Chapter 12

"Not as I see," answered Lubin, beginning to sweep the lawn. "But a traveller he was, because the barmaid told me so. Travelled all over the country in bonnets."

"Travelled in bonnets?" cried Austin. "What _do_ you mean, Lubin? How can a man go travelling about the country in a bonnet? Had he a bonnet on when you saw him drinking in the bar?"

"Lor', Master Austin, wherever was you brought up?" exclaimed Lubin, in grave amazement at the youth's ignorance. "When a gentleman 'travels' in anything, it means he goes about getting orders for it. Now this here gentleman was agent, I take it, for some big millinery shop in London, and come down here wi' boxes an' boxes o' bonnets, an' tokes, and all sorts o' female headgear as women goes about in----"

"In short, he was a commercial traveller," said Austin, very mildly. "You see, my dear Lubin, we have been talking of different things. I wasn't thinking of a gentleman who hawks haberdashery. When I said traveller, I meant a man who goes tramping across Africa, and shoots elephants, and gets snowed up at the North Pole, and has all sorts of uncomfortable and quite incredible adventures. They always have faces as brown as an old trunk, and generally limp when they walk. That's the sort of person I'm looking out for. You haven't seen anyone like that, have you?"

"Nay--nary a one," said Lubin, shaking his head. "Would he have been putting up at one o' the inns, now, or staying long wi' some o' the gentry?"

"I haven't the slightest idea," acknowledged Austin.

"Might as well go about looking for a ram wi' five feet," remarked Lubin. "Some things you can't find 'cause they don't exist, and other things you can't find 'cause there's too many of 'em. And as you don't know nothing about this gentleman, and wouldn't know him if you met him in the street permiscuous, I take it you'll have to wait to see what he looks like till he turns up again of his own accord. 'Tain't in reason as you can go up to every old gentleman with a brown face as you never see before an' ask him if he's ever been snowed up at the North Pole and why he hasn't got a wooden leg. He'd think, as likely as not, as you was trying to get a rise out of him. Don't you know what the name may be, neither?"

"Oh yes, I do, of course," responded Austin. "He's a Mr Ogilvie."

"Never heard of 'im," said Lubin. "Might find out at one o' the inns if any party o' that name's been staying there, but I doubt they wouldn't remember. Folks don't generally stay more'n one night, you see, just to have a look at the old market-place and the church, and then off they go next morning and don't leave no addresses. Th' only sort as stays a day or two are the artists, and they'll stay painting here for more'n a week at a time. It may 'a been one o' them."

"I wonder!" exclaimed Austin, struck by the idea. "Perhaps he's an artist, after all; artists do travel, I know. I never thought of that. However, it doesn't matter. It's only some old friend of Aunt Charlotte's, and he's coming to call on her soon, so it isn't worth bothering about meanwhile."

He therefore dismissed the matter from his mind, and set about the far more profitable employment of fortifying himself by a morning's devotion to garden-craft, both manual and mental, against the martyrdom (as he called it) that he was to undergo that afternoon. For Aunt Charlotte had insisted on his accompanying her to tea at the vicarage, and this was a function he detested with all his heart. He never knew whom he might meet there, and always went in fear of Cobbledicks, MacTavishes, and others of the same sort. The vicar himself he did not mind so much--the vicar was not a bad little thing in his way; but Mrs Sheepshanks, with her patronising disapproval and affected airs of smartness, he couldn't endure, while the Socialistic curate was his aversion. The reason he hated the curate was partly because he always wore black knickerbockers, and partly because he was such chums with the MacTavish boys. How any self-respecting individual could put up with such savages as Jock and Sandy was a problem that Austin was wholly unable to solve, until it was suggested to him by somebody that the real attraction was neither Jock nor Sandy, but one of their screaming sisters--a Florrie, or a Lottie, or an Aggie--it really did not matter which, since they were all alike. When this once dawned upon him, Austin despised the knickerbockered curate more than ever.

On the present occasion, however, the MacTavishes were happily not there; the only other guest (for of course the curate didn't count) being a friend of the curate's, who had come to spend a few days with him in the country. The friend was a harsh-featured, swarthy young man, belonging to what may be called the muscular variety of high Ritualism; much given to a sort of aggressive slang--he had been known to refer to the bishop of his diocese as "the sporting old jester that bosses our show"--and representing militant sacerdotalism in its most blusterous and rampant form. He was also in the habit of informing people that he was "nuts" on the Athanasian Creed, and expressing the somewhat arbitrary opinion that if the Rev. John Wesley had had his deserts he would have been exhibited in a pillory and used as a target for stale eggs. There are a few such interesting youths in Holy Orders, and the curate's friend was one of them.

The party were assembled in the garden, where Mrs Sheepshanks's best tea-service was laid out. To say that the conversation was brilliant would be an exaggeration; but it was pleasant and decorous, as conversations at a vicarage ought to be. The two ladies compared notes about the weather and the parish; the curate asked Austin what he had been doing with himself lately; the friend kept silence, even from good words, while the vicar, one of the mildest of his cloth, sat blinking in furtive contemplation of the friend. Certainly it was not a very exhilarating entertainment, and Austin felt that if it went on much longer he should scream. What possible pleasure, he marvelled, could Aunt Charlotte find in such a vapid form of dissipation? Even the garden irritated him, for it was laid out in the silly Early Victorian style, with wriggling paths, and ribbon borders, and shrubs planted meaninglessly here and there about the lawn, and a dreadful piece of sham rockwork in one corner. Of course the vicar's wife thought it quite perfect, and always snubbed Austin in a very lofty way if he ever ventured to express his own views as to how a garden should be fitly ordered. Then his eye happened to fall upon the curate's friend; and he caught the curate's friend in the act of staring at him with a most offensive expression of undisguised contempt.

Now, Austin was courteous to everyone; but to anybody he disliked his politeness was simply deadly. Of course he took no notice of the young parson's tacit insolence; he only longed, as fervently as he knew how to long, for an opportunity of being polite to him. And the occasion was soon forthcoming. The conversation growing more general by degrees, a reference was made by the vicar, in passing, to a certain clergyman of profound scholarship and enlightened views, whose recently published book upon the prophet Daniel had been painfully exercising the minds of the editor and readers of the _Church Times_; and it was then that the curate's friend, without moving a muscle of his face, suddenly leaned forward and said, in a rasping voice:

"The man's an impostor and a heretic. He ought to be burned. I would gladly walk in the procession, singing the 'Te Deum,' and set fire to the faggots myself."[A]

And there was no doubt he meant it. A dead silence fell upon the party. The curate looked horribly annoyed. The ladies exclaimed "Oh!" with a little shudder of dismay. The vicar started, fidgeted, and blinked more nervously than ever. Then Austin, with the most charming manner in the world, broke the spell.

"Really!" he exclaimed, turning towards the speaker, a bright smile of interest upon his face. "That's a most delightfully original suggestion. May I ask what religion you belong to?"

"What religion!" scowled the curate's friend, astounded at the enquiry.

"Yes--it must be one I never heard of," replied Austin, sweetly. "I am so awfully ignorant, you know; I know nothing of geography, and scarcely anything about the religions of savage countries. Are you a Thug?"

"Oh, Austin!" breathed Aunt Charlotte, faintly.

"I always do make such mistakes," continued Austin, with his most engaging air; "I'm so sorry, please forgive me if I'm stupid. I forgot, of course Thugs don't burn people alive, they only strangle them. Perhaps I'm thinking of the Bosjesmans, or the Andaman Islanders, or the aborigines of New Guinea. I do get so mixed up! But I've often thought how lovely it would be to meet a cannibal. You aren't a cannibal, are you?" he added wistfully.

"I'm a priest of the Church of England," replied the curate's friend, with crushing scorn, though his face was livid. "When you're a little older you'll probably understand all that that implies."

"Fancy!" exclaimed Austin, with an air of innocent amazement. "I've heard of the Church of England, but I quite thought you must belong to one of those curious persuasions in Africa, isn't it--or is it Borneo?--where the services consist in skinning people alive and then roasting them for dinner. It occurred to me that you might have gone there as a missionary, and that the savages had converted you instead of you converting the savages. I'm sure I beg your pardon. And have you ever set fire to a bishop?"

"Austin! Austin!" came still more faintly from Aunt Charlotte.

The vicar, scandalised at first, was now in convulsions of silent laughter. Mrs Sheepshanks's parasol was lowered in a most suspicious manner, so as completely to hide her face; while the unfortunate curate, with his head almost between his knees, was working havoc in the vicarage lawn with the point of a heavy walking-stick. The only person who seemed perfectly at his ease was Austin, and he was enjoying himself hugely. Then the vicar, feeling it incumbent upon him, as host, to say something to relieve the strain, attempted to pull himself together.

"My dear boy," he said, in rather a quavering voice, "you may be perfectly sure that our valued guest has no sympathy with any of the barbarous religions you allude to, but is a most loyal member of the Church of England; and that when he said he would like to 'burn' a brother clergyman--one of the greatest Talmudists and Hebrew scholars now alive--it was only his humorous way of intimating that he was inclined to differ from him on one or two obscure points of historical or verbal criticism which----"

"It was not," said the curate's friend.

Mrs Sheepshanks immediately turned to Aunt Charlotte, and remarked that feather boas were likely to be more than ever in fashion when the weather changed; and Aunt Charlotte said she had heard from a most authoritative source that pleated corselets were to be the rage that autumn. Both ladies then agreed that the days were certainly beginning to draw in, and asked the curate if he didn't think so too. The curate fumbled in his pocket, and offered Austin a cigarette, and Austin, noticing the unconcealed annoyance of the unfortunate young man, who was really not a bad fellow in the main, felt kindly towards him, and accepted the cigarette with effusion. The vicar relapsed into silence, making no attempt to complete his unfinished sentence; then he stole a glance at the saturnine face of the stranger, and from that moment became an almost liberal-minded theologian; He had had an object-lesson that was to last him all his life, and he never forgot it.

"Well, Austin," said Aunt Charlotte, when they were walking home, a few minutes later, "of course you _ought_ to have a severe scolding for your behaviour this afternoon; but the fact is, my dear, that on this occasion I do not feel inclined to give you one. That man was perfectly horrible, and deserved everything he got. I only hope it may have done him good. I couldn't have believed such people existed at the present day. The most charitable view to take of him is that he can scarcely be in his right mind."

"What, because he wanted to burn somebody alive?" said Austin. "Oh, that was natural enough. I thought it rather an amusing idea, to tell the truth. The reason I went for him was that I caught him making faces at me when he thought I wasn't looking. I saw at once that he was a beast, so the instant he gave me an opportunity of settling accounts with him I took it. Oh, what a blessing it is to be at home again! Dear auntie, let's make a virtuous resolution. We'll neither of us go to the vicarage again as long as we both shall live."

He strolled into the garden--the good garden, with straight walks, and clipped hedges, and fair formal shape--and threw himself down upon a long chair. He had already begun to forget the incidents of the afternoon. Here was rest, and peace, and beauty. How tired he was! Why did he feel so tired? He could not tell. A deep sense of satisfaction and repose stole over him. Lubin was there, tidying up, but he did not feel any inclination to talk to Lubin or anybody else. He liked watching Lubin, however, for Lubin was part of the garden, and all his associations with him were pleasant. The scent of the flowers and the grass possessed him. The sun was far from setting, and a young crescent moon was hovering high in the heavens, looking like a silver sickle against the blue. From the distant church came the sound of bells ringing for even-song, faint as horns of elf-land, through the still air. He felt that he would like to lie there always--just resting, and drinking in the beauty of the world.

Suddenly he half-rose. "Lubin!" he called out quickly, in an undertone.

"Sir," responded Lubin, turning round.

"Who was that lady looking over the garden-gate just now?"

"Lady?" repeated Lubin. "I never saw no lady. Whereabouts was she?"

"On the path of course, outside. A second ago. She stood looking at me over the gate, and then went on. Run to the gate and see how far she's got--quick!"

Lubin did as he was bidden without delay, looking up and down the road. Then he returned, and soberly picked up his broom.

"There ain't no lady there," he said. "No one in sight either way. Must 'a been your fancy, Master Austin, I expect."

"Fancy, indeed!" retorted Austin, excitedly. "You'll tell me next it's my fancy that I'm looking at you now. A lady in a large hat and a sort of light-coloured dress. She _must_ be there. There's nowhere else for her to be, unless the earth has swallowed her up. I'll go and look myself."

He struggled up and staggered as fast as he could go to the gate. Then he pushed it open and went out as far as the middle of the road from which he could see at least a hundred yards each way. But not a living creature was in sight.

"It's enough to make one's hair stand on end!" he exclaimed, as he came slowly back. "Where can she have got to? She was here--here, by the gate--not twenty seconds ago, only a few yards from where I was sitting. Don't talk to me about fancy; that's sheer nonsense. I saw her as distinctly as I see you now, and I should know her again directly if I saw her a year hence. Of all inexplicable things!"

There was no more lying down. He was too much puzzled and excited to keep still. Up and down he paced, cudgelling his brains in search of an explanation, wondering what it could all mean, and longing for another glimpse of the mysterious visitor. For one brief moment he had had a full, clear view of her face, and in that moment he had been struck by her unmistakable resemblance to himself.

FOOTNOTES:

[A] A fact. Said in the writer's presence by a young clergyman of the same breed as the one here described.

Chapter the Eleventh

The repairs to the ceiling in Austin's room were now finished, and it was with great satisfaction that he resumed possession of his old quarters. The mysterious events that had befallen him when he slept there last, some weeks before, recurred very vividly to his mind as he found himself once more amid the familiar surroundings, and although he heard no more raps or anything else of an abnormal nature, he felt that, whatever dangers might threaten him in the future, he would always be protected by those he thought of as his unseen friends. Aunt Charlotte, meanwhile, had taken an opportunity of consulting the vicar as to the orthodoxy of a belief in guardian angels, and the vicar had reassured her at once by referring her to the Collect for St Michael and All Angels, in which we are invited to pray that they may succour and defend us upon earth; so that there really was nothing superstitious in the conclusion that, as Austin had undoubtedly been succoured and defended in a very remarkable manner on more than one occasion, some benevolent entity from a better world might have had a hand in it. The worthy lady, of course, could not resist the temptation of informing Mr Sheepshanks of what her bankers had said about the investment he had so earnestly urged upon her, and the vicar seemed greatly surprised. He had not put any money into it himself, it was true, but was being sorely tempted by another prospectus he had just received of an enterprise for recovering the baggage which King John lost some centuries ago in the Wash. The only consideration that made him hesitate was the uncertainty whether, in view of the perishable nature of the things themselves, they would be worth very much to anybody if ever they were fished up.

"Austin," said Aunt Charlotte, two days afterwards at breakfast, "I have had another letter from Mr Ogilvie. Of course I wrote to him when I heard first, saying how pleased I should be to see him whenever he was in the neighbourhood again; and now I have his reply. He proposes to call here to-morrow afternoon, and have a cup of tea with us."

"So the fateful day has come at last," remarked Austin. "Very well, auntie, I'll make myself scarce while you're talking over old times together, but I insist on coming in before he goes, remember. I'm awfully curious to see what he's like. Do you think he wears a wig?"

"I really haven't thought about it," replied his aunt. "It's nothing to me whether he does or not--or to you either, for the matter of that. Of course you must present yourself to him some time or other; it would be most discourteous not to. And do, if you can, try and behave rather more like other people. Don't parade your terrible ignorance of geography, for instance, as you do sometimes. He would think that I had neglected your education disgracefully, and seeing what a traveller he's been himself--"

"All right, auntie, I won't give you away," Austin assured her. "You'd better tell him what a horrid dunce I am before I come in, and then he won't be so surprised if I do put my foot in it. After all, we're not sure that he's been a traveller. He may be a painter. Lubin says that lots of painters come down here sometimes. My own idea is that he'll turn out to be nothing but a bank manager, or perhaps a stockbroker. I expect he's rolling in money."

Austin had said nothing to his aunt about the lady who had looked over the gate for one brief moment and then so unaccountably disappeared. What would have been the use? He felt baffled and perplexed, but it was not likely that Aunt Charlotte would be able to throw any light upon the mystery. She would probably say that he had been dreaming, or that he only imagined it, or that it was an old gipsy woman, or one of the MacTavish girls playing a trick, or something equally fatuous and absurd. But the more he thought of it the more he was convinced of the reality of the whole thing, and of the existence of some great marvel. That he had seen the lady was beyond question. That she had vanished the next moment was also beyond question. That she had hidden behind a tree or gone crouching in a ditch was inconceivable, to say the least of it; so fair and gracious a person would scarcely descend to such undignified manoeuvres, worthy only of a hoydenish peasant girl. And yet, what could possibly have become of her? The enigma was quite unsolvable.

The next morning brought with it a surprise. Aunt Charlotte had some very important documents that she wanted to deposit with her bankers--so important, indeed, that she did not like to entrust them to the post; so Austin, half in jest, proposed that he should go to town himself by an early train, and leave them at the bank in person. To his no small astonishment, Aunt Charlotte took him at his word, though not without some misgivings; instructed him to send her a telegram as soon as ever the papers were in safe custody, and assured him that she would not have a moment's peace until she got it. Austin, much excited at the prospect of a change, packed the documents away in the pistol-pocket of his trousers, and started off immediately after breakfast in high spirits. The journey was a great delight to him, as he had not travelled by railway for nearly a couple of years, and he derived immense amusement from watching his fellow-passengers and listening to their conversation. There was a party of very serious-minded American tourists, with an accent reverberant enough to have cracked the windows of the carriage had they not, luckily, been open; and from the talk of these good people he learnt that they came from a place called New Jerusalem, that they intended to do London in two days, and that they answered to the names of Mr Thwing, Mr Moment, and Mr and Mrs Skull. The gentlemen were arrayed in shiny broad-cloth, with narrow black ties, tied in a careless bow; the lady wore long curls all down her back and a brown alpaca gown; and they all seemed under the impression that the most important sights which awaited them were the Metropolitan Tabernacle and some tunnel under the Thames. The only other passenger was a rather smart-looking gentleman with a flower in his buttonhole, who made himself very pleasant; engaged Austin in conversation, gave him hints as to how best to enjoy himself in London, asked him a number of questions about where he lived and how he spent his time, and finished up by inviting him to lunch. But Austin, never having seen the man before, declined; and no amount of persuasion availed to make him alter his decision.

On arrival in London, he got into an omnibus--not daring to call a cab, lest he should pay the cabman a great deal too much or a great deal too little--and in a short time was set down near Waterloo Place, where the bank was situated. His first care was to relieve himself of the precious documents, and this he did at once; but he thought the clerk looked at him in a disagreeably sharp and suspicious manner, and wondered whether it was possible he might be accused of forgery and given in charge to a policeman. The papers consisted of some dividend-warrants payable to bearer, and an endorsed cheque, and the clerk examined them with a most formidable and inquisitorial frown. Then he asked Austin what his name was, and where he lived; and Austin blushed and stammered to such an extent and made such confused replies that the clerk looked more suspiciously at him than ever, and Austin had it on the tip of his tongue to assure him that he really had not stolen the documents, or forged Aunt Charlotte's name, or infringed the laws in any way whatever that he could think of. But just then the clerk, who had been holding a muttered consultation with another gentleman of equally threatening aspect, turned to him again with a less aggressive expression, as much as to say that he'd let him off this time if he promised never to do it any more, and intimated, with a sort of grudging nod, that he was free to go if he liked. Which Austin, much relieved, forthwith proceeded to do.