_In which Solitude is unable to discover the charms
which Sages have seen in her face._
The Philosopher cursed gently, and then listened.
The steps of his tormentors grew fainter as they reached the lower part
of the house. Then he heard, or thought he heard, the distant crunching
of boots on gravel. After that came a complete silence.
It occurred to the ill-used gentleman that he was free. He pulled
savagely at the loose cords: got one leg to move and then the other;
gradually unrolled the cord and attempted to stand.
At first he could not. Nine hours of such confinement had numbed him.
He felt also an acute pain, which luckily did not last long, where his
circulation had been partially arrested at the ankles. In a few minutes
he could stand up and walk. It was then that he began to observe his
new surroundings.
He found himself in a large and very high room, with a steep-pitched
roof, soaring and sombre, quite twenty feet above him. The walls were
bare of ornament, but still covered with a rich dark red paper, darker,
cleaner patches on which marked places where pictures had hung. On the
height of the roof, looking north, was a large skylight which lit the
whole apartment. There was a good writing table with pigeon-holes and
two rows of drawers on either side. Upon this writing table stood a
little kettle, a spirit stove, a bottle of methylated spirit, a tin
of milk cocoa, three large loaves, a chicken, tinned meats, a box of
biscuits, and, what was not at all to be despised, an excellent piece
of Old Stilton Cheese. The thoughtful provider of these had even added
a salt-cellar full of salt. There stood also upon the floor beside
these provisions a large stone jar, which upon uncorking and smelling
it he discovered to contain sherry.
The room had also a fireplace with a fire laid, a full coal-scuttle, an
excellent arm-chair, a few books on a shelf—and that was all.
The Professor having taken stock of these things, did the foolish thing
that we should all do under the circumstances. He went to the big oak
door, banged it, rattled it, kicked it, and abused it. It stood firm.
The next thing he did was also a thing which any of us would have done,
though it had more sense in it—he shouted at the top of his voice. He
kept up that shouting in a number of incongruous forms in which the
word “Help” occurred with a frequency that would have been irritating
to a hearer had there been one, but audience he had none.
He knocked furiously at either wall of the long room. He turned at last
exhausted, and perceived with delight a low door, which he had failed
at first to notice; it was in the gloom of the far corner. He made
for this door. To his delight it opened easily, and revealed beyond
it nothing but darkness. There were matches upon the mantelpiece; he
struck one and peered within. He saw a neat little bed, not made by
expert women, rather (he thought) by these jailers of his, and through
a farther door he saw what might be a bathroom, fairly comfortably
appointed.
Such was Professor Higginson’s prison. It might have been worse, and
to the pure in heart prison can be no confinement for the soul. But
either Professor Higginson’s heart was not pure or something else was
wrong with him, for when he had taken stock of his little luxuries he
treated them to a long malediction, the scope and elaboration of which
would have surprised him in other days.
* * * * *
Necessity, which is stronger than the Gods, knows no law, and is also
the mother of invention. She is fruitful in stirring the pontifical
instinct, the soul of the builder, of the contriver, in man.
Necessity awoke that primal power in the starved Higginsonian soul.
When the Professor of Subliminal Consciousness had prowled round and
round the room like a caged carnivorous thing some twenty times,
seeking an outlet, harbouring disordered schemes, a clear idea suddenly
lit up his cloudy mind.
It was glass again! The skylight was made of glass, and glass is a
fragile thing!
He stood with his hands in his trouser pockets looking up to that
large, slanting window in the roof and taking stock. It was made
to open, but the iron rod which raised and lowered it had been
disconnected and taken away. He thought he could perceive in certain
small dots far above him the heads of screws recently driven in to
secure the outer edge of the skylight and make it fast. He estimated
the height. Now your Professor of Subliminal Consciousness in general
is no dab at this; but that great Governess of the Gods, Necessity, to
whom I have already paid eight well-merited compliments, threw him back
in this matter also upon the primitive foundations of society, and the
Philosopher was astonished to find himself applying the most ancient of
measures. He reckoned by his own height taken against the wall. He was
a man of six feet. The lowest part of the window was about twice his
own height from the floor—a matter of twelve feet; its summit another
six or eight.
Then Professor Higginson, having for the first time in his life
_measured_, began the ancient and painful but absorbing task of
_building_ next.
It is the noblest of man’s handicrafts! He had heard somewhere that
the stretch of a man’s arms is about his own height, and in this
spread-eagle fashion he measured the bed, the desk, the chairs, the
bookshelves.
He carefully put the food down upon the floor, tipped the desk up
lengthways on one end. He did this at a terrible strain—and was annoyed
to see ink flowing out suddenly and barely missing his trouser leg.
With a strength he had not believed to be in him, he wheeled the iron
bed out of the inner room, and managed to get it hoisted by degrees
on top of the desk thus inverted. He next hoisted up the arm-chair,
getting his head under the seat of it, suffering some pain in his crown
before he got it on to the bed. He passed up the three wooden chairs to
keep it company, and then with trembling heart but firm will he began
to climb.
It is a pity that too profound a study of Subliminal Consciousness
destroys Faith, for if the Professor had but believed in God this
would have been an admirable opportunity for prayer. Twice in the
long ascent he thought the bed was down on the top of him; twice he
felt a trembling that shook his unhappy soul—the floor seemed so far
below! At last he stood triumphant like the first men who conquered
the Matterhorn; he was ready to erect upon so firm a base the last
structure he had planned.
Quaint memories of his childhood returned to him as he fixed the wooden
chairs one upon the other, and jammed the lowest of them in between the
arms of the padded easy-chair, which was to support the whole.
If the first part of the ascent had proved perilous, this last
section—the gingerly mounting of a ladder of chair rungs and legs
uneasily poised upon a cushioned seat—was as hazardous as ever human
experiment had been. The frail structure creaked and trembled beneath
him, as, with infinite caution and testing, he swung one long leg after
the other up the frail scaffolding. An unworthy eagerness made his
heart beat when he was within the last rung of the top chair seat. The
glass of the skylight was all but within his reach ... he could almost
touch it with his outstretched hand as he tried the last step.
But already ominously the wooden child of his fancy, the engine he had
made, was beginning to betray him. He felt an uneasy swinging in the
tower of chairs. He tried to compensate it by too sudden a movement of
his body, and then—CRASH!—and in the tenth of a second all was ruin.
He felt his head striking a rung of wood, a cushion, an iron bar, his
hands clutching at a chaotic and cascading ruin of furniture, and he
completed his adventure sitting hard upon the floor with the legs of
the wooden chairs about him, the stuffed arm-chair upside down within a
foot of his head, the iron bedstead hanging at a dangerous slant above
the end of the desk, and the wood of this last gaping in a great gash.
He had certainly failed.
* * * * *
There is no soul so strong but defeat will check it for a moment. All
the long hours remaining of that day, even when he had eaten food and
drunk wine, he despaired of any issue.
As darkness closed in on him he raised the energy to get the bed down
on to the floor again. He made it up as best he could (the sheets were
clean, the pillows comfortable), and he slept.
Upon the Wednesday morning he woke—but now I must play a trick upon
the reader, lest worse should befall him. I must beg him to allow the
lapse of that Wednesday, and to consider the Professor rising with the
first faint dawn of Thursday. Why they should keep him thus confined,
how long they intended to do so, whether those fiendish youngsters were
determined upon his slow starvation and death, what was happening to
that miserable cheque and therefore to his future peace of mind through
the whole term of his life, where he was, by what means, if any, he
might be restored to the companionship of his kind—all these things did
the Professor ruminate one hundred times, and upon none could he come
to any conclusion. Such an occupation were monotonous for the reader to
follow, and even if he desires to follow it I cannot be at the pains
of writing it out; so here we are on Thursday morning, the 5th of May,
forty-eight hours after he, the Philosopher, had Done the Deed and
handed that sad forgery to his captors.
If the truth must be told, repose and isolation had done Professor
Higginson good.
In the first place, he had read right through the few books he had
found set out for him, and thus became thoroughly acquainted for the
first time in his life with the poet Milton, the New Testament, and
Goschen on Foreign Exchanges, for such was the library which had been
provided for him.
As he rose and stretched himself in that disappointing dawn, he found
the energy to go through his empty ceremony of howling for aid, but it
soon palled and his throat began to hurt him.
He looked up again at that skylight showing clear above the half
darkness of the room, and was struck quite suddenly with a really
brilliant scheme. He remembered bitterly the painful misfortune of his
first attempt, rubbed a sore place, and wished to Heaven that his
present revelation had come first.
He proceeded to execute at once the promptings of his new scheme. He
took the sheets off his bed and tied them one to another, the pillow
cases he linked up upon the tail of these, and, to make certain of
the whole matter, he ended by tying on the counterpane as well. He
tied them all securely together, for he intended the rope so made to
bear his whole weight. Taking one of the broken chairs, he secured it
stoutly to one end of the line; he chose his position carefully beneath
the skylight, he swung the chair, and at the end of the third swing
hurled it up into the air at the glass above him. It was his plan to
break that glass. The chair would catch upon the ridge of the roof
outside, and he would manage in his desperation to swarm up the tied
sheets and win his way through the broken pane to the roof. The chair
was heavy, and he failed some twenty times. Twice the chair had struck
him heavily on the head as it fell back, but he persevered.
Perseverance is the one virtue which the Gods reward, and at long
last the Professor saw and heard his missile crashing clean through
the skylight. He was as good as free, save that—such is the academic
temper!—he had forgotten to catch hold of the other end of the line.
He heard the chair rattle loudly down the roof outside, he saw its long
tail of knotted sheets swiftly drawn up through the broken skylight,
he leapt up to clutch it just too late, and marked in despair the last
of his bedclothes flashing up past and above him like a white snake,
to disappear through the broken window from his gaze. Two seconds
afterwards he heard the chair fall into the garden some fifty feet
below, and he noted with some disgust that a quantity of broken glass
had come down upon his food.
It was, as I have said, in the first grey light of the third day—the
Thursday—that he had thus gratuitously shed his bedding. For some
moments after that failure he sat down and despaired. He also felt his
head where the chair had struck it.
As he turned round helplessly to discover whether some object might not
suggest a further plan, he was astonished to see the great oaken door
standing ajar. He pulled it open to its widest extent; the green baize
door beyond swung to his touch, and he was a free man.
Someone had slipped those bolts in the night, and if that someone were
Jimmy, Jimmy had kept his word.
It was with no gratitude that Professor Higginson cautiously and
fearfully descended the stairs. He knew so little of men, that he
dreaded further capture and some vigorous young scoundrel leaping upon
him from an unexpected door. He passed three flights, each untenanted,
furnitureless and quite silent, until he reached the hall.
The front door stood wide open. The delicious breath of the early
summer morning came in, mixed with the twittering of birds. Still
wondering and half doubting his good fortune, Professor Higginson was
about to step out, when he remembered—what?—the _Green Overcoat_. He
must face the ordeal of those stairs again. It was the bravest thing
he had ever done in his life. It was the only brave thing he had ever
done in his life. But fear of worse things compelled him. If that
Green Overcoat were found and he were traced—he dared not think of the
consequences.
His recent experience was far too vivid for him to dream of putting
it on. He carried the great weight of it over his arm, and in the
first steps he took in the open air towards the lodge, under that
pure sky in which the sun had not yet risen, it was his honest and
his firm intention to take it straight to Crampton Park, to discover
“Lauderdale,” to restore it to its owner and to explain all.
The lodge he found to be empty and even ruinous. A mouldy gate stood
with one of its bars broken, hanging by a single hinge, ajar. He passed
out upon a lonely country lane. He was glad it was lonely. An elderly
don in an exceedingly dirty shirt, clad in evening clothes which had
been through something worse than a prize fight, his collar crumpled
and vile, no tie, and boots half buttonless, would be foolish to desire
any general companionship of human strangers upon a May-day morning. It
was up to him to find his whereabouts, and to make the best of his way
to his lodgings and to proper clothing. Then, he hoped, by six at the
latest, he could do what the voice of duty bade him do. He felt in his
pocket, and was glad to find his latch key and his money safe, for with
these two a man commands the world; but as he felt in his pockets he
missed something familiar. What it was he could not recollect—only, he
knew vaguely something he expected was not there, a memorandum or what
not. He set it down for nervousness, and went his way.
The rolling landscape of the Midlands was to his left and right. The
lane ran along a ridge that commanded some little view upon either
side. It led him northwards, and he could see in the clear air, for
the moment smokeless, the tall chimneys of Ormeston. They were perhaps
five miles away, and the Professor prepared to cover that distance.
His heart was shot with a varied emotion, of exultation at his morning
freedom, of terror that his evil deeds might have gone before him. But
he was determined upon his duty under that cold dawn. He went swinging
forward.
The east put on its passing cloudless colours, and beyond the rim of
fields, far outward beyond the world, Phœbus Apollo rose unheralded and
shone with his first level beams upon the misguided man.
Now almost as Apollo rose whether proceeding from Apollo’s influence or
from that of some Darker Power, hesitation and scheming entered once
more into the heart of Professor Higginson.
First, he found that he was getting a little tired of the way. Five
miles was a long distance. Then he remembered his determination to
give up the Coat. It was heavy. Why carry it five miles and make a fool
of himself at the end of them?
By the second mile he had come to the conclusion that it was ridiculous
to knock up what was probably a wealthy merchant’s household
(“Lauderdale” sounded like that, so did Crampton Park) at such
unearthly hours. The man was certainly wealthy—he had seen his name in
the papers when he had got his chair a few months before.
In the third mile Mr. Higginson determined not to fulfil his difficult
mission until he had groomed himself and could call upon this local
bigwig at a reasonable hour. Such men (he remembered) were influential
in provincial towns.
In the midst of the fourth mile he saw before him the first of the tall
standards which marked the end of an electric tramway, and at that
point stood a shelter, very neat, provided by some local philanthropic
scoundrel. It sent up a grateful little curl of smoke which promised
coffee.
The Professor came to the door of the shelter, timidly turned its
handle, and peered in.
Three men were within. Two seemed to be night-watchmen, one of whom
was concocting the brew, the other cutting large slices of bread and
butter. The third man—short, stubbly, and of an expression wholly dull
and vicious—was not in their uniform. He had the appearance of a man
whose profession was very vague, and seemed to be lounging there for
no better purpose than cadging a cup from pals. He was remarkable for
nothing but a Broken Nose.
The Professor smelt the delicious steam. He came in through the
doorway, and all three men looked up.
It is a beautiful trait in our national character that the poor will
ever welcome the wealthier classes, particularly when these betray upon
their features that sort of imbecile ignorance of reality and childish
trust in rogues which is common to all the liberal professions save
that of the law, which is rare in merchants, which is universal in dons.
If the mass of our people love a guileless simplicity in their
superiors, when it is accompanied by debauch they positively adore it;
and the excellent reception the Professor met with upon his entry was
due more than anything else to the conviction of his three inferiors
that an elderly man in tattered evening clothes and abominable linen
must have spent the night before in getting outrageously drunk.
His offer of no less than a shilling for a piece of bread and a cup
of coffee was gratefully accepted. The word “Sir” was used at least
eighteen times in the first three minutes of conversation.
The Professor felt that he was with friends, and his self-discipline
weakened and weakened by degree after degree. It sank with the coffee
and the bread, it sank lower with the respectful tones in which he was
addressed; then without warning it vanished, and that soul which had
already fallen to forgery and intemperate language went down a further
step to Sheol.
The Devil, who had been away during the last two days attending to
other business, must have caught the Professor as he passed that
lodge-gate and have hastened to his side. At any rate, Mr. Higginson
deliberately sized up the three men before him, determined with
justice that the lounger, the Man with the Broken Nose, was the most
corruptible and at the same time the least dangerous if anything should
come to the (dreadful word!) police.
He led up to his subject carefully. He said that Crampton Park was in
the neighbourhood, was it not? He had heard that it lay somewhere to
the left in a western suburb of the town. He professed to have found
the Green Overcoat in the hall of the house where—where he had passed
the night, and as he used these words the three toilers discreetly
smiled. He professed to have promised to return it. He professed to
remember—with grateful unexpectedness—the name of the house to which he
had promised to send it. It was “Lauderdale.” He professed an ignorance
of the name of its owner. The Professor professed far more that morning
of sin than his academic professorship entitled him to do.
He found the lounger (with the Broken Nose) somewhat indifferent to
his motives, but very much alive to the economics of the situation;
and when the bargain was struck it was for half a crown that the bad
proletarian man (with the Broken Nose) took the Green Overcoat over his
disreputable arm, promising to deliver it at “Lauderdale” in the course
of the morning.
[Illustration: _The bad proletarian man (with the Broken Nose) took the
Green Overcoat._]
An immense weight was lifted from the unworthy mind of Professor
Higginson. Must I tell the whole of the shameful tale? The Professor,
as he rose to leave the Shelter, positively added to his fellow-citizen
of the Broken Nose—
“Oh! And by the way! Of course, he will ask who the Coat is from....
Say it is from Mr. Hitchenbrook.” He pretended to feel in his
pocket. “No, I haven’t got a card; anyhow, say Mr. Hitchenbrook—Mr.
Hitchenbrook, of Cashington,” he added genially, to round off the
wicked lie.
Thus relieved of duty and thus divorced from Heaven, Professor
Higginson nodded authoritatively to the Broken Nose, cheerfully to the
other two men (who touched their hair with their forefingers in reply),
and strode out again to follow the tram lines into the town.
* * * * *
Now here, most upright of readers, you will say that the Philosopher
has fallen to his lowest depth, and that no further crime he may commit
can entertain you.
You are in error. The depths of evil are infinite, and the Professor,
as he walked down the long road which brought him to Ormeston, was but
entering that long road of the spirit which leads to full damnation.