THE BALL 
 
 AND 
 
 THE- CROSS 
 
 By G-K- CHESTERTON
 
 ^ 
 
 .n), 
 
 [Jl. .
 
 THE BALL AND THE CROSS
 
 BY THE SAME AUTHOR 
 
 HERETICS. 
 
 ORTHODOXY. 
 
 THE NAPOLEON OF NOTTING 
 HILL. A Romance. Illustrated 
 by W. Graham Robertson. 
 
 ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. 
 
 GEORGE BERNARD SHAW.
 
 THE BALL 
 
 AND 
 
 THE CROSS 
 
 BY 
 
 GILBERT K. CHESTERTON 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 JOHN LANE COMPANY 
 
 MCMIX
 
 Copyright, 1906, by 
 JOSEPH \V. DARTON 
 
 Entered at Stationers' Hall, London, England 
 
 Copyright, 1909, by 
 JOHN LANE COMPANY 
 
 PRINTED AT THE TROW PRESS, NEW YORK, U. S. A.
 
 .UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 SANTA BARBARA 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 I. — A Discussion Somewhat in the Air 
 II. — The Religion of the Stipendiary Mag 
 ISTRATE .... 
 
 III. — Some Old Curiosities . 
 IV. — A Discussion at Dawn 
 V. — The Peacemaker . 
 VI. — The Other Philosopher 
 VII. — The Village of Grassley-in-the-Hole 
 VIII. — An Interlude of Argument 
 IX. — The Strange Lady 
 X. — The Swords Rejoined 
 XI. — A Scandal in the Village 
 XII. — The Desert Island 
 XIII. — The Garden of Peace 
 XIV. — A Museum of Souls . 
 XV. — The Dream of MacIan 
 XVI. — The Dream of Turnbull 
 XVII. — The Idiot 
 XVIII. — A Riddle of Faces 
 XIX. — The Last Parley . 
 XX.— Dies Ir^ .... 
 
 28 
 
 49 
 68 
 
 91 
 103 
 126 
 143 
 15s 
 182 
 212 
 
 237 
 252 
 268 
 292 
 
 30s 
 324 
 349 
 371 
 38s
 
 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 A DISCUSSION SOMEWHAT IN THE AIR 
 
 The flying ship of Professor Lucifer sang 
 through the skies Hke a silver arrow; the bleak 
 white steel of it, gleaming in the bleak blue empti- 
 ness of the evening. That it was far above the 
 earth was no expression for it ; to the two men in 
 it, it seemed to be far above the stars. The pro- 
 fessor had himself invented the flying machine, 
 and had also invented nearly everything in it. 
 Every sort of tool or apparatus had, in conse- 
 quence, to the full, that fantastic and distorted 
 look which belongs to the miracles of science. 
 For the world of science and evolution is far more 
 nameless and elusive and like a dream than the 
 world of poetry or religion; since in the latter 
 images and ideas remain themselves eternally, 
 while it is the whole idea of evolution that identi- 
 ties melt into each other as they do in a nightmare.
 
 2 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 All the tools of Professor Lucifer were the an- 
 cient human tools gone mad, grown into un- 
 recognisable shapes, forgetful of their origin, for- 
 getful of their names. That thing which looked 
 like an enormous key with three wheels was really 
 a patent and very deadly revolver. That object 
 which seemed to be created by the entanglement of 
 two corkscrews was really the key. The thing 
 which might have been mistaken for a tricycle 
 turned upside down was the inexpressibly import- 
 ant instrument to which the corkscrew, was the 
 key. All these things, as I say, the professor had 
 invented ; he had invented everything in the fly- 
 ing ship, with the exception, perhaps, of himself. 
 This he had been born too late actually to inaugu- 
 rate, but he believed, at least, that he had consid- 
 erably improved it. 
 
 There was, however, another man on board, so 
 to speak, at the time. Him, also, by a curious 
 coincidence, the professor had not invented, and 
 him he had not even very greatly improved, though 
 he had fished him up with a lasso out of his own 
 back garden, in Western Bulgaria, with the pure 
 object of improving him. He was an exceedingly 
 holy man, almost entirely covered with white hair. 
 You could see nothing but his eyes, and he seemed
 
 A DISCUSSION 3 
 
 to talk with them. A monk of immense learning 
 and acute intellect he had made himself happy in 
 a little stone hut and a little stony garden in the 
 Balkans, chiefly by writing the most crushing ref- 
 utations and exposures of certain heresies, the last 
 professors of which had been burnt (generally by 
 each other) precisely i,i 19 years previously. They 
 were really very plausible and thoughtful heresies, 
 and it was really a creditable or even glorious cir- 
 cumstance, that the old monk had been intellectual 
 enough to detect their fallacy; the only misfor- 
 tune was that nobody in the modern world was 
 intellectual enough even to understand their argu- 
 ment. The old monk, one of whose names was 
 Michael, and the other a name quite impossible 
 to remember or repeat in our Western civilisation, 
 had, however, as I have said, made himself quite 
 happy while he was in a mountain hermitage in 
 the society of wild animals. And now that his 
 luck had lifted him above all the mountains in the 
 society of a wild physicist, he made himself happy 
 still. 
 
 " I have no intention, my good Michael," said 
 Professor Lucifer, " of endeavouring to convert 
 you by argument. The imbecility of your tradi- 
 tions can be quite finally exhibited to anybody with
 
 4 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 mere ordinary knowledge of the world, the same 
 kind of knowledge which teaches us not to sit in 
 draughts or not to encourage friendliness in impe- 
 cunious people. It is folly to talk of this or that 
 demonstrating the rationalist philosophy. Every- 
 thing demonstrates it. Rubbing shoulders with 
 men of all kinds " 
 
 " You will forgive me," said the monk, meekly 
 from under loads of white beard, " but I fear I 
 do not understand; was it in order that 1 might 
 rub my shoulder against men of all kinds that 
 you put me inside this thing ? " 
 
 " An entertaining retort, in the narrow and 
 deductive manner of the Middle Ages," replied the 
 firofessor, calmly, " but even upon your own basis 
 I will illustrate my point. We are up in the sky. 
 In your religion and all the religions, as far as I 
 know (and I know everything), the sky is made 
 the symbol of everything that is sacred and merci- 
 ful. Well, now you are in the sky, you know 
 better. Phrase it how you like, twist it how you 
 like, you know that you know better. You know 
 what are a man's real feelings about the heavens, 
 when he finds himself alone in the heavens, sur^ 
 rounded by the heavens. You know the truth, and 
 the truth is this. The heavens are evil, the sky
 
 A DISCUSSION 5 
 
 is evil, the stars are evil. This mere space, this 
 mere quantity, terrifies a man more than tigers or 
 the terrible plague. You know that since our sci- 
 ence has spoken, the bottom has fallen out of the 
 Universe. Now, heaven is the hopeless thing, 
 more hopeless than any hell. Now, if there be any 
 comfort for all your miserable progeny of morbid 
 apes, it must be in the earth, underneath you, un- 
 der the roots of the grass, in the place where hell 
 was of old. The fiery crypts, the lurid cellars of 
 the under-world, to which you once condemned 
 the wicked, are hideous enough, but at least they 
 are more homely than the heaven in which we ride. 
 And the time will come when you will all hide 
 in them, to escape the horror of the stars." 
 
 " I hope you will excuse my interrupting you," 
 said Michael, with a slight cough, " but I have 
 always noticed " 
 
 " Go on, pray go on," said Professor Lucifer, 
 radiantly, " I really like to draw out your simple 
 ideas." 
 
 " Well, the fact is," said the other, " that much 
 as I admire your rhetoric and the rhetoric of your 
 school, from a purely verbal point of view, such 
 little study of you and your school in human his- 
 tory as I have been enabled to make has led me
 
 6 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 to — er — rather singular conclusion, which I find 
 great difficulty in expressing, especially in a for- 
 eign language." 
 
 " Come, come," said the Professor, encourag- 
 ingly, " I'll help you out. How did my view strike 
 you?" 
 
 " Well, the truth is, I know I don't express it 
 properly, but somehow it seemed to me that you 
 always convey ideas of that kind with most elo- 
 quence, when — er — when " 
 
 " Oh ! get on," cried Lucifer, boisterously. 
 
 " Well, in point of fact when your flying ship 
 is just going to run into something. I thought 
 you wouldn't mind my mentioning it, but it's run- 
 ning into something now." 
 
 Lucifer exploded with an oath and leapt erect, 
 leaning hard upon the handle that acted as a helm 
 to the vessel. For the last ten minutes they had 
 been shooting downwards into great cracks and 
 caverns of cloud. Now, through a sort of purple 
 haze, could be seen comparatively near to them 
 what seemed to be the upper part of a huge, dark 
 orb or sphere, islanded in a sea of cloud. The 
 Professor's eyes were blazing like a maniac's. 
 
 " It is a new world," he cried, with a dreadful 
 mirth. " It is a new planet and it shall bear my
 
 A DISCUSSION 7 
 
 name. This star and not that other vulgar one 
 shall be * Lucifer, sun of the morning.' Here we 
 will have no chartered lunacies, here we will have 
 no gods. Here man shall be as innocent as the 
 daisies, as innocent and as cruel — here the intel- 
 lect " 
 
 " There seems," said Michael, timidly, " to be 
 something sticking up in the middle of it." 
 
 " So there is," said the Professor, leaning over 
 the side of the ship, his spectacles shining with 
 intellectual excitement. " What can it be ? It 
 might of course be merely a " 
 
 Then a shriek indescribable broke out of him 
 of a sudden, and he flung up his arms like a lost 
 spirit. The monk took the helm in a tired way; 
 he did not seem much astonished for he came from 
 an ignorant part of the world in which it is not 
 uncommon for lost spirits to shriek when they see 
 the curious shape which the Professor had just 
 seen on the top of the mysterious ball, but he took 
 the helm only just in time, and by driving it hard 
 to the left he prevented the flying ship from 
 smashing into St. Paul's Cathedral. 
 
 A plain of sad-coloured cloud lay along the 
 level of the top of the Cathedral dome, so that the 
 ball and cross looked like a buoy riding on a
 
 8 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 leaden sea. As the flying ship swept towards it, 
 this plain of cloud looked as dry and definite and 
 rocky as any grey desert. Hence it gave to the 
 mind and body a sharp and unearthly sensation 
 when the ship cut and sank into the cloud as into 
 any common mist, a thing without resistance. 
 There was, as it were, a deadly shock in the fact 
 that there was no shock. It was as if they had 
 cloven into ancient cliffs like so much butter. 
 But sensations awaited them which were much 
 stranger than those of sinking through the solid 
 earth. For a moment their eyes and nostrils were 
 stopped with darkness and opaque cloud ; then the 
 darkness warmed into a kind of brown fog. And 
 far, far below them the brown fog fell until it 
 warmed into fire. Through the dense London at- 
 mosphere they could see below them the flaming 
 London lights; lights which lay beneath them in 
 squares and oblongs of fire. The fog and fire 
 were mixed in a passionate vapour ; you might say 
 that the fog was drowning the flames; or you 
 might say that the flames had set the fog on fire. 
 Beside the ship and beneath it (for it swung just 
 under the ball), the immeasurable dome itself shot 
 out and down into the dark like a combination of 
 voiceless cataracts. Or it was like some cycle-
 
 A DISCUSSION 9 
 
 pean sea-beast sitting above London and letting 
 down its tentacles bewilderingly on every side, 
 a monstrosity in that starless heaven. For the 
 clouds that belonged to London had closed over 
 the heads of the voyagers sealing up the entrance 
 of the upper air. They had broken through a 
 roof and come into a temple of twilight. 
 
 They were so near to the ball that Lucifer leaned 
 his hand against it, holding the vessel away, as 
 men push a boat off from a bank. Above it the 
 cross already draped in the dark mists of the bor- 
 derland was shadowy and more awful in shape and 
 size. 
 
 Professor Lucifer slapped his hand twice lipon 
 the surface of the great orb as if he were caressing 
 some enormous animal. " This is the fellow," he 
 said, " this is the one for my money." 
 
 " May I with all respect inquire," asked the old 
 monk, " what on earth you are talking about? " 
 
 " Why this," cried Lucifer, smiting the ball 
 again, " here is the only symbol, my boy. So fat. 
 So satisfied. Not like that scraggy individual, 
 stretching his arms in stark weariness." And he 
 pointed up to the cross, his face dark with a grin. 
 " I was telling you just now, Michael, that I can 
 prove the best part of the rationalist case and the
 
 lo THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 Christian humbug from any symbol you Hked to 
 give me, from any instance I came across. Here 
 is an instance with a vengeance. What could pos- 
 sibly express your philosophy and my philosophy 
 better than the shape of that cross and the shape 
 of this ball ? This globe is reasonable ; that cross 
 is unreasonable. It is a four-legged animal, with 
 one leg longer than the others. The globe is in- 
 evitable. The cross is arbitrary. Above all the 
 globe is at unity with itself ; the cross is primarily 
 and above all things at enmity with itself. The 
 cross is the conflict of two hostile lines, of irre- 
 concilable direction. That silent thing up there is 
 essentially a collision, a crash, a struggle in stone. 
 Pah! that sacred symbol of yours has actually 
 given its name to a description of desperation and 
 muddle. When we speak of men at once ignorant 
 of each other and frustrated by each other, we 
 say they are at cross-purposes. Away with the 
 thing! The very shape of it is a contradiction 
 in terms." 
 
 " What you say is perfectly true," said Michael, 
 with serenity. " But we like contradictions in 
 terms. Man is a contradiction in terms; he is a 
 beast whose superiority to other beasts consists 
 in having fallen. That cross is, as you say, an
 
 A DISCUSSION II 
 
 eternal collision; so am I. That is a struggle in 
 stone. Every form of life is a struggle in flesh. 
 The shape of the cross is irrational, just as the 
 shape of the human animal is irrational. You say 
 the cross is a quadruped with one limb longer than 
 the rest. I say man is a quadruped who only uses 
 two of his legs." 
 
 The Professor frowned thoughtfully for an in- 
 stant, and said : " Of course everything is relative, 
 and I would not deny that the element of struggle 
 and self-contradiction, represented by that cross, 
 has a necessary place at a certain evolutionary 
 stage. But surely the cross is the lower develop- 
 ment and the sphere the higher. After all it is 
 easy enough to see what is really wrong with 
 Wren's architectural arrangement." 
 
 "And what is that, pray?" inquired Michael, 
 meekly. 
 
 " The cross is on top of the ball," said Pro- 
 fessor Lucifer, simply. " That is surely wrong. 
 The ball should be on top of the cross. The cross 
 is a mere barbaric prop; the ball is perfection. 
 The cross at its best is but the bitter tree of man's 
 history ; the ball is the rounded, the ripe and final 
 fruit. And the fruit should be at the top of the 
 tree, not at the bottom of it."
 
 12 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 " Oh ! " said the monk, a wrinkle coming into 
 his forehead, " so you think that in a rationaHs- 
 tic scheme of symboHsm the ball should be on top 
 of the cross ? " 
 
 " It sums up my whole allegory," said the pro- 
 fessor. 
 
 " Well, that is really very interesting," resumed 
 Michael, slowly, " because I think in that case you 
 would see a most singular effect, an effect that 
 has generally been achieved by all those able and 
 powerful systems which rationalism, or the re- 
 ligion of the ball, has produced to lead or teach 
 mankind. You would see, I think, that thing hap- 
 pen which is always the ultimate embodiment and 
 logical outcome of your logical scheme." 
 
 " What are you talking about? " asked Lucifer. 
 " What would happen ? " 
 
 *' I mean it would fall down," said the monk, 
 looking wistfully into the void. 
 
 Lucifer made an angry movement and opened 
 his mouth to speak, but Michael, with all his air 
 of deliberation, was proceeding before he could 
 bring out a word. 
 
 " I once knew a man like you, Lucifer," he said, 
 with a maddening m^inotony and slowness of ar- 
 ticulation. " He took this "
 
 A DISCUSSION 13 
 
 " There is no man like me," cried Lucifer, with 
 a violence that shook the ship. 
 
 " As I was observing," continued Michael, 
 ** this man also took the view that the symbol of 
 Christianity was a symbol of savagery and all un- 
 reason. His history is rather amusing. It is also 
 a perfect allegory of what happens to rationalists 
 like yourself. He began, of course, by refusing 
 to allow a crucifix in his house, or round his wife's 
 neck, or even in a picture. He said, as you say, 
 that it was an arbitrary and fantastic shape, that 
 it was a monstrosity, loved because it was para- 
 doxical. Then he began to grow fiercer and more 
 eccentric ; he would batter the crosses by the road- 
 side; for he lived in a Roman Catholic country. 
 Finally in a height of frenzy he climbed the steeple 
 of the Parish Church and tore down the cross, 
 waving it in the air, and uttering wild soliloquies 
 up there under the stars. Then one still summer 
 evening as he was wending his way homewards, 
 along a lane, the devil of his madness came upon 
 him with a violence and transfiguration which 
 changes the world. He was standing smoking, 
 for a moment, in the front of an interminable line 
 of palings, when his eyes were opened. Not a 
 light shifted, not a leaf stirred, but he saw as if
 
 14 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 by a sudden change in the eyesight that this pahng 
 was an army of innumerable crosses Hnked to- 
 gether over hill and dale. And he whirled up his 
 heavy stick and went at it as if at an army. Mile 
 after mile along his homeward path he broke it 
 down and tore it up. For he hated the cross and 
 every paling is a wall of crosses. When he re- 
 turned to his house he was a literal madman. He 
 sat upon a chair and then started up from it for 
 the cross-bars of the carpentry repeated the intol- 
 erable image. He flung himself upon a bed only 
 to remember that this, too, like all workmanlike 
 things, was constructed on the accursed plan. He 
 broke his furniture because it was made of crosses. 
 He burnt his house because it was made of crosses. 
 He was found in the river." 
 
 Lucifer was looking at him with a bitten lip. 
 
 " Is that story really true? " he asked. 
 
 " Oh, no/' said Michael, airily. " It is a para- 
 ble. It is a parable of you and all your rational- 
 ists. You begin by breaking up the Cross; but 
 you end by breaking up the habitable world. We 
 leave you saying that nobody ought to join the 
 Church against his will. When we meet you again 
 you are saying that no one has any will to join 
 it with. We leave you saying that there is no
 
 A DISCUSSION 15 
 
 such place as Eden. We find you saying that there 
 is no such place as Ireland. You start by hating 
 the irrational and you come to hate everything, 
 for everything is irrational and so " 
 
 Lucifer leapt upon him with a cry like a wild 
 beast's. " Ah," he screamed, " to every man his 
 madness. You are mad on the cross. Let it save 
 you." 
 
 And with a herculean energy he forced the 
 monk backwards out of the reeling car on to the 
 upper part of the stone ball. Michael, with as 
 abrupt an agility, caught one of the beams of the 
 cross and saved himself from falling. At the same 
 instant Lucifer drove down a lever and the ship 
 shot up with him in it alone. 
 
 " Ha ! ha ! " he yelled, " what sort of a support 
 do you find it, old fellow ? " 
 
 " For practical purposes of support," replied 
 Michael, grimly, " it is at any rate a great deal 
 better than the ball. May I ask if you are going 
 to leave me here? " 
 
 " Yes, yes. I mount ! I mount ! " cried the Pro- 
 fessor in ungovernable excitement. " Altiora peto. 
 My path is upward." 
 
 " How often have you told me. Professor, that 
 there is really no up or down in space?" said
 
 i6 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 the monk. " I shall mount up as much as you 
 will." 
 
 " Indeed," said Lucifer, leering over the side of 
 the flying ship. " May I ask what you are going 
 to do?" 
 
 The monk pointed downward at Ludgate Hill. 
 " I am going," he said^ " to climb up into a star." 
 
 Those who look at the matter most superficially 
 regard paradox as something which belongs to 
 jesting and light journalism. Paradox of this 
 kind is to be found in the saying of the dandy, in 
 the decadent comedy, " Life is much too import- 
 ant to be taken seriously." Those who look at 
 the matter a little more deeply or delicately see 
 that paradox is a thing which especially belongs 
 to all religions. Paradox of this kind is to be 
 found in such a saying as " The meek shall in- 
 herit the earth." But those who see and feel the 
 fundamental fact of the matter know that paradox 
 is a thing that belongs not to religion only, but to 
 all vivid and violent practical crises of human liv- 
 ing. This kind of paradox may be clearly per- 
 ceived by anybody who happens to be hanging in 
 mid-space, clinging to one arm of the Cross of 
 St. Paul's. 
 
 Father Michael in spite of his years, and in
 
 A DISCUSSION 17 
 
 spite of his asceticism (or because of it, for all I 
 know), was a very healthy and happy old gentle- 
 man. And as he swung on a bar above the sicken- 
 ing emptiness of air, he realised^ with that sort of 
 dead detachment which belongs to the brains of 
 those in peril, the deathless and hopeless con- 
 tradiction which is involved in the mere idea of 
 courage. He was a happy and healthy old gentle- 
 man and therefore he was quite careless about it. 
 And he felt as every man feels in the taut moment 
 of such terror that his chief danger was terror 
 itself; his only possible strength would be a cool- 
 ness amounting to carelessness, a carelessness 
 amounting almost to a suicidal swagger. His one 
 wild chance of coming out safely would be in not 
 too desperately desiring to be safe. There might 
 be footholds down that awful fagade, if only he 
 could not care whether they were footholds or no. 
 If he were foolhardy he might escape; if he were 
 wise he would stop where he was till he dropped 
 from the cross like a stone. And this antinomy 
 kept on repeating itself in his mind, a contradic- 
 tion as large and staring as the immense contra- 
 diction of the Cross ; he remembered having often 
 heard the words, " Whosoever shall lose his life 
 the same shall save it." He remembered with a
 
 i8 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 sort of strange pity that this had always been made 
 to mean that whoever lost his physical life should 
 save his spiritual life. Now he knew the truth 
 that is known to all fighters, and hunters, and 
 climbers of cliffs. He knew that even his animal 
 life could only be saved by a considerable readi- 
 ness to lose it. 
 
 Some will think it improbable that a human soul 
 swinging desperately in mid-air should think about 
 philosophical inconsistencies. But such extreme 
 states are dangerous things to dogmatise about. 
 Frequently they produce a certain useless and joy- 
 less activity of the mere intellect, thought not only 
 divorced from hope but even from desire. And 
 if it is impossible to dogmatise about such states, 
 it is still more impossible to describe them. To 
 this spasm of sanity and clarity in Michael's mind 
 succeeded a spasm of the elemental terror ; the ter- 
 ror of the animal in us which regards the whole 
 universe as its enemy ; which, when it is victorious, 
 has no pity, and so, when it is defeated has no 
 imaginable hope. Of that ten minutes of terror it 
 is not possible to speak in human words. But then 
 again in that damnable darkness there began to 
 grow a strange dawn as of grey and pale silver. 
 And of this ultimate resignation or certainty it is
 
 A DISCUSSION 19 
 
 even less possible to write ; it is something stranger 
 than hell itself; it is perhaps the last of the secrets 
 of God. At the highest crisis of some incurable 
 anguish there will suddenly fall upon the man the 
 stillness of an insane contentment. It is not hope, 
 for hope is broken and romantic and concerned 
 with the future; this is complete and of the pres- 
 ent. It is not faith, for faith by its very nature 
 is fierce, and as it were at once doubtful and de- 
 fiant; but this is simply a satisfaction. It is not 
 knowledge, for the intellect seems to have no par- 
 ticular part in it. Nor is it (as the modern idiots 
 would certainly say it is) a mere numbness or 
 negative paralysis of the powers of grief. It is 
 not negative in the least ; it is as positive as good 
 news. In some sense, indeed, it is good news. It 
 seems almost as if there were some equality among 
 things, some balance in all possible contingencies 
 which we are not permitted to know lest we should 
 learn indifference to good and evil, but which is 
 sometimes shown to us for an instant as a last aid 
 in our last agony. 
 
 Michael certainly could not have given any sort 
 of rational account of this vast unmeaning satis- 
 faction which soaked through him and filled him 
 to the brim. He felt with a sort of half-witted
 
 20 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 lucidity that the cross was there, and the "ball 
 was there, and the dome was there, that he was 
 going to cHmb down from them, and that he did 
 not mind in the least whether he was killed or 
 not. This mysterious mood lasted long enough 
 to start him on his dreadful descent and to force 
 him to continue it. But six times before he 
 reached the highest of the outer galleries terror 
 had returned on him like a flying storm of dark- 
 ness and thunder. By the time he had reached that 
 place of safety he almost felt (as in some impossi- 
 ble fit of drunkenness) that he had two heads; 
 one was calm, careless, and efficient ; the other saw 
 the danger like a deadly map, was wise, careful, 
 and useless. He had fancied that he would have 
 to let himself vertically down the face of the whole 
 building. When he dropped into the upper gallery 
 he still felt as far from the terrestrial globe as if 
 he had only dropped from the sun to the moon. 
 He paused a little, panting in the gallery under the 
 ball, and idly kicked his heels, moving a few yards 
 along it. And as he did so a thunderbolt struck 
 his soul. A man, a heavy, ordinary man, with a 
 composed indifferent face, and a prosaic sort of 
 uniform, with a row of buttons, blocked his way. 
 Michael had no mind to wonder whether this solid
 
 A DISCUSSION 21 
 
 astonished man, with the brown mustache and the 
 nickel buttons, had also come on a flying ship. He 
 merely let his mind float in an endless felicity about 
 the man. He thought how nice it would be if 
 he had to live up in that gallery with that one man 
 for ever. He thought how he would luxuriate in 
 the nameless shades of this man's soul and then 
 hear with an endless excitement about the name- 
 less shades of the souls of all his aunts and uncles. 
 A moment before he had been dying alone. Now 
 he was living in the same world with a man ; an 
 inexhaustible ecstasy. In the gallery below the 
 ball Father Michael had found that man who is 
 the noblest and most divine and most lovable of 
 all men, better than all the saints, greater than all 
 the heroes — man Friday. 
 
 In the confused colour and music of his new 
 paradise, Michael heard only in a faint and distant 
 fashion some remarks that this beautiful solid man 
 seemed to be making to him ; remarks about some- 
 thing or other being after hours and against or- 
 ders. He also seemed to be asking how Michael 
 " got up " there. This beautiful man evidently 
 felt as Michael did that the earth was a star and 
 was set in heaven. 
 
 At length Michael sated himself with the mere
 
 22 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 sensual music of the voice of the man in buttons. 
 He began to hsten to what he said, and even to 
 make some attempt at answering a question v\-hich 
 appeared to have been put several times and was 
 now put with some excess of emphasis. Alichael 
 realised that the image of God in nickel buttons 
 was asking him how he had come there. He said 
 that he had come in Lucifer's ship. On his giving 
 this answer the demeanour of the image of Gk)d 
 underwent a remarkable change. From address- 
 ing Michael gruffly, as if he were a malefactor, 
 he began suddenly to speak to him with a sort of 
 eager and feverish amiability as if he were a child. 
 He seemed particularly anxious to coax him away 
 from the balustrade. He led him by the arm to- 
 wards a door leading into the building itself, 
 soothing him all the time. He gave what even 
 Michael (slight as was his knowledge of the 
 world) felt to be an improbable account of the 
 sumptuous pleasures and varied advantages await- 
 ing him downstairs. Michael followed him, how- 
 ever, if only out of politeness, down an apparently 
 interminable spiral of staircase. At one point a 
 door opened. Michael stepped through it^ and the 
 unaccountable man in buttons leapt after him and 
 pinioned him where he stood. But he only wished
 
 A DISCUSSION 23 
 
 to stand ; to stand and stare. He had stepped as 
 it were into another infinity, out under the dome 
 of another heaven. But this was a dome of 
 heaven made by man. The gold and green and 
 crimson of its sunset were not in the shapeless 
 clouds but in shapes of cherubim and seraphim, 
 awful human shapes with a passionate plumage. 
 Its stars were not above but far below, like fallen 
 stars still in unbroken constellations; the dome 
 itself was full of darkness. And far below, lower 
 even than the lights, could be seen creeping or mo- 
 tionless, great black masses of men. The tongiie 
 of a terrible organ seemed to shake the very air 
 in the whole void; and through it there came up 
 to Michael the sound of a tongue more terrible; 
 the dreadful everlasting voice of man, calling to 
 his gods from the beginning to the end of the 
 world. Michael felt almost as if he were a god, 
 and all the voices were hurled at him. 
 
 " No, the pretty things aren't here," said the 
 demi-god in buttons, caressingly. " The pretty 
 things are downstairs. You come along with me. 
 There's something that will surprise you down- 
 stairs; something you want very much to see." 
 
 Evidently the man in buttons did not feel like 
 a god, so Michael made no attempt to explain his
 
 24 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 feelings to him, but followed him meekly enough 
 down the trail of the serpentine staircase. He had 
 no notion where or at what level he was. He was 
 still full of the cold splendour of space, and of 
 what a French writer has brilliantly named the 
 " vertigo of the infinite," when another door 
 opened, and with a shock indescribable he found 
 himself on the familiar level, in a street full of 
 faces, with the houses and even the lamp-posts 
 above his head. He felt suddenly happy and sud- 
 denly indescribably small. He fancied he had 
 been changed into a child again; his eyes sought 
 the pavement seriously as children's do, as if it 
 were a thing with which something satisfactory 
 could be done. He felt the full warmth of that 
 pleasure from which the proud shut themselves 
 out; the pleasure which not only goes with hu- 
 miliation, but which almost is humiliation. Men 
 who have escaped death by a hair have it, and men 
 whose love is returned by a woman unexpectedly, 
 and men whose sins are forgiven them. Every- 
 thing his eye fell on it feasted on, not aestheti- 
 cally, but with a plain, jolly appetite as of a boy 
 eating buns. He relished the squareness of the 
 houses; he liked their clean angles as if he had 
 just cut them with a knife. The lit squares of
 
 A DISCUSSION 25 
 
 the shop windows excited him as the young are 
 excited by the lit stage of some promising panto- 
 mime. He happened to see in one shop which 
 projected with a bulging bravery on to the pave- 
 ment some square tins of potted meat, and it 
 seemed like a hint of a hundred hilarious high 
 teas in a hundred streets of the world. He 
 was, perhaps, the happiest of all the children 
 of men. For in that unendurable instant when 
 he hung, half slipping, to the ball of St. Paul's, 
 the whole universe had been destroyed and re- 
 created. 
 
 Suddenly through all the din of the dark streets 
 came a crash of glass. With that mysterious sud- 
 denness of the Cockney mob, a rush was made in 
 the right direction, a dingy office, next to the shop 
 of the potted meat. The pane of glass was lying 
 in splinters about the pavement. And the police 
 already had their hands on a very tall young man, 
 with dark, lank hair and dark, dazed eyes, with 
 a grey plaid over his shoulder, who had just 
 smashed the shop window with a single blow of 
 his stick. 
 
 " I'd do it again," said the young man, with a 
 furious white face. "Anybody would have done 
 it. Did you see what it said? I swear I'd do it
 
 26 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 again." Then his eyes encountered the monkish 
 habit of Michael, and he pulled off his grey tarn 
 o'shanter with the gesture of a Catholic. 
 
 " Father, did you see what they said ? " he cried, 
 trembling. " Did you see what they dared to say? 
 I didn't understand it at first. I read it half 
 through before I broke the window." • • 
 
 Michael felt he knew not how. The whole 
 peace of the world was pent up painfully in his 
 heart. The new and childlike world which he 
 had seen so suddenly, men had not seen at all. 
 Here they were still at their old bewildering, par- 
 donable, useless quarrels, with so much to be said 
 on both sides, and so little that need be said at all. 
 A fierce inspiration fell on him suddenly; he 
 would strike them where they stood with the love 
 of God. They should not move till they saw their 
 own sweet and startling existence. They should 
 not go from that place till they went home em- 
 bracing like brothers and shouting like men de- 
 livered. From the Cross from which he had fallen 
 fell the shadow of its fantastic mercy; and the 
 first three words he spoke in a voice like a silver 
 trumpet, held men as still as stones. Perhaps if 
 he had spoken there for an hour in his illumination 
 he might have founded a religion on Ludgate Hill.
 
 A DISCUSSION 27 
 
 But the heavy hand of his guide fell suddenly on 
 his shoulder. 
 
 " This poor fellow is dotty," he said good- 
 humouredly to the crowd. " I found him wan- 
 dering in the Cathedral. Says he came in a flying 
 ship. Is there a constable to spare to take care of 
 him?" 
 
 There was a constable to spare. Two other con- 
 stables attended to the tall young man in grey; a 
 fourth concerned himself with the owner of the 
 shop, who showed some tendency to be turbulent. 
 They took the tall young man away to a magis- 
 trate, whither we shall follow him in an ensuing 
 chapter. And they took the happiest man in the 
 world away to an asylum.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 THE RELIGION OF THE STIPENDIARY MAGISTRATE 
 
 The editorial office of " The Atheist " had for 
 some years past become less and less prominently 
 interesting as a feature of Ludgate Hill, The 
 paper was unsuited to the atmosphere. It showed 
 an interest in the Bible unknown in the district, 
 and a knowledge of that volume to which nobody 
 else on Ludgate Hill could make any conspicuous 
 claim. It was in vain that the editor of " The 
 Atheist " filled his front window with fierce and 
 final demands as to what Noah in the Ark did 
 with the neck of the giraffe. It was in vain that 
 he asked violently, as for the last time, how the 
 statement " God is Spirit " could be reconciled 
 with the statement " The earth is His footstool." 
 It was in vain that he cried with an accusing en- 
 ergy that the Bishop of London was paid £12,000 
 a year for pretending to believe that the whale 
 swallowed Jonah. It was in vain that he hung 
 
 in conspicuous places the most thrilling scientific 
 
 28
 
 THE STIPENDIARY MAGISTRATE 29 
 
 calculations about the width of the throat of a 
 whale. Was it nothing to them all they that 
 passed by? Did his sudden and splendid and 
 truly sincere indignation never stir any of the 
 people pouring down Ludgate Hill ? Never. The 
 little man who edited " The Atheist " would rush 
 from his shop on starlit evenings and shake his 
 fist at St. Paul's in the passion of his holy war 
 upon the holy place. He might have spared his 
 emotion. The cross at the top of St. Paul's and 
 " The Atheist " shop at the foot of it were alike 
 remote from the world. The shop and the Cross 
 were equally uplifted and alone in the empty 
 heavens. 
 
 To the little man who edited "The Atheist," 
 a fiery little Scotchman, with fiery, red hair and 
 beard, going by the name of Tumbull, all this 
 decline in public importance seemed not so much 
 sad or even mad, but merely bewildering and un- 
 accountable. He had said the worst thing that 
 could be said ; and it seemed accepted and ignored 
 like the ordinary second best of the politicians. 
 Every day his blasphemies looked more glaring, 
 and every day the dust lay thicker upon them. 
 It made him feel as if he were moving in a world 
 of idiots. He seemed among a race of men who
 
 30 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 smiled when told of their own death, or looked 
 vacantly at the Day of Judgment. Year after year 
 went by, and year after year the death of God in a 
 shop in Ludgate became a less and less important 
 occurrence. All the forward men of his age dis- 
 couraged Turnbull. The socialists said he was 
 cursing priests when he should be cursing capital- 
 ists. The artists said that the soul was most spir- 
 itual, not when freed from religion, but when 
 freed from morality. Year after year went by, 
 and at last a man came by who treated Mr. Turn- 
 bull's secularist shop with a real respect and seri- 
 ousness. He was a young man in a grey plaid, 
 and he smashed the window. 
 
 He was a young man, born in the Bay of Aris- 
 aig, opposite Rum and the Isle of Skye. His 
 high, hawklike features and snaky black hair bore 
 the mark of that unknown historic thing which 
 is crudely called Celtic, but which is probably far 
 older than the Celts, whoever they were. He was 
 in name and stock a Highlander of the Macdon- 
 alds ; but his family took, as was common in such 
 cases, the name of a subordinate sept as a surname, 
 and for all the purposes which could be answered 
 in London, he called himself Evan Maclan. He 
 had been brought up in some loneliness and se-
 
 THE STIPENDIARY MAGISTRATE 31 
 
 elusion as a strict Roman Catholic, in the midst 
 of that little wedge of Roman Catholics which is 
 driven into the Western Highlands. And he had 
 found his way as far as Fleet Street, seeking some 
 half-promised employment, without having prop- 
 erly realised that there were in the world any 
 people who were not Roman Catholics. He had 
 uncovered himself for a few moments before the 
 statue of Queen Anne, in front of St. Paul's 
 Cathedral, under the firm impression that it was a 
 figure of the Virgin Mary. He was somewhat 
 surprised at the lack of deference shown to the 
 figure by the people bustling by. He did not un- 
 derstand that their one essential historical prin- 
 ciple, the one law truly graven on their hearts, 
 was the great and comforting statement that 
 Queen Anne is dead. This faith was as funda- 
 mental as his faith, that Our Lady was alive. Any 
 persons he had talked to since he had touched the 
 fringe of our fashion or civilisation had been by 
 a coincidence, sympathetic or hypocritical. Or if 
 they had spoken some established blasphemies, he 
 had been unable to understand them merely owing 
 to the preoccupied satisfaction of his mind. 
 
 On that fantastic fringe of the Gaelic land 
 where he walked as a boy, the cliffs were as fan-
 
 32 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 tastic as the clouds. Heaven seemed to humble 
 itself and come closer to the earth. The common 
 paths of his little village began to climb quite 
 suddenly and seemed resolved to go to heaven. 
 The sky seemed to fall down towards the hills ; the 
 hills took hold upon the sky. In the sumptuous 
 sunset of gold and purple and peacock green cloud- 
 lets and islets were the same. Evan lived like 
 a man walking on a borderland, the borderland 
 between this world and another. Like so many 
 men and nations who grow up with nature and the 
 common things, he understood the supernatural 
 before he understood the natural. He had looked 
 at dim angels standing knee-deep in the grass 
 before he had looked at the grass. He knew that 
 Our Lady's robes were blue before he knew the 
 wild roses round her feet were red. The deeper 
 his memory plunged into the dark house of child- 
 hood the nearer and nearer he came to the things 
 that cannot be named. All through his life he 
 thought of the daylight world as a sort of divine 
 debris, the broken remainder of his first vision. 
 The skies and mountains were the splendid off- 
 scourings of another place. The stars were lost 
 jewels of the Queen. Our Lady had gone and 
 left the stars by accident.
 
 THE STIPENDIARY MAGISTRATE 33 
 
 His private tradition was equally wild and un- 
 worldly. His great-grandfather had been cut 
 down at Culloden, certain in his last instant that 
 God would restore the King. His grandfather, 
 then a boy of ten, had taken the terrible claymore 
 from the hand of the dead and hung it up in hig 
 house, burnishing it and sharpening it for sixty 
 years, to be ready for the next rebellion. His 
 father, the youngest son and the last left alive, 
 had refused to attend on Queen Victoria in Scot- 
 land. And Evan himself had been of one piece 
 wjth his progenitors ; and was not dead with them, 
 but alive in the twentieth century. He was not in 
 the least the pathetic Jacobite of whom we read, 
 left behind by a final advance of all things. He 
 was, in his own fancy, a conspirator, fierce and 
 up to date. In the long, dark afternoons of the 
 Highland winter, he plotted and fumed in the 
 dark. He drew plans of the capture of London on 
 the desolate sand of Arisaig. 
 
 When he came up to capture London, it was not 
 with an army of white cockades, but with a stick 
 and a satchel. London overawed him a little, not 
 because he thought it grand or even terrible, but 
 because it bewildered him; it was not the Golden 
 City or even hell; it was Limbo. He had one
 
 34 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 shock of sentiment, when he turned that wonder- 
 ful corner of Fleet Street and saw St. Paul's sit- 
 ting in the sky. 
 
 " Ah," he said, after a long pause, " that sort 
 of thing was built under the Stuarts ! " Then with 
 a sour grin he asked himself what was the cor- 
 responding monument of the Brunswicks and the 
 Protestant Constitution. After some warning, he 
 selected a sky-sign of some pill. 
 
 Half an hour afterwards his emotions left him 
 with an emptied mind on the same spot. And it 
 was in a mood of mere idle investigation that he 
 happened to come to a standstill opposite the of- 
 fice of " The Atheist." He did not see the word 
 " atheist," or if he did, it is quite possible that he 
 did not know the meaning of the word. Even as 
 it was, the document would not have shocked even 
 the innocent Highlander, but for the troublesome 
 and quite unforeseen fact that the innocent High- 
 lander read it stolidly to the end ; a thing unknown 
 among the most enthusiastic subscribers to the 
 paper, and calculated in any case to create a new 
 situation. 
 
 With a smart journalistic instinct characteris- 
 tic of all his school, the editor of " The Atheist " 
 had put first in his paper and most prominently in
 
 THE STIPENDIARY MAGISTRATE 35 
 
 his window an article called " The Mesopotamian 
 Mythology and its Effects on the Syriac Folk 
 Lore." Mr. Evan Maclan began to read this quite 
 idly, as he would have read a public statement 
 beginning with a young girl dying in Brighton 
 and ending with Bile Beans. He received the 
 very considerable amount of information accumu- 
 lated by the author with that tired clearness of the 
 mind which children have on heavy summer after- 
 noons — that tired clearness which leads them to 
 go on asking questions long after they have lost 
 interest in the subject and are as bored as their 
 nurse. The streets were full of people and empty 
 of adventures. He might as well know about 
 the Gods of Mesopotamia as not; so he flattened 
 his long, lean face against the dim bleak pane of 
 the window and read all there was to read about 
 the Mesopotamian Gods. He read how the Meso- 
 potamians had a God named Sho (sometimes pro- 
 nounced Ji), and that he was described as being 
 very powerful, a striking similarity to some ex- 
 pressions about Jahveh, who is also described as 
 having power. Evan had never heard of Jahveh 
 in his life, and imagining him to be some other 
 Mesopotamian idol, read on with a dull curiosity. 
 He learnt that the name Sho, under its third form
 
 36 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 of Psa, occurs in an early legend which describes 
 how the deity, after the manner of Jupiter on so 
 many occasions, seduced a Virgin and begat a 
 hero. This hero, whose name is not essential to 
 our existence, was, it was said, the chief hero and 
 Saviour of the Mesopotamian ethical scheme. 
 Then followed a paragraph giving other examples 
 of such heroes and Saviours being born of some 
 profligate intercourse between God and mortal. 
 Then followed a paragraph — but Evan did not un- 
 derstand it. He read it again and then again. 
 Then he did understand it. The glass fell in ring- 
 ing fragments on to the pavement, and Evan 
 sprang over the barrier into the shop, brandishing 
 his stick. 
 
 "What is this?" cried little Mr. Turnbull, 
 starting up with hair aflame. " How dare you 
 break my window ? " 
 
 "Because it was the quickest cut to you," 
 cried Evan, stamping. " Stand up and fight, 
 you crapulous coward. You dirty lunatic, 
 stand up, will you? Have you any weapons 
 here?" 
 
 " Are you mad ? " asked Turnbull, glaring. 
 
 " Are you ? " cried Evan. " Can you be any- 
 thing else when you plaster your own house with
 
 THE STIPENDIARY MAGISTRATE 37 
 
 that God-defying filth? Stand up and fight, I 
 say." 
 
 A great light like dawn came into Mr. Turn- 
 bull's face. Behind his red hair and beard he 
 turned deadly pale with pleasure. Here, after 
 twenty lone years of useless toil, he had his re- 
 ward. Some one was angry with the paper. He 
 bounded to his feet like a boy ; he saw a new youth 
 opening before him. And as not unfrequently 
 happens to middle-aged gentlemen when they see 
 a new youth opening before them, he found him- 
 self in the presence of the police. 
 
 The policemen, after some ponderous question- 
 ings, collared both the two enthusiasts. They 
 were more respectful, however, to the young man 
 who had smashed the window, than to the mis- 
 creant who had had his window smashed. There 
 was an air of refined mystery about Evan Maclan, 
 which did not exist in the irate little shopkeeper, 
 an air of refined mystery which appealed to the 
 policemen, for policemen, like most other English 
 types, are at once snobs and poets. Maclan might 
 possibly be a gentleman, they felt; the editor 
 manifestly was not. And the editor's fine rational 
 republican appeals to his respect for law, and his 
 ardour to be tried by his fellow citizens, seemed
 
 38 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 to the police quite as much gibberish as Evan's 
 mysticism could have done. The police were not 
 used to hearing principles, even the principles of 
 their own existence. 
 
 The police magistrate, before whom they were 
 hurried and tried, was a Mr. Cumberland Vane, 
 a cheerful, middle-aged gentleman, honourably 
 celebrated for the lightness of his sentences and 
 the lightness of his conversation. He occasionally 
 worked himself up into a sort of theoretic rage 
 about certain particular offenders, such as the men 
 who took pokers to their wives, talked in a loose, 
 sentimental way about the desirability of flogging 
 them, and was hopelessly bewildered by the fact 
 that the wives seemed even more angry with him 
 than with their husbands. He was a tall, spruce 
 man, with a twist of black moustache and in- 
 comparable morning dress. He looked like a 
 gentleman, and yet, somehow, like a stage gen- 
 tleman. 
 
 He had often treated serious crimes against 
 mere order or property with a humane flippancy. 
 Hence, about the mere breaking of an editor's 
 window, he was almost uproarious. 
 
 " Come, Mr. Maclan, come," he said, leaning 
 back in his chair, " do you generally enter your
 
 THE STIPENDIARY MAGISTRATE 39 
 
 friends' houses by walking through the glass ? " 
 (Laughter.) 
 
 " He is not my friend," said Evan, with the 
 stolidity of a dull child. 
 
 " Not your friend, eh ? " said the magistrate, 
 sparkling. " Is he your brother-in-law ? " (Loud 
 and prolonged laughter.) 
 
 " He is my enemy," said Evan, simply; " he is 
 the enemy of God." 
 
 Mr. Vane shifted sharply in his seat, dropping 
 the eye-glass out of his eye in a momentary and 
 not unmanly embarrassment. 
 
 " You mustn't talk like that here," he said, 
 roughly, and in a kind of hurry, " that has noth- 
 ing to do with us." 
 
 Evan opened his great, blue eyes ; " God," he 
 began. 
 
 " Be quiet," said the magistrate, angrily, " it 
 is most undesirable that things of that sort should 
 be spoken about — a — in public, and in an or- 
 dinary Court of Justice. Religion is — a — too 
 personal a matter to be mentioned in such a 
 place." 
 
 " Is it? " answered the Highlander, " then what 
 did those policemen swear by just now? " 
 
 " That is no parallel," answered Vane, rather
 
 40 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 irritably; " of course there is a form of oath — to 
 be taken reverently — reverently, and there's an 
 end of it. But to talk in a public place about one's 
 most sacred and private sentiments — well, I call 
 it bad taste. (Slight applause.) I call it irrev- 
 erent. I call it irreverent, and I'm not specially 
 orthodox either." 
 
 " I see you are not," said Evan, " but I am." 
 
 " We are wandering from the point," said the 
 police magistrate, pulling himself together, 
 
 " May I ask why you smashed this worthy citi- 
 zen's window ? " 
 
 Evan turned a little pale at the mere memory, 
 but he answered with the same cold and deadly 
 literalism that he showed throughout. 
 
 " Because he blasphemed Our Lady." 
 
 " I tell you once and for all," cried Mr. Cum- 
 berland Vane, rapping his knuckles angrily on the 
 table, " I tell you, once for all, my man, that I will 
 not have you turning on any religious rant or 
 cant here. Don't imagine that it will impress me. 
 The most religious people are not those who talk 
 about it. (Applause.) You answer the questions 
 and do nothing else." 
 
 " I did nothing else," said Evan, with a slight 
 smile.
 
 THE STIPENDIARY MAGISTRATE 41 
 
 " Eh," cried Vane, glaring through his eye- 
 glass. 
 
 " You asked me why I broke his window," said 
 Maclan, with a face of wood. " I answered, 
 * Because he blasphemed Our Lady.' I had no 
 other reason. So I have no other answer." Vane 
 continued to gaze at him with a sternness not 
 habitual to him. 
 
 " You are not going the right way to work. 
 Sir," he said, with severity. " You are not going 
 the right way to work to — a — have your case 
 treated with special consideration. If you had 
 simply expressed regret for what you had done, 
 I should have been strongly inclined to dismiss 
 the matter as an outbreak of temper. Even now, 
 if you say that you are sorry I shall only " 
 
 " But I am not in the least sorry," said Evan, 
 " I am very pleased." 
 
 " I really believe you are insane," said the sti- 
 pendiary, indignantly, for he had really been 
 doing his best as a good-natured man, to compose 
 the dispute. " What conceivable right have you 
 to break other people's windows because their 
 opinions do not agree with yours? This man 
 only gave expression to his sincere belief." 
 
 " So did I," said the Highlander.
 
 42 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 " And who are you ? " exploded Vane. " Are 
 your views necessarily the right ones? Are you 
 necessarily in possession of the truth ? " 
 
 " Yes," said Maclan. 
 
 The magistrate broke into a contemptuous 
 laugh. 
 
 " Oh, you want a nurse to look after you," he 
 said. " You must pay £io." 
 
 Evan Maclan plunged his hands into his loose 
 grey garments and drew out a queer looking 
 leather purse. It contained exactly twelve sover- 
 eigns. He paid down the ten, coin by coin, in 
 silence, and equally silently returned the remain- 
 ing two to the receptacle. Then he said, " May 
 I say a word, your worship ? " 
 
 Cumberland Vane seemed half hypnotised with 
 the silence and automatic movements of the 
 stranger; he made a movement with his head, 
 which might have been either " yes " or " no." 
 ** I only wished to say, your worship," said Mac- 
 lan, putting back the purse in his trouser pocket, 
 ** that smashing that shop window was, I confess, 
 a useless and rather irregular business. It may 
 be excused, however, as a mere preliminary to 
 further proceedings, a sort of preface. Wherever 
 and whenever I meet that man/' and he pointed
 
 THE STIPENDIARY MAGISTRATE 43 
 
 to the editor of " The Atheist," " whether it be 
 outside this door in ten minutes from now, or 
 twenty years hence in some distant countr}% wher- 
 ever and whenever I meet that man, I will 
 fight him. Do not be afraid, I will not rush at 
 him like a bully, or bear him down with any brute 
 superiority. I will fight him like a gentleman; 
 I will fight him as our fathers fought. He shall 
 choose how, sword or pistol, horse or foot. But 
 if he refuses, I will write his cowardice on every 
 wall in the world. If he had said of my mother 
 what he said of the Mother of God, there is not 
 a club of clean men in Europe that would deny 
 my right to call him out. If he had said it of my 
 wife, you English would yourselves have par- 
 doned me for beating him like a dog in the market 
 place. Your worship, I have no mother; I have 
 no wife. I have only that which the poor have 
 equally with the rich ; which the lonely have 
 equally with the man of many friends. To me 
 this whole strange world is homely, because in 
 the heart of it there is a home; to me this cruel 
 world is kindly, because higher than the heavens 
 there is something more human than humanity. 
 If a man must not fight for this, may he fight for 
 anything? I would fight for my friend, but if I
 
 44 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 lost my friend, I should still be there. I would 
 fight for my country, but if I lost my country, I 
 should still exist. But if what that devil dreams 
 were true, I should not be — I should burst like a 
 bubble and be gone. I could not live in that 
 imbecile universe. Shall I not fight for my own 
 existence ? " 
 
 The magistrate recovered his voice and his 
 presence of mind. The first part of the speech, 
 the bombastic and brutally practical challenge, 
 stunned him with surprise; but the rest of Evan's 
 remarks, branching off as they did into theoretic 
 phrases, gave his vague and very English mind 
 (full of memories of the hedging and compromise 
 in English public speaking) an indistinct sensa- 
 tion of relief, as if the man, though mad, were 
 not so dangerous as he had thought. He went 
 into a sort of weary laughter. 
 
 " For Heaven's sake, man/' he said, " don't 
 talk so much. Let other people have a chance 
 (laughter). I trust all that you said about ask- 
 ing Mr. Turnbull to fight, may be regarded as 
 rubbish. In case of accidents, however, I must 
 bind you over to keep the peace." 
 
 " To keep the peace," repeated Evan, *' with 
 whom ? "
 
 THE STIPENDIARY MAGISTRATE 45 
 
 " With Mr. Turnbull," said Vane. 
 
 " Certainly not^" answered Maclan. " What 
 has he to do with peace ? " 
 
 " Do you mean to say," began the magistrate, 
 " that you refuse to . . ." The voice of Turn- 
 bull himself clove in for the first time. 
 
 " Might I suggest," he said, " that I, your wor- 
 ship, can settle to some extent this absurd matter 
 myself. This rather wild gentleman promises 
 that he will not attack me with any ordinary as- 
 sault — and if he does, you may be sure the police 
 shall hear of it. But he says he will not. He 
 says he will challenge me to a duel ; and I cannot 
 say anything stronger about his mental state than 
 to say that I think that it is highly probable that 
 he will. (Laughter.) But it takes two to make 
 a duel, your worship (renewed laughter). I do 
 not in the least mind being described on every 
 wall in the world as the coward who would not 
 fight a man in Fleet Street, about whether the 
 Virgin Mary had a parallel in Mesopotamian 
 mythology. No, your worship. You need not 
 trouble to bind him over to keep the peace. I 
 bind myself over to keep the peace, and you may 
 rest quite satisfied that there will be no duel with 
 me in it."
 
 46 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 Mr. Cumberland Vane rolled about, laughing 
 in a sort of relief. 
 
 " You're like a breath of April air, sir," he 
 cried. " You're ozone after that fellow. You're 
 perfectly right. Perhaps I have taken the thing 
 too seriously. I should love to see him sending 
 you challenges and to see you smiling. Well, 
 well." 
 
 '" Evan went out of the Court of Justice free, 
 but strangely shaken, like a sick man. Any pun- 
 ishment or suppression he would have felt as nat- 
 ural; but the sudden juncture between the laugh- 
 ter of his judge and the laughter of the man he 
 had wronged, made him feel suddenly small, or 
 at least, defeated. It was really true that the 
 whole modern world regarded his world as a bub- 
 ble. No cruelty could have shown it, but their 
 kindness showed it with a ghastly clearness. As 
 he was brooding, he suddenly became conscious 
 of a small, stem figure, fronting him in silence. 
 Its eyes were grey and awful, and its beard red. 
 It was Turnbull. 
 
 " Well, sir," said the editor of " The Atheist," 
 " where is the fight to be ? Name the field, 
 sir." 
 
 Evan stood thunderstruck. He stammered out
 
 THE STIPENDIARY MAGISTRATE 47 
 
 something, he knew not what ; he only guessed it 
 by the answer of the other. 
 
 " Do I want to fight ? Do I want to fight ? " 
 cried the furious Free-thinker. " Why, you 
 moonstruck scarecrow of superstition, do you 
 think your dirty saints are the only people who 
 can die? Haven't you hung atheists, and burned 
 them, and boiled them, and did they ever deny 
 their faith ? Do you think we don't want to fight ? 
 Night and day I have prayed — I have longed — 
 for an atheist revolution — I have longed to see 
 your blood and ours in the streets. Let it be yours 
 or mine? " 
 
 " But you said ..." began Maclan. 
 
 " I know," said Turnbull, scornfully. " And 
 what did you say? You damned fool, you said 
 things that might have got us locked up for a 
 year, and shadowed by the coppers for half a 
 decade. If you wanted to fight, why did you tell 
 that ass you wanted to? I got you out, to fight 
 if you want to. Now, fight if you dare." 
 
 " I swear to you, then," said Maclan, after a 
 pause. " I swear to you that nothing shall come 
 between us. I swear to you that nothing shall be 
 in my heart or in my head till our swords clash 
 together. I swear it by the God you have denied,
 
 48 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 by the Blessed Lady you have blasphemed; I 
 swear it by the seven swords in her heart. I 
 swear it by the Holy Island where my fathers are, 
 by the honour of my mother, by the secret of my 
 people, and by the chalice of the Blood of God." 
 The atheist drew up his head. " And I," he 
 said, ** give my word."
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 SOME OLD CURIOSITIES 
 
 The evening sky, a dome of solid gold, un- 
 flaked even by a single sunset cloud, steeped the 
 meanest sights of London in a strange and mel- 
 low light. It made a little greasy street off St. 
 Martin's Lane look as if it were paved with gold. 
 It made the pawnbroker's half-way down it shine 
 as if it were really that Mountain of Piety that 
 the French poetic instinct has named it; it made 
 the mean pseudo-French bookshop, next but one 
 to it, a shop packed with dreary indecency, show 
 for a moment a kind of Parisian colour. And 
 the shop that stood between the pawnshop and 
 the shop of dreary indecency, showed with quite 
 a blaze of old world beauty, for it was, by acci- 
 dent, a shop not unbeautiful in itself. The front 
 window had a glimmer of bronze and blue steel, 
 lit, as by a few stars, by the sparks of what were 
 alleged to be jewels; for it was in brief, a shop 
 of bric-a-brac and old curiosities. A row of 
 
 49
 
 50 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 half burnished seventeenth century swords ran 
 like an ornate railing along the front of the win- 
 dow ; behind was a darker glimmer of old oak and 
 old armour; and higher up hung the most ex- 
 traordinary looking South Sea tools or utensils, 
 whether designed for killing enemies or merely 
 for cooking them, no mere white man could pos- 
 sibly conjecture. But the romance of the eye, 
 which really on this rich evening, clung about the 
 shop, had its main source in the accident of two 
 doors standing open, the front door that opened 
 on the street and a back door that opened on an 
 odd green square of garden, that the sun turned 
 to a square of gold. There is nothing more beau- 
 tiful than thus to look as it were through the 
 archway of a house; as if the open sky were an 
 interior chamber, and the sun a secret lamp of the 
 place. 
 
 I have suggested that the sunset light made 
 everything lovely. To say that it made the 
 keeper of the curiosity shop lovely would be a 
 tribute to it perhaps too extreme. It would easily 
 have made him beautiful if he had been merely 
 squalid ; if he had been a Jew of the Fagin type. 
 But he was a Jew of another and much less ad- 
 mirable type; a Jew with a very well sounding
 
 SOME OLD CURIOSITIES 51 
 
 name. For though there are no hard tests for 
 separating the tares and wheat of any people ; one 
 rude but efficient guide is that the nice Jew is 
 called Moses Solomon, and the nasty Jew is called 
 Thornton Percy. The keeper of the curiosity 
 shop was of the Thornton Percy branch of the 
 chosen people; he belonged to those Lost Ten 
 Tribes whose industrious object is to lose them- 
 selves. He was a man still young, but already 
 corpulent, with sleek dark hair, heavy handsome 
 clothes, and a full, fat, permanent smile, which 
 looked at the first glance kindly, and at the second 
 cowardly. The name over his shop was Henry 
 Gordon, but two Scotchmen who were in his shop 
 that evening could come upon no trace of a Scotch 
 accent. 
 
 These two Scotchmen in this shop were care- 
 ful purchasers, but free-handed payers. One of 
 them who seemed to be the principal and the au- 
 thority (whom, indeed, Mr. Henry Gordon fan- 
 cied he had seen somewhere before), was a small, 
 sturdy fellow, with fine grey eyes, a square red 
 tie and a square red beard, that he carried ag- 
 gressively forward as if he defied any one to pull 
 it. The other kept so much in the background 
 in comparison that he looked almost ghostly in
 
 52 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 his grey cloak or plaid, a tall, sallow, silent young 
 man. 
 
 The two Scotchmen were interested in seven- 
 teenth century swords. They were fastidious 
 about them. They had a whole armoury of these 
 weapons brought out and rolled clattering about 
 the counter, until they found two of precisely the 
 same length. Presumably they desired the exact 
 symmetry for some decorative trophy. Even 
 then they felt the points, poised the swords for 
 balance and bent them in a circle to see that they 
 sprang straight again ; which, for decorative pur- 
 poses, seems carrying realism rather far, 
 
 " These will do," said the strange person with 
 the red beard. " And perhaps I had better pay 
 for them at once. And as you are the challenger, 
 Mr. Maclan, perhaps you had better explain the 
 situation." 
 
 The tall Scotchman in grey took a step for- 
 ward and spoke in a voice quite clear and bold, 
 and yet somehow lifeless, like a man going 
 through an ancient formality. 
 
 " The fact is, Mr. Gordon, we have to place our 
 honour in your hands. Words have passed be- 
 tween Mr. Turnbull and myself on a grave and 
 invaluable matter, which can only be atoned for
 
 SOME OLD CURIOSITIES 53 
 
 by fighting. Unfortunately, as the poHce are in 
 some sense pursuing us, we are hurried, and must 
 fight now and without seconds. But if you will 
 be so kind as to take us into your little garden 
 and see fair play, we shall feel how " 
 
 The shopman recovered himself from a stun- 
 ning surprise and burst out : 
 
 " Gentlemen, are you drunk ? A duel ! A duel 
 in my garden. Go home, gentlemen, go home. 
 Why, what did you quarrel about ? " 
 
 " We quarrelled," said Evan, in the same dead 
 voice, " about religion." The fat shopkeeper 
 rolled about in his chair with enjoyment. 
 
 " Well, this is a funny game," he said. " So 
 you want to commit murder on behalf of religion. 
 Well, well my religion is a little respect for 
 humanity, and " 
 
 " Excuse me," cut in Turnbull, suddenly and 
 fiercely, pointing towards the pawnbroker's next 
 door. "Don't you own that shop?" 
 
 " Why — er — yes," said Gordon. 
 
 " And don't you own that shop? " repeated the 
 secularist, pointing backward to the pornographic 
 bookseller. 
 
 "What if I do?" 
 
 " Why, then," cried Turnbull, with grating
 
 54 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 contempt. " I will leave the religion of human- 
 ity confidently in your hands; but I am sorry I 
 troubled you about such a thing as honour. Look 
 here, my man. I do believe in humanity. I do 
 believe in liberty. My father died for it under 
 the swords of the Yeomanry. I am going to die 
 for it, if need be^, under that sword on your 
 counter. But if there is one sight that makes me 
 doubt it it is your foul fat face. It is hard to 
 believe you were not meant to be ruled like a 
 dog or killed like a cockroach. Don't try your 
 slave's philosophy on me. We are going to 
 fight, and we are going to fight in your garden, 
 with your swords. Be still! Raise your voice 
 above a whisper, and I run you through the 
 body." 
 
 Turnbull put the bright point of the sword 
 against the gay waistcoat of the dealer, who stood 
 choking with rage and fear, and an astonishment 
 so crushing as to be greater than either. 
 
 " Maclan," said Turnbull, falling almost into 
 the familiar tone of a business partner, " ^Maclan, 
 tie up this fellow and put a gag in his mouth. Be 
 still, I say, or I kill you where you stand." 
 
 The man was too frightened to scream, but 
 he struggled wildly, while Evan Maclan, whose
 
 SOME OLD CURIOSITIES 55 
 
 long, lean hands were unusually powerful, tight- 
 ened some old curtain cords round him, strapped 
 a rope gag in his mouth and rolled him on his 
 back on the floor. 
 
 " There's nothing very strong here," said 
 Evan, looking about him. " I'm afraid he'll work 
 through that gag in half an hour or so." 
 
 " Yes," said Turnbull, " but one of us will be 
 killed by that time." 
 
 " Well, let's hope so," said the Highlander, 
 glancing doubtfully at the squirming thing on the 
 floor. 
 
 " And now," said Turnbull, twirling his fiery 
 moustache and fingering his sword, " let us go 
 into the garden. What an exquisite summer 
 evening ! " 
 
 Maclan said nothing, but lifting his sword 
 from the counter went out into the sun. 
 
 The brilliant light ran along the blades, filling 
 the channels of them with white fire; the com- 
 batants stuck their swords in the turf and took 
 ofif their hats^ coats, waistcoats, and boots. Evan 
 said a short Latin prayer to himself, during which 
 Turnbull made something of a parade of lighting 
 a cigarette which he flung away the instant after, 
 when he saw Maclan apparently standing ready.
 
 56 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 Yet Maclan was not exactly ready. He stood 
 staring like a man stricken with a trance. 
 
 "What are you staring at?" asked Turnbull, 
 " Do you see the bobbies ? " 
 
 " I see Jerusalem/' said Evan, " all covered 
 with the shields and standards of the Saracens." 
 
 " Jerusalem ! " said Turnbull, laughing. 
 *' Well, we've taken the only inhabitant into 
 captivity." 
 
 And he picked up his sword and made it 
 whistle like a boy's wand. 
 
 *' I beg your pardon," said Maclan, drily. 
 " Let us begin." 
 
 Maclan made a military salute with his 
 weapon, which Turnbull copied or parodied with 
 an impatient contempt ; and in the stillness of the 
 garden the swords came together with a clear 
 sound like a bell. The instant the blades touched, 
 each felt them tingle to their very points with a 
 personal vitality, as if they were two naked nerves 
 of steel. Evan had worn throughout an air of 
 apathy, which might have been the stale apathy 
 of one Avho wants nothing. But it was indeed the 
 more dreadful apathy of one who wants some- 
 thing and will care for nothing else. And this 
 was seen suddenly ; for the instant Evan engaged
 
 SOME OLD CURIOSITIES 57 
 
 he disengaged and lunged with an infernal vio- 
 lence. His opponent with a desperate prompti- 
 tude parried and riposted; the parry only just 
 succeeded, the riposte failed. Something big and 
 unbearable seemed to have broken finally out of 
 Evan in that first murderous lunge, leaving him 
 lighter and cooler and quicker upon his feet. He 
 fell to again, fiercely still, but now with a fierce 
 caution. The next moment Turnbull lunged; 
 Maclan seemed to catch the point and throw it 
 away from him, and was thrusting back like a 
 thunderbolt, when a sound paralysed him; an- 
 other sound beside their ringing weapons. Turn- 
 bull, perhaps from an equal astonishment, per- 
 haps from chivalry, stopped also and forbore to 
 send his sword through his exposed enemy. 
 
 " What's that? " asked Evan, hoarsely. 
 
 A heavy scraping sound, as of a trunk being 
 dragged along a littered floor, came from the dark 
 shop behind them. 
 
 " The old Jew has broken one of his strings, 
 and he's crawling about," said Turnbull. " Be 
 quick! We must finish before he gets his gag 
 out." 
 
 " Yes, yes, quick ! On guard ! " cried the 
 Highlander. The blades crossed again with the
 
 58 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 same sound like song, and the men went to work 
 again with the same white and watchful faces. 
 Evan, in his impatience, went back a little to his 
 wildness. He made windmills, as the French 
 duellists say, and though he was probably a shade 
 the better fencer of the two, he found the other's 
 point pass his face twice so close as almost to 
 graze his cheek. The second time he realised the 
 actual possibility of defeat and pulled himself to- 
 gether under a shock of the sanity of anger. He 
 narrowed, and, so to speak, tightened his opera- 
 tions : he fenced (as the swordman's boast goes), 
 in a wedding ring; he turned Turnbull's thrusts 
 with a maddening and almost mechanical click, 
 like that of a machine. Whenever Turnbull's 
 sword sought to go over that other mere white 
 streak it seemed to be caught in a complex net- 
 work of steel. He turned one thrust, turned an- 
 other, turned another. Then suddenly he went 
 forward at the lunge with his whole living 
 weight. Turnbull leaped back, but Evan lunged 
 and lunged and lunged again like a devilish piston 
 rod or battering ram. And high above all the 
 sound of the struggle there broke into the silent 
 evening a bellowing human voice, nasal, raucous, 
 at the highest pitch of pain. "Help! Help!
 
 SOME OLD CURIOSITIES 59 
 
 Police ! Murder ! Murder ! " The gag was bro- 
 ken ; and the tongue of terror was loose. 
 
 " Keep on ! " gasped Turnbull. " One may be 
 killed before they come." 
 
 The voice of the screaming shopkeeper was loud 
 enough to drown not only the noise of the swords 
 but all other noises around it, but even through 
 its rending din there seemed to be some other stir 
 or scurry. And Evan, in the very act of thrusting 
 at Turnbull, saw something in his eyes that made 
 him drop his sword. The atheist, with his grey 
 eyes at their widest and wildest, was staring 
 straight over his shoulder at the little archway of 
 shop that opened on the street beyond. And he 
 saw the archway blocked and blackened with 
 strange figures. 
 
 " We must bolt, Maclan," he said abruptly. 
 " And there isn't a damned second to lose either. 
 Do as I do." 
 
 With a bound he was beside the little cluster of 
 his clothes and boots that lay on the lawn; he 
 snatched them up, without waiting to put any of 
 them on ; and tucking his sword under his other 
 arm, went wildly at the wall at the bottom of the 
 garden and swung himself over it. Three sec- 
 onds after he had alighted in his socks on the
 
 6o THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 other side, Maclan alighted beside him, also in 
 his socks and also carrying clothes and sword in 
 a desperate bundle. 
 
 They were in a by-street, very lean and 
 lonely itself, but so close to a crowded thorough- 
 fare that they could see the vague masses of vehi- 
 cles going by, and could even see an individual 
 hansom cab passing the corner at the instant. 
 Turnbull put his fingers to his mouth like a gut- 
 ter-snipe and whistled twice. Even as he did so 
 he could hear the loud voices of the neighbours 
 and the police coming down the garden. 
 
 The hansom swung sharply and came tearing 
 down the little lane at his call. When the cabman 
 saw his fares, howevjer, two wild-haired men in 
 their shirts and socks with naked swords under 
 their arms, he not unnaturally brought his readi- 
 ness to a rigid stop and stared suspiciously. 
 
 " You talk to him a minute," whispered Turn- 
 bull, and stepped back into the shadow of the 
 wall. 
 
 " We want you," said Maclan to the cabman, 
 with a superb Scotch drawl of indifference and 
 assurance, " to drive us to St. Pancras Station — 
 verra quick." 
 
 " Very sorry, sir," said the cabman, " but I*d
 
 SOME OLD CURIOSITIES 6i 
 
 like to know it was all right. Might I arst where 
 you come from, Sir ? " 
 
 A second after he spoke Maclan heard a heavy 
 voice on the other side of the wall, saying : " I 
 suppose I'd better get over and look for them. 
 Give me a back." 
 
 " Cabby," said Maclan, again assuming the 
 most deliberate and lingering lowland Scotch in- 
 tonation, " if ye're really verra anxious to ken 
 whar a' come fra'^ I'll tell ye as a verra great 
 secret. A' come from Scotland. And a'm 
 gaein' to St. Pancras Station. Open the doors, 
 cabby." 
 
 The cabman stared, but laughed. The heavy 
 voice behind the wall said : " Now then, a better 
 back this time, Mr. Price." And from the shadow 
 of the wall Turnbull crept out. He had struggled 
 wildly into his coat (leaving his waistcoat on the 
 pavement) and he was with a fierce pale face 
 climbing up the cab behind the cabman. Maclan 
 had no glimmering notion of what he was up to, 
 but an instinct of discipline, inherited from a hun- 
 dred men of war, made him stick to his own part 
 and trust the other man's. 
 
 " Open the doors, cabby," he repeated, with 
 something of the obstinate solemnity of a drunk-
 
 62 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 ard, " open the doors. Did ye no hear me say St. 
 Pancras Station ? " 
 
 The top of a policeman's helmet appeared above 
 the garden wall. The cabman did not see it, but 
 he was still suspicious and began : 
 
 " Very sorry, sir, but ..." and with that the 
 catlike Tumbull tore him out of his seat and 
 hurled him into the street below, where he lay 
 suddenly stunned. 
 
 " Give me his hat," said Turnbull in a silver 
 voice, that the other obeyed like a bugle. " And 
 get inside with the swords." 
 
 And just as the red and raging face of a police- 
 man appeared above the wall, Turnbull struck the 
 horse with a terrible cut of the whip and the two 
 went whirling away like a boomerang. 
 
 They had spun through seven streets and three 
 or four squares before anything further happened. 
 Then, in the neighbourhood of Maida Vale, the 
 driver opened the trap and talked through it in 
 a manner not wholly common in conversations 
 through that aperture. 
 
 " Mr. Maclan," he said shortly and civilly. 
 
 " Mr. Turnbull," replied his motionless fare. 
 
 " Under circumstances such as those in which 
 we were both recently placed there was no time
 
 SOME OLD CURIOSITIES 63 
 
 for anything but very abrupt action. I trust 
 therefore that you have no cause to complain of 
 me if I have deferred until this moment a consul- 
 tation with you on our present position or future 
 action. Our present position, Mr. Maclan, I im- 
 agine that I am under no special necessity of de- 
 scribing. We have broken the law and we are 
 fleeing from its officers. Our future action is a 
 thing about which I myself entertain sufficiently 
 strong views; but I have no right to assume or 
 to anticipate yours, though I may have formed a 
 decided conception of your character and a de- 
 cided notion of what they will probably be. Still, 
 by every principle of intellectual justice, I am 
 bound to ask you now and seriously whether you 
 wish to continue our interrupted relations." 
 
 Maclan leant his white and rather weary face 
 back upon the cushions in order to speak up 
 through the open door. 
 
 " Mr. Turnbull," he said, " I have nothing to 
 add to what I have said before. It is strongly 
 borne in upon me that you and I, the sole occu- 
 pants of this runaway cab, are at this moment 
 the two most important people in London, pos- 
 sibly in Europe. I have been looking at all the 
 streets as we went past, I have been looking at all
 
 64 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 the shops as we went past, I have been looking at 
 all the churches as we went past. At first, I felt 
 a little dazed with the vastness of it all. I could 
 not understand what it all meant. But now I 
 know exactly what it all means. It means us. 
 This whole civilisation is only a dream. You and 
 I are the realities." 
 
 " Religious symbolism," said Mr. Turnbull, 
 through the trap, " does not, as you are probably 
 aware, appeal ordinarily to thinkers of the school 
 to which I belong. But in symbolism as you use 
 it in this instance, I must, I think, concede a cer- 
 tain truth. We must fight this thing out some- 
 where; because, as you truly say, we have found 
 each other's reality. We must kill each other — 
 or convert each other. I used to think all Chris- 
 tians were hypocrites, and I felt quite mildly to- 
 wards them really. But I know you are sincere — 
 and my soul is mad against you. In the same 
 way you used, I suppose, to think that all atheists 
 thought atheism would leave them free for im- 
 morality — and yet in your heart you tolerated 
 them entirely. Now you know that I am an hon- 
 est man, and you are mad against me, as I am 
 against you. Yes, that's it, You can't be angry 
 with bad men. But a good man in the wrong —
 
 SOME OLD CURIOSITIES 65 
 
 why one thirsts for his blood. Yes, you open for 
 me a vista of thought." 
 
 " Don't run into anything," said Evan, im- 
 movably. 
 
 " There's something in that view of yours, 
 too," said Tiirnbull, and shut down the trap. 
 
 They sped on through shining streets that shot 
 by them like arrows. Mr. Turnbull had evidently 
 a great deal of unused practical talent which 
 was unrolling itself in this ridiculous adventure. 
 They had got away with such stunning prompti- 
 tude that the police chase had in all probability 
 not even properly begun. But in case it had, the 
 amateur cabman chose his dizzy course through 
 London with a strange dexterity. He aid not do 
 what would have first occurred to any ordinary 
 outsider desiring to destroy his tracks. He did 
 not cut into by-ways or twist his way through 
 mean streets. His amateur common sense told 
 him that it was precisely the poor street, the side 
 street, that would be likely to remember and re- 
 port the passing of a hansom cab, like the passing 
 of a royal procession. He kept chiefly to the great 
 roads, so full of hansoms that a wilder pair than 
 they might easily have passed in the press. In 
 one of the quieter streets Evan put on his boots.
 
 66 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 Towards the top of Albany Street the singular 
 cabman again opened the trap. 
 
 " Mr. Maclan," he said, " I understand that we 
 have now definitely settled that in the conven- 
 tional language honour is not satisfied. Our ac- 
 tion must at least go further than it has gone 
 under recent interrupted conditions. That, I 
 believe, is understood." 
 
 " Perfectly," replied the other with his bootlace 
 in his teeth. 
 
 " Under those conditions," continued Turnbull, 
 his voice coming through the hole with a slight 
 note of trepidation very unusual with him, " I 
 have a suggestion to make, if that can be called 
 a suggestion, which has probably occurred to you 
 as readily as to me. Until the actual event comes 
 off we are practically in the position if not of 
 comrades, at least of business partners. Lentil the 
 event comes off, therefore, I should suggest that 
 quarrelling would be inconvenient and rather in- 
 artistic ; while the ordinary exchange of politeness 
 between man and man would be not only elegant 
 but uncommonly practical." 
 
 " You are perfectly right," answered Maclan, 
 with his melancholy voice, " in saying that all 
 this has occurred to me. All duellists should be-
 
 SOME OLD CURIOSITIES 67 
 
 have like gentlemen to each other. But we, by 
 the queerness of our position, are something much 
 more than either duellists or gentlemen. We are, 
 in the oddest and most exact sense of the term, 
 brothers — in arms." 
 
 " Mr. Maclan," replied Turnbull, calmly, " no 
 more need be said." And he closed the trap once 
 more. 
 
 They had reached Finchley Road before he 
 opened it again. 
 
 Then he said_, " Mr. Maclan, may I offer you 
 a cigar. It will be a touch of realism." 
 
 " Thank you," answered Evan — " You are 
 very kind." And he began to smoke in the cab.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 A DISCUSSION AT DAWN 
 
 The duellists had from their own point of 
 view escaped or conquered the chief powers of the 
 modem world. They had satisfied the magistrate, 
 they had tied the tradesman neck and heels, and 
 they had left the police behind. As far as their 
 own feelings went they had melted into a mon- 
 strous sea; they were but the fare and driver 
 of one of the million hansoms that fill London 
 streets. But they had forgotten something; they 
 had forgotten journalism. They had forgotten 
 that there exists in the modern world, perhaps for 
 the first time in history, a class of people whose 
 interest is not that things should happen well or 
 happen badly, should happen successfully or hap- 
 pen unsuccessfully, should happen to the advan- 
 tage of this party or the advantage of that party, 
 but whose interest simply is that things should 
 happen. 
 
 It is the one great weakness of journalism as 
 68
 
 A DISCUSSION AT DAWN 69 
 
 a picture of our modern existence, that it must 
 be a picture made up entirely of exceptions. We 
 announce on flaring posters that a man has fallen 
 off a scaffolding. We do not announce on flaring 
 posters that a man has not fallen off a scaffold- 
 ing. Yet this latter fact is fundamentally more 
 exciting, as indicating that that moving tower of 
 terror and mystery, a man, is still abroad upon 
 the earth. That the man has not fallen off a 
 scaffolding is really more sensational; and it is 
 also some thousand times more common. But 
 journalism cannot reasonably be expected thus to 
 insist upon the permanent miracles. Busy editors 
 cannot be expected to put on their posters, " Mr. 
 Wilkinson Still Safe," or " Mr. Jones, of Worth- 
 ing, Not Dead Yet." They cannot announce 
 the happiness of mankind at all. They cannot 
 describe all the forks that are not stolen, or all 
 the marriages that are not judiciously dissolved. 
 Hence the complete picture they give of life is of 
 necessity fallacious ; they can only represent what 
 is unusual. However democratic they may be, 
 they are only concerned with the minority. 
 
 The incident of the religious fanatic who broke 
 a window on Ludgate Hill was alone enough to 
 set them up in good copy for the night. But
 
 70 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 when the same man was brought before a magis- 
 trate and defied his enemy to mortal combat in the 
 open court, then the columns would hardly hold 
 the excruciating information, and the headlines 
 were so large that there was hardly room for any 
 of the text. The *' Daily Telegraph " headed a 
 column, " A Duel on Divinity," and there was 
 a correspondence afterwards which lasted for 
 months, about whether police magistrates ought 
 to mention religion. The " Daily Mail," in its 
 dull, sensible way, headed the events, " Wanted 
 to fight for the Virgin," Mr. James Douglas, in 
 " The Star," presuming on his knowledge of 
 philosophical and theological terms, described the 
 Christian's outbreak under the title of " Dualist 
 and Duellist." The " Daily News " inserted a 
 colourless account of the matter, but was pur- 
 sued and eaten up for some weeks, with letters 
 from outlying ministers, headed " Murder and 
 Mariolatry." But the journalistic temperature 
 was steadily and consistently heated by all these 
 influences; the journalists had tasted blood, pro- 
 spectively, and were in the mood for more; 
 everything in the matter prepared them for fur- 
 ther outbursts of moral indignation. And when 
 a gasping reporter rushed in in the last hours of
 
 A DISCUSSION AT DAWN 71 
 
 the evening with the announcement that the two 
 heroes of the Police Court had Hterally been found 
 fig-hting in a London back garden, with a shop- 
 keeper bound and gagged in the front of the 
 house, the editors and sub-editors were stricken 
 still as men are by great beatitudes. 
 
 The next morning, five or six of the great Lon- 
 don dailies burst out simultaneously into great 
 blossoms of eloquent leader-writing. Towards 
 the end all the leaders tended to be the same, but 
 they all began differently. The " Daily Tele- 
 graph," for instance began, " There will be little 
 difference among our readers or among all truly 
 English and law-abiding men touching the etc., 
 etc." The " Daily Mail " said, " People must 
 learn, in the modern world, to keep their theologi- 
 cal differences to themselves. The fracas, etc., 
 etc." The "Daily News" started, "Nothing 
 could be more inimical to the cause of true re- 
 ligion than etc., etc." The " Times " began with 
 something about Celtic disturbances of the equi- 
 librium of Empire, and the " Daily Express " 
 distinguished itself splendidly by omitting alto- 
 gether so controversial a matter and substituting 
 a leader about goloshes. 
 
 And the morning after that, the editors and
 
 72 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 the newspapers were in such a state, that, as the 
 phrase is, there was no holding them. Whatever 
 secret and elvish thing it is that broods over edi- 
 tors and suddenly turns their brains, that thing 
 had seized on the story of the broken glass and 
 the duel in the garden. It became monstrous and 
 omnipresent, as do in our time the unimportant 
 doings of the sect of the Agapemonites, or as did 
 at an earlier time the dreary dishonesties of the 
 Rhodesian financiers. Questions were asked about 
 it, and even answered, in the House of Commons. 
 The Government was solemnly denounced in the 
 papers for not having done something, nobody 
 knew what, to prevent the window being broken. 
 An enormous subscription was started to reim- 
 burse Mr. Gordon^ the man who had been gagged 
 in the shop. Mr. Maclan, one of the combatants, 
 became for some mysterious reason, singly and 
 hugely popular as a comic figure in the comic 
 papers and on the stage of the music halls. He 
 was always represented (in defiance of fact), with 
 red whiskers, and a very red nose, and in full 
 Highland costume. And a song, consisting of an 
 unimaginable number of verses, in which his name 
 was rhymed with flat iron, the British Lion, sly 
 'un, dandelion, Spion (with Kop in the next line),
 
 A DISCUSSION AT DAWN 73 
 
 was sung to crowded houses every night. The 
 papers developed a devouring thirst for the cap- 
 ture of the fugitives; and when they had not 
 been caught for forty-eight hours, they suddenly 
 turned the whole matter into a detective mystery. 
 Letters under the heading, *' Where are They," 
 poured in to every paper, with every conceivable 
 kind of explanation, running them to earth in the 
 Monument, the Twopenny Tube, Epping Forest, 
 Westminster Abbey, rolled up in carpets at 
 Shoolbreds, locked up in safes in Chancery Lane. 
 Yes, the papers were very interesting, and Mr. 
 Tumbull unrolled a whole bundle of them for the 
 amusement of Mr. Maclan as they sat on a high 
 common to the north of London, in the coming 
 of the white dawn. 
 
 The darkness in the east had been broken with 
 a bar of grey; the bar of grey was split with a 
 sword of silver and morning lifted itself labori- 
 ously over London. From the spot where Turn- 
 bull and Maclan were sitting on one of the barren 
 steeps behind Hampstead, they could see the 
 whole of London shaping itself vaguely and 
 largely in the grey and growing light, until the 
 white sun stood over it and it lay at their feet, 
 the splendid monstrosity that it is. Its bewilder-
 
 74 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 ing squares and parallelograms were compact and 
 perfect as a Chinese puzzle; an enormous hiero- 
 glyphic which man must decipher or die. There 
 fell upon both of them, but upon Turnbull more 
 than the other, because he knew more what the 
 scene signified, that quite indescribable sense as 
 of a sublime and passionate and heart-moving 
 futility, which is never evoked by deserts or dead 
 men or men neglected and barbarous, which can 
 only be invoked by the sight of the enormous 
 genius of man applied to anything other than the 
 best. Turnbull, the old idealistic democrat, had 
 so often reviled the democracy and reviled them 
 justly for their supineness, their snobbishness, 
 their evil reverence for idle things. He was right 
 enough; for our democracy has only one great 
 fault; it is not democratic. And after denounc- 
 ing so justly average modern men for so many 
 years as sophists and as slaves, he looked down 
 from an empty slope in Hampstead and saw what 
 gods they are. Their achievement seemed all the 
 more heroic and divine, because it seemed doubt- 
 ful whether it was worth doing at all. There 
 seemed to be something greater than mere accu- 
 racy in making such a mistake as London. And 
 what was to be the end of it all? what was to be
 
 A DISCUSSION AT DAWN 75 
 
 the ultimate transformation of this common and 
 incredible London man, this workman on a tram 
 in Battersea, this clerk on an omnibus in Cheap- 
 side? Turnbull^ as he stared drearily, murmured 
 to himself the words of the old atheistic and revo- 
 lutionary Swinburne who had intoxicated his 
 youth : 
 
 "And still we ask if God or man 
 Can loosen thee Lazarus; 
 Bid thee rise up republican, 
 And save thyself and all of us. 
 But no disciple's tongue can say 
 If thou can'st take our sins away." 
 
 Turnbull shivered slightly as if behind the 
 earthly morning he felt the evening of the world, 
 the sunset of so many hopes. Those words were 
 from " Songs before Sunrise." But Turnbull's 
 songs at their best were songs after sunrise, and 
 sunrise had been no such great thing after all. 
 Turnbull shivered again in the sharp morning air. 
 Maclan was also gazing with his face towards the 
 city, but there was that about his blind and mys- 
 tical stare that told one, so to speak, that his eyes 
 were turned inwards. When Turnbull said some- 
 thing to him about London, they seemed to move 
 as at a summons and come out like two house- 
 holders coming out into their doorways.
 
 76 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 " Yes," he said^ with a sort of stupidity. " It's 
 a very big place." 
 
 There was a somewhat unmeaning silence, and 
 then Maclan said again : 
 
 " It's a very big place. When I first came into 
 it I was frightened of it. Frightened exactly as 
 one would be frightened at the sight of a man 
 forty feet high. I am used to big things where 
 I come from, big mountains that seem to fill God's 
 infinity, and the big sea that goes to the end of 
 the world. But then these things are all shape- 
 less and confused things, not made in any familiar 
 form. But to see the plain, square, human things 
 as large as that, houses so large and streets so 
 large, and the town itself so large, was like having 
 screwed some devil's magnifying glass into one's 
 eye. It was like seeing a porridge bowl as big as 
 a house, or a mouse-trap made to catch elephants." 
 
 " Like the land of the Brobdingnagians," said 
 Turnbull, smiling. 
 
 " Oh ! Where is that ? " said Maclan. 
 
 Turnbull said bitterly, " In a book," and the 
 silence fell suddenly between them again. 
 
 They were sitting in a sort of litter on the hill- 
 side; all the things they had hurriedly collected, 
 in various places, for their flight, were strewn
 
 A DISCUSSION AT DAWN 77 
 
 indiscriminately round them. The two swords 
 with which they had lately sought each other's 
 lives were flung down on the grass at random, like 
 two idle walking-sticks. Some provisions they had 
 bought last night, at a low public house, in case 
 of undefined contingencies, were tossed about like 
 the materials of an ordinary picnic, here a packet 
 of chocolate, and there a bottle of wine. And to 
 add to the disorder finally, there were strewn on 
 top of everything, the most disorderly of modern 
 things, newspapers, and more newspapers, and 
 yet again newspapers, the ministers of the mod- 
 ern anarchy. Turnbull picked up one of them 
 drearily, and took out a pipe. 
 
 " There's a lot about us," he said. " Do you 
 mind if I light up? " 
 
 " Why should I mind? " asked Maclan. 
 
 Turnbull eyed with a certain studious interest, 
 the man who did not understand any of the verbal 
 courtesies; he lit his pipe and blew great clouds 
 out of it. 
 
 " Yes," he resumed. " The matter on which 
 you and I are engaged is at this moment really the 
 best copy in England. I am a journalist, and I 
 know. For the first time, perhaps, for many 
 generations, the English are really more angry
 
 78 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 about a wrong thing done in England than they 
 are about a wrong thing done in France." 
 
 " It is not a wrong thing," said Maclan. 
 
 Tumbull laughed. " You seem unable to un- 
 derstand the ordinary use of the human language. 
 If I did not suspect that you were a genius, I 
 should certainly know you were a blockhead. I 
 fancy we had better be getting along and collect- 
 ing our baggage." 
 
 And he jumped up and began shoving tlie lug- 
 gage into his pockets, or strapping it on to his 
 back. As he thrust a tin of canned meat, any- 
 how, into his bursting side pocket, he said, 
 casually : 
 
 " I only meant that you and I are the most 
 prominent people in the English papers." 
 
 " Well, what did you expect? " asked Maclan, 
 opening his great grave blue eyes. 
 
 " The papers are full of us," said Turnbull, 
 stooping to pick up one of the swords. 
 
 Maclan stooped and picked up the other. 
 
 " Yes," he said, in his simple way. " I have 
 read what they have to say. But they don't seem 
 to understand the point." 
 
 "The point of what?" asked Turnbull. 
 
 " The point of the sword," said Maclan, vio-
 
 A DISCUSSION AT DAWN 79 
 
 lently, and planted the steel point in the soil like 
 a man planting a tree. 
 
 " That is a point," said Turnbull, grimly, " that 
 we will discuss later. Come along." 
 
 Turnbull tied the last tin of biscuits desperately 
 to himself with string ; and then spoke, like a diver 
 girt for plunging, short and sharp. 
 
 " Now, Mr. Maclan, you must listen to me. 
 You must listen to me, not merely because I know 
 the country, which you might learn by looking at 
 a map, but because I know the people of the coun- 
 try, whom you could not know by living here 
 thirty years. That infernal city down there is 
 awake ; and it is awake against us. All those end- 
 less rows of windows and windows are all eyes 
 staring at us. All those forests of chimneys are 
 fingers pointing at us, as we stand here on the 
 hillside. This thing has caught on. For the 
 next six mortal months they will think of nothing 
 but us, as for six mortal months they thought of 
 nothing but the Dreyfus case. Oh, I know it's 
 funny. They let starving children, who don't 
 want to die, drop by the score without looking 
 round. But because two gentlemen, from private 
 feelings of delicacy, do want to die, they will mob- 
 ilise the army and navy to prevent them. For
 
 8o THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 half a year or more, you and I, Mr. Maclan, will 
 be an obstacle to every reform in the British Em^ 
 pire. We shall prevent the Chinese being sent out 
 of the Transvaal and the blocks being stopped in 
 the Strand. We shall be the conversational sub- 
 stitute when any one recommends Home Rule, or 
 complains of sky signs. Therefore, do not im- 
 agine, in your innocence, that we have only to 
 melt away among those English hills as a High- 
 land cateran might into your god-forsaken High- 
 land mountains. We must be eternally on our 
 guard; we must live the hunted life of two dis- 
 tinguished criminals. We must expect to be 
 recognised as much as if we were Napoleon es- 
 caping from Elba. We must be prepared for our 
 descriptions being sent to every tiny village, and 
 for our faces being recognised by every ambitious 
 policeman. We must often sleep under the stars 
 as if we were in Africa. Last and most import- 
 ant we must not dream of effecting our — our 
 final settlement, which will be a thing as famous 
 as the Phoenix Park murders, unless we have 
 made real and precise arrangements for our iso- 
 lation — I will not say our safety. We must not, 
 in short, fight ; until we have thrown them off our 
 scent, if only for a moment. For, take my word
 
 A DISCUSSION AT DAWN 8i 
 
 for it, Mr. Maclan, if the British Public once 
 catches us up, the British Pubhc will prevent the 
 duel, if it is only by locking us both up in asylums 
 for the rest of our days." 
 
 Maclan was looking at the horizon with a 
 rather misty look. 
 
 " I am not at all surprised," he said, " at the 
 world being against us. It makes me feel I was 
 right to " 
 
 " Yes ? " said Turnbull. 
 
 " To smash your window," said Maclan. " I 
 have woken up the world." 
 
 " Very well, then," said Turnbull, stolidly. 
 " Let us look at a few final facts. Beyond that 
 hill there is comparatively clear country. Fortu- 
 nately, I know the part well, and if you will follow 
 me exactly, and, when necessary, on your stomach, 
 we may be able to get ten miles out of London, 
 literally without meeting any one at all, which will 
 be the best possible beginning, at any rate. We 
 have provisions for at least two days and two 
 nights, three days if we do it carefully. We may 
 be able to get fifty or sixty miles away without 
 even walking into an inn door. I have the bis- 
 cuits and the tinned meat, and the milk. You 
 have the chocolate, I think? And the brandy? "
 
 82 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 " Yes," said Maclan, like a soldier taking 
 orders. 
 
 " Very well, then, come on. March. We turn 
 under Ihat third bush and so down into the val- 
 ley." And he set off ahead at a swinging walk. 
 
 Then he stopped suddenly ; for he realised that 
 the other was not following. Evan Maclan was 
 leaning on his sword with a lowering face, like 
 a man suddenly smitten still with doubt. 
 
 " What on earth is the matter? " asked Turn- 
 bull, staring in some anger. 
 
 Evan made no reply. 
 
 " What the deuce is the matter with you? " de- 
 manded the leader, again, his face slowly growing 
 as red as his beard; then he said, suddenly, and 
 in a more human voice, " Are you in pain, 
 Maclan ? " 
 
 " Yes," replied the Highlander, without lifting 
 his face. 
 
 " Take some brandy," cried Turnbull, walk- 
 ing forward hurriedly towards him. " You've 
 got it." 
 
 " It's not in the body," said Maclan, in his dull, 
 strange way. " The pain has come into my mind. 
 A very dreadful thing has just come into my 
 thoughts."
 
 A DISCUSSION AT DAWN 83 
 
 " What the devil are you talking about ? " asked 
 Turnbull. 
 
 Maclan broke out with a queer and living 
 voice. 
 
 " We must fight now, Turnbull. We must 
 fight now. A frightful thing has come upon me, 
 and I know it must be now and here. I must kill 
 you here," he cried, with a sort of tearful rage im- 
 possible to describe. *' Here, here, upon this 
 blessed grass." 
 
 " Why, you idiot," began Turnbull. 
 
 " The hour has come — the black hour God 
 meant for it. Quick, it will soon be gone. 
 Quick!" 
 
 And he flung the scabbard from him furiously, 
 and stood with the sunlight sparkling along his 
 sword. 
 
 " You confounded fool," repeated Turnbull. 
 " Put that thing up again, you ass ; people will 
 come out of that house at the first clash of the 
 steel." 
 
 " One of us will be dead before they come," 
 said the other, hoarsely, " for this is the hour God 
 meant." 
 
 " Well, I never thought much of God," said 
 the editor of " The Atheist," losing all patience.
 
 84 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 " And I think less now. Never mind what God 
 meant. Kindly enlighten my pagan darkness as 
 to what the devil you mean." 
 
 " The hour will soon be gone. In a moment it 
 will be gone," said the madman. " It is now, now, 
 now that I must nail your blaspheming body to the 
 earth — now, now that I must avenge Our Lady 
 on her vile slanderer. Now or never. For the 
 dreadful thought is in my mind." 
 
 " And what thought," asked Tumbull, with 
 frantic composure, " occupies what you call your 
 mind?" 
 
 " I must kill you now," said the fanatic, 
 " because " 
 
 " Well, because," said Turnbull, patiently. 
 
 " Because I have begun to like you." 
 
 Tumbull's face had a sudden spasm in the sun- 
 light, a change so instantaneous that it left no 
 trace behind it; and his features seemed still 
 carved into a cold stare. But when he spoke 
 again he seemed like a man who was placidly pre- 
 tending to misunderstand something that he un- 
 derstood perfectly well. 
 
 " Your affection expresses itself in an abrupt 
 form," he began, but Maclan broke the brittle and 
 frivolous speech to pieces with a violent voice.
 
 A DISCUSSION AT DAWN 85 
 
 " Do not trouble to talk like that," he said. " You 
 know what I mean as well as I know it. Come 
 on and fight, I say. Perhaps you are feeling just 
 as I do." 
 
 Turnbull's face flinched again in the fierce sun- 
 light, but his attitude kept its contemptuous ease. 
 
 " Your Celtic mind really goes too fast for me," 
 he said ; " let me be permitted in my heavy Low- 
 land way to understand this new development. 
 My dear Mr. Maclan, what do you really mean ? " 
 
 Maclan still kept the shining sword-point 
 towards the other's breast. 
 
 " You know what I mean. You mean the same 
 yourself. We must fight now or else " 
 
 " Or else? " repeated Turnbull, staring at him 
 with an almost blinding gravity. 
 
 " Or else we may not want to fight at all," an- 
 swered Evan, and the end of his speech was like 
 a despairing cry. 
 
 Turnbull took out his own sword suddenly as 
 if to engage; then planting it point downwards 
 for a moment;, he said, " Before we begin, may I 
 ask you a question? " 
 
 Maclan bowed patiently, but with burning 
 eyes. 
 
 " You said, just now," continued Turnbull,
 
 86 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 presently, " that if we did not fight now, we might 
 not want to fight at all. How would you feel 
 about the matter if we came not to want to fight 
 at all?" 
 
 " I should feel," answered the other, " just as 
 I should feel if you had drawn your sword, and I 
 had run away from it. I should feel that be- 
 cause I had been weak, justice had not been 
 done." 
 
 " Justice," answered Tumbull, with a thought- 
 ful smile, " but we are talking about your feelings. 
 And what do you mean by justice, apart from 
 your feelings? " 
 
 Maclan made a gesture of weary recognition! 
 " Oh, Nominalism," he said, with a sort of sigh, 
 " we had all that out in the twelfth century." 
 
 " I wish we could have it out now," replied the 
 other, firmly. " Do you really mean that if you 
 came to think me right, you would be certainly 
 wrong? " 
 
 "HI had a blow on the back of my head, I 
 might come to think you a green elephant," 
 answered Maclan, " but have I not the right to 
 say now, that if I thought that I should think 
 wrong ? " 
 
 " Then you are quite certain that it would be
 
 A DISCUSSION AT DAWN 87 
 
 wrong to like me? " asked Turnbull, with a slight 
 smile. 
 
 " No," said Evan, thoughtfully, " I do not say- 
 that. It may not be the devil, it may be some 
 part of God I am not meant to know. But I had 
 a work to do^ and it is making the work difficult." 
 
 " And I suppose," said the atheist, quite gently, 
 " that you and I know all about which part of God 
 we ought to know." 
 
 Maclan burst out like a man driven back and 
 explaining everything. 
 
 " The Church is not a thing like the Athenaeum 
 Club," he cried. " If the Athenaeum Club lost all 
 its members, the Athenaeum Club would dissolve 
 and cease to exist. But when we belong to the 
 Church we belong to something which is outside 
 all of us; which is outside everything you talk 
 about, outside the Cardinals and the Pope. They 
 belong to it, but it does not belong to them. If 
 we all fell dead suddenly, the Church would still 
 somehow exist in God. Confound it all, don't 
 you see that I am more sure of its existence than 
 I am of my own existence? And yet you ask 
 me to trust my temperament, my own tempera- 
 ment, which can be turned upside down by two 
 bottles of claret or an attack of the jaundice. You
 
 88 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 ask me to trust that when it softens towards you 
 and not to trust the thing which I beheve to be 
 outside myself and more real than the blood in 
 my body." 
 
 " Stop a moment," said Turnbull, in the same 
 easy tone, " even in the very act of saying that 
 you believe this or that, you imply that there is a 
 part of yourself that you trust even if there are 
 many parts which you mistrust. If it is only you 
 that like me, surely, also, it is only you that believe 
 in the Catholic Church." 
 
 Evan remained in an unmoved and grave 
 attitude. 
 
 " There is a part of me which is divine," he 
 answered, " a part that can be trusted, but there 
 are also affections which are entirely animal and 
 idle." 
 
 " And you are quite certain, I suppose," con- 
 tinued Turnbull, " that if even you esteem me the 
 esteem would be wholly animal and idle? " For 
 the first time Maclan started as if he had not ex- 
 pected the thing that was said to him. At last 
 he said : 
 
 " Whatever in earth or heaven it is that has 
 joined us two together, it seems to be something 
 which makes it impossible to lie. No, I do not
 
 A DISCUSSION AT DAWN 89 
 
 think that the movement in me towards you was 
 . . . was that surface sort of thing. It may have 
 been something deeper . . . something strange. 
 I cannot understand the thing at all. But under- 
 stand this and understand it thoroughly, if I loved 
 you my love might be divine. But in that I hate 
 you, my hatred most certainly is divine. No, it 
 is not some trifle that we are fighting about. It 
 is not some superstition or some symbol. When 
 you wrote those words about Our Lady, you were 
 in that act a wicked man doing a wicked thing. 
 If I hate you it is because you have hated good- 
 ness. And if I like you ... it is because you 
 are good." 
 
 Turnbull's face wore an indecipherable ex- 
 pression. 
 
 " Well, shall we fight now ? " he said. 
 
 " Yes," said Maclan, with a sudden contraction 
 of his black brows, " yes, it must be now." 
 
 The bright swords crossed, and the first touch 
 of them, travelling down blade and arm, told each 
 combatant that the heart of the other was awak- 
 ened. It was not in that way that the swords rang 
 together when they had rushed on each other in 
 the little garden behind the dealer's shop. 
 
 There was a pause, and then Maclan made a
 
 90 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 movement as if to thrust, and almost at the same 
 moment Turnbull suddenly and calmly dropped 
 his sword. Evan stared round in an unusual be- 
 wilderment, and then realised that a large man in 
 pale clothes and a Panama hat was strolling 
 serenely towards them.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 THE PEACEMAKER 
 
 When the combatants, with crossed swords, 
 became suddenly conscious of a third party, they 
 each made the same movement. It was as quick 
 as the snap of a pistol, and they altered it instan- 
 taneously and recovered their original pose, but 
 they had both made it, they had both seen it, and 
 they both knew what it was. It was not a move- 
 ment of anger at being interrupted. Say or think 
 what they would, it was a movement of relief. 
 A force within them, and yet quite beyond them, 
 seemed slowly and pitilessly washing away the 
 adamant of their oath. As mistaken lovers might 
 watch the inevitable sunset of first love, these men 
 watched the sunset of their first hatred. 
 
 Their hearts were growing weaker and weaker 
 against each other. When their weapons rang 
 and reposted in the little London garden, they 
 could have been very certain that if a third 
 party had interrupted them something at least 
 would have happened. They would have killed 
 
 91
 
 92 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 each other or they would have killed him. But 
 now nothing could undo or deny that flash of 
 fact, that for a second they had been glad to 
 be interrupted. Some new and strange thing 
 was rising higher and higher in their hearts like 
 a high sea at night. It was something that seemed 
 all the more merciless, because it might turn out 
 an enormous mercy. Was there, perhaps, some 
 such fatalism in friendship as all lovers talk about 
 in love? Did God make men love each other 
 against their will? 
 
 " I'm sure you'll excuse my speaking to you," 
 said the stranger, in a voice at once eager and 
 deprecating. 
 
 The voice was too polite for good manners. It 
 was incongruous with the eccentric spectacle of 
 the duellists which ought to have startled a sane 
 and free man. It was also incongruous with the 
 full and healthy, though rather loose physique of 
 the man who spoke. At the first glance he looked 
 a fine animal, with curling gold beard and hair, 
 and blue eyes, unusually bright. It was only at 
 the second glance that the mind felt a sudden and 
 perhaps unmeaning irritation at the way in which 
 the gold beard retreated backwards into the waist- 
 coat, and the way in which the finely shaped nose
 
 THE PEACEMAKER 93 
 
 went forward as if smelling its way. And it was 
 only, perhaps, at the hundredth glance that the 
 bright blue eyes, which normally before and 
 after the instant seemed brilliant with intelli- 
 gence, seemed as it were to be brilliant with 
 idiocy. He was a heavy, healthy working man, 
 who looked all the larger because of the loose, 
 light coloured clothes that he wore, and that had 
 in their extreme lightness and looseness, almost a 
 touch of the tropics. But a closer examination of 
 his attire would have shown that even in the 
 tropics it would have been unique; but it was all 
 woven according to some hygienic texture which 
 no human being had ever heard of before, and 
 which was absolutely necessary even for a day's 
 health. He wore a huge broad-brimmed hat, 
 equally hygienic, very much at the back of his 
 head, and his voice coming out of so heavy and 
 hearty a type of man was, as I have said, start- 
 lingly shrill and deferential. 
 
 " I'm sure you'll excuse my speaking to you," 
 he said. " Now, I wonder if you are in some little 
 difficulty which, after all, we could settle very 
 comfortably together ? Now, you don't mind my 
 saying this, do you? " 
 
 The faces of both combatants remained some-
 
 94 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 what solid under this appeal. But the stranger, 
 probably taking their silence for a gathering 
 shame, continued with a kind of gaiety : 
 
 " So you are the young men I have read about 
 in the papers. Well, of course, when one is 
 young, one is rather romantic. Do you know 
 what I always say to young people ? " 
 
 A blank silence followed this gay inquiry. 
 Then Turnbull said in a colourless voice : 
 
 " As I was forty-seven last birthday, I probably 
 came into the world too soon for the experience." 
 
 *' Very good, very good," said the friendly 
 •person. " Dry Scotch humour. Dry Scotch hu- 
 mour. Well now. I understand that you two 
 people want to fight a duel. I suppose you aren't 
 much up in the modern world. We've quite out- 
 grown duelling, you know. In fact, Tolstoy tells 
 us that we shall soon outgrow war, which he says 
 is simply a duel between nations. A duel between 
 nations. But there is no doubt about our having 
 outgrown duelling." 
 
 Waiting for some effect upon his wooden audi* 
 tors, the stranger stood beaming for a moment and 
 then resumed : 
 
 " Now, they tell me in the newspapers that you 
 are really wanting to fight about something con-
 
 THE PEACEMAKER 95 
 
 nected with Roman Catholicism. Now, do you 
 know what I always say to Roman Catholics ? " 
 
 "No," said Turnbull, heavily. "Do they?" 
 It seemed to be a characteristic of the hearty, hy- 
 gienic gentleman that he always forgot the speech 
 he had made the moment before. Without en- 
 larging further on the fixed form of his appeal to 
 the Church of Rome, he laughed cordially at 
 Turnbull's answer; then his wandering blue eyes 
 caught the sunlight on the swords, and he assumed 
 a good-humoured gravity. 
 
 " But you know this is a serious matter," he 
 said, eyeing Turnbull and Maclan, as if they had 
 just been keeping the table in a roar with their 
 frivolities. " I am sure that if I appealed to your 
 higher natures . . . your higher natures. Every 
 man has a higher nature and a lower nature. 
 Now, let us put the matter very plainly, and with- 
 out any romantic nonsense about honour or any- 
 thing of that sort. Is not bloodshed a great sin ? " 
 
 " No," said Maclan, speaking for the first time. 
 
 " Well, really, really ! " said the peacemaker. 
 
 " Murder is a sin/' said the immovable High- 
 lander. " There is no sin of bloodshed." 
 
 " Well, we won't quarrel about a word," said 
 the other, pleasantly.
 
 96 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 " Why on earth not ? " said Maclan, with a sud- 
 den asperity. " Why shouldn't we quarrel about 
 a word? What is the good of words if they 
 aren't important enough to quarrel over? Why 
 do we choose one word more than another if there 
 isn't any difference between them ? If you called 
 a woman a chimpanzee instead of an angel, 
 wouldn't there be a quarrel about a word? If 
 you're not going to argue about words, what are 
 you going to argue about? Are you going to 
 convey your meaning to me by moving your ears ? 
 The Church and the heresies always used to fight 
 about words, because they are the only things 
 worth fighting about. I say that murder is a sin, 
 and bloodshed is not, and that there is as much 
 difference between those words as there is between 
 the word ' yes ' and the word ' no ' ; or rather more 
 difference, for * yes ' and ' no,' at least, belong to 
 the same category. Murder is a spiritual inci- 
 dent. Bloodshed is a physical incident. A sur- 
 geon commits bloodshed." 
 
 " Ah, you're a casuist ! " said the large man, 
 wagging his head. " Now, do you know what I 
 always say to casuists ... ? " 
 
 Maclan made a violent gesture; and TumbuU 
 broke into open laughter. The peacemaker did
 
 THE PEACEMAKER 97 
 
 not seem to be in the least annoyed, but continued 
 in unabated enjoyment. 
 
 " Well, well," he said, " let us get back to the 
 point. Now Tolstoy has shown that force is no 
 remedy; so you see the position in which I am 
 placed. I am doing my best to stop what I'm 
 sure you won't mind my calling this really use- 
 less violence, this really quite wrong violence of 
 yours. But it's against my principles to call in 
 the police against you, because the police are still 
 on a lower moral plane, so to speak, because, in 
 short, the police undoubtedly sometimes employ 
 force. Tolstoy has shown that violence merely 
 breeds violence in the person towards whom it is 
 used, whereas Love, on the other hand, breeds 
 Love. So you see how I am placed. I am re- 
 duced to use Love in order to stop you. I am 
 obliged to use Love." 
 
 He gave to the word an indescribable sound of 
 something hard and heavy, as if he were saying 
 " boots." Turnbull suddenly gripped his sword 
 and said, shortly, " I see how you are placed quite 
 well, sir. You will not call the police. Mr. Mac- 
 Ian, shall we engage?" Maclan plucked his 
 sword out of the grass. 
 
 " I must and will stop this shocking crime,"
 
 98 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 cried the Tolstoian, crimson in the face. " It is 
 against all modern ideas. It is against the prin- 
 ciple of love. How you, sir, who pretend to be 
 a Christian. , ," 
 
 Maclan turned upon him with a white face and 
 bitter lip. " Sir," he said, " talk about the prin- 
 ciple of love as much as you like. You seem to 
 me colder than a lump of stone ; but I am willing 
 to believe that you may at some time have loved a 
 cat, or a dog, or a child. When you were a baby, 
 I suppose you loved your mother. Talk about 
 love, then, till the world is sick of the word. But 
 don't you talk about Christianity. Don't you dare 
 to say one word, white or black, about it. Chris- 
 tianity is, as far as you are concerned, a horrible 
 mystery. Keep clear of it, keep silent upon it, 
 as you would upon an abomination. It is a thing 
 that has made men slay and torture each other; 
 and you will never know why. It is a thing that 
 has made men do evil that good might come ; and 
 you will never understand the evil, let alone the 
 good. Christianity is a thing that could only 
 make you vomit, till you are other than you 
 are. I would not justify it to you even if I 
 could. Hate it, in God's name, as Turnbull 
 does, who is a man. It is a monstrous thing.
 
 THE PEACEMAKER 99 
 
 for which men die. And if you will stand here 
 and talk about love for another ten minutes 
 it is very probable that you will see a man die 
 for it." 
 
 And he fell on guard. Turnbull was busy set- 
 tling something loose in his elaborate hilt, and the 
 pause was broken by the stranger. 
 
 "Suppose I call the police?" he said, with a 
 heated face. 
 
 " And deny your most sacred dogma," said 
 Maclan. 
 
 " Dogma ! " cried the man, in a sort of dismay. 
 " Oh, we have no dogmas, you know ! " 
 
 There was another silence, and he said again, 
 airily : 
 
 " You know, I think, there's something in what 
 Shaw teaches about no moral principles being 
 quite fixed. Have you ever read ' The Quint- 
 essence of Ibsenism ? ' Of course he went very 
 wrong over the war." 
 
 Turnbull, with a bent, flushed face, was tying 
 up the loose piece of the pommel with string. 
 With the string in his teeth, he said. " Oh, make 
 up your damned mind and clear out 1 " 
 
 " It's a serious thing," said the philosopher, 
 shaking his head. " I must be alone and consider
 
 loo THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 which is the higher point of view. I rather feel 
 that in a case so extreme as this ..." and he 
 went slowly away. As he disappeared among- the 
 trees, they heard him murmuring in a sing-song 
 voice, " New occasions teach new duties," out of 
 a poem by James Russell Lowell. 
 
 " Ah," said Maclan, drawing a deep breath. 
 " Don't you believe in prayer now ? I prayed for 
 an angel." 
 
 " I am afraid I don't understand," answered 
 Turnbull. 
 
 " An hour ago," said the Highlander, in his 
 heavy meditative voice, " I felt the devil weaken- 
 ing my heart and my oath against you, and I 
 prayed that God would send an angel to my 
 aid." 
 
 " Well ? " inquired the other, finishing his 
 mending and wrapping the rest of the string 
 round his hand to get a firmer grip. 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 " Well, that man was an angel," said Maclan. 
 
 " I didn't know they were as bad as that," 
 answered Turnbull. 
 
 " We know that devils sometimes quote Scrip- 
 ture and counterfeit good," replied the mystic. 
 ** Why should not angels sometimes come to show
 
 THE PEACEMAKER loi 
 
 us the black abyss of evil on whose brink we stand. 
 If that man had not tried to stop us ... I might 
 ... I might have stopped." 
 
 " I know what you mean," said Turnbull, 
 grimly. 
 
 " But then he came," broke out Maclan, " and 
 my soul said to me : * Give up fighting, and you 
 will become like That. Give up vows and dogmas, 
 and fixed things, and you may grow like That. 
 You may learn, also, that fog of false philosophy. 
 You may grow fond of that mire of crawling, 
 cowardly morals, and you may come to think a 
 blow bad, because it hurts, and not because it 
 humiliates. You may come to think murder 
 wrong, because it is violent, and not because it 
 is unjust. Oh, you blasphemer of the good, an 
 hour ago I almost loved you ! But do not fear 
 for me now. I have heard the word Love pro- 
 nounced in his intonation; and I know exactly 
 wdiat it means. On guard ! ' " 
 
 The swords caught on each other with a dread- 
 ful clang and jar, full of the old energy and hate; 
 and at once plunged and replunged. Once more 
 each man's heart had become the magnet of a 
 mad sword. Suddenly, furious as they were, they 
 were frozen for a moment motionless.
 
 102 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 " What noise is that ? " asked the Highlander, 
 hoarsely. 
 
 " I think I know," replied Turnbull. 
 
 " What ? . . . What ? " cried the other. 
 
 " The student of Shaw and Tolstoy has made 
 up his remarkable mind," said Turnbull, quietly. 
 " The police are coming up the hill."
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE OTHER PHILOSOPHER 
 
 Between high hedges in Hertfordshire, hedges 
 so high as to create a kind of grove, two men 
 were running. They did not run in a scampering 
 or feverish manner, but in the steady swing of 
 the pendulum. Across the great plains and up- 
 lands to the right and left of the lane, a long tide 
 of sunset light rolled like a sea of ruby, lighting 
 up the long terraces of the hills and picking out 
 the few windows of the scattered hamlets in start- 
 ling blood-red sparks. But the lane was cut deep 
 in the hill and remained in an abrupt shadow. 
 The two men running in it had an impression 
 not uncommonly experienced between those wild 
 green English walls ; a sense of being led between 
 the walls of a maze. 
 
 Though their pace was steady it was vigorous ; 
 their faces were heated and their eyes fixed and 
 bright. There was, indeed, something a little mad 
 in the contrast between the evening's stillness over 
 
 103
 
 I04 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 the empty country-side, and these two figures flee- 
 ingf wildly from nothing. They had the look of 
 two lunatics, possibly they were. 
 
 " Are you all right? " said Turnbull, with civil- 
 ity. " Can you keep this up ? " 
 
 " Quite easily, thank you," replied Maclan. 
 " I run very well." 
 
 " Is that a qualification in a family of war- 
 riors?" asked Turnbull. 
 
 " Undoubtedly. Rapid movement is essential," 
 answered Maclan, who never saw a joke in his 
 life. 
 
 Turnbull broke out into a short laugh, and 
 silence fell between them, the panting silence of 
 runners. 
 
 Then Maclan said : " We run better than any 
 of those policemen. They are too fat. Why do 
 you make your policemen so fat ? " 
 
 " I didn't do much towards making them fat 
 myself," replied Turnbull, genially, " but I flatter 
 myself that I am now doing something towards 
 making them thin. You'll see they will be as lean 
 as rakes by the time they catch us. They will 
 look like your friend. Cardinal Manning." 
 
 " But they won't catch us," said Maclan, in his 
 literal way.
 
 THE OTHER PHILOSOPHER 105 
 
 " No, we beat them in the great military art of 
 running- away," returned the other, " They won't 
 catch us unless " 
 
 Maclan turned his long equine face inquir- 
 ingly. " Unless what ? " he said, for Turnbull 
 had gone silent suddenly, and seemed to be listen- 
 ing intently as he ran as a horse does with his 
 ears turned back. 
 
 "Unless what?" repeated the Highlander. 
 
 " Unless they do — what they have done. Lis- 
 ten." Maclan slackened his trot, and turned his 
 head to the trail they had left behind them. 
 Across two or three billows of the up and down 
 lane came along the ground the unmistakable 
 throbbing of horses' hoofs. 
 
 " They have put the mounted, police on us," 
 said Turnbull, shortly. " Good Lord, one would 
 think we were a Revolution." 
 
 *' So we are," said Maclan, calmly. " What 
 shall we do? Shall we turn on them with our 
 points? " 
 
 " It may come to that," answered Turnbull, 
 " though if it does^ I reckon that will be the last 
 act. We must put it off if we can." And he 
 stared and peered about him between the bushes. 
 " If we could hide somewhere the beasts might
 
 io6 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 go by us," he said. "The poHce have their faults, 
 but thank God they're inefficient. Why, here's the 
 very thing. Be quick and quiet. Follow me." 
 
 He suddenly swung himself up the high bank 
 on one side of the lane. It was almost as high 
 and smooth as a wall, and on the top of it the 
 black hedge stood out over them as an angle, 
 almost like a thatched roof of the lane. And the 
 burning evening sky looked down at them through 
 the tangle with red eyes as of an army of goblins. 
 
 TurnbuU hoisted himself up and broke the 
 hedge with his body. As his head and shoulders 
 rose above it they turned to flame in the full glow 
 as if lit up by an immense firelight. His red hair 
 and beard looked almost scarlet, and his pale face 
 as bright as a boy's. Something violent, some- 
 thing that was at once love and hatred, surged 
 in the strange heart of the Gael below him. He 
 had an unutterable sense of epic importance, as 
 if he were somehow lifting all humanity into a 
 prouder and more passionate region of the air. 
 As he swung himself up also into the evening 
 light he felt as if he were rising on enormous 
 wings. 
 
 Legends of the morning of the world which 
 he had heard in childhood or read in youth came
 
 THE OTHER PHILOSOPHER 107 
 
 back upon him in a cloudy splendour, purple 
 tales of wrath and friendship, like Roland and 
 Oliver, or Balin and Balan, reminding him of 
 emotional entanglements. Men who had loved 
 each other and then fought each other ; men who 
 had fought each other and then loved each other, 
 together made a mixed but monstrous sense of 
 momentousness. The crimson seas of the sunset 
 seemed to him like a bursting out of some sacred 
 blood, as if the heart of the world had broken. 
 
 Turnbull was wholly unaffected by any written 
 or spoken poetry ; his was a powerful and prosaic 
 mind. But even upon him there came for the 
 moment something out of the earth and the pas- 
 sionate ends of the sky. The only evidence was 
 in his voice, which was still practical but a shade 
 more quiet. 
 
 " Do you see that summer-house-looking thing 
 over there ? " he asked shortly. " That will do 
 for us very well." 
 
 Keeping himself free from the tangle of the 
 hedge he strolled across a triangle of obscure 
 kitchen garden, and approached a dismal shed or 
 lodge a yard or two beyond it. It was a weather- 
 stained hut of grey wood, which with all its deso- 
 lation retained a tag or two of trivial ornament,
 
 io8 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 which suggested that the thing had once been a 
 sort of summer-house, and the place probably a 
 sort of garden. 
 
 " That is quite invisible from the road," said 
 Tumbull, as he entered it, " and it will cover us 
 up for the night." 
 
 Maclan looked at him gravely for a few mo- 
 ments. " Sir," he said, " I ought to say something 
 to you. I ought to say " 
 
 " Hush," said Turnbull, suddenly lifting his 
 hand; " be still, man." 
 
 In the sudden silence, the drumming of the dis- 
 tant horses grew louder and louder with incon- 
 ceivable rapidity, and the cavalcade of police 
 rushed by below them in the lane, almost with 
 the roar and rattle of an express train. 
 
 " I ought to tell you," continued Maclan, still 
 staring stolidly at the other, " that you are a 
 great chief, and it is good to go to war behind 
 you." 
 
 Tumbull said nothing, but turned and looked 
 out of the foolish lattice of the little windows, 
 then he said, " We must have food and sleep 
 first." 
 
 When the last echo of their eluded pursuers had 
 died in the distant uplands, Turnbull began to
 
 THE OTHER PHILOSOPHER 109 
 
 unpack the provisions with the easy air of a man 
 at a picnic. He had just laid out the last items, 
 put a bottle of wine on the floor, and a tin of 
 salmon on the window-ledge, when the bottomless 
 silence of that forgotten place was broken. And 
 it was broken by three heavy blows of a stick 
 delivered upon the door. 
 
 Tumbull looked up in the act of opening a tin 
 and stared silently at his companion. Maclan's 
 long, lean mouth had shut hard. 
 
 " Who the devil can that be ? " said Tumbull. 
 
 " God knows," said the other. " It might be 
 God." 
 
 Again the sound of the wooden stick rever- 
 berated on the wooden door. It was a curious 
 sound, and on consideration did not resemble the 
 ordinary effects of knocking on a door for ad- 
 mittance. It was rather as if the point of a stick 
 were plunged again and again at the panels in an 
 absurd attempt to make a hole in them. 
 
 A wild look sprang into Maclan's eyes and he 
 got up half stupidly, with a kind of stagger, put 
 his hand out and caught one of the swords. " Let 
 us fight at once," he cried, " it is the end of the 
 world." 
 
 " You're overdone, Maclan," said Turnbull,
 
 no THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 putting him on one side. " It's only some one 
 playing the goat. Let me open the door." 
 
 But he also picked up a sword as he stepped to 
 open it. 
 
 He paused one moment with his hand on the 
 handle and then flung the door open. Almost as 
 he did so the ferrule of an ordinary bamboo cane 
 came at his eyes, so that he had actually to parry 
 it with the naked weapon in his hands. As the 
 two touched, the point of the stick was dropped 
 very abruptly, and the man with the stick stepped 
 hurriedly back. 
 
 Against the heraldic background of sprawling 
 crimson and gold offered him by the expiring sun- 
 set, the figure of the man with the stick showed at 
 first merely black and fantastic. He was a small 
 man with two wisps of long hair that curled up 
 on each side, and seen in silhouette, looked like 
 horns. He had a bow tie so big that the two ends 
 showed on each side of his neck like unnatural 
 stunted wings. He had his long black cane still 
 tilted in his hand like a fencing foil and half 
 presented at the open door. His large straw 
 hat had fallen behind him as he leapt back- 
 wards. 
 
 " With reference to your suggestion, Maclan,"
 
 THE OTHER PHILOSOPHER iii 
 
 said Tumbull, placidly, " I think it looks more like 
 the Devil." 
 
 " Who on earth are you ? " cried the stranger 
 in a high shrill voice, brandishing his cane 
 defensively. 
 
 " Let me see," said Turnbull, looking round 
 to Maclan with the same blandness. " Who 
 are we? " 
 
 " Come out," screamed the little man with the 
 stick. 
 
 *' Certainly," said Turnbull, and went outside 
 with the sword, Maclan following. 
 
 Seen more fully, with the evening light on his 
 face, the strange man looked a little less like a 
 goblin. He wore a square pale-grey jacket suit, 
 on which the grey butterfly tie was the only indis- 
 putable touch of affectation. Against the great 
 sunset his figure had looked merely small : seen in 
 a more equal light it looked tolerably compact and 
 shapely. His reddish-brown hair, combed into 
 two great curls, looked like the long, slow curling 
 hair of the women in some pre-Raphaelite pic- 
 tures. But within this feminine frame of hair his 
 face was unexpectedly impudent, like a monkey's. 
 
 "What are you doing here?" he said, in a 
 sharp small voice.
 
 112 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 " Well," said Maclan, in his grave childish 
 way, " what are yon, doing here ? " 
 
 " I," said the man, indignantly, " I'm in my 
 own garden." 
 
 " Oh," said Maclan, simply, " I apologise." 
 
 Turnbull was coolly curling his red mous- 
 tache, and the stranger stared from one to the 
 other, temporarily stunned by their innocent as- 
 surance. 
 
 " But, may I ask," he said at last, " what the 
 devil you are doing in my summer-house? " 
 
 " Certainly," said Maclan. " We were just 
 going to fight." 
 
 " To fight ! " repeated the man. 
 
 " We had better tell this gentleman the whole 
 business," broke in Turnbull. Then turning to 
 the stranger he said firmly, " I am sorr}% sir, but 
 we have something to do that must be done. And 
 I may as well tell you at the beginning and to 
 avoid waste of time or language, that we cannot 
 admit any interference." 
 
 " We were just going to take some slight re- 
 freshment when you interrupted us . . ." 
 
 The little man had a dawning expression of 
 und'erstanding and stooped and picked up the un- 
 used bottle of wine, eyeing it curiously.
 
 THE OTHER PHILOSOPHER 113 
 
 Turnbull continued : — 
 
 " But that refreshment was preparatory to 
 something which I fear you will find less com- 
 prehensible, but on which our minds are entirely 
 fixed, sir. We are forced to fight a duel. We are 
 forced by honour and an internal intellectual need. 
 Do not, for your own sake, attempt to stop us. I 
 know all the excellent and ethical things that you 
 will want to say to us. I know all about the es- 
 sential requirements of civil order : I have written 
 leading articles about them all my life. I know 
 all about the sacredness of human life; I have 
 bored all my friends with it. Try and understand 
 our position. This man and I are alone in the 
 modern world in that we think that God is essen- 
 tially important. I think He does not exist ; that 
 is where the importance comes in for me. But 
 this man thinks that He does exist, and thinking 
 that very properly thinks Him more important 
 than anything else. Now we wish to make a 
 great demonstration and assertion — something 
 that will set the world on fire like the first Chris- 
 tian persecutions. H you like, we are attempting 
 a mutual martyrdom. The papers have posted up 
 every town against us. Scotland Yard has forti- 
 fied every police station with our enemies ; we are
 
 114 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 driven therefore to the edge of a lonely lane, and 
 indirectly to taking liberties with your summer- 
 house in order to arrange our ..." 
 
 " Stop ! " roared the little man in the butterfly 
 necktie. " Put me out of my intellectual misery. 
 Are you really the two tomfools I have read of in 
 all the papers? Are you the two people who 
 wanted to spit each other in the Police Court? 
 Are you ? Are you ? " 
 
 " Yes," said Maclan, " it began in a Police 
 Court." 
 
 The little man slung the bottle of wine twenty 
 yards away like a stone. 
 
 " Come up to my place," he said. " I've got 
 better stuff than that. I've got the best Beaune 
 within fifty miles of here. Come up. You're the 
 very men I wanted to see." 
 
 Even Turnbull, with his typical invulnerability, 
 was a little taken aback by this boisterous and 
 almost brutal hospitality. 
 
 " Why ... sir . . ." he began. 
 
 " Come up ! Come in ! " howled the little man, 
 dancing with delight. " I'll give you a dinner. 
 I'll give you a bed ! I'll give you a green smooth 
 lawn and your choice of swords and pistols. 
 Why, you fools, I adore fighting! It's the only
 
 THE OTHER PHILOSOPHER 115 
 
 good thing in God's world ! I've walked about 
 these damned fields and longed to see some- 
 body cut up and killed and the blood running. 
 Ha! Ha!" 
 
 And he made sudden lunges with his stick at 
 the trunk of a neighbouring tree so that the ferrule 
 made fierce prints and punctures in the bark. 
 
 " Excuse me/' said Maclan suddenly with the 
 wide-eyed curiosity of a child, " excuse me, 
 but . . ." 
 
 " Well ? " said the small fighter, brandishing 
 his wooden weapon. 
 
 " Excuse me," repeated Maclan, " but was that 
 what you were doing at the door? " 
 
 The little man stared an instant and then said *. 
 " Yes," and Turnbull broke into a guffaw. 
 
 " Come on ! " cried the little man, tucking his 
 stick under his arm and taking quite suddenly to 
 his heels. '' Come on ! Confound me, I'll see 
 both of you eat and then I'll see one of you die. 
 Lord bless me, the gods must exist after all — they 
 have sent me one of my day-dreams ! Lord ! A 
 duel!" 
 
 He had gone flying along a winding path be- 
 tween the borders of the kitchen garden, and in 
 the increasing twilight he was as hard to follow
 
 ii6 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 as a flying hare. But at length the path after 
 many twists betrayed its purpose and led abruptly 
 up two or three steps to the door of a tiny but very 
 clean cottage. There was nothing about the out- 
 side to distinguish it from other cottages, ex- 
 cept indeed its ominous cleanliness and one thing 
 that was out of all the custom and tradition of 
 all cottages under the sun. In the middle of the 
 little garden among the stocks and marigolds 
 there surged up in shapeless stone a South Sea 
 Island idol. There was something gross and even 
 evil in that eyeless and alien god among the most 
 innocent of the English flowers. 
 
 " Come in ! " cried the creature again. " Come 
 in ! it's better inside ! " 
 
 Whether or no it was better inside it was at 
 least a surprise. The moment the two duellists 
 had pushed open the door of that inoffensive, 
 whitewashed cottage they found that its interior 
 was lined with fiery gold. It was like stepping 
 into a chamber in the Arabian Nights. The door 
 that closed behind them shut out England and all 
 the energies of the West. The ornaments that 
 shone and shimmered on every side of them were 
 subtly mixed from many periods and lands, but 
 were all oriental. Cruel Assyrian bas-reliefs ran
 
 THE OTHER PHILOSOPHER 117 
 
 along the sides of the passage ; cruel Turkish 
 swords and daggers glinted above and below 
 them; the two were separated by ages and fallen 
 civilisations. Yet they seemed to sympathise since 
 they were both harmonious and both merciless. 
 The house seemed to consist of chamber within 
 chamber and created that impression as of a dream 
 which belongs also to the Arabian Nights them- 
 selves. The innermost room of all was like the 
 inside of a jewel. The little man who owned it 
 all threw himself on a heap of scarlet and golden 
 cushions and struck his hands together. A negro 
 in a white robe and turban appeared suddenly and 
 silently behind them. 
 
 " Selim," said the host, " these two gentlemen 
 are staying with me to-night. Send up the very 
 best wine and dinner at once. And Selim, one 
 of these gentlemen will probably die to-morrow. 
 Make arrangements, please." 
 
 The negro bowed and withdrew. 
 
 Evan Maclan came out the next morning into 
 the little garden to a fresh silver day, his long face 
 looking more austere than ever in that cold light, 
 his eyelids a little heavy. He carried one of the 
 swords. Turnbull was in the little house behind 
 him, demolishing the end of an early breakfast
 
 ii8 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 and humming a tune to himself, which could be 
 heard through the open window. A moment or 
 two later he leapt to his feet and came out into the 
 sunlight, still munching toast, his own sword 
 stuck under his arm like a walking-stick. 
 
 Their eccentric host had vanished from sight, 
 with a polite gesture, some twenty minutes before. 
 They imagined him to be occupied on some con- 
 cerns in the interior of the house, and they waited 
 for his emergence, stamping the garden in silence 
 — the garden of tall, fresh country flowers, in 
 the midst of which the monstrous South Sea 
 idol lifted itself as abruptly as the prow of 
 a ship riding on a sea of red and white and 
 gold. 
 
 It was with a start, therefore, that they came 
 upon the man himself already in the garden. They 
 were all the more startled because of the still pos- 
 ture in which they found him. He was on his 
 knees in front of the stone idol, rigid and motion- 
 less, like a saint in a trance or ecstasy. Yet when 
 Turnbull's tread broke a twig, he was on his feet 
 in a flash. 
 
 " Excuse me," he said with an irradiation of 
 smiles, but yet with a kind of bewilderment. " So 
 sorry . . . family prayers ... old fashioned
 
 THE OTHER PHILOSOPHER 119 
 
 . . . mother's knee. Let us go on to the lawn 
 behind." 
 
 And he ducked rapidly round the statue to an 
 open space of grass on the other side of it. 
 
 " This will do us best, Mr. Maclan," said he. 
 Then he made a gesture toward the heavy stone 
 figure on the pedestal which had now its blank 
 and shapeless back turned toward them. " Don't 
 you be afraid," he added, " he can still see us." 
 
 Maclan turned his blue, blinking eyes, which 
 seemed still misty with sleep (or sleeplessness), 
 towards the idol, but his brows drew together. 
 
 The little man with the long hair also had his 
 eyes on the back view of the god. His eyes were 
 at once liquid and burning, and he rubbed his 
 hands slowly against each other. 
 
 " Do you know," he said, " I think he can see 
 us better this way. I often think that this blank 
 thing is his real face, watching, though it cannot 
 be watched. He ! he ! Yes, I think he looks nice 
 from behind. He looks more cruel from behind, 
 don't you think ? " 
 
 " What the devil is the thing? " asked Turnbull 
 gruffly. 
 
 " It is the only Thing there is," answered the 
 other. *' It is Force."
 
 I20 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 " Oh ! " said Turnbull shortly. 
 
 " Yes, my friends," said the Httle man, with an 
 animated countenance, fluttering his fingers in the 
 air, " it was no chance that led you to this gar- 
 den; surely it was the caprice of some old god, 
 some happy, pitiless god. Perhaps it was his will, 
 for he loves blood; and on that stone in front 
 of him men have been butchered by hundreds in 
 the fierce, feasting islands of the South. In this 
 cursed, craven place I have not been permitted to 
 kill men on his altar. Only rabbits and cats, 
 sometimes." 
 
 In the stillness Maclan made a sudden move- 
 ment, unmeaning apparently, and then remained 
 rigid. 
 
 " But to-day, to-day," continued the small man 
 in a shrill voice. " To-day his hour is come. 
 To-day his will is done on earth as it is in 
 heaven. Men, men, men will bleed before him 
 to-day." And he bit his forefinger in a kind of 
 fever. 
 
 Still, the two duellists stood with their swords 
 as heavily as statues, and the silence seemed to 
 cool the eccentric and call him back to more ra- 
 tional speech. 
 
 ** Perhaps I express myself a little too lyrically,"
 
 THE OTHER PHILOSOPHER 121 
 
 he said with an amicable abruptness. " My phil- 
 osophy has its higher ecstasies, but perhaps you 
 are hardly worked up to them yet. Let us confine 
 ourselves to the unquestioned. You have found 
 your way, gentlemen, by a beautiful accident, to 
 the house of the only man in England (probably) 
 who will favour and encourage your most reason- 
 able project. From Cornwall to Cape Wrath this 
 country is one horrible, solid block of humanita- 
 rianism. You will find men who will defend this 
 or that war in a distant continent. They will de- 
 fend it on the contemptible ground of commerce 
 or the more contemptibly ground of social good. 
 But do not fancy that you will find one other per- 
 son who will comprehend a strong man taking 
 the sword in his hand and wiping out his enemy. 
 My name is Wimpey, Morrice Wimpey. I had 
 a Fellowship at Magdalen. But I assure you I 
 had to drop it, owing to my having said some- 
 thing in a public lecture infringing the popular 
 prejudice against those great gentlemen, the as- 
 sassins of the Italian Renascence. They let me 
 say it at dinner and so on, and seemed to like it. 
 But in a public lecture ... so inconsistent. 
 Well, as I say, here is your only refuge and tem- 
 ple of honour. Here you can fall back on that
 
 122 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 naked and awful arbitration which is the only 
 thing that balances the stars — a still, continuous 
 violence. Vcb Victis! Down, down, down with 
 the defeated! Victory is the only ultimate fact. 
 Carthage was destroyed, the Red Indians are 
 being exterminated : that is the single certain- 
 ty. In an hour from now that sun will still be 
 shining and that grass growing, and one of 
 you will be conquered ; one of you will be the 
 conqueror. When it has been done, nothing 
 will alter it. Heroes, I give you the hospital- 
 ity fit for heroes. And I salute the survivor. 
 Fallon!" 
 
 The two men took their swords. Then Maclan 
 said steadily : " Mr. Turnbull, lend me your sword 
 a moment." 
 
 Turnbull, with a questioning glance, handed 
 him the weapon. Maclan took the second sword 
 in his left hand and, with a violent gesture, hurled 
 it at the feet of little Mr. Wimpey. 
 
 "Fight!" he said in a loud, harsh voice. 
 " Fight me now ! " 
 
 Wimpey took a step backward, and bewildered 
 words bubbled on his lips. 
 
 " Pick up that sword and fight me," repeated 
 Maclan, with brows as black as thunder.
 
 THE OTHER PHILOSOPHER 123 
 
 The little man turned to Turnbull with a ges- 
 ture, demanding judgment or protection. 
 
 " Really, sir," he began, " this gentleman 
 confuses . . ." 
 
 " You stinking little coward," roared Turnbull, 
 suddenly releasing his wrath. " Fight, if you're 
 so fond of fighting! Fight, if you're so fond of 
 all that filthy philosophy! If winning is every- 
 thing, go in and win ! If the weak must go to 
 the wall, go to the wall ! Fight, you rat ! Fight, 
 of if you won't fight — run ! " 
 
 And he ran at Wimpey, with blazing eyes. 
 
 Wimpey staggered back a few paces like a man 
 struggling with his own limbs. Then he felt the 
 furious Scotchman coming at him like an express- 
 train, doubling his size every second, with eyes 
 as big as windows and a sword as bright as the 
 sun. Something broke inside him, and he found 
 himself running away, tumbling over his own feet 
 in terror, and crying out as he ran. 
 
 " Chase him ! " shouted Turnbull as Maclan 
 snatched up the sword and joined in the scamper. 
 *' Chase him over a county ! Chase him into the 
 sea ! Shoo ! Shoo ! Shoo ! " 
 
 The little man plunged like a rabbit among the 
 tall flowers, the two duellists after him. Turn-
 
 124 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 bull kept at his tail with savage ecstasy, still shoo- 
 ing him like a cat. But Maclan, as he ran past 
 the South Sea idol, paused an instant to spring 
 upon its pedestal. For five seconds he strained 
 against the inert mass. Then it stirred ; and he 
 sent it over with a great crash among the flowers, 
 that engulfed it altogether. Then he went bound- 
 ing after the runaway. 
 
 In the energy of his alarm the ex-Fellow of 
 Magdalen managed to leap the paling of his 
 garden. The two pursuers went over it after 
 him like flying birds. He fled frantically down 
 a long lane with his two terrors in his trail till 
 he came to a gap in the hedge and went across 
 a steep meadow like the wind. The two Scotch- 
 men, as they ran, kept up a cheery bellowing and 
 waved their swords. Up three slanting meadows, 
 down four slanting meadows on the other side, 
 across another road, across a heath of snapping 
 bracken, through a wood, across another road, and 
 to the brink of a big pool, they pursued the flying 
 philosopher. But when he came to the pool his 
 pace was so precipitate that he could not stop it. 
 and with a kind of lurching stagger, he fell splash 
 into the greasy water. Getting dripping to his 
 feet, with the water up to his knees, the worship-
 
 THE OTHER PHILOSOPHER 125 
 
 per of force and victory waded disconsolately to 
 the other side and drew himself on to the bank. 
 And Turnbull sat down on the grass and went off 
 into reverberations of laughter. A second after- 
 ward the most extraordinary grimaces were seen 
 to distort the stiff face of Maclan, and unholy 
 sounds came from within. He had never prac- 
 tised laughing, and it hurt him very much.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE VILLAGE OF GRASSLEY-IN-THE-HOLE 
 
 At about half-past one, under a strong- blue 
 sky, Turnbull got up out of the grass and fern 
 in which he had been lying, and his still intermit- 
 tent laughter ended in a kind of yawn. 
 
 " I'm hungry," he said shortly. " Are you ? " 
 
 " I have not noticed," answered Maclan. 
 " What are you going to do? " 
 
 " There's a village down the road, past the 
 pool," answered Turnbull. " I can see it from 
 here. I can see the whitewashed walls of some 
 cottages and a kind of corner of the church. How 
 jolly it all looks. It looks so — I don't know what 
 the word is — so sensible. Don't fancy I'm under 
 any illusions about Arcadian virtue and the inno- 
 cent villagers. Men make beasts of themselves 
 there with drink, but they don't deliberately make 
 devils of themselves with mere talking. They 
 kill wild animals in the wild woods, but they don't 
 kill cats to the God of Victory. They don't — " 
 He broke off and suddenly spat on the ground. 
 126
 
 GRASSLEY-IN-THE-HOLE 127 
 
 " Excuse me," he said ; " it was ceremonial. 
 One has to get the taste out of one's mouth." 
 
 **The taste of what?" asked Maclan. 
 
 " I don't know the exact name for it," replied 
 Turnbull. " Perhaps it is the South Sea Islands, 
 or it may be Magdalen College." 
 
 There was a long pause, and Maclan also lifted 
 his large limbs off the ground — his eyes particu- 
 larly dreamy. 
 
 " I know what you mean, Turnbull," he said, 
 ** but ... I always thought you people agreed 
 with all that." 
 
 " Agreed with all what ? " asked the other. 
 
 " With all that about doing as one likes, and 
 the individual, and Nature loving the strongest, 
 and all the things which that cockroach talked 
 about." 
 
 Turnbull's big blue-gray eyes stood open with 
 a grave astonishment. 
 
 " Do you really mean to say, Maclan," he said, 
 ** that you fancied that we, the Free-thinkers, that 
 Bradlaugh, or Holyoake, or Ingersoll, believe all 
 that dirty, immoral mysticism about Nature? 
 Damn Nature ! " 
 
 " I supposed you did," said Maclan calmly. 
 " It seems to me your most conclusive position."
 
 128 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 " And you mean to tell me," rejoined the other, 
 " that you broke my window, and challenged me 
 to mortal combat, and tied a tradesman up with 
 ropes, and chased an Oxford Fellow across five 
 meadows — all under the impression that I am 
 such an illiterate idiot as to believe in Nature I " 
 
 " I supposed you did," repeated Maclan with 
 his usual mildness ; " but I admit that I know little 
 of the details of your belief — or disbelief." 
 
 Turnbull swung round quite suddenly, and set 
 off toward the village. 
 
 " Come along," he cried. " Come down to the 
 village. Come down to the nearest decent inhab- 
 itable pub. This is a case for beer." 
 
 " I do not quite follow you," said the High- 
 lander. 
 
 " Yes, you do," answered Turnbull. " You 
 follow me slap into the inn-parlour. I repeat, 
 this is a case for beer. We must have the whole 
 of this matter out thoroughly before we go a step 
 farther. Do you know that an idea has just 
 struck me of great simplicity and of some co- 
 gency. Do not by any means let us drop our 
 intentions of settling our differences with two 
 steel swords. But do you not think that with 
 two pewter pots we might do what we really have
 
 GRASSLEY-IN-THE-HOLE 129 
 
 never thought of doing yet — discover what our 
 difference is? " 
 
 " It never occurred to me before," answered 
 Maclan with tranquilHty. " It is a good sugges- 
 tion." 
 
 And they set out at an easy swing down the 
 steep road to the village of Grassley-in-the-Hole, 
 
 Grassley-in-the-Hole was a rude parallelogram 
 of buildings, with two thoroughfares which might 
 have been called two high streets if it had been 
 possible to call them streets. One of these ways 
 was higher on the slope than the other, the whole 
 parallelogram lying aslant, so to speak, on the 
 side of the hill. The upper of these two roads 
 was decorated with a big public-house, a butcher's 
 shop, a small public-house, a sweetstuff shop, a 
 very small public-house, and an illegible sign-post. 
 The lower of the two roads boasted a horse-pond, 
 a post-office, a gentleman's garden with very high 
 hedges, a microscopically small public-house, and 
 two cottages. Where all the people lived who 
 supported all the public-houses was in this, as in 
 many other English villages, a silent and smiling 
 mystery. The church lay a little above and beyond 
 the village, with a square gray tower dominating 
 it decisively.
 
 I30 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 But even the church was scarcely so central and 
 solemn an institution as the large public-house, 
 the Valencourt Arms. It was named after some 
 splendid family that had long gone bankrupt, 
 and whose seat was occupied by a man who had 
 invented an hygienic bootjack; but the unfathom- 
 able sentimentalism of the English people insisted 
 on regarding the Inn, the seat and the sitter in it, 
 as alike parts of a pure and marmoreal antiquity. 
 And in the Valencourt Arms festivity itself had 
 some solemnity and decorum ; and beer was drunk 
 with reverence, as it ought to be. Into the prin- 
 cipal parlour of this place entered two strangers, 
 who found themselves, as is always the case in 
 such hostels, the object, not of fluttered curiosity 
 or pert inquiry, but of steady, ceaseless, devour- 
 ing ocular study. They had long coats down to 
 their heels, and carried under each coat something 
 that looked like a stick. One was tall and dark, 
 the other short and red-haired. They ordered a 
 pot of ale each. 
 
 " Maclan," said Turnbull, lifting his tankard, 
 " the fool who wanted us to be friends made us 
 want to go on fighting. It is only natural that 
 the fool who wanted us to fight should make us 
 friendly. Maclan, your health ! "
 
 GRASSLEY-IN-THE-HOLE 131 
 
 Dusk was already dropping, the rustics in the 
 tavern were already lurching and lumbering out 
 of it by twos and threes, crying clamorous 
 good-nights to a solitary old toper that remained, 
 before Maclan and Turnbull had reached the 
 really important part of their discussion. 
 
 Maclan wore an expression of sad bewilder- 
 ment not uncommon with him. " I am to un- 
 derstand, then," he said, " that you don't believe 
 in nature." 
 
 " You may say so in a very special and em- 
 phatic sense/' said Turnbull. " I do not believe 
 in nature, just as I do not believe in Odin. She 
 is a myth. It is not merely that I do not be- 
 lieve that nature can guide us. It is that I do 
 not believe that nature exists." 
 
 " Exists? " said Maclan in his monotonous 
 way, settling his pewter-pot on the table. 
 
 " Yes, in a real sense nature does not exist. 
 I mean that nobody can discover what the origi- 
 nal nature of things would have been if things 
 had not interfered with it. The first blade of 
 grass began to tear up the earth and eat it; it 
 was interfering with nature, if there is any na- 
 ture. The first wild ox began to tear up the 
 grass and eat it; he was interfering with nature.
 
 132 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 if there is any nature. In the same way," con- 
 tinued Turnbull, " the human when it asserts its 
 dominance over nature is just as natural as the 
 thing which it destroys." 
 
 " And in the same way," said Maclan almost 
 dreamily, " the superhuman, the supernatural is 
 just as natural as the nature which it de- 
 stroys." 
 
 Turnbull took his head out of his pewter-pot 
 in some anger. 
 
 " The supernatural, of course," he said, " is 
 quite another thing; the case of the supernatu- 
 ral is simple. The supernatural does not exist." 
 
 " Quite so," said Maclan in a rather dull 
 voice; " you said the same about the natural. 
 If the natural does not exist the supernatural 
 obviously can't." And he yawned a little over 
 his ale. 
 
 Turnbull turned for some reason a little red 
 and remarked quickly, " That may be jolly clever, 
 for all I know. But every one does know that 
 there is a division between the things that as a 
 matter of fact do commonly happen and the 
 things that don't. Things that break the evi- 
 dent laws of nature " 
 
 " Which does not exist," put in Maclan
 
 GRASSLEY-IN-THE-HOLE 133 
 
 sleepily. Turnbull struck the table with a sud- 
 den hand. 
 
 " Good Lord in heaven! " he cried 
 
 " Who does not exist," murmured Maclan. 
 
 "Good Lord in heaven!" thundered Turn- 
 bull, without regarding the interruption. " Do 
 you really mean to sit there and say that you, 
 like anybody else, would not recognise the dif- 
 ference between a natural occurrence and a su- 
 pernatural one — if there could be such a thing? 
 If I flew up to the ceiling " 
 
 " You would bump your head badly," cried 
 Maclan, suddenly starting up. " One can't talk 
 of this kind of thing under a ceiling at all. Come 
 outside ! Come outside and ascend into heaven ! '* 
 
 He burst the door open on a blue abyss ot 
 evening and they stepped out into it : it was sud- 
 denly and strangely cool. 
 
 " Turnbull," said Maclan, " you have said 
 some things so true and some so false that I 
 want to talk; and I will try to talk so that you 
 understand. For at present you do not under- 
 stand at all. We don't seem to mean the same 
 things by the same words." 
 
 He stood silent for a second or two and then 
 resumed.
 
 134 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 " A minute or two ago I caught you out in 
 a real contradiction. At that moment logically 
 I was right. And at that moment I knew I was 
 wrong. Yes, there is a real difference between 
 the natural and the supernatural : if you flew up 
 into that blue sky this instant, I should think 
 that you were moved by God — or the devil. But 
 if you want to know what I really think . . . 
 I must explain." 
 
 He stopped again, abstractedly boring the 
 point of his sword into the earth, and went on : 
 
 " I was born and bred and taught in a com- 
 plete universe. The supernatural was not nat- 
 ural, but it was perfectly reasonable. Nay, the 
 supernatural to me is more reasonable than the 
 natural; for the supernatural is a direct message 
 from God, who is reason. I was taught that 
 some things are natural and some things divine. 
 Imean that some things are mechanical and some 
 things divine. But there is the great difficulty, 
 Turnbull. The great difficulty is that, according 
 to my teaching, you are divine." 
 
 "Me! Divine?" said Turnbull truculently, 
 " What do you mean ? " 
 
 "That is just the difficulty," continued Mac- 
 Ian thoughtfully. " I was told that there was a
 
 GRASSLEY-IN-THE-HOLE 135 
 
 difference between the grass and a man's will ; 
 and the difference was that a man's will was 
 special and divine. A man's free will, I heard, 
 was supernatural." 
 
 "Rubbish!" said Turnbull. 
 
 " Oh," said Maclan patiently, " then if a 
 man's free will isn't supernatural, why do your 
 materialists deny that it exists? " 
 
 Turnbull was silent for a moment. Then he 
 began to speak, but Maclan continued with' the 
 same steady voice and sad eyes: 
 
 "So what I feel is this: Here is the great 
 divine creation I was taught to believe in. I 
 can understand your disbelieving in it, but why 
 disbelieve in a part of it? It was all one thing 
 to me. God had authority because he was God. 
 Man had authority because he was man. You 
 cannot prove that God is better than a man; nor 
 can you prove that a man is better than a horse. 
 Why permit any ordinary thing? Why do you 
 let a horse be saddled? " 
 
 " Some modern thinkers disapprove of it," 
 said Turnbull a little doubtfully. 
 
 "I know," said Maclan grimly; "that man 
 who talked about love, for instance." 
 
 Turnbull made a humorous grimace; then he
 
 136 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 said: " We seem to be talking in a kind of short- 
 hand ; but I won't pretend not to understand you. 
 What you mean is this: that you learnt about all 
 your saints and angels at the same time as you 
 learnt about common morality, from the same 
 people, in the same way. And you mean to say 
 that if one may be disputed, so may the other. 
 Well, let that pass for the moment. But let me 
 ask you a question in turn. Did not this system 
 of yours, which you swallowed whole, contain 
 all sorts of things that were merely local, the 
 respect for the chief of your clan, or such things ; 
 the village ghost, the family feud, or what not? 
 Did you not take in those things, too, along with 
 your theology ? " 
 
 Maclan stared along the dim village road, 
 down which the last straggler from the inn was 
 trailing his way. 
 
 " What you say is not unreasonable," he said. 
 " But it is not quite true. The distinction be- 
 tween the chief and us did exist ; but it was never 
 anything like the distinction between the human 
 and the divine, or the human and the animal. It 
 v.as more like the distinction between one ani- 
 mal and another. But " 
 
 " Well? " said Turnbull.
 
 GRASSLEY-IN-THE-HOLE 137 
 
 Maclan was silent. 
 
 "Go on," repeated Turnbull; "what's the 
 matter with you? What are you staring at? " 
 
 "I am staring," said Maclan at last, "at 
 that which shall judge us both." 
 
 " Oh, yes," said Turnbull in a tired way, " I 
 suppose you mean God." 
 
 " No, I don't," said Maclan, shaking his head. 
 " I mean him." 
 
 And he pointed to the half-tipsy yokel who 
 was ploughing down the road. 
 
 " What do you mean ? " asked the atheist. 
 
 " I mean him," repeated Maclan with em- 
 phasis. " He goes out in the early dawn; he digs 
 or he ploughs a field. Then he comes back and 
 drinks ale, and then he sings a song. All your 
 philosophies and political systems are young 
 compared to him. All your hoary cathedrals, 
 yes, even the Eternal Church on earth is new 
 compared to him. The most mouldering gods 
 in the British Museum are new facts beside 
 him. It is he who in the end shall judge us 
 all." 
 
 And Maclan rose to his feet with a vague 
 excitement. 
 
 " What are you going to do ? "
 
 138 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 " I am going to ask him," cried Maclan, 
 " which of us is right." 
 
 Turnbull broke into a kind of laugh. " Ask 
 that intoxicated turnip-eater — " he began. 
 
 " Yes — which of us is right," cried Maclan 
 violently. " Oh, you have long words and I have 
 long words; and I talk of every man being the 
 image of God ; and you talk of every man being a 
 citizen and enlightened enough to govern. But 
 if every man typifies God, there is God. If every 
 man is an enlightened citizen, there is your en- 
 lightened citizen. The first man one meets is 
 always man. Let us catch him up." 
 
 And in gigantic strides the long, lean High- 
 lander whirled away into the gray twilight, 
 Turnbull following with a good-humoured 
 oath. 
 
 The track of the rustic was easy to follow, 
 even in the faltering dark; for he was enlivening 
 his wavering walk with song. It was an inter- 
 minable poem, beginning with some unspecified 
 King William, who (it appeared) lived in Lon- 
 don town and who after the second rise vanished 
 rather abruptly from the train of thought. The 
 rest was almost entirely about beer and was 
 thick with local topography of a quite unrecog-
 
 GRASSLEY-IN-THE-HOLE 139 
 
 nisable kind. The singer's step was neither very 
 rapid nor, indeed, exceptionally secure; so the 
 song grew louder and louder and the two soon 
 overtook him. 
 
 He was a man elderly or rather of any age, 
 with lean gray hair and a lean red face, but 
 with that remarkable rustic physiognomy in 
 which it seems that all the features stand out in- 
 dependently from the face; the rugged red nose 
 going out like a limb; the bleared blue eyes 
 standing out like signals. 
 
 He gave them greeting with the elaborate ur- 
 banity of the slightly intoxicated. Maclan, who 
 was vibrating with one of his silent, violent de- 
 cisions, opened the question without delay. He 
 explained the philosophic position in words as 
 short and simple as possible. But the singular 
 old man with the lank red face seemed to think 
 uncommonly little of the short words. He fixed 
 with a fierce affection upon one or two of the 
 long ones. 
 
 " Atheists ! " he repeated with luxurious scorn. 
 " Atheists ! I know their sort, master. Atheists ! 
 Don't talk to me about 'un. Atheists ! " 
 
 The grounds of his disdain seemed a little 
 dark and confused; but they were evidently
 
 I40 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 sufficient. Maclan resumed in some encourage- 
 ment : 
 
 " You think as I do, I hope ; you think that a 
 man should be connected with the Church; with 
 the common Christian " 
 
 The old man extended a quivering stick in the 
 direction of a distant hill. 
 
 " There's the church," he said thickly. 
 " Grassley old church that is. Pulled down it 
 was, in the old squire's time, and " 
 
 " I mean," explained Maclan elaborately, 
 " that you think that there should be some one 
 typifying religion, a priest " 
 
 " Priests! " said the old man with sudden pas- 
 sion. " Priests ! I know 'un. What they want 
 in England? That's what I say. What they 
 want in England ? " 
 
 " They want you," said Maclan. 
 
 " Quite so," said Turnbull, " and me; but they 
 won't get us. Maclan, your attempt on the 
 primitive innocence does not seem very success- 
 ful. Let me try. What you want, my friend, 
 is your rights. You don't want any priests or 
 churches. A vote, a right to speak is what 
 you " 
 
 "Who says I a'n't got a right to speak?" said
 
 GRASSLEY-IN-THE-HOLE 141 
 
 the old man, facing round in an irrational frenzy. 
 " I got a right to speak, I'm a man, I am. I 
 don't want no votin' nor priests. I say a man's 
 a man; that's what I say. If a man a'n't a man, 
 what is he? That's what I say, if a man a'n't a 
 man, what is he? When I sees a man, I sez 'e's 
 a man." 
 
 " Quite so," said Turnbull, " a citizen." 
 
 " I say he's a man," said the rustic furiously, 
 stopping and striking his stick on the ground. 
 " Not a city or owt else. He's a man." 
 
 " You're perfectly right," said the sudden 
 voice of Maclan, falling like a sword. " And 
 you have kept close to something the whole 
 world of to-day tries to forget." 
 
 " Good-night." 
 
 And the old man went on wildly singing into 
 the night. 
 
 " A jolly old creature," said Turnbull ; " he 
 didn't seem able to get much beyond that fact 
 that a man is a man." 
 
 " Has anybody got beyond it ? " asked Mac- 
 Ian. 
 
 Turnbull looked at him curiously. " Are you 
 turning an agnostic ? " he asked. 
 
 " Oh, you do not understand ! " cried out Mac-
 
 142 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 Ian. " We Catholics are all agnostics. We 
 Catholics have only in that sense got as far as 
 realising that a man is a man. But your Ibsens 
 and your Zolas and your Shaws and your Tol- 
 stoys have not even got so far."
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 AN INTERLUDE OF ARGUMENT 
 
 Morning broke in bitter silver along the gray 
 and level plain ; and almost as it did so Turnbull 
 and Maclan came out of a low, scrubby wood on 
 to the empty and desolate flats. They had 
 walked all night. 
 
 They had walked all night and talked all night 
 also, and if the subject had been capable of being 
 exhausted they would have exhausted it. Their 
 long and changing argument had taken them 
 through districts and landscapes equally chang- 
 ing. They had discussed Haeckel upon hills so 
 high and steep that in spite of the coldness of the 
 night it seemed as if the stars might burn them. 
 They had explained and re-explained the Massa- 
 cre of St. Bartholomew in little white lanes walled 
 in with standing corn as with walls of gold. They 
 had talked about Mr. Kensit in dim and twinkling 
 pine woods, amid the bewildering monotony of 
 
 the pines. And it was with the end of a long 
 143
 
 144 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 speech from Maclan, passionately defending the 
 practical achievements and the soHd prosperity of 
 the Catholic tradition, that they came out upon 
 the open land. 
 
 Maclan had learnt much and thought more 
 since he came out of the cloudy hills of Arisaig. 
 He had met many typical modern figures under 
 circumstances which were sharply symbolic ; and, 
 moreover, he had absorbed the main modem 
 atmosphere from the mere presence and chance 
 phrases of Turnbull, as such atmospheres can 
 always be absorbed from the presence and the 
 phrases of any man of great mental vitality. He 
 had at last begun thoroughly to understand what 
 are the grounds upon which the mass of the mod- 
 ern world solidly disapprove of her creed; and 
 he threw himself into replying to them with a 
 hot intellectual enjoyment. 
 
 " I begin to understand one or two of your 
 dogmas, Mr. Turnbull," he had said emphatically 
 as they ploughed heavily up a wooded hill. " And 
 every one that I understand I deny. Take any one 
 of them you like. You hold that your heretics and 
 sceptics have helped the world forward and handed 
 on a lamp of progress. I deny it. Nothing is 
 plainer from real history than that each of your
 
 .\N INTERLUDE OF ARGUMENT 145 
 
 heretics invented a complete cosmos of his own 
 which the next heretic smashed entirely to pieces. 
 Who knows now exactly what Nestorius taught? 
 Who cares? There are only two things that we 
 know for certain about it. The first is that Nes- 
 torius, as a heretic, taught something quite oppo- 
 site to the teaching of Arius, the heretic who came 
 before him, and something quite useless to James 
 Turnbull, the heretic who comes after. . I defy 
 you to go back to the Freethinkers of the past 
 and find any habitation for yourself at all. I 
 defy you to read Godwin or Shelley or the deists 
 of the eighteenth century or the nature-worship- 
 ping humanists of the Renaissance, without dis- 
 covering that you differ from them twice as much 
 as you differ from the Pope. You are a nine- 
 teenth-century sceptic, and you are always telling 
 me that I ignore the cruelty of nature. If you 
 had been an eighteenth-century sceptic you would 
 have told me that I ignore the kindness and be- 
 nevolence of nature. You are an atheist, and you 
 praise the deists of the eighteenth century. Read 
 them instead of praising them, and you will find 
 that their whole universe stands or falls with the 
 deity. You are a materialist, and you think Bruno 
 a scientific hero. See what he said and you will
 
 146 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 think him an insane mystic. No, the great Free- 
 thinker, with his genuine ability and honesty, does 
 not in practice destroy Christianity. What he 
 does destroy is the Freethinker who went before. 
 Freethought may be suggestive, it may be in- 
 spiriting, it may have as much as you please of 
 the merits that come from vivacity and variety. 
 But there is one thing Freethought can never 
 be by any possibility — Freethought can never be 
 progressive. It can never be progressive because 
 it will accept nothing from the past; it begins 
 every time again from the beginning; and it 
 goes every time in a different direction. All the 
 rational philosophers have gone along different 
 roads, so it is impossible to say which has gone 
 furthest. Who can discuss whether Emerson was 
 a better optimist than Schopenhauer was pessi- 
 mist? It is like asking if this corn is as yellow as 
 that hill is steep. No ; there are only two things 
 that really progress; and they both accept accu- 
 mulations of authority. They may be progress- 
 ing uphill or down ; they may be growing steadily 
 better or steadily worse; but they have steadily 
 increased in certain definable matters; they have 
 steadily advanced in a certain definable direction ; 
 they are the only two things, it seems, that ever
 
 AN INTERLUDE OF ARGUMENT 147 
 
 can progress. The first is strictly physical science. 
 The second is the Catholic Church." 
 
 " Physical science and the Catholic Church ! " 
 said Turnbull sarcastically ; " and no doubt the 
 first owes a great deal to the second." 
 
 " If you pressed that point I might reply that 
 it was very probable," answered Maclan calmly. 
 " I often fancy that your historical generalisations 
 rest frequently on random instances ; I should not 
 be surprised if your vague notions of the Church 
 as the persecutor of science were a generalisation 
 from Galileo. I should not be at all surprised if, 
 when you counted the scientific investigations and 
 discoveries since the fall of Rome, you found 
 that a great mass of them had been made by 
 monks. But the matter is irrelevant to my mean- 
 ing. I say that if you want an example of any- 
 thing which has progressed in the moral world 
 by the same method as science in the material 
 world, by continually adding to without unset- 
 tling what was there before, then I say that there 
 is only one example of it. And that is Us." 
 
 " With this enormous difference," said Turn- 
 bull, " that however elaborate be the calculations 
 of physical science, their net result can be tested. 
 Granted that it took millions of books I never
 
 148 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 read and millions of men I never heard of to dis- 
 cover tlie electric light. Still I can see the elec- 
 tric light. But I cannot see the supreme virtue 
 which is the result of all your theologies and 
 sacraments." 
 
 " Catholic virtue is often invisible because it is 
 the normal," answered Maclan. " Christianity is 
 always out of fashion because it is always sane; 
 and all fashions are mild insanities. When Italy 
 is mad on art the Church seems too Puritanical; 
 when England is mad on Puritanism the Church 
 seems too artistic. When you quarrel with us 
 now you class us with kingship and despotism; 
 but when you quarrelled with us first it was be- 
 cause we would not accept the divine despotism 
 of Henry VUL The Church always seems to be 
 behind the times, when it is really beyond the 
 times ; it is waiting till the last fad shall have seen 
 its last summer. It keeps the key of a permanent 
 virtue." 
 
 " Oh, I have heard all that ! " said Turnbull 
 with genial contempt. " I have heard that Chris- 
 tianity keeps the key of virtue, and that if you 
 read Tom Paine you will cut your throat at 
 Monte Carlo. It is such rubbish that I am not 
 even angry at it. You say that Christianity is
 
 AN INTERLUDE OF ARGUMENT 149 
 
 the prop of morals; but what more do you do? 
 When a doctor attends you and could poison you 
 with a pinch of salt, do you ask whether he is a 
 Christian? You ask whether he is a gentleman, 
 whether he is an M.D. — anything but that. When 
 a soldier enlists to die for his country or disgrace 
 it, do you ask whether he is a Christian? You 
 are more likely to ask whether he is Oxford or 
 Cambridge at the Boat Race. If you think your 
 creed essential to morals why do you not make it 
 a test for these things ? " 
 
 " We once did make it a test for these things," 
 said Maclan smiling, " and then you told us that 
 we were imposing by force a faith unsupported 
 by argument. It seems rather hard that having 
 first been told that our creed must be false be- 
 cause we did use tests, we should now be told 
 that it must be false because we don't. But I 
 notice that most anti-Christian arguments are in 
 the same inconsistent style." 
 
 " That is all very well as a debating-club an- 
 swer," replied Turnbull good-humouredly, " but 
 the question still remains : Why don't you con- 
 fine yourself more to Christians if Christians are 
 the only really good men ? " 
 
 "Who talked of such folly?" asked Maclan
 
 I50 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 disdainfully. " Do you suppose that the Catholic 
 Church ever held that Christians were the only 
 good men? Why, the Catholics of the Catholic 
 Middle Ages talked about the virtues of all the 
 virtuous Pagans until humanity was sick of the 
 subject. No, if you really want to know what 
 we mean when we say that Christianity has a 
 special power of virtue, I will tell you. The 
 Church is the only thing on earth that can per- 
 petuate a type of virtue and make it something 
 more than a fashion. The thing is so plain 
 and historical that I hardly think you will ever 
 deny it. You cannot deny that it is perfectly 
 possible that to-morrow morning, in Ireland or in 
 Italy, there might appear a man not only as good 
 but good in exactly the same way as St. Francis 
 of Assisi. Very well, now take the other types 
 of human virtue ; many of them splendid. The 
 English gentleman of Elizabeth was chivalrous 
 and idealistic. But can you stand still here in 
 this meadow and be an English gentleman of 
 Elizabeth? The austere republican of the eigh- 
 teenth century, with his stern patriotism and his 
 simple life, was a fine fellow. But have you ever 
 seen him? have you ever seen an austere repub- 
 lican? Only a hundred years have passed and
 
 AN INTERLUDE OF ARGUMENT 151 
 
 that volcano of revolutionary truth and valour 
 is as cold as the mountains of the moon. And 
 so it is and so it will be with the ethics which 
 are buzzing down Fleet Street at this instant as 
 I speak. What phrase would inspire the London 
 clerk or workman just now? Perhaps that he 
 is a son of the British Empire on which the sun 
 never sets ; perhaps that he is a prop of his Trades 
 Union, or a class, conscious proletarian some- 
 thing or other ; perhaps merely that he is a gentle- 
 man when he obviously is not. Those names 
 and notions are all honourable; but how long 
 will they last? Empires break; industrial con- 
 ditions change; the suburbs will not last for 
 ever. What will remain? I will tell you. The 
 Catholic Saint will remain." 
 
 " And suppose I don't like him," said Turn- 
 bull. 
 
 " On my theory the question is rather whether 
 he will like you : or more probably whether he will 
 ever have heard of you. But I grant the reason- 
 ableness of your query. You have a right, if you 
 speak as the ordinary man, to ask if you will like 
 the saint. But as the ordinary man you do like 
 him. You revel in him. If you dislike him it is 
 not because you are a nice ordinary man, but be-
 
 152 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 cause you are (if you will excuse me) a sophisti- 
 cated prig of a Fleet Street editor. That is just the 
 funny part of it. The human race has always 
 admired the Catholic virtues, however little it 
 can practise them; and oddly enough it has ad- 
 mired most those of them that the modern world 
 most sharply disputes. You complain of Ca- 
 tholicism for setting up an ideal of virginity; it 
 did nothing of the kind. The whole human race 
 set up an ideal of virginity ; the Greeks in Athene, 
 the Romans in the Vestal fire, set up an ideal of 
 virginity. What then is your real quarrel with 
 Catholicism? Your quarrel can only be, your 
 quarrel really only is, that Catholicism has 
 achieved an ideal of virginity; that it is no 
 longer a mere piece of floating poetry. But if 
 you, and a few feverish men, in top hats, run- 
 ning about in a street in London, choose to differ 
 as to the ideal itself, not only from the Church, 
 but from the Parthenon whose name means vir- 
 ginity, from the Roman Empire which went out- 
 wards from the virgin flame, from the whole 
 legend and tradition of Europe, from the lion 
 who will not touch virgins, from the unicorn who 
 respects them, and who make up together the 
 bearers of your own national shield, from the
 
 AN INTERLUDE OF ARGUMENT 153 
 
 most living and lawless of your own poets, from 
 Massinger, who wrote the * Virgin Martyr/ from 
 Shakespeare, who wrote * Measure for Measure ' 
 — if you in Fleet Street differ from all this hu- 
 man experience, does it never strike you that it 
 may be Fleet Street that is wrong? " 
 
 " No," answered Tumbull ; " I trust that I am 
 sufficiently fair-minded to canvass and consider 
 the idea; but having considered it, I think Fleet 
 Street is right, yes — even if the Parthenon is 
 wrong. I think that as the world goes on new 
 psychological atmospheres are generated, and in 
 these atmospheres it is possible to find delicacies 
 and combinations which in other times would 
 have to be represented by some ruder symbol. 
 Every man feels the need of some element of 
 purity in sex ; perhaps they can only typify purity 
 as the absence of sex. You will laugh if I sug- 
 gest that we may have made in Fleet Street an at- 
 mosphere in which a man can be so passionate as 
 Sir Lancelot and as pure as Sir Galahad. But, 
 after all, we have in the modem world erected 
 many such atmospheres. We have, for instance, 
 a new and imaginative appreciation of children." 
 
 " Quite so," replied Maclan with a singular 
 smile. " It has been very well put by one of the
 
 154 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 brightest of your young authors, who said : * Un- 
 less you become as Httle children ye shall in no 
 wise enter the kingdom of heaven.' But you 
 are quite right; there is a modern worship of 
 children. And what, I ask you, is this modern 
 worship of children? What, in the name of all 
 the angels and devils, is it except the worship of 
 virginity ? Why should any one worship a thing 
 merely because it is small or immature? No; 
 you have tried to escape from this thing, and the 
 very thing you point to as the goal of your escape 
 is only the thing again. Am I wrong in saying 
 that these things seem to be eternal ? " 
 
 And it was with these words that they came 
 in sight of the great plains. They went a little 
 way in silence, and then James Turnbull said sud- 
 denly, " But I cannot believe in the thing." Mac- 
 Ian answered nothing to the speech; perhaps 
 it is unanswerable. And indeed they scarcely 
 spoke another word to each other all that day.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE STRANGE LADY 
 
 MooNRiSE with a great and growing moon 
 opened over all those flats, making them seem 
 flatter and larger than they were, turning them to 
 a lake of blue light. The two companions trudged 
 across the moonlit plain for half an hour in full 
 silence. Then Maclan stopped suddenly and 
 planted his sword-point in the ground like one 
 who plants his tent-pole for the night. Leaving it 
 standing there, he clutched his black-haired skull 
 with his great claws of hands, as was his custom 
 when forcing the pace of his brain. Then his 
 hands dropped again and he spoke. 
 
 " I'm sure you're thinking the same as I am," 
 he said; " how long are we to be on this damned 
 seesaw ? " 
 
 The other did not answer, but his silence 
 seemed somehow solid as assent; and Maclan 
 went on conversationally. Neither noticed that 
 155
 
 156 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 both had instinctively stood still before the sign 
 of the fixed and standing sword. 
 
 " It is hard to guess what God means in this 
 business. But He means something — or the other 
 thing, or both. Whenever we have tried to fight 
 each other something has stopped us. Whenever 
 we have tried to be reconciled to each other, some- 
 thing has stopped us again. By the run of our 
 luck we have never had time to be either friends 
 or enemies. Something always jumped out of 
 the bushes." 
 
 Turnbull nodded gravely and glanced round at 
 the huge and hedgeless meadow which fell away 
 toward the horizon into a glimmering high road. 
 
 " Nothing will jump out of bushes here any- 
 how," he said. 
 
 " That is what I meant," said Maclan, and 
 stared steadily at the heavy hilt of his standing 
 sword, which in the slight wind swayed on its 
 tempered steel like some huge thistle on its stalk, 
 
 " That is what I meant ; we are quite alone 
 here. I have not heard a horse-hoof or a footstep 
 or the hoot of a train for miles. So I think we 
 might stop here and ask for a miracle." 
 
 " Oh ! Might we ? " said the atheistic editor 
 with a sort of gusto of disgust.
 
 THE STRANGE LADY 157 
 
 " I beg your pardon," said Maclan, meekly. 
 " I forgot your prejudices." He eyed the wind- 
 swung sword-hilt in sad meditation and resumed : 
 " What I mean is, we might find out in this quiet 
 place whether there really is any fate or any com- 
 mandment against our enterprise. I will engage 
 on my side, like Elijah, to accept a test from 
 heaven. Turnbull, let us draw swords here in 
 this moonlight and this monstrous solitude. And 
 if here in this moonlight and solitude there hap- 
 pens anything to interrupt us — if it be lightning 
 striking our sword-blades or a rabbit running 
 under our legs — I will take it as a sign from God 
 and we will shake hands for ever." 
 
 Turnbull's mouth twitched in angry humour 
 under his red moustache. He said : " I will wait 
 for signs from God until I have any signs of His 
 existence; but God — or Fate — forbid that a man 
 of scientific culture should refuse any kind of ex- 
 periment." 
 
 "Very well, then," said Maclan, shortly. "We 
 are more quiet here than anywhere else; let us 
 engage." And he plucked his sword-point out 
 of the turf. 
 
 Turnbull regarded him for a second and a half 
 with a baffling visage almost black against the
 
 158 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 moonrise; then his hand made a sharp movement 
 to his hip and his sword shone in the moon. 
 
 As old chess-players open every game with es- 
 tablished gambits, they opened with a thrust and 
 parry, orthodox and even frankly ineffectual. 
 But in Maclan's soul more formless storms were 
 gathering, and he made a lunge or two so savage 
 as first to surprise and then to enrage his oppo- 
 nent. TurnbuU ground his teeth, kept his temper, 
 and waiting for the third lunge, and the worst, 
 had almost spitted the lunger when a shrill, small 
 cry came from behind him, a cry such as is 
 not made by any of the beasts that perish. 
 
 Turnbull must have been more superstitious 
 than he knew, for he stopped in the act of going 
 forward. Maclan was brazenly superstitious, 
 and he dropped his sword. After all, he had 
 challenged the universe to send an interruption; 
 and this was an interruption, whatever else it 
 was. An instant afterward the sharp, weak cry 
 was repeated. This time it was certain that it 
 was human and that it was female. 
 
 Maclan stood rolling those great blue Gaelic 
 eyes that contrasted with his dark hair. " It is 
 the voice of God," he said again and again. 
 
 " God hasn't got much of a voice," said Turn-
 
 THE STRANGE LADY 159 
 
 bull, who snatched at every chance of cheap pro- 
 fanity. " As a matter of fact, Maclan, it isn't 
 the voice of God, but it's something a jolly 
 sight more important — it is the voice of man — or 
 rather of woman. So I think we'd better scoot in 
 its direction." 
 
 Maclan snatched up his fallen weapon without 
 a word, and the two raced away toward that 
 part of the distant road from which the cry was 
 now constantly renewed. 
 
 They had to run over a curve of country that 
 looked smooth but was very rough; a neglected 
 field which they soon found to be full of the tall- 
 est grasses and the deepest rabbit holes. More- 
 over, that great curve of the countryside which 
 looked so slow and gentle when you glanced over 
 it, proved to be highly precipitous when you scam- 
 pered over it; and Turnbull was twice nearly 
 flung on his face. Maclan, though much heavier, 
 avoided such an overthrow only by having the 
 quick and incalculable feet of the mountaineer; 
 but both of them may be said to have leapt off a 
 low cliff when they leapt into the road. 
 
 The moonlight lay on the white road with a 
 more naked and electric glare than on the grey- 
 green upland, and though the scene which it re-
 
 i6o THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 vealed was complicated, it was not difficult to get 
 its first features at a glance. 
 
 A small but very neat black-and-yellow motor- 
 car was standing stolidly, slightly to the left of 
 the road. A somewhat larger light-green motor- 
 car was tipped half way into a ditch on the same 
 side, and four flushed and staggering men in 
 evening dress were tipped out of it. Three of 
 them were standing about the road, giving their 
 opinions to the moon with vague but echoing vio- 
 lence. The fourth, however, had already ad- 
 vanced on the chauffeur of the black-and-yellow 
 car, and was threatening him with a stick. The 
 chauffeur had risen to defend himself. By his 
 side sat a young lady. 
 
 She was sitting bolt upright, a slender and 
 rigid figure gripping the sides of her seat, and 
 her first few cries had ceased. She was clad in 
 close-fitting dark costume, a mass of warm brown 
 hair went out in two wings or waves on each side 
 of her forehead ; and even at that distance it could 
 be seen that her profile was of the aquiline and 
 eager sort, like a young falcon hardly free of the 
 nest. 
 
 Turnbull had concealed in him somewhere a 
 fund of common-sense and knowledge of the
 
 THE STRANGE LADY i6i 
 
 world of which he himself and his best friends 
 were hardly aware. He was one of those who 
 take in much of the shows of things absent- 
 mindedly, and in an irrelevant reverie. As he 
 stood at the door of his editorial shop on Ludgate 
 Hill and meditated on the non-existence of God, 
 he silently absorbed a good deal of varied knowl- 
 edge about the existence of men. He had come 
 to know types by instinct and dilemmas with a 
 glance; he saw the crux of the situation in the 
 road, and what he saw made him redouble his 
 pace. 
 
 He knew that the men were rich ; he knew that 
 they were drunk; and he knew, what was worst 
 of all, that they were fundamentally frightened. 
 And he knew this also, that no common ruffian 
 (such as attacks ladies in novels) is ever so savage 
 and ruthless as a coarse kind of gentleman when 
 he is really alarmed. The reason is not recon- 
 dite; it is simply because the police-court is not 
 such a menacing novelty to the poor ruffian as it 
 is to the rich. When they came within hail and 
 heard the voices, they confirmed all Turnbull's 
 anticipations. The man in the middle of the road 
 was shouting in a hoarse and groggy voice that 
 the chauffeur had smashed their car on purpose;
 
 i62 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 that they must get to the Cri that evening, and 
 that he would jolly well have to take them there. 
 The chauffeur had mildly objected that he was 
 driving a lady. " Oh ! we'll take care of the 
 lady," said the red-faced young man, and went off 
 into gurgling and almost senile laughter. 
 
 By the time the two champions came up, things 
 had grown more serious. The intoxication of the 
 man talking to the chauffeur had taken one of its 
 perverse and catlike jumps into mere screaming 
 spite and rage. He lifted his stick and struck at 
 the chauffeur, who caught hold of it, and the 
 drunkard fell backward, dragging him out of his 
 seat on the car. Another of the rowdies rushed 
 forward booing in idiot excitement, fell over the 
 chauffeur, and, either by accident or design, 
 kicked him as he lay. The drunkard got to his 
 feet again ; but the chauffeur did not. 
 
 The man who had kicked kept a kind of 
 half-witted conscience or cowardice, for he stood 
 staring at the senseless body and murmuring 
 words of inconsequent self-justification, making 
 gestures with his hands as if he were arguing 
 with somebody. But the other three, with a mere 
 whoop and howl of victory, were boarding the 
 car on three sides at once. It was exactly at this
 
 THE STRANGE LADY 163 
 
 moment that Turnbull fell among them like one 
 fallen from the sky. He tore one of the climbers 
 backward by the collar, and with a hearty push 
 sent him staggering over into the ditch upon his 
 nose. One of the remaining two, who was too 
 far gone to notice anything, continued to clam- 
 ber ineffectually over the high back of the car, 
 kicking and pouring forth a rivulet of soliloquy. 
 But the other dropped at the interruption, turned 
 upon Turnbull and began a battering bout of fisti- 
 cuffs. At the same moment the man crawled out 
 of the ditch in a masquerade of mud and rushed 
 at his old enemy from behind. The whole had 
 not taken a second; and an instant after Maclan 
 was in the midst of them. 
 
 Turnbull had tossed away his sheathed sword, 
 greatly preferring his hands, except in the avowed 
 etiquette of the duel ; for he had learnt to use his 
 hands in the old street-battles of Bradlaugh. But 
 to Maclan the sword even sheathed was a more 
 natural weapon, and he laid about him on all 
 sides with it as with a stick. The man who had 
 the walking-stick found his blows parried with 
 promptitude; and a second after, to his great as- 
 tonishment, found his own stick fly up in the air 
 as by a conjuring trick, with a turn of the swords-
 
 i64 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 man's wrist. Another of the revellers picked the 
 stick out of the ditch and ran in upon Maclan, 
 calling to his companion to assist him. 
 
 " I haven't got a stick," grumbled the dis- 
 armed man, and looked vaguely about the ditch. 
 
 " Perhaps," said Maclan, politely, " you would 
 like this one." With the word the drunkard 
 found his hand that had grasped the stick sud- 
 denly twisted and empty; and the stick lay at the 
 feet of his companion on the other side of the 
 road. Maclan felt a faint stir behind him; the 
 girl had risen to her feet and was leaning forward 
 to stare at the fighters. Turnbull was still en- 
 gaged in countering and pommelling with the 
 third young man. The fourth young man was 
 still engaged with himself, kicking his legs in 
 helpless rotation on the back of the car and talk- 
 ing with melodious rationality. 
 
 At length TurnbuU's opponent began to back 
 before the battery of his heavy hands, still fight- 
 ing, for he was the soberest and boldest of the 
 four. If these are annals of military glory, it is 
 due to him to say that he need not have aban- 
 doned the conflict; only that as he backed to the 
 edge of the ditch his foot caught in a loop of 
 grass and he went over in a flat and comfortable
 
 THE STRANGE LADY 165 
 
 position from which it took him a considerable 
 time to rise. By the time he had risen, Turnbull 
 had come to the rescue of Maclan, who was at 
 bay but belabouring his two enemies handsomely. 
 The sight of the liberated reserve was to them 
 like that of Blucher at Waterloo; the two set off 
 at a sullen trot down the road, leaving even the 
 walking-stick lying behind them in the moon- 
 light. Maclan plucked the struggling and aspir- 
 ing idiot off the back of the car like a stray cat, 
 and left him swaying unsteadily in the moon. 
 Then he approached the front part of the car in 
 a somewhat embarrassed manner and pulled off 
 his cap. 
 
 For some solid seconds the lady and he merely 
 looked at each other, and Maclan had an irra- 
 tional feeling of being in a picture hung on a wall. 
 That is, he was motionless, even lifeless, and 
 yet staringly significant, like a picture. The 
 white moonlight on the road, when he was not 
 looking at it, gave him a vision of the road being 
 white with snow. The motor-car, when he was 
 not looking at it, gave him a rude impression of 
 a captured coach in the old days of highwaymen. 
 And he whose whole soul was with the swords 
 and stately manners of the eighteenth century, he
 
 i66 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 who was a Jacobite risen from the dead, had an 
 overwhelming sense of being once more in the 
 picture, when he had so long been out of the 
 picture. 
 
 In that short and strong silence he absorbed 
 the lady from head to foot. He had never really 
 looked at a human being before in his life. He 
 saw her face and hair first, then that she had 
 long suede gloves; then that there was a fur cap 
 at the back of her brown hair. He might, per- 
 haps, be excused for this hungry attention. He 
 had prayed that some sign might come from 
 heaven; and after an almost savage scrutiny he 
 came to the conclusion that this one did. The 
 lady's instantaneous arrest of speech might need 
 more explaining; but she may well have been 
 stunned with the squalid attack and the abrupt 
 rescue. Yet it was she who remembered herself 
 first and suddenly called out with self-accusing 
 horror : 
 
 " Oh, that poor, poor man ! " 
 
 They both swung round abruptly and saw that 
 Turnbull, with his recovered sword under his 
 arm-pit, was already lifting the fallen chauffeur 
 into the car. He was only stunned and was 
 slowly awakening, feebly waving his left arm.
 
 THE STRANGE LADY 167 
 
 The lady in the long gloves and the fur cap 
 leapt out and ran rapidly toward them, only to be 
 reassured by Turnbull, who (unlike many of his 
 school) really knew a little science when he in- 
 voked it to redeem the world. " He's all right," 
 said he ; " he's quite safe. But I'm afraid he 
 won't be able to drive the car for half an hour 
 or so." 
 
 " I can drive the car," said the young woman 
 in the fur cap with stony practicability. 
 
 " Oh, in that case," began Maclan, uneasily ; 
 and that paralysing shyness which is a part of ro- 
 mance induced him to make a backward move- 
 ment as if leaving her to herself. But Turnbull 
 was more rational than he, being more in- 
 different. 
 
 " I don't think you ought to drive home alone, 
 ma'am," he said, gruffly. " There seem to be a 
 lot of rowdy parties along this road, and the man 
 will be no use for an hour. If you will tell us 
 where you are going, we will see you safely there 
 and say good-night." 
 
 The young lady exhibited all the abrupt dis- 
 turbance of a person who is not commonly dis- 
 turbed. She said almost sharply and yet with 
 evident sincerity : " Of course I am awfully grate-
 
 i68 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 ful to you for all you've done — ^and there's plenty 
 of room if you'll come in." 
 
 Turnbull, with the complete innocence of an 
 absolutely sound motive, immediately jumped 
 into the car; but the girl cast an eye at Maclan, 
 who stood in the road for an instant as if rooted 
 like a tree. Then he also tumbled his long legs 
 into the tonneau, having that sense of degradedly 
 diving into heaven which so many have known 
 in so many human houses when they consented 
 to stop to tea or were allowed to stop to supper. 
 The slowly reviving chauffeur was set in the 
 back seat : Turnbull and Maclan had fallen into 
 the middle one ; the lady with a steely coolness 
 had taken the driver's seat and all the handles of 
 that headlong machine. A moment afterward 
 the engine started, with a throb and leap unfa- 
 miliar to Turnbull, who had only once been in a 
 motor during a general election, and utterly 
 unknown to Maclan, who in his present mood 
 thought it was the end of the world. Almost at 
 the same instant that the car plucked itself out of 
 the mud and whipped away up the road, the man 
 who had been flung into the ditch rose waveringly 
 to his feet. When he saw the car escaping he ran 
 after it and shouted something which, owing to
 
 THE STRANGE LADY 169 
 
 the increasing distance, could not be heard. It is 
 awful to reflect that, if his remark was valuable, 
 it is quite lost to the world. 
 
 The car shot on up and down the shining 
 moonlit lanes, and there was no sound in it except 
 the occasional click or catch of its machinery ; for 
 through some cause or other no soul inside it 
 could think of a word to say. The lady sym- 
 bolised her feelings, whatever they were, by urg- 
 ing the machine faster and faster until scattered 
 woodlands went by them in one black blotch and 
 heavy hills and valleys seemed to ripple under the 
 wheels like mere waves. A little while afterward 
 this mood seemed to slacken and she fell into a 
 more ordinary pace; but still she did not speak. 
 Turnbull, who kept a more common and sensible 
 view of the case than any one else, made some re- 
 mark about the moonlight; but something inde- 
 scribable made him also relapse into silence. 
 
 All this time Maclan had been in a sort of 
 monstrous delirium, like some fabulous hero 
 snatched up into the moon. The difference be- 
 tween this experience and common experiences 
 was analogous to that between waking life and 
 a dream. Yet he did not feel in the least as if he 
 were dreaming; rather the other way; as waking
 
 lyo THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 was more actual than dreaming, so this seemed 
 by another degree more actual than waking itself. 
 But it was another life altogether, like a cosmos 
 with a new dimension. 
 
 He felt he had been hurled into some new in- 
 carnation : into the midst of new relations, wrongs 
 and rights, with towering responsibilities and al- 
 most tragic joys which he had as yet had no 
 time to examine. Heaven had not merely sent 
 him a message ; Heaven itself had opened around 
 him and given him an hour of its own ancient and 
 star-shattering energy. He had never felt so 
 much alive before ; and yet he was like a man in 
 a trance. And if you had asked him on what his 
 throbbing happiness hung, he could only have 
 told you that it hung on four or five visible facts, 
 as a curtain hangs on four or five fixed nails. 
 The fact that the lady had a little fur at her 
 throat; the fact that the curve of her cheek was 
 a low and lean curve and that the moonlight 
 caught the height of her cheek-bone; the fact 
 that her hands were small but heavily gloved as 
 they gripped the steering-wheel; the fact that a 
 white witch light was on the road; the fact that 
 the brisk breeze of their passage stirred and flut- 
 tered a little not only the brown hair of her head
 
 THE STRANGE LADY 171 
 
 but the black fur on her cap. All these facts were 
 to him certain and incredible, like sacraments. 
 
 When they had driven half a mile farther, a 
 big shadow was flung across the path, followed 
 by its bulky owner, who eyed the car critically 
 but let it pass. The silver moonlight picked out 
 a piece or two of pewter ornament on his blue 
 uniform; and as they went by they knew it was 
 a Serjeant of police. Three hundred yards far- 
 ther on another policeman stepped out into the 
 road as if to stop them, then seemed to doubt his 
 own authority and stepped back again. The girl 
 was a daughter of the rich; and this police sus- 
 picion (under which all the poor live day and 
 night) stung her for the first time into speech. 
 
 " What can they mean ? " she cried out in a 
 kind of temper ; " this car's going like a snail." 
 
 There was a short silence, and then TurnbuU 
 said : " It is certainly very odd ; you are driving 
 quietly enough." 
 
 " You are driving nobly," said Maclan, and 
 his words (which had no meaning whatever) 
 sounded hoarse and ungainly even in his own 
 ears. 
 
 They passed the next mile and a half swiftly 
 and smoothly ; yet among the many things which
 
 172 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 they passed in the course of it was a clump of 
 eager policemen standing at a cross-road. As 
 they passed, one of the policemen shouted some- 
 thing to the others; but nothing else happened. 
 Eight hundred yards farther on, Turnbull stood 
 up suddenly in the swaying car. 
 
 " My God, Maclan ! " he called out, showing 
 his first emotion of that night. " I don't believe 
 it's the pace; it couldn't be the pace. I believe 
 it's us." 
 
 Maclan sat motionless for a few moments and 
 then turned up at his companion a face that was 
 as white as the moon above it. 
 
 " You may be right," he said at last; " if you 
 are I must tell her." 
 
 " I will tell the lady if you like," said Turnbull, 
 with his unconquered good temper. 
 
 " You ! " said Maclan, with a sort of sincere 
 and instinctive astonishment. " Why should you 
 — no, I must tell her, of course — " 
 
 And he leant forward and spoke to the lady 
 in the fur cap. 
 
 " I am afraid, madam, that we may have got 
 you into some trouble," he said, and even as he 
 said it it sounded wrong, like everything he said 
 to this particular person in the long gloves.
 
 THE STRANGE LADY 173 
 
 " The fact is," he resumed, desperately, " the fact 
 is, we are being chased by the pohce." Then the 
 last flattening hammer fell upon poor Evan's em- 
 barrassment; for the fluffy brown head with the 
 furry black cap did not turn by a section of the 
 compass. 
 
 " We are chased by the police," repeated Mac- 
 Ian, vigorously; then he added, as if beginning an 
 explanation, " You see, I am a Catholic." 
 
 The wind whipped back a curl of the brown 
 hair so as to necessitate a new theory of aesthetics 
 touching the line of the cheek-bone ; but the head 
 did not turn. 
 
 " You see," began Maclan, again blunderingly, 
 " this gentleman wrote in his newspaper that Our 
 Lady was a common woman, a bad woman, and 
 so we agreed to fight ; and we were fighting quite 
 a little time ago — but that was before we saw 
 you." 
 
 The young lady driving the car had half turned 
 her face to listen ; and it was not a reverent or a 
 patient face that she showed him. Her Norman 
 nose was tilted a trifle too high upon the slim stalk 
 of her neck and body. 
 
 When Maclan saw that arrogant and uplifted 
 profile pencilled plainly against the moonshine, he
 
 174 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 accepted an ultimate defeat. He had expected 
 the angels to despise him if he were wrong, but 
 not to despise him so much as this. 
 
 " You see," said the stumbHng spokesman, " I 
 was angry with him when he insulted the Mother 
 of God, and I asked him to fight a duel with me ; 
 but the police are all trying to stop it." 
 
 Nothing seemed to waver or flicker in the fair 
 young falcon profile; and it only opened its lips 
 to say, after a silence : " I thought people in our 
 time were supposed to respect each other's re- 
 ligion." 
 
 Under the shadow of that arrogant face Mac- 
 Ian could only fall back on the obvious answer : 
 " But what about a man's irreligion ? " The face 
 only answered : " Well, you ought to be more 
 broadminded." 
 
 If any one else in the world had said the words, 
 Maclan would have snorted with his equine neigh 
 of scorn. But in this case he seemed knocked 
 down by a superior simplicity, as if his eccentric 
 attitude were rebuked by the innocence of a child. 
 He could not dissociate anything that this woman 
 said or did or wore from an idea of spiritual rar- 
 ity and virtue. Like most others under the same 
 elemental passion, his soul was at present soaked
 
 THE STRANGE LADY 175 
 
 in ethics. He could have applied moral terms to 
 the material objects of her environment. H 
 some one had spoken of " her generous ribbon " 
 or " her chivalrous gloves " or " her merciful 
 shoe-buckle," it would not have seemed to him 
 nonsense. 
 
 He was silent, and the girl went on in a lower 
 key as if she were momentarily softened and a 
 little saddened also. " It won't do, you know," 
 she said; "you can't find out the truth in that 
 way. There are such heaps of churches and peo- 
 ple thinking different things nowadays, and they 
 all think they are right. My uncle was a Sweden- 
 borgian." 
 
 Maclan sat with bowed head, listening hun- 
 grily to her voice but hardly to her words, and 
 seeing his great world drama grow smaller and 
 smaller before his eyes till it was no bigger than 
 a child's toy theatre. 
 
 " The time's gone by for all that," she went on; 
 " you can't find out the real thing like that — if 
 there is really anything to find — " and she sighed 
 rather drearily; for, like many of the women of 
 our wealthy class, she was old and broken in 
 thought, though young and clean enough in her 
 emotions.
 
 176 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 " Our object," said Turnbull, shortly, " is to 
 make an effective demonstration " ; and after that 
 word, Maclan looked at his vision again and 
 found it smaller than ever. 
 
 " It would be in the newspapers, of course," 
 said the girl. " People read the newspapers, but 
 they don't believe them, or anything else, I 
 think." And she sighed again. 
 
 She drove in silence a third of a mile before 
 she added, as if completing the sentence : " Any- 
 how, the whole thing's quite absurd." 
 
 "I don't think," began Turnbull, "that you 
 quite realise — Hullo ! hullo — hullo — what's 
 this?" 
 
 The amateur chauffeur had been forced to 
 bring the car to a staggering stoppage, for a file 
 of fat, blue policemen made a wall across the way. 
 A Serjeant came to the side and touched his 
 peaked cap to the lady. 
 
 " Beg your pardon, miss," he said with some 
 embarrassment, for he knew her for a daughter 
 of a dominant house, " but we have reason to be- 
 lieve that the gentlemen in your car are — " and 
 he hesitated for a polite phrase. 
 
 " I am Evan Maclan," said that gentleman, 
 and stood up in a sort of gloomy pomp, not
 
 THE STRANGE LADY 177 
 
 wholly without a touch of the sulks of a school- 
 boy. 
 
 " Yes, we will get out, serjeant," said Turn- 
 bull, more easily ; " my name is James Turnbull. 
 We must not incommode the lady." 
 
 "What are you taking them up for?" asked the 
 young woman, looking straight in front of her 
 along the road. 
 
 *' It's under the new act," said the serjeant, al- 
 most apologetically. " Incurable disturbers of the 
 peace." 
 
 " What will happen to them ? " she asked, with 
 the same frigid clearness. 
 
 " Westgate Adult Reformatory," he replied, 
 briefly. 
 
 "Until when?" 
 
 " Until they are cured," said the official. 
 
 " Very well, serjeant," said the young lady, 
 with a sort of tired common-sense. " I am sure 
 I don't want to protect criminals or go against the 
 law; but I must tell you that these gentlemen 
 have done me a considerable service; you won't 
 mind drawing your men a little farther off while 
 I say good-night to them. Men like that always 
 misunderstand." 
 
 The serjeant was profoundly disquieted from
 
 1 78 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 the beginning at the mere idea of arresting any 
 one in the company of a great lady ; to refuse one 
 of her minor requests was quite beyond his cour- 
 age. The poHce fell back to a few yards behind 
 the car. Turnbull took up the two swords that 
 were their only luggage ; the swords that, after so 
 many half duels, they were now to surrender at 
 last. Maclan, the blood thundering in his brain 
 at the thought of that instant of farewell, bent 
 over, fumbled at the handle and flung open the 
 door to get out. 
 
 But he did not get out. He did not get out, 
 because it is dangerous to jump out of a car when 
 it is going at full speed. And the car was going 
 at full speed, because the young lady, without 
 turning her head or so much as saying a syllable, 
 had driven down a handle that made the ma- 
 chine plunge forward like a buffalo and then fly 
 over the landscape like a greyhound. The police 
 made one rush to follow, and then dropped so gro- 
 tesque and hopeless a chase. Away in the van- 
 ishing distance they could see the Serjeant furi- 
 ously making notes. 
 
 The open door, still left loose on its hinges, 
 swung and banged quite crazily as they went 
 whizzing up one road and down another. Nor
 
 THE STRANGE LADY 179 
 
 did Maclan sit down; he stood up stunned and 
 yet staring, as he would have stood up at the 
 trumpet of the Last Day. A black dot in the dis- 
 tance sprang up a tall black forest, swallowed 
 them and spat them out again at the other end. 
 A railway bridge grew larger and larger till it 
 leapt upon their backs bellowing, and was in its 
 turn left behind. Avenues of poplars on both 
 sides of the road chased each other like the fig- 
 ures in a zoetrope. Now and then with a shock 
 and rattle they went through sleeping moonlit vil- 
 lages, which must have stirred an instant in their 
 sleep as at the passing of a fugitive earthquake. 
 Sometimes in an outlying house a light in one 
 erratic, unexpected window would give them a 
 nameless hint of the hundred human secrets which 
 they left behind them with their dust. Sometimes 
 even a slouching rustic would be afoot on the 
 road and would look after them, as after a flying 
 phantom. But still Maclan stood up staring at 
 earth and heaven ; and still the door he had flung 
 open flapped loose like a flag. Turnbull, after a 
 few minutes of dumb amazement, had yielded to 
 the healthiest element in his nature and gone off 
 into uncontrollable fits of laughter. The girl had 
 not stirred an inch.
 
 i8o THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 After another half mile that seemed a mere 
 flash, Turnbull leant over and locked the door. 
 Evan staggered at last into his seat and hid his 
 throbbing head in his hands ; and still the car flew 
 on and its driver sat inflexible and silent. The 
 moon had already gone down, and the whole 
 darkness was faintly troubled with twilight and 
 the first movement of beasts and fowls. It was 
 that mysterious moment when light is coming, as 
 if it were something unknown whose nature one 
 could not gness — a mere alteration in everything. 
 They looked at the sky and it seemed as dark as 
 ever ; then they saw the black shape of a tower or 
 tree against it and knew that it was already grey. 
 Save that they were driving southward and had 
 certainly passed the longitude of London, they 
 knew nothing of their direction; but Turnbull, 
 who had spent a year on the Hampshire coast in 
 his youth, began to recognise the unmistakable 
 but quite indescribable villages of the English 
 south. Then a white witch fire began to burn be- 
 tween the black stems of the fir-trees ; and, like so 
 many things in nature, though not in books on 
 evolution, the daybreak, when it did come, came 
 much quicker than one would think. The gloomy 
 heavens were ripped up and rolled away like a
 
 THE STRANGE LADY i8i 
 
 scroll, revealing splendours, as the car went roar- 
 ing up the curve of a great hill ; and above them 
 and black against the broadening light, there 
 stood one of those crouching and fantastic trees 
 that are first signals of the sea.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 THE SWORDS REJOINED 
 
 As they came over the hill and down on the 
 other side of it, it is not too much to say that the 
 whole universe of God opened over them and 
 under them, like a thing unfolding to five times 
 its size. Almost under their feet opened the enor- 
 mous sea, at the bottom of a steep valley which 
 fell down into a bay ; and the sea under their feet 
 blazed at them almost as lustrous and almost as 
 empty as the sky. The sunrise opened above them 
 like some cosmic explosion, shining and shatter- 
 ing and yet silent ; as if the world were blown to 
 pieces without a sound. Round the rays of the 
 victorious sun swept a sort of rainbow of con- 
 fused and conquered colours — brown and blue and 
 green and flaming rose-colour; as though gold 
 were driving before it all the colours of the 
 world. The lines of the landscape down which 
 they sped, were the simple, strict, yet swerving, 
 lines of a rushing river ; so that it was almost as 
 182
 
 THE SWORDS REJOINED 183 
 
 if they were being sucked down in a huge still 
 whirlpool. Turnbull had some such feeling, for 
 he spoke for the first time for many hours. 
 
 " If we go down at this rate we shall be over 
 the sea cliff," he said. 
 
 " How glorious ! " said Maclan. 
 
 When, however, they had come into the wide 
 hollow at the bottom of that landslide, the car 
 took a calm and graceful curve along the side of 
 the sea, melted into the fringe of a few trees, and 
 quietly, yet astonishingly, stopped. A belated 
 light was burning in the broad morning in the 
 window of a sort of lodge- or gate-keepers' cot- 
 tage ; and the girl stood up in the car and turned 
 her splendid face to the sun. 
 
 Evan seemed startled by the stillness, like one 
 who had been born amid sound and speed. He 
 wavered on his long legs as he stood up ; he pulled 
 himself together, and the only consequence was 
 that he trembled from head to foot. Turnbull 
 had already opened the door on his side and 
 jumped out. 
 
 The moment he had done so the strange young 
 woman had one more mad movement, and delib- 
 erately drove the car a few yards farther. Then 
 she got out with an almost cruel coolness and
 
 i84 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 began pulling off her long gloves and almost 
 whistling. 
 
 " You can leave me here," she said, quite casu- 
 ally, as if they had met five minutes before. 
 " That is the lodge of my father's place. Please 
 come in, if you like — but I understood that you 
 had some business." 
 
 Evan looked at that lifted face and found it 
 merely lovely ; he M^as far too much of a fool to 
 see that it was working with a final fatigue and 
 that its austerity was agony. He was even fool 
 enough to ask it a question. " Why did you save 
 us? " he said, quite humbly. 
 
 The girl tore off one of her gloves, as if she 
 were tearing off her hand. " Oh, I don't know," 
 she said, bitterly. " Now I come to think of it, 
 I can't imagine." 
 
 Evan's thoughts, that had been piled up to 
 the morning star, abruptly let him down with a 
 crash into the very cellars of the emotional uni- 
 verse. He remained in a stunned silence for a 
 long time ; and that, if he had only known, was 
 the wisest thing that he could possibly do at the 
 moment. 
 
 Indeed, the silence and the sunrise had their 
 healing effect, for when the extraordinary lady
 
 THE SWORDS REJOINED 185 
 
 spoke again, her tone was more friendly and 
 apologetic. " I'm not really ungrateful," she 
 said ; " it was very good of you to save me from 
 those men." 
 
 " But why ? " repeated the obstinate and dazed 
 Maclan, " why did you save us from the other 
 men ? I mean the policemen ? " 
 
 The girl's great brown eyes were lit up with a 
 flash that was at once final desperation and the 
 loosening of some private and passionate reserve. 
 
 " Oh, God knows ! " she cried. " God knows 
 that if there is a God He has turned His big 
 back on everything. God knows I have had no 
 pleasure in my life, though I am pretty and 
 young and father has plenty of money. And then 
 people come and tell me that I ought to do things 
 and I do them and it's all drivel. They want you 
 to do work among the poor ; which means reading 
 Ruskin and feeling self-righteous in the best room 
 in a poor tenement. Or to help some cause or 
 other, which always means bundling people out of 
 crooked houses, in which they've always lived, 
 into straight houses, in which they quite as often 
 die. And all the time you have inside only the 
 horrid irony of your own empty head and empty 
 heart. I am to give to the unfortunate, when my
 
 i86 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 whole misfortune is that I have nothing to give. 
 I am to teach, vv^hen I believe nothing of all that 
 I was taught, I am to save the children from 
 death, and I am not even certain that I should not 
 be better dead. I suppose if I actually saw a child 
 drowning I should save it. But that would be 
 from the same motive from which I have saved 
 you, or destroyed you, whichever it is that I have 
 done." 
 
 " What was the motive ? " asked Evan, in a 
 low voice. 
 
 " My motive is too big for my mind," an- 
 swered the girl. 
 
 Then, after a pause, as she stared with a rising 
 colour at the glittering sea, she said : " It can't be 
 described, and yet I am trying to describe it. It 
 seems to me not only that I am unhappy, but 
 that there is no way of being happy. Father is 
 not happy, though he is a Member of Parlia- 
 ment — " She paused a moment and added 
 with the ghost of a smile : " Nor Aunt Mabel, 
 though a man from India has told her the secret 
 of all creeds. But I may be wrong ; there may be 
 a way out. And for one stark, insane second, I 
 felt that, after all, you had got the way out and 
 that was why the world hated you. You see, if
 
 THE SWORDS REJOINED 187 
 
 there were a way out, it would be sure to be 
 something that looked very queer." 
 
 Evan put his hand to his forehead and began 
 stumbHngly : " Yes, I suppose we do seem " 
 
 " Oh, yes, you look queer enough," she said, 
 with ringing sincerity. " You'll be all the better 
 for a wash and brush up." 
 
 " You forget our business, madam," said Evan, 
 in a shaking voice ; " we have no concern but to 
 kill each other." 
 
 " Well, I wouldn't be killed looking like that 
 if I were you," she replied, with inhuman honesty. 
 
 Evan stood and rolled his eyes in masculine 
 bewilderment. Then came the final change in 
 this Proteus, and she put out both her hands for 
 an instant and said in a low tone on which he 
 lived for days and nights : 
 
 " Don't you understand that I did not dare to 
 stop you ? What you are doing is so mad that it 
 may be quite true. Somehow one can never 
 really manage to be an atheist." 
 
 Turnbull stood staring at the sea ; but his shoul- 
 ders showed that he heard, and after one minute 
 he turned his head. But the girl had only brushed 
 Evan's hand with hers and had fled up the dark 
 alley by the lodge gate.
 
 1 88 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 Evan stood rooted upon the road, literally like 
 some heavy statue hewn there in the age of the 
 Druids. It seemed impossible that he should ever 
 move. Turnbull grew restless with this rigid- 
 ity, and at last, after calling his companion twice 
 or thrice, went up and clapped him impatiently on 
 one of his big shoulders, Evan winced and leapt 
 away from him with a repulsion which was not 
 the hate of an unclean thing nor the dread of a 
 dangerous one, but was a spasm of awe and sepa- 
 ration from something from which he was now 
 sundered as by the sword of God. He did not 
 hate the atheist; it is possible that he loved him. 
 But Turnbull was now something more dreadful 
 than an enemy; he was a thing sealed and de- 
 voted — a thing now hopelessly doomed to be 
 either a corpse or an executioner. 
 
 " What is the matter with you ? " asked Turn- 
 bull, with his hearty hand still in the air ; and yet 
 he knew more about it than his innocent action 
 would allow. 
 
 " James," said Evan, speaking like one under 
 strong bodily pain, " I asked for God's answer 
 and I have got it — got it in my vitals. He knows 
 how weak I am, and that I might forget the peril 
 of the faith, forget the face of Our Lady — ^yes,
 
 THE SWORDS REJOINED 189 
 
 even with your blow upon her cheek. But the 
 honour of this earth has just this about it, that it 
 can make a man's heart Hke iron. I am from the 
 Lords of the Isles and I dare not be a mere de- 
 serter. Therefore, God has tied me by the chain 
 of my worldly place and word, and there is noth- 
 ing but fighting now." 
 
 " I think I understand you," said Turnbull, 
 " but you say everything tail foremost." 
 
 " She wants us to do it," said Evan, in a voice 
 crushed with passion. " She has hurt herself so 
 that we might do it. She has left her good name 
 and her good sleep and all her habits and dignity 
 flung away on the other side of England in the 
 hope that she may hear of us and that we have 
 broken some hole into heaven." 
 
 " I thought I knew what you meant," said 
 Turnbull, biting his beard ; " it does seem as if we 
 ought to do something after all she has done this 
 night." 
 
 " I never liked you so much before," said Mac- 
 Ian, in bitter sorrow. 
 
 As he spoke, three solemn footmen came out of 
 the lodge gate and assembled to assist the chauf- 
 feur to his room. The mere sight of them made 
 the two wanderers flee as from a too frightful
 
 igo THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 incongruity, and before they knew where they 
 were, they were well upon the glassy ledge of 
 England that overlooks the Channel. Evan said 
 suddenly : " Will they let me see her in heaven 
 once in a thousand ages ? " and addressed the 
 remark to the editor of the " Atheist," as one 
 which he would be likely or qualified to answer. 
 But no answer came; a silence sank between the 
 two. 
 
 Turnbull strode sturdily to the edge of the cliff 
 and looked out, his companion following, some- 
 what more shaken by his recent agitation. 
 
 " If that's the view you take," said Turnbull, 
 " and I don't say you are wrong, I think I know 
 where we shall be best off for the business. As it 
 happens, I know this part of the south coast 
 pretty well. And unless I am mistaken there's a 
 way down the cliff just here which will land us 
 on a stretch of firm sand where no one is likely 
 
 to follow us." vi 
 
 The Highlander made a gesture of assent and 
 came also almost to the edge of the precipice. 
 The sunrise, which was broadening over sea and 
 shore, was one of those rare and splendid ones in 
 which there seems to be no mist or doubt, and 
 nothing but a universal clarification more and
 
 THE SWORDS REJOINED 191 
 
 more complete. All the colours were transparent. 
 It seemed like a triumphant prophecy of some 
 perfect world where everything being innocent 
 will be intelligible; a world where even our 
 bodies, so to speak, may be as of burning glass. 
 Such a world is faintly though fiercely figured 
 in the coloured windows of Christian architect- 
 ure. The sea that lay before them was like a 
 pavement of emerald, bright and almost brittle; 
 the sky against which its strict horizon hung was 
 almost absolutely white, except that close to the 
 sky line, like scarlet braids on the hem of a gar- 
 ment, lay strings of flaky cloud of so gleaming 
 and gorgeous a red that they seemed cut out of 
 some strange blood-red celestial metal, of which 
 the mere gold of this earth is but a drab yellow 
 imitation. 
 
 " The hand of Heaven is still pointing," mut- 
 tered the man of superstition to himself. " And 
 now it is a blood-red hand." 
 
 The cool voice of his companion cut in upon 
 his monologue, calling to him from a little far- 
 ther along the clifif, to tell him that he had found 
 the ladder of descent. It began as a steep and 
 somewhat greasy path, which then tumbled down 
 twenty or thirty feet in the form of a fall of rough
 
 192 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 stone steps. After that, there was a rather awk- 
 ward drop on to a ledge of stone and then the 
 journey was undertaken easily and even elegantly 
 by the remains of an ornamental staircase, such 
 as might have belonged to some long-disused 
 watering-place. All the time that the two trav- 
 ellers sank from stage to stage of this downward 
 journey, there closed over their heads living 
 bridges and caverns of the most varied foliage, 
 all of which grew greener, redder, or more 
 golden, in the growing sunlight of the morning. 
 Life, too, of the more moving sort rose at the 
 sun on every side of them. Birds whirred and 
 fluttered in the undergrowth, as if imprisoned in 
 green cages. Other birds were shaken up in great 
 clouds from the tree-tops, as if they were blos- 
 soms detached and scattered up to heaven. 
 Animals which Turnbull was too much of a Lon- 
 doner and Maclan too much of a Northerner to 
 know, slipped by among the tangle or ran pat- 
 tering up the tree-trunks. Both the men, ac- 
 cording to their several creeds, felt the full 
 thunder of the psalm of life as they had never 
 heard it before; Maclan felt God the Father, be- 
 nignant in all His energies, and Turnbull that ul- 
 timate anonymous energy, that Natura Naturans,
 
 THE SWORDS REJOINED 193 
 
 which is the whole theme of Lucretius. It was 
 down this clamorous ladder of life that they went 
 down to die. 
 
 They broke out upon a brown semicircle of 
 sand, so free from human imprint as to justify 
 Turnbull's profession. They strode out upon it, 
 stuck their swords in the sand, and had a pause 
 too important for speech. TurnbuU eyed the 
 coast curiously for a moment, like one awakening 
 memories of childhood; then he said abruptly, 
 like a man remembering somebody's name : " But, 
 of course, we shall be better off still round the 
 corner of Cragness Point; nobody ever comes 
 there at all." And picking up his sword again, 
 he began striding toward a big bluff of the rocks 
 which stood out upon their left. Maclan fol- 
 lowed him round the corner and found himself 
 in what was certainly an even finer fencing court, 
 of flat, firm sand, enclosed on three sides by white 
 walls of rock, and on the fourth by the green wall 
 of the advancing sea. 
 
 " We are quite safe here," said Turnbull, and, 
 to the other's surprise, flung himself down, sit- 
 ting on the brown beach. 
 
 " You see, I was brought up near here," he ex- 
 plained. " I was sent from Scotland to stop with
 
 194 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 my aunt. It is highly probable that I may die 
 here. Do you mind if I Hght a pipe? " 
 
 " Of course, do whatever you like," said Mac- 
 Ian, with a choking- voice, and he went and 
 walked alone by himself along the wet, glistening 
 sands. 
 
 Ten minutes afterward he came back again, 
 white with his own whirlwind of emotions ; Turn- 
 bull was quite cheerful and was knocking out the 
 end of his pipe. 
 
 " You see, we have to do it," said Maclan. 
 " She tied us to it." 
 
 " Of course, my dear fellow," said the other, 
 and leapt up as lightly as a monkey. 
 
 They took their places gravely in the very cen- 
 tre of the great square of sand, as if they had 
 thousands of spectators. Before saluting, Mac- 
 Ian, who, being a mystic, was one inch nearer to 
 Nature, cast his eye round the huge framework 
 of their heroic folly. The three walls of rock all 
 leant a little outward, though at various angles; 
 but this impression was exaggerated in the direc- 
 tion of the incredible by the heavy load of living 
 trees and thickets which each wall wore on its top 
 like a huge shock of hair. On all that luxurious 
 crest of life the risen and victorious sun was beat-
 
 THE SWORDS REJOINED 195 
 
 ing, burnishing it all like gold, and every bird that 
 rose with that sunrise caught a light like a star 
 upon it like the dove of the Holy Spirit. Imagi- 
 native life had never so much crowded upon Mac- 
 Ian. He felt that he could write whole books 
 about the feelings of a single bird. He felt that 
 for two centuries he would not tire of being a 
 rabbit. He was in the Palace of Life, of which 
 the very tapestries and curtains were alive. Then 
 he recovered himself, and remembered his affairs. 
 Both men saluted, and iron rang upon iron. It 
 was exactly at the same moment that he realised 
 that his enemy's left ankle was encircled with a 
 ring of salt water that had crept up to his feet. 
 
 "What is the matter?" said Turnbull, stop- 
 ping an instant, for he had grown used to every 
 movement of his extraordinary fellow-traveller's 
 face. 
 
 Maclan glanced again at that silver anklet of 
 sea water and then looked beyond at the next 
 promontory round which a deep sea was boiling 
 and leaping. Then he turned and looked back 
 and saw heavy foam being shaken up to heaven 
 about the base of Cragness Point. 
 
 " The sea has cut us off," he said, curtly. 
 
 " I have noticed it," said Turnbull with equal
 
 196 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 sobriety. " What view do you take of the devel- 
 opment? " 
 
 Evan threw away his weapon, and, as his cus- 
 tom was, imprisoned his big head in his hands. 
 Then he let them fall and said : " Yes, I know 
 what it means ; and I think it is the fairest thing. 
 It is the finger of God — red as blood — still point' 
 ing. But now it points to two graves." 
 
 There was a space filled with the sound of the 
 sea, and then Maclan spoke again in a voice pa- 
 thetically reasonable : " You see, we both saved 
 her — ^and she told us both to fight — and it would 
 not be just that either should fail and fall alone, 
 while the other " 
 
 " You mean," said Turnbull, in a voice surpris- 
 ingly soft and gentle, " that there is something 
 fine about fighting in a place where even the con- 
 queror must die ? " 
 
 " Oh, you have got it right, you have got it 
 right ! " cried out Evan, in an extraordinary 
 childish ecstasy. " Oh, I'm sure that you really 
 believe in God ! " 
 
 Turnbull answered not a word, but only took 
 up his fallen sword. 
 
 For the third time Evan Maclan looked at 
 those three sides of English cliff hung with their
 
 THE SWORDS REJOINED 197 
 
 noisy load of life. He had been at a loss to un- 
 derstand the almost ironical magnificence of all 
 those teeming creatures and tropical colours and 
 smells that smoked happily to heaven. But now 
 he knew that he was in the closed court of death 
 and that all the gates were sealed. 
 
 He drank in the last g^een and the last red and 
 the last gold, those unique and indescribable 
 things of God, as a man drains good wine at the 
 bottom of his glass. Then he turned and saluted 
 his enemy once more, and the two stood up and 
 fought till the foam flowed over their knees. 
 
 Then Maclan stepped backward suddenly with 
 a splash and held up his hand. " Turnbull ! " he 
 cried ; " I can't help it — fair fighting is more even 
 than promises. And this is not fair fighting." 
 
 " What the deuce do you mean ? " asked the 
 other, staring. 
 
 " I've only just thought of it," cried Evan, 
 brokenly. " We're very well matched — it may 
 go on a good time — ^the tide is coming up fast — 
 and I'm a foot and a half taller. You'll be washed 
 away like seaweed before it's above my breeches. 
 I'll not fight foul for all the girls and angels in 
 the universe." 
 
 " Will you oblige me," said Turnbull, with
 
 198 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 staring grey eyes and a voice of distinct and vio- 
 lent politeness; " will you oblige me by jolly well 
 minding your own business? Just you stand up 
 and fight, and we'll see who will be washed away 
 like seaweed. You wanted to finish this fight and 
 you shall finish it, or I'll denounce you as a cow- 
 ard to the whole of that assembled company." 
 
 Evan looked very doubtful and offered a some- 
 what wavering weapon; but he was quickly 
 brought back to his senses by his opponent's 
 sword-point, which shot past him, shaving his 
 shoulder by a hair. By this time the waves were 
 well up Turnbull's thigh, and what was worse, 
 they were beginning to roll and break heavily 
 around them. 
 
 Maclan parried this first lunge perfectly, the 
 next less perfectly ; the third in all human proba- 
 bility he would not have parried at all ; the Chris- 
 tian champion would have been pinned like a but- 
 terfly, and the atheistic champion left to drown 
 like a rat, with such consolation as his view of 
 the cosmos afforded him. But just as Turnbull 
 launched his heaviest stroke, the sea, in which he 
 stood up to his hips, launched a yet heavier one. 
 A wave breaking beyond the others smote him 
 heavily like a hammer of water. One leg gave
 
 THE SWORDS REJOINED 199 
 
 way, he was swung round and sucked into the 
 retreating sea, still gripping his sword. 
 
 Maclan put his sword between his teeth and 
 plunged after his disappearing enemy. He had 
 the sense of having the whole universe on top of 
 him as crest after crest struck him down. It 
 seemed to him quite a cosmic collapse, as if all the 
 seven heavens were falling on him one after the 
 other. But he got hold of the atheist's left leg 
 and he did not let it go. 
 
 After some ten minutes of foam and frenzy, in 
 which all the senses at once seemed blasted by the 
 sea, Evan found himself laboriously swimming 
 on a low, green swell, with the sword still in his 
 teeth and the editor of the " Atheist " still under 
 his arm. What he was going to do he had not 
 even the most glimmering idea ; so he merely kept 
 his grip and swam somehow with one hand. 
 
 He ducked instinctively as there bulked above 
 him a big, black wave, much higher than any that 
 he had seen. Then he saw that it was hardly the 
 shape of any possible wave. Then he saw that it 
 was a fisherman's boat, and, leaping upward, 
 caught hold of the bow. The boat pitched for- 
 ward with its stern in the air for just as much 
 time as was needed to see that there was nobody
 
 200 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 in it. After a moment or two of desperate clam- 
 bering, however, there were two people in it, Mr. 
 Evan Maclan, panting and sweating, and Mr. 
 James Turnbull, uncommonly close to being 
 drowned. After ten minutes' aimless tossing in 
 the empty fishing-boat he recovered, however, 
 stirred, stretched himself, and looked round on 
 the rolling waters. Then, while taking no notice 
 of the streams of salt water that were pouring 
 from his hair, beard, coat, boots, and trousers, he 
 carefully wiped the wet off his sword-blade to 
 preserve it from possibilities of rust. 
 
 Maclan found two oars in the bottom of the 
 deserted boat and began somewhat drearily to 
 row. 
 
 A rainy twilight was clearing to cold silver 
 over the moaning sea, when the battered boat that 
 had rolled and drifted almost aimlessly all night, 
 came within sight of land, though of land which 
 looked almost as lost and savage as the waves. 
 All night there had been but little lifting in the 
 leaden sea, only now and then the boat had been 
 heaved up, as on a huge shoulder which slipped 
 from under it; such occasional sea-quakes came 
 probably from the swell of some steamer that had
 
 THE SWORDS REJOINED 201 
 
 passed it in the dark; otherwise the waves were 
 harmless though restless. But it was piercingly 
 cold, and there was, from time to time, a splutter 
 of rain like the splutter of the spray, which 
 seemed almost to freeze as it fell. Maclan, more 
 at home than his companion in this quite bar- 
 barous and elemental sort of adventure, had 
 rowed toilsomely with the heavy oars whenever 
 he saw anything that looked like land ; but for the 
 most part had trusted with grim transcendental- 
 ism to wind and tide. Among the implements 
 of their first outfit the brandy alone had re- 
 mained to him, and he gave it to his freezing 
 companion in quantities which greatly alarmed 
 that temperate Londoner ; but Maclan came from 
 the cold seas and mists where a man can drink a 
 tumbler of raw whiskey in a boat without it mak- 
 ing him wink. 
 
 When the Highlander began to pull really hard 
 upon the oars, Turnbull craned his dripping red 
 head out of the boat to see the goal of his exer- 
 tions. It was a sufficiently uninviting one; noth- 
 ing so far as could be seen but a steep and shelv- 
 ing bank of shingle, made of loose little pebbles 
 such as children like, but slanting up higher than a 
 house. On the top of the mound, against the sky
 
 202 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 line, stood up the brown skeleton of some broken 
 fence or break-water. With the grey and watery 
 dawn crawling up behind it, the fence really 
 seemed to say to our philosophic adventurers 
 that they had come at last to the other end of 
 nowhere. 
 
 Bent by necessity to his labour, Maclan man- 
 aged the heavy boat with real power and skill, 
 and when at length he ran it up on a smoother 
 part of the slope it caught and held so that they 
 could clamber out, not sinking farther than their 
 knees into the water and the shingle. A foot or 
 two farther up their feet found the beach firmer, 
 and a few moments afterward they were leaning 
 on the ragged break-water and looking back at 
 the sea they had escaped. 
 
 They had a dreary walk across wastes of grey 
 shingle in the grey dawn before they began to 
 come within hail of human fields or roads; nor 
 had they any notion of what fields or roads they 
 would be. Their boots were beginning to break 
 up and the confusion of stones tried them se- 
 verely, so that they were glad to lean on their 
 swords, as if they were the staves of pilgrims. 
 Maclan thought vagnel}' of a weird ballad of his 
 own country which describes the soul in Purga-
 
 THE SWORDS REJOINED 203 
 
 tory as walking on a plain full of sharp stones, 
 and only saved by its own charities upon earth. 
 
 If ever thou gavest hosen and shoon 
 
 Every night and all, 
 Sit thee down and put them on, 
 
 And Christ receive thy soul. 
 
 Tumbull had no such lyrical meditations, but 
 he was in an even worse temper. 
 
 At length they came to a pale ribbon of road. 
 edged by a shelf of rough and almost colourless 
 turf; and a few feet up the slope there stood 
 grey and weather-stained, one of those big way- 
 side crucifixes which are seldom seen except in 
 Catholic countries. 
 
 Maclan put up his hand to his head and found 
 that his bonnet was not there. Turnbull gave one 
 glance at the crucifix — a glance at once sympa- 
 thetic and bitter, in which was concentrated the 
 whole of Swinburne's poem on the same occasion. 
 
 O hidden face of man, whereover 
 The years have woven a viewless veil, 
 
 If thou wert verily man's lover 
 What did thy love or blood avail? 
 
 Thy blood the priests mix poison of, 
 
 And in gold shekels coin thy love.
 
 204 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 Then, leaving Maclan in his attitude of prayer, 
 Turnbull began to look right and left very 
 sharply, like one looking for something. Sud- 
 denly, with a little cry, he saw it and ran forward. 
 A few yards from them along the road a lean 
 and starved sort of hedge came pitifully to an 
 end. Caught upon its prickly angle, however, 
 there was a very small and very dirty scrap of 
 paper that might have hung there for months, 
 since it escaped from some one tearing up a letter 
 or making a spill out of a newspaper. Turnball 
 snatched at it and found it was the corner of a 
 printed page, very coarsely printed, like a cheap 
 novelette, and just large enough to contain the 
 words : " et c'est elle qui " 
 
 " Hurrah ! " cried Turnbull, waving his frag- 
 ment ; " we are safe at last. We are free at last. 
 We are somewhere better than England or Eden 
 or Paradise. Maclan, we are in the Land of the 
 Duel!" 
 
 " Where do you say? " said the other, looking 
 at him heavily and with knitted brows, like one 
 almost dazed with the grey doubts of desolate 
 twilight and drifting sea. 
 
 " We are in France ! " cried Turnbull, with a 
 voice like a trumpet, " in the land where things
 
 THE SWORDS REJOINED 205 
 
 really happen — Tout arrive en France. We ar- 
 rive in France. Look at this little message," and 
 he held out the scrap of paper. "There's an omen 
 for you superstitious hill folk. C'est elle qui — 
 Mais oui, mats oui, c'est elle qui sauvera encore 
 le monde." 
 
 "France!" repeated Maclan, and his eyes 
 awoke again in his head like large lamps lighted. 
 
 " Yes, France ! " said Turnbull, and all the 
 rhetorical part of him came to the top, his face 
 growing as red as his hair. " France, that has al- 
 ways been in rebellion for liberty and reason. 
 France, that has always assailed superstition with 
 the club of Rabelais or the rapier of Voltaire. 
 France, at whose first council table sits the sub- 
 lime figure of Julian the Apostate. France, 
 where a man said only the other day those splen- 
 did unanswerable words " — with a superb ges- 
 ture — " * we have extinguished in heaven those 
 lights that men shall never light again.' " 
 
 " No," said Maclan, in a voice that shook with 
 a controlled passion, " but France, which was 
 taught by St. Bernard and led to war by Joan of 
 Arc. France that made the crusades. France 
 that saved the Church and scattered the heresies 
 by the mouths of Bossuet and Massillon. France,
 
 2o6 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 which shows to-day the conquering march of 
 Catholicism, as brain after brain surrenders to it, 
 Brunetiere, Coppee, Hauptmann, Barres, Bour- 
 get, Lemaitre." 
 
 " France ! " asserted Turnbull with a sort of 
 rolHcking self-exaggeration, very unusual with 
 him, " France, which is one torrent of splendid 
 scepticism from Abelard to Anatole France." 
 
 "France," said Maclan, "which is one cataract 
 of clear faith from St. Louis to Our Lady of 
 Lourdes." 
 
 " France at least/' cried Turnbull, throwing up 
 his sword in schoolboy triumph, " in which these 
 things are thought about and fought about. 
 France, where reason and religion clash in one 
 continual tournament. France, above all, where 
 men understand the pride and passion which have 
 plucked our blades from their scabbards. Here, 
 at least, we shall not be chased and spied on by 
 sickly parsons and greasy policemen, because we 
 wish to put our lives on the game. Courage, my 
 friend, we have come to the country of honour." 
 
 Maclan did not even notice the incongruous 
 phrase " my friend," but nodding again and 
 again, drew his sword and flung the scabbard far 
 behind him in the road.
 
 THE SWORDS REJOINED 207 
 
 " Yes," he cried^ in a voice of thunder, " we 
 will fight here and He shall look on at it." 
 
 Turnbull glanced at the crucifix with a sort of 
 scowling good-humour and then said : " He may 
 look and see His cross defeated." 
 
 " The cross cannot be defeated," said Maclan, 
 " for it is Defeat." 
 
 A second afterward the two bright, blood- 
 thirsty weapons made the sig^ of the cross in 
 horrible parody upon each other. 
 
 They had not touched each other twice, how- 
 ever, when upon the hill, above the crucifix, there 
 appeared another horrible parody of its shape; 
 the figure of a man who appeared for an instant 
 waving his outspread arms. He had vanished in 
 an instant; but Maclan, whose fighting face was 
 set that way, had seen the shape momentarily 
 but quite photographically. And while it was 
 like a comic repetition of the cross, it was also, in 
 that place and hour, something more incredible. 
 It had been only instantaneously on the retina 
 of his eye; but unless his eye and mind were 
 going mad together, the figure was that of an 
 ordinary London policeman. 
 
 He tried to concentrate his senses on the sword- 
 play ; but one half of his brain was wrestling with
 
 2o8 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 the puzzle; the apocalyptic and almost seraphic 
 apparition of a stout constable out of Clapham 
 on top of a dreary and deserted hill in France. 
 He did not, however, have to puzzle long. Be- 
 fore the duellists had exchanged half a dozen 
 passes, the big, blue policeman appeared once 
 more on the top of the hill, a palpable monstrosity 
 in the eye of heaven. He was waving only one 
 arm now and seemed to be shouting directions. 
 At the same moment a mass of blue blocked the 
 corner of the road behind the small, smart figure 
 of Turnbull, and a small company of policemen 
 in the English uniform came up at a kind of half- 
 military double. 
 
 Turnbull saw the stare of consternation in his 
 enemy's face and swung round to share its cause. 
 When he saw it, cool as he was, he staggered 
 back, 
 
 " What the devil are you doing here ? " he 
 called out in a high, shrill voice of authority, like 
 one who finds a tramp in his own larder. 
 
 " Well, sir," said the serjeant in command, 
 with that sort of heavy civility shown only to the 
 evidently guilty, " seems to me we might ask 
 what are you doing here? " 
 
 " We are having an affair of honour," said
 
 THE SWORDS REJOINED 209 
 
 Turnbull, as if it were the most rational thing in 
 the world. "If the French police like to inter- 
 fere, let them interfere. But why the blue blazes 
 should you interfere, you great blue blundering 
 sausages? " 
 
 " I'm afraid, sir," said the serjeant with re- 
 straint, " I'm afraid I don't quite follow you." 
 
 " I mean, why don't the French police take this 
 up if it's got to be taken up? I always heard that 
 they were spry enough in their own way." 
 
 " Well, sir," said the serjeant, reflectively, 
 " you see, sir, the French police don't take this up 
 — well, because you see, sir, this ain't France. 
 This is His Majesty's dominions, same as 'Amp- 
 stead 'eath." 
 
 " Not France ? " repeated Turnbull, with a sort 
 of dull incredulity. 
 
 " No, sir," said the serjeant ; " though most of 
 the people talk French. This is the island called 
 St. Loup, sir, an island in the Channel. We've 
 been sent down specially from London, as you 
 were such specially distinguished criminals, if 
 you'll allow me to say so. Which reminds me 
 to warn you that anything you say may be used 
 against you at your trial." 
 
 " Quite so," said Turnbull, and lurched sud-
 
 2IO THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 - denly against the serjeaiit, so as to tip him over 
 the edge of the road with a crash into the shingle 
 below. Then leaving Maclan and the policemen 
 equally and instantaneously nailed to the road, 
 he ran a little way along it, leapt off on to a part 
 of the beach, which he had found in his journey 
 to be firmer, and went across it with a clatter of 
 pebbles. His sudden calculation was successful; 
 the police, unacquainted with the various levels 
 of the loose beach, tried to overtake him by the 
 shorter cut and found themselves, being heavy 
 men, almost up to their knees in shoals of slippery 
 shingle. Two who had been slower with their 
 bodies were quicker with their minds, and seeing 
 Turnbull's trick, ran along the edge of the road 
 after him. Then Maclan finally awoke, and 
 leaving half his sleeve in the grip of the only man 
 who tried to hold him, took the two policemen in 
 the small of their backs with the impetus of a 
 cannon-ball and, sending them also flat among the 
 stones, went tearing after his twin defier of the 
 law. 
 
 As they were both good runners, the start they 
 had gained was decisive. They dropped over a 
 high break-water farther on upon the beach, 
 turned sharply, and scrambled up a line of ribbed
 
 THE SWORDS REJOINED 211 
 
 rocks, crowned with a thicket, crawled through 
 it, scratching their hands and faces, and dropped 
 into another road; and there found that they 
 could slacken their speed into a steady trot. In 
 all this desperate dart and scramble, they still 
 kept hold of their drawn swords, which now, 
 indeed, in the vigorous phrase of Bunyan, seemed 
 almost to grow out of their hands. 
 
 They had run another half mile or so when it 
 became apparent that they were entering a sort of 
 scattered village. One or two whitewashed cot- 
 tages and even a shop had appeared along the 
 side of the road. Then, for the first time. Turn- 
 bull twisted round his red beard to get a glimpse 
 of his companion, who was a foot or two behind, 
 and remarked abruptly : " Mr, Maclan, we've 
 been going the wrong way to work all along. 
 We're traced everywhere, because everybody 
 knows about us. It's as if one went about with 
 Kruger's beard on Mafeking Night," 
 
 " What do you mean ? " said Maclan, inno- 
 cently. 
 
 " I mean," said Turnbull, with steady convic- 
 tion, " that what we want is a little diplomacy, 
 and I am going to buy some in a shop,"
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 A SCANDAL IN THE VILLAGE 
 
 In the little hamlet of Haroc, in the Isle of 
 St. Loup, there lived a man who — though living 
 under the English flag — was absolutely typical of 
 the French tradition. He was quite unnoticeable, 
 but that was exactly where he was quite himself. 
 He was not even extraordinarily French; but 
 then it is against the French tradition to be 
 extraordinarily French. Ordinary Englishmen 
 would only have thought him a little old-fash- 
 ioned; imperialistic Englishmen would really 
 have mistaken him for the old John Bull of the 
 caricatures. He was stout; he was quite undis- 
 tinguished; and he had side whiskers, worn just 
 a little longer than John Bull's. He was by name 
 Pierre Durand ; he was by trade a wine merchant ; 
 he was by politics a conservative republican; he 
 had been brought up a Catholic, had always 
 thought and acted as an agnostic, and was very 
 mildly returning to the Church in his later years.
 
 A SCANDAL IN THE VILLAGE 213 
 
 He had a genius (if one can even use so wild a 
 word in connection with so tame a person) a 
 genius for saying the conventional thing on every 
 conceivable subject; or rather what we in Eng- 
 land would call the conventional thing. For it 
 was not convention with him, but solid and manly 
 conviction. Convention implies cant or affecta- 
 tion, and he had not the faintest smell of either. 
 He was simply an ordinary citizen with ordinary 
 views; and if you had told him so he would have 
 taken it as an ordinary compliment. If you had 
 asked him about women, he would have said that 
 one must preserve their domesticity and deco- 
 rum; he would have used the stalest words, but 
 he would have in reserve the strongest argu- 
 ments. If you had asked him about government, 
 he would have said that all citizens were free and 
 equal, but he would have meant what he said. If 
 you had asked him about education, he would 
 have said that the young must be trained up in 
 habits of industry and of respect for their parents. 
 Still he would have set them the example of in- 
 dustry, and he would have been one of the parents 
 whom they could respect. A state of mind so 
 hopelessly central is depressing to the English in- 
 stinct. But then in England a man announcing
 
 214 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 these platitudes is generally a fool and a fright- 
 ened fool, announcing them out of mere social 
 servility. But Durand was anything but a fool ; 
 he had read all the eighteenth century, and could 
 have defended his platitudes round every angle 
 of eighteenth-century argument. And certainly 
 he was anything but a coward : swollen and sed- 
 entary as he was, he could have hit any man back 
 who touched him with the instant violence of an 
 automatic machine; and dying in a uniform 
 would have seemed to him only the sort of thing 
 that sometimes happens. I am afraid it is impos- 
 sible to explain this monster amid the exaggera- 
 tive sects and the eccentric clubs of my country. 
 He was merely a man. 
 
 He lived in a little villa which was furnished 
 well with comfortable chairs and tables and 
 highly uncomfortable classical pictures and me- 
 dallions. The art in his home contained nothing 
 between the two extremes of hard, meagre de- 
 signs of Greek heads and Roman togas, and on 
 the other side a few very vulgar Catholic images 
 in the crudest colours ; these were mostly in his 
 daughter's room. He had recently lost his wife, 
 whom he had loved heartily and rather heavily 
 in complete silence, and upon whose grave he was
 
 A SCANDAL IN THE VILLAGE 215 
 
 constantly in the habit of placing hideous little 
 wreaths, made out of a sort of black-and-white 
 beads. To his only daughter he was equally de- 
 voted, though he restricted her a good deal under 
 a sort of theoretic alarm about her innocence ; an 
 alarm which was peculiarly unnecessary, first, 
 because she was an exceptionally reticent and re- 
 ligious girl, and secondly, because there was 
 hardly anybody else in the place. 
 
 Madeleine Durand was physically a sleepy 
 young woman, and might easily have been sup- 
 posed to be morally a lazy one. It is, however, 
 certain that the work of her house was done 
 somehow, and it is even more rapidly ascertain- 
 able that nobody else did it. The logician is, 
 therefore, driven back upon the assumption that 
 she did it ; and that lends a sort of mysterious in- 
 terest to her personality at the beginning. She 
 had very broad, low, and level brows, which 
 seemed even lower because her warm yellow hair 
 clustered down to her eyebrows; and she had a 
 face just plump enough not to look as powerful 
 as it was. Anything that was heavy in all this 
 was abruptly lightened by two large, light china- 
 blue eyes, lightened all of a sudden as if it had 
 been lifted into the air by two big blue butterflies.
 
 2i6 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 The rest of her was less than middle-sized, and 
 was of a casual and comfortable sort ; and she had 
 this difference from such girls as the girl in the 
 motor-car, that one did not incline to take in her 
 figure at all, but only her broad and leonine and 
 innocent head. 
 
 Both the father and the daughter were of the 
 sort that would normally have avoided all ob- 
 servation ; that is, all observation in that extraor- 
 dinary modern world which calls out everything 
 except strength. Both of them had strength 
 below the surface; they were like quiet peasants 
 owning enormous and unquarried mines. The 
 father with his square face and gray side 
 whiskers, the daughter with her square face and 
 golden fringe of hair, were both stronger than 
 they knew ; stronger than any one knew. The 
 father believed in civilisation, in the storied tower 
 w^e have erected to affront nature ; that is, the 
 father believed in Man. The daughter believed 
 in God ; and was even stronger. They neither of 
 them believed in themselves; for that is a deca- 
 dent weakness. 
 
 The daughter was called a devotee. She left 
 upon ordinary people the impression — the some- 
 what irritating impression — produced by such a
 
 A SCANDAL IN THE VILLAGE 217 
 
 person; it can only be described as the sense 
 of strong water being perpetually poured into 
 some abyss. She did her housework easily; she 
 achieved her social relations sweetly; she was 
 never neglectful and never unkind. This ac- 
 counted for all that was soft in her, but not for 
 all that was hard. She trod firmly as if going 
 somewhere ; she flung her face back as if defying 
 something; she hardly spoke a cross word, yet 
 there was often battle in her eyes. The modern 
 man asked doubtfully where all this silent energy 
 went to. He would have stared still more doubt- 
 fully if he had been told that it all went into her 
 prayers. 
 
 The conventions of the Isle of St. Loup were 
 necessarily a compromise or confusion between 
 those of France and England ; and it was vaguely 
 possible for a respectable young lady to have half- 
 attached lovers, in a way that would be impossible 
 in the bourgeoisie of France. One man in par- 
 ticular had made himself an unmistakable figure 
 in the track of this girl as she went to church. 
 He was a short, prosperous-looking man, whose 
 long, bushy black beard and clumsy black um- 
 brella made him seem both shorter and older than 
 he really was ; but whose big, bold eyes, and step
 
 2i8 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 that spurned the ground, gave him an instant 
 character of youth. 
 
 His name was Camille Bert, and he was a com- 
 mercial traveller who had only been in the island 
 an idle week before he began to hover in the 
 tracks of Madeleine Durand. Since every one 
 knows every one in so small a place, Madeleine 
 certainly knew him to speak to ; but it is not very 
 evident that she ever spoke. He haunted her, 
 however ; especially at church, which was, indeed, 
 one of the few certain places for finding her. In 
 her home she had a habit of being invisible, some- 
 times through insatiable domesticity, sometimes 
 through an equally insatiable solitude. M. Bert 
 did not give the impression of a pious man, 
 though he did give, especially with his eyes, the 
 impression of an honest one. But he went to 
 Mass with a simple exactitude that could not be 
 mistaken for a pose, or even for a vulgar fascina- 
 tion. It was perhaps this religious regularity 
 which eventually drew Madeleine into recogni- 
 tion of him. At least it is certain that she twice 
 spoke to him with her square and open smile in 
 the porch of the church; and there was human 
 nature enough in the hamlet to turn even that 
 into gossip.
 
 A SCANDAL IN THE VILLAGE 219 
 
 But the real interest arose suddenly as a squall 
 arises with the extraordinary affair that occurred 
 about five days after. There was about a third 
 of a mile beyond the village of Haroc a large 
 but lonel)^ hotel upon the London or Paris model, 
 but commonly almost entirely empty. Among 
 the accidental group of guests who had come to 
 it at this season was a man whose nationality 
 no one could fix and who bore the non-committal 
 name of Count Gregory. He treated everybody 
 with complete civility and almost in complete 
 silence. On the few occasions when he spoke, he 
 spoke either French, English, or once (to the 
 priest) Latin; and the general opinion was that 
 he spoke them all wrong. He was a large, lean 
 man, with the stoop of an aged eagle, and even 
 the eagle's nose to complete it; he had old-fash- 
 ioned military whiskers and moustache dyed with 
 a garish and highly incredible yellow. He had 
 the dress of a showy gentleman and the manners 
 of a decayed gentleman; he seemed (as wnth a 
 sort of simplicity) to be trying to be a dandy 
 when he was too old even to know that he was 
 old. Yet he was decidedly a handsome figure 
 with his curled yellow hair and lean fastidious 
 face ; and he wore a peculiar frock-coat of bright
 
 220 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 turquoise blue, with an unknown order pinned to 
 it, and he carried a huge and heavy cane. Despite 
 his silence and his dandified dress and whiskers, 
 the island might never have heard of him but for 
 the extraordinary event of which I have spoken, 
 which fell about in the following way : 
 
 In such casual atmospheres only the enthu- 
 siastic go to Benediction; and as the warm blue 
 twilight closed over the little candle-lit church 
 and village, the line of worshippers who went 
 home from the former to the latter thinned out 
 until it broke. On one such evening at least no 
 one was in church except the quiet, unconquerable 
 Madeleine, four old women, one fisherman, and, 
 of course, the irrepressible M. Camille Bert. 
 The others seemed to melt away afterward into 
 the peacock colours of the dim green grass and 
 the dark blue sky. Even Durand was invisible 
 instead of being merely reverentially remote ; and 
 Madeleine set forth through the patch of black 
 forest alone. She was not in the least afraid of 
 loneliness, because she was not afraid of devils. 
 I think they were afraid of her. 
 
 In a clearing of the wood, however, which was 
 lit up with a last patch of the perishing sunlight, 
 there advanced upon her suddenly one who was
 
 A SCANDAL IN THE VILLAGE 221 
 
 more startling than a devil. The incomprehensi- 
 ble Count Gregory, with his yellow hair like 
 flame and his face like the white ashes of the 
 flame, was advancing bareheaded toward her, 
 flinging out his arms and his long fingers with a 
 frantic gesture. 
 
 " We are alone here," he cried, " and you 
 would be at my mercy, only that I am at yours." 
 
 Then his frantic hands fell by his sides and he 
 looked up under his brows with an expression 
 that went well with his hard breathing. Made- 
 leine Durand had come to a halt at first in child- 
 ish wonder, and now, with more than masculine 
 self-control, " I fancy I know your face, sir," she 
 said, as if to gain time. 
 
 " I know I shall not forget yours," said the 
 other, and extended once more his ungainly arms 
 in an unnatural gesture. Then of a sudden there 
 came out of him a spout of wild and yet pompous 
 phrases. " It is as well that you should know the 
 worst and the best. I am a man who knows no 
 limit ; I am the most callous of criminals, the most 
 unrepentant of sinners. There is no man in my 
 dominions so vile as I. But my dominions stretch 
 from the olives of Italy to the fir-woods of Den- 
 mark, and there is no nook of all of them in
 
 222 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 which I have not done a sin. But when I bear 
 you away I shall be doing my first sacrilege, and 
 also my first act of virtue." He seized her sud- 
 denly by the elbow; and she did not scream but 
 only pulled and tugged. Yet though she had not 
 screamed, some one astray in the woods seemed 
 to have heard the struggle. A short but nimble 
 figure came along the woodland path like a hum- 
 ming bullet and had caught Count Gregory a 
 crack across the face before his own could be rec- 
 ognised. When it was recognised it was that of 
 Camille, with the black elderly beard and the 
 young ardent eyes. 
 
 Up to the moment when Camille had hit the 
 Count, Madeleine had entertained no doubt that 
 the Count was merely a madman. Now she was 
 startled with a new sanity ; for the tall man in the 
 yellow whiskers and yellow moustache first re- 
 turned the blow of Bert, as if it were a sort of 
 duty, and then stepped back with a slight bow and 
 an easy smile. 
 
 " This need go no further here. M. Bert," he 
 said. " I need not remind you how far it should 
 go elsewhere." 
 
 " Certainly, you need remind me of nothing," 
 answered Camille, stolidly. " I am glad that you
 
 A SCANDAL IN THE VILLAGE 223 
 
 are just not too much of a scoundrel for a gentle- 
 man to fight," 
 
 " We are detaining the lady," said Count Greg- 
 ory, with politeness; and, making a gesture sug- 
 gesting that he would have taken off his hat if he 
 had had one, he strode away up the avenue of 
 trees and eventually disappeared. He was so 
 complete an aristocrat that he could offer his back 
 to them all the way up that avenue ; and his back 
 never once looked uncomfortable. 
 
 " You must allow me to see you home," said 
 Bert to the girl, in a gruff and almost stifled 
 voice; " I think we have only a little way to go." 
 
 " Only a little way," she said, and smiled once 
 more that night, in spite of fatigue and fear and 
 the world and the flesh and the devil. The glow- 
 ing and transparent blue of twilight had long 
 been covered by the opaque and slatelike blue of 
 night, when he handed her into the lamplit inte- 
 rior of her home. He went out himself into the 
 darkness, walking sturdily, but tearing at his 
 black beard. 
 
 All the French or semi-French gentry of the 
 district considered this a case in which a duel was 
 natural and inevitable, and neither party had any 
 difficulty in finding seconds, strangers as they
 
 224 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 were in the place. Two small landowners, who 
 were careful, practising Catholics, willingly un- 
 dertook to represent that strict church-goer Ca- 
 mille Bert; while the profligate but apparently- 
 powerful Count Gregory found friends in an en- 
 ergetic local doctor who was ready for social pro- 
 motion and an accidental Californian tourist 
 who was ready for anything. As no particular 
 purpose could be served by delay, it was arranged 
 that the affair should fall out three days after- 
 ward. And when this was settled the whole com- 
 munity, as it were, turned over again in bed and 
 thought no more about the matter. At least there 
 was only one member of it who seemed to be rest- 
 less, and that was she who was commonly most 
 restful. On the next night Madeleine Durand 
 went to church as usual ; and as usual the stricken 
 Camille was there also. What was not so usual 
 was that when they were a bow-shot from the 
 church Madeleine turned round and walked back 
 to him. " Sir," she began, " it is not wrong of 
 me to speak to you," and the very words gave 
 him a jar of unexpected truth ; for in all the nov- 
 els he had ever read she would have begun : " It 
 is wrong of me to speak to you." She went on 
 with wide and serious eyes like an animal's : " It
 
 A SCANDAL IN THE VILLAGE 225 
 
 is not wrong of me to speak to you, because your 
 soul, or anybody's soul, matters so much more 
 than what the world says about anybody. I want 
 to talk to you about what you are going to do." 
 
 Bert saw in front of him the inevitable heroine 
 of the novels trying to prevent bloodshed; and 
 his pale firm face became implacable. 
 
 " I would do anything but that for you," he 
 said ; " but no man can be called less than a man." 
 
 She looked at him for a moment with a face 
 openly puzzled, and then broke into an odd and 
 beautiful half smile. 
 
 " Oh, I don't mean that," she said ; " I don't 
 talk about what I don't understand. No one has 
 ever hit me ; and if they had I should not feel as 
 a man may. I am sure it is not the best thing 
 to fight. It would be better to forgive — if one 
 could really forgive. But when people dine with 
 my father and say that fighting a duel is mere 
 murder — of course I can see that is not just. 
 It's all so different — having a reason — and let- 
 ting the other man know — and using the same 
 guns and things — and doing it in front of your 
 friends. I'm awfully stupid, but I know that 
 men like you aren't murderers. But it wasn't 
 that that I meant."
 
 226 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 " What did you mean ? " asked the other, look- 
 ing broodingly at the earth. 
 
 " Don't you know,'' she said, " there is only 
 one more celebration ? I thought that as you al- 
 ways go to church — I thought you would com- 
 municate this morning." 
 
 Bert stepped backward with a sort of action 
 she had never seen in him before. It seemed to 
 alter his whole body. 
 
 " You may be right or wrong to risk dying," 
 said the girl, simply ; " the poor women in our 
 village risk it whenever they have a baby. You 
 men are the other half of the world. I know 
 nothing about when you ought to die. But surely 
 if you are daring to try and find God beyond the 
 grave and appeal to Him — you ought to let Him 
 find you when He comes and stands there every 
 morning in our little church." 
 
 And placid as she was, she made a little gesture 
 of argument, of which the pathos wrung the 
 heart. 
 
 M. Camille Bert was by no means placid. Be- 
 fore that incomplete gesture and frankly plead- 
 ing face he retreated as if from the jaws of a 
 dragon. His dark black hair and beard looked 
 utterly unnatural against the startling pallor of
 
 A SCANDAL IN THE VILLAGE 227 
 
 his face. When at last he said something it was : 
 " O God ! I can't stand this ! " He did not say 
 it in French, Nor did he, strictly speaking, say it 
 in English, The truth (interesting only to an- 
 thropologists) is that he said it in Scotch. 
 
 " There will be another mass in a matter of 
 eight hours," said Madeleine, with a sort of busi- 
 ness eagerness and energy, " and you can do it 
 then before the fighting. You must forgive me, 
 but I was so frightened that you would not do it 
 at all." 
 
 Bert seemed to crush his teeth together until 
 they broke, and managed to say between them : 
 " And why should you suppose that I shouldn't 
 do as you say — I mean not do it at all ? " 
 
 " You always go to Mass," answered the girl, 
 opening her wide blue eyes, " and the Mass is 
 very long and tiresome unless one loves God," 
 
 Then it was that Bert exploded with a brutal- 
 ity which might have come from Count Gregory, 
 his criminal opponent. He advanced upon Made- 
 leine with flaming eyes, and almost took her by the 
 two shoulders. " I do not love God," he cried, 
 speaking French with the broadest Scotch accent ; 
 " I do not want to find Him ; I do not think He is 
 there to be found. I must burst up the show ; I
 
 228 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 must and will say everything. You are the hap- 
 piest and honestest thing I ever saw in this god- 
 less universe. And I am the dirtiest and most 
 dishonest." 
 
 Madeleine looked at him doubtfully for an in- 
 stant, and then said with a sudden simplicity and 
 cheerfulness : " Oh, but if you are really sorry it 
 is all right. If you are horribly sorry it is all 
 the better. You have only to go and tell the 
 priest so and he will give you God out of his own 
 hands." 
 
 " I hate your priest and I deny your God ! " 
 cried the man, " and I tell you God is a lie and a 
 fable and a mask. And for the first time in my 
 life I do not feel superior to God." 
 
 " What can it all mean ? " said Madeleine, in 
 massive wonder. 
 
 " Because I am a fable also and a mask," said 
 the man. He had been plucking fiercely at his 
 black beard and hair all the time; now he sud- 
 denly plucked them off and flung them like 
 moulted feathers in the mire. This extraordi- 
 nary spoliation left in the sunlight the same face, 
 but a much younger head — a head with close 
 chestnut curls and a short chestnut beard. 
 
 " Now you know the truth," he answered, with
 
 A SCANDAL IN THE VILLAGE 229 
 
 hard eyes. " I am a cad who has played a crooked 
 trick on a quiet village and a decent woman for 
 a private reason of his own. I might have played 
 it successfully on any other woman ; I have hit the 
 one woman on whom it cannot be played. It's 
 just like my damned luck. The plain truth is," 
 and here when he came to the plain truth he bog- 
 gled and blundered as Evan had done in telling it 
 to the girl in the motor-car. 
 
 " The plain truth is," he said at last, " that I 
 am James Turnbull the atheist. The police are 
 after me ; not for atheism but for being ready to 
 fight for it." 
 
 " I saw something about you in a newspaper," 
 said the girl, with a simplicity which even sur- 
 prise could never throw off its balance. 
 
 " Evan Maclan said there was a God," went 
 on the other, stubbornly, " and I say there isn't. 
 And 1 have come to fight for the fact that there 
 is no God; it is for that that I have seen this 
 cursed island and your blessed face." 
 
 " You want me really to believe," said Made- 
 leine, with parted lips, " that you think " 
 
 " I want you to hate me ! " cried Turnbull, irl 
 agony. " I want you to be sick when you think 
 of my name. I am sure there is no God."
 
 230 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 " But there is," said Madeline, quite quietly, 
 and rather with the air of one telling children 
 about an elephant. " Why, I touched His body 
 only this morning." 
 
 " You touched a bit of bread," said Turnbull, 
 biting his knuckles. " Oh, I will say anything 
 that can madden you ! " 
 
 " You think it is only a bit of bread," said the 
 girl, and her lips tightened ever so little. 
 
 " I know it is only a bit of bread," said Turn- 
 bull, with violence. 
 
 She flung back her open face and smiled. 
 " Then why did you refuse to eat it? " she said. 
 
 James Turnbull made a little step backward, 
 and for the first time in his life there seemed to 
 break out and blaze in his head thoughts that 
 were not his own. 
 
 " Wh)% how silly of them," cried out Made- 
 leine, with quite a schoolgirl gaiety, " why, how 
 silly of them to call you a blasphemer ! Why, you 
 have wrecked your whole business because you 
 would not commit blasphemy." 
 
 The man stood, a somewhat comic figure in his 
 tragic bewilderment, with the honest red head of 
 James Turnbull sticking out of the rich and fic- 
 titious garments of Camille Bert. But the start-
 
 A SCANDAL IN THE VILLAGE 231 
 
 led pain of his face was strong enough to obUt- 
 erate the oddity. 
 
 " You come down here," continued the lady, 
 with that female emphasis which is so pulverising 
 in conversation and so feeble at a public meeting, 
 " you and your Maclan come down here and put 
 on false beards or noses in order to fight. You 
 pretend to be a Catholic commercial traveller 
 from France. Poor Mr. Maclan has to pretend 
 to be a dissolute nobleman from nowhere. Your 
 scheme succeeds; you pick a quite convincing 
 quarrel; you arrange a quite respectable duel; 
 the duel you have planned so long will come off 
 to-morrow with absolute certainty and safety. 
 And then you throw off your wig and throw up 
 your scheme and throw over your colleague, be- 
 cause I ask you to go into a building and eat a 
 bit of bread. And then you dare to tell me that 
 you are sure there is nothing watching us. Then 
 you say you know there is nothing on the very 
 altar you run away from. You know " 
 
 " I only know," said Turnbull, " that I must 
 run away from you. This has got beyond any 
 talking." And he plunged along into the village, 
 leaving his black wig and beard lying behind 
 him on the road.
 
 232 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 As the market-place opened before him he saw 
 Count Gregory, that distinguished foreigner, 
 standing and smoking in elegant meditation at 
 the corner of the local cafe. He immediately 
 made his way rapidly toward him, considering 
 that a consultation was urgent. But he had 
 hardly crossed half of that stony quadrangle 
 when a window burst open above him and a head 
 was thrust out, shouting. The man was in his 
 woollen undershirt, but TurnbuU knew the ener- 
 getic, apoplectic head of the serjeant of police. 
 He pointed furiously at Turnbull and shouted 
 his name. A policeman ran excitedly from under 
 an archway and tried to collar him. Two men 
 selling vegetables dropped their baskets and 
 joined in the chase. Turnbull dodged the con- 
 stable, upset one of the men into his own basket, 
 and bounding toward the distinguished foreign 
 Count, called to him clamorously : " Come on, 
 Maclan, the hunt is up again." 
 
 The prompt reply of Count Gregory was to 
 pull off his large yellow whiskers and scatter 
 them on the breeze with an air of considerable re- 
 lief. Then he joined the flight of Turnbull, and 
 even as he did so, with one wrench of his power- 
 ful hands rent and split the strange, thick stick
 
 A SCANDAL IN THE VILLAGE 233 
 
 that he carried. Inside it was a naked old-fash- 
 ioned rapier. The two got a good start up the 
 road before the whole town was awakened behind 
 them ; and half way up it a similar transformation 
 was seen to take place in Mr. Turnbull's singular 
 umbrella. 
 
 The two had a long race for the harbour ; but 
 the English police were heavy and the French in- 
 habitants were indifferent. In any case, they got 
 used to the notion of the road being clear; and 
 just as they had come to the cliffs Maclan banged 
 into another gentleman with unmistakable sur- 
 prise. How he knew he was another gentleman 
 merely by banging into him, must remain a mys- 
 tery. Maclan was a very poor and very sober 
 Scotch gentleman. The ether was a very drunk 
 and very wealthy English gentleman. But there 
 was something in the staggered and openly em- 
 barrassed apologies that made them understand 
 each other as readily and as quickly and as much 
 as two men talking French in the middle of 
 China. The nearest expression of the type is that 
 it either hits or apologises; and in this case both 
 apologised. 
 
 " You seem to be in a hurry," said the un- 
 known Englishman, falling back a step or two in
 
 234 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 order to laugh with an unnatural heartiness. 
 " What's it all about, eh? " Then before Maclan 
 could get past his sprawling and staggering fig- 
 ure he ran forward again and said with a sort of 
 shouting and ear-shattering whisper : " I say, my 
 name is Wilkinson, You know — Wilkinson's 
 Entire was my grandfather. Can't drink beer 
 myself. Liver." And he shook his head with 
 extraordinary sagacity. 
 
 " We really are in a hurry, as you say," said 
 Maclan, summoning a sufficiently pleasant smile, 
 " so if you will let us pass " 
 
 " ril tell you what, you fellows," said the 
 sprawling gentleman, confidentially, while Evan's 
 agonised ears heard behind him the first paces of 
 the pursuit, " if you really are, as you say, in a 
 hurry, I know what it is to be in a hurry — Lord, 
 what a hurry I was in when we all came out of 
 Cartwright's rooms — if you really are in a 
 hurry — " and he seemed to steady his voice into 
 a sort of solemnity — " if you are in a hurry, 
 there's nothing like a good yacht for a man in a 
 hurry." 
 
 " No doubt you're right," said Maclan, and 
 dashed past him In despair. The head of the 
 pursuing host was just showing over the top of
 
 A SCANDAL IN THE VILLAGE 235 
 
 the hill behind him. Turnbull had already ducked 
 under the intoxicated gentleman's elbow and fled 
 far in front. 
 
 " No, but look here," said Mr. Wilkinson, en- 
 thusiastically running after Maclan and catching 
 him by the sleeve of his coat. "If you want to 
 hurry you should take a yacht, and if — " he said, 
 with a burst of rationality, like one leaping to a 
 further point in logic — " if you want a yacht — 
 you can have mine." 
 
 Evan pulled up abruptly and looked back at 
 him. " We are really in the devil of a hurry," he 
 said, " and if you really have a yacht, the truth is 
 that we would give our ears for it." 
 
 " You'll find it in harbour," said Wilkinson, 
 struggling with his speech. " Left side of har- 
 bour — called Gibson Girl — can't think why, 
 old fellow, I never lent it you before." 
 
 With these words the benevolent Mr. Wilkin- 
 son fell flat on his face in the road, but continued 
 to laugh softly, and turned toward his flying com- 
 panion a face of peculiar peace and benignity. 
 Evan's mind went through a crisis of instanta- 
 neous casuistry, in which it may be that he de- 
 cided wrongly; but about how he decided his 
 biographer can profess no doubt. Two minutes
 
 236 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 afterward he had overtaken Turnbull and told the 
 tale ; ten minutes afterward he and Turnbull had 
 somehow tumbled into the yacht called the Gib- 
 son Girl and had somehow pushed off from the 
 Isle of St. Loup,
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 THE DESERT ISLAND 
 
 Those who happen to hold the view (and Mr. 
 Evan Maclan, now aUve and comfortable, is 
 among the number) that something supernatural, 
 some eccentric kindness from god or fairy had 
 guided our adventurers through all their absurd 
 perils, might have found his strongest argument 
 perhaps in their management or mismanagement 
 of Mr. Wilkinson's yacht. Neither of them had 
 the smallest qualification for managing such a 
 vessel ; but Maclan had a practical knowledge of 
 the sea in much smaller and quite different boats, 
 while TurnbuU had an abstract knowledge of sci- 
 ence and some of its applications to navigation, 
 which was worse. The presence of the god or 
 fairy can only be deduced from the fact that they 
 never definitely ran into anything, either a boat, a 
 rock, a quicksand, or a man-of-war. Apart from 
 this negative description, their voyage would be 
 difficult to describe. It took at least a fortnight, 
 237
 
 238 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 and Maclan, who was certainly the shrewder sail- 
 or of the two, realised that they were sailing west 
 into the Atlantic and were probably by this time 
 past the Scilly Isles. How much farther they 
 stood out into the western sea it was impossible to 
 conjecture. But they felt certain, at least, that 
 they were far enough into that awful gulf between 
 us and America to make it unlikely that they 
 would soon see land again. It was therefore 
 with legitimate excitement that one rainy morn- 
 ing after daybreak they saw the distinct shape of 
 a solitary island standing up against that encir- 
 cling strip of silver which ran round the skyline 
 and separated the gray and green of the billows 
 from the gray and mauve of the morning clouds. 
 
 " What can it be ? " cried Maclan, in a dry- 
 throated excitement. " I didn't know there were 
 any Atlantic islands so far beyond the Scillies — 
 Good Lord, it can't be Madeira, yet? " 
 
 " I thought you were fond of legends and lies 
 and fables," said Turnbull, grimly. " Perhaps 
 it's Atlantis." 
 
 " Of course, it might be," answered the other, 
 quite innocently and gravely ; " but I never 
 thought the story about Atlantis was very sol- 
 idly established."
 
 THE DESERT ISLAND 239 
 
 " Whatever it is, we are running on to it," said 
 Turnbull, equably, " and we shall be shipwrecked 
 twice, at any rate." 
 
 The naked looking nose of land projecting 
 from the unknown island was, indeed, growing 
 larger and larger, like the trunk of some terrible 
 and advancing elephant. There seemed to be 
 nothing in particular, at least on this side of the 
 island, except shoals of shell-fish lying so thick 
 as almost to make it look like one of those toy 
 grottos that the children make. In one place, 
 however, the coast offered a soft, smooth bay of 
 sand, and even the rudimentary ingenuity 6f 
 the two amateur mariners managed to run up the 
 little ship with her prow well on shore and her 
 bowsprit pointing upward, as in a sort of idiotic 
 triumph. 
 
 They tumbled on shore and began to unload 
 the vessel, setting the stores out in rows upon 
 the sand with something of the solemnity of boys 
 playing at pirates. There were Mr. Wilkinson's 
 cigar-boxes and Mr. Wilkinson's dozen of cham- 
 pagne and Mr. Wilkinson's tinned salmon and 
 Mr. Wilkinson's tinned tongue and Mr. Wilkin- 
 son's tinned sardines, and every sort of preserved 
 thing that could be seen at the Army and Navy
 
 240 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 stores. Then Maclan stopped with a jar of 
 pickles in his hand and said abruptly : 
 
 " I don't know why we're doing all this ; I sup- 
 pose we ought really to fall to and get it over." 
 
 Then he added more thoughtfully : " Of course 
 this island seems rather bare and the sur- 
 vivor " 
 
 " The question is," said Turnbull, with cheer- 
 ful speculation, " whether the survivor will be in 
 a proper frame of mind for potted prawns." 
 
 Maclan looked down at the rows of tins and 
 bottles, and the cloud of doubt still lowered upon 
 his face. 
 
 *' You will permit me two liberties, my dear 
 sir," said Turnbull at last : " The first is to break 
 open this box and light one of Mr. Wilkinson's 
 excellent cigars, which will, I am sure, assist my 
 meditations; the second is to offer a penny for 
 your thoughts; or rather to convulse the already 
 complex finances of this island by betting a penny 
 that I know them." 
 
 "What on earth are you talking about?" 
 asked Maclan, listlessly, in the manner of an in- 
 attentive child. 
 
 " I know what you are really thinking, Mac- 
 lan," repeated Turnbull, laughing. " I know
 
 THE DESERT ISLAND 241 
 
 what I am thinking, anyhow. And I rather fancy 
 it's the same." 
 
 " What are you thinking ? " asked Evan. 
 
 " I am thinking and you are thinking," said 
 Turnbull, " that it is damned silly to waste all 
 that champagne." 
 
 Something like the spectre of a smile appeared 
 on the unsmiling visage of the Gael ; and he made 
 at least no movement of dissent. 
 
 " We could drink all the wine and smoke all 
 the cigars easily in a week," said Turnbull ; " and 
 that would be to die feasting like heroes." 
 
 " Yes, and there is something else," said Mac- 
 Ian, with slight hesitation. " You see, we are on 
 an almost unknown rock, lost in the Atlantic. 
 The police will never catch us; but then neither 
 may the public ever hear of us ; and that was one 
 of the things we wanted." Then, after a pause, 
 he said, drawing in the sand with his sword- 
 point: " She may never hear of it at all." 
 
 " Well ? " inquired the other, puffing at his 
 cigar. 
 
 " Well," said Maclan, " we might occupy a 
 day or two in drawing up a thorough and com- 
 plete statement of what we did and why we did 
 it, and all about both our points of view. Then
 
 242 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 we could leave one copy on the island whatever 
 happens to us and put another in an empty bottle 
 and send it out to sea, as they do in the books." 
 
 " A good idea," said Turnbull, " and now let 
 us finish unpacking"." 
 
 As Maclan, a tall, almost ghostly figure, paced 
 along the edge of sand that ran round the islet, 
 the purple but cloudy poetry which was his native 
 element was piled up at its thickest upon his soul. 
 The unique island and the endless sea emphasised 
 the thing solely as an epic. There were no ladies 
 or policemen here to give him a hint either of its 
 farce or its tragedy. 
 
 "Perhaps when the morning stars were made," 
 he said to himself, " God built this island up from 
 the bottom of the world to be a tower and a the- 
 atre for the fight between yea and nay." 
 
 Then he wandered up to the highest level of 
 the rock, where there was a roof or plateau of 
 level stone. Half an hour afterward, Turnbull 
 found him clearing away the loose sand from this 
 table-land and making it smooth and even. 
 
 " We will fight up here, Turnbull," said Mac- 
 Ian, " when the time comes. And till the time 
 comes this place shall be sacred." 
 
 " I thought of having lunch up here," said
 
 THE DESERT ISLAND 243 
 
 Turnbull, who had a bottle of champagne in his 
 hand. 
 
 " No, no — not up here," said Maclan, and 
 came down from the height quite hastily. Before 
 he descended, however, he fixed the two swords 
 upright, one at each end of the platform, as if 
 they were human sentinels to guard it under the 
 stars. 
 
 Then they came down and lunched plentifully 
 in a nest of loose rocks. In the same place that 
 night they supped more plentifully still. The 
 smoke of Mr. Wilkinson's cigars went up cease- 
 less and strong smelling, like a pagan sacrifice; 
 the golden glories of Mr. Wilkinson's champagne 
 rose to their heads and poured out of them in fan- 
 cies and philosophies. And occasionally they 
 would look up at the starlight and the rock and 
 see the space guarded by the two cross-hilted 
 swords, which looked like two black crosses at 
 either end of a grave. 
 
 In this primitive and Homeric truce the week 
 passed by; it consisted almost entirely of eating, 
 drinking, smoking, talking, and occasionally 
 singing. They wrote their records and cast loose 
 their bottle. They never ascended to the ominous 
 plateau ; they had never stood there save for that
 
 244 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 single embarrassed minute when they had had 
 no time to take stock of the seascape or the shape 
 of the land. They did not even explore the isl- 
 and ; for Maclan was partly concerned in prayer 
 and Turnbull entirely concerned with tobacco ; and 
 both these forms of inspiration can be enjoyed 
 by the secluded and even the sedentary. It was 
 on a golden afternoon, the sun sinking over the 
 sea, rayed like the very head of Apollo, when 
 Turnbull tossed off the last half pint from the 
 emptied Wilkinsonian bottle, hurled the bottle 
 into the sea with objectless energy, and went up 
 to where his sword stood waiting for him on the 
 hill. Maclan was already standing heavily by his 
 with bent head and eyes reading the ground. He 
 had not even troubled to throw a glance round 
 the island or the horizon. But Turnbull being of 
 a more active and birdlike type of mind did throw 
 a glance round the scene. The consequence of 
 which was that he nearly fell off the rock. 
 
 On three sides of this shelly and sandy islet the 
 sea stretched blue and infinite without a speck of 
 land or sail; the same as Turnbull had first seen 
 it, except that the tide being out it showed a few 
 yards more of slanting sand under the roots of 
 the rocks. But on the fourth side the island ex-
 
 THE DESERT ISLAND 245 
 
 hibited a more extraordinary feature. In fact, it 
 exhibited the extraordinary feature of not being 
 an island at all. A long, curving neck of sand, 
 as smooth and wet as the neck of the sea-serpent, 
 ran out into the sea and joined their rock to a line 
 of low, billowing and glistening sand-hills, which 
 the sinking sea had just bared to the sun. 
 Whether they were firm sand or quicksand it was 
 difficult to guess ; but there was at least no doubt 
 that they lay on the edge of some larger land ; for 
 colourless hills appeared faintly behind them and 
 no sea could be seen beyond. 
 
 " Sakes alive ! " cried Turnbull, with rolling 
 eyes ; " this ain't an island in the Atlantic. We've 
 butted the bally continent of America." 
 
 Maclan turned his head, and his face, already 
 pale, grew a shade paler. He was by this time 
 walking in a world of omens and hieroglyphics, 
 and he could not read anything but what was 
 baffling or menacing in this brown gigantic arm 
 of the earth stretched out into the sea to seize 
 him. 
 
 " Maclan," said Turnbull, in his temperate 
 way, " whatever our eternal interrupted tete-a- 
 tetes have taught us or not taught us, at least we 
 need not fear the charge of fear. If it is essential
 
 246 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 to your emotions, I will cheerfully finish the fight 
 here and now ; but I must confess that if you kill 
 me here I shall die with my curiosity highly ex- 
 cited and unsatisfied upon a minor point of 
 geography." 
 
 " I do not want to stop now," said the other, in 
 his elephantine simplicity, " but we must stop for 
 a moment, because it is a sign — perhaps it is a 
 miracle. We must see what is at the end of the 
 road of sand ; it may be a bridge built across the 
 gulf by God." 
 
 " So long as you gratify my query," said 
 Turnbull, laughing and letting back his blade into 
 the sheath, " I do not care for what reason you 
 choose to stop. 
 
 They clambered down the rocky peninsula and 
 trudged along the sandy isthmus with the plod- 
 ding resolution of men who seemed almost to 
 have made up their minds to be wanderers on the 
 face of the earth. Despite Turnbull's air of scien- 
 tific eagerness, he was really the less impatient of 
 the two; and the Highlander went on well ahead 
 of him with passionate strides. By the time they 
 had walked for about half an hour in the ups and 
 downs of those dreary sands, the distance be- 
 tween the two had lengthened and Maclan was
 
 THE DESERT ISLAND 247 
 
 only a tall figure silhouetted for an instant upon 
 the crest of some sand dune and then disappear- 
 ing behind it. This rather increased the Robin- 
 son Crusoe feeling in Mr. Turnbull, and he 
 looked about almost disconsolately for some sign 
 of life. What sort of life he expected it to be if 
 it appeared, he did not very clearly know. He 
 has since confessed that he thinks that in his sub- 
 consciousness he expected an alligator. 
 
 The first sign of life that he did see, however, 
 was something more extraordinary than the lar- 
 gest alligator. It was nothing less than the noto- 
 rious Mr. Evan Maclan coming bounding back 
 across the sand heaps breathless, without his cap 
 and keeping the sword in his hand only by a habit 
 now quite hardened. 
 
 " Take care, Turnbull," he cried out from a 
 good distance as he ran, " I've seen a native." 
 
 "A native?" repeated his companion, whose 
 scenery had of late been chiefly of shell-fish, 
 " what the deuce! Do you mean an oyster? " 
 
 " No," said Maclan, stopping and breathing 
 hard, " I mean a savage. A black man." 
 
 "Why, where did you see him?" asked the 
 staring editor. 
 
 " Over there — behind that hill," said the gasp-
 
 248 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 ing Maclan. " He put up his black head and 
 grinned at me." 
 
 Turnbull thrust his hands through his red hair 
 hke one who gives up the world as a bad riddle. 
 " Lord love a duck," said he, " can it be Ja- 
 maica? " 
 
 Then glancing at his companion with a small 
 frown, as of one slightly suspicious, he said : " I 
 say, don't think me rude — but you're a visionary 
 kind of fellow — and then we drank a great deal. 
 Do you mind waiting here while I go and see for 
 myself?" 
 
 " Shout if you get into trouble," said the 
 Celt, with composure ; " you will find it is as I 
 say." 
 
 Turnbull ran off ahead with a rapidity now far 
 greater than his rival's, and soon vanished over 
 the disputed sand-hill. Then five minutes passed, 
 and then seven minutes; and Maclan bit his lip 
 and swung his sword, and the other did not reap- 
 pear. Finally, with a Gaelic oath, Evan started 
 forward to the rescue, and almost at the same mo- 
 ment the small figure of the missing man ap- 
 peared on the ridge against the sky. 
 
 Even at that distance, however, there was 
 something odd about his attitude; so odd that
 
 THE DESERT ISLAND 249 
 
 Maclan continued to make his way in that direc- 
 tion. It looked as if he were wounded ; or, still 
 more, as if he were ill. He wavered as he came 
 down the slope and seemed flinging himself into 
 peculiar postures. But it was only when he came 
 within three feet of Maclan's face, that that ob- 
 server of mankind fully realised that Mr. James 
 Turnbull was roaring with laughter. 
 
 " You are quite right," sobbed that wholly de- 
 moralised journalist. " He's black, oh, there's no 
 doubt the black's all right — as far as it goes." 
 And he went ofif again into convulsions of his 
 humourous ailment. 
 
 " What ever is the matter with you ? " asked 
 Maclan, with stern impatience. " Did you see 
 the nigger " 
 
 " I saw the nigger," gasped Turnbull. " I saw 
 the splendid barbarian Chief. I saw the Emperor 
 of Ethiopia — oh, I saw him all right. The nig- 
 ger's hands and face are a lovely colour — and 
 the nigger — " And he was overtaken once more. 
 
 " Well, well, well," said Evan, stamping each 
 monosyllable on the sand, " what about the 
 nigger?" 
 
 " Well, the truth is," said Turnbull, suddenly 
 and startlingly, becoming quite grave and precise,
 
 250 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 " the truth is, the nigger is a Margate nigger, 
 and we are now on the edge of the Isle of Thanet, 
 a few miles from Margate." 
 
 Then he had a momentary return of his hyste- 
 ria and said : " I say, old boy, I should like to see 
 a chart of our fortnight's cruise in Wilkinson's 
 yacht." 
 
 Maclan had no smile in answer, but his eager 
 lips opened as if parched for the truth. " You 
 mean to say," he began 
 
 " Yes, I mean to say," said Turnbull, " and I 
 mean to say something funnier still. I have 
 learnt everything I wanted to know from the 
 partially black musician over there, who has taken 
 a run in his war-paint to meet a friend in a quiet 
 pub. along the coast — the noble savage has told 
 me all about it. The bottle containing our dec- 
 larations, doctrines, and dying sentiments was 
 washed up on Margate beach yesterday in the 
 presence of one alderman, two bathing-machine 
 men, three policemen, seven doctors, and a hun- 
 dred and thirteen London clerks on a holiday, to 
 all of whom, whether directly or indirectly, our 
 composition gave enormous literary pleasure. 
 Buck up, old man, this story of ours is a switch- 
 back. I have begun to understand the pulse and
 
 THE DESERT ISLAND 251 
 
 the time of it; now we are up in a cathedral and 
 then we are down in a theatre, where they only 
 play farces. Come, I am quite reconciled — let 
 us enjoy the farce." 
 
 But Maclan said nothing, and an instant after- 
 ward Turnbull himself called out in an entirely 
 changed voice : " Oh, this is damnable ! This is 
 not to be borne ! " 
 
 Maclan followed his eye along the sand-hills. 
 He saw what looked like the momentary and wav- 
 ing figure of the nigger minstrel, and then he saw 
 a heavy running policeman take the turn of the 
 sand-hill with the smooth solemnity of a railway 
 train.
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 THE GARDEN OF PEACE 
 
 Up to this instant Evan Maclan had really un- 
 derstood nothing; but when he saw the police- 
 man he saw everything. He saw his enemies, all 
 the powers and princes of the earth. He was 
 suddenly altered from a staring statue to a leap- 
 ing man of the mountains. 
 
 " We must break away from him here," he 
 cried, briefly, and went like a whirlwind over the 
 sand ridge in a straight line and at a particular 
 angle. When the policeman had finished his ad- 
 mirable railway curve, he found a wall of failing 
 sand between him and the pursued. By the time 
 he had scaled it thrice, slid down twice, and 
 crested it in the third effort, the two flying figures 
 were far in front. They found the sand harder 
 farther on ; it began to be crusted with scraps of 
 turf and in a few moments they were flying 
 easily over an open common of rank sea-grass. 
 They had no easy business, however ; for the bot- 
 352
 
 THE GARDEN OF PEACE 253 
 
 tie which they had so innocently sent into the 
 chief gate of Thanet had called to life the police 
 of half a county on their trail. From every side 
 across the gray-green common figures could be 
 seen running and closing in; and it was only 
 when Maclan with his big body broke down the 
 tangled barrier of a little wood, as men break 
 down a door with the shoulder ; it was only when 
 they vanished crashing into the under world of 
 the black wood, that their hunters were even in- 
 stantaneously thrown off the scent. 
 
 At the risk of struggling a little longer like 
 flies in that black web of twigs and trunks, Evan 
 (who had an instinct of the hunter or the 
 hunted) took an incalculable course through the 
 forest, which let them out at last by a forest open- 
 ing — quite forgotten by the leaders of the chase. 
 They ran a mile or two farther along the edge of 
 the wood until they reached another and some- 
 what similar opening. Then Maclan stood ut- 
 terly still and listened, as animals listen, for every 
 sound in the universe. Then he siaid : " We are 
 quit of them." And Turnbull said : " Where 
 shall we go now ? " 
 
 Maclan looked at the silver sunset that was 
 closing in, barred by plumy lines of purple cloud ;
 
 254 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 he looked at the high tree-tops that caught the 
 last light and at the birds going heavily home- 
 ward, just as if all these things were bits of writ- 
 ten advice that he could read. 
 
 Then he said : " The best place we can go to 
 is to bed. If we can get some sleep in this wood, 
 now every one has cleared out of it, it will be 
 worth a handicap of two hundred yards to- 
 morrow." 
 
 Turnbull, who was exceptionally lively and 
 laughing in his demeanour, kicked his legs about 
 like a schoolboy and said he did not want to go 
 to sleep. He walked incessantly and talked very 
 brilliantly. And when at last he lay down on the 
 hard earth, sleep struck him senseless like a 
 hammer. 
 
 Indeed, he needed the strongest sleep he could 
 get; for the earth was still full of darkness and 
 a kind of morning fog when his fellow-fugitive 
 shook him awake. 
 
 " No more sleep, I'm afraid," said Evan, 
 in a heavy, almost submissive, voice of apol- 
 ogy. " They've gone on past us right enough 
 for a good thirty miles; but now they've 
 found out their mistake, and they're coming 
 back."
 
 THE GARDEN OF PEACE 255 
 
 " Are you sure? " said Turnbull, sitting up and 
 rubbing his red eyebrows with his hand. 
 
 The next moment, however, he had jumped up 
 ahve and leaping Hke a man struck with a shock 
 of cold water, and he was plunging after Maclan 
 along the woodland path. The shape of their old 
 friend the constable had appeared against the 
 pearl and pink of the sunrise. Somehow, it al- 
 ways looked a very funny shape when seen 
 against the sunrise. 
 
 A wash of weary daylight was breaking over 
 the country side, and the fields and roads were 
 full of white mist — the kind of white mist that 
 clings in corners like cotton wool. The empty 
 road, along which the chase had taken its turn, 
 was overshadowed on one side by a very high 
 discoloured wall, stained, and streaked green, as 
 with seaweed — evidently the high-shouldered 
 sentinel of some great gentleman's estate. A 
 yard or two from the wall ran parallel to it a 
 linked and tangled line of lime-trees, forming a 
 kind of cloister along the side of the road. It was 
 under this branching colonnade that the two fugi- 
 tives fled, almost concealed from their pursuers 
 by the twilight, the mist and the leaping zoetrope
 
 256 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 of shadows. Their feet, though beating the 
 ground furiously, made but a faint noise; for 
 they had kicked away their boots in the wood; 
 their long, antiquated weapons made no jingle 
 or clatter, for they had strapped them across 
 their backs like guitars. They had all the ad- 
 vantages that invisibility and silence can add to 
 speed. 
 
 A hundred and fifty yards behind them down 
 the centre of the empty road the first of their 
 pursuers came pounding and panting — a fat but 
 powerful policeman who had distanced all the 
 rest. He came on at a splendid pace for so portly 
 a figure; but, like all heavy bodies in motion, he 
 gave the impression that it would be easier for 
 him to increase his pace than to slacken it sud- 
 denly. Nothing short of a brick wall could have 
 abruptly brought him up. Turnbull turned his 
 head slightly and found breath to say something 
 to Maclan. Maclan nodded. 
 
 Pursuer and pursued were fixed in their dis- 
 tance as they fled, for some quarter of a mile, 
 when they came to a place where two or three of 
 the trees grew twistedly together, making a 
 special obscurity. Past this place the pursuing 
 policeman went thundering without thought or
 
 THE GARDEN OF PEACE 257 
 
 hesitation. But he was pursuing his shadow or 
 the wind; for TurnbuU had put one foot in a 
 crack of the tree and gone up it as quickly and 
 softly as a cat. Somewhat more laboriously but 
 in equal silence the long legs of the Highlander 
 had followed ; and crouching in crucial silence in 
 the cloud of leaves, they saw the whole posse of 
 their pursuers go by and die into the dust and 
 mists of the distance. 
 
 The white vapour lay, as it often does, in lean 
 and palpable layers ; and even the head of the tree 
 was above it in the half daylight, like a green ship 
 swinging on a sea of foam. But higher yet be- 
 hind them, and readier to catch the first coming 
 of the sun, ran the rampart of the top of the wall, 
 which in their excitement of escape looked at 
 once indispensable and unattainable, like the wall 
 of heaven. Here, however, it was Maclan's 
 turn to have the advantage; for, though less 
 light-limbed and feline, he was longer and 
 stronger in the arms. In two seconds he had 
 tugged up his chin over the wall like a horizontal 
 bar ; the next he sat astride of it, like a horse of 
 stone. With his assistance Turnbull vaulted to the 
 same perch, and the two began cautiously to shift 
 along the wall in the direction by which they had
 
 258 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 come, doubling on their tracks to throw off the 
 last pursuit. Maclan could not rid himself of the 
 fancy of bestriding a steed ; the long, gray coping 
 of the wall shot out in front of him, like the long, 
 gray neck of some nightmare Rosinante. He 
 had the quaint thought that he and Turnbull were 
 the two knights on one steed on the old shield of 
 the Templars. 
 
 The nightmare of the stone horse was in- 
 creased by the white fog, which seemed thicker 
 inside the wall than outside. They could make 
 nothing of the enclosure upon which they were 
 partial trespassers, except that the green and 
 crooked branches of a big apple-tree came crawl- 
 ing at them out of the mist, like the tentacles of 
 some green cuttlefish. Anything would serve, 
 however, that was likely to confuse their trail, so 
 they both decided without need of words to use 
 this tree also as a ladder — a ladder of descent. 
 When they dropped from the lowest branch to 
 the ground their stockinged feet felt hard gravel 
 beneath them. 
 
 They had alighted in the middle of a very 
 broad garden-path, and the clearing mist per- 
 mitted them to see the edge of a well-clipped 
 lawn. Though the white vapour was still a veil,
 
 THE GARDEN OF PEACE 259 
 
 it was like the gauzy veil of a transformation 
 scene in a pantomime ; for through it there glowed 
 shapeless masses of colour, masses which might 
 be clouds of sunrise or mosaics of gold and 
 crimson, or ladies robed in ruby and emerald 
 draperies. As it thinned yet further they saw 
 that it was only flowers; but flowers in such in- 
 solent mass and magnificence as can seldom be 
 seen out of the tropics. Purple and crimson rho- 
 dodendrons rose arrogantly, like rampant heraldic 
 animals against their burning background of 
 laburnum gold. The roses were red hot; the 
 clematis was, so to speak, blue hot. And yet the 
 mere whiteness of the syringa seemed the most 
 violent colour of all. As the golden sunlight 
 gradually conquered the mists, it had really some- 
 thing of the sensational sweetness of the slow 
 opening of the gates of Eden, Maclan, whose 
 mind was always haunted with such seraphic or 
 titanic parallels, made some such remark to his 
 companion. But Turnbull only cursed and said 
 that it was the back garden of some damnable 
 rich man. 
 
 When the last haze had faded from the ordered 
 paths, the open lawns, and the flaming flower- 
 beds, the two realised, not without an abrupt re-
 
 a6o THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 examination of their position, that they were not 
 alone in the garden. 
 
 Down the centre of the central garden-path, 
 preceded by a blue cloud from a cigarette, was 
 walking a gentleman who evidently understood 
 all the relish of a garden in the very early morn- 
 ing. He was a slim yet satisfied figure, clad in 
 a suit of pale-gray tweed, so subdued that the 
 pattern was imperceptible — a costume that was 
 casual but not by any means careless. His face, 
 which was reflective and somewhat overrefined, 
 was the face of a quite elderly man, though his 
 stringy hair and moustache were still quite yel- 
 low. A double eyeglass, with a broad, black rib- 
 bon, drooped from his aquiline nose, and he 
 smiled, as he communed with himself, with a self- 
 content which was rare and almost irritating. 
 The straw panama on his head was many shades 
 shabbier than his clothes, as if he had caught it 
 up by accident. 
 
 It needed the full shock of the huge shadow of 
 Maclan, falling across his sunlit path, to rouse 
 him from his smiling reverie. When this had 
 fallen on him he lifted his head a little and 
 blinked at the intruders with short-sighted be- 
 nevolence, but with far less surprise than might
 
 THE GARDEN OF PEACE 261 
 
 have been expected. He was a gentleman; that 
 is, he had social presence of mind, whether for 
 kindness or for insolence, 
 
 "Can I do anything for you?" he said, at 
 last. 
 
 Maclan bowed. " You can extend to us your 
 pardon," he said, for he also came of a whole race 
 of gentlemen — of gentlemen without shirts to 
 their backs. " I am afraid we are trespassing. 
 We have just come over the wall." 
 
 " Over the wall ? " repeated the smiling old 
 gentleman, still without letting his surprise come 
 uppermost. 
 
 " I suppose I am not wrong, sir," continued 
 Maclan, " in supposing that these grounds inside 
 the wall belong to you ? " 
 
 The man in the panama looked at the ground 
 and smoked thoughtfully for a few moments. 
 after which he said, with a sort of matured con- 
 viction : 
 
 " Yes, certainly ; the grounds inside the wall 
 really belong to me, and the grounds outside the 
 wall, too." 
 
 " A large proprietor, I imagine," said Turn- 
 bull, with a truculent eye. 
 
 " Yes," answered the old gentleman, looking
 
 262 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 at him with a steady smile. " A large pro- 
 prietor." 
 
 Turnbull's eye grew even more offensive, and 
 he began biting his red beard; but Maclan 
 seemed to recognise a type with which he could 
 deal and continued quite easily : 
 
 " I am sure that a man like you will not need 
 to be told that one sees and does a good many 
 things that do not get into the newspapers. 
 Things which, on the whole, had better not get 
 into the newspapers." 
 
 The smile of the large proprietor broadened 
 for a moment under his loose, light moustache, 
 and the other continued with increased confi- 
 dence : 
 
 " One sometimes wants to have it out with 
 another man. The police won't allow it in the 
 streets — and then there's the County Council — 
 and in the fields even nothing's allowed but 
 posters of pills. But in a gentleman's garden, 
 now " 
 
 The strange gentleman smiled again and said, 
 easily enough: "Do you want to fight? What 
 do you want to fight about? " 
 
 Maclan had understood his man pretty well up 
 to that point ; an instinct common to all men with
 
 THE GARDEN OF PEACE 263 
 
 the aristocratic tradition of Europe had guided 
 him. He knew that the kind of man who in his 
 own back garden wears good clothes and spoils 
 them with a bad hat is not the kind of man who 
 has an abstract horror of illegal actions or vio- 
 lence or the evasion of the police. But a man 
 may Understand ragging and yet be very far from 
 understanding religious ragging. This seeming 
 host of theirs might comprehend a quarrel of 
 husband and lover or a difficulty at cards or even 
 escape from a pursuing tailor; but it still re- 
 mained doubtful whether he would feel the earth 
 fail under him in that earthquake instant when 
 the Virgin is compared to a goddess of Mesopo- 
 tamia. Even Maclan, therefore (whose tact was 
 far from being his strong point), felt the neces- 
 sity for some compromise in the mode of ap- 
 proach. At last he said, and even then with 
 hesitation : 
 
 " We are fighting about God ; there can be 
 nothing so important as that." 
 
 The tilted eyeglasses of the old gentleman 
 fell abruptly from his nose, and he thrust his 
 aristocratic chin so far forward that his 
 lean neck seemed to shoot out longer like a tele- 
 scope.
 
 264 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 " About God ? " he queried, in a key com- 
 pletely new. 
 
 " Look here ! " cried Turnbull, taking his turn 
 roughly, " I'll tell you what it's all about. I think 
 that there's no God. I take it that it's nobody's 
 business but mine — or God's, if there is one. This 
 young gentleman from the Highlands happens to 
 think that it's his business. In consequence, he 
 first takes a walking-stick and smashes my shop ; 
 then he takes the same walking-stick and tries to 
 smash me. To this I naturally object. I suggest 
 that if it comes to that we should both have 
 sticks. He improves on the suggestion and 
 proposes that we should both have steel- 
 pointed sticks. The police (with character- 
 istic unreasonableness) will not accept either 
 of our proposals; the result is that we run 
 about dodging the police and have jumped over 
 your garden-wall into your magnificent garden 
 to throw ourselves on your magnificent hospi- 
 tality." 
 
 The face of the old gentleman had grown red- 
 der and redder during this address, but it was 
 still smiling; and when he broke out it was with 
 a kind of gufifaw. 
 
 " So you really want to fight with drawn
 
 THE GARDEN OF PEACE 265 
 
 swords in my garden," he asked, " about whether 
 there is really a God? " 
 
 "Why not?" said Maclan, with his simple 
 monstrosity of speech ; " all man's worship began 
 when the Garden of Eden was founded." 
 
 " Yes, by ! " said Turnbull, with an oath, 
 
 " and ended when the Zoological Gardens were 
 founded." 
 
 " In this garden ! In my presence ! " cried the 
 stranger, stamping up and down the gravel and 
 choking with laughter, " whether there is a 
 God ! " And he went stamping up and down the 
 garden, making it echo with his unintelligible 
 laughter. Then he came back to them more com- 
 posed and wiping his eyes. 
 
 " Why, how small the world is! " he cried at 
 last. " I can settle the whole matter. Why, I 
 am God ! " 
 
 And he suddenly began to kick and wave his 
 well-clad legs about the lawn. 
 
 " You are what ? " repeated Turnbull, in a tone 
 which is beyond description. 
 
 "Why, God, of course! " answered the other, 
 thoroughly amused. " How funny it is to think 
 that you have tumbled over a garden-wall and 
 fallen exactly on the right person! You might
 
 266 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 have gone floundering- about in all sorts of 
 churches and chapels and colleges and schools of 
 philosophy looking for some evidence of the ex- 
 istence of God. Why, there is no evidence, ex- 
 cept seeing him. And now you've seen him. 
 You've seen him dance ! " 
 
 And the obliging old gentleman instantly stood 
 on one leg without relaxing at all the grave and 
 cultured benignity of his expression. 
 
 *' I understood that this garden — " began the 
 bewildered Maclan, 
 
 " Quite so ! Quite so ! " said the man on one 
 leg, nodding gravely. " I said this garden be- 
 longed to me and the land outside it. So they do. 
 So does the country beyond that and the sea be- 
 yond that and all the rest of the earth. So does 
 the moon. So do the sun and stars." And he 
 added, with a smile of apology : " You see, I'm 
 God." 
 
 Turnbull and Maclan looked at him for one 
 moment with a sort of notion that perhaps he was 
 not too old to be merely playing the fool. But 
 after staring steadily for an instant Turnbull saw 
 the hard and horrible earnestness in the man's 
 eyes behind all his empty animation. Then 
 Turnbull looked very gravely at the strict gravel
 
 THE GARDEN OF PEACE 267 
 
 walks and the gay flower-beds and the long rec- 
 tangular red-brick building, which the mist had 
 left evident beyond them. Then he looked at 
 Maclan. 
 
 Almost at the same moment another man came 
 walking quickly round the regal clump of rhodo- 
 dendrons. He had the look of a prosperous 
 banker, wore a good tall silk hat, was almost 
 stout enough to burst the buttons of a fine frock- 
 coat; but he was talking to himself, and one of 
 his elbows had a singular outward jerk as he 
 went by.
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 A MUSEUM OF SOULS 
 
 The man with the good hat and the jumping 
 elbow went by very quickly ; yet the man with the 
 bad hat, who thought he was God, overtook him. 
 He ran after him and jumped over a bed of gera- 
 niums to catch him. 
 
 " I beg your Majesty's pardon," he said, with 
 mock humility, " but here is a quarrel which you 
 ought really to judge." 
 
 Then as he led the heavy, silk-hatted man back 
 toward the group, he caught Maclan's ear in 
 order to whisper : " This poor gentleman is mad ; 
 he thinks he is Edward VH." At this the self- 
 appointed Creator slightly winked. " Of course 
 you won't trust him much ; come to me for every- 
 thing. But in my position one has to meet so 
 many people. One has to be broadminded." 
 
 The big banker in the black frock-coat and hat 
 was standing quite grave and dignified on the 
 lawn, save for his slight twitch of one limb, and 
 268
 
 A MUSEUM OF SOULS 269 
 
 he did not seem by any means unworthy of the 
 part which the other promptly forced upon him. 
 
 " My dear fellow," said the man in the straw 
 hat, " these two gentlemen are going to fight a 
 duel of the utmost importance. Your own royal 
 position and my much humbler one surely indi- 
 cate us as the proper seconds. Seconds — yes, sec- 
 onds — " and here the speaker was once more 
 shaken with his old malady of laughter. 
 
 " Yes, you and I are both seconds — and these 
 two gentlemen can obviously fight in front of us. 
 You, he-he, are the king. I am God ; really, they 
 could hardly have better supporters. They have 
 come to the right place." 
 
 Then Turnbull, who had been staring with a 
 frown at the fresh turf, burst out with a rather 
 bitter laugh and cried, throwing his red head in 
 the air : 
 
 " Yes, by God, Maclan, I think we have come 
 to the right place!" And Maclan answered, 
 with an adamantine stupidity : 
 
 " Any place is the right place where they will 
 let us do it." 
 
 There was a long stillness, and their eyes invol- 
 untarily took in the landscape, as they had taken 
 in all the landscapes of their everlasting combat ;
 
 270 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 the bright, square garden behind the shop; the 
 whole lift and leaning of the side of Hampstead 
 Heath; the little garden of the decadent choked 
 with flowers ; the square of sand beside the sea at 
 sunrise. They both felt at the same moment all 
 the breadth and blossoming beauty of that para- 
 dise, the coloured trees, the natural and restful 
 nooks and also the great wall of stone — more 
 awful than the wall of China — from which no 
 flesh could flee. 
 
 Turnbull was moodily balancing his sword in 
 his hand as the other spoke; then he started, for 
 a mouth whispered quite close to his ear. With 
 a softness incredible in any cat, the huge, heavy 
 man in the black hat and frock-coat had crept 
 across the lawn from his own side and was say- 
 ing in his ear : " Don't trust that second of yours. 
 He's mad and not so mad, either ; for he's fright- 
 fully cunning and sharp. Don't believe the story 
 he tells you about why I hate him. I know the 
 story he'll tell; I overheard it when the house- 
 keeper was talking to the postman. It's too long 
 to talk about now, and I expect we're watched, 
 but " 
 
 Something in Turnbull made him want sud- 
 denly to be sick on the grass; the mere healthy
 
 A MUSEUM OF SOULS 271 
 
 and heathen horror of the unclean; the mere in- 
 humane hatred of the inhuman state of madness. 
 He seemed to hear all round him the hateful 
 whispers of that place, innumerable as leaves 
 whispering in the wind, and each of them telling 
 eagerly some evil that had not happened or some 
 terrific secret which was not true. All the ration- 
 alist and plain man revolted within him against 
 bowing down for a moment in that forest of de- 
 ception and egotistical darkness. He wanted to 
 blow up that palace of delusions with dynamite; 
 and in some wild way, which I will not defend, 
 he tried to do it. 
 
 He looked across at Maclan and said : " Oh, I 
 can't stand this ! " 
 
 " Can't stand what? " asked his opponent, eye- 
 ing him doubtfully. 
 
 " Shall we say the atmosphere?" replied Turn- 
 bull ; " one can't use uncivil expressions even to 
 a — deity. The fact is, I don't like having God 
 for my second." 
 
 " Sir ! " said that being in a state of great 
 offence, " in my position I am not used to hav- 
 ing my favours refused. Do you know who 
 lam?" 
 
 The editor of " The Atheist " turned upon him
 
 272 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 like one who has lost all patience, and exploded : 
 "Yes, you are God, aren't you?" he said, ab- 
 ruptly, " why do we have two sets of teeth? " 
 
 "Teeth?*' spluttered the genteel lunatic; 
 "teeth?" 
 
 " Yes," cried Turnbull, advancing on him 
 swiftly and with animated gestures, " why does 
 teething hurt? Why do growing pains hurt? 
 Why are measles catching? Why does a rose 
 have thorns? Why do rhinoceroses have 
 horns ? Why is the horn on the top of the nose ? 
 Why haven't I a horn on the top of my nose, 
 eh ? " And he struck the bridge of his nose 
 smartly with his forefinger to indicate the place 
 of the omission and then wagged the finger men- 
 acingly at the Creator. 
 
 " I've often wanted to meet you," he resumed, 
 sternly, after a pause, " to hold you accountable 
 for all the idiocy and cruelty of this muddled and 
 meaningless world of yours. You make a hun- 
 dred seeds and only one bears fruit. You make 
 a million worlds and only one seems inhabited. 
 What do you mean by it, eh ? What do you mean 
 by it?" 
 
 The unhappy lunatic had fallen back before 
 this quite novel form of attack, and lifted his
 
 A MUSEUM OF SOULS 273 
 
 burnt-out cigarette almost like one warding off a 
 blow. Turnbull went on like a torrent. 
 
 " A man died yesterday in Ealing. You mur- 
 dered him. A girl had the toothache in Croy- 
 don. You gave it her. Fifty sailors were 
 drowned off Selsey Bill. You scuttled their 
 ship. What have you got to say for yourself, 
 eh?" 
 
 The representative of omnipotence looked as if 
 he had left most of these things to his subordi- 
 nates ; he passed a hand over his wrinkling brow 
 and said in a voice much saner than any he had 
 yet used : 
 
 " Well, if you dislike my assistance, of course 
 — perhaps the other gentleman " 
 
 " The other gentleman," cried Turnbull, scorn- 
 fully, " is a submissive and loyal and obedient 
 gentleman. He likes the people who wear crowns, 
 whether of diamonds or of stars. He believes in 
 the divine right of kings, and it is appropriate 
 enough that he should have the king for his sec- 
 ond. But it is not appropriate to me that I 
 should have God for my second. God is not good 
 enough. I dislike and I deny the divine right of 
 kings. But I dislike more and I deny more the 
 divine right of divinity."
 
 274 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 Then after a pause in which he swallowed his 
 passion, he said to Maclan : " You have got the 
 right second, anyhow." 
 
 The Highlander did not answer, but stood as if 
 thunderstruck with one long and heavy thought. 
 Then at last he turned abruptly to his second in 
 the silk hat and said : " Who are you ? " 
 
 The man in the silk hat blinked and bridled in 
 affected surprise, like one w^ho was in truth accus- 
 tomed to be doubted. 
 
 " I am King Edward VH," he said, with shaky 
 arrogance. " Do you doubt my word ? " 
 
 " I do not doubt it in the least," answered Mac- 
 Ian. 
 
 " Then, why," said the large man In the silk 
 hat, trembling from head to foot, " why do you 
 wear your hat before the king? " 
 
 " Why should I take it off," retorted Maclan, 
 with equal heat, " before a usurper ? " 
 
 Turnbull swung round on his heel. " Well, 
 really," he said, " I thought at least you were a 
 loyal subject." 
 
 " I am the only loyal subject," answered the 
 Gael. " For nearly thirty years I have walked 
 these islands and have not found another." 
 
 " You are always hard to follow," remarked
 
 A MUSEUM OF SOULS 275 
 
 Turnbull, genially, " and sometimes so much so 
 as to be hardly worth following." 
 
 "I alone am loyal," insisted Maclan; "for 
 I alone am in rebellion. I am ready at any in- 
 stant to restore the Stuarts. I am ready at any 
 instant to defy the Hanoverian brood — and I 
 defy it now even when face to face with the actual 
 ruler of the enormous British Empire ! " 
 
 And folding his arms and throwing back his 
 lean, hawklike face, he haughtily confronted the 
 man with the formal frock-coat and the eccentric 
 elbow. 
 
 " What right had you stunted German 
 squires," he cried, " to interfere in a quarrel be- 
 tween Scotch and English and Irish gentlemen? 
 Who made you, whose fathers could not splutter 
 English while they walked in Whitehall, who 
 made you the judge between the republic of Sid- 
 ney and the monarchy of Montrose? What had 
 your sires to do with England that they should 
 have the foul offering of the blood of Derwent- 
 water and the heart of Jimmy Dawson ? Where 
 are the corpses of Culloden ? Where is the blood 
 of Lochiel ? " Maclan advanced upon his op- 
 ponent with a bony and pointed finger, as if 
 indicating the exact pocket in which the blood
 
 276 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 of that Cameron was probably kept; and Ed- 
 ward Vn fell back a few paces in considerable 
 confusion. 
 
 " What good have you ever done to us? " he 
 continued in harsher and harsher accents, forcing 
 the other back toward the flower-beds. " What 
 good have you ever done, you race of German 
 sausages ? Yards of barbarian etiquette, to throt- 
 tle the freedom of aristocracy! Gas of northern 
 metaphysics to blow up Broad Church bishops 
 like balloons. Bad pictures and bad manners and 
 pantheism and the Albert Memorial, Go back to 
 Hanover, you humbug! Go to " 
 
 Before the end of this tirade the arrogance of 
 the monarch had entirely given way; he had 
 fairly turned tail and was trundling away down 
 the path. Maclan strode after him still preach- 
 ing and flourishing his large, lean hands. The 
 other two remained in the centre of the lawn — 
 Turnbull in convulsions of laughter, the lunatic 
 in convulsions of disgust. Almost at the same 
 moment a third figure came stepping swiftly 
 across the lawn. 
 
 The advancing figure walked with a stoop, and 
 yet somehow flung his forked and narrow beard 
 forward. That carefully cut and pointed yellow
 
 A MUSEUM OF SOULS 277 
 
 beard was, indeed, the most emphatic thing about 
 him. When he clasped his hands behind him, 
 under the tails of his coat, he would wag his 
 beard at a man Hke a big forefinger. It per- 
 formed ahnost all his gestures; it was more im- 
 portant than the glittering eyeglasses through 
 which he looked or the beautiful bleating voice 
 in which he spoke. His face and neck were of a 
 lusty red, but lean and stringy; he always wore 
 his expensive gold-rim eyeglasses slightly askew 
 upon his aquiline nose; and he always showed 
 two gleaming foreteeth under his moustache, in 
 a smile so perpetual as to earn the reputation of a 
 sneer. But for the crooked glasses his dress was 
 always exquisite; and but for the smile he was 
 perfectly and perennially depressed. 
 
 " Don't you think," said the new-comer, with 
 a sort of supercilious entreaty, " that we had bet- 
 ter all come into breakfast? It is such a mistake 
 to wait for breakfast. It spoils one's temper so 
 much." 
 
 " Quite so," replied Turnbull, seriously. 
 
 " There seems almost to have been a little 
 quarrelling here," said the man with the goatish 
 beard. 
 
 " It is rather a long story," said Turnbull,
 
 2 78 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 smiling. " Originally it might be called a phase 
 in the quarrel between science and religion." 
 
 The new-comer started slightly, and Turnbull 
 replied to the question on his face. 
 
 " Oh, yes," he said, " I am science ! " 
 
 " I congratulate you heartily," answered the 
 other, " I am Doctor Quayle." 
 
 Turnbull's eyes did not move, but he realised 
 that the man in the panama hat had lost all his 
 ease of a landed proprietor and had withdrawn 
 to a distance of thirty yards, where he stood glar- 
 ing with all the contraction of fear and hatred 
 that can stiffen a cat. 
 
 Maclan was sitting somewhat disconsolately on 
 a stump of tree, his large black head half buried 
 in his large brown hands, when Turnbull strode 
 up to him chewing a cigarette. He did not look 
 up, but his comrade and enemy addressed him like 
 one who must free himself of his feelings. 
 
 " Well, I hope, at any rate," he said, " that you 
 like your precious religion now. I hope you like 
 the society of this poor devil whom your damned 
 tracts and hymns and priests have driven out of 
 his wits. Five men in this place, they tell me, five 
 men in this place who might have been fathers of
 
 A MUSEUM OF SOULS 279 
 
 families, and every one of them thinks he is God 
 the Father. Oh ! you may talk about the ugliness 
 of science, but there is no one here who thinks he 
 is Protoplasm." 
 
 " They naturally prefer a bright part," said 
 Maclan, wearily. " Protoplasm is not worth go- 
 ing mad about." 
 
 " At least," said Turnbull, savagely, " it was 
 your Jesus Christ who started all this bosh about 
 being God." 
 
 For one instant Maclan opened the eyes of 
 battle; then his tightened lips took a crooked 
 smile and he said, quite calmly : 
 
 " No, the idea is older; it was Satan who first 
 said that he was God." 
 
 " Then, what," asked Turnbull, very slowly, as 
 he softly picked a flower, " what is the difference 
 between Christ and Satan?" 
 
 " It is quite simple," replied the Highlander. 
 " Christ descended into hell; Satan fell into it." 
 
 "Does it make much odds?" asked the free- 
 thinker. 
 
 " It makes all the odds," said the other. " One 
 of them wanted to go up and went down; the 
 other wanted to go down and went up. A god 
 can be humble, a devil can only be humbled."
 
 28o THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 " Why are you always wanting to humble a 
 man? " asked Turnbull, knitting his brows. " It 
 affects me as ungenerous." 
 
 " Why were you wanting to humble a god 
 when you found him in this garden ? " asked 
 Maclan. 
 
 " That was an extreme case of impudence," 
 said Maclan. 
 
 " Granting the man his almighty pretensions, I 
 think he was very modest," said Maclan. " It is 
 we who are arrogant, who know we are only 
 men. The ordinary man in the street is more of 
 a monster than that poor fellow; for the man in 
 the street treats himself as God Almighty when 
 he knows he isn't. He expects the universe to 
 turn round him, though he know^s he isn't the 
 centre." 
 
 " Well," said Turnbull, sitting down on the 
 grass, " this is a digression, anyhow. What I 
 want to point out is, that your faith does end in 
 asylums and my science doesn't." 
 
 " Doesn't it, by George!" cried Maclan, scorn- 
 fully. " There are a few men here who are mad 
 on God and a few w^ho are mad on the Bible. 
 But I bet there are many more who are simply 
 mad on madness."
 
 A MUSEUM OF SOULS 
 
 281 
 
 " Do you really believe it? " asked the other. 
 
 " Scores of them, I should say," answered 
 Maclan. " Fellows who have read medical books 
 or fellows whose fathers and uncles had some- 
 thing hereditary in their heads — the whole air 
 they breathe is mad." 
 
 " All the same," said Turnbull, shrewdly, " I 
 bet you haven't found a madman of that sort." 
 
 " I bet I have ! " cried Evan, with unusual ani- 
 mation. " Fve been walking about the garden 
 talking to a poor chap all the morning. He's sim- 
 ply been broken down and driven raving by your 
 damned science. Talk about believing one is God 
 — why, it's quite an old, comfortable, fireside 
 fancy compared with the sort of things this fel- 
 low believes. He believes that there is a God, but 
 that he is better than God. He says God will be 
 afraid to face him. He says one is always pro- 
 gressing beyond the best. He put his arm in 
 mine and whispered in my ear, as if it were the 
 apocalypse : * Never trust a God that you can't im- 
 prove on.' " 
 
 " What can he have meant ? " said the athe- 
 ist, with all his logic awake. " Obviously one 
 should not trust any God that one can improve 
 on."
 
 282 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 " It is the way he talks," said Maclan, almost 
 indifferently ; " but he says rummier things than 
 that. He says that a man's doctor ought to de- 
 cide what woman he marries; and he says that 
 children ought not to be brought up by their 
 parents, because a physical partiality will then 
 distort the judgment of the educator." 
 
 " Oh, dear ! " said Turnbull, laughing, " you 
 have certainly come across a pretty bad case, 
 and incidentally proved your own. I suppose 
 some men do lose their wits through science as 
 through love and other good things." 
 
 " And he says," went on Maclan, monoto- 
 nously, " that he cannot see why any one should 
 suppose that a triangle is a three-sided figure. 
 He says that on some higher plane " 
 
 Turnbull leapt to his feet as by an electric 
 shock. *' I never could have believed," he cried, 
 " that you had humour enough to tell a lie. 
 You've gone a bit too far, old man, with your lit- 
 tle joke. Even in a lunatic asylum there can't be 
 anybody who, having thought about the matter, 
 thinks that a triangle has not got three sides. If 
 he exists he must be a new era in human psychol- 
 ogy. But he doesn't exist." 
 
 " I will go and fetch him," said Maclan,
 
 A MUSEUM OF SOULS 283 
 
 calmly; " I left the poor fellow wandering about 
 by the nasturtium bed." 
 
 Maclan vanished, and in a few moments re- 
 turned, trailing with him his own discovery 
 among lunatics, who was a slender man with a 
 fixed smile and an unfixed and rolling head. He 
 had a goatlike beard just long enough to be 
 shaken in a strong wind. Turnbull sprang to his 
 feet and was like one who is speechless through 
 choking a sudden shout of laughter. 
 
 " Why, you great donkey," he shouted, in an 
 ear-shattering whisper, " that's not one of the pa- 
 tients at all. That's one of the doctors." 
 
 Evan looked back at the leering head with the 
 long-pointed beard and repeated the word in- 
 quiringly : " One of the doctors? " 
 
 " Oh, you know what I mean," said Turnbull, 
 impatiently. " The medical authorities of the 
 place." 
 
 Evan was still staring back curiously at the 
 beaming and bearded creature behind him. 
 
 " The mad doctors," said Turnbull, shortly. 
 
 " Quite so," said Maclan. 
 
 After a rather restless silence Turnbull plucked 
 Maclan by the elbow and pulled him aside. 
 
 " For goodness sake," he said, " don't offend
 
 284 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 this fellow; he may be as mad as ten hatters, 
 if you like, but he has us between his fin- 
 ger and thumb. This is the very time he ap- 
 pointed to talk with us about our — well, our 
 exeat." 
 
 " But what can it matter ? " asked the wonder- 
 ing Maclan. " He can't keep us in the asylum. 
 We're not mad." 
 
 " Jackass ! " said Turnbull, heartily, " of 
 course we're not mad. Of course, if we are 
 medically examined and the thing is thrashed 
 out, they will find we are not mad. But don't you 
 see that if the thing is thrashed out it will mean 
 letters to this reference and telegrams to that; 
 and at the first word of who we are, we shall be 
 taken out of a madhouse^ where we may smoke, 
 to a gaol, where we mayn't. No, if we manage 
 this very quietly, he may merely let us out at the 
 front door as stray revellers. If there's half an 
 hour of inquiry, we are cooked." 
 
 Maclan looked at the grass frowningly for a 
 few seconds, and then said in a new, small and 
 childish voice : " I am awfully stupid, Mr. Turn- 
 bull ; you must be patient with me." 
 
 Turnbull caught Evan's elbow again with 
 quite another gesture. " Come," he cried, with
 
 A MUSEUM OF SOULS 285 
 
 the harsh voice of one who hides emotion, 
 " come and let us be tactful in chorus." 
 
 The doctor with the pointed beard was already 
 slanting it forward at a more than usually acute 
 angle, with the smile that expressed expectancy. 
 
 " I hope I do not hurry you, gentlemen," he 
 said, with the faintest suggestion of a sneer at 
 their hurried consultation, " but I believe you 
 wanted to see me at half -past eleven." 
 
 " I am most awfully sorry, doctor," said Turn- 
 bull, with ready amiability; "I never meant to 
 keep you waiting; but the silly accident that has 
 landed us in your garden may have some rather 
 serious consequences to our friends elsewhere, 
 and my friend here was just drawing my atten- 
 tion to some of them." 
 
 " Quite so ! Quite so ! " said the doctor, hur- 
 riedly. "If you really want to put anything be- 
 fore me, I can give you a few moments in my 
 consulting room." 
 
 He led them rapidly into a small but imposing 
 apartment, which seemed to be built and fur- 
 nished entirely in red varnished wood. There 
 was one desk occupied with carefully docketed 
 papers; and there were several chairs of the red 
 varnished wood — though of different shape. All
 
 286 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 along the wall ran something that might have 
 been a bookcase, only that it was not filled with 
 books, but with flat, oblong slabs or cases of the 
 same polished dark-red consistency. What those 
 flat wooden cases were they could form no con- 
 ception. 
 
 The doctor sat down with a polite impatience 
 on his professional perch; Maclan remained 
 standing, but Turnbull threw himself almost with 
 luxury into a hard wooden arm-chair. 
 
 " This is a most absurd business, doctor," he 
 said, " and I am ashamed to take up the time of 
 busy professional men with such pranks from 
 outside. The plain fact is, that he and I and a 
 pack of silly men and girls have organised a game 
 across this part of the country— a sort of combi- 
 nation of hare and hounds and hide and seek — 
 I daresay you've heard of it. We are the hares, 
 and, seeing your high wall look so inviting, we 
 tumbled over it, and naturally were a little start- 
 led with what we found on the other side." 
 
 " Quite so ! " said the doctor, mildly. " I can 
 understand that you were startled." 
 
 Turnbull had expected him to ask what place 
 was the headquarters of the new exhilarating 
 game, and who were the male and female enthusi-
 
 A MUSEUM OF SOULS 287 
 
 asts who had brought it to such perfection ; in 
 fact, Turnbull was busy making up these personal 
 and topographical particulars. As the doctor did 
 not ask the question, he grew slightly uneasy, and 
 risked the question : " I hope you will accept my 
 assurance that the thing was an accident and that 
 no intrusion Vv^as meant." 
 
 " Oh, yes, sir," replied the doctor, smiling, " I 
 accept everything that you say." 
 
 " In that case," said Turnbull, rising genially, 
 " we must not further interrupt your important 
 duties. I suppose there will be some one to let 
 us out ? " 
 
 " No," said the doctor, still smiling steadily 
 and pleasantly, " there will be no one to let you 
 out." 
 
 " Can we let ourselves out, then ? " asked 
 Turnbull, in some surprise. 
 
 " Why, of course not," said the beaming sci- 
 entist ; " think how dangerous that would be in a 
 place like this." 
 
 "Then, how the devil are we to get out?" 
 cried Turnbull, losing his manners for the first 
 time. 
 
 " It is a question of time, of receptivity, and 
 treatment," said the doctor, arching his eyebrows
 
 288 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 indifferently. " I do not regard either of your 
 cases as incurable." 
 
 And with that the man of the world was struck 
 dumb, and, as in all intolerable moments, the 
 word was with the unworldly. 
 
 Maclan took one stride to the table, leant 
 across it, and said : " We can't stop here, we're 
 not mad people ! " 
 
 " We don't use the crude phrase," said the 
 doctor, smiling at his patent-leather boots. 
 
 " But you can't think us mad," thundered Mac- 
 Ian. " You never saw us before. You know 
 nothing about us. You haven't even examined 
 us," 
 
 The doctor threw back his head and beard. 
 " Oh, yes," he said, " very thoroughly." 
 
 " But you can't shut a man up on your mere 
 impressions without documents or certificates or 
 anything? " 
 
 The doctor got languidly to his feet. " Quite 
 so," he said. " You certainly ought to see the 
 documents." 
 
 He went across to the curious mock book- 
 shelves and took down one of the flat mahogany 
 cases. This he opened with a curious key at his 
 watch-chain, and laying back a flap revealed a
 
 A MUSEUM OF SOULS 289 
 
 quire of foolscap covered with close but quite 
 clear writing. The first three words were in such 
 large copy-book hand that they caught the eye 
 even at a distance. They were : " Maclan, Evan 
 Stuart." 
 
 Evan bent his angry eagle face over it; yet 
 something blurred it and he could never swear he 
 saw it distinctly. He saw something that be- 
 gan : " Prenatal influences predisposing to mania. 
 Grandfather believed in return of the Stuarts. 
 Mother carried bone of St. Eulalia with which 
 she touched children in sickness. Marked re- 
 ligious mania at early age " 
 
 Evan fell back and fought for his speech. 
 " Oh ! " he burst out at last. " Oh ! if all this 
 world I have walked in had been as sane as my 
 mother was." 
 
 Then he compressed his temples with his 
 hands, as if to crush them. And then lifted 
 suddenly a face that looked fresh and young, 
 as if he had dipped and washed it in some holy 
 well. 
 
 " Very well," he cried ; " I will take the sour 
 with the sweet. I will pay the penalty of having 
 enjoyed God in this monstrous modern earth that 
 cannot enjoy man or beast. I will die happy in
 
 290 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 your madhouse, only because I know what I 
 know. Let it be granted, then — Maclan is a 
 mystic; Maclan is a maniac. But this honest 
 shopkeeper and editor whom I have dragged on 
 my inhuman escapades, you cannot keep him. 
 He will go free, thank God, he is not down in 
 any damned document. His ancestor, I am cer- 
 tain, did not die at Culloden. His mother, I 
 swear, had no relics. Let my friend out of your 
 front door, and as for me " 
 
 The doctor had already gone across to the 
 laden shelves, and after a few minutes' short- 
 sighted peering, had pulled down another paral- 
 lelogram of dark-red wood. 
 
 This also he unlocked on the table, and with 
 the same unerring egotistic eye one of the com- 
 pany saw the words, written in large letters: 
 " Turnbull, James." 
 
 Hitherto Turnbull himself had somewhat 
 scornfully surrendered his part in the whole busi- 
 ness ; but he was too honest and unaffected not to 
 start at his own name. After the name, the in- 
 scription appeared to run : " Unique case of Eleu- 
 theromania. Parentage, as so often in such cases, 
 prosaic and healthy. Eleutheromaniac signs oc- 
 curred early, however, leading him to attach him-
 
 A MUSEUM OF SOULS 291 
 
 self to the individualist Bradlaugh. Recent out- 
 break of pure anarchy " 
 
 Turnbull slammed the case to, almost smash- 
 ing it, and said with a burst of savage laughter : 
 " Oh! come along, Maclan; I don't care so much, 
 even about getting out of the madhouse, if only 
 we get out of this room. You were right enough, 
 Maclan, when you spoke about — about mad 
 doctors." 
 
 Somehow they found themselves outside in the 
 cool, green garden, and then, after a stunned 
 silence, Turnbull said : " There is one thing that 
 was puzzling me all the time, and I understand 
 it now." 
 
 " What do you mean ? " asked Evan. 
 
 " No man by will or wit," answered Turnbull, 
 " can get out of this garden ; and yet we got into 
 it merely by jumping over a garden-wall. The 
 whole thing explains itself easily enough. That 
 undefended wall was an open trap. It was a trap 
 laid for the two celebrated lunatics. They saw us 
 get in right enough. And they will see that we 
 do not get out." 
 
 Evan gazed at the garden-wall, gravely for 
 more than a minute, and then he nodded without 
 a word.
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 THE DREAM OF MACIAN 
 
 The system of espionage in the asylum was so 
 effective and complete that in practice the pa- 
 tients could often enjoy a sense of almost complete 
 solitude. They could stray up so near to the wall 
 in an apparently unwatched garden as to find it 
 easy to jump over it. They would only have 
 found the error of their calculations if they had 
 tried to jump. 
 
 Under this insulting liberty, in this artificial 
 loneliness, Evan Maclan was in the habit of 
 creeping out into the garden after dark — es- 
 pecially upon moonlight nights. The moon, in- 
 deed, was for him always a positive mag^iet in a 
 manner somewhat hard to explain to those of a 
 robuster attitude. Evidently, Apollo is to the full 
 as poetical as Diana; but it is not a question of 
 poetry in the matured and intellectual sense of the 
 word. It is a question of a certain solid and 
 childish fancy. The sun is in the strict and lit- 
 293
 
 THE DREAM OF MACIAN 293 
 
 eral sense invisible; that is to say, that by our 
 bodily eyes it cannot properly be seen. But the 
 moon is a much simpler thing; a naked and nur- 
 sery sort of thing. It hangs in the sky quite solid 
 and quite silver and quite useless; it is one huge 
 celestial snowball. It was at least some such in- 
 fantile facts and fancies which led Evan again 
 and again during his dehumanised imprisonment 
 to go out as if to shoot the moon. 
 
 He was out in the garden on one such luminous 
 and ghostly night, when the steady moonshine 
 toned down all the colours of the garden until 
 almost the strongest tints to be seen were the 
 strong soft blue of the sky and the large lemon 
 moon. He was walking with his face turned up 
 to it in that rather half-witted fashion which 
 might have excused the error of his keepers ; and 
 as he gazed he became aware of something little 
 and lustrous flying close to the lustrous orb, like 
 a bright chip knocked off the moon. At first he 
 thought it was a mere sparkle or refraction in his 
 own eyesight; he blinked and cleared his eyes. 
 Then he thought it was a falling star ; only it did 
 not fall. It jerked awkwardly up and down in 
 a way unknown among meteors and strangely 
 reminiscent of the works of man. The next mo-
 
 294 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 ment the thing drove right across the moon, and 
 from being silver upon blue, suddenly became 
 black upon silver; then although it passed the 
 field of light in a flash its outline was unmistak- 
 able though eccentric. It was a flying ship. 
 
 The vessel took one long and sweeping curve 
 across the sky and came nearer and nearer to 
 Maclan, like a steam-engine coming round a 
 bend. It was of pure white steel, and in the 
 moon it gleamed like the armour of Sir Galahad. 
 The simile of such virginity is not inappropriate ; 
 for, as it grew larger and larger and lower and 
 lower, Evan saw that the only figure in it was 
 robed in white from head to foot and crowned 
 with snow-white hair, on which the moonshine 
 lay like a benediction. The figure stood so still 
 that he could easily have supposed it to be a 
 statue. Indeed, he thought it was until it 
 spoke. 
 
 " Evan," said the voice, and it spoke with the 
 simple authority of some forgotten father re- 
 visiting his children, " you have remained here 
 long enough, and your sword is wanted else- 
 where." 
 
 "Wanted for what?" asked the young man, 
 accepting the monstrous event with a queer and
 
 THE DREAM OF MACIA 295 
 
 clumsy naturalness ; *' what is my sword wanted 
 for?" 
 
 " For all that you hold dear," said the man 
 standing in the moonlight ; ''for the thrones of 
 authority and for all ancient loyalty to law." 
 
 Evan looked up at the lunar orb again as if in 
 irrational appeal — a moon calf bleating to his 
 mother the moon. But the face of Luna seemed 
 as witless as his own; there is no help in nature 
 against the supernatural ; and he looked again at 
 the tall marble figure that might have been made 
 out of solid moonlight. 
 
 Then he said in a loud voice : "Who are you? " 
 and the next moment was seized by a sort of 
 choking terror lest his question should be an- 
 swered. But the unknown preserved an im- 
 penetrable silence for a long space and then only 
 answered : " I must not say who I am until the 
 end of the world; but I may say what I am. I 
 am the law." 
 
 And he lifted his head so that the moon smote 
 full upon his beautiful and ancient face. 
 
 The face was the face of a Greek god grown 
 old, but not grown either weak or ugly ; there was 
 nothing to break its regularity except a rather 
 long chin with a cleft in it, and this rather added
 
 296 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 distinction than lessened beauty. His strong, 
 well-opened eyes were very brilliant but quite col- 
 ourless like steel. 
 
 Maclan was one of those to whom a reverence 
 and self-submission in ritual come quite easy, and 
 are ordinary things. It was not artificial in him 
 to bend slightly to this solemn apparition or to 
 lower his voice when he said : " Do you bring me 
 some message ? " 
 
 " I do bring you a message," answered the 
 man of moon and marble. " The king has re- 
 turned." 
 
 Evan did not ask for or require any explana- 
 tion. " I suppose you can take me to the war," 
 he said, and the silent silver figure only bowed its 
 head again. Maclan clambered into the silver 
 boat, and it rose upward to the stars. 
 
 To say that it rose to the stars is no mere meta- 
 phor, for the sky had cleared to that occasional 
 and astonishing transparency in which one can 
 see plainly both stars and moon. 
 
 As the white-robed figure went upward in his 
 white chariot, he said quite quietly to Evan : 
 " There is an answer to all the folly talked about 
 equality. Some stars are big and some small ; 
 some stand still and some circle round them as
 
 THE DREAM OF MACIAN 297 
 
 they stand. They can be orderly, but they can- 
 not be equal." 
 
 " They are all very beautiful," said Evan, as if 
 in doubt. 
 
 " They are all beautiful," answered the other, 
 " because each is in his place and owns his supe- 
 rior. And now England will be beautiful after 
 the same fashion. The earth will be as beautiful 
 as the heavens, because our kings have come back 
 to us." 
 
 " The Stuart — " began Evan, earnestly, 
 
 " Yes," answered the old man, " that which 
 has returned is Stuart and yet older than Stuart. 
 It is Capet and Plantagenet and Pendragon. It is 
 all that good old time of which proverbs tell, that 
 golden reign of Saturn against which gods and 
 men were rebels. It is all that was ever lost by 
 insolence and overwhelmed in rebellion. It is 
 your own forefather, Maclan with the broken 
 sword, bleeding without hope at Culloden. It is 
 Charles refusing to answer the questions of the 
 rebel court. It is Mary of the magic face con- 
 fronting the gloomy and grasping peers and the 
 boorish moralities of Knox, It is Richard, the 
 last Plantagenet, giving his crown to Bolingbroke 
 as to a common brigand. It is Arthur, over-
 
 298 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 whelmed in Lyonesse by heathen armies and dy- 
 ing in the mist, doubtful if ever he shall return." 
 
 " But now — " said Evan, in a low voice. 
 
 " But now ! " said the old man ; " he has re- 
 turned." 
 
 " Is the war still raging ? " asked Maclan. 
 
 " It rages like the pit itself beyond the sea 
 whither I am taking you," answered the other. 
 " But in England the king enjoys his own again. 
 The people are once more taught and ruled as is 
 best; they are happy knights, happy squires, 
 happy servants, happy serfs, if you will ; but free 
 at last of that load of vexation and lonely vanity 
 which was called being a citizen." 
 
 " Is England, indeed, so secure? " asked Evan. 
 
 " Look out and see," said the guide. " I fancy 
 you have seen this place before." 
 
 They were driving through the air toward one 
 region of the sky where the hollow of night 
 seemed darkest and which was quite without 
 stars. But against this black background there 
 sprang up, picked out in glittering silver, a dome 
 and a cross. It seemed that it was really newly 
 covered with silver, which in the strong moon- 
 light was like white flame. But, however, cov- 
 ered or painted, Evan had no difficulty in knowing
 
 THE DREAM OF MACIAN 299 
 
 the place again. He saw the great thorough- 
 fare that sloped upward to the base of its huge 
 pedestal of steps. And he wondered whether the 
 little shop was still by the side of it and whether 
 its window had been mended. 
 
 As the flying ship swept round the dome he 
 observed other alterations. The dome had been 
 redecorated so as to give it a more solemn and 
 somewhat more ecclesiastical note ; the ball was 
 draped or destroyed, and round the gallery, under 
 the cross, ran what looked like a ring of silver 
 statues, like the little leaden images that stood 
 round the hat of Louis XI. Round the second 
 gallery, at the base of the dome, ran a second 
 rank of such images, and Evan thought there was 
 another round the steps below. When they came 
 closer he saw that they were figures in complete 
 armour of steel or silver, each with a naked 
 sword, point upward ; and then he saw one of the 
 swords move. These were not statues but an 
 armed order of chivalry thrown in three circles 
 round the cross. Maclan drew in his breath, as 
 children do at anything they think utterly beau- 
 tiful. For he could imagine nothing that so 
 echoed his own visions of pontifical or chivalric 
 art as this white dome sitting like a vast silver
 
 300 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 tiara over London, ringed with a triple crown of 
 swords. 
 
 As they went saiHng down Ludgate Hill, Evan 
 saw that the state of the streets fully answered 
 his companion's claim about the reintroduction 
 of order. All the old black-coated bustle with 
 its cockney vivacity and vulgarity had disap- 
 peared. Groups of labourers, quietly but pic- 
 turesquely clad, were passing up and down in suf- 
 ficiently large numbers ; but it required but a few 
 mounted men to keep the streets in order. The 
 mounted men were not common policemen, but 
 knights with spur and plume whose smooth and 
 splendid armour glittered like diamond rather 
 than steel. Only in one place — at the corner of 
 Bouverie Street — did there appear to be a mo- 
 ment's confusion, and that was due to hurry 
 rather than resistance. But one old grumbling 
 man did not get out of the way quick enough, 
 and the man on horseback struck him, not se- 
 verely, across the shoulders with the flat of his 
 sword. 
 
 " The soldier had no business to do that," said 
 Maclan, sharply, " The old man was moving as 
 quickly as he could." 
 
 " We attach great importance to discipline in
 
 THE DREAM OF MACIAN 301 
 
 the streets," said the man in white, with a sHght 
 smile. 
 
 " DiscipHne is not so important as justice," 
 said Maclan. 
 
 The other did not answer. 
 
 Then after a swift silence that took them out 
 across St. James's Park, he said : " The people 
 must be taught to obey; they must learn their 
 own ignorance. And I am not sure," he con- 
 tinued, turning his back on Evan and looking out 
 of the prow of the ship into the darkness, " I am 
 not sure that I agree with your little maxim 
 about justice. Discipline for the whole society is 
 surely more important than justice to an indi- 
 vidual." 
 
 Evan, who was also leaning over the edge, 
 swung round with startling suddenness and 
 stared at the other's back. 
 
 " Discipline for society — " he repeated, very 
 staccato, " more important — justice to indi- 
 vidual?" 
 
 Then after a long silence he called out : ** Who 
 and what are you? " 
 
 " I am an angel," said the white-robed figure, 
 without turning round. 
 
 " You are not a Catholic," said Maclan.
 
 302 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 The other seemed to take no notice, but re- 
 verted to the main topic. 
 
 " In our armies up in heaven we learn to put 
 a wholesome fear into subordinates." 
 
 Maclan sat craning his neck forward with an 
 extraordinary and unaccountable eagerness. 
 
 " Go on ! " he cried, twisting and untwisting 
 his long, bony fingers, " go on ! " 
 
 " Besides," continued he, in the prow, " you 
 must allow for a certain high spirit and haughti- 
 ness in the superior type." 
 
 " Go on ! " said Evan, with burning eyes. 
 
 " Just as the sight of sin offends God," said 
 the unknown, " so does the sight of ugliness of- 
 fend Apollo. The beautiful and princely must, 
 of necessity, be impatient with the squalid 
 and " 
 
 " Why, you great fool ! " cried Maclan, rising 
 to the top of his tremendous stature, " did you 
 think I would have doubted only for that rap 
 with a sword? I know that noble orders have 
 bad knights, that good knights have bad tempers, 
 that the Church has rough priests and coarse car- 
 dinals; I have known it ever since I was born. 
 You fool ! you had only to say, ' Yes, it is rather 
 a shame,' and I should have forgotten the affair.
 
 THE DREAM OF MACIAN 303 
 
 But I saw on your mouth the twitch of your in- 
 fernal sophistry; I knew that something was 
 wrong with you and your cathedrals. Some- 
 thing is wrong; everything is wrong. You are 
 not an angel. That is, not a church. It is not the 
 rightful king who has come home." 
 
 " That is unfortunate," said the other, in a 
 quiet but hard voice, " because you are going to 
 see his Majesty." 
 
 " No," said Maclan, " I am going to jump 
 over the side." 
 
 " Do you desire death? " 
 
 " No," said Evan, quite composedly, " I desire 
 a miracle." 
 
 " From whom do you ask it ? To whom do 
 you appeal ? " said his companion, sternly. " You 
 have betrayed the king, renounced the cross on 
 the cathedral, and insulted an archangel." 
 
 " I appeal to God," said Evan, and sprang up 
 and stood upon the edge of the swaying ship. 
 
 The being in the prow turned slowly round ; he 
 looked at Evan with eyes which were like two 
 suns, and put his hand to his mouth just too late 
 to hide an awful smile. 
 
 " And how do you know," he said, " how do 
 you know that I am not God ? "
 
 304 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 Maclan screamed. " Ah ! " he cried. " Now 
 I know who you really are. You are not God. 
 You are not one of God's angels. But you were 
 once." 
 
 The being's hand dropped from his mouth and 
 Evan dropped out of the car.
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 THE DREAM OF TURNBULL 
 
 Turn BULL was walking rather rampantly up 
 and down the garden on a gusty evening chewing 
 his cigar and in that mood when every man sup- 
 presses an instinct to spit. He was not, as a rule, 
 a man much acquainted with moods; and the 
 storms and sunbursts of Maclan's soul passed 
 before him as an impressive but unmeaning pano- 
 rama, like the anarchy of Highland scenery. 
 Turnbull was one of those men in whom a con- 
 tinuous appetite and industry of the intellect leave 
 the emotions very simple and steady. His heart 
 was in the right place; but he was quite content 
 to leave it there. It was his head that was his 
 hobby. His mornings and evenings were marked 
 not by impulses or thirsty desires, not by hope or 
 by heart-break; they were filled with the falla- 
 cies he had detected, the problems he had made 
 plain, the adverse theories he had wrestled with 
 and thrown, the grand generalisations he had 
 305
 
 3o6 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 justified. But even the cheerful inner Hfe of a 
 logician may be upset by a lunatic asylum, to 
 say nothing of whiffs of memory from a lady 
 in Jersey, and the little red-bearded man on this 
 windy evening was in a dangerous frame of 
 mind. 
 
 Plain and positive as he was, the influence of 
 earth and sky may have been greater on him than 
 he imagined; and the weather that walked the 
 world at that moment was as red and angry as 
 Turnbull. Long strips and swirls of tattered and 
 tawny cloud were dragged downward to the west 
 exactly as torn red raiment would be dragged. 
 And so strong and pitiless was the wind that it 
 whipped away fragments of red-flowering bushes 
 or of copper beech, and drove them also across 
 the garden, a drift of red leaves, like the leaves 
 of autumn, as in parody of the red and driven 
 rags of cloud. 
 
 There was a sense in earth and heaven as of 
 everything breaking up, and all the revolutionist 
 in Turnbull rejoiced- that it was breaking up. The 
 trees were breaking up under the wind, even in 
 the tall strength of their bloom : the clouds were 
 breaking up and losing even their large heraldic 
 shapes. Shards and shreds of copper cloud split
 
 THE DREAM OF TURNBULL 307 
 
 off continually and floated by themselves, and for 
 some reason the truculent eye of Tumbull was 
 attracted to one of these careering cloudlets, 
 which seemed to him to career in an exaggerated 
 manner. Also it kept its shape, which is unusual 
 with clouds shaken off; also its shape was of an 
 odd sort. 
 
 Turnbull continued to stare at it, and in a little 
 time occurred that crucial instant when a thing, 
 however incredible, is accepted as a fact. The 
 copper cloud was tumbling down toward the 
 earth, like some gigantic leaf from the copper 
 beeches. And as it came nearer it was evident, 
 first, that it was not a cloud, and, second, that 
 it was not itself of the colour of copper ; only, be- 
 ing burnished like a mirror, it had reflected the 
 red-brown colours of the burning clouds. As the 
 thing whirled like a wind-swept leaf down toward 
 the wall of the garden it was clear that it was 
 some sort of air-ship made of metal, and slapping 
 the air with big broad fins of steel. When it came 
 about a hundred feet above the garden, a shaggy, 
 lean figure leapt up in it, almost black against the 
 bronze and scarlet of the west, and, flinging out 
 a kind of hook or anchor, caught on to the green 
 apple-tree just under the wall ; and from that fixed
 
 3o8 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 holding ground the ship swung in the red tempest 
 Hke a captive balloon. 
 
 While our friend stood frozen for an instant by 
 his astonishment, the queer figure in the airy car 
 tipped the vehicle almost upside down by leaping 
 over the side of it, seemed to slide or drop down 
 the rope like a monkey, and alighted (with impos- 
 sible precision and placidity) seated on the edge 
 of the wall, over which he kicked and dangled his 
 legs as he grinned at Turnbull. The wind roared 
 in the trees yet more ruinous and desolate, the 
 red tails of the sunset were dragged downward 
 like red dragons sucked down to death, and 
 still on the top of the asylum wall sat the sin- 
 ister figure with the grimace, swinging his 
 feet in tune with the tempest; while above him, 
 at the end of its tossing or tightened cord, the 
 enormous iron air-ship floated as light and as 
 little noticed as a baby's balloon upon its 
 string. 
 
 Turnbull's first movement after sixty motion- 
 less seconds was to turn round and look at the 
 large, luxuriant parallelogram of the garden and 
 the long, low rectangular building beyond. There 
 was not a soul or a stir of life within sight. And 
 he had a quite meaningless sensation, as if there
 
 THE DREAM OF TURNBULL 309 
 
 never really had been any one else there except he 
 since the foundation of the world. 
 
 Stiffening in himself the masculine but mirth- 
 less courage of the atheist, he drew a little nearer 
 to the wall and, catching the man at a slightly 
 different angle of the evening light, could see his 
 face and figure quite plain. Two facts about him 
 stood out in the picked colours of some piratical 
 schoolboy's story. The first was that his lean 
 brown body was bare to the belt of his loose white 
 trousers; the other that through hygiene, affecta- 
 tion, or whatever other cause, he had a scarlet 
 handkerchief tied tightly but somewhat aslant 
 across his brow. After these two facts had become 
 emphatic, others appeared sufficiently important. 
 One was that under the scarlet rag the hair was 
 plentiful, but white as with the last snows of mor- 
 tality. Another was that under the mop of white 
 and senile hair the face was strong, handsome, 
 and smiling, with a well-cut profile and a long 
 cloven chin. The length of this lower part of the 
 face and the strange cleft in it (which gave the 
 man, in quite another sense from the common one, 
 a double chin) faintly spoilt the claim of the face 
 to absolute regularity, but it greatly assisted it in 
 wearing the expression of half-smihng and half-
 
 3IO THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 sneering arrogance with which it was staring at 
 all the stones, all the flowers, but especially at the 
 solitary man. 
 
 " What do you want ? " shouted TurnbuU. 
 
 " I want you, Jimmy," said the eccentric man 
 on the wall, and with the very word he had let 
 himself down with a leap on to the centre of the 
 lawn, where he bounded once literally like an 
 India-rubber ball and then stood grinning with 
 his legs astride. The only three facts that Turn- 
 bull could now add to his inventory were that the 
 man had an ugly-looking knife swinging at his 
 trousers belt, that his brown feet were as bare as 
 his bronzed trunk and arms, and that his eyes had 
 a singular bleak brilliancy which was of no par- 
 ticular colour. 
 
 " Excuse my not being in evening dress," said 
 the new-comer with an urbane smile. " We sci- 
 entific men, you know — I have to work my 
 own engines — Electrical engineer — very hot 
 work," 
 
 " Look here," said Turnbull, sturdily clench- 
 ing his fists in his trousers pockets, " I am bound 
 to expect lunatics inside these four walls; but I 
 do bar their coming from outside, bang out of the 
 sunset clouds."
 
 THE DREAM OF TURNBULL 311 
 
 " And yet you came from the outside, too, 
 Jim," said the stranger in a voice almost affec- 
 tionate. 
 
 *' What do you want ? " asked Turnbull, with 
 an explosion of temper as sudden as a pistol shot. 
 
 " I have already told you," said the man, low- 
 ering his voice and speaking with evident sincer- 
 ity; "I want you." 
 
 " What do you want with me? " 
 
 " I want exactly what you want," said the new- 
 comer with a new gravity. " I want the Revolu- 
 tion." 
 
 Turnbull looked at the fire-swept sky and the 
 wind-stricken woodlands, and kept on repeating 
 the word voicelessly to himself — the word that 
 did indeed so thoroughly express his mood of 
 rage as it had been among those red clouds and 
 rocking tree-tops. " Revolution ! " he said to 
 himself. " The Revolution — Yes, that is what I 
 want right enough — anything, so long as it is a 
 Revolution." 
 
 To some cause he could never explain he found 
 himself completing the sentence on the top of the 
 wall, having automatically followed the stranger 
 so far. But when the stranger silently indicated 
 the rope that led to the machine, he found himself
 
 312 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 pausing and saying : '* I can't leave Maclan be- 
 hind in this den." 
 
 " We are going to destroy the Pope and all the 
 kings," said the new-comer. " Would it be wiser 
 to take him with us? " 
 
 Somehow the muttering Turnbull found him- 
 self in the flying ship also, and it swung up into 
 the sunset. 
 
 " All the great rebels have been very little 
 rebels," said the man with the red scarf. " They 
 have been like fourth-form boys who sometimes 
 venture to hit a fifth-form boy. That was all 
 the worth of their French Revolution and regi- 
 cide. The boys never really dared to defy the 
 schoolmaster." 
 
 " Whom do you mean by the schoolmaster ? " 
 asked Turnbull. 
 
 " You know whom I mean," answered the 
 strange man, as he lay back on cushions and 
 looked up into the angry sky. 
 
 They seemed rising into stronger and stronger 
 sunlight, as if it were sunrise rather than sunset. 
 But when they looked down at the earth they saw 
 it growing darker and darker. The lunatic asy- 
 lum in its large rectangular grounds spread be- 
 low them in a foreshortened and infantile plan,
 
 THE DREAM OF TURNBULL 313 
 
 and looked for the first time the grotesque thing 
 that it was. But the clear colours of the plan were 
 growing darker every moment. The masses of 
 rose or rhododendron deepened from crimson to 
 violet. The maze of gravel pathways faded from 
 gold to brown. By the time they had risen a few 
 hundred feet higher nothing could be seen of that 
 darkening landscape except the lines of lighted 
 windows, each one of which, at least, was the 
 light of one lost intelligence. But on them as 
 they swept upward better and braver winds 
 seemed to blow, and on them the ruby light of 
 evening seemed struck, and splashed like red 
 spurts from the grapes of Dionysus. Below 
 them the fallen lights were literally the fallen 
 stars of servitude. And above them all the red 
 and raging clouds were like the leaping flags of 
 liberty. 
 
 The man with the cloven chin seemed to have 
 a singular power of understanding thoughts ; for, 
 as Turnbull felt the whole universe tilt and turn 
 over his head, the stranger said exactly the right 
 thing. 
 
 " Doesn't it seem as if everything were being 
 upset? " said he; " and if once everything is up- 
 set, He will be upset on top of it."
 
 314 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 Then, as Turnbull made no answer, his host 
 continued : 
 
 " That is the really fine thing about space. It 
 is topsy-turvy. You have only to climb far 
 enough toward the morning star to feel that you 
 are coming down to it. You have only to dive 
 deep enough into the abyss to feel that you are 
 rising. That is the only glory of this universe — • 
 it is a giddy universe." 
 
 Then, as Turnbull was still silent, he added : 
 
 " The heavens are full of revolution — of the 
 real sort of revolution. All the high things sink- 
 ing low and all the big things looking small. All 
 the people who think they are aspiring find they 
 are falling head foremost. And all the people 
 who think they are condescending find they are 
 climbing up a precipice. That is the intoxication 
 of space. That is the only joy of eternity — doubt. 
 There is only one pleasure the angels can possibly 
 have in flying, and that is, that they do not know 
 whether they are on their head or their heels." 
 
 Then, finding his companion still mute, he fell 
 himself into a smiling and motionless meditation, 
 at the end of which he said suddenly : 
 
 " So Maclan converted you ? " 
 
 Tumbull sprang up as if spurning the steel car
 
 THE DREAM OF TURNBULL 315 
 
 from under his feet. " Converted me! " he cried. 
 " What the devil do you mean ? I have known 
 him for a month, and I have not retracted a sin- 
 gle " 
 
 " This CathoHcism is a curious thing," said the 
 man of the cloven chin in uninterrupted reflect- 
 iveness, leaning his elegant elbows over the edge 
 of the vessel ; " it soaks and weakens men with- 
 out their knowing it, just as I fear it has soaked 
 and weakened you." 
 
 Turnbull stood in an attitude which might well 
 have meant pitching the other man out of the fly- 
 ing ship. 
 
 " I am an atheist," he said, in a stifled voice. 
 ** I have always been an atheist, I am still an 
 atheist." Then, addressing the other's indolent 
 and indifferent back, he cried : " In God's name 
 what do you mean ? " 
 
 And the other answered without turning round : 
 
 " I mean nothing in God's name." 
 
 Turnbull spat over the edge of the car and fell 
 back furiously into his seat. 
 
 The other continued still unruffled, and staring 
 over the edge idly as an angler stares down at a 
 stream. 
 
 " The truth is that we never thought that you
 
 3i6 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 could have been caught," he said ; " we counted 
 on you as the one red-hot revokitionary left in the 
 world. But. of course, these men like Maclan are 
 awfully clever, especially when they pretend to be 
 stupid." 
 
 Turnbull leapt up again in a living fury and 
 cried : " What have I got to do with Maclan ? I 
 believe all I ever believed, and disbelieve all I ever 
 disbelieved. What does all this mean, and what 
 do you want with me here? " 
 
 Then for the first time the other lifted himself 
 from the edge of the car and faced him. 
 
 " I have brought you here," he answered, " to 
 take part in the last war of the world." 
 
 " The last w^ar ! " repeated Turnbull, even in 
 his dazed state a little touchy about such a dog- 
 ma ; " how do you know it w'ill be the last? " 
 
 The man laid himself back in his reposeful at- 
 titude, and said : 
 
 " It is the last w-ar, because if it does not cure 
 the w^orld forever, it wall destroy it." 
 
 " What do you mean? " 
 
 " I only mean what you mean," answered the 
 unknown in a temperate voice. " What was it 
 that you always meant on those million and 
 one nights wdien you walked outside your
 
 THE DREAM OF TURNBULL 317 
 
 Ludgate Hill shop and shook your hand in 
 the air ? " 
 
 " Still I do not see," said Turnbull, stubbornly. 
 
 '* You will soon," said the other, and abruptly 
 bent downward one iron handle of his huge ma- 
 chine. The engine stopped, stooped, and dived 
 almost as deliberately as a man bathing ; in their 
 downward rush they swept within fifty yards of 
 a big bulk of stone that Turnbull knew only too 
 well. The last red anger of the sunset was ended ; 
 the dome of heaven was dark ; the lanes of flaring 
 light in the streets below hardly lit up the base of 
 the building. But he saw that it was St. Paul's 
 Cathedral, and he saw that on the top of it the 
 ball was still standing erect, but the cross was 
 stricken and had fallen sideways. Then only he 
 cared to look down into the streets, and saw that 
 they were inflamed with uproar and tossing pas- 
 sions, 
 
 " We arrive at a happy moment," said the man 
 steering the ship. " The insurgents are bombard- 
 ing the city, and a cannon-ball has just hit the 
 cross. Many of the insurgents are simple people, 
 and they naturally regard it as a happy omen." 
 
 " Quite so," said Turnbull, in a rather colour- 
 less voice.
 
 3i8 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 " Yes," replied the other. " I thought you 
 would be glad to see your prayer answered. Of 
 course I apologise for the word prayer." 
 
 " Don't mention it," said Turnbull. 
 
 The flying ship had come down upon a sort of 
 curve, and was now rising again. The higher and 
 higher it rose the broader and broader became 
 the scenes of flame and desolation underneath. 
 
 Ludgate Hill indeed had been an uncaptured 
 and comparatively quiet height, altered only by 
 the startling coincidence of the cross fallen awry. 
 All the other thoroughfares on all sides of that 
 hill were full of the pulsation and the pain of bat- 
 tle, full of shaking torches and shouting faces. 
 When at length they had risen high enough to 
 have a bird's-eye view of the whole campaign, 
 Turnbull was already intoxicated. He had smelt 
 gunpowder, which was the incense of his own 
 revolutionary religion. 
 
 " Have the people really risen ? " he asked, 
 breathlessly, " What are they fighting about ? " 
 
 " The programme is rather elaborate," said his 
 entertainer with some indifference, " I think Dr. 
 Hertz drew it up." 
 
 Turnbull wrinkled his forehead. " Are all the 
 poor people with the Revolution? " he asked.
 
 THE DREAM OF TURNBULL 319 
 
 The other shrugged his shoulders. " All the 
 instructed and class-conscious part of them with- 
 out exception," he replied. " There were cer- 
 tainly a few districts ; in fact, we are passing over 
 them just now " 
 
 TurnbuU looked down and saw that the pol- 
 ished car was literally lit up from underneath by 
 the far-flung fires from below. Underneath 
 whole squares and solid districts were in flames, 
 like prairies or forests on fire. 
 
 " Dr. Hertz has convinced everybody," said 
 Turnbull's cicerone in a smooth voice, " that noth- 
 ing can really be done with the real slums. His 
 celebrated maxim has been quite adopted. I mean 
 the three celebrated sentences : ' No man should 
 be unemployed. Employ the employables. De- 
 stroy the unemployables.' " 
 
 There was a silence, and then Turnbull said in 
 a rather strained voice : " And do I understand 
 that this good work is going on under here? " 
 
 " Going on splendidly," replied his companion 
 in the heartiest voice. " You see, these people 
 were much too tired and weak even to join the 
 social war. They were a definite hindrance to it." 
 
 ** And so you are simply burning them out ? " 
 
 " It docs seem absurdly simple," said the man.
 
 320 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 with a beaming smile, " when one thinks of all 
 the worry and talk about helping a hopeless slave 
 population, when the future obviously was only 
 crying to be rid of them. There are happy babes 
 unborn ready to burst the doors when these driv 
 . ellers are swept away." 
 
 " Will you permit me to say," said Turnbull, 
 after reflection, " that I don't like all this? " 
 
 " And will you permit me to say," said the 
 other, with a snap, " that I don't like Mr. Evan 
 Maclan?" 
 
 Somewhat to the speaker's surprise this did not 
 inflame the sensitive sceptic; he had the air of 
 thinking thoroughly, and then he said : " No, J 
 don't think it's my friend Maclan that taught me 
 that. I think I should always have said that I 
 don't like this. These people have rights." 
 
 " Rights ! " repeated the unknown in a tone 
 quite indescribable. Then he added with a more 
 open sneer : " Perhaps they also have souls." 
 
 " They have lives ! " said Turnbull, sternly ; 
 " that is quite enough for me. I understood you 
 to say that you thought life sacred." 
 
 " Yes, indeed ! " cried his mentor with a sort 
 of idealistic animation. " Yes, indeed ! Life is 
 sacred — but lives are not sacred. We are improv-
 
 THE DREAM OF TURNBULL 321 
 
 ing Life by removing lives. Can you, as a free- 
 thinker, find any fault in that? " 
 
 " Yes," said Turnbull with brevity. 
 
 " Yet you applaud tyrannicide," said the stran- 
 ger with rationalistic gaiety. " How inconsistent ! 
 It really comes to this : You approve of taking 
 away life from those to whom it is a triumph and 
 a pleasure. But you will not take away life from 
 those to whom it is a burden and a toil." 
 
 Turnbull rose to his feet in the car with con- 
 siderable deliberation, but his face seemed oddly 
 pale. The other went on with enthusiasm. 
 
 "Life, yes, Life is indeed sacred!" he cried; 
 " but new lives for old ! Good lives for bad ! On 
 that very place where now there sprawls one 
 drunken wastrel of a pavement artist more or less 
 wishing he were dead — on that very spot there 
 shall in the future be living pictures; there shall 
 be golden girls and boys leaping in the sun." 
 
 Turnbull, still standing up, opened his lips, 
 ** Will you put me down, please ? " he said, quite 
 calmly, like one stopping an omnibus. 
 
 " Put you down — what do you mean? " cried 
 his leader. " I am taking you to the front of the 
 revolutionary war, where you will be one of the 
 first of the revolutionary leaders."
 
 322 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 " Thank you," replied Turnbull with the same 
 painful constraint. " I have heard about your 
 revolutionary war, and I think on the whole that 
 I would rather be anywhere else." 
 
 " Do you want to be taken to a monastery," 
 snarled the other, " with Maclan and his wink- 
 ing Madonnas ? " 
 
 " I want to be taken to a madhouse," said 
 Turnbull distinctly, giving the direction with a 
 sort of precision. *' I want to go back to exactly 
 the same lunatic asylum from which I came." 
 
 " Why? " asked the unknown. 
 
 " Because I want a little sane and wholesome 
 society," answered Turnbull. 
 
 There was a long and peculiar silence, and 
 then the man driving the flying machine said 
 quite coolly : " I won't take you back." 
 
 And then Turnbull said equally coolly : " Then 
 I'll jump out of the car." 
 
 The unknown rose to his full height, and the 
 expression in his eyes seemed to be made of 
 ironies behind ironies, as two mirrors infinitely 
 reflect each other. At last he said, very gravely : 
 " Do you think I am the devil ? " 
 
 " Yes," said Turnbull, violently. " For I think 
 the devil is a dream, and so are you. I don't be-
 
 THE DREAM OF TURNBULL 323 
 
 lieve in you or your flying ship or your last fight 
 of the world. It is all a nightmare. I say as a 
 fact of dogma and faith that it is all a night- 
 mare. And I will be a martyr for my faith as 
 much as St. Catherine, for I will jump out of this 
 ship and risk waking up safe in bed." 
 
 After swaying twice with the swaying vessel he 
 dived over the side as one dives into the sea. For 
 some incredible moments stars and space and 
 planets seemed to shoot up past him as the sparks 
 fly upward ; and yet in that sickening descent he 
 was full of some unnatural happiness. He could 
 connect it with no idea except one that half es- 
 caped him — what Evan had said of the difference 
 between Christ and Satan ; that it was by Christ's 
 own choice that He descended into hell. 
 
 When he again realised anything, he was lying 
 on his elbow on the lawn of the lunatic asylum, 
 and the last red of the sunset had not yet disap- 
 peared.
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 THE IDIOT 
 
 Evan MacIan was standing a few yards off 
 looking at him in absolute silence. 
 
 He had not the moral courage to ask MacIan if 
 there had been anything astounding in the man- 
 ner of his coming there, nor did MacIan seem to 
 have any question to ask, or perhaps any need to 
 ask it. The two men came slowly toward each 
 other, and found the same expression on each oth- 
 er's faces. Then, for the first time in all their ac- 
 quaintance, they shook hands. 
 
 Almost as if this were a kind of unconscious 
 signal, it brought Dr. Quayle bounding out of a 
 door and running across the lawn. 
 
 " Oh, there you are ! " he exclaimed with a re- 
 lieved giggle, " Will you come inside, please ? I 
 want to speak to you both." 
 
 They followed him into his shiny wooden office 
 where their damning record was kept. Dr. 
 Quayle sat down on a swivel chair and swung 
 324
 
 THE IDIOT 325 
 
 round to face them. His carved smile had sud- 
 denly disappeared. 
 
 " I will be plain with you gentlemen," he said, 
 abruptly ; " )'0u know quite well we do our best 
 for everybody here. Your cases have been under 
 special consideration, and the Master himself has 
 decided that you ought to be treated specially and 
 er — under somewhat simpler conditions." 
 
 " You mean treated worse, I suppose," said 
 Turnbull, gruffly. 
 
 The doctor did not reply, and Maclan said :" 1 
 expected this." His eyes had begun to glow. 
 
 The doctor answered, looking at his desk and 
 playing with a key : " Well, in certain cases that 
 give anxiety — it is often better " 
 
 " Give anxiety," said Turnbull, fiercely. " Con- 
 found your impudence! What do you mean? 
 You imprison two perfectly sane men in a mad- 
 house because you have made up a long word. 
 They take it in good temper, walk and talk in 
 your garden like monks who have found a voca- 
 tion, are civil even to you, you damned druggists' 
 hack ! Behave not only more sanely than any of 
 your patients, but more sanely than half the sane 
 men outside, and you have the soul-stifling cheek 
 to say that they give anxiety."
 
 326 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 " The head of the asylum has settled it all," 
 said Dr. Quayle, still looking down. 
 
 Maclan took one of his immense strides for- 
 ward and stood over the doctor with flaming 
 eyes. 
 
 " If the head has settled it let the head an- 
 nounce it," he said. " I won't take it from you. 
 I believe you to be a low, gibbering degenerate. 
 Let us see the head of the asylum." 
 
 "See the head of the asylum," repeated Dr. 
 Quayle. " Certainly not." 
 
 The tall Highlander, bending over him, put one 
 hand on his shoulder with fatherly interest. 
 
 " You don't seem to appreciate the peculiar ad- 
 vantages of my position as a lunatic," he said. 
 " I could kill you with my left hand before such a 
 rat as you could so much as squeak. And I 
 wouldn't be hanged for it." 
 
 " I certainly agree with Mr. Maclan," said 
 Turnbull with sobriety and perfect respectful- 
 ness, " that you had better let us see the head of 
 the institution." 
 
 Dr. Quayle got to his feet in a mixture of sud- 
 den hysteria and clumsy presence of mind. 
 
 " Oh, certainly," he said with a weak laugh. 
 " Vou can see the head of the asylum if you par-
 
 THE IDIOT 327 
 
 ticularly want to." He almost ran out of the 
 room, and the two followed swiftly on his flying 
 coat tails. He knocked at an ordinary varnished 
 door in the corridor. When a voice said, " Come 
 in," Maclan's breath went hissing back through 
 his teeth into his chest. Turnbull was more im- 
 petuous, and opened the door. 
 
 It was a neat and well-appointed room entirely 
 lined with a medical library. At the other end of 
 it was a ponderous and polished desk with an in- 
 candescent lamp on it, the light of which was just 
 sufficient to show a slender, well-bred figure in an 
 ordinary medical black frock-coat, whose head, 
 quite silvered with age, was bent over neat piles 
 of notes. This gentleman looked up for an in- 
 stant as they entered, and the lamplight fell on 
 his glittering spectacles and long, clean-shaven 
 face — a face which would have been simply like 
 an aristocrat's but that a certain lion poise of the 
 head and long cleft in the chin made it look more 
 like a very handsome actor's. It was only for a 
 flash that his face was thus lifted. Then he bent 
 his silver head over his notes once more, and said, 
 without looking up again : 
 
 " I told you, Dr. Quayle, that these men were 
 to go to cells B and C."
 
 328 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 Turnbull and Maclan looked at each other, and 
 said more than they could ever say with tongues 
 or swords. Among other things they said that to 
 that particular Head of the institution it was 
 waste of time to appeal, and they followed Dr. 
 Quayle out of the room. 
 
 The instant they stepped out into the corridor 
 four sturdy figures stepped from four sides, pin- 
 ioned them, and ran them along the galleries. 
 They might very likely have thrown their captors 
 right and left had they been inclined to resist, but 
 for some nameless reason they were more inclined 
 to laugh. A mixture of mad irony with childish 
 curiosity made them feel quite inclined to see 
 what next twist would be taken by their imbecile 
 luck. They were dragged down countless cold 
 avenues lined with glazed tiles, different only in 
 being of different lengths and set at different 
 angles. They were so many and so monotonous 
 that to escape back by them would have been far 
 harder than fleeing from the Hampton Court 
 maze. Only the fact that windows grew fewer, 
 coming at longer intervals, and the fact that when 
 the windows did come they seemed shadowed and 
 let in less light, showed that they were winding 
 into the core or belly of some enormous building.
 
 THE IDIOT 329 
 
 After a little time the glazed corridors began to 
 be lit by electricity. 
 
 At last, when they had walked nearly a mile in 
 those white and polished tunnels, they came with 
 quite a shock to the futile finality of a cul-de-sac. 
 All that white and weary journey ended suddenly 
 in an oblong space and a blank white wall. But 
 in the white wall there were two iron doors 
 painted white on which were written, respectively, 
 in neat black capitals B and C. 
 
 " You go in here, sir," said the leader of the 
 officials, quite respectfully, ** and you in here." 
 
 But before the doors had clanged upon their 
 dazed victims, Maclan had been able to say to 
 Turnbull with a strange drawl of significance: 
 " I wonder who A is." 
 
 Turnbull made an automatic struggle before he 
 allowed himself to be thrown into the cell. Hence 
 it happened that he was the last to enter, and was 
 still full of the exhilaration of the adventures for 
 at least five minutes after the echo of the clang- 
 ing door had died away. 
 
 Then, when silence had sunk deep and nothing 
 happened for two and a half hours, it suddenly 
 occurred to him that this was the end of his life. 
 He was hidden and sealed up in this little crack
 
 330 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 of stone until the flesh should fall off his bones. 
 He was dead, and the world had won. 
 
 His cell was of an oblong shape, but very long 
 in comparison with its width. It was just wide 
 enough to permit the arms to be fully extended 
 with the dumb-bells, which were hung up on the 
 left wall, very dusty. It was, however, long 
 enough for a man to walk one thirty-fifth part of 
 a mile if he traversed it entirely. On the same 
 principle a row of fixed holes, quite close to- 
 gedier, let in to the cells by pipes what was al- 
 leged to be the freshest air. For these great sci- 
 entific organisers insisted that a man should be 
 healthy even if he was miserable. They provided 
 a walk long enough to give him exercise and holes 
 large enough to give him oxygen. There their 
 interest in human nature suddenly ceased. It 
 seemed never to have occurred to them that the 
 benefit of exercise belongs partly to the benefit of 
 liberty. They had not entertained the suggestion 
 that the open air is only one of the advantages of 
 the open sky. They administered air in secret, 
 but in sufficient doses, as if it were a medicine. 
 They suggested walking, as if no man had ever 
 felt inclined to walk. Above all, the asylum au- 
 thorities insisted on their own extraordinary
 
 THE IDIOT 331 
 
 cleanliness. Every morning, while Turnbull was 
 still half asleep on his iron bedstead which was 
 lifted half-way up the wall and clamped to it with 
 iron, four sluices or metal mouths opened above 
 him at the four corners of the chamber and 
 washed it white of any defilement, Turnbull's 
 solitary soul surged up against this sickening daily 
 solemnity. 
 
 " I am buried alive ! " he cried, bitterly ; " they 
 have hidden me under mountains. I shall be here 
 till I rot. Why the blazes should it matter to 
 them whether I am dirty or clean." 
 
 Every morning and evening an iron hatchway 
 opened in his oblong cell, and a brown hairy hand 
 or two thrust in a plate of perfectly cooked lentils 
 and a big bowl of cocoa. He was not underfed 
 any more than he was underexercised or asphyx- 
 iated. He had ample walking space, ample air, 
 ample and even filling food. The only objection 
 was that he had nothing to walk toward, nothing 
 to feast about, and no reason whatever for draw- 
 ing the breath of life. 
 
 Even the shape of his cell especially irritated 
 him. It was a long, narrow parallelogram, which 
 had a flat wall at one end and ought to have had 
 a flat wall at the other ; but that end was broken
 
 332 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 by a wedge or angle of space, like the prow of a 
 ship. After three days of silence and cocoa, this 
 angle at the end began to infuriate Turnbull. It 
 maddened him to think that two lines came to- 
 gether and pointed at nothing. After the fifth 
 day he was reckless, and poked his head into the 
 corner. After twenty-five days he almost broke 
 his head against it. Then he became quite cool 
 and stupid again, and began to examine it like a 
 sort of Robinson Crusoe. 
 
 Almost unconsciously it was his instinct to ex- 
 amine outlets, and he found himself paying par- 
 ticular attention to the row of holes which let in 
 the air into his last house of life. He soon dis- 
 covered that these air-holes were all the ends and 
 mouths of long leaden tubes which doubtless car- 
 ried air from some remote watering-place near 
 Margate. One evening while he was engaged in 
 the fifth investigation he noticed something like 
 twilight in one of these dumb mouths, as com- 
 pared with the darkness of the others. Thrusting 
 his finger in as far as it would go, he found a 
 hole and flapping edge in the tube. This he rent 
 open and instantly saw a light behind ; it was at 
 least certain that he had struck some other cell. 
 
 It is a characteristic of all things now called
 
 THE IDIOT 333 
 
 " efficient," which means mechanical and calcu- 
 lated, that if they go wrong at all they go entirely 
 wrong. There is no power of retrieving a defeat, 
 as in simpler and more living organisms. A 
 strong gun can conquer a strong elephant, but a 
 wounded elephant can easily conquer a broken 
 gun. Thus the Prussian monarchy in the eigh- 
 teenth century, or now, can make a strong army 
 merely by making the men afraid. But it does it 
 with the permanent possibility that the men may 
 some day be more afraid of their enemies than of 
 their officers. Thus the drainage in our cities so 
 long as it is quite solid means a general safety, 
 but if there is one leak it means concentrated 
 poison — an explosion of deathly germs like dyna- 
 mite, a spirit of stink. Thus, indeed, all that ex- 
 cellent machinery which is the swiftest thing on 
 earth in saving human labour is also the slowest 
 thing on earth in resisting human interference. 
 It may be easier to get chocolate for nothing out 
 of a shopkeeper than out an automatic machine. 
 But if you did manage to steal the chocolate, the 
 automatic machine would be much less likely to 
 run after you. 
 
 TurnbuU was not long in discovering this truth 
 in connection with the cold and colossal machin-
 
 334 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 ery of this great asylum. He had been shaken by 
 many spiritual states since the instant when he 
 was pitched head foremost into that private cell 
 which was to be his private room till death. He 
 had felt a high fit of pride and poetry, which 
 had ebbed away and left him deadly cold. He 
 had known a period of mere scientific curiosity, 
 in the course of which he examined all the tiles of 
 his cell, with the gratifying conclusion that they 
 were all the same shape and size ; but was greatly 
 puzzled about the angle in the wall at the end, and 
 also about an iron peg or spike that stood out 
 from the wall, the object of which he does not 
 know to this day. Then he had a period of mere 
 madness not to be written of by decent men, but 
 only by those few dirty novelists hallooed on by 
 the infernal huntsman to hunt down and humiliate 
 human nature. This also passed, but left behind 
 it a feverish distaste for many of the mere objects 
 around him. Long after he had returned to san- 
 ity and such hopeless cheerfulness as a man might 
 have on a desert island, he disliked the regular 
 squares of the pattern of wall and floor and the 
 triangle that terminated his corridor. Above all, 
 he had a hatred, deep as the hell he did not be- 
 lieve in, for the objectless iron peg in the wall.
 
 THE IDIOT 335 
 
 But in all his moods, sane or insane, intolerant 
 or stoical, he never really doubted this: that the 
 machine held him as light and as hopelessly as he 
 had from his birth been held by the hopeless cos- 
 mos of his own creed. He knew well the ruthless 
 and inexhaustible resources of our scientific civ- 
 ilisation. He no more expected rescue from a 
 medical certificate than rescue from the solar sys- 
 tem. In many of his Robinson Crusoe moods he 
 thought kindly of Maclan as of some quarrelsome 
 school-fellow who had long been dead. He 
 thought of leaving in the cell when he died a rigid 
 record of his opinions, and when he began to 
 write them down on scraps of envelope in his 
 pocket, he was startled to discover how much they 
 had changed. Then he remembered the Beau- 
 champ Tower, and tried to write his blazing scep- 
 ticism on the wall, and discovered that it was all 
 shiny tiles on which nothing could be either drawn 
 or carved. Then for an instant there hung and 
 broke above him like a high wave the whole hor- 
 ror of scientific imprisonment, which manages to 
 deny a man not only liberty, but every accidental 
 comfort of bondage. In the old filthy dungeons 
 men could car^^e their prayers or protests in the 
 rock. Here the white and slippery walls escaped
 
 336 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 even from bearing witness. The old prisoners 
 could make a pet of a mouse or a beetle strayed 
 out of a hole. Here the unpierceable walls were 
 washed every morning by an automatic sluice. 
 There was no natural corruption and no merciful 
 decay by which a living thing could enter in. 
 Then James Turnbull looked up and saw the high 
 invincible hatefulness of the society in which he 
 lived, and saw the hatefulness of something else 
 also, which he told himself again and again was 
 not the cosmos in which he believed. But all the 
 time he had never once doubted that the five sides 
 of his cell were for him the wall of the world 
 henceforward, and it gave him a shock of sur- 
 prise even to discover the faint light through the 
 aperture in the ventilation tube. But he had for- 
 gotten how close efficiency has to pack everything 
 together and how easily, therefore, a pipe here or 
 there may leak. 
 
 Turnbull thrust his first finger down the aper- 
 ture, and at last managed to make a slight further 
 fissure in the piping. The light that came from 
 beyond was very faint, and apparently indirect ; it 
 seemed to fall from some hole or window higher 
 up. As he was screwing his eye to peer at this 
 gray and greasy tvviUght he was astonished to see
 
 THE Idiot 337 
 
 another human finger very long and lean come 
 down from above toward the broken pipe and hook 
 it up to something higher. The lighted aperture 
 was abruptly blackened and blocked, presum- 
 ably by a face and mouth, for something human 
 spoke down the tube, though the words were not 
 clear. 
 
 "Who is that?" asked Turnbull, trembling 
 with excitement, yet wary and quite resolved not 
 to spoil any chance. 
 
 After a few indistinct sounds the voice came 
 down with a strong Argyleshire accent : 
 
 " I say, Turnbull, we couldn't fight through 
 this tube, could we ? " 
 
 Sentiments beyond speech surged up in Turn- 
 bull and silenced him for a space just long enough 
 to be painful. Then he said with his old gaiety : 
 " I vote we talk a little first ; I don't want to mur- 
 der the first man I have met for ten million 
 years." 
 
 " I know w4iat you mean," answered the other. 
 " It has been awful. For a mortal month I have 
 been alone with God." 
 
 Turnbull started, and it was on the tip of his 
 tongue to answer : " Alone with God ! Then you 
 do not know what loneliness is."
 
 33^ THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 But he answered, after all, in his old defiant 
 style : " Alone with God, were you ? And I sup- 
 pose you found his Majesty's society rather mo- 
 notonous ? " 
 
 " Oh, no," said Maclan, and his voice shud- 
 dered ; " it was a great deal too exciting." 
 
 After a very long silence the voice of Maclan 
 said : " What do you really hate most in your 
 place?" 
 
 " You'd think I was really mad if I told you," 
 answered Turnbull, bitterly. 
 
 " Then I expect it's the same as mine," said the 
 other voice. 
 
 " I am sure it's not the same as anybody's," said 
 Turnbull, " for it has no rhyme or reason. Per- 
 haps my brain really has gone, but I detest that 
 iron spike in the left wall more than the damned 
 desolation or the damned cocoa. Have you got 
 one in your cell ? " 
 
 " Not now," replied Maclan with serenity. 
 " I've pulled it out." 
 
 His fellow-prisoner could only repeat the 
 words. 
 
 " I pulled it out the other day when I was off 
 my head," continued the tranquil Highland voice. 
 " It looked so unnecessary."
 
 THE IDIOT 339 
 
 " You must be ghastly strong," said Turnbull. 
 
 " One is, when one is mad," was the careless 
 reply, " and it had worn a little loose in the 
 socket. Even now I've got it out I can't discover 
 what it was for. But I've found out something 
 a long sight funnier." 
 
 " What do you mean ? " asked Turnbull. 
 
 " I have found out where A is," said the other. 
 
 Three weeks afterward Maclan had managed 
 to open up communications which made his mean- 
 ing plain. By that time the two captives had 
 fully discovered and demonstrated that weakness 
 in the very nature of modern machinery to which 
 we have already referred. The very fact that they 
 were isolated from all companions meant that 
 they were free from all spies, and as there were 
 'no gaolers to be bribed, so there were none to be 
 baffled. Machinery brought them their cocoa and 
 cleaned their cells ; that machinery was as helpless 
 as it was pitiless. A little patient violence, con- 
 ducted day after day amid constant mutual sug- 
 gestion, opened an irregular hole in the wall, 
 large enough to let in a small man, in the exact 
 place where there had been before the tiny ven- 
 tilation holes. Turnbull tumbled somehow into 
 Maclan's apartment, and his first glance found
 
 340 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 out that the iron spike was indeed plucked from 
 its socket, and left, moreover, another ragged hole 
 into some hollow place behind. But for this 
 Maclan's cell was the duplicate of Turnbull's — 
 a long oblong ending in a wedge and lined with 
 cold and lustrous tiles. The small hole from 
 which the peg had been displaced was in that 
 short oblique wall at the end nearest to Turn- 
 bulFs. That individual looked at it with a puz- 
 zled face. 
 
 " What is in there? " he asked. 
 
 Maclan answered briefly : *' Another cell." 
 
 "But where can the door of it be?" said his 
 companion, even more puzzled ; " the doors of our 
 cells are at the other end." 
 
 " It has no door," said Evan. 
 
 In the pause of perplexity that followed, an 
 eerie and sinister feeling crept over Turnbull's 
 stubborn soul in spite of himself. The notion of 
 the doorless room chilled him with that sense of 
 half-witted curiosity which one has when some- 
 thing horrible is half understood. 
 
 " James Turnbull," said Maclan, in a low and 
 shaken voice, " these people hate us more than 
 Nero hated Christians, and fear us more than any 
 man feared Nero. They have filled England with
 
 THE IDIOT 341 
 
 frenzy and galloping in order to capture us and 
 wipe us out — in order to kill us. And they have 
 killed us, for you and I have only made a hole in 
 our coffins. But though this hatred that they felt 
 for us is bigger than they felt for Bonaparte, and 
 more plain and practical than they would feel for 
 Jack the Ripper, yet it is not we whom the people 
 of this place hate most." 
 
 A cold and quivering impatience continued to 
 crawl up Turnbull's spine; he had never felt so 
 near to superstition and supernaturalism, and it 
 was not a pretty sort of superstition either. 
 
 " There is another man more fearful and hate- 
 ful," went on Maclan, in his low monotone voice, 
 " and they have buried him even deeper. God 
 knows how they did it, for he was let in by nei- 
 ther door nor window, nor lowered through any 
 opening above. I expect these iron handles that 
 we both hate have been part of some damned ma- 
 chinery for walling him up. He is there. I have 
 looked through the hole at him; but I cannot 
 stand looking at him long, because his face is 
 turned away from me and he does not move." 
 
 All Turnbull's unnatural and uncompleted feel- 
 ings found their outlet in rushing to the aperture 
 and looking into the unknown room.
 
 3-42 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 It was a third oblong cell exactly like the other 
 two except that it was doorless, and except that 
 on one of the walls was painted a large black A 
 like the B and C outside their own doors. The 
 letter in this case was not painted outside, be- 
 cause this prison had no outside. 
 
 On the same kind of tiled floor, of which the 
 monotonous squares had maddened Turnbull's 
 eye and brain, was sitting a figure which was 
 startlingly short even for the sitting posture. In- 
 deed, it had something of the look of a child, 
 only that the enormous head was ringed with 
 hair of a frosty gray. The figure was draped, 
 both insecurely and insufficiently, in what 
 looked like the remains of a brown flannel 
 dressing-gown; an emptied cup of cocoa stood 
 on the floor beside it, and the creature had his 
 big gray head cocked at a particular angle of 
 inquiry or attention which amid all that gather- 
 ing gloom and mystery struck one as comic if not 
 cocksure. 
 
 After six still seconds Turnbull could stand it 
 no longer, but called out to the dwarfish thing — 
 in what words heaven knows. The thing got up 
 with the promptitude of an animal, and turning 
 round offered the spectacle of two owlish eyes
 
 THE IDIOT 343 
 
 and a huge gray-and-white beard not unlike the 
 plumage of an owl. This extraordinary beard 
 covered him literally to his feet (not that that was 
 very far), and perhaps it was as well that it did, 
 for portions of his remaining clothing seemed to 
 fall o£f whenever he moved. One talks trivially 
 of a face like parchment, but this old man's face 
 was so wrinkled that it was like a parchment 
 loaded with hieroglyphics. The lines of his face 
 were so deep and complex that one could see five 
 or ten different faces besides the real one, as one 
 can see them in an elaborate wall-paper. And yet 
 while his face seemed like a scripture older than 
 the gods, his eyes were quite bright, blue, and 
 startled like those of a baby. They looked as if 
 they had only an instant before been fitted into his 
 head. 
 
 Everything depended so obviously upon wheth- 
 er this buried monster spoke that Tumbull did not 
 know or care whether he himself had spoken. He 
 said something or nothing. And then he waited 
 for this dwarfish voice that had been hidden 
 under the mountains of the world. At last it did 
 speak, and spoke in English, with a foreign ac- 
 cent that was neither Latin nor Teutonic. He 
 suddenly stretched out a long and very dirty
 
 344 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 forefinger, and cried in a voice of clear recogni- 
 tion, lil<e a child's : " That's a hole." 
 
 He digested the discovery for some seconds, 
 sucking his finger, and then he cried, with a crow 
 of laughter : "And that's a head come through it." 
 
 The hilarious energy in this idiot attitude gave 
 Turnbull another sick turn. He had grown to 
 tolerate those dreary and mumbling madmen who 
 trailed themselves about the beautiful asylum gar- 
 dens. But there was something new and sub- 
 versive of the universe in the combination of so 
 much cheerful decision with a body without a 
 brain. 
 
 " Why did they put you in such a place? " he 
 asked at last with embarrassment. 
 
 " Good place. Yes," said the old man, nodding 
 a great many times and beaming like a flattered 
 landlord. " Good shape. Long and narrow, with 
 a point. Like this," and he made lovingly with 
 his hands a map of the room in the air. 
 
 " But that's not the best," he added, confiden- 
 tially. " Squares very good ; I have a nice long 
 holiday, and can count them. But that not the 
 best." 
 
 " What is the best ? " asked Turnbull in great 
 distress.
 
 THE IDIOT 345 
 
 " Spike is the best," said the old man, opening 
 his blue eyes blazing; " it sticks out." 
 
 The words Turnbull spoke broke out of him in 
 pure pity. " Can't we do anything for you ? " he 
 said. 
 
 " I am very happy," said the other, alpha- 
 betically. '* You are a good man. Can I help 
 you?" 
 
 " No, I don't think you can, sir," said Turnbull 
 with rough pathos; " I am glad you are contented 
 at least." 
 
 The weird old person opened his broad blue 
 eyes and fixed Turnbull with a stare extraor- 
 dinarily severe. " You are quite sure," he said, 
 " I cannot help you? " 
 
 " Quite sure, thank you," said Turnbull with 
 broken brevity. " Good-day." 
 
 Then he turned to Maclan who was standing 
 close behind him, and whose face, now familiar in 
 all its moods, told him easily that Evan had heard 
 the whole of the strange dialogue. 
 
 " Curse those cruel beasts ! " cried Turnbull. 
 " They've turned him to an imbecile just by bury- 
 ing him alive. His brain's like a pin-point now." 
 
 "You are sure he is a lunatic?" said Evan, 
 slowly.
 
 346 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 " Not a lunatic," said Turnbull, " an idiot. 
 He just points to things and says that they stick 
 out." 
 
 " He had a notion that he could help us," said 
 Maclan, moodily, and began to pace toward the 
 other end of his cell. 
 
 " Yes, it was a bit pathetic," assented Turnbull ; 
 " such a Thing offering help, and besides — 
 Hallo ! Hallo ! What's the matter ? " 
 
 " God Almighty guide us all ! " said Maclan. 
 
 He was standing heavy and still at the other 
 end of the room and staring quietly at the door 
 which for thirty days had sealed them up from 
 the sun. Turnbull, following the other's eye, 
 stared at the door likewise, and then he also ut- 
 tered an exclamation. The iron door was stand- 
 ing about an inch and a half open. 
 
 " He said — " began Evan, in a trembling voice 
 — " he offered " 
 
 " Come along, you fool ! " shouted Turnbull 
 with a sudden and furious energy. *' I see it all 
 now, and it's the best stroke of luck in the world. 
 You pulled out that iron handle that had screwed 
 •up his cell, and it somehow altered the machinery 
 and opened all the doors." 
 
 Seizing Maclan by the elbow he bundled him
 
 THE IDIOT 347 
 
 bodily out into the open corridor and ran him on 
 till they saw daylight through a half-darkened 
 window. 
 
 " All the same," said Evan, like one answering 
 in an ordinary conversation, " he did ask you 
 whether he could help you." 
 
 All this wilderness of windowless passages was 
 so built into the heart of that fortress of fear that 
 it seemed more than an hour before the fugitives 
 had any good glimpse of the outer world. They 
 did not even know what hour of the day it was ; 
 and when, turning a corner, they saw the bare 
 tunnel of the corridor end abruptly in a shining 
 square of garden, the grass burning in that strong 
 evening sunshine which makes it burnished gold 
 rather than green, the abrupt opening on to the 
 earth seemed like a hole knocked in the wall of 
 heaven. Only once or twice in life is it permitted 
 to a man thus to see the very universe from out- 
 side, and feel existence itself as an adorable ad- 
 venture not yet begun. As they found this shin- 
 ing escape out of that hellish labyrinth they both 
 had simultaneously the sensation of being babes 
 unborn, of being asked by God if they would like 
 to live upon the earth. They were looking in at 
 one of the seven gates of Eden.
 
 348 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 Turnbull was the first to leap into the garden, 
 with an earth-spurning leap like that of one who 
 could really spread his wings and fly. Maclan, 
 who came an instant after, w^as less full of mere 
 animal gusto and fuller of a more fearful and 
 quivering pleasure in the clear and innocent 
 flower colours and the high and holy trees. With 
 one bound they were in that cool and cleared land- 
 scape, and they found just outside the door the 
 black-clad gentleman with the cloven chin smil- 
 ingly regarding them; and his chin seemed to 
 grow longer and longer as he smiled.
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 A RIDDLE OF FACES 
 
 Just behind him stood two other doctors : one, 
 the famihar Dr. Quayle, of the bhnking eyes and 
 bleating voice; the other, a more commonplace 
 but much more forcible figure, a stout young doc- 
 tor with short, well-brushed hair and a round but 
 resolute face. At the sight of the escape these 
 two subordinates uttered a cry and sprang for- 
 ward, but their superior remained motionless and 
 smiling, and somehow the lack of his support 
 seemed to arrest and freeze them in the very 
 gesture of pursuit. 
 
 " Let them be," he cried in a voice that cut 
 hke a blade of ice; and not only of ice, but of 
 some awful primordial ice that had never been 
 water. 
 
 " I want no devoted champions," said the cut- 
 ting voice; *' even the folly of one's friends bores 
 one at last. You don't suppose I should have let 
 these lunatics out of their cells without good rea- 
 349
 
 350 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 son. I have the best and fullest reason. They 
 can be let out of their cell to-day, because to-day 
 the whole world has become their cell. I will have 
 no more mediaeval mummery of chains and doors. 
 Let them wander about the earth as they wan- 
 dered about this garden, and I shall still be their 
 easy master. Let them take the wings of the 
 morning and abide in the uttermost parts of the 
 sea — I am there. Whither shall they go from my 
 presence and whither shall they flee from my 
 spirit ? Courage, Dr. Quayle, and do not be down- 
 hearted ; the real days of tyranny are only begin- 
 ning on this earth." 
 
 And with that the Master laughed and swung 
 away from them, almost as if his laugh was a bad 
 thing for people to see. 
 
 " Might I speak to you a moment? " said Turn- 
 bull, stepping forward with a respectful resolu- 
 tion. But the shoulders of the Master only seemed 
 to take on a new and unexpected angle of mockery 
 as he strode away. 
 
 TurnbuU swung round with great abruptness 
 to the other two doctors, and said, harshly : 
 " What in snakes does he mean — and who are 
 you?" 
 
 " My name is Hutton," said the short, stout
 
 A RIDDLE OF FACES 351 
 
 man, " and I am — well, one of those whose busi- 
 ness it is to uphold this establishment." 
 
 " My name is Turnbull," said the other ; " I am 
 one of those whose business it is to tear it to the 
 ground." 
 
 The small doctor smiled, and Tumbull's anger 
 seemed suddenly to steady him. 
 
 " But I don't want to talk about that," he said, 
 calmly ; " I only want to know what the master 
 of this asylum really means." 
 
 Dr. Hutton's smile broke into a laugh which, 
 short as it was, had the suspicion of a shake in it. 
 " I suppose you think that quite a simple ques- 
 tion," he said. 
 
 " I think it a plain question," said Turnbull, 
 " and one that deserves a plain answer. Why did 
 the Master lock us up in a couple of cupboards 
 like jars of pickles for a mortal month, and why 
 does he now let us walk free in the garden 
 again?" 
 
 " I understand," said Hutton, with arched eye- 
 brows, " that your complaint is that you are now 
 free to walk in the garden." 
 
 " My complaint is," said Turnbull, stubbornly, 
 " that if I am fit to walk freely now, I have been 
 as fit for the last month. No one has examined
 
 352 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 me, no one has come near me. Your chief says 
 that I am only free because he has made other 
 arrangements. What are those arrangements ? " 
 
 The young man with the round face looked 
 down for a little while and smoked reflectively. 
 The other and elder doctor had gone pacing 
 nervously by himself upon the lawn. At length 
 the round face was lifted again, and showed two 
 round blue eyes with a certain frankness in them. 
 
 " Well, I don't see that it can do any harm to 
 tell you now," he said. " You were shut up just 
 then because it was just during that month that 
 the Master was bringing off his big scheme. He 
 was getting his bill through Parliament, and or- 
 ganising the new medical police. But of course 
 you haven't heard of all that ; in fact, you weren't 
 meant to." 
 
 " Heard of all what ? " asked the impatient in- 
 quirer. 
 
 " There's a new law now, and the asylum 
 powers are greatly extended. Even if you did 
 escape now, any policeman would take you up in 
 the next town if you couldn't show a certificate of 
 sanity from us." 
 
 "Well," continued Dr. Hutton, "the Master de- 
 scribed before both Houses of Parliament the real
 
 A RIDDLE OF FACES 353 
 
 scientific objection to all existing legislation about 
 lunacy. As he very truly said, the mistake was in 
 supposing insanity to be merely an exception or 
 an extreme. Insanity, like forgetfulness, is simply 
 a quality which enters more or less into all human 
 beings ; and for practical purposes it is more nec- 
 essary to know whose mind is really trustworthy 
 than whose has some accidental taint. We have 
 therefore reversed the existing method, and peo- 
 ple now have to prove that they are sane. In the 
 first village you entered, the village constable 
 would notice that you were not wearing on the 
 left lapel of your coat the small pewter S which 
 is now necessary to any one who walks about be- 
 yond asylum bounds or outside asylum hours." 
 
 " You mean to say," said Turnbull, " that this 
 was what the Master of the asylum urged before 
 the House of Commons? " 
 
 Dr. Hutton nodded with gravity. 
 
 " And you mean to say," cried Turnbull, with 
 a vibrant snort, " that that proposal was passed in 
 an assembly that calls itself democratic? " 
 
 The doctor showed his whole row of teeth in a 
 smile. " Oh, the assembly calls itself Socialist 
 now," he said, " but we explained to them that 
 this was a question for men of science,"
 
 354 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 Tiirnbnll gave one stamp upon the gravel, then 
 pulled himself together, and resumed : " But why- 
 should your infernal head medicine-man lock us 
 up in separate cells while he was turning Eng- 
 land into a madhouse ? I'm not the Prime Minis- 
 ter; we're not the House of Lords." 
 
 " He wasn't afraid of the Prime Minister," re- 
 plied Dr. Hutton ; *' he isn't afraid of the House 
 of Lords. But " 
 
 " Well ? " inquired Turnbull, stamping again. 
 
 " He is afraid of you," said Hutton, simply. 
 " Why, didn't you know ? " 
 
 Maclan, who had not spoken yet, made one 
 stride forward and stood with shaking limbs and 
 shining eyes. 
 
 " He was afraid ! " began Evan, thickly. " You 
 mean to say that we " 
 
 " I mean to say the plain truth now that the 
 danger is over," said Hutton, calmly ; " most cer- 
 tainly you two were the only people he ever was 
 afraid of." Then he added in a low but not in- 
 audible voice : " Except one — whom he feared 
 worse, and has buried deeper." 
 
 " Come away," cried Maclan, " this has to be 
 thought about." 
 
 Turnbull followed him in silence as he strode
 
 A RIDDLE OF FACES 355 
 
 away, but just before he vanished, turned and 
 spoke again to the doctors. 
 
 " But what has got hold of people? " he asked, 
 abruptly. " Why should all England have gone 
 dotty on the mere subject of dottiness? " 
 
 Dr. Hutton smiled his open smile once more 
 and bowed slightly. " As to that also," he re- 
 plied, " I don't want to make you vain." 
 
 TurnbuU swung round without a word, and he 
 and his companion were lost in the lustrous leaf- 
 age of the garden. They noticed nothing special 
 about the scene, except that the garden seemed 
 more exquisite than ever in the deepening sunset, 
 and that there seemed to be many more people, 
 whether patients or attendants, walking about 
 in it. 
 
 From behind the two black-coated doctors as 
 they stood on the lawn another figure somewhat 
 similarly dressed strode hurriedly past them, hav- 
 ing also grizzled hair and an open flapping frock- 
 coat. Both his decisive step and dapper black 
 array marked him out as another medical man, or 
 at least a man in authority, and as he passed 
 Tumbull the latter was aroused by a strong im- 
 pression of having seen the man somewhere be- 
 fore. It was no one that he knew well, yet he
 
 356 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 was certain that it was some one at whom he had 
 at some time or other looked steadily. It was 
 neither the face of a friend nor of an enemy; it 
 aroused neither irritation nor tenderness, yet it 
 was a face which had for some reason been of 
 great importance in his life. Turning and return- 
 ing, and making detours about the garden, he 
 managed to study the man's face again and again 
 — a moustached, somewhat military face with a 
 monocle, the sort of face that is aristocratic with- 
 out being distinguished. Turnbull could not re- 
 member any particular doctors in his decidedly 
 healthy existence. Was the man a long-lost uncle, 
 or was he only somebody who had sat opposite 
 him regularly in a railway train? At that mo- 
 ment the man knocked down his own eye-glass 
 with a gesture of annoyance; Turnbull remem- 
 bered the gesture, and the truth sprang up solid 
 in front of him. The man with the moustaches 
 was Cumberland Vane, the London police magis- 
 trate before whom he and Maclan had once stood 
 on their trial. The magistrate must have been 
 transferred to some other official duties — to some- 
 thing connected with the inspection of asylums. 
 
 Turnbull's heart gave a leap of excitement 
 which was half hope. As a magistrate Mr. Cum-
 
 A RIDDLE OF FACES 357 
 
 berland Vane had been somewhat careless and 
 shallow, but certainly kindly, and not inaccessible 
 to common-sense so long as it was put to him in 
 strictly conventional language. He was at least 
 an authority of a more human and refreshing sort 
 than the crank with the wagging beard or the 
 fiend with the forked chin. 
 
 He went straight up to the magistrate, and 
 said : " Good-evening, Mr. Vane ; I doubt if you 
 remember me." 
 
 Cumberland Vane screwed the eye-glass into 
 his scowling face for an instant, and then said 
 curtly but not uncivilly : " Yes, I remember you, 
 sir ; assault or battery, wasn't it ? — a fellow broke 
 your window. A tall fellow — McSomething — 
 case made rather a noise afterward." 
 
 " Maclan is the name, sir," said Turnbull, re- 
 spectfully ; " I have him here with me." 
 
 " Eh ! " said Vane very sharply. " Confound 
 him! Has he got anything to do with this 
 game ? " 
 
 ** Mr. Vane," said Turnbull, pacifically, *' I will 
 not pretend that either he or I acted quite decor- 
 ously on that occasion. You were very lenient 
 with us, and did not treat us as criminals when 
 you very well might. So I am sure you will give
 
 358 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 us your testimony that, even if we were criminals, 
 we are not lunatics in any legal or medical sense 
 whatever. I am sure you will use your influence 
 for us." 
 
 " My influence ! " repeated the magistrate, with 
 a slight start, " I don't quite understand you." 
 
 " I don't know in what capacity you are here," 
 continued Turnbull, gravely, " but a legal author- 
 ity of your distinction must certainly be here in 
 an important one. Whether you are visiting and 
 inspecting the place, or attached to it as some kind 
 of permanent legal adviser, your opinion must 
 still " 
 
 Cumberland Vane exploded with a detonation 
 of oaths ; his face was transfigured with fury and 
 contempt, and yet in some odd way he did not 
 seem specially angry with Turnbull. 
 
 " But God blast my soul and body ! " he gasped, 
 at length ; " I'm not here as an official at all. I'm 
 here as a patient. The cursed pack of rat-catch- 
 ing chemists all say that I've lost my wits." 
 
 " You ! " cried Turnbull with terrible emphasis. 
 " You ! Lost your wits ! " 
 
 In the rush of his real astonishment at this tow- 
 ering unreality Turnbull almost added : " Why, 
 you haven't got any to lose." But he fortunately
 
 A RIDDLE OF FACES 359 
 
 remembered the remains of his desperate diplo- 
 macy. 
 
 " This can't go on," he said, positively. " Men 
 like Maclan and I may suffer unjustly all our 
 lives, but a man like you must have influence." 
 
 " There is only one man who has any influence 
 in England novi%" said Vane, and his high voice 
 fell to a sudden and convincing quietude. 
 
 " Whom do you mean ? " asked TurnbuU. 
 
 " I mean that cursed fellov^ with the long split 
 chin," said the other. 
 
 " Is it really true," asked TurnbuU, " that he 
 has been allowed to buy up and control such a 
 lot ? What put the country into such a state ? " 
 
 Mr. Cumberland Vane laughed outright. 
 "What put the country into such a state?" he 
 asked. " Why, you did. When you were fool 
 enough to agree to fight Maclan, after all, every- 
 body was ready to believe that the Bank of Eng- 
 land might paint itself pink with white spots." 
 
 " I don't understand," answered TurnbuU. 
 "Why should you be surprised at my fighting? 
 I hope I have always fought." 
 
 " Well," said Cumberland Vane, airily, " you 
 didn't believe in religion, you see — so we thought 
 you were safe at any ratq. You went further in
 
 360 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 your language than most of us wanted to go ; no 
 good in just hurting one's mother's feehngs, I 
 think. But of course we all knew you were right, 
 and, really, we relied on you." 
 
 " Did you ? " said the editor of the " Atheist " 
 with a bursting heart. " I am sorry you did not 
 tell me so at the time." 
 
 He walked away very rapidly and flung himself 
 on a garden-seat, and for some six minutes his 
 own wrongs hid from him the huge and hilarious 
 fact that Cumberland Vane had been locked up as 
 a lunatic. 
 
 The garden of the madhouse was so perfectly 
 planned, and answered so exquisitely to every 
 hour of daylight, that one could almost fancy that 
 the sunlight was caught there tangled in its tinted 
 trees, as the wise men of Gotham tried to chain 
 the spring to a bush. Or it seemed as if this ironic 
 paradise still kept its unique dawn or its special 
 sunset while the rest of the earthly globe rolled 
 through its ordinary hours. There was one even- 
 ing, or late afternoon, in particular, w-hich Evan 
 Maclan w^ill remember in the last moments of 
 death. It was what artists call a daffodil sky, but 
 it is coarsened even by reference to a daffodil. It 
 was of that innocent lonely yellow which has
 
 A RIDDLE OF FACES 361 
 
 never heard of orange, though it might turn quite 
 unconsciously into green. Against it the tops, 
 one might say the turrets, of the cHpt and or- 
 dered trees were outHned in that shade of veiled 
 violet which tints the tops of lavender, A white 
 early moon was hardly traceable upon that deli- 
 cate yellow. Maclan, I say, will remember this 
 tender and transparent evening, partly because of 
 its virgin gold and silver, and partly because he 
 passed beneath it through the most horrible in- 
 stant of his life. 
 
 Turnbull was sitting on his seat on the lawn, 
 and the golden evening impressed even his pos- 
 itive nature, as indeed it might have impressed 
 the oxen in a field. He was shocked out of his 
 idle mood of awe by seeing Maclan break from 
 behind the bushes and run across the lawn with 
 an action he had never seen in the man before, 
 with all his experience of the eccentric humours 
 of this Celt. Maclan fell on the bench, shaking 
 it so that it rattled, and gripped it with his knees 
 like one in dreadful pain of body. That particu- 
 lar run and tumble is typical only of a man who 
 has been hit by some sudden and incurable evil, 
 who is bitten by a viper or condemned to be hung. 
 Turnbull looked up in the white face of his friend
 
 362 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 and enemy, and almost turned cold at what he 
 saw there. He had seen the blue but gloomy eyes 
 of the western Highlander troubled by as many 
 tempests as his own west Highland seas, but there 
 had always been a fixed star of faith behind the 
 storms. Now the star had gone out, and there 
 was only misery. 
 
 Yet Maclan had the strength to answer the 
 question where Turnbull, taken by surprise, had 
 not the strength to ask it. 
 
 " They are right, they are right ! " he cried. 
 " O my God ! they are right, Turnbull. I ought 
 to be here ! " 
 
 He went on with shapeless fluency as if he no 
 longer had the heart to choose or check his speech. 
 " I suppose I ought to have guessed long ago — 
 all my big dreams and schemes — and every one 
 being against us — but I was stuck up, you know." 
 
 " Do tell me about it, really," cried the atheist, 
 and, faced with the furnace of the other's pain, he 
 did not notice that he spoke with the affection of 
 a father. 
 
 " I am mad, Turnbull," said Evan, with a dead 
 clearness of speech, and leant back against the 
 garden-seat. 
 
 " Nonsense," said the other, clutching at the
 
 A RIDDLE OF FACES 3^3 
 
 obvious cue of benevolent brutality, " this is one 
 of your silly moods." 
 
 Maclan shook his head. " I know enough 
 about myself," he said, " to allow for any mood, 
 though it opened heaven or hell. But to see things 
 — to see them walking solid in the sun — things 
 that can't be there — real mystics never do that, 
 Turnbull." 
 
 "What things?" asked the other, incredu- 
 lously. 
 
 Maclan lowered his voice. " I saw her," he 
 said, " three minutes ago — walking here in this 
 hell yard." 
 
 Between trying to look scornful and really 
 looking startled, Turnbull's face was confused 
 enough to emit no speech, and Evan went on in 
 monotonous sincerity : 
 
 " I saw her walk behind those blessed trees 
 against that holy sky of gold as plain as I can see 
 her whenever I shut my eyes. I did shut them, 
 and opened them again, and she was still there — 
 that is, of course, she wasn't — She still had a 
 little fur round her neck, but her dress was a 
 shade brighter than when I really saw her." 
 
 " My dear fellow," cried Turnbull, rallying a 
 hearty laugh, " the fancies have really got hold of
 
 364 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 you. You mistook some other poor girl here for 
 her." 
 
 " Mistook some other — " said Maclaii, and 
 words failed him altogether. 
 
 They sat for some moments in the mellow si- 
 lence of the evening garden, a silence that was 
 stifling for the sceptic, but utterly empty and final 
 for the man of faith. At last he broke out again 
 with the words : " Well, anyhow, if I'm mad, I'm 
 glad I'm mad on that." 
 
 Turnbull murmured some clumsy deprecation, 
 and sat stolidly smoking to collect his thoughts; 
 the next instant he had all his nerves engaged in 
 the mere effort to sit still. 
 
 Across the clear space of cold silver and a pale 
 lemon sky which was left by the gap in the ilex- 
 trees there passed a slim, dark figure, a profile and 
 the poise of a dark head like a bird's, which really 
 pinned him to his seat with the point of coin- 
 cidence. With an effort he got to his feet, and 
 said with a voice of affected insouciance : " By 
 George ! Maclan, she is uncommonly like " 
 
 " What ! " cried Maclan, with a leap of eager- 
 ness that was heart-breaking, " do you see her, 
 too ? " And the blaze came back into the centre 
 of his eyes.
 
 A RIDDLE OF FACES 365 
 
 Turnbull's tawny eyebrows were pulled to- 
 gether with a peculiar frown of curiosity, and all 
 at once he walked quickly across the lawn. Mac- 
 Ian sat rigid, but peered after him with open and 
 parched lips. He saw the sight which either 
 proved him sane or proved the whole universe 
 half-witted ; he saw the man of flesh approach that 
 beautiful phantom, saw their gestures of recogni- 
 tion, and saw them against the sunset joining 
 hands. 
 
 He could stand it no longer, but ran across to 
 the path, turned the corner and saw standing quite 
 palpable in the evening sunlight, talking with a 
 casual grace to Turnbull, the face and figure 
 which had filled his midnights with frightfully 
 vivid or desperately half- forgotten features. She 
 advanced quite pleasantly and coolly, and put 
 out her hand. The moment that he touched it 
 he knew that he was sane even if the solar system 
 was crazy. 
 
 She was entirely elegant and unembarrassed. 
 That is the awful thing about women — they re- 
 fuse to be emotional at emotional moments, upon 
 some such ludicrous pretext as there being some 
 one else there. But Maclan was in a condition of 
 criticism much less than the average masculine
 
 366 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 one, being in fact merely overturned by the rush- 
 ing riddle of the events. 
 
 Evan does not know to this day of what par- 
 ticular question he asked, but he vividly remem- 
 bers that she answered, and every line or fluctua- 
 tion of her face as she said it. 
 
 " Oh, don't you know ? " she said, smiling, and 
 suddenly lifting her level brown eyebrows. 
 " Haven't you heard the news ? I'm a lunatic." 
 
 Then she added after a short pause, and with a 
 sort of pride : " I've got a certificate." 
 
 Her manner, by the matchless social stoicism 
 of her sex, was entirely suited to a drawing-room, 
 but Evan's reply fell somewhat far short of such 
 a standard, as he only said : " What the devil in 
 hell does all this nonsense mean ? " 
 
 " Really," said the young lady, and laughed. 
 
 " I beg your pardon," said the unhappy young 
 man, rather wildly, " but what I mean is, why are 
 you here in an asylum ? " 
 
 The young woman broke again into one of the 
 maddening and mysterious laughs of femininity. 
 Then she composed her features, and replied with 
 equal dignity : " Well, if it comes to that, why are 
 you?" 
 
 The fact that Tumbull had strolled away and
 
 A RIDDLE OF FACES 367 
 
 was investigating rhododendrons may have been 
 due to Evan's successful prayers to the other 
 v^orld, or possibly to his own pretty successful ex- 
 perience of this one. But though they two were 
 as isolated as a new Adam and Eve in a pretty 
 ornamental Eden, the lady did not relax by an 
 inch the rigour of her badinage. 
 
 " I am locked up in the madhouse," said Evan, 
 with a sort of stifif pride, " because I tried to keep 
 my promise to you." 
 
 " Quite so," answered the inexphcable lady, 
 nodding with a perfectly blazing smile, " and I am 
 locked up because it was to me you promised." 
 
 ** It is outrageous ! " cried Evan ; " it is impos- 
 sible!" 
 
 " Oh, you can see my certificate if you like," 
 she replied with some hauteur. 
 
 Maclan stared at her and then at his boots, and 
 then at the sky and then at her again. He was 
 quite sure now that he himself was not mad, and 
 the fact rather added to his perplexity. 
 
 Then he drew nearer to her, and said in a dry 
 and dreadful voice : " Oh, don't condescend to 
 play the fool with such a fool as me. Are you 
 really locked up here as a patient — because you 
 helped us to escape ? "
 
 368 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 " Yes," said she, still smiling, but her steady 
 voice had a shake in it. 
 
 Evan flung his big elbow across his forehead 
 and burst into tears. 
 
 The pure lemon of the sky faded into purer 
 white as the great sunset silently collapsed. The 
 birds settled back into the trees ; the moon began 
 to glow with its own light. Mr. James Tumbull 
 continued his botanical researches into the struc- 
 ture of the rhododendron. But the lady did not 
 move an inch until Evan had flung up his face 
 again ; and when he did he saw by the last gleam 
 of sunlight that it was not only his face that was 
 wet. 
 
 Mr. James Turnbull had all his life professed 
 a profound interest in physical science, and the 
 phenomena of a good garden were really a pleas- 
 ure to him ; but after three-quarters of an hour or 
 so even the apostle of science began to find 
 rhododendrus a bore, and was somewhat relieved 
 when an unexpected development of events 
 obliged him to transfer his researches to the 
 equally interesting subject of hollyhocks, which 
 grew some fifty feet farther along the path. The 
 ostensible cause of his removal was the unex- 
 pected reappearance of his two other acquaint-
 
 A RIDDLE OF FACES 369 
 
 ances walking and talking laboriously along the 
 way, with the black head bent close to the brown 
 one. Even hollyhocks detained Turnbull but a 
 short time. Having rapidly absorbed all the im- 
 portant principles affecting the growth of those 
 vegetables, he jumped over a flower-bed and 
 walked back into the building. The other two 
 came up along the slow course of the path talking 
 and talking. No one but God knows what they 
 said (for they certainly have forgotten), and if I 
 remembered it I would not repeat it. When they 
 parted at the head of the walk she put out her 
 hand again in the same well-bred way, although it 
 trembled; he seemed to restrain a gesture as he 
 let it fall. 
 
 " If it is really always to be like this," he said, 
 thickly, " it would not matter if we were here for 
 ever." 
 
 " You tried to kill yourself four times for me," 
 she said, unsteadily, ** and I have been chained up 
 as a madwoman for you. I really think that after 
 that " 
 
 " Yes, I know," said Evan in a low voice, 
 looking down. " After that we belong to 
 each other. We are sort of sold to each other 
 — until the stars fall." Then he looked up sud-
 
 370 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 denly, and said : " By the Nvay, what is your 
 name ? " 
 
 " My name is Beatrice Drake," she repHed with 
 complete gravity. " You can see it on my certifi- 
 cate of lunacy."
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 THE LAST PARLEY 
 
 TuRNBULL walked away, wildly trying to ex- 
 plain to himself the presence of two personal ac- 
 quaintances so different as Vane and the girl. 
 As he skirted a low hedge of laurel, an enor- 
 mously tall young man leapt over it, stood in 
 front of him, and almost fell on his neck as if 
 seeking to embrace him, 
 
 " Don't you know me ? " almost sobbed the 
 young man, who was in the highest spirits. 
 " Ain't I written on your heart, old boy ? I say, 
 what did you do with my yacht? " 
 
 " Take your arms off my neck," said Tumbull, 
 irritably. " Are you mad ? " 
 
 The young man sat down on the gravel-path 
 and went into ecstasies of laughter. " No, that's 
 just the fun of it — I'm not mad," he replied. 
 " They've shut me up in this place, and I'm not 
 mad," And he went off again into mirth as inno- 
 cent as wedding-bells, 
 
 371
 
 372 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 Turnbull, whose powers of surprise were ex- 
 hausted, rolled his round gray eyes and said, 
 " Mr. Wilkinson, I think," because he could not 
 think of anything else to say. 
 
 The tall man sitting on the gravel bowed with 
 urbanity, and said : " Quite at your service. Not 
 to be confused with the Wilkinsons of Cumber- 
 land ; and as I say, old boy, what have you done 
 with my yacht? You see, they've locked me up 
 here — in this garden — and a yacht would be a 
 sort of occupation for an unmarried man." 
 
 " I am really horribly sorry," began Turnbull, 
 in the last stage of bated bewilderment and exas- 
 peration, " but really " 
 
 " Oh, I can see you can't have it on you at the 
 moment," said Mr. Wilkinson with much intel- 
 lectual magnanimity. 
 
 " Well, the fact is — " began Turnbull again, 
 and then the phrase was frozen on his mouth, for 
 round the corner came the goatlike face and 
 gleaming eye-glasses of Dr. Quayle. 
 
 " Ah, my dear Mr. Wilkinson," said the doc- 
 tor, as if delighted at a coincidence ; '' and Mr. 
 Turnbull, too. Why, I want to speak to Mr. 
 Turnbull." 
 
 Mr. Turnbull made some movement rather of
 
 THE LAST PARLEY 373 
 
 surrender than assent, and the doctor caught it up 
 exquisitely, showing even more of his two front 
 teeth. " I am sure Mr. Wilkinson will excuse us 
 a moment." And with flying frock-coat he led 
 Turnbull rapidly round the corner of a path. 
 
 " My dear sir," he said, in a quite affectionate 
 manner, " I do not mind telling you — you are 
 such a very hopeful case — you understand so well 
 the scientific point of view ; and I don't like to see 
 you bothered by the really hopeless cases. They 
 are monotonous and maddening. The man you 
 have just been talking to, poor fellow, is one of 
 the strongest cases of pure idee Uxe that we have. 
 It's very sad, and I'm afraid utterly incurable. 
 He keeps on telling everybody " — and the doctor 
 lowered his voice confidentially — " he tells every- 
 body that two people have taken his yacht. His 
 account of how he lost it is quite incoherent." 
 
 Turnbull stamped his foot on the gravel-path, 
 and called out : " Oh, I can't stand this. 
 Really " 
 
 " I know, I know," said the psychologist, 
 mournfully ; " it is a most melancholy case, and 
 also fortunately a very rare one. It is so rare, in 
 fact, that in one classification of these maladies 
 it is entered under a heading by itself — Perdina-
 
 374 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 vititis, mental inflammation creating the impres- 
 sion that one has lost a ship. Really," he added, 
 with a kind of half-embarrassed guilt, " it's 
 rather a feather in my cap. I discovered the only 
 existing case of perdinavititis." 
 
 " But this won't do, doctor," said Turnbull, al- 
 most tearing his hair, " this really won't do. The 
 man really did lose a ship. Indeed, not to put too 
 fine a point on it, I took his ship." 
 
 Dr. Quayle swung round for an instant so that 
 his silk-lined overcoat rustled, and stared singu- 
 larly at Turnbull. Then he said with hurried 
 amiability : " Why, of course you did. Quite so, 
 quite so," and with courteous gestures went 
 striding up the garden-path. Under the first 
 laburnum-tree he stopped, however, and pulling 
 out his pencil and note-book wrote down fever- 
 ishly ; " Singular development in the Elenthero- 
 maniac, Turnbull. Sudden manifestation of 
 Rapinavititis — the delusion that one has stolen a 
 ship. First case ever recorded." 
 
 Turnbull stood for an instant staggered into 
 stillness. Then he ran raging round the garden 
 to find Maclan, just as a husband, even a bad 
 husband, will run raging to find his wife if he is 
 full of a furious query. He found Maclan stalk-
 
 THE LAST PARLEY 375 
 
 ing moodily about the half-lit garden, after his 
 extraordinary meeting with Beatrice. No one 
 who saw his slouching stride and sunken head 
 could have known that his soul was in the seventh 
 heaven of ecstasy. He did not think ; he did not 
 even very definitely desire. He merely wallowed 
 in memories, chiefly in material memories ; words 
 said with a certain cadence or trivial turns of the 
 neck or wrist. Into the middle of his stationary 
 and senseless enjoyment were thrust abniptly the 
 projecting elbow and the projecting red beard of 
 Turnbull. Maclan stepped back a little, and the 
 soul in his eyes came very slowly to its windows. 
 When James Turnbull had the glittering sword- 
 point planted upon his breast he was in far less 
 danger. For three pulsating seconds after the in- 
 terruption Maclan was in a mood to have mur- 
 dered his father. 
 
 And yet his whole emotional anger fell from 
 him when he saw Turnbull's face, in which the 
 eyes seemed to be bursting from the head like 
 bullets. All the fire and fragrance even of 
 young and honourable love faded for a moment 
 before that stiff agony of interrogation. 
 
 "Are you hurt, Turnbull?" he asked, anx- 
 iously.
 
 376 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 " I am dying," answered the other quite calmly. 
 " I am in the quite literal sense of the words dying 
 to know something. I want to know what all this 
 can possibly mean." 
 
 Maclan did not answer, and he continued with 
 asperity : " You are still thinking about that girl, 
 but I tell you the whole thing is incredible. She's 
 not the only person here. I've met that fellow 
 Wilkinson, whose yacht we lost. I've met 
 the very magistrate you were hauled up to 
 when you broke my window. What can it 
 mean — meeting all these old people again? One 
 never meets such old friends again except in a 
 dream." 
 
 Then after a silence he cried with a rending 
 sincerity : " Are you really there, Evan ? Have 
 you ever been really there ? Am I simply dream- 
 ing?" 
 
 Maclan had been listening with a living silence 
 to every word, and now his face flamed with one 
 of his rare revelations of life. 
 
 " No, you good atheist," he cried ; " no, you 
 clean, courteous, reverent, pious old blasphemer. 
 No, you are not dreaming — you are waking up." 
 
 " What do you mean? " 
 
 " There are two states where one meets so
 
 THE LAST PARLEY 377 
 
 many old friends," said Maclan ; " one is a dream, 
 the other is the end of the world." 
 
 " And you say " 
 
 " I say this is not a dream," said Evan in a 
 ringing voice. 
 
 " You really mean to suggest — " began Turn- 
 bull. 
 
 " Be silent ! or I shall say it all wrong," said 
 Maclan, breathing hard. " It's hard to explain, 
 anyhow. An apocalypse is the opposite of a 
 dream. A dream is falser than the outer life. 
 But the end of the world is more actual than the 
 world it ends. I don't say this is really the end 
 of the world, but it's something like that — it's the 
 end of something. All the people are crowding 
 into one corner. Everything is coming to a 
 point." 
 
 " What is the point? " asked Tumbull. 
 
 " I can't see it," said Evan ; " it is too large and 
 plain." 
 
 Then after a silence he said : " I can't see it — 
 and yet I will try to describe it. Turnbull, three 
 days ago I saw quite suddenly that our' duel was 
 not right, after all." 
 
 " Three days ago ! " repeated Turnbull. *' When 
 and why did this illumination occur? "
 
 378 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 " I knew I was not quite right," answered 
 Evan, " the moment I saw the round eyes of that 
 old man in the cell." 
 
 " Old man in the cell ! " repeated his wondering 
 companion. " Do you mean the poor old idiot 
 who likes spikes to stick out ? " 
 
 " Yes," said Maclan, after a slight pause, *' i 
 mean the poor old idiot who likes spikes to stick 
 out. When I saw his eyes and heard his old 
 croaking accent, I knew that it would not really 
 have been right to kill you. It would have been 
 a venial sin." 
 
 " I am much obliged," said Tumbull, gruffly. 
 
 " You must give me time," said Maclan, quite 
 patiently, " for I am trying to tell the whole 
 truth. I am trying to tell more of it than I know." 
 
 " So you see I confess " — ^he went on with 
 laborious distinctness — " I confess that all the 
 people who called our duel mad were right in a 
 way. I would confess it to old Cumberland Vane 
 and his eye-glass. I would confess it even to that 
 old ass in brown flannel who talked to us about 
 Love. Yes, they are right in a way. I am a lit- 
 tle mad." 
 
 He stopped and wiped his brow as if he were 
 literally doing heavy labour. Then he went on :
 
 THE LAST PARLEY 379 
 
 " I am a little mad ; but, after all, it is only a 
 little madness. When hundreds of high-minded 
 men had fought duels about a jostle with the el- 
 bow or the ace of spades, the whole world need 
 not have gone wild over my one little wildness. 
 Plenty of other people have killed themselves be- 
 tween then and now. But all England has gone 
 into captivity in order to take us captive. All 
 England has turned into a lunatic asylum in order 
 to prove us lunatics. Compared with the general 
 public, I might positively be called sane." 
 
 He stopped again, and went on with the same 
 air of travailing with the truth : 
 
 " When I saw that, I saw everything ; I saw the 
 Church and the world. The Church in its earthly 
 action has really touched morbid things — tortures 
 and bleeding visions and blasts of extermination. 
 The Church has had her madnesses, and I am one 
 of them. I am the massacre of St. Bartholomew. 
 I am the Inquisition of Spain. I do not say that 
 we have never gone mad, but I say that we are 
 fit to act as keepers to our enemies. Massacre is 
 wicked even with a provocation, as in the Bar- 
 tholomew. But your modern Nietzsche will tell 
 you that massacre would be glorious without a 
 provocation. Torture should be violently stopped,
 
 38o THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 though the Church is doing it. But your modern 
 Tolstoy will tell you that it ought not to be vio- 
 lently stopped whoever is doing it. In the long 
 run, which is most mad — the Church or the world? 
 Which is madder, the Spanish priest who permit- 
 ted tyranny, or the Prussian sophist who admired 
 it? Which is madder, the Russian priest who 
 discourages righteous rebellion, or the Russian 
 novelist who forbids it ? That is the final and the 
 blasting test. The world left to itself grows 
 wilder than any creed. A few days ago you and 
 I were the maddest people in England. Now, by 
 God! I believe we are the sanest. That is the 
 only real question — whether the Church is really 
 madder than the world. Let the rationalists run 
 their own race, and let us see where they end. If 
 the world has some healthy balance other than 
 God, let the world find it. Does the world find 
 it? Cut the world loose," he cried with a savage 
 gesture. " Does the world stand on its own end? 
 Does it stand, or does it stagger ? " 
 
 Turnbull remained silent, and Maclan said to 
 him, looking once more at the earth : '* It stag- 
 gers, Turnbull. It cannot stand by itself; you 
 know it cannot. It has been the sorrow of your 
 life. Turnbull, this garden is not a dream, but an
 
 THE LAST PARLEY 381 
 
 apocalyptic fulfilment. This garden is the world 
 gone mad." 
 
 Turnbull did not move his head, and he had 
 been listening all the time; yet, somehow, the 
 other knew that for the first time he was listening 
 seriously. 
 
 " The world has gone mad," said Maclan, 
 " and it has gone mad about Us. The world takes 
 the trouble to make a big mistake about every 
 little mistake made by the Church. That is why 
 they have turned ten counties to a madhouse ; that 
 is why crowds of kindly people are poured into 
 this filthy melting-pot. Now is the judgment of 
 this world. The Prince of this World is judged, 
 and he is judged exactly because he is judging. 
 There is at last one simple solution to the quarrel 
 between the ball and the cross " 
 
 Turnbull for the first time started. 
 
 *' The ball and — " he repeated. 
 
 " What is the matter with you ? " asked Mac- 
 Ian. 
 
 " I had a dream," said Turnbull, thickly and 
 obscurely, " in which I saw the cross struck 
 crooked and the ball secure " 
 
 " I had a dream," said Maclan, " in which I 
 saw the cross erect and the ball invisible. They
 
 382 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 were both dreams from hell. There must be some 
 round earth to plant the cross upon. But here is 
 the awful difference — that the round world will 
 not consent even to continue round. The astron- 
 omers are always telling us that it is shaped like 
 an orange, or like an egg, or like a German 
 sausage. They beat the old world about like a 
 bladder and thump it into a thousand shapeless 
 shapes. Turnbull, we cannot trust the ball to be 
 always a ball; we cannot trust reason to be rea- 
 sonable. In the end the great terrestrial globe 
 will go quite lop-sided, and only the cross will 
 stand upright." 
 
 There was a long silence, and then Turnbull 
 said, hesitatingly : " Has it occurred to you that 
 since — since those two dreams, or whatever they 
 were " 
 
 " Well ? " murmured Maclan. 
 
 " Since then," went on Turnbull, in the same 
 low voice, " since then we have never even looked 
 for our swords." 
 
 " You are right," answered Evan almost in- 
 audibly. " We have found something which we 
 both hate more than we ever hated each other, 
 and I think I know its name." 
 
 Turnbull seemed to frown and flinch for a mo-
 
 THE LAST PARLEY 383 
 
 ment. " It does not much matter what you call 
 it," he said, " so long as you keep out of its way." 
 
 The bushes broke and snapped abruptly behind 
 them, and a very tall figure towered above Turn- 
 bull with an arrogant stoop and a projecting chin, 
 a chin of which the shape showed queerly even in 
 its shadow upon the path. 
 
 " You see that is not so easy," said Maclan be- 
 tween his teeth. 
 
 They looked up into the eyes of the Master, but 
 looked only for a moment. The eyes were full of 
 a frozen and icy wrath, a kind of utterly heart- 
 less hatred. His voice was for the first time devoid 
 of irony. There was no more sarcasm in it than 
 there is in an iron club. 
 
 " You will be inside the building in three min- 
 utes," he said, with pulverising precision, " or you 
 will be fired on by the artillery at all the windows. 
 There is too much talking in this garden; we 
 intend to close it. You will be accommodated 
 indoors." 
 
 " Ah ! " said Maclan, with a long and satisfied 
 sigh, " then I was right." 
 
 And he turned his back and walked obediently 
 toward the building. Turnbull seemed to canvass 
 for a few minutes the notion of knocking the
 
 384 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 Master down, and then fell under the same almost 
 fairy fatalism as his companion. In some strange 
 way it did seem that the more smoothly they 
 yielded, the more swiftly would events sweep on 
 to some great collision.
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 DIES IR^ 
 
 As they advanced toward the asylum they 
 looked up at its rows on rows of windows, and 
 understood the Master's material threat. By 
 means of that complex but concealed machinery 
 which ran like a network of nerves over the whole 
 fabric, there had been shot out under every win- 
 dow-ledge rows and rows of polished-steel cylin- 
 ders, the cold miracles of modern gunnery. They 
 commanded the whole garden and the whole 
 country side, and could have blown to pieces an 
 army corps. 
 
 This silent declaration of war had evidently 
 had its complete effect. As Maclan and Turn- 
 bull walked steadily but slowly toward the en- 
 trance hall of the institution, they could see that 
 most, or at least many, of the patients had already 
 gathered there as well as the staff of doctors and 
 the whole regiment of keepers and assistants. 
 But when they entered the lamp-lit hall, and the 
 38s
 
 386 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 high iron door was clashed to and locked behind 
 them, yet a new amazement leapt into their eyes, 
 and the stalwart Turnbull almost fell. For he 
 saw a sight which was indeed, as Maclan had said 
 — either the Day of Judgment or a dream. 
 
 Within a few feet of him at one corner of the 
 square of standing people stood the girl he had 
 known in Jersey, Madeleine Durand. She looked 
 straight at him with a steady smile which lit up 
 that scene of darkness and unreason like the light 
 of some honest fireside. Her square face and 
 throat were thrown back, as her habit was, and 
 there was something almost sleepy in the genial- 
 ity of her eyes. He saw her first, and for a few 
 seconds saw her only ; then the outer edge of his 
 eyesight took in all the other staring faces, and 
 he saw all the faces he had ever seen for weeks 
 and months past. There was the Tolstoyan in 
 Jaeger flannel, with the yellow beard that went 
 backward and the foolish nose and eyes that went 
 forward, with the curiosity of a crank. He was 
 talking eagerly to Mr. Gordon, the corpulent Jew 
 shopkeeper whom they had once gagged in his 
 own shop. There was the tipsy old Hertfordshire 
 rustic; he was talking energetically to himself. 
 There was not only Mr. Vane the magistrate, but
 
 DIES IR^ 387 
 
 the clerk of Mr. Vane, the magistrate. There was 
 not only Miss Drake of the motor-car, but also 
 Miss Drake's chauffeur. Nothing wild or unfa- 
 miliar could have produced upon Turnbull such a 
 nightmare impression as that ring of familiar 
 faces. Yet he had one Intellectual shock which 
 was greater than all the others. He stepped im- 
 pulsively forward toward Madeleine, and then 
 wavered with a kind of wild humility. As he did 
 so he caught sight of another square face behind 
 Madeleine's, a face with long gray whiskers and 
 an austere stare. It was old Durand, the girl's 
 father; and when Turnbull saw him he saw the 
 last and worst marvel of that monstrous night. 
 He remembered Durand ; he remembered his mo- 
 notonous, everlasting lucidity, his stupefy ingly 
 sensible views of everything, his colossal content- 
 ment with truisms merely because they were true. 
 " Confound it all ! " cried Turnbull to himself, 
 " if he is in the asylum, there can't be any one 
 outside." He drew nearer to Madeleine, but still 
 doubtfully and all the more so because she still 
 smiled at him. Maclan had already gone across 
 to Beatrice with an air of right. 
 
 Then all these bewildered but partly amicable 
 recognitions were cloven by a cruel voice which
 
 388 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 always made all human blood turn bitter. The 
 Master was standing in the middle of the room 
 surveying the scene like a great artist looking at 
 a completed picture. Handsome as he looked, 
 they had never seen so clearly what was really 
 hateful in his face ; and even then they could only 
 express it by saying that the arched brows and 
 the long emphatic chin gave it always a look of 
 being lit from below, like the face of some infer- 
 nal actor, 
 
 " This is indeed a cosy party," he said with 
 glittering eyes. 
 
 The Master evidently meant to say more, but 
 before he could say anything M. Durand had 
 stepped right up to him and was speaking. 
 
 He was speaking exactly as a French bourgeois 
 speaks to the manager of a restaurant. That is, 
 he spoke with rattling and breathless rapidity, but 
 with no incoherence, and therefore with no emo- 
 tion. It was a steady, monotonous vivacity, 
 which came not seemingly from passion, but 
 merely from the reason having been sent off at a 
 gallop. He was saying something like this : 
 
 " You refuse me my half-bottle of Medoc, the 
 drink the most wholesome and the most custom- 
 ary. You refuse me the company and obedience
 
 DIES IR^ 389 
 
 of my daughter, which Nature herself indicates. 
 You refuse me the beef and mutton, without pre- 
 tence that it is a fast of the Church. You now 
 forbid me the promenade, a thing necessary to a 
 person of my age. It is useless to tell me that 
 you do all this by law. Law rests upon the social 
 contract. If the citizen finds himself despoiled of 
 such pleasures and powers as he would have had 
 even in the savage state, the social contract is an- 
 nulled." 
 
 " It's no good chattering away, Monsieur," 
 said Hutton, for the Master was silent. " The 
 place is covered with machine guns. We've got 
 to obey our orders, and so have you." 
 
 " The machinery is of the most perfect," as- 
 sented Durand, somewhat irrelevantly ; " worked 
 by petroleum, I believe. I only ask you to admit 
 that if such things fall below the comfort of bar- 
 barism, the social contract is annulled. It is a 
 pretty little point of theory." 
 
 " Oh ! I daresay," said Hutton. 
 
 Durand bowed quite civilly and withdrew. 
 
 "A cosy party," resumed the Master, scorn- 
 fully, " and yet I believe some of you are in doubt 
 about how we all came together. I will explain 
 it, ladies and gentlemen; I will explain every-
 
 390 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 thing. To whom shall I specially address my- 
 self? To Mr. James Turnbull. He has a scien- 
 tific mind." 
 
 Turnbull seemed to choke with sudden protest. 
 The Master seemed only to cough out of pure 
 politeness and proceeded : " Mr. Turnbull will 
 agree with me," he said, " when I say that we 
 long felt in scientific circles that great harm 
 was done by such a legend as that of the Cru- 
 cifixion." 
 
 Turnbull growled something which was pre- 
 sumably assent. 
 
 The Master went on smoothly : " It was in vain 
 for us to urge that the incident was irrelevant; 
 that there were many such fanatics, many such 
 executions. We were forced to take the thing 
 thoroughly in hand, to investigate it in the spirit 
 of scientific history, and with the assistance of 
 Mr. Turnbull and others we were happy in being 
 able to announce that this alleged Crucifixion 
 never occurred at all." 
 
 Maclan lifted his head and looked at the Mas- 
 ter steadily, but Turnbull did not look up. 
 
 " This, we found, was the only way with all 
 superstitions," continued the speaker ; " it was 
 necessary to deny them historically, and we have
 
 DIES IR^ 39-1 
 
 done it with great success in the case of miracles 
 and such things. Now within our own time there 
 arose an unfortunate fuss which threatened (as 
 Mr. Tumbull would say) to galvanise the corpse 
 of Christianity into a fictitious life — the alleged 
 case of a Highland eccentric who wanted to fight 
 for the Virgin." 
 
 Maclan, quite white, made a step forward, but 
 the speaker did not alter his easy attitude or his 
 flow of words. " Again we urged that this duel 
 was not to be admired, that it was a mere brawl, 
 but the people were ignorant and romantic. There 
 were signs of treating this alleged Highlander 
 and his alleged opponent as heroes. We tried all 
 other means of arresting this reactionary hero 
 worship. Working men who betted on the duel 
 were imprisoned for gambling. Working men 
 who drank the health of a duellist were impris- 
 oned for drunkenness. But the popular excite- 
 ment about the alleged duel continued, and we 
 had to fall back on our old historical method. We 
 investigated, on scientific principles, the story of 
 Maclan's challenge, and we are happy to be able 
 to inform you that the whole story of the at- 
 tempted duel is a fable. There never was any 
 challenge. There never was any man named
 
 392 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 Maclan. It is a melodramatic myth, like Cal- 
 vary." 
 
 Not a soul moved save Turnbull, who lifted his 
 head ; yet there was the sense of a silent explosion, 
 
 " The whole story of the Maclan challenge," 
 went on the Master, beaming at them all with a 
 sinister benignity, " has been found to originate 
 in the obsessions of a few pathological types, who 
 are now all fortunately in our care. There is, for 
 instance, a person here of the name of Gordon, 
 formerly the keeper of a curiosity shop. He is a 
 victim of the disease called Vinculomania — the 
 impression that one has been bound or tied up. 
 We have also a case of Fugacity (Mr. Whimpey), 
 who imagines that he was chased by two men." 
 
 The indignant faces of the Jew shopkeeper and 
 the Magdalen Don started out of the crowd in 
 their indignation, but the speaker continued : 
 
 " One poor woman we have with us," he said, 
 in a compassionate voice, " believes she was in a 
 motor-car with two such men ; this is the well- 
 known illusion of speed on which I need not 
 dwell. Another wretched woman has the simple 
 egotistic mania that she has caused the duel. 
 Madeleine Durand actually professes to have been 
 the subject of the fight between Maclan and his
 
 DIES IR^ 393 
 
 enemy, a fight which, if it occurred at all, certainly 
 began long before. But it never occurred at all. 
 We have taken in hand every person who pro- 
 fessed to have seen such a thing, and proved them 
 all to be unbalanced. That is why they are here." 
 
 The Master looked round the room, just show- 
 ing his perfect teeth with the perfection of artistic 
 cruelty, exalted for a moment in the enormous 
 simplicity of his success, and then walked across 
 the hall and vanished through an inner door. His 
 two lieutenants, Quayle and Hutton, were left 
 standing at the head of the great army of servants 
 and keepers. 
 
 " I hope we shall have no more trouble," said 
 Dr. Quayle pleasantly enough, and addressing 
 Turnbull, who was leaning heavily upon the back 
 of a chair. 
 
 Still looking down, Turnbull lifted the chair an 
 inch or two from the ground. Then he suddenly 
 swung it above his head and sent it at the inquir- 
 ing doctor with an awful crash which sent one of 
 its wooden legs loose along the floor and crammed 
 the doctor gasping into a comer. Maclan gave a 
 great shout, snatched up the loose chair-leg, and, 
 rushing on the other doctor, felled him with a 
 blow. Twenty attendants rushed to capture the
 
 394 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 rebels; Maclan flung back three of them and 
 Turnbull went over on top of one, when from 
 behind them all came a shriek as of something 
 quite fresh and frightful. 
 
 Two of the three passages leading out of the 
 hall were choked with blue smoke. Another in- 
 stant and the hall was full of the fog of it, and 
 red sparks began to swarm like scarlet bees. 
 
 " The place is on fire ! " cried Ouayle with a 
 scream of indecent terror. " Oh, who can have 
 done it? How can it have happened? " 
 
 A light had come into Turnbull's eyes. " How 
 did the French Revolution happen ? " he asked. 
 
 " Oh, how should I know ! " wailed the other. 
 
 " Then I will tell you," said Turnbull; " it hap- 
 pened because some people fancied that a French 
 grocer was as respectable as he looked." 
 
 Even as he spoke, as if by confirmation, old Mr. 
 Durand re-entered the smoky room quite placidly, 
 wiping the petroleum from his hands with a 
 handkerchief. He had set fire to the building in 
 accordance with the strict principles of the social 
 contract. 
 
 But Maclan had taken a stride forward and 
 stood there shaken and terrible. " Now," he 
 cried, panting, " now is the judgment of this
 
 DIES IR^ 395 
 
 world. The doctors will leave this place; the 
 keepers will leave this place. They will leave us 
 in charge of the machinery and the machine guns 
 at the windows. But we, the lunatics, will wait 
 to be burned alive if only we may see them go." 
 
 " How do you know we shall go ? " asked Hut- 
 ton, fiercely. 
 
 " You believe nothing," said Maclan, simply, 
 " and you are insupportably afraid of death." 
 
 " So this is suicide," sneered the doctor ; " a 
 somewhat doubtful sign of sanity." 
 
 " Not at all — this is vengeance," answered 
 Turnbull, quite calmly ; " a thing which is com- 
 pletely healthy." 
 
 " You think the doctors will go," said Hutton, 
 savagely. 
 
 " The keepers have gone already," said Turn- 
 bull. 
 
 Even as they spoke the main doors were burst 
 open in mere brutal panic, and all the officers and 
 subordinates of the asylum rushed away across 
 the garden pursued by the smoke. But among 
 the ticketed maniacs not a man or woman moved. 
 
 " We hate dying," said Turnbull, with compo- 
 sure, " but we hate you even more. This is a suc- 
 cessful revolution."
 
 396 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 In the roof above their heads a panel shot back, 
 showing a strip of star-Ht sky and a huge thing 
 made of white metal, with the shape and fins of a 
 fish, swinging as if at anchor. At the same mo- 
 ment a steel ladder slid down from the opening 
 and struck the floor, and the cleft chin of the 
 mysterious Master was thrust into the opening. 
 " Quayle, Hutton," he said, " you will escape with 
 me." And they went up the ladder like automata 
 of lead. 
 
 Long after they had clambered into the car, the 
 creature with the cloven face continued to leer 
 down upon the smoke-stung crowd below. Then 
 at last he said in a silken voice and with a smile 
 of final satisfaction : 
 
 " By the way, I fear I am very absent minded. 
 There is one man specially whom, somehow, I al- 
 ways forget. I always leave him lying about. 
 Once I mislaid him on the Cross of St. Paul's. 
 So silly of me; and now I've forgotten him 
 in one of those little cells where your fire is 
 burning. Very unfortunate — especially for him." 
 And nodding genially, he climbed into his flying 
 ship. 
 
 Maclan stood motionless for two minutes, and 
 then rushed down one of the suffocating corridors
 
 DIES IR^ 397 
 
 till he found the flames. Turnbull looked once at 
 Madeleine, and followed. 
 
 Maclan, with singed hair, smoking garments, 
 and smarting hands and face, had already broken 
 far enough through the first barriers of burning 
 timber to come within cry of the cells he had once 
 known. It was impossible, however, to see the 
 spot where the old man lay dead or alive ; not now 
 through darkness, but through scorching and 
 aching light. The site of the old half-wit's cell 
 was now the heart of a standing forest of fire — 
 the flames as thick and yellow as a corn field. 
 Their incessant shrieking and crackling was like a 
 mob shouting against an orator. Yet through all 
 that deafening density Maclan thought he heard 
 a small and separate sound. When he heard it 
 he rushed forward as if to plunge into that fur- 
 nace, but Turnbull arrested him by an elbow. 
 
 " Let me go ! " cried Evan, in agony ; *' it's the 
 poor old beggar's voice — he's still alive, and 
 shouting for help." 
 
 " Listen ! " said Turnbull, and lifted one finger 
 from his clenched hand. 
 
 " Or else he is shrieking with pain," protested 
 Maclan. " I will not endure it."
 
 398 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 " Listen ! " repeated Turnbtill, grimly. " Did 
 you ever hear any one shout for help or shriek 
 with pain in that voice? " 
 
 The small shrill sounds which came through 
 the crash of the conflagration were indeed of an 
 odd sort, and Maclan turned a face of puzzled 
 inquiry to his companion. 
 
 " He is singing," said Turnbull, simply. 
 
 A remaining rampart fell, crushing the fire, and 
 through the diminished din of it the voice of the 
 little old lunatic came clearer. In the heart of that 
 white-hot hell he was singing like a bird. What 
 he was singing it was not very easy to follow, but 
 it seemed to be something about playing in the 
 golden hay. 
 
 " Good Lord ! " said Turnbull, bitterly, " there 
 seem to be some advantages in really being 
 an idiot." Then advancing to the fringe of 
 the fire he called out on chance to the invis- 
 ible singer : " Can you come out ? Are you cut 
 ofif?" 
 
 " God help us all ! " said Maclan, with a shud- 
 der ; " he's laughing now." 
 
 At whatever stage of being burned alive the 
 invisible now found himself, he was now shaking 
 out peals of silvery and hilarious laughter. As he
 
 DIES IR^ 399 
 
 listened, Maclan's two eyes began to glow, as if 
 a strange thought had come into his head. 
 
 " Fool, come out and save yourself ! " shouted 
 Turnbull. 
 
 " No, by Heaven ! that is not the way," cried 
 Evan, suddenly. " Father," he shouted, " come 
 out and save us all ! " 
 
 The fire, though it had dropped in one or two 
 places, was, upon the whole, higher and more un- 
 conquerable than ever. Separate tall flames shot 
 up and spread out above them like the fiery clois- 
 ters of some infernal cathedral, or like a grove of 
 red tropical trees in the garden of the devil. 
 Higher yet in the purple hollow of the night the 
 topmost flames leapt again and again fruitlessly 
 at the stars, like golden dragons chained but 
 struggling. The towers and domes of the op- 
 pressive smoke seemed high and far enough to 
 drown distant planets in a London fog. But if 
 we exhausted all frantic similes for that frantic 
 scene, the main impression about the fire would 
 still be its ranked upstanding rigidity and a sort 
 of roaring stillness. It was literally a wall of fire. 
 
 " Father," cried Maclan, once more, " come 
 out of it and save us all ! " Turnbull was staring 
 at him as he cried.
 
 400 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 The tall and steady forest of fire must have 
 been already a portent visible to the whole circle 
 of land and sea. The red flush of it lit up the 
 long sides of white ships far out in the German 
 Ocean, and picked out like piercing rubies the win- 
 dows in the villages on the distant heights. If 
 any villagers or sailors were looking toward it 
 they must have seen a strange sight as Maclan 
 cried out for the third time. 
 
 That forest of fire wavered, and was cloven in 
 the centre; and then the whole of one half of it 
 leaned one way as a corn field leans all one way 
 under the load of the wind. Indeed, it looked as 
 if a great wind had sprung up and driven the 
 great fire aslant. Its smoke was no longer sent 
 up to choke the stars, but was trailed and dragged 
 across county after county like one dreadful ban- 
 ner of defeat. 
 
 But it was not the wind ; or, if it was the wind, 
 it was two winds blowing in opposite directions. 
 For while one half of the huge fire sloped one 
 way toward the inland heights, the other half, at 
 exactly the same angle, sloped out eastward to- 
 ward the sea. So that earth and ocean could be- 
 hold, where there had been a mere fiery mass, a 
 thing divided like a V — a cloven tongue of flame.
 
 DIES IR^ 401 
 
 But if it were a prodigy for those distant, it was 
 something beyond speech for those quite near. As 
 the echoes of Evan's last appeal rang and died in 
 the universal uproar, the fiery vault over his head 
 opened down the middle, and, reeling back in two 
 great golden billows, hung on each side as huge 
 and harmless as two sloping hills lie on each side 
 of a valley. Down the centre of this trough, or 
 chasm, a little path ran, cleared of all but ashes, 
 and down this little path was walking a little old 
 man singing as if he were alone in a wood in 
 spring. 
 
 When James TurnbuU saw this he suddenly 
 put out a hand and seemed to support himself on 
 the strong shoulder of Madeleine Durand. Then 
 after a moment's hesitation he put his other hand 
 on the shoulder of Maclan. His blue eyes looked 
 extraordinarily brilliant and beautiful. In many 
 sceptical papers and magazines afterward he was 
 sadly or sternly rebuked for having abandoned 
 the certainties of materialism. All his life up to 
 that moment he had been most honestly certain 
 that materialism was a fact. But he was unlike 
 the writers in the magazines precisely in this — 
 that he preferred a fact even to materialism. 
 
 As the little singing figure came nearer and
 
 402 THE BALL AND THE CROSS 
 
 nearer, Evan fell on his knees, and after an in- 
 stant Beatrice followed ; then Madeleine fell on her 
 knees, and after a longer instant Turnbull fol- 
 lowed. Then the little old man went past them 
 singing- down that corridor of flames. They had 
 not looked at his face. 
 
 When he had passed they looked up. While 
 the first light of the fire had shot east and west, 
 painting the sides of ships with fire-light or strik- 
 ing red sparks out of windowed houses, it had not 
 hitherto struck upward, for there was above it 
 the ponderous and rococo cavern of its own mon- 
 strous coloured smoke. But now the fire was 
 turned to left and right like a woman's hair parted 
 in the middle, and now the shafts of its light could 
 shoot up into empty heavens and strike any- 
 thing, either bird or cloud. But it struck some- 
 thing that was neither cloud nor bird. Far, far 
 away up in those huge hollows of space something 
 was flying swiftly and shining brightly, some- 
 thing that shone too bright and flew too fast to 
 be any of the fowls of the air, though the red 
 light lit it from underneath like the breast of a 
 bird. Every one knew it was a flying ship, and 
 every one knew whose. 
 
 As they stared upward the little speck of light
 
 DIES IR^ 403 
 
 seemed slightly tilted, and two black dots dropped 
 from the edge of it. All the eager, upturned faces 
 watched the two dots as they grew bigger and 
 bigger in their downward rush. Then some one 
 screamed, and no one looked up any more. For 
 the two bodies, larger every second flying, spread 
 out and sprawling in the fire-light, were the dead 
 bodies of the two doctors whom Professor Luci- 
 fer had carried with him — the weak and sneering 
 Quayle, the cold and clumsy Hutton. They went 
 with a crash into the thick of the fire. 
 
 " They are gone ! " screamed Beatrice, hiding 
 her head. " O God ! They are lost ! " 
 
 Evan put his arm about her, and remembered 
 his own vision. 
 
 " No, they are not lost," he said. " They are 
 saved. He has taken away no souls with him, 
 after all." 
 
 He looked vaguely about at the fire that was 
 already fading, and there among the ashes lay 
 two shining things that had survived the fire, his 
 sword and Turnbull's, fallen haphazard in the 
 pattern of a cross. 
 
 THE END
 
 THE COMPLETE WORKS 
 
 OF 
 
 WILLIAM J. LOCKE 
 
 ••Life is a glorious thing." — W.J, Locke 
 
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 The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne The Demagogue and Lady Phayre 
 
 At the Gate of Samaria The Beloved Vagabond 
 
 A Study in Shadows The White Dove 
 
 Where Love Is The Usurper 
 
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 — Chicago Record-Herald. 
 
 Septimus 
 
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 Where Love Is 
 
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 "One of those unusual novels of which the end is as good as the 
 beginning." — New York Globe.
 
 WILLIAM J. LOCKE 
 The Usurper 
 
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 season." — The Daily Mail. 
 
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 — The London Daily Telegraph. 
 
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 — The Daily Chronicle. 
 
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 realized." — The Morning Post. 
 
 The Demagogue and Lady Phayre 
 
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 At the Gate of Samaria 
 
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