The Project Gutenberg eBook of Trimblerigg
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,
you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.
Title: Trimblerigg
A book of revelation
Author: Laurence Housman
Illustrator: Edmond Xavier Kapp
Release date: April 27, 2024 [eBook #73474]
Language: English
Original publication: United Kingdom: Jonathan Cape Ltd, 1924
Credits: Tim Lindell, David E. Brown, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from images made available by the HathiTrust Digital Library.)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TRIMBLERIGG ***
TRIMBLERIGG
A Book of Revelation
*
‘O, let him pass! he hates him,
That would upon the rack of this tough world
Stretch him out longer.’
_By the Same Author_
ANGELS AND MINISTERS
DETHRONEMENTS
ECHO DE PARIS
MOONSHINE AND CLOVER
A DOORWAY IN FAIRYLAND
ALL FELLOWS
AND THE CLOAK OF FRIENDSHIP
[Illustration: JONATHAN TRIMBLERIGG
_From a drawing by_
Edmond X. Kapp]
TRIMBLERIGG
A Book of Revelation
by
Laurence Housman
*
With a
frontispiece from a recent portrait
by Kapp
[Illustration]
Jonathan Cape Ltd
Eleven Gower Street London
FIRST PUBLISHED IN MCMXXIV
SECOND IMPRESSION IN MCMXXIV
MADE & PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN
BY BUTLER & TANNER LTD
FROME AND
LONDON
[Illustration]
_Contents_
¶ EDITORIAL. The Editor excuses himself from
allegiance to the god of Mr. Trimblerigg 9
¶ CHAPTER 1. Mr. Trimblerigg becomes acquainted
with his deity and finds him useful:
contends with his sister for virtue, and
acquires grace: converts his uncle as by a
miracle, and receives the call 17
¶ CHAPTER 2. Seeking guidance of Scripture,
zeal for the Lord’s house consumes him:
the Lord’s house is consumed also, and the
cause of religion is well served 30
¶ CHAPTER 3. The eye of Davidina: he puts
on himself a price, which she takes off again.
In search of a career he turns to True Belief 39
¶ CHAPTER 4. He wrestles mightily with his
Uncle Phineas over the interpretation of
Scripture, and by subtlety prevails. His
uncle sends him to college 49
¶ CHAPTER 5. Calculating his future chances he
stands in a minority for truth: advocates the
ministry of women: preaches his first sermon 64
¶ CHAPTER 6. Having tried, and failed, to save
Davidina from drowning, he tells a modest
story of himself, which is allowed to stand 72
¶ CHAPTER 7. He tries to save himself from
Davidina, and fails. The wicked incredulity
of Davidina, and its effect upon his after-life 82
¶ CHAPTER 8. Meaning to choose a wife, he has
a wife chosen for him. His Uncle Phineas
dies: he finds his future is provided for 88
¶ CHAPTER 9. He enters the ministry of True
Belief, and prepares for himself a way out:
is saved by Davidina from an early indiscretion:
marries, and has a family 97
¶ CHAPTER 10. The ministry of women a burning
question: embarrasses his oratory. On
the question of verbal inspiration True
Belief turns him out 105
¶ CHAPTER 11. He becomes a Free Evangelical: from
the militancy of women takes refuge
in the organization of foreign missions 118
¶ CHAPTER 12. Mr. Trimblerigg’s deity exercises
his divine prerogative, and watches him
take a bath: his honesty under trying circumstances:
his success as an organizer 124
¶ CHAPTER 13. His liking for adventure and
experiment exposes him to danger: escaping
without loss of character, he finds cause to
complain of his wife’s 129
¶ CHAPTER 14. Invents his famous doctrine of
‘Relative Truth’: his success in the mission
field. He begins to invest: looks for a
popular cause, and finds one 137
¶ CHAPTER 15. His popular cause being
threatened by his investments, he makes a
sacrifice, and wins: becomes a power in the
financial world, and achieves fame 144
¶ CHAPTER 16. By a very slight departure from
the truth (relative), he gets the better of
Davidina, whereby his conscience is greatly
comforted 156
¶ CHAPTER 17. He tastes the sweets of popular
success: forgives an enemy: sees his star in
the ascendant, reads poetry, and sleeps the
sleep of the just 161
¶ CHAPTER 18. A strange awakening: finds
himself the recipient of an embarrassing
honour: his difficulty in finding a place for
it under present conditions 168
¶ CHAPTER 19. The effect of heavenly signs
on the young and innocent. His wife discovers
for the first time that he is a holy
man: her remorse 181
¶ CHAPTER 20. To escape from the beauty of
holiness Mr. Trimblerigg contemplates a life
of sin, but finds himself stuck fast in virtue.
Effects of his wife’s confession: his fear of
Davidina: he narrowly escapes death 189
¶ CHAPTER 21. Refusing to make an exhibition
of himself, he becomes unpopular: escapes
the fury of the mob, meets Davidina, and is
saved from further embarrassment. The
story of an onlooker 200
¶ CHAPTER 22. Mr. Trimblerigg comes out
top: Relative Truth in war-time the only
solution: attends funeral of a celebrity, and
makes arrangements for his own 209
¶ CHAPTER 23. He becomes the voice of the
nation: secures the ministry of women:
makes peace-mottoes for the million: hears
a voice from the Beyond forbidding him to
hew Agag 215
¶ CHAPTER 24. Relative Truth in black and
white becomes a problem. For the rescue of
his own reputation adopts the policy of
reprisals: the Free Churches are divided 225
¶ CHAPTER 25. Puto-Congo: friendly comparison
of Mr. Trimblerigg to a crocodile:
why, in the Puto-Congo, a crocodile policy
had become indispensable 232
¶ CHAPTER 26. The peaceful penetration of
Davidina: her wonderful ways: their effect
on savages. She returns to civilization, and
encounters Mr. Trimblerigg 241
¶ CHAPTER 27. Mr. Trimblerigg’s prayer
misses fire: he finds Davidina a comfortable
person to talk to: they go their separate ways 250
¶ CHAPTER 28. Mr. Trimblerigg’s genius for
inconsistency: its brilliant results: risks his
life, and becomes founder of the Puto-Congo
Free State Limited 257
¶ CHAPTER 29. Inspired by a new idea, he
combines Spiritualism with Second Adventism,
and opens campaign to make Heaven
safe for Democracy 263
¶ CHAPTER 30. Mr. Trimblerigg, opening a
box of prophecy, finds that his own coming
has been foretold: his ambition is satisfied 274
¶ CHAPTER 31. He reverts to True Belief as
the best means to Relative Truth when
prophecies are about. Light returns to him:
he uses it to slay an enemy 291
¶ CHAPTER 32. How he conquers America for
the new faith, competes with the Movies,
and starts building the New Jerusalem 295
¶ CHAPTER 33. The New Jerusalem encounters
unexpected opposition. The effect of
sticky gas on Second Adventism. Davidina
puts out Mr. Trimblerigg’s light, and in the
darkness that ensues his deity loses sight of
him 308
_Editorial_
The tribal deity to whom Mr. Trimblerigg owed his origin would, I
think, have shown a better sense of the eternal fitness of things had
he chosen for his amanuensis one whose theological antecedents were
more within his keeping and jurisdiction than my own. But when he
visited me with the attack of verbal inspiration which I was powerless
to throw off in any other form than that which here follows, he seems
rather to have assumed an intellectual agreement which certainly does
not exist, and to have ignored as unimportant a divergence of view
which I now wish to place on record. For, to put it plainly, I do not
worship the god of Mr. Trimblerigg; and had these pages been a complete
expression of my own feelings, they would have borne hostile witness
not so much against Mr. Trimblerigg, as against his deity.
When nations declare war, or when gods deliver judgment against
criminals who are so largely of their own making,--fastening in
self-justification on some flagrant instance of wrong-doing which,
for those who do not wish to reflect, puts the culprit wholly out of
court,--they would do well to select their official historians from
minds too abject and submissive to form views of their own; and of
course verbal inspiration, as in the case of Balaam, is one way of
getting the thing done. But whereas, in that historical instance, it
was the ass and not the prophet who kicked last, in this instance,
having delivered my message, I claim the right to exonerate myself in a
foreword which is entirely my own. And so here, in this place--before
he makes revelation or utters prophecy--Balaam speaks his own mind.
I do not think that Mr. Trimblerigg’s deity has dealt fairly by
him. To me he seems chargeable with the same exploitive elasticity
as that which he exposes in Mr. Trimblerigg, whom he first cockered
up in his own conceit by a course of tribal theology, and then
callously abandoned to its logical consequences when tribal theology
went suddenly out of fashion. For Mr. Trimblerigg was emphatically a
product of that self-worship of the tribe or clan, on which divine
Individualism has so long fattened itself. He was brought up to
believe himself one of a chosen sect of a chosen people, and to judge
from a theocratic standpoint the ways, doings, and morals of other
sects, communities, principalities, and powers. He could not remotely
conceive, without being false to his deity, that his own was not
immeasurably the best religion in the world, his god a god of perfect
balance and proportion, and himself a chosen vessel of the Lord. In
that character he was always anointing himself with fresh oil, which,
losing its balance, ran far further than it ought to have done. But if,
in consequence, he became an oleaginous character, whose mainly was the
blame?
I cannot acquit the deity in whose tenets he had been trained. Having
been brought up to read history as a pre-eminent dispensation of
mercies and favours to his own race, with a slight push of miracle
at the back of it--is it any wonder that, when he applied his gospel
to propaganda for the interests of that same race, or went out a
missionary to the heathen, it was with a conscientious conviction that
a little compulsion was necessary for the saving of souls?
And so, in that shadiest episode of all his career, presented to us
by his deity in such an unfavourable light, when the poor benighted
heathen began painting Mr. Trimblerigg’s fellow-missionaries black and
tan, and other horrible colours to indicate their hearty dislike for
a blended gospel of free salvation in Christ and duty and allegiance
to the Puto-Congo Rubber shareholders; when they did that, he--quite
naturally--invoked the law of the Mosaic dispensation, and did the same
to them: and defended himself for these gospel-reprisals by saying
that it would have been very unreasonable not to protect Christian
missionaries by the only method which savages could understand as a
stepping-stone to the methods of Christianity.
The picture as presented is true: that was Mr. Trimblerigg all over.
He had a lively notion that Christianity could be induced by pagan
methods. But has his deity the right to cast either the first or the
last stone at him? If he seemed to be always carrying the New Testament
in his coat-tail pocket and making it his foundation for occasions of
sitting down and doing nothing, while, up and doing, it was the law of
Moses with which he stuffed his breast: and if, when he wanted to thump
the big drum (as he so often did), he thumped the Old Testament, he
was only doing with more momentary conviction and verve and personal
magnetism what the larger tribalism of his day had been doing all
along; and his tribal deity never seems to have had the slightest
qualms in allowing Mr. Trimblerigg to regard himself as a Christian.
Yet all the time the deity himself knew better, as this record
abundantly shows; for having made Mr. Trimblerigg partly but not
entirely in his own image, he then used him as a plaything, an object
of curiosity; and committing him to that creed of racial aggrandisement
of which he himself was beginning to tire, thereby reduced him
to ridicule, made a fool of him, exalted him to the likeness and
similitude of a god, and then--let him go. And though, in the ensuing
pages, he has helped himself freely to my opinions, as though
they were his own, I do not feel that they were honestly adopted.
For a god who tires of his handiwork is still responsible for it,
however disillusioned; and when, employing me as his mouthpiece, Mr.
Trimblerigg’s maker mocks at the tribal religions which have brought
the world so near to ruin, he remains nevertheless a deity tribal in
character, albeit a disgruntled one. And if he has manœuvred this
record in order to wash his hands of responsibility, it comes, I fear,
too late; the source is too suspect to be regarded as impartial, and he
himself very much more of a Mr. Trimblerigg than he seems to be aware.
And so my business here is to express an utter disbelief (which I hope
readers will bear in mind) that Mr. Trimblerigg’s deity was one about
whom it is possible to entertain the larger hope, even in the faint
degree suggested by Tennyson,--or that he was anything except a tribal
survival to whom Mr. Trimblerigg and others gave names which did not
properly belong to him.
What finally laid Mr. Trimblerigg by the heels was the fact that having
picked up this god as he went along (finding him favourable to the main
chance) it was the main chance--idealized as ‘the larger hope’--which
he really worshipped without knowing it. Upon the strength of that
inspiration environment intoxicated him, and he drew his spiritual life
from the atmosphere around him. Then he was like a bottle of seltzer,
which at the first touch of the outer air begins almost explosively to
expand; whereas, for the bulk of us, we unbottle to it like still wine
without sound or foam, accepting it as the natural element for which we
were born. To Mr. Trimblerigg, on the other hand, it came as a thing
direct from God: at the first touch of the herd-instinct he bubbled,
and felt himself divine. And in the rush of pentecostal tongues amid
which he lost his head, he forgot that atmosphere and environment
are but small local conditions, and that, outside these, vacuum and
interstellar space hold the true balances of Heaven more surely and
correctively than do the brief and shifting lives of men.
This spiritual adventurer, with his alert vision so curiously reduced
in scale to seize the opportunities of day and hour, missed the march
of time from listening too acutely to the ticks of the clock. And if he
offers us an example for our better learning, it is mainly as showing
what belittling results the herd-instinct and tribal-deism may produce
in a mercurial and magnetic temperament,--making him imagine himself
something quite other from what he really is, and his god a person far
removed from that category in which he has been placed.
My own interpretation of this ‘Revelation,’ which has made me its
involuntary mouthpiece, is that it shows the beginning--but the
beginning only--of mental change in a god who has become tired of
deceiving himself about the work of his creation; and that it has
begun to dawn upon his mind--though he denies it in words--that, in
making Mr. Trimblerigg, he has made another little mistake, and that
his creation was really stuffed as full of them as a plum-pudding is
stuffed with plums. And I have a hope that when tribal deity becomes
properly apologetic for its many misshapings of a divided world,
humanity will begin to come by its own, and acquire a theology which is
not an organized hypocrisy for the bolstering up of nationalities and
peoples.
For here we have a world full of mistakes, which is governed,
according to the theologians, by a God who makes none. And what
between predestination and free-will, and grace abounding mixed up
with original sin, and orthodoxy and heterodoxy at such universal dash
throughout the world that not one honest soul in a million has an even
chance of being really right,--when that is the spectacle presented to
us in the life of the human race, it becomes something of a mockery
to minds of intelligence to be told that their gods have never made
mistakes.
Those who have been blessed with good parents, do not like them less
because of certain failings and limitations which go to the shaping of
their characters; and when, arrived at the age of discretion, they have
to withstand their failings and recognize their limitations, they do
so with a certain amount of deference and with undiminished affection;
but they do not, if they are wise, or if they have the well-being of
their parents really at heart,--they do not let it be thought that they
regard them either as immaculate or infallible.
I have come to the conclusion that a like duty towards its tribal
deities belongs to the human race; and that man has made many mistakes
simply by regarding these tribal emanations as immune from error,
all-seeing, all-wise, all-loving--which they certainly are not. And I
believe that Mr. Trimblerigg would have been a very much better and
more useful man if he could have conceived his tribal deity as one
liable to error like himself. The terrible Nemesis which seized the
soul of Mr. Trimblerigg and hurled it to destruction was a very limited
and one-sided conception of what was good and right, embodied in the
form of a personal deity who could do no wrong.
So here, as I read it, we have the revelation of the detriment done to
a human soul by an embodied belief in itself under cover of a religious
creed. And the record of that process has been handed over to me, I
suppose, because the tribal deity responsible for the results has got
a little tired of the abject flattery of his worshippers, and a little
doubtful whether that relation between the human and the divine is
really the right one. He is suffering in fact, as I read him, from a
slight attack of creative indigestion, and is anxious to get rid of
certain by-products which his system cannot properly assimilate: he is
anxious, amongst other things, to get rid of responsibility for Mr.
Trimblerigg. But the responsibility is there; and I allow myself this
foreword in order to declare it in spite of the things which hereafter
I am made to say.
‘You cannot unscramble eggs,’ is a dictum as applicable to gods as to
mortals. And if people would remember that in their prayers, prayers
would be less foolish and fatuous than they often are.
You cannot unscramble eggs. And so, having scrambled Mr. Trimblerigg in
the making, his god was attempting a vain thing in trying to unscramble
him; and when Mr. Trimblerigg went on his knees and prayed, as he
occasionally did, to be unscrambled, he was only scrambling himself yet
more in the fry-pan of his tribal theology.
And indeed, when I look at him, I have to admire what a scramble of
a man he was!--how the yolk and the white of it, the good and the
evil, the thick and the thin of his character did mix, ‘yea, meet
and mingle,’ as he would have said himself when his platform sense
of poetry got the better of him. And so, in the exercise of those
contradictory agilities of soul and brain which made him so mixed
yet so divided a character, he skipped through life like a flea to
Abraham’s bosom, and there--after so many an _alias_ hastily assumed
and as hastily discarded--lies waiting to answer to his true name when
true names are called.
What kind of a name, one wonders, did he finally make for himself
in the Book of Life? In that desperate saving of his own face which
constitutes his career, he put out of countenance many that were
his betters; but it was himself that, in the process, he put out of
countenance most of all. Yet in the end revelation came to him; and
when, in that ghastly moment of self-discovery, he stood fully charged
with the truth, who shall say what miraculous, what fundamental change
it may not have wrought in him? When he followed the upward rope
which led him so expeditiously Elsewhere, it may have been with the
equipment of a new self capable of much better and more honest things
that he finally entered Heaven. I cannot believe that such a genius for
self-adaptation has incontinently missed its mark. But, in that forward
aim, it may well be that he and his tribal deity have parted company;
for it is to be noted that, at the last gasp, the god loses sight--does
not know what has become of him: thinks, perhaps, that he has gone
irretrievably and abysmally--Down. I, on the contrary, have a suspicion
and a hope that his tendency may have been--UP.
L. H.
CHAPTER ONE
_Deus Loquitur_
Of course when I made Mr. Trimblerigg, though I had shaped him--I
will not say to my liking, but at least to my satisfaction--I did not
foresee how he would turn out. It is not my custom to look ahead. I
can, to be sure, do so when I please: but that makes the _dénouement_
so dull. I prefer, therefore--and have now made it a rule--that my
creations shall, in what they do, come upon me as a surprise--pleasant
or the reverse. For since I have given them free-will, let me also
have the benefit of it: let them make their own plans, their own
careers,--attributing to me, if they must, those features of both for
which they do not feel themselves responsible; and let me (in the
moment when they think to have fulfilled themselves) experience that
small stimulus of novelty which the infinite variety and individuality
of my creatures is always capable of providing.
For it is this spice of novelty alone which keeps me from being
unutterably disinterested in the workings of what theologians are
pleased to call ‘the moral purpose of the universe.’
So it was that, having shaped Mr. Trimblerigg to my satisfaction, I let
him go. And as, with his future in his own very confident hands, he
went, I did not for the moment trouble to look after him.
When I say that I shaped him to my satisfaction, I am speaking merely
as a craftsman. I knew that I had made a very clever man. As to liking
him, that had nothing to do with craftsmanship, but would depend
entirely on what he did with himself--how he appealed to me as a
student of life, when--laying aside my rôle of maker, I became merely
the observer.
It is always an interesting experiment whether I shall be drawn to
my creations before they become drawn to me. Sometimes I find that
they interest me enormously, even while denying me with their last
breath. But the unrequited affections of a god have always an element
of comedy; for though, in the spiritual direction, one’s creations may
take a way of their own, they are never as quit of us as they suppose;
and when they know it least they come back to us for inspection and
renovation. Even the soul that thinks itself lost is not so lost as to
leave one unaware of its condition; though it may have ceased to call,
its address is still known.
In Mr. Trimblerigg’s case it was all the other way--from the moment
that he discovered me he never let me alone; though I had cast him
forth like bread upon the waters, not expecting to see him again for
many days, he came back to me early, and from that time on gave me the
advantage of his intimate and varying acquaintance to the very end.
I wonder to myself sometimes whether I tried him as much as he tried
me, and whether he managed to like me up to the last. This at least
I found--that by the time he was five years old, whether I liked him
or not, Mr. Trimblerigg liked me; and the reason for his liking was
simple--he found me useful.
For one day, having done something which deserved, or was supposed
to deserve punishment, he lied about it, and was discovered. The
discovery came to his ears before he was actually taxed with it. The
small world on which he stood became suddenly an abyss; lifting up his
feet he fled for refuge to his own chamber, and was about to hide in
the cupboard, when he heard the awful tread of judgment ascending the
stairs. Being clever (for which I admit I was responsible) he realized
how temporary a refuge the cupboard must necessarily be; what he needed
was the eternal; and so, throwing himself on his knees he began praying
to me--aloud. And in his prayer he told the truth, volubly, abundantly,
and without making any excuse for himself. ‘I have told a lie,’ he
cried, ‘O God, I have told a lie!’
The agony of his prayer was heard, not so much by me as by the elder
for whose entry he had so accurately timed it. And who, looking upon
that youthful and ingenuous countenance, could doubt the sincerity of
his grief? His lips quivered, his eyes streamed tears, his nails dug
into his tender flesh, leaving marks. At that sight, at those sounds,
the paternal heart was deeply moved; the birch was laid aside; elder
and younger knelt together and prayed for quite a long time, with
great fervour, fixity, and unanimity of purpose, that henceforth young
Mr. Trimblerigg should be a good boy, and never never again be caught
telling a lie.
That prayer unfortunately was not entirely answered--though between us
we did our best. In the years that followed Mr. Trimblerigg lied often
and well, but was very seldom caught, and still more seldom punished.
The only really important outcome of that incident was that Mr.
Trimblerigg found he liked me; I had been useful to him. And yet I had
done, I protest, absolutely nothing--except making him clever. It was
not through my providential intervention that he liked me, but through
his own. The prayer of faith had saved him from a whipping; it was a
lesson he never forgot.
And so, from that day on, he made me his general help and stay; and
on every occasion of doubt, difficulty, or distress, was able, by
coming to me, to convince himself that he meant well. Never in my whole
world’s existence have I come upon anybody who was able to answer
his own prayers about himself, and about other people, with such
conviction, avidity, and enthusiasm as Mr. Trimblerigg. And why should
I complain? It made him a great power in the world, without my having
to lift a finger, or turn a hair, or do anything, in fact, except wink
an eye, or seem to.
The virtuous incentives of family life, though only provided on a
small scale, were not lacking for the development of Mr. Trimblerigg’s
character. He had three uncles, two aunts, a great-uncle and a
grandfather--all fairly contiguous, the family being of the indigenous
not of the migratory kind--besides a father, a mother and a sister,
with whom contact was continuous and unescapable. Even in their naming
the children had been linked for lovely and pleasant relationship in
after-life; for when the Trimblerigg first-born, whom its parents
confidently expected to be a son, turned into a daughter--adapting the
forechosen name to suit her sex, they called her Davidina; and when,
nearly two years later, our own Mr. Trimblerigg struggled out into the
world, nearly killing his mother in the process, the destined name
Jonathan was there waiting for him.
And so, very early in his career, Mr. Trimblerigg’s sister Davidina
became the whetstone of his virtues--its operation summed up in the
word ‘emulation.’ Nature would perhaps have brought it about in any
case, even if the parental plan had not inculcated and forced it home;
but when it became clear to Mr. and Mrs. Trimblerigg senior that no
more children were to be theirs, they conceived the idea of blending
the business with the moral instincts, and in the training of their two
offspring making virtue competitive.
No wonder then, that, as their moral sense dawned, the germ of mutual
suspicion and hatred grew lodged in their souls. This, however, did not
prevent them, when self-interest prompted, from being also allies, as
the following may show.
The parental idea of making virtue competitive had taken one of
its earlier forms--for economic reasons, I fancy--in the matter of
pocket-money; and the weekly penny was tendered not as a right nor even
as a reward for good average behaviour, but as a prize to be wrestled
for, gain by the one involving loss by the other--a device that had the
incidental advantage of halving the tax on the pocket which provided it.
The fact that Davidina won it far more frequently and easily than
he did, set Mr. Trimblerigg his first problem in goodness run as a
means to profit. He accordingly invited his sister to an arrangement
whereby, irrespective of conduct, they should go shares; and when
this accommodating olive-branch was scornfully rejected, he became so
offensively good for three weeks on end that Davidina, left penniless,
capitulated on terms, and, in order to get a remnant of her money’s
worth, bargained that they should be good--or at least each better than
the other--in alternate weeks, this being a more tolerable arrangement
to her careful soul than that brother Jonathan, with no effort at all,
ever secondary in virtue, should share equally the pennies which she
had earned.
For a while the plan worked well; Mr. Trimblerigg by calculated effort
bettered his sister in the alternate weeks, got the penny and shared it
grudgingly but honourably--while Davidina, remaining merely herself,
received it in the natural course when Jonathan reverted to his more
normal standard.
But there came a day when Mr. Trimblerigg had privily done certain
things about which his elders knew less than did Davidina, and so got
wrongfully the penny he had not earned. Davidina demanded it; on the
denial of her claim they fought, and between them the penny got lost.
The next week, though Davidina earned it, Mr. Trimblerigg claimed it,
arguing that as last week’s penny had been lost to him through her,
this week’s should be his. Davidina thought differently; and putting
the penny for safety in her mouth, in the resulting struggle by
accident swallowed it.
After that the alliance was over. Thenceforth Jonathan had a permanent
and lively incentive for becoming good; and in the competition that
ensued Davidina was decisively worsted. Goodness became for Mr.
Trimblerigg a matter of calculation, habit, resolute will, and in
the long series of defeats which followed, Davidina might, had she
chosen, have found satisfaction in the large part she played toward the
reshaping of her brother’s character.
So decisive was the change that it became apparent to the world, and
was reckoned as proof of that conversion to grace which was necessary
for full church-membership in the sect where he belonged. And so, at
an unusually early age, Jonathan was baptized into the congregation
of the Free United Evangelicals. That incident decided his career; he
became destined for the ministry.
Thus out of evil comes good.
* * * * *
When the matter was first decided Mr. Trimblerigg himself knew nothing
about it. It was the elders of the family, the parents, grandparents,
uncles and aunts--sitting together in conclave for the adjustment of
ways to narrow means, who foresaw the convenience of the call which in
due time came to him.
Mr. Trimblerigg himself was then making other plans of his own. A
sense of his abilities had begun to stir his mind to the prospects
of life. He had become conscious that a career was awaiting him--or,
to put it more accurately, several careers--of which he had only to
choose. One day, in a weak moment of expansiveness, when Davidina by
a histrionic show of sisterly sympathy had led him on, he confided
to her the sparkling alternatives which he had in mind. And she,
when her first admiration had become tempered with criticism, passed
word of them carefully on to the ears of his Uncle Jonah. Jonah, who
was anti-romantic by temperament, made it his duty to strip these
pretensions bare before the eyes of the assembled family--doing it no
doubt for his nephew’s good. ‘Jonathan is thinking,’ said he, ‘that
he would like to be Prime Minister; and well he might be if he had
the ability to be consistent in his principles. Seems also he’d like
to be President to the Free Church Conference; but for that he needs
to be spiritual and one that speaks nothing but the truth. Failing
that he’s for being Lord Chief Justice and Master of the Rolls; but
Jonathan hasn’t the judicial mind. And to be Field-Marshal rising
from the ranks (which is another flea he has in his bonnet) God
in His great mercy hasn’t given him sufficient inches to meet the
military requirements. You’ll do well, Jonathan; for you’re quick in
the turnover, and your convictions don’t trouble you; and you’ve a
wonderful courage for thinking yourself right when all the evidence
is against you. But what you’ll do if you’re wise is find a master
who’ll let you hide behind his back and be clever for him in the ways
that don’t show; one who’ll take over all the responsibility for your
mistakes, for the sake of all the times when you’ve guessed right.
Given he’s got the patience to put up with you, you’ll be worth it to
him, and a credit to your family. But there’s a deal of practice you’ve
to get before you can do the thing well. Don’t spread yourself.’
But Uncle Jonah, being an undertaker by trade, had narrow and confining
views; and the shadow of his daily occupation, entailing a too-frequent
wearing of black, caused him to set foot on life sombrely, especially
on life that was young. This also was said before the time when nephew
Jonathan had become conspicuously good.
With his higher aspirations thus blown upon, Mr. Trimblerigg, after
watering Davidina’s pet fern with strong tea which it did not like,
diverted his invention to more practical ends, and for a time wished
to be a conjurer, having read accounts of the wonders performed at the
Egyptian Hall, London, by Messrs. Maskelyne & Cooke. But as ill-luck
would have it, his first sight of conjuring came to him at a village
fair; and there, while others stared and were amazed, he with his sharp
eyes saw how everything was done, and found the entertainment dull. Now
had he only been interested and stirred to emulation thus early, I am
quite convinced that Mr. Trimblerigg could have become a conjurer
such as the world has never seen. If his parents could only have
afforded to take him to London, and to the Egyptian Hall, the world’s
history might have been different. It was not to be.
[Illustration: JONATHAN TRIMBLERIGG (aged 7) with his Mother & Sister
Davidina]
Mr. Trimblerigg’s attention was first attracted to the career his
elders designed for him, not so much by the habitual goodness with
which the rivalry of Davidina had imbued his character, as by his
observation of the sensation caused in his native village by the
missionizing efforts of a certain boy-preacher, then known to fame as
‘The Infant Samuel Samuel,’ whose call, beginning at his baptism in
that strange invocative reduplication of the family name imposed by his
godparents, went on till it suddenly passed in silence to an obscurity
from which the veil has never been lifted. What happened then nobody
knows, or nobody chooses to tell. But between the ages of seven and
fifteen, while sustained by the call, Samuel Samuel never saw a vacant
seat, or an uncrowded aisle, or had sitting under him a congregation
unrent by sobs in the hundreds of chapels to which the spirit bore him.
When Mr. Trimblerigg heard him, Samuel Samuel at the age of ten was
still in the zenith of his powers; and it has been credibly reported
that, in the mining villages which he passed through, publicans went
bankrupt and committed suicide because of him, and pit-ponies, their
ears robbed of the familiar expletives to which they had been trained,
no longer obeyed orders; and that alongside of these manifestations of
grace, the illegitimate birth-rates went up and struck a record; till,
six months later, things settled back and became the same; birth-rates
went down, pit-ponies obeyed a restored vocabulary, and ruined
publicans were vindicated in the prosperity of their successors.
But these things only happened after; and when Mr. Trimblerigg heard
the cry of the Infant Samuel Samuel, he discerned a kindred spirit,
and saw a way opening before his feet, under a light which thereafter
continued to shine. And so at the age of twelve the designs which
Mr. Trimblerigg’s elders had on him, and the designs which he had on
himself, coalesced and became one; and even Davidina, borne down by the
sense of the majority, had to accept the fact that her brother Jonathan
had received a call.
Thus early did the conversion of souls enter into the life and
calculations of Mr. Trimblerigg. A striking justification of his chosen
calling followed immediately, when, without in the least intending
it, he converted an almost lost soul in a single day--the soul of an
Uncle, James Hubback by name, the only uncle upon his mother’s side
left over from a large family--who while still clinging to the outward
respectability of a Free Church minister, had taken secretly to drink.
Mr. Trimblerigg had been born and brought up in a household where the
idea that spirits were anything to drink had never been allowed to
enter his head. He only knew of spirit as of something that would catch
fire and boil a kettle, or embrace death in a bottle and preserve it
from decay. These aspects of its beneficence he had gathered first in
the back kitchen of his own home, and secondly in the natural history
department of the County Museum, to which as a Sunday-school treat he
had been taken. Returning therefrom, he had been bitten for a short
while with a desire to catch, kill, and preserve frogs, bats, beetles,
snakes, and other low forms of existence, and make a museum of his
own--his originality at that time being mainly imitative. To this end
he clamoured to his mother to release his saved pennies which she
held in safe-keeping for him, in order that he might buy spirit for
collecting purposes; and so pestered her that at last she promised that
if for a beginning he could find an adder, he should have a bottle of
spirit to keep it in.
Close upon that his Uncle James arrived for a stay made sadly
indefinite by the low water in which he found himself. He still wore
his clerical garb but was without cure of souls: Bethel and he had
become separated, and his family in consequence was not pleased with
him. Nevertheless as a foretaste of reformation he wore a blue ribbon,
and was prevented thereby from letting himself be seen on licensed
premises; while a totally abstaining household, and a village with only
one inn which had been warned not to serve him, and no shop that sold
liquor, seemed to provide a safe environment for convalescence.
It is at this point that Mr. Trimblerigg steps in. One day, taking
down a book from the shelf in the little study, he discovered behind
it a small square bottle of spirits: he did not have to taste or smell
it--the label ‘old brandy’ was enough; and supposing in his innocence
the word ‘old’ to indicate that it had passed its best use, at once
his volatile mind was seized with the notion that here was a mother’s
surprise waiting for him, and that he had only to provide the adder for
the bottle and its contents to become his. And so with that calculating
larkishness which made him do audacious things that when done had to be
swallowed, he determined to give his mother a surprise in return.
Going off in search of his adder and failing to get it himself, he gave
another boy a penny for finding him a dead one. An hour later the adder
was inside the brandy bottle behind the books; and an hour after that
his Uncle James had achieved complete and lifelong conversion to total
abstinence.
The _dénouement_ presented itself to Mr. Trimblerigg at first with a
shock of disappointment in the form of smashed glass, and his dead
adder lying in a spent pool of brandy on the study floor; and only
gradually did it dawn upon him after a cautious survey of the domestic
situation that this was not as he had at first feared his mother’s
angry rejection of the surprise he had prepared for her: on the
contrary she was pleased with him. His uncle, he learned, was upstairs
lying down, without appetite either for tea or supper. Mr. Trimblerigg
heard him moaning in the night, and he came down to breakfast the next
day a changed character. Within a year he had secured reinstatement
in the ministry, and was become a shining light on the temperance
platform, telling with great fervour anecdotes which give hope. There
was, however, one story of a drunkard’s reformation which he never
told: perhaps because, on after-reflection, though he had accepted
their testimony against him, he could not really believe his eyes,
perhaps because there are certain experiences which remain too deep and
sacred and mysterious ever to be told.
But to Mr. Trimblerigg the glory of what he had done was in a while
made plain. More than ever it showed him destined for the ministry: it
also gave colour to his future ministrations, opening his mind in the
direction of a certain school of thought in which presently he became
an adept. ‘The Kingdom of Heaven is taken by tricks,’ became the
subconscious foundation of his belief; and when he entered the pulpit
at the age of twenty-one, he was by calculative instinct that curious
combination of the tipster, the thimblerigger, and the prophet, the
man of vision and the man of lies, which drew to itself the adoration
of one half and the detestation of the other half of the Free United
Evangelical Connection, eventually dividing that great body into two
unequal portions, and driving its soul into a limbo of spiritual
frustration and ineffectiveness till it found itself again under new
names.
CHAPTER TWO
_The Early Worm_
Though Mr. Trimblerigg had not at the time taken the advice of his
Uncle Jonah in very good part, he did eventually accept a large part of
it--good or otherwise--in the shaping of his career. His wish to become
a great functionary of State gradually faded away, giving place to
others. But his intention to be President of the Free Church Conference
remained and grew strong. And to that end--spirituality being
required--he accepted faithfully Uncle Jonah’s last bit of advice, and
seeking a master behind whose back he could hide and be clever in ways
that didn’t show--have responsibility taken for his mistakes, and get
adequate recognition for the many things which he did right--seeking
for such a master, he found him to his own satisfaction in the oldest
of old ways; and never from that day on did the suspicion enter his
head, that the master whom he chose under so devout an _alias_ was
himself.
If, in the process, he received a call, so did I; and it was at this
stage of his career that I began to watch him with real interest. His
calls became frequent; and though there was not always an apparent
answer there was always an attentive ear.
It may well be that when human nature appears, to those whose business
is to understand it, most unexpected and incalculable, is the very time
when it is or ought to be most instructive to eyes which are open.
And certainly at this preliminary period--before I got accustomed to
him--Mr. Trimblerigg did make me open my eyes wider and wider, till he
got me to the point when nothing that he did surprised me. But that
was not because I became able to anticipate his reactions to any
given circumstance or tight hole in which he might find himself: but
merely that experience of him caused me to give up all rules based on
the law of averages: he was a law by himself. What at first baffled me
was the passionate sincerity with which he was always able to deceive
himself--doing it mainly, I admit, by invoking my assistance: that is
to say, by prayer.
To see him fall upon his knees and start busily lighting his own little
lamp for guidance through the perils immediately surrounding him--while
firmly convinced all the time that the lamp was not his lighting but
mine--gave me what I can only describe as an extraordinary sense of
helplessness. The passionate fervour of his prayer to whatever end
he desired, put him more utterly beyond reach of instruction than
a conscious plunge into sin. Against that there might have been a
natural reaction; but against the spiritual avidity with which he set
to work saving his own skin day by day, no reaction was possible. The
day-spring from on high visited him with a light-heeled nimbleness
which cleared not only all obstacles of a material kind but all qualms
of conscience as well. In the holy of holies of his inmost being
self-interest sat rapturously enshrined; there lay its ark of the
covenant, and over it the twin cherubim of faith and hope stretched
their protecting wings. Mr. Trimblerigg might bow himself in single
spirit when first his prayer began; but always, before it ended, his
spirits had got the better of him, and he would rise from his knees as
beautifully unrepentant as a puppy that has dodged a whipping, his face
radiant with happiness, having found an answer to his prayer awaiting
him in the direction to which from the first it had been set, much as
your Arctic explorer finds the North Pole by a faithful following of
his nose after having first pointed it to the north.
I date my completed understanding of Mr. Trimblerigg, and of the use
he had made of me, to the day when--faced with an exposure which would
have gone far to reduce his ministerial career to a nullity--he put
up a prayer which (had I been a mere mortal) would have made me jump
out of my skin. I will not skin him retributively by quoting him in
full, but the gist of it all was that, much to his perplexity he found
himself suffering from a strange temptation, out of keeping with his
whole character, and threatening destruction to that life of energetic
usefulness in the service of others which he was striving to lead.
And so he prayed to be kept (‘kept’ was the very word)--‘humble, and
honest, and honourable.’ It was no change that he desired; but only
a continuance in that narrow and straight path of acquired virtue
down which (since the truth must be told) he had hitherto danced his
way more like a cat on hot bricks, than the happily-banded pilgrim
he believed himself to be. ‘Kept’ was the word; and as I heard him I
thought of it in all its meanings--and wondered which. I thought of
how dead game ‘keeps’ up to a point, and is better in flavour for the
keeping; but how, after that point is reached, the keeping defeats
itself, and the game is game no longer, but mere offal. Was it in that
sense that he wished to be ‘kept’? For certainly I had found him good
game, quick in the uptake, and brisk on the wing.
It is difficult in this record to remain consecutive. Those who would
follow with accuracy the career of Mr. Trimblerigg, must jump to and
fro with the original--one of whom it has to be said that though he
denied himself many times (even in the face of the clearest evidence)
he denied himself nothing that held out any prospect of keeping his
fortunes on the move; and the stitch in time with which he so often
and so nimbly saved himself ran in no straight line of machine-made
regularity, but rather in a series of diversions this way and that,
stepping sideways and back preparatory to the next forward leap; and
in this feather-stitching along life’s road he covered more ground,
and far more ornamentally, than do those who go merely upon their
convictions, holding to one opinion and doing only one thing at a time.
Yet it would be wrong to say that he was ever false to his convictions,
for these he seldom knew. Enough that so long as they lasted his
intuitions were sacred to him; and as it is the very essence of
intuitions that at any moment they may change, his changeableness had
about it a sort of truth, of consistency, to which slower minds cannot
attain.
But why call it ‘intuition’; why not ‘vision’? Well, if a camera of
powerful lens and stocked with highly sensitive films may be said to
have vision, vision he had in abundance. Adjusting his focus to the
chosen point of view, he clicked the switch of his receptivity, snapt
a picture, wound it off upon its wheel, and was ready for another. In
the space of a few minutes he had as many pictures stored as he had a
mind for. ‘Vision’? You may grant it him, if you will, so long as you
remember that that was the process. I would rather be inclined to call
it ‘optics’; and I see his career now rather as a series of optical
delusions, through every one of which he remained quite convinced that
he was right, and that the truth had come to him by way of revelation.
An early example will serve.
The small hill-side village in which Mr. Trimblerigg first learned
to escape the limitations of ordinary life was a place where things
seldom happened; and there were times in his early upbringing when
he found himself at a loose end, a rose wasting its sweetness to the
desert air; there was nothing doing in the neighbourhood on which he
could decisively set his mark. This was to live in vain; and often he
searched through his small world of ideas to find inspiration. Should
he run away from home, and be found wandering with his memory a blank?
Should he be kidnapped by gipsies and escape in nothing but his shirt?
Should a sheep fall into the stone quarry so that he might rescue it,
or a lamb get lost in the snow during the lambing-season, that he might
go out, and find, and return bearing it in his bosom? Or should he go
forth and become famous as a boy-missionary, preaching to the heathen
in an unknown tongue? These were all possibilities, only the last
suggested any difficulty.
Whenever in doubt, adopting the method of old Uncle Trimblerigg, he
turned to the Scriptures: he did not search them, for that would have
been self-willed and presumptuous; he merely opened them, putting a
blind finger to the spot where divine guidance awaited him. It was in
this way that Uncle Trimblerigg had become rich; forty years ago he had
invested his savings in house property all through having set thumb to
the text, ‘I have builded an house to Thy name.’ And without searching
the Scriptures further he had built twenty of them. At a later date,
slate-quarrying having started in the district, their value was doubled.
So one day, in a like faith, our own Mr. Trimblerigg committed himself
to the same experiment. His first point on opening drew a startling
reply, ‘Get thee behind me, Satan, for thou savourest not the things
which be of God, but the things which be of men.’ Very right and
proper, of course: Satan thus safely disposed of, he tried again.
‘Remember Lot’s wife,’ failed for the moment to convey any meaning;
he knew that it could not refer to him: it seemed rather to indicate
that his Bible had not yet given him its thorough attention. To warm
it to its task he lifted it as a heave-offering, administered to it
the oath, as he had seen done in a police court, kissed it, and set
it down again. This time it answered sharply, but still not to the
point: ‘Ye generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the
wrath to come?’ Evidently the Lord was trying him. He turned from the
New Testament to the old: perhaps it was only the old he should have
consulted, for he had an idea that this was an Old Testament method.
That would account for the delay.
The Old Testament made a better response to his appeal. ‘The zeal of
Thy House hath eaten me up,’ suggested something at any rate, but did
not make the way quite clear; ‘Down with it, down with it, even unto
the ground!’ was practical in its bearing upon the Lord’s House, but
puzzling; ‘Behold how great a matter a little fire kindleth’ gave him
the light he sought.
For at that time Bethesda, the chapel of the Free Evangelicals, had
fallen lamentably into disrepair, and since Uncle Trimblerigg, the
only man of substance in the district, had retired from the innovation
of hymn-singing to a stricter Bethel of his own, there seemed little
chance of raising the necessary funds for demolition and restoration.
And so decay went on, while still, from old habit, the chapel continued
to be insured.
Now whether we call it ‘vision’ or ‘optical illusion,’ there can be no
doubt that, thus aided by Scripture, Mr. Trimblerigg visualized rapidly
and clearly the means to an end which so many desired. And so it came
about one Saturday night, while frost held the village water-supply
firmly in its grip, and the road running up from the valley slipped
with ice, that Bethesda, through a supposed leakage in her heating
apparatus, caught fire; and only the fact that Mr. Trimblerigg fetched
the fire-engine from the town four miles away, saved it from utter
destruction. He had been sent into the town by his mother to do
errands, when at the foot of the hill he suddenly remembered Lot’s
wife, and looking back saw the chapel windows gustily ablaze, and
interpreting the peradventure aright had sped on with the news. The
miraculous arrival of the fire-engine with him on it, only half an hour
after the villagers’ discovery of an already well-established insurance
claim in swift operation, had caused an immense sensation and some
inquiry.
But Mr. Trimblerigg had a case on which no suspicion could rest; that
the fire was fought expeditiously, though under difficulties, was
largely owing to him, and the subsequent inquiries of the insurance
office agent who came to inspect the damage were only of a formal kind.
Every effort had been made, and a half-saved chapel was the result; but
its previous dilapidation made it easier to rebuild than to restore,
and when a new Bethesda rose from the ruins of the old, the insurance
company paid for it.
It was two days after the happy catastrophe, that Davidina remarked
(when, to be sure, he was taking them to light the lamp in another
room), ‘I wish you wouldn’t always go taking away the matches!’
‘I’m bringing them back,’ said Jonathan correctively.
‘You didn’t the last time,’ Davidina retorted. And at the word and the
tone of her voice, Jonathan trepidated and fled.
Was it ‘vision’ that made him do so, or only optical illusion on the
mental plane? For as far as I have been able to probe into Davidina’s
mind, which is not always clear to me, she knew nothing. It was merely
her way: the hunting instinct was strong in her, and he her spiritual
quarry: never in all their born days together was she to let him go.
Of course Mr. Trimblerigg did not go on doing things like that. It was
an act of crude callow youth, done at a time when the romantic instinct
takes unbalanced forms; yet in a way it was representative of him, and
helped me to a larger insight into his character and motives. For here
was Mr. Trimblerigg, thus early, genuinely anxious to have guidance
from above for the exploitation of his superabundant energies; and
when, at first showing, the guidance seemed rather to head him off from
being energetic at all, he persisted till his faith in himself found
ratification, and thereafter went his way with the assurance that what
he decided to do must almost necessarily be right.
Mr. Trimblerigg did not in after days actually set fire to anything
in order that he might come running to the rescue when rescue was
too late; but he did inflame many a situation seven times more than
it was wont to be inflamed, setting people by the ears, and causing
many an uprooting in places where no replanting could avail. And when
he had got matters thus thoroughly involved, he would apply thereto
his marvellous powers of accommodation and persuasion, and, if some
sort of peace and order did thereafter emerge, regard himself quite
genuinely as the deliverer.
At a later date his zeal for the Lord’s House broke up the Free United
Evangelicals into separate groups of an unimportant size, which when
they seemed about to disappear wholly from view, he reunited again;
and having for the moment redoubled what was left, regarded his work
as good, though in the religious world the Free Evangelicals had
forfeited thenceforth their old priority of place, a circumstance
from which (when convinced of its permanence) he made his personal
escape by embracing second Adventism. And though doubtless he carried
his Free Evangelism with him into the field of modern prophecy, the
Free Evangelicals within their own four walls knew him no more. Very
effectively he had burnt them out, and in their case no insurance
policy provided for the rebuilding: in that seat of the mighty, probed
by the beams of a new day, only the elderly grey ashes remained of men
whose word once gave light.
CHAPTER THREE
_Trial and Error_
At a very early stage in his career, before his theological training
had overtly begun, the moral consciousness of Mr. Trimblerigg was far
more accurately summed up in the words, ‘Thou, Davidina, seest me,’
than in the more generally accepted text which shone with symbolic rays
from an illuminated scroll hung over his bed. That text with its angel
faces and gold edgings did not pierce the joints of his harness, to the
discovery of vulnerable spots, with the same sharp efficiency as did
the dark watchful eye of Davidina.
As he entered into his ’teens with the instinct for spiritual adventure
growing strong, he had an uncomfortable sense of transparency where
Davidina was concerned--or rather where she was not concerned but chose
to intrude--which made him cease to feel a self-contained person. If
there was anyone in the world who knew him--not as he wished to be
known, but as in his more disconcerted moments he sometimes suspected
himself to be--it was Davidina. Under the fixture of her eye he lost
confidence; its calm quizzical gaze tripped his thoughts, and checked
the flow of his words: initiative and invention went out of him.
The result was truly grievous, for though he could do without
self-respect for quite long intervals, self-complacency was the
necessary basis for every action. Davidina deprived him of that.
Her power was horrible; she could do it in a momentary look, in
a single word; it seemed to be her mission in life, whenever he
whitewashed the window of his soul for better privacy, to scratch a
hole and look through.
When, for instance, he first experimented in kissing outside the
routine of family life, Davidina seemed by instinct to know of it.
Secretively, in the presence of their elders, she held him with her
eye, pursed her lips, and made the kissing sound; then, before he
could compose a countenance suitable to meet the charge, her glance
shot off and left him. For Davidina was a sleek adept in giving that
flick of the eye which does not wait for the repartee; though on other
occasions, when her eye definitely challenged him, there was no bearing
it down; it stabbed, it stuck, it went in, and came at his back.
It was in these wordless encounters that she beat him worst; till
Mr. Trimblerigg, conscious of his inferiority, went and practised at
the glass a gesture which he hoped thereby to make more effective--a
lifting of the nose, a slight closing of the eyelids, a polished
putting-off of the hands, deprecatory but bland; and a smile to show
that he was not hurt. But the first time he used it upon her was also
the last.
‘Did you practise that in the glass?’ said Davidina; and the gesture
died the death.
Truly at that time of her life he wanted her to die, and slightly
damped her shoes on the inside after they had been cleaned, that they
might help her to do so. But it was no good; without saying anything,
she damped his also, rather more emphatically, so that there could be
no mistake; whereas his damping was so delicately done that she ought
not to have found it out.
The most afflictive thing about these encounters was his constant
failure to score a victory; only once, in the affair of the
pocket-money already narrated, had he succeeded in holding his own.
Perhaps it was all for the good of his soul; for in matters of finance
his sense of probity remained in after years somewhat defective;
victory over Davidina in that respect had apparently done him no good.
But in other directions she continued to do her best to save his soul;
and though he was now committed to the ministry, and was himself to
become a soul-saving apparatus, he did not like her way of doing it;
temperamentally (and was there ever a character more largely composed
of temperament?) he would much rather have gone his own way and been
damned, than saved by Davidina on the lines she chose. She stung him
like a gad-fly in his weakest spots, till the unerring accuracy of
her aim filled him with a superstitious dread; and though never once
uttered in words, ‘Thou, Davidina, seest me,’ was the motive force
which thus early drove him so deeply and deviously into subterfuge
that it became an infection of his blood. And though against her it
availed little, in other directions, pricked to it by her incessant
skill, he had a quite phenomenal success, and was--up to a point--the
nimblest being that ever skipped from cover to open and from open to
cover, till, in the development of speed, he ceased to distinguish
which was which; and what he told would tell with the most complete
conviction that, if it told to his advantage, it must be truth; and
then, on occasion, would avail himself of the truth to such dazzling
effect that, lost in the blaze of his rectitude, he forgot those other
occasions when he had been truer to himself.
Of Davidina’s inspired pin-pricks here is an example, notable for the
early date of its delivery, when they were at the respective ages of
twelve and eleven. Brother and sister had fallen out in guessing at an
event as to which with probability all the other way, Davidina proved
to be right. Not believing this to be a guess, ‘You _knew_!’ he cried
indignantly.
‘I didn’t,’ she replied smoothly, ‘I only knew better.’
This was superfluous: it enabled Mr. Trimblerigg to get in with a
retort. ‘Even very conceited people,’ he said, ‘do sometimes manage to
guess right.’
Davidina recovered her ground. ‘I’m not as conceited as you,’ she
replied, ‘I never think myself good.’ It was the sticking-out of her
tongue, and adding ‘so there’! which gave the barb to those words.
At the earliest opportunity Mr. Trimblerigg retired to consider them.
It was evident that Davidina had penetrated another of his secrets; she
had discovered that he thought himself good. Many years after, when
asked by an American reporter what it felt like to be the greatest man
in the world, he replied that it made him feel shy, and then was ready
to bite his tongue out for having so aimed at modesty and missed. He
saw twenty reporters writing down the words, ‘It makes me feel shy’;
and within twelve hours it was all over the world--a mistake which he
couldn’t explain away. That was to be one of the worst moments of his
life; and this was another, that Davidina should have unearthed so
hidden and central a truth. He was deeply annoyed, partly with her for
having discovered it, much more with himself for having let it appear.
Yet his cogitations brought him in the end to a conclusion which had in
it a measure of comfort. ‘After all,’ he said to himself, ‘I _am_ good
sometimes.’
It was that ‘sometimes,’ and the consciousness of it, that in the
future was to work havoc with his soul. He did know desperately well
that he was good sometimes; and the fervour of it used to spread
so far beyond the appointed limit that he ceased to know where his
goodness began, and where it left off. As from an oasis in the
wilderness exhales fragrance from the blossom of the rose, regaling
the dusty nostrils of sand-bound travellers, as into its airy horizon
ascends mirage from waters, and palm-trees, and temples, that are
real _somewhere_--but not in the place where they so phenomenally
display themselves--so from parts of him excellent, into other parts
less excellent, went the sense that he was ‘somehow good’; and he
never perceived, in spite of the very genuine interest he took in
himself that what made him more interesting than anyone else was the
extraordinary division of his character into two parts, a good and
a bad, so dexterously allied that they functioned together as one,
endowing him with that curious gift of sincerity to each mood while
it lasted, which kept him ever true to himself and the main chance,
even as the bits of glass in a kaleidoscope always shape to patterns,
however varied, having the same fixed centre--a haphazard orderliness
which no amount of shaking can destroy.
As has been hinted already, a time unavoidable for youth came in Mr.
Trimblerigg’s life when kisses began to have an attraction for him: in
his case it came rather early, and the attraction grew strong. But so
also grew his fear of them--or perhaps it would be more true to say his
fear lest Davidina should get wind of them. Davidina had an unlovable
scorn for kisses, which she paraded to the world; she kissed nobody
except her parents, and them only from a sense of duty, and became
known, in a country-side where kisses were easily come by, as the girl
from whom nobody could get a kiss.
Few tried; the first who did so had been made a warning for others.
It is likely enough--since moral emblems have their contrary
effect--that the impregnable barrier set up by Davidina was responsible
for the thing becoming so much a vogue in other quarters; and Lizzie
Seebohm, the prettiest small wench of the village, in pure derision of
Davidina’s aloofness, and under her very eyes, made open sale of her
kisses at a price which, starting from chocolates, rose to a penny and
thence to twopence.
For this amiable weakness she got from Davidina the nickname of
‘Tuppenny,’ and in view of the feud which thence arose, Mr. Trimblerigg
was instinctively advised of danger to his peace of mind if he put
himself on Tuppenny’s list. And so it came about that, whatever his
natural inclinations in the matter, he saved his pocket-money and did
not apply for her favours.
In this Lizzie Seebohm saw the influence of Davidina; for which reason
and sheer spitefulness, Mr. Trimblerigg became her quarry.
So one day a communication reached him, artfully told by the small
maiden commissioned thereto as a breach of confidence. She had heard
Lizzie say that Jonathan might have a kiss of her not merely for
nothing; she would give twopence to get it. A sense that he was really
attractive made him fail to see deep enough, and when the offer rose to
sixpence he succumbed.
Within an hour--Lizzie Seebohm had seen to it--Davidina got the news.
Her wrath and sense of humiliation were deep; in the great battle
of life which lay ahead for the possession of her brother’s soul,
she had lost a point, and that to an opponent whom she regarded as
insignificant. It was not a case for silence. Davidina descended upon
him before the sixpence in his pocket had had time to get warm. ‘You’ve
been kissing Tuppenny!’ she cried.
‘Who says?’ he demanded, scared at discovery so swift. Then, bettering
his defence: ‘Tuppenny, indeed! she’s not worth it. I haven’t given her
tuppence; I haven’t given her a penny. I haven’t given her anything, so
there! If she says I have, she’s a liar.’
This seemed almost conclusive; Davidina’s faith in the report wavered.
But whenever Jonathan was voluble she distrusted him; so now.
‘It isn’t her word I’m going by,’ she said. ‘Somebody saw you.’
Mr. Trimblerigg’s mind made an alert movement--very characteristic. He
was not ashamed of what he had done; he only didn’t like being caught.
‘You said Tuppenny,’ he retorted. ‘And I say--I didn’t give her
tuppence.’
Davidina pressed him along the track, as he meant her to. ‘Then what
did you give her?’
‘I didn’t give her anything; I’ve told you so already. She gave me
sixpence.’
His tone was triumphant, for now, in his own time and in his own way,
he had made a clean breast of it. Davidina’s face was a study.
‘Sold again!’ he said, watching the effect; and curiously he did not
mean himself, or his virtue, or anything else belonging to him; he
meant Davidina. Having got ahead of her with the facts, he considered
himself top-dog for that once at least.
But within a few hours of that avowal an amazing thing happened. It
happened during the night; for when he went to bed the sixpence was in
his trouser pocket, and when he got up in the morning it was gone; nor
did he dare to tax Davidina with the theft.
In chapel, the next Sunday, when the plate came round for foreign
missions, Davidina with ostentation put sixpence into it. Is it to be
wondered that, before the week was over, he had got sixpence back from
somewhere, and took care that Davidina should see him spending it.
Davidina meant well, I am sure; but it is to be questioned whether her
method of clipping his wings was the right one. He became tangential to
the orbit of her spells; they touched, but they did not contain him.
Meanwhile, without Davidina’s aid, even without her approval, Mr.
Trimblerigg’s call to the ministry was becoming more assured. And the
question mainly was whether, in that family of cramped means, money
could be found in the years lying immediately ahead to provide the
necessary training. It meant two years spent mainly away from home
at the Free Evangelical Training College; two years of escape from
Davidina for whole months at a time; it meant leaving home a boy and
coming back very nearly a man. Even had the ministry not appealed to
him, it would have been worth it for the peculiar attraction of those
circumstances.
Whether this could become practically possible depended mainly upon
old Uncle Trimblerigg--Uncle Trimblerigg whose investments in house
property had been inspired by holy scripture, but whose theological
tenets were of a kind for which up-to-date Free Evangelicalism no
longer provided the college or the training. Nor did he believe
that either college or training were necessary for the preaching of
the Word. He had done it himself for fifty years, merely by opening
the book where it wished to be opened and pondering what was thus
presented. The verbal inspiration of Scripture, not merely in its
writing but in its presentation to the sense of the true believer, was
the very foundation of his faith. The sect of ‘the True Believers’ had
of late years sadly diminished; for as all True Believers believed that
while they believed truly they could never make a mistake in their
interpretations of Scripture, it became as time went on dangerous for
them to meet often or to exchange pulpits, since, where one was found
differing from another, mutual excommunication of necessity followed
and they walked no more in each other’s ways. Only at their great
annual congress did they meet to reaffirm the foundation of their faith
and thunder with a united voice the Word which did not change.
Thus it came about that dotted over the country were many chapels of
True Believers cut off from friendly intercourse with any other by
mutual interdict; and the hill-side chapel of Uncle Trimblerigg--built
by himself for a congregation of some twenty families all told, his
tenants, or his dependents in the building trade--was one of them.
So among the True Believers there was small prospect of a career for
the budding Mr. Trimblerigg; and yet it was upon the financial aid and
favour of one of them that he depended for theological training in a
direction which they disapproved.
It speaks well for the sanguine temperament and courage of our own
Mr. Trimblerigg that the prospect did not dismay him, or even, in the
event, present much difficulty.
CHAPTER FOUR
_The Beard of the Prophet_
Uncle Phineas, the uncle of Mr. Trimblerigg’s father, lived at an
elevation, both physical and spiritual, among the stone quarries a-top
of the village. His house and the chapel where he ministered stood
adjoining, both of his own building; and in the days when Jonathan
knew him he was seldom seen leaving the one except to go to the other.
For he was now very old, and having made his money and retired from
business, he had only one interest left in life, the preaching of
the strict tenets of True Belief to the small congregation which had
trickled under him for the last fifty years.
The True Believers had a worship which was all their own; they flocked
by themselves, never going elsewhere, though others sometimes came to
them. No instrument of music was allowed within their dwelling, nor did
they sing--anything that could be called a tune. When their voices were
lifted in praise they bleated upon a single note, which now and again
they changed, going higher and higher, and when they could go no higher
they stopped.
To our own Mr. Trimblerigg this form of worship was terrible; he liked
music and he liked tunes; diversity attracted him; and here, by every
possible device, diversity was ruled out. But the importance of Uncle
Phineas, both present and prospective, obliged certain members of
the Trimblerigg family to ascend once at least every Sunday, to hear
him preach and pray, and though none of them professed an exclusive
conversion to the teaching of the True Believers, they kept an open
mind about it, and listened respectfully to all that Uncle Phineas had
to say.
Lay-preaching and the ministry of the Word ran strong in the
Trimblerigg family, also in that of the Hubbacks, to which on his
mother’s side Jonathan belonged; and had he cared to divide himself
spiritually among his relations there were five sects from which to
choose--a division of creeds which did not amount to much, except
in the case of the True Believers. Grandfather Hubback, between
whom and Uncle Phineas there was theological war, ministered to
the Free Evangelicals at the Bethesda which Jonathan had helped to
renovate; Uncle James was a Primitive Brother; Uncle Jonah a First
Resurrectionist; his Sunday exercise--the practising of the Last
Trump--a welcome relief perhaps, from his weekday occupation of
undertaker. Mr. Trimblerigg, during his childhood, had sat under all
of them; the difference being that under his Uncle Phineas he had been
made to sit. Then came the question of his own call to the ministry,
and the further question as to ways and means. It was from then on that
Mr. Trimblerigg went more constantly and willingly to hear the doctrine
of the True Believers, and began to display towards it something wider
than an open mind. At the age of fifteen he had got into the habit of
going to see and hear his uncle on weekdays as well, and very quietly
he would endure for hours together while the old man expounded his
unchangeable theology.
Everything about Uncle Phineas was long, including his discourses. He
had a long head, a long nose, a long upper lip and a long chin. To
these his beard served as a corrective; long also, it stuck out at
right angles from his face, till with the weight of its projection it
began to droop; at that point he trimmed it hard and square, making no
compromise, and if none admired it except its owner, it was at least
in character. With such a beard you could not kiss people, and Phineas
Trimblerigg was not of a mind to kiss anybody. In spite of old age, it
retained a hue which suggested a too hasty breakfast of under-boiled
egg; while trying to become grey it remained reminiscently golden.
And the beard symbolized the man; square, blunt and upright,
patriarchal in mind and character, he lived in a golden age of the
past--the age of romantic theology before science had come to disturb
it. His only Tree of Knowledge was the Bible, and this not only in
matters of doctrine; it was his tree of genealogy and history as
well. From its topmost branch he surveyed a world six thousand years
old, of six days making, and all the wonders that followed,--the
Flood, the Tower whose height had threatened Heaven, and the plagues,
pestilences and famines, loosed by an outraged Deity on a stubborn but
chosen people, and the sun and the moon which stood still to assist
in tribal slaughter, and the special vehicles provided for prophets,
at one time a chariot of fire, at another a great fish, at another a
talking ass,--all these things gave him no mental trouble whatever;
but joy rather, and confidence, and an abiding faith. He believed them
literally, and had required that his family should believe them too.
And truly he could say that, in one way or another, he had to begin
with made them all God-fearing. If in the process five had died young,
and one run away to sea and got drowned, and another fallen into evil
courses from which he had not returned alive, so that Phineas in his
old age was left childless--all this had but made him more patriarchal
in outlook than ever, turning his attention upon nephews and nieces
of the second generation, especially upon one; which, indeed, is the
reason why here he becomes an important character.
Fortified by fifty years of prudent investment based upon revelation,
and with a comfortable balance at his bank, he cast his other cares
upon the Lord; lived frugally, gave a just tithe of all he possessed to
the foreign and home missions of the True Believers, drank no wine or
strong drink--except tea, denounced the smoking of tobacco, but took
it as snuff, believed firmly in Hell, war, and corporal punishment
for men, women and children alike, was still an elected, though a
non-attending, member of all local bodies, but in the parliamentary
election (regarding it as the evil thing) would take no part. To him
life, in the main, meant theology.
At the now sharply dividing ways he stood with old Pastor Hubback (or
rather against him) a leading and a rival light among the local Free
Churches; and because he had money to give and to leave he was still a
power in the district as well as in his own family. This was the oracle
to which Mr. Trimblerigg, in his fifteenth year, began to give up his
half-holidays.
Uncle Phineas was always at home; he had legs which never allowed him
to get farther than his own gate, except once a week to the Tabernacle
of True Belief, of which he was minister and owner. The larger chapel
in the village lower down had not known him for thirty years when the
youthful Jonathan first became aware of his importance, and began under
parental direction to pay a weekly call at ‘Pisgah,’ and there learn
from the old patriarch things about himself and others, including God,
to which he listened with an air of great respect and interest.
Jonathan’s way with him was wily but simple: he would ask a great
number of intelligent questions, and receiving unintelligent answers
would appear satisfied. Now and then, upon his birthday, or when
revivalism was in the air, the old man would give him sixpence,
sometimes even a shilling, advising him to bestow it upon the foreign
missions of the stricter Evangelicals, especially those to the native
races of Central Africa and America, where the undiluted truth of the
Word had still necessarily to be taught. For those primitive minds the
taint of modernism had no effect; Heaven had so shaped them to the
divine purpose that nothing short of literal True Belief could touch
their hearts and soften their understandings. And the old man would
talk wondrously to Jonathan of how, in the evil days to come, these
black races were destined to become the repository of the true faith
and reconvert the world to the purer doctrine.
Uncle Phineas was on the look-out for punishment on a world-wide scale,
and had he lived to see it, the War of Versailles would have gladdened
his heart. For he wanted all the Nations to be punished, including his
own,--a point on which Mr. Trimblerigg ventured privately to differ
from him; being in that matter a Free Evangelical, and preferring
Heaven to Hell. Uncle Phineas preferred Hell; punishment was owing, and
the imaginary infliction of it was what in the main attracted him to
religion.
Punishment: first and foremost for man’s breaking of the Sabbath;
then followed in order drink, horse-racing, gambling, the increase of
divorces, modernism, and the higher criticism, with all its resultant
forms of infidelity, the agitation for Women’s Suffrage, and finally
the impious attempt of Labour to depose Capital.
All these things were of the Devil and must be fought; and in the
discussion of them Jonathan began--not to be in a difficulty because
some of them made an appeal to his dawning intelligence, but to become
agile. Luckily for him Uncle Phineas’s information was very nearly
as narrow as his intelligence, and Mr. Trimblerigg was able to jump
to and fro across his sedentary and parochial mind with small fear
of discovery. But the repeated interviews made him brisk, supple,
and conversationally adaptable; and once when the old man remarked
half-approvingly, ‘Aye, Jonathan, you’ve got eyes in your head, but
don’t let ’em out by the back door,’ he had a momentary qualm lest
behind that observation dangerous knowledge might lurk.
But it was only his uncle’s constitutional disapproval of a mind that
could move; and of Jonathan’s outside doings and opinions he had at
that time heard nothing to rouse suspicion. But clearly when Mr.
Trimblerigg was called to the ministry and began to preach there would
be a difficulty; for what would go down at Bethesda among the Free
Evangelicals, where his obvious career was awaiting him, would not do
up at Horeb, the chapel on the hill; and it was well within the bounds
of possibility that owing to his family connections Mr. Trimblerigg
might find it advantageous to preach at both.
That, however, was a problem still lying some few years away; meanwhile
Uncle Phineas might very reasonably die; and it was just about this
time that I heard Mr. Trimblerigg beginning to pray for peace to the
old man in his declining years, that he might not be kept unduly on the
rack of this tough world after so good a life.
And indeed it was a life in which he had accomplished much; for a
man of his small beginnings he had become of notable substance, and
his income derived from quarries and the houses he had built for his
workers was reckoned to amount to anything from six to eight hundred a
year, of which, in spite of generous gifts to foreign missions, he did
not spend one-half.
His expectant relatives did not talk among themselves about the matter
where, of necessity, interests were divided; but they thought much, and
occasionally they had their fears.
‘I shouldn’t wonder,’ said Jonathan’s father one day, ‘if when Uncle
dies it isn’t found that he had an unsound mind.’
It was to obviate such a calamity that Jonathan was sent to pay his
weekly visit, and that one or another of the family, at least once
every Sunday, went up to Horeb to pray.
Quite early in his examination of the tenets of True Belief, anxious
that she should keep him in countenance, Mr. Trimblerigg asked Davidina
what she thought of them.
‘My belief is,’ said Davidina, ‘that we can all believe what we want
to believe; and if you only believe it enough, it comes true--for you,
at any rate. You can believe every word of the Bible is true, or that
every word of it is false; and either way, you can live up to it. The
True Believers are right there, anyway. And if,’ she added, ‘you’ve got
nothing else to believe, you can believe in yourself: and you can smile
at yourself in the glass, and look at your teeth, and think they are
milestones on the road to Heaven, till they all drop out. Believing’s
easy; it’s choosing what you mean to believe that matters. I believe
the kettle’s boiling over.’
She went, leaving Mr. Trimblerigg to his meditations, also to a doubt
whether she had taken him quite seriously.
With his Uncle Phineas it was all the other way; they were nothing if
not serious together; but it often puzzled his ingenuous mind how his
uncle managed to believe all the things he did.
One day: ‘Uncle Phineas,’ he said, ‘how did you come to be a True
Believer?’
‘When I felt the need of conversion as a young man,’ replied Uncle
Phineas, ‘I started reading the Scriptures. Every day, before I opened
the book, I said, “Lord, help me to believe!” And by the time I’d read
’em three times through, I believed every word.’
‘I’ve only read them twice yet,’ said Jonathan in meek admission, but
glad to get hold of the excuse.
‘Read ’em again,’ said his uncle.
‘And all the genealogies, too, Uncle?’ he inquired, for all the world
as though he felt genuinely committed to the task if the other should
say ‘yes.’
‘Why would you leave them out?’ queried his uncle. ‘It’s the sowing of
the seed. When you sow a field, you’ve not to care about this grain or
that, picking and choosing: it’s the sowing that matters. Sow your mind
with the seed of the Word, and don’t leave gaps. You never know how you
may come to need it hereafter. “Abram begat Isaac; and Isaac married
Rebecca, and begat Jacob:”--that was the text the Lord showed me when
He would have me choose a wife, whose name was Rebecca.’ He fetched a
sigh. ‘And I did,’ he said. ‘She was a poor weak wife to me, and the
children took after her; so now not one of them is left. It was the
Lord’s will.’
‘But if you had married some one else, wouldn’t it have been the Lord’s
will too?’ inquired Jonathan.
‘That we won’t discuss,’ said his uncle. ‘I shouldn’t have chosen
without first looking to Scripture. There was only one Rebecca in the
village, and I hadn’t thought of her till then. ’Twas a marvellous
showing, and she on a bed of sickness at the time.’
Mr. Trimblerigg was properly impressed; but he doubted whether he would
choose his own wife that way, even should he become a True Believer.
So, not to linger on doubtful ground, he changed the subject and
began to ask about missionaries; having a wish to see the world, they
attracted him.
‘If I become a True Believer,’ he said, ‘I shan’t stay and preach in
one place; I shall go out and preach everywhere.’
‘You’ll do as the Lord tells you,’ said his uncle. ‘It’s no good one
that’s not a True Believer talking of what he’ll do when he becomes
one.’
‘No, Uncle,’ said Jonathan meekly, still out to do business; ‘but
living at home makes it very hard for me. I’m much nearer to being a
True Believer than Mother is, or Father, or Davidina. Davidina says you
can believe anything if you’ll only make yourself. She says she could
make herself believe that the Bible was all false, if she were to try.’
‘Has she tried, does she mean?’ inquired Uncle Phineas grimly.
‘I don’t know,’ replied Jonathan ingenuously. ‘It would be very wicked
if anyone did try, wouldn’t it?’
‘It would,’ said his uncle. ‘I’ve known men struck down dead for less.
I knew a man once who tore a leaf out of his Bible to light his pipe
with, and he was struck by lightning for it the same day. Yet his sin
was only against one leaf, one chapter. How much greater the sin if you
sin against the whole of it. She thought that, did she? When you go
home, send Davidina up to me: I’ll talk to her.’
Then Mr. Trimblerigg had a divided mind; for his fear of Davidina was
not less but rather more than his fear of Uncle Phineas. Indeed he only
feared Uncle Phineas for what he might fail to do for him in the near
future, but Davidina he feared for what she was, here and now.
‘I think, perhaps, Davidina only meant--anybody who was wicked enough.
But please don’t tell Davidina that I said anything!’
‘Heh?’ cried Uncle Phineas, his eye suspicious: ‘That so? We’ll see.’
He got up, went slowly to his Bible and opened it and without looking
put down his thumb.
‘Listen to this, Jonathan,’ he said; and in solemn tone and with long
pauses, he read:
“She put her hand to the nail ... and her right hand to the workman’s
hammer ... and with the hammer she smote Sisera, she smote off his head
... when she had pierced and stricken through his temples.”... You hear
that, Jonathan?’
‘Yes, Uncle,’ he replied, not yet understanding the application of the
text.
‘You see, Jonathan,’ said his uncle, ‘Davidina was getting at you.’
Being a True Believer’s interpretation, it was not open to discussion,
not for Jonathan at any rate. Uncle Phineas was a mighty hunter of the
Scriptures before the Lord: the true interpretation never escaped him.
It was a curious and unexplained fact that Davidina was a great
favourite of Uncle Phineas, so far as one so entirely without affection
could be said to have favourites. Davidina was far from being a True
Believer, yet he trusted her; and he did not yet quite trust Jonathan.
But he saw well enough that Jonathan had in him the makings of a
prophet and of a preacher; if only he could trust him, he would help
him to go far. But the testing process took time.
So, day by day, Mr. Trimblerigg laboured to win his trust, and
often, after long hours of boredom in his uncle’s company, success
seemed near; for intellectually he was now growing fast, and to the
cultivation of an agile brain added the cultivation of a wily tongue,
and even where his future career did not depend upon it he loved to
sustain an argument.
But he never got the better of Uncle Phineas; for when Phineas could
not answer him, the Book did. He began to loathe the Book--that
particular copy of it, I mean--and to make faces at it behind his
uncle’s back. But a day came when he loved it like a brother.
At the right time for the forwarding of his plans, Mr. Trimblerigg
professed a desire for larger book-learning; he wanted to study
theology, and that not from one point of view alone. Ready to satisfy
him, up to a point, Uncle Phineas plied him with books containing the
true doctrine, some he would make him sit down and read aloud upon the
spot while he expounded them; others he let him take away to study and
return, questioning him closely thereafter to discover how well he had
read them. They were all good books--good in the moral sense, that
is to say--books written to inculcate the principles of True Belief;
but all, from the contemporary point of view utterly useless, and all
deadly dull.
One day Mr. Trimblerigg asked his uncle, ‘Where all the other books
were--the bad ones, which taught false doctrine.’
Why did he want to know? inquired Uncle Phineas.
‘I want to read them,’ said Jonathan greatly daring. ‘If one doesn’t
read them, how is one to know how to answer them? I want to read them
because they deceive people.’
‘Not True Believers,’ said his uncle.
‘No,’ replied Jonathan, ‘but people who might become True Believers.’
‘They should read their Bibles. There you find the answer to
everything.’
‘Yes. So I did; I did it last night as I was going to bed: I opened
it, just as you do, Uncle, and there it was--written: the thing I was
wanting to know.’
‘What was it?’
‘It was this, Uncle: “Oh, that mine adversary had written a book.
Surely I would take it upon my shoulder and bind it as a crown unto
me.”’
‘That doesn’t say read it,’ objected his uncle.
‘No, but it means it. It means that if wicked books are written we’ve
got to do with them, we’ve not just got to let them alone.’
‘We’ll see,’ replied the other; ‘we’ll ask the Lord to show us.’ He got
the Book and opened it. ‘There, Jonathan, listen to this:
‘“What profiteth the graven image that the maker thereof hath graven
it; the molten image, the teacher of lies, that the maker of his work
trusteth therein to make dumb idols” ... God’s answered you, Jonathan.’
‘But that’s about the man who wrote it,’ objected Jonathan. ‘He trusts
in his work, but I don’t; he’s not going to make a dumb idol of me.’
‘You’re running your head into danger, Jonathan. If you are not a True
Believer, the Book may be only a trap set for you by the Devil. He can
quote Scripture when it suits him, as well as any.’
‘But I prayed first,’ said Jonathan. ‘And I’m trying to become a True
Believer.’
‘When you’ve become a True Believer, we’ll talk about it,’ said his
uncle.
After that for a whole week his uncle saw no more of him. Then one day,
waking up from his afternoon nap, the old man found Jonathan sitting
and looking at him.
It was quite five minutes since Jonathan had crept in, and during
that time he had not been idle. He had gone to the Book, and arranged
a marker, and three and four times he had opened and without looking
had put his finger to the exact place; just a finger’s length from the
bottom on the right-hand side, it was easy to find. Then, sitting far
away from the Book, he had waited for his uncle to wake.
He did not allow the haze of sleep to disperse before he made his
announcement.
‘Uncle,’ he said, ‘I’ve become a True Believer. I’ve had a call: God
has shown me the way.’
‘How do you know you’re a True Believer?’ questioned the old man
cautiously.
‘I’ve His Word for it. Every time I open the Book it speaks to me--so
plain, that at first it frightened me. Then I felt a great joy and a
light filling me. And everything in the world is different to what it
was.’
‘Aye,’ replied his uncle, ‘that sounds the real thing. What has He
called you to do?’
‘To go out and preach, Uncle. And He’s told me I’m to go to college.’
‘How has He told you that?’ inquired Phineas, sceptical again.
‘I asked Him to show me what I was to do, where I was to go; I opened
the Book and put my finger on the page; and there--college was the very
word!’
‘You tell me that you found the word “college” in the Bible?’ inquired
his uncle incredulously.
‘It was found for me,’ said Jonathan: ‘Hilkiah the priest, and Achbor,
and Shaphan, went unto Huldah the prophetess, the wife of Shallum; and
she dwelt in Jerusalem in the college; and they communed with her.’
So, by the mouth of his nephew, Phineas stood corrected in his
knowledge of the Scriptures. But he did not quite yield yet. ‘Fetch me
the Book, Jonathan,’ he said.
‘No, Uncle,’ replied his nephew, ‘the Lord is calling to me now, not to
you. This is my affair.’
And so saying he opened the Book, drew out the marker, and set his
finger upon the page. Then he brought it across to his uncle. ‘You read
it, Uncle,’ he said; and his uncle read: ‘Arise, go unto Nineveh, that
great city, and preach unto it the preaching that I bid thee.’
Mr. Trimblerigg did not wait for his uncle to speak, he grasped his
nettle tight. ‘Will you take the responsibility now, Uncle, of telling
me that the Lord has not called me; and that I have not plainly heard
His Word?’
Uncle Phineas could not quite do that. All he said was: ‘Nineveh?
Nineveh might mean anything.’
‘Yes,’ said Mr. Trimblerigg, ‘it might; but it doesn’t. If the Lord is
calling me--and you can’t say that He isn’t--will He not also make me
sure what the call means?’
‘We will ask Him again, Jonathan.’
‘We will not,’ said Jonathan. ‘That would be sin, for it would be
tempting Him, trying to make Him think that we have not heard Him
already--in our hearts.’
‘Spoken like a True Believer,’ said Uncle Phineas, convinced at last.
‘Jonathan, you shall go.’
Very earnestly that night did Mr. Trimblerigg return thanks that I had
opened the eyes of his Uncle Phineas and made him see light. And all
the while that he prayed, how helpless he made me feel! Lost in the
delight of the end, he forgot the means: and never once did it occur to
him that he was really giving thanks to himself.
CHAPTER FIVE
_The Moving Spirit_
So Mr. Trimblerigg went to college to learn tribal divinity as falsely
taught by the Free Evangelicals; and his Uncle Phineas paid for it.
He went there as a True Believer; and his fellow-students viewed with
wonder so coming-on a disposition confined to so strait and narrow an
interpretation of things spiritual. For at that time a great wave of
Liberalism had entered the larger bodies of the Free Church Movement,
and the Free Evangelicals led the way. They had even gone so far as
to admit women students to their University and to its theological
studies, though not of course to the ministry; and because of this and
similar tendencies, the wider and easier interpretation of Scripture
concerned them greatly.
In this large and tolerant atmosphere, where modernism was beginning
to lift its head, Mr. Trimblerigg stood all alone. It was a challenge
that delighted him. He had no illusions as to the lack of a future
outlook afforded by adherence to the strict tenets of True Belief: but
he had the sense to realize that what a student believes, or thinks he
believes, in his teens under the unavoidable influence of the parental
upbringing, matters nothing to his future career. Only when he comes
to man’s estate, and the full and free possession of his faculties do
his opinions and pronouncements begin to measure his qualification
for advancement. In the meantime he could sharpen his wits, acquire
knowledge, and develop his resources for dialectic and for oratory
just as well by maintaining the improbable side of the argument as
the probable; what better test indeed for his powers? Convictions
could come later, what he wanted now was training; and though as yet
unconvinced himself, he might on the way convince others, if only a
few, even of the truth of tenets which he meant presently to discard.
There were three hundred students at the college, fifty of them women,
and he himself the only ‘True Believer,’ with the additional drawback
that in most of the points distinguishing his branch of the Free Church
body from others he did not truly believe. Yet he never doubted that in
free debate he could profess a belief that would sound plausible, and
put up at least an attractive fight even though eventual defeat awaited
him.
But though his calculating mind gave a silver lining to the cloud which
hung over him, it was, I maintain, an act of courage when he stepped
so buoyantly into the arena to face a three-years’ process of defeat,
and by defeat to learn the ways of victory. And though presently the
buffetings which he had to endure were tremendous, he was able in
letters, and in conversation when he went home, to convey to his uncle
the impression that True Belief was not only holding its own, but
winning its way in the strongholds of infidelity. Had he not already
made converts, for proof? Three of the students, two male, one female,
had become True Believers.
One day he brought them over and exhibited them to his uncle, and
when his uncle had examined them thoroughly in their new-found faith
his trust in Mr. Trimblerigg became almost complete. But still not
quite. Uncle Phineas was a cautious character, and not for nothing had
caution, assisted by revelation, been his companion for eighty-four
years.
It was at this time that he re-made his will, re-made it in a curious
way and let the family know of it. He executed two wills on the same
day with the same witnesses; and laying both by, waited for time to
decide which of the two should survive him.
‘I have great hopes of you, Jonathan,’ he said. ‘I’m watching you,
often when you don’t think; and when I’m not quite clear in my own mind
the Book tells me.’
That was Uncle Phineas’s strong point in his reading of character:
the Book could not lead him astray. It was upon that point that Mr.
Trimblerigg felt himself most vulnerable. He might trace and traverse
to stand in his uncle’s good graces, he might abundantly deserve his
confidence and all that should go with it or follow from it after his
death; but nothing that he could do would prevent the Book opening in
the wrong place at the last critical moment, or prevent Phineas from
believing that whatever it then told him was true.
And so though Mr. Trimblerigg did in those three years by all his
contemporary acts if not by his calculations, deserve that his uncle
should think well of him, he could never be quite sure.
During his second year he heard from Davidina that she had fallen
out of her uncle’s favour,--an event which, having the two wills in
mind he did not disapprove; but when he heard later that a hitherto
unconsidered great-niece had appeared upon the scene and was keeping
house for his uncle, his mind grew troubled. This was a cousin whom he
had never seen, named Caroline; the circumstance that she had lately
become an orphan made her available as a house-companion for one who,
needing an arm to lean on, did not yet require a nurse. She was older
than Jonathan by three years, and had managed from her mother’s side to
be of fair complexion.
Davidina nicknamed her ‘the dream-cow’; and when Mr. Trimblerigg saw
her for the first time on his return home during vacation he had to
admit that the name suited. She was a large creamy creature, slightly
mottled with edges of pink; vague, equable, good-tempered, taking
things as they came; rather stupid to talk to, but not uncomely to look
upon.
As he gazed on her at their first meeting, Mr. Trimblerigg’s
calculating mind got ahead of him before he could prevent; and ‘Shall
I have to marry her?’ was the thought which suddenly presented itself.
With equal suddenness came another, ‘If I do, what will Isabel Sparling
say? There’ll be trouble.’
Isabel Sparling was the woman student whom he had converted to True
Belief; and the conversion had been of an emotional character.
She was an ardent believer in the ministry of women, and having the
prophetess of Scripture upon her side--Huldah the prophetess who dwelt
in the college at Jerusalem for one, as Mr. Trimblerigg was quick to
remember--had no difficulty in persuading him that the ministry of
women was compatible with ‘True Belief.’
Mr. Trimblerigg had seized on it, indeed, with avidity as a forward
point for him to score in discussions which forced him generally to
take the reactionary line. There was also among True Believers a
more obvious opening for women than elsewhere. The ministry of the
connection was diminishing together with its funds; and there does
come a point, in spiritual work as well as industry, when what cannot
support a man will support a woman. In exchange, therefore, for the
allegiance of a new convert for theological debates which left him
so often in a minority of one, Mr. Trimblerigg blithely gave in his
adherence to the ministry of women; and in the College debate on the
subject, which took place in his second year, they won an unexpected
victory, all but three of the women students, and more than a third of
the men students voting in the affirmative.
It is symptomatic, however, that of this particular victory over the
powers of evil Mr. Trimblerigg said not a word to his Uncle Phineas.
It was a point over which he apprehended that True Believers of the
older school might differ from the new. Uncle Phineas, sedentary in
a small hill-side village and a chapel of which he himself was the
proprietor, was scarcely in a position to appreciate the claim of
women to spiritual equality; in the field of politics Mr. Trimblerigg
knew that he was decisively against them; nor was Cousin Caroline, his
house-companion, the sort of person to suggest a quiver of revolt.
And so, while pledged to Isabel Sparling and her fellow-aspirants to
become their champion when membership of the Synod should give him a
voice, Mr. Trimblerigg for the present allowed the question to sleep.
In his own time and in his own way he would make it his policy, but not
probably so long as his Uncle Phineas was alive, and his own financial
future unassured. He must first himself become a minister.
It was during his third vacation that Uncle Phineas showed faith, by an
overt sign, in his future qualification for the calling. Jonathan was
invited, at the next Wednesday meeting, to put up a prayer, and give
an address. The invitation was made on the Sunday, giving him half a
week’s notice; and announcement was made to the congregation.
Local interest in the preaching ability of Mr. Trimblerigg had already
been roused. Word had come down from College that in the debates
he had become a shining light, and there was regret among the Free
Evangelicals that the burning oratory of which he gave promise should
become the exclusive possession of the narrowest and most disunited
connection in the union of the Free Churches. In the course of the next
two days many told him that they were coming to hear him.
This helped to make the occasion important; for if he could fill the
chapel and continue filling it on future occasions, Uncle Phineas’s
recognition of his vocation would become more assured. Mr. Trimblerigg
was now eighteen, his uncle was eighty-six; and he could not regard
as unpropitious this timing by Providence of their respective lives.
Two or three more years in the propaganda of True Belief would not
unduly hold up a career for which wider spheres were waiting. Suppose
he could, for a couple of years or so, kindle True Believers into new
life, make himself indispensable: and then--!
He began to see why possibly he had been called to devote himself
temporarily to so narrow a field of service. If he could come bringing
his sheaves with him, he would count in the Evangelical world more than
if he had merely started as one among many, with no spiritual adventure
to single him from the crowd.
Thus his sanguine mind addressed itself to Wednesday’s meeting and the
possibilities which lay beyond.
It would be doing him an injustice to say that, in regarding the
occasion as propitious, he did not also regard it as a solemn one. He
made preparation for it--I might indeed say that we made preparation
for it together--with frequency and assiduity; and what I was supposed
to hear for the first time on Wednesday evening, I heard in various
stages of development more times than a few, during the two days
preceding. Davidina, it appeared, heard it also: not, I think, by
a wilful listening at keyholes, but with a general awareness that
rehearsals were taking place. She paid him the compliment of coming to
hear ‘how he got on’, which was her matter-of-fact way of putting it.
All the rest of the family did the same: the meeting was well attended.
Mr. Trimblerigg, in spite, or perhaps because, of previous rehearsal,
managed to deliver himself with a great air of spontaneity. He got to
the point when he knew that he was making a success of it, and was then
sufficiently moved and uplifted to launch out into parentheses which
were not only unpremeditated but quite happily expressed.
People pray in different ways; some moan, some become tremulous, some
voluble, some halting and inarticulate, some repeat themselves many
times as though they suspected one of inattention to their requests.
There are very few who say what they want to say in the fewest possible
words. I wish they did.
Mr. Trimblerigg was not one of the few; but his prayer had undeniable
merit; it was quick, spirited, cheerful, a little shrill and high-flown
in a few of its passages, and in its peroration there was a touch of
poetry. He said yea, several times instead of yes; a trick which later
grew into a habit whenever poetry was his aim; but in spite of small
drawbacks it was a highly creditable performance well-pleasing to both
of us; and that it was so Mr. Trimblerigg knew as well as I or anyone
else.
At the porch-gathering afterwards many praised him; Uncle Phineas had
said little, not praising him at all, but Jonathan had been told that
he might take Wednesday meeting till further notice. Cousin Caroline
had looked at him with her mild dewy eyes, saying nothing but meaning
much, as much, at least, as so indeterminate a character could mean.
Only Davidina, impenetrable of look, gave him no inkling of what was in
her mind.
On the way home, in order to show a proper attitude of detachment from
praise for a gift that was spiritual, and perhaps also indifference
to her blighting silence, Mr. Trimblerigg inquired airily what they
were going to have for supper; whereupon Davidina replied in a dry
indifferent tone: ‘Same as we’ve just had in chapel, bubble-and-squeak
warmed up again.’
It was the sort of thing to which there was no answer; it was true,
yet it was so unjust; no doubt she intended it for his soul’s health,
but can anything so cruel be also sanitary? ‘Bubble-and-squeak,’ he
could not fail to see, in caricature, the likeness to his ebullient
enthusiasm which had so moved and uplifted the hearts of his hearers,
his own also; and as he let the wound go home he felt (without
counting) how many times he could have killed her!
And yet, if I can see truly into Davidina’s mind, all that she meant
was that Jonathan’s prayers would be made much better by his not
preparing them.
I am not sure that she was right; I have heard both; and I do not think
that there was much to choose. Prepared and unprepared alike they
always moved his audiences more than they moved me.
CHAPTER SIX
_A Closed Incident_
A week later he very nearly did kill her. The good which men imagine,
and the diminished version of it which, when it actually takes place,
has so little recognizable likeness to the thing desired, found
exemplification in this event. For though Mr. Trimblerigg had often
wished Davidina out of life, it was a serious shock to him when by
sheer accident he one day pushed her into the water, and was forced for
a considerable while to believe that she was drowned.
It happened late one evening, on the edge of night, as brother and
sister were returning from a shopping expedition, upon which, rather
against his will, he had been forced to accompany her to help carry
parcels. Taking the short way back, they came by a wood to the home
fields at a point where a deep flowing stream was crossed by a narrow
foot-bridge. There had been rain; the plank was slippery, the stream
in flood; it was getting dark. Mr. Trimblerigg thought that he was
carrying more than his share of the parcels, and the unappreciative
companionship of Davidina had made him cross. Embarked upon the plank
Davidina suddenly stopped to change over her parcels so as to get help
of the hand-rail; and Mr. Trimblerigg coming close behind gave her an
impatient nudge harder than he knew.
With an exasperated scream Davidina missing the hand-rail toppled and
swung sideways. With quaint heroism she threw him her parcels as she
descended streamwards. Two of them Mr. Trimblerigg managed to field;
the third made the lethal plunge after her, and being of lighter
substance jaunted gaily along the swift current into which she had
wholly disappeared.
For a few ghastly seconds that seemed like the threshold of eternity,
Mr. Trimblerigg, encumbered with his parcels, stood fixed. The thought
flashed that here and now he had done something that he could not
help, for he remembered that he did not swim; and though it was a pure
accident, he had a swift apprehension that this would be a difficult
and also a humiliating matter to explain truthfully. It was a very
serious drawback for any young man at the beginning of his ministerial
career to push his sister into the water and then have her drown;
stated in the mildest terms it showed incompetence; and Mr. Trimblerigg
had already begun to pride himself more than most on his efficiency in
an emergency.
Luckily, however, nobody had actually seen him give the push; so, if
the worst came to the worst, the story would be his own to tell. In the
meantime he could but do his best to put matters right. ‘I’m really
awfully sorry!’ he said to himself.
While these or similar thoughts were dividing his swift mind in the
couple of seconds that had ensued, there was no reappearance of
Davidina. Although the fact that he could not swim made direct action
difficult, to attempt her rescue was a debt of honour which did not
brook delay. Fleet-footed he crossed the plank, deposited his parcels,
and began to race down-stream. If he could not actually rescue her, he
must at least keep her in sight and give her all the encouragement in
his power. Sight of the floating parcel bobbing against a willow bough
seemed to suggest her present whereabouts.
Casting off his coat as he stumbled along the bank to outpace the
current, he clutched at an overhanging bough and plunged boldly in. His
feet touched bottom: he came up again and crying, ‘Davidina, where are
you?’ felt about him in all directions with his disengaged hand for the
life which had so unexpectedly become dear to him. He encountered the
parcel, captured it as a small proof of his efficiency and threw it to
land. The stream seemed otherwise quite unoccupied. He called again but
got no answer.
In order to be thorough, he took another plunge higher up and two
others lower down where boughs offered suitable assistance. Each time
his feet touched bottom and his hand found emptiness. Had it then
struck him to venture further and try walking across the stream, it
might have puzzled him how so capable a person as Davidina should have
managed to get drowned. But this he did not do; he continued to call
upon her in loud appealing tones, and to repeat his dip, approximating
to total immersion, at various points up and down stream.
He could not but feel that these scattered attempts were of a somewhat
desultory and speculative character, and that the drowning Davidina,
could she have known of them, would not have been satisfied. But
Davidina’s standard was always an exacting one, and as he had failed
to live up to it in the past, so he must needs fail now. Nevertheless
these repeated immersions in water that was so astonishingly cold did
at least give his conscience the absolution it required. He could say
at the inquest, and afterwards, that he had done his best; what a poor
best that happened to be was nobody’s concern but his own.
And so, here and there, up and down, he probed for the dear departed;
and only when quite convinced that his universe was empty of Davidina
did he quit the scene of the disaster and run off to fetch help.
Poles, ropes, lanterns, and presently a drag-net gave to subsequent
efforts a surface appearance of efficiency which his own had lacked;
but below the surface, where lay all that mattered, they were attended
with no more success. No body was found.
Going home to his bereaved family the gasping youth told a tale which
was readily believed. His exhaustion, his lively distress, his drenched
condition, and his chattering teeth gave evidence of the ordeal he had
passed through, and verification to a story which nobody had any reason
to doubt. He told how Davidina had lost her footing and tumbled in, and
he, plunging after, had twice caught hold of her clothing; and how one
garment had come off in his hand, and another had given way. Only when
she sank from view, after diving for her repeatedly in vain, did he
relinquish his saving efforts.
This was the story in its second telling; others down by the stream, in
the intervals of their search work, had heard it all before; and there
was so little to alter from the facts, so little to leave out, that at
second hearing he had already become convinced of its truth; and only
the sight of Davidina standing at the door, carrying the parcels he
had forgotten, reminded him, with ‘that sinking feeling’ out of which
patent medicines make their fortune, that another version of the story
existed and would probably be told.
In the next few minutes he got the surprise of his life: Davidina did
not tell it. She had, it is true, something of her own to tell which
was a departure from fact; for she said the stream had carried her down
a mile and over the weir, at which point she had got upon her feet
and waded out; whereas having fallen from the bridge on the upstream
side she had become entangled in its central timbers, and after keeping
low for a while and watching her brother safely out of sight along the
further bank, had climbed out again and gone back into the wood. And
there, I regret to say, she had wilfully stayed--warming herself with
sharp exercise the while--listening to Mr. Trimblerigg’s intermittent
cries of distress, watching the flit of lanterns, hearing the harsh
shouts of the search-party, and calculating coolly how long they would
take to give up quest for the body that was not there.
And her motive for all this? Her motive was to give Mr. Trimblerigg his
chance: his chance to tell the truth, or to do otherwise, just as he
chose.
Now was this charitable of her? I do not know. I only know that she
genuinely thought it would do him good: to give him the chance, just
once, of his own accord, to tell something against himself, bad for
his moral credit, bad for his future prospects, and bad for his
self-esteem. And yet, though that may have been her motive, I doubt
whether it was not practically overborne by her sharp appreciative
foresight of the actual shaping of the event.
After waiting for well over an hour to give her brother all the rope he
needed to tie himself up in glory, she crossed the bridge, collected
the parcels, his as well as hers, and went home. And so well had she
timed herself that it was just as the second telling finished that she
entered.
It took the family some moments to get over their surprise; but Mrs.
Trimblerigg, an eminently practical woman, did not let them wait for
questions now. She ran them up to their rooms, got them out of their
wet clothes, then brought them down again, bundled in hot blankets to
sit opposite each other by the fire; and now to be heard once more,
telling their tale more fully each in their own way.
And since Mr. Trimblerigg pleaded exhaustion, his proud mother told
it herself; and Davidina listened gratefully, fixing upon her brother
Jonathan a kind and considerate regard. Her mother told it all
accurately, just as she had heard it from Jonathan; and when it had all
been rehearsed in her ears--our own Mr. Trimblerigg sitting opposite
the while and furtively regarding her, rather like a Skye terrier that
has just been washed and whipped--she said not a word to question the
accuracy of the story. She accepted it; and when her mother said that
she ought to feel most grateful to brother Jonathan for all he had done
in trying to save her at the risk of his own life, she said that she
was. She said also that the last thing she remembered was his voice
calling, ‘Davidina, where are you?’ And as, weary and weak of tone, she
thus corroborated his story, she gave him a friendly look and a faint
smile; and then shut her eyes at him, as if to say, ‘The incident is
now closed.’
And so upon Davidina’s side, as far as words went, it was. But with
the mere shutting of her eyes she gave Mr. Trimblerigg a sleepless
night; and for many nights and days after, she held him in a grip
from which there was no escape. And then some of her answers to
the maternal inquiries would flash into his memory with a horribly
disturbing effect. ‘But Davidina, however did you come to bring the
parcels along?’ ‘I went back for them: I thought Jonathan might have
forgotten them; and so he had.’ And when Mr. Trimblerigg defended such
forgetfulness as being only natural under the circumstances, Davidina
replied, ‘He didn’t forget the other parcel, he saved that.’
‘Which parcel?’
‘The one that fell in. He saw that, and thought it was me, and swam
after it; and it must have been a sort of satisfaction saving that, as
he couldn’t get me.’
Such clairvoyance was horrible; it was as if her eye had flown with him
like a firefly in the night watching every movement not of his body
only but of his mind as well? And what made it so much more terrible
was that he could not understand her motive, or how it was to end.
But day followed day, and no revelation was made; his story stood
uncorrected; neighbours came to call and congratulate and at each
occasion the story was told again. Sometimes Mr. Trimblerigg himself
was made to tell it, in spite of a modest reluctance which grew and
grew; and there always sat Davidina listening with kind eyes and a
friendly smile. Then the eyes would shut suddenly, and the smile would
remain.
When she had done this to him two or three times, Mr. Trimblerigg was
ready to scream; and when she also did it to him the first time they
were alone together, he wanted either to die or to murder her. Then,
finding he could do neither, he gathered up his courage and was about
to speak. But it was no good. Davidina opened her eyes again.
‘I’ve god a horrid gold,’ she said, flattening her consonants in comic
imitation of a stage Jew. ‘Dat cubs of falling indo de warder.’
She blew her nose meticulously (as certain modern writers would
say), creating an atmosphere which made confession impossible. Mr.
Trimblerigg had not a word left that he could utter.
Now, that Mr. Trimblerigg should have been puzzled by Davidina’s
acquiescence in the story he had told--that he should have been
puzzled, that is to say, after perceiving what use she put it
to--reveals the irreflective streak which was always dividing him from
self-knowledge, and was presently to do him so much more mischief.
Holding her tongue had given Davidina a power over him which no
exposure of his face-saving art of tale-telling could have equalled.
The ignominy of that would have blown over; or he could stoutly have
denied the push altogether, declaring it a figment of her imagination;
and had she forced him to denial often enough he would have come to
believe it true. But by saying nothing Davidina stewed him in his own
juice without a bubble to show for it; and the tender mercy of her eyes
made him sensitive where the accusation of her tongue would only have
hardened him.
What Davidina loved was power; and power economically exercised is a
far subtler luxury than power which requires repeated effort to sustain
it. Davidina by doing nothing had acquired power not material but
spiritual; and ‘Thou, Davidina, seest me,’ became more truly the motto
of his life day by day.
But the reason why Mr. Trimblerigg failed to read her motive while
wincing under the results, was partly because power of so static a kind
had no attraction for him whatever, and partly because it contradicted
the fundamental notion of his whole scheme of life--that he was a
man, namely, of virtuous character, one with a destiny of resplendent
goodness lying ahead of him. Across that conception of himself
Davidina’s contrary conception struck like cataract of the eye. The two
views could not co-exist. Without his quite realizing it, Davidina’s
reading of his character threatened to drive his own out.
In the privacy of his own chamber he had more than once sat down to
write his own epitaph--the epitaph which he liked to think would appear
on his entablature in that day when Free Churchmen had got the run of
Westminster Abbey to burrow in. With the art of simplicity after much
trouble he had boiled it down to three words, ‘Little--but good.’ And
if that were to represent finally and truthfully his work on earth,
what place was there for Davidina’s rival epitaph to stand, if, as
he half-suspected, it found its expression in the words, ‘Good--for
nothing.’
If I had made him good (and surely I had done that, he thought) was it
to be ‘for nothing’ after all? Before he could believe that, he must
give up his faith. And when he said ‘faith,’ he never understood that
it meant, and meant only, faith in himself.
So silently, invisible, with imperceptible pace, mind against mind,
Davidina tightened her grip.
One struggle to escape from the blast of her continued silence he made;
but it was no good. New callers had come with their congratulations,
and the story was to be repeated once more. Summoned to a fresh drench
of ignominy under his sister’s calm gaze, Mr. Trimblerigg had a flash
of inspiration. He laughed jovially. ‘Oh, I just pushed her into the
water,’ he said; ‘so of course I had to go after her. I tried to save
her; but Davidina preferred to save herself. And that’s all there was
to it!’
The visitors laughed, thinking what a very charming and modest young
man he was. And Davidina laughed too.
CHAPTER SEVEN
_He Tries to be Honest_
Davidina got over her cold without difficulty. But Mr. Trimblerigg,
who from repeated immersion, had been in the water much longer and
with opportunities for severe chills to take him between whiles, fell
seriously ill.
It was with a sort of satisfaction that he took to his bed; for this at
any rate was a genuine result of his life-saving efforts, and seemed in
a way to affect their character, giving them the testimonial he craved.
Davidina accepted the duty which fate had laid on her, and nursed him
with devoted detachment.
‘It’s wonderful how those two do love each other!’ remarked Mrs.
Trimblerigg, after viewing a sick-bed scene where Jonathan was as one
hanging between life and death in Davidina’s arms: ‘And yet to look at
them sometimes you wouldn’t think it.’
That was on the first day of desperate symptoms, preliminary to the
arrival of the doctor, when Davidina, for lack of higher guidance was
nursing him with prescriptions of her own choosing. He had horrible
pains; she pursued them with the old-fashioned remedies which, in
remote country districts, still effect cures, and for which the
undeserving doctor comes presently to receive the fee. Fore and
aft, wherever a pain came catching his breath, she skinned him with
untempered applications of hot raw mustard; and after five hours of it
he still survived.
When the doctor came he could not but admire her handiwork. ‘Well,
you have punished him!’ he said. He examined the patient and gave the
illness its name--double pneumonia. Its importance was a satisfaction
to Mr. Trimblerigg and Davidina alike; they took it as a worthy
occupation;--he to be ill of it, she to have the nursing of it. For the
next fortnight brother and sister enjoyed each other thoroughly, more
than they had ever done in their lives before. They even became fond of
each other. But character remained; the fondness was critical.
The day that the doctor pronounced him out of danger, Mr. Trimblerigg
had already felt so much better, that he wanted to get up. Life having
become attractive again, he was impatient to go out and meet it once
more on his own terms. And when he had seen from the medical eye that
all was to be well with him, he was as anxious to have word of it as
though it were a compliment on his good looks. ‘What does he say of
me?’ he asked when his sister returned from seeing the doctor to the
door.
Davidina, having measured him judicially with her eye, settled that he
was well enough for an indulgence that would be mutual.
‘He says you are out of danger,’ she answered; ‘so now you are in it
again.’
‘In what?’
‘In your own way,’ she replied, elliptically. ‘It’s done you no harm
being ill. To be safe from yourself for a fortnight never happened to
you before. Mother calls it a God’s mercy you’re still alive. Perhaps
it is: I don’t know.’
Mr. Trimblerigg lay trying to read her face and the meanings behind it.
‘Have I been a great trouble?’ he asked at last.
‘People can’t be as ill as you’ve been, without giving some trouble,’
she answered.
Yet he had a consciousness that he had been good, as goodness goes on
a bed of sickness; and he hankered to have it said.
‘Wasn’t I a good patient?’ he inquired in a tone of meek repentance.
‘I’m so sorry.’
‘You were as good as you knew how,’ replied Davidina, ‘and that’s not
saying a little; for you _know_ more than most; if you’d only do it.’
She paused, then added, ‘You were very good when you were out of your
senses.’
‘What did I say?’ inquired Mr. Trimblerigg anxiously; for the
possibilities of unconscious goodness alarmed him.
‘Your prayers.’ (His anxiety increased.) ‘You didn’t say much. ’Twas
either “God, I am not as other men are,” or “God, be merciful to me a
sinner,” just those two things, one or other; and they both sounded
real, as if you meant ’em.’
There was a long pause, while Mr. Trimblerigg calculated; he had got
the right atmosphere for it at last; so gathering his strength he said:
‘Davidina, it was I pushed you into the river.’
The avowal struck Davidina a cold blow: she had not reckoned that
feebleness, or illness, or affection, or gratitude, or anything indeed
but fear would ever have made Mr. Trimblerigg own truth against himself
so long after the date. Then she looked deeper, and realized that it
was fear: he was trying to get out of her clutches by telling the truth.
She countered him by telling a lie herself.
‘I didn’t know it,’ she said; ‘I never felt you touch me.’
‘But I did!’ he insisted.
‘Well, if you did, you didn’t do it on purpose.’
Into this trap he fell.
‘Yes, I did!’ he declared. ‘I hated you: I pushed you in because I
wanted you to drown.’
Reassured, she saw that once more he was telling lies. It comforted her
to find that he had not got out of her depth; her old Jonathan, the
Jonathan she knew, was safely hers again.
‘Then why did you try to save me?’ she inquired.
‘I didn’t try; not really. I only pretended to.’
‘Who was that for?’
‘Myself, I suppose. It would have been easier to think of afterwards,
you see: that I--tried.’
Here she saw that he had given her a bit of the real Jonathan wrongly
applied.
‘Ah, yes,’ she commented, ‘you manage to pretend to yourself a good
deal, don’t you? I wish I could!’
Her voice was gentle, regretful, full of compassion and understanding.
‘What would you like to pretend?’ it encouraged him to ask.
Then she smote him.
‘That I believed you,’ she said.
So the victory was won.
He lay back, exhausted of his attempt. He had not escaped her after
all; and his final word was uttered without any hope of reversing the
issue now decided.
‘Well, I’ve told you,’ he said, trying to appear indifferent; ‘and it’s
true,--every word.’
‘Then we won’t talk about it,’ she replied; ‘you can think it’s true,
if it amuses you. It would amuse me too, if I’d got the gift for it.’
She looked at him kindly, humorously; and then, speaking as one who
tries to chaff foolish fancies out of a child, said:
‘Some day, Jonathan, you’ll look in the glass and be thinking you’ve
got a halo; and it’ll only be the moon behind you, or a haystack on
fire, or something of that kind. If I’d got an imagination like yours,
I should be afraid to believe anything!’
So she shut him down with his poor weak wish to be privately and
confidentially honest. And as he lay back in the cage of her
contemptuous affections, he realized how very nearly he had escaped.
If he had only been content to tell merely the truth, Davidina might
have believed him: but at the last moment his Devil--his decorative
Devil--had tempted him to play the murderer; and to the lurid beauty of
it he had succumbed.
He turned his head away on the pillow, for there were tears in his eyes.
Davidina said: ‘It’s time you took your medicine.’ She poured it out as
she spoke, and set it beside him, with the two lumps of sugar that were
to follow.
‘I don’t want it,’ he cried peevishly. ‘Anyway, I don’t want it just
yet: you can leave it.’
‘No, I can’t; I’m going downstairs.’
‘Well, you can leave it, I say.’
‘And you’d empty it away and eat the sugar as soon as my back was
turned. I know. You’ve done that before.’
It was true he had: but all humans of my acquaintance do similar things
when left to themselves. It is their nature. But it was Davidina’s
devouring instinct for not leaving him to himself which made him
desperate.
‘Davidina,’ he cried, ‘why can’t you be friends?’
‘Friends?’ she retorted, ‘you are too anxious to be friends with
yourself, to be a safe friend for anyone else, I’m thinking. The best
friend for you is some one who knows how to make you honest to ’em
from a distance.’
She gave him his medicine as she spoke, and saw him drink it.
‘Well, there’s one thing you’re honest about at any rate,’ she said.
‘What’s that?’ he inquired, hopefully.
‘You bite your nails, and you don’t try to hide it.’
‘What does that matter to anybody?’ he demanded irritably.
‘Nothing, except to yourself. I never knew anybody yet that bit his
nails who was able to tell the truth. Not that that matters to you, I
suppose you’ll say.’
‘I do tell the truth sometimes,’ he declared in a tone of appealing
_naïveté_. ‘And when I do, you don’t believe me.’
‘When you do,’ she said, ‘you show a red light. That frightens me. It’s
like a train whistling and screaming to say there’s going to be an
accident.’
Whereat Mr. Trimblerigg put himself resolutely under the bed-clothes:
and so she left him.
Yet, in the end, she did him good. It is a pathetic fact that from that
day Mr. Trimblerigg left off biting his nails, hoping, perhaps, that
as they grew an instinct for truth would be born in him. Eventually he
even developed a habit of letting them grow quite long: securing, to
that extent, a sense of escape from the supervision of Davidina.
I wish I could add that that little addition of grey growth made him
become more truthful. But when in later years all his hair turned grey
and he wore it long, almost like a woman’s, even that did not alter the
fundamentals of his character.
CHAPTER EIGHT
_Where there’s a Will, there’s a Way_
On his return from college for the summer vacation, his course almost
completed, Mr. Trimblerigg found Uncle Phineas with his feet gathered
up for death, though not immediately. He was confined to the house and
did not go out; presently did not even come downstairs. Caroline, of
course, was still with him, somewhat colourless as a companion, but
efficient as a housekeeper.
It would be difficult to say whether she was also a True Believer, in
the doctrinal sense, because to her doctrine meant nothing. She was one
of those comfortable characters who, in matters of faith, can believe
anything, and never actively disbelieve anything they are told by those
whom they respect and look up to. Otherwise, in worldly affairs, she
was quite sensible.
When she opened the door to Mr. Trimblerigg she showed pleasure in his
arrival. He called her ‘cousin,’ and kissed her, thereby committing
himself to nothing but a more open acceptance of the kinship which
had existed before intimacy began. Still it prepared the ground
provisionally, and the blush with which she accepted the salutation
made her look almost pretty: in her large cream-coloured way, with
under-edges of pink, she was personable though she lacked personality;
and she was very pleasant to touch, a point which with Mr. Trimblerigg
mattered on the whole more than good looks, and very much more than
intellect.
In the balm of her smile she said, ‘Uncle has been expecting you.’
‘So have you,’ said Mr. Trimblerigg; ‘and I’ve been expecting myself.’
Thus, footing it easily, he came into the house of his expectations,
and went up to his uncle’s room.
It was a momentous interview. The old man’s beard had whitened and was
beginning to slope from the horizontal to the perpendicular: voice and
hand were tremulous; but his eyes, whether he saw well or ill with
them, retained their keen look: and Jonathan still felt, in a lesser
degree, as he did with Davidina, that he was being examined as to his
character. For in spite of submissive hours in the past, he suspected
that as yet Uncle Phineas had never quite trusted him; that there was
something missing which all his art and solicitude could not supply.
Indeed it was so; temperamentally Mr. Trimblerigg was not cut to the
pattern of True Belief; whereas, for Uncle Phineas to be outside True
Belief, was to be spiritually in chaos; and the small ugly chapel which
he had built for his own ministry of the Word was to him a veritable
city of light. And now he knew that he was leaving it.
‘I’m glad you’ve come, Jonathan,’ he said. ‘We haven’t got a preacher,
only one that comes once a month; it’s only praying and reading most
Sabbath days now; and there’s some that aren’t faithful. Are you
willing to take the work now you’re home again?’
Mr. Trimblerigg said that he would.
‘I wonder,’ said the old man, fixing him with his gaze, ‘whether you’ll
be contented to stay here after I’m gone?’
‘I shall do what the Lord tells me,’ said Jonathan.
‘Let’s ask Him now,’ said Uncle Phineas. ‘Bring me the Book.’
There was no reason why Mr. Trimblerigg should refuse; but it was a
curious experience to see that the Book opened where a marker had
been placed in it; to see the old man pass his hand over to the left,
measure his finger up the page and lay it on an exact spot. Nor did he
wonder then, when the text was read, that his future had been fixed for
him in terms that he could not dispute.
‘And Laban said unto him, I pray thee if I have found favour in thine
eyes, _tarry_; for I have learned by experience that the Lord hath
blessed me for thy sake. And he said, “Appoint me thy wages, and I will
give it”.’
After Heaven had thus spoken there was a pause; then Phineas said, ‘The
word “Tarry” is in italics, Jonathan. That seems to point, doesn’t it?
Have you any doubt left in you now, about what God means you to do?’
‘No, Uncle,’ replied Mr. Trimblerigg, ‘I have none.’ The text, in fact,
had not altered by a hair’s breadth his views of the career he was to
run.
‘“Appoint me thy wages and I will give it,”’ went on the old man. ‘That
comes in too. But it isn’t wages exactly, is it, Jonathan? Though you
may call it so for want of a better word. You know that I’ve made two
wills, don’t you, Jonathan?’
Yes: Jonathan had heard it.
‘I haven’t forgotten you, Jonathan. I’ve remembered you in both; but I
haven’t left you so much in the one as in the other. You see, I’d got
Davidina in my mind, then: and there was Caroline, too.... I should
be leaving you more, Jonathan, if it wasn’t for Caroline. But now,
she’s lived with me all these last years, I’ve got to provide for
her--differently to what I meant.’
He spoke slowly, picking his words a little. Mr. Trimblerigg listened
to them without disappointment or dismay. He had no objection to
Caroline being provided for on a generous scale; and as his own share
was apparently to be increased, Davidina was now evidently the one who
would have to give way.
‘And then,’ said his uncle, ‘there was the chapel to think about. Now
that you’ve accepted the Lord’s word I know what to do.’
With quavering hand he drew out a key, and directed his nephew to a
drawer with certain contents.
Under instruction Mr. Trimblerigg brought him the two documents.
He looked them through, and separating the one from the other had
it returned to the drawer and locked back into safety. He then did
something which convinced Mr. Trimblerigg that at last he trusted him.
He put into his hands the remaining document.
‘When you go downstairs, Jonathan, put that into the fire,’ he
said, ‘and see that it burns. It’s not wanted now.’ And as he heard
those words Mr. Trimblerigg felt that his future was assured (and
incidentally Caroline’s also). His anxieties were all over, but
curiosity remained.
When Uncle Phineas dismissed him he went downstairs with spirits
quietly elated; and seeing that his future wife was then busily
occupying the kitchen, he went into the parlour to consider matters.
First he opened and read the discarded will; its contents were not
sensational, but they would, had they outlived the testator, have
disappointed him. His uncle had left him an income of a hundred pounds,
and his books. The chapel went to Trustees with a small stipend for
the ministry of the Word according to the tenets of True Belief. The
residue of his property, real and personal, was divided in equal
portions between Caroline and Davidina; Caroline’s share including the
house he lived in. This meant that Caroline and Davidina would have
each got an income of over two hundred a year, of rising value.
When Caroline went up aloft at the ringing of Uncle Phineas’s handbell,
Mr. Trimblerigg went into the kitchen and without reluctance put the
document into the fire according to his instructions. And when Caroline
came down again to go on with the cooking, he proposed to her and was
accepted.
This was the beginning of quite the happiest three weeks in his life,
for as soon as Mr. Trimblerigg made up his mind to marry Caroline,
he also made up his mind to be in love with her. He did not find
any more difficulty in this swift embrace of new affections than in
the equally swift embrace of new convictions as soon as they suited
him. Circumstances had provided him with sufficient reasons for
making Caroline his wife; and as love made the proposal so much more
palatable, he bestowed upon her that extra gift with the demonstrative
ardour that was his nature; and in the extended opportunities afforded
by courtship he continued to find her very pleasant to the touch:
a little unemotional perhaps, but good-tempered, contented, and an
excellent cook; and it was clear that in her quiet, half-motherly way
she very much admired him.
Uncle Phineas received the news without comment; and three weeks
later, with a final gathering-up of his patriarchal feet, died in the
beginning of his eighty-seventh year just about tea-time.
Mr. Trimblerigg ran for the woman who was to lay him out (since in that
matter old age requires extra haste when the legs have died bent), then
walked on to give instructions to the undertaker. Returning presently
to a house where the womenfolk were busy at their obsequious duties,
he sought and found a key which he knew by sight, and got out the will.
Under it lay a sealed letter addressed to Davidina. This puzzled and
slightly startled him; but for the present he laid it by as an item of
comparative unimportance. What startled him much more, however, were
the provisions which he found in the surviving will. His own share of
it was indeed larger. He found himself owner not only of the house, the
books and the furniture, but of the chapel also, with an accompanying
income of a hundred and fifty pounds, to be his so long as he remained
the local minister of the True Believers. This stipend was in the hands
of Trustees. All the rest of the estate, amounting to an annual value
of five hundred pounds went to Davidina.
Mr. Trimblerigg lost his temper; for a moment it almost seemed that
his uncle had made him destroy the wrong will. But there, for himself,
though tied by conditions, was the larger bequest; he could not but
admit that here a modest livelihood was provided for him: enough in
that retired district where all lived simply to enable him to marry and
have a family. On the other hand, it bound him to the place, and bound
him still more stiffly to the tenets of True Belief. There was the
further bewilderment that Davidina got all the rest, the bulk of the
estate; and that Caroline got nothing.
And now, of course, the letter to Davidina became important. He went
upstairs, got it from the drawer, and brought it down. The seal was a
purely conventional precaution, easy to get through and to replace;
while as for the adhesive flap there are ways also of dealing with that
which every one knows. Adopting one of them he became cognizant of the
contents. It appeared then that, after all, his Uncle Phineas had not
trusted him; and that, in spite of their apparent estrangement of late
years, he did trust Davidina absolutely. The letter informed Davidina
that while her benefit under the will was without legal condition,
it was the testator’s wish and request that if fifteen years after
his death her brother Jonathan was still an active minister of the
True Believers she should surrender to him one-half of the estate now
bequeathed to her; and that, as a necessary precaution, she should make
a will securing him the same advantage under the same conditions. And
following on this came a statement more startling than all: ‘I have
made no special provision for Caroline, as I intend that she shall
marry Jonathan.’ And with that the communication ended.
Mr. Trimblerigg looked up from it into a changed world. Just as he
thought to be starting on his forward career, he had become a cypher
in the hands of others. The word ‘Tarry’ stared him in the face; in
italics, as his uncle had remarked. Here and now he had been left to
Caroline, in order to provide her with a home; and in the future to the
tender mercies of Davidina--who was not even legally bound, when the
time came, to act on her instructions.
Fifteen years! The time was fatal to his prospects; it mattered nothing
to his career that now, in his twenty-first year, he happened to be
a member of the antiquated sect of True Believers; it would matter
everything if he were bound to it for another fifteen years. He would
then be nearing forty; how could he become the leader of the Free
Evangelicals, foremost figure of the Free Church Union in its march
toward liberal Theology, if in fifteen years’ time he was still
saddled with the tenets of True Belief to the extent of having to
preach them? He saw the meaning of it. His uncle had not trusted him;
and was as far from trusting him as ever, at the moment when he had
placed in his hands the other will to have it destroyed. It stung him
to the quick that a simple and rather stupid old man should thus have
got the better of him--to the extent at least of controlling the offer
or withdrawal of a prospective income of four hundred a year. A hundred
and fifty of it depended on his remaining in the local ministry; that
did not so much matter; but the rest depended on his remaining in the
connection at the very height of his powers; and that he did not for
a moment intend. No; even in the shock of disappointment and all the
callowness of untried youth, he knew that he was worth more. And in a
moment he had decided: henceforth his career was to be a tussle between
him and old Uncle Trimblerigg; they would see which would come out
first.
While thus he straightened out his problem below, Uncle Phineas was
being straightened out upstairs. It was the easier job of the two and
would soon be over; Jonathan had no time to lose. And so collectedly,
with presence of mind, he restored the letter to its envelope, licked
and sealed it, and returned letter and will to the drawer from which he
had taken them, leaving them to be found by others.
Three days later he prayed and preached at the funeral with great
success. People flocked to hear him, for it was already known in the
surrounding district, which had sampled his early efforts, that he was
going to become a great orator. Within a year he was due to enter the
ministry: and the True Believers swelled with a sense of triumph that
once more they were going to have among them a shining light.
In the domestic privacy of the Trimblerigg family, when the funeral was
over, the will was ceremonially opened and read; and Jonathan received
with Christian resignation the announcement that Davidina was her
uncle’s chief beneficiary.
A few days later he gave Davidina a chance to speak of the thing he
knew, by inquiring:
‘Uncle Phineas left a letter for you, didn’t he?’
‘Yes,’ said Davidina, and was for saying no more. But Mr. Trimblerigg
could not quite let it stop at that.
‘Anything that concerns others besides yourself?’
‘Yes,’ said Davidina again. ‘He told me that you were going to marry
Caroline, and sent you his love.’
So apparently Davidina meant that he was not to know. For once he had
beaten her; and even if it were to bring him nothing in the end there
was satisfaction in that thought.
CHAPTER NINE
_Some Women and a Moral_
Mr. Trimblerigg’s call to be minister to the true Believers of Horeb
was independent of the theological test of his College which qualified
him for election to a pastorate among the Free Evangelicals. But
practically it gave him a two-years’ start; the Free Evangelicals did
not as a rule adopt pastors unless they were either twenty-three, or
married. Mr. Trimblerigg was only twenty-one, but there among the True
Believers the vacancy was waiting for him, and he reckoned that two
preliminary years devoted to establishing his fame as a preacher and
emancipating himself from the narrower doctrines of True Belief would
not be spent amiss.
In the short while which must elapse before his marriage with Caroline,
she and Davidina changed places domestically; and brother and
sister lived queerly together at the house adjoining the chapel; an
arrangement which, more than anything else could have done, decided Mr.
Trimblerigg that his engagement should be short.
Of course it was impossible from the first that Horeb should absorb
all his energies. He started at once as a mid-week missioner, first
among the neighbouring chapels of the connection, then going further
afield; and so as to avoid for the present the problem of an exchange
of pulpits with easier denominations contrary to the traditions of
True Belief, speaking in hired halls where connection did not count;
thus, without taking up the revolutionary standpoint, he began to sit
loose to the exclusiveness into which the True Believers had reduced
themselves, and to make himself known among the Free Churches.
He had passed his theological degree brilliantly; a brilliancy slightly
reduced in his own estimation by the fact that Miss Isabel Sparling had
tied with him for first place. Thus, except for the sex-barrier, her
qualification for the ministry was mathematically the same as his own.
Now among Free Believers the idea of women in the ministry had been
so unthought of that in their constitution there was no word against
it; and Mr. Trimblerigg was, by his outspoken advocacy of their claim
during his college career, a predestined champion of the cause.
He had not occupied his pulpit a month before Miss Isabel Sparling
reminded him. She asked for three things: that he would circulate a
Women’s Ministry petition to the Annual Conference for the signatures
of his congregation, that he would himself present the petition and
make an accompanying motion in his ministerial capacity, and that
meanwhile he would invite her as a lay-preacher to his own chapel.
Mr. Trimblerigg was of a divided mind: had the proposition at that
time been welcome among the Free Evangelicals, he could not have
wished for a better means of effecting a breach between himself and
the True Believers, when occasion was ripe for it. But among the Free
Evangelicals vacancies in the pastorate were not going begging as they
were among the True Believers; and for that and other reasons the rank
and file of Free Evangelicalism were either opposed or indifferent.
The question had indeed already been debated in that great body of
Free Churchmen, and they had decisively turned it down as inopportune.
The opposition ranged from support of the Pauline doctrine of womanly
silence in the assembly, to the argument that as they could not go
out as missionaries to be eaten by savages they had not a complete
qualification for ministerial office; and when some protested that
they were quite willing to take their chance of being eaten like the
rest, it was pointed out that savages did other things to women besides
eating them; at which point it was considered that the discussion had
become unsuitable for open debate; and the previous question was moved
and carried.
After considering the matter for awhile, therefore, Mr. Trimblerigg
decided to plead his youth and inexperience. It was the only time
that he ever did so; as a rule he revelled in the sense of freedom
attaching to both, finding inexperience quite as valuable as youth in
the formation of those momentary opinions on which he ran his career.
Tentatively, however, as a sop to self-approbation he put the matter to
his own chapel-members,--did they wish to have a woman come and preach
to them? The shade of Uncle Phineas presided over the gathering: they
were startled--emphatically they did not.
Mr. Trimblerigg, fortified by this verdict, told Miss Sparling
that being nothing if not democratic, and his own local democracy
having decided against it, he could go no further at present in that
particular direction; but that in his own time and in his own way he
would work for the enlargement of popular opinion, and as soon as he
saw an opening resume advocacy of the cause.
Thereupon ensued a long dispute between Mr. Trimblerigg and Miss
Sparling as to what ‘democracy’ really meant. Was democracy, in matters
spiritual, the will of a single congregation or community, or of the
whole Church Militant? Mr. Trimblerigg said that democracy was merely
what you could make it, a thing not of theory but of practice; and the
whole Church Militant being highly divided on party lines, democracy
was divided also.
Miss Sparling then created an argumentative diversion by asking,
‘Why did you kiss me when you converted me to True Belief?’ And
thereafter the duel which went on between them was mainly upon those
two questions--what democracy meant, and what the kiss had meant.
Mr. Trimblerigg gave to both alike a spiritual and a brotherly
interpretation. Whereupon Miss Sparling adumbrated a letter in which
he had signed his name with five crosses after it: what did the five
crosses mean? Mr. Trimblerigg said that they stood for an unfinished
communication--unfinished for lack of time; and that educated people
called them ‘asterisks.’ Miss Sparling refused to be so educated, and
thenceforward was his enemy.
In the holiday season she took lodgings in the neighbourhood, and
became a member of his congregation. Mr. Trimblerigg found that he
could no longer preach and pray freely, while Isabel Sparling sat with
her eye upon him, saying ‘Amen’ in a loud voice whenever he came to
a full stop, pretending to think then that his prayer had finished.
Thus by attacking his nerves she destroyed his spiritual efficiency.
Constantly he received letters which he did not answer.
She followed him up on weekdays also, attended his mission services in
the neighbouring villages and towns; and though he had ceased to speak
to her, was to be seen following him at a few paces distance, as though
somehow he belonged to her.
Mr. Trimblerigg walked fast, and sometimes, on turning a corner, ran to
get quit of her. One day, in front of his gate, she was seen to make
five crosses in the mud, indicative of an unfinished communication. She
left it at that.
In desperation he was driven at last to consult Davidina, who had
remained silently aware of what was going on, amused but saying nothing.
Davidina asked how many crossed letters she had had from him. Only one,
he assured her. ‘One may be enough,’ was her comment, which he did not
deny.
Davidina thought awhile, then said:
‘Have you forbidden her the house?’
‘She has never come.’
‘If you forbade it, she would.’
‘Then I won’t.’
‘You had much better. Tell her that you are in to-morrow between four
and five, and that you will not see her.’
‘And what if she comes?’
‘You have only got to be out; I’ll see to her myself. It’s a
pathological case, and the sooner you get married the better.’
For once he trusted her; and as Davidina arranged it, so the thing
happened. Miss Sparling called; Davidina opened the door, and said,
in reply to inquiry, that Mr. Trimblerigg was out. Miss Sparling, not
believing her, walked in. Davidina requested her curtly but civilly to
walk out again; and when she refused, closed the door and fell upon her.
In the struggle that ensued Miss Sparling was no match for Davidina.
Within two minutes her bosom was rifled of its guilty contents, and so
far as written documents were concerned Mr. Trimblerigg’s reputation
was safe again; that is to say Davidina had it in her keeping.
She explained her course of action quite coolly to the flabbergasted
Isabel: ‘You forced my door; I forced your buttons. Now we are equals;
you’d better go.’
She opened the door again as she spoke. Eye to eye they looked at each
other; then Miss Sparling walked out. And as Davidina watched her
depart, she said to herself, ‘I wonder whether she’s going to be the
making of him?’
Davidina had got it firmly into her head that it was better to provide
Jonathan with enemies than with friends. She saw that popularity might
be the ruin of him; it was sisterly partiality which made her think
that unpopularity would be a corrective.
In the event Isabel had the making of him in a direction that Davidina
could never have dreamed.
When Mr. Trimblerigg came home, creeping in by the back way after dark,
Davidina presented him with the letter ending in five crosses, saying
that Miss Sparling had left it for him.
‘Have you read it,’ he inquired uncomfortably.
‘No; did you want me to?’ said Davidina in a calculated tone of
surprise.
He could not quite credit her with not having read it; but it was a
great comfort to pretend she had not read it, and to have the pretence
shared.
And if a human can understand that state of mind he will understand a
good deal of the mind of Mr. Trimblerigg.
Mr. Trimblerigg as soon as he was alone, read the letter carefully
through. He remembered the occasion of it, but had forgotten the actual
phrasing; he was astonished at its moderation.
‘I don’t believe she could ever have used it!’ he exclaimed to
himself. Then he put it into the fire and watched it burn; and as he
did so, he remembered Davidina’s advice: ‘The sooner you get married’
(meaning to Caroline) ‘the better.’
It may be--I am not quite sure--that this was what really decided him
to marry Caroline. His feelings toward Caroline had undergone, since
his uncle’s death, not a revulsion, but a diminution. He had begun to
have his doubts whether he was the right husband for her; if she could
find another and a better, he did not wish to be selfish. There were
episodes in their courtship which had disappointed him; she was still
pleasant to touch; but her mind was the sort which seemed only capable
of responding with a ‘just so’ to whatever was said to it: equable,
comfortable, and contented, but not stimulating.
Like a soft cushion, leaning on which you leave an impression, and
the mark stays for awhile then slowly effaces itself, so she. Looking
ahead he could see the sort of wife and mother that she would be; and
if ever it should chance that one of her children were taken from her,
or if he himself were to die young--she would be more like a mother cow
separated from its milk than from its calf. Caroline was uneventful.
It was not an exciting prospect to look forward to. Nevertheless--and
perhaps Miss Sparling had something to do with it--within a year of his
uncle’s death, Jonathan Trimblerigg married Caroline.
And Davidina, out of her newly inherited wealth, gave them £100 to
start their housekeeping; returning herself to the parental roof, where
she stayed till a couple of years later Mr. and Mrs. Trimblerigg senior
shared an influenza and died in the same week, and in the same bed.
After that, for some while Mr. Trimblerigg was comfortably rid of her.
She developed a craze for travelling. But regularly every year, when a
new child was born to them, Davidina sent them a present of £20.
CHAPTER TEN
_He Rides for a Fall_
It would not have been well for Mr. Trimblerigg--for his training as an
adept in the art of getting on--had his early ministerial career been
entirely without obstacles. Had circumstances not kept him on the jump,
his native agility might possibly have diminished; but from the very
beginning obstacles presented themselves, and they were not all of one
kind.
The first which confronted him was intellectual and temperamental. It
had been all very well in his early novitiate to act as occasional
lay-preacher to that sect of rigid Believers with bottle-necked minds;
a callow and undogmatic theology was then permissible. But now, being
called to the ministry, he must get to the heart of things, and let his
light shine there. True Believers expected it; and elders from afar,
men placed in authority, came to listen to this young and rising hope
of a diminished community, in order to discover whether his oratory had
weight and substance, or was merely words.
It was Mr. Trimblerigg’s fixed intention to get himself driven out of
that narrow communion so soon as he could afford it; but meantime he
had to maintain the verbal verities of the faith, a difficult matter
when his ministry extended to three discourses a week, two on the
Sabbath and one every Wednesday.
For awhile he kept himself going on the Song of Songs, the literal
interpretation of which provided him with poetic flights and passages
of local colour congenial to his youthful temperament. Poetry in the
pulpit was a new thing. His spiritual interpretations of love attracted
the courting couples of the neighbourhood; youth flocked to hear him,
with occasional results which made the watchful elders uneasy. It is
true that on Sunday evenings the chapel was always crowded, but his
congregation of youths and maidens, coming from a distance, showed more
punctuality in arriving than in returning home; and now and then, as a
consequence, marriages had to be hasty.
Before long Mr. Trimblerigg’s Watch Committee called upon him to talk
less of love, with its bundles of myrrh, its vineyards and gardens
of spice, and to concentrate a little more on those starker and
more characteristic verities of the faith--sin, death, judgment and
damnation.
Under this doctrinal pressure Mr. Trimblerigg became futurist. He
started a course on the literal interpretation of prophecy. It was
a branch of theology which the modern school of Free Evangelicalism
had neglectfully allowed to go out of fashion, fearing perhaps what
definite repudiation might involve. Here Mr. Trimblerigg saw his way.
Unfulfilled prophecy had this advantage: it could always be apprehended
and never disproved. Also the sleeping atavisms of human nature
favoured it; just as they favour palmistry and table-turning, and the
avoidance of going under ladders or looking at the new moon through
glass. When these currents of instinctive credulity are wisely drawn
into the service of religion they may do great things. And so it was
that Mr. Trimblerigg made a slight mistake when without meaning to do
great things in his present connection, he let himself go.
Before he had realized the danger, his chapel became full to
overflowing; crowds far larger than it would hold waited at the door;
and through that, and through windows set wide, his word went forth
into the world and stirred it more than he wished it to be stirred.
Reporters came to listen to him; Free Evangelicals of the older school
wobbled and came over; and while his own congregations increased,
down at the larger chapel below Grandfather Hubback’s diminished, and
relations became strained.
This was not what Mr. Trimblerigg had intended; meaning only to
temporize he had exalted himself to a height from which it would
be difficult, when the time came for it, to make an unconspicuous
descent. He did not wish his ministry among the True Believers to
remain memorable; but when upon the platform the word came to him with
power, it was very difficult to refrain. It was also very difficult
to remember afterwards what he had actually said: Mr. Trimblerigg had
too much verbal inspiration of a momentary kind. If this sort of thing
went on long, he might establish a record against himself fatal to his
future career.
The Free Evangelicals were beginning to feel sore; the door which he
wished kept open for him in a friendly spirit, might narrow, might even
close against him in the day of his need.
And then two things happened which he turned briskly to account.
The first was an invitation from the Synod of True Believers to deliver
the set discourse at the Annual Congress.
It was a great, an unexpected, and an embarrassing honour; for the
set discourse, by unwritten tradition, was always given in defiance
of modern theology and in defence of the literal interpretation of
Scripture.
If he did this to the satisfaction of the True Believers, his secession
to the Ministry of Free Evangelicalism in the immediate future would
become almost impossible.
But Mr. Trimblerigg, though his other virtues might be fleeting or
fluctuating, had a nimble courage which stayed fixed. After humbly and
fervently informing me of his intention, under the guise of a request
for guidance, he accepted the invitation and sat down to write the
thesis which precipitated his career two years ahead of the course he
had planned for it.
The second circumstance, embarrassing but helpful to the same end, was
the reappearance of Isabel Sparling, heading a deputation of women who,
feeling called to the ministry, now saw an opportunity which they were
not going to let slip. As select preacher before the Assembly it was,
they told him, his bounden duty to crown his allegiance to their cause
in public advocacy of the ministration of women; and when he pleaded
that the literal interpretation of Scripture must be his theme, they
replied by requiring him to concentrate on the literal interpretation
of certain texts--mainly in the Old Testament--conclusive of their
claim.
In the discussion that followed, the deputation saw their opportunity
slipping away from them. Mr. Trimblerigg was willing to support their
cause, but only, as he said, ‘in his own time and in his own way.’ And
that time was not now, and his way was not theirs. Tempers grew hot,
words flew, the deputation went forth in dudgeon; Isabel Sparling gave
him a parting look; it meant business, it also meant mischief. She was,
he knew, a woman of high ability, and a determined character: and now,
on public and on private ground, she was become his enemy.
In the six months which intervened before the day of Congress, the
women’s spiritual movement broke into flame and heat, and they began
that phenomenal campaign of Church Militancy which has since made
history. They began by entering a motion for Congress in support of
their claim; but as women, though congregational electors, could not
sit in the Assembly, and as they could get no member to give his name
to their motion, it was ruled out of order and returned to them.
Then in the chapels of the True Believers the word of the Lord was
heard by the mouths of women; what Congress sought to silence, at
meeting they made known; they went forth in bands of three or four, or
sometimes they went solitary, and entering into the congregations like
lambs became as wolves.
When it seemed good to them that the preacher should end his prayer,
they cried ‘Amen’, and in the midst of his discourse they spoke as the
spirit gave them utterance. It was a demonstration that the gift of
prophecy, like murder, must out, and that if a place in order be not
found for it, it must come by disorder. So they presented their case,
by example and not by argument, and the congregations of True Belief
dealt with them, or tried to deal with them, in various ways painful or
persuasive, but none prevailed. For this phenomenon, they claimed, was
spiritual, and could only be cured spiritually in the granting of their
demand; while the coercion practised on them, being merely material,
must necessarily fail.
And so spiritually chaining themselves to their chairs, they were
materially carried out, and spiritually interrupting the eloquence
of others were materially suppressed under extinguishers which
deprived them of breath; and for what they truly believed to be their
unconquerable right True Belief could find no remedy.
From the moment when it had first sparkled into life, this sacred flame
had, of course, found at Mount Horeb an altar for its fires, and in
Mr. Trimblerigg a victim suited to its need. There Isabel Sparling
came in person, for the first time openly, but afterwards in disguise,
and there they wrestled together for an eloquence which tried to be
simultaneous but failed. And though, with preparation and practice,
he did better against interruption than she, yet even there she beat
him; for if her remarks were disjointed and ejaculatory it did not much
matter, whereas for him sound alone was not sufficient, but he must
keep up the thread of his discourse, rise superior in eloquence as well
as in sense to the reiterated ‘Alleluias’ of Miss Sparling’s inspired
utterance, and all the while put a Christian face upon the matter,
which was the most difficult thing of all.
Three times was Miss Sparling cast forth from the midst of the
congregation, before the doorkeepers became efficient in penetrating
her disguise. The third time Mr. Trimblerigg, losing his temper, had
used what sounded like incitement to violence, and Miss Sparling
getting her leg broken, brought an action and obtained damages, fifty
pounds.
This was regarded by the movement as a great spiritual victory, and
a victory it was. The law of the land, finding that True Believers
had no fixed ritual of public worship, and that male members of its
congregations might preach or pray without comment when the spirit
moved them, acquitted Miss Sparling either of brawling or of conduct
conducive to a breach of the peace, and held responsible for the
damage those who had so ruthlessly ejected her. It admitted, however,
that they would be within their rights in keeping her out. This
for the future they did, and when, as her next spiritual exercise,
Miss Sparling returned and broke all the chapel windows as a way of
joining in worship, they got her sent to prison for it. There, still
led by the spirit, she hunger-struck and got out again; just too late
unfortunately to hear Mr. Trimblerigg deliver his sensational discourse
to the Annual Congress, a discourse to the force of which she had,
without knowing it, contributed: for six months of the women’s Church
Militancy had been enough to convince Mr. Trimblerigg that a connection
in which they had become active was one from which he himself must
sever.
And so, on the opening day of Congress, setting the note for all that
was to follow, Mr. Trimblerigg delivered his mercurial and magnetic
address on ‘The Weight of Testimony.’ Therein he upheld without a
quiver of doubt the verbal inspiration of Scripture; it was, he argued,
the true and literal setting forth of things actually said and done
by a chosen people finding their spiritual way and losing it; but in
that to-and-fro history of loss and gain many things were recorded for
our learning upon the sole testimony of men whose minds still stumbled
in darkness, and who, therefore, had not the whole truth in them;
but where their fallible testimony infallibly recorded by Scripture
actually began, or where it ended, was not a matter of inspiration at
all but of textual criticism, because in ancient Hebrew manuscripts
quotation marks were left out. Thus Holy Scripture, once written, had
become subject to vicissitudes at the hands of expurgators, emendators,
and copyists, even as the sacred ark of the Covenant which, having at
one time fallen into the hands of the Philistines, and at another been
desecrated by the polluting touch of Uzzah, was finally carried away
in triumph to pagan Rome, and there lost.
Having thus shown how the most sacred receptacles of the Divine purpose
were not immune from the accidents of time, he drew and extended his
parallel, and from this, his main thesis, proceeded to give instances,
and to restore quotation marks as an indication of where textual
criticism might be said to begin and inspiration to end.
Before long holy fear like a fluttered dove fleeing from a hawk had
entered that assembly, and beards had begun to shake with apprehension
as to what might come next.
Mr. Trimblerigg warmed to his work; his sensations were those of a
fireman who, in order to display his courage and efficiency in the
fighting of flames, has set a light to his own fire-station; and while
it crackles under his feet, he strikes an attitude, directs his hose
and pours out a flood of salvation.
When he started to give his instances, their devastating effect was all
that he could desire. He tackled Joshua’s command to the sun to stand
still, restored the quotation marks, pointed out how in that instance
Holy Scripture had expressly referred it back to its only authority,
the Book of Jassher: and how the Book of Jassher being outside the
canon of Scripture was of no standing to impose its poetic legends on
the mind of a True Believer. Why then, it might be asked, had reference
been made to it at all? He adumbrated a prophetic significance, a
spiritual value, to which by that parable the human race was afterwards
to attain.
Joshua’s command to the sun now found its true address in the human
heart, and the reason why Scripture had recorded it at so early a date
was in order that it might find fulfilment and illustration in that
greater Scripture uttered upwards of a thousand years later by St. Paul
in his Epistle to the Ephesians, ‘Let not the sun go down upon your
wrath.’ That was the true meaning of Joshua’s command for those who
read Scripture, not by picking at it in parts, but by reading it as it
ought to be read as one great harmonious, consistent, homogeneous, and
indivisible whole.
On that uplifting string of adjectives Mr. Trimblerigg stopped to
breathe, and his hearers breathed with him loud and deep.
That answering sound, whatever it might mean, gave Mr. Trimblerigg
the poetic push which the gasp of a listening audience always
supplied, ‘Yea, I say unto you, yea!’ he cried, and paused. He was
in deep waters, he knew; so, breaking into an eloquent passage about
ships--ships at sea, ships that pass in the night, ships that have
Jonahs on board, ships that cling to the anchor, and ships that have no
anchor wherewith to cling, ships of the desert seeking for water and
finding none, ships that making for the North Pole stick fast in ice,
yet continue moving toward their destined goal, ships that go out like
ravens and return no more, ships that come home like doves to roost
carrying their sheaves with them--so experimenting on wings of poesy in
that seaward direction to which, though he had never been there, his
pulpit oratory so often carried him, he almost succeeded, or almost
seemed to succeed, in carrying his audience with him; for indeed it is
very difficult, when beautiful spiritual similes are being uttered, for
an audience to remain cold and critical, and remind itself that figures
of speech have nothing to do with sound doctrine.
It is also difficult when a speaker speaks with so much beauty
and fervour and imaginative mimicry, as on this occasion did Mr.
Trimblerigg, not to see him as he sees himself; for the self-hypnotism
of the orator is a catching thing--and nations have often been caught
by it to their destruction, and churches to heresy almost before they
knew.
But the True Believers, though momentarily moved, were not carried
away; and when Mr. Trimblerigg returned to his instances his audience
was still against him.
He took the characters of the Hebrew prophets and examined them; he
showed that the sins and shortcomings of Eli’s judgeship, for which
Eli had been condemned, were reproduced under the judgeship of Samuel
when he, in his turn, grew old, and that it was really only as Samuel’s
own word for it that the people stood condemned in asking for a King.
Holy Scripture had truly recorded that incident; but was Samuel, the
ineffective ruler whose sons took bribes and perverted judgment, was he
a witness altogether above suspicion when his own deposition from power
was the question to be decided on? And so round the testimony of Samuel
he put quotation marks, and relieved Scripture of the burden of that
unjust judgment the approval of which was Samuel’s, and Samuel’s alone.
And then he took Elisha and the cursing of the children, and the
she-bears tearing of them, and there, too, he restored the quotation
marks. He threw no doubt upon the incident, but its reading as a moral
emblem was the reading of Elisha, and the tearing of the forty-two
children had found its interpretation in the wish of the prophet
misreading it as the will of God. Other instances followed: there with
the testimony of Scripture before him, stood Mr. Trimblerigg inserting
quotation marks for the restoration of its morals, dividing the sheep
from the goats, trying to show where inspiration ended and where
textual criticism began.
Judged by outside standards it was not a learned discourse, even Mr.
Trimblerigg would not have claimed that for it; but it was vivacious
and eloquent, and not lacking in common sense; and as common sense was
preeminently the quality for which in relation to the interpretation
of Scripture the True Believers had no use, the result was a foregone
conclusion.
When he had finished Mr. Trimblerigg sat down to a dead silence,
and the presiding minister rose. Deeply, bitterly, unsparingly Mr.
Trimblerigg’s thesis was there and then condemned as utterly subversive
of the revealed Word. More than that, Congress by a unanimous vote
expunged it from the record of its proceedings; not by the most
diligent search in the archives of True Belief will any reference to
Mr. Trimblerigg’s address on ‘the Weight of Testimony’ be found.
But the discourse had done its work, and Mr. Trimblerigg knew that he
left the Congress theologically free for the new-shaping of his career.
It was true that the Chapel of Mount Horeb, with house attached, was
still his own; but within a week the stipend pertaining thereto had
been withdrawn, and the Trustees, believing themselves to be deprived
of the chapel, had already begun the hire of temporary premises.
But Mr. Trimblerigg’s instinct did not play him false; and when
acknowledging his dismissal at the hands of the Trustees he informed
them that the chapel was still open to them, free of charge and without
condition. He was sure, he said, that this was what his uncle would
have wished.
And having done all this, he felt that he had committed a great act of
faith; he felt also that he had done at last something which could not
fail to win the admiration of Davidina.
Davidina was not herself a True Believer; but she had done him the
compliment to come from a distance to hear his discourse; and much he
wanted to know what she thought of it. There was the added circumstance
that she had a direct interest--not theological but financial--in
the severance which had now taken place, and it was with elated
curiosity that he looked her in the eyes--with a look more straight and
unembarrassed than he could usually muster--to see how she had taken it.
He found her waiting for him outside.
‘Well, what d’you think of that?’ he inquired.
‘I think you’d have made a wonderful jockey,’ she replied. ‘You’d have
made your fortune.’
‘Jockey?’ he said, puzzled. ‘I didn’t exactly pull it off this time, at
any rate.’
‘No,’ she replied. ‘Did you mean to?’
‘Yes; I did my best.’
‘That I’m sure.’
‘How d’you define a jockey?’ he asked uneasily, irritated by her fixed
abstention from further comment.
‘There’s your own definition,’ she said, ‘you wrote it in a school
essay. I kept it because I thought it was good. I won’t spoil it; I’ll
send it you.’
And the next day the essay, which he had entirely forgotten, written in
a round boyish hand, reached him by post.
‘A jockey,’ he read, ‘is one who had trained himself from early years
in the dangerous and delicate art of falling from a horse.’
Accompanying it was a cheque for a hundred pounds. ‘No wonder!’ said
Mr. Trimblerigg, ‘she feels that she owes me something now.’ For by what
he had just done he was giving her the right, twelve years hence, to
continue as main beneficiary under the will of Uncle Phineas.
Nevertheless he was pleased that he had pleased her. It was almost the
first time he had known it happen. Davidina’s opinion of him counted
much more than he liked. All his growing years he had tried to escape
from her, and still he had failed.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
_Scene-shifting_
Mr. Trimblerigg’s fall from the grace of true Belief--or from the good
graces of the True Believers--had a famous reverberation in the Free
Church Press; and at the age of twenty-four he became for the time
being--next to the great Dr. Giffard himself--the most controversially
talked-of person among the high lights of Nonconformity.
For just at that time the Free Churches had nothing on which to grit
their teeth, and badly wanted a new bone. The New Theology of Dr.
Ramble had come almost to nothing: its author had deserted it upon
the door-step of the more ancient faith into which he had retired;
and the fight about it had died down. But here was a fight, not more
suddenly sprung than ended; and in a single round this young Jonathan
of a David had been knocked out by the older Goliath. The common
sympathies were with him, for the True Believers were not a popular
sect; a time had come when it was generally felt that they were doing
harm rather than good by an insistence on the literal truth of things
which no one really believed. Nevertheless many old school Free
Evangelicals considered that Mr. Trimblerigg’s method of attack had
been inconsiderate and rash; for if one started to put quotation marks
round everything one did not wish to accept, where would the process
end? The world still believed in punishment for the wicked; Samuel and
Elisha stood high among the prophets; and if harvests were not liable
to be cursed for a nation’s sins, how then consistently could they--or
alterations in the weather--be prayed for? As for the tearing of the
she-bears, in primitive times primitive punishments were not regarded
as they are now. Besides, as somebody pointed out in the correspondence
which followed in _The Rock of Ages_, the she-bears may only have torn
them slightly though sufficiently, killing none; merely teaching them
to behave better in the future.
But though then, as always, Mr. Trimblerigg’s plunges in exegesis
provoked criticism, they had at least abundantly released him from the
restricting inhibitions of True Belief, and the way to wider pulpits
now lay open.
And then in the very nick of time, on a Saturday night of all days
and hours in the week, Grandfather Hubback was taken ill, and Mr.
Trimblerigg, who had been much in doubt where to go for his next
Sunday’s worship, came down at short notice and preached at Bethesda so
beautifully, so movingly, and in so charitable and resigned a spirit,
that there was no question of asking anyone else to come the following
Sunday and take his place.
And so, informally, with the goodwill of a congregation where he
was native and known, Mr. Trimblerigg became temporary preacher to
the Free Evangelicals; and when, after a six weeks’ illness, Pastor
Hubback died, Mr. Trimblerigg was congregationally recommended to take
his place; and after a certain amount of prayer, deliberation, and
inquisition before a Committee, in answering which Mr. Trimblerigg
found no difficulty at all, his ministerial status was confirmed and
the appointment made.
In the month following, to make it as easy as might be for the faithful
at Horeb to find and accommodate a new pastor, Mr. Trimblerigg
moved his wife, family, and furniture to the larger abode of his
late grandfather. But though the chapel was then left to them free
of charge, and the house at a fair rental, the True Believers of
the locality thenceforth dwindled to a small remnant; while the
congregation at Bethesda increased and multiplied.
Mr. Trimblerigg, however, had made his exit so handsomely that though
henceforth a suspended and disconnected minister (for the fiat of the
Synod had gone forth against him to that effect) there was nevertheless
between him and his old congregation a certain measure of goodwill;
those who parted from him parted with regret; a few, younger members
mostly, came out and followed him.
In that matter, indeed, more followed him than he could have wished;
for no sooner had he been cut off from the communion of True Belief,
than it became evident that in that narrow and reactionary following
the woman’s ministry propaganda had not a dog’s chance of success.
Possibly also, with him out of it, the sect ceased to attract the
forward spirits of feminism. Whatever the cause, within a few weeks
the agitation, so far as True Belief was concerned, died the death;
but unfortunately came to life elsewhere, more vigorously and more
abundantly than ever.
The long struggle of women, in the broad fold of Free Evangelicalism,
to obtain sex-equality is not to be told here. Its main importance,
so far as we are concerned, is the effect it had on the career of Mr.
Trimblerigg. The recrudescence of Isabel Sparling and her followers in
congregations drawn together by his growing reputation as a preacher
became a sad impediment to the flow of his oratory. The manifestations
were epidemic through all the loosely-knit communions of the Free
Churches; but against himself they were directed with a personal
animus of which only he and Isabel Sparling knew the full inwardness.
For public purposes it was sufficient that, after first disclaiming
all further obligation to their cause--since only in the bonds of True
Belief had he stood fully committed thereto--he now sought to postpone
the question of their admission until the corporate union of the Free
Churches, and a few other reforms (Disestablishment amongst others),
on which he had set his heart, had been accomplished. A piecemeal
extension of the ministerial function to women would, he maintained,
have a disturbing and a disuniting effect on communions which he sought
to draw together in closer bonds of brotherhood. ‘I am in favour of
it,’ he said (to the deputations which continued to wait on him), ‘but
I am not so much in favour of it, as of other and more fundamental
things which must come first.’
Fundamental: the word kindled in the hearts of women who had felt that
fundamental call of the spirit, a flame of resentment that crackled and
spread. Who was he, who was anybody to dictate times and seasons, when
the signs of that spiritual outpouring were here and now?
And so there was War in all the Free Churches which strove to fulfil
themselves under the ministry of one sex alone; and Mr. Trimblerigg’s
prayers and preachings were in consequence broken into shorter
paragraphs than was good for them.
But the violence with which those spiritual interruptions were carried
out could not go on for ever; it was not in human, it was not in
heavenly nature to utter messages born of the spirit with the drilled
regularity and mechanism of a firing-squad. The things they said lacked
conviction, did not come from their hearts or their heads, but only
from their tongues and their tempers; and when in certain selected
cases, Mr. Trimblerigg was inspired to pause so that they might speak
as the spirit gave them utterance, the spirit left them badly in the
lurch, they faltered and became dumb. For Isabel Sparling had enlisted
in her cause many who were the poorest of poor speakers and had no wish
whatever to become ministers; and when these heard themselves speak
to a congregation which was artfully prevailed upon to listen they
trembled and were afraid, and felt themselves fools.
And so, for a while, in his own particular congregation, it almost
seemed that Mr. Trimblerigg was on the way to restore order and recover
the undivided attention of his audiences.
But once again the pin-prick policy of Isabel Sparling got the better
of him; and in the third year of her Church Militancy, forces of a new,
a more placid, and a more undefeatable type were let loose against him.
They came, they behaved themselves, they said not a word, cloven
tongues of inspiration no longer descended upon them; but in the most
moving passage of prayer or sermon, they would feel imperatively moved
to get up and go. And with much deprecatory fuss and whispered apology,
always from the centre of a well-occupied row--they would go forth and
presently return again, finding that they had left book, or handbag, or
handkerchief behind them, or that they had taken away their neighbour’s
in mistake for their own. And it was all so politely and apologetically
done that everybody, except the preacher, had to forgive them.
And so it came about that after Mr. Trimblerigg had been at Bethesda
for a little more than two years, he accepted with alacrity a post at
the Free Evangelical centre for the organization of foreign missions.
And when he went out to preach it was at short notice here, there and
everywhere, where the sedulous attentions of Miss Isabel Sparling and
her followers had not time to overtake him.
That great work of organization, and the addressing of meetings for men
only, gave his energies the outlet, the flourish, and the flamboyance
which they imperatively demanded; and while he discovered in himself
a head for business and a leaning toward speculative finance, in
the great Free Evangelical connection his spiritual and oratorical
reputation continued to grow.
And meanwhile, in his domestic circumstances, Mr. Trimblerigg was
living an enlarged life and doing well. His wife had presented him with
three children; and he in return, by moving them from a remote country
district of primitive ways to one of the big centres of civilization,
had presented her with a house containing a basement and a bathroom.
The basement enabled them to keep a servant; while the bathroom--a
matter of more importance--enabled me to obtain a clearer view (which
is not quite the same as a complete explanation), of Mr. Trimblerigg’s
character.
CHAPTER TWELVE
_Theory and Practice_
It is as a rule (though not always) when men are not under the
observation of others, that they most surely reveal themselves. Word
and face and gesture are not then the concealment which at other times
they may become; and though when a man talks or gesticulates to himself
he is often very far from telling the truth, he is generally near to
revealing it.
And that, I suppose, is why writers of fiction have so generally taken
the impossible liberty of following their characters into places of
solitude and the privacy of their own thoughts; and from this godlike
vantage-ground have pulled the strings of their puppets, imposing upon
the reader a shoddy romanticism which pretends to be science.
But the gods can very seldom gaze into the secrecy of the things they
have made, with so omniscient and cocksure a spirit. Between mortal
man and his maker there is a remove which sometimes baffles each
alike. Free-will, inside a fixed radius of determined environment,
creates an obscurity. The outer integument, the limited viewpoint, the
competing interests and motives, which go to make up one of those small
self-centred individualities called man, are often obstructive to the
larger and more serene intelligence which accompanies the spiritual
standpoint; and I confess that in his privacy Mr. Trimblerigg used
often to puzzle me.
It was seeing the puzzle at work--putting itself elaborately together,
then pulling itself to pieces again--which gave me the clearer view;
though it remained a puzzle still. But it was something to discover,
suddenly and unexpectedly, that Mr. Trimblerigg had a passion for
sincerity--towards himself at any rate--which took him to strange
lengths; and though I recount what came under my observation, I do not
pretend that I am able to explain it.
It was my privilege, more frequently at this particular point of his
career than ever before, to see Mr. Trimblerigg take his bath; a
function which, so far as his wife and the outside world knew, took
place every morning of his life. It is more accurate to say that he
went to the bathroom every morning, and that every morning, to anyone
who cared to listen, the sounds of a bath being taken came through the
door.
Mr. Trimblerigg had committed himself to the bath-habit with
characteristic enthusiasm from the day when, with enlarged means, he
found himself in a house containing a bathroom. But the house did
not--in the first instance at any rate--contain a hot-water system;
except on occasions of special preparation the baths remained cold.
But Mr. Trimblerigg’s tenancy began in the summer quarter, when cold
baths are almost as much a pleasure as a virtue. He was young, robust,
vigorous, a preacher of the strenuous life; and facilities for the
daily cold bath having come his way, he first boldly proclaimed his
faith, and then got into it.
His faith carried him on, even when colder weather made it a trial;
and often it was beautiful to see, after a timid bird-like hovering on
the brink, how boldly he would plunge in, and with pantings and rapid
spongings cross the rubicon of agony which leads to the healthy glow of
a stimulated circulation.
On these occasions he would be very proud of himself, and standing
before the glass gaze with approval on the ruddy blush which suffused
his body and limbs under the hard rubbings of the towel. But a day came
when he quailed and could not bring himself to get in at all; for the
bath-habit was not in his blood as it is in the blood of those who have
had a public-school training. The hill-side-chapel clan from which he
sprang bathed only on the day of its baptism, or medicinally at the
order of a doctor; and early habit, or the lack of it, counts with
people as they grow older. So now there was controversy between Mr.
Trimblerigg and his bath.
He tried it first with his hand, then with his foot: then he drew a
breath and said ‘Brrrr!’ loudly and resolutely, and continued saying it
as he drove the water up and down the bath with his sponge. He splashed
it artfully across the wooden splash-board, and down on to the floor;
he dipped his feet and made wet marks on the bath-mat, and all the
while he spluttered and panted, and at intervals stirred the bath-water
to and fro, and round and round with his sponge. Then he stood in front
of the glass and rubbed himself hard with his towel until he felt quite
warm, until his body glowed with a similar glow to that which followed
an actual bathing. And, as he did so, he looked at himself roguishly in
the glass; and shaking his head at himself--‘Naughty boy!’ he said.
He was quite frank about it--to himself; and when he had done the same
trick several times, as the mornings remained cold, he gave himself
what he called ‘a good talking to.’
‘You are getting fat!’ he said, ‘you are getting self-indulgent; you
want whipping!’ And so saying he let out at himself two or three quite
hard flicks with the towel--flicks that hurt.
It was a new invention for the establishment of pleasant relations
between his comic and his moral sense; and when occasion required he
repeated it. That little bit of self-discipline always restored his
self-esteem, leaving his conscience without a wound; and he would come
out of the bathroom feeling as good as gold, and sometimes would even
remark to his wife how fresh a really cold bath on a frosty morning
made one feel. And she would assent quite pleasantly, only begging him
not to overdo it; whereupon he would explain how constant habit hardens
a man even to the extremities of water from an iced cistern. And who,
to look at her, would have any suspicion that she did not entirely
believe him?
But on more than one occasion on very cold mornings, when Mr.
Trimblerigg was safely downstairs, I have seen her go into the bathroom
and inspect, with a woman’s eye for details: appraise the amount of
moisture left in the towel, and various other minute points for the
confirmation of her hope that he was not overdoing it. And when she
has quite satisfied herself, I have seen her smile and go on down to
breakfast, a good contented soul, full of the comfortable assurances
wives often have, that though husbands may be clever in their way, to
see through them domestically is not difficult.
Later on, when Mr. Trimblerigg moved to a house efficiently supplied
with a hot-water system, his baths were taken daily, but they were not
always cold ones; and though he still pretended that they were, the
modifications were so various and so habitual, that he left off saying
‘naughty boy!’ when he looked at himself in the glass. Also, when he
really did begin to become chubby he left off telling himself that he
was getting fat. Sometimes he would look at himself a little sadly,
and in order to avoid the moral conclusion that you cannot have the fat
things of life without the adipose tissue, preferred to reflect that
he was ‘getting middle-aged,’ which was still ten years away from the
truth.
But the sadness was only momentary; he had so good an opinion of
himself that he was almost always cheerful, and easy to get on with.
And if after he had turned thirty he did begin to become a little ball
of a man, he kept the ball rolling with energy. The amount of work he
could do, and do happily, was phenomenal; and under his stimulus the
foreign mission work of the Free Evangelicals grew and flourished.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
_A Virtuous Adventure_
Nobody who has followed this narrative with any intelligence
can suppose that Mr. Trimblerigg was a man who did not have his
temptations. What happened when he immersed Davidina in the stream
without intending it, what happened when he did not immerse himself in
the bath on a cold morning, has been faithfully told. But what he did
to Davidina had hurt him far more than what he did to himself. It had
hurt him because Davidina had found him out, and then had not allowed
him to explain.
He liked explaining. Explaining always made him feel right again with
his own conscience. Even the look of understanding which he exchanged
with himself in the glass, after some involuntary reversion to type,
was sufficient as a rule to restore him to his own good opinion. To
explain things, therefore, which generally meant to explain them away,
was spiritual meat and drink to him.
But there were two people in the world to whom he very seldom explained
anything: his wife, the quiet Caroline, who understood so little that
it was not worth while; and his sister Davidina who understood so much
that it was dangerous.
And between these two Guardian angels--who should have been his
confidantes, but were not--he led a life of temptations. Not gross, or
serious in kind, or extreme in degree, but temptations none the less,
and all having their root in a very laudable trait of his character,
his abounding love of adventure.
All his life Mr. Trimblerigg had been respectable: when he married he
had no bachelor episodes to conceal from his wife, except perhaps that
sixpenny sale of a kiss to Lizzie Seebohm, of which he had ceased to
be proud, and his temporary infatuation for Isabel Sparling which had
afterwards so embarrassed him. And this rectitude of conduct was not
for lack of opportunity or inclination; for women attracted him and
he attracted them. Puritan training and Puritan ancestry had no doubt
something to do with it: the bath-habit which he had failed in his
youth to acquire materially, he had acquired spiritually.
And so also with other things. He had never drunk wine or spirits; only
once or twice a glass of beer, and that not for its potency or taste,
but because it had froth on the top, and he liked dipping his lips into
it. Surreptitiously, for the mere pleasure of concealment and doing it
with boys older than himself, he had smoked a pipe a few times before
becoming an adherent of True Belief, and he had not, upon escaping from
the confinement of its doctrine, relinquished the abstention which had
become a habit. Nor had he ever betted; though now, with a little money
to turn round in, he had begun to speculate; but that was different.
Finally he had never travelled.
In all these ways he, to whom change and adventure instinctively
appealed, had been cut off from adventure; and adventure--even when it
could not be called wrong--tempted him more than most people. To see
himself in a tight place, and get out of it, meant self-realization; to
find his way into unaccustomed circumstances, and fit them perfectly,
was intellectual and moral training of a stimulating kind. During his
days at College in the annual students’ rag on the Fifth of November,
a plot had been formed by the anti-feminists to make a Guy Fawkes of
him dressed as a woman preacher. And he had escaped by stealing a
policeman’s helmet, truncheon, and overcoat, which were all much too
large for him, and had then helped to batter the heads of the turbulent
crowd which was out seeking for him and breaking the windows of the
lodging-house where he was supposed to be.
That was a memory which he very much enjoyed: he had then drawn blood
for the first time and heard a skull crack under his inexpert handling
of the truncheon which a trained policeman only employs in the way of
kindness. His man had gone to hospital. And that was at a time, too,
when Mr. Trimblerigg considered himself a pacifist.
If the truth must be known he had more thoroughly enjoyed that brief
hour of a violent laying-on of hands than the subsequent day of his
ordination for which all the rest was a preparation. It had been more
of an adventure.
And there you have the key to the temptations of Mr. Trimblerigg.
Neither then, nor subsequently did he ever wish to do any man wrong;
but he did wish to experiment. And whether it was the thickness of
a fellow-student’s skull, or the rise and fall of a market, or the
gullibility of the common herd, or the pious employment of superstition
for high and noble ends, or his own susceptibility to a woman’s charm,
or hers the other way about--he never had any other aim or object,
or desire, except to experiment so that he might get to know and
manipulate human nature better, including his own. Life itself was for
him the great experiment.
And it so happened that at the very centre of his life was Caroline;
and Caroline was dull.
Therefore their marital relations were imperfect.
It struck him one day that Caroline would be more interesting if he
could make her jealous. Without giving her serious cause, he tried,
and failed. But, in the process of his experiment, he engaged the
affections of the instrument he employed much more than he intended.
It was a great nuisance. He had done everything to make such a
_dénouement_ unlikely; had chosen her indeed rather with a view to the
stupidity of Caroline than to the attraction he found in her. She was
rich, married, considerably older than himself, had in fact a grown-up
daughter and a husband who was then in the process of earning a title
for her and himself, together with a handsome retiring pension, in the
Indian Civil Service. She also had a motor-car which she could drive
independently of chauffeurs.
When he found that the affair had become serious he began avoiding her;
and being, as a pedestrian, the more agile of the two he might have
done it; but he could not avoid the motor-car. And so one day, having
gone to a distant town to preach and to stay the night, he found the
lady and the motor-car awaiting him at the chapel door, with an offer
to motor him back to town all in the day.
In that there seemed a hazardous sort of safety; tender passages while
on a high road and going at high speed, were compatible with virtue;
there was also a spice of adventure in it; a half-engagement that they
should meet abroad under platonic but unencumbered conditions, must now
probably either be renewed or broken; to renew it would, he thought, be
the safest way of temporizing with a situation which must end. Caroline
had no capacity for jealousy, and the affair was becoming ridiculous.
And so getting into the car, with four hours of daylight left, and a
hundred and fifty miles to go, Mr. Trimblerigg accommodated himself
to the situation that was soon to end, and renewed with a warm
asseveration of feelings that could not change.
They were still over fifty miles from their destination, and the
darkness of night had settled, when the spice of adventure increased
for Mr. Trimblerigg in a sudden shock. The car had irremediably and
unaccountably broken down in a way which its owner announced would
take hours to repair. They found themselves upon the outskirts of
a village to which the requirements of motorists had added a small
hotel; and before Mr. Trimblerigg could make up his own mind what to
do, his companion had taken command of the situation and made retreat
impossible, by entering in the visitors’ book a Mr. and Mrs. Somebody:
names not their own.
She had done this, while leaving him in charge of the car. They were
booked, he found, to stay for the night; and the accommodation was as
their names indicated.
Mr. Trimblerigg was not prepared to have a scene; but neither was he to
be coerced from the ways of virtue. If he ever left them it would be in
his own time and in his own way. And so presently, when they had dined
together very pleasantly, and when Mr. Trimblerigg, in order to restore
his sense of adventure, had experimented by taking wine, he simply
stepped out casually into the darkness of the night and did not return.
His suit-case he left as a prey to his lady of the situation now ended;
and walking to the nearest station, five miles away, waited there
rather miserably for a midnight train which brought him back in the
small hours to the virtuous side of his astonished Caroline.
He had a good deal to explain, including the absence of his suit-case;
which forced him to say things which were not all of them true. And
when next day the suit-case arrived ‘forwarded by request,’ addressed
on an hotel label to the name left in the visitors’ book, there
was a good deal more to explain; and for the first time Caroline
became jealous. But it did not make her more interesting; it took
the depressing form of a tearful resignation to the inevitable. She
supposed that he had become tired of her, which was true; she added,
less truthfully, that it was what she had always foreseen would happen,
when as a matter of fact her mind had never been sufficiently awake to
foresee anything so undomestic as suspicious circumstances pointing
toward divorce.
Being simple, she spent the rest of the day trimming herself a new
hat; at 6 p.m. she fortified herself in maternity by giving the three
children a hot bath before bed-time; and then, as it was the servant’s
evening out, she descended to the kitchen and made pancakes for Mr.
Trimblerigg’s supper; and sat to watch him eat them with her hair
unbecomingly tied up in a large pink bow.
These mild symptoms of jealousy expending itself in domestic steam,
ought to have interested him but did not. He merely recognized and
accepted the fact that Caroline’s jealousy was as unimportant as had
been her previous lack of it. Perhaps his mind was too preoccupied to
give it all the attention it deserved.
He was amazed by the return of the suit-case under a name not of his
own choosing; and yet somehow it raised the lady in his respect. For he
had in him a touch of the sportsman; and on being struck so shrewd a
blow, was quick to recognize that in going out into the night without
warning he had left behind him a situation difficult for the lady
to explain. He wondered how she had explained it, and was a little
fretted because he could not quite make things fit. All he saw clearly
was that the open forwarding of the suit-case by rail to name and
address, gave to it an air of _bona fide_ which might have served to
allay suspicion. But unless it was to avenge herself why had she given
the right address? Was it, he wondered, an unusual combination of
vindictiveness with plain horse common sense; a straight one in the eye
for him, and a bit of smart dodging for herself? If so, she was more
interesting than he had thought: that was just the sort of thing that
Isabel Sparling would have done. In that direction he was beginning to
have definite regrets.
So, after the pancakes, he sat and thought, while his wife, a mellow
picture of domesticity, bent under the lamplight darning his socks.
And then the evening post came and a letter, in a handwriting which he
knew and had hoped never to see again. It was very brief.
‘Whatever happened?’ it ran. ‘Did you get your suit-case?’
That beat him altogether; it interested, it bewildered him. His spirit
of adventure was suddenly revived; because it would be difficult, he
felt that he must go and explain--explain that he had suddenly seen
somebody at the hotel whom he recognized, and who would recognize
him, and that the only way of safety for both was instant flight. And
so, not because he loved her any more, or wished for a renewal of the
entanglement, but because he loved explaining himself out of difficult
situations, he felt that on the morrow or the day after, he would go
and see her again.
And though this particular episode here finds no further chronicle,
since thereafter it became in kind only one of many--suffice it to say
that, on the morrow, he did.
Just before bed-time, folding up her work, his wife, who had been
thinking her own thoughts quite quietly, looked across at him and said:
‘If you died before me, Jonathan, should you like me to wear widow’s
weeds until I married again?’
Mr. Trimblerigg was startled almost out of his skin. Had it come from
a woman of different character he would have found it a tremendous
utterance. But in another moment he saw that this was only Caroline,
Caroline composedly thinking aloud where other people did not.
‘Now that,’ replied Mr. Trimblerigg, ‘is a very interesting question.
But it is one which your second husband not I had better decide for
you.’
Caroline saw that she was being laughed at. But she had already
forgiven him. She kissed him, and went up to bed.
As the door closed behind her, Mr. Trimblerigg uttered a half-conscious
ejaculation. ‘O, God!’ he cried, ‘how dull, how dull you are!’
This personal remark, though it might seem otherwise, was really
addressed to his wife.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
_Spade Work_
The free evangelicals had long been honourably known for the extent and
zeal of their labours in the mission field. In Africa, in the larger
islands of the Pacific, and elsewhere, there were whole tracts from
which their spiritual competitors were cut out--districts of which they
had a practical monopoly. But in others, of recent years, the monopoly
had broken down.
Mr. Trimblerigg, with his shrewd eye for business, investigated the
cause, and found it. He discovered that a gospel-teaching which
would not go down in the modern world of civilization was the most
successful, being the most convincing, among the primitive races. And
though the missions of True Belief had everywhere dwindled for lack
of funds, they had nevertheless left their doctrines so firmly rooted
among certain tribes that those coming after had found it advisable
to take them over without much change or enlargement of view. For the
coloured races a form of faith divorced from reason was for practical
purposes the best. And so it became Mr. Trimblerigg’s work to persuade
into the mission field such minds among the Free Evangelicals as
tended most nearly to the doctrines of True Belief, and to head off as
unsuitable those of a more modernist tendency who were better suited
at home. And when, as sometimes happened, there was doctrinal war
among the missionaries themselves, Mr. Trimblerigg’s influence was
always subtly on the side of those who preached, as the true word of
revelation, those things which the natives accepted most easily and
liked best.
It was a point of view for which there is much to be said; for the
knowledge which comes to man mainly through his five senses, and
which has similarly to be passed on to others, cannot in the nature of
things be absolute knowledge; and directly that is granted and given
due weight, knowledge, even of things spiritual, has to adapt itself to
forms which bear a sort of proportion to the minds waiting to receive
it. And so under the stimulus of reports brought back from the mission
field, Mr. Trimblerigg developed his doctrinal thesis that truth is but
relative, thus anticipating in the spiritual world the discovery of
Einstein in the material.
It was a thesis which when first put forward provoked a great deal of
controversy; and many of the older school, for whose larger influence
in the mission field it had been practically designed, denounced it in
unmeasured terms as incompatible with Revelation and dangerous to the
integrity of the human conscience.
But it was such a convenient doctrine--especially for the establishment
of a _modus vivendi_ among missionaries--that it made its way; and
within ten years of Mr. Trimblerigg’s first lubricating touch to the
machinery put in his charge, the Free Evangelicals had redoubled
their efficiency in the old world and the new, by setting forth the
evidences of religion on two entirely different and incompatible lines,
and producing as a result forms of faith as diverse in complexion as
were the black and white faces of the respective communities to which
essential truth was thus made relative.
As a further result Mr. Trimblerigg brought about, more by accident
than by design, an informal alliance in missionary effort between True
Believers and Free Evangelicals. For out there in the mission fields
True Belief was now having won for it the battle which at home it
had lost; and by a strange irony the man most responsible for that
turn in its fortunes was he who, once its rising hope, had been so
uncompromisingly cast forth for a too-relative adherence to revealed
Truth.
One day word was brought to Mr. Trimblerigg that certain elders of True
Belief had been of a mind to search the Scriptures concerning him: and
the word had come, not inappositely--though open to different shades of
interpretation: ‘Cast thy bread upon the waters, and after many days
it shall return to thee.’ And it was reported that the said elders had
been impressed and had made a note of it.
Mr. Trimblerigg was pleased by the news, for it meant that a door still
stood open; and though he had no intention of passing through it again,
he liked it to be open. For he was now busy opening a door to them; and
theirs being open in return, they might eventually pass through it to
him. The idea of relegating the mission field definitely to True Belief
under an agreed coalition of the Churches began to attract him, for it
was becoming clear to him that among the mentally deficient True Belief
was the quickest and most effective way to conversion, if only it
could be made non-sectarian--a means rather than an end. He saw, with
speculative instinct that looked like faith, how a place might be found
for all on a plan of his own making. Thus the great fusion of the Free
Churches toward which he was working came a step nearer to practical
politics.
His work being the organization of missions, it was often his duty to
entertain missionaries. And as the best time of all, for establishing
confidential relations, was to meet them in friendly intimacy
immediately upon their arrival, it was beginning to be his practice to
invite as guest to his house any prominent missionary who had come
home on leave. Thus in the course of a few years the very cream of the
Free Evangelical mission world, and a few others from connections that
were friendly, passed through his hands.
It was from one of these latter that Mr. Trimblerigg received news of
the swift civilization that was taking place in parts scarcely heard
of as yet, owing to the beneficent efforts of certain missionary
centres not only to sow the seed of the faith but to develop the wealth
and resources of the fields in which they laboured. This particular
missioner was an optimist about his own districts. ‘In fifty years’
time,’ he said, ‘it will be for its size, the richest country outside
Europe and the States.’ And as its size was nearly half that of France
such a forecast suggested big possibilities.
He went on to tell with what prudent and fatherly care those in control
of the missions had headed off the rapacious traders and concession
hunters, who follow in the missionary’s track, by obtaining from the
native chiefs exclusive rights strategically based upon the routes
of trade, such for instance as the building of landing-stages at the
junction of rivers, and the setting up of white settlements on the high
table-lands of the interior.
As a consequence the economic future of the country was controlled,
not indeed by the missionary society itself, but by a humane-minded
organization of business interests working with and through it. And
under this happy co-operation the Native Industries Company in the Ray
River territory to the north of Puto-Congo (not then the familiar name
it has become since) had opened up commercial relations at the cost of
only a few score thousand pounds, which in the near future might be
worth millions. They were already paying an interest on shares which
compared favourably with larger ventures of longer date; and as the
total number of shares was comparatively small, they offered to early
investors a great future.
And so Mr. Trimblerigg, who had a taste for speculative transfer, sold
out and reinvested a few hundred pounds in Native Industries Limited;
and receiving his dividends thereafter on the scale promised, thought
very little further about it, except as something sound which carried
with it the larger hope of value that might increase.
The sense in which he thought very little about it, was as to the
actual source of its profits--oil, rubber, copra, or ivory--the
methods of its working, and the men who worked it, or what it really
did for the native beyond making him more accessible to the influence
of missions and of trade. As to that last, a very slight preliminary
inquiry had satisfied him that it was so; and there he left it. It
never occurred to Mr. Trimblerigg, who was eloquently opposed to
corporal punishment in his own country for crimes of violence and
such like, to inquire whether corporal punishment played any part in
making his dividends from Native Industries Limited nearer ten than
five per cent per annum. And why indeed should it occur to him? The
shareholder system, on which modern trade is run, does not prompt
such mental occurrence; and where so many millions are satisfied that
their responsibilities end in the acceptance of the reports of their
directors, can any particular blame attach to one, however eminent in
the organization of the mission field, if he also was satisfied, and
become in consequence forgetful?
Mr. Trimblerigg had then--as always--a perfectly clear conscience. He
was very busy, he was doing good work; his doctrine of relative truth
was giving theology a more modern and a much more sensible mind about
all the things it could not really prove but loved to fight about; the
coalition of the Free Churches was advancing under his manipulation
by leaps and bounds; behind that loomed Disestablishment. Given a
greater corporate union of Nonconformity, the argument for it would be
irresistible; and when it came he would be the up-to-date Luther before
whose assault that final stronghold of religious privilege toppled to
ruin. For Mr. Trimblerigg had been busy not only in the organization
of missions but upon the political side also; and would no doubt by
this time have gone into Parliament had not somebody already been there
before him who was doing what he would have done in exactly the same
way--with the same brilliance, the same elasticity, the same eloquence,
the same hand-to-mouth conviction, and the same enthusiastic and
catchword-loving following. Parliament did not need two wizards to cast
upon it the same spell. That was the reason why Mr. Trimblerigg kept
his wizardry for the Churches.
And so, through strenuous years Mr. Trimblerigg laboured to make Free
Evangelicalism greater, and more powerful, and more feared than it had
ever yet been; and before he had touched middle age he began to be
spoken of as candidate for the high office of President at the Annual
Conference--a post for which previously no head without grey hair on it
had ever qualified.
It only wanted some great cause, some big agitation led by himself, to
carry him through and make him, before he reached the age of forty,
the most prominent figure in the Nonconformist world. And then, while
he was looking for it, came, just in the nick of time, the story, the
horrible story of the Puto-Congo atrocities.
He was no missionary and no trader, but a mere outsider who brought it
to Europe; and when, for reasons, Government threw a belittling doubt
upon it, questioning the motives and veracity of its reporter, then Mr.
Trimblerigg saw his chance, and blew a blast to the Free Evangelical
mission world. He took up the cause, made it his own, and gave it all
the publicity it required.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
_The Sound of a Trumpet_
When the campaign started the Puto-Congo Consolidation Company was
paying its shareholders from 20 to 30 per cent, independent of bonuses
which dropped to them like manna every alternate year; and its shares
stood in the market at 200 per cent above par. It had held its own
against a six months’ exposure of its methods, not only without a drop
in the quotations, but with a slight rise when official cold water had
been thrown on the report of the egregious Mr. Morment, whose unfair
and superficial investigation had caused all the trouble.
But when Mr. Trimblerigg took the matter in hand, hiring halls in all
the big towns for monster meetings, and thumping the Free Evangelical
war-drum, within a month the shares came tumbling, and the Government
had begun to hedge by promising a commission of inquiry--not, as had
almost been previously suggested, into the character of Mr. Morment,
but into the conduct of the Company.
Even though the world is said to be wicked, it often pays and pays
well to be on the side of the angels. For trade and commerce, and
politics are largely run on a sort of agreed pretence that man, though
now a little lower than the angels, is not much lower, or only in his
bad moments, or only because he doesn’t always have time to look into
things. The side on which the angels are, may for a time be violently
disputed by guilty interests: but give it a clear view-halloo and a
sight of its quarry on the run, and you have the great-hearted public
up and after it, quite oblivious to its own record in matters closely
similar.
So now: the strewings of the feathers of angels’ wings across the
landscape made Mr. Trimblerigg’s lightning campaign look like a
paper-chase from the heavenly or bird’s-eye view; and tens and hundreds
of thousands of virtuous shareholders, in companies of whose ways and
doings they did not in the least know or very much care, attended his
meetings to denounce the shareholders of a Chartered Company which was
paying 20 and 30 per cent upon methods that were now being exposed.
I have said before, and I say again, that Mr. Trimblerigg was a man
of absolute sincerity to the convictions of the moment; so also were
his audiences, all people of sincerity; but it was a sincerity which,
rising to the surface like cream, when it has been skimmed off leaves a
poor thin material behind it. But it was national material after all;
and how, as somebody once asked, can one indict a great nation? Its
greatness is the refuting answer.
And so it was, when those cheering crowds hung upon Mr. Trimblerigg’s
eloquence, and when, being so much carried away by it, he hung upon it
himself--there was not one, speaker or listener, who, while sincerely
denouncing the cruelties which had wrung 20 and 30 per cent profits
from the blood and bones of indentured black labour, ever thought of
denouncing the system which enabled any who had capital to invest, to
make money out of ventures and industries as to the workings of which
they knew nothing. It was not the system which was being denounced, but
individuals who had been oiling the wheels of the system by methods of
civilization pushed to logical extremes. And so, when you strike an
average, Mr. Trimblerigg was just as innocent and just as sincere as
the bulk of his fellow-countrymen.
The only difference was that nobody else enjoyed his innocence and
sincerity as much as he did, or thought so highly of it. For now, being
so gloriously upon the side of the angels, it was with the voice of an
angel--and a powerful one--that Mr. Trimblerigg spoke. And the angels
and the herd-instinct having got hold of him together, he did wonders:
not only did he surprise me, he surprised himself.
One day he had before him and behind him, around him and above him,
an audience of ten thousand breathless listeners--breathless not for
any difficulty, his fine voice being easily heard, but for the mere
joy of him. He was making visible to all, the forests and swamps and
malarious rivers to which he had never penetrated save with the eye of
vision and pity and compassion; and also the things that were being
done there for shareholders in a country calling itself Christian. He
gave chapter and verse: before him had come a speaker, fresh from the
district itself, with terrible lantern-slides, some showing life, many
more showing death. As a prelude to his peroration he demanded the last
of the slides, one that had been specially reserved for the occasion.
It appeared and a great gasp went through the audience; they sat so
silent for his concluding words, so motionless that actually not a pin
dropped. And after he had ended, for some seconds the silence lasted,
so deep was the emotion of his hearers. When he sat down he felt that
he had made the speech of his life.
His auditors apparently thought so too, having recovered they stood up
for five minutes to applaud, while Mr. Trimblerigg, feeling a little
faint but very happy, sat and drank water.
When silence was restored for the announcement of the next speaker--a
rather reluctant Archbishop had been captured for the occasion--a cold
staccato voice came from the back of the hall:
‘Is not the gentleman who has just spoken himself a shareholder in the
Puto-Congo Consolidation Company?’
A buzz of horrified consternation went sibilating from stalls to
gallery: the whole movement tottered to its base. Mr. Trimblerigg was
on his feet.
‘It’s a lie,’ he said; and to show that was the end of it, sat down
again.
The audience took a free breath and applauded.
Once more came the voice:
‘Does the speaker deny that he draws any profit from investment in the
forced labour of these unhappy natives?’ And again Mr. Trimblerigg was
on his feet.
‘Not one pound, not one penny, not one farthing. I would die rather.’
The applause at this was terrific. All heads turned towards the
interruption: lost in the dense crowd gathered at the back of the hall
it remained merely a voice.
There was a pause, the voice said: ‘I am quite satisfied. I was
misinformed.’
A sharp burst of laughter rang through the hall; and everybody was
happy again. Mr. Trimblerigg received another ovation; and when he rose
to reply to the vote of thanks the noise was deafening.
But though he replied beautifully and in moving terms, he was not at
ease. During the speech of the Archbishop he had sat thinking:
‘What shares remotely resembling the Puto-Congo Consolidated do I
possess? Whatever can the man have got hold of?’
Suddenly the words, ‘Native Industries Ltd.’ flashed into his mind.
Those shares paid him about fifty pounds a year, on an investment of
two hundred; and every year the directors sent him a reassuring report
of the well-being and prosperity of the natives in whose interests it
was run. But what had these to do with the Puto-Congo Consolidation
Company? He was not good at geography; beyond the fact that they both
hailed from the same continent he was aware of no possible connection.
All the same, as soon as the meeting was over he sped home in
trepidation, and after a short search through a fat bundle of small but
varied investments he found the share certificate he was in search of.
The sight of it froze him, as it had been the eye of Davidina fixed in
judgment: terror and desolation opened under him as a gulf into which
he descended alive. For though in the original certificate the name
of the Puto-Congo Consolidation Company was nowhere mentioned, the
certificate bore endorsement of a later date (he remembered faintly
sending it, at request, for that purpose) from which it appeared that
Native Industries had become affiliated--consolidated was perhaps the
awful and correct word--with certain other companies operating in the
same district, the Ray River Rubber Company being one of them: and
‘Ray River Rubber’ with its beautiful rolling sound had now acquired a
horrible familiarity to his ears; only that very night he had himself
rolled it upon his oratorical tongue, enjoying the rich flavour of it.
And though the name of the Puto-Congo Consolidated did not even now
appear, his certificate bore nevertheless that notorious official
stamp which he and the Free Churches had so fiercely held up to
scorn--a large adhesive label of embossed paper, blood red, bearing as
its emblem a white man and a black holding hands, and over them the
punning motto ‘Nihil alienum puto’--I hold nothing foreign.
How devoutly he wished that for him the motto could have been true. But
that he did hold this damnable and damning share in that commercial
atrocity which he had been denouncing, there was no longer room for
doubt. And how, in Heaven’s name, or the name of anything equally
incredible, how was he to explain it away?
That was the question which, for the next hour or two, he continued
putting to me with great fervour and insistency. I listened, but I
said nothing; for though I was much interested, I did not intend to
intervene. That is not my method. And so, while I paid due attention
to what he actually said, I let the nimbler speed of his brain for one
moment escape me; and was taken suddenly by surprise when I saw him
jump up from his knees and start into definite action.
During the next forty-eight hours the meteoric speed of his career, his
swift adjustment of means to ends, his varied and almost instantaneous
decisions, and above all the driving force of the moral arguments which
he addressed to those larger shareholders of Native Industries Limited
whom in so brief a time he succeeded in running to earth, all this gave
me a conception of his abilities to which, I confess, that till then I
had hardly done justice. Nor do I think the average reader could follow
through all its ramifications that inspired _sauve qui peut_, which, in
such short space of time, carried moral devastation to so many Free
Evangelical back-parlours--fortresses for all the virtues.
Suffice it that Mr. Trimblerigg, having obtained a complete list of
the shareholders in Native Industries Limited, discovered for truth
what his sanguine mind had envisaged as a blessed possibility--that
nearly half of the Company’s shares were actually in the hands of Free
Church ministers and of other prominent and privileged members of their
congregations, and that all unknown to itself the Free Evangelical
Body--that great instrument for the establishment of God’s Kingdom on
earth--had got one of its feet well planted in that very stronghold of
the Devil against which it was directing its assault--an awkward, or an
advantageous position according to the use made of it.
Mr. Trimblerigg, whose apprehension and anguish had been so great that
in the first ten hours after his discovery he could eat no breakfast,
had during the next ten, with travel, telegram, and telephone, done
such an enormous amount of work and to such good purpose, that before
the day was out he had begun almost to enjoy himself.
In that brief space of time he had captured not only the council of
the Free Church Congress, and three of its ex-Presidents, but the
President-elect and five of its most shining lights in the financial
world as well--men who had always maintained publicly that they held
their wealth as a sacred trust from the Powers above for the service of
humanity.
Now he showed them their chance. While the shares of the affiliated
companies in Puto-Congo Consolidated lay battered on the market,
opportunity for good Samaritans presented itself on a large scale.
For the preaching missionary, who also travelled for Native Industries
Limited, had done his agency thoroughly and well, and Mr. Trimblerigg’s
saving hopes were abundantly realized. Here they all were, almost
without knowing it--some not knowing it at all; others knowing it but
lying low, trusting that affiliation carried with it no responsibility
for the administrative acts of Puto-Congo Consolidated, and finding
much virtue in the difference of a name--here they all were in the
same box, and the lid of it suddenly opened like graves for the day of
judgment.
Yes, they were all in it; but, so Mr. Trimblerigg assured them, with
this important difference. They were there of set purpose and intent
like himself: had gone into it, for strategical reasons, with the sword
of the spirit, to prepare the way of the Lord and bring deliverance to
the oppressed. They heard from Mr. Trimblerigg how he had invested his
little all for that purpose alone, watching and waiting, with never
a penny of profit, biding his time for the great day of deliverance.
(He had, in fact, that very day, sold out all his other investments in
order to secure a yet larger holding for the confirmation of his case.)
They also, he had not a doubt, had invested for a like purpose--or if
not, were eager and willing to do so now that the time had come for
that purpose to be declared.
For here was the case; the Free Evangelical Church could now at a push
in a falling market obtain a shareholders’ majority in one of the most
important and prosperous companies which had come together under the
ægis of the Puto-Congo Consolidated: had, therefore, power to call and
control a special meeting of the shareholders for the reform--root,
branch, lock, stock and barrel--of the whole abominable system to which
it had become linked.
Free Church Presidents, Evangelical financiers, shining lights in the
Temperance movement, and others with reputations above suspicion,
listened, sat up, and were amazed; only too thankful in that dark
hour to have good motives so generously imputed to them and their way
of salvation made plain. Very few attempted to remain irresponsible,
incredulous, or indifferent; when they did, Mr. Trimblerigg launched
his attack, and their opposition wilted and crumbled. Nor did he mince
the inspired word which came to him: his brisk little figure sparkled
with flashes of divine fire, even as the wireless apparatus sparkles
with the message which descends to it from the outer air; and there to
hand was the circular appeal which within twenty-four hours would have
received the signatures of over a hundred Free Church ministers and
elders calling for an emergency meeting of the shareholders. At that
meeting the Puto-Congo atrocities would be denounced, and the present
Directors of the Company called on to resign and make room for others.
Native Industries Limited, by reason of its secured monopolies, held
the key to the position. Though small, it could impose its terms;
close its depots and landing-stages to proved abuse of contract by the
affiliated companies, and if it became a question of law, dare the
rest to come on; for now it would have the entire country behind it,
even, if need be, the power of Parliament. Let them blow their blast
loud and long enough, and the whole huge financial fabric of Puto-Congo
Consolidated which had sought to absorb them into identity with its
own guilty prosperity, would have to cleanse itself or go.
And as these reverend elders listened, and bent their heads for the
whitewash provided by Mr. Trimblerigg, there was the offered vision
before them of the great Free Church body, too long couchant in moneyed
ease, rising upon its hind legs at last, and uttering no meek lowing of
kine, but the combined roar and scream of the Lion and the Eagle--and
over them in feathers of silver and gold, the covering wings of the
Dove; and there was the Visionary himself wanting to know, here and
now, whether their voice would swell the chorus or only be raised in
futile opposition. That question received but one answer.
So, like fire through stubble, did Mr. Trimblerigg burn his way into
the consciences and fears of the Native Industries shareholders; and
by the time the sun had set upon the second day of his labours he knew
that he had won.
The next day a letter from the ‘Voice’--or from its informant--appeared
in the press challenging once more Mr. Trimblerigg’s publicly uttered
denial of having lot or share in the nefarious activities of Puto-Congo
Consolidated. The letter made no assertion, but presented a series of
neat interrogations--yes or no; and ended with the smooth reposeful
sneer of one certain of his facts.
Mr. Trimblerigg’s reply gave that dirty platter the clean lick it
required inside and out. In the Puto-Congo Consolidated he held no
shares at all: in the affiliated ‘Native Industries Limited’ he did
hold some, and since the meeting in question had succeeded in getting
hold of a few more.
His purpose, which together with others, he had been obliged hitherto
to conceal, lest the Puto-Congo Executive should get wind of it and
take steps to prevent, he could now declare. He did so resoundingly.
The same paper which contained his letter, contained notice of the
special meeting convened by its Free Church shareholders to purge the
Native Industries Limited of complicity in the Puto-Congo atrocities,
and to terminate all contracts forthwith. For himself Mr. Trimblerigg
had only to add that never, in the years of waiting for the power which
had now come to him, had he applied to his own use one penny of the
dividends he had received from Native Industries; all had been saved up
for a further investment when the moment should appear opportune. And
with that--facts speaking louder than words--his defence was complete.
A month later he held the special meeting of the Native Industries
shareholders in the hollow of his hand, and in a speech which the press
reported verbatim lashed the administration of the Chartered Company
of Puto-Congo Consolidated with a tongue like the whip of an inspired
slave-driver. Powerless in the face of numbers the opposition fell away
in panic; the conscience of the Free Churches asserted itself, all the
Directors resigned, and Mr. Trimblerigg and nine others, with clean
records like his own, were elected to their place. Two members of the
new Board proposed Mr. Trimblerigg to be chairman; and he was elected
without a dissentient voice.
Native Industries Limited was to be run henceforth on Christian lines,
and set an example to the world by earning for itself on those lines
larger profits than ever before. Mr. Trimblerigg was a consistently
sanguine soul; believing the shareholding system to be a device
well-pleasing to God, he believed it could be done. And so that night
he went home to his house justified, in beams of glory all of his own
making, very tired, but more satisfied with himself than he could ever
remember to have been before.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
_Reward of Virtue_
While Mr. Trimblerigg still went in clouds of glory, high and uplifted
on popular applause, Davidina, back from one of her adventurous
expeditions and already preparing for the next, came to see him. She
viewed him up and down admiringly.
‘You don’t look much the worse for it,’ she said.
‘I don’t know that I am,’ he replied genially, even while his dodging
mind was at guess as to what exactly she meant by worse. ‘But it’s
taken me off my work a good deal; and I was wanting holiday.’
‘Take it,’ said Davidina, ‘I’ll pay.’
‘Oh, it isn’t a question of paying,’ he returned. ‘Besides, if it were,
I’m the better off of the two of us, now.’ His eyes twinkled. ‘You see,
I made lucky investments.’
Davidina almost loved him; that hit at himself was so good-humoured and
playful and apposite.
‘Yes,’ she agreed, ‘but it was a narrow squeeze.’
‘It was,’ he replied, ‘but I like being squeezed. It suits me. Then I
always do my best.’
‘Jonathan,’ said his sister, ‘I’m beginning to admire you. If I didn’t
know you so well, you’d take me in too--almost.’
‘My dear Davidina, that is the last thing I have ever wished to do,’ he
said. ‘Hopeless adventures do not appeal to me.’
She laughed, and let the argument drop to say: ‘By the way, what are
you now? What do you call yourself?’
‘I still call myself Jonathan Trimblerigg,’ was his reply. ‘I don’t
propose taking a title, even if it were offered me.’
‘It’s fifteen years since Uncle Phineas died,’ said Davidina, ‘and I’ve
a reason for asking.’
So? Here was Davidina proposing to broach the subject on which till now
no word had ever been uttered between them. It did not exactly surprise
him; he had always believed that Davidina had a conscience; but often
he had wondered if, convinced in her own mind upon the point at issue,
she would trouble to tell him of it--unless spitefully to enjoy his
disappointment.
But there was no longer any question of disappointment now. In the
fold of True Belief, Mr. Trimblerigg knew that he could not have done
anything like what he had now accomplished, or have attained to such a
standing or such prospects. Nevertheless--had the bait been larger--for
there the door stood open waiting for him--who knows? The great fusion
of the Free Churches, in a form to include True Belief, might have come
earlier, and he might have remained Free Evangelical in practice and
yet qualified in the letter and in the spirit for that deferred benefit
which he was now denying himself.
‘I asked,’ said Davidina, ‘because I see that next Sunday you are going
down to preach to your old congregation at Mount Horeb.’
‘Yes,’ said Jonathan, ‘they’ve asked me. It’s the first time such
a thing has happened, and my text is not going to be the repentant
Prodigal, either. I haven’t changed. We shall just go on where we left
off.’
‘That’s why I’m asking--what you call yourself. Do you still reckon
yourself a True Believer?’
‘I reckon that what I believe is true; but I do not regard myself as
a True Believer in the technical sense. I don’t think I ever was. A
Relative Believer, Davidina, is what I am.’
‘It’s a pity,’ said Davidina, ‘in a way. Uncle Phineas left me a letter
of instruction--not legal; but still I take it as binding. If you had
remained a True Believer till now, I was to go shares with you.’
Mr. Trimblerigg had long since, in his own mind, got the better of
Uncle Phineas and his £200 a year. But now he saw his chance of getting
the better of Davidina. So he said quietly: ‘I know that, he told me.’
Davidina stared. ‘What did he tell you?’
‘He showed me the letter,’ said Jonathan.
‘And you never said anything!’ cried Davidina, astonished.
‘Well, I did say something in a way. I mentioned the letter to you
once; but as you chose to say nothing about it, I left it at that.’
‘And you trusted me?’ inquired Davidina.
‘Absolutely. But very soon after that, you see, it didn’t matter. I got
turned out.’
Mr. Trimblerigg was now feeling very happy, for he saw that Davidina
was right out of her bearings. But without appearing to notice this
unusual phenomenon he went quietly on:
‘After all it’s a good thing as it happens. If you had to divide with
me now you wouldn’t have enough for your expeditions.’
‘Plenty,’ she assured him. ‘Ah, to be sure, I haven’t told you. And yet
that’s why it was important that I should know; for I didn’t suppose
his old two hundred would matter to you much now. But the other day I
got news: opening a new quarry they struck a seam of something else
quite unexpected; it isn’t exactly plumbago, or Cumberland lead as they
call it; but it’s rather like it; and as a consequence the property is
up to something like twenty times its value.’
Mr. Trimblerigg took it very quietly; he made no sign; even now he was
not sure that he wished things differently. He had a great desire, for
his own spiritual comfort, to get the better of Davidina, just once.
‘Well, I congratulate you,’ he said; ‘where will the next expedition
be? The Sahara, Persia, Arabia? It looks as if you were going to be a
famous woman traveller; you’ve always had the pluck and the brain; and
now you’ve got the means for it.’
‘Do you mind, Jonathan?’ she asked him.
‘Mind? I’m delighted.’
‘This is the first time,’ she confessed, ‘that you’ve ever taken me by
surprise. You knew, and you didn’t say anything. You knew, and you let
them turn you out. You knew, and you trusted me.’
‘I’ve always trusted you.’
‘Well, I haven’t always trusted you. In fact, I’ve always suspected
you.’
‘I know it, my dear Davidina, but as it amuses you and had left off
hurting me--why not?’
‘And now,’ she went on, as if he had not interrupted her, ‘I don’t know
whether to suspect you or not.’
‘You’d much better,’ he said.
‘The truth is I’m puzzled!’
‘The truth often is very puzzling,’ assented Jonathan, ‘it’s so
relative.’ Then he got up and stretched himself like a cat enjoying the
sun.
‘And I still think,’ said Davidina decidedly, ‘that you are capable of
being a villain, and a blood-thirsty villain too, if it suited you.’
Mr. Trimblerigg continued to stretch and to smile at her.
‘Oh, Davidina,’ he said, ‘you are a comfortable person to talk to!’
And at that he let her go. For once, just for once in his life he had
got the better of her. Davidina was puzzled at him. It was a great
event.
And a week later he received from Davidina a voluntary transfer duly
executed of one-half of the property, which at its prospectively
enhanced value would make him comfortably off for life. It meant, it
must mean, that at last he had won her approval. ‘Thou Davidina seest
me!’ had no longer its old discomfort for him. In her eye too, as in
everybody’s, there was a blind spot, and he had managed to hit it.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
_Too Good to be True_
The dulling of Davidina’s eye had a fatal effect upon the career of
Mr. Trimblerigg. It removed the last obstacle from his way to thinking
himself good. His own conscience had been malleable; but hers, serving
in its place, had kept an integrity of its own which always left
him with a doubt. Now the doubt vanished, and on that mercurial and
magnetic temperament it had a surprising effect.
I wonder whether readers have realized the extraordinary spiritual
comfort which Mr. Trimblerigg had derived from the friendly disarmament
of Davidina’s suspicions. He had just come through a phase of
success and public applause, with its accompanying sense of power,
unprecedented in his career. But behind it all was the uneasy sense
that he had been remiss in the protection of his own interests--that it
had been a tight squeeze, and that only by the kind favour of Heaven
had he got through not merely creditably, but with so much to spare.
The Native Industries shares might soon be--as he had joked to
Davidina--a good investment; but he had blundered in holding them, or,
at least, in not getting rid of them before starting on his campaign;
and it always hurt Mr. Trimblerigg very much to feel that--even in
his own eyes alone--he had made a fool of himself. It was obvious
therefore that to make a fool of the redoubtable Davidina, who had for
so many years given him an uneasy conscience whenever she wished, had
redressed the balance. And so, according to his own practical standard,
Mr. Trimblerigg stood purged and purified of self-reproof, with his
conscience beautifully easy once more. He had fought upon the side
of the angels, and the battle was won hands down; in the process, by
embarking all his savings in a venture which temporarily had crashed,
he had seriously reduced his income; but even that, thanks to the
prospect presented to him by Davidina did not now concern him, it even
pleased him, for it was a proof of his disinterested devotion to the
cause he had championed. And so, looking at himself from all sides, the
spiritual, the public, and the domestic, he was abundantly satisfied
with what he saw. Having made good, he felt good; and elated by that
feeling, he decided that the family--that part of it which was not away
at school--should have a holiday.
In order to begin the holiday as soon as possible--for himself as well
as the others--he sent off Caroline and the little ones, remaining
himself for a few days to clear up a few ends of work still in arrears
at his central office, and in spite of those arrears, when he had seen
Caroline into the train, his sense of holiday had already begun. For
in spite of all the goodness that was in him, he continued to find her
dull, with a dullness that did not diminish. And yet, he told himself,
he was fond of her, and had never denied her anything that was her due.
So, in that matter also, his conscience had left him nothing with which
to reproach himself.
That day, when his office work was over, he took recreation in a
characteristic way. Having bought some quite good cigars, he mounted
to the top of a bus, and started to explore the metropolis, or, more
accurately, to let destiny explore it for him. His method was to
accompany the bus to its terminus, and there change into another,
leaving chance to decide in what fresh direction it should carry him,
east or west, north or south. In this way, through a variegation of
lighted streets--from some wearing the shadiest subterfuge of life to
others of a flamboyant brilliance, and back again, for a couple of
hours and more he thoroughly enjoyed himself--seeing unconsciously
in the kaleidoscopic life seething around him a reflex image of his
own, and in it felt justified. It was all so quick, unexpected, and
yet congruous, so criss-cross and various, and vitally abounding, and
yet, in its main current uniform, flowing on with one general purpose
common to all--meaning business, whatever the business might be. And
here, sitting enthroned above it on the front seat of a swift-going
motor-bus, he, a man who on the right side of middle age, had become
almost famous, went happy and unrecognized, his hat drawn low over his
eyes, his coat collar turned up to meet it, absorbing that large life
of the crowd with which so deeply and instinctively he felt himself to
be one.
And meanwhile destiny did its work. To the seat beside him, vacated
at the last stopping-place, came a fresh occupant--a woman quick and
alert of movement, well-dressed, not elderly. Before he had been able
unobtrusively to get a look at her face, the conductor was collecting
her fare. He heard a familiar voice naming a suburban destination; a
moment later, quick and decided, annoyed rather than dismayed, the
voice said, ‘I’ve lost my purse!’ ‘Allow me!’ said Mr. Trimblerigg.
‘Good evening.’ He tendered the money as he spoke.
One look at him, and Miss Isabel Sparling rose to go. ‘You shall do
nothing of the sort,’ she said, ‘I’ll get down.’
And then--destiny. In the road below a coster’s barrow, cutting across
the track of the swift-moving traffic, collided, shed a wheel, and sat
jammed under the head of the oncoming motor-bus. The impact which
lifted all the seated occupants from their seats, caused Miss Isabel
Sparling to disappear from view. Breaking her fall by a well-sustained
clutch upon the rail, she struck the hood, and slid sideways into the
upset apple-cart.
Mr. Trimblerigg, with admirable agility, heels first, scrambled after
her. The first to get to her, he found her conveniently unconscious,
and taking possession of his implacable foe in her now defenceless
condition, he hailed a taxi and carried her away to hospital.
There, having learned that she was not dangerously hurt, and would
probably have recovered sufficiently to give account of herself in an
hour’s time, he left money to pay for conveyances or telegrams, and
took himself off, a nameless benefactor, whose identity Miss Isabel
Sparling might either nose out or ignore according to taste, but could
not do otherwise than suspect.
And so, if there was one spot in his kaleidoscopic world where Mr.
Trimblerigg, in retrospect, had not hitherto felt quite happy, he was
able to feel happy now. His embrace of Isabel Sparling’s inanimate
form, the first time for more than fifteen years--had given him the
sudden inspiration that now, in his own time and in his own way, he
should take up and fulfil the rash promise of his early youth, and be
voice and champion of the ministerial call to women.
For now at last he had the standing and a following whereof he was the
accepted leader, which would make the achievement no longer theirs but
his, and give credit where the credit was due. Through him, almost
through him alone, the chains of the Puto-Congo natives were already
being struck off; following upon that, through him, the chains of
sex-disability should go likewise. There was no time like the present.
He would take a brief holiday, and then he would begin.
He dined at an old-fashioned restaurant in the city, which had its
traditions; the head waiter, with recognition in his eye, but not
a word said, installed him in the seat of honour, the seat once
habitually occupied by one of the great eighteenth-century emancipators
of the human brain. The attention pleased him, still more the
respectful silence with which it was done--the acceptance of his right
to be there incognito without remark.
He ate well of a wonderful pie containing oysters, and he drank white
wine, followed by Stilton cheese, port, and a cigar. To all these good
things life had gently led him away from the early training of his
childhood. He accepted them now without scruple and felt the better for
them.
When he got home, the elderly domestic, now in sole charge of the house
since the family’s departure, had gone up to bed. About half an hour
later, Mr. Trimblerigg, comfortably sleepy, went up to his own.
From habit, because he usually needed it, he took a bed-side book and
began briefly to read; five minutes generally sufficed; it did so now.
The book he had chosen was of poems by an author whom he felt that he
ought to admire more than he did; there was a splendour of beauty in
them which yet managed somehow to escape him. This slight intellectual
separation of mind from mind was good as a sedative: it helped his own
to wander. His first selection from the poems was a very famous one,
but too spiritual and elusive for his present mood: a transcendental
game of hide-and-seek, he could not quite follow. He passed on to the
next; large drops of sleep were already entering his brain, and he
knew that presently it would be making nonsense; but the opening lines
attracted him, gave him a picture of which he himself became a part. In
the middle of every line there was a star--why, he did not know; but it
gave an effect. He liked it, and making an effort to keep awake for a
few moments longer, he read on:
‘Athwart the sod which is treading for God* the poet paced with his
splendid eyes;
‘Isabel Starling he stately passes--’
No, that wasn’t right; Sparling, not Starling. No, no, what was he
thinking about? Not Sparling, or Starling, or anything resembling it.
‘Paradise verdure he stately passes.’ That was better. The following
line had long words in it which he didn’t understand. The next verse
started pleasantly--
‘The angels at play on its fields of Summer* (their wild wings rustled
his guide’s cigars).’ No, not cigars, something else, word he didn’t
know: cigars would do.
‘Looked up from dessert at the passing comer* as they pelted each other
with handfuls of stars.’
Ah! That was why the stars were there, they’d got loose on to the
printed page: stars did, if you happened to get a knock or a fall.
‘And Isabel Sparling with startled feet rose,* hand on sword, by their
tethered cars.’
Wrong, wrong! not ‘Isabel Sparling’--‘warden spirits’: whatever made
him say Isabel Sparling? she wasn’t a warden spirit or anything like
one. But ‘tethered cars’ was right: ‘motor-bus’ would have been better.
After that his reading ceased to be consecutive or to convey any
sense--only colour and a sort of atmosphere. ‘Plumes night-tinctured,
englobed and cinctured,’ then a star, followed by ‘saints’:
‘crystalline pale,’ and another star: ‘Heaven’--ah, yes, Heaven, the
place the stars came from: then ‘the immutable crocean dawn’--crocean
meant yellow--‘enthusing’--no, not enthusing ‘effusing.’ ‘Crocean dawn
effusing’ meant ‘yellow dawn coming.’ If that was what he meant, why
couldn’t the fellow say so? Why did poets always choose the difficult
words? Ahead lay more light and colour, mixed with other things he
didn’t fully understand--or want to; he was getting too sleepy for it.
‘Bickering Conference’: no, not conference: ‘gonfalons’: better go
back and read again, he was only making nonsense; but ‘Crocean dawn
effusing’ was nonsense too. ‘Ribbed fire,’ ‘flame-plumed fan’--‘globing
clusters,’ and stars everywhere with no sense to them. But the poet had
splendid eyes--must have had, to see all that!
His lids closed, then opened again: he had almost gone to sleep with
the light still on. ‘Crocean dawn’: half consciously he switched it
off--not the dawn, the light; and with the crocean dawn still in his
head slept till morning.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
_Nouveau Riche_
A Crocean dawn was outside and around him when he awoke--yellow, of the
metropolitan variety; it was, that is to say, a fog. But in spite of
the dullness of the outer world, Mr. Trimblerigg awoke happy, with the
happiness of a man whose prayer has been answered.
For many days he had been praying fervently that his character might be
placed above suspicion: and now that Davidina’s suspicion of him had
gone, and his own with it, he had just everything for the present that
he could pray for. And on the top of it, he had forgiven an enemy--in
such a way that, if he did not miscalculate, his enemy would presently
have to forgive him.
There, in that purified spiritual atmosphere, another great work was
awaiting him. All omens were auspicious; he knew now for certain that
he was going to achieve fame, and that very soon, among the Free
Churches, he would be able to have almost whatever position he liked,
and do almost anything he chose. And so, as he got up in that crocean
dawn, he felt all about him, but especially in his brain, an effusing
sense of well-being and happiness. And as he looked at himself in the
glass before shaving, he smiled: and it seemed to him then that his
countenance was wonderfully bright.
Presently, as he shaved, he began to have a suspicion that the
illumination was different and strange: that there was a curious
absence of shadow about his chubby cheeks and under his chin, which
made shaving easy; and this, too, on a dark morning.
This fact only dawned on him gradually; for close above his head
hung the electric pendant, with its bulb of powerful light directed
downwards by the white porcelain shade. But when, thoughtful of the
high price of electricity, he turned it out and once more faced his
glass to give a final polish to his hair, there could no longer be
any doubt that he was in the presence of something which waited to be
explained--something too mysterious, too incredible to be described as
a phenomenon.
‘Crocean dawn’: the embodied phrase looked him in the face. But how
had it located itself? Was it physical, or spiritual, or was it only
mental? ‘Miracle’ he did not think of calling it; his Free Church
upbringing had given him an instinctive repugnance to such Romish
things as modern miracles; though he admitted the possibility (but
that was different) of miraculous answer to prayer. But miracles
of a personal and a phenomenal kind he regarded with a certain
suspicion--had indeed published in _The Rock of Ages_ an article
against them, wherein, with unrelenting logic, he had traced them to
spiritual agencies--if spiritual they might be called--not of good but
of evil. And now--this!
But if it was not a miracle in the accepted sense, if it was only
something seen with the eye of the spirit, nevertheless there it was,
carrying implications, and imposing if not exactly a burden--a problem,
a weight of responsibility, which he did not quite know how he was to
solve.
He could not help feeling that, for the present at least, he would
like to keep it to himself, until he was a little more sure. But then
a sudden sense of elation carried him away; for of what he had hoped
might be true, this surely was proof; he really was--good! Even if it
was only a recognition--an encouragement sent confidentially, for
his eye alone, it meant--it must mean--that Heaven approved of him.
The beauty of holiness was upon him in visible form--a certificate
of character unimpeachable in its completeness; and yet, for an
uncomfortable instant, the thought had flashed--how was he going to
live up to it? Could he be as holy in practice as this advertised him
to be? No, for the present at least, he would rather that it should
not be seen. This was early dawn: he was hardly up to it. He must
acclimatize himself.
So here, in the privacy of his own chamber, he examined the portent at
leisure, and from all points of view. Trying to see himself, as others
might presently be seeing him, he continued his study of the glass.
Around a face broader than it was long, a wide forehead, puckered
eyes, short nose, a neat bunch of a mouth, and hair worn rather long,
turning up at the ends like the hair of the knave of hearts, a faint
lemon-coloured radiance emerged, effused, flowed for a few inches, and
then suddenly stopped short.
It was that abrupt ending which gave it so uncanny a character. Earthly
radiance diminishes as it travels from its source; but this behaved
differently--was indeed, if anything, brighter where it ended than
where it started. Thus, from a front view, it had that plate-like
appearance with which stained-glass windows and pictures of mediæval
saints had made him familiar.
Going to his wife’s dressing-table he took up the hand-mirror, so as to
get a better side-view. The plate-like appearance persisted: quarter,
three-quarter, and back view were always the same. The emanation was
not flat, then, but round; a glory of three dimensions encircled him,
and he moved in a globe of light which, like a head of dandelion seed,
was brightest toward the edge, yet so faint and unsubstantial, it
seemed as though a breath might blow it away.
Once more he brushed his hair for experiment. The lemon-coloured flame
did not deflect or waver from its outward symmetry; nor did his head
experience any electric thrills, as though virtue were passing either
into him or out of him. With a slight sense of disappointment he laid
his brushes down, and put on his coat. This, he found on consulting
the glass, had made no change, except that upon the black cloth fell a
slight radiance; but when for further experiment he once more switched
on the light, it almost disappeared; and against the window, looking
back at himself in the hand-mirror, for a moment he persuaded himself
that it had gone. But if an involuntary wish had fathered that thought,
he had only to move away from the light for its form and colour to
reappear as strongly as ever; and as it responded with unvarying
consistency to all the experiments he played on it, so did his sense of
its reality become a conviction. It was not merely an idea, it was a
fact.
And then the feeble tinkle of a bell below told him of breakfast. He
went out on to the landing and peeped over the banisters.
Hearing dilatory sounds among the breakfast things, ‘Mrs. James,’ he
called, ‘you needn’t wait.’ And a minute later, on hearing her descend
to the basement, he came downstairs at a run.
At table, in case Mrs. James should find excuse to return, he took his
wife’s place instead of his own, sitting with his back to the window;
and found, in that position, though the morning was still dark, that he
could see into his egg quite easily. Thus, even while away from his
mirror, the sense of something real, not imaginary, remained with him.
But it gave him no joy; for though in himself he felt at unity with
this day-spring from on high that had visited him, he was doubtful how
it would appear to the outside world--whether the world was ripe for
it--whether, indeed, it was intended for the outside world at all. It
was already in his mind that if he entered his Mission Centre office
by the ordinary way, he would have to run the gauntlet of a roomful of
clerks; and that his unexplained accompaniment might provoke comment,
possibly even mirth. And Mr. Trimblerigg, even with reason on his side,
was not one who liked to be laughed at.
Unable to make up his mind what he felt about it himself, now, as he
considered the matter from the worldly point of view, he began to
regard it with less and less favour. He could not but feel that for
such a manifestation as this the world needed preparation; a publicity
campaign should have gone first and some more obvious occasion should
have been found for its first appearance--this, in all humility--than
one so merely personal to himself, a testimonial to the integrity of
his character.
And then--to give the first test to his doubts--came the interrogative
Mrs. James, merely wishing to know what meals he would be in for, and
whether, if callers came to inquire for him, he would name any time
when he should be at home.
Mr. Trimblerigg, keeping his head in the light of the window, gave
her the required instructions, and saw at once from the uneventful
expression of her face that she had noticed nothing.
This threw him suddenly back upon doubt; and no sooner had she
returned to her kitchen than he ran upstairs again, and looked once
more in the glass.
The visitation was still upon him; but now that there was more daylight
he saw it much less; nor had it so definite an edge where the radiance
left off. Had he been a woman a broad-brimmed hat with plenty of veil
about it would have made what was there quite unnoticeable; or had he
been a missionary in India wearing a turban in all the glare of the
Eastern sun. But fate had decreed otherwise; the environment he had to
face was not of so obscuring a kind.
Then all at once the thought occurred to him--what would it be like at
night? He drew down blinds, closed curtains, and went back to the glass.
The vivid result made him realize, with a shock, the actual state at
which his mind had now arrived with regard to facing his fellow-men.
‘I shan’t be able to go out at night,’ he said to himself. ‘I should
frighten people.’
But as a matter of fact he was getting frightened himself. He knew
definitely now that he wished it had not happened: and so, being
of that mind, more and more did he entreat to be told how it could
have happened. Was it from his brain, or his body, or his soul, that
these rays emanated; and were they a symptom--physical, mental, or
spiritual--of sickness or health; and if of sickness, were they to be
temporary or permanent?
So he debated; yet when it came to addressing himself directly to the
possible source of all this trouble, he was hesitant what to do. He
did not wish to seem ungrateful, or to confess to moral cowardice, or
even to plead the most plausible excuse--that he was unworthy; and so
after hesitating for awhile he kept his thoughts unobtrusively to
himself on the earthly plane. What never struck him for a moment was
that he had done this himself--that, just as when you put water in a
kettle upon the fire, it boils till presently it boils over, so if you
put self-belief and self-worship into an ebullient and imaginative
brain, the belief will out, like murder, in one form or another; and
as pictorial imagery was Mr. Trimblerigg’s strong point--to the point,
one may say, of intoxication--this halo was but the bouquet or visible
fragrance of the life within. And just as his own and his wife’s mirror
between them reflected it with accuracy and completeness, with equal
accuracy and completeness it reflected him.
It ought, therefore, to have done him good; but the experience was
too wild and sudden and strange; for this was the very first time
in all his life when he had wished to keep himself to himself,
under circumstances which apparently made it impossible. Nor did he
yet realize that this was but the preliminary stage--the eruption
stage--the stage of concentrated effort outwardly expressed, in
which it sought to establish itself in his mind and consciousness as
a fixed part of a pervasive and expansive personality, destined to
go much further in the world than he had ever yet dreamed. Being a
temperamental halo--pale at first, rather uncertain of itself and of
its relations to the society into which it was born, it was not yet
all that it would wish to be; it had not yet made itself at home. But
even in the first few hours of its existence it fluctuated, waxing
and waning in response to the spirit within; and when the time came
for him to go out into the street and face the world, when for a few
uncomfortable moments he stood hesitating by the hat-stand, it almost
died out.
But this would have been to deny himself entirely; and this he could
not do. He put on his overcoat; then with a wavering mind asked himself
what hat he should wear with it--with IT, that is to say. It seemed
almost to savour of irreverence that he should wear a hat at all. But
unwilling to make himself more noticeable than necessary, he finally
selected one. Then, before putting the hat on, he went upstairs, to
have a last look at himself. It was then--he saw, or hoped--almost
undetectable; but when he put on his hat--a black one--it once more
leapt into local prominence, disappointing his hope that what covered
his head might have covered that also. On the contrary, his hat failing
to contain it, it seemed rather to contain his hat.
As he went forth, the undemonstrative Mrs. James looked out at him from
her window. She had not detected, she did not detect now, the thing he
had striven to conceal: but his fluttered manner and his talking to her
with his back to the light had made her suspicious: ‘It’s my belief
he’s been having a night out,’ she remarked to herself as she watched
him go. And though she owned it was no concern of hers, she allowed the
suspicion to entertain her all the rest of the day; and when in the
afternoon a rather agitated lady called, with a bruised face, wishing
urgently to see him or to know where he was to be found, but refusing
to disclose her name, she did her best for his morals by giving the
address which in another twenty-four hours would be his; where, she
explained pointedly, he had gone with his wife and family to have a
little rest and be away from people.
And while Mrs. James was thus providing adventure for him, according to
the light that was in her, he by reason of the light that was not in
him but on him, was having adventures of his own.
Upon opening the street door he was pleased to find that it was
beginning to rain. He went back, fetched his umbrella, opened it, and
emerged holding the umbrella rather low in order to protect--his hat.
Then he stepped out briskly, trying to think and to move naturally;
but the terrible literalness of the streets troubled him. In such
surroundings he felt more than ever the incongruity which under modern
conditions, separates matter from spirit. To walk in the light of the
gospel had hitherto seemed to him easy; but now to walk in his own
light was difficult.
He was getting along, however, and so far had not attracted attention.
On the other side of the street went a whistling boy, casting down
newspapers through area railings. As he passed he felt that the boy had
become aware of him, for the whistling had stopped.
A moment later from behind, from across the street, came the cry,
‘Hullo, old lamp-shade!’
Was that from the boy? Was it intended for him? And was it as a lighted
scarecrow that the world was going to regard him? He did not turn to
find out; he made no sign that he had heard; but passing a shop front
he sidled, and tilting his umbrella took a look at himself. Yes, under
the shade of the umbrella, it was painfully distinct. He lifted the
umbrella away; it almost disappeared.
That decided him. It was only humility, he told himself; he did not
wish to be seen of men; he furled his umbrella, and stood with his best
hat exposed to the rain.
Cabs and taxis passed him; he could, of course, have taken one; but
those dark interiors would make more show of him than an umbrella; a
bus with its glass sides, or better still its top open to the sky, was
what he now waited for. And then down came more rain, making a bus-top
ridiculous. He screwed his courage up to the sticking point; after all,
it must be done; he must test his public and find out if life--life on
earth, life inside as well as outside a bus, life in a modern city--was
possible.
Round the corner came the right numbered motor-bus. As it drew up he
had a cowardly sense of relief; there was no one on the top, and the
inside seemed full. The conductor dispelled his hope. ‘Room for one,’
he said; and Mr. Trimblerigg got in. It was unfortunate; he had to go
to the far end, where there was less light.
An old lady, as he settled beside her, said to her companion, ‘I do
believe the sun’s coming out!’ ‘It can’t: it’s raining too hard,’ was
the reply.
Before long he was aware that those opposite were studying him with
curious gaze. Elderly gentlemen lowered their papers, wiped and refixed
their glasses, but did not resume reading. Their eyes bulged a little
as they tried to believe them. Mr. Trimblerigg grew irritated; he
wished they would make up their minds and have done with it. Presently
a woman, sitting opposite, with a bandaged infant in her arms, leaned
forward and remarked confidentially:
‘So you’ve been ’aving it too, have yer?’
‘I beg your pardon?’ said Mr. Trimblerigg. ‘Having what?’
‘Haven’t they been X-raying you?’ she explained inquiringly. ‘They done
it to this one ’ere six times; but it don’t show like that on ’im. Does
it ’urt much?’
‘Not at all,’ said Mr. Trimblerigg, smiling: and then, taking a plunge
at his public, for others were listening. ‘This is merely a first
experiment, I didn’t think anyone would notice it.’
He was aware that, as he spoke, the eyes of all his fellow-passengers
had gravitated towards him; that he was exciting more undivided
interest now than when he first got in.
Just then the conductor came along to collect his fare, and Mr.
Trimblerigg, who knew the amount of it, tendered a three-penny bit,
without comment.
‘Angel, sir?’ inquired the man encouragingly, naming a destination,
intent on his job. Somebody at the far end tittered, and a smile went
down the row of faces opposite.
That remark, and its reception, revealed to Mr. Trimblerigg more than
anything which had yet happened, the unfortunate position in which
any approach to the truth placed him. The spirit of the age was not
attuned to receive it seriously, far less with reverence. Dispensations
of Providence such as this no longer entered into the calculations of
men’s minds; nor was seeing believing, except on lines purely material.
Surrounded by that atmosphere of scepticism which he felt in his bones,
Mr. Trimblerigg had himself succumbed, and spoken, not as a man of
faith having things of mystery to declare, but as an experimentalist,
peddling in science--so adapting himself to a public which had no use
for things spiritual: truly an inglorious demonstration of his famous
thesis that truth is only relative.
The old lady and her companion got out, looking back at him as they
went with slightly scared eyes and puzzled smiles. One of the newspaper
readers moved up and sat next to him. The bus had halted under the
gloom of a broad railway arch, and he became aware that a gentle
light, emanating from himself, fell upon the faces on either side of
him. The newspaper reader, making acknowledgment with a pleased smile,
tilted his newspaper so as to obtain the benefit. ‘Very convenient,’ he
murmured; ‘quite a new idea. Where can one get it?’
And so challenged Mr. Trimblerigg still had not the courage to explain.
‘I haven’t the maker’s name,’ he said. ‘It isn’t mine. I’m only trying
it.’
And hearing himself so speak, he sat aghast; it was horrible thus to be
denying the light that was in him. Yet what else could he say, so as to
be believed?
‘How do you put it on?’ pursued his interrogator. ‘What is it, luminous
paint?’
‘No, nothing of that sort,’ he replied. ‘It’s a secret. I mustn’t
explain.’
And then, though he had not reached his destination, unable to bear it
any more, he called for a stop and got out.
Having alighted on the pavement, feeling painfully the concentration
of at least twenty-four pairs of eyes upon his back, he put up his
umbrella to cut off the view, though it had really ceased to rain, and
made haste away.
Somebody had got out after him. He heard steps insistently close
following him; then a voice speaking the American accent.
‘Say! pardon me, sir. Do you mind telling whether you are advertising
that as a patent? Can be got anywhere?’
‘No, it can’t exactly be got,’ said Mr. Trimblerigg, whose own more
insistent question was whether it could be got rid of. ‘It isn’t mine.
I’m just trying it.’
‘It’s very remarkable, very striking,’ said his interlocutor. ‘There’s
a future in that contraption, sure; or I’m much mistaken. You’ve
patented it, I suppose, before bringing it out? If you’re needing
capital to develop it, I’m your man.’
‘No, no,’ said Mr. Trimblerigg hastily. ‘I don’t want to develop it.
It’s developing itself; and--and,’ he hesitated--‘it isn’t for sale!’
Then, trying for once to have courage, and stand a faithful witness for
truth: ‘It’s not what you think it is,’ he said. ‘It’s not material;
it’s spiritual--a visitation; but the revelation of its meaning has not
yet come to me.’
And so saying he took a perilous run into the traffic, and dodging
death on nimble feet, got safely away to the other side.
He left behind him a stunned patriot.
‘America, you’re beaten!’ said the voice with the accent.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
_The Conversion of Caroline_
Mr. Trimblerigg joined his family in a small retired bungalow, standing
between estuary and sea, on the outskirts of a large health-resort
looking south. It was the very place for him to be--if not exactly
alone--unobserved. The shore was shadeless; across an arm of the
estuary a rickety foot-bridge led to copse and field, and across the
railroad to a wide expanse of heath. After that came the littered
margin of the town, with its cheap and scrubby architecture run up as a
trap for holiday-makers.
He had arrived by daylight, and occupying a window-seat on the sunny
side of the carriage had managed to get through without further
adventures. At the office also he had done fairly well, entering by the
door marked ‘private,’ and working with the electric light well over
him.
His children, who always loved him when they saw him, but forgot him
easily again in absence, ran boisterously to greet him, and each in
turn entered the charmed circle without making remark. So did Caroline.
They kissed him, noticing nothing.
This cheered him, but he knew it could only be for a time, and as soon
as they got to ‘The Mollusc,’ which was the bungalow’s name, he said to
his wife, ‘I want to speak to you,’ and drawing her into a room apart,
waited--to see.
She was slow to realize that anything was amiss; and this ought to have
cheered him still more. But now that it was his wife alone--a public of
which he was not afraid--he was irritated. It was an instance of the
extreme slowness of her mental uptake.
‘Well?’ he said at last, challengingly, ‘don’t you notice anything?’ He
moved from the window as he spoke. Then she did.
‘Good gracious!’ she exclaimed. ‘Jonathan, what have you been doing to
yourself? Have you been going about in town looking like that?’
This tone, from Caroline of all people, he could not stand; she at
least should be taught to look at the thing properly--with respect.
‘I have been doing nothing to myself--nothing!’ he replied. ‘As it is
the will of Heaven, you might try to speak respectfully about it--or
else hold your tongue!’
She looked at him in pained bewilderment. ‘Do you mean you can’t help
it?’ she said at last.
‘That is exactly what I _do_ mean,’ he said. His pent-up bitterness
broke out. ‘I’ve had two days of it--about as much as I can stand.
Yes! you round your eyes, but you don’t realize what it has made me
go through. It’s been spiritual desolation. I was like an owl in the
wilderness, with all the other silly owls hooting at me, taking it
for a show, a trick-turn, a patent night-light that burns all through
the day to amuse itself; and now _you_! No; it’s not X-ray; it’s not
Tatcho for the hair; it’s not luminous paint; nor is it a mechanical
adjustment to prevent people tumbling against one in the dark or help
them to read newspapers in omnibuses. All those things have been said
to me in the last twenty-four hours; and if only one of them were true,
I believe to God I should be a happier man than I am! The plagues of
Egypt may have seemed all right to Moses, but Pharaoh didn’t like them!
Why Heaven has seen fit--I don’t know.’ He paused. ‘But there it is, so
I must learn to bear it.’
Caroline said: ‘When you’ve had your supper, you’ll feel better.’
‘I shall not feel better; I shall never feel better until I
know--either what sense to make of it, or how to get rid of it. It’s
just as if--as if Heaven didn’t know that the world’s mind has changed
about things. I shall become a laughing-stock. What good will that do?’
And then Caroline, who had been brought up on biblical knowledge,
was very annoying. ‘Didn’t Jeremiah shave one side of his head?’ she
inquired, ‘or roll in the dirt and eat books, and things of that sort?
Or was it Isaiah!’
‘I don’t know,’ said Mr. Trimblerigg shortly. ‘It wasn’t me, anyway.
If one did that sort of thing to-day, one’s use in the world would be
over.’
Mr. Trimblerigg’s view was the social: Caroline’s was only the
practical: trying to be resourceful, she said. ‘You might try brushing
it.’
‘I might try cutting my head off,’ he retorted. ‘I wish you’d stop
talking foolishly.’
Then Caroline, being a dutiful wife, and seeing how much he was put
out, did her best to soothe him. ‘I don’t think people will notice it,’
she said; ‘not much if you don’t want them to.’
‘Then you’d better leave off thinking!’ he said. ‘Though I haven’t
wanted them to, they _have_ noticed: they’ve done nothing but notice!
If you like, I’ll go and put my head into the kitchen now, and you’ll
hear that charwoman of yours faint at the mere sight of me.’
‘No, she won’t,’ said Mrs. Trimblerigg, ‘she’s gone. She lays the table
for supper and then goes home, and doesn’t wash up till she comes again
in the morning. And it’s Jane’s evening out; so there’ll be nobody.’
These domestic details infuriated him; Caroline was so stupid. And she
continued to be.
‘Don’t you think you ought to see a Doctor?’ she inquired.
‘I’ll see the Doctor damned first,’ replied Mr. Trimblerigg. Her
suggestion of ice was no better received; it seemed as if she could
only annoy him. And then one of the children outside shouted, ‘Mummy,
when are we going to have supper?’
‘Go and give them their supper!’ he said; and his tone was very bitter;
bitter against her, and against the children, and against the whole
world wanting its supper, while on his head fate had laid this burden
of a blessing, too grievous for the flesh to bear. Yes, the flesh;
that was the trouble. He saw the spiritual side of it--the symbolic
splendour beckoning clear from heights which he could realize but which
the world could not. He saw that, but he saw the other side also! There
was no public for it; and if no public, where was the good--what could
he do with it? Live it down?--or so arrange matters that it should
never show? That meant cutting his life in half, and concealing the
best of it.
There he was, a furtive fugitive in the bosom of his own family; the
children wanting their supper, and he avoiding it; yet surely--if this
thing was from Heaven--children, his own children at least, ought to be
trained to grow accustomed to it, and take a right view of it. Then why
not begin?
Caroline had gone into the kitchen to get the supper ready. He called
her back. ‘I’ll come,’ he said, ‘they’ll have to see it sometime. Tell
them--for to-night at any rate--not to make remarks.’
So Mrs. Trimblerigg went off to impose discipline on the family. To the
maid she said, ‘you can go out now.’ To the children when the maid had
gone: ‘your father has got something the matter with his head. You are
not to make remarks.’
Presently she went and told him that supper was ready. A lamp was upon
the table; but it wore a shade; Mr. Trimblerigg did not, it would have
been no use. He entered the room aware, in that half-light, that he had
become conspicuous; nor could he be unconscious of the three pairs of
eyes turning upon him an expectant gaze which became riveted.
Benjie, the youngest, gave an instinctive squeak of excitement; then,
hushed by his mother but forgetting to close his mouth, he dribbled.
Mr. Trimblerigg, according to custom, stood to ask a blessing. ‘For
these, and all Thy other mercies,’ he said, and stopped short: ‘a
mercy’ was what he could not feel it to be. Conversation was slow to
begin. All the children reached out with healthy appetites for the
bread and butter. Amy, conscientious child, still all eyes, seeking an
unforbidden topic of conversation, surmounted the impediment by saying,
‘Ma, why didn’t we have pancakes to-day?’
‘Hush, my dear!’ said Caroline, who had a feeling that the remark was
too apposite; and indeed the barbed point had already gone home. So
that--thought Mr. Trimblerigg--was how it appeared to a child’s eyes!
He helped them all quickly from the dish before him; after that
they looked at him less continuously, but not less admiringly. This
eased the situation till Martin, the elder of the two boys, inquired
concerning the food upon his plate. ‘Mummy, why don’t poached eggs
have their yellow outside? Why don’t they, Mummy?’
Caroline told him not to talk, but to go on eating.
Amy remedied matters in her own way, saying wisely, ‘They do come
outside when they’re hatched; they turn into chickens then, don’t they,
Mummy?’
Martin said, ‘No, they don’t!’ and looked corroboratively at his
father. Benjie said: ‘Yes, they do: eggs do.’
Caroline said: ‘I told you not to talk.’
But children must talk, especially if there are three of them; and
Martin being now silent, Benjie took up the running.
Laying his head on one side, and stroking it with his spoon, ‘Mummy,’
he said, ‘if I was to catch fire, wouldn’t I get burned up? Wouldn’t I,
Mummy?’
Then Mr. Trimblerigg could stand it no longer; he took up his plate,
and left the room. As soon as he had closed the door he heard Benjie
give a howl, and knew that Caroline, applying useless remedies, had
slapped him.
Presently, having sent the children to bed, she came in to comfort him.
‘They’ll get used to it presently,’ she assured him, ‘if it doesn’t go
off. But I wish you’d see somebody.’ This time she avoided the word
‘doctor,’ because it irritated him.
‘I suppose they talked of me as soon as I’d gone?’ he said, ignoring
the suggestion.
‘A little, naturally,’ she replied.
‘What did they say?’
‘D’you think I’d better tell you,’ queried Caroline, wishful to spare
him.
‘Yes, I may as well hear the worst.’
‘Well,’ Martin said, ‘Is Father a holy man, Mother?’ Caroline had
made her selection apparently: she uttered it without conviction;
and to hear it so repeated gave Mr. Trimblerigg no joy. Truth from
the mouths of babes and sucklings--even revealed truth sceptically
reported--failed to comfort him.
‘I think I’ll go out for a turn by myself,’ he said. Then stopped; for
outside it was dark. He went into the bedroom instead; and Caroline
took advantage of his absence, though too late for it to get through
that night, to go and send off a telegram. It was addressed to
Davidina, and it merely repeated what she had said to the children:
‘Jonathan has something the matter with his head. Come at once.’
But though that was her view of it, Caroline had no notion how much
really was the matter with his head--having only seen the malady in its
fainter and less convincing manifestations; she had not encountered it
in the dark.
When she went up to bed she found him already in it, with a lamp on
the table beside him, reading; and at first, as she looked at him,
she thought he was already cured; the globe of light had become quite
unapparent.
Wise in her way, instead of exclaiming on the fact, she said nothing.
‘Better wait,’ she thought, ‘and give it time,’--hoping that by the
morning he would have quite got over it. And so with composed leisure,
she went first to bed, and then presently to sleep, leaving him still
at his reading. And only when Mr. Trimblerigg was quite sure she was
safely asleep, did he put out the light and resign himself to the rest
he so much needed.
The reason was that Caroline’s composed materialism had got upon his
nerves; her detached reception of Martin’s godly suggestion had dealt
him the shrewdest blow of all. So little apparently was her mind open
to conviction of a spiritual kind, that she had passed it over as not
worth a thought.
But in this Mr. Trimblerigg did Caroline an injustice; she was
merely dense to nuances; half-tones had not impressed her, and a
thing which she could only half-see she could only half-believe in.
It was far otherwise when, waking up in the small hours, she beheld
Mr. Trimblerigg’s head, unconscious but luminous, lying in a charger
of golden light--light so strong that she might have read by it. So
overwhelming was the effect of it then, that she got out of bed, fell
upon her knees beside him, and in meek simplicity, though a little late
in the day, gave him the worship which was his due; for now truly he
looked beautiful.
Her mind experienced a revulsion; he had been concealing himself from
her. All these years she had been married to a holy man and had not
known it; had even had her doubts of him. Now they were gone; that
he should be able to look like that while unconscious and asleep,
convinced her utterly. Contrite, she wept. How could she guess that in
his sleep he was only carrying on with so much more success that to
which conscious life presented difficulties? Mr. Trimblerigg was having
a pleasant dream.
CHAPTER TWENTY
“_The Desire of the Moth for the Star_”
He woke from his dream to conditions favourable to peace of mind; a
rippling sea, a sunny shore, and a day that promised to be cloudless.
They breakfasted in a verandah looking seawards, the children seemed
to miss something but said nothing; and Caroline’s manner showed an
improved change. Reserve and deference mingled with tenderness when she
spoke to him. When she suggested plans for the day she was shy and a
little nervous: for now her conscience was troubled: she had Davidina
on her mind, and was expecting the reply-telegram. She had sent off
the message without consulting him, under what she now felt to be a
misapprehension. If Davidina wired that she was coming she would have
to break it to him; and fearing that the news would not please him, she
put off the evil moment as long as possible. Her immediate anxiety was
to get him out of the house before the arrival of the telegram.
This she managed to do: and all day nursed her guilty secret that
Davidina would arrive by a late train to know what was the matter. And
as a consequence, as much as possible she avoided him.
Meanwhile Mr. Trimblerigg was thinking. Immediate conditions were
conducive to a quiet examination of the problem; but though temporarily
at ease, he was not getting more reconciled to the prospect. He had
been long accustomed to hear and speak of people being overtaken in
sin; but it had never entered his mind that, by a similar involuntary
capitulation to a stronger power, they could also be overtaken in
goodness--still less in goodness of so conspicuous a character,
attaching itself like a disease, independent of the will.
‘The white flower of a blameless life’ was a poetic phrase which, like
that other about sin, had passed into the currency of the language:
and mentally he had always been able to wear it, and feel the better
for the consciousness that it was there. But it was a different matter
when becoming visible and almost concrete, it turned into an evening
primrose, catching him by the hair of his head, and refusing to let go.
Martin’s question, ‘Is Father a holy man?’ was a child’s way of putting
it; but substantially it was so much his own point of view about the
visitation now afflicting him, that he began to wonder whether he
might not get rid of it by ceasing to be holy. If he went into the
kitchen and kissed the charwoman, if he made himself drunk, if he went
down to the marine parade and extracted cigarettes from the automatic
slot-machine by inserting metal discs instead of pennies, or if--to
make the matter worse--he were to add sacrilege to dishonesty, go into
the church and rob the poor box--if he did those or other similar
things, would this outward expression of his sanctity take itself
off--go away and leave him?
But while entertaining the fancy that it might do so, he more than
doubted it; for he felt that in his own heart he would not be doing any
of those things; that it would not really be him; internally his good
qualities and motives would remain unaffected. On such lines it would
be useless, therefore, to experiment.
But mentally was there nothing which, if sedulously entertained, might
bring him back to a more mundane and normal condition? Here, as he sat
on the shore, with his children building sand-castles near by, and his
wife making domestic sounds in the bungalow behind him, could he not
definitely will away the manifestation by a slight deflection from his
high ideals towards what is called temptation?
He began to think of Isabel Sparling; and to think of her pleasurably;
she was still attractive to him; and that he had once again held
her in his arms counted for something, gave to youthful memories a
livelier flavour--a bouquet which hitherto they had lacked. He and
Isabel Sparling had become enemies--or rather she had become his, and
had all the more remained so because he had successfully evaded and
got the better of her. But he had always liked her, her pluck, her
perseverance, her capacity, and the spark of zealous fire for a cause
which had burned in her for years, and which nothing could quench.
Provocative, annoying, unscrupulous and vindictive though she might
be, she was never dull. He knew that with her he would have had a more
uneasy time than with Caroline--yet now he wished--or told himself he
wished--that he had taken the risk, adopted her crusade as his own, and
married her. It would have been harder, more uphill work--but looking
back complacently on his successful career, due entirely to his own
powers and intuitions--he believed he could have done it. And had he
adopted that course, life, otherwise so interesting, would not have had
at its centre that dull, that very dull spot which was Caroline.
So Mr. Trimblerigg sat and thought, indulging himself with the imagined
sweetness of forbidden fruit. But as he was not in the very least
ashamed or put out of countenance by the entertainment of these wayward
fancies they had of course no effect upon him. His internal unity of
purpose not consciously weakened, he continued to feel complacent and
good, in the sense that he had always been--good to himself. It was not
as if anybody had found him out; then it would have been different. The
only person who ever found him out was Davidina; and as to her, since
their last encounter, his mind was at peace.
The evening post brought letters forwarded from town; and Caroline,
having to confess what she had done, made them the occasion for
breaking into the solitude in which all day she had left him. An added
reason was that one of the bunch was in the handwriting of Davidina. It
was futile any longer to postpone the news that Davidina was on her way
to see him.
Caroline handed him the letters, and as after sorting them through he
seemed in no hurry to open them--Davidina’s she noticed, he put aside
from the rest--she opened, on her own account, the matter wherewith she
was charged.
The Presence had begun to manifest itself again, though not as
powerfully yet, as at the moment which had brought her to her knees and
to conversion. She was moved, feeling very humble towards him; and her
eyes grew full of tears.
‘I am sorry, Jonathan, I have misjudged you,’ she said.
The announcement, though it surprised, rather pleased him; for he saw
plainly by her look that misjudgment was over.
‘How have you misjudged me, my dear?’ he asked.
‘I--I didn’t think you were always quite straight,’ she said.
‘Straight’: the word had a certain sting. It stirred faintly the
slumbers of that small sleeping dog--his conscience, which he was so
accustomed to let lie. Then his sure instinct for defence brought him
gaily to the attack.
‘Oh, yes, I know, my dear child, sometimes you’ve been jealous.’
‘No, no, never really,’ she said, ‘only I know I’m stupid--so, of
course, sometimes--’
At that she left it and returned to her point--the point she had been
wondrously cogitating all day in her slow mind. ‘No, I mean straight in
quite little things. You see, Jonathan, I know now Martin was right. I
haven’t understood you--not properly. And when I say ‘not straight,’ I
mean in such little, little things, that never seemed to matter till
now.’
This was a new experience altogether. Caroline was thoroughly
surprising him. ‘How didn’t you think I was straight?’ he asked.
‘Well, for one thing,’ she replied, ‘I know now that you _do_ take your
cold bath. I thought you didn’t.’
Had Heaven thundered and shaken off the roof, leaving nothing above but
bare sky, Mr. Trimblerigg could not have been more startled than at
those words. To poor honest Caroline, the acceptance of the spiritual
interpretation of what had happened to him meant, meant necessarily
that he had always not merely been good in his own sense of the term,
but done the straight thing--taken his baths, and in all quite small
things told the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
And then, on the top of that, while the shock of it still reverberated
through his soul, Caroline let go the thing she had come to tell him.
‘Davidina is coming,’ she said. ‘Forgive me, Jonathan, I didn’t
understand then. And when you refused to see a doctor I telegraphed for
her.’
‘What did you tell her?’
‘Only that you’d got something the matter with your head. She’s coming
by the late train. It’s nearly due.’
He sat so still that she grew frightened. She reached out a hand and
touched him.
‘Go away,’ he said, ‘let me alone!’
And weeping she got up and left him.
For a long while he sat on, motionless, unable to move. Doubt leapt in
on him, engulfed him: blackness--such as he had never known before--was
upon his soul. Not Davidina--no, not Davidina herself, whom he had now
to expect by the late train--had ever dealt him so devastating a blow.
‘Now I know you take your cold bath: I thought you didn’t.’
O pellucid Eve: O rib of Adam, how naked hast thou made the man for
whom thou wast formed! And this without in the least intending it, or
knowing what she had done.
It was true that, even now, she had not found him out; but she had
revealed to him with fatal clearness the fact that the shirking of a
cold bath and the wearing of a yellow halo were incompatible. And this
was the worst thing she had against him, this trivial doubt; but it was
enough. Down came his castle. A horrid blush went over him--down even
into his clothes; it went farther, had he only known.
‘Thou, Lord, seest me!’ he said to himself, got up, and went swiftly
out into the starlit dusk carrying a red light.
And then the thought of Davidina, coming on the top of this, struck him
cold. He remembered that he had upon him a letter from her which he
had not yet read; opening it, he drew out the contents. There was no
need to go indoors to get a light; that which he had was sufficient.
The letter was very brief and to the point. ‘Found you out! but no
matter: you did the honest thing with your eyes open--for once.’
Enclosed was an old envelope, cut open across the top, still bearing
its seal, addressed to Davidina in Uncle Phineas’s handwriting.
Minutely examining the seal, he found--what Davidina also had
found--traces of his own handiwork, a scar showing where it had been
removed and put on again.
‘Idiot!’ he said to himself--why hadn’t he covered up the breakage with
a larger seal? Or why, again, after all those years had he troubled to
tell a lie about it? But the reason for that he knew; it was so that he
might stand well--better than he had ever stood before--in Davidina’s
eyes. Just that once, so simply, so easily, by so slight a departure
from the truth--he had got the better of her; and now her clutch was
upon him again. She was coming through the dark night; he must meet her
face to face, and hear her asking in hard matter-of-fact tone: ‘Well,
what’s the matter now?’
Through the house he heard a knock at the front door; the thought that
it might possibly be Davidina, come earlier than she was expected,
drove him down the garden in flight and out by the back way. He was
suffering badly. The double buffet--Caroline’s, followed by Davidina’s,
had left him dazed; he had no spirit left. If there had ever been doubt
of him in his wife’s easy-going and utterly domesticated mind, how
could he meet the all-seeing eye of Davidina, in the expectation that
his shining certificate of virtue would, even for a moment, divert her
from common sense? All the haloes in the world would not convince
Davidina that he really took his bath of a cold morning: it would
convince her of nothing of which he would like her to be convinced, but
only of other things that he would rather she did not know.
And yet the thought stuck to him, ‘I am good, sometimes.’ To that
anchor he clung like a drowning man who happens also to be a little
drunk. If he could only have let the anchor go it would have given him
a better chance. But no--a sense of his sometimes exceeding goodness
still clung to him. Out into the night he went, and his blush went with
him--extending farther than he knew.
All the mercury of his composition had gone down into his boots; and
though he still believed in himself he was very, very miserable. The
fact that he attracted moths, added to his depression. It was merely
one more indication of the futility of the moral emblem which had
fastened in on him. Coming to a stile leading into fields, he made
it his _prie-Dieu_, and kneeling on the foot-rest bowed his head and
prayed: ‘O Lord, take away my life; thou hast laid on me a burden too
heavy for me to bear!’ So, characteristically--I had often heard him do
it before--still shifting the blame from himself to others.
One did for him what one could--stirred memories he had striven to make
dormant, suggested to him interpretations of his action in the past
which at other times he would have denied vehemently. All I could do I
did to make him shake off for good that halo of self-worship with which
he had surrounded himself. But, as always when he took to his knees, he
left me with a peculiar sense of helplessness. His tendency to defend
himself in prayer not only from the imputations the world made against
him, but from the imputations of his own conscience, was just as much
in evidence as ever; and familiarity with the Scriptures continued to
make sincerity of speech difficult. Quotations from the Old Testament
kept coming into his head to be hurled at mine, as though, from such a
source, they must needs be true statements of fact.
‘I have been very zealous for the Lord God,’ he cried; and then having
chosen his prophet, started upon variations. ‘The priests of Baal I
have slain; I have broken down their altars; and I, only I, am left,
desolate.’ He was not arguing, he was telling me.
With his persistencies and his prevarications he made me really angry
at last; for he would not leave off. As Jonah once had a great fish
prepared for him, so I prepared and drove a cow up to the stile where
he was kneeling. It touched him with its nose. In the darkness he
mistook it for a passer-by, waiting to get over. Apologizing he got up
and stood aside; and when he discovered his mistake it made him feel
very foolish.
He ceased praying, and rambling quickly across the field, found himself
presently at a level-crossing. Away on the other side he heard mixed
music, shouting, laughter, and the crack of toy fire-arms, where the
heath had temporarily become a fair-ground. From farther away in the
distance came the mumble of an approaching train.
As he trod the metals, he wondered--his sense of direction being
defective--which was the up and which the down line. He stood still
on the track. Suddenly into his quick divided mind the thought
flashed--suppose there were an accident! He had heard of people
standing to watch trains becoming fascinated by them, hypnotized,
unable to move. Hypnotism would, he supposed, provide a comparatively
happy death: it would also make the recipient irresponsible for his
actions. Well, an express train might do it; but of local or luggage
trains he was doubtful; they had not sufficient thunder or speed.
And so, between two rails, and still of two minds as usual, he halted
and waited. The idea began to fascinate him, as always where so much
hung upon chance. Was he standing on the right track? Would it be an
express, or would it be a local. And then the thought--if it were an
express, and with track coinciding, would he after death display to a
remorseful world that sign of divine approbation which as a living man
now so encumbered him?
It was a wonderful and an inspiring thought; and as it came forthwith
it blazed into a certainty; he became exalted and uplifted in spirit.
Yes, posterity would see him in his true light, as he had always felt
himself to be in those blessed moments when it was borne in on him
that his whole life was a mission, and he himself the great modern
evangelist making goodness a thing simple to the understanding. What a
beautiful end! he thought. Even Davidina would be sorry then for her
past misreadings of his character.
The train leapt into view. It did not leave him long in doubt; it
was an express and a fast one at that. He watched it, and became
fascinated. Power of control left him: his mind soared in a vague
hopeful ecstasy toward the stars. He saw Sirius winking at him--Sirius,
which had always been his special star, his affinity. He winked back at
it: tears rushed to his eyes, he became blind.
Absolutely irresponsible for his actions now, he stood unable to move,
his whole body possessed by the mighty rushing sound which filled his
ears; the world around, the heaven above, the earth beneath grew full
of the thunder of it. Upon those monstrous vibrations his soul mounted
to bliss; he had become superior to his own body at last, did not mind,
was not afraid. Heaven had been gracious to him after all.
Suddenly the engine, opening its throttle, gave a ghastly scream.
With a blast of its nostrils, a rattling of chains, a grinding of
brakes, and a screeching of wheels, which sent shuddering discords
to the night, it came to a precipitate standstill, less than a dozen
yards from where Mr. Trimblerigg stood with sapling feet waiting to be
uprooted for another and a better world.
Those horrible noises, and the abrupt abatement of its speed snatched
Mr. Trimblerigg from his trance. With loosened knees and presence
of mind mercifully restored, now only apprehensive of detection and
capture, he sped swiftly away; high-hedged night received him into its
obliterating embrace; the track was clear.
A stoker, descending hastily from the arrested train, searched the line
ahead. His voice swung back angrily out of the darkness:
‘Red light? I don’t see no red light. It’s some damned fool’s been
having a blooming game with us--that was all.’
And so, with a rich accompaniment of expletives from stoker and driver,
the express proceeded upon its way.
Mr. Trimblerigg, in a much more shaken state, did the same.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
_A Run for Life_
The shock of his escape had left Mr. Trimblerigg dazed and tremulous.
He went feebly, not yet quite reawakened to the world which, in that
moment of exaltation, he had thought to be leaving behind him. But
instinct, and the loud jolly sounds of his fellow-creatures drew him
toward the glaring lights and bustle of the fair-ground. An illuminated
crowd was a refuge from his condition; amid the flare of those naphtha
lamps his radiance would be unapparent.
But while he thus moved toward the light, he forgot that his back was
to darkness, and as he skirted the outer circle of the booths, standing
shoulder to shoulder with their farther sides dressed to the staring
crowd in gaudy habiliments of painted canvas, he was startled to hear a
voice exclaim, ‘What’s that bloody sunset doing there?’ and to perceive
that it was directed at him.
The showman, jumping down from the back door of his van, ran hastily
towards him, thrust a bewildered face at him, and stopped amazed.
‘Well, of all blinking wonders,’ he cried, ‘you take the cake!’
Mr. Trimblerigg, trying by superior calmness to control the awkward
situation, wished him a good evening, and was for passing on.
The man caught him by the arm. ‘Here! which of the blooming shows d’you
belong to? I hadn’t heard tell of you.’
Mr. Trimblerigg replied that he did not belong to any show. The man was
dumbfounded.
‘You don’t mean to say you’re going about here giving yourself away
for nothing?’ he managed to say at last. ‘You ain’t advertising
anything, are you?’
‘No; I’ve just been taking a turn,’ said Mr. Trimblerigg. ‘Now I’m
going home.’
‘You aren’t!’ cried the showman, with an eagerness that was almost like
agony. ‘Here, come along into my show, and you shall have half the
takings. Honest, I mean it! And you shall have a money-box of your own
to pass round too, if that ain’t enough,’ he added, seeing that his
first offer had failed in attraction.
‘You don’t understand,’ said Mr. Trimblerigg, assuming a mild dignity
which he did not feel: ‘This is entirely my own affair. I’m not a show.’
Stupefied, bewildered, outraged, the man stood and looked at him for a
moment, to see whether he really meant it. Then, his admiration turning
to hate: ‘You aren’t?’ he shouted, ‘Then what the blooming hell are
you? If you aren’t a show, what did you come ’ere for? Got a game of
your own on, have you? We’ll soon see to that. Hi!’
He shouted with all the strength of his lungs, and continued to shout,
waving his arms to attract the attention of the crowd. ‘Here’s an
escaped lunatic!’ he cried.
Mr. Trimblerigg started to run. He heard the shouts of others gathering
behind him, dodged round a canvas obstruction, doubled back, made a
bolt through a hedge, and thus securing a good start made off across
the open in the direction of home.
But in less than a minute he knew that the crowd was after him; jovial,
but excited,--for the mere fact that there is something to chase
kindles the blood--it hurled after him heavy-footed, a little slow in
the uptake, but warming to its task at the sight of its quarry half a
field away, a blister of red bouncing through the starlit night, and
under it showing dimly a man’s form.
As the crowd neared him, its uncouth epithets assailed his ears.
‘Holy Moses!’ was the cry of one; ‘Go up, Elijah!’ of another. Then
as they got near him and marked how desperately he ran, ‘Hullo, old
fire-escape!’ gave the more modern touch which the situation required.
Mr. Trimblerigg could not run nearly so fast as the crowd; but at the
level-crossing fate was kind to him. An arriving luggage-train--not
without some risk--allowed him to pass in front of it, and then with
its slow length held up his pursuers. But the more active ones, running
down the line turned the tail-light of the guard’s van, broke fence,
cut a slant and were on him again.
Once more fate favoured him. At the home stile the cow which had
interrupted his prayer had couched itself for the night. Perceiving
the recumbent obstruction too late, he planted his foot on it; with
a spasmodic heave she hurled him across quicker than he could have
vaulted, and plunging about broke momentarily the head of the oncoming
crowd.
It was amazing with what spirit Mr. Trimblerigg--not being in running
condition--had kept the pace; but he was a very spent man when he
reached the narrow foot-bridge, and sped breathless to the crossing,
his pursuers only a few yards behind. The tide was low: black
glimmerings of mud stretched to right and left of him: he trod warily
clutching at the hand-rail as he ran to stay the dizzying of his brain.
Before he reached the end, a violent vibration told that his pursuers
were now almost upon him; the bridge resounded to the weight and tread
of a larger number than it was built for. Under Mr. Trimblerigg’s
feet a plank started; the weight pressing it behind jerked it upwards.
Somewhere with a sharp report a stay snapped, then another and another;
and with a sense of general collapse going on behind him, from which he
himself was immune, Mr. Trimblerigg felt himself precipitated through
the air in a long gliding curve, up, out, forward, and down. A shallow
mud-bank received him into its merciful embrace. He stumbled out of it
unhurt, but in so dark a disguise, that all the mothers in the world
would not have known him.
Leaving his enemies behind in far worse plight, he staggered up to the
door which had already opened to those sounds of break-neck disaster
borne upon the quiet air.
He saw Davidina standing dark against the light, and even in the
desperation of his present condition he felt the shock of it, and
shrank back from meeting her--not because of the mud which now encased
him, but because of that other adornment, which he could explain so far
less easily. But the relief he had longed for had already been brought
about: the mere sight of her had made him a changed man; and though her
greeting word, as she ran down the path to meet him was, ‘Jonathan,
whatever is the matter?’ she made no further remark indicative of
surprise. All about him the night was beautifully dark; there was
no reflected light upon her face as she bent forward to kiss him.
The shock of meeting her had done it. Mr. Trimblerigg had no longer
anything to conceal.
They cleaned him of the mud which smothered him. ‘You don’t _smell_ of
drink,’ said Davidina, ‘but you look like it. What’s this Caroline has
been telling me about your head? What’s wrong with it?’
And, at the word, what he had already begun suspiciously to hope, he
became sure of. Heaven was no longer making him conspicuous.
‘What did she tell you?’ he inquired defensively. ‘There’s nothing the
matter with my head that I know of.’
‘Said you’d been striking sparks--having a vision that your head was a
hayrick that had caught fire; and now she won’t tell me anything: says
you’ve sworn her to secrecy.’
‘She must have dreamed it!’ said Mr. Trimblerigg.
He saw Caroline go white.
‘Dreamed it?’ exclaimed Davidina. ‘If she dreams things like that she
wants a doctor.’
She did. On hearing that she must not believe the evidence of her
senses, Caroline fainted.
*
Full many a rose, the poet tells us, is born to blush unseen, and waste
its sweetness to the desert air. Mr. Trimblerigg’s rose had experienced
a somewhat different fate; it may have wasted its sweetness, but it
had not blushed altogether unseen; and though it died blushing for
itself, it had not lived in vain. The conversion of Caroline to its
spiritual significance had proved unimportant; the realization by Mr.
Trimblerigg of its extreme inconvenience had made a temporary but not
a permanent impression upon him, as further record will show. Davidina
had not seen it at all, it had snuffed itself out at the sight of
her. But somebody else had seen it, and had realized not merely its
spiritual significance, but its potential value, which Mr. Trimblerigg
had missed, or too hastily despaired of. And the person in question had
seen it not once but twice, on two separate occasions.
When Mrs. James told Isabel Sparling that Mr. Trimblerigg was not at
home and had already left town, Miss Sparling had either the sense or
the instinct not to believe her. And being a determined character, she
had hung about at a respectful distance, keeping her eye on the door,
rather expecting him to come out of it than to go into it. Muffled in
veil and cloak--the former to conceal her bandaged face--she had walked
up and down the farther pavement, with her senses alert for the coming
or going of that familiar figure, until in the early gathering dusk,
the apparition passed her, going with haste along the verge of the
pavement in the line of the lamp-lights.
Isabel Sparling had this advantage over others who had seen, or doubted
that they could have seen, that same mystical appearance in the earlier
hours of the day. She was herself a spiritualist and a visionary; she
believed in things which the world in general did not, and was on the
look-out for them. She had recently, among her other beliefs, become a
Second Adventist, and was looking for the end of the world; this event
was to be preceded by a great war, by earthquake, by things happening
to the sun and moon; by the opening of the seven seals upon a certain
box which had recently come into her custody, and by the reappearance
of saints from their graves, preparatory to the reappearance of
others who were not saints. And for all these things she was already
hungrily expectant, when she met a halo walking down the street. It
came upon her suddenly round a corner, and had passed before she fully
realized that it encircled the head of the man whose false friendship
had changed her feelings to enmity. Her intention, in seeking him out
and lying in wait for him, had been to return in person the money he
had left for her; and though she had meant to thank him for his good
services, she had not meant entirely to forgive him, but rather to
explore his spiritual condition, and warn him, as she had begun warning
the world at large, of the wrath that was to come.
But seeing him there, with head clothed in light, her feelings toward
him changed. She was seized with an instant conviction that she had
misread his character, or that she had not made allowances for the
difficulties of one destined to fulfil a high mission in the spiritual
crisis which the world was now approaching. The sight of him thus
augustly changed, speeding furtively along, avoiding human recognition,
filled her with awe and humility; she could not go and return money to
a head in a halo; she could not, with the emotion of that discovery
fresh upon her, follow him, ring the bell and ask for him--perhaps
only to be denied. But twenty-four hours later, after much spiritual
wrestling with herself and him (for her thoughts thereafter were never
quit of him) she did find courage to go and knock at the door of the
Mollusc wherein he had secreted himself from the world--the knock which
he had heard and thought might be Davidina; and when the dull Caroline,
without recognition or inquiry, had told her, in the double sense, that
he was not at home, she let herself be turned away without protest; and
standing forlorn, contemplative of that quiet scene of shore, river
and star-brimmed sky, saw away in the mid-distance a globed cluster of
moving light crossing the small foot-bridge, and making for the fields
beyond. Then to her also came the sense of a mission, and prevailing in
weakness she stole after him.
Following at a devout, that is to say at more than a respectful
distance, she saw him dimly by his light rather than by his form, cross
the field and halt at the stile to pray.
Drawing nearer, she durst not then intrude on him; and when he had
got upon his feet and passed on, she, following close after, found an
impediment of an insuperable kind awaiting her.
Isabel Sparling was mortally afraid of cows; and there one stood in her
way; and after standing for awhile and gazing at her with a munching
movement of the mouth which she felt sure meant mischief, it lay down
upon the footpath to wait for its prey to come over.
And thus it was that, without a full clue to its meaning, she became
spectator to the unexplained scene of horror which followed after. She
watched his light resting at the level-crossing to await the passing
of a train, then saw it dwindle and merge in the broad band of fire
amid which the junketing fair sat and bubbled; and wondered whether he
had gone there to preach repentance like Jonah to the inhabitants of
Nineveh. Her next sight of him was fleeing before a crowd that seemed
thirsting for his blood, awhile holding his own, but presently losing
ground, then by the intervention of Providence gaining more than he
had lost. As he came headlong toward her, she nerved herself for his
deliverance, was prepared to stand between him and the hungry crowd,
declare his sanctity, die if need be instead of him; and so she would
have done had not the cow got suddenly upon its feet--hind legs first
in that horrible way which cows have when they intend to toss people.
That finished her, she saw the rest of the chase from a distance, heard
the crash of the broken bridge, cries, curses; and presently met a
crowd of maimed larrikins, muddy, drenched and miserable, carrying each
other home. But even had she then dared to go further, and inquire for
more news that the angry comments of the crowd gave of his escape, the
broken bridge prevented her; and the next day, stealing by furtive ways
to watch unobserved, she saw Mr. Trimblerigg clothed and in his right
mind, tended by female relatives, accompanied by his children, and his
glory all gone from him.
And that, for the time being, was the conclusion of the matter; but not
the real conclusion, for then came war; and Isabel Sparling, girding
up her spiritual loins, preached that the world was to end,--that her
people and her native country were to be punished for their sins, but
other countries much more. Gradually, swayed by the patriotic crowds
which gathered to hear her and cheer on others to do their fighting,
she became harder upon the other countries, and let her own and its
allies off; and before the war had been on a twelvemonth they had all
become angels of light, chosen vessels, ministering spirits and flames
of fire. For that is what war does; while in a physical sense it paints
most things red, in a moral sense it paints them black or white; and
the black is the enemy, and the white is ourselves; and the neutral, if
neutral there be, is a dirty tint which badly needs washing.
As for Mr. Trimblerigg, having found that there was no public for
it, he relinquished goodness of the first water, and fell back upon
relative goodness and relative truth, in which, as a matter of fact, he
had a more instinctive belief.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
_Intimations of Immortality_
When nations which preach Christianity go to war, their truth has
necessarily to become relative; they cannot tell the truth about
themselves; they cannot tell the truth about their enemies; still less
can they tell the truth about Christianity. For doing that last, a Free
Church minister in a certain land of hope and glory lying West,--he had
merely issued the Sermon on the Mount as a circular--was tarred and
feathered as a demonstration of Christian-mindedness by his belligerent
fellow-countrymen. And nearly everybody said that it served him right.
So when Relative Truth became a spiritual as well as a military
necessity, Mr. Trimblerigg, the inventor of the doctrine in its most
modern form, came gloriously into his own. In other words he became the
fashion.
The War gave him the time and the opportunity of his life. He had
begun by adopting--first pacifism, then benevolent neutrality; but
he saw quickly that there was not a public for either. And as he
listened to the heart-beats of his countrymen roused for battle, a
quick application of his doctrine of Relative Truth restored his mind
to sanity. After that he never wavered; and though he often spoke with
two voices, one day telling the workers, whom he was sent to preach
to, that they were heroes, and another that they were slackers, and
victims of drink; one day demonstrating that the National Executive’s
action had always come just too late, another that it had always come
miraculously up to time; one day protesting the mildness and equity of
his country’s intentions toward those who were unnecessarily prolonging
the war, another--when prospects began to look brighter--threatening
things of a much more drastic character, in terms drawn from the
prize-ring; though thus from day to day and week to week, he spoke
in varied tones, fitting himself to the occasion, always a forefront
figure, occasionally pushing others out of his way; nevertheless
his motive and aim remained constant (nor when nations go to war is
anything more necessary for their salvation)--the ardent assertion,
namely, of the absolute righteousness of his country’s cause, and of
the blameless antecedents leading up to it.
And though Mr. Trimblerigg’s truth was often extremely relative, it was
nearly always successful; and if any man by tireless energy, resilient
spirits, continuous ubiquity in pulpit and on platform, alertness,
invention, suggestiveness, adaptability, rapid change of front in the
ever-shifting tactics of propaganda,--now conciliatory and defensive,
meek but firm; now whole-heartedly aggressive and vision-clear of
coming victory--if by such qualities, richly and rapidly blended
outside the direct line of fire, any man could ever be said to have won
a war, in a larger and wider sense than the little drummer boy who lays
down his life for his drum,--that compliment might have been paid, when
all was done, to the unbloodstained Mr. Trimblerigg,--and was.
In the person of Mr. Trimblerigg the Free Evangelical Church had lifted
up its head and neighed like a war-horse, saying among the trumpets,
ha! ha! to the thunder of the captains and the shouting: and in the
person of Mr. Trimblerigg thanks were publicly tendered to it, when
all the fighting was over. And though Mr. Trimblerigg received neither
title, nor outward adornment, nor emolument, he became, from that day
on, a figure of international significance,--the first perhaps since
great old combative Martin Luther, to attain so high and controversial
a prominence in divided Christendom on his spiritual merits alone.
It may sound cynical to say that the greatness of nations has very
largely been built up on the lies they have told of each other. And yet
it is a true statement; for you have only to compare their histories,
and especially the histories of their wars (upon which young patriots
are trained to become heroes), in order to realize that the day of
naked and unashamed truth has not yet arrived: that so long as nations
stand to be worshipped, and flags to be fought for, truth can only be
relative. From which it follows that while nations are at war too much
truth is bad for them; and not only for them but for religion also.
And that is where and why Mr. Trimblerigg found his place, and fitted
it so exactly. I leave it at that. He became a national hero; and
truly it was not from lack of courage or conviction that he had seen
no fighting. He was short, and fat, and over forty; and his oratorical
gifts were more valuable where the sound of gunfire did not drown them;
otherwise he would have preached his gospel of the relative beatitudes
as willingly from the cannon’s mouth as from anywhere.
A day came, gunfire having ended, when he, and an Archbishop, and
a Prime Minister all stood on a platform together, and spoke to an
exalted gathering too glittering in its rank and distinction to be
called an assembled multitude, though its mere numbers ran into
thousands. The Archbishop sat in the middle; and the two ministers, the
political and the spiritual, sat on either side of him; and if they
were not as like each other as two peas, and did not, by both speaking
at once, rattle together like peas upon a drum, they were nevertheless
birds very much of a feather; and when it came to the speaking, they
fitted each other wonderfully. The Archbishop came first and spoke
well; the Prime Minister followed and spoke better; Mr. Trimblerigg
came last and spoke best of all. The audience told him so; there was no
doubt of it. Field-Marshals and Rear-Admirals applauded him, Duchesses
waved their handkerchiefs at him; a Dowager-Countess, of Low Church
antecedents, became next day a member of the Free Evangelicals; the
mere strength of his personality had converted her.
Mr. Trimblerigg might well think after this that a visible halo, though
not necessary, had it reappeared just then, would not have come amiss.
From his point of view the meeting could not have been more successful;
he went down from the platform more famous than when he went up on it.
And it was not his speech alone that did it: it was in the air.
The great Napoleon was said to have a star: Mr. Trimblerigg had an
atmosphere; and though it was not really the larger of the two, to his
contemporaries on earth it seemed larger.
It was just about this time, when Mr. Trimblerigg was obviously
becoming a candidate for national honours after his death, that he
attended the public funeral of a great Free Church statesman whose
war-winning activities had been closely associated with his own. And as
of the two, Mr. Trimblerigg had played the larger part, the prophetic
inference was obvious; and though in that high-vaulted aisle, amid
uniforms and decorations and wands of office, his demure little figure
looked humble and unimportant, he was a marked man for the observation
of all who had come to observe.
It was an occasion on which Free Churchmen had reason to feel proud.
Impelled by the feeling of the nation--still in its early days of
gratitude before victory had begun to taste bitter--the Episcopal
Church had opened her doors to receive, into that place of highest
honour, the dust of one who had lived outside her communion and
politically had fought against her. But it was dust only (ashes,
that is to say); and while to Mr. Trimblerigg’s perception the whole
ceremony, the music, the ritual, the vestments, the crape-scarved
uniforms, and the dark crowd of celebrities which formed a background,
were deeply impressive in their beauty and symbolism, the little casket
of cremated ashes at the centre of it all was not.
In that forced economizing of space, the sense of the individual
personality had been lost, or brought to insignificance. It gave him
an uncomfortable feeling; he did not like it; he wondered why. So
long as his thoughts went linked with the indwelling genius of that
temple of famous memories he felt thrilled and edified; but whenever
his eye returned to the small casket, he experienced a repeated shock
and felt discomfited. The condition here imposed, to make national
obsequies possible, seemed to him not merely a humiliating one; it
spelt annihilation; what remained had ceased to be personal. The
temple became a museum; in it with much ceremony an exhibit was being
deposited in its case.
And so, pondering deeply on these things, he returned home; and added
to his will (signing and dating it with a much earlier date) an
instruction for his executors, ‘My body is not to be cremated.’
Genius is economy. It could not have been more modestly done.
Somewhere or another, very near to where he had stood that afternoon,
a grave was waiting for him. Those few strokes of the pen had decided
that its dimensions should be not eighteen inches by ten; but five feet
four by two.
But the time was not yet: the instruction added to his will need not
begin to take effect for a good many years. Meanwhile his corner of
immortality waited for him, measured by himself to suit his own taste.
It came back to him then as a pleasant simile of fancy, that he had
had an uncle who was an undertaker. It ran in the family. Here was Mr.
Trimblerigg--his own!
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
_Peace-Work_
To become the spiritual voice of a nation is a rare experience, and
in the history of the race it has come to the individual but seldom.
But when it happens, he is a greater power than military leader, or
politician, or popular preacher, unless in one man all three functions
find themselves combined; then, without much justification in fact,
a people may mistake the combination for the more rare and genuine
article.
It could not exactly be said of Mr. Trimblerigg at this time that
he was a military leader; but the idea had been industriously
disseminated, by his admirers and by himself during the war, that
had he been he would have been a brilliant one. Nor was he exactly a
politician; but he had been very busy and energetic in putting the
politicians right, so that, as they went out of favour in public
estimation, he came in. For the rest, a popular preacher he was, and a
very wonderful one; though it is a curious fact that his sermons and
speeches do not read well in print. Mr. Trimblerigg’s orations were
gymnastic exercises and histrionic performances combined; and these
things lose their effect when reduced to print. Nevertheless he had
now become a Voice, and the sound of him travelled wherever his native
tongue was spoken, war-conditions having given it an atmosphere that it
could fill.
His military instinct he had mainly shown by running about in moments
of crisis and pinning his faith to commanders who up till then had
escaped defeat. When he found he had made a mistake, he dropped them so
quickly that nobody remembered he had ever believed in them; and having
thus discovered three or four and lost them again, he finally hit upon
the right one. Having done that, he did not allow it to be forgotten,
so that the reputation which survived the final and triumphant
catastrophe remained partly his.
His political instinct produced more definite and more solid results;
he persuaded the politicians to do a lot of things which at other
times they would not have dared. Some of these things were not very
scrupulous, and others were not very successful; but they were all
military necessities, and as only the relative truth was told about
them, they took their place in the general scheme of things; and if
they did not exactly do good, they were good for the morale of the
nation for the time being.
And while he thus persuaded the politicians to do things hitherto
impossible for the benefit of the whole nation, he persuaded the Free
Evangelicals also; and in his own time and his own way he secured for
Isabel Sparling and others the desire of their souls which had been
so long denied them. But in that matter, though the thing was done
well and quickly when it was done, he missed something of his intended
effect from the fact that the whole world was then so busy about war
that nothing else seemed much to matter. The sudden admission of women
to the ministry appeared then a mere side-issue, an emergency measure
devised to meet the shortage of men theologically qualified for the
vacant pastorates of congregations abruptly depleted of their young
male element. Thus Mr. Trimblerigg’s very real achievement in the
pulpiteering of women was regarded, even among the Free Evangelicals,
far more as a war-product than as his own.
Also for Isabel Sparling herself, whom he wished to impress, it had
ceased much to matter. She had become a Second Adventist; and among
the Second Adventists it was admitted that women could prophesy as well
as men. Miss Sparling had gone prophesying to America; and had caused
a great sensation in New York by prophesying that Brooklyn Bridge had
become unsafe, and would fall if America did not enter the war. She
gave a date: and America saved Brooklyn Bridge to posterity only just
in time. After that the success of Miss Sparling’s American mission was
assured; and whenever the States seemed momentarily to slacken in their
purpose or diminish in their zeal for the rescue of a civilization they
did not understand, Miss Sparling selected some cherished institution
or monument, and began threatening its life; and when, after due
warning a bomb was discovered inside the statue of Liberty just
preparing to go off, she got headlines for Second Adventism which had
never been equalled since Barnum’s landing of Jumbo (representative of
a still older civilization than that which was now imperilled) some
forty years before.
All this is told here merely to indicate what a match to himself Mr.
Trimblerigg had missed by not marrying Isabel Sparling in the days of
his youth. Had they only put their heads together earlier, kingdoms
might have come of which the world has now missed its chance--not
knowing what it has missed; for there can be no doubt that its
spiritual adhesions are not now what they were ten years ago; the
pulpit has sagged a little on its foundations and congregations have
become critical, sceptical even, though they still attend. The doctrine
of Relative Truth has undone more than it intended; and though Mr.
Trimblerigg was not a disappointed man at the moment when war declared
itself over, disappointment was waiting him.
Not at first, as I say. At first, no doubt, as he pulled the wires,
he thought he was plucking from harpstrings of gold, harmonies which
could be heard in Heaven. But his atmosphere affected him; and just
when victory brought him spiritual opportunities such as had never
been his before, he had a sharp attack of the Old Testament, and his
self-righteousness became as the self-righteousness of Moses and the
prophets all rolled into one.
It was then, perceiving that a huge and expectant public was waiting
for him to give the word, that he sent forth the fiery cross bearing
upon it as the battle-cry of peace the double motto ‘Skin the
Scapegoat,’--‘Hew Agag.’
Both sounded well, and both caught on, and for a brief while served
the occasion: but neither made a success of it. The skinning of the
scapegoat lasted for years; but in the process, it became so denuded
by mange that when the skin was finally obtained it proved worthless.
As for Agag he did not come to be hewn at all, walking delicately; on
the contrary he ran and hid himself in a safe place, where, though the
hewers pretended that they meant to get at him, they knew they could
not. And as a consequence Agag remains unhewn to this day.
And, as a matter of fact, almost from the first, Mr. Trimblerigg,
having given his public what it wanted, knew that it would be so.
He also knew that in high places it was willed that it should not be
otherwise. And here may be recorded the bit of unwritten history which
brought that home to him.
Everybody to whom mediumistic spiritualism makes any appeal has, in
these last days, heard of Sir Roland Skoyle, the great protagonist
of that artful science, by which in equal proportion the sceptics
are confounded, and the credulous are comforted. And that being,
up-to-date, its chief apparent use in the world, it is no wonder
that a certain diplomatist turned to it when he launched his great
peace-making offensive, after the War was over. For diplomacy having to
make its account equally with those who are sceptical of its benefits,
and those who are credulous, it seemed to his alert and adaptable
intelligence that a little spiritualism behind the scenes might give
him the aid and insight that he required.
The direct incentive came from Sir Roland Skoyle himself. He had
secured a wonderful new medium, whose magnetic finger had a specialized
faculty for resting upon certain people of importance--people who had
been of importance, that is to say--in high circles of diplomacy; and
amongst them some who had been largely instrumental in bringing the
world into the condition in which it now found itself. Among these--the
war-makers and peace-makers of the immediate past--it was natural, war
being over, that the latter should be in special request, where the
problem of diplomacy was to construct a peace satisfactory to that
vast body of public opinion which had ceased to be blood-thirsty on a
large scale, but whose instinct for retributive justice to be dealt out
to the wicked by a court of their accusers had become correspondingly
active.
Sir Roland Skoyle, anxious to impress the Prime Minister with the value
of his discovery, had the happy thought of employing Mr. Trimblerigg as
his go-between. And Mr. Trimblerigg having heard a certain name, august
and revered, breathed into his ear, together with the gist of a recent
communication that had come direct, was not averse from attending a
séance in such select and exalted company. He had an open mind and
plenty of curiosity, and the idea of sharing with the Prime Minister
a secret so compromising that no one else must know of it, strongly
attracted him.
And so the sitting was arranged. And there in a darkened room the four
of them sat,--Sir Roland, the medium, Mr. Trimblerigg, and the Prime
Minister.
The medium was small and dark, and middle-aged; she had bright eyes
under a straight fringe and she spoke with a twang. There was no doubt
which side of the water she had come from. Until the previous year,
except for a few days after her birth, her home had been the United
States. The actual place of her birth was important; it helped to
account for her powers; Sir Roland having recently discovered that
the best mediums were people of mixed origin, born on the high seas.
This particular medium, having been born in the mid-Atlantic, was
Irish-American.
The theory of sea-born commerce with the world of spirits I leave to
Sir Roland Skoyle and his fellow experts. My own reason for referring
back to birth and parentage is merely that when the medium had entered
into her trance she no longer spoke that rich broth of a language
formed from two which was natural to her; but acquired an accent and a
mode of delivery entirely different; the accent having in it a faint
touch of the Teutonic, the delivery formal, well-bred, and courtly;
even when the speech was colloquial there was about it a touch of
dignity. And while she so spoke, in a manly voice, the little woman sat
with an air like one enthroned.
The Prime Minister sat jauntily, thumbs in waistcoat, and listened as
one interested and amused, but not as yet convinced. To Mr. Trimblerigg
he said chirpily, ‘If the other side got wind of this, and used it
properly, they could drive me out of office.’
‘That makes it all the more of an adventure,’ replied Mr. Trimblerigg.
‘I should be in trouble too. The Free Evangelical Church has pronounced
against--well, this sort of thing altogether: “Comes of evil”.’
Sir Roland said, ‘In a year’s time we shall have the whole world
converted.’ But Sir Roland was always saying that. Still, table-turning
and its accompaniments had certainly received a great impetus since the
War; for which reason Mr. Trimblerigg took a friendly view of it.
The medium’s first remark in her changed manner was sufficiently
startling and to the point:
‘Where is my crown?... Put it on.’
Sir Roland resourcefully picked up a small paper-weight, on which a
brass lion sat regardant, and deposited it precariously on the medium’s
hair.
‘Who’ve you got here? Not Eliza, I hope?’ said the Voice.
Sir Roland, in a tone of marked deference, gave the names of the
company. Two of them were graciously recognized. ‘Mr. Trimblerigg? We
have not had the pleasure of meeting him before. How do you do, Mr.
Trimblerigg?’
Mr. Trimblerigg, at a gesture from Sir Roland, bowed over the hand the
medium had graciously extended.
‘Do I kiss it?’ he inquired, doubtful of the etiquette.
Sir Roland discreetly shook his head. The ceremony was over.
There was a pause. Then: ‘Faites vos jeux, Messieurs!’ said the Voice.
This was unexpected to all; and to one cryptic.
‘What does that mean?’ inquired Mr. Trimblerigg, in whose Free Church
training French had not been included.
The Prime Minister rose lightly to the occasion. ‘It means, or it
practically means, ‘Make your Peace, Gentlemen.’ Then, to the unseen
Presence: ‘The game is over sir,--well over. Now we have only to
collect the winnings.’
This statement of the facts was apparently not accepted: the game was
to go on. ‘Couleur gagne!’ went the Voice; and then again, ‘Faites vos
jeux, Messieurs.’
‘Our present game,’ respectfully insisted the Prime Minister, ‘is to
make peace. To you, therefore, Sir, we come, as an authority--in this
matter of peace-making a very special authority. We as victors are
responsible; and we have to find a solution. The peace will not be
negotiated, it will be dictated. The question is on what terms; under
what sanctions; with what penalties? Under a Democracy such as ours--’
‘Don’t talk nonsense,’ came the Voice, ‘Democracy does not exist.
Invite public opinion; say you agree; then ignore it, and do as you
think best. Sanctions? You will not get good work from a man while the
rope is round his neck; he wastes time and brain thinking how soon he
will die. Penalties? Yes: if you think you can get hold of the really
responsible ones.’
‘We think we can,’ purred the Prime Minister.
‘Dig up the dead, eh? That was the mediæval notion. You tar and feather
their corpses, and you hang them in chains: most indecent, and no good
to anybody. One of them is here now,--“The Man in the Iron Mask” as we
call him,--a much improved character, his world-politics a failure,
they no longer interest him; he plays on the French horn,--badly, but
it amuses him; when he strikes a false note he calls it the Double
Entente. He means that for a joke. He says they may dig him up and
hang him in chains of iron, or brass, or glass-lustre, or daisies, or
anything else if it amuses them. But you are not proposing to hang
anybody, are you?’
Mr. Trimblerigg, voicing his notion in the scriptural phraseology which
had prompted it, explained that skinning for the one, and hewing, not
hanging, for the other was the process proposed.
‘Who is your man?’ the Voice inquired sharply.
Agag was indicated.
Came a dead pause; then, very emphatically, ‘I won’t have him here!’
said the Voice.
_Here?_ His auditors looked at each other in consternation.
What on earth, or above earth, or under earth, did ‘here’ mean?
The Prime Minister and Mr. Trimblerigg had both by now become convinced
that they were in the actual Presence that had been promised them. But
they could not admit to the world, or even to themselves, that there
was a possibility of Agag going to the place where the Presence was
supposed to be; or of the Presence being in the place where Agag was
supposed to be going. They sat like cornered conspirators.
‘I won’t have it!’ said the Voice, almost violently. ‘We are not on
speaking terms. He and I do not get on together. Send him to Eliza:
she’ll manage him!’
This was more awful still. The Presence and ‘Eliza’, it seemed, were
not in that happy reunion which for Christian families is the expected
thing. Yet as to where Eliza had gone no reasonable doubt was possible.
‘On ne va plus!’ cried the Voice, and the séance fell into sudden
confusion. ‘I won’t have it! I won’t have it!’ shrieked the medium
coming to, and casting off her crown at the feet of Mr. Trimblerigg.
And the words, beginning in a deep German guttural, ended in
Irish-American.
And that, if the world really wants to know, is why no real attempt
was made to hew or hang Agag, or do anything to him except on paper
in diplomatic notes which meant nothing, and at a General Election
which meant very little more--only that the Prime Minister and Mr.
Trimblerigg were saving their faces and winning temporary, quite
temporary, popularity, which eventually did them as little good as it
did harm to Agag.
The skinning of the scapegoat was not so expeditiously disposed of. In
that case the goat suffered considerably; but the skin was never really
worth the pains it took to remove from his dried and broken bones.
When will modern civilization really understand that its predilection
for the Old Testament, once a habit, has now become a disease; and that
if it is not very careful the world will die of it.
‘Faites vos jeux, Messieurs!’ Play your game! Sometimes you may win,
and sometimes you may lose; but a day comes when you win too big a
stake for payment to be possible. Then the bank breaks, and where are
you?
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
_Circumstances alter Cases_
Had the rescue of the native tribes of Puto-Congo from the squeezing
embrace of modern industrialism and its absentee shareholders been a
fairy-tale, they would have remained a happy people without a history,
and here at least no more would have been heard of them. But this being
the real story, things went otherwise.
It is true that Native Industries Limited not only became itself a
reformed character, but managed, by its control of the river routes
and depots, to impose repentance on the great Puto-Congo Combine also.
There, too, a rout was made of the old Board of Directors, and the
missionary zeal of Free Evangelicalism, with an admixture of True
Belief, held the balance of power. In the first year shares went down
at a run from a thirty to a ten per cent dividend, and the mortality of
indentured labour was reduced in about the same proportion.
Of course the shareholders grumbled--not at the reduced death-rate
in itself, but at the awkward parallel which its proportional
fall suggested between toll of life and that other toll of a more
marketable kind which mainly concerned them. It was not pleasant to
feel that a reduced ten per cent profit was always going to be the
condition of a reduced ten per cent death-rate: that fifteen per cent
of the one would cause fifteen per cent of the other, and that, by
implication, a life-saving of five per cent might be effected if the
chastened shareholders would stay languidly content with a five per
cent profit. Mr. Trimblerigg himself felt this to be a reflection
upon the reformation he had effected. He had practically promised the
shareholders that decent treatment of the natives would eventually
bring larger profits. He was annoyed that it had not done so, and was
already taking steps to secure more co-ordination and efficiency in the
combined companies when the war supervened and gave to the relations of
the brother races, white and black, a different complexion.
To put it quite plainly, under war-conditions so far-reaching as to
affect the whole world, humanitarian principles had to take second
place. For the white race, or tribe, or group of tribes in which Mr.
Trimblerigg found himself embraced by birth and moral training was now
saving the world not only for private enterprise and democracy, but
for the black and the brown and the yellow races as well, all round
the globe and back again from San Francisco to Valparaiso. And so the
enlistment of the black races in the cause of freedom--even with a
little compulsion--became an absolute necessity, a spiritual as well as
a military one, and unfortunately the blacks--and more especially the
blacks of Puto-Congo--did not see it in that light of an evangelizing
civilization as the whites did. They did not know what freedom really
was: how could they, having no politics? Their idea of freedom was to
run about naked, to live rent-free in huts of their own building on
land that belonged to nobody, to put in two hours’ work a week instead
of ten hours a day, and when an enemy was so craven as to let himself
be captured alive to plant him head-downwards in the earth from which
he ought never to have come. That was their view of freedom, and I
could name sections of civilized communities holding very similar views
though with a difference.
Slavery, on the other hand, was having to wear anything except beads,
and nose-rings, and imitation silk-hats made of oilskin, having to
work regularly to order for a fixed wage, and to pay a hut-tax for
the upkeep of a machine-like system of government, for which they had
no wish and in which they saw no sense. And that being so, it really
did not matter whether the power which imposed these regulations was
benevolent in its intentions or merely rapacious, whether it secured
them by blood, or blockade, or by bribing the tribal chiefs (which was
the Free Evangelical method) to get the thing done in native ways of
their own. They did not like it.
Puto-Congo, having sampled it for twenty years, had definitely decided
that civilization was bad for it; and when, under the evangelizing
zeal of Mr. Trimblerigg and his co-religionists, civilization
modified its methods, they beat their drums for joy and believing
that civilization was at last letting them go, ran off into the woods
to play. And though, here and there, their chiefs hauled them back
again and made them do brief spells of work at certain seasons of the
year, they regarded it rather as a cleaning-up process, preparatory
to leave-taking, than as a carrying on of the old system under a new
form; and so they continued to play in the woods and revert to happy
savagery, and especially to that complete nudity of both sexes which
the missionaries so strongly disapproved.
It was that holiday feeling, coming after the bad time they had been
through under the old system--a holiday feeling which even the chiefs,
stimulated by bribes, could not control--which did the mischief; for
it came inopportunely just at the time when, five thousand miles away,
civilization had become imperilled by causes with which the Puto-Congo
natives had nothing whatever to do. If civilization was so imperilled
all the better for them.
It was all very unfortunate: for while the fact that civilization
was at war did not make civilization more valuable to the natives of
Puto-Congo, it did make the natives and their trade-produce very much
more valuable to civilization. Quite half-a-dozen things which they
had unwillingly produced under forced labour in the past--rubber was
one--had now become military necessities. It was no longer a mere
question of profits for shareholders--civilization itself was at
stake. Production had suddenly to be brought back to the thirty per
cent standard; and that holiday feeling, so natural but so untimely in
its incidence, was badly in the way. And so powers were given (which
are not usually given to commercial concerns--though sometimes taken)
and under government authority--a good deal at the instigation of Mr.
Trimblerigg--the Puto-Congo Combine became exalted and enlarged into
the Imperial Chartered Ray River Territory Company, which was in fact
a provisional government with powers of enlistment civil and military,
of life and death, and the making and administration of whatever laws
might be deemed necessary in an emergency.
Endowed with these high powers, the Directors at home, with every
intention to use them circumspectly and in moderation, instructed their
commissioners accordingly. But when the commissioners got to work
they found, in the face of ‘that holiday feeling,’ that moderation
did not deliver the goods. And since the goods had to be delivered,
lest the world should be lost to democracy, they took advantage of the
censorship which had been established against the promulgation of news
unfavourable to the moral character of their own side, and took the
necessary and effective means to deliver them. And when the profits
once more began to rise, these did not go to the shareholders but to
the Government as a form of war-tribute, and that, of course, made it
morally all right--for the ten per cent shareholders at any rate--since
they knew nothing about it.
And thus, for three or four years, Puto-Congo natives did their bit,
losing their own lives at an ever-increasing death-rate, and saving
democracy which they did not understand, for that other side of the
world which they did not know. They got no war-medals for it and no
promotion; nor were any reports of those particular casualties printed
in the papers. Enough that the holiday feeling went off, and the goods
were delivered. Over the rest, war-conditions and war-legislation drew
a veil, and nothing was said.
And that is why, while war went on, Mr. Trimblerigg and the rest of
the world did not hear of it; or if they heard anything, did not
believe what they heard; for that too is one of the conditions that war
imposes. Truth, then, becomes more relative than ever; which is one
of the reasons why Mr. Trimblerigg was then in his element. But when
the war was sufficiently over for intercommunication to re-establish
itself, and when the skinning of the scapegoat had become a stale
game, and when the hewing of Agag had emphatically not come off, then
Mr. Trimblerigg, and others, began to hear of it. It was the others
that mattered. Mr. Trimblerigg--his war-mind still upon him, and still
suffering from his severe attack of Old Testament--did not believe it;
but the others did, and the others were mainly the most active and
humanitarian section of the Free Evangelicals. Having already expressed
their disapproval of skinning the scapegoat and hewing Agag, even to
the extent of pronouncing against it at their first annual conference
after the war, they now fastened on the recrudescence of ugly rumours
from Puto-Congo and the adjacent territories, and began to hold Mr.
Trimblerigg responsible.
They had at least this much reason upon their side, that Mr.
Trimblerigg was still chairman of the Directors of Native Industries
Limited, and, by right of office, sat upon the administrative council
of the Chartered Company. And when, as the leakage of news became
larger, it seemed that everything he had formerly denounced as an
organized atrocity was being, or had but recently been done on a much
larger scale by his own commissioners, the cry became uncomfortably
loud, and the war-mind, which can manipulate facts to suit its case
while they are suppressed by law, began to find itself in difficulties.
Mr. Trimblerigg, faced by certified facts which he continued to deny
or question, began jumping from the New to the Old Testament and back
again with an agility which confused his traducers but did not convince
them; and the allegiance of the Free Evangelicals became sharply
divided. The reunion of the Free Churches for which Mr. Trimblerigg had
so long been working, already adversely affected by the divergencies of
the war, was now strained to breaking.
On the top of this came the news that the natives of Puto-Congo had
risen in revolt and had begun massacring the missionaries, and Free
Evangelical opinion became more sharply divided than ever--whether to
withdraw the missions and cease to have any further connection with
the Chartered Company, or to send out reinforcements, less spiritual
and more military, adopt the policy of the firm hand, and restore not
liberty but order.
Mr. Trimblerigg then announced that he would do both. To the
Administrative Council he adumbrated a scheme for the gradual
development of the Chartered Company, with its dictatorial powers, into
the Puto-Congo Free State Limited, with a supervised self-government of
its own, mainly native but owing allegiance to the Company on which its
commercial prosperity and development would still have to depend.
Matters were at a crisis, and were rapidly getting worse. Mr.
Trimblerigg had made too great a reputation over Puto-Congo affairs to
risk the loss of it on a mere policy of drift. Something clearly had to
be done, large, spectacular, idealistic in aim, to cover up from view
a record of failure which never ought to have seen the light. Not only
must it be done; it must be done at once, and he was the man to do it.
The Administrative Council was wise in its generation. Without quite
believing in Mr. Trimblerigg’s proposals it gave him a free hand; for
as one of them said: ‘This is a matter over which he cannot afford to
fail. If he does, he is done for. Give him rope enough, he may hang
others, but he won’t hang himself; of that you may be quite sure.’
Without being quite sure, they made the experiment, and Mr.
Trimblerigg, with full powers, went out as High Commissioner of
the Chartered Company to sow the seed, plant the roots, or lay the
foundations of the Puto-Congo Free State Limited. His mission was
twofold--to save the Puto-Congo natives from themselves, and the shares
of the Chartered Company from further depreciation. Incidentally he had
also to save himself.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
_Kill and Cure_
I can understand people liking Mr. Trimblerigg, I can understand
them disliking him; I can understand them finding him incalculable
and many of his actions puzzling (I used to do so myself); but I do
not understand why they should ever have been puzzled as to his main
motive, since his main motive was always himself.
Like everything else in life, character is a product, the inevitable
outcome of its constituent parts. When I invented him, I gave Mr.
Trimblerigg brains and a good head for business; I also gave him
imagination and an emotional temperament. Why, then, should it be
wondered at if he made a calculating use of his imaginative powers, or
indulged his emotions with a good eye to business?
Could you find me any occasion on which the fervours of his oratory got
in the way of his worldly advancement, or did anything but add size to
his following, I would admit that his character puzzled me. But more
and more I found this to be the rule--that the fervour of his prayers,
public or private, meant the same thing; and whenever the encounter was
a private one, and the fervour more than ordinary, then I knew that Mr.
Trimblerigg was in a tight place, and that he had come to me not to
admit that it was the place in which he deserved to be and to stay, but
to ask me to get him out of it.
Crocodiles cry: it is their nature. But they do other things as well:
they eat--not only people, but practically everything else in the
world that lives and breathes and is at all eatable. I gave them a
good digestion for that purpose. They are scavengers; and when they
scavenge, they do not always wait till the about-to-become-nuisances
die. They make, however, one exception: they do not eat their dentist.
And so you may see a crocodile squatting patiently in the mud of the
Nile or the Ganges, with jaws wide; while in that place of death a
small and tasty bird--whose name I forget--picks his teeth for him.
Sentimentalists look on and say, ‘How beautiful! how wonderful!’ So it
is; but not in the way they see it. There is no sentiment about it:
it is merely the economy of life intelligently applied. The crocodile
depends for his good digestion, and his ability to satisfy it, on the
efficiency of his teeth; and as he cannot clean them himself he gets a
small clean bird to do it for him.
Similarly when Mr. Trimblerigg opened his mouth to me, he was doing so
for a genuine reason, as do most people: and why should I complain?
I get a meal--something that adds to my interest in life. Far more
prayers mount up from the world below for selfish than for unselfish
reasons (I have experience, and I know); and they are not the less
sincere, or the less eloquent, or the less emotional, because they have
a mundane and a self-centred object.
Now when I compare Mr. Trimblerigg to a crocodile, I hope nobody will
suppose that I am taking the ordinary sentimental view of crocodiles,
as of creatures more cruel than other creatures. A crocodile when it
eats a human being is no more cruel than a thrush when it eats a worm;
and if people could only get that well into their heads theology would
have a better basis than it has at present. A crocodile only appears
more cruel than nature’s average because it is peculiarly efficient to
its end, and makes a wider sweep. Being big, it requires a larger meal
than others of the predatory species; also it happens to carry on its
countenance an almost unchangeable expression of self-satisfaction, and
so by appearing pleased it appears more callous. And the fact that it
does not always wait for its offal to die is another point which the
sentimentalists have against it.
In all these characteristic features--not to mention the tears, which
are merely accidental--there was between Mr. Trimblerigg and the
crocodile a resemblance. He was in his own line--the line of getting
on at the expense of others--preternaturally efficient; and as his
efficiency took a wider sweep, and required for the fulfilment of its
plans a larger contribution of sacrifice from assistants and opponents
alike, he appears in retrospect, even on the ministerial side of his
career, more rapacious, more predatory, and more callous than others.
This arose partly from the size, the necessary size of his meal, and
partly from the satisfaction it gave him; and if, when all was done,
that satisfaction did not break out in smiles, he would have been
a hypocrite. Being surface-honest, he smiled, quite aware that his
success was for ever being built up on the failure of others--failure
which he sometimes forced on them, or more often into which he tricked
them, when they themselves were reluctant to stand aside.
But was that a reason why his smile should diminish? His smile only
diminished when his meal did not agree with him. There have been
occasions when he did not devour soon enough, when the nuisance which
was obstructing his path had time to turn and give him one in return
before the happy despatch could be effected. Then and only then did Mr.
Trimblerigg ever appear sore. He much preferred to swallow a nuisance
before it could retaliate.
The Puto-Congo nuisance, which had now come to so large a head, had
done so while his attention and energy had been turned elsewhere. The
fight for Relative Truth in one direction is apt to give Relative
Untruth its opportunity in another; for the good that man does, or
intends to do, is never absolute and all-embracing; and if Relative
Truth is only relatively successful,--the untruths incidental to its
propagation come into undue prominence and take the shine out of it.
So it was now with Mr. Trimblerigg’s evangelical war record; the
recrudescence of the Puto-Congo trouble had begun to take the shine out
of it; the nuisance had become monstrous and must be stopped.
For obviously what had happened was not fair to Mr. Trimblerigg. Years
ago he had planned beneficently a working compact for the development
of native races between Free Evangelicalism and Capital. By a lightning
stroke of genius he had brought a business organization of vast
proportions virtually, if not actually, under the control of the most
active missionizing body in the whole world. It almost seemed as if
the stainless record of the Quakers, whose peaceful but profitable
contact with Red Indian scalp-hunters had extended over seventy-five
years of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, might now repeat
itself on a larger scale; and if Mr. Trimblerigg on the flush of that
generous prospect, saw in vision his name pass down to posterity as
the great Liberator,--saviour of an oppressed race, is he to be blamed
for anything but a too sanguine temperament? Hitherto it was that
very temperament which had brought to pass things almost impossible;
but now here, just once, because his attention had been diverted, the
scheme had gone wrong, so wrong as to become unrecognizable; and since
he could not recognize its distorted features, he denied himself with
a clear conscience either the parentage or the responsibility of it.
A thing so remote from his intentions was necessarily the doing of
others; and when crossing the sea for the first time he set out on the
adventure, he had no other aim but to put it right and re-establish, on
a sound basis, the concordat between Christianity and Capitalism which
he had originally planned.
But when he got there he found things very much worse than even his
enemies and traducers had either discovered or declared; for in the
restoration of order the missionaries of Free Evangelicalism had become
implicated; very much as in former time they had become implicated
on the commercial and profit-making side; and the natives, to whom
sequences were the same as consequences, had begun to turn on the
missionaries.
And they also were hardly to blame; for wherever the missionaries went
before, order--or attempted order--had come after. Submission had been
preached till the natives would no longer submit; civilization had
been painted in all the colours of the rainbow, till civilization had
come and bruised them black and blue, and tanned their hides for them;
or did so when it caught them. For to begin with the natives had only
rebelled by ceasing to hew wood and draw water, or collect the rubber
and other commodities which the Chartered Company was out to collect;
and running away into the woods had hidden themselves; only defensively
setting traps and laying ambushes, when the emissaries of the Chartered
Company came to fetch them back again. And because, in many cases,
the missionaries were sent as fore-runners, they started to make
examples of the missionaries; and when the missionaries came and opened
deceiving mouths at them, they devised a sure method for keeping their
mouths shut by burying them head-downwards in the ground. And when the
missionaries showed them those rainbows of promise, in which they no
longer believed, they painted the missionaries in the truer colours
of black and tan. And so it had come about that, when Mr. Trimblerigg
got to the country, the mortality among the missionaries and their
lay-followers was very nearly as high and very nearly as painful as the
mortality had been among the natives of the Puto-Congo and Ray River
Territory, till they had taken to the woods to save themselves.
I have little doubt that had Mr. Trimblerigg’s diverted attention--
diverted to the saving of democracy, the skinning of the scapegoat
and the hewing of Agag,--had it been recalled a little earlier in the
direction where it would have done more good, and had he promulgated
his idea of a Free State Limited five years sooner, when the call
first came for Puto-Congo to assist in the saving of civilization, I
have very little doubt that he could have done what he now failed to
do, by methods which would have left his reputation very much as they
found it. But when he arrived upon the scene the natives had got to a
state of mind in which they could see nothing with any appetite except
blood, and hear nothing except the cries of their victims; and in
spite of Mr. Trimblerigg’s proclamations of peace and goodwill (under
certain governing conditions) the burying habit, with its painted
accompaniments, went on: got worse, in fact, instead of better.
No doubt had Mr. Trimblerigg been able to announce to the natives, that
the white race with its civilizing mission, its religious principles,
its rubber interests, and its shares, was prepared to clear out of
the country, lock, stock, and barrel, and restore them the crude
independence they had never willingly let go,--no doubt had he begun
withdrawing his missions to the coast, and made the interior prohibited
territory to his rubber-collectors, he would have found fewer of his
missionaries entered head-downwards into future life as he advanced
his armed guards, his rescue-work, and his reforms. But so long as
the white missions and the traders remained active the natives could
not be convinced. Nor was Mr. Trimblerigg entirely a free agent, he
still had the shareholders behind him--albeit shareholders professing
Christianity; and these were people who believed in the civilizing
mission not only of race but of organized capital. And because native
ways of shedding blood were a savagery which must be put down,
while civilized ways of restoring order were a ‘military necessity’
and a ‘moral obligation’ combined; and because if they did not get
the rubber somebody else would, and their civilizing trade would
suffer,--therefore they hung on, and would not let go. And though Mr.
Trimblerigg had full power given him, it was power that must be used
to a certain end; and the end, put briefly, was that Christianity and
Capital must continue their civilizing mission in company, and win back
Puto-Congo to the ways of the world.
Having stated the moral obligation I draw as much of a veil over it
as I can, making history brief; for Mr. Trimblerigg, much against his
will, was obliged to fulfil it in terms of Relative Truth, such as the
natives could understand. In a crisis the Mosaic law is so much easier
and quicker to explain to primitive races than the other law which came
later. For these races stand at a stage of the world’s history; and
what the higher races went through, by way of judicial experiment, they
must go through also. Even by Christians, when it comes to the point,
Christianity has never been regarded as a short cut--not even among
themselves. For them and for all the rest of the civilized world, Moses
is still the law-giver, and there is no transfiguration yet for the
thunders of Mount Sinai; its lightnings continue to strike under the
New Dispensation as of old.
So it had to be now. The natives of Puto-Congo themselves indicated
what form of instruction best suited them; and under Mr. Trimblerigg’s
dispensation it was no longer only the missionaries who were buried
head-downwards and painted black-and-tan, to match the landscape with
its foregrounds of burnt-out villages and long tracks of charred jungle
wherein nothing lived or moved.
For this painful necessity Mr. Trimblerigg had good material provided
him. Civilization had trained for war far more men than it could now
employ in peace; and what, at the call to her children of a country in
danger, had been an act of heroic sacrifice had degenerated in course
of time into a confirmed habit, wherein fierce craving and dull routine
were curiously mixed. And when peace supervened and became in the hands
of diplomats a feverish and restless thing, almost as nerve-racking
as war, then by many hundreds of warriors unwanted by the State and
without employ, the dull routine was forgotten while the fierce craving
remained. Thus, here and there, as luck would have it, in a still
unsettled world, use was found for them, and governments to which
they owed no allegiance and for which they had no affection, and as
to whose rights and wrongs they knew nothing and cared less, sent and
hired them as experts for the shedding of blood in quarrels not their
own. And because governments, good or bad, are organized things, and
because men are accustomed to have a government over them justifying
them in what they do, therefore, without trouble of conscience, to
these foreign governments they gave themselves, and shedding blood to
order, on a contract which promised them good pay, were not regarded as
murderers at all, but as men still honourably employed in the service
of civilization.
And some of these having returned home in the nick of time from
building castles in Spain, cheated of their pay, and very much
disgusted with the camps and the food and the sanitary arrangement
which had been provided for them, hearing that there was more
employment of a similar kind to be had in Puto-Congo and Ray River
Territory, went and offered themselves to the Chartered Company and
found grateful acceptance. And when a thousand of them had been
collected, they were sent out to the help of Mr. Trimblerigg, well
supplied with arms and ammunition, also with spades and tar-brushes.
And when they arrived Mr. Trimblerigg gave them their welcome
instructions, plenty of work at blacking and tanning, one pound a day,
and their keep.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
_Civilized and Simple_
It was unfortunate that Mr. Trimblerigg, at this crucial stage of his
career, not having Davidina to worry him, had no need to worry about
Davidina. Some six months earlier she had started upon a career of her
own on rather a big scale--a research expedition, which, though merely
an extension of that taste for travel in strange places which she had
already indulged, was now organized upon such novel lines and to cover
so far-stretched a route that it had attracted public notice, and had
won for her at the moment of departure many send-off paragraphs in
journals of science and in the daily press. It was still something of
a novelty for a lone woman to head an expedition into tropical wilds
south of the equator, for no other apparent object than to collect
botanical specimens, and incidentally study the habits of the native
tribes encountered on the way. In addition, Davidina admitted that
she had a theory which she wished to put to the test; for though not
a Christian Scientist, she was one of those curious people who are
without fear; and being without fear she believed herself safe; and as
she did not mind dying she did not intend to carry fire-arms. The whole
gist of the experiment lay in the fact that, disappearing from the
eye of civilization to the south-east of trails which no white woman
had ever yet penetrated, she intended to re-emerge 2,500 miles to the
north-west, an unharmed specimen of that superior race-product which
she believed herself to be.
She and Jonathan had not been pleased with each other during the War;
and for the first time in his grown-up life Mr. Trimblerigg had adopted
toward his sister the superior moral tone which circumstances seemed
to justify; for in this contention he had not only the world with him
but all the Churches. He told Davidina that she was wrong. Davidina’s
reply was: ‘Seeing is believing; and at present I don’t see much except
mess, nor do you. In war nobody can.’ And having waited till travel by
land and sea had once more become possible, Davidina sent him word of
the object-lesson she was going to give him. ‘And if,’ she concluded,
‘you don’t see me again, you needn’t believe in my method any more than
I believe in yours. In any case, I shan’t haunt you; and I’ve left you
my love in my will.’ And with that cryptic remark she took herself off,
leaving no address.
It would be hard to say what exactly Mr. Trimblerigg wished, hoped,
or expected to be the outcome of her attempt to give him the promised
lesson. Probably he thought she would come back the way she had gone,
with a good record of adventure to her credit, a safe failure; for
he had great faith in Davidina’s powers of survival. What he did not
expect in the least was what actually happened. Mr. Trimblerigg was
inattentive to maps and unattracted to geography; and when Davidina
started on her adventure she was more than 2,000 miles away from any
part of the world in which Mr. Trimblerigg had interests.
Miss Trimblerigg’s travels have since been published in two large
volumes, with photographs taken by herself of things never seen before,
and of some, towards the end, which Mr. Trimblerigg would rather she
had not seen. For the scientific side of her work, two rival societies
awarded her their gold medal for the year--the first time these
had ever been won by a woman; for the other and more adventurously
experimental side, she received an address of commendation from
certain philanthropical and humanitarian societies and other bodies
with crank notions, whose zealous leaflets and public meetings give
them an appearance of life, but whose influence in the world is
negligible.
Davidina had as her companions two other whites, husband and wife,
whom she chose for the curious reason that they were both deaf and
dumb,--very insensitive therefore to shock, very uninterfering and
very observant of the natural phenomena that lay around them. By this
means she secured undisputed control of the expedition, and as much
insulation for her moral experiment as was practically possible. The
deaf-mutes were a great success with the natives whom she employed as
carriers: they regarded them as holy mysteries, and held them in as
much awe as they did Davidina herself. Another curious choice she made
was to have in her following no native Christians. For this particular
experiment she regarded the unspoiled pagan as the better material;
and there was plain horse-sense in it, seeing that before long her
following not only looked upon her as a goddess, but worshipped her as
well. This great sin (though by some it might be regarded merely as
an example of Relative Truth) Davidina committed for more than a year
and over a space of 2,000 miles with great apparent success, and was
not punished for it. It was not my affair: those who read this record
will have discovered before now that I do not hold myself responsible
for Davidina: she belonged, and belongs still, elsewhere; and what
were her inner beliefs or her guiding authority I have never been able
to discover. She never applied to me. And yet between us we shared,
or divided the conscience of Mr. Trimblerigg. The phenomena of the
spiritual world are strange, and many of them, to gods and mortals
alike, still unexplained.
Davidina, then, went upon her travels unarmed--unarmed, that is to
say, with civilized weapons of war, or even of the chase--but by no
means unprovided for. Weapons of a certain kind she had, weapons of
precision, very subtle and calculated in their effect. But these were
aimed not at the bodies but at the minds of those denizens of the
forest and swamp and high table-land whom she encountered in her march.
Every member of the expedition carried a toy air-balloon: and they
had mouth-organs and bird-warblers; and the two deaf-mutes carried
concertinas on which they played with great effect tunes by no means in
unison. Natives, chiefs and warriors, coaxed to the encounter--often
with difficulty--wept and bowed down to their feet as they performed;
also they blew soap-bubbles which had an even greater effect, so that
word of them went far ahead and on all sides, and the route they
followed became populous.
Upon Davidina’s shoulder, for mascot, sat a small pet monkey in
scarlet cap and coat; and he too, when the occasion fitted, carried a
toy air-balloon. And as it went by land or by water, the expedition,
instead of going secretively and silently, made music and song,
and bird-warbled; and waving its toy air-balloons, and blowing its
soap-bubbles--with nods, and wreathed smiles, and laughter, and
hand-clappings--was safe by ways that never varied but never became
dull.
Again and again, in the dense forest jungle, ambushers who had hung
in wait for them, fled howling at their approach--first to report
the heavenly wonder to the heads of their tribe, then returning as
watchers from a distance to be won by the beauty of their sound and
the delicacy of their going--the decorativeness, the ritual, the
blithe atmosphere of it all. And at the next settlement to which they
came, the natives in holiday attire would turn out to greet them with
propitiatory offerings, and songs which had no tune in them, but which
meant that all was for the best in this best of all possible worlds.
Month after month, sometimes camping for weeks, sometimes marching
in the track of rivers or skirting swamps, the expedition wore its
way steadily on, making for the point of the compass to which it
had set its face, north-north-by-west. And still word went ahead,
through a thousand miles of virgin forest; and Davidina coming after,
continued--however bad her theology might be--to prove the thesis
she had set out to demonstrate; always triumphal in her progress,
successfully collecting botanical specimens, her course unpunctuated
by gunfire and unstained by blood. For when, in the languages of the
native tribes they became variously known as the Music-makers, the
Ball-bearers: the Breathers of the breath of life, their way was not
made merely safe but prepared before them, and a choice of many roads
was offered them. Runners from a hundred miles distance to right and
left of their route would come entreating them to turn aside and do
honour to communities waiting to welcome them.
For food they depended entirely on the skill of the native bow-men,
slingers, trappers, and blowers of darts who formed their company;
for Davidina had quite correctly calculated that if by this means the
natives could support themselves in life, they could also support an
expedition in which the whites were only as one to ten. Had these
followers deserted, she and her two companions would speedily have
starved. It was a risk--not greater, she maintained, than the carrying
of fire-arms; and since some risk must be taken, that was the one she
preferred.
In the end she had actually to face it and come through on her own; but
the goal of her itinerary was then not far.
It happened one night, after a heavy march that, without knowing it,
she had pitched her camp upon the confines of the Ray River Company’s
sphere of operations,--at the point, therefore, where civilization
might be said to begin. When she turned in for the night all appeared
to be well. Outside her tent the native guards sat motionless upon
their haunches looking out into the black bush; the toy air-balloons
floated dreamily on their pole in the centre of the camp, and about its
base all the impedimenta of the expedition stood neatly piled: there
was then neither sign of danger, nor prospect of alarm, for up to that
time nobody knew that they had touched civilization.
But during the dead hours, some sense--sight, or sound--of peril
lurking ahead: native runners, perhaps, from a distance, or hidden
dwellers in the surrounding forest, had struck the hearts of her
followers a blow. In the morning the camp was empty. The cases of
botanical specimens lay undisturbed, but the toy air-balloons had
vanished. The pipes, the soap, the bird-warblers, the monkey, and the
two concertinas remained, also a small amount of food--rice, flour,
extracts of meat, and other medicaments which white men think that they
require when travelling. It was panic not the loot-instinct which had
cleared the camp of its carriers.
But the cause of the trouble--the propinquity of civilized man--was
also the way out of it. Shouldering what they could of the things
most necessary to life, and striking the downward course of the Ray
River--here a baby stream, shallow and fordable,--they headed toward
civilization.
Toward the end of the second day they came upon the sun-dried bodies of
six natives planted head-downwards in the soil: their withered limbs
trained upright on stakes, their dark leathery trunks still showing the
scores of stripes borne by the flesh.
Davidina had been, for over a year, so far removed from civilization,
that she did not know the latest things that civilization in its
military necessities had been doing; nor had she at that time any
clue for connecting this unsightly object-lesson with the pacific and
missionary efforts of her brother Jonathan. But that night, coming into
a white camp, well fenced and armed--offshoot of the larger expedition
now actively out to impose peace by reprisals--she got the situation
fully explained.
On the same spot where she had seen the impaled natives, a
lay-missioner a few weeks earlier had been found dead from the same
causes.
‘This time we only managed to catch six,’ explained the commandant;
‘our regulation number is twenty.’
‘Regulation number is good,’ was her tart comment. ‘It suggests order
and discipline. Do you reduce the number as you go on; or do you
increase it?’
‘Increasing isn’t much good,’ replied her informant. ‘These beggars can
only count up to ten. We chose twenty as a good working average: it’s
the number we can generally manage to bag if we butt in quick enough.’
‘But a higher scale,’ said Davidina, ‘would give you a better
clearance: rid you of more dangerous characters.’
‘Not necessarily. The dangerous ones can run. We only get what’s left.’
‘You are acting strictly to order, I suppose? Whose?’
‘Trimblerigg’s,’ said the man.
‘I’m Trimblerigg’s sister.’
After that he treated her as though she were royalty--a little puzzled,
however, not quite understanding her. Her dry ironic commendations were
thrown away on him; he was the plain blunt man, doing his job honestly
according to the light or darkness with which others provided him.
The information she got from him decided Davidina not to stay the
night. The natives, it appeared, had a wonderful faculty for moving
invisibly and without sound in the darkness; so in that camp throats
were sometimes found cut in the morning; and Davidina wished rather
particularly not to come to that end before she had seen Jonathan.
She spent the rest of that night and the whole day following in a
canoe rowed by picked Christian natives; the two other members of the
expedition going back under an escort to recover what could be saved of
the impedimenta and botanical specimens which they had been forced to
abandon.
Late the next evening she arrived ahead of rumour at the armed camp of
the central mission. Off the river’s landing-stage she met some one she
knew who directed her to Mr. Trimblerigg’s quarters. ‘I think he has
turned in. Shall I call him?’ he asked.
‘I’ll call him myself,’ she replied, ‘if you don’t mind. It will be a
nice little surprise for him.’
He gave her the necessary password through the lines, for the camp was
well guarded, double sentries everywhere.
The coming of a white woman seemed to startle them, being so much less
explainable than a ghost; but she and her monkey got through. Coming to
a window covered by a chick-blind and showing no light, she lifted the
blind and looked in.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
_A Night’s Repose_
Mr. Trimblerigg, lying on his well-earned bed, was looking out through
the dark canes of the chick at the large-eyed tropical night, when
an opaque and curiously crested form entered his square of vision.
The chick lifted, to the flash of a torchlight the crest detached
itself, and a small scarlet-coated monkey leapt down on to the bed.
This incongruous combination scared his calculating wits out of him;
snatching his revolver he fired without aim.
The monkey, chattering in alarm, skipped back to the shoulder it had
sprung from. ‘Missed again!’ said a familiar voice. ‘How do you do,
Jonathan? May I come in?’
She clambered in as she spoke, and sat upon the bed, while Mr.
Trimblerigg, exclamatory with anger and apology, lighted the lamp
and stared at the unwelcome apparition. Met under such nightmare
conditions, they did not stop to embrace.
‘So that was your object-lesson, was it?’ said Davidina. ‘Bad shot.
What made you do it?’
‘_You_ made me do it!’ retorted Mr. Trimblerigg sharply. ‘A fool’s
trick, coming like that! How could I tell it was you?’
‘You couldn’t. But what are your sentries for? Haven’t you enough of
them to feel safe?’
Mr. Trimblerigg, defending himself, gave away more of the situation
than he intended. ‘Why, it might have been a sentry himself!’ he
exclaimed. ‘You can’t trust one of them.’
‘Not even your converted Christians?’
‘Not as things are now. Christians?--scratch the surface, and you find
they go pagan again.’
‘So you’ve been scratching them?’
‘No need. They scratch themselves; it’s reversion to type; the
commonest disease missions have to contend with.’
‘And catching to civilization,’ remarked Davidina; ‘A scratch lot, all
of you.’ Then, as Mr. Trimblerigg looked at her with furtive suspicion,
‘I’ve been interviewing a specimen,’ she said; ‘one of yours.’
She named her man. ‘He seemed honest enough,’ she went on, ‘but he’s
been scratched badly, acting (_he_ says) under your orders.’
Mr. Trimblerigg bristled to the implied criticism. ‘He has only done
what was absolutely necessary.’
‘Necessary, of course,’ she returned. ‘You can always make a thing
necessary if you want to. If a man sets fire to the tail of his shirt,
he has got to get out of it. But that doesn’t make him look less of a
fool, Jonathan. Necessary? It’s necessary, I suppose, that you should
shoot people at sight before you know who they are. But if you mean
that for an object-lesson, I don’t find it attractive.’
‘Object-lesson of what?’ demanded Mr. Trimblerigg.
‘Yes, of what?’ she retorted. ‘It’s not Free Evangelicalism, it’s not
common sense, and I don’t suppose _you_ think it comic either.’
Her accent on the word enraged him, as she had expected. ‘I was only
asking,’ she said. ‘You’ve your sense of humour, and I’ve mine,
and they don’t always agree. A man who can never see a joke is a
poor creature; but when he makes a joke of himself and can’t see
_that_--he’s past praying for. Did you say your prayers to-night,
Jonathan? You did? Then better say ’em again backwards, and see if you
can’t get more sense out of them.’
‘Thank you,’ said Mr. Trimblerigg. ‘You mean well; but I don’t need to
be told how to pray: I pray as I feel.’
‘You do,’ she said comfortingly. ‘D’you ever look at your tongue first
to see your symptoms? No? Well, you should then. There’s nothing in
this world so dangerous as prayer if you’ve fixed up the answer before
you begin. Forty years ago, Jonathan, you set that trap for yourself,
now it’s a habit you can’t get rid of. Let’s look at your tongue. It’s
my belief you’ve got an attack of it now, worse than usual. Either pray
backwards from the way you’ve been doing--which means don’t begin by
giving yourself the answer--or leave off.’
Mr. Trimblerigg, who during the past six months had been through deep
waters and in his own eyes had done valiantly, sat up quivering with
indignation.
‘If I hadn’t prayed,’ he cried, ‘prayed all I knew, prayed without
ceasing--and if I had not depended every instant on my prayer being
answered in ways beyond human power to devise, before this I should
have been dead.’
‘Yes,’ said Davidina, ‘and if you had aimed your last prayer a little
straighter, so should I. It missed--like some of the others, I’m
thinking. Two days ago I met six of your prayers, as you call ’em,
striped like a barber’s pole, dead as door-nails, standing on their
heads in native earth. They weren’t exactly addressed to me; but I’ve
come in answer to them; and if you don’t think it’s the word of the
Lord I’m telling you now, Jonathan, put up another and have done with
me!’
Mr. Trimblerigg’s sense of lifelong grievances came to a head, and he
spoke plainly: ‘I shall never have done with you, Davidina, never,
never! All my life you’ve hated me, persecuted me, wished me ill. Yes;
you’ve been sorry whenever I succeeded, glad when I’ve failed; and if I
were to fail now, you’d only say--“Serve him right! Serve him right!”’
‘That’s true,’ said Davidina; ‘the rest isn’t. Hated you? Don’t flatter
yourself! You wouldn’t so much mind me hating you; it’s my seeing
through you that you don’t like. “O Lord, so look upon me from on high
that You don’t see me clear as Davidina sees me!” That has been your
life-prayer, Jonathan, though you never put it into words. Yes, to
you it may sound like blasphemy, but if you’d prayed a little less to
yourself, and a little more to me, maybe, you might not have cut so
famous a figure in the world--been such a firework, setting a spark to
your own tail and running round after it (which is what you are doing
here) but there’d have been more meat on you for one to cut and come
again than there is now. It’s my belief, Jonathan, you don’t truly know
where you begin and where you leave off. You’ve been standing in your
own light so long, and walking in it, that you see yourself a child
of light every time you look in the glass. I’ve only to switch this
torch on’--she played it upon him as she spoke--‘and you look like a
saint in a halo, waiting for the Kingdom of Heaven to come. Yes, that’s
what you are always giving yourself--a halo; you’ve only to pray and
it comes--like hiccoughs, or housemaid’s knee. You touch a button, you
switch on the light, and you see yourself in a glory. Some day you’ll
get one in real earnest; and when you do, I wonder what you’ll make of
it, and what people will say? I think they’ll laugh.’
Mr. Trimblerigg looked at her with that same sort of uneasy awe which
weak saints have for the Devil. Under her penetrating gaze he sealed
himself to secrecy. This, that she was saying--so nearly true, yet
treating it as a joke--was not a thing about which even relatively the
truth could be told. Davidina had no sense of the mysterious, and very
little of the divine; she lacked reverence; but her uncanny way of
touching the spot did rather scare him. He changed the subject hastily.
‘Where have you been all this time?’ he inquired. ‘You’ve come a long
way. How did you get on?’
Davidina, accepting the diversion, gave him a sketch of her travels. He
heard of the toy air-balloons, the bird-warblers, and the soap-bubbles;
the singing, and the playing, and the worshipping deputations of
natives. Nor did Davidina disguise from him the fact that she had
allowed godlike honours to be paid to her.
Mr. Trimblerigg, though he had used Relative Truth for his own ends,
could not, as a Free Evangelical, think that was right.
‘I dare say it isn’t,’ said Davidina, ‘not as we think it. But if you
start applying your own sense of what’s right to natives, they don’t
think you a god, they think you a devil. That’s what you’ve been doing,
Jonathan; and devil’s the result. And for my part, I don’t see that
it’s any more against true religion to let yourself be worshipped as
a god than to make yourself feared as a devil. Devil or god, it’s one
or the other--you can’t get out of it; and to be thought a god and to
act accordingly does less harm, comes cheaper, and makes things easier
for all concerned.
‘Anyway here’s your object-lesson and there’s mine. I could have soon
enough made them think me a devil if I’d taken your line, Jonathan.
So now, unless it’s against your religion, you’d better try mine for
a change. Be a god, Jonathan, be a god! It won’t be true; but believe
me--sing, glory hallelujah! it’s the better hole to fall into. And now
I’m going.’ So saying, she started to climb out the way she had come.
‘Where to?’ inquired Mr. Trimblerigg, astounded at so abrupt a
leave-taking.
‘Anywhere, so long as it’s away from civilization--and you!’ she
declared. ‘I’ll send my specimens down to the coast, then go back the
way I’ve come. And, Jonathan, if you get beautifully burnt out by a
bush-fire in the next day or two, don’t think it’s them; it’ll be me.’
‘What for?’
‘For fun, or for a moral object-lesson, just as you like to take it:
Davidina’s dose--or jumps for Jonathan. Good-bye!’
She had escaped--had already gone a few paces, when Mr. Trimblerigg
bethought him and called after her.
‘Daffy!’ It was the old abbreviated usage from days of childhood. She
returned, and stood outside the chick without lifting it.
‘Well, what?’ she queried.
And Mr. Trimblerigg’s voice came cooingly from within: ‘You haven’t
kissed me, Daffy.’
‘I have not,’ she replied starkly.
‘But we haven’t quarrelled, have we?’
‘Quarrelled? Have I ever quarrelled with you yet, Jonathan? No fear!
I’ve been saying your prayers for you--right way up. Now you say
“Amen”; kiss yourself your own way, and go to sleep!’
She heard him chuckle; then in a whinnying tone, as he stretched
himself: ‘Oh, you _are_ a comfortable person to talk to!’
‘You’ve said that before.’
‘It’s true. I’m glad you came, Davidina. You’ve given me a new idea.’
‘I generally do,’ she replied.
‘But this is my own,’ he insisted.
‘So is the stuffing of a goose, once it’s inside him,’ was her retort.
And with that she was gone.
And Mr. Trimblerigg, with the feeling that something now remained to
his credit, turned over and went blissfully to sleep. For having let
Davidina know that she was ‘comfortable to talk to,’ he had turned the
sharp points of her arrows, and so robbed them of venom that not a word
she had said troubled him any more.
So he gave his beloved sleep; and into his dreams came hovering the
crocean dawn or that new idea, so entirely his own, prompted by
Davidina.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
_Practical Idealism_
When Mr. Trimblerigg again woke, he was happy; he had an idea, and
the idea was entirely his own. It was not less his own because it had
flashed into life during his talk with Davidina, or because it ran on
diametrically opposite lines (up to a certain point, at least) from his
previous policy of black-and-tan stripes and head-downward reprisals.
The thing which had been ‘absolutely necessary’ the day before and
on those grounds had been justified, was now a discarded, if not a
discredited device. He had found a better. It was inconsistent, no
doubt; for if it could be put into practice now, it could have been
put into practice earlier, and the tarrings and the featherings and
the rest need never have happened. But it is no good condemning Mr.
Trimblerigg for his inconsistencies; they were as much a part of that
strangely divided unity, his character, as the extreme notes which
give the range of a singer’s voice; and even when he had a divided
mind, it served like the divided hoof of the mountain goat which gives
nimbleness and elasticity to the tread. Often and often, because of his
divided mind, his enemies did not know where to have him, nor sometimes
where he would have them.
In these see-saw gymnastics his doctrine of Relative Truth helped him
not a little. Mr. Trimblerigg never worried about methods; he judged
himself only by results, and expected the world to have as short a
memory as his own and to do likewise.
And I cannot deny that if results are a justification for doubtful
faith and slippery dealings, results often did justify him; and many of
his flashlight successes were won entirely because he had a mind of
two parts diametrically opposed, which he never troubled to reconcile.
They were there for alternate use and combined effect, just as oil and
vinegar are used by a maker of salads--opposites resulting in a balance
of flavour.
And undoubtedly, though they produced a mixed record, the tactical
advantage was great. For what enemy of sane mind could anticipate
attack from such opposite quarters as those chosen by Mr. Trimblerigg
when he found himself in a tight place? It was not the simple strategy
of a general whose armies came into action simultaneously from north
and south; it was rather the conjuration of a wizard able to summon to
his aid at the same moment and for a common end the hosts of Heaven and
the powers of Hell--or of one who came offering peace, with a dove in
one hand and a vulture in the other, undecided up to the last moment
which of the two he intended to let go.
So it was when, in all the freshness of his new idea, Mr. Trimblerigg
set out to play the god--the god of peace, mercy, and reconciliation
to the expropriated natives of Puto-Congo; not because he regarded
it as specially true to his character, or as the better hole to fall
into--for to fall he did not intend; but because the coming of Davidina
had made him realize that a sporting alternative to reprisals did
actually exist; and being a sportsman by instinct, where matters of
principle were concerned, he saw it adventurously as the obvious game
to play.
Having made up his mind to it, he played it with a swift hand, and
three days later set off unattended for the upper wilds of Ray River
Territory (into which the elusive natives had gradually retired) with
nothing to protect him but the safe conduct of one of their chiefs whom
he had made captive, and whom he now released handsomely on parole to
be his fore-runner and messenger.
And who, seeing him thus set forth, his feet shod with the preparation
of the gospel of peace, his loins girt with truth, and having on the
shield of faith, and the sword of the spirit, who, seeing him so
arrayed, could ever have supposed that at the same time he had planned,
swiftly and covertly, a forced march of armed missionaries by night
to secure at dawn the ratification of an imposed treaty; and that the
signal of their presence was to be--not indeed the dropping of bombs
and the rattle of machine-guns (though the bombs and machine-guns
were to be all there, primed and ready to let go), but a strain of
holy voices setting forth the alternative thus presented, threat and
persuasion combined, to the tune of the Puto-Congo love-chant, which
from time immemorial the young warriors had sung in spring outside the
wigwams of their beloved ones.
It was possible to suppose one or other of two such courses of action:
but to imagine them inextricably combined as the single homogeneous
plan of a sane mind was altogether beyond reckoning; only Mr.
Trimblerigg could have thought of it, only Mr. Trimblerigg could have
asked a blessing for it--as he confidently did, in his prayers, and
have gone forth to the experiment assured that he had not only the
bombs and the machine-guns with him, but the favour of Heaven as well.
And though a word from Davidina had prompted it, he was quite right in
saying that the idea was entirely his own.
And so at dawn of the third day his idea came to fruition, and Mr.
Trimblerigg saw the desire of his soul and was satisfied. He had
laboured for long hours in the rough council chamber of the tribe,
and his efforts still hovered between success and failure, when the
wailing sound of the love-chant arose in the woods without; and all
the warriors, struck mute by the wonder of it, stiffened and sat up
on their haunches. And as they listened they joined hands, and their
faces softened as the growing light of day crept in through the wattled
walls. Then Mr. Trimblerigg took up a banjo which he had brought with
him, and though no expert as a musician, played his country’s national
anthem upon one note; and then ‘Rock of Ages’; and then, in alternate
phrases (‘_Nothing in my hand I bring, God save our gracious King_’),
the two tunes combined: a symbolic performance emblematic of the Treaty
of Peace which he now called on them to sign. And there he was, still
in their hands, confident, resourceful, self-assured, with nothing to
save him from death but his calculative understanding of human nature,
and the soft drift of the love-chant coming like bird-song from the
wood.
Then, through his interpreter, he spoke the final word, in so
persuasive a voice and with so smiling a face, that they could not but
feel that all was now well; and with nod and grunt, and soft patting
of palm on thigh, and slow swayings to and fro, they glimmered back at
him, suspicious no more of one so equal and fearless, and confiding,
sitting peacefully in their midst.
‘Brothers,’ he said, ‘these are your white friends, who have come,
feeling their way through the dark night with hands eager for the dawn,
to know whether we have indeed made peace. We have, have we not? I told
them that I should be here sowing seed fit for fruit-bearing, and that
in the night it would take root, and grow, and become a tree wherein
the love-singers would nest: I told them to wait and hope. But their
hope was so great that they could wait no more; therefore have they
come. Their eager hearts have led them through the blackness and terror
of night to behold the glad faces of their dark brothers shining to
welcome them. O Brothers, what matters a little giving and taking on
this side or on that, if only we can be at peace, and share together
the heat and light of the sun which are, indeed, so abundant that if we
each take half it will be better for us. Hark! they have learned your
song of love, and you shall learn ours; let us go out and meet them!’
He rose and led the dazed and awe-struck natives to the gate of their
stockade; then, as it opened, skipped nimbly across to the shelter of
that happy band of pilgrims, who, wearing white robes and carrying
guns concealed under palm-branches, stood and smiled amicably upon the
situation which Mr. Trimblerigg had prepared for them.
The faces of the chiefs fell; without a word they stepped back into
the council chamber where lay the drafted treaty, cut each a small
wrist-vein and signed it in his blood. ‘Our tribe will kill us for
this,’ said one chief as he affixed his mark. And two months later he
was dead.
And Mr. Trimblerigg, having successfully won his point, by a
judicious mixture of incompatible principles, was quite pleased with
himself--and me. For while he took over most of the credit, he did
not forget his stars for having made him the man he was. Grateful
as well as gratified, and very tired after all his efforts, he fell
asleep without having risen from his knees. And as in that attitude
he slept the sleep of the just, with just a suspicion of the crocean
dawn once more illuminating the pillow on which at sideway turn his
head so confidingly rested, I felt once again that curious sense of
helplessness which his achievement of a good conscience always imposed
on me; and the old doubt recurred--difficult to put into words, but
virtually to this effect: was the relation between us a reality or only
a dream; did he belong to me, or did I belong to him? Was I using him,
or was he using me? Ought I to consider myself anything more than a
rather shining reflector of his brain?
All through the world’s history there have been men doubtful of
their makers, honestly incredulous of the source from which they
sprung--infidels, sceptics, atheists--of lives too short to mark the
changes, vicissitudes and final disappearance of the creeds they would
not hold. Many such have I known with sympathy and with understanding;
but Mr. Trimblerigg, so far as my experience goes, is the unique
instance of that process reversed--one who has raised a like doubt in
the mind of his creator. Was he really mine, or did I only dream of him
as fantastically as he so often dreamed of me? Now he has gone from me,
and I do not know: perhaps I never shall. But if in that other region
to which he has now passed he has at last found not me but himself--and
in that image has satisfied the requirements of his soul--can it be
called a lost one--so far as he is concerned?
His work accomplished, he returned home. Incidentally the ship which
bore him and his fortunes back to the old world encountered storm
almost the whole way. But Mr. Trimblerigg’s conscience was at peace,
and he was not afraid. For myself I own that I was anxious; I never
quite know how storms are going to end; and I did not wish, at this
juncture, to lose Mr. Trimblerigg merely by accident.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
_Second Wind_
Mr. Trimblerigg’s home-coming, in spite of the triumphal note
sedulously given to it by his out-and-out supporters, was a sad one.
He found Free Evangelicalism divided against him. His results had
not wiped out the memory of his methods; and as there had been loud
protest while these were still going on, there was now controversy
as to whether they had in the least helped to the more peaceful
_dénouement_ which had followed. In the main his only backers among
the Free Evangelicals were the armed missionaries who had carried out
his policy, and the shareholders whose investments he had saved from
ruin. And though True Belief had rallied whole-heartedly to the support
of his more than Mosaic discipline--finding for it the warrant of
Scripture--True Belief, in spite of the new importance thus given to
it, was not the mould into which he could pour himself at this advanced
stage of his career upon his return to civilization. Except in the
mission field, where he had used it to meet an emergency, its die-hard
tenets were incompatible with Relative Truth; yet though some of its
followers still held that the world was flat, and others that it did
not go round, in a matter of religious war against the barbarism of
savage tribes he could work with them, and in their eye-for-an-eye and
tooth-for-a-tooth standpoint find the Relative Truth which served his
need. But they, for their part, would not doctrinally budge an inch to
come to him.
So when the main body of Free Evangelicalism turned against him,
intimacy with True Belief stood rather as a liability than as an asset;
though for a time it was a question whether he had anywhere else to
turn--whether any religious connection large and lively enough to serve
his purpose was willing to have him except on terms into which even his
diversified record could not fit without foolishness.
With the ruddy honours of Puto-Congo fresh upon him, he stood for
re-election to the Presidency of the Free Evangelical Union, and
got turned down. The blow was a shrewd one, though he met it with a
smiling face. But when, following upon that, after long and heated
discussion an adverse motion was carried by the executive of the Free
Evangelical Missions, whose organization on its present vast scale owed
its prosperity mainly to him, then indeed he felt as though the bottom
was being knocked out of his ministerial career; and was almost of a
mind--of two minds, that is to say--to turn from divinity to politics.
For in politics at that time events were moving fast, creating for
adaptable men opportunities of a new kind. If, as seemed likely, the
old two-party system was about to give place to group-formations, whose
tenure of life must necessarily be more of a negotiable than a fixed
quantity, and if for the manipulation of democratic government to a
safe middling course, opportunism must henceforth take a higher place
than principle, could anyone be found with a more instinctive touch for
the job than Mr. Trimblerigg?
In the political world the situation was there waiting for him: in the
religious world, on the other hand, where for the time being movement
seemed retrograde rather than forward, the situation would have to be
made. It was the tougher job.
To give Mr. Trimblerigg his due, that--if only he could find for it the
right environment--would be but an added attraction. A tough job always
delighted him; so much so that, setting his teeth to the toughness of
it, he thenceforth forgot everything but appetite; and as his appetite
always grew with what it fed on--given a proposition of sufficient
toughness, his appetite was apt to go strange lengths. So it had been
when he set out to hew Agag, and skin the scapegoat, giving to the
fantasy that air of probability which it needed in order to make it
popular; so likewise when he had to find moral excuse for standing
Christianity upon its head in the burnt-out cinders of native villages,
with the compulsorily converted Free State of Puto-Congo as his reward.
In each case the toughness of the job and the moral difficulties
it presented took the place of conviction, supplied the necessary
enthusiasm, and jogged him on to his goal.
So it was to be now. All that he lacked for the moment was the
necessary environment, the atmosphere into which a new spiritual
movement could be born. In politics it existed; in religion it had
still to be found. Mr. Trimblerigg hesitated; and while he hesitated
the call came, the spark of inspiration descended from on high, and
what thereafter was saved to religion in a revivalism which swept the
world, was lost to politics.
Two events, small in themselves, gave to his mind the impetus and
direction it required. The first was the death of the harmless,
unnecessary Caroline, the wife whose previous uneventfulness had given
to his career the only ballast it had ever known; the other was the
recrudescence of Isabel Sparling, manufacturing for herself in the
spiritual and religious world a success which arrested his attention,
and awoke in his breast first a small spark of jealousy, then emulation
and the determination, doing likewise, to make a bigger thing of it.
Caroline’s death was due to obscure causes for which the doctor found
a scientific name that satisfied all legal requirements; but if I have
any qualification for diagnosing mortality in the human race, I should
be inclined to say that she died of a gradual and cumulative attack of
fright. Mr. Trimblerigg had once made her doubt the evidence of her
senses--and not only of her own but of the children she had borne to
him; and though she had acquiesced submissively at the time--having
the negative proof always before her that the glory with which her
imagination had surrounded him was departed, that he was in truth no
saint, and had not after all taken his baths in cold weather--she was
never the same woman again. That she should have imagined so difficult
a thing, only to be told that it was a delusion after all, caused
a shock to her system. Her breathing became asthmatic, she coughed
with nothing to cough for, had flutterings of the heart, and began
to wear shawls even when the weather was warm. And waking one night,
shortly after Mr. Trimblerigg’s return from Puto-Congo had made them
bed-fellows again, she saw or thought she saw upon the pillow beside
her a recrudescence of her fear--the thing which could be seen but was
not to be believed. Faint, very faint--the product only of a dream--it
flushed feebly and passed away. But that single sight, or the mere
suspicion of it, gave her a habit of wakefulness which grew on the
apprehension that lay at the back of it; and just as people who see
spots crossing the field of vision damage their eyesight by pursuing
them, or as others who have a singing in their ears go mad in trying
to be quit of it; so did Caroline in trying both to realize and get
rid of the suspicion she wished to avoid, reduce herself to a nervous
wreck; and day by day, eyeing Mr. Trimblerigg with looks whose meaning
she would not explain, sank into a despondency which by destroying her
domestic efficiency robbed life of its remaining _raison d’être_.
And so one morning, after an ecstatic dream of more than usual
vividness, Mr. Trimblerigg woke to find her lying very quiet and
open-eyed beside him; and though the expression was not peaceful,
Caroline had nevertheless found peace; and Mr. Trimblerigg with
curiously mixed feelings, yet with a decent modicum of grief which was
quite genuine, saw that he had become a widower.
Among the letters of condolence which reached him after the sad
event--not immediately but a few months later--was one of peculiar
interest from Sir Roland Skoyle, conveying not merely sympathy, but
news. For it now appeared that Caroline was not as lacking in spirit
as her life had made out; rather had she reserved it for future
use. Caroline, in fact, had suddenly become interesting; and if she
had not quite found herself again in the old world where her real
interests lay, she had found her medium; she was there, waiting for her
credentials to be put to the test, and asking for him with such urgency
that Mr. Trimblerigg had a doubt whether he was yet free to consider
himself a complete widower.
If, on that matter, he felt that his liberty was less than he could
have wished, there was nevertheless a compensating interest; for here,
in germ, was the idea he had been waiting for: if he could convince
himself that spiritualism was really true--his previous experience,
though momentarily impressive had finally disappointed him--he would
go on and convince the world. It was some such conviction that the
religious world was now needing to spring it into fresh life; and he
himself only needed confidence in the case to be presented, in order to
become the man to do it. And so, at this point of his career, when he
least expected it, Caroline became an important character.
It was a strange apotheosis; and the realization of its truth came to
him in strange words at the first interview which Sir Roland Skoyle
arranged for them. The medium, sitting entranced, was not in the least
like her; but no matter. She breathed asthmatically, coughed, and
holding hand to heart hugged an imaginary shawl. Taking her disengaged
hand tenderly, he asked: ‘Caroline, my dear, is that you?’ And the
voice of Caroline answered: ‘I did see it, Jonathan; I really did! And
I can see it now. You look beautiful.’ Then, after a pause, ‘Who have
you got to mend your socks for you?’
That was Caroline all over; and as conviction settled into his brain,
her importance established itself. The conversation that ensued was
trivial and domestic in character; it was, nevertheless, a world-moving
event.
And the second was like unto it--in this at least, that a woman whom he
had come to regard as of no importance assumed all upon a sudden a new
significance and took her place once more in the shaping of his career.
Isabel Sparling, failing to find lodgment for her preaching powers in
any home-grown community among the Free Churches, had passed on to
America, where strange faiths and novel methods have always a better
chance.
A stray paragraph in a newspaper gave him the news that among the
Blue Ridge and Alleghany mountains she had achieved a startling
success in the propaganda of Second Adventism. The rural population
of Virginia, Tennessee, and North Carolina had begun robing itself
in white; drawn by the spirit, thousands upon thousands of Last Day
saints made periodical pilgrimages to the tops of the high mountains,
and there picnicked for whole weeks at a time waiting for an Event
which, though it failed to show visibly, always sent them back to
their homes spiritually refreshed. Rain-baptisms--by preference in a
thunder-storm--were another manifestation of the new faith. There were
startling cases when a date had been fixed weeks beforehand; torrential
rains had descended in answer to prayer and washed into renewed
sanctity five thousand converts at a time.
Mr. Trimblerigg had always had a modernist’s doubt about the efficacy
of prayer either for fine weather or wet. But supposing these accounts
to be true, Isabel Sparling was a water-finder of no uncertain power.
If she had ever failed, the papers made no report of it; at any rate,
in States where the rainfall was generally less than could be desired,
the average was going steadily up, and conversion to Second Adventism
had in consequence become popular. Manifestly she had got her stick by
the right end; in this practical age a combination between revealed
religion and good business was the one thing needful, and as the
increased rainfall was welcome to a large agricultural interest, so
also were the pilgrimages and the picnics to the retail traders. Pious
people, who had hitherto been frugal stay-at-homes, were now spending
a great deal upon white linen sunshades, Panama hats, shoe leather,
thermos flasks, mineral waters, cooked food of a portable kind and all
other necessary accompaniments for outings conducted on a large scale.
In a quite important slice of the States religion had once more become
not merely popular but vibrant and all-embracing in its character.
An ‘urge’ for righteousness had taken hold of whole districts where
no ‘urge’ of any kind had been felt before; and what at first had
only occurred in rural districts was now rapidly assuming a civic, a
municipal, and a territorial character. It was announced that one State
Governor at least, and the whole population of a large penal settlement
were waiting to receive rain-baptism on the earliest date that Isabel
Sparling’s engagements with Heaven would allow.
Mr. Trimblerigg read and was impressed. He went further; he took steps
to have the matter investigated, and while awaiting a further report
he thought much. Over there something was moving which had affinity to
the motions of his own brain; a sense of opportunity and of environment
began to stir in the inner recesses of his soul. And when the report
came--favourable in its main facts--he found all at once that he had
recovered his spiritual appetite. The world was the right world after
all; there was something in it waiting for him to do.
Nevertheless, for a man of his modern tendencies, Second Adventism
was a big pill to swallow; he did not quite see how he was going to
believe in it--sufficiently to make it a popular success, and for a
while wondered whether he could not run spiritualism alone, with Second
Adventism left out.
He consulted Caroline; she was stimulating, but rather vague. ‘Oh, if
you only knew, if you only knew, you could do anything!’ she told him.
‘Let your light shine, Jonathan! It’s there, though you don’t see it.
If you did, you’d know the way. If you don’t, it may go again, like it
did before.’
That little imperfection of grammar, uncorrected in the spirit-world,
gave Mr. Trimblerigg a fresh thrill of conviction that this was the
real Caroline. How often, as they climbed the social ladder, had he
corrected, a little impatiently, those symptoms of a lowly origin. But
now it rejoiced his heart to hear her recount the beatific vision she
had of him with homely incorrected speech ‘like’ she might have done
before.
Yes, it sounded encouraging, but it still left him in doubt; there was
too much ‘if’ about it. He wanted to be quite sure, without any ‘ifs’,
before he began.
It was at five o’clock one morning, after a sleepless night, that the
spark of inspiration swam into Mr. Trimblerigg’s brain, and though it
was not my sending--being entirely his own--I saw it come.
He was lying with his head on one side sucking a cough lozenge, when,
with a sudden jerk of astonishment, first his eyes opened, then his
mouth. The cough lozenge fell out, staining the pillow: he turned his
head sharply, eyes front, and sat up.
The conception which had got hold of him was large but quite simple;
he saw that Second Adventism depended for its success on one thing and
one thing alone. If what he was pleased to regard as Christendom--that
is to say, Free Evangelicalism and its dependent relatives among
the Free Churches--if Free Evangelicalism could but be persuaded to
believe in a Second Advent, and to desire it wilfully, whole-heartedly,
passionately--then by the law of spiritual gravity, the Second Advent
would come.
It was a great idea; Pragmatism, a thing he had only half-believed
in before, would thus be given a test worthy of its powers--would,
he believed, win through and make the world what it ought to
be--theologically up-to-date. The saints under the Throne crying ‘How
long?’ would suddenly change their tune, take up the initiative, and
with spiritual Coué-ings themselves fix the date.
It was a bold democratic conception, and since he had always been
a whole-hearted democrat there was no inconsistency--though he now
thought of it for the first time--in applying it to things doctrinal.
Man had his spiritual destiny--including dates--in his own hands; all
he needed was unanimity or, failing that, a commanding majority. He
had never had it, had never applied it till now. Had he done so the
millennium would already have bloomed into being.
And the means to this spiritual unanimity, or commanding majority, by
which the race was to be won? In the moment of inspiration that also
had been flashed into his brain, and Civilization stood explained. The
conquests of science were to become the weapons of faith, and publicity
the final expression of religious art. What countless missionaries
could not have done in a previous age a single voice would do now.
All that was required was a world-wide audience of converts to Second
Adventism, a voice going out into all lands, a trumpet signal, and a
shout, and at that shout the walls of Jericho would fall flat:
Faith would vanish into sight,
Hope be emptied in delight,
and every man would go up straight before him and possess the city of
his inheritance.
Nor had Mr. Trimblerigg any doubt--in that first flush of
inspiration--whose the voice was to be. As for the trumpet whose
blast was to rend the veil of a new world, science had providentially
supplied the instrument. It would be a big business to get possession
of it; but once done, it would be Big Business indeed. At the stroke
of a wizard’s wand--or call it Aaron’s rod--trade and commerce were to
become spiritualized, and the fiery chariot of Elijah would be found
among men once more, conveying the voice of prophecy to the far ends
of earth--in that moment, that division of a breath, that twinkling of
an eye of which older prophecy had spoken. Or to put the matter quite
prosaically--on that business footing which was to prove the secret of
its success--a monopoly of Broadcasting throughout the English-speaking
world was revealed to him as the means for the coming of the Kingdom on
Earth.
‘The coming of the Kingdom’? The phrase was picturesque; but it was old
and obsolete. ‘Making Heaven safe for Democracy’ was better. That was
what Mr. Trimblerigg intended to do.
CHAPTER THIRTY
‘_Arise, Shine!_’
Mr. Trimblerigg’s acceptance of the phenomena of spiritualism, though
it drew mass-meetings to hear him, gave a bad jolt to Free Evangelical
unity. Thenceforth pulpits were divided; and Mr. Trimblerigg had the
run of only half of them. But when, following upon that, he announced
his conversion to Second Adventism, a special conference of the
connection was called, and secession followed. Mr. Trimblerigg went out
hopefully into the wilderness, drawing a tail of all the Free Churches
after him; and though for a time they lacked funds, and found many
doors closed against them, they had not to be long in doubt that theirs
was the winning cause.
What the world wanted--the religious even more than the secular--was
a real bird-in-the-hand; proof positive, quick results, practice not
theory, ocular demonstration, moral certainty, wheels which actually
went round, whose buzz could be heard to the far ends of earth. A race
for Heaven without obstacles, and a goal visibly to be won were the
materials to make religion once more popular. Spiritualism and Second
Adventism run together seemed to meet the demand. The Free Churches
Militant began, in an expressive American phrase, ‘to palp with
emotion’; and as the new spiritual Combine devised by Mr. Trimblerigg,
with joined effects of dark séance and lurid anticipation of coming
events, filled its hired halls to overflowing with suffocating
converts, the churches grew empty.
With the sword of his spirit unsheathed and high uplifted, Mr.
Trimblerigg did not spare his old associates who hung back in this
day of battle for the new birth of spiritual democracy; and, to ears
which had drunk in the sound of it, the old gang’s trumpetings ceased
henceforth to avail or mean anything. Starting upon his fiery crusade
to the sound of a hundred drums hired for the occasion, he stood at the
door of his Pulman car, in the special that had been provided for him,
and flourished defiance to all opposers over the heads of the seething
multitude which filled the terminus, frantic with joy at having found a
leader whose single aim was to keep things on the run.
He stood there at the crowning point of his career; for here at last
he had created his own atmosphere; at the touch of his magician’s wand
a new and densely populated environment had sprung up to spread itself
round him. Power had been given him, vision, and the gift of tongues;
the future of revealed religion in the Free Churches hung trembling in
the balances of his mind.
But though it trembled (as it might well), he himself did not. From
all over the world he felt a responsive rush of wings to meet him;
the right button had been touched, his call to make Heaven safe for
Democracy had come at last and the means to it had been found. All the
rest had been but a preparation; this was the real thing.
The first sure proof of it was the readjustment of the news-headings in
the daily press; Religion began to take a front place. In the beginning
this perhaps was merely due to the novelty of the thing, with its
attendant features of controversy and secession upon a large scale. But
when weekly meetings all over the country, in the largest halls that
towns or cities could provide, became an established feature of the new
movement, it acquired not only a popular but a commercial importance
as well; and when presently Mr. Trimblerigg did his first great stroke
of business--combining the earthly with the heavenly on a scale that
had never been attempted before--Big Business itself sat up and began
to pay attention. In less than six months, for reasons soon to be
explained, the Stock Exchange, for the first time in its existence,
became sensitive to the call of Religion; and before the finish even
the Bank-rate had become affected by the vast scale of reinvestments
in other worldliness engineered by Mr. Trimblerigg. For it was quite
natural, was it not?--if the world was coming to an end--that people
should want to take their money to Heaven with them. Mr. Trimblerigg
obligingly provided them with a way, and even coined a new form of
currency to give it better effect, image and superscription no longer
Cæsar’s.
But this is to anticipate. Before these things happened, Mr.
Trimblerigg’s faith in himself had reached an intensity which, except
for outside assistance, it could hardly have achieved. The impetus had
come from an unexpected quarter, and at first had not been welcome.
It was characteristic of Mr. Trimblerigg, when he took up with
Second Adventism, to do so without acknowledging or even recognizing
the source of his inspiration; for it is safe to say that within
twenty-four hours of making it his own he had, by an acrobatic feat
of mental detachment, put Isabel Sparling entirely out of his mind
as having anything to do with it; and had almost forgotten her
existence in the whirl of his own discovery, when among the rushing
wings that flew to meet him from the far parts of the earth, came
first a message from Isabel, couched in tactful terms, hailing him
not as her follower but as her leader, and then Isabel herself. Nor
did she come with her hands empty; she brought with her the proffered
allegiance of her own vigorous following, already some fifty thousand
strong and going stronger every day; Rain-Baptists, Seals of Solomon,
First Resurrectionists, Second Adventists, Last Day Disciples, New
Jerusalemites--all these, so little known in their separate capacities,
now joined together under her leadership in a common bond were a force
no longer to be despised. And however little Mr. Trimblerigg might
welcome the reminder that his inspiration was shared by another, he
was too practical to reject the material thus offered him. Even though
at home the movement was going ahead by leaps and bounds, a nucleus
of fifty thousand souls in a country so impressionable as America was
worth having: it meant at least a year to the good in solid spade work;
in publicity it meant even more.
But Isabel had something else to give beside adherents; something very
unique and wonderful and precious--so, displaying it, she told him; nor
was it the first time he had heard of it.
It was not much to look at: a small wooden box with a domed lid, and a
cover of mildewed paper in an old-fashioned diaper; and around its rim
were seven seals, chipped and blackened with age, two of them already
hanging loose where the covering paper had detached itself. But though
a poor thing to look at, it had of late years acquired fame, or at
least notoriety; and the Press had made copy of it. For this was the
box of the American prophetess, Susannah Walcot, dead now for over a
hundred years but having followers still--the box concerning which she
had said that it must wait till one wearing a crown should open it,
and reveal to the world its prophecies concerning the last things.
And because all the crowned heads approached had refused to open it,
and had been much abused by the faithful remnant of her followers for
so doing, therefore it had remained sealed; till, coming into the
hands of Isabel Sparling, upon the adherence to her teaching of the
dwindling group which held it, it brought to mind a bright particular
head she had once seen, which, though in no earthly or material sense,
had indubitably been crowned in a glory of its own, so fulfilling the
condition which the prophetess had laid down.
And that memory being in her mind when the treasure came into her
keeping, it may be guessed with what joyous confirmation of hope she
heard presently that the once-crowned head had itself become a sudden
convert to Second Adventism. No sooner did the news reach her than she
felt that he was already hers; and having first sped a message, a week
later she was upon the high seas, on her way to meet him, and the box
with its seven seals, bore her company.
At the Customs she expensively saved its sacred contents from profane
scrutiny by declaring it to be a special brand of tea hermetically
sealed from sea-air. And as nothing of that weight could have cost her
more, officials with uncrowned heads took her word for it, and passed
into the country a prophecy destined to make its mark in history,
besides giving a neat finish to the career of Mr. Trimblerigg.
What happened next must be briefly told; for I do not quite know
all the circumstances that lay behind it. With the soul of Isabel
Sparling I have had so little acquaintance that I do not make myself
responsible for it; only as she came within range of Mr. Trimblerigg,
and affected his career, did she interest me. For which reason I must
leave unsolved the problem of the seven seals and what they contained
at different dates, more especially whether they contained different
things before and after the day when she actually took charge of them.
I will only say this, that Isabel Sparling was by the look of her an
astute, a daring, and a resolute character; nor do I think that for
good and great ends she would stick at trifles or have more scruple
than Mr. Trimblerigg himself. Also I have reason to believe that she
knew her man; and it may well be that in the gyrations of her emotional
career, on which Mr. Trimblerigg’s own orbit had had its gravitating
effect, she may have assimilated the doctrine of Relative Truth more
than one knows. And so whether it was genuine prophecy, coincidence,
or only Relative Truth which brought the thing to pass, I leave each
reader to decide according to his own taste or credulity.
The initial fact is that when Isabel Sparling, obliterating a
disputatious past, again met Mr. Trimblerigg, in order to make him the
instrument of her vision for the Millennium that was to be, she did not
find his head visibly crowned. Nor had she expected it; yet she was
puzzled that it was not so. Such self-abnegation, to the foregoing of
a gift so uplifting and spiritual, though admirable as a mere act of
humility was not to be encouraged when a world in flux was waiting to
be saved not so much by knowledge in things spiritual as by novelty,
and when, in consequence, anything in the way of signs and wonders
might be of so much help.
Miss Sparling had seen the manifestation, and had believed in it;
believed therefore that what had been once could be again. The
circumstances under which she had seen it, gave her grounds for
suspecting that Mr. Trimblerigg had not then borne witness valiantly
to the light which was in him, had in consequence lost it, and needed
perhaps to be encouraged in order to find it again. She recalled also
the case of Jonah: prophets were sometimes reluctant and had to be
pushed. All that I have now to record is the pushing.
Outwardly it was very gently applied: Miss Sparling merely placed
the box in Mr. Trimblerigg’s hands for safe-keeping, and there left
it. Inwardly? There after stating the facts, I can only leave others
to guess. But be it noted that when she left it in his hands she did
not ask him to open it; she even told him that only a crowned head
could qualify for that purpose; and at that time at all events Mr.
Trimblerigg was wearing no crown. Nevertheless--she having asked him to
use his influence and persuade a crowned head to open it--the box lay
in his undisputed possession. And, as I have said before, I think that
Miss Sparling knew her man, and how best to have him.
And so it came about that, finding himself alone with it, though by no
means yet convinced of its importance or the truth of its credentials,
he became interested in it. The mere fact that a box has been shut up
for nearly a hundred and fifty years makes it interesting--at least
until it has been opened again: and this was a box claiming to contain
prophecy.
Mr. Trimblerigg was no longer of a mind to reject anything which might
bring grist to his mill. His discovery of Publicity as the wide gate
and the broad road leading to eternal life, forbade him to dismiss as
common or unclean anything which might seize the public interest. And
his public was now in a mood to seize anything: a whirl of excitement
had caught hold of the great semi-detached unsectarian forces of this
transitional age; and the fact that he was emptying the Churches was
sufficient proof that what the public wanted was something it did not
get there. The Churches had ceased to prophesy; prophecy, therefore,
might be the right card to play. Second Adventism was based on it:
if anticipation was to be raised and seals opened, any old box might
help; and this one had already attained publicity though not of a very
serious kind. ‘Can any real prophecy come from America?’ had been the
depreciatory attitude with which the religious communities of the
Old World met its claims; and if from America, why this demand for a
crowned head to open it? Why not a President, or a millionaire?
Mr. Trimblerigg himself, though doubting the extreme claims made for
it, had never entirely rejected prophecy. Even when, for a brief
spell, he had counted himself a modernist, the better to escape from
the trammels of True Belief, he had still found a rhetorical use for
it; and the Land of Promise with its flowings of milk and honey had
oftentimes evoked soul-stirring utterances from his tongue which, when
they failed to materialize, became mere figures of speech. But he would
much rather that they had materialized; and had they done so would have
claimed the credit for it. That precisely was, and always had been his
attitude toward prophecy; if he could give its fulfilment he would
claim credit for it; if not he would treat it as a figure of speech.
It was in that same attitude, tentatively, that he laid his hand on
the box. It might be a good egg; but he did not want to commit himself
publicly to anything that would let him down. He would like first to
know more of the contents. Prophecy might be what his public required
to complete the spell he had begun to lay on it; but the extant
writings of Susannah Walcot, obscure, diffuse, and ungrammatical,
together with the diminished number of her followers, did not inspire
him with confidence; and so for the present his attitude toward
prophecy, as he laid his hand on a box said to be full of it, remained
unchanged,--he was only prepared to accept it conditionally--in his own
time and in his own way; that is, if it suited him.
But as he stooped and examined the box, its structure as well as its
possibilities began to interest him; for he noticed that though it
had many seals at the top its bottom was quite removable; long rusty
nails sticking out a little where the dried wood had shrunk, and at
one point a gap where cautious leverage might be possible, suggested a
way which in the interests of Relative Truth one might adopt. From one
aspect--the one which practically did not matter--it was an equivocal
and surreptitious deed; but as over everything else which might have
held others in doubt, having quite made up his mind to it, he prayed
long and fervently that he might be guided aright in what he did, and
also that he might have sufficient skill in carpentry to cover up his
tracks when the will of Heaven was done.
He worked at it very patiently for three hours, when the rest of his
household was a-bed, till with gathered experience he acquired a
standard which, if not skilled, allowed him to feel safe.
It was not hard work so much as delicate; the wood was tender and
worm-eaten, the old-fashioned nails with screw-heads came out quite
easily--too easily in fact, at first; bits of the wood came with them.
This frightened him, he went more slowly. After a tedious period of
minute labour the wood was ready to come away in his hand. With his
attitude to prophecy still unchanged he lifted it away, and out of the
box like a pudding from its mould came a compact mass of very yellow
stained paper slightly stuck together by mildew, and dampness that had
dried.
Mr. Trimblerigg saw at once that a long task was before him. The
prophecies were in a small cramped hand with numerous contractions, and
many words badly spelt.
Here and there the ink had gone faint; in other parts time and moisture
had made whole passages undecipherable; portions of the prophecy had
indubitably passed into oblivion; but far larger portions remained.
With the help of headings--titles symbolic in character--Mr.
Trimblerigg began skimming. At first sceptical and a little bored, he
presently grew interested; and though not yet convinced, he saw that
from the publicity point of view the thing had possibilities. This, for
instance, he regarded as an arresting passage:
‘And lo, when the Cock, stricken by the double-pated Eagle, draws in
its claws, causing the Scarlet Parrot to fall from its perch, then
shall a city fall and a people go free, and the mark of the Beast that
was on it shall be blotted out.’
Mr. Trimblerigg, questing this way and that, searched his history; and
when presently his mind lighted on a likely spot, he found there an
astonishingly close parallel; for this, clearly, was--or could be taken
as--a reference, couched in unfriendly terms, to the Papacy’s loss of
Temporal Power in the year 1870, owing to the withdrawal of the French
troops which protected it.
Presently he began to feel that he was missing things through not
knowing as much about modern history as he ought to do; and that a
great deal that he was reading might possibly be true could he but
discover the application.
Presuming that the prophecies followed a chronological order, he turned
on, and before long had struck substance. Here he was no longer out of
his depth.
‘When the Bear and the Lion and the Cock shall rise up and stand
together in a heap, and become as one for the defence of a Lamb that
was without blame--’ This clearly was modern history, and though not
quite true history it was the kind of history that was still being
swallowed by the Public for which Mr. Trimblerigg had to cater. This at
all events was the sort of thing that would go down; there was, in the
journalistic sense, good copy in it.
At first Mr. Trimblerigg had inclined to suppose that ‘the Lamb’ had a
scriptural significance; he soon decided, however, that it was better
for it to mean Belgium; without making the prophecy more true it made
it more obvious.
This wresting of the text to suit his possible requirements was a
sufficient indication that now Mr. Trimblerigg’s interest had become
active. His attitude to prophecy had not exactly changed, but it was
being accentuated. He was beginning to see Opportunity upon a large
scale; in fact he was not far off from becoming a Susannah Walcotite.
With hope mounting to enthusiasm he read on.
Startling analogies began to come thick and fast; with a whirring of
wings like coveys put up from fields of unreaped harvest--invisible at
one moment, at the next dominating the whole landscape, they flew over
his head making a plumed darkness on the bright heavens beyond. From
this strange scripture, diffuse, chaotic, with pages not numbered, he
began to take notes. Amid much that he did not understand and a good
deal which might mean anything, certain figures leapt into definite
significance, capable of meaning but one thing only.
‘When the Striped Eagle is seen walking upon the waters with his
face to the sun,’ was the entry of America into the War. It is true
that, in the first instance, he read the third word as ‘stupid’; but
on consideration of the facts and the post-war susceptibilities of
America, he decided that ‘striped’ was better. And there was more like
unto it.
Then, turning for awhile from its theme of nations at War, the prophecy
became personal and particular.
‘And in that day behold a man shall arise and become a beacon; in him
a candle shall be set up, and its wick shall be kindled, so that the
four corners of the earth shall know of it. His light shall shine; yea,
men shall see it and be amazed. Honour shall be upon his head; and
whatsoever he sayeth shall come to pass; his hand shall prosper it. My
“yea” shall be upon his lips, and my yolk upon his shoulders; to his
voice the “yea, yea” of the nations shall answer: they shall be all
yolked together because of him.’
Susannah’s spelling was often queer; but as I read this, looking over
Mr. Trimblerigg’s shoulder to do it, I began to think that her spelling
was sometimes inspired; for I saw now what was coming.
Turning a page,--a page which stood somehow by itself, mildewed like
the rest, but with most of its script obliterated--Mr. Trimblerigg read
on:
‘He is my prophet, my messenger; unto Nineveh have I called him; yea,
I have given him a name that he may be known, that he may be called the
second Jonah. Than him none shall be more exalted; and of all feet that
run no feet shall run faster.’
Jonathan sat up; his name almost _was_ Jonah; and with the word that
followed, dropping only an H, the anagram was perfect. Uplifted and
entranced, he read on:
‘When I call him, he shall be afraid; but though he fears me I will
run after him. Yea, I will run while I wait; and though I bide my time
yet will I catch him. When I make my light shine on him he shall be in
doubt; I will withdraw my light from him, so that in darkness he may
learn and know. I will put my hook in his mouth and lead him; yea, I
will bait his breath so that he may become a catcher of men. He shall
travel west, but east he shall return: he shall go far, but I will make
him come again. Yea, the ship whereon he goes shall be shaken because
of him; the rigging thereof shall tremble. Have I not given him a name?’
Mr. Trimblerigg no longer merely sat up, he skipped to his feet. Only
one letter--the letter ‘i’ was missing to make the prophecy absolute.
But proper names, he remembered, were very seldom correctly spelt in
old days; and it had ever been a source of pride to him to know that
upon his father’s side, far back, the family had been illiterate for
generations.
‘Trimblerigg!’ ‘And the rigging thereof shall tremble. Have I not given
him a name?’ What could be plainer than that?
He continued to pore over the quaint crabbed writing, with its
misspellings and its occasional misconstructions,--a style of grammar
belonging to the half-educated of a century ago, but not much worse
on the whole than the bad Greek of the New Testament. Was bad grammar
and bad spelling a reason for rejecting a message so high? In the
world’s eyes he feared it would be. In the worldly sense this Susannah
was but a half-educated person; sometimes she made prophecies which he
not only failed to identify, but which even seemed contradictory, in a
wrong tone, out of place. This, for instance, presented a meaning less
doubtful than undesirable; he had no use for it:
‘In that day the Lion and the Ass will lie down together; they will
share a bed, they will eat hay together, and the heart of the Lion
shall wax faint, and his thoughts grow foolish. And the Lion shall
listen to the voice of the Ass, and shall think it wisdom. For the Ass
shall bray and speak, saying, “It is going to rain”; and immediately it
shall do so. Then shall the Ass say, “Come into my stable; for there I
have a place prepared for thee, where it does not rain.” So shall they
rise up and go, the Lion and the Ass together; and in the stable they
shall find one waiting for them with his tackle prepared; and he shall
let down his tackle upon their backs and harness the two of them, the
Lion with the Ass, and the Ass with the Lion, making them to be a pair
under one yolk. And all their apples shall be in one cart; and the man,
the owner of the Ass shall drive them whither they know not.’
Mr. Trimblerigg read the passage twice; he did not like it, it
perturbed him. Assuming the Lion to mean what he thought it to mean,
this was an event which no reading of history could justify: it never
had been true, it never would be true. In the other prophecies it was
quite evident that the Lion was the chosen beast, well-pleasing to the
Lord; how, then, did it come into this forecast of divine dispensation
that the Lion should go so far astray?
And who the dickens was the Ass? He looked ahead wherever he saw Ass
and Lion figuring together; and the obscurities and perversities of the
prophecy became more confounding. The Lion was clearly not doing the
right thing; it was following the Ass into a course of action which was
leading to no good, which was, in fact, morally wrong; and so far as
he could place the prophecies in their chronological sequence, these
misdoings must some of them be quite recent, and some actually taking
place now. Unedified, he began turning the pages in haste, to find
something better; and so doing--it was a pity!--managed to miss this,
which caught my quicker eye:
‘And the Ass said to the Lion, “Let us drive the scapegoat into the
wilderness and there skin it; and from the skin of the scapegoat let
us make coats for ourselves and for our children.” And the Lion said,
“Will it be enough?” And the Ass answered, “It shall be enough; for
we will stretch it this way and that and make it enough; or if so it
be not enough, then we will wait till a second skin be grown, and
will take that also; and after that another, and another, till we be
satisfied.” Then said the Lion, “But if he die of it, how shall we be
satisfied?” And the Ass answered, “We will not let him die, till we be
satisfied.” So together they drove the scapegoat into the wilderness,
and there they lost him. And the Lion reproached the Ass saying,
“Where is the skin of the scapegoat that you promised me?” And the
Ass answered, “A proposal is not a promise, neither is a promise a
performance. Let it suffice that we have driven the scapegoat into the
wilderness, and that he will presently die there. What matter how he
dies, so long as he does die?” But the Lion said, “I have no coats for
my children, and I am not satisfied.”’
Had Mr. Trimblerigg read that, I wonder what he would have made of it?
Had he done so his attitude toward prophecy might have altered. He
might have given the box back to Isabel Sparling ‘unopened,’ without
having found what followed.
This was a separate enclosure of folded tissue paper, spotted and
yellow with age, broken at the folds, and very frail to the touch.
It was sealed with the seal of the prophetess; but a single seal on
paper presented little difficulty to Mr. Trimblerigg. With great
circumspection and delicacy of handling he applied the hot blade
of a knife, lifted the seal away, and laid open the contents. A
wash-drawing in sepia on mildewed paper was what met his eye. From the
artistic point of view it was very poor and amateurish; but to say
that it interested him were to put the matter very mildly indeed. It
represented a man with rather short legs, middle-aged, somewhat full in
the body, and clad in a full-skirted coat. As a forecast of present-day
fashions it was not very good; but the legs were in trousers, not
knee-breeches, and the head did not wear a wig.
It was the head that most interested him; a large spot of mildew had
partly obliterated the features, but not enough to obscure the type.
The face was broad, the cheeks were smooth-shaven, the forehead was
noble, the hair rather long, and curled up at the ends like the hair
of the knave of hearts in a pack of cards; a large bow-tie sat under
the chin,--the black tie of a Free Church minister. Underneath were
the words, ‘Behold the Fore-runner!’ And again, underneath that, were
these words of Scripture: ‘Arise, shine, for thy light has come, and
the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee!’ Around the head was an
indubitable halo; and faint, very faint, upon the blank space of it to
right and left, the initials ‘J’ and ‘T.’
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
_The Procession of a Flea_
Mr. Trimblerigg stopped to breathe; and while he did so I made a
psychological examination of that poor work of art which was yet, in
its way, so perfect a masterpiece. Had Mr. Trimblerigg been more of
an expert in old wash-drawings and brushwork, had he been gifted with
a more sceptical turn of mind than that which had fitted his views
to such differing situations, he might have examined those initials,
and that spot of mildew defacing the supposititious features, more
minutely, analytically and chemically than he actually did. That the
wash-drawing as a whole was well over a hundred years old any expert
would probably have agreed; whether he would have given the same date
to the initials, and a few other salient touches I had my doubt, and
the doubt remains unresolved; no expert has ever been called in to
decide the matter. If Miss Sparling herself limed that snare, she
certainly did it well; the obliteration of the face, with just the
suggestion of a likeness left, was finely controlled; and yet the
control may have only been Father Time’s; and whether it was luck, or
whether Susannah Walcot was in truth a prophetess of penetrating power,
who is now to say? The lengths to which the human faculties can go
have often filled me with astonishment; Mr. Trimblerigg was only one
instance among many. On this occasion, however, he did not astonish me
in the least; he did what I expected him to do.
Before that culminating piece of evidence--that silent but resounding
call--he sank upon his knees, and remained on them for a long time.
I watched the motions of his mind; they were very interesting; but
they had not really to go far. That he was called to be a shining light
to the whole civilized world did not at this stage of things surprise
him. As a probability he had thought so ever since he could remember;
recently he had been made sure of it. It was only the strange manner
of this final call, and its clearly miraculous accompaniments that did
a little stagger him. It also caused a definite shift--a shift to the
right--in his always adjustable theology. It drew him definitely from
modernism back toward True Belief. For this was something with which
modernism could not be reconciled; it was primitive, apocalyptic,
ultra-evangelical, it made, amongst other things, for the literal
interpretation of Scripture: if this was true, the other was not.
And so it became clear that in accepting the call from such a source,
his own cast of faith must be simplified once and for all,--that he
must revert to the earlier faith of his Uncle Phineas.
Uncle Phineas was right. It might still be true that the sun did not
actually go round the earth, that the earth was not literally fixed,
or flat, as Uncle Phineas had wished him to believe; but there was
nevertheless a principle of fixture in eternal truth, fixture rather
than evolution or motion, going much deeper into the nature of things
than he had supposed. He became, all at once, curiously doubtful of his
doctrine of Relative Truth, for he saw that to his exposition of this
more divine and direct dispensation it might prove a hindrance.
It was for his followers he was now troubled. As regards himself he
had no difficulty in getting rid of it. For the recovery of that purer
faith his early training now stood him in good stead, and Uncle Phineas
became a rock in whose shadow he could hide. What he had trained
himself to believe in his ’teens, what he had broken away from in his
early twenties, what he had exploitively used for opportunist purposes
in the propaganda of war and of Mosaic reprisals on savages who could
not otherwise be taught better, was still in his blood--waiting to give
him the upward push. In his new childlikeness he thanked whatever gods
there be that he had always treated with tender allowance and regard
the primitive views of Caroline, both as wife and mother; and that he
had never allowed the scepticism of Davidina--Davidina, who had now
found a new sphere for her dispensing powers in the exploration and
humane taming of savage tribes--to discolour the rainbow gradients of
his mind. The theological problems she had maliciously presented to
him in old days, he had happily ignored: they had at least done him no
permanent harm. Reversion to type, in his case at all events, was not
difficult. In a certain sense Relative Truth helped him; for even if
the simpler faith were not as absolutely true as it now seemed to him,
it was true relatively to the immediate purpose in hand. And so still,
as one might say, upon two legs--one numbed and quiescent but the other
lithe and active--he entered confidently and with singleness of purpose
into the Kingdom that had been prepared for him.
Going up to bed in the small hours he was very tired, and did not stop
to look in the glass, did not stop to do anything. He switched out the
light and got into bed. Only then did the great recovery he had made
dawn on him.
Turning his head sideways in comfortable adjustment for slumber, he
saw upon the pillow a patch of yellow light, faint, but for small
immediate use efficient. In the centre of its radiance marched a flea.
Mr. Trimblerigg did not like fleas; he made an instinctive pounce, and
the flea died the death. Then the wonder of it occurred to him. He sat
up, he got out of bed, he went to the glass. In the darkness he could
see himself: Crocean dawn was round him once more. His surreptitious
action of the last few hours, Heaven had now justified. He had no
longer any doubts, any fears; he did not even see difficulties, for now
the world was running to meet him, and millions of his fellow-creatures
were prepared to take without question anything he offered them.
Faint with bliss, he tottered back to bed, laid his crowned head upon
the pillow, and slept.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
_The Procession Continues_
The next morning there was a small fly in the ointment of his bliss; a
letter from Davidina. Thousands of miles away, among the swamps of the
Amazon, news had apparently reached her of her brother’s marvellous
doings; and of course, as he might have expected, her comment sounded
the note of criticism.
‘My dear Jonathan,’ ran the letter, ‘if you go on like that, you will
burst.
‘Yours affectionate,
‘D. T.’
The letter came too late. Mr. Trimblerigg no longer cared what the
far-removed Davidina thought of him. Her long-distance pin-pricks had
lost their medicinal virtue. ‘Puff!’ he remarked airily; and as he
flipped the letter into the waste-paper basket, his fate resumed the
jiggety tenor of its way, and the bursting process went on. For in the
last few hours Mr. Trimblerigg had greatly fortified himself by prayer,
so that his good opinion of himself was now undeflectable; and the
old helpless feeling, which his attacks of prayer so often gave me,
had come upon me once more. But this time I was rather enjoying it,
and was very much interested, wondering how far--left to himself--Mr.
Trimblerigg would go.
If ever the human race comes to read its own history, without
prejudice, or blindness, or superstition, it will discover as never
before what a tremendous part answer to prayer has played in man’s
making. As never before: for the strangest part of that discovery
will be from which end the answer to prayer has come. Man claims
many virtues which he does not possess; but he has also a few which
he does not know; and if my materials have sometimes disappointed
me, and inclined me to think that, on the whole, the making of
man was a mistake, I have only had to turn and watch him in his
marvellous manufacture of answers to his own prayers, to feel afresh
the encouragement and diversion with which the work of creation has
provided me.
Under the auspices of a thousand religions, which cannot possibly all
of them be true, operated in the interests of gods who are, or who were
some of them, no better than they should be, prayer has always been
answered. And the more firmly man has held to that faith bowing before
the dark altars of his strange and shifting creeds, the more surely and
swiftly has he evolved and made for himself a life worth living, and
for me a spectacle worth contemplating.
Had all those Heavens to which he addressed his prayer really sent
back the answer, bobbing it like a cherry to the open mouth of the
supplicant, what a poor effete parasitic thing he would have become!
But because the Heavens were more aloof and the gods much harder of
hearing than he knew, or because a wise silence was the true air from
which his spirit drew breath of life, therefore has man, left to answer
himself from that Kingdom of Heaven which is within him, become the
overruling factor of his still changing and troubled world; possessing
himself of the lies wherewith priestcraft has so generously provided
him, he takes and turns them into truth.
And so, by prayer, he has made history. But, though he has told many
tales to the contrary for the bettering of his faith, has anything
ever really happened in his contact with wind or weather, seed-time
or harvest, storm, earthquake, eclipse, course of sun and moon, that
he has not brought about himself? He still talks of the evidence of
his senses: but there the evidence of his senses stands immemorially
before him, and he still does not believe them! In spite of all the
Bank-holidays and National Fêtes that wet weather has spoiled for him,
inflicting disappointment and misery upon millions of his fellows out
for a snack of holiday whose date cannot possibly be changed--in spite
of that evidence staring him in the face, he still thinks that I am the
clerk of the weather, and prays to me about it, and still likes me; and
does not think me cross-grained, or spiteful, or revengeful, because I
have spoiled so many of his holidays! Truly, with all his faults, man
is the most marvellously forgiving creature that was ever made--or else
the most inconsequent in all those matters which are called matters of
faith.
Often and often have I had cause to wonder at the things which man
found possible to believe: his queer creeds, his superstitions, his
transference of justice from this world to the next, his appetite for
making his gods like himself in their bad as well as in their good
qualities; and then for making them unlike himself, with miraculous
powers, attended by signs and wonders, and visitations, and unexpected
happenings, which even in his insurance policies he calls ‘acts of
God.’ All these things fill me with amazement that any man should
believe in them as having any spiritual significance whatsoever.
But when I consider how many believe that I provide the weather for
Bank-holiday and harvest, and can change it at will, then I have to
admit that man can make himself believe anything if once he starts
praying about it. And so it was quite natural that having prayed about
himself so long and earnestly, Mr. Trimblerigg should also believe in
himself as much as he did.
And so upon its second advent, Mr. Trimblerigg’s halo was a great
success. It did not have to appear unexplained; a public meeting was
arranged for it. And there with due solemnity for the strengthening
of faith the box of Susannah Walcot was brought forth like a new ark
of the covenant; and a crowned head, having first prayed to be guided
aright, broke the seals, drew out the contents, and read extracts, and
coming upon an illustrated page was for putting it modestly aside, when
his hand was stayed by the vigilance of Isabel Sparling. After that
the success of Susannah’s prophecies was assured. Judiciously edited
they caused a tremendous sensation, arousing also, in the episcopal
churches, derision and furious opposition.
It was the finishing touch requisite for full success. With that final
push Second Adventism, under the ban of the older theology, moved on
from strength to strength. In the Free Churches it swept the board, and
not many months later candidates for holy orders, in all congregations
where the incumbents were democratically chosen, had little chance
of selection unless they came as certified converts to Spiritualism,
Second Adventism, and the prophetic writings of Susannah Walcot. The
organ of the movement, _The Last Trump_, displaying on its cover an ace
of hearts with rays emanating, ran into a circulation of millions. And
though its opponents might call it ‘The Artful Card,’ and its radiant
editor ‘The Artful Dodger,’ and publish parodies of the prophecies
as they appeared in weekly instalments, its scope and influence
became more and more irresistible. In the price and extent of its
advertisement columns alone it was only beaten by that most popular of
all ladies’ journals _The Toilet Table_. And even _The Toilet Table_ in
its editorials was kind to the movement, and gave prominent reports of
its preachers and the smartness of its congregations.
Indeed before long there were scarcely any other congregations worth
talking about outside the high and dry pale of Episcopacy. And
then, against that also, Mr. Trimblerigg struck his blow. A brief
announcement without boast or comment, in _The Last Trump_, told that
exclusive arrangements had been made by Second Adventism for the
broadcasting of Mr. Trimblerigg’s orations, every Sunday, morning and
evening, at the competitive hours of divine service.
At that scrapping of its preachers, Episcopacy became active, appealed
to public opinion for its protection, and found that it was too
late. Within a month informal disestablishment had become its lot;
and though with its endowments and its powers of preferment left, it
remained rich, and in its own narrow circle influential; it ceased to
count as an organization of national importance. And meanwhile, in
surreptitious driblets, adherents of the Free Church rump--Baptists,
Congregationalists, Methodists, Free Evangelicals were passing over to
the ranks of Second Adventism.
How, indeed, could any who did not accuse Mr. Trimblerigg of demoniacal
possession--which was the cry of the ‘Scarlet Parrot’--do otherwise?
For here, undeniably, was a light that shone, which only spiritual
agencies could explain; and, good or bad, the world must make its
choice, and camp accordingly. For the most part it camped where the
extraordinary phenomenon could best be seen--that is to say among Mr.
Trimblerigg’s audiences, which now--aided by loud-speakers--had become
vast, occupying almost daily a deserted stadium, where an ephemeral
exhibition, having burned out its six-months’ popularity, still
stood with only its shell of lath, plaster, and paint, awaiting the
dissolution of time. Into that vast auditorium, in all weathers, wet or
dry, special trains, running to the exhibition terminus, poured their
thousands day after day. And day by day the world’s conviction that
it was coming to a speedy and a prosperous end, increased and became
a fever raging through the body politic, unstabilizing the currency,
doing certain vested interests much harm, but others much more good.
When it was announced that Second Adventism had become a co-operative
company for the conversion of Commerce to the reception of the New
Jerusalem, presently to appear upon earth in concrete form, and when
Mr. Trimblerigg promulgated a great building scheme--mainly of the
said concrete--by which the vision was to materialize on the ground
where the derelict Exhibition with its plaster palaces stood awaiting
decay, then began ugly rushes on the Stock Exchange, a sharp shifting
of investments; and between Big Finance, Episcopacy, and the Liquor
Trade a desperate alliance was formed--quite as in the old days of Mr.
Trimblerigg’s early career--sign that at last the real issue was to
be joined, and that there were interests in the world--and powerful
ones--which Second Adventism did not suit.
Mr. Trimblerigg, though it often annoyed him, was not the kind of man
to fear opposition when it came. He did not avoid the challenge, he
went out to meet it. But he saw that the tussle was coming, and in
order to gain access of strength as expeditiously as possible for the
ordeal that lay ahead he decided that the psychological moment had come
for him to visit America.
Offers of a sensational character had, of course, already reached him.
One Lecture Agency had assured him that if his halo would stand the
change of climate, a scientific investigation, and the nervous strain
incidental to a daily appearance before mammoth audiences, it could
guarantee that thousands should be turned away in every city, and no
seats sold to the public under five dollars a head.
Mr. Trimblerigg, when the time came, decided otherwise. He announced
that admission was to be free. When America heard that, it first fell
down and worshipped him, then in panic began to mobilize its army,
double its police force, set up steel barricades and enlarge its
cemeteries in order to cope with the record crowds and the ensuing
mortality which would result. The problem of how to deal with countless
multitudes all ruthlessly set at whatever expense to life and limb, on
seeing a real halo alive on a man’s head, and hearing the man’s head
speak from the midst of it, occupied the headlines of the newspapers
for weeks, even before Mr. Trimblerigg started on his voyage. And when
he had started, then all the reporters of the American press chartered
a ship and went out to meet him.
It was then that Mr. Trimblerigg was asked the historic question what
it felt like to be the greatest man in the world. And Mr. Trimblerigg
answered that it made him feel shy; and the next moment could have
bitten his tongue out for having fallen so easily into the first trap
which an expert in publicity had set for him.
It did not in the least really matter. It made good copy; and
though it also made the judicious smile, the judicious--always an
insignificant minority--in an affair conducted on so vast a scale did
not count.
‘Trimblerigg charges that he is the greatest man alive,’ was an unfair
way of putting it; but it could not be described as untrue. And so he
just had to live it down.
He did so without any difficulty. He was in a country where only
the statue of Liberty shared the distinction that he carried about
with him; and while her halo only shot out in separate rays from
perforations concealed under her crown, his was a perfect round, it
went out everywhere; it was also alight continuously day and night. The
torchlight procession organized up Fifth Avenue to greet its arrival
was thrown into the shade by its ever-increasing vitality. The torches
were a foolish excrescence, they interested nobody; and though five
miles of them impeded the distant view, the one central fact outshone
them all.
The reporters, dealing with that central fact, after a brief attempt
to be facetious had become hushed and awes-truck. Their public would
not allow them to be otherwise; America, having gotten a live halo
to its shores, was not in a mood to have its genuineness questioned,
the mystery of its origin derided, or any other slight put upon
its dignity. It became a thing inviolate, sacred as ‘Old Glory’
herself; and when an unfortunate youth, unimpressed by the beauty of
its holiness, shouted a derisive remark at its passing, the crowd
lynched him for it. After that minority opinion became as terrorized
from expressing itself as it had been while the ‘Liberty Loan’ was
voluntarily subscribing for America’s entry into the war. There was no
half-way safety point left: those who doubted the divine origin of Mr.
Trimblerigg’s luminosity were regarded as Satanists; and when here, as
in the old world, Episcopacy persisted in holding out, the genuineness
of its Orders began for the first time to be generally doubted, and the
numbers of its adherents seriously diminished. No wonder that even the
‘Movies’ became afraid of him, and offered him fabulous sums to turn
film-artist, on the single condition that during his term of contract
he would keep himself hid from the public eye.
And so, if anybody had laughed at Mr. Trimblerigg’s ingenuous answer
on the question of his greatness, the laugh speedily died down, having
left nothing to feed on. For if Mr. Trimblerigg was not the greatest
man in the world, he was, at all events, the greatest success. In a
single week he had made America believe in miracle; after which, from
such a source, America was ready to believe almost anything.
His first message was delivered from the plinth of the Statue of
Liberty in New York Harbour, to an arrangement of loud-speakers
which enabled him to be heard from Newark round by Staten Island to
Brooklyn; thence, to a yet wider circle--embracing the greater part
of the western hemisphere--broadcasting took up the tale, and if not
quite making the world one, making Mr. Trimblerigg its sole topic of
conversation.
Record crowds attended the performance; two ferry-boats capsized under
the one-sided weight of the thousands who jammed the upper decks. The
churches, smarter in the uptake than those of his own country, were
satisfactorily filled; for there also loud-speakers adorned the vacant
pulpits, and congregations of a hundred denominations hung upon his
lips.
In that there was a danger, since verbal inspiration was now generally
ascribed to him: and Mr. Trimblerigg being one of those orators who,
when they let themselves go, are never quite sure what they may
say,--or, afterwards, what they actually have said,--found it very hard
to keep within safe bounds, or to withhold certain inspiring facts
which he believed himself to possess.
He knew, for instance, the day on which the world, as regards its
present dispensation, was to end. Susannah Walcot had given her word
for it; but hitherto the Council of the Second Adventists had decided
not to publish it,--to keep it till their position had become more
absolutely assured, and the world psychologically ready to receive it.
But it was very difficult for Mr. Trimblerigg, when a whole continent
was rushing into a state of conversion, and millions listening
fervently to his daily orations, it was very difficult to keep back,
in moments of inspired utterance, a declaration which would give
the _clou_ to the whole movement, letting organized society know in
definite terms how brief, how startlingly brief, was its time-limit,
before that great cataclysmic change which would take and turn it
upside down.
And so one day, in a moment of effervescence, Mr. Trimblerigg let it
out. And having done so, there was no going back on it.
With many millions already declared converts, and at least as many
more hovering upon the brink, waiting for the deciding push, Second
Adventism in that act of inspired indiscretion revealed its weakness
and its strength. Western civilization (the East staying strangely
unmoved, sceptical, slightly amused) received a shock comparable to
a renewed outbreak of war. It was as though a half of the world had
leapt to its feet in startled amaze, then staggered and plunged. For
then on all the stock exchanges the wildest rush for reinvestments
began that had ever been known, and mainly for shares in the vast
co-operative concerns of New Jerusalem Ltd. which had been set going
before his departure to America by Mr. Trimblerigg. A city designed to
hold a million souls--self-governing, self-supporting, with its own
trade-tokens for currency, and closely encircled by an agricultural
combine exclusively supplying its needs from day to day--was now being
rushed into being before the astonished eyes of a metropolis which had
hitherto regarded itself as the biggest thing of its kind in the world.
But if, in less than a year, such a city could spring up mushroom-like
from the soil, with a mere used-up playground set about with
toy-palaces as its nucleus, what might it not do within a decade
under a new dispensation? Its huge neighbour, unplanned, haphazard,
fortuitous in the slow growth through which it had attained its
present dimensions, and replete with vested interests opposed to so
dislocating a change, paled at the mere thought of it. But the plan was
already in operation, building was going on; and half the farmers and
dairymen of the surrounding counties had signed contracts of future
service entirely subversive to the supply-system of a city ten times
its size. The trade-interests tried to get an act through Parliament,
but the electoral power of Second Adventism was too strong. They tried
to engineer a strike in the building trade, but Second Adventism was
paying its workers too well. In every department there was prosperity
and contentment; and when the Trade Unions and their leaders themselves
became converts to Second Adventism, what more could the enemy do?
They tried to get Mr. Trimblerigg’s co-operative currency prohibited
as a base imitation of the coin of the realm; but Mr. Trimblerigg’s
currency had been designed with holes through it--haloes with the heads
missing--so that it could deceive nobody; and the Courts ruled that
as a trade-token for convenience in commerce, it was allowable. Then
they tried to swamp out its value by forging it; but as it had its full
worth of silver in the world’s exchange, forgeries did not matter. Of
course no bank would handle it; but that also did not matter. The New
Jerusalem was going to have a bank of its own; and when the present
state of things came to an end, it might well be the only bank that
would count.
For Second Adventism did not teach that the world was going to end in
fire, and earthquake, and physical overthrow; but that a new spirit
would come hovering, responsive to the call of its worshippers; and
entering into the place prepared for it, there set up a light; and
all the world would see a working object-lesson of the new society
that was soon to be; co-operation would take the place of competition;
a reorganization of industry would make strikes superfluous;
internationalism would arise, not from the adjustment of racial
differences but from religious unity. And out of that would come Peace.
The originality of Mr. Trimblerigg’s idea had been this--first to make
religion irresistibly popular, by running it as a kind of ‘stunt’--big
business and beatific vision combined--and then having made piety
prosperous, to substitute, for the solution of the world’s ills, the
religious organization for the political.
Mr. Trimblerigg had seen that habit--habit of mind as well as body--is
the dead weight in the world’s affairs which separates man from
faith, and prevents mountains from being moved. And so with Second
Adventism, backed by spiritualism and prophecy, he had routed men’s
minds out of their groove, simply by convincing them that on a given
date, willy-nilly, the groove was coming to an end. Mr. Trimblerigg’s
greatest exploit was not in building a city capable of containing a
million souls, but in finding a million souls ready to flock to it. And
he had done so, in the main, by convincing them that the New Jerusalem
meant good business. ‘Homes for Haloes,’ the motto he had chosen for
his scheme, did not really mean much when you came to examine it, for
though the homes were fast taking shape, the haloes were still to seek.
But ‘Homes for Heroes’ or ‘Homes for Haloes’, have an encouraging sound
about them, and each, on different occasions, have served their turn,
helping publicists out for popular applause to rouse a fictitious
enthusiasm in their followers, till cold fact came after and snuffed it
out.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
_The Procession Ends_
Having announced a date for the end of the world--the old world with
its troublous record, its damaged reputation, its useless strivings
after success,--an end which was to be brought about not by the death
and destruction of the wicked, but by a new birth unto righteousness
upon an unprecedented scale,--having so definitely announced the
spiritual transformation which was about to take place before the eyes
of all, the Second Adventists had to live up to it.
And to their credit, be it said, they did so without a qualm of doubt.
Mr. Trimblerigg’s experience since his adoption of Second Adventism had
convinced him that if only it were well organized for a fixed purpose,
prayer could get itself answered; and that given a commanding majority
and a united aim, the human race was master of the Event. He had backed
his country through war with prayerful conviction, had even prayed that
it might go on an extra eighteen months so as to avoid a negotiated
peace, and secure the dictated one which was to be so much better; and
then, because hearts and aims were divided, had seen the dictated peace
lost and become very much worse than a negotiated one; and though he
did not for a moment consider that his own prayers and strivings for a
dictated peace made him in the least responsible for its bad results,
he had an uneasy suspicion that the world, and even his own country,
might have done better for itself by letting the war end sooner than it
did, for the simple reason that though it could agree about fighting it
could not agree about peace.
But about making the bad old world come to an end on a given date,
Second Adventists were all enthusiastically agreed; and when Mr.
Trimblerigg returned from America he found the building of the New
Jerusalem so well advanced that though it might not be entirely
habitable on the day, externally it looked habitable; and though a good
many scaffolding poles still had to remain, they would serve to hang
bunting on, and so enhance the welcoming effect when Heaven sent down
its new spirit to take possession.
For that something auspicious and visible would take place was the
general belief; the writings of Susannah Walcot suggested it, and
though the idea had not been officially endorsed, yet, since it
helped publicity, nothing had been said to discourage it. It might be
prophecy, or it might only be figure of speech; but in a very literal
sense the faith of millions did undoubtedly look skywards expecting a
sign to be given it. For it must be remembered that always now before
men’s eyes one sign stood conspicuous; and if upon one eminent head
glory had so forecast itself, might it not be possible when the Day
came that Heaven would rain haloes by the million upon those found
faithfully waiting to receive them?
For that given date the railway companies had already arranged to run
special excursions from all parts of the country, timed to arrive at
latest before the stroke of midnight signalled the beginning of the
new Day. Behind the railways were the caterers, all ready to link up
the meat and the fish markets, the dairies, the greengrocers, and the
provision-dealers, with the demanding appetite of the new-born and
spiritualized world.
It was computed that not less than a million prospective inhabitants
of the New Jerusalem would be there all ready and waiting in wedding
garments for the hour when Heaven should declare itself.
All were to come dressed in white; and a city dressed in white stood
prepared to receive them. A little garish by day, the New Jerusalem
looked very beautiful by moonlight; then, with its white walls,
and pearly windows, and blue-grey roofs, crowned fantastically by
the points and perforated pinnacles of its toy-palaces, it seemed
like a city of silver. In the midst of it--the great co-operative
shopping-centre--were buildings composed entirely of glass, with
covered streets where the weather would no longer count for anything;
and on the outskirts, separated from the residential quarters by parks
and public gardens and ornamental lakes, stood the power-stations,
and water-towers, and above all these, in noble battlemented walls,
like a mediæval castle converted to spiritual ends, the gasometers
had concealed themselves. It was all very expansive and opulent, and
self-complacent, and plausible, and what perhaps in an earlier age
might have been called genteel; but what to my mind it resembled most
was the character--the public character, I mean--of Mr. Trimblerigg as
it appeared when things went well with him. In this ‘Home for Haloes’
he had finally and magnificently expressed himself as he wished he
might be. ‘Si monumentum requiris, circumspice’ was the motto with
which, after looking out of his Presidential window on that last happy
night of his career, he closed his eyes in post-prandial repose, so
as to be up blithe and fresh for ‘the Great Watch’ which at midnight
was to begin. In all the streets that lay before his gaze orderly
crowds, clothed in white and carrying lanterns and palm-branches in
their hands, paraded with happy unanimity, all marching one way as the
traffic signals directed, and singing as they went. It was a marvel of
organization; as a human demonstration--the expression of a commanding
majority devoting itself for the first time to one single spiritual
end--it was still more wonderful.
And so with a happy smile upon his illuminated face Mr. Trimblerigg lay
down in his Presidential robe, and slept like a child.
He was awakened at about half-past ten by a terrific explosion.
Fragments of plaster battlements were falling into the street and
against his front door as he opened the window and looked out.
Hurriedly he drew his head in again; but what had sent him back was
not the falling fragments but the despairing ululations of the crowd,
which, dropping its hymn-singing parade was now rushing hither and
thither frantic for shelter from showering rubble and glass which
filled the air. Under the calm blaze of the full moon, queening it
in a cloudless heaven, a ragged scud of black dust jagged its way
from roof to roof, obliterating the distant view; in its rear, at a
more ponderous gallop, came a hunch of smoke, which as it advanced
billowed and spread, and became huge; swallowing up the clear air as
it advanced, it left in its track a pallid haze which went everywhere.
The New Jerusalem became a ghost, vague of form, clad no longer in
white, but in a dun grey streaked by scarves of black lined with
colours of fire. In this settling obscurity the sound of human woe went
on increasing, enlivened now and again by cries of rage. The crowd,
cumbered by its wedding raiment, was fighting confusedly for priority
of place; the terminus was being rushed, empty excursion trains
boarded. A faint-hearted exodus from the New Jerusalem had already
begun: the world was not coming to an end in the peaceful way that had
been foretold.
A ring-up on Mr. Trimblerigg’s telephone gave him the news. His castle
of gasometers had been blown up; as to the cause, inquiry was being
made; incendiarism was suspected. Following upon that came other news
of a similar kind. Something had gone wrong with the power-stations;
wires fused and lights went out; after that went the water-supply;
about midnight to the sound of bombs, three water-towers cascaded to
earth; and when, here, there, and everywhere, fainting people turned
taps to get water, none came. Presently in various parts of the city
fires began; and as there was no water to put them out, they spread.
Before morning the New Jerusalem had had several bits taken out of
it, and many of its prospective inhabitants were left homeless. About
dawn a covey of aeroplanes let down a discharge of sticky gas--the
latest military invention for the humane dispersal of unarmed crowds.
It had adhesive properties of an extraordinary effectiveness; the
New Jerusalem became like well-spread fly-paper, and all humans with
whom it established contact walked thereafter as though they had been
anointed with treacle, or honey, or preserved-ginger, or turpentine;
and having no water in which to wash themselves, their misery became
greater than they could bear; and from all that crowd of souls which
had come together with such singleness of purpose, and confidence, and
goodwill, the social sense was cast violently out, so that they all
hated the sight and the touch and the sound of each other.
Now all this, it must be understood, was not the operation of Heaven,
but only of Big Finance, and certain other vested interests which did
not wish the old ways of the world to end, or competitive society
to become co-operative, or religion in any form to have control over
economics and politics, or Mr. Trimblerigg to go any farther than
they considered safe for the well-being of the country. And as Second
Adventism had in these respects become a peril, quite as formidable
in its way as foreign invasion, therefore an underground organization
had been formed, which, calling itself ‘Red Knights of the Fiery
Cross’, had designed for itself a costume, and a secret ritual, and
an oath which could not be broken; and had laid up store of military
preparation, and with prayer and fasting and genuflections, had
practised bomb-throwing and incendiarism and the casting down of sticky
gas in solitary places where a Duke preserved pheasants, and where,
therefore, no members of the outer public were allowed to intrude. And
having become experts in the game, upon the advertised day they made
a match of it, and in this, the first round, had apparently won hands
down. For the New Jerusalem had become a sticky object, coated with
dust and very offensive to the smell: and the Second Adventists sharply
divided into two bodies of an unequal size: the larger fugitive and
dispersive in tendency, no longer wishing for the end of the world,
but only for the excursion trains to start upon their return journeys:
the other comparatively small, but vigorous, vocal and tending to
direct action: truculent, abusive, full of grievance, clamorous for the
return of its deposits in a co-operative scheme which no longer seemed
safe, and with regard to which, in certain important respects, the
undertakings, as per contract, were not being carried out.
It was this section which presented itself at an early hour outside
the Presidency, and howled to be received in deputation by Mr.
Trimblerigg. For three hours they howled, while Mr. Trimblerigg, in
order to give confidence to his frightened followers, had his breakfast
and his bath (for which sufficient water remained in the cistern) and
dealt with certain arrears of correspondence.
At ten o’clock punctually, he looked at his watch, and said to his
secretary, ‘Now I will go out and speak to them.’
The secretary said, ‘I think, sir, you had better not. If I know
anything of crowds, that crowd is dangerous.’
Mr. Trimblerigg said, ‘I hope it is. I shall do my best to make it so.’
The light of battle was in his eye. He said to his secretary, ‘You must
dress yourself up; you are a Knight of the Fiery Cross whom we have
taken prisoner. You must be shown to the people, with your hands bound
and your face stained with blood. It will only be for a moment; but it
will satisfy them. I will do the rest.’
But before he had finished, he spoke to emptiness: the secretary had
fled. He looked out into the ante-chamber. All the others had fled with
him. Outside the crowd was howling like a pack of wolves.
Mr. Trimblerigg sighed: ‘Then I must do it all by myself,’ he concluded
thoughtfully. ‘Deserted of my followers, I stand alone. No matter; they
shall see!’ He felt that he was a great man, and this a great occasion
for making the fact known.
He went out from his study into the Council Chamber, a handsome
apartment hung with mirrors. It had four windows overlooking the
street, windows that went down to the ground and opened upon a balcony
supported by a colonnade extending from the entrance-porch to right
and left.
I have never admired Mr. Trimblerigg more than I did at that moment;
as he crossed the open space before him he paused to glance at himself
in one of the mirrors: his light had not failed him; its radiance was
undiminished; in the midst of it his countenance shone cherubic and
hopeful. He was going to enjoy himself; for of all whose fortunes
depended on the breath of popular applause there was no one who
understood a crowd as he did.
That this one was now hostile only added to the zest with which
he faced the task that lay before him. Standing back in the deep
interior of the room and where he could not be seen, he studied its
physiognomy--a sea of faces in storm, multitudinous but yet one. He
looked at it with affection and pride; for in another minute he was
going to take and turn it round his finger, and make it into a new
instrument to suit his need.
Suddenly, while he so stood, the very window-pane through which he
looked fell into splinters; from the crystal chandelier above his head
came a rain of shattered glass. That was the prelude; he stepped back,
and skirting the wall, while all the other panes flew into fragments,
reached the far window, in which by that time not a pane remained
unbroken. He only paused to fasten the last button of the morning coat
into which he had tactfully changed; and then, lightly embraced by the
civilization he had come to save, he opened the window and stepped out.
For one moment the crowd, shocked into mute amaze, stood and gaped;
then a roar of execration filled the air. Even the bright manifestation
of his mission, which had once awed and delighted, failed to placate
them now. Mr. Trimblerigg knew enough of crowds to admit that his
secretary was right; this crowd was dangerous; but he knew also that
he had only to get them to listen, to hear his opening words, for his
spell to be on them. He could trust the inspiration of the moment to do
the rest.
And so, with exactly the right emotional expression upon his face, he
leaned out from the stone balustrade, and over the heads of the crowd
pointed into the distance.
The gesture had its calculated effect: heads turned, necks were craned;
the roar died down to a confused murmur. Presently they would turn back
to him and seek to have the thing explained; then would come silence
and they would hear what he had to say; and though that was not going
to make them less dangerous, it would no longer be danger for him, but
for others.
Now it so happened that in the direction where he pointed there was,
by fate or by chance, something which on being pointed at, did excite
the curiosity of the crowd. On its far outskirts a lone taxi with
persistent wrigglings was trying to get through; an attempt which,
until the attention of the crowd had been directed towards it, would
have been absolutely hopeless. But now, as if by the manipulation of an
invisible police, a way grew open before it, and the taxi triumphantly
advanced.
As it did so it became--though nobody could guess why--a thing of
extraordinary importance; people began climbing on each other’s backs
to look at it. Even Mr. Trimblerigg became interested; for this--though
an interruption--was also a diversion; it meant safety. A crowd which
could focus its interest on a taxi-cab, could focus it also upon him;
nor had he now the slightest doubt that when he spoke to it the crowd
would prove amenable.
Folding his arms on the balustrade, and playing with his eyeglasses,
he was the very picture of confidence and hope and courage and
resourcefulness, and all the other things which, in their leaders, men
admire. How could people look at him without liking him? How could they
hear him without trusting him? How could there be any danger for a man
who stood up to face it with such an air of high spirits and genial
acceptance of a situation which seemed awkward. He felt with a sure
instinct that the crowd was coming his way, that in another moment it
would be cheering him.
The taxi was coming his way also. It stopped. Davidina put out her
head. Over the hushed murmurs of the crowd, clear and incisive her
voice reached him:
‘Jonathan, take that off!’
If the end of Mr. Trimblerigg’s world could have come then in whatever
other form it chose to take, it might have been said of him thereafter
that he died happy, died believing in himself, and believed in by
others even though the immediate circumstances spelt failure.
But when he felt the probing eye of Davidina, and heard the challenge
of her voice, ‘Take that off!’--then all his sense of spiritual
nakedness returned; and the power over his soul which she had been
used to exercise reinstated itself in all its potency. In a moment, in
the twinkling of an eye, and in the presence of all that people whose
mood towards him was on the very point of ceasing to be dangerous, and
whose hearts in another minute he would have won to the fulfilling of
vengeance due--in a space of time too brief for breath to be taken, she
had spiritually scalped him. With his head shorn of glory he stood and
looked at her; and fleeing suddenly to the domestic note as his last
chance of refuge from the storm which was about to burst, ‘How do you
do, Davidina?’ he said.
It was magnificent, but it was no good. The crowd’s yell of derision
told him that it had failed. Suddenly the taxi disappeared from view;
ten, twenty, thirty human atoms, excited, gesticulating, were up and
were over it. He saw Davidina fighting her way out of the collapsed
framework; saw her in imminent danger, saw her emerge safe and
unharmed. With no use or duty to stay him, conscious that all was lost,
he turned to flee. It was too late. Active members of the crowd pushed
from below swarmed up the colonnades; faster than the eye could count,
heads appeared on a level with his waist,--hands, feet, fiery eyes,
fierce mouths showing teeth; he became one of a confused group, felt
his legs carrying much more than his own weight, his buttons bursting
to a rending strain--from behind. Collared, surrounded, forced to the
balcony’s edge, he looked down into a sea of eyes; and heard dimly, in
the background of his dream, Davidina knocking for admission at the
door under his feet; a door which nobody would answer.
‘Up, up!’ came the cry of the crowd. He was hoisted, stood giddily on
the stone ledge; swayed, tottered, but hands still held him. Everything
then seemed very near and immediate and objective: individual faces,
blemishes, blackened eyes, the very cut and colour of men’s clothes, a
broken watch-chain, the taxi-driver trying to recover possession of a
cab that had become a wreck. Fifty yards away an arc-lamp high aloft on
a street refuge for some unexplainable reason spat itself into light.
That attracted him, only to remind him with a pang of despair that he
could no longer do the same. Light and hope and faith had all gone out
of him.
‘Down! Down!’ the crowd’s cry had changed: but its intention was the
same. A thousand hands reached up, opening and shutting like mouths,
hungry to have hold of him. The hands from behind gave a jerk, then
tossed and let go. He felt himself falling, but of that was not afraid.
A real fall was impossible; of that the thousand hands made him feel
safe. They caught him, forced him down, and set him upon his feet. A
voice at his back cried: ‘Stand clear! Give him a run!’
Magically a way cleared for him: a long stretch of pavement, then a
road: in the middle of the road, aloft on its iron standard, spluttered
the arc-lamp, very wan and pale against the healthier light of day.
Propelled from behind he began running towards it, with an agility
which for a moment, in his responsive mind, wakened an absurd hope.
But a moment later, under the lamp-post, he was off his feet again. Up
in front of him swarmed a man-monkey of the sailor-breed trailing a
rope. The crowd roared gloriously, its rage changing to delight.
Clasping the iron standard despairingly with legs and arms in a last
embrace, he felt hands below pushing him, making him go higher. Then
suddenly there came a wrench; the hands loosed him, but his feet did
not touch ground. And as his agitated body sought this way and that for
the hand-hold or foot-hold it had lost never to find again, I, reading
for the last time the scrip of his brain, found the truth fairly lodged
there at last:
‘O, you fool! O, you damned fool! O, you silly, damned fool, look what
you have done to yourself now!’
And then something happened: something quite unexpected, for which I
cannot account; though I have a sort of a fear that I know in what
direction the account may hereafter be found.
I followed him into those last moments--for his last moments they
proved to be--with a breathless interest, which at least told me that
though he had tried me much, I was not as tired of him as, for my own
peace, I would have liked to be. And up to the last hitch, I still
wondered whether so agile an executant of quick turns would not manage
even then to escape from his enemies. His enemies, I say. But my wonder
now is whether his last escape has not been made from one who, like
Davidina, was his faithful though discriminating friend. For when,
after the rope had done its work, I looked for him on the spiritual
plane, it was to find that he had vanished. And if I, too, must own the
truth--I do not know what has become of him.
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.
Archaic or variant spelling has been retained.
New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the
public domain.
*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TRIMBLERIGG ***
Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will
be renamed.
Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright
law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works,
so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United
States without permission and without paying copyright
royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part
of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project
Gutenberg™ electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG™
concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark,
and may not be used if you charge for an eBook, except by following
the terms of the trademark license, including paying royalties for use
of the Project Gutenberg trademark. If you do not charge anything for
copies of this eBook, complying with the trademark license is very
easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose such as creation
of derivative works, reports, performances and research. Project
Gutenberg eBooks may be modified and printed and given away—you may
do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks not protected
by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the trademark
license, especially commercial redistribution.
START: FULL LICENSE
THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
To protect the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting the free
distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase “Project
Gutenberg”), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full
Project Gutenberg™ License available with this file or online at
www.gutenberg.org/license.
Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg™
electronic works
1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg™
electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all
the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or
destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works in your
possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a
Project Gutenberg™ electronic work and you do not agree to be bound
by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person
or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
1.B. “Project Gutenberg” is a registered trademark. It may only be
used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few
things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg™ electronic works
even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See
paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project
Gutenberg™ electronic works if you follow the terms of this
agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg™
electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below.
1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation (“the
Foundation” or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection
of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works. Nearly all the individual
works in the collection are in the public domain in the United
States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in the
United States and you are located in the United States, we do not
claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing,
displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as
all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope
that you will support the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting
free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg™
works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the
Project Gutenberg™ name associated with the work. You can easily
comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the
same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg™ License when
you share it without charge with others.
1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are
in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States,
check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this
agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing,
distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any
other Project Gutenberg™ work. The Foundation makes no
representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any
country other than the United States.
1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other
immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg™ License must appear
prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg™ work (any work
on which the phrase “Project Gutenberg” appears, or with which the
phrase “Project Gutenberg” is associated) is accessed, displayed,
performed, viewed, copied or distributed:
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you
are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws
of the country where you are located before using this eBook.
1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg™ electronic work is
derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not
contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the
copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in
the United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are
redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase “Project
Gutenberg” associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply
either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or
obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg™
trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg™ electronic work is posted
with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any
additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms
will be linked to the Project Gutenberg™ License for all works
posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the
beginning of this work.
1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg™
License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg™.
1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
Gutenberg™ License.
1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including
any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access
to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg™ work in a format
other than “Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other format used in the official
version posted on the official Project Gutenberg™ website
(www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense
to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means
of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original “Plain
Vanilla ASCII” or other form. Any alternate format must include the
full Project Gutenberg™ License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg™ works
unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
access to or distributing Project Gutenberg™ electronic works
provided that:
• You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
the use of Project Gutenberg™ works calculated using the method
you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed
to the owner of the Project Gutenberg™ trademark, but he has
agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid
within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are
legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty
payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in
Section 4, “Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg
Literary Archive Foundation.”
• You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg™
License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all
copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue
all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg™
works.
• You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of
any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of
receipt of the work.
• You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
distribution of Project Gutenberg™ works.
1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project
Gutenberg™ electronic work or group of works on different terms than
are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing
from the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the manager of
the Project Gutenberg™ trademark. Contact the Foundation as set
forth in Section 3 below.
1.F.
1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the Project
Gutenberg™ collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg™
electronic works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may
contain “Defects,” such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate
or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other
intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or
other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or
cannot be read by your equipment.
1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the “Right
of Replacement or Refund” described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
Gutenberg™ trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
Gutenberg™ electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
DAMAGE.
1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you
received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium
with your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you
with the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in
lieu of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person
or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second
opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If
the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing
without further opportunities to fix the problem.
1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you ‘AS-IS’, WITH NO
OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT
LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of
damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement
violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the
agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or
limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity or
unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the
remaining provisions.
1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
providing copies of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works in
accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the
production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg™
electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses,
including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of
the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this
or any Project Gutenberg™ work, (b) alteration, modification, or
additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg™ work, and (c) any
Defect you cause.
Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg™
Project Gutenberg™ is synonymous with the free distribution of
electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of
computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It
exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations
from people in all walks of life.
Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg™’s
goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg™ collection will
remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
and permanent future for Project Gutenberg™ and future
generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help, see
Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at www.gutenberg.org.
Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non-profit
501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
Revenue Service. The Foundation’s EIN or federal tax identification
number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by
U.S. federal laws and your state’s laws.
The Foundation’s business office is located at 809 North 1500 West,
Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up
to date contact information can be found at the Foundation’s website
and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact
Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
Literary Archive Foundation
Project Gutenberg™ depends upon and cannot survive without widespread
public support and donations to carry out its mission of
increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
freely distributed in machine-readable form accessible by the widest
array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations
($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
status with the IRS.
The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations
where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND
DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular state
visit www.gutenberg.org/donate.
While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
approach us with offers to donate.
International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
Please check the Project Gutenberg web pages for current donation
methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other
ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. To
donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate.
Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg™ electronic works
Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project
Gutenberg™ concept of a library of electronic works that could be
freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and
distributed Project Gutenberg™ eBooks with only a loose network of
volunteer support.
Project Gutenberg™ eBooks are often created from several printed
editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in
the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not
necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper
edition.
Most people start at our website which has the main PG search
facility: www.gutenberg.org.
This website includes information about Project Gutenberg™,
including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
