I looked where she indicated, and saw a slow-worm, or blind-worm, lying basking in the sun. I rose and went towards it.
“Here’s your stick,” said Turner.
“What for?” I asked. “Why should I kill it? It is perfectly harmless, and, to my mind, beautiful.”
I took it in my hands, and brought it to my wife. She gave an involuntary shudder as it came near her.
“I assure you it is harmless,” I said, “though it has a forked tongue.” And I opened its mouth as I spoke. “I do not think the serpent form is essentially ugly.”
“It makes me feel ugly,” said Wynnie.
“I allow I do not quite understand the mystery of it,” I said. “But you never saw lovelier ornamentation than these silvery scales, with all the neatness of what you ladies call a set pattern, and none of the stiffness, for there are not two of them the same in form. And you never saw lovelier curves than this little patient creature, which does not even try to get away from me, makes with the queer long thin body of him.”
“I wonder how it can look after its tail, it is so far off,” said Wynnie.
“It does though—better than you ladies look after your long dresses. I wonder whether it is descended from creatures that once had feet, and did not make a good use of them. Perhaps they had wings even, and would not use them at all, and so lost them. Its ancestors may have had poison-fangs; it is innocent enough. But it is a terrible thing to be all feet, is it not? There is an awful significance in the condemnation of the serpent—‘On thy belly shalt thou go, and eat dust.’ But it is better to talk of beautiful things. My soul at least has dropped from its world apex. Let us go on. Come, wife. Come, Turner.”
They did not seem willing to rise. But the glen drew me. I rose, and my wife followed my example with the help of my hand. She returned to the subject, however, as we descended the slope.