Chapter 6

"Not _all_ on it," said Snarley, "only bits here and there. That's what the bigness o' things teaches you. It's my opinion as there are two sorts o' words--shutters-in and openers-out. Them words o' yours was openers-out; but most as you hears are shutters-in. It's like puttin' a thing in a box. You shuts the lid, and then all you sees is the box. But when things gets beyond a certain bigness you can't shut 'em in--not unless you first chops 'em up, and that spoils 'em.

"Now, there's Shoemaker Hankin--a man as could talk the hind-leg off a 'oss. He goes at it like a hammer, and thinks as he's openin' things out; but all the time he's shuttin' on 'em in and nailin' on 'em up in their coffins. One day he begins talkin' about 'Life,' and sez as how he can explain it in half a shake. 'You'll have to kill it first, Tom,' I sez, 'or it'll kick the bottom out o' _your_ little box.' 'I'm going to _hannilize_ it,' he sez. 'That means you're goin' to chop it up,' I sez, 'so that it's bound to be dead before we gets hold on it. All right, Tom, fire away! Tell us all about dead Life.'

"Well, that's allus the way wi' these talkin' chaps. There was that Professor as comes tellin' me what space were--I told that gentleman" (pointing to me) "all about _him_. Why, you might as well try to cut runnin' water wi' a knife. Talkin' people like him are never satisfied till they've trampled everything into a _muck_--same as the sheep tramples the ground when you puts 'em in a pen. They seems to think as that's what things are _for_! They all wants to do the talkin' themselves. But doesn't it stand to sense that as long as you're talkin' about things you can't hear what things are sayin' to you?

"When did I learn all that? Why, you don't _learn_ them things. You just finds 'em when you're alone among the hills and the bigness o' things comes over you. Do you know anything about the stars? Well, then, you'll understand.

"All the same, I were once a talkin' man myself; ay, and it were then as I got the first lesson in leavin' things alone. It happened one day when I were a Methody--long before I knew anything about the stars. I'd been what they call 'converted'; and one day I were prayin' powerful at a meetin', and we was all excited, and shoutin' as we wouldn't go home till the answer had come. Well, it did come--at least it come to me. I were standin' up shoutin' wi' the rest, when all of a sudden I kind o' heard somebody whisperin' in my ear. 'The answer's comin',' I sez; 'I'm gettin' it,' So they all gets quiet, waitin' for me to give the answer. I suppose they expected me to say as a new heart had been given to somebody we'd been prayin' for. But instead o' that I shouts out at the top o' my voice--though I can't tell what made me do it--'Shut up, all on you! Shut up, Henry Blain! Shut up, John Scarsbrick! Shut up, Robert Dellanow--_I'm tired o' the lot on you!_' That's what made me give up bein' a Methody. I began to see from that day that when things begins to open out you've got to _shut up_."

"The voices of the world are many; and the speech of man is only one," said Chandrapál.

"You're right," said Snarley, "but I'm not sure as you ought to call 'em voices. Most on 'em's more like faces nor voices. It's true there's the thunder and the wind--'specially when it's blowin' among the trees. And then there's the animals and the birds."

"It is said in the East that once there were men who understood the language of birds."

"No, no," said Snarley, "there's no understandin' them things. But there's one bird, and that's the nightingale, as makes me kind o' remember as I understood 'em once. And there's no doubt they understand one another; and there's some sorts of animals as understands other sorts--but not all. You can take my word for it!"

* * * * *

The light had failed, and the song of the birds, driven to a distance by our voices, seemed to quicken the darkness into life. 'Darkling, we listened'--how long I know not, for the subliminal world was awake, and the measure of time was lost. Snarley was the first to speak, taking up his parable from the very point where he had left it, as though he were unconscious that a long interval had elapsed. He spoke to Chandrapál.

"I can see as you're a rememberin' sort o' gentleman," he said. "If you weren't, you wouldn't ha' come here listenin' to the birds. The animals remember a lot o' things as we've forgotten. I dare say you know it as well as I do. Now, there's the nightingale--_that's_ the bird for recollectin' and makin' you recollect; and you might say dogs and 'osses too. You can see the memory in the dog's eyes and in the 'oss's face. But you can _hear_ it in the bird's voice--and hearin' and smellin' is better nor seein' when it comes to a matter o' rememberin.'

"Yes, and it's my opinion as animals, takin' 'em all round, are wiser nor men--that is, they've got more sense. You let your line out far enough, and I tell you there's some animals as can make you find a lot o' things as you've forgotten. That's what the bird does. When I listens, I seems to be rememberin' all sorts o' things, only I can't tell nobody what they are.

"Yes, but you ought to ha' been here that night when Mrs. Abel give that piece! Why, bless you, she'd got the nightingale to a T, especially the rememberin'. Eh, my word, but it were a staggerer! I _wish_ you'd been there--a rememberin' gentleman like you! You get her to give you that piece when you goes home, and it'll make you reel your line out to the very end."

Some of those allusions, I imagine, were lost on Chandrapál. But once more he showed that he caught the "sense."

"In my country," he said, "religion forbids us to take the lives of animals."

"That's a good sort o' religion," said Snarley. "There's some sense in that! Them as holds with it must ha' let their line out pretty far. Now, it wouldn't surprise me to hear as folks in your country are good at rememberin' things as other folks have forgotten."

"Yes, some of us think we can remember many things." And, after a pause, "I thought just now that I remembered you."

"And me you!" said Snarley, "blessed if I didn't. The minute you said them funny words, danged if I didn't feel as though I'd knowed you all my life! It was just like when I'm listenin' to the bird--all sorts o' things comes tumblin' back. Same with them words o' yours. It seemed as though somebody as I knowed were a-callin' of me. I must ha' travelled millions o' miles, same as when you lets your line out to the stars. And all the time I were sure that I knowed the voice, though I couldn't understand the meanin'. I tell you, it were _just_ like listenin' to the bird."

Chandrapál now turned and said something to Mrs. Abel. She promptly slipped out of the shed, giving me a sign to follow. Chandrapál and Snarley were left to themselves.

* * * * *

Late at night Chandrapál returned to the Rectory. He was more than usually silent and absorbed. Of what had passed between him and Snarley he said not a word; but, on bidding us good-night, he remarked to Mrs. Abel, "The cycle of existence returns upon itself." And Snarley, on his part, never spoke of the occurrence to any living soul. "The rest is silence."

SHEPHERD TOLLER O' CLUN DOWNS

At the age of fifty or thereabouts Shepherd Toller went mad. After due process he was handed over to the authorities and graduated as a pauper lunatic. His madness was the outcome of solicitude, and it was not surprising that, after a year amid the jovial company of the asylum, Toller began to improve. At the end of the second year he was declared to be cured, and discharged, much to his regret.

His first act on liberation was to recover his old dog, which had been left in charge of a friend. Desiring to start life again where his former insanity would be unknown, he made his way to Deadborough, the village of his birth. Arrived there, after a forty miles' walk, he refreshed himself with a glass of beer and a penn'orth of bread and cheese, and proceeded at once to Farmer Ferryman in quest of work. The farmer, who was, as usual, in want of labour, sent him to Snarley Bob to "put the measure on him." Snarley's report was favourable. "He seemed a bit queer, no doubt, and kept laughin' at nothin'; but I've knowed lots o' queer people as had more sense than them as wasn't queer, and there's no denyin' as he's knowledgeable in sheep." The result was that Toller was forthwith appointed as an understudy to Snarley Bob.

Bob's estimate of the new-comer rose steadily day by day. "He had a wonderful eye for points." "As good a sheep-doctor as ever lived." "Wanted a bit of watchin', it was true, but had a head on his shoulders for all that." "Knows how to keep his mouth shut." "Was backward in breedin', but not for want o' sense--hadn't caught him young enough." "Could ha' taught him anything, if he'd come twenty-five years back." In due course, therefore, Toller was entrusted with great responsibilities. He it was who, under Snarley's direction, presided over the generation, birth, and early upbringing of the thrice-renowned "Thunderbolt."

So it went on for three years. At the end of that time Toller had an accident. He fell through the aperture of a feeding-loft, and his spinal column received an ugly shock. Symptoms of his old malady began to return. He began to get things "terrible mixed up," and to play tricks which violated both the letter and the spirit of Snarley's notches.

One of the breeding points in Snarley's system was connected with the length of the lambs' ears. Short ears in the new-born lamb were prophetic of desirable points which would duly appear when the creature became a sheep; long ears, on the other hand, indicated that the cross had failed. A crucial experiment on these lines was being conducted by aid of a ram which had been specially imported from Spain, and the whole thing had been left to Toller's supervision. The result was a complete failure. On the critical day, when Snarley returned from his obstetric duties, his wife saw gloom and disappointment on his countenance. "Well, have them lambs come right?" "Lambs, did you say? They're not _lambs_. They're young _jackasses_. It's summat as Shepherd Toller's been up to. You'll never make me believe as the Spanish ram got any one on 'em--no, not if you was to take your dyin' oath. Blessed if I know where he found a father for 'em. It's not one o' our rams, I'll swear. You mark my word, missis, Shepherd Toller's goin' out of his mind again. I've seen it comin' on for months. Only last Tuesday he sez to me, 'Snarley, I'm gettin' cloudy on the top.'"

Shortly after this Toller disappeared and, though the search was diligent, he could not be found. "He's not gone far," said Snarley. "Leastways he's sure to come back. Mad-men allus comes back." And within a few months an incident happened which enabled Snarley to verify his theory. It came about in this wise.

A party of great folk from the Hall had gone up into the hills for a picnic. They had chosen their camp near the head of a long upland valley, where the ground fell suddenly into a deep gorge pierced by a torrent. A fire of sticks had been lit close to the edge of the precipice, and a kettle, made of some shining metal, had been hung over the flames. The party were standing by, waiting for the water to boil, when suddenly, crash!--a sprinkle of scalding water in your face--and--where's the kettle? An invisible force, falling like a bolt from the blue, had smitten the kettle and hurled it into space. The ladies screamed; the Captain swore; the Clergyman cried, "Good Gracious!" the Undergraduate said, "Jerusalem!" the Wit added, "_And_ Madagascar!" But what was said matters not, for the Recording Angel had dropped his pen. The whole party stood amazed, unable to place the occurrence in any sort of intelligible context, and with looks that seemed to say, "The reign of Chaos has returned, and the Inexpressible become a fact!" Some went to the edge of the gorge and saw below a mass of buckled tin, irrecoverable, and worthless. Some looked about on the hillside, but looked on nothing to the point. Some stood by the spot where the kettle had hung, and argued without premises. Some searched for the missile, some for the man; but neither was found. The whole thing was an absolute mystery. The party had lost their tea, and gained a subject for conversation at dinner. That was all.

That night Snarley, in the tap-room of the Nag's Head, heard the story from the groom who had lit the fire, hung the kettle, and seen it fly into space. Snarley said nothing, quickly finished his glass, and went home. "Missis," he said, "get my breakfast at three o'clock to-morrow morning. Shepherd Toller's come back. And mind you hold your tongue."

By five o'clock next morning Snarley had reached the scene of the picnic. He gazed about him in all directions: nothing was stirring but the peewits. Then he climbed down the gorge with some difficulty, found the kettle, and examined its riven side. Climbing back, he went some distance further up the valley, ascended a little knoll, took out his whistle, and blew a peculiar blast, tremulous and piercing. No response. Snarley blew again, and again. At the fourth attempt the distant barking of a dog was heard, and a minute later the signal was answered by the counterpart to Snarley's blast. Presently the form of a big man, followed by a yelping dog, appeared on the skyline above. Shepherd Toller was found.

* * * * *

During the week which followed these events, various members of the picnic-party had begun to recollect things they had previously forgotten, and discoveries were made, _ex post facto_, which warranted the submission of the case to the Society for the Investigation of Mysterious Phenomena. Lady Lottie Passingham had been of the party, and she it was who drew up the Report which was so much discussed a few years ago. In her own evidence Lady Lottie, whose figure was none too slim, averred that, as she climbed the hill to the place of rendezvous, she had been distinctly conscious of something pulling her back. She had attached no importance to this at the time, though she had remarked to Miss Gledhow that she wished she hadn't come. The time at which the kettle flew was 4.27 p.m.; at 4.25 Lady Lottie, had a sensation as though a cold hand were stroking her left cheek, the separate fingers being clearly distinguishable. Miss Gledhow had experienced a feeling all afternoon that she was being _watched and criticised_--a feeling which she could only compare to that of a person who is having his photograph taken. Captain Sorley's cigarettes kept going out in the most unaccountable manner; and in this connection he would mention that more than once, and especially a few minutes after the main occurrence, he could not help fancying that someone was breathing in his face. The Rev. E. F. Stark-Potter had heard, several times, a sound like "Woe, woe," which he attributed at first to some ploughman calling to his horses; subsequent inquiry had proved, however, that, on the day in question, no ploughing was being done in the neighbourhood. All the witnesses concurred in the statement that they were vividly conscious of _something wrong_, the most emphatic in this respect being the Undergraduate, who had made no secret of his feeling at the time by assuring several members of the party that he felt absolutely "rotten," Further, the Report stated, the scene had been identified with the spot where a young woman committed suicide in 1834 by casting herself down the precipice. The battered kettle was also recovered and sent in a registered parcel for examination by the experts of the Society.

After the mature deliberation due to the distinguished names at the end of the Report, the Society decided that the evidence was non-veridical, and refused to print the document in their _Proceedings_.

Snarley Bob, who knew what was going on, had his reasons for welcoming this development. He concocted various legends of his own weird experiences at the valley-head, and these, as coming from him, had considerable weight. They were communicated in the first instance to the groom. By him they were conveyed to the coachman; by him, to the coachman's wife; whence they were not long in finding their way, by the usual channels, to headquarters. Here the contributions of Snarley were combined by various hands into an artistic whole with the original occurrence, which, in this new context, at once quitted the low ground of History and began a free development of its own in the realms of the Ideal. By the time it reached the Press it had become a fiction far more imposing than any fact, and far more worthy of belief. Things that never happened filled the foreground, and the thing that did happen had fallen so far into the background as to be almost invisible. The incident of the kettle had exfoliated into a whole sequence of imposing mysteries, becoming in the process a mere germ or point of departure of no more significance in itself than are the details in Saxo Grammaticus to a first-class performance of _Hamlet_. Thus transfigured, the story was indeed a drama rather than a narrative; and those who remember reading it in that form will hardly believe that it had its origin in the humble facts which these pages relate. The excitement it caused lasted for some weeks, and it was almost a public disappointment when the Society for the Investigation of Mysterious Phenomena blew a cold blast upon the whole thing.

* * * * *

When Snarley Bob met Shepherd Toller at Valley Head, he found him accoutred in a manner which verified his private theory as to the levitation of the kettle. Coiled round Toller's left arm were three slings, made from strips of raw oxhide, with pouches, large and small, for hurling stones of various size. Slung over his back was a big bag, also of leather, which contained his ammunition--smooth pebbles gathered from the torrent bed, the largest being the size of a man's fist. Strapped round his waist was a flint axe, the head being a beautiful celt, which Toller had discovered long ago on Clun Downs, and skilfully fixed in a handle bound with thongs.

In the days of Toller's first madness, it had been his habit to wander over Clun Downs, equipped in this manner, He had lived in some fastness of his own devising, and supplied his larder by the occasional slaughter of a stolen sheep, whose skull he would split with a blow from the flint axe. The slings were rather for amusement than hunting, though his markmanship was excellent, and he was said to be able at any time to bring down a rabbit, or even a bird. All day long he would wander in unfrequented uplands, slinging stones at every object that tempted his eye, and roaring and dancing with delight whenever he hit the mark. He was inoffensive enough and had never been known to deliberately aim at a human being, though more than one shooting party had been considerably alarmed by the crash of Toller's stones among the branches, or by his long-range sniping of the white-clothed luncheon-table. On one occasion Toller had landed a huge pebble, the size of an eight-pounder shot, into the very bull's-eye of the feast--to wit, a basket containing six bottles of Heidsieck's Special Reserve. It was this performance which led Sir George to report the case to the authorities and insist on Toller being put under restraint.

* * * * *

By the evening of the day when Toller disappeared from the Perryman sheepfolds he had completed the long walk to his former haunts, and recovered his weapons from under the cairn where he had carefully hidden them six years before. The axe, of course, was uninjured; but the slings were rotten. As soon as it was dark, therefore, Toller stole down to the pastures, captured a steer, brained it with the flint axe, stripped off the skin, made a fire, roasted a piece of the warm flesh, covered his tracks, and before the sun was up had made twenty miles of the return journey, with half a dozen fine new slings concealed beneath his coat. He arrived at Deadborough at nightfall the day but one following, having taken a circuitous route far from the highroad. He at once made his way into the hills.

Beyond the furthest outposts of the Perryman farm lie extensive wolds rising rapidly into desolate regions where sheep can scarcely find pasture. In this region Toller concealed himself. About two miles beyond the old quarry, on a slaty hillside, he found a deep pit, which had probably been used as a water-hole in prehistoric times; and here he built himself a hut. He made the walls out of the stones of a ruined sheep-fold; he roofed them with a sheet of corrugated iron, stolen from the outbuildings of a neighbouring farm, and covered the iron with sods; he built a fire-place with a flue, but no chimney; he caused water from a spring to flow into a hollow beside the door. Then he collected slate, loose stones, and earth; and, by heaping these against the walls of the hut, he gave the whole structure the appearance of a mound of rubbish. Human eyes rarely came within sight of the spot; but even a keen observer of casual objects would not have suspected that the mound represented any sort of human dwelling. It was a masterpiece of protective imitation, an exact replica of Toller's previous abode on Clun Downs. His fire burned only by night.

The furnishing of this simple establishment consisted of a feather bed, which rested on slabs of slate supported by stones,--whence obtained was never known, but undoubtedly stolen. The coverlet was three sheepskins sewn together, the pillow also a sheepskin, coiled round a cylinder of elastic twigs. The table was a deal box, once the property of Messrs. Tate, the famous refiners of sugar. The chair was a duplicate of the table. The implements were all of flint, neatly bound in their handles with strips of hide. There was the axe for slaughter, a dagger for cutting meat, a hammer for breaking bones, a saw and scrapers of various size--the plunder of some barrow on Clun Downs. Under the slates of the bed lay a collection of slings.

In this place Toller lived undiscovered for several months, issuing thence as occasion required in quest of food. This he obtained by night forays upon distant farms, bringing back mutton or beef, lamb or sucking pig, a turkey, a goose, a couple of chickens, according to the changes of his appetite or the seasonableness of the dish. Fruit, vegetables, and potatoes were obtained in the same manner. In addition, all the game of the hills was at his mercy, and he had fish from the stream. It was characteristic of Toller's cunning that his plunder was all obtained from afar, and seldom twice from the same place. He would go ten miles to the north to steal a lamb; next time, as far to the south to steal a goose. The plundered area lay along the circumference of great circles, with radii of ten, fifteen, twenty miles, of which his abode was the centre. This put pursuers off the track, and caused them to look for him everywhere but where he was. The police were convinced, for example, that he was hiding in Clun Downs. The steer he had slaughtered on his first return had been discovered, as Toller intended it to be; and, in order to keep up the fiction of his presence in that neighbourhood, he repeated his exploit a month later, and slaughtered a second steer in the very pasture where he had killed the first.

Nor was his favourite amusement denied him. He knew the movements of every shepherd on the uplands, and, by choosing his routes, could wander for miles, slinging stones as he went, without risk of discovery. Whether during these months he saw any human beings is unknown; certainly no human being recognised him. His power of self-concealment amounted to genius.