In a short time she returned, found Zachariah dressed, wrapped him round in shawls and rugs, helped him downstairs, put him into the coach, and brought him to her cousin’s. It was a little house, in a long uniform street; but a good deal of pains had been taken with it to make it something special. There were two bedroom windows in front, on the upper storey, and each one had flowers outside. The flowerpots were prevented from falling off the ledge by a latticework wrought in the centre into a little gate—an actual little gate. What purpose it was intended to answer is a mystery; but being there the owner of the flowerpots unfastened it every morning when the sill was dusted, and removed them through it, although lifting them would have been a much simpler operation. There were flowers in the sitting-room downstairs too; but they were inside, as the window was flush with the pavement. This sitting-room was never used except on Sundays. It was about nine feet square, and it had in it a cupboard on either side of the fireplace, a black horsehair sofa alongside the wall on the right-hand side of the door, red curtains, a black horsehair armchair, three other chairs to match, a little round table, two large shells, a framed sampler on the wall representing first the letters of the alphabet, then the figures 1, 2, 3, etc., and, finally, a very blue Jesus talking to a very red woman of Samaria on a very yellow well—underneath, the inscription and date, “Margaret Curtin, 10th March 1785.” The only other decorations—for pictures were dear in those days—were two silhouettes, male, and female, one at each corner of the mantelpiece, and two earthenware dogs which sat eternally looking at one another on the top of one of the cupboards. On the cupboard farthest away from the window was a large Bible with pictures in it and notes, and, strange to say, a copy of Ferguson’s Astronomy and a handsome quarto edition in three volumes of Cook’s First Voyage. Everything was as neat and clean as it could possibly be; but Mr. and Mrs. Hocking had no children, and had saved a little money.
Into this apartment Zachariah was brought. There was a fire burning, though it was not cold, and on the table, covered with a perfectly white cloth, stood a basin of broth, with some toast, a little brandy in a wineglass, a jug of water, and a tumbler. The books, including the Bible, had apparently not been read much, and were probably an heirloom. As Zachariah began to recover strength he read the Ferguson. It was the first time he had ever thought seriously of Astronomy, and it opened a new world to him. His religion had centred all his thoughts upon the earth as the theatre of the history of the universe, and although he knew theoretically that it was but a subordinate planet, he had not realised that it was so. For him, practically, this little globe had been the principal object of the Creator’s attention. Ferguson told him also, to his amazement, that the earth moved in a resisting medium, and that one day it would surely fall into the sun. That day would be the end of the world, and of everything in it. He learned something about the magnitude of the planets and the distances of the fixed stars, and noted that his author, pious as he is, cannot admit that planets or stars were created for the sake of man. He dwelt upon these facts, more especially upon the first till the ground seemed to disappear under his feet, and he fell into that strange condition in which people in earthquake countries are said to be when their houses begin to tremble. We may laugh, and call him a fool to be disturbed by a forecast of what is not going to happen for millions of years; but he was not a fool. He was one of those unhappy creatures whom an idea has power to shake, and almost to overmaster. Ferguson was a Christian, and the thought of the destruction of our present dwelling-place, with every particle of life on it, did not trouble him. He had his refuge in Revelation. Zachariah too was a Christian, but the muscles of his Christianity were—now at any rate, whatever they may once have been—not firm enough to strangle this new terror. His supernatural heaven had receded into shadow; he was giddy, and did not know where he was. He did not feel to their full extent the tremendous consequences of this new doctrine, and the shock which it has given to so much philosophy and so many theories, but he felt quite enough, and wished he had never opened the volume. There are many truths, no doubt, which we are not robust enough to bear. In the main it is correct that the only way to conquer is boldly to face every fact, however horrible it may seem to be, and think, and think, till we pass it and come to a higher fact; but often we are too weak, and perish in the attempt. As we lie prostrate, we curse the day on which our
