When the prayer was finished for the benefit of the little ones, another
old and favourite hymn had to be sung. (None but the classical lyrics
of British Christianity had found a place in the programme of the great
day.) Guided by the orchestra, the youth of Bursley and the maturity
thereof chanted with gusto--
There is a fountain filled with blood
Drawn from Emmanuel's veins;
And sinners, plunged beneath that flood,
Lose all their guilty stains.
...
Dear dying Lamb, Thy precious blood--
Edwin, like everybody, knew every line of the poem. With the purple
banner waving there a bloody motto, he foresaw each sanguinary detail of
the verse ere it came to him from the shrill childish throats. And a
phrase from another hymn jumped from somewhere in his mind just as
William Cowper's ended and a speech commenced. The phrase was `India's
coral strand.' In thinking upon it he forgot to listen to the speech.
He saw the flags, banners, and pennons floating in the sunshine and in
the heavy breeze; he felt the reverberation of the tropic sun on his
head; he saw the crowded humanity of the Square attired in its crude,
primary colours; he saw the great brass serpentine instruments gleaming;
he saw the red dais; he saw, bursting with infancy, the immense cams to
which were attached the fantastically plaited horses; he saw the
venerable zealots on the dais raving lest after all the institutions
whose centenary they had met to honour should not save these children
from hopeless and excruciating torture for ever and ever; he saw those
majestic purple folds in the centre embroidered with the legend of the
blood of the mystic Paschal Lamb; he saw the meek, stupid, and
superstitious faces, all turned one way, all for the moment under the
empire of one horrible idea, all convinced that the consequences of sins
could be prevented by an act of belief, all gloating over inexhaustible
tides of blood. And it seemed to him that he was not in England any
longer. It seemed to him that in the dim cellars under the shambles
behind the Town Hall, where he had once been, there dwelt, squatting, a
strange and savage god who would blast all those who did not enter his
presence dripping with gore, be they child or grandfather. It seemed to
him that the drums were tom-toms, and Baines's a bazaar. He could fit
every detail of the scene to harmonise with a vision of India's coral
strand.
There was no mist before his eyes now. His sight was so clear that he
could distinguish his father at a window of the Bank, at the other top
corner of the Square. Part of his mind was so idle that he could wonder
how his father had contrived to get there, and whether Maggie was
staying at home with Clara. But the visualisation of India's coral
strand in Saint Luke's Square persisted. A phrase in the speech loosed
some catch in him and he turned suddenly to Hilda, and in an intimate
half-whisper murmured--
"More blood!"
"What?" she harshly questioned. But he knew that she understood.
"Well," he said audaciously, "look at it! It only wants the Ganges at
the bottom of the Square!"
No one heard save she. But she put her hand on his arm protestingly.
"Even if we don't believe," said she--not harshly, but imploringly, "we
needn't make fun."
"_We_ don't believe!" And that new tone of entreaty! She had
comprehended without explanation. She was a weird woman. Was there
another creature, male or female, to whom he would have dared to say
what he had said to her? He had chosen to say it to her because he
despised her, because he wished to trample on her feelings. She roused
the brute in him, and perhaps no one was more astonished than himself to
witness the brute stirring. Imagine saying to the gentle and sensitive
Janet: "It only wants the Ganges at the bottom of the Square--" He could
not.
They stood silent, gazing and listening. And the sun went higher in the
sky and blazed down more cruelly. And then the speech ended, and the
speaker wiped his head with an enormous handkerchief. And the
multitude, led by the brazen instruments, which in a moment it
overpowered, was singing to a solemn air--
When I survey the wondrous cross
On which the Prince of Glory died,
My richest gain I count but loss,
And pour contempt on all my pride.
Hilda shook her head.
"What's the matter?" he asked, leaning towards her from his barrel.
"That's the most splendid religious verse ever written!" she said
passionately. "You can say what you like. It's worth while believing
anything, if you can sing words like that and mean them!"
She had an air of restrained fury.
But fancy exciting herself over a hymn!
"Yes, it is fine, that is!" he agreed.
"Do you know who wrote it?" she demanded menacingly.
"I'm afraid I don't remember," he said. The hymn was one of his
earliest recollections, but it had never occurred to him to be curious
as to its authorship.
Her lips sneered. "Dr Watts, of course!" she snapped.
He could hear her, beneath the tremendous chanting from the Square,
repeating the words to herself with her precise and impressive
articulation.