Many a time on a summer day I have watched Mrs. Abel's horse bearing its rider up the steep slope that led to the quarry, and more than once have I gone thither myself only to find that she had forestalled my hopes of an interview. "Snarley Bob," she used to say to me, with a frank disregard for my own feelings—"Snarley Bob is the one man in the world whom I have found worth talking to."
The feature in Snarley's appearance that no one could fail to see, or, having seen, forget, was the extraordinary width between the eyes. It was commonly said that he had the power of seeing people behind his back. And so doubtless he had, but the thing was no miracle. It was a consequence of the position of his eyes, which, like those of a horse, were as much at the side of his head as they were in front.
Snarley's manner of speech was peculiar. Hoarse and hesitating at first, as though the physical act were difficult, and rising now and then into the characteristic snarl, his voice would presently sink into a deep and resonant note and flow freely onward in a tone of subdued emphasis that was exceedingly impressive. Holding, as he did, that words are among the least important things of life, Snarley was nevertheless the master of an unforced manner of utterance more convincing by its quiet indifference to effect than all the preternatural pomposities of the pulpit and the high-pitched logic of the schools. I have often thought that any Cause or Doctrine which could get itself expressed in Snarley's tones would be in a fair way to conquer the world. Fortunately for the world, however, it is not every Cause, nor every Doctrine, which would lend itself to expression in that manner.
Seated on a heap of broken road metal, with a doubled sack between his person and the stones, and with his short pipe stuck out at right angles to his profile, so that he could see what was going on in the bowl, Snarley Bob discoursed, at intervals, as follows:
"Yes, sir, there's things about the stars that fair knocks you silly to think on. And, what's more, you can't think on 'em, leastways to no good purpose, until they have knocked you silly. Why, what's the good of tellin' a man that it's ninety-three millions o' miles between the earth and the sun? There's lots o' folks as knows that; but there's not one in ten thousand as knows what it means. You gets no forrader wi' lookin' at the figures in a book. You must thin yourself out, and make your body lighter than air, and stretch and stretch at yourself until you gets the sun and planets, floatin' like, in the middle o' your mind. Then you begins to get hold on it. Or what's the good o' sayin' that Saturn has rings and nine moons? You must go to one o' them moons, and see Saturn half fillin' the sky, wi' his rings cuttin' the heavens from top to bottom, all coloured wi' crimson and gold—then you begins to stagger at it. That's why I say you can't think o' these things till they've knocked you silly. Now there's Sir Robert Ball—it's knocked him silly, I can tell you. I knowed that when I went to his lecture, by the pictures he showed us, and I sez to myself, 'Bob,' I sez, 'that's a man worth listenin' to.'
"You're right, sir. I wouldn't pay the least attention to anything you might say about the stars unless you'd told me that it knocked you silly to think on 'em. No, and I wouldn't talk to you about 'em either. You wouldn't understand.
"And, as you were sayin', it isn't easy to get them big things the right way up. When things gets beyond a certain bigness you don't know which way up they are; and as like as not they're standin' on their heads when you think they're standin' on their heels. That's the way with the stars. They all want lookin' at t'other way up from what most people looks at 'em. And perhaps it's a good thing they looks at 'em the wrong way; becos if they looked at 'em the right way it would scare 'em out o' their wits, especially the women—same as it does my missis when she hears me and Mrs. Abel talkin'. Always exceptin' Mrs. Abel; you can't scare her; and she sees most things right way up, that she does!
"But when it comes to the stars, you want to be a bit of a medium before you can get at 'em. Oh yes, I've been a medium in my time, more than I care to think of, and I could be a medium again to-morrow, if I wanted to. But them's the only sort of folks as can see things from both ends. Most folks only look at things from one end—and that as often as not the wrong un. Mediums looks from both ends; and, if they're good at it, they soon find out which end's right. You see, some on 'em—like me, for instance—can throw 'emselves out o' 'emselves, in a manner o' speaking, so that they can see their own bodies, just as if they was miles away, same as I can see that man walking on the Deadborough Road.
"Well, I've often done it, and many's the story I could tell of things I've seen by day and night; but it wasn't till I went to hear Sir Robert Ball as the grand idea came to me. 'Why not throw yerself into the stars, Bob?' I sez to myself. And, by gum, sir, I did it that very night. How I did it I don't know; I won't say as there weren't a drop o' drink in it; but the minute I'd got through, I felt as I'd stretched out wonderful and, blessed if I didn't find myself standin' wi' millions of other spirits, right in the middle o' Saturn's rings. And the things I see there I couldn't tell you, no, not if you was to give me a thousand pounds. Talk o' spirits! I tell you there was millions on 'em! And the lights and the colours—oh, but it's no good talkin'! I looked back and wanted to know where the earth was, and there I see it, dwindled to a speck o' light.
"Now you can understand why I keeps my mouth shut. Do you think I'm going to talk of them things to a lot o' folks that's got no more sense nor swine? Not me! And what else is there that's worth talking on? Who's goin' to make a fuss and go blatherin' about this and that, when you know the whole earth's no bigger nor a pea? My eyes! if some o' these 'ere talkin' politicians knowed half o' what I know, they'd stop their blowin' pretty quick.