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II

May was a gloriously fine month, and we were much out of doors. Unfortunately, except for one fortnight in August, that was all the settled weather we had that summer.

I remember sitting one afternoon staring at the same pond that Ginger Stott had stared at when he told me that the boy now beside me was a "blarsted freak."

The Wonder had said nothing that day, but now he began to enunciate some of his incomprehensible commonplaces in that thin, clear voice of his. I wrote down what I could remember of his utterances when I went home, but now I read them over again I am exceedingly doubtful whether I reported him correctly. There is, however, one dictum which seems clearly phrased, and when I recall the scene, I remember trying to push the induction he had started. The pronouncement, as I have it written, is as follows:

"Pure deduction from a single premiss, unaided by previous knowledge of the functions of the terms used in the expansion of the argument, is an act of creation, incontrovertible, and outside the scope of human reasoning."

I believe he meant to say—but my notes are horribly confused—that logic and philosophy were only relative, being dependent always in a greater or less degree upon the test of a material experiment for verification.

Here, as always, I find the Wonder's pronouncements very elusive. In one sense I see that what I have quoted here is a self-evident proposition, but I have the feeling that behind it there lies some gleam of wisdom which throws a faint light on the profound problem of existence.

I remember that in my own feeble way I tried to analyse this statement, and for a time I thought I had grasped one significant aspect of it. It seemed to me that the possibility of conceiving a philosophy that was not dependent for verification upon material experiment—that is to say, upon evidence afforded by the five senses—indicates that there is something which is not matter; but that since the development of such a philosophy is not possible to our minds, we must argue that our dependence upon matter is so intimate that it is almost impossible to conceive that we are actuated by any impulse which does not arise out of a material complex.

At the back of my mind there seemed to be a thought that I could not focus, I trembled on the verge of some great revelation that never came.

Through my thoughts there ran a thread of reverence for the intelligence that had started my speculations. If only he could speak in terms that I could understand.

I looked round at the Wonder. He was, as usual, apparently lost in abstraction, and quite unconscious of my regard.

The wind was strong on the Common, and he sniffed once or twice and then wiped his nose. He did not use a handkerchief.

It came to me at the moment that he was no more than a vulgar little village boy.

III

There were few incidents to mark the progress of that summer. I marked the course of time by my own thoughts and feelings, especially by my growing submission to the control of the Wonder.

It was curious to recall that I had once thought of correcting the Wonder's manners, of administering, perhaps, a smacking. That was a fault of ignorance. I had often erred in the same way in other experiences of life, but I had not taken the lesson to heart. I remember at school our "head" taking us—I was in the lower fifth then—in Latin verse. He rebuked me for a false quantity, and I, very cocksure, disputed the point and read my line. The head pointed out very gravely that I had been misled by an English analogy in my pronunciation of the word "maritus," and I grew very hot and ashamed and apologetic. I feel much the same now when I think of my early attitude towards the Wonder. But this time, I think, I have profited by my experience.

There is, however, one incident which in the light of subsequent events it seems worth while to record.

One afternoon in early July, when the sky had lifted sufficiently for us to attempt some sort of a walk, we made our way down through the sodden woods in the direction of Deane Hill.

As we were emerging into the lane at the foot of the slope, I saw the Harrison idiot lurking behind the trunk of a big beech. This was only the third time I had seen him since I drove him away from the farm, and on the two previous occasions he had not come close to us.

This time he had screwed up his courage to follow us. As we climbed the lane I saw him slouching up the hedge-side behind us.

The Wonder took no notice, and we continued our way in silence.

When we reached the prospect at the end of the hill, where the ground falls away like a cliff and you have a bird's-eye view of two counties, we sat down on the steps of the monument erected in honour of those Hampdenshire men whose lives were thrown away in the South-African war.

That view always has a soothing effect upon me, and I gave myself up to an ecstasy of contemplation and forgot, for a few moments, the presence of the Wonder, and the fact that the idiot had followed us.

I was recalled to existence by the sound of a foolish, conciliatory mumbling, and looked round to see the leering face of the Harrison idiot ogling the Wonder from the corner of the plinth. The Wonder was between me and the idiot, but he was apparently oblivious of either of us.

I was about to rise and drive the idiot away, but the Wonder, still staring out at some distant horizon, said quietly, "Let him be."

I was astonished, but I sat still and awaited events.

The idiot behaved much as I have seen a very young and nervous puppy behave.

He came within a few feet of us, gurgling and crooning, flapping his hands and waggling his great head; his uneasy eyes wandered from the Wonder to me and back again, but it was plainly the Wonder whom he wished to propitiate. Then he suddenly backed as if he had dared too much, flopped on to the wet grass and regarded us both with foolish, goggling eyes. For a few seconds he lay still, and then he began to squirm along the ground towards us, a few inches at a time, stopping every now and again to bleat and gurgle with that curious, crooning note which he appeared to think would pacificate the object of his overtures.

I stood by, as it were; ready to obey the first hint that the presence of this horrible creature was distasteful to the Wonder, but he gave no sign.

The idiot had come within five or six feet of us, wriggling himself along the wet grass, before the Wonder looked at him. The look when it came was one of those deliberate, intentional stares which made one feel so contemptible and insignificant.

The idiot evidently regarded this look as a sign of encouragement. He knelt up, began to flap his hands and changed his crooning note to a pleased, emphatic bleat.

"A-ba-ba," he blattered, and made uncouth gestures, by which I think he meant to signify that he wanted the Wonder to come and play with him.

Still the Wonder gave no sign, but his gaze never wavered, and though the idiot was plainly not intimidated, he never met that gaze for more than a second or two. Nevertheless he came on, walking now on his knees, and at last stretched out a hand to touch the boy he so curiously desired for a playmate.

That broke the spell. The Wonder drew back quickly—he never allowed one to touch him—got up and climbed two or three steps higher up the base of the monument. "Send him away," he said to me.

"That'll do," I said threateningly to the idiot, and at the sound of my voice and the gesture of my hand, he blenched, yelped, rolled over away from me, and then got to his feet and shambled off for several yards before stopping to regard us once more with his pacificatory, disgusting ogle.

"Send him away," repeated the Wonder, as I hesitated, and I rose to my feet and pretended to pick up a stone.

That was enough. The idiot yelped again and made off. This time he did not stop, though he looked over his shoulder several times as he lolloped away among the low gorse, to which look I replied always with the threat of an imaginary stone.

The Wonder made no comment on the incident as we walked home. He had shown no sign of fear. It occurred to me that my guardianship of him was merely a convenience, not a protection from any danger.

IV

As time went on it became increasingly clear to me that my chance of obtaining the Wonder's confidence was becoming more and more remote.

At first he had replied to my questions; usually, it is true, by no more than an inclination of his head, but he soon ceased to make even this acknowledgment of my presence.

So I fell by degrees into a persistent habit of silence, admitted my submission by obtruding neither remark nor question upon my constant companion, and gave up my intention of using the Wonder as a means to gratify my curiosity concerning the problem of existence.

Once or twice I saw Crashaw at a distance. He undoubtedly recognised the Wonder, and I think he would have liked to come up and rebuke him—perhaps me, also; but probably he lacked the courage. He would hover within sight of us for a few minutes, scowling, and then stalk away. He gave me the impression of being a dangerous man, a thwarted fanatic, brooding over his defeat. If I had been Mrs. Stott, I should have feared the intrusion of Crashaw more than the foolish overtures of the Harrison idiot. But there was, of course, the Wonder's compelling power to be reckoned with, in the case of Crashaw.

V

Challis came back in early September, and it was he who first coaxed, and then goaded me into rebellion.

Challis did not come too soon.

At the end of August I was seeing visions, not pleasant, inspiriting visions, but the indefinite, perplexing shapes of delirium.

I think it must have been in August that I stood on Deane Hill, through an afternoon of fine, driving rain, and had a vision of myself playing tricks with the sands of life.

I had begun to lose my hold on reality. Silence, contemplation, a long-continued wrestle with the profound problems of life, were combining to break up the intimacy of life and matter, and my brain was not of the calibre to endure the strain.

Challis saw at once what ailed me.

He came up to the farm one morning at twelve o'clock. The date was, I believe, the twelfth of September. It was a brooding, heavy morning, with half a gale of wind blowing from the south-west, but it had not rained, and I was out with the Wonder when Challis arrived.

He waited for me and talked to the flattered Mrs. Berridge, remonstrated kindly with her husband for his neglect of the farm, and incidentally gave him a rebate on the rent.

When I came in, he insisted that I should come to lunch with him at Challis Court.

I consented, but stipulated that I must be back at Pym by three o'clock to accompany the Wonder for his afternoon walk.

Challis looked at me curiously, but allowed the stipulation.

We hardly spoke as we walked down the hill—the habit of silence had grown upon me, but after lunch Challis spoke out his mind.

On that occasion I hardly listened to him, but he came up to the farm again after tea and marched me off to dinner at the Court. I was strangely plastic when commanded, but when he suggested that I should give up my walks with the Wonder, go away … I smiled and said "Impossible," as though that ended the matter.

Challis, however, persisted, and I suppose I was not too far gone to listen to him. I remember his saying: "That problem is not for you or me or any man living to solve by introspection. Our work is to add knowledge little by little, data here and there, for future evidence."

The phrase struck me, because the Wonder had once said "There are no data," when in the early days I had asked him whether he could say definitely if there was any future existence possible for us?

Now Challis put it to me that our work was to find data, that every little item of real knowledge added to the feeble store man has accumulated in his few thousand years of life, was a step, the greatest step any man could possibly make.

"But could we not get, not a small but a very important item, from Victor Stott?"

Challis shook his head. "He is too many thousands of years ahead of us," he said. "We can only bridge the gap by many centuries of patient toil. If a revelation were made to us, we should not understand it."

So, by degrees, Challis's influence took possession of me and roused me to self-assertion.

One morning, half in dread, I stayed at home and read a novel—no other reading could hold my attention—philosophy had become nauseating.

I expected to see the strange little figure of the Wonder come across the Common, but he never came, nor did I receive any reproach from Ellen Mary. I think she had forgotten her fear of the Harrison idiot.

Nevertheless, I did not give up my guardianship all at once. Three times after that morning I took the Wonder for a walk. He made no allusion to my defalcations. Indeed he never spoke. He relinquished me as he had taken me up, without comment or any expression of feeling.

VI

On the twenty-ninth of September I went down to Challis Court and stayed there for a week. Then I returned for a few days to Wood Farm in order to put my things together and pack my books. I had decided to go to Cairo for the winter with Challis.

At half-past one o'clock on Thursday, the eighth of October, I was in the sitting-room, when I saw the figure of Mrs. Stott coming across the Common. She came with a little stumbling run. I could see that she was agitated even before she reached the farmyard gate.

CHAPTER XVII
RELEASE

I

She opened the front door without knocking, and came straight into my sitting-room.

"'E's not 'ere," she said in a manner that left it doubtful whether she made an assertion or asked a question.

"Your son?" I said. I had risen when she came into the room, "No; I haven't seen him to-day."

Ellen Mary was staring at me, but it was clear that she neither saw nor heard me. She had a look of intense concentration. One could see that she was calculating, thinking, thinking....

I went over to her and took her by the arm. I gently shook her. "Now, tell me what's the matter? What has happened?" I asked.

She made an effort to collect herself, loosened her arm from my hold and with an instinctive movement pushed forward the old bonnet, which had slipped to the back of her head.

"'E 'asn't been in to 'is dinner," she said hurriedly. "I've been on the Common looking for 'im."

"He may have made a mistake in the time," I suggested.

She made a movement as though to push me on one side, and turned towards the door. She was calculating again. Her expression said quite plainly, "Could he be there, could he be there?"

"Come, come," I said, "there is surely no need to be anxious yet."

She turned on me. "'E never makes a mistake in the time," she said fiercely, "'e always knows the time to the minute without clock or watch. Why did you leave 'im alone?"

She broke off in her attack upon me and continued: "'E's never been late before, not a minute, and now it's a hour after 'is time."

"He may be at home by now," I said. She took the hint instantly and started back again with the same stumbling little run.

I picked up my hat and followed her.

II

The Wonder was not at the cottage.

"Now, my dear woman, you must keep calm," I said. "There is absolutely no reason to be disturbed. You had better go to Challis Court and see if he is in the library, I–"

"I'm a fool," broke in Ellen Mary with sudden decision, and she set off again without another word. I followed her back to the Common and watched her out of sight. I was more disturbed about her than about the non-appearance of the Wonder. He was well able to take care of himself, but she.... How strange that with all her calculations she had not thought of going to Challis Court, to the place where her son had spent so many days. I began to question whether the whole affair was not, in some way, a mysterious creation of her own disordered brain.

Nevertheless, I took upon myself to carry out that part of the programme which I had not been allowed to state in words to Mrs. Stott, and set out for Deane Hill. It was just possible that the Wonder might have slipped down that steep incline and injured himself. Possible, but very unlikely; the Wonder did not take the risks common to boys of his age, he did not disport himself on dangerous slopes.

As I walked I felt a sense of lightness, of relief from depression. I had not been this way by myself since the end of August. It was good to be alone and free.

The day was fine and not cold, though the sun was hidden. I noticed that the woods showed scarcely a mark of autumn decline.

There was not a soul to be seen by the monument. I scrambled down the slope and investigated the base of the hill and came back another way through the woods. I saw no one. I stopped continually and whistled loudly. If he is anywhere near at hand, I thought, and in trouble, he will hear that and answer me. I did not call him by name. I did not know what name to call. It would have seemed absurd to have called "Victor." No one ever addressed him by name.

My return route brought me back to the south edge of the Common, the point most remote from the farm. There I met a labourer whom I knew by sight, a man named Hawke. He was carrying a stick, and prodding with it foolishly among the furze and gorse bushes. The bracken was already dying down.

"What are you looking for?" I asked.

"It's this 'ere Master Stott, sir," he said, looking up. "'E's got loarst seemingly."

I felt a sudden stab of self-reproach. I had been taking things too easily. I looked at my watch. It was a quarter to four.

"Mr. Challis 'ave told me to look for 'un," added the man, and continued his aimless prodding of the gorse.

"Where is Mr. Challis?" I asked.

"'E's yonder, soomewheres." He made a vague gesture in the direction of Pym.

The sun had come out, and the Common was all aglow. I hastened towards the village.

On the way I met Farmer Bates and two or three labourers. They, too, were beating among the gorse and brown bracken. They told me that Mr. Challis was at the cottage and I hurried on. All the neighbourhood, it seems, was searching for the Wonder. In the village I saw three or four women standing with aprons over their heads, talking together.

I had never seen Pym so animated.

III

I met Challis in the lane. He was coming away from Mrs. Stott's cottage.

"Have you found him?" I asked stupidly. I knew quite well that the Wonder was not found, and yet I had a fond hope that I might, nevertheless, be mistaken.

Challis shook his head. "There will be a mad woman in that cottage if he doesn't come back by nightfall," he remarked with a jerk of his head. "I've done what I can for her."

I explained that I had been over to Deane Hill, searching and calling.

"You didn't see anything?" asked Challis, echoing my foolish query of a moment before. I shook my head.

We were both agitated without doubt.

We soon came up with Farmer Bates and his men. They stopped and touched their hats when they saw us, and we put the same silly question to them.

"You haven't found him?" We knew perfectly well that they would have announced the fact at once if they had found him.

"One of you go over to the Court and get any man you can find to come and help," said Challis. "Tell Heathcote to send every one."

One of the labourers touched his cap again, and started off at once with a lumbering trot.

Challis and I walked on in silence, looking keenly about us and stopping every now and then and calling. We called "Hallo! Hallo-o!" It was an improvement upon my whistle.

"He's such a little chap," muttered Challis once; "it would be so easy to miss him if he were unconscious."

It struck me that the reference to the Wonder was hardly sufficiently respectful. I had never thought of him as "a little chap." But Challis had not known him so intimately as I had.

The shadows were fast creeping over the Common. At the woodside it was already twilight. The whole of the western sky right up to the zenith was a finely shaded study in brilliant orange and yellow. "More rain," I thought instinctively, and paused for a moment to watch the sunset. The black distance stood clearly silhouetted against the sky. One could discern the sharp outline of tiny trees on the distant horizon.

We met Heathcote and several other men in the lane.

"Shan't be able to do much to-night, sir," said Heathcote. "It'll be dark in 'alf an hour, sir."

"Well, do what you can in half an hour," replied Challis, and to me he said, "You'd better come back with me. We've done what we can."

I had a picture of him then as the magnate; I had hardly thought of him in that light before. The arduous work of the search he could delegate to his inferiors. Still, he had come out himself, and I doubt not that he had been altogether charming to the bewildered, distraught mother.

I acquiesced in his suggestion. I was beginning to feel very tired.

Mrs. Heathcote was at the gate when we arrived at the Court. "'Ave they found 'im, sir?" she asked.

"Not yet," replied Challis.

I followed him into the house.