King John of Jingalo Part 54

"Ah!" cried Max, "does that shock the Church?"

The challenge went unanswered; instead came question.

"Have you not had this desire before--in other directions?"

"Never!" exclaimed Max. "No, never!"

The Archbishop eyed him keenly. "You have had experience."

"I have lived my life openly," said the Prince.

"I was aware of that," returned his Grace. "Need I trouble your Highness with any further grounds for my refusal? Not with my consent shall my daughter marry a libertine."

"Great Judge of Heaven!" cried Max, springing to his feet. "Hark to this old man!"

"Don't shout," said the Archbishop; "He hears you."

Max's scorn dropped back like a rocket to earth.

"Yes," he retorted, "no doubt! The question is, are you capable of hearing Him?"

"I am always ready to be instructed," replied his Grace sarcastically.

"I must remind you," said the Prince, "that as a Doctor of Divinity I have some claim. Yes," he went on in answer to the Archbishop's look of astonishment, "though you have forgotten the circ.u.mstance, you yourself dubbed me Theologian by hitting me over the head with a Greek Testament."

The Archbishop accepted the reminiscence.

"In that case," said he, "I bow to your Highness's authority."

"Yes: you were a shepherd of that fold, yet you let me in? I was the clever one of my family; and the t.i.tle was given me when, with three lives standing between, there was little likelihood of my becoming Head of the Church. Was I to wear it, then, as an ornament, or as an amulet to guide me into right doctrine? Whatever faith I still hold, I fear me that miracle has not been wrought."

"In these days," said the Archbishop, "faith itself is the great miracle."

"That people should have any faith in the Church is indeed a miracle,"

said Max. "Yet I suppose it is but another instance of how easily the world accepts what it finds. I myself remain outwardly a Churchman; merely because it seems to me hardly to matter, and because any overt act on my part would hurt those whom I love. And what spiritual experience have I acquired as the result of my outward conformity? I have found the pulpit the most polished of all social inst.i.tutions: and never once have I heard from it any word troublesome to a conscience which has still, I can a.s.sure you, its waking moments. The eloquence that flows from it never trespa.s.ses beyond the bounds of polite conversation; and as regards 'unpleasant subjects' it deals faithfully only with the lives of those who do not form the bulk of its congregations. If it dealt faithfully with them, those polite congregations would get up and walk out."

"I do not think, sir, that your experience puts you in a position to know how the Church deals with the consciences of the faithful."

"You mean," said Max, "that in the ears of royalty uncomfortable subjects are avoided? That merely indicates the system. As the snail withdraws first his horns into his head, then his body into his sh.e.l.l, so your Church adapts itself to its surroundings. Let me give you a case in point--it touches on our present discussion. I have heard often enough the cheaper forms of prost.i.tution decorously alluded to; but when did I ever hear dealt with, either for approval or reprobation, the established practice among the unmarried youth of our aristocracy of keeping mistresses?"

"I think, sir, that you must have been often inattentive. The virtue of purity is, I am sure, constantly inculcated by our clergy."

"In such a form," replied the Prince, "that we need not apply it to ourselves. The betrayal of innocency, yes, I have heard of that, for that only touches a small minority. But these mistresses whom most of us keep are no more innocent than ourselves, nor are we more innocent than they. And yet, while to them all social entrances are barred, we men are allowed to go in free."

"Society cannot act on mere rumor and suspicion," said the Archbishop.

"In the woman's case it does," replied the Prince. "And I wonder whether it has ever occurred to any one to connect that fact with the cheapening of our modern definition of chivalry. Are you ever chivalrous; am I?"

"Charity is a greater thing than chivalry."

"I am not so sure of that," said the Prince. "You had forgotten just now that I was a Doctor of Divinity; have you also forgotten that we share the honors of one of the most ancient knighthoods in the world?"

"Will your Highness be so good as to explain?"

"Your Grace will perhaps remember--since you officiated upon the occasion as prelate of the Order--my invest.i.ture rather more than two years ago as a Knight of the Holy Thorn?"

The Archbishop bowed a.s.sent.

"Your discourse upon that occasion was both learned and eloquent; but it did not really touch the subject that had brought us together."

"How would you define the subject?" inquired his Grace.

"The subject on which I hoped to be instructed," said the Prince, "was the real meaning of Chivalry as expressed in the Order of the Thorn, and the reason why I was deemed worthy to be made a knight of it. There had already been some comment owing to the fact that the honor was not conferred immediately on the attainment of my majority. Perhaps my shortened career at college had something to do with it--perhaps the fact that I had brothers who were older and worthier than myself. I am not in the least blaming my father for the delay; rather am I now inclined to be grateful. But that year the death of my two brothers created more than a vacancy: and any further postponement would, I suppose, have made the omission too pointed. I stepped into those dead shoes."

"What a talker the man is!" said the Archbishop to himself. But etiquette held him bound, and there he was obliged to sit, looking interested and attentive, while Max went on.

II

"For some reason or another--perhaps because it was the one thing for which, in spite of legitimate expectations, I had been kept waiting--I conceived for the honor, when it was bestowed on me, a sentimental regard which I did not experience toward my other t.i.tles. They had all dropped upon me without any merit on my part; for this one honor I felt in some curious way that I was not worthy. It may have been that feeling of unworthiness which made me, before the date of my invest.i.ture, study the history of the Order and the legend of its origin. I had hoped that you would touch upon that legend, and give it some modern application. I wonder now whether your Grace is aware of the legend; or whether I, indeed, am not the only Knight of the Order who has troubled to think anything about it."

"I fancy," said the Archbishop, "that the legend you refer to has a flavor of medieval Romanism that would hardly commend itself to modern ears."

The Prince smiled bitterly. "Your Grace persuades me," he said, "to tell the story myself. At the point where it does not commend itself I shall be glad to hear your criticism.

"The Founder--or ought I not rather to say the first Knight?--of the Order was (if the story be true) a certain ancestor of our royal house who had spent the greater part of his life in wars of unjust aggression.

To atone for them--or for other things which weighed more heavily on his conscience--he went late in life on a crusade to the Holy Land; and after being there handsomely trounced by the infidel, was returning in dejection to the sea-coast with the mutinous remnant of his following, when the founding of the Order of the Thorn occurred to him.

"It occurred to him thus: this at all events was his own account of it.

He had become separated from his company of knights, darkness was coming on--when, as he spurred his tired steed with little mercy for its exhausted condition, he pa.s.sed by the roadside a beggar who cried out to him for charity. But the charity asked for was not alms, but only the withdrawal from the mendicant's foot of a thorn which troubled him.

"My ancestor, softened by some accent of gentleness or patience in the suppliant's voice, dismounted to do the service required of him, and in the growing darkness drew out the thorn. But when he had got it free from the flesh it seemed no more a thorn but an iron nail; and the wound out of which he had drawn it shone with celestial radiance. Then was founded the Order. The Mendicant bade him bind the Thorn upon his heel in the place of his spur, so that whenever thereafter he should be tempted to goad or oppress whether man or beast the Thorn should remind him of pity and mercy. I wait for your Grace's criticism of that legend?"

The Archbishop made no reply: with a courteous gesture of the hand he invited the Prince to continue.

"I hoped," said the young man, "to be instructed in the connection between that Founding and the continuance of the Order. You spoke of chivalry and loyalty; but the chivalry which you invited us to emulate was merely the physical daring of our ancestors as proved in war (wherein I am no longer allowed to take part); and the loyalty was to a form of monarchy which modern conditions now threaten with change. And I, looking at all my brother Knights around me, and at myself, wondered by what right we wore that iron thorn upon our heels.

"Among us--I need not mention names--were men whose lives were far more notoriously evil than mine--men whose wealth had been gained for them by the grinding of sweated humanity; men who received enormous rents from houses not fit for human habitation--men who opposed every act of remedial legislation which disturbed their own vested interests, and who did these things with an untroubled conscience because the conditions they fought for were all the outcome of custom or of law.

"And I remembered that some day I should be required to become their Grand Master--the t.i.tular head of that dead Order of Chivalry; and I wondered what would happen if I acted honestly upon my conscience and refused."

"Yet you say, sir, that for this Order, of which you now speak so slightingly, you had sentiments of reverence?"

"For the Order--yes; but none for the men--including myself--who make up its membership."

"Surely," said the Archbishop, "your Highness must admit that they are all men of mark; many of them have spent their lives in the public service--leaders of the people in peace and war. You cannot regard these things as nothing."

"For these things they already have their t.i.tles," said the Prince, "their state-pensions, or the wealth personally acquired on which their power and influence are based. Has the Order of the Thorn ever once in its history been given to a man because he was conspicuously good, or gentle, or forbearing, or unselfishly thoughtful for others? Has it ever once been given to a successful philanthropist who was not also of high lineage and t.i.tle? I have looked through the lists; I can find none.