XXXIX

XXXIX

Inthe course of the next few days Brandon interviewed various specialists, and then by their advice he went to Brighton for two months. The result was such a steady gain in physical force and mental equilibrium that he was able to resume his military duties.

Not by his own request was he spared the boredom, the misery, the ghoulish horror of the trenches. The higher expediency was able to realize that men of Brandon’s age, particularly if they have once been badly knocked out, don’t pay for cartage to France. Therefore he was given a commission and sent to the north to train new units.

He didn’t complain. Whatever his job, he would have taken off his coat and set to. He was no subscriber to the military fetish, nothing would ever make him one, but in August, 1914, he had given his services unconditionally to his country and he was not the man to shirk the obligation into which he had entered.

To one of subtle perceptions and fastidious culture,the teaching of a lot of “bandy-legged coal-shovelers” to form fours, and to hurl an imaginary bomb at an imaginary Hun should have been a wearisome, soul-destroying affair. Yet somehow it was not. There was a time when in spite of his honest, democratic liberalism, he would have been tried beyond endurance by the fantastic boredom of it all. But that time had passed. Never again could the human factor, however primitive, be without its meaning. He had been wrought upon by a miracle, and it abided with him during every hour of the new life.

His thoughts were often with John Smith. Enshrined in Brandon’s heart as a divine symbol, he was the key to a Mystery which had the power to cleanse even the thing called war of its bestial obscenity. Many a night when he came back dog-tired and heart-sore, to a dirty, comfortless room and an ill-cooked meal in a rude, miserable colliery township whose like he had never seen, he was sustained by the sublime faith of one who, for the sake of the love he bore his kind, had dared to transcend reason in order to affirm it.

Many a night in the fetid air of a bedroom whose window could not be persuaded to open, he lay on a broken-backed mattress trying to relate this divine friend with the humanity through whose travail hehad found expression. Who and what was this portent? Was he akin to the August Founder of Christianity? Was he a madman hugging a crazy but pathetic and terrible delusion? Or was he the superman of which the World Spirit had long been dreaming, a great clairvoyant able to summon representative souls from the astral plane?

It must be left to the future to decide. At the best these were fantastic speculations, but they were now theclouof a forward-looking soul. Only these could sustain it in the path of duty. Week by week, it was being borne in upon Brandon that the sword could never hope to achieve anything worth achieving. Humanity was too complex and it was poisoned at the roots. Prussia after all was only a question of degree. Unless a change took place in the heart of man, these splendid, simple chaps with their debased forms of speech, their crudeness and their ignorance, would hurl their bombs in vain.

How he loved these bandy-legged warriors who never opened their mouths without defiling his ears. Deeper even than the spirit of race was the sense of human brotherhood. It resolved every difficulty, it unlocked every door. And the key had come to him by means of the inmate of Wellwood who had receivedit in turn from the divine mystic of the hills of Galilee.

The weeks went by in their weariness, yet nothing happened to the world. Months ago Urban Meyer had returned to America and the play had gone with him. The shrewd Pomfret had been made an agent for the author, in order to protect the interests of John Smith, but he received no word from New York beyond an intimation that the play had been mysteriously “hung up.” The news was not unexpected, yet he never doubted that sooner or later Urban Meyer would carry out his fixed intention of producing it.

In the meantime, Brandon wrote several letters to the inmate of Wellwood. The new turn of events was revealed, and great stress laid upon the supreme good fortune which so far had attended the play. To have convinced such a man as Urban Meyer of its almost plenary inspiration meant that its destiny was on the way to fulfillment.

The letters Brandon received in answer must have puzzled him greatly, had they not squared so exactly with the theory he had formed. Full as they were of warm and deep feeling, they yet seemed remote from the conditions of practical life. Even their note of sure faith was open to misinterpretation. There was no recognition of the singular providence which hadset Urban Meyer on the track of the play, or if there was, it took for granted that the little man was the chosen instrument of God. Like Brandon himself, he was only a medium, through which Heaven was to resolve a high and awful issue.

Brandon received no second command to Wellwood, and he had not the courage to make pilgrimage without it. But as the long months passed and he grew more secure in physical power, the impression of the dreamlike December journey remained ineffaceably vivid. Time strengthened a fervent belief in the sublime genius of John Smith, but the wild speculations to which that belief gave rise led to one inescapable conclusion which in the last resort he could not quite find the courage to embrace openly. The disciple was thrilled by the tone of each letter he received, but nineteen centuries had passed since the Master had walked among men; and Brandon, with his own work in the world yet to do, could only feel that Faith itself besought him not to go too far beyond the poor, limited, human ken.

In order to fulfill the common daily round, he felt bound to hold aloof from John Smith, yet the man himself was never out of his thoughts. And not for a moment did he forget a sacred task. Months went by, the brief occasional letters ceased, and then Brandonsent an emissary to Wellwood, so that he might gain first-hand knowledge without incurring the terrible risk his every instinct warned him must attend a personal visit.

Mr. Perry-Hennington was the chosen vehicle. Between the two men there had been a reconciliation. The return of health had enabled Brandon to shed much of his animosity; besides, he saw that if John Smith’s view of his mission was the true one, such a man as the vicar of Penfold could hardly be more than a humble catspaw of destiny. That good, but narrow and obtuse man, was perhaps only the unconscious means by which a second world-drama was to unfold itself.

In the autumn Brandon was granted a few days’ leave. After weary months of servitude in the arid north, a week at Hart’s Ghyll, among his own people, was like a breath of heaven. And it synchronized with a tide of greater events.

These began with a morning call from the vicar. A very different Gervase Brandon received him now in that glorious room, which, however, for them both, must always hold memories of anxious and embittered conflict. The squire of Hart’s Ghyll had emerged from the long night of the soul, and even to this closed mind he was far more than the Gervase Brandonof old. In returning to that physical world which he loved so well, he had gained enlargement. Something had been added to a noble liberality; a softness, an immanence of the spirit, which Mr. Perry-Hennington was quick to ascribe to his favorite process of purification by suffering.

The vicar was pleased by the warmth of his reception; and he had already had a sign of Brandon’s change of attitude. The previous day, at Brandon’s request, he had paid a visit to Wellwood. And in that request, Mr. Perry-Hennington saw a tacit admission of the justice of his actions; he also saw that Brandon, now clothed in his right mind, was fully alive to his own errors in the past.

“Well, my dear Gervase,” he said with full-toned heartiness, the underside of which was magnanimity, “yesterday, as you suggested, I went to Wellwood to see our friend.”

“More than good of you,” said Brandon, his eyes lighted by gratitude and eagerness. “An act of real charity. I could have gone myself, of course, but I don’t quite trust myself in the matter—that is to say—”

“Quite so—I understand and appreciate that. And I am particularly glad you left it to me to form my own impressions.”

“Well?”

“In the first place, I had a long talk with Dr. Thorp, who by the way is a singularly experienced and broad-minded man.”

“I fully agree.”

“Well, I’m bound to say that he grew quite enthusiastic over the poor dear fellow. In every way he is a most exemplary patient; indeed, I was told that he wields a truly remarkable moral influence over the whole establishment, inmates and nursing staff alike.”

“I learned that many months ago.”

“It is very surprising that it should be so.” The vicar’s air was one of perplexity. “But Dr. Thorp considers John Smith an extraordinary case.”

“So I have gathered.”

“He suffers, of course, from an obscure form of religious mania, which fully justifies his detention, but at the same time he leads the life of a saint.”

“How is his health?”

A cloud came on the vicar’s face. He did not answer the question at once. At last he said: “Let me prepare you for bad news. I regret to say that he is slowly dying.”

Brandon caught his breath sharply. He did not try to conceal his distress. He put a dozen eagerquestions. The announcement had come as a great blow.

“Dr. Thorp holds out no hope that his life will be a long one,” said the vicar. “Apart from the ravages of his disease, the spirit appears to be wearing out the body. He doesn’t take enough nourishment. He simply can’t be induced to touch flesh meat in any form; in fact for many weeks he has been existing almost entirely on bread and water.”

“He does not wish to live?”

“I think he longs for the other and the better world.”

“That, at any rate, is perhaps not altogether surprising.”

The thrust might not have been intentional, but the shadow deepened on the vicar’s face. “It is not,” he said. “Yet he is so well cared for, he is allowed such liberty, his relations with all the other inmates are so charmingly harmonious, that it is hard to see how the freedom of the outer world could add to his present happiness; that, at any rate, is Dr. Thorp’s view. His troubles, odd as it may seem, do not spring from his immediate surroundings; they spring from the present state of the world. His mania has crystallized into a strange form. He has become pathetically convincedthat he is the Savior, and he spends his whole time in fasting and prayer.”

“Did you see him?”

“Yes.” The vicar paused an instant, and in that instant Brandon literally devoured the subtly changing face of the man before him. “Not only did I see him, I was permitted to speak to him. Moreover, he sent you a message. You are always to remember that one unconverted believer may save the whole world.” As the vicar repeated the odd phrase, his eye met Brandon’s and a silence followed.

“I shall never forget the way he said it,” Mr. Perry-Hennington went on. “The tone of his voice, the look of his eyes gave one quite an uncanny feeling. Whether it was the mental and physical state of the poor man himself, or whether it was his surroundings, I cannot say, but somehow I can’t get the picture of him as he spoke those words out of my mind. It’s weak, I know, but the whole of last night I lay awake thinking of Wellwood, and this poor dear fellow, John Smith.”

“Was he so different from what you expected to find him?”

“Somehow he was. His disease has taken such a curious form. And in that strange place, in the midst of a lot of old men, afflicted like himself with variousfantastic delusions, he has an air of authority which is really most striking—I am bound to say is really most striking.”

“I cannot tell you how interested I am to hear you say that,” was Brandon’s eager rejoinder.

“If one had not continually said to oneself: ‘This gloomy place, haunted with dead souls, is Wellwood Asylum,’ one might even have come under a strange spell. Dr. Thorp says the freakish power of some of these broken-down intellects is amazing; and to see them seated around that large and somber room engaged in what John Smith calls ‘the correlation of human experience,’ is at once the most tragic and the most pathetic sight I have ever witnessed.”

“It is a sight that I, at any rate, shall take to my grave.” As Brandon saw again the picture by the inward eye, he was shaken by a wild tremor. “Henceforth, I shall see it always in this life, and I look to see it in the next.”

“Yes,” said the vicar. “I can well understand your feeling about it.”

Brandon gave a little shudder; and then, after a silence he said: “May I ask what impression you formed of our poor friend?”

“It is most difficult to put it into words. Physically and mentally he has undergone a very curious change;and he appears to wield a strange power over all with whom he comes in contact. As I say, I felt it myself. I shall never forget the shock I had when those eyes emerged from that bearded face. For a moment one could have almost believed oneself in the presence of Someone Else. Then I remembered where I was, but it needed an effort I assure you.”

“Do you still feel that Wellwood is the place for him?”

“Yes, I do. I discussed the matter with Dr. Thorp, and he is strongly of the opinion that the poor fellow is better off at Wellwood than he would be elsewhere. They have come to love him there. He is extremely well cared for, he never complains of the loss of personal liberty, and, as I say, there is every reason to think that his days are numbered.”

“Dr. Thorp has no doubt on that point?”

“None. The poor fellow is failing physically. At the present time he appears to live more in another world than he does in this. One does not pretend to know what that other world is or may be. Apparently it is a kind of mystical dreamland, in which he persuades himself that he communicates with departed spirits. And there are times when he enters a soul condition which lies outside Dr. Thorp’s own experience of psychical phenomena. In fact, he considersJohn Smith to be by far the most baffling and complex case with which he has ever had to deal.”

A number of other questions Brandon put to the vicar, in the hope of light from an authentic source upon a very remarkable matter. For himself he could only account for it by means of a far-fetched hypothesis, with which he knew that Mr. Perry-Hennington was the last man in the world likely to agree. All the same, one clear fact emerged from this conversation. There was a change in the vicar. Could it be that, since his recent visit to Wellwood, Mr. Perry-Hennington had begun to realize that there might be more things in earth and heaven than his philosophy had dreamed of hitherto?

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