VII. THE VILLAGE OF GRASSLEY-IN-THE-HOLE
At about half past one, under a strong blue sky, Turnbull got up outof the grass and fern in which he had been lying, and his stillintermittent laughter ended in a kind of yawn.
"I'm hungry," he said shortly. "Are you?"
"I have not noticed," answered MacIan. "What are you going to do?"
"There's a village down the road, past the pool," answered Turnbull. "Ican see it from here. I can see the whitewashed walls of some cottagesand a kind of corner of the church. How jolly it all looks. It looksso--I don't know what the word is--so sensible. Don't fancy I'm underany illusions about Arcadian virtue and the innocent villagers. Men makebeasts of themselves there with drink, but they don't deliberately makedevils of themselves with mere talking. They kill wild animals inthe wild woods, but they don't kill cats to the God of Victory. Theydon't----" He broke off and suddenly spat on the ground.
"Excuse me," he said; "it was ceremonial. One has to get the taste outof one's mouth."
"The taste of what?" asked MacIan.
"I don't know the exact name for it," replied Turnbull. "Perhaps it isthe South Sea Islands, or it may be Magdalen College."
There was a long pause, and MacIan also lifted his large limbs off theground--his eyes particularly dreamy.
"I know what you mean, Turnbull," he said, "but... I always thought youpeople agreed with all that."
"With all that about doing as one likes, and the individual, and Natureloving the strongest, and all the things which that cockroach talkedabout."
Turnbull's big blue-grey eyes stood open with a grave astonishment.
"Do you really mean to say, MacIan," he said, "that you fancied that we,the Free-thinkers, that Bradlaugh, or Holyoake, or Ingersoll, believeall that dirty, immoral mysticism about Nature? Damn Nature!"
"I supposed you did," said MacIan calmly. "It seems to me your mostconclusive position."
"And you mean to tell me," rejoined the other, "that you broke mywindow, and challenged me to mortal combat, and tied a tradesman up withropes, and chased an Oxford Fellow across five meadows--all under theimpression that I am such an illiterate idiot as to believe in Nature!"
"I supposed you did," repeated MacIan with his usual mildness; "but Iadmit that I know little of the details of your belief--or disbelief."
Turnbull swung round quite suddenly, and set off towards the village.
"Come along," he cried. "Come down to the village. Come down to thenearest decent inhabitable pub. This is a case for beer."
"I do not quite follow you," said the Highlander.
"Yes, you do," answered Turnbull. "You follow me slap into theinn-parlour. I repeat, this is a case for beer. We must have the wholeof this matter out thoroughly before we go a step farther. Do you knowthat an idea has just struck me of great simplicity and of somecogency. Do not by any means let us drop our intentions of settling ourdifferences with two steel swords. But do you not think that with twopewter pots we might do what we really have never thought of doingyet--discover what our difference is?"
"It never occurred to me before," answered MacIan with tranquillity. "Itis a good suggestion."
And they set out at an easy swing down the steep road to the village ofGrassley-in-the-Hole.
Grassley-in-the-Hole was a rude parallelogram of buildings, with twothoroughfares which might have been called two high streets if it hadbeen possible to call them streets. One of these ways was higher on theslope than the other, the whole parallelogram lying aslant, so to speak,on the side of the hill. The upper of these two roads was decorated witha big public house, a butcher's shop, a small public house, a sweetstuffshop, a very small public house, and an illegible signpost. The lower ofthe two roads boasted a horse-pond, a post office, a gentleman's gardenwith very high hedges, a microscopically small public house, and twocottages. Where all the people lived who supported all the public houseswas in this, as in many other English villages, a silent and smilingmystery. The church lay a little above and beyond the village, with asquare grey tower dominating it decisively.
But even the church was scarcely so central and solemn an institutionas the large public house, the Valencourt Arms. It was named after somesplendid family that had long gone bankrupt, and whose seat was occupiedby a man who had invented a hygienic bootjack; but the unfathomablesentimentalism of the English people insisted in regarding the Inn,the seat and the sitter in it, as alike parts of a pure and marmorealantiquity. And in the Valencourt Arms festivity itself had somesolemnity and decorum; and beer was drunk with reverence, as it ought tobe. Into the principal parlour of this place entered two strangers, whofound themselves, as is always the case in such hostels, the object,not of fluttered curiosity or pert inquiry, but of steady, ceaseless,devouring ocular study. They had long coats down to their heels, andcarried under each coat something that looked like a stick. One wastall and dark, the other short and red-haired. They ordered a pot of aleeach.
"MacIan," said Turnbull, lifting his tankard, "the fool who wanted us tobe friends made us want to go on fighting. It is only natural thatthe fool who wanted us to fight should make us friendly. MacIan, yourhealth!"
Dusk was already dropping, the rustics in the tavern were alreadylurching and lumbering out of it by twos and threes, crying clamorousgood nights to a solitary old toper that remained, before MacIan andTurnbull had reached the really important part of their discussion.
MacIan wore an expression of sad bewilderment not uncommon with him. "Iam to understand, then," he said, "that you don't believe in nature."
"You may say so in a very special and emphatic sense," said Turnbull."I do not believe in nature, just as I do not believe in Odin. She is amyth. It is not merely that I do not believe that nature can guide us.It is that I do not believe that nature exists."
"Exists?" said MacIan in his monotonous way, settling his pewter pot onthe table.
"Yes, in a real sense nature does not exist. I mean that nobody candiscover what the original nature of things would have been if thingshad not interfered with it. The first blade of grass began to tear upthe earth and eat it; it was interfering with nature, if there is anynature. The first wild ox began to tear up the grass and eat it; hewas interfering with nature, if there is any nature. In the same way,"continued Turnbull, "the human when it asserts its dominance over natureis just as natural as the thing which it destroys."
"And in the same way," said MacIan almost dreamily, "the superhuman, thesupernatural is just as natural as the nature which it destroys."
Turnbull took his head out of his pewter pot in some anger.
"The supernatural, of course," he said, "is quite another thing; thecase of the supernatural is simple. The supernatural does not exist."
"Quite so," said MacIan in a rather dull voice; "you said the same aboutthe natural. If the natural does not exist the supernatural obviouslycan't." And he yawned a little over his ale.
Turnbull turned for some reason a little red and remarked quickly, "Thatmay be jolly clever, for all I know. But everyone does know that thereis a division between the things that as a matter of fact do commonlyhappen and the things that don't. Things that break the evident laws ofnature----"
"Which does not exist," put in MacIan sleepily. Turnbull struck thetable with a sudden hand.
"Good Lord in heaven!" he cried----
"Who does not exist," murmured MacIan.
"Good Lord in heaven!" thundered Turnbull, without regarding theinterruption. "Do you really mean to sit there and say that you, likeanybody else, would not recognize the difference between a naturaloccurrence and a supernatural one--if there could be such a thing? If Iflew up to the ceiling----"
"You would bump your head badly," cried MacIan, suddenly starting up."One can't talk of this kind of thing under a ceiling at all. Comeoutside! Come outside and ascend into heaven!"
He burst the door open on a blue abyss of evening and they stepped outinto it: it was suddenly and strangely cool.
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p; "Turnbull," said MacIan, "you have said some things so true and someso false that I want to talk; and I will try to talk so that youunderstand. For at present you do not understand at all. We don't seemto mean the same things by the same words."
He stood silent for a second or two and then resumed.
"A minute or two ago I caught you out in a real contradiction. At thatmoment logically I was right. And at that moment I knew I waswrong. Yes, there is a real difference between the natural and thesupernatural: if you flew up into that blue sky this instant, I shouldthink that you were moved by God--or the devil. But if you want to knowwhat I really think...I must explain."
He stopped again, abstractedly boring the point of his sword into theearth, and went on:
"I was born and bred and taught in a complete universe. The supernaturalwas not natural, but it was perfectly reasonable. Nay, the supernaturalto me is more reasonable than the natural; for the supernatural is adirect message from God, who is reason. I was taught that some thingsare natural and some things divine. I mean that some things aremechanical and some things divine. But there is the great difficulty,Turnbull. The great difficulty is that, according to my teaching, youare divine."
"Me! Divine?" said Turnbull truculently. "What do you mean?"
"That is just the difficulty," continued MacIan thoughtfully. "I wastold that there was a difference between the grass and a man's will;and the difference was that a man's will was special and divine. A man'sfree will, I heard, was supernatural."
"Rubbish!" said Turnbull.
"Oh," said MacIan patiently, "then if a man's free will isn'tsupernatural, why do your materialists deny that it exists?"
Turnbull was silent for a moment. Then he began to speak, but MacIancontinued with the same steady voice and sad eyes:
"So what I feel is this: Here is the great divine creation I wastaught to believe in. I can understand your disbelieving in it, butwhy disbelieve in a part of it? It was all one thing to me. God hadauthority because he was God. Man had authority because he was man. Youcannot prove that God is better than a man; nor can you prove that a manis better than a horse. Why permit any ordinary thing? Why do you let ahorse be saddled?"
"Some modern thinkers disapprove of it," said Turnbull a littledoubtfully.
"I know," said MacIan grimly; "that man who talked about love, forinstance."
Turnbull made a humorous grimace; then he said: "We seem to be talkingin a kind of shorthand; but I won't pretend not to understand you. Whatyou mean is this: that you learnt about all your saints and angels atthe same time as you learnt about common morality, from the same people,in the same way. And you mean to say that if one may be disputed, somay the other. Well, let that pass for the moment. But let me ask youa question in turn. Did not this system of yours, which you swallowedwhole, contain all sorts of things that were merely local, the respectfor the chief of your clan, or such things; the village ghost, thefamily feud, or what not? Did you not take in those things, too, alongwith your theology?"
MacIan stared along the dim village road, down which the last stragglerfrom the inn was trailing his way.
"What you say is not unreasonable," he said. "But it is not quite true.The distinction between the chief and us did exist; but it was neveranything like the distinction between the human and the divine, orthe human and the animal. It was more like the distinction between oneanimal and another. But----"
"Well?" said Turnbull.
MacIan was silent.
"Go on," repeated Turnbull; "what's the matter with you? What are youstaring at?"
"I am staring," said MacIan at last, "at that which shall judge usboth."
"Oh, yes," said Turnbull in a tired way, "I suppose you mean God."
"No, I don't," said MacIan, shaking his head. "I mean him."
And he pointed to the half-tipsy yokel who was ploughing down the road.
"What do you mean?" asked the atheist.
"I mean him," repeated MacIan with emphasis. "He goes out in the earlydawn; he digs or he ploughs a field. Then he comes back and drinks ale,and then he sings a song. All your philosophies and political systemsare young compared to him. All your hoary cathedrals, yes, even theEternal Church on earth is new compared to him. The most mouldering godsin the British Museum are new facts beside him. It is he who in the endshall judge us all."
And MacIan rose to his feet with a vague excitement.
"What are you going to do?"
"I am going to ask him," cried MacIan, "which of us is right."
Turnbull broke into a kind of laugh. "Ask that intoxicatedturnip-eater----" he began.
"Yes--which of us is right," cried MacIan violently. "Oh, you have longwords and I have long words; and I talk of every man being the image ofGod; and you talk of every man being a citizen and enlightened enough togovern. But if every man typifies God, there is God. If every man is anenlightened citizen, there is your enlightened citizen. The first manone meets is always man. Let us catch him up."
And in gigantic strides the long, lean Highlander whirled away into thegrey twilight, Turnbull following with a good-humoured oath.
The track of the rustic was easy to follow, even in the falteringdark; for he was enlivening his wavering walk with song. It was aninterminable poem, beginning with some unspecified King William, who (itappeared) lived in London town and who after the second rise vanishedrather abruptly from the train of thought. The rest was almost entirelyabout beer and was thick with local topography of a quite unrecognizablekind. The singer's step was neither very rapid, nor, indeed,exceptionally secure; so the song grew louder and louder and the twosoon overtook him.
He was a man elderly or rather of any age, with lean grey hair and alean red face, but with that remarkable rustic physiognomy in which itseems that all the features stand out independently from the face; therugged red nose going out like a limb; the bleared blue eyes standingout like signals.
He gave them greeting with the elaborate urbanity of the slightlyintoxicated. MacIan, who was vibrating with one of his silent,violent decisions, opened the question without delay. He explained thephilosophic position in words as short and simple as possible. Butthe singular old man with the lank red face seemed to think uncommonlylittle of the short words. He fixed with a fierce affection upon one ortwo of the long ones.
"Atheists!" he repeated with luxurious scorn. "Atheists! I know theirsort, master. Atheists! Don't talk to me about 'un. Atheists!"
The grounds of his disdain seemed a little dark and confused; but theywere evidently sufficient. MacIan resumed in some encouragement:
"You think as I do, I hope; you think that a man should be connectedwith the Church; with the common Christian----"
The old man extended a quivering stick in the direction of a distanthill.
"There's the church," he said thickly. "Grassley old church that is.Pulled down it was, in the old squire's time, and----"
"I mean," explained MacIan elaborately, "that you think that thereshould be someone typifying religion, a priest----"
"Priests!" said the old man with sudden passion. "Priests! I know'un. What they want in England? That's what I say. What they want inEngland?"
"They want you," said MacIan.
"Quite so," said Turnbull, "and me; but they won't get us. MacIan, yourattempt on the primitive innocence does not seem very successful. Letme try. What you want, my friend, is your rights. You don't want anypriests or churches. A vote, a right to speak is what you----"
"Who says I a'n't got a right to speak?" said the old man, facing roundin an irrational frenzy. "I got a right to speak. I'm a man, I am. Idon't want no votin' nor priests. I say a man's a man; that's what Isay. If a man a'n't a man, what is he? That's what I say, if a man a'n'ta man, what is he? When I sees a man, I sez 'e's a man."
"Quite so," said Turnbull, "a citizen."
"I say he's a man," said the rustic furiously, stopping and striking hisstick on the ground. "Not a city or owt else. He's a man."
"You're p
erfectly right," said the sudden voice of MacIan, falling likea sword. "And you have kept close to something the whole world of todaytries to forget."
"Good night."
And the old man went on wildly singing into the night.
"A jolly old creature," said Turnbull; "he didn't seem able to get muchbeyond that fact that a man is a man."
"Has anybody got beyond it?" asked MacIan.
Turnbull looked at him curiously. "Are you turning an agnostic?" heasked.
"Oh, you do not understand!" cried out MacIan. "We Catholics are allagnostics. We Catholics have only in that sense got as far as realizingthat man is a man. But your Ibsens and your Zolas and your Shaws andyour Tolstoys have not even got so far."