1
At his confirmation he had annoyed the Bishop of London (at that time it
was Frederick Temple) by insisting on taking the additional names of
Alfonso Mary Alexander. He had surprised him by the resolute manner in
which he had answered his questions about the origin of taking names at
confirmation; and enraged him by his explanation that he desired to be
called Alexander in memory of that great Pope, the Lord Alexander VI,
who had put the whole Christian world under an obligation by his
discovery of the devotion of the Angelus. “This devotion,” the boy
murmured to the astounded Bishop, “as your Lordship no doubt knows, has
been from eternity the privilege of the Holy Angels, and was not
entrusted to men until the proximity of the horrible heresies of the
German reformation rendered the patronage of Mary necessary for the
protection of her son.” The Bishop’s chaplain had tried to prevent Frank
Lascelles’ indiscretion; but Temple’s abrupt gesture had hindered his
efforts. When Lascelles finished the Bishop gazed at him in silence for
a minute.
“Well, I hope you’ll live to grow out of this foolery. But you know your
rights and you shall have ’em.”
Temple, was, as his old foes had discovered years before, eminently
just.
More than twenty years had passed since that confirmation. Frank Alfonso
Mary Alexander Lascelles had gone to Oxford and to Ely, and had been
ordained to a small country parish in that diocese. After two years of
his curacy, an injudicious layman presented him to the living of S. Uny
and S. Petroc in the north of Cornwall. He had been there now for over
nineteen years. When he had come he found his church empty; now it was
full. It was full of children and boys. Occasionally a few mothers, and,
when he was sober, the village drunkard, and, when she was penitent, the
prostitute from the Church Town, came to Mass as well; but generally the
Church of S. Uny, down by the beach, was filled only by children and
boys.
This result Frank Lascelles had been long in attaining. The parish he
served was predominantly Methodist. He had found a congregation of
three—the publican, the ostler of the hotel, and an old maiden lady who
rang the bell, and called herself the pew-opener. Lascelles soon shocked
the respectability of the publican and the Protestantism of the ostler:
but the old lady remained faithful to him. She did not stir when he had
the three-decker cut down, and a new altar reared at the East end. She
seemed to welcome the great images, Our Lady of the Immaculate
Conception, The Sacred Heart, S. Joseph and S. Anthony which Lascelles
put up in his church. She did not care whether he said Mass in Latin or
English; and incense and holy water both left her tranquil. It was
otherwise with the village. Though the Methodists never entered the
church, except for a wedding or a funeral, they thought they had a right
to control its services and its priest. There were stormy Easter
vestries; there was a Protestant churchwarden. One horrible day the
fishermen broke into the church and took out the images and threw them
down the cliff: by next week new ones were in their places. Lascelles
was boycotted by his parishioners, except a few would-be bold spirits;
and was outlawed, in the genial English way, by his Bishop; but he stuck
at his job, went on saying offices to an empty church, and singing Mass
to his pew-opener and an occasional visitor. Then after five years or so
the change began.
It was not along the usual lines of such changes. Generally priests of
Lascelles’ religion are eager, masculine people who soon win over the
more turbulent elements in the parish, and put them, too, in search of
the great adventure of Christianity. But Lascelles, though he had grown
up, still remained the boy who had chosen Liguori and Alexander for his
patrons. He was obsessed with the reality of the spiritual world, of
good and evil. His pillow was wet with the tears he shed for the sins of
his parish. He was horrified at the evil of the world, and yet
constitutionally unable to defy it in any active way. He had only one
strong human affection—and that was a great love for children.
At first this was not reciprocated. His odd figure, his shuffling walk,
his stoop and his occasional outbursts of anger produced ridicule and
fear rather than love. Then one child somehow found how large the heart
of him was; and then another, and then another. He had won the children.
But this would have availed him little had it not been for the arrival
at S. Uny of the Rev. Paul Trengrowse. Mr. Trengrowse came to minister
to the Primitives about three years after Lascelles’ appointment to the
parish. He was young, keen, and sincere. He had not been long in the
village when the leading members of his congregation told him of the
sins of the parish priest, and horrors of the parish church. Trengrowse
prayed for light. He disliked interfering with the affairs of an alien
church; but, if half he was told was true, Lascelles must be fought. So
he paid a visit to the church, which was always open, and was duly
distressed at the idols he saw there.
As he was gazing at the smirking fatuity of S. Anthony, he heard a
footstep. It was Lascelles who was coming from the sacristy to the
altar. Fortunately, before he began Mass, Lascelles looked down the
church and saw “a congregation.” So he said Mass in English.
Now Trengrowse was no ordinary minister. He was a man of personal
holiness, and of real devotion; and that in his spirit which was sincere
and mystical recognised in the Popish-seeming priest, muttering his
Mass, a kindred soul. Lascelles’ absorption in his work, his grave, yet
joyful solemnity, his keen sense of the other world made an immense
effect on Trengrowse. The Mass proceeded, and when Trengrowse heard
“Therefore with Angels and Archangels and all the Company of Heaven,” he
felt that he had had the answer to his prayer. This man was a Christian,
however erroneous he might be in details.
So the next Sunday the Primitives who were hoping for a strong sermon
against the Scarlet Woman, were disagreeably surprised. “Mr. Lascelles
may be wrong. I think he is wrong, sadly wrong, in many things; but he
du love the Lord, and he du worship Him. And, brethren, no man calls
Jesus Lord save by the Holy Ghost. Let us pray for Mr. Lascelles and the
church people of S. Uny; and that we may all be led along the narrow way
to everlasting life.”
Had Trengrowse been a man of less character he might have failed in his
defence of Lascelles. But he was an acceptable preacher, and a man whose
plain love of his religion it was impossible to doubt. So, first with
grumbling, later with a ready acquiescence, the villagers of S. Uny
followed his lead.
The result was odd. Lascelles attracted the children more and more; and
his services attracted them. This worried Trengrowse not a little; but
when one of his congregation said scornfully, “Those bit games to the
church be only fit for babes,” he looked gravely at him and replied,
“Ah! Eli, but the book says ‘Unless ye become as little children.’” This
silenced Eli, but it did not silence Trengrowse’s own heart. How was it
Lascelles could do anything with children, a good deal with boys up to
fifteen or so, and nothing with men and women, and little with girls?
Lascelles’ own explanation was simple. His Bishop would not confirm his
children until they were thirteen. Lascelles presented them year after
year when they were six or seven. He preached an amazing sermon on the
three great aids to the Devil in the parish of S. Uny—and the three
heads of his sermon were: Lust, Hypocrisy and the Lord Bishop. The more
respectable of the neighbouring clergy were furious, but the Bishop, who
was a simple, humble-minded man (quite unlike to the ex-head-master who
had inducted Lascelles), refused to take any notice of the attack; but
also refused to relax his rule about the age of confirmation candidates.
The Archdeacon told Lascelles that his parish was the plague-spot of the
diocese, and Lascelles retorted that in a mass of corruption any sign of
health looks ominous and unusual. But, although he kept up a brave front
to the disapprovers, his failure with his people galled him. He would
not have minded if they had still been actively hostile. But that had
long ceased. They were now fond of their priest. They liked and shared
in his notoriety. They supported him against the officials; and when a
malicious Protestant from London attempted to stir up a revolt against
Lascelles, he was promptly put into the harbour; and Trengrowse started
a petition to the Bishop, expressing the affection “all we, whether
church people or Methodists, feel for Mr. Lascelles.”
Lascelles’ philosophy refused to permit him to see in his failure
evidences of his incapacity for his work. He had the proud humility of
the perfect priest. Regarding himself as a mere channel for divine
grace, he forgot that his personality was so distinctive that it
affected the way in which grace reached his people. Once an old friend
had tried to make him see this; but the task was hopeless.
“My dear fellow,” said Lascelles, “I don’t see what you mean. All they
want is the Gospel. And that I give them. I say Mass for them. I will
hear their confessions. I instruct them. I lead their devotions. All
beside is mere human embellishment. No doubt a more competent man would
be more pleasing to them, but he could not do more than give them the
Gospel, could he?”
On All Souls’ Day, 1912, Lascelles was depressed. Early that morning he
had gone up to the cemetery, and said a Requiem in the little chapel.
Then there had been the early Mass at 8.30 in church. The church had
been full. Not only were all his children there, but there were a good
many fathers and mothers: for the services on the day of the dead
appealed to a deep human instinct with a power which not even Lascelles
could spoil. The Dies Iræ, sung in Latin, had sounded oddly from a
congregation so predominantly childish: and Lascelles had preached a
short sermon on the “Significance of Death.”
“We exaggerate the importance of death. It is to us death matters, not
to the dead. For them it is a release, for us it is a warning. Death of
the body is only a symbol. It is death of the soul we must fear. Believe
me, it would be worth while for every one of you in this church to die,
if by dying, you could bring a soul to Jesus. God knows, I would die for
you, if that would bring you. There are those here to-day—you,
Penberthy, and you, Trevose—who have not been to Mass since you were
boys. Make a new resolution to-day, and ask the Holy Souls to help you
keep it. Come to your duties, and return to your church.”
Lascelles felt at the time that his appeal lacked force. He knew that
after Mass, Penberthy would say to Trevose:
“Bootivul service, bean’t it, Tom?”
“Iss—it be that. I du like it for once or twice. But for usual give me
the chapel. It be more nat’ral like.”
“Iss—it be. Poor Mr. Lascelles, I did think he would have a slap at us.”
“Iss—it be his way. My gosh! I don’t mind.”
So Lascelles was depressed. He sat among his books, reading a Renascence
treatise on “Death.” He thought a great deal about death. Sometimes he
feared it horribly. It seemed the great enemy of faith. It was so
disconcerting a thing, so heartless, so unregarding. At other times he
felt defiant. But never did he reach the spirit of S. Francis about
death. He was too remote from natural life and the events of animal
birth and death to understand death as an ordinary thing, something not
less usual than the sunset.
“It may be”—he read, “that there be more deaths than one. For it is
evident that some are so hardened in sin that the death of the body
comes long after the man has been really dead. Such men are commonly gay
and cheerful: for with the death of their soul, has died all godly fear,
all apprehension of judgment, all hope of salvation. They become but as
brutes. Wherefore the church has always held that heretics, if they be
obstinate and beyond recall, may be handed over to the secular arm for
the death of the body. It should not trouble us that they display
ordinary human virtues: for these be common in the unregenerate, and are
but devices of the devil who would persuade men that religion matters
naught. They are his children, and may be lawfully treated as such by
any godly prince. The church herself kills not: though the Lord Pope,
being a Temporal King, has the power of the sword, and may exercise the
same.”
Lascelles put the book down and stared at the fire. The words roused a
train of thought that almost frightened him. But he was not the man to
dismiss any idea because it was terrifying. He believed in giving the
devil his due, and always insisted that all temptations should be met
boldly, not evaded. He left his chair, and knelt at his prie-dieu,
looking at the wounds of the great Crucifix which hung above it.
Half an hour later he rose with a look of resolution on his face.
2
The first case of the plague, as the villagers insisted on calling it,
happened just before Epiphany. It attacked Penberthy, who had never been
ill before; and in four days he was dead. His disease puzzled the doctor
from the market-town, but he put it down as a curious case of infantile
paralysis. His colleague from Truro, whom he consulted after the third
case had occurred, insisted that the symptoms did not disclose anything
more definite than shock following on status lymphaticus. The most
serious thing was, however, not their incapacity to name, but their
inability to cure the mysterious disease, which was spreading in S. Uny.
Except for a general weariness, a disinclination to move, and a curious
“wambling in the innards,” there were no definite symptoms at all to go
on. After the second case they had an inquest, but it yielded no results
at all, and Dr. Marlowe began to talk of getting an expert from London.
It was not until February, however, that anyone came. Then by a
fortunate chance Sir Joshua Tomlinson came down to S. Ives for a
holiday. The “plague” at S. Uny had got into the London paper. There had
been ten deaths, and two women, the first to be attacked, were lying
seriously ill. Dr. Marlowe called on Sir Joshua, and the great physician
said he would come over and see the patients. Marlowe was glad that
chance had sent him a great general physician rather than a surgeon or a
specialist. Although he was willing to defy any specialist to find his
pet disease in the mysterious sickness that had killed the ten
fishermen, he was relieved that no specialist was to be given the
opportunity.
“You see, Lascelles,” he said to the priest, “it’s not as if we were in
the fifteenth century. We may be in theology, but I’m hanged if we are
in medicine. These men are dying like savages: but the savage makes up
his mind he has got to die, and dies through sheer hysteria. These
fellows want to live. They lust for life.”
“You are right, Marlowe. Their desire for life is a lust. It is scarcely
decent in a Christian to cling so to this existence. But there—it’s not
my business to judge. You know, Marlowe, I have sometimes thought this
last month that this mysterious disease is a judgment on S. Uny. It is
God’s hand held out over our village. Let us pray for those who are
dead, and those who are dying, and most of all, dear God, for those who
are not yet to die.”
Marlowe, though friendly with Lascelles, was more than a little afraid
of him. The vicar had worked like two men during this distress. He had
nursed the sick, he had consoled the mourners, he had said Masses and
had a service of general humiliation. Somehow he had identified himself
with his parish to a degree he had never reached before, and S. Uny was
grateful to him. But the little doctor was rather afraid. Lascelles was
strained and odd in manner. He spent too long a time in prayer, and not
long enough at meals or in bed.
“No, Lascelles. I don’t agree with you there. Oh! I’m a good Catholic, I
hope, and I know God could intervene; but I don’t see why He should.”
“No: you don’t see why. No one does, Marlowe, until He speaks, and then
they are forced to.”
On the Saturday Sir Joshua came over, he saw Mrs. Pentreath and Mrs.
Wichelo, and he shook his head over both of them. He asked them
questions about their diet, and about their way of living, while Marlowe
stood by, silent and impatient. Then, he said a few kindly, cheerful
words, and left them in the big room, which the vicar had had fitted up
as a hospital ward; for Marlowe thought the cases were better isolated.
“Well, sir, what do you think?”
“What sort of a man is your vicar? He seems liked.”
“Yes—he is. He’s an odd chap—a bit mad, I think. A very keen Catholic,
and very depressed at his failure to keep the people.”
“Ah! they don’t go to church.”
“Well they _do_ now. They have done since this damned illness. He’s been
awfully good to them. And the children have always gone.”
“It’s a funny thing, Dr. Marlowe, that no child has been ill.”
“Isn’t it? That’s what I say to young Jones of Truro. He will insist on
his shock theory, following on status lymphaticus. I keep on pointing
out to him that most of the patients are men who have had shocks every
week of their lives since they were twelve. They’d have all been dead
long since.”
“Yes. I am sure Jones is wrong. But I don’t know what this disease is,
Dr. Marlowe. I suspect, but I don’t know.”
“Here is the vicar coming, Sir Joshua. Shall I introduce you?”
“Please do.”
Lascelles was walking rapidly towards them. He looked ill but eager. His
eyes were full of a fanatic pleasure, a kind of holy rapture that
appeared to make him even taller than he actually was. He acknowledged
the introduction with a bow, and would have passed on, but Sir Joshua
stopped him with a question.
“You have come from your sick people, Mr. Lascelles?”
“Yes. They are no longer sick. I was just in time to hear their
confessions and give them the viaticum.”
“Good God!” Sir Joshua was evidently shocked. “It’s not ten minutes
since we left them.”
“No? The end has always been very sudden, hasn’t it, Marlowe?”
“Yes. But this is quicker than usual. Do you think, Sir Joshua”—and he
lowered his voice—“a post-mortem?”
“No. It would be useless. At least it would be no help to me. By the
way, Marlowe, how have you entered the cause of death?”
“Well, sir—I’ve frankly put ‘Heart failure, cause unknown.’ There seemed
to be nothing between that and ‘Act of God.’”
“Ah! Marlowe, that’s what you should have put,” intervened Lascelles.
“It is the hand of God—the hand of God.” Then, with a bow to Sir Joshua,
he hurried away.
“So your vicar thinks it is the hand of God! He may be right. God works
through human agents. He is an interesting man, Dr. Marlowe.”
“Yes: he is. But this trouble has worried him frightfully. I’m rather
nervous for him. Have you got any theory, sir? You talked of suspicion.”
“Well, Dr. Marlowe, I’ll tell you what I think. Your patients have been
murdered.”
Marlowe looked at the great physician, as if he was afraid for his
sanity.
“No, Dr. Marlowe, I’m not mad, though I have no proof of my assertion.
All I ask is this, that I may be allowed to see the next patient within
at least half an hour of the beginning of the illness. By the way, can
they give me a bed here, do you think? Where do you put up?”
“Oh! I’m staying at the vicar’s. I expect he’d be charmed to have you.”
“No. I don’t think I will stay with Father Lascelles. I would rather
not. I’ll find a room somewhere. I think there will be another case
to-morrow night.”
3
That Sunday morning Lascelles preached on the “Hand of Judgment.” The
church was packed. Trengrowse had his service at nine and brought all
his congregation to the Mass at eleven. Lascelles seemed wonderfully
better. His eye was clearer, his step gayer and his whole figure more
buoyant. His tone as he gave out his text was exultant.
“They pierced his hands.
“The symbolism of the Divine Body is strangely arresting. The Jews
thought of God as an eye watching, caring for them from heaven. We
Christians watch God—here in the Tabernacle, or in the arms of Mary. His
care for us we typify by his Hand—the Hand we pierced. This last month
God has been with us very wonderfully. He is always with us in the Holy
Sacrament: but lately he has been with us in the Sacrament of Death. His
Hand of Judgment has been over, and under us; it has clasped us—and some
of us it has not let go.
“Our natural feeling is one of fear. We are not used to such immediate
handling as this of our God’s. We have most of us tried to apply
religion to our life, now we have to try and apply our life to religion.
God will have us think of nothing but Him, speak to none save Him, hope
for none save Him. His Hand is still with us. It will bear yet more away
from S. Uny before we learn our lesson. Let me help you to learn that
lesson right. Let us all take care that we renew our trust in God, that
we recognise His Hand, that we answer His Love.”
Sir Joshua had listened attentively to Lascelles’ sermon. He seemed
vaguely disappointed, and he was unwilling to discuss it with Marlowe
afterwards. There was no doubt that Lascelles’ almost fatalist attitude,
while it annoyed the doctor, had a strange welcome from the villagers.
They turned in a child-like way to the words of this man who spoke as
one who knew the ways and the meaning of the Almighty. Never had
Lascelles so much real devotion from his people as he secured during the
“plague.” It was not that they shared his feeling of complete
abandonment to the Will of God; but the fact that he had such a feeling
made their fate seem more tolerable.
On Sunday evening there was a new case, as Sir Joshua had expected. The
disease attacked Mrs. Bodilly, the wife of the chief grocer in S. Uny.
Marlowe was summoned immediately, but he found Sir Joshua already at the
poor woman’s bedside.
She was frankly terrified; in this her case differed from previous ones,
in which the sufferers, though generally resentful, had been not the
least afraid. Mrs. Bodilly had been at Mass that morning. She had got
back and prepared the dinner. At tea-time she had “felt queer,” but
after tea she was better. Then, as she was getting ready to go to the
special service of Exposition, she fell down and had to be carried up to
her room by her husband and sons.
She was, unlike most of the tradesmen’s wives, a nominal church woman,
but she had never been confirmed and rarely went to church. The fit of
external piety roused in her by the “plague” was frankly based on
nervous alarm. She felt that God was taking it out of S. Uny in this
way; and she was anxious to escape.
Her illness found her divided between anger and fear. She was angry that
her efforts to placate Divine wrath had not been more successful—she was
terrified of dying, terrified still more of death as a punishment. In
the most desolate way she sought reassurances from Marlowe and Sir
Joshua; but neither could give her any certain consolation. The disease
presented no different aspects. It indeed presented no aspect at all,
except extreme weakness, astonishing slowness of the pulse, and
irregular beating of the heart. Although Sir Joshua was there within
five minutes of the seizure, he admitted to Marlowe that he could
discover nothing of what he suspected.
“I’ll be frank, Dr. Marlowe, I suspected poison. I still suspect it. I
believe all these people have been poisoned in an extremely subtle way
by a man so fanatical as to be almost mad. But I can find no trace of
the poison. In this case, I will, if you will permit me, conduct a
post-mortem, but I expect I shall fail. If I do, I must take my own
line, if you wish me to help you.”
“Really, Sir Joshua, you talk more like a detective than a physician.”
“This is a detective’s business, Dr. Marlowe. I wish it were not.”
Before they left Lascelles arrived. He had been summoned by Mr. Bodilly,
and he came prepared to give Mrs. Bodilly the last rites. As the boy
with the light and the bell approached the stairs, Sir Joshua whispered
to Marlowe:
“Your vicar seems very certain of her death.”
Marlowe shrugged his shoulders. “We haven’t saved a case, you know.”
The post-mortem yielded no result. That evening Marlowe dined with Sir
Joshua at the village inn, and after dinner the great physician told him
of his suspicions. Marlowe listened at first angrily, then with an
incredulous horror.
“It can’t be. The man lives for his parish, I tell you. Why, he would
die for it.”
“Yes: I believe he would. Had I found what I looked for, he certainly
would.”
“But, my dear sir, there isn’t a trace of any known drug. There’s no
trace of anything.”
“No. I had expected to find—but never mind. I have a great deal of
experience, Dr. Marlowe, and I am convinced that your vicar has been
murdering his parishioners. And to-night I am coming to tell him so. I
will walk home with you. You may be present or not, as you please.”
4
Lascelles looked up a little wearily when Sir Joshua had finished
speaking.
“Is that all?”
Marlowe intervened.
“Look here, old man—I only came because—you’ll forgive me, Sir Joshua—I
didn’t want you to be alone under this monstrous, this fantastic
accusation of Sir Joshua’s. You’ve only got to contradict him, and we’ll
go.”
Lascelles looked gratefully at his friend.
“Thank you, Marlowe. But Sir Joshua is right in telling me his
suspicions. You have finished, Sir Joshua?”
“Yes. I should like your explanation if you have one, or your admission
of my charge, and your promise that this—this—plague shall cease.”
“You use strange words, sir, for a man who has no evidence for what he
says.”
“Yes,” ejaculated Marlowe, “yes, by Jove, you do——”
“Please, Marlowe. You will not be content with having relieved your
mind, Sir Joshua. You wish me to answer you?”
“I do. I require it.”
“You know, sir, you great doctors have one failing. It is one priests
have, too. You cannot avoid talking to me as if I were your patient—a
mental, a nervous case. You can’t help believing that your firm tone,
your almost—may I say it—discourteous manner will impress me. Well, it
doesn’t.”
Sir Joshua got red. Lascelles’ words too entirely diagnosed his method.
He was annoyed that he should seem so transparent to a man whom he
regarded as at least half-crazy.
“I beg your pardon. There is something in what you say. Men in all
professions have their—ah! tricks.”
“Thank you.”
Lascelles got up and stood by the fireplace looking down on his visitor.
In the last month he had changed. He seemed bigger and more
masculine—more as if he now had personal responsibilities; he looked
less of an official, more of a man. He spoke rather slowly.
“You have accused me of murder, Sir Joshua. You ask me to admit my
crime, and to promise to cease. Well, I expected your visit. I have long
been familiar with your Treatise on Renascence Toxicology; it is as
complete as any published book. And I am glad you and Marlowe came
to-night. I have my answer ready. I admit nothing, and I promise
nothing.”
Sir Joshua looked with a puzzled air at the priest. For a moment his
accusation seemed a monstrous thing to himself. Then his common sense
surged back.
“Father Lascelles, your answer does not satisfy me. I must take other
steps.”
“They will not lead anywhere, Sir Joshua. If you find no evidence, no
other man can. You say my poor people were poisoned. Well, find the
poison. Ah—you know you cannot. It is foolish to threaten me. But I will
tell you what I had determined to tell Marlowe to-night. First, I do not
expect there will be any more deaths from this plague for a long time.
“Secondly, I have a confession to make. Last All Hallows I was
depressed. The work here has not gone as it should. I had the children,
but not their parents. I thought much of Death and the Departed at that
season of all the dead—and at last I prayed to God that if nothing else
would move these people, He would send Death. Send Death mysterious and
as a judgment. Death has come, and my people have learnt their lesson.
All of those who died were reconciled to Holy Church before death. Of
those who remain nearly all have adhered to the Church. This afternoon
Mr. Trengrowse came and asked to be prepared for Confirmation——”
“Trengrowse, the minister——” cried Marlowe.
“And this evening I had notice that all who are competent intend to make
their Communion next Sunday. This parish has been won for God, Sir
Joshua, and at the cost of thirteen deaths. Isn’t it worth it?”
“Father Lascelles, I cannot regard you as sane. You are not only
practically admitting your crime, you are disclosing your motives.”
“I beg your pardon, I admit nothing. I acknowledge I prayed to God to
visit this people, if necessary, by His secret Death. That is not a
crime. Next Sunday I shall tell my people.”
“And have you _prayed_ that the deaths shall cease?” asked Sir Joshua
ironically.
“I was doing so when you entered,” replied Lascelles quietly.
“Good God, man, your hypocrisy sickens me. You prate of God’s
intervention, and all the time you’ve been sending man after man to
death by some foul poison of your own.”
“Sir Joshua—do you believe God commonly works without human
intervention?”
“Bah! That is sophistry.”
“You condemn the machinery of justice, the compromise of war, our human
evasion of rope and guillotine?”
“Surely, Marlowe,” exclaimed Sir Joshua, “you can’t sit and listen
quietly to this damnable nonsense?”
Marlowe had been sitting dazed, looking at Lascelles as if he were
fascinated. He replied in a remote voice.
“I don’t know. I’m wondering”—he gave a nervous laugh—“wondering if
Lascelles is a saint or a devil.”
Lascelles went on imperturbably.
“You don’t answer me. You can’t. Why should you think I, an anointed
priest, am less fit to be the doorkeeper of death than Lord Justice
Ommaney? At least I use no case-law. I am the slave of no precedent. I
know my people. I know them individually. I love them as persons. And as
persons I judge them.”
The tall figure of the man seemed to glow. His face was lit with an
unnatural beauty as he stood looking down on the other two, and dared
them to answer him.
Sir Joshua rose. He had lost his somewhat pompous judicial air. He was
deeply, humanly moved; and he spoke with an anxiety far more impressive
than his previous authoritative tone.
“Father Lascelles, I have nothing more to say. I believe you have done a
very horrible, a very wicked thing. I have heard how you would defend
yourself if you were legally brought to book for such an offence. Your
defence has, as you are aware, no legal force. I think it has no moral
force. You are deceiving yourself strangely. One day you will have a
great loneliness of heart. You will realise how terrible a
responsibility you have taken. Without the sanction of society, without
the approval of your church, you have decided, alone, the fate of your
fellow-creatures. I am sorry for you. Good-night.”
The light left Lascelles’ face. He looked suddenly ill and careworn.
Then with a high, frantic gesture he flung his hand towards the
Crucifix.
“He, too—He, too—was made sin.”