The House of Defence v. 1
Page 6
CHAPTER II.
Maud had happened to come across in a book she was reading on the way upto Scotland an account of an epidemic of typhoid, in which thecharitable lady (vicar's wife) of the place sat by the bedsides of thepatients, held their hands, and fed them with "cooling fruits." Itoccurred to her as possible, though not very likely, that the treatmentof typhoid had undergone alterations even as radical as this indicated,since she had had the disease herself, and on arrival she had asked thedoctor, quoting this remarkable passage, if she should telegraph for asupply of cooling fruits. The excellent Dr. Symes, though not giveneither to joking or quick in the perception of a joke, had laughedimmoderately.
"Cooling fruits!" he said. "Feed them with cooling fruits, Lady Maud,and you will soon stop the epidemic, because everybody will be dead."Then he checked his laughter. "It was good of you to come," he said,"but you have your work up at the house. Just keep Lord Thurso--becauseI know him--from moping and being miserable. I am glad you came withhim. But when he is away, down in the village, do what you please apartfrom the cooling fruits. I suggest your being out of doors all you can.You will have your work in the evening, and the sun and the wind and therain, which pray God we get, will fit you best for it."
* * * * *
This advice came into her head the next morning after she had seenThurso off to the village, and it was counsel which jumped with herinclinations, since, according to her view, the world (especially theworld of out-of-doors) was a swarm of delightful and congenialoccupations, and of them all none was so entrancing as catchingsea-trout on a light rod and with light tackle. And since the river,which should be full of these inimitable fish, ran within some half-mileof the house, there was no great difficulty in the way of putting thedoctor's recommendation into practice. She knew, of course, nothing ofthe fact that Thurso had let the fishing to the American whom he had metyesterday in the street, and had decided not to ask to dinner.
Thurso was not to come home to lunch that day, and as the house would befull of workmen busy shifting furniture, and making the rooms ready,under the superintendence of one of the doctors, for the reception ofthe typhoid patients, Maud went off to the river, without a word toanyone, except an order for a sandwich lunch, with a heart that was highand exultant in spite of the surrounding calamitous conditions. Thisturning of the house into a hospital was entirely characteristic ofThurso; she rejoiced to think that their comfort, not money alone, wasbeing sacrificed to sufferers. It was a cheap charity to give money, tospend merely unless expense pinched one, but it was a far more realeffort of sympathy to turn the house into a feverward. It was that whichbrought people into touch, the knowledge that somebody's relief impliedsomebody else's trouble. Thurso was rich, the cost of what he did was ofno account, but this was a more active sympathy.
Sandie, poor fellow, her special fishing gillie, was down with typhoid,and his case, as she knew, was very serious; so she set off alone, witha sandwich in her creel, and a light rod and a landing-net, feelingrather heartless, for she so much expected an enchanting day. She had toa huge degree that sensible gift which enabled her, when she had doneher best in one direction, to enjoy the pleasure that lay before her inanother; and being satisfied that she could not be of the slightest useduring these next hours, either at home or in the village with the"cooling fruits," she let herself go with regard to the excitement ofthe river-side. Her natural _joie de vivre_ gilded all employments forher, but this angling for sea-trout had no need of gilding, since it wasgold already. Nothing could be more entrancing--for hours one might castan unclaimed fly upon the waters, yet never lose the confidentanticipation that at any moment the swirl of submerged strength andactivity would bend the rod to that glorious curve that the fishermanknows to be the true attack of what he has never seen. Like everythingelse that anybody really feels it to be worth while doing (keepingaccounts alone being excepted), mystery and romance illuminated thepursuit, and as she walked down to the river, all else--Thurso'strouble, the fever-stricken village and its tragedies--were all spongedoff her mind. Her heart was no less tender and solicitous than it hadbeen, but her attention was engaged. Instead, mixed with the excitementof her anticipations, the dreadful things that might be in store forher by the river were in her mind, for to fish with a big sea-trout flymight easily attract the notice of the sea-trout's mightier cousins, inwhich case good-bye, probably, to the light tackle. But as it was nosport to catch sea-trout on a salmon-rod, Maud took this chance with alight heart.
* * * * *
The day was one of those grey days (rare in the North, where a grey dayimplies for the most part an east wind, which sucks the colour out ofland and sky), with soft breezes from the south-west, which made heatherand hillside and golden gorse and river more brilliant and full ofcolour than even the direct sunbeams, and, preoccupied though Maud waswith the prospects of her fishing, her mind kept paying little flyingvisits to the beauty of the morning. Five minutes after she had left thehouse she was absolutely alone, and no sight either of human form orhuman habitation broke the intense solitude of eye and ear which tosuch as her makes so dear and intimate a companionship. For she lovedthe pleasant things of the earth--the honey-scented heather and thesunshine of the gorse, and the close, silent friendship of Nature,unvexed and undistracted by human presences. To her, as to St. Francis,the trees were her dear brothers, and the sky and river her dearsisters, and somehow also the very sea-trout, in the slaughter of whichshe hoped to spend a delightful day, were blood relations and beloved byher. She could not have explained that attitude at all: she wouldfrankly have admitted that it implied an inconsistency. But there thefact was.
And here at last was the rushing, jubilant river, which a rainy May hadfilled from bank to bank. She struck it at the Bridge Pool, at the headof which the stream was spanned by a swaying, airy suspension bridge,from which the pool took its name. Deep water lay on the near side, anda considerable piece of shallow water on the other; but just beyond theshallows, could she but cast over it, ran a little channel she knewwell, since it was a favourite place for the sea-trout. So she crossedthe swaying, dancing bridge, debating within herself the choice of afly. The river was high, the sky grey, and sea-trout would probablyprefer a rather large fly, but so, unfortunately, would salmon. However,she must chance that--the big fly was certainly the correct game.
Five minutes was enough for the soaking of a cast and the adjustment ofher rod, and already, with an attack of "fisherman's heart," which makesthat organ apparently shift from its normal position into the throat,she began casting from just below the bridge. But with the longest lineof which she was capable she could not reach that channel of deep water,and if she did not do that she might as usefully go a-fishing in a pail,like Simple Simon. But ... there was nobody within sight, and nextminute she had kilted her skirts till she could wade out over thatbarren shoal-water, and stand where, with the cool bright water flowingnearly up to her knees, yet leaving her skirt unwetted, she could reachthe deeper water beyond. Well she knew what a wet skirt meant to one whoproposed to walk and fish all day; the heavy clinging blanket made allactivity, all lightness of going, out of the question, and as she wadedout she hitched it an inch or two higher. Then for a moment she had topause to laugh at the figure she must inevitably be presenting werethere anyone to see her. There was a knitted jersey for her upper half,a tweed cap for her head, a much kilted skirt and stockings for therest. Her beauty and the vigour and grace of her limbs she forgot toconsider, just as a beholder, had there been one, might have paid butscanty attention to the cap and jersey and skirt. But from where shestood she could cast over the coveted channel.
Half a dozen times her fly went on its quiet, unerring circuit, thensuddenly a gulp and a fin broke the surface just below it, and withanother gulp her heart jumped upwards from her throat into her verymouth. The owner of that fin had not touched her fly, but--oh, therapture and danger of it!--he was no sea-trout, but a fresh-run salm
on.At that the pure sporting instinct usurped all other feeling. Lightthough her rod was and light her tackle, since there was a salmon in theriver that felt an interest in her Jock Scott, she must try to catchhim. He might (probably would) break her: then she would be broken. Shehad no gaff; very well, she must do without. He was a heavy fish too;she had seen enough of him for that. What a desperate and heavenlyadventure!
* * * * *
She waded ashore, being far too wise in the science to cast over himagain at once, preferring to wait a minute or two before she tempted himagain, and as she gained dry land she saw that there was a man half-wayacross the bridge just above the pool. He carried a salmon-rod over hisshoulder, and a fishing-bag slung by a strap. He could not, of course,be fishing here on Thurso's water, and she guessed he must be going overto Scarsdale, where she knew that some new tenants had taken the lodge.But she gave him only the slightest and most fleeting attention, beingfar more interested that moment in one particular fish than in anyparticular man, and took no further notice of him, except that sheunkilted her skirt an inch or two, for it showed really too much of whatwas called "leg." Then, without giving a further glance at the figure onthe bridge, who had paused there watching her, she walked back againthrough the shallows to a point some ten yards above that where she hadraised the fish, in order to make sure of casting over him again. Theunkilted skirt dragged a little in the water, but she would have wadedneck-deep after that fish. Also--this popped in and out of hermind--there was a man watching, and she had no objection to a gallerywhen she was fishing. She would show him how to--well, probably lose, asalmon on trout-tackle with a trout-rod.
Yard by yard she moved down to where the dear monster had risen before.There he was again, but this time no fin broke the surface, only asubmerged boil came at her fly. But this was the true attack--thesuddenly bent rod, the sudden message on the line. At the same moment,out of the corner of her eye, she saw that the man had moved from hisplace on the bridge, and was coming up behind her on the bank.
But that occupied her infinitesimally; all that she really knew was thatshe was the possessor of a light trout-rod, fitted with light tackle, atthe far end of which at the present moment there happened to be asalmon. Her landing-net was somewhere on the bank, but, as far as thatwent, it would be just as useful to her if it had been at Jerichoinstead. But immediately the fish bolted down-stream, and her reel sangshrilly. Then, like an express train, he came back, and with thecalmness of despair she reeled in, thinking for the moment he meant togo up under the bridge, in which case there would be need to soakanother cast and look out another fly. But he changed his mind, and oncemore, after two or three rushes, he was opposite to her just where shehad hooked him originally, shaking his head, so it seemed, for the rodjerked and jumped, yet no line ran out. Maud had moved back across theshoal-water during these manoeuvres so as to gain the shore again, forshe knew she must get somewhere where she could run, when from closebehind her came a level, pleasant voice.
"He is well hooked," he said; "I saw him take it. But he'll be offdown-stream in a minute, and there are a hundred yards of rapid beforethe next pool. I should get to shore quick if I were you, and be readyto run."
Maud still thought of nothing but her fish, which had already begun tobore slowly away into the deep water on the far side of the river, andshe knew well what that would lead to. And she replied to the voice asif it had been only her own thoughts, which were identical, with whichshe was communing.
"Yes, I know," she said; "he's making for the deep water now. There!"
She splashed her way through the margin of the shoal-water, nearlytripping up over a submerged stone, just as the fish felt the fullcurrent of the river, and was off, full-finned, down-stream. Her reelscreamed out, and in a couple of seconds there was a dreadful length ofline between her and the fly. But she gained the smooth turf of thebank, and was off like an arrow after him, when, just before matterswere desperate, a bend in the rapids brought her nearer to him, and,still running, she reeled hurriedly in. Then--oh, blessed haven!--hereached the deep water at the head of the pool below, and, swimmingthere in small circles, allowed her to recapture more of her line. Then,still without taking her eyes off the water (for she felt sure that theowner of the voice had run down behind her), she spoke to him again.
"The humour of the situation is that I have only the very lightesttackle," she said; "for I came out after sea-trout. But luckily my fishdoesn't know that. And would you be so kind as to get my landing-net? Ileft it on the bank just below the bridge."
"I saw it and brought it," said the voice. "But I don't know what youwant it for. He's a twenty-pounder."
The voice was a very pleasant and friendly one, and Maud probablynoticed that instinctively, for she spoke to this man whom she had neverseen as if he was of her own class, anyhow. And here she laughedsuddenly.
"I wonder what is going to happen next," she said. "That's half the joyof fishing, isn't it? Oh, look!"
For the first time the fish jumped, showing himself from head to tail,and splashed soundingly back into the pool again.
"Far side of twenty pounds," remarked the voice. "I told my gillie, I'mglad to say, to be down here by eleven, and he will bring a gaff. Heshould be here every minute. But there'll be no gaffing going on justyet."
This turned out to be perfectly true, and a dozen times in the nextquarter of an hour Maud knew that she was within an ace of losing herfish. He behaved like the lusty fresh-run monster that he was, makingdisconcerting rushes down to the very tail of the pool, and running outher line almost to its last yard before she had time to follow him downthe steep stony bank. Then he would seek the very deepest holes, and liethere sulking or jiggering, and putting the most dangerous snappingstrains on her light tackle. Then with a rush he would come straightback towards her, so that, do what she would, there were long perilousmoments, though she reeled in with a lightning hand when he was on aslack line. But at length he began to tire a little, and instead ofhurling himself about the pool, allowed himself to drift every now andthen with the stream. That, too, was dangerous, and she had to treat himwith the utmost gentleness, since both his dead weight and the press ofthe water were against her. Then again a spark of his savage pride wouldflare up, and he would protest against this mysterious compelling force;but he was weakening.
"Ah, poor darling!" said Maud once, as his struggles grew less.
And the voice answered her.
"Yes, that's just how I often feel," it said.
A minute or two more passed.
"Isn't your gillie here yet?" she asked.
"Yes, he came ten minutes ago. Shall I gaff him for you, or shall he?"
"Who is he?" asked Maud.
"It's Duncan Fraser, my lady," said another voice.
"Oh, then, Duncan, please," she said. "Is that rude of me? I am sosorry. But, you see, I know Duncan: he has often gaffed fish for me. Getfurther down, Duncan, and lie down--get below him; don't let him seeyou."
But there were several agitating moments yet. Each time the fish driftedwith the stream she towed him a little nearer to the bank; but though hewas very weak now and his protests feeble, he was still capable ofmomentary violences. But at last he was a mere log, floating with finout of the water and broad silvery side shining. With a swift, craftymovement, Duncan had him on the bank.
Maud laid down her rod and turned away.
"Kill him quick, Duncan," she said. "Is it done?" Then, with fineinconsistence: "Oh, what a darling!" she cried. "Quite fresh from thesea, too!"
Then for the first time Maud turned to look at the owner of the voice,and found a tall, pleasant-looking young man smiling at her.
"I am really extremely obliged to you," she said. "I don't see how Icould have landed him without your gaff. There is nowhere in the poolwhere you can tail a fish."
He laughed at this.
"Why, I think that is so," he said. "But I am much more your debtor.I've never seen a fish so bea
utifully handled. Look at your tackle, too!Well, I never!"
"Oh, I know the water," she said, "and that makes so much difference,though I couldn't explain how."
Then suddenly the conjunction of a total stranger--American, too, so shecould hear--with a rod on her brother's river, in company with one ofher brother's gillies, struck her as odd.
"I am afraid my fish and I have detained you very long," she said. "Youare fishing at Scarsdale, I suppose."
"No, I am fishing here," he said. "At least, I shall walk down a mile ortwo, and try the lower pools."
This was more solidly incomprehensible. Yet the man did not look in theleast like a poacher or trespasser. And how did it come about thatDuncan was with him? Maud grew just a shade dignified, though she wasstill quite cordial.
"I'm sure you will excuse me," she said; "but, you know, this is mybrother's river, Lord Thurso's."
Again the stranger laughed with sincere and quiet merriment.
"Oh yes, I know," he said. "But, you see, he has been kind enough to letthe fishing to me until the end of July."
Maud stood quite silent a moment. A situation so horrible was dawning onher that she was unable to speak. What had he said? That Thurso had lethim the fishing? Then, what was she? A poacher, caught red-handed by thetenant himself.
"What?" she said. "Say it again."
The stranger took off his hat.
"May I introduce myself?" he said. "I am Mr. Bertie Cochrane. Excuse me;I really can't help laughing. Why, it's just killing!"
Maud, already flushed with excitement and exercise, grew perfectlycrimson.
"Oh, what am I to do?" she said. "It is too awful! How can you laugh? Ican never forgive myself."
She raised her eyes to his again, and saw there such genuine, kindlyamusement that, in spite of her horror, she laughed too.
"Oh, don't make me laugh," she said. "It is too dreadful. Poaching! Ithought it was you who were going to poach, and it's been me!"
"Yes, it's serious," he said; "and it's for me to make conditions."
Maud had one moment's fleeting terror that he was going to make an assof himself, as she phrased it: ask to kiss her hand or do somethingdreadful. But he did not look that kind of donkey.
"Oh, my conditions are not difficult," he said. "I only insist on yournot cutting short your day's fishing."
"Don't," she said. "I couldn't fish any more. Thank you very much, but Ireally think I couldn't."
"I think you should make an effort. You must consider me as insisting.You won't get in my way, nor I in yours. I meant to go a couple of milesdown--I did indeed."
The situation which five minutes ago was so appalling had quite lost itshorror; it was no longer unfaceable. Had Maud been told that morningthat in the inscrutable decrees of Fate she was going to be caughtpoaching before lunch, she would have wished the earth to open andswallow her sooner than that anything so unspeakable should happen toher, while even two minutes ago there was nothing in life so impossibleas that she should continue her career of poaching. But her captor wasso unaffectedly friendly, his amusement, also, at her horror and thecause of it so sincerely kind, that she was no longer horrified.
"Really, Mr. Cochrane, it is too good of you," she said. "But you mustfirst put me at my ease about one thing. You do know--don't you?--howdreadfully sorry I am, and that I hadn't the very slightest idea thatThurso had let the fishing. Oh, by the way, I really _am_ Lady MaudRaynham."
"Why, yes," he said, and paused. "Then it's all settled."
The whole situation had gone, vanished, before his perfect simplicityand kindliness, and she smiled back at him.
"Thank you very much," she said. "I shall love to have this day on theriver."
"And Duncan?" he said. "Pray keep him if you wish; otherwise I shallsend him home. His wife is ill of this--this typhoid."
"Oh no; please let him go home, then," said Maud.
Then Cochrane turned to the gillie.
"Get along home with you, Duncan," he said, "and be sure--tellyourself--that you will find the wife still improving. I think you'llfind she's been getting better all morning. But if you give her any ofthat medicine you will be just helping her--helping her, mind--to getworse again. You understand? If you find when you get home she is worse,give it her by all means. But you won't find that: you will find she isbetter. Yes, gaff, landing-net, lunch--I've got them all, thanks. So offwith you, and let your heart go singing. God's looking after her thismorning, as He always did. She's going to get quite well. Don't losesight of that, and don't let her lose sight of it either."
He had apparently quite forgotten about Maud as he spoke, and had turneda side face to her as he talked to the gillie. And though, during thislittle speech, all the kindliness and merriment that had twinkled in hiseyes and twitched in his mouth when "the situation" had been unfoldedbetween Maud and himself was still there, yet there shone through it nowsome vital and intense seriousness. He had laid his hand on the roughhomespun of Duncan's shoulder, and spoke with a quiet and convinced airof authority. Then he nodded dismissal to him, and turned to Maud again,while Duncan trudged off down the riverbank.
"I'm so sorry for you and Lord Thurso," he said, "and I think it'sdownright good of you to have come up here, right in the middle of theseason, just because your folk were ill. It's real kind of you."
Then suddenly his eye fell on the silver-mailed fish that still lay onthe bank.
"Hi, Duncan!" he called out after the retreating figure, "take herladyship's fish up to the house."
Duncan came back, and with difficulty folded the big fish into his bag,and shouldered it. But he paused a moment before he went again, lookingat Cochrane with doglike eyes that, though they trust, yet beseech.
"But the wife is better, sir?" he asked.
"Ever so much. You are beginning to know that as well as I do. Now, offwith you, for you've got to look after the baby, as she thinks shecan't. Make it happy. Give it a real good time, and let it pull thatgreat beard of yours."
He watched Duncan tramp away again with his heavy, peasant-footed treaddown the bank.
"Dear blind soul," he said, half to himself. "But it's getting near dawnwith his night."
* * * * *
Maud was already "arrested" with regard to her companion--she paid, thatis to say, a good deal more attention to him than she paid tonine-tenths of casual strangers with whom she was, as now, accidentallybrought into somewhat intimate contact. He had the arresting quality,whatever that is, which compels attention. It may be called animalmagnetism, or vitality of a superior kind, but it has nothing to do withlove or hate, like or dislike, though it may coexist, and often does,with any of these. It had not, for instance, even occurred to her towonder whether she liked or disliked him, or was utterly indifferent tohim; she only knew that he had the arresting quality. In manner he wasvery quiet, rather boyish, quite well-bred, and rather good-looking,and in none of these respects was he different from the casual crowd.But there was, and she knew it, something that distinguished him fromall men and women that she had ever seen, and this pause of a second ortwo, as Duncan took up the fish, was sufficient for her to determine inwhat the distinction lay. And it was this: he was so happy. Happiness ofa sort she had never yet seen surrounded him like an atmosphere of hisown, which it was given to others to breathe. She herself had breathedit--it radiated from him. Hundreds of people were happy--thank God, thatis a very common gift--but the happiness that she now encountered was ona different plane. It was happiness distilled, sublimated. He seemednormally to dwell on the heights to which others in fine moments canattain. He seemed happy in the way that some extraordinary good newsmakes others happy for a moment or two, or an hour or two. Yet this wasno retrospective happiness, the happiness of vivid memory: it was hisnormally; it gushed from him as from some unquenchable spring.
This impression was made, as all strong impressions are made, in amoment, and there was no pause between his parting speech to Duncan, thef
ish-laden, and her taking up again the casual thread of talk. Yet wasthe thread a casual one? For his last words to Duncan seemed to comefrom the very heart and soul of the man, from the spring of hishappiness.
"Do tell me," she said, "why did you say to Duncan that his wife onlythought she was ill?"
The convinced happiness of his brown eyes looked at her a moment beforehe answered.
"Doesn't it come somewhere in Shakespeare?" he said. "'There's nothingbut thinking makes it so?' Or words to the same purpose?"
"Yes, but if we take that literally," said Maud, "we must conclude thatif she could only think she was well, poor soul, she would be. It ishard to think that when you happen to have typhoid."
The brown eyes grew graver, but their happiness, as well as theirgravity, seemed to deepen.
"Certainly, it is hard," he said. "Indeed, it is impossible, unless youcan think right. But when you can do that, all the rest follows."
* * * * *
Maud suddenly felt slightly antagonistic to him. She remembered the fewwords she had had with Thurso last night about people who say they arealways well, because they think they are, and his conclusion that theymust be fools. She had tacitly agreed with him then, and was a littlevexed with Mr. Cochrane because, honestly, he did not seem to be a fool.
"Have you ever had toothache?" she asked briskly.
"Never. And if I had, I shouldn't. Sounds nonsense, doesn't it? But itjust expresses the truth."
Then the name she had been unable to remember last night came back toher.
"Ah, you are a Christian Scientist!" she said. "You think all pain andillness is unreal."
He laughed.
"I know it," he said. "Now, I am sure you want to get on with yourfishing. So there's your rod, and please keep this gaff. You are farmore likely to hook another salmon in these upper pools than I am downbelow."
He had changed the subject with such undisguised abruptness that shecould not help remarking on it. Yet, sudden as it had been, there was nohint of ill-breeding or rudeness about it. He merely spoke quitecourteously of something else.
"Do you always change the subject as quickly as that?" she asked,smiling.
"Always, if I think I may be led into a discussion about ChristianScience with strangers, who---- Pray don't think me rude, Lady Maud, butone can't talk about the subject which means more to one than the wholeworld with people who ask questions about it out of a sort of--well,derisive curiosity. Also, I don't proselytise. I think there are betterways of making the truth known."
The words were extremely direct, but again no hint of rudeness or wantof courtesy was ever so faintly suggested, and though Maud still feltantagonistic, she knew that the most sensitive person in the world couldnot have found offence in them, so perfectly friendly and good-naturedwas his tone. He made this very plain statement without the least touchof resentment himself or fear of arousing it. And she, generous andfair-minded herself, gave in at once.
"I beg your pardon," she said. "You are quite right. There was a touch,though really not more, of what you so justly call derisive curiosityin my mind. I had no business either to feel or show it. But may I askyou a question with that touch left out--honestly left out?"
"Why, of course--a hundred," said he.
"Then, why don't you proselytise?" she asked. "As you are convinced ofthe truth of your doctrine, isn't it your duty to spread it?"
Cochrane let his eyes wander from her face over the hillside, fragrantwith heather and murmurous with bees. Then they looked at her again, andfor the first time she saw that they were different from any eyes shehad ever seen in the face of man or woman, for they were unmistakably achild's eyes, full of a child's disarming frankness, and almost terriblehonesty.
"You can spread a thing in many ways," he said. "But preaching was notthe primary way He chose. 'He went about doing good.'"
* * * * *
Maud felt herself suddenly seized with that shyness which is instinctiveto most Anglo-Saxons when "religion" puts in its appearance inconversation, and she was suddenly tongue-tied. With many people, nodoubt, reticence on religious subjects is due to the fact that, sincethey have no religion, there is nothing for them to talk about. But itwas not so with her. Religion formed a very vital and essential part ofher life, but it was not a thing to be publicly trotted out like this.So, since the subject had so unexpectedly and profoundly deepened withthis last remark, it was she who rather precipitately changed it now.
"I see," she said. "But please don't leave me the gaff. I shouldimmensely like, since you are so kind, to try for another sea-trout ortwo, but having poached one salmon without your leave, I couldn'tcontemplate poaching another, even with it. So if I hook another heshall break me, and so I shall present your river with a fly and a castby way of _amende_."
Maud felt vexed and annoyed with herself. She was not managing well;she thought she must be giving a quite false impression by chatteringthis stupid nonsense in order to get away from the subject of religion.But then a rather more natural topic suggested itself--namely, the ideaof offering him hospitality, which had occurred to and been rejected byThurso.
"And do come and dine with us to-morrow," she said, "and eat some ofyour own fish. Thurso and I would be delighted. We are just squatting inthe house, you know, and eat and live in one room, and the caretaker'swife cooks. Ah, how stupid of me! I forgot. Thurso is turning the restof the house into a typhoid hospital, and by evening the place will befull of patients. So please say 'No' point-blank if you don't like thethought. I shall quite understand."
Those childlike eyes looked at her in frank, unveiled admiration.
"Why, that's just splendid of you both," he said; "and as for coming todinner, I shall be delighted. We Scientists are often told we areinconsistent, but we are not quite so bad as to mind coming to a housewhere a few poor souls think they are ill. So, _au revoir_, Lady Maud,and many thanks."
* * * * *
Maud was a girl of great singleness of purpose, and generally, when shewas out for a day's fishing, the number of moments in which she thoughtabout things unconnected in any way with fishing scarcely made any totalat all, while any other subject that was present in her mind was thereonly in a very dim and distant fashion. But to-day, during the hour'sfishing which she indulged in between Mr. Cochrane's departure andlunch, her thoughts persistently strayed from fishing, and wheneventually she made herself a windless seat in the heather, overlookingthe pool which she had just fished, even the brace of silvery sea-troutshe had already caught, and the prospective brace or two that shepromised herself before evening, occupied but a very small part of hermeditations.
Christian Science! She had indeed a "touch of derision" for thatphilosophy and its philosophers, though it was not worth while even toderide it. Nor was her derision founded on ignorance only, for last yearAlice Yardly, a friend of hers, had joined the Church, and that hadseemed to Maud a most suitable thing. For she had always thought thatAlice, though a dear, was a fool, and now she knew it. Certainly,however, Mrs. Yardly did not in the least resemble Mr. Cochrane eitherin the matter of folly, because it was clearly impossible to think ofhim as a fool, or in the matter of proselytising, for Mrs. Yardly usedto proselytise (with almost touching ill-success) by the hour, pouringout a perfect torrent of optimistic gabble about the nonexistence ofpain and sickness, and be prostrated the moment afterwards by one ofthose nervous headaches to which she was subject. She would boldly,trying to nail a smile to her face, label this a "false claim" (thoughit was a pedantically accurate imitation of the real thing), and"demonstrate" over it, which, being interpreted, meant that she assuredherself two or three million times that she could not have a nervousheadache, since there was no nervous headache in Divine Love, andnothing existed except Divine Love. After that she would go to bed, andwake up next morning without any headache, and be delighted with thesuccess of the demonstration that had banished it.
Of course, Alice was silly--she seemed sometimes to have no mind, mortalor otherwise, though she was a dear, all the same--and Maud, as she sathere now eating her sandwich in this sheltered nest of heather, with thewild bees buzzing about her, and all the infinite and beneficent powersof Nature pursuing their functions heedless of any interpretations thatthe meddlesome mind of man might choose to put upon them, felt that shehad done an injustice to the subject about which she inquired when shederided it just because a woman who was very silly gave absurd answersto questions which, though quite simple, were of the utmost profundityin that they concerned the origin of evil and sickness. Mrs. Yardly hadnot been a Christian Scientist long, and Maud now told herself that itwas absurd to expect her all at once (for she understood so littlebefore) to understand everything now. But what nettled her, though,indeed, she was not easily nettled, was to find that this same dear,stupid person did profess to be able to explain everything--mind,matter, and God alike. She claimed to have recaptured the faith of achild, and at once to be able to argue like a theologian about it. Maudherself was a professed and believing Christian, but had a brilliantAtheist subtly questioned her on the doctrine of the Incarnation, sheknew quite well that many of his questions would be completelyunanswerable. But because she was a Christian it did not follow she wasa theologian, and she hoped that she would not try, by turning ablinding squirt of texts upon her questioner, to make him believe thatshe could explain the mystery of the material and spiritual world. Shecould not--many things were mysterious. But why not say so? That thesethings were mysterious did not prevent her being a Christian. Shebelieved, too, the root doctrine of Christian Science--namely, that Godwas the Author of the world, and was immanent there. But surely it waswiser and truer to confess that one did not understand the whole workingof the world in all its details; for if one did, one could manage it alloneself. Alice Yardly, Maud felt sure, would undertake the post with thegreatest pleasure. And a pretty mess she would make of it, thought she.For Alice could never even contrive that the carriage should call foranybody at the right time or place, and constantly went out to dinner onthe wrong night, for the confusion of hostesses.
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Yet ... the law of gravity, so Maud believed, was in sound workingorder; but if one asked some mere child to explain it, and he explainedit imperfectly or incorrectly, that proved nothing against the validityof the law, but only proved the inability of the exponent. So, too, inChristian Science, one person surely knew more about it than another,and Mrs. Yardly, in all probability, less than any; and Maud confessedto herself that her present derision had been founded on theexplanations (or want of them) given by a Scientist whom she had alwaysthought silly. No doubt there were others who were not silly, but what apity it was that the silly ones were allowed to gabble like this! Alicehad tried to proselytise her, with the effect only that Maud had beenalmost fanatically convinced of the absurdity of her faith. But Mr.Cochrane had pointedly refused to proselytise, and, perversely enough,she felt she would like to hear what he had to say about it. He, too,had that childlike faith and those childlike eyes. Alice's eyes were notchildlike: they resembled the shining buttons in railway-carriages.
A great fish jumped clear out of the water in the pool at her feet--anoble silver-sided salmon, which for the moment made her fisherman'sheart leap in her throat. But it was no use trying for him; a fish thatjumped like that never took the fly. Besides, she had no gaff. Then shesmiled at herself, for she knew that, though that reason was soundenough, it was not the real cause why she still sat in her shelteredplace. She was interested in something else: she wanted to think aboutthat.
Mr. Cochrane did not seem silly; in fact, she would have bet on theverdict of an intelligent and impartial jury with regard to the point.What if she asked him, when he came to dine to-morrow night, a few ofthe questions onto which Alice had turned the squirt of irrelevanttexts? There would be no derision on her side now, for in this half-hourof self-communing she had convinced herself that she wanted to know.There was no such thing as illness--he had said that; he hadpractically told Duncan that. What, then, if she made an appeal tohim--told him how many of these poor folk had died from typhoid, andwere suffering now, and asked him to stop it all? Yet that was too muchto ask; it seemed profane, as if she asked him to invest himself in theinsignia of Divinity. But might he not--for she could ask him nowwithout derision, without, so far as she could manage it, unbelief inthe huge power which Christian Scientists (healers, at any rate)distinctly professed to wield--might he not relieve one sufferer, makewell one of those forty who would be lying sick in the house to-morrow?But then there occurred to her the parrot-like answer of Alice Yardlywhen she had asked her the same question. It was parrot-like, it wasglib and without conviction and sense of the true meaning of the words,when she said it was wrong to make a "cure" for a sign. Lots of textsfrom the Gospels, of course, came up as reinforcements. But howhopelessly she misunderstood! Maud did not want a sign: she wanted thatsuffering should be relieved. It was not human to withhold that powermerely because she would be interested in seeing it manifested. It wasinhuman to withhold it, if the possessor really believed it was his.Besides, for what, except its exercise, had it been given?
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But there was Thurso. It was better that he should not know that sheintended to ask Mr. Cochrane to do this, and, indeed, that he should notknow that she had asked it. There Alice Yardly's contention, again withtexts, seemed to her to be possibly true. It was reasonable, anyhow, tosuppose that unbelief m
ight hamper the power of faith, just as dampnesshindered the functions of frictional electricity. But if Thurso was nottold, there would be none of this impeding counteraction. She herselfdid not disbelieve, and honestly she wanted to believe. She derided nolonger: she was at the bar of conscience able to say that she had anopen mind on the subject. She believed in the miraculous cures ofancient days; there was no known reason why modern days should notwitness them again.
Yet why had her mind changed? Why had the derision vanished? Again shewas truthful with herself, and acknowledged that it was probably owingto Mr. Cochrane's personality. He seemed wise and gentle andself-reliant because he relied on an Infinite Power. He himself entirelytrusted in that Power, and it was exactly that which made Maud trusthim.
Yes, that was all. She had gone over the ground she wished to traverse.Thereafter she was absorbed in watching her fly traverse anotherelement.