Austin and His Friends Part 12

They seem to us to have taken a very roundabout route in their investigations, but their object was often very much the same as that of every chemist and biologist of the present day. Take alchemy, again, which is supposed by people generally to have been nothing but an attempt to turn the baser metals into gold. According to the Rosicrucians, who may be supposed to have known something about it, alchemy was the science of guiding the invisible processes of life for the purpose of attaining certain results in both the physical and spiritual spheres. Chemistry deals with inanimate substances, alchemy with the principle of life itself. The highest aim of the alchemist was the evolution of a divine and immortal being out of a mortal and semi-animal man; the development, in short, of all those hidden properties which lie latent in man's nature."

"That is a very valuable thing to know," observed Austin, greatly interested. "Every day I live, the more I realise the truth that everything we see is on the surface, and that there's a whole world of machinery--I can't think of a better term--working at the back of it.

It's like a clock. The face and the hands are all we see, but it's the works inside that we can't see that make it go."

"Excellently put," returned St Aubyn. "There are influences and forces all round us of which we only notice the effects, and how far these forces are intelligent is a very curious question. I see nothing unscientific myself in the hypothesis that they may be."

"I wonder!" exclaimed Austin. "Do you know--I have had some very funny experiences myself lately, that can't be explained on any other ground that I can think of. The first occurred the very day that I was here first. Would you mind if I told you about them? Would it bother you very much?"

"On the contrary! I shall listen with the greatest interest, I a.s.sure you," replied St Aubyn, with a smile.

So Austin began at the beginning, and gave his friend a clear, full, circ.u.mstantial account of the three occurrences which had made so deep an impression on his mind. The story of the bricks riveted the attention of his hearer, who questioned him closely about a number of significant details; then he went on to the incident of Aunt Charlotte's proposed journey, the mysterious warning he had received, and the desperate measures to which he had been driven to keep her from going out. St Aubyn shouted with laughter as Austin gravely described how he had locked her up in her bedroom, and how l.u.s.tily she had banged and screamed to be released before it was too late to catch the train. The sequel seemed to astonish him, and he fell into a musing silence.

"You tell your story remarkably well," he said at last, "and I don't mind confessing that the abnormal character of the whole thing strikes me as beyond question. Any attempt to explain such sequences by the worn-out old theory of imagination or coincidence would be manifestly futile. Such coincidences, like miracles, do not happen. Many things have happened that people call miracles, by which they mean a sort of divine conjuring-trick that is performed or brought about by violating or annihilating natural laws. That, of course, is absurd. Nothing happens but in virtue of natural laws, laws just as natural and inherent in the universal scheme of things as gravitation or the precession of the equinoxes, _only_ outside our extremely limited knowledge of the universe. That, under certain conditions, such interpositions affecting physical organisms may be produced by invisible agencies is, in my view, eminently conceivable. It is purely a question of evidence."

"I am so glad you think so," replied Austin. "It makes things so much easier. And then it's so pleasant to think that one is really surrounded by unseen friends who are looking after one. I was never a bit afraid of ghosts, and _my_ ghosts are apparently a charming set of people. I wonder who they are?"

"Ah, that is more than I can tell you," answered the other, laughing.

"I'm not so favoured as you appear to be. But come, let's have a stroll round the garden. You don't mind the sun, I know."

"And the Banqueting Hall! I insist on the Banqueting Hall," added Austin, who now began to feel quite at home with his genial host. "I long to be in there again. I'm sure it's full of wonders, if one only had eyes to see."

"By all means," smiled St Aubyn, as they went out. "You shall take your fill of them, never fear. Don't forget your hat--the sun's pretty powerful to-day. Doesn't the lawn look well?"

"Lovely," a.s.sented Austin, admiringly. "Like a great green velvet carpet. How do you manage to keep it in such good condition?"

"By plenty of rolling and watering. That's the only secret. Let's walk this way, down to the pool where the lilies are. There'll be plenty of shade under the trees. Do you see that old statue, just over there by the wall? That's a great favourite of mine. It always looks to me like a petrified youth, a being that will never grow old in soul although its form has existed for centuries, and the stone it's made of for thousands of thousands of years. That's an ill.u.s.tration of the saying that whom the G.o.ds love die young. Not that they die in youth, but that they never really grow old, let them live for eighty years or more, as we count time. They remain always young in soul, however long their bodies last. Perhaps that's what Isaiah had in his mind when he talked about a child dying at a hundred. _You'll_ never grow old, you know."

"Shan't I? How nice," exclaimed Austin, brightly. "I certainly can't fancy myself old a bit. How funny it would be if one always preserved one's youthful shape and features, while one's skin got all cracked and rough and wrinkled like that old youth over there! The effect would be rather ghastly. But I don't want to grow old in any sense. I should like to remain a boy all my life. I suppose that in the other world people may live a thousand years and always remain eighteen. I'm nearly eighteen myself."

St Aubyn could not help casting a glance of keen interest at the boy as he said this. A presentiment shot through him that that might actually be the destiny of the pure-souled, enthusiastic young creature who had just uttered the suggestive words. Austin's long, pale face, slender form, and bright, far-away expression carried with them the idea that perhaps he might not stay very long where he was. A sudden pang made itself felt as the possibility occurred to him, and he rapidly changed the subject.

"I don't think I'd let my thoughts run too much on mystical questions if I were you, Austin," he said. "I mean in connection with these curious experiences you've been having. You have enough joy in life, joy from the world around you, to dispense with speculations about the unseen. All that sort of thing is premature, and if it takes too great a hold upon you its tendency will be to make you morbid."

"It hasn't done so yet," replied Austin. "As far as I can judge of the other world, it seems quite as joyous and lively as this one, and in reality I expect it's a good deal more so. I don't hanker after experiences, as you call them, but hitherto whenever they've come they've always been helpful and agreeable--never terrifying or ghastly in the very least. And I don't lay myself out for them, you know. I just feel that there _is_ something near me that I can't see, and that it's pleasant and friendly. The thought is a happy one, and makes me enjoy the world I live in all the more."

"Well, then, let us enjoy it together, and talk about orchids and tulips, and things we can see and handle," said St Aubyn, cheerfully.

"How's Aunt Charlotte, for instance? Has she quite forgiven you for having saved her life?"

"Oh, quite, I think," replied Austin, his eyes twinkling. "I believe she's almost grateful, for when she came back from town she presented me with a gold pencil-case. She doesn't often do that sort of thing, poor dear, and I'm sure she meant it as a sign of reconciliation. It's pretty, isn't it?" he added, taking it out of his pocket.

"Charming," a.s.sented St Aubyn. "That bit of lapis lazuli at the top, with a curious design upon it, is by way of being an amulet, I suppose?"

"H'm! I don't believe in amulets, you know," said Austin, nodding sagely. "I consider that all nonsense."

"Yet there's no doubt that some amulets have influence," remarked St Aubyn. "If a piece of amber, for example, has been highly magnetised by a 'sensitive,' as very psychic persons are called, it is quite possible that, worn next the skin, a certain amount of magnetic fluid may be transmitted to the wearer, producing a distinct effect upon his vitality. There's nothing occult about that. The most thoroughgoing materialist might acknowledge it. But when it comes to spells, and all that gibberish, there, of course, I part company. The magical power of certain precious stones may be a fact of nature, but I see no proof of its truth, and therefore I don't believe in it."

"And now may we go and look at the flowers?" suggested Austin.

"Come along," returned St Aubyn. "What a boy you are for flowers! Do you know much of botany?"

"No--yes, a little--but not nearly as much as I ought," said Austin, as they strolled through the blaze of colour. "I love flowers for their beauty and suggestiveness, irrespective of the cla.s.sifications to which they may happen to belong. A garden is to me the most beautiful thing in the world. There's something sacred about it.

Everything that's beautiful is good, and if it isn't beautiful it can't be good, and when one realises beauty one is happy. That's why I feel so much happier in gardens than in church."

"Why, aren't you fond of church?" asked St Aubyn, amused.

"A garden makes me happier," said Austin. "Religion seems to encourage pain, and ugliness, and mourning. I don't know why it should, but nearly all the very religious people I know are solemn and melancholy, as though they hadn't wits enough to be anything else. They only understand what is uncomfortable, just as beasts of burden only understand threats and beatings. I suppose it's a question of culture.

Now I learn more of what _I_ call religion from fields, and trees, and flowers than from anything else. I don't believe that if the world had consisted of nothing but cities any real religion would ever have been evolved at all."

"Crude, my dear Austin, very crude!" remarked St Aubyn, patting his shoulder as they walked. "There's more in religion than that, a great deal. Beware of generalising too widely, and don't forget the personal equation. Now, come and have a look at the orchids. I've got one or two rather fine ones that you haven't seen."

He led the way towards the orchid-houses. Here they spent a delightful quarter of an hour, and it was only the thought of his visit to the Banqueting Hall that reconciled Austin to tearing himself away. St Aubyn seemed much diverted at his insistence, and asked him whether he expected to find the figures on the tapestry endowed with life and disporting themselves about the room for his entertainment.

"I wish they would!" laughed Austin. "What fun it would be. I'm sure they'd enjoy it too. How old is the tapestry, by the way?"

"It's fifteenth century work, I believe," replied St Aubyn. "Here we are. It really is very good of its kind, and the colours are wonderfully preserved."

"It's lovely!" sighed Austin, as he walked slowly up the hall, feasting his eyes once more on the beautiful fabrics. "What a thing to live with! Just think of having all these charming people as one's daily companions. I shouldn't want them to come to life, I like them just as they are. If they moved or spoke the charm would be broken.

Why don't you spend hours every day in this wonderful place?"

"My dear boy, I haven't such an imagination as you have," answered St Aubyn, laughing. "But as a mere artist, of course I appreciate them as much as anyone, just as I appreciate statuary or pictures. And I prize them for their historical value too."

Austin made no reply. He began to look abstracted, as though listening to something else. The sun had begun to sink on the other side of the house, leaving the hall itself in comparative shadow.

"Don't you feel anything?" he said at last, in an undertone.

"Nothing whatever," replied St Aubyn. "Do you?"

"Yes. Hush! No--it was nothing. But I feel it--all round me. The most curious sensation. The room's full. Some of them are behind me. Don't you feel a wind?"

"Indeed I don't," said St Aubyn. "There's not a breath stirring anywhere."

They were standing side by side. Austin gently put out his right hand and grasped St Aubyn's left.

"_Now_ don't you feel anything?" he asked.

"Yes--a sort of thrill. A tingling in my arm," replied St Aubyn.

"That's rather strange. But it comes from you, not from----" He paused.

"It comes _through_ me," said Austin.

They stood for a few seconds in unbroken silence. Then St Aubyn suddenly withdrew his hand. "This is unhealthy!" he said, with a touch of abruptness. "You must be highly magnetic. Your organism is 'sensitive,' and that's why you experience things that I don't."

"Oh, why did you break the spell?" cried Austin, regretfully. "What harm could it have done you? You said yourself just now that nothing happens that isn't natural. And this is natural enough, if one could only understand the way it works."

"Many things are natural that are not desirable," returned St Aubyn, walking up and down. "It's quite natural for people to go to sea, but it makes some of them sea-sick, nevertheless, and they had better stay on sh.o.r.e. It's all a matter of temperament, I suppose, and what is pleasant for you is something that my own instincts warn me very carefully to avoid."

Austin drew his handkerchief across his eyes, as though beginning to come back to the realities of life. "I daresay," he said, vaguely.

"But it's very restful here. The air seems to make me sleepy. I almost think--"