But whatever may have been Father Payne's effect upon us individually or
collectively, or however the result may have been achieved, there was no
question of one thing, and that was the ardent and beautiful happiness of
the place. Joy deliberately schemed for and planned is apt to evaporate.
But we were not hunting for happiness as men dig for gold. We were looking
for something quite different. We were all doing work for which we cared,
with kind and yet incisive criticism to help us; and then the simplicity
and regularity of the life, the total absence of all indulgence, the
exercise, the companionship, the discipline, all generated a kind of high
spirits that I have known in no other place and at no other time. I used to
awake in the morning fresh and alert, free from all anxiety, all sense of
tiresome engagements, all possibility of boredom. All staleness, weariness,
all complications and conventional duties, all jealousies and envyings,
were absent. We were not competing with each other, we were not bent on
asserting ourselves, we had just each our own bit of work to do; moreover
our spaces of travel had an invigorating effect, and sent us back to Aveley
with the zest of returning to a beloved home. Of course there were little
bickerings at times, little complexities of friendship; but these never
came to anything in Father Payne's kindly present. Sometimes a man would
get fretful or worried over his work; if so, he was generally despatched on
a brief holiday, with an injunction to do no work at all; and I am sure
that the prospect of even temporary banishment was the strongest of all
motives for the suppression of strife. I remember spring mornings, when the
birds began to sing in the shrubberies, and the beds were full of rising
flower-blades, when one's whole mind and heart used to expand in an ecstasy
of hope and delight; I remember long rambles or bicycle rides far into the
quiet pastoral country, in the summer heat, alone or with a single
companion, when life seemed almost too delicious to continue; then there
would be the return, and a plunge into the bathing-pool, and another quiet
hour or two at the work in hand, and the delight of feeling that one was
gaining skill and ease of expression; or again there would be the quick
tramp in winter along muddy roads, with the ragged clouds hurrying across
the sky, with the prospect ahead of a fire-lit evening of study and talk;
and best of all a walk and a conversation with Father Payne himself, when
all that he said seemed to interpret life afresh and to put it in a new and
exciting aspect. I never met anyone with such a power of linking the loose
ends of life together, and of giving one so joyful a sense of connection
and continuance. How it was done I cannot guess; but whereas other minds
could cast light upon problems, Father Payne somehow made light shine
through them, and gave them a soft translucence. But while he managed to
give one a great love of life itself, it never rested there; he made me
feel engaged in some sort of eternal business, and though he used no
conventional expressions, I had in his presence a sense of vast horizons
and shining tracks passing into an infinite distance full of glory and
sweetness, and of death itself as a mystery of surprise and wonder. He
taught me to look for beauty and harmony, not to waste time in mean
controversy or in futile regret, but to be always moving forwards, and
welcoming every sign of confidence and goodwill. He had a way, too, of
making one realise the dignity and necessity of work, without cherishing
any self-absorbed illusions about its impressiveness or its importance. His
creed was the recognition of all beauty and vividness as an unquestionable
sign of the presence of God, the Power that made for order and health and
strength and peace; and the deep necessity of growing to understand one
another with unsuspicious trustfulness and sympathy--the Fatherhood of God,
and the Brotherhood of Man, these were the doctrines by which he lived.
It used to be an extraordinary pleasure to me to accompany him about the
village; he knew every one, and could talk with a simple directness and a
quiet humour that was inimitable. I never saw so naturally pastoral a man.
He carried good-temper about with him, and yet he could rebuke with a
sharpness which surprised me, if there was need. He was curiously tolerant,
I used to think, of sensual sins, but in the presence of cruelty or
meanness or deliberate deceit he used to explode into the most violent
language. I remember a scene which it is almost a terror to me now to
recollect, when I was walking with him, and we met a tipsy farmer of a
neighbouring village flogging his horse along a lane. He ran up beside the
cart, he stopped the horse, he roared at the farmer, "Get out of your cart,
you d--d brute, and lead it home." The farmer descended in a state of
stupefaction. Father Payne snatched the whip out of his hand, broke it,
threw it over the hedge, threatened him with all the terrors of the law,
and reduced him to a state of abject submission. Presently he recovered
somewhat, and in drunken wrath began to abuse Father Payne. "Very well,"
said Father Payne, "you can take your choice: either you lead the horse
home quietly, and I'll see it done; or else I come with you to the village,
and tell the people what I think of you in the open street. And if you put
up your fist like that again, I'll run you home myself and hand you over to
the policeman. I'll be d--d if I won't do it now. Here, Duncan," he said to
me, "you go and fetch the policeman, and we'll have a little procession
back." The ruffian thought better of it, and led the horse away muttering,
while we walked behind until we were near the farm, "Now get in, and behave
yourself," said Father Payne. "And if you choose to come over to-morrow and
beg my pardon, you may; and if you don't, I'll have you up before the
magistrates on Saturday next."
I had never seen such wrath; but the tempest subsided instantly, and he
walked back with me in high good-humour. The next day the man came over,
and Father Payne said to me in the evening: "We had quite an affecting
scene. I gave him a bit of my mind, and he thanked me for speaking
straight. He's a low brute, but I don't think he'll do the same sort of
thing in a hurry. I'll give him six weeks to get over his fright, and then
I'll do a little patrolling!"
His gentleness, on the other hand, with women and children was beautiful to
see. It was as natural for Father Payne to hurry to a scene of disaster or
grief as it was for others to wish to stay away. He used to speak to a
sufferer or a mourner with great directness. "Tell me all about it," he
would say, and he would listen with little nods and gestures, raising his
eyebrows or even shutting his eyes, saying very little, except a word or
two of sympathy at the end. He knew all the children, but he never petted
them or made favourites, but treated them with a serious kind of gravity
which he assured us they infinitely preferred. He used to have a Christmas
entertainment for them at the Hall, as well as a summer feast. He
encouraged the boys and young men to botanise and observe nature in all
forms, and though he would never allow nests to be taken, or even eggs if
he could help it, he would give little prizes for the noting of any rare
bird or butterfly. "If you want men to live in the country, they must love
the country," he used to say. He kept a village club going, but he never
went there. "It's embarrassing," he used to say. "They don't want me
strolling in any more than I want them strolling in. Philanthropists have
no sense of privacy." He did not call at the villagers' houses, unless
there was some special event, and his talks were confined to chance
meetings. Neither was there any sense of duty about it. "No one is taken in
by formal visiting," he said. "You must just do it if you like it, or else
stay away. 'To keep yourself to yourself' is the highest praise these
people can give. No one likes a fuss!"
The same sort of principles regulated our own intercourse. "We are not
monks," he used to say; "we are Carthusians, hermits, living together for
comfort or convenience." The solitude and privacy of everyone was
respected. We used to do our talking when we took exercise; but there was
very little sitting and gossiping together _tête-à-tête._ "I don't
want everyone to try to be intimate with everyone else," he used to say.
"The point is just to get on amicably together; we won't have any cliques
or coteries." He himself never came to any of our rooms, but sent a message
if he wanted to see us. One small thing he strongly objected to, the
shouting up from the garden to anyone's window: "Most offensive!" He
disliked all loud shouting and calling or singing aloud. "You mustn't use
the world as a private sitting-room." And the one thing which used to fret
him was a voice stridently raised. "Don't rouse the echoes!" he would say.
"You have no more right to make a row than you have to use a strong scent
or to blow a post-horn--that's not liberty!" The result of this was that
the house was a singularly quiet one, and this sense of silence and subdued
sound lives in my memory as one of its most refreshing characteristics. "A
row is only pleasant if it is deliberate and organised," he used to say.
"Native woodnotes wild are all very well, but they are not civilisation. To
talk audibly and quietly is the best proof of virtue and honour!"