Then she turned the tables on the plaintiff. She proved that Diggory’s dismissal had been neither sudden nor unjust; for, owing to his thieving propensities, he had often been threatened with it by her late husband, and several of the farm-servants testified to the truth of her words.
As to the handful of florins and the sack of lentils, all she could say was that it was not like the farmer to load a dishonest servant with presents. But nothing had been said about two sacks of corn, a pig, and a valuable hen and her brood, which had disappeared simultaneously with the departure of the plaintiff. Her husband, she said, had been very angry about it, and had wanted to have Diggory pursued and clapped into gaol; but she had persuaded him to be merciful. The long and the short of it was that the widow left the court without a stain on her character, and that a ten years’ sentence for theft was passed on Diggory.
As for Christopher Pugwalker, he had disappeared shortly before the trial, and the widow denied all knowledge of his whereabouts.
XVII
The World-in-Law
“Well,” said Master Ambrose, as he laid down the volume, “the woman was clearly as innocent as you are. And I should very much like to know what bearing the case has upon the present crisis.”
Master Nathaniel drew up his chair close to his friend’s and said in a low voice, as if he feared an invisible listener, “Ambrose, do you remember how you startled Leer with your question as to whether the dead could bleed?”
“I’m not likely to forget it,” said Master Ambrose, with an angry laugh. “That was all explained the night before last in the Fields of Grammary.”
“Yes, but supposing he had been thinking of something else—not of fairy fruit. What if Endymion Leer and Christopher Pugwalker were one and the same?”
“Well, I don’t see the slightest reason for thinking so. But even if they were—what good would it do us?”
“Because I have an instinct that hidden in that old case is a good honest hempen rope, too strong for all the gossamer threads of Fairie.”
“You mean that we can get the rascal hanged? By the Harvest of Souls, you’re an optimist, Nat. If ever a fellow died quietly in his bed from natural causes, it was that fellow Gibberty. But, for all that, there’s no reason to lie down under the outrageous practical joke that was played off on you yesterday. By my Great-aunt’s Rump, I thought Polydore and the rest of them had more sense than to be taken in by such tomfoolery. But the truth of it is that that villain Leer can make them believe what he chooses.”
“Exactly!” cried Master Nathaniel eagerly. “The original meaning of Fairie is supposed to be delusion. They can juggle with appearances—we have seen them at it in that tapestry-room. How are we to make any stand against an enemy with such powers behind him?”
“You don’t mean that you are going to lie down under it, Nat?” cried Master Ambrose indignantly.
“Not ultimately—but for a time I must be like the mole and work in secret. And now I want you to listen to me, Ambrose, and not scold me for what you call wandering from the point and being prosy. Will you listen to me?”
“Well, yes, if you’ve got anything sensible to say,” said Master Ambrose grudgingly.
“Here goes, then! What do you suppose the Law was invented for, Ambrose?”
“What was the Law invented for? What are you driving at, Nat? I suppose it was invented to prevent rapine, and robbery, and murder, and all that sort of thing.”
“But you remember what my father said about the Law being man’s substitute for fairy fruit? Fairy things are all of them supposed to be shadowy cheats—delusion. But man can’t live without delusion, so he creates for himself another form of delusion—the world-in-law, subject to no other law but the will of man, where man juggles with facts to his heart’s content, and says, ‘If I choose I shall make a man old enough to be my father my son, and if I choose I shall turn fruit into silk and black into white, for this is the world I have made myself, and here I am master.’ And he creates a monster to inhabit it—the man-in-law, who is like a mechanical toy and always behaves exactly as he is expected to behave, and is no more like you and me than are the fairies.”
For the life of him, Master Ambrose could not suppress a grunt of impatience. But he was a man of his word, so he refrained from further interruption.
“Beyond the borders of the world-in-law,” continued Master Nathaniel, “that is to say, the world as we choose for our convenience that it should appear, there is delusion—or reality. And the people who live there are as safe from our clutches as if they lived on another planet. No, Ambrose, you needn’t purse up your lips like that … everything I’ve been saying is to be found more or less in my father’s writings, and nobody ever thought him fantastic—probably because they never took the trouble to read his books. I must confess I never did myself till just the other day.”
As he spoke he glanced up at the portrait of the late Master Josiah, taken in the very armchair he, Nathaniel, was at that very moment sitting in, and following his son’s every movement with a sly, legal smile. No, there had certainly been nothing fantastic about Master Josiah.
And yet … there was something not altogether human about these bright birdlike eyes and that very pointed chin. Had Master Josiah also heard the Note … and fled from it to the world-in-law?
Then he went on: “But what I’m going to say now is my own idea. Supposing that everything that happens on the one
