Part 8 (1/2)
”The hugest gold-mine in the world,” replied the vicar, enjoying her evident perplexity. ”An inexhaustible gold mine. A gold mine without limits.”
”But where--whereabouts is it?” cried Aunt Charlotte.
”All around you,” said the vicar, waving his hands vaguely in the air.
”Not in any country at all, but everywhere else. In the ocean.”
”Gold in the ocean!” e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the puzzled lady, dropping her knitting on her lap, and gazing helplessly at her financial mentor.
”Gold in the ocean--precisely,” affirmed that gentleman in an impressive voice. ”It has been discovered that sea-water holds a large quant.i.ty of gold in solution, and that by some most interesting process of precipitation any amount of it can be procured ready for coining. I got a prospectus of the scheme this morning from Shark, Picaroon & Co., Fleece Court, London, and I've brought it for you to read. A most enterprising firm they seem to be. You'll see that it's full of very elaborate scientific details--the results of the a.n.a.lyses that have been made, the cost of production, estimates for machinery, and I don't know what all. I can't say I follow it very clearly myself, for the clerical mind, as everybody knows, is not very well adapted to grasping scientific terminology, but I can understand the general tenor of it well enough. It seems to me that the enterprise is promising in a very high degree.”
”How very remarkable!” observed Aunt Charlotte, as she gazed at the tabulated figures and enumeration of chemical properties in bewildered awe. ”And you think it a safe investment?”
”_I_ do,” replied Mr Sheepshanks, ”but don't act on my opinion--judge for yourself. What's the amount you have to invest--two thousand pounds, isn't it? Well, I believe that you'd stand to get an income to that very amount by investing just that sum in the undertaking. Look what they say overleaf about the cost of working and the estimated returns. It all sounds fabulous, I admit, but there are the figures, my dear lady, in black and white, and figures cannot lie.”
”I'll write to my bankers about it this very night,” said Aunt Charlotte, folding up the prospectus and putting it carefully into her pocket. ”It's evidently not a chance to be missed, and I'm most grateful to you, dear Mr Sheepshanks, for putting it in my way.”
”Always delighted to be of service to you--as far as my poor judgment can avail,” the vicar a.s.sured her with becoming modesty. ”Ah, it's wonderful when one thinks of the teeming riches that lie around us, only waiting to be utilised. There _was_ another scheme I thought of for you--a scheme for raising the sunken galleons in the Spanish main, and recovering the immense treasures that are now lying, safe and sound, at the bottom of the sea. Curious that both enterprises should be connected with salt water, eh? And the prospectus was headed with a most appropriate text--'The Sea shall give up her Dead.' That rather appealed to me, do you know. It cast an air of solemnity over the undertaking, and seemed to sanctify it somehow. However, I think the other will be the best. Well, Austin, and what are you reading now?”
”Aunt Charlotte's face,” laughed Austin, sauntering up. ”She looks as though you had been giving her absolution, Mr Sheepshanks--so beaming and refreshed. Why, what's it all about?”
”I expect you want more absolution than your aunt,” said the vicar, humorously. ”A sad useless fellow you are, I'm afraid. You and I must have a little serious talk together some day, Austin. I really want you to do something--for your own sake, you know. Now, how would you like to take a cla.s.s in the Sunday-school, for instance? I shall have a vacancy in a week or two.”
”Austin teach in the Sunday-school! He'd be more in his place if he went there as a scholar than as a teacher,” said Aunt Charlotte, derisively.
”I don't know why you should say that,” remarked Austin, with perfect gravity. ”I think it would be delightful. I should make a beautiful Sunday-school teacher, I'm convinced.”
”There, now!” exclaimed the vicar, approvingly.
Austin was standing under an apple-tree, and over him stretched a horizontal branch laden with ripening fruit. He raised his hands on either side of his head and clasped it, and then began swinging his wooden leg round and round in a way that bade fair to get on Aunt Charlotte's nerves. He was so proud of that leg of his, while his aunt abhorred the very sight of it.
”No doubt they're all very charming boys, and I should love to tell them things,” he went on. ”I think I'd begin with 'The G.o.ds of Greece'--Louis Dyer, you know--and then I'd read them a few carefully-selected pa.s.sages from the 'Phaedrus.' Then, by way of something lighter, and more appropriate to their circ.u.mstances, I'd give them a course of Virgil--the 'Georgics', because, I suppose, most of them are connected with farming, and the 'Eclogues,' to initiate them into the poetical side of country life. When once I'd brought out all their latent sense of the Beautiful--for I'm afraid it _is_ latent----”
”But it's a _Sunday_-school!” interrupted the vicar, horrified.
”Virgil and the Phaedrus indeed! My dear boy, have you taken leave of your senses? What in the world can you be thinking of?”
”Then what would you suggest?” enquired Austin, mildly.
”You'd have to teach them the Bible and the Catechism, of course,”
said Mr Sheepshanks, with an air of slight bewilderment.
”H'm--that seems to me rather a limited curriculum,” replied Austin, dubiously. ”I only remember one pa.s.sage in the Catechism, beginning, 'My good child, know this.' I forget what it was he had to know, but it was something very dull. The Bible, of course, has more possibilities. There is some ravis.h.i.+ng poetry in the Bible. Well, I can begin with the Bible, if you really prefer it, of course. The Song of Solomon, for instance. Oh, yes, that would be lovely! I'll divide it up into characters, and make each boy learn his part--the shepherd, the Shulamite, King Solomon, and all the rest of them. The Spring Song might even be set to music. And then all those lovely metaphors, about the two roes that were twins, and something else that was like a heap of wheat set about with lilies. Though, to be sure, I never could see any very striking resemblance between the objects typified and----”
”Hold your tongue, do, Austin!” cried Aunt Charlotte, scandalised.
”And for mercy's sake, keep that leg of yours quiet, if you can. You are fidgeting me out of my wits.”
Mr Sheepshanks, his mouth pursed up in a deprecating and uneasy smile, sat gazing vaguely in front of him. ”I think it might be wise to defer the Song of Solomon,” he suggested. ”A few simple stories from the Book of Genesis, perhaps, would be better suited to the minds of your young pupils. And then the sublime opening chapters----”
”Oh, dear Mr Sheepshanks! Those stories in Genesis are some of them too _risques_ altogether,” protested Austin. ”One must draw the line somewhere, you see. We should be sure to come upon something improper, and just think how I should blush. Really, you can't expect me to read such things to boys actually younger than myself, and probably be asked to explain them into the bargain. There's the Creation part, it's true, but surely when one considers how occult all that is one wants to be familiar with the Kabbala and all sorts of mystical works to discover the hidden meaning. Now I should propose 'The Art of Creation'--do you know it? It shows that the only possible creator is Thought, and explains how everything exists in idea before it takes tangible shape. This applies to the universe at large, as well as to everything we make ourselves. I'd tell the boys that whenever they _think_, they are really _creating_, so that----”
”I should vastly like to know where you pick up all these extraordinary notions!” interrupted the vicar, who could not for the life of him make out whether Austin was in jest or earnest. ”They're most dangerous notions, let me tell you, and entirely opposed to sound orthodox Church teaching. It's clear to me that your reading wants to be supervised, Austin, by some judicious friend. There's an excellent little work I got a few days ago that I think you would like to see.
It's called 'The Mission-field in Africa.' There you'll find a most remarkable account of all those heathen superst.i.tions----”