Classic Audiobook Collection - The Hampdenshire Wonder by J. D. Beresford ~ Full Audiobook [scifi]

Episode Date: September 13, 2024

The Hampdenshire Wonder by J. D. Beresford audiobook. Genre: scifi In a quiet English village in Hampdenshire, the birth of Victor, the son of humble farm laborers, should be an ordinary event. Instead, from his earliest days Victor displays a strange, unsettling difference - a mind that seems to operate on a level no one around him can name, explain, or comfortably accept. As the boy grows, local figures including sympathetic friends and cautious professionals try to make sense of what they are witnessing, while neighbors and authorities respond with a volatile mix of wonder, suspicion, and moral panic. J. D. Beresford builds the story through observation and testimony, turning a small rural community into a pressure chamber for big questions: What does society owe to someone who does not fit its definitions of childhood, intelligence, or even humanity? Is Victor a miracle, a warning, or simply a new kind of person? As curiosity hardens into fear and private lives become public property, Victor's family is pulled between love, confusion, and the crushing demands of a world determined to label him. Part psychological study and part speculative thought experiment, the novel explores empathy, conformity, and the costs of being truly different. For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate) (00:00:00) Chapter 01 (00:16:09) Chapter 02 (01:12:49) Chapter 03 (01:28:24) Chapter 04 (02:00:16) Chapter 05 (02:21:41) Chapter 06 (02:38:00) Chapter 07 (03:15:07) Chapter 08 (03:27:47) Chapter 09 (04:01:37) Chapter 10 (04:22:15) Chapter 11 (04:57:48) Chapter 12 (05:01:43) Chapter 13 (05:17:25) Chapter 14 (05:46:28) Chapter 15 (06:10:11) Chapter 16 (06:30:01) Chapter 17 (06:36:55) Chapter 18 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Chapter 1 of the Hamdenshire Wonder by J.D. Beresford Part 1 My Early Associations with Ginger Stott Chapter 1 The Motive 1 I could not say at which station the woman and her baby entered the train. Since we had left London, I had been engrossed in Henri Bergson's, time and free will, as it is called in the English translation.

I had been conscious of various stoppages and changes of passengers, but my attention had been held by Bergson's argument. I agreed with his conclusion in advance, but I wished to master his reasoning. I looked up when the woman entered my compartment, though I did not notice the name of the station. I caught sight of the baby she was carrying and turned back to my book. I thought the child was a freak,

an abnormality, and such things disgust me. I returned to the study of my Berkson, and read, it is at the great and solemn crisis decisive of our reputation with others that we choose, in defiance of what is conventionally called a motive, and this absence of any tangible reason is the more striking, the deeper our freedom goes. I kept my eyes on the book. The train had started again, but the first.

the next passage conveyed no meaning to my mind, and as I attempted to reread it, an impression was interposed between me and the work I was studying. I saw projected on the page before me an image which I mistook at first for the likeness of Richard Owen. It was the confirmation of the head that gave rise to the mistake. A head domed and massive, wide and smooth, it was a head that had always interested me, but as I looked, my mind, already searching for the reason of this hallucination, I saw that the lower part of the face was that of an infant. My eyes wandered from the book,

and my gaze fluttered along the four persons seated opposite to me till they rested on the reality of my vision. Even as these acts were being performed, I found myself foolishly saying, I don't call this freedom. For several seconds, the eyes of the infant, held mine. Its gaze was steady and clear as that of a normal child, but what differentiated it was the impression one received of calm intelligence. The head was completely bald and there was no

trace of eyebrows, but the eyes themselves were protected by thick short lashes. The child turned its head and I felt my muscles relax. Until then I had not been conscious that they had been stiffened. My gaze was released, pushed aside as it were, and I found myself watching the object of the child's next scrutiny. The object was a man of 40 or so, inclined to corpulence and untidy. He bore the evidences of failure in the process of becoming. He wore a beard that was scanty and ragged. There were bare patches of skin on the jaw. One inferred that he wore that appeared only to save the trouble of shaving. He was sitting next to me, the middle passenger of the three on my side of the carriage, and he was absorbed in the pages of a hapenny paper. I think he was

reading the police news, which was interposed between him and the child in the corner diagonally opposite to that which I occupied. The man was hunched up, slouching, his legs crossed, his elbows seeking support against his body. He held, with both hands his paper unfolded close to his eyes. He had the appearance of being very myopic, but he did not wear glasses. As I watched him, he began to fidget. He uncrossed his legs and hunched his body deeper into the back of his seat.

Presently, his eyes began to creep up the paper in front of him. When they reached the top, he hesitated a moment, making a survey undercover. Then he dropped his hands and stared stupidly at the infant in the corner, his mouth slightly open, his feet pulled in under the seat of the carriage. As the child let him go, his head drooped, and then he turned and looked at me with a silly, vacuous smile. I looked away hurriedly. This was not a man with whom I cared to share experience. The process was repeated. The next victim was,

was a big rubicund, healthy-looking man, clean-shaved with light blue eyes that were slightly magnified by the glasses of his gold-mounted spectacles. He too had been reading a newspaper, the evening standard, until the child's gaze claimed his attention, and he too was held motionless

by that strange appraising stare. But when he was released, his surprise found vented words. This I thought is the man accustomed to act. A very remarkable child, ma'am, he said, addressing the thin, acetic-looking mother.

2. The mother's appearance did not convey the impression of poverty. She was indeed warmly, decently, and becomingly clad. She wore a long black coat, braided and frogged. It had the air of belonging to an older fashion, but the material

of it was new, and her bonnet, trimmed with jet ornaments. growing on stalks that waved tremulously. That also was a modern replica of an older mode. On her hands were black thread gloves, somewhat ill-fitting. Her face was not that of a countrywoman, the thin, high-bridged nose, the fallen cheeks, the shadows under eyes, gloomy and retrospective. These were marks of the town, above all perhaps, that sallow greyness of the skin which speaks of confinement. The child looked healthy enough, its great bald head shone resplendently, like a globe of alabaster. "'A very remarkable child, ma'am,' said the rubicund man who sat facing the woman.

The woman twitched her untidy-looking black eyebrows. Her head trembled slightly and set the jet-fruit of her bonnet dancing and nodding. "'Yes, sir,' she replied. "'Very remarkable,' said the man, adjusting. his spectacles and leaning forward. His action had an air of deliberate courage. He was justifying his fortitude after that temporary aberration.

I watched him a little nervously. I remembered my feelings when, as a child, I had seen some magnificent enter the lion's den in a travelling circus. The failure on my right was also absorbed in the spectacle. He stared, open-mouthed, his eyes blinked, and shifting.

The other three occupants of the compartment, sitting on the same side as the woman, back to the engine, dropped papers and magazines, and turned their heads, all interest. None of these three had, so far as I had observed, fallen under the spell of inspection by the infant,

but I noticed that the man, an artisan apparently, who sat next to the woman, had edged away from her, and that the three passengers opposite to me were huddled towards my husband, end of the compartment. The child had abstracted its gaze, which was now directed down the aisle of the carriage, indefinitely focused on some point outside the window. It seemed remote,

entirely unconcerned with any human being. I speak of it asexually, I was still uncertain as to its sex. It is true that all babies look alike to me, but I should have known that this child was male. The conformation of the skull alone should have told me that. It was its dress that gave me cause to hesitate. It was dressed absurdly, not in long clothes, but in a long frock that hid its feet and was bunched about its body. Three. Ah, does it? Uh, can it talk? hesitated the rubicund man, and I grew hot at his boldness. There seemed to be something disrescerned. There seemed to be something disrescerned. "'in respectful in speaking before the child in this impersonal way.' "'No, sir, he's never made a sound,' replied the woman, twitching and vibrating.

"'Her heavy dark eyebrows jerked spasmodically, nervously.' "'Never cried,' persisted the interrogator. "'Never once, sir.' "'Dame?' he said it as an aside, half under his breath. "'He's never spoke, sir.' "'Ahem!' the man clear. his throat and braced himself with a deliberate and obvious effort. Is it? A, not water on the brain, what?

I felt that a rigour of breathless suspense held every occupant of the compartment. I wanted, and I know that every other person there wanted, to say, Look out, don't go too far. The child, however, seemed unconscious of the insult. He still stared out through the window, lost in profound. contemplation. No, sir, oh no, replied the woman. He's got more sense than an ordinary child.

She held the infant as if it was some priceless piece of earthenware, not nursing it as a woman nurses a baby, but balancing it with supreme attention in her lap. How old is he? We'd been awaiting this question. A year and nine months, sir. Ought to have spoken before that, oughtnty. Never even cried, sir.

said the woman. She regarded the child with a look, into which I read something of apprehension. If it were apprehension, it was a feeling that we all shared. But the Rubicund man was magnificent, though, like the lion-tamer of my youthful experience, he was doubtless conscious of the aspect his temerity wore in the eyes of beholders. He must have been showing off. "'Have you taken opinion?' he asked, and then seeing the, the woman's lack of comprehension, he translated the question, badly, for he conveyed a different meaning, thus. I mean, have you had a doctor for him?

The train was slackening speed. Oh, yes, sir. And what do they say? The child turned its head and looked the rubicund man full in the eyes. Never in the face of any man or woman have I seen such an expression of sublime pity and contempt. I remembered a small urchin I had once seen at the zoological gardens. Urged on by a band of other urchins, he was throwing pebbles at a great lion that lulled,

finely indifferent on the floor of its playground. Closer crept to the urchin, he grew splendidly bold. He threw larger and larger pebbles, until the lion rose suddenly with a roar and dashed fiercely down to the bars of its cage. I thought of that urchin's scared, shrieking face now, as the Rubicand man lent quickly back into his corner. Yet that was not all, for the infant, satisfied perhaps,

with its victim's ignominy, turned and looked at me with a cynical smile. I was, as it were, taken into its confidence. I felt flattered, undeservedly, yet enormously flattered. I blushed, I may have simpered. The train drew up in Great Hittenden Station. The woman gathered her priceless possession carefully into her arms, and the Rubicund man adroitly opened the door for her.

"'Good day, sir,' she said as she got out. "'Good day!' echoed the Rubicund man with relief, and we all drew a deep breath of relief with him in concert, as though we had just witnessed the safe descent of some over-daring aviator. 4. As the train moved on, we six, who had been fellow passengers for some 30 or 40 minutes before the woman had entered our compartment. We, who had not till then exchanged a word, broke suddenly into general conversation. Water on the brain, I don't care what anyone says, asserted the Rubicund man. My sister had one very similar, but in the failure who was sitting next to me, it died, he added,

by way of giving point to his instance. Or not to exhibit freaks like that in public, said an old man opposite to me. You're right, sir, was the verdict of the artisan, and he spat carefully and scraped his boot on the floor. Them things ought to be kept private. Mad, of course, that's to say imbecile, repeated the Rubicon man. Or he'd had he got, said the failure, and shivered histrionically.

They continued to demonstrate their contempt for the infant by many asseverations. The reaction grew. They were all bold now and all wanted to speak. They spoke as the survivors from some common peril. They were increasingly anxious to demonstrate that they had never suffered intimidation, and in their relief they were anxious to laugh at the thing which had for a time subdued them, but they never named it as a cause for fear. Their speech was merely innuendo.

At last, however, I caught an echo of the true feeling. It was the Rubicandman, who, most daring during the crisis, was now bold enough to admit curiosity. What's your opinion, sir, he said to me. The train was running into Wendaby. He was preparing to get out, and he leaned forward, his fingers on the handle of the door. I was embarrassed.

Why had I been singe, angled out by the child. I had taken no part in the recent interjectory conversation. Was this a consequence of the notice that had been paid to me? I? I stammered, and then reverted to the Rubicund man's original phrase. It was certainly a very remarkable child, I said. The Rubicund man nodded and pursed his lips. Very, very, he muttered as he alighted. Very remarkable. Well, good. Good day to you! I returned to my book and was surprised to find that my index finger was still

marking the place at which I had been interrupted some fifteen minutes before. My arm felt stiff and cramped. I read, This absence of any tangible reason is the more striking the deeper our freedom goes. End of Chapter 1. Chapter 2 of the Hamdenshire Wonder by J. D. Beresford. This Librivox recording is in the public domain. Notes for a biography of Ginger Stott. 1. Ginger Stott is a name that was once as well known as any in England. Stott has been the subject of leading articles in every daily paper.

His life has been written by an able journalist who interviewed Stott himself during 10 crowded minutes and filled 300 pages with details, 70% of which. which were taken from the journals, and the remainder supplied by a brilliant imagination. Ten years ago, Ginger Stott was on a pinnacle. There was a Stott vogue. You found his name at the bottom of signed articles written by members of the editorial staff.

You bought Stott's collars, although Stott himself did not wear colours. There was a Stott waltz, which is occasionally hummed by clerks and whistled by errandboys to this day. There was a periodical which lived for ten months, entitled Ginger Stots Weekly. In brief, during one summer, there was a stott apotheosis. But that was ten years ago, and the rising generation has almost forgotten the once well-known name.

One rarely sees him mentioned in the morning paper now, and then it is but the briefest reference. Some such note as this. Biggering was at the top of his form, recalling the final. finest achievements of Ginger Stott at his best. Or, Flack is a magnificent find for Kent. He promises to completely surpass the historic feats of Ginger Stott. These journalistic superlatives only irritate those who remember the performances referred to.

We who watched the man's career know that Pickering and Flack are but Tyros compared to Stott. We know that none of his successors has challenged comparison with him. He was a meteor that blazed across the sky, and if he ever has a true successor, such stars as Pickering and Flack will shine pale and dim in comparison. It makes one feel suddenly old to recall that great matinee at the Lyceum given for Ginger Stott's benefit after he met with his accident. In ten years, so many great figures in that world have died or fallen into obscurity. I can count on my fingers the number of those who were then and are still in the forefront of popularity. Of the others, poor Captain Wallace, for instance, is dead,

and no modern writer in my opinion can equal the brilliant descriptiveness of Wallace's articles in the Daily Post. Bobby Maysfield, again, Stott's colleague, is a martyr to rheumatism and keeps a shop in Aylesworth, the scene of so many of his triumphs. What a list one might make, but how uselessly. It is enough to note how many names have dropped out. How many others are the names of those we now speak of as veterans? In ten years! It certainly makes one feel old.

Two. No apology is needed for telling again the story of Stott's career. Certain details will still be familiar. It is true. The historic details that can never be forgotten. and while cricket holds place as our national game. But there are many facts of Stott's life familiar to me, which have never been made public property.

If I must repeat that which is known, I can give the known a new setting, perhaps a new value. He came of mixed races. His mother was pure Welsh, his father, Yorkshire Collier. But when Ginger was nine years old, his father died, and Mrs. Stott came to live in Aylesworth, where she had immigrant relations, and it was there that she set up the little paper shop, the business by which she maintained herself and her boy.

That shop is still in existence, and the name has not been altered. You may find it in the little street that runs off the marketplace, going down towards the Bostall Institution. There are many people alive in Aylesworth today who can remember the sturdy, freckled, sandy-haired boy who used to go round with the morning and evening papers, the boy who was to change the fortunes of a county. Ginger was phenomenally thorough in all he undertook. It was one of the secrets of his success.

It was this thoroughness that kept him engaged in his mother's little business until he was 17. Up to that age, he never found time for cricket. He certainly had remarkable and very unusual qualities. It was sheer chance apparently that determined his choice of a career. He had walked into Stoke Underhill to deliver a parcel, and on his way back his attention was arrested by the sight of a line of vehicles drawn up to the boarded fencing that encloses the Aylesworth County ground.

The occupants of these vehicles were standing up, struggling to catch a sight of the match that was being played behind the screen erected to shut out non-paying sightseers. Among the horse's feet, squirming between the spokes of wheels, utterly regardless of all injury, small boys glued their eyes to knot holes in the fence, while others climbed surreptitiously, and for the most part unobserved,

onto the backs of tradesmen's carts. All these individuals were in a state of tremendous excitement, and even the policeman whose duty it was to be, move them on, was so engrossed in watching the game, that he had disappeared inside the turnstile, and had given the outside spectator's full opportunity for elemossinary enjoyments. That tarred fence has since been raised some six feet, and now encloses a wider sweep of ground, alterations that may be classed among the minor revolutions, effected by the genius of that thick-set, fair-haired youth of 17, who paused on that early September afternoon

to wonder what all the fuss was about. The Aylesworth County ground was not famous in those days. Not then was accommodation needed for 30,000 spectators, drawn from every county in England, to witness the unparalleled. Ginger stopped. The interest of the spectacle pierced his absorption in the business he had in hand. Such a thing was almost unprecedented. What's up? He asked of Puggy Phillips. Puggy Phillips, hazarding his life by standing on the shiny, slightly curved top of his

butcher's cart, made no appropriate answer. Yaw! Oh! He screamed in ecstasy. Ow! Plied! Played! Ginger wasted no more breath, but laid

hold of the little brass rail at encircled Puggy's platform, and with a sudden hoist that lifted the shaft and startled the pony, raised himself to the level of a spectator. Ir! shouted the swaying tottering Puggy. What the? Are you apt to?

The well-drilled pony, however, settled down again, quietly to maintain his end of the seesaw, and finding himself still able to preserve his equilibrium, Puggy instantly forgot the presence of the intruder. What's up? asked Ginger again. Oh, we're lit, well it, well it, yelled Puggy.

Oh, go on, go on again. Run it out, run it out. Ginger gave it up and turned his attention to the match. It was not any famous struggle that was being fought out on the old Eelsworth ground. It was only second-class cricket. the deciding match of the Minor Countess Championship. Hamdonshire and Oxfordshire, old rivals, had been neck and neck all through the season,

and, as luck would have it, the engagement between them had been the last fixture on the card. When Ginger rose to the level of spectator, the match was anybody's game. Bobby Maysfield was batting. He was then a promising young colt who had not earned a fixed place in the 11. Ginger knew him socially, but they were not friends. They had no interests in common.

Bobby had made 27. He was partnered by old Trigson the bowler. He has been dead these eight years, whose characteristic score of not out nil is sufficiently representative of his methods. It was the fourth innings and Hamptonshire, with only one more wicket to fall, still required 19 runs to win. Trigson could be relied upon to keep his wicket up, but not to score. The hopes of Aylesworth centred in the ability of that almost untried cult, Bobby Maysfield, and he seemed likely to justify the trust reposed in him. A beautiful late cut that eluded third man and hit the fence with a resounding bang, nearly drove Puggy wild with delight.

"'Only fifteen more!' he shouted. Oh, played, played! But as the score crept up, the intensity grew. As each ball was delivered, a chill, rigid silence held the onlookers in its grip. When Trigson, with the field collected round him, almost to be covered with a sheet, stone walled the most tempting lob.

The click of the ball on his bat was an intrusion on the stillness, and always it was followed by a deep breath of relief, that sighed round the ring like a faint wind through a plantation of larches. When Bobby scored, the tumult broke out like a crash of thunder, but it subsided again, echoless, to that intense silence, so soon as the ball was dead. Curiously, it was not Bobby who made the winning hit, but Trigson. "'What a toy! Two to win!' breathed Puggy, as the field changed over, and it was Trigson who had to face the bowling.

The suspense was torture. Oxford had put on their fast bowler again, and Trigson, intimidated, perhaps, did not play him with quite so straight a bat as he had opposed to the lob bowler. The ball hit Trigson's bat and glanced through the slips. The field was very close to the wicket and the ball was travelling fast. No one seemed to make any attempt to stop it.

For a moment, the significance of the thing was not realized, for a moment only, then followed uproar, deafening, stupendous. Puggy was stamping fiercely on the top of his cart, the tears were streaming down his face. He was screaming and yelling incoherent words. He was representative of the crowd. Thus men shouted and stamped and cried, when news came of the relief of Kimberley, or when that's the moment. false report of victory was brought to Paris in the August of 1870. The effect upon Ginger was a thing apart. He did not join in the fierce acclamation. He did not wait to see the chairing of Bobby and Trigson.

The greatness of Stott's character, the fineness of his genius is displayed in his attitude towards the dramatic spectacle he had just witnessed. As he trudged home into Aylesworth, his thoughts found events. in a muttered sentence, which is peculiarly typical of the effect that it had been made upon him. I believe I could have bowled that chap, he said. 3. In writing a history of this kind, a certain license must be claimed. It will be understood that I am filling certain gaps in the narrative with imagined detail,

but the facts are true. My added detail is only intended to give an appearance of life and reality. to my history. Let me therefore insist upon one vital point. I have not been dependent on hearsay for one single fact in this story. Where my experience does not depend upon personal experience, it has been received from the principles themselves. Finally, it should be remembered that when I have imaginatively put words into the mouths of the persons of this story, they are never essential words which affect the issue. The essential speeches are reported from first-hand sources.

For instance, Ginger Stott himself has told me on more than one occasion that the words with which I closed the last section with the actual words spoken by him on the occasion in question. It was not until six years after the great Oxfordshire match that I myself first met the man, but what follows is literally true in all of his. essentials. There was a long narrow strip of yard or alley at the back of Mrs. Stott's paper shop, a yard that, unfortunately, no longer exists. It has been partly built over, and another of England's

memorials has thus been destroyed by the vandals of modern commerce. This yard was 53 feet long, measuring from Mrs. Stott's back door to the door of the cold shed, which marked the alley's extreme limits. This measurement, an apparently negligible trifle, had an important effect upon Stott's career, for it was in this yard that he taught himself to bowl and the shortness of the pitch precluded his taking any run. From those long studious hours of practice he emerged with a characteristic that was and still remains unique. Stott never took more than two steps before delivering the ball. Frequently, he bowled from a standing position, and batsmen have confessed that of all Stott's puzzling mannerisms, this was the one to which they never became accustomed.

S.R. L. Maturin, the finest bat Australia ever sent to this country, has told me that to this peculiarity of delivery, he attributed his failure ever to score freely against Stott. It's completely upset one's habit of play, he said. One had no time to prepare for the flight of the ball. It came at one so suddenly. Other bowlers have since attempted some imitation of this method without success. They had not Stott's physical advantages. Nevertheless, the shortness of that alley threw Stott back for two years. When he first emerged to try conclusions on the field, he found his length on the longer pitch, utterly unreliable,

and the efforts necessary to throw the ball another six yards that first upset his slowly acquired methods. It was not until he was 20 years old that Ginger stopped played in his first Colts match. The three years that had intervened had not been prosperous years for Hampdenshire. Their team was a one-man team.

Bobby Maysfield was developed, into a fine bat and other counties were throwing out inducements to him, trying to persuade him to qualify for first-class cricket. But he found no support, and Hamdenshire was never looked upon as a coming county. The best of the minor counties in those years were Staffordshire and Norfolk. In the Colts match, Stott's analysis ran, Overs, 11.3, Maidens, 7, runs 16, wickets 7. and reference to the score sheet which is still preserved among the records of the county club

shows that six of the seven wickets were clean bold. The eleven had no second innings. The match was drawn owing to rain. Stott has told me that the eleven had to bat on a drying wicket, but after making all allowances, the performance was certainly phenomenal. After this match, Stott was of course played regularly, That year, Amdenshire rose once more to their old position at the head of the minor counties, and Macefield, who had been seriously considering Surrey's offer of a place in their eleven

after two years' qualification by residence, decided to remain with the county which had given him his first chance. During that season, Stott's did not record any performance so remarkable as his feet in the Colts match, but his record for the year was 87 wickets, with an average of 9.31, and it is worthy of notice that Yorkshire made overtures to him, as he was qualified by birth to play for the Northern County. I think there must have been a wonderful Esprit of Corps among the members of that early Hamdonshire 11. There are other evidences besides this refusal of its two most prominent members

to join the ranks of first-class cricket. Lord R, the President of the HCCC, has told me that this spirit was quite as marked as in the earlier case of Kent. He himself certainly did much to promote it, and his generosity in making good the deficits of the balance sheet had a great influence on the acceleration of Hamdonshire's triumph. In his second year, though Hamdenshire were again champions of the second-class counties, Stott had not such a fine average as in the preceding season. 61 wickets for 868, average 14.23, seems to show a decline in his powers. But that was a wonderful year for batsman.

Macefield scored 742 runs with an average of 42. And moreover, that was the year in which Stott was privately practicing his new theory. It was in this year that three very promising recruits, all since become famous, joined the 11, Viz, P.H Evans, Sinjan Townley and Flower the Fast Bowler. With these five cricketers, Amdonshire fully deserved their elevation into the list of first-class counties. Curiously enough, they took the place of the old champions Gloucestershire, who, with Somerset, fell back into the obscurity of the second class that season. 4. I must turn aside for a moment at this point,

in order to explain the new theory of Stott's, to which I have referred, a theory which became in practice one of the elements of his most astounding successes. Ginger Stott was not a tall man, he stood only 5'5.5.5.5.5.5 inches in his socks. but he was tremendously solid. He had what is known as a stocky figure, broad and deep chested. That was where his muscular power lay, for his abnormally long arms were rather thin,

though his huge hands were powerful enough. Even without his new theory, Stott would have been an exceptional bowler, his thoroughness would have assured his success. He studied his art diligently, and practiced regularly. in a barn through the winter. His physique, too, was a magnificent instrument.

That long, muscular body was superbly steady on the short, thick legs. It gave him a fulcrum, firm, apparently immovable, and those weirdly long, thin arms could move with lightning rapidity. He always stood with his hands behind him, and then, as often as not,

without even one preliminary step, the long arm would flash round and the ball be delivered without giving the batsman any opportunity of watching his hand. You could never tell which way he was going to break. It was astonishing too, the pace he could get without any run. Paul Wallace used to call him the human catapult. Wallace was always trying to find new phrases. The theory first came to Stott when he was practicing at the nets.

It was a windy morning, and he noticed that several times the balls he bowled swerved in the air. When those swerving balls came, they were almost unplayable. Stott made no remark to anyone. He was bowling to the groundsman, but the ambition to bowl's swerves, as they were afterwards called, took possession of him from that moment. It is true that he never mastered the theory completely, on a perfectly calm day he could never depend upon obtaining any swerve at all. But within limits, he developed his theory

until he had any batsman practically at his mercy. He might have mastered the theory completely had it not been for his accident. We must remember that he had only three seasons of first-class cricket, and personally I believe he would have achieved that complete mastery. But I do not believe as stop. did that he could have taught his method to another man. That's belief became an obsession with him, and will be dealt with later. My own reasons for doubting that Stott's swerve could have been taught

is that it would have been necessary for the pupil to have had Stott's peculiarities, not only of method but of physique. He used to spin the ball with a twist of his middle finger and thumb, just as you may see a billiard professional spin a billiard ball, To do this in his manner, it is absolutely necessary, not only to have a very large and muscular hand, but to have very lithe and flexible arm muscles, for the arm is moving rapidly while the twist is given,

and there must be no antagonistic muscular action. Further, I believe that part of the secret was due to the fact that Stott bowled from a standing position. Given these things, the rest is merely a question of, long and deciduous practice. The human mechanism is marvelously adaptable. I have seen Stott throw a cricket ball half across the room with sufficient spin on the ball

to make it shoot back to him along the carpet. I have mentioned the wind as a factor in obtaining the swerve. It was a headwind that Stott required. I have seen him, for sport, toss a cricket ball into the teeth of a gale and make it describe the trajectory of a badly sliced golf ball. This is why the big pavilion at Aylesworth is set at such a curious angle to the ground. It was built in the winter following Hamdonshire's second season of first-class cricket,

and it was so placed that when the wickets were pitched in a line with it, they may lie southwest and northeast, or in the direction of the prevailing winds. 5. The first time I ever saw Ginger Stott was on the occasion of the historic encounter with Surrey, Hamnenshire's second engagement in first-class cricket. The match with Nott's played at Trent Bridge a few days earlier had not foreshadowed any startling results. The truth of the matter is that Stott had been kept, deliberately, in the background,

and as matters turned out, his services were only required to finish on. off not second innings. Stott was even then a marked man and the Hamdonshire captain did not wish to advertise his methods too freely before the Surrey match. Neither Archie Finlayter, who was captaining the team that year, nor any other person,

had the least conception of how unnecessary such a reservation was to prove. In his third year, when Stott had been studied by every English-Australian and South African batsman of any note, he was still as unplayable as when he made his debut in first-class cricket. I was reporting the Surrey match for two papers, and in company with Paul Wallace,

interviewed Stott before the first innings. His appearance made a great impression on me. I have, of course, met him and talked with him many times since then, but my most vivid memory of him is the picture recorded in the inadequate professional dressing room of the old Ailsworth Pavilion. I have turned up the account of my interview in an old press-cutting book, and I do not know that I can do better than quote that part of it, which describes Stott's personal appearance.

I wrote the account on the off-chance of being able to get it taken. It was one of my lucky hits. After that match, finished in a single day, my interview afforded copy that any paper would have paid heavily for, and gladly. Here is the description. Stott, he is known to everyone in Aylesworth as Ginger Stott, is a short, thick-set young man, with abnormally long arms that are tanned a rich red up to the elbow. The tan does not, however, obliterate the golden freckles with which arm and face are richly speckled.

There is no need to speculate. as to the raison d'etre of his nickname, the hair of his head, a close short crop, is a pale russet, and the hair on his hands and arms is a yellower shade of the same colour. Ginger is, indeed,

a perfectly apt description. He has a square chin and a thin lip's determined mouth. His eyes are a clear, but rather light blue. His forehead is good, broad and high, and he has a well proportion and head. One might have put him down as an engineer, essentially intelligent, purposeful and

reserved. The description is journalistic, but I do not know that I could improve upon the detail of it. I can see those queer, freckled, hairy arms of his as I write. The combination of colours in them produced an effect that was almost orange. It struck one as unusual. Surrey had the choice of innings and decided to bat, despite the fact that the wicket was drying after rain under the influence of a steady south-west wind and occasional bursts of sunshine. Would any captain in Stott's second year have dared to take first innings under such conditions? The question is farcical now, but not a single member of the Hamdonshire 11, had the least conception that the Surrey captain was deliberately throwing away his chances on that eventful

day. Wallace and I were sitting together in the reporter's box. There were only four of us, two specials, Wallace and myself, a news agency reporter and a local man. Stop takes first over, remarked Wallace, sharpening his pencil and arranging his watch and score sheet. He was very meticulous in his methods. They've put him to bowl against the wind. He's medium right, isn't he? Haven't the least idea? I said, he volunteered no information. Hamden sure have been keeping him dark. Wallace sneered.

Think they've got a fine, eh? He said, we'll wait and see what he can do against first-class batting. We did not have to wait long. As usual, Thorpe and Harrison were the first wicket for Surrey, and Thorpe took the first ball. It's bowled him. It's made his wickets look as untidy as any wicket I have ever. ever seen. The off-stamp was out of the ground, and the other two were markedly divergent.

Damn it, I wasn't ready for him, we heard Thorpe say in the professional's room. Thorpe always had some excuse, but on this occasion it was justified. C.V. Punchen was the next comer, and he got his first ball through the slips for four, but Wallace looked at me with a raised eyebrow. Puncheon didn't know a lot about, and he got, and he got his first ball, that, he said, and then he added, I say, what a queer delivery the chap has. He stands and shoots him out. It's uncanny.

He's a kind of human catapult. He made a note of the phrase on his pad. Punch and succeeded in hitting the next ball also, but it simply ran up his bat into the hands of short slip. Well, that's a sitter if you like, said Wallace. What's the matter with him? I was beginning to grow enthusiastic. Look here, Wallace, I said.

This chap's going to break records. Wallace was still doubtful. He was convinced before the innings was over. There must be many who remember the startling poster that heralded the early editions of the evening papers. Sorry, all out for 13 runs. For once, sub-editors did not hesitate to give the score on the contents bill. That was a proclamation which would sell.

Inside the headlines were rich and varied. I have an old paper by me, yellow now and brittle, that may serve as a type for the rest. The headlines are as follows. Surrey and Hamdonshire. Extraordinary bowling performance. Double hat-trick. Surrey all out in 35 minutes for 13 runs. Stott takes ten wickets for five. The double hat-trick was six consecutive wickets, the last six, all clean-bowled. Good God, Wallace said when the last wicket fell, and he looked at me with something like fear in his eyes.

This man will have to be barred. It means the end of cricket. I need not detail the remainder of the match. Hamdonshire hit up 93. P. H. H. Heavens was. top scorer with 27 and then got Surrey out a second time for 49. I believe Stott did not bowl his best in the second innings. He was quite clever enough to see that he must not overdo it. As Wallace had said, if he were too effective, he might have to be barred.

As it was, he took seven wickets for 23. 6. That was Stott's finest performance. On eight subsequent occasions he took all ten wickets in a single innings. Once he took 19 wickets in one match, Amdenshire versus Somerset at Taunton. Twice he took five wickets with consecutive balls and any number of times he did the hat-trick.

But he never afterwards achieved so amazing a performance as that of the celebrated Surrey match. I am still of the opinion that Stott deliberately bowled carelessly in the second innings of that match. But after watching him on many fields and after a careful analysis of his methods and character, I am quite certain that his comparative failures in later matches were not due to any purpose on Stott's part.

Take, for instance, the match which Hamdonshire lost to Kent in Stott's second season, their first loss as a first-class county. Their record up to that time was 13 wins and six drawn games. It is incredible to me that Stott should have deliberately allowed Kent to make the necessary 187 runs required in the fourth innings. He took five wickets for 63. If he could have done better, I'm sure he would have made the effort. He would not have sacrificed his county.

I have spoken of the Esprit de Corps which held the Hamdonshire 11 together and they were notably proud of their unbeaten record. No, we must find another reason for Stott's comparative failures. I believe that I am the only person who knows that reason, and I say that Stott was the victim of an obsession. His swerve theory dominated him. He was always experimenting with it, and when, as in the Kent match I have cited,

the game was played in a flat calm, his failure to influence the trajectory of the ball in his own peculiar manner, puzzled and upset him. He would strive to make the ball swerve and in the effort he lost his length and became playable. Moreover, when Stott was hit, he lost his temper,

and then he was useless. Finn later always took him off the moment he showed signs of temper. The usual sign was a fast full pitch at the batsman's ribs. I have one more piece of evidence, the best possible, which upholds this explanation of mine,

but it must follow the account of Stott's accidents. That accident came during the high flood of Hamdonshire success. For two years they had held undisputed place as Champion County, a place which could not be upset by the most ingenious methods of calculating points. They had three times defeated Australia and were playing four men in the test matches. as a team they were capable of beating any 11 opposed to them, not even the newspaper critics denied that. In his third year of Hamdonshire's triumph,

Australia had sent over the finest 11 that had ever represented the colony, but they had lost the first two test matches, and they had lost to Hamdonshire. Nevertheless, they won the rubber and took back the ashes. No one has ever denied, I believe, that this was, was due to Stott's accidents. There is in this case no room for anyone to argue that the argument is based on the fallacy of post and proctor. The accident appeared in significance at the time. The match was against Nott's on the Trent's bridge ground. I was reporting for three papers.

Wallace was not there. Stott had been taken off. Nott's were a poor lot that year, and I think Finlayter did not wish to make their defeat appear too ignominious. Flower was bowling, it was a fast, true wicket, and Stott, who was a safe field, was at cover. G.L. Malinson was batting and making good use of his opportunity. He was, it will be remembered, a magnificent, though erratic, hitter. Flower bowled him a short-pitched fast ball, rather wide of the off-stamp. many men might have left it alone,

for the ball was rising and the slips were crowded, but Mallinson timed the ball splendidly and drove it with all his force. He could not keep it on the ground, however, and Stott had a possible chance. He leaped for it and just touched the ball with his right hand. The ball jumped to the ring at its first bound, and Malinson never even attempted to run.

There was a big round of applause for me, the Trent Bridge crowd. I noticed that Stott had tied a handkerchief round his finger, but I forgot the incident until I saw Finlater beckoned to his best bowler a few overs later. Nott's had made enough runs for decency. It was time to get them out. I saw Stott walk up to Finlater and shake his head, and through my glasses I saw him whip the handkerchief from his finger and display his hand.

Finn later frowned, said something and looked towards the pavilion, but Stott shook his head. He evidently disagreed with Finlater's proposal. Then Malinson came up and the great bulk of his back hid the faces of the other two. The crowd was beginning to grow excited at the interruption. Everyone had guessed that something was wrong. All round the ring, men were standing up, trying to make out what was going on. I drew my inferences from Malinson's face, for when he turned round and strolled back to his wicket, he was wearing a broad smile. Through my field glasses I could see that he was licking his

lower lip with his tongue, his shoulders were humped, and his whole expression one of barely controlled glee. I always see that picture framed in a circle, a bioscopic presentation. He could hardly refrain from dancing. Then little Beal, who was Malinson's partner, came up and spoke to him, and I saw Malinson hug himself with delight as he explained the situation. When Stott unwillingly came into the pavilion, a low murmur ran round the ring like the buzz of a great crowd of disturbed blue flies. In that murmur, I could distinctly trace the signs of mixed feelings. No doubt the crowd. had come there to witness the performances of the phenomenon.

The abnormal of every kind has a wonderful attraction for us, but on the other hand, the majority wanted to see their own county win. Moreover, Malinson was giving them a taste of his abnormal powers of hitting, and the batsman appeals to the spectacular more than the bowler. I ran down hurriedly to meet Stott. "'Only a split finger, sir,' he said carelessly, in answer to my question, but Mr. Finn later says I must see to it. I examined the finger, and it certainly did not seem to call for surgical aid.

Evidently, it had been caught by the seam of the new ball. There was a fairly clean cut about half an inch long on the fleshy underside of the second joint of the middle finger. Better have it seen to, I said. We can't afford to lose you, you know, Stott. Stott gave a laugh that was more nearly. a snarl. I ain't the first time I've had a cut finger, he said scornfully.

He had the finger bound up when I saw him again, but it had been done by an amateur. I learnt afterwards that no antiseptic had been used. That was at lunchtime, and Notts had made a hundred and sixty-eight for one wicket. Mallinson was not out 103. I saw that the Notts eleven were in magnificent spirits. But after lunch, Stott came out and took the first over.

I don't know what had passed between him and Findlayter, but the captain had evidently been over-persuaded. We must not blame Finlater. The cut certainly appeared trifling. It was not bad enough to prevent Stott from bowling, and Hamdonshire seemed powerless on that wicket without him. It is very easy to distribute blame after the event, but most people would have done what Finn later did in those circumstances.

The cut did not appear to inconvenience dot in the least degree. He bowled Malinson with his second ball, and the innings was finished up in another 57 minutes for the addition of 38 runs. Hamdager made 237 for three wickets before the drawing of the stamps, and that was the end of the match, for the weather changed during the night, and rain prevented any further play. I, of course, stayed on in Nottingham to await results.

I saw Stott on the next day, Friday, and asked him about his finger. He made light of it, but that evening Finlater told me over the bridge table that he was not happy about it. He had seen the finger and thought it showed a tendency to inflammation. I shall take him to Gregory in the morning if it's not all right, he said. Gregory was a well-known surgeon in Nottingham. Again, one sees now that the visit to Gregory should not have been postponed, but at the time one does not take extraordinary precautions in such a case as this.

A split finger is such an everyday thing, and one is guided by the average of experience. After all, if one were constantly to make preparation for the abnormal, ordinary life could not go on. I heard that Gregory pursed his lips over that finger when he had learned the name of his famous patients. You'll have to be very careful of this young man, was Finn later's report of Gregory's advice.

It was not sufficient. I often wonder now whether Gregory might not have saved the finger. If he had performed some small operation at once, cut away the poison, it seems to me that the tragedy might have been averted. I am, I admit, a mere layman in these matters, but it seems to me that something might have been done. I left Nottingham on Saturday after lunch,

the weather was hopeless, and I did not make use of the information I had for the purposes of my paper. I was never a good journalist, but I went down to Aylesworth on Monday morning and found that Finn later and Stott had already gone to Harley Street to see Graves the King's Surgeon.

I followed them and arrived at Graves' house while Stott was in the consulting room. I hoaxed the butler and waited with the patience. Among the papers I came upon the famous caricature of Stott in the current number of Punch, the stand-and-deliver caricature, in which Stott is represented with an arm about ten feet long, and the batsman is looking wildly over his shoulder to square leg, bewildered, with no conception from what direction the ball is coming. Underneath is written, Stott's new theory, the ricochet, real ginger. While I was laughing over the cartoon, the butler came in and nodded to me.

I followed him out of the room and met Findlayter and Stott in the hall. Finlater was in a state of profanity. I could not get a sensible word out of him. He was in a white heat of pure rage. The butler, who seemed as anxious as I to learn the verdict, was positively frightened. Well, for God's sake, tell me what Graves said, I protested. Finlayter's answer is unprintable and told me nothing. Stott, however, quite calm and self-possessed, volunteered the information.

Finger's got to come off, sir, he said quietly. Doctor says if it ain't off today or tomorrow, you won't answer for my hand. This was the news I had to give England. It was a great coup from the journalistic point of view, but I made up my three columns with a heavy heart, and the congratulations of my editor only sickened me. I had some luck, but I should never have become a good journalist.

The operation was performed successfully that evening, and Stott's career was closed. 7. I have already referred to the obsession which dominated Stott after his accident, and I must now deal with that overweening anxiety of his to teach his method to another man. I did not see Stott again till August, and then I had a long talk with him on the Aylesworth County ground, as together we watched the progress of Hamdonshire's defeat by Lancashire. Oh, I can't learn him nothing, he broke out, as Flower was hit, to the four corners of the ground.

Half-vollies and long-ops, and then a full pitch. He's a disgrace. They've knocked him off his length, I protested, on wickets like this. Stott shook his head. We've been trying to learn him, he said, but you can't never learn. He's got habits what you can't break him of. I suppose it is difficult, I said vaguely.

Same with me, went on Stott. I've been trying to learn myself to bowl without my finger. He held up his mutilated hand. Or left-handed, but I can't. If I started that way? No, I'm always feeling for that finger as he's gone. A second-class bowler I might be in time. Not better nor that.

It's early days yet, I ventured, intending encouragement, but snott frowned and shook his head. I'm not going to kid myself. He said, "'I know, but I'm going to find a youngster and learn him, only he must be young. No habits, you know,' he explained. The next time I met Scott was in November.

I ran up against him, literally, one Friday afternoon in Eelsworth. When he recognised me, he asked me if I would care to walk out to Stoke Underhill with him. "'I've took a cottage there,' he explained. "'Oin't to be married in a fortnight's time.' His circumstances certainly warranted such a venture. The proceeds of matinee and benefit, invested for him by the committee of the county club, produced an income of nearly two pounds a week, and in addition to this he had his salary as groundsman.

I tendered my congratulations. Oh well, as to that, better wait a bit, said Stott. He walked with his hands in his pockets and his eyes on the ground. he had the air of a man brooding over some project. "'It is a lottery, of course,' I began, but he interrupted me. "'Oh, that,' he said, and kicked a stone into the ditch.

"'Take my chances of that. It's the kid I'm thinking on.' "'The kid,' I repeated, doubtful whether he spoke of his fiancé or whether his nuptials pointed an act of reparation. "'What else do not tie myself up for?' asked Stott. I must have a kid of my own and learn him from his cradle.

It's come to that. Oh, I understand, I said. Teach him to bowl. Ah, replied Stott as an affirmative, learning a bowl from his cradle before he's got habits. When I started, I'd never bowled a ball in my life, and by good luck I started right, but I can't find another kid over seven years old in England,

as ain't never bowled a ball or some sort. thought and started habits. I've tried. And you hope, with your own boys, I said. Not hope, it's a cert, said Stott. I'll see no boy of mine touches a ball of fouries fourteen, and then he'll learn for me and learn right, from the first go off. He was silent for a few seconds, and then he broke out in a kind of ecstasy. My God, he'll be a bowler such as has never been, never in this world. He'll be a little. He'll start where I lift off. He'll... Words failed him. He fell back on the expletive he had used, repeating it with an awed fervour. My God! I had never seen Stott in this mood before.

It was a revelation to me of the latent potentialities of the man, the remarkable depth and quality of his ambitions. Eight. I intended to be present at Stott's wedding, but I was not in England when it took place. Indeed, for the next two years and a half, I was never in England for more than a few days at a time. I sent him a wedding present, an inkstand in the guise of a cricket ball, with a pen rack that was built of little silver wickets. They were still advertised that Christmas as stott ink stands. Two years and a half of American life broke up many of my old habits of thought. When I first returned to London,

I found that the cricket news no longer held the same interest for me, and this may account for the fact that I did not trouble for some time to look up my old friend Stott. In July, however, affairs took me to Aylesworth, and the associations of the place dutrally led me to wonder how Stott's marriage had turned out, and whether the much-desired son had been born to him. When my business in Aylesworth was done, I decided to walk out to Stoke underhill.

The road passes the county ground and a match was in progress, but I walked by without stopping. I was wool gathering, I was not thinking of the man I was going to see, or I should have turned in at the county ground where he would inevitably have been found. Instead, I was thinking of the abnormal child I had seen in the train that day, uselessly speculating and wondering. When I reached Stokanderhill, I found the cottage which Stott had shown me. I had by then so far recovered my wits

as to know that I should not find Stott himself there, but from the look of the cottage, I judged that it was untenanted, so I made inquiries at the post office. No, he don't live here now, sir, said the postmistress. He lives at Pim now, sir, and rides into Aylesworth on his bike.

She was evidently about to furnish me with other particulars, but I did not care to hear them. I was moody and distraite. I was wondering whether I should bother my head about so insignificant a person as this Stott. You'll be sure to find Mr. Stott at the cricket ground, the postmistress called after me. Another two months of English life induced a return to my old habits of thought.

I found myself reverting to old tastes and interests. The reversion was a pleasant one. In the States I had been forced out of my groove, compelled to work, to strive, to think desperately if I would maintain any standing among my contemporaries. But when the perpetual stimulus was removed, I soon fell back to the less strenuous methods of my own country. I had time once more for the calm reflection

that is so unlike the urgent, forced, inventive thought of the American journalist. I was braced by that 30-month's experience, perhaps hardened a little, but by September my American life was fading into the background. I had begun to take an interest in cricket again. With the revival of my old interests revived also my curiosity as to Ginger Stott, and one Sunday in late September, I decided to go down to Pim. It was a perfect day,

and I thoroughly enjoyed my four-mile walk from Great Hittenden Station. Pim is a tiny hamlet made up of three farms and a dozen scattered cottages. Perched on one of the highest summits of the Hamden Hills and lost in the thick cover of beech woods

without a post office or a shop, Pim is the most perfectly isolated village within a reasonable distance of London. As I sauntered up the mile-long lane that climbs the steep hill and is the only connection between Pim and anything approaching a decent road, I thought that this was the place to which I should like to retire for a year, in order to write the book I had so often contemplated and never found time to begin. This, I reflected, was a place of peace, of freedom from all distraction,

the place for calm, contemplative meditation. I met no one in the lane, and there was no sign of life when I reached what I must call the village, though the word conveys a wrong idea, for there is no street, merely a cottage here and there, dropped haphazard and situated without regard to its aspect. These cottages lie all on one's left hand, to the right a stretch of grass soon merges into bracken and bush, and then the beech woods enclose both and serge down, into the valley and rise up again beyond. A great wave of green, as I saw it then,

not yet touched with the first flame of autumn. I inquired at the first cottage and received my direction to Stott's dwelling. It lay up a little lane, the further of two cottages joined together. The door stood open, and after a moment's hesitation and a light knock, I peered in. Sitting in a rocking chair was a woman with black and tight, eye brows, and on her knee, held with rigid attention, was the remarkable baby I had seen in the train two months before. As I stood, doubtful, and, I will confess it, intimidated, suddenly cold and nervous, the child opened his eyes and honoured me with a cold stare. Then he nodded, a reflective, recognisable nod.

I remember saying you in the train, sir, said the woman. He never forgets anyone. Did you want to see my husband? He's upstairs. So this was the boy who was designed by Stott to become the greatest bowler the world had ever seen. End of Chapter 2. Chapter 3 of the Hamden Shawanda by J.D. Beresford. This Librivox recording is in the public domain. The disillusionment of Ginger Stott. 1. Stott maintained an obstinate silence as we walked together up to the common, a stretch of comparatively open ground on the plateau of the hill. He walked with his hands in his pockets

and his head down as he had walked out from Aylesworth with me nearly three years before, but his mood was changed. I was conscious that he was gloomy, depressed, perhaps a little and strung. I was burning with curiosity. Now that I was released from the thrall of the child's presence, I was eager to hear all there was to tell of its history. Presently we sat down under an ash tree, one of three that guarded a shallow muddy pond, skimmed with weed. Stott accepted my offer of a cigarette, but seemed disinclined to break the silence. I found nothing better to say than a repetition of the old phrase. That's a very remarkable baby of your stot, I said. Ah, he replied, his usual substitutes for yes, and he picked up a piece of dead wood and

threw it into the little pond. How old is he? I asked. Nearly two year? Can he? I paused. My imagination was reconstructing the scene of the railway carriage, and I felt a reflex of the hesitation shown by the rubicund man when he had asked the same question. Can he talk? It seemed so absurd a question to ask, yet it was essentially a natural question in the circumstances. He can, but he won't. This was startling enough, and I pressed my inquiry. How do you know? Are you sure he can?

Ah, only that aggravating monosyllabic assents. "'Look here, Stott,' I said. "'Don't you want to talk about the child?' He shrugged his shoulders and threw more wood into the pond with a strained attentiveness, as though he were peculiarly anxious to hit some particular wafer of the vivid floating weed. For a full five minutes we maintained silence. I was trying to subdue my impatience and my temper. I knew Stott well enough to know that if I displayed signs of either,

I should get no information from him. My self-control was rewarded at last. I've heard him speak, he said. Speak proper, too, not like a baby. He paused, and I grunted to show that I was listening. But as he volunteered no further remark, I said, What did you hear him say? I don't know, replied Stott.

Something about learning and talking. I didn't get the rights of it, but the miss is near fainted. "'She thinks he's good or mighty or something.' "'But why don't you make him speak?' I asked deliberately. "'Make him,' said Stott, with a curl of his lip. "'Make him? You try it on.' "'I knew I was acting apart, but I wanted to provoke more information. "'Well, why not?' I said.

"'Guzzy, look at you, that's why not,' replied Stott. "'And you can't know more face him than a dog can face a man.' I shan't stand it much longer. Curious, I said, very curious. Oh, he's a blasted freak, that's what he is, said Stott, getting to his feet and beginning to pace moodily up and down. I did not interrupt him. I was thinking of this man who had drawn huge crowds from every part of England,

who had been a national hero, and who now was unable to face his own child. Presently Stott broke out again. "'So think of all the trouble I took when he was coming,' he said, stopping in front of me. "'There was nothing the Mrs. fancied as I wouldn't get. We was living in Stoke then.' He made a movement of his head in the direction of Eelsworth.

"'Not as she was difficult,' he went on thoughtfully. "'She used to say I mustn't get habits, George. "'Cought that for me. "'I was always on about that then.' "'You know, thinking of learning in bowling. "'Things was different then, before he came.' "'He paused again, evidently thinking of his troubles. "'Sympathetically, I was wondering how far the child had separated husband and wife.

"'There was the making of a tragedy here, I thought. "'But when Stott, after another period of pacing up and down, "'began to speak again, I found that his tragedy was of another kind. "'Learn him bowling.' he said, and laughed a mirthless laugh. My God, it'd take something. No fear, that little game's off, and I could have done it if he'd been a decent,

honorary child, instead of a blasted freak. There won't never be another neither. This one pretty near killed the Mrs. Doctor said it'd be her last. With an air like that, what you expect? Can he walk? I asked. Oh, gets about easy enough for all his busy, body and legs is so small.

When the Mrs. Troyes to stop him, she's afraid he'll go over. He just looks at her, and she asks to let him have his own way. Two. Later I reverted to that speech of the child's, that intelligent, illuminating speech that seemed

to prove there was indeed a powerful thoughtful mind behind those profoundly speculative eyes. That time he spoke, Stott, I said. Was he alone? Ah? A, assented Stott, in the garden, practicing walking all by himself. Was that the only time? Only time I've heard him? Was it lately? About six weeks ago. And he has never made a sound

otherwise, cried, laughed. Oddly, he gives a sort of grunt sometimes when he wants anything and points. He's very intelligent. Worse than that, he's a freak, I tell you. With the repetition of this damning description, Stott fell back into his moody pacing, and this time I failed to rouse him from his gloom. Oh, forget it, he broke out once when I asked him another question, and I saw he was not likely to give me any more information that day. We walked back together, and I said goodbye to him at the end of the lane which led up to his cottage. Not coming up, he asked, with a nod of his head towards his home. "'Well, I have to catch that train.'

"'I prevaricated, looking at my watch. "'I did not wish to see that child again. "'My distaste was even stronger than my curiosity.' "'Stot grinned. "'We don't have many visitors,' he said. "'Well, I'll come a bit farther with you.' "'He came to the bottom of the hill, "'and after he left me,

"'took the road that goes over the hill to Wendaby, "'it would be about seven miles back. back to pin by that road. 3. I spent the next afternoon in the reading room of the British Museum. I was searching for a precedent, and at last I found one in the story of Christian Heinrich Heineken, who was born at Lubeck on February 6, 1721.

Footnote. See the Deutsche Bibliotheque's account of the child of Lubeck. End of footnote. There were marked points of difference. between the development of Heineken and that of Stott's child. Heineken was physically feeble. At the age of three he was still being fed at the breast. The Stott's precocity appeared to be physically strong.

His body looked small and undeveloped as is true, but this was partly an illusion produced by the abnormal size of the head. Again, Heineken learned to speak very early. At ten months old he was asking intelligence questions, At 18 months he was studying history, geography, Latin and anatomy, whereas the Stockchild had only once been heard to speak at the age of two years and had not apparently begun any study at all. From this comparison it might seem at first that the balance of precocity lay in the Heineken scale.

I drew another inference. I argued that the genius of the Stockchild far outweighed the genius of Christian Heineken. Little Heineken, in his four years of life, suffered the mental experience with certain necessary limitations of a developed brain. He gathered knowledge as an ordinary child gathers knowledge, the only difference being that his rate of assimilation was as ten to one. But little Stott had gathered no knowledge from books. He had been born of ignorant parents. He was being brought up among uneducated people. yet he had wonderful intellectual gifts. Surely he must have one above all others, the gift of reason.

His brain must be constructive, logical. He must have the power of deduction. He must even have, at an extraordinarily early age, say six months, have developed some theory of life. He must be withholding his energy deliberately, declining to exhibit his powers, holding his marvellous faculties in reserve. Here was surely a case of genius, which, comparable in some respects to the genius of Heineken, yet far exceeded it. As I developed my theory, my eagerness grew, and then, suddenly, an inspiration came to me. In my excitement I spoke aloud and smacked to the desk in front of me with my open hand. Why, of course, I said, that is the key.

An old man in the next seat scowled fiercely. The attendance in the central circular desk all looked up. Other readers turned round and stared at me. I had violated the sacred laws of the reading room. I saw one of the librarians make a sign to an attendant and point to me. I gathered up my books quickly and returned them at the central desk. My self-consciousness had returned, and I was anxious to be away from the observation of the men.

many dilettante readers, who found my appearance more engrossing than the books with which they were dallying on some pretext or another. Yet curiously, when I reached the street, the theory which had come to me in the museum with the force and vividness of an illuminating dream had lost some of its glamour. Nevertheless, I set it out as it then shaped itself in my mind. The great restraining force in the evolution of man, so I thought, has been the restriction imposed by habit. What we call instinct is a hereditary habit. This is the first guiding principle in the life of the human infant. Upon this instinct we immediately superimpose the habits of reason,

all the bodily and intellectual conventions that have been handed down from generation to generation. We learn everything we know as children by the hereditary Simeon habit of imitation. The child of intellectual, cultured parents, born into savage surroundings, becomes the slave of this inherited habit. Call it tendency, if you will, the intention is the same. I elaborated this theory by instance and introspection and found no flaw in it. And here, by some freak of nature was a child born without these habits. During the period of gestation, one thought had dominated the minds of both parents,

the desire to have a son born without habits. It does not seriously affect the theory that the desire had a peculiar end in view. The wish, the urgent, controlling, omnipotent will had been there, and the result included far more than the specific intention. Already some of my distaste for the stock child had vanished, It was accountable and therefore no longer fearful. The child was supernormal, a cause of fear to the normal man, as all truly supernormal things are to our primitive animal instincts.

This is the fear of the wild thing. When we can explain and give reasons, the horror vanishes. We are men again. I did not quite recover the glow of my first inspiration, but the theory remained with me. I decided to make a study of the child to submit knowledge to his reason. I would stand between him and the delimiting training of the pedagogue I thought. Then I reached home and my life was changed.

This story is not of my own life, and I have no wish to enter into the curious and saddening experiences which stood between me and the child of Ginger Stott for nearly six years. In that time my thoughts strayed now and again to that cottage and the little hamlet on those wooded hills. Often I thought, when I have time I will go and see that child again if he is alive. But as the years passed, the memory of him grew dim, even the memory of his father was blurred over by a thousand new impressions. So it chanced that for nearly six years I heard no word of Stott's and his supernormal infant,

and then chance again intervened. My long period of sorrow came to an end, almost as suddenly as it had begun, and by a coincidence I was once more entangled in the strange web of the phenomenal. In this story of Victor Stott, I have bridged these six years in the pages that follow. In doing this I have been compelled to draw

to a certain extent on my imagination, but the main facts are true. They have been gathered from first-hand authority only, from Hentie Chalice, from Mrs. Stott and from her husband. Though none, I must confess, has been checked by that soundest of all authorities, Victor Stott himself, who might have given me every particular inaccurate detail, had it not been for those peculiarities of his, which will be explained fully in the proper place. End of Chapter 3 End of Part 1

Chapter 4 of the Hamdonshire Wonder by J.D. Beresford This Librevox recording is in the public domain. Part 2. The Childhood of the Wonder The Manor of His Birth 1. Stoke Underhill lies in the flat of the valley that separates the Hamden from the Quaunton Hills. The main road from London to Aylesworth does not pass through Stoke, but from the highway you can see the ascent of the bridge over the railway, down the vista

of the straight mile of side road, and beyond, a glimpse of scattered cottages. That is all, and as a matter of fact, no one who is not keeping a sharp lookout would ever notice the village, for the eye is drawn to admire the bluff of Dean Hill, the highest point of the Hamdens, which lowers over the little hamlet of Stoke, and gives it a second name. and to the church tower of Chilberra Beacon, away to the right, another landmark. The attraction which Stoke Underhill held for Stott lay not in its seclusion or its picturesqueness, but in its nearness to the county ground. Stott could ride the two flat miles which separated him from the scene of his work in ten minutes,

and Aylesworth Station is only a mile beyond. So when he found that there was a suitable cottage to lunch, Let in Stoke, he looked no farther for a home. He was completely satisfied. Stott's absorption in any matter that was occupying his mind made him exceedingly careless about the detail of his affairs. He took the first cottage that offered when he looked for a home. He took the first woman who offered when he looked for a wife. Stott was not an attractive man to women. He was short and plain, and he had an appearance of being slightly deformed, a monkeyish look, due to his build and his long arms. Still, he was famous, and might doubtless have been accepted by a dozen

comely young women for that reason, even after his accident. But if Stott was unattractive to women, women were even more unattractive to Stott. No opinion of women, he used to say, ever seen a girl try to throw a cricket ball? You have. Well, ain't that enough to put you off women? That was Stott's intellectual standard. Physically he had never felt drawn to women. Ellen Mary Jakes exhibited no superiority over her sisters in the matter of throwing a cricket ball.

She was a friend of Ginger's mother, and she was a woman of 42, who had long since been relegated to some remote shelf of the matrimonial. exchanged, but her physical disadvantages were outbalanced by her mental qualities. Ellen Mary was not a bookworm. She read nothing but the evening and Sunday papers, but she had a reasoning and intelligent mind. She had often contemplated the state of matrimony and had made more than one tentative essay in that direction. She had walked out with three or four spigs of the Ailsworth bourgeoisie in her time, and the shadow of middle age had crept upon her

before she realized that however pliant her disposition, her lack of physical charm put her at the mercy of the first bright-eyed rival. At 35, Ellen had decided with admirable philosophy that marriage was not for her, and had assumed, with apparent complacency, the outward evidences of a dignified spinsterhood. She had discarded gayly. She had discarded gay, hats and ribbons, imitation jewelry, unreliable cheap shoes and chill diaphanous stockings, and had found some solace for her singleness in more comfortable and suitable apparel. When Ellen, a declared spinster of seven years standing, was first taken into the confidence of Ginger Stott's mother, the scheme which she afterwards elaborated immediately presented

itself to her mind. This fact is a curious instance. of Ellen Mary's mobility of intellect, and the student of heredity might here find matter for careful thought. Put note, a study of genius shows that in a percentage of cases so large as to exclude the possibility of coincidence, the exceptional man, whether in the world of action, of art, or of letters, seems to inherit his magnificent powers through the female line. Mr Galton, it is true, did not make a great point of this curious observation, but the tendency of more recent analyses is all in the direction of confirming the hypothesis,

and it would seem to hold good in the converse proposition, namely that the exceptional woman inherits her qualities from her father. End of footnote. The confidence in question was Ginger's declared intention of becoming the father of the world's greatest bowler, Mrs. Stott was a dark, garrulous, rather deaf little woman with a keen eye for the main chance. She might have become a successful woman of business if she had not been by nature both stingy and a cheat. When her son presented his determination, her first thought was to find some woman who would not dissipate her son's substance, and in her opinion not expressed to Ginger the advertised purpose of the contemplation.

marriage evidenced a wasteful disposition. Mrs. Stott did not think of Ellen Mary as a possible daughter-in-law, but she did hold forth for an hour and three-quarters on the contemptible qualities of the young maidens, first of Eelsworth, and then with a wider swoop that was not justified by her limited experience of the girls of England, Scotland and Ireland at large. It required the flexible reasoning powers of Ellen Mary, to find a solution of the problem. Any ordinary average woman of 42,

a declared spinster of seven years standing, who had lived all her life in a provincial town, would have been mentally unable to realise the possibilities of the situation. Such a representative of the decaying sexual instinct would have needed the stimulus of courtship, at the least of some hint of preference displayed by the suitor, ruled by the conventions, hold her sex in bondage, she would have deemed it unwomanly to make advances by any means

other than innuendo, the subtle suggestions which are the instruments of her sex, but which are often too delicate to pierce the understanding of the obtuse and slow-witted male. Ellen Mary stood outside the ruck that determines the destinies of all such typical representatives. She considered the idea presented to her by Mrs. Stott with an open and mobile intelligence. She weighed the character of Ginger, the possibilities of rejection and the influence of Mrs. Stott, and she gave no thought to the conventions nor to the criticisms of Aylesworth's society. When she had decided that such chances as she could calculate were in her favour, Ellen made up her mind, walked out to the county grounds.

one windy October forenoon, and discovered Ginger experimenting with grass seed in a shed off the pavilion. In this shed she offered herself, while Ginger worked on, attentive but unresponsive. Perhaps she did not make an offer so much as state a case, a masterly case without question, for who can doubt that Stott, however procrastinating and unwilling to make a definite overture, must already have had some type of womanhood in his mind, some conception, the seed of an ideal. I find a quality of romance in this courageous and unusual wooing of Ellen Marys, but more I find evidences of the remarkable quality of her intelligence.

In other circumstances, the name of Ellen Mary Jakes may have stood for individual achievement. Instead, she is remembered as a common woman who happened to be the moment. mother of Victor Stott. But when the facts are examined, can we say that chance entered? If ever the birth of a child was deliberately designed by both parents, it was in the case under consideration, and what a strange setting to the inception. Ellen Mary, a gaunt, tall, somewhat untidy woman, stood at the narrow door of the little shed off the Ailsworth Pavilion. With one hand, shoulder high, she steadied herself again. She steadied herself again. the doorframe. With the other, she continually pushed forward the rusty bonnet, which had been

loosened during her walk by the equinochal gale that now tore at the door of the shed, had necessitated the employment of a wary foot to keep the door from slamming. With all these distractions, she still made good her case, though she had to raise her voice above the multitudinous sounds of the wind, and though she had to address the unresponsive shoulders of a man who bent over shallow trays of earth set on a trestle table under the small and dirty window. It is heroic, but she had her reward in full measure. Presently her voice ceased, and she waited in silence for the answer that should decide her destiny. There was an interval broken only by the tireless passion of the wind,

and then Ginger Stought, the best-known man in English, England, looked up and stared through the encrusted pane of glass before him at the dim vision of grass and swaying hedge. Unconsciously his hands strayed to his pockets, and then he said, in a low, thoughtful voice, Well, I don't know why not. 2. Dr. O'Connell's face was white and drawn, and the redness of his eyelids more pronounced than ever, as he faced Stott in the pale October dawn. He clutched at his beard with a nervous combing movement

as he shook his head decidedly in answer to the question put to him. If it's not dead now, twill be in a very few hours, he said. Stott was shaken by the feeble passion of a man who has spent many weary hours of suspense. His anger thrilled out in a feeble stream of hackneyed profanities. O'Connell looked down on him with contempt. At sunrise, after a sleepless night, a man is a creature of unrealised emotions.

"'Dam it! Control yourself, man!' growled O'Connell, himself uncontrolled. "'Your wife will pull through with care, "'though she'll never have another child.' O'Connell did not understand. He was an Irishman and no cricketer. He had been called in because he had a reputation for his skill, in obstetrics. Stott stared at him fiercely. The two men seemed as if about to grapple desperately for

life in the windy grey twilight. O'Connell recovered his self-control first and began again to claw nervously at his beard. Don't be a fool, he said. It's only what you could expect, her first child and her, a woman of near fifty. He returned to the upstairs room, Stott seized his cap and went out into the chill world of sunrise. She'll do, if there are no complications, said O'Connell to the nurse as he bent over the still-exhausted figure of Mrs. Stott. She's a wonderful woman to have delivered such a child alive. The nurse shivered, and avoiding any glance at the huddle that lay on an improvised sofa bed, she said, It can't live, can it?

O'Connell still intent on his first patient shook his head. Never cried after delivery, he muttered, the worst sign. He was silent for a moment, and then he added, But, to be sure, it's a freak of some kind. His scientific curiosity led him to make a further investigation. He left the bed and began to examine the huddle on the sofa couch. Victor Stott told his life. life in the first instance to this scientific curiosity of O'Connell's.

The nurse, a capable but sentimental woman, turned to the window and looked out at the watery trickle of feeble sunlight that now illumined the wilderness of Stott's Garden. Nurse, the imperative call startled her, she turned nervously, yes, doctor, she said, making no movement towards him. Come here. O'Connell was kneeling by the sofa. There seems to be complete paralysis of all the motor centres. He went on, but the child's not dead. We'll try artificial respiration.

The nurse overcame her repugnance by a visible effort. Is it worthwhile? she asked, regarding the flaccid, tumbled wax-like thing with its bloated white globe of a skull. Every muscle of it was relaxed, and limp, its eyes shut, its tiny jaw hanging. Wouldn't it be better to let it die? O'Connell did not seem to hear her.

He waved an impatient hand for her assistance. Outside my experience, he muttered, no heartbeat discernible, no breath, yet it is indubitably alive. He depressed the soft plastic ribs and gave the feeble heart a gentle squeeze. "'It's beating!' he ejaculated after a pause, with an ear close to the little chest, but still no breath.

Come!' The diminutive lungs were as readily open to suggestion as the wee heart. A few movements of the twigs they called arms, and the breath came. O'Connell closed and it remained closed, adjusted the limbs, and they stayed in the positions in which they were placed. At last he gently lifted the lids of the eyes. The nurse shivered and drew back, even O'Connell was startled,

for the eyes that stared into his own seemed to be heavy with a brooding intelligence. Stott came back at ten o'clock, after a morose trudge through the misty rain. He found the nurse in the sitting-room. "'Dark to gone?' he asked. The nurse nodded. "'Did I suppose?'

Stott gave an upward twist of his head towards the room above. The nurse shook her head. Can't live, though. There was a note of faint hope in his voice. The nurse drew herself together and sighed deeply. Yes, we believe it'll live, Mr. Stott, she said. But it's a very remarkable baby. How that phrase always recurred.

Three. There were no common. complications, but Mrs. Stott's recovery was not a rapid one. It was considered advisable that she should not see the child. She thought that they were lying to her, that the child was dead, and so resigned herself, but her husband saw it. He had never seen so young an infant before, and just for one moment he believed that it was a normal child. What an head was his first ejaculation, and then he realized the significant. significance of that sign. Fear came into his eyes and his mouth fell open.

Ir, Oitay, nurse, it's a wrong and ain't it? he gasped. I'm sure I can't tell you, Mr. Stott, broke out the nurse hysterically. She had been feeding and tending that curious baby for three hours and she was on the verge of a breakdown. There was no wet nurse to be had, but a woman from the village had been sent for. she was expected every moment. More like a tadpole than anything, mused the unhappy father. Oh, Mr. Stott, for goodness sake, don't, cried the nurse, if you only knew. You what? questioned Stott, still staring at the motionless figure of his son,

who lay with closed eyes, apparently unconscious. There's something, I don't know, began the nurse. And then, after a pause, during which she seemed to struggle for some means of expression, she continued with a sigh of utter weariness. You know when it opens its eyes. Oh, why doesn't that woman come? The woman you sent for.

She'll be here directly, replied Stott. Would you mean about there being something? Something what? Uncanny, said the nurse without conviction. I do wish that woman would come. I've been up the best part of the night, And now, uncanny, as how, persisted Stott. Not normal, explained the nurse.

I can't tell you more than that. But how? What way? He did not receive an answer then, for the long-expected relief came at last. A great hulk of a woman who became voluble when she saw the child she had come to nurse. Oh dear, oh dear, the stream began. Oh, unfortunate.

first, too. There'll be an injure, I'm afraid. Mrs. Harrison's third was the very spit of it. The stream ran on, but snort heard no more. An idiot. He had fathered an idiot. That was the end of his dreams and ambitions. He had had an hour's sleep on the sitting-room sofa. He went out to his work at the county ground with a heart full of blasphemy. When he returned at four o'clock, he met the stout woman on the doorstep. She put up a hand to her rolling breast, closed her eyes tightly, and gasped as though completely overcome by this trifling encounter.

Oh, is it? questioned the obsessed Stott. Oh dear, oh dear, panted the stout woman. The least thing upsets me this afternoon. She wandered away into irrelevant fluency, but Stott was autocratic, his insistent. insistent questions overcame the inertia of even Mrs. Reed at last. The substance of her information freed from extraneous matter was as followed. Oh, healthy. It'll live, I've no doubt, if that's what you mean, but helpless.

There, helpless is no word. Learn him to take the bottle, learn him to close his hands, learn him to go to sleep, learn him everything. We've never seen nothing like it, "'Never in all my days, and I've helped to bring a few into the world. "'I can't begin to tell you about it, Mr. Stott, and that's the solemn truth. "'When he first looked at me, I near had a faint. "'O old-fashioned, wise sort of luck as he might have been a hundred. "'Lord help us, nurse,' I says, "'Lord, helpless, I was that upset.

"'I don't rightly know what I was saying.' "'Stot pushed past the agitated Mrs. Reed, and went into the sitting room. He had had neither breakfast nor lunch, there was no sign of any preparation for his tea, and the fireplace was grey with the cinders of last night's fire. For some minutes he sat in deep despondency, a hero faced with the uncompromising detail of domestic neglect.

Then he rose and called to the nurse. She appeared at the head of the steep narrow staircase. "'Sh,' she warned with a finger to her lips. "'I'm going out again,' said Stott, in a slightly modulated voice. "'Mrs. Reed's coming back presently,' replied the nurse, and looked over her shoulder. "'Want me to wait,' asked Stott. "'The nurse came down a few steps.

"'It's only in case anyone was wanted,' she began. "'I've got two of them on my hands, you see. "'They're both doing well as far as that goes.' only she broke off and drifted into small talk. Ever and again she stopped and listened intently and looked back towards the half-open door of the upstairs room. Stott fidgeted, and then, as the flow of conversation gave no sign of running dry, he damned it abruptly.

Look here, miss, he said, We've had nothing to eat since last night. Hey dear, ejaculated the nurse. If perhaps you'd just, you'd just. "'Just stay here and listen. I could get you something.' She seemed relieved to have some excuse for coming down. While she bustled about the kitchen, Stott halfway upstairs, stayed and listened. The house was very silent. The only sound was the hushed clatter made by the nurse in the

kitchen. There was an atmosphere of weariness about the place that affected even so callous a person as Stott. He listened with strained attention. his eyes fixed on the half-open door. He was not an imaginative man, but he was beset with apprehension as to what lay behind that door. He looked for something inhuman that might come crawling through the aperture, something grotesque, preternaturally wise and threatening,

something horribly unnatural. The window of the upstairs room was evidently open, and now and again the door creaked faintly. When that happened, Stott gripped the handrail and grew dampened hot. He looked always at the shadows under the door, if it crawled. The nurse stood at the door of the sitting room while Stott ate, and presently Mrs. Reed came grunting and panting up the brick path. "'I'm going out, no,' said Stott resolutely,

and he rose to his feet, though his meal was barely finished. "'You'll be back before Mrs. Y'all. read goes, asked the nurse, and passed a hand over her tired eyes. She'll be here till ten o'clock, and going to lie down. I'll be back by ten, Stott assured her as he went out. He did come back at ten o'clock, but he was stupidly drunk. Four. The Stott's cottage was no place to live in during the next few days, but the nurse made one stipulation. Mr. Stott's must come home.

home to sleep. He slept on an improvised bed in the sitting room, and during the night the nurse came down many times and listened to the sound of his snores. She would put her ear against the door and rest her nerves with the thought of human companionship. Sometimes she opened the door quietly and watched him as he slept. Except at night when he was rarely quite sober, Stott only visited his cottage once a day at lunchtime. From seven in the morning till ten at night, he remained in Aylesworth, save for this one call of inquiry. It was such a still house. Ellen Mary only spoke when speech was absolutely required, and then her words were the

fewest possible, and were spoken in a whisper. The child made no sound of any kind. Even Mrs. Reed tried to subdue her stertorous breathing to move with less ponderous quakings. The neighbours told her she looked thinner. Little wonder that during the long night vigil, the nurse, moving silently between the two upstairs rooms, should pause on the landing and lean over the handrail.

Little wonder that she should give a long sigh of relief when she heard the music of Stott's snore ascend from the sitting room. O'Connell called twice every day during the first week, not because it was necessary for him to visit his two patients, but because the infant fascinated him. He would wait for it to open its eyes, and then would get up and leave the room hurriedly.

Always he intended to return the infant's stare, but when the opportunity was given to him, he always rose and left the room, no matter how long and deliberately he had braced himself, to another course of action. It was on a Thursday that the baby was born, and it was on the following Thursday that the circumstance of the household was reshaped. O'Connell came in the morning, full of resolution.

After he had pronounced Mrs. Stott well on the way to recovery, he paid the usual visit to his younger patients. The child lay, relaxed at full length in the cot which had been provided for him. His eyes were, as usual, closed, and he had all the appearance of the ordinary hydrocephalic idiot. O'Connell sat down by the cot, listened to the child's breathing and heart beat, lifted and let fall again the lax wrist,

turned back the eyelid, revealing only the white of the upturned eyeball, and then composed himself to await the natural waking of the child if it were asleep, always a matter of uncertainty. The nurse stood near him, silent, but she looked away from the cot. Hydrocephalous, murmured O'Connell,

staring at his tiny patient. Hydrocephalus, without a doubt, an nurse. Yes, perhaps, I don't know doctor. Oh, not a doubt of it, not a doubt, repeated O'Connell. And then came a flicker of the child's eyelids and a weak crumpling of the tiny hand. O'Connell caught his breath and caught at his beard.

Hydrocephalus, he muttered with set jaw and drawn eyebrows. The tiny hand straightened with a movement that suggested the recovery of crushed grass, the mouth opened with a microscopic yawn, and then the eyelids were slowly raised, and a steady and wavering stare of profoundest intelligence. met O'Connell's gaze. He clenched his hands, shifted in his chair,

and then rose abruptly and turned to the window. "'It won't be necessary for me to come again, nurse,' he said curtly. "'They are both doing perfectly well.' "'Not come again?' There was dismay in the nurse's question. "'No, no, it's unnecessary,' he broke off, and obeyed for the door without another glance in the direction of the cot. Nurse followed him downstairs. If I wanted, you can easily send for me, said O'Connell as he

went out. As he moved away, he dragged at his beard and murmured, Huidrecephalus, not a doubt of it. Following his departure, Mrs. Reed heard curious and most unwanted laughter had cautiously blundered downstairs to investigate. She found the nurse in an advanced condition of hysteria, laughing, gurgling, weeping, and intermittently crying in a shrill voice. Oh, Lord have mercy, Lord a mercy! Oh, see you here, my dear, said Mrs. Reed, when nurse had been recovered to a red-eyed sanity. It's time she was told. We've never held with keeping it from her myself, and I've had more experience than many.

Mrs. Reed argued with abundant recourse to parenthesis. Is she strogy-daff? asked the nurse, still with tears in her voice, could she bear the sight of him? She blew her nose vigorously, and then continued with greater clearness. I'm afraid it may turn her head. Out of her deep store of wisdom, Mrs. Reed produced a fact which she elaborated and confirmed by an apt illustration, adducing more particularly the instance of Mrs. Harrison's third.

She's his mother, was the essence of her argument, a fact of deep and strange significance. The nurse yielded, and so the circumstance of Stott's household was changed, and Stott himself was once more able to come home to meals. The nurse wisely left all diplomacy to the capable Mrs. Reed, a woman specially fitted by nature for the breaking of news. She delivered along a record-breaking circumlocution, and it seemed that Ellen Mary, who lay with closed eyes,

gathered no hint of its import. But when the impressive harangue was slowly rustling to collapse like an exhausted balloon, she opened her eyes and said quite clearly, What's wrong with him then? The question had the effect of, reinflation, but at last the child itself was brought and it was open-eyed. The supreme ambition of all great women, and have not all women the potentialities of greatness,

is to give birth to a god. That ambition it is which is marred by the disappointing birth of a female child. When the man-child is born, there is always hope, and slow is the realization of failure. That realisation. The realisation never came to Ellen Mary. She accepted her child with the fear that is adoration. When she dropped her eyes before her God's searching glance, she did it in reverence. She hid her faith from the world,

but in her heart she believed that she was blessed above all women. In secret, she worshipped the inscrutable wonder that had used her as the instrument of his incarnation. Perhaps she was right. End of Chapter 4. Chapter 5 of the Hamdonshire Wonder by J.D. Beresford. This Libre of Oaks recording is in the public domain. His departure from Stoke Underhill

1. The village of Stoke was no wit intimidated by the news that Mrs. Reed sowed abroad. The women exclaimed and chattered, the men gaped and shook their. heads. The children hung about the ruinous gate that shut them out from the 20-yard strip of garden which led up to Stott's cottage. Curiosity was the dominant emotion. Any excuse was good enough to make friendly overtures, but the babe remained invisible to all save Mrs. Reed, and the village community kept open ears, while the lust of its size remained perforce unsatisfied. If Stott's gates slammed in the wind,

every door that commanded a view of that gate was opened, and heads appeared and bare arms. The indications of women who nodded to each other, shook their heads, pursed their lips and withdrew for the time to attend to the pressure of household duty. Later, even that gate-slamming would reinvigorate the gossip of backyards and front doorways. The first stranger to force an entry was the rector. He was an Oxford man, who, in his youth had been an ardent disciple of the school

that attempts the reconciliation of religion and science. He had been ambitious, but nature had predetermined his career by giving him a head of the wrong shape. At Oxford, his limitations had not been clearly defined, and on the strength of a certain speech at the Union, he crept into a London-West-end curacy. There he attempted to demonstrate the principle of reconciliation

from the pulpit, but his vicar and his bishop soon recognised that excellent as were his intentions, he was doing better service to agnosticism than to his own religion. In consequence, he was vilely marooned on the savage island of Stoke Underhill, where he might preach as much science as he would to the natives, for there was no fear of their comprehending him. Fifteen years of Snoke had brought about a reaction, Nature had made him a feeble fanatic, and he was now as ardent an opponent of science as he had once been a defender. In his little mind he believed that his early reading had enabled him to understand all the weaknesses of the scientific position.

His name was Percy Crashaw. Mrs. Stott could not deny her rector the right of entry, and he insisted on seeing the infant, who was not yet baptized, a shameful neglect. according to Crashore for the child was nearly six weeks old. Nor had Mrs. Stott been churched. Crashor had good excuse for pressing his call. Mrs. Stott refused to face the village. She knew that the place was all agape, eager to stare at what they considered some new kind of idiot.

Let them wait, was Ellen Mary's attitude. Her pride was a later development. In those early weeks she finished. feared criticism. But she granted Kraschor's request to see the child, and after the interview, the term is precise, the rector gave way on the question of a private ceremony, though he had indignantly opposed the scheme when it was first mooted. It may be that he conceived an image of himself with that child in his arms, the sinewsure of a packed congregation. Crashore was one of the influences that hastened the Stott's departure from Stoke. He was so indiscreet. After the

christening he would talk. His attitude is quite comprehensible. He, the lawgiver of Stoke, had been thwarted. He had to find apology for the private baptism he had denied to many a sickly infants. Moreover, the Stott's had broken another of his ordinances. The father and mother had stood as godparents to their own child, and Crashaw himself had been the second godfather ordained as necessary by the rubric. He had given way on these important points so weakly he had to find excuse, and he talked himself into a false belief with regard to the child he had baptized. He began with his wife, "'It would allow more latitude to medical men,' he said,

in such a case as the child of the Stots, for instance, it becomes a burden on the community. I might say a danger, yes, a positive danger. I'm not sure whether I was right in administering the Holy Sacrament of the baptism. Oh, Percy, surely, began Mrs. Crashard. One moment, my dear, protested the rector, I have not fully explained the circumstances of the case. and as he warmed to his theme, the image of Victor Stott grew to a fearful grotesqueness.

It loomed as a threat over the community and the church. Crashaw quoted, inaccurately, statistics of the growth of lunacy, and then went off at a tangent into the theory of possession by evil spirits. Since his rejection of science, he had lapsed into certain forms of medievalism, and he now began to dally with the theory of a malign incarnation which he elaborated until it became an article of his faith. To his poorer parishioners he spoke in vague terms, but he changed their attitude.

He filled them with overawed terror. They were intensely curious still, but now, when the gate was slammed, one saw a face pressed to the window, the door remained fast, and the children, no longer clustered round that gate, but dared each other to run past it,

which they did, the girls with a scream, the boys with a jeering, a boast of intrepidity. The change of temper was soon understood by the person's most concerned. Scott grumbled and grew morose. He had never been intimate with the villagers,

and now he avoided any intercourse with them. His wife kept herself for love. Loof and her child sheltered from profane observation. Naturally, this attitude of the Stott's fostered suspicion. Even the hardiest skeptic in the taproom of the chalice arms began to shake his head, to concede that there might be something in it. Yet the departure from Stoke might have been postponed indefinitely if it had not been for another intrusion.

Both Stott and his wife were ready to take up and use. idea, but they were slow to conceive it. 2. The intruder was the local magnate, the landlord of Stoke, Wenderby, Chilberra, a greater part of Aylesworth, two or three minor parishes, and incidentally of Pim. This magnate, Henry Chalice, was a man of some scholarship, whose ambition had been smothered by the heaviness of his possessions. He had a remarkably fine library at Chalice's court, but he made little use of it, for he spent the greater part of his time in travel. In appearance he was rather an ungainly man, his great head and the bulk of his big shoulders were something too

heavy for his legs. Crashore regarded his patron with mixed feelings. For Chalice, the man of property, the man of high connections, of intimate associations with the world of science and letters, Crashor had a feeling of awed respect, but in private, he invade against the wickedness of Chalice, the agnostic, the decadent. When Victor Stott was nearly three months old, the rector met his patron one day on the road between Chilberra and Stoke. It was three years since their last meeting, and Crashore noticed that in the interval, Chalice's pointed beard had become streaked with grey. Hello, how do you do Crashore? was the squire's casual greeting.

How is the stoke microcosm? Crashor smiled subserviently. He was never quite at his ease in Chalice's presence. Rarinantes in Gurgitevasso was the tag he found in answer to the question put. However great his contempt for Chalice's way of life, in his presence, Crashor was often oppressed with a feeling of inferiority, a feeling which he fought against but could not subdue.

The Latin tag was an attempt to win appreciation. It represented a boast of equality. Chalice correctly evaluated the rex's attitude. It was with something of pity in his mind that he turned and walked beside him. There was but one item of news from Stoke and it soon came to the surface. Crashaw phrased his descriptors,

of Victor Stott in terms other than those he used in speaking to his wife or to his parishioners, but the undercurrent of his virulent superstition did not escape Chalice, and the attitude of the villagers was made perfectly plain. Hmm, was Chalice's comment when the flow of words ceased. "'Nigroque similim a signo, eh?' "'Ah, of course you sneer at our petty affairs,' said Crashore. "'By no means, I should like to see this black swan of Stoke,' replied Chalice. "'Anything so exceptional interests me.'

"'No doubt Mrs. Stott would be proud to exhibit the horror,' said Crashore. "'He had a gleam of satisfaction in the thought that even the great Henry Chalice might be scared. "'That would indeed be a triumph.' "'If Mrs. Stott has no objection, of course,' said Chalice, Shall we go there now? 3. The visit of Henry Chalice marked the first advent of Ellen Mary's pride in the exhibition of her wonder.

After the king and the royal family, superhuman beings, infinitely remote, the great landlord of the neighbourhood stood as a symbol of temporal power to the whole district. The budding socialist of the taproom might sneer and make threat that the time was coming when he the boaster, and Chalice, the landlord, would have equal rights. But in public, the socialist cowtowed to his master with a submission no less obsequious

than that of the humblest conservative on the estate. Mrs. Stott dropped a deep curtsey when, opening the door to the autocratic summons of Crashaw's ratat-tat, she saw the great man of the district at her threshold. Chalice raised his hat. Crashore did not imitate his example. He was all officiousness. He had the air of a chief superintendent of police. Oh, Mrs. Stott, we should like to come in for a few minutes.

Mr. Chalice would like to see your child. Damn the fool, was Chalice's thought, but he gave it less abrupt expression. That is, of course, if it's quite convenient to Mrs. Stott. I can come at some other time. Please walk in, sir, replied Mrs. Stott, and Kurtz it again as she stood aside. Superintendent Crashaw led the way.

Chalice called again next day, by himself this time, and the day after he dropped in at six o'clock, while Mr and Mrs. Stott were at tea. He put them at their ease by some magic of his personality and insisted that they should continue their meal, while he sat among the collapsed strings of the horsehair armchair. He leaned forward and swung his stick between his knees, as if it were a pendulum, and shot out questions as to the Stott's relations with the neighbours.

And always he had an attentive eye on the cradle that stood near the fire. The neighbours are not highly intelligent, I suspect, said Chalice. Even Mr. Crash-R, I fancy, does not appreciate thee. peculiarities of the situation. "'He's worse than any,' interpolated Stott. "'Ellen Mary sat in shadow. There was a new light in her eyes, a foretaste of glory.' "'Ah, a little narrow, a little dogmatic, no doubt,' replied Chalice.

"'I was going to propose that you might prefer to live at Pim.' "'Much farther for me,' muttered Stott. He had mixed with nobility on the cricket field, and was not overawed. No doubt, would you have other interests to consider interests of far greater importance? Chalice shifted his gaze from the cradle and looked Stott in the face. I understand Mrs. Stott does not care to take her child out in the village. Isn't that so?

Yes, sir, replied Ellen to whom this question was addressed. We don't care to make an exhibition of him. Quite right. "'Quite right,' went on Chalice. "'But it is very necessary that the child should have air. "'I consider it very necessary, "'a matter of the first importance, "'that the child should have air,' he repeated.

"'His gaze had shifted back to the cradle again, "'the child lay with open eyes, "'staring up at the ceiling. "'Now, there is an excellent cottage at Pim, "'which I will have put in repair for you at once,' continued Chalice. It is one of two together, but next door there are only old Metcalfe and his wife and daughter, who will give you no trouble.

And really, Mrs. Stott, he tore his regard from the cradle for a moment. There is no reason in the world why you should fear the attention of your neighbours. Here in Stoke, I admit they have been under a complete misapprehension, but I fancy that there were special reasons for that. In Pim, you will have been under a complete misapprehension, you will have a complete misapprehension, but I fancy that. very few neighbours, and you need not, I'm sure, fear their criticism. They got one idiot there already, Stott remarked, somewhat sulkily. You surely do not regard your own child as likely to develop into an idiot, Stott.

Chalice's tone was one of rebuke. Stott's shifted in his chair, and his eyes flickered uncertainly in the direction of the cradle. Dr. O'Connell, says Twill, he said. When did he see the child last? asked Chalice. Not since to are a week old, sir, replied Ellen. In that case, his authority goes for nothing. And then, by the way, I suppose the child has not been vaccinated. Not yet, sir.

Better have that done. Get Walters. I'll make myself responsible. I'll get him to come. Before Chalice left, it was decided that the snots should move to Pim in February. When the great landowner had gone, Mrs. Stott looked wistoply at her husband. You ain't fair to the child, George, she said.

There's more than you or anyone sees, more than Mr. Chalice even. Stott stared moodily into the fire. And it won't be so out of the way for you at Pim, with your bike, she continued, and we can't stop here. We mighta took a place in Aylesworth, said Stott. "'But it'll be so much healthier for him up at Pim,'

"'attested Ellen. "'It'll be fine air up there for him.' "'Oh, him! "'Yes, all right for him,' said Stott, "'and spat into the fire. "'Then he took his cap and went out. "'He kept his eyes away from the cradle. "'Four. Harvey Walters lived in Wendaby,

"'but his consulting rooms were in Harley Street, "'and he did not practice in his own neighbourhood. Nevertheless, he vaccinated Victor Stott to oblige Chalice. "'Well?' asked Chalice a few days later. "'What do you make of him, Walters? "'No cliches now, and no professional jargon.' "'Candardly, I don't know,' replied Walters, after a thoughtful interval. "'How many times have you seen him?'

"'Four altogether. "'Good patient, healthy flesh and that sort of thing.' "'Splendid? "'Did he look you in the same?' the eyes. Once, only once, the first time I visited the house. Chalice nodded, my own experience, exactly, and did you return that look of his? Not willingly, it was, I confess, not altogether a pleasant experience. Ah, Chalice was silent for a few moments, and it was Walters who took up the interrogatory. Chalice, yes, have you now some feeling of,

Shall I say distaste for the child? Do you feel that you have no wish to see it again? Is it that exactly? Parry Chalice. If not, what is it? Asked Walters. In my own case, said Chalice, I can find an analogy only in my attitude towards my head at school.

In his presence I was always intimidated by my consciousness of his superior learning. I felt, and pleasantly ignorant, Small, negligible. Curiously enough, I see something of the same expression of feeling in the attitude of that feeble crashaw to myself. Well, one makes an attempt at self-assertion, a kind of futile bragging, and one knows the futility of it at the time.

But, afterwards, one finds excuse and seeks to belittle the personality and attainment of the person one feared. At school we did not love. of the head, and as schoolboys will, we were always trying to run him down. Next time he rags me, I'll cheek him, was our usual boast, but we never did. Let's be honest, Walters, are not you and I exhibiting much the same attitude towards this extraordinary child? Didn't he produce the effect upon you that I've described? Didn't you have a little of the fifth-form feeling, a boy under examination?

Walter smiled and screwed his mouth on one side. The thing is so absurd, he said. That is what we used to say at school, replied Chalice. Five. The Stott's move to Pim was not marked by any incident. Mrs. Stott and her boy were not unduly stared upon as they left Stoke. The children were in school, and their entry into the new cottage was uneventful. They moved on a Thursday. On Sunday morning they had their first visitor. He came mooning round the fence that guarded the Stott's garden from the little lane. It was hardly more than a footpath. He had a great shapeless head that waggled heavily on his shoulders. His eyes were lustreless and his mouth hung open. Frequently his tongue lagged out. He made strange inhuman noises.

"'Ah, bah, bah,' was his nearest approach to speech. "'Now, George,' said Mrs. Stott, "'look at that. It's Mrs. Harrison's boy, what Mrs. Reed spoke about. "'Oh, is he anything like?' She paused. "'Anything like him.' And she indicated the cradle in the sitting-room. "'What's he one? hanging round here,' replied Stott,

"'discarating the comparison. "'Here, get off,' he called. and he went into the garden and picked up a stick. The idiots shambled away. End of Chapter 5. Chapter 6 of the Hamdenshire Wanda by J.D. Beresford. This Librevox recording is in the public domain. His father's desertion.

1. The strongest of all habits is that of acquiescence. It is this habit of submission which explains the admired patience and long-suffering of the abjectly poor. The lower the individual falls, the more unconquerable becomes the inertia of mind which interferes between him and revolt against his condition. All the miseries of the flesh, even starvation,

seemed preferable to the making of an effort great enough to break this habit of submission. Ginger Stott was not poor. For a man in his station of life, he was unusually well provided for, but in him the habit of acquiescence was strongly rooted. Before his son was a year old, Stott had grown to loathe his home,

to dread his return to it. Yet it did not occur to him until another year had passed, that he could, if he would, set up another establishment on his own account, that he could, for instance, take a room in Aylesworth and leave his wife and child in the cottage. For two years he did not begin to think of this idea, and then it was suddenly forced upon him. Ever since they had overheard those strangely intelligent self-communings, the Stots had been perfectly aware that their wonderful child could talk if he would.

Helen Mary, pondering that single expression, had read a world of meaning into her son's murmurs of learning. In her simple mind, she understood that his deliberate, withholding of speech was a reserve against some strange manifestation. The manifestation, when it came, was as remarkable as it was unexpected. The armchair in which Henry Chalice had once sat was a valued possession, dedicated by custom to the sole use of George Stott. Ever since he had been married, Stott had enjoyed the full and undisputed use of that chair.

Except at his meals he never sat in any other, and he had formed a fixed habit of throwing himself into that chair immediately on his return from his work at the county ground. One evening in November, however, when his son was just over two years old, Stott found his sacred chair occupied. He hesitated a moment and then went into the kitchen to find his wife. "'Bart child's in my chair,' he said. Ellen was setting the tray for her husband's tea.

"'Yes, I know,' she replied. "'I, I did mention it, but he hasn't moved.' "'Well, take him out,' ordered Stott, but he dropped his voice. "'Does it matter?' asked his wife. "'Tee's just ready. Time that's done he'll be ready for his bath.' "'Why can't you move him?' persisted Stott gloomily. "'He knows it's my chair.' "'There, kettle's boiling. Come in and have your tea,'

equivocated the diplomatic Ellen. During the progress of the meal, the child still sat quietly in his father's chair, his little hands resting on his knees, his eyes wide open, their gaze abstracted as usual from all earthly concerns. But after T, Stott was heroic, he had reached the limit of his endurance.

One of his deep-seated habits was being broken, and with it snapped his habit of acquiescence. He rose to his feet and faced his son with determination, and Stott had a bulldog quality about him that was not easily defeated. Look here, get out, he said. That's my chair! The child very deliberately withdrew his attention from infinity and regarded the dogged face and set jaw of his father.

Stott returned the stare for the fraction of a second, and then his eyes wavered and dropped, but he maintained his resolution. You gotta get out, he said. Roy lift you a. Ellen Mary gripped the edge of the table, but she made no attempt to interfere. There was a tense, strained silence,

then Stott began to breathe heavily. He lifted his long arms for a moment and raised his eyes. He even made a tentative step towards the usurp chair. The child sat calm, motionless. His eyes were fixed upon his father's face with a sublime unalterable confidence. Stott's arms fell to his side again. He shuffled his feet. One more effort he made, a sudden vicious jerk,

as though he would do the thing quickly and be finished with it. Then he shivered, his resolution broke, and he shambled evasively to the door. God damn, he muttered. At the door he turned for an instant. swore again in the same words and went out into the night. To start moodily pacing the common, this thing was incomprehensible, some horrible infraction of the law of normal life,

something to be condemned, altered if possible. It was unprecedented, and it was therefore wrong, unnatural, diabolic, a violation of the sound principles which uphold human society. To Ellen Mary, it was, It was merely a miracle, the foreshadowing of greater miracles to come, and to her was manifested also a minor miracle, for when his father had gone, the child looked at his mother and gave out his first recorded utterance. "'Who is God?' he said.

Ellen Mary tried to explain, but before she had stammered out many words, her son abstracted his gaze, climbed down out of the chair, and intimated with his usual grunt. that he desired his bath and his bed. 2. The depths of Stott were stirred that night. He had often said that he wouldn't stand it much longer, but the words were a mere formula. He had never even weighed their intention.

As he paced the common, he muttered them again to the night with new meaning. He saw new possibilities and saw that they were practicable. "'What you've had enough,' was his new phrase, and he added another that evidenced his new attitude, Why not? he said again and again, and why not? Stott's mind was not analytical. He did not examine his problem, weigh this and that,

and draw a balanced deduction. He merely saw a picture of peace and quiet in a room at Aylesworth in convenient proximity to his work. He made an admirable groundsman and umpire. His work absorbed him, and perhaps he conceived some dim ideal of pleasant evenings spent in the companionship of those who thought in the same terms as himself, whose speech was of form, averages, the preparation of wickets, and all the detail of cricket, who shared his one interest. Stott's ambition to have a son and to teach him the mysteries of his father's success had been dwindling for some time past.

On this night it was finally put aside. Stots, or you've had enough, may be taken to include that frustrated ideal. No more experiments for him was the pronouncements that summed up his decision. Still, there were difficulties. Economically he was free. He could allow his wife 30 shillings a week, more than enough for her support and that of her child. But what would she say?

How would she take his determination? A determination it was. Not a proposal, and the neighbours, what would they say? Stott anticipated a fuss. She'll say, oh, you've married her, and it's my duty to stay by her, was his anticipation of his wife's attitude. He did not profess to understand the ways of the sex, but some rumours of misunderstandings between husbands and wives of his own class

had filtered through his absorption in cricket. He stumbled home with a mind prepared for dissension. He found his wife stitching by the fire. The door at the foot of the stairs was closed. The room presented an aspect of cleanly, cheerful comfort. But Stott entered with dread, not because he feared to meet his wife, but because there was a terrace sleeping in that house.

His armchair was empty now, but he hesitated before he sat down in it. He took off his cap and rubbed the seat and back of the chair vigorously. A child of a child of a chair vigorously. evil had polluted it. The chair might still hold enchantment. I've had enough, was his preface, and there was no need for any further explanation. Ellen Mary let her hands fall into her lap and stared dreamily at the fire. I'm sorry it's come to this charge, she said, but it hasn't been my fault, no more, and it's been

yorn. Of course I've seen it a-coming, and I know it it had to be some time, but I don't think there need to be any hard words over it. I don't expect you to understand him, no more than I do myself. It isn't in nature as you should. But all said and done, there's no bones broke, and if we have to part,

there's no reason as we shouldn't part peaceable. That speech said nearly everything. Afterwards, it was only a question of making arrangements, and in that there was no difficulty. Another man might have felt a little hurt, a little neglected by the absence of any show of feeling on his wife's part, but Stott passed it by. He was singularly free from all sentimentality.

Certain primitive human emotions seemed to have played no part in his character. At this moment, he certainly had no thought that he was being carelessly treated. He wanted to be free from the oppression of that horror upstairs, so he figured it, and the way was made easy for. for him. He nodded approval and made no sign of any feeling. We shall go tomorrow, he said, and then, I sleep down here tonight. He indicated the sofa upon which he had slept for so many nights at Stoke after his tragedy had been born to him.

Ellen Mary had said nearly everything, but when she had made up a bed for her husband in the sitting-room, she paused, candle in hand, before she bade him good-night. "'Don't wish him arm, George,' she said. "'He's different from us, and we don't understand him proper. "'But some day—' "'I don't wish him no arm,' replied Stott, and shuddered. "'I don't wish him no arm,' he repeated, as he kicked off the boot he had been unlacing. "'You might never see him again,' added Ellen Mary.

"'Stot stood upright. "'In his socks he looked noticeably shorter than his wife. "'I suppose not,' he said, and gave a deep sigh of relief. "'Well, thank God for that anyway.' "'Ellen Mary drew her lips together. For some dim, unrealised reason, she wished her husband to leave the cottage with a feeling of goodwill towards the child, but she saw that her wish was little likely to be fulfilled.

"'Well, good-night, George,' she said, after a few seconds of silence, and she added pathetically as she turned at the foot of the stairs, Don't wish him no arm. O you won't, was all the assurance she received. When she had gone and the door was closed behind her, Stott padded silently to the window and looked out. A young moon was dipping into a bank of cloud and against the feeble brightness he could see an uncertain outline of bare trees.

He pulled the curtain across the window and turned back to the warm cheerfulness of the room. Sure never see him again, he murmured. Thank God. He undressed, quietly, blew out the lamp, and got between the sheets of his improvised bed. For some minutes he stared at the leaping shadows on the ceiling. He was wondering why he had ever been afraid of the child.

After all, he's only a blasted freak, was the last thought in his mind before he fell us. sleep. With that pronouncement, Stott passes out of the history of the Hamdenshire wonder. He was in many ways an exceptional man, and his name will always be associated with the splendid successes of Hamdonshire cricket, both before and after the accident that destroyed his career as a bowler. He was not spoiled by his triumphs. Those two years of celebrity never made Stott conceited, and there are undoubtedly many traits in his character which call for our admiration. He is still in his prime, an active agent in finding talent for his county,

and in developing that talent when found. Hamdonshire has never come into the field with weak bowling, and all the credit belongs to Ginger Stott. One sees that he was not able to appreciate the wonderful gifts of his own son, but Stott was an ignorant man, and men of intellectual attainment failed, even as Stott failed in this respect. Ginger Stott was a success in his own walk of life, and that fact should command our admiration. It is not for us to judge whether his attainments were more or less noble than the attainments of his son.

Three. One morning, two days after Stott had left the cottage, Ellen Mary was startled by the sudden entrance of her child into the city, room. He toddled in hastily from the garden and pointed with excitement through the window. Helen Mary was frightened. She had never seen her child other than deliberate, calm, judicial in all his movements. In a sudden spasm of motherly love, she bent to pick him up, to caress him. No, said the wonder, with something that approached his gust in his tone and attitude. No, he repeated. "'What's he want, hanging round here?

"'Stend him off.' He pointed again to the window. "'Ellen Mary looked out "'and saw a grinning, "'slobbering obscenity at the gate. "'Stot had scared the idiot away, "'but in some curious, inexplicable manner "'he had learned that his persecutor and enemy had gone,

"'and he had returned, "'and had made overtures to the child that walked "'so sedately up and down the path of the little garden, Ellen Mary went out. You be off, she said. Abba, abba, bleated the idiot and pointed at the house. Be off, I tell you, said Ellen Mary fiercely. But still the idiot babbled and pointed.

Ellen Mary stooped to pick up a stick. The idiot blenched. He understood that movement well enough, though it was a stone he anticipated, not a stick. With a foolish cry, he dropped his arms and slouched away down the lane. End of Chapter 6. Chapter 7 of the Hamdenshire Wanda by J.D. Beresford.

This Librivox recording is in the public domain. His debt to Henry Chalice. 1. Chalice was out of England for more than three years after that one brief intrusion of his into the affairs of Mr. and Mrs. Stott. During the interval he was engaged upon those investigations, the results of which are embodied in his monograph on the primitive peoples of the Melanesian archipelago. It may be remembered that he followed Dr. W.H.R. Rivers and Dr. C.G. Seligman's inquiry into the practice and theory of native customs. Chalice developed his study more particularly with reference to the earlier evolution of totemism,

and he was able by his patient work among the Polynesians of Ticopia and Ontong Java, and his comparisons of those sporadic tribes with the papuasians of eastern New Guinea, to correct some of the inferences with regard to the origins of exogamy made by Dr. J. G. Fraser in his great work on that subject, published some years before. A summary of Chalice's arguments may be found in Volume 51 of the Journal of the Royal anthropological institutes. When he returned to England, Chalice shut himself up at Chilbara.

He had engaged a young Cambridge man, Gregory Lewis, as his secretary and librarian, and the two devoted all their time to planning, writing, and preparing the monograph referred to. In such circumstances, it is hardly remarkable that Chalice should have completely forgotten the existence of the curious child, which had intrigued his interest nearly four.

years earlier, and it was not until he had been back at Chalice Court for more than eight months that the incursion of Percy Crashaw revived his memory of the phenomenon. The library at Chalice Court occupies a suite of three rooms. The first and largest of the three is part of the original structure of the house. Its primitive use had been that of a chapel, a one-story building jutting out from the west wing. This chalice had converted into a very practicable library, with a continuous gallery running round at a height of seven feet from the floor, and in it he had succeeded in arranging some 20,000 volumes.

But as his store of books grew, and at one period it had grown very rapidly, he had been forced to build, and so he had added first one and then the other of the two additional rooms, became necessary. Outside, the wing had the appearance of an unduly elongated chapel, as he had continued the original roof over his addition and copied the style of the old chapel architecture, the only external alteration he had made had been the lowering of the sills of the windows. It was in the furthest of these three rooms that Chalice and his secretary worked, and it was from

here that they saw the gloomy figure of the Reverend Percy Crashore coming up the drive. This was the third time he had called. His two former visits had been unrewarded, but that morning a letter had come from him, couched in careful phrases, the purport of which had been a request for an interview on a matter of some moment. Chalice frowned and rose from among an ordered litter of manuscripts. I shall have to see this man, he said to Lewis, and strode hastily out of the library. Crashaw was perfunctorily apologetic and chalice, looking somewhat out of place, smoking a heavy wooden pipe in the disused, bleak drawing-room, waited, almost silent,

until his visitor should come to the point. And the, oh, a matter of some moment I mentioned, Crashore mumbled on. "'is, I should say, not altogether irrelevant "'to the work you are at present engaged upon.' "'Indeed,' commented Chalice, "'with a lift of his thick eyebrows. "'No Polynesians come to settle in stoke, I trust.' "'On broad lines, relevant on broad,

"'anthropological lines, I mean,' said Crashaw. "'Challis grunted, "'go on,' he said. "'You may remember that's curious, "'a abnormal child of the Stots,' asked Crashore. "'Stotts? Wait a minute. Yes, curious infant, "'with an abnormally intelligent expression and the head of a hydrocephalic.' "'Crasher nodded.

"'I's development has upsets me in a most unusual way,' he continued. "'I must confess that I am entirely at a loss, "'and I really believe that you are the only person "'who can give me any intelligent a sense. assistance in the matter. Very good of you, murmured Chalice. You see, said Crasaw, warming to his subject and interlacing his fingers. I happen, by the nearest accident, I may say, to be the child's good father.

Ah, you have responsibilities, commented Chalice, with the first glint of amusement in his eyes. I have, said Craschor, undoubtedly I have. He leaned forward. with his hands still clasped together and rested his forearms on his thighs. As he talked, he worked his hands up and down from the wrists by way of emphasis. "'I am aware,' he went on, "'at on one point I can expect little sympathy from you, "'as I make an appeal to you, nevertheless, as a man of science,

"'and a magistrate, for assistance.' "'He paused and looked up at Chalice, received a man. an honor of encouragement and developed his grievance. I want to have the child certified as an idiot and sent to an asylum. On what grounds? He is undoubtedly lacking mentally, said Crashaw, and his influence is, or maybe, malignant. Explain, suggested Chalice.

For a few seconds, Crashaw paused, intent on the pattern of the carpet, and working his hands slowly. Chalice saw that the man's knuckles were white, that he was straining his hands together. He has denied God, he said at last with great solemnity. Chalice rose abruptly and went over to the window. The next words were spoken to his back. I have myself heard this infant of four years use the most abhorrent blasphemy. Chalice had composed himself,

"'Oh, I say, that's bad,' he said as he turned towards the room again. Crashore's head was still bowed, "'and whatever may be your own philosophic doubts,' he said, "'I think you will agree with me that in such a case as this, "'something should be done. To me, it is horrible, most horrible.' "'Couldn't you give me any details?' asked Chalice. "'They are most repugnant to me,' answered Crows. "'Quite, quite, I understand, but if you want any assistance, or do you expect me to investigate?'

"'I thought it's my duty as his godfather to see to the child's spiritual welfare,' said Croucher, "'ignoring the question put to him. Although he is not now one of my parishioners. "'I first went to Pim some few months ago, but the mother interposed between me and the child. "'I was not permitted to see him. It was not permitted to see him. It was not until a few weeks back that I met him on the common, alone. Of course, I recognised him at once. He is quite unmistakable. And then, prompted Chalice.

I spoke to him, and he replied with, with an abstracted air, without looking at me. He is not the appearance in any way of a normal child. I made a few ordinary remarks to him, and then I asked him if he knew his catechism. He replied that he did not know the word catechism. I may mention that he speaks the dialect of the common people, but he has a much larger vocabulary. His mother has taught him to read, it appears. He seems to have a curiously apt intelligence,

interpolated Chalice. Crashore wrung his clasped hands and put the comment on one side. I then spoke to him of some of the broad principles of the church's teaching. he continued. He listened quietly, without interruption, and when I stopped, he prompted me with questions. "'One minute,' said Chalice. "'Tell me what sort of questions. That is most important.' "'I do not remember precisely,' returned Crashore, but one, I think, was as to the sources of the Bible. I did not read anything beyond simple and somewhat unusual curiosity into these questions, I may say. I talked to him for some considerable time, I dare say for more than an hour.

No signs of idiocy, apparently, during all this. I consider it less a case of idiocy than what of possession, Maleficent's possession, replied Crouchon. He did not see his host's grim smile. Well, and the blasphemy, prompted Chalice. At the end of my instruction, the child, still looking away from me, shook his head and said that what I told him was not true. I confess that I was staggered, possibly I lost my temper somewhat.

I may have grown rather warm in my speech, and at last, Crashore clenched his hands and spoke in such a low voice that Chalice could hardly hear him. At last he turned to me and said things which I could not possibly repeat, which I pray that I may never hear again from the man. of any living being. Profanities, obscenities, or swear words, suggested Chalice. Blasphemy, blasphemy, cried Crashaw.

Oh, I wonder that I did not injure the child. Chalice moved over to the window again. For more than a minute there was silence in that big neglected looking room. Then Crashore's feelings began to find vent in words in a long stream of insistent asseverations, pitched on a rising notes that swelled into a diapason of indignation. He spoke of the position and power of his church of its influence for good among the uneducated agricultural population

among which he worked. He enlarged on the profound necessity for a living religion among the poorer classes, and on the revolutionary tendency towards socialism, which would be encouraged in. if the great restraining power of a creed that enforced subservience to temporal power was once shaken. And at last he brought his arguments to her head by saying that the example of a child of four years old, openly defying a minister of the church, and repudiating the very conception of the deity,

was an example which might produce a profound effect upon the minds of a slow-thinking people. That such an example might be the leaven which would leaven, which would leaven, the whole lump, and that for the welfare of the whole neighbourhood, it was an instant necessity that the child should be put under restraint, his tongue bridled, and any opportunity to proclaim his blasphemous doctrines forcibly denied to him. Long before he had concluded, Crashaw was on his feet, pacing the room, declaiming, waving his arms.

Chalice stood, unanswering by the window, he did not seem to hear. He did not even shrug his shoulders. Not till Crashaw had brought his argument to a culmination and boomed into a dramatic silence, did Chalice turn and look at him. But you cannot confine a child in an asylum on those grounds, he said. The law does not permit it. The church is above the law, replied Crashore. Not in these days, said Chalice.

"'It is by law established.' "'Craschor began to speak again, "'but Chalice waved him down. "'Quite, quite, quite, I see your point,' he said. "'But I must see this child myself. "'Believe me, I will see what can be done. "'I will at least try to prevent his spreading his opinions among the yokels.' "'He smiled grimly.

"'I quite agree with you that that is a consummation "'which is not to be desired.' "'You will see him. him soon, asked Crashore. Today, returned Chalice. You will let me see you again afterwards. Certainly. Crashor still hesitated for a moment.

I might perhaps come with you, he ventured. Undo a count, said Chalice. Two. Gregory Lewis was astonished at the long absence of his chief. He was more astonished when his chief returned. I want you to come up with me to Pim, Lewis, said Chalice. One of my tenants has been confounding the rector of Stoke. It is a matter that must be attended to.

Lewis was a fair-haired, hard-working young man, with a bent for science in general that had not yet crystallised into any special study. He had a curious sense of humour that proved something of an obstacle in the way of specialisation. He did not take Chalice's speech, seriously. Are you going as a magistrate? He asked, or is it a matter for scientific investigation? Both, said Chalice, come along. Are you serious, sir? Lewis still doubted. Intensely, I'll explain as we go, said Chalice. It is not more than a mile and a half from Chalice court to Pim. The nearest way is by a car track through the beechwoods that winds up the hill to the

common. In winter this track is almost impassable, over boot-top in heavy mud, but the early spring had been fairly dry and Chalice chose this route. As they walked, Chalice went through the early history of Victor Stott so far as it was known to him. I had forgotten the child, he said. I thought it would die, you see, it is by way of being an extraordinary freak of nature. It has, or had a curious look of intelligence. You must remember that when I saw it it was only a few months old, but even then it conveyed in some inexplicable way

a sense of power. Everyone felt it. There was Harvey Walters, for instance, he vaccinated it. I made him confess that the child had made him feel like a schoolboy, only, you understand, it had not spoken then. What conveyed that sense of power? asked Lewis, the way it had of looking at you, staring you out of countenance, sizing you up and rejecting you.

It did that, I give you my word. It did all that at a few months old, and without the power of speech. Only you see, I thought it was merely a freak of some kind, some abnormality that disgusted one in an analysed way. and I thought it would die. I certainly thought it would die. I am most eager to see this new development. I haven't heard. It's confounded Crashaw, you say, and it cannot be more than four or five years old now.

Four, four and a half, returned Chalice, and then the conversation was interrupted by the necessity of skirting a tiny morass of wet leaf mould that lay in a hollow. Confounded Crashore, I should say, think so, Chalice went on, when they had found firm going again. The good man would not soil his devoted tongue by any condescension to Eraccio rector, but I gathered that the childhood made light of his divine authority. Great Caesar, ejaculated Lewis, but that is immense. What did crash or do? Shake him?

No, he certainly did not lay hands on him at all. His own expression was the that he did not know how it was, that he did not do the child an injury. That is one of the things that interest me enormously. The power I spoke of must have been retained. Crashaw must have been blue with anger. He could hardly repeat the story to me. He was so agitated. It would have surprised me less if he had told me he had murdered the child.

That I could have understood perfectly. It is, of course, quite incomprehensible to me as yet, yet, commented Lewis. When they came out of the woods onto the stretch of common from which you can see the great swelling undulations of the Hamden Hills,

Chalice stopped. A spear of April sunshine had pierced the load of cloud towards the west, and the bank of wood behind them gave shelter from the cold wind that had blown fiercely all the afternoon. It's a fine prospect,

said Chalice, with a sweep of his hand. I sometimes feel, Lewis, that we are over-intent on our own little narrow interests. Here are you and I, busying ourselves in an attempt to throw some little light, a very little it must be, on some petty problems of the origin of our race. We are looking downwards, downwards always, digging in old muck-heaps, raking up all kinds of unsavory rubbish to prove that we are born out of the dirt, and we have never a thought for the future in all our work, a future that may be glorious, who knows?

Here, perhaps, in this village, insignificant for most points of view, but set in a country that should teach us to raise our eyes from the ground. Here in this tiny hamlet is living a child who may become greater than Socrates or Shakespeare, a child who may revolutionise our conceptions of time and space. There have been greater men in the past who have done that, Lewis. There is no reason for us to doubt that still greater men may succeed them.

No, there's no reason for us to doubt that, said Lewis, and they walked on in silence towards Stott's cottage. Three. Chalice knocked and walked in. They found Ellen Mary and her son at the tea table. The mother rose to her feet and dropped a respectful curses, The boy glanced once at Gregory Lewis and then continued his meal as if he were unaware of any strange presence in the room. I'm sorry, I'm afraid we are interrupting you, Chalice apologised.

Pray sit down, Mrs. Stott, and go on with your tea. Thank you, sir, I just finished, sir, said Ellen Mary, and remained standing with an air of quiet deference. Chalice took the celebrated armchair. and a motioned Lewis to the windowsill, the nearest available seat for him. Please sit down, Mrs. Stott, he said, and Ellen Mary sat apologetically. The boy pushed his cup towards his mother and appointed to the teapot. He made a grunting sound to attract her attention. You'll excuse me, sir, murmured Ellen Mary,

and she refilled the cup and passed it back to her son, who received it without any acknowledgments. Chalice and Lewis were observing the boy intensely, but he took not the least notice of their scrutiny. He discovered no trace of self-consciousness. Henry Chalice and Gregory Lewis appear to have no place in the world of his abstraction. The figure the child presented to his two observers was worthy of careful scrutiny. At the age of four and a half years, the wonder was bald,

save for a few straggling wisps of reddish hair above the ears and at the base of the skull and a weak sparse down of the same colour on the crown. The eyebrows too were not marked by any line of hair but the eyelashes were thick though short and several shades darker than the hair on the skull. The face is not so easily described. The mouth and chin were relatively small

overshadowed by the broad cliff of forehead, but they were firm, the chin well moulded, the lips thin and compressed. The nose was unusual when seen in profile. There was no sign of a bony bridge, but it was markedly curved and chutted out at a curious angle

from the line of the face. The nostrils were widened open. None of these features produced any effect of childishness, but this effect was partially achieved by the contours of the cheeks, and by the fact that there was no indication of any lines on the face. The eyes nearly always wore their usual expression of abstraction. It was very rarely that the wonder allowed his intelligence to be exhibited by that medium.

When he did, the effect was strangely disconcerting, blinding. One received an impression of extraordinary concentration. It was as though, for an instant, the boy was able to give one a glimpse of the wonderful force of his intellect. When he looked one in the face with intention, and suddenly allowed one to realise, as it were, all the dominating power of his brain, one shrank into insignificance,

one felt as an ignorant, intelligent man may feel when confronted with some elaborate theorem of the higher mathematics. Is it possible that anyone can really understand these things, such a man might think with awe. And in the same way, one apprehended some vast, inconceivable possibilities of mind function when the wonder looked at one with, as I have said, intention. He was dressed in a little jacket suit and wore a linen collar.

The knicker-bockers, loose and badly cut, fell a little below the knees. His stockings were of worsted, his boots clumsy and thick-souled, though relatively tiny. one had the impression always that his body was fragile and small, but as a matter of fact, the body and limbs were, if anything, slightly better developed than those of the average child of four and a half years.

Chalice had ample opportunity to make these observations at various periods. He began them as he sat in the Stott's cottage. At first he did not address the boy directly. I hear your son has been having a religious condition. traversy with Mr. Crashaw, was his introduction to the object of his visit. Indeed, sir. Plainly this was not news to Mrs. Stott. Your son told you? Oh, no, sir, he never told me, replied Mrs. Stott.

It was Mr. Crashore. He's been here several times lately. Chalice looked sharply at the boy, but he gave no sign that he heard what was passing. Yes, Mr. Crashaw seems right. I'm rather upset about it. I'm sorry, sir, but... Yes, speak plainly, prompted Chalice. I assure you that you will have no cause to regret any confidence you may make to me. I can't see as it's any business of Mr. Crushoards, sir, if you'll forgive me for saying so.

He has been worrying you? Yes, sir, but he... She glanced at her son. She laid a stress on the pronoun always when she spoke of him that differentiated its significance. "'He hasn't seen Mr. Crashore again, sir.' Chalice turned to the boy. "'You are not interested in Mr. Crashore, I suppose,' he asked. The boy took no notice of the question.

Chalice was piqued. If this extraordinary child really had an intelligence, surely it must be possible to appeal to that intelligence in some way. He made another effort, addressing Mrs. Stott. "'I think we must forgive Mr. Crashore.' you know, Mrs. Stott. As I understand it, your boy at the age of four years and a half

has defied his cloth, if I may say so. He paused, and as he received no answer continued, but I hope that matter may be easily arranged. Thank you, sir, said Mrs. Stott, it's very kind of you.

I'm sure I'm greatly obliged to you, sir. That's only one reason of my visit to you, however. Chalice hesitated. "'I've been wondering whether I might not be able to help you and your son in some other way. "'I understand that he has unusual power of—of intelligence.' "'Indeed, he has, sir,' replied Mrs. Stott. "'And he can read, can't he? "'Oh, you've learned it what I could, sir. It isn't much.

"'Well, perhaps I could lend him a few books.' "'Challis made a significant pause, and again he looked at the boy, but there was no response, so he continued, "'Tell me what he has read. "'We have no books, sir, and we never hardly see a paper now. "'All we have any house is a Bible "'and two copies of Lily White's cricket annual "'as my husband left behind.'

"'Challis smiled. "'Has he read those?' he asked. "'The Bible he has, I believe,' replied Mrs. Stott. "'It was a conversation curious in its impersonality. "'Challis was conscious, of the anomaly that he was speaking in the boy's presence, crediting him with a remarkable intelligence, and yet addressing a frankly ignorant woman

as though the boy was not in the room. Yet how could he break that deliberate silence? It seemed to him as though there must, after all, be some mistake, yet how account for Crashore's story if the boy were indeed an idiot? With a slight show of temper he turned to the wonder, "'Do you want to read?' he asked. "'I have between forty and fifty thousand books in my library. "'I think it's possible that you might find one or two which would interest you.'

The wonder lifted his hand as though to ask for silence. For a minute, perhaps, no one spoke. All waited, expectant. Chalice and Lewis with intent eyes fixed on the detached expression of the child's face, Ellen Mary with bent head. It was a strange yet very logical question that came at last. What sure are you then, out of all them books? Asked the wonder.

He did not look at Chalice as he spoke. Four. Chalice drew a deep breath and looked at Lewis. Difficult question that, Lewis, he said. Lewis lifted his eyebrows and pulled at his fair moustache. "'If you take the question literally,' he muttered. "'You might learn the essential part of all the knowledge that has been discovered by mankind,' said Chalice. He phrased his sentence carefully as though he were afraid of being trapped.

"'Should I learn what I am?' asked the wonder. Chalice understood the question in its metaphysical acceptation. He had the sense of a powerful but undirected intelligence. working from simple premises of experience, of a cloistered mind that had functioned profoundly, a mind unbound by the tradition of all the speculations and discoveries of man, the essential conclusions of which were contained in that library at Chalice Court. "'No,' said Chalice after a perceptible interval, "'that you will not learn from any books in my possession,

but you will find grounds for speculation. Grounds for speculation, questioned the wonder. He repeated the words quite clearly, material, matter from which you can, formulate theories of your own, explained Chalice. The wonder shook his head.

It was evident that Chalice's sentence conveyed little or no meaning to him. He got down from his chair and took up an old cricket-cats, of his father's, a cap which his mother had let out by the addition of another gore of cloth that did not match the original material. He pulled this cap carefully over his bald head, and then made for the door. At the threshold the strange child paused, and without looking at anyone present said,

I'll come your library, and went out. Chalice joined Lewis at the window, and they watched the boy make his deliberate. way along the garden path and up the lane towards the fields beyond. Who let him go out by himself? asked Chalice. He likes to be in the air, sir, replied El and Mary. I suppose you have to let him go his own way. Oh, yes, sir. I will send the governess cart up for him tomorrow morning, said Chalice, at ten o'clock. That is, of course, if you have no objection to his coming.

He said he'd come, sir, replied. El and Mary. Her tone implied that there was no appeal possible against her son's statement of his wishes. "'His methods do not lack terseness,' remarked Lewis when he and Chalice were out of earshot of the cottage. "'His methods and manners are damnable,' said Chalice. "'But you were going to say,' prompted Lewis. "'Well, what is your opinion?' "'I'm not convinced as yet,' said Lewis. "'Oh, surely,' expostulated Chalice. "'Not from objective personal evidence. "'Let us put Crashore out of our minds for the moment.

"'Very well. Go on. State your case.' "'He has, so far, made four remarks in our presence,' said Lewis, gesticulating with his walking-stick. "'Two of them can be neglected, his repetition of your words which he did not understand, "'and his condescending promise to study your library.' Yes, I'm with you so far. Now, putting aside the preconception with which we entered the cottage, was there really anything in the other two remarks? Were they not the type of simple, unreasoning questions which one may often hear from the mouth of a child of that age? What shall I learn from your books?

Well, it is the natural question of the ignorant child who has no conception of the content of books, no experience which would furnish material for his imagination. Well, the second remark is more explicable still. It is a remark which we all make in childhood in some form or another. I remember quite well at the age of six or seven asking my mother, which is me, my soul or my body. I was brought up on the church catechism, but you at once accepted these questions,

which I maintain were questions possible in the mouth of a simple, ignorant child in some deep metaphysical expectation. Don't you think, sir, we should wait for further evidence before we attribute any phenomenal intelligence to this child. Quite the right attitude to take, Lewis, the scientific attitude, replied Chalice, let's go by the lane, he added as they reached the entrance to the wood. For some few moments they walked in silence, Chalice with his head down, his heavy shoulders humped.

His hands were clasped behind him, dragging his stick as it were a tail, which he occasionally cocked. He walked with a little stumble now and again, his eyes on the ground. Lewis strode with a sure foot, his head up, and he slashed at the tangle of last year's growth on the bank, whenever he passed some tempting butt for the swordplay of his stick.

"'Do you think, then,' said Chalice at last, "'that much of the atmosphere, "'you must have marked the atmosphere, "'of the child's personality, "'was a creation of our own minds due to our preconceptions.' "'Yes, I think so,' Lewis replied, "'a touch of defiance in his tone. "'Isn't that what you want to believe?' asked Chalice.

"'Louis hit at a flag of dead bracken and mist. "'You mean?' he prevaricated. I mean that there is a much stronger influence than any preconception, my dear Lewis. I'm no pragmatist, as you know, but there can be no doubt that with the majority of us, the wish to believe a thing is true, constitutes the truth of that thing for us, and that is, in my opinion, the wrong attitude for either scientist or philosopher. Now, in the case we are discussing, I suppose at bottom I should like to agree with you. one does not like to feel that a child of four and a half has greater intellectual powers than oneself.

Candidly, I do not like it at all. Of course not, but I can't think that, You can if you try, you would at once if you wish to, returned Chalice, anticipating the completion of Lewis's sentence. I'll admit that there are some remarkable facts in the case of this child, said Lewis, but I do not see why we should as yet take the whole proposition for granted. No, I'm with you there, returned Chalice, and no more was said until they were nearly home. Just before they turned into the drive, however, Chalice stopped.

Do you know, Lewis, he said, I am not sure that I'm doing a wise thing in bringing that child here. Lewis did not understand. No, sir, why not? he asked. "'Why, think of the possibilities of that child if he has all the powers I credit him with,' said Chalice. "'Think of his possibilities for original thought if he has kept away from all the traditions of this futile learning.' He waved an arm in the direction of the elongated chapel. "'Oh, but surely,' remonstrated Lewis, "'that is necessary groundwork.

"'Knowledge is built up step by step.' "'Is it?' I wonder. I sometimes doubt, said Chalice. Yes, I sometimes doubt whether we have ever learned anything at all that is worth knowing, and perhaps this child, if you were kept away from books. However, the thing is done now. And in any case, he would never have been able to dodge the school attendance officer. End of Chapter 7. Chapter 8 of the Hamdonshire Wonder by J.D. Beresford.

This Librivox recording is in the public domain. His first visit to Chalice Court. 1. Shall you be able to help me collating your notes of the Ticopia observations this morning, sir? Lewis asked. He rose from the breakfast table and lit a cigarette. There was no ceremony between Chalice and his secretary. You'll forget our engagements for ten o'clock, said Chalice.

"'Eat that distract us?' "'It need not, but doesn't it seem to you, "'but it may furnish us with valuable material. "'Hardly pertinent, sir, is it?' "'What line do you think of taking up, Lewis?' asked Chalice, "'with regard to this, this phenomenon.' "'No, no, I was speaking of your own ambitions.' "'Callis had sauntered over to the window.

he stood with his back to Lewis, looking out at the blue and white of the April sky. Lewis frowned. He did not understand the gist of the question. I suppose there is a year's work on this book before me yet, he said. Quite, quite, replied Chalice, watching a cloud shadow swarm up the slope of Dean Hill. Yes, certainly a year's work. I was thinking of the future. I have thought of laboratory work in connection with psychology, said Lewis, still puzzled. I thought I remembered your saying something of the kind, murmured Chalice absently. We are going to have more rain. It will be a late spring this year.

Had the question any bearing on our engagement of this morning? Lewis was a little anxious, uncertain whether this inquiry as to his future had not some particular significance, a hint perhaps, that his services would not be required much longer. Yes, I think it's had, said Chalice. I saw the governess cart go up the road a few minutes since. I suppose the boy will be here in a quarter of an hour, said Lewis, by way of keeping up the conversation. He was puzzled.

He did not know Chalice in this mood. He did not conceive it's possible that Chalice could be nervous about the arrival of so insignificant a person as this stop child. It's all very ridiculous, broke out Chalice suddenly, and he turned away from the window and joined Lewis by the fire. Did you think so? I'm afraid I don't follow you, sir.

Chalice laughed. I'm not surprised, he said. I was a trifling consecutive, but I wish you were more interested in the child, Lewis. The thought of him engrosses me, and yet I don't want to meet. him. I should be relieved to hear that he wasn't coming. Surely you, as a student of psychology.

He broke off with a lift of his heavy shoulders. Oh, yes, I am interested, certainly, as you say, as a student of psychology, we ought to take some measurements. The configuration of the skull is not abnormal otherwise than in relation to the development of the rest of his body, but... Lewis meandered off into somewhat abstruse speculation with regard to the significance of craniology. Chalice nodded his head and murmured, Quite, quite, occasionally. He seemed glad that Lewis should continue to talk.

The lecture was interrupted by the appearance of the governess cart. By Jove, he has come, ejaculated Chalice in the middle of one of Lewis's periods. You'll have to see me through the... this, my boy, I'm damned if I know how to take the child. Lewis flushed, annoyed at the interruption of his lecture. He had believed that he had been interesting. Curse the kid, was the thought in his mind as he followed chalice to the window. Two, Jessup, the groom deputed to fetch the wonder from Pim, looked a little uneasy, perhaps a little scared. When he drew up at the porch, the child pointed to the door of the cart and indicated that it was to be opened for

him. He was evidently used to being waited upon. When this command had been obeyed, he descended deliberately and then pointed to the front door. "'Open!' he said clearly, as Jessop hesitated. The wonder knew nothing of Bell's or ceremony. Jessop came down from the cart and rang. The butler opened the door. He was an old servant, and accustomed to his master's eccentricities. But he was not prepared for the vision of that strange little figure, with a large head in a party-coloured cricket cap, an apparition that immediately walked straight by him into the hall

and pointed to the first door he came to. "'Oh dear, well, to be sure,' gasped Heathcote. "'Why, whatever!' "'Open!' commanded the wonder, and Heathcote obeyed, weakly. need. The door chanced to be the right one, the door of the breakfast room, and the wonder walked in, still wearing his cap. Chalice came forward to meet him with a conventional greeting. I'm glad you were able to come, he began, but the child took no notice. He looked rapidly

around the room, and not finding what he wanted, signified his desire by a single word. "'Foaks,' he said, and looked at Chalice. He said, and looked at Chalice. Heathcote stood at the door, hesitating between amazement and disapproval. I've never seen the like, was how he phrased his astonishments later in the servants' hall. Never in all my born days to see that melon-headed hemp in a cricket cap, hoardering the master about. Well, there. Jessup says he forgot the crates driving him over, said the cook. He says the choice of not right in his head.

Much embroidery followed in the servants' hall. Interlude. This brief history of the Hamdonshire wonder is marked by a stereotype division into three parts, an arbitrary arrangements dependent on the experience of the writer. The true division becomes manifest at this point. The life of Victor Stott was cut into two distinct sections, between which there is no correlation. The first part should take.

tell the story of his mind during the life of experience. The time occupied in observation of the phenomena of life presented to him in fact, without any specific teaching on the theories of existence and progress, or on the speculation as to ultimate destiny. The second part should deal with his entry into the world of books, into that account of a long series of collated experiments and partly verified hypotheses we call science, into the imperfectly developed system of inductive and deductive logic, which determines mathematics and philosophy, into the long, inaccurate and largely unverifiable account of human blindness and error,

known as history, and into the realm of idealism, symbol, and pitiful pride we find in the story of poetry, letters, and religion. I will confess that I once contemplated the writing of such a history. It was Chalice, who, in his courtly gentle way, pointed out to me that no man living had the intellectual capacity to undertake so profound a work. For some three months before I had this conversation with Chalice, I had been wrapped in solitude, dreaming, speculating.

I had been uplifted in thought, I had come to believe myself inspired as a result of my separation from the world of men and of the deep introspection and meditation in which I had been plunged. I had arrived at a point, perhaps not far removed from madness, at which I thought myself capable of setting out the true history of Victor Stought. Chalice broke the spell. He cleared away the false glamour which was blinding and intoxicating me, and brought me back to a condition of open-eyed sanity.

To Chalice I owe a great debt, yet at the moment I was sunk in depression. All the glory of my vision had faded, the afterglow was quenched in the blackness of the night that drew out of the east and fell from the zenith as a curtain of utter darkness. Again Chalice came to my rescue. He brought me a great sheaf of notes.

"'Look here,' he said. "'If you can't write a true history of that strange child, "'I see no reason why you should not write his story as it is known to you, "'as it impinges on your own life. "'After all, you in many ways know more of him than anyone. "'You came nearest to receiving his confidence. "'But only during the last few months,' I said. "'Does that matter?' said Chalice, with an upheaval of his shoulders.

Shrug, is far too insignificant a word for that mountainous hamping. Is any biography founded on better material than you have at command? He unfolded his bundle of notes. See here, he said, here is some magnificent material for you. First-hand observations made at the time. Can't you construct a story from that? Even then, I began to cast my story in a slight. biographical form. I wrote half a dozen chapters and read them to Chalice.

Magnificent, my dear fellow, was his comment, magnificent, but no one will believe it. I had been carried away by my own prose, and with the natural vanity of the author, I resented intensely his criticism. For some weeks I did not see Chalice again, and I persisted in my futile endeavour, but always, as I wrote, that killing suggestion insinuated itself. No one will believe you. The times I felt as a man may feel

who has spent many years in a lunatic asylum and after his release is forever engaged in a struggle to allay the doubts of a leering suspicion. I gave up the hopeless task at last and sought out chalice again. "'Write it as a story,' he suggested, "'and give up the attempt to carry conviction.

"'And in that spirit, adopting the form of a story I did begin, "'and in that form I hope to finish. "'But here as I reached the great division, "'the determining factor of Victor Stott's life, "'I am constrained to pause and apologize. "'I have become uncomfortably conscious "'of my own limitations, and the feeble ephemeral methods I am using.

I am trifling with a wonderful story, embroidering my facts with the tawdry detail of my own imagining. I saw, I see, no other way. This is indeed a preface, yet I prefer to put it in this place, since it was at this time I wrote it. On the common a faint green is coming again, like a mist among the ash trees,

when the oak is still dead and bare. Last year the oak came first. They say we shall have a wet summer. End of Chapter 8. Chapter 9 of the Hamdonshire Wonder by J.D. Beresford. This Librevox recording is in the public domain. Part 2 continued. The wonder among books.

Chapter 9. His passage through the Prison of Knowledge. 1. Chalice led the way to the library. Lewis, petulant and a mutinous, hung in the rear. The wonder toddled forward, unabashed, to enter his new world. On the threshold, however, he paused.

His comprehensive stare took in a sweeping picture of enclosing walls of books, and beyond was a vista of further rooms, of more walls, all lined from floor to ceiling with records of human discovery, endeavor, doubt and hope. The wonder stayed and stared.

Then he took two faltering steps into the room and stopped again, and, finally, he looked up at chalice with doubt and question, his gaze no longer quelling and authoritative, but hesitating, compliant, and perhaps a little childlike. "'Have you read all these?' he asked. It was a curious picture. the tall figure of chalice, snooping as always slightly forward. Chalice, with his seaman's eyes and sculler's head,

his hands loosely clasped together behind his back, paying such scrupulous attention to that grotesque representative of a higher intellectuality, clothed in the dress of a villager, a patched cricket cap drawn down over his globular skull, his little arms hanging loosely at his sides, who, nevertheless, even, even in this new strange aspect of unwanted humility,

bore on his face the promise of some ultimate development which differentiated him from all other humanity, as the face of humanity is differentiated from the face of its prognathous ancestor. The scene is set in a world of books, and in the background lingers the athletic figure and fair head of Lewis, the young Cambridge undergraduate, the disciple of science, hardly yet across the threshold, which divides him from the knowledge of his own ignorance. "'Have you read all these?' asked the wonder.

"'A greater part of them?' in effect,' replied Chalice. "'There is much repetition you understand, and much record of experiment which becomes, in a sense, worthless, when the conclusions are either finally accepted or rejected.' The eyes of the wonder shifted, and their expression became absolutely. He seemed to lose consciousness of the outer world. He wore the look, which you may see in the eyes of Jacob Schlesinger's portrait of the mature Hegel, a look of profound introspection and analysis.

There was an interval of silence, and then the wonder unknowingly gave expression to a quotation from Hamlet. "'Words,' he whispered reflectively, and then again, words. Two. Chalice understood him, You have not yet learned the meaning of words, he asked. The brief period, the only one recorded, of amazement and submission, was over. It may be that he had doubted during those few minutes of time whether he was well advised to enter into that world of books,

whether he would not, by so doing, stunt his own mental growth. It may be that the decision of the decision of, so momentous a question should have been postponed for a year, two years, to a time when his mind should have further possibilities for unlettered expansion. However that may be, he decided now and finally, he walked to the table and climbed up on a chair. "'Fokes about words,' he commanded, and pointed at Chalice and Lewis.

They brought him the latest production of the 20th century in many volumes, the work of a dozen eminent authorities on the etymology of the English language, and they seated him on eight volumes of the Encyclopedia Britannica, India Paper Edition, in order that he might reach the level of the table. At first they tried to show him how his wonderful dictionary should be used, but he pushed them on one side. Neither then nor at any future time would he consent to be taught. The process was too tedious for him,

him. His mind worked more fluency rapidly and comprehensively than the mind of the most gifted teacher that could have been found for him. So Chalice and Lewis stood on one side and watched him, and he was no more embarrassed by their presence than if they had been in another world, as possibly they were. He began with Volume 1, and he read the title page and the introduction, the list of abbreviations and all the preliminary matter in due order. Chalice noted that when the wonder began to read, he read no faster than the average educated man, but that he acquired facility at a most astounding rate,

and that when he had been reading for a few days, his eye swept down the column, as it were, at a single glance. Chalice and Lewis watched him for perhaps half an hour, and then, seeing that their presence was of a very moment, an entirely negligible value to the wonder, they left him and went into the farther room. "'Well?' asked Chalice. "'What do you make of him?' "'Is he reading or pretending to read?'

"'Harid Lewis. Do you think it's possible that he could read so fast?' "'Moreover, remember that he has admitted that he knows few words of the English language, yet he does not refer from volume to volume. He does not look up the meanings of the many unknown words which must occur in every definition. I know, I had noticed that. Did you think he is humbugging, pretending to read? No, that solution seems to me altogether unlikely.

He could not, for one thing, simulates that look of attention. Remember, Lewis, the child is not yet five years old. What is your explanation then? I am wondering whether the child has not a memory, "'Beside which the memory of a McCauley would appear insignificant.' "'Louis did not grasp Chalice's intention. "'Even so,' he began. "'And,' continued Chalice,

"'I am wondering whether, if that is the case, "'he is, in effect, prepared to learn the whole dictionary by heart, "'and so to speak, collate its contents later in his mind.' "'Oh, sir,' Lewis smiled. "'The supposition was too outraged, just to be taken seriously. Surely you can't mean that. There was something in Lewis's tone which carried a hint of contempt for so far-fetched a hypothesis. Chalice was pacing up and down the library. His hands clasped behind him. "'Yes, I mean it,' he said without looking up. I put it forward as a serious theory,

worthy of full consideration.' Lewis sneered. "'Oh, surely not, sir.' he said. Chalice stopped and faced him. Why not, Lewis, why not? He asked with a kindly smile. Think of the gap which separates your intellectual powers from those of a Polynesian savage. Why, after all, should it be impossible

that this child's powers should equally transcend our own? A freak, if you will, an abnormality, a curious effect of natures, like the giant puffball, But still, Oh, yes, sir, I grant you the thing is not impossible from a theoretical point of view, argued Lewis, but I think you are theorising on altogether insufficient evidence. I'm willing to admit that such a freak is theoretically possible,

but I have not yet found the indications of such a power in the child. Chalice resumed his pacing. Quite, quite, he assented. Your method is perfectly correct. Perfectly correct. We must wait. At twelve o'clock, Chalice brought a glass of milk and some biscuits and set them behind the wonder. He was at the letter B. Well, how are you getting on? asked Chalice.

The wonder took not the least notice of the question, but he stretched out a little hand and took a biscuit and ate it, without looking up from his reading. I wish he'd answered questions, Chalice remarked. to Lewis later. I should prescribe a sound shaking, returned Lewis. Chalice smiled. Well, see here, Lewis, he said.

I'll take the responsibility. You go and experiment. Go and shake him. Lewis looked through the folding doors at the picture of the wonder, intent on his study of the great dictionary. Since you have franked me, he said, I'll do it, but not now.

I'll wait till he gives me some occasion. Good, replied Chalice, my offer holds. And by the way, I have no doubt that an occasion will present itself. Doesn't it strike you as likely, Lewis, that we shall see a good deal of the child here? They stood for some minutes, watching the picture of that intense student, framed in the written thoughts of his predecessors. Three. The wonder ignored an invitation to lunch. He ignored also the tray that was sent into him. He read on steadily till a quarter to six,

by which time he was at the end of Elle, and then he climbed down from his encyclopedia and made for the door. Chalice, working in the farther room, saw him and came out to open the door. Are you going now? he asked. The child nodded. I will order the cart for you if you will wait ten minutes,

said Chalice. The child shook his head. "'It is very necessary to have air,' he said. "'Something in the tone and pronunciation struck chalice "'and awoke a long-dormant memory. "'The sentence spoken suddenly conjured up a vision "'of the Stott's cottage at Stoke, "'of the Stots at tea,

"'of a cradle in the shadow, "'and of himself sitting in an uncomfortable arm-chair "'and swinging his stick between his knees. "'When the child had gone, walking deliberately, and evidently regarding the mile and a half walk through the twilight wood and over the deserted common as a trivial incident in the day's business. Chalice set himself to analyse that curious association. As he strolled across the hall to the library, he tried to reconstruct the scene of the cottage at Stoke and to recall the outline of the conversation he had had with the Stott's.

Lewis, he said when he reached the room in which his secretary was working, looking. Lewis, this is curious, and he described the associations called up by the child's speech. The curious thing is, he continued, that I had gone to advise Mrs. Stott to take a cottage at Pim, because the Stoke villagers were hostile in some way, and she did not care to take the child out in the street. It is more than probable that I use just those words. It is very necessary to have air. very probable. Now, what about my memory theory? The child was only six months old at the time. Lewis appeared unconvinced. There is nothing very unusual in the sentence, he said. Forgive me, replied Chalice. I don't agree with you. It is not phrased as a villager would phrase it,

and as I tell you, it was not spoken with a local accent. You may have spoken the sentence today, suggested Lewis. I may, of course, though I don't remember saying anything of the sort, but that would not account for the curiously vivid association which was conjured up. Lewis pursed his lips. No, no, no, he said, but that is hardly ground for argument, is it? I suppose not, returned Chalice thoughtfully. But when you take up psychology, Lewis, I should much like you to specialize in a care

inquiry into association and connection with memory. I feel certain that if one can reproduce as nearly as may be any complex sensation one has experienced, no matter how long ago, one will stimulate what I may call an abnormal memory of all the associations connected with that experience. Just now, I saw the interior of that room in the Stott's cottage so clearly that I had an image of a dreadful oligraph of Disraeli hanging on the wall. But now I cannot for the life of me remember whether there was such an oligraph or not. I do not remember noticing it at the time. Yes, that's very interesting, replied Lewis.

There is certainly a wide field for research in that direction. You might throw much light on our mental processes, replied Chalice. It was as the outcome of this conversation that Gregory Lewis did, two years afterwards, take up this line of study. The only result up to the present time is his little brochure, reflexive associations, which has hardly added to our knowledge of the subject. 4. Chalice's anticipation that he and Lewis would be greatly favoured by the Wonders' company was fully realised.

The child put in an appearance at half-past nine the next morning, just as the governess cart was starting out to fetch him. When he was admitted, he went straight to the library, climbed onto the chair upon which the volumes of the encyclopedia still remained, and continued his reading where he had left off on the previous evening. He read steadily throughout the day without giving utterance to speech of any kind. Chalice and Lewis went out in the afternoon and left the child deep in study. They came in at five o'clock and went to the library.

The wonder, however, was not there. Chalice rang the bell. Has little Stott gone? he asked when Heathcott came. I haven't seen him, sir, said Heathcote. Just find out if anyone opened the door for him, will you? said Chalice. He couldn't possibly have opened that door for himself. "'No one hasn't let Mr. Stott out, sir,' Heathcote reported on his return.

"'Are you sure?' "'Quite sure, sir. I've made full inquiries,' said Heathcote with dignity. "'Well, we'd better find him,' said Chalice. "'The window is open,' suggested Lewis. "'He would hardly,' began Chalice, walking over to the low sill of the open window. but he broke off in his sentence and continued, By Jove, he did, though, Ukiah!

It was indeed quite obvious that the wonder had made his exit by the window. The tiny prints of his feet were clearly marked in the mould of the flower bed. He had, moreover, disregarded all results of early spring floriculture. See how he has smashed those daffodils, said Lewis. What had infernally. cheeky little brute hears.

What interests me is the logic of the child, returned Chalice. I would venture to guess that he wasted no time in trying to attract attention. The door was closed, so he just got out of the window. I rather admire the spirit. There is something Napoleonic about him, don't you think so? Lewis shrugged his shoulders. Heathcote's expression was quite non-committal. You'd better send Jess a jesson.

up to Pym Heathcote, said Chalice. Let him find out whether the child is safe at home. Jessup reported an hour afterwards that Master Stott had arrived home quite safely, and Mrs. Stott was much obliged. Five. What can I give that child to read today? Asked Chalice at breakfast next morning. I should reverse the arrangement.

Let him sit on the dictionary and read the encyclopedia. Lewis always approached the subject of the wonder with a certain supercilious contempt. You are not convinced yet that he isn't humbugging. No, frankly, I'm not. Well, well, we must wait for more evidence before we argue about it, said Chalice. But they sat on over the breakfast table, waiting for the child to put in an appearance, and their conversation hovered over the topic of his intelligence. Half past ten, Chalice ejaculated at last with surprise.

We are getting into slack habits, Lewis. He rose and rang the bell. Apparently the Stott infant has had enough of it, suggested Lewis. Perhaps he has exhausted the interest of dictionary illustrations. We shall see, replied Chalice. And then to a deferentially appearing Heathcote, he said, Has Master Stott come this morning? No, sir, least ways no one hasn't let him in, sir.

It may be that he is mentally collating the results of the past two days' reading, said Chalice, as he and Lewis made their way to the library. Oh, was all Lewis's reply, but it conveyed much of the impatience contempt for his employer's attitude. Chalice only smiled. When they entered the library, they found the wonder hard at work, and he had, of his own initiative, adopted the plan ironically suggested by Lewis, for he had succeeded in transferring the dictionary volumes to the chair,

and he was deep in volume one of the 11th edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica. The library was never cleared up by anyone except Chalice or his deputy, but an early housemaid had been sent to dust, and she had left the casement of one of the lower lights of the window open, The means of the wonder's entrance was less clearly in evidence. It's Napoleonic, murmured Chalice. It's most infernal cheek, returned Lewis in a loud voice. I should not be at all surprised if that promised shaking were not administered today.

The wonder took no notice. Chalice says that on that morning his eyes were travelling down the page at about the rate which one could count lines. "'He isn't reading,' said Lewis. "'None could read as fast as that, "'and most certainly not a child of four and a half.' "'If he would only answer questions,' hesitated Chalice. "'Oh, of course he won't do that,' said Lewis.

"'He's clever enough not to give himself away.' "'The two men went over to the table "'and looked down over the child's shoulder. "'He was in the middle of the article on algebra.' Lewis made a gesture. Now, do you believe he's humbugging? He asked confidently and made no effort to modulate his voice. Chalice drew his eyebrows together.

My boy, he said, and laid his hand lightly on Victor Stott's shoulder. Can you understand what you are reading there? But no answer was vouchsafed. Chalice sighed. Come along, Lewis, he said, we must waste. No more time. Lewis wore a look of smug triumph as they went to the farther room, but he was clever enough to refrain from expressing his triumph in speech.

6. Chalice gave directions that the window which the wonder had found to be his most convenient method of entry and exit should be kept open, except at night, and a stool was placed under the sill inside the room, and a low bench was fixed outside, to for the first. facilitate the child's goings and comings. Also, a little path was made across the flowerbed. The wonder gave no trouble. He arrived at nine o'clock every morning, Sunday included, and left at a quarter to six in the evening. On wet days he was provided with a waterproof, which had evidently been made by his mother out of a larger garment. This he took off when he

entered the room and left on the stool under the window. He was given a glass of milk and a plate of bread and butter at 12 o'clock, and except for this, he demanded and received no attention. For three weeks he devoted himself exclusively to the study of the encyclopedia. Lewis was puzzled. Chalice spoke little of the child during these three weeks, but he often stood at the entrance to the farther rooms and watched the wonders. eyes travelling so rapidly yet so intensely down the page. That sight had a curious fascination for him. He returned to his own work by an effort, and an hour afterwards he would be back again at the door of the larger room. Sometimes Lewis would hear him mutter, if only he would answer a few

questions. There was always one hope in Chalice's mind. He hoped that some sort of climax might be reached when the encyclopedia was finished. The child must at least ask then for another book. Even if he chose one for himself, his choice might furnish some sort of a test. So Chalice waited and said little, and Lewis was puzzled because he was beginning to doubt whether it were possible that the child could sustain a pose so long. That in itself would be evidence of extraordinary abnormality. Lewis fumbled in his mind for another hypothesis. This reading craze may be symptomatic of some form of idiocy, was his thought,

and I don't believe he does read, was the inevitable rider. Mrs. Stott usually came to meet her son, and sometimes she would come early in the afternoon and stand at the window watching him at his work. But neither Chalice nor Lewis ever saw, the wonder displayed by any sign that he was aware of his mother's presence. During those three weeks, the wonder held himself completely detached from any intercourse with the world of men. At the end of that period, he once more manifested his awareness of the human factor in existence. Chalice, if he spoke little to Lewis of the wonder during

this time, maintained a strict observation of the child's doings. The wonder began his last volume of the encyclopedia one Wednesday afternoon, soon after lunch, and on Thursday morning Chalice was continually in and out of the room, watching the child's progress, and noting his nearness to the end of the colossal task he had undertaken. At a quarter to twelve he took up his old position in the doorway, and with his hands clasped behind his back, he watched the reading of the last 40 pages. There was no slackening and no quickening in the wonder's rate of progress. He read the articles under Z with the same attention he had given to the remainder of the work,

and then, arrived at the last page, he closed the volume and took up the index. Chalice suffered a quarm, not so much on account of the possible postponement of the crisis he was awaiting, as because he saw that the reading of the index, could only be taken as a sign that the whole study had been unintelligent. No one could conceivably have any purpose in reading through an index, and at this moment Lewis joined him in the doorway. What volume has he got to now? asked Lewis. The index, returned Chalice.

Lewis was no less quick in drawing his inference than Chalice had been. Well, that settles it, I should think, was Louis's. comment. Wait, wait, returned Chalice. The wonder turned a dozen pages at once, glanced at the new opening, made a further brief examination of two or three headings near the end of the volume, closed the book and looked up. Have you finished? asked Chalice. The wonder shook his head. Or this, he said, he indicated with a small and dirty hand the pile of volumes that were

massed round him. Or this, he repeated, hesitated for a word, and again shook his head with that solemn, deliberate impressiveness, which marked all his actions. Chalice came towards the child, leaned over the table for a moment, and then sat down opposite to him. Between the two protagonists, hovered Lewis, skeptical, inclined towards aggression.

I am most interested, said Chalice. Will you try to tell me, my boy? Would you think of all this? So elementary, incoate, a disjunctive patchwork, replied the wonder. His abstracted eyes were blind to the objective world of our reality.

He seemed to be profoundly analysing the very elements of thought. Seven. Then that almost voiceless child found words, Heathcote's announcement of lunch was waved aside. The long afternoon waned, and still that thin trickle of sound flowed on. The wonder spoke in odd pedantic phrases. He used the technicalities of every science. He constructed his sentences in unusual ways,

and often he paused for a word and gave up the search, admitting that his meaning could not be expressed through the medium of any language, known to him. Occasionally Chalice would interrupt him fiercely, would even rise from his chair, and pace the room, arguing, stating a point of view, combating some suggestion that underlay the trend of that pitiless wisdom, which in the end bore him down with its unanswerable insistence. During those long hours, much was stated by that small, thin voice, which was utterly beyond the comprehension of the two listeners. Indeed, it is doubtful whether even Chalice understood a tithe of the theory that was actually expressed in words.

As for Lewis, though he was at the time nonplussed, qulled, he was in the outcome impressed rather by the marvellous powers of memory exhibited than by the far finer powers shown in the superhuman logic of the synthesis. One sees that Lewis entered upon the interview with a mind predisposed to criticise, to destroy. There can be no doubt that as he listened, his uninformed mind was endeavouring to analyse, to weigh and to oppose,

and this antagonism and his own thoughts continually interposed between him and the thought of the speaker. Lewis's account of what was spoken on that afternoon is utterly worthless. Chalice's failure to comprehend was not at the outset due to his antagonistic attitude, He began with an earnest wish to understand.

He failed only because the thing spoken was beyond the scope of his intellectual powers. But he did, nevertheless, understand the trend of that analysis of progress. He did, in some half-realized way, apprehend the gist of that terrible deduction of a final adjustment. He must have apprehended in part, for he fiercely combated the argument, only to quaver at last into a silence which permitted again that trickle of hesitating, pedantic speech, which was yet so overwhelming, so conclusive. As the afternoon wore on, however, Chalice's attitude must have changed. He must have assumed an armour of mental resistance,

not unlike the resistance of Lewis. Chalice perceived however dimly that life would hold no further pleasure for him if he accepted that theory of origin, evolution, and final adjustments. He found in this cosmogany no place for his own idealism, and he feared to be convinced even by that fraction of the whole argument which he could understand. We see that Chalice, with all his apparent devotion to science, was never more than a dilettante.

He had another stake in the world, which, at the last analysis he v vows. valued more highly than the acquisition of knowledge. Those means of ease, of comfort, of liberty, of opportunity to choose his work among various interests with a ruling influence of his life. With it all, Chalice was an idealist and unpractical. His genial charity, his refinement of mind,

his unthinking generosity, indicates the bias of a character which inclined always towards a person, picturesque optimism. It is not difficult to understand that he dared not allow himself to be convinced by Victor Stott's appalling synthesis. At last, when the twilight was deepening into night, the voice ceased, the child's story had been told, and it had not been understood. The wonder never again spoke of his theory of life.

He realised from that time no one could comprehend him. As he rose to go, he asked one question that, simple as was its expression, had a deep and wonderful significance. "'Is there none of my kind?' he said. "'Is this?' and he laid a hand on the pile of books before him. "'Is this all?' "'There is none of your kind,' replied Chalice, and the little figure born into a world that could not understand him

that was not ready to receive him, walked to the window, had climbed out into the darkness. Henry Chalice is the only man who could ever have given any account of that extraordinary analysis of life, had he made no effort to recall the fundamental basis of the argument

and so allowed his memory of the essential part to fade. Moreover, he had a marked disinclination to speak of that afternoon, or of anything that was said, by Victor Stott during those six momentous hours of expression. It is evident that Chalice's attitude to Victor Stott was not unlike the attitude of Captain Wallace to Victor Stott's father

on the occasion of Hamdonshire's historic match with Surrey. This man will have to be bored, Wallace said. It means the end of cricket. Chalice in effect thought that if Victor Stott were encouraged, it would mean the end of research, philosophy, or the mystery, idealism and joy of life. Once and once only did Chalice give me any idea of what he had learned during that afternoon's colloquy,

and the substance of what Chalice then told me will be found at the end of this volume. End of Chapter 9 Chapter 10 of the Hamdenshire Wonder by J.D. Beresford. This Librevox recording is in the public, public domain. His pastors and masters. 1. For many months after that long afternoon in the library, Chalice was affected with a fever of restlessness, and his work on the book stood still.

He was in Rome during May, and in June he was seized by a sudden whim, and went to China by the Trans-Siberian Railway. Louis did not accompany him. Chalice preferred one imagines to have no intercourse with Lewis while the memory of certain pronouncements was still fresh. He might have been tempted to discuss that interview, and if, as was practically certain, Lewis attempted to pour contempt on the whole affair, Chalice might have been drawn into a defence

which would have revived many memories he wished to obliterate. He came back to London in September. He made his return, journey by Steamer and found his secretary still working at the monograph on the primitive peoples of Melanesha. Lewis had spent the whole summer in Chalice's townhouse in Eaton Square, with all the material had been removed two days after that momentous afternoon in the library of Chalice's court. I've been wanting your help badly for some time, sir, Lewis said on the evening of Chalice's return. Are you proposing to take up the work again?

If not, Gregory Lewis thought he was wasting valuable time. Yes, yes, of course, I'm ready to begin again now, if you care to go on with me, said Chalice. He talked for a few minutes of the book without any great show of interest. Presently they came to a pause, and Lewis suggested that he should give some account of how his time had been spent. Tomorrow, replied Chalice, tomorrow will be time enough. I shall settle down again in a few days. He hesitated a moment and then said, Any news from Chilbrough?

No, I don't think so, returned Lewis. He was occupied with his own interests. He doubted Chalice's intention to continue his work on the book. The announcement had been so half-hearted. What about that child? asked Chalice. That child? Lewis appeared to have forgotten the existence of Victor Stott.

That abnormal child of Stott's, prompted Chalice. Oh, of course, yes. I believe he still goes nearly every day to the library. I have been down there two or three times and found him reading. He has learned the use of the index catalogue.

He can get any book he wants. He uses the steps. Do you know what he reads? No, I can't say I do. What do you think will become of him? Oh, these infant prodigies, you know, said Lewis with a large air of authority, they all go the same way. Most of them die young, of course. The others develop into ordinary commonplace men, rather under than over the normal ability.

After all, it is what one would expect. Nature always maintains her average by some means or another. If a child like this, with his abnormal memory, would to go on developing, they would be no place for him in the world's economy. The idea is inconceivable. Quite, quite, murmured Chalice, and after a short silence he added, do you think he will deteriorate, that his faculties will decay prematurely? I should say there could be no doubt of it, replied Lewis. Oh, well, I'll go down and have a look at him one day next week, said Chalice,

but he did not go till the middle of October. The direct cause of his going was a letter from Crashaw, who offered to come up to town as the matter was one of really peculiar urgency. I wonder if the young stotter's been blaspheming again, Chalice remarked to Lewis, Why are the man that I'll go down and see him this afternoon? I shall motor, say I'll be at Stoke about half-bast three. Two. Chalice was uttered into Crashore's study on his arrival, and found the rector in company with another man, introduced as Mr. Foreman,

a jolly-looking, high-complexioned man of sixty or so, with a great quantity of white hair on his head and face. He was wearing an old-fashioned morning coat and grey trousers that were noticeably too short for him. Crashaw lost no time in introducing the subject of really peculiar urgency, but he rambled in his introduction. You have probably forgotten, he said, that last spring I had to bring a most horrible charge against a child called Victor Stott, who has since been living, practically as I may say, under your Aegis. That is, he has at least, spent a greater part of his day a playing in your library at Chalice's court. "'Quite, quite, quite, I remember perfectly,' said Chalice. "'I made myself responsible for him up to a certain point.

"'I gave him an occupation. "'It was intended, was it not, to divert his mind "'from speaking against religion to the yokels.' "'What a character, if I may say so?' "'put in Mr. Foreman cheerfully. "'Krasher was seated at his study table. "'The affair had something the effect of an examining magistrate, taking the evidence of witnesses.

Yes, yes, he said testily. I did ask your help, Mr. Chalice, and I did, in a way, receive some assistance from you. That is, the child has to some extent been isolated by spending so much of his time at your house. Has he broken out again? asked Chalice. If I understand you to mean, has the child been speaking openly

on any subject connected with religion, I must say no, said Crashore. But he never attends any Sunday school or place of worship. He has received no instruction in any sacred subject, though I understand he is able to read, and his time is spent among books, which, pardon me, would not, I suppose, be likely to give a serious turn to his thoughts. Serious?

Questioned Chalice. "'Perhaps I should say religious,' replied Crashore. "'To me the two words are synonymous.' Mr. Foreman bowed his head slightly with an air of reverence and nodded two or three times to express his perfect approval of the rector's sentiments. "'You think the child's mind is being perverted by his intercourse with the books in the library, "'where he—he plays, was your word, I believe?' "'No, not altogether,' replied Crouchard, drawing his eyebrows together.

"'We can hardly suppose that he is able, at so tender an age, to read, much less to understand those works of philosophy and science which would produce an evil effect on his mind. I am willing to admit, since I too have had some training in scientific reading, that writers on those subjects are not easily understood even by the mature intelligence. "'Then why exactly do you wish me to prohibit the child from coming to Chalice's court?' "'Possibly you have not realised that the child is now five years old,' said Crashore, with an air of conferring illumination. "'Indeed, yes, an age of some discretion, no doubt,' returned Chalice. "'An age at which the state requires that he should receive the elements of

education,' continued Crashore. "'A?' said to her. "'Send to be. "'It,' said to be, Chalice. Time he went to school, explained Mr. Foreman. I've been after him, you know. I'm the attendance officer for this district. Chalice for once committed a breach of good manners. The import of the thing suddenly appealed to his sense of humour. He began to chuckle, and then he laughed out to great hearty laugh, such as had not been stirred in him for twenty years. Oh, forgive me, forgive me, he said when he had recovered his self-control. But you don't know, you can't conceive the utter childish absurdity of setting that child to recite the multiplication table with village infants of his own age. Oh, believe me, if you could only guess, you would laugh with me.

It's so funny, so inimitably funny. I fail to see Mr Chalice, said Crashore, that there is anything in any way absurd or unusual in the proposition. Five is the age fixed by the state, said Mr. Foreman. He had relaxed into a broad smile in sympathy with Chalice's laugh, but he had now relapsed into a fair imitation of Crashore's intense seriousness. Oh, how can I explain? said Chalice's. "'Let me take an instance. "'You propose to teach him, among other things, the elements of arithmetic.'

"'It is a part of the curriculum,' replied Mr. Foreman. "'I have only had one conversation with this child,' went on Chalice, "'and at the mention of that conversation his brows drew together, "'and he became very grave again. "'But in the course of that conversation, "'this child had occasion to refer, by way of illustration, "'to some abstruse. theorem of the differential calculus. He did it, you will understand, by way of making his meaning

clear, though the illustration was utterly beyond me. That reference represented an act of intellectual condescension. God bless me, you don't say so, said Mr. Foreman. I cannot see, said Crashore, that this instance of yours, Mr. Chalice, has any real bearing on the situation. If the child is a mathematical genius, There have been instances in history, such as Blaise Pascal, he would not, of course, receive elementary instruction in a subject with which he was already acquainted. You could not find any subject, believe me, Crashore, in which he could be instructed by any teacher in a council school. Forgive me, I don't agree with you, returned Crashore.

He is sadly in need of some religious training. He would not get that at a council school. said Mr. Chalice, and Mr. Foreman shook his head sadly, as though he greatly deprecated the fact. He must learn to recognise authority, said Crashaw. When he has been taught the necessity of submitting himself to all his governors, teachers, spiritual pastors and masters, ordering himself lowly and reverently to all his betters, when I say he has learnt that lesson, he may be in a fit and proper condition to receive the teachings of the Holy Church. Mr. Foreman appeared to think he was attending divine service.

If the rector had said, let us pray, there can be no doubt that he would immediately have fallen on his knees. Chalice shook his head. You can't understand, Crashore, he said. I do understand, said Crashore, rising to his feet. And I intend to see that the day. the statute is not disobeyed in the case of this child, Victor stopped. Chalice shrugged his shoulders. Mr. Foreman assumed an expression of stern determination.

In any case, why drag me into it? asked Chalice. Crashaw sat down again. The flush which had warmed his sallow skin subsided as his passion died out. He had worked himself into a condition of righteous indignation, but the calm politeness of Chalice rebuked him. If Craschor prided himself on his devotion to the church, he did not wish that attitude to overshadow the pride he also took in the belief that he was Chalice's social equal.

Creshor's father had been a lawyer with a fair practice in Derby, but he had worked his way up to a partnership from the position of office boy, had Percy Croshaw seldom forgot to be conscious that he was a gentleman by education and profession. I did not wish to drag you into this business, he said quietly, putting his elbows on the writing table in front of him and reassuming the judicial attitude he had adopted earlier.

But I regard this child as, in some sense, your protege. Crashore puts the tips of his fingers together and Mr. Foreman watched him warily, waiting for his cue. If this was to be a case for pay, prayer, Mr. Foreman was ready, with a clean white handkerchief to kneel upon. "'In some sense, perhaps,' returned Chalice.

"'I haven't seen him for some months.' "'Cannot you see the necessity of his attending school?' asked Crashore, this time with an insinuating suavity. He believed that Chalice was coming round. "'Oh!' Chalice sighed with a note of expostulation. "'Oh, the thing's grotesque. "'If that so,' put in Mr. Foreman, who had been struck by a brilliant idea, "'Why not bring the child here, and let the Reverend Mr. Crashaw or myself put a few general questions to him?'

"'Yes,' hesitated Crashaw. "'That might be done. But, of course, the decision does not rest with us.' "'It rests with the local authority,' mused Chalice. He was running over three or four names of members of that body who were known to him, "'Certainly,' said Croshaw, "'the local education authority "'alone has the right to prosecute, "'but he did not state his antithesis.

"'They had come to the crux "'which Craschor had wished to avoid. "'He had no weight with the committee of the L.E.A., "'and Chalice's recommendation would have much weight. "'Crasher intended that Victor Slott "'should attend school, "'but he had bungled his preliminaries. "'He had rested on his own authority,

and forgotten that Chalice had little respect for that influence. Conciliation was the only card to play now. If I brought him, he wouldn't answer your questions, said Chalice. He's very difficult to deal with. Is he indeed? sympathised Mr. Foreman. I've hardly seen him myself, not to speak to, that is. He might come with his mother, suggested Crashaw.

Chalice shook his head. "'By the way, is it the mother whom you would proceed against?' he asked. "'The parent is responsible,' said Mr. Foreman. "'She will be brought before a magistrate and fined for the first offence.' "'I shan't find her if she comes before me,' replied Chalice. Crashaw smiled. He meant to avoid that eventuality. The little meeting lapsed into a brief silence. There seemed to be nothing more to say. "'Well,' said Crashard at last with a rising inflection

"'that had a conciliatory encouraging, "'now my little man, kind of air. "'Well, of course, no one wishes to proceed to extremes. "'I think, Mr. Chalice, "'I think I may say that you are the person "'who has most influence in this matter, "'and I cannot believe that you will go against "'the established authority,

"'both of the church and the state. if it were only for the sake of example. Chalice rose deliberately. He shook his head and unconsciously his hands went behind his back. There was hardly room for him to pace up and down, but he took two steps towards Mr. Foreman, who immediately rose to his feet, and then he turned and went over to the window.

It was from there that he pronounced his ultimatum, Regulations, laws, religious and layoff, authorities, he said, come into existence in order to deal with the rule, the average. That must be so. But if we are a reasoning, intellectual people, we must have some means of dealing with the exception. That means rests with a consensus of intelligent opinion, strong enough to set the rule upon one side. In an overwhelming majority of cases, there is no such consensus of opinion, and the exceptional individual suffers by coming within the rule of a law which should not apply to him. Now, I put it to you, as reasoning, intelligent men.

Here, yeah, murmured Mr. Foreman automatically. Are we, now that we have the power to perform a common act of justice, to exempt an unfortunate individual exception who has come within the rule of a law that holds no application for him? Or are we to exhibit a crass stupidity, by enforcing that law. Is it not better to take the case into our own hands, and act according to the dictates of common sense?

Very forcibly, Pat, murmured Mr. Foreman. I'm not finding any fault with the law, or the principle of the law, continued Chalice. But it is, it must be framed for the average. We must use our discretion in dealing with the exception, and this is an exception, as has never occurred since we have had an education act. "'I don't agree with you,' said Crashaw stubbornly. "'I do not consider this an exception.

"'But you must agree with me, Crashaw. "'I have a certain amount of influence, and I shall use it.' "'In that case,' replied Crashaw, rising to his feet, "'I shall fight you to the bitter end. "'I am determined.' "'He raised his voice and struck the writing-table with his fist.' I'm determined that this infidel child shall go to school. I'm prepared, if necessary, to spend all my leisure in seeing that the law is carried out.

Mr. Foreman had also risen, Very right, very right indeed, he said, and he knitted his mild brows and stroked his patriarchal white beard with a simulation of stern determination. I think you would be better advised to let the matter rest, said Chalice. Mr Foreman looked inquiringly at the representative of the church. I shall fight, replied Crashaw, stubbornly, fiercely. Ha, said Mr. Foreman.

Very well, as you think best, was Chalice's last word. As Chalice walked down to the gate where his motor was awaiting him, Mr. Foreman trotted up from behind and raged himself alongside. More rain wanted yet for the route, sir. He said. September was a grand month for harvest, but we won't rain badly now. Quite, quite, murmured Chalice politely.

He shook hands with Mr. Foreman before he got into the car. Mr. Foreman, standing politely bareheaded, saw that Mr. Chalice's car went in the direction of Aylesworth. End of Chapter 10. Chapter 11 of the Hamdenshire Wanda by J.D. Beresley. This Librivox recording is in the public domain. His examination. 1.

Chalice's first visit was paid to Sir Dean Elmer, that man of many activities whose name inevitably suggests his favourite phrase have organised progress with all its variants. This is hardly the place in which to criticise a man of such diverse abilities as Dean Elmer, a man whose name still figures so prominently in the public press in connection with all that is most modern in eugenics, with the social reform programme of the moderate party, with the reconstruction of our penal system,

with education and so many kindred interests, and finally, of course, with colour photography and process printing. This last, Dean Elmer always spoke of as his hobby, but we may doubt whether all his interests were not hobby, is in the same sense. He is the natural descendant of those earlier amateur scientists. The adjective conveys no reproach of the 19th century, among whom we remember such striking figures as those of Lord Avebury and Sir Francis Galton. In appearance, Dean Elmer was a big, heavy, rather corpulent man with a high complexion, and his clean-shaven jowl and his

succession of chins hung in heavy folds. But any suggestion, of material grossness was contradicted by the brightness of his rather pale blue eyes, by his alertness of manner, and by his ready whimsical humour. As chairman of the Aylesworth County Council and its most prominent unpaid public official after the mayor, Sir Dean Elmer was certainly the most important member of the local authority and Chalice wisely sought him at once. He found him in the garden of his comparatively small establishment on the quaintan side of the town. Elmer was very much engaged in photographing flowers from nature through the ruled screen and colour filter, in experimenting with the

Elmer process in fact, by which the intermediate stage of a coloured negative is rendered unnecessary. His apparatus was complicated and cumberous. Show Mr Chalice out here, he commanded the man who brought the announcement. You must forgive me, Chalice, said Elmer, when Chalice appeared. We haven't had such a still day for weeks. It's the wind upsets us in this process. Screens create a partial vacuum. He was launched on a lecture upon his darling process before Chalice could get in a word.

It was best to let him have his head, and Chalice took an intelligent interest. It was not until the photographs were taken, and his two assistants could save. safely be trusted to complete the mechanical operations that Elmer could be divorced from his hobby. He was full of jubilation. We should have excellent results, he boomed. He had a tremendous voice, but we shan't be able to judge until we get the blocks made. We do it all on the spot. I have a couple of platens in the shops here.

But we shan't be able to take a pull until tomorrow morning, I'm afraid. You shall have a proof, Chalice, we should get magnificent results. He looked benignantly at the vault of heaven, which had been so obligingly free from any current of air. Chalice was beginning to fear that even now he would be allowed no opportunity to open the subject of his mission, but quite suddenly Elmer dropped the shutter on his preoccupation,

and with that ready adaptability which was so characteristic of the man, forgot his hobby for the time being, and turned his whole attention to a new subject. Well, he said, What is the latest news in anthropology? A very remarkable phenomenon, replied Chalice. That is what I've come to see you about. I thought you were in Paraguay,

pinging it with the Guarani's. No, no, I don't touch the Americas, interposed Chalice. I want all your attention, Elmer. This is important. Come into my study, said, Elmer, and let us have the facts. What will you have? Tea, whiskey, beer? Chalice's resume of the facts need not be reported. When it was accomplished, Elmer put several keen questions and finally delivered his verdict thus, We must see the boy, Chalice. Personally, I am of course satisfied,

but we must not give Crashaw opportunity to raise endless questions as he can and will. There is Mayor Purvis, the grocer to be reckoned with, you must remember. He represents a powerful non-conformist influence. Crashor will get hold of him, and work him if we see Pervis first. Purvis always stiffens his neck against any breach of conventional procedure. If Crashor saw him first, well and good, Pervis would immediately jump to the conclusion that Crashor intended some subtle attack on a non-conformist position and would side with us.

I don't think I know Purvis, mused Chalice. Purvis and co, in the square, prompted Elmer. Black and white fellow. Black moustache and side whiskers. Black eyes and white face. There's a suggestion of the Methodist pulpit about him. Doesn't appear in the shop match,

and when he does, always looks as if he'd sooner sell you a Bible than a bottle of whiskey. Ah yes, I know. said Chalice. I dare say you're right, Elmer, but it will be difficult to persuade this child to answer any questions

his examiners may put to him. Surely he must be open to reason, roared Elmer. You tell me he has an extraordinary intelligence, and in the next sentence, you imply the child's a fool who can't open his mouth to serve his own interests,

but your paradox. Samblimated material, intellectual insight and absolute spiritual blindness, replied Chalice getting to his feet. The child has gone too far in one direction. In another he has made not one step. His mind is a magnificent, terrible machine. He has the imagination of a mathematician and a logician, developed beyond all conception. He has not one spark of the imagination of a poet, and so he cannot deal with men. He can't. understand their weaknesses and limitations. They are geese and hens to him, creatures to be scared

out of his vicinity. However, I will see what I can do. Could you arrange for the members of the authority to come to my place? I should think so, yes, said Elma. I say, Chalice, are you sure you're right about this child? Sounds to me like some, some freak. You'll see, returned Chalice, I'll try and arrange an interview, I'll let you know. And by the way, said Elma, you had better invite Crashaw to be present. He will put Purvis's back up, and that'll endless the difficult grocer on our side, probably. When Chalice had gone, Elmer stood for a few minutes, thoughtfully scratching the ample red surface of his wide, clean-shaven cheek. I don't know, he ejaculated at last, addressing his empty study.

I don't know. And with that expression, he put all thought of Victor Stott away from him and sat down to write an exhaustive article on the necessity for a broader basis in primary education. Two, Chalice called at the rectory of Stoke Underhill on his way back to his own house. I give way, was the characteristic of his attitude to Crashore, and the rector suppled his back again, remembered the Derby office-business. boy's tendency to brag and made the amand honorable. He even overdid his magnanimity and came to near subservience, so lasting is the influence of the lessons of youth.

Crashor did not mention that in the interval between the two interviews he had called upon Mr. Purvis in the square. The ex-mayor had refused to commit himself to any course of action. Chalice forgot the rectory and all that it's connoted before he was. was well outside the rectory's front door. Chalice had a task before him that he regarded with the utmost distaste. He had warmly championed a cause. He had been heated by the presentation of a manifest injustice, which was nonetheless tyrannical because it was ridiculous. But now he realized that it was only the abstract question which had aroused his enthusiastic advocacy, and he shrank from the interview with Victor Stott, that small, deliberate in the case.

intimidating child. Henry Chalice, the savant, the man of repute in letters, the respected figure in the larger world, Chalice, the proprietor and landlord, Chalice, the power among known men, knew that he would have to plead, to humble himself, to be prepared for a rebuff, worst of all, to acknowledge the justice of taking so undignified a position. Any aristocrats may stoop with dignity when he condescending. ends of his own free will, but there are few who can submit gracefully to deserved contempt. Chalice was one of the few. He had many admirable qualities. Nevertheless, during that short motor ride from Stoke to his own house,

he resented the indignity he anticipated, resented it intensely, and submitted. 3. He was allowed no respite. Victor Stott was emerging from, from the library window as Chalice rolled up to the hall door. It was one of Ellen Mary's days. She stood respectfully in the background while her son descended. She curtseyed to Chalice as he came forward. He hesitated a moment. He would not risk insult in the presence of his chauffeur and Mrs. Stott.

He confronted the wonder. He stood before him and over him like a cliff. I must speak to you for a moment. "'On a matter of some importance,' said Chalice to the little figure below him, and as he spoke he looked over the child's head at the child's mother. "'It is a matter that concerns your own welfare. "'Will you come into the house with me for a few minutes?' "'Ellen Mary nodded, and Chalice understood.

"'He turned and led the way. "'At the door, however, he stood aside and spoke again to Mrs. Stott. "'Won't you come in and have some tea or something?' he asked. "'No, sir, thank you, sir,' replied Ellen Mary. "'I'll just wait here till he's ready.' "'At least come in and sit down,' said Chalice, and she came in and sat in the hall. The wonder had already preceded them into the house.

He had walked into the morning room, probably because the door stood open, although he was now tall enough to reach the handles of the Chalice court doors. He stood in the middle of the room when Chalice entered. "'Won't you sit down,' said Chalice. The wonder shook his head. "'I don't know if you are aware,' began Chalice, "'but there is a system of education in England at the present time,

"'which requires that every child should attend school at the age of five years "'unless the parents are able to provide their children with an education elsewhere.' "'The Wanda nodded. "'Callus inferred that he need proffer no further information with regard to the Education Act. Now it is very absurd, he continued, and I have myself pointed out the absurdity, but there is a man of some influence in this neighbourhood

who insists that you should attend the elementary school. He paused, but the wonder gave no sign. I have argued with this man, continued Chalice, and I have also seen another member of the local education authority, a man of some note in the local education authority, larger world. And it seems you cannot be exempted, unless you convince the authority that your knowledge is such that to give you a council school education would be the most absurd farce. "'Canot you stand in loco parentis?' asked the wonder suddenly, in his still thin voice.

"'You mean?' said Chalice, startled by this outburst, "'that I am in a sense providing you with an education.' "'Quite true, but there's a man. is crash o'er to deal with. Inform him, said the wonder. Chalice sighed, I have, he said, but he can't understand. And then, feeling the urgent need to explain something of the motives

that govern this little world of ours, the world into which this strangely logical exception had been born, Chalice attempted an exposition. I know, he said, that these things must seem to you utterly absent. absurd, but you must try to realize that you are an exception in the world about you, that Kraschor or I, or, indeed, the greatest minds of the present day, are not ruled by the fine logic which you are able to exercise. We are children compared to you. We are swayed

even in the making of our laws by little primitive emotions and passions, self-interest, desires, and at best we are not capable of ordering our lives and our government to those just ends which we may see some of us are abstractly right and fine. We are at the mercy of that great mass of the people who have not yet one to an intellectual and discriminating judgment of how their own needs may best be served, and whose representatives consider the interests of a party, a constituency, and especially of their own personal ambitions and welfare, before the needs of humanity as a whole, or even the humanity of these little islands. Above all, we are divided man against man. We are split into parties and factions, by greed and jealousies, petty spites and self-seeking, by unintelligence,

by education and by our inability, a mental inability, to see life steadily and see its whole. And lastly, perhaps, chiefly, by our intense egotisms, both physical and intellectual. Try to realise this. It is necessary, because whatever your wisdom, you have to live in a world of comparative ignorance, a world which cannot appreciate you, but which can and will fall back upon the compelling power of the savage, the resort to physical brute force. The wonder nodded. "'You suggest,' he said, "'merely that you should consent

"'to answer certain elementary questions "'which the members of the local authority "'will put to you,' replied Chalice. "'I can arrange that these questions "'be asked here in the library. "'Will you consent?' "'The wonder nodded "'and made his way into the hall

"'without another word. "'His mother rose and opened the front door for him. "'As Chalice watched "'the curious couple go down the dry, He sighed again, perhaps with relief, perhaps at the impotence of the world of men. Four. There were four striking figures on the Education Committee selected by the Aylesworth County Council.

The first of these was Sir Dean Elmer, who was also chairman of the council at this time. The second was the vice-chairman, Enoch Purvis, the ex-Mayor, commonly if incorrectly known as Mayor Purvis. The third was Richard Standing, J.P., who owned much property on the quaintainter side of the town. He was a bluff, hearty man, devoted to sport and agriculture, a conservative by birth and inclination, a staunch upholder of the church and the tariff reform movements. The fourth was the Reverend Philip Stephen, a co-opted member of the committee, headmaster of the Aylesworth Grammar School.

Stephen was a tall, thin man with bent shoulders, and he had a long, thin face, the length of which was exaggerated by his square brown beard. He wore gold-mounted spectacles, which, owing to his habit of dropping his head, always needed adjustment whenever he looked up. The movement of lifting his head and raising his hand to his glasses had become so closely associated that his hand went up even when there was no apparent need for the action. Stephen spoke of himself as a broad churchman, and in his speech on Prize Day, he never omitted some allusion to the necessity for marching or keeping step with the times. But Elmer was inclined to laugh at the assumption of modernity. Stephen, he said on one occasion, Marks time and thinks he is keeping step, and every now and then he runs a little to catch up.

The point of Elmer's satire lay in the fact that Stephen was usually to be seen, either walking very slowly, lost in abstraction, or, when aroused to a sense of present necessity, going with long strides, as if intent on catching up with the times without further delay. Very often, too, he might be seen running across the school playground, his hand up to those elusive glasses of his. There goes Mr. Stephen, Catching up with the Times, had become an accepted phrase.

There were other members of the Education Committee, notably Mrs. Philip Stephen, but they were subordinate. If those four striking figures were unanimous, no other member would have dreamed of expressing a contrary opinion, but up to this time they had not yet been agreed upon any important line of action. This four Chalice and Crayshaw met in the morning room, of Chalice's court one Thursday afternoon in early June. Elmer had brought a stenographer with him for scientific purposes.

Well, said Chalice, when they were all assembled, the subject, I mean, Victor Stott is in the library. Shall we adjourn? Chalice had not felt so nervous since the morning before he had sat for honours in the Cambridge Senate House. In the library, they found a small child reading. 5. He did not look up when the procession entered, nor did he remove his cricket cap.

He was in his usual place at the centre table. Chalice found chairs for the committee, and the members ranged themselves round the opposite side of the table. Curiously, the effect produced was that of a class brought up for a Viva Votche examination, and when the wonder raised his eyes and glanced, deliberately down the line of his judges, this effect was heightened. There was an audible fidgeting, a creak of chairs, an indication of small embarrassments.

Ahem! Dean Elmer cleared his throat with noisy vigour, looked at the wonder, met his eyes, and looked hastily away again. Ahem! Errom! he repeated, and then he turned to chalice. So this little fellow has not. ever been to school, he said. Chalice frowned heavily. He looked exceedingly uncomfortable and unhappy.

He was conscious that he could take neither side in this controversy, that he was in sympathy with no one of the seven other persons who were seated in his library. He shook his head impatiently in answer to Sardine Elmer's question, and the chairman turned to the Reverend Philip Stephen, who was gazing intensely at the pattern of the carpet. I think Stephen, said Elmer, that your large experience will probably prompt you to a more efficient examination than we could conduct. Will you initiate the inquiry? Stephen raised his head slightly, put a readjusting hand up to his glasses, and then looked sternly

at the wonder over the top of them. Even the sixth form quailed when the headmaster assumed this expression, but the small child at the table was gazing out of the window. Doubtless Stephen was slightly embarrassed by the detachment of the examinee and blundered, What is the square root of 226? he asked. He probably intended to say 225. 15.03329 to five places, replied the wonder. Stephen started. Neither he nor any other member of the committee

was capable of checking that answer without resort to pencil and paper. Dear me! ejaculated square standing. Elmer scratched the superabundance of his purple jowl and looked at chalice who thrust his hands into his pockets and stared at the ceiling.

Crashaw leaned forward and clasped his hands together he was biding his time Mayor Purvis alone seemed unmoved. What's that book he's got open in front of him? he asked. May I see? interposed Chalice hurriedly, and he rose from his chair, picked up the book in question, glanced at it for a moment, and then handed it to the grocer. The book was Fanflotan's Dutch text and Latin translation of Spinoza's short treatise.

The grocer turned to the title page, "'Baini Dicti Ditsbinota,' he read aloud, and then, "'What's it all about, Mr. Chalice?' he asked. "'German or something, I take it?' "'In any case, it has nothing to do with elementary arithmetic,' replied Chalice curtly. "'Mr. Stephen will set your mind at ease on that point.' "'Certainly, certainly,' murmured Stephen. Grosser Purvis closed the book carefully and replaced it on the desk.

What does half a stone a loaf sugar at two three farthings come to? he asked. The wonder shook his head. He did not understand the grocer's phraseology. What is seven times two and three quarters? translated Chalice. Nineteen point two five, answered the wonder. What's that in shillings? asked Purvis. 1.60416? Bong, returned the grocer triumphantly.

Ah, excuse me, Mr. Pervis, interposed Stephen. I think not. The, uh, examinee has given the correct mathematical answer to five places of decimals. That is, so far as I can check him mentally. Well, it seems to me, persisted. the grocer, as he's gone a long way round to answer a simple question, what any fifth standard child could do in his head, or give him another.

"'Cust it in another form,' put in the chairman. "'Give it as a multiplication sum.' Pervis tucked his fingers carefully into his waistcoat pockets. "'I put the question, Mr. Chairman,' he said, "'as it'll be put to the youngster when he has the tot up a bill. That seems to be a sound and practical form for such questions to be put in. Chalice sighed impatiently. I thought Mr Stephen had been delegated to conduct the first part of the examination, he said.

It seems to me that we are wasting a lot of time. Elmer nodded. Will you go on, Mr. Stephen? he said. Chalice was ashamed for his compiers. What children we are, he thought. thought. Stephen got to work again with various arithmetical questions, which were answered instantly, and then he made a sudden leap and asked, What is the binomial theorem? A formula for writing down the coefficient of any stated term in the expansion of any stated power of a given binomial,

replied the wonder. Elmer blew out his cheeks and looked at Chalice, but met to the gaze of Mr. Stephen, who adjusted his glasses and said, I'm satisfied under this head. It's all beyond me, remarked Squire's standing, frankly. I think, Mr. Chairman, that we've had enough theoretical arithmetic, said Purvis.

There's a few practical questions I'd like to put. No more arithmetic, then, assented Elmer, and Crashore exchanged a glance of understanding with the grocer. Now, how, how? old was our lord when he began his ministry? asked the grocer. Uncertain? replied the wonder. Mr. Purvis smiled. Any Sunday school child knows that, he said. Of course, of course, murmured Crashore. But Stephen looked uncomfortable.

Are you sure you understand the purport of the answer Mr. Purvis? he asked. Can there be any doubt about it? replied the grocer. I asked how old our Lord was when he began his ministry, and he. He made an indicative gesture with one momentarily released hand towards the wonder. And he says he's uncertain. No, no, interposed Chalice impatiently. He meant that the answer to your question was uncertain.

How's that? returned the grocer. I've always understood. Quite, quite, interrupted Chalice. But what we have always understood, there's not always correspond to the actual fact. What did you intend by your answer? Put in Elmer quickly, addressing the wonder. The evidence rests mainly on Luke's Gospel, answered the wonder, but the phrase,

Archimenos or say et tom triacomta, is vague. It allows latitude in either direction. According to the chronology of John's Gospel, the age might have been about. about 32. It says 30 in the Bible, that's good enough for me, said the grocer, had crash or muttered, heresy, heresy, in an audible undertone. Sounds like blasphemy to me, said Purvis, like doubting the word of God, I'm for sending him to school. Dean Elmer had been regarding the face of the small abstracted child with

considerable interest. He put aside for the moment. the grocer's intimation of his voting tendency. How many elements are known to chemists? asked Delma of the examine. Eighty-one well-characterised. Others have been described, replied the wonder. Which has the greatest atomic weight? Asked Delma.

Uranium. And that's weight is? On the oxygen basis of 16, 238.5. Extraordinary powers of memory, muttered Elma, and there was silence for a moment, a silence broken by Squire Standing, who, in a loud voice, asked suddenly and most irrelevantly, What's your opinion of tariff reform? An empirical question that cannot be decided from a theoretical basis, replied the wonder. Elma laughed out a great shouting of four. "'Quite right, quite right,' he said,

his cheeks shaking with mirth. "'What have you to say to that standing?' "'I say that tariff reforms the only way to save the country,' replied Squire standing, looking very red and obstinate. "'And if this government—' Chalice rose to his feet. "'Oh, aren't you all satisfied?' he said. "'Is this committee here to argue questions of present politics?'

What more evidence do you need? I'm not satisfied, but impervis resolutely, nor is the Reverend Crassure, or I fancy. He has no vote, said Chalice. Elmer, what do you say? I think we may safely say that the child has been, and is being provided with an education elsewhere, and that he need not therefore attend the elementary school,

replied Elmer, still chuckling. On a point of order, Mr Chairman, is that what you put to the meeting? asked Bervis. This is quite informal, replied Elmer. Unless we are all agreed, the question must be put to the full committee. Shall we argue the point in the other room? suggested Chalice. Certainly, certainly, said Elmer, we can return if necessary. And the four striking figures of the Education Committee found. filed out, followed by Crashore and the stenographer. Chalice, coming last, paused at the door and looked back. The wonder had returned to his study of Spinoza. Chalice waved a hand to the unconscious figure,

I must join my fellow children, he said grimly, or they will be quarreling. Six. But when he joined his fellow children, Chalice stood at the window of the morning room, attending little to the buzz of voices and the clatter of glasses which marks the relief and the restraint of the examination room. Even the stenographer was talking. He had joined Crashore and Purvis, a lemonade group. The other three were drinking whiskey. The division, however, is arbitrary and in no way significant. Chalice caught a fragment of the conversation here and there. A bull-roar from Elmer or Squire An occasional blatancy from Purvis, a vibrant protest from Crashore, a hesitating tenor pronouncement from Stephen.

Extraordinary powers of memory. It isn't facts, but what they stand for that I don't know his Bible, that's good enough for me. Heresy, heresy. A phenomenal memory, of course, quite phenomenal, but... The simple exposition of each man's theme was dogmatically a... and through it all chalice standing alone hardly conscious of each individual utterance was still conscious that the spirits of these six men were united in one thing had they but known it each was endeavouring to circumscribe the powers of the child they had just left each was insistent on some limitation he chose to regard as vital They came to no decision that afternoon. The question as to whether the authority should prosecute or not

had to be referred to the committee. At last, Kraschor entered his protest and announced once more that he would fight the point to the bitter end. Crashore's religious hatred was not, perhaps, altogether free from a sense of affronted dignity, but it was nevertheless a force to be counted, and he had that obstinacy of the bigot, which has in the past contributed much fire and food to the pyre of martyrdom.

He had too a power of initiative within certain limits. It is true that the bird on a free wing could avoid him with contemptuous ease, but along his own path he was a terrifying juggernaut. Crashore, thus circumscribed, was a power, a moving force, but now he was seeking to crush not some paralysed, rabbit on the road, but an elusive spirit of swiftness which has no name, but which may be figured as the genius of modernity. The thing he sought to obliterate ran ahead of him with a smiling facility and spat rearwards a vaporous jet of ridicule.

Crashor might crush his clerical wide awake over his frowning eyebrows, arm himself with a slightly dilapidated umbrella, and seek with long determined. strides the members of the local education authority, but far ahead of him had run an intelligence that represented the instructed common sense of modernity. It was for Crashore to realise, as he could never and never did realise, that he was no longer the dominant force of progress, that he had been outstripped, left toiling and shouting vain words on a road that had served its purpose, and though it still remained and was used, as a means of travel, was becoming year by year more antiquated and despised.

Crashaw toiled to the end, and no one knows how far his personal purpose and spite were satisfied, but he could never impede any more that elusive spirit of swiftness. It had run past him. End of Chapter 11 Chapter 12 of the Hamden Shawanda by J.D. Beresford This Librivox recording is in the public domain. Fugitive Meanwhile, a child of five, all unconscious that he was being represented to various members of the local education authority

as a protege under the especial care and tutelage of the greatest of local magnates, ran through a well-kept index of the books in the Library of Chalice Court, an index written clearly on cards that occupied a great name. nest of accessible drawers. Two cards with a full description to each book, alphabetically arranged, one card under the title of the work, and one under the author's name. The child made no notes as he studied. He never wrote a single line in all his life. But when a draw of that delightful index had been searched, he would walk here and there among the three rooms at his disposal, and by the aid of the flight of framed steps that ran smoothly on rubber-tired wheels. He would take down now

and again some book or another, until, returning to the table at last to read, he sat in an enchant of piled volumes that had been collected round him. Sometimes he read a book from beginning to end. More often, he gazed through it, turning a dozen pages at a time, and then pushed it on one side with a gesture displaying the contempt that was not shown by any change of expression. On many afternoons, the somberly-clad figure of a tall, gaunt woman would stand at the open casement of a window in the larger room

and keep a mystic vigil that sometimes lasted for hours. She kept her gaze fixed on that strange little figure whenever it roved up and down the suite of rooms or clambered the pyramid of brown steps that might have made such a glorious plaything for any other child. And even when her son was hidden behind the wall of volumes he had built, the woman would still stare in his direction, but then her eyes seemed to look inwards.

At such time she appeared to be wrapped in an introspective devotion. Very rarely, the heavy-shouldered figure of a man would come to the doorway of the larger room and also give a silent vigil, a man who would stand for some minutes, thoughtful eyes and bent brows, and then sigh, shake his head, and a move away, gently closing the door behind him. There were few other interruptions to the silence of that chapel-like library. Half a dozen times in the first few months, a fair-haired rather supercilious

young man came and fetched away a few volumes. But even he evidenced an inclination to walk on tipto, a tendency that mastered him whenever he forgot for a moment his self-imposed role of scorn. Outside over the swelling undulations of rich grass, the sheep came back with close-cropped ungainly bodies to a land that was yellow with buttercups. But when one looked again, their wool hung about them, and they were snatching at short turf that was covered at the woodside by a sprinkle of brown leaves. Then the sheep have gone, and the wooded, is black with February rain, and again the unfolding of the year is about us,

a thickening of high twigs in the wood, a glint of green on the black thorn. Nearly three cycles of death and birth have run their course, and then the strange little figure comes no more to the library at Chalice Court. End of Chapter 12 Chapter 13 of the Hamdenshire Wanda by J.D. Beresford. This Librivox recording is in the public domain. Part 3. My Association with the Wonder Chapter 13

How I Went to Pim to Write a Book 1. The circumstance that had intrigued me for so long was determined with an abruptness only less remarkable than the surprise of the onset. Two deaths within six months brought me the first at competence, the second release from gall and bitterness. For the first time in my life I was a free man. At 40, one can still look forward,

and I put the past behind me and made plans for the future. There was that book of mine still waiting to be written. It was wonderful how the detail of it all came back to me, the plan of it, the thread of development, even the very phrases that I had toyed, with. The thought of the book brought back a train of associations. There was a phrase I had coined as I had walked out from Aylesworth to Stoke Underhill, a chapter I had roughed out the day I went to see Ginger Stott at Pim. It seemed to me that the whole conception of the book was associated in some way

with that neighbourhood. I remembered at last that I had first thought of writing it after my return from America on the day that I had had that curious experience with the child in the train. It occurred to me that by a reversal of the process I might regain many more of my original thoughts, that by going to live temporarily perhaps in the neighbourhood of Aylesworth, I might revive other associations. The picture of Pim presented itself to me very clearly. I remembered that I had once thought that Pim was a place to which I might retire one day in order to write the things I wished to write. I decided to make the dream a reality, and I wrote to Mrs. Berridge at the Wood Farm, asking her if she could let me have her rooms for the spring, summer and autumn.

Two, I was all aglow with excitement on the morning that I set out for Hamden Hills. This was change, I thought. Freedom, adventure. This was the beginning of life. my real entry into the joy of living the world was alight with the fire of growth may had come with a clear sky and a torrent of green was flowing over field hedge and wood i remember that i thanked whatever gods there be that one could live so richly in the enjoyment of these things three farmer bates met me at great hittenden station his was the only available horse and cart at him, for the Berages were in a very small way, and it is doubtful if they could have made both ends meet, if Mrs. Berridge had not done so well by letting her two spare rooms. I have a great admiration for Farmer Bates and Mrs. Berridge. I regret intensely that they should both have been unhappily married. If they had married each other, they would undoubtedly have made a success

of life. Bates was a cockney by birth, but always he had had had an ambivalry. to take a farm, and after 20 years of work as a skilled mechanic, he had thrown up a well-paid job and dared the uncertainties which beset the English farmer. That venture was a constant bone of strife between him and his wife. Mrs Bates preferred the town. It had always seemed to me that there was something fine about Bates and his love for the land. Good growing weather, Mr Bates, I said as I climbed up into the cart. Shadden be sorry to say some more rain, replied Bates, and damped my ardour for a moment.

Just before we turned into the lane that leads up to the long hill to Pim, we passed a ramshackled cart, piled up with a curious miscellany of ruinous furniture. A man was driving, and beside him sat a slatternly woman and a repulsive-looking boy of ten or twelve years old, with a great swollen head and an open, slobbering mouth. I was startled.

I jumped to the conclusion that this was the child I had seen in the train, the son of Ginger Stott. As we slowed down to the ascent of the Long Hill, I said to Bates, is that Stott's boy? Bates looked at me curiously, "'What now?' he said. "'Them's the Arisons. "'Arison's dead now.

"'He was a wrongin' Couldn't make a job of it, no-how. They used to live here five or six year ago, and now her husband's dead. Mrs Harrison's coming back with the boy to live. Worse, lacked. We thought we were shut of them. Oh, I said, the boy's an idiot, I suppose.

Orrible, replied Bates, shaking his head. Orable, can't speak nor nothing. Goes about bleating and barring like an old sheep. I looked round, but the ramshackle cart was hidden by the turn of the road. Does Stott still live at Pim? I asked. Not Ginger, replied Bates. He lives at Aylesworth. Mrs. Stott and her son lives here. The boy's still alive then, I asked. Yes, said Bates. Intelligent child, I asked. They say, replied Bates, book learning and such. They say he's read every book in Mr. Chalice's library. Does he go to school? Does he go to

school? Nah, they let him off. Leastwise Mr. Chalice did. They say the Reverend Crashoard down at Stoke was fair put out about it. I thought that Bates emphasised the undy nature of this information rather markedly. What do you think of him? I asked. Me? said Mr. Bates. I don't worry my head about him. I've got too much to do. And he went off into technicalities concerning the above. abundance of Charlock on the arable land of Pim. He called it Gawlik. I saw that it was typical of bates that he should have too much to do. I reflected that his was the calling which begot civilization.

4. The best and surest route from Pim to the wood farmers, appropriately, by way of the wood, but in wet weather, the alternative of various cart-tracks that wind among the bracken and shrub of the common is preferable in many ways. May had been very dry that year, however, and farmer Bates chose the wood. The leaves were still light on the beaches. I remember that as I tried to pierce the vista of stems that dipped over the steep fall of the hill.

I promised myself many a romantic exploration of the unknown mysteries beyond. Everything was so bright that afternoon that nothing, I believe, could have depressed me, When I looked around the low dark room with its one window, a foot from the ground and two from the ceiling, I only thought that I should be out of doors all the time. It amused me that I could touch the ceiling with my head

by standing on tiptoe, and I laughed at the framed presentation plates from old Christmas numbers on the walls. These things are merely curious when the sun is shining and it is high May, and one is free to do the desire to, work after 20 years in a galley. Five.

At a quarter to eight that evening I saw the sun set behind the hills. As I wandered reflectively down the lane that goes towards Chalice Court, a blackbird was singing ecstatically in a high elm. Here and there a rabbit popped out and sat up, the picture of precocious curiosity. Nature seemed to be standing in her doorway for a careless half-hour's gossip, before putting up the shutters to bar the robbers who would soon be about their work of the night. It was still quite light as I strolled back over the common,

and I chose a path that took me through a little spinny of ash, oak and beach, treading carefully to avoid crushing the tender croasures of bracken that were just beginning to break their way through the soil. As I emerged from the little clump of wood, I saw two figures going away from me in the direction of Pim. One was that of a boy wearing a cricket cap. He was walking deliberately, his hands hanging at his sides. The other figure was a taller boy,

and he threw out his legs in a curious, undisciplined way, as though he had little control over them. At first sight I thought he was not sober. The two passed out of sight behind a clump of hawthorn, but once I saw the smaller figure turn and face the other, and once he made a repelling gesture with his, his hands. It occurred to me that the smaller boy was trying to avoid his companion, that he was, in one sense, running away from him, that he walked as one might walk away from some threatening

animal deliberately to simulate the appearance of courage. I fancied the bigger boy was the idiot Harris and I had seen that afternoon, and farmer Bates says, we hoped we were shut of him, recurred to me. I wondered if the idiot were dangerous or other than that. a nuisance. I took the smaller boy to be one of the villagers' children. I noticed that his cricket cap had a dark patch as though it had been mended with some other material. The impression which I received from this trivial affair was one of disappointment. The wood and the common had been so deserted by humanity, so given up to nature, that I felt the presence of the idiot to be a most distasteful intrusion.

If that horrible thing is going to haunt the common, there will be no peace or decency, was the idea that presented itself. I must send him off, the brute, was the rider, but I disliked the thought of being obliged to drive him away. Six. The next morning I did not go on to the common. I was anxious to avoid a meeting with the Harrison idiot. I had been debating whether I should be debating whether I should.

drive him away if I met him. Obviously, I had no more right on the common than he had. On the other hand, he was a nuisance, and I did not see why I should allow him to spoil all my pleasure in that ideal stretch of wild land, which pressed on three sides of the wood farm. It was a stupid quandary of my own making, but I am afraid it was rather typical of my mental attitude. I am prone to set myself tasks, such as this eviction of the idiot's from common ground, and equally prone to avoid them by a process of procrastination. By way of evasion I walked over to Dean Hill and surveyed the wonderful panorama of neat country

that fills the basin between the Hamden and the Quentin hills. Seen from that height, it has something the effect of a Dutch landscape. It all looks so amazingly tidy. Away to the left I looked over Stoke Underhill. Halesworth was a blur in the hollow, but I could distinguish the high fence of the county ground. I sat all the morning on Dean Hill, musing and smoking, thinking of such things as Ginger Stott and the match with Surrey. I decided that I must certainly go and see Stott's queer son, the phenomenon who had, they say, read all the books in Mr. Chalice's library.

I wondered what sort of a library this chalice had and who he was. I had never heard of him before. I think I must have gone to sleep for a time. When Mrs. Berridge came to clear away my dinner, I dined without shame at half-past twelve. I detained her with conversation. Presently I asked about little sot. He's a queer one, that's what he is, said Mrs. Berridge.

She was a neat, comely little woman, rather superior to her station, and it seemed to me, certainly superior to her clod of her husband. A great reader, Farmer Bates tells me, I said. Mrs. Berridge passed that by. "'It's mother's in trouble about him this morning,' she said. "'She's such a nice, respectable woman,

"'and has all her milk and eggs and butter off as. "'She was here this morning when you were out, sir, "'and, what I could make of it, "'that Harrison boy had been chasing her boy on the common last night.' "'Oh,' I said with sudden enlightenment, "'I believe I saw them.' "'At the back of my mind I was struggling desperately with a vague remembrance. "'It may sound incredible,

"'but I had only the dimest memory of my later experience of the child. "'The train incidents was still fresh in my mind, "'but I could not remember what Stott had told me "'when I talked with him by the pond. "'I seemed to have an impression that the child had some strange power of keeping people at a distance, or was I mixing up reality with some Scandinavian fairy tale? Very lightly, sir, Mrs. Berridge went on, what upset Mrs. Stock was that her boys never upset by anything. He has a curious way of looking at you, sir, that makes you wish you wasn't there.

But from what Mrs. Stott says, this Harrison Boyd wasn't to be drove off anyhow, and her son came in quite flurried like. Mrs. Stott seemed quite. "'Why put out about it?' "'Doubtless I might have had more information from my landlady, "'but I was struggling to reconstruct that old experience "'which had slipped away from me, "'and I turned back to the book I had been pretending to read. "'Mrs. Berridge was one of those unusual women for her station in life,

"'who know when to be silent, "'and she finished her clearing away without initiating any further remarks. "'When she had finished, I went out to the con, and looked for the pond where I had talked with Ginger Stott. I found it after a time, and then I began to gather up the threads I had dropped. It all came back to me, little by little. I remembered that talk I had had with him, his very gestures.

I remembered how he had spoken of habits or the necessity for the lack of them, and that took me back to the scene in the British Museum reading room, and to my theory. I was suddenly alive to that old interest again. I got up and walked eagerly in the direction of Mrs. Stott's cottage. End of Chapter 13 Chapter 14 of the Hamdenshire Wonder by J.D. Beresford. This Librevox recording is in the public domain.

The inscipients of my subjection to the wonder. 1. Victor Stott was in his eighth year when I met him for the third time. I must have stayed longer than I imagined by the pond in the common, for Mrs. Stott and her son had had tea, and the boy was preparing to go out. He stopped when he saw me coming, an unprecedented mark of recognition, so I have since learned. As I saw him then, he made a remarkable but not a repulsively abnormal figure. His baldness struck one immediately, but it did not give him a look of age. Then one noticed that his head was unmistakably out of proportion to his body, yet the disproportion was not nearly so marked as it had been in infancy.

These two things were conspicuous. The less salient peculiarities were observed later, the curious little beaky nose that jussied out at an unusual angle from the face, the lips that were too straight and determined for a child, the laxity of the limbs when the body was in repose, Lastly, the eyes. When I met Victor Stott on this third occasion, there can be no doubt that he had lost something of his original power.

This may have been due to his long sojourn in the world of books. A sojourn that had, perhaps, altered the strange individuality of his thought. Or it may have been due, in part at least, to his recent recognition of the fact that the power of his gaze exercised no influence over creatures such as the Harrison Idiots. Nevertheless, though something of the original force had abated, he still had an extraordinary, and so far as I can learn, altogether unprecedented power of enforcing his will without word or gesture.

And I may say here that in those rare moments when Victor stopped looked me in the face, I seemed to see a rare and wonderful personality peering out through his eyes. That was the personality which had no doubt spoken to Chalice and Lewis through that long afternoon in the library of Chalice Court. Normally one saw a curious, unattractive, rather repulsive figure of a child. When he looked at one with that rare look of intention, the man that lived within that unattractive body was revealed, his insight, his profundity, his unexampled wisdom.

If we mark the difference between men and, and animals by a measure of intelligence, then surely this child was a very god among men. 2. Victor Stott did not look at me when I entered his mother's cottage. I saw only the unattractive exterior of him, and I blundered into an air of patronage. Is this your boy? I said when I had greeted her. I hear he is a great scholar. Yes, sir, replied Ellen Mary quietly. She never boasted to strange. "'You don't remember me, I suppose,' I went on foolishly,

trying however to speak as to an equal. "'You were in petticoats last time I saw you.' The wonder was standing by the window, his arms hanging loosely at his sides. He looked out a slant up the lane. His profile was turned towards me. He made not answer to my question. "'Oh, yes, sir, he remembers,' replied Ellen Mary.

"'He never forgets anything.' I paused uncomfortably. I was slightly huffed by the boy's silence. I have come to spend the summer here, I said at last. I hope he will come to see me. I have brought a good many books with me. Perhaps you might care to read some of them. I had to talk at the boy. There was no alternative. Inwardly, I was thinking that I had Kant's critique and Hegel's phenomenology among my books. He may put on air as of of scholarship, I thought, but I fancied that he will find those two works rather above the level of his comprehension as yet. I did not recognise the fact that it was I who was putting on airs,

not Victor Stott. He's given up-read in the past six weeks, sir, said Ellen Mary, but I dare say he will come and see your books. She spoke demurely, and she did not look at her son. I received the impression that her statements were laid before him to take up, reject, or pass unnoticed as he pleased. I was slightly exasperated. I turned to the wonder, Would you care to come? I asked. He nodded without looking at me and walked out of the cottage. I hesitated, "'I'll go with you now, sir,' prompted Ellen Mary. That's what he means. I followed the wonder in a condition of suppressed irritation. His mother might be able to interpret his rudeness, I thought, but I would teach him to convey his intentions more clearly. The childhood had been

spoilt. Three. The wonder chose the road over the common. I should have gone by the wood, but when we came to the entrance of the wood, he turned up onto the common. He did not ask me which way I preferred. Indeed, we neither of us spoke during the half-mile walk that separated the wood farm from the last cottage in Pim. I was fuming inwardly. I had it in my mind at that time to put the wonder through some sort of an examination. I was making plans to contribute towards his education to send him to Oxford, later. I had adumbrated a scheme to arouse interest in his case among certain scholars and men of influence with whom I was slightly acquainted, I had become much engrossed with these plans as I had made my way to the Stott's cottage. I was still somewhat exalted in

mind with my dreams of a vicarious brilliance. I had pictured the wonder's magnificent passage through the university. I had acted, in thought, as the generous and kindly benefactor. It had been a grandiose dream and the reality was so humiliating. Could I make this mannerless child understand his possibilities? Had he any ambition? Thinking of these things I had lagged behind as we crossed the common and when I came to the gate of the farmyard the wonder was at the door of the house. He did not wait for me but walked straight into my sitting room. When I entered I found him seated on the low window-sill, turning over the top layer of books in the large case which had been opened but not unpacked. There was no place to put the books. In fact, I was proposing to have some shelves

put up if Mrs. Berridge had no objection. I entered the room in a condition of warm indignation. Cheek was the word that was in my mind. Confounded cheek, I muttered. Nevertheless, I did not interrupt the boy. Instead, I lit a cigarette, sat down, and watched him. I was skeptical at first. I noted at once the sure touch with which the boy handled my books, the practiced hand that turned the pages, the quick examination of title page and the list of contents, the occasional swift reference to the index. But I did not believe it's possible that anyone could read so fast as he read when he did condescend for a few moments to give his attention to a few consecutive pages. Was it a pose, I thought, yet he was certainly an adept in handling the books.

I was puzzled, yet I was still sceptical. The habit of experience was towards disbelief. A boy of seven and a half could not possibly have the mental equipment to skim all that philosophy. My books were being unpacked. very quickly Kant, Hegel, Schelling, Fichter, Leibniz, Nietzsche, Hume, Bradley, William James had all been rejected and were piled on the floor. But he had hesitated longer over Bergeson's creative evolution. He really seemed to be giving that some attention, though he read it, if he were reading it, so fast that the hand which turned the pages hardly rested between

each movement. When Bergson was sent to join his predecessors, I determined that I would get some word out of this strange child. I had never yet heard him speak, not a single syllable. I determined to brave all rebuffs. I was prepared for that. Well, I said, when Bergson was laid down, well, what do you make of that? He turned and looked out of the window. I came and looked out of the window. I came and sat on the end of the table within a few feet of him. From that position I, too, could see out of the window, and I saw the figure of the Harrison idiot slouching over the farmyard gate. A gust of impatience whirled over me.

I caught up my stick and went out quickly. Now then, I said as I came within speaking distance of the idiot, get away from here, out with you. The idiot probably understood no word of what I said, but like a dog, he was quick to interpret my tone and gesture. He made a revoltingly inhuman sound as he shambled away, a kind of throaty yelp. I walked back to the house.

I could not avoid the feeling that I had been unnecessarily brutal. When I returned, the wonder was still staring out of the window, but though I did not guess it then, the idiot had served my purpose better than my determination. It was to the idiot that I owed my subsequent knowledge of Victor Stott. The wonder had found a use for me. He was resigned to bear with my feeble mental development because I was strong enough to keep at bay that half-animal creature

who appeared to believe that Victor Stott was one of his own kind, the only one he had ever met. The idiot in some animal, imaginable way had inferred a likeness between himself and the wonder. They both had enormous heads, and the idiot was the only human being over whom the wonder was never able to exercise the least authority. Four. I went in and sat down again on the end of the table. I was rather heated. I lit another cigarette and stared at the wonder who was still looking out of the window. There was silence for a few seconds, and then he spoke of his own initiative.

Illustrates the weakness of argument from history and analogy, he said in a clear small voice, addressing no one in particular. Hegel's limitations are qualitatively those of Harrison, who argues that I and he are similar in kind. The proposition was so astounding that I could find no answer immediately. If the statement had been made in boyish language, I should have laughed at it, but the phraseology impressed me. You've read Hegel, then, I ask divisively. Subtract the endeavour to demonstrate a preconceived hypothesis of any known philosophy, continued the wonder, without heeding my question, and the remainder, the only valuable

material is found to be distorted. He paused as if waiting for my reply. How could one answer such propositions as these offhand? I tried, however, to get at the gist of the sentence, and, as the silence continued, I said with some hesitation, but it is impossible, surely, to approach the work of writing, say a philosophy, without some apprehension of the end in view. Illogical, replied the wonder, not philosophy, a system of trial and error to evaluate a complex variable function. He paused a moment, and then glanced down, the pile of books on the floor.

More millions, he said. I think he meant that more millions of books might be written on this system without arriving at an answer to the problem, but I admit that I am at a loss, that I cannot interpret his remarks. I wrote them down within an hour or two after they were uttered, but I may have made mistakes.

The mathematical metaphor is beyond me. I have no acquaintance with higher mathematics. The wonder had a very expressionless face, but I thought at this moment that he wore a luke of sadness, and that Luke was one of the factors which helped me to understand the unbridgeable gulf that lay between his intellect and mine. I think it was at this moment that I first began to change my opinion. I had been regarding him as an unbearable little prig, but it flashed across me as I watched him now that his mind, and my own might be so far differentiated that he was unable to convey his thoughts to me.

Was it possible, I wondered, that he had been trying to talk down to my level. I'm afraid I don't quite follow you, I said. I had intended to question him further, to urge him to explain, but it came to me that it would be quite hopeless to go on. How can one answer the unreasoning questions of a child? Here I would. I would was the child, though a child of slightly advanced development. I could appreciate that it was useless to persist in a futile, why, why, when the answer could only be given in terms that I could not comprehend. Therefore I hesitated, sighed, and then with that obstinacy of vanity which creates an image of self-perfection and refuses to relinquish it, I said, I wish you could explain yourself,

not on this particular point of philosophy, but your life. I stopped because I did not know how to phrase my demand. What was it, after all, that I wanted to learn? That I can't explain, said the wonder. There are no data. I saw that he had accepted my request for explanation in a much wider sense than I had intended, and I took him up on this.

But haven't you any hypothesis? I cannot work on the system of tributtal. an error, replied the wonder. Our conversation went no further this afternoon, for Mrs. Berridge came in to lay the cloth. She looked askance, I thought, at the figure on the windowsill, but she ventured no remark save to ask

if I was ready for my supper. Yes, oh yes, I said. Slowly for two, sir, asked Mrs. Berridge. Will you stay and have supper, I said to the wonder, but he shook his seat, his seat. head, got up and walked out of the room. I watched him cross the farmyard and make his way over the common. Well, I said to Mrs. Berridge when the boy was out of sight. That child is what in America they call the limit, Mrs. Berridge. My landlady put her lips together, shook her head and shivered

slightly. He gives me the shudders, she said. Five. I neither read nor wrote that he evening. I forgot to go out for a walk at sunset. I sat and pondered until it was time for bed, and then I pondered myself to sleep. No vision came to me, and I had no relevant dreams. The next morning at seven o'clock I saw Mrs. Stott come over the come and to fetch her milk from the farm. I waited until her business was done, and then I went out and walked back with her. I want to understand about your son, I said by way of making an opening. She looked at me quickly. You know, you hardly ever speaks to me, sir, she said.

I was staggered for a moment. Would you understand him? I said. In some ways, sir, was her answer. I recognised the direction of the limitation. Ah, we none of us understand him in all ways, I said with a touch of patronage. "'No, sir,' replied Ellen Mary. She evidently agreed to that statement without qualification.

"'But what is he going to do?' I asked. "'When he grows up, I mean. "'I can't say, sir. We must leave that to him.' I accepted the rebuke more mildly than I should have done on the previous day. "'He never speaks of his future,' I said feebly. "'No, sir.' "'There seemed to be nothing more to say.' We had only gone a couple of hundred yards, but I paused in my walk.

I thought I might as well go back and get my breakfast, but Mrs. Stott looked at me as though she had something more to say. We stood facing each other on the cart track. I suppose I can't be of any use, I asked vaguely. Ellen Mary broke suddenly into volubility. I hope I'm not asking too much, sir, she said, but there is a way you could help. if you would. He hardly ever speaks to me, as I've said, but I've been upset about that

Harrison boy. He's a brute beast, sir, if you know what I mean, and he? She differentiated her pronouns only by accent, and where there is any doubt I have used italics to indicate that her son is referred to, doesn't seem to have the same old on him as he does over others. It's truth, I am not easy in my mind about it, sir, although he has never said a word to me, not being afraid of anything like other children, but he seems to have took a sort of fancy to you, sir. I think this was intended as the subtlest fluttering, and if you was to go with him when he takes his walks. He's much in the air, sir, and a great one for walking. I think he'd be glad of your company, though maybe he won't never say it in so many words.

You mustn't mind him being silent, sir. There's some things we can't understand, and though though as I say he hasn't said anything to me. It's not as I'm scheming behind his back, for I know his meaning without words being necessary. She might have said more, but I interrupted her at this point. Certainly I will come and fetch him. I lapsed unconsciously into her system of denomination.

This morning, if you are sure he would like to come out with me. I'm quite sure, she said. About nine o'clock, I asked. That would do you. "'Do noisly, sir,' she answered. As I walked back to the farm, I was thinking of the life of those two occupants of the Stott's cottage, the mother who watched her son in silence,

studying his every look and action in order to gather his meaning, who never asked her son a question nor expected from him any statement of opinion, and the son wrapped always in that profound speculation which seemed to be his only mood. What a household. It struck me while I was having breakfast that I seemed to have let myself in for a duty that might prove anything but pleasant. 6.

There is nothing to say of that first walk of mine with the wonder. I spoke to him once or twice, and he answered by nodding his head. Even this notice I now know to have been a special mark of favour, a condescension to acknowledge his use for me as a guardian. He did not speak at all on this occasion. I did not call for him in the afternoon. I had made other plans. I wanted to see the man Chalice, whose library had been at the disposal of

this phenomenal child. Chalice might be able to give me further information. The truth of the matter is that I was in two minds as to whether I would stay at Pim through the summer as I had originally intended. I was not in love with the prospect which the sojourn now held out for me. If I were to be constituted head nursemaid to Master Victor Stott, there would remain in sufficient time for the progress of my own book on certain aspects of the growth of the philosophic method. I see now when I look back, as I was not convinced at that time, that I still doubted the wonders learning. I may have classed it as a freakish pedantry, the result of a phenomenal memory. Mrs. Berridge had much information to impart on the subject of Henry Chalice. He was her husband's

landlord, of course, and his was a hallowed name to be spoken with decency and respect. I am afraid I shocked Mrs. Berridge at the outset by my casual, who's this man, chalice? She certainly atoned by her own manner for my irreverence. She very obviously tried to impress me. I professed submission, but was not intimidated, rather my curiosity was aroused. Mrs. Berridge was not able to tell me the one thing I most desired to know whether the Lord of Chalice Court was in residence. But it was not far to walk, and I set out about two o'clock. Seven. Chalice was getting into his motor as I walked up the drive. I hurried forward to catch him before the machine was started. He saw me coming and paused on the doorstep. Did you want to see me? he asked as I came up.

Mr. Chalice, I asked. Yes, he said. I won't keep you now, I said, but perhaps you could let me know some time when I could see you. Oh yes, he said with the air of a man who is constantly subjected to annoyance by strangers. But perhaps you wouldn't mind telling me what it is you wish to see me about. I might be able to settle it now, at once. I'm staying at the wood farm, I began. I'm interested in a very remarkable child. Ah, take my advice, leave him alone, interrupted Chalice quickly. I suppose I looked my amazement, for Chalice laughed. Oh well, he said. Of course you won't take such spontaneous advice as that. I'm in no hurry. Come in.

He took off his heavy overcoat and threw it into the tonneau. Come round again an hour, he said to the chauffeur. It's very good of you, I protested. I could come quite well at any other time. I'm in no hurry, he repeated. You'd better come to the scene of Victor Stott's operations. He hasn't been here for six weeks, by the way. Can you throw any light on his absence?

I made a friend that afternoon. When the car came back at four o'clock, Chalice sent it away again. I shall probably stay down here tonight, he said to the butler to me. Can you stay to dinner? I must convince you about this child. I have dined once today, I said, at half-past twelve. I have no other excuse. Oh well, said Chalice. You needn't eat, but I must. Get us something, Heathcote, he said to the butler. and bring tea here.

Much of our conversation after dinner was not relevant to the subject of the wonder. We drifted into a long argument upon human origins, which has no place here, but by that time I had been very well informed as to all the essential facts of the wonder's childhood, of his entry into the world of books, of his earlier methods, and of the significance of that long speech in the library. But at that point, Chalice became, reserved. He would give me no details.

You must forgive me. I can't go into that, he said. But it is so incomparably important, I protested. That may be, but you must not question me. The truth of the matter is that I have a very confused memory of what the boy said, and the little I might remember, I prefer to leave on disturbed. He piqued my curiosity, but I did not press him. it was so evidence that he did not wish to speak on that head. He walked up with me to the farm at ten o'clock, and came into my room.

"'We need not to keep you out of bed, Mrs. Berridge,' he said to my flustered landlady. "'I dare say we shall be up till all ours. We promised to see that the house is locked up.' Mr. Berridge stood a figure of subservience in the background. My books were still heaped on the floor. Chalice sat down on the window-sill and looked over some of them. "'Many of these Master Stott probably read in my library,' he remarked. "'In German, language is no bar to him.

He learns a language as you are I would learn a page of history.' Later on, I remember that we came down to essentials. "'I must try and understand something of this child's capacities,' I said in answer to a hint of chalises, that I should leave the wonder alone. It seems to me that here we have something which is of the first importance, of greater importance indeed than anything else in the history of the world. But you can't make him speak, said Chalice.

I shall try, I said. I recognise that we cannot compel him, but I have a certain hold over him. I see from what you have told me that he has treated me with the most unusual courtesy. I assure you that several times when I spoke to him this morning, he nodded his head. Good beginning, laughed Chalice. I can't understand, I went on, how it is that you are not more interested. It seems to me that this child knows many things which we have been patiently attempting to discover since the dawn of civilization.

Quite, said Chalice, I admit that, but, well, I don't think I want to know. "'Surely,' I said, "'this key to all knowledge. "'We are not ready for it,' replied Chalice. "'You can't teach metaphysics to children.' "'Nevertheless my ardour was increased, "'not abated by my long talk with Chalice.' "'I shall go on,' I said,

"'as I went out to the farm gate with him "'at half-past two in the morning. "'Ah, well,' he answered, "'I shall come over and see you when I come back.' "'He had told him, me earlier that he was going abroad for some months. We hesitated a moment by the gate, and instinctively we both looked up at the vault of the sky

and the glimmering dust of stars. The same thought was probably in both our minds, the thought of the insignificance of this little system that revolves around one of the lesser lights of the Milky Way, but that thought was not to be expressed, save by some banality, and we did not speak. "'I shall certainly look you up when I come back,' said Chalice.

"'Yes, I hope you will,' I said lamely. I watched the loom of his figure against the vague background till I could distinguish it no longer. End of Chapter 14. Chapter 15 of the Hamdonshire Wonder by J.D. Beresford. This Librivox recording is in the public domain. The progress and relaxation of my subject, 1. The memory of last summer is presented to me now as a series of pictures. Some brilliant,

others vague, others again so uncertain that I cannot be sure how far they are true memories of actual occurrences, and how far they are interwoven with my thoughts and dreams. I have, for instance, a recollection of standing on Dean Hill and looking down over the wide panorama of rural England, through a driving mist of fine rain. This might well be counted among true memories, where it's not for the fact that clearly associated with the picture is an image of myself grown to enormous dimensions, a broken specter that threatened the world with titanic gestures of denouncement.

And I seem to remember that this figure was saying, All life runs through my fingers like a handful of dry sand, and yet the remembrance has not the quality of a dream. I was undoubtedly overwrought at times. There were days when the sight of a book filled me with physical nausea, with contempt for the littleness, the narrow outlook, that seemed to me to characterize every written work. I was fiercely but quite impotently eager at such times

to demonstrate the futility of all the philosophy ranged on the rough wooden shelves in my gloomy sitting-room. I would walk up and down and gesticulate, struggling, fighting to make clear to myself what a true philosophy should set forth. I felt at such times that all the knowledge I needed for so stupendous a task was present within me in some inexplicable way,

was even pressing upon me, but that my brain was so clogged and heavy that not one idea of all that priceless wisdom could be expressed in clear thought. I have never been taught to think, I would complain, I have never perfected the machinery of thought. And then some dictum thrown out haphazard by the wonder, his conception of light conversation would recur to me, and I would realize that however well I had been trained,

my limitations would remain, that I was an undeveloped animal, only one stage higher than a totem fearing savage, a creature of small possibilities, incapable of dealing with great problems. Once the wonder said to me, in a rare moment of lucid condescension to my feeble intellect, you figure space is a void in three dimensions, and time is a line that runs across it, and all other conceptions you relegate to that measure. He implied that this was a cumbrous machinery, which had to be a number of,

no relation to reality and could define nothing. He told me that his idea of force, for example, was a pure abstraction, for which there was no figure in my mental outfit. Such pronouncements as these left me struggling like a drowning man in deep water. I felt that it must be possible for me to come to the surface, but I could do nothing but flounder, beat fiercely with limbs that were so powerful and yet so utterly useless. I saw that my very metaphors symbolized my feebleness. I had no terms for my own mental condition. I was forced to resort to some inapplicable physical analogy. These fits of revolt against the limitations of human thought grew more frequent as the summer progressed. Day after day, my self-sufficiency and conceit

were being crushed out of me. I was always, in the society of a boy of seven, whom I was forced to regard as immeasurably my intellectual superior. There was no department of useful knowledge in which I could compete with him. Compete indeed! I might as well speak of a third standard child competing with McCauley in a general knowledge paper. Useful knowledge, I have written, but the phrase needs definition. I might have taught the wonder many things, no doubt. the habits of men in great cities, the aspects of foreign countries, or the subtleties of cricket.

But when I was with him, I felt, and my feelings must have been typical, that such things as these were of no account. Towards the end of the summer, the occasions upon which I was able to stimulate myself into a condition of bearable complacency were very rare. I often thought of Chalice's advice to leave the wonder alone. I should have gone away if I had been free, but Victor Stott had a use for me, and I was powerless to disobey him. I feared him, but he controlled me at his will. I feared him as I had once feared an imaginary God, but I did not hate him.

One curious little fragment of wisdom came to me as a result of my experience, a useless fragment, perhaps, but something that has in one way altered my opinion of my fellow men. I learnt that a measure of self-pride, of complacency, is essential to every human being. I judge no man any more for displaying an overweening vanity, rather do I envy him this representative mark of his humanity. The wonder was completely and quite inimitably devoid of any conceit, and the word ambition had no meaning for him.

It was inconceivable that he should compare himself with any of his fellow-creates, and it was inconceivable that any honour they might have lavished upon him would have given him one moment's pleasure. He was entirely alone among aliens who were unable to comprehend him, aliens who could not flatter him, whose opinions were valueless to him. He had no more common ground on which to air his knowledge, no more grounds for comparison by which to achieve self-conceit than a man might have in a world tenanted only by sheep, From what I have heard him say on the subject of our slavery to preconceptions,

I think the metaphor of sheep is one which he might have approved. But the result of all this, so far as I am concerned, is a feeling of admiration for those men who are capable of such magnificent approval for themselves, the causes they espouse, their family, their country and their species. It is an approval which I fear I can never again attain in full measure, I have seen possibilities which have enforced a humbleness that is not good for my happiness or conducive to my development. Henceforward, I will espouse the cause of vanity.

It is only the vein who deprecates vanity in others. But there were times in the early period of my association with Victor Stott when I rebelled vigorously against his complacent assumption of my ignorance. 2. 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 blasted 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 a word. as follows. Pure deduction from a single premise, 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 lesser degree upon the test of a material experiment for verification. Here, as always, I find the wonders 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 analyze 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, 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. 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 heard 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 worthwhile 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 Dean 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 beach. 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 Hamdonshire 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 onto 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 the, 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 stairs, 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. Ah, ma-ma, 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 zaylorated, 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. He 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-sufficient, several times as he lolloped away among the low gorse, to which Luke 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. Four. 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 acknowledgement 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 Crashore 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 wondrous compelling power to be reckoned with in the case of Crashaw. 5. Chalice came back in early September, and it was he who first coaxed, and then goaded me into rebellion. Chalice did not come too soon. At the end of August, I was seen. 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 Dean 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 intercourse. of life and matter, and my brain was not of the calibre to endure the strain. Chalice saw at once what ailed me. He came up to the farm one morning at twelve o'clock. The date was, I believe, the 12th 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 Chalice arrived. He waited for me and talked to the flag. He was a while, battered 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 Chalice Court. I consented, but stipulated that I must be back at Pim by three o'clock to accompany the wonder for his afternoon walk. Chalice looked at me curiously, but allowed the stipulation. We hardly spoke as we walk down there.

hill. The habit of silence had grown upon me, but after lunch, Chalice 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. Chalice 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 Chalice put it to me that our work was to find data, that every little item of real knowledge added to the feeble store man as 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 very important item from Victor Stott? Chalice shook his head. He has 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, Chalice'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. 6. On the 29th of September, I went down to Chalice 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 Chalice. At half-past one o'clock on Thursday the 8th of October,

I was in the sitting room when I saw the figure of Mrs. Stock. 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. End of Chapter 15. Chapter 16 of the Hamdenshire Wanda by J.D. Beresford. This Librevox recording is in the public domain. Release. 1. She opened the front door without knocking and came straight into my sitting room. "'He's not here,' 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 today.' "'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. He hasn't been into his dinner, she said hurriedly. Oh, he's been on the common looking for him. He may have made a mistake in the time, I suggested. She made a movement.

as though to push me on one side and turn 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. He never makes a mistake in the time,

she said fiercely. He always knows what time to the minute, without clock or watch. Why did you leave him alone? She broke off in her attack upon me and continued, "'He's never been like before, not a minute, "'and no, it's an hour after his 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. "'Two. "'The wonder was not at the cottage. "'Now, my dear woman, you must keep calm,' I said. "'There is absolutely. see no reason to be disturbed. You had better go to Chalice Court and see if he is in the library.

I—oy, my 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 Chalice 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 Dean Hill.

It was just possible that the wonder might have slipped down that steep incline, and in 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, a 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 know that the wood 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 Hawk. He was carrying a stick and prodding with it foolishly among the firs and gorse bushes. The bracken was already dying down. "'What are you looking for?' I asked. "'Is this earmaster, Stot, sir?' he said, looking up. "'He's got lost, seemingly.' "'I felt a certain stab of self-reproach. "'I had been taking things too easily.

"'I looked at my watch. It was a quarter to four.' "'Bester Chalice have told me to Lachferin,' added the man, "'and continued his aimless prodding of the gauce. "'Where is Mr. Chalice?' I asked. "'He's yonder somewheres.' "'He made a vague gesture in the gisture and, the direction of Pim. 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. Chalice 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 Pim so animated. Three. I met Chalice 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. Chalice shook his head. There will be a mad woman in that cottage if he doesn't come back by night. He remarked with a jerk of his head.

I've done what I can for her. I explained that I had been over to Dean Hill, searching and calling. Who didn't see anything? asked Chalice, 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 Chalice. Tell Heathcut to send everyone. One of the labourers touched his cap again and started off at once with a lumbering trot. Chalice and I walked on in silence, looking keenly about us,

and stopping every now and then and calling. We called, Hello, hello! It was an improvement upon my whistle. He's such a little chap, muttered Chalice 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 Chalice 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 Heathcutt and several other men in the lane. "'Shall't be able to do much tonight, sir,' said Heathcote. "'It'll be dark in half an hour, sir.' "'Well, do what you can in half an hour,' replied Chalice, 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 hardly thought of him in that light before. The arduous work of the search he could delegate to his "'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. "'Have I found him, sir?' she asked. "'Not yet,' replied Chalice. "'I followed him into the house. "'Four.' "'As I walked back, "'and I walked back, at 10 o'clock it was raining steadily. I had refused the offer of a trap. I went through the dark

and sodden wood and I lingered and listened. The persistent tap-tap-tap of the rain on the leaves irritated me. How could one hear while that noise was going on? There was no other sound, there was not a breath of wind, only that perpetual tap-tap-tap, pat-a-patter, drip-tap-tap. It seemed as if it's might go on through eternity. I went to the Stott's cottage, although I knew there could be no news. Chalice had given strict instructions that any news should be brought to him immediately. If it was bad news, it was to be brought to him before the mother was told. There was a light burning in the cottage and the door was set wide open. I went up to the door but I did not go in. Ellen Mary was sitting in a high chair, her hands clasped together. She was, and the door. She was

clasped together and she rocked continually to and fro. She made no sound. She merely rocked herself with steady regular persistence. She did not see me standing at the open door and I moved quietly away. As I walked over the common, I avoided the wood deliberately. I wondered what was the human limit of endurance. I wondered whether Ellen Mary had not reached that limit. Mrs. Berridge had not come to bed and there were some visitors in the kitchen. I heard them talking. Mrs. Berridge came out when I opened the front door. "'Any news, sir?' she asked. "'No, no news,' I said. I had been about to ask her the same question. Five. I did not go to sleep for some time. I had a picture of Ellen Mary before my eyes, and I could

still hear that steady patter drip of the rain on the beach leaves. In the night I awoke suddenly and thought I heard a long wailing cry out on the common. I got up and looked out of the window, but I could see nothing. The rain was still falling, but there was a blur of light that showed where the moon was shining behind the clouds. The cry, if there had been a cry, was not repeated. I went back to bed and soon fell asleep again. I do not know whether I had been dreaming, but I woke suddenly with a presentation of the little pond on the common very clear before me. We never looked in the pond, I thought, and then,

but he could not have fallen into the pond. Besides, it's not two feet deep. It was full daylight and I got up and found that it was nearly seven o'clock. The rain had stopped, but there was a scurry of low-threatening cloud that blew up from the south. I dressed at once and went out. I made my way directly to the Stott's cottage. The lamp was still burning and the door open, but Ellen Mary had fallen forward onto the table.

Her head was pillowed on her arms. "'There is a limit to our endurance,' I reflected, and she has reached it. I left her undisturbed. Outside I met two of Farmer Bates' labourers going back to work. I want you to come up with me to the pond, I said. Six. The pond was very full. On the side from which we approached, the ground sloped gradually

and the water was stretching out far beyond its accustomed limits. On the farther side, the gorse among the trunks of the three ash trees came right to the edge of the bank. On that side, the bank was three or four feet high. We came to the edge of the pond, and one of the labourers waded in a little way. The water was very shallow on that side, but we could see nothing for the scum of weed, little spangles of dirty green, and a mass of some other plants that had borne a little white flower in the earlier part of the year, stuff like dwarf hemlock. under the farther bank however

I saw one comparatively clear space of black water let's go round I said and led the way there was a tiny path which twisted between the gorse roots and came out at the edge of the farther bank by the stem of the tallest ash I had seen tiny village boys pretending to fish from this point with a stick and a piece of string there was a dead branch of ash some five or six feet till

with the twigs partly twisted off. It was lying among the bushes. I remembered that I had seen small boys using this branch to clear away the surface weed. I picked it up and took it with me. I wound one arm round the trunk of the ash and peered over into the water under the bank. I caught sight of something white under the water.

I could not see distinctly. I thought it was a piece of broken wear, the bottom of a basin. I had picked up the ash stick and was going to probe the deeper water with it, then I saw that the dim white object was globular. The end of my stick was actually in the water. I withdrew it quickly and threw it behind me. My heart began to throb painfully.

I turned my face away and leaned against the ash tree. Can you say anything? asked one of the labourers who had come up behind me. "'Oh, Christ!' I said. I turned quickly from the pond and pressed away through the gorse. I was overwhelmingly and disgustingly sick. 7. By degrees the solid earth ceased to wave and sway before me like a rolling heave of water,

and I looked up, pressing my hands to my head. My hands were as cold as death. My clothes were wet and muddy. where I had lain on the sodden ground. I got to my feet and instinctively began to brush at the mud. I was still a little giddy, and I swayed and sought for support. I could see the back of one labourer. He was kneeling by the ash tree, bending right down over the water.

The other man was standing in the pond up to his waist in water and mud. I could just see his head and shoulders. I staggered away in the direction of the water. the village. Eight. I found Ellen Mary still sitting in the same chair. The lamp was fluttering to extinction, the flame leaping spasmodically, dying down till it seemed that it had gone out, and then again suddenly flickering up with little clicking bursts of flame. The air reeked intolerably of paraffin. I blew the lamp out and pushed it on one side. There was no need to break the news to Ellen Mary, she had known last night, and now she was beyond the reach of information.

She sat upright in her chair and stared out into the immensity. Her hands alone moved, and they were not still for an instant. They lay in her lap, and her fingers writhed and picked at her dress. I spoke to her once, but I knew that her mind was beyond the reach of my words. "'It's just as well,' I thought, but we must have. "'I must have. "'I thought, but we must get her away. I went out and called to the woman next door. She was in her kitchen, but the door was open. She came out when I knocked. "'Poor thing,' she said when I told her, "'It has been a shock, no doubt. She was so wrapped up in the boy. She could hardly have said less if her neighbour had lost half a crown. "'Get her into your cottage before they come,'

I said harshly, and left her. I wanted to get out of the lane before the men came back, but I had hardly started before I saw them coming. They had made a chair of their arms, and were carrying him between them. They had not the least fear of him now. Nine. The Harrison idiot suddenly jumped out of the hedge.

I put my hand to my throat. I wanted to cry out to stop him, but I could not move. I felt sick again and utterly weak and powerless and I could not take my gaze from that little doll with the great drooping head that rolled as the men walked. I was reminded, disgustingly, of children with a guy. The idiot ran shambling down the lane. He knew the two men who tolerated him and laughed at him.

He was not afraid of them nor their burden. He came right up to them. I heard one of the men say, "'No, then, you cut along off.' "'I believe the idiot must have touched the dead body. "'I was gripping my throat in my hand. "'I was trying desperately to cry out. "'Whether the idiot actually touched the boy or not,

"'I cannot say, but he must have realised "'in his poor bemused brain that the thing was dead. "'He cried out with his horrible inhuman cry, "'turned and ran up the lane towards me. He fell on his face a few yards from me, scrambled wildly to his feet again, and came on yelping and shrieking. He was wildly horribly afraid. I caught sight of his face as he passed me, and his mouth was distorted into a square, his upper lip horribly drawn up over his ragged yellow teeth.

Suddenly he dashed at the hedge and clawed his way through. I heard him still yelping, appallingly, as he was aft of allingly. he rushed away across the field. End of Chapter 16. Chapter 17 of the Hamden Shawanda by J.D. Beresford. This Librivox recording is in the public domain. Implications. 1. The jury returned a verdict of accidental death.

If there had been any traces of a struggle, I had not noticed them when I came to the edge of the pond. There may have been marks as if a foot. had slipped. I was not thinking of evidence when I looked into the water. There were marks enough when the police came to investigate, but they were the marks made by a 12-stone man in hobnail boots who had scrambled into and out of the pond. As the inspector said, it was not worth while wasting any time in looking for earlier traces of footsteps below these marks. Nor were there any signs of violence on the body. It was in no way disfigured, save

by the action of the water in which it had lain for 18 hours. There was indeed only one point of any significance from the jury's point of view, and that they put on one side, if they considered it at all. The body was pressed into the mud. The coroner asked a few questions about this fact. Was the mud very soft? Yes, very soft, liquid on top. How is the body lying?

Face downwards. What part of it? of the body was deepest in the mud, the chest. The witness said he had had hard work to get the upper part of the body released. The head was free, but the mud held the rest. The mode suit like,

was the expressive phrase of the witness. The coroner passed on to other things, had anyone a spite against the child and such futilities. Only once more did he revert to that solitary significant fact. Would it be possible, he asked of the abashed and self-conscious labourer,

would it be possible for the body to have worked its way down into the soft mud, as you have described it to have been found? Well, said the witness, "'Twas in the staky mud, twas through the soft stuff. But this soft mud would suck any solid body down, would it not?' persisted the coroner, and the witness recalled the case of a duck that had been sucked into the same soft pond mud the summer before and cited the instance. He forgot to add that on that occasion

the mud had not been underwater. The coroner accepted the instance, there can be no question that both he and the jury were anxious to accept the easier explanation. Two, but I know perfectly well that the wonder did not fall into the pond by accident. I should have known, even if that's conclusive evidence with regard to

his being pushed into the mud had never come to light. He may have stud by the ash tree and looked into the water, but he would never have fallen. He was too perfectly controlled, and with all his apparent abstraction, no one was ever more alive to the detail of his surroundings. He and I have walked together per force in many slippery places, but I have never known him to fall, or even begin to lose his balance, whereas I have gone down many times. He and I have gone down many times, but I have gone down many times. Yes, I know that he was pushed into the pond, and I know that he was held down in the mud, most probably by the aid of that ash stick I had held. But it was not for me to throw suspicion on anyone at that inquest, and I preferred to keep my thoughts and my inferences to myself. I should have done so,

even if I had been in possession of stronger evidence. I hope that it was the Harrison idiot who was to blame. He was not dangerous in the ordinary sense, but he might quite well have done the thing in a play as he understood it. Only I cannot quite understand his pushing the body down after it fell. That seems to argue of indictiveness and a logic which I can hardly attribute to the idiot. Still, who can tell what went on in the distorted mind of that poor creature? He is reported to have rescued the dead body of a rabbit from the undergrowth on one of a occasion, and to have blubbered when he could not bring it back to life. There is but one other person who could have been implicated, and I hesitate to name him in

this place. Yet one remembers what terrific acts of misapplied courage and ferocious brutality the fanatics of history have been capable of performing when their creed and their authority have been set at naught. 3. Ellen Mary never recovered her sanity. she died a few weeks ago in the county asylum. I hear that her husband attended the funeral. When she lost her belief in the supernal wisdom and power of her God,

the world must have fallen about her. The thing she had imagined to be solid, real, everlasting, had proved to be friable and destructible, like all other human building. 4. The wonder is buried in Chilbara Churchyard. You may find the moment. place by its proximity to the great marble nozzalium

erected over the remains of Sir Edward Bigg, the well-known brewer and philanthropist. The grave of Victor Stott is marked by a small stone, some six inches high, which is designed to catch the foot rather than the eye of the seeker. The stone bears the initials V.S. and date, no more. 5. I saw the wonder before he was buried.

I went up into the little bedroom and looked at him in his tiny coffin. I was no longer afraid of him. His power over me was dissipated. He was no greater and no less than any other dead thing. It was the same with everyone. He had become that poor little boy of Mrs. Stott's. No one spoke of him with respect now. No one seemed to remember that he had been in any way different from other poor little fellows.

who had died an untimely death. One thing did strike me as curious. The idiot, the one person who had never feared him living, had feared him horribly when he was dead. End of Chapter 17. Epilogue to the Hamdonshire Wonder by J.D. Beresford. This Librivox recording is in the public domain. The uses of mystery.

Something Chalice has told me, something I have learned for myself. and there is something which has come to me from an unknown source. But here again we are confronted with the original difficulty, the difficulty that for some conceptions there is no verbal figure. It is comprehensible, it is, indeed, obvious, that the deeper abstract speculation of the wonder's thought cannot be set out by any metaphor that would be understood by a lesser intelligence.

We see that many philosophers whose utterances have been recorded, in human history, that record which floats like a drop of oil on the limitless ocean of eternity, have been confronted with this same difficulty, and have woven an intricate and tedious design of words in their attempt to convey some single conception, some conception which themselves could see but dimly when disguised in the masquerade of language. Some figure that as it was limbed grew ever more confused beneath the wrappings of metaphor, so that that, we who read can glimpse scarce a hint of its original shape and likeness. We see also that the very philosophers who caricatured their own idolan

became intrigued with the logical abstraction of words and were led away into a wilderness of barren deduction, their one inspired vision of a stable premise distorted and at last forgotten. How then shall we hope to find words to adambrate a philosophy which starts by the assumption that we can have no impression of reality until we have rid ourselves of the interposing and utterly false concepts of space and time which delimits the whole world of human thought. I admit that one cannot even begin to do this thing.

Within our presence limitations, our whole machinery of thought is built of these two original concepts. They are the only gauges wherewith we may measure every reality, every abstraction, wherewith we may give outline to any image or process of the mind. Only when we endeavour to grapple with that indeterminable mystery of consciousness, can we conceive, however dimly, some idea of a pure abstraction, uninfluenced by and independent of those twin bases of our means of thought. Here it is that Chalice has paused. Here he says that we must wait, that no revelation can reveal what,

we are incapable of understanding that only by the slow process of evolution can we attain to any understanding of the mystery we have sought to solve by our futile and primitive hypotheses. But then, I have pressed him, why do you hesitate to speak of what you heard on that afternoon?

And once he answered me, I glimpsed a finality, he said, and that appalled me. Don't you see that ignorance is the means, of our intellectual pleasure. It is the solving of the problem that brings enjoyment. The solved problem has no further interest. So, when all is known, the stimulus for action ceases.

When all is known, there is a quiescence, nothingness. Perfect knowledge implies the peace of death, implies the state of being one. Our pleasures are derived from action, from differences, from heterogeneity. "'Oh, pity the child,' said Chalice, for whom they could be no mystery. Is not mystery the first and greatest joy of life? Beyond the gates there is an explored mystery for us in our childhood. When that is explored, there are new and wonderful possibilities beyond the hills, then beyond the seas, beyond the known world,

in the everyday chances and movements of the unknown life in which we are circumstanced. Surely we should all perish through sheer inanity, or die desperately by suicide, if no mystery remained in the world. The mystery takes a thousand beautiful shapes, it lurks even in the handiwork of man, in a stone god or in some mighty, intricate machine, incomprehensibly deliberate and determined. The imagination endows the man-made thing with consciousness and powers, whether of reservation or aloofness. The similitude of meditation and profundity is wrought into stone. Is there not source for mystery to the uninstructed

in the great machine registering the progress of its own achievement with each solemn recurrence beat of its metal pulse? Behind all these things is the wonder of the imagination that never approaches more nearly to the creation of a hitherto unknown image than when it thus hesitates. on the verge of mystery. There is yet so much, so very much cause for wondering speculation. Science gains ground so slowly.

Slowly it has outlined, however vaguely, the uncertainties of our origin so far as this world is concerned, while the mystic has fought for his entrancing fairy tales one by one. The mystic still holds his enthralling belief in the succession of peoples who have risen and died. the succeeding world races, red, black, yellow and white, which have in turn dominated this planet. Science, with its hammer and chisel,

melee bare evidence, make a late material, date man's appearance, call him the most recent of placental mammals, trace his superstitions and his first conceptions of a god from the elemental fears of the savage. But the mystic turns aside with an assumption of superior, knowledge. He waves away objective evidence. He has a certainty impressed upon his mind.

The mistake is a par. He compels a multitude of followers because he offers an attraction greater than the facts of science. He tells of a mystery profounder than any problem solved by patient investigation, because his mystery is incomprehensible even by himself.

And if fear lest any should comprehend it, he disguises the approach with an array of lesser mysteries, man-made, with terminologies, symbologies, and high talk of esotericism, too fearful for any save the initiate. But we must preserve our mystic in some form against the awful time when science shall have determined a limit, when the long history of evolution shall be written in full at every stage of world building shall be made plain. When the cycle of atomic dust to atomic dust is demonstrated, and the detail of the life process is taught and understood,

we shall have a fierce need for the mystic, to save us from the futility of a world we understand, to lie to us if need be, to inspirate our material and regular minds with some breath of delicious madness. We shall need the mystic then, or the completeness of our knowledge will drive us at last to complete the dusty circle in our eagerness to escape from a world we understand. See how man clings to his old and useless traditions.

See how he opposes at every step the awful force of progress. At each stage he protests that the thing that is is good or that the thing that was and has gone was better. He despises new knowledge and fondly. clings to the belief that once men were greater than they now are. He looks back to the more primitive and endows it with that mystery he cannot find in his own times. So have men ever looked lingeringly behind them? It is an instinct, a great and wonderful inheritance that postpones the moment of disillusionment. We are still mercifully surrounded with the countless mysteries of everyday experience, all the

evidences of the unimaginable stimulus we call life. Would you take them away? Would you resolve life into a disease of the ether? A disease of which you and I, all life and all matter, are symptoms. Would you teach that to the child and explain to him that the wonder of life and growth is no wonder, but a demonstrable result of impeded force to be evaluated by the application of an adequate formula? "'You and I,' said Chalice, "'our children in the infancy of the world, "'let us to our play in the nursery of our own times. "'The day will come, perhaps,

"'when humanity shall have grown "'and will have to take upon itself "'the heavy burden of knowledge. "'But you need not fear that that will be in our day, "'nor in a thousand years. "'Meanwhile, leave us our childish fancies, "'our little imaginings, "'our hope,

children that we are of those impossible mysteries beyond the hills. Beyond the hills. End of Epilogue. End of the Hamdonshire Wonder by J.D. Beresford.