[•]
‘Where are we, father?’ Sylvie whispered, with her arms twined closely around the old man’s neck, and with her rosy cheek lovingly pressed to his.
‘In Elfland, darling. It’s one of the provinces of Fairyland.’
‘But I thought Elfland was ever so far from Outland: and we’ve come such a tiny little way!’
‘You came by the Royal Road, sweet one. Only those of royal blood can travel along it: but you’ve been royal ever since I was made King of Elfland—that’s nearly a month ago. They sent two ambassadors, to make sure that their invitation to me, to be their new King, should reach me. One was a Prince; so he was able to come by the Royal Road, and to come invisibly to all but me: the other was a Baron; so he had to come by the common road, and I dare say he hasn’t even arrived yet.’
‘Then how far have we come?’ Sylvie enquired.
‘Just a thousand miles, sweet one, since the Gardener unlocked that door for you.’
‘A thousand miles!’ Bruno repeated. ‘And may I eat one?’
‘Eat a mile, little rogue?’
‘No,’ said Bruno. ‘I mean may I eat one of that fruits?’
‘Yes, child,’ said his father: ‘and then you’ll find out what Pleasure is like—the Pleasure we all seek so madly, and enjoy so mournfully!’
Bruno ran eagerly to the wall, and picked a fruit that was shaped something like a banana, but had the colour of a strawberry.
He ate it with beaming looks, that became gradually more gloomy, and were very blank indeed by the time he had finished.
‘It hasn’t got no taste at all!’ he complained. ‘I couldn’t feel nuffin in my mouf! It’s a—what’s that hard word, Sylvie?’
‘It was a Phlizz,’ Sylvie gravely replied. ‘Are they all like that, father?’
‘They’re all like that to you, darling, because you don’t belong to Elfland—yet. But to me they are real.’
Bruno looked puzzled. ‘I’ll try anuvver kind of fruits!’ he said, and jumped down off the King’s knee. ‘There’s some lovely striped ones, just like a rainbow!’ And off he ran.
Meanwhile the Fairy-King and Sylvie were talking together, but in such low tones that I could not catch the words: so I followed Bruno, who was picking and eating other kinds of fruit, in the vain hope of finding some that had a taste. I tried to pick some myself—but it was like grasping air, and I soon gave up the attempt and returned to Sylvie.
‘Look well at it, my darling,’ the old man was saying, ‘and tell me how you like it.’
‘It’s just lovely,’ cried Sylvie, delightedly. ‘Bruno, come and look!’ And she held up, so that he might see the light through it, a heart-shaped Locket, apparently cut out of a single jewel, of a rich blue colour, with a slender gold chain attached to it.
[•]
‘It are welly pretty,’ Bruno more soberly remarked: and he began spelling out some words inscribed on it. ‘All—will—love—Sylvie,’ he made them out at last. ‘And so they doos!’ he cried, clasping his arms round her neck. ‘Everybody loves Sylvie!’
‘But we love her best, don’t we, Bruno?’ said the old King, as he took possession of the Locket. ‘Now, Sylvie, look at this.’ And he showed her, lying on the palm of his hand, a Locket of a deep crimson colour, the same shape as the blue one and, like it, attached to a slender golden chain.
‘Lovelier and lovelier!’ exclaimed Sylvie, clasping her hands in ecstasy. ‘Look, Bruno!’
‘And there’s words on this one, too,’ said Bruno. ‘Sylvie—will—love—all.’
‘Now you see the difference,’ said the old man: ‘different colours and different words. Choose one of them, darling. I’ll give you whichever you like best.’
Sylvie whispered the words, several times over, with a thoughtful smile, and then made her decision. ‘It’s very nice to be loved,’ she said: ‘but it’s nicer to love other people! May I have the red one, Father?’
The old man said nothing: but I could see his eyes fill with tears, as he bent his head and pressed his lips to her forehead in a long loving kiss. Then he undid the chain, and showed her how to fasten it round her neck, and to hide it away under the edge of her frock. ‘It’s for you to keep, you know’ he said in a low voice, ‘not for other people to see. You’ll remember how to use it?’
‘Yes, I’ll remember,’ said Sylvie.
‘And now, darlings, it’s time for you to go back or they’ll be missing you and then that poor Gardener will get into trouble!’
Once more a feeling of wonder rose in my mind as to how in the world we were to get back again—since I took it for granted that wherever the children went I was to go—but no shadow of doubt seemed to cross their minds as they hugged and kissed him murmuring over and over again ‘Good-bye darling Father!’ And then suddenly and swiftly the darkness of midnight seemed to close in upon us and through the darkness harshly rang a strange wild song:
‘He thought he saw a Buffalo
Upon the chimney-piece:
He looked again, and found it was
His Sister’s Husband’s Niece.
“Unless you leave this house,” he said,
“I’ll send for the Police!”’ [•]
‘That was me!’ he added, looking out at us, through the half-opened door, as we stood waiting in the road. ‘And that’s what I’d have done—as sure as potatoes aren’t radishes—if she hadn’t have tooken herself off! But I always loves my pay-rints like anything.’
‘Who are oor pay-rints?’ said Bruno.
‘Them as pay rint for me, a course!’ the Gardener replied. ‘You can come in now, if you like.’
He flung the door open as he spoke, and we got out, a little dazzled and stupefied (at least I felt so) at the sudden transition from the half-darkness of the railway-carriage to the brilliantly-lighted platform of Elveston Station.
A footman, in a handsome livery, came forwards and respectfully touched his hat. ‘The carriage is here, my Lady,’ he said, taking from her the wraps and small articles she was carrying: and Lady Muriel, after shaking hands and bidding me ‘Good-night!’ with a pleasant smile, followed him.
It was with a somewhat blank and lonely feeling that I betook myself to the van from which the luggage was being taken out: and, after giving directions to have my boxes sent after me, I made my way on foot to Arthur’s lodgings, and soon lost my lonely feeling in the hearty welcome my old friend gave me, and the cozy warmth and cheerful light of the little sitting-room into which he led me.
‘Little, as you see, but quite enough for us two. Now, take the easy-chair, old fellow, and let’s have another look at you! Well, you do look a bit pulled down!’ and he put on a solemn professional air. ‘I prescribe Ozone, quant. suff. Social dissipation, fiant pilulæ quam plurimæ: to be taken, feasting, three times a day!’
‘But, Doctor!’ I remonstrated. ‘Society doesn’t “receive” three times a day!’
‘That’s all you know about it!’ the young Doctor gaily replied. ‘At home, lawn-tennis, 3 p.m. At home, kettledrum, 5 p.m. At home, music (Elveston doesn’t give dinners), 8 p.m. Carriages at 10. There you are!’
It sounded very pleasant, I was obliged to admit. ‘And I know some of the lady-society already,’ I added. ‘One of them came in the same carriage with me’
‘What was she like? Then perhaps I can identify her.’
‘The name was Lady Muriel Orme. As to what she was like—well, I thought her very beautiful. Do you know her?’
‘Yes—I do know her.’ And the grave Doctor coloured slightly as he added ‘Yes, I agree with you. She is beautiful.’
‘I quite lost my heart to her!’ I went on mischievously. ‘We talked—’
‘Have some supper!’ Arthur interrupted with an air of relief, as the maid entered with the tray. And he steadily resisted all my attempts to return to the subject of Lady Muriel until the evening had almost worn itself away. Then, as we sat gazing into the fire, and conversation was lapsing into silence, he made a hurried confession.
‘I hadn’t meant to tell you anything about her,’ he said (naming no names, as if there were only one “she” in the world!) ‘till you had seen more of her, and formed your own judgment of her: but somehow you surprised it out of me. And I’ve not breathed a word of it to any one else. But I can trust you with a secret, old friend! Yes! It’s true of me, what I suppose you said in jest.’
‘In the merest jest, believe me!’ I said earnestly. ‘Why, man, I’m three times her age! But if she’s your choice, then I’m sure she’s all that is good and—’ ‘—and sweet,’ Arthur went on, ‘and pure, and self-denying, and true-hearted, and—’ he broke off hastily, as if he could not trust himself to say more on a subject so sacred and so precious. Silence followed: and I leaned back drowsily in my easy-chair, filled with bright and beautiful imaginings of Arthur and his lady-love, and of all the peace and happiness in store for them.
I pictured them to myself walking together, lingeringly and lovingly, under arching trees, in a sweet garden of their own, and welcomed back by their faithful gardener, on their return from some brief excursion.
It seemed natural enough that the gardener should be filled with exuberant delight at the return of so gracious a master and mistress—and how strangely childlike they looked! I could have taken them for Sylvie and Bruno—less natural that he should show it by such wild dances, such crazy songs!
‘He thought he saw a Rattlesnake
That questioned him in Greek:
He looked again, and found it was
The Middle of Next Week.
“The one thing I regret,” he said,
“Is that it cannot speak!”’ [•]
—least natural of all that the Vice-Warden and ‘my Lady’ should be standing close beside me, discussing an open letter, which had just been handed to him by the Professor, who stood, meekly waiting, a few yards off.
‘If it were not for those two brats,’ I heard him mutter, glancing savagely at Sylvie and Bruno, who were courteously listening to the Gardener’s song, ‘there would be no difficulty whatever.’
‘Let’s hear that bit of the letter again,’ said my Lady. And the Vice-Warden read aloud:
‘—and we therefore entreat you graciously to accept the Kingship, to which you have been unanimously elected by the Council of Elfland: and that you will allow your son Bruno—of whose goodness, cleverness, and beauty, reports have reached us—to be regarded as Heir-Apparent.’
‘But what’s the difficulty?’ said my Lady.
‘Why, don’t you see? The Ambassador, that brought this, is waiting in the house: and he’s sure to see Sylvie and Bruno: and then, when he sees Uggug, and remembers all that about “goodness, cleverness, and beauty,” why, he’s sure to—’
‘And where will you find a better boy than Uggug?’ my Lady indignantly interrupted. ‘Or a wittier, or a lovelier?’
To all of which the Vice-Warden simply replied ‘Don’t you be a great blethering goose! Our only chance is to keep those two brats out of sight. If you can manage that, you may leave the rest to me. I’ll make him believe Uggug to be a model of cleverness and all that.’
‘We must change his name to Bruno, of course?’ said my Lady.
The Vice-Warden rubbed his chin. ‘Humph! No!’ he said musingly. ‘Wouldn’t do. The boy’s such an utter idiot, he’d never learn to answer to it.’
‘Idiot, indeed!’ cried my Lady. ‘He’s no more an idiot than I am!’
‘You’re right, my dear,’ the Vice-Warden soothingly replied. ‘He isn’t, indeed!’
My Lady was appeased. ‘Let’s go in and receive the Ambassador,’ she said, and beckoned to the Professor. ‘Which room is he waiting in?’ she inquired.
‘In the Library, Madam.’
‘And what did you say his name was?’ said the Vice-Warden.
The Professor referred to a card he held in his hand. ‘His Adiposity the Baron Doppelgeist.’
‘Why does he come with such a funny name?’ said my Lady.
‘He couldn’t well change it on the journey,’ the Professor meekly replied, ‘because of the luggage.’
‘You go and receive him,’ my Lady said to the Vice-Warden, ‘and I’ll attend to the children.’
The Other Professor regarded him with some anxiety. ‘The smaller animal ought to go to bed at once,’ he said with an air of authority.
‘Why at once?’ said the Professor.
‘Because he ca’n’t go at twice,’ said the Other Professor.
The Professor gently clapped his hands. ‘Isn’t he wonderful!’ he said to Sylvie. ‘Nobody else could have thought of the reason, so quick. Why, of course he ca’n’t go at twice! It would hurt him to be divided.’
This remark woke up Bruno, suddenly and completely. ‘I don’t want to be divided,’ he said decisively.
‘It does very well on a diagram,’ said the Other Professor. ‘I could show it you in a minute, only the chalk’s a little blunt.’
‘Take care!’ Sylvie anxiously exclaimed, as he began, rather clumsily, to point it. ‘You’ll cut your finger off, if you hold the knife so!’
‘If oo cuts it off, will oo give it to me, please?’ Bruno thoughtfully added.
‘It’s like this,’ said the Other Professor, hastily drawing a long line upon the black board, and marking the letters ‘A,’ ‘B,’ at the two ends, and ‘C’ in the middle: ‘let me explain it to you. If AB were to be divided into two parts at C—’
‘It would be drownded,’ Bruno pronounced confidently.
The Other Professor gasped. ‘What would be drownded?’
‘Why the bumble-bee, of course!’ said Bruno. ‘And the two bits would sink down in the sea!’
Here the Professor interfered, as the Other Professor was evidently too much puzzled to go on with his diagram.
‘When I said it would hurt him, I was merely referring to the action of the nerves—’
The Other Professor brightened up in a moment. ‘The action of the nerves,’ he began eagerly, ‘is curiously slow in some people. I had a friend, once, that, if you burnt him with a red-hot poker, it would take years and years before he felt it!’
‘And if you only pinched him?’ queried Sylvie.
‘Then it would take ever so much longer, of course. In fact, I doubt if the man himself would ever feel it, at all. His grandchildren might.’
‘I wouldn’t like to be the grandchild of a pinched grandfather, would you, Mister Sir?’ Bruno whispered. ‘It might come just when you wanted to be happy!’
That would be awkward, I admitted, taking it quite as a matter of course that he had so suddenly caught sight of me. ‘But don’t you always want to be happy, Bruno?’
‘Not always,’ Bruno said thoughtfully. ‘Sometimes, when I’s too happy, I wants to be a little miserable. Then I just tell Sylvie about it, oo know, and Sylvie sets me some lessons. Then it’s all right.’
‘I’m sorry you don’t like lessons,’ I said. ‘You should copy Sylvie. She’s always as busy as the day is long!’
‘Well, so am I!’ said Bruno.
‘No, no!’ Sylvie corrected him. ‘You’re as busy as the day is short!’
‘Well, what’s the difference?’ Bruno asked. ‘Mister Sir, isn’t the day as short as it’s long? I mean, isn’t it the same length?’
Never having considered the question in this light, I suggested that they had better ask the Professor; and they ran off in a moment to appeal to their old friend. The Professor left off polishing his spectacles to consider. ‘My dears,’ he said after a minute, ‘the day is the same length as anything that is the same length as it.’ And he resumed his never-ending task of polishing.
The children returned, slowly and thoughtfully, to report his answer. ‘Isn’t he wise?’ Sylvie asked in an awestruck whisper. ‘If I was as wise as that, I should have a head-ache day long. I know I should!’
‘You appear to be talking to somebody—that isn’t here,’ the Professor said, turning round to the children. ‘Who is it?’
Bruno looked puzzled. ‘I never talks to nobody when he isn’t here!’ he replied. ‘It isn’t good manners. Oo should always wait till he comes, before oo talks to him!’
The Professor looked anxiously in my direction, and seemed to look through and through me without seeing me. ‘Then who are you talking to?’ he said. ‘There isn’t anybody here, you know, except the Other Professor—and he isn’t here!’ he added wildly, turning round and round like a teetotum. ‘Children! Help to look for him! Quick! He’s got lost again!’
The children were on their feet in a moment.
‘Where shall we look?’ said Sylvie.
‘Anywhere!’ shouted the excited Professor. ‘Only be quick about it!’ And he began trotting round and round the room, lifting up the chairs, and shaking them.
Bruno took a very small book out of the bookcase, opened it, and shook it in imitation of the Professor. ‘He isn’t here,’ he said.
‘He ca’n’t be there, Bruno!’ Sylvie said indignantly.
‘Course he ca’n’t!’ said Bruno. ‘I should have shooked him out, if he’d been in there!’
‘Has he ever been lost before?’ Sylvie enquired, turning up a corner of the hearth-rug, and peeping under it.
‘Once before,’ said the Professor: ‘he once lost himself in a wood—’
‘And couldn’t he find his-self again?’ said Bruno. ‘Why didn’t he shout? He’d be sure to hear his-self, ’cause he couldn’t be far off, oo know.’
‘Let’s try shouting,’ said the Professor.
‘What shall we shout?’ said Sylvie.
‘On second thoughts, don’t shout,’ the Professor replied. ‘The Vice-Warden might hear you. He’s getting awfully strict!’
This reminded the poor children of all the troubles, about which they had come to their old friend. Bruno sat down on the floor and began crying. ‘He is so cruel!’ he sobbed. ‘And he lets Uggug take away all my toys! And such horrid meals!’
‘What did you have for dinner to-day?’ said the Professor.
‘A little piece of a dead crow,’ was Bruno’s mournful reply.
‘He means rook-pie,’ Sylvie explained.
‘It were a dead crow,’ Bruno persisted. ‘And there were a apple-pudding—and Uggug ate it all—and I got nuffin but a crust! And I asked for a orange—and—didn’t get it!’ And the poor little fellow buried his face in Sylvie’s lap, who kept gently stroking his hair, as she went on. ‘It’s all true, Professor dear! They do treat my darling Bruno very badly! And they’re not kind to me either,’ she added in a lower tone, as if that were a thing of much less importance.
The Professor got out a large red silk handkerchief, and wiped his eyes. ‘I wish I could help you, dear children!’ he said. ‘But what can I do?’
‘We know the way to Fairyland—where Father’s gone—quite well,’ said Sylvie: ‘if only the Gardener would let us out.’
‘Wo’n’t he open the door for you?’ said the Professor.
‘Not for us,’ said Sylvie: ‘but I’m sure he would for you. Do come and ask him, Professor dear!’
‘I’ll come this minute!’ said the Professor.
Bruno sat up and dried his eyes. ‘Isn’t he kind, Mister Sir?’
‘He is indeed,’ said I. But the Professor took no notice of my remark. He had put on a beautiful cap with a long tassel, and was selecting one of the Other Professor’s walking-sticks, from a stand in the corner of the room. ‘A thick stick in one’s hand makes people respectful,’ he was saying to himself. ‘Come along, dear children!’ And we all went out into the garden together.
‘I shall address him, first of all,’ the Professor explained as we went along, ‘with a few playful remarks on the weather. I shall then question him about the Other Professor. This will have a double advantage. First, it will open the conversation (you ca’n’t even drink a bottle of wine without opening it first): and secondly, if he’s seen the Other Professor, we shall find him that way: and, if he hasn’t, we sha’n’t.’
On our way, we passed the target, at which Uggug had been made to shoot during the Ambassador’s visit.
‘See!’ said the Professor, pointing out a hole in the middle of the bull’s-eye. ‘His Imperial Fatness had only one shot at it; and he went in just here!’
Bruno carefully examined the hole. ‘Couldn’t go in there,’ he whispered to me. ‘He are too fat!’
We had no sort of difficulty in finding the Gardener. Though he was hidden from us by some trees, that harsh voice of his served to direct us; and, as we drew nearer, the words of his song became more and more plainly audible:
‘He thought he saw an Albatross
That fluttered round the lamp:
He looked again, and found it was
A Penny-Postage-Stamp.
“You’d best be getting home,” he said:
“The nights are very damp!”’ [•]
‘Would it be afraid of catching cold?’ said Bruno.
‘If it got very damp,’ Sylvie suggested, ‘it might stick to something, you know.’
‘And that somefin would have to go by the post, what ever it was!’ Bruno eagerly exclaimed. ‘Suppose it was a cow! Wouldn’t it be dreadful for the other things!’
‘And all these things happened to him,’ said the Professor. ‘That’s what makes the song so interesting.’
‘He must have had a very curious life,’ said Sylvie.
‘You may say that!’ the Professor heartily rejoined.
‘Of course she may!’ cried Bruno.
By this time we had come up to the Gardener, who was standing on one leg, as usual, and busily employed in watering a bed of flowers with an empty watering-can.
‘It hasn’t got no water in it!’ Bruno explained to him, pulling his sleeve to attract his attention.
‘It’s lighter to hold,’ said the Gardener. ‘A lot of water in it makes one’s arms ache.’ And he went on with his work, singing softly to himself
‘The nights are very damp!’
‘In digging things out of the ground—which you probably do now and then,’ the Professor began in a loud voice; ‘in making things into heaps—which no doubt you often do; and in kicking things about with one heel—which you seem never to leave off doing; have you ever happened to notice another Professor something like me, but different?’
‘Never!’ shouted the Gardener, so loudly and violently that we all drew back in alarm. ‘There ain’t such a thing!’
‘We will try a less exciting topic,’ the Professor mildly remarked to the children. ‘You were asking—’
‘We asked him to let us through the garden-door,’ said Sylvie: ‘but he wouldn’t: but perhaps he would for you!’
The Professor put the request, very humbly and courteously.
‘I wouldn’t mind letting you out,’ said the Gardener. ‘But I mustn’t open the door for children. D’you think I’d disobey the Rules? Not for one-and-sixpence!’
The Professor cautiously produced a couple of shillings.
‘That’ll do it!’ the Gardener shouted, as he hurled the watering-can across the flower-bed, and produced a handful of keys—one large one, and a number of small ones.
‘But look here, Professor dear!’ whispered Sylvie. ‘He needn’t open the door for us, at all. We can go out with you.’
‘True, dear child!’ the Professor thankfully replied, as he replaced the coins in his pocket. ‘That saves two shillings!’ And he took the children’s hands, that they might all go out together when the door was opened. This, however, did not seem a very likely event, though the Gardener patiently tried all the small keys, over and over again.
At last the Professor ventured on a gentle suggestion. ‘Why not try the large one? I have often observed that a door unlocks much more nicely with its own key.’
The very first trial of the large key proved a success: the Gardener opened the door, and held out his hand for the money.
The Professor shook his head. ‘You are acting by Rule,’ he explained, ‘in opening the door for me. And now it’s open, we are going out by Rule—the Rule of Three.’
The Gardener looked puzzled, and let us go out; but, as he locked the door behind us, we heard him singing thoughtfully to himself
‘He thought he saw a Garden-Door
That opened with a key:
He looked again, and found it was
A Double Rule of Three:
“And all its mystery,” he said,
“Is clear as day to me!”’ [•]
‘I shall now return,’ said the Professor, when we had walked a few yards: ‘you see, it’s impossible to read here, for all my books are in the house.’
But the children still kept fast hold of his hands. ‘Do come with us!’ Sylvie entreated with tears in her eyes.
‘Well, well!’ said the good-natured old man. ‘Perhaps I’ll come after you, some day soon. But I must go back now. You see I left off at a comma, and it’s so awkward not knowing how the sentence finishes! Besides, you’ve got to go through Dogland first, and I’m always a little nervous about dogs. But it’ll be quite easy to come, as soon as I’ve completed my new invention—for carrying one’s-self, you know. It wants just a little more working out.’
‘Wo’n’t that be very tiring, to carry yourself?’ Sylvie enquired.
‘Well, no, my child. You see, whatever fatigue one incurs by carrying, one saves by being carried! Good-bye, dears! Good-bye, Sir!’ he added to my intense surprise, giving my hand an affectionate squeeze.
‘Good-bye, Professor!’ I replied, but my voice sounded strange and far away, and the children took not the slightest notice of our farewell. Evidently they neither saw me nor heard me, as, with their arms lovingly twined round each other, they marched boldly on.
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
‘Whatever, Lord, we tend to Thee,
Repaid a thousandfold shall be,
Then gladly will we give to Thee,
Giver of all!’ [•]
‘Yes,’ he said grimly: ‘that is the typical stanza. And the very last charity-sermon I heard was infected with it. After giving many good reasons for charity, the preacher wound up with “and, for all you give, you will be repaid a thousandfold!” Oh the utter meanness of such a motive, to be put before men who do know what self-sacrifice is, who can appreciate generosity and heroism! Talk of Original Sin!’ he went on with increasing bitterness. ‘Can you have a stronger proof of the Original Goodness there must be in this nation, than the fact that Religion has been preached to us, as a commercial speculation, for a century, and that we still believe in a God?’ [•]
‘It couldn’t have gone on so long,’ Lady Muriel musingly remarked, ‘if the Opposition hadn’t been practically silenced—put under what the French call la clôture. Surely in any lecture-hall, or in private society, such teaching would soon have been hooted down?’
‘I trust so,’ said Arthur: ‘and, though I don’t want to see “brawling in church” legalised, I must say that our preachers enjoy an enormous privilege—which they ill deserve, and which they misuse terribly. We put our man into a pulpit, and we virtually tell him “Now, you may stand there and talk to us for half-an-hour. We wo’n’t interrupt you by so much as a word! You shall have it all your own way!” And what does he give us in return? Shallow twaddle, that, if it were addressed to you over a dinner-table, you would think “Does the man take me for a fool?”’
The return of Eric from his walk checked the tide of Arthur’s eloquence, and, after a few minutes’ talk on more conventional topics, we took our leave. Lady Muriel walked with us to the gate. ‘You have given me much to think about,’ she said earnestly, as she gave Arthur her hand. ‘I’m so glad you came in!’ And her words brought a real glow of pleasure into that pale worn face of his.
On the Tuesday, as Arthur did not seem equal to more walking, I took a long stroll by myself, having stipulated that he was not to give the whole day to his books, but was to meet me at the Hall at about tea-time. On my way back, I passed the Station just as the afternoon-train came in sight, and sauntered down the stairs to see it come in. But there was little to gratify my idle curiosity: and, when the train was empty, and the platform clear, I found it was about time to be moving on, if I meant to reach the Hall by five.
As I approached the end of the platform, from which a steep irregular wooden staircase conducted to the upper world, I noticed two passengers, who had evidently arrived by the train, but who, oddly enough, had entirely escaped my notice, though the arrivals had been so few. They were a young woman and a little girl: the former, so far as one could judge by appearances, was a nursemaid, or possibly a nursery-governess, in attendance on the child, whose refined face, even more than her dress, distinguished her as of a higher class than her companion.
The child’s face was refined, but it was also a worn and sad one, and told a tale (or so I seemed to read it) of much illness and suffering, sweetly and patiently borne. She had a little crutch to help herself along with: and she was now standing, looking wistfully up the long staircase, and apparently waiting till she could muster courage to begin the toilsome ascent.
There are some things one says in life—as well as things one does—which come automatically, by reflex action, as the physiologists say (meaning, no doubt, action without reflection, just as lucus is said to be derived ‘a non lucendo’). Closing one’s eyelids, when something seems to be flying into the eye, is one of those actions, and saying ‘May I carry the little girl up the stairs?’ was another. It wasn’t that any thought of offering help occurred to me, and that then I spoke: the first intimation I had, of being likely to make that offer, was the sound of my own voice, and the discovery that the offer had been made. The servant paused, doubtfully glancing from her charge to me, and then back again to the child. ‘Would you like it, dear?’ she asked her. But no such doubt appeared to cross the child’s mind: she lifted her arms eagerly to be taken up. ‘Please!’ was all she said, while a faint smile flickered on the weary little face. I took her up with scrupulous care, and her little arm was at once clasped trustfully round my neck.
She was a very light weight—so light, in fact, that the ridiculous idea crossed my mind that it was rather easier going up, with her in my arms, than it would have been without her: and, when we reached the road above, with its cart-ruts and loose stones—all formidable obstacles for a lame child—I found that I had said ‘I’d better carry her over this rough place,’ before I had formed any mental connection between its roughness and my gentle little burden. ‘Indeed it’s troubling you too much, Sir!’ the maid exclaimed. ‘She can walk very well on the flat.’ But the arm, that was twined about my neck, clung just an atom more closely at the suggestion, and decided me to say ‘She’s no weight, really. I’ll carry her a little further. I’m going your way.’
The nurse raised no further objection: and the next speaker was a ragged little boy, with bare feet, and a broom over his shoulder, who ran across the road, and pretended to sweep the perfectly dry road in front of us. ‘Give us a ’ap’ny!’ the little urchin pleaded, with a broad grin on his dirty face.
‘Don’t give him a ’ap’ny!’ said the little lady in my arms. The words sounded harsh: but the tone was gentleness itself. ‘He’s an idle little boy!’ And she laughed a laugh of such silvery sweetness as I had never yet heard from any lips but Sylvie’s. To my astonishment, the boy actually joined in the laugh, as if there were some subtle sympathy between them, as he ran away down the road and vanished through a gap in the hedge.
But he was back in a few moments, having discarded his broom and provided himself, from some mysterious source, with an exquisite bouquet of flowers. ‘Buy a posy, buy a posy! Only a ’ap’ny!’ he chanted, with the melancholy drawl of a professional beggar.
‘Don’t buy it!’ was Her Majesty’s edict as she looked down, with a lofty scorn that seemed curiously mixed with tender interest, on the ragged creature at her feet.
But this time I turned rebel, and ignored the royal commands. Such lovely flowers, and of forms so entirely new to me, were not to be abandoned at the bidding of any little maid, however imperious. I bought the bouquet: and the little boy, after popping the halfpenny into his mouth, turned head-over-heels, as if to ascertain whether the human mouth is really adapted to serve as a money-box.
With wonder, that increased every moment, I turned over the flowers, and examined them one by one: there was not a single one among them that I could remember having ever seen before. At last I turned to the nursemaid. ‘Do these flowers grow wild about here? I never saw—’ but the speech died away on my lips. The nursemaid had vanished!
‘You can put me down, now, if you like,’ Sylvie quietly remarked.
I obeyed in silence, and could only ask myself ‘Is this a dream?’ on finding Sylvie and Bruno walking one on either side of me, and clinging to my hands with the ready confidence of childhood.
‘You’re larger than when I saw you last!’ I began. ‘Really I think we ought to be introduced again! There’s so much of you that I never met before, you know.’
‘Very well!’ Sylvie merrily replied. ‘This is Bruno. It doesn’t take long. He’s only got one name!’
‘There’s another name to me!’ Bruno protested, with a reproachful look at the Mistress of the Ceremonies. ‘And it’s—“Esquire”!’
‘Oh, of course. I forgot,’ said Sylvie. ‘Bruno—Esquire!’
‘And did you come here to meet me, my children?’ I enquired.
‘You know I said we’d come on Tuesday,’ Sylvie explained. ‘Are we the proper size for common children?’
‘Quite the right size for children,’ I replied, (adding mentally ‘though not common children, by any means!’) ‘But what became of the nursemaid?’
‘It are gone!’ Bruno solemnly replied.
‘Then it wasn’t solid, like Sylvie and you?’
‘No. Oo couldn’t touch it, oo know. If oo walked at it, oo’d go right froo!’
‘I quite expected you’d find it out, once,’ said Sylvie. ‘Bruno ran it against a telegraph post, by accident. And it went in two halves. But you were looking the other way.’
I felt that I had indeed missed an opportunity: to witness such an event as a nursemaid going ‘in two halves’ does not occur twice in a life-time!
‘When did oo guess it were Sylvie?’ Bruno enquired.
‘I didn’t guess it, till it was Sylvie,’ I said. ‘But how did you manage the nursemaid?’
‘Bruno managed it,’ said Sylvie. ‘It’s called a Phlizz.’
‘And how do you make a Phlizz, Bruno?’
‘The Professor teached me how,’ said Bruno. ‘First oo takes a lot of air—’
‘Oh, Bruno!’ Sylvie interposed. ‘The Professor said you weren’t to tell!’
‘But who did her voice?’ I asked.
‘Indeed it’s troubling you too much, Sir! She can walk very well on the flat.’
Bruno laughed merrily as I turned hastily from side to side, looking in all directions for the speaker. ‘That were me!’ he gleefully proclaimed, in his own voice.
‘She can indeed walk very well on the flat,’ I said. ‘And I think I was the Flat.’
By this time we were near the Hall. ‘This is where my friends live,’ I said. ‘Will you come in and have some tea with them?’
Bruno gave a little jump of joy: and Sylvie said ‘Yes, please. You’d like some tea, Bruno, wouldn’t you? He hasn’t tasted tea,’ she explained to me, ‘since we left Outland.’
‘And that weren’t good tea!’ said Bruno. ‘It were so welly weak!’
‘It’s just a week,’ I said, three days later, to Arthur, ‘since we heard of Lady Muriel’s engagement. I think I ought to call, at any rate, and offer my congratulations. Wo’n’t you come with me?’
A pained expression passed over his face. ‘When must you leave us?’ he asked.
‘By the first train on Monday.’
‘Well—yes, I will come with you. It would seem strange and unfriendly if I didn’t. But this is only Friday. Give me till Sunday afternoon. I shall be stronger then.’
Shading his eyes with one hand, as if half-ashamed of the tears that were coursing down his cheeks, he held the other out to me. It trembled as I clasped it.
I tried to frame some words of sympathy; but they seemed poor and cold, and I left them unspoken. ‘Good night!’ was all I said.
‘Good night, dear friend!’ he replied. There was a manly vigour in his tone that convinced me he was wrestling with, and triumphing over, the great sorrow that had so nearly wrecked his life—and that, on the stepping-stone of his dead self, he would surely rise to higher things!
There was no chance, I was glad to think, as we set out on Sunday afternoon, of meeting Eric at the Hall, as he had returned to town the day after his engagement was announced. His presence might have disturbed the calm—the almost unnatural calm—with which Arthur met the woman who had won his heart, and murmured the few graceful words of sympathy that the occasion demanded.
Lady Muriel was perfectly radiant with happiness; sadness could not live in the light of such a smile: and even Arthur brightened under it, and, when she remarked ‘You see I’m watering my flowers, though it is the Sabbath-Day,’ his voice had almost its old ring of cheerfulness as he replied ‘Even on the Sabbath-Day works of mercy are allowed. But this isn’t the Sabbath-Day. The Sabbath-day has ceased to exist.’
‘I know it’s not Saturday,’ Lady Muriel replied; ‘but isn’t Sunday often called “the Christian Sabbath”?’
‘It is so called, I think, in recognition of the spirit of the Jewish institution, that one day in seven should be a day of rest. But I hold that Christians are freed from the literal observance of the Fourth Commandment.’
‘Then where is our authority for Sunday observance?’
‘We have, first, the fact that the seventh day was “sanctified”, when God rested from the work of Creation. That is binding on us as Theists. Secondly, we have the fact that “the Lord’s Day” is a Christian institution. That is binding on us as Christians.’
‘And your practical rules would be—?’
‘First, as Theists, to keep it holy in some special way, and to make it, so far as is reasonably possible, a day of rest. Secondly, as Christians, to attend public worship.’
‘And what of amusements?’
‘I would say of them, as of all kinds of work, whatever is innocent on a week-day, is innocent on Sunday, provided it does not interfere with the duties of the day.’
‘Then you would allow children to play on Sunday?’
‘Certainly I should. Why make the day irksome to their restless natures?’
‘I have a letter somewhere,’ said Lady Muriel, ‘from an old friend, describing the way in which Sunday was kept in her younger days. I will fetch it for you.’
‘I had a similar description, viva voce, years ago,’ Arthur said when she had left us, ‘from a little girl. It was really touching to hear the melancholy tone in which she said “On Sunday I mustn’t play with my doll! On Sunday I mustn’t run on the sands! On Sunday I mustn’t dig in the garden!” Poor child! She had indeed abundant cause for hating Sunday!’ [•]
‘Here is the letter,’ said Lady Muriel, returning. ‘Let me read you a piece of it.’
‘When, as a child, I first opened my eyes on a Sunday-morning, a feeling of dismal anticipation, which began at least on the Friday, culminated. I knew what was before me, and my wish, if not my word, was “Would God it were evening!” It was no day of rest, but a day of texts, of catechisms (Watts’), of tracts about converted swearers, godly charwomen, and edifying deaths of sinners saved.
‘Up with the lark, hymns and portions of Scripture had to be learned by heart till 8 o’clock, when there were family-prayers, then breakfast, which I was never able to enjoy, partly from the fast already undergone, and partly from the outlook I dreaded.
‘At 9 came Sunday-School; and it made me indignant to be put into the class with the village-children, as well as alarmed lest, by some mistake of mine, I should be put below them.
‘The Church-Service was a veritable Wilderness of Zin. I wandered in it, pitching the tabernacle of my thoughts on the lining of the square family-pew, the fidgets of my small brothers, and the horror of knowing that, on the Monday, I should have to write out, from memory, jottings of the rambling disconnected extempore sermon, which might have had any text but its own, and to stand or fall by the result.
‘This was followed by a cold dinner at 1 (servants to have no work), Sunday-School again from 2 to 4, and Evening-Service at 6. The intervals were perhaps the greatest trial of all, from the efforts I had to make, to be less than usually sinful, by reading books and sermons as barren as the Dead Sea. There was but one rosy spot, in the distance, all that day; and that was “bed-time,” which never could come too early!’ [•]
‘Such teaching was well meant, no doubt,’ said Arthur; ‘but it must have driven many of its victims into deserting the Church-Services altogether.’
‘I’m afraid I was a deserter this morning,’ she gravely said. ‘I had to write to Eric. Would you—would you mind my telling you something he said about prayer? It had never struck me in that light before.’
‘In what light?’ said Arthur.
‘Why, that all Nature goes by fixed, regular laws—Science has proved that. So that asking God to do anything (except of course praying for spiritual blessings) is to expect a miracle: and we’ve no right to do that. I’ve not put it as well as he did: but that was the outcome of it, and it has confused me. Please tell me what you can say in answer to it.’
‘I don’t propose to discuss Captain Lindon’s difficulties,’ Arthur gravely replied; ‘specially as he is not present. But, if it is your difficulty,’ (his voice unconsciously took a tenderer tone) ‘then I will speak.’
‘It is my difficulty,’ she said anxiously.
‘Then I will begin by asking “Why did you except spiritual blessings?” Is not your mind a part of Nature?’
‘Yes, but Free-Will comes in there—I can choose this or that; and God can influence my choice.’
‘Then you are not a Fatalist?’
‘Oh, no!’ she earnestly exclaimed.
‘Thank God!’ Arthur said to himself, but in so low a whisper that only I heard it. ‘You grant then that I can, by an act of free choice, move this cup,’ suiting the action to the word, ‘this way or that way?’
‘Yes, I grant it.’
‘Well, let us see how far the result is produced by fixed laws. The cup moves because certain mechanical forces are impressed on it by my hand. My handbrain