They had advanced into Salisbury, and the cathedral, a public building, was grey against a tender sky. Rickie suggested that, while waiting for the train, they should visit it. He spoke of the incomparable north porch. “I’ve never been inside it, and I never will. Sorry to shock you, Rickie, but I must tell you plainly. I’m an atheist. I don’t believe in anything.”
“I do,” said Rickie.
“When a man dies, it’s as if he’s never been,” he asserted. The train drew up in Salisbury station. Here a little incident took place which caused them to alter their plans.
They found outside the station a trap driven by a small boy, who had come in from Cadford to fetch some wire-netting. “That’ll do us,” said Stephen, and called to the boy, “If I pay your railway-ticket back, and if I give you sixpence as well, will you let us drive back in the trap?” The boy said no. “It will be all right,” said Rickie. “I am Mrs. Failing’s nephew.” The boy shook his head. “And you know Mr. Wonham?” The boy couldn’t say he didn’t. “Then what’s your objection? Why? What is it? Why not?” But Stephen leant against the time-tables and spoke of other matters.
Presently the boy said, “Did you say you’d pay my railway-ticket back, Mr. Wonham?”
“Yes,” said a bystander. “Didn’t you hear him?”
“I heard him right enough.”
Now Stephen laid his hand on the splash-board, saying, “What I want, though, is this trap here of yours, see, to drive in back myself;” and as he spoke the bystander followed him in canon, “What he wants, though, is that there trap of yours, see, to drive hisself back in.”
“I’ve no objection,” said the boy, as if deeply offended. For a time he sat motionless, and then got down, remarking, “I won’t rob you of your sixpence.”
“Silly little fool,” snapped Rickie, as they drove through the town.