A BLACK AND WHITE GOAT
JOHN gazed after them with longing in his eyes and resentment in his
heart. The longing was for the unattainable; the resentment that it
should be unattainable.
What a crassly idiotic, what an altogether blindly stupid, doltish,
and utterly mulish thing was convention! Here were three young, gay,
and delightful creatures enjoying the summer day in company, together
revelling in the glowing sun, the caress of the air soft as thistledown
upon one’s face, the scent of the flowers and the warm earth, while
he--John--was condemned to loneliness, because, forsooth, of the lack
of four words. “May I introduce you.”
There was the password, the magic utterance which would have smoothed
away all difficulties. It could be spoken carelessly as you please.
It could be spoken by his worst enemy with as great effect as by his
dearest friend. Without it a barrier, high as the highest peaks of the
Andes, loomed between him and them, a barrier to him insurmountable,
indestructible, and named, labelled, and placarded in letters at least
a foot long, Convention. Small wonder that John fumed inwardly, the
while his eyes gazed after the vanishing three, distilled essence of
concentrated longing in their depths.
Chance alone could destroy the barrier,--Chance, the freakish, puckish
sprite, who sits with watchful eyes, smiling softly, impishly, till the
chosen moment arrives. Then, heigh presto! Chance springs light-footed
to your aid, is caught by you laughing, or in deadly earnest, according
to your needs. And if the latter, and your grasp is sure, you will
find it is no longer an impish, freakish sprite you hold, but a very
little demon, battling for you, trampling upon well-nigh incredible
difficulties, leading you triumphant to victory.
We cannot see Chance coming in deadly earnest to John at the moment.
The imp came mischievous, laughing, and perched, if you will believe
me, between the horns of a goat,--a large, a black and white, an
over-playful goat. It came prancing over the purple crest of the hill,
and bounded, curved, and gavotted in the direction of the momentarily
unconscious three.
The younger boy was the first to see it. He turned, startled atom,
to clutch at the lady’s white dress, thereby causing her to become
aware of the presence of the intruder on the scene. The elder boy,
likewise made aware of its presence, seized a small stick from among
the heather, a fragile enough weapon, but with it he stood his ground,
a veritable small champion, facing the enemy boldly.
But think you that Chance, perched between those horns, was to be
daunted by a small boy in green knickerbockers, and holding a flimsy
stick? Not a bit of it! For no such paltry pretext would he desert our
John. I am very sure he but urged the goat forward, its advance in the
face of this defence lending greater colour to the danger.
“Oh!” breathed the white-robed lady, her hands going out protectingly
to the little figure clutching at her skirts. And then, “Take care,
Tony,” on a note of intense anxiety.
Here was the moment supplied by the mischievous imp. John recognized
the sprite’s wiles with fine intuition, cried him a fervent word of
thanks, and sprang to the rescue.
That Chance had never intended the slightest peril to the three, you
may be certain; since, once seized laughing from his perch by John, he
joined with him in ordering the goat to retire. Slightly bewildered at
this change of front, the goat gazed for a moment with reproachful eyes.
“I was but playing the game you told me to play,” you could fancy him
murmuring. Nevertheless, perceiving that the game was indubitably at
an end, he indulged in something very akin to a shake of his head, and
retired disconsolate whence he had come.
“Oh, thank you,” breathed the lady in white fervently. “Boys, thank--”
she paused. “This gentleman” savours too largely of the shop-walker;
the word has long since lost its rightful meaning. “Our preserver”
smacks of the pedant.
“My name is John Mortimer,” announced John, with one of his inimitable
smiles.
“Mr. Mortimer,” she concluded, the word supplied. “I am Rosamund
Delancey, and this--” she indicated the whilom champion, “is Antony,
and this is Michael. It was very good of you to come to our rescue.”
John murmured the usual polite formula. For the life of him he could
find no original observation to make.
“Possibly,” continued Rosamund, half-meditative, a trifle rueful, “the
goat intended mere play. But as Biddy, our old nurse, often used to
say--and still does, for that matter--‘There’s play _and_ play, and if
one of the parties ceases to be liking it, it will be no play at all.’”
The little laugh in her eyes found reflection in John’s.
“A very sound maxim,” quoth he. And inwardly he found himself
ejaculating, “What an adorable voice, what an altogether flexible,
musical and charming voice.”
Rosamund was looking down the heather-covered slope. At the further
side, a quarter of a mile or so away, was a hedge, and in the hedge a
gate. Beyond the gate was a lane, which, after a series of turns, would
lead one eventually to the village and Delancey Castle. This latter, it
is perhaps somewhat obvious to remark, was her goal, and the way across
the heather towards the gate by far the nearest route to it. Yet how
attempt that route with the black and white goat still at large adown
the hill, eating sprays of heather--or what appeared to be sprays of
heather--in a deceitfully placid and amicable manner?
“I wonder if that goat--” she began, her eyes vaguely troubled, her
brow slightly puckered.
“Which way do you want to go?” demanded John promptly, the promptitude
mingled with a nice degree of deferential courtesy,--the courtesy quite
apparent, the deference a tiny subtle flavour.
“To that gate.” She indicated it.
“Then,” said John, “please allow me to accompany you. I think Antony
and I between us will prove a match for goats. I dare to boast on our
behalf, since we have already proved our prowess in the matter.”
He threw Antony a glance, a little friendly, understanding glance. By
such glances are bonds established that will last a lifetime.
“Me too,” quoth Michael, breaking silence for the first time.
“In very sooth, you too,” said John. “Antony as advance guard,--not
more than a couple of paces advance, mind you,--Michael and I on
either side. Are we ready? Then, quick march.”
This last was mere pandering to accepted custom. You cannot well say,
“Slow march,” though it is what your whole soul intends. Here is a fine
illustration of the fact that speech is but a poor mode of expressing a
man’s thoughts. And then an inspiration came to him.
“Not too quickly,” said he to the advance guard. “If he thinks we
are attempting to elude him, he may pursue us. A nonchalant, a mere
careless strolling, will be our wisest course.”
“Oh, do you think he might follow?” cried Rosamund. The suggestion had
evidently given cause for renewed anxiety.
“It is possible,” returned John gravely, “though, I fancy, not
probable. However, we will take no risks.”
Slowly, therefore, in mere dilatory fashion, they set forth. The goat
raised his read to look at them; but, having his orders, he dropped it
again towards the heather.
Some hundred yards or so they walked in silence, two, at least, of the
party casting occasional furtive glances to the right. John was the
first to speak.
“This,” he said, with the air of a man who has just made a discovery,
“is really beautiful country.”
“It is your first visit to this neighbourhood?” queried Rosamund.
“My first,” returned John, “but I dare swear it will not be my last. My
friend, Corin Elmore, dragged me down here, somewhat against my will
at the outset, I’ll allow. He’s uncovering the mural paintings in the
church down yonder.”
“Ah!” Rosamund turned towards him, a light of interest in her eyes.
“Has he found much?”
“He only started on the job this morning,” returned John. “We arrived
last night. But he’s full of confidence. There must be a curious
fascination in the work,--delving into the past, bringing traces of
bygone, forgotten ages into the light of day.”
“And a certain sadness,” she suggested.
“And a certain sadness,” echoed John, “though I doubt me if Corin
experiences it greatly. He’s an anomaly. For all that he’s a poet and a
bit of a dreamer, there’s a strain of the scientific dissector running
through him. It finds its outlet in theosophic tendencies.” John pulled
a wry face.
He had forgotten that he was talking to an absolute stranger. Yet was
she a stranger in the true sense of the word? One afternoon--six months
ago as we crudely count and label time, though to John it was centuries
ago--he had had sight of her, a mere passing glimpse, truly, since it
was of length only sufficient to allow of her mounting the steps of the
Brompton Oratory, at a moment when John was about to descend them. He
had put a question to a friend who was with him. And thenceforth John’s
dreams had been coloured--I might almost say suffused--by one subject,
a face with dark eyes, framed in copper-coloured hair, and shadowed by
a largish black hat. Being, therefore, no stranger to his dreams in
spirit, it was small wonder that he regarded her as no stranger to his
perceptions in the flesh.
Rosamund looked at him, half amused, half questioning.
“But why theosophic tendencies?” she demanded. “I am,” she added,
“peculiarly ignorant of that trend of thought.”
John laughed.
“Nor am I vastly learned, for that matter. If I were to attempt to
define I think I should say that, where your scientist pure and simple
may deny the existence of God at all, your man, like Corin, with the
curious intermixture of a dreamer, acknowledges the existence of this
Supreme Power, even endows that Power with a certain mysticism, but
at the same time reduces--or attempts to reduce--all the actions and
manifestations of the Power to terms comprehensible by the finite
understanding.”
“Yes?” she queried. It was evident she desired to hear more.
“Oh,” smiled John, “it’s too complicated an affair to compress into
a sentence or two. But take, for instance, pain--the apparently
undeserved and ghastly suffering with which one is sometimes brought
in contact. Instead of saying, as we do, that there are endless
mysteries of pain and suffering which our finite minds cannot possibly
understand, they wish to find some quite definite and tangible
solution, therefore they adopt the Buddhistic theory of reincarnation
and karma. We work out, they say, our karma in each succeeding
incarnation for the sins of the last. There is, in their eyes, no such
thing as an innocent victim--with one exception. All suffering, even
that of the veriest babe, is the suffering it has deserved for former
sins.”
“Oh!” A moment she was silent. “How about the exception?”
“The exception, in their eyes, is any great teacher, who, having
fulfilled all his own karma, voluntarily returns to teach and aid those
in a lower state of evolution. You understand that, according to their
theory, a man is bound to return to this earth, whether he will or no,
till his debt of karma has been paid. It is only when that debt is
paid, that the return becomes voluntary; and, when sought, is purely
for the good of mankind.”
She looked across the heather.
“It would seem,” said she reflective, “that even that theory makes
something of a call upon faith.”
“It does,” returned John. “And yet you must see that it reduces
the mystery of pain to terms capable of being grasped by the human
intelligence. It’s the same with every other mystery. There’s the
makeshift in the whole business. On the one hand they allow the
existence of a God presumably infinite; but, on the other hand, they
wish to reduce Him, and His dealings with creation, to terms capable
of understanding by their finite intelligence. But I forgot, strictly
speaking they would not, I suppose, consider their intelligence finite,
since, according to them, there is in every man the potential divinity.”
“What do they mean?” she asked. “Are they talking about the soul?”
“In a sense, yes,” returned John. “But the soul, apparently, has no
exact individuality of its own; at least, not a lasting individuality.
It is a spark, an atom, of the Great Whole, which when it has developed
to its utmost, and finished all its work, including possible return
in the body to the earth as a teacher, will eventually receive its
reward by becoming merged and absorbed in the Divine Whole from
whence it proceeded. Apparently, also, if a soul refuses to develop,
it can eventually be extinguished, or what is equivalent to being
extinguished.”
“It doesn’t seem exactly a pleasant creed,” said she meditative.
“Absorption or extinction, as the two final alternatives, are not what
one might term precisely satisfactory to contemplate. It is certainly
nicer to believe that one retains one’s individuality.”
“That,” John assured her, “is merely our unconquerable egotism.”
“Then,” she retorted smiling, “let us hope that it is an egotism your
friend will shortly acquire.”
There was a little silence. _Monsieur le Chèvre_ had been, for the
moment, forgotten. Certainly his own quiet self-effacement was
conducive to their forgetfulness of him. They were almost at the gate
before she spoke again.
“I suppose,” she remarked tentatively, “your friend is not perverting
you to his theories.”
“I trust not,” said John solemnly. And then he added, “I am a Catholic.”
“Oh!” The ejaculation held the tiniest note of pleasure. Then, after a
second’s pause. “You know that we have a chapel at the Castle.”
They had gained the lane by now. Antony, who had felt the full
responsibility of defence to rest on his shoulders from the moment
John’s attention had been occupied by a wholly unintelligible--and
probably, in Antony’s eyes, unintelligent--conversation, heaved a deep
sigh.
“Goats,” said he, “are horrid things.”
“Do you know,” quoth John, “I really have a slight partiality towards
goats myself.”
Which speech would have savoured more strongly of truth had the
partiality remained unqualified.