LOVE ON THE LEAS
“Thank heaven!” sighed Herrick. He tossed a bulky brief on a
side-table, and rose to his feet. The heat was stifling in his narrow
room in Paper Buildings. Outside in the gardens the brown grass, dry
and baked, bore witness to the long-continued drought. London was
becoming an inferno.
But for a week-end, at any rate, he was going to escape from it. The
Westwoods were at Folkestone, and within twenty minutes the train would
be carrying him sea-wards, to clean, pure air, to a smokeless sky--and
to Aldwyth Westwood.
The boy-clerk entered with two letters. “For you, sir,” said the youth,
known to his Temple intimates as “Awthur.”
“Right,” answered Herrick, thrusting them into a pocket. “Here, take my
bag--look sharp! a hansom for Charing Cross.”
“Awthur” showed himself alert, and within four minutes the jaded
barrister was being driven westward through the thronged and sweltering
Strand.
“Poor devils, _they’ve_ got to stay in town,” he muttered. It struck
him that the great artery of London life looked strange and sad in the
afternoon glare of the summer sun; on every face was a set look of
weariness and strain.
High up on Exeter Hall, a huge placard attracted his attention:
ON WEDNESDAY NEXT!!!
MEETING FOR MEN ONLY.
ADDRESS BY
FATHER FRANCIS.
Father Francis was well known to him by reputation. They had been
contemporaries at Oxford, but the “Father” was then known as Lord
Francis Purbrook, fifth son of the Duke of Portsdown--a wild and
dissipated youth. His follies and debaucheries had been continued in
the wider world, outside the University; until a strange and sudden
change had come to him. He simply said that he had been converted. His
old companions sneered, and asserted that he had turned “goody-goody.”
But this transformation of his, call it what you will, was obvious to
all. Then he had taken Holy Orders, and now was the priest-in-charge of
St Stephen’s mission church--a chapel in a side street of Mayfair. His
courtesy title had been wholly abandoned, and he was always spoken of
as Father Francis.
With so much of the past, Herrick, like most Londoners, was well
acquainted; but it was not given him to foresee the tragic scene in
which the young priest was soon to play a foremost and a fatal part.
Herrick, at the moment prosaically absorbed, was mainly bent on
catching his train in time for a corner seat in a “smoker”; and here in
a few minutes was the station, busy and bustling as ever. Here, too,
was Henshaw of Scotland Yard, keenly eyeing continental arrivals from
Boulogne _via_ Folkestone.
“A lot of foreigners,” said the barrister, as he passed him with a nod.
“And a bad lot, too,” was the detective’s comment. There was no time
for more; late arrivals were scurrying down the platform. Herrick
rushed with the rest; he found a seat; the guard’s whistle and extended
hand signalled the departure of the train. They were off and away,
wriggling over the railroad network of London, until presently the grim
and hideous streets and outskirts of the Surrey side were left behind.
The pleasant fields and woods of Kent succeeded to scenes of sordid
toil, and still more sordid recreation. The murk and stew of the great
town, the hoot of its motors, the hoof-hammer of its jaded horses, the
dominant note of its thousands of weary feet--all were left behind.
Within three hours the westering sun had set. Eastward, lighthouses
sent their first flashing rays across the heaving sea. Westward, the
rose and amber of the clouds deepened into purple. The stars came out
brighter and brighter in the darkening sky, thousands upon thousands,
and tens of thousands--the steps of Allah’s wonderful throne!
Herrick and Aldwyth Westwood paced slowly on the Leas. The influence
of the magical hour had stolen upon their spirits. They spoke but
little, but their hearts were full--full of the tenderness of kindred
spirits in harmony with each other and in touch with the infinite. For
this wonderful night seemed to reveal the infinite in all the ordered
beauty of earth and sky and sea, breathing a message to poor humanity,
whispering of ultimate emancipation and high destiny.
Later on, they came down, as needs must, from the stars.
Herrick, who had brought down important papers from the Temple, asked
when he could discuss them with Sir John.
To his surprise, Aldwyth showed some doubt.
“Father is not quite himself,” she said hesitatingly. “But perhaps----
Well come in and I’ll ask him.”
They walked across the grass and re-entered the hotel. The band--of
violins and harps--was playing its final waltz, and the guests, who
were lounging here and there, gazed with interest at the tall and
comely couple. The well-knit figure and bearing of the young barrister
won some approval; but the critical faculty of the lady onlookers
expended itself chiefly in observing the evening dress and general
style of his companion. Let no man expect that he will make any
particular impression when there is a woman at his side whose costume
calls for criticism, or the sincere flattery of imitation.
Aldwyth went upstairs to the suite of rooms reserved for Sir John
Westwood and herself, and Herrick, waiting her message, turned into
the smoking-room, where only two men were sitting, and those engaged
in earnest conversation. In the light of after events Herrick often
recalled much of what they said. It was an open conversation in a
public room. The speakers were unknown to him. Later on, he learnt
that one was Dr Wilson Wake, a nerve specialist, to whose consulting
rooms in Harley Street patients crowded. The other was a writer, whose
essays in the weightier reviews had attracted much attention.
“It happened before, and it will happen again,” the doctor was saying.
“It was simply a sequel to the ravages of bubonic plague.”
“You mean the Black Death of the fourteenth century?”
“That, of course, was the popular name of the disease. The Italians,
in their more musical language, called it ’_la mortalega grande_’--the
Great Mortality.”
“But you surely don’t anticipate----?”
“A similar visitation?--certainly not. We were only speaking of the
after effects; and similar effects might, and, in my judgment will,
be produced in modern times by some less appalling form of physical
disease. The _Chorea_, or Dancing Mania of the Middle Ages was the
outcome of the Black Death, and the Dancing Mania itself was simply the
expression of disordered nerves.”
“But, my dear sir, this is the twentieth century.”
“History always repeats itself, though with interesting variations. My
dear fellow, the nervous system of the nation is out of order.”
“You ought to know.”
“I do,” said the specialist, drawing at his cigar.
“But the extent of the mortality from plague was greatly exaggerated,”
protested the other.
“Of course, of course; nevertheless, in London upwards of fifty
thousand corpses were buried in layers in a single district, and we
know the burial pits even to this day.”
“And, after all, the Dancing Mania was mainly a Continental
development.”
“No doubt; but scientifically it was only a form of epilepsy, and St
Vitus has had his votaries in all countries, at all times. It was not
until the sixteenth century that the faculty ventured to question the
demon theories of the priests. Look up Paracelsus, my friend. His
diagnosis was correct, but his remedies were ridiculous.”
“I suppose the tarantism of Italy was only a form of the same nervous
disorder?” queried the other.
“Precisely; the spider’s bite was a delusion--though, no doubt, the
Apulian Tarantula was a _bona fide_ insect. Hysteria can always invent
a spider, or a mouse. As recently as 1787, two or three hundred girls
in a Lancashire cotton mill were seized with violent convulsions,
because one girl put a mouse into the bosom of another girl. They
all declared that they had been treated in the same way. The insane
delusions of the Convulsionaires in France lasted till near the end
of the eighteenth century, and of course we have had our own Jumpers,
Shakers, and Pentecostal Dancers here in England.”
“And you think we haven’t seen the last of them?”
“Nor yet the worst,” said the specialist, rising. “Shall we finish our
cigars outside?”
As the two men ended their odd dialogue and left the room, a waiter
brought Herrick a pencilled note.
“_Father will see you.--Aldwyth._”