Mr Wilfrid Parkinson was a dapper, good-looking, sleek-faced man, of six-and-thirty years of age. He scaled light, and was nimble in all his movements. He had a neat intelligent forehead, neat delicate hands, was always clad in cloth of faultless fit, relieved by linen of snowy whiteness. It was easy to mistake him for a clergyman. To judge by his face and manner, you would think he had a ready intellect always well under control. Had he been a barrister, you would have felt quite sure he would not go into court without having thoroughly made up his case. Had he been a physician, you would have felt certain he would not let his patient sink beyond his skill without asking for assistance. Had he been a clergyman, you would have counted on his orthodoxy from the mere evidence of his general appearance. It was an utterly unspeculative, safe, small head. All the lines in it were acute and true. There was no speculation in the eye; no weight of creative faculty in the brow; no driving power in the poll. It was the head of an artificer in thought, not of an architect of theories. It was the head of a lapidary, not of a pearl-diver. Although the head and all its organs were small, it had balance and self-consistency. You would not expect such a head to raise out of the azure vault the system of Copernicus. You would not expect such a head to conquer Europe with the raw levies of France. But you would not expect from it the stubborn reticence, which for years declined to give the death-blow to the Ptolemaic system, or the crass stupidity which sought a cerecloth in the snow of Russia for the finest army Europe had ever seen. It was the head of an observer, not a theorist; of a captain, not a chief. Above all, it was the head of a practical man of the world, who would not allow folly of any kind, or vanity or pleasure or indolence, to stand in the way of the business of life. Mr Parkinson was at luncheon. He had the wing of a fowl and a slice of tongue on his plate. At his elbow stood a tumbler half full of a good, sound, wholesome claret. Opposite him sat a fair, bright-eyed, gay, pretty Englishwoman, thirty-two years of age--his wife. On one side of the table sat a large-featured rosy-faced boy of five, on the other a girl of seven, with delicate finely-cut features--his son and daughter. The four made up the Parkinson family, and it is doubtful if you could find a more wholesome-looking or better-kept family in London. A neatly-clad maid-servant waited noiselessly. The room was a model of comfort. It was not sombre; it was not gay. It was sober and cool and sweet. The sobriety of the furniture and the paper and the carpet and the pictures made the people look bright, the coolness of the colour made the fire look warmer, and the sweetness of tone soothed the mind insensibly. Mr Parkinson lived near the Regent's Park. The children often went to the Zoological Gardens, and were now discussing their pet beasts, birds, reptiles, and fishes, while the father and mother looked on and listened. At last, the boy, who was getting the worst of the argument, said petulantly,-- 'Father, was Noah's Ark as big as the Zoo?' 'No, Fred.' ''Cause Loo said it was; and she thinks, because she got a prize at Christmas for Bible history, that she knows everything.' 'Oh, Fred, I never said I knew everything, or half everything, and I never said the Ark was as big as the Zoo.' 'Well, you said there were more beasts and birds and fishes in the Ark than in the Zoo. Were there, father?' 'I am not quite sure about the fishes, Fred. I am afraid there are more fishes in the Zoo than in the Ark. Certainly there were more birds and beasts and reptiles in the Ark than there are in the Zoo.' 'But if the Ark wasn't as big as the Zoo, father, how did Noah manage?' 'The animals in the Ark were much better packed, and they had nothing in the Ark nearly so fine for the lions as the new lion-house at the Zoo.' 'And, father, who used to ride the elephants?' 'I do not think we are told, Fred. I don't think there were any little boys and girls in the Ark. There were only eight people saved, and the eight were all grown up.' 'But, father, if there were more beasts, birds, and fishes in the Ark than there are at the Zoo, how did eight people mind them? There are heaps more than eight people minding the birds, beasts, and fishes at the Zoo.' 'I never said there were fishes in the Ark,' broke in Loo, with the conscious responsibility of that prize upon her mind. 'Well, you see, my boy, we are told that, in those days, there were giants, and that would account for a good deal.' 'Were they as big as the great giant at Madame Tussaud's?' 'We are not told. You must remember, Fred, that the Bible does not tell us everything; it tells us only what is necessary.' Mr Parkinson motioned the servant to take away. 'But I'd like awfully much to know how big they were,' said the boy, discontentedly dropping his eyes on the cloth, and falling into a desponding attitude, as custards and jam and fruit were placed on the table. Suddenly the boy looked up. 'Father, you said that thigh-bone on the sideboard was the oldest man's thigh-bone ever found. Was it long since that man died?' 'Yes; a very long time indeed.' 'As long back as the time of the Ark?' 'Yes; farther back still.' 'And were they giants then?' 'So we are told.' 'And is that thigh-bone bigger than the thigh-bone in the giant at Madame Tussaud's?' The father and mother exchanged momentary glances and smiles, in which each said to the other, 'This boy is no fool. There are duller boys than this in London.' To the boy he answered,-- 'The bone on the sideboard is not as long as the thigh of the giant Louschkin. But then, Fred, you must remember the bone was found in Egypt, very far away from where the Ark was built, and that we are not told all the people on earth then were very tall.' Fred had nothing further to say, and the meal was over; so the family rose. 'Now scamper off,' said the father cheerfully to the young people, 'and be sure you and mother are ready after dinner for the pantomime.' The children left the room. When they had gone, Parkinson turned to the sideboard, and, looking at the thigh-bone of a man lying on some raw wool, said triumphantly to his wife while pointing to the relic,-- 'This will create a powerful sensation; it is the only one of that period ever found. This vessel, too'--indicating a clumsy and imperfect stone cup, not unlike a chemist's mortar--'is the only one of its kind found of that period. The two go hand-in-hand to prove facts of enormous interest. All Europe will speak of these to-morrow. There will be leading articles in half the papers, and essays in all the more important reviews. What a privilege it is, Alice, to be allowed to introduce such wonders to the world!' She looked with sad, wistful eyes at the waifs which had drifted down from the hidden periods of antique time. What a contrast that battered vessel and that bleached bone to the bright, trim dining-room, the sound of the young children's laughter as they went upstairs to the school-room, and the bright face of Mrs Parkinson as she bent over the relics! 'Wasn't that very smart of Fred?' said Mrs Parkinson, on coming back from the dreary history of this bone and this vessel to the beautiful story of her own children. 'Yes, very smart. He'll be a clever man if he grows up as he now promises.' 'It was good of you, Willie, to answer him as you did. It was good of you. Thank you, love.' 'Alice, I promised you you should bring the children up as you and I were brought up, and you shall. Loo will always be as she is now. God grant the boy may be also as he is now. At all events,' his face grew sad, and his voice faltered slightly, as he added, 'it will be time enough for him to eat the forbidden fruit when he grows up and is strong. I shall never offer him any; and now, good-bye, love. I am off to the Society. We shall have a big gathering to-day, and a man who died long before the Flood will be the hero whom I shall have to introduce.' He gathered up the thigh-bone and the stone vessel, placed them in a case on the floor, closed the case, kissed his wife, and, running blithely down the steps of the front door, hailed a passing hansom and jumped in.
As George Osborne and William Nevill walked arm-in-arm out of the Row, they did not speak. The former was wondering what Marie Gordon could have to say to him; the latter was wondering if upon his return from China he should, instead of going into a retort, get married. 'You know,' thought Nevill, 'I was naturally made for a domestic man. I often feel as if I were really designed by Nature to wheel a perambulator, and go to market on wet days. True, I haven't been much of a stay-at-home. But then I was born at sea, while the vessel was in an all-plain-sail breeze, and it may be the initial motion I inherited from the ship at my birth has not yet been quite exhausted. However, I feel as if it was gradually dying out. Once having set the planets spinning round the sun, there is no reason why they should ever stop spinning. Once having set me sailing over the water in an all-plain-sail breeze, there are reasons why I should stop some time. First, I am not by any means a heavenly body. No one could, with justice, say my appearance is heavenly; and I know what my mind is like, and I answer myself for that--it is, in fact, a good deal in the other direction. But, you see, although I am not myself a heavenly body, I may be influenced by heavenly bodies. Now, I should not be at all surprised if such a heavenly body as Kate Osborne might not have a very important influence in causing my orbit gradually to contract until it became purely local, entirely centred by her. Should anyone say to me: "If you are by nature a domestic man, how is it you never found it out before? how is it you have not settled down?" I should reply, "Show me the man who never finds out anything new about himself, and I'll show you a fool, a monomaniac." To the second question I should say, "How on earth could a fellow like me, without a relative in the world, become domestic, unless he married? and how on earth could a fellow like me marry until he had found someone who would marry him, and whom he would marry?" 'I am sure I should make an excellent husband, for I know nothing whatever about household affairs. I don't know what milk is a-gallon, or blacking a-pound, or coals a-ton, or jam a-pot. I have been brought up on a bill of fare. I am the embodiment of atable-d'hôte. I have seen beef roasted on the prairie, but the whole carcase had been purchased for a bullet and a charge of powder--say a penny. I know such rates do not rule the London market. I heard them say the other day, at dinner, beef was a shilling a-pound; but how much a pound is, I haven't the ghost of an idea. Considering me as a domestic man, there's another good trait in my character; I don't know weights--I mean domestic weights--' 'Nevill, shall we have a cab?' asked Osborne, breaking in upon his musings. 'Of course, of course. What a stupid being I am! I was running astray, Osborne, a rare thing for me. Of course, call a cab. I haven't the ghost of an idea where this place is. No doubt we have turned our back on it, and are walking away from it. I don't often ruminate. The chances are, if I did, I should some day soon walk under the legs of omnibus horses, or be killed by a coster's barrow.' 'Where to, sir?' asked the cabby through the trap. 'The Prehistoric Society, Great Saurian Street,' answered Nevill. 'It's a trifle over an eighteenpenny fare, and he'll offer me the eighteenpence and argufy for an hour. They gets no money out of them societies, and they won't let a man live. If they gets no money out of them societies, why can't they stop at home, and give a man a chance of picking up a living out of reasonable fares?' No conversation occurred in the cab. Each man was too much occupied with thought. When they alighted at the tall gaunt doorway in Great Saurian Street, Nevill handed the cabman half-a-crown. The man touched his hat and drove away, thinking, 'They must be ignorant foreigners or fools. I'll take my oath they don't belong to them sciences. There's nothing pays worse than science, not even hospitals.' Osborne and Nevill found a number of men, none of whom was young, and most of whom were beyond middle life, gathered in a room of modest dimensions. Down the centre of the room ran a large leather-covered table, liberally supplied with pens, ink, and paper. Scattered round the room were comfortably upholstered chairs. The walls were covered from ceiling to floor with glass-cases, crammed with daggers, bones, utensils, shields, arrowheads, spearheads, teeth, flasks of pottery and basins of stone, bone needles and brass knives. The proceedings of the meeting had not yet begun. Some of the members were looking into the cases, some chatting in groups, some writing at the table. All were serious. There was no laughter. The murmur of a guttural minor chord filled the room. Osborne whispered to Nevill, when they had taken their seats, 'What an unintellectual-looking set of men! Can these be the members of a learned society? They amaze me.' 'There are, I suppose, some visitors besides ourselves here to-day. But I daresay the bulk of men present are members. You can know the members as they enter by their nodding to the officials. Let us see if we can't pick up someone who will give us a little information. Stop, here's a civil-looking man sitting with his back to the window; let us go across to him and try if he will not tell us something of those around us.' They moved over to the window. Nevill took the chair next the man he had indicated; Osborne took a chair next to Nevill. When they had been seated awhile, Nevill turned to the stranger and said,-- 'I beg your pardon, sir.' The man bowed and smiled blandly, encouragingly. 'We, my friend and I, are strangers in London. We are the guests of this learned society to-day, and we know little of its scope and nothing of its members; and we have dared to hope that if you are not engaged in something more useful, you might give us a little information.' 'I shall be most happy to give you any information in my power. In the first place, I must tell you that I, like you and your friend, am a guest here to-day. I belong to two societies, but not to this. I therefore fear you have fallen into bad hands; if you will allow me, I shall be most happy to introduce you to the secretary or president.' 'Thank you,' answered Nevill, 'we could not think of intruding on the attention of any officials. We are not scientific men, but I take an interest in science. My friend, who is a poet, is rather afraid of science. We only want a few words about the men around us. I daresay we are now in a room with the flower of England's scientific men.' 'Yes. There is scarcely a man of the first eminence in science who is not here to-day. But may I ask why your friend is afraid of science?' 'He has a notion it is subversive.' 'Of course it is. But it is subversive of only error. My dear sir, you need never fear science. It can never do anyone harm. If I tell you the distance between this and the sun is so much, you may believe me or not. I don't roast you alive for doubting me. If we say two and two are four and prove the theorem, and you will not believe us, we will not stone you. Weak-knee'd Christians are afraid of us; yet where, in the history of Christianity, is a more charitable and tolerant spirit to be found than among the children of science?' 'But the birth of science seems to me the death of poetry,' said Osborne, not wishing to get on the graver branch of the argument. 'I am afraid you are right. As the inferior polypi and worms have been gradually pushed to the wall by their betters in the three ages of the world before man, so now among men we see the superior heads pushing the inferior heads to the wall. The mere hunter is almost gone. The mere grazier is going fast. You can see that at a glance. The hunting and the pastoral ages have passed. They were lazy, wasteful ages compared with ours. Ours is the age of hedged farms and exactly-defined rights. The day of the poet is gone. The head of the poet is going to the wall. What did he do in his time for man? Nothing but fill the head with vapours and history with myths. The hammer-headed man of science is now exterminating the delicately-headed man of art. The poet must go, and is going, as the black man must go, and is going.' 'That's dismal for you, Osborne,' said Nevill. 'I assure you,' protested Osborne, colouring and feeling very uncomfortable,' I am not a poet. Never wrote a line in my life.' 'I hope, sir,' said the stranger, 'you do not for a moment fancy I mean what I said to apply personally. Nothing of the kind. I was speaking of your species.' 'Oh, he understands you, sir,' said Nevill. Then, to turn the conversation away from Osborne, and gain the information he wished to get, he said,--'Who is this man here on my left? And out of mercy to this poet, don't use too technical language.' 'That man is the greatest authority, not only in England, but in the world, on bones. If you give one bone of any creature known to have once crawled, walked, flown, or swum, he will tell you not only what the creature was, but its probable size, and most likely he will tell you from what era of that creature's development the bone dates. The man in front is the illustrious broacher of the chimpanzee theory--that theory which caused more commotion in Europe, and more intellectual disquiet, than all the inventions of man since Abraham to our day. The man whom he is talking to is the most revolutionary chemist of our time. He has been able to do almost everything in chemistry save invent life. He is a physiologist as well as a chemist. The man leaning on his stick beside him is our greatest electrician. He and the chemist work together incessantly, and are hopeful they may yet get the pendulum of life to swing where no life was before, and into which no life has been imparted. On your left is a great geologist. He followed up a discovery made in the diluvial deposit in the Nile Valley. He also was largely instrumental in throwing back the age of granite as many years as the most remote fixed star is miles from earth, which, as far as the human mind can conceive, is infinity. Writing at the table, you find one of those men who make the morbid side of Nature a study. He has a theory explaining away almost every form of mental enthusiasm which has led to delusion. Spiritualism and religious frenzies are his strong points--' 'My God!' cried Osborne, in horror, 'there are women coming into this place!' 'Why should not women come in here? There is no place where they may sit with more security. We do not insist upon their coming here in indecently low dresses. While they are with us they will hear no double-meaning phrases, such as they find at many theatres. They are not asked to sit out an opera, the plot of which is a tissue of crimes such as pure women should never have heard of. They will hear no cursing or swearing here. On our stage we do not exhibit any scenes of gambling or drunkenness. The air of this place is as pure as that of the chastest house in London, and from the time they come in until they leave they will hear nothing which could defile a sanctuary.' 'Yes, but,' said Osborne, 'all they hear in this place must tend to unsettle them on matters they have, in their childhood, been taught to regard with reverence.' 'Ah, there I must not follow you. You would lead me into a controversy. A controversy is a thing I never engage in. Controversy belongs to the poetic or idle age. Controversies were undertaken to convince others. Science cares only to convince itself. If I say two and two are four, and can prove it to my own satisfaction, I am quite content. I don't ask you to adopt my demonstration of the theorem. If you wish for them you are welcome to my data, and you can try the theorem yourself. Or you can accept my proof, or you can let it all alone. Why should I seek to compel you to believe me or not? But if you say three and five are eight, that is another thing. You may be able to prove what you say. If you are, that ought to be enough for you. Suppose we both agree that four and four are eight, why should you come to me and say, "We both agree four and four are eight; there is some common ground between us. Come and put your four with my eight. Then we shall be partners in twelve?" But I don't care for a partner. Why should you?' 'I don't know,' said Osborne drearily. 'The road you go is a very barren one.' 'Ah, that is controversial. You say music is the finest art; I say painting. Very well. Let you stick to your fiddle and I to my brush. Why should you want the hairs of my bow to paint, or I want to mix my colours on the back of your fiddle!' At that moment there was a commotion. Silence fell upon the assembly, the chairman took his seat, and the members and the guests assumed attitudes of attention. There was a pause. Then the chairman said a few words, and called upon Mr Wilfrid Parkinson to address the meeting. There was a slight delay, during which Osborne glanced round once more upon the broken-down-looking men assisting at this unholy rite. It would be much more becoming in men of their age and position to spend the evening of their lives in trying to win souls out of this spiritual Slough of Despond, London, than to devote the few remaining hours of their time on earth to hastening into the toils of perdition those who already hesitated on the path. There they were, 'bent, wigged, and lame;' fathers of grown-up men; grandfathers of lusty blameless boys. Why could not they let well enough alone? What was the world to gain by all this progress, all this science? Was man any happier, any purer, any nobler, now, than when piety was undistracted by invention, unassailed by research? Here were these old men, with one foot in the grave, one side of them pushed through the mist of life into the full light of eternity, and yet they would not be warned. If the men had been younger he should not have felt so horrified. But these men had no longer the excuse of ardent blood or impetuous youth on their side. They were not likely to renounce their present convictions while they lived. And what an awful thing it was to think of these men knowingly and deliberately setting their face towards death, with the certainty in their minds that they had devoted much of the life God had given them to pulling props from under the faith God had bestowed on man, a faith miraculously handed from the skies, writ by the absolute finger of God Himself, and sealed upon this earth with the sacred Blood of Calvary. Horrible! Unnatural! Prodigious ingratitude! By this time Mr Wilfrid Parkinson had commenced his address to the assembly. Nevill listened intently, but Osborne felt too depressed and horrified to give attention. He was stunned and dazed. He had heard and read of such places before, but he had never, until now, been brought face to face, into intimate contact with science in the aggressive form. He was not, in most matters, superstitious, yet he could not help shrinking from those walls, against which reposed ghastly relics of bygone days, handed down by careless time to be the cause of spiritual misery and spiritual death among men to-day. He shrank from those old men, beneath whose blanched hair the calm and deliberate brain denied all things incapable of substantiation by facts and things. He shrank into his inner nature, and there cast down his spirit and prayed, prayed fervently, fiercely thanking God his Maker and His Son that he had been born in the faith of Christ. He did not pray for grace to keep that faith. He felt no doubt of his own strength. No question of his own strength existed in his mind. His attitude was simply one of terrible thankfulness. His whole soul was rendering homage to the Great Being who had given him his faith and kept him in that faith--a faith which had never seemed so priceless, so essential, as when contrasted with the barren creed which science sought to make out of dusty bones and senseless rocks. Osborne paid no attention to Mr Wilfrid Parkinson. He was conscious a human voice was droning out something or other in a most unexcited tone and manner. Nevill was following the speaker with intense interest. Osborne had made up his mind not to endure another afternoon of this kind again. How much more delightful to walk or sit with Marie, and chat of some kindly human subject, not about fossils and chalk, and flint and fluxes! Anything but this pedantry of calm impartiality. Anything but this cold-blooded prying into Nature, this wilful disturbing of things settled for thousands of years. What had satisfied a Shakespeare, a Milton, a Dante, might surely satisfy Nevill and himself. While Osborne was earnestly wishing the address over, that they might go away, a great buzz and commotion arose. Most of the men got on their feet, wiped their spectacles, and looked eagerly in the direction of the speaker, who was holding up in one hand the thigh-bone of a man, and in the other a stone vessel like a chemist's mortar. As soon as the commotion had subsided, and most of the audience had resumed their seats, Mr Wilfrid Parkinson proceeded to say in conclusion,-- 'I think there can be no longer any doubts of the theory I have been advancing since I did myself the honour of coming before you to-day. The friend who has forwarded me these remains is still busy excavating on the bank of the Nile. He writes me to say he is hopeful of fresh success, and that any further remains which may turn up he will at once forward to me, with an ample account of the place and circumstance of his good fortune. I am greatly pleased to think that, through the instrumentality of a friend of mine, the Prehistoric Society of London has to-day been able to inspect the first remains of man yet found so far down in that system.' Applause, long continued, followed the conclusion of the address. All crowded round the table eagerly. Some shook Mr Parkinson's hand warmly; some called out their congratulations to him. He was modest, and said no thanks or congratulations were due to him. He knew it would be very gratifying to his friend on the Nile, to whom all congratulations were due, when he heard the flattering reception his discovery had received at the hands of the illustrious members of the Prehistoric Society. Partly by the general movement towards the head of the room, and partly by the guidance of Nevill, Osborne found himself drifting slowly upwards towards the excited enthusiastic crowd gathered round Parkinson and the remains of some other man, name unknown. For the moment he did not care what way he went. That tedious discourse was over at last. Soon they should go out into the open air, then back to Peter's Row, and finally they four should dine at the pleasant Holborn, where there were no dreary scientists digging up unpleasant and unnecessary facts, and droning out uninteresting technicalities. At last they reached the table. How he wished it was six o'clock, that he might sit at a very different table, and in very different company! He should then have that beautiful face to feast upon, not this collection of feeble old age and enthusiastic deposers of sacred beliefs. 'I am glad you are with me here to-day, Osborne. You have had a treat many men would come from Berlin to enjoy.' 'I fear I did not pay sufficient attention to the speaker. You know I am not scientific.' 'But do you not know the meaning of this discovery?' 'No.' 'You amaze me, Osborne.' They were now standing at the table in front of the bone and the mortar. 'You know,' he went on, 'the Chinese claim a hundred thousand years of history, and we have laughed at them.' 'And of course so has every sensible man. Man has not been more than six thousand years on earth. That is clear any way. We may adjust the day of creation to the epochs of forming the earth, but man cannot have been on earth seven thousand years ago.' 'And yet,' said Nevill, pointing with an amused smile at the bone first, and then at the mortar, 'there is not room for the shadow of a doubt that this bone and this vessel are between nine and ten thousand years old.' 'Come away,' cried Osborne impatiently. 'I cannot stay any longer. I loathe the place.'
At last they got out of that room into the street, and home to the private hotel. Here they found word awaiting for them that Miss Osborne would not appear until dinner-time, and that Miss Gordon was trying to get a little sleep. Upon hearing this the two men looked blank. There was, however, no appeal; so Osborne went to his room to write letters, and Nevill said he'd go and look up his Indian geography. Osborne was restless, unhappy. He did not know how to describe his condition to himself. There was a conflict in his mind, but he could not analyse it so as to determine what were the contending forces. That girl had sat up all last night, she had something of moment to tell him, she was resting, and he could not see her, and he wanted to see her. He felt cold and wretched and forlorn without her. He should not be able to live a fortnight without seeing her. If she went away now he should follow her, even if she bade him not. He should follow her afar off. He should go to the towns she went to, and walk about the streets all day in the hope of seeing her now and then. He should not intrude upon her, but when he had found out where she stayed, he should walk up and down till well into the night, watching over her. Who could tell but that some great emergency might arise, in which he, armed by love with the strength of ten, might save her! The maddest flames that ever burned could not keep him back from the door behind which she was threatened. Had all these old men left that place yet, and was that bone lying there stark upon that table in that vacant hushed room? Or was some old man, the wood destined to form whose coffin was now seasoned in the timber-yard and ready for making-up, holding an inquest on that relic of the past, and founding on that piece of God's work an indictment against the faith He had revealed to man? It was monstrous. Monstrous! Letters! He could write no letters to-day. He could not keep his mind fixed on any idea for five minutes. He could not sit still at the table. It was impossible for him to concentrate his mind on anything but the matter uppermost in his thoughts. He would allow to no man that his affection for his old Stratford friends had cooled in the smallest degree; but then he was now consumed by a great passion, and he had no leisure for ordinary correspondence. Time wore wearily on, and at last half-past five came, and Osborne descended to the drawing-room. Here he found Nevill alone. He said, 'You must look sharp, Osborne, if you want to catch this post; it's just half-past five.' 'Unfortunately I have nothing for it. I did not write a line.' 'By Jove! Must be something in the atmosphere. Yours is exactly my case. I went to look up Indian geography, and never opened a book.' 'What did you do?' 'Went to sleep.' 'To sleep! I wish I could have gone.' 'Your conscience isn't good enough to allow you, Osborne. You know very well you are afraid to face facts, and that daunts you.' 'I am not afraid to face facts. But I do not care for things which are called facts and which are fictions.' 'All right, my dear fellow; don't get excited over the matter.' 'But I assure you, you do me wrong. I have not only the courage of my opinions, but the courage to hear any other man's opinions.' 'I am not a reading man. But I always carry a few books with me. If you care to go more deeply into the thing, you are welcome to a loan of the few I have. I warn you they are not consolatory.' 'I don't want consolation or the obstinacy of the blind. I am much interested in all you say, and should be very glad to read the books you offer.' 'Mind, I warn you before you start. You must be prepared for anything.' 'No fact can affect what is true, and I am prepared to face truth.' 'Very well, you shall have the books when we come back to-night. Here's Miss Gordon, looking more charming than ever.' At that moment she entered the room, wearing the Giovanni Bellini hat. The look of fatigue had disappeared. Once more her eyes were lighted up with those mysterious fires--once more the rich colour was in her cheeks. Osborne's heart bounded at sight of her; all the gloom and dullness of that day faded out of his mind at the spectacle of her youth and beauty. Who but a fool would bother himself about who had lived nine thousand years ago, when he might rest his eyes on such a form and such a face as this? Who would care for the voice of science or of history, when such a voice as hers was waiting at his ears? 'Miss Osborne will not be down for about twenty minutes. Her watch was stopped, and she did not think it was so late,' she said as she came up the room towards the young men. 'Osborne,' said Nevill ruefully, 'you really ought to get your sister's watch looked after. Most serious consequences often arise from watches being slow.' 'She gave it to me, Mr Osborne,' said the girl, holding out her hand as she spoke, 'to take to you, and get it repaired. She thinks the mainspring must be broken.' 'Allow me to look,' interposed Nevill. 'I'm no end of a swell at watches. A fellow who is always kicking about must know a lot about watches. When you are out West, you don't always care to ask Dog's Tail or Sitting Bull what he thinks of the sanitary condition of your watch. No, it's not the mainspring. The mainspring is all right. Stop, there's a jeweller's just at the end of the Row. I'll run out and let him have a look at it. Perhaps he can put it right before Miss Osborne comes down. I shall be back in twenty minutes or a little less.' As he spoke he left the room. When he found himself in the passage he looked around furtively. No one was in view. He hastily raised the watch to his lips and kissed it, whispering,-- 'I wanted that; and there was no good in my staying and spoiling sport.' When he had gone, Miss Gordon moved still closer to where Osborne sat spellbound by admiration. Insensibly he rose and held out his hand. She gave him hers. 'I never saw you looking so lovely before,' he said slowly--he retained her hand, and kept his eyes fixed on her face--'never.' 'I am glad to hear you say so,' she answered gently. She looked up at him for an instant, and blushed and smiled. 'Do you like this hat as well to-day as the first time you saw it?' 'I like the owner a thousand times better.' 'You know what I told you?' 'I have forgotten nothing you have ever told me, child.' 'You recollect I said if I put on that hat I should put on my saucy manner?' 'I recollect all you said, child. What of it?' 'You would be sorry if I put this hat off for ever?' 'It becomes you very well.' 'You would be sorry if I put away my saucy manner for ever?' 'Your sweeter manner becomes you better.' 'This morning, when I was looking at the sky, I saw all at once how foolish I had been, and how wise you are.' 'My child, my child, my precious child! My God, I thank Thee. You will never take away from me your sweeter manner?' 'No.' 'You will never take away from me this sweetest hand?' 'No.' 'Sweet is the kiss that comes alone with willingness. My love, my love, my life, my life, my child, my darling child, my wife! Does that word "wife" affright you, Marie?' 'No.'
He knew he could not sleep that night, so did not undress when he went to his room. For awhile he walked up and down in suppressed excitement. This was the most important day of his life. She, whom his heart had set above all other earthly prizes, had consented to be his for ever. Intoxicating thought! For ever! He should now be specially privileged to see her every day. Every day, until she became his finally, and then no power on earth could take her from him for an hour. His own, his darling, his most beautiful and amiable Marie. He should not call her Marie. It had an unfamiliar, foreign sound. But how sweet and dutiful and homely sounded Mary! It was the gentlest and the dearest name borne by woman. His gentlest and his dearest love. What a gift bounteous Providence had bestowed on him that day! All life ought to be one long thanksgiving for this rich boon. When morning came, and she entered the breakfast-room and he went to her--to her, his most dear love--and their eyes met and they looked with a new meaning into the face of one another, what profound, what sober joy! He would not hold her hand unduly, but press it and release it, and thank her again with his eyes. And all through the time, when others were by, they would have secret signals of love confessed, and these signals would be invisible or else unintelligible to anyone but themselves. And when they were alone--when she and he were alone! Oh, priceless privilege to be alone with her, and free to speak to her of love, and sit beside her as a lover might, and draw the dear form close to him, and kiss her lips! Hold her to him and say no word, but feel through all his nature the one supreme emotion welling up continually, each moment seeming richer and richer as it came, and in his mind only one thought, 'It is she! It is she!' Sleep? He could not sleep now. Those who had dull humdrum lives might sleep; but he--he, with all this joy for the present, this anticipation for the future, how could he sleep? No, no. No sleep for him to-night. He had never before regretted he did not smoke. If what smokers said about tobacco was true, it would be delightful to sit here now before the fire, and while looking at her face through the halo lent by a pipe, count the strikings of the clocks, and mark the lessening time that separated her from him. Read? No. He didn't think he could read. Verse was out of the question. His life now was a poem, and he should be able to see beauty in nothing that did not resemble her--that she did not share. Ah, so Nevill had sent him those promised books. They were all new to him, He would look through them. They might make him sleepy. No doubt, if they contained any such absurdities as Nevill had told him, they would amuse him or put him to sleep. He wished he could go to sleep. Half-a-dozen books lay on the dressing-table. He turned them over for a few minutes and then selected one. It was full of diagrams and other drawings. He amused himself for a few minutes looking at these. His eye caught the word 'love.' This was apropos of his condition; and, with a smile of incredulous wonder on his face, he turned to read what the author had to say on the subject. Before he had read half-a-dozen pages he threw the book down with contempt. He took up another. This proved too technical for him. He could not understand what he read. He put that away quietly. Next he found a cheerful-looking book of which he had heard, but never seen. It was in the line of natural history, and yet unlike any natural history hitherto published. He opened it and began to read. It interested him at once. He read rapidly. He flew over the pages. This was the most remarkable book which had ever fallen into his hands. He became wholly absorbed in it. He turned the leaves and turned the leaves as though he were looking for some marked passage, not reading the printed words. This book fascinated him as no book had had power to do before. It was a poem of facts. Here were wonders he had never dreamed of paraded before his eyes, not out of the imagination of a poet, but out of God's great storehouse, Nature. Here were vast truths of Nature brought home to the everyday pathways of men. His face grew pale, and his eyes blazed. He did not hear the clocks strike. He took no heed of time. He rushed through the book at so great a rate, he could not pause to think or to regard himself. It was close to five o'clock when he finished the last chapter of that book. He felt that sleep had drawn further off than ever. Again he paced up and down the room. His love. His Mary. His wife that was to be. Close to five only! Would night never pass until he should see her again? In love hours seemed as long as in childhood. The hour a child is kept in school when the others have gone seems an hour of infinite pleasant possibilities to the unfortunate prisoner. The hour a lover is separated from his newly-won mistress seems more spacious still, for love crowds more joy into a minute than childhood into an hour. No sleep. No rest. Nothing else to read. Yes. Another book. Another book by the same author too! That was fortunate. No doubt it would be more interesting than the last. It dealt with a more interesting subject--Man. For half-an-hour he read here and there. This time, before he had finished the first chapter, his face had flushed, his manner become excited. At last he let the book fall to the ground, and cried, in a suppressed voice,-- 'What abomination is this! What monstrous blasphemy! Man the accidental descendant of the ape! Why is not this book burned by the common hangman? How can any printer and publisher be got so base as to lend themselves to this impious affront upon Heaven? Oh God, that men placed by Thee upon this earth of Thine, should defile it and outrage Thee with such heinous thoughts! Glory be to God on high, and on earth peace to men of good-will.' He drew back the curtain of his window, placed a chair to the window, put out the light, and sat down by the window, and looked out upon London in the hour of that greatest darkness, the hour before the dawn. Then he had a vision, and later on a dream.
He saw an expanse of wild waters. The waters were grey and turbid from action of the winds. Clouds hung low over the sea in thick folds, through which came a dim yellow light. It was a November afternoon. A heavy gale blew from the north-east. In the plain of the German Ocean exposed to view nothing was visible but cloud and billow. This north-east piercing wind had come across the frozen plains and seas and mountains and forests and fjords of Norway. His eyes explored the north-eastern plain of water. He could see nothing but sea and vapour. Not an island, not a rock, not a ship was in sight. This vision had become familiar to him. He knew its history, its sequence, its goal. For years it had haunted him. He had now no control over it. Once he had read something, which had suggested it. Time after time he indulged his imagination in the spectacle of events following that open space of turbid sea in the Northern Ocean, and now he had no power to dismiss it from his imagination if he had had the will. To-night some unknown fear lurked in his consciousness. He could not tell what this fear was. It was strange, too, this vision now in opening before him had the aspect of a threat. Of old it had boded no evil. It had been nothing but an imaginative way of putting a guess, a theory. To-night, when he had turned his eyes first on that ugly space of wind-tossed waters, his spirits had suddenly sunk, and he had shivered, as if under portentous influence. Around him, beneath him, lay London, hushed in sleep. In no other part of the world was peaceful man so secure as in London. He had but to ring a bell, break a pane of glass, and shout, to summon succour sufficient to overwhelm a hundred assassins. What chilled and terrified Osborne was no dread of violence from without. There was nothing outside this room of which he stood in fear. And yet he trembled and felt cold and tremulously alarmed. No spectre of a wrong done by him rose up before his eyes. All his past showed nothing which could threaten his peace. He did not know clearly what he dreaded. He had a foreboding without a form. What disturbed him so this night of his greatest worldly triumph, of his dearest earthly joy? He could not answer. Might this be a form of compensation, of reaction, to balance the ecstasy of the day? He could not tell. He only knew that vision had begun, and would now go on; and he felt that when it ended he should be face to face with trouble never dreamed of till then. He saw in the eye of the wind, where sea and sky tumbled together away in the north-east, a dark dot. It looked no bigger than a grain of sand upon a drumhead, and it danced and leaped as a grain of sand on a drumhead when the skin is struck. Although this object looked small, and was now only on the verge of the horizon, it lay at no great distance; for gales and lowering clouds and mounting waters curtain off space, and bring the horizon home. Gradually the small object increased in size as it was pressed forward in a south-westerly direction by the wind. It never grew to great size. As it approached he could see dimly it was a long large canoe, made of a tree hollowed out like those used by the Indians. It was open, undecked. It had no sail, and was blown forward by the action of the wind on the hull. As the canoe drew nearer he could discern the figure of a man standing in the stern of the boat, paddle in hand. Now he made a swift stroke of the paddle this way, now that. Anon he swept the blade two or three times in the one direction. In front of where the man stood lay something covered up with skins. Each wave that trembled and pressed past him the man surveyed quietly, calmly, deliberately, using his paddle so as to prevent the mounting water swamping his boat. When the wave had gone by, and immediate danger no longer threatened the canoe, he turned his eyes upon the bundle at his feet. His face was capable of little expression; nevertheless there was a difference between the glance he gave the menacing waves and the look he gave the bundle. In the former dwelt an expression of familiarity, mastery, superiority; in the latter, one of concern and pity. The substantial lineaments of his countenance did not alter; the only thing which changed was the spirit of his eyes. The short winter day died. The wind did not increase, but drew a little more to the eastward. Still the man stood erect. The bundle lay at his feet; and he watched the waves mount and curl round him, and steered his boat. But something of the determined air and resolute touch had left him, and his actions were less decisive and firm. As night closed in, the canoe still drifted before the northeasterly breeze. The bundle at his feet moved. He stooped hastily, and passed a handful of food under the skins; there was a low moan from under the skins. The man threw up his head, and looked desperately around him. Nearly all the light had gone now; but in the dim yellow twilight he detected something which created a profound emotion in him. He bent down and tried to pierce the thickening gloom. Then he drew in his paddle out of the water, and resting it on the bottom of the canoe, stood upon the gunwale, and, balancing himself, looked long into the south-west, the course in which the wind was carrying him. At length a gleam of hope illumined his face. With a wild shout of joy he sprang down from the gunwale, and, bending over the bundle in the bottom of the boat, cried out,-- 'Land! Land ahead!' The bundle moved a little once more, and a faint cry, half pleasure half pain, came from it. He took two more handfuls of some dark-coloured food, and thrust it under the furs. That was the last food left in the canoe. Night fell, and still that rude boat drifted on. Hour after hour this solitary figure stood up in the stern, and kept the boat from harm. About midnight the waves grew gradually less and less, and about the third hour the canoe was in comparatively smooth water. The man stooped, shook the bundle at his feet softly, and said,-- 'Courage! We are in a fjord or river. We are saved!' Although it was dark at four, he could make out land, low land at both sides of him. For hours he still kept on. Gradually the water had grown smoother, and now he was enabled to direct the course of the boat while crouching in the stern. He was almost exhausted, and kept awake with difficulty. At last, instead of the long even swells, the water grew broken and chopped, and whistled in the breeze. He noticed also the canoe moved more slowly, and that there was more difficulty in steering her. The man stood up, leaned over the side of the canoe, and laid his paddle on the surface of the water. The breeze had power over the boat, but little or none over the floating paddle. He then fixed his eyes on a large object on the shore close to hand, and watched intently. The boat neither advanced nor receded, yet the influence of the wind was as great as it had been hours before. Some force was counteracting the wind. He leaned over and grasped the paddle floating alongside. It had drifted an arm's length astern. Only one inference could be drawn from these facts: the tide had turned. Only one dread was in his mind: he might be dragged out to sea again. He bent low and examined, as well as the light would allow him, the right-hand shore. It was irregular, indented with little creeks and bays. Abreast of him was the highest point of land in view. He could see the other shore and about half-a-mile of the shore he lay under. Seizing the paddle in both hands, he impelled the canoe slowly and cautiously towards the high land on the starboard beam. Gradually as he approached, the ground rose out of the water, and when he had got in shore he could dimly make out a round acclivity sloping gradually upwards five or six canoes' lengths high. He thrust the paddle down in the water as far as it would go. It stuck, and required force to bring it up again. When he got it up he felt the blade. That was all right now--mud. With a few dexterous strokes of his paddle he shot the canoe forward, steered her behind a little promontory, and then drove her head ashore. He walked forward, and with his paddle felt the bottom of the river. Mud, and a hand's breadth of water. He went aft, and thrust down his paddle. Mud and an arm's depth of water. Good! The water would fall away and leave the canoe high and dry. It would be daylight soon. When the sun arose he should look round and see this place. He was tired, worn out. He would lie down and sleep awhile. He bent over the bundle, and said,-- 'All is well. We have reached land! Courage! We shall go ashore in the morning. It is near day. I will lie down and sleep till dawn.' A low moan was the only reply. The man threw himself on the bottom of the canoe and drew skins over him. The sun had risen above the horizon when he awoke. Dull clouds hung overhead. The sun was hidden. Gradually the river became illumined. The man sat up and looked around him. In front lay a vast stretch of marshes, with here and there a low hummock rising a few feet above the yellow water. To the west of the land, on which the canoe had taken the ground, appeared an opening. To the east all was morass and dreary swamp and water. Above him rose the gentle hill, clad from the margin of the river to the summit with lofty leafless trees, beneath which brambles and underwood lay bare and ragged, and under all a thin carpet of moss-like grass. The water had now fallen away from the boat, and she lay high and dry upon a bank of soft dark mud. The man felt this mud with his paddle, ascertained it was firm enough to support his weight, stepped out on it, and ascended the slope. When he reached the summit he looked round and found himself on a small island, standing in a swampy plain, with a broad river, the one he had come up the night before, on the southern shore, and a small stream on the western side. He could not see how far the island extended to the east; it could be no great distance, for, above the farthest land, eastward, gleamed water. Upon this island, and upon this only of all in view, grew forest trees. The place was a desert, a waste; no sign of man appeared. By hard Fate this unlucky man had been blown away from his home, from his fellows, and his peers. Day had succeeded day, and he had seen nothing but water and sky, sky and water. Now he saw land, but a strange unknown land; a land never trodden by man before--a land he had never heard of, and he came of a great seafaring race. He had not been overwhelmed by the sea; but, except that fate, this was the worst that could befall him. He was not dead, but he stood in a strange land, a land from which he could never find his way back over unexplored seas, fathomless darkness of night, tumult of waves. But the best must be made of things as they were. Looking at sky and river and shore would not restore him to the land of his birth. The best thing to do was to try what he could make of the place which had come in his way and saved him from a watery grave. He glanced around him to see what facilities the place afforded. The first thing which caught his eyes was a large white stone among the trees at the top of the hill. Three trees stood near this stone. A hut might be constructed with the stone for one side, and trees for corners of the opposing side. It was desirable he should live on the highest point of the island. There was no trace of man here. But people might come up that river upon either design or compulsion, and it was desirable he should be in a position commanding all approaches. Yes, he would build a hut there to shelter them; when that was done, he should explore this strange country at leisure. Now he should go and fetch them. He returned to the boat, and, bending over the bundle, spoke, and raised the skins. The sun had not come out, but the light shone full and strong. In the light of that November day the man lifted and carried ashore his wife and new-born son, and conveyed them up to the place he had selected as their future home. This man, this woman, and this child, on the top of that low hill that November day, who had been blown off the coast of Denmark, were the first human beings that had set foot on this soil, this country. Since that day alterations have taken place in that landscape. Since then great alterations have taken place on that hill. Among many changes, one of the most remarkable is that layer after layer of matter has accumulated on the hill, and it now rises to twice its former height. The stone, against which that half-naked savage reared his rude wattle hut, was not destroyed or carried away. It still occupies the same position as then. It is now covered with layers of deposit. It is on the same level as the day he landed; It stands in the same latitude and longitude. In the same latitude and longitude to-day, three hundred and ninety feet above that stone, blazes in the sun the gilded Cross of the Christian Cathedral of St Paul's! George Osborne's vision ended. He rose, stood by the window, looked out on London of to-day.