PART III

THE HAMPDENSHIRE WONDER

BY

J. D. BERESFORD

AUTHOR OF "THE EARLY HISTORY OF JACOB STAHL"

LONDON

SIDGWICK & JACKSON, Ltd.

3 ADAM STREET, ADELPHI

1911

To

MY FRIEND AND CRITIC

ARTHUR SCOTT CRAVEN

CONTENTS

PART I

MY EARLY ASSOCIATIONS WITH GINGER STOTT

CHAP. PAGE

I. THE MOTIVE 3

II. NOTES FOR A BIOGRAPHY OF GINGER STOTT 14

III. THE DISILLUSIONMENT OF GINGER STOTT 52

PART II

THE CHILDHOOD OF THE WONDER

IV. THE MANNER OF HIS BIRTH 65

V. HIS DEPARTURE FROM STOKE-UNDERHILL 86

VI. HIS FATHER'S DESERTION 101

VII. HIS DEBT TO HENRY CHALLIS 113

VIII. HIS FIRST VISIT TO CHALLIS COURT 139

INTERLUDE 145

PART II (continued)

THE WONDER AMONG BOOKS

IX. HIS PASSAGE THROUGH THE PRISON OF

KNOWLEDGE 151

X. HIS PASTORS AND MASTERS 175

XI. HIS EXAMINATION 189

XII. FUGITIVE 213

PART III

MY ASSOCIATION WITH THE WONDER

XIII. HOW I WENT TO PYM TO WRITE A BOOK 219

XIV. THE INCIPIENCE OF MY SUBJECTION TO

THE WONDER 230

XV. THE PROGRESS AND RELAXATION OF MY

SUBJECTION 251

XVI. RELEASE 268

XVII. IMPLICATIONS 283

EPILOGUE: THE USES OF MYSTERY 289

PART I

MY EARLY ASSOCIATIONS WITH GINGER STOTT

CHAPTER I

THE MOTIVE

I

I could not say at which station the woman and her baby entered

the train.

Since we had left London I had been engrossed in Henri Bergson's

"Time and Free Will," as it is called in the English translation. I

had been conscious of various stoppages and changes of passengers,

but my attention had been held by Bergson's argument. I agreed with

his conclusion in advance, but I wished to master his reasoning.

I looked up when the woman entered my compartment, though I did not

notice the name of the station. I caught sight of the baby she was

carrying, and turned back to my book. I thought the child was a freak,

an abnormality; and such things disgust me.

I returned to the study of my Bergson and read: "It is at the great

and solemn crisis, decisive of our reputation with others, that we

choose in defiance of what is conventionally called a motive, and

this absence of any tangible reason is the more striking the deeper

our freedom goes."

I kept my eyes on the book--the train had started again--but the next

passage conveyed no meaning to my mind, and as I attempted to re-read

it an impression was interposed between me and the work I was studying.

I saw projected on the page before me an image which I mistook at first

for the likeness of Richard Owen. It was the conformation of the head

that gave rise to the mistake, a head domed and massive, white and

smooth--it was a head that had always interested me. But as I looked,

my mind already searching for the reason of this hallucination, I saw

that the lower part of the face was that of an infant. My eyes wandered

from the book, and my gaze fluttered along the four persons seated

opposite to me, till they rested on the reality of my vision. Even

as these acts were being performed, I found myself foolishly saying,

"I don't call this freedom."

For several seconds the eyes of the infant held mine. Its gaze was

steady and clear as that of a normal child, but what differentiated

it was the impression one received of calm intelligence. The head

was completely bald, and there was no trace of eyebrows, but the eyes

themselves were protected by thick, short lashes.

The child turned its head, and I felt my muscles relax. Until then

I had not been conscious that they had been stiffened. My gaze was

released, pushed aside as it were, and I found myself watching the

object of the child's next scrutiny.

This object was a man of forty or so, inclined to corpulence,

and untidy. He bore the evidences of failure in the process of

becoming. He wore a beard that was scanty and ragged, there were

bare patches of skin on the jaw; one inferred that he wore that beard

only to save the trouble of shaving. He was sitting next to me, the

middle passenger of the three on my side of the carriage, and he was

absorbed in the pages of a half-penny paper--I think he was reading

the Police News--which was interposed between him and the child in

the corner diagonally opposite to that which I occupied.

The man was hunched up, slouching, his legs crossed, his elbows seeking

support against his body; he held with both hands his paper, unfolded,

close to his eyes. He had the appearance of being very myopic, but

he did not wear glasses.

As I watched him, he began to fidget. He uncrossed his legs and hunched

his body deeper into the back of his seat. Presently his eyes began

to creep up the paper in front of him. When they reached the top,

he hesitated a moment, making a survey under cover, then he dropped

his hands and stared stupidly at the infant in the corner, his mouth

slightly open, his feet pulled in under the seat of the carriage.

As the child let him go, his head drooped, and then he turned and

looked at me with a silly, vacuous smile. I looked away hurriedly;

this was not a man with whom I cared to share experience.

The process was repeated. The next victim was a big, rubicund,

healthy-looking man, clean shaved, with light-blue eyes that were

slightly magnified by the glasses of his gold-mounted spectacles. He,

too, had been reading a newspaper--the Evening Standard--until the

child's gaze claimed his attention, and he, too, was held motionless by

that strange, appraising stare. But when he was released, his surprise

found vent in words. "This," I thought, "is the man accustomed to act."

"A very remarkable child, ma'am" he said, addressing the thin,

ascetic-looking mother.

II

The mother's appearance did not convey the impression of poverty. She

was, indeed, warmly, decently, and becomingly clad. She wore a long

black coat, braided and frogged; it had the air of belonging to an

older fashion, but the material of it was new. And her bonnet, trimmed

with jet ornaments growing on stalks that waved tremulously--that,

also, was a modern replica of an older mode. On her hands were black

thread gloves, somewhat ill-fitting.

Her face was not that of a country woman. The thin, high-bridged

nose, the fallen cheeks, the shadows under eyes gloomy and

retrospective--these were marks of the town; above all, perhaps,

that sallow greyness of the skin which speaks of confinement....

The child looked healthy enough. Its great bald head shone

resplendently like a globe of alabaster.

"A very remarkable child, ma'am," said the rubicund man who sat facing

the woman.

The woman twitched her untidy-looking black eyebrows, her head trembled

slightly and set the jet fruit of her bonnet dancing and nodding.

"Yes, sir," she replied.

"Very remarkable," said the man, adjusting his spectacles and leaning

forward. His action had an air of deliberate courage; he was justifying

his fortitude after that temporary aberration.

I watched him a little nervously. I remembered my feelings when,

as a child, I had seen some magnificent enter the lion's den in a

travelling circus. The failure on my right was, also, absorbed in

the spectacle; he stared, open-mouthed, his eyes blinking and shifting.

The other three occupants of the compartment, sitting on the same side

as the woman, back to the engine, dropped papers and magazines and

turned their heads, all interest. None of these three had, so far as

I had observed, fallen under the spell of inspection by the infant,

but I noticed that the man--an artisan apparently--who sat next to

the woman had edged away from her, and that the three passengers

opposite to me were huddled towards my end of the compartment.

The child had abstracted its gaze, which was now directed down the

aisle of the carriage, indefinitely focussed on some point outside the

window. It seemed remote, entirely unconcerned with any human being.

I speak of it asexually. I was still uncertain as to its sex. It is

true that all babies look alike to me; but I should have known that

this child was male, the conformation of the skull alone should have

told me that. It was its dress that gave me cause to hesitate. It

was dressed absurdly, not in "long-clothes," but in a long frock that

hid its feet and was bunched about its body.

III

"Er--does it--er--can it--talk?" hesitated the rubicund man, and I

grew hot at his boldness. There seemed to be something disrespectful

in speaking before the child in this impersonal way.

"No, sir, he's never made a sound," replied the woman, twitching and

vibrating. Her heavy, dark eyebrows jerked spasmodically, nervously.

"Never cried?" persisted the interrogator.

"Never once, sir."

"Dumb, eh?" He said it as an aside, half under his breath.

"'E's never spoke, sir."

"Hm!" The man cleared his throat and braced himself with a deliberate

and obvious effort. "Is it--he--not water on the brain--what?"

I felt that a rigour of breathless suspense held every occupant of

the compartment. I wanted, and I know that every other person there

wanted, to say, "Look out! Don't go too far." The child, however,

seemed unconscious of the insult: he still stared out through the

window, lost in profound contemplation.

"No, sir, oh no!" replied the woman. "'E's got more sense than a

ordinary child." She held the infant as if it were some priceless

piece of earthenware, not nursing it as a woman nurses a baby, but

balancing it with supreme attention in her lap.

"How old is he?"

We had been awaiting this question.

"A year and nine munse, sir."

"Ought to have spoken before that, oughtn't he?"

"Never even cried, sir," said the woman. She regarded the child

with a look into which I read something of apprehension. If it were

apprehension it was a feeling that we all shared. But the rubicund

man was magnificent, though, like the lion tamer of my youthful

experience, he was doubtless conscious of the aspect his temerity

wore in the eyes of beholders. He must have been showing off.

"Have you taken opinion?" he asked; and then, seeing the woman's lack

of comprehension, he translated the question--badly, for he conveyed

a different meaning--thus,

"I mean, have you had a doctor for him?"

The train was slackening speed.

"Oh! yes, sir."

"And what do they say?"

The child turned its head and looked the rubicund man full in the

eyes. Never in the face of any man or woman have I seen such an

expression of sublime pity and contempt....

I remembered a small urchin I had once seen at the Zoological

Gardens. Urged on by a band of other urchins, he was throwing pebbles

at a great lion that lolled, finely indifferent, on the floor of its

playground. Closer crept the urchin; he grew splendidly bold; he threw

larger and larger pebbles, until the lion rose suddenly with a roar,

and dashed fiercely down to the bars of its cage.

I thought of that urchin's scared, shrieking face now, as the rubicund

man leant quickly back into his corner.

Yet that was not all, for the infant, satisfied, perhaps, with its

victim's ignominy, turned and looked at me with a cynical smile. I was,

as it were, taken into its confidence. I felt flattered, undeservedly

yet enormously flattered. I blushed, I may have simpered.

The train drew up in Great Hittenden station.

The woman gathered her priceless possession carefully into her arms,

and the rubicund man adroitly opened the door for her.

"Good day, sir," she said, as she got out.

"Good day," echoed the rubicund man with relief, and we all drew

a deep breath of relief with him in concert, as though we had just

witnessed the safe descent of some over-daring aviator.

IV

As the train moved on, we six, who had been fellow-passengers for some

thirty or forty minutes before the woman had entered our compartment,

we who had not till then exchanged a word, broke suddenly into general

conversation.

"Water on the brain; I don't care what any one says," asserted the

rubicund man.

"My sister had one very similar", put in the failure, who was

sitting next to me. "It died," he added, by way of giving point to

his instance.

"Ought not to exhibit freaks like that in public," said an old man

opposite to me.

"You're right, sir," was the verdict of the artisan, and he spat

carefully and scraped his boot on the floor; "them things ought to

be kep' private."

"Mad, of course, that's to say imbecile", repeated the rubicund man.

"Horrid head he'd got," said the failure, and shivered histrionically.

They continued to demonstrate their contempt for the infant by many

asseverations. The reaction grew. They were all bold now and all

wanted to speak. They spoke as the survivors from some common peril;

they were increasingly anxious to demonstrate that they had never

suffered intimidation and in their relief they were anxious to laugh

at the thing which had for a time subdued them. But they never named

it as a cause for fear. Their speech was merely innuendo.

At the last, however, I caught an echo of the true feeling.

It was the rubicund man, who, most daring during the crisis was now

bold enough to admit curiosity.

"What's your opinion, sir?" he said to me. The train was running

into Wenderby; he was preparing to get out; and he leaned forward,

his fingers on the handle of the door.

I was embarrassed. Why had I been singled out by the child? I had

taken no part in the recent interjectory conversation. Was this a

consequence of the notice that had been paid to me?

"I?" I stammered and then reverted to the rubicund man's original

phrase, "It--it was certainly a very remarkable child," I said.

The rubicund man nodded and pursed his lips. "Very," he muttered as

he alighted, "Very remarkable. Well, good day to you."

I returned to my book and was surprised to find that my index finger

was still marking the place at which I had been interrupted some

fifteen minutes before. My arm felt stiff and cramped.

I read "... this absence of any tangible reason is the more striking

the deeper our freedom goes."

CHAPTER II

NOTES FOR A BIOGRAPHY OF GINGER STOTT

I

Ginger Stott is a name that was once as well known as any in

England. Stott has been the subject of leading articles in every daily

paper; his life has been written by an able journalist who interviewed

Stott himself, during ten crowded minutes, and filled three hundred

pages with details, seventy per cent. of which were taken from the

journals, and the remainder supplied by a brilliant imagination. Ten

years ago Ginger Stott was on a pinnacle, there was a Stott vogue. You

found his name at the bottom of signed articles written by members of

the editorial staff; you bought Stott collars, although Stott himself

did not wear collars; there was a Stott waltz which is occasionally

hummed by clerks, and whistled by errand-boys to this day; there was a

periodical which lived for ten months, entitled Ginger Stott's Weekly;

in brief, during one summer there was a Stott apotheosis.

But that was ten years ago, and the rising generation has almost

forgotten the once well-known name. One rarely sees him mentioned in

the morning paper now, and then it is but the briefest reference; some

such note as this "Pickering was at the top of his form, recalling

the finest achievements of Ginger Stott at his best," or "Flack is

a magnificent find for Kent: he promises to completely surpass the

historic feats of Ginger Stott." These journalistic superlatives

only irritate those who remember the performances referred to. We who

watched the man's career know that Pickering and Flack are but tyros

compared to Stott; we know that none of his successors has challenged

comparison with him. He was a meteor that blazed across the sky,

and if he ever has a true successor, such stars as Pickering and

Flack will shine pale and dim in comparison.

It makes one feel suddenly old to recall that great matinée at

the Lyceum, given for Ginger Stott's benefit after he met with his

accident. In ten years so many great figures in that world have died

or fallen into obscurity. I can count on my fingers the number of

those who were then, and are still, in the forefront of popularity. Of

the others poor Captain Wallis, for instance, is dead--and no modern

writer, in my opinion, can equal the brilliant descriptiveness of

Wallis's articles in the Daily Post. Bobby Maisefield, again, Stott's

colleague, is a martyr to rheumatism, and keeps a shop in Ailesworth,

the scene of so many of his triumphs. What a list one might make, but

how uselessly. It is enough to note how many names have dropped out,

how many others are the names of those we now speak of as veterans. In

ten years! It certainly makes one feel old.

II

No apology is needed for telling again the story of Stott's

career. Certain details will still be familiar, it is true, the

historic details that can never be forgotten while cricket holds

place as our national game. But there are many facts of Stott's life

familiar to me, which have never been made public property. If I

must repeat that which is known, I can give the known a new setting;

perhaps a new value.

He came of mixed races. His mother was pure Welsh, his father a

Yorkshire collier; but when Ginger was nine years old his father died,

and Mrs. Stott came to live in Ailesworth where she had immigrant

relations, and it was there that she set up the little paper-shop,

the business by which she maintained herself and her boy. That shop

is still in existence, and the name has not been altered. You may

find it in the little street that runs off the market place, going

down towards the Borstal Institution.

There are many people alive in Ailesworth today who can remember

the sturdy, freckled, sandy-haired boy who used to go round with the

morning and evening papers; the boy who was to change the fortunes

of a county.

Ginger was phenomenally thorough in all he undertook. It was one of

the secrets of his success. It was this thoroughness that kept him

engaged in his mother's little business until he was seventeen. Up to

that age he never found time for cricket--he certainly had remarkable

and very unusual qualities.

It was sheer chance, apparently, that determined his choice of

a career.

He had walked into Stoke-Underhill to deliver a parcel, and on his way

back his attention was arrested by the sight of a line of vehicles

drawn up to the boarded fencing that encloses the Ailesworth County

Ground. The occupants of these vehicles were standing up, struggling

to catch a sight of the match that was being played behind the screen

erected to shut out non-paying sightseers. Among the horses' feet,

squirming between the spokes of wheels, utterly regardless of all

injury, small boys glued their eyes to knot-holes in the fence, while

others climbed surreptitiously, and for the most part unobserved,

on to the backs of tradesmen's carts. All these individuals were in

a state of tremendous excitement, and even the policeman whose duty

it was to move them on, was so engrossed in watching the game that

he had disappeared inside the turnstile, and had given the outside

spectators full opportunity for eleemosynary enjoyment.

That tarred fence has since been raised some six feet, and now

encloses a wider sweep of ground--alterations that may be classed

among the minor revolutions effected by the genius of that thick-set,

fair-haired youth of seventeen, who paused on that early September

afternoon to wonder what all the fuss was about. The Ailesworth County

Ground was not famous in those days; not then was accommodation needed

for thirty thousand spectators, drawn from every county in England

to witness the unparalleled.

Ginger stopped. The interest of the spectacle pierced his absorption

in the business he had in hand. Such a thing was almost unprecedented.

"What's up?" he asked of Puggy Phillips.

Puggy Phillips--hazarding his life by standing on the

shiny, slightly curved top of his butcher's cart--made

no appropriate answer. "Yah--ah--AH!" he screamed in

ecstasy. "Oh! played! Pla-a-a-ayed!!"

Ginger wasted no more breath, but laid hold of the little brass rail

that encircled Puggy's platform, and with a sudden hoist that lifted

the shafts and startled the pony, raised himself to the level of

a spectator.

"'Ere!" shouted the swaying, tottering Puggy, "What the ... are yer

rup to?"

The well-drilled pony, however, settled down again quietly to maintain

his end of the see-saw, and, finding himself still able to preserve

his equilibrium, Puggy instantly forgot the presence of the intruder.

"What's up?" asked Ginger again.

"Oh! Well 'it, WELL 'IT!" yelled Puggy. "Oh! Gow on, gow on agen! Run

it aht. Run it AH-T."

Ginger gave it up, and turned his attention to the match.

It was not any famous struggle that was being fought out on the old

Ailesworth Ground; it was only second-class cricket, the deciding match

of the Minor Counties championship. Hampdenshire and Oxfordshire,

old rivals, had been neck-and-neck all through the season, and, as

luck would have it, the engagement between them had been the last

fixture on the card.

When Ginger rose to the level of spectator, the match was anybody's

game. Bobby Maisefield was batting. He was then a promising young

colt who had not earned a fixed place in the Eleven. Ginger knew

him socially, but they were not friends, they had no interests in

common. Bobby had made twenty-seven. He was partnered by old Trigson,

the bowler, (he has been dead these eight years,) whose characteristic

score of "Not out ... O," is sufficiently representative of his

methods.

It was the fourth innings, and Hampdenshire with only one more

wicket to fall, still required nineteen runs to win. Trigson could

be relied upon to keep his wicket up, but not to score. The hopes

of Ailesworth centred in the ability of that almost untried colt

Bobby Maisefield--and he seemed likely to justify the trust reposed

in him. A beautiful late cut that eluded third man and hit the fence

with a resounding bang, nearly drove Puggy wild with delight.

"Only fifteen more," he shouted. "Oh! Played; pla-a-a-yed!"

But as the score crept up, the tensity grew. As each ball was

delivered, a chill, rigid silence held the onlookers in its grip. When

Trigson, with the field collected round him, almost to be covered

with a sheet, stonewalled the most tempting lob, the click of the

ball on his bat was an intrusion on the stillness. And always it

was followed by a deep breath of relief that sighed round the ring

like a faint wind through a plantation of larches. When Bobby scored,

the tumult broke out like a crash of thunder; but it subsided again,

echoless, to that intense silence so soon as the ball was "dead."

Curiously, it was not Bobby who made the winning hit but Trigson. "One

to tie, two to win," breathed Puggy as the field changed over,

and it was Trigson who had to face the bowling. The suspense was

torture. Oxford had put on their fast bowler again, and Trigson,

intimidated, perhaps, did not play him with quite so straight a bat

as he had opposed to the lob-bowler. The ball hit Trigson's bat and

glanced through the slips. The field was very close to the wicket,

and the ball was travelling fast. No one seemed to make any attempt to

stop it. For a moment the significance of the thing was not realised;

for a moment only, then followed uproar, deafening, stupendous.

Puggy was stamping fiercely on the top of his cart; the tears were

streaming down his face; he was screaming and yelling incoherent

words. He was representative of the crowd. Thus men shouted and stamped

and cried when news came of the relief of Kimberley, or when that

false report of victory was brought to Paris in the August of 1870....

The effect upon Ginger was a thing apart. He did not join in the

fierce acclamation; he did not wait to see the chairing of Bobby

and Trigson. The greatness of Stott's character, the fineness of his

genius is displayed in his attitude towards the dramatic spectacle

he had just witnessed.

As he trudged home into Ailesworth, his thoughts found vent in a

muttered sentence which is peculiarly typical of the effect that had

been made upon him.

"I believe I could have bowled that chap," he said.

III

In writing a history of this kind, a certain licence must be

claimed. It will be understood that I am filling certain gaps in

the narrative with imagined detail. But the facts are true. My added

detail is only intended to give an appearance of life and reality to

my history. Let me, therefore, insist upon one vital point. I have not

been dependent on hearsay for one single fact in this story. Where

my experience does not depend upon personal experience, it has

been received from the principals themselves. Finally, it should be

remembered that when I have, imaginatively, put words into the mouths

of the persons of this story, they are never essential words which

affect the issue. The essential speeches are reported from first-hand

sources. For instance, Ginger Stott himself has told me on more than

one occasion that the words with which I closed the last section, were

the actual words spoken by him on the occasion in question. It was not

until six years after the great Oxfordshire match that I myself first

met the man, but what follows is literally true in all essentials.

There was a long, narrow strip of yard, or alley, at the back of

Mrs. Stott's paper-shop, a yard that, unfortunately, no longer

exists. It has been partly built over, and another of England's

memorials has thus been destroyed by the vandals of modern commerce....

This yard was fifty-three feet long, measuring from Mrs. Stott's back

door to the door of the coal-shed, which marked the alley's extreme

limit. This measurement, an apparently negligible trifle, had an

important effect upon Stott's career. For it was in this yard that he

taught himself to bowl, and the shortness of the pitch precluded his

taking any run. From those long studious hours of practice he emerged

with a characteristic that was--and still remains--unique. Stott

never took more than two steps before delivering the ball; frequently

he bowled from a standing position, and batsmen have confessed that

of all Stott's puzzling mannerisms, this was the one to which they

never became accustomed. S. R. L. Maturin, the finest bat Australia

ever sent to this country, has told me that to this peculiarity of

delivery he attributed his failure ever to score freely against

Stott. It completely upset one's habit of play, he said: one had

no time to prepare for the flight of the ball; it came at one so

suddenly. Other bowlers have since attempted some imitation of this

method without success. They had not Stott's physical advantages.

Nevertheless, the shortness of that alley threw Stott back for

two years. When he first emerged to try conclusions on the field,

he found his length on the longer pitch utterly unreliable, and the

effort necessary to throw the ball another six yards, at first upset

his slowly acquired methods.

It was not until he was twenty years old that Ginger Stott played in

his first Colts' match.

The three years that had intervened had not been prosperous years

for Hampdenshire. Their team was a one-man team. Bobby Maisefield

was developing into a fine bat (and other counties were throwing out

inducements to him, trying to persuade him to qualify for first-class

cricket), but he found no support, and Hampdenshire was never looked

upon as a coming county. The best of the minor counties in those

years were Staffordshire and Norfolk.

In the Colts' match Stott's analysis ran:

overs maidens runs wickets

11.3 7 16 7

and reference to the score-sheet, which is still preserved among the

records of the County Club, shows that six of the seven wickets were

clean bowled. The Eleven had no second innings; the match was drawn,

owing to rain. Stott has told me that the Eleven had to bat on a

drying wicket, but after making all allowances, the performance was

certainly phenomenal.

After this match Stott was, of course, played regularly. That

year Hampdenshire rose once more to their old position at the

head of the minor counties, and Maisefield, who had been seriously

considering Surrey's offer of a place in their Eleven after two years'

qualification by residence, decided to remain with the county which

had given him his first chance.

During that season Stott did not record any performance so remarkable

as his feat in the Colts' match, but his record for the year was

eighty-seven wickets with an average of 9.31; and it is worthy of

notice that Yorkshire made overtures to him, as he was qualified by

birth to play for the northern county.

I think there must have been a wonderful esprit de corps among the

members of that early Hampdenshire Eleven. There are other evidences

beside this refusal of its two most prominent members to join the ranks

of first-class cricket. Lord R----, the president of the H.C.C.C.,

has told me that this spirit was quite as marked as in the earlier

case of Kent. He himself certainly did much to promote it, and his

generosity in making good the deficits of the balance sheet, had a

great influence on the acceleration of Hampdenshire's triumph.

In his second year, though Hampdenshire were again champions of the

second-class counties, Stott had not such a fine average as in the

preceding season. Sixty-one wickets for eight hundred and sixty-eight

(average 14.23) seems to show a decline in his powers, but that was

a wonderful year for batsmen (Maisefield scored seven hundred and

forty-two runs, with an average of forty-two) and, moreover, that

was the year in which Stott was privately practising his new theory.

It was in this year that three very promising recruits, all since

become famous, joined the Eleven, viz.: P. H. Evans, St. John

Townley, and Flower the fast bowler. With these five cricketers

Hampdenshire fully deserved their elevation into the list of

first-class counties. Curiously enough, they took the place of the

old champions, Gloucestershire, who, with Somerset, fell back into

the obscurity of the second-class that season.

IV

I must turn aside for a moment at this point in order to explain

the "new theory" of Stott's, to which I have referred, a theory

which became in practice one of the elements of his most astounding

successes.

Ginger Stott was not a tall man. He stood only 5 ft. 5 1/4 in. in

his socks, but he was tremendously solid; he had what is known as a

"stocky" figure, broad and deep-chested. That was where his muscular

power lay, for his abnormally long arms were rather thin, though his

huge hands were powerful enough.

Even without his "new theory," Stott would have been an exceptional

bowler. His thoroughness would have assured his success. He studied

his art diligently, and practised regularly in a barn through the

winter. His physique, too, was a magnificent instrument. That long,

muscular body was superbly steady on the short, thick legs. It gave

him a fulcrum, firm, apparently immovable. And those weirdly long, thin

arms could move with lightning rapidity. He always stood with his hands

behind him, and then--as often as not without even one preliminary

step--the long arm would flash round and the ball be delivered,

without giving the batsman any opportunity of watching his hand; you

could never tell which way he was going to break. It was astonishing,

too, the pace he could get without any run. Poor Wallis used to call

him the "human catapult"; Wallis was always trying to find new phrases.

The theory first came to Stott when he was practising at the nets. It

was a windy morning, and he noticed that several times the balls he

bowled swerved in the air. When those swerving balls came they were

almost unplayable.

Stott made no remark to any one--he was bowling to the groundsman--but

the ambition to bowl "swerves," as they were afterwards called, took

possession of him from that morning. It is true that he never mastered

the theory completely; on a perfectly calm day he could never depend

upon obtaining any swerve at all, but, within limits, he developed

his theory until he had any batsman practically at his mercy.

He might have mastered the theory completely, had it not been for

his accident--we must remember that he had only three seasons of

first-class cricket--and, personally, I believe he would have achieved

that complete mastery. But I do not believe, as Stott did, that he

could have taught his method to another man. That belief became an

obsession with him, and will be dealt with later.

My own reasons for doubting that Stott's "swerve" could have been

taught, is that it would have been necessary for the pupil to have had

Stott's peculiarities, not only of method, but of physique. He used

to spin the ball with a twist of his middle finger and thumb,--just

as you may see a billiard professional spin a billiard ball. To do

this in his manner, it is absolutely necessary not only to have a

very large and muscular hand, but to have very lithe and flexible

arm muscles, for the arm is moving rapidly while the twist is given,

and there must be no antagonistic muscular action. Further, I believe

that part of the secret was due to the fact that Stott bowled from a

standing position. Given these things, the rest is merely a question

of long and assiduous practice. The human mechanism is marvellously

adaptable. I have seen Stott throw a cricket ball half across the

room with sufficient spin on the ball to make it shoot back to him

along the carpet.

I have mentioned the wind as a factor in obtaining the swerve. It

was a head-wind that Stott required. I have seen him, for sport,

toss a cricket ball into the teeth of a gale, and make it describe the

trajectory of a badly sliced golf-ball. This is why the big pavilion at

Ailesworth is set at such a curious angle to the ground. It was built

in the winter following Hampdenshire's second season of first-class

cricket, and it was so placed that when the wickets were pitched in

a line with it, they might lie south-west and north-east, or in the

direction of the prevailing winds.

V

The first time I ever saw Ginger Stott, was on the occasion of the

historic encounter with Surrey; Hampdenshire's second engagement in

first-class cricket. The match with Notts, played at Trent Bridge

a few days earlier, had not foreshadowed any startling results. The

truth of the matter is that Stott had been kept, deliberately, in the

background; and as matters turned out his services were only required

to finish off Notts' second innings. Stott was even then a marked man,

and the Hampdenshire captain did not wish to advertise his methods

too freely before the Surrey match. Neither Archie Findlater, who was

captaining the team that year, nor any other person, had the least

conception of how unnecessary such a reservation was to prove. In his

third year, when Stott had been studied by every English, Australian,

and South African batsman of any note, he was still as unplayable as

when he made his début in first-class cricket.

I was reporting the Surrey match for two papers, and in company with

poor Wallis interviewed Stott before the first innings.

His appearance made a great impression on me. I have, of course,

met him, and talked with him many times since then, but my most vivid

memory of him is the picture recorded in the inadequate professional

dressing-room of the old Ailesworth pavilion.

I have turned up the account of my interview in an old press-cutting

book, and I do not know that I can do better than quote that part of

it which describes Stott's personal appearance. I wrote the account

on the off chance of being able to get it taken. It was one of my

lucky hits. After that match, finished in a single day, my interview

afforded copy that any paper would have paid heavily for, and gladly.

Here is the description:

"Stott--he is known to every one in Ailesworth as 'Ginger'

Stott--is a short, thick-set young man, with abnormally long arms

that are tanned a rich red up to the elbow. The tan does not,

however, obliterate the golden freckles with which arm and face

are richly speckled. There is no need to speculate as to the raison

d'être of his nickname. The hair of his head, a close, short crop,

is a pale russet, and the hair on his hands and arms is a yellower

shade of the same colour. 'Ginger' is, indeed, a perfectly apt

description. He has a square chin and a thin-lipped, determined

mouth. His eyes are a clear, but rather light blue, his forehead

is good, broad, and high, and he has a well-proportioned head. One

might have put him down as an engineer, essentially intelligent,

purposeful, and reserved."

The description is journalistic, but I do not know that I could improve

upon the detail of it. I can see those queer, freckled, hairy arms

of his as I write--the combination of colours in them produced an

effect that was almost orange. It struck one as unusual....

Surrey had the choice of innings, and decided to bat, despite the

fact that the wicket was drying after rain, under the influence of

a steady south-west wind and occasional bursts of sunshine. Would

any captain in Stott's second year have dared to take first innings

under such conditions? The question is farcical now, but not a single

member of the Hampdenshire Eleven had the least conception that the

Surrey captain was deliberately throwing away his chances on that

eventful day.

Wallis and I were sitting together in the reporters' box. There were

only four of us; two specials,--Wallis and myself,--a news-agency

reporter, and a local man.

"Stott takes first over," remarked Wallis, sharpening his pencil and

arranging his watch and score-sheet--he was very meticulous in his

methods. "They've put him to bowl against the wind. He's medium right,

isn't he?"

"Haven't the least idea," I said. "He volunteered no information;

Hampdenshire have been keeping him dark."

Wallis sneered. "Think they've got a find, eh?" he said. "We'll wait

and see what he can do against first-class batting."

We did not have to wait long.

As usual, Thorpe and Harrison were first wicket for Surrey, and Thorpe

took the first ball.

It bowled him. It made his wicket look as untidy as any wicket I

have ever seen. The off stump was out of the ground, and the other

two were markedly divergent.

"Damn it, I wasn't ready for him," we heard Thorpe say in the

professionals' room. Thorpe always had some excuse, but on this

occasion it was justified.

C. V. Punshon was the next comer, and he got his first ball through

the slips for four, but Wallis looked at me with a raised eyebrow.

"Punshon didn't know a lot about that," he said, and then he added,

"I say, what a queer delivery the chap has. He stands and shoots 'em

out. It's uncanny. He's a kind of human catapult." He made a note of

the phrase on his pad.

Punshon succeeded in hitting the next ball, also, but it simply ran

up his bat into the hands of short slip.

"Well, that's a sitter, if you like," said Wallis. "What's the matter

with 'em?"

I was beginning to grow enthusiastic.

"Look here, Wallis," I said, "this chap's going to break records."

Wallis was still doubtful.

He was convinced before the innings was over.

There must be many who remember the startling poster that heralded

the early editions of the evening papers:

SURREY

ALL OUT

FOR 13 RUNS.

For once sub-editors did not hesitate to give the score on the contents

bill. That was a proclamation which would sell. Inside, the headlines

were rich and varied. I have an old paper by me, yellow now, and

brittle, that may serve as a type for the rest. The headlines are

as follows:--

SURREY AND HAMPDENSHIRE.

---------------

EXTRAORDINARY BOWLING PERFORMANCE.

---------------

DOUBLE HAT-TRICK.

---------------

SURREY ALL OUT IN 35 MINUTES FOR 13 RUNS.

---------------

STOTT TAKES 10 WICKETS FOR 5.

The "double hat-trick" was six consecutive wickets, the last six,

all clean bowled.

"Good God!" Wallis said, when the last wicket fell, and he looked at

me with something like fear in his eyes. "This man will have to be

barred; it means the end of cricket."

I need not detail the remainder of the match. Hampdenshire hit up

ninety-three--P. H. Evans was top scorer with twenty-seven--and then

got Surrey out a second time for forty-nine.

I believe Stott did not bowl his best in the second innings. He was

quite clever enough to see that he must not overdo it. As Wallis had

said, if he were too effective he might have to be barred. As it was,

he took seven wickets for twenty-three.

VI

That was Stott's finest performance. On eight subsequent occasions

he took all ten wickets in a single innings, once he took nineteen

wickets in one match (Hampdenshire v. Somerset at Taunton), twice he

took five wickets with consecutive balls, and any number of times he

did the "hat-trick," but he never afterwards achieved so amazing a

performance as that of the celebrated Surrey match.

I am still of opinion that Stott deliberately bowled carelessly in

the second innings of that match, but, after watching him on many

fields, and after a careful analysis of his methods--and character--I

am quite certain that his comparative failures in later matches were

not due to any purpose on Stott's part.

Take, for instance, the match which Hampdenshire lost to Kent in

Stott's second season--their first loss as a first-class county; their

record up to that time was thirteen wins and six drawn games. It is

incredible to me that Stott should have deliberately allowed Kent to

make the necessary one hundred and eighty-seven runs required in the

fourth innings. He took five wickets for sixty-three; if he could

have done better, I am sure he would have made the effort. He would

not have sacrificed his county. I have spoken of the esprit de corps

which held the Hampdenshire Eleven together, and they were notably

proud of their unbeaten record.

No; we must find another reason for Stott's comparative failures. I

believe that I am the only person who knows that reason, and I say that

Stott was the victim of an obsession. His "swerve" theory dominated

him, he was always experimenting with it, and when, as in the Kent

match I have cited, the game was played in a flat calm, his failure

to influence the trajectory of the ball in his own peculiar manner,

puzzled and upset him. He would strive to make the ball swerve, and

in the effort he lost his length and became playable. Moreover, when

Stott was hit he lost his temper, and then he was useless. Findlater

always took him off the moment he showed signs of temper. The usual

sign was a fast full pitch at the batsman's ribs.

I have one more piece of evidence, the best possible, which upholds

this explanation of mine, but it must follow the account of Stott's

accident.

That accident came during the high flood of Hampdenshire success. For

two years they had held undisputed place as champion county, a place

which could not be upset by the most ingenious methods of calculating

points. They had three times defeated Australia, and were playing

four men in the test matches. As a team they were capable of beating

any Eleven opposed to them. Not even the newspaper critics denied that.

In this third year of Hampdenshire's triumph, Australia had sent

over the finest eleven that had ever represented the colony, but

they had lost the first two test matches, and they had lost to

Hampdenshire. Nevertheless, they won the rubber, and took back the

"ashes." No one has ever denied, I believe, that this was due to

Stott's accident. There is in this case no room for any one to argue

that the argument is based on the fallacy of post and propter.

The accident appeared insignificant at the time. The match was against

Notts on the Trent Bridge ground. I was reporting for three papers;

Wallis was not there.

Stott had been taken off. Notts were a poor lot that year and

I think Findlater did not wish to make their defeat appear too

ignominious. Flower was bowling; it was a fast, true wicket, and Stott,

who was a safe field, was at cover.

G. L. Mallinson was batting and making good use of his opportunity;

he was, it will be remembered, a magnificent though erratic

hitter. Flower bowled him a short-pitched, fast ball, rather wide

of the off-stump. Many men might have left it alone, for the ball

was rising, and the slips were crowded, but Mallinson timed the ball

splendidly, and drove it with all his force. He could not keep it on

the ground, however, and Stott had a possible chance. He leaped for

it and just touched the ball with his right hand. The ball jumped

the ring at its first bound, and Mallinson never even attempted to

run. There was a big round of applause from the Trent Bridge crowd.

I noticed that Stott had tied a handkerchief round his finger, but I

forgot the incident until I saw Findlater beckon to his best bowler,

a few overs later. Notts had made enough runs for decency; it was

time to get them out.

I saw Stott walk up to Findlater and shake his head, and through my

glasses I saw him whip the handkerchief from his finger and display

his hand. Findlater frowned, said something and looked towards the

pavilion, but Stott shook his head. He evidently disagreed with

Findlater's proposal. Then Mallinson came up, and the great bulk of

his back hid the faces of the other two. The crowd was beginning to

grow excited at the interruption. Every one had guessed that something

was wrong. All round the ring men were standing up, trying to make

out what was going on.

I drew my inferences from Mallinson's face, for when he turned round

and strolled back to his wicket, he was wearing a broad smile. Through

my field glasses I could see that he was licking his lower lip with

his tongue. His shoulders were humped and his whole expression one of

barely controlled glee. (I always see that picture framed in a circle;

a bioscopic presentation.) He could hardly refrain from dancing. Then

little Beale, who was Mallinson's partner, came up and spoke to him,

and I saw Mallinson hug himself with delight as he explained the

situation.

When Stott unwillingly came into the pavilion, a low murmur ran round

the ring, like the buzz of a great crowd of disturbed blue flies. In

that murmur I could distinctly trace the signs of mixed feelings. No

doubt the crowd had come there to witness the performances of the

phenomenon--the abnormal of every kind has a wonderful attraction

for us--but, on the other hand, the majority wanted to see their

own county win. Moreover, Mallinson was giving them a taste of his

abnormal powers of hitting, and the batsman appeals to the spectacular,

more than the bowler.

I ran down hurriedly to meet Stott.

"Only a split finger, sir," he said carelessly, in answer to my

question; "but Mr. Findlater says I must see to it."

I examined the finger, and it certainly did not seem to call for

surgical aid. Evidently it had been caught by the seam of the new

ball; there was a fairly clean cut about half an inch long on the

fleshy underside of the second joint of the middle finger.

"Better have it seen to," I said. "We can't afford to lose you,

you know, Stott."

Stott gave a laugh that was more nearly a snarl. "Ain't the first

time I've 'ad a cut finger," he said scornfully.

He had the finger bound up when I saw him again, but it had been

done by an amateur. I learnt afterwards that no antiseptic had been

used. That was at lunch time, and Notts had made a hundred and

sixty-eight for one wicket; Mallinson was not out, a hundred and

three. I saw that the Notts Eleven were in magnificent spirits.

But after lunch Stott came out and took the first over. I don't

know what had passed between him and Findlater, but the captain had

evidently been over-persuaded.

We must not blame Findlater. The cut certainly appeared trifling, it

was not bad enough to prevent Stott from bowling, and Hampdenshire

seemed powerless on that wicket without him. It is very easy to

distribute blame after the event, but most people would have done

what Findlater did in those circumstances.

The cut did not appear to inconvenience Stott in the least degree. He

bowled Mallinson with his second ball, and the innings was finished up

in another fifty-seven minutes for the addition of thirty-eight runs.

Hampdenshire made two hundred and thirty-seven for three wickets before

the drawing of stumps, and that was the end of the match, for the

weather changed during the night and rain prevented any further play.

I, of course, stayed on in Nottingham to await results. I saw Stott on

the next day, Friday, and asked him about his finger. He made light

of it, but that evening Findlater told me over the bridge-table that

he was not happy about it. He had seen the finger, and thought it

showed a tendency to inflammation. "I shall take him to Gregory in

the morning if it's not all right," he said. Gregory was a well-known

surgeon in Nottingham.

Again one sees, now, that the visit to Gregory should not have been

postponed, but at the time one does not take extraordinary precautions

in such a case as this. A split finger is such an everyday thing,

and one is guided by the average of experience. After all, if one

were constantly to make preparation for the abnormal, ordinary life

could not go on....

I heard that Gregory pursed his lips over that finger when he had

learned the name of his famous patient. "You'll have to be very careful

of this, young man," was Findlater's report of Gregory's advice. It

was not sufficient. I often wonder now whether Gregory might not have

saved the finger. If he had performed some small operation at once,

cut away the poison, it seems to me that the tragedy might have been

averted. I am, I admit, a mere layman in these matters, but it seems

to me that something might have been done.

I left Nottingham on Saturday after lunch--the weather was

hopeless--and I did not make use of the information I had for the

purposes of my paper. I was never a good journalist. But I went down

to Ailesworth on Monday morning, and found that Findlater and Stott

had already gone to Harley Street to see Graves, the King's surgeon.

I followed them, and arrived at Graves's house while Stott was

in the consulting-room. I hocussed the butler and waited with the

patients. Among the papers, I came upon the famous caricature of Stott

in the current number of Punch--the "Stand-and-Deliver" caricature,

in which Stott is represented with an arm about ten feet long, and the

batsman is looking wildly over his shoulder to square leg, bewildered,

with no conception from what direction the ball is coming. Underneath

is written "Stott's New Theory--the Ricochet. Real Ginger." While I

was laughing over the cartoon, the butler came in and nodded to me. I

followed him out of the room and met Findlater and Stott in the hall.

Findlater was in a state of profanity. I could not get a sensible

word out of him. He was in a white heat of pure rage. The butler, who

seemed as anxious as I to learn the verdict, was positively frightened.

"Well, for God's sake tell me what Graves said," I protested.

Findlater's answer is unprintable, and told me nothing.

Stott, however, quite calm and self-possessed, volunteered the

information. "Finger's got to come off, sir," he said quietly. "Doctor

says if it ain't off to-day or to-morrer, he won't answer for my 'and."

This was the news I had to give to England. It was a great coup from

the journalistic point of view, but I made up my three columns with

a heavy heart, and the congratulations of my editor only sickened

me. I had some luck, but I should never have become a good journalist.

The operation was performed successfully that evening, and Stott's

career was closed.

VII

I have already referred to the obsession which dominated Stott after

his accident, and I must now deal with that overweening anxiety of

his to teach his method to another man.

I did not see Stott again till August, and then I had a long talk

with him on the Ailesworth County Ground, as together we watched the

progress of Hampdenshire's defeat by Lancashire.

"Oh! I can't learn him nothing," he broke out, as Flower was hit to

the four corners of the ground, "'alf vollies and long 'ops and then

a full pitch--'e's a disgrace."

"They've knocked him off his length," I protested. "On wicket like

this...."

Stott shook his head. "I've been trying to learn 'im," he said, "but

he can't never learn. 'E's got 'abits what you can't break 'im of."

"I suppose it is difficult," I said vaguely.

"Same with me," went on Stott, "I've been trying to learn myself

to bowl without my finger"--he held up his mutilated hand--"or

left-'anded; but I can't. If I'd started that way.... No! I'm always

feeling for that finger as is gone. A second-class bowler I might be

in time, not better nor that."

"It's early days yet," I ventured, intending encouragement, but Stott

frowned and shook his head.

"I'm not going to kid myself," he said, "I know. But I'm going to

find a youngster and learn 'im. On'y he must be young."

"No 'abits, you know," he explained.

The next time I met Stott was in November. I ran up against him,

literally, one Friday afternoon in Ailesworth.

When he recognised me he asked me if I would care to walk out to

Stoke-Underhill with him. "I've took a cottage there," he explained,

"I'm to be married in a fortnight's time."

His circumstances certainly warranted such a venture. The proceeds of

matinee and benefit, invested for him by the Committee of the County

Club, produced an income of nearly two pounds a week, and in addition

to this he had his salary as groundsman. I tendered my congratulations.

"Oh! well, as to that, better wait a bit," said Stott.

He walked with his hands in his pockets and his eyes on the ground. He

had the air of a man brooding over some project.

"It is a lottery, of course ..." I began, but he interrupted me.

"Oh that!" he said, and kicked a stone into the ditch; "take my

chances of that. It's the kid I'm thinking on."

"The kid?" I repeated, doubtful whether he spoke of his fiancée,

or whether his nuptials pointed an act of reparation.

"What else 'ud I tie myself up for?" asked Stott. "I must 'ave a kid

of my own and learn 'im from his cradle. It's come to that."

"Oh! I understand," I said; "teach him to bowl."

"Ah!" replied Stott as an affirmative. "Learn 'im to bowl from his

cradle; before 'e's got 'abits. When I started I'd never bowled a

ball in my life, and by good luck I started right. But I can't find

another kid over seven years old in England as ain't never bowled a

ball o' some sort and started 'abits. I've tried...."

"And you hope with your own boys...?" I said.

"Not 'ope, it's a cert;" said Stott. "I'll see no boy of mine touches

a ball afore he's fourteen, and then 'e'll learn from me; and learn

right. From the first go off." He was silent for a few seconds, and

then he broke out in a kind of ecstasy. "My Gawd, 'e'll be a bowler

such as 'as never been, never in this world. He'll start where I left

orf. He'll...." Words failed him, he fell back on the expletive he

had used, repeating it with an awed fervour. "My Gawd!"

I had never seen Stott in this mood before. It was a revelation to

me of the latent potentialities of the man, the remarkable depth and

quality of his ambitions....

VIII

I intended to be present at Stott's wedding, but I was not in England

when it took place; indeed, for the next two years and a half I was

never in England for more than a few days at a time. I sent him a

wedding-present, an inkstand in the guise of a cricket ball, with

a pen-rack that was built of little silver wickets. They were still

advertised that Christmas as "Stott inkstands."

Two years and a half of American life broke up many of my old habits

of thought. When I first returned to London I found that the cricket

news no longer held the same interest for me, and this may account

for the fact that I did not trouble for some time to look up my old

friend Stott.

In July, however, affairs took me to Ailesworth, and the associations

of the place naturally led me to wonder how Stott's marriage

had turned out, and whether the much-desired son had been born to

him. When my business in Ailesworth was done, I decided to walk out

to Stoke-Underhill.

The road passes the County Ground, and a match was in progress,

but I walked by without stopping. I was wool-gathering. I was not

thinking of the man I was going to see, or I should have turned in at

the County Ground, where he would inevitably have been found. Instead,

I was thinking of the abnormal child I had seen in the train that day;

uselessly speculating and wondering.

When I reached Stoke-Underhill I found the cottage which Stott had

shown me. I had by then so far recovered my wits as to know that I

should not find Stott himself there, but from the look of the cottage I

judged that it was untenanted, so I made inquiries at the post-office.

"No; he don't live here, now, sir," said the postmistress; "he lives

at Pym, now, sir, and rides into Ailesworth on his bike." She was

evidently about to furnish me with other particulars, but I did not

care to hear them. I was moody and distrait. I was wondering why I

should bother my head about so insignificant a person as this Stott.

"You'll be sure to find Mr. Stott at the cricket ground," the

postmistress called after me.

Another two months of English life induced a return to my old habits

of thought. I found myself reverting to old tastes and interests. The

reversion was a pleasant one. In the States I had been forced out of my

groove, compelled to work, to strive, to think desperately if I would

maintain any standing among my contemporaries. But when the perpetual

stimulus was removed, I soon fell back to the less strenuous methods

of my own country. I had time, once more, for the calm reflection that

is so unlike the urgent, forced, inventive thought of the American

journalist. I was braced by that thirty months' experience, perhaps

hardened a little, but by September my American life was fading into

the background; I had begun to take an interest in cricket again.

With the revival of my old interests, revived also my curiosity as

to Ginger Stott, and one Sunday in late September I decided to go

down to Pym.

It was a perfect day, and I thoroughly enjoyed my four-mile walk from

Great Hittenden Station.

Pym is a tiny hamlet made up of three farms and a dozen scattered

cottages. Perched on one of the highest summits of the Hampden Hills

and lost in the thick cover of beech woods, without a post-office or a

shop, Pym is the most perfectly isolated village within a reasonable

distance of London. As I sauntered up the mile-long lane that climbs

the steep hill, and is the only connection between Pym and anything

approaching a decent road, I thought that this was the place to

which I should like to retire for a year, in order to write the book

I had so often contemplated, and never found time to begin. This,

I reflected, was a place of peace, of freedom from all distraction,

the place for calm, contemplative meditation.

I met no one in the lane, and there was no sign of life when I reached

what I must call the village, though the word conveys a wrong idea, for

there is no street, merely a cottage here and there, dropped haphazard,

and situated without regard to its aspect. These cottages lie all on

one's left hand; to the right a stretch of grass soon merges into

bracken and bush, and then the beech woods enclose both, and surge

down into the valley and rise up again beyond, a great wave of green;

as I saw it then, not yet touched with the first flame of autumn.

I inquired at the first cottage and received my direction to Stott's

dwelling. It lay up a little lane, the further of two cottages joined

together.

The door stood open, and after a moment's hesitation and a light knock,

I peered in.

Sitting in a rocking-chair was a woman with black, untidy eyebrows,

and on her knee, held with rigid attention, was the remarkable baby

I had seen in the train two months before. As I stood, doubtful and,

I will confess it, intimidated, suddenly cold and nervous, the child

opened his eyes and honoured me with a cold stare. Then he nodded,

a reflective, recognisable nod.

"'E remembers seein' you in the train, sir," said the woman, "'e

never forgets any one. Did you want to see my 'usband? 'E's upstairs."

So this was the boy who was designed by Stott to become the greatest

bowler the world had ever seen....

CHAPTER III

THE DISILLUSIONMENT OF GINGER STOTT

I

Stott maintained an obstinate silence as we walked together up to the

Common, a stretch of comparatively open ground on the plateau of the

hill. He walked with his hands in his pockets and his head down, as he

had walked out from Ailesworth with me nearly three years before, but

his mood was changed. I was conscious that he was gloomy, depressed,

perhaps a little unstrung. I was burning with curiosity. Now that I

was released from the thrall of the child's presence, I was eager to

hear all there was to tell of its history.

Presently we sat down under an ash-tree, one of three that guarded

a shallow, muddy pond skimmed with weed. Stott accepted my offer of

a cigarette, but seemed disinclined to break the silence.

I found nothing better to say than a repetition of the old

phrase. "That's a very remarkable baby of yours, Stott," I said.

"Ah!" he replied, his usual substitute for "yes," and he picked up

a piece of dead wood and threw it into the little pond.

"How old is he?" I asked.

"Nearly two year."

"Can he ..." I paused; my imagination was reconstructing the scene

of the railway carriage, and I felt a reflex of the hesitation shown

by the rubicund man when he had asked the same question. "Can he

... can he talk?" It seemed so absurd a question to ask, yet it was

essentially a natural question in the circumstances.

"He can, but he won't."

This was startling enough, and I pressed my enquiry.

"How do you know? Are you sure he can?"

"Ah!" Only that aggravating, monosyllabic assent.

"Look here, Stott," I said, "don't you want to talk about the child?"

He shrugged his shoulders and threw more wood into the pond with a

strained attentiveness as though he were peculiarly anxious to hit

some particular wafer of the vivid, floating weed. For a full five

minutes we maintained silence. I was trying to subdue my impatience

and my temper. I knew Stott well enough to know that if I displayed

signs of either, I should get no information from him. My self-control

was rewarded at last.

"I've 'eard 'im speak," he said, "speak proper, too, not like a baby."

He paused, and I grunted to show that I was listening, but as he

volunteered no further remark, I said: "What did you hear him say?"

"I dunno," replied Stott, "somethin' about learnin' and talkin'. I

didn't get the rights of it, but the missus near fainted--she thinks

'e's Gawd A'mighty or suthing."

"But why don't you make him speak?" I asked deliberately.

"Make 'im!" said Stott, with a curl of his lip, "make 'im! You try

it on!"

I knew I was acting a part, but I wanted to provoke more

information. "Well! Why not?" I said.

"'Cos 'e'd look at you--that's why not," replied Stott, "and you

can't no more face 'im than a dog can face a man. I shan't stand it

much longer."

"Curious," I said, "very curious."

"Oh! he's a blarsted freak, that's what 'e is," said Stott, getting

to his feet and beginning to pace moodily up and down.

I did not interrupt him. I was thinking of this man who had drawn

huge crowds from every part of England, who had been a national hero,

and who, now, was unable to face his own child. Presently Stott broke

out again.

"To think of all the trouble I took when 'e was comin'," he said,

stopping in front of me. "There was nothin' the missus fancied as

I wouldn't get. We was livin' in Stoke then." He made a movement of

his head in the direction of Ailesworth. "Not as she was difficult,"

he went on thoughtfully. "She used to say 'I mussent get 'abits,

George,' Caught that from me; I was always on about that--then. You

know, thinkin' of learnin' 'im bowlin'. Things was different then;

afore 'e came." He paused again, evidently thinking of his troubles.

Sympathetically, I was wondering how far the child had separated

husband and wife. There was the making of a tragedy here, I thought;

but when Stott, after another period of pacing up and down, began to

speak again I found that his tragedy was of another kind.

"Learn 'im bowling!" he said, and laughed a mirthless laugh. "My

Gawd! it 'ud take something. No fear; that little game's off. And

I could a' done it if he'd been a decent or'nery child, 'stead of a

blarsted freak. There won't never be another, neither. This one pretty

near killed the missus. Doctor said it'd be 'er last.... With an

'ead like that, whacher expect?"

"Can he walk?" I asked.

"Ah! Gets about easy enough for all 'is body and legs is so small. When

the missus tries to stop 'im--she's afraid 'e'll go over--'e just

looks at 'er and she 'as to let 'im 'ave 'is own way."

II

Later, I reverted to that speech of the child's, that intelligent,

illuminating speech that seemed to prove that there was indeed a

powerful, thoughtful mind behind those profoundly speculative eyes.

"That time he spoke, Stott," I said, "was he alone?"

"Ah!" assented Stott. "In the garden, practisin' walkin' all by

'imself."

"Was that the only time?"

"Only time I've 'eard 'im."

"Was it lately?"

"'Bout six weeks ago."

"And he has never made a sound otherwise, cried, laughed?"

"'Ardly. 'E gives a sort o' grunt sometimes, when e' wants

anything--and points."

"He's very intelligent."

"Worse than that, 'e's a freak, I tell you."

With the repetition of this damning description, Stott fell back

into his moody pacing, and this time I failed to rouse him from his

gloom. "Oh! forget it," he broke out once, when I asked him another

question, and I saw that he was not likely to give me any more

information that day.

We walked back together, and I said good-bye to him at the end of

the lane which led up to his cottage.

"Not comin' up?" he asked, with a nod of his head towards his home.

"Well! I have to catch that train ..." I prevaricated, looking at my

watch. I did not wish to see that child again; my distaste was even

stronger than my curiosity.

Stott grinned. "We don't 'ave many visitors," he said. "Well, I'll

come a bit farther with you."

He came to the bottom of the hill, and after he left me he took the

road that goes over the hill to Wenderby. It would be about seven

miles back to Pym by that road....

III

I spent the next afternoon in the Reading Room of the British Museum. I

was searching for a precedent, and at last I found one in the story of

Christian Heinrich Heinecken, [1] who was born at Lübeck on February 6,

1721. There were marked points of difference between the development of

Heinecken and that of Stott's child. Heinecken was physically feeble;

at the age of three he was still being fed at the breast. The Stott

precocity appeared to be physically strong; his body looked small and

undeveloped, it is true, but this was partly an illusion produced

by the abnormal size of the head. Again Heinecken learned to speak

very early; at ten months old he was asking intelligent questions, at

eighteen months he was studying history, geography, Latin and anatomy;

whereas the Stott child had only once been heard to speak at the age

of two years, and had not, apparently, begun any study at all.

From this comparison it might seem at first that the balance of

precocity lay in the Heinecken scale. I drew another inference. I

argued that the genius of the Stott child far outweighed the genius

of Christian Heinecken.

Little Heinecken in his four years of life suffered the mental

experience--with certain necessary limitations--of a developed

brain. He gathered knowledge as an ordinary child gathers knowledge,

the only difference being that his rate of assimilation was as ten

to one.

But little Stott had gathered no knowledge from books. He had been

born of ignorant parents, he was being brought up among uneducated

people. Yet he had wonderful intellectual gifts: surely he must

have one above all others--the gift of reason. His brain must be

constructive, logical; he must have the power of deduction. He must

even at an extraordinarily early age, say six months, have developed

some theory of life. He must be withholding his energy, deliberately;

declining to exhibit his powers, holding his marvellous faculties in

reserve. Here was surely a case of genius which, comparable in some

respects to the genius of Heinecken, yet far exceeded it.

As I developed my theory, my eagerness grew. And then suddenly an

inspiration came to me. In my excitement I spoke aloud and smacked the

desk in front of me with my open hand. "Why, of course!" I said. "That

is the key."

An old man in the next seat scowled fiercely. The attendants in the

central circular desk all looked up. Other readers turned round and

stared at me. I had violated the sacred laws of the Reading Room. I

saw one of the librarians make a sign to an attendant and point to me.

I gathered up my books quickly and returned them at the central

desk. My self-consciousness had returned, and I was anxious to be

away from the observation of the many dilettante readers who found

my appearance more engrossing than the books with which they were

dallying on some pretext or another.

Yet, curiously, when I reached the street, the theory which had come

to me in the Museum with the force and vividness of an illuminating

dream had lost some of its glamour. Nevertheless, I set it out as it

then shaped itself in my mind.

The great restraining force in the evolution of man, so I thought,

has been the restriction imposed by habit. What we call instinct is

a hereditary habit. This is the first guiding principle in the life

of the human infant. Upon this instinct we immediately superimpose

the habits of reason, all the bodily and intellectual conventions

that have been handed down from generation to generation. We learn

everything we know as children by the hereditary, simian habit of

imitation. The child of intellectual, cultured parents, born into

savage surroundings, becomes the slave of this inherited habit--call

it tendency, if you will, the intention is the same. I elaborated

the theory by instance and introspection, and found no flaw in it....

And here, by some freak of nature, was a child born without these

habits. During the period of gestation, one thought had dominated the

minds of both parents--the desire to have a son born without habits. It

does not seriously affect the theory that the desire had a peculiar end

in view; the wish, the urgent, controlling, omnipotent will had been

there, and the result included far more than the specific intention.

Already some of my distaste for the Stott child had vanished. It

was accountable, and therefore no longer fearful. The child

was supernormal, a cause of fear to the normal man, as all truly

supernormal things are to our primitive, animal instincts. This is

the fear of the wild thing; when we can explain and give reasons,

the horror vanishes. We are men again.

I did not quite recover the glow of my first inspiration, but the

theory remained with me; I decided to make a study of the child,

to submit knowledge to his reason. I would stand between him and the

delimiting training of the pedagogue, I thought.

Then I reached home, and my life was changed.

This story is not of my own life, and I have no wish to enter into

the curious and saddening experiences which stood between me and the

child of Ginger Stott for nearly six years. In that time my thoughts

strayed now and again to that cottage in the little hamlet on those

wooded hills. Often I thought "When I have time I will go and see

that child again if he is alive." But as the years passed, the memory

of him grew dim, even the memory of his father was blurred over by a

thousand new impressions. So it chanced that for nearly six years I

heard no word of Stott and his supernormal infant, and then chance

again intervened. My long period of sorrow came to an end almost

as suddenly as it had begun, and by a coincidence I was once more

entangled in the strange web of the phenomenal.

In this story of Victor Stott I have bridged these six years in the

pages that follow. In doing this I have been compelled to draw to a

certain extent on my imagination, but the main facts are true. They

have been gathered from first-hand authority only, from Henty Challis,

from Mrs. Stott, and from her husband; though none, I must confess,

has been checked by that soundest of all authorities, Victor Stott

himself, who might have given me every particular in accurate detail,

had it not been for those peculiarities of his which will be explained

fully in the proper place.

PART II

THE CHILDHOOD OF THE WONDER

CHAPTER IV

THE MANNER OF HIS BIRTH

I

Stoke-Underhill lies in the flat of the valley that separates

the Hampden from the Quainton Hills. The main road from London to

Ailesworth does not pass through Stoke, but from the highway you

can see the ascent of the bridge over the railway, down the vista of

the straight mile of side road; and, beyond, a glimpse of scattered

cottages. That is all, and as a matter of fact, no one who is not

keeping a sharp look-out would ever notice the village, for the eye

is drawn to admire the bluff of Deane Hill, the highest point of the

Hampdens, which lowers over the little hamlet of Stoke and gives it

a second name; and to the church tower of Chilborough Beacon, away

to the right, another landmark.

The attraction which Stoke-Underhill held for Stott, lay not in its

seclusion or its picturesqueness but in its nearness to the County

Ground. Stott could ride the two flat miles which separated him from

the scene of his work in ten minutes, and Ailesworth station is only a

mile beyond. So when he found that there was a suitable cottage to let

in Stoke, he looked no farther for a home; he was completely satisfied.

Stott's absorption in any matter that was occupying his mind, made

him exceedingly careless about the detail of his affairs. He took

the first cottage that offered when he looked for a home, he took

the first woman who offered when he looked for a wife.

Stott was not an attractive man to women. He was short and plain,

and he had an appearance of being slightly deformed, a "monkeyish"

look, due to his build and his long arms. Still, he was famous, and

might, doubtless, have been accepted by a dozen comely young women for

that reason, even after his accident. But if Stott was unattractive

to women, women were even more unattractive to Stott. "No opinion

of women?" he used to say. "Ever seen a gel try to throw a cricket

ball? You 'ave? Well, ain't that enough to put you off women?" That

was Stott's intellectual standard; physically, he had never felt

drawn to women.

Ellen Mary Jakes exhibited no superiority over her sisters in the

matter of throwing a cricket ball. She was a friend of Ginger's mother,

and she was a woman of forty-two, who had long since been relegated

to some remote shelf of the matrimonial exchange. But her physical

disadvantages were outbalanced by her mental qualities. Ellen Mary was

not a book-worm, she read nothing but the evening and Sunday papers,

but she had a reasoning and intelligent mind.

She had often contemplated the state of matrimony, and had made more

than one tentative essay in that direction. She had walked out with

three or four sprigs of the Ailesworth bourgeoisie in her time, and

the shadow of middle-age had crept upon her before she realised that

however pliant her disposition, her lack of physical charm put her at

the mercy of the first bright-eyed rival. At thirty-five Ellen had

decided, with admirable philosophy, that marriage was not for her,

and had assumed, with apparent complacency, the outward evidences of

a dignified spinsterhood. She had discarded gay hats and ribbons,

imitation jewellery, unreliable cheap shoes, and chill diaphanous

stockings, and had found some solace for her singleness in more

comfortable and suitable apparel.

When Ellen, a declared spinster of seven years' standing, was first

taken into the confidence of Ginger Stott's mother, the scheme

which she afterwards elaborated immediately presented itself to

her mind. This fact is a curious instance of Ellen Mary's mobility

of intellect, and the student of heredity may here find matter for

careful thought. [2]

The confidence in question was Ginger's declared intention of becoming

the father of the world's greatest bowler. Mrs. Stott was a dark,

garrulous, rather deaf little woman, with a keen eye for the main

chance; she might have become a successful woman of business if she had

not been by nature both stingy and a cheat. When her son presented his

determination, her first thought was to find some woman who would not

dissipate her son's substance, and in her opinion--not expressed to

Ginger--the advertised purpose of the contemplated marriage evidenced

a wasteful disposition.

Mrs. Stott did not think of Ellen Mary as a possible daughter-in-law,

but she did hold forth for an hour and three-quarters on the

contemptible qualities of the young maidens, first of Ailesworth,

and then with a wider swoop that was not justified by her limited

experience, of the girls of England, Scotland, and Ireland at large.

It required the flexible reasoning powers of Ellen Mary to find a

solution of the problem. Any ordinary, average woman of forty-two, a

declared spinster of seven years' standing, who had lived all her life

in a provincial town, would have been mentally unable to realise the

possibilities of the situation. Such a representative of the decaying

sexual instinct would have needed the stimulus of courtship, at the

least of some hint of preference displayed by the suitor. Ruled by

the conventions which hold her sex in bondage, she would have deemed

it unwomanly to make advances by any means other than innuendo, the

subtle suggestions which are the instruments of her sex, but which

are often too delicate to pierce the understanding of the obtuse and

slow-witted male.

Ellen Mary stood outside the ruck that determines the destinies of all

such typical representatives. She considered the idea presented to

her by Mrs. Stott with an open and mobile intelligence. She weighed

the character of Ginger, the possibilities of rejection, and the

influence of Mrs. Stott; and she gave no thought to the conventions,

nor to the criticisms of Ailesworth society. When she had decided

that such chances as she could calculate were in her favour, Ellen

made up her mind, walked out to the County Ground one windy October

forenoon, and discovered Ginger experimenting with grass seed in a

shed off the pavilion.

In this shed she offered herself, while Ginger worked on, attentive

but unresponsive. Perhaps she did not make an offer so much as state a

case. A masterly case, without question; for who can doubt that Stott,

however procrastinating and unwilling to make a definite overture, must

already have had some type of womanhood in his mind; some conception,

the seed of an ideal.

I find a quality of romance in this courageous and unusual wooing of

Ellen Mary's; but more, I find evidences of the remarkable quality of

her intelligence. In other circumstances the name of Ellen Mary Jakes

might have stood for individual achievement, instead, she is remembered

as a common woman who happened to be the mother of Victor Stott. But

when the facts are examined, can we say that chance entered? If ever

the birth of a child was deliberately designed by both parents, it

was in the case under consideration. And what a strange setting to

the inception.

Ellen Mary, a gaunt, tall, somewhat untidy woman, stood at the narrow

door of the little shed off the Ailesworth pavilion; with one hand,

shoulder-high, she steadied herself against the door frame, with

the other she continually pushed forward the rusty bonnet which had

been loosened during her walk by the equinoctial gale that now tore

at the door of the shed, and necessitated the employment of a wary

foot to keep the door from slamming. With all these distractions she

still made good her case, though she had to raise her voice above the

multitudinous sounds of the wind, and though she had to address the

unresponsive shoulders of a man who bent over shallow trays of earth

set on a trestle table under the small and dirty window. It is heroic,

but she had her reward in full measure. Presently her voice ceased,

and she waited in silence for the answer that should decide her

destiny. There was an interval broken only by the tireless passion

of the wind, and then Ginger Stott, the best-known man in England,

looked up and stared through the incrusted pane of glass before him

at the dim vision of grass and swaying hedge. Unconsciously his hands

strayed to his pockets, and then he said in a low, thoughtful voice:

"Well! I dunno why not."

II

Dr. O'Connell's face was white and drawn, and the redness of his

eyelids more pronounced than ever as he faced Stott in the pale October

dawn. He clutched at his beard with a nervous, combing movement,

as he shook his head decidedly in answer to the question put to him.

"If it's not dead, now, 'twill be in very few hours," he said.

Stott was shaken by the feeble passion of a man who has spent many

weary hours of suspense. His anger thrilled out in a feeble stream

of hackneyed profanities.

O'Connell looked down on him with contempt. At sunrise, after a

sleepless night, a man is a creature of unrealised emotions.

"Damn it, control yourself, man!" growled O'Connell, himself

uncontrolled, "your wife'll pull through with care, though she'll

never have another child." O'Connell did not understand; he was an

Irishman, and no cricketer; he had been called in because he had a

reputation for his skill in obstetrics.

Stott stared at him fiercely. The two men seemed as if about to

grapple desperately for life in the windy, grey twilight.

O'Connell recovered his self-control first, and began again to claw

nervously at his beard. "Don't be a fool," he said, "it's only what

you could expect. Her first child, and her a woman of near fifty." He

returned to the upstairs room; Stott seized his cap and went out into

the chill world of sunrise.

"She'll do, if there are no complications," said O'Connell

to the nurse, as he bent over the still, exhausted figure of

Mrs. Stott. "She's a wonderful woman to have delivered such a child

alive."

The nurse shivered, and avoiding any glance at the huddle that lay

on an improvised sofa-bed, she said: "It can't live, can it?"

O'Connell, still intent on his first patient, shook his head. "Never

cried after delivery," he muttered "--the worst sign." He was silent

for a moment and then he added: "But, to be sure, it's a freak

of some kind." His scientific curiosity led him to make a further

investigation. He left the bed and began to examine the huddle on

the sofa-couch. Victor Stott owed his life, in the first instance,

to this scientific curiosity of O'Connell's.

The nurse, a capable, but sentimental woman, turned to the window

and looked out at the watery trickle of feeble sunlight that now

illumined the wilderness of Stott's garden.

"Nurse!" The imperative call startled her; she turned nervously.

"Yes, doctor?" she said, making no movement towards him.

"Come here!" O'Connell was kneeling by the sofa. "There seems to be

complete paralysis of all the motor centres," he went on; "but the

child's not dead. We'll try artificial respiration."

The nurse overcame her repugnance by a visible effort. "Is it ... is

it worth while?" she asked, regarding the flaccid, tumbled, wax-like

thing, with its bloated, white globe of a skull. Every muscle of it

was relaxed and limp, its eyes shut, its tiny jaw hanging. "Wouldn't

it be better to let it die...?"

O'Connell did not seem to hear her. He waved an impatient hand for

her assistance. "Outside my experience," he muttered, "no heart-beat

discernible, no breath ... yet it is indubitably alive." He depressed

the soft, plastic ribs and gave the feeble heart a gentle squeeze.

"It's beating," he ejaculated, after a pause, with an ear close to

the little chest, "but still no breath! Come!"

The diminutive lungs were as readily open to suggestion as the wee

heart: a few movements of the twigs they called arms, and the breath

came. O'Connell closed the mouth and it remained closed, adjusted the

limbs, and they stayed in the positions in which they were placed. At

last he gently lifted the lids of the eyes.

The nurse shivered and drew back. Even O'Connell was startled, for

the eyes that stared into his own seemed to be heavy with a brooding

intelligence....

Stott came back at ten o'clock, after a morose trudge through the

misty rain. He found the nurse in the sitting-room.

"Doctor gone?" he asked.

The nurse nodded.

"Dead, I suppose?" Stott gave an upward twist of his head towards

the room above.

The nurse shook her head.

"Can't live though?" There was a note of faint hope in his voice.

The nurse drew herself together and sighed deeply. "Yes! we believe

it'll live, Mr. Stott," she said. "But ... it's a very remarkable

baby."

How that phrase always recurred!

III

There were no complications, but Mrs. Stott's recovery was not a

rapid one. It was considered advisable that she should not see the

child. She thought that they were lying to her, that the child was

dead and, so, resigned herself. But her husband saw it.

He had never seen so young an infant before, and, just for one moment,

he believed that it was a normal child.

"What an 'ead!" was his first ejaculation, and then he realised the

significance of that sign. Fear came into his eyes, and his mouth

fell open. "'Ere, I say, nurse, it's ... it's a wrong 'un, ain't

it?" he gasped.

"I'm sure I can't tell you, Mr. Stott," broke out the nurse

hysterically. She had been feeding and tending that curious baby

for three hours, and she was on the verge of a break-down. There was

no wet-nurse to be had, but a woman from the village had been sent

for. She was expected every moment.

"More like a tadpole than anything," mused the unhappy father.

"Oh! Mr. Stott, for goodness' sake, don't," cried the nurse. "If you

only knew...."

"Knew what?" questioned Stott, still staring at the motionless figure

of his son, who lay with closed eyes, apparently unconscious.

"There's something--I don't know," began the nurse, and then after

a pause, during which she seemed to struggle for some means of

expression, she continued with a sigh of utter weariness, "You'll

know when it opens its eyes. Oh! Why doesn't that woman come, the

woman you sent for?"

"She'll be 'ere directly," replied Stott. "What d'you mean about

there bein' something ... something what?"

"Uncanny," said the nurse without conviction. "I do wish that woman

would come. I've been up the best part of the night, and now...."

"Uncanny? As how?" persisted Stott.

"Not normal," explained the nurse. "I can't tell you more than that."

"But 'ow? What way?"

He did not receive an answer then; for the long expected relief came

at last, a great hulk of a woman, who became voluble when she saw

the child she had come to nurse.

"Oh! dear, oh! dear," the stream began. "How unforchnit, and 'er first,

too. It'll be a idjit, I'm afraid. Mrs. 'Arrison's third was the very

spit of it...."

The stream ran on, but Stott heard no more. An idiot! He had fathered

an idiot! That was the end of his dreams and ambitions! He had had

an hour's sleep on the sitting-room sofa. He went out to his work at

the County Ground with a heart full of blasphemy.

When he returned at four o'clock he met the stout woman on the

doorstep. She put up a hand to her rolling breast, closed her eyes

tightly, and gasped as though completely overcome by this trifling

rencounter.

"'Ow is it?" questioned the obsessed Stott.

"Oh dear! Oh dear!" panted the stout woman, "the leas' thing upsets

me this afternoon...." She wandered away into irrelevant fluency, but

Stott was autocratic; his insistent questions overcame the inertia

of even Mrs. Reade at last. The substance of her information, freed

from extraneous matter, was as follows:

"Oh! 'ealthy? It'll live, I've no doubt, if that's what you mean;

but 'elpless...! There, 'elpless is no word.... Learn 'im to take the

bottle, learn 'im to close 'is 'ands, learn 'im to go to sleep, learn

'im everythink. I've never seen nothink like it, never in all my days,

and I've 'elped to bring a few into the world.... I can't begin to tell

you about it, Mr. Stott, and that's the solemn truth. When 'e first

looked at me, I near 'ad a faint. A old-fashioned, wise sort of look as

'e might 'a been a 'undred. 'Lord 'elp us, nurse,' I says, 'Lord help

us.' I was that opset, I didn't rightly know what I was a-saying...."

Stott pushed past the agitated Mrs. Reade, and went into the

sitting-room. He had had neither breakfast nor lunch; there was no

sign of any preparation for his tea, and the fireplace was grey with

the cinders of last night's fire. For some minutes he sat in deep

despondency, a hero faced with the uncompromising detail of domestic

neglect. Then he rose and called to the nurse.

She appeared at the head of the steep, narrow staircase. "Sh!" she

warned, with a finger to her lips.

"I'm goin' out again," said Stott in a slightly modulated voice.

"Mrs. Reade's coming back presently," replied the nurse, and looked

over her shoulder.

"Want me to wait?" asked Stott.

The nurse came down a few steps. "It's only in case any one was

wanted," she began, "I've got two of 'em on my hands, you see. They're

both doing well as far as that goes. Only...." She broke off and

drifted into small talk. Ever and again she stopped and listened

intently, and looked back towards the half-open door of the upstairs

room.

Stott fidgeted, and then, as the flow of conversation gave no sign

of running dry, he damned it abruptly. "Look 'ere, miss," he said,

"I've 'ad nothing to eat since last night."

"Oh! dear!" ejaculated the nurse. "If--perhaps, if you'd just stay

here and listen, I could get you something." She seemed relieved to

have some excuse for coming down.

While she bustled about the kitchen, Stott, half-way upstairs,

stayed and listened. The house was very silent, the only sound was

the hushed clatter made by the nurse in the kitchen. There was an

atmosphere of wariness about the place that affected even so callous a

person as Stott. He listened with strained attention, his eyes fixed

on the half-open door. He was not an imaginative man, but he was

beset with apprehension as to what lay behind that door. He looked

for something inhuman that might come crawling through the aperture,

something grotesque, preternaturally wise and threatening--something

horribly unnatural.

The window of the upstairs room was evidently open, and now and

again the door creaked faintly. When that happened Stott gripped

the handrail, and grew damp and hot. He looked always at the shadows

under the door--if it crawled....

The nurse stood at the door of the sitting-room while Stott ate,

and presently Mrs. Reade came grunting and panting up the brick path.

"I'm going out, now," said Stott resolutely, and he rose to his feet,

though his meal was barely finished.

"You'll be back before Mrs. Reade goes?" asked the nurse, and passed

a hand over her tired eyes. "She'll be here till ten o'clock. I'm

going to lie down."

"I'll be back by ten," Stott assured her as he went out.

He did come back at ten o'clock, but he was stupidly drunk.

IV

The Stotts' cottage was no place to live in during the next few days,

but the nurse made one stipulation; Mr. Stott must come home to

sleep. He slept on an improvised bed in the sitting-room, and during

the night the nurse came down many times and listened to the sound

of his snores. She would put her ear against the door, and rest her

nerves with the thought of human companionship. Sometimes she opened

the door quietly and watched him as he slept. Except at night, when

he was rarely quite sober, Stott only visited his cottage once a day,

at lunch time; from seven in the morning till ten at night he remained

in Ailesworth save for this one call of inquiry.

It was such a still house. Ellen Mary only spoke when speech was

absolutely required, and then her words were the fewest possible, and

were spoken in a whisper. The child made no sound of any kind. Even

Mrs. Reade tried to subdue her stertorous breathing, to move with

less ponderous quakings. The neighbours told her she looked thinner.

Little wonder that during the long night vigil the nurse, moving

silently between the two upstairs rooms, should pause on the landing

and lean over the handrail; little wonder that she should give a long

sigh of relief when she heard the music of Stott's snore ascend from

the sitting-room.

O'Connell called twice every day during the first week, not because

it was necessary for him to visit his two patients, but because the

infant fascinated him. He would wait for it to open its eyes, and

then would get up and leave the room hurriedly. Always he intended to

return the infant's stare, but when the opportunity was given to him,

he always rose and left the room--no matter how long and deliberately

he had braced himself to another course of action.

It was on a Thursday that the baby was born, and it was on the

following Thursday that the circumstance of the household was reshaped.

O'Connell came in the morning, full of resolution. After he had

pronounced Mrs. Stott well on the way to recovery, he paid the usual

visit to his younger patient. The child lay, relaxed, at full length,

in the little cot which had been provided for him. His eyes were,

as usual, closed, and he had all the appearance of the ordinary

hydrocephalic idiot.

O'Connell sat down by the cot, listened to the child's breathing

and heart-beat, lifted and let fall again the lax wrist, turned

back the eyelid, revealing only the white of the upturned eyeball,

and then composed himself to await the natural waking of the child,

if it were asleep--always a matter of uncertainty.

The nurse stood near him, silent, but she looked away from the cot.

"Hydrocephalus!" murmured O'Connell, staring at his tiny patient,

"hydrocephalus, without a doubt. Eh? nurse!"

"Yes, perhaps! I don't know, doctor."

"Oh, not a doubt of it, not a doubt," repeated O'Connell, and then came

a flicker of the child's eyelids and a weak crumpling of the tiny hand.

O'Connell caught his breath and clawed at his beard; "Hydrocephalus,"

he muttered with set jaw and drawn eyebrows.

The tiny hand straightened with a movement that suggested the

recovery of crushed grass, the mouth opened with a microscopic yawn,

and then the eyelids were slowly raised and a steady unwavering stare

of profoundest intelligence met O'Connell's gaze.

He clenched his hands, shifted in his chair, and then rose abruptly

and turned to the window.

"I--it won't be necessary for me to come again, nurse," he said curtly;

"they are both doing perfectly well."

"Not come again?" There was dismay in the nurse's question.

"No! No! It's unnecessary...." He broke off, and made for the door

without another glance in the direction of the cot.

Nurse followed him downstairs.

"If I'm wanted--you can easily send for me," said O'Connell, as

he went out. As he moved away he dragged at his beard and murmured

"Hydrocephalus, not a doubt of it."

Following his departure, Mrs. Reade heard curious and most unwonted

laughter, and cautiously blundered downstairs to investigate. She

found the nurse in an advanced condition of hysteria, laughing,

gurgling, weeping, and intermittently crying in a shrill voice:

"Oh! Lord have mercy; Lord ha' mercy!"

"Now, see you 'ere, my dear," said Mrs. Reade, when nurse had been

recovered to a red-eyed sanity, "it's time she was told. I've never

'eld with keepin' it from 'er, myself, and I've 'ad more experience

than many...." Mrs. Reade argued with abundant recourse to parenthesis.

"Is she strog edough?" asked the nurse, still with tears in her voice;

"cad she bear the sight of hib?" She blew her nose vigorously, and then

continued with greater clearness: "I'm afraid it may turn her head."

Out of her deep store of wisdom, Mrs. Reade produced a fact which

she elaborated and confirmed by apt illustration, adducing more

particularly the instance of Mrs. Harrison's third. "She's 'is

mother," was the essence of her argument, a fact of deep and strange

significance.

The nurse yielded, and so the circumstance of Stott's household was

changed, and Stott himself was once more able to come home to meals.

The nurse, wisely, left all diplomacy to the capable Mrs. Reade,

a woman specially fitted by nature for the breaking of news. She

delivered a long, a record-breaking circumlocution, and it seemed

that Ellen Mary, who lay with closed eyes, gathered no hint of its

import. But when the impressive harangue was slowly rustling to

collapse like an exhausted balloon, she opened her eyes and said

quite clearly,

"What's wrong with 'im, then?"

The question had the effect of reinflation, but at last the child

itself was brought, and it was open-eyed.

The supreme ambition of all great women--and have not all women

the potentialities of greatness?--is to give birth to a god. That

ambition it is which is marred by the disappointing birth of a female

child--when the man-child is born, there is always hope, and slow

is the realisation of failure. That realisation never came to Ellen

Mary. She accepted her child with the fear that is adoration. When

she dropped her eyes before her god's searching glance, she did it

in reverence. She hid her faith from the world, but in her heart

she believed that she was blessed above all women. In secret, she

worshipped the inscrutable wonder that had used her as the instrument

of his incarnation. Perhaps she was right....

CHAPTER V

HIS DEPARTURE FROM STOKE-UNDERHILL

I

The village of Stoke was no whit intimidated by the news that

Mrs. Reade sowed abroad. The women exclaimed and chattered, the men

gaped and shook their heads, the children hung about the ruinous gate

that shut them out from the twenty-yard strip of garden which led up

to Stott's cottage. Curiosity was the dominant emotion. Any excuse

was good enough to make friendly overtures, but the babe remained

invisible to all save Mrs. Reade; and the village community kept open

ears while the lust of its eyes remained, perforce, unsatisfied. If

Stott's gate slammed in the wind, every door that commanded a view

of that gate was opened, and heads appeared, and bare arms--the

indications of women who nodded to each other, shook their heads,

pursed their lips and withdrew for the time to attend the pressure

of household duty. Later, even that gate slamming would reinvigorate

the gossip of backyards and front doorways.

The first stranger to force an entry was the rector. He was an Oxford

man who, in his youth, had been an ardent disciple of the school

that attempts the reconciliation of Religion and Science. He had

been ambitious, but nature had predetermined his career by giving

him a head of the wrong shape. At Oxford his limitations had not

been clearly defined, and on the strength of a certain speech at the

Union, he crept into a London west-end curacy. There he attempted

to demonstrate the principle of reconciliation from the pulpit, but

his vicar and his bishop soon recognised that excellent as were his

intentions, he was doing better service to agnosticism than to his

own religion. In consequence he was vilely marooned on the savage

island of Stoke-Underhill, where he might preach as much science as

he would to the natives, for there was no fear of their comprehending

him. Fifteen years of Stoke had brought about a reaction. Nature

had made him a feeble fanatic, and he was now as ardent an opponent

of science as he had once been a defender. In his little mind he

believed that his early reading had enabled him to understand all

the weaknesses of the scientific position. His name was Percy Crashaw.

Mrs. Stott could not deny her rector the right of entry, and he

insisted on seeing the infant, who was not yet baptised--a shameful

neglect, according to Crashaw, for the child was nearly six weeks

old. Nor had Mrs. Stott been "churched." Crashaw had good excuse for

pressing his call.

Mrs. Stott refused to face the village. She knew that the place was

all agape, eager to stare at what they considered some "new kind of

idiot." Let them wait, was Ellen Mary's attitude. Her pride was a

later development. In those early weeks she feared criticism.

But she granted Crashaw's request to see the child, and after the

interview (the term is precise) the rector gave way on the question of

a private ceremony, though he had indignantly opposed the scheme when

it was first mooted. It may be that he conceived an image of himself

with that child in his arms, the cynosure of a packed congregation....

Crashaw was one of the influences that hastened the Stotts' departure

from Stoke. He was so indiscreet. After the christening he would

talk. His attitude is quite comprehensible. He, the lawgiver of Stoke,

had been thwarted. He had to find apology for the private baptism

he had denied to many a sickly infant. Moreover, the Stotts had

broken another of his ordinances, for father and mother had stood as

god-parents to their own child, and Crashaw himself had been the second

godfather ordained as necessary by the rubric. He had given way on

these important points so weakly; he had to find excuse, and he talked

himself into a false belief with regard to the child he had baptised.

He began with his wife. "I would allow more latitude to medical men,"

he said. "In such a case as this child of the Stotts, for instance;

it becomes a burden on the community, I might say a danger, yes, a

positive danger. I am not sure whether I was right in administering

the holy sacrament of baptism...."

"Oh! Percy! Surely ..." began Mrs. Crashaw.

"One moment, my dear," protested the rector, "I have not fully

explained the circumstances of the case." And as he warmed to his

theme the image of Victor Stott grew to a fearful grotesqueness. It

loomed as a threat over the community and the church. Crashaw quoted,

inaccurately, statistics of the growth of lunacy, and then went off

at a tangent into the theory of possession by evil spirits. Since his

rejection of science, he had lapsed into certain forms of mediævalism,

and he now began to dally with a theory of a malign incarnation which

he elaborated until it became an article of his faith.

To his poorer parishioners he spoke in vague terms, but he changed

their attitude; he filled them with overawed terror. They were

intensely curious still, but, now, when the gate was slammed, one saw

a face pressed to the window, the door remained fast; and the children

no longer clustered round that gate, but dared each other to run past

it; which they did, the girls with a scream, the boys with a jeering

"Yah--ah!" a boast of intrepidity.

This change of temper was soon understood by the persons most

concerned. Stott grumbled and grew more morose. He had never been

intimate with the villagers, and now he avoided any intercourse

with them. His wife kept herself aloof, and her child sheltered from

profane observation. Naturally, this attitude of the Stotts fostered

suspicion. Even the hardiest sceptic in the taproom of the Challis Arms

began to shake his head, to concede that there "moight be soomething

in it."

Yet the departure from Stoke might have been postponed indefinitely,

if it had not been for another intrusion. Both Stott and his wife

were ready to take up a new idea, but they were slow to conceive it.

II

The intruder was the local magnate, the landlord of Stoke, Wenderby,

Chilborough, a greater part of Ailesworth, two or three minor parishes,

and, incidentally, of Pym.

This magnate, Henry Challis, was a man of some scholarship, whose

ambition had been smothered by the heaviness of his possessions. He

had a remarkably fine library at Challis Court, but he made little

use of it, for he spent the greater part of his time in travel. In

appearance he was rather an ungainly man; his great head and the bulk

of his big shoulders were something too heavy for his legs.

Crashaw regarded his patron with mixed feelings. For Challis, the man

of property, the man of high connections, of intimate associations

with the world of science and letters, Crashaw had a feeling of awed

respect; but in private he inveighed against the wickedness of Challis,

the agnostic, the decadent.

When Victor Stott was nearly three months old, the rector met his

patron one day on the road between Chilborough and Stoke. It was

three years since their last meeting, and Crashaw noticed that in

the interval Challis's pointed beard had become streaked with grey.

"Hallo! How d'ye do, Crashaw?" was the squire's casual greeting. "How

is the Stoke microcosm?"

Crashaw smiled subserviently; he was never quite at his ease in

Challis's presence. "Rari nantes in gurgite vasto," was the tag he

found in answer to the question put. However great his contempt for

Challis's way of life, in his presence Crashaw was often oppressed

with a feeling of inferiority, a feeling which he fought against but

could not subdue. The Latin tag was an attempt to win appreciation,

it represented a boast of equality.

Challis correctly evaluated the rector's attitude; it was with

something of pity in his mind that he turned and walked beside him.

There was but one item of news from Stoke, and it soon came to the

surface. Crashaw phrased his description of Victor Stott in terms other

than those he used in speaking to his wife or to his parishioners;

but the undercurrent of his virulent superstition did not escape

Challis, and the attitude of the villagers was made perfectly plain.

"Hm!" was Challis's comment, when the flow of words ceased, "nigroque

simillima cygno, eh?"

"Ah! of course, you sneer at our petty affairs," said Crashaw.

"By no means. I should like to see this black swan of Stoke," replied

Challis. "Anything so exceptional interests me."

"No doubt Mrs. Stott would be proud to exhibit the horror," said

Crashaw. He had a gleam of satisfaction in the thought that even the

great Henry Challis might be scared. That would, indeed, be a triumph.

"If Mrs. Stott has no objection, of course," said Challis. "Shall we

go there, now?"

III

The visit of Henry Challis marked the first advent of Ellen Mary's

pride in the exhibition of her wonder. After the King and the Royal

Family--superhuman beings, infinitely remote--the great landlord of

the neighbourhood stood as a symbol of temporal power to the whole

district. The budding socialist of the taproom might sneer, and make

threat that the time was coming when he, the boaster, and Challis,

the landlord, would have equal rights; but in public the socialist

kow-towed to his master with a submission no less obsequious than

that of the humblest conservative on the estate.

Mrs. Stott dropped a deep curtsy when, opening the door to the

autocratic summons of Crashaw's rat-a-tat, she saw the great man of

the district at her threshold. Challis raised his hat. Crashaw did

not imitate his example; he was all officiousness, he had the air of

a chief superintendent of police.

"Oh! Mrs. Stott, we should like to come in for a few

minutes. Mr. Challis would like to see your child."

"Damn the fool!" was Challis's thought, but he gave it less abrupt

expression. "That is, of course, if it is quite convenient to you,

Mrs. Stott. I can come at some other time...."

"Please walk in, sir," replied Mrs. Stott, and curtsied again as she

stood aside.

Superintendent Crashaw led the way....

Challis called again next day, by himself this time; and the day

after he dropped in at six o'clock while Mr. and Mrs. Stott were at

tea. He put them at their ease by some magic of his personality, and

insisted that they should continue their meal while he sat among the

collapsed springs of the horsehair armchair. He leaned forward and

swung his stick between his knees as it were a pendulum, and shot

out questions as to the Stotts' relations with the neighbours. And

always he had an attentive eye on the cradle that stood near the fire.

"The neighbours are not highly intelligent, I suspect," said

Challis. "Even Mr. Crashaw, I fancy, does not appreciate

the--peculiarities of the situation."

"He's worse than any," interpolated Stott. Ellen Mary sat in shadow;

there was a new light in her eyes, a foretaste of glory.

"Ah! a little narrow, a little dogmatic, no doubt," replied Challis. "I

was going to propose that you might prefer to live at Pym."

"Much farther for me," muttered Stott. He had mixed with nobility on

the cricket field, and was not overawed.

"No doubt; but you have other interests to consider, interests of

far greater importance." Challis shifted his gaze from the cradle,

and looked Stott in the face. "I understand that Mrs. Stott does not

care to take her child out in the village. Isn't that so?"

"Yes, sir," replied Ellen, to whom this question was addressed. "I

don't care to make an exhibition of 'im."

"Quite right, quite right," went on Challis, "but it is very necessary

that the child should have air. I consider it very necessary, a

matter of the first importance that the child should have air," he

repeated. His gaze had shifted back to the cradle again. The child

lay with open eyes, staring up at the ceiling.

"Now, there is an excellent cottage at Pym which I will have put in

repair for you at once," continued Challis. "It is one of two together,

but next door there are only old Metcalfe and his wife and daughter,

who will give you no trouble. And really, Mrs. Stott," he tore his

regard from the cradle for a moment, "there is no reason in the

world why you should fear the attention of your neighbours. Here,

in Stoke, I admit, they have been under a complete misapprehension,

but I fancy that there were special reasons for that. In Pym you will

have few neighbours, and you need not, I'm sure, fear their criticism."

"They got one idiot there, already," Stott remarked somewhat sulkily.

"You surely do not regard your own child as likely to develop into

an idiot, Stott!" Challis's tone was one of rebuke.

Stott shifted in his chair and his eyes flickered uncertainly in the

direction of the cradle. "Dr. O'Connell says 'twill," he said.

"When did he see the child last?" asked Challis.

"Not since 'twere a week old, sir," replied Ellen.

"In that case his authority goes for nothing, and, then, by the way,

I suppose the child has not been vaccinated?"

"Not yet, sir."

"Better have that done. Get Walters. I'll make myself responsible. I'll

get him to come."

Before Challis left, it was decided that the Stotts should move to

Pym in February.

When the great landowner had gone, Mrs. Stott looked wistfully at

her husband.

"You ain't fair to the child, George," she said. "There's more than

you or any one sees, more than Mr. Challis, even."

Stott stared moodily into the fire.

"And it won't be so out of the way far for you, at Pym, with your

bike," she continued; "and we can't stop 'ere."

"We might 'a took a place in Ailesworth," said Stott.

"But it'll be so much 'ealthier for 'im up at Pym," protested

Ellen. "It'll be fine air up there for 'im."

"Oh! 'im. Yes, all right for 'im," said Stott, and spat into the

fire. Then he took his cap and went out. He kept his eyes away from

the cradle.

IV

Harvey Walters lived in Wenderby, but his consulting-rooms were in

Harley Street, and he did not practise in his own neighbourhood;

nevertheless he vaccinated Victor Stott to oblige Challis.

"Well?" asked Challis a few days later, "what do you make of him,

Walters? No clichés, now, and no professional jargon."

"Candidly, I don't know," replied Walters, after a thoughtful interval.

"How many times have you seen him?"

"Four, altogether."

"Good patient? Healthy flesh and that sort of thing?"

"Splendid."

"Did he look you in the eyes?"

"Once, only once, the first time I visited the house."

Challis nodded. "My own experience, exactly. And did you return that

look of his?"

"Not willingly. It was, I confess, not altogether a pleasant

experience."

"Ah!"

Challis was silent for a few moments, and it was Walters who took up

the interrogatory.

"Challis!"

"Yes?"

"Have you, now, some feeling of, shall I say, distaste for the

child? Do you feel that you have no wish to see it again?"

"Is it that exactly?" parried Challis.

"If not, what is it?" asked Walters.

"In my own case," said Challis, "I can find an analogy only in my

attitude towards my 'head' at school. In his presence I was always

intimidated by my consciousness of his superior learning. I felt

unpleasantly ignorant, small, negligible. Curiously enough, I see

something of the same expression of feeling in the attitude of that

feeble Crashaw to myself. Well, one makes an attempt at self-assertion,

a kind of futile bragging; and one knows the futility of it--at the

time. But, afterwards, one finds excuse and seeks to belittle the

personality and attainment of the person one feared. At school we

did not love the 'head,' and, as schoolboys will, we were always

trying to run him down. 'Next time he rags me, I'll cheek him,'

was our usual boast--but we never did. Let's be honest, Walters,

are not you and I exhibiting much the same attitude towards this

extraordinary child? Didn't he produce the effect upon you that I've

described? Didn't you have a little of the 'fifth form' feeling,--a

boy under examination?"

Walters smiled and screwed his mouth on one side. "The thing is so

absurd," he said.

"That is what we used to say at school," replied Challis.

V

The Stotts' move to Pym was not marked by any incident. Mrs. Stott and

her boy were not unduly stared upon as they left Stoke--the children

were in school--and their entry into the new cottage was uneventful.

They moved on a Thursday. On Sunday morning they had their first

visitor.

He came mooning round the fence that guarded the Stotts' garden from

the little lane--it was hardly more than a footpath. He had a great

shapeless head that waggled heavily on his shoulders, his eyes were

lustreless, and his mouth hung open, frequently his tongue lagged

out. He made strange, inhuman noises. "A-ba-ba," was his nearest

approach to speech.

"Now, George," called Mrs. Stott, "look at that. It's Mrs. 'Arrison's

boy what Mrs. Reade's spoke about. Now, is 'e anythink like ..." she

paused, "any think like 'im?" and she indicated the cradle in the

sitting-room.

"What's 'e want, 'angin' round 'ere?" replied Stott, disregarding the

comparison. "'Ere, get off," he called, and he went into the garden

and picked up a stick.

The idiot shambled away.

CHAPTER VI

HIS FATHER'S DESERTION

I

The strongest of all habits is that of acquiescence. It is this habit

of submission which explains the admired patience and long-suffering

of the abjectly poor. The lower the individual falls, the more

unconquerable becomes the inertia of mind which interferes between

him and revolt against his condition. All the miseries of the flesh,

even starvation, seem preferable to the making of an effort great

enough to break this habit of submission.

Ginger Stott was not poor. For a man in his station of life he was

unusually well provided for, but in him the habit of acquiescence

was strongly rooted. Before his son was a year old, Stott had grown

to loathe his home, to dread his return to it, yet it did not occur

to him until another year had passed that he could, if he would,

set up another establishment on his own account; that he could, for

instance, take a room in Ailesworth, and leave his wife and child in

the cottage. For two years he did not begin to think of this idea,

and then it was suddenly forced upon him.

Ever since they had overheard those strangely intelligent

self-communings, the Stotts had been perfectly aware that their

wonderful child could talk if he would. Ellen Mary, pondering that

single expression, had read a world of meaning into her son's murmurs

of "learning." In her simple mind she understood that his deliberate

withholding of speech was a reserve against some strange manifestation.

The manifestation, when it came, was as remarkable as it was

unexpected.

The arm-chair in which Henry Challis had once sat was a valued

possession, dedicated by custom to the sole use of George Stott. Ever

since he had been married, Stott had enjoyed the full and undisputed

use of that chair. Except at his meals, he never sat in any other,

and he had formed a fixed habit of throwing himself into that chair

immediately on his return from his work at the County Ground.

One evening in November, however, when his son was just over two years

old, Stott found his sacred chair occupied. He hesitated a moment,

and then went in to the kitchen to find his wife.

"That child's in my chair," he said.

Ellen was setting the tray for her husband's tea. "Yes ... I know,"

she replied. "I--I did mention it, but 'e 'asn't moved."

"Well, take 'im out," ordered Stott, but he dropped his voice.

"Does it matter?" asked his wife. "Tea's just ready. Time that's done

'e'll be ready for 'is bath."

"Why can't you move 'im?" persisted Stott gloomily. "'E knows it's

my chair."

"There! kettle's boilin', come in and 'ave your tea," equivocated

the diplomatic Ellen.

During the progress of the meal, the child still sat quietly in his

father's chair, his little hands resting on his knees, his eyes wide

open, their gaze abstracted, as usual, from all earthly concerns.

But after tea Stott was heroic. He had reached the limit of his

endurance. One of his deep-seated habits was being broken, and with

it snapped his habit of acquiescence. He rose to his feet and faced

his son with determination, and Stott had a bull-dog quality about

him that was not easily defeated.

"Look 'ere! Get out!" he said. "That's my chair!"

The child very deliberately withdrew his attention from infinity and

regarded the dogged face and set jaw of his father. Stott returned

the stare for the fraction of a second, and then his eyes wavered

and dropped, but he maintained his resolution.

"You got to get out," he said, "or I'll lift you."

Ellen Mary gripped the edge of the table, but she made no attempt

to interfere.

There was a tense, strained silence. Then Stott began to breathe

heavily. He lifted his long arms for a moment and raised his eyes,

he even made a tentative step towards the usurped chair.

The child sat calm, motionless; his eyes were fixed upon his father's

face with a sublime, unalterable confidence.

Stott's arms fell to his sides again, he shuffled his feet. One

more effort he made, a sudden, vicious jerk, as though he would do

the thing quickly and be finished with it; then he shivered, his

resolution broke, and he shambled evasively to the door.

"God damn," he muttered. At the door he turned for an instant, swore

again in the same words, and went out into the night.

To Stott, moodily pacing the Common, this thing was incomprehensible,

some horrible infraction of the law of normal life, something to be

condemned; altered, if possible. It was unprecedented, and it was,

therefore, wrong, unnatural, diabolic, a violation of the sound

principles which uphold human society.

To Ellen Mary it was merely a miracle, the foreshadowing of greater

miracles to come. And to her was manifested, also, a minor miracle,

for when his father had gone, the child looked at his mother and gave

out his first recorded utterance.

"'Oo is God?" he said.

Ellen Mary tried to explain, but before she had stammered out many

words, her son abstracted his gaze, climbed down out of the chair, and

intimated with his usual grunt that he desired his bath and his bed.

II

The depths of Stott were stirred that night. He had often said that

"he wouldn't stand it much longer," but the words were a mere formula:

he had never even weighed their intention. As he paced the Common,

he muttered them again to the night, with new meaning; he saw new

possibilities, and saw that they were practicable. "I've 'ad enough,"

was his new phrase, and he added another that evidenced his new

attitude. "Why not?" he said again and again. "And why not?"

Stott's mind was not analytical. He did not examine his problem,

weigh this and that and draw a balanced deduction. He merely saw a

picture of peace and quiet, in a room at Ailesworth, in convenient

proximity to his work (he made an admirable groundsman and umpire,

his work absorbed him) and, perhaps, he conceived some dim ideal of

pleasant evenings spent in the companionship of those who thought

in the same terms as himself; whose speech was of form, averages,

the preparation of wickets, and all the detail of cricket; who shared

in his one interest.

Stott's ambition to have a son and to teach him the mysteries of his

father's success had been dwindling for some time past. On this night

it was finally put aside. Stott's "I've 'ad enough" may be taken to

include that frustrated ideal. No more experiments for him, was the

pronouncement that summed up his decision.

Still there were difficulties. Economically he was free, he could allow

his wife thirty shillings a week, more than enough for her support

and that of her child; but--what would she say, how would she take

his determination? A determination it was, not a proposal. And the

neighbours, what would they say? Stott anticipated a fuss. "She'll

say I've married 'er, and it's my duty to stay by 'er," was his

anticipation of his wife's attitude. He did not profess to understand

the ways of the sex, but some rumours of misunderstandings between

husbands and wives of his own class had filtered through his absorption

in cricket.

He stumbled home with a mind prepared for dissension.

He found his wife stitching by the fire. The door at the foot of the

stairs was closed. The room presented an aspect of cleanly, cheerful

comfort; but Stott entered with dread, not because he feared to meet

his wife, but because there was a terror sleeping in that house.

His armchair was empty now, but he hesitated before he sat down in

it. He took off his cap and rubbed the seat and back of the chair

vigorously: a child of evil had polluted it, the chair might still

hold enchantment....

"I've 'ad enough," was his preface, and there was no need for any

further explanation.

Ellen Mary let her hands fall into her lap, and stared dreamily at

the fire.

"I'm sorry it's come to this, George," she said, "but it 'asn't been

my fault no more'n it's been your'n. Of course I've seen it a-comin',

and I knowed it 'ad to be, some time; but I don't think there need

be any 'ard words over it. I don't expec' you to understand 'im, no

more'n I do myself--it isn't in nature as you should, but all said

and done, there's no bones broke, and if we 'ave to part, there's no

reason as we shouldn't part peaceable."

That speech said nearly everything. Afterwards it was only a question

of making arrangements, and in that there was no difficulty.

Another man might have felt a little hurt, a little neglected by the

absence of any show of feeling on his wife's part, but Stott passed it

by. He was singularly free from all sentimentality; certain primitive,

human emotions seem to have played no part in his character. At this

moment he certainly had no thought that he was being carelessly

treated; he wanted to be free from the oppression of that horror

upstairs--so he figured it--and the way was made easy for him.

He nodded approval, and made no sign of any feeling.

"I shall go to-morrer," he said, and then, "I'll sleep down 'ere

to-night." He indicated the sofa upon which he had slept for so many

nights at Stoke, after his tragedy had been born to him.

Ellen Mary had said nearly everything, but when she had made up a

bed for her husband in the sitting-room, she paused, candle in hand,

before she bade him good-night.

"Don't wish 'im 'arm, George," she said. "'E's different from us,

and we don't understand 'im proper, but some day----"

"I don't wish 'im no 'arm," replied Stott, and shuddered. "I don't

wish 'im no 'arm," he repeated, as he kicked off the boot he had

been unlacing.

"You mayn't never see 'im again," added Ellen Mary.

Stott stood upright. In his socks, he looked noticeably shorter

than his wife. "I suppose not," he said, and gave a deep sigh of

relief. "Well, thank Gawd for that, anyway."

Ellen Mary drew her lips together. For some dim, unrealised reason,

she wished her husband to leave the cottage with a feeling of goodwill

towards the child, but she saw that her wish was little likely to

be fulfilled.

"Well, good-night, George," she said, after a few seconds of silence,

and she added pathetically, as she turned at the foot of the stairs:

"Don't wish 'im no harm."

"I won't," was all the assurance she received.

When she had gone, and the door was closed behind her, Stott padded

silently to the window and looked out. A young moon was dipping into

a bank of cloud, and against the feeble brightness he could see an

uncertain outline of bare trees. He pulled the curtain across the

window, and turned back to the warm cheerfulness of the room.

"Shan't never see 'im again," he murmured, "thank Gawd!" He

undressed quietly, blew out the lamp and got between the sheets of

his improvised bed. For some minutes he stared at the leaping shadows

on the ceiling. He was wondering why he had ever been afraid of the

child. "After all, 'e's only a blarsted freak," was the last thought

in his mind before he fell asleep.

With that pronouncement Stott passes out of the history of the

Hampdenshire Wonder. He was in many ways an exceptional man, and

his name will always be associated with the splendid successes

of Hampdenshire cricket, both before and after the accident

that destroyed his career as a bowler. He was not spoiled by his

triumphs: those two years of celebrity never made Stott conceited,

and there are undoubtedly many traits in his character which call

for our admiration. He is still in his prime, an active agent in

finding talent for his county, and in developing that talent when

found. Hampdenshire has never come into the field with weak bowling,

and all the credit belongs to Ginger Stott.

One sees that he was not able to appreciate the wonderful gifts of

his own son, but Stott was an ignorant man, and men of intellectual

attainment failed even as Stott failed in this respect. Ginger Stott

was a success in his own walk of life, and that fact should command

our admiration. It is not for us to judge whether his attainments

were more or less noble than the attainments of his son.

III

One morning, two days after Stott had left the cottage, Ellen Mary was

startled by the sudden entrance of her child into the sitting-room. He

toddled in hastily from the garden, and pointed with excitement

through the window.

Ellen Mary was frightened; she had never seen her child other than

deliberate, calm, judicial, in all his movements. In a sudden spasm

of motherly love she bent to pick him up, to caress him.

"No," said the Wonder, with something that approached disgust in his

tone and attitude. "No," he repeated. "What's 'e want 'angin' round

'ere? Send 'im off." He pointed again to the window.

Ellen Mary looked out and saw a grinning, slobbering obscenity at

the gate. Stott had scared the idiot away, but in some curious,

inexplicable manner he had learned that his persecutor and enemy had

gone, and he had returned, and had made overtures to the child that

walked so sedately up and down the path of the little garden.

Ellen Mary went out. "You be off," she said.

"A-ba, a-ba-ba," bleated the idiot, and pointed at the house.

"Be off, I tell you!" said Ellen Mary fiercely. But still the idiot

babbled and pointed.

Ellen Mary stooped to pick up a stick. The idiot blenched; he

understood that movement well enough, though it was a stone he

anticipated, not a stick; with a foolish cry he dropped his arms and

slouched away down the lane.

CHAPTER VII

HIS DEBT TO HENRY CHALLIS

I

Challis was out of England for more than three years after that one

brief intrusion of his into the affairs of Mr. and Mrs. Stott. During

the interval he was engaged upon those investigations, the results

of which are embodied in his monograph on the primitive peoples of

the Melanesian Archipelago. It may be remembered that he followed

Dr. W. H. R. Rivers' and Dr. C. G. Seligmann's inquiry into the

practice and theory of native customs. Challis developed his study

more particularly with reference to the earlier evolution of Totemism,

and he was able by his patient work among the Polynesians of Tikopia

and Ontong Java, and his comparisons of those sporadic tribes with the

Papuasians of Eastern New Guinea, to correct some of the inferences

with regard to the origins of exogamy made by Dr. J. G. Frazer in his

great work on that subject, published some years before. A summary

of Challis's argument may be found in vol. li. of the Journal of the

Royal Anthropological Institute.

When he returned to England, Challis shut himself up at Chilborough. He

had engaged a young Cambridge man, Gregory Lewes, as his secretary and

librarian, and the two devoted all their time to planning, writing,

and preparing the monograph referred to.

In such circumstances it is hardly remarkable that Challis should

have completely forgotten the existence of the curious child which had

intrigued his interest nearly four years earlier, and it was not until

he had been back at Challis Court for more than eight months, that

the incursion of Percy Crashaw revived his memory of the phenomenon.

The library at Challis Court occupies a suite of three rooms. The

first and largest of the three is part of the original structure of

the house. Its primitive use had been that of a chapel, a one-storey

building jutting out from the west wing. This Challis had converted

into a very practicable library with a continuous gallery running

round at a height of seven feet from the floor, and in it he had

succeeded in arranging some 20,000 volumes. But as his store of

books grew--and at one period it had grown very rapidly--he had

been forced to build, and so he had added first one and then the

other of the two additional rooms which became necessary. Outside,

the wing had the appearance of an unduly elongated chapel, as he had

continued the original roof over his addition, and copied the style

of the old chapel architecture. The only external alteration he had

made had been the lowering of the sills of the windows.

It was in the furthest of these three rooms that Challis and his

secretary worked, and it was from here that they saw the gloomy figure

of the Rev. Percy Crashaw coming up the drive.

This was the third time he had called. His two former visits had been

unrewarded, but that morning a letter had come from him, couched

in careful phrases, the purport of which had been a request for an

interview on a "matter of some moment."

Challis frowned, and rose from among an ordered litter of manuscripts.

"I shall have to see this man," he said to Lewes, and strode hastily

out of the library.

Crashaw was perfunctorily apologetic, and Challis, looking somewhat

out of place, smoking a heavy wooden pipe in the disused, bleak

drawing-room, waited, almost silent, until his visitor should come

to the point.

" ... and the--er--matter of some moment, I mentioned," Crashaw mumbled

on, "is, I should say, not altogether irrelevant to the work you are

at present engaged upon."

"Indeed!" commented Challis, with a lift of his thick eyebrows,

"no Polynesians come to settle in Stoke, I trust?"

"On broad lines, relevant on broad, anthropological lines, I mean,"

said Crashaw.

Challis grunted. "Go on!" he said.

"You may remember that curious--er--abnormal child of the

Stotts?" asked Crashaw.

"Stotts? Wait a minute. Yes! Curious infant with an abnormally

intelligent expression and the head of a hydrocephalic?"

Crashaw nodded. "It's development has upset me in a most unusual

way," he continued. "I must confess that I am entirely at a loss,

and I really believe that you are the only person who can give me

any intelligent assistance in the matter."

"Very good of you," murmured Challis.

"You see," said Crashaw, warming to his subject and interlacing his

fingers, "I happen, by the merest accident, I may say, to be the

child's godfather."

"Ah! you have responsibilities!" commented Challis, with the first

glint of amusement in his eyes.

"I have," said Crashaw, "undoubtedly I have." He leaned forward

with his hands still clasped together, and rested his forearms on

his thighs. As he talked he worked his hands up and down from the

wrists, by way of emphasis. "I am aware," he went on, "that on one

point I can expect little sympathy from you, but I make an appeal

to you, nevertheless, as a man of science and--and a magistrate;

for ... for assistance."

He paused and looked up at Challis, received a nod of encouragement

and developed his grievance.

"I want to have the child certified as an idiot, and sent to an

asylum."

"On what grounds?"

"He is undoubtedly lacking mentally," said Crashaw, "and his influence

is, or may be, malignant."

"Explain," suggested Challis.

For a few seconds Crashaw paused, intent on the pattern of the carpet,

and working his hands slowly. Challis saw that the man's knuckles

were white, that he was straining his hands together.

"He has denied God," he said at last with great solemnity.

Challis rose abruptly, and went over to the window; the next words

were spoken to his back.

"I have, myself, heard this infant of four years use the most abhorrent

blasphemy."

Challis had composed himself. "Oh! I say; that's bad," he said as he

turned towards the room again.

Crashaw's head was still bowed. "And whatever may be your own

philosophic doubts," he said, "I think you will agree with me that in

such a case as this, something should be done. To me it is horrible,

most horrible."

"Couldn't you give me any details?" asked Challis.

"They are most repugnant to me," answered Crashaw.

"Quite, quite! I understand. But if you want any assistance.... Or

do you expect me to investigate?"

"I thought it my duty, as his godfather, to see to the child's

spiritual welfare," said Crashaw, ignoring the question put to him,

"although he is not, now, one of my parishioners. I first went to

Pym some few months ago, but the mother interposed between me and the

child. I was not permitted to see him. It was not until a few weeks

back that I met him--on the Common; alone. Of course, I recognised

him at once. He is quite unmistakable."

"And then?" prompted Challis.

"I spoke to him, and he replied with, with--an abstracted air,

without looking at me. He has not the appearance in any way of a

normal child. I made a few ordinary remarks to him, and then I asked

him if he knew his catechism. He replied that he did not know the word

'catechism.' I may mention that he speaks the dialect of the common

people, but he has a much larger vocabulary. His mother has taught

him to read, it appears."

"He seems to have a curiously apt intelligence," interpolated Challis.

Crashaw wrung his clasped hands and put the comment on one side. "I

then spoke to him of some of the broad principles of the Church's

teaching," he continued. "He listened quietly, without interruption,

and when I stopped, he prompted me with questions."

"One minute!" said Challis. "Tell me; what sort of questions? That

is most important."

"I do not remember precisely," returned Crashaw, "but one, I think,

was as to the sources of the Bible. I did not read anything beyond

simple and somewhat unusual curiosity into those questions, I may

say.... I talked to him for some considerable time--I dare say for

more than an hour...."

"No signs of idiocy, apparently, during all this?"

"I consider it less a case of idiocy than one of possession, maleficent

possession," replied Crashaw. He did not see his host's grim smile.

"Well, and the blasphemy?" prompted Challis.

"At the end of my instruction, the child, still looking away from

me, shook his head and said that what I had told him was not true, I

confess that I was staggered. Possibly I lost my temper, somewhat. I

may have grown rather warm in my speech. And at last...." Crashaw

clenched his hands and spoke in such a low voice that Challis could

hardly hear him. "At last he turned to me and said things which I

could not possibly repeat, which I pray that I may never hear again

from the mouth of any living being."

"Profanities, obscenities, er--swear-words," suggested Challis.

"Blasphemy, blasphemy," cried Crashaw. "Oh! I wonder that I did not

injure the child."

Challis moved over to the window again. For more than a minute there

was silence in that big, neglected-looking room. Then Crashaw's

feelings began to find vent in words, in a long stream of insistent

asseverations, pitched on a rising note that swelled into a diapason

of indignation. He spoke of the position and power of his Church, of

its influence for good among the uneducated, agricultural population

among which he worked. He enlarged on the profound necessity for a

living religion among the poorer classes; and on the revolutionary

tendency towards socialism, which would be encouraged if the great

restraining power of a creed that enforced subservience to temporal

power was once shaken. And, at last, he brought his arguments to

a head by saying that the example of a child of four years old,

openly defying a minister of the Church, and repudiating the very

conception of the Deity, was an example which might produce a profound

effect upon the minds of a slow-thinking people; that such an example

might be the leaven which would leaven the whole lump; and that for

the welfare of the whole neighbourhood it was an instant necessity

that the child should be put under restraint, his tongue bridled,

and any opportunity to proclaim his blasphemous doctrines forcibly

denied to him. Long before he had concluded, Crashaw was on his feet,

pacing the room, declaiming, waving his arms.

Challis stood, unanswering, by the window. He did not seem to hear;

he did not even shrug his shoulders. Not till Crashaw had brought

his argument to a culmination, and boomed into a dramatic silence,

did Challis turn and look at him.

"But you cannot confine a child in an asylum on those grounds,"

he said; "the law does not permit it."

"The Church is above the law," replied Crashaw.

"Not in these days," said Challis; "it is by law established!"

Crashaw began to speak again, but Challis waved him down. "Quite,

quite. I see your point," he said, "but I must see this child

myself. Believe me, I will see what can be done. I will, at least,

try to prevent his spreading his opinions among the yokels." He smiled

grimly. "I quite agree with you that that is a consummation which is

not to be desired."

"You will see him soon?" asked Crashaw.

"To-day," returned Challis.

"And you will let me see you again, afterwards?"

"Certainly."

Crashaw still hesitated for a moment. "I might, perhaps, come with

you," he ventured.

"On no account," said Challis.

II

Gregory Lewes was astonished at the long absence of his chief; he

was more astonished when his chief returned.

"I want you to come up with me to Pym, Lewes," said Challis; "one of

my tenants has been confounding the rector of Stoke. It is a matter

that must be attended to."

Lewes was a fair-haired, hard-working young man, with a bent for

science in general that had not yet crystallised into any special

study. He had a curious sense of humour, that proved something of

an obstacle in the way of specialisation. He did not take Challis's

speech seriously.

"Are you going as a magistrate?" he asked; "or is it a matter for

scientific investigation?"

"Both," said Challis. "Come along!"

"Are you serious, sir?" Lewes still doubted.

"Intensely. I'll explain as we go," said Challis.

It is not more than a mile and a half from Challis Court to Pym. The

nearest way is by a cart track through the beech woods, that winds

up the hill to the Common. In winter this track is almost impassable,

over boot-top in heavy mud; but the early spring had been fairly dry,

and Challis chose this route.

As they walked, Challis went through the early history of Victor

Stott, so far as it was known to him. "I had forgotten the child,"

he said; "I thought it would die. You see, it is by way of being

an extraordinary freak of nature. It has, or had, a curious look of

intelligence. You must remember that when I saw it, it was only a few

months old. But even then it conveyed in some inexplicable way a sense

of power. Every one felt it. There was Harvey Walters, for instance--he

vaccinated it; I made him confess that the child made him feel like

a school-boy. Only, you understand, it had not spoken then----"

"What conveyed that sense of power?" asked Lewes.

"The way it had of looking at you, staring you out of countenance,

sizing you up and rejecting you. It did that, I give you my word;

it did all that at a few months old, and without the power of

speech. Only, you see, I thought it was merely a freak of some kind,

some abnormality that disgusted one in an unanalysed way. And I

thought it would die. I certainly thought it would die. I am most

eager to see this new development."

"I haven't heard. It confounded Crashaw, you say? And it cannot be

more than four or five years old now?"

"Four; four and a half," returned Challis, and then the conversation

was interrupted by the necessity of skirting a tiny morass of wet

leaf-mould that lay in a hollow.

"Confounded Crashaw? I should think so," Challis went on, when they

had found firm going again. "The good man would not soil his devoted

tongue by any condescension to oratio recta, but I gathered that the

child had made light of his divine authority."

"Great Cæsar!" ejaculated Lewes; "but that is immense. What did

Crashaw do--shake him?"

"No; he certainly did not lay hands on him at all. His own expression

was that he did not know how it was he did not do the child an

injury. That is one of the things that interest me enormously. That

power I spoke of must have been retained. Crashaw must have been

blue with anger; he could hardly repeat the story to me, he was so

agitated. It would have surprised me less if he had told me he had

murdered the child. That I could have understood, perfectly!"

"It is, of course, quite incomprehensible to me, as yet," commented

Lewes.

When they came out of the woods on to the stretch of common from which

you can see the great swelling undulations of the Hampden Hills,

Challis stopped. A spear of April sunshine had pierced the load of

cloud towards the west, and the bank of wood behind them gave shelter

from the cold wind that had blown fiercely all the afternoon.

"It is a fine prospect," said Challis, with a sweep of his hand. "I

sometimes feel, Lewes, that we are over-intent on our own little narrow

interests. Here are you and I, busying ourselves in an attempt to throw

some little light--a very little it must be--on some petty problems

of the origin of our race. We are looking downwards, downwards always;

digging in old muck-heaps; raking up all kinds of unsavoury rubbish to

prove that we are born out of the dirt. And we have never a thought

for the future in all our work,--a future that may be glorious, who

knows? Here, perhaps in this village, insignificant from most points

of view, but set in a country that should teach us to raise our

eyes from the ground; here, in this tiny hamlet, is living a child

who may become a greater than Socrates or Shakespeare, a child who

may revolutionise our conceptions of time and space. There have been

great men in the past who have done that, Lewes; there is no reason

for us to doubt that still greater men may succeed them."

"No; there is no reason for us to doubt that," said Lewes, and they

walked on in silence towards the Stotts' cottage.

III

Challis knocked and walked in. They found Ellen Mary and her son at

the tea-table.

The mother rose to her feet and dropped a respectful curtsy. The boy

glanced once at Gregory Lewes and then continued his meal as if he

were unaware of any strange presence in the room.

"I'm sorry. I am afraid we are interrupting you," Challis

apologised. "Pray sit down, Mrs. Stott, and go on with your tea."

"Thank you, sir. I'd just finished, sir," said Ellen Mary, and remained

standing with an air of quiet deference.

Challis took the celebrated armchair, and motioned Lewes to the

window-sill, the nearest available seat for him. "Please sit down,

Mrs. Stott," he said, and Ellen Mary sat, apologetically.

The boy pushed his cup towards his mother, and pointed to the teapot;

he made a grunting sound to attract her attention.

"You'll excuse me, sir," murmured Ellen Mary, and she refilled

the cup and passed it back to her son, who received it without any

acknowledgment. Challis and Lewes were observing the boy intently,

but he took not the least notice of their scrutiny. He discovered no

trace of self-consciousness; Henry Challis and Gregory Lewes appeared

to have no place in the world of his abstraction.

The figure the child presented to his two observers was worthy of

careful scrutiny.

At the age of four and a half years, the Wonder was bald, save for

a few straggling wisps of reddish hair above the ears and at the

base of the skull, and a weak, sparse down, of the same colour, on

the crown. The eyebrows, too, were not marked by any line of hair,

but the eyelashes were thick, though short, and several shades darker

than the hair on the skull.

The face is not so easily described. The mouth and chin were relatively

small, overshadowed by that broad cliff of forehead, but they were

firm, the chin well moulded, the lips thin and compressed. The nose

was unusual when seen in profile. There was no sign of a bony bridge,

but it was markedly curved and jutted out at a curious angle from

the line of the face. The nostrils were wide and open. None of these

features produced any effect of childishness; but this effect was

partly achieved by the contours of the cheeks, and by the fact that

there was no indication of any lines on the face.

The eyes nearly always wore their usual expression of abstraction. It

was very rarely that the Wonder allowed his intelligence to be

exhibited by that medium. When he did, the effect was strangely

disconcerting, blinding. One received an impression of extraordinary

concentration: it was as though for an instant the boy was able to give

one a glimpse of the wonderful force of his intellect. When he looked

one in the face with intention, and suddenly allowed one to realise,

as it were, all the dominating power of his brain, one shrank into

insignificance, one felt as an ignorant, intelligent man may feel when

confronted with some elaborate theorem of the higher mathematics. "Is

it possible that any one can really understand these things?" such a

man might think with awe, and in the same way one apprehended some

vast, inconceivable possibilities of mind-function when the Wonder

looked at one with, as I have said, intention.

He was dressed in a little jacket-suit, and wore a linen collar; the

knickerbockers, loose and badly cut, fell a little below the knees. His

stockings were of worsted, his boots clumsy and thick-soled, though

relatively tiny. One had the impression always that his body was

fragile and small, but as a matter of fact the body and limbs were,

if anything, slightly better developed than those of the average

child of four and a half years.

Challis had ample opportunity to make these observations at various

periods. He began them as he sat in the Stotts' cottage. At first he

did not address the boy directly.

"I hear your son has been having a religious controversy with

Mr. Crashaw," was his introduction to the object of his visit.

"Indeed, sir!" Plainly this was not news to Mrs. Stott.

"Your son told you?" suggested Challis.

"Oh! no, sir, 'e never told me," replied Mrs. Stott, "'twas

Mr. Crashaw. 'E's been 'ere several times lately."

Challis looked sharply at the boy, but he gave no sign that he heard

what was passing.

"Yes; Mr. Crashaw seems rather upset about it."

"I'm sorry, sir, but----"

"Yes; speak plainly," prompted Challis. "I assure you, that you will

have no cause to regret any confidence you may make to me."

"I can't see as it's any business of Mr. Crashaw's, sir, if you'll

forgive me for sayin' so."

"He has been worrying you?"

"'E 'as, sir, but 'e ... " she glanced at her son--she laid a stress

on the pronoun always when she spoke of him that differentiated its

significance--"'e 'asn't seen Mr. Crashaw again, sir."

Challis turned to the boy. "You are not interested in Mr. Crashaw,

I suppose?" he asked.

The boy took no notice of the question.

Challis was piqued. If this extraordinary child really had an

intelligence, surely it must be possible to appeal to that intelligence

in some way. He made another effort, addressing Mrs. Stott.

"I think we must forgive Mr. Crashaw, you know, Mrs. Stott. As I

understand it, your boy at the age of four years and a half has

defied--his cloth, if I may say so." He paused, and as he received

no answer, continued: "But I hope that matter may be easily arranged."

"Thank you, sir," said Mrs. Stott. "It's very kind of you. I'm sure,

I'm greatly obliged to you, sir."

"That's only one reason of my visit to you, however." Challis

hesitated. "I've been wondering whether I might not be able to help

you and your son in some other way. I understand that he has unusual

power of--of intelligence."

"Indeed 'e 'as, sir," responded Mrs. Stott.

"And he can read, can't he?"

"I've learned 'im what I could, sir: it isn't much."

"Well, perhaps I could lend him a few books."

Challis made a significant pause, and again he looked at the boy;

but there was no response, so he continued: "Tell me what he has read."

"We've no books, sir, and we never 'ardly see a paper now. All we

'ave in the 'ouse is a Bible and two copies of Lillywhite's cricket

annual as my 'usband left be'ind."

Challis smiled. "Has he read those?" he asked.

"The Bible 'e 'as, I believe," replied Mrs. Stott.

It was a conversation curious in its impersonality. Challis was

conscious of the anomaly that he was speaking in the boy's presence,

crediting him with a remarkable intelligence, and yet addressing a

frankly ignorant woman as though the boy was not in the room. Yet how

could he break that deliberate silence? It seemed to him as though

there must, after all, be some mistake; yet how account for Crashaw's

story if the boy were indeed an idiot?

With a slight show of temper he turned to the Wonder.

"Do you want to read?" he asked. "I have between forty and fifty

thousand books in my library. I think it possible that you might find

one or two which would interest you."

The Wonder lifted his hand as though to ask for silence. For a minute,

perhaps, no one spoke. All waited, expectant; Challis and Lewes with

intent eyes fixed on the detached expression of the child's face,

Ellen Mary with bent head. It was a strange, yet very logical question

that came at last:

"What should I learn out of all them books?" asked the Wonder. He

did not look at Challis as he spoke.

IV

Challis drew a deep breath and looked at Lewes.

"A difficult question, that, Lewes," he said.

Lewes lifted his eyebrows and pulled at his fair moustache. "If you

take the question literally," he muttered.

"You might learn--the essential part ... of all the knowledge that

has been ... discovered by mankind," said Challis. He phrased his

sentence carefully, as though he were afraid of being trapped.

"Should I learn what I am?" asked the Wonder.

Challis understood the question in its metaphysical acceptation. He

had the sense of a powerful but undirected intelligence working from

the simple premises of experience; of a cloistered mind that had

functioned profoundly; a mind unbound by the tradition of all the

speculations and discoveries of man, the essential conclusions of

which were contained in that library at Challis Court.

"No!" said Challis, after a perceptible interval, "that you will

not learn from any books in my possession, but you will find grounds

for speculation."

"Grounds for speculation?" questioned the Wonder. He repeated the

words quite clearly.

"Material--matter from which you can--er--formulate theories of your

own," explained Challis.

The Wonder shook his head. It was evident that Challis's sentence

conveyed little or no meaning to him.

He got down from his chair and took up an old cricket cap of his

father's, a cap which his mother had let out by the addition of another

gore of cloth that did not match the original material. He pulled

this cap carefully over his bald head, and then made for the door.

At the threshold the strange child paused, and without looking at

any one present said: "I'll coom to your library," and went out.

Challis joined Lewes at the window, and they watched the boy make

his deliberate way along the garden path and up the lane towards the

fields beyond.

"You let him go out by himself?" asked Challis.

"He likes to be in the air, sir," replied Ellen Mary.

"I suppose you have to let him go his own way?"

"Oh! yes, sir."

"I will send the governess cart up for him to-morrow morning," said

Challis, "at ten o'clock. That is, of course, if you have no objection

to his coming."

"'E said 'e'd coom, sir," replied Ellen Mary. Her tone implied that

there was no appeal possible against her son's statement of his wishes.

V

"His methods do not lack terseness," remarked Lewes, when he and

Challis were out of earshot of the cottage.

"His methods and manners are damnable," said Challis, "but----"

"You were going to say?" prompted Lewes.

"Well, what is your opinion?"

"I am not convinced, as yet," said Lewes.

"Oh, surely," expostulated Challis.

"Not from objective, personal evidence. Let us put Crashaw out of

our minds for the moment."

"Very well; go on, state your case."

"He has, so far, made four remarks in our presence," said Lewes,

gesticulating with his walking stick. "Two of them can be neglected;

his repetition of your words, which he did not understand, and his

condescending promise to study your library."

"Yes; I'm with you, so far."

"Now, putting aside the preconception with which we entered the

cottage, was there really anything in the other two remarks? Were

they not the type of simple, unreasoning questions which one may often

hear from the mouth of a child of that age? 'What shall I learn from

your books?' Well, it is the natural question of the ignorant child,

who has no conception of the contents of books, no experience which

would furnish material for his imagination."

"Well?"

"The second remark is more explicable still. It is a remark we all

make in childhood, in some form or another. I remember quite well at

the age of six or seven asking my mother: 'Which is me, my soul or

my body?' I was brought up on the Church catechism. But you at once

accepted these questions--which, I maintain, were questions possible

in the mouth of a simple, ignorant child--in some deep, metaphysical

acceptation. Don't you think, sir, we should wait for further evidence

before we attribute any phenomenal intelligence to this child?"

"Quite the right attitude to take, Lewes--the scientific attitude,"

replied Challis. "Let's go by the lane," he added, as they reached

the entrance to the wood.

For some few minutes they walked in silence; Challis with his head

down, his heavy shoulders humped. His hands were clasped behind

him, dragging his stick as it were a tail, which he occasionally

cocked. He walked with a little stumble now and again, his eyes on the

ground. Lewes strode with a sure foot, his head up, and he slashed

at the tangle of last year's growth on the bank whenever he passed

some tempting butt for the sword-play of his stick.

"Do you think, then," said Challis at last, "that much of

the atmosphere--you must have marked the atmosphere--of the

child's personality, was a creation of our own minds, due to our

preconceptions?"

"Yes, I think so," Lewes replied, a touch of defiance in his tone.

"Isn't that what you want to believe?" asked Challis.

Lewes hit at a flag of dead bracken and missed. "You mean...?" he

prevaricated.

"I mean that that is a much stronger influence than any preconception,

my dear Lewes. I'm no pragmatist, as you know; but there can be no

doubt that with the majority of us the wish to believe a thing is

true constitutes the truth of that thing for us. And that is, in my

opinion, the wrong attitude for either scientist or philosopher. Now,

in the case we are discussing, I suppose, at bottom I should like

to agree with you. One does not like to feel that a child of four

and a half has greater intellectual powers than oneself. Candidly,

I do not like it at all."

"Of course not! But I can't think that----"

"You can if you try; you would at once if you wished to," returned

Challis, anticipating the completion of Lewes's sentence.

"I'll admit that there are some remarkable facts in the case of

this child," said Lewes, "but I do not see why we should, as yet,

take the whole proposition for granted."

"No! I am with you there," returned Challis. And no more was said

until they were nearly home.

Just before they turned into the drive, however, Challis stopped. "Do

you know, Lewes," he said, "I am not sure that I am doing a wise

thing in bringing that child here!"

Lewes did not understand. "No, sir? Why not?" he asked.

"Why, think of the possibilities of that child, if he has all the

powers I credit him with," said Challis. "Think of his possibilities

for original thought if he is kept away from all the traditions

of this futile learning." He waved an arm in the direction of the

elongated chapel.

"Oh! but surely," remonstrated Lewes, "that is a necessary

groundwork. Knowledge is built up step by step."

"Is it? I wonder. I sometimes doubt," said Challis. "Yes, I sometimes

doubt whether we have ever learned anything at all that is worth

knowing. And, perhaps, this child, if he were kept away from

books.... However, the thing is done now, and in any case he would

never have been able to dodge the School attendance officer."

CHAPTER VIII

HIS FIRST VISIT TO CHALLIS COURT

I

"Shall you be able to help me in collating your notes of the Tikopia

observations this morning, sir?" Lewes asked. He rose from the

breakfast-table and lit a cigarette. There was no ceremony between

Challis and his secretary.

"You forget our engagement for ten o'clock," said Challis.

"Need that distract us?"

"It need not, but doesn't it seem to you that it may furnish us with

valuable material?"

"Hardly pertinent, sir, is it?"

"What line do you think of taking up, Lewes?" asked Challis with

apparent irrelevance.

"With regard to this--this phenomenon?"

"No, no. I was speaking of your own ambitions." Challis had sauntered

over to the window; he stood, with his back to Lewes, looking out at

the blue and white of the April sky.

Lewes frowned. He did not understand the gist of the question. "I

suppose there is a year's work on this book before me yet," he said.

"Quite, quite," replied Challis, watching a cloud shadow swarm up the

slope of Deane Hill. "Yes, certainly a year's work. I was thinking

of the future."

"I have thought of laboratory work in connection with psychology,"

said Lewes, still puzzled.

"I thought I remembered your saying something of the kind," murmured

Challis absently. "We are going to have more rain. It will be a late

spring this year."

"Had the question any bearing on our engagement of this morning?" Lewes

was a little anxious, uncertain whether this inquiry as to his

future had not some particular significance; a hint, perhaps, that

his services would not be required much longer.

"Yes; I think it had," said Challis. "I saw the governess cart go up

the road a few minutes since."

"I suppose the boy will be here in a quarter of an hour?" said Lewes

by way of keeping up the conversation. He was puzzled; he did not know

Challis in this mood. He did not conceive it possible that Challis

could be nervous about the arrival of so insignificant a person as

this Stott child.

"It's all very ridiculous," broke out Challis suddenly; and he

turned away from the window, and joined Lewes by the fire. "Don't

you think so?"

"I'm afraid I don't follow you, sir."

Challis laughed. "I'm not surprised," he said; "I was a trifle

inconsecutive. But I wish you were more interested in this child,

Lewes. The thought of him engrosses me, and yet I don't want to meet

him. I should be relieved to hear that he wasn't coming. Surely you,

as a student of psychology ..." he broke off with a lift of his

heavy shoulders.

"Oh! Yes! I am interested, certainly, as you say, as a student of

psychology. We ought to take some measurements. The configuration

of the skull is not abnormal otherwise than in its relation to the

development of the rest of his body, but ..." Lewes meandered off

into somewhat abstruse speculation with regard to the significance

of craniology.

Challis nodded his head and murmured: "Quite, quite," occasionally. He

seemed glad that Lewes should continue to talk.

The lecture was interrupted by the appearance of the governess cart.

"By Jove, he has come," ejaculated Challis in the middle of one of

Lewes's periods. "You'll have to see me through this, my boy. I'm

damned if I know how to take the child."

Lewes flushed, annoyed at the interruption of his lecture. He had

believed that he had been interesting. "Curse the kid," was the

thought in his mind as he followed Challis to the window.

II

Jessop, the groom deputed to fetch the Wonder from Pym, looked a

little uneasy, perhaps a little scared. When he drew up at the porch,

the child pointed to the door of the cart and indicated that it was to

be opened for him. He was evidently used to being waited upon. When

this command had been obeyed, he descended deliberately and then

pointed to the front door.

"Open!" he said clearly, as Jessop hesitated. The Wonder knew nothing

of bells or ceremony.

Jessop came down from the cart and rang.

The butler opened the door. He was an old servant and accustomed to

his master's eccentricities, but he was not prepared for the vision

of that strange little figure, with a large head in a parti-coloured

cricket-cap, an apparition that immediately walked straight by him

into the hall, and pointed to the first door he came to.

"Oh, dear! Well, to be sure," gasped Heathcote. "Why, whatever----"

"Open!" commanded the Wonder, and Heathcote obeyed, weak-kneed.

The door chanced to be the right one, the door of the breakfast-room,

and the Wonder walked in, still wearing his cap.

Challis came forward to meet him with a conventional greeting. "I'm

glad you were able to come ..." he began, but the child took no notice;

he looked rapidly round the room, and not finding what he wanted,

signified his desire by a single word.

"Books," he said, and looked at Challis.

Heathcote stood at the door, hesitating between amazement and

disapproval. "I've never seen the like," was how he phrased his

astonishment later, in the servants' hall, "never in all my born

days. To see that melon-'eaded himp in a cricket-cap hordering the

master about. Well, there----"

"Jessop says he fair got the creeps drivin' 'im over," said the

cook. "'E says the child's not right in 'is 'ead."

Much embroidery followed in the servants' hall.

INTERLUDE

This brief history of the Hampdenshire Wonder is marked by a

stereotyped division into three parts, an arbitrary arrangement

dependent on the experience of the writer. The true division becomes

manifest at this point. The life of Victor Stott was cut into two

distinct sections, between which there is no correlation. The first

part should tell the story of his mind during the life of experience,

the time occupied in observation of the phenomena of life presented to

him in fact, without any specific teaching on the theories of existence

and progress, or on the speculation as to ultimate destiny. The second

part should deal with his entry into the world of books; into that

account of a long series of collated experiments and partly verified

hypotheses we call science; into the imperfectly developed system

of inductive and deductive logic which determines mathematics and

philosophy; into the long, inaccurate and largely unverifiable account

of human blindness and error known as history; and into the realm of

idealism, symbol, and pitiful pride we find in the story of poetry,

letters, and religion.

I will confess that I once contemplated the writing of such a

history. It was Challis who, in his courtly, gentle way, pointed out

to me that no man living had the intellectual capacity to undertake

so profound a work.

For some three months before I had this conversation with Challis,

I had been wrapped in solitude, dreaming, speculating. I had been

uplifted in thought, I had come to believe myself inspired as a result

of my separation from the world of men, and of the deep introspection

and meditation in which I had been plunged. I had arrived at a point,

perhaps not far removed from madness, at which I thought myself

capable of setting out the true history of Victor Stott.

Challis broke the spell. He cleared away the false glamour which was

blinding and intoxicating me, and brought me back to a condition of

open-eyed sanity. To Challis I owe a great debt.

Yet at the moment I was sunk in depression. All the glory of my vision

had faded; the afterglow was quenched in the blackness of the night

that drew out of the east and fell from the zenith as a curtain of

utter darkness.

Again Challis came to my rescue. He brought me a great sheaf of notes.

"Look here," he said, "if you can't write a true history of that

strange child, I see no reason why you should not write his story

as it is known to you, as it impinges on your own life. After all,

you, in many ways, know more of him than any one. You came nearest

to receiving his confidence."

"But only during the last few months," I said.

"Does that matter?" said Challis with an upheaval of his

shoulders--"shrug" is far too insignificant a word for that mountainous

humping. "Is any biography founded on better material than you have

at command?"

He unfolded his bundle of notes. "See here," he said, "here is some

magnificent material for you--first-hand observations made at the

time. Can't you construct a story from that?"

Even then I began to cast my story in a slightly biographical form. I

wrote half a dozen chapters, and read them to Challis.

"Magnificent, my dear fellow," was his comment, "magnificent; but no

one will believe it."

I had been carried away by my own prose, and with the natural vanity

of the author, I resented intensely his criticism.

For some weeks I did not see Challis again, and I persisted in my

futile endeavour, but always as I wrote that killing suggestion

insinuated itself: "No one will believe you." At times I felt as a

man may feel who has spent many years in a lunatic asylum, and after

his release is for ever engaged in a struggle to allay the doubts of

a leering suspicion.

I gave up the hopeless task at last, and sought out Challis again.

"Write it as a story," he suggested, "and give up the attempt to

carry conviction."

And in that spirit, adopting the form of a story, I did begin, and

in that form I hope to finish.

But here as I reach the great division, the determining factor of

Victor Stott's life, I am constrained to pause and apologise. I have

become uncomfortably conscious of my own limitations, and the feeble,

ephemeral methods I am using. I am trifling with a wonderful story,

embroidering my facts with the tawdry detail of my own imagining.

I saw--I see--no other way.

This is, indeed, a preface, yet I prefer to put it in this place,

since it was at this time I wrote it.

On the Common a faint green is coming again like a mist among the

ash-trees, while the oak is still dead and bare. Last year the oak

came first.

They say we shall have a wet summer.

PART II (continued)

THE WONDER AMONG BOOKS

CHAPTER IX

HIS PASSAGE THROUGH THE PRISON OF KNOWLEDGE

I

Challis led the way to the library; Lewes, petulant and mutinous,

hung in the rear.

The Wonder toddled forward, unabashed, to enter his new world. On

the threshold, however, he paused. His comprehensive stare took in a

sweeping picture of enclosing walls of books, and beyond was a vista

of further rooms, of more walls all lined from floor to ceiling with

records of human discovery, endeavour, doubt, and hope.

The Wonder stayed and stared. Then he took two faltering steps into

the room and stopped again, and, finally, he looked up at Challis with

doubt and question; his gaze no longer quelling and authoritative,

but hesitating, compliant, perhaps a little childlike.

"'Ave you read all these?" he asked.

It was a curious picture. The tall figure of Challis, stooping,

as always, slightly forward; Challis, with his seaman's eyes and

scholar's head, his hands loosely clasped together behind his back,

paying such scrupulous attention to that grotesque representative

of a higher intellectuality, clothed in the dress of a villager, a

patched cricket-cap drawn down over his globular skull, his little

arms hanging loosely at his sides; who, nevertheless, even in this

new, strange aspect of unwonted humility bore on his face the promise

of some ultimate development which differentiated him from all other

humanity, as the face of humanity is differentiated from the face of

its prognathous ancestor.

The scene is set in a world of books, and in the background lingers

the athletic figure and fair head of Lewes, the young Cambridge

undergraduate, the disciple of science, hardly yet across the threshold

which divides him from the knowledge of his own ignorance.

"'Ave you read all these?" asked the Wonder.

"A greater part of them--in effect," replied Challis. "There is

much repetition, you understand, and much record of experiment which

becomes, in a sense, worthless when the conclusions are either finally

accepted or rejected."

The eyes of the Wonder shifted and their expression became abstracted;

he seemed to lose consciousness of the outer world; he wore the look

which you may see in the eyes of Jakob Schlesinger's portrait of the

mature Hegel, a look of profound introspection and analysis.

There was an interval of silence, and then the Wonder unknowingly

gave expression to a quotation from Hamlet. "Words," he whispered

reflectively, and then again "words."

II

Challis understood him. "You have not yet learned the meaning of

words?" he asked.

The brief period--the only one recorded--of amazement and submission

was over. It may be that he had doubted during those few minutes of

time whether he was well advised to enter into that world of books,

whether he would not by so doing stunt his own mental growth. It may be

that the decision of so momentous a question should have been postponed

for a year--two years; to a time when his mind should have had further

possibilities for unlettered expansion. However that may be, he decided

now and finally. He walked to the table and climbed up on a chair.

"Books about words," he commanded, and pointed at Challis and Lewes.

They brought him the latest production of the twentieth century in

many volumes, the work of a dozen eminent authorities on the etymology

of the English language, and they seated him on eight volumes of the

Encyclopædia Britannica (India paper edition) in order that he might

reach the level of the table.

At first they tried to show him how his wonderful dictionary should be

used, but he pushed them on one side, neither then nor at any future

time would he consent to be taught--the process was too tedious for

him, his mind worked more fluently, rapidly, and comprehensively than

the mind of the most gifted teacher that could have been found for him.

So Challis and Lewes stood on one side and watched him, and he was no

more embarrassed by their presence than if they had been in another

world, as, possibly, they were.

He began with volume one, and he read the title page and the

introduction, the list of abbreviations, and all the preliminary

matter in due order.

Challis noted that when the Wonder began to read, he read no faster

than the average educated man, but that he acquired facility at a

most astounding rate, and that when he had been reading for a few

days his eye swept down the column, as it were at a single glance.

Challis and Lewes watched him for, perhaps, half an hour, and then,

seeing that their presence was of an entirely negligible value to

the Wonder, they left him and went into the farther room.

"Well?" asked Challis, "what do you make of him?"

"Is he reading or pretending to read?" parried Lewes. "Do you think

it possible that he could read so fast? Moreover, remember that he

has admitted that he knows few words of the English language, yet he

does not refer from volume to volume; he does not look up the meanings

of the many unknown words which must occur in every definition."

"I know. I had noticed that."

"Then you think he is humbugging--pretending to read?"

"No; that solution seems to me altogether unlikely. He could not,

for one thing, simulate that look of attention. Remember, Lewes,

the child is not yet five years old."

"What is your explanation, then?"

"I am wondering whether the child has not a memory beside which the

memory of a Macaulay would appear insignificant."

Lewes did not grasp Challis's intention. "Even so ..." he began.

"And," continued Challis, "I am wondering whether, if that is the case,

he is, in effect, prepared to learn the whole dictionary by heart,

and, so to speak, collate its contents later, in his mind."

"Oh! Sir!" Lewes smiled. The supposition was too outrageous to be

taken seriously. "Surely, you can't mean that." There was something

in Lewes's tone which carried a hint of contempt for so far-fetched

a hypothesis.

Challis was pacing up and down the library, his hands clasped behind

him. "Yes, I mean it," he said, without looking up. "I put it forward

as a serious theory, worthy of full consideration."

Lewes sneered. "Oh, surely not, sir," he said.

Challis stopped and faced him. "Why not, Lewes; why not?" he

asked, with a kindly smile. "Think of the gap which separates your

intellectual powers from those of a Polynesian savage. Why, after

all, should it be impossible that this child's powers should equally

transcend our own? A freak, if you will, an abnormality, a curious

effect of nature's, like the giant puff-ball--but still----"

"Oh! yes, sir, I grant you the thing is not impossible from a

theoretical point of view," argued Lewes, "but I think you are

theorising on altogether insufficient evidence. I am willing to admit

that such a freak is theoretically possible, but I have not yet found

the indications of such a power in the child."

Challis resumed his pacing. "Quite, quite," he assented; "your method

is perfectly correct--perfectly correct. We must wait."

At twelve o'clock Challis brought a glass of milk and some biscuits,

and set them beside the Wonder--he was at the letter "B."

"Well, how are you getting on?" asked Challis.

The Wonder took not the least notice of the question, but he stretched

out a little hand and took a biscuit and ate it, without looking up

from his reading.

"I wish he'd answer questions," Challis remarked to Lewes, later.

"I should prescribe a sound shaking," returned Lewes.

Challis smiled. "Well, see here, Lewes," he said, "I'll take the

responsibility; you go and experiment, go and shake him."

Lewes looked through the folding doors at the picture of the Wonder,

intent on his study of the great dictionary. "Since you've franked

me," he said, "I'll do it--but not now. I'll wait till he gives me

some occasion."

"Good," replied Challis, "my offer holds ... and, by the way, I have

no doubt that an occasion will present itself. Doesn't it strike you

as likely, Lewes, that we shall see a good deal of the child here?"

They stood for some minutes, watching the picture of that intent

student, framed in the written thoughts of his predecessors.

III

The Wonder ignored an invitation to lunch; he ignored, also, the tray

that was sent in to him. He read on steadily till a quarter to six,

by which time he was at the end of "L," and then he climbed down

from his Encyclopædia, and made for the door. Challis, working in

the farther room, saw him and came out to open the door.

"Are you going now?" he asked.

The child nodded.

"I will order the cart for you, if you will wait ten minutes,"

said Challis.

The child shook his head. "It's very necessary to have air," he said.

Something in the tone and pronunciation struck Challis, and awoke a

long dormant memory. The sentence spoken, suddenly conjured up a vision

of the Stotts' cottage at Stoke, of the Stotts at tea, of a cradle in

the shadow, and of himself, sitting in an uncomfortable armchair and

swinging his stick between his knees. When the child had gone--walking

deliberately, and evidently regarding the mile-and-a-half walk through

the twilight wood and over the deserted Common as a trivial incident

in the day's business--Challis set himself to analyse that curious

association.

As he strolled back across the hall to the library, he tried to

reconstruct the scene of the cottage at Stoke, and to recall the

outline of the conversation he had had with the Stotts.

"Lewes!" he said, when he reached the room in which his secretary was

working, "Lewes, this is curious," and he described the associations

called up by the child's speech. "The curious thing is," he continued,

"that I had gone to advise Mrs. Stott to take a cottage at Pym, because

the Stoke villagers were hostile, in some way, and she did not care

to take the child out in the street. It is more than probable that

I used just those words, 'It is very necessary to have air,' very

probable. Now, what about my memory theory? The child was only six

months old at that time."

Lewes appeared unconvinced. "There is nothing very unusual in the

sentence," he said.

"Forgive me," replied Challis, "I don't agree with you. It is not

phrased as a villager would phrase it, and, as I tell you, it was

not spoken with the local accent."

"You may have spoken the sentence to-day," suggested Lewes.

"I may, of course, though I don't remember saying anything of the sort,

but that would not account for the curiously vivid association which

was conjured up."

Lewes pursed his lips. "No, no, no," he said. "But that is hardly

ground for argument, is it?"

"I suppose not," returned Challis thoughtfully; "but when you take up

psychology, Lewes, I should much like you to specialise in a careful

inquiry into association in connection with memory. I feel certain that

if one can reproduce, as nearly as may be, any complex sensation one

has experienced, no matter how long ago, one will stimulate what I may

call an abnormal memory of all the associations connected with that

experience. Just now I saw the interior of that room in the Stotts'

cottage so clearly that I had an image of a dreadful oleograph of

Disraeli hanging on the wall. But, now, I cannot for the life of me

remember whether there was such an oleograph or not. I do not remember

noticing it at the time."

"Yes, that's very interesting," replied Lewes. "There is certainly

a wide field for research in that direction."

"You might throw much light on our mental processes," replied Challis.

(It was as the outcome of this conversation that Gregory Lewes did,

two years afterwards, take up this line of study. The only result up

to the present time is his little brochure Reflexive Associations,

which has hardly added to our knowledge of the subject.)

IV

Challis's anticipation that he and Lewes would be greatly favoured

by the Wonder's company was fully realised.

The child put in an appearance at half-past nine the next morning,

just as the governess cart was starting out to fetch him. When he was

admitted he went straight to the library, climbed on to the chair,

upon which the volumes of the Encyclopædia still remained, and

continued his reading where he had left off on the previous evening.

He read steadily throughout the day without giving utterance to speech

of any kind.

Challis and Lewes went out in the afternoon, and left the child deep

in study. They came in at five o'clock, and went to the library. The

Wonder, however, was not there.

Challis rang the bell.

"Has little Stott gone?" he asked when Heathcote came.

"I 'aven't seen 'im, sir," said Heathcote.

"Just find out if any one opened the door for him, will you?" said

Challis. "He couldn't possibly have opened that door for himself."

"No one 'asn't let Master Stott hout, sir," Heathcote reported on

his return.

"Are you sure?"

"Quite sure, sir. I've made full hinquiries," said Heathcote with

dignity.

"Well, we'd better find him," said Challis.

"The window is open," suggested Lewes.

"He would hardly ..." began Challis, walking over to the low sill

of the open window, but he broke off in his sentence and continued,

"By Jove, he did, though; look here!"

It was, indeed, quite obvious that the Wonder had made his exit by

the window; the tiny prints of his feet were clearly marked in the

mould of the flowerbed; he had, moreover, disregarded all results of

early spring floriculture.

"See how he has smashed those daffodils," said Lewes. "What an

infernally cheeky little brute he is!"

"What interests me is the logic of the child," returned Challis. "I

would venture to guess that he wasted no time in trying to attract

attention. The door was closed, so he just got out of the window. I

rather admire the spirit; there is something Napoleonic about

him. Don't you think so?"

Lewes shrugged his shoulders. Heathcote's expression was quite

non-committal.

"You'd better send Jessop up to Pym, Heathcote," said Challis. "Let

him find out whether the child is safe at home."

Jessop reported an hour afterwards that Master Stott had arrived home

quite safely, and Mrs. Stott was much obliged.

V

"What can I give that child to read to-day?" asked Challis at breakfast

next morning.

"I should reverse the arrangement; let him sit on the Dictionary and

read the Encyclopædia." Lewes always approached the subject of the

Wonder with a certain supercilious contempt.

"You are not convinced yet that he isn't humbugging?"

"No! Frankly, I'm not."

"Well, well, we must wait for more evidence, before we argue about

it," said Challis, but they sat on over the breakfast-table, waiting

for the child to put in an appearance, and their conversation hovered

over the topic of his intelligence.

"Half-past ten?" Challis ejaculated at last, with surprise. "We are

getting into slack habits, Lewes." He rose and rang the bell.

"Apparently the Stott infant has had enough of it," suggested

Lewes. "Perhaps he has exhausted the interest of dictionary

illustrations."

"We shall see," replied Challis, and then to a deferentially appearing

Heathcote he said: "Has Master Stott come this morning?"

"No, sir. Leastways, no one 'asn't let 'im in, sir."

"It may be that he is mentally collating the results of the past

two days' reading," said Challis, as he and Lewes made their way to

the library.

"Oh!" was all Lewes's reply, but it conveyed much of impatient contempt

for his employer's attitude.

Challis only smiled.

When they entered the library they found the Wonder hard at work, and

he had, of his own initiative, adopted the plan ironically suggested

by Lewes, for he had succeeded in transferring the Dictionary volumes

to the chair, and he was deep in volume one, of the eleventh edition

of the Encyclopædia Britannica.

The library was never cleared up by any one except Challis or his

deputy, but an early housemaid had been sent to dust, and she had

left the casement of one of the lower lights of the window open. The

means of the Wonder's entrance was thus clearly in evidence.

"It's Napoleonic," murmured Challis.

"It's most infernal cheek," returned Lewes in a loud voice, "I

should not be at all surprised if that promised shaking were not

administered to-day."

The Wonder took no notice. Challis says that on that morning his eyes

were travelling down the page at about the rate at which one could

count the lines.

"He isn't reading," said Lewes. "No one could read as fast as that,

and most certainly not a child of four and a half."

"If he would only answer questions...." hesitated Challis.

"Oh! of course he won't do that," said Lewes. "He's clever enough

not to give himself away."

The two men went over to the table and looked down over the child's

shoulder. He was in the middle of the article on algebra.

Lewes made a gesture. "Now do you believe he's humbugging?" he asked

confidently, and made no effort to modulate his voice.

Challis drew his eyebrows together. "My boy," he said, and laid his

hand lightly on Victor Stott's shoulder, "can you understand what

you are reading there?"

But no answer was vouchsafed. Challis sighed. "Come along, Lewes,"

he said; "we must waste no more time."

Lewes wore a look of smug triumph as they went to the farther room, but

he was clever enough to refrain from expressing his triumph in speech.

VI

Challis gave directions that the window which the Wonder had found to

be his most convenient method of entry and exit should be kept open,

except at night; and a stool was placed under the sill inside the

room, and a low bench was fixed outside to facilitate the child's

goings and comings. Also, a little path was made across the flowerbed.

The Wonder gave no trouble. He arrived at nine o'clock every morning,

Sunday included, and left at a quarter to six in the evening. On

wet days he was provided with a waterproof which had evidently been

made by his mother out of a larger garment. This he took off when he

entered the room and left on the stool under the window.

He was given a glass of milk and a plate of bread-and-butter at twelve

o'clock; and except for this he demanded and received no attention.

For three weeks he devoted himself exclusively to the study of the

Encyclopædia.

Lewes was puzzled.

Challis spoke little of the child during these three weeks, but

he often stood at the entrance to the farther rooms and watched

the Wonder's eyes travelling so rapidly yet so intently down the

page. That sight had a curious fascination for him; he returned to

his own work by an effort, and an hour afterwards he would be back

again at the door of the larger room. Sometimes Lewes would hear

him mutter: "If he would only answer a few questions...." There was

always one hope in Challis's mind. He hoped that some sort of climax

might be reached when the Encyclopædia was finished. The child must,

at least, ask then for another book. Even if he chose one for himself,

his choice might furnish some sort of a test.

So Challis waited and said little; and Lewes was puzzled, because

he was beginning to doubt whether it were possible that the child

could sustain a pose so long. That, in itself, would be evidence

of extraordinary abnormality. Lewes fumbled in his mind for another

hypothesis.

This reading craze may be symptomatic of some form of idiocy, was his

thought; "and I don't believe he does read," was the inevitable rider.

Mrs. Stott usually came to meet her son, and sometimes she would come

early in the afternoon and stand at the window watching him at his

work; but neither Challis nor Lewes ever saw the Wonder display by

any sign that he was aware of his mother's presence.

During those three weeks the Wonder held himself completely detached

from any intercourse with the world of men. At the end of that period

he once more manifested his awareness of the human factor in existence.

Challis, if he spoke little to Lewes of the Wonder during this time,

maintained a strict observation of the child's doings.

The Wonder began his last volume of the Encyclopædia one Wednesday

afternoon soon after lunch, and on Thursday morning, Challis was

continually in and out of the room watching the child's progress, and

noting his nearness to the end of the colossal task he had undertaken.

At a quarter to twelve he took up his old position in the doorway,

and with his hands clasped behind his back he watched the reading of

the last forty pages.

There was no slackening and no quickening in the Wonder's rate of

progress. He read the articles under "Z" with the same attention he

had given to the remainder of the work, and then, arrived at the last

page, he closed the volume and took up the Index.

Challis suffered a qualm; not so much on account of the possible

postponement of the crisis he was awaiting, as because he saw that

the reading of the Index could only be taken as a sign that the

whole study had been unintelligent. No one could conceivably have

any purpose in reading through an index.

And at this moment Lewes joined him in the doorway.

"What volume has he got to now?" asked Lewes.

"The Index," returned Challis.

Lewes was no less quick in drawing his inference than Challis had been.

"Well, that settles it, I should think," was Lewes's comment.

"Wait, wait," returned Challis.

The Wonder turned a dozen pages at once, glanced at the new opening,

made a further brief examination of two or three headings near the

end of the volume, closed the book, and looked up.

"Have you finished?" asked Challis.

The Wonder shook his head. "All this," he said--he indicated with

a small and dirty hand the pile of volumes that were massed round

him--"all this ..." he repeated, hesitated for a word, and again

shook his head with that solemn, deliberate impressiveness which

marked all his actions.

Challis came towards the child, leaned over the table for a moment,

and then sat down opposite to him. Between the two protagonists

hovered Lewes, sceptical, inclined towards aggression.

"I am most interested," said Challis. "Will you try to tell me,

my boy, what you think of--all this?"

"So elementary ... inchoate ... a disjunctive ... patchwork" replied

the Wonder. His abstracted eyes were blind to the objective world of

our reality; he seemed to be profoundly analysing the very elements

of thought.

VII

Then that almost voiceless child found words. Heathcote's announcement

of lunch was waved aside, the long afternoon waned, and still that

thin trickle of sound flowed on.

The Wonder spoke in odd, pedantic phrases; he used the technicalities

of every science; he constructed his sentences in unusual ways, and

often he paused for a word and gave up the search, admitting that

his meaning could not be expressed through the medium of any language

known to him.

Occasionally Challis would interrupt him fiercely, would even rise

from his chair and pace the room, arguing, stating a point of view,

combating some suggestion that underlay the trend of that pitiless

wisdom which in the end bore him down with its unanswerable insistence.

During those long hours much was stated by that small, thin voice

which was utterly beyond the comprehension of the two listeners;

indeed, it is doubtful whether even Challis understood a tithe of

the theory that was actually expressed in words.

As for Lewes, though he was at the time non-plussed, quelled, he was

in the outcome impressed rather by the marvellous powers of memory

exhibited than by the far finer powers shown in the superhuman logic

of the synthesis.

One sees that Lewes entered upon the interview with a mind predisposed

to criticise, to destroy. There can be no doubt that as he listened

his uninformed mind was endeavouring to analyse, to weigh, and to

oppose; and this antagonism and his own thoughts continually interposed

between him and the thought of the speaker. Lewes's account of what

was spoken on that afternoon is utterly worthless.

Challis's failure to comprehend was not, at the outset, due to his

antagonistic attitude. He began with an earnest wish to understand:

he failed only because the thing spoken was beyond the scope of his

intellectual powers. But he did, nevertheless, understand the trend of

that analysis of progress; he did in some half-realised way apprehend

the gist of that terrible deduction of a final adjustment.

He must have apprehended, in part, for he fiercely combated the

argument, only to quaver, at last, into a silence which permitted

again that trickle of hesitating, pedantic speech, which was yet so

overwhelming, so conclusive.

As the afternoon wore on, however, Challis's attitude must have

changed; he must have assumed an armour of mental resistance not

unlike the resistance of Lewes. Challis perceived, however dimly,

that life would hold no further pleasure for him if he accepted that

theory of origin, evolution, and final adjustment; he found in this

cosmogony no place for his own idealism; and he feared to be convinced

even by that fraction of the whole argument which he could understand.

We see that Challis, with all his apparent devotion to science, was

never more than a dilettante. He had another stake in the world which,

at the last analysis, he valued more highly than the acquisition of

knowledge. Those means of ease, of comfort, of liberty, of opportunity

to choose his work among various interests, were the ruling influence

of his life. With it all Challis was an idealist, and unpractical. His

genial charity, his refinement of mind, his unthinking generosity,

indicate the bias of a character which inclined always towards a

picturesque optimism. It is not difficult to understand that he

dared not allow himself to be convinced by Victor Stott's appalling

synthesis.

At last, when the twilight was deepening into night, the voice ceased,

the child's story had been told, and it had not been understood. The

Wonder never again spoke of his theory of life. He realised from that

time that no one could comprehend him.

As he rose to go, he asked one question that, simple as was its

expression, had a deep and wonderful significance.

"Is there none of my kind?" he said. "Is this," and he laid a hand

on the pile of books before him, "is this all?"

"There is none of your kind," replied Challis; and the little figure

born into a world that could not understand him, that was not ready

to receive him, walked to the window and climbed out into the darkness.

(Henry Challis is the only man who could ever have given any account

of that extraordinary analysis of life, and he made no effort to

recall the fundamental basis of the argument, and so allowed his

memory of the essential part to fade. Moreover, he had a marked

disinclination to speak of that afternoon or of anything that was said

by Victor Stott during those six momentous hours of expression. It is

evident that Challis's attitude to Victor Stott was not unlike the

attitude of Captain Wallis to Victor Stott's father on the occasion

of Hampdenshire's historic match with Surrey. "This man will have to

be barred," Wallis said. "It means the end of cricket." Challis, in

effect, thought that if Victor Stott were encouraged, it would mean

the end of research, philosophy, all the mystery, idealism, and joy

of life. Once, and once only, did Challis give me any idea of what

he had learned during that afternoon's colloquy, and the substance

of what Challis then told me will be found at the end of this volume.)

CHAPTER X

HIS PASTORS AND MASTERS

I

For many months after that long afternoon in the library, Challis

was affected with a fever of restlessness, and his work on the book

stood still. He was in Rome during May, and in June he was seized by

a sudden whim and went to China by the Trans-Siberian railway. Lewes

did not accompany him. Challis preferred, one imagines, to have no

intercourse with Lewes while the memory of certain pronouncements was

still fresh. He might have been tempted to discuss that interview,

and if, as was practically certain, Lewes attempted to pour contempt

on the whole affair, Challis might have been drawn into a defence

which would have revived many memories he wished to obliterate.

He came back to London in September--he made the return journey by

steamer--and found his secretary still working at the monograph on

the primitive peoples of Melanesia.

Lewes had spent the whole summer in Challis's town house in Eaton

Square, whither all the material had been removed two days after that

momentous afternoon in the library of Challis Court.

"I have been wanting your help badly for some time, sir," Lewes said on

the evening of Challis's return. "Are you proposing to take up the work

again? If not...." Gregory Lewes thought he was wasting valuable time.

"Yes, yes, of course; I am ready to begin again now, if you care to

go on with me," said Challis. He talked for a few minutes of the book

without any great show of interest. Presently they came to a pause,

and Lewes suggested that he should give some account of how his time

had been spent.

"To-morrow," replied Challis, "to-morrow will be time enough. I shall

settle down again in a few days." He hesitated a moment, and then said:

"Any news from Chilborough?"

"N-no, I don't think so," returned Lewes. He was occupied with his

own interests; he doubted Challis's intention to continue his work

on the book--the announcement had been so half-hearted.

"What about that child?" asked Challis.

"That child?" Lewes appeared to have forgotten the existence of

Victor Stott.

"That abnormal child of Stott's?" prompted Challis.

"Oh! Of course, yes. I believe he still goes nearly every day to the

library. I have been down there two or three times, and found him

reading. He has learned the use of the index-catalogue. He can get

any book he wants. He uses the steps."

"Do you know what he reads?"

"No; I can't say I do."

"What do you think will become of him?"

"Oh! these infant prodigies, you know," said Lewes with a large air

of authority, "they all go the same way. Most of them die young,

of course, the others develop into ordinary commonplace men rather

under than over the normal ability. After all, it is what one

would expect. Nature always maintains her average by some means or

another. If a child like this with his abnormal memory were to go on

developing, there would be no place for him in the world's economy. The

idea is inconceivable."

"Quite, quite," murmured Challis, and after a short silence he added:

"You think he will deteriorate, that his faculties will decay

prematurely?"

"I should say there could be no doubt of it," replied Lewes.

"Ah! well. I'll go down and have a look at him, one day next week,"

said Challis; but he did not go till the middle of October.

The direct cause of his going was a letter from Crashaw, who offered

to come up to town, as the matter was one of "really peculiar urgency."

"I wonder if young Stott has been blaspheming again," Challis remarked

to Lewes. "Wire the man that I'll go down and see him this afternoon. I

shall motor. Say I'll be at Stoke about half-past three."

II

Challis was ushered into Crashaw's study on his arrival, and found

the rector in company with another man--introduced as Mr. Forman--a

jolly-looking, high-complexioned man of sixty or so, with a great

quantity of white hair on his head and face; he was wearing an

old-fashioned morning-coat and grey trousers that were noticeably

too short for him.

Crashaw lost no time in introducing the subject of "really peculiar

urgency," but he rambled in his introduction.

"You have probably forgotten," he said, "that last spring I had to

bring a most horrible charge against a child called Victor Stott,

who has since been living, practically, as I may say, under your

ægis, that is, he has, at least, spent a greater part of his day,

er--playing in your library at Challis Court."

"Quite, quite; I remember perfectly," said Challis. "I made myself

responsible for him up to a certain point. I gave him an occupation. It

was intended, was it not, to divert his mind from speaking against

religion to the yokels?"

"Quite a character, if I may say so," put in Mr. Forman cheerfully.

Crashaw was seated at his study table; the affair had something the

effect of an examining magistrate taking the evidence of witnesses.

"Yes, yes," he said testily; "I did ask your help, Mr. Challis,

and I did, in a way, receive some assistance from you. That is,

the child has to some extent been isolated by spending so much of

his time at your house."

"Has he broken out again?" asked Challis.

"If I understand you to mean has the child been speaking openly

on any subject connected with religion, I must say 'No,'" said

Crashaw. "But he never attends any Sunday school, or place of worship;

he has received no instruction in--er--any sacred subject, though

I understand he is able to read; and his time is spent among books

which, pardon me, would not, I suppose, be likely to give a serious

turn to his thoughts."

"Serious?" questioned Challis.

"Perhaps I should say 'religious,'" replied Crashaw. "To me the two

words are synonymous."

Mr. Forman bowed his head slightly with an air of reverence, and

nodded two or three times to express his perfect approval of the

rector's sentiments.

"You think the child's mind is being perverted by his intercourse

with the books in the library where he--he--'plays' was your word,

I believe?"

"No, not altogether," replied Crashaw, drawing his eyebrows

together. "We can hardly suppose that he is able at so tender an

age to read, much less to understand, those works of philosophy and

science which would produce an evil effect on his mind. I am willing

to admit, since I, too, have had some training in scientific reading,

that writers on those subjects are not easily understood even by the

mature intelligence."

"Then why, exactly, do you wish me to prohibit the child from coming

to Challis Court?"

"Possibly you have not realised that the child is now five years

old?" said Crashaw with an air of conferring illumination.

"Indeed! Yes. An age of some discretion, no doubt," returned Challis.

"An age at which the State requires that he should receive the elements

of education," continued Crashaw.

"Eh?" said Challis.

"Time he went to school," explained Mr. Forman. "I've been after him,

you know. I'm the attendance officer for this district."

Challis for once committed a breach of good manners. The import of the

thing suddenly appealed to his sense of humour: he began to chuckle

and then he laughed out a great, hearty laugh, such as had not been

stirred in him for twenty years.

"Oh! forgive me, forgive me," he said, when he had recovered his

self-control. "But you don't know; you can't conceive the utter,

childish absurdity of setting that child to recite the multiplication

table with village infants of his own age. Oh! believe me, if

you could only guess, you would laugh with me. It's so funny, so

inimitably funny."

"I fail to see, Mr. Challis," said Crashaw, "that there is anything

in any way absurd or--or unusual in the preposition."

"Five is the age fixed by the State," said Mr. Forman. He had relaxed

into a broad smile in sympathy with Challis's laugh, but he had now

relapsed into a fair imitation of Crashaw's intense seriousness.

"Oh! How can I explain?" said Challis. "Let me take an instance. You

propose to teach him, among other things, the elements of arithmetic?"

"It is a part of the curriculum," replied Mr. Forman.

"I have only had one conversation with this child," went on

Challis--and at the mention of that conversation his brows drew

together and he became very grave again; "but in the course of that

conversation this child had occasion to refer, by way of illustration,

to some abstruse theorem of the differential calculus. He did it,

you will understand, by way of making his meaning clear--though the

illustration was utterly beyond me: that reference represented an

act of intellectual condescension."

"God bless me, you don't say so?" said Mr. Forman.

"I cannot see," said Crashaw, "that this instance of yours,

Mr. Challis, has any real bearing on the situation. If the child is

a mathematical genius--there have been instances in history, such as

Blaise Pascal--he would not, of course, receive elementary instruction

in a subject with which he was already acquainted."

"You could not find any subject, believe me, Crashaw, in which he

could be instructed by any teacher in a Council school."

"Forgive me, I don't agree with you," returned Crashaw. "He is sadly

in need of some religious training."

"He would not get that at a Council school," said Challis, and

Mr. Forman shook his head sadly, as though he greatly deprecated

the fact.

"He must learn to recognise authority," said Crashaw. "When he has

been taught the necessity of submitting himself to all his governors,

teachers, spiritual pastors, and masters: ordering himself lowly and

reverently to all his betters; when, I say, he has learnt that lesson,

he may be in a fit and proper condition to receive the teachings of

the Holy Church."

Mr. Forman appeared to think he was attending divine service. If the

rector had said "Let us pray," there can be no doubt that he would

immediately have fallen on his knees.

Challis shook his head. "You can't understand, Crashaw," he said.

"I do understand," said Crashaw, rising to his feet, "and I intend

to see that the statute is not disobeyed in the case of this child,

Victor Stott."

Challis shrugged his shoulders; Mr. Forman assumed an expression of

stern determination.

"In any case, why drag me into it?" asked Challis.

Crashaw sat down again. The flush which had warmed his sallow

skin subsided as his passion died out. He had worked himself into a

condition of righteous indignation, but the calm politeness of Challis

rebuked him. If Crashaw prided himself on his devotion to the Church,

he did not wish that attitude to overshadow the pride he also took in

the belief that he was Challis's social equal. Crashaw's father had

been a lawyer, with a fair practice in Derby, but he had worked his

way up to a partnership from the position of office-boy, and Percy

Crashaw seldom forgot to be conscious that he was a gentleman by

education and profession.

"I did not wish to drag you into this business," he said quietly,

putting his elbows on the writing-table in front of him, and reassuming

the judicial attitude he had adopted earlier; "but I regard this

child as, in some sense, your protégé." Crashaw put the tips of his

fingers together, and Mr. Forman watched him warily, waiting for

his cue. If this was to be a case for prayer, Mr. Forman was ready,

with a clean white handkerchief to kneel upon.

"In some sense, perhaps," returned Challis. "I haven't seen him for

some months."

"Cannot you see the necessity of his attending school?" asked Crashaw,

this time with an insinuating suavity; he believed that Challis was

coming round.

"Oh!" Challis sighed with a note of expostulation. "Oh! the thing's

grotesque, ridiculous."

"If that's so," put in Mr. Forman, who had been struck by a brilliant

idea, "why not bring the child here, and let the Reverend Mr. Crashaw,

or myself, put a few general questions to 'im?"

"Ye-es," hesitated Crashaw, "that might be done; but, of course,

the decision does not rest with us."

"It rests with the Local Authority," mused Challis. He was running

over three or four names of members of that body who were known to him.

"Certainly," said Crashaw, "the Local Education Authority alone has the

right to prosecute, but----" He did not state his antithesis. They had

come to the crux which Crashaw had wished to avoid. He had no weight

with the committee of the L.E.A., and Challis's recommendation would

have much weight. Crashaw intended that Victor Stott should attend

school, but he had bungled his preliminaries: he had rested on his

own authority, and forgotten that Challis had little respect for that

influence. Conciliation was the only card to play now.

"If I brought him, he wouldn't answer your questions," sighed

Challis. "He's very difficult to deal with."

"Is he, indeed?" sympathised Mr. Forman. "I've 'ardly seen 'im myself;

not to speak to, that is."

"He might come with his mother," suggested Crashaw.

Challis shook his head. "By the way, it is the mother whom you would

proceed against?" he asked.

"The parent is responsible," said Mr. Forman. "She will be brought

before a magistrate and fined for the first offence."

"I shan't fine her if she comes before me," replied Challis.

Crashaw smiled. He meant to avoid that eventuality.

The little meeting lapsed into a brief silence. There seemed to be

nothing more to say.

"Well," said Crashaw, at last, with a rising inflexion that had a

conciliatory, encouraging, now-my-little-man kind of air, "We-ll, of

course, no one wishes to proceed to extremes. I think, Mr. Challis,

I think I may say that you are the person who has most influence

in this matter, and I cannot believe that you will go against the

established authority both of the Church and the State. If it were

only for the sake of example."

Challis rose deliberately. He shook his head, and unconsciously his

hands went behind his back. There was hardly room for him to pace up

and down, but he took two steps towards Mr. Forman, who immediately

rose to his feet; and then he turned and went over to the window. It

was from there that he pronounced his ultimatum.

"Regulations, laws, religious and lay authorities," he said, "come

into existence in order to deal with the rule, the average. That

must be so. But if we are a reasoning, intellectual people we must

have some means of dealing with the exception. That means rests

with a consensus of intelligent opinion strong enough to set the

rule upon one side. In an overwhelming majority of cases there

is no such consensus of opinion, and the exceptional individual

suffers by coming within the rule of a law which should not apply

to him. Now, I put it to you, as reasoning, intelligent men" ('ear,

'ear, murmured Mr. Forman automatically), "are we, now that we have

the power to perform a common act of justice, to exempt an unfortunate

individual exception who has come within the rule of a law that holds

no application for him, or are we to exhibit a crass stupidity by

enforcing that law? Is it not better to take the case into our own

hands, and act according to the dictates of common sense?"

"Very forcibly put," murmured Mr. Forman.

"I'm not finding any fault with the law or the principle of the law,"

continued Challis; "but it is, it must be, framed for the average. We

must use our discretion in dealing with the exception--and this

is an exception such as has never occurred since we have had an

Education Act."

"I don't agree with you," said Crashaw, stubbornly. "I do not consider

this an exception."

"But you must agree with me, Crashaw. I have a certain amount of

influence and I shall use it."

"In that case," replied Crashaw, rising to his feet, "I shall fight

you to the bitter end. I am determined"--he raised his voice and

struck the writing-table with his fist--"I am determined that this

infidel child shall go to school. I am prepared, if necessary, to

spend all my leisure in seeing that the law is carried out."

Mr. Forman had also risen. "Very right, very right, indeed," he said,

and he knitted his mild brows and stroked his patriarchal white beard

with a simulation of stern determination.

"I think you would be better advised to let the matter rest,"

said Challis.

Mr. Forman looked inquiringly at the representative of the Church.

"I shall fight," replied Crashaw, stubbornly, fiercely.

"Ha!" said Mr. Forman.

"Very well, as you think best," was Challis's last word.

As Challis walked down to the gate, where his motor was awaiting him,

Mr. Forman trotted up from behind and ranged himself alongside.

"More rain wanted yet for the roots, sir," he said. "September was

a grand month for 'arvest, but we want rain badly now."

"Quite, quite," murmured Challis, politely. He shook hands with

Mr. Forman before he got into the car.

Mr. Forman, standing politely bareheaded, saw that Mr. Challis's car

went in the direction of Ailesworth.

CHAPTER XI

HIS EXAMINATION

I

Challis's first visit was paid to Sir Deane Elmer, that man of many

activities, whose name inevitably suggests his favourite phrase of

"Organised Progress"--with all its variants.

This is hardly the place in which to criticise a man of such

diverse abilities as Deane Elmer, a man whose name still figures so

prominently in the public press in connection with all that is most

modern in eugenics; with the Social Reform programme of the moderate

party; with the reconstruction of our penal system; with education,

and so many kindred interests; and, finally, of course, with colour

photography and process printing. This last Deane Elmer always spoke

of as his hobby, but we may doubt whether all his interests were

not hobbies in the same sense. He is the natural descendant of those

earlier amateur scientists--the adjective conveys no reproach--of the

nineteenth century, among whom we remember such striking figures as

those of Lord Avebury and Sir Francis Galton.

In appearance Deane Elmer was a big, heavy, rather corpulent man, with

a high complexion, and his clean-shaven jowl and his succession of

chins hung in heavy folds. But any suggestion of material grossness

was contradicted by the brightness of his rather pale-blue eyes,

by his alertness of manner, and by his ready, whimsical humour.

As chairman of the Ailesworth County Council, and its most prominent

unpaid public official--after the mayor--Sir Deane Elmer was certainly

the most important member of the Local Authority, and Challis wisely

sought him at once. He found him in the garden of his comparatively

small establishment on the Quainton side of the town. Elmer was very

much engaged in photographing flowers from nature through the ruled

screen and colour filter--in experimenting with the Elmer process,

in fact; by which the intermediate stage of a coloured negative is

rendered unnecessary. His apparatus was complicated and cumbrous.

"Show Mr. Challis out here," he commanded the man who brought the

announcement.

"You must forgive me, Challis," said Elmer, when Challis appeared. "We

haven't had such a still day for weeks. It's the wind upsets us in

this process. Screens create a partial vacuum."

He was launched on a lecture upon his darling process before Challis

could get in a word. It was best to let him have his head, and Challis

took an intelligent interest.

It was not until the photographs were taken, and his two assistants

could safely be trusted to complete the mechanical operations,

that Elmer could be divorced from his hobby. He was full of

jubilation. "We should have excellent results," he boomed--he had a

tremendous voice--"but we shan't be able to judge until we get the

blocks made. We do it all on the spot. I have a couple of platens in

the shops here; but we shan't be able to take a pull until to-morrow

morning, I'm afraid. You shall have a proof, Challis. We should get

magnificent results." He looked benignantly at the vault of heaven,

which had been so obligingly free from any current of air.

Challis was beginning to fear that even now he would be allowed no

opportunity to open the subject of his mission. But quite suddenly

Elmer dropped the shutter on his preoccupation, and with that ready

adaptability which was so characteristic of the man, forgot his hobby

for the time being, and turned his whole attention to a new subject.

"Well?" he said, "what is the latest news in anthropology?"

"A very remarkable phenomenon," replied Challis. "That is what I have

come to see you about."

"I thought you were in Paraguay pigging it with the Guaranis----"

"No, no; I don't touch the Americas," interposed Challis. "I want

all your attention, Elmer. This is important."

"Come into my study," said Elmer, "and let us have the facts. What

will you have--tea, whisky, beer?"

Challis's résumé of the facts need not be reported. When it was

accomplished, Elmer put several keen questions, and finally delivered

his verdict thus:

"We must see the boy, Challis. Personally I am, of course, satisfied,

but we must not give Crashaw opportunity to raise endless questions,

as he can and will. There is Mayor Purvis, the grocer, to be reckoned

with, you must remember. He represents a powerful Nonconformist

influence. Crashaw will get hold of him--and work him if we see

Purvis first. Purvis always stiffens his neck against any breach of

conventional procedure. If Crashaw saw him first, well and good, Purvis

would immediately jump to the conclusion that Crashaw intended some

subtle attack on the Nonconformist position, and would side with us."

"I don't think I know Purvis," mused Challis.

"Purvis & Co. in the Square," prompted Elmer. "Black-and-white fellow;

black moustache and side whiskers, black eyes and white face. There's

a suggestion of the Methodist pulpit about him. Doesn't appear in the

shop much, and when he does, always looks as if he'd sooner sell you

a Bible than a bottle of whisky."

"Ah, yes! I know," said Challis. "I daresay you're right, Elmer; but

it will be difficult to persuade this child to answer any questions

his examiners may put to him."

"Surely he must be open to reason," roared Elmer. "You tell me he has

an extraordinary intelligence, and in the next sentence you imply

that the child's a fool who can't open his mouth to serve his own

interests. What's your paradox?"

"Sublimated material. Intellectual insight and absolute spiritual

blindness," replied Challis, getting to his feet. "The child has gone

too far in one direction--in another he has made not one step. His

mind is a magnificent, terrible machine. He has the imagination

of a mathematician and a logician developed beyond all conception,

he has not one spark of the imagination of a poet. And so he cannot

deal with men; he can't understand their weaknesses and limitations;

they are geese and hens to him, creatures to be scared out of his

vicinity. However, I will see what I can do. Could you arrange for

the members of the Authority to come to my place?"

"I should think so. Yes," said Elmer. "I say, Challis, are you sure

you're right about this child? Sounds to me like some--some freak."

"You'll see," returned Challis. "I'll try and arrange an

interview. I'll let you know."

"And, by the way," said Elmer, "you had better invite Crashaw to

be present. He will put Purvis's back up, and that'll enlist the

difficult grocer on our side probably."

When Challis had gone, Elmer stood for a few minutes, thoughtfully

scratching the ample red surface of his wide, clean-shaven cheek. "I

don't know," he ejaculated at last, addressing his empty study, "I

don't know." And with that expression he put all thought of Victor

Stott away from him, and sat down to write an exhaustive article on

the necessity for a broader basis in primary education.

II

Challis called at the rectory of Stoke-Underhill on his way back to

his own house.

"I give way," was the characteristic of his attitude to Crashaw, and

the rector suppled his back again, remembered the Derby office-boy's

tendency to brag, and made the amende honorable. He even overdid

his magnanimity and came too near subservience--so lasting is the

influence of the lessons of youth.

Crashaw did not mention that in the interval between the two interviews

he had called upon Mr. Purvis in the Square. The ex-mayor had refused

to commit himself to any course of action.

Challis forgot the rectory and all that it connoted before he was well

outside the rectory's front door. Challis had a task before him that he

regarded with the utmost distaste. He had warmly championed a cause;

he had been heated by the presentation of a manifest injustice which

was none the less tyrannical because it was ridiculous. But now he

realised that it was only the abstract question which had aroused his

enthusiastic advocacy, and he shrank from the interview with Victor

Stott--that small, deliberate, intimidating child.

Henry Challis, the savant, the man of repute in letters, the respected

figure in the larger world; Challis, the proprietor and landlord;

Challis, the power among known men, knew that he would have to

plead, to humble himself, to be prepared for a rebuff--worst of all,

to acknowledge the justice of taking so undignified a position. Any

aristocrat may stoop with dignity when he condescends of his own free

will; but there are few who can submit gracefully to deserved contempt.

Challis was one of the few. He had many admirable

qualities. Nevertheless, during that short motor ride from Stoke to

his own house, he resented the indignity he anticipated, resented it

intensely--and submitted.

III

He was allowed no respite. Victor Stott was emerging from the library

window as Challis rolled up to the hall door. It was one of Ellen

Mary's days--she stood respectfully in the background while her son

descended; she curtsied to Challis as he came forward.

He hesitated a moment. He would not risk insult in the presence of

his chauffeur and Mrs. Stott. He confronted the Wonder; he stood

before him, and over him like a cliff.

"I must speak to you for a moment on a matter of some importance,"

said Challis to the little figure below him, and as he spoke he

looked over the child's head at the child's mother. "It is a matter

that concerns your own welfare. Will you come into the house with me

for a few minutes?"

Ellen Mary nodded, and Challis understood. He turned and led

the way. At the door, however, he stood aside and spoke again to

Mrs. Stott. "Won't you come in and have some tea, or something?" he

asked.

"No, sir, thank you, sir," replied Ellen Mary; "I'll just wait 'ere

till 'e's ready."

"At least come in and sit down," said Challis, and she came in and sat

in the hall. The Wonder had already preceded them into the house. He

had walked into the morning-room--probably because the door stood open,

though he was now tall enough to reach the handles of the Challis

Court doors. He stood in the middle of the room when Challis entered.

"Won't you sit down?" said Challis.

The Wonder shook his head.

"I don't know if you are aware," began Challis, "that there is a system

of education in England at the present time, which requires that every

child should attend school at the age of five years, unless the parents

are able to provide their children with an education elsewhere."

The Wonder nodded.

Challis inferred that he need proffer no further information with

regard to the Education Act.

"Now, it is very absurd," he continued, "and I have, myself, pointed

out the absurdity; but there is a man of some influence in this

neighbourhood who insists that you should attend the elementary

school." He paused, but the Wonder gave no sign.

"I have argued with this man," continued Challis, "and I have also

seen another member of the Local Education Authority--a man of some

note in the larger world--and it seems that you cannot be exempted

unless you convince the Authority that your knowledge is such that

to give you a Council school education would be the most absurd farce."

"Cannot you stand in loco parentis?" asked the Wonder suddenly,

in his still, thin voice.

"You mean," said Challis, startled by this outburst, "that I am in

a sense providing you with an education? Quite true; but there is

Crashaw to deal with."

"Inform him," said the Wonder.

Challis sighed. "I have," he said, "but he can't understand." And

then, feeling the urgent need to explain something of the motives that

govern this little world of ours--the world into which this strangely

logical exception had been born--Challis attempted an exposition.

"I know," he said, "that these things must seem to you utterly absurd,

but you must try to realise that you are an exception to the world

about you; that Crashaw or I, or, indeed, the greatest minds of the

present day, are not ruled by the fine logic which you are able to

exercise. We are children compared to you. We are swayed even in

the making of our laws by little primitive emotions and passions,

self-interests, desires. And at the best we are not capable of

ordering our lives and our government to those just ends which we

may see, some of us, are abstractly right and fine. We are at the

mercy of that great mass of the people who have not yet won to an

intellectual and discriminating judgment of how their own needs may

best be served, and whose representatives consider the interests

of a party, a constituency, and especially of their own personal

ambitions and welfare, before the needs of humanity as a whole,

or even the humanity of these little islands.

"Above all, we are divided man against man. We are split into parties

and factions, by greed and jealousies, petty spites and self-seeking,

by unintelligence, by education, and by our inability--a mental

inability--'to see life steadily and see it whole,' and lastly, perhaps

chiefly, by our intense egotisms, both physical and intellectual.

"Try to realise this. It is necessary, because whatever your wisdom,

you have to live in a world of comparative ignorance, a world which

cannot appreciate you, but which can and will fall back upon the

compelling power of the savage--the resort to physical, brute force."

The Wonder nodded. "You suggest----?" he said.

"Merely that you should consent to answer certain elementary questions

which the members of the Local Authority will put to you," replied

Challis. "I can arrange that these questions be asked here--in the

library. Will you consent?"

The Wonder nodded, and made his way into the hall, without another

word. His mother rose and opened the front door for him.

As Challis watched the curious couple go down the drive, he sighed

again, perhaps with relief, perhaps at the impotence of the world

of men.

IV

There were four striking figures on the Education Committee selected

by the Ailesworth County Council.

The first of these was Sir Deane Elmer, who was also chairman of the

Council at this time. The second was the vice-chairman, Enoch Purvis,

the ex-mayor, commonly, if incorrectly, known as "Mayor" Purvis.

The third was Richard Standing, J.P., who owned much property on

the Quainton side of the town. He was a bluff, hearty man, devoted

to sport and agriculture; a Conservative by birth and inclination,

a staunch upholder of the Church and the Tariff Reform movement.

The fourth was the Rev. Philip Steven, a co-opted member of the

Committee, head master of the Ailesworth Grammar School. Steven was

a tall, thin man with bent shoulders, and he had a long, thin face,

the length of which was exaggerated by his square brown beard. He wore

gold-mounted spectacles which, owing to his habit of dropping his head,

always needed adjustment whenever he looked up. The movement of lifting

his head and raising his hand to his glasses had become so closely

associated, that his hand went up even when there was no apparent

need for the action. Steven spoke of himself as a Broad Churchman,

and in his speech on prize-day he never omitted some allusion to the

necessity for "marching" or "keeping step" with the times. But Elmer

was inclined to laugh at this assumption of modernity. "Steven,"

he said, on one occasion, "marks time and thinks he is keeping

step. And every now and then he runs a little to catch up." The point

of Elmer's satire lay in the fact that Steven was usually to be seen

either walking very slowly, head down, lost in abstraction; or--when

aroused to a sense of present necessity--going with long strides as

if intent on catching up with the times without further delay. Very

often, too, he might be seen running across the school playground,

his hand up to those elusive glasses of his. "There goes Mr. Steven,

catching up with the times," had become an accepted phrase.

There were other members of the Education Committee, notably

Mrs. Philip Steven, but they were subordinate. If those four

striking figures were unanimous, no other member would have dreamed

of expressing a contrary opinion. But up to this time they had not

yet been agreed upon any important line of action.

This four, Challis and Crashaw met in the morning-room of Challis

Court one Thursday afternoon in early June. Elmer had brought a

stenographer with him for scientific purposes.

"Well," said Challis, when they were all assembled. "The--the

subject--I mean, Victor Stott is in the library. Shall we

adjourn?" Challis had not felt so nervous since the morning before

he had sat for honours in the Cambridge Senate House.

In the library they found a small child, reading.

V

He did not look up when the procession entered, nor did he remove

his cricket cap. He was in his usual place at the centre table.

Challis found chairs for the Committee, and the members ranged

themselves round the opposite side of the table. Curiously, the effect

produced was that of a class brought up for a viva voce examination,

and when the Wonder raised his eyes and glanced deliberately down the

line of his judges, this effect was heightened. There was an audible

fidgeting, a creak of chairs, an indication of small embarrassments.

"Her--um!" Deane Elmer cleared his throat with noisy vigour;

looked at the Wonder, met his eyes and looked hastily away again;

"Hm!--her--rum!" he repeated, and then he turned to Challis. "So this

little fellow has never been to school?" he said.

Challis frowned heavily. He looked exceedingly uncomfortable and

unhappy. He was conscious that he could take neither side in this

controversy--that he was in sympathy with no one of the seven other

persons who were seated in his library.

He shook his head impatiently in answer to Sir Deane Elmer's question,

and the chairman turned to the Rev. Philip Steven, who was gazing

intently at the pattern of the carpet.

"I think, Steven," said Elmer, "that your large experience will

probably prompt you to a more efficient examination than we could

conduct. Will you initiate the inquiry?"

Steven raised his head slightly, put a readjusting hand up to

his glasses, and then looked sternly at the Wonder over the top

of them. Even the sixth form quailed when the head master assumed

this expression, but the small child at the table was gazing out of

the window.

Doubtless Steven was slightly embarrassed by the detachment of the

examinee, and blundered. "What is the square root of 226?" he asked--he

probably intended to say 225.

"15·03329--to five places," replied the Wonder.

Steven started. Neither he nor any other member of the Committee was

capable of checking that answer without resort to pencil and paper.

"Dear me!" ejaculated Squire Standing.

Elmer scratched the superabundance of his purple jowl, and looked

at Challis, who thrust his hands into his pockets and stared at

the ceiling.

Crashaw leaned forward and clasped his hands together. He was biding

his time.

"Mayor" Purvis alone seemed unmoved. "What's that book he's got open

in front of him?" he asked.

"May I see?" interposed Challis hurriedly, and he rose from his chair,

picked up the book in question, glanced at it for a moment, and then

handed it to the grocer. The book was Van Vloten's Dutch text and

Latin translation of Spinoza's Short Treatise.

The grocer turned to the

title-page. "Ad--beany--dick--ti--de--Spy--nozer," he read aloud

and then: "What's it all about, Mr. Challis?" he asked. "German or

something, I take it?"

"In any case it has nothing to do with elementary arithmetic," replied

Challis curtly, "Mr. Steven will set your mind at ease on that point."

"Certainly, certainly," murmured Steven.

Grocer Purvis closed the book carefully and replaced it on the

desk. "What does half a stone o' loaf sugar at two-three-farthings

come to?" he asked.

The Wonder shook his head. He did not understand the grocer's

phraseology.

"What is seven times two and three quarters?" translated Challis.

"19·25," answered the Wonder.

"What's that in shillin's?" asked Purvis.

"1·60416."

"Wrong!" returned the grocer triumphantly.

"Er--excuse me, Mr. Purvis," interposed Steven, "I think

not. The--the--er--examinee has given the correct mathematical

answer to five places of decimals--that is, so far as I can check

him mentally."

"Well, it seems to me," persisted the grocer, "as he's gone a long

way round to answer a simple question what any fifth-standard child

could do in his head. I'll give him another."

"Cast it in another form," put in the chairman. "Give it as a

multiplication sum."

Purvis tucked his fingers carefully into his waistcoat pockets. "I

put the question, Mr. Chairman," he said, "as it'll be put to the

youngster when he has to tot up a bill. That seems to be a sound and

practical form for such questions to be put in."

Challis sighed impatiently. "I thought Mr. Steven had been delegated

to conduct the first part of the examination," he said. "It seems to

me that we are wasting a lot of time."

Elmer nodded. "Will you go on, Mr. Steven?" he said.

Challis was ashamed for his compeers. "What children we are,"

he thought.

Steven got to work again with various arithmetical questions, which

were answered instantly, and then he made a sudden leap and asked:

"What is the binomial theorem?"

"A formula for writing down the coefficient of any stated term in the

expansion of any stated power of a given binomial," replied the Wonder.

Elmer blew out his cheeks and looked at Challis, but met the gaze of

Mr. Steven, who adjusted his glasses and said, "I am satisfied under

this head."

"It's all beyond me," remarked Squire Standing frankly.

"I think, Mr. Chairman, that we've had enough theoretical arithmetic,"

said Purvis. "There's a few practical questions I'd like to put."

"No more arithmetic, then," assented Elmer, and Crashaw exchanged a

glance of understanding with the grocer.

"Now, how old was our Lord when He began His ministry?" asked the

grocer.

"Uncertain," replied the Wonder.

Mr. Purvis smiled. "Any Sunday-school child knows that!" he said.

"Of course, of course," murmured Crashaw.

But Steven looked uncomfortable. "Are you sure you understand the

purport of the answer, Mr. Purvis?" he asked.

"Can there be any doubt about it?" replied the grocer. "I asked how

old our Lord was when He began His ministry, and he"--he made an

indicative gesture with one momentarily released hand towards the

Wonder--"and he says he's 'uncertain.'"

"No, no," interposed Challis impatiently, "he meant that the answer

to your question was uncertain."

"How's that?" returned the grocer. "I've always understood----"

"Quite, quite," interrupted Challis. "But what we have always

understood does not always correspond to the actual fact."

"What did you intend by your answer?" put in Elmer quickly, addressing

the Wonder.

"The evidence rests mainly on Luke's Gospel," answered the Wonder,

"but the phrase 'archomenos hôsei etôn triakonta' is vague--it allows

latitude in either direction. According to the chronology of John's

Gospel the age might have been about thirty-two."

"It says 'thirty' in the Bible, and that's good enough for me," said

the grocer, and Crashaw muttered "Heresy, heresy," in an audible

under tone.

"Sounds very like blarsphemy to me," said Purvis, "like doubtin'

the word of God. I'm for sending him to school."

Deane Elmer had been regarding the face of the small abstracted child

with considerable interest. He put aside for the moment the grocer's

intimation of his voting tendency.

"How many elements are known to chemists?" asked Elmer of the examinee.

"Eighty-one well characterised; others have been described," replied

the Wonder.

"Which has the greatest atomic weight?" asked Elmer.

"Uranium."

"And that weight is?"

"On the oxygen basis of 16--238·5."

"Extraordinary powers of memory," muttered Elmer, and there was

silence for a moment, a silence broken by Squire Standing, who,

in a loud voice, asked suddenly and most irrelevantly, "What's your

opinion of Tariff Reform?"

"An empirical question that cannot be decided from a theoretical

basis," replied the Wonder.

Elmer laughed out, a great shouting guffaw. "Quite right, quite

right," he said, his cheeks shaking with mirth. "What have you to

say to that, Standing?"

"I say that Tariff Reform's the only way to save the country,"

replied Squire Standing, looking very red and obstinate, "and if

this Government----"

Challis rose to his feet. "Oh! aren't you all satisfied?" he said. "Is

this Committee here to argue questions of present politics? What more

evidence do you need?"

"I'm not satisfied," put in Purvis resolutely, "nor is the

Rev. Mr. Crashaw, I fancy."

"He has no vote," said Challis. "Elmer, what do you say?"

"I think we may safely say that the child has been, and is being,

provided with an education elsewhere, and that he need not therefore

attend the elementary school," replied Elmer, still chuckling.

"On a point of order, Mr. Chairman, is that what you put to the

meeting?" asked Purvis.

"This is quite informal," replied Elmer. "Unless we are all agreed,

the question must be put to the full Committee."

"Shall we argue the point in the other room?" suggested Challis.

"Certainly, certainly," said Elmer. "We can return, if necessary."

And the four striking figures of the Education Committee filed out,

followed by Crashaw and the stenographer.

Challis, coming last, paused at the door and looked back.

The Wonder had returned to his study of Spinoza.

Challis waved a hand to the unconscious figure. "I must join my

fellow-children," he said grimly, "or they will be quarrelling."

VI

But when he joined his fellow-children, Challis stood at the window

of the morning-room, attending little to the buzz of voices and the

clatter of glasses which marked the relief from the restraint of the

examination-room. Even the stenographer was talking; he had joined

Crashaw and Purvis--a lemonade group; the other three were drinking

whisky. The division, however, is arbitrary, and in no way significant.

Challis caught a fragment of the conversation here and there: a

bull-roar from Elmer or Squire Standing; an occasional blatancy

from Purvis; a vibrant protest from Crashaw; a hesitating tenor

pronouncement from Steven.

"Extraordinary powers of memory.... It isn't facts, but what they

stand for that I.... Don't know his Bible--that's good enough for

me.... Heresy, heresy.... A phenomenal memory, of course, quite

phenomenal, but----"

The simple exposition of each man's theme was dogmatically asserted,

and through it all Challis, standing alone, hardly conscious of

each individual utterance, was still conscious that the spirits of

those six men were united in one thing, had they but known it. Each

was endeavouring to circumscribe the powers of the child they had

just left--each was insistent on some limitation he chose to regard

as vital.

They came to no decision that afternoon. The question as to whether the

Authority should prosecute or not had to be referred to the Committee.

At the last, Crashaw entered his protest and announced once more that

he would fight the point to the bitter end.

Crashaw's religious hatred was not, perhaps, altogether free from

a sense of affronted dignity, but it was nevertheless a force to be

counted; and he had that obstinacy of the bigot which has in the past

contributed much fire and food to the pyre of martyrdom. He had, too,

a power of initiative within certain limits. It is true that the bird

on a free wing could avoid him with contemptuous ease, but along his

own path he was a terrifying juggernaut. Crashaw, thus circumscribed,

was a power, a moving force.

But now he was seeking to crush, not some paralysed rabbit on the

road, but an elusive spirit of swiftness which has no name, but may be

figured as the genius of modernity. The thing he sought to obliterate

ran ahead of him with a smiling facility and spat rearwards a vaporous

jet of ridicule.

Crashaw might crush his clerical wideawake over his frowning eyebrows,

arm himself with a slightly dilapidated umbrella, and seek with long,

determined strides the members of the Local Education Authority,

but far ahead of him had run an intelligence that represented the

instructed common sense of modernity.

It was for Crashaw to realise--as he never could and never did

realise--that he was no longer the dominant force of progress; that

he had been outstripped, left toiling and shouting vain words on a

road that had served its purpose, and though it still remained and was

used as a means of travel, was becoming year by year more antiquated

and despised.

Crashaw toiled to the end, and no one knows how far his personal

purpose and spite were satisfied, but he could never impede any more

that elusive spirit of swiftness; it had run past him.

CHAPTER XII

FUGITIVE

Meanwhile a child of five--all unconscious that he was being

represented to various members of the Local Education Authority as a

protégé under the especial care and tutelage of the greatest of local

magnates--ran through a well-kept index of the books in the library

of Challis Court--an index written clearly on cards that occupied a

great nest of accessible drawers; two cards with a full description

to each book, alphabetically arranged, one card under the title of

the work and one under the author's name.

The child made no notes as he studied--he never wrote a single line

in all his life; but when a drawer of that delightful index had

been searched, he would walk here and there among the three rooms

at his disposal, and by the aid of the flight of framed steps that

ran smoothly on rubber-tyred wheels, he would take down now and again

some book or another until, returning to the table at last to read, he

sat in an enceinte of piled volumes that had been collected round him.

Sometimes he read a book from beginning to end, more often he glanced

through it, turning a dozen pages at a time, and then pushed it on

one side with a gesture displaying the contempt that was not shown

by any change of expression.

On many afternoons the sombrely clad figure of a tall, gaunt woman

would stand at the open casement of a window in the larger room, and

keep a mystic vigil that sometimes lasted for hours. She kept her gaze

fixed on that strange little figure whenever it roved up and down the

suite of rooms or clambered the pyramid of brown steps that might have

made such a glorious plaything for any other child. And even when her

son was hidden behind the wall of volumes he had built, the woman would

still stare in his direction, but then her eyes seemed to look inwards;

at such times she appeared to be wrapped in an introspective devotion.

Very rarely, the heavy-shouldered figure of a man would come to the

doorway of the larger room, and also keep a silent vigil--a man who

would stand for some minutes with thoughtful eyes and bent brows

and then sigh, shake his head and move away, gently closing the door

behind him.

There were few other interruptions to the silence of that chapel-like

library. Half a dozen times in the first few months a fair-haired,

rather supercilious young man came and fetched away a few volumes;

but even he evidenced an inclination to walk on tip-toe, a tendency

that mastered him whenever he forgot for a moment his self-imposed

rôle of scorn....

Outside, over the swelling undulations of rich grass the sheep came

back with close-cropped, ungainly bodies to a land that was yellow

with buttercups. But when one looked again, their wool hung about

them, and they were snatching at short turf that was covered at the

wood-side by a sprinkle of brown leaves. Then the sheep have gone,

and the wood is black with February rain, and again the unfolding

of the year is about us; a thickening of high twigs in the wood,

a glint of green on the blackthorn....

Nearly three cycles of death and birth have run their course,

and then the strange little figure comes no more to the library at

Challis Court.

PART III

MY ASSOCIATION WITH THE WONDER