like the process. Do you know what the process is called, McNason? No?
Then I’ll tell you! It’s a blistering, flaying, scorching, boiling,
steaming, tearing, crunching, blasting, stripping--(don’t groan like
that, McNason!)--stabbing, cutting, piercing process called Truth! It
will rip off all the lies in which you are so comfortably wadded, as
lightning rips off the bark from a tree! And it will show you to be
exactly what I say--a Humbug! A pious Fraud, McNason! A rich man who
does no good with his money! A hard man who grinds down poor lives into
ill-gotten gold! A cruel, avaricious, grasping, selfish man! And yet
you go to Church every Sunday and pretend that you’re a Christian! Oh,
hoo-roo! Uncharitable, mean, narrow-minded and hypocritical, you are
anything but a good man, McNason!--and I’ve come to tell you so!”
Gathering up his courage under this volley of abuse McNason turned
round in his chair and deliberately faced his accuser.
“You’re a Bad Dream!” he said slowly--“You’re the result of Cold
and Indigestion! You’re--you’re Nothing! But if you were Anything,
I should tell you you are an impudent scoundrel and liar! I should
tell you to get out of this room before you are kicked out! But you
are only an Illusion!--a horrible, horrible Fancy!--and--and you’ll
Go!--presently!--in a little while--when I am better--when my brain
recovers itself----”
Here he broke off, appalled at the indescribably hideous grimace with
which his unpleasant companion favoured him.
“Your brain!” echoed the Goblin. “_Your_ brain indeed! Pooh! When you
are better! Hoo-roo! You never will be better--never--not unless _I_
doctor you! I must sk--k----”
“No, no!” cried Josiah, seized by a paroxysm of fear--“Don’t skin me!
Anything but that! Don’t,”--and his teeth clattered together--“don’t
ski--i--in me!”
“Professor” Goblin relaxed its writhing features and smoothed them into
a kind of wise impassibility such as is seen on the physiognomy of a
Chinese idol.
“Now answer me, McNason,” it said, impressively--“Do you mean to say
that you consider yourself a good man?”
Josiah looked at his inquisitor with one eye askew.
“As good as any man,”--he muttered--“And better than most!”
“Oh, hoo-roo!” and the dismal cry was like a hundred owls hooting
in chorus--“Hoo-roo!--hoo-roo! How these conceited mortals deceive
themselves!” Here it patted its paunch echoingly. “As good as any man,
are you, McNason?--and better than most! Now what have you done in
order to get such a very excellent opinion of yourself, eh?”
McNason hesitated. Then the recollection of his vast wealth, and of his
wide-reaching business influence flashed across his mind and filled
him with a sudden spirit of self-assertiveness.
“I’ve done a good deal in my time,”--he said, boldly--“For one thing,
I’ve made my own way in the world!”
“Ah! And without assistance?” queried the Goblin--“Without trampling
any poor person down? Without ‘sweating’ labour? Without cheating
anybody less ‘sharp’ than yourself?”
McNason was silent.
“You _haven’t_ made your own way in the world!”--went on the Goblin
relentlessly--“The men who have worked for you have made it! And you’ve
screwed their lives down, McNason!--screwed them down hard and fast to
pittance wages in order to wrest every penny you could for yourself
out of their labour! And you’ve made a pile of money! Too big a pile
by far, McNason! No man in the world makes such a pile without having
wronged his fellow-men in some way or other! He has tried to tip the
balance of justice falsely--but there’s one thing about that balance,
McNason--it always rights itself! When a man is too rich--when a man
has gotten his money through close-fistedness, harshness and avarice,
then WE come in! We of Hell’s United Empire Club! We give a bloated
millionaire fits, I can tell you! When he has got enough gold to gorge
himself with expensive food and wine every day in the week if he
likes, we take away his digestion! That’s capital fun! We take away
his digestion, and the doctors come and limit him to milk and soda!
Oh, hoo-roo!” And the Goblin doubled itself up in a writhing tangle of
delight,--“And when he marries for Money _only_ and gets an heir to
Money _only_, we take away the heir! And then by and bye he finds he
can neither eat nor sleep, and that his Money isn’t such a valuable
commodity as he thought it was, not even though it _can_ buy a Peerage!
And when he is harsh and unkind and uncharitable, we sk--k--in his
soul!”
“I’m _not_ uncharitable!” cried Josiah, goaded almost to frenzy by
the darting menace of the terrible eyes that glared fixedly into his
own--“Not even YOU can say that! I’ve given hundreds and hundreds of
pounds away in charity----”
“On subscription lists--yes! I know you have!” and “Professor” Goblin
nodded sagaciously--“I’ve seen your name writ large along with the
names of a lot of other bounders who want the world to see how much
they’ve given to a hospital! But that’s not charity!”
“Not charity!” echoed Josiah. “Then what is charity?”
“Shall I tell you?” said the Goblin. “You’ve heard, but you’ve
forgotten!” And it repeated in a low, almost gentle voice--“‘Charity
suffereth long and is kind, charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not
itself, is not puffed up, Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh
not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; Rejoiceth not
in iniquity but rejoiceth in the truth; Beareth all things, believeth
all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.’ That’s as unlike
_your_ charity, McNason, as Heaven is unlike Hell!”
“Any devil can quote Scripture!” said McNason, contemptuously--“I hear
all that in Church!”
“You hear, but you don’t listen,”--said the Goblin--“You go to Church
every Sunday?”
“I do! My clergyman relies very much on my assistance.”
“Does he now?” and the Goblin put its head questioningly on one
side--“Financial assistance, of course?”
McNason gave a short laugh.
“That’s the only kind of assistance he ever asks for!”
“Good man!” said the Goblin, thoughtfully--“And you help him?”
“Very considerably.” Here McNason drew himself up stiffly with an air
of importance--“I’m a Churchwarden.”
At this “Professor” Goblin uttered a frightful yell.
“Hoo-roo, hoo-roo, HOO-ROO!” it cried, “The dear old days! The sweet
familiar word!” And springing suddenly into the air, it turned a rapid
somersault and came gravely squatting down again--“Oh, Beelzebub,
McNason! I was once a Churchwarden!”
Josiah trembled in every limb, and his tongue clove to the roof of
his mouth in sheer panic. The alarming abruptness of his unwelcome
visitor’s movements almost paralysed him with terror. Somehow he had
thought the Creature might be a kind of fixture to the arm of his
chair,--an hallucination of his eye and brain which was likely perhaps
to stay in one position,--but its eldritch screech and somersault upset
his logic altogether and turned him sick and dizzy.
“I was once a Churchwarden!” said the Goblin, beginning to emit a
spluttering laugh from a grimacing mouth--“Oh, hoo-roo! And I looked
_so_ respectable! Tell me, McNason!--do you wear a top-hat on Sundays?”
The shuddering millionaire bent his head feebly in assent.
“So did I! So did I!” And the Goblin clasped its toes and hugged itself
in a kind of ecstasy--“And a black frock-coat! So nicely brushed! So
well-fitting! I had a figure in those days, McNason! And I walked into
Church with brightly polished boots, creaking just a little to show
they weren’t paid for--because it isn’t ‘gentlemanly’ to pay for what
you wear right down on the nail, you know!--and I bent my back before
all the people and breathed good little prayers into the crown of my
top-hat, just where I could see the name of the hatter printed in gold
on the silk lining! I did! Oh, they were happy days! Happy humbug
days! Gone, gone, gone! I shall never be a Churchwarden any more!”
Here, unravelling its contorted body, it put its clawlike hands up to
its face and began to weep.
“Oh, hoo-roo!” it blubbered--“When I was a Churchwarden people were
all so respectful to me! I had a country seat--such as you have,
McNason!--and a whole parish bowed down to me! Think of that! Farmers
doffed their caps, and farmers’ wives curtsied to me! The clergyman
spoke of me as his ‘high-minded and generous neighbour!’ Oh, hoo-roo! I
was so proud of myself!--as proud as a Scotch landlord!--and nothing’s
prouder than that! Hoo-roo! Hoo-roo! Those happy humbug days! I gave
myself such airs!--such touch-me-not airs, McNason! I might have been
an up-to-date Highland chief in a kilt, my airs were so superior! You
know what an up-to-date Highland chief is, McNason?--a man who lets
his ‘dear native home,’ and his ‘beloved’ moors and forests for all he
can get, and lives a gay life in London on the profits! A proud and
pompous creature, McNason!--and I was just such a one! I was really!
Talk of patriotism and love of country! I had it all!--I was as
parochial as a town clerk! I had such a grand manner!--so stand-offish!
And now--and now----” Here it beat a dreary tattoo on its expressive
Paunch--“Oh, hoo-roo!--I shall never be a Churchwarden any more!”
A clammy perspiration bedewed Josiah’s brow. That hollow drumming sound
was dreadful!--if the horrible Creature would only stop it!----
“Don’t do that!”--he muttered, feebly, “I--I can’t bear it!”
“Can’t bear what?” demanded the Goblin, quite briskly.
“That sound you make on--on----”
“On my Tum-Tum? Oh, Beelzebub! You oughtn’t to mind that! Tum-Tums are
what all you men live for nowadays! One of your dramatists has made a
play out of a Tum-Tum. Poor old Shakespeare! He was never as clever as
that! I always lived for my Tum-Tum--and of course it’s now the largest
part of me. I have to tell it everything,--and when I beat it, it knows
what I mean!”
Josiah huddled himself back into the depths of his easy chair and
closed his eyes,--if he could only swoon away, he thought!--if he could
but lose his sight and hearing in a merciful unconsciousness!--
A low snarling murmur, breathing through the casements, under the door,
and down the chimney, now gave warning of the fresh and fiercer rising
of the wind, and presently down it swooped with a terrific battery of
hail, and such a scream and uproar of rage as is seldom heard save
in tropical forests, when huge trees fall crashing under the blow of
a storm, and torrents hurl themselves headlong from the summits of
the mountains sweeping tons of granite with them like straws into
the valley below. At that instant the clock began striking Midnight.
One!--Two!--Three!--Four!--Five!--and to McNason’s horror the Goblin
suddenly sprang upright. If it had looked uncanny before, it looked a
thousand times more uncanny now. Poised on the arm of the chair its
lean toes and legs began to stretch,--its body to lengthen,--taller
and taller it grew, its Paunch showing as prominently and roundly
as a full moon on a winter’s night,--its head with its oily hair,
conical cap and tassel seemed to be rising steadily into the ceiling,
and Josiah, clenching his hands convulsively, watched the process in
fearful fascination,--was this the way the awful hallucination would
vanish? Was it going?--would the horrible Nightmare elongate itself
gradually into fine lines, and, mingling with the atmosphere, disappear
altogether?
Six!--Seven!--Eight! The gale rampaged violently outside and shrieked
like a drunken fury, battering at the casements as though meaning to
break them in. Nine!--Ten!--Eleven!--and lo!--the Goblin all at once
pounced down from the height to which it had ascended, and laid its
detestable claw on the shuddering McNason’s shirt-front! Twelve! With
a wild whistling yell, the storm burst open the long latticed windows
at last, throwing them back with a savage BANG!--blowing aside the
splendid damask curtains as though they were rags, and admitting a
gust of bitter cold sleet and snow, while clear on the rushing blast
came the sound of bells! Ding--dong!--ding!--dong! Do re mi--FA!--Sol
la--si--DO! The rhythmic beat and liquid warble of rich tones melted
into the wind and rain like a kind familiar voice arguing with angry
children,--but Josiah McNason, half dead with fear at the sight of the
hairy claw on his shirt-front and the knowledge that the red moon-like
Paunch of the Goblin was almost touching his own shrunken one, heard
nothing save the howling of the furious gale, and wondered how long
this inexplicable torture of his body and brain would last!
“Christmas Day!” cried the Goblin,--“It’s Christmas Day, McNason!
Hark to the bells! How they swing! How they ring! Come to church,
McNason! It’s time! Come along!” And the round eyes glowed like balls
of flame--“Come to Church! Come and sing ‘While Shepherds!’ You’re a
Churchwarden, you know! Come along--come!”
“Not now--not now!” gasped the terrified Josiah, seeing that the Goblin
was spreading out its long lean arms as though to envelop him in its
embrace--“It’s not time!--it’s the middle of the night!----”
“No, no!--it’s Christmas Day!” reiterated the Goblin; “Come to Church,
McNason! Come and hear my friend the Reverend Mr. Firebrand hold forth
on the vanity of riches! Come in the spirit of One Timothy Two! That’s
a text! ‘Grace, mercy, peace!’ Come along, McNason! All are welcome
where _we_ are going! Hark! How the bells ring! One Timothy Two! One
Timothy Two! Come and ‘sit under’ good Mr. Firebrand! Come!--come!”
And with a terrible downward clutch, the Goblin caught hold of McNason
by the coat-collar.
“Mercy----mercy!” cried the wretched man--“Help!--Help!”
“Help!--help!” shouted the Goblin, derisively--“One Timothy Two! Come
along, McNason! Come along!”
Catching up Josiah as easily as though he were a wooden mannikin, the
Goblin unfurled a pair of bat-like wings and rose aloft in air.
“Here we go!” it yelled--“Up we go, and down we go! Off to Church!
ME and the Churchwarden! Oh, hoo-roo, hoo-roo! Christmas Day and
Christmas Bells, and a jolly Christmas altogether! One Timothy Two! Off
we go!”
And with the rush and roar of the wind, the Goblin carrying the
world-renowned millionaire as a bird of prey might carry a rabbit or a
weasel, soared out on a wave of mingled sleet and snow into the stormy
night!
* * * * *
What happened to him in that wild supernatural scurry through the air
Josiah McNason never knew. He lived and was conscious,--conscious of
being borne along at a furious rate not knowing whither,--conscious
of the freezing cold,--the rain, the wind, that tossed him and his
unearthly companion about like dead leaves on its angry breath
with a “Hoo-roo!” louder than the cry peculiar to the Goblin
itself,--conscious above all of the bells! O the Bells! How they
trilled and trolled out their Christmas melody!--how they seemed
to tumble one over the other in their haste to proclaim “Peace and
Goodwill!”--how their metal throats palpitated and throbbed with
the angelic message!--angelic still,--angelic always!--even though
some mortals nowadays are so miserably-minded as to doubt its truth
and sweetness! The Bells rang everywhere!--loudly to the scudding
clouds,--softly to the darkened earth,--whisperingly among the chill
showers of sleet and snow, and with an echoing clang like musical
thunder above and around the shadowy drifting form of the Goblin as
it flew along, gripping the quivering Josiah as a cat might grip a
mouse, or an eagle a new-born lamb. All at once the rattle and rush
of the warring elements rolled off in a pause of quietude, letting
the Bells have it all their own way,--and--suddenly descending with
lightning-like rapidity by sheer force of the Goblin’s imperative
downward pressure, Josiah found himself standing on his feet in the
middle of a vast building which looked like a Church, though there was
no sacred emblem of religion to be seen anywhere in it save the Pulpit.
The Pulpit stood out with singular obtrusiveness, for it was green,--a
livid, wicked green like the glare of a serpent’s eye. Panels of white
appeared to be inserted round it, but these could not be plainly
discerned, at once. The green hue was its chief note of attraction, and
McNason’s eyes fastened themselves upon this with a pertinacity surely
inspired by some other influence than his own. Breathless, shivering
and exhausted as he was, there was something about that Green Pulpit
which, wholly against his will, compelled his attention,--and as he
looked, he heard a sudden confused murmur of voices which, beginning
softly at first, grew louder and louder till it rose into a perfect
pandemonium of howling! The unhappy millionaire trembled. What new
and nameless horror was there yet in store for him? Involuntarily he
turned to look for the Goblin,--even _that_ uncanny Presence seemed
kinder and more friendly than such a dreadful uproar of unknown
tongues! And he was actually glad to see it still standing beside him,
its round eyes sparkling with a strange light of mingled mirth and
malice.
“Well, McNason, how do you feel after your airship voyage?” it
inquired--“A bit air-sick?”
Here the howling voices grew fiercer and more shrill,--and yet the
alarmed Josiah could see nothing. He felt desperately inclined to take
hold of the Goblin’s claw for protection.
“What--what’s that?” he stammered.
“Only Church!” replied the Goblin--“Firebrand is a strong preacher!
He ‘draws’ like a magnet--or a dentist. There’s always a crowded
congregation to hear him.”
Church!--a strong preacher!--a crowded congregation! McNason stared
and stared, seeing nothing but the Green Pulpit and empty space, till
all at once the Goblin took off its conical cap and with the tasselled
point of that headgear touched his eyes. Then--then--oh, then! But who
can describe that “then”! Who in mere words can picture the amazing
scene disclosed of which he, Josiah McNason, was a part, and to which
he seemed to be the only human witness! All round him, in front of him
and behind him were Goblins,--Goblins big, Goblins little, Goblins
fat, Goblins lean, Goblins straight, Goblins crooked--Goblins of every
imaginable size and shape--Goblins of every possible distortion or
monstrosity that ever appeared on the pages of a child’s fairy book,
were here in their scores, and all attired in the queerest motley.
Some wore women’s enormous hats trimmed with fantastic bows of ribbon
and big waggling plumes,--others had coloured caps like those which
are put into very cheap Christmas crackers,--some were decked out
with flashy tiaras and crowns that looked as if they were cut out of
tin-foil,--others again had their strange sticky hair dressed as high
as surely an hair, sticky or otherwise, could go, and surmounted with
fantastic wreaths and garlands of bright coloured flowers apparently
made of paper, under which they minced and grinned like female
gymnasts at a rough country fair,--and all of them were jostling,
pushing, squeezing, and crowding together, each one taking a seemingly
mischievous delight in trying to elbow its neighbour out of place. It
was a fearsome sight!--and still more fearsome did it become when a
great ball of fire suddenly bounced down from Nowhere and burst with
a loud report at the foot of the Green Pulpit, where, spreading out a
peacock’s tail of vivid flame, it lit up the wicked livid colour of
that edifice with blinding brilliancy. Josiah McNason’s soul froze
within him. He was dead, he thought!--he must be dead!
In a swooning access of speechless terror he clung to the Goblin, and
was in a vague way comforted when it tucked its hairy arm through his
and leered at him quite amicably.
“Don’t be nervous, McNason!” it said, “It’s all right! Firebrand always
likes the electricity turned on when he preaches! He’s the ‘star’ actor
of the piece, you see,--the light must show him up more than anyone
else. There he is!”
Josiah gazed at the Green Pulpit in quaking awe and aversion as a
black figure suddenly sprang up in it like a jack-in-the-box,--a tall,
lanky, clothes-prop sort of shape, with a head like a large mop, from
which the hair, of a fiery red, hung down in disordered tangles.
This Goblin’s best feature consisted in its attire, which was of a
double-dyed inkiness, with a wonderfully smooth and silky ‘shine’ upon
it, suggestive of black-lead. It was an unfortunate costume, however,
so far as concerned its becomingness to the face of its wearer,--a
face white as a bleached bone, with prominent eyes which appeared
to goggle out of their cavernous sockets like pebbles rolling each
on the edge of a hole,--and the sable clothing of the creature only
intensified the awful pallor of its countenance, and brought out its
worst points into the strongest possible relief. McNason had barely
time to notice these details, which seemed to be insistently forced
upon his attention, when his ears were again assailed by renewed
howling and screeching, accompanied by a tremendous sound of drums, as
if all the drummers that were ever born were drumming their way through
the world. Every Goblin had a protuberant paunch,--and as “the Reverend
Mr. Firebrand” arose in the pulpit they all started together beating
a prolonged tattoo upon these appendages to their otherwise skeleton
forms. And ever over the frightful noise rang the Bells!--always the
Bells!--the Bells of Christmas,--the Bells of peace and goodwill!
Do, re, mi, FA!--Sol, la, si--DO! Ding-dong!--ding-dong! Swinging and
swaying, the echoes rose and fell--and in the midst of the pulsating
chimes, the Goblins burst into a chorus of wild shouting--
“Firebrand!--Ha ha!”
“Good old Firebrand!”
“Order, order! Silence for Firebrand!”
“Ha-ha, HA! Ha-HA!”
“Firebrand! Hoo-roo! Hoo-roo!”
And then--as though they had been all clashed together by one
stroke into silence--the Bells ceased. The shouting and laughter
and Paunch-drumming of the Goblins likewise eddied away into a dull
murmur--and the Goblin in the Green Pulpit raised a skeleton hand with
the first-finger-bone elevated as a signal for attention.
“My friends!” it began--“My dear brethren----!”
“Ha-HA! Ha-ha-HA!”
And the crowd of uncanny creatures twisted and writhed with ecstasy,
tossing their queerly decorated heads about, and spreading their wide
mouths into elastic grins which seemed to swallow up all the rest of
their faces. As if in sympathy with the general hilarity, the “Reverend
Mr. Firebrand” grinned also--a peculiar and very ghastly grin indeed.
“My friends!” he or It resumed--“How good it is for us all to be here!
What a sign of regeneration----!”
“Ha-ha-HA!”
“Of penitence----”
“Ha-ha!”
“Of unselfishness and charity----”
“Ha-ha-ha!”
“Of hope for the future----”
“Hoo-roo! Hoo-roo!”
“Of everything beautiful, pleasant, and truthful! Oh, how good it is
to know that we are thus assembled together, and that we have among us
a Human Creature, unlike, yet so like ourselves! Oh, my dear friends!
‘Lest we forget,’ let us remember that we were all Humans once! All
Humans!--all Humbugs!--and such respectable Humbugs too! Oh, my
friends, let us turn our thoughts back along the tide of Time--the tide
of Time is such a fine expression!--and reflect on those days--the days
of frock-coats and top-hats! The days when we were GOOD!”
“Ha-ha-HA! Hoo-roo! Hoo-roo!”
Screams of laughter echoed through the dim space, where now, faintly
discernible through a floating red vapour, the trembling Josiah caught
sight of the glittering tubes of a great organ, and scarcely had he
seen this when CRASH!--went the keys with a droning and discordant
thunder. A hideous black scarecrow of a Goblin, waving its paws or
claws about fantastically, began performing on the instrument, whereat
all the impish congregation burst out yelling in chorus:
“When WE were ‘good,’ in all the world
None were so ‘good’ as WE;
WE thought OURSELVES the only ones
Whose souls would savèd BE!--
When WE were ‘good’ our neighbours all
We found so very BAD,
That only US, and only WE
Some little Morals HAD!