Part 51 (2/2)

”There is a Normandy village, John, called Valee-les-Noisettes--white houses with an extraordinary sound of forest about, one of Poussin's landscapes, with a smithy under a chestnut precisely as in the poem; and the blacksmith is a charming man. I dare say someone will find me money enough to purchase a share of his smithy: and with him I shall work, starting for him before sunrise, with my sister”.

Loveday, wondering if he was delirious, said irrelevantly: ”I have to tell you that by five A.M. there will be 15,000 additional infantry in London, with--”

”Ah, I wish they'd lend them me to send out to those poor Jews, John.

But, for myself--I was mad when I gave that order. It won't do! the world is addicted to its...o...b..t, and relapses. I don't say that it will be always so, but it is now. As against the Empire of the Sea arises--Pat O'Hara; as against the brus.h.i.+ng aside of these rebels arise--Germany, Russia, the hostile world. Consider the rancour of the nations at Britain's late advantages in sea-rent, try to conceive the scream of jubilation that rings to the sky to-night against her, and against me. Do you think I could _now_ start a civil war in England? for the satisfaction of my own pride? I call G.o.d to witness that never for my own pride have I done aught, but that the Kingdom of G.o.d might come. I know that bitter tears will flow at the fall of the righteous man--many calling me 'traitor' for abandoning those ready to die for me.

Yet it shall be. I never thought to fail, to fly, John Loveday, chased by such little fellows: but G.o.d has done it. Well, then, the smithy. You and all, therefore, will find enough to do to-night”.

Loveday lifted a face streaming with tears to say: ”The man, O'Hara, waits to see you”.

”Really? Well, come, we will see him....” and in some minutes O'Hara was there by the bedside, the eyes of the two fixed together, over Hogarth's face five oblongs of sticking-plaster, his head bandaged, and at a corner of O'Hara's mouth a twitching.

”Pat, did you betray me?” asked Hogarth.

O'Hara nodded: ”Yes”.

”Well, you may sit and tell me, and ease your poor heart”.

And a long time O'Hara sat, going into the mighty crime, torturing details, revelling in the vastness of the horror, the sickness of the self-inflicted filth, and pangs of the self-inflicted scalpel.

”And why did you do it, my friend?”

”Because I wors.h.i.+p you....”

”Well, perhaps I understand you, crooked soul. But what will you do now?”

”We shall see. What will you?”

”I am going to France to live as a private person”.

”Tut, you remain as simple as a child: the earth's not large enough to contain you, you couldn't now remain a private person for three weeks.

Come, I have discrowned you: I will give you another crown, though I shall never see you wear it. Why not go to your own people?”

”Which people?”

”The Jews”.

”Don't talk that same madness”.

”My time with you is short, Raphael Spinoza”--O'Hara glanced at his watch--”in five minutes we part, never, I do a.s.sure you, to meet again. Listen, then, to me: you are a Jew. I knew your mother--the most intellectual woman, I suppose, who ever drew breath, the only one whom I have loved; and I should have known you merely from your resemblance to her at my first glance at you in Colmoor, though I had more precise data: the three moles, the bloodshot eye, for didn't I baptize you?

haven't I rocked you in my arms? You know St. Hilda on the hill over Westring, which you found me examining that morning after our escape from the prison? I was priest there, three years, and twice I have confessed her--ah! and remember it! for when your foster-father wanted her to turn Methodist, she wouldn't stand that, and since she must needs be a _meshumad_ (apostate), became a Catholic. Well, now, I once saw at Thring, and once in the _Boodah_, an old goat-hair trunk of yours: what is become of it?”

”I have it--” Hogarth was s.h.i.+vering, his eyes wide, and in his memory a strange singsong crooning of _t'hillim_, heard ages before in some other world over a cradle.

”Did you know that that trunk has a false bottom?” asked O'Hara.

”Yes”.

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