|Mrs. Haldane came no more to the Vicarage that week, and on Sunday
she did not remain, as she had hitherto done, for the communion at the
close of the morning service. She was evidently deeply offended, and
was doing all she could to avoid meeting the vicar. With him that week
had been one of terrible conflict. Tortured with remorse and shame, he
was still mad with passion. That kiss was still burning on his lips.
He still could feel that voluptuous form in his arms. It seemed,
indeed, as though Mrs. Haldane were his evil genius, driving him on
to destruction. He was unable to pray; and when he sat down to prepare
his sermon, her face rose between him and the paper, and, starting
up, he rushed from the house and walked rapidly away into the country.
This was in the forenoon, and he walked on and on at a quick pace for
several hours. He passed little hamlets and farmsteads which he did
not notice, for his mind was absorbed in a wretchedness so intense
that he scarcely was conscious of what he was doing. In the afternoon
he came to a wood, and, worn out with fatigue and agitation, he
entered it and flung himself beneath the shadow of a tree.
There he lay, a prey to conscience, till the sun went down. He had had
no food since morning, and he was now weak and nervous. He returned
from the wood to the high-road and retraced his steps homeward. As he
passed by the wayside cottages, he was tempted once or twice to stop
and ask for bread and milk, but after a mental contest he each time
conquered the pangs of hunger and thirst, and went on again. The
fathers of the desert had subdued the lusts of the flesh by hunger and
stripes and physical suffering, and if mortification could exorcise
the evil spirit within him, he would have no mercy on himself. He was
a great distance from home, and, notwithstanding his resolution to
suffer and endure, he was several times forced to sit down and rest on
heaps of broken stones by the wayside; and on one of these occasions
a spray of bramble-berries hanging over the hedge caught his eye,
and looked so rich and sweet that he plucked one and raised it to his
mouth. The next moment, however, he had flung it away from him. On
another occasion he was startled to his feet by the sound of wheels,
and as he walked on he was overtaken by a neighbouring farmer in his
gig, who drew up as he was passing, and touched his hat.
“Making for home, Mr. Santley?” he asked, as he shook up the cushion
on the vacant seat beside him. “I can put you down at your own door,
sir.”
“Thank you, Mr. Henderson; I prefer walking, and I have some business
to attend to.”
“All right, sir. It’s a fine evening for a walk. Good-bye.”
“Good-bye.”
The vicar watched the gig diminish on the distant road till at
length the hedgerows concealed it, with a certain sense of stoical
satisfaction. He felt he was not all weakness; there was yet left
some power of self-denial, some fortitude to endure self-inflicted
chastisement.
It was nearly dark when he arrived again in Omberley. The windows were
ruddy with fire and gaslight; there were no children playing in the
streets; several of the small shopkeepers who kept open late, were now
at last putting up their shutters. There was a genial glow from the
red-curtained window of the village inn, and a sound of singing and
merriment.
“Why should I not go in and join them?” he thought to himself. “What
an effect it would have, if I stepped into the sanded taproom and
called for a pipe and a quart of beer! The vicar smoking a long clay,
with his frothing pewter on the deal table beside him! Why not? Has
not the vicar his gross appetites as well as you? Why should you be
scandalized, friends, if he should indulge in the same merry way as
yourselves? Is he not a mere man like you, with the same animal needs
and cravings? Fools, who shrink with horror from the humanity of a man
because he wears a black coat and talks to you of duty and sacrifice
and godliness! How little you know the poor wretch to whom you look
for counsel and comfort and mediation with Heaven!”
He was turning away, when the taproom door was flung open, and half
a dozen tipsy men, cursing and quarrelling, staggered out into the
street.
Among them was a handsome, swarthy girl of two and twenty, gaily
dressed in colours, with a coloured handkerchief bound over her black
hair, and a guitar in her hand. They were evidently quarrelling about
the girl, who was doing her best to make peace among them.
“You does me no good by your fighting and kicking up a row, masters.
Decent folks won’t let a wench into the house when there’s always a
fight got up about her. You spoils my market, and gets me an ill name,
masters.”
“Any way, Jack Haywood shan’t lay a finger on thee, Sal!” cried a
burly young fellow, deep in his cups, as he clenched his horny fist
and shook it at Jack.
“What is’t to you what Jack does?” returned the girl, saucily.
“Neither Jack nor thee shall lay a finger on me against my will. I
reckon I can take care o’ myself, masters.”
“Ay, ay, thou canst that!” assented several voices.
The vicar, who had stood to witness this scene, now stepped in among
the group. The men recognized him, and, touching their forelocks,
slunk away in sheepish silence. He uttered not a word, but his pale
face sobered them like a dash of cold water. Only the girl was left,
and she stood, red and frightened, while her hands were nervously
busied with the guitar.
“You are back again, Sal, and at your old ways,” said the vicar, in a
low voice. “I see, all good advice and all encouragement are wasted on
you.”
“I can’t help it, sir,” said the girl, sullenly. “I was born bad; I’m
of a bad lot. It’s no use trying any more. It’s in the blood and the
bone, and it’ll come out, in spite of everything.”
“Have you made much to-day?” asked the vicar.
“A shilling.”
“Where are you going to stop tonight?”
“At old Mary Henson’s, in Bara Street.”
“Then, go home at once, Sal,” said the vicar, giving her a half-crown.
“Will you promise me?”
“Yes.”
“And you will speak to no man tonight? You promise?”
“Yes,” said the girl, taking the money, with a strange look of inquiry
at the vicar.
“And try to say your prayers before you go to sleep.”
The girl dropped a curtsy, and went slowly down the street. With a
bitter laugh, the vicar pursued his way homeward.
“In the blood and the bone! In the blood and the bone!” he; repeated
to himself. “You are right, girl; we are born bad--born bad. The
bestial madness of ages and aeons, the lust and lasciviousness of
countless generations, are still in our blood, and our instincts
are still the instincts of the beast and the savage. Hypocrite and
blasphemer that I am! Whited sepulchre, reeking with corruption!
Living lie and mask of holiness! O God, what a wretch am I, who dare,
to speak of purity and repentance to this woman!”
When he reached the Vicarage, his sister was anxiously awaiting him,
and supper was ready.
“Where have you been so long?” she asked, a little impatiently. “I
think you might leave word when you expect to be detained beyond your
usual time. It is eleven o’clock.”
“I could not say how long I should be,” replied the vicar, with a
weary look, which touched his sister and changed her ill-temper to
solicitude.
“You are quite tired out, poor fellow,” she said, laying her hand on
his shoulder. “Well, come to supper. It is ready.”
“I cannot take anything at present,” replied Mr. Santley. “I will, go
and do a little of my sermon.”
“Shall I leave something out for you, then?”
“Yes, please. Good night.”
He went into the study, lit the gas, and, locking the door, flung
himself into an armchair.
“In the blood! in the blood!” he bitterly communed with himself. “And,
with all our wild dreams and aspirations, we are but what science says
we are, the conqueror of the lascivious ape, the offspring of some
common ancestral bestiality, which transmitted to the simian its
animalism free and unfettered except by appetite, and to man the germs
of a moral law which must be for ever at variance with his sensual
instincts. God! we are worse than apes--we the immortals, with our
ideals of spirit and purity!”
He rose, and going across the room to the tall, carved oak cupboard,
whose contents were a secret to all but himself, he unlocked it and
opened the folding doors. The light fell on a large, beautiful statue
of the Madonna, with the Infant Christ in her arms. The figure was in
plaster, exquisitely coloured, and of a rare loveliness. He looked at
it abstractedly for a long while.
“Mother of God!” he exclaimed at length, with passionate fervour.
“Spotless virgin, woman above all women glorified, the solitary boast
of our tainted nature--oh, dream and desire of men striving for their
lost innocence, how vainly have I worshipped and prayed to thee! How
ardently have I believed in thy immaculate motherhood! How yearningly
I have cried to thee for thy aid and intercession! And no answer has
been granted to my supplications. My feverish exaltation has passed
from me, leaving me weak and at the mercy of my senses. Art thou,
too, but a poetic myth of a later superstition--an idealization more
beautiful, more divine than the frail goddesses of Greece and Rome?
The art and poetry of the world have turned to thee for inspiration,
the ascetic has filled the cold cell with the shining vision of thee,
altars have been raised to thee over half the globe, the prayers of
nations ascend to thee, and art thou but a beautiful conception of the
heart, powerless to aid or to hear thy suppliants?”
He paused, as if, indeed, he expected some sign or word in answer to
his wild appeal. Then, closing the doors again and locking them, he
went towards his-desk. On it lay the manuscript of the sermon he had
preached on the Unknown God.
“The Unknown God!” he exclaimed. “What if her husband is right! What
if, indeed, there be no God, no God for us, no God of whom we shall
ever be conscious! All science points that way. When the man is dead,
his soul is dead too. We deny it; but what is our denial worth? It is
our interest to deny it. All phenomena contradict our denial. No man
has ever risen from the grave to give us assurance of our immortality.
Ah, truly, ‘if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ
not risen; and if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and
your faith is also vain!’”
He paced the room excitedly.
“Why act the knave and the hypocrite longer? Why delude the world
with a false hope of a future that can never be? Why preach prayer
and sacrifice, and suffering and patience, when this life is all? If
Christ is not risen, our preaching is vain, and your faith is also
vain.”
He again paced the room; and then, going to a drawer where the keys of
the church were kept, he took them, and stole noiselessly out of the
house. All was very still outside. The stars were shining, and it was
duskily clear. He traversed the churchyard, and reaching the porch
he unlocked the door and entered. It was quite dark, except that the
tall, narrow windows looked grey against the blackness of the rest of
the building, and a little bead of flame burned in the sanctuary lamp.
He closed the door after him, and went up the echoing nave to the
chancel. Thence he groped his way to the pulpit, and ascending he
looked down into the darkness before him.
He stood there in silence, straining his eyes into the gloom, and
gradually there came out of the darkness faint, spectral rows of
faces, turned up to his with a horrified and bewildered aspect. He
uttered no word, but in his brain he was preaching from the text of
Paul, and proving that Christ, indeed, had never risen, and that their
faith was vain. This world was all, and there was nothing beyond it.
Vice and virtue were but social and physical distinctions, implying
that the consequences of the one were destructive of happiness, of the
other were conducive to happiness. Sin was a fiction, and the sense
of sinfulness a morbid development of the imagination. Every man was a
law unto himself, and that law must be obeyed. A mans actions were the
outcome of his constitution. He was not morally responsible for them.
Indeed, moral responsibility was a philosophical error. In dumb show
was that long, phrenzied sermon preached to a phantom congregation. At
the close the vicar, omitting the usual form of benediction, descended
from the pulpit, staggered across the chancel, and fell in a swoon at
the foot of the steps which led to the altar.