“Atheists!” he repeated with luxurious
scorn. “Atheists! I know their sort,
master. Atheists! Don’t talk to me
about ’un. Atheists!”
The grounds of his disdain seemed a little dark and
confused; but they were evidently sufficient.
MacIan resumed in some encouragement:
“You think as I do, I hope; you think that a
man should be connected with the Church; with the
common Christian——”
The old man extended a quivering stick in the direction
of a distant hill.
“There’s the church,” he said thickly.
“Grassley old church that is. Pulled
down it was, in the old squire’s time, and——”
“I mean,” explained MacIan elaborately,
“that you think that there should be someone
typifying religion, a priest——”
“Priests!” said the old man with sudden
passion. “Priests! I know ’un.
What they want in England? That’s what
I say. What they want in England?”
“They want you,” said MacIan.
“Quite so,” said Turnbull, “and
me; but they won’t get us. MacIan, your
attempt on the primitive innocence does not seem very
successful. Let me try. What you want,
my friend, is your rights. You don’t want
any priests or churches. A vote, a right to
speak is what you——”
“Who says I a’n’t got a right to
speak?” said the old man, facing round in an
irrational frenzy. “I got a right to speak.
I’m a man, I am. I don’t want no
votin’ nor priests. I say a man’s
a man; that’s what I say. If a man a’n’t
a man, what is he? That’s what I say,
if a man a’n’t a man, what is he?
When I sees a man, I sez ’e’s a man.”
“Quite so,” said Turnbull, “a citizen.”
“I say he’s a man,” said the rustic
furiously, stopping and striking his stick on the
ground. “Not a city or owt else. He’s
a man.”
“You’re perfectly right,” said the
sudden voice of MacIan, falling like a sword.
“And you have kept close to something the whole
world of today tries to forget.”
“Good night.”
And the old man went on wildly singing into the night.
“A jolly old creature,” said Turnbull;
“he didn’t seem able to get much beyond
that fact that a man is a man.”
“Has anybody got beyond it?” asked MacIan.
Turnbull looked at him curiously. “Are
you turning an agnostic?” he asked.
“Oh, you do not understand!” cried out
MacIan. “We Catholics are all agnostics.
We Catholics have only in that sense got as far as
realizing that man is a man. But your Ibsens
and your Zolas and your Shaws and your Tolstoys have
not even got so far.”
Morning broke in bitter silver along the grey and
level plain; and almost as it did so Turnbull and
MacIan came out of a low, scrubby wood on to the empty
and desolate flats. They had walked all night.
