THE vicar remembered his sermon and looked at his watch. It was within
twenty minutes of luncheon; the most valuable morning of the week was
gone. The spirit of vexation rose in him again. It was all the fault
of this miserable fellow, John Smith. Two priceless hours had been
lavished on this wastrel, this dead charge on the community. Moreover
he would not be able to make up for lost time in the course of the
afternoon. At three o’clock he was due at Brombridge to attend the War
Economy Committee; at seven he had to take the chair at a recruiting
meeting at Grayfield, and dine afterward with his old Magdalen friend,
Whymper.
It cut him to the heart to forego the morrow’s sermon. He was the soul
of conscientiousness, and not since his attack of rheumatoid arthritis
nine years ago had he failed to come up to time on Sunday evening with
a brand new discourse. And if ever one was needed it was now. The
time cried aloud for pulpit direction. The government was conducting
the war in half-hearted fashion. It had not yet dared to bring in a
Conscription Bill, yet in Mr. Perry-Hennington’s opinion every man and
every woman in the country up to the age of sixty-five ought to have
been forcibly enlisted months ago. Several times already he had made
that proposal in the newspapers over his own signature, and it had been
greatly applauded by the only sort of people who counted in war time.
The hour was certainly ripe for a rasper in the way of a sermon. The
nation wanted “gingering up.” He must find time somehow to put his
ideas together against Sunday evening. As he strode with his long legs
down the glorious avenue of Hart’s Ghyll he felt braced and reënforced
with energy. Once more his thought began to flow. He had his text
at any rate, and it ought not to be difficult to strike something
compelling out of it. By the time the porter’s lodge was reached, he
had grown quite hopeful. Phrases, ideas, were filling his mind; perhaps
his morning had not been wholly wasted after all; it seemed to have
stirred him to something. “Let us put on the armor of light.” For the
vicar those words were a bugle call to the old Adam within. The spirit
of conflict, like a sleeping giant, sprang to new life.
Hardly had Mr. Perry-Hennington passed beyond the iron gates into the
village street, when a rather perspiring, decidedly genial-looking
man on a bicycle immediately recalled his pastoral duty to his mind.
Nay, it was more than that. The matter of John Smith had as much to do
with the state as the recruiting question, the economy question, the
supineness of the government, and the morrow’s sermon.
“Good-morning, Joliffe,” said the vicar in a hearty, detaining voice.
“The very man I want to see.”
“Nothing wrong at home I hope,” said the man on the bicycle, who
was the village doctor. He spoke in a simple, direct, unaffectedly
practical way, which all the same was not without a faint note of
deference, ever grateful to Mr. Perry-Hennington’s ear.
Dr. Joliffe slowed up and hopped from his bicycle.
“No, nothing of that kind I’m glad to say.” The vicar’s reply was
equally precise and to the point. “But I want to have a little talk
with you privately about a matter that is worrying me a good deal.”
“Very glad any time.” Dr. Joliffe looked at his watch. “Why not come
and take potluck with me now--if you are not afraid of Mrs. Small in
war time. She’s not up to your form at any time, but you are very
welcome to what we have.”
The vicar hesitated. He was expected at home, but John Smith was
burning a hole in his mind. He felt there must be no delay in taking
a man whom he could trust into his confidence, and if he lost this
present opportunity no other chance might arise for several days.
“You will?” said the practical Joliffe. “Although you’ll not expect
much. I’ll send my boy along to the vicarage to tell them not to wait
for you.”
Mr. Perry-Hennington allowed himself to be persuaded. Joliffe was the
only person in the place to whom he might turn for help; moreover he
was a discreet, unaffectedly honest man whom the vicar had always
instinctively trusted. And disconcerted as he was by Brandon’s attitude
in the matter, it was imperative that no time should be lost in taking
competent advice.
The doctor’s abode was a rather fine, small Georgian specimen, standing
back from the center of the village street. A widower and childless
in a house too large for his needs, a man of taste in furniture and
bric-a-brac, with a capital cellar and a good cigar for his friends,
he was also a man of private means to whom the neighboring villages
owed a great deal. He was such an excellent fellow, so widely and so
justly respected, that it was a little odd to find him tinged with the
national vice of servility. But with all his great merits he sometimes
found it rather hard to forget that he belonged to the middle class
and that the vicar belonged to the aristocracy. It may have been for
that reason that Mr. Perry-Hennington felt so much confidence in his
judgment. At any rate, the satisfying sense that Joliffe was aware
of the deference due to a peer’s brother oiled the wheels of their
intercourse, and enabled the vicar to treat him with a bonhomie which
he knew would not be abused.
Mrs. Small had only a cottage pie and a pancake to offer the august
visitor, but in spite of the King’s edict, to which the host
apologetically referred, this fare was eked out by a very honest glass
of brown sherry, a cup of coffee that did Mrs. Small great credit, and
a really excellent cigar.
Both gentlemen were due at Brombridge at three, to which center of
activity the doctor proposed to drive the vicar in his runabout. This
suited the vicar very well. He would be there and back in half the time
required by his gig. And old Alice, who was rising twenty-four, would
be able to save herself for the evening journey to Grayfield, which old
Alice’s master, fully conscious that “the old girl was not what she had
been,” and a humane man to boot, had been inclined to view with some
little concern. Things were turning out for the best in the mundane
sphere at any rate, and the vicar was not unpleasantly aware of this
fact as, after-luncheon cigar alight, he entered upon the incidental
cause of a modest but agreeable meal to which he had done perhaps
rather better justice than the state of his emotions justified.
“Joliffe,” said the vicar, taking a long and impressive pull at his
cigar, “what I really want to talk to you about is that fellow John
Smith. I am sorry to say I’ve come to the conclusion that he can no
longer be allowed to stay in the parish.”
“Indeed,” said the doctor casually. “A harmless sort of creature I’ve
always thought. Doesn’t quite know himself perhaps. A little too
free with his opinions may be, but strictly between ourselves”--Dr.
Joliffe’s voice grew respectfully confidential--“I think we may lay
that to the door of someone else.”
“Brandon, eh? I agree.” The vicar grew magisterial. “Always an
injudicious fellow. That’s the worst of your radical. Gives these
intermediate sort of people ideas.”
“Quite so. I wish you’d try the brandy.” The host pushed it across.
“No. Really. War time, you know.”
“I should value your opinion. Just half a glass.”
“Well, half a glass. To return to John Smith. Excellent brandy. My
girl, Edith, presented this fellow Smith with a white feather this
morning. Of course he’s a poor half-begotten sort of creature, but as
far as one can see there’s no reason why he shouldn’t be working at
munitions instead of loafing about the common.”
“Exactly. Sure you won’t have a _leetle_ more?”
“Quite. Well, if you please, he kissed the feather, stuck it in his
buttonhole, and said, ‘And lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and he
saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon him.’”
The doctor shook a grave, gray head. “Sounds decidedly cracked, I
must say. At any rate a most improper speech to make to a clergyman’s
daughter.”
“I should think so! Outrageous blasphemy!”
“Do you suppose the chap meant to insult her?”
“If he didn’t, and it’s charitable to give him the benefit of the
doubt, his behavior only admits of one other explanation.”
Dr. Joliffe sat, a picture of perplexity. To a severely literal mind
the speech was meaningless. He had known for some time that the man
claimed to see visions, that he was a poet and a dreamer; and the
doctor had lately heard rumors, to which he had paid little attention,
that the man was dabbling in Christian Science in neighboring villages;
but this was the first time it had occurred to him that the fellow was
insane. But now the doctor agreed with the vicar that such behavior
strongly suggested that condition.
“Mind you, that is not all.” And the vicar gave an account of his own
visit to the common, his conversation with the man, his subsequent
visit to the mother and the remarkable statement she had made to him.
“She has always been very religious,” said the doctor, “but up till now
I have not questioned her sanity.”
“Nor I,” said the vicar. “But she is not important. She is practically
bed-ridden. It is this son of hers we have to think about. I have
already made up my mind that he must go. And that being the case, the
problem arises as to what is the best means of getting rid of him.”
Dr. Joliffe, a worldly-wise man within his sphere, stroked his chin
solemnly but offered no advice.
“Of course,” said the vicar, “it is in the public interest that
whatever steps we may take should not excite attention. It is
sufficiently disagreeable to have that sort of lunatic in one’s
parish, without having busybodies and maliciously inclined people
making a fuss. The readiest and simplest means, no doubt, would be
to institute a prosecution for blasphemy. He would most certainly be
detained during his Majesty’s pleasure. But such a proceeding might
play into the hands of the enemies of the Established Church, in which,
unfortunately, the country seems to abound. We might have Voltaires
arising in the Cocoa Press or something equally revolting.”
“Quite so, vicar.” Dr. Joliffe compressed his lips. “You’ll be wise to
go slow in a matter of this kind, believe me, or you might easily find
public opinion against you.”
“As though one cared _that_ for public opinion.” The vicar snapped
heroic fingers. “Still, I see your point. And broadly speaking, I agree
with it. Now to pass to the second alternative. The man said to me--let
me give his precise words if I can--‘At two o’clock this morning a
presence entered my room and said, ”I am Goethe and I have come to pray
for Germany.” And I answered him, “Certainly I shall be very glad to
pray for Germany,” and we knelt and prayed together; and then he arose
and I embraced him and he showed me the little town with its gables
and turrets where he sleeps at night and then he left me, promising to
return.’”
“Perfectly preposterous,” said the doctor. “I quite agree that the man
ought to be locked up. But of course he doesn’t intend to be taken
literally. Obviously it is his idea of a poetic fancy.”
“No doubt. But a man must be taught to curb such poetic fancies in a
time like the present. Now the point which arises”--the vicar raised
a dogmatic forefinger--“is that a person who makes such statements
in public renders himself amenable to the Defense of the Realm
Regulations. And there is no doubt that any bench of magistrates that
knew its business would know how to deal with him.”
“Personally, I’m not altogether clear that they would,” said Dr.
Joliffe cautiously. “I agree with you, of course, that a man who talks
in that way needs a strait waistcoat--one wonders what would happen to
a man in Germany who went about saying he was praying for England! At
the same time one ought not to forget that nowadays even the county
bench is not composed exclusively of people as clear-sighted as you and
I.”
“That is so, I am afraid. Even the county bench is getting fearfully
mixed. Timson, the Brombridge grocer, is the latest addition, by
the way. But I see your point. In such an absurd country as this
one couldn’t depend on the man being dealt with in the way that
he deserves. That’s where the enemy with its wonderful internal
administration has such an advantage. Their system has much to
recommend it in war time--or in any other if it comes to that.”
Dr. Joliffe agreed. “We have much to learn from them in the handling of
the masses.”
“Ah, well, Joliffe,” said the vicar hopefully, “we shall learn many
things if this war goes on long enough.”
“I am convinced that the only way to down Prussia is to adopt Prussia’s
methods.”
“However,” said the vicar briskly, “we have not come to them yet.
Therefore we can’t rely on the county bench doing its duty in the
matter, although I hate having to say so. And that brings us to
alternative the third, which is, Joliffe, that this man, John Smith,
must be put away privately--for the good of the community.”
This taking of the bull by the horns was followed by a pause
on the part of the doctor. He was an admirer of the vicar’s
thorough-goingness, he was in full sympathy with the main premises
of his argument, but he was a conscientious man. And he had a clear
perception of the difficulties inherent in the process of confining a
lunatic.
At last Dr. Joliffe broke a dubious silence. “To begin with, vicar, you
will have to get two doctors to certify the chap insane, and then you
will have to get two magistrates to sign a warrant for his removal.”
“I know that,” said the vicar. “And I am fully prepared to do it. But
to begin with, Joliffe, I must have your help in the matter.”
“I am willing to give it of course. It’s one’s duty.”
“Then I shall ask you to certify him at once.”
Dr. Joliffe hesitated. A cloud of indecision came on his face. “Before
I do that,” he said very slowly, “I should like the opinion of someone
who has more knowledge of mental disease than I pretend to.”
“But, my dear fellow,” said the vicar rather surprisedly, “after what I
have told you aren’t you already convinced that the fellow is insane?”
“Insanity is a complicated subject,” said the cautious Joliffe. “A very
much more complicated subject than the layman appreciates.”
The vicar, at heart an autocrat, began to bristle at once. Scenting
contradiction in the quarter where he had least expected to find it, he
grew suddenly impatient. “But even a layman knows,” he said in a tone
of authority, “that insanity on one point is insanity on all.”
“Just so.”
“Well, that is already proved.”
“I shall not gainsay it. But a general practitioner is naturally
cautious--it is his duty to be so--in a matter of this kind. Let me
suggest that we have the opinion of a mental specialist before we
commit ourselves to any line of action.”
In the opinion of Mr. Perry-Hennington this was perilously like a
display of moral cowardice, but from a purely professional standpoint
it might not be unreasonable. All the mental specialists of Harley
Street would not alter the fact that the man was insane--it was the
only charitable assumption. At the same time, Joliffe’s request was
quite easy to understand.
“By all means.” The vicar’s tone of assent implied that he had to deal
with a timid fellow. “We’ll consult anyone you please. Of course, only
one opinion is possible, but if you feel it will help and strengthen
you in your duty don’t let us hesitate. By all means let us have
someone down at once.”
“I am sure it is the proper course to take.”
“Very well. Who shall it be? Not necessarily a man in the first flight
who will want a large fee, which I’m afraid will have to come out of
my pocket instead of out of the Treasury. Not that I shall grudge
it, whatever it may be. Still, the case is so clear that somebody
local, such a man as Parker of Brombridge, will not have the slightest
difficulty in certifying him.” The vicar gazed fixedly at Joliffe.
“Yes--shall we say Parker? He’ll be at the meeting this afternoon. I’ll
speak to him. We ought to move without delay. The fellow ought not
to be at large a day longer than we can help. Yes--Dr. Parker--this
afternoon. Get him over on Monday. And this evening I’m dining with
Whymper and Lady Jane--I’ll mention it to Whymper. All to the good to
get the local bench interested without delay.”
Dr. Joliffe nodded. But somehow he looked a little dubious.
“I think, Mr. Perry-Hennington,” he said rather uneasily, “we ought to
be very careful to satisfy ourselves that it is a bona fide case of
paranoia.”
“Certainly, certainly. I fully agree.”
“I’ve no objection to meeting Parker, of course, but I should welcome a
London opinion if it is possible to arrange for one. You see, this is
rather a serious matter.”
The vicar thought so too. “But personally, I have every confidence in
Parker’s judgment. I remember some years ago when my eldest boy George
had a murrain, Parker diagnosed it at once as a case of measles. I’ve
always found him quite sound personally.”
“I’ve not a word to say against him, I cast no doubt upon his
competence, but this is one of those delicate things which it hardly
seems right, if you’ll excuse my saying so, to leave entirely to local
practitioners whose experience must necessarily be limited.”
“Joliffe, I hope you are not hedging,” said the vicar sternly.
“No, I am not hedging. But, as I say, this is a ticklish matter.”
The vicar shook a pontifical head. “For the life of me,” he said, “I
can’t see that it is more ticklish than any other matter. Had there
been a doubt in the case one might have thought so. But the man is
as mad as a hatter. A child could tell that who heard him talk as he
talked to me this morning on the common.”
“No doubt you are right. But he has not yet aired these particular
views to me, you know.”
“Then you’ve evidently not talked to him on his particular subject.”
“Evidently not.”
“Wait till you do, my friend! In the meantime I’ll mention the matter
to Parker at the meeting and get him over on Monday to see him.”
Further conversation on the thorny subject was forbidden for the time
being by the reappearance of Mrs. Small, who had to inform her master
that the boy was round with the car. Thereupon Dr. Joliffe looked at
his watch and declared that they must start at once if they were to be
at Brombridge by three.