Part 9

"The knowledge awaits thee, and will begin from this hour," said the Interpreter. "Most assuredly that which thou tellest is an image of the world that was; and he that dreameth of the one world dreameth also in due season of the other. But hearken now while I put thee to the question; and if thou answerest according to thy doctrine, peradventure the interpretation of thy vision will appear in the issue."

"Say on," said Abdulla.

"This, then, is the question. Thinkest thou, O Dreamer, that when a man dies and enters Paradise, he knows of his condition, as who should say, 'Lo, I am now a disembodied spirit, having just passed through the article of death, and these before me are the Gates of Heaven, and yonder shining thing is the Throne of God?'"

"Nay, verily," said Abdulla, "in this and in every world the Throne of God is revealed after one and the same manner, and never shall it be seen in any world save by such as follow there the Loyal Path whereby it is found in this. And he who beholdeth not the Gates of Paradise in the world where he is, will look for them in vain in the world where he is to be."

"Art thou willing to think, then, that thou and I are in Paradise even at this hour?"

"Thou hintest at the doctrine that has been revealed to me," said the other. "It may be even as thou sayest. For certain am I that thou and I have died many deaths; and as there is another world in respect of this, so is this world another in respect of them that went before. Great is the error which deemeth that the number of the worlds is but two, and that death, therefore, cometh once only to a man, when he passeth from the first to the second. Of death, as of life, the kinds are innumerable; and of these, that which destroyeth the body at the end is only one, and perhaps not the chief. Whatsoever changeth into its contrary must needs die in the act; so that except one die, grief cannot pass into joy, nor darkness into light, nor evil into good; neither can the lost be found, nor the sleeper awake. Wherefore it may be that thou and I are in Paradise even now."

"Thou speakest to the question," said the Interpreter. "Some there are, as thou sayest, who, being in Paradise already, will still be asking whether Paradise awaits them. And if the enlightened go thus astray, how much deeper is the ignorance of the darkened! For in no place, O Abdulla, is Hell more doubted of than in Hell itself."

"I have lived in the cities of the West and have observed that very thing," said Abdulla. "Many a damned soul have I heard making boast of his good estate, and many a doubt of Judgment shouted forth from the very flames of the Pit. For how shall a man know when he is now dead and come to Judgment? Doth he live in his dying, and, taking note of his last breath, say within himself, 'Lo, now I am dead'? And if he know not the single occasion of his dying, how should he remember even though death worketh upon him daily and passeth over him a thousand times?"

"Death and forgetting are one," said the Interpreter, "and the memory of dying perisheth like a dream. But some there are to whom Allah hath appointed a station at the place of passage and set as watchmen at the intermingling of the worlds. These pass to and fro over the bridges, gathering tidings from forgotten realms; and much of majesty and worth that escapeth the common sort is apparent unto them. And of such, O Abdulla, thy dreams declare thee to be one."

"Hast thou no further interpretation?" asked Abdulla.

"Hark!" said the other. "The full interpretation cometh even now."

And, as he spoke, the brass knocker sounded on the door.

* * * * *

_Thus endeth "The Hole in the Water-skin."_

III

DR PIECRAFT CLEARS HIS MIND

Throughout the whole of this long prelection Dr Phippeny Piecraft had scarcely moved a muscle, listening with ever deeper attention as the story went on. Once only had he interrupted the reader.

"You are coming now," he had said, "to the deleted passage about Dual Personality. Don't forget to read it."

"Pardon me," said the young man, "I passed that point some minutes since. The writer had pencilled against the passage, '_Omit, spoils the unity_.' So, from respect to his wishes, I left it out."

"It was well done," Piecraft had answered. "Unity is all-important. Proceed."

And now, the reading being over, the two men sat for several minutes facing one another in silence. Presently the reader said:

"Well, have you identified the author?"

"I have," said Piecraft. "The tale is a reminiscence of some old speculations of mine. I wrote every word of it myself, and I finished it last night."

"How came you to think that it was written by somebody else?"

"That is what puzzles me. But I can give a partial explanation. Last night, after finishing the tale, I had a dream, which was extremely vivid, though I find it impossible now to recall the details. I dreamt that I was writing a story under the title of _Dual Personality_--something about a gamekeeper and two young lords who interchanged their characters. It was a sort of nightmare, partly accounted for by the fact that my health, until to-day, has been indifferent. When you came in this morning the influence of the dream lingered in sufficient strength to make me think I had actually written the story dreamed about, and not the one you have just read out. It was an illusion."

"Illusion is an integral part of reality," said the young man.

"Is that an original remark?" asked Piecraft. "Somehow I seem to remember having heard it before."

"It is a quotation," answered the other. "I am in the habit of using it for the enlightenment of new-comers."

"New-comers!" exclaimed Piecraft. "My dear fellow, do you know that my brass plate has been on this house for over ten years. It is you who are the new-comer, not I."

The young man smiled. "It has been on this house much longer than that, but you are a new-comer all the same," said he.

"I don't catch your drift," said Piecraft. "What do you mean?"

"It takes time to answer that," said the other. "Be content to learn gradually."

"There's something strange about all this," said Piecraft, "which I should like to clear up at once. I don't seem to know exactly where I am. Do you mind shaking me? For I'm half inclined to think that I'm fast asleep and dreaming--like Abdulla, in the story."

"You were never so wide-awake in your life. But if you wish for an immediate enlightenment, I can take you to a house in the next street, when the whole position will be cleared up at once."

"Come along," said Piecraft. "I feel like a man who is in for a big adventure. There's something interesting in this."

As they passed down the street, Piecraft said: "Would you mind telling me as we walk along what you think of the story you read just now? It's not in my usual style; in fact, it's quite a new departure, and I'm very anxious, before publishing, to know what impression it makes on good judges."

"The story is not bad for a first attempt," said the young man. "You'll learn to express yourself better later on. It was a bold thing on your part to tackle that subject right away. To handle it properly requires much more experience than you have had. There are one or two points which you have presented in a false light, and you have mixed some things up which ought to have been kept separate. But, on the whole, you have no reason to be discouraged."

"I'm surprised at what you say," returned Piecraft. "As to my being a beginner, I had a notion that I was a novelist of standing, as well as a Gold Medallist in Cerebral Pathology. But just now I'm not going to dogmatise about that or anything else. It's just possible that I'm still under the illusion produced by the dream of last night. Meanwhile, I'm really anxious to know what has happened. The things about me are familiar--and yet somehow not the same as I remember them. They look as though the old dirt had been washed out of them."

"You are getting on remarkably well," said his companion. "The whole world has been spring-cleaned since you saw it last."

"You have an original way of expressing yourself," said Piecraft. "Your style reminds me of a young half-brother of mine. He was lost in a steamer whose name I can't remember--when was it? His conversation was always picturesque. And, by the way, that suggests another thing. The young girl who waited on me, this morning--who is she?"

"Why do you ask?"

"Because she's so uncommonly like a girl I used to run after in the old days--a student at the Slade School of Art. And a wonderfully good, nice girl she was. Her father, who was said to be a scoundrel, got ten years for alleged embezzlement; and the girl gave me up because I wouldn't take his side. How she stuck to him through thick and thin! I tell you, my boy, she was a loyal soul! I wonder if she is still alive."

"Such souls are hard to kill," said the other.

* * * * *

By this time the pair had arrived at the house indicated by the messenger. On the door of it was an enormous knocker of brass.

"Knock, and it shall be opened," said the young man.

Dr Piecraft had lifted the knocker and was about to let it fall when he heard his name called loudly down the street and saw a man running towards him with a piece of paper in his hand. The man approached and Piecraft, taking the paper, read as follows:

"_Dr Phippeny Piecraft is needed at once for a matter of life and death._"

"I must be off immediately," he said to his companion; "I am called to an urgent case. It's a matter of life and death. Duty first, my boy, and the clearing-up of mysteries afterwards! Remember what the sergeant said to Abdulla when he plucked him by the sleeve. Besides--who knows?--this may mean that the practice is going to revive."

"That is precisely what it does mean," said the young man. "Matters of life and death are extremely common just now, and you are the very man to deal with them."

"How do you know that?" said Piecraft with some astonishment; and, as he spoke the words, without thinking he released the lifted knocker from his hand.

The knocker fell, and the instant it struck the door Dr Phippeny Piecraft knew where he was.

"_It's wonderfully like the old home_," he said.

A familiar laugh sounded behind him.

He turned round; and the man who grasped his hand was Jim.

THE PROFESSOR'S MARE

I

The Reverend John Scattergood, D.D., Professor of Systematic Theology, was of Puritan descent. The founder of the family was Caleb Scatter-the-good-seed, a cornet of horse in Cromwell's army, who had earned his master's favour by prowess at the battle of Dunbar. The family tradition averred that when Cromwell halted the pursuit of Leslie's shattered forces for the purpose of singing the 117th Psalm, it was Caleb Scatter-the-good-seed who gave out the tune and led the psalmody. This he did at the beginning of every verse by striking a tuning-fork on his bloody sword. He was mounted, said the tradition, on a coal-black horse.

John Scattergood, D.D., was a hard-headed theologian. His lectures on Systematic Theology ended, as all who attended them will remember, in a cogent demonstration of the Friendliness of the Universe, firmly established by the Inflexible Method. This was a masterpiece of ratiocination. The impartial observation of facts, the even-handed weighing of evidence, the right ordering of principles and their application, the separation and weaving together of lines of thought, the careful disentangling of necessary pre-suppositions, the just treatment of objectors--all the qualities demanded of one who handles the deepest problems of thought were combined in Dr Scattergood's demonstration of the Friendliness of the Universe according to the Inflexible Method. Most of his hearers were convinced by his arguments, and went forth into the world to publish the good news that the Universe was friendly.

Hard-headed as Scattergood was, it would be unjust to his character to describe him as free from superstition. Much of his life, indeed, had been spent in attacking the superstitions of the ignorant and the thoughtless; but this very practice had bred in him, as in so many others, a superstitious regard for the argumentative weapons used in the attack. Like his ancestor at Dunbar, he struck his tuning-fork on his sword. To be sure, he was a Rational Theist, and a cause of Rational Theism in others; but, unless I am much mistaken, the ultimate object of his faith, the Power behind his Deity, was the Inflexible Method. Superstition never dies; it merely changes its form. It is not a confession we make to ourselves so much as a charge we bring against others, and its greatest power is always exercised in directions where we are least aware of its existence. And Scattergood, of course, was unaware that his attitude towards the Inflexible Method was profoundly superstitious. It follows that he was unprepared for the part which superstition, changing its form, was destined to play in his life.

Theology, then, was his vocation, but I have now to add, the horse was his hobby. Although he had taken to riding late in life, he was by no means an incapable rider or an ignorant horseman. Next to the Universe, the horse had been the subject of his profoundest study; and as he was a close reasoner in regard to the one, he was a tight rider in regard to the other. His seat, like his philosophy, was a trifle stiff; but what else could you expect in one who had passed his sixtieth year? He never rode to hounds, nor otherwise unduly jeopardised his neck; but for managing a high-spirited horse, when all the rest of us were in difficulties, I never knew his better. "Let Scattergood go first," we cried as the traction engine came snorting down the road and our elderly hacks were prancing on the pavement; and sure enough his young thoroughbred would walk by the monster without so much as changing its feet.

"Scattergood," I once asked him, "what do you _do_ to that young mare of yours when you meet a traction engine or a military band?"

"Nothing," he replied.

"Then what do you _say_ to her?"

"Nothing."

"Then how do you manage it?"

"I haven't the faintest idea."

Needless to say, he was deeply respected in the stables. "A gen'l'man with a wonderful _'orse-sense_," said the old ostler one day, expatiating, as usual, on Scattergood's virtues. "If I'd had a 'orse-sense like him, I'd be one o' the richest men in England. If ever there was a man as throwed himself away, there he goes! 'Orse-sense isn't a thing as you see every day, sir. The only other man I've ever knowed as had it was his Lordship, as I was his coachman in Ireland more than twenty years ago. His Lordship used to say to me, 'Tom,' he says, 'Tom, it all comes of my grandfather and his father before him bein' jockeys.' And between you and me, sir, that's what's the matter with his Reverence. He's jockey-bred, sir, you take my word for it."

"His father was a bishop," I interposed.

"Well, his father may have been a bishop, for all I care," said Tom. "But what about his mother, and what about his mother's father, and his father before him, and all the rest on 'em? When it comes to a matter o' breedin', you don't stop at fathers; you take in the whole pedigree. Wasn't his Lordship's father a brewer? And what difference did that make? When 'orse-sense once gets started in a family it takes more than brewin' and more than bishopin' to wash it out o' the blood."

"I've heard that gypsies have the same gift," I said.

"I've 'eard it too, sir. But I never would have nothing to do with gypsies; though his Lordship was as thick as thieves with 'em. And thieves are just what they are, sir, and if it weren't for that I'd say as the gen'l'man was as like to be gypsy-bred as jockey. Don't you never let the gypsies sell _you_ a 'oss, sir; you'll be took in if you do. But they couldn't gypsy _him_! Why, I don't believe as there's a 'oss-dealer for twenty miles round as wouldn't go out for a walk if he 'eard as Dr Scattergood was comin' to buy a 'oss."

That the ostler's last remark was true in the spirit if not in the letter the following incident seems to prove. Once I was myself entrapped into the folly of buying a horse, and I was on the point of concluding the bargain, which seemed to be all in my favour, when a friendly daimon whispered in my ear that I had better be cautious. So I said, "Yes, the horse seems all right. But before coming to a final decision, I'll bring Dr Scattergood round to have a look at him." And the dealer presently abated his price by twenty pounds, on the understanding that "that there interferin' Scattergood, as had already done him more bad turns than one, was not allowed to poke his nose into business which was none of his."

"Pretty good," said the Professor when I showed him my purchase. "Pretty good. But I think I could have saved you another ten pounds, had you taken the trouble to consult me."

He kept but one horse, and it was observed, as a strange thing in a lover of horses, that he never kept that one for long. He was constantly changing his mount. By superficial observers this was set down to a certain fickleness of disposition; but the truth seems rather to have been that Scattergood, consciously or unconsciously, was engaged in the quest for the Perfect Horse. No man knew better than he what equine perfection involved, and none was ever more painfully sensitive to the slightest deviation from the Absolute Ideal. Whatever good qualities his horse might possess--and they were always numerous--the presence of a single fault, however slight, would haunt and oppress him in much the same way as a venial sin will trouble the consciousness of a saint. I remember one beautiful animal in which the severest judges could find no defect save that it had half a dozen miscoloured hairs hidden away on one of its hind-legs. Every time the good doctor rode that horse he saw the miscoloured hairs through the back of his head; and away went the beast to Tattersall's after a week's trial. Another followed, and another after that; but we soon ceased to count them, and took it for granted that Scattergood's horse, seen once, would not be seen again. So it went on until in the fullness of time there appeared a horse, or more strictly a mare, which did not depart as swiftly as it came.

Whatever perfection may be in other realms, perfection in horses seems after all to be a relative thing; for though Dr Scattergood himself regarded this one as perfect, I doubt if he could have found a single soul in the wide world to agree with him. To be sure, she was beautiful enough to cause a flutter of excitement as she passed down the street; but a beast of more dangerous mettle never pranced on two feet or kicked out with one. She was the terror of every stable she entered, and it was only by continual largesse on the part of Scattergood that any groom could be induced to feed or tend her. What she cost him monthly for tips, for broken stable furniture, and for veterinary attendance on the horses she kicked in the ribs, I should be sorry to say. But Scattergood paid it all without a murmur; no infatuated lover ever bore the extravagance of his mistress with a lighter heart. For the truth of the matter was, that he was deeply attached to this mare, and the mare was deeply attached to him.

Why the mare was fond of Scattergood is a problem requiring for its solution more horse-sense than most of us possess; so we had better leave it alone. But Scattergood's reason for being fond of the mare can be stated in a sentence. She reminded him, constantly and vividly, of Ethelberta. Her high spirits, her dash, her unexpectedness, her brilliant eyes, her gait, and especially the carriage of her head, were a far truer likeness of Ethelberta than was the faded photograph, or even the miniature set in gold, which the reverend professor kept locked in his secret drawer.

Now Ethelberta was the name of the lady whom Scattergood wished he had married. For five-and-thirty years he had never ceased wishing he had married _her_--and not someone else. Someone else! Ay, there was the rub! The lawful Mrs Scattergood was not a person whose portrait I should care to draw in much detail. Can you imagine a harder lot than that of a world-famous Systematic Theologian, publicly pledged to maintain the Friendliness of the Universe, but privately consumed with anxiety lest on returning home (_horresco referens!_) he should find a heavy-featured, blear-eyed, irredeemable woman, the woman who called herself his wife, narcotised on the drawing-room sofa, with an empty bottle of chloral at her side? That was the lot of John Scattergood, D.D., and he bore it like a man, keeping up a pathetic show of devotion to his intolerable wife, and concealing his personal misery from the world with an ingenuity only equal to that with which he published abroad the Friendliness of the Universe. To be sure, he had long abandoned the quest for happiness as a thing unworthy of a Systematic Theologian--what else, indeed, could he do? Still, it was hardly possible to avoid reflecting that he would have been happier if he had married Ethelberta. Each day something happened to convince him that he would. For example, his first duty every morning, before settling down to work, was to make a tour of the house, sometimes in the company of a trusted domestic, hunting for a concealed bottle of morphia; and when at last the servant, with her arm under a mattress, said, "I've got it, sir," he could not help reflecting that the burden of life would have been lighter had he married the high-souled Ethelberta. And with the thought a cloud seemed to pass between John Scattergood and the sun.

He would often say to himself that he wished he could forget Ethelberta. But in point of fact he wished nothing of the kind. He secretly cherished her memory, and the efforts he made to banish her from his thoughts only served to incorporate her more completely with the atmosphere of his life.

All through life John Scattergood had been a deeply conscientious man. But conscience--or rather something that called itself conscience, but was in reality nothing of the kind,--which had served him so well in other respects, had been his undoing in the matter of Ethelberta. At the age of twenty-five he was not aware that a man's evil genius, bent on doing its victim the deadliest turn, will often disguise itself in the robes of his heavenly guide. Later on in life he learned to penetrate these disguises, but at twenty-five he was at their mercy. He was, as we have seen, of Puritan descent; his evangelical upbringing had taught him to regard as heaven-sent all inner voices which bade him sacrifice his happiness; and this it was of which the enemy took advantage. In his relationship with Ethelberta the young man was radiantly happy; but that very circumstance aroused his suspicions. "You are not worthy of this happiness," said an inner voice; "and, what is far more to the point, you are not worthy of Ethelberta. She is too good for such as you."

"Who are you?" said the young Scattergood, addressing the inner voice. "Who are you that haunt me night and day with this horrible fear?"

"I am your conscience," answered the voice. "You are unworthy of Ethelberta; and it is I, your conscience, that tell you so. I am a voice from heaven, and beware of disregarding me."