The Passion for Life
by Joseph Hocking · English · Gutenberg #40102 · 612,223 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: The Passion for Life
Author: Joseph Hocking
Release date: June 28, 2012 [eBook #40102]
Most recently updated: October 23, 2024
Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PASSION FOR LIFE ***
The Passion for Life
By JOSEPH HOCKING
_Author of "A Flame of Fire," "The Chariots of the Lord," "All for a
Scrap of Paper," "Dearer Than Life," etc._
NEW YORK CHICAGO
Fleming H. Revell Company
LONDON AND EDINBURGH
[Illustration: "Yes. I have an intense desire to live.... A passion for
life."]
Contents
I. THE DOCTOR'S SENTENCE 7
II. MY NEW HOME 18
III. THE CHURCHES' ANSWER 28
IV. THREE VISITORS 46
V. AN EMERGING MYSTERY 59
VI. THE LETHBRIDGE FAMILY 65
VII. ISABELLA LETHBRIDGE 81
VIII. MYSTERY 95
IX. AT THE VICARAGE 105
X. WIRELESS TELEGRAPHY 118
XI. MARY TRELEAVEN 131
XII. FIRST DAYS OF THE WAR 142
XIII. FATHER AND SON 156
XIV. THE RECRUITING MEETING 166
XV. HOW THE CHANGE BEGAN 179
XVI. NEWS FROM HUGH 192
XVII. THE PHANTOM BOATS 203
XVIII. FATHER ABRAHAM 213
XIX. GOD ANSWERED OUT OF THE WHIRLWIND 224
XX. THE VICAR'S SERMON 240
XXI. MISSING--DEAD 252
XXII. A DISCOVERY 263
XXIII. A CLUE TO THE MYSTERY 276
XXIV. PREPARATION 287
XXV. PREMONITIONS 299
XXVI. MIDNIGHT 308
XXVII. VISION 323
XXVIII. THE NEW LIFE 331
XXIX. CHRISTMAS, 1915 344
I
THE DOCTOR'S SENTENCE
I am in a restless mood to-night. There seems nothing to explain this,
except that perhaps I am growing tired of the life I am leading, or it
may be that there are influences at work of which I have no cognizance,
but which affect my nerves. As I look out of my window I can see
storm-clouds driven across the wild sky, while distant lights on the
heaving sea are suggestive of mystery. The wind howls around my little
wooden tenement, while above the roaring of the waves I can hear the
dismal screech of the sea-birds, which, for some reason or other, have
left their rocky resting-places. I do not know why it is, but the cry of
the sea-birds is always suggestive of the wail of lost souls as they fly
through the infinite spaces.
I did not mean to begin this way at all, for I want, as far as I can, to
put all sad thoughts behind me.
Let me begin again then, and, if possible, strike a more cheerful note.
I want something to interest me, and it has struck me that if during
these long, dark evenings when I have to be alone I can place on record
some of the events which have taken place since I have drifted to this
part of the country, I shall be able not only to forget the shadow which
hangs over my life, but to see streaks of blue sky amidst the
storm-clouds, and to catch the bright rays of the sun which are
constantly shining, even although the world says that we are living in a
dark time.
But I am writing this also because, as it seems to me, the happenings of
the last few months are of sufficient importance to record. Even
although I were sure no one would read what I am going to write, I
should still go on writing. Some one has said, I do not know who, that
the life of a village is the life of a nation in miniature; and even
although that may contain only a suggestion of the truth, certain am I
that if I can faithfully record the events which have taken place in the
little village of St. Issey, I shall have written something of the
history of the great world outside.
Now that I have started writing, however, I immediately realize that, if
I am to make my narrative comprehensible, I shall have to give some kind
of personal explanation. Who am I, where am I, and why am I here? I
promised just now that I would, as far as possible, avoid the sad things
of life and dwell on the sunshine rather than on the shadow. But why
should I? Life is made up of sunshine and shadow, and no one can give a
faithful account of life without dwelling on both. Besides, what are the
things we call sorrow and joy but contrasts? And life without contrasts
would be unbearable. I will tell my story just as it is, then: its light
and its shade; its hope and its despair.
* * * * *
"Simpson," I said to my one servant and factotum, who has been with me
for several years, and whom I regard more in the light of a friend and
counsellor than as a paid hireling, "the doctor tells me that I have at
most a year to live."
I was sitting in my chambers in London as I mentioned this interesting
piece of information. Simpson had just placed my coffee and bacon before
me. He stopped suddenly as I spoke, as though the news had startled him.
Then he went on with his work.
"I beg your pardon, sir."
I repeated the information.
"The doctor tells me I have at most a year to live. I may not last so
long. Possibly a month will see the end of me."
I thought Simpson's hand trembled, but he repeated the formula which had
almost become second nature to him:
"Yes, sir; thank you, sir," he said.
"I have been thinking, Simpson," I went on, "that as I have but such a
short time before me in this world I may as well spend it comfortably
and in a congenial place; indeed, the doctor insists that I should."
"Yes, sir; thank you, sir. Is there anything more you want, sir?"
"Simpson," I said, "you don't appear to believe I am serious. I am
simply telling you what Dr. Rhomboid told me last night. By the way, how
did he ever get the name of Rhomboid? A rhomboid has something to do
with mathematics, hasn't it?"
To this Simpson made no reply.
"How long did you say, sir, that the doctor gave you?" he asked
presently.
He seemed by this time to have quite recovered himself.
"He is of opinion that a year at the outside will see the end of me,"
was my reply, "but it may be that I shall only last a month or two.
There is something wrong with my inside. He gave it some sort of a name,
but I won't try to repeat it. I might pronounce it wrongly. But why do
you ask?"
"Well, sir, you have got an important case on, and I heard that it would
last a long time. It would be a pity if you didn't live to see the end
of it."
"I shall have to drop the case, Simpson," I said.
"What, Mr. Francis, drop the case? That would be a terrible pity, and
you having had to wait so long for cases, too."
"You seem more interested in the case than in the tenure of my
existence, Simpson," was my response.
"Yes, sir; thank you, sir," replied Simpson, after hesitating some
seconds.
"How long have you been with me, Simpson?" I asked.
"Ever since you went to Oxford, sir--eleven years ago last October."
"That is a long time, Simpson."
"Yes, Mr. Francis. Your father--that is, Mr. Erskine--made me promise
that I would stick to you. That was before he died, sir."
I may here remark that my father, John Erskine, died just as I left
Winchester. He did not make any fuss about dying. He simply called me to
his side and said, "Frank, I have sent you to a good school, and you
have done very well. I have left you enough money to go to Oxford, where
I want you to take a good law degree. After that, I want you to read for
the Bar, and, if possible, rise to be Lord Chancellor. There will not be
very much money left when you finish at Oxford--something over a
thousand pounds, I believe; but that should last you until your briefs
begin to come in. Simpson, our old servant, will go with you. I think
that is all, my boy."
The next day my father died, and I, as arranged, took Simpson to Oxford
with me. Simpson is not very handsome, but he is a very valuable friend,
and in his way has glimmerings of sense.
I toyed with my breakfast, for although I spoke calmly enough about it,
I was not altogether pleased at the idea of dying so soon. After all, I
was only just thirty, and, as Simpson had said, the briefs had only just
begun to come in.
"I beg your pardon, Mr. Francis, but will you be leaving London soon?"
"I have decided to leave at once," I replied, "but the question with me
is, Where shall I go? I have been thinking a good deal about it during
the night, and I cannot decide. Where would you suggest?"
"Well, Mr. Francis," replied Simpson, "if you will forgive me for making
a suggestion, sir, I should say that, as yours is a Cornish family,
Cornwall would be a suitable place to----"
Here he stopped, and seemed in a difficulty as to how he should conclude
the sentence.
"That is, sir," he went on, "would it not be appropriate?"
"Exactly," was my answer. "Cornwall it shall be, then; but I don't know
Cornwall, although, as you say, I am of Cornish stock. You are also
Cornish, Simpson?"
"Yes, sir; thank you, sir."
"I have been looking through my accounts," I went on, "and I find that
by economy I can manage to pay my way for about a year. That fits in
exactly, as you see; but I am afraid it won't include you, Simpson. You
have rather a good appetite."
"My appetite can depend very much on the state of your funds, Mr.
Francis," he replied.
"That means you are inclined to go with me?"
"Certainly, sir; I could not think of leaving you alone."
I confess that I was somewhat relieved at this, because, although I
determined to put a brave face upon everything, the thought of spending
my last days alone was not pleasant.
"That is awfully good of you, Simpson," I remarked, "but if you come
with me, although, as you say, your appetite can be regulated, we shall
have to be careful. I like your idea of going to Cornwall, but I don't
know what part of the Delectable Duchy to go to. The doctor suggests
that, in order to extend my existence as long as possible, I ought to go
to some spot where the air is warm, yet bracing; that I must have no
excitement, but at the same time must have interesting and pleasant
companionship; that, while I ought to be out of the world, I must at the
same time be in it. This fellow with a mathematical name seems to be
intensely unreasonable."
"Excuse me, sir, but could you give me a short holiday?" asked Simpson.
"For how long?"
"Say four days, sir. I will arrange for you to be well cared for while I
am gone, sir."
I didn't ask Simpson why he wished to go away, or where he was going. I
am afraid at that moment I hadn't sufficient interest to inquire. Of
course, I gave my consent, and that same day Simpson packed up his bag
and left me. Here was I, then, Francis Erskine, aged thirty,
barrister-at-law, member of the Inner Temple, who, a week before, had
good prospects, alone, with my death-warrant signed. I hadn't felt very
well for some time, but had paid no heed to my ailments. For the past
twelve months I had been, for a young barrister, very busy. It so
happened that I had been engaged upon a case which appeared hopeless.
All my brothers at the Bar declared that my client had not the ghost of
a chance, and then, by what people called a stroke of genius on my part,
but which was really a pure fluke, I carried off the thing triumphantly.
From that time briefs came in fairly rapidly, and I was more than once
referred to as a rising young man of brilliant parts. Then came the
doctor's verdict, and there was an end to everything.
What I did during Simpson's absence I cannot remember. I tried to take a
philosophical view of the situation, and although the disease from which
I suffered was, the doctor declared, past all cure, and had made great
ravages upon my constitution, I went about as usual. After all, what was
the use of bothering about death?
At the end of four days Simpson came back. I thought he appeared
somewhat excited, but his manner was quiet and respectful as usual.
"Enjoyed your holiday, Simpson?" I asked.
"Yes, sir; thank you, sir. When will you be ready to start, sir?"
"My tenancy of these chambers expires in three days, Simpson."
"I hope Mrs. Blandy looked after you all right while I was away, sir?"
"I really don't remember," was my reply. "I dare say."
"Could you start to-morrow morning, sir? I can get everything ready by
that time."
"Where are we going, Simpson?" I asked.
He looked at me as if in surprise.
"To Cornwall, sir."
"You have made arrangements for me, then?"
"Yes, sir; thank you, sir."
I did not ask him any further questions. I did not think it worth while.
After all, when one came to reflect, nothing was worth while. If Simpson
had suggested the Highlands of Scotland or the Flats of Essex, I should
have made no demur. On the whole, however, I was pleased that we were
going to Cornwall. Both my father and mother were Cornish people, and
although I had never visited the country, it seemed less disagreeable to
me to go there and spend my few remaining days than to any other place.
I knew that Cornwall was a narrow strip of land at the extreme west of
the country, and I had heard vague reports about the fine coast-line and
beautiful air, but, beyond that, very little.
"Perhaps, sir," said Simpson, "we had better put off our journey until
the day after to-morrow."
"Why?" I asked.
"You will want to say good-bye to your friends, won't you, sir?"
"I think I have a remembrance of doing that, Simpson," I replied.
"You have a lot of friends here, haven't you? Excuse me for asking,
sir."
"I have a lot of acquaintances, Simpson," I replied, "but only two
friends--Bill Tremain and Tom Esmond. The rest don't count. I should not
be surprised if they came to see me when I am in Cornwall--that is, if
their wives will allow them. Have you ever reflected, Simpson, that
marriage is a tremendous hindrance to friendship? Wives always make it
difficult."
"Excuse me, sir, but what a pity it is you have not got a wife."
"I have never regarded the matter in that light, Simpson. Why do you say
so?"
"Women always save a man from brooding. They never give him a chance of
being quiet, sir," and Simpson shook his head impressively.
"You speak as one having authority. Have you ever been married?"
"Yes, sir," replied Simpson.
"I didn't know that. Why have you never told me? How long were you
married?"
"Two years, sir. I never talk about those two years, but I shall never
forget them."
I asked Simpson several questions, but his replies did not contain much
information.
"You don't seem to be very communicative with regard to your married
life."
"There's nothing to say, sir, besides what I told you. Women save a man
from brooding. You see, sir, they don't give him time to brood. I have
never noticed that you have paid much attention to young ladies."
"Not very much," I replied. "I don't seem to have had time. I have
always been too busy with my work."
"If you had married, sir--at least, if you had married the woman I
did--you would never have had any time for your work."
Next morning I found that all my bags were packed, while a taxi stood at
the door. I made no inquiries as to Simpson's intentions or plans. When
he went to the booking-office at Paddington I did not even ask him the
name of the station for which he was booking. I remember entering a
first-class carriage, where Simpson made me as comfortable as possible,
after which I saw him talking to the guard, and heard him tell that
worthy official that I must not be disturbed if it could possibly be
helped.
Of my journey to Cornwall I remember practically nothing. I think I
slept a great part of the distance. Towards evening we stopped at a
little wayside station, where Simpson appeared and told me I was to
alight.
"Have we come to our journey's end?" I asked.
"To the end of the railway journey," was his reply.
"I seem to smell the sea, Simpson," I said.
"Yes, sir, we are close to the sea."
He led the way to the station-yard, where a carriage stood, evidently
waiting for me. This I entered, while Simpson, after attending to the
luggage, and expressing the hope that he was not inconveniencing me,
took his seat by my side. Once in the carriage I began to take more
interest in my surroundings. I saw that we were in a beautifully wooded
country, while away in the distance rose giant hills and rocky tors. I
heard the roll of the waves, too, while the air was like some
life-giving elixir. Presently we entered a village, which nestled among
the trees.
"Simpson," I asked, "what is the name of this village?"
"This is St. Issey, sir."
"It is a very pretty place."
"Yes, sir; thank you, sir."
I saw a number of cottages, built in higgledy-piggledy fashion, each
surrounded by its own garden. I saw the villagers standing gossiping
with each other, heard the laughter of little children as they played in
the lane, smelt the sweetness and purity of the air. After all, it was
good to live.
"Is there no hotel here?" I asked.
"No, sir; no hotel, sir."
I did not ask him where we were going, or how I was to be accommodated.
After all, it was not worth while. One place was as good as another. We
passed some lodge gates, which evidently appertained to a big house, and
I noted the great granite pillars and the heavy palisading.
"The Squire of the parish lives there, I suppose?"
"Yes, sir, Squire Treherne. That, sir," pointing to a
comfortable-looking house which stood back from the road, "is the
Vicarage. Mr. Trelaske lives there. And that, sir, is the Wesleyan
Chapel. I am of the Wesleyan persuasion myself--at least, I was when I
was a boy."
"That is a long time ago, Simpson."
"I am fifty-five, sir, but it doesn't seem long since I was a boy--that
is, except for those two years when I was married; those seem very
long."
Simpson's face looked so comical that I could not help laughing. It was
the first time I had laughed since my interview with the doctor.
We passed by a great square tower and a low, many-gabled church, with
the churchyard around it. I turned my eyes away. The place was not
pleasant to me. Presently we began to descend a steep hill, and the
sound of the waves rolling upon a hard and sandy beach became more and
more clear. The carriage entered a narrow lane, which ended in a kind of
copse close to a rugged cliff. A little later I saw, built within a few
feet from the edge of the cliff, a wooden house. At the back of it a
steep and almost precipitous piece of country, covered with brushwood,
rose skyward. In front was the Atlantic. The house was in a bay looking
towards the sea. The cliffs on the right side were not very high, but on
the left they rose up almost perpendicular, rugged and imposing. I
noticed that the rocks of which the cliffs were composed were in one
place discolored, and I pointed it out.
"Yes, sir," replied Simpson. "When I was a boy there was a copper-mine
here. There's a level under the hill now--at least, I believe so, sir.
This is the house I have settled on, sir."
I alighted from the carriage and looked more closely at what was to be
my future dwelling. As I have said, it was a wooden erection, and was
evidently built with some care. All along the front was a veranda, the
floor of which was roughly paved with granite slabs. The few yards of
land between the veranda and the edge of the cliff had been cultivated,
and flowers grew in wild profusion. At the back of the house many kinds
of wild flowers bloomed. In the near distance, on the top of the cliffs,
the land was covered with furze bushes and heather. I stood and took a
deep breath and listened while the waves rolled on the golden sand
hundreds of feet down.
"Won't you come into the house, sir?" asked Simpson. "I have paid the
driver, and there is a man coming along with the luggage in a cart."
"Not yet," I replied. "I want to take my fill of this. This is
wonderful--simply wonderful. I want to live."
Simpson stood watching me. I thought I saw his lips tremble.
II
MY NEW HOME
I liked the house the moment I entered it. It was snug, cozy, and warm.
It had the feeling of home, too, and felt so quiet and restful that I
threw myself into an armchair with a sigh of relief.
"You spent your holiday in getting this, I suppose, Simpson?"
"Yes, sir; thank you, sir. I hope you like it, sir. It is not altogether
what I would like, sir, but directly I saw it I thought it would suit
you."
"To whom does it belong, Simpson?"
"Well, sir, I would rather not tell you, if you don't mind. You may rest
assured that I got it on favorable terms, and everything is in order."
"But I do mind," I said, for by this time I had quite an interest in my
surroundings. For days nothing had seemed to matter, but now I was quite
eager to know how Simpson had happened upon this quaint yet comfortable
place.
"You are sure you wish me to tell you, sir?" and Simpson looked at me
almost beseechingly.
"I insist on it," I replied.
"Well, sir, I am afraid it was built by a kind of madman who came down
to St. Issey about six years ago. Who he was I don't know. No one seems
to know. But he took a lease of this piece of ground from the Squire and
built the house with his own hands."
"He must have been a carpenter," I suggested. "It seems very well built.
But what has become of him?"
"He is dead, sir."
"Was he old or young?"
"Quite an old man, I think, sir. Anyhow, he built it himself and would
have no one near him. After it was built he lived here alone for several
years, speaking to no one but the village idiot, who went by the name of
Fever Lurgy, who bought all his food and did all his errands. No woman
was allowed near the place, sir."
"Then he cooked his own food and did his own house-work?" I asked.
"It would appear so, sir. He seems to have made himself very
comfortable, too. As you see, the furniture is not at all bad, and
nearly everything is just as he left it."
I must confess to being interested. The thought of a man coming to this
place and building a house for himself and living there without
companionship of any sort appealed to me. I wondered how he spent his
days and nights.
"Let me have a look around the place," I said, rising from the chair. "I
want to see what rooms it contains."
"Yes, sir; thank you, sir," was Simpson's reply.
The room in which I had been sitting was about fifteen feet square--it
might be a little more--and looked out upon the veranda, beyond which
stretched the great Atlantic. It was comfortably furnished, and
possessed an old-fashioned fireplace, evidently intended for logs of
wood, and revealed the fact that the builder was not only ingenious in
the matter of house-building, but that he possessed a good deal of
taste. The whole apartment was carefully match-boarded, and was, as I
said, snug and comfortable.
"This, sir, is the bedroom," said Simpson, opening the door at the end
of the living apartment.
It was much smaller than the other, but quite big enough for a single
bed, together with the simple necessities of a man living alone.
"And did he die here?" I asked.
"Yes, sir; no, sir--that is--I don't know, sir."
"What do you mean, Simpson?"
"Well, sir, that is why I didn't want to tell you about him; but there
are all sorts of stories afloat. You don't mind, do you, sir?"
"Not a bit," I replied. "Whatever my ailments are, nerves don't trouble
me."
"Well, sir," went on Simpson, "the fact that he lived here all alone
caused people to talk about him--especially the women. You know what
women are, sir, and people used to come and look from the hill above and
see what he was doing. One day two women were bold enough to come close
to the place, and they knocked at the door. There was no answer, sir.
They knocked again and again and made a great noise. Still there was no
answer. Then they rushed away to St. Issey and gave it as their opinion
that something had happened to him. They hadn't been back in the village
more than half an hour when Fever Lurgy came, pale as a ghost, and
trembling like a leaf. He had gone to inquire whether he was needed for
errands, and, on being unable to make any one hear, had burst open the
door. In this bedroom he found evidences of a great struggle. He found
blood, too, but the man was nowhere to be seen."
"That's interesting," I said. "What was the name by which this old
fellow was known?"
"Fever Lurgy called him Father Abraham," was Simpson's reply.
"Well, go on," I urged.
"There's nothing more to tell you, sir. From that day he has never been
seen. People believe, however, he was murdered here; that some tramps
came and found him alone, stole his money, killed him, and threw his
body over the cliff."
"And how long was this ago?"
"About four months, sir."
"And since that time no one has lived here?"
"No, sir, no one. Most people have been afraid to come near the place.
That is why none of the things have been touched; besides, the Squire,
as soon as he discovered what had taken place, told his men to keep an
eye on it."
"And so you thought, Simpson," I said, "that this was the sort of place
I would like to come to and end my days?"
"Well, Mr. Francis," was Simpson's response, "for one thing you told me
you wanted a place that was cheap, that you wanted a place that was out
of the world and yet in the world, and I immediately thought of St.
Issey. When I came down here, however, I found that any lodgings you
might like would be rather dear, and then, hearing of this place, I
determined to come and see it."
Here Simpson stopped.
"That's not quite answering my question, Simpson," I remarked.
"Well, sir, I have not lived with you going on for twelve years without
knowing something of the kind of gentleman you are. I have never known
you trouble once, sir, about ghosts or anything of that sort, while your
nerves have always been as steady as old time. Besides, I was able to
get it dirt cheap, sir--in fact, the Squire's steward was glad to have
it tenanted at any price. The place is very pretty, too, sir. There is
not a finer view along the coast of Cornwall, and that is saying a great
deal. It is out of the world, and it is only half a mile from the
village. Still, sir, if you don't like it, we can easily leave. Over at
St. Eia there's a nice cheap hotel where----"
"Hang the hotel," I interposed. "I am going to stay here."
"I think I ought to tell you, sir," went on Simpson imperturbably, "that
people say they have heard curious noises around here of a night, and it
is believed by many that the ghost of Father Abraham haunts the place."
Simpson looked so solemn as he said this that I laughed again. I don't
know why it was, but, in spite of his dreary story, my spirits rose
unaccountably.
"The ghost of Father Abraham doesn't trouble me a bit, Simpson," I said.
"This place suits me down to the ground. But this is not all? Surely
there must be a kitchen somewhere."
"Oh yes, sir. This way, sir," and Simpson spoke quite eagerly. Evidently
my approval of his choice removed a load from his mind.
Father Abraham had evidently determined to make himself comfortable, for
the kitchen, though small, seemed to have every requisite. As I entered
it, an old woman rose from her chair and curtsied in the old
time-honored way.
"This," said Simpson, "is Mrs. Martha Bray. I asked her to come in and
make everything spotlessly clean for you by the time you came."
"And Mrs. Martha Bray has obeyed orders," I remarked. "Everything is as
perfect as a new pin. But, Simpson," I continued, "where will you
sleep?"
"There's a little place here behind, sir, where I have made up a bed for
myself," replied Simpson. "It will be nice and handy for my work."
"Yes, sur, and plase, sur, I can come in an' help 'ee any time,"
remarked Martha Bray. "I do'ant live fur away, an' I can come 'cross the
fields in a few minutes."
"Excuse me, Martha," was Simpson's rejoinder, "but we shall need no one.
I can do all that is necessary for Mr. Francis."
"Oh, plase yerself," replied the old woman, "but it'll be ter'ble wisht
for 'ee doin' everything yerself without a woman to help 'ee. I do
always say that a man wethout a woman to do his chores for en es like
one side to a pair of scissors. I have got some tay ready, sur, and I
have toasted a piece of ham rasher. It's raal ham, too, not like the
stuff you buy in the shops. I do'ant hold with these new-fashioned
notions about feedin' pigs, and do always feed mine meself like my
mother and grandmother used to do before me. And you'll find, sur, that
tes deffrent from the ham you do buy in the shops. My b'lief, sur, es
that ef old Father Abram had had a woman to look after en, he wouldn't
be dead now."
Having delivered herself of this long speech, the old woman curtsied
once more, and prepared to take my meal into the little living-room.
"Excuse me, Martha, I will do that," said Simpson, "and there's no
reason why we should detain you any longer. Here are your wages, and
thank you for what you have done."
"All right," said Martha. "Ef you can do without me, I can do without
you. The tay is in the caddy up there. There's some bread in the
cupboard there, and the other things be in this drawer. Good-night, sur.
I will look over again to see whether there is anything I can do for
'ee."
I returned to the sitting-room, and sat while Simpson prepared my
evening meal.
"I want to wash, Simpson," I said, when he had nearly completed his
work. "Besides, it has struck me that there is no such thing as a
bathroom in the house. What are we going to do?"
"This way, sir," said Simpson, and I followed him out of the house
towards what I call the cliff end of the building. Here I found,
gurgling out of the hillside, a stream of the purest water I had ever
seen, which flowed into a pond.
The idea of outdoor ablutions appealed to me, and I almost forgot my
ailments as I bathed my hands and face in the pure spring water. A few
minutes later, I was eating the sweetest ham I had ever tasted.
"If this is the result of the old-fashioned way of feeding pigs," I
remarked to Simpson, "I shall make a closer acquaintance with Mrs.
Martha Bray, and shall buy all the hams she can dispose of."
The time was spring. To be exact, it was the 14th of May, and although
the evening air was somewhat chilly, the days had become long, and I
remembered standing a long time at the front of my little wooden hut,
looking at the giant cliffs at whose feet the waves of the broad
Atlantic rolled. When I had returned to the house, Simpson had lit a
lamp, while in the grate a wood fire burnt cheerfully.
"Do you think it will do, sir?" asked Simpson.
"Do!" I replied; "it's just perfect."
"Then, sir, if you don't mind, I will go to bed. I am a little tired,
sir. There's nothing more I can do for you, is there?"
"Nothing, thank you, Simpson. Good-night."
A few minutes later I judged, from the silence which prevailed in the
kitchen, that Simpson had retired, and that I was practically alone in
the little wooden hut.
I was still in utter ignorance of my whereabouts, beyond the fact that I
was somewhere in Cornwall on the edge of a cliff, and close to a little
village called St. Issey. Where St. Issey was situated I did not know.
Cornwall, I reflected, was a county nearly a hundred miles long, with
the main portion of it surrounded by the sea. I knew that I must be
somewhere in the vicinity of the main line of the Great Western Railway,
as I did not remember changing anywhere, but beyond that I had little or
no knowledge. Still, this did not trouble me. I reflected upon what
Simpson had told me concerning the cheapness of my place of residence,
and I had absolute trust in him concerning all arrangements for the
future.
The night was very quiet, I remember. Scarcely a breath of wind stirred,
although the air which came into my open window was pure and
exhilarating. The splash of the waves was still heard on the sandy
beach, although I judged the tide had receded somewhat. Now and then the
cry of a disturbed sea-bird reached me, but beyond that, nothing.
Somehow I could not make up my mind to turn in for the night. I had too
many things to think about, while my new surroundings drove away all
desire for sleep. I took one of the books I had brought with me from
London, and tried to read, but that was impossible. I could not scan a
dozen lines without my mind wandering from the printed pages. After all,
when one comes to think about it, my position was somewhat strange. It
is easy to talk about coming to a place to die; but when one has
actually heard the death sentence pronounced, and is told that, at the
most, he cannot live more than a year, it is not a pleasant experience,
and, in spite of all my endeavors, my thoughts were constantly reverting
to Dr. Rhomboid's verdict.
Presently I could bear my thoughts no longer, and, quietly opening the
door, I went out into the night. How still, how solemn it was! On my
left hand the great beetling, rugged cliffs rose, imposing and
awe-inspiring. Behind me, the hillside rose steep and high. In front was
the wide Atlantic. I could see the waves breaking into foam some little
distance from the shore. I could, in the pale light of the moon, see the
discolorment in one place in the rocks, which reminded me of the mine
which Simpson had told me was working there when he was a boy.
How long I stood there I do not know, but presently, in the silence of
the night, I heard a cry. It might be that of a sea-bird, although it
made me think of other things. A little later I heard what might be
described as a moan, although that does not truly convey the impression
it made upon me. In spite of myself, my mind reverted to the story which
Simpson had told me about the man who had built the house, and of his
supposed tragic end. Could it be, I wondered, that this man's spirit
visited the scene of his death, drawn there by some laws yet
undiscovered by the student of psychic phenomena?
I had no superstitious fears; indeed, I had no belief in a life beyond
this present existence. If ever I had believed in this, the belief had
died years before. In a vague kind of way I imagined that death was the
end of everything. Perhaps that was why the doctor's verdict was so grim
and forbidding.
I heard another cry, not loud, but quite distinct; and then I thought I
saw forms moving along at the base of the cliff some little distance
away, but the moon, which was on the wane, gave me insufficient light to
be certain. A cloud passed over the sky, and then I could see nothing.
"Surely I could not be mistaken," I said to myself, "yet who could be
crawling along at the base of the cliffs? No. It was all pure fancy."
As if in contradiction of my thoughts, however, I heard noises which
seemed to be directly under my feet. These noises seemed to continue for
three or four minutes, and then all was silence.
"Events have been too much for me," I reflected, "and in spite of all my
boasting about my nerves, they are playing me tricks."
I turned and looked at the little house, and I doubted whether, in spite
of all my brave words, I should be able to continue living there. To be
alone day after day and night after night, with no one to speak to me
and no one to care for me, save this unimaginative man, was, to say the
least of it, anything but exhilarating. Then I felt the gnawing, deadly
pain which had led me to visit Dr. Rhomboid.
"I must not be a fool," I reflected. "What has to be has to be, and I
must go through with it. Besides, one place is as good as another. I
will go to bed."
All the same, I made up my mind that I would not live like a hermit, and
that I would become acquainted with the life of this little village into
which I had been cast.
III
THE CHURCHES' ANSWER
I suppose my long journey must have tired me, for I slept soundly, and
on the following morning when I awoke the sun was shining through the
windows, while the splash of the waves sounded pleasantly to my ears. A
few minutes later I was up and dressed. Walking to the edge of the
cliff, I looked towards the spot where, the previous night, I fancied I
had seen dim forms moving; but in the light of the sun nothing was
visible. The shadows, too, of a few hours before had entirely passed
away. The fresh, pure spring air exhilarated me in spite of myself. I
almost forgot Dr. Rhomboid's verdict. Indeed, so far did I ignore his
instructions that I found my way to the highest point of the cliff and
looked seaward. Never in my whole life had I been so entranced as on
that morning. The blue sky was reflected in the water in such a way that
I felt I had never really seen the sea until then. To the right and to
the left of me stretched the giant cliffs until they were lost in the
horizon. At their feet rolled great waves. Landward, hill rose upon
hill, and the whole countryside was fast assuming its garments of summer
glory.
In a sense, Cornwall did not seem a beautiful county to me at all. At
least, it did not possess the beauty I had expected. Compared with
Surrey, it looked bare, and in some senses almost drear, and yet it
possessed a charm which I could associate with no other place. There was
something in the air one breathed, some strange charm, something in the
very essence of the county which differentiated it from the rest of the
world. Cornwall is as different from other counties as England is
different from Spain. I felt my blood tingle as I looked, and realized
that a mysterious hand had been laid upon me. Perhaps it was because
there was Cornish blood in my veins, and that for many generations my
ancestors had lived amidst associations similar to these. In any case,
my heart thrilled its recognition, and I knew that I was a part of what
I saw, that the spirit of my county was speaking to me, and that the
innermost depths of my being realized my homeland.
Years seemed to slip from me, and with a recrudescence of youth came a
passionate desire for life--more life. While I had been in London I
seemed to be largely indifferent to the doctor's pronouncement, even
although I was beginning to sip from the goblet of the world's success.
But a numbness had possessed my being, and I had been able to speculate
grimly upon my approaching demise. Now, however, it was different. The
world seemed wider, the sky higher, and life promised infinite things. I
could not formulate them into words; nevertheless, they surged up in my
being like a mighty torrent, and I longed to live. My whole soul
revolted against cessation of life, and all the time I knew that a dread
disease was slowly working within me.
But I would not think of it. By an effort I threw my forebodings from
me, and, seeing a precipitous pathway down to the beach, made my way
thitherward. I wanted to interest myself in the happenings of the world.
A little later I found my way to the base of the cliffs where, on the
previous night, I thought I had seen living beings. No marks of them
were evident. The hard, yellow sand was smooth and trackless. There was
a stretch of a hundred yards between the foot of the cliffs and the
foam-crested waves, and, calling to my mind my impressions of the
previous night, I determined to put them to test. Without avail,
however.
The great heap of débris caused by the working of the mine which Simpson
had mentioned had now become covered with verdure. I saw the green
stains on the cliff which Simpson had said betokened copper, but nowhere
could I see the level which he had mentioned. I peered curiously around,
but in vain.
Presently I saw a fissure in the rocks which ended in a cave. This I
entered and made my way for a few yards, peering curiously around me.
Nothing of importance struck my eye. I reflected that this might be
almost immediately under my house, and it was here, according to my
fancies, I had heard voices on the previous night. I fancied, too, that,
except in the case of very high tides, this cave would always be dry. I
lit a match, and, looking at the sand at my feet, discerned footmarks.
This struck me as somewhat curious, especially as these footprints were
apparently fresh, and some of them gave evidence that they had been made
by a woman. Still, there was nothing to wonder about. I had frequently
heard that the Cornish cliffs were honey-combed by caves, and that
pleasure-parties visited them out of pure curiosity.
Then something bright caught my eye, and, stooping down, I picked up a
woman's brooch. I went outside and examined it, and saw immediately that
it was apparently of value. It was quaintly formed, and suggested great
age. I concluded that it was composed of dull gold fashioned centuries
ago, while two stones of considerable value had been set in it. I
speculated a little to whom it might belong, and, thinking that I might
hear of some one who had lost such a valuable trinket, I placed it
carefully in my pocket so that I might be able to return it to its
owner.
The sun by this time had increased in power, and, as the place was warm
and sheltered, I sat on a great rock near, and gave myself up to fancy.
How long I sat there I have no conception, but presently I was awakened
to the fact that Simpson had become anxious about me.
"It's all right, Simpson," I shouted in reply to his call. "I will come
immediately."
"Breakfast is quite ready, sir," I heard him say, "and I have been
wondering where you had gone."
As I made my way towards the lower part of the cliffs, where I thought I
saw an easier way to my house than that by which I had descended, I
happened to look back, and there, seated in a crevice at nearly the
highest point of the cliff, I saw what seemed the form of a woman, and
that she appeared to be watching me. A few seconds later I was hidden
from her view by the copse into which I had entered. When I had
descended half-way towards my house I was able to catch another glimpse
of the place where she had been sitting, but she was no longer there.
"I hope you haven't been anxious about me, Simpson?" I said, when I
returned to the house.
"Well, sir, I was a bit worried. You see, the cliffs are dangerous, and
you didn't tell me you were going out. I am glad you are all right, sir.
Breakfast is quite ready, sir. I cooked some more of that ham, as you
seemed to like it so much last night, sir."
"That's all right, Simpson; but before I have breakfast I must have
another wash at the fountain." When I had taken off my coat I looked at
my arms, and was shocked at their thinness. I looked into the little
pond and saw the reflection of a tall, thin, attenuated man. I was
positively ghastly. When I had finished my toilet I again glanced in the
direction where I had seen the woman's form, but the place was hidden
from my view. Nearer to me, however, and swayed by the breeze, I saw
what I thought was like a woman's dress fluttering. It might be that she
was interested in my movements. "I expect the people of the village have
fears about me, as they had about Father Abraham," was my thought as I
entered the house.
No visitors called to see me, and I spent several days in absolute
quietness. Although I had at first made up my mind to do so, I paid no
visits to the village, and beyond the furtive watcher I have mentioned,
I saw no one but Simpson.
My first feelings of exhilaration had passed away, and I settled down,
in spite of my resolve, to a kind of hermit's life. I still rejoiced in
the beauty of the scene and took short walks in the neighborhood of my
little dwelling-place, but saw no one.
When I had been there a week a bad attack of my malady sent me to bed
for three days. Simpson urged me to send for the doctor, but this I
would not do. Rhomboid, who was at the head of his profession, had
warned me that I should be subject to these attacks, and that they would
come to me with increasing frequency until the end. He had also given me
general instructions as to what I must do. What was the use, then, of
calling in a local practitioner who would be utterly ignorant as to what
to do in such a case as mine?
At the end of three days I was better, and informed Simpson that I
intended getting up.
"Simpson," I said, as I sat in the comfortable chair which he had
prepared for me, "you told me on the night we came here that you had
been brought up a Wesleyan Methodist."
"Yes, sir," was Simpson's reply.
"Are you of that persuasion still?"
"Well, yes, sir; I suppose so, sir."
"Have you been to any of their chapels lately?"
"Not very often, sir."
"Is there a Wesleyan minister who lives at St. Issey?"
"No, sir. You see, St. Issey Chapel is only one of the little places in
the circuit. A minister, sir, lives five miles from here, and only comes
about twice a quarter. I have the circuit plan here, sir. Would you like
to see it?"
"It would be a curiosity, anyhow," I replied, and a little later Simpson
put a sheet of printed paper in my hand. This sheet informed me that St.
Issey was in the Lanhydrock Circuit, and, with twelve other chapels, was
supplied by two ministers and a number of other men called local
preachers.
"I see that the superintendent minister is called Mr. Bendle. Have you
ever met him?" I asked.
"No, sir; but I have heard that he is a very good man. When I was a boy,
sir, St. Issey Chapel was crowded; but people don't go to Chapel as they
used to."
"No? How is that?" I asked.
"Well, sir, it seems as though people have become very worldly, and many
have given up Chapel-going altogether."
"And the Parish Church--do many people go there?"
"Just a few, sir; but not many, I am afraid."
"I should like to know," I said.
"Indeed, sir?"
"Yes. The truth is, Simpson, seeing that the doctor tells me I have to
die very soon, I should like to know whether any one could tell me about
what happens after death."
"I have a Bible here, sir," said Simpson. "It tells you all about it
there."
"Indeed," I said, "I have not read the Bible for years. I don't think I
have looked inside one since I left Oxford. Do you read it, Simpson?"
"Yes, sir. I read a chapter every night before going to bed."
"Are you a Christian, Simpson?"
"I hope so, sir," and he looked at me curiously.
"Excuse me for asking," I said, "but as you are a Christian you will
have ideas about these things."
Simpson hesitated a few seconds, and then called to his aid his old
formula, "Yes, sir; thank you, sir."
"That being so, Simpson," I continued, "I want your opinion. Supposing I
were to die to-night, what would become of me?"
Simpson gave no answer. I think he wanted to be polite, but could not be
truthful at the same time.
"You see, Simpson," I interposed, "I have just had a severe shaking up,
and, as Rhomboid told me that these attacks would come with increasing
frequency and hasten the end, I have a natural curiosity as to what will
happen when the end comes. It is not pleasant to think of becoming
nothing, and as a belief in a future life is one of the tenets of the
Christian faith, and as you tell me you are a Christian, I want to know,
from your standpoint, what you think my destiny will be."
"Excuse me, sir," said Simpson, "but you will not be offended if I ask
something?"
"Oh, no," I said, "go on."
"Well, then, sir, have you ever been converted? Forgive me for asking,
sir; I know you have always been a well-conducted young gentleman, and
you have never gone wild like lots I know of, but all the same, sir, I
have been taught that there are two places to which people go when they
die--heaven and hell. The sheep which are on the right hand go straight
to Abraham's bosom, and the goats which are on the left go into outer
darkness, where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth. The question is,
sir, whether you belong to the sheep or the goats."
"Exactly," I said; "but what constitutes the sheep and what constitutes
the goats?"
"That is where the question of conversion comes in," replied Simpson.
"Except we become converted we cannot go to heaven."
"Then your opinion is, Simpson, that as I have not been converted I must
go to hell?"
"Yes, sir; thank you, sir. I don't mean to offend, sir."
"No, I am sure you don't, Simpson. Besides, I wanted a straight answer.
Just now, however, the question of heaven and hell does not trouble me
at all. It is rather a question as to whether there is anything at all
after the grave."
"Do you doubt it, sir?"
"I am afraid I have had no opinions about it in the past, Simpson. You
see, I have been so busy with my work that I have had no time to think
about it. Now, however, when death stares me in the face, I am--well, a
little bit curious. How do I know, and how do you know, that the
millions of people who are dying every week in this world do not die
just like flies? How can we prove that we are any better than they? Do
we not sport in the sunshine during a brief space and then cease to be?"
"Life would be a miserable one-sided business if it were so, sir.
Wouldn't it?"
"That is the question, Simpson. Did you ever read Omar Khayyam?"
"What is it, sir?"
"Ah, I see you have not read him. Omar Khayyam was an old Eastern poet
who, in his philosophy and poetry, taught that we are just a part of an
eternal round of things. We are born, we live, we propagate our species,
we die, and so the thing goes on. But it is not a very cheerful
doctrine, Simpson, and that was why I wondered if you, who profess to be
a Christian, could give me some information."
Simpson was silent.
"Ah! I see," I said with a sigh. "You have a sort of traditional hope
that there may be a sort of future life, and that you may get to what is
called heaven, but you are not sure about it."
"Well, sir, I am a very ignorant man on such matters," replied Simpson,
"and, to tell you the truth, religion doesn't seem to be the fashion
nowadays. All the same, it would be a grand thing if it were true."
"Just so," I said, and for the first time I realized the necessity for
some sort of faith which should be an anchor amid the storms of life.
"Are you better now, sir?" asked Simpson.
"Oh yes, considerably better," I replied. "I shall be able to walk about
for the next few weeks, I hope."
"Then, sir, may I advise you to go to Church or Chapel? The preachers
there might be able to tell you."
"A good idea," I cried. "I have not been to Church or Chapel since I
left Oxford, and while there I only went because I was obliged to. I did
enjoy the singing, though. Yes, Simpson, I will take your hint. I will
go to Church on Sunday."
"It's Sunday to-morrow, sir," was Simpson's reply.
"Is it? I had forgotten. Then I will go to-morrow."
"Where will you go, sir, to the Established Church or the Wesleyan
Chapel?"
"I will go to both, and hear what they have to say at both places."
The next day was gloriously fine. A cool breeze blew, and out at sea
"white horses" rode on the crests of the waves. Near the coast-line,
too, was a long streak of foam. The air was pure and invigorating. In
sheltered places it was warm and gracious.
I allowed myself plenty of time to reach St. Issey by eleven o'clock,
and, if the truth must be told, I was a little excited. I felt as though
I was going on a tour of exploration.
I had never been what is called a religious boy, and though I inherited
from my father a high code of honor, religion made no appeal to me. I
suppose that at the back of my mind I had an impression that there might
be a life other than this, and that some great Eternal Force, which
might or might not be personal, had created this and all other worlds.
As to whether this Eternal Force had any interest in created life I did
not trouble. The question was too remote, and, as far as I could see,
admitted of only a conjectural answer. After leaving Oxford, I was too
absorbed in my plans and ambitions to trouble about what seemed to me to
be something really apart from life.
I had never been a bad fellow. I had, as my acquaintances said of me,
gone straight. Not that I had been a recluse in any way. For two or
three years I went a good deal into society. I never had any serious
love affairs, although I am afraid I indulged in some mild flirtations.
I had a fair knowledge of current literature, and, although far from
being a scholar, I had at the same time scholarly instincts. I had
travelled on the Continent of Europe, had a fair knowledge of German and
French, and during a long visit to Italy had managed to pick up the
language of the people.
I had also visited the old churches on the Continent, but had never
troubled about what these churches stood for. As far as I could see, the
old, stately cathedrals represented something that might have been a
power at one time, but which had now passed away. They were interesting
from an architectural and from an historical point of view; but as for
anything deeper, it never came within the horizon of my vision. I was
young, and, as I thought, healthy, and death seemed a long way off.
Therefore, why should I trouble?
But now death had come near. I do not know that I was frightened, and I
was able calmly to face the prospect of annihilation. Nevertheless, that
prospect was grim. I longed for life, more life, the completion of life.
The life I had lived was, it seemed to me, fragmentary, incomplete, and,
to a certain extent, chaotic.
I do not know that I attached very much importance to my visit to the
little Wesleyan Chapel. All the same, I was curious. If there should be
anything beyond, if the man who got up to preach could tell me something
which had been hidden from me, I would like to hear what he had to say.
I walked very slowly and rejoiced in the glorious morning. As I drew
near the village I noted the quiet restfulness of everything. The Church
bells were ringing, and a few people were wending their way towards the
old time-honored building. Very few people seemed to be making for the
Wesleyan Chapel. Groups of youths were lounging around the lanes,
smoking cigarettes and passing rustic jokes. Women were gossiping with
each other from their cottage doors. There was no squalor anywhere, no
poverty visible. Every one seemed to have enough to eat and drink. Every
one seemed to be comfortably housed.
I entered the little Chapel--a square, plain building, capable of
seating perhaps three or four hundred people. It was five minutes to
eleven when I entered, and not a soul was there, except a man whom I
took to be the Chapel-keeper. He looked at me curiously. By eleven
o'clock there might be, all told, thirty people there, mostly elderly
men and women. Some young girls were there, and a few children; young
men were conspicuous by their absence. When eleven o'clock came perhaps
a dozen more came from some vestry, and entered what I took to be the
choir-seats. They were nearly all young women. Perhaps during the first
ten minutes of the service half a score more came into the Chapel. I am
giving these details because I want to tell exactly what I saw,
especially as I have discovered that from a religious standpoint St.
Issey village is typical of hundreds more all over the county. At about
three minutes after eleven a man entered the pulpit. As far as I could
judge he was a working man, or he might be a farmer, a carpenter, or a
tradesman of some sort.
Let it be understood that I came to this place of worship hungering to
know something of the deeper things of life. I wanted to be assured that
there was another life greater than this, a life which should be the
consummation and explanation of this.
The preacher commenced by announcing a hymn; a lad at the harmonium
played over the tune, and the people sang. Let me confess here that the
singing moved me. The Cornish people, whatever their defects or virtues,
possess the gift of song. They had sweet, musical voices, and they sang
heartily. The words, as I remember them, were of an emotional nature,
and were evidently written by some one who deeply believed in what he
wrote; but it was evident that very few of the congregation realized the
meaning of the words they were singing. There was no sense of reality,
no great assurance, no vision. It seemed to be a repetition of something
which had been, rather than the expression of something that was vital
to them then.
Still, I was interested. The hymn made me think of far-away things. At
any rate, while no mighty conviction possessed the singers, they
accepted the words as containing a kind of traditional truth. I
reflected that the hymn _had_ meant something, whatever it might mean
now.
While the last verse was being sung, I noticed that the congregation
turned round, as if some one of importance had entered. I also turned,
and saw a man and woman just making their way into a back pew. The man
was about fifty years of age, and was evidently a personality. At first
I did not know how to classify him. He might be the Squire of the
parish, but I was sure he was not. There was something lacking in him;
something positive, too, which did not suggest an old landed proprietor.
That he was prosperous and important there could be no doubt. He looked
like one accustomed to command, and suggested a big banking account.
His companion was, as I imagined, his daughter, a young woman of, say,
twenty-three or twenty-four years of age. I saw by her dress that she
did not belong to the class of which the rest of the congregation was
composed. Although by no means a connoisseur of such things, I knew
enough of woman's attire to be sure that her clothes had been made by an
artist, and probably came either from London or Paris. During the next
few minutes I gave furtive glances towards her, and was not impressed
favorably. She was good-looking, almost strikingly so; but she seemed to
me to have no soul. She looked around the building as though she had
come there under protest. She gave not the slightest evidence that the
service meant anything to her.
The man in the pulpit was, I suppose, of more intelligence than the
ordinary man of his class, and having said that, I have said all. I did
not want to be critical. I hungered for food, for light. I reflected
that Simpson had told me that congregations had fallen off and that
there seemed to be no eagerness about religion as there had been thirty
years before. I did not wonder at that if this man was a fair exponent
of it. By what right or by what authority he was there I do not know,
and how he dared to pretend to tell people about the deep things of life
I could not imagine. After he had been preaching a few minutes he
appeared to get, according to the phraseology which I have since heard,
"warmed to his subject." This meant that he shouted, and on two or three
occasions struck the Bible; but, taken as a whole, it was the
parrot-like utterance of an ignorant man. I am almost tempted to give a
detailed description of his discourse, but I will not do so. I am too
heart-sore at the thought of it. What help was there for me, a poor
wretch with his death-warrant signed? What help was there for the people
who sat stolidly in their pews? Why should the boys and girls of the
villages or the toil-worn laboring men and women go there? I could see
no reason.
As far as I could judge, the presence of the man and his daughter in the
back pew and I myself, the stranger who had taken up his abode in a
wooden hut, attended only by a man-servant, was of far more interest to
the people than what the man had to say.
I left with a heavy heart. At any rate, I received no assurance of any
life after death. I was no nearer conviction of anything which goes by
the name of spiritual. As I made my way to the door an old man came up
and spoke to me.
"Mornin', sir. Glad to see you."
"Thank you," I said.
"You bean't from these parts, be you?" he asked curiously.
"No," I replied.
"I hope you enjoyed the service," he ventured.
"I enjoyed the singing very much," was my reply.
The old man's eyes twinkled. I saw that he understood.
"You ded'n feel the presence of the Maaster, ded 'ee, then, sir?"
I was silent. He seemed to be on the point of saying something more, but
he refrained. Perhaps he thought he would be taking too great a liberty.
As I left the building and walked quietly away, I noticed that the man
and the girl whom I took to be his daughter were watching me. They
evidently wondered who I was.
I did not say anything to Simpson on my return about my experiences at
the Chapel, and he asked no questions.
When evening came I made my way to the Established Church. Somehow, the
memory of the old man's eyes when he spoke to me at the Chapel door
remained with me. I had a feeling that he knew more than the preacher.
Directly I entered the time-honored building, which had stood there
since pre-Reformation days, a feeling of restfulness came into my heart.
Architecture has always made a strong appeal to me, and this low-roofed,
many-pillared edifice, with its worm-eaten pews, its granite flooring
and its sense of age, brought a kind of balm to my troubled spirit. I
noticed that time had eaten away even the old gray granite of which the
pillars were composed, that the footsteps of many generations had worn
the hard Cornish granite slabs which floored the aisles. The evening
light was subdued as it shone through the stained-glass windows. The ivy
which grew outside, and partially covered some of the leaded lights,
somehow gave a feeling of restfulness to everything. I heard the birds
twittering in the tree-branches in the churchyard, while the bell which
called the people to Church was reminiscent of olden time. In my
imagination I saw people who lived hundreds of years before, with the
light of unquestioning faith in their eyes, coming to worship in the
Church of their fathers.
A few people entered, and my vision vanished. This old Church
represented only something that _had_ been; something that had had its
day, and was gone; something that was maintained because of its past,
and because nothing better had appeared to take its place.
A dozen choir-boys found their way into their stalls. The clergyman
assumed his appointed place. The congregation was very small. All
counted, I suppose there would not be forty people present, and most of
these looked to me like servant lads and girls.
I remembered the clergyman's name. Simpson had told me he was called
Trelaske. A good old Cornish name, and I reflected that, anyhow, he
would be a gentleman. I watched him closely, and I saw a fine,
aristocratic-looking man, with a clean-cut, almost classical face. He
conducted the service with dignity. He read the sentences of which the
Church service is composed correctly and with intelligence. While he
read in his natural voice, I was interested; when he intoned, a sense of
unreality possessed me.
As we went through the service a thousand memories flooded my mind. I
had heard these prayers, and read the Psalms a hundred times at Oxford
and at Winchester. Memories of old days came flashing back to me, and I
was a boy again in the school chapel, listening to old "Thunder and
Lightning," as we used to call him, preaching to us. Presently Mr.
Trelaske entered the pulpit and gave out his text: "If a man die, shall
he live again?"
"Now," I thought to myself, "I am going to get something. Here is a man
who is set apart to teach people the Christian faith, and he is going to
deal with that phase of his faith in which I am really interested."
I think he noticed me in his congregation, for he looked curiously
towards me more than once. I rather liked him, too. As I said, he was
evidently a gentleman, and doubtless had been to Oxford or Cambridge.
Possibly he had been at my own College.
In about ten minutes his homily was finished. When I try to remember
what he said, I am reminded of a story I have since heard. A popular
preacher came to Cornwall and preached to a crowded congregation. On the
following day this popular preacher saw an old miner, to whom he spoke
in a familiar fashion.
"Well, Tommy," he said, "what did you think about my sermon last night?"
"What ded I think about it?" repeated Tommy.
"Yes," said the popular preacher, "what did you think about it?"
"I ded'n think there was nothin' to think about," was Tommy's reply.
That was my summing-up of Mr. Trelaske's sermon. There was nothing to
think about. I had come to Church curious to know--ay, and more than
curious; I was longing to know if life promised anything beyond the
grave, but the Church gave no answer to my question. In place of burning
conviction, there were empty platitudes. In place of vision, there was
only the sound of a child crying in the night.
"In God's name," I asked myself as I went back to my little habitation,
"why should people go to Church or to Chapel? What is there for them but
boredom?"
I did not want argument, I did not want learning; but I wanted
conviction, light, vision--and there were none of these things.
When I got back to my house I found that Simpson had returned.
"Have you been to Chapel, Simpson?" I asked.
"Yes, sir; thank you, sir. People have been asking a lot of questions
about you, sir."
"Oh, indeed!"
"Yes, sir. Mr. Josiah Lethbridge asked me about you, sir. He lives in
that big house up by Trecarrel Lane. He is a great mine-owner and
ship-owner, sir."
"Indeed," I said. "Has he any children?"
"Yes, sir. One son and one daughter. Is that all you need, sir?" And
Simpson gave the finishing touches to his arrangement of my
supper-table.
Before I went to bed that night I stood under the veranda of my little
house and looked seaward. In the dying light of the day I could still
see the giant cliffs stretching away northward. I could also see the
long line of foam where the waves broke upon the shore. I heard the
sea-birds crying, too. "If a man die, shall he live again?" I said,
repeating the words of the text I had heard that night, but no answer
came. I went to bed wondering.
IV
THREE VISITORS
On the day following nothing happened, and excepting Simpson I did not
see a single person. Indeed, but for one occasion, when out of curiosity
I clambered down to the beach, I did not leave the house; but on the
Tuesday I had a regular influx of visitors. No less than three persons
came to see me, to say nothing of Mrs. Martha Bray, who, in fulfilment
of her promise to Simpson, came over to see whether her services were
further needed.
My first visitor was an entire stranger. He came ostensibly to ask for a
drink of milk, but really I believe out of curiosity, for when Simpson
had, at my request, supplied him with the milk, he showed no desire to
leave. Rather he appeared much interested in my reasons for coming to
St. Issey. He was a middle-aged man, say from forty-five to fifty, and
lived, he told me, at St. Eia. He proved a rather clever
conversationalist, too, for in spite of myself I found myself talking to
him freely. There were all sorts of rumors about Father Abraham, he told
me. Some had it that he was mad; some said that he was a refugee;
others, again, thought he had in the past committed some crime and was
hiding from justice, while more than once it had been whispered that his
end was the result of a kind of vendetta which was sworn against him
because of something he did in his young manhood.
"Have you any theories yourself, sir?" he asked.
"No," I replied, "I have no theories. I must confess, however, to being
a little interested. The old man evidently had a purpose in building the
house, and, I think, intended it to be a permanent residence. As you
see, although it is composed of wood, it is very carefully built, and
was intended to last. For the life of me, however, I can hardly believe
he was murdered. Of course, there was blood found upon the floor, but it
is not easy to dispose of a body even so near the sea. From what I can
hear no one has been washed up here, and but for the marks of struggle
and the blood no one would have thought he was murdered."
"Exactly," replied my visitor. "But many things are going on of which we
know nothing, and many people have purposes in life which they have no
desire to make known. What is your opinion of European politics?"
"I cannot say I have any very fixed ideas," I replied.
"A section of the Press," went on my visitor, "would have us believe
that we are on the verge of war, and certainly there have been
indications these last few years that we are standing on the brink of a
volcano. Do you believe in the stories told about Germany?"
"What stories?" I asked.
"Oh, that the Germans are preparing for war, and that they mean to go to
war with England."
To this I gave no answer.
"Have you read those articles in _The Daily_----?" he asked. "I mean
those articles which told us frightful stories of German preparations
for war, of their avowed determination to bring about war with England,
and of the toast which the military and naval people in Germany drink on
every great occasion."
"You mean the toast to 'Der Tag'? Of course, one has heard such stories,
but what do they amount to, after all?"
"That is my own attitude," was his answer, "and as far as stories about
German spies are concerned, I think they are worked up by the Press in
order to increase the circulation of the papers. By the way, have you
ever seen anything suspicious in this neighborhood? This," and he looked
towards the bay, "would be a splendid spot for German boats to land if
they wanted to do so."
"Why should they want to land in a remote corner of the world like
this?" I asked.
"Exactly," he replied, "only I was wondering whether you, who live here
alone, had ever seen or heard anything which aroused your suspicions?"
"No," I replied, not thinking it worth while to tell him anything about
the brooch I had found.
"You have seen nothing and heard nothing, then?" he persisted.
"I have only been here a short time," I replied. "Why do you ask?"
"I only wondered, that is all. The people over at St. Eia say that
foreigners have been sneaking around trying to pick up information, and
I wondered whether you had heard anything."
"No," I replied, "nothing at all."
"I suppose," he said, "that these cliffs here are honey-combed with
caves? Have you seen any of them?"
"Yes," I replied. "I saw one the day after I came here. I came upon it
suddenly, for the entrance to it is only a fissure in the rocks."
"Ah!" he cried. "Did you enter?"
"Yes," was my reply, "but it was not at all mysterious. I could see all
round it by the aid of a match, and it contained nothing. Of course, it
was very curious and very interesting."
"But you saw nothing suspicious?" he asked.
I shook my head.
My visitor did not remain long after this, and although for a time I
wondered why he should be so interested, I soon ceased to pay attention
to his questions.
Perhaps I should have thought more about him, but just before noon I had
another visitor. This was a young fellow about twenty-two years of age,
whom I knew to be an Oxford man before he had spoken a dozen words.
"My name is Lethbridge," he said. "My people live up at Trecarrel
yonder, and I came--well, I came really at my pater's request."
"Indeed," I said, looking at him curiously.
"Yes; you were at Chapel on Sunday morning, weren't you?"
"I was," I replied.
"Well, my pater and sister were there, and the pater wondered very much
who you were. In the evening, contrary to his usual custom, he went a
second time, and saw your servant, who told him who you were. Directly
the pater mentioned your name, I remembered hearing it in Oxford. You
are an Oxford man, aren't you?"
"Yes. I was at Balliol."
"So was I. I left last June. You are often spoken of by the men. Indeed,
I had your old rooms. You will excuse the liberty we took in talking
about you, won't you? but really we have very little to interest us in
this corner of the world."
"You are very kind to come," I replied.
"When I told my father who you were, he suggested that I should come
down and ask you to come up to dinner. You see, we had heard of some one
coming to live in old Father Abraham's hut, and when it turned out to be
you, we got interested. You will forgive this informal method of
procedure, won't you? But if you will come up and spend an evening with
us soon, we shall all be jolly glad."
"I am afraid I am too ill to come," I replied.
"You do look a bit seedy," was his response, "but the air down here is
ripping. It will soon set you up again."
"I am afraid I am too far gone for that," was my reply, "but if I am
well enough, I shall be only too glad to come."
"Say to-morrow night," he said.
"If you will leave it an open question," was my reply, "I will say yes,
but if I am too ill, you will understand the reason for my absence."
He looked at me closely.
"Is it as bad as that?"
"I am afraid it is," and I sighed when I spoke, for at that moment a
wave of desire for life rolled over me.
"May I smoke?" he asked, pulling out his pipe.
"Please forgive me," I said. "I will tell Simpson to bring some cigars."
"Oh no, thank you. A pipe for me, please. By the way, I did not know you
were of the Chapel-going order. The one reason I doubted it was you was
because my father said you were at the little Wesleyan Chapel."
"I went there out of curiosity, I am afraid. I was wondering whether
these people had anything to say to a man whose days were numbered."
"I go there twice a year," was his reply. "I used to go regularly when a
boy. Do you intend to stay long down here, by the way?"
"To the end, I expect," I said, shrugging my shoulders.
"Come, now, we will not talk like that. I am sorry to see you looking so
seedy. You were always spoken of in Oxford as an athlete. You got your
Blue, didn't you?"
"Yes," I replied; "but one never knows what germs of disease one has in
one's system. However, we will not talk about that. It is awfully good
of you to ask me to come up to your house."
"Rather it will be awfully good of you if you come," he replied. "What a
jolly fine view you have here. The old man who built this hut chose one
of the most beautiful positions on the whole coast. How did you find it
out?"
"Simpson, my man, did that for me," was my reply. "He was a boy down
here, he says, and when I told him I had to get away from London, he
came down here on spec. I consider myself very lucky."
"I am afraid you will find it a bit lonely in the winter, won't you? The
sea is all right when the sun is shining on it, but in winter, when the
clouds are black, I know of nothing more dismal. Besides, those black,
beetling cliffs are enough to strike terror into one's soul."
I must confess to liking young Lethbridge. He was an athletic,
healthy-looking young fellow, tanned by much exposure to the sun, and
his every look and movement suggested frankness and honesty. I did not
judge him to be very clever, but he was certainly likeable.
"You were doing very well at the Bar, weren't you?" he went on. "Our
chaps at Balliol spoke of you as one who would bring added lustre to the
old College."
"I was only just beginning to see light," was the reply. "I was lucky in
one of the cases I had, and won it by a fluke. That was why briefs were
beginning to come in. But I have got to the end of them now. What do you
do with yourself?"
"That is the hang of it," he replied. "I am doing nothing. The pater
wanted me to go in for the Law, and then try for Parliament. He has an
idea that I ought to represent one of the Cornish constituencies, but I
am not cut out for that sort of thing."
"What would you like to be?" I asked.
"Oh, a farmer," he replied. "If, instead of spending all the money he
has spent in sending me to Oxford, the pater had bought a thousand acres
of land and set me up farming, I should be as happy as a king, but law
books are just Sanskrit to me. I love an open-air life, and I love
horses and animals generally. The pater won't see things in my light,
however; that is why I am doing nothing. I wish you would tell him when
you come up that none but brainy men can do anything at the Bar. Well,
it is close upon lunch-time, and I must go. But you will be sure to
come, won't you? Look here, let's have an understanding. I will send the
motor down to the end of the lane to-morrow evening at seven o'clock,
and then, if you cannot come, you can send your man out to tell the
chauffeur. But be sure to come, if you can."
When he had gone I somehow felt better. His very presence was healthful,
and I looked forward with pleasure to meeting him again.
"You have been quite busy this morning, sir," said Simpson when he came
in to lay the table for my lunch. "Two visitors in one day in a
neighborhood like this is something wonderful."
"Yes," I replied, "and I like young Lethbridge."
"I hear he is a great trouble to his father, sir."
I did not reply to this.
"You see, sir, old Mr. Lethbridge wants him to marry into a county
family. The truth is, when I was a boy down here he was only a poor lad.
How he has got on in the way he has is a mystery to every one. Somehow
or other everything he touched turned to money, and now he is richer
than Mr. Treherne, the Squire. He is very ambitious, too, and wants to
get in with the county people. That is why people wonder at his sticking
to the Wesleyan Chapel."
"But how has young Lethbridge caused him trouble?" I asked.
"Well, sir, it is said that he's in love with a farmer's daughter, and
that the old gentleman says he will cut him off with a shilling if he
doesn't make up to Miss Treherne. Of course, people will talk, and maybe
it is only gossip."
I felt more interested than ever in young Lethbridge after this,
although I was rather annoyed with myself that I had listened to
servants' gossip. All the same, I believed there might be some truth in
what I had heard. There was a look in the young fellow's eyes which
suggested that the deepest longings in his heart were unsatisfied.
Before the day was over, the old adage which says that it never rains
but it pours was fulfilled in my case. Simpson had only just brought my
tea when he came to me with an important look on his face.
"Mr. Trelaske, the Vicar, has called to see you, sir."
"Good!" I replied. "Show him in."
"I hope you will forgive the liberty I am taking," said the Vicar on
entering, "but, as you are one of my parishioners, and I was told you
were at Church on Sunday evening, I thought I might call."
"It is very kind of you," I said. "You have just come in time for tea,
too. Won't you sit down?"
Mr. Trelaske did not look so imposing, as he sat in my little room, as
when wearing his clerical robes in Church. He seemed a smaller man, not
simply physically--his personality seemed less as he drew a chair up to
the table and took a cup of tea from Simpson.
"I suppose you know that you are the subject of a great deal of
discussion in St. Issey?" he said presently.
"I'm very flattered," was my reply.
"Well, for a man to come to St. Issey with a man-servant, and take up
his abode in old Father Abraham's cottage, has set all the gossips in
the village working overtime."
"Mrs. Grundy lives here, then?"
"Well, you know what we country people are. St. Issey is out of the
beaten track of tourists, although there isn't a prettier spot in
England, and no healthier for that matter. As for the coast scenery
round here, it is, in my opinion, the most beautiful in the whole
country. Anyhow, a stranger attracts a great deal of notice. Then, you
see, this hut is a mystery."
"Yes, I have heard all about that," I replied, "but I dare say a great
deal of the mystery has been magnified. Anyhow, it suits me entirely; it
is situated in one of the most lovely spots in the vicinity. It is
utterly quiet, and yet it is not altogether out of the world."
"Might one ask, Mr. Erskine," he said, turning to me suddenly, "why you
came to this part of the world?"
"I came here to die," I replied.
He stared at me curiously.
"To die, Mr. Erskine?" he said.
"Yes," I replied. "I have been given a year to live--at the outside. It
may be that I shall only last a month or two. When I told my man Simpson
about it, and said I wanted to die in the most pleasant place possible,
and to do it rather cheaply, he came down here and took this house."
"Y-you do look rather seedy," he stammered. "But surely it is not so bad
as that?"
"Dr. Rhomboid, who is at the head of his profession, examined me very
carefully, and that was the verdict he passed. That was why I went to
Church last Sunday night."
"I don't think I quite understand you," and the Vicar looked at me as
though he doubted my sanity.
"You are an Oxford man, aren't you?" he went on. "At least, that is what
I have heard; and you were a barrister, and have won some repute in that
direction?"
"With the exception of your last sentence, you have been correctly
informed," was my reply. "What I have told you is quite true,
nevertheless. It is also true that I went to Church last Sunday night
because of what Dr. Rhomboid told me," and I looked at his face
curiously, because I wanted to see how he would take it.
"No," I continued, "I am not an illustration of the old rhyme:
"The devil was sick, the devil a monk would be,
The devil was well, and the devil a monk was he!
It is not that at all; but do you know, Mr. Trelaske, when a man is
suddenly told that he has only a year to live, and may possibly die in a
few weeks, he is, to say the least of it, somewhat curious to know what
will happen after he is dead. I repeat, that is why I went to Church
last Sunday night."
"Yes, yes, certainly," and I thought he seemed a little bit uneasy.
"Mr. Trelaske," I said, "what happens to a man after he is dead?"
He was silent for a few seconds, and again he looked at me as if he
doubted my sanity.
"I am not joking," I persisted. "After all, it is a matter of some
interest to me, and as you are a clergyman, and as a belief in a future
life is one of the articles of the faith you preach, I thought I would
ask your opinion about it."
"But surely, Mr. Erskine," he said, "you are not a heathen. You are an
old 'Varsity man. You took an arts degree, and would, to say the least
of it, have had to study the Greek Testament. You know what is taught
there."
"Excuse me," was my reply, "but that doesn't quite meet the situation.
It is quite true, as you say, that I had to study the New Testament at
Oxford, and also while at school at Winchester I was in a Confirmation
Class; but all that kind of thing is a long way off. It is simply
traditional, and when a man comes down to the depths of life traditions
don't count. It is true that I have not read the New Testament lately,
not, indeed, since I left Oxford. I am like thousands of other fellows,
who, on going out into the world, give these things the go-by. Years ago
I suppose I held to the traditional faith, although I have troubled very
little about it; but now, as things are, I am interested--I am more than
interested. What will happen to me a few months hence, when I am dead?
Anything?"
I could quite see that he was surprised at the course the conversation
was taking, and that he had no expectation of being asked such
questions; but now that I had spoken, I meant to know all that he could
tell me.
"Our state in the future," was his reply, "depends on the life we have
lived here."
"Isn't that rather begging the question?" I asked. "You are assuming
something which, as it seems to me, is a matter of doubt. No, do not
mistake me, I haven't lived a bad life. I have not descended to the
vulgar vices which are supposed to be so common to men in these days. I
have, as my acquaintances say of me, 'gone straight.' I listened very
attentively to your sermon on Sunday night. You see, I was more than
ordinarily interested. Your text was, 'If a man die, shall he live
again?' Will he, Mr. Trelaske?"
"Of course," was his reply.
"Are you _sure_?" I asked, emphasizing the word.
"Hasn't it been the teaching of the Church from its earliest history?"
and he looked a little indignant.
"Excuse me, but if you will forgive me for saying so, the teaching of
the Church is the very thing in question. As you may imagine, I do not
ask the question out of idle curiosity; I am deeply interested, vitally
interested. Mr. Trelaske, are you sure, if I were to die to-night, that
there would be anything after? Mind you, I do not ask for a mere
opinion; we all have those, but is it a matter of certainty with you?"
"As I said on Sunday night," he replied, after some silence, "spiritual
things are spiritually discerned; and immortality is a matter of the
spirit, isn't it?"
"I am afraid I don't follow you," I replied. "As you said just now, I am
a lawyer, and my business for several years has been to test evidence.
After I have tested the evidence that has been brought in support of any
particular case, it has been my business to convince the jury that the
evidence is conclusive. If I don't convince the jury, of course I fail
to win my case. Your answer suggests that I lack the qualities to
understand the proofs in support of the doctrine you taught on Sunday
night. Perhaps you are right; probably I have so neglected what you call
the spiritual part of me that it has become atrophied. I will put it in
another way, then, and, believe me, it is furthest from my desire to be
impertinent. Supposing you were to die to-night--you, an ordained
clergyman--are you _sure_ there is a life beyond?"
Mr. Trelaske was silent.
"Forgive my asking you," I said. "I am afraid I have been frightfully
rude; but you see, living here alone, with the doctor's verdict
constantly before me, I am curious to know."
"Not at all, not at all," he said hastily, "I am very glad you asked me;
but the question is so sudden. I do not think that during the whole time
I have lived in St. Issey any one has asked me such a thing before, at
least not in the same way."
"I was wrong," I said; "please forgive me."
I could see that I had made him miserable. The look in his eyes told me
that. As I said before, Mr. Trelaske was evidently a gentleman, and he
wanted to be absolutely honest with me. All the same, his silence made
my heart heavy.
Although I had, in a way, made up my mind that there was nothing after
death, the thought of becoming nothing was grim and repellent.
"Look here, Mr. Erskine," he said, after a somewhat painful silence,
"you must come to the Vicarage and see me. I will think over what you
have said, and then perhaps I shall be better prepared to meet the
situation."
From that time the conversation drifted to general matters, and when the
Vicar left me, it was on the understanding that I should, at an early
date, spend an evening with him.
V
AN EMERGING MYSTERY
After the Vicar had gone I suffered a slight reaction. My mind was
almost abnormally active, but physically I felt utterly languid and
depressed. I could see that Simpson was watching me closely, and when I
did not do justice to the dinner he had provided he was almost as
depressed as I.
"I could not help hearing what you and the Vicar were talking about,
sir," he said presently. "I tried not to listen, but some things came to
me in spite of myself."
"You heard nothing very edifying, Simpson."
"No, sir; all the same, I was sorry for you."
"Sorry for me! Why?"
"Well, sir, I think I understand how you feel. I am only a poor,
ignorant man, sir, but I think I should feel something the same myself.
Mr. Trelaske did not help you much, did he?"
"Well, he did not seem any more sure than you did, Simpson."
"Yes, sir; I cannot understand it. I was at the death-bed of my father,
sir; he was what you would call an old-fashioned Methodist. He was not
clever or learned, or anything of that sort; but he was very sure, sir."
"Sure of what, Simpson?"
"Sure that he was going to heaven; sure that this life was only a school
for a greater life, sir. I am afraid I have not put it very well, but he
was what the Vicar says he isn't--sure. What I can't understand, sir, is
that religion seems to have no meaning nowadays. I was hoping that when
I got down here I should find things the same as they were when I left
home forty years ago. Then, sir, religion meant something; it doesn't
now. They say the same words at Chapel as they used to say, but they do
not mean the same things."
"You mean that religion is dead altogether, then, Simpson?"
"I don't mean that, sir. I only mean that people seem to have lost it.
It seems a terrible thing, doesn't it, sir, that when a young gentleman
like you wants to know something, and you go to Chapel, and to Church,
to learn the thing they ought to be able to tell you, you find out that
they know no more than you do? However, sir, it isn't for me to
criticize. Is there anything more I can do for you, sir?"
"No, nothing at present, Simpson;" and I turned to the book-shelves that
he had fitted up, hoping to find a book that would interest me. In this,
however, I utterly failed. I turned from volume to volume, but could
fasten my mind on nothing. Books which a few months ago would have
enabled me to pass a pleasant evening seemed meaningless and absurd. I
turned from one writer to another, but always with the same result. What
they had to say meant nothing. Of course, my mind was in an abnormal
condition, but that was not my fault. Here was I, face to face with
death, hungering for reality, hungering for truths that were vital. My
law books repelled me. What did I care about old Acts of Parliament,
passed hundreds of years before? Of what interest to me were the
decisions of old judges, long since dead? They affected only some nice
points of law, which, as far as I could see, mattered nothing. They
never touched the depths of life at all. Then there were novels, many of
them written by men and women I knew personally. But they had nothing to
say to me. I did not care a fig about paltry intrigues, neither was I in
the slightest degree interested in _risqué_ situations.
I went to the door, and looked out into the silent night. Daylight had
just gone, and that kind of atmosphere which can only be felt just after
sunset and just before sunrise, pervaded everything. The air was full of
mystery. The wondrous depths of the sky, the wide sweep of the Atlantic,
the cry of the sea-birds, and that deep hush which accompanies the dying
day, aroused infinite longings. What was life, its meaning, its mystery,
its destiny?
Simpson came to my side.
"I beg your pardon, sir, but you are not going out, are you?"
I had not thought of it, but his words caused me to determine to go for
a walk.
"Yes, Simpson, I am," I replied.
"Shall I go with you, sir?"
"No, thank you, Simpson, I will go alone."
"Excuse me, sir, but are you not foolish? Walking in the night might do
you harm, sir; it might shorten your days."
"What does that matter?" I asked. "As the end is so near, of what
consequence are a few days, or, for that matter, weeks? The sooner I
die, the sooner I shall solve the great mystery of the Beyond, if there
is a Beyond; if there isn't, what have I to live for here?"
"I beg your pardon, sir, I am very sorry." And Simpson sighed.
I put on a light overcoat, and made my way to the highest point of the
cliffs. Beneath me, far down, perhaps three or four hundred feet, the
waves rolled on the black, rugged rocks. As I looked seaward, the water,
as it seemed to me, became darker and darker. The lines of foam, which
stretched along by the coast, became more and more distinct. Night had
now fallen. The sky was star-spangled. I had never seen such a sky in
England before. Once or twice down by the Mediterranean I had seen
something similar, but never in my own country. I felt as though
invisible presences were near me, as though they were trying to speak to
me; but I could not understand the language.
Unmindful of consequences, I sat down on the heather, and gave myself up
to fancy. I tried to pierce the veil which hung between me and the
Beyond. I tried to understand the meaning of the far-off voices which
were wafted to me by the night breezes. I wanted to read the riddle of
Life and Death.
Then, suddenly, I heard voices, and I was brought back from things
intangible and mysterious to things mundane.
"You are sure he knows nothing?" It was a woman's voice I heard.
"Perfectly sure. I questioned him closely this morning. I so framed my
questions that he could have no suspicion--but always with the same
result."
"But why should he choose a place like this? Surely, if he is ill,
dying, he would never come to a madman's hut, in a place where murder
was supposed to be committed."
"I tell you that there is no need for fear; he suspects nothing--he is
just what he seems to be."
The voices died away. The man and woman whom I had heard talking, and
whom I had dimly seen, descended the hill, and were lost in the
darkness. Then it was that, in spite of myself, I became interested in
things mundane. Why they should do so I could not imagine, but I felt
that they had been talking about me. But why should they? What was the
purport of their conversation? How had I become mixed up in the plans of
people of whom I knew nothing? I felt myself at the centre of a mystery,
and my interest in that mystery caused the greater mystery of Life and
Death to lose its hold on me.
I recognized the voice of the man. He had been to see me soon after my
arrival; but who was the woman? What interest could my movements have to
her? She spoke like one having authority, and it was evident that she
feared I should discover something.
I forgot my ailments, forgot the tragedy of my life, in trying to solve
this new riddle. I could not help connecting it with the old-fashioned
brooch I had picked up in the cave accidentally the day I had come to
Cornwall. The activities and interests in this life again became
paramount.
"I will get to the bottom of this, anyway," I said to myself as I made
my way back to my hut. "It will be better for me, too, than to be
forever brooding about myself. And, after all, while I am alive I will
live, and I will keep my eyes and ears open until I have discovered what
this means."
When I reached my little room again, Simpson awaited me eagerly.
"Please, sir," he said, "I have had visitors."
"More visitors, Simpson?"
"Yes, sir, a gentleman and a lady."
"Do you know who they are?"
"No, sir; they are both complete strangers. They came and asked to see
you, and I told them you were not to be seen, sir. They asked a good
many questions about you, but I told them nothing."
"And then, Simpson?"
"The gentleman gave me his card, with his compliments, sir."
I took the card and read the address:
MR. JOHN LIDDICOAT,
THE HILL TOP,
ST. EIA.
"All right, Simpson," I said. "I shan't want you any more to-night."
"Please, sir," said Simpson, "I have some books here which I think might
interest you."
"Hang books!" I replied. "I don't feel like reading." Then, feeling
ashamed of myself for not appreciating Simpson's kindness, I added,
"It's awfully good of you, Simpson, and I might like them after all.
What is it you have got?"
"John Wesley's _Journal_, sir. He came to this part of Cornwall, and I
thought you might like to read about it. Not that I should advise you to
read to-night, sir, if I might take such a liberty, but perhaps
to-morrow. Good-night, sir." And he left me.
I was just on the point of going to bed, when, on opening one of the
volumes he had placed on the table, I came upon a passage which
interested me. I saw that the name of St. Issey was mentioned, and a
description given of this very neighborhood. In a few minutes I had
become utterly absorbed. Hitherto John Wesley had only been a name to
me. I had had no interest either in his life or work. I had looked upon
him as somewhat of a fanatic, who had appealed to the fears of a
superstitious people, and had founded a sect. Now, however, he revealed
himself to me in a new light. This diary was the work of a thoughtful
man, and a cultured man, too, who had lived his life to the full, and
who faced its issues squarely.
My word, religion had meant something to him! It was not a mere name, a
tradition, a set of dogmas, a respectable institution. It was something
real, vital, pulsating with life. To him the Founder of Christianity was
not a mere mystic and social reformer, who lived nineteen hundred years
ago on a little strip of land on the Eastern Coast of the Mediterranean,
but a Divine Person, Who lived now. This John Wesley, who was an
educated man and a thoughtful man, spoke like one who knew, and because
of it he had authority and power.
I went on reading page after page, until, looking at my watch, I found
it was past midnight.
VI
THE LETHBRIDGE FAMILY
We had adjourned to the smoke-room, and for my own part, I was feeling
better than I had felt for some time. Opposite me sat Mr. Lethbridge,
while by my side sat young Hugh Lethbridge, who had been to see me the
day before. I had eaten a good dinner, and felt inclined to take a
bright view of everything. Mr. Lethbridge had played the part of host
perfectly, and had done his best to make me feel welcome, not only as a
visitor in the neighborhood, but in his house. I had the opportunity,
moreover, of making the acquaintance of his wife and daughter.
The former was a well-meaning lady, whose _métier_ was to manage other
people's affairs. While we were at dinner she gave her husband a great
deal of information as to how he should manage his men, how he should
work the mines he owned, and how the vessels he controlled should be
utilized. She also informed her son how he should spend his time, what
his amusements and avocations should be. She greatly amused us all by
describing what she would do if she were a girl again. She had opinions
about everything in heaven above and on earth beneath. I found that she
knew intimately the history of every family in the neighborhood, and she
took it upon herself to manage the affairs of those families. She might
be rather a tiresome person to live with, but for my own part I found
her vastly entertaining.
Young Hugh Lethbridge told her that he intended writing to the Prime
Minister, offering her services as general adviser to the Government,
while her daughter laughingly remarked that she would wear herself out
in attending to the affairs of people who had a distinct preference for
attending to their own business. Mrs. Lethbridge took it all in a good
humor, however, and seemed to regard it as her chief business to be a
universal helper. She even went so far as to instruct me how I might
deal with Simpson, and gave me a great deal of valuable advice on
housekeeping.
I found that Isabella Lethbridge was entirely different from her mother.
On the whole she puzzled me. That she was intelligent there could be no
doubt whatever. In many ways she was attractive, but on the whole I did
not like her. For one thing, I thought she showed bad taste in holding
up her mother to ridicule, while more than once I thought she revealed
an almost sullen disposition. Still, she was interesting. She was more
than ordinarily good-looking, and at times became quite animated.
The family, as a whole, did not strike me as ideal. They seemed to be at
cross-purposes with each other. I could see that Mr. Lethbridge did not
at all understand his son, and resented any difference of opinion which
might exist between them. He apparently regarded Hugh as a boy who
should unquestioningly obey his father's behests without regard to his
own feelings and opinions; and yet he seemed to be angry with him for
not being something in the world which would give him a position among
his fellow-men.
And yet I am sure Mr. Lethbridge meant well. He was, as I have before
suggested, a strong, capable man, and fully bore out what I had heard
concerning him. He could never have been a nonentity, wherever he was
placed, and whatever he took in hand he would do with such
conscientiousness and thoroughness as to make it succeed. Consequently,
it was no wonder that he had risen from a poor lad to be a man of wealth
and of eminence in the county. That he was exceedingly ambitious there
could be no doubt, and I judged that he was a little bit sore that all
his ambitions had not been realized. He seemed composed of contradictory
elements. On one hand, he seemed a man of the Napoleonic order, who
would make everything and every person yield to his desires. On the
other, I judged him to be a man who wanted to be strictly honest and
conscientious, a man who would not give up one iota of his convictions,
even if by so doing he could gain the things he desired.
Although no plain statement was made at the dinner-table to that effect,
I gathered that he had suffered socially because of his adherence to
what he termed his Nonconformist principles, and that he would have
taken his position among the county families had he not remained true to
the Chapel he had attended as a boy. On the other hand, however, that
same Chapel, as it seemed to me, was a fetish rather than something
which vitally affected his life.
I am spending some time in recording my impressions about this family,
because I was brought into close contact with it in later days, and also
because the various members of it affected me considerably.
"Yes," said Mr. Lethbridge, as we sat in the smoke-room, "I am an
old-fashioned man, Mr. Erskine. I do not believe in giving up my early
convictions simply because they are not popular."
"What are your early convictions?" asked Hugh.
"I mean my Nonconformist principles. See what Methodism has done for
Cornwall, see what it has done for the whole country for that matter."
"Yes, what has it done?" asked Hugh.
"It has changed Cornwall from being drunken and godless into the most
sober and God-fearing part of the country."
"Admitted," replied the son. "But who cares anything about Methodism
now?"
"I am surprised and ashamed of you, Hugh, talking like that," said the
father. "What is your opinion about it, Mr. Erskine?"
"My opinion about what?" I asked.
"Don't you think a man should stand by his principles?"
"His principles, certainly," was my reply, "especially if, after having
tested them, they proved to be vital; but I am rather interested in what
your son says. I have been reading John Wesley's _Journal_, and I cannot
help realizing the tremendous influence he wielded over a hundred years
ago in this very county; but what troubles me is that it seems to mean
comparatively little now."
"I don't understand you," he said, rather brusquely.
"What I want to know," I said, "is this. Does Methodism, or for that
matter, does religion of any sort, vitally affect the lives and outlook
of people now? If it does, why is it that its hold seems to be weakening
day by day? I am told that your Chapel used to be crowded, and that
while the people were ignorant, Methodism vitally influenced their
lives; but now it seems a kind of corpse. It has a name to live, but is
dead. This afternoon, Simpson, my man, brought me a book which belonged
to his father. That book describes what the people used to do for their
faith. Even the women worked to bring stones to build the chapels, while
the men toiled hours after their ordinary work was over, as a labor of
love, in order to erect the buildings which their children and their
children's children neglect and often despise. Everything seems
stereotyped. Most of the people seem to care little or nothing about
what their forbears would die for, and those that do care seem to regard
it in a half-hearted way, and talk about it as something that has been
rather than something that is."
"Yes," said Mr. Lethbridge, with a sigh, "I am afraid you are right. The
old fire has gone, faith has largely died out, real earnestness seems a
thing of the past; and yet what can one do?"
"I am afraid I am not the one to ask," I replied. "You see, I am a rank
outsider so far as that kind of thing is concerned."
"For that matter the Church of England is no better," said Mr.
Lethbridge.
"Should that console one?" I asked. "Cornwall, as I understand, used to
be the home of religious activity, of unquestioning faith, of devoted
fervor; but to-day people are careless, materialistic. Faiths which at
one time were held tenaciously, doctrines which were believed in
unquestioningly, are now apparently a dead letter."
"I suppose you are a Churchman, Mr. Erskine," said Mr. Lethbridge.
"I am afraid I am nothing," I replied. "For several years I did not put
my foot inside a Church of any sort."
"Indeed, how is that?"
"I suppose I had no interest," I said. "That was why going to Church on
Sunday was something new to me. I felt like a man witnessing a strange
thing, and trying to understand something which was unfamiliar."
"Yes, and how did it impress you?"
"Everything was so unconvincing," I replied. "The note of reality was
never struck at all."
"But surely," said Mr. Lethbridge, "you are not an atheist?"
"I am nothing," was my answer. "I wish I were. I suppose you know why I
came here?"
"Yes, I have heard," he replied, "and I am very, very sorry for you, and
you such a young man too, and life opening up all sorts of
possibilities. Perhaps, however, it is not as bad as you think; the
doctor may have made a mistake."
"I am afraid there is no hope of that," was my reply. "The man who
examined me has the reputation of being the most eminent diagnostician
in his profession; but if you religious people are right, it does not
matter. If John Wesley, whose diary I have been reading, is right, what
we call life, that is, life here, is a very small matter; it is only a
fragment of life. Death, according to him, is only an episode; but the
worst of it is that here, in a county where he is so largely
represented, and in a village where he has visited, his power is gone.
The old words are used, but the old convictions are gone--that is why
such a man as I am left stranded. But really, I am ashamed of myself,
talking like this. Believe me, I am not in the habit of boring people
with my ailments and foolish speculations."
We joined the ladies shortly after, and our conversation, I am afraid,
was of a very uninteresting nature. I noticed all the time we were
talking, too, that Mr. Lethbridge was paying no attention whatever. He
seemed to be thinking deeply about something else. Presently, while his
wife was engaged in a long harangue about the inferiority of girls,
comparing them with what she used to be when she was a girl, Mr.
Lethbridge broke in suddenly.
"Yes, Mr. Erskine," he said, "you may be right in what you were
saying--that is, up to a point--but you don't go deep enough."
"I am afraid I never do go very deep," was my reply. "The deeper one
goes, as a rule, the greater the muddle."
"Not in this case," and he spoke quite eagerly. "Why, the whole life of
the county is what John Wesley and Methodism have made it. People, as a
whole, may seem to have discarded his teachings, but they are in the
very air we breathe; the people's thoughts, the people's lives, are what
they are to-day because of the work he did."
"I dare say," I replied, for, to tell the truth, I was anxious to avoid
anything like a theological discussion.
"Yes, don't you see? In the background of people's minds there is the
impress of his work; his influence is felt everywhere. Even the people
who never enter a place of worship have been shaped and moulded by
Methodism."
"In what way?" asked Hugh.
"Well, take such a question as war," replied Mr. Lethbridge. "John
Wesley killed the very possibility of war."
"I wish I could see it," I could not help exclaiming.
"It is plain enough," he replied. "Methodism and war cannot go together.
The love of peace has entered into the very essence of people's lives.
Is not that something to be thankful for?"
"I am not so sure," replied Isabella Lethbridge. "May not war be a very
good thing?"
"A good thing!" cried her father--"a good thing! Why, it's hellish! I
would rather see a son of mine dead than a soldier! And that is the
feeling Methodism has created throughout the county. You scarcely ever
find a conscientious Methodist becoming a soldier. A soldier in this
county is looked upon as a kind of legalized murderer."
"Surely," I said, "it is not so bad as that?"
"It amounts to that," was his reply. "For my own part, I have an utter
abhorrence of anything which savors of militarism, and I know it is
because of the impressions I received as a boy."
"But supposing war were to break out?" I said.
"War break out!" he interrupted. "How can it break out, unless some of
our so-called statesmen make asses of themselves? No one wants war."
"No," I said--"that is, as far as the general feeling in the country is
concerned; but supposing war were thrust upon us?"
"Who would thrust it upon us?" he asked, almost angrily.
"Germany, for example," was my reply.
"Impossible!"
"Not so impossible, I am afraid," I could not help replying. "Why,
during the last few years we have twice been on the brink of war with
Germany, and, unless I am mistaken, a war with that country is bound to
come, sooner or later." This, I am afraid, I said rather for the sake of
argument than because I really believed it. "Take that Agadir incident.
We were within an ace of war then. Indeed, had Germany been as ready as
she is now it would doubtless have come off."
"I do not believe it," was his reply. "The people of England would have
refused; the whole nation would have risen up in protest against it, and
not even the Government could have forced the country into a war which
it detested."
"Not if we were attacked?" was my answer.
"I do not believe in the possibility of it at all," he replied. "We are
essentially a peace-loving people."
"That may be, but even a peace-loving people may be obliged to defend
itself."
"But we shall never be called upon to defend ourselves."
"I am not at all sure," was my answer. "Germany is just spoiling for
war. Ever since she beat France she has been longing for expansion, and
the military party in Germany maintain that the English people keep them
from occupying their rightful place in the world."
"Yes, the military party," he said; "a negligible section of the
country."
"Excuse me," was my answer, "but the military party in Germany is
practically the nation. It is true there are a few Socialists who
disclaim war, and profess to be at enmity with the military party;
nevertheless, that party rules the nation, and if war should break out
every Socialist would be obliged to fight for his country--and Germany
means that it shall break out."
"And what then?" he asked.
"Then," I replied, "the power and solidarity of the British Empire will
be tested as it has never been tested before. There will be such a
struggle as has never been known in the history of the world. Every
ounce of power that we have will be requisitioned; every able-bodied man
in the country will be called to arms."
"But the country will refuse to respond," was his reply.
"If you are right, and the men of England refuse to respond, England
will cease to be. There will be no England, and Germany will rule the
destinies of the world."
"You seem to be very sure of what Germany will do," he said, rather
impatiently.
"No one can travel in Germany, or read German literature, without
knowing it. It is a nation under arms. The love of war is bred in the
people. Militarism is glorified. They have such an army as was never
known before, and they have utilized all their discoveries in science to
make their army a perfect fighting machine. They have huge factories
devoted to the making of air-ships and guns, and all that appertains to
guns, and I tell you that if war breaks out between Germany and England,
our country will be tried as it was never tried before. Do you mean to
say that England would stand still while Germany sought to destroy us?"
"I mean that we are not a military people, and never will be." It was at
this point that young Lethbridge sprang to his feet, like a man angry.
"I do not believe that you are right, pater," he said. "If England were
in danger the young men of England would fight to the last man."
"No, they would not," replied the father, "because war is a devilish
thing. It is opposed to the teaching of Christianity."
"But where would our Christianity be, where would everything we hold
dear be, if Germany dominated the world?" protested Hugh. "Why, if I had
a hundred lives I would give them for the defense of my country."
"Then patriotism would be more than your religion?"
"I cannot argue the matter from that standpoint," replied young
Lethbridge. "I only know that I am an Englishman--every drop of my blood
is English. God made me English, and if I have a love for my country,
God gave me that love, and if there were a call for men I would
respond."
"You would be no son of mine if you did," replied the father.
"But he would," cried Isabella Lethbridge. "Why, father, you are a
fighter; you know you are, and I should be ashamed of Hugh if his
country called him and he held back. There doesn't seem to be much in
life worth being interested in, but if anything would arouse me, it
would be the thought of England in danger."
"And would you believe in war, even if we were in the wrong?" asked her
father.
"I cannot conceive of our being in the wrong," was her reply. "Besides,
it can never be wrong to defend one's native land." The girl's eyes
flashed as she made this reply, and I saw possibilities in her nature
which I had not recognized before. Her lips quivered, and her features
became animated with a kind of new life.
"But do you really believe, Mr. Erskine, that Germany means to force war
on England?" she went on.
"No one who has been to Germany, and has studied the life there, can
help knowing that they have been preparing for war for forty years, and
no one can help realizing that the Germans hate the English with a
deadly hatred. It may be only because of their jealousy, or it may be,
as they say, that our Navy keeps them from realizing their rightful
position. Anyhow, the fact remains. Our statesmen are doing their best
to put off the evil day, but it is a recognized fact among those in high
places that Europe at this moment is sitting on a powder magazine; and,
mark you, if war does come it will not be a picnic."
"I tell you the people of England will never allow such a thing," urged
Mr. Lethbridge doggedly; "we are a peace-loving people. Besides, we
cannot go to war; we have no army worth calling an army, and I, for one,
thank God for it."
"Of course there will be no war," said Mrs. Lethbridge confidently; "the
Powers would not allow it, my dears."
"Are we sure that we have yet realized what Germany is, or what her
people mean to do?" I asked. "During the last thirty years she has
simply forced herself upon the life of the world; her commerce has
progressed by leaps and bounds; she has placed her foot everywhere.
Before Bismarck's days she had practically no voice in the counsels of
the nations. To-day her voice is a dominant one, her commerce is still
increasing; she has succeeded, in spite of our protests, in building a
navy second to none but our own. Why did she build that navy? She can
command an army of, perhaps, eight or ten million men, more perfectly
equipped than any other army known in history. She has munitions,
implements of war, which can practically laugh at those of any other
nation."
"That shows her foolishness," said Mr. Lethbridge.
"How?"
"Because she does not know what other countries possess."
"Is not that where you make a mistake? Germany has a Secret Intelligence
Service, which enables her to know the strength of every army and navy
in the world. England at this time, for example, is simply riddled with
spies. Germany knows the strength of our Navy to a nicety. She knows our
every port, every harbor, every fortress; she has made it her business
to do so, and Germany means war. Do you think that when the time comes
England will sit idly by?"
"No! by heavens, no!" cried Hugh Lethbridge. "I doubt whether what you
say is true, Erskine, but if England is ever in danger, Englishmen will
be true to their name and their country."
"Yes, and Englishwomen too," cried Isabella Lethbridge. "I tell you
nothing can destroy the old fighting instinct, which will protect home
and Motherland. Dad," and she turned to her father almost fiercely, "do
you mean to say that if we were in danger you would advise us to do
nothing?"
Mr. Lethbridge laughed scornfully. "How can there be any danger?" he
asked. "War cannot come about in these days, as it did in the old times.
War depends now on the whole of the people; the democracy rules--not a
few men in high places."
"Democracy does not rule," cried the girl, "and never will. Democracy is
a mob which is forever calling out for leaders. No Government is
democratic, it is always autocratic."
"You are talking nonsense, child," said her father. "You can do nothing
to-day against the voice of the people, and the voice of the people is
against anything like war. I repeat what I said just now--I would rather
see a son of mine dead than that he should be a soldier! But there,
there! There is no chance of it. Whatever England has been, she is
to-day at peace, and as far as Cornwall is concerned, as I said just
now, John Wesley has killed militarism."
He left the room as he spoke, while Hugh Lethbridge looked meaningly
towards his sister.
"I am afraid I shall have to be going," I said, looking at my watch. "I
have stayed too long already."
"No, no!" protested Hugh. "Stay a little longer. Do you know, Erskine,
it is like a fresh breeze from the mountains to hear what you have been
saying to-night. We live a starved, narrow life down here, and--and I'm
sick of it. I almost wish war would break out."
"For shame, Hugh!" said his mother. "What good would you be as a
soldier? No one can be an officer in an army unless he is trained; and
as for your becoming a private, why, think how ridiculous you would look
in a private's uniform."
"I am afraid I must be going," I persisted, moving towards the door.
"I will have the car out and drive you home," said Hugh Lethbridge.
"No," I said, "it is a beautiful night, and I think I would rather
walk."
"But in your state of health, Mr. Erskine, it would be very foolish,"
said Mrs. Lethbridge. "Really, we cannot allow you."
"I would rather walk," I persisted. Whereupon Hugh announced his
intention of accompanying me.
When Mr. Lethbridge bade me good-night he had quite recovered his
equanimity, and expressed the hope that I would soon come to see them
again.
"I feel like a toad in a hole," said Hugh, after we had walked some
minutes in silence together.
"How is that?" I asked.
"What has life to offer a fellow? The pater insisted upon my going to
the University and reading for the Bar. I am not fit for it--I know I am
not fit. Then, although he pretends to be a man of the people, he is
also socially ambitious. You would not believe it, would you? I know it
is wrong for me to talk in this way, but somehow I cannot help it. You
know, Erskine, as my father said just now, he was a poor man, and made
money rapidly, and he is disappointed that the doors of the county
people are not open to us. I do not care a fig about the county people
myself; do you?"
"Some of them are very nice," I replied.
"You will not take it amiss of me if I tell you something, will you?
And, of course, you will regard it as a confidence? It is something
which means a lot to me."
"Do you think you know me well enough to tell me?" I replied. "After
all, we have only met twice."
"I must tell you," he persisted. "As you say, I have only met you twice,
but I seem to have known you all my life. Besides, a fellow must tell
his thoughts to some one. I am in love, Erskine."
"That is interesting."
"Yes, but don't you see, everything is at cross-purposes. Old Treherne,
down here, has a daughter several years older than I am. You have heard
of Treherne, haven't you? He is the Squire."
"Yes, I have heard of Mr. Treherne."
"His daughter is on the shelf--has been for several years. He is as poor
as a church mouse, is the Squire; but then, he is one of the big people
in the county, and the pater has an idea that if I were to marry her ...
well, you can see, can't you?"
"The lady might not be willing," I suggested.
"Quite possible, of course; but the pater seems sure she would be. You
see, she's thirty, if she's a day, and as ugly as they make 'em, and the
pater wants me to sell my soul and marry her. By so doing, old Treherne
would be able to pay off the mortgages on the estate, and I, in time,
would become the Squire. Just think of it!"
"I thought he wanted you to read for the Bar?" I interposed.
"Yes, he does, but that is only one of his many schemes. He wants me to
marry Treherne's daughter. Celia, they call her--Celia Treherne. Good,
isn't it?"
"Why, isn't she an estimable lady?"
"Estimable! Estimable enough. But, as I told you just now, I am in love
with a farmer's daughter, one of the class my family really belongs to,
and the pater--well, I need scarcely tell you what he says."
"And this farmer's daughter's name?" I queried.
"I wish you would let me introduce you to her," he cried eagerly. "A
sweeter girl never lived. I used to think of her as a sweetheart ten
years ago, when the pater was poorer than he is now. I fought several
boys about her. Mary Treleaven is her name. Do you think that you could
persuade the governor? You see, he refuses to countenance it, and,
without him, I haven't a penny with which to bless myself."
"My dear fellow," I said, "if you care anything about the girl you will
make yourself independent of your father."
"Yes, but what am I fit for--what can I do? He professes to have
democratic notions, and yet he has given me the education of a
gentleman; sent me to a public school, where no one learns anything of
any use, and then to Oxford, where I just scraped through, and got a
pass degree. What is the good of all that to me? There is not a single
thing I care anything about, except farming, and that needs capital.
What would you advise me to do?"
"I am afraid I can't advise anything just now. You see, I know so little
about either of you. Perhaps when I have been here a little longer I may
be able to help." By this time we had reached the little wooded lane
which led to my hut.
"You will come and see us again soon?" he pleaded.
"You are very kind," I replied. "If I am well enough, I will."
"I cannot believe you are so ill as you think," he said eagerly.
I did not answer him. Of what use was it for me to tell him of the
gnawing pain which I could feel just then--pain which told me that my
very life was being eaten away?
"Won't you come in?" I asked.
"No, I mustn't. Besides, you will be tired. I say! what is that?" and he
pointed towards the highest part of the cliff, the base of which pushed
itself out into the sea. I looked, and in the dim light saw what I felt
sure to be a boat approaching the shore.
"Some fishermen, I expect," I replied.
"No, fishermen do not hang so close to the rocks as that," was his
answer. "Besides, the boat is making directly for us. No one was ever
known to land a fishing-boat on this beach. Fishing-boats go direct to
the harbor at St. Eia."
We listened intently, and heard the steady splash of the oars, and
presently I thought I heard low, murmuring voices, but I was not sure.
VII
ISABELLA LETHBRIDGE
During the next few days nothing happened, and, if the truth must be
told, I am afraid I got very lonely and depressed. Simpson did his best
to interest me, but failed. My books, too, seemed dull and colorless. I
suppose it was natural. I was passing through a phase in my life which
was the inevitable consequence of what had hitherto taken place. The
malady from which I was suffering was taking rather an acute form just
then, and I had neither the strength nor inclination for exercise. Thus,
although the weather was glorious and the air pure and bracing, I found
that sitting day after day amid the same surroundings was anything but
exhilarating. Moreover, although I cannot explain it, a sense of dread
possessed me. I felt sure that something was going to happen, and that I
was going to be at the centre of some untoward event.
I expect I felt all the more irritable because my desire to live became
stronger and stronger. It appeared to me that I had nothing to live for,
and yet I hung on to life, and the hope of life, grimly.
"Simpson," I said one day, "you told me when we came here that an idiot
lad, who went by the name of Fever Lurgy, waited on old Father Abraham
and did his errands. What has become of him?"
"Don't know, sir."
"Does no one know?"
"Don't know at all, sir."
"It seems strange, doesn't it, that this lad, who was the first to tell
of what had happened to the old man, should not have come here when he
heard that the house was occupied again?"
"I did hear something of his running away, because he was afraid; but I
know nothing."
"Afraid? Afraid of what?"
"You know what these idiot boys are, sir. I suppose he almost worshipped
old Father Abraham, and when he knew his master was killed he feared to
stay in the same neighborhood."
"Is that your conclusion too, Simpson?" I asked.
"I never thought of it before, sir."
That day I went out for a walk. Somehow the lethargy which had possessed
me for a long time was gone, and my body for the time was instinct with
a new life. My fancies about Fever Lurgy had laid hold of me, and I
began asking myself all sorts of questions. I found my way into the
village, and, seeing a group of men standing by the pump, joined them. I
found them very willing to talk with me, and while at first they showed
no desire to impart any information, they asked me countless questions.
This, I have found since, is a characteristic of the Cornish people.
They are exceedingly friendly, and are willing to show kindness to a
stranger, but they will not take him into their confidence. They are
curious to know everything he can tell them, but they will tell him
nothing in return. While they believed I was simply a stranger from "up
country," their only interest in me was to know who I was, where I came
from, and all about my affairs generally. When they got to know that I
was of Cornish descent, however, there was an entire change in their
demeanor towards me. I was one of them.
In the course of a few minutes we got talking about Father Abraham and
of his tragic end.
"It 'ave bin said, sur, that th' ould man's ghost do wander round the
plaace, where you d' live, sur. Es et true?"
"I have never seen him, anyhow. Have you?"
"Well, sur, ted'n for we to say. Oal the saame, I heerd curious noises
wawn night near your house."
"What kind of noises?" I asked.
"Oh, a kind of moanin' and cryin', like a gull in pain."
"Maybe it _was_ a sea-gull," I suggested.
"No, sur, we d' know what gulls be like. Twad'n that. We be sure there
was foul play, sur."
"What about that lad, Fever Lurgy?" I asked. "Does he live in the
neighborhood now?"
"Bless you, sur, Fayver Lurgy a'n't bin seen since th' ould man was
killed."
"No!" I said. "Isn't that strange?"
"Oa, he was a funny chap, was Fayver Lurgy. Do you know whay he was
called Fayver Lurgy, sur?"
"Not the slightest idea," I replied.
"Well, sur, down 'long 'ere wi' we, when a great lousterin' chap wa'ant
work, and do ait a lot, we d' say 'ee've got Fayver Lurgy. That es, two
stomachs to ait, and noan to work. Tha's 'ow Fayver Lurgy got 'is name.
He's as strong as a 'oss, but he wudd'n work. 'Ee wadd'n such a fool as
'ee made out. 'Ee allays was a button short, was Fayver Lurgy, but 'ee
wadd'n no idiot, as people d' say."
"So you think he was afraid of being killed?" I suggested.
"Tha's what we d' think, sur."
"Who were his father and mother?" I asked.
"Nobody doan knaw, sur. He comed 'ere years and years ago, sur, weth an
ould woman, who said she was 'is grandmother. When th' ould woman died,
sur, Fayver Lurgy jist lopped round by hisself. Sometimes he ded a bit
of work, and sometimes nothin'; but 'ee scraped up a living some'ow.
When ould Father Abraham comed, he kipt with 'im reglar, and direkly 'ee
was killed, Fayver Lurgy left the neighbrood, and nobody doan knaw where
'a es."
"Did you ever see old Father Abraham?" I asked.
"Yes, sur, I've seen 'im, but never to spaik to. Curyus ould chap he
was. He 'ad long white whiskers and ter'ble bright eyes. Wan man I d'
knaw spoke to 'un. Billy Barnycote 't was. Billy did say as 'ow he
believed that ould Father Abraham was a furriner."
"I suppose he never went to Church or Chapel?" I asked.
"What! ould Father Abraham? Not 'ee. 'Ee ded'n go nowhere, so to spaik."
"And you," I said. "Do you ever go?"
"Sometimes, maaster, when there is a good praicher; but why shud us go
when the praichers doan knaw more'n we do? I a'ain't bin since last
Sunday-school anniversary. They 'ad a praicher from up to Plymouth.
Clever chap 'ee was, too. Ef we cud allays git praichers like 'ee, we'd
go every Sunday, but when a man like Tommy Coad d' git up and craake, we
ca'ant stand it."
The day was beautifully fine, and, as I felt more than ordinarily well,
I took a long route home. I had not gone far when, passing a stile, I
saw Miss Lethbridge leap lightly into the road. I could not help
reflecting how handsome she appeared in her light summer attire. When
visiting her father's house a few days before she had struck me as being
hard and repellent. Even now there was nothing winsome or girlish about
her, but that she presented an attractive figure I could not deny. More
than ordinarily tall, and finely formed, she carried her well-fitting
clothes to perfection. Her features, too, while not exactly beautiful,
were striking; and, flushed somewhat as she was by her walk through the
fields, she seemed a part of that bright, early summer day.
"I hope you are better, Mr. Erskine," was her greeting.
"Yes," I replied, "I feel well enough to take a fairly long walk. I have
been down into the village talking with some of the people there, and
trying to discover some of the romance for which Cornwall is famous."
"And have had your labor for your pains," was her reply.
"Not entirely. I feel as though I have happened upon something which
will lead to interesting developments."
"Believe me, you will not, Mr. Erskine."
"No? Why?"
"If ever there was a false tradition, it is the tradition that Cornwall
is romantic. I have lived here all my life, and there is no more romance
in the county than in that mine-heap," and she nodded towards a
discarded mine which lay in the distance.
"The Cornish people," she went on, "have no sense of the mysterious, no
sense of the romantic. If ever they had it, it has all died. I suppose
that years ago, when the people were entirely ignorant, they believed in
all sorts of superstitions, but now that they are better educated they
have discarded everything but what they can see, and feel with their own
hands. I am inclined to think they are right, too."
"I am not so sure," was my answer. And then I told her of the
conversation that had taken place a few moments before.
"And do you imagine, Mr. Erskine, that any romance surrounds the old man
who built the house you live in, and lived like a hermit away there by
the cliff? Do you think that any romance is associated with the idiot
lad who ran his errands and did his bidding?"
"Why not?"
"Because none exists."
"Pardon me if I do not agree with you. After all, there is something
romantic in the thought of that old man coming there alone and building
his hut in a lonely place, and spending years of his life there."
"Yes, it may seem so; but, pardon me, is there anything romantic in your
coming there, Mr. Erskine?"
I shrugged my shoulders.
"I am afraid not," I replied.
"And I dare say the reason why he came there was just as unromantic. As
for Fever Lurgy, every village has its idiot who is a butt for rustic
jokes."
"And what about old Father Abraham's mysterious disappearance?" I asked.
"What you call a mysterious disappearance," was her reply, "I regard as
a sordid crime. I expect the old man had a little money hoarded up, some
tramps heard of it, and, for the sake of that money, murdered him and
threw his body over the cliff."
"At any rate," I said, "it is more pleasant to think that some mystery
surrounded his life, and that he left the neighborhood from some
romantic cause. Do you know, I am inclined to think that he is still
alive, that he will turn up some day, and that the whole thing will be
the talk of the countryside."
"And yet you are a trained lawyer, and have lived in London!" she
laughed.
"Perhaps that is why. Lawyers get weary of hard thinking. Besides, when
one comes to think of it, hard thinking is only responsible for a tithe
of the discovery of truth. Far more of it is discovered by intuition
than by logic."
"Do you know, you are very refreshing, Mr. Erskine. It is delightful to
think of a man coming from hard, matter-of-fact London to Cornwall, and
believing in the things that we simple rustics have discarded for a
generation or more."
"Then you don't find life either romantic or mysterious?"
"I find it the most prosy, uninteresting thing imaginable. There is no
mystery and no romance in the world; everything is hard, matter of fact,
commonplace."
"Come, come, now, you cannot believe that," I laughed.
"One believes as one finds." And I thought her eyes became hard. "The
other day I read what is called a romantic novel. It had gone through
numberless editions, and was, I suppose, the rage of reading circles. It
told of all sorts of mysterious happenings and romantic adventures. Then
I reflected on what had actually happened to myself and to girls with
whom I am acquainted. I went to school in France and Germany, as well as
in England, and, do you know, I really cannot find one bit of romance
that has ever happened to me or to the girls I have known. I can't
remember anything mysterious."
"Isn't life one great mystery?"
"Yes, mystery if you like, but simply because of our ignorance. When the
mystery is explained, the explanation is as prosy as that cottage." And
she looked towards a cottage door, where a woman stood by her wash-tub.
"Do you ever find life mysterious, Mr. Erskine?"
"Yes, it is mysterious from end to end. Sometimes, as I sit in my little
wooden hut, facing the sea, at night-time, and hear the wind moan its
way over the cliffs and across the waste of waters, when the solemn
feeling of night broods over everything, I feel that life is one great
mystery. What is behind it all? What is the meaning of everything? Is
there a Creator? What lies beyond what we call death? Surely, that is
mystery enough. You may say, if you like, that this feeling of mystery
is because of our ignorance; nevertheless, it is there."
"Yes," she replied. "But the trouble is that, in so far as we have
discovered mysteries, they turn out to be of the most prosy and
commonplace nature. Things that were once unknown, and appealed to the
world as romantic, now that they are known are just as prosy and
uninteresting as the commonplace. Directly a thing is known it becomes
humdrum. I went to a lecture one night given by a scientist--an
astronomer, in fact. He was lecturing on the planet Mars. He said that
he himself had examined the planet through a powerful telescope, and he
had seen what to him were convincing proofs that there were canals cut
through a piece of land which was similar in nature to the Isthmus of
Panama. As a consequence the planet Mars was inhabited--inhabited by
thinking, sentient beings, who lived in a world millions of miles from
this world. It seemed very wonderful at that time, but, when I came to
think of it, it was all very prosy. What if it were inhabited? It would
simply mean that people somehow exist there, just as they exist here,
and think and suffer, and struggle and die. Can anything be more prosy
and unromantic than that?"
"Isn't the very mystery of death itself attractive--wonderful?" I asked.
"Do you think so?" And she looked at me curiously.
"Sometimes," I replied, "although I dread the thought of death, I have a
kind of feverish curiosity about it, and I would like to die just to
know."
"Yet it would be disappointing in the end. When that so-called mystery
comes to be explained, there will be nothing but great, blank darkness."
"And that is your creed of life and death?"
"We can only argue from the known to the unknown," was her reply.
"And do you not long for something more?"
"Long!" And there was passion in her voice.
"Then, to you, religion, immortality, have no interest?"
"Yes, interest," was her reply, "but, like everything else, it is
because of my ignorance. I know I am very ignorant, Mr. Erskine, and I
dare say you will laugh at me for talking in the way I do; but, so far
as I have read of the origins of religions, they are simply the result
of a fear of the unknown. People are afraid to die, and they have
evolved a sort of hope that there is a life other than this. I know it
is a cheerless creed, but don't facts bear out what I have said? In
different parts of the world are different religions, and each and all
of them are characteristic of the people who believe in them. Wasn't
Matthew Arnold right when he said that the Greeks manufactured a god
with classical features and golden hair, while the negroes created a god
with black skin, thick lips, and woolly hair?"
"Do you go far enough back, even then?" I asked. "You are simply dealing
with the shape of the god. What is the origin of the idea?"
"I suppose man invented it," was her reply.
"Yes, but how? After all, knowledge is built upon other knowledge.
Imagination is the play of the mind around ascertained facts. 'No man
hath seen God at any time.' How, then, have people come to believe in
Him, except through some deeper and more wonderful faculty, which
conveyed it to the mind? For the mind, after all, is only the vehicle,
and not the creator, of thought."
She shrugged her shoulders.
"You get beyond me there, Mr. Erskine. When you dabble in metaphysics I
am lost. Still, is it not a fact that the more intellectual the race the
less religious it becomes? Take France, for example. Paris is the great
clearing-house of ideas, and yet the French are an unbelieving people."
"Is that altogether true?" was my reply, for I was led to take up an
attitude of the soundness of which I was far from being convinced. "Is
not France literally sick and tired of the atheism which surged over the
nation at the time of the Revolution? France no longer glories in hard
unbelief, and, as far as I know, the French people are simply longing
for faith, and, for that matter, are going back to faith. Not, perhaps,
the faith which the Revolution destroyed, but to something deeper,
diviner."
She seemed thoughtful, and for some time neither of us spoke. Then she
burst out laughing merrily.
"Don't things seem reversed?" she said. "Here are you, a scholar of
Oxford, and a clever lawyer, upholding tradition, imagination,
intuition, superstition, while I, an ignorant girl, am discarding it
all."
"Perhaps," I replied, "that is because life is long to you, short to me.
When one comes to what seems the end of things, one looks at life
differently. There," I went on, for at that moment we had passed a lad
with his arm round a girl's waist, "that boy lives in heaven. He is with
the girl he loves. Suppose you tried to convince that boy and girl there
was no such thing as romance, would they believe you?"
"Perhaps not," she replied; "but I could take you down the village
yonder, and show you men and women who, twenty years ago, were just as
romantic as those two cooing doves; and to-day the men loaf round the
village lanes, smoking, or, perhaps, are in the public-house drinking;
while the women are slatternly, discontented, standing at the wash-tub,
or scrubbing out cottages. Where now is the romance, or, for that
matter, the love?"
"Then you don't believe in love either?"
She was silent, and I watched her face closely, and again I was struck
by her appearance. Yes, no doubt, Isabella Lethbridge was more than
ordinarily handsome. Her features, without being beautiful, were fine.
The flash of her eyes betokened intelligence beyond the ordinary. At
that moment, too, there was a look in them which I had not seen
before--a kind of longing, a sense of unsatisfaction, something wistful.
"Love?" she repeated. "No, I don't think I believe in it."
"Surely," I said, "that is going a little bit too far."
"Yes, perhaps it is," was her answer. "There is love--the love of a
mother for her child. You see it everywhere. A lion will fight for her
whelps, a hen will protect her chickens. But I suppose you were meaning
the love which man has for a woman, and woman for man?"
"Yes," I replied, "I was. I was thinking of that lover and his lass whom
we have just passed."
"I do not know," she replied. "All I know is that I never felt it, and
yet I confess to being twenty-four. It is an awful age, isn't it? Fancy
a girl of twenty-four never having been in love! Yet, facts are facts. I
do not deny that there is such a thing as affinity; but love, as I
understand it, is, or ought to be, something spiritual, something
divine, something which outlasts youth and all that youth means;
something which defies the ravages of time, that laughs at
impossibilities. No. I do not believe there is such a thing."
"Then what is the use of living?" I asked.
"I hardly know. We have a kind of clinging to life, at least the great
majority of us have, although I suppose in the more highly cultured
States suicides are becoming more common. We shudder at what we call
death, and so we seek to live. If, like the old Greeks, we surrounded
death with beautiful thoughts----"
"Ah yes," I interrupted; "but then we get into the realms of religion.
The Greeks believed in an immortal part, and love to them was eternal."
"True," she replied. "But where is the old Greek mythology now? It has
become a thing of the past. Mr. Erskine, will you forgive me for talking
all this nonsense, for it is nonsense? I know I am floundering in a deep
sea and saying foolish things. Besides, I must leave you. There is a
house here where I must call."
She held out her hand as she spoke, and looked at me. I felt as though
she were trying to fascinate me. For a second our eyes met, and I felt
her hand quiver in mine. At that moment something was born in my mind
and heart which I had never experienced before. I confess it here,
because probably no one will read these lines but myself. I felt towards
Isabella Lethbridge as I had never felt towards any woman before. Even
in those days when I had flirted and danced and laughed with girls of my
own age, and with whom I fancied myself in love, I had never felt
towards a woman as I felt towards her.
"Good-day, Miss Lethbridge," I said, as I walked away.
"I hope you will come up to Trecarrel again soon," she said. "Please
don't wait for a formal invitation; we shall always be glad to see you.
At least, _I_ shall," and she gave me a bewildering smile.
I walked some little distance down the road, then turned and watched her
till she was out of sight. I tried to analyze the new feelings which had
come into my life.
"Why am I so interested in her?" I asked. "What is this which has come
to me so suddenly? Whatever it is, it is not love." And I knew I spoke
the truth, even as I know it now. Yet she fascinated me. I reflected
that her talk had been pedantic, the product of an ill-balanced mind,
and, while she was clever, she was superficial. Yet she attracted me in
a way I could not understand. She had moved me as no other woman had
moved me, but I knew, as I know now, that I was not in love with her.
I walked slowly along. We had come to the end of June, and the birds
were singing gaily. Away in the distance I could see the sheen of the
waves in the sunlight. The great line of cliffs stood out boldly; the
world was very fair. A weight seemed to have rolled from my shoulders.
Oh, it was good to live--good to bask in the sunlight on that summer
day! I laughed aloud. No romance! no mystery! no religion! no love! The
girl had almost made me believe in what she had said, although at the
back of my mind I felt it was all wrong. I looked at my watch, and knew
that I must be returning, or Simpson would be anxious about me. He had
become quite paternal in his care.
I descended the steep hill towards the little copse at the back of my
house. Once or twice I stopped and listened to the waves as they rolled
on the hard, yellow beach, while the sea-gulls hovered over the great
beetling cliffs.
"I won't die!" I cried. "I simply won't!"
And yet I knew at the time that death had taken possession of me, was
even then gnawing away at the centre of my life.
I entered the little copse and drew near to the house. I had gone,
perhaps, twenty yards, when I stopped. Peering at me through the leaves
of the bushes, which grew thick on the side of the cliff, was a pair of
gleaming eyes. They seemed to me to be the eyes of a madman, a maniac.
Perhaps my imagination was excited, and my mind unbalanced, but I
thought I saw revenge, hatred, murder. The eyes were large and staring.
I could see no face, no form. I felt no fear, only a sense of wonder and
a desire to know. I took a step in the direction of those wild, maniacal
orbs, and I heard a cry--hoarse, agonized. I took another step forward
and looked again, and saw nothing, neither did I hear another sound.
Feverishly I made my way towards the spot, but there was nothing there.
No footmarks could I discover, no signs of any one having been there. I
am perfectly certain I saw what I have described, as sure as that I am
sitting in my little room at this moment, but although I searched
everywhere I could discover nothing.
I returned to my house and began to dress for dinner; but all the while
I was haunted by those wild, staring eyes.
VIII
MYSTERY
"Simpson," I said, after dinner, "do you believe in ghosts?"
"Yes, sir, I think so, sir."
"What are your views about them?"
"Well, sir, I don't know that I could put them into words. Will you have
your coffee now, sir?"
"Yes, please, Simpson; and will you pass my cigar-box?"
"Yes, sir; thank you, sir."
"You are somewhat of a philosopher, aren't you, Simpson?"
"In my own way, sir. If I hadn't been I should have been dead before
now."
"Oh, indeed," I said. "How?"
"Well, sir, it was during the two years I was married. It was my
philosophy that saved me."
"In what way?" I asked.
"Well, you see, sir, I hadn't been married more than a month before I
discovered that my wife had a remarkable command of language. While we
were courting, she pretended to be shy, and had very little to say; but
when we got married she developed the power of speech awful, sir--just
awful. At first I answered her back, and every time I spoke I seemed, as
it were, to open up the fountains of the great deep, until I thought I
was going mad. Then I got to thinking about it, sir, and after careful
study of my wife's character I came to the conclusion that the only way
I could meet her was by silence. I didn't smoke at that time, sir, she
having said as how she hated smoking; but I bought a pipe and tobacco,
and every time she started talking I just loaded up my pipe and
commenced smoking. I didn't say a word, sir, but let her go on and on."
"Well," I asked, "did that cure her?"
"Not at first, sir; for a time she was worse than ever, and I thought I
should have to give it up. That was where my philosophy came in, sir; I
just held on. The more she talked the more I smoked, never uttering a
word."
"Yes," I said, "and what then?"
"She began to cry, sir. She cried and cried until I thought she was
going to cry her eyes out. I almost gave in, but being a philosopher I
still kept quiet. After that, she began to threaten what she would do.
She rampaged round the house like a mad woman, but I only bought a new
pipe."
"And did you master her that way?"
"No, sir; I never mastered her. It is my belief that if a woman has got
the gift of the gab as she had, she never can be mastered. But she left
me, sir."
"I thought you told me she was dead, Simpson?"
"Oh, no, sir; I never told you that; I only told you that I had a wife
for two years. Yes, sir, she kept with me for two years, trying to break
me down. Then, one day, when I came into the house I found a letter from
her. She said that she could not live with a brute who would not answer
her back, so she went off on her own."
"And what did you do then, Simpson?"
"I went to live with your father, sir, and I have lived with the family
ever since. But it was my philosophy which saved my life. If I had given
in she would have killed me."
"And where is she now, Simpson?"
"I don't know, sir, and I don't want to. Yes, sir, nothing but
philosophy will master a woman."
"Well, to come back to where we were, Simpson. You being a philosopher,
have you any explanation to offer as to ghosts?"
"Well, sir, not ever having seen one, I don't see how I can. If I had
seen one I might answer. Have you seen one, sir?"
"Yes, Simpson. This evening, just before coming in to dinner, I was
coming along the footpath through the copse, when I saw a pair of
bright, staring eyes, like the eyes of a madman. There was no doubt
about it; I am certain I saw them. I could make out no face, but I am
certain I saw the eyes. When I went to the place where I saw them I
could find nothing. What is your opinion about it?"
Simpson thought a minute, then he replied solemnly:
"It was an 'allucination, sir."
"Was it that, Simpson?"
"Well, sir, if you will excuse me for asking, who had you been with
before you saw the eyes? Had you spoken to any one? Had you been talking
about ghosts, or that sort of thing?"
"No, Simpson; I had been talking with Miss Lethbridge, a young lady who
does not believe in ghosts."
"Ah, that explains, sir."
"How, Simpson?"
"A woman always upsets the mind--always. If you had said you had seen
the face without the eyes, I could perhaps have believed you; but when
you say you saw eyes without a face, and then tell me you had been
talking with a young lady, I know just what is the matter."
"Yes; but, Simpson, that is not all. I heard an awful moan. Rather more
than a moan--it was a kind of moan and cry combined."
"And did you hear any rustling in the bushes, sir?"
"Not a sound."
"Ah, well, sir, I stand by my opinion. Anything more you want, sir?"
"Nothing more, thank you." And Simpson went away into the kitchen.
He had not been gone long, when I heard footsteps outside, and shortly
after young Hugh Lethbridge appeared.
"You don't mind my calling, do you, Erskine?" he said.
"On the contrary, I am delighted," I replied. "I have just been talking
with my man about something which I saw this evening, and he can offer
no explanation. Perhaps you can." And I told him what I had seen.
"By Gum!" he said, "that's funny. You are sure you are not mistaken,
Erskine?"
"Impossible," I replied. "I saw those eyes as plainly as I see you. It
was not dark--the sun had not set, for that matter."
"And were you excited in any way?" And he looked at me steadily.
"No," I replied; "I was not excited."
"It's funny. You don't imagine, do you, that there was anything
supernatural about it?"
"I wish I did, but I am sorry to say that I have no faith whatever in
the supernatural."
"No," he said; "I remember what you told us up at Trecarrel. And you
searched the place thoroughly?"
"Yes, thoroughly. You see, I was curious."
"And you had not been thinking about supernatural things?"
"Not in the least. For that matter, I had a few minutes before met your
sister."
"Oh, yes; Bella told me she had met you, and was afraid she had shocked
you."
"No, I was not shocked at all; I was very interested."
"Bella is a curious girl," said Hugh Lethbridge, after a short silence.
"We have always been very good friends, but I have never understood her.
Even when she was quite a girl she was different from those of her own
age."
"In what way?"
"She was always so hard, so matter of fact. I have told her more than
once that she has no soul." He said the words lightly, but to me they
were ominous with meaning. He had put into words what I had felt.
"I suppose I ought not to say this," went on Hugh; "but I don't feel
towards you as I do towards other men. I don't know why it is. No sooner
did I see you than I wanted to have you as a friend; I felt I could
trust you. You don't mind my saying this, do you?"
"Rather it is awfully good of you."
"I am a lonely kind of fellow," he went on, "and my home life has shut
me off from the society of those I might care for. Other fellows invite
their college chums to stay with them, and all that kind of thing, but
the pater never allowed me to do it. Why, I don't know. I know it is
wrong to discuss one's people before a stranger, but, as I said just
now, I don't feel you are a stranger. What do you think of my father,
Erskine?"
"I think he is a strong, capable man," I replied.
"Yes, there is no doubt about that. Why, years ago he was only a poor
lad, living in a district where there seemed to be very few chances of a
lad making his way, and yet you see what he has done. He was a clerk in
the office of a man who had to do with shipping in Penzance. Only in a
small way, you know, but he gave my father the chance to learn the
business. He did learn it. What the pater doesn't know about shipping
isn't worth knowing. To-day he owns scores of vessels. He got into touch
with the mining world, too, and he seemed to possess a sort of genius
for fastening on to mines that would pay. He has not only a controlling
interest in the few prosperous Cornish mines, but he is connected with
the mining world in almost every country where mines are to be found. He
is as keen as a razor, is the pater, and has a way of making his will
felt everywhere.
"And yet he is a most conscientious man. That is, conscientious in his
own way. He used to be very religious. He used to pray at the Chapel,
and all that sort of thing, but he's given it up now. But he holds to
the form of religion still. As you heard him say the other night, he is
a very strong believer in democracy. On the other hand, a greater
autocrat never lived. In reality he believes in the feudal system, even
while he professes to scorn what we call aristocracy. Yes, I see you
smile. Never was a man more anxious to associate with county families
than he. But he never yields an inch to them. If he had, he would have
been admitted into what is called county society. Even as it is, Squire
Treherne seems to be afraid of him."
"How is that?" I asked.
"Oh, he pays deference to his opinions; always supports him in public
matters, and all that sort of thing. I am inclined to think that the
pater has old Treherne in his power. You will not say anything about
this, will you, Erskine? I do not believe my father cares a fig about
me," he added.
"Nonsense!" I replied.
"I don't really. In a way he is interested in me. I suppose it is
because blood is thicker than water, but do you know I can never
remember the time when he kissed me, or anything of that sort. He always
tried to rule me with a rod of iron."
"And has he treated your sister in the same way?" I asked.
"Yes, and no. Do you know, Erskine, my sister is a strange girl."
I was silent. I felt I had no right to ask the question which rose in my
mind.
"What do you think of Bella?" he asked suddenly.
He did not seem to realize that he was overstepping the bounds of good
taste in asking me, a stranger, such a question, and I realized more
than ever that he was only an impulsive boy, although he had reached
man's estate. Indeed, in one sense, Hugh did not know what it was to be
reserved, and yet in others he was strangely reticent.
I thought he seemed to be about to take me further into his confidence
at this point, but, perhaps noting the non-committal nature of my reply,
he desisted.
"Of course, she's a bundle of contradictions," he said; "but she's
really splendid. Why, on the day after she'd--but, there, I mustn't tell
you about that. Anyhow, there was an accident at Pendeen Mine. Two men
were believed to be in danger of drowning by the flooding of the old
workings. The miners had made every attempt--at least, so they said--to
rescue them, and to do anything more would be to throw away their own
lives."
"Yes," I said. "What then?"
"Bella went to them and talked to them as they had never been talked to
before. She laughed all their protests to scorn, and when they proved to
her that, humanly speaking, they had done all that men could do, she
insisted upon going down the mine herself. It was the maddest thing a
woman could do, and God only knows how she did it; but she rescued the
miners. Why, it was in all the newspapers. Yes, Bella is magnificent,
but--but----"
Hugh Lethbridge was silent for some time after this, neither did I
speak. I was thinking of the impression she had made on me when I first
saw her.
"She was never like other girls, even when she was a child," he went on.
"She did not care for games--that is, ordinary children's games--so,
although she is only two years older than I, we were never what you call
playfellows. She is a very brainy girl, too, and by the time she was
fourteen had read all sorts of out-of-the-way books."
"I wonder she did not go to Somerville or Girton when she left school."
"That's what she wanted," replied Lethbridge, "but the pater said he did
not believe in women going to a university. He has always maintained
that this modern craze about advanced education for women is so much
nonsense. Still, Bella is an educated girl. She speaks French and German
and Italian fluently, and there is scarcely a classical writer in these
languages whom she has not read first hand. Yes, Bella is a strange
girl, but very hard."
Again there was a silence between us for some seconds.
"She is not at all like mother," went on Lethbridge. "I wish she were.
Although, as you saw the other night, we teased mother about being
general manager of the world, there is scarcely a family in the parish
which mother has not helped in one way or another, and in a way she is
very popular; but no one would think of going to Bella in trouble."
I must confess that I wanted to ask more questions about her, but
refrained from so doing. After all, it would not have been good taste on
my part.
"Well, I must be going now," said Lethbridge presently, rising from his
chair. "I am glad I have seen you. Our chat, somehow, has done me good,
although I have done most of the talking. I was awfully restless after
dinner to-night, and the walk here, and seeing you, have made me feel
better. By the way"--and I saw that this was what he had really come
for--"I spoke to you about Mary Treleaven the other night."
"Yes, I remember."
"I have had a row with the pater about her to-day."
"I am sorry for that."
"It was bound to come. You see, he will not hear of my marrying her. He
says it would be pure madness on my part, and if I will not fall in with
his wishes he will not give me a penny. I should like to introduce you
to Mary; I told you so, didn't I? Will you let me?"
"If you like, certainly," I replied; "but really, Lethbridge, I cannot
help you in that matter. I would not, even if I could. It would not be
right."
"If you knew her you would," he said, with boyish eagerness. "She's the
finest, sweetest girl in the country, and she is the only one I could be
happy with. As for the pater's ideas, I won't fall in with them--I
won't." He went to the door as he spoke, and looked out over the sea.
"It's a glorious night," he said; "there is not a cloud in the sky, and
the light of the moon transforms everything into a fairyland."
I went to his side as he spoke, and as I did so a kind of shiver passed
through me. The night was, indeed, wonderful. The moon shone so brightly
that no stars appeared, and I could see the long line of cliffs
stretching northward. Scarcely a breath of wind stirred, and I could
hear the waves lapping musically on the hard yellow beach beneath.
"I will walk a few steps with you, Lethbridge," I said. "I will not go
far. But really this is not an evening to spend indoors. How I wish I
were strong and healthy!"
Putting on a summer overcoat, I walked with him along the footpath
through the copse, and when at length we reached the open country, where
heather-covered moorland stretched away on either side, both of us
stopped and listened.
"What a noise the silence is making!" said Lethbridge. "Did you ever
hear anything like it?"
"No," I said, "the hush is simply wonderful."
Scarcely had we spoken, when rising suddenly before us was the form of a
man, and again those strange eyes, which had haunted me for hours,
flashed before me. The man moved so quickly that I could not discern his
features. He uttered a cry as he went--a cry similar to that I heard in
the copse hours before.
"Do you know who it is?" I asked.
"No," replied Lethbridge. "Strange, isn't it?"
"Anyhow, it explains what I saw this afternoon. It might seem as though
some one were watching me."
"I will follow him, if you like," said Lethbridge, "and find out who it
is."
"Oh, no, don't trouble; very possibly it means nothing. But I think my
mind must be excited, after all. I will go back now, if you don't mind.
Good-night."
And I went slowly back to my little hut, wondering what the apparition
might mean.
IX
AT THE VICARAGE
On my return to my room, I naturally reflected upon what young Hugh
Lethbridge had told me. It may seem strange that, on such a short
acquaintance, he spoke to me so freely about his family, but what I have
written down is, as far as I can remember, exactly what took place. Hugh
Lethbridge was scarcely twenty-three, and, although he looked older, was
little more than a lad. He was the child of his mother rather than of
his father, and was lacking in anything like secretiveness, especially
to any one whom he liked. For some reason or another I had seemed to
captivate him, so much so that he opened his heart and gave his
confidence more fully than was natural on such a short acquaintance.
In many respects young Lethbridge was sensitive and self-contained, but
in other ways he was so impulsive that he overstepped the bounds of good
taste. I got to know him better afterwards, and found that, although he
had spoken so freely to me, he was regarded by many as reserved.
Besides, he was hungering for sympathy, and because he thought I
sympathized with him his confidences were so personal that I almost felt
uncomfortable.
Nevertheless, I pondered a great deal over what he had told me.
Evidently the household at Trecarrel was not altogether happy, and an
estrangement existed between Mr. Lethbridge senior and his son. As for
Isabella Lethbridge, she presented an interesting study to me. As I have
said, she appealed to me as no other woman had ever appealed to me
before. For the moment I had thought I was in love with her, but, on
reflection, I knew I was not. I was able to study her character calmly
and think of her in a kind of detached way. She formed no part in my
life. She was an interesting specimen of humanity, whom I took pleasure
in analyzing, but the feeling I had towards her was not love. Rather she
repelled me even while she fascinated me. The thought of her never
caused my heart to throb, nor made the blood course through my veins one
whit the faster.
Besides, it was not for me to think about such things. I had come down
to Cornwall to die. In a few months the spark of my life would go out,
and I should enter the great darkness.
Days and weeks passed away, and very little of importance happened
worthy of record. Often I reflected upon the uselessness of my life.
Why, after all, should I live? No one but Simpson was really interested
in me, and only he would grieve when I had gone; then again the old
revulsion against becoming nothing surged within me. I had hopes,
longings, intimations which seemed to overleap the boundaries of time
and sense. If this life were all, then life was a mockery, a promise
without possible fulfilment, a hope born only to be disappointed.
Sitting there alone night after night, hearing the cry of the sea-birds,
listening to the wail of the wind as it swept over hill and dale, or
found its way across the great waste of waters, I asked a thousand
questions and pondered over the problems of life and death, without ever
receiving one single ray of light. Sometimes I became so lonely that I
called Simpson into my room and talked with him, but I never allowed him
to know how dark were the prospects which faced me. The questions I
asked him, I remember, were almost flippant in their nature. I made a
joke of death, as I tried to make a joke of everything else; so much so
that I fancied Simpson was convinced that I did not trouble. After all,
why should I worry the poor, simple-minded fellow with questions which
he could not answer or understand? The best thing to do was to bear
everything with a kind of stoicism, and to make a jest of what really
haunted me night and day with strange persistency. Indeed, I think I
sometimes rather pained Simpson with my flippant remarks, for I found
that the beliefs of his boyhood were still powerful in his life. It is
difficult to eradicate the impressions of youth.
"After all, Simpson," I said one day, "sleep is a good thing providing
one has no bad dreams, and if I sleep for ever I shall know nothing
about it."
"But if one should dream, sir?" suggested Simpson.
"You are quoting Hamlet," I said.
"I don't know the gentleman you refer to," was Simpson's somewhat
indignant reply; "indeed, I never heard of him. But don't you think,
sir, that education and cleverness are very poor things?"
"Doubtless, Simpson. But why do you say so?"
"Why, sir, here are you, a gentleman who has been to college and all
that. You were spoken of in the newspapers as one who would do great
things some day, and yet you don't know as much as my old father did,
who never had a day's schooling in his life."
"How is that, Simpson?"
"Well, sir, he _knew_ there was a life after death. He saw the angels,
sir."
"Did he tell you so, Simpson?"
"Yes, sir, he did. He was a very ignorant man, sir, but he knew.
Besides, sir--excuse me for saying so--but aren't your opinions very
foolish, sir?"
"I dare say," I replied. "But to what particular opinions do you refer?"
"Opinions about dying, sir. If a watchmaker makes a watch, he makes it
keep time, doesn't he?"
"Yes," I replied; "but if one of the wheels doesn't fit, the watch
stops, and somehow my inside wheels don't fit, or rather they are made
of poor material, Simpson."
"Of course, sir, it is not for me to contradict you, but I don't think
you have been well educated, sir."
"My teachers are doubtless to blame, but the worst of it is your Vicar
here seems to know nothing for certain, neither do your preachers at
Chapel. It is all a matter of guesswork."
"Yes, sir, I know I cannot answer you properly, sir, but I do not
believe Almighty God is a fool."
"What do you mean, Simpson?"
"Well, sir, I have an old watch which my grandfather used to carry, and
it keeps good time still. The watch was made by a man, and it has lasted
nearly a hundred years. Now, I don't believe Almighty God would take so
much trouble in making us and then let us last only twenty or thirty
years. Excuse me, sir."
I mentioned some time ago that Mr. Trelaske, when he had visited me,
told me of his intention to invite me up to the Vicarage. He had
fulfilled his promise, but I had not been well enough to take advantage
of his kindness. This invitation, however, he had repeated, and one
night I found my way to the Vicarage. I had hoped for a quiet chat with
him, but to my surprise I found three other guests besides myself. One
was Squire Treherne, another was a young fellow named Prideaux, and the
other was a clergyman from a neighboring parish.
Mr. Trelaske was a widower, whose household affairs were conducted by a
man and his wife by the name of Tucker. He received me most kindly, and
played the part of host perfectly. It happened, too, that young Prideaux
knew a man who was at Balliol with me, and this fact led to many
reminiscences of college life. The fact, moreover, of my being at
Winchester greatly interested Squire Treherne in me. He was an old
Winchester boy, and was eager to ask questions concerning the school and
to compare it with the days when he was there. In fact, before I had
been in the house an hour, I found myself on a friendly footing with
them all, and they spoke quite freely in my presence.
"By the way, Squire," said Prideaux presently, "I hear that Lethbridge
has made another big _coup_. The way that fellow makes money is simply
marvellous."
"Yes," said Squire Treherne, "and he has made it at my expense, too."
"At your expense? How is that?"
"He has found tin on my land."
"Has he? That's good. It will mean mining royalties for you."
"Not a bit of it. He persuaded me to sell the farm on which the tin was
discovered two years ago. I did not want to sell it, but I wanted the
money, and as the farm was, in a way, outside my ring fence, I
consented. Evidently, he knew of the tin, but didn't let on. Got it for
a song, too. Now he has the whole thing."
"That is bad luck," said Mr. Trelaske. "He makes money at every turn. I
would not mind if one of our own set was lucky, but for that fellow--a
dissenter and a Radical--to do it riles me."
"Well, he is a capable man, isn't he?" said Mr. Robartes, the other
clergyman.
"Capable, if you like," replied the Vicar.
"And public-spirited too, isn't he?"
"Only in a way. The fellow isn't a sportsman, and, in the true sense of
the word, isn't an Englishman. That is why I dislike him. As you know,
too, he opposes the Church at every corner. I suppose it is natural in a
rabid dissenter, but it is hard to bear."
"Still, he is a great employer of labor," said Prideaux. "And as for
young Lethbridge, he is quite a decent fellow."
"I suppose Mr. Lethbridge still goes to the Chapel, doesn't he?" asked
Mr. Robartes.
"Oh yes, I suppose so," was the Vicar's reply. "I believe, if he hadn't
been a dissenter, things might have been all right."
"How? What do you mean?"
"Oh, at bottom a dissenter is never really an Englishman. Did you see
that speech he made some little time ago up at Polzeath? He was crying
down the Army and saying that our nation was being bled to death to keep
up a useless institution. That is what I cannot stand."
They went on talking in this way for a considerable time until I began
to get rather bored. It seemed to me that they discussed the Church and
Dissent as two rival institutions. They regarded the Church as something
which should be supported because it was a State affair. As for anything
deeper, it did not appear in their conversation. Churchgoing was
regarded as something that ought to be a national institution, and as
such should be kept up. A few months before I dare say I might have
taken an academic interest in the conversation, but as I reflected upon
Dr. Rhomboid's verdict upon me it all seemed paltry and foolish. Church
and Chapel, as institutions, did not matter a straw to me.
"What does Almighty God, if there is an Almighty God, Who made all the
worlds, care whether a man goes to Church or to Chapel?"
I remember propounding this question quite suddenly, and it seemed to
take them aback.
"You are a Churchman, aren't you?" asked Mr. Robartes eagerly.
"I suppose so, if I am anything," I laughed. "I was confirmed while I
was at Winchester, but for the life of me I can't see that it matters
whether a man goes to Church or to Chapel."
"But surely you have no sympathy with these dissenters?"
"I hardly know," was my reply. "I have been to the Methodist Chapel down
here two or three times. I went out of curiosity. You see, my lease of
life is very short, and I was wondering whether any of them could tell
me what lies beyond the grave."
I saw Mr. Trelaske look on the floor as I spoke. He evidently remembered
our conversation.
"It seems to me that we have to leave such things as that," said the
Squire. "The Bible and the Church teach us that there is a life beyond
the grave, and we had better let it stand at that. As for the Church, it
makes a man a good neighbor, a good citizen, and a good Englishman.
Besides, the Church doesn't cramp a man. He can be a good sportsman,
enjoy a glass of wine, play a game of cards, and still be a good
Churchman. That is why I am glad the Methodists are still losing ground.
Of course they must."
There was nothing harsh in the way he said this. He seemed to regard
dissenters as a class apart--a people with a kink in their brains, who
out of pure stubbornness adopted a form of religion which somehow made
them outsiders. I dare say, if I had gone deeper into the matter, I
should have found something which had not appeared in their
conversation, but such was the impression I received.
"By the way," said Mr. Trelaske presently, "this is bad news about
Serbia, isn't it?"
"Yes, very bad," replied the Squire. "I should not be surprised if it
doesn't lead to complications. These Serbs are barely civilized."
I did not understand what he meant, for I had not taken sufficient
interest in what was going on to open a newspaper for several days, and
I said so.
"I tell you," said Squire Treherne, "it is a serious matter. Last Sunday
some Serbians murdered the Crown Prince of Austria, and I am afraid it
will raise a rumpus. You see, Serbia is backed up by Russia, and if
Austria threatens to take reprisals there may be a row."
I did not follow with very much interest what they were saying about the
trouble in the Balkan States. What did interest me, however, was the
tremendous difference between their attitude to war and that which Mr.
Lethbridge took. To them the defense of their country was a sacred
thing--indeed, almost a religion. I found that Mr. Trelaske had two
sons, both of whom were in the Army, and that young Prideaux was a
captain in the Territorials. They assumed, as a matter of course, that
no man could keep out of the Army in time of national danger. It was not
something to argue about; it was something settled as a fixed principle
in their lives. No one seemed to believe, however, that trouble between
Serbia and Austria could affect England. All of them appeared to think
with Lord Salisbury, that we must retain our attitude of "Splendid
Isolation," whatever might take place. Perhaps I ought to except young
Prideaux, who, having no fixed beliefs, seemed to have doubts about the
matter.
"I wish these blessed Radicals were not in power," he reflected, between
puffs of his cigar.
"For that matter, all of us do," said Squire Treherne, in response. "But
still, there it is. They have got the upper hand of us now, and it seems
as if they are going to keep it."
"What I can't stand about the Radicals," said Mr. Robartes, "is that
they aren't gentlemen."
"Oh, I don't know about that," said Prideaux. "There's Grey, for
instance, he's a gentleman, and a sportsman too."
"Yes, but he is different from the rest. I wonder how he stays with that
lot! I expect if we were dragged into this trouble the present
Government would adopt a peace-at-any-price attitude. The great majority
of Radicals are dissenters, and nearly all dissenters seem to be fed
with anti-war ideas. You remember what took place at the time of the
Boer War?"
"I am not sure they weren't right about that," remarked the Vicar; "I
don't mean about the war itself, but about giving self-government to
South Africa. The Boers have settled down remarkably well."
"Nonsense, Parson," said Squire Treherne. "It was pure madness.
Supposing war were to break out, we should have a revolution in South
Africa before we could say 'Jack Robinson.' These Boers ought to have
been kept under our thumb. Do you know, I had an awful row with
Lethbridge about that."
"How are the Lethbridges regarded in the neighborhood?" I asked, for I
was anxious to avoid anything like a political discussion.
"Regarded in the neighborhood?" replied Squire Treherne. "Oh, we have to
tolerate them, you know. Lethbridge is a man of great influence, and, of
course, he's very rich. That is where he has the pull. He is the largest
employer of labor in this district, and as a consequence people look up
to him."
"I don't mean that so much," I said. "How is the family regarded
socially?"
The Squire did not reply, but the Vicar was very pronounced.
"Oh, socially," he said, "they scarcely exist. You see, Lethbridge, in
spite of his money, is a parvenu and rank outsider. It is true that his
wife comes of a decent family, but a few years ago he was a poor lad in
this district, and people can't forget it. Besides, the fellow is such
an aggressive Radical. He is constantly treading on the corns of people
who would otherwise be civil to him."
"What about his children?" I said. "I happen to have met them both, and
they strike me as being well educated and presentable."
"Yes, his children are not so bad, and but for their father would
doubtless be well received. At least, Hugh would. He is quite a nice
boy. As for the girl, I don't know anything about her."
"The girl is handicapped by her father," said young Prideaux. "In spite
of everything, she is placed in a curious position."
"How is that?"
"They occupy a kind of half-way position. On the one hand, they do not
associate with the people to whom Lethbridge belonged twenty years ago,
and, on the other, they are not quite our sort. Still, I believe the
people would have forgiven them, in spite of the father, if the girl
hadn't been such a heartless flirt."
"A flirt?" I repeated.
"Yes. She's a dashed fine-looking girl, you know. Clever, too; and when
she likes can be quite fascinating; but, like the rest of her class, she
can't play the game."
"No?" I said, thinking of what her brother had told me.
"No, there was young Tom Tredinnick; fine fellow Tom is, too. He fell
head over heels in love with her, and every one thought they were going
to make a match of it, but she treated Tom shamefully. There was Nick
Blatchford, too; she treated him just as badly. She led him to the point
of an avowal, and then chucked him."
"That class of people have no sense of honor," said the Vicar. "Of
course, we can't get away from them down here. Methodism of one sort or
another is the established religion of the county, and they are nearly
all Radicals. In fact, they are anti-everything. Anti-smoking,
anti-drinking, anti-sporting, anti-vaccination, and all the rest of it."
"I wonder," I said musingly.
As I went home I tried to gather up the impressions the company had made
upon me, and I reflected that the atmosphere of the Vicar's house was
utterly different from that of Mr. Lethbridge's. In a way, both were
entirely new to me. I was a town-bred boy, and knew practically nothing
of country life, and as a consequence was utterly unacquainted with the
thoughts and feelings of those who lived far away from London.
I had not time, however, to follow my reflections to their natural
issue, for no sooner had the carriage, which I had hired for the
evening, dropped me at the footpath at the end of the little copse than
my thoughts were turned into an entirely different channel. I was
perhaps a hundred yards from my little dwelling-place, when suddenly
some one crept out of the undergrowth and stood before me.
For the time of the year the night was dark. It was now midsummer, but a
change had come over the weather, and dark clouds hung in the sky.
Still, there was enough light for me to discern the figure of a man, who
stood directly in my pathway.
"Be you the straanger?" he said.
"What do you mean?" I asked; "and who are you?"
"Be you the straanger wot d'live in Father Abram's 'ut?" The man's voice
was thick, and his enunciation anything but clear.
"That seems remarkably like my own business," I replied.
"Be you the straanger wot d'live in Father Abram's 'ut?" He repeated the
words almost feverishly, and his voice trembled.
"What if I am?" I asked.
"Then go away! Go away!"
"Why should I?"
"Ca'ant tell 'ee."
"But why should I go away? Who are you?"
"Never mind that! You go away! Go away to once!"
By this time I had become more accustomed to the darkness, and saw that
the man was of huge proportions, and I judged that he had a serious
purpose in speaking to me.
"I tell 'ee," he went on, "that you must go away; ef you do'ant ..." Here
he stopped as though he did not know how to finish his sentence. My mind
worked quickly, and I remembered my previous experiences which had taken
place at this very spot. His presence explained those wild, staring eyes
which I had seen in the copse, and the apparition which had puzzled me
on the night I had talked with Hugh Lethbridge.
What he might mean by dogging my footsteps I could not explain, but that
there was some meaning I felt quite sure.
"You have been following me for days," I said.
He grunted an assent.
"I found you watching me last Thursday week. You crept away from me when
I went after you."
"I dedn't main no wrong."
"Yes, but what do you mean?"
"You must go away!--go away!" he repeated.
"Come with me to the house," I said. "I want to talk with you."
He gave a cry of abject fear.
"I mustn't! I mustn't! I be afeerd!"
"What are you afraid of?"
"I ca'ant tell 'ee! You must go away!"
"Go away where?"
"Anywhere; but you mustn't stay in thicky house! I've tould 'ee.
Summin'll happen to 'ee ef you do'ant!"
"What will happen to me?"
"I ca'ant tell 'ee, but you must go away!" The man repeated the words
with wearisome iteration. He seemed to be obsessed with this one
thought. He spoke unintelligently. He might have been a machine
repeating over and over the same words.
"You are Fever Lurgy," I said.
Again the fellow gave a cry as if of fear.
"Do'ant 'ee tell nobody," he cried. "But go away!--go away! I tell 'ee,
ef you do'ant...." Again he stopped, like one who is afraid to finish
his sentence.
"Some one has sent you to me," I said. "Who?"
"I mustn't tell 'ee--I mustn't tell 'ee!" he cried.
"But you must tell me. Come, you are going with me to the house, and I
am going to know everything."
He started back as I spoke, and then rushed from me. I heard him among
the bushes; then he spoke again.
"You must go away!--you must go away at once!"
I waited for some time but heard nothing more. Then I made my way to my
little house, wondering at the meaning of what I had seen and heard.
X
WIRELESS TELEGRAPHY
I did not sleep well that night. The incident of Fever Lurgy raised many
questions in my mind. I felt as though I were the centre of some
mystery--a mystery of which I was ignorant. I was more convinced than I
had ever been that old Father Abraham was not dead. I believed, too,
that he had a motive out of the ordinary in coming to this spot and
building the hut, and that the reason of his disappearance was not an
ordinary crime, as was generally supposed. I pieced together all the
events which had taken place since I had been in the neighborhood, and
tried to see a meaning in them all, but I could not find any key that
would unlock the door of the mystery. I knew nothing of Father Abraham's
doings. I was simply a poor wretch who had come there to die, and yet,
from the vehemence of Fever Lurgy's voice, it might seem as though there
were some plot against me--as though some one wished to do me harm.
Twelve months before I should have rejoiced at what seemed like an
adventure. It would have added spice to life. I should have thrown
myself into the work of solving the mystery with avidity. Then I was
strong and vigorous, scarcely knowing the meaning of weariness. While at
school I had been a boxer, a runner, and had got my school cap for
Rugger. At Oxford, too, while I had been a reading man I was looked upon
as an athlete, and so could have held my own whatever took place; but
now all was different. While to outward appearances I was still a strong
man, I knew that my flesh was wasting away, that the disease from which
I suffered was eating away the centres of my life. Still, with a kind of
stubbornness which had always characterized me, I resolved I would take
no notice of the warning I had received. Why should I go away? If I were
in danger it was because something interesting existed at the back of my
life. I did not know what it was, but I would find out. To fear, in the
ordinary sense of the word, I was a stranger, and in spite of what Fever
Lurgy had said, I could not see how any one could wish to harm me.
Towards morning I fell asleep, and when I awoke it was to see the sun
streaming through the window of my little bedroom.
I felt very light-hearted, I remember, and in the light of that new day,
instead of Fever Lurgy's warning causing me to be depressed, it gave me
a new interest in life. Something was happening. A mystery surrounded
me. Things were taking place in this very district which gave zest to
life. I jumped out of bed, and in spite of Simpson's repeated warnings
against such madness, I plunged into the little pond of pure cold water,
which burst out from the hill just above my house.
I had scarcely finished breakfast when young Prideaux came into the
room.
"By the way, Erskine," he said, "you mentioned last night that you were
interested in wireless telegraphy. I have to go over to M---- this
morning, and remembering what you said last night, I came round this way
to ask you if you would go with me."
My interest in wireless telegraphy had been aroused because of the case
which had won for me some notoriety. In fact, the secret of my success
lay in the fact that I had swatted up the subject, and was able to put
questions which would never otherwise have occurred to me. I am afraid I
did not know much about the system, but, as every one knows, the success
of a barrister lies largely in his power to assimilate knowledge
quickly, to see the vital points of a case and to insist upon them.
It seems that Prideaux had remembered the case in which I had been
interested, and in talking about it I had been led to confess that I had
given some attention to wireless telegraphy. This explains why he had
come to me with the suggestion I have mentioned, and why I eagerly
accepted his invitation to motor to M---- with him. Like every one else,
I knew that Signor Marconi had erected a station in Cornwall, and that
he had thereby created a new epoch in the transmission of messages. I do
not know that, under ordinary circumstances, I should have mentioned
this fact, but my visit to M---- that day was vitally connected with
what happened afterwards.
I am by no means a scientist, and what brains I have never ran in that
direction. Still, I have a schoolboy's knowledge of scientific subjects,
and this went far in helping me to understand the things I saw.
Presently, too, the wonder of the thing laid hold of me. The sending out
of a mysterious current across the spaces, to be received hundreds of
miles away, was like some fairy dream of childhood. Prideaux had a
friend at the station, who was a great enthusiast, and who explained, as
far as it can be explained, the principle of the thing to us.
"Look!" he said presently, "I will show you the thing in miniature. I
can easily fix up a couple of these little machines here, and then you
will see how it is done."
Being an ingenious sort of fellow, he soon did as he had said, and ere
long I was simply captivated. My interest in the subject, too, seemed to
flatter the young fellow's pride in his work. It was not often, he
affirmed, that any one came to the station who picked up the thing so
easily.
After spending three hours with the young operator, we had lunch
together, and being in a more communicative mood than usual, I told him
why I had come to Cornwall, and why, in spite of the people's kindness
at St. Issey, my evenings were long and lonely.
"Why not take this up as a hobby?" he said.
"What? Wireless telegraphy?"
"Yes. These things are easy enough to fix up. Any boy with a mechanical
turn of mind can manage it. I will give you all the material necessary,
and you can make a hobby of it. Of course, it will be no advantage to
you, but it will help you to while away the time. When I first came here
I didn't care a fig about it, but now my work is a source of
ever-increasing interest to me. I am always trying new experiments. Why,
you and Prideaux could have all sorts of larks."
"How is that?"
"Why, if you got one of these things at your place, and Prideaux fixed
one up at his, you could be sending messages to each other, and you
could bewilder people by telling them what is taking place at each
other's houses. Don't you see?" And the young fellow laughed boyishly at
the prospect which appeared before his mind. "Why, you can have a party
at your house and tell your guests how, by your gift of second sight,
you know exactly what is going on at Prideaux's house, and then
Prideaux, when he comes over, could confirm all you say."
"But I should have to learn the code in order to do this?"
"Of course you would. That is easy enough. I have a book of codes. A
chap with a good memory like you could learn everything in half an
hour."
I could see that to him his work was at once a plaything and a wonder.
He must have been over twenty, but he talked like a lad of fifteen.
"It is the most wonderful thing in the world," he went on. "See what
lives have been saved by the invention. You remember the burning of the
_Volturno_? A man I know was on board that ship, and he told me what he
felt when it caught fire, and how, in spite of his danger, his heart
thrilled with wonder when he saw the vessels which had been summoned by
wireless to their aid. Every one would have died an awful death but for
this discovery. Besides, supposing we went to war, can't you see the
advantage of it?"
"I don't know," I said. "It seems to me that it might be a great
disadvantage. Supposing, for example, we went to war with France, and we
wanted to send a message to one of our ships, the French would receive
the message at one of their receiving stations, and they would know all
our plans."
"I've made a special study of that," he said, with a laugh. "I daren't
let you know how; it would be telling; but I believe I know the secret
codes of nearly all the countries. Look here, you get one of these
things fixed up, and I will come over and see whether you have got it
right. I can put you up to all sorts of dodges. You will never be lonely
if this thing really grips you."
I must confess that I caught some of the boy's enthusiasm, and when we
returned that evening I brought with me the material for fixing up a
kind of amateur installation. Although not scientifically inclined, the
wonder of the thing appealed to me, and I reflected that during my
lonely hours I could occupy myself with this marvellous discovery.
Indeed, for many days afterwards I was engaged in carrying out what the
boy had instructed me to do. I found what seemed to me a convenient spot
on the cliff, close to my house, yet hidden from the gaze of any
passer-by, and here I almost forgot my troubles in perfecting it. More
than once, too, young Martin--for that was the name of the lad--came
over to see me, and told me that I was getting on famously.
"I am afraid your affair is not powerful enough," he said; "but I will
try and send a message to you. It will be an awful lark, won't it?"
By the time young Martin and I had met three times we had become quite
friendly, and so eager was he about the work I was doing that he gave me
a little book, which he himself had compiled, containing secret codes.
"I don't know whether I ought to do this," he laughed, "but really, you
know, it is so fine. It is so interesting, too, and it was by the purest
chance that I picked them up."
By the end of a fortnight I boasted to myself that I knew practically
all young Martin could tell me about wireless telegraphy, and that I had
assimilated all his boasted knowledge about codes. Although I was not a
scientist, I had a voracious memory, and was not long in storing my mind
with what, a few weeks before, had but little meaning to me, but was now
full of mystery and wonder.
By the end of that time one of my old attacks came on, and I was too ill
to care about anything. Indeed, when Prideaux and Lethbridge called on
me I was too unwell to see either of them. For that matter, I had lost
interest in everything. Day followed day, and I opened neither newspaper
nor book, nor did I give a thought to what had so interested me since my
first visit to that monument of Marconi's genius. What was going on in
the outside world I neither knew nor cared. Once or twice I thought the
end had come, and that I should never leave Father Abraham's hut alive.
Presently, however, a turn came for the better, and in what seemed a
remarkable way, health and strength returned to me. I knew it was only
temporary, and that in a few weeks I should have another attack,
possibly worse than this, but I drove the thought from my mind.
"Let me enjoy freedom from pain while I can," I said to myself. "As for
morbid thoughts, I will have nothing to do with them."
That was why, when Hugh Lethbridge next came to see me and invited me
over to Trecarrel, I accepted the invitation with eagerness. I wanted to
live while I was able, and the thought of another conversation with
Isabella Lethbridge appealed to me.
At Hugh's request, I went early. I engaged a kind of phaeton to meet me
at the end of the copse and take me over. I still felt weak and languid
after my lengthened attack, but was much stronger than I had hoped. The
thought of strange faces, too, added a new interest to my life, and I
looked forward with eagerness to a pleasant evening. As the carriage
entered the lodge gates and passed under a fine avenue of trees, I could
not help reflecting what a fine old place Trecarrel was. It had been
built hundreds of years before by the family of Trecarrels, which, like
many other old families, had become poor, and had to sell the ancestral
acres. Mr. Lethbridge had the good sense to leave the house practically
as he found it, and had not attempted to modernize it in any way. It is
true he had, as he told me, brought the sanitary arrangements and the
fireplaces up to date, but the building, as a whole, remained pretty
much as it had been at the time of the Trecarrels. From the front
entrance it commanded a fine view of rugged tors, beyond which shone the
sea, on the one hand, and of wooded dells and rich meadows on the other.
It was a place to rejoice in--a place of which the possessor could say
proudly, "This is my home."
It wanted half an hour to dinner when I entered the house, but I found
Isabella Lethbridge already dressed, as if awaiting me. She gave me a
warm welcome, and, as I thought, seemed pleased to see me. I had not now
seen her for some weeks, and I imagined that the feelings she had
awakened in my heart, when we last met, were a thing of the past. Now,
however, I knew it was not so. In a way I could not understand she
exercised a strange influence over me. I found myself eager to talk to
her, anxious to be thought well of by her. I remembered what had been
said about her, and I believed it to be true; yet at this time I cared
nothing about it. What, after all, did it matter?
If any one should read this, I imagine he will say that I had fallen in
love with her, but such was not the case. I realized the barriers
between us, that, much as I delighted in her beauty--for she was
beautiful that night--that much as I rejoiced in being with her, I felt
no love for her. That is, love as I understand it. I knew that she
repelled me, even while she fascinated me. That she had a vigorous
intelligence, I could not deny. That she possessed a strange charm was
just as evident, but something kept Isabella Lethbridge from making that
appeal to me which caused me to be what the world calls "in love."
Perhaps this was because I knew my days were numbered. How could a man,
who a few weeks before had been given a year to live, think of marriage
and giving in marriage? No, no, Isabella Lethbridge was still only a
problem to me, and yet I could not understand the strange interest I had
in her.
"I hear you have got to know Mr. Ned Prideaux?" she said to me, after we
had been talking for a few minutes.
"Yes, I met him one night up at Mr. Trelaske's. Do you know him?"
"I have met him two or three times," was her reply. "What do you think
of him?"
"He struck me as a fine specimen of a young Cornishman."
"Have you seen him since that night at the Vicarage?"
"Yes, two or three times; we have become rather friendly."
"He said all sorts of things about me, I expect?" and she looked at me
questioningly.
"About you! Why should he?"
"Don't try to deceive me, Mr. Erskine. You cannot succeed in doing it,
although you are a lawyer. I can see that he talked to you about me.
What did he say?"
"What could he say?" I laughed, "except that you are very beautiful and
very fascinating, and all that sort of thing."
I know it was very clumsy, and that had I been gifted with a ready wit I
should have evaded her question with a greater appearance of ease.
"That will not do, Mr. Erskine, and it is not worthy of you. What did he
tell you?" There was a look in her eyes, half of curiosity, half of
anger, as she spoke. It appeared that she was interested in what
Prideaux thought of her, yet angry that he should speak of her.
"What could he tell me?" I asked.
She reflected for a few seconds, then said suddenly:
"Do you believe that any one should be tied down to conventional
morality, Mr. Erskine?"
"Conventional morality?" I asked. "I am not sure that I understand."
"Don't you think," she said, "that one has a right to pick the flowers
that lie in one's pathway? Rather, don't you think it is one's duty to
do so?"
"The question is rather too abstract for me," was my reply; "one has to
get down to concrete instances."
Again she reflected for a few seconds.
"I am glad you have come up early," she said. "Glad to have this
opportunity of talking with you alone. You have come from a world of
ideas. You have met with people who are determined to live their lives
at all costs."
"I have met with people, certainly, who have claimed to do this," was my
reply; "but, on the whole, the so-called unconventional
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