Mr. Maydig started violently at the change, and stood looking from the thaumaturgist to the bowl of flowers. He said nothing. Presently he ventured to lean over the table and smell the violets; they were fresh-picked and very fine ones. Then he stared at Mr. Fotheringay again.
"How did you do that?" he asked.
Mr. Fotheringay pulled his moustache. "Just told it--and there you are.
Is that a miracle, or is it black art, or what is it? And what do you think"s the matter with me? That"s what I want to ask."
"It"s a most extraordinary occurrence."
"And this day last week I knew no more that I could do things like that than you did. It came quite sudden. It"s something odd about my will, I suppose, and that"s as far as I can see."
"Is _that_--the only thing. Could you do other things besides that?"
"Lord, yes!" said Mr. Fotheringay. "Just anything." He thought, and suddenly recalled a conjuring entertainment he had seen. "Here!" He pointed. "Change into a bowl of fish--no, not that--change into a gla.s.s bowl full of water with goldfish swimming in it. That"s better! You see that, Mr. Maydig?"
"It"s astonishing. It"s incredible. You are either a most extraordinary ... But no----"
"I could change it into anything," said Mr. Fotheringay. "Just anything.
Here! be a pigeon, will you?"
In another moment a blue pigeon was fluttering round the room and making Mr. Maydig duck every time it came near him. "Stop there, will you,"
said Mr. Fotheringay; and the pigeon hung motionless in the air. "I could change it back to a bowl of flowers," he said, and after replacing the pigeon on the table worked that miracle. "I expect you will want your pipe in a bit," he said, and restored the tobacco-jar.
Mr. Maydig had followed all these later changes in a sort of ejaculatory silence. He stared at Mr. Fotheringay and, in a very gingerly manner, picked up the tobacco-jar, examined it, replaced it on the table.
"_Well!_" was the only expression of his feelings.
"Now, after that it"s easier to explain what I came about," said Mr.
Fotheringay; and proceeded to a lengthy and involved narrative of his strange experiences, beginning with the affair of the lamp in the Long Dragon and complicated by persistent allusions to Winch. As he went on, the transient pride Mr. Maydig"s consternation had caused pa.s.sed away; he became the very ordinary Mr. Fotheringay of everyday intercourse again. Mr. Maydig listened intently, the tobacco-jar in his hand, and his bearing changed also with the course of the narrative. Presently, while Mr. Fotheringay was dealing with the miracle of the third egg, the minister interrupted with a fluttering extended hand--
"It is possible," he said. "It is credible. It is amazing, of course, but it reconciles a number of amazing difficulties. The power to work miracles is a gift--a peculiar quality like genius or second sight--hitherto it has come very rarely and to exceptional people. But in this case ... I have always wondered at the miracles of Mahomet, and at Yogi"s miracles, and the miracles of Madame Blavatsky. But, of course! Yes, it is simply a gift! It carries out so beautifully the arguments of that great thinker"--Mr. Maydig"s voice sank--"his Grace the Duke of Argyll. Here we plumb some profounder law--deeper than the ordinary laws of nature. Yes--yes. Go on. Go on!"
Mr. Fotheringay proceeded to tell of his misadventure with Winch, and Mr. Maydig, no longer overawed or scared, began to jerk his limbs about and interject astonishment. "It"s this what troubled me most," proceeded Mr. Fotheringay; "it"s this I"m most mijitly in want of advice for; of course he"s at San Francisco--wherever San Francisco may be--but of course it"s awkward for both of us, as you"ll see, Mr. Maydig. I don"t see how he can understand what has happened, and I daresay he"s scared and exasperated something tremendous, and trying to get at me. I daresay he keeps on starting off to come here. I send him back, by a miracle, every few hours, when I think of it. And of course, that"s a thing he won"t be able to understand, and it"s bound to annoy him; and, of course, if he takes a ticket every time it will cost him a lot of money. I done the best I could for him, but of course it"s difficult for him to put himself in my place. I thought afterwards that his clothes might have got scorched, you know--if Hades is all it"s supposed to be--before I shifted him. In that case I suppose they"d have locked him up in San Francisco. Of course I willed him a new suit of clothes on him directly I thought of it. But, you see, I"m already in a deuce of a tangle----"
Mr. Maydig looked serious. "I see you are in a tangle. Yes, it"s a difficult position. How you are to end it ..." He became diffuse and inconclusive.
"However, we"ll leave Winch for a little and discuss the larger question. I don"t think this is a case of the black art or anything of the sort. I don"t think there is any taint of criminality about it at all, Mr. Fotheringay--none whatever, unless you are suppressing material facts. No, it"s miracles--pure miracles--miracles, if I may say so, of the very highest cla.s.s."
He began to pace the hearthrug and gesticulate, while Mr. Fotheringay sat with his arm on the table and his head on his arm, looking worried.
"I don"t see how I"m to manage about Winch," he said.
"A gift of working miracles--apparently a very powerful gift," said Mr.
Maydig, "will find a way about Winch--never fear. My dear Sir, you are a most important man--a man of the most astonishing possibilities. As evidence, for example! And in other ways, the things you may do...."
"Yes, _I"ve_ thought of a thing or two," said Mr. Fotheringay.
"But--some of the things came a bit twisty. You saw that fish at first?
Wrong sort of bowl and wrong sort of fish. And I thought I"d ask someone."
"A proper course," said Mr. Maydig, "a very proper course--altogether the proper course." He stopped and looked at Mr. Fotheringay. "It"s practically an unlimited gift. Let us test your powers, for instance. If they really _are_ ... If they really are all they seem to be."
And so, incredible as it may seem, in the study of the little house behind the Congregational Chapel, on the evening of Sunday, Nov. 10, 1896, Mr. Fotheringay, egged on and inspired by Mr. Maydig, began to work miracles. The reader"s attention is specially and definitely called to the date. He will object, probably has already objected, that certain points in this story are improbable, that if any things of the sort already described had indeed occurred, they would have been in all the papers a year ago. The details immediately following he will find particularly hard to accept, because among other things they involve the conclusion that he or she, the reader in question, must have been killed in a violent and unprecedented manner more than a year ago. Now a miracle is nothing if not improbable, and as a matter of fact the reader _was_ killed in a violent and unprecedented manner a year ago. In the subsequent course of this story that will become perfectly clear and credible, as every right-minded and reasonable reader will admit. But this is not the place for the end of the story, being but little beyond the hither side of the middle. And at first the miracles worked by Mr.
Fotheringay were timid little miracles--little things with the cups and parlour fitments, as feeble as the miracles of Theosophists, and, feeble as they were, they were received with awe by his collaborator. He would have preferred to settle the Winch business out of hand, but Mr. Maydig would not let him. But after they had worked a dozen of these domestic trivialities, their sense of power grew, their imagination began to show signs of stimulation, and their ambition enlarged. Their first larger enterprise was due to hunger and the negligence of Mrs. Minchin, Mr.
Maydig"s housekeeper. The meal to which the minister conducted Mr.
Fotheringay was certainly ill-laid and uninviting as refreshment for two industrious miracle-workers; but they were seated, and Mr. Maydig was descanting in sorrow rather than in anger upon his housekeeper"s shortcomings, before it occurred to Mr. Fotheringay that an opportunity lay before him. "Don"t you think, Mr. Maydig," he said, "if it isn"t a liberty, _I_----"
"My dear Mr. Fotheringay! Of course! No--I didn"t think."
Mr. Fotheringay waved his hand. "What shall we have?" he said, in a large, inclusive spirit, and, at Mr. Maydig"s order, revised the supper very thoroughly. "As for me," he said, eyeing Mr. Maydig"s selection, "I am always particularly fond of a tankard of stout and a nice Welsh rarebit, and I"ll order that. I ain"t much given to Burgundy," and forthwith stout and Welsh rarebit promptly appeared at his command. They sat long at their supper, talking like equals, as Mr. Fotheringay presently perceived, with a glow of surprise and gratification, of all the miracles they would presently do. "And, by the bye, Mr. Maydig,"
said Mr. Fotheringay, "I might perhaps be able to help you--in a domestic way."
"Don"t quite follow," said Mr. Maydig pouring out a gla.s.s of miraculous old Burgundy.
Mr. Fotheringay helped himself to a second Welsh rarebit out of vacancy, and took a mouthful. "I was thinking," he said, "I might be able (_chum, chum_) to work (_chum, chum_) a miracle with Mrs. Minchin (_chum, chum_)--make her a better woman."
Mr. Maydig put down the gla.s.s and looked doubtful. "She"s---- She strongly objects to interference, you know, Mr. Fotheringay. And--as a matter of fact--it"s well past eleven and she"s probably in bed and asleep. Do you think, on the whole----"
Mr. Fotheringay considered these objections. "I don"t see that it shouldn"t be done in her sleep."
For a time Mr. Maydig opposed the idea, and then he yielded. Mr.
Fotheringay issued his orders, and a little less at their ease, perhaps, the two gentlemen proceeded with their repast. Mr. Maydig was enlarging on the changes he might expect in his housekeeper next day, with an optimism that seemed even to Mr. Fotheringay"s supper senses a little forced and hectic, when a series of confused noises from upstairs began.
Their eyes exchanged interrogations, and Mr. Maydig left the room hastily. Mr. Fotheringay heard him calling up to his housekeeper and then his footsteps going softly up to her.
In a minute or so the minister returned, his step light, his face radiant. "Wonderful!" he said, "and touching! Most touching!"
He began pacing the hearthrug. "A repentance--a most touching repentance--through the crack of the door. Poor woman! A most wonderful change! She had got up. She must have got up at once. She had got up out of her sleep to smash a private bottle of brandy in her box. And to confess it too!... But this gives us--it opens--a most amazing vista of possibilities. If we can work this miraculous change in _her_ ..."
"The thing"s unlimited seemingly," said Mr. Fotheringay. "And about Mr.
Winch--"
"Altogether unlimited." And from the hearthrug Mr. Maydig, waving the Winch difficulty aside, unfolded a series of wonderful proposals--proposals he invented as he went along.
Now what those proposals were does not concern the essentials of this story. Suffice it that they were designed in a spirit of infinite benevolence, the sort of benevolence that used to be called post-prandial. Suffice it, too, that the problem of Winch remained unsolved. Nor is it necessary to describe how far that series got to its fulfilment. There were astonishing changes. The small hours found Mr.
Maydig and Mr. Fotheringay careering across the chilly market-square under the still moon, in a sort of ecstasy of thaumaturgy, Mr. Maydig all flap and gesture, Mr. Fotheringay short and bristling, and no longer abashed at his greatness. They had reformed every drunkard in the Parliamentary division, changed all the beer and alcohol to water (Mr.
Maydig had overruled Mr. Fotheringay on this point); they had, further, greatly improved the railway communication of the place, drained Flinder"s swamp, improved the soil of One Tree Hill, and cured the Vicar"s wart. And they were going to see what could be done with the injured pier at South Bridge. "The place," gasped Mr. Maydig, "won"t be the same place to-morrow. How surprised and thankful everyone will be!"
And just at that moment the church clock struck three.
"I say," said Mr. Fotheringay, "that"s three o"clock! I must be getting back. I"ve got to be at business by eight. And besides, Mrs. Wimms--"
"We"re only beginning," said Mr. Maydig, full of the sweetness of unlimited power. "We"re only beginning. Think of all the good we"re doing. When people wake--"
"But--," said Mr. Fotheringay.
Mr. Maydig gripped his arm suddenly. His eyes were bright and wild. "My dear chap," he said, "there"s no hurry. Look"--he pointed to the moon at the zenith--"Joshua!"
"Joshua?" said Mr. Fotheringay.
"Joshua," said Mr. Maydig. "Why not? Stop it."
Mr. Fotheringay looked at the moon.