 CHAPTER 55 I had called on Ernest as a matter of course when he first came to London, but had not seen him. I had been out when he returned my call so that he had been in town for some weeks before I actually saw him, which I did, not very long after he had taken possession of his new rooms. I liked his face, but except for the common bond of music, in respect of which our tastes were singularly alike, I should hardly have known how to get on with him. To do him justice he did not air any of his schemes to me until I had drawn him out concerning them. I, to borrow the words of Ernest Landlady, Mrs. Jupp, am not a very regular churchgoer. I discovered upon cross-examination that Mrs. Jupp had been to church once when she was churched for her son Tom some five and twenty years since, but never either before or afterwards. Not even, I fear, to be married. For though she called herself Mrs., she wore no wedding ring, and spoke of the person who should have been Mr. Jupp as my poor dear boy's father, not as my husband. But to return, I was vexed at Ernest having been ordained. I was not ordained myself, and I did not like my friends to be ordained, nor did I like having to be on my best behavior and to look as if butter would not melt in my mouth, and all for a boy whom I remembered when he knew yesterday and tomorrow and Tuesday, but not a day of the week more. Not even Sunday itself, and when he said he did not like the kitten because it had pins in its toes. I looked at him and thought of his Aunt Alathea, and how fast the money she had left him was accumulating. And it was all to go to this young man, who would use it probably in the very last ways in which Miss Pontifex would have sympathized. I was annoyed. She always said, I thought to myself, that she should make a mess of it, but I did not think she would have made as great a mess of it as this. Then I thought that perhaps if his Aunt had lived, he would not have been like this. Miss behaved quite nicely to me, and I owned that the fault was mine if the conversation drew towards dangerous subjects. I was the aggressor, presuming I suppose upon my age and long acquaintance with him, as giving me a right to make myself unpleasant in a quiet way. Then he came out, and the exasperating part of it was that up to a certain point he was so very right. From his premises and his conclusions were sound enough, nor could I, seeing that he was already ordained, join issue with him about his premises as I should certainly have done if I had had a chance of doing so before he had taken orders. The result was that I had to beat a retreat and went away not in the best of humours. I believed the truth was that I liked Ernest, and was vexed at his being a clergyman, and at a clergyman having so much money coming to him. I talked a little with Mrs. Jupp on my way out. She and I had reckoned one another up at first sight as being, neither of us, very regular church-goers, and the strings of her tongue had been loosened. She said Ernest would die. He was much too good for the world, and he looked so sad, just like young Watkins of the Crown over the way who died a month ago, and his poor dear skin was white as alabaster, least way as they say he shot himself. They took him from the Mortimer. I met them just as they were going with my Rose to get a pint of 4L, and she had her arm in splints. She told her sister she wanted to go to Perry's to get some wool, instead of which it was only a stall to get me a pint of L, plus her heart. There's nobody else who would do that much for poor old Jupp, and it's a hard lie to say she is gay. Not but what I like a gay woman, I do. I'd rather give a gay woman half a crown than stand a modest woman a pot of beer. But I don't want to go associating with bad girls for all that. So they took him from the Mortimer. They wouldn't let him go home no more, and he'd done it that artful you know. His wife was in the country living with her mother, and she always spoke respectful of my Ruth. Poor dear, I hope his soul is in heaven. Well, sir, would you believe it? There's that in Mr. Pontifex's face, which is just like young Watkins. He looks that worried and scrunched up at times, but it's never for the same reason. For he don't know nothing at all. No more than an unborn babe. No he don't. Why, there's not a monkey going about London with an Italian organ grinder but knows more than Mr. Pontifex do. He don't know. Well, I suppose. Here a child came in on an errand from some neighbor and interrupted her. Or I can form no idea where or when she would have ended her discourse. I seized the opportunity to run away, but not before I had given her five shillings and made her write down my address, for I was a little frightened by what she said. I told her if she thought her lodger grew worse, she was to come and let me know. Weeks went by, and I did not see her again. Having done as much as I had, I felt absolved of doing more, and let Ernest alone as thinking that he and I should only bore one another. He had now been ordained a little over four months. But these months had not brought happiness or satisfaction with them. He had lived in a clergyman's house all his life, and might have been expected perhaps to have known pretty much what being a clergyman was like. And so he did. A country clergyman. He had formed an ideal, however, as regards what a town clergyman could do, and was trying in a feeble, tentative way to realize it. But somehow or other it always managed to escape him. He lived among the poor, but he did not find that he got to know them. The idea that they would come to him proved to be a mistaken one. He did indeed visit a few tame pets whom his rector desired him to look after. There was an old man and his wife who lived next door, but one to Ernest himself. Then there was a plumber of the name of Chesterfield, an aged lady of the name of Gover, blind and bedridden, who munched and munched her feeble old toothless jaws as Ernest spoke or read to her. But who could do little more? A Mr. Brooks, a rag-and-bottle merchant in Birdsey's rents, in the last stage of dropsy, and perhaps half a dozen or so others. What did it all come to when he did go to see them? The plumber wanted to be flattered and liked fooling a gentleman into wasting his time by scratching his ears for him. Mrs. Gover, poor old woman, wanted money. She was very good and meek, and when Ernest got her as shilling from Lady Ann Jones's bequest, she said it was small but seasonable and munched and munched in gratitude. Ernest sometimes gave her a little money himself, but not, as he says now, half what he ought to have given. What could he do else that would have been of the smallest use to her? Nothing indeed. But giving occasional half-crowns to Mrs. Gover was not regenerating the universe, and Ernest wanted nothing short of this. The world was all out of joint, and instead of feeling it to be a cursed spite that he was born to set it right, he thought he was just the kind of person that was wanted for the job and was eager to set to work. Only he did not exactly know how to begin. For the beginning he had made with Mr. Chesterfield and Mrs. Gover did not promise great developments. Then, poor Mr. Brooks, he suffered very much, terribly indeed. He was not in want of money. He wanted to die and couldn't, just as we sometimes want to go to sleep and cannot. He had been a serious-minded man, and death frightened him as it must frighten anyone who believes that all his most secret thoughts will be shortly exposed in public. When I read Ernest the description of how his father used to visit Mrs. Thompson at Battersby, he colored and said, that's just what I used to say to Mr. Brooks. Ernest felt that his visits, so far from comforting Mr. Brooks, made him fear death more and more. But how could he help it? Even Pryor, who had been a curate a couple of years, did not know personally more than a couple of hundred people in the parish at the outside, and it was only at the houses of very few of these that he ever visited. But then Pryor had such a strong objection on the principle to house visitations. What a drop in the sea were those with whom he and Pryor were brought into direct communication in comparison with those whom he must reach and move if he were to produce much effect of any kind, one way or the other. Why there were between 15,000 and 20,000 poor in the parish, of whom but the nearest fraction ever attended a place of worship? Some few went to dissenting chapels, a few were Roman Catholics. By far the greater number, however, were practically infidels, if not actively hostile, at any rate indifferent to religion, while many were avowed atheists, admirers of Tom Payne, of whom he now heard for the first time. But he never met and conversed with any of these. Was he really doing everything that could be expected of him? It was all very well to say that he was doing as much as any other young clergyman did. That was not the kind of answer which Jesus Christ was likely to accept. Why the Pharisees themselves in all probability did as much as the other Pharisees did. What he should do was to go into the highways and byways and compel people to come in. Was he doing this? Or were not they rather compelling him to keep out, outside their doors at any rate? He began to have an uneasy feeling as though ere long unless he kept a sharp look out, he should drift into being a sham. Through all would be changed as soon as he could endow the college for spiritual pathology. Matters however had not gone too well with the things that people bought in the place that was called the stock exchange. In order to get on faster it had been arranged that earnest should buy more of these things than he could pay for. With the idea that in a few weeks or even days they would be much higher in value and he could sell them at a tremendous profit. But unfortunately instead of getting higher they had fallen immediately after earnest had bought and obstinately refused to get up again. So after a few settlements he had got frightened for he read an article in some newspaper which said they would go ever so much lower and contrary to Pryor's advice he insisted on selling. He had a loss of something like five hundred pounds. He had hardly sold when up went the shares again and he saw how foolish he had been and how wise Pryor was for if Pryor's advice had been followed he would have made five hundred pounds instead of losing it. However he told himself he must live and learn. Then Pryor made a mistake. They had bought some shares and the shares went up delightfully for about a fortnight. This was a happy time indeed for by the end of a fortnight the lost five hundred pounds had been recovered and three or four hundred pounds had been cleared into the bargain. All the feverish anxiety of that miserable six weeks when the five hundred pounds was being lost was now being repaid with interest. Ernest wanted to sell and make sure of the profit but Pryor would not hear of it. They would go ever so much higher yet and he showed Ernest an article in some newspaper which proved that what he said was reasonable and they did go up a little but only a very little for then they went down, down and Ernest saw first his clear profit of three or four hundred pounds go and then the five hundred pound loss which he thought he had recovered slipped away by falls of a half and one at a time and then he lost two hundred pounds more. Then a newspaper said that these shares were the greatest rubbish that had ever been imposed upon the English public and Ernest could stand no longer. So he sold out again this time against Pryor's advice so that when they went up, as they shortly did, Pryor scored off Ernest a second time. Ernest was not used to vicissitudes of this kind and they made him so anxious that his health was affected. It was a range therefore that he had better know nothing of what was being done. Pryor was a much better man of business than he was and would see to it all. Ernest relieved Ernest of a good deal of trouble and was better after all for the investments themselves. For as Pryor justly said, a man must not have a faint heart if he hopes to succeed in buying and selling upon the stock exchange and seeing Ernest nervous made Pryor nervous too. At least he said it did. So the money drifted more and more into Pryor's hands. As for Pryor himself, he had nothing but his curacy and a small allowance from his father. Some of Ernest's old friends got an inkling from his letters of what he was doing and did their utmost to dissuade him, but he was as infatuated as a young lover of two and twenty. Finding that these friends disapproved, he dropped away from them and they, being bored with his egotism and high-flown ideas, were not sorry to let him do so. Of course, he said nothing about his speculations. Indeed, he hardly knew that anything done and so good a cause could be called speculation. At Battersby, when his father urged him to look out for a next presentation and even bought one or two promising ones under his notice, he made objections and excuses, though always promising to do as his father desired very shortly. CHAPTER 56 By and by a subtle, indefinable malaise began to take possession of him. I once saw a very young foal trying to eat some most objectionable refuse and unable to make up its mind whether it was good or no. Clearly it wanted to be told. If its mother had seen what it was doing, she would have said it right in a moment, and as soon as ever it had been told that what it was eating was filth, the foal would have recognized it and never have wanted to be told again. But the foal could not settle on the matter for itself or make up its mind whether it liked what it was trying to eat or no without assistance from without. I suppose it would have come to do so by and by, but it was just wasting time and trouble which a single look from its mother would have saved, just as Wirt will in time ferment of itself, but will ferment much more quickly if a little yeast will be added to it. In the matter of knowing what gives us pleasure, we are all like Wirt, and if unaided from without, can only ferment slowly and toilsomely. My unhappy hero about this time was very much like the foal, or rather he felt much like what the foal would have felt if its mother and all the other grown up horses in the field had vowed that what it was eating was the most excellent and nutritious food to be found anywhere. He was so anxious to do what was right and so ready to believe that everyone knew better than himself, that he never ventured to admit to himself that he might be all the while on a hopelessly wrong tack. It did not occur to him that there might be a blunder anywhere, much less did it occur to him to try and find out where the blunder was. Nevertheless he became dally, more full of malaise, and dally, only he knew it not, more ripe for an explosion should a spark fall upon him. One thing, however, did begin to loom out of the general vagueness, and to this he instinctively turned as trying to seize it. I mean the fact that he was saving very few souls, whereas there were thousands and thousands being lost hourly all around him, which a little energy such as Mr. Hawks might save. Day after day went by, and what was he doing? Standing on professional etiquette, and praying that his shares might go up and down as he wanted them, so that they might give him money enough to enable him to regenerate the universe. But in the meantime the people were dying. How many souls would not be doomed to endless ages of the most frightful torments that the mind could think of before he could bring his spiritual pathology engine to bear upon them? Why might he not stand and preach, as he saw the dissenters doing sometimes in Lincoln's in fields and other thoroughfares? He could say all that Mr. Hawks had said. Mr. Hawks was a very poor creature in earnest eyes now, for he was a low churchman. But we should not be above learning from anyone, and surely he could affect his hearers as powerfully as Mr. Hawks had affected him if he only had the courage to set to work. The people whom he saw preaching in the squares sometimes drew large audiences. He could at any rate preach better than they. Ernest broached this to prior, who treated it as something too outrageous to be even thought of. Nothing, he said, could more tend to lower the dignity of the clergy and bring the church into contempt. His manner was brusque and even rude. Ernest ventured a little mild dissent. He admitted it was not usual, but something at any rate must be done, and that quickly. This was how Wesley and Whitfield had begun that great movement which had kindled religious life in the minds of hundreds of thousands. This was no time to be standing on dignity. It was just because Wesley and Whitfield had done what the church would not, that they had one men to follow them, whom the church had now lost. Prior, I'd Ernest searchingly, and after a pause said, I don't know what to make of you, pond effects. You are at once so very right and so very wrong. I agree with you heartily that something should be done, but it must not be done in a way which experience has shown leads to nothing but fanaticism and dissent. Do you approve of these Wesleyans? Do you hold your ordination vows so cheaply as to think that it does not matter whether the services of the church are performed in her churches and with all due ceremony or not? If you do, then frankly you had no business to be ordained. If you do not, then remember that one of the first duties of a young deacon is obedience to authority. Neither the Catholic Church nor yet the Church of England allows her clergy to preach in the streets of cities where there is no lack of churches. Ernest felt the force of this, and prior saw that he wavered. We are living, he continued more genially, in an age of transition, and in a country which, though it has gained much by the Reformation, does not perceive how much it has also lost. You cannot and must not hawk Christ about in the streets as though you were in a heathen country whose inhabitants had never heard of him. The people here in London have had ample warning. Every church they pass is a protest to them against their lives and a call to them to repent. Every church bell they hear is a witness against them. Every one of those whom they meet on Sundays, going to or coming from church, is a warning voice from God. If these countless influences produce no effect upon them, neither will the few transient words which they would hear from you. You are like dives, and think that if one rose from the dead, they would hear him. Perhaps they might, but then you cannot pretend that you have risen from the dead. Though the last few words were spoken laughingly, and there was a sub-sneer about them which made Ernest wince, but he was quite subdued, and so the conversation ended. It left Ernest, however, not for the first time, consciously dissatisfied with prior, and inclined to set his friend's opinion on one side, not openly, but quietly, and without telling prior anything about it. He had fallen, as I have shown, among a gang of spiritual thieves or coiners who passed the basis metal upon him without his finding it out. So childish and inexperienced was he in the ways of anything but those back eddies of the world, schools and universities. Among the bad three penny pieces which had been passed off upon him, and which he kept for small hourly disbursement, was a remark that poor people were much nicer than the richer and better educated. Ernest now said that he always travelled third class, not because it was cheaper, but because the people whom he met in third class carriages were so much pleasanter and better behaved. As for the young men who attended Ernest's evening classes, they were pronounced to be more intelligent and better ordered generally than the average run of Oxford and Cambridge men. Our foolish young friend, having heard prior talk to this effect, caught up all he said and reproduced it more sudo. One evening, however, about this time, whom should he see coming along a small street not far from his own, but of all persons in the world, townally, looking as full of life and good spirits as ever, and if possible even handsomer than he had been at Cambridge. Much as Ernest liked him, he found himself shrinking from speaking to him, and was endeavouring to pass him without doing so, when townally saw him and stopped him at once, being pleased to see an old Cambridge face. He seemed for the moment a little confused at being seen in such a neighbourhood, but recovered himself so soon that Ernest had hardly noticed it, and then plunged into a few kindly remarks about old times. Ernest felt that he quelled as he saw townally's eyes wander to his white necktie, and saw that he was being reckoned up, and rather disapprovingly reckoned up, as a parson. It was the merest passing shade upon townally's face, but Ernest had felt it. Townally said a few words of common form to Ernest about his profession as being what he thought would be the most likely to interest him, and Ernest, still confused and shy, gave him, for lack of something better to say, his three-penny bit about poor people being so very nice. Townally took this for what it was worth and not a descent, whereon Ernest imprudently went further and said, Don't you like poor people very much yourself? Townally gave his face a comical but good-natured screw, and said quietly but slowly and decidedly, No, no, no, and escaped. It was all over with Ernest from that moment. As usual he did not know it, but he had entered nonetheless upon another reaction. Townally had just taken Ernest's three-penny bit into his hands, looked at it, and returned it to him as a bad one. Why did he see in a moment that it was a bad one now, though he had been unable to see it when he had taken it from prior? Of course some poor people were very nice, and always would be so. But as though scales had fallen suddenly from his eyes he saw that no one was nicer for being poor, and that between the upper and lower classes there was a gulf which amounted practically to an impassable barrier. That evening he reflected a good deal. If Townally was right, and Ernest felt that the No had applied not to the remark about poor people only, but to the whole scheme and scope of his own recently adopted ideas, he and Pryor must surely be on the wrong track. Townally had not argued with him. He had said one word only, and that one of the shortest in the language. But Ernest was in a fit state for inoculation, and the minute particle of virus set about working immediately. Which did he now think was most likely to have taken the juster view of life and things, and whom would it be best to imitate Townally or Pryor? His heart returned an answer to itself without a moment's hesitation. The faces of men like Townally were open and kindly. They looked as if it eased themselves, and as though they would set all who had to do with them at ease as far as might be. The faces of Pryor and his friends were not like this. Why had he felt tacitly rebuked as soon as he had met Townally? Was he not a Christian? Certainly. He believed in the Church of England as a matter of course. Then how could he be himself wrong in trying to act up to the faith that he and Townally held in common? He was trying to lead a quiet, unobtrusive life of self-devotion, whereas Townally was not, so far as he could see, trying to do anything of the kind. He was only trying to get on comfortably in the world, and to look and be as nice as possible. And he was nice, and Ernest knew that such men as himself and Pryor were not nice. And his old ejection came over him. Then came an even worse reflection. How if he had fallen among material thieves as well as spiritual ones? He knew very little of how his money was going on. He had put it all now into Pryor's hands, and though Pryor gave him cash to spend whenever he wanted it, he seemed impatient of being questioned as to what was being done with the principal. It was part of the understanding, he said, that that was to be left to him. And Ernest had better stick to this, where he, Pryor, would throw up the College of Spiritual Pathology altogether. And so Ernest was cowed into acquiescence, or cajoled according to the humor in which Pryor saw him to be. Ernest thought that further questions would look as if he doubted Pryor's word, and also that he had gone too far to be able to recede in decency or honor. This, however, he felt was riding out to meet trouble unnecessarily. Pryor had been a little impatient, but he was a gentleman and an admirable man of business, so his money would doubtless come back to him all right some day. Ernest comforted himself as regards this last source of anxiety. But as regards the other, he began to feel as though, if he was to be saved, a good Samaritan must hurry up from somewhere. He knew not whence. Chapter 58 Next day he felt stronger again. He had been listening to the voice of the evil one on the night before, and would parlay no more with such thoughts. He had chosen his profession, and his duty was to persevere with it. If he was unhappy, it was probably because he was not giving up all for Christ. Let him see whether he could not do more than he was doing now, and then perhaps a light would be shed upon his path. It was all very well to have made the discovery that he didn't much like poor people, but he had got to put up with them, for it was among them that his work must lie. Such men as Townley were very kind and considerate, but he knew well enough it was only on condition that he did not preach to them. He could manage the poor better, and let prior sneer as he liked. He was resolved to go more among them, and try the effect of bringing Christ to them if they would not come and seek Christ of themselves. He would begin with his own house. Who then should he take first? Surely he could not do better than begin with the tailor who lived immediately over his head. This would be desirable not only because he was the one who seemed to stand most in need of conversion, but also because if he were once converted, he would no longer beat his wife at two o'clock in the morning, and the house would be much pleasanter in consequence. He would therefore go upstairs at once and have a quiet talk with this man. Before doing so, he thought it would be well if he were to draw up something like a plan of a campaign. He therefore reflected over some pretty conversations which would do very nicely if Mr. Holt would be kind enough to make the answers proposed for him in their proper places. But the man was a great hulking fellow of a savage temper, and Ernest was forced to admit that unforeseen developments might arise to disconcert him. They say it takes nine tallers to make a man, but Ernest felt that it would take at least nine Ernests to make a Mr. Holt. How if, as soon as Ernest came in, the tailor were to become violent and abusive? What could he do? Mr. Holt was in his own lodgings and had a right to be undisturbed. A legal right, yes. But had he a moral right? Ernest thought not, considering his mode of life. But put this on one side. If the man were to be violent, what should he do? Paul had fought with wild beasts at Ephesus. That must indeed have been awful. But perhaps they were not very wild, wild beasts. A rabbit and a canary are wild beasts. But formidable or not, as wild beasts go, they would nevertheless stand no chance against St. Paul, for he was inspired. The miracle would have been if the wild beast escaped. Not that St. Paul should have done so. But however all this might be, Ernest felt that he dared not begin to convert Mr. Holt by fighting him. Why, when he had heard Mrs. Holt's screaming murder, he had cowered under the bedclothes and waited, expecting to hear the blood dripping through the ceiling onto his own floor. His imagination translated every sound into a pat, pat, pat. And once or twice he thought he had felt it dropping onto his counterpane. But he had never gone upstairs to try and rescue poor Mrs. Holt. Happily it proved the next morning that Mrs. Holt was in her usual health. Ernest was in despair about hitting on any good way of opening up spiritual communication with his neighbour, when it occurred to him that he had better perhaps begin by going upstairs and knocking very gently at Mr. Holt's door. He would then resign himself to the guidance of the Holy Spirit and act as the occasion, which I suppose was another name for the Holy Spirit, suggested. Triply armed with this reflection, he mounted the stairs quite jauntily and was about to knock when he heard Holt's voice inside swearing savagely at his wife. This made him pause to think whether after all the moment was an auspicious one, and while he was thus pausing, Mr. Holt, who had heard that someone was on the stairs, opened the door and put his head out. When he saw Ernest, he made an unpleasant, not to say offensive movement, which might or might not have been directed at Ernest and looked altogether so ugly that my hero had an instantaneous and unequivocal revelation from the Holy Spirit to the effect that he should continue his journey upstairs at once, as though he had never intended arresting at Mr. Holt's room and begin by converting Mr. and Mrs. Baxter, the Methodist in the top floor front. So this is what he did. These good people received him with open arms and were quite ready to talk. He was beginning to convert them from Methodism to the Church of England when all at once he found himself embarrassed by discovering that he did not know what he was to convert them from. He knew the Church of England, or thought he did, but he knew nothing of Methodism beyond its name. When he found that, according to Mr. Baxter, the Wesleyans had a vigorous system of Church discipline, which worked admirably in practice. It appeared to him that John Wesley had anticipated the spiritual engine which he in prior were preparing, and when he left the room he was aware that he had caught more of a spiritual than he had expected, but he must certainly explain to prior that the Wesleyans had a system of Church discipline. This was very important. Mr. Baxter advised Ernest on no account to meddle with Mr. Holt, and Ernest was much relieved at the advice. If an opportunity arose of touching the man's heart, he would take it. He would pat the children on the head when he saw them on the stairs and ingratiate himself with them as far as he dared. They were sturdy youngsters, and Ernest was afraid even of them, for they were ready with their tongues and knew much for their ages. Ernest felt that it would indeed be almost better for him that a millstone should be hanged about his neck and he be cast into the sea than that he should offend one of the little Holt's. However, he would try not to offend them. Perhaps an occasional penny or two might square them. This was as much as he could do. For he saw that the attempt to be instant out of season as well as in season would, St. Paul's injunction notwithstanding, end in failure. Mrs. Baxter gave a very bad account of Miss Emily Snow, who lodged in the second floor back next to Mr. Holt. Her story was quite different from that of Mrs. Jupp, the landlady. She would doubtless be only too glad to receive Ernest's ministrations or those of any other gentleman, but she was no governess. She was in the ballet at Drury Lane, and besides this she was a very bad young woman, and if Mrs. Baxter was landlady would not be allowed to stay in the house a single hour. Not she, indeed. Miss Maitland in the next room to Mrs. Baxter's own was a quiet and respectable young woman to all appearance. Mrs. Baxter had never known of any goings on in that quarter, but bless you, still waters run deep, and these girls were all alike, one as bad as the other. She was out at all kinds of hours, and when you knew that, you knew all. Ernest did not pay much heed to these aspersions of Mrs. Baxter's. Mrs. Jupp had got round the great number of his many blind sides and had warned him not to believe Mrs. Baxter, whose lip she said was something awful. Ernest had heard that women were always jealous of one another, and certainly these young women were more attractive than Mrs. Baxter was, so jealousy was probably at the bottom of it. If they were maligned there could be no objection to his making their acquaintance. If not maligned, then they had all the more need of his ministrations. He would reclaim them at once. He told Mrs. Jupp of his intention. Mrs. Jupp at first tried to dissuade him, but seeing him resolute suggested that she should herself see Miss Snow first, so as to prepare her and prevent her from being alarmed by his visit. She was not home now, but in the course of the next day it should be arranged. In the meantime he had better try Mr. Shaw, the tinker in the front kitchen. Mrs. Baxter had told Ernest that Mr. Shaw was from the North Country, and an avowed free thinker. He would probably, she said, rather like a visit. But she did not think Ernest would stand much chance of making a convert of him. CHAPTER 59 Before going down into the kitchen to convert the tinker, Ernest ran hurriedly over his analysis of Paley's evidences, and put into his pocket a copy of Archbishop Waitley's historic doubts. Then he descended the dark rotten old stairs and knocked at the tinker's door. Mr. Shaw was very civil. He said he was rather throng just now, but if Ernest did not mind the sound of hammering, he should be very glad to talk with him. Our hero, assenting to this, ere long led the conversation to Waitley's historic doubts. A work which, as the reader may know, pretends to show that there was never any such person as Napoleon Bonaport, and thus satirizes the arguments of those who have attacked the Christian miracles. Mr. Shaw said he knew historic doubts very well. And what do you think of it? said Ernest, who regarded the pamphlet as a masterpiece of wit and cogency. If you really want to know, said Mr. Shaw, with a sly twinkle, I think that he who was so willing and able to prove that what was was not would be equally able and willing to make a case for thinking that what was not was if it suited his purpose. Ernest was very much taken aback. How was it that all the clever people of Cambridge had never put him up to this simple rejoinder? The answer is easy. They did not develop it for the same reason that a hen had never developed webbed feet, that is to say, because they did not want to do so. But this was before the days of evolution, and Ernest could not as yet know anything of the great principle that underlies it. You see, continued Mr. Shaw, these writers all get their living by writing in a certain way, and the more they write in that way, the more they are likely to get on. You should not call them dishonest for this any more than a judge should call a barrister dishonest for earning his living by defending one in whose innocence he does not seriously believe. But you should hear the barrister on the other side before you decide upon the case. This was another facer. Ernest could only stammer that he had endeavored to examine these questions as carefully as he could. You think you have, said Mr. Shaw. You Oxford and Cambridge gentlemen think you have examined everything. I have examined very little myself, except the bottoms of old kettles and saucepans. But if you will answer me a few questions, I will tell you whether or no you have examined much more than I have. Ernest expressed his readiness to be questioned. Then, said the tinker, give me the story of the resurrection of Jesus Christ as told in St. John's Gospel. I am sorry to say that Ernest mixed up the four accounts in a deplorable manner. He even made the angel come down and roll away the stone and sit upon it. He was covered with confusion when the tinker first told him without the book of some of his many inaccuracies and then verified his criticisms by referring to the New Testament itself. Now, said Mr. Shaw, good-naturedly, I am an old man and you are a young one, so perhaps you will not mind my giving you a piece of advice. I like you, for I believe you mean well, but you've been real bad brought up, and I don't think you have ever had so much as a chance yet. You know nothing of our side of the question, and I have just shown you that you do not know much more of your own, but I think you will make a kind of Carlisle sort of man someday. Now, go upstairs and read the accounts of the resurrection correctly, without mixing them up, and have a clear idea of what it is that each writer tells us. Then, if you feel inclined to pay me another visit, I shall be glad to see you, for I shall know you have made a good beginning and mean business. Till then, sir, I must wish you a very good morning. Ernest retreated, abashed. An hour sufficed him to perform the task and joined upon him by Mr. Shaw, and at the end of that hour the no-no-no, which still sounded in his ears as he heard it from Townley, came ringing up more loudly still from the very pages of the Bible itself, and in respect of the most important of all the events which are recorded in it. Surely Ernest's first day's attempt at more promiscuous visiting, and at carrying out his principles more thoroughly, had not been unfruitful. But he must go and have a talk with Pryor. He therefore got his lunch and went to Pryor's lodgings. Pryor not being at home, he lounged to the British Museum Reading Room, then recently opened, sent for the vestiges of creation, which he had never yet seen, and spent the rest of the afternoon in reading it. Ernest did not see Pryor on the day of his conversation with Mr. Shaw, but he did so next morning and found him in a good temper, which of late he had rarely been. Sometimes, indeed, he had behaved to Ernest in a way which did not bode well for the harmony with which the College of Spiritual Pathology would work when it had once been founded. It almost seemed as though he were trying to get a complete moral ascendancy over him, so as to make him a creature of his own. He did not think it possible that he could go too far, and indeed, when I reflect upon my hero's folly and inexperience, there is much to be said an excuse for the conclusion which Pryor came to. As a matter of fact, however, it was not so. Ernest's faith in Pryor had been too great to be shaken down all in a moment, but it had been weakened lately more than once. Ernest had fought hard against allowing himself to see this. Nevertheless, any third person who knew the pair would have been able to see that the connection between the two might end at any moment, for when the time for one of Ernest's snipe-like changes of flight came, he was quick in making it. The time, however, was not yet come, and the intimacy between the two was apparently all that it had ever been. It was only that horrid money business, so said Ernest to himself, that caused any unpleasantness between them, and no doubt Pryor was right, and he, Ernest, much too nervous. However, that might stand over for the present. In like manner, though he had received a shock by reason of his conversation with Mr. Shaw, and by looking at the vestiges, he was as yet too much stunned to realize the change which was coming over him. In each case the momentum of old habits carried him forward in the old direction. He therefore called on Pryor and spent an hour and more with him. He did not say that he had been visiting among his neighbors. This to Pryor would have been like a red rag to a bull. He only talked in much of his usual vein about the proposed college, the lamentable want of interest in spiritual things, which was characteristic of modern society, and other kindred matters. He concluded by saying that for the present he feared Pryor was indeed right, and that nothing could be done. As regards the laity, said Pryor, nothing. Not until we have a discipline which we can enforce with pains and penalties. How can a sheep dog work a flock of sheep unless he can bite occasionally, as well as bark? But as regards ourselves, we can do much. Pryor's manner was strange throughout the conversation, as though he were thinking all the time of something else. His eyes wandered curiously over Ernest, as Ernest had often noticed them wander before. The words were about the church discipline, but somehow or other the discipline part of the story had a knack of dropping out after having been again and again emphatically declared to apply to the laity and not to the clergy. Once indeed Pryor had pettishly exclaimed, Oh, bother the college of spiritual pathology. As regards the clergy, glimpses of a pretty large cloven hoof kept peeping out from under the saintly robe of Pryor's conversation, to the effect that so long as they were theoretically perfect, practical peccadillos, or even peccadachios, if there is such a word, were of less importance. He was restless, as though wanting to approach a subject which he did not quite venture to touch upon, and kept harping, he did this about every third day. On the wretched lack of definition concerning the limits of vice and virtue, and the way in which half the vices wanted regulating rather than prohibiting, he dwelt also on the advantages of complete unreserve, and hinted that there were mysteries into which Ernest had not yet been initiated, but which would enlighten him when he got to know them, as he would be allowed to do when his friends saw that he was strong enough. Pryor had often been like this before, but never so nearly, as it seemed to Ernest, coming to a point, though what the point was he could not fully understand. His inquietude was communicating itself to Ernest, who would probably air along have come to know as much as Pryor could tell him, but the conversation was abruptly interrupted by the appearance of a visitor. We shall never know how it would have ended, for this was the very last time that Ernest ever saw Pryor. Perhaps Pryor was going to break to him some bad news about his speculations. Ernest now went home and occupied himself till luncheon, with studying Dean Alford's notes upon the various evangelical records of the Resurrection. Doing as Mr. Shaw had told him, and trying to find out not that they were all accurate, but whether they were all accurate or no, he did not care which result he should arrive at, but he was resolved that he would reach one or the other. When he had finished Dean Alford's notes, he found them to come to this. Namely, that no one yet had succeeded in bringing the four accounts into tolerable harmony with each other, and that the Dean, seeing no chance of succeeding better than his predecessors had done, recommended that the whole story should be taken on trust. And this Ernest was not prepared to do. He got his luncheon, went out for a long walk, and returned to dinner at half past six. While Mrs. Jupp was getting him his dinner, a steak and a pint of stout, she told him that Miss Snow would be very happy to see him in about an hour's time. This disconcerted him, for his mind was too unsettled for him to wish to convert anyone just then. He reflected a little, and found that, in spite of the sudden shock to his opinions, he was being irresistibly drawn to pay the visit, as though nothing had happened. It would not look well for him not to go, for he was known to be in the house. He ought not to be in too great a hurry to change his opinions on such a matter as the evidence for Christ's resurrection all of a sudden. Besides, he need not talk to Miss Snow about this subject today. There were other things he might talk about. What other things? Ernest felt his heart beat fast and fiercely, and an inward monitor warned him that he was thinking of anything, rather than of Miss Snow's soul. What should he do? Fly, fly, fly, it was the only safety. But would Christ have fled? Even though Christ had not died and risen from the dead, there could be no question that he was the model whose example we were bound to follow. Christ would not have fled from Miss Snow. He was sure of that, for he went about more especially with prostitutes and disreputable people. Now, as then, it was the business of the true Christian to call not the righteous, but sinners to repentance. It would be inconvenient to him to change his lodgings, and he could not ask Mrs. Jupp to turn Miss Snow and Miss Maitland out of the house. Where was he to draw the line? Who would be just good enough to live in the same house with him? And who just not good enough? Besides, where were these poor girls to go? Was he to drive them from house to house till they had no place to lie in? It was absurd. His duty was clear. He would go and see Miss Snow at once, and try if he could not induce her to change her present mode of life. If he found temptation becoming too strong for him, he would fly then. So he went upstairs with his Bible under his arm, and a consuming fire in his heart. He found Miss Snow looking very pretty and neatly, not to say demurely, furnished room. I think she had bought an illuminated text or two and pinned it up over her fireplace that morning. Ernest was very much pleased with her and mechanically placed his Bible upon the table. He had just opened a timid conversation and was deep in blushes, when a hurried step came bounding up the stairs as though of one over whom the force of gravity had little power and a man burst into the room saying, I'm come before my time. It was townally. His face dropped as he caught sight of Ernest. What, you hear Pontifex? Well upon my word. I cannot describe the hurried explanations that passed quickly between the three, enough that in less than a minute Ernest, blushing more scarlet than ever, slunk off Bible and all, deeply humiliated as he contrasted himself end townally. Before he had reached the bottom of the staircase leading to his own room, he heard Townally's hearty laugh through Miss Snow's door and cursed the hour that he was born. Then it flashed upon him that if he could not see Miss Snow, he could at any rate see Miss Maitland. He knew well enough what he wanted now, and as for the Bible, he pushed it from him to the other end of his table. It fell over onto the floor and he kicked it into the corner. It was the Bible giving him at his christening by his affectionate aunt, Elizabeth Alibi. True, he knew very little of Miss Maitland, but ignorant young fools in Ernest's state do not reflect or reason closely. Mrs. Baxter had said that Miss Maitland and Miss Snow were birds of a feather, and Mrs. Baxter probably knew better than that old liar, Mrs. Jupp. Shakespeare says, O opportunity, thy guilt is great. Tis thou that executes the traitor's treason. Thou sets the wolf where he the lamb may get. Whoever plots the sin, thou points the season. Tis thou that spurns at right, at law, at reason, and in thy shady cell where none may spy him, sits sin to seize the souls that wander by him. If the guilt of opportunity is great, how much greater is the guilt of that which is believed to be opportunity, but in reality is no opportunity at all. If the better part of valor is discretion, how much more is not discretion the better part of vice? About ten minutes after we last saw Ernest, a scared, insulted girl, flushed and trembling, was seen hurrying for Mrs. Jupp's house as fast as her agitated state would let her. And in another ten minutes, two policemen were seen also coming out of Mrs. Jupp's, between them whom they're shambled, rather than walked, our unhappy friend Ernest, with staring eyes, ghastly pale, and with despair branded upon every line of his face. End of Chapter 60. Recording by Ronda Fetterman Chapter 61 and 62 of The Way of All Flesh This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Ronda Fetterman The Way of All Flesh by Samuel Butler Chapter 61 Prior had done well to warn Ernest against promiscuous house-to-house visitation. He had not gone outside Mrs. Jupp's street door, and yet what had been the result? Mr. Holt had put him in bodily fear. Mr. and Mrs. Baxter had nearly made a methodist of him. Mr. Shaw had undermined his faith in the resurrection. Miss Snow's charms had ruined, or would have done so but for an accident, his moral character. As for Miss Maitland, he had done his best to ruin hers, and had damaged himself gravely and irretrievably in consequence. The only lodger who had done him no harm was the Bellows Mender. Whom he had not visited. Other young clergymen, much greater fools in many respects than he, would not have got into these scrapes. He seemed to have developed an aptitude for Miss Jupp almost from the day of his having been ordained. He could hardly preach without making some horrid faux pas. He preached one Sunday morning when the bishop was at his rector's church and made his sermon turn upon the question what kind of little cake it was that the widow of Zarapath had intended making when Elijah found her gathering a few sticks. He demonstrated that it was a seed cake. The sermon was really very amusing, and more than once he saw a smile pass over the sea of faces underneath him. The bishop was very angry and gave my hero a severe reprimand in the vestry after the service was over. The only excuse he could make was that he was preaching ex tempore, had not thought of this particular point till he was actually in the pulpit and had been carried away by it. Another time he preached upon the barren fig tree and described the hopes of the owner as he watched the delicate blossom unfold and give promise of such beautiful fruit in autumn. Next day he received a letter from a botanical member of his congregation who explained to him that this could hardly have been in as much as the fig produces its fruit first and blossoms inside the fruit, or so nearly so that no flower is perceptible to an ordinary observer. This last however was an accident which might have happened to anyone but a scientist or an inspired writer. The only excuse I could make for him is that he was very young, not yet four and twenty, and that in mind as in body, like most of those who in the end come to think for themselves, he was a slow grower. By far the greater part, moreover, of his education had been an attempt not so much to keep him in blinkers as to gouge his eyes out altogether. But to return to my story, it transpired afterwards that Miss Maitland had had no intention of giving Ernest in charge when she ran out of Mrs. Jupp's house. She was running away because she was frightened, but almost the first person whom she ran against had happened to be a policeman of a serious turn of mind who wished to gain a reputation for activity. He stopped her, questioned her, frightened her still more, and it was he rather than Miss Maitland who insisted on giving my hero in charge to himself and another constable. Townally was still in Mrs. Jupp's house when the policeman came. He had heard a disturbance and going down to Ernest's room while Miss Maitland was out of doors had found him lying, as it were, stunned at the foot of the moral precipice over which he had that moment fallen. He saw the whole thing at a glance, but before he could take action, the policeman came in and action became impossible. He asked Ernest who were his friends in London. Ernest at first wanted not to say, but Townally soon gave him to understand that he must do as he was bid and selected myself from the few whom he had named. Rights for the stage, does he, said Townally. Does he write comedy? Ernest thought Townally meant that I ought to write tragedy and said he was afraid I wrote burlesque. Oh, come, come, said Townally. That will do famously. I will go and see him at once. But on second thoughts he determined to stay with Ernest and go with him to the police court. So he sent Mrs. Jupp for me. Mrs. Jupp hurried so fast to fetch me that in spite of the weather's being still cold she was giving out, as she expressed it, in streams. The poor old wretch would have taken a cab but she had no money and did not like to ask Townally to give her some. I saw that something very serious had happened, but was not prepared for anything so deplorable as what Mrs. Jupp actually told me. As for Mrs. Jupp, she said her heart had been jumping out of its socket and back again ever since. I got her into a cab with me and we went off to the police station. She talked without ceasing. And if the neighbors do say cruel things about me, I'm sure it ain't no thanks to him if they're true. Mr. Pontifex never took a bit of notice of me no more than if I had been a sister. Oh, it's enough to make anyone's backbone curdle. Then I thought perhaps my Rose might get on better with him so I set her to dust him and clean him as though I were busy and gave her such a beautiful clean new penny, but he never took no notice of her no more than he did of me. And she didn't want no compliment, neither. She wouldn't have taken not a shilling from him, though he had offered it. But he didn't seem to know anything at all. I can't make out what the young men are coming to. I wish the horn may blow for me and the worms take me this very night, if it's not enough to make a woman stand before God and strike the one half on him silly to see the way they goes on and makes an honest girl has to go home night after night without so much as a four-penny bit and paying three and six pence a week rent and not a shelf or cupboard in the place and a dead wall in front of the window. It's not Mr. Pontifex, she continued, that's so bad. He's good at heart. He never says nothing unkind. And then there's his dear eyes. But when I speak about that to my Rose, she calls me an old fool and says I ought to be polaxed. It's that prior that I can't abide. Oh, he. He likes to wound a woman's feelings, he do, and to chuck anything in her face, he do. He likes to wind a woman up and to wound her down. Mrs. Jupp pronounced wound as though it rhymed to sound. It's a gentleman's place to sue the woman. But he. He'd like to tear her hair out by handfuls. Why, he told me to my face that I was getting old. Old indeed. There's not a woman in London knows my age except Mrs. Davis down in the old Kent Road and beyond a haricote vein in one of my legs. I'm as young as ever I was. Old indeed. There's many a good tune played on an old fiddle. I hate his nasty insinuendos. Even if I had wanted to stop her, I could not have done so. She said a great deal more than I have given above. I have left out much because I cannot remember it, but still more because it was really impossible for me to print it. When we got to the police station I found Townley and Ernest already there. The charge was one of assault, but not aggravated by serious violence. Even so, however, it was lamentable enough and we both saw that our young friend would have to pay dearly for his inexperience. We tried to bail him out for the night, but the inspector would not accept bail, so we were forced to leave him. Townley then went back to Mrs. Jupp's to see if he could find Miss Maitland and arrange matters with her. She was not there, but he traced her to the house of her father who lived at Camberwell. The father was furious and would not hear of any intercession on Townley's part. He was a dissenter and glad to make the most of any scandal against a clergyman. Townley, therefore, was obliged to return unsuccessful. Next morning Townley, who regarded Ernest as a drowning man, who must be picked out of the water somehow or other if possible, irrespective of the way in which he got into it, called on me and we put the matter into the hands of one of the best known attorneys of the day. I was greatly pleased with Townley and thought it due to him to tell him what I had told no one else. I mean that Ernest would come into his aunt's money in a few years' time and would therefore then be rich. Townley was doing all he could before this, but I knew that the knowledge I had imparted to him would make him feel as though Ernest was more one of his own class and therefore had a greater claim upon his good offices. As for Ernest himself, his gratitude was greater than could be expressed in words. I have heard him say that he can call to mind many moments, each one of which might well pass for the happiest of his life, but that this night stands clearly out as the most painful that he ever passed, yet so kind and considerate was Townley that it was quite bearable. But with all the best wishes in the world, neither Townley nor I could do much to help beyond giving our moral support. Our attorney told us that the magistrate before whom Ernest would appear was very severe on cases of this description, and that the fact of his being a clergyman would tell against him. Ask for no remand, he said, and make no defense. We will call Mr. Pontifex's rector and you two gentlemen as witnesses for previous good character. These will be enough. Let us then make a profound apology and beg the magistrate to deal with the case summarily instead of sending it for trial. If you can get this, believe me, your young friend will be better out of it than he has any right to expect. Chapter 62 This advice, besides being obviously sensible, would end in saving Ernest both time and suspense of mind, so he had no hesitation in adopting it. The case was called on about eleven o'clock, but we got it adjourned till three, so as to give time for Ernest to set his affairs as straight as he could, and to execute a power of attorney enabling me to act for him as I should think fit while he was in prison. Then all came out about prior and the College of Spiritual Pathology. Ernest had even greater difficulty in making a clean breast of this than he had in telling us about Miss Maitland, but he told us all, and the upshot was that he had actually handed over to prior every half-penny that he had then possessed with no other security than prior's IOUs for the amount. Ernest, though still declining to believe that prior could be guilty of dishonorable conduct, was becoming alive to the folly of what he had been doing. He still made sure, however, of recovering at any rate the greater part of his property as soon as prior should have had time to sell. Townley and I were of a different opinion, but we did not say what we thought. It was dreary work waiting all the morning amid such unfamiliar and depressing surroundings. I thought how the psalmist had exclaimed with quiet irony. One day in thy courts is better than a thousand, and I thought that I could utter a very similar sentiment in respect of the courts in which Townley and I were compelled to loiter. At last, about three o'clock, the case was called on, and we went round to the part of the court which is reserved for the general public, while Ernest was taken into the prisoner's dock. As soon as he had collected himself sufficiently, he recognized the magistrate as the old gentleman who had spoken to him in the train on the day he was leaving school, and saw, or thought he saw, to his great grief that he too was recognized. Mr. Ottery, for this was our attorney's name, took the line he had proposed. He called no other witnesses than the rector, Townley and myself, and threw himself on the mercy of the magistrate. When he had concluded, the magistrate spoke as follows. Ernest Pontifex, yours is one of the most painful cases that I have ever had to deal with. You have been singularly favored in your parentage and education. You have had before you the example of blameless parents who doubtless instilled into you from childhood the enormity of the offense which by your own confession you have committed. You were sent to one of the best public schools in England. It is not likely that in the healthy atmosphere of such a school as Ruffborough you could have come across contaminating influences. You were probably, I may say, certainly impressed at school with the heinousness of any attempt to depart from the strictest chastity until such time as you had entered into a state of matrimony. At Cambridge you were shielded from impurity by every obstacle which virtuous and vigilant authorities could advise, and even had the obstacles been fewer, your parents probably took care that your means should not admit of your throwing money away upon abandoned characters. At night proctors patrolled the street and dogged your steps if you tried to go into any haunt where the presence of vice was suspected. By day the females who were admitted within the college walls were selected mainly on the score of age and ugliness. It is hard to see what more can be done for any young man than this. For the last four or five months you have been a clergyman, and if a single impure thought had still remained within your mind, ordination should have removed it. Nevertheless, not only does it appear that your mind is as impure as though none of the influences to which I have referred to have been brought to bear upon it, but it seems as though their only result has been this, that you have not even the common sense to be able to distinguish between a respectable girl and a prostitute. If I were to take a strict view of my duty I should commit you for trial, but in consideration of this being your first offense I shall deal leniently with you and sentence you to imprisonment with hard labor for six calendar months. Townley and I both thought there was a touch of irony in the magistrates' speech, and that he could have given a lighter sentence if he would, but that was neither here nor there. We obtained leave to see Ernest for a few minutes before he was removed to cold bath fields where he was to serve his term, and found him so thankful to have been summarily dealt with that he hardly seemed to care about the miserable plight in which he was to pass the next six months. When he came out he said he would take what remained of his money, go off to America or Australia, and never be heard of more. We left him full of this resolve. I, to write to Theobald, and also to instruct my solicitor to get Ernest's money out of Pryor's hands, and Townley to see the reporters and keep the case out of the newspapers. He was successful as regards all the higher class papers. There was only one journal, and that of the lowest class, which was incorruptible. For more information, or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org, recording by Rhonda Fetterman. The Way of All Flesh by Samuel Butler, Chapter 63. I saw my solicitor at once, but when I tried to write to Theobald, I found it better to say I would run down and see him. I therefore proposed this, asking him to meet me at the station, and hinting that I must bring bad news about his son. I knew he would not get my letter more than a couple of hours before I should see him, and thought the short interval of suspense might break the shock of what I had to say. Never do I remember to have halted more between two opinions than on my journey to Battersby upon this unhappy errand. When I thought of the little, sallow-faced lad whom I had remembered years before of the long and savage cruelty with which he had been treated in childhood, cruelty nonetheless real for having been due to ignorance and stupidity rather than to deliberate malice, of the atmosphere of lying and self-lorditory hallucination in which he had been brought up, of the readiness the boy had shown to love anything that would be good enough to let him, and of how affection for his parents, unless I am much mistaken, had only died in him because it had been killed anew again and again and again each time that it had tried to spring. When I thought of all this, I felt as though if the matter had rested with me, I would have sentenced Theobald and Christina to mental suffering even more severe than that which was about to fall upon them. But on the other hand, when I thought of Theobald's own childhood, of that dreadful old George Pontifex, his father, of John and Mrs. John, and his two sisters, when again I thought of Christina's long years of hope deferred that maketh the heart sick before she was married, of the life she must have led at Cramsford, and of the surroundings in the midst of which she and her husband both lived at Battersby. I felt as though the wonder was that misfortune so persistent had not been followed by even greater retribution. Poor people, they had tried to keep their ignorance of the world from themselves by calling it the pursuit of heavenly things, and then shutting their eyes to anything that might give them trouble. A son having been born to them, they had shut his eyes also as far as was practicable. Who could blame them? They had chapter and verse for everything they had either done or left undone. There is no better-thumbed precedent than that for being a clergyman and a clergyman's wife. In what respect had they differed from their neighbors? How did their household differ from that of any other clergyman of the better sort from one end of England to the other? Why, then, should it have been upon them, of all the people in the world, that this Tower of Siloam had fallen? Surely it was the Tower of Siloam that was not, rather than those who stood under it. It was the system, rather than the people, that was at fault. If Theobald and his wife had but known more of the world and of the things that are therein, they would have done little harm to anyone. Selfish they would have always been, but not more so than may very well be pardoned, and not more than other people would be. As it was, the case was hopeless. It would be no use they're even entering into their mother's wombs and being born again. They must not only be born again, but they must be born again each one of them of a new father and of a new mother and of a different line of ancestry for many generations before their minds could become supple enough to learn anew. The only thing to do with them was to humor them and make the best of them till they died, and be thankful when they did so. Theobald got my letter as I had expected, and met me at the station nearest to Battersby. As I walked back with him towards his own house, I broke the news to him as gently as I could. I pretended that the whole thing was in great measure a mistake, and that though earnest no doubt had had intentions which he ought to have resisted, he had not meant going anything like the length which Miss Maitland supposed. I said we had felt how much appearances were against him, and had dared not to set up this defense before the magistrate, though we had no doubt about its being the true one. Theobald acted with a reddier and a cuter moral sense than I had given him credit for. I will have nothing more to do with him, he exclaimed promptly. I will never see his face again. Do not let him write either to me or to his mother. We know of no such person. Tell him you have seen me, and that from this day forward I shall put him out of my mind as though he had never been born. I have been a good father to him, and his mother idolized him. Selfishness and ingratitude have been the only return we have ever had from him. My hope henceforth must be in my remaining children. I told him how Ernest's fellow curate had got hold of his money, and hinted that he might very likely be penniless, or nearly so, on leaving prison. Theobald did not seem displeased at this, but added soon afterwards. If this proves to be the case, tell him from me that I will give him a hundred pounds if he will tell me through you when he will have it paid. But tell him not to write and thank me, and say that if he attempts to open up direct communication either with his mother or myself, he shall not have a penny of the money. Knowing what I knew, and having determined on violating Miss Pontifex's instructions should the occasion arise, I did not think Ernest would be any the worse for a complete estrangement from his family. So I acquiesced more readily in what Theobald had proposed than that gentlemen may have expected. Thinking it better that I should not see Christina, I left Theobald near Battersby and walked back to the station. On my way I was pleased to reflect that Ernest's father was less of a fool than I had taken him to be, and had the greater hopes, therefore, that his son's blunders might be due to postnatal rather than congenital misfortunes. Accidents which happen to a man before he is born in the persons of his ancestors will, if he remembers them at all, leave an indelible impression on him. They will have molded his character so that, do what he will, it is hardly possible for him to escape their consequences. If a man is to enter into the kingdom of heaven, he must do so not only as a little child, but as a little embryo, or rather as a zoosperm, and not only this, but as one that has come from zoosperms which have entered into the kingdom of heaven before him for many generations. Accidents which occur for the first time, and belong to the period since a man's last birth, are not, as a general rule, so permanent in their effects, though, of course, they may sometimes be so. At any rate, I was not displeased at the view of which Ernest's father took of the situation. CHAPTER 64 After Ernest had been sentenced, he was taken back to the cells to wait for the van which had taken to Cold Bath Fields, where he was to serve his term. He was still too stunned and dazed by the suddenness with which events had happened during the last twenty-four hours to be able to realize his position. A great chasm had opened between his past and future. Nevertheless, he breathed, his pulse beat, he could think and speak. It seemed to him that he ought to be prostrated by the blow that had fallen on him, but he was not prostrated. He had suffered from many smaller latches far more acutely. It was not until he thought of the pain his disgrace would inflict on his father and mother, that he felt how readily he would have given up all he had rather than have fallen into his present plight. It would break his mother's heart. It must. He knew it would. And it was he who had done this. He had had a headache coming on for all the forenoon. But as he thought of his father and mother, his pulse quickened and the pain in his head suddenly became intense. He could hardly walk to the van, and he found its motion insupportable. On reaching the prison, he was too ill to walk without assistance across the hall to the corridor or gallery where prisoners are marshalled on their arrival. The prison warder, seeing at once that he was a clergyman, did not suppose he was shamming, as he might have done in the case of an old jailbird. He therefore sent for the doctor. When this gentleman arrived, Ernest was declared to be suffering from an incipient attack of brain fever, and was taken away to the infirmary. Here he hovered for the next two months between life and death, never in full possession of his reason and often delirious. But at last, contrary to the expectation of both doctor and nurse, he began to slowly recover. It is said that those who have been nearly drowned find the return to consciousness much more painful than the loss of it had been. And so it was with my hero. As he lay helpless and feeble, it seemed to him a refinement of cruelty that he had not died once and for all during his delirium. He thought he should still most likely recover only to sink a little later on from shame and sorrow. Nevertheless, from day to day he mended, though so slowly that he could hardly realize it to himself. One afternoon, however, about three weeks after he had regained consciousness, the nurse who tended him, and who had been very kind to him, made some little rallying sally which amused him. He laughed. And as he did so, she clapped her hands and told him he would be a man again. The spark of hope was kindled, and again he wished to live. Almost from that moment, his thoughts began to turn less to the horrors of the past and more to the best way of meeting the future. His worst pain was on behalf of his father and mother, and how he should again face them. It still seemed to him that the best thing, both for him and them, would be that he should sever himself from them completely, take whatever money he could recover from prior, and go to some place in the uttermost parts of the earth where he should never meet anyone who had known him at school or college and start afresh. Or perhaps he might go to the gold fields in California or Australia, of which such wonderful accounts were then heard. There he might even make his fortune and return as an old man many years hence, unknown to everyone, and if so, he would live at Cambridge. As he built these castles in the air, the spark of life became a flame, and he longed for health and for the freedom which, now that so much of his sentence had expired, was not, after all, very far distant. Then things began to shape themselves more definitely. Whatever happened, he would be a clergyman no longer. It would have been practically impossible for him to have found another curacy, even if he had been so minded. But he was not so minded. He hated the life he had been leading ever since he had begun to read for orders. He could not argue about it, but he simply loathed it and would have no more of it. As he dwelt on the prospect of becoming a layman again, however disgraced, he rejoiced at what had befallen him and found a blessing in this very imprisonment which had at first seemed such an unspeakable misfortune. Perhaps the shock of so great a change in his surroundings had accelerated changes in his opinions, just as the cocoons of silkworms, when sent in baskets by rail, hatched before their time through the novelty of heat and jolting. But however this may be, his belief in the stories concerning the death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ, and hence his faith in all the other Christian miracles, had dropped off him once and forever. The investigation he had made in consequence of Mr. Shaw's rebuke, hurried though it was, had left a deep impression upon him. And now he was well enough to read he made the New Testament his chief study, going through it in the spirit which Mr. Shaw had desired of him. That is to say as one who wished neither to believe nor disbelieve, but cared only about finding out whether he ought to believe or know. The more he read in this spirit, the more the balance seemed to lie in favor of unbelief. Till in the end all further doubt became impossible, and he saw plainly enough that whatever else might be true, the story that Christ had died, come to life again, and been carried from the earth through clouds into the heavens, could not now be accepted by unbiased people. It was well he had found it out so soon. In one way or another it was sure to meet him sooner or later. He would probably have seen it years ago, if he had not been hoodwinked, by people who were paid for hoodwinking him. What should he have done? he asked himself, if he had not made his present discovery till years later when he was more deeply committed to the life of a clergyman. Should he have had the courage to face it? Or would he not more probably have evolved some excellent reason for continuing to think as he had thought hitherto? Should he have had the courage to break away even from his present curacy? He thought not, and knew not whether to be more thankful for having been shown his error, or for having been caught up in twisted rounds so that he could hardly err farther, almost at that very moment of his having discovered it. The price he had had to pay for this boon was light compared with the boon itself. What is too heavy a price to pay for having duty made at once clear and easy a fulfillment instead of very difficult? He was sorry for his father and mother, and he was sorry for Miss Maitland, but he was no longer sorry for himself. It puzzled him, however, that he should not have known how much he had hated being a clergyman till now. He knew that he did not particularly like it, but if anyone had asked him whether he actually hated it, he would have answered no. I suppose people almost always want something external to themselves to reveal to them their own likes and dislikes. Our most assured likings have for the most part been arrived at neither by introspection nor by any process of conscious reasoning, but by the bounding fourth of the heart to welcome the gospel proclaimed to it by another. We hear some say that such and such a thing is thus or thus, and in a moment the train that has been laid within us, but whose presence we knew not, flashes into consciousness and perception. Only a year ago he had bounded fourth to welcome Mr. Hawke's sermon. Since then he had bounded after a college of spiritual pathology. Now he was in full cry after rationalism, pure and simple. How could he be sure that his present state of mind would be more lasting than his previous ones? He could not be certain, but he felt as though he were now on firmer ground than he had ever been before. And no matter how fleeting his present opinions might prove to be, he could not but act according to them till he saw reason to change them. How impossible he reflected it would have been for him to do this if he had remained surrounded by people like his father and mother or prior and prior's friends and his rector. He had been observing, reflecting, and assimilating all these months with no more consciousness of mental growth than a schoolboy has of the growth of his body. But should he have been able to admit his growth to himself and to act up to his increased strength if he had remained in constant close connection with people who assured him solemnly that he was under a hallucination, the combination against him was greater than his unaided strength could have broken through. And he felt doubtful how far any shock less severe than the one from which he was suffering would have sufficed to free him. End of chapter 64. Recording by Rhonda Federman.