The Trees of Pride Page 16

the axwould figure in the tale when it was first flung at the trees; it wouldhave surprised the woodman to know how near our minds were, and how Iwas but laying a more elaborate siege to the towers of pestilence. Butwhen the Squire spontaneously rushed on what half the countryside wouldcall certain death, I jumped at my chance. I followed him, and told himall that he has told you. I don't suppose he'll ever forgive me now, butthat shan't prevent me saying that I admire him hugely for being whatpeople would call a lunatic and what is really a sportsman. It takesrather a grand old man to make a joke in the grand style. He came downso quick from the tree he had climbed that he had no time to pull hishat off the bough it had caught in.

  "At first I found I had made a miscalculation. I thought hisdisappearance would be taken as his death, at least after a little time;but Ashe told me there could be no formalities without a corpse. Ifear I was a little annoyed, but I soon set myself to the duty ofmanufacturing a corpse. It's not hard for a doctor to get a skeleton;indeed, I had one, but Mr. Paynter's energy was a day too early for me,and I only got the bones into the well when he had already found it. Hisstory gave me another chance, however; I noted where the hole was in thehat, and made a precisely corresponding hole in the skull. The reasonfor creating the other clews may not be so obvious. It may not yet bealtogether apparent to you that I am not a fiend in human form. I couldnot substantiate a murder without at least suggesting a murderer, andI was resolved that if the crime happened to be traced to anybody, itshould be to me. So I'm not surprised you were puzzled about thepurpose of the rag round the ax, because it had no purpose, except toincriminate the man who put it there. The chase had to end with me, andwhen it was closing in at last the joke of it was too much for me, andI fear I took liberties with the gentleman's easel and beard. I was theonly person who could risk it, being the only person who could at thelast moment produce the Squire and prove there had been no crime at all.That, gentlemen, is the true story of the peacock trees; and thatbare crag up there, where the wind is whistling as it would over awilderness, is a waste place I have labored to make, as many men havelabored to make a cathedral.

  "I don't think there is any more to say, and yet something moves inmy blood and I will try to say it. Could you not have trusted a littlethese peasants whom you already trust so much? These men are men, andthey meant something; even their fathers were not wholly fools. If yourgardener told you of the trees you called him a madman, but he didnot plan and plant your garden like a madman. You would not trust yourwoodman about these trees, yet you trusted him with all the others. Haveyou ever thought what all the work of the world would be like if thepoor were so senseless as you think them? But no, you stuck to yourrational principle. And your rational principle was that a thing mustbe false because thousands of men had found it true; that BECAUSE manyhuman eyes had seen something it could not be there."

  He looked across at Ashe with a sort of challenge, but though thesea wind ruffled the old lawyer's red mane, his Napoleonic mask wasunruffled; it even had a sort of beauty from its new benignity.

  "I am too happy just now in thinking how wrong I have been," heanswered, "to quarrel with you, doctor, about our theories. And yet, injustice to the Squire as well as myself, I should demur to your sweepinginference. I respect these peasants, I respect your regard for them; buttheir stories are a different matter. I think I would do anything forthem but believe them. Truth and fancy, after all, are mixed in them,when in the more instructed they are separate; and I doubt if you haveconsidered what would be involved in taking their word for anything.Half the ghosts of those who died of fever may be walking by now; andkind as these people are, I believe they might still burn a witch. No,doctor, I admit these people have been badly used, I admit they are inmany ways our betters, but I still could not accept anything in theirevidence."

  The doctor bowed gravely and respectfully enough, and then, for the lasttime that day, they saw his rather sinister smile.

  "Quite so," he said. "But you would have hanged me on their evidence."

  And, turning his back on them, as if automatically, he set his facetoward the village, where for so many years he had gone his round.