by H. G. Wells
THE MAN WHO COULD WORK MIRACLES
A PANTOUM IN PROSE
It is doubtful whether the gift was innate. For my own part, I think itcame to him suddenly. Indeed, until he was thirty he was a sceptic, anddid not believe in miraculous powers. And here, since it is the mostconvenient place, I must mention that he was a little man, and had eyesof a hot brown, very erect red hair, a moustache with ends that hetwisted up, and freckles. His name was George McWhirter Fotheringay--notthe sort of name by any means to lead to any expectation ofmiracles--and he was clerk at Gomshott's. He was greatly addicted toassertive argument. It was while he was asserting the impossibility ofmiracles that he had his first intimation of his extraordinary powers.This particular argument was being held in the bar of the Long Dragon,and Toddy Beamish was conducting the opposition by a monotonous buteffective "So _you_ say," that drove Mr. Fotheringay to the very limitof his patience.
There were present, besides these two, a very dusty cyclist, landlordCox, and Miss Maybridge, the perfectly respectable and rather portlybarmaid of the Dragon. Miss Maybridge was standing with her back to Mr.Fotheringay, washing glasses; the others were watching him, more or lessamused by the present ineffectiveness of the assertive method. Goaded bythe Torres Vedras tactics of Mr. Beamish, Mr. Fotheringay determined tomake an unusual rhetorical effort. "Looky here, Mr. Beamish," said Mr.Fotheringay. "Let us clearly understand what a miracle is. It'ssomething contrariwise to the course of nature done by power of Will,something what couldn't happen without being specially willed."
"So _you_ say," said Mr. Beamish, repulsing him.
Mr. Fotheringay appealed to the cyclist, who had hitherto been a silentauditor, and received his assent--given with a hesitating cough and aglance at Mr. Beamish. The landlord would express no opinion, and Mr.Fotheringay, returning to Mr. Beamish, received the unexpectedconcession of a qualified assent to his definition of a miracle.
"For instance," said Mr. Fotheringay, greatly encouraged. "Here would bea miracle. That lamp, in the natural course of nature, couldn't burnlike that upsy-down, could it, Beamish?"
"_You_ say it couldn't," said Beamish.
"And you?" said Fotheringay. "You don't mean to say--eh?"
"No," said Beamish reluctantly. "No, it couldn't."
"Very well," said Mr. Fotheringay. "Then here comes someone, as it mightbe me, along here, and stands as it might be here, and says to thatlamp, as I might do, collecting all my will--Turn upsy-down withoutbreaking, and go on burning steady, and--Hullo!"
It was enough to make anyone say "Hullo!" The impossible, theincredible, was visible to them all. The lamp hung inverted in the air,burning quietly with its flame pointing down. It was as solid, asindisputable as ever a lamp was, the prosaic common lamp of the LongDragon bar.
Mr. Fotheringay stood with an extended forefinger and the knitted browsof one anticipating a catastrophic smash. The cyclist, who was sittingnext the lamp, ducked and jumped across the bar. Everybody jumped, moreor less. Miss Maybridge turned and screamed. For nearly three secondsthe lamp remained still. A faint cry of mental distress came from Mr.Fotheringay. "I can't keep it up," he said, "any longer." He staggeredback, and the inverted lamp suddenly flared, fell against the corner ofthe bar, bounced aside, smashed upon the floor, and went out.
It was lucky it had a metal receiver, or the whole place would have beenin a blaze. Mr. Cox was the first to speak, and his remark, shorn ofneedless excrescences, was to the effect that Fotheringay was a fool.Fotheringay was beyond disputing even so fundamental a proposition asthat! He was astonished beyond measure at the thing that had occurred.The subsequent conversation threw absolutely no light on the matter sofar as Fotheringay was concerned; the general opinion not only followedMr. Cox very closely but very vehemently. Everyone accused Fotheringayof a silly trick, and presented him to himself as a foolish destroyer ofcomfort and security. His mind was in a tornado of perplexity, he washimself inclined to agree with them, and he made a remarkablyineffectual opposition to the proposal of his departure.
He went home flushed and heated, coat-collar crumpled, eyes smartingand ears red. He watched each of the ten street lamps nervously as hepassed it. It was only when he found himself alone in his littlebed-room in Church Row that he was able to grapple seriously with hismemories of the occurrence, and ask, "What on earth happened?"
He had removed his coat and boots, and was sitting on the bed with hishands in his pockets repeating the text of his defence for theseventeenth time, "_I_ didn't want the confounded thing to upset," whenit occurred to him that at the precise moment he had said the commandingwords he had inadvertently willed the thing he said, and that when hehad seen the lamp in the air he had felt that it depended on him tomaintain it there without being clear how this was to be done. He hadnot a particularly complex mind, or he might have stuck for a time atthat "inadvertently willed," embracing, as it does, the abstrusestproblems of voluntary action; but as it was, the idea came to him with aquite acceptable haziness. And from that, following, as I must admit, noclear logical path, he came to the test of experiment.
He pointed resolutely to his candle and collected his mind, though hefelt he did a foolish thing. "Be raised up," he said. But in a secondthat feeling vanished. The candle was raised, hung in the air one giddymoment, and as Mr. Fotheringay gasped, fell with a smash on histoilet-table, leaving him in darkness save for the expiring glow of itswick.
For a time Mr. Fotheringay sat in the darkness, perfectly still. "It didhappen, 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. "Iwish I had a match," he said. He resorted to his coat, and there wasnone there, and then it dawned upon him that miracles were possible evenwith matches. He extended a hand and scowled at it in the dark. "Letthere be a match in that hand," he said. He felt some light object fallacross his palm, and his fingers closed upon a match.
After several ineffectual attempts to light this, he discovered it was asafety-match. He threw it down, and then it occurred to him that hemight have willed it lit. He did, and perceived it burning in the midstof his toilet-table mat. He caught it up hastily, and it went out. Hisperception of possibilities enlarged, and he felt for and replaced thecandle in its candlestick. "Here! _you_ be lit," said Mr. Fotheringay,and forthwith the candle was flaring, and he saw a little black hole inthe toilet-cover, with a wisp of smoke rising from it. For a time hestared from this to the little flame and back, and then looked up andmet his own gaze in the looking glass. By this help he communed withhimself in silence for a time.
"How about miracles now?" said Mr. Fotheringay at last, addressing hisreflection.
The subsequent meditations of Mr. Fotheringay were of a severe butconfused description. So far, he could see it was a case of pure willingwith him. The nature of his experiences so far disinclined him for anyfurther experiments, at least until he had reconsidered them. But helifted a sheet of paper, and turned a glass of water pink and thengreen, and he created a snail, which he miraculously annihilated, andgot himself a miraculous new tooth-brush. Somewhen in the small hours hehad reached the fact that his will-power must be of a particularly rareand pungent quality, a fact of which he had certainly had inklingsbefore, but no certain assurance. The scare and perplexity of his firstdiscovery was now qualified by pride in this evidence of singularity andby vague intimations of advantage. He became aware that the church clockwas striking one, and as it did not occur to him that his daily dutiesat Gomshott's might be miraculously dispensed with, he resumedundressing, in order to get to bed without further delay. As hestruggled to get his shirt over his head, he was struck with a brilliantidea. "Let me be in bed," he said, and found himself so. "Undressed," hestipulated; and, finding the sheets cold, added hastily, "and in mynightshirt--no, in a nice soft woollen nightshirt. Ah!" he said withimmense 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 particularlyvivid dream. At length his mind turned again to cautious experiments.For instance, he had three eggs for breakfast; two his landlady hadsupplied, good, but shoppy, and one was a delicious fresh goose-egg,laid, cooked, and served by his extraordinary will. He hurried off toGomshott's in a state of profound but carefully concealed excitement,and only remembered the shell of the third egg when his landlady spokeof it that night. All day he could do no work because of thisastonishingly 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 werestill disagreeable to recall, and a garbled account of the matter thathad reached his colleagues led to some badinage. It was evident he mustbe careful how he lifted frangible articles, but in other ways his giftpromised more and more as he turned it over in his mind. He intendedamong other things to increase his personal property by unostentatiousacts of creation. He called into existence a pair of very splendiddiamond studs, and hastily annihilated them again as young Gomshott cameacross the counting-house to his desk. He was afraid young Gomshottmight wonder how he had come by them. He saw quite clearly the giftrequired caution and watchfulness in its exercise, but so far as hecould judge the difficulties attending its mastery would be no greaterthan those he had already faced in the study of cycling. It was thatanalogy, perhaps, quite as much as the feeling that he would beunwelcome in the Long Dragon, that drove him out after supper into thelane beyond the gas-works, to rehearse a few miracles in private.
There was possibly a certain want of originality in his attempts, forapart from his will-power Mr. Fotheringay was not a very exceptionalman. The miracle of Moses' rod came to his mind, but the night was darkand unfavourable to the proper control of large miraculous snakes. Thenhe recollected the story of "Tannhaeuser" that he had read on the back ofthe Philharmonic programme. That seemed to him singularly attractive andharmless. He stuck his walking-stick--a very nice Poona-Penanglawyer--into the turf that edged the footpath, and commanded the drywood to blossom. The air was immediately full of the scent of roses, andby means of a match he saw for himself that this beautiful miracle wasindeed accomplished. His satisfaction was ended by advancing footsteps.Afraid of a premature discovery of his powers, he addressed theblossoming stick hastily: "Go back." What he meant was "Change back;"but of course he was confused. The stick receded at a considerablevelocity, and incontinently came a cry of anger and a bad word from theapproaching person. "Who are you throwing brambles at, you fool?" crieda voice. "That got me on the shin."
"I'm sorry, old chap," said Mr. Fotheringay, and then realising theawkward 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 thepolice, young man, this time. That's what _you_ done."
"Look here, Mr. Winch," said Mr. Fotheringay, annoyed and confused, "I'mvery sorry. The fact is----"
"Well?"
He could think of no way but the truth. "I was working a miracle." Hetried 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'tbelieve in miracles.... Fact is, this is another of your silly conjuringtricks--that's what this is. Now, I tell you----"
But Mr. Fotheringay never heard what Mr. Winch was going to tell him. Herealised he had given himself away, flung his valuable secret to all thewinds of heaven. A violent gust of irritation swept him to action. Heturned on the constable swiftly and fiercely. "Here," he said, "I've hadenough 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 hetrouble to see what had become of his flowering stick. He returned tothe town, scared and very quiet, and went to his bed-room. "Lord!" hesaid, "it's a powerful gift--an extremely powerful gift. I didn't hardlymean 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 hetransferred the constable to San Francisco, and without any moreinterference with normal causation went soberly to bed. In the night hedreamt 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 faras Rawling's Mill was to be dragged for Constable Winch.
Mr. Fotheringay was abstracted and thoughtful all that day, andperformed no miracles except certain provisions for Winch, and themiracle of completing his day's work with punctual perfection in spiteof all the bee-swarm of thoughts that hummed through his mind. And theextraordinary abstraction and meekness of his manner was remarked byseveral people, and made a matter for jesting. For the most part he wasthinking of Winch.
On Sunday evening he went to chapel, and oddly enough, Mr. Maydig, whotook a certain interest in occult matters, preached about "things thatare not lawful." Mr. Fotheringay was not a regular chapel goer, but thesystem of assertive scepticism, to which I have already alluded, was nowvery much shaken. The tenor of the sermon threw an entirely new light onthese novel gifts, and he suddenly decided to consult Mr. Maydigimmediately after the service. So soon as that was determined, he foundhimself wondering why he had not done so before.
Mr. Maydig, a lean, excitable man with quite remarkably long wrists andneck, was gratified at a request for a private conversation from a youngman whose carelessness in religious matters was a subject for generalremark in the town. After a few necessary delays, he conducted him tothe study of the Manse, which was contiguous to the chapel, seated himcomfortably, and, standing in front of a cheerful fire--his legs threw aRhodian arch of shadow on the opposite wall--requested Mr. Fotheringayto state his business.
At first Mr. Fotheringay was a little abashed, and found some difficultyin opening the matter. "You will scarcely believe me, Mr. Maydig, I amafraid"--and so forth for some time. He tried a question at last, andasked Mr. Maydig his opinion of miracles.
Mr. Maydig was still saying "Well" in an extremely judicial tone, whenMr. Fotheringay interrupted again: "You don't believe, I suppose, thatsome common sort of person--like myself, for instance--as it might besitting here now, might have some sort of twist inside him that made himable to do things by his will."
"It's possible," said Mr. Maydig. "Something of the sort, perhaps, ispossible."
"If I might make free with something here, I think I might show you by asort of experiment," said Mr. Fotheringay. "Now, take that tobacco-jaron the table, for instance. What I want to know is whether what I amgoing to do with it is a miracle or not. Just half a minute, Mr. Maydig,please."
He knitted his brows, pointed to the tobacco-jar and said: "Be a bowl ofvi'lets."
The tobacco-jar did as it was ordered.
Mr. Maydig started violently at the change, and stood looking from thethaumaturgist to the bowl of flowers. He said nothing. Presently heventured to lean over the table and smell the violets; they werefresh-picked and very fine ones. Then he stared at Mr. Fotheringayagain.
"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 b
lack art, or what is it? And what do youthink'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 thatthan you did. It came quite sudden. It's something odd about my will, Isuppose, 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, andsuddenly recalled a conjuring entertainment he had seen. "Here!" Hepointed. "Change into a bowl of fish--no, not that--change into a glassbowl full of water with goldfish swimming in it. That's better! You seethat, 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 makingMr. Maydig duck every time it came near him. "Stop there, will you,"said Mr. Fotheringay; and the pigeon hung motionless in the air. "Icould change it back to a bowl of flowers," he said, and after replacingthe pigeon on the table worked that miracle. "I expect you will wantyour pipe in a bit," he said, and restored the tobacco-jar.
Mr. Maydig had followed all these later changes in a sort of ejaculatorysilence. 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 hisstrange experiences, beginning with the affair of the lamp in the LongDragon and complicated by persistent allusions to Winch. As he went on,the transient pride Mr. Maydig's consternation had caused passed away;he became the very ordinary Mr. Fotheringay of everyday intercourseagain. Mr. Maydig listened intently, the tobacco-jar in his hand, andhis bearing changed also with the course of the narrative. Presently,while Mr. Fotheringay was dealing with the miracle of the third egg, theminister 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 workmiracles is a gift--a peculiar quality like genius or secondsight--hitherto it has come very rarely and to exceptional people. Butin this case ... I have always wondered at the miracles of Mahomet, andat Yogi's miracles, and the miracles of Madame Blavatsky. But, ofcourse! Yes, it is simply a gift! It carries out so beautifully thearguments of that great thinker"--Mr. Maydig's voice sank--"his Gracethe Duke of Argyll. Here we plumb some profounder law--deeper than theordinary laws of nature. Yes--yes. Go on. Go on!"
Mr. Fotheringay proceeded to tell of his misadventure with Winch, andMr. Maydig, no longer overawed or scared, began to jerk his limbs aboutand interject astonishment. "It's this what troubled me most," proceededMr. Fotheringay; "it's this I'm most mijitly in want of advice for; ofcourse he's at San Francisco--wherever San Francisco may be--but ofcourse it's awkward for both of us, as you'll see, Mr. Maydig. I don'tsee how he can understand what has happened, and I daresay he's scaredand exasperated something tremendous, and trying to get at me. I daresayhe 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 hewon't be able to understand, and it's bound to annoy him; and, ofcourse, if he takes a ticket every time it will cost him a lot ofmoney. I done the best I could for him, but of course it's difficult forhim to put himself in my place. I thought afterwards that his clothesmight have got scorched, you know--if Hades is all it's supposed tobe--before I shifted him. In that case I suppose they'd have locked himup in San Francisco. Of course I willed him a new suit of clothes on himdirectly I thought of it. But, you see, I'm already in a deuce of atangle----"
Mr. Maydig looked serious. "I see you are in a tangle. Yes, it's adifficult position. How you are to end it ..." He became diffuse andinconclusive.
"However, we'll leave Winch for a little and discuss the largerquestion. I don't think this is a case of the black art or anything ofthe sort. I don't think there is any taint of criminality about it atall, Mr. Fotheringay--none whatever, unless you are suppressing materialfacts. No, it's miracles--pure miracles--miracles, if I may say so, ofthe very highest class."
He began to pace the hearthrug and gesticulate, while Mr. Fotheringaysat 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 amost important man--a man of the most astonishing possibilities. Asevidence, 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 asksomeone."
"A proper course," said Mr. Maydig, "a very proper course--altogetherthe proper course." He stopped and looked at Mr. Fotheringay. "It'spractically an unlimited gift. Let us test your powers, for instance. Ifthey really _are_ ... If they really are all they seem to be."
And so, incredible as it may seem, in the study of the little housebehind the Congregational Chapel, on the evening of Sunday, Nov. 10,1896, Mr. Fotheringay, egged on and inspired by Mr. Maydig, began towork miracles. The reader's attention is specially and definitely calledto the date. He will object, probably has already objected, that certainpoints in this story are improbable, that if any things of the sortalready described had indeed occurred, they would have been in all thepapers a year ago. The details immediately following he will findparticularly hard to accept, because among other things they involve theconclusion that he or she, the reader in question, must have been killedin a violent and unprecedented manner more than a year ago. Now amiracle 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 thesubsequent course of this story that will become perfectly clear andcredible, as every right-minded and reasonable reader will admit. Butthis is not the place for the end of the story, being but little beyondthe hither side of the middle. And at first the miracles worked by Mr.Fotheringay were timid little miracles--little things with the cups andparlour fitments, as feeble as the miracles of Theosophists, and, feebleas they were, they were received with awe by his collaborator. He wouldhave preferred to settle the Winch business out of hand, but Mr. Maydigwould not let him. But after they had worked a dozen of these domestictrivialities, their sense of power grew, their imagination began to showsigns of stimulation, and their ambition enlarged. Their first largerenterprise 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 twoindustrious miracle-workers; but they were seated, and Mr. Maydig wasdescanting in sorrow rather than in anger upon his housekeeper'sshortcomings, before it occurred to Mr. Fotheringay that an opportunitylay before him. "Don't you think, Mr. Maydig," he said, "if it isn't aliberty, _I_----"
"My dear Mr. Fotheringay! Of course! No--I didn't think."
Mr. Fotheringay waved his hand. "What shall we have?" he said, in alarge, inclusive spirit, and, at Mr. Maydig's order, revised the suppervery thoroughly. "As for me," he said, eyeing Mr. Maydig's selection, "Iam always particularly fond of a tankard of stout and a nice Welshrarebit, and I'll order that. I ain't much given to Burgundy," andforthwith stout and Welsh rarebit promptly appeared at his command. Theysat long at their supper, talking like equals, as Mr. Fotheringaypresently perceived, with a glow of surprise and gratification, of allthe miracles they would presently do. "And, by the bye, Mr. Maydig,"said Mr. Fotheringay, "I might perhaps be able to help you--in adomestic way."
"Don't quite follow," said Mr. Maydig pouring out a glass of miraculouso
ld 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 glass and looked doubtful. "She's---- Shestrongly objects to interference, you know, Mr. Fotheringay. And--as amatter of fact--it's well past eleven and she's probably in bed andasleep. Do you think, on the whole----"
Mr. Fotheringay considered these objections. "I don't see that itshouldn'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 enlargingon the changes he might expect in his housekeeper next day, with anoptimism that seemed even to Mr. Fotheringay's supper senses a littleforced and hectic, when a series of confused noises from upstairs began.Their eyes exchanged interrogations, and Mr. Maydig left the roomhastily. Mr. Fotheringay heard him calling up to his housekeeper andthen his footsteps going softly up to her.
In a minute or so the minister returned, his step light, his faceradiant. "Wonderful!" he said, "and touching! Most touching!"
He began pacing the hearthrug. "A repentance--a most touchingrepentance--through the crack of the door. Poor woman! A most wonderfulchange! She had got up. She must have got up at once. She had got up outof her sleep to smash a private bottle of brandy in her box. And toconfess it too!... But this gives us--it opens--a most amazing vista ofpossibilities. 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, wavingthe Winch difficulty aside, unfolded a series of wonderfulproposals--proposals he invented as he went along.
Now what those proposals were does not concern the essentials of thisstory. Suffice it that they were designed in a spirit of infinitebenevolence, the sort of benevolence that used to be calledpost-prandial. Suffice it, too, that the problem of Winch remainedunsolved. Nor is it necessary to describe how far that series got to itsfulfilment. There were astonishing changes. The small hours found Mr.Maydig and Mr. Fotheringay careering across the chilly market-squareunder the still moon, in a sort of ecstasy of thaumaturgy, Mr. Maydigall flap and gesture, Mr. Fotheringay short and bristling, and no longerabashed at his greatness. They had reformed every drunkard in theParliamentary 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, drainedFlinder's swamp, improved the soil of One Tree Hill, and cured theVicar's wart. And they were going to see what could be done with theinjured pier at South Bridge. "The place," gasped Mr. Maydig, "won't bethe 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 gettingback. I've got to be at business by eight. And besides, Mrs. Wimms--"
"We're only beginning," said Mr. Maydig, full of the sweetness ofunlimited power. "We're only beginning. Think of all the good we'redoing. When people wake--"
"But--," said Mr. Fotheringay.
Mr. Maydig gripped his arm suddenly. His eyes were bright and wild. "Mydear chap," he said, "there's no hurry. Look"--he pointed to the moon atthe zenith--"Joshua!"
"Joshua?" said Mr. Fotheringay.
"Joshua," said Mr. Maydig. "Why not? Stop it."
Mr. Fotheringay looked at the moon.
"That's a bit tall," he said after a pause.
"Why not?" said Mr. Maydig. "Of course it doesn't stop. You stop therotation of the earth, you know. Time stops. It isn't as if we weredoing harm."
"H'm!" said Mr. Fotheringay. "Well." He sighed. "I'll try. Here--"
He buttoned up his jacket and addressed himself to the habitable globe,with as good an assumption of confidence as lay in his power. "Jest stoprotating, will you," said Mr. Fotheringay.
Incontinently he was flying head over heels through the air at the rateof dozens of miles a minute. In spite of the innumerable circles he wasdescribing per second, he thought; for thought is wonderful--sometimesas sluggish as flowing pitch, sometimes as instantaneous as light. Hethought in a second, and willed. "Let me come down safe and sound.Whatever else happens, let me down safe and sound."
He willed it only just in time, for his clothes, heated by his rapidflight through the air, were already beginning to singe. He came downwith a forcible, but by no means injurious bump in what appeared to be amound of fresh-turned earth. A large mass of metal and masonry,extraordinarily like the clock-tower in the middle of the market-square,hit the earth near him, ricochetted over him, and flew into stonework,bricks, and masonry, like a bursting bomb. A hurtling cow hit one of thelarger blocks and smashed like an egg. There was a crash that made allthe most violent crashes of his past life seem like the sound of fallingdust, and this was followed by a descending series of lesser crashes. Avast wind roared throughout earth and heaven, so that he could scarcelylift his head to look. For a while he was too breathless and astonishedeven to see where he was or what had happened. And his first movementwas to feel his head and reassure himself that his streaming hair wasstill his own.
"Lord!" gasped Mr. Fotheringay, scarce able to speak for the gale, "I'vehad a squeak! What's gone wrong? Storms and thunder. And only a minuteago a fine night. It's Maydig set me on to this sort of thing. _What_ awind! If I go on fooling in this way I'm bound to have a thunderingaccident!...
"Where's Maydig?
"What a confounded mess everything's in!"
He looked about him so far as his flapping jacket would permit. Theappearance of things was really extremely strange. "The sky's all rightanyhow," said Mr. Fotheringay. "And that's about all that is all right.And even there it looks like a terrific gale coming up. But there's themoon overhead. Just as it was just now. Bright as midday. But as for therest--Where's the village? Where's--where's anything? And what on earthset this wind a-blowing? _I_ didn't order no wind."
Mr. Fotheringay struggled to get to his feet in vain, and after onefailure, remained on all fours, holding on. He surveyed the moonlitworld to leeward, with the tails of his jacket streaming over his head."There's something seriously wrong," said Mr. Fotheringay. "And what itis--goodness knows."
Far and wide nothing was visible in the white glare through the haze ofdust that drove before a screaming gale but tumbled masses of earth andheaps of inchoate ruins, no trees, no houses, no familiar shapes, only awilderness of disorder vanishing at last into the darkness beneath thewhirling columns and streamers, the lightnings and thunderings of aswiftly rising storm. Near him in the livid glare was something thatmight once have been an elm-tree, a smashed mass of splinters, shiveredfrom boughs to base, and further a twisted mass of iron girders--onlytoo evidently the viaduct--rose out of the piled confusion.
You see, when Mr. Fotheringay had arrested the rotation of the solidglobe, he had made no stipulation concerning the trifling movables uponits surface. And the earth spins so fast that the surface at its equatoris travelling at rather more than a thousand miles an hour, and in theselatitudes at more than half that pace. So that the village, and Mr.Maydig, and Mr. Fotheringay, and everybody and everything had beenjerked violently forward at about nine miles per second--that is to say,much more violently than if they had been fired out of a cannon. Andevery human being, every living creature, every house, and everytree--all the world as we know it--had been so jerked and smashed andutterly destroyed. That was all.
These things Mr. Fotheringay did not, of course, fully appreciate. Buthe perceived that his miracle had miscarried, and with that a greatdisgust of miracles came upon him. He was in darkness now, for theclouds had swept together and blotted out his momentary glimpse of themoon, and the air was full of fitful struggling tortured
wraiths ofhail. A great roaring of wind and waters filled earth and sky, and,peering under his hand through the dust and sleet to windward, he saw bythe play of the lightnings a vast wall of water pouring towards him.
"Maydig!" screamed Mr. Fotheringay's feeble voice amid the elementaluproar. "Here!--Maydig!
"Stop!" cried Mr. Fotheringay to the advancing water. "Oh, for goodness'sake, stop!
"Just a moment," said Mr. Fotheringay to the lightnings and thunder."Stop jest a moment while I collect my thoughts.... And now what shall Ido?" he said. "What _shall_ I do? Lord! I wish Maydig was about.
"I know," said Mr. Fotheringay. "And for goodness' sake let's have itright _this_ time."
He remained on all fours, leaning against the wind, very intent to haveeverything right.
"Ah!" he said. "Let nothing what I'm going to order happen until I say'Off!'.... Lord! I wish I'd thought of that before!"
He lifted his little voice against the whirlwind, shouting louder andlouder in the vain desire to hear himself speak. "Now then!--here goes!Mind about that what I said just now. In the first place, when all I'vegot to say is done, let me lose my miraculous power, let my will becomejust like anybody else's will, and all these dangerous miracles bestopped. I don't like them. I'd rather I didn't work 'em. Ever so much.That's the first thing. And the second is--let me be back just beforethe miracles begin; let everything be just as it was before that blessedlamp turned up. It's a big job, but it's the last. Have you got it? Nomore miracles, everything as it was--me back in the Long Dragon justbefore I drank my half-pint. That's it! Yes."
He dug his fingers into the mould, closed his eyes, and said "Off!"
Everything became perfectly still. He perceived that he was standingerect.
"So _you_ say," said a voice.
He opened his eyes. He was in the bar of the Long Dragon, arguing aboutmiracles with Toddy Beamish. He had a vague sense of some great thingforgotten that instantaneously passed. You see that, except for the lossof his miraculous powers, everything was back as it had been, his mindand memory therefore were now just as they had been at the time whenthis story began. So that he knew absolutely nothing of all that is toldhere, knows nothing of all that is told here to this day. And amongother things, of course, he still did not believe in miracles.
"I tell you that miracles, properly speaking, can't possibly happen," hesaid, "whatever you like to hold. And I'm prepared to prove it up to thehilt."
"That's what _you_ think," said Toddy Beamish, and "Prove it if youcan."
"Looky here, Mr. Beamish," said Mr. Fotheringay. "Let us clearlyunderstand what a miracle is. It's something contrariwise to the courseof nature done by power of Will...."
THE END
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When the Sleeper Wakes
A Story of the Days to Come. By H. G. WELLS, Author of "The War of the Worlds," &c.
"When the Sleeper Wakes," by far the longest story Mr. Wells has yetgiven us, presents a spacious picture of the development of ourcivilisation during the next two hundred years. The sleeper is a typicalliberal-minded man of means of the nineteenth century, and he awakensfrom a cataleptic trance in the year 2100, to discover that by an ironiccombination of circumstances he has become the central figure of anenormous political convulsion. His attempt to rise to theresponsibilities of his position, his struggle for power--inspired by anenthusiastic girl--with the great political organiser Ostrog, give thegreat structural lines of the story.
"He fell to sleep a fanatical democrat--a socialist: he woke a tyrant; he died fighting with the people against the tyranny he had unconsciously fashioned while he slept. Surely a theme of magnificent possibilities--a theme more fertile in romance even than the central idea of 'The War of the Worlds.' The discovery of such material is in itself no mean triumph."--_Bookman._
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