Still more dreamily I found myself following this imperious voice into a room where the Earl, his daughter, and Arthur, were seated. “So you're come at last!” said Lady Muriel, in a tone of playful reproach.
“I was delayed,” I stammered. Though what it was that had delayed me I should have been puzzled to explain! Luckily no questions were asked.
The carriage was ordered round, the hamper, containing our contribution to the Picnic, was duly stowed away, and we set forth.
There was no need for me to maintain the conversation. Lady Muriel and Arthur were evidently on those most delightful of terms, where one has no need to check thought after thought, as it rises to the lips, with the fear 'this will not be appreciated—this will give' offence—this will sound too serious—this will sound flippant': like very old friends, in fullest sympathy, their talk rippled on.
“Why shouldn't we desert the Picnic and go in some other direction?” she suddenly suggested. “A party of four is surely self-sufficing? And as for food, our hamper—”
“Why shouldn't we? What a genuine lady's argument!” laughed Arthur. “A lady never knows on which side the onus probandi—the burden of proving—lies!”
“Do men always know?” she asked with a pretty assumption of meek docility.
“With one exception—the only one I can think of Dr. Watts, who has asked the senseless question,
'Why should I deprive my neighbourOf his goods against his will?'
Fancy that as an argument for Honesty! His position seems to be 'I'm only honest because I see no reason to steal.' And the thief's answer is of course complete and crushing. 'I deprive my neighbour of his goods because I want them myself. And I do it against his will because there's no chance of getting him to consent to it!'”
“I can give you one other exception,” I said: “an argument I heard only to-day—-and not by a lady. 'Why shouldn't I walk on my own forehead?'”
“What a curious subject for speculation!” said Lady Muriel, turning to me, with eyes brimming over with laughter. “May we know who propounded the question? And did he walk on his own forehead?”
“I ca'n't remember who it was that said it!” I faltered. “Nor where I heard it!”
“Whoever it was, I hope we shall meet him at the Picnic!” said Lady Muriel. “It's a far more interesting question than 'Isn't this a picturesque ruin?' Aren't those autumn-tints lovely?' I shall have to answer those two questions ten times, at least, this afternoon!”
“That's one of the miseries of Society!” said Arthur. “Why ca'n't people let one enjoy the beauties of Nature without having to say so every minute? Why should Life be one long Catechism?”
“It's just as bad at a picture-gallery,” the Earl remarked. “I went to the R.A. last May, with a conceited young artist: and he did torment me! I wouldn't have minded his criticizing the pictures himself: but I had to agree with him—or else to argue the point, which would have been worse!”
“It was depreciatory criticism, of course?” said Arthur.
“I don't see the 'of course' at all.”
“Why, did you ever know a conceited man dare to praise a picture? The one thing he dreads (next to not being noticed) is to be proved fallible! If you once praise a picture, your character for infallibility hangs by a thread. Suppose it's a figure-picture, and you venture to say 'draws well.' Somebody measures it, and finds one of the proportions an eighth of an inch wrong. You are disposed of as a critic! 'Did you say he draws well?' your friends enquire sarcastically, while you hang your head and blush. No. The only safe course, if any one says 'draws well,' is to shrug your shoulders. 'Draws well?' you repeat thoughtfully. 'Draws well? Humph!' That's the way to become a great critic!”
Thus airily chatting, after a pleasant drive through a few miles of beautiful scenery, we reached the rendezvous—a ruined castle—where the rest of the picnic-party were already assembled. We spent an hour or two in sauntering about the ruins: gathering at last, by common consent, into a few random groups, seated on the side of a mound, which commanded a good view of the old castle and its surroundings.
The momentary silence, that ensued, was promptly taken possession of or, more correctly, taken into custody—by a Voice; a voice so smooth, so monotonous, so sonorous, that one felt, with a shudder, that any other conversation was precluded, and that, unless some desperate remedy were adopted, we were fated to listen to a Lecture, of which no man could foresee the end!
The speaker was a broadly-built man, whose large, flat, pale face was bounded on the North by a fringe of hair, on the East and West by a fringe of whisker, and on the South by a fringe of beard—the whole constituting a uniform halo of stubbly whitey-brown bristles. His features were so entirely destitute of expression that I could not help saying to myself—helplessly, as if in the clutches of a night-mare—“they are only penciled in: no final touches as yet!” And he had a way of ending every sentence with a sudden smile, which spread like a ripple over that vast blank surface, and was gone in a moment, leaving behind it such absolute solemnity that I felt impelled to murmur “it was not he: it was somebody else that smiled!”
“Do you observe?” (such was the phrase with which the wretch began each sentence) “Do you observe the way in which that broken arch, at the very top of the ruin, stands out against the clear sky? It is placed exactly right: and there is exactly enough of it. A little more, or a little less, and all would be utterly spoiled!”
{Image...A lecture, on art}
“Oh gifted architect!” murmured Arthur, inaudibly to all but Lady Muriel and myself. “Foreseeing the exact effect his work would have, when in ruins, centuries after his death!”
“And do you observe, where those trees slope down the hill,” (indicating them with a sweep of the hand, and with all the patronising air of the man who has himself arranged the landscape), “how the mists rising from the river fill up exactly those intervals where we need indistinctness, for artistic effect? Here, in the foreground, a few clear touches are not amiss: but a back-ground without mist, you know! It is simply barbarous! Yes, we need indistinctness!”
The orator looked so pointedly at me as he uttered these words, that I felt bound to reply, by murmuring something to the effect that I hardly felt the need myself—and that I enjoyed looking at a thing, better, when I could see it.
“Quite so!” the great man sharply took me up. “From your point of view, that is correctly put. But for anyone who has a soul for Art, such a view is preposterous. Nature is one thing. Art is another. Nature shows us the world as it is. But Art—as a Latin author tells us—Art, you know the words have escaped my memory—”
“Ars est celare Naturam,” Arthur interposed with a delightful promptitude.
“Quite so!” the orator replied with an air of relief. “I thank you! Ars est celare Naturam but that isn't it.” And, for a few peaceful moments, the orator brooded, frowningly, over the quotation. The welcome opportunity was seized, and another voice struck into the silence.
“What a lovely old ruin it is!” cried a young lady in spectacles, the very embodiment of the March of Mind, looking at Lady Muriel, as the proper recipient of all really original remarks. “And don't you admire those autumn-tints on the trees? I do, intensely!”
Lady Muriel shot a meaning glance at me; but replied with admirable gravity. “Oh yes indeed, indeed! So true!”
“And isn't strange,” said the young lady, passing with startling suddenness from Sentiment to Science, “that the mere impact of certain coloured rays upon the Retina should give us such exquisite pleasure?”
“You have studied Physiology, then?” a certain young Doctor courteously enquired.
“Oh, yes! Isn't it a sweet Science?”
Arthur slightly smiled. “It seems a paradox, does it not,” he went on, “that the image formed on the Retina should be inverted?”
“It is puzzling,” she candidly admitted. “Why is it we do not see things upside-down?”
“You have never heard the Theory, then, that the Brain also is inverted?”
“No indeed! What a beautiful fact! But how is it proved?”
“Thus,” replied Arthur, with all the gravity of ten Professors rolled into one. “What we call the vertex of the Brain is really its base: and what we call its base is really its vertex: it is simply a question of nomenclature.”
This last polysyllable settled the matter.
“How truly delightful!” the fair Scientist exclaimed with enthusiasm. “I shall ask our Physiological Lecturer why he never gave us that exquisite Theory!”
“I'd give something to be present when the question is asked!” Arthur whispered to me, as, at a signal from Lady Muriel, we moved on to where the hampers had been collected, and devoted ourselves to the more substantial business of the day.
We 'waited' on ourselves, as the modern barbarism (combining two good things in such a way as to secure the discomforts of both and the advantages of neither) of having a picnic with servants to wait upon you, had not yet reached this out-of-the-way region—and of course the gentlemen did not even take their places until the ladies had been duly provided with all imaginable creature-comforts. Then I supplied myself with a plate of something solid and a glass of something fluid, and found a place next to Lady Muriel.
It had been left vacant—apparently for Arthur, as a distinguished stranger: but he had turned shy, and had placed himself next to the young lady in spectacles, whose high rasping voice had already cast loose upon Society such ominous phrases as “Man is a bundle of Qualities!”, “the Objective is only attainable through the Subjective!”. Arthur was bearing it bravely: but several faces wore a look of alarm, and I thought it high time to start some less metaphysical topic.
“In my nursery days,” I began, “when the weather didn't suit for an out-of-doors picnic, we were allowed to have a peculiar kind, that we enjoyed hugely. The table cloth was laid under the table, instead of upon it: we sat round it on the floor: and I believe we really enjoyed that extremely uncomfortable kind of dinner more than we ever did the orthodox arrangement!”
“I've no doubt of it,” Lady Muriel replied. “There's nothing a well-regulated child hates so much as regularity. I believe a really healthy boy would thoroughly enjoy Greek Grammar—if only he might stand on his head to learn it! And your carpet-dinner certainly spared you one feature of a picnic, which is to me its chief drawback.”
“The chance of a shower?” I suggested.
“No, the chance—or rather the certainty of live things occurring in combination with one's food! Spiders are my bugbear. Now my father has no sympathy with that sentiment—have you, dear?” For the Earl had caught the word and turned to listen.
“To each his sufferings, all are men,” he replied in the sweet sad tones that seemed natural to him: “each has his pet aversion.”
“But you'll never guess his!” Lady Muriel said, with that delicate silvery laugh that was music to my ears.
I declined to attempt the impossible.
“He doesn't like snakes!” she said, in a stage whisper. “Now, isn't that an unreasonable aversion? Fancy not liking such a dear, coaxingly, clingingly affectionate creature as a snake!”
“Not like snakes!” I exclaimed. “Is such a thing possible?”
“No, he doesn't like them,” she repeated with a pretty mock-gravity. “He's not afraid of them, you know. But he doesn't like them. He says they're too waggly!”
I was more startled than I liked to show. There was something so uncanny in this echo of the very words I had so lately heard from that little forest-sprite, that it was only by a great effort I succeeded in saying, carelessly, “Let us banish so unpleasant a topic. Won't you sing us something, Lady Muriel? I know you do sing without music.”
“The only songs I know—without music—are desperately sentimental, I'm afraid! Are your tears all ready?”
“Quite ready! Quite ready!” came from all sides, and Lady Muriel—not being one of those lady-singers who think it de rigueur to decline to sing till they have been petitioned three or four times, and have pleaded failure of memory, loss of voice, and other conclusive reasons for silence—began at once:—
{Image...'Three badgers on a mossy stone'}
“There be three Badgers on a mossy stone,Beside a dark and covered way:Each dreams himself a monarch on his throne,And so they stay and stayThough their old Father languishes alone,They stay, and stay, and stay.“There be three Herrings loitering around,Longing to share that mossy seat:Each Herring tries to sing what she has foundThat makes Life seem so sweet.Thus, with a grating and uncertain sound,They bleat, and bleat, and bleat,“The Mother-Herring, on the salt sea-wave,Sought vainly for her absent ones:The Father-Badger, writhing in a cave,Shrieked out 'Return, my sons!You shalt have buns,' he shrieked, 'if you'll behave!Yea, buns, and buns, and buns!'“'I fear,' said she, 'your sons have gone astray?My daughters left me while I slept.''Yes 'm,' the Badger said: 'it's as you say.''They should be better kept.'Thus the poor parents talked the time away,And wept, and wept, and wept.”
Here Bruno broke off suddenly. “The Herrings' Song wants anuvver tune, Sylvie,” he said. “And I ca'n't sing it not wizout oo plays it for me!”
{Image...'Three badgers, writhing in a cave'}
Instantly Sylvie seated herself upon a tiny mushroom, that happened to grow in front of a daisy, as if it were the most ordinary musical instrument in the world, and played on the petals as if they were the notes of an organ. And such delicious tiny music it was! Such teeny-tiny music!
Bruno held his head on one side, and listened very gravely for a few moments until he had caught the melody. Then the sweet childish voice rang out once more:—
“Oh, dear beyond our dearest dreams,Fairer than all that fairest seems!To feast the rosy hours away,To revel in a roundelay!How blest would beA life so free—-Ipwergis-Pudding to consume,And drink the subtle Azzigoom!“And if in other days and hours,Mid other fluffs and other flowers,The choice were given me how to dine—-'Name what thou wilt: it shalt be thine!'Oh, then I seeThe life for meIpwergis-Pudding to consume,And drink the subtle Azzigoom!”
“Oo may leave off playing now, Sylvie. I can do the uvver tune much better wizout a compliment.”
“He means 'without accompaniment,'” Sylvie whispered, smiling at my puzzled look: and she pretended to shut up the stops of the organ.
“The Badgers did not care to talk to Fish:They did not dote on Herrings' songs:They never had experienced the dishTo which that name belongs:And oh, to pinch their tails,' (this was their wish,)'With tongs, yea, tongs, and tongs!'”
I ought to mention that he marked the parenthesis, in the air, with his finger. It seemed to me a very good plan. You know there's no sound to represent it—any more than there is for a question.
Suppose you have said to your friend “You are better to-day,” and that you want him to understand that you are asking him a question, what can be simpler than just to make a “?”. in the air with your finger? He would understand you in a moment!
{Image...'Those aged one waxed gay'}
“'And are not these the Fish,' the Eldest sighed,'Whose Mother dwells beneath the foam''They are the Fish!' the Second one replied.'And they have left their home!''Oh wicked Fish,' the Youngest Badger cried,'To roam, yea, roam, and roam!'“Gently the Badgers trotted to the shoreThe sandy shore that fringed the bay:Each in his mouth a living Herring bore—Those aged ones waxed gay:Clear rang their voices through the ocean's roar,'Hooray, hooray, hooray!'”
“So they all got safe home again,” Bruno said, after waiting a minute to see if I had anything to say: he evidently felt that some remark ought to be made. And I couldn't help wishing there were some such rule in Society, at the conclusion of a song—that the singer herself should say the right thing, and not leave it to the audience. Suppose a young lady has just been warbling ('with a grating and uncertain sound') Shelley's exquisite lyric 'I arise from dreams of thee': how much nicer it would be, instead of your having to say “Oh, thank you, thank you!” for the young lady herself to remark, as she draws on her gloves, while the impassioned words 'Oh, press it to thine own, or it will break at last!' are still ringing in your ears, “—but she wouldn't do it, you know. So it did break at last.”
“And I knew it would!” she added quietly, as I started at the sudden crash of broken glass. “You've been holding it sideways for the last minute, and letting all the champagne run out! Were you asleep, I wonder? I'm so sorry my singing has such a narcotic effect!”
Lady Muriel was the speaker. And, for the moment, that was the only fact I could clearly realise. But how she came to be there and how I came to be there—and how the glass of champagne came to be there—all these were questions which I felt it better to think out in silence, and not commit myself to any statement till I understood things a little more clearly.
'First accumulate a mass of Facts: and then construct a Theory.' That, I believe, is the true Scientific Method. I sat up, rubbed my eyes, and began to accumulate Facts.
A smooth grassy slope, bounded, at the upper end, by venerable ruins half buried in ivy, at the lower, by a stream seen through arching trees—a dozen gaily-dressed people, seated in little groups here and there—some open hampers—the debris of a picnic—such were the Facts accumulated by the Scientific Researcher. And now, what deep, far-reaching Theory was he to construct from them? The Researcher found himself at fault. Yet stay! One Fact had escaped his notice. While all the rest were grouped in twos and in threes, Arthur was alone: while all tongues were talking, his was silent: while all faces were gay, his was gloomy and despondent. Here was a Fact indeed! The Researcher felt that a Theory must be constructed without delay.
Lady Muriel had just risen and left the party. Could that be the cause of his despondency? The Theory hardly rose to the dignity of a Working Hypothesis. Clearly more Facts were needed.
The Researcher looked round him once more: and now the Facts accumulated in such bewildering profusion, that the Theory was lost among them. For Lady Muriel had gone to meet a strange gentleman, just visible in the distance: and now she was returning with him, both of them talking eagerly and joyfully, like old friends who have been long parted: and now she was moving from group to group, introducing the new hero of the hour: and he, young, tall, and handsome, moved gracefully at her side, with the erect bearing and firm tread of a soldier. Verily, the Theory looked gloomy for Arthur! His eye caught mine, and he crossed to me.
“He is very handsome,” I said.
“Abominably handsome!” muttered Arthur: then smiled at his own bitter words. “Lucky no one heard me but you!”
“Doctor Forester,” said Lady Muriel, who had just joined us, “let me introduce to you my cousin Eric Lindon Captain Lindon, I should say.”
Arthur shook off his ill-temper instantly and completely, as he rose and gave the young soldier his hand. “I have heard of you,” he said. “I'm very glad to make the acquaintance of Lady Muriel's cousin.”
“Yes, that's all I'm distinguished for, as yet!” said Eric (so we soon got to call him) with a winning smile. “And I doubt,” glancing at Lady Muriel, “if it even amounts to a good-conduct-badge! But it's something to begin with.”
“You must come to my father, Eric,” said Lady Muriel. “I think he's wandering among the ruins.” And the pair moved on.
The gloomy look returned to Arthur's face: and I could see it was only to distract his thoughts that he took his place at the side of the metaphysical young lady, and resumed their interrupted discussion.
“Talking of Herbert Spencer,” he began, “do you really find no logical difficulty in regarding Nature as a process of involution, passing from definite coherent homogeneity to indefinite incoherent heterogeneity?”
Amused as I was at the ingenious jumble he had made of Spencer's words, I kept as grave a face as I could.
“No physical difficulty,” she confidently replied: “but I haven't studied Logic much. Would you state the difficulty?”
“Well,” said Arthur, “do you accept it as self-evident? Is it as obvious, for instance, as that 'things that are greater than the same are greater than one another'?”
“To my mind,” she modestly replied, “it seems quite as obvious. I grasp both truths by intuition. But other minds may need some logical—I forget the technical terms.”
“For a complete logical argument,” Arthur began with admirable solemnity, “we need two prim Misses—”
“Of course!” she interrupted. “I remember that word now. And they produce—?”
“A Delusion,” said Arthur.
“Ye—es?” she said dubiously. “I don't seem to remember that so well. But what is the whole argument called?”
“A Sillygism?
“Ah, yes! I remember now. But I don't need a Sillygism, you know, to prove that mathematical axiom you mentioned.”
“Nor to prove that 'all angles are equal', I suppose?”
“Why, of course not! One takes such a simple truth as that for granted!”
Here I ventured to interpose, and to offer her a plate of strawberries and cream. I felt really uneasy at the thought that she might detect the trick: and I contrived, unperceived by her, to shake my head reprovingly at the pseudo-philosopher. Equally unperceived by her, Arthur slightly raised his shoulders, and spread his hands abroad, as who should say “What else can I say to her?” and moved away, leaving her to discuss her strawberries by 'involution,' or any other way she preferred.
By this time the carriages, that were to convey the revelers to their respective homes, had begun to assemble outside the Castle-grounds: and it became evident—now that Lady Muriel's cousin had joined our party that the problem, how to convey five people to Elveston, with a carriage that would only hold four, must somehow be solved.
The Honorable Eric Lindon, who was at this moment walking up and down with Lady Muriel, might have solved it at once, no doubt, by announcing his intention of returning on foot. Of this solution there did not seem to be the very smallest probability.
The next best solution, it seemed to me, was that I should walk home: and this I at once proposed.
“You're sure you don't mind?” said the Earl. “I'm afraid the carriage wont take us all, and I don't like to suggest to Eric to desert his cousin so soon.”
“So far from minding it,” I said, “I should prefer it. It will give me time to sketch this beautiful old ruin.”
“I'll keep you company,” Arthur suddenly said. And, in answer to what I suppose was a look of surprise on my face, he said in a low voice, “I really would rather. I shall be quite de trop in the carriage!”
“I think I'll walk too,” said the Earl. “You'll have to be content with Eric as your escort,” he added, to Lady Muriel, who had joined us while he was speaking.
“You must be as entertaining as Cerberus—'three gentlemen rolled into one'—” Lady Muriel said to her companion. “It will be a grand military exploit!”
“A sort of Forlorn Hope?” the Captain modestly suggested.
“You do pay pretty compliments!” laughed his fair cousin. “Good day to you, gentlemen three—or rather deserters three!” And the two young folk entered the carriage and were driven away.
“How long will your sketch take?” said Arthur.
“Well,” I said, “I should like an hour for it. Don't you think you had better go without me? I'll return by train. I know there's one in about an hour's time.”
“Perhaps that would be best,” said the Earl. “The Station is quite close.”
So I was left to my own devices, and soon found a comfortable seat, at the foot of a tree, from which I had a good view of the ruins.
“It is a very drowsy day,” I said to myself, idly turning over the leaves of the sketch-book to find a blank page. “Why, I thought you were a mile off by this time!” For, to my surprise, the two walkers were back again.
“I came back to remind you,” Arthur said, “that the trains go every ten minutes—”
“Nonsense!” I said. “It isn't the Metropolitan Railway!”
“It is the Metropolitan Railway,” the Earl insisted. “'This is a part of Kensington.”
“Why do you talk with your eyes shut?” said Arthur. “Wake up!”
“I think it's the heat makes me so drowsy,” I said, hoping, but not feeling quite sure, that I was talking sense. “Am I awake now?”
“I think not,” the Earl judicially pronounced. “What do you think, Doctor? He's only got one eye open!”
“And he's snoring like anything!” cried Bruno. “Do wake up, you dear old thing!” And he and Sylvie set to work, rolling the heavy head from side to side, as if its connection with the shoulders was a matter of no sort of importance.
And at last the Professor opened his eyes, and sat up, blinking at us with eyes of utter bewilderment. “Would you have the kindness to mention,” he said, addressing me with his usual old-fashioned courtesy, “whereabouts we are just now and who we are, beginning with me?”
I thought it best to begin with the children. “This is Sylvie. Sir; and this is Bruno.”
“Ah, yes! I know them well enough!” the old man murmured. “Its myself I'm most anxious about. And perhaps you'll be good enough to mention, at the same time, how I got here?”
“A harder problem occurs to me,” I ventured to say: “and that is, how you're to get back again.”
“True, true!” the Professor replied. “That's the Problem, no doubt. Viewed as a Problem, outside of oneself, it is a most interesting one. Viewed as a portion of one's own biography, it is, I must admit, very distressing!” He groaned, but instantly added, with a chuckle, “As to myself, I think you mentioned that I am—”
“Oo're the Professor!” Bruno shouted in his ear. “Didn't oo know that? Oo've come from Outland! And it's ever so far away from here!”
The Professor leapt to his feet with the agility of a boy. “Then there's no time to lose!” he exclaimed anxiously. “I'll just ask this guileless peasant, with his brace of buckets that contain (apparently) water, if he'll be so kind as to direct us. Guileless peasant!” he proceeded in a louder voice. “Would you tell us the way to Outland?”
The guileless peasant turned with a sheepish grin. “Hey?” was all he said.
“The way—to—Outland!” the Professor repeated.
The guileless peasant set down his buckets and considered. “Ah dunnot—”
“I ought to mention,” the Professor hastily put in, “that whatever you say will be used in evidence against you.”
The guileless peasant instantly resumed his buckets. “Then ah says nowt!” he answered briskly, and walked away at a great pace.
The children gazed sadly at the rapidly vanishing figure. “He goes very quick!” the Professor said with a sigh. “But I know that was the right thing to say. I've studied your English Laws. However, let's ask this next man that's coming. He is not guileless, and he is not a peasant—but I don't know that either point is of vital importance.”
It was, in fact, the Honourable Eric Lindon, who had apparently fulfilled his task of escorting Lady Muriel home, and was now strolling leisurely up and down the road outside the house, enjoying; a solitary cigar.
“Might I trouble you, Sir, to tell us the nearest way to Outland!” Oddity as he was, in outward appearance, the Professor was, in that essential nature which no outward disguise could conceal, a thorough gentleman.
And, as such, Eric Lindon accepted him instantly. He took the cigar from his mouth, and delicately shook off the ash, while he considered. “The name sounds strange to me,” he said. “I doubt if I can help you?'
“It is not very far from Fairyland,” the Professor suggested.
Eric Lindon's eye-brows were slightly raised at these words, and an amused smile, which he courteously tried to repress, flitted across his handsome face: “A trifle cracked!” he muttered to himself. “But what a jolly old patriarch it is!” Then he turned to the children. “And ca'n't you help him, little folk?” he said, with a gentleness of tone that seemed to win their hearts at once. “Surely you know all about it?
'How many miles to Babylon?Three-score miles and ten.Can I get there by candlelight?Yes, and back again!'”
To my surprise, Bruno ran forwards to him, as if he were some old friend of theirs, seized the disengaged hand and hung on to it with both of his own: and there stood this tall dignified officer in the middle of the road, gravely swinging a little boy to and fro, while Sylvie stood ready to push him, exactly as if a real swing had suddenly been provided for their pastime.
“We don't want to get to Babylon, oo know!” Bruno explained as he swung.
“And it isn't candlelight: it's daylight!” Sylvie added, giving the swing a push of extra vigour, which nearly took the whole machine off its balance.
By this time it was clear to me that Eric Lindon was quite unconscious of my presence. Even the Professor and the children seemed to have lost sight of me: and I stood in the midst of the group, as unconcernedly as a ghost, seeing but unseen.
“How perfectly isochronous!” the Professor exclaimed with enthusiasm. He had his watch in his hand, and was carefully counting Bruno's oscillations. “He measures time quite as accurately as a pendulum!” {Image...'How perfectly isochronous!'}
“Yet even pendulums,” the good-natured young soldier observed, as he carefully released his hand from Bruno's grasp, “are not a joy for ever! Come, that's enough for one bout, little man!' Next time we meet, you shall have another. Meanwhile you'd better take this old gentleman to Queer Street, Number—”
“We'll find it!” cried Bruno eagerly, as they dragged the Professor away.
“We are much indebted to you!” the Professor said, looking over his shoulder.
“Don't mention it!” replied the officer, raising his hat as a parting salute.
“What number did you say!” the Professor called from the distance.
The officer made a trumpet of his two hands. “Forty!” he shouted in stentorian tones. “And not piano, by any means!” he added to himself. “It's a mad world, my masters, a mad world!” He lit another cigar, and strolled on towards his hotel.
“What a lovely evening!” I said, joining him as he passed me.
“Lovely indeed,” he said. “Where did you come from? Dropped from the clouds?”
“I'm strolling your way,” I said; and no further explanation seemed necessary.
“Have a cigar?”
“Thanks: I'm not a smoker.”
“Is there a Lunatic Asylum near here?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Thought there might be. Met a lunatic just now. Queer old fish as ever I saw!”
And so, in friendly chat, we took our homeward ways, and wished each other 'good-night' at the door of his hotel.
Left to myself, I felt the 'eerie' feeling rush over me again, and saw, standing at the door of Number Forty, the three figures I knew so well.
“Then it's the wrong house?” Bruno was saying.
“No, no! It's the right house,” the Professor cheerfully replied: “but it's the wrong street. That's where we've made our mistake! Our best plan, now, will be to—”
It was over. The street was empty, Commonplace life was around me, and the 'eerie' feeling had fled.
The week passed without any further communication with the 'Hall,' as Arthur was evidently fearful that we might 'wear out our welcome'; but when, on Sunday morning, we were setting out for church, I gladly agreed to his proposal to go round and enquire after the Earl, who was said to be unwell.
Eric, who was strolling in the garden, gave us a good report of the invalid, who was still in bed, with Lady Muriel in attendance.
“Are you coming with us to church?” I enquired.
“Thanks, no,” he courteously replied. “It's not—exactly in my line, you know. It's an excellent institution—for the poor. When I'm with my own folk, I go, just to set them an example. But I'm not known here: so I think I'll excuse myself sitting out a sermon. Country-preachers are always so dull!”
Arthur was silent till we were out of hearing. Then he said to himself, almost inaudibly, “Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.”
“Yes,” I assented: “no doubt that is the principle on which church-going rests.”
“And when he does go,” he continued (our thoughts ran so much together, that our conversation was often slightly elliptical), “I suppose he repeats the words 'I believe in the Communion of Saints'?”
But by this time we had reached the little church, into which a goodly stream of worshipers, consisting mainly of fishermen and their families, was flowing.
The service would have been pronounced by any modern aesthetic religionist—or religious aesthete, which is it?—to be crude and cold: to me, coming fresh from the ever-advancing developments of a London church under a soi-disant 'Catholic' Rector, it was unspeakably refreshing.
There was no theatrical procession of demure little choristers, trying their best not to simper under the admiring gaze of the congregation: the people's share in the service was taken by the people themselves, unaided, except that a few good voices, judiciously posted here and there among them, kept the singing from going too far astray.
There was no murdering of the noble music, contained in the Bible and the Liturgy, by its recital in a dead monotone, with no more expression than a mechanical talking-doll.
No, the prayers were prayed, the lessons were read, and best of all the sermon was talked; and I found myself repeating, as we left the church, the words of Jacob, when he 'awaked out of his sleep.' “'Surely the Lord is in this place! This is none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.'”
“Yes,” said Arthur, apparently in answer to my thoughts, “those 'high' services are fast becoming pure Formalism. More and more the people are beginning to regard them as 'performances,' in which they only 'assist' in the French sense. And it is specially bad for the little boys. They'd be much less self-conscious as pantomime-fairies. With all that dressing-up, and stagy-entrances and exits, and being always en evidence, no wonder if they're eaten up with vanity, the blatant little coxcombs!”
When we passed the Hall on our return, we found the Earl and Lady Muriel sitting out in the garden. Eric had gone for a stroll.
We joined them, and the conversation soon turned on the sermon we had just heard, the subject of which was 'selfishness.'
“What a change has come over our pulpits,” Arthur remarked, “since the time when Paley gave that utterly selfish definition of virtue, 'the doing good to mankind, in obedience to the will of God, and for the sake of everlasting happiness'!”
Lady Muriel looked at him enquiringly, but she seemed to have learned by intuition, what years of experience had taught me, that the way to elicit Arthur's deepest thoughts was neither to assent nor dissent, but simply to listen.
“At that time,” he went on, “a great tidal wave of selfishness was sweeping over human thought. Right and Wrong had somehow been transformed into Gain and Loss, and Religion had become a sort of commercial transaction. We may be thankful that our preachers are beginning to take a nobler view of life.”
“But is it not taught again and again in the Bible?” I ventured to ask.
“Not in the Bible as a whole,” said Arthur. “In the Old Testament, no doubt, rewards and punishments are constantly appealed to as motives for action. That teaching is best for children, and the Israelites seem to have been, mentally, utter children. We guide our children thus, at first: but we appeal, as soon as possible, to their innate sense of Right and Wrong: and, when that stage is safely past, we appeal to the highest motive of all, the desire for likeness to, and union with, the Supreme Good. I think you will find that to be the teaching of the Bible, as a whole, beginning with 'that thy days may be long in the land,' and ending with 'be ye perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.'”
We were silent for awhile, and then Arthur went off on another tack. “Look at the literature of Hymns, now. How cankered it is, through and through, with selfishness! There are few human compositions more utterly degraded than some modern Hymns!”
I quoted the stanza