All Men are Ghosts Part 21

this winder at them clouds drifting across the sky. And they're a lot higher up than they were this afternoon. And I tell you these 'ere prayers as we've been puttin' up in church are bound to do _some_ good, though they mayn't do _all_ the good as we want. I've noticed it again and again, both wet seasons and droughty."

"The prayer of a righteous man availeth much," said Mrs Jeremy, who, notwithstanding her mental wanderings during the Athanasian Creed, was a pious soul.

I was sorry the conversation had taken this turn, being disinclined to discuss the subject just then. But Jeremy was only too ready to take the cue.

"Yes," he said; "and the prayer of a sinner is sometimes _almost_ as good as the prayer of a righteous man; though, mind you, I don't say it's _quite_ as good. I'm a bit of a sinner myself; but I've had lots of answers to prayer in my life. _Lots_, I tell you. You see, it's this way. My belief is, that you've no business to want a thing unless you're ready to pray for it. Of course, you can't always tell what you ought to want and what you oughtn't--that's the difficulty. But my plan is to pray for everything as I wants and then leave the Lord to sort out the bad from the good. There's a Collect in church as puts it in that way.

Mind you, I wouldn't pray for anything as I _knowed_ were bad. There'd be no sense in that. And as for fine weather, all points to that being _good_, and your prayer stands a fair chance of being answered. Of course, it may be bad for reasons we don't know about; though I don't think it is _myself_. So it's right to pray for it. Pray for everything you want--that's what I says; and leave the rest to the Lord."

Jeremy would no doubt have said much more, for he was a great talker when started on his favourite themes, and this was one of them. But we were interrupted by a cry from Mrs Jeremy at the other side of the table. It was simply, "Oh dear!"

Looking up, I saw that she was leaning forward with her face buried in her hands, sobbing violently.

"Darn my gaiters!" said Jeremy, "I'm nought but a fool. I oughtn't to ha' talked about them things before my missus. I never do; but something's made me forget myself to-night. You see, it's reminded her of our trouble."

I did not understand this last remark. But I asked no question, being too much occupied in watching the infinite tenderness of the good man as he sought to comfort his wife. I draw a veil over that. "Now go to bed, there's a good girl, and think no more about it," was the end of what he had to say.

Mrs Jeremy retired, the tears standing in her eyes. She shook hands with me, but didn't speak.

Jeremy resumed his seat, lit his pipe, and began to explain. His voice trembled and almost broke down with the first sentence.

"You see," he said, waving his hand towards the fire, "it's a childless hearth.... It hasn't always been. There was one, once--fifteen years ago. He was six years of age--as bright a little nipper as ever you see.

Oh yes, he said his prayers: said one too many, that he did.... O my G.o.d!... Well, it was this way. It was one Christmas Eve, and a young lady as we had for his governess had been telling the little nipper all about Father Christmas--I don't blame _her_; she's never got over it any more than we have, and never will--... all about Father Christmas, as I was saying; and he drinks it all in with his wide little eyes, as though it was Gospel truth. 'I'll tell Father Christmas to bring me something real nice,' he says. So just before they put him to bed that night he goes to that open fireplace, where you're sitting now, and pops his head up the chimney, and calls out, 'Father Christmas, please bring me to-night a magic lantern, a pair of roller skates, four wax candles, and a box o' them chocolates with the little nuts inside 'em, for Jesus Christ sake, Amen.' Then he goes away from the fire, and I says, 'All right, nipper, I'll bring 'em,' from behind that door, in a voice to make him believe as Father Christmas was answering. Well, he starts to go to bed; but just as he reached them stairs in the pa.s.sage he runs back, and pops his little head up the chimney again. 'Father Christmas,'

he says, 'don't forget the little nuts in the chocolates. I don't want none o' them pink 'uns.' And, O my G.o.d! he'd hardly spoken the words when more than half a hundredweight of blazing soot comes slathering down the chimney and falls right on the top of him just where he stood.

I tell you there never was a thing seen like it since this world began!

The room was filled with black smoke in a second; we were all blinded; we could neither breathe nor see. We couldn't see him, we couldn't find him; and we all stumbled up against one another; and the missus fell insensible on the floor. And him screaming with pain all the time--and I tell you I couldn't find him, though I rushed like a madman all over the room and groped everywhere, and put my hands into the very fire! Then I went too--dropped like a stone. It was all over in a minute. They pulled the rest of us out in the nick of time: but the poor little nipper was burned to death...."

Farmer Jeremy rose from his seat and went to the window. He was shaking all over; but I averted my glance, for it is a terrible thing to see a strong man in the agony of his soul, and the eyes cannot bear it long.

"The clouds are breaking," he said; "and, please G.o.d, I'll cut 'the Slaughters' to-morrow. But there's one harvest as will never be reaped: and there's one cloud that will never break. Not till the Resurrection Morn. Ah me!"

On the lovely afternoon of an autumn Sunday, about a fortnight after these things, I met Jeremy in the fields, walking the round with his terrier dog.

"Grand weather for farmers," I cried.

"Grand it is, sir," he answered, "and let us be thankful for it."

"Yes," I said; "it has been long enough in coming, and is all the more welcome now it has come."

I felt that the words struck the wrong note; or rather they struck none at all, where a note of music was needed. But I knew not what else to say. Jeremy with all his reserve was less timid and more affluent than I.

"Have you never thought, sir," he said, drawing near to me, "what brought the fine weather?"

I hesitated and was silent.

"Then I'll tell you," said he. "_The power o' prayer._"

That very day I had been reading a book on Primitive Religion; and as I parted from Jeremy a question flashed through my mind. "May it not be,"

I asked myself, "that Primitive Religion is the only religion that has ever existed, or will exist, in the world?"

WHITE ROSES

Of all the conversations of the learned, those in which History and Philosophy maintain the dialogue are probably the most instructive. Such a conversation I was fortunate enough to hear not long ago at the dinner-table of a friend; and the occasion was the more interesting inasmuch as the Philosopher of the party was led by a turn of the argument to lay aside his mantle and a.s.sume the role of the story-teller; thereby providing us with a valuable comment on the very philosophy with which his own ill.u.s.trious name has been long a.s.sociated.

We had been talking during dinner about a certain Expedition to the South Seas undertaken by the British Government in the eighteenth century; and the Historian had just finished a most surprising narration of the facts, based on his recent investigation of unpublished doc.u.ments, when our Hostess glanced at the clock, and rising from her chair gave the signal to the ladies to depart.

When we had resumed our places the Professor of Philosophy said to the Historian:

"I wish you would tell us what in your opinion it was that caused the Expedition to turn out such an utter failure."

"The Expedition failed," said the Historian, "because the commander was not allowed to select his own crews. The Government of the day was corrupt, and insisted on manning the s.h.i.+ps with men of its own choosing.

Some were diseased; others were criminals; many had never handled a rope in their lives. Before the fleet had doubled Cape Horn one-third of the crews had perished, and the rest were mutinous. The enterprise was doomed to failure from the start."

"The whole planet is manned in the same manner," said the Pessimist, as he helped himself to one of our Host's superlative cigars. "I'm sorry for the Commander, whoever he is."

"What precisely do you mean?" said the Professor of Philosophy, holding a lighted match to the end of the Pessimist's cigar.

"I mean," said the Pessimist, "that the prospects of the Human Expedition can't be very bright so long as Society has to put up with anybody and everybody who happens to be born. I suppose there _is_ a Human Expedition," he went on. "At least, _you_ have written as though there were. But who selects the crew? n.o.body. They come aboard as they happen to be born, and the unfortunate Commander has to put up with them as they come--broken men, jail-deliveries, invalids, sea-sick land-lubbers, and Heaven knows what. Who in his senses would put to sea with such a crowd? Humanity is always in a state like that of your Expedition when it doubled Cape Horn--incompetent, mutinous, or sick unto death. And what else can you expect in view of the conditions under which we all arrive on the planet?"

The Host now glanced uneasily at the Professor of Philosophy, whose treatise on _The World Purpose_ was famous throughout three continents.

The Professor was visibly arming himself for the fray: he had just filled his claret-gla.s.s with port.

"Remember," said the Host, "that we must join the ladies in twenty minutes at the utmost."

"I'm not going to argue," replied the Philosopher, after a resolute sip at his port; "I'm going to tell you a story."

"Tell it in the drawing-room," said the Son of the House, who had taken his pretty cousin down to dinner, and was a little exhilarated by that and by the excellence of his father's wine; "that is to say,"--and he spoke eagerly, as if a bright idea had struck him,--"that is to say, of course, if it will bear telling in the presence of ladies."

There was a roar of laughter, and the Son of the House blushed to the roots of his hair.

"I am inclined to think," said the Professor, "that my story, so far from being unsuitable for the ladies, will be intelligible to no one else."

"We'll join the ladies at once," said the Host, "and hear the Professor's story."

The Pessimist, who was fond of talking, now broke in. "That," he said, "is most attractive, but not quite fair to me. I should like to finish what I have begun. And I doubt if my views will be quite in place in the drawing-room. Besides, the Professor must finish his port. I was only going to say," he went on, "that the having to put up with all that comes in human shape is a very serious affair. It seems to me that we all arrive in the world like dumped goods. n.o.body has 'ordered' us, and perhaps n.o.body wants us. Our parents wanted us, did you say? Well, I suppose our parents wanted children; but it doesn't follow that they wanted _you_ or _me_. Somebody else might have filled the book as well, or better. Our birth is a matter of absolute chance. For example, my father has often told me how he met my mother. There was a picnic on a Swiss lake. My father's watch was slow, and when he arrived at the quay the boat that carried his party was out of sight. It so happened that there was another party--people my father didn't know--going to another island, and seeing him disconsolate on the quay they took pity on him and made him go with them. It was in that boat that he first met my mother. The moral is obvious. If my father's watch had kept better time I should never have been in existence. ["A jolly good thing, too,"

whispered the Son of the House.] Neither would my six brothers, nor any of our descendants to the _n_th generation. Well, that's how the whole planet gets itself _manned_. That's how the crew is 'chosen.' And that's why the Expedition gets into trouble on rounding Cape Horn."

"It's a capital introduction to my story," said the Professor, in whom, after his second claret-gla.s.s of port, _The World Purpose_ had a.s.sumed a new intensity. "I wish the ladies could have heard it."

"I venture to think," said our Host, "that the ladies will understand the story all the better for not having heard the introduction. You see, I am a.s.suming that the story is a good one--which is as much as to say that no introduction is needed."

"Thank you," said the Professor.

"I say," broke in the Son of the House, "I say, Professor, it's a pity you didn't take that question up in _The World Purpose_. That's an awfully good point of the Pessimist's, and a jolly difficult one to answer, too. I should like to see you tackle it. Why, I once heard the Pater here say to the Mater----"