Part 62 (2/2)

'Your family is Protestant?'

'Alas!'

'You are ent.i.tled, from your spiritual elevation, to pity heretics, especially those of your own flesh and blood. Here are pens, ink, and paper. Sit down and write the bond of which you have spoken.' His lords.h.i.+p did as he was told. 'So far, so good. But do not imagine that this is a quittance for the debt which you owe Holy Church. As you are entrusted with this world's goods, so the Church demands from you her t.i.thes. On your property you will provide a sufficient religious establishment. You will build churches and endow them. And in all your affairs you will be advised by Holy Church. As you are seated, write that also.'

'My father!'

'Obey. Or I will summon the fraternity, and in their presence I will call down on you the curse of the Church and of the Holy Ghost, and will chase you from the fold out into the darkness of the night, that night which for you shall be unending. Do not think that because you leave us, we leave you. The arm of the Church is long, and, as you have learned from experience, the fires of h.e.l.l burn from afar. Write as I have said.' His lords.h.i.+p wrote. 'Do not imagine that this bond which you have given me is but an empty form, any more than is your promise to pay the fifty thousand pounds. You are of the Church, if you are not in it, a leaf, if not a branch; and she will demand from you exact and prompt payment of every jot and t.i.ttle which is her due.

Above all, do not neglect your religious duties, not for a single hour of a single day.'

'But, my father, I cannot be a monk out in the world.'

'You will neglect them at your proper peril. Do not suppose I shall not know. You will be in error.'

'Do you intend to have me spied upon?'

'We intend to have you kept in sight. You had better do as I advised, and have a discreet priest as your companion.'

'But I am ent.i.tled to my freedom!'

'And is the presence of such an one incompatible with your ideas of freedom? My son, you'll be on your knees calling for me within a week.'

'At least--at least wait until I call.'

'In that case, take care lest you call in vain. Remember five years ago. If you become again what you were then, it will be for ever, and ever, and ever! You'll be but a voice perpetually calling out of h.e.l.l.'

'My father, I--I am stronger than I was then.'

'We will hope it. Though I seem to hear the devil laughing. Now, my son, go!'

'Bless me, my father, before I go.'

'Yes, I will bless you. But be careful, O my son, lest, as Aaron's rod was transformed into a serpent, by your own action my blessing becomes a curse.'

His lords.h.i.+p knelt. The Prior blessed him. Then his lords.h.i.+p went to bed, though the straw pallet on which he cast himself could hardly, on that occasion at any rate, be described as a bed of rest.

CHAPTER x.x.x

THE ONE MAN--AND THE OTHER

There were peas in his lords.h.i.+p's shoes: unboiled.

For some time he had been arriving at the conclusion that he had no so whole-hearted a leaning towards the religious life as he had once imagined. The sc.r.a.p of paper was the top brick; it crowned the edifice of his discontent. More, it supplied him with the necessary courage to confess his backsliding to his superior; that keen-sighted religious being perhaps better prepared for the confession than the penitent imagined. It is even possible that some expectation of the kind had always been part and parcel of the Prior's plans. The Marquis of Twickenham, who is at once a millionaire and a backboneless scamp, is not the kind of bird which often drops into the monastic draw-net, whether at home or abroad. When caught, he may be even more useful at the end of a piece of string than in a cell.

Which explains the ease with which his lords.h.i.+p regained what he fondly hoped would be his liberty. The truth being that persons of his type are never free; owing to their habit of mistaking licence for liberty placing them in continual bondage to some one or something.

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