Part 23 (1/2)

LYCANTHROPY.

They drove him forth as beast and not as man Till seven times had pa.s.s'd. At last he came Back to his Babylon, but not the same.

Nay! For he now had learn'd of Lips on high, Herded with cattle, 'neath a dewy sky, How patience cannot fail where pa.s.sion can.

But we, war's wehr-wolves, we than wolves more fain.

(Grace-harden'd, deaf to Gospel, blind to Rood), Fain to seek night-long horrors of the wood Where the blood-trail is red, the blood-scent hot, Shall we return in time? G.o.d, were it not Best for Thy world we should not come again?

But he was to come again, for all his reluctance and shrinking from a return. He was to come through that campaign all right, and back to our part of Africa that he loved so dearly.

'We shall have him back, I hope, before the end of this month,'

the Superintendent of Missions told me. 'The Bishop seems willing to ordain him before Christmas. He's not likely to need a long diaconate, is he? Our Bishop agrees with me that he's had just the kind of training for his priesthood that was most to be desired.' I nodded dubiously.

We were sitting in the Superintendent's well-ordered study, which he preferred to call his office. Its big window took a discreet peep at the veld, but it was not the untamed veld, only Rosebery Commonage. I searched in my pockets, and after uneasy gropings, unearthed a crumpled letter begrimed and tobacco-dusty. 'This doesn't look much like his coming up for ordination,' I said. I read an extract: 'Please give that Chinde boy in the College at Cape Town a message from me. I was glad to hear from you how well he was doing. I always liked that boy extraordinarily, and I think I had a sort of glimmer of his pastoral destiny quite early, soon after he came our way as a straying sheep. Now, from what you say, he bids fair to be a quite respectable candidate for the native ministry. Will you please offer him two or three more years at the College to enable him to qualify, should that be his own wish. I am quite prepared to be at charges for him.

It's a happy augury that his baptismal name happens to be Solomon, even as it was rather a tragic one that mine happened to be David. I don't see my way to building up G.o.d's House on the old farm now, either literally or metaphorically, in the way a priest should.

I look on your boy at Cape Town as a likely subst.i.tute.

Vicariously I hope to offer by his hands, since mine are now too stained to offer to my own satisfaction. I'll do David's part, please G.o.d, and help him to build up the House, in both senses, the house I might have built with my own hands, had they been otherwise occupied than they have been these last months. I am quite resigned now. It is all for the best, doubtless.'

'What does he mean?' The Superintendent's rather a.s.sured face grew quite indeterminate and puzzled.

'What he says, probably,' I hazarded. 'He's got a scruple an old-world scruple.'

I picked up the Superintendent's khaki-covered Bible, and turned over hastily the red, blue, and white edges.

'Here's the pa.s.sage,' I said. 'Listen to what his namesake, the other David, said: ”But G.o.d said unto me, 'Thou shalt not build an house for My Name, because thou hast been a man of war, and hast shed blood.”'

'Oh, that text!' said the Superintendent not very reverentially.

'I don't think that it's particularly relevant.'

'Isn't it what he thinks that matters?' I asked. 'No, make your mind up to it. When he followed your own advice and went off to the war, he decided. He decided to remain a layman to the end of his earthly days. Some of us have got our scruples. His took shape that way.'

'I don't see why,' said the Superintendent rather piteously. He was genuinely disappointed. I liked him for the unconscious tribute he was paying to him whom we discussed.

'Be consoled,' I said with a twinkle. 'His farm promises to be a real lay centre of Christian influence. May we not rest a.s.sured of that? Trust him to encourage native industries and native ideas; Trust him to believe in the veld. Trust him to read to his veld-dwellers the Sermon on the Mount; trust him to live it rather. Trust him to deprecate, by example, as well as precept, excessive care for food and raiment. Our missions are apt to be rather over-ecclesiastical, aren't they? Far too much of an urban and Europeanized type, don't you think? Be consoled, his lay settlement may be trusted to teach us a lot. G.o.d grant that his native priest-designate he has chosen to be his Solomon, may soon come along! Be consoled!'

The Superintendent looked slightly aghast. 'I don't see where the consolation comes in,' he groaned.

FOR HIS COUNTRY'S GOOD

Percy Benson opened his eyes and looked around him. He was lying in a tiny gra.s.s-hut. How did he get there? He thought for a while slowly; his head was very hot and heavy.

Of course! This must be one of the hoppers' houses, and he had got back into Kent or East Suss.e.x somehow. Where had he been lately? Not in Kent, or even in England. He could remember only a confused medley of traveling by land and water, and a huge home-sickness. Never mind, all's well that ends well. Here he was back in Kent surely, and in a hoppers' house. What time of year was it? That rather puzzled him. For was not that a ma.s.s of cherry-blossom not twenty yards from the tiny doorway? Why should they put up a hoppers' house before September? Why in the world should they put it up when cherries were in flower?

Never mind, he was in Kent; he would sleep ever so much better now for knowing that. He put the cup of water that he found beside him to his lips. Then he closed his eyes and slept anew.

When he woke again, hours after, a big man in flannel s.h.i.+rt and wide-brimmed grey hat was standing by a wood fire outside the doorway. It seemed to be just growing dark. The man was cooking something in a pan over the fire. As he turned, Benson knew his face. This was his old school and City friend John Haslar. He had not seen him for years he could not remember how many.