All Men are Ghosts Part 18

"You're strangely mistaken," he answered.

"Surely," said I, "we are all in the same boat. What reasons can you have, other than those you have given us, for trusting your conclusion as to the friendliness of the Universe?"

"You forget," he said. "In addition to the reasons I have given you, I have all those which induce me to trust my life to Ethelberta."

"But how do they affect your philosophy?"

"They affect it vitally."

"In the way of confirmation or otherwise?"

"Confirmation."

"You mean that your philosophy is already conclusively proved, and yet made more conclusive by Ethelberta?"

"Put it that way, if you like."

"Is there no hope," I asked, "that you will be able one day to communicate the reasons to _us_?"

"None," he answered. "But what I can do, and will do, if I live long enough, is to show that all of you are acting much as I am acting in regard to Ethelberta."

"But we are not all risking our lives on thoroughbred horses."

"You are running far bigger risks than that," he said; "and you are fools not to see it. Did I not tell you that I am revising my lectures?"

"Scattergood," I said, "it's plain to me that you will have to do one of two things. Either you must radically change your system--or you must sell Ethelberta. Personally, I hope you'll do the last."

"In any case," he replied, "I shall not sell Ethelberta."

"Then," said I, "may the friendly Universe preserve you from being killed." And with that I took my departure.

IV

That very afternoon, Professor Scattergood, arrayed in a pair of goodly riding-boots, went round to the stables to mount his mare. The groom met him as usual.

"She's been wonderful restless all night, sir," said he. "She's broke her halter and a'most kicked the door out. And she's bitin' as though she'd just been married to the devil's son."

"She wants exercise," said Scattergood. "Put the saddle on at once."

"Not me, sir!" answered the groom. "It's as much as a man's life's worth to go near her."

"Bring me the saddle, then, and I'll do it myself," said Scattergood. He opened the door of the stable, and the moment the light was let in Ethelberta announced her intentions by a smashing kick on the wooden part.i.tion.

"Have a care, sir," cried the terrified groom, as Scattergood, with the saddle on his arm, pa.s.sed through the door. "She'll give you no time to say yer prayers. Look out, sir! She'll whip round on you like a bit o'

sin and put her heel through you before you know where you are. Good Lord!" he added, addressing another man, "it's a _hexecution_! The gen'l'man'll be in heaven in less than half a minute."

"Ethelberta, Ethelberta, what's the meaning of all this?" said Scattergood in a quiet voice, as he faced the animal's blazing eyes.

"Come, come, sweetheart, let us behave for once like rational beings."

And he put his arm round Ethelberta's neck and rubbed his cheek against her nose.

In five minutes the saddle was on, and Scattergood, seated on as quiet a beast as ever submitted to bridle, was riding down the stable-yard.

"That ole Johnnie knows a trick or two about 'osses," said the groom as soon as the Professor was out of hearing. "I'd give a month's wages to know how he quieted that mare. Did ye 'ear 'im talkin' to 'er, Bill?

Well, could you 'ear what 'e said? No? Well, you listen the next time you 'ear 'im talkin' to her and see if you can get the very words 'e says. It's the _words_ as does it; and if we can find out what they are, it'll be worth 'undreds o' pounds to you and me. I tell yer, it's the _words_ as does it! I reckon as it's summat out o' the Bible. Why, when I was groom to Lord Charles I knowed a man as give Scripture to 'osses regular. A Psalm-smitin' ole teapot he were; and whenever we'd got a kicker, he used to put his 'ead in at the stable-door and say a hymn.

Then he'd go in and get 'old o' the oss's ear between his teeth and say texts o' Scripture right into it's ear-'ole. I've knowed a gen'l'man give him five pounds for scripturin' a 'oss. Only, don't you let on to the other blokes what I've told you now. Keep it quiet, Bill, and you be here wi' me when Dr Scattergood comes back at four o'clock."

"All right," said Bill; "we'll get the _words_--but they won't be no use to _us_ when we've got 'em. I've 'eard all about scripturin' 'osses, but you won't ketch me tryin' it on--I can tell yer _that_! You know that saller-faced man as works for Bullivant--'im as limps on his left leg?"

"Do you mean 'im wi' the watery eyes?" asked the other.

"That's 'im. Well, he was takin' some polo-ponies to London, and one on 'em was a bit o' reg'lar hot ginger, and begins buckin' one day in the middle o' the road. There was a chap workin' in a field as sees what was goin' on, and 'e comes up and offers to scripture the pony for a pint o'

ale. So he takes the pony's ear in his teeth and scriptures 'im same as that man did as was workin' wi' you at Lord Charles's. '_Genesis and Revelations_,' he says, whispering into the pony's ear; and the pony became as quiet as a lamb. The saller-faced chap 'eard 'im, and says 'e to 'imself, 'I'll remember them words.' So the next time as they had a kicker at Bullivant's, the saller-faced chap thinks 'e'll try 'is 'and at scripturin' 'im. So out he goes for a drop o' whisky, to put a bit o' 'eart into 'im, for between you and me 'e didn't 'alf like his job.

Then he goes into the stables and makes a grab at the 'oss's ear. But the 'oss catches 'old of his breeches with his teeth and pitches 'im to the back o' the stable in no time. The saller-faced chap, seeing 'imself under the 'oss's 'eels, roars out '_Genesis and Revelations_' just as though 'is 'ouse was on fire. And no sooner had 'e spoken them words than the 'oss let 'im 'ave it red-'ot. Broke 'is thigh in two places, that it did, and kep 'im in 'orspital three months. And that's 'ow 'e got 'is limp."

"Looks as though it were no use gettin' the right words unless you're the _right sort o' man_," said the other groom.

"That's what does it," answered Bill. "My old dad, as was in the Balaklava Charge, used to say as no man could scripture a 'oss unless he'd been _converted_."

"I reckon that's what 'appened to old Shiny-boots and his Ethelberta.

Haven't I always said that he must 'a been a warm 'un in his young days? What about 'im puttin' his money on that 'oss as won the Buddle Stakes? And what about 'im bein' robbed of his winnings just as 'e was gettin' 'ome? He 'adn't got 'is white tie on then, Bill, eh? What state must a man be in when 'e comes 'ome after a race and lets another feller pinch his money out of his inside pocket?"

"Drunk as a lord, no doubt," said Bill; "though to see the old joker now you wouldn't think it."

Meanwhile Professor Scattergood, after trotting three or four miles down the London Road, had turned into the by-lane that led to the villages of Medbury and Charlton Towers. Up to this point the behaviour of Ethelberta had been beyond reproach. But as they turned down the lane a tramp with a wooden leg, who was nursing a fire of sticks in the hedge, some fifty yards ahead, got up and stepped out into the road. For a few moments Ethelberta did not see him, and maintained her swinging trot.

Professor Scattergood tightened his grip. The mare went on until the tramp was not more than five paces distant, and then, suddenly noticing his deformity, she planted her fore-feet and stopped dead. Scattergood, nearly unhorsed by the sudden stoppage, was thrown off his guard, and in momentary confusion of mind called out in his rasping voice, "Steady, Meg, steady!"

"_Meg_": the sound stung Ethelberta like the lash of a whip, and in an instant she was off.

Professor Scattergood did not lose his presence of mind. For a moment he tried to check the bolting mare, but feeling her mouth like iron he loosened his rein and let her race. He knew the road for the next five miles was fairly straight, except at one point; there was a long steep hill on this side of Charlton Towers, and he reflected that his mare was certain to be blown before she reached the top. He could keep his seat, and, barring a collision with some pa.s.sing vehicle, the chances were that he would win through. He shouted, indeed, and tried such resources of language as his breathlessness allowed; but Ethelberta was far beyond the reach of endearments, and the race had to be run. So Scattergood sat tight and awaited the issue.

His mind was perfectly clear. It seemed as if his desperate condition had given him a large quiet leisure for introspection. As objects on the road shot by him he noted each one; and, with a curious double consciousness, began watching the flow of his own thoughts. He even wondered at the calmness and lucidity of his mind, and asked himself the reason. "Perhaps it is the imminence of death," he reflected; "but death, now that it has come so near, has no terrors. That is John Hawksbury's cottage. I wonder if his son has returned from India. I must be careful on the bridge. G.o.d grant that we don't meet a cart!"

They were nearing a village, and Scattergood heard the pealing of bells mingled with the roar of the wind in his ear. As they shot past the church he saw a wedding-party standing aghast in the churchyard. He saw the bride, leaning on the bridegroom's arm. The party had just emerged from the porch, and the look of terror on the bride's face was clearly visible to Scattergood. "Poor girl," he reflected; "she'll take this for a bad omen." He saw men running and heard their shouts. At the end of the village street a brave lad stood with arms outstretched. "A hero,"

thought Scattergood; "he will surely be rewarded in the resurrection of the just."

They were out of the village in a flash. A furlong beyond it the road turned sharply at right angles. "She will jump the hedge at that point,"

thought Scattergood; "I must be ready." Ethelberta swung round the bend with hardly a check; but the rider, ready for that also, still kept his seat. A moment later she leapt over some obstacle in the road which Scattergood, short-sighted as he was, could not see. His gla.s.ses were gone, and the cold wind beating in his eyes had half blinded him. He was losing the sense of his whereabouts, and there were moments when he saw himself as a mere inanimate object held in the grip of the brute force that was pulsing beneath him. "And yet," he reflected, "I am not utterly abandoned after all. I know what is happening; the leaf on the torrent knows nothing. A point for a lecture on Necessity and Freedom--all the difference between the two involved in that single fact! To have one's wits about him and be unafraid--what a power is that to break the ruling of Fate! Nothing save a shock can unhorse me. It is a match between Pure Reason in Scattergood and madness in Ethelberta. Would that it had been so in the old days! But, please G.o.d, I shall beat her this time. Ha!

She's giving in!" They were breasting the two-mile hill on this side Charlton Towers, and with the rise in the gradient came a slackening of the pace. Ethelberta, with head down, still held the bit between her teeth; but the first rush of her speed was exhausted. Scattergood felt the difference instantly, and marked its gradual increase, promising himself that he would have her in hand before they reached the level ground on the top of the hill. Some distance ahead of him he could dimly see the form of a tall tree. With admirable presence of mind he roughly measured the distance and said to himself: "On pa.s.sing that tree, but not before, I will tighten the rein, and gradually tighten it until on reaching the summit I shall have completely pulled her up."

They were almost abreast of the tree when a dark-plumaged bird, frightened from its roost, fluttered out of the upper branches and flew with a whir of wings right athwart the road. At the sight of the black object, flung as it were into her eyes, Ethelberta made a rapid swerve, and, placing her near fore-foot on a rolling stone, plunged forward with her head between her knees. Down she came, almost turning a somersault with the violence of her impetus, and Professor Scattergood, hurled far out of his saddle, fell p.r.o.ne with a terrific shock on the newly metalled road.

When consciousness at length returned it brought no pain of wounds; but cold pierced him like a knife and a shock of sounds was in his ears. A flood of memories was sweeping over him. Beginning in the distant past, and streaming through the years with incredible rapidity, they terminated abruptly in a vision seen far below him, as though he were a watcher in the skies. He saw a deeply wounded man lying outstretched, as it seemed, on the circ.u.mpolar ice, and a horse stood by him like a ministering priest. The horse was warming the man with its breath, and the steam of its body rose high into the frozen air. The consciousness of Scattergood, hovering in a present which had well-nigh become a past, was on the borderland which separates a running experience from a completed fact--vaguely suffering, yet aloof from the sufferer, whom he seemed to remember as one who long ago endured the bitterness of death.

The vision was hardly more than a spectacle, the last link in a long chain of memories, and the past would have claimed it entirely had not the stunning sounds still fettered some fragment of conscious distress in the body of the freezing man.