The Ball and The Cross

tmosphere. It showed an interest in the Bible unknown in the district, and a knowledge of that volume to which nobody else on Ludgate Hill could make any conspicuous

in that he hung in conspicuous places the most thrilling scientific calculations about the width of the throat of a whale. Was it nothing to them all they that passed by? Did his sudden and splendid and truly sincere indignation never stir any of the people pouring down Ludgate Hill? Never. The little man who edited The Atheist would ru

looked more glaring, and every day the dust lay thicker upon them. It made him feel as if he were moving in a world of idiots. He seemed among a race of men who smiled when told of their own death, or looked vacantly at the Day of Judgement. Year after year went by, and year after year the death of God in a shop in Ludgate became a less and less important occurrence. All the forward men of his age dis

lusion as a strict Roman Catholic, in the midst of that little wedge of Roman Catholics which is driven into the Western Highlands. And he had found his way as far as Fleet Street, seeking some half-promised employment, without having properly realized that there were in the world any people who were not Roman Catholics. He had uncovered himself for a few moments before the statue of Queen Anne, in front of St. Paul's Cathedral, under the firm impression that it was a figure of the Virgin Mary. He was somewhat surprised at the lack of deference shown to the figu

and islets were the same. Evan lived like a man walking on a borderland, the borderland between this world and another. Like so many men and nations who grow up with nature and the common things, he understood the supernatural before he understood the natural. He had looked at dim angels standing knee-deep in the grass before he had looked at the grass. He knew that Our Lady's robes were blue before he knew the wild roses round h

pening it for sixty years, to be ready for the next rebellion. His father, the youngest son and the last left alive, had refused to attend on Queen Victoria in Scotland. And Evan himself had been of one piece with his progenitors; and was not dead with them, but alive in the twentieth century. He was not in the

little, not because he thought it grand or even terrible, but because it bewildered him; it was not the Golden City or even hell; it

with a sour grin he asked himself what was the corresponding monument of the Brunswicks

did not see the word "atheist", or if he did, it is quite possible that he did not know the meaning of the word. Even as it was, the document would not have shocked even the innocent Highlander, but for the troubl

ect and are as bored as their nurse. The streets were full of people and empty of adventures. He might as well know about the gods of Mesopotamia as not; so he flattened his long, lean face against the dim bleak pane of the window and read all there was to read about Mesopotamian gods. He read how the Mesopotamians had a god named Sho (sometimes pronounced Ji), and that he was described as being very powerful, a striking similarity to some expressions about Jahveh, who is also described as having power. Evan had never heard of Jahveh in his life, and imagining him to be some other Mesopotamian idol, read on with a dull curiosity. He learnt that the name Sho, under its thi

urnbull, starting up with hair afl

mping. "Stand up and fight, you crapulous coward. You dir

" asked Turnb

lse when you plaster your own house with that

rs of useless toil, he had his reward. Someone was angry with the paper. He bounded to his feet like a boy; he saw a new youth opening before him. An

h did not exist in the irate little shopkeeper, an air of refined mystery which appealed to the policemen, for policemen, like most other English types, are at once snobs and poets. MacIan might possibly be a gentleman, they felt; the editor manifestly was not. And the editor's

rked himself up into a sort of theoretic rage about certain particular offenders, such as the men who took pokers to their wives, talked in a loose, sentimental way about the desirability of flogging them, and was hopelessly bewildered by t

property with a humane flippancy. Hence, about the mere

n his chair, "do you generally enter you friends'

said Evan, with the sto

rate, sparkling. "Is he your brother-i

id Evan, simply; "he

opping the eye-glass out of his eye in a

e said, roughly, and in a kind of hu

great, blue eyes

of that sort should be spoken about-a-in public, and in an ordinary Court of

nder, "then what did those p

ently, and there's an end of it. But to talk in a public place about one's most sacred and private sentiments-well, I c

not," said Ev

int," said the police magistr

smashed this worthy

y, but he answered with the same cold and d

blasphemed

d for all, my man, that I will not have you turning on any religious rant or cant here. Don't imagine that it will impres

se," said Evan, w

, glaring throug

wered, 'Because he blasphemed Our Lady.' I had no other reason. So I have no ot

your case treated with special consideration. If you had simply expressed regret for what you had done, I should have bee

east sorry," said Evan

as a good-natured man, to compose the dispute. "What conceivable right have you to break other people's wi

" said the

r views necessarily the right ones? Are yo

said

broke into a co

o look after you," he s

It contained exactly twelve sovereigns. He paid down the ten, coin by coin, in silence, and equally

, I will fight him. Do not be afraid. I will not rush at him like a bully, or bear him down with any brute superiority. I will fight him like a gentleman; I will fight him as our fathers fought. He shall choose how, sword or pistol, horse or foot. But if he refuses, I will write his cowardice on every wall in the world. If he had said of my mother what he said of the Mother of God, there is not a club of clean men in Europe that would deny my right to call him out. If he had said it of my wife, you English would yourselves have pardoned me for beating him like a dog in the market place. Your worship, I have no mother; I have no wife. I have only that which the poor have e

ut the rest of Evan's remarks, branching off as they did into theoretic phrases, gave his vague and very English mind (full of memories of the hedging and compromise i

(laughter). I trust all that you said about asking Mr. Turnbull to fight, may be rega

ce," repeated Ev

Turnbull,"

ered MacIan. "What ha

, "that you refuse to..." The voice of Tur

ge me to a duel; and I cannot say anything stronger about his mental state than to say that I think that it is highly probable that he will. (Laughter.) But it takes two to make a duel, your worship (renewed laughter). I do not in the least mind being described on every wall in the world as the coward

olled about, laughing

w. You're perfectly right. Perhaps I have taken the thing too seriously. I sho

laughter of the man he had wronged, made him feel suddenly small, or at least, defeated. It was really true that the whole modern world regarded his world as a bubble. No cruelty could have shown it, but their

The Atheist, "where is the fig

out something, he knew not what; he onl

the only people who can die? Haven't you hung atheists, and burned them, and boiled them, and did they ever deny their faith? Do you think we don't want to

aid..." be

ave got us locked up for a year, and shadowed by the coppers for half a decade. If you wanted to fight,

n my head till our swords clash together. I swear it by the God you have denied, by the Blessed Lady you have blasphemed; I swear it by the seven swords in h

is head. "And I," he