After the first gusty panic had spent
itself Iping became argumentative. Scepticism suddenly reared its
head--rather nervous scepticism, not at all assured of its back, but
skepticism nevertheless. It is so much easier not to believe in an
invisible man; and those who had actually seen him dissolve into
air, or felt the strength of his arm, could be counted on the
fingers of two hands. And of these witnesses Mr. Wadgers was
presently missing, having retired impregnably behind the bolts and
bars of his own house, and Jaffers was lying stunned in the parlour
of the Coach and Horses. Great and strange ideas transcending
experience often have less effect upon men and women than smaller,
more tangible considerations. Iping was gay with bunting, and
everybody was in gala dress. Whit-Monday had been looked forward to
for a month or more. By the afternoon even those who believed in the
Unseen were beginning to resume their little amusements in a
tentative fashion, on the supposition that he had quite gone away,
and with the sceptics he was already a jest. But people, sceptics
and believers alike, were remarkably sociable all that day.
Haysman's meadow was gay with a tent,
in which Mrs. Bunting and other ladies were preparing tea, while,
without, the Sunday-school children ran races and played games under
the noisy guidance of the curate and the Misses Cuss and Sackbut. No
doubt there was a slight uneasiness in the air, but people for the
most part had the sense to conceal whatever imaginative qualms they
experienced. On the village green an inclined string, down which,
clinging the while to a pulley- swung handle, one could be hurled
violently against a sack at the other end, came in for considerable
favour among the adolescent. There were swings and cocoanut shies
and promenading, and the steam organ attached to the swings filled
the air with a pungent flavour of oil and with equally pungent
music. Members of the Club, who had attended church in the morning,
were splendid in badges of pink and green, and some of the
gayer-minded had also adorned their bowler hats with brilliant-coloured
favours of ribbon. Old Fletcher, whose conceptions of holiday-making
were severe, was visible through the jasmine about his window or
through the open door (whichever way you chose to look), poised
delicately on a plank supported on two chairs, and whitewashing the
ceiling of his front room.
About four o'clock a stranger entered
the village from the direction of the downs. He was a short, stout
person in an extraorindarily shabby top hat, and he appeared to be
very much out of breath. His cheeks were alternately limp and
tightly puffed. His mottled face was apprenhensive, and he moved
with a sort of reluctant alacrity. He turned the corner by the
church, and directed his way to the Coach and Horses. Among others
old Fletcher remembers seeing him, and indeed the old gentleman was
so struck by his peculiar agitation that he inadvertently allowed a
quantity of whitewash to run down the brush into the sleeve of his
coat while regarding him.
This stranger, to the perceptions of
the proprietor of the cocoanut shy, appeared to be talking to
himself, and Mr. Huxter remarked the same thing. He stopped at the
foot of the Coach and Horses steps, and, according to Mr. Huxter,
appeared to undergo a severe internal struggle before he could
induce himself to enter the house. Finally he marched up the steps,
and was seen by Mr. Huxter to turn to the left and open the door of
the parlour. Mr. Huxter heard voices from within the room and from
the bar apprising the man of his error. "That room's
private!" said Hall, and the stranger shut the door clumsily
and went into the bar.
In the course of a few minutes he
reappeared, wiping his lips with the back of his hand with an air of
quiet satisfaction that somehow impressed Mr. Huxter as assumed. He
stood looking about him for some moments, and then Mr. Huxter saw
him walk in an oddly furtive manner towards the gates of the yard,
upon which the parlour window opened. The stranger, after some
hesitation, leant against one of the gate-posts, produced a short
clay pipe, and prepared to fill it. His fingers trembled while doing
so. He lit it clumsily, and folding his arms began to smoke in a
languid attitude, an attitude which his occasional quick glances up
the yard altogether belied.
All this Mr. Huxter saw over the
canisters of the tobacco window, and the singularity of the man's
behaviour prompted him to maintain his observation.
Presently the stranger stood up
abruptly and put his pipe in his pocket. Then he vanished into the
yard. Forthwith Mr. Huxter, conceiving he was witness of some petty
larceny, leapt round his counter and ran out into the road to
intercept the thief. As he did so, Mr. Marvel reappeared, his hat
askew, a big bundle in a blue table-cloth in one hand, and three
books tied together--as it proved afterwards with the Vicar's
braces--in the other. Directly he saw Huxter he gave a sort of gasp,
and turning sharply to the left, began to run. "Stop
thief!" cried Huxter, and set off after him. Mr. Huxter's
sensations were vivid but brief. He saw the man just before him and
spurting briskly for the church corner and the hill road. He saw the
village flags and festivities beyond, and a face or so turned
towards him. He bawled, "Stop!" again. He had hardly gone
ten strides before his shin was caught in some mysterious fashion,
and he was no longer running, but flying with inconceivable rapidity
through the air. He saw the ground suddenly close to his face. The
world seemed to splash into a million whirling specks of light, and
subsequent proceedings interested him no more.
