"Sylvie isn't a foot!"
I thought I had better follow Sylvie's example, and be silent for a
while. Bruno was too sharp for us.
"And when it had singed all the Song, it ran away--for to get along to
look for the Man, oo know. And the Crocodile got along after it--for to
bite it, oo know. And the Mouse got along after the Crocodile."
"Wasn't the Crocodile
running?" Sylvie enquired. She appealed to me.
"Crocodiles do run, don't they?"
I suggested "crawling" as the proper word.
"He wasn't
running," said Bruno, "and he wasn't crawling.
He went struggling along like a portmanteau. And he held his chin ever
so high in the air--"
"What did he do that for?" said Sylvie.
"'cause he hadn't got a toofache!" said Bruno. "Ca'n't oo make out
nuffin wizout I 'splain it? Why, if he'd had a toofache, a course he'd
have held his head down--like this--and he'd have put a lot of warm
blankets round it!"
"If he'd had any blankets," Sylvie argued.
"Course he had blankets!" retorted her brother. "Doos oo think
Crocodiles goes walks wizout blankets? And he frowned with his
eyebrows. And the Goat was welly flightened at his eyebrows!"
"I'd never be afraid of eyebrows?" exclaimed Sylvie.
"I should think oo would, though, if they'd got a Crocodile fastened to
them, like these had! And so the Man jamp, and he jamp, and at last he
got right out of the hole."
Sylvie gave another little gasp: this rapid dodging about among the
characters of the Story had taken away her breath.
"And he runned away for to look for the Goat, oo know. And he heard
the Lion grunting---"
"Lions don't grunt," said Sylvie.
"This one did," said Bruno. "And its mouth were like a large cupboard.
And it had plenty of room in its mouth. And the Lion runned after the
Man for to eat him, oo know. And the Mouse runned after the Lion."
"But the Mouse was
running after the Crocodile," I said: "he couldn't
run after both!"
Bruno sighed over the
density of his
audience, but explained very
patiently. "He did runned after bofe: 'cause they went the same way!
And first he caught the Crocodile, and then he didn't catch the Lion.
And when he'd caught the Crocodile, what doos oo think he did--'cause
he'd got pincers in his pocket?"
"I ca'n't guess," said Sylvie.
[Image...'He wrenched out that
crocodile's toof!']
"Nobody couldn't guess it!" Bruno cried in high glee.
"Why, he wrenched out that Crocodile's toof!"
"Which tooth?" I ventured to ask.
But Bruno was not to be puzzled. "The toof he were going to bite the
Goat with, a course!"
"He couldn't be sure about that," I argued,
"unless he wrenched out all its teeth."
Bruno laughed
merrily, and half sang, as he swung himself
backwards and
forwards, "He did--wrenched--out--all its teef!"
"Why did the Crocodile wait to have them wrenched out?" said Sylvie.
"It had to wait," said Bruno.
I ventured on another question. "But what became of the Man who said
'You may wait here till I come back'?"
"He didn't say 'Oo may,'" Bruno explained. "He said, 'Oo will.'
Just like Sylvie says to me 'Oo will do oor lessons till twelve o'clock.'
Oh, I wiss," he added with a little sigh, "I wiss Sylvie would say 'Oo
may do oor lessons'!"
This was a dangerous subject for
discussion, Sylvie seemed to think.
She returned to the Story. "But what became of the Man?"
"Well, the Lion springed at him. But it came so slow, it were three
weeks in the air--"
"Did the Man wait for it all that time?" I said.
"Course he didn't!" Bruno replied, gliding head-first down the stem of
the fox-glove, for the Story was
evidently close to its end.
"He sold his house, and he packed up his things, while the Lion were
coming. And he went and he lived in another town. So the Lion ate
the wrong man."
This was
evidently the Moral: so Sylvie made her final
proclamation to
the Frogs. "The Story's finished! And
whatever is to be
learned from
it," she added, aside to me, "I'm sure I don't know!"
I did not feel quite clear about it myself, so made no
suggestion: but
the Frogs seemed quite content, Moral or no Moral, and merely raised a
husky
chorus of "Off! Off!" as they hopped away.
CHAPTER 25.
LOOKING EASTWARD.
"It's just a week," I said, three days later, to Arthur, "since we
heard of Lady Muriel's
engagement. I think I ought to call,
at any rate, and offer my congratulations. Won't you come with me?"
A pained expression passed over his face.
"When must you leave us?" he asked.
"By the first train on Monday."
"Well--yes, I will come with you. It would seem strange and unfriendly
if I didn't. But this is only Friday. Give me till Sunday afternoon.
I shall be stronger then."
Shading his eyes with one hand, as if half-ashamed of the tears that
were coursing down his cheeks, he held the other out to me.
It trembled as I clasped it.
I tried to frame some words of
sympathy; but they seemed poor and cold,
and I left them unspoken. "Good night!" was all I said.
"Good night, dear friend!" he replied. There was a manly
vigour in his
tone that convinced me he was wrestling with, and triumphing over,
the great sorrow that had so nearly wrecked his life--and that, on the
stepping-stone of his dead self, he would surely rise to higher things!
There was no chance, I was glad to think, as we set out on Sunday
afternoon, of meeting Eric at the Hall, as he had returned to town the
day after his
engagement was announced. His presence might have
disturbed the calm--the almost
unnatural calm--with which Arthur met
the woman who had won his heart, and murmured the few
graceful words of
sympathy that the occasion demanded.
Lady Muriel was
perfectlyradiant with happiness:
sadness could not
live in the light of such a smile: and even Arthur brightened under it,
and, when she remarked "You see I'm watering my flowers, though it is
the Sabbath-Day," his voice had almost its old ring of
cheerfulness as
he replied "Even on the Sabbath-Day works of mercy are allowed.
But this isn't the Sabbath-Day. The Sabbath-day has ceased to exist."
"I know it's not Saturday," Lady Muriel replied; "but isn't Sunday
often called 'the Christian Sabbath'?"
"It is so called, I think, in
recognition of the spirit of the Jewish
institution, that one day in seven should be a day of rest.
But I hold that Christians are freed from the literal
observance of
the Fourth Commandment."
"Then where is our authority for Sunday
observance?"
"We have, first, the fact that the seventh day was 'sanctified',
when God rested from the work of Creation. That is
binding on us as
Theists. Secondly, we have the fact that 'the Lord's Day' is a
Christian
institution. That is
binding on us as Christians."
"And your practical rules would be--?"
"First, as Theists, to keep it holy in some special way, and to make
it, so far as is
reasonably possible, a day of rest. Secondly, as
Christians, to attend public worship."
"And what of amusements?"
"I would say of them, as of all kinds of work,
whatever is
innocent on
a week-day, is
innocent on Sunday, provided it does not
interfere with
the duties of the day."
"Then you would allow children to play on Sunday?"
"Certainly I should. Why make the day irksome to their
restless natures?"
"I have a letter somewhere," said Lady Muriel, "from an old friend,
describing the way in which Sunday was kept in her younger days.
I will fetch it for you."
"I had a similar
description, viva voce, years ago," Arthur said when
she had left us, "from a little girl. It was really
touching to hear
the
melancholy tone in which she said 'On Sunday I mustn't play with my
doll! On Sunday I mustn't run on the sands! On Sunday I mustn't dig
in the garden!' Poor child! She had indeed
abundant cause for hating
Sunday!"
"Here is the letter," said Lady Muriel, returning.
"Let me read you a piece of it."
"When, as a child, I first opened my eyes on a Sunday-morning,
a feeling of
dismalanticipation, which began at least on the Friday,
culminated. I knew what was before me, and my wish, if not my word,
was 'Would God it were evening!' It was no day of rest, but a day of
texts, of catechisms (Watts'), of tracts about converted swearers,
godly charwomen, and edifying deaths of sinners saved.
"Up with the lark, hymns and portions of Scripture had to be
learned by
heart till 8 o'clock, when there were family-prayers, then breakfast,
which I was never able to enjoy,
partly from the fast already undergone,
and
partly from the
outlook I dreaded.
"At 9 came Sunday-School; and it made me
indignant to be put into the
class with the village-children, as well as alarmed lest, by some
mistake of mine, I should be put below them.
"The Church-Service was a
veritable Wilderness of Zin. I wandered in
it, pitching the
tabernacle of my thoughts on the
lining of the square
family-pew, the fidgets of my small brothers, and the
horror of knowing
that, on the Monday, I should have to write out, from memory, jottings
of the rambling disconnected extempore
sermon, which might have had any
text but its own, and to stand or fall by the result.
"This was followed by a, cold dinner at 1 (servants to have no work),
Sunday-School again from 2 to 4, and Evening-Service at 6.
The intervals were perhaps the greatest trial of all, from the efforts I
had to make, to be less than usually sinful, by
reading books and
sermons as
barren as the Dead Sea. There was but one rosy spot, in the
distance, all that day: and that was 'bed-time,' which never could come
too early!"
"Such teaching was well meant, no doubt," said Arthur; "but it must
have
driven many of its victims into deserting the Church-Services
altogether."
"I'm afraid I was a deserter this morning," she
gravely said. "I had
to write to Eric. Would you--would you mind my telling you something
he said about prayer? It had never struck me in that light before."
"In what light?" said Arthur.
"Why, that all Nature goes by fixed, regular laws--Science has proved
that. So that asking God to do anything (except of course praying for
spiritual blessings) is to expect a
miracle: and we've no right to do
that. I've not put it as well as he did: but that was the
outcome of
it, and it has confused me. Please tell me what you can say in answer
to it."
"I don't propose to discuss Captain Lindon's difficulties," Arthur
gravely replied; "specially as he is not present. But, if it is your
difficulty," (his voice
unconsciously took a tenderer tone)
"then I will speak."
"It is my difficulty," she said anxiously.
"Then I will begin by asking 'Why did you except
spiritual blessings?'
Is not your mind a part of Nature?"
"Yes, but Free-Will comes in there--I can choose this or that; and God
can influence my choice."
"Then you are not a Fatalist?"
"Oh, no!" she
earnestly exclaimed.
"Thank God!" Arthur said to himself, but in so low a
whisper that only
I heard it. "You grant then that I can, by an act of free choice,
move this cup," suiting the action to the word, "this way or that way?"
"Yes, I grant it."
"Well, let us see how far the result is produced by fixed laws.
The cup moves because certain
mechanical forces are impressed on it by
my hand. My hand moves because certain forces--electric, magnetic,
or
whatever 'nerve-force' may prove to be--are impressed on it by my
brain. This nerve-force, stored in the brain, would probably be
traceable, if Science were complete, to
chemical forces supplied to the
brain by the blood, and
ultimately derived from the food I eat and the
air I breathe."