On that day the dinner of the Coldstreams, partaken of an hour or two before sunset, was shared by the chaplain and the doctor. Conversation flowed freely before the party sat down to the meal, Pinfold and Thud, as usual, taking a prominent part; but when the actual business of eating commenced, the two, being the most busily engaged with their knives and forks, became the most silent of those at the table. During the latter part of the social meal Io gave a rather full account of the traditions embodied in the song of the young Karen. She was listened to with an amount of interest varying with the different characters of those who heard her. “This is most curious, most interesting,” observed Coldstream. “To have such a full, independent account of the Fall is such a confirmation of the record contained in the book of Genesis as may well silence infidel objections.”
“I don’t see that,” quoth pragmatical Thud, speaking with his mouth full of pudding. “Of course these Karens got that story of theirs from Christians.”
“Pardon me,” said Mr. Lawrence politely; “the tradition of the Fall, and a good many others, existed before a Christian had set his foot in Burmah, Siam, or Pegu.”
“I found that Maha knows nothing at all about our Saviour,” observed Io, “and Christians would assuredly have spoken of Him.”
Thud was not easily put down. “Then the Karens got their old stories from Jews,” he said authoritatively. “Jews are always wandering about, and turning up in every country under the sun.”
“Permit me again to correct you,” said the chaplain. “I happen to have made some researches amongst Karen traditions, and I find that they do not contain the slightest allusion to either Abraham or Moses. This shows that the ancestor whose accounts they rehearse must have lived at a yet more remote period. No son of Abraham would have omitted all mention of the father of the faithful, or of the great lawgiver Moses. The traditions cannot have come from the Jews.”
Thud was not yet beaten from his ground. “The traditions came from Jews who were not descended from Abraham,” he boldly asserted.
The clergyman and Oscar exchanged glances; Io smiled; Dr. Pinfold burst into a roar of laughter. “You’re a rare scholar, you are,” he exclaimed to Thud.
“I’m glad that you’ve found that out at last,” said Thud with perfect gravity, as if he had received a well-merited compliment. This misapprehension of the doctor’s playful satire made Pinfold throw himself back in his chair with a louder explosion of mirth than the first.
“Thucydides Thorn, if I die of apoplexy from a fit of laughing, my death will lie at your door!” cried the doctor as soon as he had recovered some amount of gravity. He pushed back his chair and rose from the table. “Excuse me, Io. I must be off to a patient; I’ve a leg to cut off while the daylight lasts.—Mr. Coldstream, look after that sage brother-in-law of yours; if you don’t get him into regular harness quickly, he’ll die of theories on the brain.” As Dr. Pinfold walked along the veranda he was heard laughing to himself still, though the words which he muttered did not reach their subject—“O Thucydides Thorn, thou art indeed an incomparable owl!”
“Dr. Pinfold gives sound advice, Thud,” said Oscar; “it is high time that you should be harnessed to regular work. I am afraid that you have not even begun to study the language.”
“Oh! no need to study it; I’ll drink it in,” replied Thud, with sublime indifference to anything like reproof. “I’ve a theory that language floats about in the air in invisible globules, like cholera or small-pox. We don’t set babies to learn grammar or idioms; they catch them exactly as they catch measles.”
“It is a pity that Dr. Pinfold is not here to benefit by your medical theory,” said Io playfully.
“Dr. Pinfold is a man of very dull wit; he cannot take my theories in,” said the learned Thud. “I don’t like a fellow who is always cutting stupid jokes: when he wishes to laugh at nothing he laughs at me.”
“Surely you do not reckon yourself nothing,” observed Io.
Thud did not see the point of the observation, so went on with his explanation of the nature of speech. “My theory about the existence of a variety of languages is this,”—the head of the speaker inclined to its position of deep thought as he went on after a pause,—“every country has its peculiar language, just as it has its peculiar fauna and flora: we don’t meet with alligators in Oxford Street, or gather buttercups at the North Pole. When tribes of ancient times wandered to India, Japan, or England, they gradually, by absorbing air-globules in each region, breathed them out again in various tongues.”
The chaplain slightly raised his eye-brows in surprise on hearing notions so original propounded in so solemn a manner.
Io observed, “We have a very different reason for the confusion of tongues given in the Bible.”
“Oh, the Bible is an antiquated book,” said the owl; “the present enlightened age demands fresh theories and ideas.”
“Boy!” exclaimed Oscar Coldstream sternly, “take off the shoes of thy folly when treading on holy ground.”
Even Thud looked somewhat startled at his brother-in-law’s unexpected rebuke. The soul of Io was quivering with joy, as when the chalice of the white water-lily trembles in the soft south breeze. Her joy was not on account of Thud’s receiving a well-earned reproof, though she thought that it might do him good; it was because her husband had been able and willing to give it. Oscar, since his illness, had appeared so crushed that he had almost lost not only his spirits but his spirit. Even Thud had never roused him to a display of indignation till now.
“That flash of anger was just like the gleam of lightning which tells us that longed-for rain is coming!” thought the hopeful young wife. “Oscar, my darling, looked almost like his former self for a moment; and he spoke in defence of God’s Word. Oh, all will be well yet; we shall be so happy again!”
Thud was by no means so well pleased as his sister. To be called a boy, and reprimanded for folly, was more than the poor owl could bear. “I am going out,” he said sulkily, rising and moving towards the door, but not before providently filling one of his hands with almonds and raisins from the dish before him.
“Stay,” said Oscar in a milder tone: “I want to come to a clear understanding with you, Thud, about this matter of work; for I am sure that Dr. Pinfold is right in saying that you should now be put into harness, and do something to gain your own living. I am willing, as far as possible, to indulge your natural tastes and inclination. For what kind of employment do you think yourself most fit?”
“I should fit a good many,” replied Thud, “but the mischief is that they do not fit me.”
“What do you think would suit you?” asked Oscar.
Thud reflected for a few moments, and then sententiously replied, “I should like the charge of an elephant-stud.”
“There is no elephant-stud in Moulmein,” observed Oscar Coldstream.
“I’ve seen elephants here,” said Thucydides Thorn.
“I think that the rajah has three,” observed the chaplain.
“I know of no other here but the one employed at the wharf.”
“And why should you wish to have charge of elephants, Thud?” asked Io smiling.
“I wish it because I want to substantiate a theory which I have formed about the proboscis of the elephant,” said Thud, with his air of most profound reflection. “I believe that the proboscis is but an elongated snout, developed and gradually lengthened by cultivation and civilization—or rather, I may say, by practical science.”
“O Thud, Thud, you are joking!” cried Io.
“I am not joking at all; I scorn jokes!” said Thucydides Thorn. “You women understand nothing about development. Man can alter the shapes of living organizations to an indefinite extent. Look at China: did nature form the tiny feet of its women? See how English ladies can gradually, by tight-lacing, alter their figures till they resemble wasps. I tell you, science can work unimagined wonders. Man saw that elephants would be far more useful creatures if possessing something like a hand, something that could hold and pull—not a mere snout that could only grub in the ground. Gradually, slowly no doubt, the transformation was effected; I will make it my business to find out in what way.”
“How is your theory to be reconciled with the fact that the wild elephant possesses a proboscis?” asked Mr. Lawrence with a smile.
“I deny the fact,” said Thud. “I believe the elephant to be only a large species of a highly-developed pig, and that the wild one has only a good long snout.”
“You can easily test your theory,” observed the chaplain, “for one of the elephants of the rajah is quite untamed; it was caught in the jungle only last week.”
“I’ll be off and see it at once,” said Thud, moving more quickly than he usually did, for he desired no repetition of the conversation regarding putting him into harness.
“I shall send the boy to the warehouse to-morrow morning,” said Oscar Coldstream. “I will place him under my clerk Smith, appoint Thud a certain task to perform before dinner-time, and let him understand that he is not expected back here until the task is finished.”
“I rather pity Smith,” thought the chaplain; “it is no easy task to bring such a born philosopher to submit to being harnessed.”