“Now, you said,” I began again, “that they have a God, and that they are so simple He hasn’t a name. What did you mean by that? There can’t be one God for the common-sized, and one for—for me; now, can there? My mother never taught me that; and I have thought for myself.” Indeed I had.
“ ‘God’!” he cried; “why, what is all this?”
All this at that moment was a clearing in the woods, softly shimmering with a misty, transparent green, in whose sunbeams a thousand flies darted and zigzagged like motes of light, and the year’s first butterflies fluttered and languished.
“But if I speak,” I said, “listen, now, my voice is just swallowed up. Out of just a something it faints into a nothing—dies. No, no;” (I suppose I was arguing only to draw him out), “all this cares no more for me than—than a looking-glass. Yet it is mine. Can you see Jesus Christ in these woods? Do you believe we are sinners and that He came to save us? I do. But I can see Him only as a little boy, you know, smiling, crystal, intangible: and yet I do not like children much.”
He paused and stared at me fixedly. “My size?” he coughed.
“Oh, size,” I exclaimed, “how you harp on that!”—as if I never had. “Did you not say yourself that the smaller the body is, the happier the ghost in it? Bodies, indeed!”
He plunged on, hands in pockets, frowning, clumsy. And up there in the northwest a huge cloud poured its reflected lights on his strange face. Inwardly—with all my wits in a pleasant scatter—I laughed; and outwardly (all but) danced. Solemnly taking me at my word, and as if he were reading out of one of his dry old books, he began to tell me his views about religion, and about what we are, qualities, consciousness, ideas, and that kind of thing. As if you could be anything at any moment but just that moment’s whole self. At least, so it seemed then: I was happy. But since in his earnestness his voice became almost as false to itself as was Mr. Crimble’s when he had conversed with me about Hell, my eyes stole my ears from him, and only a few scattered sentences reached my mind.
Nevertheless I enjoyed hearing him talk, and encouraged him with bits of questions and exclamations. Did he believe, perhaps, in the pagan Gods?—Mars and all that? Was there, even at this very moment, cramped up among the moss and the roots, a crazy, brutal Pan in the woods? And those delicious Nymphs and Naiads! What would he do if one beckoned to him?—or Pan’s pipes began wheedling?
“Nymphs!” he grunted, “aren’t you—”
“Oh,” I cried, coming to a pause beside a holly-tree so marvellously sparkling with water-drops on every curved spine of it that it took my breath away: “let’s talk no more thoughts. They are only mice gnawing. I can hear them at night.”
“You cannot sleep?” he inquired, with so grave a concern that I laughed outright.
“Sleep! with that Mr. Crimble on my nerves?” I gave a little nod in my mind to my holly, and we went on.
“Crimble?” he repeated. His eyes, greenish at that moment, shot an angry glance at me from under their lids. “Who is he?”
“A friend, a friend,” I replied, “and, poor man, as they say, in love. Calm yourself, Mr. Jealousy; not with me. I am three sizes too small. With Miss Bowater. But there,” I went on, in dismay that mere vanity should have let this cat out of its bag, “that’s not my secret. We mustn’t talk of that either. What I really want to tell you is that we haven’t much time. I am going away. Let’s talk of me. Oh, Mr. Anon, shall I ever be born again, and belong to my own world?”
It seemed a kind of mournful serenity came over his face. “You say you are going away”; he whispered, pointing with his finger, “and yet you expect me to talk about that.”
We were come to the brink of a clear rain-puddle, perhaps three or four feet wide, in the moss-greened, stony path, and “that” was the image of myself which lay on its surface against the far blue of the sky—the under-scarlet of my cape, my face, fair hair, eyes. I trembled a little. His own reflection troubled me more than he did himself.
“Come,” I said, laying a hand on his sleeve, “the time’s so short, and indeed I must see your house, you know: you have seen mine. Ah, but you should see Lyndsey and Chizzel Hill, and the stream in my father’s garden. I often hear that at night, Mr. Anon. I would like to have died a child, however long I must live.”
But now the cloud had completely swallowed up the sun; a cold gust of wind swept hooting down on us, and I clung to his arm. We pushed on, emerged at last from the rusty gates, its eagles green and scaling, and came to the farm. But not in time. A cloud of hail had swirled down; beating on our heads and shoulders. It all but swept me up into the air. Catching hands, we breasted and edged on up the rough, miry lane towards a thatched barn, open on one side and roofing a red and blue wagon. Under this we scrambled, and
