for an arbitrary period, but as patients to be detained +and cared for,” (his first two digits closed again as he hesitated)—“in +short, for the required period. But there is something special in the +case we investigate here. Kleptomania commonly con-joins itself—” + +“I beg pardon,” said Michael; “I did not ask just now because, to tell +the truth, I really thought Dr. Pym, though seemingly vertical, was +enjoying well-earned slumber, with a pinch in his fingers of scentless +and delicate dust. But now that things are moving a little more, there +is something I should really like to know. I have hung on Dr. Pym’s +lips, of course, with an interest that it were weak to call rapture, +but I have so far been unable to form any conjecture about what the +accused, in the present instance, is supposed to have been and gone and +done.” + +“If Mr. Moon will have patience,” said Pym with dignity, “he will find +that this was the very point to which my exposition was di-rected. +Kleptomania, I say, exhibits itself as a kind of physical attraction to +certain defined materials; and it has been held (by no less a man than +Harris) that this is the ultimate explanation of the strict specialism +and vurry narrow professional outlook of most criminals. One will have +an irresistible physical impulsion towards pearl sleeve-links, while he +passes over the most elegant and celebrated diamond sleeve-links, +placed about in the most conspicuous locations. Another will impede his +flight with no less than forty-seven buttoned boots, while +elastic-sided boots leave him cold, and even sarcastic. The specialism +of the criminal, I repeat, is a mark rather of insanity than of any +brightness of business habits; but there is one kind of depredator to +whom this principle is at first sight hard to apply. I allude to our +fellow-citizen the housebreaker. + +“It has been maintained by some of our boldest young truth-seekers, +that the eye of a burglar beyond the back-garden wall could hardly be +caught and hypnotized by a fork that is insulated in a locked box under +the butler’s bed. They have thrown down the gauntlet to American +science on this point. They declare that diamond links are not left +about in conspicuous locations in the haunts of the lower classes, as +they were in the great test experiment of Calypso College. We hope this +experiment here will be an answer to that young ringing challenge, and +will bring the burglar once more into line and union with his fellow +criminals.” + +Moon, whose face had gone through every phase of black bewilderment for +five minutes past, suddenly lifted his hand and struck the table in +explosive enlightenment. + +“Oh, I see!” he cried; “you mean that Smith is a burglar.” + +“I thought I made it quite ad’quately lucid,” said Mr. Pym, folding up +his eyelids. It was typical of this topsy-turvy private trial that all +the eloquent extras, all the rhetoric or digression on either side, was +exasperating and unintelligible to the other. Moon could not make head +or tail of the solemnity of a new civilization. Pym could not make head +or tail of the gaiety of an old one. + +“All the cases in which Smith has figured as an expropriator,” +continued the American doctor, “are cases of burglary. Pursuing the +same course as in the previous case, we select the indubitable instance +from the rest, and we take the most correct cast-iron evidence. I will +now call on my colleague, Mr. Gould, to read a letter we have received +from the earnest, unspotted Canon of Durham, Canon Hawkins.” + +Mr. Moses Gould leapt up with his usual alacrity to read the letter +from the earnest and unspotted Hawkins. Moses Gould could imitate a +farmyard well, Sir Henry Irving not so well, Marie Lloyd to a point of +excellence, and the new motor horns in a manner that put him upon the +platform of great artists. But his imitation of a Canon of Durham was +not convincing; indeed, the sense of the letter was so much obscured by +the extraordinary leaps and gasps of his pronunciation that it is +perhaps better to print it here as Moon read it when, a little later, +it was handed across the table. + +“Dear Sir,—I can scarcely feel surprise that the incident you mention, +private as it was, should have filtered through our omnivorous journals +to the mere populace; for the position I have since attained makes me, +I conceive, a public character, and this was certainly the most +extraordinary incident in a not uneventful and perhaps not an +unimportant career. I am by no means without experience in scenes of +civil tumult. I have faced many a political crisis in the old Primrose +League days at Herne Bay, and, before I broke with the wilder set, have +spent many a night at the Christian Social Union. But this other +experience was quite inconceivable. I can only describe it as the +letting loose of a place which it is not for me, as a clergyman, to +mention. + +“It occurred in the days when I was, for a short period, a curate at +Hoxton; and the other curate, then my colleague, induced me to attend a +meeting which he described, I must say profanely described, as +calculated to promote the kingdom of God. I found, on the contrary, +that it consisted entirely of men in corduroys and greasy clothes whose +manners were coarse and their opinions extreme. + +“Of my colleague in question I wish to speak with the fullest respect +and friendliness, and I will therefore say little. No one can be more +convinced than I of the evil of politics in the pulpit; and I never +offer my congregation any advice about voting except in cases in which +I feel strongly that they are likely to make an erroneous selection. +But, while I do not mean to touch at all upon political or social +problems, I must say that for a clergyman to countenance, even in jest, +such discredited nostrums of dissipated demagogues as Socialism or +Radicalism partakes of the character of the betrayal of a sacred trust. +Far be it from me to say a word against the Reverend Raymond Percy, the +colleague in question. He was brilliant, I suppose, and to some +apparently fascinating; but a clergyman who talks like a Socialist, +wears his hair like a pianist, and behaves like an intoxicated person, +will never rise in his profession, or even obtain the admiration of the +good and wise. Nor is it for me to utter my personal judgements of the +appearance of the people in the hall. Yet a glance round the room, +revealing ranks of debased and envious faces—” + +“Adopting,” said Moon explosively, for he was getting restive—“adopting +the reverend gentleman’s favourite figure of logic, may I say that +while tortures would not tear from me a whisper about his intellect, he +is a blasted old jackass.” + +“Really!” said Dr. Pym; “I protest.” + +“You must keep quiet, Michael,” said Inglewood; “they have a right to +read their story.” + +“Chair! Chair! Chair!” cried Gould, rolling about exuberantly in his +own; and Pym glanced for a moment towards the canopy which covered all +the authority of the Court of Beacon. + +“Oh, don’t wake the old lady,” said Moon, lowering his voice in a moody +good-humour. “I apologize. I won’t interrupt again.” + +Before the little eddy of interruption was ended the reading of the +clergyman’s letter was already continuing. + +“The proceedings opened with a speech from my colleague, of which I +will say nothing. It was deplorable. Many of the audience were Irish, +and showed the weakness of that impetuous people. When gathered +together into gangs and conspiracies they seem to lose altogether that +lovable good-nature and readiness to accept anything one tells them +which distinguishes them as individuals.” + +With a slight start, Michael rose to his feet, bowed solemnly, and sat +down again. + +“These persons, if not silent, were at least applausive during the +speech of Mr. Percy. He descended to their level with witticisms about +rent and a reserve of labour. Confiscation, expropriation, arbitration, +and such words with which I cannot soil my lips, recurred constantly. +Some hours afterward the storm broke. I had been addressing the meeting +for some time, pointing out the lack of thrift in the working classes, +their insufficient attendance at evening service, their neglect of the +Harvest Festival, and of many other things that might materially help +them to improve their lot. It was, I think, about this time that an +extraordinary interruption occurred. An enormous, powerful man, partly +concealed with white plaster, arose in the middle of the hall, and +offered (in a loud, roaring voice, like a bull’s) some observations +which seemed to be in a foreign language. Mr. Raymond Percy, my +colleague, descended to his level by entering into a duel of repartee, +in which he appeared to be the victor. The meeting began to behave more +respectfully for a little; yet before I had said twelve sentences more +the rush was made for the platform. The enormous plasterer, in +particular, plunged towards us, shaking the earth like an elephant; and +I really do not know what would have happened if a man equally large, +but not quite so ill-dressed, had not jumped up also and held him away. +This other big man shouted a sort of speech to the mob as he was +shoving them back. I don’t know what he said, but, what with shouting +and shoving and such horseplay, he got us out at a back door, while the +wretched people went roaring down another passage. + +“Then follows the truly extraordinary part of my story. When he had got +us outside, in a mean backyard of blistered grass leading into a lane +with a very lonely-looking lamp-post, this giant addressed me as +follows: ‘You’re well out of that, sir; now you’d better come along +with me. I want you to help me in an act of social justice, such as +we’ve all been talking about. Come along!’ And turning his big back +abruptly, he led us down the lean old lane with the one lean old +lamp-post, we scarcely knowing what to do but to follow him. He had +certainly helped us in a most difficult situation, and, as a gentleman, +I could not treat such a benefactor with suspicion without grave +grounds. Such also was the view of my Socialistic colleague, who (with +all his dreadful talk of arbitration) is a gentleman also. In fact, he +comes of the Staffordshire Percys, a branch of the old house and has +the black hair and pale, clear-cut face of the whole family. I cannot +but refer it to vanity that he should heighten his personal advantages +with black velvet or a red cross of considerable ostentation, and +certainly—but I digress. + +“A fog was coming up the street, and that last lost lamp-post faded +behind us in a way that certainly depressed the mind. The large man in +front of us looked larger and larger in the haze. He did not turn +round, but he said with his huge back to us, ‘All that talking’s no +good; we want a little practical Socialism.’ + +“‘I quite agree,’ said Percy; ‘but I always like to understand things +in theory before I put them into practice.’ + +“‘Oh, you just leave that to me,’ said the practical Socialist, or +whatever he was, with the most terrifying vagueness. ‘I have a way with +me. I’m a Permeator.’ + +“I could not imagine what he meant, but my companion laughed, so I was +sufficiently reassured to continue the unaccountable journey for the +present. It led us through most singular ways; out of the lane, where +we were already rather cramped, into a paved passage, at the end of +which we passed through a wooden gate left open. We then found +ourselves, in the increasing darkness and vapour, crossing what +appeared to be a beaten path across a kitchen garden. I called out to +the enormous person going on in front, but he answered obscurely that +it was a short cut. + +“I was just repeating my very natural doubt to my clerical companion +when I was brought up against a short ladder, apparently leading to a +higher level of road. My thoughtless colleague ran up it so quickly +that I could not do otherwise than follow as best I could. The path on +which I then planted my feet was quite unprecedentedly narrow. I had +never had to walk along a thoroughfare so exiguous. Along one side of +it grew what, in the dark and density of air, I first took to be some +short, strong thicket of shrubs. Then I saw that they were not short +shrubs; they were the tops of tall trees. I, an English gentleman and +clergyman of the Church of England—I was walking along the top of a +garden wall like a tom cat. + +“I am glad to say that I stopped within my first five steps, and let +loose my just reprobation, balancing myself as best I could all the +time. + +“‘It’s a right-of-way,’ declared my indefensible informant. ‘It’s +closed to traffic once in a hundred years.’ + +“‘Mr. Percy, Mr. Percy!’ I called out; ‘you are not going on with this +blackguard?’ + +“‘Why, I think so,’ answered my unhappy colleague flippantly. ‘I think +you and I are bigger blackguards than he is, whatever he is.’ + +“‘I am a burglar,’ explained the big creature quite calmly. ‘I am a +member of the Fabian Society. I take back the wealth stolen by the +capitalist, not by sweeping civil war and revolution, but by reform +fitted to the special occasion—here a little and there a little. Do you +see that fifth house along the terrace with the flat roof? I’m +permeating that one to-night.’ + +“‘Whether this is a crime or a joke,’ I cried, ‘I desire to be quit of +it.’ + +“‘The ladder is just behind you,’ answered the creature with horrible +courtesy; ‘and, before you go, do let me give you my card.’ + +“If I had had the presence of mind to show any proper spirit I should +have flung it away, though any adequate gesture of the kind would have +gravely affected my equilibrium upon the wall. As it was, in the +wildness of the moment, I put it in my waistcoat pocket, and, picking +my way back by wall and ladder, landed in the respectable streets once +more. Not before, however, I had seen with my own eyes the two awful +and lamentable facts— that the burglar was climbing up a slanting roof +towards the chimneys, and that Raymond Percy (a priest of God and, what +was worse, a gentleman) was crawling up after him. I have never seen +either of them since that day. + +“In consequence of this soul-searching experience I severed my +connection with the wild set. I am far from saying that every member of +the Christian Social Union must necessarily be a burglar. I have no +right to bring any such charge. But it gave me a hint of what such +courses may lead to in many cases; and I saw them no more. + +“I have only to add that the photograph you enclose, taken by a Mr. +Inglewood, is undoubtedly that of the burglar in question. When I got +home that night I looked at his card, and he was inscribed there under +the name of Innocent Smith.—Yours faithfully, + +“John Clement Hawkins.” + + +Moon merely went through the form of glancing at the paper. He knew +that the prosecutors could not have invented so heavy a document; that +Moses Gould (for one) could no more write like a canon than he could +read like one. After handing it back he rose to open the defence on the +burglary charge. + +“We wish,” said Michael, “to give all reasonable facilities to the +prosecution; especially as it will save the time of the whole court. +The latter object I shall once again pursue by passing over all those +points of theory which are so dear to Dr. Pym. I know how they are +made. Perjury is a variety of aphasia, leading a man to say one thing +instead of another. Forgery is a kind of writer’s cramp, forcing a man +to write his uncle’s name instead of his own. Piracy on the high seas +is probably a form of sea-sickness. But it is unnecessary for us to +inquire into the causes of a fact which we deny. Innocent Smith never +did commit burglary at all. + +“I should like to claim the power permitted by our previous +arrangement, and ask the prosecution two or three questions.” + +Dr. Cyrus Pym closed his eyes to indicate a courteous assent. + +“In the first place,” continued Moon, “have you the date of Canon +Hawkins’s last glimpse of Smith and Percy climbing up the walls and +roofs?” + +“Ho, yus!” called out Gould smartly. “November thirteen, eighteen +ninety-one.” + +“Have you,” continued Moon, “identified the houses in Hoxton up which +they climbed?” + +“Must have been Ladysmith Terrace out of the highroad,” answered Gould +with the same clockwork readiness. + +“Well,” said Michael, cocking an eyebrow at him, “was there any +burglary in that terrace that night? Surely you could find that out.” + +“There may well have been,” said the doctor primly, after a pause, “an +unsuccessful one that led to no legalities.” + +“Another question,” proceeded Michael. “Canon Hawkins, in his +blood-and-thunder boyish way, left off at the exciting moment. Why +don’t you produce the evidence of the other clergyman, who actually +followed the burglar and presumably was present at the crime?” + +Dr. Pym rose and planted the points of his fingers on the table, as he +did when he was specially confident of the clearness of his reply. + +“We have entirely failed,” he said, “to track the other clergyman, who +seems to have melted into the ether after Canon Hawkins had seen him +as-cending the gutters and the leads. I am fully aware that this may +strike many as sing’lar; yet, upon reflection, I think it will appear +pretty natural to a bright thinker. This Mr. Raymond Percy is +admittedly, by the canon’s evidence, a minister of eccentric ways. His +con-nection with England’s proudest and fairest does not seemingly +prevent a taste for the society of the real low-down. On the other +hand, the prisoner Smith is, by general agreement, a man of +irr’sistible fascination. I entertain no doubt that Smith led the +Revered Percy into the crime and forced him to hide his head in the +real crim’nal class. That would fully account for his non-appearance, +and the failure of all attempts to trace him.” + +“It is impossible, then, to trace him?” asked Moon. + +“Impossible,” repeated the specialist, shutting his eyes. + +“You are sure it’s impossible?” + +“Oh dry up, Michael,” cried Gould, irritably. “We’d ’ave found ’im if +we could, for you bet ’e saw the burglary. Don’t YOU start looking for +’im. Look for your own ’ead in the dustbin. You’ll find that—after a +bit,” and his voice died away in grumbling. + +“Arthur,” directed Michael Moon, sitting down, “kindly read Mr. Raymond +Percy’s letter to the court.” + +“Wishing, as Mr. Moon has said, to shorten the proceedings as much as +possible,” began Inglewood, “I will not read the first part of the +letter sent to us. It is only fair to the prosecution to admit the +account given by the second clergyman fully ratifies, as far as facts +are concerned, that given by the first clergyman. We concede, then, the +canon’s story so far as it goes. This must necessarily be valuable to +the prosecutor and also convenient to the court. I begin Mr. Percy’s +letter, then, at the point when all three men were standing on the +garden wall:— + +“As I watched Hawkins wavering on the wall, I made up my own mind not +to waver. A cloud of wrath was on my brain, like the cloud of copper +fog on the houses and gardens round. My decision was violent and +simple; yet the thoughts that led up to it were so complicated and +contradictory that I could not retrace them now. I knew Hawkins was a +kind, innocent gentleman; and I would have given ten pounds for the +pleasure of kicking him down the road. That God should allow good +people to be as bestially stupid as that— rose against me like a +towering blasphemy. + +“At Oxford, I fear, I had the artistic temperament rather badly; and +artists love to be limited. I liked the church as a pretty pattern; +discipline was mere decoration. I delighted in mere divisions of time; +I liked eating fish on Friday. But then I like fish; and the fast was +made for men who like meat. Then I came to Hoxton and found men who had +fasted for five hundred years; men who had to gnaw fish because they +could not get meat—and fish-bones when they could not get fish. As too +many British officers treat the army as a review, so I had treated the +Church Militant as if it were the Church Pageant. Hoxton cures that. +Then I realized that for eighteen hundred years the Church Militant had +not been a pageant, but a riot—and a suppressed riot. There, still +living patiently in Hoxton, were the people to whom the tremendous +promises had been made. In the face of that I had to become a +revolutionary if I was to continue to be religious. In Hoxton one +cannot be a conservative without being also an atheist— and a +pessimist. Nobody but the devil could want to conserve Hoxton. + +“On the top of all this comes Hawkins. If he had cursed all the Hoxton +men, excommunicated them, and told them they were going to hell, I +should have rather admired him. If he had ordered them all to be burned +in the market-place, I should still have had that patience that all +good Christians have with the wrongs inflicted on other people. But +there is no priestcraft about Hawkins—nor any other kind of craft. He +is as perfectly incapable of being a priest as he is of being a +carpenter or a cabman or a gardener or a plasterer. He is a perfect +gentleman; that is his complaint. He does not impose his creed, but +simply his class. He never said a word of religion in the whole of his +damnable address. He simply said all the things his brother, the major, +would have said. A voice from heaven assures me that he has a brother, +and that this brother is a major. + +“When this helpless aristocrat had praised cleanliness in the body and +convention in the soul to people who could hardly keep body and soul +together, the stampede against our platform began. I took part in his +undeserved rescue, I followed his obscure deliverer, until (as I have +said) we stood together on the wall above the dim gardens, already +clouding with fog. Then I looked at the curate and at the burglar, and +decided, in a spasm of inspiration, that the burglar was the better man +of the two. The burglar seemed quite as kind and human as the curate +was— and he was also brave and self-reliant, which the curate was not. +I knew there was no virtue in the upper class, for I belong to it +myself; I knew there was not so very much in the lower class, for I had +lived with it a long time. Many old texts about the despised and +persecuted came back to my mind, and I thought that the saints might +well be hidden in the criminal class. About the time Hawkins let +himself down the ladder I was crawling up a low, sloping, blue-slate +roof after the large man, who went leaping in front of me like a +gorilla. + +“This upward scramble was short, and we soon found ourselves tramping +along a broad road of flat roofs, broader than many big thoroughfares, +with chimney-pots here and there that seemed in the haze as bulky as +small forts. The asphyxiation of the fog seemed to increase the +somewhat swollen and morbid anger under which my brain and body +laboured. The sky and all those things that are commonly clear seemed +overpowered by sinister spirits. Tall spectres with turbans of vapour +seemed to stand higher than the sun or moon, eclipsing both. I thought +dimly of illustrations to the ‘Arabian Nights’ on brown paper with rich +but sombre tints, showing genii gathering round the Seal of Solomon. By +the way, what was the Seal of Solomon? Nothing to do with sealing-wax +really, I suppose; but my muddled fancy felt the thick clouds as being +of that heavy and clinging substance, of strong opaque colour, poured +out of boiling pots and stamped into monstrous emblems. + +“The first effect of the tall turbaned vapours was that discoloured +look of pea-soup or coffee brown of which Londoners commonly speak. But +the scene grew subtler with familiarity. We stood above the average of +the housetops and saw something of that thing called smoke, which in +great cities creates the strange thing called fog. Beneath us rose a +forest of chimney-pots. And there stood in every chimney-pot, as if it +were a flower-pot, a brief shrub or a tall tree of coloured vapour. The +colours of the smoke were various; for some chimneys were from +firesides and some from factories, and some again from mere rubbish +heaps. And yet, though the tints were all varied, they all seemed +unnatural, like fumes from a witch’s pot. It was as if the shameful and +ugly shapes growing shapeless in the cauldron sent up each its separate +spurt of steam, coloured according to the fish or flesh consumed. Here, +aglow from underneath, were dark red clouds, such as might drift from +dark jars of sacrificial blood; there the vapour was dark indigo gray, +like the long hair of witches steeped in the hell-broth. In another +place the smoke was of an awful opaque ivory yellow, such as might be +the disembodiment of one of their old, leprous waxen images. But right +across it ran a line of bright, sinister, sulphurous green, as clear +and crooked as Arabic—” + +Mr. Moses Gould once more attempted the arrest of the ’bus. He was +understood to suggest that the reader should shorten the proceedings by +leaving out all the adjectives. Mrs. Duke, who had woken up, observed +that she was sure it was all very nice, and the decision was duly noted +down by Moses with a blue, and by Michael with a red pencil. Inglewood +then resumed the reading of the document. + +“Then I read the writing of the smoke. Smoke was like the modern city +that makes it; it is not always dull or ugly, but it is always wicked +and vain. + +“Modern England was like a cloud of smoke; it could carry all colours, +but it could leave nothing but a stain. It was our weakness and not our +strength that put a rich refuse in the sky. These were the rivers of +our vanity pouring into the void. We had taken the sacred circle of the +whirlwind, and looked down on it, and seen it as a whirlpool. And then +we had used it as a sink. It was a good symbol of the mutiny in my own +mind. Only our worst things were going to heaven. Only our criminals +could still ascend like angels. + +“As my brain was blinded with such emotions, my guide stopped by one of +the big chimney-pots that stood at the regular intervals like +lamp-posts along that uplifted and aerial highway. He put his heavy +hand upon it, and for the moment I thought he was merely leaning on it, +tired with his steep scramble along the terrace. So far as I could +guess from the abysses, full of fog on either side, and the veiled +lights of red brown and old gold glowing through them now and again, we +were on the top of one of those long, consecutive, and genteel rows of +houses which are still to be found lifting their heads above poorer +districts, the remains of some rage of optimism in earlier speculative +builders. Probably enough, they were entirely untenanted, or tenanted +only by such small clans of the poor as gather also in the old emptied +palaces of Italy. Indeed, some little time later, when the fog had +lifted a little, I discovered that we were walking round a semi-circle +of crescent which fell away below us into one flat square or wide +street below another, like a giant stairway, in a manner not unknown in +the eccentric building of London, and looking like the last ledges of +the land. But a cloud sealed the giant stairway as yet. + +“My speculations about the sullen skyscape, however, were interrupted +by something as unexpected as the moon falling from the sky. Instead of +my burglar lifting his hand from the chimney he leaned on, he leaned on +it a little more heavily, and the whole chimney-pot turned over like +the opening top of an inkstand. I remembered the short ladder leaning +against the low wall and felt sure he had arranged his criminal +approach long before. + +“The collapse of the big chimney-pot ought to have been the culmination +of my chaotic feelings; but, to tell the truth, it produced a sudden +sense of comedy and even of comfort. I could not recall what connected +this abrupt bit of housebreaking with some quaint but still kindly +fancies. Then I remembered the delightful and uproarious scenes of +roofs and chimneys in the harlequinades of my childhood, and was darkly +and quite irrationally comforted by a sense of unsubstantiality in the +scene, as if the houses were of lath and paint and pasteboard, and were +only meant to be tumbled in and out of by policemen and pantaloons. The +law-breaking of my companion seemed not only seriously excusable, but +even comically excusable. Who were all these pompous preposterous +people with their footmen and their foot-scrapers, their chimney-pots +and their chimney-pot hats, that they should prevent a poor clown from +getting sausages if he wanted them? One would suppose that property was +a serious thing. I had reached, as it were, a higher level of that +mountainous and vapourous visions, the heaven of a higher levity. + +“My guide had jumped down into the dark cavity revealed by the +displaced chimney-pot. He must have landed at a level considerably +lower, for, tall as he was, nothing but his weirdly tousled head +remained visible. Something again far off, and yet familiar, pleased me +about this way of invading the houses of men. I thought of little +chimney-sweeps, and ‘The Water Babies;’ but I decided that it was not +that. Then I remembered what it was that made me connect such +topsy-turvy trespass with ideas quite opposite to the idea of crime. +Christmas Eve, of course, and Santa Claus coming down the chimney. + +“Almost at the same instant the hairy head disappeared into the black +hole; but I heard a voice calling to me from below. A second or two +afterwards, the hairy head reappeared; it was dark against the more +fiery part of the fog, and nothing could be spelt of its expression, +but its voice called on me to follow with that enthusiastic impatience +proper only among old friends. I jumped into the gulf, and as blindly +as Curtius, for I was still thinking of Santa Claus and the traditional +virtue of such vertical entrance. + +“In every well-appointed gentleman’s house, I reflected, there was the +front door for the gentlemen, and the side door for the tradesmen; but +there was also the top door for the gods. The chimney is, so to speak, +the underground passage between earth and heaven. By this starry tunnel +Santa Claus manages—like the skylark— to be true to the kindred points +of heaven and home. Nay, owing to certain conventions, and a widely +distributed lack of courage for climbing, this door was, perhaps, +little used. But Santa Claus’s door was really the front door: it was +the door fronting the universe. + +“I thought this as I groped my way across the black garret, or loft +below the roof, and scrambled down the squat ladder that let us down +into a yet larger loft below. Yet it was not till I was half-way down +the ladder that I suddenly stood still, and thought for an instant of +retracing all my steps, as my companion had retraced them from the +beginning of the garden wall. The name of Santa Claus had suddenly +brought me back to my senses. I remembered why Santa Claus came, and +why he was welcome. + +“I was brought up in the propertied classes, and with all their horror +of offences against property. I had heard all the regular denunciations +of robbery, both right and wrong; I had read the Ten Commandments in +church a thousand times. And then and there, at the age of thirty-four, +half-way down a ladder in a dark room in the bodily act of burglar, I +saw suddenly for the first time that theft, after all, is really wrong. + +“It was too late to turn back, however, and I followed the strangely +soft footsteps of my huge companion across the lower and larger loft, +till he knelt down on a part of the bare flooring and, after a few +fumbling efforts, lifted a sort of trapdoor. This released a light from +below, and we found ourselves looking down into a lamp-lit sitting +room, of the sort that in large houses often leads out of a bedroom, +and is an adjunct to it. Light thus breaking from beneath our feet like +a soundless explosion, showed that the trapdoor just lifted was clogged +with dust and rust, and had doubtless been long disused until the +advent of my enterprising friend. But I did not look at this long, for +the sight of the shining room underneath us had an almost unnatural +attractiveness. To enter a modern interior at so strange an angle, by +so forgotten a door, was an epoch in one’s psychology. It was like +having found a fourth dimension. + +“My companion dropped from the aperture into the room so suddenly and +soundlessly, that I could do nothing but follow him; though, for lack +of practice in crime, I was by no means soundless. Before the echo of +my boots had died away, the big burglar had gone quickly to the door, +half opened it, and stood looking down the staircase and listening. +Then, leaving the door still half open, he came back into the middle of +the room, and ran his roving blue eye round its furniture and ornament. +The room was comfortably lined with books in that rich and human way +that makes the walls seem alive; it was a deep and full, but slovenly, +bookcase, of the sort that is constantly ransacked for the purposes of +reading in bed. One of those stunted German stoves that look like red +goblins stood in a corner, and a sideboard of walnut wood with closed +doors in its lower part. There were three windows, high but narrow. +After another glance round, my housebreaker plucked the walnut doors +open and rummaged inside. He found nothing there, apparently, except an +extremely handsome cut-glass decanter, containing what looked like +port. Somehow the sight of the thief returning with this ridiculous +little luxury in his hand woke within me once more all the revelation +and revulsion I had felt above. + +“‘Don’t do it!’ I cried quite incoherently, ‘Santa Claus—’ + +“‘Ah,’ said the burglar, as he put the decanter on the table and stood +looking at me, ‘you’ve thought about that, too.’ + +“‘I can’t express a millionth part of what I’ve thought of,’ I cried, +‘but it’s something like this... oh, can’t you see it? Why are children +not afraid of Santa Claus, though he comes like a thief in the night? +He is permitted secrecy, trespass, almost treachery—because there are +more toys where he has been. What should we feel if there were less? +Down what chimney from hell would come the goblin that should take away +the children’s balls and dolls while they slept? Could a Greek tragedy +be more gray and cruel than that daybreak and awakening? Dog-stealer, +horse-stealer, man-stealer—can you think of anything so base as a +toy-stealer?’ + +“The burglar, as if absently, took a large revolver from his pocket and +laid it on the table beside the decanter, but still kept his blue +reflective eyes fixed on my face. + +“‘Man!’ I said, ‘all stealing is toy-stealing. That’s why it’s really +wrong. The goods of the unhappy children of men should be really +respected because of their worthlessness. I know Naboth’s vineyard is +as painted as Noah’s Ark. I know Nathan’s ewe-lamb is really a woolly +baa-lamb on a wooden stand. That is why I could not take them away. I +did not mind so much, as long as I thought of men’s things as their +valuables; but I dare not put a hand upon their vanities.’ + +“After a moment I added abruptly, ‘Only saints and sages ought to be +robbed. They may be stripped and pillaged; but not the poor little +worldly people of the things that are their poor little pride.’ + +“He set out two wineglasses from the cupboard, filled them both, and +lifted one of them with a salutation towards his lips. + +“‘Don’t do it!’ I cried. ‘It might be the last bottle of some rotten +vintage or other. The master of this house may be quite proud of it. +Don’t you see there’s something sacred in the silliness of such +things?’ + +“‘It’s not the last bottle,’ answered my criminal calmly; ‘there’s +plenty more in the cellar.’ + +“‘You know the house, then?’ I said. + +“‘Too well,’ he answered, with a sadness so strange as to have +something eerie about it. ‘I am always trying to forget what I know— +and to find what I don’t know.’ He drained his glass. ‘Besides,’ he +added, ‘it will do him good.’ + +“‘What will do him good?’ + +“‘The wine I’m drinking,’ said the strange person. + +“‘Does he drink too much, then?’ I inquired. + +“‘No,’ he answered, ‘not unless I do.’ + +“‘Do you mean,’ I demanded, ‘that the owner of this house approves of +all you do?’ + +“‘God forbid,’ he answered; ‘but he has to do the same.’ + +“The dead face of the fog looking in at all three windows unreasonably +increased a sense of riddle, and even terror, about this tall, narrow +house we had entered out of the sky. I had once more the notion about +the gigantic genii— I fancied that enormous Egyptian faces, of the dead +reds and yellows of Egypt, were staring in at each window of our little +lamp-lit room as at a lighted stage of marionettes. My companion went +on playing with the pistol in front of him, and talking with the same +rather creepy confidentialness. + +“‘I am always trying to find him—to catch him unawares. I come in +through skylights and trapdoors to find him; but whenever I find him—he +is doing what I am doing.’ + +“I sprang to my feet with a thrill of fear. ‘There is some one coming,’ +I cried, and my cry had something of a shriek in it. Not from the +stairs below, but along the passage from the inner bedchamber (which +seemed somehow to make it more alarming), footsteps were coming nearer. +I am quite unable to say what mystery, or monster, or double, I +expected to see when the door was pushed open from within. I am only +quite certain that I did not expect to see what I did see. + +“Framed in the open doorway stood, with an air of great serenity, a +rather tall young woman, definitely though indefinably artistic— her +dress the colour of spring and her hair of autumn leaves, with a face +which, though still comparatively young, conveyed experience as well as +intelligence. All she said was, ‘I didn’t hear you come in.’ + +“‘I came in another way,’ said the Permeator, somewhat vaguely. ‘I’d +left my latchkey at home.’ + +“I got to my feet in a mixture of politeness and mania. ‘I’m really +very sorry,’ I cried. ‘I know my position is irregular. Would you be so +obliging as to tell me whose house this is?’ + +“‘Mine,’ said the burglar, ‘May I present you to my wife?’ + +“I doubtfully, and somewhat slowly, resumed my seat; and I did not get +out of it till nearly morning. Mrs. Smith (such was the prosaic name of +this far from prosaic household) lingered a little, talking slightly +and pleasantly. She left on my mind the impression of a certain odd +mixture of shyness and sharpness; as if she knew the world well, but +was still a little harmlessly afraid of it. Perhaps the possession of +so jumpy and incalculable a husband had left her a little nervous. +Anyhow, when she had retired to the inner chamber once more, that +extraordinary man poured forth his apologia and autobiography over the +dwindling wine. + +“He had been sent to Cambridge with a view to a mathematical and +scientific, rather than a classical or literary, career. A starless +nihilism was then the philosophy of the schools; and it bred in him a +war between the members and the spirit, but one in which the members +were right. While his brain accepted the black creed, his very body +rebelled against it. As he put it, his right hand taught him terrible +things. As the authorities of Cambridge University put it, +unfortunately, it had taken the form of his right hand flourishing a +loaded firearm in the very face of a distinguished don, and driving him +to climb out of the window and cling to a waterspout. He had done it +solely because the poor don had professed in theory a preference for +non-existence. For this very unacademic type of argument he had been +sent down. Vomiting as he was with revulsion, from the pessimism that +had quailed under his pistol, he made himself a kind of fanatic of the +joy of life. He cut across all the associations of serious-minded men. +He was gay, but by no means careless. His practical jokes were more in +earnest than verbal ones. Though not an optimist in the absurd sense of +maintaining that life is all beer and skittles, he did really seem to +maintain that beer and skittles are the most serious part of it. ‘What +is more immortal,’ he would cry, ‘than love and war? Type of all desire +and joy—beer. Type of all battle and conquest—skittles.’ + +“There was something in him of what the old world called the solemnity +of revels—when they spoke of ‘solemnizing’ a mere masquerade or wedding +banquet. Nevertheless he was not a mere pagan any more than he was a +mere practical joker. His eccentricities sprang from a static fact of +faith, in itself mystical, and even childlike and Christian. + +“‘I don’t deny,’ he said, ‘that there should be priests to remind men +that they will one day die. I only say that at certain strange epochs +it is necessary to have another kind of priests, called poets, actually +to remind men that they are not dead yet. The intellectuals among whom +I moved were not even alive enough to fear death. They hadn’t enough +blood in them to be cowards. Until a pistol barrel was poked under +their very noses they never even knew they had been born. For ages +looking up an eternal perspective it might be true that life is a +learning to die. But for these little white rats it was just as true +that death was their only chance of learning to live.’ + +“His creed of wonder was Christian by this absolute test; that he felt +it continually slipping from himself as much as from others. He had the +same pistol for himself, as Brutus said of the dagger. He continually +ran preposterous risks of high precipice or headlong speed to keep +alive the mere conviction that he was alive. He treasured up trivial +and yet insane details that had once reminded him of the awful +subconscious reality. When the don had hung on the stone gutter, the +sight of his long dangling legs, vibrating in the void like wings, +somehow awoke the naked satire of the old definition of man as a +two-legged animal without feathers. The wretched professor had been +brought into peril by his head, which he had so elaborately cultivated, +and only saved by his legs, which he had treated with coldness and +neglect. Smith could think of no other way of announcing or recording +this, except to send a telegram to an old friend (by this time a total +stranger) to say that he had just seen a man with two legs; and that +the man was alive. + +“The uprush of his released optimism burst into stars like a rocket +when he suddenly fell in love. He happened to be shooting a high and +very headlong weir in a canoe, by way of proving to himself that he was +alive; and he soon found himself involved in some doubt about the +continuance of the fact. What was worse, he found he had equally +jeopardized a harmless lady alone in a rowing-boat, and one who had +provoked death by no professions of philosophic negation. He apologized +in wild gasps through all his wild wet labours to bring her to the +shore, and when he had done so at last, he seems to have proposed to +her on the bank. Anyhow, with the same impetuosity with which he had +nearly murdered her, he completely married her; and she was the lady in +green to whom I had recently said ‘good-night.’ + +“They had settled down in these high narrow houses near Highbury. +Perhaps, indeed, that is hardly the word. One could strictly say that +Smith was married, that he was very happily married, that he not only +did not care for any woman but his wife, but did not seem to care for +any place but his home; but perhaps one could hardly say that he had +settled down. ‘I am a very domestic fellow,’ he explained with gravity, +‘and have often come in through a broken window rather than be late for +tea.’ + +“He lashed his soul with laughter to prevent it falling asleep. He lost +his wife a series of excellent servants by knocking at the door as a +total stranger, and asking if Mr. Smith lived there and what kind of a +man he was. The London general servant is not used to the master +indulging in such transcendental ironies. And it was found impossible +to explain to her that he did it in order to feel the same interest in +his own affairs that he always felt in other people’s. + +“‘I know there’s a fellow called Smith,’ he said in his rather weird +way, ‘living in one of the tall houses in this terrace. I know he is +really happy, and yet I can never catch him at it.’ + +“Sometimes he would, of a sudden, treat his wife with a kind of +paralyzed politeness, like a young stranger struck with love at first +sight. Sometimes he would extend this poetic fear to the very +furniture; would seem to apologize to the chair he sat on, and climb +the staircase as cautiously as a cragsman, to renew in himself the +sense of their skeleton of reality. Every stair is a ladder and every +stool a leg, he said. And at other times he would play the stranger +exactly in the opposite sense, and would enter by another way, so as to +feel like a thief and a robber. He would break and violate his own +home, as he had done with me that night. It was near morning before I +could tear myself from this queer confidence of the Man Who Would Not +Die, and as I shook hands with him on the doorstep the last load of fog +was lifting, and rifts of daylight revealed the stairway of irregular +street levels that looked like the end of the world. + +“It will be enough for many to say that I had passed a night with a +maniac. What other term, it will be said, could be applied to such a +being? A man who reminds himself that he is married by pretending not +to be married! A man who tries to covet his own goods instead of his +neighbor’s! On this I have but one word to say, and I feel it of my +honour to say it, though no one understands. I believe the maniac was +one of those who do not merely come, but are sent; sent like a great +gale upon ships by Him who made His angels winds and His messengers a +flaming fire. This, at least, I know for certain. Whether such men have +laughed or wept, we have laughed at their laughter as much as at their +weeping. Whether they cursed or blessed the world, they have never +fitted it. It is true that men have shrunk from the sting of a great +satirist as if from the sting of an adder. But it is equally true that +men flee from the embrace of a great optimist as from the embrace of a +bear. Nothing brings down more curses than a real benediction. For the +goodness of good things, like the badness of bad things, is a prodigy +past speech; it is to be pictured rather than spoken. We shall have +gone deeper than the deeps of heaven and grown older than the oldest +angels before we feel, even in its first faint vibrations, the +everlasting violence of that double passion with which God hates and +loves the world.—I am, yours faithfully, “Raymond Percy.” + +“Oh, ’oly, ’oly, ’oly!” said Mr. Moses Gould. + +The instant he had spoken all the rest knew they had been in an almost +religious state of submission and assent. Something had bound them +together; something in the sacred tradition of the last two words of +the letter; something also in the touching and boyish embarrassment +with which Inglewood had read them— for he had all the thin-skinned +reverence of the agnostic. Moses Gould was as good a fellow in his way +as ever lived; far kinder to his family than more refined men of +pleasure, simple and steadfast in his admiration, a thoroughly +wholesome animal and a thoroughly genuine character. But wherever there +is conflict, crises come in which any soul, personal or racial, +unconsciously turns on the world the most hateful of its hundred faces. +English reverence, Irish mysticism, American idealism, looked up and +saw on the face of Moses a certain smile. It was that smile of the +Cynic Triumphant, which has been the tocsin for many a cruel riot in +Russian villages or mediaeval towns. + +“Oh, ’oly, ’oly, ’oly!” said Moses Gould. + +Finding that this was not well received, he explained further, +exuberance deepening on his dark exuberant features. + +“Always fun to see a bloke swallow a wasp when ’e’s corfin’ up a fly,” +he said pleasantly. “Don’t you see you’ve bunged up old Smith anyhow. +If this parson’s tale’s O.K.—why, Smith is ’ot. ’E’s pretty ’ot. We +find him elopin’ with Miss Gray (best respects!) in a cab. Well, what +abart this Mrs. Smith the curate talks of, with her blarsted +shyness—transmigogrified into a blighted sharpness? Miss Gray ain’t +been very sharp, but I reckon she’ll be pretty shy.” + +“Don’t be a brute,” growled Michael Moon. + +None could lift their eyes to look at Mary; but Inglewood sent a glance +along the table at Innocent Smith. He was still bowed above his paper +toys, and a wrinkle was on his forehead that might have been worry or +shame. He carefully plucked out one corner of a complicated paper and +tucked it in elsewhere; then the wrinkle vanished and he looked +relieved. + + + + +Chapter III +The Round Road; or, the Desertion Charge + + +Pym rose with sincere embarrassment; for he was an American, and his +respect for ladies was real, and not at all scientific. + +“Ignoring,” he said, “the delicate and considerable knightly protests +that have been called forth by my colleague’s native sense of oration, +and apologizing to all for whom our wild search for truth seems +unsuitable to the grand ruins of a feudal land, I still think my +colleague’s question by no means devoid of rel’vancy. The last charge +against the accused was one of burglary; the next charge on the paper +is of bigamy and desertion. It does without question appear that the +defence, in aspiring to rebut this last charge, have really admitted +the next. Either Innocent Smith is still under a charge of attempted +burglary, or else that is exploded; but he is pretty well fixed for +attempted bigamy. It all depends on what view we take of the alleged +letter from Curate Percy. Under these conditions I feel justified in +claiming my right to questions. May I ask how the defence got hold of +the letter from Curate Percy? Did it come direct from the prisoner?” + +“We have had nothing direct from the prisoner,” said Moon quietly. “The +few documents which the defence guarantees came to us from another +quarter.” + +“From what quarter?” asked Dr. Pym. + +“If you insist,” answered Moon, “we had them from Miss Gray.” + +Dr. Cyrus Pym quite forgot to close his eyes, and, instead, opened +them very wide. + +“Do you really mean to say,” he said, “that Miss Gray was in possession +of this document testifying to a previous Mrs. Smith?” + +“Quite so,” said Inglewood, and sat down. + +The doctor said something about infatuation in a low and painful voice, +and then with visible difficulty continued his opening remarks. + +“Unfortunately the tragic truth revealed by Curate Percy’s narrative is +only too crushingly confirmed by other and shocking documents in our +own possession. Of these the principal and most certain is the +testimony of Innocent Smith’s gardener, who was present at the most +dramatic and eye-opening of his many acts of marital infidelity. Mr. +Gould, the gardener, please.” + +Mr. Gould, with his tireless cheerfulness, arose to present the +gardener. That functionary explained that he had served Mr. and Mrs. +Innocent Smith when they had a little house on the edge of Croydon. +From the gardener’s tale, with its many small allusions, Inglewood grew +certain he had seen the place. It was one of those corners of town or +country that one does not forget, for it looked like a frontier. The +garden hung very high above the lane, and its end was steep and sharp, +like a fortress. Beyond was a roll of real country, with a white path +sprawling across it, and the roots, boles, and branches of great gray +trees writhing and twisting against the sky. But as if to assert that +the lane itself was suburban, were sharply relieved against that gray +and tossing upland a lamp-post painted a peculiar yellow-green and a +red pillar-box that stood exactly at the corner. Inglewood was sure of +the place; he had passed it twenty times in his constitutionals on the +bicycle; he had always dimly felt it was a place where something might +occur. But it gave him quite a shiver to feel that the face of his +frightful friend or enemy Smith might at any time have appeared over +the garden bushes above. The gardener’s account, unlike the curate’s, +was quite free from decorative adjectives, however many he may have +uttered privately when writing it. He simply said that on a particular +morning Mr. Smith came out and began to play about with a rake, as he +often did. Sometimes he would tickle the nose of his eldest child (he +had two children); sometimes he would hook the rake on to the branch of +a tree, and hoist himself up with horrible gymnastic jerks, like those +of a giant frog in its final agony. Never, apparently, did he think of +putting the rake to any of its proper uses, and the gardener, in +consequence, treated his actions with coldness and brevity. But the +gardener was certain that on one particular morning in October he (the +gardener) had come round the corner of the house carrying the hose, had +seen Mr. Smith standing on the lawn in a striped red and white jacket +(which might have been his smoking-jacket, but was quite as like a part +of his pyjamas), and had heard him then and there call out to his wife, +who was looking out of the bedroom window on to the garden, these +decisive and very loud expressions— + +“I won’t stay here any longer. I’ve got another wife and much better +children a long way from here. My other wife’s got redder hair than +yours, and my other garden’s got a much finer situation; and I’m going +off to them.” + +With these words, apparently, he sent the rake flying far up into the +sky, higher than many could have shot an arrow, and caught it again. +Then he cleared the hedge at a leap and alighted on his feet down in +the lane below, and set off up the road without even a hat. Much of the +picture was doubtless supplied by Inglewood’s accidental memory of the +place. He could see with his mind’s eye that big bare-headed figure +with the ragged rake swaggering up the crooked woodland road, and +leaving lamp-post and pillar-box behind. But the gardener, on his own +account, was quite prepared to swear to the public confession of +bigamy, to the temporary disappearance of the rake in the sky, and the +final disappearance of the man up the road. Moreover, being a local +man, he could swear that, beyond some local rumours that Smith had +embarked on the south-eastern coast, nothing was known of him again. + +This impression was somewhat curiously clinched by Michael Moon in the +few but clear phrases in which he opened the defence upon the third +charge. So far from denying that Smith had fled from Croydon and +disappeared on the Continent, he seemed prepared to prove all this on +his own account. “I hope you are not so insular,” he said, “that you +will not respect the word of a French innkeeper as much as that of an +English gardener. By Mr. Inglewood’s favour we will hear the French +innkeeper.” + +Before the company had decided the delicate point Inglewood was already +reading the account in question. It was in French. It seemed to them to +run something like this:— + +“Sir,—Yes; I am Durobin of Durobin’s Cafe on the sea-front at Gras, +rather north of Dunquerque. I am willing to write all I know of the +stranger out of the sea. + +“I have no sympathy with eccentrics or poets. A man of sense looks for +beauty in things deliberately intended to be beautiful, such as a trim +flower-bed or an ivory statuette. One does not permit beauty to pervade +one’s whole life, just as one does not pave all the roads with ivory or +cover all the fields with geraniums. My faith, but we should miss the +onions! + +“But whether I read things backwards through my memory, or whether +there are indeed atmospheres of psychology which the eye of science +cannot as yet pierce, it is the humiliating fact that on that +particular evening I felt like a poet—like any little rascal of a poet +who drinks absinthe in the mad Montmartre. + +“Positively the sea itself looked like absinthe, green and bitter and +poisonous. I had never known it look so unfamiliar before. In the sky +was that early and stormy darkness that is so depressing to the mind, +and the wind blew shrilly round the little lonely coloured kiosk where +they sell the newspapers, and along the sand-hills by the shore. There +I saw a fishing-boat with a brown sail standing in silently from the +sea. It was already quite close, and out of it clambered a man of +monstrous stature, who came wading to shore with the water not up to +his knees, though it would have reached the hips of many men. He leaned +on a long rake or pole, which looked like a trident, and made him look +like a Triton. Wet as he was, and with strips of seaweed clinging to +him, he walked across to my cafe, and, sitting down at a table outside, +asked for cherry brandy, a liqueur which I keep, but is seldom +demanded. Then the monster, with great politeness, invited me to +partake of a vermouth before my dinner, and we fell into conversation. +He had apparently crossed from Kent by a small boat got at a private +bargain because of some odd fancy he had for passing promptly in an +easterly direction, and not waiting for any of the official boats. He +was, he somewhat vaguely explained, looking for a house. When I +naturally asked him where the house was, he answered that he did not +know; it was on an island; it was somewhere to the east; or, as he +expressed it with a hazy and yet impatient gesture, ‘over there.’ + +“I asked him how, if he did not know the place, he would know it when +he saw it. Here he suddenly ceased to be hazy, and became alarmingly +minute. He gave a description of the house detailed enough for an +auctioneer. I have forgotten nearly all the details except the last +two, which were that the lamp-post was painted green, and that there +was a red pillar-box at the corner. + +“‘A red pillar-box!’ I cried in astonishment. ‘Why, the place must be +in England!’ + +“‘I had forgotten,’ he said, nodding heavily. ‘That is the island’s +name.’ + +“‘But, _nom du nom_,’ I cried testily, ‘you’ve just come from England, +my boy.’ + +“‘They SAID it was England,’ said my imbecile, conspiratorially. ‘They +said it was Kent. But Kentish men are such liars one can’t believe +anything they say.’ + +“‘Monsieur,’ I said, ‘you must pardon me. I am elderly, and the +_fumisteries_ of the young men are beyond me. I go by common sense, or, +at the largest, by that extension of applied common sense called +science.’ + +“‘Science!’ cried the stranger. ‘There is only one good thing science +ever discovered—a good thing, good tidings of great joy— that the world +is round.’ + +“I told him with civility that his words conveyed no impression to my +intelligence. ‘I mean,’ he said, ‘that going right round the world is +the shortest way to where you are already.’ + +“‘Is it not even shorter,’ I asked, ‘to stop where you are?’ + +“‘No, no, no!’ he cried emphatically. ‘That way is long and very weary. +At the end of the world, at the back of the dawn, I shall find the wife +I really married and the house that is really mine. And that house will +have a greener lamp-post and a redder pillar-box. Do you,’ he asked +with a sudden intensity, ‘do you never want to rush out of your house +in order to find it?’ + +“‘No, I think not,’ I replied; ‘reason tells a man from the first to +adapt his desires to the probable supply of life. I remain here, +content to fulfil the life of man. All my interests are here, and most +of my friends, and—’ + +“‘And yet,’ he cried, starting to his almost terrific height, ‘you made +the French Revolution!’ + +“‘Pardon me,’ I said, ‘I am not quite so elderly. A relative perhaps.’ + +“‘I mean your sort did!’ exclaimed this personage. ‘Yes, your damned +smug, settled, sensible sort made the French Revolution. Oh! I know +some say it was no good, and you’re just back where you were before. +Why, blast it all, that’s just where we all want to be—back where we +were before! That is revolution—going right round! Every revolution, +like a repentance, is a return.’ + +“He was so excited that I waited till he had taken his seat again, and +then said something indifferent and soothing; but he struck the tiny +table with his colossal fist and went on. + +“‘I am going to have a revolution, not a French Revolution, but an +English Revolution. God has given to each tribe its own type of mutiny. +The Frenchmen march against the citadel of the city together; the +Englishman marches to the outskirts of the city, and alone. But I am +going to turn the world upside down, too. I’m going to turn myself +upside down. I’m going to walk upside down in the cursed upsidedownland +of the Antipodes, where trees and men hang head downward in the sky. +But my revolution, like yours, like the earth’s, will end up in the +holy, happy place— the celestial, incredible place—the place where we +were before.’ + +“With these remarks, which can scarcely be reconciled with reason, he +leapt from the seat and strode away into the twilight, swinging his +pole and leaving behind him an excessive payment, which also pointed to +some loss of mental balance. This is all I know of the episode of the +man landed from the fishing-boat, and I hope it may serve the interests +of justice.— Accept, Sir, the assurances of the very high +consideration, with which I have the honour to be your obedient +servant, “Jules Durobin.” + +“The next document in our dossier,” continued Inglewood, “comes from +the town of Crazok, in the central plains of Russia, and runs as +follows:— + +“Sir,—My name is Paul Nickolaiovitch: I am the stationmaster at the +station near Crazok. The great trains go by across the plains taking +people to China, but very few people get down at the platform where I +have to watch. This makes my life rather lonely, and I am thrown back +much upon the books I have. But I cannot discuss these very much with +my neighbours, for enlightened ideas have not spread in this part of +Russia so much as in other parts. Many of the peasants round here have +never heard of Bernard Shaw. + +“I am a Liberal, and do my best to spread Liberal ideas; but since the +failure of the revolution this has been even more difficult. The +revolutionists committed many acts contrary to the pure principles of +humanitarianism, with which indeed, owing to the scarcity of books, +they were ill acquainted. I did not approve of these cruel acts, though +provoked by the tyranny of the government; but now there is a tendency +to reproach all Intelligents with the memory of them. This is very +unfortunate for Intelligents. + +“It was when the railway strike was almost over, and a few trains came +through at long intervals, that I stood one day watching a train that +had come in. Only one person got out of the train, far away up at the +other end of it, for it was a very long train. It was evening, with a +cold, greenish sky. A little snow had fallen, but not enough to whiten +the plain, which stretched away a sort of sad purple in all directions, +save where the flat tops of some distant tablelands caught the evening +light like lakes. As the solitary man came stamping along on the thin +snow by the train he grew larger and larger; I thought I had never seen +so large a man. But he looked even taller than he was, I think, because +his shoulders were very big and his head comparatively little. From the +big shoulders hung a tattered old jacket, striped dull red and dirty +white, very thin for the winter, and one hand rested on a huge pole +such as peasants rake in weeds with to burn them. + +“Before he had traversed the full length of the train he was entangled +in one of those knots of rowdies that were the embers of the extinct +revolution, though they mostly disgraced themselves upon the government +side. I was just moving to his assistance, when he whirled up his rake +and laid out right and left with such energy that he came through them +without scathe and strode right up to me, leaving them staggered and +really astonished. + +“Yet when he reached me, after so abrupt an assertion of his aim, he +could only say rather dubiously in French that he wanted a house. + +“‘There are not many houses to be had round here,’ I answered in the +same language, ‘the district has been very disturbed. A revolution, as +you know, has recently been suppressed. Any further building—’ + +“‘Oh! I don’t mean that,’ he cried; ‘I mean a real house—a live house. +It really is a live house, for it runs away from me.’ + +“‘I am ashamed to say that something in his phrase or gesture moved me +profoundly. We Russians are brought up in an atmosphere of folk-lore, +and its unfortunate effects can still be seen in the bright colours of +the children’s dolls and of the ikons. For an instant the idea of a +house running away from a man gave me pleasure, for the enlightenment +of man moves slowly. + +“‘Have you no other house of your own?’ I asked. + +“‘I have left it,’ he said very sadly. ‘It was not the house that grew +dull, but I that grew dull in it. My wife was better than all women, +and yet I could not feel it.’ + +“‘And so,’ I said with sympathy, ‘you walked straight out of the front +door, like a masculine Nora.’ + +“‘Nora?’ he inquired politely, apparently supposing it to be a Russian +word. + +“‘I mean Nora in “The Doll’s House,”’ I replied. + +“At this he looked very much astonished, and I knew he was an +Englishman; for Englishmen always think that Russians study nothing but +‘ukases.’ + +“‘The Doll’s House!’ he cried vehemently; ‘why, that is just where +Ibsen was so wrong! Why, the whole aim of a house is to be a doll’s +house. Don’t you remember, when you were a child, how those little +windows WERE windows, while the big windows weren’t. A child has a +doll’s house, and shrieks when a front door opens inwards. A banker has +a real house, yet how numerous are the bankers who fail to emit the +faintest shriek when their real front doors open inwards.’ + +“Something from the folk-lore of my infancy still kept me foolishly +silent; and before I could speak, the Englishman had leaned over and +was saying in a sort of loud whisper, ‘I have found out how to make a +big thing small. I have found out how to turn a house into a doll’s +house. Get a long way off it: God lets us turn all things into toys by +his great gift of distance. Once let me see my old brick house standing +up quite little against the horizon, and I shall want to go back to it +again. I shall see the funny little toy lamp-post painted green against +the gate, and all the dear little people like dolls looking out of the +window. For the windows really open in my doll’s house.’ + +“‘But why?’ I asked, ‘should you wish to return to that particular +doll’s house? Having taken, like Nora, the bold step against +convention, having made yourself in the conventional sense +disreputable, having dared to be free, why should you not take +advantage of your freedom? As the greatest modern writers have pointed +out, what you called your marriage was only your mood. You have a right +to leave it all behind, like the clippings of your hair or the parings +of your nails. Having once escaped, you have the world before you. +Though the words may seem strange to you, you are free in Russia.’ + +“He sat with his dreamy eyes on the dark circles of the plains, where +the only moving thing was the long and labouring trail of smoke out of +the railway engine, violet in tint, volcanic in outline, the one hot +and heavy cloud of that cold clear evening of pale green. + +“‘Yes,’ he said with a huge sigh, ‘I am free in Russia. You are right. +I could really walk into that town over there and have love all over +again, and perhaps marry some beautiful woman and begin again, and +nobody could ever find me. Yes, you have certainly convinced me of +something.’ + +“His tone was so queer and mystical that I felt impelled to ask him +what he meant, and of what exactly I had convinced him. + +“‘You have convinced me,’ he said with the same dreamy eye, ‘why it is +really wicked and dangerous for a man to run away from his wife.’ + +“‘And why is it dangerous?’ I inquired. + +“‘Why, because nobody can find him,’ answered this odd person, ‘and we +all want to be found.’ + +“‘The most original modern thinkers,’ I remarked, ‘Ibsen, Gorki, +Nietzsche, Shaw, would all rather say that what we want most is to be +lost: to find ourselves in untrodden paths, and to do unprecedented +things: to break with the past and belong to the future.’ + +“He rose to his whole height somewhat sleepily, and looked round on +what was, I confess, a somewhat desolate scene—the dark purple plains, +the neglected railroad, the few ragged knots of malcontents. ‘I shall +not find the house here,’ he said. ‘It is still eastward— further and +further eastward.’ + +“Then he turned upon me with something like fury, and struck the foot +of his pole upon the frozen earth. + +“‘And if I do go back to my country,’ he cried, ‘I may be locked up in +a madhouse before I reach my own house. I have been a bit +unconventional in my time! Why, Nietzsche stood in a row of ramrods in +the silly old Prussian army, and Shaw takes temperance beverages in the +suburbs; but the things I do are unprecedented things. This round road +I am treading is an untrodden path. I do believe in breaking out; I am +a revolutionist. But don’t you see that all these real leaps and +destructions and escapes are only attempts to get back to Eden— to +something we have had, to something we at least have heard of? Don’t +you see one only breaks the fence or shoots the moon in order to get +HOME?’ + +“‘No,’ I answered after due reflection, ‘I don’t think I should accept +that.’ + +“‘Ah,’ he said with a sort of a sigh, ‘then you have explained a second +thing to me.’ + +“‘What do you mean?’ I asked; ‘what thing?’ + +“‘Why your revolution has failed,’ he said; and walking across quite +suddenly to the train he got into it just as it was steaming away at +last. And as I saw the long snaky tail of it disappear along the +darkening flats. + +“I saw no more of him. But though his views were adverse to the best +advanced thought, he struck me as an interesting person: I should like +to find out if he has produced any literary works.—Yours, etc., “Paul +Nickolaiovitch.” + +There was something in this odd set of glimpses into foreign lives +which kept the absurd tribunal quieter than it had hitherto been, and +it was again without interruption that Inglewood opened another paper +upon his pile. “The Court will be indulgent,” he said, “if the next +note lacks the special ceremonies of our letter-writing. It is +ceremonious enough in its own way:— + +“The Celestial Principles are permanent: Greeting.—I am Wong-Hi, and I +tend the temple of all the ancestors of my family in the forest of Fu. +The man that broke through the sky and came to me said that it must be +very dull, but I showed him the wrongness of his thought. I am indeed +in one place, for my uncle took me to this temple when I was a boy, and +in this I shall doubtless die. But if a man remain in one place he +shall see that the place changes. The pagoda of my temple stands up +silently out of all the trees, like a yellow pagoda above many green +pagodas. But the skies are sometimes blue like porcelain, and sometimes +green like jade, and sometimes red like garnet. But the night is always +ebony and always returns, said the Emperor Ho. + +“The sky-breaker came at evening very suddenly, for I had hardly seen +any stirring in the tops of the green trees over which I look as over a +sea, when I go to the top of the temple at morning. And yet when he +came, it was as if an elephant had strayed from the armies of the great +kings of India. For palms snapped, and bamboos broke, and there came +forth in the sunshine before the temple one taller than the sons of +men. + +“Strips of red and white hung about him like ribbons of a carnival, and +he carried a pole with a row of teeth on it like the teeth of a dragon. +His face was white and discomposed, after the fashion of the +foreigners, so that they look like dead men filled with devils; and he +spoke our speech brokenly. + +“He said to me, ‘This is only a temple; I am trying to find a house.’ +And then he told me with indelicate haste that the lamp outside his +house was green, and that there was a red post at the corner of it. + +“‘I have not seen your house nor any houses,’ I answered. ‘I dwell in +this temple and serve the gods.’ + +“‘Do you believe in the gods?’ he asked with hunger in his eyes, like +the hunger of dogs. And this seemed to me a strange question to ask, +for what should a man do except what men have done? + +“‘My Lord,’ I said, ‘it must be good for men to hold up their hands +even if the skies are empty. For if there are gods, they will be +pleased, and if there are none, then there are none to be displeased. +Sometimes the skies are gold and sometimes porphyry and sometimes +ebony, but the trees and the temple stand still under it all. So the +great Confucius taught us that if we do always the same things with our +hands and our feet as do the wise beasts and birds, with our heads we +may think many things: yes, my Lord, and doubt many things. So long as +men offer rice at the right season, and kindle lanterns at the right +hour, it matters little whether there be gods or no. For these things +are not to appease gods, but to appease men.’ + +“He came yet closer to me, so that he seemed enormous; yet his look was +very gentle. + +“‘Break your temple,’ he said, ‘and your gods will be freed.’ + +“And I, smiling at his simplicity, answered: ‘And so, if there be no +gods, I shall have nothing but a broken temple.’ + +“And at this, that giant from whom the light of reason was withheld +threw out his mighty arms and asked me to forgive him. And when I asked +him for what he should be forgiven he answered: ‘For being right.’ + +“‘Your idols and emperors are so old and wise and satisfying,’ he +cried, ‘it is a shame that they should be wrong. We are so vulgar and +violent, we have done you so many iniquities— it is a shame we should +be right after all.’ + +“And I, still enduring his harmlessness, asked him why he thought that +he and his people were right. + +“And he answered: ‘We are right because we are bound where men should +be bound, and free where men should be free. We are right because we +doubt and destroy laws and customs— but we do not doubt our own right +to destroy them. For you live by customs, but we live by creeds. Behold +me! In my country I am called Smip. My country is abandoned, my name is +defiled, because I pursue around the world what really belongs to me. +You are steadfast as the trees because you do not believe. I am as +fickle as the tempest because I do believe. I do believe in my own +house, which I shall find again. And at the last remaineth the green +lantern and the red post.’ + +“I said to him: ‘At the last remaineth only wisdom.’ + +“But even as I said the word he uttered a horrible shout, and rushing +forward disappeared among the trees. I have not seen this man again nor +any other man. The virtues of the wise are of fine brass. “Wong-Hi.” + +“The next letter I have to read,” proceeded Arthur Inglewood, “will +probably make clear the nature of our client’s curious but innocent +experiment. It is dated from a mountain village in California, and runs +as follows:— + +“Sir,—A person answering to the rather extraordinary description +required certainly went, some time ago, over the high pass of the +Sierras on which I live and of which I am probably the sole stationary +inhabitant. I keep a rudimentary tavern, rather ruder than a hut, on +the very top of this specially steep and threatening pass. My name is +Louis Hara, and the very name may puzzle you about my nationality. +Well, it puzzles me a great deal. When one has been for fifteen years +without society it is hard to have patriotism; and where there is not +even a hamlet it is difficult to invent a nation. My father was an +Irishman of the fiercest and most free-shooting of the old Californian +kind. My mother was a Spaniard, proud of descent from the old Spanish +families round San Francisco, yet accused for all that of some +admixture of Red Indian blood. I was well educated and fond of music +and books. But, like many other hybrids, I was too good or too bad for +the world; and after attempting many things I was glad enough to get a +sufficient though a lonely living in this little cabaret in the +mountains. In my solitude I fell into many of the ways of a savage. +Like an Eskimo, I was shapeless in winter; like a Red Indian, I wore in +hot summers nothing but a pair of leather trousers, with a great straw +hat as big as a parasol to defend me from the sun. I had a bowie knife +at my belt and a long gun under my arm; and I dare say I produced a +pretty wild impression on the few peaceable travellers that could climb +up to my place. But I promise you I never looked as mad as that man +did. Compared with him I was Fifth Avenue. + +“I dare say that living under the very top of the Sierras has an odd +effect on the mind; one tends to think of those lonely rocks not as +peaks coming to a point, but rather as pillars holding up heaven +itself. Straight cliffs sail up and away beyond the hope of the eagles; +cliffs so tall that they seem to attract the stars and collect them as +sea-crags collect a mere glitter of phosphorous. These terraces and +towers of rock do not, like smaller crests, seem to be the end of the +world. Rather they seem to be its awful beginning: its huge +foundations. We could almost fancy the mountain branching out above us +like a tree of stone, and carrying all those cosmic lights like a +candelabrum. For just as the peaks failed us, soaring impossibly far, +so the stars crowded us (as it seemed), coming impossibly near. The +spheres burst about us more like thunderbolts hurled at the earth than +planets circling placidly about it. + +“All this may have driven me mad; I am not sure. I know there is one +angle of the road down the pass where the rock leans out a little, and +on windy nights I seem to hear it clashing overhead with other rocks— +yes, city against city and citadel against citadel, far up into the +night. It was on such an evening that the strange man struggled up the +pass. Broadly speaking, only strange men did struggle up the pass. But +I had never seen one like this one before. + +“He carried (I cannot conceive why) a long, dilapidated garden rake, +all bearded and bedraggled with grasses, so that it looked like the +ensign of some old barbarian tribe. His hair, which was as long and +rank as the grass, hung down below his huge shoulders; and such clothes +as clung about him were rags and tongues of red and yellow, so that he +had the air of being dressed like an Indian in feathers or autumn +leaves. The rake or pitchfork, or whatever it was, he used sometimes as +an alpenstock, sometimes (I was told) as a weapon. I do not know why he +should have used it as a weapon, for he had, and afterwards showed me, +an excellent six-shooter in his pocket. ‘But THAT,’ he said, ‘I use +only for peaceful purposes.’ I have no notion what he meant. + +“He sat down on the rough bench outside my inn and drank some wine from +the vineyards below, sighing with ecstasy over it like one who had +travelled long among alien, cruel things and found at last something +that he knew. Then he sat staring rather foolishly at the rude lantern +of lead and coloured glass that hangs over my door. It is old, but of +no value; my grandmother gave it to me long ago: she was devout, and it +happens that the glass is painted with a crude picture of Bethlehem and +the Wise Men and the Star. He seemed so mesmerized with the transparent +glow of Our Lady’s blue gown and the big gold star behind, that he led +me also to look at the thing, which I had not done for fourteen years. + +“Then he slowly withdrew his eyes from this and looked out eastward +where the road fell away below us. The sunset sky was a vault of rich +velvet, fading away into mauve and silver round the edges of the dark +mountain amphitheatre; and between us and the ravine below rose up out +of the deeps and went up into the heights the straight solitary rock we +call Green Finger. Of a queer volcanic colour, and wrinkled all over +with what looks undecipherable writing, it hung there like a Babylonian +pillar or needle. + +“The man silently stretched out his rake in that direction, and before +he spoke I knew what he meant. Beyond the great green rock in the +purple sky hung a single star. + +“‘A star in the east,’ he said in a strange hoarse voice like one of +our ancient eagles’. ‘The wise men followed the star and found the +house. But if I followed the star, should I find the house?’ + +“‘It depends perhaps,’ I said, smiling, ‘on whether you are a wise +man.’ I refrained from adding that he certainly didn’t look it. + +“‘You may judge for yourself,’ he answered. ‘I am a man who left his +own house because he could no longer bear to be away from it.’ + +“‘It certainly sounds paradoxical,’ I said. + +“‘I heard my wife and children talking and saw them moving about the +room,’ he continued, ‘and all the time I knew they were walking and +talking in another house thousands of miles away, under the light of +different skies, and beyond the series of the seas. I loved them with a +devouring love, because they seemed not only distant but unattainable. +Never did human creatures seem so dear and so desirable: but I seemed +like a cold ghost; therefore I cast off their dust from my feet for a +testimony. Nay, I did more. I spurned the world under my feet so that +it swung full circle like a treadmill.’ + +“‘Do you really mean,’ I cried, ‘that you have come right round the +world? Your speech is English, yet you are coming from the west.’ + +“‘My pilgrimage is not yet accomplished,’ he replied sadly. ‘I have +become a pilgrim to cure myself of being an exile.’ + +“Something in the word ‘pilgrim’ awoke down in the roots of my ruinous +experience memories of what my fathers had felt about the world, and of +something from whence I came. I looked again at the little pictured +lantern at which I had not looked for fourteen years. + +“‘My grandmother,’ I said in a low tone, ‘would have said that we were +all in exile, and that no earthly house could cure the holy +home-sickness that forbids us rest.’ + +“He was silent a long while, and watched a single eagle drift out +beyond the Green Finger into the darkening void. + +“Then he said, ‘I think your grandmother was right,’ and stood up +leaning on his grassy pole. ‘I think that must be the reason,’ he +said—‘the secret of this life of man, so ecstatic and so unappeased. +But I think there is more to be said. I think God has given us the love +of special places, of a hearth and of a native land, for a good +reason.’ + +“‘I dare say,’ I said. ‘What reason?’ + +“‘Because otherwise,’ he said, pointing his pole out at the sky and the +abyss, ‘we might worship that.’ + +“‘What do you mean?’ I demanded. + +“‘Eternity,’ he said in his harsh voice, ‘the largest of the idols— the +mightiest of the rivals of God.’ + +“‘You mean pantheism and infinity and all that,’ I suggested. + +“‘I mean,’ he said with increasing vehemence, ‘that if there be a house +for me in heaven it will either have a green lamp-post and a hedge, or +something quite as positive and personal as a green lamp-post and a +hedge. I mean that God bade me love one spot and serve it, and do all +things however wild in praise of it, so that this one spot might be a +witness against all the infinities and the sophistries, that Paradise +is somewhere and not anywhere, is something and not anything. And I +would not be so very much surprised if the house in heaven had a real +green lamp-post after all.’ + +“With which he shouldered his pole and went striding down the perilous +paths below, and left me alone with the eagles. But since he went a +fever of homelessness will often shake me. I am troubled by rainy +meadows and mud cabins that I have never seen; and I wonder whether +America will endure.— Yours faithfully, Louis Hara.” + +After a short silence Inglewood said: “And, finally, we desire to put +in as evidence the following document:— + +“This is to say that I am Ruth Davis, and have been housemaid to Mrs. +I. Smith at ‘The Laurels’ in Croydon for the last six months. When I +came the lady was alone, with two children; she was not a widow, but +her husband was away. She was left with plenty of money and did not +seem disturbed about him, though she often hoped he would be back soon. +She said he was rather eccentric and a little change did him good. One +evening last week I was bringing the tea-things out on to the lawn when +I nearly dropped them. The end of a long rake was suddenly stuck over +the hedge, and planted like a jumping-pole; and over the hedge, just +like a monkey on a stick, came a huge, horrible man, all hairy and +ragged like Robinson Crusoe. I screamed out, but my mistress didn’t +even get out of her chair, but smiled and said he wanted shaving. Then +he sat down quite calmly at the garden table and took a cup of tea, and +then I realized that this must be Mr. Smith himself. He has stopped +here ever since and does not really give much trouble, though I +sometimes fancy he is a little weak in his head. “Ruth Davis. + +“P.S.—I forgot to say that he looked round at the garden and said, very +loud and strong: ‘Oh, what a lovely place you’ve got;’ just as if he’d +never seen it before.” + +The room had been growing dark and drowsy; the afternoon sun sent one +heavy shaft of powdered gold across it, which fell with an intangible +solemnity upon the empty seat of Mary Gray, for the younger women had +left the court before the more recent of the investigations. Mrs. Duke +was still asleep, and Innocent Smith, looking like a large hunchback in +the twilight, was bending closer and closer to his paper toys. But the +five men really engaged in the controversy, and concerned not to +convince the tribunal but to convince each other, still sat round the +table like the Committee of Public Safety. + +Suddenly Moses Gould banged one big scientific book on top of another, +cocked his little legs up against the table, tipped his chair backwards +so far as to be in direct danger of falling over, emitted a startling +and prolonged whistle like a steam engine, and asserted that it was all +his eye. + +When asked by Moon what was all his eye, he banged down behind the +books again and answered with considerable excitement, throwing his +papers about. “All those fairy-tales you’ve been reading out,” he said. +“Oh! don’t talk to me! I ain’t littery and that, but I know fairy-tales +when I hear ’em. I got a bit stumped in some of the philosophical bits +and felt inclined to go out for a B. and S. But we’re living in West +’Ampstead and not in ’Ell; and the long and the short of it is that +some things ’appen and some things don’t ’appen. Those are the things +that don’t ’appen.” + +“I thought,” said Moon gravely, “that we quite clearly explained—” + +“Oh yes, old chap, you quite clearly explained,” assented Mr. Gould +with extraordinary volubility. “You’d explain an elephant off the +doorstep, you would. I ain’t a clever chap like you; but I ain’t a born +natural, Michael Moon, and when there’s an elephant on my doorstep I +don’t listen to no explanations. ‘It’s got a trunk,’ I says.—‘My +trunk,’ you says: ‘I’m fond of travellin’, and a change does me +good.’—‘But the blasted thing’s got tusks,’ I says.—‘Don’t look a gift +’orse in the mouth,’ you says, ‘but thank the goodness and the graice +that on your birth ’as smiled.’—‘But it’s nearly as big as the ’ouse,’ +I says.—‘That’s the bloomin’ perspective,’ you says, ‘and the sacred +magic of distance.’—‘Why, the elephant’s trumpetin’ like the Day of +Judgement,’ I says.—‘That’s your own conscience a-talking to you, Moses +Gould,’ you says in a grive and tender voice. Well, I ’ave got a +conscience as much as you. I don’t believe most of the things they tell +you in church on Sundays; and I don’t believe these ’ere things any +more because you goes on about ’em as if you was in church. I believe +an elephant’s a great big ugly dingerous beast— and I believe Smith’s +another.” + +“Do you mean to say,” asked Inglewood, “that you still doubt the +evidence of exculpation we have brought forward?” + +“Yes, I do still doubt it,” said Gould warmly. “It’s all a bit too +far-fetched, and some of it a bit too far off. ’Ow can we test all +those tales? ’Ow can we drop in and buy the ‘Pink ’Un’ at the railway +station at Kosky Wosky or whatever it was? ’Ow can we go and do a +gargle at the saloon-bar on top of the Sierra Mountains? But anybody +can go and see Bunting’s boarding-house at Worthing.” + +Moon regarded him with an expression of real or assumed surprise. + +“Any one,” continued Gould, “can call on Mr. Trip.” + +“It is a comforting thought,” replied Michael with restraint; “but why +should any one call on Mr. Trip?” + +“For just exactly the sime reason,” cried the excited Moses, hammering +on the table with both hands, “for just exactly the sime reason that he +should communicate with Messrs. ’Anbury and Bootle of Paternoster Row +and with Miss Gridley’s ’igh class Academy at ’Endon, and with old Lady +Bullingdon who lives at Penge.” + +“Again, to go at once to the moral roots of life,” said Michael, “why +is it among the duties of man to communicate with old Lady Bullingdon +who lives at Penge?” + +“It ain’t one of the duties of man,” said Gould, “nor one of his +pleasures, either, I can tell you. She takes the crumpet, does Lady +Bullingdon at Penge. But it’s one of the duties of a prosecutor +pursuin’ the innocent, blameless butterfly career of your friend Smith, +and it’s the sime with all the others I mentioned.” + +“But why do you bring in these people here?” asked Inglewood. + +“Why! Because we’ve got proof enough to sink a steamboat,” roared +Moses; “because I’ve got the papers in my very ’and; because your +precious Innocent is a blackguard and ’ome smasher, and these are the +’omes he’s smashed. I don’t set up for a ’oly man; but I wouldn’t ’ave +all those poor girls on my conscience for something. And I think a chap +that’s capable of deserting and perhaps killing ’em all is about +capable of cracking a crib or shootin’ an old schoolmaster—so I don’t +care much about the other yarns one way or another.” + +“I think,” said Dr. Cyrus Pym with a refined cough, “that we are +approaching this matter rather irregularly. This is really the fourth +charge on the charge sheet, and perhaps I had better put it before you +in an ordered and scientific manner.” + +Nothing but a faint groan from Michael broke the silence of the +darkening room. + + + + +Chapter IV +The Wild Weddings; or, the Polygamy Charge + + +“A modern man,” said Dr. Cyrus Pym, “must, if he be thoughtful, +approach the problem of marriage with some caution. Marriage is a +stage—doubtless a suitable stage—in the long advance of mankind towards +a goal which we cannot as yet conceive; which we are not, perhaps, as +yet fitted even to desire. What, gentlemen, is the ethical position of +marriage? Have we outlived it?” + +“Outlived it?” broke out Moon; “why, nobody’s ever survived it! Look at +all the people married since Adam and Eve—and all as dead as mutton.” + +“This is no doubt an inter-pellation joc’lar in its character,” said +Dr. Pym frigidly. “I cannot tell what may be Mr. Moon’s matured and +ethical view of marriage—” + +“I can tell,” said Michael savagely, out of the gloom. “Marriage is a +duel to the death, which no man of honour should decline.” + +“Michael,” said Arthur Inglewood in a low voice, “you MUST keep quiet.” + +“Mr. Moon,” said Pym with exquisite good temper, “probably regards the +institution in a more antiquated manner. Probably he would make it +stringent and uniform. He would treat divorce in some great soul of +steel—the divorce of a Julius Caesar or of a Salt Ring Robinson— +exactly as he would treat some no-account tramp or labourer who scoots +from his wife. Science has views broader and more humane. Just as +murder for the scientist is a thirst for absolute destruction, just as +theft for the scientist is a hunger for monotonous acquisition, so +polygamy for the scientist is an extreme development of the instinct +for variety. A man thus afflicted is incapable of constancy. Doubtless +there is a physical cause for this flitting from flower to flower— as +there is, doubtless, for the intermittent groaning which appears to +afflict Mr. Moon at the present moment. Our own world-scorning +Winterbottom has even dared to say, ‘For a certain rare and fine +physical type polygamy is but the realization of the variety of +females, as comradeship is the realization of the variety of males.’ In +any case, the type that tends to variety is recognized by all +authoritative inquirers. Such a type, if the widower of a negress, does +in many ascertained cases espouse _en seconde noces_ an albino; such a +type, when freed from the gigantic embraces of a female Patagonian, +will often evolve from its own imaginative instinct the consoling +figure of an Eskimo. To such a type there can be no doubt that the +prisoner belongs. If blind doom and unbearable temptation constitute +any slight excuse for a man, there is no doubt that he has these +excuses. + +“Earlier in the inquiry the defence showed real chivalric ideality in +admitting half of our story without further dispute. We should like to +acknowledge and imitate so eminently large-hearted a style by conceding +also that the story told by Curate Percy about the canoe, the weir, and +the young wife seems to be substantially true. Apparently Smith did +marry a young woman he had nearly run down in a boat; it only remains +to be considered whether it would not have been kinder of him to have +murdered her instead of marrying her. In confirmation of this fact I +can now con-cede to the defence an unquestionable record of such a +marriage.” + +So saying, he handed across to Michael a cutting from the “Maidenhead +Gazette” which distinctly recorded the marriage of the daughter of a +“coach,” a tutor well known in the place, to Mr. Innocent Smith, late +of Brakespeare College, Cambridge. + +When Dr. Pym resumed it was realized that his face had grown at once +both tragic and triumphant. + +“I pause upon this pre-liminary fact,” he said seriously, “because this +fact alone would give us the victory, were we aspiring after victory +and not after truth. As far as the personal and domestic problem holds +us, that problem is solved. Dr. Warner and I entered this house at an +instant of highly emotional diff’culty. England’s Warner has entered +many houses to save human kind from sickness; this time he entered to +save an innocent lady from a walking pestilence. Smith was just about +to carry away a young girl from this house; his cab and bag were at the +very door. He had told her she was going to await the marriage license +at the house of his aunt. That aunt,” continued Cyrus Pym, his face +darkening grandly—“that visionary aunt had been the dancing +will-o’-the-wisp who had led many a high-souled maiden to her doom. +Into how many virginal ears has he whispered that holy word? When he +said ‘aunt’ there glowed about her all the merriment and high morality +of the Anglo-Saxon home. Kettles began to hum, pussy cats to purr, in +that very wild cab that was being driven to destruction.” + +Inglewood looked up, to find, to his astonishment (as many another +denizen of the eastern hemisphere has found), that the American was not +only perfectly serious, but was really eloquent and affecting— when the +difference of the hemispheres was adjusted. + +“It is therefore atrociously evident that the man Smith has at least +represented himself to one innocent female of this house as an eligible +bachelor, being, in fact, a married man. I agree with my colleague, Mr. +Gould, that no other crime could approximate to this. As to whether +what our ancestors called purity has any ultimate ethical value indeed, +science hesitates with a high, proud hesitation. But what hesitation +can there be about the baseness of a citizen who ventures, by brutal +experiments upon living females, to anticipate the verdict of science +on such a point? + +“The woman mentioned by Curate Percy as living with Smith in Highbury +may or may not be the same as the lady he married in Maidenhead. If one +short sweet spell of constancy and heart repose interrupted the +plunging torrent of his profligate life, we will not deprive him of +that long past possibility. After that conjectural date, alas, he seems +to have plunged deeper and deeper into the shaking quagmires of +infidelity and shame.” + +Dr. Pym closed his eyes, but the unfortunate fact that there was no +more light left this familiar signal without its full and proper moral +effect. After a pause, which almost partook of the character of prayer, +he continued. + +“The first instance of the accused’s repeated and irregular nuptials,” +he exclaimed, “comes from Lady Bullingdon, who expresses herself with +the high haughtiness which must be excused in those who look out upon +all mankind from the turrets of a Norman and ancestral keep. The +communication she has sent to us runs as follows:— + +“Lady Bullingdon recalls the painful incident to which reference is +made, and has no desire to deal with it in detail. The girl Polly Green +was a perfectly adequate dressmaker, and lived in the village for about +two years. Her unattached condition was bad for her as well as for the +general morality of the village. Lady Bullingdon, therefore, allowed it +to be understood that she favoured the marriage of the young woman. The +villagers, naturally wishing to oblige Lady Bullingdon, came forward in +several cases; and all would have been well had it not been for the +deplorable eccentricity or depravity of the girl Green herself. Lady +Bullingdon supposes that where there is a village there must be a +village idiot, and in her village, it seems, there was one of these +wretched creatures. Lady Bullingdon only saw him once, and she is quite +aware that it is really difficult to distinguish between actual idiots +and the ordinary heavy type of the rural lower classes. She noticed, +however, the startling smallness of his head in comparison to the rest +of his body; and, indeed, the fact of his having appeared upon election +day wearing the rosette of both the two opposing parties appears to +Lady Bullingdon to put the matter quite beyond doubt. Lady Bullingdon +was astounded to learn that this afflicted being had put himself +forward as one of the suitors of the girl in question. Lady +Bullingdon’s nephew interviewed the wretch upon the point, telling him +that he was a ‘donkey’ to dream of such a thing, and actually received, +along with an imbecile grin, the answer that donkeys generally go after +carrots. But Lady Bullingdon was yet further amazed to find the unhappy +girl inclined to accept this monstrous proposal, though she was +actually asked in marriage by Garth, the undertaker, a man in a far +superior position to her own. Lady Bullingdon could not, of course, +countenance such an arrangement for a moment, and the two unhappy +persons escaped for a clandestine marriage. Lady Bullingdon cannot +exactly recall the man’s name, but thinks it was Smith. He was always +called in the village the Innocent. Later, Lady Bullingdon believes he +murdered Green in a mental outbreak.” + +“The next communication,” proceeded Pym, “is more conspicuous for +brevity, but I am of the opinion that it will adequately convey the +upshot. It is dated from the offices of Messrs. Hanbury and Bootle, +publishers, and is as follows:— + +“Sir,—Yrs. rcd. and conts. noted. Rumour re typewriter possibly refers +to a Miss Blake or similar name, left here nine years ago to marry an +organ-grinder. Case was undoubtedly curious, and attracted police +attention. Girl worked excellently till about Oct. 1907, when +apparently went mad. Record was written at the time, part of which I +enclose.— Yrs., etc., W. Trip. + +“The fuller statement runs as follows:— + +“On October 12 a letter was sent from this office to Messrs. Bernard +and Juke, bookbinders. Opened by Mr. Juke, it was found to contain the +following: ‘Sir, our Mr. Trip will call at 3, as we wish to know +whether it is really decided 00000073bb!!!!!xy.’ To this Mr. Juke, a +person of a playful mind, returned the answer: ‘Sir, I am in a position +to give it as my most decided opinion that it is not really decided +that 00000073bb!!!!!xy. Yrs., etc., ‘J. Juke.’ + +“On receiving this extraordinary reply, our Mr. Trip asked for the +original letter sent from him, and found that the typewriter had indeed +substituted these demented hieroglyphics for the sentences really +dictated to her. Our Mr. Trip interviewed the girl, fearing that she +was in an unbalanced state, and was not much reassured when she merely +remarked that she always went like that when she heard the barrel +organ. Becoming yet more hysterical and extravagant, she made a series +of most improbable statements—as, that she was engaged to the +barrel-organ man, that he was in the habit of serenading her on that +instrument, that she was in the habit of playing back to him upon the +typewriter (in the style of King Richard and Blondel), and that the +organ man’s musical ear was so exquisite and his adoration of herself +so ardent that he could detect the note of the different letters on the +machine, and was enraptured by them as by a melody. To all these +statements of course our Mr. Trip and the rest of us only paid that +sort of assent that is paid to persons who must as quickly as possible +be put in the charge of their relations. But on our conducting the lady +downstairs, her story received the most startling and even exasperating +confirmation; for the organ-grinder, an enormous man with a small head +and manifestly a fellow-lunatic, had pushed his barrel organ in at the +office doors like a battering-ram, and was boisterously demanding his +alleged _fiancée_. When I myself came on the scene he was flinging his +great, ape-like arms about and reciting a poem to her. But we were used +to lunatics coming and reciting poems in our office, and we were not +quite prepared for what followed. The actual verse he uttered began, I +think, + +‘O vivid, inviolate head, +Ringed—’ + + +but he never got any further. Mr. Trip made a sharp movement towards +him, and the next moment the giant picked up the poor lady typewriter +like a doll, sat her on top of the organ, ran it with a crash out of +the office doors, and raced away down the street like a flying +wheelbarrow. I put the police upon the matter; but no trace of the +amazing pair could be found. I was sorry myself; for the lady was not +only pleasant but unusually cultivated for her position. As I am +leaving the service of Messrs. Hanbury and Bootle, I put these things +in a record and leave it with them. (Signed) Aubrey Clarke, Publishers’ +Reader. + +“And the last document,” said Dr. Pym complacently, “is from one of +those high-souled women who have in this age introduced your English +girlhood to hockey, the higher mathematics, and every form of ideality. + +“Dear Sir (she writes),—I have no objection to telling you the facts +about the absurd incident you mention; though I would ask you to +communicate them with some caution, for such things, however +entertaining in the abstract, are not always auxiliary to the success +of a girls’ school. The truth is this: I wanted some one to deliver a +lecture on a philological or historical question—a lecture which, while +containing solid educational matter, should be a little more popular +and entertaining than usual, as it was the last lecture of the term. I +remembered that a Mr. Smith of Cambridge had written somewhere or other +an amusing essay about his own somewhat ubiquitous name— an essay which +showed considerable knowledge of genealogy and topography. I wrote to +him, asking if he would come and give us a bright address upon English +surnames; and he did. It was very bright, almost too bright. To put the +matter otherwise, by the time that he was halfway through it became +apparent to the other mistresses and myself that the man was totally +and entirely off his head. He began rationally enough by dealing with +the two departments of place names and trade names, and he said (quite +rightly, I dare say) that the loss of all significance in names was an +instance of the deadening of civilization. But then he went on calmly +to maintain that every man who had a place name ought to go to live in +that place, and that every man who had a trade name ought instantly to +adopt that trade; that people named after colours should always dress +in those colours, and that people named after trees or plants (such as +Beech or Rose) ought to surround and decorate themselves with these +vegetables. In a slight discussion that arose afterwards among the +elder girls the difficulties of the proposal were clearly, and even +eagerly, pointed out. It was urged, for instance, by Miss Younghusband +that it was substantially impossible for her to play the part assigned +to her; Miss Mann was in a similar dilemma, from which no modern views +on the sexes could apparently extricate her; and some young ladies, +whose surnames happened to be Low, Coward, and Craven, were quite +enthusiastic against the idea. But all this happened afterwards. What +happened at the crucial moment was that the lecturer produced several +horseshoes and a large iron hammer from his bag, announced his +immediate intention of setting up a smithy in the neighbourhood, and +called on every one to rise in the same cause as for a heroic +revolution. The other mistresses and I attempted to stop the wretched +man, but I must confess that by an accident this very intercession +produced the worst explosion of his insanity. He was waving the hammer, +and wildly demanding the names of everybody; and it so happened that +Miss Brown, one of the younger teachers, was wearing a brown dress—a +reddish-brown dress that went quietly enough with the warmer colour of +her hair, as well she knew. She was a nice girl, and nice girls do know +about those things. But when our maniac discovered that we really had a +Miss Brown who WAS brown, his _idée fixe_ blew up like a powder +magazine, and there, in the presence of all the mistresses and girls, +he publicly proposed to the lady in the red-brown dress. You can +imagine the effect of such a scene at a girls’ school. At least, if you +fail to imagine it, I certainly fail to describe it. + +“Of course, the anarchy died down in a week or two, and I can think of +it now as a joke. There was only one curious detail, which I will tell +you, as you say your inquiry is vital; but I should desire you to +consider it a little more confidential than the rest. Miss Brown, who +was an excellent girl in every way, did quite suddenly and +surreptitiously leave us only a day or two afterwards. I should never +have thought that her head would be the one to be really turned by so +absurd an excitement.—Believe me, yours faithfully, Ada Gridley. + +“I think,” said Pym, with a really convincing simplicity and +seriousness, “that these letters speak for themselves.” + +Mr. Moon rose for the last time in a darkness that gave no hint of +whether his native gravity was mixed with his native irony. + +“Throughout this inquiry,” he said, “but especially in this its closing +phase, the prosecution has perpetually relied upon one argument; I mean +the fact that no one knows what has become of all the unhappy women +apparently seduced by Smith. There is no sort of proof that they were +murdered, but that implication is perpetually made when the question is +asked as to how they died. Now I am not interested in how they died, or +when they died, or whether they died. But I am interested in another +analogous question—that of how they were born, and when they were born, +and whether they were born. Do not misunderstand me. I do not dispute +the existence of these women, or the veracity of those who have +witnessed to them. I merely remark on the notable fact that only one of +these victims, the Maidenhead girl, is described as having any home or +parents. All the rest are boarders or birds of passage—a guest, a +solitary dressmaker, a bachelor-girl doing typewriting. Lady +Bullingdon, looking from her turrets, which she bought from the +Whartons with the old soap-boiler’s money when she jumped at marrying +an unsuccessful gentleman from Ulster—Lady Bullingdon, looking out from +those turrets, did really see an object which she describes as Green. +Mr. Trip, of Hanbury and Bootle, really did have a typewriter betrothed +to Smith. Miss Gridley, though idealistic, is absolutely honest. She +did house, feed, and teach a young woman whom Smith succeeded in +decoying away. We admit that all these women really lived. But we still +ask whether they were ever born?” + +“Oh, crikey!” said Moses Gould, stifled with amusement. + +“There could hardly,” interposed Pym with a quiet smile, “be a better +instance of the neglect of true scientific process. The scientist, when +once convinced of the fact of vitality and consciousness, would infer +from these the previous process of generation.” + +“If these gals,” said Gould impatiently—“if these gals were all alive +(all alive O!) I’d chance a fiver they were all born.” + +“You’d lose your fiver,” said Michael, speaking gravely out of the +gloom. “All those admirable ladies were alive. They were more alive for +having come into contact with Smith. They were all quite definitely +alive, but only one of them was ever born.” + +“Are you asking us to believe—” began Dr. Pym. + +“I am asking you a second question,” said Moon sternly. “Can the court +now sitting throw any light on a truly singular circumstance? Dr. Pym, +in his interesting lecture on what are called, I believe, the relations +of the sexes, said that Smith was the slave of a lust for variety which +would lead a man first to a negress and then to an albino, first to a +Patagonian giantess and then to a tiny Eskimo. But is there any +evidence of such variety here? Is there any trace of a gigantic +Patagonian in the story? Was the typewriter an Eskimo? So picturesque a +circumstance would not surely have escaped remark. Was Lady +Bullingdon’s dressmaker a negress? A voice in my bosom answers, ‘No!’ +Lady Bullingdon, I am sure, would think a negress so conspicuous as to +be almost Socialistic, and would feel something a little rakish even +about an albino. + +“But was there in Smith’s taste any such variety as the learned doctor +describes? So far as our slight materials go, the very opposite seems +to be the case. We have only one actual description of any of the +prisoner’s wives— the short but highly poetic account by the aesthetic +curate. ‘Her dress was the colour of spring, and her hair of autumn +leaves.’ Autumn leaves, of course, are of various colours, some of +which would be rather startling in hair (green, for instance); but I +think such an expression would be most naturally used of the shades +from red-brown to red, especially as ladies with their coppery-coloured +hair do frequently wear light artistic greens. Now when we come to the +next wife, we find the eccentric lover, when told he is a donkey, +answering that donkeys always go after carrots; a remark which Lady +Bullingdon evidently regarded as pointless and part of the natural +table-talk of a village idiot, but which has an obvious meaning if we +suppose that Polly’s hair was red. Passing to the next wife, the one he +took from the girls’ school, we find Miss Gridley noticing that the +schoolgirl in question wore ‘a reddish-brown dress, that went quietly +enough with the warmer colour of her hair.’ In other words, the colour +of the girl’s hair was something redder than red-brown. Lastly, the +romantic organ-grinder declaimed in the office some poetry that only +got as far as the words,— + +‘O vivid, inviolate head, +Ringed—’ + + +But I think that a wide study of the worst modern poets will enable us +to guess that ‘ringed with a glory of red,’ or ‘ringed with its +passionate red,’ was the line that rhymed to ‘head.’ In this case once +more, therefore, there is good reason to suppose that Smith fell in +love with a girl with some sort of auburn or darkish-red hair—rather,” +he said, looking down at the table, “rather like Miss Gray’s hair.” + +Cyrus Pym was leaning forward with lowered eyelids, ready with one of +his more pedantic interpellations; but Moses Gould suddenly struck his +forefinger on his nose, with an expression of extreme astonishment and +intelligence in his brilliant eyes. + +“Mr. Moon’s contention at present,” interposed Pym, “is not, even if +veracious, inconsistent with the lunatico-criminal view of I. Smith, +which we have nailed to the mast. Science has long anticipated such a +complication. An incurable attraction to a particular type of physical +woman is one of the commonest of criminal per-versities, and when not +considered narrowly, but in the light of induction and evolution—” + +“At this late stage,” said Michael Moon very quietly, “I may perhaps +relieve myself of a simple emotion that has been pressing me throughout +the proceedings, by saying that induction and evolution may go and boil +themselves. The Missing Link and all that is well enough for kids, but +I’m talking about things we know here. All we know of the Missing Link +is that he is missing—and he won’t be missed either. I know all about +his human head and his horrid tail; they belong to a very old game +called ‘Heads I win, tails you lose.’ If you do find a fellow’s bones, +it proves he lived a long while ago; if you don’t find his bones, it +proves how long ago he lived. That is the game you’ve been playing with +this Smith affair. Because Smith’s head is small for his shoulders you +call him microcephalous; if it had been large, you’d have called it +water-on-the-brain. As long as poor old Smith’s seraglio seemed pretty +various, variety was the sign of madness: now, because it’s turning out +to be a bit monochrome—now monotony is the sign of madness. I suffer +from all the disadvantages of being a grown-up person, and I’m jolly +well going to get some of the advantages too; and with all politeness I +propose not to be bullied with long words instead of short reasons, or +consider your business a triumphant progress merely because you’re +always finding out that you were wrong. Having relieved myself of these +feelings, I have merely to add that I regard Dr. Pym as an ornament to +the world far more beautiful than the Parthenon, or the monument on +Bunker’s Hill, and that I propose to resume and conclude my remarks on +the many marriages of Mr. Innocent Smith. + +“Besides this red hair, there is another unifying thread that runs +through these scattered incidents. There is something very peculiar and +suggestive about the names of these women. Mr. Trip, you will remember, +said he thought the typewriter’s name was Blake, but could not remember +exactly. I suggest that it might have been Black, and in that case we +have a curious series: Miss Green in Lady Bullingdon’s village; Miss +Brown at the Hendon School; Miss Black at the publishers. A chord of +colours, as it were, which ends up with Miss Gray at Beacon House, West +Hampstead.” + +Amid a dead silence Moon continued his exposition. “What is the meaning +of this queer coincidence about colours? Personally I cannot doubt for +a moment that these names are purely arbitrary names, assumed as part +of some general scheme or joke. I think it very probable that they were +taken from a series of costumes— that Polly Green only meant Polly (or +Mary) when in green, and that Mary Gray only means Mary (or Polly) when +in gray. This would explain—” + +Cyrus Pym was standing up rigid and almost pallid. “Do you actually +mean to suggest—” he cried. + +“Yes,” said Michael; “I do mean to suggest that. Innocent Smith has had +many wooings, and many weddings for all I know; but he has had only one +wife. She was sitting on that chair an hour ago, and is now talking to +Miss Duke in the garden. + +“Yes, Innocent Smith has behaved here, as he has on hundreds of other +occasions, upon a plain and perfectly blameless principle. It is odd +and extravagant in the modern world, but not more than any other +principle plainly applied in the modern world would be. His principle +can be quite simply stated: he refuses to die while he is still alive. +He seeks to remind himself, by every electric shock to the intellect, +that he is still a man alive, walking on two legs about the world. For +this reason he fires bullets at his best friends; for this reason he +arranges ladders and collapsible chimneys to steal his own property; +for this reason he goes plodding around a whole planet to get back to +his own home; and for this reason he has been in the habit of taking +the woman whom he loved with a permanent loyalty, and leaving her about +(so to speak) at schools, boarding-houses, and places of business, so +that he might recover her again and again with a raid and a romantic +elopement. He seriously sought by a perpetual recapture of his bride to +keep alive the sense of her perpetual value, and the perils that should +be run for her sake. + +“So far his motives are clear enough; but perhaps his convictions are +not quite so clear. I think Innocent Smith has an idea at the bottom of +all this. I am by no means sure that I believe it myself, but I am +quite sure that it is worth a man’s uttering and defending. + +“The idea that Smith is attacking is this. Living in an entangled +civilization, we have come to think certain things wrong which are not +wrong at all. We have come to think outbreak and exuberance, banging +and barging, rotting and wrecking, wrong. In themselves they are not +merely pardonable; they are unimpeachable. There is nothing wicked +about firing a pistol off even at a friend, so long as you do not mean +to hit him and know you won’t. It is no more wrong than throwing a +pebble at the sea—less, for you do occasionally hit the sea. There is +nothing wrong in bashing down a chimney-pot and breaking through a +roof, so long as you are not injuring the life or property of other +men. It is no more wrong to choose to enter a house from the top than +to choose to open a packing-case from the bottom. There is nothing +wicked about walking round the world and coming back to your own house; +it is no more wicked than walking round the garden and coming back to +your own house. And there is nothing wicked about picking up your wife +here, there, and everywhere, if, forsaking all others, you keep only to +her so long as you both shall live. It is as innocent as playing a game +of hide-and-seek in the garden. You associate such acts with +blackguardism by a mere snobbish association, as you think there is +something vaguely vile about going (or being seen going) into a +pawnbroker’s or a public-house. You think there is something squalid +and commonplace about such a connection. You are mistaken. + +“This man’s spiritual power has been precisely this, that he has +distinguished between custom and creed. He has broken the conventions, +but he has kept the commandments. It is as if a man were found gambling +wildly in a gambling hell, and you found that he only played for +trouser buttons. It is as if you found a man making a clandestine +appointment with a lady at a Covent Garden ball, and then you found it +was his grandmother. Everything is ugly and discreditable, except the +facts; everything is wrong about him, except that he has done no wrong. + +“It will then be asked, ‘Why does Innocent Smith continue far into his +middle age a farcical existence, that exposes him to so many false +charges?’ To this I merely answer that he does it because he really is +happy, because he really is hilarious, because he really is a man and +alive. He is so young that climbing garden trees and playing silly +practical jokes are still to him what they once were to us all. And if +you ask me yet again why he alone among men should be fed with such +inexhaustible follies, I have a very simple answer to that, though it +is one that will not be approved. + +“There is but one answer, and I am sorry if you don’t like it. If +Innocent is happy, it is because he IS innocent. If he can defy the +conventions, it is just because he can keep the commandments. It is +just because he does not want to kill but to excite to life that a +pistol is still as exciting to him as it is to a schoolboy. It is just +because he does not want to steal, because he does not covet his +neighbour’s goods, that he has captured the trick (oh, how we all long +for it!), the trick of coveting his own goods. It is just because he +does not want to commit adultery that he achieves the romance of sex; +it is just because he loves one wife that he has a hundred honeymoons. +If he had really murdered a man, if he had really deserted a woman, he +would not be able to feel that a pistol or a love-letter was like a +song— at least, not a comic song.” + +“Do not imagine, please, that any such attitude is easy to me or +appeals in any particular way to my sympathies. I am an Irishman, and a +certain sorrow is in my bones, bred either of the persecutions of my +creed, or of my creed itself. Speaking singly, I feel as if man was +tied to tragedy, and there was no way out of the trap of old age and +doubt. But if there is a way out, then, by Christ and St. Patrick, this +is the way out. If one could keep as happy as a child or a dog, it +would be by being as innocent as a child, or as sinless as a dog. +Barely and brutally to be good—that may be the road, and he may have +found it. Well, well, well, I see a look of skepticism on the face of +my old friend Moses. Mr. Gould does not believe that being perfectly +good in all respects would make a man merry.” + +“No,” said Gould, with an unusual and convincing gravity; “I do not +believe that being perfectly good in all respects would make a man +merry.” + +“Well,” said Michael quietly, “will you tell me one thing? Which of us +has ever tried it?” + +A silence ensued, rather like the silence of some long geological epoch +which awaits the emergence of some unexpected type; for there rose at +last in the stillness a massive figure that the other men had almost +completely forgotten. + +“Well, gentlemen,” said Dr. Warner cheerfully, “I’ve been pretty well +entertained with all this pointless and incompetent tomfoolery for a +couple of days; but it seems to be wearing rather thin, and I’m engaged +for a city dinner. Among the hundred flowers of futility on both sides +I was unable to detect any sort of reason why a lunatic should be +allowed to shoot me in the back garden.” + +He had settled his silk hat on his head and gone out sailing placidly +to the garden gate, while the almost wailing voice of Pym still +followed him: “But really the bullet missed you by several feet.” And +another voice added: “The bullet missed him by several years.” + +There was a long and mainly unmeaning silence, and then Moon said +suddenly, “We have been sitting with a ghost. Dr. Herbert Warner died +years ago.” + + + + +Chapter V +How the Great Wind Went from Beacon House + + +Mary was walking between Diana and Rosamund slowly up and down the +garden; they were silent, and the sun had set. Such spaces of daylight +as remained open in the west were of a warm-tinted white, which can be +compared to nothing but a cream cheese; and the lines of plumy cloud +that ran across them had a soft but vivid violet bloom, like a violet +smoke. All the rest of the scene swept and faded away into a dove-like +gray, and seemed to melt and mount into Mary’s dark-gray figure until +she seemed clothed with the garden and the skies. There was something +in these last quiet colours that gave her a setting and a supremacy; +and the twilight, which concealed Diana’s statelier figure and +Rosamund’s braver array, exhibited and emphasized her, leaving her the +lady of the garden, and alone. + +When they spoke at last it was evident that a conversation long fallen +silent was being revived. + +“But where is your husband taking you?” asked Diana in her practical +voice. + +“To an aunt,” said Mary; “that’s just the joke. There really is an +aunt, and we left the children with her when I arranged to be turned +out of the other boarding-house down the road. We never take more than +a week of this kind of holiday, but sometimes we take two of them +together.” + +“Does the aunt mind much?” asked Rosamund innocently. “Of course, I +dare say it’s very narrow-minded and—what’s that other word?— you know, +what Goliath was—but I’ve known many aunts who would think it—well, +silly.” + +“Silly?” cried Mary with great heartiness. “Oh, my Sunday hat! I should +think it was silly! But what do you expect? He really is a good man, +and it might have been snakes or something.” + +“Snakes?” inquired Rosamund, with a slightly puzzled interest. + +“Uncle Harry kept snakes, and said they loved him,” replied Mary with +perfect simplicity. “Auntie let him have them in his pockets, but not +in the bedroom.” + +“And you—” began Diana, knitting her dark brows a little. + +“Oh, I do as auntie did,” said Mary; “as long as we’re not away from +the children more than a fortnight together I play the game. He calls +me ‘Manalive;’ and you must write it all one word, or he’s quite +flustered.” + +“But if men want things like that,” began Diana. + +“Oh, what’s the good of talking about men?” cried Mary impatiently; +“why, one might as well be a lady novelist or some horrid thing. There +aren’t any men. There are no such people. There’s a man; and whoever he +is he’s quite different.” + +“So there is no safety,” said Diana in a low voice. + +“Oh, I don’t know,” answered Mary, lightly enough; “there’s only two +things generally true of them. At certain curious times they’re just +fit to take care of us, and they’re never fit to take care of +themselves.” + +“There is a gale getting up,” said Rosamund suddenly. “Look at those +trees over there, a long way off, and the clouds going quicker.” + +“I know what you’re thinking about,” said Mary; “and don’t you be silly +fools. Don’t you listen to the lady novelists. You go down the king’s +highway; for God’s truth, it is God’s. Yes, my dear Michael will often +be extremely untidy. Arthur Inglewood will be worse—he’ll be untidy. +But what else are all the trees and clouds for, you silly kittens?” + +“The clouds and trees are all waving about,” said Rosamund. “There is a +storm coming, and it makes me feel quite excited, somehow. Michael is +really rather like a storm: he frightens me and makes me happy.” + +“Don’t you be frightened,” said Mary. “All over, these men have one +advantage; they are the sort that go out.” + +A sudden thrust of wind through the trees drifted the dying leaves +along the path, and they could hear the far-off trees roaring faintly. + +“I mean,” said Mary, “they are the kind that look outwards and get +interested in the world. It doesn’t matter a bit whether it’s arguing, +or bicycling, or breaking down the ends of the earth as poor old +Innocent does. Stick to the man who looks out of the window and tries +to understand the world. Keep clear of the man who looks in at the +window and tries to understand you. When poor old Adam had gone out +gardening (Arthur will go out gardening), the other sort came along and +wormed himself in, nasty old snake.” + +“You agree with your aunt,” said Rosamund, smiling: “no snakes in the +bedroom.” + +“I didn’t agree with my aunt very much,” replied Mary simply, “but I +think she was right to let Uncle Harry collect dragons and griffins, so +long as it got him out of the house.” + +Almost at the same moment lights sprang up inside the darkened house, +turning the two glass doors into the garden into gates of beaten gold. +The golden gates were burst open, and the enormous Smith, who had sat +like a clumsy statue for so many hours, came flying and turning +cart-wheels down the lawn and shouting, “Acquitted! acquitted!” Echoing +the cry, Michael scampered across the lawn to Rosamund and wildly swung +her into a few steps of what was supposed to be a waltz. But the +company knew Innocent and Michael by this time, and their extravagances +were gaily taken for granted; it was far more extraordinary that Arthur +Inglewood walked straight up to Diana and kissed her as if it had been +his sister’s birthday. Even Dr. Pym, though he refrained from dancing, +looked on with real benevolence; for indeed the whole of the absurd +revelation had disturbed him less than the others; he half supposed +that such irresponsible tribunals and insane discussions were part of +the mediaeval mummeries of the Old Land. + +While the tempest tore the sky as with trumpets, window after window +was lighted up in the house within; and before the company, broken with +laughter and the buffeting of the wind, had groped their way to the +house again, they saw that the great apish figure of Innocent Smith had +clambered out of his own attic window, and roaring again and again, +“Beacon House!” whirled round his head a huge log or trunk from the +wood fire below, of which the river of crimson flame and purple smoke +drove out on the deafening air. + +He was evident enough to have been seen from three counties; but when +the wind died down, and the party, at the top of their evening’s +merriment, looked again for Mary and for him, they were not to be +found. + +The End + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MANALIVE *** + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will +be renamed. + +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the +United States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. 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