Part 35 (1/2)
This not only relieved his mind greatly, by convincing him that, the subject being bottomless, it was useless to try to get to the bottom of it, and wise to accept it ”as a little child,” but it led him also to consider that in the Bible there are two kinds of mysteries, or deep things--the one kind being solvable, the other unsolvable. He set himself, therefore, diligently to discover and separate the one kind from the other, with keen interest.
But this is by the way. Phil's greatest anxiety and care at that time was the salvation of his old friend and former idol, George Aspel.
CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR.
PLANS AND COUNTER PLANS.
One evening Phil sat in the sorting-room of the General Post-Office with his hand to his head--for the eight o'clock mail was starting; his head, eyes, and hands had been unusually active during the past two hours, and when the last bundle of letters dropped from his fingers into the mail-bags, head, eyes, and hands were aching.
A row of scarlet vans was standing under a platform, into which mail-bags, apparently innumerable, were being shot. As each of these vans received its quota it rattled off to its particular railway station, at the rate which used, in the olden time, to be deemed the extreme limit of ”haste, haste, post haste.” The yard began to empty when eight o'clock struck. A few seconds later the last of the scarlet vans drove off; and about forty tons of letters, etcetera, were flying from the great centre to the circ.u.mference of the kingdom.
Phil still sat pressing the aching fingers to the aching head and eyes, when he was roused by a touch on the shoulder. It was Peter Pax, who had also, by that time, worked his way upwards in the service.
”Tired, Phil?” asked Pax.
”A little, but it soon pa.s.ses off,” said Phil lightly, as he rose.
”There's no breathing-time, you see, towards the close, and it's the pace that kills in everything.”
”Are you going to Pegaway Hall to-night?” asked Pax, ”because, if so, I'll go with you, bein', so to speak, in a stoodious humour myself.”
”No, I'm not going to study to-night,--don't feel up to it. Besides, I want to visit Mr Blurt. The book he lent me on Astronomy ought to be returned, and I want to borrow another.--Come, you'll go with me.”
After exchanging some books at the library in the bas.e.m.e.nt, which the man in grey had styled a ”magnificent inst.i.tootion,” the two friends left the Post-Office together.
”Old Mr Blurt is fond of you, Pax.”
”That shows him to be a man of good taste,” said Pax, ”and his lending you and me as many books as we want proves him a man of good sense. Do you know, Phil, it has sometimes struck me that, what between our Post-Office library and the liberality of Mr Blurt and a few other friends, you and I are rather lucky dogs in the way of literature.”
”We are,” a.s.sented Phil.
”And ought, somehow, to rise to somethin', some time or other,” said Pax.
”We ought--and will,” replied the other, with a laugh.
”But do you know,” continued Pax, with a sigh, ”I've at last given up all intention of aiming at the Postmaster-Generals.h.i.+p.”
”Indeed, Pax!”
”Yes. It wouldn't suit me at all. You see I was born and bred in the country, and can't stand a city life. No; my soul--small though it be-- is too large for London. The metropolis can't hold me, Phil. If I were condemned to live in London all my life, my spirit would infallibly bu'st its sh.e.l.l an' blow the bricks and mortar around me to atoms.”
”That's strange now; it seems to me, Pax, that London is country and town in one. Just look at the Parks.”
”Pooh! flat as a pancake. No ups and downs, no streams, no thickets, no wild-flowers worth mentioning--nothin' wild whatever 'cept the child'n,”
returned Pax, contemptuously.
”But look at the Serpentine, and the Thames, and--”
”Bah!” interrupted Pax, ”would you compare the Thames with the clear, flowing, limpid--”
”Come now, Pax, don't become poetical, it isn't your forte; but listen while I talk of matters more important. You've sometimes heard me mention my mother, haven't you?”