In Hornham, the vast majority of a poor and teeming population was quite without interest in any religious matter. The chapels of the various sects were attended by the residuum, the congregations at St. Elwyn's were large—to the full holding capacity of the mother church and the smaller mission building—and a fair proportion of people worshipped at St. Luke's, the only other church in the neighbourhood.
Mr. Carr, the vicar of St. Luke's, was a man of about thirty-five. He had taken a good degree at Cambridge, spent a few years in various curacies, and had been appointed vicar of St. Luke's, Hornham, which was in the gift of an Evangelical body known as Simon's Trustees, about four years before Mr. Hamlyn had thrown Hornham into its present state of religious war.
The vicar of St. Luke's was a man of considerable mental power. He was unmarried, had no private means, and lived a lonely, though active, life in his small and ill-built vicarage. In appearance, he was tall, somewhat thin, and he wore a pointed, close-cropped beard and moustache. His face was somewhat melancholy, but when he was moved or interested, the smile that came upon it was singularly sweet. In the ordinary business of life, he was reserved and shy. He had none of the genial Irishbonhomieof Blantyre, the wholesome breezy boyishness of Stephens, or the grim force of King. He had a "personality"—to the eye—but he failed to sustain the impression his appearance made in talk. He was of no use in a drawing-room and very nearly a failure in any social gathering. Those few members of his flock with whom, now and again, he had to enter into purely social relations, said of him: "Mr. Carr is a thorough gentleman, but the poor fellow is dreadfully shy. He wants a wife; perhaps she'd liven him up a bit."
Such was the man in private life. In his clerical duties, as a priest—or, as he would have put it, a pastor—his personal character was sunk and merged in his office as completely as that of Father Blantyre himself. His sermons were full of earnest exhortation, his private ministrations were fervent and helpful, and there was a power in his ministry that was felt by all with whom he came in contact.
He was distinctly and entirely what is known as an "Evangelical," using that fine word in the best and noblest sense. He belonged to a school of thought which is rapidly becoming merged in and overlapped by others, sometimes to its betterment, but more frequently to its destruction, but which standing by itself is a powerful force.
He did not realise the state of transition in which he and other men of his school must necessarily stand to-day. Their position, admirable as it often is, is but a compromise. He did not as yet realise this.
Of Blantyre and the people at St. Elwyn's he knew little or nothing. He had met the clergy there once or twice upon official occasions, but that was all. He was too busy with his own work to have much time to attend to that of other people, but he had the natural distaste of his school and bringing-up for ceremonial and teaching of which he had no experience, and merely regarded as foreign, anti-English, and on the whole dangerous.
He was not a bigot, and the leading feature in his religion was this: He assigned an absolute supremacy to Holy Scripture as the only rule of faith and practice, the only test of truth, the only judge of controversy. He did not think that there was any guide for man's soul co-equal or co-ordinate with the Bible. He did not care to accept such statements as "the Church says so," "primitive antiquity says so," or "the Councils and the Fathers also say so,"—unless it could be shown to his satisfaction that what is said is in harmony with Scripture.
Disregarding as superfluous all external and "vicarious" form in religion, he attached paramount importance to the work and office of our Lord, and the highest place to the inward work of the Holy Spirit in the heart of man. And he attached tremendous importance to the outward and visible work of the Holy Ghost in the heart of man. His supreme belief was that the true grace of God is a thing that will always make itself manifest in the behaviour, tastes, ways, and choices, of him who has it. He thought, therefore, that it was illogical to tell men that they are "children of God, and members of Christ, and heirs of the kingdom of Heaven" unless they had really overcome the world, the flesh, and the devil. But he could not be stern or menacing in his dealings with souls. The mercy of God was more in his thoughts, always and at all times, than the wrath and judgment of God.
His attitude toward the pressing questions that were agitating the Church of England, all over England, was in logical correspondence with his beliefs. There was much within the Church that he had not understood or realised as yet, but he was no Hamlyn, to break down and destroy all that has made the Church of England what it is.
He neither undervalued the Church nor thought lightly of her privileges. In sincere and loyal attachment to her, he would give place to none. His apprehension of churchmanship was limited, that was all.
Nor did he—as far as he knew—under-value the Christian ministry. He looked upon it as a high and honourable office instituted by Christ Himself, and on priests as God's ambassadors, God's messengers, God's stewards and overseers. Nevertheless he looked upon what he knew as "sacerdotalism" and "priestcraft" with unfeigned dislike and uneasiness.
He believed in baptism as the appointed means of regeneration and that it conveyed graceex opere operato; a position in which he was a little in advance of some of his school. His views on the Eucharist were hardly so sound, though there was nothing in them absolutely antagonistic to the truths which he had not yet realised. He certainly did not regard Holy Communion as the chief service in the Church, its central point.
On outward things, he was sane enough. He liked handsome churches, good ecclesiastical architecture, a well-ordered ceremonial, and a well-conducted service. If any one had told Mr. Carr that he was as nearly as possible "Catholic" in his views, that if they were logically pushed forward to their proper development he would be practically one with the St. Elwyn's people, he would first have been startled somewhat unpleasantly, and then he would have laughed incredulously.
And if some one had gone to Blantyre and told him that Carr was thus, he would have smiled rather sadly to think that his informant had realised the truths taught by the Anglican Church in a very limited way.
This mutual misunderstanding between the only two schools of thought in the Church of England that have enduring value is very common. TheextremeProtestants are not church-people at all in any right sense of the word. The "Broad" party are confused with their own shifting surmises from day to day, and make too many "discoveries" to have real and lasting influence. But the "High Church" people and the pious "Evangelicals" are extraordinarily close to one another, and neither party realises the fact, while both would repudiate it. Yet both schools of opinion are, after all, occupied with one end and aim to the exclusion of all others—the attaining of personal holiness.
It was on a bright morning that Mr. Carr came down-stairs and breakfasted, after he had read prayers with his two servants. There was no daily service in St. Luke's, though evensong was said on Wednesdays and Saturdays. He read his morning paper for a few moments, then put it down and pushed his plate away. He was unable to eat, this morning.
He got up and walked uneasily about the room. His face was troubled and sad. Then he pulled a letter from his pocket and read it with a doubtful sigh. This was the letter:
"Luther Lodge,"Hornham, N."Dear Sir:"Your letter duly to hand. I note that you are desirous of having a private conversation with me, and shall be pleased to grant facilities for same. I shall not be leaving for the Strand till mid-day, and can therefore see you at eleven."Faithfully yours,"Samuel Hamlyn."Secretary of the Luther League,"Chairman of The New Reformation Association."
"Luther Lodge,"Hornham, N.
"Dear Sir:
"Your letter duly to hand. I note that you are desirous of having a private conversation with me, and shall be pleased to grant facilities for same. I shall not be leaving for the Strand till mid-day, and can therefore see you at eleven.
"Faithfully yours,"Samuel Hamlyn."Secretary of the Luther League,"Chairman of The New Reformation Association."
The clergyman read and reread the letter, hardly knowing what to make of it. He had done so many times. The infinite condescension of it annoyed him; the recapitulation of the writer's position seemed a piece of impudent bravado, and reminded the vicar of St. Luke's of the unhappy state that religious life was in at Hornham.
Some days before, shocked and distressed beyond measure at the growing turmoil in Hornham, startled by the continued evidences of it that he met with in his pastoral life, he had written to Mr. Hamlyn asking for a private interview. He had shrunk from doing anything of the sort for weeks. His whole nature revolted against it. But he had dimly recognised that in some measure he might be said to be in a middle position between the two conflicting parties, and thought that his mediation might be of some avail. Repugnant as it was to him, he resolved that he must do what he thought to be his duty, and after he had made it the subject of anxious and fervent prayer he had made up his mind to see if he could not prevail with the leader of the "New Reformation" to cease his agitation, in Hornham at any rate. He imagined that Hamlyn could hardly realise the harm he was doing to the true religious life in the place. It was not his business to argue with the reformer about his work elsewhere. He knew nothing of that. But in Hornham, at any rate, he did see that the civil war provoked nothing but the evil passions of hatred and malice, had no effect upon either party, and prevented the steady preparation for heaven which he thought was the supreme business of Christians.
Hamlyn's letter certainly didn't seem at all conciliatory. It disturbed him. He had hardly ever spoken to the man in the past, but he had known of him, as he necessarily knew of every tradesman in the borough. Social considerations hardly ever entered his mind, but he had not thought of Hamlyn as a potentate in any way when he had written to him. He knew him for a plump, shrewd, vulgar man, who dropped his aspirates and said "paiper" for "paper," and, indeed, had thought none the worse of him for that. But the letter surprised him. It was almost offensive, and he was as near anger as a gentle-minded man may be.
At half-past ten o'clock, he sighed, realising that a most distasteful duty had to be done, and prepared to leave the house. Before he left his study, he knelt down and prayed for a blessing in his mission. He always prayed before any event of any importance in life. An enormous number of people still do, and it is a very great pity that some people do not believe or realise the fact. Prayer is not the anachronism many publicists would have us believe. If among all classes, Christians by open profession, and people who make no profession at all, save only contempt for Christianity, a census of prayers prayed during one day could be taken, the result would be very remarkable indeed. It would certainly startle the rationalists. Statistics show that every second a child is born and a person dies. It is during the approach of such occasions that even people who call themselves "atheists" generally pray. Ask hospital nurses, doctors, or parish priests! There is no greater humbug than the pretence that prayer as a general necessity and practice is dead. There is more irreligion visible to-day than at any other time in English history, perhaps. But that does not mean that people do not pray. The majority live a jolly, godless life till they are frightened. Then they pray. The minority pray always.
Mr. Carr left his house with a more vigorous step after his petition. As so many folk know, the help that comes from prayer is only self-hypnotism—of course. But it is certainly odd what power some of the least gifted and most ordinary people have of this self-hypnotism. One had always thought it rather a cryptic science, the literature of India, for example, regarding it as a supreme achievement. But it must be very simple after all! And if the help that comes to the human heart after prayerisa result of this magnetic power, all we can say is that in the depths of a Whitechapel slum, the outcast, forgotten, and oppressed have each and all the most remarkable, delicate, and cultured temperaments, not in the least seared or spoilt by privation and want. The only point that one quite fails to understand is, why are the leading reviews and scientific publications still discussing this art, or talent, as something rare, abnormal, and as yet little understood?
Mr. Carr drew near to "Luther Lodge." "Balmoral" had been deserted for some time by the Hamlyn family, who very properly felt that it was beneath the dignity of its celebrated head, and would also be harmful to the glorious Protestant cause, if they remained among the undistinguished inhabitants of Beatrice Villas.
About the time that this decision had been arrived at, a substantial square house, unornamental but sound—like Protestantism itself—was vacated by its former inhabitant, the Mayor of Hornham, a leather-dresser in a large way, who had sold his business to a company and was retiring to the country. Mr. Hamlyn looked over the place—then known as Hide-side House—and saw that it would exactly suit him and his altered fortunes. He changed the name to "Luther Lodge," made some extensive purchases of furniture, and established himself there with his son and daughter.
Carr drew near to the iron gates before the circular sweep of gravel known to the past and present inhabitants of the house as the "drive." The gates were hung from two stone pilasters, each surmounted by a small but extremely rampant lion, fiercely Protestant of aspect and painted a dull purple. The whole aspect of the place was chilling, as the clergyman walked up to the door. The formal lace curtains in the windows, the brilliant black-leaded boot-scraper which reflected the sunlight in a dozen facets of vicious leaden fire, the great apple of shining brass which was the bell-pull—all these affected him in an unpleasant manner. He was supremely unconscious of any artistic likings or knowledge, but the seeds of them were latent in him nevertheless, and the place hurt his senses in a strange way.
A trim maid came to the door, the extreme antithesis of the filibustering "general" of a year ago, and showed him into the hall.
"I'll see if master's disengaged," she said; "are you the gentleman as has an appointment with master for eleven?"
Mr. Carr confessed to being that gentleman and the girl left him standing there. From some room in the upper part of the house, so it seemed, the tinkling notes of a piano came down to him. Some one—it was Miss Hamlyn herself—was singing fervently of "violets, violets, I will wear for thee."
After a considerable interval, the maid came back. "Master will see you now, sir," she said, and ushered the visitor into Mr. Hamlyn's study.
It was a fair-sized room with a long French window opening upon a lawn in the centre of a small, walled garden. Many book-shelves filled with grave and portly tomes lined the walls, a large writing-table stood in the middle of the carpet. Some months before, a struggling firm of "religious publishers" had failed, and their stock of theology was thrown upon a flooded market as "Remainders." Mr. Hamlyn, as being in the trade himself, was enabled to acquire a library suited to his position at remarkably cheap rates.
Mr. Hamlyn rose from his chair.
"Glad to see you," he said hastily, and with great condescension and good humour. "Fortunate I happened to have a morning free. Now, what can I do for you? No spiritual trouble, I hope? Ritualists been prowling round St. Luke's? If so, say the word, give me the facts, and I'll see you are protected!"
"It is on a question connected with the state of affairs in the district that I called to see you, Mr. Hamlyn."
"Quite so, Mr. Carr, just what I expected. Well, I've always heard good accounts of you as a loyal Protestant minister—though I can't approve of your using that pestilential book,Hymns Ancient and Modern, in your church—and I will do what I can for you. Providence has placed a scourge in my hand to drive the idolaters from the Temple, so tell me your trouble."
Carr had listened to this, which was delivered in a loud, confident voice, with growing amazement. He hardly knew how to take the man.
"I deplore very much," he said, making a great effort, "the state into which Hornham has been thrown. I cannot, of course, approve of much that I understand takes place at St. Elwyn's. Yet I am beginning to fear that the remedy is worse than the disease. I am sure, Mr. Hamlyn, that your great desire must be to see the people led to love the Lord Jesus and to live godly, sober lives. Well, I find that the crusade of the Luther League is unsettling the minds of weaker brethren. They are becoming excited, forgetful of duty, carried away by the flood of a popular movement. All this is hurtful to souls. Men should have peace to make themselves right with God. Strife and anger hurt the soul and wound it. Now I have no concern with any other place but this, in which my ministry is set. But in Hornham, at least, I have come to ask you to moderate your attacks upon the High Church party, to extend to them the same tolerance they extend to us."
Hamlyn stared at the speaker.
"To moderateMYmethods?" he shouted in a coarse voice. "Do you know what you're asking? Do you realise who I am?"
"Perfectly, Mr. Hamlyn," the clergyman answered with considerable dignity. "I am speaking, I hope, to a brother Christian, and as such, in the name of our dear Lord, I ask you to cease this strife and discord among us. God will show his desires in his own way; prayer is a more powerful weapon than public invective. And it is idle to deny that the vicar of St. Elwyn's and his curates are doing good. I believe their teaching on fundamental truths is wrong, I deprecate the ceremonial with which they veil and cover the simple beauties of the Christian faith. But Mr. Blantyre is a good and noble-hearted man. He gives his life and his large income—it is a matter of common knowledge—to the service of the poor and needy. He is utterly unselfish, he loves Jesus. Let him work in his own way in peace."
Mr. Hamlyn's face grew very red. The man was mentally bloated by prosperity and success. Daily he was hailed by fools as the saviour of his country, his name was on many lips, and his sense of proportion was utterly gone.
"Really!" he said, "of all the mad requests as was ever made me this is the maddest! Are you in your senses, Mr. Carr—you a Protestant minister of the Word? You can't be. You come to me, me, who Providence has set at the head of Henglish Protestantism, and ask me to join a base conspiracy to silence the clarion of Truth! to leave my 'igh ground of Principle and grovel before a petticoated 'priest'! Why, you're asking me to let the Pope and the devil into Hornham. Have you ever cast your eye upon the works of the immortal John Bunyan? What about Mr. Facing-both-ways?"
Mr. Carr kept his temper. He was there upon an important issue. What did it matter if the man was rude? "But don't you think, as a Christian," he said mildly, "that it is hard enough to fight the devil, the world, and the flesh without private differences in the Christian camp?"
"Who's speaking of Christians?" Hamlyn cried; "not I. Blantyre is no Christian; he is doing the devil's work, which is the work of Rome. He gives away his money because the devil showed him that it was a good move, to win souls to Rome. As for his goodness, how do we know what goes on in the confessional? I've heard——"
Carr stood up. "Let me tell you at once, sir," he said in a hard voice and with flashing eyes, "that any scandal and slander you make before me about a man I know to be pure and good I will at once repeat to him, and you will have to take the consequences."
"Ah!" said the agitator sharply and suddenly and with his impudent smile flashing over his face, mingled with a sneer, "I see now! I ought to have seen it before. You are a wolf in sheep's clothing! While we all thought you a faithful Protestant, you have secretly joined causes with the enemy. The cloven 'oof 'as peeped out! You come as a sneaking ambassador of Rome in the garb of a Protestant. The Jesuits have been having a go at you, Mr. Carr, and they've got you! I shouldn't wonder if you've got your 'air-shirt on now! Go back to them as sent you and say that I've scourged 'em with whips in the past and I'll give 'em scorpions now. This will make a fine story at our next meeting in the public 'all!"
Carr turned on his heel without a word and left the room. He crossed the hall in a couple of strides, opened the door, and walked quickly over the gravel sweep. As his hand was on the latch of the gate, the reformer's voice hailed him. Mr. Hamlyn was looking round the corner of the door; a genial grin—a clown's grin—lay upon his face. "Mr. Carr!" he bawled with unabashed and merry impudence, "been to Mass yet?"
Then, with a final chuckle, he closed the door.
The peacemaker walked sadly away. He saw at once the sort of man he had been dealing with, and recognised how futile any protest would be in the case. He saw clearly how unassailable Hamlyn's position was, while the country was full of people who would pay him to keep them in a state of pleasurable excitement. It was better than the theatre to which Hamlyn's subscribers loudly protested that their consciences would not allow them to go! It was a sort of bull-baiting revived; the lust of the public at seeing some one hunted was satisfied.
How infinitely better the sober methods of the old-established Protestant societies were! Legitimate propaganda, a dignified and scholarly controversy, these were right and sane. But this clown's business, this noise and venom, was utterly disgusting. He had caught a glimpse into the machinery of the whole movement that sickened him.
He went home to his lonely house and made a frugal lunch. Something ought to be done, but what? He was not a man to fail in any efforts he made in a good cause. He did not propose to cease his attempts to restore Hornham to decent calm, even now. But he could not see, at the moment, what was the next move he should make.
During the afternoon he set out on a round of parochial visiting. He sat by the bedsides of the sick, the querulous, the ungrateful, and told his message of comfort. He heard much of Hamlyn's campaign. The new leaflet with its violent language was thrust into his hand. Every one wondered what would happen next. Would Mr. Blantyre face the Luther Lecturers in the public hall? One old bedridden dame Carr found all agog with excitement and spite. "It'd come to a fight," she expected, and "wot an awful thing it was to have them wicked monsters the Papists so close. She could 'ardly sleep o' nights thinking of it all." Carr found that the poor old creature had not the remotest idea of what "Papist" meant, of what anything meant, indeed; but she would hardly listen to his prayers and Bible-reading nevertheless, so eager was she to discuss the "goings on."
About four, as he left the last house he purposed to visit just then, a strange thought came to him suddenly. He was at the extreme end of his parish, not far from St. Elwyn's. Would it not be a good thing to go and visit Blantyre, to express his sympathy and to discuss whether some way out of the present trouble could not be found?
The idea strengthened and grew. He knew Blantyre was a decent fellow—every one said so. But, nevertheless, he had the sense of venturing into the lion's den! He should feel strange among these priests with their foreign ways, their cassocks and berrettas; there would be discomfort in the visit.
It is curious how, in the minds of the least prejudiced, the dislike to the definite and outward symbols that a priest wears still lingers. In another generation, it will have been swept away, but it still survives as a relic of the dark, secularising influences of the eighteenth century. And, again, the man in the street does not like to be reminded that there is a God and a class of men vowed to His service, and the complete distinction of a priest's costume is too explicit a reminder.
Carr thought the matter out for a minute or two and then made up his mind. He would go and talk over the situation with Blantyre. With a vivid sense of how his host of the morning would call his action "bowing down in the house of Rimmon," a sense that only quickened his steps and sent a contemptuous curl to his lip, he turned and walked towards the clergy-house.
He rang the bell, and a tall and rather hulking man in livery showed him into a large drawing-room. This was the navvy, Mr. King's former assailant, who had been promoted, at his own request, to a distinctive costume, which he wore with pride and diligence. His only grief was that he was not allowed to "wipe the floor with that there Hamlyn," but he lived in hope that some fresh outrage would provide him with the necessary permission.
Carr looked round the room. There was nothing ecclesiastical about it, no flavour of the monk at home. It had been newly papered; the walls were covered with pictures so fresh and new in treatment that they might have come from the Academy of that year. The vicar of St. Luke's suddenly awoke to the fact that he was in a very charming room indeed. There was a Steinway grand piano there, a beautiful instrument; he saw that the Twelfth Nocturne of Chopin stood open upon it. Everywhere he saw a multitude of photographs in frames of silver, copper, ivory, peacock leather—every imaginable sort of frame. A great many of these photographs were signed in the corner, and looking at some of them he was surprised to see that they were of very well-known people. Here was a well-known general, there a judge, again the conscious features of a society actor beamed out at him. His eye, unobservant at first, began to take in the details of the room more rapidly. There were a hundred luxurious little trifles scattered about, numerous contrivances for comfort. He was wondering to whom this room could belong, when the door opened and his doubts were resolved.
A girl came in, a girl with a beautifully modelled face, healthy and yet without crimson in it. A pair of frank, dark eyes looked at him from beneath an overshadowing mass of dead black hair.
"How do you do, Mr. Carr," she said,—he had given the man his card,—"I am Mr. Blantyre's sister; I've only just pitched my tent in Hornham. Bernard will be in for tea in half an hour."
Rather nervously, Carr explained that he had called on a matter of parochial business. He remained standing, a little at a loss. This girl was not like the young ladies of Hornham.
"Well, you must have some tea," Lucy said with decision as she rang the bell. Carr sat down. He anticipated a somewhat trying half hour until the vicar should arrive. He was a gentleman, well bred in every way, but his life, from the time of his school days, had been lonely and without much feminine companionship.
In five minutes he found, to his own great surprise, that he was talking vividly and well, that he was quite pleased to be where he was. And the girl seemed to be interested and pleased with him. It was a very new sensation, this feeling of mutual liking, to the lonely man. The conversation turned naturally to the unrest around them. Carr said nothing as yet of his morning's experience.
"Well, I must confess, frankly, Mr. Carr," Lucy said, "that until lately I never took any interest at all in these things. They seemed humbug to me. Now, of course, I know better. It's ashame! a black shame, that Bernard and the others should be treated so by this disgusting man. If he only knew what their life was! how self-denying, how full of unceasing labour and worry, how devoted. Take Mr. Stephens, for instance: he's only a boy, yet he's killing himself with work and enthusiasm. He was up all last night with a man that has delirium tremens, yet he said Mass at half-past seven, came to breakfast as merry as a sand-boy, and was teaching in the national schools at nine. And he'll be on his feet to-day until nearly midnight without a word of complaint. He'll spend nearly the whole evening in the boys' club, boxing and playing billiards with them—oh, you can't think how the three of them work!"
She went on with a series of anecdotes and explanations, told with great vividness and power, in her new enthusiasm for the men among whom she had come. And throughout all her talk, the clergyman heard frequent references to the services that went on almost unceasingly in the great church hard by. He heard names, strange and yet familiar, startling to his ear, and yet which seemed quite natural and fitting in the place where he was. One thing he began to see clearly, and with interest: whatever these men were in opinion, a life of real and active holiness went on among them. And he noticed also, with wonder, how everything seemed to draw its inspiration from the church, how constantly the clergy were there, hearing confessions, saying services, praying, and preaching. The whole thing was new to him.
They were the best of friends, talking brightly together, when the door burst open and the impetuous priest rushed in. "Well, I'm glad to see you!" he said with a broad grin of welcome. "Had tea?—that's right. I see you've made friends with my clergywoman! I've been in church hearing confessions, or I'd have been in sooner."
His manner was extremely genial. He seemed genuinely glad to see his brother vicar and not in the least surprised or puzzled.
Carr looked attentively at him. So this merry Irishman, with the lined, powerful face, the grey hair, and eyes which sometimes blazed out like lamps—this was the great Ritualist, the Jesuit, the thief of English liberty!
He had a wonderful magnetic power, that was evident at once. His sympathy for everything and everybody poured from him; he was "big," big in every way.
He chatted merrily away on a variety of topics while taking his tea. Asking his sister for another cup, he suddenly turned to Carr. "That reminds me," he said, "of a good story I heard yesterday. Father Cartwright was here to lunch, he is one of the St. Clement Fathers at the Oxford monastery. Not long ago a young nobleman—rather abon vivant, by the way—went down to spend a few days with the Fathers. He made his arrival, very unfortunately for him, poor fellow! on a Friday, when the fare's very frugal indeed. He had very little to eat, poor chap, and went to bed as hungry as a hunter, quite unable to sleep he was. Now, it's the custom for one of the Fathers to go round in the night with a benediction, 'The Lord be with you.' They always say it in Latin,Dominus tecum. The young man heard some one rapping at the door. 'Who's there?' says he. 'Dominus tecum,' was the answer. 'Thanks, very much,' said the nobleman, 'please put it down outside'!"
While they were laughing at the story, Lucy rose and, shaking hands with Carr, went away.
The two clergymen were left alone. "You'll not mind talking in here?" Father Blantyre said. "I've got a poor chap in me study I don't want to disturb. I found um after lunch making a row in the street with a crowd round him, a poor half-clothed scarecrow, beastly drunk—never saw a man in such a state. I asked one of the crowd who he was and he said he was a stranger, a ship's fireman, who'd been about the place for a day or two, spending all his money in drinks, and he hadn't a friend in the world. A policeman came along and wanted to lock um up, but I managed to get him in here and he's sleeping it off. I shall give um egg in milk when he comes round: his poor stomach's half poisoned with bad liquor and no food. I always find egg and milk the best thing in these cases. I wish he wasn't so dirty! We shall have to give 'm a hot tub before he can go to bed."
"What will you do with him?"
"Oh, keep him here for a day or two to pull round, give um some clothes, and pack 'm off to sea again where he can't get any drink."
"Don't such men ever rob you?"
"Hardly ever. It's not your real outcast who steals much. They're generally so astonished to find a parson isn't as black as he's painted that they don't think of anything else. They go away feeling they've got apal, made a friend! That's the awful want in their lives. A lot of them come back, and write to me while they're away, too, queer letters full of gratitude and bad language! But ye came to see me, my friend. I'm so glad you've found your way here. Now, what can I do for you, or are ye going to do anything for me?"
His manner had changed. His tone was indescribably sympathetic and gentle. If ever the wisdom of charity and the light of holiness shone out on a man's face, Carr thought that he saw it now.
He was entirely dominated by the man. In a burst of nervous words, he poured out his thoughts. He told of his futile visit to Hamlyn, his keen distress at the result, the misery the agitation gave him, and the harm he believed it to be doing.
Blantyre listened with few words. Now and then he made a warm and penetrating remark.
"It will pass," he said at length; "God will give us peace again. He is trying the faith of the poor and ignorant among us. Our prayers will avail. But we will concert together that we may take such measures to stop the local evil as we properly can. I have been loath to move in the matter, but now that you have come to me we will join forces and take action. There are ways and means. I hate pulling wires and using influence, but one must sometimes. I had hoped it wouldn't be necessary. But something must be done. Lord Huddersfield will take action for us. The street meetings can be stopped at once. Then we can inaugurate a real press campaign and let the leader-writers loose. Hitherto it's been our policy to say nothing much, except in the religious papers, of course. But the time has come when we must fight, too. I was talking to Sir Michael Manicho about it the other day. A word or two from him and the country will be ringing with warnings. We can rob this Luther League of its powers in a week. It willgo on, of course, but with its fangs drawn. The people who support it will, many of them, cease their subscriptions. And there is the law also. The magistrates of London are quite ready to take a strong stand. That is settled. And a word from the Archbishop, perhaps, would be a help. Public opinion is very easily turned."
He spoke calmly, but with conviction and a quiet sense of power. Carr began to see dimly what great forces were behind this man and others of his kind. The tremendous organising machinery of the Catholic Church was laid bare for a moment.
A most confidential talk followed. Blantyre gave the other details and names. He made it plain to Carr's astonished ears that those in high places were waiting to act, waiting to see if the Church needed them. The depth and force of it all astonished him.
A bell began to ring. "There's evensong," said Blantyre, "I must be off. It's my turn to say it to-night."
"I will come, too," Carr answered.
"Do, do! and take some food with us all afterwards, and we'll have a longer talk. You can't think how happy I am that we have come together. What? You've never seen our church? Why, then, you've a treat in front of ye! Every one says it's beautiful. We all love it, we're all proud of it!"
He took him by the arm and led him away.
Not a word of the differences that separated them, no suspicion, or distrust, nothing but welcome and brotherhood!
The tall, bearded man and the quick, shaven Celt in his cassock went into the church together to pray—
"Give peace in our time, O Lord."
In a couple of months after the meeting between Carr and Blantyre, public opinion had spoken in no uncertain way about the "Luther League." Public opinion in these days is very easily led in this or that direction—but only for a time. There is a vast stratum of common-sense, of love of justice, of wholesome sanity, in England, and it can always be reached by a little boring. In the end, especially upon any question which is in its essence sociological, a proper balance is found and the truth of a matter firmly established.
And Hamlyn's agitation was treated as a social question rather than a religious one, at any rate by a secular press. Whether the doings of the High Church party were legal or illegal according to the prayer-book (such was the line the papers took) was a question to be decided by experts in history and the authorities of the Church; a question, in fact, that ought to be decided in a legitimate way. What was, however, quite certain, was that the proceedings of Hamlyn and his party were improper, vulgar, and indecent. It was simply misleading nonsense to cover the Ritualistic party, a body of high-minded and earnest men, with the noisy and venomous vituperation of the streets. Freedom of thought was the heritage of every Englishman, and Hamlyn had simply elected himself a grand inquisitor of matters that did not concern him and which he was unable to understand. No dishonesty on the man's part was alleged. But his history was unearthed by one or two enterprising journalists, following the popular lead. It was shown that while nothing had ever been said against his personal character—and nothing was said now—he had risen from the position of a struggling local newspaper man to comparative affluence and the control of a large and costly organisation. The cash accounts of the League were scrutinised, and unkind remarks were made upon the constant advertisements of the League, with their cry for increased income and fresh subscribers. It was pointed out that people who supported a crusade made without authority by a self-constituted Peter the Hermit, over whom no proper control could be exercised and whose methods of prosecuting it were a mixture of buffoonery, uncharitable malice, and untruth, were incurring a serious responsibility.
In short, public opinion was told in plain language exactly how it ought to regard the campaign. Great newspapers spoke out during one fortnight with singular unanimity. Street meetings were promptly broken up by the police, and after some of the Luther Lecturers had been to prison, finding that public interest in their "martyrdom" was languishing, they subsided into quiet, devotional meetings on the sands at popular watering-places. Whenever Mr. Hamlyn hired a hall and lectured on the iniquities of the local clergy, he was confronted by the spectacle of a sharp-faced man who took down every word of his utterances with scrupulous fidelity. It was always the same machine-like man, in Liverpool or in Plymouth, in Bath or Dundee—there he was. The agitator's eloquence was considerably checked. He was in no condition to sustain an action for slander or libel in which, he well knew, some poor clergyman would somehow be able to brief all the great hawk-faced leaders of the bar, gentlemen with whom Mr. Hamlyn wished to have as little as possible to do.
At such open-air meetings as were permitted, some unobtrusive stranger was generally to be found distributing leaflets among the crowd, which resembled nothing so much as the literature of the Luther League itself in its general "get-up" and appearance. On perusal, however, it proved to be of quite a different tenor, being nothing else than extracts from the best-known English newspapers on Mr. Hamlyn and his mission. This was very trying and disturbed the harmony of many meetings.
In the assemblies convened at halls hired for the occasion,—admission by ticket only,—it frequently happened that some well-known local resident, who could not be denied, made his appearance, and with a few weighty words entirely changed the character of the meeting. The reports from his myrmidons all over the country, which reached Mr. Hamlyn in the Strand, showed a series of counter-moves which alarmed him in their neatness and ingenuity.
It had been for months a pleasing habit of the peripatetic Protestants under the Hamlyn banner to visit churches and make notes of the ornaments therein, afterwards lecturing on them in their own inimitable and humorous manner to crowds in back streets.
Mr. Moffatt, indeed—the young gentleman who had forsaken the plumbing and gas-fitting industry to become incandescent and watery on the Protestant war-path—had more than once broken a small crucifix with an umbrella. The lecturers found, however, that, as if by some concerted action, church doors were locked wherever they might go. The poor fellows' hunger for the sight of candlesticks and sanctuary lamps was hardly ever gratified now, and they were compelled to the somewhat ignominious expedient of nailing the bulls of Mr. Hamlyn to the doors of sacred buildings and going gloomily away.
On one occasion, Mr. Moffatt, who was a young fellow of considerable hardihood, arrived at a well-known sink of ritual during the week, where the incense used in church cost, it was reported, as much aseight shillings a pound! Failing in every effort to penetrate the building, one Sunday morning he mingled with a group of worshippers and made an attempt to enter the church. Being a somewhat tubby youth of no great height, he followed closely on the footsteps of a ponderous gentleman quite six feet high, and congratulated himself he was escaping observation, just as one has seen a small dog slink nearer and nearer to the tempting joint upon the dinner-table. His hopes were doomed to failure. He was almost inside the porch when two stalwart church wardens barred the way and read him a paper, which stated that, as he was a known brawler who had been convicted of other illegal disturbances in God's house, entry was refused him.
At the moment, in his chagrin and surprise, Mr. Moffatt could think of no better retort than an injunction to the reader of the document to "keep his hair on." Then, gathering his faculties together, he commenced a vigorous protest as to his rights as a "baptized, confirmed communicant member of the Church of England" to make one of the congregation. No answer whatever was vouchsafed him, and he was compelled to stand meekly by while the usual members of the congregation were admitted.
He bethought himself of an appeal to the majesty of the law! "Very well, then," he said, "I shall go and fetch a policeman. That's all."
One of the church wardens opened the inner door of the church and beckoned to some one. A sergeant of police, in his uniform, emerged quietly. Mr. Moffatt started, muttered something about "writing to the Bishop," and left the vicinity of the church without further ado.
And it was thus all over the country. Hamlyn and his son realised that a strong and powerful organisation was arrayed against them. Their tactics were counter-checked at every turn.
As a natural consequence of all this, the subscriptions to the League fell away at a most alarming rate. The street and public hall collections of the lecturers dwindled until they could hardly pay themselves their own modest emoluments. The general subscriptions and special donations to the head office were in a no less unsatisfactory condition.
A very great number of people, with an honest dislike and distrust of practices which seemed to them against the law of the Church of England (as they understood it), had hitherto sent Hamlyn considerable sums of money. His campaign seemed to them a real and efficacious method of dealing with the question, and his methods had not been very clear to them in their actual detail.
But when the most influential part of the press began to speak with no uncertain voice, these people began to hurriedly repudiate any connection with the Luther League and to tie their purse-strings in a very tight knot indeed. Then, again, there was a second not inconsiderable class of people whose support was withdrawn. These were more or less of the Miss Pritchett order. They had some real or fancied grievance against the vicar of the parish in which they lived, and the machinery of Hamlyn's League was found to be at their service for the purposes of revenge. Under the cover of religious truth they were able to gratify a private spite—a method of campaign as old as history itself. The aims of these people had been achieved. That is to say, Mr. Hamlyn or his friends had made themselves more or less a thorn in the sides of the local clergy, had "banged the field-piece, twanged the lyre," and departed with as much money as they were able to collect in the cause of Protestant Truth.
And those people who had first moved in the matter saw that, after all, thestatus ante quohad not been altered in the least, that nothing had happened at all! One or two people of no importance whatever might have left the Church, but the general result was, as a rule, an increase of the attacked congregation and, inevitably, an enormous increase of personal popularity of the priest and of loyalty to him and his teachings.
So this second class of worthies also became hard-hearted to the perfervid advertisements of the League, buttoned up their pockets, and tried to behave as though the names of those twin greatnesses, Martin Luther and Samuel Hamlyn, had never crossed their lips.
In the offices in the Strand, all these causes were thoroughly appreciated and understood. The prosperity, or rather the consciousness of it, which had seemed to ooze from Mr. Hamlyn's features, was no more to be seen. The countenance of the Protestant Pope wore an anxious and harassed expression when he was alone with his son, and their talks together were frequent and of long duration.
One disastrous morning the post brought nothing in the way of fuel for the Protestant fire except a single miserable little post-office order for seven shillings and sixpence, a donation from "A Baptist Friend."
Protestant Truth was in a bad way. Both the Hamlyns thought so as they sat down gloomily for a private conference in the inner room.
"There's a good balance in the bank, of course," Hamlyn said. "We've got staying power for some time yet, and the salaries are safe. But it's the future we've got to look to. The righteous cause can't go on nothing."
"Don't you worry, Father," said Sam, "that Exeter Hall speaking has pulled you down a bit. You're not your real self. I haven't a doubt that you'll think of something to wake things up in a day or two."
"Hope so, I'm sure, though I can't think of anything at present. But seven and six! It's the first day Protestantism's dropped below a matter of two pound odd."
"There's plenty of other posts during the day, Pa."
"That's true. One day or three days don't matter. But it shows how things are going. The Romans have been too cunning for us, Sam. The wiles of the Scarlet Woman are prevailing; honest, straightforward Protestants are being undermined."
"But think of the letters of sympathy we've 'ad since the great Ritualistic conspiracy has come up. The real hearty Protestants are as faithful as they ever were."
"Yes, they are," said Mr. Hamlyn reflectively; "we can always fall back on them, and we've got some thousands of names and addresses on the books. The League'llgo onsafe enough, there'll always be labourers in the vineyard and them as will pay the overseer his just dues. But it's 'ard, after the splendid success we've had, to sink down into a small commonplace affair with just a bare living. The real red-hot Protestants, who are reallyafraidof Rome and that, are so few! These disgusting newspapers been showing up everything and the lukewarm people have been falling away. All the real money is flowing back into Roman channels. If there were more really earnest Protestants we might keep on as good as ever. But there's not. We haven't sold a gross ofBloody Marysduring the month. It's a pity we had to suppress theConfessional; that was a real seller—and did a lot of good," Mr. Hamlyn added as an afterthought.
"We couldn't well do no other after the 'int we got from theVigilancepeople," said Sam.
"I suppose not. But it was a great pity."
"You're due at Malakoff House to-night, aren't you, Pa?"
"Yes, at seven. I'm very uneasy in my mind about Miss P., Sam."
"Gussie says she's worse than she knows herself. She hasn't been out of bed for a fortnight now."
"She's not long for this world, I'm afraid," Hamlyn answered. "While she's alive we are fairly safe. But when she's in Glory where shall we be?"
"That's the question, Father. Gussie knows nothing and can't find out anything, neither. A really handsome legacy invested in some good stock would put us right again whatever might happen."
"It would. But just at present the old lady's awful to deal with. You see, I'm in an awkward position, Sam. I'm not such a fool as to tell her how we've been bested lately—that's to say, I can't bring myself to wound a faithful Protestant heart by stories of persecution of them as is doing the Lord's work against Rome. Miss P. don't know anything about the checks we've received of late. Well, then, she's always bothering me to know why we aren't keeping it up in Hornham, why we aren't going for Blantyre and that lot. She hears everything that goes on in the parish, though Gussie Davies does her best to stop it. But she don't seem to trust Gussie as she did, which is a pity. Miss P. quite sees that, for some reason or other, things have gone quiet in the parish, and she's getting restive. Something must be done soon, that's quite evident. Some big thing to wake her up—and everyone else, too."
"It doesn't matter much how far we go now."
"Not a bit. The further the better, as a matter of fact. The lecturers' hands are so tied now, what with all these cunning moves of the Romanists, thattheycan't do anything. It seems we've alienated all the moderate people and we've only the extreme ones to rely on. Well, then, we must wakethemup, that's all. The papers can't well say worse of us than they do already, so it really is the best policy to give the whole country a regular startler. I can't think of anything new at present, but I shall. I expect a bit of inspiration'll come before long. Anyway, I shall tell Miss Pritchett to-night to wait and have patience a little longer, as there's something in the wind that will do all she wants. It's her illness. Shemusthave continual bits of excitement to keep her going, it's a regular disease with her now. If I can think of a good scheme to liven up things generally, in the first flush of it she'll be so pleased that we might venture a word or two upon her testamentary dispositions. I should feel so much happier about the Cause if I knew the League was down in her will for a thumping sum. Of course, anything of the sort would have to be said most careful. She'd get up and be healthy again in a week if she thought we thought she was going to peg out!"
Mr. Hamlyn concluded his remarks with a somewhat resentful sigh, and, whistling down the speaking-tube for the correspondence clerk, began to dictate his morning's letters.
It was about seven o'clock when the secretary arrived at Malakoff House, tired and dispirited. The whole day had gone unsatisfactorily. An evening paper had come out with a leaded column about the League which was far from complimentary. The various callers at the office were all more or less disagreeable, and even the volatile Samuel had been plunged into a state of furtive gloom that radiated mis-ease upon all who came near him.
Mr. Hamlyn was shown into the drawing-room and in a minute or two, Gussie Davies came to him. The girl was white and tired of feature. Dark semicircles were under her eyes, but her manner had a nervous excitement that was infectious.
Both of them spoke in that agitated whisper that some people affect in the neighbourhood of those who are seriously ill and whom they think like to die. It is a whisper in which there is a not unpleasurable note, a self-congratulation at being near to the Great Mystery, as spectators merely.
"How is she?" whispered Hamlyn.
"Bad," answered Gussie. "Dr. Hibbert's been and I had a chat with him afterwards. He daren't speak as plain as he'd like, for fear of frightening her. But he says she mustnotkeep on exciting herself. It will be fatal if she does. Another two months of this St. Elwyn's excitement will kill her, Mr. Hamlyn. I'm sure of that."
"What's she been saying?"
"Oh, the same old thing: Why doesn't Mr. Hamlyn do something decisive? Why doesn't he strike these proud priests some crushing blow? You know she's heard that Miss Blantyre has come to live at the vicarage, and that makes her keener than ever."
"Well, I must think of something, that's all," said the secretary in a decisive whisper. "I'll promise her a new move almost at once. I suppose you've had no chance to get in a word about the will?"
"Not a chance. I can't find out anything either. All I know is that her solicitor hasn't been here since she joined the League. So that looks as if there isn't anything doneyet."
"I don't suppose there is, my dear. But if I can keep her quietnow, and do something big in the parish in a few days, then I suppose we might broach it?"
"Certainly, Mr. Hamlyn, I should say so."
"Good. One more question, Gussie, before I go up. Do you think it wise to mention a contribution to the working fund just now? One can never be too zealous in the cause of Protestant Truth, but I want to deal wisely with her."
"Oh, I think you'll be safe enough for a hundred or two," Gussie said, "as long as you promise her a good rumpus soon! She ain't mean, I will say that for her."
Mr. Hamlyn nodded in a brisk, business-like way, rang for the maid, and was shown up to the sick-room.
Gussie remained in the drawing-room. She wondered how successful her friend and lover's father would be. She had immense faith in his abilities and already looked forward to the time when, released for ever from her duties at Malakoff House, she would, as Mrs. Hamlyn, Junior, become a leading lady of True Protestantism. Not that the girl hated her employer. She had no affection for Miss Pritchett—and it would have been wonderful if she had—but her feeling was not stronger than that. As for the money question, the money that the rich old lady was giving to the Luther League, Gussie saw no harm in that. The money was for a good cause, so she believed, and the Hamlyns,père et fils, had much better have the handling of it than any one else!
Mr. Hamlyn was a considerable time. The girl wandered about the room, agog to hear his news, thinking with a certain terror of the grim old woman up-stairs. For what had been tartness and acerbity had become grimness now, in the pompous old-fashioned bed-chamber, where she lay waiting the beating of those great black wings which all, save she, knew were drawing near.
Although Gussie Davis knew all the foibles of her mistress and could play upon them with adroitness and success, she felt, nevertheless, a fear of the old woman. Miss Pritchett, with all her absurdities, her petty jealousies, her greed for flattery, was a woman with a personality. She was very rich, and she had chosen to remain among the surroundings of her youth and be great among the small. Yet even a petty supremacy awes the petty, and the sly Welsh girl was indubitably awed. She was not wholly bad, not unfeeling in her way, but she was weak. In the hands of the Hamlyns, she had been as putty from the very first. They were strong men. There was no doubt about that. With all the temperamental vulgarity and greed of both father and son, there was indubitable strength—and, in the case of the elder, considerable magnetic power.
They had been kind to her also. She was genuinely fond of Sam, and he was fond of her. The accident of her position, that she was able to help and forward their plans, made no difference as to that. Hamlyn, Senior, liked her. He would, she knew, be kind and fatherly to her when she was married to Sam. He was that now.
For, if Hamlyn had been able to employ his cleverness to good advantage in the exploitation of any other thing save of religion, he would have been counted as a shrewd business man and nothing more. Nothing worse than that at any rate. He had no personal vices. He did not in the least realise that he was living a life that was shameful. Religion meant no more to him than any other way of making money would have meant. That was all. And, oddly enough, Blantyre himself shrewdly suspected this, while Carr looked upon the agitator as infamous.
Hamlyn was perfectly aware that he was a humbug, but he thought that his humbug was perfectly legitimate in the war of life.
The priest at St. Elwyn's whom he had so bitterly attacked and wounded was a psychologist. Most priests are. Men who sit in churches and hear the true story of men's lives learn an infinite tenderness. Men come to them for comfort, to hear the comfortable words that our Lord has spoken for the sinful who are penitent, to receive from them that absolution which is nothing more than the confirmation, in a concrete and certain way, of the promise of God. It is only the people who have never confessed their sins, not to a priest, but to God through a priest, who speak against the Sacrament of Penance.
They do not know they are tilting at windmills. And the bitter shame that sometimes comes to a man as he tells another man the true story of his life is in itself the truest evidence that he means to amend it. No one would do that without penitence. There is a motive for every action; the motive would be wanting if confession were made without a resolve to lead a new life. If those who fulminate against the Church's method, and sneer at the members of the Church who follow it, as dupes and fools, could understand that it is discipline that purifies and exalts, they would sneer no longer. It is all very well to be afranc-tireur, no doubt. But it is better to be a member of the regular forces. It is not so jolly for a time, perhaps, but in event of capture, the former is shot at sight, the latter becomes a prisoner of war with all the rights and traditions of his lot.
Simile was one of Mr. Hamlyn's pet weapons, but in his noisy syllogisms, he left out the first two premises and confined himself to the conclusion—generally an emphatic epithet.
Mr. Hamlyn came down-stairs at last. His face was grave, but peaceful. Perspiration showed upon it. He had been having a hard time.
"I say, my dear," he whispered, "I wonder if you've got a cup of tea handy. I've had a thick time!"
It is better to take the stimulant of tea than the more usual brandy and soda. Hamlyn was a strong teetotaller, and that counted to his credit at a moment like this. For the man had obviously been through an unnerving experience. He was not his ready and impudent self.
The tea was brought. It revived him.
"Well!" he said in a low voice, "I don't want to go through many scenes like that again, Gussie! She's getting worse and worse. Her brain can't last much longer if she goes on like this! However, I managed to calm her down. She's going off to sleep now. I told her I'd wake Hornham up in a few days—and I'llhaveto do it, what's more!"
"Did you get a cheque?" said the practical Gussie.
"Yes," said Mr. Hamlyn in a slightly more relieved voice. "She gave me a couple of hundred in the end. At heart, she's devoted to the cause of Protestant Truth. But she's getting horribly restive, my dear. I'm sorry for her. She's a wreck of what she used to be—but she's a wreck that wants a lot of salvage!"
The colour came back into the plump, clean-shaven face as the tea did its work.
"I forgot, my dear," he said; "I brought you a box of chocolates. It clean went out of my 'ead," he waved an exhausted hand towards his small brown leather bag, which stood on the table between a plaster model of the leaning tower of Pisa and a massive volume entitledEvery Young Lady's Vade Mecum.
Gussie smiled her thanks and opened the bag, while Mr. Hamlyn poured out another cup of tea.
Gussie felt in the bag. It was full of papers, but there were two parcels there. She took them out. They were of much the same size. Each was neatly tied up in white paper.
She pulled the string from one of them. A number of thin semi-transparent white wafers fell out upon the table.
"Oh, I'm sorry!" she cried, "I thought this was the box of chocolates."
Hamlyn looked up wearily. To his immeasurable surprise, he saw that the girl's face had grown very pale. She shrunk away from the table.
"What's the matter, my dear?" he said, thoroughly alarmed.
She suddenly flushed a deep scarlet.
"What are these?" she said, pointing with a shaking finger to the things on the table.
"Them?" said Mr. Hamlyn in cheerful surprise. "Mass wafers, my dear. I buy them in a shop in Covent Garden. We distribute them among the Luther Lecturers, for object lessons to the poor deluded Ritualists."
The girl had crouched to the wall of the room. Hamlyn was seriously alarmed. Her face was almost purple, her eyes started out of her head.
"They're not con—consecrated?" she gasped.
Hamlyn could not understand her emotion. "No," he said; "why, Gussie, what a superstitious little thing you are. And if they were, what then?" Frank amazement showed on his face.
"Oh, nothing, Mr. Hamlyn," the girl said at length, becoming more normal in her manner.
In a few minutes, Hamlyn left the house, leaving the girl in her ordinary manner, eating the chocolates that he had brought her.
His able mind was busily at work. He knew that during Miss Pritchett's adhesion to St. Elwyn's Gussie had, perforce, been one of the congregation there and had been taught and trained by the clergy.
"No wonder," he thought bitterly to himself; "no wonder that they can win along the line, when they can sow seeds like that in a girl's mind. Why, she's a thorough little Protestant at heart. To think that those things should have startled her so! It's a lingering prejudice, I suppose. Theyarea queer lot—the Romanists!"
As he communed thus with himself, a swift thought came to him. At the moment of its arrival in his brain, he almost staggered. Then, pulling himself together, he walked rapidly to his own house.
He thought he saw his way to acoupthat would make all his previous efforts as nothing. How wonderfully simple it was! Why had he never thought of it before—whata fool he had been! Here was the solution of all the difficulties he was in. The answer seemed to have come to his conversation with Samuel in the morning.
He went to his study and fortunately found that Sam was already there. Miss Maud Hamlyn sat in the room also, but when she saw her father's face, she left the room at once. It wore the "business look" she knew well, and, though she but dimly understood what her brother and father were engaged in, she knew it had brought great prosperity and honour to all of them, and was loath to intrude upon any profitable confabulation.
"Have you got it, Pa?" said Samuel, eagerly.
"Yes, I'ave," answered the secretary, "and very fine it is too!"
"How much?" asked Sam.
"What do you mean?"
"The cheque, Miss Pritchett's latest."
"Oh,that," said Hamlyn. "Two hundred, what we expected. I meant something else. I've got the new scheme to wake things up! The best thing we've done yet, my boy!"
Sam rubbed his hands. "What did I say this morning? I knew you'd do it, Pa. Well, let's have it."
Mr. Hamlyn sat back in his chair, willing to dally a moment with his triumph and enjoy the full savour of it.
"Why we never thought of it before," he said, "beats me entirely! Something suggested it to me to-night, and I've been wondering at our neglecting such a move."
"Whatisit then?"
"What about one of us going to the Mass and bringing away the consecrated wafer? Then a big public meeting's called and Ishowthe people what we've got! The 'flour-and-water god' of the Romanists! Not the usual plan of producing a wafer we've bought from a shop, but thereal thing, Sam! Then they'll all be able to see that there's no difference between before and after! It'll explode the whole thing and give the League an advertisement better than anything that's gone before!"
Sam looked very grave indeed. "It's a little bittoomuch, I'm afraid, Father," he said.
"What do you mean, my son?" answered the secretary in extreme and real surprise.
"Well, I don't know," Sam said doubtfully, "but I shouldn't like to meddle with it myself."
Mr. Hamlyn leaned forward. "Sam," he said, "you're a fool. You're as bad as Gussie Davies! Leave the matter to me. Who's awakened Protestantism in Hengland? ME! Who knows how to work a popular cause? ME! Who's going to boom the Luther League up to the top again? ME!"
"Have it your own way, Father," Sam said, "you generally do come out on top."
"Ring the bell for some tea," said Mr. Hamlyn, "and let's talk out the details. We'll 'ave to get it where we aren't known by sight."