Mr. Hinch shook his head with a pallid4 passion of refusal, wonderful to watch, and said, “I couldn’t! I really couldn’t!”
“We should be very pleased,” said Mr. Leveson, “if any lady would ask a question.”
In the silence that followed it was somehow psychologically borne in on the whole audience that one particular great large lady (as the lecturer would say) sitting at the end of the second row was expected to ask a question. Her own wax-work immobility was witness both to the expectation and its disappointment. “Are there any other questions?” asked Mr. Leveson—as if there had been any yet. He seemed to speak with a slight air of relief.
There was a sort of stir at the back of the hall and half way down one side of it. Choked whispers could be heard of “Now then, Garge!”—“Go it Garge! Is there any questions! Gor!”
Mr. Leveson looked up with an alertness somewhat akin3 to alarm. He realised for the first time that a few quite common men in coarse, unclean clothes, had somehow strolled in through the open door. They were not true rustics6, but the semi-rustic labourers that linger about the limits of the large watering-places. There was no “Mr.” among them. There was a general tendency to call everybody George.
Mr. Leveson saw the situation and yielded to it. He modelled himself on Lord Ivywood and did much what he would have done in all cases, but with a timidity Lord Ivywood would not have shown. And the same social training that made him ashamed to be with such men, made him ashamed to own his shame. The same modern spirit that taught him to loathe7 such rags, also taught him to lie about his loathing8.
“I am sure we should be very glad,” he said, nervously9, “if any friends from outside care to join in our inquiry10. Of course, we’re all Democrats,” and he looked round at the grand ladies with a ghastly smile, “and believe in the Voice of the People and so on. If our friend at the back of the hall will put his question briefly11, we need not insist, I think, on his putting it in writing?”
There were renewed hoarse12 encouragements to George (that rightly christened champion) and he wavered forward on legs tied in the middle with string. He did not appear to have had any seat since his arrival, and made his remarks standing13 half way down what we may call the central aisle14.
“Well, I want to ask the proprietor,” he began.
“Questions,” said Mr. Leveson, swiftly seizing a chance for that construction of debate which is the main business of a modern chairman, “must be asked of the chair, if they are points of order. If they concern the address, they should be asked of the lecturer.”
“Well, I ask the lecturer,” said the patient Garge, “whether it ain’t right that when you ’ave the thing outside you should ’ave the thing inside.” (Hoarse applause at the back.)
Mr. Leveson was evidently puzzled and already suspicious that something was quite wrong. But the enthusiasm of the Prophet of the Moon sprang up instantly at any sort of question and swept the Chairman along with it.
“But it iss the essence of our who-ole message,” he cried, spreading out his arms to embrace the world, “that the outer manifestation16 should be one with the inner manifestation. My friendss, it iss this very tru-uth our friend has stated, that iss responsible for our apparent lack of symbolism in Islam! We appear to neglect the symbol because we insist on the satisfactory symbol. My friend in the middle will walk round all our mosques17 and say loudly, ‘Where is the statue of Allah?’ But can my friend in the middle really execute a complete and generally approved statue of Allah?”
Misysra Ammon sat down greatly satisfied with his answer, but it was doubted by many whether he had conveyed the satisfaction to his friend in the middle. That seeker after truth wiped his mouth with the back of his hand with an unsatisfied air and said:
“No offence, sir. But ain’t it the Law, sir, that if you ’ave that outside we’re all right? I came in ’ere as natural as could be. But Gorlumme, I never see a place like this afore.” (Hoarse laughter behind.)
“No apology is needed, my friend,” cried the Eastern sage15, eagerly, “I can conceive you are not perhaps du-uly conversant18 with such schools of truth. But the Law is All. The Law is Allah. The inmost u-unity of—”
“Well, ain’t it the Law?” repeated the dogged George, and every time he mentioned the Law the poor men who are its chief victims applauded loudly. “I’m not one to make a fuss. I never was one to make a fuss. I’m a law-abidin’ man, I am. (More applause.) Ain’t it the Law that if so be such is your sign and such is your profession, you ought to serve us?”
“I fear I not quite follow,” cried the eager Turk. “I ought?”
“To serve us,” shouted a throng19 of thick voices from the back of the hall, which was already much more crowded than before.
“Serve you!” cried Misysra, leaping up like a spring released, “The Holy Prophet came from Heaven to serve you! The virtue20 and valour of a thousand years, my friends, has had no hunger but to serve you! We are of all faiths, the most the faith of service. Our highest prophet is no more than the servant of God, as I am, as you all are. Even for our symbol we choose a satellite, and honour the Moon because it only serves the Earth, and does not pretend to be the Sun.”
“I’m sure,” cried Mr. Leveson, jumping up with a tactful grin, “that the lecturer has answered this last point in a most eloquent and effective way, and the motor cars are waiting for some of the ladies who have come from some distance, and I really think the proceedings—”
All the artistic21 ladies were already getting on their wraps, with faces varying from bewilderment to blank terror. Only Lady Joan lingered, trembling with unexplained excitement. The hitherto speechless Hinch had slid up to the Chairman’s seat and whispered to him:
“You must get all the ladies away. I can’t imagine what’s up, but something’s up.”
“Well?” repeated the patient George. “So be it’s the Law, where is it?”
“Ladies and Gentlemen,” said Mr. Leveson, in his most ingratiating manner, “I think we have had a most delightful22 evening, and—”
“No, we ain’t,” cried a new and nastier voice from a corner of the room. “Where is it?”
“That’s what we got a right to know,” said the law-abiding George. “Where is it?”
“Where is what?” cried the nearly demented secretary in the chair. “What do you want?”
The law-abiding Mr. George made a half turn and a gesture towards the man in the corner and said:
“What’s yours, Jim?”
“I’ll ’ave a drop of Scotch,” said the man in the corner.
Lady Enid Wimpole, who had lingered a little in loyalty23 to Joan, the only other lady still left, caught both her wrists and cried in a thrilling whisper,
“Oh, we must go to the car, dear! They’re using the most awful language!”
Away on the wettest edge of the sands by the sea the prints of two wheels and four hoofs24 were being slowly washed away by a slowly rising tide; which was, indeed, the only motive25 of the man Humphrey Pump, leading the donkey cart, in leading it almost ankle deep in water.
“I hope you’re sober again now,” he said with some seriousness to his companion, a huge man walking heavily and even humbly26 with a straight sword swinging to and fro at his hip—“for honestly it was a mug’s game to go and stick up the old sign before that tin place. I haven’t often spoken to you like this, Captain, but I don’t believe any other man in the county could get you out of the hole as I can. But to go down there and frighten the ladies—why there’s been nothing so silly here since Bishop’s Folly28. You could hear the ladies screaming before we left.”
“I heard worse than that long before we left,” said the large man, without lifting his head. “I heard one of them laugh.... Christ, do you think I shouldn’t hear her laugh?”
There was a silence. “I didn’t mean to speak sharp,” said Humphrey Pump with that incorruptible kindliness29 which was the root of his Englishry, and may yet save the soul of the English. “But it’s the truth I was pretty well bothered about how to get out of this business. You’re braver than I am, you see, and I own I was frightened about both of us. If I hadn’t known my way to the lost tunnel, I should be fairly frightened still.”
“Known your way to what?” asked the Captain, lifting his red head for the first time.
“Oh, you know all about No More Ivywood’s lost tunnel,” said Pump, carelessly. “Why, we all used to look for it when we were boys. Only I happened to find it.”
“Have mercy on an exile,” said Dalroy, humbly. “I don’t know which hurt him most, the things he forgets or the things he remembers.”
Mr. Pump was silent for a little while and then said, more seriously than usual, “Well, the people from London say you must put up placards and statues and subscriptions30 and epitaphs and the Lord knows what, to the people who’ve found some new trick and made it come off. But only a man that knows his own land for forty miles round, knows what a lot of people, and clever people too, there were who found new tricks, and had to hide them because they didn’t come off. There was Dr. Boone, up by Gill-in-Hugby, who held out against Dr. Collison and the vaccination31. His treatment saved sixty patients who had got small-pox; and Dr. Collison’s killed ninety-two patients who hadn’t got anything. But Boone had to keep it dark; naturally, because all his lady patients grew mustaches. It was a result of the treatment. But it wasn’t a result he wishes to dwell on. Then there was old Dean Arthur, who discovered balloons if ever a man did. He discovered them long before they were discovered. But people were suspicious about such things just then—there was a revival32 of the witch business in spite of all the parsons—and he had to sign a paper saying where he’d got the notion. Well, it stands to reason, you wouldn’t like to sign a paper saying you’d got it from the village idiot when you were both blowing soap-bubbles; and that’s all he could have signed, for he was an honest gentleman, the poor old Dean. Then there was Jack33 Arlingham and the diving bell—but you remember all about that. Well, it was just the same with the man that made this tunnel—one of the mad Ivywoods. There’s many a man, Captain, that has a statue in the great London squares for helping34 to make the railway-trains. There’s many a man has his name in Westminster Abbey for doing something in discovering steamboats. Poor old Ivywood discovered both at once; and had to be put under control. He had a notion that a railway train might be made to rush right into the sea and turn into a steamboat; and it seemed all right, according as he worked it out. But his family were so ashamed of the thing, that they didn’t like the tunnel even mentioned. I don’t think anybody knows where it is but me and Bunchy Robinson. We shall be there in a minute or two. They’ve thrown the rocks about at this end; and let the thick plantation35 grow at the other, but I’ve got a race horse through before now, to save it from Colonel Chepstow’s little games, and I think I can manage this donkey. Honestly, I think it’s the only place we’ll be safe in after what we’ve left behind us at Pebblewick. But it’s the best place in the world, there’s no doubt, for lying low and starting afresh. Here we are. You think you can’t get behind that rock, but you can. In fact, you have.”
Dalroy found himself, with some bewilderment, round the corner of a rock and in a long bore or barrel of blackness that ended in a very dim spot of green. Hearing the hoofs of the ass5 and the feet of his friend behind him, he turned his head, but could see nothing but the pitch darkness of a closed coal cellar. He turned again to the dim green speck36, and marching forward was glad to see it grow larger and brighter, like a big emerald, till he came out on a throng of trees, mostly thin, but growing so thickly and so close to the cavernous entrance of the tunnel that it was quite clear the place was meant to be choked up by forests and forgotten. The light that came glimmering37 through the trees was so broken and tremulous that it was hard to tell whether it was daybreak or moonrise.
“I know there’s water here,” said Pump. “They couldn’t keep it out of the stone-work when they made the tunnel, and old Ivywood hit the hydraulic38 engineer with a spirit level. With the bit of covert39 here and the sea behind us we ought to be able to get food of one kind or another, when the cheese has given out, and donkeys can eat anything. By the way,” he added with some embarrassment40, “you don’t mind my saying it, Captain, but I think we’d better keep that rum for rare occasions. It’s the best rum in England, and may be the last, if these mad games are going on. It’ll do us good to feel it’s there, so we can have it when we want it. The cask’s still nearly full.”
Dalroy put out his hand and shook the other’s. “Hump,” he said, seriously, “you’re right. It’s a sacred trust for Humanity; and we’ll only drink it ourselves to celebrate great victories. In token of which I will take a glass now, to celebrate our glorious victory over Leveson and his tin tabernacle.”
He drained one glass and then sat down on the cask, as if to put temptation behind him. His blue ruminant bull’s eye seemed to plunge41 deeper and deeper into the emerald twilight42 of the trees in front of him, and it was long before he spoke27 again.
At last he observed, “I think you said, Hump, that a friend of yours—a gentleman named Bunchy Robinson, I think—was also a habitué here.”
“Yes, he knew the way,” answered Pump, leading the donkey to the most suitable patch of pasturage.
“May we, do you think, have the pleasure of a visit from Mr. Robinson?” inquired the Captain.
“Not unless they’re jolly careless up in Blackstone Gaol,” replied Pump. And he moved the cheese well into the arch of the tunnel. Dalroy still sat with his square chin on his hand, staring at the mystery of the little wood.
“You seem absent-minded, Captain,” remarked Humphrey.
“The deepest thoughts are all commonplaces,” said Dalroy. “That is why I believe in Democracy, which is more than you do, you foul43 blood-stained old British Tory. And the deepest commonplace of all is that Vanitas Vanitatem, which is not pessimism44 but is really the opposite of pessimism. It is man’s futility45 that makes us feel he must be a god. And I think of this tunnel, and how the poor old lunatic walked about on this grass, watching it being built, the soul in him on fire with the future. And he saw the whole world changed and the seas thronged46 with his new shipping47; and now,” and Dalroy’s voice changed and broke, “now there is good pasture for the donkey and it is very quiet here.”
“Yes,” said Pump, in some way that conveyed his knowledge that the Captain was thinking of other things also. The Captain went on dreamily:
“And I think about another Lord Ivywood recorded in history who also had a great vision. For it is a great vision after all, and though the man is a prig, he is brave. He also wants to drive a tunnel—between East and West—to make the Indian Empire more British; to effect what he calls the orientation48 of England, and I call the ruin of Christendom. And I am wondering just now whether the clear intellect and courageous49 will of a madman will be strong enough to burst and drive that tunnel, as everything seems to show at this moment that it will. Or whether there be indeed enough life and growth in your England to leave it at last as this is left, buried in English forests and wasted by an English sea.”
The silence fell between them again, and again there was only the slight sound the animal made in eating. As Dalroy had said, it was very quiet there.
But it was not quiet in Pebblewick that night; when the Riot Act was read, and all the people who had seen the sign-board outside fought all the people who hadn’t seen the sign-board outside; or when babies and scientists next morning, seeking for shells and other common objects of the sea-shore, found that their study included fragments of the outer clothing of Leveson and scraps50 of corrugated51 iron.
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1
constrained
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| adj.束缚的,节制的 | |
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eloquent
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| adj.雄辩的，口才流利的；明白显示出的 | |
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akin
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| adj.同族的，类似的 | |
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pallid
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| adj.苍白的，呆板的 | |
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ass
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| n.驴；傻瓜，蠢笨的人 | |
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rustics
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| n.有农村或村民特色的( rustic的名词复数 )；粗野的；不雅的；用粗糙的木材或树枝制作的 | |
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7
loathe
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| v.厌恶，嫌恶 | |
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loathing
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| n.厌恶，憎恨v.憎恨，厌恶( loathe的现在分词)；极不喜欢 | |
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nervously
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| adv.神情激动地，不安地 | |
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inquiry
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| n.打听，询问，调查，查问 | |
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briefly
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| adv.简单地，简短地 | |
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hoarse
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| adj.嘶哑的，沙哑的 | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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aisle
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| n.（教堂、教室、戏院等里的）过道，通道 | |
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sage
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| n.圣人，哲人；adj.贤明的，明智的 | |
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manifestation
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| n.表现形式；表明；现象 | |
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mosques
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| 清真寺； 伊斯兰教寺院，清真寺； 清真寺，伊斯兰教寺院( mosque的名词复数 ) | |
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conversant
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| adj.亲近的，有交情的，熟悉的 | |
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throng
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| n.人群，群众；v.拥挤，群集 | |
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virtue
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| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
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artistic
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| adj.艺术(家)的，美术(家)的；善于艺术创作的 | |
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delightful
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| adj.令人高兴的，使人快乐的 | |
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loyalty
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| n.忠诚，忠心 | |
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hoofs
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| n.（兽的）蹄，马蹄( hoof的名词复数 )v.（兽的）蹄，马蹄( hoof的第三人称单数 ) | |
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motive
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| n.动机，目的；adv.发动的，运动的 | |
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humbly
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| adv. 恭顺地，谦卑地 | |
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spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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folly
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| n.愚笨，愚蠢，蠢事，蠢行，傻话 | |
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kindliness
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| n.厚道，亲切，友好的行为 | |
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subscriptions
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| n.（报刊等的）订阅费( subscription的名词复数 )；捐款；（俱乐部的）会员费；捐助 | |
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vaccination
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| n.接种疫苗，种痘 | |
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revival
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| n.复兴，复苏，（精力、活力等的）重振 | |
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jack
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| n.插座，千斤顶，男人；v.抬起，提醒，扛举；n.（Jake）杰克 | |
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helping
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| n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的 | |
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plantation
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| n.种植园，大农场 | |
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speck
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| n.微粒，小污点，小斑点 | |
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glimmering
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| n.微光，隐约的一瞥adj.薄弱地发光的v.发闪光，发微光( glimmer的现在分词 ) | |
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38
hydraulic
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| adj.水力的；水压的，液压的；水力学的 | |
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covert
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| adj.隐藏的；暗地里的 | |
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embarrassment
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| n.尴尬；使人为难的人(事物)；障碍；窘迫 | |
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plunge
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| v.跳入，(使)投入，(使)陷入；猛冲 | |
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twilight
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| n.暮光，黄昏；暮年，晚期，衰落时期 | |
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43
foul
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| adj.污秽的；邪恶的；v.弄脏；妨害；犯规；n.犯规 | |
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44
pessimism
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| n.悲观者，悲观主义者，厌世者 | |
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45
futility
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| n.无用 | |
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46
thronged
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| v.成群，挤满( throng的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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shipping
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| n.船运（发货，运输，乘船） | |
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48
orientation
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| n.方向，目标；熟悉，适应，情况介绍 | |
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49
courageous
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| adj.勇敢的，有胆量的 | |
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50
scraps
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| 油渣 | |
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51
corrugated
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| adj.波纹的；缩成皱纹的；波纹面的；波纹状的v.（使某物）起皱褶(corrugate的过去式和过去分词) | |
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