I
The Reverend John Scattergood, D.D., Professor of Systematic Theology,
was of Puritan descent. The founder of the family was Caleb
Scatter-the-good-seed, a cornet of horse in Cromwell's army, who had
earned his master's favour by prowess at the battle of Dunbar. The
family tradition averred that when Cromwell halted the pursuit of
Leslie's shattered forces for the purpose of singing the 117th Psalm, it
was Caleb Scatter-the-good-seed who gave out the tune and led the
psalmody. This he did at the beginning of every verse by striking a
tuning-fork on his bloody sword. He was mounted, said the tradition, on
a coal-black horse.
John Scattergood, D.D., was a hard-headed theologian. His lectures on
Systematic Theology ended, as all who attended them will remember, in a
cogent demonstration of the Friendliness of the Universe, firmly
established by the Inflexible Method. This was a masterpiece of
ratiocination. The impartial observation of facts, the even-handed
weighing of evidence, the right ordering of principles and their
application, the separation and weaving together of lines of thought,
the careful disentangling of necessary pre-suppositions, the just
treatment of objectors--all the qualities demanded of one who handles
the deepest problems of thought were combined in Dr Scattergood's
demonstration of the Friendliness of the Universe according to the
Inflexible Method. Most of his hearers were convinced by his arguments,
and went forth into the world to publish the good news that the Universe
was friendly.
Hard-headed as Scattergood was, it would be unjust to his character to
describe him as free from superstition. Much of his life, indeed, had
been spent in attacking the superstitions of the ignorant and the
thoughtless; but this very practice had bred in him, as in so many
others, a superstitious regard for the argumentative weapons used in the
attack. Like his ancestor at Dunbar, he struck his tuning-fork on his
sword. To be sure, he was a Rational Theist, and a cause of Rational
Theism in others; but, unless I am much mistaken, the ultimate object of
his faith, the Power behind his Deity, was the Inflexible Method.
Superstition never dies; it merely changes its form. It is not a
confession we make to ourselves so much as a charge we bring against
others, and its greatest power is always exercised in directions where
we are least aware of its existence. And Scattergood, of course, was
unaware that his attitude towards the Inflexible Method was profoundly
superstitious. It follows that he was unprepared for the part which
superstition, changing its form, was destined to play in his life.
Theology, then, was his vocation, but I have now to add, the horse was
his hobby. Although he had taken to riding late in life, he was by no
means an incapable rider or an ignorant horseman. Next to the Universe,
the horse had been the subject of his profoundest study; and as he was a
close reasoner in regard to the one, he was a tight rider in regard to
the other. His seat, like his philosophy, was a trifle stiff; but what
else could you expect in one who had passed his sixtieth year? He never
rode to hounds, nor otherwise unduly jeopardised his neck; but for
managing a high-spirited horse, when all the rest of us were in
difficulties, I never knew his better. "Let Scattergood go first," we
cried as the traction engine came snorting down the road and our elderly
hacks were prancing on the pavement; and sure enough his young
thoroughbred would walk by the monster without so much as changing its
feet.
"Scattergood," I once asked him, "what do you _do_ to that young mare of
yours when you meet a traction engine or a military band?"
"Nothing," he replied.
"Then what do you _say_ to her?"
"Nothing."
"Then how do you manage it?"
"I haven't the faintest idea."
Needless to say, he was deeply respected in the stables. "A gen'l'man
with a wonderful _'orse-sense_," said the old ostler one day,
expatiating, as usual, on Scattergood's virtues. "If I'd had a
'orse-sense like him, I'd be one o' the richest men in England. If ever
there was a man as throwed himself away, there he goes! 'Orse-sense
isn't a thing as you see every day, sir. The only other man I've ever
knowed as had it was his Lordship, as I was his coachman in Ireland more
than twenty years ago. His Lordship used to say to me, 'Tom,' he says,
'Tom, it all comes of my grandfather and his father before him bein'
jockeys.' And between you and me, sir, that's what's the matter with his
Reverence. He's jockey-bred, sir, you take my word for it."
"His father was a bishop," I interposed.
"Well, his father may have been a bishop, for all I care," said Tom.
"But what about his mother, and what about his mother's father, and his
father before him, and all the rest on 'em? When it comes to a matter
o' breedin', you don't stop at fathers; you take in the whole pedigree.
Wasn't his Lordship's father a brewer? And what difference did that
make? When 'orse-sense once gets started in a family it takes more than
brewin' and more than bishopin' to wash it out o' the blood."
"I've heard that gypsies have the same gift," I said.
"I've 'eard it too, sir. But I never would have nothing to do with
gypsies; though his Lordship was as thick as thieves with 'em. And
thieves are just what they are, sir, and if it weren't for that I'd say
as the gen'l'man was as like to be gypsy-bred as jockey. Don't you never
let the gypsies sell _you_ a 'oss, sir; you'll be took in if you do. But
they couldn't gypsy _him_! Why, I don't believe as there's a 'oss-dealer
for twenty miles round as wouldn't go out for a walk if he 'eard as Dr
Scattergood was comin' to buy a 'oss."
That the ostler's last remark was true in the spirit if not in the
letter the following incident seems to prove. Once I was myself
entrapped into the folly of buying a horse, and I was on the point of
concluding the bargain, which seemed to be all in my favour, when a
friendly daimon whispered in my ear that I had better be cautious. So I
said, "Yes, the horse seems all right. But before coming to a final
decision, I'll bring Dr Scattergood round to have a look at him." And
the dealer presently abated his price by twenty pounds, on the
understanding that "that there interferin' Scattergood, as had already
done him more bad turns than one, was not allowed to poke his nose into
business which was none of his."
"Pretty good," said the Professor when I showed him my purchase. "Pretty
good. But I think I could have saved you another ten pounds, had you
taken the trouble to consult me."
He kept but one horse, and it was observed, as a strange thing in a
lover of horses, that he never kept that one for long. He was constantly
changing his mount. By superficial observers this was set down to a
certain fickleness of disposition; but the truth seems rather to have
been that Scattergood, consciously or unconsciously, was engaged in the
quest for the Perfect Horse. No man knew better than he what equine
perfection involved, and none was ever more painfully sensitive to the
slightest deviation from the Absolute Ideal. Whatever good qualities his
horse might possess--and they were always numerous--the presence of a
single fault, however slight, would haunt and oppress him in much the
same way as a venial sin will trouble the consciousness of a saint. I
remember one beautiful animal in which the severest judges could find no
defect save that it had half a dozen miscoloured hairs hidden away on
one of its hind-legs. Every time the good doctor rode that horse he saw
the miscoloured hairs through the back of his head; and away went the
beast to Tattersall's after a week's trial. Another followed, and
another after that; but we soon ceased to count them, and took it for
granted that Scattergood's horse, seen once, would not be seen again. So
it went on until in the fullness of time there appeared a horse, or
more strictly a mare, which did not depart as swiftly as it came.
Whatever perfection may be in other realms, perfection in horses seems
after all to be a relative thing; for though Dr Scattergood himself
regarded this one as perfect, I doubt if he could have found a single
soul in the wide world to agree with him. To be sure, she was beautiful
enough to cause a flutter of excitement as she passed down the street;
but a beast of more dangerous mettle never pranced on two feet or kicked
out with one. She was the terror of every stable she entered, and it was
only by continual largesse on the part of Scattergood that any groom
could be induced to feed or tend her. What she cost him monthly for
tips, for broken stable furniture, and for veterinary attendance on the
horses she kicked in the ribs, I should be sorry to say. But Scattergood
paid it all without a murmur; no infatuated lover ever bore the
extravagance of his mistress with a lighter heart. For the truth of the
matter was, that he was deeply attached to this mare, and the mare was
deeply attached to him.
Why the mare was fond of Scattergood is a problem requiring for its
solution more horse-sense than most of us possess; so we had better
leave it alone. But Scattergood's reason for being fond of the mare can
be stated in a sentence. She reminded him, constantly and vividly, of
Ethelberta. Her high spirits, her dash, her unexpectedness, her
brilliant eyes, her gait, and especially the carriage of her head, were
a far truer likeness of Ethelberta than was the faded photograph, or
even the miniature set in gold, which the reverend professor kept locked
in his secret drawer.
Now Ethelberta was the name of the lady whom Scattergood wished he had
married. For five-and-thirty years he had never ceased wishing he had
married _her_--and not someone else. Someone else! Ay, there was the
rub! The lawful Mrs Scattergood was not a person whose portrait I should
care to draw in much detail. Can you imagine a harder lot than that of
a world-famous Systematic Theologian, publicly pledged to maintain the
Friendliness of the Universe, but privately consumed with anxiety lest
on returning home (_horresco referens!_) he should find a
heavy-featured, blear-eyed, irredeemable woman, the woman who called
herself his wife, narcotised on the drawing-room sofa, with an empty
bottle of chloral at her side? That was the lot of John Scattergood,
D.D., and he bore it like a man, keeping up a pathetic show of devotion
to his intolerable wife, and concealing his personal misery from the
world with an ingenuity only equal to that with which he published
abroad the Friendliness of the Universe. To be sure, he had long
abandoned the quest for happiness as a thing unworthy of a Systematic
Theologian--what else, indeed, could he do? Still, it was hardly
possible to avoid reflecting that he would have been happier if he had
married Ethelberta. Each day something happened to convince him that he
would. For example, his first duty every morning, before settling down
to work, was to make a tour of the house, sometimes in the company of a
trusted domestic, hunting for a concealed bottle of morphia; and when at
last the servant, with her arm under a mattress, said, "I've got it,
sir," he could not help reflecting that the burden of life would have
been lighter had he married the high-souled Ethelberta. And with the
thought a cloud seemed to pass between John Scattergood and the sun.
He would often say to himself that he wished he could forget Ethelberta.
But in point of fact he wished nothing of the kind. He secretly
cherished her memory, and the efforts he made to banish her from his
thoughts only served to incorporate her more completely with the
atmosphere of his life.
All through life John Scattergood had been a deeply conscientious man.
But conscience--or rather something that called itself conscience, but
was in reality nothing of the kind,--which had served him so well in
other respects, had been his undoing in the matter of Ethelberta. At the
age of twenty-five he was not aware that a man's evil genius, bent on
doing its victim the deadliest turn, will often disguise itself in the
robes of his heavenly guide. Later on in life he learned to penetrate
these disguises, but at twenty-five he was at their mercy. He was, as we
have seen, of Puritan descent; his evangelical upbringing had taught him
to regard as heaven-sent all inner voices which bade him sacrifice his
happiness; and this it was of which the enemy took advantage. In his
relationship with Ethelberta the young man was radiantly happy; but that
very circumstance aroused his suspicions. "You are not worthy of this
happiness," said an inner voice; "and, what is far more to the point,
you are not worthy of Ethelberta. She is too good for such as you."
"Who are you?" said the young Scattergood, addressing the inner voice.
"Who are you that haunt me night and day with this horrible fear?"
"I am your conscience," answered the voice. "You are unworthy of
Ethelberta; and it is I, your conscience, that tell you so. I am a
voice from heaven, and beware of disregarding me."
Had Scattergood been thirty years older, this strange anxiety on the
part of his conscience to establish its claims as a voice from heaven
would have put him on his guard; he would have lifted those shining
robes and seen the hoofs beneath them. But these precautions had not
occurred to him in the days when he and Ethelberta were walking hand in
hand. So he listened to that inner voice with awe: he listened until its
lying words became an obsession; until they darkened his mind; until
they drowned the voices of love and began to find utterance in his
manners, and even in his speech, with Ethelberta. She, on her part, did
not understand--what woman ever could or would?--and a cloud came
between them. "The cloud is from heaven," said the inner voice. "I have
sent it; let it grow; you are not good enough for Ethelberta, and it
will be a sin to link your life with hers."
So the cloud grew, till one day a woman's wrath shot out of it; there
was an explosion, a quarrel, a breach; and the two parted, never to
meet again. "You have done your duty," said the false conscience. "You
have dealt me a mortal hurt," said the soul. But Scattergood was still
convinced that he was not good enough for Ethelberta.
Within a year or two the usual results had followed. Scattergood married
a woman who was not good enough for _him_; and that other man, who had
been watching his opportunity, like a wolf around the sheepfold, married
Ethelberta. And he was not good enough for _her_.
And now many years had passed, and Ethelberta was long since dead. But
that made no difference to the aching wound; for Professor Scattergood,
who was intelligent about all things, and far too intelligent about
Ethelberta, used to reflect that probably she would still be alive had
she married him. "They went to Naples for their honeymoon," he would say
aloud--for he was in the habit of talking to himself--"they went to
Naples for their honeymoon; there she caught typhoid fever, and died
six weeks after her marriage. But things would have happened differently
had she married _me_. _We_ were not going to Naples for the honeymoon.
We were going to Switzerland: we settled it that night after the dance
at Lady Brown's--the night I first told her I was not worthy of her.
Fool that I was!" Such were the meditations of Professor John
Scattergood, D.D., as he trotted under the hedgerow elms and heard the
patter of his horse's hoofs falling softly on the withered leaves.
Thus we can understand how it came to pass that Dr Scattergood's
imagination was abnormally sensitive to anything which could remind him
of Ethelberta. And I have no doubt that his peculiar horse-sense was
also involved in the particular reminder with which we have now to deal.
Certain it is that he discerned the resemblance to Ethelberta the moment
he cast eyes upon his mare. He was standing in the dealer's yard, and
the dealer was leading the animal out of the stable. Suddenly catching
sight of the strange black-coated figure, she stopped abruptly, lowered
her head, curved her neck, and looked Scattergood straight between the
eyes. For a moment he was paralysed with astonishment and thought he was
dreaming. The movement, the attitude, the look were all Ethelberta's!
Exactly thus had she stopped abruptly, lowered her head, curved her
neck, and looked him in the face when thirty-five years ago he had been
introduced to her at an Embassy Ball in Vienna. A vision swept over his
inner eye: he saw bright uniforms, heard music, felt the presence of a
crowd; and so completely was the actuality of things blotted out that he
made a low reverence to the animal as though he were being introduced to
some highborn dame. The dealer noticed the movement and wondered what
"new hanky-panky old Scattergood was trying on the mare."
"Now, that's a mare I raised myself," said the dealer. "I've watched her
every day since she was foaled, and I'll undertake to say as there isn't
another like her in----"
"In the wide world: I know there isn't," said Scattergood, cutting him
short. Then, suddenly, "What's her name?"
"Meg," replied the dealer, who was expecting a very different question.
"Meg--Meg," said the Doctor. "Why, it ought to be----Well, never mind,
Meg will do. So you bred her yourself? Will you swear you didn't _steal_
her?"
This was too much even for a horse-dealer. "We're not a firm of
horse-thieves," he said, and he was preparing to lead her back into the
stable.
"I'm only joking," said Scattergood in a tremulous voice which belied
him. "She's the living likeness of one I remember years ago--one that
_was_ stolen. Come, bring her back. I'm ready to buy that mare at her
full value."
"And what may that be?" replied the dealer, glad that the enemy had made
the first move.
"A hundred and twenty."
The dealer was astonished; for his customer had offered the exact sum at
which he hoped to sell the mare. For a moment he thought of standing
out for a hundred and fifty, but he knew it was useless to bargain with
Scattergood, so he said:
"It's giving her away, sir, at a hundred and twenty. But for the sake of
quick business, and you being a gentleman as knows a horse when you sees
one, I'll take you at your own figure."
"Done," said Scattergood. "I'll send you a cheque round in ten minutes."
And without another word he walked out of the yard. He had found the
perfect horse.
The dealer stood dumbfoundered, halter in hand--he was unconscious that
Meg had already caught his shirt-sleeve between her teeth. Could that
retreating figure be the wary Scattergood, Scattergood of the thousand
awkward questions, Scattergood the terror of every horse-dealer in the
countryside? Never before had he found so prompt, so reckless a
customer. Were his eyes deceiving him? Was it a dream? A violent jerk on
his right arm, and the simultaneous sound of tearing linen, recalled him
to himself. "You she-devil!" he said, "I'll take the skin off you for
this. But I hope the old gentleman's well insured."
Meanwhile the Professor was walking home in a state of profound mental
perturbation. Visions of the Embassy Ball in Vienna, Buddhist theories
of reincarnation, problems of animal psychology, doubts as to the
validity of the Inflexible Method, vague and nameless feelings that
accompanied the disappearance of his "horse-sense," a yet vaguer joy as
of one who has found something precious which he had lost, and beneath
all the ever-present subconscious fear that he would find his wife
narcotised on the drawing-room sofa, were buzzing and dancing through
his mind.
"It's the _likeness_ that puzzles me," he began to reflect. "A universal
resemblance, borne by particulars not one of which is really like the
original. Quite unmistakable, and yet quite unthinkable. An indubitable
fact, and yet a fact which no one who has not seen could ever be induced
to believe."
Had anyone half an hour earlier propounded the statement that a woman
could bear a closer resemblance to a horse than to her own portrait, he
would have treated the proposition as one which no amount of evidence
could make good. So far from the evidence proving the proposition true,
he would have said, it is the proposition which proves the evidence
false. Otherwise, what is the use of the Inflexible Method? But now the
thing was flashed on him with the brightness of authentic revelation,
and there was no gainsaying its truth. Not once during the
five-and-thirty years of his mourning for Ethelberta had anything
happened to bring her so vividly to mind; not even among the dreams that
haunt the borderland of sleep and waking; no, nor even when he listened
to the great singer whose voice had pierced his heart with the sad and
angry music of Heine's bitterest song. Professor Scattergood was a firm
believer in the efficacy of _a priori_ thought; but though by means of
it he had excogitated a system in which the plan of an entire Universe
was sufficiently laid down, there was not one of his principles either
primary or secondary which could have built a niche for the experience
he had just undergone in the horse-dealer's yard.
As he neared his doorstep the confusion of his mind suddenly ranged
itself into form and gave birth to an articulate thought. "I'm sure," he
said to himself, drawing his latch-key out of his pocket and inserting
it in the keyhole--"I'm sure that Ethelberta is not far off. Yes, as
sure as I am of anything in this world."