The Stark Munro Letters | Page 9

the pawn ticket and told me that the thirty shillings had
been useful?
Leslie Duncan got out at Carstairs, and I was left alone with a hale,
white-haired, old Roman Catholic priest, who had sat quietly reading
his office in the corner. We fell into the most intimate talk, which
lasted all the way to Avonmouth--indeed, so interested was I that I very
nearly passed through the place without knowing it. Father Logan (for
that was his name) seemed to me to be a beautiful type of what a priest
should be-- self-sacrificing and pure-minded, with a kind of simple
cunning about him, and a deal of innocent fun. He had the defects as
well as the virtues of his class, for he was absolutely reactionary in his
views. We discussed religion with fervour, and his theology was
somewhere about the Early Pliocene. He might have chattered the
matter over with a priest of Charlemagne's Court, and they would have
shaken hands after every sentence. He would acknowledge this and
claim it as a merit. It was consistency in his eyes. If our astronomers
and inventors and law-givers had been equally consistent where would
modern civilisation be? Is religion the only domain of thought which is
non-progressive, and to be referred for ever to a standard set two
thousand years ago? Can they not see that as the human brain evolves it
must take a wider outlook? A half-formed brain makes a half-formed
God, and who shall say that our brains are even half-formed yet? The
truly inspired priest is the man or woman with the big brain. It is not
the shaven patch on the outside, but it is the sixty ounces within which
is the real mark of election.
You know that you are turning up your nose at me, Bertie. I can see
you do it. But I'll come off the thin ice, and you shall have nothing but
facts now. I'm afraid that I should never do for a story-teller, for the
first stray character that comes along puts his arm in mine and walks
me off, with my poor story straggling away to nothing behind me.
Well, then, it was night when we reached Avonmouth, and as I popped
my head out of the carriage window, the first thing that my eyes rested
upon was old Cullingworth, standing in, the circle of light under a
gas-lamp. His frock coat was flying open, his waistcoat unbuttoned at
the top, and his hat (a top hat this time) jammed on the back of his head,
with his bristling hair spurting out in front of it. In every way, save that
he wore a collar, he was the same Cullingworth as ever. He gave a roar

of recognition when he saw me, bustled me out of my carriage, seized
my carpet bag, or grip-sack as you used to call it, and a minute later we
were striding along together through the streets.
I was, as you may imagine, all in a tingle to know what it was that he
wanted with me. However, as he made no allusion to it, I did not care
to ask, and, during our longish walk, we talked about indifferent
matters. It was football first, I remember, whether Richmond had a
chance against Blackheath, and the way in which the new passing game
was shredding the old scrimmages. Then he got on to inventions, and
became so excited that he had to give me back my bag in order that he
might be able to slap all his points home with his fist upon his palm. I
can see him now stopping, with his face leaning forward and his yellow
tusks gleaming in the lamplight.
"My dear Munro" (this was the style of the thing), "why was armour
abandoned, eh? What! I'll tell you why. It was because the weight of
metal that would protect a man who was standing up was more than he
could carry. But battles are not fought now-a-days by men who are
standing up. Your infantry are all lying on their stomachs, and it would
take very little to protect them. And steel has improved, Munro!
Chilled steel! Bessemer! Bessemer! Very good. How much to cover a
man? Fourteen inches by twelve, meeting at an angle so that the bullet
will glance. A notch at one side for the rifle. There you have it,
laddie--the Cullingworth patent portable bullet-proof shield! Weight?
Oh, the weight would be sixteen pounds. I worked it out. Each
company carries its shields in go-carts, and they are served out on
going into action. Give me twenty thousand good shots, and I'll go in at
Calais and come out at Pekin. Think of it, my boy! the moral effect.
One side gets home every time