The Ball and The Cross

mes its size. Almost under their feet opened the enormous sea, at the bottom of a steep valley which fell down into a bay; and the sea under their feet blazed at them almost as lustrou

e driving before it all the colours of the world. The lines of the landscape down which they sped, were the simple, strict, yet swerving, lines of a rushing river;

rate we shall be over t

ious!" sa

of the sea, melted into the fringe of a few trees, and quietly, yet astonishingly, stopped. A belated light was burning in the broad morn

ed on his long legs as he stood up; he pulled himself together, and the only consequence was tha

nd deliberately drove the car a few yards farther. Then she got out with an al

t five minutes before. "That is the lodge of my father's place. Plea

ol to see that it was working with a final fatigue and that its austerity was agony. He

earing off her hand. "Oh, I don't know," she said, bi

into the very cellars of the emotional universe. He remained in a stunned silence for a long tim

ordinary lady spoke again, her tone was more friendly and apologetic. "I'm not r

dazed MacIan, "why did you save us fro

lash that was at once final desperation and the

eling self-righteous in the best room in a poor tenement. Or to help some cause or other, which always means bundling people out of crooked houses, in which they've always lived, into straight houses, in which they often die. And all the time you have inside only the horrid irony of your own empty head and empty heart. I am to give to the unfortunate, when my whole misfortune

tive?" asked Eva

big for my mind,"

appy. Father is not happy, though he is a Member of Parliament--" She paused a moment and added with a ghost of a smile: "Nor Aunt Mabel, though a man from India has told her the secret of all creeds. But I may be wrong; there

ehead and began stumblingly:

aid, with ringing sincerity. "You'll be

id Evan, in a shaking voice; "we hav

king like that if I were you," s

he final change in this Proteus, and she put out both her hands for a

What you are doing is so mad that it may be quite true.

d, and after one minute he turned his head. But the girl had only brushe

nd clapped him impatiently on one of his big shoulders. Evan winced and leapt away from him with a repulsion which was not the hate of an unclean thing nor the dread of a dangerous one, but was a spasm of awe and separation from something from which he was now

his hearty hand still in the air; and yet he knew

peril of the faith, forget the face of Our Lady-yes, even with your blow upon her cheek. But the honour of this earth has just this about it, that it can make a man's heart like i

said Turnbull, "but you sa

ht do it. She has left her good name and her good sleep and all her habits and dignity flung away on the

biting his beard; "it does seem as if we ought to

much before," said Mac

l incongruity, and before they knew where they were, they were well upon the grassy ledge of England that overlooks the Channel. Evan said suddenly: "Will they let me see her in heaven

liff and looked out, his companion following,

off for the business. As it happens, I know this part of the south coast pretty well. And unless I am mistaken there

mphant prophecy of some perfect world where everything being innocent will be intelligible; a world where even our bodies, so to speak, may be as of burning glass. Such a world is faintly though fiercely figured in the coloured windows of Christian architecture. The sea that lay before them was like a pavement of emerald, bright and almost brittle;

muttered the man of superstition to hi

ace. All the time that the two travellers sank from stage to stage of this downward journey, there closed over their heads living bridges and caverns of the most varied foliage, all of which grew greener, redder, or more golden, in the growing sunlight of the morning. Life, too, of the more moving sort rose at the sun on every side of them. Birds whirred and fluttered in the undergrowth, as if imprisoned in green cages. Other birds were shaken up in great clouds from the tree-tops, as if they were blossoms detached and scattered

ng memories of childhood; then he said abruptly, like a man remembering somebody's name: "But, of course, we shall be better off still round the corner of Cragness Point; nobody ever comes there at all." And picking up his sword again, he began striding towards a big bluff o

, and, to the other's surprise, flung h

s sent from Scotland to stop with my aunt. It is highly pr

with a choking voice, and he went and walked a

th his own whirlwind of emotions; Turnbull was quit

do it," said MacIan

" said the other, and leapt

ad of living trees and thickets which each wall wore on its top like a huge shock of hair. On all that luxurious crest of life the risen and victorious sun was beating, burnishing it all like gold, and every bird that rose with that sunrise caught a light like a star upon it like the dove of the Holy Spirit. Imaginative life had never so much crowded upon MacIan. He felt that he could write whole books about the feeli

n instant, for he had grown used to every movem

next promontory round which a deep sea was boiling and leaping. Then he turned and loo

ut us off," he

l with equal sobriety. "What view

hen he let them fall and said: "Yes, I know what it means; and I think it is the fairest th

voice pathetically reasonable: "You see, we both saved her-and she told us both to fi

ft and gentle, "that there is something fine about fi

" cried out Evan, in an extraordinary childish ecs

a word, but only too

n at a loss to understand the almost ironical magnificence of all those teeming creatures and tropical colours and smells

things of God, as a man drains good wine at the bottom of his glass. Then he turned and salu

p his hand. "Turnbull!" he cried; "I can't help it-fair fighti

you mean?" asked

time-the tide is coming up fast-and I'm a foot and a half taller. You'll be washed away like seawee

e by jolly well minding your own business? Just you stand up and fight, and we'll see who will be washed away like seaweed. Yo

es by his opponent's sword-point, which shot past him, shaving his shoulder by a hair. By this time the waves

the atheistic champion left to drown like a rat, with such consolation as his view of the cosmos afforded him. But just as Turnbull launched his heaviest stroke, the sea, in which he stood up to his hips

niverse on top of him as crest after crest struck him down. It seemed to him quite a cosmic collapse, as if all the sev

oriously swimming on a low, green swell, with the sword still in his teeth and the editor of The Atheist still under his arm

or just as much time as was needed to see that there was nobody in it. After a moment or two of desperate clambering, however, there were two people in it, Mr. Evan MacIan, panting and sweating, and Mr. James Turnbull, uncommonly close to being drowned. After ten minutes' aimless tossing in the empty fishing-bo

ottom of the deserted boat and

came probably from the swell of some steamer that had passed it in the dark; otherwise the waves were harmless though restless. But it was piercingly cold, and there was, from time to time, a splutter of rain like the splutter of the spray, which seemed almost to freeze as it fell. MacIan, more at home than his companion in this quite barbarous and elemental sort of adventure, had rowed toilsomely with the heavy oars whenever

be seen but a steep and shelving bank of shingle, made of loose little pebbles such as children like, but slanting up higher than a house. On the top of the mound, against the sky line, stood up the brown skel

ope it caught and held so that they could clamber out, not sinking farther than their knees into the water and the shingle. A foot or two farther up t

would be. Their boots were beginning to break up and the confusion of stones tried them severely, so that they were glad to lean on their swords, as if they were the staves of pilgrims. M

u gavest ho

night

own and pu

t receive

cal meditations, but he w

olourless turf; and a few feet up the slope there stood grey and weather-stained, on

bull gave one glance at the crucifix-a glance at once sympathetic and bitter,

ace of man

ve woven a v

rt verily

y love or b

e priests mi

shekels co

an and starved sort of hedge came pitifully to an end. Caught upon its prickly angle, however, there was a very small and very dirty scrap of paper that might have hung there for months, since it escaped from someone tearing up a

last. We are free at last. We are somewhere better than Engla

vily and with knitted brows, like one almost dazed wit

ive en France. We arrive in France. Look at this little message," and he held out the scrap of paper. "There's an

d his eyes awoke again in his

. France, that has always assailed superstition with the club of Rabelais or the rapier of Voltaire. France, at whose first council table sits the sublime figure of Julian the Apostate

France that made the crusades. France that saved the Church and scattered the heresies by the mouths of Bossuet and Massillon. France, which s

xaggeration, very unusual with him, "France, which is one to

one cataract of clear faith from

clash in one continual tournament. France, above all, where men understand the pride and passion which have plucked our blades from their scabbards. Here, at least, we shal

y friend", but nodding again and again, drew his swo

f thunder, "we will fight her

ort of scowling good-humour and then said

defeated," said MacIa

d-thirsty weapons made the sign of the c

s. He had vanished in an instant; but MacIan, whose fighting face was set that way, had seen the shape momentarily but quite photographically. And while it was like a comic repetition of the cross, it was also, in

He did not, however, have to puzzle long. Before the duellists had exchanged half a dozen passes, the big, blue policeman appeared once more on the top of the hill, a palpable monstrosity in the eye of heaven. He was waving only one arm now a

nemy's face and swung round to share its cause.

ed out in a high, shrill voice of authority,

ort of heavy civility shown only to the evidently guil

l thing in the world. "If the French police like to interfere, let them interfere.

rgeant with restraint, "I'm af

up if it's got to be taken up? I always heard

nch police don't take this up-well, because you see, sir, this ain'

d Turnbull, with a so

and in the Channel. We've been sent down specially from London, as you were such specially distinguished criminals, i

ent across it with a clatter of pebbles. His sudden calculation was successful; the police, unacquainted with the various levels of the loose beach, tried to overtake him by the shorter cut and found themselves, being heavy men, almost up to their knees in shoals of slippery shingle. Two who had been slower with their bodies were quicker with their minds

rocks, crowned with a thicket, crawled through it, scratching their hands and faces, and dropped into another road; and there found that they could slacken their speed into a steady t

the side of the road. Then, for the first time, Turnbull twisted round his red bear to get a glimpse of his companion, who was a foot or two behind, and remarked abruptly: "Mr. Ma

ean?" said Mac

tion, "that what we want is a little diplom