Chapter I

(i)

NHHE October term had begun as usual, and the ' • streets were full of shy freshmen, superior second-year men, and all the rest. I made a few new acquaintances and missed some old ones; and the term moved on peaceably. It was not until a fortnight of the end of it that I saw anything of Algy Banister. To tell the truth I had completely forgotten him since our meeting near King's Cross about three months before. I knew nothing of Theo's death. But a few days after December had begun, at about half-past nine in the evening, just as I was beginning mat tins and lauds for next day, the door was opened and " Mr. Banister " was announced by an invisible maid beyond the screen. Then Algy appeared round it.

Certainly I knew his face as soon as I saw it; but I had to fence a few minutes with particular delicacy before I knew anything more. He sat forward in my green arm-chair and nervously smoked a cigarette, and I made general conversation as well as I could. I was not even sure whether he were a Catholic or not. He mentioned that I had asked him to come and see me; but that was not distinctive enough. Finally, < 113 he asked me whether I had got down to Brighton all right. Then I knew, and, I am afraid, hypocritically, suppressed all outward signs of relief.

Before he went away that evening I learned that his eldest brother had died; and that he himself was going to give up the Bar and settle down at home as soon as he had taken his degree, to help his father and learn the management of an estate.

I thought about him for about three minutes after he had gone, and then settled down again to mattins and lauds.

Christmas passed; and the Lent term began; and within a week of its beginning Algy turned up again.

When a young man turns up at the beginning of a term, I am fairly confident that he wishes to pursue my acquaintance. Otherwise he would put it off till the last possible day, and then come and say good-bye. I could see, too, by Algy's bearing that he had something else to say. I didn't know whether it might not be about the Catholic Church; so I gave him no help; for I hold that the first word on a subject should, nearly always, come from the layman.

Finally he got it out — rather clumsily, but bravely enough.

" I want to talk to you, if I may," he said, straining at his^cigarette. " I feel rather a fool and all that; but I don't know who else to talk to."

" Please^ say exactly what you like," I said.

" It's about all sorts of things — I don't know where to begin."

" Why not at the beginning? "

He smiled rather feebly at that. Well — do you know, I think I will." ten he began at the beginning, fobody need be in the least alarmed. Before I began a word of this book Algy gave me full leave to write it: he has inspected the proofs up to the point where he leaves its pages; he has given me his imprimatur, only desiring that a few details by which persons and places might conceivably be identified should be altered. This has been done.)

When he had finished, helped now and then by questions, I sat quite silent for a full minute. I was really very much astonished at his self-knowledge. He told me everything — about his education, his tastes, his people, his difficulties. It was not at all a confession in the technical sense; he did not even tell it me because I was a priest; he simply told it me because he knew no one else to tell. He told me in considerable detail all that has been related in the first part of this book, and certain other things that have not. The people whom he described became very vivid to me. (I have even ventured, in consequence, to conjecture their meditations.)

It seemed that there were two or three points in particular on which he desired remarks. The first concerned Miss Mary Maple. (He had grown quite frank by now.)

' You know, I was awfully in love with her last year. It was just everything; and she, I think, was fond of my brother. Perhaps it's beastly of me to say that; but I may as well tell you what I think. Well; she was with us last Christmas; and, do you know, she was quite different. She never snubbed me once. She was much quieter, too — she sat with my mother much more, instead of coming to the billiard-room as she used. Now what do you make of that? "

I made a good deal of it to myself; but I didn't say much. I said I didn't know.

" Well, now, it's an extraordinary thing," said Algy, " but I feel quite different to her. You know, I can't help thinking — no; it's beastly of me even to think that."

" Yes; just so, and you can't tell, you know," I said, beginning to feel very sorry for Miss Mary Maple.

" And yet, you know," said Algy, " I made up to her last year as hard as I could; and I feel an awful brute now. Perhaps she'll think it's because I've become eldest son, and all that — and, you know, it isn't that— it isn't that."

He leaned forward in his intentness.

" My dear man, of course it isn't that — I know that."

" Well, but am I bound to her at all? "

I almost rose in the air with emphasis.

" You are not," I said; " you are not in the slightest way bound; not in the very faintest degree."

He looked puzzled at my vehemence.

<( Why did you say it like that? "

" Because I am absolutely certain of it.... Please go on."

He leaned back.

" Well, that's the first thing. But there's this that comes in, too.... Now here I feel more of a fool than ever. I know it's a rottenly stupid thing to say — but — but marriage seems to me now — well — quite impossible."

" I don't think that's necessarily stupid," I said. " Sometimes — well, go on."

" I don't mean in itself," said Algy, staring at the red end of his cigarette, " but — but for me. It seems so — so futile, don't you know.... And the odd thing is that now's exactly the time when I ought to be thinking about it. My people want it, and — well, it's obvious, isn't it? "

" Tell me when you first thought of it that way."

" Oh — well — when I was a boy, you know, I couldn't imagine what it was all about. Then came this thing with Miss Maple. But I don't know that even then it was quite what other people mean by marriage. I can't explain — but there is a difference, you know.... And then came my brother's death."

" Well? "

Algy tossed his cigarette into the fire, and leaned right back out of the lamplight. I carefully refrained from looking anywhere in his direction; because I saw that the Point was coming.

" Well — it's like this — I can't put it into words, you know — and, anyhow, it sounds fearfully arrogant and ridiculous. But it's like this...."

He paused again. I said nothing.

" Well — ever since that time it has seemed to me that the whole world's perfectly mad. Here we are, fooling along — I told you what kind of things I've always <ione at home — fooling along, and making a lot of fuss about nothing at all — jawing, and going out in motors, and shooting. Look what a lot of time we spend in just keeping going — meals and sleeping, and so on.... Even clergymen — well, I told you about Mr. Mortimer. He's an excellent chap — I don't mean he's not; he's a lot better than most. And yet — and yet — the whole time "

Words failed him; but I saw what he was after.

" You mean the next world and death and so on," I said softly.

" Yes."

I was silent a minute or so. Of course it was, as he had said, all very arrogant; but he had said it was — and that meant a good deal.

" Tell me how you'd arrange your life, if you had it all your own way."

Algy considered.

" Well," he said, " I know it's unnatural, but it seems to me that I should like to live almost entirely alone. You see, I'm not really at my ease with people. Being with them takes up such a lot of attention. I know that for some people it's not like that; they marry and have families and all that; just because they're that sort. I'm not saying anything against them. But it's not the same with me. Then — well, I know this sounds a silly thing to say— then, i then, really and truly I want to be alone a great deal. It seems to me it's just the only thing that matters."

" How would the world go on," I interposed, " if everybody did that? "

I saw him smile in the half-light.

" Well, you know, everybody won't. Isn't that good enough? "

" Quite good enough — I only wanted to see — well, go on."

He moved uneasily in his chair.

;' You know, this isn't just a fancy with me.... I've had it, in a way, for ages. I go out in the woods alone a lot at home. Up here, too, about three days a week, I take the train — please don't think me an ass — out to Hoys ton or somewhere — after lunch — just simply in order to be alone. (It was like that when we met in London, do you remember?) I walk back, or bicycle; and then the queer thing is that I can hardly bear to go into hall, or to speak. I'm not shy; I've never been ragged; it isn't that I'm afraid of people. You see, I'm third year; and I've always got on all right. But it's just that I'm so absolutely crammed with something — I don't know what — that I want to be absolutely alone, so as to — to sort it — no, not quite that. Oh! you know what I mean."

I nodded very softly. ' Yes — but can't you tell me a little more? "

He drew himself up in his chair.

" Well, yes; I will," he said shortly. " It's this... It's God."

A silence indeed fell then. He had told his secret; and I had not a word to say.

Outside the winter night was very still, for few were abroad. A tram a hundred yards away boomed up from St. Andrew's Street, grew yet more resonant, punctuated by the horses' hoofs, and died away again up the Hills Road. The clock chimed out its little plain-song melody, telling the world that it was half-past ten as we count time. Over us were the stars and the infinite spaces. And all westwards of us lay the town, shuttered and lighted and warmed, where young men played cards and sang songs; and the colleges, old foundations formed in the Ages of Faith, where dons talked in studious rooms, and debating societies discussed ghosts and politics and passed resolutions and abolished the Established Church and Eight Hours Bills and criticised the Universe. And here in my rooms sat a young man, telling me that he wanted to be alone with God.

" My dear boy," I said, " forgive me for saying what I'm going to say; but don't you think perhaps you are a little morbid? You know lots of men go through an odd time up here. Generally, I confess, it's the other way. They find that they don't want religion, and can get on perfectly well without it; but not all. And then, in ten years or so, whichever way it has been with them, they just settle down as before and go on quietly "

He burst in. His shyness was clean gone now. His ace was alive with emotion.

" But that's exactly what I'm frightened of. It'd be too ghastly if I went back.... Father Benson, don't you understand? I thought you'd be sure to. bu're a priest, and all that. Don't you see that I've bund out something now. Good Lord! why are people such fools? You say that lots of people go through a queer time — well — well — and, in God's name, an we tell that that isn't their one great chance?... hat they see things as they really are. Why, isn'twenty-two old enough? And nobody lives much over eighty...." I interrupted him this time.

" Look here; please don't get excited. Don't think 'm against you; I'm not. But you must tell me

We talked that evening till twenty minutes to twelve. Then I turned him out, in order to get him )k to Trinity before midnight. We said good night the door, and he promised to come in again for tother talk next week.

Then I sat down and wrote a letter, directing the ivelope to —

" Christopher Dell, Esq.

" Martin's Farm,

" Near Maresfield,

" Sussex."

(n)

I carried about with me for the next few days a sensation like that of a man who has discovered a genius in a garret. I do not propose to write down all that Algy said to me during that last hour; but it was one of the most astounding conversations I have ever had. This boy, I found, had hardly read anything, and, of course, he had ideas which even I could see were full of blunders. Yet, at the same time, his knowledge of what I should call " Divine Things " was simply extraordinary. I do not profess to be a judge of such matters; I take my Gospel-milk simply from the Church; but even I could see that this young man had gone a long way — I do not mean in " dogma," because of this he knew hardly anything at all — but in that experimental knowledge of which at any rate Catholics believe theological statements to be the authoritative expression.

For example, he asked my opinion of what he called a very odd idea that had come to him — he did not remember having ever read it or heard it mentioned — but it was nothing else than the Law of Mystical Substitution. His was hardly a line of thought current, let us say, at Eton or Crowston; yet he had it somehow. He quoted to me, oddly enough, in that connection, the incident of the young man in gaiters who had thrashed him. He told me that this had bewildered and shocked him for a time — and what had bewildered him more than anything else was the fact that he himself did not regret it in the slightest. I suggested — for I wished to test him — that he did not regret it simply because he happened to be a gentleman. But that did not satisfy him in the least. He had thought of it, and it was not that. It was rather, he said, a certain knowledge that he had by his own actual pain and disgrace balanced to some degree the loathsomeness of the young man and the shame that Sybil suffered. Her laughter in the hall, too, fitted in, he told me. It was that that was needed.... I asked him how he squared that with the Protestant doctrine of the Atonement; and he answered very sensibly.

In fact, as I say, I was astounded. Here was a boy with everything against him, who seemed, literally speaking, to have been caught up by the Supernatural out of a conventional family and life into a realm where I could not follow him at all except by hearsay. The end of it had seemed abrupt; it had been precipitated by the week in the previous September which has already been described, but, from all that he said, I could see that it had been a-preparing a long time. Of course, I let him see nothing of what I thought; I snubbed him gently half a dozen times; he must have thought me a very discouraging kind of clergyman; but he came, again and again. Then I began to give him books to read — not controversial, but mystical — he had " Mother Julian of Norwich," " The Ascent of Mount Carmel," " Sancta Sophia," and " Heaven

Opened." And then at last, a fortnight before Easter, I unmasked two guns, which I had been wheeling cautiously into position, full in his face.

The first was the " Penny Catechism."

I presented him with a copy in silence, as soon as he came into the room. He looked at the little purple, shiny book with unconcealed disgust; then he opened it and sat down, turning the pages.

" What's this aU about? " he said.

" It's the ' Penny Catechism,' " I said; " it's what our children read. That's why I've given it you."

" But I'm not a Catholic," he said.

" I know you're not; because you haven't the faintest idea what it's all about. But will you be good enough to take it away, and read it slowly through, three or four times? "

He shook his head doubtfully, pursing his lips a little.

"I'll read it, if you want me to. But, you know, you'll never make me a Catholic. Besides, I didn't think "

" Well? "

"Well — I didn't think that sort of thing mattered much. Surely it can't possibly matter what denomination you belong to, so long as "

Then I fired my gun.

I began with a discourse on Pride. I told him that for a young man to sit there in my chair and tell me, a Catholic priest and a convert, and fifteen years older than himself, and very much more than fifteen years wiser, that it couldn't possibly matter what denomination one belonged to, was impertinence enough; but to say, as in effect he had done, to such persons as So-and-So and So-and-So, and a number more, that their step had been obviously unnecessary, and that they would have done much better to stop where they were, was an impertinence before which my brain reeled. Finally, there remained the Holy Catholic Church throughout the world, and I mentioned a few Saints and Doctors whose names I thought he might conceivably have heard — declaring with one voice that she was the one Ark of Salvation. And he sat there....

He pointed out to me, with some shrewdness, that there were plenty of wise men and good outside the Church.

" No doubt," I cried at him; " and therefore I don't dare to say that their beliefs are obviously absurd. I say that I don't believe them; and you are at liberty to say that you don't believe in the Catholic Church; but to say more, as you did, is simply sheer pride." |He had nothing to say to that; and I proceeded.

I should think I spoke for twenty-five minutes; he interrupted me once or twice; but when I set before him the idea that the Church was actually the Body of Christ, assumed into union with His Person, experiencing therefore what He experienced on earth, and sharing in His Prerogatives of Infallibility, Indefectibility, and all that flowed from them, he interrupted me no more....

Was it unfair? I think not. After all, for twenty-two years he had grown up in the protection of a Society whose boast is that of Free Inquiry. Then against what principle did he or I sin — I in giving him a little Free Information, and he in listening to it?

He waved his hands at last.

" Enough, enough! " he cried.

" Well; be good enough to read the ' Penny Catechism,' " I said. " And go to any Anglican Divine that you like. I'm not the least afraid. I only ask one thing — that you'll tell me what they say."

Then I unmasked my second gun.

I began by telling him about Christopher Dell, my friend, who had gone through fire and water and come out, as the Scriptures say, into "a wealthy place." I concealed nothing, though I did not go into all the details; for, after all, I had Chris's leave to use it.

He sat dumb, looking at me. He heard the tale of sins, and unreality, of the falling in love, and the rejection, and the revolt against God. Then he heard of Mr. Rolls, the Catholic mystic, who by sheer brutality had first smashed Chris, driving him to the brink of suicide, and then healed him, making him like a little child in faith and love. But I didn't tell him that Lady Brasted was the girl in the story.

" Now," I said, "I'm going to stay with Chris in the Easter vacation. Dick Yolland's going to be there; and I've told Chris to keep a room for a friend of mine. Will you come? "

Algy moistened his lips.

" I will," he said. " Where does he live? "

" Not ten miles from Crows ton — at Maresfield."

" I'll come," he said again. " When? "

"I'm going there ten days after Easter; and I'ming to stop there a week. You can come when you e."

" Yes — I'll come; I'll let you know. But — but do you want me to come? "

" For two reasons. The first is that I want you to what Grace has done; and the second I won't tell u."

He looked at me a minute or two without speaking.

am sure he suspected a popish plot, and he was irfectly right in doing so. It's no good," he said; "I shall never be a itholic."

" Tell me why you think that."

"Well— Lady Brasted— I told you about her. If bt's what Catholics are like "

" Have you ever thought what she'd be if she wasn't Catholic? "

" Well— she'd be like other people."

"Oh, Algy! And it's other people you've been >mplaining of so much! I don't say she isn't mventional; but is it possible you don't see that all ie good that there is in her comes simply and solely

m her religion? She does her best to love God and neighbour; and that's something surely."

I gave him another little lecture on charitableness then. I pointed out that Lady Brasted was perfectly sincere, that she took a great deal of trouble for the sake of her religion, and that it was a far finer thing to believe in God and practise religion, even if it materialised a good deal in prie-dieux and looking rapt, than not to have any religion at all; and infinitely better, therefore, to have this than to indulge in the vulgar and insincere cant of being too spiritual for any human system at all. I felt shockingly didactic and flat-footed; but it was necessary to humble this young man, if he was to become what I thought he might perhaps be capable of becoming. He took it very well; he grinned, and he flushed once or twice.

Finally, I begged him to remember that he was not yet acquainted with the Catholic Church, and therefore knew nothing at all of what he was talking about.

When he was gone, I took out a letter of Chris's and read it again. It ran as follows: —

" MARTIN'S FARM, MARESFIELD,

" March 18.

" My dear man, — Of course I shall be charmed to see your young man. I know nothing whatever about it all; but if you care to bring him, I'll tell you what I think, It seems to me very odd, when you tell me he isn't even a Catholic; but, after all, you know him and I don't. Dick's going to be here; have you heard he's going to be made a Monsignore? How exceedingly funny it is — ' Monsignor Dick! '

" We can arrange about the other thing all right. i,ve it to me.

" Oh! yes; tell him exactly what you like about le. I hope it'll do him good. " Pray for me. " Ever yours,

" C. D."

P.S. — I've got a pony-cart at last, so you'll be able go over and say mass every day."

I put the letter away in my drawer, feeling more of a Popish Conspirator than ever.

(m)

Chris Dell's cottage at Maresfield was a very charming little place. It stood in a corner, rather off the high road, presenting only a blank wall to the dust of occasional cars. The cottage itself faced westwards, and a pleasant, fragrant little old garden came right up to its windows, crossed by paved paths, with a row of beehives at the lower Jend. Inside it was remarkably plain; there were no carpets or curtains in the house at all; the boards were a natural dark colour, polished by generations of feet. Right out of the central room, once a kitchen, which Chris had turned into a kind of living-hall, rose a staircase to the first floor. The kitchen that was in use opened through a door with a latch' (in it into the hall, with a scullery beyond; and, on the other side of the hall, were two tiny parlours. Upstairs were four moderate-sized bedrooms, each with its bed partitioned off; the servants' rooms — for a housekeeper and a boy-were over the kitchen and scullery, and communicated directly with them by a small staircase of their own which Chris had erected.

He seemed to have a succession of friends always staying with him; but these friends had to conform very rigorously to the rules of the house. Chris himself walked over to hear mass every morning at Crawley; he took no breakfast, and, even when he returned, was invisible till lunch at one o'clock. In the afternoon he entertained any one who might be staying with him by a walk or bicycle ride; and after tea vanished again upstairs. Dinner was at half -past eight; and from then till eleven everybody sat in the hall or one of the parlours. At eleven Chris went upstairs.

It was an extremely simple life, but, to people who liked it, extremely pleasant. We were given real liberty. If one was sulky or meditative Chris perfectly understood, and one walked alone. I used to go down there fairly often if I had something particular I wanted to finish in peace — or even sometimes to " make my soul."

And as for Chris himself

His previous history has been told in the " Sentimentalists "; * I had sketched it to Algy. The old

• This is not intended as an advertisement, but as a relation of fact.

Catholic, John Rolls, on dying five years before the present date, had continued by a bequest an income of two hundred pounds a year for the benefit of his friend; and Chris, ever since his return from Italy, five years before that, had lived this queer, lonely ife at Maresfield. It is difficult to describe exactly what he did; articles appeared from time to time, nd an occasional book, very carefully written, bearing his name. They did not cause a blinding sensation, but his readers were quite constant and quite evoted. I have heard obscure and quiet people speak of Christopher Dell with an enthusiasm which I dare not quote. His life was of a kind that strenuus workers would describe as slothful, and fussy people as dull; but it was neither. He slept six hours every night; his meals occupied him an hour and a half, and his recreations three. And all the rest of the time he was engaged in his room.... And he did not care a straw what people thought of him.

I arrived there in Lent week, about four o'clock on the Wednesday afternoon, to hear from the boy that Mr. Dell and Father Yolland were in the village; and I had hardly unpacked my things upstairs before I heard their voices in the garden. I rushed downstairs.

It was extraordinarily pleasant to see them again. Chris rang for tea, and sat down opposite to me where I could see him in the full light from the little leaded window. He was a little greyer, I thought, and I told him so; he was streaked on the temples and in his short, pointed beard.

" I am delighted to hear it," he said. "It is more in keeping with the Mysterious Recluse business which is supposed to have been my pose for the last ten years. I think I shall wear a little velvet skull-cap and cultivate a wan smile.'*

I turned to Dick.

" Where's your purple, Monsignor? "

" Don't be a funny ass," said Dick.

He, too, was a little older, as was but right. He was the Rector of a big London mission now and, I was pleased to observe, showed a suspicion of stoutness. This also was in keeping. Otherwise he was as before, a plain man, rather like an Irish terrier, with stiff sandy hair and a snub nose.

Then we settled down and talked extremely fast for a very long time. I heard bits of news, and gave other bits. It would have been of no interest to any one else. Finally, Chris asked me when Algy was coming. I told him that the young man was going to be brought over in a motor in time for dinner.

" That reminds me," said Dick. " I've got my aunt's motor here, and her chauffeur, all at her expense. She's gone to Lourdes for a fortnight. They're put up in the village."

" And that reminds me," said Chris. " We're going to use Dick's motor for our little affair. It holds five, you know."

Chris went upstairs at six o'clock; and I turned immediately to Dick.

" Well? " I said.

Dick waved his hands.

" My dear man, he's extraordinary. And those donkeys all told me that he was an incurable, and that once a poseur always a poseur. It's a black lie."

" Just the same then? "

" Just the same for ten years — ever since his smash. He does a little writing, you know; and gets poor beggars down here to reconsider themselves, and talks to them a bit, and they go back sane. It's what I said. It's just old Rolls' mantle descended upon him. I know nobody else in the least like him."

I mused a minute or two.

" He's told you about Algy Banister? " I asked.

Dick nodded.

" Well; I tell you I feel like Columbus. If that boy isn't a born Contemplative — I've never heard of uch a thing. It's like finding a lion in your garden. And if you only knew what he's had against him! "

" Why have you got him here? "

" Why, to consult a specialist — what else? " I supposed it was that," murmured Dick.

e both had a little office to say; so we wandered out into the garden presently and were soon at it, pacing up and down parallel paths, while the sun sank through the trees westwards, and the sky grew luminous and amber. I must confess that I suffered distractions, yet the peace of the place sank deeper every minute. The mellow, old-fashioned spring flowers, prisoned in their box hedges, began to doze; beyond the hedge in the meadow I could see the rabbits stealing out; yet the heart of the peace was not physical; that I knew very well. It was rather that a man lived here who generated it, for he had found the way to it through tribulation. It was all Chris. So I am afraid I thought a good deal about him. Even Algy faded; and as for Dick, he was to me during that hour nothing but a stoutish, kindly clergyman saying his prayers a dozen yards away. It was Chris to whom my thoughts wandered, that vivid, virile, black-eyed, bearded man, who lived a life that to most sane persons' minds must have seemed utterly without point or colour. Yet it was not that he had not known these things. Yet here he lived, entirely content and serene, issuing queer books that on some hearts fell as harmless as blunted arrows, and on others winged and pointed with flame; entertaining singular friends in his plain little house, living alone in his own room with the door locked for nineteen hours out of the twenty-four, losing his life to all appearances and, to his own mind at least, for the first time finding it.

As the village clock a hundred yards away beat out the hour of seven, across the boom came a throbbing: it grew louder and stopped; and I went down the flagged path to welcome Algy.