Part 32 (1/2)
But the Padre remained engrossed in his own thoughts. His puny arms had become as strong again as when he had been a rowing-man at Brasenose; now the Collector, whose own hands had roughened like those of a member of the labouring cla.s.ses, had to struggle to keep up with him.
”That could be a bit of a problem,” mused the Collector.
”I believe, Mr Hopkins,” said the Padre presently, ”though as yet I have found no direct evidence of it, that there may be German rationalism at work within our midst. I hope I am mistaken.”
”Ah?” The Collector's tired mind resisted the prospect of becoming excited over a possible invasion by German rationalism.
”Perhaps you are not aware of how the Church is ravaged in Germany, Mr Hopkins. In the universities there I have heard that unbelief is rife. Men who style themselves scholars do not hesitate to lead the young astray by directing them to study the Bible as if it were the work of man and not the revelation of G.o.d. It is said that a certain Herr de Wette denies that the first five books of the Bible were written by Moses and maintains that they were written at a period long after his death.”
”Oh, the Germans, you know...” The Collector with a shovelful of earth dismissed the Germans. But this attempt to soothe the Padre and render further theological exchanges unnecessary did not succeed.
”True, compared with the simple, healthy British mind the German mind is sickly and delights to feed on such morbid fantasies. But still, we must not forget how quickly unsound ideas can spread, particularly among the young and impressionable. They spread among the young like cholera! The German Church has no discipline; for its ministers it requires no adherence to the Thirty-nine Articles or to the Prayer Book. In Germany a clergyman can believe and teach whatever he wants, a disgraceful state of affairs. I hear there is a man called Schleiermacher who does not subscribe to many of the fundamental teachings of Christianity such as the Fall and the Atonement, but who is yet allowed to call himself a minister of the Prussian Church!”
”I don't think we in England need be anxious...” began the Collector, but the Padre cut him short, waving his spade in the darkness.
”Rationalism! A vain belief in the power of the reason to investigate religious matters. Ah, Mr Hopkins, the abuse of man's power of reason is the curse of our day.”
The Collector remained mute. He did not believe this last remark to be true. But he saw no prospect of the Padre listening sympathetically to his reservations and considered it fruitless to antagonize him.
”I say, you don't happen to know which of these bodies is Donnelly's, do you?” he asked again, indicating the three shrouded mounds of darkness lying beside the path.
”As we read in the Book of Isaiah: 'Thy wisdom and thy knowledge, it hath perverted thee'!”
”Well, of course, there are some ways in which no doubt...” mumbled the Collector. At the same time he realized with a shock how much his own faith in the Church's authority, or in the Christian view of the world in which he had hitherto lived his life, had diminished since he had last inspected them. From the farmyard in which his cert.i.tudes perched like fat chickens, every night of the siege, one or two were carried off in the jaws of rationalism and despair.
Another footstep sounded in the darkness. The Padre paused, leaning on his spade, his eyes feverishly searching for the ident.i.ty of the newcomer. This time he knew it must be Fleury, guided to an appointment with him so that his heretical notions might be extirpated. The Collector noticed that while he himself was scarcely ankle deep in the grave he was digging, the Padre had already lowered himself to the level of his knees, for while the Padre argued, he dug.
Meanwhile, the burly form of Father O'Hara had loomed out of the shadows. He had a spade over his shoulder. ”Glory be to G.o.d!” he muttered as he tripped over something in the darkness. ”Did ye ever see such a dark? I've no mind for this at all at all. Are ye there, Mr Hopkins, sor?”
”Just at your side, Father O'Hara. Mind you don't fall into the...ah...Here, let me give you a hand up.”
”Now then, show me the lads and I'll be after taking mine to his eternal rest, G.o.d help him.”
”Hm, Padre? Perhaps you could tell Father O'Hara which is Mr Donnelly?”
The Padre knelt on the path beside the three dark forms and peered at them uncertainly in the dim light afforded by the stars. After a pause for consideration he said: ”Mr Donnelly is the one at the end.”
”What! This little lad Jim Donnelly, is it? Not at all, not at all. He's no more Jim Donnelly than I am meself. This big lad here'll be your man.”
”The small one is Donnelly,” declared the Padre in a tone of conviction.
”Not at all. Sure, I've known him all me life.”
”I fear you are mistaken.”
”Indeed I am not! That big man over there is Donnelly if I ever saw him...He's the very image.”
”Father O'Hara,” broke in the Collector with authority. ”Both you and the Padre are mistaken. I happen to know that the man in the middle is Donnelly. Now kindly take him away and bury him in the appropriate place and with the appropriate rites.”
”But, Mr Hopkins...”
”Which lad is it?”
”This medium-sized corpse is the one you require.”
”Should we not open up the st.i.tching to make sure?”
”Certainly not. The middle one is Donnelly without a doubt. Now take him away.” And the Collector returned to his digging. The matter was settled.
”Well, come along then, if you're Jim Donnelly and we'll put you in the earth,” declared Father O'Hara shouldering the medium-sized corpse. He hesitated for a moment as if waiting for a possible disclaimer from the shrouded figure on his back, then, as none came, he staggered away with it into the darkness. They could hear him b.u.mping into gravestones and blessing himself and muttering for some time as he groped his way towards his own plot.
So rapidly was the Padre now digging that to the weary Collector it seemed that he must be visibly sinking into the ground. The Collector, too, set to work in a more determined fas.h.i.+on, thinking with a mixture of virtue and self-pity: ”I'm tired but it's my duty. It's right that a leader should bury with his own hands his followers and comrades.” All the same, he was rather put out when the Padre dropped his spade for a moment to drag the shorter of the two remaining corpses over to measure against his half-dug trench. ”He might at least have chosen the bigger one since he's dug twice as much of his grave as I have.”
”Can I be of any a.s.sistance?” asked a voice at the Collector's side, causing him to jump violently for he had heard nothing and now a luminous green wraith appeared to be trembling at his elbow. But it was only Fleury. He had stopped by on his way back to the banqueting hall for the night's watch, still full of the energy generated by his love for Louise.
”Is that Mr Fleury?” came the Padre's voice.
”Yes.”
A gargle of joy came from where the Padre was digging. Misinterpreting the reason for it the Collector said firmly; ”He's taking over my spade for a while, Padre,” and went to sit down on a nearby tombstone.
For a few moments there was no sound but the sc.r.a.pe of the spades in the earth; then, gentle as a dove, cunning as a serpent, came the Padre's voice. ”I hear, Mr Fleury, that in Germany there is much discussion of the origin of the Bible...”
”Oh, is there?” Fleury's mind was still lovingly reviewing the birthday party which had just taken place; he was trying to remember all the charming and intelligent remarks he had just made in Louise's presence; he had done rather well, he thought...”I wonder what she thought when I said such-and-such and everyone laughed? I wonder what she thought when Harry was telling everyone about us spiking the guns? I wonder...”
”Yes,” went on the Padre, making a superhuman effort to maintain his conversational tone. ”It is being studied as if it were not a sacred text, by the method of philological and linguistic investigation.”
”Oh yes, I think I may have heard something along those lines.”
Louise, Fleury had noticed, had a way, while seated of s.h.i.+fting her position slightly with a thoughtful look. There was something so feminine about it.
”A great variety of opinion has been advanced,” continued the Padre impartially, breaking into a sweat. ”Now people think one thing, now another.”
”You mean like 'the dancing clergy'...Some people think it's all right for them to do so, some don't?”
”I suppose the question of the 'dancing clergy' might be so considered,” agreed the Padre mildly, but thinking: 'Surely the Devil is putting words on this young man's tongue!' ”But I was thinking more of another much-debated question...whether the Bible is literally true or not?”
The Padre had uttered these final words as casually as his exhausted state and impa.s.sioned convictions would allow. He had stopped digging. In his excitement he had dug one end of the grave to a tremendous depth, the other hardly at all, so that the body lying beside it would have to be buried at a peculiar angle...But he was not thinking of this, he was waiting for Fleury's reply.
”Will the Padre never cease from these inquisitions?” wondered the Collector irritably. ”Haven't we enough to worry about already?” He still felt displeased because the Padre had so selfishly s.n.a.t.c.hed the smaller body.
The Padre was waiting for Fleury to reveal the thoughts in his mind about the Bible, but Fleury was having trouble seeing them against the radiance shed by Louise. What was it that he was supposed to be thinking about? Oh yes, the Bible, literally true or not?
”Frankly,” he said in a mature and condescending way, ”I tend to agree with Coleridge that it doesn't particularly matter...”
”Not matter matter !” !”