Part 62 (1/2)
The crowd shrieked and began to fly. Only one person seemed to remain.
It was an elderly woman, with dry and straggling gray hair. She had come out of the p.a.w.nshop and thrown herself on the dog in an effort to rescue the man underneath, crying: ”My son--oh, my son! It'll kill him! Tyke the beast away!”
John Storm called the dog off, and the man got up unhurt, and nearly sober. But the woman continued to moan over the ruffian and to a.s.sail John and his dog with bitter insults. ”We want no truck with parsons 'ere,” she shouted.
”Stou thet, mother. It was my fault,” said the sobered man, and then the woman began to cry. At the next minute John Storm was going with mother and son into the shut-up p.a.w.nshop, and the unhinged door was being propped behind them.
The crowd was trailing off when he came out again half an hour afterward, and the only commotion remaining was caused by a belated policeman asking, ”Wot's bin the matter 'ere?” and by the young fellow with the gin bottle performing a step-dance on the pavement before the entrance to the cellar. The old woman stood at her door wiping her eyes on her ap.r.o.n, and her son was behind with a face that was now red from other causes than drink and rage.
”Good-bye, Mrs. Pincher; I may see you again soon.”
Hearing this, the young swaggerer stopped his step-dancing and cried: ”What cheer, myte? Was it a blowter and a cup of cawfy?”
”For shynie, Charlie!” cried the girl with a baby, and the young fellow answered, ”Shut yer 'ead, Aggie!”
The waiter was still at the corner of the court, and when John came up he spoke again. ”There must be sem amoos.e.m.e.nt knockin' women abart, but I can't see it myself.” Then in a simple way he began to talk about his ”missis,” and what a good creature she was, and finally announced himself ”gyme” to help a parson ”as stood up to that there drunken blowke for sake of a woman.”
”What's your name?” said John.
”Jupe,” said the man, and then something stirred in John's memory.
On the following day John Storm dined with his uncle at Downing Street.
The Prime Minister was waiting in the library. In evening dress, with his back to the fireplace and his hands enlaced behind him, he looked even more thin and gaunt than before. He welcomed John with a few familiar words and a smile. His smile was brief and difficult, like that which drags across the face of an invalid. Dinner was announced immediately, and the old man took the young one's arm and they pa.s.sed into the dining-room.
The panelled chamber looked cold and cheerless. It was lighted by a single lamp in the middle of the table. They took their seats at opposite sides. The statesman's thin hair shone on his head like streaks of silver. John exercised a strong physical influence upon him, and all through the dinner his bleak face kept smiling.
”I ought to apologize for having n.o.body to meet you, but I had something to say--something to suggest--and I thought perhaps----”
John interrupted with affectionate protestations, and a tremor pa.s.sed over the wrinkles about the old man's eyes.
”It is a great happiness to me, my dear boy, that you have turned your back on that Brotherhood, but I presume you intend to adhere to the Church?”
John intended to take priest's orders without delay, and then go on with his work as a clergyman.
”Just so, just so”--the long, tapering fingers drummed on the table--”and I should like to do something to help you.”
Then sipping at his wine-gla.s.s of water, the Prime Minister, in his slow, deep voice and official tone, began to detail his scheme. There was a bishopric vacant. It was only a colonial one--the Bishopric of Colombo. The income was small, no more than seventeen hundred pounds, the work was not light, and there were fifty clergy. Then a colonial bishopric was not usually a stepping-stone to preferment at home, yet still----
John interrupted again. ”You are most kind, uncle, but I am only looking forward to living the life of a poor priest, out of sight of the world and the Church.”
”Surely Colombo is sufficiently out of sight, my boy?”
”But I see no necessity to leave London.”
The Prime Minister glanced at him steadily, with the concentrated expression of a man who is accustomed to penetrate the thoughts and feelings of another.
”Why then--why did you----”
”Why did I leave the monastery, uncle? Because I had come to see that the monastic system was based on a faulty ideal of Christianity, which had been tried for the greater part of nineteen hundred years and failed. The theory of monasticism is that Christ died to redeem our carnal nature, and all we have to do is to believe and pray. But it is not enough that Christ died once. He must be dying always--every day--and in every one of us. G.o.d is calling on us in this age to seek a new social application of the Gospel, or, shall I say, to go back to the old one?”
”And that is----?”
”To present Christ in practical life as the living Master and King and example, and to apply Christianity to the life of our own time.”