Chapter 3

For it so happened that Providence, in equipping the lady for her world-mending mission, had forgotten to give her a pleasant voice. Now if there was one thing in the world which made Snarley "madder" than anything else could do, it was the high-pitched, strident tones of a woman engaged in argument. The consequence was that his self-restraint broke down, and before the lady had said half the things she had meant to say, or come within sight of the splendid offer she was going to make on behalf of the Earl of Clodd, Snarley had spoken words and performed actions which caused his benefactress to retreat from the farmyard with her nose in the air, declaring she "would have nothing more to do with the horrid brute." She was not the first of Snarley's would-be benefactors who had formed the same resolve.

Now this extraordinary conduct on Snarley's part was by no means due to any transcendental contempt for money. I have myself offered him many a half-crown, which has never been refused; and Mrs. Abel, unless I am much mistaken, has given him many a pound. Still less did it originate from rustic contentment with a humble lot; nor from a desire to act up to his catechism, by being satisfied with that station in life which Providence had assigned him. For there was no more restless soul within the four seas of Britain, and none less willing to govern his conduct by moral saws. And stupidity, which would probably have explained the facts in the case of any other dweller in those parts, was not to be thought of in Snarley's case. "I knew what the old gal was drivin' at before she'd finished the text," said Snarley to me.

The truth is that he was afflicted with an immense and incurable arrogance which caused him to resent the implication, by whomsoever offered, that he was worse off than other people. It was Snarley's distinction that he was able to maintain, and carry off, as much pride on eighteen shillings a week as would require in most people at least fifty thousand a year for effective sustenance. Of course, it was not the eighteen shillings a week that made him proud; it was the consciousness that he had inner resources which his would-be benefactors knew not of. He regarded them all as his inferiors, and, had he known how to do it, he would have treated them _de haut en bas_. Ill-bred insolence was therefore his only weapon; but his use of this was as effective as if it had been the well-bred variety in the hands of the grandest of grand seigneurs. No wonder, then, that he failed to achieve the position to which, in the view of Lady Lottie Passingham, his talents entitled him.

But the inner resources of which I have spoken were Snarley's sufficient compensation for his want of worldly success. The composition of this hidden bread, it is true, was somewhat singular and not easy to imitate. If the reader, when he has learned its ingredients, choose to call it "religion," there is certainly nothing to prevent him. But that was not the word that Snarley used, nor the one he would have approved of. In his own limited nomenclature the elements of his spiritual kingdom were two in number--"the stars" and "the spirits."

Snarley's knowledge of the heavens was extensive, if not profound. On any fair view of profundity, I am inclined to think that it was profound, though of the technique of astronomy he knew but little. He had all the constellations at his fingers' ends, and had given to many of them names of his own; he knew their seasons, their days, even their hours; he knew the comings and goings of every visible planet; by day and night the heavens were his clock. It was characteristic of him that he seldom spoke of the weather when "passing the time of day"--a thing which he never did except to his chosen friends. He spoke almost invariably of the planets or the stars. "Good morning, the sun's very low at this time o' year--did you see the lunar halo last night?--a fine lot o' shootin' stars towards four o'clock, look for 'em again to-morrow in the nor'-west--you can get your breakfast by moonlight this week--Old Tabby [Orion] looks well to-night--you'd better have a look at Sirius afore the moon arises, I never see him so clear as he is now"--these were the greetings which Snarley offered "to them as could understand" from behind the hedge or within the penfold.

But it was not from superficialities of this kind that the depth of his stellar interests was to be measured. I once told him that a great man of old had declared that the stars were gods. "So they are, but I wonder how he found that out," said Snarley; "because you can't find it out by lookin' at 'em. You may look at 'em till you're blind, and you'll never see anything but little lights." "It was just his fancy," I said, like a simpleton. "Fancy be ----!" said Snarley. "It's a plain truth--that is, it's plain enough for them as knows the way."

"What's that?" I said.

"It's a way as nobody can take unless they're born to it. And, what's more, it's a way as nobody can _understand_ unless they're born to it. Didn't I tell you the other day that there's only one sort of folks as can tell what the stars are--and that's the folks as can get out o' their own skins? And they're not many as can do that. But that man you were just talkin' of, as said the stars were gods, _he_ must ha' done it. It's my opinion that in the old days there was more folks as could get out o' their skins than there are now. I sometimes wish _I'd_ been born in the old days. I should ha' had somebody to talk to then. I've got hardly anybody now. And you get tired sometimes o' keepin' yerself to yerself. If I were a learned man I'd be readin' them old books day and night."

"What about the Bible?" I asked.

"Well, that's a good old book," said Snarley; "but there's some things in it that's no good to anybody--_except to talkin' men_."

"Who are they?" I said.

"Why, folks as doesn't understand things, but only likes to talk about 'em: parsons--at least, more nor half on 'em--ay, and these 'ere politicians too, for the matter o' that. There's some folks as dresses up in fine clothes, and there's some as dresses up in fine words: one sort wants to be looked at, and the other wants to be listened to. Doesn't it stand to sense that it's just the same? Bless your 'eart, it's all _show_! Why, there's lots o' men as goes huntin' about till they finds a bit o' summat as they think 'ud look well if they dressed it up in talk. 'Ah,' they say to themselves, 'that'll just do for me; that's what I'm goin' to _believe_; when it's got its Sunday clothes on it'll look like a regular lord.' Well, there's plenty o' that sort about; and you can allus tell 'em by the 'oller sound as they makes. And them's the folks as spoils the old Bible.

"Not but what there's things in the Bible as is 'oller to begin wi'. But there's plenty that isn't, if these talkin' chaps 'ud only leave it alone. Now, here's a bit as I calls tip-top: 'When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers'" (here Snarley quoted several verses of the Eighth Psalm).

"Now, when you gets hold on a bit like that, you don't want to go dressin' on it up. You just puts it in your pipe and smokes it, and then it does you good! _That's_ it!

"There's was once a Salvation Army man as come and asked me if I accepted the Gospel. 'Yes, my lad,' I sez; 'I've accepted it--but only as a thing to _smoke_, not as a thing to go _bangin' about_. Put your drum in the cup-board, my lad,' I sez; 'and put the Gospel in your pipe, and you'll be a wiser man.'

"As for all this 'ere argle-bargling about them big things, _there's nowt in it_, you take my word for that! The little things for argle-bargle, the big uns' for smokin', that's what _I_ sez! Put the big 'uns in your pipe, sir; put 'em in your pipe, and smoke 'em!"

These last words were spoken in tones of great solemnity and repeated several times.

"That's good advice, Snarley," I said; "but the writer you just quoted hadn't got a pipe to put 'em in."

"Didn't need one," said Snarley; "there weren't so many talkin' men about in his time. Folks then were born right end up to begin wi', and didn't need to smoke 'emselves round.

"Ay, ay, sir, I often think about them old days--and it's the Bible as set me thinkin' on 'em. That's the only old book as I ever read. And there's some staggerers in it, I can tell you! Wonderful! If some o' them old Bible men could come back and hear the parsons talkin' about 'em--eh, my word, there would be a rumpus! I'd like to see it, that I would! I'll tell you one thing, sir--and don't you forget it--you'll never understand the old Bible, leastways not the best bits in it, so long as you only wants to talk about 'em, same as a man _allus_ wants to do when he's stuck inside his own skin. Now, there's that bit about the heavens, as I just give you--that's a bit o' real all-right, isn't it?"

"Yes," I said, "it is."

"Well, can't you see as the man as said them words had just let himself out to the other end o' the line and was lookin' back? He'd got himself right into the middle o' the bigness o' things, and that's what you can't do as long as you keeps inside your own skin. But I tell you that when you gets outside for the first time it gives you a pretty shakin' up. You begins to think what a fool you've been all your life long."

Beyond such statements as these, repeated many times and in many forms, I could get no light on Snarley's dealings with the heavens.

To interpret his dealings with "the spirits" is a still harder task. It was one of his common sayings that this matter also could not be discussed in terms intelligible to the once-born. That he did not mean by "spirits" what the vulgar might suppose, is certain. It is true that at one time he used to attend spiritualistic séances held in a large neighbouring village, and he was commonly regarded as a "medium." This latter term was adopted by Snarley in many conversations I had with him as a true description of himself. But here again it was obvious that he used the term only for want of a better. He never employed it without some sort of caveat, uttered or implied, to the effect that the word must be taken with qualifications--unstated qualifications, but still suggestive of important distinctions.

It is noteworthy in this connection that a bitter quarrel existed between Snarley and the spiritualists with whom he had once been associated. They had cast him forth from among them as a smoking brand; and Snarley on his part never lost a chance of denouncing them as liars and rogues. One of the most violent scenes ever witnessed in the tap-room of the Nag's Head had been perpetrated by Snarley on a certain occasion when Shoemaker Hankin was defending the thesis that all forms of religion might now be considered as done for, "except spiritualism." Even Hankin, who reverenced no thing in heaven or earth, had protested against the unprintable words which with Snarley greeted his logic; while the landlord (Tom Barter of happy memory), himself the lowest black-guard in the village, had suggested that he should "draw it mild."

This reminds me that Snarley regarded strong drink as a means, and a legitimate means, for obtaining access to hidden things; nor did he scruple at times to use it for that end. "There's nowt like a drop o' drink _for openin' the door_," he remarked. "But only for them as is born to it. If you're not born to it, drink shuts the door on you tighter nor ever. There's not one man in ten that drink doesn't make a bigger fool of than he is already. Look at Shoemaker Hankin. Half a pint of cider'll set him hee-hawin' like the Rectory donkey. But there's some men as can't get a lift no other way. It's like that wi' me sometimes. There's weeks and weeks together when I'm fair stuck inside my own skin and can't get out on it nohow. That's when I know a drop'll do me good. I can a'most hear something go click in my head, and then I gets among 'em" (the spirits) "in no time. A pint's mostly enough to do it; but sometimes it takes a quart; and once or twice I've had to go on till somebody's had to help me home. But when once I begins I never stops till I see the door openin'--and then not a drop more!"

"SNARLEYCHOLOGY"

II. EXPERIMENTAL

One day I was discussing with Mrs. Abel the oft-recurrent problem of Snarley's peculiar mental constitution, a subject to which she had given the name "Snarleychology."[2] Her knowledge of the old man's ways was of longer date than mine, and she understood him infinitely better than I. "Suppose, now," I said "that Snarley had been able to express himself after the manner of superlative people like you and me, what would have come of it?" "Art," said Mrs. Abel, "and most probably poetry. He's just a mass of intuitions!" "What a pity they are inarticulate!" I answered, repeating the appropriate commonplace. "But they are not inarticulate," said Mrs. Abel. "Snarley has found a medium of expression which gives him perfect satisfaction." "Then the poems ought to be in existence," said I. "So they are," was the answer; "they exist in the shape of Farmer Perryman's big rams. The rams are the direct creations of genius working upon appropriate material. None but a dreamer of dreams could have brought them into being; every one of them is an embodied ideal. Don't make the blunder of thinking that Snarley's sheep-raising has nothing to do with his star-gazings and spirit-rappings. It's all one. Shakespeare writes _Hamlet_, and Snarley produces 'Thunderbolt.'[3] To call Snarley inarticulate because he hasn't written a _Hamlet_ is as absurd as it would be to call Shakespeare inarticulate because he didn't produce a 'Thunderbolt.' Both _Hamlet_ and 'Thunderbolt' were born in the highest heaven of invention. Both are the fruit of intuitions concentrated on their object with incredible pertinacity."

[Footnote 2: I suggested to Mrs. Abel that this word wouldn't do, and proposed "Snarleyology" instead. She declined the improvement at once, remarking that 'the soul of the word was in the _ch_.']

[Footnote 3: The name of the greatest of the Perryman rams--a brute "with more decorations than a Field-marshal."]

I was forced into silence for a time, bewildered by a statement which seemed to alternate between levelling the big things down to the little ones, and raising the little ones to the level of the big. When I had chewed this hard saying as well as I could, I bolted it for further digestion, and continued the conversation. "Has Snarley," I asked, "ever been tried with poetry, in the ordinary sense of the term?"

"Yes," said the lady, "an experiment was once made on him by Miss ----" (naming a literary counterpart to Lady Lottie Passingham), "who visited him in his cottage and insisted on reading him some poem of Whittier's. In ten minutes she was fleeing from the cottage in terror of her life, and no one has since repeated the experiment."

"I think," I said, "that if you would consent to be the experimenter we might obtain better results."

Now in one important respect Nature had dealt more bountifully with Mrs. Abel than with Lady Lottie Passingham. Though Mrs. Abel had no desire to reform the universe, and was conscious of no mission to that end, she possessed a voice which might have produced a revolution. It was a soft contralto, vibrant and rich, and tremulous with tones which the gods would have come from Olympus to hear. She never sang, but her speech was music, rich and rare. In early life, as I have said, she had been on the stage, and Art had completed the gifts of Nature. Here lay one of the secrets of her power over the soul of Snarley Bob. Her voice was hypnotic with all men, and Snarley yielded to it as to a spell.

Another point which has its bearing on this, and also on what has to follow, is that Snarley had a passionate love for the song of the nightingale. The birds haunted the district in great numbers, and the time of their singing was the time when Snarley "let out his line" to its furthest limits. His love of the nightingale was coupled, strangely enough, with a hatred equally intense for the cuckoo. To the song of the cuckoo in early spring he was fairly tolerant; but in June, when, as everybody knows, "she changeth her tune," Snarley's rage broke forth into bitter persecution. He had invented a method of his own, which I shall not divulge, for snaring these birds; and whenever he caught them he promptly wrung their necks. For the same reason he would have been not unwilling to wring the necks of Lady Lottie Passingham and of the Literary Counterpart had they continued to pester him.

Here then were the conditions from which we drew the materials for our conspiracy. Mrs. Abel, though at first reluctant, consented at last to play the active part in a new piece of experimental Snarleychology. It was determined that we would try our subject with poetry, and also that we would try him with "something big." For a long time we discussed what this something "big" was to be. Choice nearly fell on "A Grammarian's Funeral," but I am glad this was not adopted; for, though it represented very well our own views of Snarley Bob, I doubt if it would have appealed directly to the subject himself. At length one of us suggested Keats' "Ode to a Nightingale," to which the other immediately replied, "Why didn't we think of that before?" It was the very thing.

But how were we to proceed? We knew very well that a deliberately planned attempt to "read something" to Snarley was sure to fail. He would suspect that we were "interested in him" in the way he always resented, or that we wanted to improve his mind, which was also a thing he could not bear. Still, we might practice a little artful deception. We might meet him together by accident in the quarry, as we had done before; and Mrs. Abel, after due preliminaries and a little leading-on about nightingales, might produce the volume from her pocket and read the poem. So it was arranged. But I think we parted that night with a feeling that we were going to do something ridiculous, and Mr. Abel told me quite frankly that we were a pair of precious fools.

One lovely morning about the middle of April the desired meeting in the quarry was duly brought off. The lambing season was almost over, and Snarley was occupied in looking after a few belated ewes. We arrived, of course, separately; but there must have been something in our manner which put Snarley on his guard. He looked at us in turn with glances which plainly told that he suspected a planned attack on the isolation of his soul. Presently he lapsed into his most disagreeable manner, and his horse-like face began to wear a singularly brutal expression. It was one of his bad days; for some time he had evidently been "stuck in his skin," and probably intended to end his incarceration that very night by getting drunk. He was, in fact, determined to drive us away, and, though the presence of Mrs. Abel disarmed him of his worst insolence, he managed to become sufficiently unpleasant to make us both devoutly wish we were at the bottom of the hill. I shudder to think what would have happened in these circumstances to Lady Lottie Passingham or to the Literary Counterpart.

The thing, however, had cost too much trouble to be lightly abandoned, and we did not relish the prospect of being greeted by peals of laughter if we returned defeated to the Rectory. In desperation, therefore, Mrs. Abel began to force the issue. "I'm told the nightingale was heard in the Rectory grounds last night, Snarley." "Nightingales be blowed," replied the Subject. "I've no time to listen if there was a hundred singin'. I've been up with these blessed ewes three nights without a wink o' sleep, and we've lost two lambs as were got by 'Thunderbolt.'" "Well, some time, when you are not quite so busy, I want you to hear what a great man has written about the nightingale," said Mrs. Abel. She spoke in a rather forced voice, which suggested the persuasive tones of the village curate when addressing a church-full of naughty children at the afternoon service.

"_I_ don't want to hear it," said Snarley, whose suspicions were now raised to certitude, "and, what's more, I _won't_ hear it. What's the good? If anybody's been talkin' about nightingales, it's sure to be rubbish. Nightingales is things you can't talk about, but only listen to. No, thank you, my lady. When I wants nightingales, I'll go and hear 'em. I don't want to know what nobody had said about 'em. Besides, I've too much to think about with these 'ere ewes. There's one lyin' dead behind them stones as I've got to bury. She died last night;" and he began to ply us with disgusting details about the premature confinement of a sheep.

It was all over. Mrs. Abel remounted her horse, and presently rode down the hill. When she had gone fifty yards or so, she took a little calf-bound volume of Keats from her pocket and held it aloft. The signal was not difficult to read. "Yes," it said, "we _are_ a pair of precious fools."

* * * * *

Five months elapsed, during which I neither saw nor much desired to see Mrs. Abel. The harvest was now gathered, and the event was to be celebrated by a "harvest home" in the Perrymans' big barn. They were kind enough to send me the usual invitation, which I accepted "with pleasure"--a phrase in which, for once in my frequent use of it, I spoke the truth. The prospect of going down to Deadborough served, of course, to revive the painful memory of our humiliating defeat. Looked at in the perspective of time, our enterprise stood out in all its essential folly. But I have frequently found that the contemplation of a past mistake has a strange tendency to cause its repetition; and it was so in this case. For it suddenly occurred to me that this "harvest home" might give us an opportunity for a flank attack on the soul of Snarley Bob, whereby we might retrieve the disaster of our frontal operations on Quarry Hill. I lost no time in divulging my plan in the proper quarters. Mrs. Abel replied exactly as Lambert did when Cromwell, "walking in the garden of Brocksmouth House," told him of that sudden bright idea for rolling up the Scottish army at Dunbar--"She had meant to say the same thing." The plan was simple enough; but had its execution rested with any other person than Mrs. Abel--with the Literary Counterpart, for example--it would have miscarried as completely as its fore-runner.

The company assembled in the Perrymans' barn consisted of the labouring population of three large farms, men and women, all dressed in their Sunday best. To these were added, as privileged outsiders, his Reverence and Mrs. Abel, the popular stationmaster of Deadborough, Tom Barter--who supplied the victuals--and myself. Good meat, of course, was in abundance, and good drink also--the understanding with regard to the latter being that, though you might go the length of getting "pretty lively," you must stop short of getting drunk.

The proceedings commenced in comparative silence, the rustics communicating with one another only by such whispers as might be perpetrated in church. But this did not last very long. From the moment the first turn was given to the tap in the cider-barrel, the attentive observer might have detected a rapid crescendo of human voices, which rose into a roar long before the end of the feast. When all had eaten their fill, songs were called for, and "Master" Perryman, of course, led off with "The Farmer's Boy."