A Lost Cause Part 16

"Glad to see you," he said hastily, and with great condescension and good humour. "Fortunate I happened to have a morning free. Now, what can I do for you? No spiritual trouble, I hope? Ritualists been prowling round St. Luke's? If so, say the word, give me the facts, and I'll see you are protected!"

"It is on a question connected with the state of affairs in the district that I called to see you, Mr. Hamlyn."

"Quite so, Mr. Carr, just what I expected. Well, I've always heard good accounts of you as a loyal Protestant minister--though I can't approve of your using that pestilential book, _Hymns Ancient and Modern_, in your church--and I will do what I can for you. Providence has placed a scourge in my hand to drive the idolaters from the Temple, so tell me your trouble."

Carr had listened to this, which was delivered in a loud, confident voice, with growing amazement. He hardly knew how to take the man.

"I deplore very much," he said, making a great effort, "the state into which Hornham has been thrown. I cannot, of course, approve of much that I understand takes place at St. Elwyn's. Yet I am beginning to fear that the remedy is worse than the disease. I am sure, Mr. Hamlyn, that your great desire must be to see the people led to love the Lord Jesus and to live G.o.dly, sober lives. Well, I find that the crusade of the Luther League is unsettling the minds of weaker brethren. They are becoming excited, forgetful of duty, carried away by the flood of a popular movement. All this is hurtful to souls. Men should have peace to make themselves right with G.o.d. Strife and anger hurt the soul and wound it.

Now I have no concern with any other place but this, in which my ministry is set. But in Hornham, at least, I have come to ask you to moderate your attacks upon the High Church party, to extend to them the same tolerance they extend to us."

Hamlyn stared at the speaker.

"To moderate MY methods?" he shouted in a coa.r.s.e voice. "Do you know what you're asking? Do you realise who I am?"

"Perfectly, Mr. Hamlyn," the clergyman answered with considerable dignity. "I am speaking, I hope, to a brother Christian, and as such, in the name of our dear Lord, I ask you to cease this strife and discord among us. G.o.d will show his desires in his own way; prayer is a more powerful weapon than public invective. And it is idle to deny that the vicar of St. Elwyn's and his curates are doing good. I believe their teaching on fundamental truths is wrong, I deprecate the ceremonial with which they veil and cover the simple beauties of the Christian faith.

But Mr. Blantyre is a good and n.o.ble-hearted man. He gives his life and his large income--it is a matter of common knowledge--to the service of the poor and needy. He is utterly unselfish, he loves Jesus. Let him work in his own way in peace."

Mr. Hamlyn's face grew very red. The man was mentally bloated by prosperity and success. Daily he was hailed by fools as the saviour of his country, his name was on many lips, and his sense of proportion was utterly gone.

"Really!" he said, "of all the mad requests as was ever made me this is the maddest! Are you in your senses, Mr. Carr--you a Protestant minister of the Word? You can't be. You come to me, me, who Providence has set at the head of Henglish Protestantism, and ask me to join a base conspiracy to silence the clarion of Truth! to leave my 'igh ground of Principle and grovel before a petticoated 'priest'! Why, you're asking me to let the Pope and the devil into Hornham. Have you ever cast your eye upon the works of the immortal John Bunyan? What about Mr. Facing-both-ways?"

Mr. Carr kept his temper. He was there upon an important issue. What did it matter if the man was rude? "But don't you think, as a Christian," he said mildly, "that it is hard enough to fight the devil, the world, and the flesh without private differences in the Christian camp?"

"Who's speaking of Christians?" Hamlyn cried; "not I. Blantyre is no Christian; he is doing the devil's work, which is the work of Rome. He gives away his money because the devil showed him that it was a good move, to win souls to Rome. As for his goodness, how do we know what goes on in the confessional? I've heard----"

Carr stood up. "Let me tell you at once, sir," he said in a hard voice and with flashing eyes, "that any scandal and slander you make before me about a man I know to be pure and good I will at once repeat to him, and you will have to take the consequences."

"Ah!" said the agitator sharply and suddenly and with his impudent smile flashing over his face, mingled with a sneer, "I see now! I ought to have seen it before. You are a wolf in sheep's clothing! While we all thought you a faithful Protestant, you have secretly joined causes with the enemy. The cloven 'oof 'as peeped out! You come as a sneaking amba.s.sador of Rome in the garb of a Protestant. The Jesuits have been having a go at you, Mr. Carr, and they've got you! I shouldn't wonder if you've got your 'air-shirt on now! Go back to them as sent you and say that I've scourged 'em with whips in the past and I'll give 'em scorpions now. This will make a fine story at our next meeting in the public 'all!"

Carr turned on his heel without a word and left the room. He crossed the hall in a couple of strides, opened the door, and walked quickly over the gravel sweep. As his hand was on the latch of the gate, the reformer's voice hailed him. Mr. Hamlyn was looking round the corner of the door; a genial grin--a clown's grin--lay upon his face. "Mr. Carr!"

he bawled with unabashed and merry impudence, "been to Ma.s.s yet?"

Then, with a final chuckle, he closed the door.

The peacemaker walked sadly away. He saw at once the sort of man he had been dealing with, and recognised how futile any protest would be in the case. He saw clearly how una.s.sailable Hamlyn's position was, while the country was full of people who would pay him to keep them in a state of pleasurable excitement. It was better than the theatre to which Hamlyn's subscribers loudly protested that their consciences would not allow them to go! It was a sort of bull-baiting revived; the l.u.s.t of the public at seeing some one hunted was satisfied.

How infinitely better the sober methods of the old-established Protestant societies were! Legitimate propaganda, a dignified and scholarly controversy, these were right and sane. But this clown's business, this noise and venom, was utterly disgusting. He had caught a glimpse into the machinery of the whole movement that sickened him.

He went home to his lonely house and made a frugal lunch. Something ought to be done, but what? He was not a man to fail in any efforts he made in a good cause. He did not propose to cease his attempts to restore Hornham to decent calm, even now. But he could not see, at the moment, what was the next move he should make.

During the afternoon he set out on a round of parochial visiting. He sat by the bedsides of the sick, the querulous, the ungrateful, and told his message of comfort. He heard much of Hamlyn's campaign. The new leaflet with its violent language was thrust into his hand. Every one wondered what would happen next. Would Mr. Blantyre face the Luther Lecturers in the public hall? One old bedridden dame Carr found all agog with excitement and spite. "It'd come to a fight," she expected, and "wot an awful thing it was to have them wicked monsters the Papists so close.

She could 'ardly sleep o' nights thinking of it all." Carr found that the poor old creature had not the remotest idea of what "Papist" meant, of what anything meant, indeed; but she would hardly listen to his prayers and Bible-reading nevertheless, so eager was she to discuss the "goings on."

About four, as he left the last house he purposed to visit just then, a strange thought came to him suddenly. He was at the extreme end of his parish, not far from St. Elwyn's. Would it not be a good thing to go and visit Blantyre, to express his sympathy and to discuss whether some way out of the present trouble could not be found?

The idea strengthened and grew. He knew Blantyre was a decent fellow--every one said so. But, nevertheless, he had the sense of venturing into the lion's den! He should feel strange among these priests with their foreign ways, their ca.s.socks and berrettas; there would be discomfort in the visit.

It is curious how, in the minds of the least prejudiced, the dislike to the definite and outward symbols that a priest wears still lingers. In another generation, it will have been swept away, but it still survives as a relic of the dark, secularising influences of the eighteenth century. And, again, the man in the street does not like to be reminded that there is a G.o.d and a cla.s.s of men vowed to His service, and the complete distinction of a priest's costume is too explicit a reminder.

Carr thought the matter out for a minute or two and then made up his mind. He would go and talk over the situation with Blantyre. With a vivid sense of how his host of the morning would call his action "bowing down in the house of Rimmon," a sense that only quickened his steps and sent a contemptuous curl to his lip, he turned and walked towards the clergy-house.

He rang the bell, and a tall and rather hulking man in livery showed him into a large drawing-room. This was the navvy, Mr. King's former a.s.sailant, who had been promoted, at his own request, to a distinctive costume, which he wore with pride and diligence. His only grief was that he was not allowed to "wipe the floor with that there Hamlyn," but he lived in hope that some fresh outrage would provide him with the necessary permission.

Carr looked round the room. There was nothing ecclesiastical about it, no flavour of the monk at home. It had been newly papered; the walls were covered with pictures so fresh and new in treatment that they might have come from the Academy of that year. The vicar of St. Luke's suddenly awoke to the fact that he was in a very charming room indeed.

There was a Steinway grand piano there, a beautiful instrument; he saw that the Twelfth Nocturne of Chopin stood open upon it. Everywhere he saw a mult.i.tude of photographs in frames of silver, copper, ivory, peac.o.c.k leather--every imaginable sort of frame. A great many of these photographs were signed in the corner, and looking at some of them he was surprised to see that they were of very well-known people. Here was a well-known general, there a judge, again the conscious features of a society actor beamed out at him. His eye, un.o.bservant at first, began to take in the details of the room more rapidly. There were a hundred luxurious little trifles scattered about, numerous contrivances for comfort. He was wondering to whom this room could belong, when the door opened and his doubts were resolved.

A girl came in, a girl with a beautifully modelled face, healthy and yet without crimson in it. A pair of frank, dark eyes looked at him from beneath an overshadowing ma.s.s of dead black hair.

"How do you do, Mr. Carr," she said,--he had given the man his card,--"I am Mr. Blantyre's sister; I've only just pitched my tent in Hornham.

Bernard will be in for tea in half an hour."

Rather nervously, Carr explained that he had called on a matter of parochial business. He remained standing, a little at a loss. This girl was not like the young ladies of Hornham.

"Well, you must have some tea," Lucy said with decision as she rang the bell. Carr sat down. He antic.i.p.ated a somewhat trying half hour until the vicar should arrive. He was a gentleman, well bred in every way, but his life, from the time of his school days, had been lonely and without much feminine companionship.

In five minutes he found, to his own great surprise, that he was talking vividly and well, that he was quite pleased to be where he was. And the girl seemed to be interested and pleased with him. It was a very new sensation, this feeling of mutual liking, to the lonely man. The conversation turned naturally to the unrest around them. Carr said nothing as yet of his morning's experience.

"Well, I must confess, frankly, Mr. Carr," Lucy said, "that until lately I never took any interest at all in these things. They seemed humbug to me. Now, of course, I know better. It's a _shame_! a black shame, that Bernard and the others should be treated so by this disgusting man. If he only knew what their life was! how self-denying, how full of unceasing labour and worry, how devoted. Take Mr. Stephens, for instance: he's only a boy, yet he's killing himself with work and enthusiasm. He was up all last night with a man that has delirium tremens, yet he said Ma.s.s at half-past seven, came to breakfast as merry as a sand-boy, and was teaching in the national schools at nine. And he'll be on his feet to-day until nearly midnight without a word of complaint. He'll spend nearly the whole evening in the boys' club, boxing and playing billiards with them--oh, you can't think how the three of them work!"

She went on with a series of anecdotes and explanations, told with great vividness and power, in her new enthusiasm for the men among whom she had come. And throughout all her talk, the clergyman heard frequent references to the services that went on almost unceasingly in the great church hard by. He heard names, strange and yet familiar, startling to his ear, and yet which seemed quite natural and fitting in the place where he was. One thing he began to see clearly, and with interest: whatever these men were in opinion, a life of real and active holiness went on among them. And he noticed also, with wonder, how everything seemed to draw its inspiration from the church, how constantly the clergy were there, hearing confessions, saying services, praying, and preaching. The whole thing was new to him.

They were the best of friends, talking brightly together, when the door burst open and the impetuous priest rushed in. "Well, I'm glad to see you!" he said with a broad grin of welcome. "Had tea?--that's right. I see you've made friends with my clergywoman! I've been in church hearing confessions, or I'd have been in sooner."

His manner was extremely genial. He seemed genuinely glad to see his brother vicar and not in the least surprised or puzzled.

Carr looked attentively at him. So this merry Irishman, with the lined, powerful face, the grey hair, and eyes which sometimes blazed out like lamps--this was the great Ritualist, the Jesuit, the thief of English liberty!

He had a wonderful magnetic power, that was evident at once. His sympathy for everything and everybody poured from him; he was "big," big in every way.

He chatted merrily away on a variety of topics while taking his tea.

Asking his sister for another cup, he suddenly turned to Carr. "That reminds me," he said, "of a good story I heard yesterday. Father Cartwright was here to lunch, he is one of the St. Clement Fathers at the Oxford monastery. Not long ago a young n.o.bleman--rather a _bon vivant_, by the way--went down to spend a few days with the Fathers. He made his arrival, very unfortunately for him, poor fellow! on a Friday, when the fare's very frugal indeed. He had very little to eat, poor chap, and went to bed as hungry as a hunter, quite unable to sleep he was. Now, it's the custom for one of the Fathers to go round in the night with a benediction, 'The Lord be with you.' They always say it in Latin, _Dominus tec.u.m_. The young man heard some one rapping at the door. 'Who's there?' says he. '_Dominus tec.u.m_,' was the answer.

'Thanks, very much,' said the n.o.bleman, 'please put it down outside'!"

While they were laughing at the story, Lucy rose and, shaking hands with Carr, went away.

The two clergymen were left alone. "You'll not mind talking in here?"

Father Blantyre said. "I've got a poor chap in me study I don't want to disturb. I found um after lunch making a row in the street with a crowd round him, a poor half-clothed scarecrow, beastly drunk--never saw a man in such a state. I asked one of the crowd who he was and he said he was a stranger, a ship's fireman, who'd been about the place for a day or two, spending all his money in drinks, and he hadn't a friend in the world. A policeman came along and wanted to lock um up, but I managed to get him in here and he's sleeping it off. I shall give um egg in milk when he comes round: his poor stomach's half poisoned with bad liquor and no food. I always find egg and milk the best thing in these cases. I wish he wasn't so dirty! We shall have to give 'm a hot tub before he can go to bed."

"What will you do with him?"

"Oh, keep him here for a day or two to pull round, give um some clothes, and pack 'm off to sea again where he can't get any drink."

"Don't such men ever rob you?"

"Hardly ever. It's not your real outcast who steals much. They're generally so astonished to find a parson isn't as black as he's painted that they don't think of anything else. They go away feeling they've got a _pal_, made a friend! That's the awful want in their lives. A lot of them come back, and write to me while they're away, too, queer letters full of grat.i.tude and bad language! But ye came to see me, my friend.

I'm so glad you've found your way here. Now, what can I do for you, or are ye going to do anything for me?"

His manner had changed. His tone was indescribably sympathetic and gentle. If ever the wisdom of charity and the light of holiness shone out on a man's face, Carr thought that he saw it now.