“Lord, Lord!” he would pipe, querulously— “To see me give a turn at wrestlin’ would a’ done yer ‘art good! — there worn’t no faddy nonsense about me — I worn’t afeard o’ my own fist, no, nor nobuddy else’s fist nayther! But you lads is all like cheepin’ chickabiddies creepin’ out of a shell! — you’ll never make such men as used to be on the Cotswolds — no, nor you’ll never see a man like me no more! — for the Lord’ll be pleased to keep me ‘bove ground till I’m a ‘underd — ay! and past, mebbe! — an’ there ain’t one among ye as’ll get to that last mile-post — mark my wurrd!”
Then the lads of the village would laugh and humor him, and persuade him to tell them stories of the ‘long, long ago,’ which he was very willing to do, being childishly gratified to have such an audience ready to listen to him. And the evenings would sometimes finish up with part-singing, for many of the young fellows had good voices and a taste for music, — so that the time passed in so much pleasant sociability and entertainment that not one of the men who were thus harmlessly enjoying themselves thought of the public-house, or manifested the least desire to go thither. Naturally these friendly gatherings of the able bodied male population of Shadbrook for ‘sports and exercises’ were an opposing influence to the sale of Minchin’s liquors in the village, and in a way helped to give the toppling brewery an extra roll downhill. Nevertheless, though the business was daily and hourly becoming more insecure, Mr and Mrs. Minchin presented an unmoved, not to say arrogant front to the world, almost as if every one did not know that their ‘Company’ paid no dividends. They had reduced their expenses considerably, had sold their horses, and went on foot instead of in carriages, — while their meanness to their domestics and tradespeople had from casual murmurings passed into a local proverb. “Don’t Minchin it” had become the ordinary phrase used on market-days between buyers and sellers, when the former were inclined to drive too close and hard a bargain, and ‘as mean as Minchin’ expressed the last possible qualification of stinginess, and bade fair to remain in the language as one of those proverbial ‘colloquialisms’ which occasionally crop up to perplex the antiquarian. The feud between themselves and the Vicar of Shadbrook was far more bitter now, than when poor, pretty little Azalea had been alive to infuriate the spiteful Mrs. Minchin by her bright charm of face and figure, and her superior taste in dress, — but they had to chew the unsavory cud of envy and hatred in secret, inasmuch as from end to end of the whole neighborhood Everton had secured the position of a ruling power. Every one came to seek his advice, or profit by his counsel, — and he who had imagined that with the death of the one woman he had loved his life would have been empty and desolate, with a desolation as horrible as that of a lonely hell, found it filled in full measure, overflowing and running over with so many new labors and interests that he had no time to think of himself or his sorrow at all.
And with these new labors and interests a strange new passion sprang up in his soul, — a love for Azalea dead, even deeper than that he had cherished for her when living. All the small weaknesses, frivolities and inconsistencies of her nature had dropped from his memory of her, and had left him to think of her as some grand sweet angel, ever near to him to guide and to console. So much indeed had he sanctified his earthly love into a heavenly one that it was as if the man’s inner self had become wedded to some spirit of unseen but eternal beauty. By day he worked in the quiet consciousness that she, his beloved, worked with him, — at night he felt her close presence about him like a warm enfolding radiance, — and this persistent clinging to something indefinitely pure and sweet and everlasting — something which he could not shape even in his imagination, but which, nevertheless, truly existed for him, made him almost as much of a poet and dreamer as he was a thinker and preacher. Azalea herself had never thought so far as to consider the possibility of keeping her husband’s love after death, nor had she ever exacted from him any promises of lifelong fidelity, for among the lightly fluttering thoughts that had occasionally hovered through her little brain had been the uncomfortable one that ‘men were deceivers ever.’ Had she been told that this one man, — her own simple, ‘prosy’ undemonstrative ‘Dick,’ had such a deep store of romance in his nature as to be capable of sanctifying his life to her memory, she would never have believed it.
Nevertheless, so it truly was, — and as many a monk in olden days paid devotion to some one particular saint who was counted second to the Almighty in the records of his mind, so Richard Everton laid all his endeavors and undertakings on the shrine of his dead love, — the wife and mother who had been so cruelly snatched away from him in the very blossoming time of her womanhood. And so unwearying was he in well-doing and so swift was the growth of his influence, not only in his own parish, but throughout the whole neighborhood and far beyond it, that the days scudded by like full-sailed ships before a fair wind, especially as he had undertaken the whole business of educating his little son Laurence, and fitting him for entry into Winchester school. The boy was remarkably apt and quick to learn; — moreover he showed a keen delight in his studies, and was never so happy as when he was ‘preparing’ his lessons. Books were his passion, — and yet with all his love of reading and his fondness for asking questions of a nature somewhat puzzling to his elders, he was a thorough child, full of fun and fond of games. Sometimes his father regretted that there were no children in the neighborhood of his own class and age with whom he could associate, but Laurence himself did not seem to feel the lack of companions. He rather liked being alone, — he was perfectly healthy and happy, and had all sorts of ways of inventing amusements which suited his own particular taste and turn of mind. Sebastien Douay, always cheery, always kindly, despite the fact that his ‘tin chapelle’ now remained, as he had prophesied, deplorably empty, and that his ‘mission Catholique’ among the benighted folk of the district made no progress, did his genial best to become a child himself in order to entertain the little fellow; — he was always bringing him new toys, pictures, and wondrous modern ‘scientific’ games, all of which Laurence gratefully accepted, and considered, till he had found them out and knew their composition by heart, when he put them away with an ineffable air of quiet boredom. He was very fond of Douay, but apparently regarded him as a harmless little man who must be humored rather than honored.
“I wish,” he said one day, very gravely, “I wish you would talk to me about what you know and feel yourself, instead of trying to play with me.”
Douay’s round eyes opened surprisedly.
“Talk to you about what I know and feel myself?” he echoed.
“Yes,” — and Laurence smiled at him encouragingly —
“Because you’re a man, and you can tell me what it is like to be a man. From all I see, I should think it must be very troublesome. I would rather be a little boy.”
“Ma foi!” sighed Douay, with a comical shrug of his shoulders— “So would I!”
At this Laurence laughed so heartily that Douay was delighted.
“Ah, that is what I like to hear!” he exclaimed— “You should laugh often like that, my child! — it is good for you!”
“It’s not good for me to laugh when there’s nothing to laugh at,” — said Laurence, with a quaint upward look at him— “I should be like the silly boy in the village who laughed himself into a fit the other day because a spider dropped on his head. But it would make any one laugh, you know, to think of you as a little boy!”
“Would it?” and ‘Father’ Douay rubbed his nose meditatively— “Laurence, mon petit, how old are you?”
“Six. Going on for seven,” replied Laurence promptly. “You are sure you are not sixty, going on for seventy?” and Douay put on a catechising air— “You have made no mistake?”
Laurence gave him a look of quiet scorn.
“You think that’s funny,” — he observed— “I wish you wouldn’t be funny.”
Douay collapsed after this, and later on asked Everton whether the boy ought not to go to a prepara
tory school?
“He’s too young; too little altogether,” — said Everton— “Besides, I can prepare him for Winchester myself.” Douay spread out his hands resignedly.
“You must do with your own child as you please, my friend! But take care! He will be either a misanthrope or a genius!”
Everton smiled. —
“You think that possible? A genius?”
“Quite possible! But consider! What do the modern wise men say of genius? That it is insanity! Reflect upon that, good Richard! All the great thinkers, musicians, artists, poets and dreamers who have made the world rich in art and thought were, and are, madmen and madwomen — according to the latest science! Only the Pig-man is sane; — the Pig-man who grunts over his own trough of hog-wash! The God-man, ay, even our Blessed Lord Himself, is classed nowadays among the insane! Would you have your son a lunatic?”
Everton looked amused.
“You talk to entertain yourself, my dear Douay,” he said gently, “as you often do. You know that the conflicting opinions of scientists on life and its wonders have no weight with me; nor do I care for modern criticisms on any form of art. I would have my boy follow the bent of his own best nature, and if he should prove, as you say, a ‘genius,’ I shall not complain. There are very few of the type!”
That afternoon he received a letter from a certain Bishop more noted for social amenities than religious discipline, inviting him to preach in one of the largest and most fashionable churches of the West End of London, on behalf of a great scheme of charity which was being organized by such among the ‘Upper Ten’ as were really sincerely disposed to do good, and including, of course, those who sought or needed a special advertisement through alms-giving. It was a ‘noble cause,’ wrote the Bishop, — and he was certain from what he had heard and read of Mr. Everton’s preaching, that no one could be found to plead it with more eloquence. Would he come Sunday fortnight? He, the Bishop, would arrange that one at least of the numerous lesser scions of Royalty should be present to hear the sermon. Everton smiled at this with a faint contempt for the Bishop’s touch of snobbishness, — and he thought over the proposal for some hours before answering it. Finally, however, he wrote accepting it. Deep in his innermost soul there lurked a strong desire to make a trial of his powers in London, and he could not bring himself to throw away the offered opportunity. Moreover, there happened to be a clerical friend of his own residing near Shadbrook who had often expressed a wish to preach in Shadbrook Church, — if he went to London this would give his friend the opportunity of taking the service during his absence.
Things arranged themselves in the usual open-door fashion which so often curiously attends a chain of circumstances that are destined to affect one’s life providentially or adversely — and the intervening fortnight sped on so rapidly that almost before he knew how it had flown, he found himself one Saturday afternoon in the huge, sooty metropolis, — the city of cities which most resembles Babylon in its vast wealth, luxury and arrogance, and which is as surely doomed as was that ancient ‘lady of the kingdoms’ to sudden and complete destruction. From the smudgy windows of the reading-room of a quiet ‘private’ hotel not far from the British Museum, he surveyed the dingy street, — the tall ugly houses, the dirty chimneys, and the tired-looking people that hurried past every now and again, all seemingly bent on some object which must be attained in desperate haste, or not at all, — their eyes strained in an onward groping gaze of utter fatigue and hopeless endurance — an expression which in this twentieth century appears to have become chronic with a large majority of persons, so that few countenances nowadays convey the idea of that calm and serene content which should naturally radiate from every human being who is rightly conscious of the high privilege and responsibility of life. Edward Darell, his old college chum, whom he had not seen since the day of his wife’s funeral, happening by chance to be in town, had met him at the station on arrival, afterwards accompanying him to the hotel, and he was with him now, talking animatedly, but Everton, depressed by the gloom of London and the heaviness of the air, had allowed his thoughts to winder and scarcely heard what his friend was saying. His eyes were fixed on the dreary outlook — the wilderness of building which barred from view all but about a couple of yards’ breadth of sky, and in the very midst of Darell’s conversation he turned to him abruptly with the inconsequent remark —
“To think that this horrible London should be the summit of man’s civilization! The very apotheosis of sheer ugliness!”
Darell laughed.
“It’s not so ugly as New York,” — he said— “You should go there and make comparisons! But I was not speaking to you of either London or its ugliness — I was saying how proud I am that you have at last shown what mettle is in you—”
Everton looked at him in gentle inquiry.
“At last?” he repeated.
Darell reddened a little, but he was not a man to shirk small difficulties, so he answered —
“Yes — at last! Don’t mistake me, Everton. You were really too happy before, — too happy to help the world. Your great sorrow has made you a better servant of the Master.”
“If you think so, I am glad,” — said Everton— “But I have done very little. Indeed I am not able to do much. My work is entirely limited to Shadbrook.”
“Ah no! You cannot say that now!” declared Darell, warmly— “Every sermon you preach is eagerly reported and copied in hundreds of journals, — and indeed this should be so. For you do not merely talk from the pulpit — you give love and help from it — what wonder then that you draw all who need love and help! — and how many thousands there are of these!”
Everton was silent.
“Do you know,” went on Darell, more lightly— “I really feared you might perhaps go over to Rome? You were so very intimate with that little priest I saw down at your place—”
“I am intimate with him still,” — said Everton, quietly— “There is no man, not even yourself, whom I honor more than that same little priest! But because I honor a man I do not of necessity adopt his creed. My dear Darell, Rome would seem to be your bugbear, — and yet I understand that you include much of her ritual in your own parish services. Is that so?”
Darell moved a little uneasily. He looked round the reading-room to see if there were any listeners to the conversation — but there was only one man sunk deep in the recesses of an easy-chair opposite the fire with a newspaper over his face, apparently asleep.
“I do no more than hundreds of other clergy,” — he answered hesitatingly— “Congregations will not attend a dull service nowadays.”
“A ‘dull’ service!” echoed Everton— “What is there that can be ‘dull’ in the true heart-whole worship of God? Does it need any tawdry earth-trappings to symbolize the pure majesty of the Divine? Is it not rather an insult to Deity to make an over-elaboration of the simplicity of prayer, or of the direct uplifting of praise? Surely we should always remember the words of Our Lord when reproaching the Scribes and Pharisees—’ All their works they do to be seen of men; they make broad their phylacteries and enlarge the borders of their garments? Is not this a warning — nay, a command against ornate ritual? The Roman creed is a form of Christianity grafted on Rome’s former paganism; and the relics of its paganism constitute its chief mischief. The High Anglican Church of England does not copy Rome’s Christianity but only its paganism, in the way of elaborate ceremonial, incense-throwing and barbarically adorned vestments, and it is, therefore, an absurd incongruity in form, being neither one thing nor the other.”
Darell looked, as he felt, a trifle uncomfortable.
“I do not agree with you,” — he said slowly— “But we need not argue the point here or now — your line of work is so different from mine—”
Everton gave him a keen glance.
“How is it different?” he asked— “You and I are both ministers of the same Church, — we both have the same high duty appointed to us — to lift the thoughts of
the world beyond death to immortality!”
“Yes — and surely to do that successfully one must appeal to the senses,” — exclaimed Darell warmly— “One must reach the soul through all that touches its inner consciousness of beauty, of picturesqueness, of solemnity—”
Everton raised his head with a slight, imperative gesture.
“Stop there, Darell! You will not persuade me that a poor biped perambulating up and down in gaudy vestments before an equally guady altar, like an actor on a stage, can convey any impression of ‘solemnity’ to the soul — or that any quantity of burning candles and smoking incense can bring to the mind thoughts of the Divine Creator of those myriad million lights of the universe which we call solar systems, and which shall never be extinguished till He, the Maker of them, wills it so. On the contrary, the more we intrude our earthly tawdriness, our barbaric love of glitter and display, and our absurd self-consciousness into the worship of God, the more we outrage the majesty of Him who simply commanded ‘Let there be light — and there was light.’ You ‘feared’ for me, you say, because, having a Roman Catholic priest for a friend, you judged me weak enough to adopt a creed which even he, though trained to obedience, does not always find all-sufficient? But, my dear fellow, believe me I have greater fears for you, lest you may be neither Protestant nor Roman Catholic, nor pagan nor Christian, but something else that has no real foundation in the soul!”
Darell turned pale, and his eyes flashed defiantly.
“If you were not Richard Everton,” he said— “I would not endure such words—”
Everton smiled kindly.
“But being what I am, you will put up with them, Darell!” he interposed— “And think them well over!”
Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli Page 734