All Men are Ghosts

who had earned his master's favour by prowess at the battle of Dunbar. The family tradition averred that when Cromwell halted the pursuit of Leslie's shattered forces for the purpose of sing

d the tradition, on

observation of facts, the even-handed weighing of evidence, the right ordering of principles and their application, the separation and weaving together of lines of thought, the careful disentangling of necessary pre-suppositions, the just treatment of objectors-all the qualities demanded of one wh

stor at Dunbar, he struck his tuning-fork on his sword. To be sure, he was a Rational Theist, and a cause of Rational Theism in others; but, unless I am much mistaken, the ultimate object of his faith, the Power behind his Deity, was the Inflexible Method. Superstition never dies; it merely changes its form. It is not a confession we make to ourselves so much as a c

regard to the one, he was a tight rider in regard to the other. His seat, like his philosophy, was a trifle stiff; but what else could you expect in one who had passed his sixtieth year? He never rode to hounds, nor otherwise unduly jeopardised his neck; but for managing a high-spirited horse, when all

ou do to that young mare of yours when you

g," he

do you sa

thi

do you m

the faint

ngland. If ever there was a man as throwed himself away, there he goes! 'Orse-sense isn't a thing as you see every day, sir. The only other man I've ever knowed as had it was his Lordship, as I was his coachman in Ireland more than twenty years ago.

as a bishop,"

nd all the rest on 'em? When it comes to a matter o' breedin', you don't stop at fathers; you take in the whole pedigree. Wasn't his Lordship's father a brewer?

gypsies have the

f it weren't for that I'd say as the gen'l'man was as like to be gypsy-bred as jockey. Don't you never let the gypsies sell you a 'oss, sir; you'll be took in if you do. But th

o be all in my favour, when a friendly daimon whispered in my ear that I had better be cautious. So I said, "Yes, the horse seems all right. But before coming to a final decision, I'll bring Dr Scattergood round to have a look at him." And

chase. "Pretty good. But I think I could have saved you an

nfully sensitive to the slightest deviation from the Absolute Ideal. Whatever good qualities his horse might possess-and they were always numerous-the presence of a single fault, however slight, would haunt and oppress him in much the same way as a venial sin will trouble the consciousness of a saint. I remember one beautiful animal in which the severest judges could find no defect save that it had half a dozen miscoloured hairs hidden away on one of its hind-le

own the street; but a beast of more dangerous mettle never pranced on two feet or kicked out with one. She was the terror of every stable she entered, and it was only by continual largesse on the part of Scattergood that any groom could be induced to feed or tend her. What she cost him monthly for tips, for broken stable furniture, an

of the mare can be stated in a sentence. She reminded him, constantly and vividly, of Ethelberta. Her high spirits, her dash, her unexpectedness, her brilliant eyes, her gait, and especially t

e woman who called herself his wife, narcotised on the drawing-room sofa, with an empty bottle of chloral at her side? That was the lot of John Scattergood, D.D., and he bore it like a man, keeping up a pathetic show of devotion to his intolerable wife, and concealing his personal misery from the world with an ingenuity only equal to that with which he published abroad the Friendliness of the Universe. To be sure, he had long abandoned the quest for happiness as a thing unworthy of a Systematic Theologian-what else, indeed, could he do? Still, it was hardly possible to avoid reflecting that h

ished nothing of the kind. He secretly cherished her memory, and the efforts he made to banish her

oing its victim the deadliest turn, will often disguise itself in the robes of his heavenly guide. Later on in life he learned to penetrate these disguises, but at twenty-five he was at their mercy. He was, as we have seen, of Puritan descent; his evangelical upbringing had taught him to regard as heaven-sent all inner voices which bade him sacrifice

dressing the inner voice. "Who are you that h

y of Ethelberta; and it is I, your conscience, that tell you

in the days when he and Ethelberta were walking hand in hand. So he listened to that inner voice with awe: he listened until its lying words became an obsession; until they darkened his mind; until they drowned the voices of love and began to find utterance in his manners, and even in his sp

d the two parted, never to meet again. "You have done your duty," said the false conscience. "You have dealt me

s not good enough for him; and that other man, who had been watching his opportunity, l

r their honeymoon," he would say aloud-for he was in the habit of talking to himself-"they went to Naples for their honeymoon; there she caught typhoid fever, and died six weeks after her marriage. But things would have happened differently had she married me. We were not going to Naples for the honeymoon. We were going

sensitive to anything which could remind him of Ethelberta. And I have no doubt that his pec

the eyes. For a moment he was paralysed with astonishment and thought he was dreaming. The movement, the attitude, the look were all Ethelberta's! Exactly thus had she stopped abruptly, lowered her head, curved her neck, and looked him in the face when thirty-five years ago he had been introduced to her at an Embassy Ball in Vienna. A vision swept o

I've watched her every day since she was foaled, and I'l

t," said Scattergood, cutting him sho

er, who was expecting a

--Well, never mind, Meg will do. So you bred her

re not a firm of horse-thieves," he said, and h

. "She's the living likeness of one I remember years ago-one that was sto

ed the dealer, glad that the

red and

he hoped to sell the mare. For a moment he thought of standing out for a hundre

the sake of quick business, and you being a gentleman as know

und in ten minutes." And without another word he wal

housand awkward questions, Scattergood the terror of every horse-dealer in the countryside? Never before had he found so prompt, so reckless a customer. Were his eyes deceiving him? Was it a dream? A viol

y, doubts as to the validity of the Inflexible Method, vague and nameless feelings that accompanied the disappearance of his "horse-sense," a yet vaguer joy as of one who has found somethi

ulars not one of which is really like the original. Quite unmistakable, and yet quite unthinkable.

But now the thing was flashed on him with the brightness of authentic revelation, and there was no gainsaying its truth. Not once during the five-and-thirty years of his mourning for Ethelberta had anything happened to bring her so vividly to mind; not even among the dreams that haunt the borderland of sleep and waking; no, nor even when he listened to the great singer whose voice had pierced his heart with t

articulate thought. "I'm sure," he said to himself, drawing his latch-key out of his pocket and inserting