The
Curious Part Of It Is That Though They Are All Dead, And 'worms Have
Eaten Them, But Not For
Love,' we continually meet them in other shapes.
We say, 'Holloa, here is old So-and-so coming; that
Is exactly his jaw,
that's his Flemish face;' or, 'By Jove, yonder is So-and-so; that's his
very walk:' one almost expects them to speak as one meets them in the
street. There seem to be certain set types which continually crop up
again whithersoever you go, and even certain tricks of speech and curves
of the head - a set of family portraits walking about the world. It was
not the people, neither for good, for evil, nor indifference.
I planted myself every here under the trees in the fields and footpaths,
by day and by night, and that is why I have never put myself into the
charge of the many wheeled creatures that move on the rails and gone back
thither, lest I might find the trees look small, and the elms mere
switches, and the fields shrunken, and the brooks dry, and no voice
anywhere. Nothing but my own ghost to meet me by every hedge. I fear lest
I should find myself more dead than all the rest And verily I wish, could
it be without injury to others, that the sand of the desert would rise
and roll over and obliterate the place for ever and ever.
I need not wish, for I have been conversing again with learned folk about
this place, and they begin to draw my view to certain considerations.
These very learned men point out to me a number of objections, for the
question they sceptically put is this: are you quite certain that such a
village ever existed? In the first place, they say, you have only got one
other witness beside yourself, and she is aged, and has defective sight;
and really we don't know what to say to accepting such evidence
unsupported. Secondly, John Brown cannot be found to bear testimony.
Thirdly, there are no ghosts there; that can be demonstrated. It renders
a case unsubstantial to introduce these flimsy spirits. Fourthly, the map
is lost, and it might be asked was there ever such a map? Fifthly, the
people are all gone. Sixthly, no one ever saw any particular sparkle on
the brook there, and the clouds appear to be of the same commonplace
order that go about everywhere. Seventhly, no one can find these
footpaths, which probably led nowhere; and as for the little old man with
silver buckles on his shoes, it is a story only fit for some one in his
dotage. You can't expect grave and considerate men to take your story as
it stands; they must consult the Ordnance Survey and Domesday Book; and
the fact is, you have not got the shadow of a foundation on which to
carry your case into court. I may resent this, but I cannot deny that the
argument is very black against me, and I begin to think that my senses
have deceived me.
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