The Altar Steps Part 25

That night Father Rowley was attending a large temperance demonstration in the Town Hall for the purpose of securing if possible a smaller proportion of public houses than one for every eighty of the population, which was the average for Chatsea. The meeting lasted until nearly ten o'clock; and it had already struck the hour when Father Rowley with Mark and two or three others got back to Keppel Street. There was nothing Father Rowley disliked so much as arriving home himself after ten, and he hurried up to his room without inquiring if everybody was in.

Mark's window looked out on Keppel Street; and the May night being warm and his head aching from the effects of the meeting, he sat for nearly an hour at the open window gazing down at the pa.s.sers by. There was not much to see, nothing more indeed than couples wandering home, a bluejacket or two, an occasional cat, and a few women carrying jugs of beer. By eleven o'clock even this slight traffic had ceased, and there was nothing down the silent street except a salt wind from the harbour that roused a memory of the beach at Nancepean years ago when he had sat there watching the glow-worm and decided to be a lighthouse-keeper keeping his lamps bright for mariners homeward bound. It was of streets like Keppel Street that they would have dreamed, with the Stag Light winking to port, and the west wind blowing strong astern. What a lighthouse-keeper Father Rowley was! How except by the grace of G.o.d could one explain such goodness as his? Fashions in saintliness might change, but there was one kind of saint that always and for every creed spoke plainly of G.o.d's existence, such saints as St. Francis of a.s.sisi or St. Anthony of Padua, who were manifestly the heirs of Christ. With what a tender cynicism Our Lord had called St. Peter to be the foundation stone of His Church, with what a sorrowful foreboding of the failure of Christianity. Such a choice appeared as the expression of G.o.d's will not to be let down again as He was let down by Adam. Jesus Christ, conscious at the moment of what He must shortly suffer at the hands of mankind, must have been equally conscious of the failure of Christianity two thousand years beyond His Agony and b.l.o.o.d.y Sweat and Crucifixion. Why, within a short time after His life on earth it was necessary for that light from heaven to shine round about Saul on the Damascus road, because already scoffers, while the disciples were still alive, may have been talking about the failure of Christianity. It must have been another of G.o.d's self-imposed limitations that He did not give to St. John that capacity of St. Paul for organization which might have made practicable the Christianity of the master Who loved him. _Woman, behold thy son! Behold thy mother!_ That dying charge showed that Our Lord considered John the most Christlike of His disciples, and he remained the most Christlike man until twelve hundred years later St.

Francis was born at a.s.sisi. St. Paul, St. Augustine, St. Dominic, if Christianity could only produce mighty individualists of Faith like them, it could scarcely have endured as it had endured. _And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity._ There was something almost wistful in those words coming from the mouth of St. Paul. It was scarcely conceivable that St. John or St.

Francis could ever have said that; it would scarcely have struck either that the three virtues were separable.

Keppel Street was empty now. Mark's headache had been blown away by the night wind with his memories and the incoherent thoughts which had gathered round the contemplation of Father Rowley's character. He was just going to draw away from the window and undress when he caught sight of a figure tacking from one pavement to the other up Keppel Street.

Mark watched its progress, amused at the extraordinary amount of trouble it was giving itself, until one tack was brought to a sharp conclusion by a lamp-post to which the figure clung long enough to be recognized as that of the Reverend George Edward Mousley, who had been tacking like this to make the harbour of the Mission House. Mark, remembering the letter which had been written to the Bishop of Warwick, wondered if he could not at any rate for to-night spare Father Rowley the disappointment of knowing that his plea for re-instatement was already answered by the drunken priest himself. He must make up his mind quickly, because even with the zigzag course Mousley was taking he would soon be ringing the bell of the Mission House, which meant that Father Rowley would be woken up and go down to let him in. Of course, he would have to know all about it in the morning, but to-night when he had gone to bed tired and full of hope for temperance in general and the reformation of Mousley in particular it was surely right to let him sleep in ignorance. Mark decided to take it upon himself to break the rules of the house, to open the door to Mousley, and if possible to get him upstairs to bed quietly. He went down with a lighted candle, crept across the gymnasium, and opened the door. Mousley was still tacking from pavement to pavement and making very little headway against a strong current of drink. Mark thought he had better go out and offer his services as pilot, because Mousley was beginning to sing an extraordinary song in which the tune and the words of _Good-bye, Dolly, I must leave you_, had got mixed up with _O happy band of pilgrims_.

"Look here, Mr. Mousley, you mustn't sing now," said Mark taking hold of the arm with which the drunkard was trying to beat time. "It's after eleven o'clock, and you're just outside the Mission House."

"I've been just outside the Mission House for an hour and three quarters, old chap," said Mr. Mousley solemnly. "Most incompatible thing I've ever known. I got back here at a quarter past nine, and I was just going to walk in when the house took two paces to the rear, and I've been walking after it the whole evening. Most incompatible thing I've ever known. Most incompatible thing that's ever happened to me in my life, Lidderdale. If I were a superst.i.tious man, which I'm not, I should say the house was bewitched. If I had a moment to spare, I should sit down at once and write an account of my most incompatible experience to the Society of Psychical Research, if I were a superst.i.tious man, which I'm not. Yes. . . ."

Mr. Mousley tried to focus his gla.s.sy eyes upon the arcana of spiritualism, rocking ambiguously the while upon the kerb. Mark murmured something more about the need for going in quietly.

"It's very kind of you to come out and talk to me like this," the drunken priest went on. "But what you ought to have done was to have kept hold of the house for a minute or two so as to give me time to get in quietly. Now we shall probably both be out here all night trying to get in quietly. It's impossible to keep warm by this lamp-post. Most inadequate heating arrangement. It is a lamp-post, isn't it? Yes, I thought it was. I had a fleeting impression that it was my bedroom candle, but I see now that I was mistaken, I see now perfectly clearly that it is a lamp-post, if not two. Of course, that may account for my not being able to get into the Mission House. I was trying to decide which front door I should go in by, and while I was waiting I think I must have gone in by the wrong one, for I hit my nose a most severe blow on the nose. One has to remember to be very careful with front doors. Of course, if it was my own house I should have used a latch-key instanter; for I inevitably, I mean invariably, carry a latch-key about with me and when it won't open my front door I use it to wind my watch. You know, it's one of those small keys you can wind up watches with, if you know the kind of key I mean. I'd draw you a picture of it if I had a pencil, but I haven't got a pencil."

"Now don't stay talking here," Mark urged. "Come along back, and do try to come quietly. I keep telling you it's after eleven o'clock, and you know Father Rowley likes everybody to be in by ten."

"That's what I've been saying to myself the whole evening," said Mr.

Mousley. "Only what happened, you see, was that I met the son of a man who used to know my father, a very nice fellow indeed, a very intellectual fellow. I never remember spending a more intellectual evening in my life. A feast of reason and a flowing bowl, I mean soul, s-o-u-l, not b-o-u-l. Did I say bowl? Soul. . . . Soul. . . ."

"All right," said Mark. "But if you've had such a jolly evening, come in now and don't make a noise."

"I'll come in whenever you like," Mr. Mousley offered. "I'm at your disposition entirely. The only request I have to make is that you will guarantee that the house stays where it was built. It's all very fine for an ordinary house to behave like this, but when a mission house behaves like this I call it disgraceful. I don't know what I've done to the house that it should conceive such a dislike to me. I say, Lidderdale, have they been taking up the drains or something in this street? Because I distinctly had an impression just then that I put my foot into a hole."

"The street's perfectly all right," said Mark. "Nothing has been done to it."

"There's no reason why they shouldn't take up the drains if they want to, I'm not complaining. Drains have to be taken up and I should be the last man to complain; but I merely asked a question, and I'm convinced that they have been taking up the drains. Yes, I've had a very intellectual evening. My head's whirling with philosophy. We've talked about everything. My friend talked a good deal about Buddhism. And I made rather a good joke about Confucius being so confusing, at which I laughed inordinately. Inordinately, Lidderdale. I've had a very keen sense of humour ever since I was a baby. I say, Lidderdale, you certainly know your way about this street. I'm very much obliged to me for meeting you. I shall get to know the street in time. You see, my object was to get beyond the house, because I said to myself 'the house is in Keppel Street, it can dodge about _in_ Keppel Street, but it can't be in any other street,' so I thought that if I could dodge it into the corner of Keppel Street--you follow what I mean? I may be talking a bit above your head, we've been talking philosophy all the evening, but if you concentrate you'll follow my meaning."

"Here we are," said Mark, for by this time he had persuaded Mr. Mousley to put his foot upon the step of the front door.

"You managed the house very well," said the clergyman. "It's extraordinary how a house will take to some people and not to others.

Now I can do anything I like with dogs, and you can do anything you like with houses. But it's no good patting or stroking a house. You've got to manage a house quite differently to that. You've got to keep a house's accounts. You haven't got to keep a dog's accounts."

They were in the gymnasium by now, which by the light of Mark's small candle loomed as vast as a church.

"Don't talk as you go upstairs," Mark admonished.

"Isn't that a dog I see there?"

"No, no, no," said Mark. "It's the horse. Come along."

"A horse?" Mousley echoed. "Well, I can manage horses too. Come here, Dobbin. If I'd known we were going to meet a horse I should have brought back some sugar with me. I suppose it's too late to go back and buy some sugar now?"

"Yes, yes," said Mark impatiently. "Much too late. Come along."

"If I had a piece of sugar he'd follow us upstairs. You'll find a horse will go anywhere after a piece of sugar. It is a horse, isn't it? Not a donkey? Because if it was a donkey he would want a thistle, and I don't know where I can get a thistle at this time of night. I say, did you prod me in the stomach then with anything?" asked Mr. Mousley severely.

"No, no," said Mark. "Come along, it was the parallel bars."

"I've not been near any bars to-night, and if you are suggesting that I've been in bars you're making an insinuation which I very much resent, an insinuation which I resent most bitterly, an insinuation which I should not allow anybody to make without first pointing out that it was an insinuation."

"Do come down off that ladder," Mark said.

"I beg your pardon, Lidderdale. I was under the impression for the moment that I was going upstairs. I have really been so confused by Confucius and by the extraordinary behaviour of the house to-night, recoiling from me as it did, that for the moment I was under the impression that I was going upstairs."

At this moment Mr. Mousley fell from the ladder, luckily on one of the gymnasium mats.

"I do think it's a most ridiculous habit," he said, "not to place a doormat in what I might describe as a suitable cavity. The number of times in my life that I've fallen over doormats simply because people will not take the trouble to make the necessary depression in the floor with which to contain such a useful domestic receptacle you would scarcely believe. I must have fallen over thousands of doormats in my life," he shouted at the top of his voice.

"You'll wake everybody up in the house," Mark exclaimed in an agony.

"For heaven's sake keep quiet."

"Oh, we are in the house, are we?" said Mr. Mousley. "I'm very much relieved to hear you say that, Lidderdale. For a brief moment, I don't know why, I was almost as confused as Confucius as to where we were."

At this moment, candle in hand, and in a white flannel nightgown looking larger than ever, Father Rowley appeared in the gallery above and leaning over demanded who was there.

"Is that Father Rowley?" Mr. Mousley inquired with intense courtesy. "Or do my eyes deceive me? You'll excuse me from replying to your apparently simple question, Father Rowley, but I have met such a number of people to-night including the son of a man who used to know my father that I really don't know who _is_ there, although I'm inclined to think that _I_ am here. But I've had a series of such a remarkable series of adventures to-night that I should like your advice about them. I've been spending a very intellectual evening, Father Rowley."

"Go to bed," said the mission priest severely. "I'll speak to you in the morning."

"Father Rowley isn't annoyed with me, is he?" Mr. Mousley asked.

"I think he's rather annoyed at your being so late," said Mark.

"Late for what?"

"Is that you, Mark, down there?" asked the Missioner.

"I'm lighting Mr. Mousley across the gymnasium," Mark explained. "I think I'd better take him up to his room."

"If your young friend is as clever at managing rooms as he is at managing houses we shall get on splendidly, Father Rowley. I have perfect confidence in his manner with rooms. He soothed this house in the most remarkable way. It was jumping about like a pea in a pod till he caught hold of the reins."

"Mark, go to bed. I will see Mr. Mousley to his room."

"Several years ago," said the drunken priest. "I went with an old friend to see Miss Ellen Terry as Lady Macbeth. The resemblance between Father Rowley and Miss Ellen Terry is very remarkable. Good-night, Lidderdale, I am perfectly comfortable on this mat. Good-night."

In the gallery above Mark, who had not dared to disobey Father Rowley's orders, asked him what was to be done to get Mr. Mousley to bed.

"Go and wake Cartwright and Warrender to help me to get him upstairs,"

the Missioner commanded.

"I can help you. . . ." Mark began.

"Do what I say," said the Missioner curtly.

In the morning Father Rowley sent for Mark to give his account of what had happened the night before, and when Mark had finished his tale, the priest sat for a while in silence.

"Are you going to send him away?" Mark asked.