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

partition.

"Have a care, sir," cried the terrified groom, as Scattergood, with the

saddle on his arm, passed 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 passing 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. God 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 glasses 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 God, 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 passing 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 prone 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 circumpolar 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.

The din increased, and in great bewilderment of mind he began to seek

for its cause. Now it was one thing, now another. "This sound," he

thought, "is the grind and roar of colliding ice-floes and the crackle

of the Northern Lights." The sounds thus identified immediately became

something else. They seemed to scatter and retreat, and then,

concentrating again, returned as the tolling of an enormous bell. Nearer

and nearer it came till the quivering metal lay close against his ear

and the iron tongue of the bell smote him like a bludgeon.

A warmth passed over his face and a troubled thought began to disturb

him. "I am sleeping through the summer; I must rouse myself before

winter comes back." And with a great reluctant effort he opened his

eyes.

A scarlet veil hung before them. He tried to thrust it aside with his

hands, which seemed to fail him and miss the mark. Succeeding at last,

he saw a vast creature standing motionless above him, its hot breath

mingling with his, its great eyes, only a hand-breadth away, looking

with infinite tenderness into his own.

He tried to recollect himself, and something in his hand gave him a

clue. "This thing," he mused, "is surely my handkerchief. It belongs to

John Scattergood. It is one of a dozen his poor drug-sodden wife gave

him on Christmas Day. And here, close to me, is Ethelberta. How red her

feet are!" And he stared vacantly at a deep gash on Ethelberta's chest,

and watched the great gouts that were dripping from her knees and

forming crimson pools around her hoofs.

The crimson pools were full of mystery; they fascinated and troubled

him; they were problems in philosophy he couldn't solve. "Surely," he

thought, "I _have_ solved them, but forgotten the solution. I have lost

the notes of my lecture. Dyed garments from Bozrah--red, red! The colour

of my doctor's gown--I have trodden the wine-press alone. The colour of

poppies--drowsy syrups--deadly drugs! The ground-tint of the Universe--a

difficult problem! Strange that a friendly Universe should be so red.

Gentlemen, I am not well to-day--don't laugh at a sick man. The red is

quite simple. It only means that someone is hurt. Not I, certainly. Who

can it be? Ah, now I see. Poor old girl!" And he feebly reached out his

handkerchief, already soaked with his own blood, as though he would

staunch the streaming wounds of Ethelberta.

As he did this, the great bell broke out afresh. It fell away into the

distance. A second joined it; a third, a fourth, a fifth, until a whole

peal was ringing and the air seemed full of music and of summer warmth.

Then Scattergood began to dream his last dream, ineffably content.

He stood by the open door of a church: inside he could see the ringers

pulling at the ropes. And Ethelberta, young and happy as himself, was

leaning on his arm.

"Sweetheart," she whispered, "let us behave ourselves like rational

beings."

He laughed and would have spoken. But a din of clattering hoofs, which

drowned the pealing of the bells, struck him dumb. The swift image of a

grey-headed man, riding a maddened horse, shot out of the darkness,

passed by, and vanished; and the wedding-party stood aghast.

"Who is yonder rider?" he said, with a great effort, bending over

Ethelberta.

"A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief," said a soft voice in his

ear.

A thousand echoes caught up the words and flung them far abroad. Then

thunders awoke behind, and rolled after the echoes like pursuing

cavalry. "_A man of sorrows_," cried the echoes. "_He has come through

great tribulations_," the thunders shouted in reply.

On went the chase, the flying echoes in retreat, the deep-voiced thunder

in pursuit. Then Scattergood saw himself swept into the torrent of

riders, and it seemed as if the solid frame of things were dissolved

into a flight of whispers and a pursuit of shouts. A fugitive secret,

that fled with unapproachable speed, was the quarry, and the hunters

were billows of sound, and the rhythm of beating hoofs gave the time to

their undulations. A tide of joy awoke within the dreamer; he was

horsed on the thunder; he was leading the field; he was close on the

heels of the game; he was captain of the host to an innumerable company

of loud-voiced and meaningless things. Then would come expansions,

accelerations, and sudden checks. Fissures yawned in front; mountains

barred the way; the time was broken, and voices from the rear were

calling a halt. But the thunders have the bit between their teeth; they

are clearing the chasms; they are leaping over the mountain tops; and

clouds of witnesses are shouting "Well done!" The wide heavens fill with

the tumult; myriads of eager stars are watching, and great waters are

clapping their hands.

"Who is this that leads the chase?" a voice was asking. "Who is this

that feels the thunder leap beneath him like a living thing?" "It is

I--John Scattergood--it is I!" And ever before him fled the secret; it

mocked the chasing squadrons, and the wild winds aided its flight.

And now the pursuer perceived himself pursued. A swarm of troubled

thoughts, on winged horses, was overtaking him. They swept by on either

side; they forged ahead; they pressed close and jostled him on his

rocking seat. There was a shock; the thunder collapsed beneath him, and

he fell and fell into bottomless gloom.

Suddenly his fall was stayed. A hand caught him; a presence encircled

him, something touched him on the lips, and a voice said, "At last! At

last!"

* * * * *

Professor Scattergood was sitting on the stones, his body bowed forward,

his hands feebly clasped round the head of his motionless horse; the

breath of life was leaving him, and his heart was almost still. Then the

dying flame flickered once more. He opened his eyes, gazing into the

darkness like one who sees a long-awaited star. His fingers tightened;

he seemed to draw the head of Ethelberta a little nearer his own; and it

was as if they two were holding some colloquy of love.

In the twinkling of an eye it was done, and the pallor of death crept

over the wounded face. The clasped hands, with the blood-stained

handkerchief still between them, slowly relaxed; the glance withered;

the arms fell; the head drooped. It rested for a moment on the soft

muzzle of the beast; and then, with a quiet breath, the whole body

rolled backwards and lay face upward to the stars.

* * * * *

Clouds swept over the sky, the winds were hushed, and the dense darkness

of a winter's night fell like a pall over the dead. Not a soul came nigh

the spot, and for hours the silence was unbroken by the footfall of any

living creature or by the stirring of a withered leaf. And far away in

the dead's man's home lay an oblivious woman, drenched in the sleep of

opium.

It was near midnight when a carrier's cart, drawn by an old horse and

lit by a feeble lantern, began to climb the silent hill. Weary with the

labours of a long day, the carrier sat dozing among the village

merchandise. Suddenly he woke with a start: his cart had stopped.

Leaning forward, he peered ahead; and the gleam of his lantern fell on

the stark figure of a man lying in the middle of the road. A larger

mass, dimly outlined, lay immediately beyond. Raising his light a little

higher, the carrier saw that the further object was the dead body of a

horse.