Women headed the procession—the younger ones dressed in white, with veils and chaplets of roses, blue cornflower, and pheasant’s eye Narcissus, while the older women were more soberly attired. The Bank Managers and the banner headed the men, who were mostly peasants, but among them were a few who seemed to be of higher rank, and these, for the most part, though by no means all of them, wore their clothes reversed—as I have forgotten to say was done also by Mr. Balmy. Both men and women joined in singing a litany the words of which my father could not catch; the tune was one he had been used to play on his apology for a flute when he was in prison, being, in fact, none other than “Home, Sweet Home.” There was no harmony; they never got beyond the first four bars, but these they must have repeated, my father thought, at least a hundred times between Fairmead and Sunch’ston. “Well,” said he to himself, “however little else I may have taught them, I at any rate gave them the diatonic scale.”
He now set himself to exploit his fellow-traveller, for they soon got past the procession.
“The greatest miracle,” said he, “in connection with this whole matter, has been—so at least it seems to me—not the ascent of the Sunchild with his bride, but the readiness with which the people generally acknowledged its miraculous character. I was one of those that witnessed the ascent, but I saw no signs that the crowd appreciated its significance. They were astounded, but they did not fall down and worship.”
“Ah,” said the other, “but you forget the long drought and the rain that the Sunchild immediately prevailed on the air-god to send us. He had announced himself as about to procure it for us; it was on this ground that the King assented to the preparation of those material means that were necessary before the horses of the sun could attach themselves to the chariot into which the balloon was immediately transformed. Those horses might not be defiled by contact with this gross earth. I too witnessed the ascent; at the moment, I grant you, I saw neither chariot nor horses, and almost all those present shared my own temporary blindness; the whole action from the moment when the balloon left the earth, moved so rapidly, that we were flustered, and hardly knew what it was that we were really seeing. It was not till two or three years later that I found the scene presenting itself to my soul’s imaginary sight in the full splendour which was no doubt witnessed, but not apprehended, by my bodily vision.”
“There,” said my father, “you confirm an opinion that I have long held.—Nothing is so misleading as the testimony of eyewitnesses.”
“A spiritual enlightenment from within,” returned Mr. Balmy, “is more to be relied on than any merely physical affluence from external objects. Now, when I shut my eyes, I see the balloon ascend a little way, but almost immediately the heavens open, the horses descend, the balloon is transformed, and the glorious pageant careers onward till it vanishes into the heaven of heavens. Hundreds with whom I have conversed assure me that their experience has been the same as mine. Has yours been different?”
“Oh no, not at all; but I always see some storks circling round the balloon before I see any horses.”
“How strange! I have heard others also say that they saw the storks you mention; but let me do my utmost I cannot force them into my mental image of the scene. This shows, as you were saying just now, how incomplete the testimony of an eyewitness often is. It is quite possible that the storks were there, but the horses and the chariot have impressed themselves more vividly on my mind than anything else has.”
“Quite so; and I am not without hope that even at this late hour some further details may yet be revealed to us.”
“It is possible, but we should be as cautious in accepting any fresh details as in rejecting them. Should some heresy obtain wide acceptance, visions will perhaps be granted to us that may be useful in refuting it, but otherwise I expect nothing more.”
“Neither do I, but I have heard people say that inasmuch as the Sunchild said he was going to interview the air-god in order to send us rain, he was more probably son to the air-god than to the sun. Now here is a heresy which—”
“But, my dear sir,” said Mr. Balmy, interrupting him with great warmth, “he spoke of his father in heaven as endowed with attributes far exceeding any that can be conceivably ascribed to the air-god. The power of the air-god does not extend beyond our own atmosphere.”
“Pray believe me,” said my father, who saw by the ecstatic gleam in his companion’s eye that there was nothing to be done but to agree with him, “that I accept—”
“Hear me to the end,” replied Mr. Balmy. “Who ever heard the Sunchild claim relationship with the air-god? He could command the air-god, and evidently did so, halting no doubt for this beneficent purpose on his journey towards his ultimate destination. Can we suppose that the air-god, who had evidently intended withholding the rain from us for an indefinite period, should have so immediately relinquished his designs against us at the intervention of any less exalted personage
