"It's like Dr. Johnson and the orange-peel," I said. "'Nay, Sir, you shall know their fate no further.'"
"Well, the truth is," he said at last, "that I'm a perfect baby. I never can resist looking into a hole in the ground, and I happened to look into the pit where we dig gravel. I can't tell you how long I spent there."
"What were you doing?" I said.
"Looking for fossils," he said; "I had a great gift for finding them when I was a child. I didn't find any fossils to-day, but I found these stones, and I think they contain crystals. I am going to break them and see."
I took one in my hand. "I think they are only fossil sponges," I said; "there will only be a rusty sort of core inside."
"You know that!" he said, brightening up; "you know about stones too? But these are not sponges—they would rattle if they were—no, they contain crystals—I am sure of it. Come and see!"
We went into the stable-yard. Father Payne fetched a hammer, and then selected a convenient place in the cobbled yard to break the stones. He put one of them in position, and aimed a blow at it, but it glanced off, and the stone flew off with the impact to some distance. "Lie still, can't you?" said Father Payne, apostrophising the stone, and adding, "This is for my pleasure, not for yours." I recovered the stone, and brought it back, and Father Payne broke it with a well-directed blow. He gathered up the pieces eagerly. "Yes," he said, "it's all right—they are blue crystals: better than I had hoped."
He handed a fragment to me to look at. The inside of the stone was hollow. It had a coagulated appearance, and was thickly coated with minute bluish crystals, very beautiful.
"I don't know that I ever saw a stone I liked as well as this," said Father Payne, musing over another piece. "Think what millions of years this has been like that,—before Abraham was! It has never seen the light of day before—it's a splash of some molten stone, which fell plop into a cool sea-current, I suppose. I wish I knew all about it. The question, is, why is it so beautiful? It couldn't help it, I suppose! But for whose delight?" Then he said, "I suppose this was a vacuum in here till it was broken? That is why it is so clear and fresh. Good Heavens, what would I not give to know why this thing cooled into these lovely little shapes. It's no use talking about the laws of matter—why are the laws of matter what they are, and not different? And odder still, why do I like the look of it?"
"Perhaps that is a law of matter too," I said.