Its Cathedral was rising at last in a small South African
capital. For many years a pro-Cathedral of corrugated iron had
sufficed. Now the first stage of a noble design in ruddy
sandstone was all but completed.
The new Bishop who had been called to sit in its Cape-oak throne
was complacent of its charms. Chancel and Lady-chapel were
provided; transepts and tower might be expected in due course of
time. The Bishop was long and lean and dark-haired, very closely
shaven. He came from Oxford, yet he was wise enough to obtrude
that fact but seldom on South Africa. He watched and listened
intently and said strangely little; nevertheless, when he did
speak, he seemed to have no lack of things to say. His speech to
the Cathedral Building Committee after a three months' silence
was not without its interest. He spoke well of both design and
execution.
He turned to the shyer subject of the raising of the funds. How
had they attained to such wealth as their secretary announced?
Mainly by means of three fancy fairs and a cafe chantant. Alas!
that it should be so. Yet he did not propose to hold inquests.
Let the dead bury their dead! Let them, however, set their hearts
as the nether millstone against the adding of transept or tower
save only by alms made to God. He went on to ask with whose
memory the Lady-chapel was to be associated. Was it not the fact
that they had associated the chapel of Christ's Mother with the
memory of a visionary statesman? There seemed to be want of
consideration for the great dead shown in their popular decision,
inasmuch as he had not seen his way to accept her Son. Was it not
something of a felony to have stolen the dead man's name--a
felony that had assisted their funds very lavishly? But, likely
enough, the Committee had had some noble thought in mind when
they gave to the dead such reckless honor. The last touches were
now being given to the nave. He wished to make a personal request
of his own. He understood that colored persons and natives were
not to be encouraged to frequent this mother of churches. Their
status within was, to say the least, precarious and hard to
reconcile with due respect for the second chapter of Saint James.
He asked to put in at his own expense five windows after the
likeness of leper windows in England windows that colored persons
and natives might use freely and without reproach. By this means
someone at least of them from without the walls might be made
free of the vision of the services within.
The irony of the speech escaped its hearers for the most part.
After the usual type of debate on such a subject as viewed in
South African Church circles, the request was granted.
Now it happened that Mr. Conyers Smythe, the most prosperous man
in the whole community, was not present at that Committee
meeting. He was a Master of Arts of a South African University,
and a real scholar, not a mere qualifier. He was, moreover, both
sufficiently educated to understand the irony of a critical
friend, and habitually inclined to resent it. He spoke fierily to
certain of his intimates when the Bishop's speech was reported to
him. He went to see him himself next day in the evening time.
His host came and sat with him on the stoep, lighted the lamp to
show him a new book of his, and gave him coffee and a cigar. The
hour was about half-past seven, and the week was Christmas week.
There was a new moon of very dim silver in the West looking
through the rose trellis upon them, and masses of inflammatory
cloud were heaped about her. The host looked at the guest
meditatively as he lighted his pipe.
The guest was fair-haired and well-featured, as well as
magnificently built; but his deep color was not exactly the hue
of health. His eyes had been glowing when he had first come on
the scene, prepared to open battle. But when his host masterfully
gained an armistice they became dull and rather worn eyes, that
seemed not to be seeing good days somehow.
Their possessor only grew eager by flashes now and again as the
Bishop showed him a second new book one that they both deemed
highly delectable turning the passages and discussing various
phases of its general subject the cults of the Greek States.
They had come together, these two, in a very tiny and remote city
each an enthusiast as to this same by-path of erudition.
It was not until he had shown his guest the road on to a large
extent of commonage--commonage of mutual delight that the Bishop
led the way to a spot therein convenient for the desired
engagement. He began to discuss the relations of Xanthos, the
fair god, and Melanthos, the dark god, in Hellenic society.
'That's the trouble here,' he said. 'I hope you won't draw the
line even at my leper windows. They may at least ease the
isolation of our two cults here. I find established so to speak
in this Christian city the cult of Xanthos, tribal god of the
fair-skins at the Cathedral, or for the present the Pro-Cathedral.
Also I find the cult of Melanthos multiplying itself at the tin
temple of Saint Simon the Cyrenian.'
Mr. Smythe's cheeks became more deeply empurpled and his eyes
danced.
'You must know,' went on the Bishop, 'I don't believe in
tribal-gods at this time of day. I believe in Someone bigger. So
it was that leper windows, modeled on those of the Middle Ages,
seemed to me possible easements. There, at least, Lazarus may feel
at home and join in worship, as his forerunners in the Middle
Ages did, at their own wall-slits. Thus at least one step will
be taken towards the supercession of Xanthos. As to the cult
of Melanthos, I hope to help to infuse more of the joy of the
Universal into it, so help me God!!! Yes, let me hear your
objections.'
Mr. Smythe began quite conclusively. Yet there was more
moderation and more argument in his rather indistinct beginning
than in the flowing harangue that followed, when his voice
cleared and his periods found their stride. The speech fell from
level to level. Ere the end it fell to the level of that sort of
invective against natives one hears so often where mean whites
forgather a not very dizzy level, believe me!
Finally, Mr. Smythe vowed to give no penny for the future to
Church purposes, and never to darken the doors of the new
Cathedral, should the concession of those leper windows be
confirmed. He would agree to forfeit a thousand pounds should he
break his word, he said. Thereupon they closed the subject. The
host tried to lead back to the cults of the Greek States, but the
guest was now too rapt and breathless to follow to much purpose.
Soon, by mutual consent, they ended the interview, not without
private friendliness, but with civic war at heart.
This was in Christmas week, and things went much as might have
been expected during the months that followed. The concession had
been granted by the Committee, and the concessionaire thought it
his duty to be grateful for that small mercy and to act upon it.
The malcontent repeated his vow, and it rang throughout the
village-city. A good many of the natives who worshipped at the
tin temple managed to hear of it, and laughed to one another;
they would watch for the darkening of the doors.
The Cathedral was to be dedicated to Saint Mark as a saint who
was martyred in Africa, but lacked a cathedral in the south.
His day was chosen for the hallowing. On the eve some pomp of
Procession, Recession, and Anthems had been prepared, and the
Bishop was to preach. He had been away much of these last months
to north, south, east and west. So custom had not staled his
variety of appeal to the outer circle of citizens or villagers.
They, as well as the devotees, thronged the nave. At the leper
windows there were knots of dark participants in the service.
The windows gave; a few the chance of sight, but they were only
five in number, and it would seem that many had to be content
with very scanty views. It is questionable whether a number of
the smaller folk nurse-boys, kitchen boys and telegraph
messengers got any sort of a glance ere the pageantry was over.
The night was very clear; the autumn wind was somewhat bitter.
The hymn after the Blessing had been reached 'Brief life is here
our portion' and the banners streamed down the central aisle in
glory. The leper windows grew very starry with observation.
One boy who had come late had no chance of a view now. He was the
Bishop's coachman, a lanky Bechuana, and he stood humming the
hymn's air with his back to a window a window near the western
door. Suddenly he started. Somebody was striding up to the porch.
Surely there was no mistaking Mr. Conyers Smythe's fine shoulders
in that figure nor the jaunty carriage of his massive head. Now
he drew near, and the light of the porch-lamp fell upon him.
The coachman caught the arm of his stable-boy, who was standing
next to him a rather Jewish-looking Mashona.
'Look! look!' he cried.
They both watched the churchgoer as he passed up the steps. Then
he was gone from their view.
In the afternoon of the next day, when the triumphal services of
Dedication were over, the Bishop was being driven to a farmhouse
not very far distant. It was not till his mule-cart had almost
reached home again that his driver ventured to question him. He
had seemed rather preoccupied that driver all the dusty journey.
Now he asked a question that was being wildly debated in native
circles that very afternoon. 'My lord, has Mr. Smythe paid all
the thousand pounds yet?'
The Bishop started and stared; then he laughed. 'What do you know
of Mr. Smythe's thousand pounds?' he asked. Then he answered,
'No, Jack; why should he?'
Why indeed? So Mombe, the ox-man to give him his native name was
trying to evade his obligations, was he? Almost bursting with
importance, Jack told his master what Jim and he had seen last
night. The Bishop listened carefully, and asked two or three
questions. Then he told Jack that he might want him and his
stable-boy later on that evening. He felt sure that the story was
no mere willful fiction. When they were home he wrote a letter to
Smythe asking him if he could come over and smoke after dinner.
Then he went off to his sunset Evensong.
Conyers Smythe came about an hour afterwards. The Bishop and he
had had but two bookish evenings together since that rather
bizarre one in Christmas week. They met cordially enough on this
April night.
Smythe was looking far from well. He had been worried about his
wife's health she was away in England. The last news of it had
been rather disquieting. Smythe was glad enough of sympathy; he
was in no truculent mood.
They smoked by the fire in the Bishop's study as the night was
cold. The Bishop had some new books to show and points to debate.
The two began with Greek pagan cults, but passed on to Christian
hagiology, and discussed the legend of St. Mark with a fair
measure of agreement. Then, when the coffee had come in, and they
had I become friends at ease and amity, the Bishop told Smythe
the boys' tale.
Smythe grew curiously white and seemed angry.
Then he laughed. 'Let's have 'em in and hear their yarn!' he
said.
So Jack and Jim were sent for, and, after some slight delay,
appeared. They were well washed and in their Sunday clothes. They
were disposed to be deferential enough, but withal very
confident, both of them. They cast somewhat awed glances at
Smythe in his armchair, but they told their tale clearly on the
whole, in fair Biblical English, Jack first, slowly, and Jim, at
a great pace, after his superior. Smythe appeared to be busily
consulting a reference while Jim was ending. There was a pause.
Then the guest looked up from his book and stated his alibi: 'I
was in my stable, sitting up with a sick horse,' he said. 'I came
away long after the church service was over when the poor beast
died with frothing at the nose. You can ask my stable-boy.'
Jack bowed his head respectfully. 'Your stableboy, Mutenu, has
told me so this evening,' he said. 'But, O master, why should we
lie? Is it not known that people have been seen in two places at
one time'?'
Smythe frowned. He was not anxious to discuss hypotheses with
natives. Then the Bishop told the boys that he had heard enough.
Let them think that although they had spoken truth, they had been
mistaken.
'How do you explain it?' said the Bishop rather eagerly when they
had gone out.
'O,' said Smythe with a rather bitter smile, 'supposing it not to
be a native lie--natives have been known to lie, my lord--it's
the sort of story one reads about in the Middle Ages, the sort of
legend likely to linger. He was seen going into a church on a
certain ill-starred night.'
The Bishop gave a start and interrupted him. 'Do you know what
yesterday evening was? Why, it was Saint Mark's Eve.'
Smythe smiled a queer livid smile. 'Yes, I thought of that all
along, since the boy mentioned the porch,' he said. 'I've just
been looking up the old belief in that new book of yours. I was
seen going in, therefore I must look to go out in these next
twelve months.
A year, a month, a week, a natural day
That Faustus may repent and save his soul!
O lente, lente currite, noctis equi!
The stars move still, time runs, the clock will strike,
The devil will come, and Faustus will be damn'd.
The Bishop smiled at the quotation, but looked anxiously at his
guest. Was he really taking his subliminal self's choice of date
to heart? He proceeded to recount his own unfaith in thirteen's
black magic, also in the traditional properties of salt and
broken mirrors. He gave instances of disproof in his own unended
career.
But Smythe, though he laughed with him, seemed rather restrained
and silent: the last hour of that evening appeared to hang fire
somehow. Towards the end of it, Smythe talked of his wife. 'She
is at her old home,' he said, and mentioned a village very near
to Oxford.
'I know,' said his host, looking into the wood fire. He was
watching the Cherwell swirl through a narrow archway. He was
conscious of heavenly blue in the white limbo ceiling above him,
and the cushions of his chair had a grassy feel.
'She's gone home,' said Smythe, 'and she's not well, and I've not
been well.'
'You look as if you want rest and change,' said the Bishop
uneasily.
'I think of going a trip to the old country,' said Smythe. 'I was
born out here, and haven't ever seen it. I'd like to see it
once.'
'O, do go,' said his host. 'It is worth going far. Yes, all that
long way.'
Not many minutes after they said good-night.
But the Bishop did not go to bed at once after his guest had
gone. He reached for his Keats, and read, 'The Eve of Saint
Mark'; then he reflected.
'Strange are the uses of leper windows,' he thought. 'How I
should like to know what I may know this time next year, if only
I didn't know I'd better not know it now! Well, be it a sign or a
mock sign, God see him through with it!'
Conyers Smythe started home by the next mail boat save one. The
same boat carried a letter in the Bishop's handwriting to a
pastoral divine in Oxford.
'He's a sick sheep, anyhow,' said the writer, 'and I've a
presentiment that he mayn't last out a year.'
As it befell, Conyers Smythe died rather suddenly in England
before November was over. People remarked on the dreadfulness of
the event. But Mrs. Smythe bore the shock bravely, as if she had
been well prepared to bear it. It seemed that she had known the
truth about his heart-disease in May, almost as soon as he was
told it by the London doctor. Smythe had grown to be intimate in
those last months with two or three English scholars one was an
expert in tribal cults, and the other was that pastoral divine.
It was one or other of these Oxford friends of his who sent on
his last letter to the Bishop in December after he had gone away.
Among other messages, the letter brought this one:
'There was something in that Saint Mark's Eve business I suppose.
But I had had my warnings before of an event that is likely
enough to occur this very week. I am glad indeed that I came home
and saw things from other sides before the end. Perhaps those
crowded-out Kaffirs by your leper windows hurried me up with
their intelligence. I am grateful to them for that. Otherwise I
might have delayed, and never started on the home voyage.
'You must make some allowance for my old point of view, as I was
born into it. But now I want to give both Transepts to the Glory
of God on condition that colored folk and natives shall, have
them to themselves undisturbed. Forgive my narrow-mindedness, but
I'd rather have it so than have all races mixed up together, and
perhaps they'd rather have it so themselves! No, I really don't
think I'm dying in the creed of the tribal god Xanthos, but in
the faith of Someone bigger. I can trust you to befriend me at
some altar of His. . . . I wish I could afford the Tower.'
'Alms!' said the Bishop. 'Thank God they'll not be built now by
bazaars or fancy fairs or even by cafes-chantants. Poor base-born
little churches out here, that one so often hears of, aren't they
only too likely to grow up into the temples of the tribal god?'
Thus the Transepts were destined to be of purer lineage than
Chancel or Nave or Lady-chapel. Only the Leper Windows are their
equals in descent as yet among their fellow-buildings. But there
is good hope of an honorable birth for the yet unborn Tower.