Part 15 (1/2)

Hard-headed as Scattergood was, it would be unjust to his character to describe him as free from superst.i.tion. Much of his life, indeed, had been spent in attacking the superst.i.tions of the ignorant and the thoughtless; but this very practice had bred in him, as in so many others, a superst.i.tious regard for the argumentative weapons used in the attack. Like his ancestor at Dunbar, he struck his tuning-fork on his sword. To be sure, he was a Rational Theist, and a cause of Rational Theism in others; but, unless I am much mistaken, the ultimate object of his faith, the Power behind his Deity, was the Inflexible Method.

Superst.i.tion never dies; it merely changes its form. It is not a confession we make to ourselves so much as a charge we bring against others, and its greatest power is always exercised in directions where we are least aware of its existence. And Scattergood, of course, was unaware that his att.i.tude towards the Inflexible Method was profoundly superst.i.tious. It follows that he was unprepared for the part which superst.i.tion, changing its form, was destined to play in his life.

Theology, then, was his vocation, but I have now to add, the horse was his hobby. Although he had taken to riding late in life, he was by no means an incapable rider or an ignorant horseman. Next to the Universe, the horse had been the subject of his profoundest study; and as he was a close reasoner in regard to the one, he was a tight rider in regard to the other. His seat, like his philosophy, was a trifle stiff; but what else could you expect in one who had pa.s.sed his sixtieth year? He never rode to hounds, nor otherwise unduly jeopardised his neck; but for managing a high-spirited horse, when all the rest of us were in difficulties, I never knew his better. ”Let Scattergood go first,” we cried as the traction engine came snorting down the road and our elderly hacks were prancing on the pavement; and sure enough his young thoroughbred would walk by the monster without so much as changing its feet.

”Scattergood,” I once asked him, ”what do you _do_ to that young mare of yours when you meet a traction engine or a military band?”

”Nothing,” he replied.

”Then what do you _say_ to her?”

”Nothing.”

”Then how do you manage it?”

”I haven't the faintest idea.”

Needless to say, he was deeply respected in the stables. ”A gen'l'man with a wonderful _'orse-sense_,” said the old ostler one day, expatiating, as usual, on Scattergood's virtues. ”If I'd had a 'orse-sense like him, I'd be one o' the richest men in England. If ever there was a man as throwed himself away, there he goes! 'Orse-sense isn't a thing as you see every day, sir. The only other man I've ever knowed as had it was his Lords.h.i.+p, as I was his coachman in Ireland more than twenty years ago. His Lords.h.i.+p used to say to me, 'Tom,' he says, 'Tom, it all comes of my grandfather and his father before him bein'

jockeys.' And between you and me, sir, that's what's the matter with his Reverence. He's jockey-bred, sir, you take my word for it.”

”His father was a bishop,” I interposed.

”Well, his father may have been a bishop, for all I care,” said Tom.

”But what about his mother, and what about his mother's father, and his father before him, and all the rest on 'em? When it comes to a matter o' breedin', you don't stop at fathers; you take in the whole pedigree.

Wasn't his Lords.h.i.+p's father a brewer? And what difference did that make? When 'orse-sense once gets started in a family it takes more than brewin' and more than bishopin' to wash it out o' the blood.”

”I've heard that gypsies have the same gift,” I said.

”I've 'eard it too, sir. But I never would have nothing to do with gypsies; though his Lords.h.i.+p was as thick as thieves with 'em. And thieves are just what they are, sir, and if it weren't for that I'd say as the gen'l'man was as like to be gypsy-bred as jockey. Don't you never let the gypsies sell _you_ a 'oss, sir; you'll be took in if you do. But they couldn't gypsy _him_! Why, I don't believe as there's a 'oss-dealer for twenty miles round as wouldn't go out for a walk if he 'eard as Dr Scattergood was comin' to buy a 'oss.”

That the ostler's last remark was true in the spirit if not in the letter the following incident seems to prove. Once I was myself entrapped into the folly of buying a horse, and I was on the point of concluding the bargain, which seemed to be all in my favour, when a friendly daimon whispered in my ear that I had better be cautious. So I said, ”Yes, the horse seems all right. But before coming to a final decision, I'll bring Dr Scattergood round to have a look at him.” And the dealer presently abated his price by twenty pounds, on the understanding that ”that there interferin' Scattergood, as had already done him more bad turns than one, was not allowed to poke his nose into business which was none of his.”

”Pretty good,” said the Professor when I showed him my purchase. ”Pretty good. But I think I could have saved you another ten pounds, had you taken the trouble to consult me.”

He kept but one horse, and it was observed, as a strange thing in a lover of horses, that he never kept that one for long. He was constantly changing his mount. By superficial observers this was set down to a certain fickleness of disposition; but the truth seems rather to have been that Scattergood, consciously or unconsciously, was engaged in the quest for the Perfect Horse. No man knew better than he what equine perfection involved, and none was ever more painfully sensitive to the slightest deviation from the Absolute Ideal. Whatever good qualities his horse might possess--and they were always numerous--the presence of a single fault, however slight, would haunt and oppress him in much the same way as a venial sin will trouble the consciousness of a saint. I remember one beautiful animal in which the severest judges could find no defect save that it had half a dozen miscoloured hairs hidden away on one of its hind-legs. Every time the good doctor rode that horse he saw the miscoloured hairs through the back of his head; and away went the beast to Tattersall's after a week's trial. Another followed, and another after that; but we soon ceased to count them, and took it for granted that Scattergood's horse, seen once, would not be seen again. So it went on until in the fullness of time there appeared a horse, or more strictly a mare, which did not depart as swiftly as it came.

Whatever perfection may be in other realms, perfection in horses seems after all to be a relative thing; for though Dr Scattergood himself regarded this one as perfect, I doubt if he could have found a single soul in the wide world to agree with him. To be sure, she was beautiful enough to cause a flutter of excitement as she pa.s.sed down the street; but a beast of more dangerous mettle never pranced on two feet or kicked out with one. She was the terror of every stable she entered, and it was only by continual largesse on the part of Scattergood that any groom could be induced to feed or tend her. What she cost him monthly for tips, for broken stable furniture, and for veterinary attendance on the horses she kicked in the ribs, I should be sorry to say. But Scattergood paid it all without a murmur; no infatuated lover ever bore the extravagance of his mistress with a lighter heart. For the truth of the matter was, that he was deeply attached to this mare, and the mare was deeply attached to him.

Why the mare was fond of Scattergood is a problem requiring for its solution more horse-sense than most of us possess; so we had better leave it alone. But Scattergood's reason for being fond of the mare can be stated in a sentence. She reminded him, constantly and vividly, of Ethelberta. Her high spirits, her dash, her unexpectedness, her brilliant eyes, her gait, and especially the carriage of her head, were a far truer likeness of Ethelberta than was the faded photograph, or even the miniature set in gold, which the reverend professor kept locked in his secret drawer.

Now Ethelberta was the name of the lady whom Scattergood wished he had married. For five-and-thirty years he had never ceased wis.h.i.+ng he had married _her_--and not someone else. Someone else! Ay, there was the rub! The lawful Mrs Scattergood was not a person whose portrait I should care to draw in much detail. Can you imagine a harder lot than that of a world-famous Systematic Theologian, publicly pledged to maintain the Friendliness of the Universe, but privately consumed with anxiety lest on returning home (_horresco referens!_) he should find a heavy-featured, blear-eyed, irredeemable woman, the woman who called herself his wife, narcotised on the drawing-room sofa, with an empty bottle of chloral at her side? That was the lot of John Scattergood, D.D., and he bore it like a man, keeping up a pathetic show of devotion to his intolerable wife, and concealing his personal misery from the world with an ingenuity only equal to that with which he published abroad the Friendliness of the Universe. To be sure, he had long abandoned the quest for happiness as a thing unworthy of a Systematic Theologian--what else, indeed, could he do? Still, it was hardly possible to avoid reflecting that he would have been happier if he had married Ethelberta. Each day something happened to convince him that he would. For example, his first duty every morning, before settling down to work, was to make a tour of the house, sometimes in the company of a trusted domestic, hunting for a concealed bottle of morphia; and when at last the servant, with her arm under a mattress, said, ”I've got it, sir,” he could not help reflecting that the burden of life would have been lighter had he married the high-souled Ethelberta. And with the thought a cloud seemed to pa.s.s between John Scattergood and the sun.

He would often say to himself that he wished he could forget Ethelberta.

But in point of fact he wished nothing of the kind. He secretly cherished her memory, and the efforts he made to banish her from his thoughts only served to incorporate her more completely with the atmosphere of his life.

All through life John Scattergood had been a deeply conscientious man.

But conscience--or rather something that called itself conscience, but was in reality nothing of the kind,--which had served him so well in other respects, had been his undoing in the matter of Ethelberta. At the age of twenty-five he was not aware that a man's evil genius, bent on doing its victim the deadliest turn, will often disguise itself in the robes of his heavenly guide. Later on in life he learned to penetrate these disguises, but at twenty-five he was at their mercy. He was, as we have seen, of Puritan descent; his evangelical upbringing had taught him to regard as heaven-sent all inner voices which bade him sacrifice his happiness; and this it was of which the enemy took advantage. In his relations.h.i.+p with Ethelberta the young man was radiantly happy; but that very circ.u.mstance aroused his suspicions. ”You are not worthy of this happiness,” said an inner voice; ”and, what is far more to the point, you are not worthy of Ethelberta. She is too good for such as you.”

”Who are you?” said the young Scattergood, addressing the inner voice.