It was a glorious summer evening, soft and still, with a glow in the sky that might have been a reflection of the noontide glare, as we went down the steps of the terrace and across the velvet sward of the old pleasaunce out into the shrubberies beyond.
“I wonder which side of the question you took at dinner?” I asked, anxious to find whether the advanced theories of the Rector had found an echo in herself.
“Oh, on the question of hunting,” she answered, “I’m with him. It savours, I think, of torturing. Of course it’s difficult,” she added, “to see where to draw the line. For I don’t think we were intended to be vegetarians. We haven’t the proper teeth, have we? And so it seems to me that his distinction is a tenable one, and that we may kill animals that are required for our use. If so, one can’t reasonably object to shooting them. It’s as painless a death as any other, and, for his own credit, the man who wants to shoot his game will collect the most experienced hands he can find to do it.”
“But what about the side-issues,” I slyly asked her, “arising from the possibility that all these animals will live again? How shall we meet in the next world the reproachful glances of the creatures we have slain in this?”
“The matter doesn’t trouble me at all,” she answered, “it’s too remote. Perhaps only the ones we loved will take the forms again in which we knew them. Perhaps that very love itself will be the constraining power that shapes them to our recognition. And, after all, something of the same difficulty meets us in our own case. So far as I can make a guess, it may be a world very like the present one. Only the animals, I hope, will be nice and gentle, with all their bad qualities eliminated. Anyhow, no one, certainly not my uncle, would pretend to have a cut-and-dried formula for mapping out the future world as they plan an undeveloped city in America. All he says is that life, like matter, is, in all probability, indestructible. Many persons, I know, regard such speculations as worse than unprofitable. To me, on the other hand, they seem elevating and comforting. And no one can say they are unwarrantable, when we have the account of the so-called Millennium to guide us.”
A strange conversation, you will think, for the first evening of our meeting, and certainly not symptomatic of the love-making I foreshadowed. But, after all, a sympathy of interests is not a bad substratum for the growth of love. Already I felt sure that this was no ordinary girl, and that she was deeply interested in her uncle’s theories. Indeed there was perhaps just a trifle of subtlety in my suggestion that I was not disinclined to accept them.
And so we strolled among the dimly-lighted shrubberies, chatting on less impracticable subjects, till the light faded out of the sky, and the shadows fell, and the Squire shouted a summons to us to join them in the drawing-room.
The ‘pros’ and ‘cons’ for and against foxhunting having been exhausted over their wine, the Squire and the Rector were now deep in discussion over matters affecting the village. Now and again I heard references to a certain mysterious council, to a meeting of which my attendance had been requested for the following day. The Rector had only smiled when he gave me the message, advising me to attend, and adding a promise of amusement.
“I wonder why you tolerate that old institution,” said the Squire, “it’s purely ridiculous, and only brings contempt on the parish.”
“It’s just because it is old, Edgar, that I tolerate it—and also absolutely harmless. The fact is I’m fearfully conservative, and never meddle with old institutions if I can possibly avoid it. Besides, the members are all of them very old men, who would be sadly at a loss if they missed their weekly reunion. But they are to elect no new members, and, as it is, I revise and reverse their resolutions, when necessary. So it only means they have the pleasure of passing them.”