Tales of Space and Time
hands in his pockets repeating the text of his defence for the
seventeenth time, "_I_ didn't want the confounded thing to upset," when
it occurred to him that at the precise moment he had said the commanding
words he had inadvertently willed the thing he said, and that when he
had seen the lamp in the air he had felt that it depended on him to
maintain it there without being clear how this was to be done. He had
not a particularly complex mind, or he might have stuck for a time at
that "inadvertently willed," embracing, as it does, the abstrusest
problems of voluntary action; but as it was, the idea came to him with a
quite acceptable haziness. And from that, following, as I must admit, no
clear logical path, he came to the test of experiment.
He pointed resolutely to his candle and collected his mind, though he
felt he did a foolish thing. "Be raised up," he said. But in a second
that feeling vanished. The candle was raised, hung in the air one giddy
moment, and as Mr. Fotheringay gasped, fell with a smash on his
toilet-table, leaving him in darkness save for the expiring glow of its
wick.
For a time Mr. Fotheringay sat in the darkness, perfectly still. "It did
happen, after all," he said. "And 'ow _I'm_ to explain it I _don't_
know." He sighed heavily, and began feeling in his pockets for a match.
He could find none, and he rose and groped about the toilet-table. "I
wish I had a match," he said. He resorted to his coat, and there was
none there, and then it dawned upon him that miracles were possible even
with matches. He extended a hand and scowled at it in the dark. "Let
there be a match in that hand," he said. He felt some light object fall
across his palm, and his fingers closed upon a match.
After several ineffectual attempts to light this, he discovered it was a
safety-match. He threw it down, and then it occurred to him that he
might have willed it lit. He did, and perceived it burning in the midst
of his toilet-table mat. He caught it up hastily, and it went out. His
perception of possibilities enlarged, and he felt for and replaced the
candle in its candlestick. "Here! _you_ be lit," said Mr. Fotheringay,
and forthwith the candle was flaring, and he saw a little black hole in
the toilet-cover, with a wisp of smoke rising from it. For a time he
stared from this to the little flame and back, and then looked up and
met his own gaze in the looking glass. By this help he communed with
himself in silence for a time.
"How about miracles now?" said Mr. Fotheringay at last, addressing his
reflection.
The subsequent meditations of Mr. Fotheringay were of a severe but
confused description. So far, he could see it was a case of pure willing
with him. The nature of his experiences so far disinclined him for any
further experiments, at least until he had reconsidered them. But he
lifted a sheet of paper, and turned a glass of water pink and then
green, and he created a snail, which he miraculously annihilated, and
got himself a miraculous new tooth-brush. Somewhen in the small hours he
had reached the fact that his will-power must be of a particularly rare
and pungent quality, a fact of which he had certainly had inklings
before, but no certain assurance. The scare and perplexity of his first
discovery was now qualified by pride in this evidence of singularity and
by vague intimations of advantage. He became aware that the church clock
was striking one, and as it did not occur to him that his daily duties
at Gomshott's might be miraculously dispensed with, he resumed
undressing, in order to get to bed without further delay. As he
struggled to get his shirt over his head, he was struck with a brilliant
idea. "Let me be in bed," he said, and found himself so. "Undressed," he
stipulated; and, finding the sheets cold, added hastily, "and in my
nightshirt--no, in a nice soft woollen nightshirt. Ah!" he said with
immense enjoyment. "And now let me be comfortably asleep...."
He awoke at his usual hour and was pensive all through breakfast-time,
wondering whether his overnight experience might not be a particularly
vivid dream. At length his mind turned again to cautious experiments.
For instance, he had three eggs for breakfast; two his landlady had
supplied, good, but shoppy, and one was a delicious fresh goose-egg,
laid, cooked, and served by his extraordinary will. He hurried off to
Gomshott's in a state of profound but carefully concealed excitement,
and only remembered the shell of the third egg when his landlady spoke
of it that night. All day he could do no work because of this
astonishingly new self-knowledge, but this caused him no inconvenience,
because he made up for it miraculously in his last ten minutes.
As the day wore on his state of mind passed from wonder to elation,
albeit the circumstances of his dismissal from the Long Dragon were
still disagreeable to recall, and a garbled account of the matter that
had reached his colleagues led to some badinage. It was evident he must
be careful how he lifted frangible articles, but in other ways his gift
promised more and more as he turned it over in his mind. He intended
among other things to increase his personal property by unostentatious
acts of creation. He called into existence a pair of very splendid
diamond studs, and hastily annihilated them again as young Gomshott came
across the counting-house to his desk. He was afraid young Gomshott
might wonder how he had come by them. He saw quite clearly the gift
required caution and watchfulness in its exercise, but so far as he
could judge the difficulties attending its mastery would be no greater
than those he had already faced in the study of cycling. It was that
analogy, perhaps, quite as much as the feeling that he would be
unwelcome in the Long Dragon, that drove him out after supper into the
lane beyond the gas-works, to rehearse a few miracles in private.
There was possibly a certain want of originality in his attempts, for
apart from his will-power Mr. Fotheringay was not a very exceptional
man. The miracle of Moses' rod came to his mind, but the night was dark
and unfavourable to the proper control of large miraculous snakes. Then
he recollected the story of "Tannhaeuser" that he had read on the back of
the Philharmonic programme. That seemed to him singularly attractive and
harmless. He stuck his walking-stick--a very nice Poona-Penang
lawyer--into the turf that edged the footpath, and commanded the dry
wood to blossom. The air was immediately full of the scent of roses, and
by means of a match he saw for himself that this beautiful miracle was
indeed accomplished. His satisfaction was ended by advancing footsteps.
Afraid of a premature discovery of his powers, he addressed the
blossoming stick hastily: "Go back." What he meant was "Change back;"
but of course he was confused. The stick receded at a considerable
velocity, and incontinently came a cry of anger and a bad word from the
approaching person. "Who are you throwing brambles at, you fool?" cried
a voice. "That got me on the shin."
"I'm sorry, old chap," said Mr. Fotheringay, and then realising the
awkward nature of the explanation, caught nervously at his moustache.
He saw Winch, one of the three Immering constables, advancing.
"What d'yer mean by it?" asked the constable. "Hullo! It's you, is it?
The gent that broke the lamp at the Long Dragon!"
"I don't mean anything by it," said Mr. Fotheringay. "Nothing at all."
"What d'yer do it for then?"
"Oh, bother!" said Mr. Fotheringay.
"Bother indeed! D'yer know that stick hurt? What d'yer do it for, eh?"
For the moment Mr. Fotheringay could not think what he had done it for.
His silence seemed to irritate Mr. Winch. "You've been assaulting the
police, young man, this time. That's what _you_ done."
"Look here, Mr. Winch," said Mr. Fotheringay, annoyed and confused, "I'm
very sorry. The fact is----"
"Well?"
He could think of no way but the truth. "I was working a miracle." He
tried to speak in an off-hand way, but try as he would he couldn't.
"Working a----! 'Ere, don't you talk rot. Working a miracle, indeed!
Miracle! Well, that's downright funny! Why, you's the chap that don't
believe in miracles.... Fact is, this is another of your silly conjuring
tricks--that's what this is. Now, I tell you----"
But Mr. Fotheringay never heard what Mr. Winch was going to tell him. He
realised he had given himself away, flung his valuable secret to all the
winds of heaven. A violent gust of irritation swept him to action. He
turned on the constable swiftly and fiercely. "Here," he said, "I've had
enough of this, I have! I'll show you a silly conjuring trick, I will!
Go to Hades! Go, now!"
He was alone!
Mr. Fotheringay performed no more miracles that night, nor did he
trouble to see what had become of his flowering stick. He returned to
the town, scared and very quiet, and went to his bed-room. "Lord!" he
said, "it's a powerful gift--an extremely powerful gift. I didn't hardly
mean as much as that. Not really.... I wonder what Hades is like!"
He sat on the bed taking off his boots. Struck by a happy thought he
transferred the constable to San Francisco, and without any more
interference with normal causation went soberly to bed. In the night he
dreamt of the anger of Winch.
The next day Mr. Fotheringay heard two interesting items of news.
Someone had planted a most beautiful climbing rose against the elder Mr.
Gomshott's private house in the Lullaborough Road, and the river as far
as Rawling's Mill was to be dragged for Constable Winch.
Mr. Fotheringay was abstracted and thoughtful all that day, and
performed no miracles except certain provisions for Winch, and the
miracle of completing his day's work with punctual perfection in spite
of all the bee-swarm of thoughts that hummed through his mind. And the
extraordinary abstraction and meekness of his manner was remarked by
several people, and made a matter for jesting. For the most part he was
thinking of Winch.
On Sunday evening he went to chapel, and oddly enough, Mr. Maydig, who
took a certain interest in occult matters, preached about "things that
are not lawful." Mr. Fotheringay was not a regular chapel goer, but the
system of assertive scepticism, to which I have already alluded, was now
very much shaken. The tenor of the sermon threw an entirely new light on
these novel gifts, and he suddenly decided to consult Mr. Maydig
immediately after the service. So soon as that was determined, he found
himself wondering why he had not done so before.
Mr. Maydig, a lean, excitable man with quite remarkably long wrists and
neck, was gratified at a request for a private conversation from a young
man whose carelessness in religious matters was a subject for general
remark in the town. After a few necessary delays, he conducted him to
the study of the Manse, which was contiguous to the chapel, seated him
comfortably, and, standing in front of a cheerful fire--his legs threw a
Rhodian arch of shadow on the opposite wall--requested Mr. Fotheringay
to state his business.
At first Mr. Fotheringay was a little abashed, and found some difficulty
in opening the matter. "You will scarcely believe me, Mr. Maydig, I am
afraid"--and so forth for some time. He tried a question at last, and
asked Mr. Maydig his opinion of miracles.
Mr. Maydig was still saying "Well" in an extremely judicial tone, when
Mr. Fotheringay interrupted again: "You don't believe, I suppose, that
some common sort of person--like myself, for instance--as it might be
sitting here now, might have some sort of twist inside him that made him
able to do things by his will."
"It's possible," said Mr. Maydig. "Something of the sort, perhaps, is
possible."
"If I might make free with something here, I think I might show you by a