AT SEA.
It is my purpose to pass briefly over everything in my own history
which does not concern the tale that I have to tell, and there is very
little therefore for me to say about the seven or eight years which
followed upon the events at Penruddock which I have just recorded.
I went in due course to Oxford, where I stayed the usual time. I did
not make any great failures there, nor did I gain much distinction.
I was a diligent reader, but much of my reading was outside the
regulation lines. The literature of my own country, the poetry of
mediæval Italy, and the philosophy of modern Germany, more than
divided my attention with classics and mathematics. Novels, mostly of
the sensational type, amused me in vacations and on holidays, but very
seldom found their way into my working days.
I travelled over most of England, Scotland, and Ireland, and spent
some time in some of the principal cities of the Continent. I became
a fair linguist, speaking German, French, and Italian, with some
fluency, although my accent always bewrayed me. I took a second class
in classics, bade adieu to Oxford, and began to make up my mind as to
what I should do with my life. I had thought of the various
professions in turn, and had decided against them all; and, finally,
as I had no taste for idleness, and as I had some money, I resolved to
invest it in sheep or cattle farming in some of the new countries. I
thought successively of New Zealand, the United States, Canada, and
Australia, and I was determined in favour of Australia by falling in
with Jack Wilbraham. He and I had gone into residence at Oxford about
the same time, but not at the same college, and we took our degrees in
the same year; but we hardly belonged to the same set. Jack was more
of a sporting than a reading man, and I was not much of either, at
least as either was understood at the University. So Jack and I,
although we heard of one another occasionally, did not meet until
a few months before we left Oxford.
Then we became fast friends, and, as he had already determined to go
to Australia, I made up my mind to go with him. We took our passage
of course in the same ship. It was not yet the day of the great
steamers and the canal was not yet open. We sailed from Liverpool in
a clipper ship and we went round the Cape. But I think that we were
quite as comfortable and as well taken care of as we should be now in
the best of the Orient or Peninsular boats. Our voyage was altogether
without disaster. Indeed it was like a picnic of ninety days’
duration, and I do not know that I had ever enjoyed any three months
of my life as much. But there were no details that I need mention
except the fact that we formed an acquaintance (Jack and I) which
determined our immediate course on our arrival in Australia, and so
led us on to the mysterious experience of which I have to tell.
Not indeed that our new acquaintance was one who might fairly be
expected to introduce us to anything mysterious. Mr. Fetherston, as I
shall call him here, was a thoroughly good fellow, and proved himself
to be a staunch friend, but he was utterly destitute of imagination,
and he had the greatest contempt for what he used to call “queer
stories”; he used queer in a special sense; he meant simply
mysterious, or savouring of what is commonly called the supernatural.
One bright evening in the tropics some such stories were going round.
The air was delicious, and the moon and stars were just beginning to
shine. The first mate, myself, and Mr. Fetherston were the principal
talkers, but we had a good many listeners. The first mate began the
conversation by telling two or three stories of the type I have
mentioned; one of them especially took my fancy. I cannot remember it
in detail, but I know that it was provokingly mysterious, and seemed
to admit of no solution but a supernatural one. The main incident was
something like this. A farmer who lived about twelve miles from
Bristol left home one evening with the intention of spending the night
in that city in order to transact some business there at an early hour
in the morning. He had to stop at a station about half-way to see some
one who lived near there, and then to take another train in. He got
out all right at the half-way station and walked towards the man’s
house whom he wanted to see. A stranger met him on the way and drew
him into conversation. As they came to certain cross roads the
stranger turned, looked him in the face and said very deliberately,
“Go home by next train, you will be just in time.” Then he walked away
quickly down one of the cross roads. The farmer stood like one
stunned for a minute or two, and then hurried after the stranger
intending to stop him. But he could see him no more. There were
several houses and gardens about and he might have passed into one of
them, but anyhow he was lost to sight. The farmer did as he was told
and hurried home. He arrived just in time to save his house from being
burned to the ground, and more than that, for his wife and children
and servants were in bed and asleep.
When the story was told, Mr. Fetherston gave his opinion of it very
freely. I never saw contempt more effectually expressed. He spoke
without the least atom of temper. Men who get angry and denounce that
sort of thing are usually afraid of believing it, or at least of
seeming to believe it. Nothing was further from Mr. Fetherston’s
thought. But you saw plainly that such stories were for him on a level
with the most senseless of nursery rhymes and nothing better than mere
idiot’s chatter. He did not say so in as many words nor at all
offensively, but he made it quite clear nevertheless that he felt
himself to be looking down from the platform of a mysterious
intelligence on some very contemptible folly.
I felt as if reproach were in the air, and I knew that if it were
deserved I was one of those who deserved it. So, although it would
have been pleasanter to be silent, I felt that I was bound to speak.
So I said, “Mr. Fetherston, isn’t it all a matter of evidence?”
_Fetherston._ Evidence! And pray on what evidence would you believe
such a story as that which we have just heard?
_Easterley._ Upon the statement on the honour of any sane man that I
knew and trusted: how I might account for it is another matter.
_Fetherston._ If a man whom I knew and trusted told me such a story on
his honour I should trust him no longer, and I should believe him to
be either insane or dishonest.
_Easterley._ Suppose that ten men whom you knew and trusted agreed in
telling you the same story?
_Fetherston_ (with a slight laugh). Then I should begin to suspect
that I had gone mad myself, but I should never believe it.
_Easterley._ Yet you believe a story which is nearly two thousand
years old and which is full of mystery from beginning to end: the
story of a man who was born mysteriously, who exercised mysterious
powers during his life, and after death by violence lived again
mysteriously, and at last left this world mysteriously. [Now you must
know I spoke here knowing what I was about, for Fetherston was an
enthusiastic churchman, and in company with a clergyman who was one of
us he had organized a regular Sunday service, and, on the very last
Sunday, was one of a small number to whom the clergyman had
administered the sacrament.] It seems to me, Mr. Fetherston, I went on
to say, that you, like some people I have met, can believe a thing
with one side of your head and disbelieve it with the other.
_Fetherston._ You are certainly like some people I have met. You throw
the Christian religion overboard and then you take to believing a lot
of puerile absurdities.
_Easterley._ Softly now, you must not say that I throw the Christian
religion overboard. It may be that I do not accept it in quite the
same sense as you, still I accept it. And as for the supernatural, if
I said that I believed in it or that I did not believe in it, I should
most likely to some extent deceive you.
_Fetherston._ You mean that you could not answer with a plain “yes” or
“no.”
_Easterley._ Not quite that; but I could not answer as you do with
“yes” and “no.” I should have to distinguish.
_Fetherston._ Distinguish then, please.
_Easterley._ Well, when you say that you don’t believe in the
supernatural, I reply that what I don’t believe in is the natural.
_Fetherston._ I am afraid I must ask you to explain your explanation.
_Easterley._ What I mean is this. I believe that there is nothing at
all, from a bucket of saltwater to the head on your shoulders, of
which a full account can be given by any man. You go further and
further back until you can get no further, but still you see that you
are not at the end. Every natural thing implies a principle which is
outside nature.
_Fetherston._ But you believe that there is a law for everything?
_Easterley._ I believe that order prevails everywhere, and that
everything has its place in that order; you may if you like call that
order nature. Then I say that if there be ghosts they are part of
nature; they have their place in nature as well as we. And we as well
as the ghosts, and the air and the water as well as we, imply
something that is not nature. Everything is natural and everything is
supernatural.
_Fetherston._ Easterley, I am afraid you are a philosopher. Come with
me to Central Australia and we’ll knock the philosophy out of you and
make you a practical man.
_Easterley._ Are you going to Central Australia?
_Fetherston._ Yes; I am to have charge of a company of surveyors who
are to be engaged about the laying of the overland line to Port
Darwin.
_Easterley._ I’ll think of it. I rather think I should like it. I
suppose we shall see no ghosts there, Fetherston?
_Fetherston._ I don’t know about that. I dare say we may, for we shall
often have to live on salt junk and damper.
So there our talk ended. I had heard of Mr. Fetherston’s business
before, and even I believe of his destination; but I had forgotten the
particulars, and certainly it never had struck me that I should care
to go with him. But now I thought I should like to talk it over with
Jack. So I went in search of him. I found him by himself at the
farthest aft part of the ship, standing just above the companion with
his back against a rail. He had been chatting with two or three of the
ladies, and they had just gone below. He came at once to meet me, and
we both went forward and lit our pipes and smoked some time in
silence. Then Jack spoke. “I see that you have something to say, Bob;
what is it?”
“Fetherston,” said I, “is going with a survey party to assist in
laying the overland wire to Port Darwin: he proposes that we should go
with him; he was only in jest, but I think I should like it.”
Jack thought it would be a very good beginning: we should see much of
the country, we should get experience, and have something to talk
about. Poor Jack! if he had only known! We have never ventured to talk
much about that journey, not much to one another, and not at all to
anyone else; but I must not anticipate. We both took a fancy to the
scheme. There would be much of the interest of exploring without any
of the special risks. We would, no doubt, have some hardships to put
up with, but there would be depôts at intervals along the way, and our
communication would be kept open all through. So I spoke to Fetherston
a few days later. “Fetherston,” I said, “will you take two volunteers
with you on your survey party northward? We shall pay our own
expenses, but we shall want your guidance and protection, and we shall
have nothing to give you in return but our company.”
Fetherston said that he thought it might on such terms be easily
managed, and it was managed accordingly.