THE TRAGEDY OF 
 A QUIET LIFE 
 
 MARIE CORELLI
 
 LIBRARY 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 RIVERSIDE 
 
 £/^y,
 
 Li/ 
 
 X.
 
 HOLY ORDERS
 
 MARIE CORELLI'S ROMAN CES 
 
 A ROMANCE OF TWO WORLDS 
 
 VENDETTA 
 
 THELMA 
 
 ARDATH 
 
 THE SOUL OF LILITH 
 
 WORMWOOD 
 
 BARABBAS 
 
 THE SORROWS OF SATAN 
 
 THE MASTER-CHRISTIAN 
 
 TEMPORAL POWER 
 
 GOD'S GCOD MAN 
 
 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 BOY 
 
 THE MIGHTY ATOM 
 
 CAMEOS
 
 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 
 
 BY 
 
 MARIE CORELLI 
 
 AUTHOR UK "TIIF. TREASURE OK HEAVEN" ETC. 
 
 SECOND EDITION 
 
 METHUEN & CO. 
 
 36 ESSEX STREET W.C. 
 
 LONDON
 
 First Published . . August iqoS 
 Second Edition . . September igoS
 
 AUTHOR'S NOTE 
 
 THE chief incidents of the following story occurred 
 some years ago in an obscure and dreary little 
 village, not on the Cotswolds, but in a lonely and sparsely 
 populated district lying some few miles inland from the 
 north-east coast. The Vicar of the parish at that time 
 was something of a hero in his quiet way, and fought 
 bravely against the overwhelming forces of the Drink 
 interests in his neighbourhood. Whether he really 
 conquered or was conquered in the struggle has never 
 to my knowledge been determined, and does not pertain 
 to the present narrative. But his single-handed combat 
 lasted for a long time, and was pathetic to the extreme of 
 patience and endurance, and his history, though known 
 only to a few, has furnished sufficient material for a 
 similar character to his in my imaginary friend 'Richard 
 Everton,' who may perhaps in his own person move the 
 public to thoughtfully consider the silent martyrdoms 
 bravely endured by many noble men of the Church, who 
 have devoted, and are devoting their lives to bettering 
 the conditions of the people and to lifting them out of the 
 clutches of that devouring destroyer of all reason, health 
 and good, — Drink. In certain rural districts, especially 
 those which are solitary and secluded, and far away from 
 great centres, there is a general dislike of a 'temperance' 
 parson. He is looked upon as a 'sneak.' Sometimes 
 he is one ; far more often he is not But a strong feeling
 
 vi HOLY ORDERS 
 
 nearly always exists against him, — and this animosity 
 is seduiously festered and encouraged by all such persons 
 in his neighbourhood as may happen to have ' interests ' 
 in the liquor trade. Sometimes the ill-feeling reaches 
 such a climax that the unfortunate man is regularly 
 'boycotted,' or else exposed to the most spiteful and 
 injurious persecution. It takes something more than 
 the usual soldier's mettle to daily bear with the miser- 
 able slights, the mean abuses, the ignorant sneers and 
 vulgar mockeries of a petty parish in arms against its 
 spiritual Head ; yet there are hundreds of ' rural ' clergy 
 who cheerfully endure these narrow animosities and pre- 
 judices, — staunch warriors for the Right and the True, 
 hidden away in the dullest and least frequented corners 
 of the British Isles, fighting steadily under their Divine 
 Master's ' Orders,' without honour, without hope of re- 
 cognition, without personal comfort, — often, in the end, 
 dying dispirited and broken-hearted because the powers 
 of Drink have proved more potent with their parishioners 
 than the power of Christ ! Humble heroes these in the 
 counting of their own lives, but surely contributing to the 
 ultimate working out of the nation's health, strength 
 and wisdom. For just as one ill-tempered, uncharit- 
 able and bigoted clergyman will infect with his own 
 unpleasant attributes a whole community, so will one 
 warm-hearted, kindly, humane and sympathetic man of 
 the same high calling, work a beneficial, if slow and 
 gradual change in the mental feeling and attitude of 
 even the most narrow and embittered of rustic popu- 
 lations. Yet with all their cheerful patience and self- 
 sacrifice such men are far less appreciated in the 
 world and wield much less influence than those who 
 make their money out of the people's drunkenness and 
 degradation, such as ' Mr. Minchin,' whose ' original,' I 
 am told, so far from coming to ruin, as in the ensuing
 
 AUTHOR'S NOTE vii 
 
 pages, is now a hoary-headed, complacent and pro- 
 fessedly pious member of ihe House of Lords. And 
 this perhaps is natural, for while the one side seeks 
 to implant virtue, the other sows vice, and poor 
 humanity will always be more prone to follow vice 
 to its own undoing than virtue for its own happi- 
 ness, till it knows better. That it is beginning to 
 know better is hopefully evident. The Million whose 
 labour makes the country's position and prosperity, are 
 awaking to the realisation of the tyrannous grip in which 
 themselves and their earnings are held by the Drink- 
 Trade, — and with the usual sturdy common- sense which 
 lies at the core of their being, they are beginning to 
 question why they in their toiling thousands should be 
 doomed, with their children, to disease and degradation 
 for the benefit of a few Drink 'companies.' And it is 
 devoutly to be wished that the answer they arrive at 
 will be in the form of such a fight against the National 
 Curse, as may cleanse our land from the slur on its fair 
 fame. For it must be the People themselves who decide 
 their own destiny. They know by this time that they 
 cannot rely on the advice proffered to them by ' party ' 
 newspapers ; moreover the large sums of money coined 
 by press ' companies ' out of the advertisements of brew- 
 ing and distilling 'companies,' very naturally make 
 the two Trades work along the same lines, hand and 
 glove with each other. The pity of it is that the press 
 should have ever become a Trade guided by money 
 results more than by national honour. 
 
 In my present story I have selected only one episode 
 out of many tragedies, — tragedies which Drink writes 
 across millions of homes and millions of lives. There 
 are hundreds of suffering martyred men in the Church 
 like ' Richard Everton,' who would be all the better and 
 much the happier for the conndence, help and support
 
 viii HOLY ORDERS 
 
 of their parishioners, — confidence, help and support which 
 is almost invariably denied to them. I should like to 
 make special pleading for these ; for while our higher 
 ecclesiastics are nowadays practising such ' broadness ' 
 of view that they appear to condone and excuse the 
 gravest offences in their own ranks, as well as in the 
 ranks of that ' society ' which assumes to ' lead ' conduct 
 and morals, these lesser men are keeping the Church 
 cleaner and purer than it would otherwise be, and in 
 their almost unrecognised labours are truly bearing all 
 the burden and heat of the day. 
 
 As for the Drink-Evil, I wish that every one into 
 whose hands this book may fall would honestly try to 
 realise the wide-spread misery, disease, pauperism, crime 
 and lunacy for which that hideous vice is responsible, 
 and would add his or her wish and will to mine, in a 
 strong prayer that the wicked financial profit derived 
 by the few out of the physical and moral debasement 
 of the many, may be checked and finally come to 
 naught, so that the British people, released at last from 
 the dominant sway of the liquor traffic, may rise to the 
 best of everything in them, — the best of brain, the best 
 of work, the best of health, the best of life. A temperate 
 people must always be a strong people, and to hold our 
 own in the days that are coming, we shall need all the 
 strength that sound minds and sound bodies can give 
 us. There is no room in the future of Britain for a 
 national vice which betrays a national weakness. 
 
 Stratford-on-Avon 
 July 1908
 
 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 A STORM of rain was sweeping over the Cots wolds. The 
 clouds drifted along the sky in low uneven masses, 
 breaking asunder now and then to show fitful glimpses of blue 
 between their dividing gloom, — the hills looked bare and wan, 
 and their ridges were blurred like the outline of a picture 
 which the painter has smudged in haste and carelessness. 
 Every now and again a restless wind arose and blew the tree- 
 tops drearily to and fro, — the landscape wore a dismal 
 expressionless aspect, ard as the clammy wet mists crept 
 over field and common, they brought with them a shuddering 
 chill which penetrated coldly to the warmest blood, and 
 created an uncomfortable sense of physical and mental de- 
 pression. In a certain small village, which, to save all 
 contest for supremacy, shall not here be given its true name, 
 but shall be called Shadbrook, the rain seemed to gather 
 special force, pouring in torrents over the irregularly clustered 
 houses and trickling down from their roofs into wide puddles 
 of mud through the 'main street,' as it was called, merely 
 because the Post-office, a combined business of small groceries 
 and the country's mails, happened to be located therein. 
 Shadbrook was in some respects constructed so as to give the 
 greatest possible inconvenience to those who by chance or 
 fortune found themselves constrained to dwell in it. There 
 were two portions of it, — one ancient — the other modern. 
 i
 
 2 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 The ancient part was composed of small, strongly-built stone 
 houses, many of them rich in the possession of old oak rafters 
 and stray bits of fine panelling left here and there where the 
 dealer in antiquities had found it impossible to remove them 
 without destroying the whole structure, — the modern was one 
 of those ' model villages ' which well-meaning landowners go 
 to the pains of erecting at great cost and little profit for their 
 often ungrateful tenants, who not only find fault with the 
 houses, but demur at the paying of their rents when occupy- 
 ing the same. Between the two there ran a brook of not very 
 clear water, over which there was a picturesque bridge of a 
 single span, which was traditionally reputed to have been built 
 by the Romans. Looking down from this bridge into the 
 stream, one saw various mute expressions of the interior life 
 of the village — broken china, empty preserved-meat tins, old 
 kettles, pots and pans of every description, commingled with 
 unsightly portions of decaying vegetable matter which were not 
 altogether odourless. And here indeed, though the passing 
 stranger knew it not, was the centre of a great faction, — the 
 core of an internal party strife. Year in and year out it was a 
 matter of dispute as to which inhabitants of the village on 
 either side of the bridge thus turned the river into a dusthole. 
 Was it the 'original' or the 'model' village? No one could 
 tell — no one dared. Many had been the protests from the 
 kindly landowner, something of a benefactor in his way, whose 
 mansion and deer-park were some two miles distant, — urgent 
 and persuasive had been the requests both from him and his 
 wife, a great lady of fashion, that their tenants should try and 
 keep the rivulet clean, — and most effusive had been the 
 promises received in return. But no real change was ever 
 effected. Each side blamed the other. The people in the 
 old stone houses declared they never did see such ' mucky ' folk 
 as those who occupied their landlord's ' model ' cottages — while 
 the dwellers in the model cottages declared that their neigh- 
 bours of the 'stone hut period' were semi-barbarians, 'as 
 didn't know a clean thing when they see'd it.' Only on 
 Sundays was a kind of silent truce effected — for there was but
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 3 
 
 one church — a small and very ancient edifice, once the chapel, 
 so legended, of a holy hermit in the early Christian era and 
 carefully preserved by the monks until the stormy days of the 
 Reformation, when it was — like all the churches in the neigh- 
 bourhood — deprived of its images and relics, and considerably 
 disfigured, though not destroyed. Of late years it had been 
 carefully restored to something of its pristine appearance, and 
 the simple services of the Church of England were faithfully 
 performed in it Sunday after Sunday by the resident Vicar, the 
 Reverend Richard Everton. He was a good and kindly man, 
 and when the living was first bestowed upon him, he was moved 
 to a sense of overpowering and grateful wonder at his amazing 
 fortune. He had been working as a poor curate in the East 
 End of London, and happened by chance to be chosen to preach 
 a sermon on a particular occasion for some great cause of 
 charity. Among his hearers was the wealthy patron of the 
 living of Shadbrook, and so pleased was this good country squire 
 with the young preacher's eloquence, that he sought him out 
 and made his personal acquaintance — an acquaintance which 
 soon deepened into friendship — the result of which friendship 
 was his present position. And the Reverend Richard thought 
 himself a more than lucky man. For not only was the church 
 of Shadbrook an interesting one from the point of antiquity, — 
 but there was a vicarage attached to it, which was quite a 
 beautiful sixteenth-century house — full of untouched oak-panel- 
 ling, and connected by poetic tradition with the love-story of a 
 lady of that romantic period when young women were supposed 
 to die straight off as soon as lovers betrayed their trust, even as 
 lilies die when deprived of water. There were leaning gables 
 and big latticed windows and quaint chimney-stacks to this 
 house, — and a garden of the loveliest ' old-fashioned ' type, shut 
 in from the outer world by trees beneath some of which Sir 
 Philip Sidney might have composed a sonnet. And so when 
 Richard Everton first took up his abode in this charming rural 
 retreat, he was as happy as a poet is when inspired with a fine 
 idea. Life seemed to radiate joy upon him, inwardly and out- 
 wardly — for he was young. And on the faith of his dreams
 
 4 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 and his delight and his respite from all financial care, he did 
 what most men would have done under similar circumstances 
 — he fell in love and got married. 
 
 Mrs. Everton was very pretty. She was, it may be at once 
 stated, much too pretty for a clergyman's wife. She was dainty, 
 mignonne, golden-haired, blue-eyed, light-footed, merry, — with 
 a voice like a lark and a smile like the very sunshine — every- 
 thing, in fact, that a clergyman's wife ought not to be, if she 
 would stand in a 'respectable' position with county society. 
 Her quite un-Christian name, too, Azalea — was absurd and 
 almost ' stagey.' Her dress was always exquisitely tasteful 
 though not extravagant — and people said — such people as there 
 were in Shadbrook to say anything — that they ' wondered how 
 she could do it.' She was a daily joy and bewilderment to her 
 husband during the first year of their marriage. Then there 
 arrived a baby-boy — like, yet unlike her, with a wise angel 
 face, and a noble head like that of the infant Hercules. Where 
 he came from neither of his parents could imagine. The 
 Reverend Richard stared for hours at his offspring, wondering 
 why it looked so grandly at him. For he himself was quite a 
 plain, ordinary sort of man — his two best features being his 
 eyes and mouth — eyes which were deeply set and darkly blue, 
 and lips that were finely sensitive and accustomed to gentle 
 lines of speech and smile. The beauty of his baby son con- 
 fused and oppressed him. He was troubled by it, though he 
 knew not why. His wife was not so much perplexed as 
 delighted with her child — she looked like a little girl suddenly 
 presented by a kind friend with a model doll. 
 
 After the birth of this wondrous boy, the family in Shadbrook 
 Vicarage considered itself complete. Everything smiled upon 
 the happy trio. The house was lovely — the garden delicious, 
 the air good, and the surrounding landscape perfect. At the 
 time this ' ower true tale ' opens, the Vicar and his wife had en- 
 joyed their enviable condition of connubial bliss for three years, 
 and their beautiful son was two summers old — just at what 
 is called the ' interesting ' age. And it was at this very juncture 
 that a kind of mysterious change came over the spirit of the
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 5 
 
 dream — so far at least as the Vicar himself was concerned. In 
 the joy of securing Shadbrook living, and the greater bliss of 
 winning the love of Azalea, — felicity crowned and completed by 
 the arrival of the boy with the fine head and angelic countenance, 
 — the Reverend Richard had forgotten altogether one trifling 
 circumstance, — namely that he was a clever man. That is to 
 say, a man gifted above the ordinary, with a wide knowledge 
 of books, a keen grasp of things social and political, and a 
 natural bias towards the graces of art and learning. Amid the 
 smiles of his wife and the prattle of his infant, he had so 
 obliterated himself that be had completely lost sight of the fact 
 that perhaps there might be wider and more useful fields of 
 labour than Shadbrook. When this thought first came to him 
 he put it away as though it were a suggestion from the evil 
 one, involving some deadly sin — yet every now and then it 
 persistently recurred to him and forced itself upon his pained 
 attention. He was ashamed of it, and angry with himself for 
 giving way to what he called a ' weakness ' — but nevertheless 
 the question rang in his ears with haunting persistence — "Are 
 you going to spend all your life in Shadbrook ? " 
 
 All his life ! He was only thirty-five — and probably — taking 
 all the chances for and against, there were several years before 
 him. Long years too — for in Shadbrook the time lagged on 
 with a most extraordinary slowness. Yet who could wish for a 
 more peaceful way of passing the days than the work of ' curing ' 
 Shadbrook souls? There was no prettier old village church in 
 England than the one in which it was his duty to officiate, and 
 as for his personal environment, there was no better house any- 
 where than his — no lovelier wife — no more beautiful child. 
 What more then could he desire ? How was it that a sudden 
 cloud — small yet perfectly perceptible — had crept into his 
 sky? 
 
 He asked himself the question many times — angrily and 
 with a keen self-reproach. But he kept his own counsel as to 
 his inward condition of mind — and not even to that dazzling 
 creature of sunshine and gossamer, his adored Azalea, whose 
 bewildering fairy beauty and gaiety of heart were a perpetual
 
 6 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 amazement to his mind, did he confide what he gravely decided 
 was 'a matter between himself and God.' 
 
 On this day of dull rain and sweeping mist, when even the 
 Vicarage garden looked dreary, the spring not having yet made 
 up its mind as to whether or no it meant finally to dethrone a 
 long and obstinately reigning winter, and when Shadbrook in 
 both its ancient and modern parts p-esented its worst and most 
 forlorn aspect, there was something more than usually depress- 
 ing in the atmosphere, and the Reverend Richard felt it 
 poignantly. He sat in his study, at a ^ound oak table 
 profusely strewn with letters and papers, holding a pen 
 listlessly in his hand, and trying to fix his mind on his next 
 Sunday's sermon. Opposite to him the spacious latticed 
 window gave him an open view of his garden — a dream of 
 beauty in June and July, — but just now fitting itself into his 
 particular frame of mind as somewhat like a well-kept cemetery 
 from which the gravestones and memorial monuments had 
 been recently removed. Tall dark firs and evergreens waved 
 their hearse-like plumes solemnly to and fro in the driving rain 
 — the lawns were sodden, and marked by the muddy trail of 
 the delving worm — the flower-borders showed some meekly 
 aspi-ing little spikes of green indicative of bulbs waiting to 
 grow tall if the sun would only shine upon them — and a few 
 withered snowdrops drooped towards the gravel path and 
 shivered in the swish of the wind. Everton's deep -set, 
 thoughtful eyes observed all these trifles with a kind of morbid 
 acuteness. 
 
 "Even for March," — he said to himself gently, as though 
 apologising for the remark — "the weather is trying !" 
 
 He turned his pen about betwixt finger and thumb — but 
 wrote not a word with it. A terrible conviction was forcing 
 itself upon his mind that there was nothing to write about. 
 It was a dreadful fact. Nothing to write about ! He, a 
 minister of the Gospel, — with the Book of all books beside 
 him — the exhaustless fount of spiritual prophecy, poesy and 
 power, could find nothing to say on any subject in it. Every 
 week he was newly confronted by this amazing difficulty. Yet
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 7 
 
 it was not that he was destitute of ideas — only — and here was 
 the stumbling-block — his ideas would not appeal to the in- 
 telligence of Shadbrook. Were he to express himself in such 
 language as he desired to use — were he to give his heart and 
 soul full vent, and speak with the passion and enthusiasm that 
 inwardly consumed his being as with a consuming flame, why 
 then, his parishioners — Well ? What of his parishioners ? 
 Would they be angry, surprised, or in any way moved to 
 unusual emotion ? No — oh no ! They simply would not 
 understand. There was the core and kernel of his trouble. 
 Thcy-would-not-understci7id I They did not understand him as 
 it was, even when he preached the oldest and most worn-out 
 platitudes. In fact, he was often greatly concerned as to 
 whether they in very truth comprehended the Christian 
 doctrine at all. He sometimes had a glimmering painful 
 sense that they merely accepted it, because it was the 
 particular form of approach to the Almighty which was or- 
 dained to be taught according to the laws of the country — 
 and that if by some singular chance Buddhism were introduced 
 in its stead as the religion of the realm, they would accept that 
 with equal alacrity and equanimity. He had often sounded 
 the members of his flock on the question of their belief — 
 because he felt it his duty so to do — but the answers he had 
 received were for the most part vague and unsatisfactory. 
 There was Farmer Hobday, for example, — the best farmer any- 
 where about for forty miles — a regular church-goer, and an 
 excellent man in every way — yet no one could honestly say he 
 was 'orthodox.' Once when the Reverend Richard had 
 delicately touched on a certain religious matter, this very 
 Hobday, huge-boned, red-faced and mighty of stature, had 
 turned a pair of round expressionless eyes upon him, and with 
 a slow smile had observed : 
 
 " Now doan't 'ee do it, passon ! — do-an't 'ee do it ! You 
 minds your church an' I minds my plough ! Neither on us 
 knaws 'ow the A'mighty manages to work us along through a 
 powerful lot o' trouble — yet worked we are ! — an' if we axes no 
 questions, we woan't be told no lies ! "
 
 8 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 Then there was Mrs. Moddley — a widow with eight young 
 children, whose husband had been killed while working on the 
 railway line which purposely missed Shadbrook altogether on 
 its way to Cheltenham. She too was a regular church-goer — 
 and when Everton was preparing some of the village lads for 
 confirmation, one of her boys had created confusion in the 
 class by suddenly observing : " Please, sir, mother says she 
 don't see 'ow God can bear to live, watchin' all the poor folks 
 die what He's made Hisself ! " 
 
 The Vicar had for the time managed to elude this startling 
 proposition by skilful handling of the truism that we are all 
 poor sinful souls who are not expected to comprehend the ways 
 of the Almighty — but he took an early opportunity of inter- 
 viewing Mrs. Moddley on the subject of her son's remark. 
 Mrs. Moddley, who was washing her children's clothes, and 
 whose arms, half in and half out of a tub of soap-suds, pre- 
 sented a boiled lobster-like appearance, listened with respectful 
 patience, while the clergyman quietly and with the greatest 
 kindness, pointed out that the thought expressed by Master 
 Moddley — ' Jimmy ' as he was familiarly called — was a little — 
 yes, just a little improper, and ought not to have been allowed 
 to find refuge in a child's brain. 
 
 " Well ! " said Mrs. Moddley, straightening herself up from 
 the wash-tub and heaving a short sharp sigh — " You may be 
 right, Mr. Everton, and I daresay you are, for it's not my place 
 to argefy with my betters, an' I've never done it nohow — but 
 as for puttin' thoughts in a child's brain, if you'll believe me, 
 sir, they don't want no puttin', for they comes there with no 
 trouble at all — and whatever I've said to Jimmy 'tain't 'arf as 
 bad as what Jimmy says to me — which I don't put into his 'ed 
 nohow — an' if God doos everything, then it's God as is to 
 blame, beggin' your pardon, Mr. Everton, but it's the truth I 
 do assure you ! " 
 
 Here she paused, out of breath, and wrung her hands free 
 from the soap-suds. Everton looked slightly troubled. 
 
 " But, Mrs. Moddley," he argued — " you are always in church 
 on Sundays — and you understand "
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 9 
 
 " No, that I don't ! — and that I should never wish you, sir, 
 to think as I did," — she declared, with energy — " Nor ever 'ave 
 I done so since I was born an' eddicated. But I takes it as 
 it comes, feelin' it's all for the best, so long as we doos our 
 dooty in that state of life in which it has pleased God to call 
 us." 
 
 These last words she uttered in the tone of a stage recitation. 
 Then, glancing at the clergyman's kindly, clever face, she 
 dusted a chair and offered it to him. 
 
 " Sit down, sir,"— she said, with quite a motherly air — "You 
 looks a bit worrited — but I do make so bold as to say there's 
 no 'arm in either me or Jimmy or any o' my lambs — they'se 
 only just curious sort o' little creatures, wantin' to know the why 
 an' the wherefore of everything — and they gives trouble to us 
 older folk without meanin' of it. But they all says their prayers 
 as good as gold — and my youngest girl, Betty, she prays so hard 
 that she's fair wore out when she's done, an' rolls over like a 
 dumplin' into bed after the Amen — bless her 'art i — she's but 
 four years old — an' all her trouble in this life is that old Mrs. 
 Kibble will never get good enough to oe an angel ! Think o' 
 that ! Old Mrs. Kibble that 'as been a drunkard for these 
 many years an' is gettin' wusser as she g^es on, — an' my Betty 
 wants her to be an angel ! Lord, lord ! I've laughed till I 
 cried over that ! " 
 
 An irrepressible smile crossed Everton's face. A picture of 
 Betty, round, pink as an apple-blossom, and soft as a peach, 
 praying till she was ' wore out ' for ' crazy Kibble ' as the irre- 
 verent lads of the village called the ancient female reprobate 
 in question, was humorous as well as pathetic. And surely 
 there was something very purely Christian in the child's feeling, 
 if she could in her innocent heart implore the Almighty to 
 transform an old, ugly, dirty confirmed drunkard, who was a 
 disgrace to herself and her neighbours, into an angel ! 
 
 " Good little Betty ! " he said, gently—" Still, Mrs. Moddley, 
 I think it is necessary for us elders to impose a certain restraint 
 on our speech in the presence of very young children — and 
 Jimmy's remark was almost — I will not say quite — but almost
 
 io HOLY ORDERS 
 
 on the verge of blasphemy. And it appears he only repeated 
 what you, his mother, said. Now those words " 
 
 " Those words was which ? " demanded Mrs. Moddley. 
 
 " Well just to this effect," hesitated Everton — " That you 
 wondered how God could live watching all the poor folks die 
 that He made Himself." 
 
 Mrs. Moddley's eyes twinkled curiously. 
 
 "Well, I ain't goin' back on it,"— she said— " It's ezackly 
 what I thinks — though I'll freely own my tongue often gets the 
 better of me. But there, Mr. Everton, take me myself, if I sees 
 a fly a-drownin' in the milk I picks it out an' gives the poor 
 know-nothin' inseck a chance for its life, though flies is a 
 nuisance in the summer-time as everybody knows, but seein' 
 God mads 'em I daresay if they thinks at all they wants 
 their lives as much as we do ours. And though I'm told in 
 church as God 'ad only one Son, an' killed Him in order to 
 wash out our sins in the blood, I can't never believe 'twas 
 meant that way " 
 
 << 
 
 Mrs. Moddley!" gasped Richard — "You— you — excuse 
 
 me — you don't know what a terrible thing you are saying " 
 
 " Look 'ere, Mr. Everton," and Mrs. Moddley leaned her wet 
 arms argumentatively across the wash-tub — "I ain't goin' to 
 b'lieve for a moment that the Almighty is a worser person than 
 ourselves. Not a bit of it ! Now I wouldn't kill a son of mine 
 to save anybody — there ! An' Fm only Martha Moddley. An' 
 our wretched little sins, sich as rhey is, all comes through our 
 not knowin' better — wherefore I says, the blessed Lord Jesus 
 came down from heaven to show us how to live patient and 
 die quiet without complainin', an' trust to the Father of us all 
 to do right by us in this world, seein' we've been brought 'ere 
 without our own wish, an' got to suffer a deal o' woe. That's 
 my view of religion — an' a bad one no doubt it is — but Lord 
 love ye, Mr. Everton !" — and here her round face beamed 
 smilingly at him — " Don't ye worrit over me one bit ! — you'll 
 never see me miss a Sunday out of church, for the singin' an' 
 the prayers doos us all good, even if we can't make it all out — 
 and you're a real gentleman born, which is what we alius wanted
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE i i 
 
 for this parish, 'avin' 'ad a man previous what lived with his 
 cook, — quite a fine gel — on the sly, an' all of us knowed it an' 
 couldn't say nothin'. For says my pore dear 'usband as is 
 gone, — ' We must ketch 'im in the hact ' — an' that you will 
 realise, Mr. Everton, was impossible — so that when he died of 
 a 'plexy fit, 'twas a good riddance for all round. An' I'm sure 
 we couldn't wish for a better parson an' wife than you an' your 
 lady — so now, sir," — and she nodded consolingly at him — 
 "you've no need to worrit, as I says, for you doos your dooty, 
 an' to the best o' my powers I'll do mine, an' I'll bite my 
 tongue 'ard before I let it talk over Jimmy's 'ed 'bout what he's 
 a bit too young to see for hisself proper." 
 
 With this most uncertain and entirely unprofitable explana- 
 tion, Everton had to be content — and never afterwards saw 
 Mrs. Moddley in church without a nervous qualm. He began 
 to be afraid of getting on religious subjects with his parishioners 
 at all, and found that it was safer to utter vague prognostica- 
 tions about the weather and the crops than to mention the 
 doctrines of original sin and divine redemption. Pigs furnished 
 a more appreciated subject of discourse, — the birth, growth 
 and fattening of these interesting animals being more import- 
 ant to the inhabitants of Shadbrook than any other event 
 which an industrious press might chronicle in any part of the 
 world. There was no one, in fact, to whom he could impart 
 the growing sense he had of his own incompetency to deal with 
 this rough human material, which though undoubtedly en- 
 dowed with the ' spirit which maketh for righteousness,' yet had 
 no means of manifesting its real trend of thought. He was a 
 scholarly man — and he had no other of his class with whom to 
 exchange ideas. True, there were two ' great ' houses, so- 
 called, — the one of his patron, Squire Hazlitt, who had selected 
 him for the living of Shadbrook, and who was hardly ever in 
 the place, his wife and daughters preferring to drag him about 
 in the wake of mischievous modern society, which elects to 
 spend its money on foreign resorts rather than to help forward 
 the equally beautiful and much more healthy pleasure places 
 at home — the other the ' commodious villa,' to use auctioneer
 
 12 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 parlance, of the brewer of the district, whose hideous brewery- 
 buildings disfigured the landscape some eight or ten miles 
 away. With the Squire, Everton and his pretty wife were on 
 terms of pleasure and intimacy whenever that gentleman was 
 at home ; with the brewer, he was at open fend. For Shad- 
 brook had two public-houses — a criminal superfluity for so 
 small a place, — and both were 'tied' to Messrs. Minchin and Co., 
 who kept them well supplied with the direst poison that ever 
 went down the throats of pool labouring men in the shape of 
 beer. Minchin himself was a pompous, self-satisfied commoner 
 who had allied himself for his own advantage to the daughter 
 of a pauper baronet, in order that he might claim to be ' con- 
 nected with the aristocracy.' He was a persistent church-goer, 
 and a publicly proclaimed teetotaller. That is to say, he 
 drank nothing but water, and gave his fr'ends nothing but 
 water, while he made his money out of the working-man's 
 drunkenness, or rather let us say the working-man's delirium, 
 brought on by the consumption of his manufactured poison. 
 With such characteristics as these, every one will admit that 
 he was a good and righteous man. But he hated the 
 Reverend Richard Everton, — and the Reverend Richard 
 Everton, so far as it was possible for a Christian minister with 
 human blood in his veins to hate, hated him in return. Mrs. 
 Minchin, a somewhat ' horsey ' lady, with a strident voice and 
 an aggressive manner, ' detested,' to use her own expression, 
 'that odious little woman, Azalea Everton.' It was a case of 
 simple cause and effect — Mrs. Everton being pretty and Mrs. 
 Minchin plain, — Mrs. Everton being the mother of a boy whose 
 beauty was the wonder of all who beheld him, and Mrs. Minchin 
 having produced alarmingly ugly twins, boy and girl, who 
 might for all the good temper and intelligence they showed, 
 just as well have never been born. These, and other equally 
 cogent reasons, kept the two families well apart. Mrs. Everton, 
 indeed, though as a rule the sweetest of sweet creatures, could 
 not altogether refrain from giving her pretty head a slight, very 
 slight, toss of indifference, when she happened to pass Mrs. 
 Minchin on the country road — and Mrs. Minchin made no
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 13 
 
 attempt to restrain the very unmusical snort which affected her 
 nose and throat at the merest side glimpse of Mrs. Everton. 
 Such being the position of things, it followed that there were 
 no real ' neighbours ' in the true sense of the word, for a man 
 of learning and refinement such as the Vicar was, for t:ven 
 Squire Hazlitt, his patron, was scarcely to be called cultured, 
 though he had plenty of good-humour and shrewd common- 
 sense. Yet the years of his life at Shadbrook had so far been 
 spent in such happiness that he had never thought it possible 
 or likely that he might, with a growing, broadening mind, some 
 day need a growing and broadening environment. That afflic- 
 tive cramp which nips the intellectual spirit when it finds itself 
 hemmed in on all sides by provincial nonentities, had not as 
 yet seriously troubled him — and its first twinges were only now 
 beginning to pinch him in a warning, and not to say undesir- 
 able and undesired manner. 
 
 " Are you going to pass all your life in Shadbrook ? " 
 The question, put as it were by the mocking voice of some 
 interior demon, was asked of him again on this cold March 
 morning when he sat trying to write what he felt could never 
 be written. And yet — what burning thoughts were in his brain, 
 longing to communicate themselves to his motionless pen ! — 
 thoughts of the goodness and majesty of the Creator — thoughts 
 of the daily discoveries of science — thoughts of the inexhaust- 
 ible millions upon millions of sclar systems in limitless space — 
 thoughts that were like lightning - poems, singing themselves 
 to his inner consciousness and declaring him to be a living Soul 
 — a part of God — a spark of the Divine, sent to evolve itself 
 through experience and difficulty from the imperfect to the 
 perfect state of being. The daily papers brought him news of 
 the world's unrest — and realising the paltry ' sensationalism of 
 religion ' worked up by certain followers of antichrist, who 
 saw no shame in associating themselves with the notoriety- 
 hunting proprietors of a cheap and degraded press, he recog- 
 nised the wrong that was being done to the pure teaching cf 
 Christ, and the havoc that was wickedly wrought among men 
 by the spread of infidel doctrine. He longed to be up and
 
 14 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 doing — to don the spiritual sword and buckler, and go forth 
 with the armies of the Lord — to preach with no uncertain 
 voice, but with a true note, clear as a clarion call, and to help 
 draw back the social world from the abyss whither he, and all 
 deep-thinking men could see it visibly hurrying — and yet — his 
 ' cure ' was merely Shadbrook. Shadbrook was his business ; 
 with the rest of the world he had no need to concern himself. 
 
 The wind continued to howl and sigh, and he continued to 
 sit in apparent idleness, twisting his pen in his fingers, and 
 wondering — wondering — not what he should preach next 
 Sunday, but rather what he should do with his life. He could 
 only live once — at any rate on this planet — and must he make 
 of that ' once ' — nothing but Shadbrook ? 
 
 "Yet why not?" he argued with himself — "The people 
 here need to be drawn to God — need to be taught and helped 
 just as much as the millions out in the wider world. Some- 
 times — yes ! — sometimes I feel that they — in their simple way 
 of accepting without question a faith which they really do not 
 understand — are nearer the truth than I am. And yet again 
 I cannot but feel sure that the Creator meant us to use all 
 our faculties in the comprehension of His sublime intentions 
 towards us — and that a merely blind unreasoning submission 
 is more of an affront to Him than a service." 
 
 At this juncture the door of his study was gently pushed 
 open, and a lovely face peered in at him. 
 
 " Are you very busy, Dick ? " asked a coaxing voice, sweet 
 as honey — " Or may I come in just one minute ? " 
 
 He threw down his pen and sprang up from his chair with 
 a quick sigh of relief. 
 
 " One minute isn't long enough ! " he declared, going to 
 meet his wife as she entered, and taking her in his arms — 
 " Come and stay half an hour ! I want you, Azalea — I want 
 you badly ! " Here he looked down into her tender eyes. " I 
 want a kiss, too," — and he suited the action to the word — 
 " I've had a touch of the blues." 
 
 " Oh, poor boy ! " And Azalea put up a little white hand 
 and stroked his cheek caressingly — " You mustn't ! It's the
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE i 5 
 
 weather — I'm sure it's the weather. And it's all horrid — but, 
 Dick, you'll have to go out in the rain, I'm afraid ! There's 
 been a very bad fight in the village — and that dreadful man, 
 Kiernan, has nearly killed his wife ! Isn't it awful ? " 
 
 She smiled angelically, and her eyes twinkled with a kind of 
 sparkle — whether of tears or laughter, it would have been hard 
 to say. 
 
 He loosened her from his clasp, and his face grew pale and 
 stern. 
 
 " Kiernan again ! " he said — " I must go at once, Azalea. 
 He is a dangerous customer." 
 
 She looked at him questioningly, as he hastily swept his 
 letters and papers together. 
 
 "Were you writing your sermon, darling?" she enquired. 
 
 "No — that is, I was trying to think about it — but really, 
 I'm afraid my brain isn't as clear as it might be. I am not 
 quite sure what I ought to say sometimes — and I feel anxious 
 about it, — almost as if I were not altogether doing my duty." 
 
 " Oh, Dick ! " And Azalea looked reproachfully amazed — 
 " How can you say such a thing ! Your sermons are simply 
 bee-autiful ! Perfectly lovely ! You know they are ! " 
 
 He took her pretty face between his two hands and kissed 
 it again. 
 
 " I know nothing of the sort, little wife ! " he said — " I feel 
 myself to be dull and heavy. And helpless, too, Azalea ! — 
 that's the worst of it — helpless, for I cannot keep even Kiernan 
 from the public-house." 
 
 With this, he hurriedly left his study and went out into the 
 hall. His wife followed him, and watched him rather wistfully 
 as he put on his thickest great-coat, and looked about for his 
 umbrella. 
 
 "After all, Dick," she said — "how can you keep people 
 from the public-house as long as Minchin has that ' beer club ' 
 where everybody who takes a ticket gets a big barrel of beer at 
 Christmas all to themselves ? It's too much to ask of a clergyman 
 that he should be answerable for temperance as well as religion." 
 
 " Azalea, my dear, religion and temperance ought to go
 
 1 6 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 together — and there's no getting over the fact. When men 
 are drunkards, they have not understood the meaning of 
 religion, or else religion has not appealed to them in the way 
 it should do. The very Hindoo scorns to soil himself with so 
 degrading a vice as drunkenness." 
 
 " The Hindoo is perhaps not under the dominance of the 
 brewer," murmured Azalea. 
 
 "Dominance? My dear child, no reasonable man should 
 allow himself to be ' dominated ' by anything or any one. It's 
 a sign of weakness. And of course a drunkard is weak, 
 morally and physically — only what I mean is, that religion — 
 the religion of Christ — should be able to impress and control 
 the weak as well as the strong. Now I'm off. Don't wait 
 luncheon — I may be detained." 
 
 He pressed his hat well down over his brows as he opened 
 the street door and faced the bitter driving wind. 
 
 "Don't stand in the draught, Azalea,'' — he called — "You'll 
 catch cold Good-bye ! " 
 
 " Good-bye ! Come back as quickly as you can," she re- 
 sponded. And shutting the door after him with a little bang, 
 she re-entered the house and began to sing softly to herself as 
 she flitted here and there, giving graceful touches of her own 
 to the various ornaments about the pretty drawing-room, — 
 re-arranging the flowers, which were scarce at this season and 
 had to be cared for tenderly, — and generally amusing herself 
 in her own way before going up to the nursery to superintend 
 the dinner of the ever interesting baby, who was now promoted 
 to the dignity of being called by his nurse, ' Master Laurence.' 
 Master Laurence was so named after Azalea's father, who had 
 been in his time a notable literary man, but who, worn out by 
 the patient evolvement of great teachings for the benefit of an 
 ungrateful and forgetful world, had died, more of sheer tired- 
 ness than anything else, some two years before his daughter's 
 marriage. Azalea had never understood him in the least, but 
 in her pretty caressing way she had loved him, while his fond 
 admiration of her had amounted almost to idolatry. When 
 she laughed perplexedly over the learned books he wrote, he
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 17 
 
 was more delighted than if he had received a column of carp- 
 ing praise from the most prominent growler in all the critical 
 world. Sometimes his poor heart ached a little, as he realised 
 that all his best work must for ever remain a sealed book to 
 this, his only child, who in her easy lightness of mind and 
 disposition could not comprehend why any one should ever 
 think about anything. 
 
 " It's so stupid ! " she would say, with a charming pout, — 
 " All the thinking in the world does no good ! Such crowds 
 of wise men have lived and written all sorts of books — and 
 nobody seems a bit the better ! " 
 
 However, when poor Laurence died, his daughter was as 
 sorry as she was frightened. Her mother had passed to the 
 better world when she was barely six months old, — so that 
 this was her first conscious experience of the grim visitation 
 of the King of Terrors. She hated it, — she recoiled with 
 shuddering fear from the quiet grandeur of her father's form, 
 composed rigidly into that slumber from which there is no more 
 waking in this world, — she shivered and cried at the solemn 
 black paraphernalia of the funeral — and looked like a poor 
 weak little snowdrop in her heavy mourning gown. It was 
 while she was yet in the snowdrop state that Richard Everton 
 first met her at the house of a mutual friend where she had 
 been invited to stay for change and solace after her bereave- 
 ment, — and she had comforted herself with his love, just as a 
 small hurt kitten might comfort itself in the arms of a kind 
 protector. It was delightful to find another man ready to pet 
 and make much of her as her late father had done, — it was all 
 she wanted in life, — and of the graver duties and responsibil- 
 ities of marriage she took no thought. Richard was kind and 
 nice and not bad-looking, — Richard had just got a ' living ' — 
 and what was best of all, Richard was ' perfectly devoted ' — 
 this was her own expression — perfectly devoted to her. And 
 gradually the effect of her father's death wore off — she forgot 
 him more and more completely — till, when her baby was born, 
 a sudden rush of tender recollection flowed in upon her mind, 
 and she said, with tears sparkling in her pretty eyes : — 
 2
 
 1 8 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 " We must call him Laurence ! Oh yes, Dick ! We must 
 call him Laurence, after poor dear old Dad ! " 
 
 Her adoring husband made no objection, — if it had been 
 her wish to christen the child Zedekiah, it is probable that 
 in his doting condition of mind he would have consented. 
 The name of ' Laurence,' however, seemed to suit the boy with 
 the serious eyes and expression of angel intellectuality ; and 
 sometimes Everton, who had read many of the books written 
 by the dead Thinker whose work his daughter had laughed at, 
 wondered whether his spirit had become re-incarnated in this 
 infant namesake, who already looked so wise beyond all 
 earthly years. Moved by this thought, he one day expressed 
 it to his wife, albeit remotely. 
 
 " I do believe, Azalea, that our Laurence will be as clever 
 a man as your father was." 
 
 She uttered a little cry of alarm. 
 
 " Oh, I hope not ! " she said, with delightful earnestness — 
 " It's so dreadful to be clever, Dick ! You don't know how 
 dreadful it is ! Nobody likes you ! " 
 
 He smiled. 
 
 " You quaint wee woman ! Do you want the boy to be a 
 fool, then ? " 
 
 " He couldn't be a fool ! " declared Azalea, warmly — " Of 
 course he couldn't ! But I hope he won't be clever! If you 
 had known poor Dad, you would understand what I mean. A 
 clever man is really a pitiable object ! — he is, Dick ! — perfectly 
 pitiable ! He always wants what he cannot get — and he sees 
 everything going wrong and he wants to put it right, and of 
 course he can't put it right, — not in his way, because every- 
 body wants to do it another way — and oh ! — it's just awful '. 
 And he writes and writes, and lectures and lectures, and gets 
 dyspepsia and headaches and gout, and dreadful things — and 
 never enjoys himself one bit — how can he — ? " 
 
 Richard laughed aloud. 
 
 " My dear little wife, you're talking at random ! " he said, 
 indulgently — " You don't understand the inward joys of a man 
 who has mind and soul and imagination "
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 19 
 
 " Oh, don't ! " and Azalea covered her shell-pink ears with 
 her pretty white hands — " I don't want to hear anything about 
 mind and soul or imagination ! I want baby to be just — 
 Baby ! " 
 
 And so it was decreed. Baby — at least for the present — 
 remained Baby — and it was only Nurse Tomkins who called 
 him ' Master Laurence.' Nurse Tomkins knew him better 
 even than his parents, and had become much impressed by 
 his personal dignity. This he showed in various ways of his 
 own. For example, he disliked all dirty things, and was only 
 content with perfect cleanliness. Certain pictures in the 
 nursery he strove to hide from his eyes with one tiny chubby 
 hand, and as this gesture was not quite understood by his 
 elders, he managed to clamber up on his cot, and tear them 
 down. They were not objectionable pictures, but they were 
 unnatural — that is to say, they were 'nursery' pictures, of the 
 kind which are called by the publishers of Christmas numbers, 
 ' suitable for children.' There were fat infants petting impos- 
 sible lambs — and red-faced peasants carrying pale pink dogs in 
 their arms — all of which abnormal creatures moved Master 
 Laurence to quiet scorn. Azalea was always hearing of some 
 curious and original deed on the part of her son, — but she 
 paid very little attention to any of the signs and symptoms of 
 his possible future mental development. All she thought of 
 was that he was Her baby — her own, her very own beautiful 
 baby ! — and her chief idea was that he must be fed well, and 
 have his own way whenever it was possible. This was the 
 business of the day for her — the business upon which she set 
 all her energies — baby's food. Baby's brain and baby's 
 thoughts were — to use her own frank parlance — ' utter non- 
 sense.' If asked, she would have said with the most charming 
 assumption of maternal wisdom, that a child of two has no 
 brain worth considering, and no thoughts worth thinking. 
 That was her opinion. Nurse Tomkins entertained quite a 
 different view of the matter, being a trained woman whose life 
 had been spent with children of all sorts, sickly and healthy, 
 bright and dull, and who had studied their moods and manners
 
 20 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 with close and sympathetic attention. She was affectionately 
 interested in her charge and said of him to her own special 
 friends — " Master Laurence is a wonderful child ! He will be 
 a great man ! " 
 
 But Azalea thought no such thing. She thought, in fact, as 
 little about the mental development of her small son as she did 
 of the ' soul ' (if he had one) of the troublesome Kiernan, whose 
 drunken delinquencies had summoned her husband out of his 
 peaceful study into the wind and rain on this cross and cloudy 
 March morning. She was perfectly happy in herself — she had 
 never wanted more than a home, a husband, and a baby ; 
 and she had all three. Nothing further existed in the universe, 
 so far as she was concerned. And as soon as she had finished 
 ' dusting the drawing-room,' — which was one of the little duties 
 she imposed on herself, regardless of the fact that the house- 
 maid had always dusted it perfectly beforehand, — she tripped 
 up to the nursery, singing as she went, full of a careless gaiety, 
 being so happily constituted as to be indifferent to any troubles 
 in which she did not share. And, after all, it is fortunate that 
 the greater majority of women are even as she, — and that few 
 of them have the finer perception and power to look beyond 
 the circle of their own comfortable surroundings into the 
 speechless miseries of the wider world.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 MEANTIME, while the pleasures of peaceful and con- 
 tented domesticity reigned in his household, the Vicar 
 himself was hurrying through the mist and rain to the village — 
 not to the ancient stone-built part of it, but, strange to say, to 
 the ' model ' portion, where the cottages were so pretty and so 
 cosily devised with porches and little separate gardens to each, 
 that one would have thought it impossible for any man dwelling 
 in such comfortable quarters to so far forget himself as to come 
 home drunk at any time of day, much less in the morning 
 before twelve o'clock. However, such had been the case with 
 the individual called Kiernan — a huge, hulking creature with 
 enormous square shoulders and thick bull head, who now 
 leaning his powerful arms folded across the bars of his cottage 
 gate, looked up with a drowsy scowl as he saw the Vicar 
 approaching. Two or three other men were hanging sheepishly 
 about, and a little knot of women, with shawls over their heads, 
 were grouped in the road, heedless of the pouring rain, talking 
 together, their faces expressing a vague and pitiful terror. 
 Everton walked straight up to Kiernan and addressed him at 
 once without parley. 
 
 "What's the matter here?" he asked, in a quiet voice — 
 " May I come in ? " 
 
 The man eyed him over with a stupid leer. 
 
 "No — you mayn't" — he replied, thickly, — "A Glishman's 
 'ouse 's 'is castle ! Go 'way ! " 
 
 Everton looked at him steadily. 
 
 " Now, Kiernan, you know you don't mean that," — he said,
 
 22 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 gently — " What, man ! — you and I are old friends, aren't we ? 
 I heard you wanted me." 
 
 Kiernan blinked at him suspiciously. 
 
 " Who told you as I wanted ye? " he asked. 
 
 " My wife did," — the clergyman answered, simply — " Come 
 now, Kiernan ! — let me in — I want to speak to you 
 privately " 
 
 " Ye wants to preach at me, eh ? " said Kiernan — " But ye 
 woan't do it ! — no, not by a long chalk ! I knows you parson 
 lot — whinin', no-drink, snivellin' beggars all of 'em ! Drunk ? 
 O' course I'm drunk ! What else should I be ? Drunk an' 
 'appy in it ! Drunk an' 'appy in it ! There ! " 
 
 And he made a thrust with his fist into space furiously, as 
 though he knocked down an imaginary enemy. Everton 
 paused a moment. Looking round among the group of 
 villagers who stood hanging back, ashamed and inert, he 
 said in a low tone : — 
 
 " Is there anything really wrong? Has he hurt his wife ? " 
 
 A woman came forward and volunteered the answer. 
 
 " Yes, sir — I'm afraid so — at least as far as we can tell. 
 There was words — an' she ran out o' the cottage screaming — 
 and then ran in again, and then we heard a terrible groan, — 
 and — and we're afraid she's very bad " 
 
 " She's in there ! " said Kiernan, suddenly then, waking as if 
 from a dull reverie — "She's 'ad a good 'un this time ! " He 
 began to laugh thickly, — then with a quick change from 
 obstinacy to maudlin mildness, he removed his arms from the 
 gate — " Come in all of ye if ye likes ! She's all right ! Come 
 in, Mister Parson ! Come in ! 'Adn't expected so much 
 company, but never mind — there ain't no grudgin' where Dan 
 Kiernan is ! He gives it fair all round ! Come in ! " 
 
 He fell back and reeled on one side. Everton caught him 
 by the arm. 
 
 " You're ill, Kiernan ! " he said, kindly, — " With a worse 
 illness than you know. Keep steady ! " 
 
 The wretched man stared vaguely at nothing, and began to 
 laugh again.
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 23 
 
 " I'm or'right ! " he stuttered—" Or'right, Mister Jack 
 Sniveller ! Right and 'appy as a king ! You lemme 
 alone ! " 
 
 He wrenched himself free from Everton's hold and 
 staggering up to his own cottage fell heavily on one of the 
 little seats in the porch. Everton left him there, and pushing 
 open the door went into the cottage itself, — where the first 
 thing that met his eyes was the unconscious body of a woman 
 face downward on the ground. With an exclamation of horror 
 and pity, he strove to lift her, but in v in — then, stepping 
 outside the house again beckoned to some of the villagers who 
 were hanging round the place waiting to know the worst. 
 They came at his bidding, and pressed into the little dwelling, 
 past Kiernan, who seemed now to be in a heavy stupor. 
 Lifting the insensible woman between them, they laid her on 
 her bed — and then remained in a frightened group staring at 
 the ghastly stains of blood on her mouth, while one neighbour, 
 more practical than the rest, fetching a sponge and a bowl of 
 cold water, bathed the poor creature's forehead and tried to 
 bring her back to consciousness. Everton stood by the 
 bedside, gazing down upon the pitiful sight with a stern sorrow 
 graven on his own face. This was what the sacred tie of 
 marriage meant to many of the labouring classes ! — this 
 brutality to, and degradation of woman, by men who, when 
 muddled by drink, were lower in their passions than the 
 beasts they drove to the shambles ! 
 
 " Pray God she is not dead ! " he said, in a low tone. 
 
 The woman who was bathing the victim's forehead an- 
 swered, in an equally low tone : 
 
 "Oh no, sir, I don't think she's dead," — but she trembled 
 a little as she spoke — " though Lord knows none of us never 
 knows whether we'll live from week to week, the men are 
 goin' that wild on Minchin's stuff which they drinks at 
 all hours o' the day. Dan Kiernan was quite a decent chap, 
 so I'm told, till he came here." 
 
 At that moment Dan Kiernan's wife opened her eyes, 
 and her poor livid lips twitched into a little smile.
 
 24 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 " Don't you worrit, Dan ! " she said, faintly — " I know you 
 didn't mean it — it was just the drink that drove you to it — 
 only the drink, for you're the best an' finest husband ever 
 woman 'ad when ye're sober. That'll do, Dan ! — I'm obliged 
 
 to ye ! — I'll be getting up presently " 
 
 Her eyes closed again, and at that moment Everton 
 thankfully perceived the local surgeon, one Henry Brand, 
 entering the little room — a quiet, shrewd-eyed man of middle- 
 age, known as 'Dr. Harry,' who walking straight up to the 
 bedside, bent over the unfortunate Mrs. Kiernan, and 
 examined her injuries with kindly solicitude. 
 
 " She's rather badly hurt," he said then, turning to Everton 
 with a friendly nod — " It will be some days before she gets 
 about again. And she'll want some little nursing. Wouldn't 
 
 some one " 
 
 "I'll attend to her," said the woman who had already 
 proffered her assistance — " I've got nothing much to do 
 at home, my son bein' away — I'll see she gets all she 
 
 wants " 
 
 "And I'll pay you for your trouble, Mrs. Adcott," said 
 
 Everton, quickly — " But Kiernan himself " 
 
 " Kiernan himself is in a far worse state than his wife," said 
 the doctor — " He's poisoned. That's what's the matter with 
 him. He has got as much arsenic inside him as would kill 
 a horse — it would kill him if he had not accustomed his 
 system to it. I passed him just now in the porch — he's in a 
 dead stupor." 
 
 " He's drunk," — said Everton. 
 
 " He's drugged? — said Brand, emphatically — " Not quite 
 the same thing, yet passing for the same. Come and look 
 at hirn." 
 
 They went out of the cottage into the little garden, 
 and stood together surveying the heavy inert form of the 
 miserable man who was half-sitting, half-lying in the porch, 
 huddled together like a sack of useless lumber. 
 
 "What's to be done with him?" asked Everton, in a kind of 
 despair — " He cannot go back to his work to-day."
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 25 
 
 11 Of course he can't — and nothing's to be done with him. 
 He'll sleep it off — and then — he'll go to one of Minchin's 
 places again, and drink more of the vile stuff sold there — and 
 then — well then ! — he'll come home here and probably finish 
 off his wife." 
 
 " But it can't — it mustn't be," — said Everton, firmly — " I'll 
 come myself and see that nothing happens. I'll call at both 
 public-houses and ask them not to sell him any more 
 drink " 
 
 1 Dr. Harry ' smiled. 
 
 "You'll kick against the pricks, Mr. Everton !" he said — "I 
 mean, you'll get yourself into trouble if you do ! Take my 
 advice — don't interfere ! " 
 
 "But, good God!" exclaimed Everton — "Would you have 
 me, as Vicar of this parish, stand off and allow a woman to be 
 murdered by her husband when he is not really responsible 
 for the crime ! " 
 
 Brand was silent. He seemed to be thinking. 
 
 "That's a very true phrase of yours, Mr. Everton," — he 
 said, presently — " And I'm glad to hear it from a clergyman's 
 mouth. ' Not really responsible for the crime.' That's it. 
 Kiernan is not responsible. Who is ? Tell me that ! " 
 
 " In this case Minchin is responsible ! " — rejoined Everton, 
 hotly — " His brewery is a curse to the parish ! " 
 
 " If it were only good beer," — said Brand, thoughtfully, 
 " there'd be no harm at all in it. A pint of pure beer hurts no 
 man. But a pint of mixed poison is a different matter 
 altogether. And — as you say — Minchin is responsible. If 
 Dan Kiernan wakes up in two or three hours, and gets more 
 drink and kills his wife altogether, Minchin will be the real 
 murderer, — not Kiernan." 
 
 "That's the right way to put it,' ; — said Everton — "Its 
 a strong way — but it's the right way. However, I'll take care 
 no more mischief is done for the present at any rate. I'll look 
 after Kiernan when he wakes." 
 
 " You'll look after him ! " and the doctor's eyes twinkled 
 humorously — " What will you do with him ? "
 
 26 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 Everton's rather thin, delicate face looked a shade more 
 careworn and serious. 
 
 " I don't quite know," — he said, simply — " But I am placed 
 here in this parish as guardhn of the moral and spiritual 
 welfare of all the people under my charge — and I must try my 
 best. I am quite aware " — here he hesitated a moment, then 
 spoke out more bravely — " I am quite aware how little a 
 clergyman can do even at the best of times to warn or 
 persuade, — I know that the very doctrines of Our Lord are, 
 in these strange days of rank materialism, placed as it were 
 ' under suspicion,' — but I am inured to all that — and prepared 
 for failure always ; still — as I said before — I must try my 
 best." 
 
 Brand was silent. He had a great respect for the Vicar, 
 commingled with an under-sense of vague compassion. As a 
 medical man whose practice lay chiefly among the working- 
 classes, he knew exactly how much and how little to expect of 
 them. He knew that they resented all interference, even if it 
 were for their good — and equally he knew that most of them 
 possessed an inexhaustible fund of warm homely sentiment, 
 which if appealed to in the proper way, never failed to move 
 them to a right condition of mind. In fact, as he often said 
 among his own intimates, it was not religion which had so 
 much hold on them as the sentiment of religion — and the most 
 successful spiritual controller of their conduct was the man 
 who most ably maintained that sentiment in his own attitude 
 and behaviour towards them. 
 
 " I think," — resumed Everton, after a pause, in a cheerier 
 tone — " I'll just run up and tell my wife that I shall not be 
 home to luncheon — and then I'll come back here and wait till 
 Kiernan wakes." 
 
 " He won't wake for at least an hour," — said Brand, survey- 
 ing with some disfavour the hulking heap of man doubled up 
 in the porch, over which an early flowering yellow jasmine 
 nodded its innocent golden sprays — "Besides — why should 
 you come back ? Isn't there a man in the village who could 
 keep an eye on him ? "
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 27 
 
 " Not a man who would have the strength to contend with 
 him," — replied Everton — " If he wanted to go back to the 
 public-house, there's no one in the place who would dare 
 hinder him." 
 
 " No one who would dare ! " repeated the doctor, musingly — 
 " Well ! No ! — I suppose not." He looked again at Everton's 
 slim figure and thoughtful face — then he said, hurriedly — " All 
 right ! I shall be about in the neighbourhood, — Mrs. Kibble, 
 another victim of Minchin's brew, fell over with a kettle of 
 boiling water yesterday and scalded her arm — so I'm looking 
 after her and a few others. And — by the way — there's that 
 young fellow, Robert Hadley — he'll not last very long now. 
 It's galloping consumption and he has not the ghost of a 
 chance. I suppose you couldn't say a word about him to the 
 girl Jacynth ? " 
 
 Everton's brows darkened. 
 
 The girl Jacynth is a hopeless character," he said, slowly — 
 " Hopeless, because heartless ! " 
 
 The doctor gave him a quick glance. 
 
 "Well, you know best about that," — he said — "Her good 
 looks are almost as great a curse to some men as the brewery. 
 You've certainly got enough to do with your parishioners, Mr. 
 Everton ! Your work's cut out for you in Shadbrook and no 
 mistake ! Good-bye for the present ! " 
 
 He strode off — and Everton stood still in the little porch of 
 Kiernan's cottage, smitten by a sudden sharp sense of pain. 
 
 " Your work's cut out for you in Shadbrook ! " 
 
 Was it so ' cut out ' ? Had he not that very morning longed 
 for a wider field of labour? His heart ached heavily — and 
 a feeling of utter weariness overcame him. He looked at the 
 drunken man huddled on the seat close by, with an almost 
 shuddering sense of repulsion. Was the 'soul' of that dis- 
 graced human creature really valuable to the Almighty Creator 
 of Heaven and Earth, before whom our planet itself is but 
 a grain of dust ? Surely it was stretching too fine a point to 
 say it was ! And yet — Science with her clear vision and evenly- 
 balanced scales of justice, declared that not even a grain of
 
 28 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 dust was lost in the great scheme of the universe. And what 
 and who was he — Richard Everton — that he should presume 
 to set any limit to the minute as well as magnificent intentions 
 of the Divine Cosmos ! Stung by a quick shame as well as 
 remorse, he roused himself from his thoughts, and turning 
 towards the half-open cottage door enquired gently of the 
 woman within — 
 
 " How is Mrs. Kiernan now ? " 
 
 " Sleeping easy, sir, thank-you," — and Mrs. Adcott, brown, 
 wrinkled, but kindly of face and brisk in movement, came to 
 the door — " Don't you bother no more, Mr. Everton — mebbe 
 we'll 'ave a bit of trouble when Dan wakes " 
 
 " I shall be here," replied Everton, quickly — " So you need 
 not be anxious. I'm just going to the Vicarage for a moment 
 — and then I'll come back again." 
 
 He smiled cheerily, and raised his hat with the courtesy 
 which he invariably showed to all women, rich and poor, old 
 and young — and hurried away home. His wife saw him 
 coming from the nursery windows, and ran down to open the 
 door, with expressions of cooing delight that he had returned 
 so soon. 
 
 " It's only for a few minutes, Azalea," — he said, regretfully — 
 " Just give me a cup of soup and a biscuit — that's all the lunch 
 I want. I must go and watch Kiernan till he wakes." 
 
 She uttered an exclamation of surprise and dismay. 
 
 " Go and watch Kiernan ! " she echoed — " Oh, Dick ! What 
 are you thinking about ! That dreadful man ! Why should 
 you ! It's quite absurd ! — it really is ! " 
 
 " I don't think so, Azalea," — he said, with mild firmness — 
 " Kiernan has nearly killed his wife as it is — it will be days 
 before she leaves her bed. He's now in a heavy stupor — 
 when he wakes, the first thing he will do is to set off to the 
 public-house again — and I wouldn't answer for his wife's life 
 to-night if he does. He must be prevented from drinking any 
 more to-day — and I'm going to prevent him." 
 
 "You can't, Dick," — said his wife, positively — " He'll simply 
 knock you down ! "
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 29 
 
 " Let him ! " and Everton laughed — " I daresay I shall be 
 a match for him if it comes to boxing ! " 
 
 Mrs. Everton drooped her pretty head, and her lips framed 
 the little pout that was so eminently kissable. 
 
 " But, Dick ! " she protested, — " I don't really see that it is 
 your business " 
 
 He interrupted her. 
 
 " Is it my business to prevent murder in the village, or is 
 it not?" he asked, almost sternly. "Azalea, why do you try 
 to weaken my hands ! " 
 
 She tried to look penitent, but failed. 
 
 "You might send for a policeman," — she murmured — "and 
 have the wretched drunken brute locked up " 
 
 " If I did that," — he said, quietly — " I should deserve to be 
 locked up myself. Kiernan would, when sober, very rightly 
 judge me as one of the sneaks and cowards he thinks all 
 clergymen are. No, Azalea ! — I shall deal with Kiernan as 
 I would wish to be dealt with myself, if I were in his 
 condition." 
 
 " Oh dear ! " And Azalea clapped her hands and gave vent 
 to a little rippling peal of laughter — " You in that condition ! 
 Fancy ! You, poor, gentle, good old Dick ! There ! — I'm 
 sorry if I've said anything naughty ! I'll order the soup for 
 you — and oh, Dick ! — Baby is simply quite wonderful to-day ! — 
 Nurse says he is a positive miracle ! " 
 
 " What has he done now ? " And Richard, his momentary 
 vexation passing, threw off his wet great-coat and went into 
 the dining-room, there to wait till the light refreshment he had 
 asked for was served to him — " I'm prepared for anything ! " 
 
 " He has begun to write ! " declared Azalea, gleefully — 
 " Nurse gave him a pencil and paper just to keep him quiet, 
 and he wrote all over it in the sweetest running hand ! Don't 
 laugh, Dick! It's really wonderful ! Of course there are no 
 real words on the paper, — it's only scribble, — but still it shows 
 that he wants to write, doesn't it ? " 
 
 " I'm afraid it does ! " said Everton, with an air of mock 
 gravity — " And it's a very bad sign, Azalea ! It shows that
 
 30 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 we must keep the boy down — nip him in the bud ! For if he 
 were to be clever — what then ! You know you don't want him 
 to be a clever man — you've often said so ! " 
 
 Azalea pouted and looked a little cross. 
 
 " I didn't mean that way," — she said — " Of course I want 
 him to know how to read and write." 
 
 " Why ? " demanded Richard playfully — " Why should he 
 possess such doubtful accomplishments ? For if he reads, he 
 will perhaps think — and if he thinks, he may possibly want 
 to utter his thoughts to a wider audience than his mother 
 and father — and so he may perhaps become that dreadful, 
 dangerous, and dyspeptic thing — an author — and what should 
 we do then, Azalea? What should we do with such a dis- 
 appointing son ? Suppose he were to turn out a second 
 Shakespeare ? I'm sure it would break our hearts ! " 
 
 He laughed, and his light luncheon being brought in at this 
 juncture, he made haste to dispose of it. His wife watched 
 him, looking rather like a chidden child. 
 
 "Will you be with that man Kiernan long?" she asked. 
 
 " I don't know. It will depend on Kiernan — not on me," 
 he answered — " And I think — yes, I think, Azalea, you 
 must go and see his poor wife to-morrow morning, — sit with 
 her a little and cheer her up — it will do the poor thing a 
 world of good to see your bright pretty face bending over 
 her." 
 
 She was silent. In her heart she hated visiting poor people, 
 especially when they were ill. It was so 'painful,' she said — 
 and sometimes things were ' not very clean.' But she made 
 no objection to her husband's suggestion. Fie finished his 
 hasty meal, and looked at her questioningly. 
 
 " You'll go, won't you, dear ? " he said. 
 
 " Oh yes ! " she replied, with a little sigh — " I'll go ! " 
 
 He took no notice of the touch of hesitation in her manner. 
 "Young Hadley is dying fast," — he went on — "So Mr. 
 Brand tells me. I suppose," — he paused and then went on ; 
 "I suppose — you, as a woman — cannot do anything with 
 Jacynth Miller?"
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 31 
 
 She flushed suddenly. 
 
 " Oh, Dick ! How can I ? Jacynth Miller is a real bad 
 girl ! It isn't only Bob Hadley — she's a brute to others as 
 well ! " 
 
 " I know ! " he said, sorrowfully — " But Hadley is dying — 
 and he loved her. He would like to see her again just once — 
 and she will not go near him." 
 
 " Well, if she won't, I cannot make her," — said Azalea, 
 decisively — " So don't ask me to try, Dick ! " 
 
 "Very well." He laid his hands on her shoulders, and for 
 a moment, bent an earnest, rather wistful gaze upon her. 
 Then he kissed her gently. " You must do as you think 
 best, Azalea ! " 
 
 " You won't be long away, will you ? " she pleaded, as she 
 followed him out of the dining-room into the hall. 
 
 " No, — certainly not longer than I can help ! " — he answered, 
 and in another couple of minutes he was gone. 
 
 " Horrible villagers ! ' and Azalea, uttering this exclamation 
 to herself, gave a little stamp of her foot to enforce it — "They 
 are just simply awful \ Oh, they are! Drink, drink, drink, 
 and gossip, gossip, gossip, all day long ! They come to 
 church on Sundays, and stare at each other, and pretend to 
 say their prayers, and then they go home and run each other 
 down as wickedly and scandalously as they can. And they 
 actually call themselves Christians ! " 
 
 She gave a toss of her pretty head and ran upstairs to her 
 precious baby, never considering for a moment that perhaps 
 she herself was not altogether ' Christian ' in the sentiments 
 she had just expressed, concerning the inhabitants of 
 Shadbrook. 
 
 " Nurse ! " — she exclaimed, as she tripped lightly into the 
 pretty airy room, where ' Master Laurence ' was just now 
 considering the possibilities of a square wooden block with 
 the first letter of the alphabet gorgeously painted thereon — 
 "Mi. Everton has had to go down into the village again to 
 see after that terrible Kiernan ! x\nd he's only had a cup of 
 soup and a biscuit ! It's too bad ! There is such a lot of
 
 32 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 drunkenness in the place ! It's simply a>vful ! And yet 
 nearly all the parishioners come to church and pretend to be 
 good ! " 
 
 Nurse Tomkins smiled discreetly. 
 
 " Oh well, ma'am," she said, — " It's not only in Shadbrook 
 that they do that ! " 
 
 Azalea paid no heed to this remark. She flung herself 
 down on the floor beside her small son, who stared at her 
 with gravely sweet blue eyes, and a little wondering smile. 
 
 " Baby darling ! " she said — " Oh, baby darling, you've no 
 idea what horrid people there are in the world ! " 
 
 Baby darling certainly had not. He wore an expression 
 of heavenly peace and contenti lent — and only manifested a 
 slight surprise when his mother, to attract his attention, held 
 up a woolly toy-dog which had a bell in its inside, and shook 
 it at him. Now he had left that interesting animal purposely 
 in a corner — and he could not quite understand why it had 
 been brought out to confront him suddenly, when he was busy 
 with the letter A. In the strong predilection he had shown 
 for neatness and cleanliness, he had likewise intimated his 
 desire to avoid mental confusion — and he liked one thing 
 at a time — not two or three things all cast before him in a 
 higgledy-piggledy fashion. And at the present moment he 
 grasped the wooden-blocked letter A more tenaciously and 
 showed plainly that he considered the toy-dog an intruder. 
 Whereupon Azalea threw it down, so that its inside bell clashed 
 dismally. 
 
 " He doesn't like it now ! " she said to Nurse Tomkins — 
 " Isn't it funny? He used to be so fond of that little woolly 
 thing ! " 
 
 "Oh, he'll take to it again by-and-bye," — said the patient 
 Tomkins — "You can't expect him to like the same things 
 always — even grown-ups don't do that ! " 
 
 At that moment Master Laurence uttered a remark. He 
 was beginning to talk in curious fragments of English — 
 and only the trained ear could make out his efforts at wit and 
 wisdom. He held up the letter A and said :
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 33 
 
 " Muzza yame ! " 
 
 "Yes, that's right !" said Nurse Tomkins mildly — " Mother's 
 name. Begins with A. A stands for Mother's name. Quite 
 right ! " 
 
 Azalea was almost breathless at this sudden outburst of 
 Master Laurence's learning. 
 
 " The darling ! " she cried — " Isn't he sweet ! Oh, Nurse, I'm 
 sure he'll be very clever ! " She jumped up from the floor, 
 and looked out of the window. " Oh, isn't it raining, raining ! " 
 she said, petulantly — "We might have gone out if it had 
 cleared up only just a very little ! I hate being indoors all 
 day." She sighed. "Poor Dick! Fancy his going to watch 
 that awful drunkard Kiernan ! " 
 
 "He wasn't always so bad, I've heard," — said Nurse 
 Tomkins, slowly — " There's good in him somewhere — but 
 it's hard to discover. However, if it's to be found at all, the 
 Vicar will find it." 
 
 "You think so?" And Azalea drummed with her little 
 white fingers on the window-pane as she looked out at the 
 lowering sky — " I'm not at all sure ! He's too good and 
 gentle — and some of the people about here call him 'soft.' 
 That does make me so angry ! And I wish he would be hard ! 
 Hard as nails ! " 
 
 "That wouldn't be like Christ," — said the nurse — "And a 
 Christian minister has to try and be as like Christ as 
 possible." 
 
 Azalea looked at her curiously. 
 
 "You are a real believer, aren't you?" she asked, "I mean, 
 you really do think Christ wants you to be good and to take 
 care of your soul ? " 
 
 Nurse Tomkins, who was a quiet, painstaking and devotional 
 woman, seemed a little startled by the query. 
 
 " I don't think I quite look at it in that way," — she replied, 
 "But I love the beautiful life and teaching of Our Lord, 
 and I don't ask any questions — I just trust Him, and do the 
 best I can." 
 
 "But that's not orthodox, you know," — said Azalea — 
 3
 
 34 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 " That's not all you've got to believe. I sometimes think," — 
 Here she broke off and laughed — " Oh no ! I never think at 
 all. It doesn't do ! But I ought never to have been a 
 clergyman's wife really. Because I don't like visiting the sick 
 and the poor, and all that kind of thing — and though I'm a 
 mother, I'm not fit to hold a mothers' meeting, or preside over 
 a Girls' Friendly Society, or anything — it wants somebody old 
 and plain and prim for that — and I'm not old — and I'm not 
 plain, and I'm not prim ! I'm just silly ! Yes — silly ! It's so 
 nice to be silly when one is young — and at present I really 
 cannot be anything else. Even Baby looks wiser than I shall 
 ever feel ! " 
 
 Here she lifted the child from the floor, and held him up to 
 the window. He at once showed displeasure at the sight of 
 the pouring rain, and struggled to get down. 
 
 " Dear me, Nurse ! " she exclaimed, almost pettishly — 
 " How restless Baby is ! He really seems dissatisfied with 
 everything ! " 
 
 Nurse Tomkins smiled again. 
 
 "Oh, I don't think he's dissatisfied, ma'am," — she said, 
 " But I've always noticed that he doesn't like being taken 
 away from one thing to do another. You see he was busy " 
 
 " Busy ! " echoed Azalea, with wide-open eyes — " Why, 
 what on earth was he doing ? " 
 
 " He had his alphabet," and the nurse pointed to the 
 scattered blocks that lay about the floor — "And I think he 
 was trying to make words. He often manages to spell quite 
 long words correctly. If you put him down I'm sure he'll go 
 back to his work." 
 
 Azalea laughed merrily. 
 
 " Go back to his work ! Oh, Baby dear ! You queer little 
 soul ! " Here she set him on the floor, much to his delight — 
 " The idea of your working ! " 
 
 She laughed again, while Master Laurence, toddling un- 
 steadily, yet determinedly, made straight for his bricks, and 
 squatting down comfortably, set himself again to the labour of 
 arranging them in such form and sequence as he imagined
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 35 
 
 might lead to the comprehension of the language used by the 
 strange human beings among whom he, as a small transformed 
 angel, had now to take his place and part. His mother 
 watched him for a moment, then yawned undisguisedly. 
 
 " It's time for lunch now," — she said, with a glance at the 
 clock — " I must go down and have it all by myself. It's 
 really too bad of Dick to put himself out so much, all for the 
 sake of such a hopeless character as Dan Kiernan. He'll do 
 no good, I'm sure." 
 
 She sauntered out of the nursery, singing as she went. 
 Nurse Tomkins made no remark, and only continued her 
 sewing a little more quickly. Glancing at her young charge, 
 she saw that he had set three letters of the alphabet in line on 
 the floor — wide apart, but in a fairly straight position, — and 
 that he was alternately looking at these and at a large coloured 
 text which hung on the wall : ' God is Love.' His baby 
 brow was knitted, almost puckered with thought, and his little 
 rosebud mouth was folded into quite a severe line. He 
 studied his straggling blocks with deep earnestness. G ' O " D. 
 There was a mystery behind them, if be could only grapple 
 with it. 
 
 " Put them together, dearie ! " said Nurse Tomkins, coax- 
 ingly — "All together!" He turned and looked at her 
 questioningly. She made a collective movement with her 
 hand. " So ! Side by side ! All together ! " His big blue 
 eyes sparkled — and he understood. Soon he had the word 
 clear: 'GOD.' 
 
 "That's quite right!" said the nurse, in her soft, soothing 
 voice — " That's just as it should be. GOD. That's like the 
 pretty picture up there. ' God is Love.' " And she smiled 
 and nodded at him encouragingly. He gave her a responsive 
 smile, but at the same time heaved a small sigh. 'GOD.' 
 The word stared him in the face, and he folded his chubby 
 hands together and stared back at it again. It was a great 
 Sign ; — and some dim consciousness of it seemed to affect 
 him. The real idea which had taken possession of his brain 
 was that he must try and copy the text on the wall, — but the
 
 36 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 effort had been rather more than he had anticipated. He 
 therefore permitted himself to pause and reflect. The nurse 
 stopped her busy sewing for a moment and watched him. 
 She was one of the very few women who think seriously about 
 anything — and there was a certain suggestiveness in the 
 attitude of the tiny child sitting with closely folded hands 
 opposite that mystic name on which the whole world hangs 
 like a dewdrop hanging on one petal of the immortal Rose of 
 Life. GOD — and a Child ! The two are near akin in purity, 
 — and the words of Christ — " Except ye become as little 
 children ye shall not enter the Kingdom of Heaven," — are 
 true for all time. Almost involuntarily the nurse's lips moved 
 in a sudden prayer : " God bless the dear little soul and make 
 him a good man ! " — and for once, she did not follow her usual 
 habit of anticipation as to his possibly being a ' great ' man. 
 A ' good ' man seemed the more natural outcome of that small 
 sweet creature absorbed in the study of the Name by which he 
 was to know his Maker. 
 
 " Between him and Dan Kiernan," — she murmured — " What 
 a difference ! And yet — even Kiernan was a little innocent 
 child like that once ! "
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 WITH the passing of the hours, the clouds thickened, 
 and the rain poured persistently over Shadbrook 
 as though it meant to drown both the old and new village 
 for good and all. The polluted brook swelled to a torrent 
 which rattled among the cast-away pots and pans and 
 preserved meat-tins with quite an angry volume of sound, 
 and the decaying vegetables began to float steadily away 
 on a journey towards the river, there to be mercifully swept 
 into the clean oblivion of the sea. Everton sat just within 
 the open doorway of Kiernan's cottage, looking at the heavy 
 showers which spread a cold grey sheet of wet over the 
 visible scene, and in the kindness of his heart felt sorry 
 for Kiernan himself, who still sleeping in the porch, was 
 likely to be chilled through by the creeping damp which 
 penetrated to the very bones, despite the warmest clothing. 
 In truth the wretched man made a miserable picture, rolled 
 together as it were in what was more of a stupor than a 
 sleep — his breathing was loud and irregular — his face was 
 flushed with patches of feverish red, and the veins in hk, 
 thick neck stood out like knotted whip-cord. The Vicar 
 surveyed him anxiously — and from time to time glanced at 
 his watch. It was nearing three o'clock. He had been 
 more than two hours at his post — and it was only natural 
 that he should feel tired. He was tired, and he admitted 
 it to himself — tired and sick at heart. What, after all, was 
 the good of his remaining beside this hopeless drunkard, 
 who. when he woke would probably only resent his presence? 
 
 37
 
 38 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 He had no power to persuade — he was merely a parson, — 
 he was not a brewer. The brewer was the physical and 
 moral governor of such men as Kiernan ; — the brewer could 
 compel them to murder or robbery — but the minister of 
 Christ could not hold them back from the brewer's sway. 
 How inefficient then — how more than feeble seemed the 
 Minister of Christ ! 
 
 " What use am I ? " he thought, wearily — " I can read 
 the services — I can preach sermons which are 'orthodox' — 
 I can baptize, marry, and bury my parishioners — but I 
 cannot hold one of them back from the public-house ! I 
 can talk to them of the evils of drink ; — I can put a true 
 scientific analysis of Minchin's brew before them — oh yes ! 
 — I can do all this — without the least effect ! They listen, 
 of course, — they show that outward respect which they 
 consider due to me — and having heard all I have to say, 
 they straightway forget it. And I am not alone in my 
 trouble. Thousands of men in my calling are attempting 
 the same hopeless task, — others, wearied by their own 
 ineffectual endeavours, have given it up in despair and are 
 content to ' let things go,' — and there is always the same 
 old cry in every rural town and village — ' the parson 
 interferes with everybody and everything.' God knows I 
 do not seek to ' interfere ' — it is only that if I see human 
 souls rushing blindly to perdition, I cannot look on without 
 interposing myself between them and the brink of Hell. 
 And for that I am likely to be blamed — and worse than 
 blamed — mistrusted ! " 
 
 At that moment the stupefied Kiernan gave a violent 
 start, — stretching out his brawny arms, he entered into a 
 kind of furious struggle with himself, in the course of which 
 he opened his eyes and glowered about him like an angry bull. 
 
 "'Ullo ! " he stammered, seeing Everton — "Who's — who's 
 that ? " 
 
 "The Vica*-/' — answered Everton. 
 
 Kiernan gave vent to an inarticulate exclamation, and 
 struggled up on to his feet.
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 39 
 
 " The Vicar ! " And standing upright, he swayed to and 
 fro unsteadily — " G — good-morning, sir ! " 
 
 " Good-morning, Kiernan," — responded Everton, com- 
 posedly — " or rather, good-afternoon ! It's three o'clock. 
 You didn't think it was as late as that, did you?" 
 
 Kiernan was rubbing his hand vaguely over his hair. 
 
 "No," — he said, thickly — "I didnt think 'twas so late — 
 I've overslept myself " 
 
 "You've over-drunk yourself, man — that's what's the 
 matter" — and Everton stood up face to face with him as 
 he spoke — " And, Kiernan — I know you'll be sorry for it — 
 you've hurt your wife very badly." 
 
 "'Urt my wife?" Kiernan stopped rubbing his hair and 
 looked startled— " 'Urt Jennie? 'Ow's that? What's the 
 matter ? " 
 
 " Come and see ! " 
 
 And Everton turned into the cottage, beckoning Kiernan 
 to follow. He did so with a stumbling step, and at the 
 first sight of his wife lying in bed, with her pale face and 
 closed eyes, he became as it were instantly sobered. 
 
 "Jennie! Jennie!" he said, in quite a changed voice — 
 " What's wrong, lass ? Eh ? — Jennie ! " 
 
 She opened her eyes and her poor thin features were 
 transfigured by a smile of inexpressible love and tenderness. 
 
 " Dan ! " She held out her arms, and as he bent over 
 her she laid them gently round his neck — " Dear Dan ! You 
 didn't mean it — I know you didn't ! — it was just the drink 
 that drove you mad for a minute " 
 
 He lifted her up and held her against his breast. 
 
 " What did I do, Jennie ? Tell me ! Did I 'urt ye ? God 
 forgive me ! Did I 'urt ye ? " 
 
 " No ! " said his wife, bravely — " Only a very little. Don't 
 you mind ! I'll soon be all right, Dan ! But you'll keep 
 away, Dan — won't you ? — you'll keep away from the drink ? — 
 not for my sake, but for your own, Dan, — it does upset you. so ! 
 K iss me, Dan ! " 
 
 He kissed her and laid her down — then looked in a be-
 
 4 o HOLY ORDERS 
 
 wildered way round the little room. Mrs. Adcott, in her self- 
 appointed duty of nurse, had made some lea, and she now 
 held out a cupful of that fragrant beverage. 
 
 " Drink this, Dan ! " she said, brightly — " It'll do you good 
 and clear your 'ed of that Minchin stuff. An' you, Mr. Everton, 
 you ain't 'ad no lunch, an' you must be right-down tired — 
 will you take a cup ? " 
 
 "Thanks very much — I will," — and Everton turned towards 
 her, to avoid the pained stare of Kiernan's eyes, and to give 
 him a little time in which to realise the situation. Kiernan 
 stood for a moment inert, as though in doubt — then, setting 
 the cup of untasted tea down on the table, flung himself 
 heavily into a chair. Mrs. Adcott looked at him. 
 
 " Won't you 'ave your tea, Dan ? " she asked, coaxingly. 
 
 He made no answer. 
 
 Everton quietly drew another chair to the table, and sat 
 down opposite to him. 
 
 " Better now, Kiernan ? " he said, cheerily — and nodding 
 towards the little doorway which opened into the adjoining 
 room where Mrs. Kiernan lay, he added—" She'll be all right 
 in a day or two if you're careful of her. Her life depends on 
 you — of course you know that." 
 
 " Her life — her life ! " muttered Kiernan, — then, with a 
 sudden darkening of his features he looked full into Everton's 
 face — " What I want to know is this — how do you 'appen to be 
 'ere ? What's your business ? " 
 
 " My business ? " and the Vicar flushed slightly and then 
 grew pale — " My business, Kiernan, is to treat you as I would 
 treat my own brother, and see that you get into no more 
 mischief." 
 
 " Oh, that's what it is, is it ? " and Kiernan gave a short 
 laugh of incredulity— "Well, I'm obleeged t'ye— an' if ye'll be 
 so good as to clear out, I'll not ask ye to call again ! " 
 
 Mrs. Adcott, who had been sweeping up the hearth, and was 
 now putting a fresh kettle full of water on the fire to boil, 
 looked round, startled. 
 
 " Dan ! " she exclaimed—" You don't mean that ! "
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 41 
 
 " I do mean it ! " And Kiernan brought his fist down 
 heavily on the table with a fierce blow — " I mean that this 'ere 
 reverend gentleman 'asn't no right to enter my 'ouse or sit 
 at my table without I permits 'im, an' I </o«7 permit 'im ! An' 
 I sez to 'im ' Clear out ! ' an' if 'e's a man 'e'll do it — straight ! " 
 
 Everton rose quietly. 
 
 " All right, Kiernan ! " — he said — " I came as a friend, — but 
 I'll go." 
 
 "An' the sooner the better !" said Kiernan, with a kind of 
 angry grin — " What ! Do I pay rent for a 'ouse to myself an' 
 yet can't keep a busy-bodyin' parson out of it ? Came 'ere to 
 see me drunk, eh t Well, you've see'd it, an' I 'ope you liked 
 it ! An' as for my wife, you've 'eard 'er say as 'ow I avn't 'urt 
 'er — why should I 'urt 'er ? Ain't she my wife ? Why should 
 I go to 'urt what's my own ? Do / sneak up to your 'ouse, 
 Mister Parson, an' see 'ow you carries on when the doors 
 is shut ? Do /come in an' say to your missus — ' Oh, my pore 
 woman, your 'usband's no good an' I'm coming to look arter 
 ye ' ? No, I doan't ! An' what the devil do you mean by 
 a-doin' what no 'spectable workin'-man would do, all 'cos 
 you're a parson? You takes too much on yerself, Mister 
 Everton ! — a deal too much ! an' so I tells ye to clear out o' this 
 'ere 'ouse afore I makes ye ! " 
 
 Mrs. Adcott stood as it were rooted to the ground in terror 
 at the tone of this speech, accompanied as it was by threaten- 
 ing gestures, but Everton maintained a perfectly tranquil 
 demeanour. 
 
 " You mistake me, Kiernan," — he said — " You mistake me 
 altogether. But — never mind ! Perhaps you'll understand 
 better later on. I'm sorry you look upon me as an intruder, — 
 I had hoped otherwise " 
 
 He paused — then took his hat and prepared to leave the 
 cottage. 
 
 " I wish," he continued, fixing his brave, clear, keen eyes on 
 the drunkard's sullen countenance — " I wish I might, as your 
 Vicar, ask you to make me a promise." 
 
 Kiernan gave a kind of grunt.
 
 42 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 " Oh, ye may ask anything ye like," — he muttered. 
 
 " Well ! — don't drink any more poison to-day," — and 
 Everton, going fearlessly up to him, laid one hand kindly on 
 his shoulder — " Give me your word you won't, and 111 believe 
 you ! Come, Kiernan ! As man to man, promise me ! " 
 
 With a smothered oath Kiernan sprang up from his chair 
 and seemed about to give vent to a torrent of abuse, — but 
 meeting Everton's steady, appealing gaze, full of a sorrowful, 
 almost affectionate reproach, his head drooped shamefacedly, 
 and he gave a forced angry laugh. 
 
 " All right ! " he said — " Anythin' for peace an' quietness ! I 
 promise ! " 
 
 The friendly hand dropped from his shoulder. 
 
 " Thank- you ! And to-morrow you'll see things in quite a 
 different light, I'm sure." 
 
 Kiernan stood stolidly silent, and Everton with an encourag- 
 ing smile and nod to the visibly distressed Mrs. Adcott, left the 
 cottage without another word, outwardly composed, but 
 inwardly sorely troubled. Again he felt his own helplessness, 
 — again he questioned himself as to the usefulness or the utter 
 inefficiency of the position he occupied. 
 
 "When the country's press permits open discussion of the 
 ' New ' theory, — old as the hills and false as the kiss of Judas 
 — that Christ was merely a man like ourselves, what can be 
 done with people who are only to be held in check by either 
 fear or love of the Divine ! " he thought — " And when medical 
 men criminally unite together, under pressure brought to bear 
 upon them by the beer and spirit traders, to pronounce alcohol 
 — that curse of the country — as ' positively beneficial ' what can 
 the workers for Truth and Right do ? Our hands are rendered 
 strengthless — our souls dispirited — and our hearts, in the long 
 and anxious struggle, are broken ! " 
 
 He sighed, and walked on rapidly, almost unconscious of 
 the pouring rain. He had a faint hope that Kiernan might 
 possibly keep his promise — but he could not console himself 
 with it as likely to be a certainty. And moved by an impulse, 
 which whether wise or foolish, was at least straightforward and
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 43 
 
 well-intentioned, he made his way to the smart-looking public- 
 house of the 'model' half of the village, which was known by 
 the name of the ' Stag and Crow,' and entered it, to the surprise 
 of the proprietor, a heavy-faced man with red hair, who passed 
 most of his time in reading the halfpenny papers and airing 
 himself outside his dcor in his shirt sleeves. 
 
 " Can I speak to you for a moment, Mr. Topper ? " he 
 enquired. 
 
 Mr. Topper smiled an affable smile. 
 
 " Certainly you can, Mr. Everton ! — certainly ! What can I 
 do for you this afternoon ? It's very wet for you to be out 
 sure-fy ! " 
 
 " It is wet," — and Everton, looking in at the bar, surrounded 
 as it was with shelves full of shining bottles and glasses, was 
 bound to admit that, so far as outward appearances of comfort 
 were concerned, Topper had the best of it in bad weather. 
 " But I've been visiting Mrs. Kiernan — she got rather seriously 
 hurt this morning." 
 
 " Oh indeed ! How was that ? " and Mr. Topper put on an 
 expression of bland and sympathetic interest. 
 
 " Her husband," — replied the Vicar, with a straight glance — 
 " He was mad drunk, and knocked her down." 
 
 " Dear, dear ! " and the placid Topper sighed — " Dear, dear, 
 dear I Very sad — very sad " 
 
 " Mr. Topper," went on Everton, earnestly — " It is very sad 
 — and very bad. So sad and bad is it that I've come here 
 myself to tell you that Dan Kiernan is not in a fit state to be 
 given any more drink to-day. I've come here to ask you, as a 
 friend, to help me in preventing him from getting any more. 
 WiD you ? " 
 
 Topper's red face grew redder. 
 
 "I don't know what you mean " he began. 
 
 " I mean," continued Everton — " that I want you to join 
 hands with me in a good work — a work of rescue. It's quite 
 simple. It won't give you any trouble. It's only just this — 
 Don't sell any more beer or spirits to Kiernan to day — if he 
 comes round and asks you for either, refuse him."
 
 44 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 Topper's little pig eyes glistened almost angrily. 
 "Mr. Everton," he said, with laborious dignity — "You are 
 evidently not acquainted with public-house rules. We are 
 bound to supply customers with whatever they ask and pay 
 for. It is not our business to enquire whether a man is ' fit ' 
 to have beer and spirits, — if he pays his money we must give 
 him his exchange." 
 
 The Vicar drew himself up a trifle more stiffly erect. 
 "So that if a man is drunk, you must make him more 
 drunken ! " he said, reproachfully. 
 
 " If he is drunk on the premises and behaves himself in a 
 disorderly manner, I can turn him out," — said Topper, with 
 visible impatience — " But it's no part of my duty to find out 
 the exact moment when he is drunk or sober." 
 
 " I tell you," said the Vicar, warmly — " that Dan Kiernan 
 is not in a fit state to be given any more drink to-day. If he 
 gets it, he is likely to commit murder." 
 
 " And / tell you ! " retorted Topper, with equal warmth, 
 "that I know nothing about it because I haven't seen him 
 since dinner-time and don't want to see him. He came in 
 here this morning, and went away perfectly sober." 
 Everton looked at him steadily. 
 
 " Perfectly sober ! " he echoed—" You say that ? Perfectly 
 sober?" 
 
 " Perfectly sober ! " reiterated Topper — " I would swear to 
 it before a magistrate, Bible oath ! " 
 
 There was a moment's silence. Then Everton spoke — 
 " If you swear to that, you would swear to a lie ! " he said 
 sternly, — and as Topper uttered an indignant exclamation, he 
 raised his hand with a commanding gesture — " I repeat — you 
 would swear to a lie — I, your Vicar, tell you so. Make the 
 best of it that you can ! You know that Kiernan left your 
 premises drunk, — you know all about the injuries he has 
 inflicted on his wife, and you only pretend not to know ! Yet 
 to make a few extra pence of profit you will, if occasion arises, 
 assist this wretched man to poison himself again, so that 
 driven by the force of a desperate delirium, he shall not knew
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 45 
 
 whether he is man or beast — though no beast that lives is so 
 fallen from self-respect as a drunkard ! You and your class 
 might help to cleanse the nation of its ruling vice if you 
 would, — but you will not ! — you would rather see your fellow- 
 creatures die in misery and infamy than abate one jot of your 
 gains on the accursed drugs you sell ! " 
 
 His breath came and went quickly, — he was shaken 
 altogether from his ordinary composure. Mr. Topper, 
 however, was a man who rather liked to anger his ' betters ' ; 
 'give them a rub the wrong way,' as he himself expressed 
 it — and the more justly irritated they berime the more stolid 
 was his own attitude. His favourite meat was pork, and his 
 favourite drink Minchin's cheapest ale, — with the result that 
 his physical and mental composition was made up of these 
 two baneful ingredients. He smiled tolerantly at what he 
 privately called the Vicar's ' temper.' 
 
 " I'm sorry you take it like that, Mr. Everton," he said, with 
 unctuous mildness — " You're very hard on us poor publicans, — 
 you are indeed ! We've got to make our little bit of money 
 somehow — and if Kieman didn't take his glass at the 'Stag 
 and Crow,' he'd take it at the ' Ram's Head ' — so it would be 
 just the same in the long-run. And there's not a drop of 
 harm in Minchin's Fourpenny, if it's taken steady." 
 
 Everton could not trust himself to continue the discussion. 
 
 " Well, Mr. Topper, I have told you plainly what I think," 
 he said — "and though it's not always wise to express one's 
 thoughts, I'm not sorry for having done so on this occasion. 
 I've been told that Dan Kiernan was quite a decent fellow 
 before he came to Shadbrook, where he cannot walk from one 
 end of the village to the other without passing two public- 
 houses " 
 
 "And why doti't he pass 'em?" demanded Topper, with 
 vehemence — "Why does he come inside? He isn't pulled 
 neck and crop through the doors ! The drink isn't forced 
 down his throat ! It's his own choice and his own doing. 
 And if any change is to be worked in him, why that's more 
 your business than mine, Mr. Everton ! "
 
 46 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 Everton's eyes clouded with a quick sadness. 
 
 "You are right ! " he said, simply, — " But I am aware of my 
 own shortcomings. I can do very little." 
 
 He said no more then,— and left Mr. Topper to his own 
 meditations, which were rather of a mixed nature. Topper, 
 like most of the inhabitants of Shadbrook, had a certain 
 respect for the Vicar, — but every now and again this respect 
 was drowned by a touch of contempt for his ' softness ' — the 
 phrase which so greatly irritated the Vicar's pretty wife. 
 
 " Why don't he let things alone and go easy ! " he thought 
 now, as he drew for himself a glass of the ' Minchin Fourpenny,' 
 and drank it dc.vn with infinite gusto — "Look at Minchin 
 himself now! He's a standing example to the community! 
 He don't touch a drop of his own liquor— drinks nothing but 
 water — and lets those that like his beer have it at a fair price, 
 and so makes his money out of it. That's what I call common 
 sense. As for Kiernan or any one else getting drunk, that's 
 nobody's business and nobody's fault." 
 
 Such was his argument — the common argument held by 
 most people. The fact that one human being is always more 
 or less answerable for the good or evil affecting his fellow 
 human beings is not realised by the majority. Each unit 
 thinks that its companion unit stands, or ought to stand 
 alone — and it needs a profound insight, as well as a most 
 sympathetic intelligence, to see how all the units are really 
 linked together by threads of cause and effect, — threads which 
 slowiy but surely weave them into communities or nations 
 which according to their national merits, rise or fall. One 
 man influences the other by word, thought and deed — though 
 every man disclaims responsibility for his brother man, lest it 
 should bring himself into trouble. But it was the full 
 consciousness of such responsibility and the serious acceptance 
 of it, that moved Richard Everton to a sense of deep sorrow 
 when he reflected that he, a man of good education and 
 scholarship, placed in a position of religious authority to 
 guide, teach and control those who were set under his charge, 
 could do nothing — nothing to rescue even one creature
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 47 
 
 obsessed by the demon of Drink ! And he tramped through 
 the village wearily, his face growing almost haggard under the 
 pressure of vexatious feeling, wondering whether he should or 
 should not risk a call at the ' Ram's Head ' — which dominated 
 the other half of Shadbrook, and see if he could lodge a 
 warning there. 
 
 "But I shall only get the same answer if I do," — he 
 thought — " I shall be told I have no business to interfere — 
 and, after all, that's true enough ! My business is ' only ' the 
 saving of souls for Heaven, — but apparently I may not hinder 
 souls from going to Hell through drink, inasmuch as their loss 
 is gain to the national revenue ! " 
 
 So he mused, conscious of his own bitter feeling, yet unable 
 to look at the position in any other light. He was within a 
 few steps of the ' Ram's Head ' public-house, and he brought 
 himself to a sudden standstill hesitating as to whether he 
 should enter it or not. In a moment of indecision, a tall girl 
 with a lithe, graceful figure, and a shawl flung carelessly over 
 her head, came out and faced him with a smile. 
 
 " Rather a wet afternoon, sir ! " she said. 
 
 He looked at her silently. Something in his straight glance 
 confused her, for she coloured crimson. Then the deep blush 
 slowly faded, leaving her pale, yet still smiling — and she lifted 
 her head with an air of haughty self-assertion as though she 
 sought to express the fact that not only was she beautiful, but 
 that she well knew the power of her beauty. Everton under- 
 stood her gesture — he had seen it often. Jacynth Miller did 
 not spare him any more than she spared other men. A clergy- 
 man was no more to her than a day-labourer, — she was willing 
 to make fools of both, and she knew that her physical charms 
 exercised a strange and not always propitious influence upon 
 the male sex generally. Certainly no one save the most 
 jaundiced and spiteful of critics could have denied that she was 
 perfectly lovely. An artist would have delighted to draw the 
 exquisite oval of her face, and to paint the dark liquid lustre 
 of her eyes, fringed as they were by long, silky upcurling lashes, 
 and over-arched by the most delicately pencilled well-shaped
 
 48 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 brows. Her mouth, rosy as a pomegranate, seemed framed 
 for the utterance of sweet words, — and her tiny even teeth, 
 white as milk, made her look enchanting when she smiled as 
 she wes smiling now. 
 
 " Jacynth ! " said the Vicar, gravely — " Were you in there ? " 
 
 " In where ? " 
 
 He pointed to the ' Ram's Head.' 
 
 "You know what I mean," — he said, his voice shaking a 
 little — " You are only a girl, Jacynth — the public-house is no 
 place for you " 
 
 She gave a little shrug. 
 
 " Oh, don't you worry about me, Mr. Everton ! " she retorted, 
 " I'm all right ! I can take care of myself." 
 
 He said nothing for a moment. 
 
 She looked at him curiously and with a touch of compassion. 
 
 " You're wet through, Mr. Everton ! " 
 
 " Am I ? " he answered, wearily — " I didn't know it ! " 
 
 She moved a step or two closer, with a fascinating air of 
 gentle penitence — 
 
 " I haven't been drinking; Mr. Everton," — she said in a low 
 tone — " I haven't really, sir ! " Here she raised her wonderful 
 eyes to his face — " I wouldn't vex you for the world, — I 
 know you're set against the drink, and I'd like to please 
 you " 
 
 " Would you indeed, Jacynth ! " and he shook his head 
 doubtfully — " Well ! — perhaps you would ! I don't know ! " 
 
 "I would — I would, really!" — and Jacynth gazed at him 
 with a sweet frankness that startled him — " What do you want 
 me to do ? " 
 
 With a kind of nervousness he recoiled from her, — why, in 
 Heaven's name, he thought, had this girl been made so 
 bewitchingly beautiful that no man — not even the strongest, — 
 could look at her without admiration? 
 
 " I want nothing of you, Jacynth," — he said, with studied 
 coldness — " except more steadiness of character. You say 
 you were not drinking — God grant you were not ! If you 
 really wished to please me, you would be kinder and more
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 49 
 
 thoughtful of others — others whom you have wronged — Bob 
 Hadley, for example " 
 
 " What's the matter with Bob ? " she asked, putting back her 
 shawl a little more from her face, and by accident or design 
 showing the luxuriant twists of her rich brown hair plaited on 
 her head in the form of a coronal. 
 
 " He is dying," — said the Vicar, gently — " And he wants to 
 see you again. He loved you very much, Jacynth ! " 
 
 " I'm afraid he did ! " she murmured, with a quick sigh — " I 
 couldn't help it ! Could I ? " 
 
 She lifted her eyes again, with a flashing coquetry in their 
 radiant depths. He gave a slight gesture of annoyance. 
 
 " You need not have encouraged him," — he said, stiffly — 
 " You led him on to believe you would marry him " 
 
 " Marry him ! " She laughed. " I ? I shall never marry 
 any one in Shadbrook ! " 
 
 He looked at her, vaguely perplexed. Here was a creature 
 endowed with magnificent physical health and superb beauty 
 — a girl of radiant loveliness in the full morning of her woman- 
 hood — were all her powers of charm and conquest to be 
 limited to Shadbrook ? Involuntarily he found himself asking 
 the same question for her as he had asked for himself — " Is 
 she to pass all her life in Shadbrook ? " 
 
 Suddenly she spoke again. 
 
 " I've heard all about the row this morning," — she said — 
 " Dan Kiernan nearly killed his wife. And I'll tell you one 
 thing, Mr. Everton — he shan't get any more drink to-day. I'll 
 prevent that ! " 
 
 The Vicar's face cleared, and he was conscious of a great 
 relief. 
 
 " Will you ? But how can you ? " 
 
 Jacynth nodded mysteriously. 
 
 " Leave it to me ! I'll manage him ! " Her little teeth 
 gleamed again like pearls between the red of her lips. " He's 
 a fierce b r ute, is Dan Kiernan ! But I can keep him in order ! " 
 
 Everton was too keen a man not to perceive that there was 
 some circumstance underlying her words with which he was 
 4
 
 50 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 not acquainted. He was a little troubled — but forbore to 
 press enquiry for the moment. 
 
 " Well — if you have any influence over him," — he said at 
 last, hesitatingly — " you will be doing a kindness to his wife as 
 well as to himself if you can keep him away from the public- 
 house. He gave me his promise that he would not drink any 
 more to-day " 
 
 "His promise isn't worth a penny!" said Jacynth, con- 
 temptuously — " I don't believe any man alive knows what a 
 promise means ! But I'll see he's all right. And — as you 
 wish it, Mr. Everton — I'll go and see Bob Hadley." 
 
 He smiled — and his kind eyes lightened. He took her 
 hand gently in his own and pressed it. 
 
 " That's right, Jacynth ! " he said — " I shall be proud of you 
 yet ! " 
 
 She flushed a little, — then laughed, perking up a lovely 
 rounded white chin from the folds of her shawl. 
 
 " I hope you will ! " she said. 
 
 " I'm sure I shall ! You'll be the best girl in the village 
 before long ! " 
 
 An odd quiver passed over her face — she grew suddenly 
 very white. She drew her shawl more closely round her head, 
 completely hiding the beautiful hair she had before been proud 
 to try and show. 
 
 " It's going to rain all day, I think," — she said, evasively — 
 " Do get home as quick as you can, Mr. Everton — you are so 
 wet, — I'm sure you'll catch cold." 
 
 " Oh, I'm not afraid of that ! " laughed the Vicar, cheerily — 
 " I'm seasoned to all weathers. But as you seem to think 
 you can answer for Kiernan's good behaviour " 
 
 " I can ! " she said, in a low tone. 
 
 "Well, that's a great weight off my mind — and I'm much 
 obliged to you, Jacynth," — here he lifted his hat to her — 
 " But if there's any more trouble with him, be sure you send 
 for me, won't you? " 
 
 "Yes— oh yes — I'll be sure!" and Jacynth smiled again — 
 " Good-afternoon, Mr. Everton ! "
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 51 
 
 "Good-afternoon!" he replied — and with a kindly nod, he 
 turned away from her and walked rapidly up a little by-lane, 
 which was a short cut out of the village, and led almost 
 directly to the Vicarage. The girl Jacynth stood for a few 
 moments watching him till he was out of sight, with a kind 
 of angry wonder in her large dark eyes. Then Jie burst into 
 a laugh. 
 
 " Poor devil ! " she said, half aloud — " He wants to be 
 good — and to make me good too ! And he's only a man ! " 
 
 She gave an eloquently contemptuous gesture with her 
 whole body — a shrug and a writhe in one. 
 
 " Only a man ! " she repeated — " And every man is just 
 the same wherever a woman's concerned ! — strong or weak, 
 plain or handsome, married or single — they're all the same 
 fool quality ! '"' 
 
 Folding her shawl tightly round her shoulders, she ran with 
 the speed and lightness of an Atalanta over the bridge which 
 divided old Shadbrook from new, towards Kiernan's cottage, 
 her tall figure vanishing like a dark blur in the driving rain. 
 
 The Vicar himself, happily unconscious of the disparaging 
 criticism passed upon his sex by her whom he vainly hoped 
 one day to call 'the best girl in the village,' reached his own 
 dwelling with considerable thankfulness. In his mind he was 
 perfectly aware that he had done little or no good by playing 
 sentinel over Kiernan's drunken slumbers, and he met his 
 wife's prettily enquiring expression and querying monosyllable 
 of " Well ? " with a practical statement concerning himself. 
 
 " I'm wet through, Azalea, — let me run upstairs and change, 
 and I'll tell you all about it Kiernan will do no more harm 
 to-night, I think." 
 
 "That's a comfort, I'm sure \" and Azalea gave a decisive 
 nod of her dainty head — " You poor dear Dick ! You are 
 in an awful state ! Simply soaked ! Go and change every- 
 thing at once ! There's a nice fire in your study — we'll have 
 tea there, and we can talk ! " 
 
 And in less than quarter of an hour husband and wife were 
 seated opposite each other — a daintily spread tea-table between
 
 52 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 them, glistening with wedding-gift silver and wedding-gift china, 
 on which the firelight shed a rosy sparkling glow, in pleasant 
 contrast to the deepening gloom of the outside garden view 
 and the miserable weather. 
 
 " I met Jacynth Miller in the village," — said Everton, then, 
 stretching oi_, his weary feet to rest on the fender in the 
 warmth of the fire — " She told me she would see that Kiernan 
 got no more drink to-day. And, Azalea, I really think the 
 girl has some heart after all, — she has promised me to go 
 and visit poor Bob Hadley." 
 
 Azalea, busy with the teapot, gave him a quick glance, — 
 then her face lighted up with a dimpling smile. 
 
 " And you believe her, Dick ? You actually believe her ! 
 Oh!" 
 
 The amount of meaning which the charming little woman 
 managed to convey into that ' Oh ! ' could not be expressed 
 in words. Richard was conscious of a slight, very slight 
 sense of irritation. 
 
 " Of course I believe her," — he said, — " Why should I not 
 believe her? Even a bad girl may be sorry for her badness 
 and may wish to be better, — don't you think so?" 
 
 " Oh, of course ! " and Azalea, poising a lump of sugar aloft 
 in the sugar-tongs, looked at it critically as though it were 
 something quite curious and new — " Of course, Dick, she may 
 wish to be better — but I think — I really do think that in the 
 case of Jacynth, it's so unlikely ! " 
 
 Everton was silent. He was annoyed by his wife's ex- 
 pression of opinion — but he did not wish to betray his 
 annoyance by any hasty word or look. Moreover, his vexation 
 was twofold, — he not only considered that Azalea was unjust 
 in her remark, but he knew within himself that Jacynth's 
 beauty had for the moment cast a glamour over him which 
 would need to be shaken off before he could consider her 
 generally questionable reputation in a properly dispassionate 
 light. 
 
 " You will at any rate admit that it's kind and plucky of 
 her to look after Kiernan so that he doesn't do any more
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 53 
 
 mischief? " he asked — " It's not a pleasant thing for a young 
 girl to keep guard over a drunkard ! " 
 
 Azalea poured out the tea carefully. 
 
 " No, dear, it isn't ! " she murmured — " But I thought you 
 had managed all that." 
 
 His brow clouded, and he sighed wearily. 
 
 " I ? I can manage nothing ! " he said, sorrowfully — " I sat 
 with Kiernan till he woke — and then — then— well! — it's hard 
 to say it, but I may as well tell you — then he ordered me 
 out of his house. And, of course, I had to go.'' 
 
 Azalea's blue eyes opened wide. 
 
 " You— had— to— go ! " she echoed — "Oh, Dick! How 
 could you ? " 
 
 " How could I stay ? " he retorted — " My dear child, no 
 man has a right to stay in another man's house against that 
 other man's will. Unless he's a ' man in possession ' " — and 
 he laughed a little — " As long as Kiernan pays his rent, he's 
 master of his own roof-tree, and he is not called upon to 
 either welcome or entertain an uninvited guest " 
 
 11 But — a clergyman — the Vicar of the parish " she ex- 
 claimed distressfully. 
 
 " Not even a clergyman has the right to stay in a parish- 
 ioner's house if he is told to go," — he said, quietly — "There's 
 a great deal of harm done by district visiting, and by the 
 thrusting of religious tracts on people who don't want to read 
 them. When you come to think of it, Azalea, it's the height 
 of impertinence for any man, or woman either, to walk into a 
 house and offer advice to persons who haven't asked you 
 for it." 
 
 Azalea's pretty eyebrows went up in perplexity. 
 
 " I can't understand you, Dick ! " she said — " Isn't it just 
 what you've done to-day? Haven't you been all this time 
 with Kiernan — and gone without your lunch and got wet 
 through, and made everything quite uncomfortable, — and now 
 you say you oughtn't to have done it ! " 
 
 He smiled, amused at the muddle she chose to make of the 
 position.
 
 54 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 " No, Azalea, I don't say I ought not to have done it in this 
 case;" — he said — " Kiernan was infuriated with drink — and I 
 feared that he might attack his poor wife a second time. Had 
 he shown signs of doing so, I should have been there to 
 prevent it. But he woke partially sobered, and I think sorry 
 for his violence — at any rate he treated his wife very gently 
 when he saw how ill she was. That being the case, I was not 
 wanted. I should have liked to talk to him a little — but he 
 was not in the humour. I did ask him to promise me not to 
 take any more drink to-day — and he promised " 
 
 " And told you to go ! " finished Azalea, indignantly — " The 
 horrid brute ! And you went ! Oh, Dick ! What a dreadful 
 loss of dignity for you ! " 
 
 Everton's gravity gave way at this, and he laughed joyously 
 with all the heartiness of a boy. 
 
 " Dreadful ! " he agreed — " Positively awful ! I was like a 
 beaten hound — or rather more like a drowned rat — when I 
 met Jacynth Miller." 
 
 Azalea pursed her pretty red lips together. 
 
 "Where did you meet her?" she asked. 
 
 Everton hesitated. 
 
 " Well," — he said, at last — " I'm sorry to say she was just 
 coming out of the ' Ram's Head.' " 
 
 His wife looked whole volumes at him. 
 
 " And yet you really think she may wish to be a better 
 girl ! " she ejaculated — " You really think so ! " 
 
 His face grew suddenly serious. 
 
 " I will not say I really think so," — he answered — " But I 
 really hope so ! " 
 
 A silence followed. Azalea glanced at him now and then 
 in a somewhat perturbed way — and once or twice her lips 
 moved as though she wished to say something — but she 
 checked herself with an effort. He was quietly enjoying his 
 tea — and if she knew any item of parish news that might 
 have worried him, she was not going to trouble him with it 
 just then. She took out a dainty-looking piece of silk 
 embroidery and began to work at it with swift noiseless
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 55 
 
 stitches. She made a very pretty picture seated in her low 
 easy chair by the fire, and her husband's eyes rested upon 
 her with fond admiration. The glowing beauty of Jacynth 
 Miller faded from his memory like the brief blaze of a showy 
 firework fading in mid-air, and a sense of deep tranquillity 
 soothed his mind. After all, he thought, why should he not 
 be perfectly content with his life at Shadbrook? Why should 
 he dream of wider fields of labour ? If his power was in- 
 sufficient to persuade one drunkard to abandon his drunken- 
 ness, why should he imagine himself capable of influencing 
 a larger and more intelligent audience ? To reform one man 
 thoroughly would be a better piece of work than to try to 
 reform hundreds — and if he failed in the smaller task, he was 
 bound to fail equally in the larger. He ought, so he assured 
 himself, to be perfectly satisfied with the position he occupied, 
 — he had a comfortable living, — a delightful home, and a 
 pretty wife and child, — his domestic bliss was perfect, and he 
 was sole monarch of his little kingdom with just such limitations 
 and oppositions, on a lesser scale, as all monarchs, whether 
 spiritual or temporal, have to contend with. There was, in 
 strict reason, nothing that should make him either restless or 
 dissatisfied. Shadbrook was his God-appointed place in the 
 world, — "and I must not," he said to himself — "regard it as 
 too narrow a field of labour. There is plenty to be done — 
 and I am bound to try and do it." 
 
 At that moment his wife spoke. 
 
 "How was Jacynth Miller looking? "she asked suddenly. 
 He started out of his reverie. 
 
 " Jacynth ? How was she looking ? Just the same as usual ; 
 very beautiful." 
 
 Azalea's needle flew swiftly again like a gleam of light over 
 her embroidery, and she asked no more questions.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE next day the clouds had somewhat cleared, and a pale 
 tearful-looking sun struggled to shine through fleecy trails 
 of mist which, rising from the oozy lowlands, spread themselves 
 in thin grey filaments through the valleys and hung doubtfully 
 in air as they reached the summit of the hills. There was a 
 latent possibility of fine weather, according to some sagacious 
 remarks proffered by the oldest inhabitant of Shadbrook — a 
 venerable gentleman who, like the wooden mannikin in a 
 certain make of Swiss clock, only hopped outside his door when 
 the barometer rose, and promptly hopped back again when it 
 fell. Old ' Mortar ' Pike — ' Bricks and Mortar ' as he was some- 
 times good-humouredly but irreverently called by a few of his 
 acquaintances — was allowed considerable license in the utter- 
 ance of his opinions on all matters good, bad or indifferent, not 
 only because nobody minded what he said, but also because he 
 was in his ninety-second year, and as he himself was wont to 
 remark : " If a man ain't to jabber a bit when he's nigh on a 
 'undred, when is he to jabber at all anyway ? " This argument 
 was held to be wholly unanswerable ; he therefore c jabbered ' to 
 his heart's content, and he had almost, if not quite forgotten 
 the long-long-long ago, when as stalwart Mortimer Pike, he had 
 been a celebrated wrestler and football player — renowned for 
 his feats of strength throughout the whole Cotswold district. 
 Sometimes, if any one ventured to remind him of those bygone 
 days, the flicker of a smile would pass over his brown and 
 deeply wrinkled visage and he would wave away the remini- 
 scence as though it were a midge buzzing in his ear. 
 
 56
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 57 
 
 " Ay, ay ! " he would murmur — " Mebbe I was a sharp 
 youngster — mebbe I worn't. Them as knows can tell one 
 from t'other ! ■ 
 
 This was an oracular utterance, not always comprehensible 
 to the untutored rustic mind — but it was ' Mortar's way ' — so 
 his neighbours said — Mortar's way of dismissing any subject he 
 did not care to talk about. As a rule, however, he was very 
 fond of talking — so much so that if he had no one else to talk 
 to, he talked to himself. Clad in a neatly stitched grey linen 
 smock-frock, with a straw hat which he had made with his own 
 hands, pressed well down over his rather long straggling white 
 hair, and leaning on a stout stick with a shepherd's crook 
 handle, his figure was a picturesque and familiar part of the life 
 of Shadbrook, and to see him 'jabbering' at the threshold of 
 his cottage, was like the sign of the wooden mannikin in the 
 Swiss clock, an augury of what the villagers called ' a spell o' 
 sunshine.' And, in accordance with the Swiss clock theory, 
 he had, on this particular morning, just popped out, and now 
 stood peering up and down the village street with a kind of 
 half-cunning, half-childish curiosity, the while he murmured 
 under his breath — 
 
 " Marnin' gray, fine day ! Ay, ay ! The wet'll keep aff — 
 it'll keep aff a bit — an' mebbe at dinner-time we'll have a bit o' 
 blue sky. A bit o' blue sky ! " Here he smiied and chuckled. 
 " It'll do a power o' good — a power o' good it will ! Nothin' 
 like a bit o' blue ! " 
 
 At that moment a woman came out of the neighbouring 
 cottage to shake a small much worn hearth-rug. It was Mrs. 
 Moddley, the same lady with whom the Vicar had held such 
 serious converse respecting the irreligious tendencies of her son. 
 
 "Mornin', Mr. Pike!" she said cheerily — "Out early y'are. 
 Wonderful active for your time o' life ! How's you feelin' ? " 
 
 " ^ine ! " responded the veteran — " Never better ! I thinks 
 I'm a-gittin' younger as I gits older. If it worn't for my legs " 
 
 " Ah, it's the legs as gives ! " and Mrs. Moddley with a 
 resigned sigh shook a volume of dust out of her hearth-rug 
 which, blowing towards poor old ' Bricks and Mortar ' got into
 
 58 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 his nose and eyes and caused him to sneeze violently. " And 
 why the Lord made us with legs which is ever bound to give, / 
 don't know ! A little extra muscle an' strength put in to make 
 'em last longer wouldn't 'ave upset no one in the 'eavenly 'ost 
 I'm sure ! When my second boy Teddy, as is gone but seven, 
 kicks out 'is legs in 'is bath an' sez 'e doi^'t want no washin', I 
 sez to myself, bless 'im, let 'im kick while 'e can an' upset all 
 the water, for the days is comin' when 'e'll be that stiff an' 
 roomaticky as 'e can't kick no more, so don't be 'ard on 'im 
 now ! " Here she shook the hearth-rug again. " Is your 
 gran'-darter lookin' arter ye ? — or will I bring ye in somethin' 
 for breakfast ? " 
 
 The old man raised a trembling hand to his straw hat, and 
 taking it off waved it with an air of speechless courtesy. 
 
 " Thank-ye, thank-ye kindly ! — my gran'-darter does all I 
 want," he answered. " She's a good gel — she don't let me miss 
 nothin' — thank-ye all the same " 
 
 Here he broke off — a little startled at the sudden sight of 
 Jacynth Miller, who came sauntering round a corner and strolled 
 up to him in a casual way, nodding and smiling. 
 
 " Hello, Bricks and Mortar, how are you ? " she said. 
 
 He looked at her, but did not answer. 
 
 "I've been up all night," she went on, addressing herself 
 more to the air than to either of her listeners — " Taking care 
 of Mrs. Kiernan." 
 
 " Oh indeed ! " and Mrs. Moddley gave a kind of sniff — 
 " Did she know who it was bein' so suddint kind to 'er ?" 
 
 Jacynth laughed, and yawned. 
 
 " No— I don't think she did ! " 
 
 Mrs. Moddley turned round and went into her cottage, 
 giving her door a slight bang as she closed it. Jacynth 
 laughed more loudly. 
 
 " She's shut me out ! " she said, stretching her arms in- 
 dolently and yawning again — " As if I wanted to go in ! You 
 wouldn't shut me out, would you, Mortar dear ? " 
 
 The old man held up his hand in a kind of feeble expostu- 
 lation.
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 59 
 
 " Shut ye out — shut ye out ! " he mumbled — " My gel, if ye 
 go on as ye're goin' ye'll be shut out altogether, not onny on 
 the yerth, but in 'Eaven ! Ye be doin' those things which ye 
 oughtn't to do an' ye knows it. Ye poor mis'able gel, go an' 
 tell parson what ye're at ! — make a clean breast of ii. — an' God 
 'elp ye ! " 
 
 Jacynth rested her two hands on her hips and looked at 
 him with an indulgent scorn. 
 
 " You old fool ! " she said, " You're benind your time. 
 Mortar ! God helps those that help themselves ! " 
 
 With a smile that parted her red lips in a line of incom- 
 parable sweetness, she moved away. The old man thrust out 
 a shaking hand and caught her by her sleeve. 
 
 " Where's — where's Dan Kiernan ? " he stammered. 
 
 She flushed her dark laughing eyes over him compas- 
 sionately. 
 
 " Where's Dan ? With his wife, of course ! Where should 
 he be ? " 
 
 Humming a tune she sauntered on, and as she went, the 
 sun came out with a flare of gold, shedding a radiance across 
 her path as though she were some favoured goddess of the 
 morn. The old man shaded his eyes from the sudden 
 brilliancy. 
 
 " A bit o' blue ! " he muttered—" I said there'd be a bit o> 
 blue ! But, there's more clouds comin' by-an-bye — more dark 
 clouds comin' ! " 
 
 A woman's voice called him from his cottage just then, and, 
 turning away from the street, he tottered indoors. 
 
 The 'bit o' blue' widened in the sky, and the hanging 
 vapours began to roll up and disappear, — a thrush warbled a 
 hopeful strain among the leafless boughs of an ancient elm 
 tree which occupied a prominent position near the middle ot 
 the village street, and a genial sense of brightness began to 
 warm and illumine the atmosphere. Up at the Vicarage this 
 cheering gleam of sunshine was sufficient to put the Vicar's 
 light-hearted wife in the best of spirits — she laughed, she 
 chattered, she sang — she played with baby Laurence like a
 
 60 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 baby herself, and succeeded for more than the thousandth 
 time in creating around her that particular bedazzlement of 
 gaiety and charm which not only delighted her husband, but 
 also in a sense ' muddled ' him, — though he would have been 
 the last man in the world to admit such an expression as in 
 any way befitting the situation. Nevertheless, it was a fact 
 that sometimes when he heard Azalea's rippling laugh and her 
 oft-repeated cry of " Oh, Baby dear ! " to her infant son, — and 
 also when he caught echoes of her voice singing those ' coon ' 
 songs, which, as base imitations of genuine nigger melodies, 
 are so much in vogue with an age whose very sentiment is 
 only part of its sham, he was apt to put his hand to his head 
 in rather a perplexed way, and make an effort to collect his 
 thoughts lest they should become scattered too far for logical 
 and reasonable concentration on any given subject. It was 
 sweet to hear Azalea laugh, — sweet, too, was her little caressing 
 exclamation of " Oh, Baby dear ! " — even the imitation •' coon ' 
 songs had their fascination — but — and the big ' but ' that came 
 in here could not be got over easily. It was a But that 
 impeded action, like a stone wall in the way of a chariot race. 
 And yet he could not have put into exact words why the 
 'But' should so obtrude itself. Surely he did not want 
 Azalea — bright, brilliant, pretty Azalea, — to be serious and 
 puritanical? No, — most certainly not, — any such change in 
 her he would have regarded with a real concern, as indicative 
 of failing health. Yet, to be quite frank with himself, he 
 owned to his inner consciousness that there was something he 
 missed in his life, — bu'c what it was he could not tell. And he 
 set his feeling down to his own great selfishness and ingrati- 
 tude, and blamed himself heartily for these two most unbecom- 
 ing and unworthy sins. 
 
 " Hundreds of men would gladly change places with me," — 
 he thought — " Poor curates working in the East End of 
 London — missionaries exiled from home and country, working 
 among hostile peoples for the cause of Christ — even country 
 parsons, many of them clever men, utterly cast away in villages 
 more obscure than Shadbrook, — any or all of these would be
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 61 
 
 glad if they could be as I am. I cannot understand my own 
 restlessness — it is a foolish state of mind of which I am 
 heartily ashamed." 
 
 And he was more than usually affectionate to his wife when 
 she came to him, dressed in a neat dark blue serge costume, 
 with a fascinating little turned-up felt hat to match, and stated 
 with a small sigh that she was now going to visit Mrs. Kiernan. 
 
 " I think the weather has quite cleared," — she said — " and 
 I've got my thickest boots on, so I shan't get my feet wet. 
 It's no good taking anything to read to her, is it, Dick ? I'm 
 such a bad reader ! " 
 
 He laughed, and slipping an arm round her waist looked at 
 her with indulgent tenderness. 
 
 "You don't like doing this sort of thing, I'm afraid, 
 darling," — he said. 
 
 " Not very much," — she admitted, with a demure uplifting of 
 her blue eyes — " You see the people themselves don't a/ways 
 like it, unless they're very very fond of you. I don't think 
 they're a bit fond of me ! I'm sure they're not ! I ought to 
 be different — quite different, to really please them ! " 
 
 " In what way ? " he asked, still smiling. 
 
 "Well, to begin with, I ought to be able to talk about 
 horrid things — quite horrid things ! " she said, with a comical 
 earnestness — " Illnesses and funerals, for instance. They love 
 those ! Now Mrs. Linaker she has a bad leg — you know she 
 has ! — well, she likes to talk about it, and she will talk about 
 it, oh ever so long ! She tells you when it began to be bad — 
 and how it went on, and how it is now, — and I do try to be 
 interested, but I can't ! And Mrs. Paterson was quite pleased 
 when she heard that Mrs. Dunn's eldest son had died — she 
 really was ! She said that he had six silver spoons and one 
 picture — and she wondered how the spoons would be divided, 
 and who would get the picture. And when I asked her what 
 the picture was like, she said she didn't think it was like any- 
 body in particular — it was just a man and a cow in a sunset, 
 but it had been in the family a long time ! " Azalea stopped 
 to laugh — then with twinkling eyes she went on — " And
 
 62 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 really, Dick, I am so silly with these people ! I never know 
 what to say to them ! Because I think it perfectly detestable 
 to count up silver spoons when a poor man is lying dead, — 
 and it seems to me just awful to dwell on bad legs and 
 funerals. And then there are the babies ! — oh dear ! " Here 
 she paused and grew suddenly reflective — " Of course I ought 
 to be immensely interested in them, having one of my own — 
 but I don't think I've got the real mother-spirit — no, don't 
 laugh, Dick ! — I really don't think I have, because all the 
 women in the village talk quite differently about babies to the 
 way / talk ! " 
 
 Everton was amused. 
 
 " Well, of course ! " he said, " you can't expect them to have 
 your pretty little fancies, can you ? Their lives are different, 
 to begin with, — and it's wonderful — yes, when you come to 
 think of it, it is wonderful that there should be so much deep 
 sentiment and real tenderness among them, — you know they 
 often love their children much more than people in our 
 class do " 
 
 Azalea opened her eyes very wide at this. 
 
 " Oh, I'm sure ! " — she declared — " no one could possibly 
 love any baby more than I love mine ! " 
 
 " No, dear, I didn't say any one could," — and Everton 
 checked a slight sigh — " But you spoke of the mother-spirit — 
 and you said, or you implied, that the women in the village 
 had a different feeling about it to yours ; — now I think it is 
 just the same beautiful, divine spirit, only by different natures 
 it is expressed differently." 
 
 She puckered her brows in a little line of perplexity. 
 
 " That sounds like poor dear Dad, — dreadfully solemn and 
 learned," — she said — " But what I mean is that the village 
 women talk about all the unpleasant little matters connected 
 with babies," — and she shook her head at him very sagaciously ; 
 " Because, of course, there are unpleasant things, — things 
 that are not always nice and clean to talk about, — well, those 
 things are just what the village mothers love to discuss by the 
 hour ! And, of course, your business is to look after the souls
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 63 
 
 of the children, Dick ; but their mothers don't really care 
 a bit about that ! — what they think about all the time are 
 their stomachs ! " 
 
 He put his two hands on her shoulders and looked down 
 smilingly into her eyes. 
 
 " Come, come, Azalea ! — have we, even we, thought much as 
 yet of the soul of our wonderful baby Laurence?" 
 
 She coloured a little — then laughed. 
 
 " Oh, but Baby's too young ! — too tiny altogether ! " she 
 said — " It would be nonsense to talk about his poor little 
 soul " 
 
 "You think so? " and he loosened his gentle hold of her — 
 " Well, I'm not quite sure about that, Azalea ! I think I often 
 see a Soul — neither little nor poor — looking out of Laurence's 
 big blue eyes — a Soul so pure and sweet that I tremble at my 
 own responsibility for its security in this world ! " 
 
 He spoke with such grave earnestness that she was a little 
 abashed. A silence fell between them. Then, after a minute 
 or two she said in a meek small voice — 
 
 " I think I'd better go now." 
 
 "To see Mrs. Kiernan? Yes! — do go, while the weather 
 keeps fine " — he answered, affectionately — " It won't take you 
 much time, because of course you mustn't stay long with 
 her, — she's not well enough for that. I daresay you'll meet 
 Doctor Harry — if so, just ask him if she's going on all right." 
 
 Azalea nodded submissively, and left the room. Her 
 husband went to the window and watched her tripping along 
 on the dainty high-heeled shoes which she called her ' thickest 
 boots,' over the sodden gravel of the garden paths, till her 
 pretty figure disappeared behind a screen of laurel bushes, — 
 then he seated himself at his desk to work. 
 
 "Poor little woman!" he murmured tenderly, — "It must 
 be rather dull for her here sometimes. She ought to have 
 married a millionaire — not a poor country clergyman ! She 
 was made for the graceful pleasures and gaieties of the 
 world — not for the plain routine of Shadbrook. Yet Love 
 is said to make even a desert blossom like the rose — and I
 
 64 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 think she loves me — I'm sure she does ! God knows I love 
 her, — more than my life ! " 
 
 In this assertion he used no exaggeration, — it was the exact 
 and simple truth. His nature was deeply affectionate and the 
 garrulities and ecstasies of a Romeo were worth nothing as 
 compared with the intense and faithful passion of this quiet 
 self-contained man whose love was not for ' the uncertain 
 glory of an April day,' but for all time, and — as he hoped and 
 devoutly believed — for all eternity as well. If some profound 
 Thinker, versed in the strange occultism of human sympathies, 
 had pointed out to him that an eternity passed with Azalea's 
 little butterfly soul might possibly be insufficient to satisfy all 
 his stronger immortal aspirations, he would have been grieved 
 and indignant. For one of the finest attributes of true love is, 
 that it sees no limitations and no imperfections in the beloved 
 object. Thanks to this gentle blinding power, he was unable 
 to look too far into the future save with those imaginative eyes 
 which always behold impossibly beautiful things destined never 
 to be realised, but which in their visionary prospect serve to 
 charm and stimulate the mind, keeping it patient and hopeful 
 while ' that Divinity which shapes our ends ' prepares our 
 hardest and most needful lessons. Perhaps if he could have 
 seen Azalea sitting by the bedside of the unhappy Mrs. Kiernan, 
 with her pretty little face set primly in a line of rigid offence, 
 and her whole attitude expressive of uncompromising virtue, 
 he might have felt a certain misgiving as to whether she was 
 reaUy endowed with that delicate and sure instinct which he 
 fondly fancied was the special qualification of her woman's 
 nature, — an instinct fine enough to know when pity is resented 
 and advice unwelcome, and therefore wisely forbearing to 
 proffer either. In most village communities the uninvited 
 visits of the clergyman's wife or the ' district lady ' are regarded 
 by the working-classes with considerable disfavour, — and when 
 one comes to think of it, there is really something very grossly 
 impertinent in the idea that because a man or woman is poor 
 and lives in a small cottage, he or she is therefore to be con- 
 sidered a prey to interfering ' Church people,' who thrust their
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 65 
 
 enquiring noses into homes that do not belong to them, and 
 ask questions of a personal nature on matters which are none 
 of their business. One wonders how Mr. Millionaire would 
 like it if the wife of the Reverend Mr. Peek-a-Bo walked into 
 his palatial residence unasked and said : — " I hope you keep 
 your rooms clean and tidy ! Remember cleanliness is next to 
 godliness ! " or — " You must read your Bible every day, my 
 good man ! Let me leave you this little Tract on the ' Yanity 
 of Riches ' ! " As a matter of fact, no clergyman's wife and no 
 district visitor would dare to so insult a rich man. Then must 
 the poor man be insulted, simply because he is poor ? Does 
 wealth alone hold the key to the Church's respect? If so, 
 then the Second Coming of Christ will be the Church's 
 annihilation ! 
 
 Fortunately for herself, pretty Mrs. Everton did not take this 
 point of view at all into her consideration. She was the Vicar's 
 wife ; and in that position felt that her visits to the parishioners 
 were necessary. Whether the parishioners liked her presence 
 in their houses, she did not pause to enquire. When she 
 entered Mrs. Kiernan's cottage she half expected to see the 
 master of it, the redoubtable Dan himself, — but he was not 
 there, and Mrs. Adcott, still at her post as nurse to her suffer- 
 ing neighbour, stated that "he'd bin gone to his day's work 
 since six in the mornin'." 
 
 " I hope he was sober," — said Azalea, severely. 
 
 " Oh yes, ma'am, he was quite sober. He's a fine man 
 when he's all right, is Dan — it's only the drink as drives him 
 wild. Jacynth Miller sat up with him 'ere all night, an' he's 
 bin as quiet as a lamb ! " 
 
 Azalea gave a little gasp. 
 
 " Jacynth Miller ! " She bit her lips as though to keep in 
 some imminent expression of thought from rash utterance, — 
 and then she hurriedly entered the adjoining room where Mrs. 
 Kiernan lay. The sight of the sick woman in her bed, pale 
 and motionless, rather frightened Azalea, — and she hung back, 
 awed by the aspect of the still face on the pillow with the 
 closed eyes and the greyish brown hair swept back from the 
 5
 
 66 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 hollow temples, — it was a counterfeit resemblance or image 
 of death which was not pleasant to contemplate. At 
 last, — 
 
 " Mrs. Kiernan," — she murmured, in a nervous little voice, 
 
 "I came to see how you were — I do- hope you're better " 
 
 Mrs. Kiernan opened her eyes, and for a moment stared 
 bewilderedly. Then a faint smile brightened her pallid 
 features. 
 
 "It's Mrs. Everton, is it?" she whispered, weakly — "Thank'ee, 
 
 ma'am, I'm better — much better — I'll soon be about again " 
 
 Here her eyelids drooped, and she moaned wearily. 
 Azalea took a chair and sat down by the bedside. 
 " I'm afraid you're badly hurt,"— she said—" That dreadful 
 husband of yours is very cruel to you." 
 
 Mrs. Kiernan's eyes opened again quickly. 
 " My 'usband ! " she echoed—" Dan ? Dan cruel ? Oh no, 
 ma'am ! Don't you believe it ! Dan's the best man ever 
 woman 'ad, — there's no one like Dan in this world to me ! " 
 Azalea gave a little shrug of impatience. 
 " How can you say such a thing ! " she continued — " Why 
 he has knocked you about most wickedly ! Look how ill 
 you are ! And yet ycu say he's the best man ever woman 
 had ! " 
 
 "So he is, when he's away from the drink, ma'am," — and 
 Mrs. Kiernan, moved by a sudden energy, lifted herself up a 
 little on her pillows. "And 'e didn't mean to 'urt me — I 
 know he didn't ! But 'ed 'ad one glass on top of t'other, an' 
 'is poor 'ed was all a-swimmin' like, an' 'e struck out at the 
 first thing 'e saw, which 'appened to be me — an' arter all I 
 should a-know'd better than to stand in 'is way. That's all, 
 ma'am ; an' if you'll tell Mr. Everton that Dan's all right I'll 
 be real glad, for I wouldn't 'ave the Vicar o' the parish think 
 
 ill of 'im " 
 
 Her voice failed her and tears stood in her eyes. Azalea 
 was sorry for her, but at the same time remained more or less 
 unconvinced. 
 
 " I can't understand you at all ! " she said, perplexedly —
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 67 
 
 " It seems to me so strange that you should care for a man 
 like that " 
 
 "It shouldn't seem strange to you, ma'am, you bein' a wife 
 an' mother yourself," — and Mrs. Kiernan let her head sink gently 
 back again on her pillow — " No man's ever like the man you've 
 loved day and night an' been every thin' to in body an' soul. 
 An' if ye'd seen Dan in 'ere last night, comin' back'ards an" 
 for'ards, waitin' on me 'and an' foot an' doin' all 'e could for 
 me, you'd a-said what a kind 'art 'e 'ad for all 'is little faults o' 
 drink an' temper. An' 'e sent Mrs. Adcott away 'ome to rest 
 'erself, for she was fair tired out, poor thing, an' 'e got one of 
 the village gels in to 'elp, an' sat up all night in the next room, 
 watchin' an' waitin' lest I should want for anythin' " 
 
 " One of the girls of the village came in to help, you say," 
 and Azalea looked at her with gravely compassionate eyes — 
 " Do you know which girl it was ? " 
 
 "No, ma'am, I don't," — and Mrs. Kiernan sighed — <: I was 
 that sleepy an' wore out that it was no matter to me who came 
 or went so long as Dan was by." 
 
 "It was Jacynth Miller," — said Azalea — "She sat up here 
 with your husband all night. And you actually didn't know it ! 
 Oh ! " — this exclamation was uttered with shocked impressive- 
 ness — " I call it perfectly shameful ! " 
 
 Mrs. Kiernan turned her eyes wonderingly round upon her 
 visitor. 
 
 " I don't quite follow ye, ma'am," — she said, in tremulous 
 accents — " What's the shameful part of it ? " 
 
 "Oh well !" and Azalea gave a kind of hopeless gesture with 
 her neatly gloved little hands — " You're too ill to talk just now 
 — but when you're better you really ought to know exactly how 
 things stand — you really ought " 
 
 " I'm quite able to hear anything as I ought to know now, 
 ma'am," — and Mrs. Kiernan anxiously watched Azalea's pretty 
 face that looked so young and kind and expressive of a 
 thoughtful spirit — " An' it's better you should say just what's in 
 you mind rather than have me worritin' like " 
 
 Azalea bejran to feel a little nervous.
 
 68 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 " Oh no, you really mustn't be worried," — she said, with a 
 delightful unconsciousness of having already prepared the way 
 for worry — " I didn't think — I'm sorry I spoke " 
 
 " So am I, ma'am, if you don't go on speakin'," — answered 
 Mrs. Kiernan, with sudden energy — " An' ye'll oblige me more 
 than I can say if ye'll just tell me plain what it is you're 
 meanin' in the way that's shameful " 
 
 Azalea thought a moment, the colour coming and going in 
 her delicate cheeks, and her heart beating a little more quickly 
 than usual. She had done mischief without intending it, — she 
 had started an uneasiness in Mrs. Kiernan's mind, and she had 
 not the tact to allay the misgivings which her thoughtless words 
 had excited. She felt rather afraid of the poor bruised and 
 beaten, yet loving and faithful woman — nevertheless there was 
 a struggling under-sense in her of outraged propriety, — that 
 resistless emotion which so often possesses the minds of clergy- 
 men's wives, and leads them to say and to do the most cruel 
 and uncharitable things, not out of any intentional unkindness, 
 but simply because they are personally pricked by the hedge- 
 hog bristles of a virtue so aggressive and opinionated as to be 
 almost vice. 
 
 " Yet after all," — she inwardly considered — " Mrs. Kiernan is 
 not a woman of such very sensitive feeling ! If she were, she 
 wouldn't, she couldnH take her husband's brutal conduct so 
 quietly ! I don't suppose anything he does would surprise her. 
 The common people look on these sort of things so differently ! " 
 
 Alas, poor Azalea ! She knew nothing at ail of the special 
 point of view taken by the ' common ' people. She would have 
 been surprised, possibly offended, had she been told that the 
 'common' moral sense is more poignant because more instinc- 
 tive, and that the ' common ' passions are more powerful 
 because more primitive,— and that, therefore, the 'view' of 
 things social is often straighter, saner and cleaner among 
 'common' folk than among over-cultured, hothouse specimens 
 of 'high-class' humanity. At last she spoke, though a trifle 
 hesitatingly : 
 
 "Well, I do think it's shameful that Jacynth Miller should
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 69 
 
 have been sitting up with your husband all night in your own 
 house and in the very room next to you " — here her voice 
 grew stronger with her excess of indignation — " For, of course, 
 he was only pretending to be anxious about you and sorry for 
 you that you might have no suspicions. You poor thing ! 
 Don't you know ? " 
 
 Mrs. Kiernan sat suddenly upright, and put her thin work- 
 worn hands to her head in a bewildered way. 
 
 " God 'elp me ! " she muttered—" Don't I know— what ? " 
 
 " Why, what half the village knows," — said Azalea, desper- 
 ately — "Oh, it is really so difficult to tell you ! I thought the 
 Vicar was the only one who did not guess the truth, he's so 
 simple and good ! — and I had made up my mind to break it to 
 him somehow, because it is disgraceful ! — and now you are just 
 as bad — nobody seems to have given you the least hint " 
 
 Mrs. Kiernan feebly caught her by the arm. 
 
 "Tell me — tell me, quick ! " she gasped — " It's cruel keepin' 
 me like this — it's cruel ! What's — what's wrong?" 
 
 " It's all wrong ! " and Azalea, rather scared by the distraught 
 agony on the sick woman's face, shook up the pillow and tried 
 to make her lie down — " Now do rest comfortably ! — you can't 
 make things any better by worrying yourself ! It's all wrong 
 — nothing could be worse — at least not in my opinion — and if 
 you will know it, it is just this, that your husband is perfectly 
 crazy about Jacynth Miller — he meets her every day when he 
 leaves his work, and they're always seen about together — 
 always ! — and now they've actually passed the whole night 
 together under your own roof — and you ill and knowing nothing 
 about it ! Why, it's simply dreadful ! — don't you see how 
 dreadful it is ? " 
 
 The poor creature's mouth quivered, and large tears welled 
 up in her tired eyes. 
 
 " No, ma'am ! — it's not dreadful to me," — she said, bravely 
 choking back the emotion that threatened to overwhelm her 
 strength — " Because — because I don't believe it ! " 
 
 "You don't believe it?" exclaimed Azalea — "You don't 
 believe mc ? "
 
 70 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 " No, ma'am ! Not if your happy face was the face of an 
 angel from heaven, I wouldn't believe the lie you're tellin' me ! 
 It's a poor thing for a parson's wife to pick up all the gossip 
 runnin' in a village an' take it for gospel — an' there's nothin' 
 against my 'usband that I'll hear from ye, ma'am, though you're 
 a lady, an' I'm only a poor workin' woman." 
 
 Her breath caught in a half sob, but she struggled with 
 herself and went on — 
 
 '■ My Dan's as true as steel to me, ma'am — and it's only 
 Minchin's stuff as alters 'ini a bit now an' then. An' as for 
 Jacynth Miller, Dan knows as well as we all knows, that she's 
 a waif an' stray without father nor mother an' only an old 
 dodderin' auntie as doesn't care what becomes of 'er, an' 
 there's a devil in the poor gel as'll only be got out by pain an' 
 sorrow. She'll get all her troubles soon enough, for 'andsome 
 looks brings evil deeds — so if my Dan's kind to 'er a bit now 
 and agin, I'm not for grudgin' it." — Here her voice broke in a 
 sudden plaintive wail and she gave vent to a passionate burst 
 of weeping, burying her face in the pillow and crying weakly — 
 " Oh, Dan, my man ! You couldn't be false to me ! No, not 
 you, Dan ! " 
 
 Azalea was speechless and utterly dismayed. Who would 
 have thought a ' common ' woman would have taken the 
 suggestion of her husband's infidelity like this ? An educated 
 lady would have behaved quite differently, and would have 
 shown the indignation and scorn necessary for the assertion of 
 her own proper pride. Azalea herself, for example, if she had 
 heard that her Richard was ' carrying on,' as the vulgar phrase 
 puts it, with another woman, she would have left him, — yes, 
 she was quite sure, so she said to herself, that she would have 
 left him. She would never have forgiven him ! The ' common ' 
 woman's way of loving was totally beyond her. She did not 
 know what to make of it. She stood by the bedside, helplessly 
 unable to proffer any sympathy or consolation, and she began 
 to feel rather sorry for herself. Then she took refuge in the 
 ever-standing stronghold of feminine inconsistency. 
 
 " It's always the way ! " she thought — " If you want to help
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 71 
 
 these kind of people you must never tell them anything that 
 will really be fcr their good. They're not a bit pleased ! I did 
 hope I might be able to save the poor thing from being de- 
 ceived any more: — but it's no use ! She believes in her husband 
 and merely thinks me a liar ! " 
 
 Her cheeks burned with offence at this idea, and while she 
 yet hesitated as to whether she should speak again, or take an 
 abrupt departure, Mrs. Adcott appeared in the doorway and 
 beckoned to her. 
 
 " Better come away now, ma'am," — she said rather tartly ; 
 "You've said enoueh." 
 
 Azalea moved a few steps — then paused — 
 
 " Good-bye, Mrs. Kicrnan ! " — and she waited for an answer, 
 but none came — " I do hope you'll soon be all right." 
 
 With this she stepped daintily into the adjoining kitchen 
 where Mrs. Adcott confronted her. The little brown-faced, 
 wrinkled, hard-working woman's eyes were full of tears. 
 
 " I'm sorry, ma'am," she said tremulously — " I'm right- 
 down sorry as you should 'ave said anythin' to Jennie Kiernan 
 about Dan's goings on with Jacynth Miller. We was all for 
 hidin' of it till everythin' was well got over." Here she wiped 
 her eyes with her apron. " It'll kill Jennie, it will ! " 
 
 Azalea was completely taken aback for a moment. Then 
 she rallied herself with a pretty stateliness, indicative of the 
 usual ' offended virtue.' 
 
 " What do you mean ? " she asked, with a touch of haughti- 
 ness — " You know that it is impossible that such a wicked 
 thing can go on in this parish without everybody knowing it — 
 and everybody does know it, except the poor deceived wife 
 herself " 
 
 " And the Vicar, ma'am, your good 'usband — he don't know 
 it," said Mrs. Adcott, trembling a little — " For he's that kind 
 an' gentle as he don't suspect 'arm in no man an' no woman 
 either. An' we was all in a band like, to try and manage so as 
 he should never know, — an' that it shouldn't be a worrit to 
 'im, an' one of us was goin' to take Jacynth away by-and-bye — 
 an' nobody would a' bin a bit the wiser "
 
 72 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 " Then you were all in a plot to deceive the Vicar ! " in- 
 terrupted Azalea, indignantly — " Just to screen a bad girl and 
 a wicked drunken man ! Oh ! It's most dreadful ! And you 
 come to church and take Communion ! What an awful thing ! " 
 
 " It may seem awful to you, ma'am," — and Mrs. Adcott 
 raised her keen shrewd grey eyes, and fixed them steadily on 
 Azalea's crimsoning face — "For you see you're a lady, an' 
 you're young an' 'appy, and well cared for — an' you're not 
 supposed to know the ins an' outs of sorrows an' sins. Dan's 
 a bad man, — I'd rather say he's a good man spoilt by the drink, 
 an' he's got no 'old now over 'imself at all, — an' he's as mad 
 for Jacynth as he is for Minchin's poison. There ain't no 'elp 
 for it — no one can hold 'im — an' the gel herself 'ull go to any 
 man good or bad — that's 'er nature. An' we poor folks sees 
 'ow it is, an' we makes the best of a bad business — an' all we 
 sez is, let's try to save the wife as ain't done no 'arm — an' keep 
 the parson quiet so as 'e shan't fret hisself over it. An' now 
 you comes an' tells Jennie " 
 
 " How could I prevent myself telling her ! '' exclaimed Azalea, 
 with some excitement — " Especially when you said her husband 
 had sat up all last night with Jacynth Miller in this very 
 kitchen, and she, poor deceived thing ! — lying ill in the next 
 room ! And you left them together ! — you actually went home 
 and left them together ! " 
 
 " Dan put me out," — said Mrs. Adcott, quietly — " An' if I 
 'adn't gone, he'd a throw'd me out. He was sober enough — 
 but he was wild to be with Jacynth. She came up, smilin' at 
 'im innocent-like, an' said she'd promised parson to take care 
 of 'im. An' I knew she'd keep 'im from the drink — an' there 
 couldn't be no more 'arm done than was done already " 
 
 Azalea stared — her cheeks alternately flushing and paling. 
 
 " You mean " she besran. 
 
 " I mean that Jacynth's got into trouble with Dan." — said 
 Mrs. Adcott — "An' that it's no good cryin' over spilt milk. 
 An' as I told ye, ma'am, we was goin' to get Jacynth quietly 
 out o' the village presently — an' Jennie would never 'ave known 
 — nor parson neither "
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 73 
 
 " And you would have deceived everybody '. " Azalea's eyes 
 sparkled with indignation as she said this — "You were all in 
 a positive conspiracy to hide this dreadful thing from your 
 own Vicar, and you didn't think it wrong?" 
 
 Mrs. Adcott sighed a little. 
 
 "No, ma'am," — she confessed at last — "I'm afraid none of 
 us thought it wrong. You see we've aH liked Jennie Kiernan ; 
 an' we wanted to spare 'er more sorrow an' cryin', seein' she's 
 ad 'er share." 
 
 Azalea was silent. The position was, to her, quite terrible 
 and incomprehensible. Here was a hopelessly bad girl ' in 
 trouble ' (according to the common and significant expression) 
 with a hopelessly bad man — and yet a whole village was 
 apparently sworn to silence about it on account of the pain 
 it would cause to the bad man's suffering wife ! Was there 
 ever anything more 'unnatural'? Where, she asked herself, 
 was the morality of these people ? Where indeed ! Where 
 the Christianity ? Stop ! — Christianity was an uncomfortable, 
 an awkward suggestion. Perhaps — only perhaps, of course 
 — the conspiring villagers had a vague conception — or shall 
 we say misconception ? — of Christ's words — " If ye forgive not 
 men their trespasses, neither will your Heavenly Father forgive 
 you your trespasses." But it was all wrong — all very wrong ! 
 — so Azalea vaguely repeated to herself over and over again, 
 the while Mrs. Adcott stood looking at her in a curious, half- 
 imploring, half-resentful way, wondering what this pretty, 
 bright-eyed, golden-haired clergyman's wife was thinking of 
 Shadbrook and its people. And it was Mrs. Adcott who first 
 spoke again. 
 
 "I suppose, ma'am, ye'll be tellin' the Vicar all about it 
 now," — she said, and her lips trembled — "An' if ye do, I'm 
 afraid there'll be trouble ! " 
 
 " I'm sure there can be no more trouble than there is 
 already," — Azalea answered, very coldly — "Naturally I do 
 not intend to keep anything a secret from my husband. He 
 ought to know of this wretched, shameful scandal in his 
 parish — and of course he will deal with it in the proper way."
 
 74 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 Mrs. Adcott's eyes brimmed over again. 
 " Might I ask ye, ma'am, to wait a day or two — just till 
 Jennie's better an' able to bear it like ? For if Dan gets any 
 blame — or Jacynth either, — he'll visit it all on Jennie. Oh, 
 ma'am, you don't know ! — you don't know ! You can't tell 
 what it is to see a man like Dan blind with drink an' love for 
 a gel, both together — with no sense in 'im to 'ear reason an' 
 no thought o' what he's doin', — it's worse than 'avin' a mad 
 brute beast to deal with — it is, ma'am, God knows it is ! If 
 ye'll just wait a day or two before speakin', it'll be better for 
 Jennie an' better for all of us — it'll be a real mercy ye're 
 showin', an' God '11 bless ye for it ! " 
 
 It was impossible not to feel touched by the simple earnest- 
 ness of this poor woman, whose pleading for the better comfort 
 of her sick neighbour was so perfectly unselfish and tender, — 
 and Azalea, being an affectionate little thing in her way, was 
 not entirely without sentiment. She took Mrs. Adcott's hand 
 in her own and patted it. 
 
 "You are a very kind woman," — she said — "And I promise 
 you I'll not mention anything to the Vicar till Mrs. Kiernan is 
 quite well. But then — well, then something must be done." 
 
 " Yes, ma'am, and perhaps God '11 show us 'ow to do it " — 
 murmured Mrs. Adcott, tearfully — " For it's 'ard — it's terrible 
 'ard to 'ave a man like Dan Kiernan to manage, — there's a 
 good many as goes mad on the drink, but none of 'em is as 
 mad as he, an' there's often such times with 'im as I've never 
 seen with any livin' soul, whether drunk or sober. You don't 
 know a bit what he's like — 'tain't nat'ral as you should, bein' a 
 lady livin' well out of 'arm's way an' safe with a good 'usband 
 o' your own, — but for us poor women it's like 'avin' the devil 
 let loose when Dan Kiernan's at his worst." 
 
 Azalea gave a little movement of impatience and disgust. 
 " He's a brute ! " she said decisively. 
 
 "He worn't always a brute," — and Mrs. Adcott gave a 
 regretful sigh — " Afore 'e came to Shadbrook I've 'eard tell 'e 
 was a fine workman somewheres down by Tewkesbury way. 
 But 'e thought to better hisself by comin' up 'ere where Squire 

 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 75 
 
 Hazlitt gives good wages for farm-work — an' of course 'ere 'e 
 finds two publics as 'andy to 'is mouth as the village pump and 
 'andier, an' so 'e goes from good to bad as easy as a child 
 tumblin' downstairs. It's the drink, ma'am — it's nothin' but 
 the drink as is the curse o' the whole village." 
 
 Azalea shrugged her graceful shoulders and raised her pretty 
 eyebrows as one who despised the contemptible weakness of 
 the whole human race. But she said nothing on the subject, 
 simply because she knew very well there was nothing to say. 
 The ' Drink Question ' was and is one of these inexhaustible 
 topics on which both Parliament and Press discourse perpetu- 
 ally in the most obvious and worn-out platitudes. It is a 
 national evil which is for ever being deplored in the most 
 eloquently rounded periods by gentlemen who at the same 
 time do all they can to increase the profits obtained by the 
 sale of spirituous liquors to the million, and who, while they 
 nobly denounce the intemperance of the people, forget to 
 equally denounce the equally intemperate and criminal 
 adulteration of those same spirituous liquors by such of 
 their friends in the House of Commons who are brewers 
 and whisky distillers. It is all very well to blame the people 
 for drinking poison, but the worst of the evil is with the 
 national Government, which not only allows poison to be 
 made and sold freely, but which actually legalises the sale, 
 and not unfrequently rewards some of the chief Poisoners 
 with Peerages and other titles of honour. Pretty Azalea 
 Everton, for instance, was not half or quaiter as rich in this 
 world's goods as ugly Mrs. Minchin, the brewer's wife, — yet 
 Azalea's husband was a good and honest man, and Mrs. 
 Minchin's better half was a hypocritical Fraud. Why, then, 
 should fortune or providence appear to favour Fraud more 
 than Honesty? This was the purely personal question which 
 Azalea put to herself by way of an unuttered comment on 
 Mrs. Adcott's jeremiad; it was no use, she said inwardly, no 
 use at all for Richard to take parish matters so much to heart, 
 for improvement was impossible so long as two public-houses 
 dominated the village. Minchin was the supreme ruler of the
 
 7 6 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 place and its inhabitants — and for a clergyman — a 'man of 
 God' to contend with a man of Belial was as if an idealist 
 should contend with an usurer. 
 
 " It is a great pity," — she said, at last, after a pause — " that 
 the people are not sensible enough to see where drink is 
 bound to lead them, and that they do not try to be better. 
 If they denied themselves a little and prayed to God to help 
 them " 
 
 She hesitated here and coloured a little, — she had a kind of 
 instinctive feeling that her words were but wasted breath. 
 
 "Ah!" — and Mrs. Adcott shook her head dismally — 
 " Prayin' God don't do much good ! Many's the woman who's 
 been all night on 'er knees a-prayin' an' a-prayin' God to keep 
 'er man from drink, an' ten to one 'e'll come 'ome and fetch 
 'er a blow on the 'ed for 'avin' set up for 'im. Marriage ain't 
 all a bed o' roses, ma'am, an' I often thinks when we sez ' for 
 better for worse ' at the altar, we've not much notion what the 
 worse is like or we'd 'ang ourselves afore we ever got married 
 at all ! There goes Jacynth now ! " 
 
 Moved by a quick curiosity Mrs. Everton went to the 
 cottage window and peeped out. The sun was shining brightly 
 by this time, and on the opposite side of the road Jacynth 
 Miller was walking, dressed in a plain blue cotton gown, her 
 hair braided in shining coils round her graceful head, and a 
 knot of primroses fastened carelessly at her throat. She was 
 smiling to herself — there was a lovely colour on her cheeks, — 
 her step was light and buoyant — she looked not only a happy 
 girl, but a good girl, — a girl full of the careless innocence of 
 some forest animal that thinks no evil because it knows none. 
 
 " She's got a rare deceivin' face of 'er own," — said Mrs. 
 Adcott, watching her — " An' it'll take in a good many more 
 men besides Dan Kiernan ! " 
 
 Mrs. Everton moved from the window. Her charming 
 features had grown suddenly hard and cold. She was annoyed ; 
 and she had not the moral courage to admit to herself that 
 the cause of her annoyance was Jacynth's singular beauty. 
 The conviction that she is virtuous cannot always atone to a
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 77 
 
 woman for the triumph of vice. Nor can the possessor of a 
 pretty face be entirely satisfied with the contemplation of a 
 prettier one. 
 
 " I must be going now,"— she said stiffly—" Please send 
 uj) to the Vicarage if you want anything for Mrs. Kiernan. I 
 don't think she will worry over what I have said — because — 
 
 you see — she doesn't believe it " 
 
 "It's a good thing if she doesn't,"— said Mrs. Adcott, 
 sorrowfully — " But there's many a woman as says she doesn't 
 believe bad news just for the pride o' not complainin', when 
 all the time the knife's in 'er 'art. Howsomever, I'll do my 
 best to keep Jennie quiet till she gets 'er strength up." 
 
 "And, of course," went on Mrs. Everton — "as I have 
 promised you, I shall say nothing to the Vicar about this most 
 painful business — not at present. I think, however," — here 
 she paused and reflected — " I think if Jacynth Miller did the 
 proper thing, she would leave the village." 
 
 " It's quite likely she will, ma'am," — and Mrs. Adcott 
 smoothed her apron down with rather trembling hands — 
 " There's plenty o' men as 'ull take 'er ! " 
 
 " Plenty of men ! " echoed Azalea in surprise — " Plenty of 
 men who — who know ? " 
 
 Mrs. Adcott gave one emphatic nod which spoke volumes. 
 Azalea was shocked and disgusted. 
 
 " Well — good-morning ! " she said, rather hurriedly. 
 " Good-mornin', ma'am." 
 
 And the world, as epitomised in Shadbrook, seemed a very 
 strange place to the Vicar's pretty young wife as she tripped 
 lightly away en her little high heels back to her own home. 
 It never occurred to her to think that she had done no good 
 by her visit to Jennie Kiernan, but rather harm, — and she had 
 no foresight or skill to calculate the extent to which the harm 
 might lead. She was one of the many who judge the poor 
 by the rich, — or rather, who consider the poor as a class of 
 beings altogether apart from the rich, hardly to be counted 
 in with ordinary humanity, — a species of savage as it were, 
 to be treated differently, fed differently, talked to differently,
 
 ?S HOLY ORDERS 
 
 and instructed differently. The one broad grand fact so 
 plainly set forth in Scripture, that 'God is no respecter of 
 persons,' carried no conviction to her mind, — she and her 
 husband were, she felt, altogether of a finer quality to the 
 gross material composing the parishioners of Shadbrook, and 
 she saw not a shadow of resemblance between her 'baby 
 Laurence ' and the little village urchins who crawled down to 
 the side of the dirty brook on fine days and made mud pies 
 till they looked the very offspring of the mud themselves. 
 And though she knew that her religious creed demanded that 
 she should believe that we are one and all the same before 
 God, she could not resist the temptation of making certain 
 definitions which were narrowed or widened according to her 
 mood of the moment. As she went through the Vicarage 
 garden on her way into the house, she passed her husband's 
 study window. She saw him writing busily at his desk — but 
 he looked up as he heard her footstep on the gravel path and 
 nodded and smiled at her. And then — 
 
 " How dreadful it all is ! " she thought — " I suppose he 
 actually thinks Shadbrook is a moral village, and that he is 
 helping to keep it so ! And he isn't the least bit of use — I'm 
 sure he isn't — not the very least little bit ! "
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 AS a natural consequence of his wife's visit to Mrs. Kiernan, 
 Everton could gain from her very little information as 
 to the injured woman's actual condition beyond the fact that 
 she was 'very bad.' 
 
 " And very miserable," added Azalea, as an afterthought — 
 " I wish, Dick, you could get Dan Kiernan out of the village." 
 
 "That's impossible," — said the Vicar, gently — "Every man 
 has a right to live where he likes, provided he pays his way." 
 
 "But if he is a positive scandal — a disgrace to the neigh- 
 bourhood!" exclaimed Azalea, with indignantly flashing eyes. 
 
 " Well, my dear child, it must be my business to try and 
 reform him, — I can't turn him out ! " and Richard smiled — 
 " Have you ever thought, Azalea, what would happen if the 
 clergy were allowed to summarily eject all drunkards from 
 their several parishes ? " 
 
 She pouted. " No, I haven't ! You are laughing at me, 
 Dick — but you don't see the seriousness of the cate " 
 
 "Oh yes, I do! — no one realises the horror of the drink 
 craze more forcibly than I do,— but — as I have just suggested, 
 if we parsons could carry matters with such high authority as 
 to banish all drunkards out of their chosen habitations wher- 
 ever we find them, I'm afraid — I really am afraid, Azalea, that 
 our parishioners would be rather scarce ! " 
 
 "Then you think there are drunkards everywhere as bad 
 as Kiernan ? " she said. 
 
 " I not only think it — I know it ! " he answered, and a cloud of 
 sadness shadowed his features — " For there are public-houses 
 
 79
 
 So HOLY ORDERS 
 
 everywhere, and as a matter of course there must be drunkards. 
 Though I prefer to call them poisoned people rather than 
 drunkards. If you saw a man reeling under the effects of 
 laudanum or cyanide of potassium or any other such deadly 
 drug, you would be sorry for him — you would try to apply 
 such remedies as might most quickly restore him to health and 
 sane consciousness. Yet our ' drunken ' working-men are 
 just in the same condition, and instead of trying to cure them, 
 we reproach them for getting poisoned, while we let the 
 poisoners go scot free ! We read in history of Caesar Borgia 
 ■who, whenever he had a grudge against any one, invited that 
 person to a friendly banquet and mixed a few drops of swift 
 poison in the loving-cup of wine, — now, in my opinion, many 
 a brewer and spirit distiller is nothing but a commercial Caesar 
 Borgia, whose poisoning tricks are carried on, not for 
 vengeance, but for gain, — and who is, therefore, more sordid 
 in his wickedness than even the mediaeval murderer ! " 
 He spoke with energy and emphasis. Azalea was silent 
 " Think for a moment ! " he went on — " You and I do not 
 get ' drunk ' when we enjoy our light French wine at dinner, 
 or when at some friend's house we take a glass of champagne 
 in a sociable way, to show that we appreciate the hospitality 
 offered us. But if you or I were to drink a tumbler of 
 Minchin's beer, or threepennyworth of the whisky sold at 
 Minchin's public-houses, we should be, to put it quite plainly, 
 ' drunk,' or rather, so heavily drugged that we should find it 
 difficult to stand straight. And it is not fair or just to the 
 poor that they should get poison instead of pure stuff for their 
 hard-earned money,. — they have as good a right to be thirsty 
 as gentle-folk, surely ! — and they ought to be able to buy good, 
 wholesome beer, not a pernicious concoction which is 
 purposely contrived to stimulate thirst afresh, and to confuse 
 the brain as well. Cocculus indicus and tobacco used to be 
 employed in the adulteration of beer, — these deadly ingredients 
 are forbidden now by law, but in how many instances is the 
 law not privately set at defiance ! There's never a brewery 
 without its own ' chemical shop ' close by."
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 8l 
 
 "Well, I think," said Azalea, pursing her pretty lips primly, 
 "that under all the circumstances, Dick, you, as a clergy- 
 man, ought to be against drink altogether — I do really ! We 
 could easily do without our little quantity of wine, I'm sure — 
 and you might perhaps have more influence over the parish- 
 ioners if you were a complete teetotaller." 
 
 "Like Minchin himself!" retorted Everton, with a slight 
 shrug of contempt — " He drinks nothing but water, — does his 
 example benefit the community? Is he not known as a 
 sanctimonious money-grubber and hypocrite ? No, Azalea ! 
 I am for temperance — not teetotallism. I like men who are 
 manly enough to understand the first duty they owe to them- 
 selves, that of self-restraint, — and a fellow who has to wear 
 a blue ribbon in his button-hole as a sign that he never gets 
 drunk, is merely advertising himself as a moral coward." 
 
 " Still, it would surely be a good thing, wouldn't it, if Dan 
 Kiernan could be persuaded to take the pledge ? " she said. 
 
 " I doubt it ! He would add to his fault of drink, the 
 second and worse one of hypocrisy. For the possibility is 
 that he would indulge himself in secret drinking then, and 
 pretend that he never touched a drop. And to my mind any- 
 thing's better than pretending to be honest when you know 
 you're a humbug ! " 
 
 Azalea looked at him a little nervously. If he only knew, 
 she thought, that the whole parish was just now ' pretending ' 
 that nothing was wrong with Jacynth Miller and Kiernan ! 
 She wondered what he would say. She remembered his words, 
 " Even a bad girl may be sorry for her badness and may 
 wish to be better." And he had said — poor dear Dick ! — that 
 he really ' hoped ' Jacynth did wish to be better. What would 
 he think now — new if all the truth were told? She longed 
 to speak — but her promise to Mrs. Adcott held her within 
 bounds, and she checked the words that rose to her lips. 
 Her husband glanced at her enquiringly. 
 
 " You seem to have something on your mind, little woman," 
 he said tenderly — "Any worry or vexation?" 
 
 She coloured. 
 6
 
 82 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 " Oh no, Dick ! — nothing of that kind. Only — I was 
 thinking, — people often do 'pretend,' don't they?" 
 
 He laughed. 
 
 " They do ! — most assuredly ! " he answered — " A great 
 portion of what we call our ' social ' life is made up of nothing 
 but social lies. But because such a condition of things 
 exists we need not admire it, or lend our aid in any way to 
 support it." 
 
 She looked down and carefully fitted the point of her little 
 shoe into tne pattern of the carpet. 
 
 " You wouldn't approve of a lie on any occasion, would 
 you ? " she asked — " Not even to cover up the sins of 
 somebody very dear to you ? " 
 
 He was a little surprised at the question, and considered 
 it a moment. 
 
 " No — I don't think so," — he replied, at last — " Personally, 
 I think truth is always best. Because, to begin with, it is 
 the unwritten law of the universe that what is shall remain, 
 and that what only seems shall perish, Therefore, we do 
 ourselves wrong when we run counter to the Divine Mathe- 
 matics. While a sinner conceals his sins he is self-condemned ; 
 when he confesses them he is at once half redeemed." 
 
 " Then you would forgive any wicked persons who confessed 
 their wickedness ? " queried Azalea, still looking at the carpet. 
 
 " My dear girl, you make me quite anxious ! " Here 
 approaching her, he took her face between his two hands, 
 and studied its lovely colouring fondly — " Have you been 
 doing anything very wrong ? " 
 
 At this she laughed, and her eyes danced with merriment. 
 
 " Not very ! " she answered gaily — " I'll confess to you at 
 once when I have trespassed against any of the Ten Command- 
 ments — you may be sure of that ! " She raised herself on 
 the tips of her toes and kissed him — "You are a dear old 
 Dick ! You never suspect anything or anybody ! " 
 
 At that moment a knock came at the study door, and on 
 Everton's calling " Come in," the parlourmaid entered, bringing 
 a small visiting card on a iarge silver salver.
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 83 
 
 "This gentleman would like to see you, sir," — she said. 
 
 Everton took up the card and read its small neat super- 
 scription : 'Sebastien Douay.' 
 
 " I don't know the name," — he began dubiously. 
 
 " He told me he was a stranger to you, sir," — said the 
 parlourmaid — " He particularly wished to see the church. 
 He's quite a gentleman." 
 
 11 Oh very well — just show him into the drawing-room, and 
 say I'll come in a moment." 
 
 The maid retired. 
 
 " Don't ask him to luncheon ! " implored Azalea — "Whoever 
 he is, Dick, dorit do that ! " 
 
 Everton laughed. 
 
 "As if I should ask any fellow to luncheon without knowing 
 something about him ! " he said — " Really, Azalea, you are 
 a quaint little woman ! " 
 
 " Well, sometimes you are rather impulsive," — she answered. 
 " We see so few people down here that if a very pleasant 
 man turns up, it is no wonder you don't want him to go 
 away again at once." Here she also looked at the visitor's 
 card. " Sebastien Douay ! Oh, that's a French name. He's 
 a foreigner." 
 
 "Let us beware of him then," — said Everton, smiling — 
 " Let us be on our guard like true-born Britons who view 
 everything un-British with dark suspicion ! Yet even a native 
 of France may be a man and a brother all the same, mayn't he ? " 
 
 " Of course he may ! — Oh, Dick, why are you so nonsensical ! 
 But I don't want this particular man and brother invited to 
 stop to luncheon, no matter how nice and agreeable he is." 
 
 " All right ! But may I ask why ? " 
 
 " Because there's only cold mutton. There ! " declared 
 Azalea, quite desperately — " And however you put it, cold 
 mutton is a comfortless thing, even with salad and hot potatoes. 
 You can never get over the cheerlessness of it ! We don't 
 mind it, because of course if we have a joint of mutton at 
 all in the house it has to be eaten cold sometimes, but 
 strangers always feel the dismalness of it so much ! "
 
 84 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 Everton nodded with good-humoured significance. 
 
 " Very well ! — I won't argue the point ! " he said — " But if 
 every hungry fellow in the world could get a slice of cold 
 mutton for the asking, the 'dismalness' might not be so 
 very dismal after all ! " 
 
 He went off then, and entering the drawing-room found 
 his visitor standing with hands clasped behind his back, 
 looking meditatively out of the window into the garden. He 
 was a little man, with a clean-shaven round chubby face, and 
 a pleasant smile which sparkled up from his lips to his eyes 
 in a very taking and kindly way. He was dressed in a clerical 
 surtout, buttoned up tightly to the throat, — and a soft felt 
 hat of the approved ' churchman ' model lay on a chair 
 beside him. 
 
 " I must demand one thousand pardons ! " he said, in 
 somewhat imperfect English, turning round as Everton 
 entered — "Poss-eebly it is not the time to call upon the 
 clergyman to see the church ? " 
 
 " Pray don't apologise ! " replied Everton quickly, extending 
 a hand in frank courtesy — " My time is quite at your disposal 
 for an hour at least. You are most welcome to see the 
 church — I'll take you round there at once, especially as you 
 are of my own calling " 
 
 " Ah non ! " — and the little man gave a deprecatory gesture, 
 " I will not permit you to mistake me ! I am a priest of 
 the 'True' Church — the Roman Catholique" — here his eyes 
 twinkled with a most agreeable facetiousness — " But that 
 shall make no difference, shall it, in our leetle meeting ? " 
 
 Everton was quite charmed with the vivacious simplicity of 
 his manner. 
 
 " Certainly not ! " he said heartily — " We both serve the 
 same Master." 
 
 " Not so ! " and his visitor shook a forefinger knowingly in 
 the air — " Not so by long ways ! You serve the King — I serve 
 the Pope ! Two big personages that must nevare agree ! " 
 
 Everton smiled rather gravely. 
 
 " I mean," he said — "a greater Master than either."
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 85 
 
 "Ah yes ! You mean the good Christ. But nobody sc: 
 Him at all in our times- -nobody ! " He snapped his ling, 
 still smiling. " His name is une convenance ! C'est tout ! 
 Let us see the church ! " 
 
 A little puzzled, ana not knowing quite what to say, 
 Everton opened the long latticed windows of the drawing- 
 room which led out immediately to the lawn, and escorted 
 his new acquaintance through the garden to a private gate 
 communicating with the churchyard. 
 
 "You have my name?" proceeded the little priest — 
 " Sebastien Douay ? Yes ! That is me. Ah, so short while 
 ago I was le pere Douay — notre cher petit pere — so the 
 children of my village called me — ah oui ! — a village not 
 large — no, not so large as this Shadbrook " — he spread 
 out his hand descriptively — " but charmant ! Now Madame 
 la Republique Francaise has swept me out with all that she 
 calls her church rubbish — she has swept me and so many 
 more into England ! And here I am ! — and to this place I 
 wander like what you call a tramp — is it not so ? " 
 
 "Your Church," said Everton slowly — "is making many 
 converts in this country — I should think you would find 
 plenty of friends here." 
 
 " Friends ? Oh, for that ! " Here he gave a shrug more 
 expressive than words. " Yes, there are many, if you will do 
 just as they tell you ! But not if you desire to do something 
 for yourself! I have just come from a leetle, very leetle 
 place in Warwickshire— where there is a leetle, very leetle 
 church — the cure" is ill and poor — ah ! so very poor ! — and 
 while he has been ill, the Bishop ask me to take the service — 
 and when I say my bad English will not please, he say ' Bah ! 
 The people are so stupid they will not mind,'— and that is 
 true ! So I say the Mass and confess the stupid people — but 
 I do very leetle preaching — they would not comprehend me — 
 n0 ! — they can perhaps follow the Latin in their missals — but 
 I do not ask them to follow my English in the pulpit— no ! — 
 that would be a cruelty ! " 
 
 He laughed, and Everton laughed with him. There was
 
 S6 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 something quite infectious in his cheery personality. They 
 had by this time reached the church, — a quaint grey stone 
 edifice, small, but of perfect proportion in every line, with 
 a genuine Early Norman porch, and ivy clinging tenderly 
 around its ancient square tower. It was a very quiet, peaceful 
 little place, shadowed in its venerable tranquillity by a few tail 
 old trees among which some rooks were evidently thinking of 
 building their nests, for they were cawing to each other per- 
 sistently as though the time for housekeeping had already 
 begun. The churchyard was scrupulously clean and well- 
 kept, and only a few of last year's leaves had fluttered down 
 from the overhanging branches on some of the neatly trimmed 
 graves. A sense of sweet repose softened by tender melancholy 
 hung about this small ' God's Acre,' and appeared to touch 
 some chord in the emotions of the exiled ' pere Douay ' — for 
 he paused at a small rounded hillock which covered the mortal 
 remains of a child, ' aged Three Years,' where a knot of white 
 lilies lay fresh upon the wet turf, and said gently : 
 
 " Ah the pity ! Those flowers mean so much broken heart ! 
 The leetle laughing child gone ! — the sweet lilies so pure and 
 still ! Sometimes — yes ! — it is wrong to say it — but sometimes 
 I feel that God must be sorry to be obliged to kill so many 
 pretty things which He has made ! " 
 
 Everton offered no reply. The words at once recalled Mrs. 
 Moddley's remark as repeated by her hopeful son — " Mother 
 don't see 'ow God can bear to live watchin' all the poor folks 
 die what He's made Hisself ! " The thought was the same as 
 that expressed by his present visitor, though differently worded. 
 He took a large key out of his pocket and with it unfastened 
 the church door. 
 
 " I see you lock up the dear Lord ! " said Douay, with a little 
 smile — " You keep Him a prisoner ! Not so do we Catholiques. 
 We leave our church doors open — we make the Lord always 
 to be at home ! If a man or woman is naughty, he or she can 
 enter and say a prayer and try to be sorry. At one time, I am 
 sure, in the history of this church, the Lord was also at home 
 in it ? "
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 87 
 
 Everton took this query without any offence. 
 
 "Of course, in the past, this church, like all the churches 
 of England, was Roman Catholic," he said — " Up to the time 
 of the Reformation, masses were said in it every day, — and I 
 believe that even during Elizabeth's reign and despite all her 
 laws against Catholics, secret masses were held in the crypt. 
 The crypt is the most ancient part of the building — the genuine 
 remains of the former hermitage. You know, I suppose, that 
 it was once a hermit's chapel ? " 
 
 Douay nodded emphatically. 
 
 "Of hermits I always read much!" he said — "They amaze 
 me ! That they should wish to leave society is not a matter 
 for surprise, — but that they should live quite alone, and on 
 hard beans and water, is all beyond my comprehension. I at 
 once say it is not for me. A hermitage a deux would be more 
 agreeable ! " 
 
 He laughed — and Everton thought him frivolous. Douay 
 saw and understood his expression, and his bright grey eyes 
 twinkled yet more humorously. 
 
 " You are married, Mistaire Everton ? " he asked. A slight 
 flush warmed the Vicar's pale face. 
 
 "Yes," he answered — "I have been married thi3e years." 
 
 " Ah ! That is early days ! I felicitate you ! " and Douay 
 made him a fantastic little bow, which was half jocose, and 
 half complimentary — " You are still in Paradise ! " 
 
 They passed through the porchway and entered the church 
 itself. It was a very unassuming little interior, strictly in con- 
 formity with the formerly professed simplicity of the Church 
 of England. The ugly part of it was, as is usual in many 
 churches, the seating accommodation — this being the too 
 familiar hard rows of light oak pews which much more suggest 
 benches for a lecture hall than for a place of prayer. The roof 
 was finely arched, and was supported on eight noble stone 
 columns which mutely testified to the architectural skill of 
 their long ago forgotten designer, while the chancel, though 
 lofty and spacious, was spoilt by four modern stained-glass 
 windows which, in their conception and colouring, might have
 
 88 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 found fitting place m a twentieth-century hotel ' lounge,' but 
 which were much too crude and gaudy for a house of worship. 
 
 "Those windows are an eyesore," — said Everton, noticing 
 Douay's quizzical expression as he looked at them — " But they 
 were put in by Squire Hazlitt, the patron of the living, in 
 memory of his deceased relations. He is a very good, 
 kindly man, but unfortunately he has no taste for what is 
 reverent and noble in art." 
 
 "Like so many good, kindly men!" smiled Douay — "Par 
 exemple, like that most excellent personage who wished to put 
 a sculptured memorial of his actress-wife immediately opposite 
 the bust of Shakespeare, in Stratford-on-Avon Church. He 
 would have done it, too, if he had not most fortunately been 
 caught on a point of law and so prevented. Imagine ! Your 
 great Shak-es-peare face to face with a modern actress-lady in 
 his own burial-place ! Ha-ha ! What a stupidity ! But no 
 doubt the amiable provincial gentlemen concerned in the 
 scheme, settled it over a glass of wine at dinner, and could not 
 understand that they were ignorant and irreverent enough to 
 make the whole world laugh at them ! Your Squire is like 
 that — he does not see any laugh in these comic windows ! " 
 
 Here he turned towards the font, which was a very ancient 
 one, circular in shape and supported on a single column in the 
 centre, with small auxiliary corner columns round it bearing 
 curious devices of sculptured animals and flowers. 
 
 " This is good ! " he said — " This is of the old faith time ! 
 And it recalls to me a leetle story of baptism. In the place 
 where I have been in Warwickshire, there came to me one 
 poor woman very brown and dirty — a geep-sy — with a very 
 small girl bebe. She say to me : 'I have no money — I am 
 poor geep-sy — will you give the name to my leetle be"be ? ' I 
 ask her if she is Catholique and she say yes. So I take the 
 
 leetle bebe and I baptize it with so very curious name " 
 
 He paused reflectively — " Let me see ! — yes — Ar — ar — yes ! — 
 Arminellia ! Imagine ! For a geep-sy ! Arminellia ! C'est 
 drole ! Then the poor geep-sy thank me and beg of me two 
 shillings — she is so poor, she say — but you laugh ? Why ? "
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 89 
 
 For Everton's face expressed the most whimsical merriment, 
 and his blue eyes danced with fun. 
 
 " I know that gipsy ! " he said — " And I wonder how many 
 times and in how many churches her helpless infant will be 
 baptized ! I baptized it my.-;elf the other day — gave it the 
 same name — Arminellia — and gave the mother the same re- 
 quested two shillings ! She was a Church of England woman 
 then ! " 
 
 Their glances met, and ihey both smiled. 
 
 " We are what you English call ' done ' ! " said Douay gaily, 
 ' But the leetle Arminellia is quite safe ! Safe for this world 
 and also for the next. If she go to one gate of Heaven she 
 will find St. Peter — he say — 'Are you Catholique?' 'Yes,' 
 she say — ' le pere Douay has baptize me true Catholique.' So 
 she pass St. Peter. If she go to another gate she meet St. 
 Paul. ' Are you Protestant ? ' he say — ' Yes — the clergyman 
 of Shadbrook, Mistaire Everton, has baptize me true Protest- 
 ant.' So she pass St. Paul ! My friend, we have been careful 
 for Arminellia ! Shake hands upon it ! " 
 
 Everton laughed gently, and entering into the spirit of 
 the thing, clasped Douay's outstretched hand with ready 
 cordiality. 
 
 "After all," continued Douay — "we are the same poor 
 servants together — trying to perform our Master's orders with- 
 out always comprehending them ! " 
 
 Everton made no reply, and they presently left the church. 
 Douay was interested in everything he saw, — he admired the 
 landscape, now looking fresh and radiant in the unobscured 
 glory of the noon-day sun — he paused to listen to a thrush 
 singing, — and his amiable round face expressed so much con- 
 tentment, good-humour and affabilicy, that more than once 
 Everton was sorely tempted to trespass against his wife's in- 
 junction ?nd ask his visitor to stay to luncheon, despite the 
 humiliating prospect of cold mutton. But he feared that 
 Azalea might be really put out in her housekeeping arrange- 
 ments if he did this after the urgent request she had made to 
 him, for even the sweetest of wives may be apt to suffer from
 
 9 o HOLY ORDERS 
 
 a little flurry of temper over unexpected domestic difficulties, 
 just as the prettiest rose may have a crumpled petal. Moved 
 by these considerations he paused at the entrance gate of the 
 Vicarage garden to bid his visitor farewell. 
 
 " Are you staying in the village ? " he asked. 
 
 " Not so very far away," — replied Douay — " I have an aparte- 
 ment in a cottage on the hill, — near a very big ugly house 
 which they tell me is the house of one Monsieur Minchin, the 
 brewer. Ah, hovv fortunate it is to brew the beer in Eng- 
 land ! To make the poor people drunk and to live on the 
 profits ! Excellent ! " 
 
 " I wish I could talk to you about that ! " said Everton, with 
 quick earnestness — " I know that drink is the curse of our 
 country, and yet I deny with all my soul that we are an 
 intemperate people ! We are not ! We are by nature a steady, 
 sober, God-fearing people. But we permit ourselves to be 
 duped and cheated. Our easy-going good - nature gives us 
 into the hands of fraudulent scoundrels, and our Government 
 freely licenses the poisoners of cur brains and bodies, so that 
 they may continue to poison us for their own advantage and 
 yet go scot free. There is nothing I feel more acutely than 
 the hopeless position of the unhappy wretches who are classed 
 as ' drunkards.' They are simply poiso7ied ! — and the drinking 
 of poison sets up a poisonous craving which is fostered — nay 
 pampered — by the very laws of the country. We clergy can 
 do nothing, because there has been so much cant and humbug 
 talked about ' temperance ' by certain of our cloth who, while 
 preaching against drink, actually invest their savings in brewery 
 and distillery shares, that very naturally the ' drunkards ' them- 
 selves despise such hypocrisy and double-dealing ! I say, and 
 I will always maintain, that there would be few ' drunkards ' 
 if honest liquors were sold to the people instead of noxious 
 drugs." 
 
 Sebastien Douay heard him attentively. 
 "That is your theory," — he said — "You may be right. 
 Again — you may be wrong ! I know men — and women too — 
 who love poison ! It is to them what you call ambrosia. No
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 91 
 
 one can do anything to stop this craving. All the kings — all 
 
 the popes — all the preaching — all the prayer no use ! No 
 
 use, my friend ! " and he laid one hand kindly on Everton's 
 arm, — "Once upon a time the leetle priest — like myself — 
 could do something. The Church Catholique had its terrors. 
 It could frighten the bad man. Hell on one side — Heaven 
 on the other ! Now — all no use ! No one believes any more 
 in Hell or Heaven ! Each poor ignorant man makes his 
 1 new theology ' to his own liking. The only God that is 
 served in to-day's Church, press and politique is — Self!" 
 
 His voice quivered — and his features grew dark with a 
 shadow of stern sorrow. 
 
 " MisLaire Everton," he continued, raising his eyes with an 
 almost pathetic wistfulness — " I have known what it is to 
 love my little parish — my small village in France, to which 
 I shall return no more. I loved the men and women — the 
 leetle children, — my heart opened over them like the wings 
 of a bird that would shelter its young. I prayed day and 
 night that I might help to make them as God would have 
 them to be, — the men nobie, the women pure, — the maidens 
 innocent — the children happy ! See how my prayer is 
 answered ! I am turned away from thern altogether — 1 
 wander here in England where I am told the Catholique 
 faith will again rule as of old — but I much doubt it ! — and 
 maybe they will give me a leetle church presently. But it 
 will not be my home — and they will not be my people. And 
 I have no more hopes of doing good— no, none at all ! I 
 will not expect to reform the drunkard— my good sir, that 
 is imposs-eeble ! Nor will I expect to make the brewers and 
 the spirit distillers honest men— that is more imposs-eeble 
 still ! I have tried many ways of serving the people— all no 
 use!— now I am content to do very little— scarcely nothing 
 at all — I say my prayers — I look at nature — I hear the biros 
 sing— and I have pity— ah, mon Dieu !— what pity I have 
 for every living soul ! " 
 
 There was something quite thrilling in the intense melan- 
 choly of his tone as he spoke — and Everton was strangely moved.
 
 92 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 "Yet we must believe/' — he said, slowly — "that all will 
 be well!" 
 
 " Yes — we must believe ! " — and Douay's face brightened 
 once more into a kindly smile — "We must believe — you in 
 your way, and I in mine ! And not till some great sorrow 
 breaks our hearts shall we know how much our belief is worth, 
 my friend ! Good-bye ! We must meet again ! " 
 
 " We must indeed ! " replied Everton eagerly — " I shall call 
 and see you " 
 
 " Do ! You will always find me in at the hour of the 
 Angelus — for then I say a prayer for my little parish in 
 France, — so far away ! " 
 
 He smiled again, but there was a suspicious gleam of some- 
 thing like tears in his eyes. Another cordial pressure of 
 Ever ton's hand and he had gone, — walking briskly down the 
 road into the village between a double row of leafless elms 
 which made Gothic cathedral arches of their brown branches 
 against the now cloudless blue of the quiet sky. Everton 
 looked after his retreating figure for some minutes, absorbed 
 in thought. A curious sudden sense of desolation oppressed 
 him, — a dreary conviction of the futility of things — of the 
 waste of honest effort ; of the vanity and folly of trying to do 
 good when good was so often swept away and overcome. 
 
 "Now there is a man," — he said to himself, reverting to the 
 disappearing Douay, — " who evidently loved the work he had 
 to do in his own country. He was satisfied with his little 
 parish — he was not for ever asking, as T am, whether a little 
 parish was wide enough for his energies ; — he loved his people, 
 and he was no doubt a friend to them — and yet — apparently 
 his efforts are all so much lost time! And I — am I any 
 better than he ? Suppose I were to wear out my heart and 
 brain to shreds in trying to purge this one village of its be- 
 setting evil, drink — I should never do it — never ! I am no 
 worker of miracles, and all the odds are against me. What 
 use am I ? Will God ever give sufficient power into my 
 hands to save a single human, creature? Almost I doubt 
 it!"
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 93 
 
 He turned and walked slowly back to the Vicarage, and as he 
 entered the ball, his wife tripped forward to meet him. 
 
 " Oh, Dick, what a funny looking little foreigner that man 
 was ! " she exclaimed — " I saw him gesticulating beside you in 
 the churchyard. Is he a clergyman ? " 
 
 «Yes — but not one of our faith," — Evcrton replied—"!! 
 is a Roman Catholic priest." 
 
 " And whatever is he doing here ? " queried Azalea, slipping 
 a coaxing hand through her husband's arm — " I don't believe 
 there's a single Roman Catholic in Shadbrook." 
 
 Richard smiled. 
 
 " Well, it's not likely he came to look after any stray sheep 
 on the Cots wolds," — he answered — "They're too scattered for 
 that. He had some interest in seeing the church — which, of 
 course, used to be a Roman Catholic one. He is exiled from 
 France — or at any rate he seems to consider himself exiled — he 
 has lost his living out there, and I suppose he is, like so many 
 'vagrant ' priests in England just now, waiting orders from his 
 superiors. He's a very good chap — and really, Azalea, if you 
 had not made such a point of my not doing so, I should have 
 asked him to luncheon." 
 
 Azalea made a round O of her pretty mouth. 
 
 " A Roman Catholic priest ! " she echoed, wonderingly — 
 "Would you really, Dick?" 
 
 " Why, of course I should ! " and he laughed — " A Roman 
 Catholic priest wants his midday meal as much as any Pro- 
 testant parson, doesn't he? This man interested me very 
 much — I should have liked a good long talk with him." 
 
 Azalea made no remark. She knew that her husband's lack 
 of companionship with his own sex was one of the great 
 drawbacks to his position as Vicar of Shadbrook, — and there 
 was a little twinge of self-reproach in her heart, as she thought 
 that had it not been for her remark on what she considered to 
 be the deficiencies of the prospective luncheon, he would have 
 had some slight relaxation from the monotonous routine of his 
 daily life in exchanging ideas with a possibly amusing and 
 intelligent stranger. And she watched him with an odd
 
 94 
 
 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 expression of childish penitence as he glanced at the 
 clock. 
 
 " Half an hour yet before we sit down to the cold mutton ! " 
 he said cheerily — :< Just time to write a few letters. No more 
 news of the Kiernans, I suppose ? " 
 
 '• No — none," — she replied, conscious of a certain inward 
 thankfulness that her domestic peace had not, so far, been 
 again fluttered by the worrying complaints and demands of 
 troublesome or refractory parishioners. 
 
 Thereupon he went into his study, shutting the door gently 
 behind him, as a sign that he wished to be left alone and 
 undisturbed.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 WITHIN the solitude of his own room Everton gave 
 himself up to a spell of quiet thinking. There was 
 time, as he had said to his wife, to write a few letters, — but he 
 did not so much as take pen in hand to commence them. 
 Seated in his desk chair, he looked almost unseeingly out on 
 the fair garden prospect in front of his windows, and began 
 wondering, as lately he had often wondered, what had come 
 over the spirit of the Church of Christ, that it should appar- 
 ently find itself unequal to stand against the storm of materialism 
 and atheism which, with shock upon shock, had of recent 
 years begun to batter down the formerly strong citadel of 
 Faith. With an acute morbidity of memory he counted up the 
 dozens of modern ' sects ' and ' societies ' and ' theologies ' 
 which nowadays assume to be the most reliable and accurate 
 expositions of the ' Truth,' — and with a deep sigh, wrung from 
 his very heart's core, he realised that Plate's famous question 
 to the Divine Crucified, was not yet answered. 
 
 " We are a thousand times less devout and less earnest than 
 the early Christians," — he said, speaking half aloud, as though 
 to some invisible companion of his meditations — " Instead of 
 growing stronger, we have grown weaker ; — instead of keeping 
 Christ's teaching pure and undefiled, we have overloaded it 
 with our own foolish systems till it is like a grain of gold lost in 
 a million tons of clay. Happy were those who in the past 
 could suffer for Christ's sake, and testify their love to Him by 
 the witness of their lives laid down for the honour and glory of 
 His Holy Name ! " 
 
 95
 
 96 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 He rose and paced the room slowly. How few there were, 
 he thought, in the present times, who would endure the 
 slightest personal pain or inconvenience with joy because they 
 believed Christ had ordained it ! Like a visionary pageant 
 passing before the eyes of his fancy, he saw the proud and 
 self-confident Heads of the Church — both Roman Catholic 
 and Protestant — arrogating to themselves something of Divine 
 authority, — elated with their own importance in the world of 
 politics and society, — eager to obtain as much money as 
 possible for the furtherance cf their own several systems, and 
 heedless whether such money were wrested from the pockets of 
 the poor or the coffers of the rich, — indiscriminately using for 
 their own purposes the supernatural terrors of hells and heavens 
 of their own invention to scare the ignorant or flatter the vain 
 — and he asked himself with a kind of passion in the demand, 
 " Is this Christ ? Is it what He came to teach — what He died 
 to emphasise and enforce ? " And the answer came ringing 
 clear and true from the innermost depths of his conscience — 
 
 " No ! The Creed of the Churches is not the Creed of 
 Christ ! It is man's work, formulated to suit the craving of 
 man's egotism — and from it spring a thousand weed-like 
 sprouts of mysticism and so-called ' scientific catechisms ' which 
 merely confuse the poor human soul and lead it deeper and 
 ever deeper into the mire. We have deserted the plain and 
 simple teaching of Our Lord for a tangle of perplexing and 
 opposing doctrines, — and instead of helping to guide us out of 
 the various misrepresentations that tend to disguise His Divine 
 command, our bishops and archbishops sit silent and inert 
 amid the clamour of conflicting argument, and not one of them 
 has the courage to pronounce in his own person one straight 
 convincing word which might silence the w«-Christian uproar. 
 Surely the days are upon us of which our Saviour spoke when 
 He said : — ' He that is an hireling and not the shepherd, whose 
 own the sheep are not, seeth the wolf coming and leaveth the 
 sheep and fleeth, and the wolf catcheth them and scattereth 
 the sheep.' And in this sense our archbishops and bishops are 
 ' hirelings ' ; for the wolf is devouring the fold ! "
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 97 
 
 He threw himself again into his chair, and his mind 
 reverted to the little priest, Sebastien Douay, who had said 
 so lightly that the name of Christ nowadays was ' une con- 
 venance — c'est tout ! ' 
 
 " He must think it, — he must know it — or else he would 
 not say it," — murmured Everton — " For he seems a simple- 
 hearted man who seeks to do his best, and who probably has 
 done his best in his service to his own Church. And it is 
 evident that he feels the futility of it all, — the impotence of 
 his own efforts — as keenly as I do ! " 
 
 Here the flitting memory of a girl's face floated before 
 him ; the brilliant, beautiful face of Jacynth Miller, with her 
 mutinous eyes and curved red mouth — and he gave an im- 
 patient gesture as he asked himself whether he could, as the 
 Vicar of the parish, honestly say that she was a lover of and 
 believer in Christ. He knew he could not. Yet she attended 
 church regularly, — and in outward Sunday observance at 
 least, she was a follower of the Christian faith. But in her 
 inward nature she was a pesitive pagan, whose 'creed' was 
 that of beauty, sensuality, and the purely animal enjoyment of 
 life. How many of his parishioners were, according to their 
 several tastes and inclinations, in a precisely similar condition ? 
 How many, if put to the test, would be willing to suffer for 
 Christ's sake? Nay — how many — to put it quite roughly — 
 would be ready to forego even a glass of beer, if asked to do 
 so for the honour and dignity of their religion as Christians ? 
 Probably not one ! He smiled rather drearily at the thought. 
 For his difficult task was to be the minister of the most noble 
 and perfect Gospel ever enunciated for the needs of man, to 
 a village community whose dearest aims in life were high wages 
 for as little labour as possible, and as much drink as could 
 conveniently be swallowed in the twenty-four hours of the day ! 
 
 " I shall never move them to a higher view of things," — he 
 said — " Nor will any one. Not only in Shadbrook, but all 
 over the Christian world, the same indifference prevails — and 
 unless the ' hirelings ' rouse themselves from their shameful 
 lethargy to give some sort of an honest warning cry, the 
 7
 
 98 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 wolves will have their way. Oh for the power of a far- 
 reaching eloquence ! — a fiery tongue of the first Pentecost 
 such as should not only warn, but most convincingly persuade ! 
 — and oh, that God would only help me in my task and let 
 me understand to the full the meaning of His ' Holy Orders ' ! ' : 
 
 His eyes flashed and his face grew warm with the light of a 
 sudden hope and inspiration, — then, as was usually the custom 
 whenever he yielded to any touch of exalted or impersonal 
 emotion, the Commonplace asserted itself in the ringing of 
 the luncheon bell. It made such an incongruous clashing 
 with his thoughts that he laughed at himself for having, just 
 for one moment, dreamed of great things that might be done 
 were he only given the chance to do them. And then with a 
 serene step and cheerful countenance, he went to his cold 
 mutton refection and listened patiently for more than an hour 
 to his wife's light chatter about various domestic affairs which 
 to her were the principal aim and end cf existence. For she 
 made no secret of her dislike to what she called ' soul talks.' 
 
 " I know it's very wrong," — she would declare, with a 
 charmingly repentant look at her husband from under her 
 soft, up-curling eyelashes — " But I don't really care a bit about 
 anybody's soul, because I can't understand what it is. If it 
 were a hand, or a foot, or a nose, I should, of course, want to 
 take care of it and not lose it, but a ' soul ' ! — now, you know, 
 Dick, you don't know very well yourself what it is ! It's so 
 vague — so — so — uncatchable ! " She laughed, and was not at 
 all checked in her merriment by Richard's serious glance at 
 her. "It's so nice," — she went on — "to look at the picture 
 of Psyche, and see her holding the little butterfly in her hand, 
 — she did catch it ! — she must have caught it ! — but even in the 
 picture or statue, or whatever it is, the poor ' soul ' is half dead 
 and she's warming it up to life again " 
 
 " I think you mis-read the allegory," said Everton, gently— 
 " Psyche herself stands for the Soul, and the butterfly is — I 
 believe — I may be wrong, — an emblem of the Life which the 
 Soul makes immortal." 
 
 " Oh, but fancy Life itself being no more than a butterfly ! "
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 99 
 
 Azalea exclaimed — " That cant be right, Dick ! Anyhow, 
 whatever it is, I can't feel very great interest in the souls 
 of people — I'm not much taken with their bodies, you 
 know ! — their bodies are too awful, sometimes, — and their souls 
 — well ! — oh ! I'd rather not think about them ! '' 
 
 No theological argument could possibly arise out of these 
 easy, inconsequent statements, — and Everton had learned by 
 experience not to expect from his young wife what was not 
 in her nature to give. Sometimes he wished that she would 
 interest herself more sympathetically in the troubles and needs 
 of the very poorest and most ailing among his parishioners, — 
 but he found that her fastidious sense of cleanliness and order 
 was frequently affected almost to physical nausea by the 
 dirt and slovenliness of such unhappy human creatures as, 
 driven by sheer incapacity to the wall, had fallen into the 
 desperate condition of not caring for themselves or for 
 anybody else, so that it seemed a kind of cruelty to insist on 
 sending such a dainty fairy-like little woman into the midst 
 of hopeless squalor which she had neither the skill nor the 
 energy to relieve. So he spared her all the unpleasantness 
 he could, — the unpleasantness of malodorous sick-rooms and 
 tortured deathbeds, — and only commissioned her now and 
 then to take a few flowers to a sick child, or go and talk 
 to a moderately clean old woman, reserving for himself all 
 the revoking items in the daily round of his parish duties. 
 In his tender way he felt he had asked her to do quite an 
 exceptional thing in visiting the bruised and battered Jennie 
 Kiernan, — and that she had so readily and gently acceded to 
 his wish was something of a grateful surprise to him. For 
 he knew the truth of what she had often asserted, — namely, 
 that she was not fitted to be a clergyman's wife, — she was 
 too pretty. Old ' Mortar ' Pike had once, in an unguarded 
 moment, said she reminded him of a " Christmas pantomime 
 gel — one o' thern daffadown dillies as comes up through a 
 'ole in the stage all dressed in sparkles, a-bowin' an' a-smiiin' 
 as though the world was a box o' sweeties." Everton, on 
 hearing this description of his wife, had emphatically demurred
 
 ioo HOLY ORDERS 
 
 to it — yet in his heart he knew there was a substratum of 
 truth in the fanciful comparison. He could not, by way 
 of denial, say that Azalea's looks belied her, and that her 
 childlike and frivolous external appearance covered a pro- 
 fundity of unuttered wisdom. For he was perfectly aware 
 that the pretty little creature was what her charming face and 
 figure expressed her to be — just a pretty little creature, and 
 no more. But he loved her prettiness with all the passion 
 of a man in whom passion was often strongly repressed, and 
 he found an exquisite pleasure in watching the rosy colour 
 flush her cheeks, or the sunshine play among her gold hair, — 
 she was all the beauty of woman for him in one dainty bundle 
 of tender and fragrant charms, — his very own to caress and 
 to adore, — and when the graver work of the day was done 
 and he felt himself free to unbind his soul from its spiritual 
 armour, it was with a speechless sense of gratitude to God 
 that he drew Azalea, into his arms and pressed her soft little 
 head 'sunning over with curls'* against his heart. Then it 
 was that he was conscious of the joys of manhood, and 
 frankly confessed himself too weak to be a comrade of angels. 
 
 On this day, however, his ordinarily kind and buoyant 
 humour was not so spontaneous as usual, — and whether it 
 was the cold mutton at luncheon or some other equally 
 depressing influence in the atmosphere, it is certain that both 
 he and the light-hearted Azalea herself were silent and more 
 or less pre-occupied. Azalea was thinking of the Kiernans 
 and of Jacynth Miller — Everton was absorbed in somewhat 
 gloomy speculations as to the fate of the Churches in England. 
 The cold mutton came and went, replaced by rice pudding 
 and stewed apples, — altogether plain and wholesome fare, 
 but of a nature scarcely tending to exhilarate the spirits. 
 Azalea shivered a little. 
 
 " It's quite chilly ! " — she declared — " Really I don't wonder 
 that people abuse the English climate." 
 
 " I daresay every man abuses his own climate, if we only 
 knew it," — answered Everton, smiling — "One of the un- 
 fortunate results of the way our press is conducted is that
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 101 
 
 we always know exactly how we feel about rain, fog or snow — 
 but we don't hear what the Italian or the Frenchman thinks 
 of his particular drawbacks. For you may depend upon it 
 there's no climate quite perfect." 
 
 "Think of sunny Italy!" she sighed, with a little senti- 
 mental uplifting of her eyebrows. 
 
 "Sunny Italy! I never felt the cold more cruelly intense 
 than in Florence," — he answered — " and when the east wind 
 ran through me like a knife, while the sun blazed down on 
 me like a furnace, I felt that I had been distinctly cheated 
 by all the poets and romancists that ever made Italy a peg 
 to hang their ragged enthusiasms upon ! I believe Italy had 
 a lovely climate once, before her foolish people took to 
 cutting down the forests and clearing the wooded summits 
 which broke the force of the wind — but now ! — my dear 
 Azalea, believe me, you are ever so much warmer in England 
 than you would be in the misnamed ' City of Flowers.' " 
 
 Azalea played a dumb tune with her fingers on the tablecloth. 
 
 "I should like to travel a little," — she said, suddenly — 
 " I wonder if I could find some rich woman to take me 
 with her as a companion for a couple of months ? " 
 
 A coldness fell on his heart. He was curiously astonished 
 and vaguely hurt that she should entertain even the idea of 
 wishing to go away from him. But he gave no sign of his 
 inward pain. 
 
 " What of Baby Laurence ? " he asked quietly. 
 
 " Oh, Nurse could manage him splendidly," — she replied 
 merrily — " He's too young to miss me, — and she knows more 
 about him than I do." 
 
 He was silent, controlling the desire which impelled him 
 to press his own personal claim on her thought. At that 
 moment the servant entered bringing a note marked ' Im- 
 mediate.' He opened it and read : 
 
 " Come at once to Hadley's cottage. Bob is dying. He 
 can't last out an hour. — H. Brand." 
 
 With an exclamation of pity, he handed the message to 
 his wife and rose at once from the lunch table.
 
 102 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 " Poor Bob ! " he said — " Perhaps it is as well for him that 
 the end is near. He has suffered cruelly." 
 
 Azalea made no reply. Her cheeks had suddenly paled, 
 and her lips trembled. Whenever her husband was called 
 to attend a deathbed, she grew frightened and full of nervous 
 terrors. She hated the very suggestion of death, and recoiled 
 from it with all the shrinking hesitation of a timid child who 
 fears to enter a dark room without a candle. Just at this 
 moment she felt she ought to say something compassionate 
 and sympathetic, but no words would come. She could 
 only follow Richard meekly out of the dining-room into the 
 study, and watch him with large scared blue eyes as he 
 made the necessary preparations for his mournful task, taking 
 up his Testament and Prayers for the Dying. With these in 
 his hand he came and kissed her. 
 
 " Good-bye, darling ! " he murmured, fondly — " Now don't 
 look so wretched ! You know I must go and try to give 
 comfort to this poor departing soul " 
 
 She hid her face against his arm. 
 
 " Yes — I know ! " — she answered, with a kind of half sob — 
 " But — but I always feel the same about all these kind of 
 things — it's so awful \ And — and — sometimes consumptive 
 people like Bob Hadley die very hard — and struggle so 
 much ! — it's so terrible for you to have to watch him " 
 
 He stroked her soft hair caressingly. 
 
 "No, dear, it's not so terrible as you think," — he said 
 gently — " God is very good, — He will not let the dying suffer 
 more than they are able " 
 
 "Why does He let them suffer at all?" she demanded, 
 almost angrily, raising her head and flashing a defiant glance 
 at him through her tear-wet lashes — "It's all so absurd and 
 cruel ! None of the poor people in this world ever asked to 
 be born — and they're all so ignorant they don't know what to 
 do for the best, and I think it's hard to make ihem suffer for 
 what they can't help ! " 
 
 " Dear little woman ! " he said, soothingly — " You mustn't 
 talk so wildly ! Of course I know it's all your kind heart —
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 103 
 
 you are such a tender, affectionate little mortal that you can't 
 bear to think of any one in pain. But everything is for the 
 best, Azalea ! — even suffering. As a true Christian, you must 
 believe that." 
 
 " It's horrid for you to have to go and see Bob Hadley 
 die ! " she replied, inconsequently. 
 
 He had nothing to say to this. Stooping, he kissed her 
 again and left her. 
 
 " It is horrid ! " she repeated emphatically to the empty 
 room, — and, running to the window, she watched him walking 
 quickly through the garden on his way to the village — " I 
 don't care what anybody says ! It's horrid to be a clergy- 
 man — for nobody ever believes he thinks or lives according 
 to his preaching. He's looked upon as a humbug all round, 
 no matter how true and sincere he is. If I had been a man I 
 would never have gone into the Church — never ! I'd have 
 been a soldier or a sailor ! " — here she clenched her little fist 
 and looked exceedingly pugnacious — " It's much more natural 
 to fight people than to go about trying to love them, when 
 they are most of them as distinctly tinlovable as they can be ! 
 Look at Shadbrook ! There's not a creature in it worth 
 seeing twice ! And I'm sure — quite sure — that when Dick 
 knows what has been going on between Dan Kiernan and 
 Jacynth Miller, and how all the village has kept him in the 
 dark about it, he'll be disgusted — simply disgusted with the 
 whole parish ! And no wonder ! " 
 
 This little soliloquy over, she felt relieved, — and presently 
 reflecting on the nature of her husband's immediate errand, 
 she came to the conclusion that certainly it was a good thing 
 Bob Hadley should die and cease to be a trouble and expense 
 to his mother. 
 
 " For consumption is infectious, and it might spread through 
 the village if he were not taken away as soon as possible," — 
 she thought — " And I shall not know much about it all — for 
 Dick never tells me anything that is really unpleasant, because 
 he knows I don't like it." 
 
 This was ouite true. Whatever scenes of wretchedness
 
 104 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 Everton was confronted with in the exercise of his duties, he 
 never allowed his wife to hear anything that might put her to 
 unnecessary pain, or cause her possible distress of mind. In 
 his extreme delicacy or thought for her he forgot, or rather he 
 had never realised, that she was not of a temperament to feel 
 pain where it did not personally concern her, and that she 
 was the very last of creatures in the world to suffer from 
 mental anxiety on behalf of any one outside her own small 
 domestic circle. She had all the pretty egotism of a kitten 
 which thinks that every ball of worsted in the world is made 
 specially for it to play with, — and it was just this kittenish 
 charm that saved her from being called openly selfish. 
 
 Everton meanwhile made the best of his walking speed to 
 arrive as quickly as he could on the scene to which he had 
 been so hastily summoned. 'Hadley's Cottage/ as it was 
 commonly called, was situated at the extreme end of 'old' 
 Shadbrook, and stood somewhat removed from the high-road 
 with its back set against the green slope of a wooded hill. 
 Two of its small latticed windows were open, and through 
 these there came a dreadful sound of incessant groaning, 
 broken by sharp fierce cries of, — 
 
 " Jacynth ! Jacynth ! Hold her ! Keep her fast where 
 she is ! Don't let her go ! " 
 
 The Vicar heard, — and his face grew very grave. He 
 knocked at the door, which was opened for him at once by 
 a grey-haired woman whose eyes were red and swollen with 
 crying, and who at the mere sight of him broke into fresh tears. 
 
 " Oh, Mr. Everton, my boy ! " she sobbed — " My poor, poor 
 boy ! He's going fast ! — oh, he's going away from me ! And 
 he doesn't know me — his own mother ! — he won't look at me 
 — he only calls for Jacynth, Jacynth all the time ! And she 
 came to see him last night and stayed with him an hour, — 
 and he's been like mad ever since — just like mad ! And early 
 this morning he broke a blood-vessel with coughing — and we 
 sent for the doctor and he's been, and he's coming back again 
 directly — but it's all no use — no use ! Oh, what shall I do ! — 
 what shall I do ! "
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 105 
 
 Everton pressed her hand gently, but said nothing. He 
 was accustomed to scenes of despair among the poor ; and he 
 knew by sad experience that though, when in health, they 
 have the habit of talking about death when it comes to others, 
 as though it were the most congenial of themes for conversa- 
 tion, they are invariably taken aback and shaken from their 
 ground altogether when the real Terror visits their own homes. 
 Quietly he entered the cottage and stepped into the little room 
 where the dying man lay — a room that had grown sadly 
 familiar to him during the past six months, for in the round 
 of his ministrations to the sick he had never missed a daily 
 visit to Bob Hadley, partly on account of the hopeless nature 
 of the sufferer's disease, and partly because the poor fellow 
 had shown so much patience and courage in combating with 
 the inevitable. He was only twenty-two years old — and 
 through much pain and mental anguish, had displayed a 
 martyr's quiet heroism and resignation — never complaining 
 of the fate that was relentlessly cutting the thread of his life 
 ere he had time to weave it into a useful pattern, and always 
 expressing such a cheery faith in God and a future immortal 
 existence, that Everton had grown to look upon him as a kind 
 of lesson to himself and others, — a model example of the 
 strength which is spiritually bestowed on those who in the 
 crucial moment of adversity fix their faith unswervingly on the 
 saving power of the Divine. Therefore he was painfully 
 startled when, instead of the humble and docile youth who 
 had listened for many weeks so gratefully to his kindly 
 teaching, and who had repeated prayers after him with all 
 the devout simplicity of a child, he saw before him a gaunt 
 spectre with a face of desperate agony — a strange distorted 
 creature, sitting half upright on a bed that had become a 
 mere tangled heap of clothes in the tossing to and fro of the 
 feverish body upon it, — a wild non-human thing with blazing 
 eyes and raving mouth which shrieked incessantly, — 
 
 " Jacynth ! Jacynth ! Hold her ! See where she goes ! 
 Will no one stop her ? Running, running, running — look — 
 look ! — running straight into Hell ! Jacynth ! Jacynth ! All
 
 106 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 the devils at her ! — tearing her lovely body — her lovely body 
 that God made ! God ! Ha-ha ! I like that ! God ! There's 
 no God ! There never was ! It's all a lie ! " 
 
 Pale to the lips, Everton moved close up to the bed and 
 tried to get an arm round the writhing, twisting form. 
 
 " Bob ! "' he said, in a low, kind voice — " Bob ! Don't you 
 know me ? " 
 
 The wild eyes rolled round in their sockets — presently they 
 fixed him with a glassy stare. 
 
 " It's the parson ! " and, with a supreme effort, Bob Hadley 
 flung out his gaunt arms and hands as though to keep Everton 
 off — " You've come to see the last of me, have you ? Well ! 
 I'm glad ! I'm glad you've come ! " 
 
 Exhausted, he sank back upon his pillows, breathing hard 
 and fast. His mother stood at the foot of the bed watching 
 him in speechless terror. 
 
 " I'm glad," — he repeated, thickly — " I'm glad you've come ! 
 I — I want to speak to you — alone ! Mother ! " 
 
 Thankful to be recognised, the poor woman hastened to his 
 side. With extreme difficulty he lifted his head and kissed 
 her. 
 
 " That's the last good-bye ! "—he said—" Take it ! I'm 
 sorry not to have been a more useful son to you. Now go ! 
 I want to be left alone — alone — with him ! " 
 
 He indicated the Vicar by an imperative sign. With a wild 
 outbreak of pitiful sobs and tears, his mother turned and 
 tottered out of the room, and Everton, deeply moved, and 
 feeling that the final moments of this poor fighting life had 
 come, knelt down by the beside. Scarcely had he done so 
 when a burning hand caught him by the shoulder. 
 
 " Get up from that ! " said the dying man, in a weak, fierce 
 whisper — " Don't pray ! It's no use ! " 
 
 There was something so intensely horrible in the manner of 
 his utterance that Everton could find no words wherewith 
 to answer him, and could only gaze at him in stupefied amaze- 
 ment. 
 
 " It's no use, I tell you ! " Hadley went on — " With my last
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 107 
 
 breath I want to make you remember that I It's no use I I 
 wan t — I want to ask you why you have told me so many lies ? 
 Get up from your knees ! Stand like a man and answer 
 me!" 
 
 Slowly, and as if impelled by some stronger force than his 
 own, Everton stood up. A vague impalpable Shadow seemed 
 rising before him — a dumb, recording witness of his words. 
 
 " I have told you no lies, Hadley," — he said, in a voice of 
 steady tenderness and sweetness — " I have never tricked you ! 
 I have taught you to the best of my poor ability the truth of 
 Christ's saving message to mankind, and I have striven to 
 express to you the blessing of His love and pity for us all. 
 Your mind is clouded by physical paLi, my poor boy, or you 
 would never say there is no use in prayer. Let me try to prove 
 to ycu how very close God is to us both at this moment — so 
 close that He can make death itself seem easy " 
 
 " Death ! I care nothing for that ! I want to die ! " and 
 Hadley's features hardened, so that the pallid skin of his face 
 looked like an ivory mask carved into a frown of reckless 
 despair — " Death is the end of all things, and I want all things 
 to end ! I want to get out of the ruck for good and all ! It's 
 life that matters ! Jacynth's alive ! " His eyes protruded in a 
 kind of fury — he struggled for breath. Everton supported him 
 in his arms, and he fought inch by inch for the power of 
 speech. 
 
 "She's alive\ — she's all soft flesh andblood, and lovely to touch 
 and to look at — and I've prayed for her — prayed — prayed — 
 prayed ! — and the tyrant you call God is deaf and blind and 
 impotent ! He has done nothing — He has looked on and laughed 
 while she went to her damnation ! " His weak voice rose to a 
 kind of scream. " And you say God is good ! That He loves 
 us? It's a lie! No good God would have left Jacynth alone— He 
 would have saved her ! — He would have saved her — from " 
 
 His voice stepped, — his whole frame was shaken by an 
 agonised convulsion. He mastered the paroxysm by an almost 
 superhuman effort, and went on talking, or rather muttering in 
 fitful gasps —
 
 io8 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 " A world— a world ! " he said — " A world to live in like this, 
 where men are made to feel ! — to feel their hearts cry out for 
 love — love — love ! — and then — then — you come along — you 
 and your kind, — preaching Christ, — and telling us that our 
 passions are sins ! Sins ! Why then, the beasts and the birds 
 are better off than we are, — no one curses them for mating — 
 and the God you talk about seems to care for them even more 
 than He care^ for us, for they're ever so much freer and 
 happier ! Love, I say ! — love ! — it's what the Lord Christ 
 never knew — it's what He missed — love for a woman ! — and 
 there He fails to be our brother in sorrow ! " 
 
 Everton tried to speak, but Hadley's desperate struggle with 
 his own rapidly increasing weakness was so terrible to witness 
 that he was held silent despite himself. 
 
 " Don't preach, but listen ! " — went on the thin, wild voice 
 — " You'll have years of talking yet — I've only got minutes. 
 Jacynth — she came to see me — last night — I touched her hair 
 — her face — I held her in my arms — that's all the Heaven I 
 want — and I'm willing to rp to Hell for it ! But she — she's 
 lost — lost ! — try if you can do anything — save her from herself 
 — from the shame " 
 
 Writhing out of Everton's arms he fell back on his pillows, 
 and a strange awed stare froze within his eyeballs and turned 
 his features to the semblance of grey marble. Moved by a 
 speechless pain and sorrow, the Vicar once more dropped upon 
 his knees. 
 
 " O merciful Father ! " he cried aloud—" Let Thy light 
 shine upon this passing soul that it may see the glory beyond 
 the gloom, and know Thee as Thou art in all Thy love and 
 wisdom ! Say unto this storm of life : ' Peace, be still ! ' and 
 let there be a great calm ! " 
 
 The stony face upon the bed seemed to fix him with a last 
 entreating look — the ashen lips moved. 
 
 " Save Jacynth ! " — and the words came fesbly like a breath 
 upon the air — " Give her — give her — my love ! " 
 
 A tense stillness followed, — and Everton, burying his face 
 in his hands, prayed long and earnestly. When he rose, he
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 109 
 
 knew he was alone with a dead man. Reverently closing the 
 glazing eyes of the corpse, he went out of the room and g-ntly 
 told the weeping mother that her son was 'at rest.' His lips 
 trembled as he uttered the words, for in his own heart he felt 
 they were scarcely true. Young Hadley had passed from life 
 to death in a condition of mind which religion itself had no 
 chance to improve or sustain — and Everton was too honest 
 with himself to disguise the fact. Every grain of faith and 
 resignation and hope had been swept away like dust before 
 the wind by — what ? Merely the beauty of a woman ! The 
 loveliness of smiling flesh and blood, which the dying man 
 had coveted to the last moment of his consciors existence — 
 and there was no sort of ' heaven ' in the craving — only a very 
 real and positive hell. 
 
 " I did wrong," — thought Everton, miserably — " I did a 
 very wrong and foolish thing in persuading Jacynth to go and 
 visit the poor unhappy fellow — I ought to have known better ; 
 the mere sight of her completely unsettled his mind." 
 
 Unable to bear his own reflections, and distressed beyond 
 measure by the hysterical break-down of Mrs. Hadley, who, 
 like the woman in the Testament, was a widow, and her dead 
 boy 'the only son of his mother,' he soon left the cottage, 
 and resolved to take a brisk walk of a mile or two before 
 returning home to show a more or less grieved countenance 
 to his wife who could not patiently endure even the shadow 
 of trouble. He had scarcely gone a few yards beyond the 
 village, however, before he was met and confronted by the very 
 person who, despite himself, was uppermost in his thoughts, — 
 Jacynth Miller. She was a little breathless, as though she had 
 been running, and her cheeks were beautifully flushed with the 
 delicate pink of an opening rose. 
 
 " Mr. Everton," — she began — and then stopped, checked by 
 the stern gravity of his expression. A warmer crimson reddened 
 her face and her eyes flashed a sudden challenge. " Is any- 
 thing wrong ? " 
 
 "Nothing," — he answered coldly — "Only that I have just 
 come from Bob Hadley's deathbed."
 
 no HOLY ORDERS 
 
 She looked puzzled for a moment. Everton found himself 
 studying the droop of a few flowers which were carelessly 
 pinned at the open neck of her blue bodice — a bodice too 
 blue, so he thought, and much too open for day wear on a 
 March afternoon. She caught his glance, and a wavering 
 smile trembled on her lips. 
 
 "Is Bob dead?" she then asked, with sudden pitifulness — 
 " Really dead ? " 
 
 He bent his head silently. 
 
 " Did you see him die ? " 
 
 Again he made a dumb affirmative sign. 
 
 "Poor Bob! I wish I had been there!" she said, and an 
 odd expression of self-rapture illumined her features — " He 
 was so fond of me, that I am sure he would have taken me 
 for his guardian angel just come to fetch him to Heaven ! '' 
 
 She uttered these words in the most natural way in the 
 world, and for a moment he gazed at her in mute wonder- 
 ment. Then he spoke, and for once his usual sweetness of 
 manner failed him. 
 
 " No doubt he would ! " — and his voice shook, — " Sick men 
 are often the victims of delusion ! " 
 
 She laughed softly. 
 
 " It's nice to be deluded ! " — she said — " It's pleasant to be 
 told pretty things, especially when one's ill. I'm sure poor 
 Bob died hard, — and I would have made his death quite easy ! 
 It seems so strange to think that he's gone ! — I was with him 
 last night for an hour — you told me to go and see him ! — and 
 he was ever so happy, and he asked me to kiss him, and I did. 
 He wanted to die then — just that very minute ! •"' 
 
 Everton took a sudden grip of his own mental forces. 
 
 " I am sorry," — he said — " very sorry, Jacynth, that I asked 
 you to go and see him. For I think your visit was the imme- 
 diate cause of his death. And when I went to him to-day, it 
 seemed to me as if he had lost all faith in God " 
 
 " Because he was leaving me ? " queried Jacynth, with demure 
 simplicity — " Poor Bob ! He said last night he should meet 
 me in Pleaven, — but I told him no, I was not going that way."
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE in 
 
 " Jacynth ! " Everton's accents were sharp and stern — " I 
 cannot permit you to talk to me like this. You are a mere 
 girl — a headstrong, foolish girl — and you should know that 
 your words are wicked and unworthy of you as a Christian. 
 I thought you were going to try and please me " 
 
 He broke off, vexed to see sudden tears in her eyes. 
 
 " I can't please you, Mr. Everton," — she said, slowly — " It's 
 not in me to do it, and I'm not going to try. I shall never be 
 good — goodness bores me. I can only be myself. See ! " 
 and with an unconsciously effective gesture she swept one 
 hand round, expressively indicating all the landscape — u Here 
 are trees and grass and flowers, and birds — I love them all ! 
 None of them have any churches or clergymen to teach them, 
 — and yet they all make their own happiness their own way. 
 They all die, — of course everything dies, — but not till they've 
 most of them had a good time. I want my good time, and I 
 don't care how I get it. I like to be admired — I like every 
 man who sees me to want me more than anything else on 
 earth — for the moment! — it is never more than fcr the moment, 
 you know!" — and she shot a glance up at him from the shadow 
 of her curling lashes. " But — it's always a grand moment ! 
 I kept away from Bob Hadley, because he was ill, and I 
 thought I did him harm — but when you said : ' Go and see 
 him' — I went — though I knew it would be the death of him. 
 Put yourself in his place, Mr. Everton ! — suppose that you 
 loved a woman more than God, and that death was taking you 
 away from her altogether, — would you not curse and swear 
 just as Bob did ? " 
 
 Completely taken aback by the confident effrontery of her 
 speech and manner, he looked at her for a moment in grave, 
 reproachful amazement. She met his look with a smile of 
 perfect sweetness — but he set his lips hard and faced her 
 resolutely, as though she were a fair fiend sent to tempt his soul. 
 
 "I do not understand you, Jacynth,"— -he said coldly — 
 "You talk in a way you should not — and I think you know it. 
 I cannot for a moment imagine myself or any man loving a 
 woman more than God."
 
 ii2 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 She opened her dark eyes, showing him a luminous world 
 of wonder in their depths. 
 
 " You cannot ? Oh ! — but — of course you cannot — you're 
 a clergyman. I forgot ! I thought " 
 
 She drooped her head, and it seemed to Everton that her 
 bosom trembled with suppressed laughter. 
 
 A sense of anger burned within him ; — was he, — the Vicar 
 of the parish, — so powerless, so wavering and indulgent and 
 weak, that he could do nothing to convince this girl of her 
 vanity and folly, and lead her out of the error of her ways ? 
 
 " You thought what ? " he asked, sternly. 
 
 She glanced at him demurely. 
 
 " Only — that you were perhaps like other men," — she said. 
 
 At this he smiled — and there was a touch of scorn in the 
 smile. 
 
 " I hope and think I am like other men," — he said quietly — 
 " Other men who know that the greatest happiness on earth is 
 to serve God faithfully, and for His sake to fight against all 
 evil things that strive to separate our souls from Him " 
 
 " Am I an evil thing ? " she interrupted him, suddenly. 
 
 " Pray God you are not ! " he said, simply. 
 
 She was silent. Two bright tears rolled down her cheeks and 
 dropped among the flowers at her breast. He was touched, 
 despite himself. It was well nigh impossible not to feel a certain 
 compassion for this wayward beautiful creature, fatherless and 
 motherless as she was, and left to the casual protection of 
 an aged relative who only sought to make use of her as a 
 'handy' girl to fetch and carry, — and he began to think again, 
 as he had often thought lately, whether he could not find a 
 means of placing her in some establishment where she could 
 be trained to suitable employment that should occupy her 
 mind as well as procure her a means of livelihood. 
 
 " If she were not so lovely," — he mused — " it would be easy." 
 
 That was just the difficulty — ' if she were not so lovely.' 
 And he caught himself studying every line of the • difficulty,' 
 — the hair, the eyes, the figure, the exquisite rose-leaf skin — 
 and then, as his mind dwelt persistently on these varying
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 113 
 
 charms, he pulled himself together, and decided that it was 
 not a man's business to manage the girl at all. His wife, — 
 Azalea must be called upon to take her in hand, — and yet, as 
 this idea crossed his mind he knew how absurd it was for him 
 to entertain it for a moment. Azalea and Jacynth ! As well 
 seek to bring the opposite poles together, or ask fire and water 
 to mingle in unison ! 
 
 "Jacynth," — he said, at last — " I should like to have a quiet 
 talk with you " 
 
 She looked up quickly. 
 
 " Now?''" she asked. 
 
 " No — not now, — in two or three days' time — after poor Rob 
 Hadley is buried. Come to the Vicarage- " 
 
 "What will Mrs. Everton say?" — and she smiled the ques- 
 tion, rather than spoke it. Something in her tone annoyed 
 him. He drew himself up a trifle stiffly. 
 
 " I.Irs. Everton will say as she has always said " — he replied, 
 "that she hopes I may persuade you to be reasonable raid 
 gentle — to be more careful of your conduct " 
 
 Jacynth bughed lightly. 
 
 " I don't think she hopes anything of the kind," she said — 
 " She knows I'm past all that. I can't be reasonable — not in 
 the way you mean, — reasonable people are always so dull. I 
 hate being dull ! But I won't be a trouble to you, Mr. 
 Everton — I promise that ! I'll make a change ! See here," 
 and with an impetuous movement she laid one hand con- 
 fidently on his arm — " You're a good man, I'm sure, — at least 
 I know you're trying to be good ! You're trying to be better 
 and wiser than the birds and the animals — I'm not. The 
 Testament tells us that God cares for the sparrows and the 
 lilies of the field — I don't presume to be more valuable than a 
 sparrow, and I'm certainly not half so nice as a lily of the field. 
 If God looks after me as much as He does after those two 
 things, I'm all right. I don't mind the rest. But I swear to 
 you " — here she spoke with extraordinary vehemence, and her 
 great eyes glittered like stars on a wintry night — "that next 
 time you see me I'll be different. I will ! " 
 8
 
 ii 4 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 Her manner startled him a little. She looked at him so 
 straightly, and withal so defiantly, that he was at a loss what to 
 reply. After a pause, he said, gently — 
 
 " Is that a promise, Jacynth ? " 
 
 " That's a promise ! " and with a sudden desperate gesture 
 she flung up her avms to heaven — " Do you hear it, Almighty 
 God ? It's a promise ! " 
 
 He recoiled from her with a kind of nervous dread upon 
 him. There was something so wild and reckless about her 
 thxt he wondered — with the usual despairing sensation that 
 always affected him when he thought of the one great curse 
 of his parish which he was powerless to remove — whether she 
 had been drinking? She caught his look, — and, understand- 
 ing it, laughed aloud. 
 
 " I know what you think ! " she said — " If one of the 
 prophets who raved about God in the Bible were to stand here 
 now and begin to rant and scream, you'd say he was drunk ! 
 Isaiah wouldn't get a hearing at any price ! " 
 
 "Jacynth!" And his utterance of her name was like a 
 sharp exclamation of pain. 
 
 "Jacynth ! " she echoed, half sadly, half mockingly — "Poor 
 Jacynth ! A girl with only a face for a fortune ! That's the 
 trouble ! Well, good-bye, Mr. Everton ! I've made you a 
 promise — and you'll see I'll keep it ! Good-bye ! " 
 
 Before he could utter a word in answer she had gone, 
 running past him over the old stone bridge into the village 
 with the flying fleetness of a bird. He turned to look at her 
 as she fled, and all at once, as though a chord had been 
 struck in his brain; he heard the frantic cry of the dead man 
 who had loved her — " Jacynth ! Jacynth ! See where she 
 goes ! Will no one stop her? Running, running, running — 
 look — look ! — running straight into Hell ! " 
 
 Everton shuddered as with an inward cold. 
 
 "Something must be done for that girl," — he said — "Some- 
 thing must be done before it is too late ! "
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 nPWO or three days passed, and during this interval 
 JL Shadbrook took upon itself a curious aspect of bland and 
 decent dejection, — an aspect it always assumed whenever there 
 was a death in the village. Everybody had known for a long 
 time that young Hadley's illness could only have one possible 
 termination, — and when that fatal end arrived no one was 
 really surprised or very sorry, yet all thought it the ' proper ' 
 thing to affect an air of gentle resignation, as of persons who 
 were unjustly maltreated by a cruel and untoward destiny. 
 Ulinds were drawn in the cottage windows of both ' old ' and 
 ' new ' Shadbrook — and even the venerable ' Mortar ' Pike sat 
 obstinately in his chimney-corner, refusing to move, and 
 appaiently considering himself a more or less injured party 
 because he was not yet ' laid out ' as a corpse. 
 
 "For," said he — "that there Bob Hadley worn't three-and- 
 twenty, an' look at me, goin' on for ninety-three this August ! 
 Seems to me the Lord don't want me nohow. I'm sort o' left 
 stickin' in the furrow while the plough goes on." 
 
 As long as this state of things lasted, Everton rather avoided 
 the village, for experience had taught him that the rustic mind 
 revels in the affairs of death, and that when country folk are 
 preparing for a funeral, it is a kind of personal festivity for 
 them in which they resent all interference. He knew, or 
 rather he imagined, that if he were wanted, he would be sent 
 for. He had yet to learn that under certain circumstances of 
 difficulty occurring to what are called the ' common ' people, 
 the very last person they think of consulting, is the Vicar of the 
 
 "5
 
 n6 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 parish. It ought not to be so, but so it is. And the cause is 
 not far to seek, for in nine cases out of ten the Vicar of the 
 parish is so centred in himself and his own concerns that he 
 has no sympathy to spare for any wandering or wounded 
 member of his flock. " I do not wander," — he says, — " Why 
 should you pursue so undesirable a course ? / am not 
 wounded — why do you bleed ? " 
 
 Everton, however, was not one of the priestly egoists of 
 whom there are so many abusing the world nowadays in the 
 name of Christ, — and had the poorest or most erring of his 
 parishioners sought his aid in trouble, he would have given it 
 with all his heart and power, no matter at what cost or pain 
 to himself. Unfortunately, his flock did not entirely grasp 
 this fact. He had only been with them a little over three 
 years, — and though they were all decidedly impressed in his 
 favour, yet the memory of at least two past vicars had made it 
 difficult for them to understand that a man may be a parson 
 and honest at one and the same time. So they were cautious 
 — not to say secretive — in their dealings with him, — or perhaps 
 it would be better to describe their general attitude towards 
 him as one of reticence mingled with respect. He himself 
 was sorrowfully conscious that there was an invisible wall 
 between his personality and their humble lives, — a wall which 
 he had now and then looked over by chance, but which he 
 had never been able to scale. Nevertheless, he bore his 
 isolation very peaceably, — he was patient-minded, and hoped 
 almost against hope that some day — a day no matter how 
 distant, provided it should come at last, — some day they would 
 realise that he was truly their friend, faithful in purpose, and 
 loving in intention, seeking to live the Christ-life to the best 
 of his human ability, — a life easy to preach of, but more 
 difficult to practise than any ethical theory ever propounded to 
 the world by teachers un-Divine. And in his instinctive 
 knowledge of the fact that when one of their little community 
 was ' taken ' as they put it, they preferred to be left alone to 
 manage their own peculiar ceremonies cf ' laying out ' and 
 1 watching ' the dead without the intrusion of one who, though
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 117 
 
 the head of the parish, was more or less a stranger to their 
 habits and customs, he kept away from them during the time 
 that he knew they were all, like children at a fair, enjoying the 
 lugubrious preparations for the funeral of Bob Hadley. The 
 Kiernans made no sign, — and on the strength of the idea that 
 no news was good news, he supposed all was well. Once or 
 twice he felt strongly inclined to call at Dan Kiernan's cottage 
 and make enquiries as to the condition of that redoubtable 
 drunkard's ill-used but uncomplaining wife, — but remembering 
 Dan's fierce anger at his " busy-bodyin' " — decided to leave 
 matters as they were for the present. Once he asked Azalea 
 if the had heard anything about Mrs. Kiernan, and that 
 charming little lady had given her shoulders a most expressive 
 shrug as she replied — 
 
 " No — not a word ! You know, Dick, they don't want us 
 — especially when we notice their domestic quarrels ! They 
 quite hate us, then ! — they really do ! And perhaps, after all, 
 they are right. If / quarrelled with you, ox you quarrelled with 
 me, I shouldn't like anybody to come and ask me about it ! — I 
 really shouldn't — net even a Bishop ! " 
 
 He laughed at the open roundness of her child-like blue eyes. 
 
 " My dear, I only wanted to know if the poor wretched 
 woman had recovered," — he said, lightly — " Dan Kiernan had 
 undoubtedly hurt her very much " 
 
 ' ; Oh, but she liked it ! " declared Azalea — " She wouldn't 
 hear a word ogainst him ! And, Dick, you ought to remember 
 that if women like to be knocked down by their husbands, you 
 really can't prevent it ! If Mrs. Kiernan were any worse, the 
 doctor would have sent us word, — I'm sure you needn't be at 
 all anxious on that score ! Nobody in the village is bothering 
 about her at all, — they're all quite taken up with that poor 
 dead man, — and they won't think of anything else till he's 
 buried. Dear me ! " and she heaved a little sigh — " I do wish 
 it didn't remind me so of wasps ! " 
 
 " Wasps ! " he exclaimed — " Azalea, what do you mean ! " 
 
 " Oh, I know it sounds dreadful and irreverent and all that ! " 
 she said, with a dimpling smile — " but I really can't help it,
 
 B 
 
 118 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 Dick ! Haven't you ever seen a wasp's funeral ? / have ! I 
 saw one not long ago in the garden. The dead wasp was on 
 the lawn, — and there came a whole lot of other wasps buzzing 
 round it and making the most awful fuss — and the crowd got 
 thicker and thicker, and each wasp seemed to have something 
 to say about the body — and then they settled in a mass upon 
 it, — and I watched the whole business, till suddenly they all 
 flew away — and — there was not a vestige of the wasp corpse 
 left ! It was gone ! " Here she put on a face of the greatest 
 seriousness. " What do you suppose became of it ? " 
 
 " Can't imagine ! " and Everton laughed again — " Have you 
 any idea ? " 
 
 She raised herself on tiptoe, and with a coaxing touch pre- 
 tended to arrange his tie more becomingly. 
 
 " Yes, I have — but I don't like to say it," she answered — " I 
 think it was eaten up ! I do ! I believe that's the way wasps 
 get rid of their defunct friends and relatives ! Of course I'm 
 wrong, — and some dreadful spectacled old entomologist would 
 tell me I'm a perfect fool. But that's how the thing appeared 
 to me. And when I see ail the villagers of Shadbrook swarming 
 round Mrs. Hadley's cottage and wanting ' to look at the 
 corpse ' — that's what they say, you know ! — it makes me feel 
 wasps all over ! " 
 
 Everton struggled with his feelings ; he tried to check his 
 mirth and to look serious, but it was no use. Azalea was per- 
 fectly incorrigible. To her there was nothing of grave import 
 in life or death, — persons and events presented themselves to 
 her in a manner which to him was incomprehensible and yet 
 comical, — he could hardly reproach her, and yet he knew well 
 enough that the way in which she viewed the sorrows of others, 
 proved her to be lacking in that delicate sympathy which poets 
 in olden time used gallantly to maintain was the best charm of 
 a perfect woman. She had indeed a faculty resembling that of 
 the halfpenny modern press, which chiefly rejoices in its ability 
 to make a jest of everything, even of the honour and renown of 
 the country on whose too easy tolerance it battens. There is a 
 strong taint of the monkey in all semi-educated men and women
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 119 
 
 — a tendency to grin and chatter and throw nutshells at the 
 sun. The mongrel man, who is a cross between an ape and a 
 savage, cannot be expected to appreciate the highest and 
 purest things of life, — and it is just because the mongrel breeds 
 are gaining undue ascendency in human affairs that poetry has 
 been killed outright and all the sister arts are slowly dying. 
 Too many mongrels are in control of our press, our finance and 
 our government, — and it is possible we may have to wait a 
 couple of centuries yet, before with fire and sword ve cleanse 
 our Augean stables and recover the true types of noble Man- 
 hood and Womanhood for the grace and the glory of England. 
 Meanwhile it is the fashion to ' sneer down ' warmth of heart 
 and sentiment, — and Azalea, though she had a certain amount 
 of tenderness and feeling in her dainty composition, was so far 
 from wishing to give way to such 'weakness' that she preferred 
 to laugh at a serious subject rather than take time to consider 
 it. Her husband looking at her now, as in all her pink and 
 white prettiness she smiled up into his face, realised in a flash 
 of comprehension how utterly futile it would be to talk to her 
 about the spiritual and moral needs of Jacynth Miller. For a 
 moment he had thought that perhaps he could persuade her to 
 have the girl at the Vicarage for a day or two so that she might 
 talk to her and reason with her ' like a sister,' — so he had said 
 to himself in the simple, foolish way of a perfectly guileless man 
 who is generally hopelessly ignorant of the complex nature of a 
 woman. But somehow after her story of the wasp's funeral, 
 he felt that he could not speak to her at all on the topic which 
 just now was uppermost in his mind. If the loneliness and 
 sorrow of a broken-hearted widow deprived of her only son, 
 could not move her to any sense of real compassion, then the 
 uncertain prospect of a girl's life — especially when that girl was 
 as beautiful as Jacynth — would scarcely appeal to her interest. 
 Teased by his own thoughts, he gave a slight sigh. His wife 
 put her fair arms caressingly about him. 
 
 " You're vexed, I'm sure ! " — she murmured — " You don't 
 like my 'wasp' way of looking at funerals ! I know it's quite 
 wicked of me, but "
 
 120 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 He interrupted her with a kiss. 
 
 " You have a merry heart, little one," — he said, tenderly — 
 " And may you always keep it ! For myself I'm afraid I feel 
 the griefs of others rather keenly — and I can't forget poor 
 Hadley's tortured eyes, or his mother's despair " 
 
 " I knew it would be disagreeable ! " — and drawing herself 
 away from him she gave a tiny shake of her skirts expressive 
 of defiance — "And you didn't do him any good by going and 
 praying at his bedside — I'm sure you didn't ! " 
 
 He was silent. 
 
 " Sometimes," she went on — " dying people get worse directly 
 they see the clergyman. I should, I'm sure ! Though, of 
 course, it will be all right when I die, because you're my 
 husband, and there you are, all ready " 
 
 With a sudden passionate exclamation he caught her in his 
 arms. 
 
 " Azalea, my darling, don't talk like that ! You die ! You I 
 Oh my love, my wife ! — don't you know I couldn't live without 
 you ! Do you think I could pray by your deathbed ? " 
 
 She clung to him, trembling a little. 
 
 " Couldn't you ? " she whispered—" Why not ? " 
 
 His hands closed jealously over her little golden-curled 
 head, and he pressed her almost roughly to his heart. 
 
 " Don't ask me ! " he whispered back — " It's too hard a 
 question !• " 
 
 A silence followed — a silence in which love, and love only, 
 held them both in thrall. Everton almost heard the strong 
 pulsation of the warm life-blood in his veins, — while at the 
 same time his spiritual inward self shuddered as it were, on 
 the brink of an abyss of eternal cold. Azalea's query had 
 for the moment startled him with a kind of terror. For — if 
 he could not pray by the deathbed of one whom he himself 
 loved, where was his professed faith in the great Creed of 
 Christ with which he sought to console others? He dared 
 not pursue the thought. The exquisite undefinable emotion 
 he felt in the mere act of holding his wife in his close embrace 
 was but a part of his ordinary earthly experience and existence
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 121 
 
 — a bodily ecstasy with which this world aione was connected, 
 and which certainly was not promised in the world to com>-. 
 For there, according to Scripture, both marrying and giving 
 in marriage are at an end, and redeemed souls are 'as the 
 angels of God in Heaven.' Whether those angels, as in the 
 poem of 'Annabel Lee,' covet the love of human beings on 
 earth, is a fantastic point only fit to be argued by dreamers 
 and romancists — but so far as Richard Everton was concerned, 
 he would not at that moment have exchanged the delight of 
 his own personal passion for all the glory of an impersonal 
 paradise. Of course the ardent glow of feeling was brief, — 
 it always is. No human being can stand too long upon the 
 topmost peak of joy. It is always necessary to come down, — 
 sometimes to fall off precipitately, — but Azalea managed to 
 make a more graceful descent by slipping gently out of her 
 husband's arms and shaking her pretty head at him as though 
 he were a naughty boy. 
 
 " We've been quite sentimental ! " she said — " And — oh, 
 Dick! — how you've rumpled my hair!" 
 
 He smiled, and going to his desk began to turn over 
 papers mechanically. His nerves were quivering like harp- 
 strings swept by a storm, — and every touch upon them awoke 
 a tone of melody or discord. In days to come he was 
 destined to remember those few moments fraught with 
 meaning, when the overwhelming knowledge of his own 
 weakness as a minister of Christ, had borne down his 
 imagined spiritual force with a sudden chill blow, — when 
 he had realised that the dying Hadley's words might yet 
 challenge him from the grave as to the use of prayer, — and 
 when for the first time he had felt like 'a reed shaken in 
 the wind ' by the mere dread thought of being called upon 
 to pray for his own wife's departing soul. A witty French 
 philosopher assures us that there is nothing which we can 
 bear with greater equanimity than the misfortunes of others, 
 • — and no one is more frequently called upon to display this 
 heroic form of endurance than a clergyman. Often he 
 becomes so accustomed to it that he forgets he is not
 
 122 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 absolutely safeguarded himself from affliction, and when 
 he is made the object of a 'visitation' in the way of 
 suffering, he is not only surprised but frequently offended. 
 He considers it unjust that God, whom he serves according 
 to orthodox Church rule, should retaliate upon him with 
 any rods in pickle. Yet such rods are often laid sharply 
 across his back, and if science be correct in the assertion 
 that nothing is without a cause for being, then we must 
 presume he has deserved the castigation, even though his 
 faults be not publicly apparent. And so truly did Everton 
 grasp the sense of his own unworthiness, that in a kind of 
 semi-conscious way, he mentally sought to punish himself for 
 enjoying too much happiness. 
 
 " I am really one of the most fortunate men in the world," 
 — he argued — " God has showered benefits .upon me, — and 
 yet how many times a day lately have I not grumbled at 
 the limitations of my life at Shadbrook ! I ought to be 
 ashamed of my discontent. I am not half grateful enough 
 for all the blessings I have, — for my wife and child — for my 
 house and all its comforts — for the peace and health of a 
 country life, — for the chances of helping and comforting 
 my parishioners, — why, there are a thousand things which 
 should move me to hourly thanksgiving ! And yet I am 
 often churlish aud dissatisfied. I have even imagined that 
 I deserve a wider sphere of intellectual effort than my 
 present charge, — what insufferable conceit on my part ! 
 Evidently I must take myself strongly in hand. I need to 
 learn the lesson of gratitude — the one least known by all 
 the world of men ! " 
 
 And even as he thought, so he acted, and set about all his 
 duties with a patiently renewed and earnestly re-considered 
 zeal. When the day came for Hadley's funeral, he performed 
 that last sad religious rite with a gentle tenderness and com- 
 passion for the deeply distressed mother of the dead lad that 
 did not fail to impress all those of his parishioners who were 
 present with a sense of something like surprise that a parson 
 should deem it worth his while to be so brotherly and kind to
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 123 
 
 the merely ' common ' folk. There were, however, very few 
 that followed the corpse to the grave, — and these few were, or 
 appeared to be more uneasy than grieved. Everton, always 
 keenly sensitive to impressions, caught one or two of their 
 shifty glances at him, and wondered what they had in their 
 minds. When all was over, and the poor weeping Mrs. Hadley 
 had thrown a small bunch of white narcissi upon the coffin 
 that held everything that was mortal of the son she had brought 
 into the world for no greater end than this, — he waited a few 
 moments in the churchyard, while the small group of mourners 
 slowly dispersed ; and an uncomfortable feeling came over him 
 that there was something wrong, but what it was he could not 
 determine. He watched the sexton casting spadefuls of rich 
 brown earth into the open grave, and presently spoke to him, 
 though he knew there was nothing in the way of information to 
 be got out of a man who had won for himself the nickname of 
 'Silent Stowey ' on account of his extreme taciturnity. 
 
 " Poor Hadley seems to have had very few friends," — he 
 said. 
 
 Jacob Stowey, verger, sexton, bell-ringer and general useful 
 man about the church, looked up for a second, then down 
 again, and went on with his ' shovelling in.' 
 
 " All the village knew him, and knew how long and patiently 
 he had suffered," — continued Everton — "I should have 
 thought " 
 
 " That all the village 'ud be 'ere ! " — interrupted Stowey — 
 " But it ain't." 
 
 He moistened his hands and worked with fresh energy. 
 
 "The people seemed so sorry about it, and so sympathetic," 
 h^re Everton, despite himself, thought of Azalea's description 
 of the ' wasp's funeral ' — " They must be able to forget very 
 quickly, or some other event must have happened of greater 
 interest " 
 
 Stowey turned his head and weather-beaten visage slowly 
 round, and surveyed the Vicar with a pair of very vague, filmy 
 grey eyes. 
 
 " Mebbe that's it,"— he said—" Mebbe."
 
 124 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 He threw more spadefuls of earth over Hadley s now 
 invisible coffin. Everton hesitated another moment, standing 
 by the grave like an almost supernatural figure, with the wind 
 blowing his surplice about him in snow-white folds, as of the 
 mantle of a saint or a martyr. 
 
 "But there's nothing," — he began tentatively. 
 
 " Nawt's told me, an' I knows nawt," — said Stowey — " I bells 
 an' I buries — but I doan't clapperwag. Clapperwaggin's for 
 ir: aids an' fools, an' I bain't naither." 
 
 He continued his work, and Everton, feeling it would be 
 useless to ask him any more questions, presently bade him a 
 cheery good-day and left him. 
 
 All the rest of that afternoon he happened to be particularly 
 busy ; there was a great dol of correspondence to clear and 
 accounts to make up, so that he did not go out, but remained 
 for the most part of the time in his study. Not a single caller 
 came near the Vicarage, and the hours lagged slowly and some- 
 what heavily away. With the fall of evening he put by his 
 books and papers as usual, and gave himself over to the quiet 
 joys of domesticity, which for him were very few and simple. 
 Chief among them was the privilege of seeing his small son 
 4 tubbed ' and put to bed — a function in which Master Laurence 
 displayed himself to the best advantage, kicking out his well- 
 knit little limbs in every direction and portively revelling in 
 every splash of the sponge in the water. No angel ever smiled 
 more divinely than he did, when, nude as a cupid and only 
 lacking wings, he sat on his nurse's knee waiting for his clean 
 night-gown to be put on, — he was all radiant with comfort and 
 good-nature, and it was difficult to realise that such a beautiful, 
 innocent little being was destined to become that too often sad 
 and weary thing, a Man. It was a point on which Everton 
 often dwelt with a certain wistful and tender solicitude. 
 
 "Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof!" he mused — 
 " Only — the cruellest part of it all is that the evil is sure to 
 come ! '' 
 
 That night he sat in the drawing-room reading, or rather 
 pretending to read, while his wife sang to him, — another of
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 125 
 
 his purely 'domestic' pleasures. Azalea had a very small 
 voice, — there was not a thrill of emotion in it, but it was pretty 
 and bird-like, and sounded particularly sweet in a more than 
 usually senseless song about " Meet me in de corn when de 
 wind am blowin'." There was no real sentiment in the thing, 
 but somehow, as he heard the clear, light, child-like soprano 
 warbling the ' coon ' nonsense which passed for a love-ditty, he 
 was touched to a feeling of something like tears. He laid the 
 open book he held gently on the table, and looked lovingly at 
 his wife's dainty figure seated at the piano. The lamplight 
 gleamed on the gold of her hair, twisted in its many shining 
 love-locks, and flashed on the white roundness of her arms. 
 
 "Dere's a breakin' in de clouds an' de stars am showin', 
 Oh meet me in de corn when de wind am blowin' ! " 
 
 she sang in quaintly tender little notes of level tune — perfectly 
 monotonous and passionless, yet effective in their way, and 
 sufficient to charm any man who was not too captious a critic. 
 A knock at the drawing-room door broke the spell — the music 
 ceased, and a maid-servant entered. 
 
 " Dr. Brand w r ould like to see you, sir," — she said. 
 
 " Dr. Brand ! " The Vicar echoed the name in some surprise 
 and glanced at his watch— "Why it's nearly ten o'clock." 
 
 " Yes, sir, but he said it was urgent." 
 
 " Somebody dying again ! " sighed Azalea. 
 
 Her husband made no answer to this, but quietly left the 
 room. Brand was awaiting him in the study. 
 
 "I'm sorry to disturb you so late in the evening, Mr. 
 Everton," he said—" But I thought I'd better come and tell 
 you myself. Mrs. Kiernan " 
 
 "Is she worse ? " 
 
 " She's dead." 
 
 " Dead ! " Everton stood amazed. There was a shock in 
 the brevity of the announcement. " Dead ! Why I thought 
 she was getting well " 
 
 "So she was," — and 'Dr. Harry' took two or three turns
 
 126 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 up and down the room in rather a perturbed way — "There was 
 nothing at all in the nature of her physical injuries that should 
 have killed her. It was worry — the woman fretted herself to 
 death." 
 
 " When did she die ? " 
 
 "Just now, — half an hour ago. Mr. Everton," — and the 
 doctor spoke with sudden and emphatic earnestness — " We 
 mustn't think of charging Kiernan with having caused the 
 death of his wife. One would be strongly inclined to do so, — 
 but knowing all the facts " 
 
 He broke off, and again paced up and down restlessly. 
 
 " It's a wretched business ! " he said irritably — " I wish to 
 God you had known the whole thing from the beginning, — then 
 your wife would not have been mixed up in it " 
 
 " My wife ! " The Vicar's voice and face expressed utter 
 and genuine bewilderment — " My wife ! " 
 
 "Well, it was your wife who told Mrs. Kiernan all about 
 Dan's fooling with Jacynth Miller, and of course it got on the 
 poor creature's mind — then, when Jacynth went away from the 
 village the day before yesterday, Dan behaved like a madman 
 and made a scene " 
 
 " Wait ! — wait a minute ! " and Everton put his hand to his 
 forehead in a dazed way — " I don't understand you. You say 
 you wish I had known from the beginning. Known what?" 
 
 Brand looked at him for a moment hesitatingly. 
 
 " It's not a pleasant story, Mr. Everton," — he said, at last — 
 " and I wish I hadn't to tell it. The villagers have all been 
 trying to hide it and hush it up — honestly I believe, only for 
 the sake of the poor woman that's gone, who was a decent, 
 hard-working body. But here it is. Dan Kiernan has been 
 Jacynth Miller's lover for the past six months " 
 
 " Jacynth Miller ! Kiernan her lover ! Good God ! " 
 
 And Everton stared before him with strained unseeing eyes. 
 
 "Naturally the women knew," — went on Brand — "With all 
 her cleverness Jacynth could not hide her guilt from them, — 
 and Mrs. Everton was aware of it, — but I daresay she did not 
 quite like to tell you. Anyhow, after Kiernan's drunken
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 127 
 
 attack on his wife, when Mrs. Everton went to visit her, she 
 found — so I heard from Mrs. Adcott — that Jacynth had been 
 up all night with Dan in the kitchen next to the room where 
 Mrs. Kiernan lay ill. And she was so horrified and indignant 
 that she told the truth to Mrs. Kiernan then and there — which 
 /think was an unfortunate move." 
 
 Everton had been listening os though he were lost in a 
 dream. 
 
 "And then?" he queried, in a level tone of voice — " What 
 happened ? " 
 
 " Nothing — except that Mrs. Adcott begged her not to 
 mention the miserable scandal to you, till Mrs. Kiernan got 
 well — and she promised. But the trouble of it is, Mrs. 
 Kiernan never really rallied thoroughly — she was sometimes 
 better and sometimes worse — and the finish of it all came when 
 it was known that Jacynth had gone " 
 
 " Gone ! " repeated Everton — " She has gone ? " 
 
 " Yes, — no one knows where." 
 
 There was a brief silence. Then the Vicar spoke. 
 
 " I am sorry," — he said gently, — " very sorry I did not hear, 
 or find out all this for myself, before. I should — I should 
 have understood better how to act. It is very difficult for the 
 clergyman of a parish to make his influence felt, or his presence 
 useful, if he is purposely kept in the dark concerning matters 
 which ought, rightly, to be brought to his attention. I do not 
 easily suspect evil " — and a slight flush warmed the pallor of his 
 face — " and it may be that I, — I myself, am possibly to blame 
 for the incident of Jacynth Miller's staying the night in 
 Kiernan's cottage while his wife was ill, — for I chanced to 
 meet her in the village on the day the assault took place, and 
 shs told me she could and would keep Dan away from the 
 drink " 
 
 " Of course she could and would ! " interposed Brand, grimly, 
 " As long as he had her, he wanted no other poison ! " 
 
 " I had no idea," — went on Everton, rather sadly — " I could 
 not have possibly imagined or thought for a moment that a 
 girl like Jacynth, — for, with all her recklessness she seemed to
 
 128 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 me to have some refinement about her — would have allowed 
 herself to be compromised by such a man as Kiernan " 
 
 "There are certain women who love brutes,' - * — said Brand — 
 " And Kiernan is a brute. But he is a fine brute, and that's 
 all that Jacynth Miller cares about. She has no sentiment of 
 any kind. I daresay that type of woman is new to you, — but 
 it's common to me. Doctors see more than clergymen. And 
 as for ' refinement ' — well ! — if Jacynth has any of that about 
 her it's the refinement of vice, which is particularly odious. 
 Perhaps I ought to have told you what was going on " 
 
 " I wish you had," answered Everton, gravely. 
 
 The doctor looked at him meditatively. 
 
 " Well, I don't think it would have helped the situation," he 
 said — "And it isn't my business to report the moral back- 
 slidings of the Shadbrook people. They're no better and no 
 worse, so far as I can make out, than other folks in lonely 
 country villages, and from a perfectly common-sense and 
 matter-of-fact point of view, I don't believe any very great 
 harm would have been done, if Mrs. Everton had not, most 
 unluckily, spoken to Mrs. Kiernan of her husband's infatuation 
 for the Miller girl. Nobody would have said anything — 
 Jacynth would have gone away, as she has gone now — she 
 always wanted to go away 2 and it was what she was planning 
 and intending to do — not out of shame for herself or sorrow — 
 oh no ! — don't think that at all ! — but merely because she was 
 tired of Dan and his amorous jealousies, and thought she 
 would like a change. Mrs. Kiernan would have recovered 
 I'm sure, — and Dan might have still made her a fairly good 
 husband, as such husbands go. But now I expect there'll be 
 mischief." 
 
 " Simply because my wife did what she thought was her 
 duty to do ? " queried Everton, with coldly sparkling eyes. 
 
 ' Dr Harry ' smiled somewhat sadly. 
 
 " Duty — or what we sometimes call duty — is not always a 
 safe guide," — he said — " We sometimes — even the best of us 
 — mistake it. I'm sure that Mrs. Everton meant to be kind- 
 ness itself when she warned Mrs. Kiernan of what was going
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 129 
 
 on, — but it would have been better to have left the poor 
 creature in ignorance. As matters stand — I'm afraid " 
 
 He broke off, and walked up and down reflectively. 
 
 " You're afraid — of what ? " demanded Everton. 
 
 Brand stood still and faced him. 
 
 "Well, I'm afraid things may be made unpleasant for your 
 wife," — he said — " She's not a fit person to contend with rustic 
 boors, and if I were you I should not let her go alone into the 
 village for a while. She might get insulted " 
 
 The Vicar looked, as he felt, completely bewildered. 
 
 " Insulted ? : ' he echoed — " What do you mean ? " 
 
 "Simply this. Dan Kiernan is a brute, as you know, and 
 in his brutish fury, which is more for the loss of Jacynth 
 Miller than anything else, he swears that Mrs. Everton has 
 killed his wife, and that he'll have vengeance for it." 
 
 " Killed his wife ! " exclaimed Everton, aghast — " What ! 
 Azalea ? Azalea, who would not hurt a fly ? The man must 
 be mad ! ■ 
 
 "Probably he is," — answered Brand — "But madmen are 
 dangerous. I assure you, Mr. Everton, Dan is an ugly 
 customer. Leave him alone. Don't offer him any con- 
 dolence on his wife's death — he won't understand it. If," — 
 here the doctor folded his arms and looked Everton squarely 
 in the face — "if you could realise the condition of a tiger 
 deprived of its mate and its prey together at one and the same 
 moment, you might have some idea of Dan Kiernan's present 
 humour. He's on the drink too — and there's no one to keep 
 him away from it. If you decide to see him yourself, that is, 
 of course, your affair, though I think it will be most unwise — 
 but for Heaven's sake don't let your wife go anywhere near 
 him!" 
 
 Everton's eyes expressed a great wonder and sorrow. 
 
 " My wife ! " he said, pitifully — " Poor little woman ! She 
 has done him no harm ! " 
 
 " He thinks she has," — and the doctor looked away for a 
 moment from the clergyman's pale, puzzled face, — "And 
 thinking, as we all know, is more than half believing. He has 
 
 9
 
 130 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 made up his mind that if she had not told his wife about 
 Jacynth and himself, nothing would have happened. Mrs. 
 Kiernan would have lived, — and Jacynth would have stayed 
 on in the village. Of course it's true enough that there's often 
 an extraordinary lot of mischief caused by talk, — no end of 
 trouble might be avoided by keeping a still tongue in one's 
 head : ' 
 
 <( 
 
 Dr. Brand," interposed Everton, with gentle dignity — " I 
 am quite sure my wife had not the slightest idea of causing 
 any mischief or distress to poor Mrs. Kiernan or to any one. I 
 don't know what she said, — she has not told me a word about 
 it — but I am sure she meant everything in the best and kindest 
 manner. She never gave me the least hint of what you tell 
 me concerning Kiernan and Jacynth Miller — and, naturally, I 
 myself should never have suspected it " 
 
 He paused, moved by a sudden revulsion of feeling. For 
 one fleeting instant Jacynth's beautiful face and brilliant eyes 
 flashed before him like a picture in a dream, — and the thought 
 that she — she with all her youth and winsome loveliness 
 should have consented to become the wanton partner of Dan 
 Kiernan's vices, revolted his every sense to the verge of nausea. 
 He steadied his nerves by an effort. 
 
 " I am very sorry for all this trouble," — he went on quietly, 
 " Sorrier than I can express in words ! I suppose I am 
 very dense, — but I have always believed in the goodness 
 rather than the badness of my fellow-creatures, — and I had 
 hoped to see even Dan Kiernan turn out a nobler fellow than 
 he seemed. As for Jacynth Miller — I knew she was vain of 
 her beauty, and heartless to the corresponding measure of her 
 vanity — but I never thought she was," — he broke off, — then 
 with a slight sigh, continued — " Perhaps I had better not speak 
 of her. I will tell my wife what you say, — I shall understand 
 the whole situation better when I have talked it out with 
 her, — but I shall let nothing interfere with the course of my 
 duty — you may be sure of that." 
 
 The doctor looked at him kindly. 
 
 " Well, don't exceed your duty, that's all, Mr. Everton," —
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 131 
 
 he said — " Leave well — or ill — alone for the present. Don't 
 in this case offer your sympathy or service till you're asked 
 for either. Let the storm blow over first, — or, in other words, 
 let Dan Kiernan drink himself to death if he likes ! — don't 
 interfere ! " 
 
 " Rather singular advice ! " murmured Everton, faintly 
 smiling, — "And not in keeping with Christian charity." 
 
 " Christian charity is out of place in some quarters," — 
 answered Brand, gloomily — " So is Christian forgiveness. 
 General Gordon forgave the treacherous rascal who afterwards 
 trapped and killed him. Certain races don't understand 
 forgiveness, or kindness either. And drunkards are not, in 
 my opinion, of any race at all. They are an artificial, 
 monstrous spawn of the bottle and the beer-cask, and the less 
 one has to do with such microbes of disease, the better." He 
 paused, — then went on in a cheerier tone — " Well, good-night, 
 Mr. Everton ! I'm sorry I had to come up at so late an 
 hour, but I thought it would be the wisest course to tell you 
 myself just how things stood " 
 
 " It's very kind of you," — said Everton, shaking hands with 
 him — " Forewarned is always forearmed, and though I do not 
 anticipate any serious trouble with Dan Kiernan, still I shall 
 keep an eye on him. I'm sure my wife will be quite shocked 
 to hear of poor Mrs. Kiernan's death — we had no idea her 
 condition was so serious " 
 
 " It wasn't serious," — said Brand — " Not really serious in the 
 way of actual danger to life till — till she knew. Good-night ! " 
 
 In another couple of minutes he had left the house, and 
 Everton, with a slow step and troubled countenance, returned 
 to the drawing-room where his wife was still at the piano 
 singing ' coon ' songs. She saw by his manner that something 
 was wrong, and springing up from the music-stool ran two 
 or three steps to meet him. 
 
 " What's the matter ? " she began. 
 
 He took her hands gently in his own. 
 
 "My dear child,"— he said— " Why didn't you tell me 
 about Jacynth Miller and Dan Kiernan ? "
 
 132 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 A hot blush crimsoned her face and neck. 
 
 " I couldn't, Dick ! It seemed too horrid ! And you were 
 so unsuspecting — and you thought the girl had some good 
 in her " 
 
 He sighed heavily. 
 
 " I did, — I certainly did think so ! " he said — " But, Azalea, 
 if you couldn't tell me, your husband, was it quite necessary 
 for you to tell Mrs. Kiernan ? " 
 
 She opened her eyes in genuine wonderment at his question. 
 
 " I thought so, certainly," — she replied — " Under all the 
 circumstances, I felt it was the proper thing to do ! But I 
 promised the woman who was nursing her — Mrs. Adcott — 
 that I would not say a word to you about it till she got 
 better " 
 
 Again he sighed 
 
 " She will never get better," — he said, sorrowfully — " My 
 dear, she is dead ! " 
 
 " Dead ! " The delicate rose-tint of the pretty face so close 
 to his own, paled into sudden whiteness. 
 
 " Oh, Dick ! I'm— I'm so sorry ! " 
 
 And like the emotional little creature she was, she began 
 to cry. 
 
 " I'm sure," she whimpered, " I'm sure I never thought she 
 was so ill as all that ! I wouldn't have told her " 
 
 He drew her into his arms, and stroked her shining hair 
 soothingly. 
 
 " That's just it, darling ! — of course you wouldn't have 
 told her ! I know you wouldn't. Forgive me if I say you 
 shouldn't have told her. I don't often scold you, little one, 
 do I? — and this is my only word — you shouldn't have told 
 her ! But you didn't think — you didn't think " 
 
 He kissed her and held her tenderly, while she wept and 
 rubbed her eyes and made her little nose red, after the 
 fashion of a vexed child. And half vaguely he wondered 
 how many troubles in the world could be set down to that 
 first cause ' Didn't Think.' In nine cases out of ten, the 
 statesmen who have led their nations into war 'didn't think,'
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 133 
 
 — the millions of bitter and slanderous tongues that have 
 broken millions of loving hearts had ' Didn't Think ' behind 
 them, — and half the mistakes, cruelties and evils of mankind 
 could be put down to ' Didn't Think,' if all the truth were 
 known. 
 
 " When — when did she die ? " murmured Azalea, presently. 
 
 "To-night. Dr. Brand came up here to tell me — and — 
 to warn me " 
 
 "To warn you?" She looked at him with startled wet eyes. 
 
 "Yes. To warn me against Dan Kiernan. He is on the 
 drink again — and is dangerous, — more dangerous than ever, 
 so it appears, now Jacynth Miller has gone." 
 
 " Jacynth Miller gone ? Where ? " 
 
 " No one knows." 
 
 Here he released her from his arms and walked slowly up 
 and down the room. Presently he stopped again and faced 
 her. "It seems an awful thing to say to you, Azalea, but I 
 suppose you must know it, — Brand wants you to keep away 
 from the village just now — for a few days at any rate." 
 
 "Wants me to keep away? Me?" she exclaimed — "But 
 why ? " 
 
 " For a reason that is almost too horrible and unnatural to 
 think of ! " and Everton's voice trembled with indignation as 
 he spoke — " Dan Kiernan says you have killed his wife — you, 
 my poor little Azalea ! — and swears he'll have vengeance for 
 it now there ! don't look so frightened ! " 
 
 For at his words, she had dropped on the sofa in a small 
 huddled heap, her dainty tea -gown falling about her in 
 cloudy folds, from which her face peered pallidly like that of a 
 ghost. 
 
 "Killed his wife!" she whispered, with white lips — "He 
 
 says I 1 have killed his wife ! Oh, Dick, Dick ! :: And she 
 
 stretched out her arms to him — " Let me go away ! Don't 
 let me stay here ! It's too awful ! " 
 
 She seemed about to faint, and the terrified expression 
 of her eyes alarmed him. 
 
 " My dearest, you mustn't take it in this way," — he said,
 
 134 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 sitting down beside her, and putting an arm round her waist — 
 " The man is an habitual drunkard and doesn't know half his 
 time what he's talking about. The fact is he killed his wife 
 himself — no one else had any hand in it " 
 
 " I'm not so sure — oh, I'm not so sure ! " and she shuddered 
 violently — "She had not a word to say against him — she 
 loved him ! Even when I told her what I had heard, and 
 what I knew about Jacynth Miller, she wouldn't believe 
 it — oh, Dick ! It's my fault ! — it's my fault, really ! — I know 
 it is ! — it is through me that the poor woman has died ! " 
 
 And she suddenly gave way to an outbreak of hysterical 
 weeping, uttering little gasping cries and sobs that convulsed 
 her whole slight frame. Everton was in despair. He knew 
 not what to say that would comfort her — he could only hold 
 her in his arms and try to soothe her by murmured words of 
 love, mingled with kisses and caresses. 
 
 " You must send me away — oh, you will send me away ! " 
 she sobbed — " I'm afraid — I'm afraid of Dan Kiernan ! He'll 
 say something cruel to me — he will, Dick ! — oh, don't let him 
 come near me — don't ! I never meant any harm — but though 
 I never meant it, I see I have done it ! — and I shall never get 
 over it, Dick, never ! How can I go on living in Shadbrook 
 after this ? Oh, Dick ! — to think that I — your wife — should be 
 so dreadfully accused ! I must go away ! — darling, you will 
 let me go away at once, wont you ? — I and Baby and Nurse — 
 we will all go together to the sea-side for a while till this 
 
 trouble is over " And as she spoke she dried her eyes, 
 
 choked back her tears, and looked hopefully at him — " Let us 
 start to-morrow morning ! " 
 
 For a moment he was silent. For a moment the chord of 
 Self sounded in his soul, suggesting the query — " Is this the 
 help a wife should give her husband in hours of difficulty ? " 
 And then he bravely put the thought aside. 
 
 "You shall do as you like, Azalea," — he said, kindly — 
 " Only, — remember that if you go away just now it will look 
 as if you really thought Dan Kiernan's wild and wicked words 
 had sober justice in them. Why should you be afraid of a
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 135 
 
 drunkard ? You are perfectly innocent of any harmful 
 intention, — you spoke to Mrs. Kiernan as nineteen out of 
 twenty women would have spoken under the circumstances, — 
 and my chief regret is that I did not know the whole story — 
 as I might have perhaps been able to suggest a different 
 course for you to take. Kiernan is probably much more- 
 enraged by the loss of Jacynth Miller than by the death of his 
 wife — and you certainly have nothing to do with that. I confess 
 I don't like the idea of your going away. I would much 
 rather you stayed at home and went on with your ordinary 
 
 duties in your usual manner, like a brave little woman " 
 
 Her lips quivered, and more tears fell. 
 
 " I'm not brave," — she said, pathetically — " I never was and 
 I never shall be ! I think it will be simply dreadful if I have 
 to go about the village hearing all the details of Mrs. Kiernan's 
 death over and over again, and all the story of Jacynth Miller's 
 
 running off with one of the other men " 
 
 " One of the other men ? " repeated Everton, surprised, — 
 " What other men ? " 
 
 " I don't know, I'm sure ! " and she sighed wearily — " It's ail 
 quite strange to me, and quite horrid, — but Mrs. Adcott said, 
 when speaking of Jacynth, that there were plenty of men who 
 would take her, even knowing everything about her, — so I can 
 only suppose she has gone with one of them. And I think it 
 will be really cruel of ycu, Dick, if after what that awful man 
 
 Kiernan has said, you force me to stay here " 
 
 "I? I ' force ' you ! " he said, wonderingly — " My dear 
 Azalea, can you imagine my applying ' force ' to you in any 
 way, save the force of love ? " 
 
 She did not hear, or rather she did not choose to hear, the 
 little touch of reproach in his accents. 
 
 " Well then, let me go ! " she pleaded — " It would make me 
 perfectly ill to be shut up here, — (for I know I shouldn't dare 
 to go out) — while all the people are fussing over Mrs. Kiernan's 
 funeral, and that dreadful drunkard is reeling about the village 
 saying such horrid wicked things about me, — I'd much rather 
 be away "
 
 1 36 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 "You'll find the dreadful drunkard reeling about just the 
 same when you come back," — he said. 
 
 She wiped her eyes and smoothed her hair, and the shadow 
 of a returning smile flitted over her face. 
 
 "Perhaps not!" she rejoined, hopefully — "Perhaps he will 
 have reeled after Jacynth Miller, and gone out of the place 
 altogether ! " 
 
 Her words annoyed him, — and yet he could not have 
 reasonably expressed annoyance. He took a couple of 
 minutes to consider, and then made up his mind. 
 
 " Very well, Azalea," — he said — " Have it your own way ! 
 You shall go. You can start to-morrow morning for Weston, 
 — that's not so very far off — with Laurence and the nurse — I 
 daresay the change will do all three of you good " 
 
 She interrupted him by throwing her arms round his neck 
 and kissing him. 
 
 " Oh, you are a dear old Dick ! " she exclaimed, her eyes 
 sparkling with a sudden sunshiny gaiety that effectively dis- 
 persed all traces of her recent tears and terror — " It will be 
 simply lovely to get out of Shadbrook for a little while, — 
 because — well ! — you know, though it : s ever so pretty, it's 
 dull — awfully dull sometimes ! There are no shops, and no 
 people worth looking at, — and when there's nothing but 
 funerals going on, it's a little trying ! — it is, really, Dick ! You 
 don't mind it, because you have such grand ideas about duty 
 and all that, — but I'm afraid I haven't any grand ideas, and I 
 do mind it, often ! If this house and garden could only be 
 moved into some nicer place " 
 
 He looked at her earnestly. 
 
 " You don't like Shadbrook then ? " he said. 
 
 She shook her fair head very decisively. 
 
 " Not at all ! " she replied — " How could any one like a dreary 
 little village where the people do nothing from one year's end 
 to another but get drunk and quarrel and die ? " 
 
 He smiled, a trifle bitterly. 
 
 " It's a small epitome of a very large part of the world 
 around us, Azalea, — look at it how you will," — and rising from
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 137 
 
 beside her, he paced the room in an effort to quiet his strug- 
 gling sense of impatience — "And think how many such 
 1 dreary villages ' there are in Great Britain, where often the 
 most promising men among the clergy have to work for the 
 best part of their lives ! Shadhrook is by no means the worst 
 example of such lonely parishes, — and when I came here first, 
 I thought myself a very lucky man. For the possession of 
 the living enabled me to marry you, Azalea ! " — and his voice 
 trembled a little — " And — and we have been very happy ! — 
 and our boy was born here " 
 
 " Oh, I know all that ! " and she smiled radiantly up at 
 him — "And it's all lovely and sentimental and nice to think 
 about, — but you can't deny that it's dull, Dick, you know you 
 can't ! There are about two garden-parties a year to which 
 one can go, — just for form's sake — not for pleasure, because 
 no one ever goes to a provincial garden-party for pleasure, of 
 course ! — and nobody ever gives a nice dinner, because it's too 
 expensive, and too much trouble to get hired waiters for the 
 occasion — besides, there are no people to ask — and you can't 
 set out a dinner without people to eat it ! There's nothing, in 
 fact, for us but the village and the church — and we must make 
 the best of them, I know ! Indeed I do make the best of 
 them — but when it comes to a drunken brute like Kiernan 
 saying I've killed his wife, well, really, Dick, I do feel that it's 
 about as much as I can bear ! And I don't think I'm asking 
 too much of you to let me go out of it all for a few days ! " 
 
 " My dear child, it's settled that you go," — he answered 
 quietly — " And there's nothing more to be said about it." He 
 paused, — then added — "It's past eleven o'clock — fully bed- 
 time. You'd better see Nurse Tomkins on your way upstairs 
 and tell her of your intentions for to-morrow " 
 
 " Oh yes, — of course ! She'll have to pack Baby's things." 
 
 And without another word she ran off fleetly, full of delight 
 at the prospect of a journey and a change of scene. No 
 thought for her husband entered her head — no sudden tender- 
 ness moved her to look back and say : " I wish you were 
 coming with me," — or — " I'm sorry to leave you alone." A
 
 1 38 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 man was always 'all right,' she thought, under any circum- 
 stances, and she would have been genuinely surprised and 
 possibly distressed had she known that the heart of the man 
 who loved her was as heavy as lead, and aching sorely in its 
 heaviness as though a poisoned arrow had flown to its core. 
 He went to the table where he had been reading when 
 Brand's visit had interrupted him, and mechanically took up 
 the book he had laid down there. Glancing casually at the 
 open page, his eyes fell upon the words — " Love does not 
 always lead to marriage, and marriage is sometimes tne end of 
 love. The most lasting passion is that which remains 
 ungratified — and the truest lovers throughout all history are 
 those that never wedded." 
 
 This passage stung him with a curious sense of personal 
 irritation — the book was a novel, and he flung it down with a 
 gesture of aversion. 
 
 " Ridiculous ! " he said — " Wrong-sided and utterly ridicu- 
 lous ! No wonder modern fiction is so often condemned ! 
 The statement is utterly false, for marriage is the very fulfil- 
 ment of love — and married life the perfect making of a perfect 
 home." 
 
 And he would not allow himself to think any further as to 
 whether ' fulfilment ' did not, after all, imply an end to aspira- 
 tion ; — or whether ' the perfect making of a perfect home ' was 
 secured to him by his own manied experience. The pursuit of 
 a logical enquiry often leads to unexpected results ; and he 
 was not in the mood to fellow out any argument suggested 
 by Sense, preferring to remain pained and perplexed by 
 Sentiment.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 NEXT day Azalea went away as arranged, — and so far as 
 her husband was concerned, the Vicarage became a 
 dreary waste of desolation. Yet he was the embodied spirit 
 of cheerfulness itself to the last moment of her departure, 
 helping to place her, with the cherubic Laurence and his 
 nurse, all comfortably together in the high dog-cart, which, — 
 drawn by one slow and somewhat asthmatical mare and driven 
 by the gardener's lad, — took them to the station some four 
 miles distant from the village. Never, so he thought, had he 
 seen his pretty wife looking prettier ; she was full of laughter 
 and sparkling animation, like a child leaving school for the 
 holidays. ' Master Laurence ' too had a new and radiant 
 light of pleased wonder in his angelic blue eyes, — a larger 
 world than Shadbrook was opening out before him, — and his 
 father almost envied him the fact that he was going to look at 
 the sea for the first time. Whether he would be impressed by 
 it was quite another matter, for whatever his emotion might be 
 at the glorious scene presented to his awakening intelligence, 
 he would have no means of expressing it. Yet Everton was 
 foolish enough to wish he could have watched his little son's 
 face when the rolling mass of glittering waters first broke upon 
 his young vision. Azalea's ideas on the point were what all 
 ordinary people would have termed 'sensible' ideas, — they 
 were limited to the building of sand-castles and the carrying 
 about of toy pails wherein to capture specimens of the infant 
 crab, — and of what the real effect of the grandeur and 
 
 immensity of ocean might be on the mind of a more than 
 
 139
 
 140 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 usually thoughtful child, she cared not to enquire. ' Baby 
 dear' was too young to think at all, so she imagined, — a 
 mistake made by most mothers, often to their own detriment. 
 Anyway the little party seated in the dog-cart and drawn by the 
 old mare, looked an irresistibly happy one, and Everton could 
 not flatter himself that his presence was either desired or missed. 
 Off they went, jogging down the Vicarage drive, Azalea 
 waving her hand and blowing kisses to him till a turn in the 
 road hid him from her sight, — and it was with a very decided 
 sense of pain and loss that he re-entered his house — alone. 
 
 Once in his study he shut the door, and seating him- 
 self at his desk, went steadily to work, determined to think 
 of nothing save his duty, — nothing except church and school 
 and parish affairs. There were many trifling matters to attend 
 to, — how trifling only the incumbent of a country living knows. 
 The ludicrous local quarrels, — the mean and petty injuries, — 
 the malicious attempts of one ' Christian ' neighbour to annoy 
 another, — all these things come more or less under the notice 
 of the Vicar set in authority over a rural community, and if he 
 be not a man as small-minded as the majority of the rustic folk 
 around him (which he too frequently is), he must needs often 
 be moved to a wondering and well-nigh despairing pity for the 
 infinitely little stupidities of poor human-kind. For though 
 large cities show precisely the same low animosities and 
 attenuated jealousies, they are not brought so closely under 
 the eye as in the restricted circle of a village. Mrs. Loftylids 
 may give herself as many airs as she likes in London and 
 London sees her not, — but Mrs. Loftylids on her high horse in 
 the country is quite a different and much more observably 
 odious person. The smaller the place, the more narrow 
 the life. And so Richard Everton was beginning to 
 find it. 
 
 He sorted the various letters and papers on his table, with a 
 settled precision which indicated that he was forcing his 
 attention to dwell on matters distasteful to his immediate 
 humour, and among them he came upon a respectfully worded 
 intimation from the village carpenter, who was also the under-
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 141 
 
 taker, to the effect that Mrs. Kiernan having died, it was 
 proposed, 'according to the wishes of Mr. Kiernan, the 
 widower,' to have the funeral next day, if he, the Vicar would 
 name a convenient hour. He answered this at once, fixing the 
 ceremony for three o'clock in the afternoon, and sent the 
 letter to its destination straight away by one of his servants as 
 a personal messenger. There should be no delay, he thought 
 somewhat drearily, in burying all that was mortal of Mrs. 
 Kiernan, — poor, long-suffering, wretched Jennie Kiernan, who 
 had been killed by sheer brutality. The brutality of blows — 
 or the brutality of words ? — ah no, no ! Azalea could never 
 be 'brutal' — she was thoughtless, but not unkind, — she had 
 done no harm — she had not the smallest share of blame in the 
 woman's death — it was cruel to suggest it — cruel to say it ! 
 He shuddered at his own thoughts, which like swarming bees 
 buzzed round the whole miserable incident, — an incident 
 beginning more or less trivially, and deepening into something 
 of a tragedy. And, as usual, he laid all the blame on his own 
 shoulders. His endeavour to save Mrs. Kiernan from further 
 assault by her drunken husband had surely, so he declared to 
 himself, led to the present disastrous result, and all suddenly 
 he asked : — " Is it just of the Almighty to allow a kindness 
 to be brought back in the shape of a curse ? " He recoiled 
 from his own temerity as this demand leaped up in his brain 
 like a flash of fire. Yet it repeated itself. " I ask "—said the 
 vexed Soul within him — " if it is right that an honest effort to 
 follow the teaching of the Christian Creed should be rewarded 
 by a frightful and unmerited accusation against the innocent 
 woman I love?" And then he paused, as though awaiting 
 an answer. Strangely, solemnly, and as with an inward 
 voice, the answer came in the form of another query : 
 " Is it right that I, the Divine Crucified, should have given 
 My life on earth for men who doubt Me and blaspheme Me 
 even now ? " And in the sudden sense of awe and contrition 
 which fell upon him, he covered his face with his hands and 
 prayed silently — " Lead me not into temptation, but deliver me 
 from evil, O Lord ! Command me as Thou wilt ! — send
 
 142 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 me Thy Holy Orders, and even if they lead me to my death, 
 I, ordained to serve Thee, will obey ! " 
 
 And on this his mind appeared to pause, — till it seemed 
 to him that his vow had been accepted. Then in a moment 
 or two he was calm again, and went on with his usual work. 
 
 How much he missed Azalea he would not allow himself to 
 think. Ever since he had brought her home to the Vicarage as 
 his bride, it had been the joy of his life to know that at any 
 moment her fair head might peep into his study or her voice 
 call to him in the accents of coaxing sweetness to which he 
 had grown so fondly accustomed. But now the house was 
 empty, — bereft of light, music, laughter and love. He was 
 alone with his own thinking Self and God, — God, that mighty 
 Unknown Power to whom for millions of ages Creation has 
 cried and prayed and wept, — God, that majestic Silence which 
 is never disturbed for all the clamour of men — which creates 
 and kills at a breath, and no reason given, — which is Light 
 and Darkness, Gladness and Sorrow, Love and Hate in one, — 
 and which we instinctively worship in all creeds, not so much 
 because we Will, but because we Must. But it is natural 
 to weak man to prefer the warm tenderness of a woman's arms 
 about him to the awful coldness of a bodiless Infinity, no 
 matter how full of exquisite promise and glorious suggestion 
 that Infinity may be, — and it was therefore to be expected 
 that Richard Everton, who for all his anxiety to live a purely 
 spiritual life, had a tender, sensitive heart of his own, would, 
 for the time being, feel a melancholy sense of solitude in the 
 absence of his pretty wife, with a corresponding depression of 
 spirits. There was one thought which now and then pushed 
 itself resolutely into the cells of his brain, to be as resolutely 
 pushed out again by the strong effort of his will, — the thought 
 of Jacynth Miller. He hated, with an intensity of hatred that 
 surprised himself, the memory of that girl's exquisite face, 
 illumined by its large, star-like dark eyes, and when he asked 
 his inner consciousness the reason of the bitterness which filled 
 him, he had to confess frankly like a man, that it was because 
 she had chosen Dan Kiernan for a lover. The huge, strongly-
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 143 
 
 built brute — a creature whose brawny physique might have 
 served as a model for one of the barbaric chieftains of early 
 Britain, — he, full of a chronic delirium of drink — he, ignorant, 
 boorish and bestial — he, even he, had been privileged to take 
 the kisses of that fresh, rosy smiling mouth, — he had held that 
 light, lissom body in his coarse embrace — by Heaven ! — 
 Everton sprang up from his chair and paced the room, stung 
 to something like fury by the horrible suggestiveness of the 
 picture. And where was Jacynth now ? With whom had she 
 gone? He understood at last the frantic despair of young 
 Bob Hadley on his deathbed, and his agonised entreaty : 
 " Try if you can do anything — save her from herself — from the 
 
 shame " Shame there was none in Jacynth, — of course 
 
 there could be none ; — nevertheless the wild cries of the 
 dying lad rang echoingly in his ears — " Hold her ! See 
 where she goes ! Running, running, running Straight into 
 Hell ! Jacynth ! All the devils at her — tearing her lovely 
 body — her lovely body that God made ! " And then those 
 awful words — " God ! There's no God ! There never was ! 
 It's all a lie ! " With the utmost strength of his soul he fought 
 against the storm of indignation that strove to overwhelm his 
 habitual composure — and snatching up a book from the table 
 he read a few sentences hurriedly to distract himself. The 
 book happened to be Amiel's Journal and the passages which 
 caught his eyes were these : 
 
 " Do not despise your situation ; in it you must act, suffer, 
 and conquer. From every point en earth we are equally near 
 to heaven, and to the infinite. 
 
 • ••••*• • 
 
 " There are two states or conditions of pride. The first is 
 one of self-approval, the second, one of self-contempt. Pride 
 is seen probably at its purest in the last." 
 
 V 
 
 He shut the volume. 
 
 " Measured by that I am the proudest man alive ! " he said, 
 "For my self-contempt is almost limitless! I could whip 
 myself with a scourge for the ridiculous mood I am in ! A
 
 i 4 4 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 mood unlike me altogether, — a paltry, raging, irritable mood 
 which is absolutely unworthy of any being calling itself 
 human ! " 
 
 He turned towards the window just in time to see a figure 
 passing it outside — a small, dapper, clerical figure which he 
 at once recognised as that of the little Roman Catholic priest 
 Sebastien Douay, who had called upon him a few days 
 previously. Hailing his unexpected visitor as a welcome 
 relief to his unpleasant meditations, he hurried to meet him 
 at the door. 
 
 " And if he will, he shall stay to luncheon this time, cold 
 mutton or no cold mutton ! " he decided — " I'm a grass 
 widower just now, and can do as I like ! " 
 
 In another moment Douay was in the study, his cheery 
 round face beaming with smiles. 
 
 " So I am come in happy time ! " he said, rubbing his hands 
 together like a pleased child — "Your wife has gone away? 
 And why so ? " 
 
 Everton explained that she needed a few days' change of air 
 at the sea- side. 
 
 " Ah ! And you are like Mistaire Adam, before le bon Dieu 
 took away his best rib ! " said Douay, his blue-grey eyes twink- 
 ling merrily — " He was no doubt quite strong and jolly till he 
 lost that so valuable bone ! He has been weak ever since ! " 
 
 Everton laughed, — and Douay went on — 
 
 " I came to tell you that I have now a church — a very leetle 
 poor church in a most sad and dirty leetle village near the 
 place where they brew the beer for Mistaire Minchin. It is 
 a beginning — and some of the French fathers have bought 
 land there — but for me there is a tin chappelle and a cottage 
 — so I shall do myself all right. I have command to start a 
 Catholique mission — it will be something — not much — for 
 there are so few people, — but the Church say I must do it, 
 and one must obey the Holy Orders." 
 
 Everton looked at him thoughtfully. 
 
 " True ! " he said — " But your ' holy orders ' and mine are 
 different."
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 145 
 
 "That is so," — agreed Douay, cheerfully — "and the holy 
 orders of the so respectable Buddha are again different, — 
 and of the terrible Mahomet again different ! All separate 
 households, my dear sir ! — where each poor servant must obey 
 the master who pays the wages ! " 
 
 A slight shadow crossed Everton's face. 
 
 " I do not regard it quite in that way," — he began 
 hesitatingly. 
 
 " You do not ? But why not ? You would not be singular ! 
 There are parsons of your Church who write to the news- 
 papers — ah ! — such remarkable newspapers you have in 
 England ! — to say that they shall not let their sons become 
 clergymen as the pay is so poor ! Ha-ha ! That is so 
 excellent a serving of Christ ! — so true to the Gospel ! And 
 your remarkable newspapers print these kind of letters from 
 the clergy; then is it a surprise that your people do not 
 believe their teachers in religion and stay away from the 
 church? There are many mistakes in the Catholique faith 
 — out it is seldom — if ever — that you will find a Catholique 
 priest complaining of his leetle ' pay ; in a public newspaper ! " 
 
 "I'm afraid you are right," said Everton, with a sigh — 
 "There's too much talk of money in everything nowadays. 
 But of course, even a clergyman must live " 
 
 " And have a comfortable ' living ' ! " supplemented Douay, 
 with a genial laugh — " And marry, — a pretty wife, sans doulc ! 
 — and have children — and send these leetle ones to school ! 
 All expensive work ! — and the Catholique priest must do 
 without these luxuries " 
 
 "Does he always do without them?" demanded Evertcn, 
 with sudden boldness. 
 
 Douay smiled, in no wise disconcerted. 
 
 "Not always, perhaps," — he replied — "Even a Catholique 
 priest may make a fool of himself ! But if he is so much a 
 fool as to break the celibate rule of his order he is finished ! — 
 done for ! 1 myself would go further — I would say that any 
 minister of the Gospel who marries is finished also ! Done 
 for ! — yes indeed ! — quite done for ! " 
 10
 
 146 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 He spoke in such a perfectly good-natured way that Everton 
 was more amused than annoyed. 
 
 "According to that," — he said — "I am no use and never 
 shall be of any use. For I am one of the married." 
 
 " I know ! " and Douay nodded his head emphatically — 
 " That is why I say my thought. Very rude of me, — but you 
 will pardon ! For what does Our Lord teach us — ' Take no 
 thought saying What shall we eat ? or, What shall we drink ? — ■ 
 or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? (For after all these 
 things do the Gentiles seek :) for your heavenly Father 
 knoweth that ye have need of all these things. But seek ye 
 first the kingdom of God and His righteousness ; and all these 
 things shall be added unto you. Take therefore no thought 
 for the morrow, — for the morrow shall take thought for the 
 things of itself.' Now will you tell me, my dear Miataire 
 Everton, that a married man is able to take no thought for 
 the morrow ? " 
 
 Everton was silent for a moment. Then he said : 
 
 "But surely even a Catholic priest does not work blindly 
 on, regardless of his future ? " 
 
 , " Ah, but that is just it ! It is precisely what so many 
 priests Catholiques do — work blindly on ! — comme des 
 moutons ! ' Blindly ' is very true. They do not know, — 
 and they must not see. They obey ! As soldiers obey their 
 superior officers, so we obey the orders of Rome. We may 
 be in one place to-day, another to-morrow. But we move 
 under command. It is not our business to make question. 
 Always before us hangs the Cross with the patienl Saviour 
 upon it, — it is the model of our lives. We must nail down 
 all personal desires. We must crucify ourselves. It is hard ! 
 — sometimes !— but " — and here Douay's voice sank to a 
 sudden tenderness — " when the troubles of youth are past, — 
 when we can look back upon what we thought was so cruel 
 to miss, — we find that we have not lost so much as we have 
 gained ! " 
 
 Something struggled in Everton's soul akin to a passionate 
 pain and clamorous protest, — was this man, this priest of a
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 147 
 
 rival creed, nearer the truth of Christianity than he ? And 
 was Christianity itself such an arbitrary law after all that it 
 forbade the love of woman ? Young Hadley's words came 
 back upon his memory — " Love, I say ! — love ! — it's what 
 the Lord Christ never knew — it's what He missed — love for 
 a woman ! — and there He fails to be our brother in sorrow ! " 
 And it seemed to him that the face of Jacynth gleamed like a 
 mirage in the air and vanished. 
 
 " You speak with a very admirable resignation to the rule 
 of your Church," — he said, then — " But, if Science is a reflex 
 of Divine Law (as we are bound to think it is), then Science 
 shows us that the union of sexes is the cause of their con- 
 tinuance. Without love and marriage mankind would cease 
 to be. The birds and beasts, the insects and the fio" ers mate 
 and are happy in mating, — they are God's creations and serve 
 Him without complaint or disobedience, and surely He cares 
 for them ! It is we who complain, — it is we who disobey, — 
 we fight against law and would upset it if we could, by training 
 ourselves to live unnatural lives, and thinking that we serve 
 God best by opposing ourselves to His visible governance. I 
 do not agree with you that marriage unfits a man for devotion 
 to the service of Christ. On the contrary, I believe it 
 strengthens him." 
 
 Douay smiled. 
 
 "It is well for you that you think so," — he said — "And in 
 these matters we must not argue too far. The opinion is 
 different, but the woman is always the same ! Yes — the 
 woman is always the mischief ! " Here his smile broadened 
 into a laugh. " Imagine ! If there had been no woman in 
 the case, this good England would still have been Catholique ! 
 But the nation ran away from the Pope all because the so 
 affectionate Henry the Eighth fell in love with pretty Anne 
 Bolcyn ! So much will hang on a leetle thread. No Anne 
 Boleyn — no Church Protestant ! " 
 
 "True!" and a sudden warmth of feeling transfigured 
 Everton's pale, intellectual face with a light as though some 
 fiery thought had inwardly illumined it — " A woman is at the
 
 i 4 3 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 core of every great reform in the world of men. We may 
 affect to despise women and make light of their power, — we 
 may even in the fullness of our masculine self-sufficiency strive 
 to avoid them as obstacles in the progress of our own well- 
 being — but they conquer in the end ! You say ' No Anne 
 Boleyn, no Church PiOtestant.' My thoughts go further,— 
 and I say with all reverence : No Virgin Mary, no Christ ! " 
 Douay gave him a quick, surprised look. 
 " A la bonheur ! " he exciaimed — "We agree so far! Let 
 us now cease to be serious ! Let us talk of something droll — 
 of this village, for instance — this leetle parish for which you 
 are too big ! " 
 
 "loo big?" echoed Everton — " Not I !" and he sighed 
 involuntarily — " I'm afraid I'm too small and too weak 
 altogether to manage even this poor handful of souls. I feel 
 my limitations bitterly. You see there's not much to be done 
 in a place where the love of drink is the people's chief 
 passion. The Church ana the public-house are rivals for the 
 favour of Shadbrook, and naturally the stronger wins." 
 " And the stronger is ? " — hinted Douay. 
 " Can you ask ? The public-house, of course ! " 
 The little priest was silent, and took one or two turns up 
 and down the study, with his hands clasped in meditative 
 fashion behind his back. And presently Everton found him- 
 self telling the story of the Kiernans, though he carefully 
 refrained from mentioning the share his wife had unintentionally 
 taken in its development. Douay listened with keen and 
 attentive interest. At the end of the narration he gave an 
 eloquent gesture with his shoulders and hands. 
 
 " But then the man is a murderer ! " he exclaimed — " he 
 has killed his wife ! Must there not be an enquiry and a 
 punishment ? " 
 
 Everton's eyes grew sadly troubled. 
 
 " Well, the doctor does not think the poor woman died of 
 the physical injuries her husband inflicted on her," — he said — 
 " It was worry that did the mischief. She was getting well — 
 till — till she heard about the girl in the case "
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 149 
 
 "Ah, the girl!" and Douay nodded — "The girl to whom 
 the husband made love ! It was a pity she heard of that at 
 all ! Some idle gossiping neighbour told her, I suppose ? " 
 
 Everton did not answer for a moment. His face flu 
 and he turned away. 
 
 " It was quite by accident she heard it," — he said evasively, 
 " All the village knew — so I understand ; it seems that I 
 was the only one kept in the dark." 
 
 Douay looked at him curiously, with a slight smile. 
 
 " Ah ! They were afraid to tell you ! You look too good 
 to hear such naughty tales ! Now there is the advantage of 
 the Catholique confession ! In my Church this wicked, pretty 
 leetle girl would have told me all her :;ins — and the big 
 drunkard wculd have come to me to ask forgiveness — and I 
 should have frightened him ! — oh yes. indeed ! " Then, noting 
 Everton's troubled countenance, he went up to him and 
 patted him kindly on the arm. " Do not worry yourself, 
 Mistaire Everton ! Th^ thing will arrange itself. It is un- 
 pleasant — it is a matter of the drink. Always the drink ! I 
 do not understand this England. Drink rules the people, and 
 the makers of drink sit in the House of Parliament ! Yet so 
 much talk about temperance ! And Government permits the 
 poisoning of all the liquor ! It is beyond me to comprehend. 
 How wise your Shak-es-peare was ! How wise when he wrote 
 that if Hamlet should be sent to England, his madness would 
 not be noticed as all the people there were a^ mad as he ! So 
 true ! — true to this day ! " 
 
 Everton smiled, glad of the turn in the conversation, for 
 he did not wish to say much about Jacynth Miller. He felt 
 that he could hardly trust himself on that subject without 
 betraying more irritation than would seem necessary. He 
 entered quickly into generalities, — pressed Douay to stay to 
 luncheon — an invitation which was readily accepted, — and 
 set about making his guest feel thoroughly at home. There 
 was indeed something novel and pleasant to him in the society 
 of a man who, though his theories were thoce of a rival creed, 
 was at any rate of a higher order of intellect than any of the
 
 150 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 provincial nonentities he had been compelled to meet for the 
 past three years in and around Shadbrook, and he determined 
 to make the most of it. A good long talk with a well- 
 educated and intelligent individual of his own sex was a mental 
 stimulus, and one that he was not often privileged to enjoy. 
 The only ' gentleman ' in the neighbourhood, so far as birth 
 and education went, was the patron of the living, Mr. Hazlitt, 
 the ' resident ' Squire who was scarcely ever in residence, — 
 and he, though good-natured and kind-hearted, was profoundly 
 and unutterably dull, such brains as he had being concentrated 
 on hunting, which he pronounced 'huntin',' and his outlook 
 on the world being limited to the ' points ' of a horse. Com- 
 pared to him Sebastien Douay was a wit and philosopher 
 combined — and that he was also a Roman Catholic priest, 
 bent on fulfilling the commands of his Church by making as 
 many converts as possible, was, to Everton, quite immaterial. 
 For, if there was one sure foothold on which he, as a minister 
 of the Church of England r *:ood firmly, it was the severe sim- 
 plicity of his form of faith. He could never understand any 
 ornate or superstitious ritual as being possible to sane and 
 thinking men, — and the Apologia of Newman for his retro- 
 gression to Rome, had always struck him as one of the most 
 lamentable episodes in Church history, which could only be 
 set down to the working of an over-excitable imagination and 
 a want of logical balance in the brain. To voluntarily sacrifice 
 the free, God-given force of reason for mere ecclesiastical 
 skvery must ever be the act of a weak mind. 
 
 Therefore, he was quite at his ease with his new friend, 
 who, closely observant of him and taking pains to draw him 
 out, soon discovered that under his quiet, self-contained 
 manner, which, by those who knew him not was considered 
 ' soft ' when it was merely unassuming, there was a rare and 
 brilliant nature, quick to grasp close subtleties of thought and 
 translate them into clear evidence, — and that this nature was 
 strengthened by a singular force of will, all the more powerful 
 because it was so seldom exercised. Douay was not a Jesuit 
 for nothing. He too was a clever man, and had been trained
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 151 
 
 to recognise cleverness in others, which is one of the most 
 valuable characteristics of diplomacy. And it was after a 
 discussion on the laxity of the age in religious matters, that he 
 suddenly put the very question which Everton, whenever it 
 occurred to himself, considered the prompting of a demon : 
 
 " Are you going to stay all your life in Shadbrook, Mistaire 
 Everton ? " 
 
 The colour rushed to Everton's brows, and his eyes lighted 
 up with a smile. 
 
 " Why do you ask ? " 
 
 Douay shrugged his shoulders 
 
 " It is a narrow circle — and you should have wide influence ! " 
 
 "If one cannot fill a small place successfully — and I am 
 sure I cannot, — what should one do with a large?" and 
 Everton looked at him questioningly — "You yourself are 
 content with a mere handful of the ' faithful ' ! " 
 
 " Ah ! — but I am sure of change ! " — said Douay—" I may 
 be the cure - of the tin chapelle for four — five years — but 
 scarcely longer. Rome plays a big game of chess with the 
 world — and she is always moving her leetle pawns. When 
 the monastery is built " 
 
 "Oh, there is to be a monastery, is there?" 
 
 " Mais, oui ! Of course ! What would you ? The French 
 fathers are turned out of France — they come naturally to 
 England. They will poss-eebly buy the so ugly brewery of 
 Mistaire Minchin in time, when the brewing of the beer 
 makes failure!" He laughed — then went on — "Yes — there 
 will be a monaster}' on the Cotswolds — and in time — a 
 population Catholique. I begin that. When I have done 
 my leetle task, I go elsewhere. It is but a turn of the wheel. 
 There were monasteries all over England once — there will be 
 again. No one puts any stop in their way — and where there 
 is land to be sold — well ! — the Church has money ! " 
 
 Everton was silent for a moment. Then he said : 
 
 "Perhaps, after all, it is a good thing that this should 
 happen. Rome will gather together the credulous, the 
 superstitious — and — pardon my frankness ! — the cowardly, into
 
 152 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 her fold,— men and women who are afraid of themselves and 
 their own abominable vices, — who would rather be slaves 
 than free — who half believe in Hell, and think payment to the 
 Church will buy their escape from eternal torment — and we 
 shall see them as they are — we shall know them ! " 
 
 Douay smiled, and raised his eyebrows expressively. 
 
 " You are bold, mon ami ! So bold that I like you ! — I 
 almost love you ! For you are true — true to your own convic- 
 tion ! — and you are not afraid of offending one person or 
 many persons — that is a magnificent courage to which I 
 bow my soul ! " 
 
 Everton flushed warmly, conscious that his impulsive words 
 might have justly given his guest cause for annoyance. 
 
 " I beg your pardon ! " he said, frankly and earnestly — 
 " For the moment I forgot myself. Forgive my brusque 
 speech ! — it ought never to have been said to a minister of 
 the Church of Rome. I did not mean to be discourteous, I 
 assure you ! — but you seem so broad-minded, and so free * 
 from the trammels of superstition yourself, that you un- 
 consciously led me to express thoughts, which in your 
 presence were better left unuttered." 
 
 He broke off, visibly embarrassed. 
 
 " Allons done ! " exclaimed Douay, good-naturedly — " I see 
 that not at all ! Every man's opinion is interesting to me, 
 and I am the last person to take offence at hearing it. And 
 as for broad mind — ah oui ! — you will soon know that is very 
 large in me ! I take within my brain all creeds — all struggles 
 for the good — all sorrows — all difficulties — and I say, alas ! 
 — poor men and poor women ! So slow to learn — so hard to 
 live — so quick to die ! The great God cannot be angry long 
 with these leetle sad mortals ! It is all so trifling ! See ! 
 They are born and they do not know why — they feel afraid 
 and yet they hope — they do the wrong thing because they 
 are not taught the right one — they cry a little and pray a 
 little like poor children who are naughty — their good Father 
 give them a leetle whipping and put them to bed in the 
 churchyard — it is finish ! — good-night ! — and then they wake
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 153 
 
 up in the bright morning of Heaven, fresh and happy and 
 pardoned — is it not so ? Your Church and mine both teach 
 that pretty lesson — and we shall never do better, mon ami ! 
 — with all the education and all the science, we shall never 
 do better ! " 
 
 His keen blue-grey eyes twinkled kindly, and there was a 
 suspicion of moisture in them. 
 
 "I am sorry for everything," he went on — "and sorry for 
 everybody ! One church is as useful as another — and though 
 I know the stupidities of mine as well as I know the stupidities 
 of yours, I say it matters not. For all churches must move 
 one way, — the way that shall give hope to the hopeless, 
 that shall comfort the good, and frighten the bad, and that 
 shall help the poor weak ones — for the strong can stand 
 alone." 
 
 "Can any one, however strong, stand alone?" queried 
 Everton. 
 
 Douay looked full at him. 
 
 " You can ! And you will ! " 
 
 There was something singularly compelling in his tone, and 
 Everton was thrilled by it with a strange sensation akin to 
 fear. To ' stand alone ' had never been his ambition. He 
 had set before him as his aim and end the quiet life of a 
 country clergyman, established with a wife and family in a 
 peaceful village where no disturbing rumours of the larger 
 outer world should ever trouble his studious and contented 
 calm, — far removed from the clamour and call of warring 
 humanity — the struggle of nations — the rise and fall of 
 governments, — and all other urgent things which with great 
 pulsation of eager breath and vital stir of hunying blood are 
 the actual heart-beats of the world. He had attained what his 
 dreams had pictured as the most beautiful life for any man — 
 the life of quiet contemplation and limited influence, happily 
 associated with the consolations of love and domestic tran- 
 quillity, — what then remained for him but a satisfaction as 
 perfect as any that could be found on earth ? What did he 
 need that he was not possessed of? Surely nothing ! — yet —
 
 154 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 if he would be honest with himself he knew that there was a 
 lurking restlessness in his soul to which he could give no 
 name. 
 
 " You will not always be here," — went on Douay, nodding 
 impressively at him — "That is qiv'te imposs-eeble ! You will 
 have what some of the so many religions in England say is a 
 ' call ' — you will hear a voice cry ' Go forth ! ' and you will go. 
 I am much older than you, — and I have not lived so long not 
 to know many things. I have seen the folly of trying to 
 do good — but you — you have not learned that lesson yet — and 
 you will try ! — you will half kill yourself in the effort to do 
 kind actions, and they will all be misjudged — they will come 
 back as curses upon you, — they always do ! Study the life of 
 Our Lord and read the lesson ! Each of His miracles was 
 treated the same — ' He hath a devil ! ' — and for the great 
 crime of loving mankind, He was crucified ! See you ! It is 
 the same always — it will always be the same ! But you will 
 not quite believe this — and you will try to imitate Our Lord. 
 If you try too far you also will be nailed to the gibbet and put 
 in the sepulchre. Perhaps you will rise again — perhaps 
 not ! — that depends on the strength of the soul within you ! " 
 
 ' ' Then, you think there is no such thing as justice ? " asked 
 Everton. 
 
 " For the good — none at all ! " replied Douay emphatic- 
 ally — " None — not one leetle bit ! Not in this world ! No, — 
 not at all — I know not why ! But for the bad there is 
 much enjoyment, — they have what they call 'great fun,' and 
 often die in their beds quite peacefully, with the smiles of 
 angels ! And if they have much money, the clergyman say 
 ' Ah, how good ! What saintly souls are here gone to 
 heaven ! ' Of course ! I would say the same myself if 
 a very bad person left me a hundred thousand pounds ! " He 
 laughed pleasantly. " Yes — that is so ! The bad person 
 does very well as a rule. It is natural to be bad, apparently — 
 it is ^natural to be good ! Or I will put it that we have 
 made social and moral laws into which the natural man does 
 not fit. When the wznatural man arranges himself to obey
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 155 
 
 those laws, the natural one fights against him — and so it goes 
 on. Always trouble ! — always misunderstanding ! So it has 
 been from the beginning — so it will ever be ! " 
 
 "You are more of a philosopher than a priest," — said 
 Everton, smiling. 
 
 " Exactly ! — so I am ! I might have been another Renan, 
 if I had not seen how foolishly Renan himself wasted his life. 
 Think of it ! To write the Vie de Jesus, he went to the 
 Holy Land — and there his sister Henriette, the most true 
 friend he ever had, died of fever. Well ! — what use was all 
 the agony, the sickness, the weariness, the work ? Does the 
 great, world in all its sections care for the Vie de Jesus'? Not 
 one leetle bit ! All the writers may write as they please, but 
 the Divine Personality remains Divine — and why? Because 
 it is a simple, tender, loving Personality, uniting itself to the 
 poor and the suffering, — there are no complex side-issues to 
 its work — it is Love only ! That is why it will remain with 
 the world, when Voltaire and Renan are forgotten ! " 
 
 They were seated in Everton's study during this conversa- 
 tion, — luncheon was over, and they had drawn their chairs up 
 to the fireside, for though the day was fine and bright, a cold 
 March wind was driving its steely whips through the air, and 
 the blaze of sparkling coal was cheery and full of comfort. 
 Everton was, in a vague sort of fashion, surprised to think 
 how little he had noted the absence of his wife from the lunch 
 table. The meal had been a simple one, but perfectly well 
 served — no particular confusion had occurred among the 
 domestics because the mistress of the house was away, — and 
 the pleasure he had derived from the presence of a stranger 
 who could talk about matters in which he was intellectually 
 interested, entirely softened, if it did not quite obliterate, the 
 previous wretched sense of utter solitude and desertion which, 
 with the departure of Azalea and ' Baby Laurence,' had fallen 
 like a cloud upon him. And he was sorrier than he cared to 
 e v press when Douay presently rose to take his leave. 
 
 "Must you go so soon?" he asked, regretfully — "I have 
 not said half what I should like to say "
 
 156 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 " No — that is true ! " said Douay, pressing his hand 
 cordially — "You have been very silent, — I have done all 
 the talking, and you have listened. That is your way just 
 now. You are a dumb evangelist ! But some day you — 
 you also — will speak ! " 
 
 They parted on the mutual understanding that they meant 
 to see a good deal of each other in the future. Everton 
 agreed to cycle over as often as he could to the cottage 
 near the 'tin chapelle' of which Douay was now the 'cure' 
 — and Douay in his turn promised to call at the Vicarage 
 whenever he found himself in Shadbrook. 
 
 " Though, mind you, I won't have you making ' perverts ' 
 of my parishioners ! " laughed Everton. 
 
 " Not even to save them from the drink of Mistaire 
 Minchin ? " — retorted Douay — :< Be not afraid, men ami ! 
 I never try to convert or 'pervert' anybody. It is too 
 much trouble ! I open my little church or tin chapelle, 
 and let the people come, or stay away as they please. 
 But here is the fault of what we call our Christianity. If 
 one Church cannot make a bad man better, it is preferred 
 that he should be left in his badness than that any other 
 Church should make him good. Ah, bah ! " — and he 
 smiled genially as Everton uttered a few quick eager words of 
 protest — "I do not mind — why should I? — but you know 
 it is as I say. You speak as your training makes you speak, 
 and you are right to do as you are told. I also — I do 
 what I am told. But I keep my own opinion. And I say 
 if a man is born more savage than civilised — and there are 
 many such — it is better to soften his cruel nature by a 
 superstition than to give up his soul altogether. You will 
 not make him understand the grand scientific cosmos — no ! 
 You will never teach him the mathematical miracle of the 
 solar system. — his brain will be too shallow to accept it. 
 But he will comprehend the devil — he will be troubled ! — 
 especially in drink — by pictures of the horns and hoofs and 
 tail ! Yet the horns and hoofs and tail are quite common 
 — we see them every day in the oxen, — and as a part of
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 157 
 
 the devil they are only the relics of an old pagan myth — 
 the myth of the god Pan and his leaping satyrs — but no 
 matter ! — there are thousands of excellent persons calling 
 themselves educated who never heard of the god Pan or 
 any pagan myth at all, — and if we may believe the so 
 wonderful newspapers, the leetle children in Australia are 
 growing up without knowing any more of Christ than they 
 do of Pan ! It is a wonderful age ! — so clever as to be too 
 clever ! — and Our Lord's prophecies are being so quickly 
 fulfilled that His unworthy priests must surely tremble ! " 
 
 His voice sank — and a sudden sadness darkened his 
 features like the shadow of a cloud. Everton was silent, — 
 and in a certain sense was astonished at the emotion evinced 
 by this simple, ordinary-looking little man, to whom, at a 
 first glance, no one would have given credit for possessing 
 any great interest in things beyond the merest commonplace 
 duties of his calling. Douay seemed to read his thoughts, 
 for, laying one hand upon his arm, he went on — 
 
 " If I were a gitted man — a man with an eloquent tongue, 
 and, above all, if I were a handsome man — for the physique 
 is always more to the male and female savages than the morale, 
 — I would be a prophet to this time of what is coming. Yes ! 
 — of what is coming ! Of the terror— the doom that is 
 coming ! Not because God is angry — no !— but because 
 Wrong must be made Right by the changeless order of the 
 Eternal mathematics, which God cannot alter unless He 
 would destroy Himself! There is no such thing as Chaos, 
 —there never was. It is all Law ! And we must obey— if 
 net— then gare a nous! Y?s!" and he smiled strangely— 
 " If I were a gifted man — a man like you ! — I would be 
 something of an apostle ! " 
 
 " Like me ! " exclaimed Everton—" My dear sir, you 
 overrate my powers altogether ! I am a nothing ! the most 
 incompetent of preachers and teachers, — and though I deeply 
 feel the things you say, I cannot express them " 
 
 11 Not in Shadbrook ! " said Douay—" No ! That I under- 
 stand ! To Shadbrook you must talk as to a leetle child —
 
 158 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 but there is a world outside Shadbrook — and to that you 
 will speak, — when the time is ready!" 
 
 He shook hands again and went on his way, — and Everton, 
 left alone, busied himself among his books for the rest cf the 
 afternoon. Douay's words troubled him, and made him dwell 
 more or less irritably on remote possibiliiies in the future, — 
 therefore he sought to cool his mind by plunging it, as it were, 
 into a deep well of study. A telegram from Azalea announced 
 her safe arrival at Wes f on-super-Mare, and her delight at being 
 by the sea, — and, satisfied that she was evidently perfectly 
 happy without him, he tried for the time being, to imagine 
 himself unmarried and free from all the responsibility of 
 having other lives dependent on his own. What would be his 
 purpose in life now, under such circumstances ? 
 
 The answer came at once. To resign his living and go to 
 London. London, the mighty fermenting mass of good and 
 evil, — London with all its deep-centred horror, beauty and vile- 
 ness, — London, the Lost Soul of £. vast section of humanity — 
 a Soul that is sinking so surely and swiftly into choking quick- 
 sands of vice that not even the outstretched beams of the 
 Cross seem able to bear it up from destruction. Yet what 
 should he do in London? Preach 'the wrath to come'? 
 It would be called ' ranting ' by the halfpenny press ; and the 
 public, or such portion of it as swears by its lying daily 
 newspapers, would be induced to jest at and condemn him. 
 Well, what then? Did that matter, he asked himself? Did 
 not the ancient Jewish precursors of the modern press cry in 
 the same mocking spirit : " If Thou be the Son of God, 
 come down from the Cross ! " And " He saved others : 
 Himself He cannot save ! " With a quick impatient sigh, he 
 walked up and down his room like a trapped animal in a cage, 
 not in any way realising that his whole nature was panting for 
 freedom. Even if he had thought it, he never would have 
 entirely admitted that he longed to break through the narrow 
 circle wherein he was pent, and escape from the small and 
 mean concerns of low rural life — life in which the mating of 
 man and woman reaches no higher plane than that of moth
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 159 
 
 with moth, and yet is considered the chief business of living — 
 life, out of which children are born merely to drudge and die, 
 — life which is made up of such weary and monotonous 
 nothings that one can but marvel at the dogged patience and 
 stolid endurance with which it is lived. 
 
 Pausing in one of his turns to and fro, he stood at the 
 window and stared out into the garden. The sun was sinking 
 in a dull crimson glow behind a clump of short fir trees, and 
 their branches looked black as ink sketched stiffly out against 
 the lurid western light. Something like a pale fiery reflection 
 seemed cast up from the ground to mingle with the stronger 
 glare in the sky, and Everton caught himself thinking, he knew 
 not why, of the first murder as chronicled in Genesis, when the 
 Lord said : — " The voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto Me 
 from the ground ! " How many such voices of blood had cried 
 to the Lord since then ! Millions upon millions of them, 
 shrieking through tortured mouths red with human wrong ! — 
 red as the ground there, which the scarlet sun flamed upon 
 silently without any pitying touch of golden tenderness — as 
 silently as the Lord Himself now watched all the accumulating 
 crime of the world ! Everton shivered with a sudden sense of 
 cold, and turned away from the garden view, which to him 
 had become unaccountably gloomy. At that instant there was 
 a knock at the study door and the parlourmaid entered. 
 
 " If you please, sir," — she said, somewhat nervously — 
 "there's some one wants to see you — a man from the 
 village " 
 
 He looked at her, and noticed that she seemed a trifle 
 scared. 
 
 "Who is it?" he asked. 
 
 "It's — it's Dan Kiernan, sir." 
 
 He waited a moment, considering. Then he said quietly : 
 
 '■'All right! Show him in." 
 
 The girl lingered hesitatingly — and added in a low tone : 
 
 " I think he's qu'.te sober, sir." 
 
 Everton nodded. 
 
 "Good. I'm glad of that. I'll see him at once."
 
 160 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 She disappeared then, and there came a pause — a pause in 
 which Everton tried to get a firm hold of his thought", and so 
 steady them that he should betray no sign of the hatred — yes, 
 hatred ! — that he bore to the man who was not only a vile 
 accuser of the innocent, but also— the lover of Jacynth. Then 
 came the sound of heavy, clumbering feet in the outer passage ; 
 the feet of the rustic boor which always tread with the same 
 uncouth awkwardness whether on carpets or clods of clay, — 
 and in another few seconds a shadow loomed on the threshold 
 of his quiet room — a huge, brawny, bulky figure that seemed 
 to suddenly create an obstruction in space and a darkness in 
 light. Everton looked steadily at this slouching form as it 
 appeared, mentally measuring it in its gross material mass of 
 man, — he watched it enter his study and shut the door, — then 
 he stood up and faced it. But he said nothing. And for one 
 long minute there was a tense stillness, in which only the slow 
 ticking of the clock on the mantelpiece could be heard. Both 
 men met each other's eyes with equal recognition and anti- 
 pathy, — both men knew, albeit obscurely, that the same 
 passions animated them, though the one was an educated 
 minister of Christ's Gospel, and the other an ignorant, drink- 
 sodden ruffian, — and both were conscious of a certain 
 fascination in each other's personality. So they stood, each 
 waiting for the other to speak, — but both with the same name 
 ready to spring to their lips at the first orovocation — the name 
 of Jacynth.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 KIERNAN was the first to break silence. 
 " I want a wurrd with ye, Mister Parson," — he said, 
 gruffly. 
 
 " Certainly ! " — and the Vicar, moving to his customary 
 desk chair, seated himself — " I know of your great trouble " 
 
 " Oh, ye knows of it, does ye ? " and Dan glowered sullenly 
 at him from under his heavy black brows — " Well, that'll save 
 some talkin'. Anyway ye doan't need tellin' that my wife's 
 dead." 
 
 " I heard of her death last night," — said Everton, as gently 
 as he could — " And I am very, very sorry." 
 
 "Very very sorry won't mend it," — retorted Kiernan — 
 "She's gone, and very very sorry woan't bring her back. She 
 was a good wench to me, Jennie was, — an' ef it 'adn't bin for 
 you, Mister Parson, meddlin' an' muddlin' round with what 
 worn't yer bizness, an' interferin' with a poor man's 'ome, she'd 
 a' bin alive now ! " 
 
 The Vicar sat rigidly in his chair, quite silent. 
 
 " Ef it 'adn't bin for you," went on Dan, in a louder tone — 
 " you an' yer mincin' smirkin' dolly wife, Jennie would a' bin 
 livin' yet, strong an' 'arty. She never minded a bit o ? my fist, 
 didn't Jennie — she knew 'twas all right an' what she'd got to 
 'xpect from a man with a drop o' drink in 'im, an' she didn't 
 go fur to blame me neither. She worn't no darnation preacher ! 
 She was that fond o' me that she took the hull o' me for better 
 an' worser, drink or no drink, as the weddin' words bound 'er 
 to do, and ef one parson marries a man to a woman with them 
 words, I'd like to know 'ow any other parson dare come 
 
 T T
 
 1 62 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 interferin' between 'em ! 'Ow dare he ? Come ! Tell me 
 that ! " 
 
 Everton lifted his calm clear eyes and looked full at him. 
 
 " If you mean that for me," he said, slowly — " / never came 
 between you. I only tried to save your wife from you when 
 you were too drunk to know what you were doing — and when 
 you might unintentionally have murdered her. I also tried to 
 save you from yourself ! " 
 
 Kiernan gave a short laugh. 
 
 " Fine talk that is ! " he exclaimed — " Reg'lar pulpit jabber ! 
 Save me from myself ! What d'ye mean ? I am myself, an' 
 there ain't no me outside myself. Any fool knows that ! An' 
 it's me myself that sez Jennie would a' bin all right ef she'd a' 
 bin left alone — she was a-gettin' on fine an' comin' round as 
 well as could be, till your wife, Mister Parson," — here he 
 thrust his dark face forward with a threatening movement — 
 " your lady wife with 'er airs an' 'er graces an' 'er mean gossipin* 
 tongue came in tellin' tales, an' killed 'er ! " 
 
 Everton rose suddenly and walked straight up to him. 
 
 " Dare to speak of my wife again and I'll put you out of the 
 house ! " he said, in low, perfectly even tones — " I don't want 
 any quarrel with you, Dan Kiernan, but if you force one upon 
 me it will be the worse for you ! " 
 
 Kiernan stared, — for the moment completely taken aback by 
 the Vicar's rapid movement and resolute expression. Then he 
 gave vent to a hoarse chuckle. 
 
 " So you've got a bit o' pluck about ye, 'ave ye ! " he sneered. 
 " Can't 'ave your wife touched ! 'Ow about my wife then ? 
 My wife as is lyin' dead ? S'pose your wife was a-lyin' wheer 
 mine is ? S'pose you was a-goin' to shovel 'er into the ground 
 to-morrer ? 'Ow would you like it ? One man's no worse an' 
 no better than t'other, if we goes by Church preachin', an' 
 poor's as good as rich — so I doan't s'pose your feelin's 'as any 
 speshul right to be took care of more'n mine ! An' ef ye knew 
 that your wife 'ad bin killed by a lot o' cursed gabble an' 
 mischief-makin', m'appen ye'd feel like killin' the man or the 
 woman what done ye the bad turn ! "
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 163 
 
 He chuckled savagely again as Everton moved away from 
 him with an involuntary gesture of repulsion, and added : — 
 
 " You knows that's right enough ! Bein' parson doan't save 
 ye from bein' a man. You preaches justice an' ekal rights for 
 rich an' poor, but when it comes to tryin' the game on square, 
 you doan't want your own wife blamed though mine's lyin' 
 dead ! An' wheer's the right an' justice o' that ? " He threw 
 up one hand with a defiant snap of his fingers, adding — " An' 
 all the bloomin' fuss about a gel too ! By the Lord ! — as ef 
 gels worn't as cheap an' common as blackberries on a hedge, 
 waitin' for men to gather 'em, an' turnin' sour too ef they aiiit 
 gathered when ripe ! What's to do with 'em, I say ? Let 'em 
 rot ? Or take 'em when they're offered free ? " 
 
 Everton stood still and listened. There was a curious 
 tension in the air like the oppressive sense of heat before 
 thunder, and he waited with an irritated sense of impatience 
 for the lightning-flash of a woman's name. 
 
 " Some gels likes men, an' some doan't," — went on Dan — 
 " Them as doan't keeps off clear — them as does comes to the 
 first whistle. An' there's gels as turns yer 'ed silly more'n the 
 drink, wi' their looks an' their smiles an' their ' dears ' an' their 
 'darlin's,' an' I doan't mind tellin' you an' everybody else in the 
 hull village that I went fair 'mazed an' crazy over Jacynth Miller." 
 
 Here he paused and seemed to gather himself into a black 
 brooding cloud of anger. Everton remained standing in the 
 same position and place, coldly attentive. 
 
 " What the h — 11 was it to you," — burst forth Kiernan again, 
 " whether I 'ad the gel or she 'ad me ? What call 'ad your 
 missus to go muddlin' an' meddlin' an' tellin' tales to mine ? 
 I've as good a right to 'ave a gel as any man, an' I ain't bound 
 to ask leave of the parson neither ! " 
 
 Everton's lips were dry, and he found it difficult to speak. 
 
 A feverish tremor ran through his veins, — savage instincts 
 such as he hardly knew he possessed, stirred within him, urging 
 him to throw himself upon this boorish brute and shake him 
 into utter speechlessness, — and it was only by the strongest 
 possible effort that he maintained his self-control.
 
 1 64 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 " You are certainly not bound to ask a parson or any one else 
 for leave to do anything," — he said, at last, slowly, in accents 
 of irrepressible scorn — " You are a free man in a free country, 
 as men and countries go. You can commit as many sins as 
 you like, — you can disgrace yourself and others — you can 
 indulge in every sort of vice and abomination — you can drink 
 yourself to death, if you decide to do so — and no other man 
 can hinder you. But you are answerable to God for your 
 conduct ! " 
 
 Kiernan laughed insolently. 
 
 "God! Oh, that's all right! I doan't mind God! He 
 doan't interfere. He's made men to mate wi' wimmin, an' 
 wimmin to mate wi' men, an' 'ow they do't doan't matter to 'im 
 as long as 'tis done ! God didn't look out o' the sky an' say 
 1 Jacynth, doan't ye go wi' Dan ! ' — or ' Dan, doan't ye go wi' 
 Jacynth ! ' not 'e ! There ain't no nonsense o' that kind in all 
 creation 'cept wi' parsons an' district visitors ! Mind though, I 
 woan't say but that ef Jacynth 'ad a' bin a straight gel I'd a' 
 left 'er alone — but she was born a reg'lar bad 'un, as sweet as 
 'ony an' as coaxin' as a kitten, an' she'd a' took any man she 
 wanted. It 'appened to be me — but it might a' just as easy 
 'appened to be you ! " 
 
 The Vicar drew his breath quickly and his eyes grew dark 
 with repressed pain. But he said not a word in reply. 
 
 " It might just as easy 'appened to be you," — repeated Dan, 
 taking a sort of stupid satisfaction in the assertion — " One 
 was as good as t'other to Jacynth. She'd a' took any one she 
 'ad a mind to. She fancied me — an' I was the fust one — yes ! 
 — I was fust!" and he gave vent to a low snigger — "She 
 can't get over that whatever she doos an' wheerever she goes. 
 An' the actor fellow she's gone with now is the second, — much 
 good may it do 'im ! But ef she'd stayed on in the village, 
 she'd a' got every man she wanted, an' she'd a' 'ad you as sure as 
 you're alive ! She said as much to me once when she wanted 
 to rile me. ' I'll make love to the parson some day, Dan, see 
 ef I doan't ! ' sez she, an' she pulls the pins out of 'er 'air an' 
 lets it all fall about 'er, enuff to drive a chap silly — ' I'll look at
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 165 
 
 'im so ! ' an' she makes a cherry of 'er mouth, an' twinkles 'er 
 big eyes — ' An' I'll ketch 'old of 'im so,' — an' she puts 'er arms 
 round my neck — ' An' when 'e goes to read the prayers in 
 church, 'e'll see nothin' but my face at the altar ! ' That's what 
 she said, Gospel true ! An' she'd a' kep' 'er wurrd ! " 
 
 Still Everton was silent. He was very pale, but he stood 
 motionless. He had nothing to say. No argument was 
 possible with such a man as this. 
 
 " No one carn't swear as she worn't the finest gel anywheers 
 on the Cotswolds," went on Kiernan — " As pretty as the devil 
 could make 'er, an' as skeery an' gay as a young colt thorough- 
 bred. An' ef it's agin God's will that a gel should take to a 
 man an' a man to a gel, why doan't 'e show it? Why doan't 'e 
 talk to the birds an' the beasts an' tell 'em they're all a-goin' to 
 'ell ? They doos what we're told not to do, — an' it's all rot an' 
 mawky stuff so far as a man's consarned, for a man's a man 
 wi' the ways of a man, an' ef you worn't a parson, you'd be 
 'onest an' say the same. I ain't done no more 'arm than a 
 burrd what picks out a new mate every spring." 
 
 He paused, waiting for Everton to speak, while Everton 
 himself vaguely wondered what he was expected to say. At 
 last he forced himself into utterance. 
 
 "When you married your wife," he said, coldly— "You 
 swore before God to be faithful to her, did you not ? " 
 
 Dan's eyes shifted to and fro uneasily. 
 
 " Mebbe I did," — he answered, sullenly — " But there ain't no 
 man in the hull wurrld as sticks to one woman." Then, meet- 
 ing the Vicar's straight, accusing glance, he burst out, savagely : 
 " There ain't, I say ! Ay, ye may look an' look at me till yer 
 eyes falls out o' yer 'ed an' it woan't make no difference to 
 my way o' think in' ! There's not a man alive, low nor 'igh, 
 as ever kep' to 'is wife all 'is days, year in an' year out. I 
 doan't care who 'e be, — mebbe the Squire or mebbe Mister 
 Minchin, — they'se all made o' the same stuff, an' Jennie she 
 knew that well, bein' a sensible wench all along. Jennie knew 
 it — an' so does all wimmin know't, onny they jest pertends 
 they doan't unnerstand it. But they do ! Ah, an' parsons
 
 1 66 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 ain't no exception — they goes for the wimmin more'n most, 
 an' many on 'em 'ud risk 'ell for a gel like Jacynth, — that 
 they 'ud, an' small blame to 'em ! I'd take the chance of an 
 everlastin' burnin' in the next wurrld cheerful an' willin' so 
 long as I could 'ave Jacynth in this one ! An' now, thanks to 
 your missus interferin' where she 'adn't no business, I've lost 
 Jacynth as well as Jennie. O' course I know'd that there 
 actor fellow as was a-tourin' round Cheltenham way 'ad got 
 'is eye on 'er — a smooth, sleek-faced devil old enough to be 'er 
 father, wi' grey 'airs an' a made-up skin — but 'e pertcnded to 
 be a gentleman 'e did, an' that's what Jacynth wanted. She 
 alius told me she'd be a lady somehows. Sez she : ' I'll be a 
 lady in a theatre like what we reads about in the 'apenny Mail, 
 as spends 'eaps o' money she ain't got, an' 'as thousands o' 
 pounds worth o' debts for the clothes she wears, an' marries a 
 rich 'usband an' lives with ever so many lovers, an' is took 
 about by duchesses, an' goes on board the King's yacht. That's 
 bein' a real lady, that is ! ' So she sez, an' that's what she's 
 after, an' by G — d, she'll 'ave 'er way ! Look 'ere, Mister 
 Parson, you talks o' the drink, an' the 'arm the drink doos to 
 the workin'-man, but ef you wants to put a stop to real mis- 
 chief, you'll 'ave to stop the 'apenny papers ! — that's your 
 ticket ! Stop them comin' into the village wi' the marnin's 
 London tales o' what the dirty sassiety folks is a-doin' wi' 
 theirselves — for those tales drives more country gels to the 
 bad than any lot o' men makin' love to 'em. The 'apenny 
 paper doos more 'arm than all the publics put together ! " 
 
 Everton heard this harangue with attentive patience. The 
 coarse eloquence of the man moved him to a certain surprise, 
 — he had not thought Kiernan capable, even when sober, of 
 expressing himself so forcibly. For there was truth in what he 
 said, — truth that could not be denied. And his thoughts 
 wandered to the ' actor fellov. ' who had taken Jacynth, — he 
 caught himself wondering whether he could be traced, and the 
 girl rescued ; — rescued ? But to what purpose would the rescue 
 serve ? The world has grown apathetic and indifferent to the 
 ruin of women ! He sighed impatiently, and seeing that
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 167 
 
 Kiernan was watching him, he said in accents of studied 
 gentleness : — 
 
 " You may be right. No doubt you are. But the existence 
 of the cheap newspaper evil does not lessen the drink evil. 
 Drink is your curse, Kiernan — fight against it if you are a 
 man ! Drink has brought you into your present trouble, and 
 drink will bring you to a wretched end if you clon't pull up 
 in time. I'm not 'preaching' or giving you what you call 
 'pulpit jabber' — I'm speaking to you as" — he paused, — he 
 could not say ' as a friend ' — and he finished the sentence 
 slowly — " as your Vicar." 
 
 Dan gave a contemptuous gesture. 
 
 " Oh, are ye ? Well, ye woan't be my Vicar arter to-morrer ! " 
 he said — " I ain't a-goin' to stop in Shadbrook now Jacynth's 
 gone an' my wife's dead. There ain't nothin' to stop for. 
 I've got a better job, an' I'm off." 
 
 Everton was quite still for a moment. His heart was full of 
 a smouldering anger, and he could feel it beating quickly. 
 
 " You follow Jacynth, I suppose ? " he said, meaningly. 
 
 A tigerish gleam leaped into Kiernan's eyes. 
 
 " No, I doan't ! " he answered, sharply, and with fierce 
 emphasis — " So ye supposes wrong ! As long as she was mine 
 I'd a' gone with 'er to the devil ! — but I doan't take another 
 man's cast-off ! " 
 
 A silence followed, in which the measured ticking of the 
 clock became painfully obtrusive. The sun had sunk, and the 
 room was filled with dense shadows. In the wavering uncer- 
 tainty of the semi-twilight, Kiernan's bulky form loomed 
 larger, darker, and more aggressive, and Everton, with a sense 
 of vague disquietude upon him, moved to his desk and lit the 
 two candles which always stood there, in order to relieve the 
 obscurity. Then he turned again towards his undesired 
 visitor. 
 
 " Have you said all you wish to say to me ? " he asked. 
 
 Dan gave him an ugly look. 
 
 " Not quite all, Mister Parson ! " he said — " Not quite all ! 
 There's a goodish bit yet between you an' me ; 'owsomever, I'll
 
 1 68 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 not 'ave it out wi' ye while Jennie's above ground. But I'll jest 
 tell ye this much, that ye'll not see me at the buryin' to-morrtr. 
 I ain't a-goin' to stand by an' see Jennie put into th' yerth — 
 not I, by a long ways ! An' 'ave all the neighbours a-starin' 
 an' a-whisperin' round, an' a-sayin' as 'ow I'd broken Jennie's 
 'art by reason o' Jacynth ; when ef it 'adn't been for the meddlin' 
 o' your missus comin' into my 'ome wheer she 'adn't no 
 business to be, Jennie 'ud never a' bin a bit the wiser nor the 
 worsen So you'll do the buryin' this time without the chief 
 mourner, Mister ! — for I'll say good-bye to Jennie lyin' in 'er 
 coffin to-night afore they screws 'er down, — an' as for mournin', 
 I've got a mournin' way o' my own, — an' that way your wife 
 'ull find out sooner or later, — by G — d, she shall ! " 
 
 Everton glanced him up and down in utter scorn. 
 
 " You threaten a woman ! " he said, contemptuously — " A 
 bully is always a coward ! " 
 
 Kiernan made one heavy stride towards him. 
 
 " Come, I woan't take that ! " he exclaimed, fiercely — " I 
 woan't take it, I say ! No damn parson shall call me a 
 coward ! " 
 
 " You are a coward ! " and Everton stood his ground firmly, 
 looking unflinchingly into the savage face that so closely 
 confronted him, — " You talk like a coward, and you behave 
 like one ! If you have a grudge against me and want to avenge 
 yourself, why don't you do it here and now ? I am alone, — 
 why don't you knock me down if that will be a relief to your 
 feelings ? I shall neither resist nor retaliate. You know 
 I can't raise a hand against you in self-defence, not because I 
 fear you, but simply because I am a minister of Christ. Take 
 your chance, therefore, and do what you like to me, — but for 
 the sake of common manliness, if not for very shame, leave 
 women out of the quarrel ! " 
 
 For a moment Kiernan stood confounded, staring stupidly at 
 the pale, delicately built man who, with a perfectly grave and 
 quiet demeanour, thus offered himself for attack. Then he fell 
 back a few steps, and a slow, cunning smile darkened rather 
 than brightened his heavy features.
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 169 
 
 " Leave wimmin out ! " he muttered — " No — that woan't do ! 
 — that woan't do ! Wimmin was the beginnin' an' wimmin '11 
 be the end ! You're a peart man, Mister Parson, an' I ain't a- 
 goin' to touch ye ! 'Tain't my game to get into trouble on your 
 score, though I make no doubt ye'd like me to do it ! But I'm 
 a-clearin' out o' this part o' the parish an' I'll go quiet. I 
 doan't intend to lose the place I've just took at Minchin's all 
 for the pleasure o' givin' ye a knock-me-down, — thank'ee 
 kindly ! I'll settle up some other time ! " 
 
 Everton still kept his eyes upon him. 
 
 " Are you going to work at Minchin's Brewery ? " he 
 asked. 
 
 Dan nodded his bullet head a great many times. 
 
 "I am," he answered, with a kind of surly triumph — "I've 
 got a good job there an' good pay." 
 
 " God help you, man ! " said Everton, abruptly — " You go 
 from bad to worse ! " 
 
 He turned away and sat down at his desk. The clock 
 ticked off two or three minutes with uninterrupted distinctness. 
 At last, oppressed by the stillness and the weight of Kiernan's 
 hateful presence in his room, he said : 
 
 " I think your business with me is finished ? I understand 
 you will not be at your wife's funeral to-morrow and that 
 you are leaving Shadbrook. That's what you wished me to 
 know, isn't it ? " 
 
 His curt matter-of-fact tone seemed to bewilder Kiernan for 
 a second. He put his hand to his head, and rubbed his thick 
 stubbly hair in a meditative way. 
 
 " That's it,"— he replied, slowly—" That's it, Mister Parson, 
 — for the present. But doan't ye leave out the best part o' my 
 bizness with ye — an' that's what I said about your missus, an' 
 it's what I stick to. My Jennie's death lies at 'er door — an' 
 for that matter Jacynth's goin' off sudden-like lies at 'er door 
 too — and I'll — I'll " — here he raised a clenched fist in air — 
 " I'll have it even with 'er yet ! She's runned away — I knows 
 she's runned away this marnin' afraid to 'ear of all the trouble 
 she's brought upon a poor man's 'ome — but she'll have to
 
 i-o HOLY ORDERS 
 
 come back — an' I can wait patient — I can bide my 
 time ! " 
 
 Everton made no answer. He was inwardly quivering with 
 suppressed rage — but he knew it would be worse than useless 
 to continue arguing with a man for whom there was no God 
 and no conscience. He drew some papers towards him and 
 feigned to be busy examining them. 
 
 "D'ye 'ear me?" said Kiernan, in a louder tone — "I can 
 bide my time ! " 
 
 Everton turned a calm pale face upon him. 
 
 "I hear you!" he rejoined, quietly — "And I say — God 
 forgive you ! " 
 
 His eyes shone steadfastly and clear, despite their strained 
 look of suffering ; — they were eyes that expressed a soul braced 
 to the performance of duty, no matter how difficult or galling 
 such duty might be. Never was a braver ' God forgive you ! ' 
 uttered than by the lips of this country cleric, whose passions 
 as a mere man were all on fire, — whose lithe hands longed to 
 be at the throat of the sodden brute whose threats were so 
 vague and yet so suggestive of uncompromising cruelty, — and 
 who would have given every penny he possessed to be per- 
 mitted to kick the cowardly accuser of his wife out of the 
 house. No early Christian martyr saying ' God forgive you ! ' 
 to his Roman torturers merited more praise for self-restraint 
 and heavenly patience than Everton at that moment, for he 
 showed no sign of what was passing in his mind, and so im- 
 movably tranquil did he seem, that Kiernan, dully staring at 
 him, began to be angrily conscious of his own inferiority as 
 boor to gentleman. He gave a coarse laugh. 
 
 "That's all ye sez, is it — 'God forgive ye!'" he sneered. 
 " That's all ye've got to say ? " 
 
 Everton looked straightly at him. 
 
 "That's all!" he said. 
 
 There was a pause, — and for one moment the two men 
 gazed full at one another as though each sought to drag forth 
 some prisoned thought in both their souls. Then Dan 
 Kiernan opened the study door roughly, went out, and banged
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 171 
 
 it after him. He was gone. With a deep sigh of relief Everton 
 sprang up and threw back the lattice windows, admitting a rush 
 of fresh, cold air. 
 
 " I don't think I could have stood it a moment longer !" he 
 said half-aloud — " Pah ! The room reeks of the pot-house ! 
 Good God ! Is the soul of a man like Kiernan precious to 
 the Infinite and Divine Powers? Does it deserve to be? 
 Can it be honestly considered as more valuable than the soul 
 of a beast of the field which has the virtues of temperance and 
 humility? And if it is so considered, who is to save it? 
 What force on earth or in heaven could stop this churl from 
 drinking himself into madness, — save death ? None — surely 
 none ! It is his own choice — and no one can hinder him, 
 least of all the ' parson ' whom he despises, and whom others 
 like him equally despise, because religion is brought into con- 
 tempt by the very laws of the land. Such laws ! They would 
 punish a newspaper for printing insults against the King — but 
 they leave it unscathed for publishing the vilest blasphemy 
 against Christ ! We, the clergy, preach, — and though there 
 are bad amongst us, the good predominate — the good who 
 faithfully try to do their duty — but what is spoken from the 
 pulpit is contradicted by the press, — the whole country swarms 
 with pernicious and filthy literature which so-called ' reviewers ' 
 praise — and the ministers of Christ's Gospel appeal in vain 
 against the wickedness and corruption in high places, because 
 these are grown so strong and are so well-established by actual 
 Law that it will need a second coming of Christ to cleanse the 
 foulness of the social hive. The second coming of Christ ! 
 When will that be ! God knows I would it were soon ! " 
 
 He paced up and down his room, and his glance presently 
 fell on a pretty photograph of his wife that stood on a small 
 table near his desk. The sweet young face smiled at him, and 
 he paused in front of it, looking at it long and earnestly, till 
 suddenly he found his eyes suffused with tears. 
 
 "Poor little woman!" he murmured, tenderly — "Poor 
 innocent little woman ! " 
 
 And then he thought of Jacynth Miller. He remembered
 
 l 7 2 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 every detail of her appearance the last time he had seen her, — 
 he knew the exact and particular shade of blue she had worn 
 — he could almost see the fashion of her bodice, open at the 
 throat to show the whiteness of her skin, and the drooping 
 petals of the flowers she had pinned just above the full curve 
 of her bosom. And she— even she — had come fresh from the 
 embraces of Dan Kiernan ! A shudder ran through him,— a 
 kind of nausea, such as might possibly affect a sensitive man 
 if he were told that a delicately plumaged bird had fallen into 
 the gutter and been trampled by a routing swine. Could she 
 not have been saved from such a fate ? Bob Hadley's dying 
 cries : :i Save Jacynth ! : ' rang in his ears with haunting per- 
 sistence. If he had only known ! But he had never even 
 suspected that she could, or would have had so much as a 
 passing fancy for such a brutish creature as Dan Kiernan. 
 Accrediting her with no more evil than an excess of vanity and 
 heartlessness, he had thought of her as a wild, half-educated 
 girl, endowed with an extraordinary beauty which in her case 
 amounted to a misfortune, — a girl who needed to be dealt 
 with firmly, yet kindly, — and he had hoped that in time, with 
 care and teaching, he might have helped to mould her character, 
 and fit her for some useful service. As this reflection crossed 
 his mind he felt his face grow hot with mingled anger and 
 shame. For while he, like a fool, had been meditating on 
 possible ways and means for her better training, she, if her 
 boorish lover might be believed, had merely been vowing to 
 number him, the Vicar of the parish, among her conquests ! 
 The whole episode worried him, — he would have given a great 
 deal had he been able to forget it. But it was just one of 
 those uncomfortable happenings which, in the whole length of 
 a lifetime, refuse to be forgotten. 
 
 That evening he found the Vicarage very lonely, and himself 
 very restless. It was a fine night, though cold, — the sky was 
 covered with masses of dense cloud which drifted along so 
 slowly as to almost appear motionless, and now and then a 
 solitary star gleamed forth like a spark glowing through smoke, 
 to vanish again as soon as it appeared. A touch of frost made
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 173 
 
 the air keen and bracing, and deciding that a walk would do 
 him good before retiring to rest, he put on his hat and overcoat 
 and went out. As he shut his house door behind him, he- 
 stood for a moment in the garden listening, as it were, to the 
 silence. It was a silence heavy and intense, yet suggestive of 
 an under-current of sustained sound that sullenly refused to 
 make itself audible. One heard nothing, yet felt that there 
 was everything to hear. Oppressed and saddened by his own 
 thoughts, he went quickly across the lawn and through the dark 
 winding shrubberies to the gate which opened upon the high- 
 road, and there leaned for a moment looking at the dim twinkle 
 of the lights in the village of Shadbrook — very few and uncer- 
 tain in their glimmerings, like glow-worms shining in a moist 
 tangle of green. 
 
 " A handful of souls ! " he mused — " Just a handful — scarcely 
 enough to make the merest infinitesimal speck of molecular 
 dust in the whirl of the cosmos ! And yet — we must believe 
 that God cares for even this handful ! " 
 
 He unlatched the gate, and passing out, walked on down the 
 road towards the bridge. From that point he could command 
 a view of both ' old ' and ' new ' Shadbrook, and here the 
 solemn stillness of the night was broken by the noise of the 
 little stream running along, no doubt with quite as busy a 
 cheerfulness as when the Romans built their durable arch of 
 stone across it. On either side of the bridge, — to the east on 
 the one hand, to the west on the other, a strong flare of light 
 shone forth with a vivid yellow brilliancy, and Everton sighed 
 impatiently as he looked at what he knew was the fiery Pharos 
 of Drink flaming from the two public-houses, which, so far 
 from being rivals, were jointly concerned in making as much 
 as they could for themselves and for Minchin to whom they 
 were ' tied,' out of the bodies and souls of the hapless villagers 
 who ignorantly consumed the deadly poison they were licensed 
 to sell. 
 
 "All the mischief is centred there!" he said half aloud — 
 " In the drink, which it would seem that Heaven itself is power- 
 less to fight against. If by some miracle of intervention those
 
 i 7 4 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 two public-houses could be closed, or done away with, I should 
 have more hope of the men and women committed to my 
 charge, — but while the actual laws of the country permit so 
 many blood-poisoners, masquerading as brewers and spirit 
 distillers, to make utter havoc of the moral and physical 
 condition of the people, what can 1 or any member of my 
 callins do? Our remonstrances are met with derision, and 
 we ourselves are looked upon as fools for our pains. Even 
 the teaching of Christ Himself hardly touches the Drink 
 question, for he preached His Gospel in the East, where 
 drunkenness is not a national vice. I have heard special 
 pleaders quote His own words and actions as arguments in 
 favour of the public-house, — because He praised the publican 
 more than the Pharisee in the parable, and also because His 
 first miracle was to turn water into wine. And they recall His 
 choice of Levi the Publican, whom He commanded to follow 
 Him, and they relate the story of how Levi ' made Him a great 
 feast in his own house, and there was a great company of 
 publicans and others that sat down with them.' Therefore, so 
 they would argue, the Founder of the Christian Faith would 
 seem to have rather favoured than blamed the sellers of drink 
 to the people. It is all very difficult and very perplexing ; the 
 evil is one which we clergy ought to fight, but we lack both 
 the means and the authority for combat." 
 
 Just then he heard a confused din as of shouting and 
 laughter echoing out on the air from the public-house which 
 was nearest to where he stood, — the ' Stag and Crow,' with 
 whose proprietor, Mr. Topper, he had ventured to plead 
 against the sale of more drink to Dan Kiernan on the day 
 of that misguided man's assault on his wife. He walked 
 towards it, halting immediately opposite its brightly lit up 
 windows, two of which were open at the top, though the 
 blinds were all drawn to prevent any stray passer-by from 
 seeing what was going on inside. One blind, however, was 
 not quite down, — between its lower edge and the window- 
 sill there was about an inch of clear glass, — and through this 
 some half-a-dozen small boys of the village were earnestly
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 175 
 
 peeping, all holding each other by the arms and pressing their 
 noses against the pane. The tin-like tinkling of a bad piano 
 badly played struck the quietness of the outer air with a 
 rough blow of vulgarity, and every now and then the roar 
 of men's rowdy laughter, capped by a feminine scream or 
 hysterical giggle, outraged the peaceful hush of night. The 
 boys who were spying through their inch of window-pane 
 were frequently convulsed with mirth, — at certain moments 
 they bent and doubled up their childish figures with such 
 an excess of laughter, that as they stood outlined in the 
 darkness by the flare of the lights within, they suggested to 
 the mind a band of fantastic gnomes, engaged in watching 
 the progress of some devil's mischief to humanity. Everton 
 looked at them scrutinisingly, but though he knew every boy 
 in the village, he could not immediately identify them, — 
 presently, however, when he saw them rolling together, as 
 it were, one upon another, in a prolonged and united fit of 
 ecstasy, he went straight up to them. 
 
 " Boys, what are you doing here ? " he asked, gently. 
 
 They all turned, and stared at him. One of them, a rosy- 
 cheeked little urchin with a tangle of fair curls falling over 
 his innocent blue eyes, answered shyly : 
 
 " We was watchin' the droonk folk !" 
 
 Everton patted the small upturned head. 
 
 " And do you think they're worth looking at ? " he 
 asked. 
 
 Another bigger boy spoke. 
 
 " They'se like the clowns at the circus ! " he said — " All 
 a-toomblin' over each other an' a-grabbin' at chairs an' tables 
 to keep steady-loike — an' there's gels as is pullin' all their 'air 
 down an' larfin' theirselves silly ! " 
 
 Everton, recognising one of his Sunday-school lads, took 
 him gently by the arm. 
 
 " I wish you'd all go home," — he said, kindly — " It's not 
 a pretty sight. It's a shocking, horrible sight ! — try to forget 
 you've ever seen it. Or, if you must remember, let it remain 
 in your mind as something to be feared and avoided. There's
 
 i 7 6 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 nothing so vile and ugly in all the world as a drunkard. You 
 know I'm right, don't you ? " 
 
 They peeped up at him submissively. A faint chorus of 
 small voices answered : 
 
 " Yes, sir ! " 
 
 He smiled, and led them along in a little group away from 
 the scene which had so fascinated them. 
 
 " Run home, like good children ! " he said, cheerily — " Home 
 to your mothers, and to bed ! It's time for you all to be 
 sound asleep. Good-night ! God bless you ! " 
 
 Off went all the little caps in a row. 
 
 " Good-night, sir ! " 
 
 Everton lifted his own hat and stood bare-headed in the 
 quiet gloom for a moment, while these small scions of future 
 manhood went their way in obedience to the impression his 
 kind voice and manner had made upon them, — and there was 
 a stinging moisture in his eyes as he watched them disappear. 
 
 " Poor little souls ! " he murmured — " Who can blame them 
 if their early conceptions of life and the things of life are 
 dark and crooked ? Man's wilful degradation of himself is 
 bad enough — but when he degrades his children, and through 
 them spreads the contamination of his own disease to future 
 unborn generations, surely no estimate can sufficiently gauge 
 the enormous extent of his selfishness and crime ! It is not 
 of ourselves we should think, for ourselves are always too 
 much with us ; — it is of others — others upon whom our 
 conduct and example may have a lasting good or evil 
 influence." 
 
 At that moment a yell of hysterical laughter pierced the 
 air, and through the open doorway of the 'Stag and Crow' 
 some eight or nine men and women came reeling out into 
 the road. The piano went on tinkling brassily inside, and 
 two women, with their hair tossing loosely about their faces, 
 and their tawdry ' scoop ' hats falling off like battered lamp- 
 shades on their backs, began to dance wildly opposite each 
 other in the fantastic gyrations common to the gutter music- 
 hall stage and known as the ' cake-walk.'
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 177 
 
 "Come on, Dan !" they screamed — "Come on, an' show 
 us a bit o' yer quality ! " 
 
 And roars of laughter went up from the whole group, as 
 Dan Kiernan, in a condition that can only be described as 
 'dead drunk,' suddenly staggered forward, hatless, and coatless, 
 his face swollen and blurred out of all intelligent human 
 semblance by the red fire of the corroding liquor that 
 inwardly ravened and consumed him, and his massive figure 
 swaying with an unwieldy helplessness like a drifting log 
 swirled to and fro 1 1 the strong cross-currents of a swift 
 stream. The women rushed at hirn and seized him — one on 
 either side and each gripping an arm, — and so between them 
 the wretched fool was made to caper heavily backwards and 
 forwards like a clumsy bear in chains, amid repeated shrill 
 yells and hoarse guffaws of idiotic laughter. 
 
 "Step it out, Dan I" cried one man, stumbling back against 
 the public-house door — " Step it out ! I'd dance all night if 
 my old 'ooman was dead ! " 
 
 Another roar of laughter hailed this witticism, and the 
 insane 'cake-walk' went on with redoubled vigour, improved 
 and sustained by sundry fits of hiccoughing on the part of 
 Kiernan, which were loudly applauded by the clapping of 
 hands and stamping of feet. All at once and quite quietly, 
 Everton stepped out from the shadows which had till now 
 concealed his presence, and stood for a moment in full view 
 of the dishevelled company. There was a sudden pause — an 
 equally sudden silence. Then one of the women who held 
 Kieman's arm burst into a tipsy laugh. 
 
 " It's the parson ! '' she yelled — " Lordy-dordy me ! It's the 
 parson ! " 
 
 Kiernan stopped in his Eruin-like shuffling, and tried to 
 steady himself. 
 
 "The parson!" he stuttered — "Wot's 'e a-doin' of 'ere? 
 Turn 'im out ! D'ye 'ear, boys ? Turn — turn 'im out ! We 
 doan't want no parsons 'ere, talking 'igh an' mighty an' 
 interferin' wi' the poor man's 'ome ! " Here he gave a heavy 
 lurch forward and would have fallen, but for the women, who, 
 12
 
 178 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 giggling crazily, still held him up. "We doan't want no 
 parsons ! " he repeated, raising his rough voice to a savage 
 roar — " Damn 'em all, I say ! Eh, boys ? Damn 'em all ! " 
 
 Without a word or further look, the Vicar turned and 
 walked away. As he disappeared, the dapper, self-important 
 proprietor of the 'Stag and Crow,' Mr. Topper, suddenly 
 showed himself at the threshold of his ' licensed premises ' and 
 smiled benevolently on the group of his recent customers, who 
 were, together with Dan Kiernan, whom they still escorted, 
 beginning to roll and stagger and straggle away in the various 
 directions of their several homes. With the pleasant smile 
 still on his fat face, he carefully shut the door of the bar, and 
 locked and bolted it with much emphatic noise, while some one 
 within extinguished all the lights, exactly as the church clock 
 struck eleven. 
 
 Everton, reaching his own house again, heard the chime 
 pulsate in musical beats through the silence, like a sweet 
 voice made tremulous by tears. His nerves were throbbing — 
 his mind was weary — and a fatigued protest rose up within 
 him against the apparent uselessness of effort and the vanity 
 of all toil. Kiernan's coarse words echoed in his ears with 
 the pertinacity of an unavenged insult. "We doan't want 
 no parsons ! Damn 'em all, I say ! " To this end an 
 irresponsible and unlicensed Press was bringing the People ! 
 
 " And to this end," — he thought, " Education without 
 Religion will rear its Christ-less human brutes of the next 
 generation ! " 

 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 THERE are what may be called 'grey days' in every 
 human life — days of mental mist and drizzle, when the 
 heaven of thought is overcast and no glimpse of brightness 
 breaks unon the soul, — days which leave a dark blur upon the 
 mind too deep to be erased or forgotten. One of the worst 
 and dreariest of such days was that on which Richard Everton 
 performed the last rites of the Church for the ill-fated Jennie 
 Kiernan. Never, to his own thinking, had he conducted a 
 more melancholy funeral. Pitiful in its plain poorness, it was 
 nevertheless rendered impressive by the crowd of mourners 
 following the coffin — for the village had turned out nearly all 
 its inhabitants, many of them giving up a day's work and wage 
 in order to pay a final tribute of respect to the mortal remains 
 of a woman whose chief claim upon the regard of her neigh- 
 bours had been her long-suffering and always uncomplaining 
 patience. They gathered round the grave in massed groups, 
 their stolid faces guiltless of any expression, — and listened in 
 heavy silence while their Vicar solemnly enunciated the too 
 familiar ' ashes to ashes — dust to dust ' phrase, which by con- 
 stant repetition had become almost meaningless to their ears, 
 — and it was only now and then that Everton caught a few 
 furtive glances from eyes that were suddenly lifted to his face, 
 as though in wonder or enquiry — glances that set his nerves 
 quivering and made the blood rise to his brows. For he 
 understood the meaning of those covert looks which expressed 
 yet concealed an unspoken doubt, — he saw that in each of 
 
 those ignorant, narrow and prejudiced minds, one idea had 
 
 179
 
 i So HOLY ORDERS 
 
 been implanted, and that idea was, that 'if the parson's wife 
 hadn't gone meddlin' with what wasn't her business, Jennie 
 Kiernan wouldn't have died.' Instinctively he felt the atmo- 
 sphere of a dull resentment rising against him — resentment 
 that was as reasonless as it was obstinate. And his speech 
 faltered a little as he read of the ' voice from heaven ' which 
 promised the dead 'rest from their labours.' Rest just now 
 seemed to him the sweetest and most desirable thing in the 
 world, for he was weary in heart and spirit. The strong con- 
 sciousness that his ministration of the Gospel was, to a very 
 great extent, utterly futile, weighed upon him heavily. In this 
 one poor patish of Shadbrook he could count nothing but 
 failures. His influence had worked no good — it had neither 
 checked drink nor immorality. Even young Hadley, who, for 
 the greater part of his last illness, had shown a wonderfully 
 docile and Chrisitan spirit of resignation and patience, had 
 died raving for the love of a woman, and blasphemously deny- 
 ing the existence of God. And Jacynth Miller — she — but of 
 her he would not allow himself to think. He was thankful 
 when all was over, and when, having seen Jennie Kiernan's 
 coffin lowered into the ground, the villagers slowly and silently 
 dispersed. One woman lingered behind the rest, and curtsey- 
 ing respectfully, spoke to him in a hushed voice with tears in 
 her eyes — and this was Jennie's loyal friend, Mrs. Adcott. 
 
 " I'm right sorry it's all happened as it has," — she said — 
 " It's cross work and cruel, — that it is, sir, — but Jennie, for all 
 that she was a hard-working woman, had a lovin' heart, an' it 
 just broke when she knew Dan worn't true to her. She'd a' 
 borne anything else — ay, if Dan had a' kicked 'er to death, 
 she'd a' taken it thankful an' died blessin' 'im, so long as he'd 
 been her man, but when she heerd 'im ravin' like mad because 
 Jacynth had left 'im " 
 
 " Yes — yes, I know ! " interrupted Everton — " I know it all, 
 — don't speak of it any more ! The whole affair is most un- 
 fortunate. I could perhaps have saved her if I had been told 
 in time " 
 
 " Well, sir, it wasn't for the like of us to tell you," — and Mrs.
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 181 
 
 Adcott wiped her eyes— "You see Jacynth, she went to church 
 
 reg'lar, and took the Lord's bread and wine " 
 
 Everton turned very white. 
 
 " Yes," he said, with sudden stiffness—" I am aware of all 
 the facts — now. Don't let us talk of the miserable story here ! " 
 —and he pointed to the open grave — " It is not the time or 
 the place." 
 
 Mrs. Adcott curtseyed again meekly, and went away with bent 
 head, crying softly. For a moment the Vicar stood inert, — for 
 a moment he lifted his pale face to the lowering sky which 
 darkly threatened rain, as though in mute appeal, — then he 
 signed to Stowey the sexton, who advanced at once and began 
 the work of ' covering in,' or, as he himself was wont to express 
 it — 'putting a warm quilt on a cold sleeper.' 
 
 "There worn't no chief mourner to-day," — he said, as he 
 cast the loose earth rattling down upon Jennie Kiernan's coffin ; 
 " Dan, he wor up an' away 'fore 'twas dawn, an' his sticks o' 
 furniture went arter 'im at ten o'clock. There's a men's dinner 
 on at the Brewer)', on account of it's bein' Mr. Minchin's birth- 
 day. Dan wouldn't miss that if 'e'd got twenty wives bein' 
 buried — he's a new ' hand ' at the Brewery, an' of course they'll 
 drink 'is 'elth ! " 
 
 Everton said nothing. ' Silent Stowey ' was not usually so 
 communicative. 
 
 " Mr. Minchin's birthday it is ! " he went on, with a kind of 
 inward chuckle— ''That's a fine thing for rejoicin', ain't it!" 
 And he threw an extra large shovelful of earth into the grave. 
 " He drinks 'is own 'elth in water, an' he's kind enough to let 
 his Brewery men drink it in poison ! " 
 
 The Vicar let this satire pass without comment. 
 
 " Dan Kiernan has left the village for good, then, I suppose ? " 
 he said. 
 
 " Or for bad,"— retorted Stowey—" Ay ! It seems like it." 
 
 With this last remark he relapsed into his usual taciturnity. 
 Everton watched him working for a while, and then rain 
 beginning to fall, returned to the Vicarage and to the quiet of 
 his own study. Here he made combat against his own sense
 
 1 82 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 of utter depression by writing a long letter to his wife, though 
 he was not at all sure she would read it through. The charming 
 Azalea was fond of asserting that letters ' bored ' her, especially 
 when she was expected to answer them. But he felt the 
 necessity of expressing his thoughts to somebody, even though 
 that somebody might be, as far as mental receptiveness was 
 concerned, the merest nobody — so he penned an eloquent, 
 tender, graceful, and affectionate epistle, telling her everything 
 he imagined she might wish to know, — softening all that was 
 gloomy or unpleasant in the Kiernan incident, — and only 
 dwelling particularly on the fact that Dan himself had now 
 left the village to work at Minchin's brewery, ten miles off, so 
 that she need not fear any personal annoyance from him in 
 her daily walks at home. 
 
 " Don't stay away now unless you like," — he concluded — 
 "Think that a day without you and Laurence is to me longer 
 than a year, and come back soon, for I am very lonely. I want 
 you every minute, for life itself is too short a span in which to 
 express how much I love you." And he signed himself as usual 
 her ' devoted husband,' feeling satisfied that his appeal would 
 bring her back at once. In fact, when his letter was posted, 
 he began to look up the possible trains by which she could 
 return the very next day. 
 
 " She will be sure to come," he said to himself — " When she 
 knows Kiernan is out of the village, she will want to get home 
 as quickly as she can." 
 
 But in this he was mistaken. Azalea did not want to get 
 home quickly by any means. He was indeed altogether 
 unprepared for the ease with which she managed to exist 
 without his company. She answered his letter and told 
 him she was l so happy' at the sea-side, and 'Baby was so 
 well, that it seemed dreadful to have to return to Shadbrook 
 too soon ! ' 
 
 " I'm so glad, darling," she wrote, in her pretty, characterless 
 running hand, — " that the dreadful man Kiernan has gone out 
 of the place — he was a horror ! But he's just the sort of brute 
 that Minchin would like to have in his nasty smelly yards, —
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 183 
 
 rolling casks about or driving a dray along. I should say he 
 would do vjry well as a brewery hand, and as he will always 
 be drunk, he will be quite a nice advertisement for Minchin's 
 Ale! Won't he? Baby is so browr and lovely! — he makes 
 the most beautiful sand forts, and actually finds shrimps ! Just 
 a few days longer, dear old Dick, and we will come home ! " 
 
 He sighed as he finished reading the light, inconsequent 
 school-girl sentences, — then he smiled. 
 
 " Poor little woman," he murmured tenderly — " I daresay 
 it's very dull for her here — very dull ! Even love itself is not 
 always sufficient to lighten monotony. Love itself " 
 
 Here he paused, and began to think introspectively as to 
 the nature of love. Scientifically, it has been defined as ' the 
 law of attraction between the sexer/ and if any estimate is to 
 be formed by the conduct of the present-day man and woman 
 in their marriages, it seems no more than this. But to 
 Richard Everton it was much more. To him, love meant 
 the sanctification of life. It does not mean this to the 
 majority of men. Once, now and again, the Beatific Vision 
 of the Ideal shines into the soul of a poet or other world's 
 dreamer, — but that it should descend from the high empyrean 
 and dwell with a plain country parson, is a strange and 
 unusual circumstance. Yet so it was, — and the perfect con- 
 ception of perfect love which he cherished with such tender 
 tenacity, made him a much greater man than he realised 
 himself to be. Heroisms and martyrdoms in embryo were 
 hidden beneath this central pure flame which dominated his 
 existence, and the intellectual power that lay dormant within 
 him was being steadily nourished and strengthened by many 
 springs of bitter-sweetness which, unconsciousl) to himself, 
 flowed through his whole being, though they often poured 
 themselves to waste on the very small and limited plot of 
 love's garden-ground which his pretty wife with her graceful 
 figure and charming face represented. And, moved by the 
 unselfishness which always led him to consider her happiness 
 more than his own, he resigned himself cheerfully to the 
 loneliness her absence imposed upon him, determining to let
 
 1 84 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 her enjoy herself at the sea-side as long as she liked, without 
 obtruding any personal complaint. Meanwhile, he went about 
 his ordinary duties with redoubled energy, believing that if he 
 mingled familiarly with his parishioners and showed no sign of 
 constraint or embarrassment, they would open their hearts to 
 him freely on the matter of the Kiernan episode, concerning 
 which he felt there was much more to learn than had yet 
 been told. 
 
 But in this expectation he was disappointed. The villagers 
 were sad — not to say sullen. They received him everywhere 
 civilly enough — but they were distinctly not in the humour 
 to volunteer any confidences. And when Sunday came round 
 he noticed that the attendance at church was much smaller 
 than usual. This pained him considerably, — the more so as 
 he felt himself to be innocent of any offence against his ' little 
 flock.' In the vexation of his heart he spoke about this 
 sudden falling away of his congregation to Dr. Brand. 
 
 " I cannot understand it," — he said, wearily — " What have I 
 done ? " 
 
 Brand looked at him with a touch of compassion. 
 
 " Nothing ! " he answered promptly — " That's just it ! You 
 have done nothing ! But the rustic, or let us say, the bucolic 
 mind, has ideas of right and wrong which are completely the 
 reverse of right and wrong as you and I conceive them, — and 
 the result of this topsy-turvy view of things is that Shadbrook 
 considers Dan Kiernan a deeply injured man ! " 
 
 Everton gave a kind of hopeless gesture. 
 
 " So ! " he ejaculated—" Is that the latest ? " 
 
 " That is the very latest ! " and Brand, who was thoroughly 
 kind-hearted as well as eminently practical, laughed a little — 
 " Don't look so down in the mouth about it ! You can't weave 
 fine silk out of raw hide, and these people's sense of justice 
 is as primitive as are their passions. They say Dan is a man, 
 and can't help being a man — Jacynth is a girl who likes men, 
 and she took Dan just because he came handy — and why not ? 
 And they kept silence while the mischief went on, thinking 
 that 'least said, soonest mended.' I confess I thought so
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 185 
 
 myself. Then when — when," — here ' Dr. Harry ' hesitated 
 delicately — "when it became necessary to tell Dan's wife of 
 her husband's infidelity, why then — well ! — then the poor 
 woman died and got out of her trouble, and Jacynth ran off 
 with another fellow, as was to be expected, — but Dan — Dan 
 remains to bear the burden of having lost wife and sweetheart 
 both at once and together ! Don't you see ? And thus, 
 comfortably following their own line of argument, they 
 conclude that after all Dan, with all his faults, is the one 
 most to be pitied ! " 
 
 The Vicar sighed. He was troubled, — but could not find 
 words to express exactly the nature of his trouble. 
 
 "Nothing can convince these sort of folk of the true 
 character of sin " ; — went on Brand — " They are for the most 
 part more barbaric than civilised, and their notions of life are 
 not much higher than the notions of savages concerning their 
 squaws and wigwams. No one realises the utter impossibility 
 of reasoning logically with them so well as a country doctor. 
 When any affair occurs among them like this of Dan Kieman 
 and Jacynth Miller, it would be no use for me to tell them 
 that it is a bad and immoral affair. They would only laugh at 
 me. Some of them have no sense of morality or immorality 
 — and you might talk to them for a year, and you would never 
 make them understand. If you were to take the statistics or 
 standard of morality in every village all over the British Isles, 
 you would, with, your idealistic views, be simply appalled at 
 the result. Rural life is not always the most innocent — and 
 the ' sweet sylvan maid ' of the poet's line may be, and often 
 is, a very impudent minx. You must remember that in these 
 later years, the current press has made a mock of marriage, — 
 and as the daily halfpenny papers circulate everywhere, it is 
 not surprising that the vices of the country keep pace with 
 those of the town." 
 
 Everton turned upon him quickly. 
 
 "Are you speaking seriously?" he demanded, with eager 
 and sudden vehemence — " Do you mean to tell me that the 
 teaching of the Gospel has no influence ? "
 
 1S6 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 Brand's eyes grew sad and stern. 
 
 "I will not say it has no influence," — he replied — "But it 
 has not so much as it might have. We are living in very evil 
 days, — and the Church does not seem strong enough to cope 
 with its adversaries. Honestly speaking, I pity the clergy ! 
 For many years past they have been lax in their duties — they 
 have taken things too easily — and the consequence is that 
 they now find themselves unprepared for difficulty. Look at 
 them ! Men, educated at Oxford, Cambridge, or other of the 
 Universities, and brought up without the slightest intimate 
 comprehension of the real, suffering, heart-broken world around 
 them " 
 
 " Heart - broken world ! " echoed Everton — " That's a 
 melancholy phrase ! " 
 
 " It's a true one ! " said Brand — " The only really happy 
 human creatures in it are very young children, and even they 
 are not exempt from pain. But for grown men and women 
 who have to face all the countless miseries and struggles of life, 
 what else is it but a heart-broken world ? Especially if it is 
 robbed of faith in God. The Christian religion was given to 
 us to help mend the heart-break — has it done so? No — 
 because its ministers will not allow it to do so. They construe 
 its simple tenderness by the light of their own narrow and 
 prejudiced minds — and those who should he comforted are 
 left comfortless. In my profession I meet with cases of utter 
 mental, moral and spiritual despair every day, — cases where 
 both the Church and the resident clergyman have done their 
 little best." 
 
 "You are very eloquent," — said Everton, with a touch of 
 surprise — "You have evidently thought a great deal on the 
 subject " 
 
 " Pretty much so ! Doctors think more than you might 
 perhaps suppose. But in all my experience, I'm bound to say 
 I have never had a dying patient whose condition was not 
 made worse by the ministrations of the clergyman. Now " — 
 and the doctor squared his shoulders and looked full into the 
 face of his quietly attentive listener — " I tell you this un-
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 187 
 
 pleasant fact, plainly and bluntly, because I can see you're a 
 different sort of parson to most of your class. Holy orders are 
 really • holy ' to you — and you evidently want to do tlK r ight 
 thing. Well ! — do it ! — and never mind if you're called names. 
 It's still possible to preach Christ to humanity in the true 
 way." 
 
 "A way I hope I may find," — said Everton, gently — "I 
 shall not forget your words ! " 
 
 " As for the villagers falling off in attendance at church," 
 went on Brand — " pay no attention to it. They'll only sulk 
 for a week or two. Like children, they'll soon come out of 
 the corner. The chief element of trouble has left the place — 
 Jacynth Miller " 
 
 " Yes — I wonder where she has gone ? " Everton put the 
 question quickly and with eagerness. 
 
 Brand glanced at him. 
 
 " Does it matter ? " 
 
 " Oh, it natters nothing — but — the wreck of a young girl's 
 life " 
 
 " She has wrecked it herself, if it is a wreck," — said Brand — 
 " You may consider her as ruined, — but she considers her 
 fortune made. She has gone off with an actor — a fellow 
 pretty well known for his questional 3 character and insuffer- 
 able conceit — he gets up provincial 'amateur' dramatic 
 societies, and touts for 'county' bumpkins that will fee him 
 for training them to make asses of themselves on the stage. 
 He snapped up Jacynth for her face and figure, and has got 
 her a place, so I hear, at some London theatre as a chorus 
 girl. I shouldn't wonder if she ends by becoming a peeress ! " 
 
 " You jest," and Everton's brows darkened — ' ; She has gone 
 to a life of shame ! " 
 
 " You think so — of course you would think so,'' — here 
 Brand smiled indulgently — " She doesn't. Anyway she began 
 the life of shame here — here, in apparently innccent-looking 
 little Shadbrook. And I repeat, — with her beauty and her 
 cajoling ways, she will probably marry one of our jejune peers, 
 who has no idea of a woman beyond her body. Virtue is out
 
 1 83 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 of date, — the odd marriages made by some of our modern 
 men show that they have apparently ceased to care whether a 
 woman is good or the reverse. Only the other day, a girl, 
 who was brought up before a magistrate on a charge of wilfully 
 murdering her illegitimate child, had five offers of maniage 
 before she left the court ! What can you make of that ? I 
 know plenty of good honest girls fit to be excellent wives, and 
 never a breath of scandal has touched them — yet they don't 
 get one offer of marriage — much less five ! What of a certain 
 Duchess, none of whose children were born in wedlock, — and 
 who, nevertheless, is a 'leader of society'? The times are 
 corrupt — and the best and most patient of us can only pray 
 that some great revolution will break out upon us before it is 
 too late, and cleanse the nation of its accumulated filth ! " He 
 spoke with strong feeling — adding — " It's no good my getting 
 on these topics — my thoughts brim over and I talk too much. 
 Eut the days are ripe for another Peter the Hermit to preach 
 a new and higher crusade. Of course if such a p r eacher came 
 he would be laughed at, — he would be made the butt of the 
 cheap newspaper, and the joke of the stable and the green- 
 room — but if he were a strong, and above all, a sincere man, 
 he wouldn't mind all that, — and he might turn back the tide 
 of national disaster — even now ! " 
 
 Everton thought over this conversation for days after it 
 had taken place, — days that were rather more than usually 
 productive of meditation, owing to his being so much alone. 
 The little Roman Catholic priest, Sebastien Douay, came over 
 to see him several times, his visits making a pleasant break in 
 what to him was a long and irksome solitude — and the at first 
 merely congenial acquaintance between the two men, began 
 to ripen into a warm friendship. Douay was not only tactful 
 and kindly, but he also was gifted with a cheerfulness of dis- 
 position so great as to make his presence eminently welcome 
 and desirable in dull weather, a fact which he himself appeared 
 to recognise, for he generally chose cold, blustering east-windy 
 afternoons for cycling over to the Vicarage, sometimes in the 
 very teeth of a strong gale blowing hard against him.
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 189 
 
 " I love the cold ! " he would say — " I love the cross wind ! 
 They are good to fight with ! Often I have much quarrel in 
 my mind — quarrel with the world — quarrel with wicked human 
 nature — quarrel with myself! And it is better to use one's 
 angry force against bad weather than against bad men ! That 
 is how your Mistaire Gladstone did, — he was often very angry, 
 sans doute ! — he must have wished to chop off heads — instead 
 of that he chopped down trees 1 So wise of him ! — to get rid 
 of hot blood ! It is what you call to ' let off steam ' ! " 
 
 Everton was often amused at the little man's unruffled 
 philosophy. 
 
 " I believe you are never out of temper ! " he said to him 
 one day — " You never seem to be annoyed or anxious or sorry 
 about anything ! " 
 
 Douay spread out his plump hands with a deprecatory air. 
 
 " Ah, you mistake ! " he answered — " I am not of stone, my 
 friend ! — not all indifferent — no ! But to be annoyed — why 
 should I be ? At what ? For whom ? For some one who 
 thinks he troubles me ? Then I give him a pleasure by show- 
 ing that he is of importance to me ! Then again, — to be 
 anxious will make me that I am not at all sure of God. This 
 would be wicked — for I am sure of Him ! " Here he shook his 
 finger emphatically in the air — " Sure ! Remember, in this 
 age of mockery, to put so much to the credit of a leetlj priest 
 Roman Catholique. But, — to be sorry — ah yes ! I am sorry 
 all the hours of all the days ! — sorry for others ! — never for 
 myself." 
 
 " Never sorry for yourself!" — repeated Everton, thoughtfully, 
 "You mean you have nothing to regret or to desire?" 
 
 " Nothing ! " — and Douay's eyes shone with a steadfast 
 light — " Not now ! In the old days, perhaps, — when I was 
 young — then it may be that the love of God seemed cold and 
 distant — and the love of life — and woman — seemed too near 
 and dear ! — but now — now I would not change my lot with 
 that of any man ! No — I have no desire and no regret — 
 exeept sometimes for my leetle French parish, where I trained 
 the children to love their prayers and their sweet thoughts of
 
 190 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 Heaven — for by-and-bye there will be no children left who will 
 know how to pray — thanks to modern Governments ! — but 
 after all 1 " — and he shrugged his shoulders lightly — " They 
 will continue to do without me — no man is missed anywhere 
 more than a few weeks, — if so long ! " 
 
 Everton was silent. His thoughts had jumped to a purely 
 selfish and personal consideration — for he wondered if Azalea, 
 supposing he should be parted from her for any great length 
 of time, would miss him ? The answer to this question in his 
 own mind was so decisively in the negative that he almost 
 recoiled from its emphasis. He would miss Her — he missed 
 her now — every moment of every hour — but he could not 
 flatter himself that his feeling was reciprocated. Yet she 
 loved him — 'Certainly she loved him. Then — what was 
 love ? The agreeable voice of Sebastien Douay inter- 
 rupted his brief meditation. 
 
 " And when does your wife — the angel of your paradise — 
 return ? " 
 
 A slight flush of colour warmed the Vicar's pale fare. 
 
 "Soon — very soon!" he replied hastily — "The sea air is 
 very good for her and the child " 
 
 " I see — I understand ! " and Douay nodded amicably — 
 "And do you hear any more of the drunkard who was so 
 much zause of trouble? Shall I tell you some news of 
 him ? " 
 
 " You ? '' exclaimed Everton, with interest — " Do you know 
 how he's getting on ? " 
 
 ' I know ! " and Douay nodded again a great many times — 
 " I know that Mistaire Minchin gives him free beer ! Free, 
 my friend ! — think of it ! — nothing to pay for drinking as much 
 poison as he likes ! All day long, all night long, he can 
 drink, if he so desires ! He has a certain wage a week, free 
 beer, and a cottage on the brewing estate ol the excellent 
 Minchin. He is what you call 'in clover.' He is drunk 
 every night — his cottage is, unhappily to say, quite near to 
 mine, — and he is to me a noisy and disagreeable neighbour. 
 So, one day I go to Minchin — I say with all politeness —
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 191 
 
 ' Monsieur, one of your men comes home every night drunk, 
 and makes so much noise near my windows that I cannot 
 sleep ! Mistaire Minchin look at me with a grin — he has the 
 face of a fox and the eyes of a wolf, — and he reply : — ' I am 
 sorry ! But I am not responsible for my men's actions when 
 they are off duty. What man is it ? ' I name Daniel Kiernan. 
 Mistaire Minchin offers me another grin. ' An excellent 
 fellow!' he say — 'excellent! He has recently lost his wife — 
 poor woman ! — she was worried to death by the Vicar of 
 Shadbrook, who is always interfering with his parishioners ' " 
 
 Richard uttered an indignant exclamation. Douay held up 
 a pacifying hand. 
 
 " Be patient, my friend ! — be patient ! " he said — " I am 
 only telling you the liar's way of lying — you do not expect 
 truth from Minchin? — then why trouble yourself? 'Dan 
 Kiernan is a most valuable hand ' — he say again — ' I respect 
 him very gready. I have never seen him drunk — and I think 
 you must be mistaken. In any case, I can do nothing.' So 
 he give me a bow and one more grin — and I go. Eh bien ! — 
 that is all. Except this " — here Douay folded his arms and 
 looked defiant — "Suppose I try and reform this madman 
 of drink — this Kiernan — suppose I make him Roman 
 Catholique ? " 
 
 Everton stared — then smiled. 
 
 " I should *hink you would have a poor convert ! " he said. 
 
 "Or 'pervert," retorted Douay — "Now listen, my dear 
 Protestant friend ! — which will you prefer ? That the man 
 Kiernan remain as he is — a drunkard — or that the Church 
 of Rome shall take hold of him and make him sober ? " 
 
 " If the Church of Rome can do that, she will perform more 
 than many of her boasted miracles,'' — said Everton, with a 
 sense of pain and irritation which he could not quite control — 
 " It is not for me to say a word in the matter. If you think 
 you can succeed where I have failed " 
 
 " Attention ! " and Douay shook a forefinger in the air again ; 
 "This is what I will point out — for of this I have cause to 
 complain. Here is a man — bad, villainous, dangerous — and
 
 i 9 2 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 so far as we can see, the Church Protestant can do nothing 
 with him. You are, for the moment, in Shadbrook, the 
 Church Protestant. I am the very poor leetle avant-courier 
 of the Church Roman Catholique in a neighbouring parish. 
 I say always ' Roman,' because some of your what you call 
 ' High ' Church parsons say they are ' Catholique ' without the 
 Roman. Now to my mind this cannot be. The Christian 
 Church first began to form itself in Rome — or at least that is 
 how I take it, — and we look back so far down the ages — so 
 far ! — and with all our faults — crimes if you will — our human 
 mistakes and follies and cruelties, — our creed is older than the 
 divorce of Henry the Eighth from Catharine of Arragon. Ah 
 yes ! — we count among us the early saints and martyrs ! — my 
 friend, we have great ancestors ! But now see ! — the priest 
 of the Church Protestant will rather let a man's soul perish 
 altogether in wickedness than he will see a priest of the 
 Church Roman Catholique save him ! And I say to you — 
 Is that Christian ? " 
 
 Everton had risen from his chair during the last two or 
 three minutes, and was now standing facing his companion with 
 a look of very real distress in his eyes. 
 
 " Do you — can you — think me so narrow — so bigoted ? " he 
 began. 
 
 Douay was beside him instantly, tapping a friendly hand on 
 his arm. 
 
 " No, no ! I do not think that you — the man — are so, — 
 but you, the priest, the parson of the Church Protestant — is it 
 not your duty to keep all your own sheep in your own fold ? " 
 
 " It is so certainly — but " Everton hesitated, pained 
 
 and perplexed. 
 
 " But ! — ah, it is a but ! Now I will tell you what your 
 business is, my friend ! It is to say at once that you do not 
 think the Church Roman can save the soul of the drunkard, 
 or any soul whatever, — that you do not believe that any 
 Church has any good in it but the English Church Protestant. 
 That is what you should say to me. Why do you not say 
 it?"
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 193 
 
 He looked up with a bright questioning glance. Everton 
 was silent. 
 
 " Let us be men, you and I ! " went on Douay — " Let us say 
 what we think, and be honest before all things — for the good 
 God is surely looking at us ! Let us bravely confess that neither 
 of us are at all sure whether we, or our different churches are 
 strong enough or pure enough to save any soul, — and so, in 
 our different ways of teaching, let us do our leetle best without 
 quarrel ! It is quarrel that makes all the mischief ! — quarrel 
 that again nails our dear Lord to the Cross ! We must not 
 grudge one another our very small victories ! " 
 
 And with a quick impulsive movement he held out his hand. 
 Everton pressed it warmly. 
 
 " You are right ! " he said — " And I certainly shall not grudge 
 you any victory you may win over Kiernan. But I think you'll 
 have to conquer Minchin first ! " 
 
 Douay laughed. 
 
 " Ah ! That I will not try. A brewer is worse than a drunkard 
 — when he does not drink his own beer ! He then calls him- 
 self ' respectable ' — and Monsieur the Devil begins to love him ! 
 The Church may have some power over a really bad man, who 
 knows he is bad and confesses it — but never over a ' respectable ' 
 fraud 1" 
 
 That evening the little priest remained to dine and sleep, — 
 and what with the pleasure of an intricate game of chess, followed 
 by an examination of certain old books and manuscripts which 
 Everton possessed and of which Douay was an able and intelli- 
 gent judge, the time passed so quickly and agreeably that all 
 depression and dullness were banished, and for one evening at 
 least, life at Shadbrook Vicarage ceased to be tedious and the 
 Vicar's ' parochial ' outlook seemed to have insensibly widened. 
 So much so indeed that he was in a manner startled when 
 shortly after Douay's departure next morning he received a 
 telegram from his wife announcing that she was returning home 
 that very day. Surprise, however, soon gave way to delight — 
 and his spirits rose to an almost boyish pitch of excitement, as 
 he went about the house, putting bunches of such flowers as he 
 
 13
 
 i 9 4 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 could find or procure, on the various tables in the different 
 rooms, — urging the servants to make everything look as bright 
 as possible for their mistress's home-coming, and all the time 
 feeling in his own mind that the best he could do was but poor 
 service for so fair and winsome a creature as Azalea, who, so 
 he romantically imagined, should have had a palace to dwell in, 
 with gaily-attired ' vassals ' at her beck and call, rather than an 
 old-fashioned country parsonage, with only an old-fashioned 
 country parson to place his heart under her little feet and thank 
 her for trampling on it. 
 
 " For I am old-fashioned ! " he argued with himself — " There's 
 not a doubt of it. I'm old-fashioned in my opinions and my 
 ways, and I'm dull. I don't wish to disguise it. I'm certainly 
 dull. I wonder how Azalea can put up with me sometimes. 
 For if I find life in Shadbrook rather slow, what must she, with 
 all her grace and beauty, find it ? Poor little soul ! " 
 
 And yet no prettier, cosier home ever threw open its doors 
 to any woman than Shadbrook Vicarage when, just as evening 
 was closing in, Azalea arrived, and springing lightly out of the 
 old dos-cart which had been sent to the station to meet her, 
 laughingly submitted to be caught in her husband's embrace 
 and kissed with all a lover's ardour. 
 
 " Oh, Dick ! " she exclaimed, as she entered the house — " We 
 have had such a good time ! Look at Baby ! Did you ever 
 see such a brown darling ? " 
 
 The ' brown darling ' here handed over by Nurse Tomkins to 
 receive his father's caresses, was indeed the picture of health, 
 though he was only very slightly 'brown.' The sea had 
 certainly given a warmer, ruddier tinge to his fair skin, and his 
 eyes were more wonderful than ever — or at least, so Richard 
 thought, as the little fellow raised them to his face with all the 
 serious, divinely contemplative sweetness that Raffaelle painted 
 in the eyes of his child-angels at the feet of the Virgin. It was 
 difficult to imagine a child with such eyes ever growing up, — 
 for eyes so pure and brilliant are never seen in the head of an 
 adult man. Evil thoughts and gross desires soon darken the 
 first heavenly clearness of those ' windows of the soul,' and .such
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 195 
 
 men and women as possess any heart, conscience or feeling 
 must surely, when looking into a child's eyes, feel something of 
 regret, even of shame, that such beautiful trust and candour 
 therein expressed should be destined to betrayal and dis- 
 appointment. Everton himself was often troubled by such an 
 emotion — and at times he would even think whether — the world 
 being what it is — it is right or just to inflict upon any innocent 
 spirit tne doom of mortal life? Especially if, as advanced 
 scientists maintain, life is only another name for death. " I am 
 thankful," — said a philosopher once — " that I have no children. 
 I could not have endured the terrible responsibility of bringing 
 more sufferers into such a hell as man has made this world for 
 his brother man." 
 
 At the present moment, however, the glamour and gaiety of 
 Azalea's bewitching presence drove every other thought out of 
 her husband's head, and the happiness he felt in having his 
 wife and child, the two treasures of his heart, safely home 
 again under his own roof-tree, was too great to be clouded 
 by so much as the briefest foreboding. And how the little 
 woman chattered to be sure ! — chiefly of the shops in Weston- 
 super-Mare — and of the ' fashions ' in that far from fashionable 
 sea-side resort, where the ' tripper ' is the principal personage 
 in evidence, and where the weirdly-attired elite of Bristol take 
 the air much more frequently than my lady Tom Noddy of 
 London Town. But such ' stylish ' modes as Weston could 
 display were, of course, positively dazzling to the fancy of a 
 pretty feminine creature whose purchases had often to be 
 made at the small ' general store ' in Shadbrook village, where 
 a mild, fat man dispensed gammon of bacon and plain calico 
 with equally zealous and unwashen hands. Occasionally, but 
 only occasionally, Azalea went to Cheltenham and even to 
 Gloucester to buy little fineries for herself and ' Baby dear,' 
 but Cheltenham shops were expensive, she said, and Gloucester 
 shops a little ' behind the time,' and as for Birmingham — 
 well ! — no self-respecting woman would ever descend to such 
 a level of costume as that set forth by Birmingham models ! 
 Weston seemed to have fitted itself into a blank place in her
 
 196 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 affections — and she babbled of dress continuously, in a 
 running, rippling way that was quite bewildering to Richard, 
 though he did his best to understand it all and to sympathise 
 with the ardent feeling which no mere husband's love could 
 rouse in her, — the thrill of the lace blouse — the joy of the 
 crazily- feathered hat — the drjamy delirium of the chiffon 
 
 tea-gown. 
 
 " I wish I were rich enough to buy such pretty things for 
 you ! " he said, gently, as she finished a cooing rhapsody on 
 the glory of a blue silk frock embroidered in silver — "You 
 ought to have them " 
 
 "Of course I ought ! " she agreed, merrily, as she came and 
 seated herself like a child, on his knee — " I ought to have the 
 most beautiful clothes, for I love them ! I do ! And Baby 
 ought to be dressed like a little prince ! But you're only a 
 clergyman, poor dear Dick ! — and I'm only a clergyman's 
 wife — and there we stick ! Don't we ? Here she kissed him 
 lightly. "And, after all, it's no good having nice clothes 
 when one lives in Shadbrook. There's nobody to dress 
 for." 
 
 "No — I suppose there isn't," — Richard sighed — then his 
 eyes sparkled with a kindly, mischievous little smile — " There's 
 only Mrs. Minchin ! And you can always make her jealous if 
 you only wear a cotton frock ! " 
 
 Azalea nodded her fair head very decisively. 
 
 " Of course ! I always do and I always shall ! But that's 
 such easy work ! She's so ' horsey,' and she hasn't a particle 
 of taste. She ought to have married Dan Kiernan ! " 
 
 Everton was silent. He held his wife's left hand in his 
 own, and his eyes rested on the wedding-ring that encircled 
 her tiny third finger. What a symbol it was ! ' Till death do 
 us part.' Till death ! The thought of death gave him a 
 pang, and he folded the warm little hand closer. 
 
 "You're glad to be home again, darling?" he asked, 
 wistfully — "Glad to be with me?" 
 
 She looked at him, smiling. 
 
 " Of course I'm glad to be with you, Dick ! I'm not quite
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 197 
 
 glad to be home — because — well, because it's a bit dull, — and 
 the Shadbrook people are so stupid — and the villagers drink 
 so dreadfully " 
 
 His kind face clouded a little. 
 
 " Yes, I know ! — I know it must be dull for you — I wish 
 I could change the character of the place and the people 
 altogether for the better," — he said, rather sorrowfully, — "But 
 you will have no more very great annoyance — Kiernan never 
 comes near the village " 
 
 "Oh, I'm not afraid of him now" — she said, carelessly — 
 "It's all over, you see. His poor wife is buried — I'm sure she 
 must be glad to be out of her misery ! — and that wicked girl 
 Jacynth has gone away, nobody knows where. And we shall 
 have peace, except when more drunken men knock their wives 
 about as they're sure to do — for the whole neighbourhood 
 simply swarms with drunkards. However, even peace is rather 
 tame when one gets too much of it, isn't it ? " 
 
 " Some people find it so," — he answered, slowly — " till they 
 make war. And then they crave for peace again." 
 
 "Never satisfied! — just like me!" laughed Azalea — "But 
 I'm going to be very good, Dick, I promise ! I'm going to 
 visit all the old crippled men and women, and take cans of 
 soup into all the stuffy cottages, and enquire after the pigs and 
 the poultry and the babies, and I'll leave tracts all about every- 
 where ! I will ! There ! And the people shall show me all 
 their bad legs and sore toes, and ulcers and other horrors — and 
 I'll look at them, because though I don't think God wants me 
 to look at them particularly, still I suppose it's my duty to do 
 so. And I'll be ever so prim and proper ! " She broke into a 
 silvery little ripple of mirth, and threw her arms coaxingly round 
 his neck — " You wait and see ! Til wear an old woman's bonnet 
 if you like ! I'll try and be very matronly and prosaic — in fact, 
 you won't know me, I'll be so good and quiet ! " 
 
 Her gay laughter rang out again, and Richard, half pained, 
 half amused, was fain to laugh with her. But that night as she 
 lay sleeping on his arm, her lovely gold hair falling loosely 
 round her like a shower of sunbeams round a rose, he looked
 
 i 9 3 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 at her with a strange dawning sense of complete isolation. 
 The pale glimmer of the night-lamp showed him the whiteness 
 of her throat and bosom — the long fringes of her eyes sweeping 
 the delicate bloom of her cheeks — the crimson of her slightly- 
 parted lips through which the breath came and went evenly — 
 all this beauty of body was his, he thought, and yet— yet he 
 had somehow failed to possess the soul that surely was con- 
 tained like a jewel in that exquisite casket of pearl and ivory. 
 It was an elusive soul, — the soul of a butterfly rather than the 
 soul of a woman — but this he would not admit even to himself. 
 No man cares to realise that his wife is of all persons in the 
 world the one least sympathetic to him, for he has generally 
 made both his own choice and his own mistake. And Richard 
 Everton was, for the immediate hour, no stronger or wiser 
 than most of his sex, and therefore satisfied himself with the 
 outward loveliness of the woman he adored, accepting it as the 
 reflex of an inner nature which he was not pure enough to 
 fathom. So he soothed and tranquillised his restless mind 
 with the gentle balm of humility and self-depreciation, — while 
 the dumb, mysterious forces that secretly work in unison with 
 natural laws to mould the character of a human being of whom 
 the world has need, gathered closer together around him in 
 light clouds of premonitory counsel — clouds which were 
 destined to darken and break over his devoted head in a 
 resistless storm of command.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 TIME passes slowly in an English country village, — so 
 slowly indeed that to active and ambitious minds the lapse 
 between one Sunday and the next seems more like months 
 than days. The smaller the community of persons the narrower 
 is their outlook on life, and the more self-centred do they 
 become. The infinitely little matters of a provincial town 
 loom large to the restricted brain of the provincial town- 
 councillor, and still more important are the ethics of the 
 village pump to a handful of villagers. Such people know and 
 care to know nothing cf the larger world; whether kings or 
 republics handle the reins of government is a matter of indiffer- 
 ence to them, provided their own cabbage plots are prospering. 
 Seasons come and go, — the sharp inclement spring offers them 
 just sufficient matter for grumbling till summer arrives to be 
 grumbled at in its turn as being either too moist or too dry or 
 too windy or too ' muggy,' — summer passes into autumn, which 
 brings them their annual burden of cherished complaints, — 
 colds, rheumatism and divers other aches and pains, — then the 
 long winter darkens down over them with its mornings and 
 nights of black frost, and its pale cold noons of utter cheerless- 
 ness, when nothing occurs of any interest from the beginning 
 of the day to the end of it, — nothing to rouse the dormant 
 intellect or give the slightest impetus to the vital forces — and 
 no reason is apparent why such lives should be lived at all, 
 unless it is necessary to remind man that in his bucolic type 
 he is not much higher in the scale of creation than a beetle. 
 
 Of course, for those whose minds are 'tempered to fine issues,' 
 
 199
 
 200 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 and whose brains are not rendered numb by the constant 
 pressure of solitude and monotony, there is much pleasure to 
 be found in the rural life so bepraised by certain poets who 
 have never lived it ; for the intellectual eye perceives beauty 
 everywhere and in everything — in the hectic red of dying 
 leaves at the damp fall of the year — in the sparkle of frost on 
 the window-pane — in the thousand and one small things that 
 help to strike harmonious vibrations on the strings of emotional 
 sentiment : but even to a cultured intellect, no matter how 
 well controlled by a philosophic spirit, a rural district which is 
 wholly lacking in refined or intelligent society is apt to grow 
 more difficult to live in as the time goes on. For intellect is 
 like steel — it must strike against something of the same resisting 
 quality as itself, before sparks of fire can be generated. 
 Thus it happened that the Reverend Richard Everton, shut, 
 as it were, within himself, ceased to struggle against what 
 appeared to be his life's destiny, and unconsciously, but none 
 the less surely, became more and more of a silent, reserved and 
 almost shy man, quite unintentionally managing in this way to 
 widen the breach which had been so unreasoningly created 
 between himself and his parishioners by the Kiernan episode. 
 It was a breach that he could not help, — his gentle efforts to 
 build up harmony again out of what had been a discord in the 
 parish were not appreciated ; and Dan, drunken, foul-mouthed 
 and villainous, — Dan, in a place of trust at Minchin's Brewery 
 — Dan, earning good wages every week and drinking two 
 quarts of ' free ' poison every day, one quart in the morning 
 and one more in the evening, besides a number of other 
 1 drinks ' at his own expense, was spoken of by the Shadbrook 
 people as something of a hero, while his dead wife was 
 reverenced as a martyr to 'church' interference. Jacynth 
 Miller's name was seldom mentioned, though rumours were 
 about that her portrait as one of the chorus girls in a Greek 
 classical play, had been seen in a London pictorial It was 
 Mrs. Moddley who heard this piece of news, and she repeated 
 it to Mortar Pike. 
 
 "She was took with no clothes on," — and Mrs. Moddley
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 201 
 
 in announcing the startling fact, sniffed meaningly — " Which is 
 to say just a shift droppin' off 'er an' 'er 'air down. That 'ud 
 be Jacynth all over ! " 
 
 The aged ' Bricks and Mortar ' chuckled. 
 
 " So it 'ood ! — so it 'ood ! " he averred — " An' mighty fine 
 she'd look in a shift ! — mighty fine ! Wouldn't she now ? 
 Just the shape for a shift ! I'd give a bob to see her like that 
 myself!" 
 
 " Mercy on us ! " Mrs. Moddley shot this exclamation at 
 him as from a pop-gun — " An' you totterin' on the brink o' 
 Kingdom Come ! Well, Mr. Pike ! I 'ad thought better 
 o' you I " 
 
 Pike shook his grey head to and fro like the movable 
 porcelain figure of a Chinese mandarin. 
 
 " Wheer's the 'arm ? — wheer's the 'arm ? " he demanded, 
 pipingly — " If we b'leeves the Bible, the Lord made us at the 
 first wi' no clothes on, an' we was all good and 'appy as babes 
 in the wood then. 'Ow d'ye get out o' that ? " 
 
 Mrs. Moddley made no attempt to get out of it, — she simply 
 gave another portentous sniff and retired into obscurity. 
 
 Nothing, however, of the supposed public pictorial represen- 
 tation of Jacynth reached the ears of either the Vicar or his wife. 
 So far as they two were concerned, the villagers seemed to be 
 banded together in a conspiracy of silence on the subject, and 
 once when Everton, seized by a sudden restless desire to know 
 or hear something of the lost girl, called at the miserable and 
 ill-kept cottage where the old woman lived who was understood 
 to be Jacynth's aunt or great-aunt, he was met by a torrent of 
 vituperation from the bent and wrinkled crone, who, like one of 
 the worst-looking of Macbeth's witches, shook her skinny fist 
 in the air and bade him 'get off her doorstep.' She was half 
 dressed and more than half drunk, and her voice rang sharp 
 and shrill, acidulated by what was familiarly known in the 
 neighbourhood as ' Minchin's brew.' 
 
 " Git off my doorstep ! " she yelled — " You black sneak of a 
 parson, you ! Comin' round to worrit me inter my grave as ye 
 worrited Jennie Kieman, are ye ! Not for me, thank'ee !
 
 202 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 You've drove my gel away from me, an' me without 'elp to do 
 my work an' my washin' — a pore old soul like me with the 
 rheumatiz," — and here maudlin tears made furrows in the dirt 
 on her face — " an' wot did it matter to you whether she was 
 one man's sweet'art or t'other ? An' the kid as was a-comin' 
 would a' bin rare an' useful to me, speshul if 't 'ad bin a boy ! 
 Git off, an' git out wi' ye ! Dan Kiernan's worth a dozen 
 of ye ! " 
 
 It was impossible to speak with the old creature in her tipsy 
 fury, and Everton, shuddering inwardly at her words and all 
 they implied, made no attempt at either reproach or argument. 
 And the name of Jacynth Miller never passed his lips, though 
 the thought of her lay deeply concealed in his mind. 
 
 The months moved on, slowly, laggingly, and uneventfully, 
 bringing no very marked change to Shadbrook Vicarage, its 
 surroundings or its inmates, save the increasing intimacy 
 between the Evertons and their friend of an opponent Church, 
 Sebastien Douay. Douay, on his first introduction to the 
 Vicar's pretty wife, had made no attempt to conceal his frank 
 admiration of her beauty and grace, and Azalea was, like many 
 another charming woman, pleased to have her good looks 
 appreciated by some other man than her husband. For 
 husbands, even the most affectionate ones, sometimes forget 
 to say the sweet nothings which came so readily to their lips 
 when they were lovers ; and wives often vainly crave for the fond 
 observation of eye and tenderness of speech to which they were 
 accustomed before marriage. Azalea was like a child in her 
 eager response to flattery — she loved a compliment, and her 
 whole nature thirsted for adulation as a river plant thirsts for 
 water. Douay saw this and humoured her, — playfully and 
 kindly, as a father might humour a spoilt daughter, and they 
 became great friends. He liked the winsome little creature, — 
 he listened to her gay prattle about ' Baby dear ' and all the 
 other small domestic concerns which made up the sum of her 
 daily life, with the most exemplary patience, though now and 
 then he suppressed a slight sigh of weariness and glanced 
 curiously at Richard, wondering how it had chanced that ruch
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 203 
 
 complete opposites had become united in holy matrimony. 
 And he occasionally gave secret thanks to the fates that had 
 made him a Roman Catholic priest and a celibate, though this 
 was a point upon which Azalea often dwelt, with delightfully 
 earnest sympathy. 
 
 " It must be so dreadful for you," — she would say, raising 
 her beautiful eyes full of compassion to his face — " to have no 
 one to love you and take care of you ! I think the rules 
 of your Church are simply cruel ! Just fancy ! — no one to 
 mend your shirts and socks and things — how ever do you 
 manage ? " 
 
 And Douay would smile deprecatingly. 
 
 "Ah, Madame!" he would answer — "To mend shirts 
 and socks is an easy matter ! — and my housekeeper, who 
 is as old and sad to see as you are lovely and charming, 
 is careful of me in that regard. Then, she is a good 
 cook, — all wives are not that, chere Madame ! She wash, 
 she mend, she iron, she sew — she work for me from 
 morning until night for very leetle money — but she never 
 grumble — she never scold — she do all I tell her — eh voila ! 
 she is happy and so am I ! " 
 
 " But really now," — Azalea sometimes persisted — " Wouldn't 
 you have liked to be married ? " 
 
 And Douay then shook his head decisively. 
 
 " Chere Madame, I have seen the world ! " he replied — 
 " Do not be angry with me ! To your question I must 
 answer, No ! " 
 
 Azalea thought this very wrong and absurd of him, — 
 ' unnatural,' she termed it 3 to her husband. 
 
 "He's really such a pleasant little man," — she said — "So 
 clever — such a good talker and all that. It is sad that 
 he should be a Roman Catholic priest ! Now if he were 
 a Church of England clergyman and there were a Mrs. 
 Douay, how nice it would have been for vie ! " 
 
 Richard smiled at this. 
 
 " It might not have been nice at all," — he said — " You 
 might not have liked Mrs. Douay. She might have been
 
 204 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 jealous of you ! Things might have happened that would 
 have made our two families mortal foes ! You never can 
 tell ! Douay's all right as he is — better single than married, 
 / think." 
 
 Azalea opened her eyes wide. 
 
 "Better single!" she repeated— "Better? Oh, Dick! 
 Would you rather be without me ? " 
 
 He took her in his arms. 
 
 " Now, darling, aren't you turning the whole question 
 round the wrong way?" he demanded, laughingly — "You 
 know I wouldn't, couldn't be without ycu ! You know I 
 wouldn't, couldn't be better single ! But Douay is different, 
 — he has vowed himself to the service of God only " 
 
 He broke off. Azalea was looking at him in surprise. 
 
 " But haven't you also vowed yourself to the service of 
 God?" she asked — " Haven't you taken holy orders?" 
 
 A slight shadow of perplexity swept across his brow. 
 
 " Yes — of course I have — but — somehow it is different " 
 
 << 
 
 How different? Surely a married man can serve God 
 as well as a bachelor ! Oh ! " and she gave vent to one 
 of her musical rippling peals of merriment — "You might 
 just as well say a bird can't sing when it has a mate ! " 
 
 She ran off gaily, and left Richard half smiling, half serious, 
 and not a little troubled in spirit by the lurking consciousness 
 that, after all, the Roman Catholic Church has good authority 
 for the celibacy of priests, inasmuch as the Founder of the 
 Christian Faith has certainly demanded from His disciples All 
 or Nothing. And yet — to give up the joy and consolation of 
 human love was surely too much to ask, and against the very 
 teaching of all Nature ! But then again, what is the example 
 furnished by the natural world ? To eat, sleep, breed and die. 
 Nothing further. The natural world itself voices no thought — 
 it merely suggests thought to its dominant creature, Man. 
 That dominant creature is permitted to use its vast resources 
 — to enquire into its secrets — to plumb the depth of its hidden 
 treasures, — and though pigmy in strength, as compared with the 
 huge forces around him, is given the eyes and the mind to
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 205 
 
 weigh and consider not only the material and physical nature 
 of the globe on which he dwells, but also the movements 
 and mysteries of larger worlds beyond his ken. With such 
 privileges as these, is there no Higher Intention for a being so 
 richly endowed, than that of the usual procedure of animal 
 life on the planet ? There is ; there must be ; else Creation 
 were little more than a cruel comedy. And Richard Everton, 
 thinking of these things, could not but admit to himself that 
 Christ's mission to humanity was to teach and emphasise that 
 Higher Intention of life, — wherefore it followed that His 
 servants and ministers should equally, both by precept and 
 example, teach and emphasise the same principle. Now did 
 the Roman Catholic Church work on these lines better than 
 the Protestant? This was the question he put to his con- 
 science, — and his reason replied at once in the strongest 
 possible negative. Again, — did the Protestant Church, and 
 all the sects, which like branches from a tree sprouted around 
 it, truly and faithfully enunciate the doctrine of Christ in all 
 its pristine purity? Here the reply came hesitatingly and 
 reluctantly — " No ! — but we do our best ! " And an inward 
 passion of regret moved him as he thought of the atheism of 
 the modern day, — the laxity of the law, which in granting 
 1 liberty of conscience ' in religious matters forgets to set a 
 restraint on open blasphemy against God and things divine, 
 and which in re-constituting new methods of education, 
 blindly prepares the way for the bringing up of a ' generation 
 of vipers ' — a generation without faith, without morals, without 
 heart, without love, without pity — such an 'evil and adulterous 
 generation ' as is bound to be the disgrace and ruin of a once 
 glorious empire. 
 
 "We do our best ! " he repeated, sorrowfully — "We do our 
 wretched little best ! And we know how wretched and little 
 it is ! We know that the Press fights the Pulpit as Thrones 
 fight Peoples — always under cover of sympathy and friendship 
 — with a poisoned knife in a velvet glove ! We know — even 
 / know — that if the Government could stop the sale of strong 
 drink all over the country, — it would not, — because of depletion
 
 206 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 to the national revenues. It would rather see one quarter or 
 one half of the population idiots or criminals through Drink, 
 and all set free to perpetuate the race of idiots and criminals, 
 than make any positively firm stand against the evil. It will 
 not even frame laws that shall insist on the selling of pure, un- 
 adulterated liquors to the million. As a matter of right and 
 justice the brewer who poisons beer, the distiller who poisons 
 spirit, should be heavily punished, not only by a ' fine ' which is 
 a mere farce, but by several months' imprisonment, without any 
 option of getting ' bought off,' — and in that case Government 
 would have to imprison several members of its own House ! 
 But nothing will be done — nothing, that is to say, of any real 
 service — and drunkards will increase and multiply, and re- 
 plenish the earth and subdue it. Ministers of the Gospel are 
 blamed because their teaching of Christianity cannot persuade 
 men and women to greater self-control, — but what minister of 
 a parish would hold the place for a week if he dealt plainly 
 with every one in it ? What preacher ever preached truth to a 
 king or queen without receiving a polite intimation that 
 Majesty would not again require his services ? Why, if an 
 Archangel entered the private apartment of King Edward the 
 Seventh or the Kaiser and ventured to reproach either one 
 potentate or the other, the heavenly messenger would be 
 ' hustled ' out of the royal presence by a valet or Court 
 Chamberlain ! For we are the veriest humbugs, after all ! — ■ 
 we pretend to believe in God — and yet if we are tcld that our 
 conduct is opposed to everything God-like, we are at once 
 offended. No ! — ministers of the Gospel can do nothing — 
 or at least very little — in such an age as the present ; all we 
 can hope is that a change is coming — a world's catastrophe 
 maybe — when ' the one shall be taken and the other left.' " 
 
 Thoughts such as these were often in his brain, but he 
 gave them no utterance. Often and often he longed to preach 
 in a way that he had never yet attempted — a way that should 
 rouse apathy, stimulate energy, and awaken conscience, — but 
 he knew very well that if he spoke ' with the tongues of men 
 and of angels' he could not move the inhabitants of Shad-
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 207 
 
 brook to more than a bovine stare and dull smile. And half 
 afraid of the combative spirit that clamoured to utter itself 
 through his lips, he retreated, as it were, further and further 
 into the close sanctuary of his own isolated and reflective 
 mind, there to do battle against himself and control what he 
 considered were the freakish fancies of an overwrought 
 imagination. 
 
 And so the days and weeks went on, placidly and 
 monotonously. The Minchin Brewery still prospered, and 
 the proprietors of both public-houses in Shadbrook waxed 
 fat and made good profit out of an increasingly intemperate 
 community. The little Roman Catholic mission progressed 
 but slowly, — there were barely twenty people to attend Mass 
 at Sebastien Douay's ' tin chapelle ' — but he, as its priest, was 
 never disheartened and never complained. Full of cheerful 
 ness and energy, his dapper figure was soon a familiar object 
 in the Cotswold villages, and he was always ready to assist the 
 sick and poor, whether they professed his own form of faith or 
 not. He had made his promised attempt to ' convert ' Dan 
 Kiernan, but his efforts were wholly vain. That brutish 
 creature, more brutalised by drink than ever, was not as he 
 himself expressed it ' going to be a damned Pope's penitent.' 
 Faithfully and patiently Douay tried his honest best to save 
 what remnant of soul there was in that base ton of material 
 man, — but he had to give up the task at last, and after a final 
 appeal and argument, which had nearly ended in Dan's 
 mauling him with blows in the public street, he had left him 
 to the tender mercies of Mr. Minchin. Meeting that gentle- 
 man by chance one day, however, he was bold enough to stop 
 him in his walk and request him to have an eye on Dan 
 Kiernan, as the man was 'dangerous.' 
 
 Mr. Minchin stretched his wide ugly mouth into its usual 
 wolfish grin. 
 
 " Dangerous ! " he echoed, in suave tones — " Really ! I 
 don't quite understand you ! " 
 
 " Do you not ? That is a pity ! " And the little priest 
 planted himself still more firmly across the path along which
 
 208 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 Mr. Minchin evinced every desire to proceed — " For you 
 should make it your business to understand ! I say the man 
 is dangerous, — dangerous to himself and to everybody else. 
 He has no brain left — it is all poison ! He has no control of 
 himself — he is worse than a brute beast at night when he has 
 drunk all the beer you give him, and when he puts raw spirit 
 on the top of the beer ! Yes — that is so ! He is dangerous 
 to women — to the leetle children — you will take my word, 
 please ! — and I say that if he do something of terror — some 
 crime — some shocking wickedness, — you, Mr. Minchin, will 
 be as much to blame as he is — if not more ! Yes — you I 
 No one else ! You I " 
 
 And lifting his hat in an elaborate salute, Douay went 
 on his way, outwardly calm but inwardly trembling 
 in every nerve with the force of his own indignation. 
 Minchin looked after him and laughed softly. He never 
 laughed loudly. His marriage with the daughter of a pauper 
 baronet compelled him to try and seem well-bred despite his 
 low origin. 
 
 " These religious fools ! " he said half aloud — " Always 
 cowards — the whole lot of them — Catholics, Protestants, 
 Baptists, Methodists and all ! That little priestly ass is afraid 
 of Kiernan — positively afraid of poor old Dan ! One of my 
 best hands too — and I like him ! " Here he gave an eel-like 
 writhe of his body which was a movement peculiar to him in 
 moments of self-satisfaction. " I like him ! He hates the 
 Vicar of Shadbrook as much as I do — and for that reason 
 only, if he were drunk every minute of every day and night, 
 I'd keep him on ! " 
 
 Whereby it will be seen that the advocates of the cause of 
 temperance in the Cotswold villages immediately adjacent to 
 the Minchin Brewery were not likely to meet with much 
 encouragement in their efforts to save the souls and bodies 
 of men. 
 
 Yet the people went to church regularly enough in all their 
 own little scattered parishes, and Richard Everton's congrega- 
 tion, though it had fallen off for a few weeks immediately after
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 209 
 
 Jennie Kiernan's death, rallied together again in due course 
 and resumed its normal aspect. But the most sanguine on- 
 looker could never have said that it was either a devout or 
 deeply attentive congregation. The chief interest of the 
 villagers appeared to be centred on Mrs. Everton — her looks, 
 her manners, and, more than all, her dress. They attended 
 the church to see her, much as the stalls and dress circle 
 people attend certain plays merely to see the costumes. 
 She was the principal attraction, and everything and everybody 
 seemed to wait for her on Sundays, — even the Church service 
 itself. The organist never began to play the opening voluntary' 
 till one of the small choir boys, sent out as scout, returned 
 to him with the information that Mrs. Everton was 'just 
 a-comin'.' Her slight, pretty figure, always daintily clothed — 
 her beautiful hair, always massed in twists and curls that shone 
 like burnished gold, — her fair face, with the dark blue eyes 
 always demurely downcast as she entered and walked noise- 
 les'-ly up the aisle, — all these charms were subject for comment, 
 and ill-natured comment, too, on the part of some of the 
 Shadbrook rustics, who were as spiteful and cruel as most semi- 
 educated provincial folk are who only see two ways of existence, 
 namely ' doing ' people and being ' done ' by them. The village 
 grocer's girl, a young feminine scarecrow with projecting teeth 
 and a snub nose, tossed her head at the lovely goldilocks of 
 the Vicar's wife, saying she never did see such ' dyed 'air and 
 Z:/;«pudence.' The ' young lady ' at the bar of the ' Stag and 
 Crow ' public-house, who had once in the long-ago been honoured 
 by the kisses of Mr. Minchin himself, before he married the 
 pauper baronet's daughter, remarked that ' the wicked extrava- 
 gance of Mrs. Everton was that shameful that she wondered 
 how the Vicar could stand it ! — she did indeed ! ' The 
 carpenter's niece, fat, sallow and ungainly, but who despite 
 these drawbacks was understood to be engaged to a Cheltenham 
 tailor of distinction, sighed gently and opined that her Tom 
 1 wouldn't look at a woman who got up her eyes and painted 
 her cheeks like that for ever so ! ' 
 
 Poor little Azalea, quite unconscious of the small fires of
 
 210 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 envy, hatred and all uncharitableness which were smouldering 
 around her in their coarse and common breasts, imagined that 
 her husband's parishioners liked to see her well-dressed, and 
 that, by making herself look as bright and charming as possible, 
 she was creating a favourable impression. She never thought 
 that, on the contrary, if she had clothed herself like a frump, 
 brushed her hair straight, and covered the charming contour of 
 her well-shaped little body with an ill-cut cloak, she would have 
 been much less harshly judged. A pretty woman is always an 
 object of suspicion to the plain majority — and when she adds 
 elegant attire to the attractions of form and feature, she is 
 still more quickly and utterly condemned. Of course Azalea 
 readily divined that she was not popular with the Shadbrook 
 villagers, and in the real regret which she inwardly felt for the 
 unfortunate end of hard-working, heart-broken Jennie Kiernan, 
 she tried her gentle best to soften and remove the feeling which 
 some of the people, influenced by the drunken ravings of Dan, 
 appeared to cherish against her. But her timid efforts were 
 entirely misjudged, — they merely thought that she was trying 
 to c eat humble pie ' and ' curry favour ' with them, and while 
 outwardly respectful to her in her presence, they mocked at 
 her behind her back. Gradually discovering this, and resenting 
 it with all the force of a spirit which, though essentially feminine, 
 was proud to a fault, she presently ceased to visit the people at 
 all, and lived in her own home like a bird in a cage, avoiding 
 the village as much as possible in all her walks and drives. 
 
 " It's no use," — she said, shaking her little head mournfully 
 one day when her husband ventured tenderly to remonstrate 
 with her on the way in which she was isolating herself from his 
 parishioners — " It's no use, Dick ! The people don't like me, 
 and I'm afraid I don't like them ! I've never done them any 
 harm, and I wanted to love them all and be a friend to them, 
 only they wouldn't and won't let me. And I feel — oh, I feel that 
 they just hate me because I'm not a proper sort of clergyman's 
 wife ! I'm not ! You know I'm not ! To begin with — I'm 
 not tall enough ! " Here she broke into a merry laugh, but 
 there was a glisten as of tears in her eyes. " No, — don't make
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 211 
 
 fun of me, Dick ! — I'm not really ! A proper wife for a 
 clergyman ought to be tall and angular, — her figure ought to 
 darken the cottage doors — positively darken them, Dick ! — and 
 she ought always to wear tweed costumes and ' spats ' in muddy 
 weather. Now, I look simply awful in tweeds, and my feet 
 and ankles would all go to nothing in spats — they're not big 
 enough or thick enough. Then she certainly oughtn't to have 
 curly hair — it ought to be the kind of hair that always looks 
 wet near the temples, and it ought to show quite recent marks 
 of the comb through it, as if it had just been ploughed \ You 
 know ! And a good long nose is a great advantage — a nose 
 that's thin at the end and a little bit red and scrubby, — because 
 then it looks as if it had been poking and poking into kitchens 
 and cupboards, as a clergyman's wife's nose ought to poke, — 
 and does poke, pretty often ! " She laughed again, and put 
 her little hand coaxingly under his chin. " Don't be angry 
 with my nonsense, Dick ! — but you can't say that you know 
 any other clergyman with a wife like me ? " 
 
 " No, that I can't ! " and he caught the small caressing hand 
 in his own and kissed it — " That's a fact, Azalea ! I don't 
 know any man of my calling who has a wife so pretty, so 
 dainty, so sweet, and quaint and dear " 
 
 " Hush — hush ! " she said, and her bright face suddenly 
 clouded — " I don't like you to praise me, Dick — I'm not 
 worth it — I'm so useless to you." 
 
 " Useless ! " he exclaimed — " Useless, Azalea ? " 
 
 " Yes ! " She smiled at him, but her eyes were wistful — 
 " Quite useless, dear ! Really, I am. I'm only — well ! — just 
 pretty. I am pretty — that's the worst of it. It's so un- 
 fortunate ! Because I'm the only pretty person in the place ! 
 I wish there was another one to divide the uncomfortable 
 honour with me. But there's no one now since " — here she 
 hesitated a second — "since Jacynth Miller went away — and 
 she — she was not pretty — she was beautiful." 
 
 He was silent. 
 
 "I hear," — Azalea went on — "that she has gone on the 
 stage. Do you think that's true?"
 
 212 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 " I should say it was very likely," he answered. 
 
 A pause followed. Then Azalea sighed profoundly. 
 
 " I wonder," she said — " whether all very beautiful women 
 are wicked ?" 
 
 Richard smiled down upon the fair face very tenderly — 
 
 " Let us hope not, darling ! " he replied — " But in many 
 cases the gift of great beauty seems to bring the worst kind of 
 temptation in its train " 
 
 " Temptation to do what ? " she asked. 
 
 " Temptation to make the basest uses of it ! " and his gentle 
 voice grew suddenly cold and stern — "To snare and captivate 
 and torture the souls of men to their own eternal shame ! 
 That is what Jacynth Miller has begun to do, — that is what 
 she will continue to do till the end of her days — unless " 
 
 " Unless — what ? " And his wife's eyes were full of a vague 
 wonder as she put the question. He answered in accents of 
 tense passion such as he himself was unaware of. 
 
 " Unless God intervenes ! Unless God Himself cuts short 
 her career before she ruins too many lives ! " 
 
 " Why, Dick ! " Azalea exclaimed, in open surprise — " I had 
 no idea you felt so deeply about it ! Then you do at last 
 agree with me that she was — and is — a hopelessly bad girl ? " 
 
 " Yes, of course I agree with you ! " he replied, with a 
 touch of bitterness — " I agree with you that she was, and is 
 hopelessly bad, Azalea ! And I don't know why we think of 
 her — or speak of her. I would rather not. I don't want to 
 be un-Christian in my judgment — but I fear that even if she is 
 not so now, she is likely to be one of the worst and most 
 dangerous women ever born ! " 
 
 He spoke in a thrilling tone of suppressed anger, which even 
 to his little wife seemed strange. 
 
 " Have you heard anything quite lately about her then, 
 Dick ? " she asked. 
 
 He met her enquiring look fully and frankly. 
 
 "I have heard nothing at all, my dear," — he said, more 
 quietly — " Nothing. And it is not likely that I shall ever 
 hear."
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 213 
 
 His manner implied that he wished the subject dropped, and 
 Azalea did not pursue it. 
 
 In the short space of little more than two years long ages 
 seemed to have rolled away since the Kiernan affair, which, 
 however, was as fresh in the mind of every inhabitant of Shad- 
 brook as though it had only just occurred. Dan himself never 
 allowed it to be forgotten, — Dan, who had become a veritable 
 demon in his drink, never ceased declaiming the story of what 
 he conceived to be his wrongs and his injuries to whomsoever 
 would listen to his ravings — and as everything he said was 
 always repeated with exaggerations, the whole district for miles 
 round was affected by a vague distrust and dislike of the 
 Evertons and gave them what is called the cold shoulder. 
 People said : "Oh no! There was nothing exactly against 
 them —but Mrs. Everton was a mischievous woman — one could 
 not be too careful ! " And again : — " It was always a mistake 
 for a parson to meddle too much with his parishioners — and 
 Mr. Everton was rather officious in that way; and his wife was 
 — well, really, such a very conceited little person ! " And so 
 on, and so on, with that spread of little trickling nothings 
 which are like the outpouring of a sewer from diseased and 
 dirty minds — little nothings which are far more wicked than 
 open slander, because they cannot be proved sufficiently to 
 the law to meet with the law's punishment. To say that Mr. 
 and Mrs. Minchin did not aid and abet Dan Kiernan in his 
 congenial task of making it difficult for Richard Everton and 
 his wife to live pleasantly in Shadbrook, would be to underrate 
 their undoubtedly great abilities. No two people ever lived 
 who more honestly enjoyed the business of injuring others — 
 and even as Mr. Minchin delighted in poisoning beer, so Mrs. 
 Minchin delighted in poisoning reputations. This virtuous 
 couple, however, went to church regularly — not Shadbrook 
 Church, but another more modern one, with a ' High ' ritual, 
 situated nearer to the Minchin Brewery, — and they were also 
 regular communicants. Respectability sat enthroned on their 
 smug brows, — who could doubt the honesty of Mr. Minchin, 
 with his capacious smile and wolfish eye ? Who could suspect
 
 214 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 the sincerity of Mrs. Minchin's loud laugh and frankly large 
 feet ? No one ! — that is, no one who was employed by the 
 Brewery, or connected with the Brewery. Other folks who did 
 not depend on Brewery references and had not borrowed 
 Brewery money, were less constrained in opinion. Mrs. 
 Minchin was something of a ' cat,' they were wont to observe, 
 — and Minchin himself was a hypocrite. They did not believe 
 Mrs. Everton was such a ' horrid creature ' as Mrs. Minchin 
 made her out to be. She was too pretty and too fascinating — 
 these were her chief faults. But the consensus of provincial 
 feeling being always distinctly dead against pretty women 
 wherever they are, Mrs. Everton remained outside the pale of 
 general approval, and had as many enemies as though she 
 were a world's reformer. And the frivolous little creature 
 grew quieter, paler and thinner, less buoyant of step, less 
 radiant of smile, — and concentrated all the pent-up playful 
 tenderness of her nature more and more upon her home, her 
 husband and her child. ' Baby dear ' was indeed the very core 
 of her existence ; she adored him and spoilt him as much as 
 he could be spoilt, which was not so very much after all. He 
 had a rather remarkable character of his own, and commanded 
 himself as well as others in a firm yet perfectly undemonstrative 
 way. He was tall for his age, and had an angelic dignity of 
 look and manner far exceeding his years ; — so much so that the 
 very servants who ministered to his needs spoke of him with 
 a certain wondering respect. He was ' Master Laurence ' with 
 every one now, — it was only his mother who still persisted in 
 calling him ' Baby dear.' One day he looked at her smilingly 
 as though she were a baby herself, and said in his yet imperfect 
 English : 
 
 " Me not baby. Me man ! " 
 
 And Azalea laughed. 
 
 " You darling ! " she exclaimed — " But you are a baby ! 
 Yes, you are ! My baby ! " And then, some inexplicable 
 emotion seizing her, she pressed the little fellow's fair 
 head to her bosom — " My baby ! " she repeated, and tears 
 sprang to her eyes — " Oh, my little pet ! Don't grow a
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 215 
 
 man too soon ! Don't, darling ! You are so sweet as you 
 are ! " 
 
 He felt a warm drop on his face and put up his tiny hand 
 to feel her cheek. 
 
 "Muzzer kyin' ! " he said, gravely — " Muzzer too pitty to ky. 
 Me go tell Dad." And he tried to wriggle off her knee. She 
 caught and held him fast. 
 
 " No, dear — don't tell Dad. Dad wouldn't — wouldn't under- 
 stand. Mothers often cry." 
 
 He studied her with a serious silent intentness. She saw 
 herself mirrored in the depths of his large, wondering, innocent 
 blue eyes, and all suddenly a great vista seemed opening before 
 her in the possible future life of the child she had brought into 
 the world. What would he be? What career lay before him 
 when his childhood was over, his young ideals crushed out of 
 him in a public school and his nature forced and flattened 
 into the formal and uniform shape demanded by purely con- 
 ventional education ? A faint shudder ran through her and 
 she sighed. She had accustomed herself to thinking lately — 
 and thinking was hard work. Moreover it did not agree with 
 her. 
 
 " There's time yet," — she said to herself — " I shan't lose 
 him quite immediately — and perhaps Dick won't send him to 
 a public school, after all — perhaps — oh, a thousand things may 
 happen ! " And, with a surprised laugh at herself for her own 
 unusual gravity, she kissed her 'Baby dear' over and over 
 again, and said to him : 
 
 " You are baby ! Mother's very own baby ! Now and 
 always ! ,; 
 
 And little Laurence, seeing her smile at him, smiled also, 
 and repeated gravely with an infinitely sweet content : 
 
 " Now and alwiss ! r
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 THERE came a wonderful month of April on the 
 Cotswolds — an April all blue skies and sunshine and 
 warm airs — an April that no one in the neighbourhood ever 
 forgot, for reasons more significant than even the fine weather, 
 which of itself was unusual and remarkable. It was just such 
 a spring-time as Richard Everton loved, when the fields over- 
 ran themselves with buttercups and daisies — when violets 
 came out in thick scented clusters under the greenly sprouting 
 hedges, and blue-bells sprang up in the moist recesses of the 
 woods, thrusting their dark blue spikes aloft ready to burst 
 into bell-like blossom. Azalea declared it was the loveliest 
 April she had ever known, and she herself expanded with its 
 cheering influence, like a rose unfurling its bright heart to the 
 sun. On Shadbrook village and all the district around it, the 
 influences of a warm season made an almost miraculous 
 difference, — cottages that had for months looked bare and 
 squalid, became transformed as if by magic into picturesque 
 little bowers of verdure, with the glossy green leaves and 
 cream-yellow buds of the hardy climbing Dijon rose twisting 
 and twining itself up to the very chimneys, while on all the 
 outlying moors and in all the adjacent woodlands, a perfect 
 wealth of wild blossoms sprouted up through the last year's 
 withered leaves and filled the air with delicious odour. The 
 Vicarage garden became a paradise of floral beauty, — great 
 clumps of lilac and laburnum vied with each other in dis- 
 playing the richest and brightest quantity of bloom, — the 
 
 borders blazed with hyacinths and tulips, — and in a warm 
 
 216
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 217 
 
 corner where the sunshine stayed longest, thousands of 
 crocuses blew asunder their transparent vestures and swayed 
 to and fro among the green grass like fairy dancers tripping 
 it in a carnival of colour. This golden opening of the year 
 was, when fine weather came with it, the Vicar's happiest 
 time — for his pretty wife sparkled into new animation with 
 the brightness of Nature, and both she and little Laurence, 
 inseparable companions, were always roaming about the 
 grounds together, Azalea enjoying her small son's games at 
 ball and humming-top with as much zest as though she were 
 herself a child. Often and often when writing his serine in, 
 Richard would lay down his pen and watch them from his 
 window, and smile as the sound of their gay laughter reached 
 him in the seclusion of his study, — and he would silently 
 thank God for their beloved and beautiful lives. He had, 
 of late, as has already been said, resigned himself to the 
 general dullness of Shadbrook, and to the 'tone' adopted 
 towards him by his parishioners, and if ever the lurking 
 demons of ambition or discontent stirred within him, he 
 made swift attack upon them and drove them back into 
 their lair. 
 
 "I have nothing to wish for," he would say to himself, 
 with emphasis — " Nothing to regret — nothing to desire. I 
 am content. Indeed, I am more than content, — I am 
 happy." 
 
 He impressed this fact often and often upon Sebastien 
 Douay, who persisted in considering Shadbrook 'limited' as 
 a life's outlook. But whenever he thus touched on the subject 
 the little priest smiled and shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 " If anything was to be dene with the people, I would say 
 with you that to be here is happiness," — he declared — " But 
 see you ! All the Saints and angels and archangels could 
 not move them to understand so much as one leetle bit of 
 the cause and the need of religion. No ! I will tell ycu 
 one thing. And I say the same for myself as for you. If 
 in the middle of Holy Mass there was news brought to my 
 congregation that a pigsty was on fire, every one would run
 
 218 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 out of the church . Yes ! Think you then they can believe 
 in God when they would leave His service for a burning 
 pigsty ? No ! But see again ! If they were all drinking 
 beer at Minchin's expense and some one came to them with 
 the same pigsty alarm they would not go ! No ! Not till 
 they had finished the beer ! " 
 
 " Well ! " and Everton smiled rather sadly — " Would it not 
 be the same everywhere else ? In London, Paris or New 
 York? Every man has his own special pigsty which he 
 seeks to protect above all things. My dear friend, my 
 unfortunate experience is, that most men will leave God for 
 anything that immediately and materially concerns their 
 present selves. Shadbrook is no worse than other places 
 in this regard. Wherever I went I should find no better 
 parishioners " 
 
 "You would find many more agreeable to live with," — 
 returned Douay — "And you might be able to speak to 
 people who at least would comprehend ! " 
 
 Everton shook his head. 
 
 " Does any one comprehend ? " he asked, wistfully — " Would 
 you swear that any one has ever comprehended the Glory of 
 the Unseen? That Glory which all our Churches feebly 
 try to symbolise? — a Glory you and I feel, but cannot put 
 into words ? " 
 
 He spoke with emotion. Douay looked at him sym- 
 pathetically. 
 
 " You should have been a monk, my excellent friend ! " 
 he said, with a genial smile — "You should have lived long 
 ago, in the ages of faith, in one of the quiet grey monasteries 
 where the beautiful sculptured cloisters permit the sunlight 
 and moonlight to scatter through their arches bright glimpses 
 of heaven — you should have had visions, and dreamed dreams 
 like St. Anthony of Padua — and you would have embraced 
 the Divine Infant and seen the Holy Grail ! Yes — you 
 should have been a monk — or another Galahad ! " 
 
 A pale flush crept up to the Vicar's brows. 
 
 " No — I have nothing of a Galahad in me," — he said —
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 219 
 
 " I am quite a commonplace man — just an ordinary country 
 parson, — there are hundreds of us living our lives in little 
 out-of-the-way moss-grown English villages, like tortoises in old 
 gardens. We crawl along in accustomed grooves and sleep 
 in the warm sun, — while out in the dusty high-roads of the 
 world our Divine Master is being tried, condemned, and 
 crucified in shame a second time ! And we do nothing — 
 nothing ! " 
 
 His voice shook — his hand trembled ; he was profoundly 
 moved. 
 
 " My good Richard," said Douay, gently — " I believe you 
 are truly a faithful lover of Our Lord ! I believe you would 
 sacrifice your very life for Him — even in these days ! " 
 
 " Even in these days I would," — Everton answered — " But 
 I am not found worthy." 
 
 Many a time they reverted to this kind of intimate and 
 serious conversation, and found in the exchange of each 
 other's thoughts and ideals a singularly comforting sympathy. 
 Everton soon learned that the good little priest's devotion 
 to his Church was neither narrow nor bigoted, but broadly 
 simple and loyally obedient. His views were, that as by 
 far the greater majority of humankind are ignorant, material- 
 istic, selfish and superstitious, it was well that there should 
 be a Church, made mystic and powerful by the claims of 
 ancient history and accumulated legend, that should hold 
 that greater majority in its grip, and move them to salutary 
 fear by its judgments. 
 
 " If all men were philosophers, astronomers and scientists," 
 he said one day — " it would be a different matter. If every 
 human being were so deeply cultured and thoughtful as to 
 be able to follow and study the intricate workings of nature, 
 and the magnificent order, physical, material and spiritual of 
 the Universe, there would be no need for any church at all. 
 God would be made manifest in His Creation, — Christ's 
 mission would be fulfilled, and the 'Kingdom' for which 
 we pray 'Come'— would have arrived. But no !— this will 
 never be. And why? Because it is not intended to be.
 
 220 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 The big mass of ignorance must always be there. Without 
 it there would be no stimulus for wise men. And for this 
 great mass, my Church with its pretty legends, and its worship 
 of womanhood in the person of the Virgin Mary — and its 
 admiration of ideal virtues as in the honour paid to Saints, 
 is a picturesque means of raising the brutish mind to a leetle 
 higher than the brute. That is all I say." 
 
 Everton did not contest these points with his friend, for 
 he felt there was some sense in the arguments propounded. 
 Lack of ' ideals ' — lack of all devout feeling or enthusiasm for 
 the service of Christ was plainly evinced among the rustic 
 people whom it was his task to spiritually control, — and he 
 had found that the conventional setting forth of the orthodox 
 doctrines of Original Sin and the Divine Atonement was to 
 them what they called ' muddlesome ' — and if it brought them, 
 out of habit, to church on Sundays, it certainly did not keep 
 them away from the public-house on week-days. But he 
 plodded on patiently in his round of duty, — resigned, yet 
 hopeful that perhaps a time would come when the Power that 
 had called him into being and placed him in his particular 
 position, would show him what use his life could be in a world 
 already too full of preachers and teachers whose efforts, for the 
 most part, seem to be in vain. 
 
 In the middle of this particularly warm and dazzling month 
 the little Laurence celebrated his fifth birthday. He was 
 growing so fast, and at the same time mastering the baby 
 imperfections of his speech so quickly that he was more like 
 a boy of seven or eight than a child of five. He had begun to 
 read, and could write in a very clear large round hand, and he 
 showed an eager rapacity for books of all kinds — books with 
 and without pictures — books full of long words which he could 
 not spell, and books full of short words which he learned with 
 marvellous ease and quickness. People said he was ' precocious,' 
 because he was of a thoughtful and serious disposition, though 
 he could be merry enough when he chose. But often when 
 his father and mother were talking together, they would find 
 him listening to them earnestly, with a line of close attention
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 221 
 
 furrowed 011 his brow, and his eyes full of a wistful wonder. 
 He seemed to be always puzzling over things beyond his 
 comprehension — as indeed he was. Once he asked, quite 
 suddenly — 
 
 " Mummy, how did I corned here ? " 
 
 She laughed. 
 
 " Darling, what do you mean ? " 
 
 " I mean, how was I born'd ? " 
 
 She lifted the fair enquiring face between her two hands and 
 kissed it. 
 
 " An angel brought you to me straight from Heaven ! " she 
 said. 
 
 " Where's the angel now ? " he pursued. 
 
 " Gone back to Heaven," — she answered. 
 
 " Where's Heaven ? " 
 
 She folded her arms closely round him. 
 
 "It's a beautiful world," — she said — "Where God lives. 
 We shall all go there some day/' 
 
 " Will you go ? " 
 
 " I hope so ! '* 
 
 "Soon?" 
 
 She was a little startled. 
 
 "Well — not quite soon — perhaps," — she murmured — "I 
 don't want to leave you and Dad " 
 
 " Cculdn't we go with you ? " 
 
 She was silent. There was a coldness at her heart, — she 
 was thinking how hard it was, how cruelly hard, that she — that 
 her husband — and that her beautiful boy — should all have 
 to die ! Why live at all, why love at all — if only to end 
 thus! 
 
 " Couldn't we ? " persisted Laurence — " Let's all go to God, 
 Mummy ! He must be such a nice man ! " 
 
 Poor Azalea felt very uncomfortable, and her cheeks 
 reddened. 
 
 " Darling, He's not a man ! " she said, nervously. 
 
 " Isn't He ? What is He ? " 
 
 " I — I can't explain — " stammered Azalea, desperate!)'.
 
 222 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 " Can't I love Him ? " 
 
 " Yes," — and she caught at this eagerly — " Yes, indeed, dear, 
 — you can love Him — you must love Him ! " 
 
 " Can I kiss Him ? " 
 
 " I — I — don't know — oh, Laurence, you mustn't ask me so 
 many questions ! " 
 
 Laurence looked, as he felt, bewildered. 
 
 " Well, if God lives in a beautiful world where we're all 
 going, and is nice and kind, I shall kiss Him ! " he said, firmly, 
 " Just as I kiss Dad. He would like me to." 
 
 Azalea here terminated the conversation abruptly. It was 
 becoming too great a strain on her mind. 
 
 One afternoon, after many hours spent in superintending 
 the planting and arranging of fresh beds of flowers with the 
 gardener, an old man who took considerable delight in ' wasting 
 his time with the missus ' as he termed his labours under 
 Azalea's direction, the pretty little woman ran into her 
 husband's study like a vision from fairyland, clad in diaphanous 
 white, a becoming big straw hat tied under her chin with a 
 blue ribbon, and a picturesque brown rush basket swinging on 
 her arm. 
 
 "I suppose you're too busy to come out primrosing with 
 me ? " she said. 
 
 He laid down his pen, rose from his desk, and surveyed her 
 with admiring tenderness. 
 
 " How lovely you look ! " he exclaimed — " What a pretty 
 frock ! And that hat ! Why, Azalea, you are positively be- 
 witching to-day ! " 
 
 She laughed with pleasure. 
 
 " It's only cheap muslin," — she said, with a condescending 
 downward glance at the dainty frills and flounces of her dress, 
 "But I had it made as though it were quite expensive — as 
 though it had come from Paris ! That's the art of it, Dick ! 
 — pure trickiness ! And I trimmed the hat myself." 
 
 "And you're going primrosing?" he queried, fondly drawing 
 her into his arms — " With Laurence ? " 
 
 No, Laurence has been playing about all day, and he's 
 
 >■(
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 223 
 
 just going to have his tea. I thought you might perhaps like 
 to come out with me ? " 
 
 "I'll come with pleasure if you wish it, darling," — ho 
 answered — "But — if you didn't mind — I rather wanted to 
 finish what I'm about " 
 
 "Sunday's sermon?" she queried, with a playful arching of 
 her brows. 
 
 He nodded, smiling. 
 
 " Sunday's sermon ! I think I've got one or two good 
 suggestions in it." 
 
 " Good suggestions ! And do you think the Shadbrook 
 people will care for them ? " 
 
 "That's nothing to do with it," he answered — "I want to 
 give comfort if I can." 
 
 She took a rosebud out of a bunch she wore pinned at her 
 bosom and slipped it into his buttonhole. 
 
 " Do you know, Dick, I find more comfort in this beautiful 
 warm weather, and in the garden and the woods than in all 
 the sermons ever preached ! " she said, laughingly — " Even 
 your sermons included ! Am I not wicked ? " 
 
 He patted the small white hand that hovered round the 
 rosebud in his coat. 
 
 " No, not wicked at all ! " he declared — " If I were a 
 fanciful instead of a dull, prosaic man, I should say that all 
 the sunbeams and blossoms were God's own ' sermons ' or 
 hopeful messages to sweet women." 
 
 " That's pretty ! " and she smiled — " But the loveliest 
 blossoms soon wither — and so do the women ! There's not 
 much of a ' hopeful message ' in that fact ! " 
 
 " Well, it will be a long time before you wither ! " he said, 
 gaily, and he kissed the charming upturned face — " I never 
 saw you looking better than you do to-day." 
 
 " I'm glad you think me so fascinating ! " and she gave him 
 a demure little smile and curtsey — "But you must please 
 understand that I haven't dressed for you, sir ! Father 
 Douay," — here she laughed — " I love to call him father ! — is 
 coming to dine with us."
 
 224 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 " Oh, is that it ? All the finer)- is for him ! And the 
 primroses too ? " 
 
 " Not exactly for him — for the table," — she answered — " I've 
 made a pretty green silk centre, and I'm going to arrange 
 primroses all round — heaps of primroses just fresh out of the 
 woods. Don't you see ? " 
 
 " I see ! " and still smiling, he held her round the waist with 
 one arm and looked at her long and earnestly — " You are very 
 sweet, Azalea ! " he said — " And I love you more and more 
 every day ! " 
 
 " Do you ? " she murmured — " Sure ? " 
 
 " Sure ! " he answered — " I'm not jealous of Douay ! " 
 
 " You've no cause to be ! " and she laughed merrily. " He's 
 only just a dear old thing ! " 
 
 "Just a dear old thing, eh?" echoed Richard — "Well, 
 that's expressive ! And what am I ? '* 
 
 A sudden beautiful tenderness illumined her dark blue 
 eyes. 
 
 " You are my husband," — she said — " My husband, my 
 darling and my best in the whole world ! That's what you 
 are, Dick ! " And she stretched herself up on tiptoe to kiss 
 him. " Oh dear ! I often think when we're all in church 
 praying to God to take us to heaven, how very disagreeable it 
 would be to have to die and leave you and Laurence ! What's 
 the good of heaven to a wife who has left her husband on 
 earth ? " 
 
 " If she loved her husband very much, it might seem 
 lonely " he began to answer. 
 
 " It wouldn't seem — it would be lonely," — she interrupted 
 him, with a decisive shake of her fair head — " It would be 
 simply horrible ! For instance, suppose it were me, I should 
 want you all the time, and if I had any eyes I should cry them 
 out for you and Laurence — I know I should ! Now really, 
 Dick," — and she looked very serious — "you surely don't think 
 heaven could be a true heaven with no one in it that you love? 
 Would you like a heaven without me?" 
 
 I'd rather go to — the other place ! " he answered, 
 
 u
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 225 
 
 promptly — " My dear child, don't bother your little head with 
 these ideas ! Go and gather your primroses and don't be 
 long ! " 
 
 " You won't come ? " 
 
 He considered a minute, and glanced at his watch. It was 
 half-past four. 
 
 "Which way are you going?" 
 
 " Into the hazel copse and the little wood beyond." 
 
 "Won't you be trespassing?" he asked, half laughingly— 
 "Doesn't the little wood belong to Minchin?" 
 
 "Oh, that doesn't matter,"— she answered, lightly — "He 
 can't stop the public right of way, and all the children pick 
 primroses there." 
 
 " Well, perhaps I'll come and meet you on your way back," 
 he said — "I shall have finished work in about an hour." 
 
 " All right ! Good-bye ! " 
 
 " Good-bye for the present ! " 
 
 She turned to leave the room and he called her back again. 
 " Azalea ! " 
 
 " Yes, Dick ! " 
 
 " Can you spare me another kiss ? " 
 
 She laughed, and ran gaily into his arms. 
 
 "Sentimental Dick!" she said — "You are always like a 
 lover ! When will you be tired of me ? " 
 
 " Never ! " he answered — " Not even, ' when the sun grows 
 cold, and the leaves of the Judgment-book unfold' ! " 
 
 She shivered a little. 
 
 " Don't talk of the sun growing cold ! " she said — " It seems 
 so cruel on such a glorious day ! " 
 
 He kissed her, and let her go. At the door she looked round 
 and waved her hand. 
 
 " Good-bye ! " said she. 
 
 " Good-bye, darling ! " 
 
 He seated himself anew at his desk, and waited a minute or 
 two, half expecting to see her pass the study window on her 
 way through the garden. But she did not reappear. And he 
 settled his mind steadily to write, evolving many more thoughts 
 
 *5
 
 226 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 as he worked than he found it expedient to set down for the 
 benefit of the Shadbrook villagers, who cared little for anything 
 a mere ' parson ' might try to teach them, and understood less. 
 Azalea meanwhile went down through the garden and out 
 into the village street, from thence making a short cut by the 
 bridge over a stile and across a field into a little thicket, over- 
 grown with shrubs and brambles and carpeted with last year's 
 fallen leaves, through which the yellow tips of primrose-buds 
 were faintly showing. But though she paused here for a 
 moment looking around her, she did not linger, because this 
 particular copse was too near the village, and she knew that the 
 Shadbrook children had been there before her, plucking all the 
 finest and fairest blossoms. She walked on quickly for about 
 half a mile, and then began to climb a slight ascent at the 
 summit of which were extensive patches of closely growing 
 wood, spreading upward and away for a considerable distance, 
 and here between the network of branches, through which 
 the warm afternoon sunlight flickered in streaks of rosy fire, 
 thousands of primroses were out in all their fresh beauty, like 
 ' coins from the mintage of the Spring.' Throwing off her hat 
 for greater ease, and also out of a pardonably vain idea that 
 the sun might help to brighten the already bright tints of her 
 hair, she began to pick the flowers leisurely, putting them 
 together in dainty bunches and singing softly in her sweet 
 small voice as she moved from one fragrant cluster to another, 
 and unconsciously strolling higher and higher up through the 
 woods, and further and further away from Shadbrook : 
 
 "Dere's a breakin' in de clouds an' de stars am shovrin', 
 Oh, meet me in de corn when de wind am blowin' ! " 
 
 She hummed the old ' coon ' song under her breath as she 
 bent over the bright primroses, and then with a quantity of 
 them in her hands, sat down among the dry brown leaves to 
 pack them more closely in her basket, which was soon more 
 than half full. A warm, soft breeze played among her un- 
 covered fair locks like a caress from heaven, — the trill of an
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 227 
 
 unseen skylark shook the air with melody — and everywhere 
 around her the birds were calling to one another in love-notes 
 of fresh and penetrating sweetness. She made a perfect picture 
 sitting under the delicately budding boughs, the sunlight glint- 
 ing among the withered leaves that covered the earth, turning 
 them to hues of copper and gold at her feet ; and an artist 
 would have been glad to have painted her as a study of sweet 
 English womanhood, the sister and fitting companion of the 
 sweet English spring. 
 
 She was a little tired, and a vague sense of sadness oppressed 
 her. It was all very lovely, she thought, but very dull. If 
 Richard could have come out with her she would have enjoyed 
 it more. 
 
 " Poor old Dick ! " she sighed — " It must be horrid to have 
 to write clever sermons for people who don't and won't under- 
 stand them ! Oh dear ! I wonder if we shall have to live 
 in Shadbrook always ! Fancy the long, long years going by, 
 and doing nothing for us except wrinkling us with age and 
 crippling us with rheumatism ! Simply dreadful ! Yes, you 
 dear things ! " and she apostrophised the primroses as she 
 tied them up in bunches with some soft twine she had brought 
 for the purpose — " You don't know how awful it is to live a 
 terrible long time, trying to make yourself agreeable to people 
 who shut their hearts against you ! You just come out and 
 bloom in the woods and look sweet, and fade away quickly, 
 and there's an end. So nice for you ! And everybody likes 
 you — that's the best of it ! Nobody hates you for being 
 pretty — nobody is unkind to you, — and you have such a lot 
 of companions that you can never be lonely. I'm lonely. 
 Yes, I am ! — even with Dick and Laurence. And when 
 Laurence gets older and goes to school, and Dick gets more 
 serious even than he is now, I shall be lonelier than ever. I 
 want — oh ! — I don't know what I want ! " 
 
 She laughed and blinked away two tears that had risen in 
 her pretty eyes. And her thoughts reverted to a recent 
 rumour, whispered guardedly among the gossips of the village, 
 which was to the effect that Jacynth Miller had left the
 
 228 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 1 variety ' stage, and had made a ' grand marriage ' with a 
 millionaire. 
 
 " I wonder if it's true ! " she mused — " And if it is, how 
 strange and unjust it seems ! Fortune seems to favour the 
 bad and punish the good ! I don't like to ask Dick if he 
 has heard anything about it — he seems to hate the very 
 mention of Jacynth Miller's name. She was certainly very 
 beautiful." 
 
 Here she dreamily recalled the fact that the last time she 
 had seen Jacynth, the girl had worn a bunch of primroses 
 at her throat. The remembrance was not pleasant, and 
 she looked down almost vexedly at the blossoms she had 
 gathered. 
 
 " Ah well, she doesn't wear primroses now ! " she said — 
 " It's three years since she left Shadbrook, and I daresay she 
 has plenty of jewels by this time. Bad folks get the best 
 things ! I'm sure I don't know why ! And it is horrid to think 
 that the worse the woman is, the luckier she seems ! " 
 
 Her lips parted, and she began to sing an old Devonshire 
 song of which her father used to be fond. 
 
 'o 
 
 " There stood a gardener at the gate, 
 
 And in each hand a flower : 
 'O pretty maid, come in,' he said, 
 
 ' And see my beauteous bower ! 
 The lily it shall be thy smock, 
 
 The jonquil shoe thy feet, 
 Thy gown shall be the scented stock, 
 
 To make thee fair and sweet ! ' " 
 
 " Poor old Dad ! " she murmured — " He used to love to hear 
 me sing. I wish he had lived to see me married,— he would 
 
 have adored Laurence oh, how hard it is that people should 
 
 have to die ! " She shivered nervously, and without moving 
 from her place began to pick all the primroses that were 
 within reach immediately around her. "If Dick were to 
 die— or my darling, beautiful baby Laurence— I know I 
 should die too ! I couldn't bear the world without them ! "
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 229 
 
 She sang again very softly, while she- tied more primroses 
 together and added them to those already in her basket. 
 
 " ' The gilly-flower shall deck thy head, 
 
 Thy way with herbs I'll strew, 
 Thy bodice shall be marigold, 
 
 Thy gloves the violet blue.' 
 ' I will not have the gilly-flower, 
 
 Nor herbs my path to strew, 
 Nor bodice of the marigold, 
 
 Nor gloves of violet blue.'" 
 
 1 
 
 Checking her song she looked up at the sky and smiled at 
 its cloudless radiance. 
 
 " What a perfect afternoon ! " she exclaimed, with a little 
 sigh of enjoyment — "I do hope Dick won't be long before 
 he starts out to meet me. I think I'll wait here till he 
 
 comes." 
 
 She went on gathering and tying up bunches of primroses, 
 her happy face flushed with the warmth of the sun, and a 
 smile of pleasure sparkling in her eyes. Behind her the 
 woods still spread upwards, gently rising to a ridge of land 
 plumed with slender pine-trees and other evergreens which 
 formed a kind of cover for game. This was one of Mr. 
 Minchin's 'preserves' and a board put up on a pole in a 
 prominent position bore this legend inscribed upon it : — 
 " Trespassers will be prosecuted and dogs destroyed." But 
 Azalea was not upon the forbidden ground, though she was 
 within a few yards of it, — therefore the man who suddens- 
 appeared on the ridge, slouching along with a gun in his hand, 
 would not have startled her from her peaceful attitude, even 
 if she had heard or seen him coming, which she did not. 
 He was walking unsteadily, with his head down, apparently 
 picking his way among the 'snags' and stumps of trees as 
 though he were afraid of falling, and he had got half-way 
 across the ridge before he caught sight of her figure quietly 
 seated among the primroses. Then, w r ith a smothered ex- 
 clamation he stopped short, and pushed his hat up from his
 
 230 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 brows, showing a soiled, red, bloated face, — the face of Dan 
 Kiernan. Too drunk to stand straight, he swayed to and 
 fro, one hand clutching at the branch of a tree to steady 
 himself, the other gripping his gun harder. 
 
 " By G — d ! " he muttered, thickly — " It's that damned 
 parson's wife ! " 
 
 He laughed stupidly — staring fixedly at the little white figure 
 below him. Just then a small sweet voice floated up to 
 his ears, singing : 
 
 " ' I will not have the scented stock, 
 
 Nor jonquils to my shoon, 
 But I will have the red, red rose, 
 
 That flow'reth sweet in June.' 
 'The red, red rose it hath a thorn 
 
 That pierceth to the bone.' 
 ' I little heed thy idle rede, 
 
 I'll have the rose, or none.' " 
 
 With a mocking movement of his head Dan kept time to the 
 floating echo of the tune. 
 
 " It's the dolly wife for sure ! " he said to himself in a savage 
 whisper — " I haven't seen he* since — since " 
 
 A dark flush rose to his brows, and he uttered a horrible 
 oath. 
 
 " You lost me Jacynth, you little devil ! " he said in a hoarse 
 whisper — " You I You sneakin' simperin' baby-face ! Oh, I 
 don't forget ye ! Not much ! Nor likely to ! " 
 
 Noiselessly letting go the branch he held, he crouched down 
 like a wild beast among the brushwood and peered through the 
 network of leaf and bramble, his eyes fastened greedily on the 
 uncovered fair head that shone like a gleam of vivid gold among 
 the paler tinted primroses. 
 
 " ' The red, red rose it hath a thorn 
 That pierceth to the heart.' 
 'The red, red rose I still will have, 
 I shall not heed the smart.'"
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 231 
 
 Once more the clear little voice rang gently upward on the 
 air, and a thrush swinging on a branch of ha/.cl warbled a 
 cheerful answering strain. Dropping on his knees, Kiernan 
 stretched himself stealthily along the ground under cover of 
 the brambles, still clenching his gun. 
 
 "Sing away, sing away ! " he snarled, his coarse face growing 
 darkly purple with suppressed fury — " But you're not going to 
 get off your reckoning with me, my fine lady ! A bit of a fright 
 won't hurt ye — a bit of a fright " 
 
 And he slowly raised his gun to his shoulder. A bough 
 cracked near him and he paused irresolute. 
 
 " She bent her down unto the ground 
 To pluck the rose so red " 
 
 The song trembled again towards him on a wave of the 
 wind. He brought his gun to position, — then, — without con- 
 sidering his aim, — fired. A flash — a sharp report — one thin 
 puff of pale-blue smoke — and the little white figure among the 
 primroses sprang up erect with a shrill cry, reeled, fell forward 
 and lay prone on its face, motionless. He burst into a loud 
 laugh. 
 
 " Hallo ! " he shouted—" Hallo, Missis Everton ! Don't be 
 scared ! It's only Dan Kiernan shootin' rabbits ! " 
 
 And bending aside the intervening boughs he watched the 
 fallen heap of white among the orange-brown leaves, vaguely 
 expecting it to rise and run away. But it remained still so 
 long that he grew angry. Scrambling to his feet, he stumbled 
 down through the woods and approached it — then stopped 
 short, checked by a nervous horror. The innocent-eyed prim- 
 roses, the tender points of young unfurling leaves, danced 
 before his sight like dizzying flecks of green and yellow fire, — 
 he saw the folds of a woman's white dress, and a thin dark 
 stream of red blood oozing slowly through the whiteness, and 
 he began to shake all over like a man in an ague fit. He tried 
 to speak, — but his throat was dry ; his lips refused to frame an 
 utterance. There was a heavy silence everywhere — the report
 
 232 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 of the gun had scattered all the woodland birds away. A 
 flaring pomp of crimson flooded the west and burned among 
 the dark tree-stems, — the sun was going down. He stood 
 stricken as it were by some inward horrible amazement, striving 
 to control the trembling of his limbs, the chattering of his 
 teeth, — and not daring to move a step nearer to the little 
 huddled form that lay before him in such ghastly mute help- 
 lessness. He could not touch it — and for some minutes he 
 struggled with himself trying to think what he had done — what 
 he had intended to do. Drink had so dominated and poisoned 
 the cells of his brain that he was unable to grasp the full 
 meaning of his own act, — he had no power to regret it, and 
 scarcely any sense to understand it. The first thing that 
 brought him to a kind of confused realisation of his position 
 was the chiming of a bell in the near distance. It was the 
 bell of Shadbrook Church, striking the hour. He counted 
 six strokes. Moistening his parched lips with his tongue, he 
 strove to recover his voice, and presently whispered hoarsely : 
 
 " Missis Everton ! " 
 
 Silence ! But it seemed to him that the oozing blood 
 soaking its way through the white dress of the dead woman 
 made a strange creeping sound. He listened with growing 
 terror. Then there seemed to come upon him like a clang 
 of iron hammers beating in his ears, the cry of ' Murder ! ' 
 Brutal, barbarous murder ! And he — was he the murderer ? 
 No ! — no ! — it was not so bad as all that, — he had frightened 
 the stupid ' dolly wife,' and she had fainted. He was sure, 
 quite sure he had not killed her ! In a kind of futile frenzy 
 he threw down his gun, and pressing both hands to his head 
 tried to steady the whirl of the trees, the leaves, the masses 
 of primroses that danced and twisted and writhed like mere 
 blotches of colour, all concentrating in one glaring focus on 
 that white central spot with the red blood crawling slowly 
 through it, blurring it with a deep dark stain. Then, all at 
 once, as though a curtain had been torn away from the eyes 
 of his drugged inner consciousness, the awful truth flashed 
 upon him, and with its crashing force came a mad access
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 233 
 
 of fear. He had murdered a woman — and the law would 
 exact penalty for his crime ! The law ! What was the law ? 
 It meant hanging. Not always — no, not always! There 
 were the halfpenny newspapers, — they would help him ! — 
 they would find some means to get him out of his trouble, 
 as they would never help a just man ! — they could, if they 
 liked, work up a whole nation to beg that he might be 
 pardoned for his dastard deed ! When they knew all ! — yes, 
 when they knew how Jennie had died, and how Jacynth had 
 left him, they would make of him a hero and a martyr ! He 
 had not read those papers for nothing ! And an ugly smile 
 darkened his face. 
 
 " Twas the drink that drove me to it ! " he said, suddenly 
 and loudly, as though answering some invisible accuser — 
 " Make what you like of it, — 'twas the drink ! " 
 
 A slowly moving current of air swayed softly through the 
 trees, causing them to rustle gently, — a line of ethereal blue 
 mist floated delicately upward from the moist ground, suspend- 
 ing itself like a fine web against the deepening rose tint of 
 the western sky. He looked once more, furtively and 
 shudderingly on the motionless form of his victim. 
 
 " 'Twas the drink ! " he repeated — " From beginning to 
 end. D'ye hear? The drink! Naught else!" 
 
 The faint wind stirred a tress of golden hair on the little 
 fallen head, and waved it gently to and fro. He sprang back, 
 terrified. That hair seemed living, — was she — was she perhaps 
 alive after all? She might be! — who could tell? It was 
 incredible — unnatural — impossible that she should be dead ! 
 Dead, dead, dead ! He muttered the word over and over 
 again like an idiot child. Dead, dead ! He had seen two or 
 three dead people, — his father, who had been killed by the 
 swing of a ponderous machine in an iron foundry, — his mother, 
 who had died in her sleep, — and — Jennie. Poor Jennie! 
 She had looked so old and waxen-yellow in her coffin ! And 
 Jennie's death had been brought about by that white thing 
 there, lying face downward among the primroses. So that 
 by a kind of monstrous special pleading he could contend
 
 234 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 that justice itself had sped the bullet which had so surely 
 hit its mark ! His glance fell on the gun he had thrown 
 down — and with his foot he pushed it nearer the prone body. 
 He would leave it there; — it had his name upon it. He 
 was not a coward — no ! — he would not evade justice — he 
 would be a Halfpenny Newspaper hero ! But stay ! — how 
 came he to have a gun with him that day ? With a painful 
 effort he remembered, — it was through the kindness of Mr. 
 Minchin. Through the kindness of Mr. Minchin ! Mr. 
 Minchin had paid him his week's wages and had said that if 
 he liked to shoot over his, the great Minchin's, land for 
 a rabbit or two, he was welcome. And he had had a 
 drink — several drinks — and had come out looking for the 
 innocent prey, — and then — then he had seen the 'dolly wife' 
 in her white muslin frock, set down like a target in the midst 
 of the green woods — yes — a target ! — a mark for practice — 
 and — and he had fired, simply for fun ! Simply for fun ! 
 That was what he would say to the law — if — if the law had 
 anything to say to him ! And the drink was to blame, — the 
 drink had made his hand shake — he had not meant to kill 
 
 her 
 
 Just then his ears caught a sound which filled him with 
 delirious panic. It was a man's whistle. It pierced the 
 sunset silence with flute-like clearness — and again and again 
 rang through the quiet air. For a moment Kiernan was 
 rooted to the spot where he stood, paralysed by sheer terror. 
 Then, pulling his nerves together he turned and fled, — fled 
 in furious haste, stumbling breathlessly and dizzily up the 
 ascent leading to the ridge of land from whence he had 
 descended, — heedless of how or where he went, but only 
 blindly conscious that he must get away. Away out of the 
 neighbourhood — miles and miles away ! All the trees seemed 
 to stand like a crowd of accusing witnesses in his path — he 
 felt he could have twisted them up by the roots and cast 
 them aside in his mad hum 7 , — their creaking boughs seemed 
 to groan ' Murder ! ' as he passed, and he fought his way 
 along in a feverish frenzy of fear, urging his trembling limbs
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 235 
 
 to running speed, now falling, now scrambling up and reeling 
 on, till at last breaking desperately through a close thicket of 
 brushwood, he reached the summit of the ridge and dis- 
 appeared. As his dark figure vanished like a blot in space, a 
 little brown bird flew across the purpling mist of the sundown, 
 and perching on a branch of budding hawthorn, carolled 
 sweetly above the small white figure that lay motionless 
 among the last year's withered leaves and the primroses of 
 the spring. And once more, clearer and nearer through the 
 evening stillness, rang the cheerful whistle.
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 THE sun had sunk below the horizon when Everton, lean- 
 ing his arms across his garden gate, looked down the 
 darkening road outside with some anxiety. Not having been 
 able to finish his writing as quickly as he had anticipated, he 
 had sent Douay to meet Azalea on her way back from the 
 woods, saying, playfully : 
 
 "She's very smart to-day in a new white frock which she 
 declares she has put on to please you, not me! — so I'll be 
 generous and give you all the advantage of it ! You go and 
 find her among the primroses and be her escort home." 
 
 Douay had accepted the errand with delighted alacrity, and 
 had gone off at once,— but he had now been absent some time, 
 — evening was beginning to close in, and there was no sign of 
 his return. One or two early stars twinkled mildly in the warm 
 sky, and the silence of a perfect peace deepened with the 
 deepening shadows. The scent of budding leaves and sprout- 
 ing herbs ascended sweetly from the dewy earth, and just 
 where the Vicar stood, a bush of lilac thrust its flowering sprays 
 against his shoulder, expressing in its delicate fragrance all 
 the spirit of the spring. He could not see the village from his 
 point of observation — and yet — as he waited, listening eagerly 
 for the first approaching footfall, or the first sound of his wife's 
 laughing voice as he had so often heard it ringing out merrily 
 in conversation with Douay, he fancied he heard a strange 
 smothered cry, as of several persons moved by one overwhelm- 
 ing sense of horror. A sudden foreboding thrill ran coldly 
 
 through his heart ; he unlatched the gate and took one or two 
 
 236
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 237 
 
 hesitating steps beyond it — then paused, listening again. 
 Surely there was some unusual commotion in the village ? His 
 ears caught the echo of a confused noise like that of hurried 
 feet running to and fro, mingling with an increasing murmur of 
 men's and women's voices, — then he saw the gleam of lanterns 
 flickering uncertainly along the road. An inexplicable dread 
 gripped his nerves, — anon, shaking off the momentary misgiving, 
 he walked on quickly for several paces, thereby stumbling 
 almost before he realised it into the outstretched arms of 
 Douay. 
 
 "Go back! Go back, Richard ! "—and the little priest's 
 face, convulsed and wet with tears, terrified him by its ghastly 
 pallor — " My poor friend ! Go back — back into the house ! — 
 do not ask me why — do not look at me " 
 
 And his quivering voice broke into hard sobs of irrepressible 
 anguish. Everton staggered and threw out his hands catching 
 blindly at the empty air. 
 
 " God ! " he muttered — " What is this ? What has happened ? 
 Where is my wife ? " 
 
 Seizing him by the arm Douay strove to drag him back to 
 his own gateway. 
 
 " Come — come ! " he entreated him — " Don't wait here — you 
 must not, Everton ! Come with me, — come, I beg — I pray of 
 you ! Your wife " 
 
 " My wife ! " — and Everton's struggling hands suddenly closed 
 on Douay's shoulders like a vice — " Yes ! — what of her? Tell 
 me quick — quick ! Where is she ? w 
 
 " She is — coming ! " and Douay made a strong effort to speak 
 calmly — "They are bringing her — bringing her — home. Oh, 
 my friend, try, try to be brave ! — there may perhaps be hope ! 
 God is good — she may not be dead " 
 
 " Dead ! " Everton cried out the word in a loud wild voice, 
 "Dead! Azalea! How should she be dead? What are 
 you talking about ? She is well — quite well ! Have you not 
 met her? Could you not find her? " 
 
 « Yes — yes — I found her ! "—and Douay, battling with his 
 own emotions, strove to support and guide the Vicar's swaying
 
 238 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 figure towards his own home — " I found her ill — very ill ! I 
 ran to the nearest farm to fetch help — I did all I could — 
 Richard, for God's sake do not look at me like that ! I cannot 
 bear it ! " 
 
 His voice broke again, and Everton's brain swung round and 
 round dizzily — strange black monster shapes seemed looming 
 at him out of the evening shadows, beckoning him and 
 drawing him with resistless force into some frightful chasm 
 where there was no life, no world, but merely blank Nothing- 
 ness. Some one — who was it ? — told him Azalea was dead ! 
 He gave involuntary way to a fit of wild, half-groaning laughter, 
 horrible to hear. 
 
 "My wife ! " he cried — " Dead ? No, no ! Not if there is 
 a God ! " 
 
 More vague dark forms approached, — creatures of bulk and 
 substance who seemed to gather in a little crowd around him ; 
 — some of them held him by the arms and spoke to him, but 
 he could not understand what they said, — they all looked to 
 him like devil figures in a delirious dream, and he fought with 
 them reasonlessly and blindly, not knowing what he did, till 
 overcome by a sudden sick faintness he reeled and nearly fell. 
 Then he heard the subdued exclamations of men, and the sobs 
 of women — he felt, rather than knew, that he was being half 
 led, half carried into his own garden, and that he was too weak 
 and helpless to resist. The blossoming sprays of the lilac at 
 his gate brushed his face with a dewy freshness as he passed, 
 and he closed his eyes heavily with a kind of dim hope that he 
 might never open them again. At last, without any conscious- 
 ness of how it happened, he found himself in his own study, 
 lying back in his own chair with Dr. Brand bending over him 
 and holding a glass of some odorous cordial to his lips. He 
 pushed it away. 
 
 " I am not ill," — he said, faintly—" Not ill at all— no ! It 
 was only a sudden giddiness — a foolish nervous fancy, — I 
 
 thought 1 thought " he paused, and looking about him 
 
 saw that Sebastien Douay was in the room, though his face was 
 averted. " Yes — I thought I heard some one say that my wife
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 239 
 
 was dead. Of course it is not — it cannot be true ! It would 
 not be possible ! " 
 
 He waited for a word of reply. Neither Brand nor Douay 
 spoke. He raised himself in his chair and his eyes turned 
 imploringly from one to the other. Then he began to tremble 
 violently. 
 
 "I wish to understand,'" he murmured — "what all this 
 trouble is ? My wife went out into the woods to gather some 
 primroses, and I said I would go and meet her. But I was 
 late in finishing my work, and I sent my friend Mr. Douay, 
 who is dining with us this evening, instead. Will she not come 
 back with him? Shall I go and fetch her myself?" 
 
 Brand sat down beside him, laying one hand on his 
 arm. 
 
 "Mr. Everton, you believe in God," — he said — "And you 
 are a naturally brave man. You want all your courage now. 
 Shall I tell you the truth ? " 
 
 He checked himself as Everton suddenly sprang up with an 
 excited gesture. 
 
 " Hush— hush ! " he muttered—" What's that ? " 
 
 And he listened intently to a dull noise outside the window ; 
 the noise of heavy tramping feet crunching the gravel on 
 the garden path with a measured movement as though some 
 burden were being slowly carried towards the house. Brand 
 and Douay exchanged startled glances, and Douay went quickly 
 to the study door, opening it very slightly. 
 
 " Keep the child away ! " — he called, softly, to some one 
 outside — " Don't let him come downstairs ! He must not 
 
 see- 
 
 << 
 
 Must not see what?" Everton, pale to the lips, came 
 swiftly behind him, thrusting him aside with a wild movement ; 
 " Let me go ! " — this to Brand, who, himself quite shaken 
 from his usual professional composure, still sought to hold him 
 back — " I must find my wife ! " 
 
 And he stepped out into the hall, seeing as in a misty blur 
 of bewilderment the servants of the household huddled there 
 together and sobbing unrestrainedly, — then with a cry which
 
 240 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 no one who heard it ever forgot, he tottered blindly forward 
 to meet a group of men, all Shadbrook villagers, who, bare- 
 headed and moving softly, carried between them a stretcher, 
 on which lay, completely covered over with a rough cloak, a 
 small motionless figure. At sight of this the unhappy Vicar fell 
 on his knees and covered his head with his hands. 
 
 " Oh, not Azalea ! " he groaned — " Not Azalea ! O God 
 of mercy ! Not Azalea ! " 
 
 At a quick sign from Brand the men made a gentle effort 
 to pass him and carry their light burden upstairs, but he 
 struggled to his feet and stopped them. With staring eyes 
 and labouring breath he approached that quiet recumbent 
 form, and putting his hand out tremblingly turned back the 
 cloak that hid it from his view. Oh, what a sweet, small 
 white face! Was it Azalea? Could it be the laughing, 
 radiant, winsome Azalea? With such gently closed eyelids 
 and such a frozen piteous smile ? 
 
 " Azalea ! " His voice was a mere struggling whisper. " My 
 wife ! " 
 
 The men turned their heads away. They could not bear to 
 look at him. Sebastien Douay drew near, but was unheeded. 
 
 " My wife ! " The stifled exclamation was like a dying 
 groan. He bent over the corpse, gazing, gazing as though 
 his very soul were ebbing away in vision, — then, all at once 
 his numbed senses started to life, and his heart began to beat 
 
 fast and ever faster with a maddening rush of fear what 
 
 what were those stains that dyed the whiteness of the breast 
 and garments of the dead, — wet, crimson stains — horrible to 
 
 see, horrible to touch God, God, God ! The hammers 
 
 clashing in his brain made louder, fiercer noise till it seemed 
 that something worse than death was torturing every nerve in 
 his body, and he almost shrieked out at last in vehement agony, 
 scarcely knowing what he said — 
 
 " Tell me, tell me, tell me ! For God's sake ! What is it 
 
 what does it mean this terrible thing what is it ?" 
 
 He threw his arms about wildly, unconscious of his actions, 
 and Brand, hurrying to his side, caught him and held him
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 241 
 
 fast. He heard some one say — " He must be told,"- -and 
 then he waited, like a criminal before a judge, his whole 
 being strained to hear his sentence. Brand's voice, shaken 
 by emotion, sounded like a booming tocsin in his ears, 
 unnaturally loud, unnaturally deep. 
 
 "Your wife has been murdered !" 
 
 Murdered ! He tried to understand. Murdered ! He 
 looked intently at the little fair, still face that smiled so 
 strangely, not at him, but at something unknown and 
 unseen. Murdered ! An icy coldness congealed his blood, 
 — he tried to speak and his lips moved stiffly as though 
 gripped with an iron ring. He drew himself rigidly upright 
 in the dreary calmness of utter despair. 
 
 " Murdered ! " he echoed, feebly — " How who would 
 
 murder her?" 
 
 A murmur came from the men. 
 
 " Dan. Dan Kiernan. Kiernan, for sure ! " 
 
 A wail of intolerable suffering broke from him. 
 
 " Kiernan ! " 
 
 Dr. Brand, still supporting him, felt his figure sway and 
 tremble as though it were struck by a lightning shock. 
 
 " It's best you should know everything at once, Mr. 
 Everton," — he said, very gently — " Your wife is dead ! She 
 has been shot through the heart. Mr. Douay found her 
 lifeless body in the woods, and Kicrnan's discharged gun 
 was lying beside her. It's an awful tragedy ! How the 
 murder was committed we do not know. But — if it can be 
 the least comfort to you — her death must have been 
 instantaneous, and therefore painless. Come ! — let me take 
 you back to your room ! " 
 
 But the stricken man stood like a figure of stone. Douay, 
 with the tears running undisguisedly down his face, ventured 
 to put a hand through his arm. 
 
 "My dear friend !" he murmured, pleadingly — "Come with 
 me ! Let us pray God to help us " 
 
 Then Everton stirred. He turned his wild eyes round 
 about him in vacant horror. 
 16
 
 242 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 " God ! " he cried—" Where is God ? Does God live and 
 look on this ? " 
 
 He pointed, with both trembling hands outstretched, at 
 his dead wife, — and just then one of the men who carried 
 the stretcher, actuated by a kind intention, moved softly 
 from his place to put aside poor Azalea's basket full of 
 primroses which had been brought home with her body. 
 But Everton caught sight of it. With sudden imperative 
 force he snatched it from the man's hold, and stared at the 
 freshly plucked blossoms, all prettily bunched together and 
 full of fragrance, — they were living — they would live for days 
 
 yet but she Azalea she was dead ! And yet 
 
 some one spoke of God ! He smiled, — as men have been 
 known to smile under the falling knife of the guillotine. 
 
 "Come, Douay!" he said, brokenly— " These are our 
 primroses — to deck the table to-night ! She wishes to make 
 
 things bright for you and for me! she is always so bright 
 
 herself you know she is always bright and merry ! 
 
 come ! come ! " 
 
 His face changed and grew darkly convulsed — his voice 
 died away in an inarticulate gasping sob, — and he fell prone 
 on the ground, lost in the black oblivion of a merciful 
 
 unconsciousness. 
 
 ****** 
 * * . * * * 
 
 * * * * 
 
 They told little Laurence that his mother was ill, and 
 that he must not go to her room. He was in his night- 
 gown, waiting to see her as usual before getting into bed, 
 when this unexpected news was brought to him. He 
 listened with patient gravity, but in his own mind he did 
 not believe the tale. He was puzzled and worried. He 
 had been shut up in the nursery for some time and the 
 door had been locked, — he had heard a strange commotion 
 in the house and had longed to find out what it was, — heavy 
 footsteps had tramped upstairs and tramped down again, 
 and then there had followed a long silence. He was
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 243 
 
 instinctively sure that something mysterious and terrible had 
 happened, and he wondered what it could be. 
 
 " Mummy went out at tea-time to pick primroses," — he 
 said — " Has she come back ? " 
 
 Good Nurse Tomkins, who had stayed on and on with the 
 Evertons solely for love of the child, put her arm tenderly 
 round him. 
 
 "Yes, dear, I told you she has come back. But she is ill." 
 
 "Why are you crying?" he demanded. 
 
 " Am I crying ? " Tomkins affected surprise. " I expect 
 it's a cold I've got." 
 
 "How did Mummy get ill?" he went on — "She was quite 
 well this afternoon." 
 
 " She — she was badly hurt in the woods," — said Tomkins, 
 
 hesitatingly "And she is obliged to be very very quiet. 
 
 She's not able to come and kiss you good-night," — here there 
 was such a long pause that Laurence was quite bewildered — 
 " But you'll say your prayers now and go to bed like a good 
 boy, won't you ? " 
 
 The little fellow looked at her earnestly with wide-open 
 loving eyes — the eyes of a child-angel rapt in heavenly 
 meditation. Then he obediently knelt down, and folded his 
 hands reverently, murmuring the " Our Father " with slow and 
 careful tenderness. At its conclusion he paused — and heaving 
 a small soft sigh, added : 
 
 " Pray God bless Dad and Mummy, and please, dear God, I 
 am sorry Mummy is ill and I hope you will make her well 
 directly unless you want her to be an angel. And if you want 
 her to be an angel, please make me an angel too, and Dad 
 and all of us, and teach us how to come to you in Heaven. 
 Amen." 
 
 Nurse Tomkins choked back the rising sobs that threatened 
 to break down her forced composure as she heard this quaint 
 petition. Turning away she busied herself in tidying the room, 
 while the boy clambered into bed and lay down, his golden 
 curls spreading out in a kind of halo on the pillow. Then she 
 came and tucked him up and kissed his forehead.
 
 244 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 " Good-night, Master Laurence ! " 
 
 He studied her face anxiously. 
 
 " I'm sure you're crying, Nursie," — he said — " It's not a 
 cold. Isn't Dad coming to see me ? " 
 
 " Dad is with the doctor," — she answered him, quickly, — 
 " He can't come just now. Go to sleep, dearie ! " 
 
 She left the room hastily, afraid to stay any longer lest her 
 self-control should give way. Laurence listened to the soft 
 echo of her departing footsteps, and lay very still in his bed, 
 and very wide awake, thinking. There was something wrong 
 in the house, — something dreadful — of that he felt quite sure. 
 Never in all his little life of five years had he been told to go 
 to sleep like this without good-night kisses from one or both 
 of his parents. He could not understand it. His fancies 
 began to drift dreamily backward over the long, sweet 
 surrimer-like day that had now closed into night, — what pretty 
 pink roses Mummy had planted just at the furthest end of the 
 lawn where the sunlight could warm their opening buds and 
 blossoms ! — and there was going to be a new swing put up 
 where the two big pine trees made an arch of shade over the 
 greensward — and — Mummy could certainly toss a ball higher 
 than he could — and she had promised him a wonderful 
 Japanese kite that could fly ever so high even when there 
 wasn't much wind — and Mummy had raced him round the 
 field and pretended she couldn't possibly catch him, and when 
 he had thought she was nowhere near she had suddenly run 
 out from behind a tree, and had caught him and carried him 
 riding astride across her shoulders all the way home ! He 
 laughed with delight at this recollection — Mummy was such 
 a good playfellow ! And now poor Mummy was ill — it would 
 be very lonesome if she had to stay long in bed — perhaps she 
 would be better to-morrow, — here his thoughts became drowsy 
 and confused — his eyes closed, and though he opened them 
 once or twice in a sudden startled expectancy, half hoping 
 that his mother might, after all, come in to him, he was soon 
 asleep. 
 
 Everton, meanwhile, lay unconscious for the greater part of
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 245 
 
 two hours. His swoon was deep and heavy, and at moments 
 Brand feared that his life might ebb away. Sebastien Douay, 
 patient and watchful as a faithful dog, remained beside him. 
 
 "I will wait/' he said, "all night here. It maybe that I 
 shall be useful. I have already sent a message to my house- 
 keeper, — she will not expect me home. I shall not leave my 
 poor friend." 
 
 Strange men came and went from the Vicarage, stepping 
 
 softly and speaking in whispers, — two inspectors, hastily 
 
 summoned by telegram from the nearest police-station, were 
 
 soon on the premises, questioning and examining every one 
 
 who could tell them as much as was yet known of the crime, 
 
 and with as brief delay as possible in an out-of-the-world place 
 
 like Shadbrook, the scouts of the law were sent all over the 
 
 country in the track of Dan Kiernan, the general impression 
 
 being that he could not have got very far away, and that it would 
 
 be a comparatively easy matter to run him to earth. At 
 
 Mr. Minchin's residence the news had crashed down like a 
 
 thunderbolt, though Mrs. Minchin's first exclamation was one 
 
 of pleasure. 
 
 " Azalea Everton murdered ? Really dead ? " she exclaimed, 
 with sparkling eyes — " What a blessing ! " 
 
 Whereat her husband turned upon her in a towering rage. 
 " Fool of a woman that you are ! " he shouted — " Is ruin a 
 blessing ? For that's what it means to me ! Ruin ! — ruin ! 
 If Everton's wife is killed, and Dan Kiernan — one of my 
 brewery hands, remember ! — has killed her, there'll be the 
 devil to pay ! " 
 
 By way of suitable response, Mrs. Minchin at once flew into 
 one of her feline furies. 
 
 " There always is the devil to pay where you are ! " she burst 
 out, stridently — " I suppose you, in common with other male 
 fools like yourself, have a sneaking admiration for baby-faced 
 
 women " 
 
 " I'd rather have a baby-face than a cat's face ! " he retorted, 
 " Or a cat's temper ! " 
 
 These were the trifling sort of domestic endearments usually
 
 246 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 indulged in by the Minchin wedded pair, — endearments which 
 they fondly imagined were unknown to the outer world, but 
 which their own servants took care to make the common talk 
 of the neighbourhood. 
 
 The night moved on solemnly in a pomp of dark azure 
 besprinkled with stars, — the outside world of nature expressed 
 a majestic indifference to human sorrow, combined with 
 an equally majestic peace. What matter if the hearts of 
 men break under a strain of suffering too great for them to 
 bear? The sun shines on in the same way — and there are 
 always a host of clowns ready to laugh at every Agony in 
 Gethsemane. One woman more or less foully done to death 
 — is it so much to trouble about ? Especially in these days, 
 when each life-unit is so engrossed in whirling round and round 
 in its own limited circle that it can see nothing outside of that 
 — not even God ! 
 
 And Azalea — the thoughtless, frivolous Azalea, whose 
 brief existence had been innocently centred in herself, 
 her husband and child — even she had been drawn out of 
 the narrow ring of Circumstance into the vast possibilities 
 of the Eternal, — while, so far as present time and place were 
 concerned, she was asleep. She lay on her little bed, softly 
 gowned in snowy linen and lace, her long bright golden hair 
 unwound from its many twists and curls, and meekly parted on 
 either side of her brow, — her small hands, waxen-white, crossed 
 on her breast. She looked like the recumbent statue of a saint 
 sculptured in alabaster. Death had given her features a sweet 
 austerity which seemed to mutely express the knowledge of 
 ' beautiful things made new, for the delight of the sky-children.' 
 White flowers were set about the room, and a lamp was dimly 
 burning — now and then the door noiselessly opened, and a 
 servant looked in, to retire again quickly with a suppressed sob ; 
 and that awful hush which pervades a house when some one 
 who has been the life and soul of it has passed away for ever, 
 hung like an almost palpable cloud in the air. Everton, 
 aroused at last from his long swoon, came back slowly into the 
 dreadful consciousness of his grief, and with that consciousness
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 247 
 
 there arose in him a profound and terrible sense of despairing 
 resignation— a sense that life being over, there was nothing to 
 mourn for, or to regret. Everything was finished,— there was 
 no earth, no heaven,— nothing but the dull acceptance of an 
 inevitable and universal doom. In this fixed and frozen mood, 
 he rose from the couch where he had been laid down in his 
 room insensible, and in quiet, measured tones thanked Brand 
 for all his attention. 
 
 " I am sorry," he said, gently—" to have given you so much 
 trouble. I have kept you from your other patients — there is a 
 good deal of illness about in the village just now — please do not 
 wait with me any longer. I am much better able to bear " 
 
 His lip quivered — he looked away for a moment. Brand 
 filled in the painful pause hurriedly. 
 
 "Yes, you are better, Mr. Everton," — he said— "And you 
 have a good reserve of strength — I can trust you ! I will 
 leave you if you wish it. Mr. Douay is here " 
 
 Douay approached as his name was mentioned. 
 
 " Yes, I am here,"— he said—" And here I shall remain 
 
 till to-morrow morning " he checked himself abruptly as 
 
 Everton laid a hand on his arm. 
 
 " Douay. I would rather be alone ! " 
 
 " Richard, my friend, it cannot be— you are weak — you are 
 no t fit " 
 
 "lam! I am fit, 1 must be by myself by myself to 
 
 think ! to try and understand what has happened to me. 
 
 For God's sake, let me have my way ! " 
 
 Brand and Douay glanced anxiously at one another. Then 
 Brand spoke : 
 
 " Very well, it shall be as you wish, Mr. Everton,"— he said, 
 " But you will not turn Mr. Douay out at this time of night, 
 will you? It's nearly eleven o'clock. Let him stay in the 
 house at any rate." 
 
 " In the house ? " Everton looked about him vaguely as 
 
 though scarcely realising his surroundings — " Yes oh yes 
 
 of course ! My dear Douay, forgive me ! You have been so 
 patient— so kind— I forgot ! And and you went to meet
 
 243 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 her my poor little wife ! Oh yes ! you must stay here 
 
 but you will leave me for a while in this room quite alone, will 
 you not ? I shall be better so " 
 
 They saw it was wisest to humour him. 
 
 " You shall do just as you like, Mr. Everton," — said Brand, 
 " Only promise me to try and master yourself ! I am no 
 preacher, and I cannot offer you the right sort of consolation — 
 but your own trust in God will help you " 
 
 Everton raised a trembling hand in protest. 
 
 " Spare me that ! " he said — " I know what you would wish 
 to say, and I thank you ! But I am not strong enough 
 
 to stand quite firmly under the blow not yet ! It is all for 
 
 the best, no doubt ! all for the best that my beloved has 
 
 been brutally murdered ! yes ! " and he smiled, drearily — 
 
 " All for the best ! Yes 1 will try to believe ■" 
 
 His speech failed him, and his lips moved dumbly for 
 a moment. Then he spoke out again. 
 
 " Has has everything been arranged ? " 
 
 Brand bent his head in assent. 
 
 " Where where is she ? " he asked, in a sighing whisper. 
 
 Brand replied in equally hushed accents. 
 
 "In her own room." 
 
 Another long and mournful pause. Then the Vicar held 
 out his hand. 
 
 " Good-night ! " 
 
 Tears rushed to Douay's eyes. 
 
 " Good-night, my dear friend ! " 
 
 Brand could have cried too at the sight of the tall, slender, 
 delicate-featured man before him who was stricken to the very 
 soul by a grief so great that words were all powerless to 
 express it. But he took refuge from his own emotions in 
 practical utterance. 
 
 " I should tell you before I go, Mr. Everton," he said, 
 quickly, "that the police are out all over the country after 
 Kiernan. There's no trace of him as yet, but he will probably 
 be found and arrested in the morning." 
 
 Everton listened, scarcely comprehending.
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 249 
 
 "And then?" he murmured. 
 
 "Then he will be handed over to the law for the 
 punishment of his dastard crime ! : ' exclaimed Douay, 
 hotly. 
 
 The Vicar gave a slight gesture of utter weariness. 
 
 " What will that avail to me?" he asktd. 
 
 A silence followed. Evcrton looked at his two companions 
 with strained tearless eyes. 
 
 " It is all no use," — he said — " My wife is dead ! Nothing 
 can bring her back to me again. The vengeance of the law 
 can only increase my suffering. Even as it is, the ways of the 
 law will wring my heart till it is dry of life-blocd ! For I 
 suppose there must be an inquest ? " 
 
 " Yes, there must be an inquest, certainly," — answered 
 Brand, with hesitation "Surely you would wish it " 
 
 " Wish it ! " Everton wrung his hands in an energy of 
 desperation — "I! /wish that strange men should desecrate 
 by their looks the dead body of my wife ! I tell you, 
 Brand, the law, in seeking to avenge a wronged man, often 
 wrongs him most in the manner of its avenging ! " He gave 
 another convulsive movement of his hands. " Leave me 
 now, — he implored — "leave me, I beg of you both ! It will 
 be the truest kindness to me — it will indeed ! I talk wildly, 
 
 unreasonably, I know 1 am not myself 1 shall be calmer 
 
 when I have had time to think ! " 
 
 He sank into a chair wearily and closed his eyes. He 
 heard whispered words exchanged between Brand and Douay,— 
 he felt rather than knew that Douay had impulsively caught his 
 
 hand and pressed it then the study door opened and was 
 
 softly shut again, — they had gone, and he was alone. Alone, 
 
 and yet the first impression of his solitude was that Azalea 
 
 had come in, and that she stood beside him. He could 
 almost see the folds of her white gown, — the gleam of her 
 gold hair. Only she did not move ?.t all, — she was perfectly 
 still, and though she smiled at him she was very pale. He 
 stretched out his arms to the vacant air. 
 
 " My love, my wife ! I dreamed that you were dead ! But
 
 250 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 you are not you cannot be ! You are here with me, are you 
 
 not ? — yes, always, always with me ! " 
 
 And he fancied he heard the sweet familiar voice like 
 a breath of music, answer him — 
 
 " Always ! " 
 
 He started up amazed, looking eagerly round him. The 
 candles were burning brightly — the room was empty, and 
 gradually the awful weight of realised desolation fell back on 
 his heart with doubly suffocating pressure. 
 
 " Dead ! " he murmured " Azalea ! Not possible ! " 
 
 His trembling hand here touched by chance a flower in his 
 buttonhole — it was the rosebud his wife had pinned there 
 when she had left him that afternoon a few hours ago. Only 
 a few hours ago ! His fingers closed upon it as a miser's fingers 
 might close upon some priceless jewel, — his heart heaved — and 
 his throat burned with choking agony, — but no tears relieved 
 the tension of his brain. He would not unpin the rose, but 
 he bent his head to its petals and kissed it in a frenzy of love 
 and sorrow. The fragrant velvety softness of it was like 
 Azalea's mouth when — when she was alive. When she was 
 
 alive ! And now— she was dead. Dead and murdered by 
 
 Dan Kiernan. 
 
 He tried to grapple with this hideous fact — murdered by 
 Dan Kiernan. Yet he was so far from bringing its reality 
 home to himself that his thoughts went groping miserably 
 back over all the old trodden road of past incident, — trifle 
 upon trifle recurred to him with minute distinctness, — and 
 every small detail of everything that had happened, repeated 
 itself in the nature of an accurate chronicle or summary of 
 events since the ill-omened day three years ago when, moved 
 by a spirit of Christian love and service, he had gone forth as 
 a minister of the Gospel to rescue a defenceless woman from 
 her husband's drunken fury. Then it all vanished in a blur,— 
 and the one black horror remained with him — that Azalea was 
 dead. That from henceforth he was without love in the world. 
 And that she, in the full radiance of her beauty and happiness, 
 had been brutally killed by the sodden ruffian who had been
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 251 
 
 the lover of Jacynth. Jacynth ! That name, so full of poignant 
 association with his misery, goaded him to a kind of madness, 
 — he began to walk up and down the room, feebly at first, then 
 with swifter and stronger steps, till all at once a thought struck 
 him and he stopped abruptly with an upward glance of reproach- 
 ful appeal. 
 
 " Where was God ? " 
 
 He put the question sternly to the silence. 
 
 " Where was God ? " 
 
 Where was ' Our Father,' the merciful Benefactor and Giver 
 of Life and Love, when Kiernan's work was done? Where? 
 Where was the Divine Force that should surely have interposed 
 between the slayer and his victim ? And with an overwhelming 
 rush as of waves and winds hurtling down upon his sinking 
 soul, the vast abyss of complete Unbelief yawned wide before 
 him. He stood upon its brink and looked down. Blank 
 Nothingness was there, — the nothing of life, the nothing of 
 death, and most desolate of all, the Nothing of God ! Of what 
 use was all the praying and the preaching ? Swift as a flash his 
 mind flew back to the time when he had stood by young 
 Hadley's deathbed, and had listened to the lad's wild ravings. 
 He recalled the terrible words — " Don't pray ! It's no use ! 
 With my last breath I want to make you remember that. Ifs 
 no use ! " And the frenzied cry — " Love, I say ! — love ! — it's 
 
 what the Lord Christneverknew it's what He missed love 
 
 for a woman ! — and there He fails to be our brother in sorrow ! " 
 With what strange self-sufficiency he had heard these dying 
 lamentations ! Yes — self-sufficiency ! — the placid self-suffici- 
 ency of a minister of the Gospel who was sure of his faith. 
 Sure — quite sure of his faith ! And now ? The bulwarks were 
 shaking — the fortress was giving way, — and why ? Because death 
 had battered down his own house door, and sorrow had pierced 
 his own heart ! Here he came to a pause in his meditations, 
 shuddering inwardly as with icy cold. 
 "O we poor orphans of nothing, — alone on that lonely shore — 
 
 Born of the brainless Nature who knew not that which she 
 bore !
 
 252 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 Trusting no longer that earthly flower would be heavenly 
 
 fruit ; 
 Come from the brute — poor souls — no souls — and to die with 
 
 the brute I " 
 
 The passionate words of the greatest of modern English 
 poets * clanged through his brain ; — they had been written in a 
 grand scorn for the scorners, but were they true? And if 
 true, why should life be lived at all, when there was nothing 
 to live for? Self-slaughter might be called cowardly, but 
 surely self-deception was its equal in cowardice? 
 
 A meilow measured sound here boomed upon his ears, — it 
 was the church clock striking midnight. The house was very 
 silent, — he supposed the servants had gone to bed. He had 
 no idea that they were all sitting up together in the kitchen 
 
 talking in frightened whispers over the day's ghastly tragedy 
 
 listening for the slightest movement on his part, and ready to 
 guard him from any reckless act of grief or desperation he might 
 be moved to commit. He did not know that Douay was 
 likewise on the alert, waiting watchfully in his bedroom with 
 the door just slightly ajar, so that he could hear even the 
 lightest footfall. Douay indeed was sorely troubled — he did 
 not know what to do for the best. He murmured many Pater 
 Nosters and Ave Marias mechanically out of old routine and 
 habit, but felt that they were wholly inadequate to meet the 
 occasion. His impressionable and kindly nature was easily 
 moved to tears, and he wept freely over the fate of the 
 winsome little woman for whom he had felt an almost paternal 
 affection and friendship. How horrible it had been to see her 
 lying dead among the primroses ! — how horrible ! He had 
 gone to the woods, walking gaily along, light of heart and 
 thinking no evil of any man, every now and then whistling by 
 way of a call to her, — he had found her pretty hat with its 
 blue ribbon lying among the last year's leaves, and he had 
 picked it up and swung it on his arm. Then he had whistled 
 
 again and then then he had seen her lying face 
 
 downward on the ground, with blood oozing through her 
 
 1 Tennyson.
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 253 
 
 white garments ! and he had rushed to a farm close by 
 
 crying wildly for help ! 
 
 " Ah mon Dieu ! " he sighed now, as he went over the 
 terrible experience again and again in his mind, — "What a 
 cruelty ! What a crime ! Will all the saints and angels explain 
 why such a thing should be? La pauvre petite ! What had 
 she done that she should meet with such an end ? A pretty 
 innocent little soul — as harmless as a bird or a butterfly ! And 
 Richard so loved her ! — poor Richard ! A possible great man ! 
 Will his life be quite broken now or " 
 
 A slight noise as of an opening door startled him. He 
 listened, scarcely breathing — but for the moment there was no 
 further sound. 
 
 " Of course the man, Kiernan, was drunk," — he went on 
 reflecting — "And so it is Mr. Minchin who is the real 
 murderer ! Have I not warned this brewer ? I have — many 
 
 times ! I say to him ' Kiernan is dangerous there will be 
 
 mischief!' But he paid no heed — he is all grin and grab. He 
 rules this foolish place where the gospel is not Christianity, 
 but Drink. He is the little god of the dull brain : nd pot- 
 belly ! And hundreds of such little gods ride on the backs of 
 the poor English people, keeping them in slavery worse than 
 that of the dungeon and chain. And how strange are the 
 Governments which punish crime, and yet do nothing to 
 prevent it ! " 
 
 The noise of the opening door downstairs was repeated, and 
 this time it was followed by the movement of footsteps. 
 Cautiously Douay peered out through the aperture of his own 
 doorway and saw Everton coming slowly up the stairs. His 
 face was deathly pale, and he was talking to himself as he 
 came. 
 
 " I must go to my wife ! " — he said, whisperingly ; " I must 
 look upon her once more as she lies asleep — and then — then 
 I will sleep too beside her ! " 
 
 Douay anxiously watched him, himself unseen, as he went 
 by with unfaltering tread straight to the room where Azalea's 
 body lay, — the room that had mutually belonged to husband
 
 254 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 and wife. He saw him open the door and hesitate — then 
 enter and shut himself in. 
 
 A rush of tears to the little priest's eyes blurred everything 
 from his view. 
 
 " Poor, poor fellow ! " he said, softly ; — " If he could only 
 cry like a woman it would do him good ! His brain is on fire 
 
 with sorrow or else it is frozen with despair ; — perhaps the 
 
 sight of her, so calm, so peaceful, so angelic, may touch the 
 
 fount of healing ! As for me 1 will pray for him ! but, 
 
 God forgive ma if I say for once it seems but little use ! " 
 
 And with that he smote his breast and muttered "Mea 
 culpa, mea maxima culpa ! " many times for this rash utterance, 
 which according to the teaching of his Church amounted to 
 that ' sin against the Holy Ghost,' known as presumption of 
 God's mercy, and kneeling down, he buried his head in his 
 hands, and earnestly and unselfishly besought the loving pity 
 of Heaven for his bereaved and suffering friend. 
 
 Meanwhile, little Laurence, sleeping as he was accustomed 
 to do, all alone in his nursery, was disturbed and frightened 
 by a strange dream. He thought he saw his mother standing 
 near him, — there was a pale brightness all round her like 
 summer moonlight, and she had a white dress on and a wreath 
 of white shining flowers in her hair. She looked at him and 
 said, very gently ; " Father wants you, darling ! " And he was 
 so sleepy that he could not quite understand her, — so he 
 rubbed his eyes with his two doubled-up little fists and for a 
 moment only stared at her without speaking. Then she came 
 closer to his bedside and bent over him, and kissed him ; her 
 kiss was so quick and light and warm that it was like a flame, 
 and the touch of it woke him up. Yes, he was sure he was 
 wide awake, and equally sure that his mother stood there 
 smiling at him, though her face was very sad, — and she said, 
 again — ■" Baby dear, father wants you ! " And he was sorry he 
 had not jumped up before in obedience to her call, but he 
 answered now at once — " All right, Mummy ! Are you 
 better ? " To this she did not reply, and when he looked at 
 her again she was gone ! He slipped hastily out of bed, and
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 255 
 
 stood shivering in his little nightgown, thinking and wondering 
 what he ought to do. Nurse Tomkins slept in the next room, 
 and there was an open door between — should he call her and 
 tell her that his mother had come in to see him ? No, — he 
 decided it would be best to do exactly what Mummy had told 
 him, and go to Dad first. So he opened the nursery door 
 very softly and pattered out with his little bare feet on 
 the staircase landing, which was almost dark, save for the 
 glimmer of a gas burner turned low down. He paused, a 
 trifle scared. His mother's bedroom was immediately 
 opposite, and he was just making up his mind to go thither 
 
 when some one came out of it a strange, drooping figure of 
 
 a man, with a wild, white haggard face and dishevelled hair, — a 
 man piteous and terrible to look at, whose distraught eyes 
 glared stonily in front of him as though fixed on some 
 
 monstrous vision of hell. Was it could it be his father ? 
 
 His little heart beat fast with fear, — he ran a step or two 
 forward 
 
 " Dad, Dad ! " he cried ; — " Mother says you want me ! " 
 
 Everton reeled back from him, struck by sudden awe. 
 ' Mother says ' ! ' Mother ! ' With hands uplifted as though 
 to ward off a blow or a blessing, he stared vaguely at the little 
 white thing shining out of the night's blackness, — the little white 
 thing with its crown of golden curls that ran towards him 
 
 trembling on its small bare feet what what was it ? A 
 
 child ? or an angel ? Azalea was dead in the room behind 
 
 there ! — he had tried to rouse her with kisses and prayers, — he 
 had knelt beside her, watching for some small sign of returning 
 
 life that should respond to his entreating love in vain ! 
 
 And now had she sent a messenger from heaven to comfort 
 
 him ? Look at it ! It seemed afraid of him ! Its sweet small 
 voice cried again plaintively 
 
 " Dad, Dad ! Mother says you want me ! " 
 
 A nervous shuddering seized him, there was a tightness 
 
 in his throat and he felt as though he were choking. In- 
 voluntarily he stretched out his arms then he gave a great 
 
 agonised cry
 
 256 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 " Laurence, Laurence ! I had forgotten you ! God forgive 
 me, I had forgotten ! Her child — mine — life of our lives ! 
 
 Oh yes, I want you, my darling ! — God knows I want you ! 
 
 come come come to me ! — I want you, my little, little 
 
 child ! " 
 
 Falling on his knees, he gathered up the frightened boy 
 closely in his arms, and wild sobs broke from him, hard and 
 passionate, while the tears, released at last from their burning 
 prison, rained down on the soft golden head which he pressed 
 against his breast with a force of which he was himself 
 unconscious. 
 
 " I had forgotten you," he cried, again ; "I was ready 
 
 to curse God for His cruelty to me ! and I had forgotten 
 
 you ! "
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 DAN KIERNAN meantime had managed to get clear 
 away. When he had fled from the scene of his crime, 
 his first impulse was to make for a railway station and take 
 train to the nearest seaport, from whence he hazily considered 
 he might easily escape on board some trading vessel outward 
 bound ; his next idea was to tramp it along the high-road 
 towards London and boldly risk the chances of arrest. In 
 this latter course fortune favoured him, for he had not gone 
 above a mile when he found a man in difficulties with the 
 mechanism of a mctor-car. It was not a finished upholstered 
 vehicle, — it was merely the body of a ' racer,' and its driver 
 had been testing its highest rate of speed, when some trifling 
 thing had gone wrong, and he had cursed his unlucky stars 
 for having brought him to a dead stoppage in the middle of a 
 solitary road without a house anywhere near, when the help of 
 an extra hand for a few moments would have set his apparatus 
 going again in working order. Kiernan came up just in 
 time to render the required assistance, and by way of gratitude 
 for his services the man asked him if he would like a ride on 
 the car, explaining that he meant to drive it at the rate of 
 forty or fifty miles an hour 'steady,' except where there were 
 likely to be police traps about. 
 
 " Where are ye goin' to ?" Dan asked. 
 
 " London." 
 
 " Right y'are ! That'll do for me ! " and without further 
 parley he took the offered seat beside the driver and was 
 whirled away in a cloud of dust impregnated with the 
 
 i7
 
 258 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 stench of petrol. It was a little after seven when they started, 
 and by quarter-past eight they had left the neighbourhood of 
 the Cotswolds far behind them and were scudding through 
 another county at a speed which set all laws for motorists at 
 defiance. No one had seen Dan mount the car, — the road 
 where he had picked up his unexpected friend in need, had 
 been quite deserted at the time, and even in the ploughed 
 fields on either side there was not so much as a stray labourer 
 left working after sunset, so that no trace was left of him as 
 to how or where he had gone. 
 
 He realised this with a sullen sense of satisfaction, — his 
 brain was still heavy and confused with drink, though, like 
 many sodden brutes of his type, he had the appearance of being 
 sober. He sat and watched the hedgerows, the trees, the 
 farms, the scattered villages all fly past him, as it were, in the 
 maddest hurry, — the air lashed his face like a stinging wave of 
 water, — the skies and the earth mingled gradually into one grey 
 monotone of colour as the evening darkened slowly down. One 
 curious cluster of unnaturally bright spots remained with him, 
 however, and always danced in front of his eyes — a gleam of 
 yellow, as of primroses in bloom, — a whiteness, as of a woman's 
 garment, — and a dark red stain, as of blood. He was worried by 
 these vivid flickerings of memory, — yet he knew quite well what 
 they were. He knew he had killed Mrs. Everton, — the ' dolly 
 wife ' as he had called her, — and he was not sorry. He was 
 vaguely frightened when he thought of it, but he was not sorry. 
 There was no penitence or regret within him. In a dull sort 
 of way he tried to argue with himself that it had to be. His 
 clouded thoughts constantly reverted to Jacynth with a bitter- 
 ness none the less intense because familiar and futile. The 
 only girl he ever loved ! — the only girl he ever loved ! He 
 repeated this over and over again till it set itself like a worded 
 refrain to the rush of the car. She was a real beauty, she was ! 
 And he had been robbed of her ! Never, never should he 
 forget the night when he went home to his cottage meaning 
 to be kind and gentle to worn and ailing Jennie, and she had 
 begun to cry and speak of Jacynth, and to say how parson's
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 259 
 
 wife had told her a tale, — and he had sworn at her and rushed 
 out of the house cursing her fo» a shrew and a burden on his 
 life. Then he had gone to find Jacynth, and she had mocked 
 him and said she was tired of him, and that she was going 
 away from hateful Shadbrook, where there was nothing but 
 rale-bearing and mischief-making all day and all night. And 
 driven half mad between the two women, sweetheart and wife, 
 he had gone and drunk himself blind and silly, and then — 
 Jacynth had left the village without so much as a good-bye. 
 And — Jennie had died — poor Jennie ! — and all this peck of 
 trouble had been brought about by the ' dolly wife ' — the little 
 baby-faced creature he had just left lying dead among the 
 primroses. He had killed her, — and now he admitted to 
 himself that he had meant to kill her. But it would be easy 
 to swear that the gun went off by accident. Then there would 
 be a verdict of manslaughter, — not murder — not murder. He 
 would escape hanging somehow, — he was quite sure of that. 
 The law was merciful nowadays ! If the halfpenny newspapers 
 were to be believed, law really existed more for the protection 
 than the punishment of criminals. Some needy barrister 
 would take up his case and make a reputation out of it ! 
 These and many other stupid and half-formed ideas and plans 
 occupied his brain as he was borne swiftly along over miles 
 and miles of open country, — there was no necessity to talk. 
 His companion was not communicative, being absorbed in the 
 business of driving the car, and when he spoke at all it was 
 only to praise his machine's racing abilities. At about nine 
 o'clock they entered a small town, where, in the centre of the 
 principal street, the tempting signal lights of a showy public- 
 house flared brilliantly through the darkness. Here Kiernan 
 suggested a stoppage and a drink. 
 
 " I've gone far enough for to-night," — he said — " And I'm 
 much obliged t'ye for the finest ride I've ever had ! " He 
 laughed at this and repeated it. "The finest ride I've ever 
 had ! Come an' 'ave a glass afore we parts company ! " 
 
 The driver shook his head. 
 
 " Thanks, I'd rather not ! " he answered, very decidedly —
 
 2 6o HOLY ORDERS 
 
 " I'm bound to get this car to London to-night, and I want all 
 my nerve. The stuff they sell in these sort of places," — and 
 he indicated the public-house with a jerk of his finger — " is 
 just rank poison. Besides I'm a temperance man." 
 
 " Temp'rance ! " Kiernan gave a loud guffaw as the car 
 stopped and he dismounted — " Or teetotal ? " 
 
 "No, not teetotal," — said the man, good-humouredly — "I've 
 never taken the pledge. Just temperance." 
 
 »Oh !" — and Kiernan's heavy face darkened — "An' what's 
 the good of temp'rance to ye ? Eh ? What's the good ? " 
 The man smiled. 
 
 "Well, I get better wages, to begin with," — he replied — 
 " And I'm trusted by my firm. That's something." 
 
 "Oh ay! Thats something," assented Dan, grudgingly — 
 " But it isn't enjoyin' life. We can't only live once, an' I sez 
 let's get all we can out of it afore we dies an' 'as done with 
 
 it " He broke off suddenly, with a scared look. 
 
 The man looked at him curiously — then nodded. 
 " Every one to his liking ! " he said — " Some folks are happi- 
 est drunk, and others are more comfortable sober. Live and 
 let live ! Good-night ! " 
 
 "Stop a bit !'' and Kiernan stared confusedly about him — 
 " We've come along sc fast that I don : t rightly know where- 
 abouts I am. What part o' the country is this ? " 
 
 "We're in Wiltshire just now," answered the car-driver — 
 " And this is a nice little town enough to stay in. You'll find 
 all you want in there," — here he pointed again to the public- 
 house — " Good beds and the usual tipple ! Wish you a 
 pleasant evening ! " 
 
 And in another moment, with a droning whirr as of the 
 wings of a monstrous dragon-fly, he was off and out of sight. 
 
 With his departure a sudden sense of overpowering loneli- 
 ness fell on Kiernan. He stood transfixed, lacking all power 
 and energy to move. He had not thought he should feel like 
 this when left to himself. The night seemed to close round 
 him like a black circle suggestive of dark prison walls, — 
 there was no way out of it. A great dread was upon him, to
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 26 r 
 
 an extent he had never imagined possible. He began calcul- 
 ating how long it was likely to be before the police started on 
 his track. He knew how slowly things were done in Shad- 
 brook ; he knew it would take a considerable time to get into 
 touch vf'^.h the proper authorities, — they would have to make 
 out a warrant for his arrest, and the only magistrate whose 
 residence was anywhere near the village was Squire Hazlitt, of 
 Shadbrook Hall, and he was in London. They would have to go 
 further afield for a legal signature, and all the journeying to and 
 fro for the completion of the necessary formalities was so much 
 loss to tbem and gain to him. He had heard the clock strike 
 six just before he had left the primrose wood, — now it was 
 past nine. Six to seven, seven to eight, eight to nine ! Three 
 whole hours since — since the murder ! Much might be done 
 in three hours, especially in these days of rapid telegraphic and 
 telephonic communication, — too much for his complete safety. 
 Vague and innumerable terrors rose up in his mind : — 
 he tried — he was always trying — to forget the small white 
 fallen figure lying face downward among last autumn's brown 
 leaves and the spring primroses. When they found her, what 
 would be said ? That Dan Kiernan had killed her, of course, 
 because his discharged gun was lying beside her. Why had 
 he been such a fool as to leave his gun there? Never mind ! 
 It would show them he was not afraid of being caught. He 
 had plenty of pluck, — he would brave it out ! Would they 
 find her body soon, he wondered ? Yes, surely ! — she would 
 be missed from home — her husband would probably go and look 
 for her, — and at this thought he burst intc a loud and in- 
 voluntary fit of laughter. The noise of it, echoing through the 
 quiet street in which he stood, frightened him. He began to 
 tremble violently. Then he looked about him and saw the 
 bright lights of the public-house, twinkling their devil's welcome 
 to homeless wanderers. His fears suddenly subsided. Drink ! 
 That was the cure for all trouble ! That would make a man 
 forget that he had a murder on his soul ! Drink ! The burning 
 poison that leaps at once to the brain, scorching every 
 delicate cell and withering up every pulsation of thought,
 
 262 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 memory or regret ! Drink ! He had his week's wages in 
 his pocket — he would drink every penny of the money ! He 
 would drink to-night as he had never drunk before, even if he 
 died for it ! There were nearly two hours yet before the bar 
 would close — he would not waste another moment of that 
 precious portion of time ! There was companionship in the 
 warm and well-lit hostelry, — he could hear men's voices 
 mingling with laughter and singing ; orice in there he would 
 escape from the cold lonely silence of the night and the 
 blackness of the sky which arched over him like a vast 
 dome faintly bespangled with stars, — and he would cease to 
 listen — as he was half unconsciously listening now — for the 
 tramp of feet that should follow him up and march beside him 
 to jail, — for the first word that should make him the prisoner 
 of the law till his crime was either condoned or expiated. He 
 pushed open the door of the public-house and entered, — it 
 swung heavily to behind him. 
 
 For a long time the street outside remained quite empty and 
 deserted. Towards eleven o'clock some of the customers at 
 the bar came out, more or less the worse for their potations, 
 and with hoarse good-nights, went their several ways steadily 
 or staggeringly ; a smart-looking young woman, wearing a 
 white blouse, with her hair dressed to an exaggerated height 
 above her forehead, opened one of the windows and looked 
 out, leaning her bare arms across the sill and smiling 
 impudently at the departing topers, — till all suddenly there 
 came a loud clamour of men's tongues raised in angry 
 altercation. 
 
 " Out you go ! " shouted one rough voice — " No drunkards 
 allowed on these 'ere premises ! " 
 
 " If 'e won't go through the door, chuck 'im out o' winder ! " 
 cried another. 
 
 A furious scuffling and stamping ensued, accompanied by a 
 volley of oaths and such coarse language as is unfortunately 
 common to the British working-man when under the influence 
 of anger cr alcohol, — then the door of the public-house was 
 violently thrown open and held back, while with unfriendly
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 263 
 
 force Dan Kiernan was dragged forward by several pairs of 
 hands which literally flung him into the street, where he fell 
 heavily full length, cutting his face and bruising his body 
 severely. This done, the door was quickly banged to and 
 barred, — the lights in the windows were all extinguished, and 
 in a few seconds the erstwhile brilliantly illuminated house 
 presented a closed dark exterior to the quiet night. 
 
 The wretched heap of man, hurled into the gutter by those 
 who had made profit of his wretchedness, lay for some time 
 inert, — then, after many futile attempts, he at last managed to 
 rise, first into a sitting posture, and finally to his feet. Sway- 
 ing unsteadily backwards and forwards, with the blood 
 trickling from a gash on his forehead, no hat on, and his 
 clothes torn and dishevelled, he was a shameful, pitiful object, 
 — a creature far worse of aspect than any beast of the field, — 
 a disgrace to the very name of humanity. Yet drugged and 
 stupefied as he was, some feeble glimmering of reason flickered 
 in his poisoned brain, for as soon as he found himself standing 
 upright, he shook his clenched fist at the black frontage of 
 the tavern from which he had been so summarily ejected. 
 
 " Curse ye ! " he said, savagely — " Curse ye for a damned 
 dirty cheat and liar ! Takin' my money as long as there was 
 any to get, an' kickin' me out when my pockets was cleared ! 
 Curse ye ! May ye drown yerselves in yer own devil's brew 
 and go to h — 11 in it ! " 
 
 Choking with rage, he shook his fist again threateningly 
 and staggered away. Reeling down the street, with no idea 
 where he was going, he came in contact with a lamp-post and 
 nearly fell headlong, but righting himself by a miracle, 
 suddenly caught sight of his own shadow flung on the 
 opposite wall by the reflection of the gaslight above him. It 
 was a hideously magnified and distorted shadow, and he 
 charged at it furiously. 
 
 " Come on ! " he shouted — " Follerin' me an' spyin' on me, 
 are ye, ye great hulkin' fool ! Wants a good all-round bruisin', 
 does ye ? All right ! — 'ere y'are an' welcome ! I'll pound ye 
 into a jelly for five shillin's ! Come on ! "
 
 264 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 He ran forward and drove his fists hard into the wall, — the 
 shock and pain of the impact forced him to realise the 
 absurdity of his action, and he began to laugh boisterously. 
 His laughter was so long and wild and loud, that it brought a 
 woman to the door of a small house close by — a pale, weak, 
 terrified-looking woman, who, with a morsel of lighted candle 
 in her hand, peered out at him with scared colourless eyes. 
 
 " Is that you, Bill ? " she asked. 
 
 Dan stared at her. 
 
 " No, 'tain't Bill — it's me ! " he said, wiih a stupid leer — 
 " Why are ye up so late, my darlin' ! Wantin' Bill, eh ? 
 Who's 'e ? " 
 
 The woman drew back, startled. 
 
 " Bill's my husband," — she answered — " He's generally bad 
 with the drink, — I thought 'twas him." 
 
 She retreated, and he shouted after her- 
 
 " 'Ere, old girl ! Stop a bit ! Which is the road to 
 London ? " 
 
 She put out a thin hand and pointed down the street. 
 
 "That way — straight ahead, if you're trampin' it," — she 
 said. 
 
 And with that she shut and locked her door. 
 
 He waited a minute, trying to understand what he intended 
 next to do with himself. Then he started off to walk, or rather 
 to stumble along in the direction she had indicated. Nothing 
 seemed 'straight ahead' to him, — it was all crooked — all up 
 hill and down dale. Rough edges in the pavement rose up 
 like waves of tne sea, and sank again as his foot touched them. 
 Circles of light swam before his eyes and broke up into saw- 
 edged fragments of prismatic colour as he watched them, — the 
 darkness of the night swirled round him like a giant wheel with 
 such velocity that sometimes he stupidly threw out his hands 
 to try and stop its incessant gyrations. The freshness of the 
 air rather increased than relieved his sensations, and he sidled 
 about and rolled forward on his way more like a shapeless 
 block of driftwood in a swift stream than a human being 
 capable of self-volition. Presently he found himself on an
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 265 
 
 open country road, with wide fields extending on either side. 
 The town he had just left lay behind him, its few twinkling 
 lights sparkling dimly like glow-worms on a smooth lawn. 
 Some clumps of trees, with their lower branches lopped off in 
 the hideous fashion ordained of county councils, waved their 
 heads solemnly to and fro in a light rising wind like funereal 
 plumes set on the hearse of a dead nature, — to his giddy and 
 confused brain they looked like inexplicable tall objects with 
 wildly trimmed hats on, bobbing and bowing at him in 
 impudent mockery. He shook his fists at them and shouted 
 idiotic nothings. He found enjoyment in shaking his fists, — 
 the action amused and invigorated him. He felt that he was 
 hitting some weak creature that had no power to hit him back 
 again, and there was a pleasure in thus playing the bully- 
 coward. He began to sing, or rather to howl scraps of comic 
 music-hall ditties, and staggered from side to side of the solitary 
 high-road, bellowing mere discordantly than an angry swine. 
 By-and-bye he took to dancing, and for a considerable time 
 entertained himself by uncouth caperings which scattered the 
 dust around him in clouds, — then, as if moved by an impetus 
 not his own, he started running as though for a race. He 
 went perhaps more than half a mile at this rate before he 
 tripped over a large stone and fell flat on a stretch of grass by 
 the roadside. The grass was wet and soft — its cool contact 
 refreshed his heated body, and he raised himself into a 
 comfortable sitting posture, clasping his knees with both arms. 
 His head still buzzed and whirled, — but a few wandering 
 thoughts commenced rising, like phosphorescent fires, out of 
 his muddled swamp of brain, — thoughts that were not con- 
 nected so much with the present, as with the past. He seemed 
 to see himself as a young man, tall, fresh-coloured, with bright 
 eyes, and a healthy vigorous frame, — a young man who had 
 good work and could earn good wages, and who was thought 
 well of by his employers. A picture of Jennie his wife, as he 
 had known her first, presented itself all unexpectedly before 
 him — Jennie, a little, shy, gentle girl with pretty brown hair 
 and blue eyes, and a smile that went straight to a man's heart.
 
 266 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 How loving she had been ! — poor Jennie ! He had married 
 her and they had been happy, — happy save for the loss of their 
 two children who had died in infancy. And she — she was 
 dead too now, was Jennie, — he had seen her lying like a figure 
 of old wax in her coffin. And now — why, now she was here — 
 actually here, staring at him ! — the figure of old wax with the 
 black coffin-edge framing her in like the frame of a picture ! 
 He gave a horrified cry. 
 
 11 Go away ! " he yelled, in an access of delirious terror — 
 " Go away ! You're dead ! Dead an' buried ! What d'ye 
 want with me ? " 
 
 Then, as the dream-impression faded, he laughed foolishly 
 and wondered why he had thought of Jennie at all, or of the 
 days when he was young. 
 
 He got up and began to walk again, — he was steadier 
 on his feet now, and he kept on a fairly straight line of 
 movement. He realised that the stars were shining above 
 him in the black-azure April sky, and after a little while 
 he was able to distinguish his way along the road by their 
 pale yet certain light. His steps grew firmer and more 
 regular, and the swaying movement of his body gradually 
 subsided. Some of the fumes of drink were clearing off, 
 though he was none the less heavily drunk. His thinking 
 powers, never very great, now sprang into unusual and abnormal 
 activity, but instead of wandering like will-o'-the-wisps in and 
 out the poison-clogged cells of his brain, they brought forward 
 prominent and exaggerated shapes that seemed to detach them- 
 selves from his own personality and surround him like separate 
 ghostly tormentors. Chief among them came the tall slender 
 figure of ' Parson ' Everton, — the man with the pale, resolute 
 face and deep-set eyes — the man whose voice, with its mellow, 
 steady tone, had in a certain sense moved him to shame when 
 he heard it saying ' God forgive you ! ' He remembered that 
 incident in its every detail. He, Dan Kiernan, had uttered 
 vague threats against Mrs. Everton in her husband's presence, 
 and that husband, hearing him, had replied simply in one 
 phrase — ' God forgive you ! ' And now ? When ' Parson '
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 267 
 
 should see his 'dolly wife' dead, with the blood oozing and 
 creeping through her white gown as he, her murderer, had 
 seen it ooze and creep, would he still say ' God forgive you ' ? 
 He wondered. A sudden shivering nausea seized him, and 
 great drops of sweat broke out on his forehead. He stopped 
 a moment and looked about him. Hush ! What was that ? 
 A woman's cry? He listened, his whole body thrilling with 
 inexplicable fear. A bird flew past him with a whirr of beating 
 wings, repeating the cry — it was a small downy owl. His eyes 
 followed the flight of the creature with an uneasy sense of 
 superstitious dread. He listened again. There was not a 
 sound anywhere except the low murmur of the wind. Long, 
 wide, monotonous and solitary, the road stretched on and on 
 before him, — there was no sign of a house or even a last year's 
 haystack anywhere. It was one grey level line, extending into 
 indefinite distance. 
 
 He trudged on again, but slowly and with ever-increasing 
 weariness, — his limbs ached, and a throbbing pain began to 
 beat in his head like a small sharp hammer hitting nails 
 into every nerve. Yet so little would he admit to himself 
 that drink was the cause of his physical suffering, that if he 
 could have found another public-house open at that time of 
 night, he would have sold the coat off his back for the worth 
 of one or two more glasses of criminally adulterated whisky. 
 His thoughts still jumped about restlessly like busy and officious 
 demons, suggesting this, denying that, and calling to mind 
 half-forgotten episodes of his youth, before he had, through 
 the pernicious example of other fellow-workmen, fallen step by 
 step into the degrading vice which now dominated him body 
 and soul, — and burning waves of heated blood surged up to 
 his face and temples like blown flame from a furnace as he 
 tramped doggedly on, without any consciousness of his own 
 intentions, and without any actual regret for the crime he had 
 committed. Presently his swarming fancies took a new and 
 violent turn, and he could have sworn he saw Jacynth Miller 
 standing right in his path beckoning to him ! As he went 
 forward, she moved backward, with a tantalising, floating grace,
 
 268 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 — and he madly stretched out his arms to catch and clasp the 
 ever elusive phantom of a lost delight. 
 
 " Jacynth ! Jacynth ! " he cried, hoarsely, — and he hastened 
 his steps — but the delicate shape still retreated, with a laughing 
 light in the large, lovely eyes and a mocking smile on the red 
 mouth. He ran and stumbled, — and ran and stumbled again. 
 
 " Jacynth ! Jacynth ! " 
 
 Then he stopped, breathless ; the entrancing vision stopped 
 also and held out slim, white appealing hands. Its draperies 
 shimmered like moonlight and dew, and through them his 
 burning eyes could discern the outline of fair nude limbs and 
 snowy bosom over which the glorious waves of loosened hair 
 fell in a glossy bronze-brown shower! 
 
 He uttered a savage cry, and made an equally savage 
 rush at the exquisitely beautiful figure that seemed to invite 
 and wait for his approach — he almost touched it as he 
 thought, when lo ! — it vanished into the dark air, and he 
 fell prone in the dust, torn by such a sudden and wild 
 delirium as caused him to roll there on the ground in a 
 kind of convulsion in which he actually set his teeth in 
 the flesh of his hands, instinctively seeking to counteract 
 and relieve the terrible agony and tension of his body and 
 brain. The paroxysm passed, leaving him as weak as a child 
 and quite exhausted ; — he huddled himself up on the spot 
 where he had fallen, trembling and afraid to move. His eyes 
 were hot and heavy, — each separate hair on his scalp pricked 
 him as though it were burning iron, — he was utterly, forlornly 
 ill and miserable, — and putting his hands before his face, the 
 huge hulking brute gave way to maudlin tears. 
 
 "Jacynth, my gel, you're main 'ard on me!" he sobbed, 
 abjectly — " Main 'ard y'are, an' I doan't care now what 'appens 
 to me, — let 'em take me up an' put me to prison — it's all one 
 to poor old Dan ! Poor old Dan ! He worn't 'arf a bad 
 chap, 'e wornt, — 'e was real mad with love for ye, Jacynth, an' 
 ye knows it ! Stark starin' mad ! Poor Dan ! 'E'd a' gone 
 through all the bloomin' 'ell fire as ever parsons preached of to 
 please ye, 'e would ! That's true ! That's God A'mighty
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 269 
 
 true ! 'E'd a' stole anythin' an' killed anythin' just for a kiss 
 from your little mouth of 'oney, ye knows 'e would ! Ye could 
 a' druv' 'im anywheres like a bull to market, ye knows ye 
 could ! Ah ! an' I'd a' made short work o' Jennie too if ye'd 
 said the word — but ye wouldn't a' married me if I 'ad ! Ye 
 wanted yer own way alius, — free as a bird ! An' Dan let ye 
 'ave il — an' now ye runs away from 'im an' 'e doan't want 
 nothin' — poor old Dan ! — nothin' but a good sleep — a good 
 sound sleep — an' 'e'il dream ye're in 'is arms, Jacynth ! — goin' 
 hush-a-bye ! — dream ye're in 'is arms — comfortable an' lovin' 
 — 'e'll 'ave a good sound sleep " 
 
 His broken and querulous accents trailed away into 
 unintelligible murmurs — his limbs gradually relaxed, and 
 presently rolling over on his back he lay helplessly half across 
 the road in a lethargic slumber, his arms spread out on either 
 side of him and his bloated face upturned to the quiet 
 stars. 
 
 The night paced on for an hour or more in unbroken silence. 
 
 Countless millions of mysterious unknown worlds swung in 
 their golden and silver orbits above the wretched creature who, 
 though endowed with powers of speech, thought and action, 
 had found nothing better to do with those gifts than to wilfully 
 degrade all three. The silent forces of the universe, patiently 
 doing their work in obedience to Divine ordinance, had, so far 
 as this one miserable unit of life was concerned, taught him no 
 lesson. And there are swarms of such miserable units — 
 horrible thousands of them, breeding other horrible thousands ! 
 We hear, and we read, of Law and Government, — and the hopes 
 of the world spring up elated at the fair promises made cf 
 betterment, — hopes only doomed to be crushed again by the 
 depressing discovery that the very dispensers of Law and 
 Government are frequently more corrupt than those they would 
 essay to govern, and are too often found among the vilest 
 sinners against moral and physical uprightness. Between Dan 
 Kiernan and the ' gentleman ' member of Parliament who daily 
 and nightly fuddles his brain with innumerable whisky-sodas, 
 is there a difference? Not much, if any ! The victims of the
 
 270 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 filthy drinking-vice are on the same base level, whether they be 
 of low-class or high quality. Both are grossly inferior to the 
 beasts, and both are the shame and despair of nations. 
 
 Midnight had passed, and the road was still deserted save 
 for that extended figure stretched flat upon it and breathing 
 stertorously in a drunken sleep. The skies were perceptibly 
 darker, — many of the stars were veiled in a gloom of drifting 
 cloud and a few drops of rain fell slowly. The blackness of 
 the atmosphere had grown deeper and denser, — the wind had 
 dropped, and the stillness was more profound. 
 
 All at once from the far-off distance there crept the faint echo 
 of a low burring noise, measured and monotonous like the whirr 
 of a monster spinning-wheel. It clove the silence with a per- 
 sistent hum, and went on steadily increasing in depth and volume 
 of sound. Nearer and nearer it boomed and rumbled, till the 
 reverberation was like the first muttered hint of an earthquake, 
 — yet all up and down the road, looking backward or forward, 
 there was nothing to be seen. Still closer and closer came the 
 thrumming beat as of swiftly rolling wheels — with louder and 
 louder resonance it swept through space like muffled Uhunder, 
 — then — a sudden yellow flare lit up the scene, and two great 
 lights, giant eyes of fire that sent long searching rays of blazing 
 brilliancy through the darkness, gleamed into space and came 
 flaming onward at full speed. Awake, Dan Kiernan ! Awake, 
 drunken criminal fool ! If the gods of the past and future see 
 any remaining worth in that besotted, drugged and miserable 
 life of thine, let them intervene and save it now before it is too 
 late ! Awake, awake ! 
 
 On, still on, and the great lights glowed more brightly and 
 fiercely, showing plainly the vehicle their radiance helped 
 to guide — a huge closed travelling motor-car of some seventy- 
 five horse-power, which tore along the road like an express 
 train. On — on — with a deadly smoothness and swiftness it 
 rushed — till — just at that dark mass which blotted the 
 grey level line of the highway like a neglected rubbish 
 heap, there was a sudden sickening jolt. The car leaped 
 forward and caught at something, dragging it along for
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 271 
 
 several paces, — something that gave a ghastly groan and then 
 was silent. The chauffeur uttered a score of oaths in French 
 as his machine swerved and oscillated dangerously — then by 
 dexterous handling and with scarce a moment's pause, he 
 righted it, and again started his dashing pace onward, when a 
 woman's voice cried out — 
 
 " Stop ! Stop ! " 
 
 " Madame, I beg of you " 
 
 " Stop, I say ! I will be obeyed ! " 
 
 With a discordant grinding noise the car came to a halt, its 
 engines throbbing clamorously. An old man with pallid 
 wrinkled features and a grey goatee beard, looked out of the 
 window. 
 
 " What's the matter, Antoine ? " 
 
 The chauffeur, thus appealed to, dismounted from his seat 
 and came to the door of the car, touching his hat. 
 
 " But a little nothing, Monsieur ! Some one or something in 
 the road — a dog or a sheep. The car jumped over, — it is not 
 possible that anything is hurt — we ought to go on at once and 
 quickly, but Madame " 
 
 Madame here settled matters by opening the door on the 
 side opposite to that where the chauffeur stood, and stepping 
 into the road. Madame was tall and slim, and rich sables 
 clothed her from head to heel. 
 
 " You have run over something, you stupid Antoine ! " she 
 said, her eyes shining through the muffling web of the gauzy 
 veil she wore — " I felt it rise up under me ! What is it ? " 
 
 The chauffeur shrugged his shoulders and spread out his 
 hands in deprecation. 
 
 " Madame, it is just behind. See ! " And he pointed to a 
 shapeless blur in the road some paces away from the back of 
 the car — " Let me advise Madame that whatever it is, it is best 
 to leave it ! " 
 
 Madame gathered her sables round her and proceeded to 
 walk towards the ' it ' in question. The old man who was her 
 companion in the car, stretched out his head and yelled at 
 her —
 
 272 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 i 
 " Come back ! Where are you going ? " 
 
 " To see what we have killed ! " she replied, calmly — 
 "There is blood on our wheels." 
 
 " Blood ! " And his weak falsetto voice rose to a kind of 
 shriek — " Antoine ! Do you hear ? Blood ! She says there 
 is blood on our wheels ! Get it off at once ! — I will not travel 
 with it — no — no ' It must be cleaned off — cleaned directly — 
 I will not travel with it ! " 
 
 He sank back in the car quite inarticulate with nervous 
 excitement, and the chauffeur hastened to pacify him. 
 
 " Monsieur ! Monsieur, let me pray you to be calm ! I 
 will bring the light immediately and see what is wrong — but 
 Madame is alone — Madame may be frightened at the thing in 
 the read, — will you go with her, or shall I ? " 
 
 " I go with her ? I ? " And the wizened head peered out of 
 the window again, its features livid with rage and fear — " Do 
 you take me for a fool ? " Here he called after the tall sable- 
 coated woman's figure that went slowly moving by itself along 
 the road — "Jacynth !" 
 
 She turned her head and paused. 
 
 " Jacynth ! Come back ! " 
 
 She moved quietly on again. 
 
 The chauffeur smiled covertly under the fringe of his dark 
 moustache. 
 
 " Monsieur, it is better I should attend Madame ! A dead 
 animal is not a pretty sight for ladies." 
 
 " Go then ! " exclaimed his master, snappishly — " Go and tell 
 her to come back to me at once ! " 
 
 The chauffeur thereupon took a small lighted hand-lamp 
 from the front of the car where it hung, and in a second was 
 by his lady's side. 
 
 " Madame ! " he said, in a low tone — " Monsieur Nordstein 
 is very angry that you go to look at this thing, whatever it is — 
 pray return to him ! " 
 
 She threw back her veil, and showed a pure oval face of 
 dazzling beauty, illumined by large brilliant dark eyes, — the 
 unforgettable face of Jacynth Miller — but an altogether lovelier
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 273 
 
 Jacynth — a Jacynth of culture, refinement and grace, with a 
 manner expressive of all the ease and elegance of the great world. 
 
 " Monsieur Nordstein is angry ! " she said, with a slight shrug 
 of her shoulders — " What do I care for his anger?" 
 
 The chauffeur looked at her somewhat dubiously. 
 
 " You may not care, Madame — but there are penalties and 
 punishments — and this thing we have run over " 
 
 " You — not we ! " interrupted Jacynth — " You ! You are the 
 driver of the car and you were going too fast You must have 
 killed something — here it is," — and she suddenly halted — 
 " See ! It is not a dog or a sheep — it is a man ! " 
 
 At her words and gesture he stepped forward, holding up his 
 lantern — then bent over the shapeless bundle that lay in fiont 
 of them, springing back from it again in shuddering disgust. 
 
 " Come away, Madame — come away ! " he said — " It is 
 terrible ! It is some labourer — he is dead ! — quite dead, and 
 bleeding — bleeding horribly ! How it has happened I know 
 not, — I am sorry, — it was not my fault — he must have been 
 drunk to lie there in the road — or perhaps he was dead before 
 — but come, Madame — come ! — come back to the car ! — you 
 must not look : ' 
 
 She, however, advanced resolutely. 
 
 " I will look ! " she said — " I have never seen a dead man." 
 
 She drew close to the body and stooped over it. 
 
 " Bring the lamp here ! " she commanded. 
 
 The chauffeur, deadly pale and with chattering teeth, 
 obeyed. 
 
 She gazed intently at what presented the appearance of a 
 mere heap of dirty and blood-stained clothes, without a tremor 
 or an exclamation of pity. Putting out a small foot, cased in 
 a dainty shoe on which the silver embroidery sparkled like 
 gems, she moved the corpse with it, turning the head over so 
 that the face could be seen. Then and then only she recoiled 
 a little. For she recognised it. It was Dan Kiernan's face — 
 bruised, battered, gashed and bleeding, — Dan's and no other. 
 Its eyes were wide open, and protruded hideously, — in the 
 light flung upon them by the wavering lantern they glistened 
 18
 
 274 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 and stared at her like living eyes — stared at her so straightly 
 that she instinctively uttered a faint cry. Then, recovering 
 herself at once, she gave them stare for stare — and smiled. 
 
 " It is Dan ! " she murmured under her breath — " Dan 
 Kiernan ! Killed ! Crushed under the wheels of my car ! " 
 
 And with that she laughed — a silvery sweet laugh of triumph. 
 The chauffeur started, thinking that the horror of the sight on 
 which she was gazing had made her hysterical. But she was 
 perfectly composed, and her attitude expressed the most 
 absolute indifference. 
 
 " Yes — it is some tramping labourer," — she said, aloud, — 
 " No doubt he was lying drunk in the road. So it is not your 
 fault, Antoine, — it is his own. Drink is the curse of all these 
 kind of men ! There's no house near here — and we are soms 
 distance from a town, so we must leave him where he is. Go 
 back to the car and tell my husband I am coming. Stay 1 
 Let me have your lantern." 
 
 "But, Madame," — objected Antoine — "You will be alone 
 with this corpse — your dress " 
 
 She smiled. 
 
 " My dress is all right. I'll take care it has no blood on 
 it," — she said — "And I'm not alone — the car is close by." 
 Here she drew the lantern away from his reluctant hold — " I 
 am coming immediately. I just want to look at this dead 
 thing again." 
 
 Antoine lifted his hands and eyes in wonderment. 
 
 " Mon Dieu, mon Dieu ! " he inwardly ejaculated — " Quel 
 cceur de fern me ! " 
 
 He hurried away to relate the nature of the accident to his 
 master, who could be seen gesticulating impatiently from the 
 car, and Jacynth Miller, now Jacynth Nordstein, wife of one 
 of the sharpest Jew millionaires that ever played with the 
 money markets of the world, stood like seme wondrous figure 
 of Fate, lamp in hand, looking down upon the mangled 
 remains of her girlhood's lover with an expression that was 
 neither sorrowful nor compassionate, but simply self- 
 complacent.
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 275 
 
 " Dan ! " she breathed softly — " Listen, Dan ! It is I — 
 Jacynth ! It is Jacynth whose car drove over you just now ! 
 Aren't you gl?d ? isn't it a fine way out of Life for you ? — a 
 way you would have wished ? You've been wretched without 
 me — you know you have ! Not a glimpse of me for three 
 years ! — enough to break your heart, Dan ! And I — I've 
 been afraid of you sometimes ! I've thought you might turn 
 up any day with some story of the past, — the past which I 
 have half forgotten and want altogether to forget. And now 
 th^re you are ! — out of my way for ever ! That's just my luck, 
 — fortune always favours me ! Out of my way for ever ! I 
 shall never have to trouble about you or think of you again ! 
 I wonder what you were doing here so far from Shadbrook ? 
 Tramping it ? Perhaps to find me ! Well ! Your search is 
 ended, Dan ! You've found me ! — for the last time ! Good- 
 night, Dan ! — good-bye ! " 
 
 She waved the lantern with quite a coquettish playfulness 
 over the awful dead face upturned to her own, — and then, 
 with a light step that betokened a light heart, turned her back 
 upon the corpse and moved away. Returning to the car she 
 found her husband half out of it, his foot on the step, and his 
 keen small eyes glittering with excitement. 
 
 "Ah ! At last I" he exclaimed — " I thought you were never 
 coming ! Antoine says it is a dead tramp you were looking at. 
 What do you find in that to please you ? And to keep me 
 waiting?" 
 
 Swinging the lantern in one hand, she looked up at him, 
 laughing. Her expression and attitude were perfectly lovely, 
 and Israel Nordstein, whose passion for her beauty dominated 
 him even more than his passion for money, altered his vexed 
 frown to a wrinkled smile. 
 
 " Anything for a change, Isra ! " she said — " To leave you 
 for a moment makes you love me more for an hour ! " 
 
 Her eyes flashed provocatively, and he quickly put out his 
 arms and lifted her into the car beside him. His pallid face 
 had reddened with pleasure. 
 
 " You wild girl ! " he said, and kissed her ; — " You pretty
 
 276 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 tyrant ! You know I could not love you more ! Come close 
 to me — sit so ! — I like to feel you near ! And now let us get 
 on as fast as possible. You've had your way — now I must 
 have mine. Antoine has seen to the wheels — they're all right ; 
 and I've told him to drive at top speed." 
 
 " I'm afraid our car killed the poor man ! " she said, nestling 
 against him with a little affected shudder and sigh — " He was 
 past all help ! " 
 
 " Well, he shouldn't have gone to bed on the high-road," — ■ 
 her husband replied, cynically ; — " He was probably drunk. 
 They say God always protects drunkards — a curious taste on 
 the part of the Almighty ! — but this time He appears to have 
 been away on other business." He laughed at what he con- 
 sidered a witticism, and just then the chauffeur came to the 
 door. 
 
 "Shall we start again, Monsieur?" 
 
 Nordstein nodded good-humcuredly. 
 
 " Start ? Of course ! We should never have stopped. But 
 Madame must always be obeyed ! On — on, my Antoine ! 
 Drive like the devil ! " 
 
 And with devilish speed the car flew — straight ahead like a 
 missile from a giant cannon, with a boom and a whirr and a 
 grind — its fierce eyes of fire probing thei r way through the 
 darkness — and presently silence fell upon the scene. Silence 
 — solitude, — and a dead man, — over which the dull dawn 
 broke in tears of drizzling rain.
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 WITHIN twenty-four hours after poor pretty Azalea 
 Everton had been laid on her bed, all clothed in 
 white, and asleep for ever, Shadbrook the obscure became 
 famous. Shadbrook, hidden away from the knowledge of the 
 wider world in a remote part of the Cotswolds, suddenly 
 leaped into unenviable notoriety. The shadow of a crime 
 had fallen on the dull little village, causing it to blaze like an 
 ugly red advertisement set against the quiet hill. The whole 
 neighbourhood swarmed with reporters and photographers, 
 and in every newspaper pictures of the scene of the murder, 
 accompanied by sensational details of the supposed manner in 
 which it had been committed, appealed to the morbid taste 
 of the lower-class public. The unhappy Vicar was put to 
 constant torture by intrusive press-men, who made their 
 uninvited way into his garden and came up to his very house 
 door, seeking to interview his servants, without any thought 
 for his feelings or regard for his personal privacy. Shut in the 
 quiet sanctuary of his study, with his little son for chief 
 companion, he was bewildered and troubled beyond expression 
 by the cruel and selfish attempts made by these hack journalists 
 to trade on the terrible tragedy which had darkened his life. 
 The very day following the crime, one of the halfpenny 
 dailies, notoriously known for its vulgar commercial spirit and 
 bad taste, published portraits of himself, his murdered wife 
 and Dan Kiernan, all set in a group together, with a paragraph 
 beside it headed 'Drink or Revenge?' The paper was sent 
 to Everton through the post by some officious person who 
 
 277
 
 278 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 evidently believed in the process of rubbing salt into raw 
 wounds, — and when he saw it his soul sickened with a sense 
 of utter and helpless despair. 
 
 " My God ! " he murmured — " Is this what our country's 
 once clean and honourable press is coming to ! " 
 
 Then, when the news arrived — as it soon did — that the 
 dead body of a man had been found on a lonely road leading 
 out of Wiltshire towards London, and that it had been identified 
 as the remains of Dan Kiernan, crushed and mangled in such 
 a way as to leave no doubt that he had been run over by a 
 motor-car, the excitement became intensified. Offers of reward 
 were immediately published for the discovery of the destructive 
 car concerned, whose owners had been so selfish as to run 
 over a man, even though he were a drunken murderer, and 
 leave him lying in the road, — for the police felt they had been 
 defrauded of their intended capture, and the law sympathised 
 with the police as having been equally cheated of fees in a 
 criminal trial. But no one had seen any car dashing at break- 
 neck speed through Wiltshire or any other shire, — no one 
 appeared to have the slightest belief that any car could or 
 would so dash through respectable English counties after 
 midnight wholly unobserved, — whereby it will be seen and 
 understood that Israel Nordstein knew how to use his money. 
 Shadbrook was shaken to its phlegmatic core by heaiing of 
 Dan Kiernan's death coming so suddenly upon that of his 
 victim. Up at Minchin's Brewery it was the one subject of 
 talk among the men. 
 
 " That's a nice way to finish up ! " said one of them — 
 " Murderin' a poor lady in the arternoon, an' gettin' mangled 
 to bits one's self the same night ! " 
 
 His mates nodded a solemn affirmative. 
 
 " It was drink with Dan," — said another — " Always the 
 drink. He'd a' bin all right from the beginnin' when he fust 
 come to Shadbrook if 'e'd a' kep' sober. It was the drink as 
 set 'im wild on that devil's wench, Jacynth Miller." 
 
 A young fellow, sitting cross-legged en one of Minchin's 
 empty beer-casks, looked at them meaningly.
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 279 
 
 " It's the drink with most of us, boys," — he said — " It 
 makes fools and villains of us. Why don't we give it up ? " 
 
 They stared at him sheepishly, and a slow smile went the 
 round of their fares. He was a well-educated lad and had 
 taken a certain ' lead ' among them by having a few of them 
 every evening at his own lodging, talking to them and enter- 
 taining them in such a manner as to successfully keep them 
 away from the public-house. 
 
 " Why don't we give it up ? " he repeated — " Above all, why 
 don't we give Minchin a lesson?" 
 
 They exchanged dubious glances. 
 
 "There's a timber yard opening up some fifteen miles from 
 here," — went on the young man, doggedly — "I saw the boss 
 yesterday. He wants men. They that can pack casks can 
 pack timber, and the fellow that can drive a brewer's dray can 
 drive a waggon-load of wood as easily. So I'm off. I'm 
 going to give Minchin notice. I wish some of you would do 
 the same ! " 
 
 They listened in profound astonishment, offering no com- 
 ment. 
 
 " Look here, boys," — and the speaker grew flushed and 
 eager — " I'm not a canting teetotaller — like Minchin. I'm not 
 a religious humbug — like Minchin. I like to be on the square. 
 This murder of the parson's poor wife at Shadbrook has made 
 me sick of Minchin, his brewery, his beer and everything con- 
 nected with him ! He's as much to blame as Dan Kiernan — 
 indeed I'm not sure he isn't the worst criminal of the two ! " 
 
 <: Steady lad, steady ! " expostulated a big, burly drayman — 
 "You're a-goin' it a bit too strong ! It's a bad business — an 
 awsome bad business — but you 'adn't ought to blame the 
 wrong man." 
 
 " I blame the right man ! " retorted the young fellow, hotly. 
 "I tell you I've heard Kiernan threaten Mrs. Everton — ay, 
 and Parson Everton too — over and over again, and Minchin 
 has heard him, and laughed. The Roman Catholic priest here 
 warned Minchin that Kiernan was always drunk and always 
 dangerous — and Minchin laughed again. It's Minchin!s stuff
 
 2So HOLY ORDERS 
 
 that made Kiernan the brute he was. For it isn't sound beer 
 — it's rank poison ! Boys, you know it is ! " 
 
 " There's a tidy lot o' chemicals in it, sartin sure ! " — said 
 one of his listeners — " An' there's very little o' malt an' 'ops. 
 We 'ad an inspector or some such chap up 'ere four or five 
 ye?rs ago what took samples to prove the purity o' Minchin's 
 ale, an' I'm blest if there worn't a special lot brewed for 'im 
 ready to sample ! That's the way things is done — sharp an' 
 on the sly — an' nobody ain't none the wiser ! " 
 
 There was a silence. Then a man looked questioningly at 
 the young fellow who had started the conversation. 
 
 " You're really goin' to try the timber yard, are ye ? " 
 
 " Yes, I am." 
 
 " Well, maybe some of us'll go with ye. We'll think about 
 it." 
 
 They dispersed then, but at six o'clock that evening twenty- 
 five brewery hands had given notice, and Mr. Minchin's 
 astonishment was only equalled by his rage. 
 
 "What new game is this?" he demanded of his manager 
 who brought him the unwelcome news : — " What the devil do 
 these fellows mean by it ? " 
 
 " I really couldn't say," — the manager replied, uncomfortably, 
 " I can only put it down to the general feeling of sympathy 
 for the clergyman at Shadbrook. You see he's always been 
 set against the drink — and now that his wife has been murdered 
 by one of our hands — well ! — I think it's quite likely to make 
 the brewery unpopular." 
 
 Mmchin stretched his wide mouth in an unpleasant grin. 
 
 " Nothing will make drink unpopular," he said — " You may 
 bet your life on that ! " 
 
 In this the manager did not presume to contradict him, and 
 taking orders for a supply of fresh hands to replace those who 
 had given notice — orders which, though he did not say so, he 
 knew would be very difficult to fulfil — he withdrew. 
 
 At Shadbrook Vicarage itself the death of Dan Kiernan 
 came as an unexpected relief. The Vicar had contemplated 
 with indescribable horror the ordeal that would be inflicted
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 281 
 
 upon him if the murderer of his wife were brought to trial, — 
 the vulgar publicity that would be thrown on his erstwhile 
 sacred domestic life, — the examination of various witnesses, 
 who might be brought forward to relate the story of Jennie 
 Kiernan's death and the innocent part Azalea had taken in 
 that episode, — then would come the scandal concerning 
 Jacynth Miller — and who knew — who could tell where Jacynth 
 might be now, or what position she occupied ? The chain of 
 circumstance seemed interminable, — and yet from what a 
 small link it had sprung ! 
 
 Sunk in an apathy of misery, Everton was thankful at 
 heart that this fresh agony was spared him — the agony of being 
 perhaps compelled to testify to the truth of the manner in 
 which Jacynth had brought disgrace into his parish, while he, 
 like a blind fool believing only in good, had never been aware 
 cf it, and so through his stupidity had been the remote cause 
 of the vengeance wreaked by the drunken Dan Kiernan on his 
 innocent wife. How he blamed himself now ! — how bitterly 
 he blamed himself ! He poured out all his soul to Sebastien 
 Douay, who, listening to the full details of the story for the first 
 time, was profoundly moved. 
 
 " You did it all for the best, my poor friend ! " he said, 
 sorrowfully — "You tried to save a drunkard from fatally 
 injuring his wife, — and if, for this act of kindness you are so 
 cruelly afflicted, then surely the good God is not merciful ! 
 And for the dear little angel who is gone, she did also for the 
 best, — though it would have been better that she had never 
 spoken to this Mrs. Kiernan " 
 
 " I sent her," — and Richard clasped and unclasped his 
 hands in a nervous access of desperation — " I used to think — 
 God forgive me ! — that she did not show sufficient interest 
 in the poor for a Vicar's wife — and I begged her to go and 
 visit Jennie Kiernan while the woman was lying ill with the 
 injuries her husband had inflicted upon her. And she went — 
 reluctantly, poor darling ! — but she obeyed me — so you see it. 
 was all my fault — all my foolish, blundering fault !" 
 
 Douay earnestly endeavoured to console him.
 
 282 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 " There was no fault," — he said — " And I see not why you 
 should accuse yourself. It was one of those trifles from which 
 sometimes springs a tragedy, and only God knows why ! 
 Richard," — and he paused in a perplexed sadness, then 
 resumed — "You will not see it yet, — and you will think me 
 brutal perhaps for even suggesting it, — but there is some 
 reason for all this trouble that has fallen upon you, — some 
 Divine intention behind it " 
 
 Everton sighed in utter weariness. 
 
 " Ah, spare me that ! " he entreated — " It is cruel ! I am 
 borne down to the dust by a cross too heavy for me to bear " 
 
 " But you will not be crushed under it," — and Douay's eyes 
 glowed with enthusiasm — " no, you will not be crushed ! You 
 are too strong. You will be like St. Christopher — you will 
 carry the Christ of many sorrows through the stormy stream, 
 and find yourself blessed by His love when the journey is at 
 an end ! " 
 
 The desolate man made no reply. He covered his eyes 
 with his hand, and Douay saw the slow tears trickling through 
 his fingers. 
 
 The chief comfort and help of all in the house during this 
 time of sorrow was the child Laurence. He knew now that 
 his mother was dead, — and he accepted the fact with a strange 
 quietude, unbroken by tears. A look was on his face as of 
 one who saw more than mortals could show him, and his 
 nurse, puzzled by his tranquil demeanour, asked him once very 
 gently whether he understood that his mother was gone away 
 for ever. He smiled a little at this, — a wondering angel smile. 
 
 « No," — he said — " I don't understand that at all. She is 
 only just a little way off, — in Heaven. She will always come 
 to me when I call her." 
 
 Nurse Tomkins stroked his bright hair. 
 " Are you sure, dear ? " she asked, hesitatingly. 
 " Yes. Aren't you ? " 
 
 She was at a loss how to reply. She had been a regular 
 churchgoer all her life, and she believed the New Testament 
 or said she believed it, — how then was it that she had not the 

 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 283 
 
 same trustin ' faith as a little child ? How is it, we may surely 
 ask, that many professing Christians do not believe in what 
 Christ teaches, and treat as crazed persons those who do ? It 
 is one thing to be a church-goer, — it is quite another to be a 
 real Christian, — that is to say, a follower of and believer in the 
 Divine Master to the very letter of all He taught and 
 prophesied ; for of such as this last there are too few to form 
 even a small society. 
 
 "You see Heaven's quite close," — proceeded Laurence, 
 with grave earnestness — " And the angels don't have to travel 
 ever so far as we do. They just wish to be with us, or we 
 wish them to come., and they are here in a minute. I told 
 Dad so. Dad cried, but I told him I had seen Mummy since 
 she went away, and when I said just how she looked, he kissed 
 me and believed me. And he doesn't cry so much now." 
 
 His nurse listened in silent awe. The little lad looked like 
 a heavenly creature himself with his fair face and big loving 
 eyes, and she was glad that he had not been allowed to enter 
 the death-chamber where his mother lay in her coffin under a 
 pail of pure white flowers. 
 
 " Let him remember her as she lived," — Everton had said — 
 " She was his companion and playmate, as well as his mother, — 
 let him think of her as always bright and beautiful. It is 
 better so." 
 
 And so it was. Laurence himself showed no desire or 
 curiosity to penetrate into rooms where the doors were closed, 
 nor did he appear to be in any way concerned with the dismal 
 hush that prevailed in the house, the whispering voices, or the 
 muffled footsteps. He was always with his father, — sometimes 
 sitting quietly on his knee and nestling against him, — some- 
 times in a corner of the study window with a picture book, — 
 but never showing any marked consciousness of the fact that 
 his mother was no longer with him. His small personality 
 and influence were so exquisite and remarkable that Richard 
 almost felt himself guided and controlled by this little life for 
 which he was responsible, — and in the child's presence his 
 grief was calmed, his nerves soothed, and his whole fainting
 
 284 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 spirit aroused and braced to a courage beyond his own 
 imagined ability. For he saw that Laurence did not consider 
 his mother as dead, but living. — living, and only a little way 
 removed from him. And was not this the true spirit of the 
 Christian creed? Had he, therefore, an ordained minister of 
 the Gospel of Consolation, less faith than the instinctive 
 confidence shown by his little son? Weary of himself and 
 ashamed, he struggled and fought with his own bitter sorrow, 
 which, like another Giant Despair, fell upon him full armed 
 with cap of steel and breast-plate of fire. — and out of each 
 fierce contest he came forth a stronger, wiser, and purer man. 
 
 Yet when, at the close of that fatal week, the day arrived 
 for the final laying to rest of all that was mortal of his winsome 
 wife in Shadbrook churchyard, his strength well nigh gave way 
 again. The rector of a parish some thirty miles distant, a 
 friend and old college chum of Everton's, came to perform the 
 sad ceremony ; and at first it was doubtful whether Everton 
 himself would be able to bear the strain of attending 
 the funeral in his desolate capacity of chief mourner. 
 Ghastly pale and trembling, he sat in his darkened study till 
 the last possible moment, listening to every sound, — to the 
 measured tramp of the feet that ascended to the room where 
 Azalea's body lay in its closed coffin, covered with wreaths and 
 garlands of early spring blossoms, and then came softly tread- 
 ing down again under the weight of their precious burden, — 
 it was terrible — terrible ! — he said to himself over and over 
 again ; — the black paraphernalia of death ought not to be 
 associated with so fair and bright a creature as Azalea, — 
 Azalea, who had lain in his arms warm and sweet as a June 
 rose, with her golden hair flowing about her, — Azalea, whose 
 little feet had tripped through tne house and garden so lightly 
 that she seemed to float rather than walk on the ground ; — 
 how was it that she — she should now be covered in from the 
 lisrht and buried down in the cold moist earth? And he 
 almost shrieked as the door of his 100m opened, and his old 
 college friend entered, arrayed in white surplice and ready for 
 the mournful rites he was called upon to perform.
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 285 
 
 " My dear Everton," he said, gently, " You look very ill. 
 Do you think you can come with us ? " 
 
 Everton rose totteringly. 
 
 " I must ! " he answered — " I must go with her to the 
 end!" 
 
 His friend looked at him with deep compassion. As 
 Edward Darell, formerly one of the most brilliant of Cambridge 
 young men, he had made Everton, who was about his own 
 age, a kind of ideal, — for though Everton was not such a 
 showy scholar, he was far more profound — and it smote him 
 to the heart to see him so utterly broken down. After a 
 minute he spoke again. 
 
 "It will be a great trial for you," — he said — "There is an 
 enormous crowd." 
 
 Everton heard, but scarcely comprehended. 
 
 " The Roman Catholic priest who is here," went on Darell, 
 "tells me he fears it may be too much for your strength. 
 He seems very intimate with you." 
 
 There was a tinge of reproach in his accents. Everton 
 sighed heavily. 
 
 " Yes," — he answered — " To a man left in a desert the first 
 passer-by becomes an intimate." 
 
 Darell was silent for a few seconds. Then he went on. 
 
 " You know my opinion on matters of faith," he said, slowly, 
 "lama little afraid for you " 
 
 Everton turned upon him a face so wan and wild that 
 Darell recoiled. 
 
 "You do well to be afraid for me !" he said — " I am afraid 
 for myself! Not afraid of changing my faith, — but afraid of 
 losing faith altogether!" He paused — then added, more quietly, 
 " Shall I come with you now ? " 
 
 "If you feel able to do so," — answered Darell — "Every- 
 thing is ready." 
 
 In another moment Everton stood bareheaded in the open 
 air, blindly conscious of a great crowd of people, men and 
 women, youths and girls, the men all bareheaded like himself, 
 and all swarming round one simple little white burden of
 
 286 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 flowers which was the fragrant silent centre of the throng. 
 The sunshine was warm and brilliant, — the scent of lilac swept 
 towards him on every breath of air, — and all visible things of 
 nature expressed the delicate beauty of the spring. Hazily he 
 wondered why this mass of people had gathered round his 
 house, — why such a murmur of sorrow and pity surged through 
 them as he appeared, — and it was as a man walking in a dream 
 that he yielded to some one's kindly guidance and found 
 himself walking immediately behind that small white burden 
 of flowers, carried by four bearers on a hand-bier so gently and 
 slowly along. But he did not realise that a coffin lay under- 
 neath the flowers, or that his wife's body was in the coffin. 
 Out in the sunlight and passing through his own garden 
 Azalea seemed still living and quite near, — she was on the 
 lawn — she was among the roses — he would see her directly — 
 so his thoughts rambled on disconnectedly ; he was just aware 
 that the patron of his living, Squire Hazlitt, was present — 
 that he spoke to him and pressed his hand, and that there 
 were tears in the bluff gentleman's eyes, — then something 
 leaped in his soul like a tongue of fire, and his eyes lightened 
 with a passion sudden and terrible. 
 
 " For God's sake ! " he said in a low tone to Dr. Brand, who 
 happened to be near him — " Get that man out of my sight, or 
 I cannot answer for myself ! " 
 
 Brand looked where he was looking, and saw the fox-like 
 face of the brewer, Minchin, gleaming like a pale ugly mask 
 amid the surging blackness of the assembled people, and while 
 he was yet considering how it would be possible to eject so 
 unwelcome an intruder, the face suddenly disappeared. More 
 than one person had heard the Vicar's agonised entreaty, and 
 more than one person had understood it, and how it happened 
 nobody quite knew, but certain it was that by dint of firm yet 
 quiet pushing, Minchin found himself dislodged from his 
 position and pressed over to the extreme edge of the crowd. 
 There he waited in scornful impatience for a few minutes, 
 trying to get another chance of admission to the churchyard, — 
 but from the words and glances with which he was favoured 

 
 THE TRAGEDY CF A QUIET LIFE 287 
 
 he saw, to his surprise and chagrin, that the people were in an 
 ugly humour, and disposed to resent his Dresence at the 
 funeral as superfluous. He, therefore, judged it wisest and 
 safest to depart from the scene, — and as his thin angular 
 figure detached itself and stood out clearly separate from the 
 throng, a thousand angry eyes were turned upon him, and he 
 heard something like a threatening hiss which boded no 
 goodwill. He laughed to himself a trifle uncomfortably. 
 
 "One would think /had murdered the parson's wife !" he 
 inwardly ejaculated — " Or that / was a drunkard ! I've had 
 nothing to do with it. Kiernan was in my employ certainly — 
 but I'm not answerable for the conduct of my men." 
 
 So he argued — after the same specious manner in which 
 most employers of labour argue, namely that they are ' not 
 responsible' for either the degradation or the sufferings of 
 those they employ. Which is one of those villainous 
 perversions of the truth for which men are as deservedly 
 punished in this world as in the world to come. 
 
 In deep silence the service for the dead began, — and 
 Richard Everton, servant of Christ, stood rigid and tearless by 
 the open grave which was soon to contain all that he had most 
 cherished in the world. Not only sorrow but despair was in 
 his soul, for he knew that his love for God was less than his 
 love for her whom God had claimed. " He that taketh not 
 his cross and foiloweth after Me is not worthy of Me." So 
 said his Divine Master, — and in shame and bitterness he knew 
 he was ' not worthy.' All he could think of was that Azalea — 
 lovely, loving, sweet Azalea, had been done to death by a 
 drunkard's malice ! Done to death by a drunkard's malice ? 
 His lips inaudibly murmured the words ; — his reason asked — 
 Was it God's work ? Or was it not rather the result of man's 
 vice, which all the forces of nature and powers of heaven are 
 ever seeking to punish and exterminate? Tranced in miser- 
 able thoughts he saw nothing and felt nothing, — intense 
 mental agony had, like a frost, numbed every nerve. He 
 was unconscious of the strong warm wave of sympathy that 
 swept through the hearts of his parishioners as they saw him,
 
 ^88 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 and moved them to a passion of love and respect such as they 
 had never known for him before. They were a mere handful 
 in the vast crowd that day — a crowd composed of people from 
 all parts of the country as well as from London, Shadbrook 
 having now become as notorious as it was once secluded. 
 The villagers were overwhelmed by the numbers of tourists 
 who arrived from every quarter, attracted by the horrid scent 
 of murder like bloodhounds following up a trail. The natives 
 of the place were few indeed compared to those hordes of 
 sensation-seekers, and they felt bewildered and astray in the 
 throng of strangers that occupied every inch of spare standing- 
 room in their tiny parish churchyard. On the outskirts of the 
 crowd several press reporters had gathered, one of them being 
 supplied with an extra large camera. This individual, an 
 ambitious youth who had grown more pimples than hairs on 
 his chin, displayed a feverish anxiety to obtain a photograph 
 of the unhappy Vicar of Shadbrook as he stood, a figure of 
 utter wretchedness, by his wife's graveside. In his mind's eye 
 this Fleet Street fledgling saw huge Americanised headings for 
 his journal, such as — 'Clergyman in Throes of Agony,' — or 
 ' Moving Scene at Grave of Murdered Wife,' — and con- 
 siderations of courtesy, feeling, pity and forbearance were 
 less known to him than to the uncivilised savage. The 
 journal for which he was employed was one of those modern 
 vulgarities which have recently brought the country's press 
 into contempt, its chief stock-in-trade being smudgy pictures 
 of persons and events, — the persons being unrecognisable and 
 most of the events fictional, the whole production being of such 
 a character as to shame even the most barbarous conceptions 
 of art. While he was making several unsuccessful attempts to 
 set his camera in position, Squire Hazlitt perceived him, and, 
 indignant at the open callousness of the man, signed to the 
 sexton, Jacob Stowey, to go and remove him. Stowey under- 
 stood the implied order, but he had already experienced some- 
 thing of the insufferable insolence and intrusiveness of these 
 ' noospaper touts ' as he called them, and he determined to get 
 rid of this one by a method of his own, which he had thought
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 289 
 
 of once or twice, but had not as yet put into practice. 
 Approaching the objectionable press man, he pulled his 
 forelock. 
 
 "Want a good shot at the Vicar in 'is day o' dole an' 
 desolation, sir?" he said, obsequiously — "I can find ye a 
 better place for that there machine o' yours if ye like." 
 
 The press man was delighted. 
 
 "Thanks very much ! " he answered — "I'll give you half-a- 
 crown for your trouble." 
 
 Stowey kept a face of imperturbable gravity. 
 
 "Just follow me," — he said — "An' ye'll be able to see 
 Parson Everton's mis'able looks an' all the funeral business 
 straight an' clear." 
 
 He led the way, and the confiding reporter followed him 
 through a tangle of shrubbery and down a short avenue 
 bordered by clipped firs. The extra-size-plate camera was 
 heavy, and Stowey volunteered to carry it for him, an offer 
 which was readily accepted. At a sharp bend in the path, 
 which appeared to lead up against a dead wall, Stowey paused, 
 and looked at his companion over his shoulder. 
 
 "See there?" he said, pointing sideways — "Top o' that 
 bank ? That's a fine open view ! " 
 
 The press man hastily scrambled up to the spot indicated 
 and pushed aside a few intervening boughs. There was 
 nothing to be seen but a small turnip field and a glimpse of 
 the back walls of Shadbrook Church. He turned round 
 indignantly, just in time to hear a dull heavy splash, and to 
 see Stowey standing without the camera, silently grinning. 
 
 "You fool!" he exclaimed — "What have you done with 
 my camera ? " 
 
 "Fool yourself!" retorted Stowey, calmly — "I ain't none 
 quite so much as I looks ! This 'ere's the old well, a bit 
 stagnant an' smelly, an' yer camera's at the bottom of it. 
 Arter funeral's over, I'll fetch it up for five pound ! " 
 
 The press man swore till his oaths pattered on the air 
 like rain. 
 
 " You brute, do you know what you have done ! " he shouted, 
 
 19
 
 290 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 " You've destroyed a thing worth twenty-five guineas ! I'll 
 summons you " 
 
 " All right ! Summons away ! " said Stowey — " I ain't got 
 twency-five guineas in the world, nor the worth of it ! Talk 
 o' summonses ! — if I was the law an' the commons I'd 
 summons such as you for comin' and tryin' to take noospaper 
 pictures of a poor man who's seein' 'is best o' life laid in the 
 yerth, as if that was fit for makin' world's game of! Ay, ye 
 can go to Squire if ye like ! Squire's a magistrate, an' ye can 
 'ave it out with 'im ! But I've 'ad it out with you first ! An' 
 I'm glad of it ! — dcrmed glad of it ! You an' yer lot's a 
 reg'lar noosance to decent iivin' folk, an' I wish I could a' 
 put yerself down the well along with yer machine ! I'd a' 
 done it cheerful an' willin' i " 
 
 But the irate reporter stayed to hear no more. He rushed 
 away to relate to his professional comrades the injurious 
 treatment he had sustained, and to 'work up' something in 
 the papers that should bring his name into prominence as a 
 victim of boorish interference while engaged in doing what 
 he called his ' duty.' 
 
 Meantime, all the last rites for the murdered Azalea were 
 reverently performed; — and only when the coffin was about 
 to be lowered into the ground did the bereaved husband 
 show signs of breaking down. Then, with hands wildly 
 outstretched and oblivious of all the people crowding about 
 him, he cried aloud — " My wife ! My wife ! " in tones of 
 such poignant anguish that tears rushed to the eyes of the 
 strongest men, and women broke out sobbing. Squire 
 Hazlitt gently drew his arm within his own to hold and 
 support him, for he felt the whole body of the man tremble 
 as in a strong ague fit. Silently and with the tenderest care, 
 as though a child were being put to rest, the little burden of 
 white blossoms slipped down, down into soft mother earth, 
 and with poetic fervour and earnestness the words were 
 pronounced : " I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me : 
 Write, From henceforth blessed are the dead which die in 
 the Lord ; Even so, saith the Spirit, for they rest from their
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 29 r 
 
 labours." Then, with curious cold suddenness Everton caught 
 himself questioning the phrase — 'die in the Lord.' Had 
 Azalea, — thoughtless, light-hearted Azalea, — died ' in the 
 Lord ' ? Had she ever really considered ' the Lord ' at all, 
 except as a necessary and conventional part of the day's 
 instruction and business ? And how could she have had 
 time to 'die in the Lord,' — swiftly and brutally murdered 
 as she had been by a drunkard ! A sickening qualm of 
 unrest and despair came over his soul ; and when the 
 funeral was over and the crowd slowly dispersed, he 
 found himself wondering vaguely where he was, and why 
 people came up to him, pressed his hand, and went 
 away again, without venturing to say a word. It was all 
 so silent — so mysterious, — so black and terrible — this 'dying 
 in the Lord ' ! 
 
 Almost before he could realise it, he had been led away 
 through the retreating throng back to his own heme, and there 
 he stood in his own drawing-room trying to understand that 
 Squire Hazlitt was talking to him in a very earnest and friendly 
 manner, but he could not gra^p the purport of what he was 
 saying. Some one offered him a glass of wine, — he pushed 
 it away with a shudder. By degrees he became vaguely 
 aware that not only Squire Hazlitt, but several other gentle- 
 men of the neighbouring counties were present, and that 
 they were all expressing their deep sympathy for him in 
 his sorrow. Some of them were total strangers to him — 
 others he knew very slightly, — but, owing to the extreme 
 smallness and isolation of his parish, he had never been on 
 visiting terms with any of them, therefore their kindness now 
 seemed to him quite extraordinary. As the dark mist that 
 clouded his mind slowly cleared, he saw Douay standing close 
 beside him, with Dr. Brand and his college friend Darell, — 
 and presently the sense of Squire Hazlitt's words began to 
 rivet his attention. And as he listened and gradually 
 comprehended, he was roused to sudden energy by the thrill 
 of a great fear — fear that he was going to be taken away 
 from Shadbrook. He who had sometimes rebelled at the
 
 292 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 monotonous weariness of the little place, — he who had 
 wondered whether he was doomed to pass all his life in 
 Shadbrook, now trembled with terror at the bare idea of 
 leaving it. 
 
 "Let me persuade you," — he heard the Squire say — "to 
 accept another living. I shall miss you from my own part of the 
 country, of course, — but I'm sure it would be kinder to you to 
 remove you from the scene of the awful tragedy that has befallen 
 you. I have no other living vacant in my own gift, but I can help 
 you to secure an excellent one where you will be among more 
 congenial people and surroundings, and then — perhaps — in 
 time, — the wound will heal " 
 
 So far Everton listened, silently, — then he answered in low 
 and trembling accents. 
 
 " It is a wound too deep for healing ! " — he said — " And I 
 cannot leave Shadbrook, — not new ! " 
 
 " Why not ? " persisted the Squire — " My dear Everton, 
 think of it ! You will be insufferably lonely here, — the whole 
 character and type of the place is opposed to your character 
 and type, — besides your capabilities fit you for a wider field of 
 action " 
 
 " A man makes his own field of action," — answered Everton, 
 gaining strength as the burden of his thoughts found relief in 
 speech — " It is my own fault that I have not made mine yet — 
 but I will, — and in Shadbrook ! It is large and wide enough 
 to contain a great sorrow — perhaps it will also hold a great love ! 
 My dear Mr. Hazlitt, you are goodness itself, and I thank you 
 from my heart ! — but, do not urge me to accept your offer ! 
 My work is cut out for me here." 
 
 The Squire looked distressed. 
 
 "The work is not important," — he began. — "And much of 
 it must be distasteful " 
 
 " All the more reason why I should do it," — said Everton — 
 " Besides," — and his eyes grew dark with repressed anguish — 
 " you surely would not ask me to leave this house where she 
 lived — or the churchyard where she rests ? — and where I pray 
 God I may be permitted to rest beside her ! "
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 293 
 
 His voice quivered, — the Squire pressed his hand sympatheti- 
 cally. 
 
 " There, we will speak no more of it," — he said — " But if at 
 any time you should change your mind, remember I am ready 
 always to do my best for you." 
 
 Evertcn thanked him mutely by a glance, — and by-and-bye 
 he and the other funeral guests departed their several ways, and 
 the shadows of evening closed darkly in upon the desolate 
 Vicarage. Edward Darell, who had wished very much to stay 
 the night with his old college friend and help to comfort him in 
 his affliction, could not do so on account of duties elsewhere, 
 but he went away with considerable reluctance. 
 
 " Do you remain with the Vicar to-night ? " he asked Sebastien 
 Douay on leaving. 
 
 "That will be as he pleases," — answered Douay — "I am 
 only one poor friend at his service, — he has another and a 
 better one in his son." 
 
 Darell smiled gravely. 
 
 "Ah! Only a child of five," he said— "The poor little 
 fellow cannot understand his father's grief." 
 
 "Perhaps not," — said Douay — "But that is because he is 
 more of a Christian than any of us." 
 
 Darell looked surprised. 
 
 " More of a Christian ? " — he repeated, query ingly. 
 
 "Precisely ! He really believes. We do not." 
 
 " We ? " Darell echoed the word markedly. 
 
 Douay gave a slight expressive gesture of sadness. 
 
 " Enfin ! Monsieur, if I question your faith, pardon me ! 
 I personally do not believe as the little child believes, and so I 
 am not of the Kingdom of Heaven. But I will accept your 
 assurance that you are as the little child, and, therefore, an 
 exception to all Churchmen, both Catholique and Protestant 
 alike ! " 
 
 Darell reddened. 
 
 " I dc not say that I am as a little child in simplicity and 
 innocence," — he answered — " But I do say that I believe ! " 
 
 Douay raised his eyebrows plaintively.
 
 294 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 " Do you ? Do you believe the poor little murdered woman 
 we have just laid in the earth is now still alive and happy? 
 That she is an angel in that Somewhere, which with all our 
 creeds, we can place Nowhere? If so, she must be a very 
 solitary and sad angel, crying her pretty eyes out for husband 
 and baby ! For that is all she cared for in this world, and for 
 the marvels of unknown worlds to come she had no inclination ! 
 That does not make the cruelty of her end less, but rather 
 
 more." 
 
 Darell listened, a trifle perplexed. He did not know in 
 what spirit to take this little professing priest of a rival Church, 
 who, despite the restrictions of his order, appeared to be some- 
 thing of a secular philosopher as well. Moreover he was one 
 of those clergymen whom acute sorrow has not closely and 
 personally touched ; and he moved austerely within the some- 
 what narrow circle of a college education in theology, bordered 
 by an equally narrow boundary of conventional custom and 
 prejudice. He considered Douay eccentric ; and, unwilling to 
 continue a conversation which might draw him beyond his 
 usual ' form ' or out of his depth, he ended it by murmuring a 
 few more commonplace expressions of sympathy respecting 
 Mrs. Everton's untimely end, and then took his leave. Douay 
 watched him go out of the Vicarage gate with a rather pained 
 smile. 
 
 "There is a man," he thought, — "one of thousands, — who 
 would rather not ask himself the reasons for his faith and 
 ministration, — who declines to be honest with himself, or try 
 to see his own soul as God sees it. The position is good in 
 one way, but bad in another. For it is selfish ! It seeks to 
 save personal trouble — but it is not faith. To have the 
 courage to know and to do ! — that is what God demands from 
 the truly faithful, — that is what Evertcn has, when he is 
 sufficiently strong to realise it. What a gain he would be to 
 Rome ! — but he will never belong to us — never ! For he will 
 obey no Superior save God ! " 
 
 Entering the study where he had left Everton sitting solitary 
 and silent in his arm-chair, he found him looking over the
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 295 
 
 various letters and cards of condolence which lay scattered in 
 profusion on his writing-table. 
 
 " Is it needful to do that to-day, my friend ? " he asked, 
 gently — " Would it not be better to rest ? " 
 
 Everton looked at him with eyes that expressed an un- 
 utterable despair. 
 
 " I shall never rest again ! ,: — he said — " Not in the full 
 sense that rest implies — until the end ! I must occupy every 
 moment now, — every moment, Douay ! — or I shall go mad 1 
 The old days of leisurely study are over, — there is no more 
 pleasure in peace ! I must wcrk, and I must fight — Oh my 
 God, yes ! I must fight hard " 
 
 He broke off — and seemed to lose himself in a sudden mist 
 of misery. 
 
 "Yes, you will fight against your sorrow," — said Douay, 
 soothingly — " That will be well for you, and brave " 
 
 "Against my sorrow?" Everton's voice rang out with a 
 sudden bitter clearness — " No ! I shall not fight against that, 
 for that may be my only safety ! Douay, don't you understand ? 
 I must fight against a far worse enemy than sorrow — an enemy 
 that is tearing my soul to shreds at this very moment — the 
 monstrous mocking devil of Doubt ! " 
 
 His face was white with strongly suppressed emotion ; the 
 trouble of his mind expressed itself in his very attitude, and 
 Douay met his anguished, appealing gaze with a tender and 
 compassionate serenity. 
 
 "In my Church," he said, softly, "there is no room for 
 Doubt ! " 
 
 " No room ? No ! — and why ? Because you are slaves ! — 
 not to God, but to Man ! " And the pent-up storm of thought 
 suddenly let loose poured itself out in a torrent of unpre- 
 meditated speech — "And yet — one of the slaves as you are 
 and as you are bound to be, doubt creeps in on your soul as on 
 mine ! — and sometimes — only sometimes — you wonder, as 
 I do, whether the great Creator is the lover or the hater of all 
 that He has made ! Douay, forgive me ! — be patient with 
 me ! — I must speak ! You are happier than I in one respect
 
 296 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 — you have never loved you have never married. Your 
 
 Church knows so well that the ties of human affection are so 
 much stronger than all that religion can teach, that she wisely 
 forbids them to her priests. She sets before you Woman as a 
 snare of the devil, instead of being what she is at her best — 
 man's only guardian angel! Douay, if you knew — if you 
 knew ! " 
 
 He paced the room restlessly, and Douay, answering 
 nothing, sat down by the writing-desk, leaning one elbow on it 
 and covering his eyes with his hand. 
 
 " If you knew," went on Everton, passionately — " what my 
 wife was to me ! Oh, she was so full of sweet unwisdom ! — so 
 foolishly loving ! — such a child in her fancies, and so pure in 
 her soul ! There was nothing heroic or strong about her — she 
 was no guide, no adviser, — but she was all sweetness — just 
 that ! — all tenderness, — the very balm for my wounds of life ! 
 You do not know, — you cannot feel — how should you? — 
 what it is to love ! There was no gross passion in such love 
 as ours ; it was a love that God Himself might have spared 
 had He been kind ! But you do not understand ! You have 
 missed it all. It is what a dying lad said to me three years 
 ago when I tried to comfort him with the hope of Heaven — 
 1 Love is what the Lord Christ never knew — it's what He 
 missed — love for a woman — and there He fails to be our 
 brother in sorrow.' That's true ! The priests of your Church 
 try to follow His example, — but He was divine — priests are 
 but men — and men cannot live without love ! " 
 
 With that he checked himself abruptly, and stood rapt 
 in a sudden cloud of thought. Douay removed his hand 
 from his eyes and looked at him. 
 
 " Well ! " he said, in a voice that trembled a little — " You 
 have not finished. Go on ! " 
 
 With a quick start Everton came out of his momentary 
 reverie. He met Douay's steady glance, and gave a wearied, 
 half-apologetic gesture. 
 
 "You see my condition," — he said, more calmly — "It 
 is one of fear and, if I may put it so, of horrible amazement
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 297 
 
 that God whom we worship as ' Our Father ' can, for no 
 cause at all, so grievously afflict His miserable creation ! 
 For half our sins are the result of ignorance which is not 
 our fault, — and the love we are instinctively moved to feei 
 for one another is the best part of us. Only think of it ! 
 This very day last week Azalea was alive — here, in my 
 arms, — now, her sweet body is lying stiff and cold and 
 lonely down in the dark earth, — and how has this cruelty 
 been wrought? Simply because Heaven and the fates have 
 favoured a drunkard's vengeance ! A drunkard ! — his diseased 
 brain and reckless hand pitted against the pure life of an 
 innocent woman ! Is it just ? Is it sport for the Almighty ? 
 Tell me ! Can it be called Divine sport ? — or Divine 
 malice ? " 
 
 " Richard, Richard ! " exclaimed Douay, in poignant accents 
 of grief — " I cannot hear you say these wild things, my 
 friend ! No ! — for you are net wicked, — you are not 
 blasphemous, — you are an honest and courageous man ! 
 But your soul is hanging on the cross to-day — and with our 
 Blessed Lord Himself you cry: ' My God, my God, why 
 hast Thou forsaken me ! ' My friend, my dear, dear friend, 
 be patient ! Sorrow is as necessary to the spirit as pain is 
 to the body. Without pain, we should not appreciate health 
 — without sorrow we should not understand joy. Surely this 
 is the obvious ? Your great and terrible grief has been visited 
 upon you for some necessary purpose — you do not see it ? — 
 no ! — but do not question the ways of the Almighty, Richard ! 
 — do not question ! Say • Thy Will be done ' — with a pure 
 intention and wait ! " 
 
 He was strongly moved, and his kind eyes were full of tears. 
 But Richard stood looking at him, coldly impassive. 
 
 "You talk of sorrow and joy, pain and health," — he said — 
 "as if these things could any more affect me ! Do you not 
 realise that there may be a state of mind which no emotion 
 can touch ? That the soul of a man may be so numbed 
 by speechless agony that even physical torture would scarcely 
 draw from him a groan, and that in the dull monotony of
 
 298 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 the daily round there is nothing he so entirely longs for 
 as death to end all? Do you know these lines of a 
 modern poet ? 
 
 'The pulse of war and passion of wonder, 
 
 The heavens that murmur, the sounds that shine, 
 
 The stars that sing and the loves that thunder, 
 The music burning at heart like wine, 
 
 An armed archangel whose hands raise up 
 
 All senses mixed in the spirit's cup, 
 
 Till flesh and spirit are molten asunder — 
 These things are over and no mere mine ! ' " 
 
 His voice, full in tone at first, dropped to a tired whisper, 
 and he stared with a melancholy, unseeing gaze out through 
 the window across which the curtains were not yet drawn 
 for the night. Two or three stars sparkled in the glimmer 
 of sky behind the panes, — the reflection of the lamp in the 
 room flung a ray of light across the grass. The shapes of 
 the trees were blurred in shadows, — the whole view of the 
 garden, so lovely by day, seemed ' without form and void.' 
 A deep sigh broke from his lips. 
 
 "I am not fit to speak to you, Douay," — he went on, 
 after a heavy pause — "Nor am I sufficiently myself to 
 listen to consolation. All I can think of is that the light of 
 my life has gone out, — and that my darling lies there all 
 alone," — and he pointed to the outside darkness where the 
 tower of Shadbrook Church showed just the faintest gleam 
 of grey-whiteness through the black clumps of trees — " Alone, 
 — without husband or child, — alone in the grave ! " — he stopped 
 a moment, — then continued, slowly — " by God's will ! And 
 I must be alone, loo, to-night, to reason with my destiny — 
 to see if I can understand it, — so I will ask you to leave 
 me to myself. Do not look so anxious ! — you need not 
 be afraid that I will do any violence to my own wretched 
 being. I am not a coward. If I were, I should not wane 
 to get face to face with God's intention towards me. You 
 are the kindest of friends, Douay ! — and I thank you from
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 299 
 
 my heart for all you have been, and are to me, — but go 
 now ! — go back to your own little peaceful sanctuary where 
 there is 'no room for doubt'— and leave me and the devils 
 that beset me to fight it out together ! " 
 
 Something singularly compelling and powerful was in his 
 expression as he said these words, and Douay was fuUy con- 
 scious of the magnetism of a soul and intellect stronger than 
 his own. 
 
 " It shall be as you wish ! " he answered, simply, almost 
 
 humbly — " I will come again " 
 
 "No — let me come to you fiist," — said Everton — "Give 
 me time. For I will not come till I have conquered, or am 
 conquered ! " 
 
 With very few more words they parted. Everton, left to 
 his own company in the house, — a house now grown so quiet 
 since the merry laughter and light step of its fair mistress had 
 ceased to stir the soft echoes, — stood for a few minutes listen- 
 ing to the complete silence. Then going noiselessly upstairs, 
 he entered the nursery. Little Laurence was there, fast asleep. 
 His nurse had, at Squire Hazlitt's suggestion, taken him to 
 Shadbrook Hall for the day while his mother's funeral was in 
 progress, and he had been brought back after it was over, 
 rather tired and perplexed. Curled up cosily in his little bed, 
 with one chubby arm outside the coverlet, he looked the 
 fairer and finer image of Azalea in her fairest and sweetest 
 moods, and Everton bent over him with a tenderness more 
 sad than fond. 
 
 " How much better for him to die now ! " he thought — 
 "With all his beliefs untouched — hij dreams unspoilt — than 
 to live on and lose everything, even to the loss of faith in 
 God ! " 
 
 Then, — half ashamed of the bitterness that was in him — 
 he softly withdrew, and going down again to his study resumed 
 the almost mechanical occupation in which Douay had inter- 
 rupted him, — the sorting of the letters and cards of condolence 
 which would all have to be acknowledged. In doing this he 
 came upon several which had net yet been opened, — one
 
 300 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 among these, with a gold crest emblazoned on the flap of the 
 square-shaped envelope, had a faint, cloying perfume about it 
 that affected him with a sense of nausea. He glanced at the 
 handwriting, which was quite unfamiliar to him, ar.d opened 
 it. The sickly scent grew stronger as he drew out a small 
 creamy sheet of notepaper, also crested in gold, but bearing 
 no address. A couple of lines were written on it : — 
 
 ' I am sorry for your sorrow. 
 
 Jacynth.' 
 
 The letter dropped from his hand to the floor, and he sat 
 inert, lost in sombre musing.
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 WHEN anything tragic or unfortunate occurs in a family- 
 it is the usual custom to shut up the house and go 
 away for a change of air and scene. That Richard Everton 
 did not follow this conventional line of action was a surprise 
 to all those excellent people who expected him to do as they 
 themselves would have done under similar circumstances. It 
 was extraordinary, they said, — quite extraordinary — that he 
 did not at once take a trip abroad or something of that kind. 
 For there is a curious idea deeply implanted in the minds of 
 society-mongers that if your heart is broken or your life 
 wrecked, you will be all right if you go to Paris or Vienna or 
 even New York. Home, on which you may possibly have 
 expended your tenderest care, as well as most of your cash, 
 is supposed to exercise no binding or soothing influence upon 
 you. You must immediately start forth like a wandering cat 
 and howl your griefs to the moon on foreign pantiles rather 
 than on your own. It was, therefore, incredible, said the 
 Everybody that is Nobody, that the Vicar of Shadbrook 
 should remain in his Vicarage all alone after the burial of his 
 murdered wife, and show no intention of moving, not even 
 for so much as a week-end. Perhaps the poor man was 
 going mad ? And the gossips shook their heads and pursed 
 their lips gloomily when they heard that he kept himself for 
 the most part shut up within the four walls of his study 
 reading and writing, and seeing no visitors, his only companion 
 being his little son. The duties of the parish were attended 
 
 to meanwhile by a mild young curate, who being temporarily 
 
 301
 
 302 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 1 unattached,' had agreed (for a consideration, of course), to 
 act under the Vicar's orders for a fortnight, at the expiration 
 of which time it was understood that Everton would have 
 rallied sufficiently from the paralysing blow that had fallen 
 upon him to undertake his usual round of work. So for 
 two Sundays the mild young cuiate took the services, and 
 preached, or rather bleated, innocuous sermons of a nature not 
 much above the comprehension of a child of four, — sermons 
 that sent nearly all the congregation to sleep, and moved even 
 the mentally quiescent Mrs. Moddley to remark that she ' never 
 did 'ear such a dull bit o' Christianity in all her mortal days.' 
 
 And Everton, for the time indifferent to the opinions 
 expressed either by his parishioners or by the outside world, 
 stayed in the seclusion and silence of his home, made so 
 desolate now by the loss of her who had been its embodied 
 joy, and watched from his study window the gradual 
 brightening of the springtime in his garden, often wondering 
 vaguely how it was that trees could break into leaf, and roses 
 lift their fair buds to the sun when Azalea was dead. Yet 
 he knew very well that Nature has neither time nor space 
 for regret. Her lesson is ever to re-create life out of seeming 
 death, — a lesson which is the alphabet of the Higher im- 
 mortality. Gradually, very gradually, he attained sufficient 
 strength and self poise to be able to study his own dual 
 being; — the body, which clamoured and wept for its lost 
 delight — the soul, which, stripped of all comfortable and 
 merely conventional methods of religion, stood face to face 
 with the vast problems of life and death — life and death as 
 variously meted out to human beings by the Creator in so 
 apparently indifferent a manner, that we are apt to call His 
 will 'capricious,' when it is never anything else than the 
 fulfilment of a law whose workings we are too ignorant to 
 perceive or to define. And in solitary meditation he re- 
 membered, how when the trouble had first begun in the 
 parish, and his wife had gone away for a time terrified by 
 the mere hint of a threat from Dan Kiernan, he had in the 
 loneliness then engendered by her absence, uttered a prayer
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 303 
 
 that was like a vow : — " Command me as Thou wilt ! Send 
 me Thy Holy Orders, and even if they lead me to my death, 
 I, ordained to serve Thee, will obey ! " Were those words 
 spoken lightly? Was he ready to draw back now? Could 
 he not tread on the waves of sorrow and go forth to meet 
 his Master there? Or was he like Peter who, 'when he saw 
 the wind boisterous he was afraid,' — and, therefore, out of 
 fear, began to sink ? 
 
 "O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt ? " 
 The gentle, reproachful words rang in his ears. 'O thou 
 of little Taith ! ' He thought of the modern world — a world of 
 such ' little faith ' as to be scarcely any faith at all — a world 
 that has exchanged the Gospel of Christ for that of personal 
 convenience, — and he realised as he had often done before, 
 that Self was the god of each man's idolatry. Then was he 
 too a Self-worshipper ? Would he imprison earth and heaven 
 within the narrow ring of his own particular misery ? ' O thou 
 of little faith ! ' 
 
 Alone he struggled with himself, beset by a thousand 
 temptations. One of these was to resign the church altogether 
 and give up his ministry. The reason that suggested itself 
 for this was that he was now uncertain whether he would be 
 able to preach with conviction. If he in his own heart felt 
 that God was cruel, how could he emphasise to others the 
 truth of the Divine Beneficence? A man could only speak 
 from his own experience. And experience had given him a 
 bitter lesson which seemed wantonly wicked and unnecessary. 
 Unnecessary? Yes. Surely, quke unnecessary. And yet — 
 there was a latent trouble lurking in his mind which he could 
 not express, — a vague longing to take up the cross that had 
 been thrown so ruthlessly at his feet — a cross so heavy to bear 
 that his whole spirit recoiled and rebelled at the lifting of it. 
 And presently his thoughts, collecting round one centre, 
 settled on that alone, and he asked himself straightly — " Do I 
 believe, or do I not believe? Am I sure that I accept Christ 
 as God-in-Man and that I faithfully seek not only to interpret, 
 but to live His Gospel ? "
 
 3 04 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 From this point he plunged into an abyss of darkness and 
 the shadow of death. — into a No-Man's-Land of wonder 
 and fear. A long procession of the Churches as they are 
 organised to-day passed before his mind's eye, — Churches 
 for the most part built up on some sort of self-consti- 
 tuted dogma, in which the simple teaching of the loving 
 Saviour is almost entirely excluded. He thought of various 
 1 old ' and ' new ' theologies, which set aside the divinity of 
 Christ as a fable, and assume to teach that the poor potentiality 
 of erring and ignorant man is all-sufficient to make of himself 
 a god, — and he questioned whether he, a slight reed set against 
 the wind, could be of any service to combat the growing heresy 
 of the world. Slowly the answer was given — little by little 
 through the midnight gloom of uncertainty came flickering 
 gleams of light, — bis spirit struggled out of the blinding storm 
 which had beaten him down and overwhelmed him, into a pale 
 new dawn of hope and courage, — and one night he found 
 himself on his knees, praying humbly and fervently for pardon 
 as well as for guidance to that strong sweet Force of Divine 
 Love than which there is nothing sweeter or stronger, and to 
 which no human soul ever truly appealed in vain. 
 
 And when at last the Sunday came on which he had decided 
 to resume duty, he was ready. Ready to face his congregation 
 — ready, with strong heart, steady pulse and firm soul. The 
 mist of tears and fire in his brain had cleared, — he was able to 
 review every incident calmly, — to think of his dead wife as an 
 ever-present, unseen, but actual companion — and to even spare 
 a noble pit) for the fate of the wretched Dan Kiernan whose 
 end had been so swift and horrible, and whose mangled body 
 had, after the brief inquest and usual verdict in such cases, 
 been hastily buried by the parish within whose boundaries it 
 had been found, — all these gruesome memories now settled ac 
 it were into a kind of dark horizon where the clouds hung 
 black and heavy without the power to rise, — but in the fore- 
 ground light had begun to shine. 
 
 On the last Saturday of his self-imposed solitude, Brand 
 called in the evening to see how he was. Everton received
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 305 
 
 him kindly, and with a quiet pathos that rather shook the good 
 doctor from his own composure. 
 
 " And so you are going to preach to-morrow ? " — he said — 
 " Are you sure you are equal to it ? " 
 
 Everton looked at him steadily. 
 
 "I think so," — he answered — "I hope so." 
 
 Brand took a turn or two up and down the room. The 
 window was open, and the soft evening carolling of the birds 
 echoed sweetly on the outside air. 
 
 " How's the boy ? " he enquired. 
 
 " Laurence ? Very well. He is a great help to me." 
 
 Brand looked at him curiously. It was odd to hear a baby 
 of five described as ' a great heip ' to his father j — if he had 
 said 'a great comfort ' that would have been understood. But 
 1 a great help ' ! However 
 
 " I don't know whether the matter will interest you," — he 
 went on — " But Minchin's Brewery " 
 
 Everton raised a hand appealingly. 
 
 " Must I hear this ? " 
 
 11 There's no ' must ' in the case," — answered Brand, with a 
 smile — " But you may as well know that Minchin is in trouble. 
 He can get no hands to work for him." 
 
 Everton was silent. 
 
 " He has sent all over the place," continued Brand — " And 
 despite the number of unemployed both in the counties and 
 London, it seems there are no men to be had for his particular 
 job. In fact, the brewery is regularly boycotted. And some 
 one has doubled the mischief by starting a report that it's 
 haunted." 
 
 " Haunted ! " Everton echoed the word — then gave vent to 
 a long shuddering sigh — " It might well be so ! " 
 
 "So it might," — and Brand walked to the window and 
 looked out on the garden, now glorious with a wealth of early 
 summer blossoms—" Though I don't believe in ghosts myself. 
 But a large majority of humankind are very superstitious, and 
 a rumour of that sort is very successful in keeping people away 
 from the supposed haunted spot. And a wandering phantom, 
 20
 
 3 o6 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 real or imaginary, of Dan Kiernan, such as they say has been 
 seen, is apt to create an unpleasant impression." He paused, 
 — then went on — "No single case of drunkenness in the 
 village has occurred since — since " 
 
 The Vicar interrupted him by a gesture. 
 
 " I understand ! " he said — " For the time being there is a 
 revulsion against the curse of our nation ! But it is only for a 
 time. No power on earth will stop the hideous debasement of 
 the people by drink till the people themselves realise that the 
 brewers and distillers are coining millions of money out of the 
 degradation, ill-health and misery of millions of souls. Then, 
 perhaps, when they see that they, the working-classes, who 
 should be, and are at their best, the life and blood of the 
 nation, are made to serve as the mere foolish tools of a trade, 
 they will awake to their true position. They will refuse to be 
 poisoned in order that the poisoners may become capitalists 
 at their expense." 
 
 "I see you are as strong as ever on the subject," — said 
 Brand — "As indeed you ought to be — and even stronger. 
 But you must remember it is not only among the working- 
 classes that the vice prevails. Drink is as prevalent with the 
 gentry as with commoners. i^nd I'm not sure that my 
 profession isn't as much to blame for the evil as any." 
 
 Everton looked at him enquiringly. 
 
 " I mean the medical profession," — went on Brand, answer- 
 ing the look ; — "Nowadays it is quite a habit among doctors 
 to recommend whisky to their patients instead of wine or any 
 other beverage. Yet any scientific physician who has studied 
 the matter and has not been ' bought over ' by the trade, knows 
 that whisky is injurious to the human system. The old days 
 when our forefathers took too much port, were better than the 
 present time, when thousands of men and women alike are 
 fuddled, if not actually drunk, soon after midday, through 
 whisky-sipping. There was something distinctly respectable 
 about the port-wine toper, — there's nothing in the least ' high- 
 class ' in the whisky sot." He paused, — then resumed — " You 
 may, or may not, be surprised at a story I can tell you, — at any
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 307 
 
 rate it's true ! A celebrated London physician whose name is, as 
 they say, one to conjure with, gave an eloquent lecture at one 
 of the big institutions on the pernicious moral and physical 
 effects of alcohol, and illustrated his sound and sensible 
 theories by diagrams shown with magic-lantern brilliancy. A 
 month after he was approached by a wealthy whisky distiller 
 who offered him two thousand pounds to write a book on the 
 tonic and restorative powers of whisky. Need I explain that 
 the learned medico put his conscience in his pocket, went back 
 on his own arguments, took the two thousand pounds, wrote 
 the required volume, and is now looked upon as a staunch 
 supporter of the spirit trade ? The same thing is done daily 
 on a smaller scale with doctors of less distinction." 
 
 Everton gave a wearied gesture of sorrowful contempt. 
 
 " I am not surprised ! " — he said — " Everything is done 
 nowadays through influence, or money, — and even the honour 
 of kings can be purchased for sufficient millions ! The times 
 we live in aie corrupt, — our civilisation is an over-ripe fruit 
 rotting to its fall. What is falsely called ' rationalism,' or an 
 ' Age of Reason,' has always accompanied national decline. It 
 occurred in Greece and in Rome — it is upon us now in England. 
 It is a sure symptom that the days of noble ideals and 
 enthusiasms are past, and that man's intellect has attained 
 to such a fatal height of pure egoism that he will accept 
 nothing greater, nothing higher than his own opinion. Never 
 was there more urgent need of faith and prayer than now ! " 
 
 Brand fixed a straight and penetrating glance upon him. 
 
 " You still believe in faith and prayer ? " he said. 
 
 Everton met his eyes fully and calmly. 
 
 " With all my soul ! " 
 
 The worthy ' Dr. Harry ' gave a short sigh of relief. 
 
 " I am glad you have come out of the darkness," — he said — 
 " I thought— I feared " 
 
 " That I might prove a coward ! " and Everton's face grew 
 warm with suppressed feeling — " To be candid with you, I 
 feared the same ! Such sorrow as mine pushes the brain to the 
 verge of madness — and in mad moments all good things reel
 
 308 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 away from one — even God ! But no sane man doubts his 
 Creator, and — as you say — I have come out of the darkness ! " 
 
 A silence more eloquent than speech fell between them, — 
 and when they spoke again it was on ordinary topics connected 
 with the village and its inhabitants. But when Brand left the 
 Vicar that night he knew there was no fear of his being unable 
 to preach the next morning. The man was full of strength, 
 dignity and resolve, and his broken heart and ruined happiness 
 had made of him a force to be reckoned with. 
 
 Not only in Shadbrook itself, but through all the neighbour- 
 ing parishes, the news soon flew that Everton was to preach 
 that Sunday; — 'only a fortnight after the burial of his poor 
 little wife ! ' exclaimed the county gossips ; — who would believe 
 that a man, and a clergyman too, could be so callous ! Actually 
 to do his duty in that barefaced manner, so soon after the 
 woman he ' professed ' to love so much, had met with such a 
 dreadful end ! Ah, men, men ! They had no feeling — really 
 none ! Here was a Christian minister who, instead of throwing 
 up his work and going away to mourn decently amid the 
 distractions of a foreign spa for six months, had actually stayed 
 on in his own house, and was now going to take the services 
 and preach as usual, just two weeks after the terrible tragedy 
 which had devastated his home, almost as if nothing had 
 happened ! It was quite incredible ! 
 
 And a crowd, such as had never been seen in the 
 whole neighbourhood, swarmed up and tried to cram itself 
 into the limited space of Shadbrook Church, packing the 
 ancient little building to overflowing long before eleven, each 
 person a-tiptoe with eagerness to catch the first glimpse of 
 the Vicar when he made his reappearance. This general 
 feeling of excitement was in a sense morbid, and of the same 
 type as that which in the days of the Inquisition fired 
 the minds of the torturers when they had a man on the 
 rack, — but underlying all surface interest there was a deeper 
 motive which was half unconscious, — the unspoken, almost 
 unthought desire to know, to see, and to hear whether the 
 victim of a loss so personal, so unmerited and so cruel, could
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 309 
 
 stand up in the pulpit, and with unshaken voice and steadfast eye 
 proclaim his faith in the goodness and mercy of God. Even old 
 'Mortar' Pike, still alive, though now unable to walk, had 
 himself wheeled in a chair as far as the church gates in order 
 to take his feeble part in the unusual stir, — and when the bell 
 slowly tolled the first chime of eleven o'clock, and the organist, 
 'all of a shake,' as he himself expressed it, began the opening 
 bars of a simple voluntary, the silence of the closely-pressed 
 congregation was so intense that the faintest rustle of the ivy 
 that clung round the belfry tower outside could be heard 
 distinctly within the building. Softly and tremblingly the 
 organ music crept through the hushed air, like a whisper of the 
 sea or the ripple of a stream, — and the people sat listening, 
 waiting, and wondering in a tense condition of strained 
 expectation. Then, — with one accord they rose as the Vicar 
 entered ; and all eyes were turned on the tall slim figure in its 
 white surplice, and the pale, delicately-featured face, with 
 its look of devout patience and unspeakable pathos, which 
 expressed so much sorrow bravely borne, — and men and women 
 alike shed tears at the first tones of the gentle deep voice as it 
 uttered the familiar opening sentence : — " When the wicked 
 man turneth away from his wickedness that he hath committed 
 and doeth that which is lawful and right, he shall save his soul 
 alive." Then came a brief pause, — and the musical accents 
 trembled ever so slightly on the next words chosen : — 
 
 " The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit ; a broken and a 
 contrite heart, O God, Thou wilt not despise ! " 
 
 And when people sank on their knees to join in the general 
 confession, sounds of suppressed sobbing mingled with the 
 murmured prayer. Many wept heartily, and were not ashamed 
 of the weakness, — for as Mrs. Moddley afterwards remarked to 
 her neighbours : — " to see Parson Everton looking as pale as a 
 ghost, and as patient as a saint carved out o' marble, was 
 enough to break down the 'ardest feelins, which some folks 
 feelins was 'arder than flints as the Lord very well know'd." 
 
 Conscious of the deep sympathy that flowed out to him 
 from his congregation, and hearing every now and again the
 
 310 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 stifled weeping of some of the women and children, Everton 
 was at many a moment shaken from his enforced composure, 
 but he carried the service bravely through, and only when he 
 mounted the pulpit and looked down on the unusual crowd of 
 faces below him, — many faces quite strange to him, among 
 others quite familiar, all expressing an eager curiosity as well 
 as pity-— did he feel a sudden sick terror of himself — a dread 
 lest his powers should fail him at the last moment. He saw 
 the place where Azalea used to sit, — where her golden hair 
 had caught the light from a side window and had gleamed 
 like a web of the sunshine itself, — where her loving and lovely 
 blue eyes had glanced up at him in shy reverence as he had 
 given out the text of his sermon ; — the bench was eloquently 
 empty ; and though the congregation was inconveniently 
 crowded, no one had trespassed upon its vacancy. He leaned 
 both hands heavily upon the velvet cushion in front of him 
 and closed his eyes with an inward prayer for strength, — his 
 heart beat thickly, and the blood surged noisily in his ears, — 
 his throat and lips grew dry and burning, and he wondered 
 whether he could so much as utter another word. Yet to all 
 appearance he was perfectly self-possessed, and when at last he 
 essayed to speak, his voice, to his own astonishment, rang out 
 with a thrilling clearness as he gave his text from the eighth 
 chapter of St. John : 
 
 " Because I tell you the truth you believe Me not." 
 With the very pronouncing of these words the flood-gates of 
 long-pent-up thoughts were opened, and a tide of eloquence 
 such as the parishioners of Shadbrook had never heard or 
 dreamed of, came pouring from his lips, — such fiery eloquence 
 as might have inspired an early apostle for whom neither 
 thrones, principalities nor powers existed, but only the one 
 Supreme God. He spoke of the pitiful egoism of modern 
 thought, — of the apathy of the world to the gradual widening 
 of the breach between itself and the Message Divine, — he drew 
 a powerful and vivid picture of humanity left without the 
 saving grace of the Christ Ideal ; — and — pointing out the 
 beautiful obedience to law displayed by the natural creation,
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 311 
 
 he entered into a passionate pleading for all things good and 
 tender and true, between man and his brother man. Such 
 sentences as might have graced the pages of Novalis came to 
 him with an case and spontaneity that would have distinguished 
 the finest of born orators, and yet he was himself unconscious 
 that he was saying anything out of the usual commonplace run 
 of orthodoxy. He did not realise that the long, quiet six 
 years of his married life had, because they were happy and 
 full of personal satisfaction, been unproductive, — or that the 
 very sense of the settled security he had felt in his home had 
 effectually kept his thoughts chained up as in a prison-house ; 
 — nor would he have admitted, even if it had been suggested, 
 that intellectual growth and advancement are seldom, if ever, 
 associated with purely domestic comfort and tranquillity. 
 Certainly the Spirit moved him as it had often moved him 
 to write though never to speak, — and his listeners hung on 
 his every word, intent, enrapt, amazed and fascinated, — hushed 
 into a stillness so intense that not even the fold of a woman's 
 garment stirred. Presently he came to a pause. With a 
 straight unfaltering regard he looked down upon the upturned 
 wondering faces, and his voice changed to a softer and sadder 
 tone. 
 
 "And now," — he said — "now, in conclusion, I venture to 
 address you more personally than generally, — not as your 
 Vicar only, but as your friend and neighbour, who is ordained 
 to work with you, suffer with you, and if it so please God, to 
 live and die v/ith you. It is possible that, so far, my 
 administration of this parish has been something of a failure, 
 — I am quite sure I have made many mistakes, — and some 
 of you I may have offended, while others I may not have 
 understood ; but before you go out of church this morning, I 
 will ask you to believe that whatever I have done has 
 been done out of honest love and care for you, and 
 because I thought my duty lay in doing it. What I have 
 left undone is through some fault in myself which is 
 not intentional and which I shall strive to amend — for I 
 want," — he paused again — then went on, bravely — " I want you
 
 3 i2 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 to trust me ! I want you to understand that there is no selfish, 
 narrow, or puritanical motive in my heart when I try to keep 
 down the besetting evil of this place — the accursed Drink. I 
 have nothing to gain by it. On the contrary, I have much to 
 lose. If I, from this pulpit, could tell you vice was virtue, and 
 that men when they are drunk are more to be respected than 
 men when they are sober, I should win far more commenda- 
 tion from what are called ' local authorities ' than I do when I 
 declare to you that the health of your bodies is ruined and the 
 safety of your souls endangered by drink, and that nothing can 
 alter the fact. It is not for me to speak concerning the dark 
 cloud of horror that has swept over this peaceful-seeming little 
 village within the last three weeks, — for I am he on whom the 
 storm has broken, and 1 must bear it all alone. But one thing 
 I very earnestly desire to say, and it is, that I fasten no blame 
 on the memory of the evil-doer of the deed that has left me 
 desolate, — for he never was and never could be considered as 
 fully responsible for his actions. One might as well blame a 
 wild beast for ravaging the forest to seek what it could devour. 
 A man, drugged by poison, which the laws of the realm most 
 wickedly allow to be sold to him as pure and wholesome 
 liquor, cannot be held as personally guilty of any crime, — and 
 therefore, I have only to say that even as God has punished 
 the unhappy sinner, so may God forgive him ! And so may 
 God equally forgive all sinners who are led astray by sinners 
 worse than themselves ! For herein is our most terrible 
 responsibility in this world, — it lies not so much in the wrong 
 that we ourselves do, but the wrong we make others do. If I 
 commit a sin I must learn the enormity of my own wickedness, 
 and abide by my own punishment ; but if I drag others into 
 my sin, then my sinning is a hundredfold augmented, because 
 I force or persuade others into a punishment which I alone 
 should have received. I am not seeking to draw any personal 
 inference from this, or to drive any point too closely home. 
 What I wish you to feel and to know is, that I humbly and 
 devoutly wish to be your friend in all things — in matters small 
 as well as great, — that I desire to sink myself and the particular
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 313 
 
 misery of my own life entirely out of sight, and so comport 
 myself among you that you may have no cause to reproach my 
 ministry. I tell my men parishioners here plainly that, if, in 
 spite of all they know, and all they must surely realise 
 respecting the evils of drink, they still choose to help 
 make large fortunes for those who brew and distil poison for 
 their undoing, I shall not reprove or attempt to control 
 them. I shall merely try to help them when they are in 
 sickness and trouble. For this is a ' free ' country, — and no 
 amount of legislation will alter the mind of the free-willed man 
 who chooses Drink as his career. I tell the women that if it 
 is their pleasure to see their homes bid waste, and their young 
 children brought up to believe that the chief object of existence 
 is to drink away every penny that husbands and fathers earn, 
 I shall remain passive, though sorrowful, and do no more than 
 offer consolation when it is needed. In brief, I shall not 
 1 interfere ' with you, — save to rescue and comfort when I can. 
 But I shall pray," — 
 
 Here he waited a moment, gathering all his strength together 
 for his concluding words — 
 
 " I shall pray God daily and nightly that He may see fit in His 
 wonder-working wisdom to remove the temptations to sin that 
 abound in thic neighbourhood, and that He will give you — you 
 yourselves, — the sound sense and perception to understand 
 and to know the measure of the physical and moral disaster 
 which the national scourge of Drink brings on you and on your 
 children, — ay, even on those unborn ! — and if I personally am 
 afflicted, — if I personally am struck at and my life's joy swept 
 away in one day through the working and result of this very 
 curse among you, I claim from Almighty Justice no vengeance 
 for my grief and desolation, except to see you, my little flock, 
 
 saved ! " 
 
 And in the passion of the moment he stretched out 
 his hands with an eloquent gesture as though he would 
 have gathered the whole congregation into some heavenly 
 haven of shelter and peace. 
 
 " For you only I will ask — that God may give you to me !
 
 314 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 That God may show me how to make you happy in your 
 labours and your lives, — that He may help me to teach 
 your children the sweet unspeakable content that is found 
 in clean, simple and temperate ways, — and that the tears I 
 have shed, and the despair I have known, may be accept- 
 able to Him as a poor sacrifice of love on my part, so 
 that if He sees it good and fitting, you may receive more 
 comfort from me, left comfortless. For I am now detached 
 from all desire in this world for myself; — I have finished with 
 hope, — I have done with delight ; what strength I have, — 
 what brain I have, what heart I have — all are yours ! — and my 
 sole effort from henceforth must be and shall be, to help you, 
 if I may, no matter how feebly and inadequately, a little 
 further on the road towards Heaven ! If you will not come 
 with me, I cannot force you, — my only persuasion must be 
 through ' the love of Christ which constraineth us.' Give me 
 your prayers, my friends, that I may not fail ! Give me your 
 trust ! " 
 
 He ceased. His hands were still extended above the 
 people, while they, gazing up at him in mingled wonder and 
 awe, saw his face so transfigured by the light of his soul's 
 inspiration, that it seemed to have gained an almost super- 
 natural beauty. Then. — as he, with a gentle solemnity, 
 pronounced the benediction, they sank low on their knees, 
 and for several minutes remained absorbed in prayer, many 
 of them weeping audibly. 
 
 When at last they rose to disperse, they did so in a 
 strange, unusual silence, — men walked out with carefully 
 hushed steps, and women moved softly, making no secret 
 of their tears as they filed slowly past the freshly-laid turf 
 that covered Azalea's small grave, where many wreaths and 
 posies, newly gathered by the children of the village, lay in 
 lovely profusion. Strangers paused in the churchyard, anxious 
 to see the Vicar as he came out, but their curiosity was not 
 gratified, as he had a private way of his own from the vestry 
 to the Vicarage through the back of his garden, and of that he 
 availed himself. Squire Hazlitt, who, in the usual ' Riviera
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 315 
 
 season ' absence of his wife and family, had made a point of 
 coming back from Paris to attend the first service taken by 
 Everton since his terrible bereavement, stood in the church 
 porch waiting for his carriage, and made no attempt to 
 disguise the fact that he was blowing his nose and wiping his 
 eyes vigorously, — for, as he afterwards expressed it, he had 
 been quite ' bowled over ' by the pathos and simplicity of the 
 Vicar's appeal to his parishioners. To him, one of the 
 wandering tourists, a young man of rather refined appearance, 
 ventured to address the remark — 
 
 :, You have a wonderful preacher in this out-of-the-way 
 place, sir ! " 
 
 The Squire looked at him chillingly, without reply. 
 
 " I beg your pardon ! " and the young man coloured a little 
 as he realised that this county magnate evidently considered 
 he was taking a liberty in addressing him — "But — I am 
 reporting this sermon for the press. — and I thought you might 
 possibly be interested — you are Mr. Hazlitt ? " 
 
 " I am." 
 
 " Then as the patron of the living, you must naturally feel 
 proud of the present Vicar? Of course, what he has said 
 to-d?y is bound to make him famous." 
 
 " Indeed ! " And the Squire looked grimly dubious. 
 "What use will that be to him?" 
 
 The journalist smiled deprecatingly. 
 
 " Surely fame is often useful ? Especially to a preacher ! " 
 
 " You may think so — I don't ! " Here the Squire drove his 
 walking-stick into the ground by way of pointing an emphasis 
 to his words — " Fame isn't understood as fame in these days. 
 If the world makes much of a man because he's clever, you 
 journalists are the first to run him down and say he's 
 'advertising himself.' The managers of modern journalism 
 always suspect some unworthy motive behind the work of 
 every good intellect. They'd have called Christ Himself a 
 1 self-advertiser,' if He had appeared in this century. Richard 
 Everton was always a fine preacher, but it has taken no less 
 than the murder of his wife for a discerning press to find it out ! "
 
 316 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 With that the old gentleman got into his carnage which had 
 just come up, and drove away. 
 
 The journalist was a trifle taken aback. He looked round 
 and saw that three or four men of the farmer type had been 
 lingering near and had heard the conversation. 
 
 " Rather a plain-speaking old chap, your Squire ! : ' he said, 
 carelessly. One of the men gave a slow smile. 
 
 " We'se all plain-speakin' on the Cotswolds," — he replied — 
 " An' Squire ain't nowt ahint us. Be ye goin' to put parson's 
 sermon i' the papers, mister?" 
 
 " I think so." 
 
 " Then the whole world'll see it, I s'pose ? " 
 
 " Well ! " and the young press man smiled condescendingly, 
 " Perhaps not the whole world, but a very great portion of 
 it. Our circulation is six times as large as that of any other 
 daily paper." 
 
 At this all the men burst into a laugh. 
 
 " That's right ! Keep up the advertisement ! You earn 
 your money while you may, mister ! Go it strong 1 " 
 
 And with another guffaw of laughter they strolled off. For 
 a moment disconcerted, the journalist looked puzzled and half 
 angry, — then he laughed too. 
 
 " Evidently these chaps don't believe in advertised sales," — ■ 
 he said — " I wonder if they at all represent the general feeling 
 of the rustic population ? " 
 
 He went on his way considering whether he should make an 
 attempt to see the Vicar personally, and get from him a few 
 notes of what he had said that morning, in order to compare 
 them with his own shorthand memoranda, — but a certain 
 latent sense of good feeling held him back from this intention, 
 as well as the more practical idea, which was well-nigh a 
 certainty, that if he did succeed in obtaining an interview, 
 Everton would probably forbid any publication of his sermon 
 at all. And this would completely frustrate his hopes, for he 
 had been commissioned by his editor-in-chief to use extra 
 special care in getting a good report, as Mrs. Nordstein, wife 
 of one of the several Jew shareholders in his newspaper, had
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 317 
 
 expressed herself as curious to know what the Vicar of Shad- 
 brock had to say to his parishioners after the terrible tragedy 
 that had made havoc of his happiness, and it was understood 
 that if he reported the proceedings faithfully, it would be to 
 his advantage. Indeed, he was himself aware of that — for 
 Mrs. Nordstein ruled the whole business of the office, socially 
 and morally, — what she wished was done, — what she objected 
 to was not done. The dream of the young journalist was to 
 get an invitation to one of Mrs. Nordstein's 'At Homes,' where 
 he might gaze critically and unreproved upon the charms of 
 'the most beautiful woman of her day,' as she was always 
 carefully styled by the special newspaper on which he earned a 
 precarious living. What interest she had in Shadbrook or its 
 Vicar he could not imagine, nor did he trouble to enquire, — 
 it was enough for him to know that if her expressed wishes 
 were satisfactorily carried out, it was possible that he might 
 stand in better favour with his editor. 
 
 The rest of that Sunday passed quietly away, unmarked 
 save for one unusual incident, which was, that though both 
 public-houses in Shadbrook were opened after church time 
 they had no customers. The village appeared to have retired 
 within itself and closed its doors against all intruders. The 
 sunlight lay in broad warm patches over the hills and fields, — 
 there was a joyous singing of birds everywhere, and no dis- 
 cordant sounds or sights marred the peaceful beauty of the 
 day. There was an afternoon service at the church, but 
 Everton entrusted this and the duties of the Sunday school to 
 his temporary assistant, the mild young curate before men- 
 tioned, for he found himself more over-wrought than he had 
 imagined would be possible after his effort of the morning. 
 He was also a little troubled in his own mind, questioning 
 whether after all he had done well in making a direct appeal 
 to his congregation. It is dangerous to be too honest and 
 straightforward in this world. If you go straight to a given 
 point, you are sure to brush up against people making for the 
 same place round sly corners, and if you chance to knock 
 down these ' dodgers ' they never forgive you. Yet in his
 
 318 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 innermost conscience, Everton did not actually regret having 
 spoken as his heart had dictated. It might be a mistake, or it 
 might not, from a conventional point of view, — but then, what 
 he sought most to fight against was this very ' conventionalism,' 
 which takes all the warmth of humanity out of religion and 
 makes it a mere dead formula. He had resolved to combat it 
 in every possible way, — and he had made a beginning. Think 
 as he would, argue with himself as he would, there was some- 
 thing within his soul that burned like a consuming fire — some- 
 thing that clamoured for utterance and that would be bound to 
 utter itself before long, even if he died for it ! 
 
 "I cannot," — he half whispered to the silence — "I cannot 
 look on at the growing apathy and atheism of the world and 
 offer no protest ! I must declare the message of Christ anew, 
 even if the people of this generation have come to think it 
 such an old, old message that they are tired of hearing it For 
 if I do not speak as I feel I am commanded to speak, I am 
 but a trader in the Gospel, not a minister of its truth." 
 
 This expression 'trader in the Gospel' which had leaped 
 involuntarily into his brain, gave him a moment's pause. Was 
 it not all a question of ' trade ' ? The Pope and his myrmidons, 
 — was not the keeping up of all the magnificent ritual of Rome 
 more a matter of money than anything else ? And the Church 
 of England ? Did not every ambitious clergyman hope for a 
 ' rich ' living ? — for a ' comfortable ' settlement in material 
 rather than spiritual things? And were methods of work 
 which involved personal considerations of convenience and well- 
 being, the methods enjoined by Christ? On the contrary, 
 they were directly opposed to His teaching. 
 
 "We are all on the wrong road," he thought, sorrowfully — 
 "And the difficulty before us is to struggle back through the 
 labyrinth we have ourselves made, to the right one. There 
 must be bolder, more direct and fearless teaching ; our human 
 1 theologies ' are misleading clouds which veil the face of 
 Christ ! " 
 
 Next day Sebastien Douay came to see him. 
 
 " I could not wait for you any longer," — said the little priest,
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 319 
 
 pressing his hand warmly — " You told me you would come to 
 me when you were conquered, or had conquered. Well ! — the 
 fight is over — you are the victor ! I give you the laurel ! But 
 you have trampled vie in the battle, my friend ! — no matter ! " 
 
 " Trampled you ? " echoed Everton, amazed — " Why, what do 
 you mean?" 
 
 "Do you not see? Where is my mission Catholique? 
 Where do I make my converts ? What converts are there to 
 make ? There are two or three — but there will be no more, — 
 not if you go on preaching as you preached yesterday ! You 
 will draw all the people — all ! " He laughed a little — then 
 sighed. " Ah well ! I will report progress to my superiors ! I 
 will tell them there is a real preacher here in the Cotswold dis- 
 trict — a real one — not a sham ! And so long as he speaks of 
 Christ there will be no chance for St Peter ! " 
 
 " But, my dear good friend," said Everton, touched and per- 
 plexed by his whimsically plaintive manner — " What difference 
 can it make to you ? I said nothing in my sermon yesterday 
 that could appeal to any person outside Shadbrook." 
 
 " Outside Shadbrook there are several wider Shadbrooks ! " 
 and Douay gave an expressive gesture — " But it is possible you 
 have not seen the morning's papers ? " 
 
 " The morning's papers ? No." 
 
 " Ah ! That explains it ! And whether you will care foi it 
 or not is a question, but your sermon is printed in them all, — 
 and you are, for the time being, famous ! Yes, my peer dear 
 friend ! — you are no longer the obscure scholar, peacefully 
 preaching to a handful of villagers— your voice is ringing 
 through the world ! " 
 
 "But how?" — and the Vicar looked as he felt, pained and 
 bewildered — "God knows I have had enough of journalism ! — 
 and yesterday I spoke to no one — I gave no report " 
 
 " What you do not give the reporters take,"— said Douay— 
 " and however it has happened, it is done ! You are an 
 acknowledged personage ! And Shadbrook is proud ! Shad- 
 brook is reading all its halfpenny dailies this morning, and to 
 see its Vicar named as a great and rising man, makes it feel
 
 320 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 great and rising itself. But for me — alas ! My poor little tin 
 chapelle will be empty ! One honest Christian minister is so 
 rare that he is enough to command a large district ! Two are 
 not needed ! You see now, my friend, where your great Church 
 of England stands or falls ? On its ordained ministers ! If 
 every preacher belonging to the country's national faith spoke 
 to the people as you have spoken, from his heart, — or let us 
 say, if every preacher had a heart to speak from, there would be 
 no weakening, but rather strengthening, — and the Holy Father 
 would lose all his English revenues ! It is only the lukewarm- 
 ness and laxity of your Church's own conduct that opens the 
 door to Rome ! "
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 AFTER his sudden, almost involuntary outpouring of un- 
 premeditated eloquence, which, addressed only to the 
 parishioners of Shadbrook, had reached so wide an audience 
 that it had in very truth made him famous, Richard Everton 
 found himself snatched up, as it were, by masterful hands 
 invisible and plunged into a vortex of work. The days rushed 
 by as they had never rushed before, — for domestic happiness 
 accompanied by monotonous tranquillity, is apt to make time 
 drag the pace with lame and leaden feet. Nothing is so slow 
 as the complete equanimity of persons and surroundings, — it 
 is the existence of the carefully cultured vegetable untroubled 
 by so much as a slug. When life is hurled into battle, con- 
 fronted by enemies, tossed and driven between the rival forces 
 of heaven and hell, then only is it life indeed, — then only do 
 the formerly lagging hours take to themselves light wings as on 
 the heels of Mercury, and fly with a rushing speed and a flame 
 of glorious vitality that knows no pause and no fatigue. 
 Everton, living through the daily routine of a quiet country 
 cleric, devoted to his wife and child, and seeing very little for 
 himself beyond the enchanted circle of his own home made 
 radiant by the pretty Azalea's gaiety and charm, had never 
 thoroughly realised that his very happiness was narrowing his 
 outlook and cramping his energies, though he was vaguely 
 conscious that something was lacking to his full ability, but 
 what it was he had never entirely determined. Now that the 
 twin furies of Death and Despair had stormed his paradise, 
 they had left its gates open, — and the world rushed in, — the 
 
 21
 
 322 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 tired, doubting, suffering, angry world, full of its own sorrows, 
 its own disappointments, its own ambitions, — a world that 
 cried to him : — " You, O man, who continue to preach of 
 faith and hope in the midst of desolation and anguish, give me 
 some of the comfort you give to yourself! Lo, I, too, am 
 drunken and despairing and murderous ! — I, too, have loved 
 and lost, — I, too, have laid my beloved ones in the worm- 
 infested earth, — I, too, have blasphemed God and shrieked at 
 Him : ' Where art Thou ! ' Tell me why I should not weep — 
 why I should not rage and complain ! — teach me, if you can, 
 why I should be patient, — why I must endure unto the end 
 that I may be saved ! If you are not liar, humbug, pharisee, 
 hypocrite, as so many of my teachers and preachers have been, 
 and are, help me as you help yourself, for I need all the help 
 that you can give ! " 
 
 And he, the newly-aroused soul bent on the serving of 
 Christ, heard and answered. There was no moment of time 
 lost with him. Sunday after Sunday his little church was 
 crowded, — Sunday after Sunday the ' fiery tongues ' that 
 descended at the first Pentecost, seemed alike to descend upon 
 him, for he uttered such fearless, passionate, straight truths 
 concerning the heresies and growing wickedness of the present 
 so-called ' civilisation ' which he prophesied was rapidly draw- 
 ing to its climax and fall, and conveyed them to his hearers 
 in words and sentences of such rich and powerful eloquence, 
 that they clung to the memory and sank deep into the mind. 
 All through that summer, hundreds had to be turned away 
 from the church because there was not even standing room. 
 Extra services were held, and once every fortnight Everton 
 preached what he called a ' secular sermon ' in the school-room, 
 which proved to be such an attraction that people gathered 
 from far and near to hear him, and would have gladly paid 
 money for their seats if he would have accepted it, but he 
 would not. And so, instead of gold and silver, they brought 
 by way of tribute and thank-offering, the loveliest flowers to lay 
 on his murdered wife's grave, which was now marked by a plain 
 white marble cross, laid recumbent on the ground, though
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 323 
 
 raised just enough to allow the sun to reflect and shape its 
 shadow on the grass. The memory of Azalea had become 
 hallowed by the pity and remorse of the villagers, and they 
 took a pride in making the place where her mortal remains 
 were buried, look like a beautiful little fairy field of blossom. 
 The Vicar noted their care and tenderness, but said nothing, 
 not even in thanks. He felt it sorely that they had misunder- 
 stood the poor little woman when she was alive, — this strewing 
 of roses and lilies on her grave was the expression of a regret 
 that came too late. 
 
 Twelve months flew by with unprecedented rapidity so far 
 as Everton himself was concerned, and the changes wrought in 
 Shadbrook during that space of time were almost as amazing as 
 the swiftly spreading fame of his preaching. For one thing, 
 Minchin's Brewery had received its death-blow. By twos and 
 threes the shareholders withdrew themselves and their cash 
 from the concern, — labour could only be obtained intermit- 
 tently, and never for long periods, as the rumour that the ' yard ' 
 was haunted had, like all such rumours, become so emphasised 
 by constant repetition that it was now generally accepted as 
 a fact. The horrible ghost of Dan Kiernan, mangled and 
 bleeding, had been seen wandering among the piled-up beer- 
 casks, and bending over the vats, — at least so the different 
 ' hands,' casually employed from different neighbourhoods, were 
 ready to say and to swear, both in and out of their 'cups.' 
 And from the brewery the ' phantom ' flavour seemed to have 
 reached the beer, — for orders grew less and less, and even Mr. 
 Topper of the ' Stag and Crow ' public-house one day declared 
 in a burst of confidence that ' Minchin's Fourpenny ' wasn't 
 what it used to be. 
 
 "The fact is, I can't sell it,"— he said— "And I've told 
 Minchin so. Something's got to be done, or we'll have to shut 
 up shop. Custom's falling off cruel ! " 
 
 This was a fact. The Shadbrook working-men, farmhands 
 and agricultural labourers alike, had begun to fight shy of their 
 'publics.' Some of them kept up the habit of taking a daily 
 glass at one or other of the convenient bars — but it was only a
 
 324 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 glass and not, as formerly, several glasses. The offer of so 
 much ' free beer ' in the twenty-four hours tempted no one to 
 work at the brewery, — and when the Vicar one day quietly 
 announced the opening of a small gymnasium and billiard-room 
 in the village, which, with the ready assistance of SquireHazlitt,he 
 had managed to make out of two dismantled but picturesque old 
 cottages turned into one building, the young men gladly flocked 
 there of an evening and gave themselves up to wholesome sports 
 and exercises, and were well content with the excellent coffee and 
 mild tobacco provided for their refreshment during the games. 
 Here would come old 'Mortar' Pike in his wheeled chair, to 
 witness the exhibition of such feats of strength as he had once 
 been famous for, and in his feeble, wheezy voice he would com- 
 ment upon and criticise the falling-off of ability and suppleness 
 among the youth of the present day. 
 
 " Lord, Lord ! " he would pipe, querulously — " To see me 
 give a turn at wrestlin' would a' done yer 'art good ! — there 
 worn't no faddy nonsense about me — I worn't afeard o' my own 
 fist, no, nor nobuddy else's fist nayther ! But you lads is all 
 like cheepin' chickabiddies creepin' out of a shell ! — you'll 
 never make such men as used to be on the Cotswolds — no, 
 nor you'll never see a man like me no more ! — for the Lord '11 be 
 pleased to keep me 'bove ground till I'm a 'underd — ay ! and 
 past, mebbe ! — an' there ain't one among ye as'll get to that 
 last mile-post — mark my wurrd ! " 
 
 Then the lads of the village would laugh and humour him, 
 and persuade him to tell them stories of the ' long, long ago,' 
 which he was very willing to do, being childishly gratified to 
 have such an audience ready to listen to him. And the even- 
 ings would sometimes finish up with part-singing, for many of 
 the young fellows had good voices and a taste for music,— so 
 that the time passed in so much pleasant sociability and enter- 
 tainment that not one of the men who were thus harmlessly 
 enjoying themselves thought of the public-house or manifested 
 the least desire to go thither. Naturally these friendly 
 gatherings of the able-bodied male population of Shadbrook for 
 1 sports and exercises ' were an opposing influence to the sale
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 325 
 
 of Minchin's liquors in the village, and in a way helped to give 
 the toppling brewery an extra roll downhill. Nevertheless, 
 though the business was daily and hourly becoming more 
 insecure, Mr. and Mrs. Minchin presented an unmoved, not 
 to say arrogant front to the world, almost as if every one did 
 not know that their 'Company' paid no dividends. They had 
 reduced their expenses considerably, had sold their horses, and 
 went on foot instead of in carriages, — while their meanness to 
 their domestics and tradespeople had from casual murmurings 
 passed into a local proverb. ' Don't Minchin it ' had become 
 the ordinary phrase used on market-days between buyers and 
 sellers, when the former were inclined to drive too close and 
 hard a bargain, and 'as mean as Minchin' expressed the last 
 possible qualification of stinginess, and bade fair to remain 
 in the language as one of those proverbial 'colloquialisms' 
 which occasionally crop up to perplex the antiquarian. 
 The feud between themselves and the Vicar of Shadbrook 
 was far more bitter now, than when poor, pretty little Azalea 
 had been alive to infuriate the spiteful Mrs. Minchin by 
 her bright charm of face and figure, and her superior taste 
 in dress, — but they had to chew the unsavoury cud of envy 
 and hatred in secret, inasmuch as from end to end of the 
 whole neighbourhood Everton had secured the position of a 
 ruling power. Every one came to seek his advice, or profit by 
 his counsel, — and he who had imagined that with the death 
 of the one woman he had loved his life would have been 
 empty and desolate, with a desolation as horrible as that of 
 a lonely hell, found it filled in full measure, overflowing and 
 running over with so many new labours and interests that he 
 had no time to think of himself or his sorrows at all. 
 
 And with these new labours and interests a strange new 
 passion sprang up in his soul, — a love for Azalea dead, even 
 deeper than that he had cherished for her when living. All the 
 small weaknesses, frivolities and inconsistencies of her nature 
 had dropped from his memory of her, and had left him to think 
 of her as some grand sweet angel, ever near to him to guide 
 and to console. So much indeed had he sanctified his earthly
 
 326 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 love into a heavenly one that it was as if the man's inner self 
 had become wedded to some spirit of unseen but eternal 
 beauty. By day he worked in the quiet consciousness that 
 she, his beloved, worked with him, — at night he felt her close 
 presence about him like a warm enfolding radiance, — and this 
 persistent clinging to something indefinitely pure and sweet 
 and everlasting — something which he could not shape even in 
 his imagination, but which, nevertheless, truly existed for him, 
 made him almost as much of a poet and dreamer as he was 
 a thinker and preacher. Azalea herself had never thought so 
 far as to consider the possibility of keeping her husband's love 
 after death, nor had she ever exacted from him any promises 
 of lifelong fidelity, for among the lightly fluttering thoughts 
 that had occasionally hovered through her little brain had 
 been the uncomfortable one that 'men were deceivers ever.' 
 Had she been told that this one man, — her own simple, ' prosy ' 
 undemonstrative ' Dick,' had such a deep store of romance in 
 his nature as to be capable of sanctifying his life to her 
 memory, she would never have believed it. 
 
 Nevertheless, so it truly was, — and as many a monk in olden 
 days paid devotion to some one particular saint who was counted 
 second to the Almighty in the records of his mind, so Richard 
 Everton laid all his endeavours and undertakings on the shrine 
 of his dead love, — the wife and mother who had been so cruelly 
 snatched away from him in the very blossoming time of her 
 womanhood. And so unwearying was he in well-doing and so 
 swift was the growth of his influence, not only in his own parish, 
 but throughout the whole neighbourhood and far beyond it, that 
 the days scudded by like full-sailed ships before a fair wind, 
 especially as he had undertaken the whole business of educating 
 his little son Laurence, and fitting him for entry into Winchester 
 school. The boy was remarkably apt and quick to learn ; — more- 
 over he showed a keen delight in his studies, and was never so 
 happy as when he was ' preparing ' his lessons. Books were his 
 passion, — and yet with all his love of reading and his fondness 
 for asking questions of a nature somewhat puzzling to his 
 elders, he was a thorough child, full of fun and fond of games.
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 327 
 
 Sometimes his father regretted that there were no children in 
 the neighbourhood of his own class and age with whom he 
 could associate, but Laurence himself did not seem to feel the 
 lack of companions. He rather liked being alone, — he was 
 perfectly healthy and happy, and had all sorts of ways of in- 
 venting amusements which suited his own particular taste and 
 turn of mind. Sebastien Douay, always cheery, always kindly, 
 despite the fact that his 'tin chapelle' now remained, as he 
 had prophesied, deplorably empty, and that his ' mission 
 Catholique' among the benighted folk of the district made 
 no progress, did his genial best to become a child himself in 
 order to entertain the little fellow; — he was always bringing 
 him new toys, pictures, and wondrous modern ' scientific ' 
 games, all of which Laurence gratefully accepted, and con- 
 sidered, till he had found them out and knew their composition 
 by heart, when he put them away with an ineffable air of quiet 
 boredom. He was very fond of Douay, but apparently regarded 
 him as a harmless little man who must be humoured rather 
 than honoured. 
 
 " I wish," he said one day, very gravely, — "I wish you would 
 talk to me about what you know and feel yourself, instead of 
 trying to play with me." 
 
 Douay's round eyes opened surprisedly. 
 
 " Talk to you about what I know and feel myself ? " he echoed. 
 
 " Yes," — and Laurence smiled at him encouragingly — 
 " Because you're a man, and you can tell me what it is like 
 to be a man. From all I see, I should think it must be very 
 troublesome. I would ra'her be a little boy." 
 
 " Ma foi ! " sighed Douay, with a comical shrug of his shoul- 
 ders—" So would I ! " 
 
 At this Laurence laughed so heartily that Douay was de- 
 lighted. 
 
 " Ah, that is what I like to hear ! " he exclaimed — " You 
 should laugh often like that, my child ! — it is good for you ! " 
 
 " It's not good for me to laugh when there's nothing to 
 laugh at," — said Laurence, with a quaint upward look at him — 
 " I should be like the silly boy in the village who laughed him-
 
 328 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 self into a fit the other day because a spider dropped on his 
 head. But it would make any one laugh, you know, to think 
 of you as a little boy ! " 
 
 " Would it ? " and ' Father ' Douay rubbed his nose medita- 
 tively — " Laurence, mon petit, how old are you ? " 
 
 " Six. Going on for seven," — replied Laurence, promptly. 
 
 "You are sure you are not sixty, going on for seventy?" 
 and Douay put on a catechising air — " You have made 
 no mistake ? " 
 
 Laurence gave him a look of quiet scorn. 
 
 " You think that's funny," — he observed — " I wish you 
 wouldn't be funny." 
 
 Douay collapsed after this, and later on asked Everton 
 whether the boy ought not to go to a preparatory school ? 
 
 "He's too young; — too little altogether," — said Everton — 
 " Besides, I can prepare him for Winchester myself." 
 
 Douay spread out his hands resignedly. 
 
 "You must do with your own child as you please, my 
 friend ! But take care ! He will be either a misanthrope or 
 a genius ! " 
 
 Everton smiled. 
 
 " You think that possible ? A genius ? " 
 
 " Quite possible ! But consider ! What do the modern 
 wise men say of genius ? That it is insanity ! Reflect upon 
 that, good Richard ! All the great thinkers, musicians, artists, 
 poets and dreamers who have made the world rich in art and 
 thought were, and are, madmen and madwomen — according to 
 the latest science ! Only the Pig-man is sane ; — the Pig-man 
 who grunts over his own trough of hog-wash ! The God-man, 
 ay, even our Blessed Lord Himself, is classed nowadays among 
 the insane ! Would you have your son a lunatic ? " 
 
 Everton looked amused. 
 
 " You talk to entertain yourself, my dear Douay," he said, 
 gently, — "as you often do. You know that the conflicting 
 opinions of scientists on life and its wonders have no weight 
 with me ; nor do I care for modern criticism on any form of 
 art. I would have my boy follow the bent of his own best
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 329 
 
 nature, and if he should prove, as you say, a 'genius,' I shall 
 not complain. There are very few of the type ! " 
 
 That afternoon he received a letter from a certain Bishop 
 more noted for social amenities than religious discipline, 
 inviting him to preach in one of the largest and most fashion- 
 able churches of the West End of London, on behalf of a 
 great scheme of charity which was being organised by such 
 among the ' Upper Ten ' as were really sincerely disposed to 
 do good, and including, of course, those who sought or needed 
 a special advertisement through alms-giving. It was a 'noble 
 cause,' wrote the Bishop, — and he was certain from what 
 he had heard and read of Mr. Everton's preaching, that no 
 one could be found to plead it with more eloquence. Would 
 he come Sunday fortnight ? He, the Bishop, would arrange 
 that one at least of the numerous lesser scions of Royalty 
 should be present to hear the sermon. Everton smiled at this 
 with a faint contempt for the Bishop's touch of snobbishness, — 
 and he thought over the proposal for some hours before 
 answering it. Finally, however, he wrote accepting it. Deep 
 in his innermost soul there lurked a strong desire to make a 
 trial of his powers in London, and he could not bring himself 
 to throw away the offered opportunity. Moreover, there 
 happened to be a clerical friend of his own residing near 
 Shadbrook who had often expressed a wish to preach in Shad- 
 brook Church, — if he went to London this would give his 
 friend the opportunity of taking the service during his absence. 
 
 Things arranged themselves in the usual open-door fashion 
 which so often curiously attends a chain of circumstances that 
 are destined to affect one's life providentially or adversely — and 
 the intervening fortnight sped on so rapidly that almost before 
 he knew how it had flown, he found himself one Saturday 
 afternoon in the huge, sooty metropolis, — the city of cities 
 which most resembles Babylon in its vast wealth, luxury and 
 arrogance, and which is as surely doomed as was that ancient 
 ' lady of the kingdoms ' to sudden and complete destruction. 
 From the smudgy windows of the reading-room of a quiet 
 ' private ' hotel not far from the British Museum, he surveyed
 
 330 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 the dingy street, — the tall ugly houses, the dirty chimneys, and 
 the tired-looking people that hurried past every now and again, 
 all seemingly bent on some object which must be attained in 
 desperate haste, or not at all, — their eyes strained in an onward 
 groping gaze of utter fatigue and hopeless endurance — an 
 expression which in this twentieth century appears to have 
 become chronic with a large majority of persons, so that few 
 countenances nowadays convey the idea of that calm and 
 serene content which should naturally radiate from every human 
 being who is rightly conscious of the high privilege and 
 responsibility of life. Edward Darell, his old college chum, 
 whom he had not seen since the day of his wife's funeral, 
 happening by chance to be in town, had met him at the 
 station on arrival, afterwards accompanying him to the hotel, 
 and he was with him now, talking animatedly^ but Everton, 
 depressed by the gloom of London and the heaviness of the 
 air, had allowed his thoughts to wander and scarcely heard 
 what his friend was saying. His eyes were fixed on the dreary 
 outlook — the wilderness of building which barred from view all 
 but about a couple of yards' breadth of sky, and in the very 
 midst of Darell's conversation he turned to him abruptly with 
 the inconsequent remark — 
 
 " To think that this horrible London should be the summit 
 of man's civilisation ! The very apotheosis of sheer ugliness ! " 
 
 Darell laughed. 
 
 " It's not so ugly as New York," — he said — " You should go 
 there and make comparisons ! But I was not speaking to you 
 of either London or its ugliness — I was saying how proud I am 
 that you have at last shown what mettle is in you " 
 
 Everton looked at him in gentle enquiry. 
 
 " At last ? " he repeated. 
 
 Darell reddened a little, but he was not a man to shirk small 
 difficulties, so he answered — 
 
 " Yes — at last ! Don't mistake me, Everton. You were 
 really too happy before, — too happy to help the world. Your 
 great sorrow has made you a better servant of the Master." 
 
 " If you think so, I am glad," — said Everton — " But I have
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 331 
 
 done very little. Indeed I am not able to do much. My work 
 is entirely limited to Shadbrook." 
 
 " Ah no ! You cannot say that now ! " declared Darell, 
 warmly — " Every sermon you preach is eagerly reported and 
 copied in hundreds of journals,— and indeed this should be so. 
 For you do not merely talk from the pulpit — you give love 
 and help from it — what wonder then that you draw all who 
 need love and help ! — and how many thousands there are of 
 these ! " 
 
 Everton was silent. 
 
 " Do you know," went on Darell, more lightly — " I really 
 feared you might perhaps go over to Rome? You were so 
 very intimate with that little priest I saw down at your 
 place " 
 
 "I am intimate with him still," — said Everton, quietly — 
 "There is no man, not even yourself, whom I honour more 
 than that same little priest ! But because I honour a man I 
 do not of necessity adopt his creed. My dear Darell, Rome 
 would seem to be your bugbear, — and yet I understand that 
 you include much of her ritual in your own parish services. Is 
 that so ? " 
 
 Darell moved a little uneasily. He looked round the 
 reading-room to see if there were any listeners to the con- 
 versation — but there was only one man sunk deep in the 
 recesses of an easy-chair opposite the fire with a newspaper 
 over his face, apparently asleep. 
 
 " I do no more than hundreds of other clergy," — he answered, 
 hesitatingly — " Congregations will not attend a dull service 
 nowadays." 
 
 "A ' dull ' service ! " echoed Everton — "What is there that 
 can be ' dull ' in the true heart-whole worship of God ? Does 
 it need any tawdry earth-trappings to symbolise the pure 
 majesty of the Divine? Is it not rather an insult to Deity 
 to make an over-elaboration of the simplicity of prayer, or 
 of the direct uplifting of praise? Surely we should always 
 remember the words of Our Lord when reproaching the Scribes 
 and Pharisees — ' All their works they do to be seen of men ;
 
 332 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 they make broad their phylacteries and enlarge the borders 
 of their garments.' Is not this a warning — nay, a command 
 against ornate ritual? The Roman creed is a form of 
 Christianity grafted on Rome's former paganism; and the 
 relics of its paganism constitute its chief mischief. The High 
 Anglican Church of England does not copy Rome's Christianity, 
 but only its paganism, in the way of elaborate ceremonial, 
 incense-throwing and barbarically adorned vestments, and it 
 is, therefore, an absurd incongruity in form, being neither one 
 thing nor the other." 
 
 Darell looked, as he felt, a trifle uncomfortable. 
 
 " I do not agree with you," — he said slowly — " But we need 
 not argue the point here or now — your line of work is so 
 different to mine " 
 
 Everton gave him a keen glance. 
 
 "How is it different?" he asked — "You and I are both 
 ministers of the same Church, — we both have the same high 
 duty appointed to us — to lift the thoughts of the world beyond 
 death to immortality ! " 
 
 "Yes — and surely to do that successfully one must appeal 
 to the senses," — exclaimed Darell, warmly — " One must reach 
 the soul through all that touches its inner consciousness of 
 beauty, of picturesqueness, of solemnity " 
 
 Everton raised his head with a slight, imperative gesture. 
 
 " Stop there, Darell ! You will not persuade me that a poor 
 biped perambulating up and down in gaudy vestments before 
 an equally gaudy altar, like an actor on a stage, can convey any 
 impression of ' solemnity ' to the soul — or that any quantity of 
 burning candles and smoking incense can bring to the mind 
 thoughts of the Divine Creator of those myriad million lights of 
 the universe which we call solar systems, and which shall never 
 be extinguished till He, the Maker of them, wills it so. On the 
 contrary, the more we intrude our earthly tawdriness, our 
 barbaric love of glitter and display, and our absurd self-con- 
 sciousness into the worship of God, the more we outrage the 
 majesty of Him who simply commanded c Let there be light — 
 and there was light.' You 'feared' for me, you say, because,
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 333 
 
 having a Roman Catholic priest for a friend, you judged me 
 weak enough to adopt a creed which even he, though trained to 
 obedience, does not always find all-sufficient? But, my dear 
 fellow, believe me I have greater fears for you, lest you may be 
 neither Protestant nor Roman Catholic, nor pagan nor Christian, 
 but something else that has no real foundation in the soul ! " 
 
 Darell turned pale, and his eyes flashed defiantly. 
 
 " If you were not Richard Everton," he said — " I would not 
 endure such words " 
 
 Everton smiled kindly. 
 
 " But being what I am, you will put up with them, Darell ! " 
 he interposed — " And think them well over ! " 
 
 Darell chafed visibly. 
 
 " The church where you are announced to preach to-morrow 
 is very ' High ' ; " he said — " So ' High ' indeed that it might 
 almost be Roman Catholic. But it is none the worse for that." 
 
 "And none the better !" replied Everton, with perfect good- 
 nature — " But I have nothing to do with its ritualistic ' toilette ' ; 
 I figure there merely as the preacher of an occasion — and my 
 business will be simply to move hearts powerfully enough to 
 cause a kind of reflex action whereby pockets may be moved 
 also ! Come, come, my dear Darell, don't let us ' gird,' as the 
 Scotch say, at one another ! The quarrels of the clergy are the 
 ruin of the Church. Each man must do as he sees best in the 
 carrying out of his ministry — but for me the Divine will always 
 be the simple, — and the simple the Divine." 
 
 They dropped into conventionalities after this, and very soon 
 Darell took his departure, leaving Everton in the shabby 
 reading-room alone with the one man who still sat in the arm- 
 chair by the fire with a newspaper over his face. As soon as 
 Darell had gone, however, this personage stirred, and putting 
 his newspaper down slowly, yawned, stretched out his arms, 
 sighed comfortably, and finally pulled himself upright, thereby 
 showing a very open, pleasant countenance, made somewhat 
 fascinating by a pair of dark hazel eyes in which there sparkled 
 a fund of dormant humour. He shot a friendly and inquisitive 
 glance in Everton's direction, — then in a half-drawling accent
 
 334 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 which was undoubtedly American, though so suave and musical 
 as to have nothing of a ' twang ' about it, he said — 
 
 " I guess, sir, you know what's the matter with the Church ! 
 It's been sick a long time, and there's such a mighty lot of 
 doctors feeling its pulse and looking at its tongue that it's like 
 to die before it gets a proper dose of medicine ! " 
 
 Everton looked at him a moment before speaking. 
 
 "It is possible you may be right," — he then answered, — 
 " But I am, in a certain sense, an optimist — a disciple of the 
 Obvious. That is to say, I believe in such old derided maxims 
 as ' The darkest hour's before the dawn ' — and ' It's a long lane 
 that has no turning.' I think the time is very near for a grand 
 renewal of religious life — a time when everything in the world, 
 — its wealth, its commerce, its progress, — shall seem of less 
 account than the worth of a nation's united prayer. For we 
 are in the 'darkest hour,' — therefore the dawn is close at 
 hand." 
 
 The stranger got out of his chair and stood up with his 
 back to the fireplace, showing himself to be a man of good 
 figure and stature, with an easy grace about his whole manner 
 that expressed long familiarity with the freedom of an open-air 
 life. 
 
 "Well," he said — "if that be so you may make up your 
 mind that it will be a red dawn — the reddest dawn that ever 
 broke over this world since France sent her royal rulers to the 
 guillotine ! France was then just one country with the dry rot 
 in it, — but to-day we have several countries down with the 
 same disease, and when they all start trying to get rid of the 
 trouble there'll be ructions. I'm an American, — and of course 
 over here there are a good many folks who judge everything 
 from America as a fraud or a ' bit o' bunkum,' except a ten- 
 million-dollar heiress. Yet, to speak quite honestly and 
 meaning no offence, in comparing your nation with mine I 
 don't know which is the more rotten of the two ! " 
 
 " Severe ! " commented Everton, with a smile — " And perhaps 
 not altogether just." 
 
 The stranger smiled also, quite affably.
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 335 
 
 "Perhaps not! I'm willing to be corrected. But I'm 
 compelled to form my judgment on the result of my experience. 
 Now see! My name's Howard, — Clarence Howard — no 
 relation to the Duke of Norfolk ! " — here he laughed — " and I 
 don't think any of my ancestors went over the ocean in the 
 Mayflower. I've made my pile, as they say ; — and as I don't 
 need to work any more, I'm not working — at least not in the 
 way that's usually meant by work. I don't marry, because I 
 like my liberty better than I like women. I'm just a rover, — 
 studying, thinking and learning. I've been all over the world 
 pretty well. And I find the same thing everywhere — dry rot ! 
 And the crumbling process is going on as fast as if the whole 
 fabric of law and morals were being eaten away by a swarm of 
 white ants ! And what is the reason of it ? I know the 
 reason ; but when I say it out, I'm told I'm a ' religious hum- 
 bug,' and that's the very last thing I am or desire to be." 
 
 Everton surveyed him with increasing interest. 
 
 " Whatever your theory, I shall hear it with attention," — he 
 said, "and I at least shall not call you a 'religious humbug.' 
 I'm often called one myself, — but that is very much the way in 
 which the clergy are regarded by the modern world. Perhaps, 
 however, in a great measure this is the fault of the clergy 
 themselves." 
 
 " Why, there you speak honestly," — said Mr Howard — 
 " And I like you for it ! It is the fault of the clergy. And 
 the reason of the universal ' dry rot ' in our civilisation is that 
 the world is losing its grip on God. It is slipping away from its 
 faith in Divine Law and Order — and wherever and whenever 
 that has happened, a downfall is imminent. I know you agree 
 with me — because I know who you are. I heard the gentleman 
 who has just left you, call you Richard Everton — and I consider 
 I'm in luck's way to have come across you. I've read the 
 reports of several of the sermons you have preached in your 
 church at Shadbrook on the Cotswolds ; — and as a matter of 
 fact I'm going to hear you preach to-morrow. You've said 
 some very brave, bold things, sir ! — and I should like to shake 
 hands with you ! "
 
 336 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 The friendly greeting was at once exchanged, and, sitting 
 down near each other, the two men fell into conversation as 
 readily as if they had known each other for years. 
 
 " You've been fighting the biggest devil of the age," went on 
 Howard, — " The devil of Drink. And I say, go on fighting it 
 — and go strong ! It's the curse of the civilised world, — it's 
 the cause of all the fuddled brains that make statesmanship a 
 farce ! Now, you appeal for the most part to your own country 
 parishioners to try and quash the evil among themselves — and 
 your appeal certainly reaches more places than you know of ; — 
 but you should appeal to London and Birmingham and Leeds 
 and Manchester — to New York and Chicago ! And not only 
 should you appeal to the poor and degraded, — but to the 
 middle and upper classes who call themselves ' educated,' and 
 yet who in their passion for liquor shame the very beasts by 
 their bestiality. They are the worst sinners, for they are 
 responsible in giving a ' lead,' and showing an example. I, as a 
 fairly wealthy man, go to a good many so-called ' smart ' houses, 
 — for the British upper-class female having resigned her former 
 renown for modesty and virtue, is always on the look-out for 
 an American millionaire, and takes me to be one — so that my 
 invitations are numerous. And I tell you, on my word of 
 honour, that I have never stayed at a country-house party yet 
 without seeing half the men and most of the women fuddled 
 with some kind of drink long before sunset. If I were more 
 of a foreigner than I am, and had to take a hasty glance over 
 the British Isles, with their principal cities, London, 
 Edinburgh, Glasgow and Dublin, considered superficially 
 and, as it were, in the twinkling of an eye, I should say 
 that the chief delight, aim and end of the communities at 
 large, was whisky -soda; and more often whisky without 
 the soda ! '*' 
 
 "Not quite so bad as that, I hope," — said Everton, with 
 rather a troubled look ; — " But I'm afraid I must admit a 
 certain substratum of truth in your argument. Government, 
 however, is going strenuously to work to minimise if not 
 to wholly remedy the evil ; — and we may hope that, perhaps, in a
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 337 
 
 few years' time, when its plans are formulated, there will be 
 fewer public-houses " 
 
 " And fewer brewers and distillers ? " interposed Howard, 
 quickly ; — " Will your Government make it illegal to conccct 
 poison for the national consumption ? Will it insist on the 
 making of wholesome stuff, and inflict not only heavy money 
 fines, but prison punishment, on the rascals who sell bi r 
 which is not beer, and spirit which is a deadly mixture of 
 chemicals ? And what of the grocers ? " 
 
 " The grocers ? " — echoed Everton — " You mean " 
 
 " I mean that the grocers are every whit as much in the 
 drink business as the publicans. It was W. E. Gladstone, I 
 believe, and his Liberal party that gave wine and spirit licences 
 to the grocers — licences which, if the growing mania for drink 
 among women is to be checked, ought to be at once sup- 
 pressed. Who shall count the number of women that order 
 intoxicating liquors from the grocers and have the cost put 
 down on the monthly account as so many pounds of tea or 
 coffee, while perhaps the fathers of the families concerned, 
 knowing their wives' habits, take every pains to prevent them 
 getting at the vile stuff which maddens their brains and 
 degrades their lives, and cannot understand how it is that, 
 despite all effort, they still manage to procure it ! Talk of 
 ' blighted homes ' and ' deserted hearths ' ! The grocers' 
 licences have as much to do with the evil state of things as the 
 publicans' licences, — and if ever the time comes to deal with 
 the Drink question in honest earnest, — no two-mouthed 
 tomfoolery, mind ! — by which I mean no playing to the gallery 
 with one mouth and whispering to the Trade with the other, 
 — why the grocers' licences should be the first to be done 
 away with altogether." 
 
 " I quite agree with you ! " — said Everton — " In fact, I think 
 it's likely more drink is sold to the people from the grocery 
 stores than from the public-houses. It's curious we don't 
 realise this more generally and forcibly." 
 
 " People are slow to realise any straight fact nowadays," — 
 rejoined Howard — "The modern brain is like a bad egg — 
 22
 
 338 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 addled. Every one is more or less fevered with the mania of 
 money-making, — and when the money is made they have 
 neither the education nor the intelligence to spend it properly. 
 But there ! — no one can reform the bad or better the good. 
 It's been tried over and over again — before Christ, and after 
 Him — and it's no use. The wheel of civilisation revolves a 
 certain number of times and then it stops ! Then follows a 
 great cleaning of the clock and a putting in of new works by 
 the Almighty — and presently, after considerable trouble and 
 delay, on it goes again ! But the world has a bad half-hour 
 while the renovating business is in progress ! " 
 
 " Do you think civilisation has reached the high-water mark 
 in your country ? " asked Everton. 
 
 " No, sir, I do not. I consider my country and my 
 countrymen in the adolescent or ' gawk ' condition of dry rot — 
 that is to say, the raw material is crumbling out of shape in 
 order to re-form. America is like a half-grown boy who is all 
 collar and tie, and is proud of his pants. His pockets are full 
 of string and marbles, and he thinks them valuable property. 
 He pulls them out every few minutes and looks at them with 
 pride. He shows them to you, and chortles over them, 
 saying: 'See what I've got!' He thinks you ought to put 
 down everything of your own, and stand admiring his pocket- 
 knife with eight blades. He considers you a fool if you don't 
 attach any importance to his opinion. He's all Self-conscious- 
 ness and Brag. But remember ! — he's only a Boy ! When he's 
 a Man," — here he paused, and his fine eyes sparkled with 
 animation — " Yes ! — when he's a Man, he's as likely as not to 
 be the finest Creature in the world ! " 
 
 " You really are of that opinion ? " 
 
 " I really am. You see Americans are a mixed race — every 
 kind of blood is mingled in their veins, bad and good, and it 
 takes time for the good to work uppermost, — but it's bound to 
 rise ! Then we have plenty of ' grit ' and ' dash ' ; — and we're 
 not afraid of ourselves or of anybody else. Of course we've 
 set up our house in a hurry, and we've got a good deal of 
 rubbish in it, because, being young, we wanted to furnish all
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 339 
 
 at once ; and we bought too much and crammed too many 
 things in — but we shall clear by degTees, sir ! — we shall clear ! 
 We shall get over the String-and-Marble age, — and we shall 
 find that dollars are not everything. And with maturity we 
 shall develop idealism, nobility of character and exalted aims, 
 — but you must give us a little more time to grow ! " 
 
 He laughed pleasantly, and then fell to talking about London 
 and its violently contrasting effects of vast wealth and abject 
 poverty, and again the national curse of drink came uppermost 
 for discussion. 
 
 " If you've nothing more pressing to do this evening, it 
 might warm you up for to-morrow's sermon if you would take 
 a stroll with me through some of the drink centres," — he said, 
 " I have made a study of them, and I know much of what 
 goes on in them. I can show you places where women with 
 babies in arms drink till the babies drop on the floor and lie 
 there like little bundles of rags, quite disregarded. Some of 
 the proprietors of these infernal dens advertise ' Storage for 
 Perambulators,' as an encouragement to the mothers of infants 
 to come in. Looking away back down the past years, it seems 
 there were times when a drunken mother was so rarely seen 
 that such an one was bound to be ashamed of herself as a 
 disgraceful exception ; — now there are thousands of drunken 
 mothers. They do not mind spending whole mornings in the 
 public-house. They neglect their duties just as much as the 
 fashionable lady of to-day neglects hers. There is no strong 
 wave of opinion that sweeps through the land to cleanse it 
 of this great abomination. Now in the Southern States of 
 America there is a great revulsion against the drink, because 
 of the frequency of outrages on women by negroes. Drink 
 has been proved to be generally at the bottom of these 
 revolting crimes, and the citizens of Georgia have voted out 
 the drink altogether. Don't forget that the Governor who 
 signed that Bill signed away a large personal income of his 
 own derived from the selling of liquor ! I think his name will 
 be found in the Book of Life somewhere ! " 
 
 " No doubt of that ! " — said Everton, his thoughts reverting
 
 340 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 to Shadbrook, Minchin's Brewery, and Minchin himself — "I 
 don't think I could name a single British brewer or spirit 
 distiller who would do as much ! " 
 
 Howard smiled. 
 
 " Well, that's your saying, not mine ! — I wouldn't so insult 
 the conscience of your nation," — he said — " But I'm afraid 
 the British Lion is getting a bit selfish — inclined to sleep 
 in the sun and all that sort of thing, looking after his own 
 comfort more than anything else, — however, I'm too fond of 
 the grand old Growler to hope anything but good of him ! It 
 may be he'll wake up with an honest roar quite suddenly, and 
 chase away all such vested interests in the national degradation 
 as make intemperance necessary. I use the word ' necessary ' 
 advisedly — because to earn any sort of profitable dividends on 
 the capital invested in the beer and spirit trades, national 
 drunkenness would, roughly speaking, seem imperative. In 
 the year 1904, your most flaccid statesman, Balfour, repudiated 
 all public responsibility for the miseries of drink, and put the 
 whole blame on the ' gross and criminal self-indulgence of the 
 working-classes.' Well, all I can say about that, is that I hope 
 the working-classes have got his insult pretty well fixed into 
 their heads, and that it will keep them firm against voting for 
 him or his party. It was, I suppose, convenient for him to 
 forget that in order to keep up the profits of the trade interests 
 he was defending, the 'gross criminal self-indulgence' he 
 talked so big about was an absolute sine qua non. And he 
 also forget that the statesmen who abuse the working-classes 
 go the quickest way to cutting their own throats, for they all 
 depend on the working-class votes. And who persuades the 
 working-classes to drink themselves blind and silly more than 
 the selfish fellows who want to be returned to Parliament by 
 hook or by crook, somehow or anyhow? A drunken man's 
 vote counts as well as that of a sober one, and the more drunk 
 the electors are, the more chance there is of their electing the 
 scheming rogue who 'treats' them. When they get sober 
 again they discover they've been 'had,' and that they've 
 chosen a scheming rogue to represent them ; but it's too
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 341 
 
 late then to remedy the mischief. 'Gross criminal self- 
 indulgence ' indeed ! That's pretty tail talk ! I should like- 
 to know if Mr. lialfour himself has never gone in for that 
 kind of variety entertainment, — if not in one form, perhaps in 
 another ! " 
 
 "You must not presume to make such a suggestion," — said 
 Everton, smiling gravely — "There is no such thing as 'gross 
 criminal self-indulgence' among the 'upper' classes. They 
 stand aloft on the peaks of an inaccessible virtue. That is 
 why they are able to cast aspersions on their ' lower ' brothers 
 and sisters with so much dignified acrimony ! " 
 
 Howard studied his face with keen and searching intentness, 
 — then smiled responsively. 
 
 "Exactly!" he said — " You understand the position. Shall 
 we dine together ? " 
 
 " With pleasure. At what hour ? " 
 
 " At eight ; but not here. Come to the Savoy Restaurant. 
 It will interest you. It shows what human beings can do in 
 the way of pampering their stomachs while they starve their 
 brains. And it will be rather amusing there to-night, for 
 Claude Ferrers is giving a dinner to his ' Aero-Club ' friends, — 
 1 rank, beauty, fashion ' and all the rest of it ! " 
 
 " Who is Claude Ferrers ? " 
 
 Howard laughed. 
 
 "Ah! Your Shadbrook must be hidden well out of the 
 world if you have never heard of him ! Claude Ferrers ? 
 Why, he *s a famous aeronaut ; a man who spends 
 fabulous sums of money in the construction of balloons and 
 aeroplanes and airships. He is the owner of a gorgeous steer- 
 able balloon in which all the pretty ' smart ' women take trips 
 with him for ' change of air.' Such a change has its risks, of 
 course; — but then, — if none of them ever came back they 
 would never be missed ! He is an atheist, a degenerate, 
 and — one of the most popular 'Souls' in decadent English 
 society i " 
 
 " I would rather not know him," — said Everton, quickly. 
 
 " Know him ! My dear sir, you won't know him ! You
 
 342 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 can't know him ! It's much more easy to know the King 
 than Claude Ferrers. For the King must know people ; 
 but Ferrers won't know any one unless he chooses. But 
 come and see him ! Yes, — you ought ! It will bring your 
 blood to boiling-point for to-morrow ! Just to have a look 
 at the fat, smooth-faced sensualist and voluptuary whose 
 reputation for shameless vice makes him the pride and joy 
 of Upper-Ten Jezebels, will help you along like a gale of wind ! 
 And a light will be flung on your inner consciousness, which, 
 if you are going to try and help the world out of the pit it is 
 falling into," — here he paused, and approaching Everton laid 
 one hand with an impressive gesture on his arm — " I say 
 if you are going to help the world — and I think you are ! — 
 that lurid light thrown across your white mind is absolutely 
 necessary ! " 
 
 Everton sighed, — then meeting the warm, persuasive glance 
 of his new friend's kind eyes, smiled. 
 
 "As you like ! " — he said — "You are so very earnest about 
 it that I should feel myself a churl to refuse you. But I am 
 
 net at all the sort of man for society scenes " 
 
 " You are ! You are just the sort of man for society 
 scenes" — declared Howard; — "They exist for your com- 
 ment and consideration. Society scenes made the fame of the 
 Prophet Isaiah. Without society scenes he would not have 
 been able to say: 'Their land is full of silver and gold, 
 neither is there any end of their treasures ; their land is also 
 full of horses, neither is there any end of their chariots.' 
 And — 'The shew of their countenance doth witness against 
 them; and they declare their sin as Sodom, they hide it 
 not. Woe unto their soul ! for they have rewarded evil unto 
 themselves ! ' " 
 
 He spoke the words slowly, with a wonderfully musical 
 rhythm of utterance, and Everton heard him with surprise as 
 well as admiration. 
 
 " I think you are a preacher yourself," — he said. 
 " Say an actor, and you might be nearer the mark," — replied 
 Howard, laughing. " I was on the stage for a short time as
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 343 
 
 a youngster, but I got tired of the grease-paint and the foot- 
 lights and took to a ranching life instead. However, my 
 short probation with sock and buskin did me good ; — I learned 
 how to read properly ; — an art in which few clergy excel, — and 
 I imbibed Shakespeare as gratefully as a fish imbibes water. 
 The Bible and Shakespeare are my two literary bulwarks." 
 
 "You could not have any stronger ones," — said Everton — 
 "All literature leans upon those twain, — the two least under- 
 stood great works of the world ! " 
 
 They drifted into generalities after this, and presently 
 parted, to meet again two or three hours later at the entrance 
 of the Savoy Restaurant. A number of brilliantly attired 
 women were standing or sitting about in the hall or lounge of 
 this famous London eating-house, talking to, or staring at 
 each other during the ' mauvais quart (Theure ' before dinner ; 
 — most of them had their faces painted and their hair dyed, 
 and one and all presented exactly the appearance of variety 
 actresses waiting their 'turn.' Their dresses were much more 
 worth observation than themselves, many of these being extra- 
 vagant marvels of the costumier's art, — their own persons were 
 merely the props on which the wonderful garments clung and 
 trailed and sparkled and swept round in serpentine folds of 
 bewilderingly varied hue and much perfumed rustling. Jewels, 
 both real and sham, the sham, of course, predominating, 
 sparkled lavishly on the brows, bosoms and arms of these 
 fair feminine diners-out, thus giving their artificial attractions 
 that last ' imperial ' touch which made them look the very 
 queens of comedy, and as Everton, walking with his American 
 acquaintance, slowly descended the softly-carpeted steps 
 leading from the lounge into the dining-room, many heads 
 were turned after him, and many eyes silently questioned 
 his identity. That he was not an habitue" of restaurants was 
 evident at a glance. The repose of his manner, the calm 
 dignity of his movements, the gravely observant expression of 
 his pale, intellectual face — all these denoted a personality 
 far removed from that of the ordinary Savoy lounger and 
 epicure. People looked at him, whispered and wondered.
 
 344 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 He was quite unconscious that his appearance excited any 
 comment. Howard caught one or two remarks that were 
 half depreciatory, half nattering to his companion, and was 
 faintly amused. Just as they were about to enter the dining- 
 room, he touched Everton's arm. 
 
 "That's Claude Ferrers," he said. 
 
 Everton looked and saw a massively built man of between 
 forty-five and fifty, with a fat, clean-shaven i"ace and reddish 
 hair which he wore parted in the middle and rather long over 
 the ears. The eyes of this individual were remarkable, — they 
 projected slightly in their sockets like balls of pale-blue glass 
 with a light behind them, and challenged all other eyes with a 
 curious kind of insistent self-defence. There was no real 
 human expression in them, — only the peculiar glassy brilliancy 
 and the fixed ' What do you know of me ? ' query. They 
 turned on Everton as he passed by with a sudden opening 
 stare ; then the white puffy lids dropped over them languidly 
 in lazy disdain. This was the look Ferrers gave to all strangers ; 
 a look which generally had the effect of making them either 
 uncomfortable or indignant. Everton, however, was un- 
 affected by it ; one glance at the man sufficed to show him 
 the type of creature he was, — one of those openly admitted 
 decadents and libertines who, with the gracious permission 
 and approval of the Pulpit and the Throne, are nowadays 
 given free licence to contaminate the minds of the women 
 of England, and so undermine the future honour of the nation 
 itself. Their vices are well known, but are ' hushed up ' ; and 
 the fact that many, if not most of them are ' well-connected,' 
 moves even the Law to excuse them from appearing in their 
 rightful place — the criminal dock. 
 
 Following Howard into the dining-room, Everton presently 
 found himself seated at one of the smaller side-tables which 
 commanded a good view of a certain portion of the room set 
 apart for private dinner-parties. Here there was a blaze of light 
 and colour, and a long table was set out for some sixteen persons, 
 above which a large toy balloon, composed of red and white 
 roses and lit from within by electricity, was so arranged as to
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 345 
 
 appear rising from the centre of the board, just held in place 
 by cords of gold and silver attached to imitation 'sand-bags' of 
 perfume. Tiny balloons of creamy satin, tied with gold thread, 
 served as ' menus ' and guest-cards, and were set at each person's 
 right hand, and the effective colouring of the whole design was 
 furthermore enhanced by long trails of red and white roses 
 laid with a carelessly lavish grace down the centre of the whole 
 length of the table. It was impossible to avoid looking at 
 such an original and beautiful display of flowers, and Everton 
 made a remark to Howard not only on the taste displayed 
 in the decoration, but also on the pity and extravagance 
 of it. 
 
 " I deplore the fate of these glorious roses," he said — "They 
 are as living as we are, and no doubt when growing on the 
 parent stem were sensible of the joys of life. It seems cruel 
 to kill them for the pleasure of a night." 
 
 " It's the spirit of Heliogabalus over again," rejoined 
 Howard ; — " London and New York are merely repeating the 
 orgies of Greece and Rome which took place just before their 
 fall. Claude Ferrers is a modern Heliogabalus in his very 
 modern way ; he makes everything and everybody minister to 
 himself and his personal comfort ; and by dint of learning a few 
 salacious witticisms out of Moliere and Baudelaire, he almost 
 persuades people to think him a wit and a poet. But he is 
 the biggest Fraud nature and art ever perpetuated, — even his 
 profound interest in science is only a ' pose/ — and he runs a 
 balloon, instead of a motor-car or carriage, merely in order 
 that the fool newspapers may notice his antics and print 
 'interviews' with him. See, — here he comes with his little 
 flock of c souls ' which no creed can save ! " 
 
 Everton turned his head to look ; — then the blood rushed to 
 his face in a burning tide and as quickly retreated, leaving him 
 deathly pale. For he saw one whom he had hoped and 
 prayed never to see again. A woman, clothed in clinging 
 gossamer white, with a band of great rubies and diamonds set 
 in the rich coils of her hair, and the same precious stones 
 blazing on her uncovered arms and bosom, entered the room
 
 346 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 on the arm of Claude Ferrers, moving so lightly that she 
 seemed to float rather than walk, — a woman so perfectly 
 lovely in face and form that even the most fastidious critic 
 could not have found a flaw in her beauty, — a woman whom 
 all eyes followed, — the men gloating upon her in mute admira- 
 tion, the women watching her in speechless envy, — so that 
 her appearance actually caused a sudden silence among the 
 talkative Savoy diners, almost as though some heavenly angel 
 should have swept white wings through the earthly crowd. 
 She was smiling as she came, and listening with an air of 
 graceful tolerance to the evidently eager and undisguised 
 flatteries of her host of the evening, — when, just as she 
 reached the portioned-off recess where the table for Ferrers 
 and his party was prepared, some strange instinctive impulse 
 moved her, and, raising her dark, brilliant eyes she met 
 Everton's calm sad gaze fixed upon her. For one second 
 she paused, — and in that second two spirits rose up in arms 
 and challenged each other for good or for evil, — then, smiling 
 still, she passed on, leading the way for the other guests, 
 who all followed her into the private room, whereupon obse- 
 quious waiters dropped a heavy velvet curtain across the 
 entrance and veiled the scene of festivity from view. With 
 her disappearance the tension of Everton's nerves relaxed, — 
 and he heaved a deep, unconscious sigh. Howard, noting 
 his companion's pallor, had watched him rather curiously, 
 but had refrained from speaking. Now, however, he said 
 quietly : 
 
 "We're rather lucky to-night. We've seen the most 
 beautiful woman in London." 
 
 Everton started as if from a dream. 
 
 "Have we? You mean the one that has just passed 
 by?" 
 
 " Of course ! There's no one else in the running ! Why," 
 and Howard laughed — " You looked at her so very earnestly 
 that I thought it was a case of love at first sight ! " 
 
 A faint cold shudder ran through Everton's veins. 
 
 " God forbid ! " he murmured — then forcing himself to
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 347 
 
 speak in a lighter tone he said : — " I think I have seen her 
 face before " 
 
 " I daresay you have — she's been photographed in every 
 possible position — with clothes, — and — without ! She was a 
 ! variety' girl — a very daring dancer; — and now she's Mrs. 
 Nordstein, the wife of Israel Nordstein, the millionaire. 
 Claude Ferrers calls her the ' Magic Crystal ' on account of 
 her name." 
 
 "And that name is ?" 
 
 " A pretty and uncommon one, — Jacynth."
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 1 TACYNTH.' He heard it with a sense of relief. Of 
 course he had known it all the time. The unforgettable 
 face with its jewel eyes and rose-red mouth could only 
 belong to one woman — and that woman she whom last he had 
 seen in the village street of Shadbrook on the day young Hadley 
 had died. The day, too, on which she herself had sworn 
 that the next time he saw her she would be ' different.' He 
 recalled the defiant ring of her voice when she had uttered the 
 vow t — « i swear to you that next time you see me I'll be 
 different. I will ! " And when he had gently asked her if that 
 was a promise, she had flung up her arms with a wild gesture 
 and had affirmed it. " That's a promise ! Do you hear it, 
 Almighty God? It's a promise !" Almighty God had ap- 
 parently listened to her adjuration, for she had kept her word. 
 Oh, she had kept her word with a vengeance ! She 
 was indeed ' different,' — very different, and yet the same, — 
 always the same Jacynth. The rubies and diamonds flashing 
 on her white breast enhanced her beauty no more than had 
 the simple bunch of primroses she had once worn at the open- 
 ing of her blue cotton bodice, — the same dazzling fairness of 
 skin gave its glamour to both. And yet her loveliness made 
 her ail the more loathed in his thoughts. To him she was an 
 embodied curse and cruelty, — a pestilential cloud that had 
 broken in black thunder over his life and made wreckage of 
 that as well as of every other life its blighting influence had 
 darkened. He looked upon her as a murderess. For though 
 
 she had dealt no blows, and had used neither poison nor 
 
 348
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 349 
 
 dagger, four deaths lay at her door. He counted them up 
 inexorably in his mind,— young Hadley, Jennie Kiernan, his 
 own wife Azalea, and, finally, Dan Kiernan — Dan, who had 
 been her lover ! Dan her lover ! To think of it !— the huge, 
 hulking, drunken sot had actually been the lover of that dainty 
 lady of fashion who had just passed him by, robed in glisten- 
 ing white and wearing jewels worth a fortune ! A bitter lump 
 rose in his throat,— a swelling threat of tears commingled 
 with fierce laughter, — and it was with the utmost difficulty 
 that he restrained the hurrying tempest of his thoughts, and 
 forced himself to listen to what his host was saying. Howard 
 noticed his abstraction, but with kindly tact went on talking 
 as though he had the most attentive of auditors. 
 
 " Balloon parties are the newest things in social functions," 
 he said— "And Aero-Clubs are all the rage. The Scum- 
 people — by which expression I mean the human stuff that 
 rises to the top of Society soup and has to be skimmed off 
 and thrown away — are tired of the earth and all that therein is. 
 They have exhausted it by their own tedium. They want 
 to see if the air is equally boresome. They have resolved to 
 match their midget selves against the forces of the elements. 
 It is a ' new sensation.' You will often notice (if you ever 
 read society items) such sparkb'ng statements as this for 
 example : ' Lord and Lady High-Liver will entertain a balloon 
 house-party at their country seat this autumn for their son the 
 Honourable Fool Rising. Their guests include Count Mont- 
 en-Haut of the Belgian Aero-Club, Count Vol-au-Vent of the 
 French Aero-Club, Mr. Claude Ferrers and Captain Batswing 
 of the War Office. Four balloons are to be in use for ascents 
 every day.' Naturally such news is of the utmost moment to 
 the world ! Mrs. Nordstein is always included in these 
 parties, not only because she is beautiful and a Court favour- 
 ite, but because her husband is a millionaire and one of the 
 largest shareholders in several of the halfpenny dailies, which 
 eagerly chronicle such air-trips as being of rare importance to 
 the working, thinking million who only give a dull curse or two 
 of contempt for the whole farrago of nonsense. She is very
 
 350 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 daring, too, and ventures on the highest balloon ascents with 
 the nerve and sang-froid of Claude Ferrers himself. A French 
 impressionist lately made a picture of her, in the car of a 
 balloon, with very scanty raiment on, which he called, 
 1 Beauty's voyage to the stars.' It was published in one 
 of the papers that tickle the eyes of the groundlings with 
 pictures of the semi-nude." 
 
 Everton's face grew cold and stern. 
 
 " So though she is married, she is still the variety mime ! " 
 he said. 
 
 "Of course! What do you expect? Her husband is 
 proud of her ' variety ' conduct. If she could not draw other 
 men into his ' Company ' nets, what use would she be to him ? 
 Marriage is not a sacrament nowadays — it is merely a form for 
 the legalising of children in order that they may inherit what 
 their fathers leave them. The fathers always have lots of 
 other children who don't inherit, — the law takes no notice of 
 them. ' Love ' in the twentieth century is not the love 
 depicted in the novels of Scott and Dickens. Great and 
 noble as these two writers were and are in their ideals, we 
 know, sadly enough, that the characters they depict are not 
 true to life as life is presented to us here and now, for 
 example, — in this Savoy Restaurant — in that private curtained- 
 off dining-room — in the crowded streets outside, or in modern 
 society anywhere. Novelists should write of what is, not of 
 what they dream should be, — and you may bet what you like, 
 sir, if they did, they would be unable to find much idyllic 
 sentiment in modern matrimony ! " 
 
 At these words a vision flitted before Richard's eyes of a 
 sweet, childlike face framed in fair hair, that looked at him 
 with the tenderest dark blue eyes, — of soft kissing lips, and a 
 dear little voice that said: "You are my husband, — my 
 husband, my darling and my best in the whole world ! " Oh, 
 Azalea ! Oh, sweet life so cruelly done to death ! Poor fond 
 little woman ! She had loved him ! With all her pretty 
 graceful follies, inconsistencies and caprices, she was pure as a 
 drop of dew, and her memory came to him now with a fresh-
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 351 
 
 ness and fragrance as though a cluster of cool lilies should be 
 suddenly laid in feverish hands. 
 
 " I think you generalise toe much," — he said, in a voice that 
 trembled ever so slightly; "All marriages are not sordid. 
 Love is still a vital force, if not with the rich, with the poor. 
 I ought not perhaps to speak of myself in the matter, yet in 
 simple justice to the loveliness of true womanhood, I know that 
 whatever ability I have or whatever use I may be to my 
 fellow-creatures is entirely owing to the great happiness 
 of my married life, which helped and strengthened me. And, 
 — though my wife is dead — her influence upon me remains 
 present and actual ; indeed I know it would not be possible 
 for me to do anything without her." 
 
 He spoke with a grave simplicity that was infinitely pathetic, 
 and his companion, looking at him, saw that he was most 
 wonderfully and sacredly in earnest. The steadfast eyes 
 reflected the poise of a soul fixed on one love and one pur- 
 pose, and there was not a shadow of affectation in the feeling 
 he expressed. A great and tender respect filled Howard's 
 mind for the man's gentle yet powerful character; the 
 temperament which was that of half-child, half-hero; and he 
 answered quickly and with some compunction : — 
 
 " I understand — and I believe you ! I will not even say 
 that I consider you may be an exception to the rule of 
 husbands. And — you must try to forgive my cynicism ! I 
 have travelled far and seen much, — and have grown somewhat 
 disheartened as to the ' betterment ' of humanity. I forgot " — 
 and his face flushed with the warmth of a sincere emotion — " I 
 forgot that to you cf all men I should not have spoken of the 
 modern degradation of the marriage tie." 
 
 Everton thanked him silently by an eloquent glance, and 
 the conversation fell into a lighter vein. Howard was an 
 entertaining and brilliant talker, and under the influence of the 
 warmth and brightness of the Savoy dining-room, the crowds 
 of gay people, and the sound of the exquisite music with which 
 the diners were regaled, the trouble and storm which had 
 stirred the waters of sorrowful remembrance in Everton's soul
 
 352 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 at sight of Jacynth, gradually subsided and left him possessed 
 of even more than his usual calm. Encouraged to do so, he 
 told his new friend some of the difficulties of a country clergy- 
 man's life in England, — of the various oppositions to good 
 with which such an one has to contend, — and above all of the 
 potency of drink in a neighbourhood where the chief employer 
 of labour is a brewer or distiller. 
 
 " You may fight for the cause of Christ," he said, " till every 
 fibre of your spirit is strained to breaking — but the man who 
 teaches Drink always overcomes the man who preaches God. 
 It is horrible to have to say such a thing, — it is a disgrace to 
 our holy religion, — yet so it is. No Church can really reform a 
 drunkard, — he is the child of the devil and the devil keeps his 
 own. We try, we clergy — with all our faults, and they are 
 many, — we try our best — in vain ! And the cause of our 
 failure is not far to seek. It is really more physical than 
 spiritual. The bodily craving of a man for strong drink is a 
 disease, generated by what he has imbibed. The brewers put 
 stuff into thjir beer to excite an unnatural thirst for more — 
 the distillers do the same with the spirituous liquors — in fact, 
 I look upon a drunkard as a poisoned man, needing the im- 
 mediate assistance of the doctor. The clergy are not qualified 
 to deal with purely medical matters." 
 
 They had by this time reached the dessert stage of their 
 dinner, and Howard, helping himself to a rosy-vested pear, 
 began to peel it slowly. 
 
 " Presuming you will pardon me for the remark, the clergy 
 are at present not qualified to deal with any matters at all," — 
 he said — " Not in the way they are going on. They are in a 
 great many cases corruptible, and open to the bribery of 
 Rome. You tell me of country clergymen who find their lives 
 difficult. Well ! I can tell you of country clergymen who 
 make their lives difficult, and the lives of other people unbear- 
 able ! I know cf one of these worthies who is always preaching 
 about moral restraint between the sexes, and who is a great 
 advocate of temperance as well, yet he is the most hypocriti- 
 cal and immoral of men. Kis ' natural ' daughter, wearing the
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 353 
 
 clothes he has purchased for her, walks about his parish quite 
 openly and unabashed, — goes into his house and garden when 
 his wife is absent, and amuses herself in her own particular 
 fashion. Every one in the place, down to the very schoolboys, 
 knows who and what she is, — and he has brought himself into 
 utter contempt — but, — his Bishop intends to promote him 
 shortly ! Have you ever considered the singular blindness of 
 some Bishops ? I have ; — very often ! Take another clerical 
 example. I could give you the name and address of a clergy- 
 man so parsimonious, that he will not employ a sexton, — he 
 rings his own church bell, digs the graves, and herds his cow in 
 the graveyard ! All the parishioners have ceased to attend his 
 services, and they tramp to a church four miles distant rather 
 than go near him. Does the Bishop know? Oh yes, the 
 Bishop knows. But it is too much trouble for this particular 
 Bishop to take any steps in the matter. One more case in 
 point, — name and address likewise at your service, — that of 
 the rector of a small country parish who for a certain social 
 (and financial) consideration flatly disobeyed a fixed rule of 
 the Church, for which, mark you ! he received, not the 
 reproach but the actual approval of his Bishop ; yet this fraud 
 of a ' Christian ' is notoriously known in the town nearest to 
 his village as an habitue of a low street where women sell 
 themselves for a few shillings, and where two or ihree of them 
 openly boast of their shameful intimacy with this ' dispenser 
 of Gospel Truth.' Here again, the whole town knows, and 
 the Bishop has been told — but the Bishop in this instance 
 elects to be not only blind but deaf, for rumour asserts that 
 this cheap adulterer, masquerading as a servant of Christ, is to 
 be made a Canon. Well ! — do you wonder that the Church 
 is sinking into the quicksands of criminal apathy? When 
 1 society ' knows, as you will know shortly, that there is even 
 one Bishop — only one ! — in propria persona — who is guilty of 
 such unnameable sins as should cause him to be publicly 
 whipped out of his own Cathedral doors, and that notwith- 
 standing this, he is allowed to remain on in his high office, 
 can you be surprised that the laity are beginning to look upon 
 
 23
 
 354 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 the ordained exponents of religion with suspicion, if not with 
 absolute contempt ? " 
 
 "But these cases are surely exceptional," — said Everton, 
 in grave, pained accents — "There are black sheep in every 
 calling " 
 
 " True ! — but I do not go about looking for black sheep, — 
 my aim is to try and find the best of everything in human 
 nature. These examples of the clergy have been thrust upon 
 me — I have not sought for them. I have been, and am, 
 deeply sorry to find them. But that they exist only proves the 
 possible existence of many more like them. And most harmful 
 and mischievous of all perhaps is that section which seeks to 
 ' leave things alone,' and which entertains the slothful idea that 
 bold, plain speaking in the cause of Christ is to be deprecated 
 lest it make matters worse. These sort of men are well- 
 intentioned, no doubt, but the front they present to the 
 world suggests desire for personal ease rather than personal 
 trouble." 
 
 At that moment peals of gay laughter echoed out from the 
 curtained recess where the guests of Claude Ferrers were being 
 entertained. Everton started, fancying he heard the rippling 
 laugh of Jacynth ringing above the rest. 
 
 "Personal ease," went on Howard, stirring his coffee 
 leisurely, and now and then lifting his keen dark eyes to study 
 his companion's face — " and personal pleasure are the two 
 chief objects of modern life. The luxury of our present 
 surroundings bears witness to the fact. The people in there," 
 and he indicated by a gesture the Ferrers party; — "care not 
 a jot whether Christ ever lived or died. And such are the 
 kind of folk you must be prepared to face if you preach in 
 London. Some country clerics there are who refuse to admit 
 that such folk exist. I know an excellent man down in 
 Somerset, who is ' strictly orthodox ' and rules his household, 
 particularly his domestics, with a rod of iron. He assured me 
 with much satisfaction that his parishioners knew nothing of 
 the wave of atheism that was surging over Europe, and that he 
 did not wish them to know. ' I do net allow it,'— be said.
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 355 
 
 He supervises the literature of his parish, and flatters himself 
 that no man, woman or child ever reads anything he does not 
 approve. Never was there a more pathetic case of blindness. 
 His own servants take in all the sensational ' dailies ' on the 
 sly, and there is not a man in the neighbourhood who docs not 
 gloat every week over a certain 'Sunday Dreadful' which 
 serves up all the worst police cases as a cook serves curry, 
 well-seasoned and highly-flavoured. And he, the innocent 
 good man, being convinced that his 'little flock' live in a 
 state of primitive innocence, declines altogether to discuss 
 with me any form of the heart-breaking distress from which 
 half the world is suffering to-day, — the doubt of God which 
 makes people ' afraid to think ' — the misery and terror 
 which hang suspended over the wretched human unit deprived 
 of faith and hope, like the sword of an executioner, ' for,' says 
 he, comfortably, ' it is better to ignore it.' Even so Louis the 
 Sixteenth, though an honest and well - meaning monarch, 
 ignored his people's discontent. 'Is it a riot?' he asked, 
 when told the Bastille was being stormed by the mob of Paris. 
 ' No, Sire,' he was answered — ' It is a Revolution ! ' You can 
 apply the same words to the Churches of to-day. It is not a 
 riot ; it is revolution." 
 
 Fascinated by his even, quiet voice and the ease and 
 eloquence with which he spoke, Everton listened with deep 
 if sometimes grieved attention. A cultured American who can 
 talk well, is better than a cultured Englishman who can do the 
 same, for the American is less restrained by convention and 
 prejudice. And though hating to be forced to admit it, he 
 knew that Howard was not exaggerating the abuses prevalent 
 in the Churches all ever the world, but more particularly in the 
 Church of England. 
 
 " I wish I could contradict you," — he said, rather sadly — 
 "But — to be honest — I cannot ! The clergy are losing their hold 
 on the million ; the million are trying to find God for themselves 
 — and I cannot blame them. The flecks are astray because of 
 the sloth of their shepherds. I am afraid this is true. Vet I 
 must say I have not met such flagrant examples of laxity
 
 356 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 among the clergy as those you have spoken of — nor do I know 
 of any Bishop who has so greatly transgressed " 
 
 Howard interrupted him by a slight warning gesture. 
 
 " Hush ! " he said — " All walls have ears, especially the walls 
 of tne Savoy ; and the episcopal lord may be here to-night for 
 all we know, though I should hardly think he would, after what 
 is privately known of him, have the temerity to show himself 
 in public. Anyway, he is far more likely to be at dinner than 
 at prayers ! " 
 
 Everton's honest blue eyes expressed a deep concern and 
 bewilderment. He was about to speak when fresh peals of 
 ringing laughter from the curtained recess made him wince 
 and grow pale. Howard saw that he was troubled, — and con- 
 cluding that the Savoy sights and sounds were beginning to 
 chafe and irritate his mind, took pity on him. 
 
 "Would you rather go now?" he asked — "Or would you 
 care for another glimpse of Mrs. Nordstein, made doubly 
 radiant by the warm glow of champagne and 'creme de 
 menthe ' in her veins ? People say she is at her loveliest 
 after dinner — and that when most over-fed women look red- 
 faced and greasy, she is pale as a pearl and cool as a water- 
 melon. By the way, that's her husband, Israel Nordstein, 
 just coming in." 
 
 Everton turned his head quickly and saw a thin, undersized 
 old man with a pallid, wizened face and grey goatee beard, 
 advancing slowly into the room, ushered along by a deferential 
 French waiter all smiles, bows and gesticulations, who was 
 evidently explaining that the Ferrers banquet was in a private 
 room apart from the less exclusive crowd. Many people 
 nudged one another and exchanged awestruck whispers as the 
 notorious Jew millionaire passed by their various tables, 
 nodding condescendingly to those he recognised, and looking 
 about him quizzically with sharp ferret eyes that sparkled 
 under his stiff bushy brows like bits of cold steel. At the 
 table next to that where Everton and Howard sat, he stopped 
 and laid a yellow, veiny hand on the shoulder of a man who 
 was dining with a pert-looking young actress.
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 357 
 
 "Enjoying yourself?" he queried in a rasping voice, which 
 struck against his false teeth like the grating of a saw ; — 
 "That's right! But don't let this delightful lady"— here he 
 bowed to the actress in question with an unpleasantly derisive 
 courtesy — "keep you late for your appointment with me to- 
 morrow. Some one in the city told me you were gclng abroad, 
 but I should not advise ycu to do that; no! — I should 
 not advise it at this time of year ! " 
 
 He stretched his thin lips in a wide grin, and his goatee 
 beard wagged up and down with the inward movement of his 
 silent mirth. The man he spoke to answered him in sharp 
 haste and evident irritation. 
 
 "Oh, I'm not going. I've changed my mind." 
 
 " I thought so ! " and Nordstein's smile was wider than 
 before. " And let me assure you that you do well to change 
 it!" 
 
 With that he went on to the corner where the French 
 Ganymede stood attentively ready for him near the velvet 
 curtain which hid the Aero-Club revels from outside observa- 
 tion. Raising the rich draper)' with an impressive elegance, 
 the waiter held it up as though it were an arch of triumph for 
 the redoubtable man of millions to walk under, — then let it 
 fall softly behind him like a conjurer who makes haste to 
 conceal the stage ''"hereon he works his black magic tricks and 
 mysteries. 
 
 Pvichard Everton had watched the little scene with morbid 
 intentness. He tried to realise that this old, shrunken, wicked- 
 eyed Jew was the husband of Jacynth ; the husband of a girl 
 of twenty-one ; for she was not eighteen when she had left 
 Shadbrook four years ago, — and the more the fact forced itself 
 upon him the stronger grew his sense of shame that such a 
 thing should be. A feeling of revolt and resentment rose up 
 in him ; — his whole mental and moral being was jarred into 
 sudden discord. The brilliant restaurant with its throng of 
 chattering, laughing, feeding men and women, seemed to him 
 nothing but a child's kaleidoscope with bits of coloured glass 
 that changed into different patterns with each slight movement,
 
 358 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 and he gave a quick involuntary sigh of utter weariness. He 
 glanced expressively at his host. 
 
 " Shall we go ? " said he. 
 
 " By all means ! " answered Howard, promptly. 
 
 They left their table and walked slowly together through the 
 crowded room. They were both tall, well-built men, of a finer 
 and more intellectual type than common, and many people 
 stared at them openly in the eminently rude British way which 
 sometimes disfigures British manners. Everton thought he 
 heard the words ' Another millionaire ! ' as Howard passed, 
 by one set of persons who were dining together near the 
 doorway, but glancing at his companion's unmoved face, he 
 concluded his ears must have deceived him. At the summit 
 of the wide staircase which they had to ascend from the dining- 
 room into the lounge, a foppishly- dressed man stood looking 
 down at them with a vacuous air as though he were peering 
 into the bottom of a deep well. His face was of a sickly white 
 hue, and a foolish smile played now and then on his loose 
 mouth like a weak flicker from an expiring flame. He was 
 considerably in the way of the coming and going people, and 
 once or twice was swayed aside by their movements as though 
 he were too helpless for personal resistance. Just as Everton 
 and Howard passed him he suddenly lost his balance and 
 toppled over, rolling from the top of the stairs to the bottom. 
 Everton was about to hurry to his assistance when Howard 
 pulled him back. 
 
 " Don't interfere," — he said — " He's drunk. The waiters 
 will see to him." 
 
 "Drunk!" echoed Everton, amazedly — "Here? Not pos- 
 sible ! " 
 
 "Quite possible ! You think not, because he's dressed like 
 a gentleman and is in a restaurant which ostensibly caters for 
 gentlefolk. But, my good sir, there's as much occasional drunk- 
 enness in high-flying places of this sort as there is in the lowest 
 public-house slum. See ! — they've picked up his lordship." 
 
 "His lordship?" 
 
 " Yes — he's a lord. Quite of the ' best quality ' " — and
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 359 
 
 Howard laughed scornfully — " He went over to the States two 
 or three years ago on the prowl after a pretty little boston 
 girl, an only child, whose father will leave her some millions. 
 She had a romantic idea that it would be nice to marry into 
 an old 'historic' English family and be called 'my lady.' But 
 after seeing this chap drunk a few times she altered her mind." 
 
 " Fortunately for herself!" commented Everton. 
 
 "Quite so! Now his is a case of drink where Balfour's 
 accusation of 'gross criminal self-indulgence' comes in pat. 
 He is drunk, not through one sort of poison but through 
 several sorts, mixed. He has probably taken at his one meal, 
 sherry, hock, claret, champagne, port and liqueurs, finishing up 
 with two or three whiskies. That is the frequent drink-routine 
 of the habitual diner-out. Naturally complete intoxication 
 sets in — I was going to say bestial intoxication, but that would 
 be wronging the poor beasts who never get drunk. And this 
 man is only one of many more of his class and kind. I could 
 even name to you a royal prince who never goes to bed 
 sober." 
 
 Everton gave a gesture of pained disgust. 
 
 "Spare me!" he said — "For if those who are set in high 
 positions as ' leaders ' of society sink so low, there is little hope 
 for the masses who have no leader at all. And a preacher 
 such as I am may as well give up his calling, for he can never 
 be more than a voice in the wilderness." 
 
 "A voice in the wilderness was the herald of Christ," — 
 replied Howard — " We mustn't forget that ! And the ' masses,' 
 — the masses of Great Britain, are the finest masses of human 
 material in existence ! I would back them against the whole 
 world ; — yes, though I'm an American, I would ! There's no 
 soldier like the British soldier — no sailor like the British 
 sailor — anywhere on God's earth ! And, — if he were given the 
 proper chance of training and experience there's nothing like 
 the British working-man. Hell beat any foreigners at any 
 piece of work if he can only be .saved from the licensed curse 
 of drink. Now shall we remain here a little ? — or shall we go 
 and see a few ' slum ' sights ? "
 
 360 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 " Slum sights are fairly familiar to me," — answered Everton ; 
 " I worked in the East End of London as an assistant curate 
 before I was married, and saw enough there to break my heart 
 if it had not been too full of faith and hope then to be easily 
 broken " 
 
 " Then ? " queried Howard, with a keen glance at him ; 
 " And— now ? " 
 
 " Well ! — now it is broken ! " he answered, quietly, — " But 
 faith and hope still hold the broken pieces together." 
 
 Howard smiled — a very warm and kindly smile. 
 
 " Come along then," — he said — " Come out of this luxurious 
 feeding-place of the over-rich Dives-folk of the world, and let 
 us go and look at Lazarus in rags, doing his best to fight 
 starvation and misery. The struggle against poverty is always 
 a more inspiring sight than is the passive acceptance of need- 
 less luxury. You don't want to see Claude Ferrers again or 
 his ' Magic Crystal ' ? " 
 
 A slight shadow crossed Everton's face, but he smiled 
 coMly. 
 
 " No. I have seen enough of them to-night." 
 
 They put on their coats and left the restaurant, and for 
 the rest of the evening they strolled through some of the many 
 purlieus of drink and poverty lying close about the Strand and 
 Covent Garden. 
 
 " This place," — said Howard, indicating a small, dingy street ; 
 "was the scene of a curious riot some time ago. Nearly 
 every house in it is owned by Jews, and one of them, a baker, 
 being overpressed with work against time, took on three 
 Christian assistants to help him turn out his loaves. He was 
 at once ' boycotted,' and gangs of Jews paraded in front of his 
 shop, causing the greatest obstruction and annoyance, and 
 threatening him with actual bodily violence because he had 
 employed other than Jews. Think of that in • free ' England ! 
 I am no fanatical Anti-Semite,— but I should be intellectually 
 blind if I did not see that Britain is being gradually overrun by 
 Jews, in society, in politics and in commerce, — and that the 
 marked encouragement of Jews by the Throne and the Press
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 361 
 
 is going in time to prove as serious a matter as the question of 
 the negro population in America." 
 
 " I deprecate all quarrels between sects," — said Everton, 
 quickly — " Many Jews are kinder and more charitable than 
 Christians." 
 
 " In certain well-defined and well-advertised cases, yes," — 
 agreed his companion. " But in the aggregate quantity, no. 
 The grabbing Christian is bad enough, but the grabbing Jew 
 is twenty times worse. Besides, it is not a question of sect — 
 but of race. Racial differences are inextinguishable. The lion 
 will not lie down with the lamb. Take Nordstein, for example. 
 He has made his millions by the most unscrupulous and dis- 
 honourable methods, and yet there is no one who would dare 
 to expose him. One of his numerous ' trades ' is the Drama. 
 He makes or mars it — as he pleases — and he is one of the 
 many existing causes of its gradual decline." 
 
 " How do you make that out ? " asked Everton, interested. 
 
 " In this way. He owns two or three theatres, in fashionable 
 quarters. He lets these to certain men who yearn to air them- 
 selves as 'actor-managers,' on easy terms, with the private 
 understanding that whenever he chooses to put a woman on 
 the boards as ' leading lady,' the actor-managers must take her, 
 willy-nilly, and ' boom ' her for all they are worth. She may 
 not have an ounce of talent, — that doesn't matter — • anything 
 will go down with the public if it's only boomed enough,' thinks 
 the Jew. But there he is often mistaken. The public are 
 getting sick of having the discarded mistresses of wealthy 
 Semites put forward for their delectation in 'leading' histrionic 
 parts. They want trained, capable artistes, — not cast-off 
 Delilahs. But it was in this way that Nordstein got his wife, — 
 she was first his mistress." 
 
 They were walking through a by-street, badly lit and tortuous ; 
 and Everton's face was in shadow. He made no remark, and 
 Howard went on : — 
 
 " She was a chorus girl in a musical comedy, and she had 
 just one dance to herself in the piece, which she danced with 
 unusual bravado. And her beauty attracted the ever-covetous
 
 362 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 Israel, and he took her off the stage. No one ever expected 
 him to marry her; but he did, much to the chagrin of 
 several fortune-hunting young women. It was a great catch 
 for her." 
 
 " A great catch ! " repeated Everton, his voice thrilling with 
 contempt — "That old, feeble, miserable - looking creature! 
 And she a mere girl ! " 
 
 Howard gave him a quick glance. 
 
 " The ' mere girl ' doesn't exist any more," — he said — " She 
 wouldn't have a chance if she did. Women are taught the 
 coldest world- wisdom in their schoolrooms nowadays, — and even 
 the minx of fourteen is aware that a rich marriage is what she 
 must aim at." Here he stopped in his walk. " Just look down 
 this alley ! " 
 
 A narrow court faced them from which all manner of sounds 
 and smells came rushing forth like able-bodied roughs bent on 
 choking and deafening them where they stood. Cries of 
 children, shrieking laughter of women, shouts and oaths of 
 men, were all mingled with the melancholy grinding of a 
 wheezy hurdy-gurdy which was being played somewhere round 
 a further corner, and from the murky end of the alley a bright 
 flare of light quivered through the darkness, intimating that 
 the Drink-fiend had legitimate abode there, and was holding 
 his usual revels. 
 
 " I happened to go down this place once in daytime," — said 
 Howard — " on a visit of curiosity and inspection, accompanied 
 by a police officer in plain clothes. I went into one of the 
 wretched tenement houses, where there was a little child just 
 dead. The scene was one of indescribable misery and squalor ; 
 and a poor tottering old crone, who evidently had some 
 shreds of natural feeling left in her starved soul, was putting 
 linen round the little corpse, and while I was there she laid 
 a couple of pennies on the eyelids to keep them closed. As 
 she did this, another woman of middle age suddenly started 
 up from a corner where she had been crouching like an animal 
 in a lair, and with a savage cry she snatched the coins away 
 and rushed out with them to the public-house. And — she
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET EIFE 363 
 
 was the dead child's mother ! Will any of the modern ' poets,' 
 as they wrongfully style themselves, write me that tragedy 
 truly? No! They will not, because it is too vastly bejond 
 them ! The twentieth-century rhymers write of their own 
 petty desires and disillusions, but they have little or no 
 sympathy with the continuous heartache of the wider 
 world." 
 
 They turned away and strolled in various other grimy and 
 poverty-stricken quarters of the immediate neighbourhood, 
 always meeting with fresh scenes of distress and hopeless 
 abandonment to the curse of drink. In the midst of the 
 foulest slums they saw the large and handsome gin-palaces, 
 many with brilliant dancing-saloons attached, where such wild 
 orgies are nightly carried on as shame the ' civilisation ' of the 
 age, and where money is lavishly laid out on specious attrac- 
 tions to allure the young and unwary into a vortex of 
 destruction. 
 
 " To get the cash back that has been spent on these great 
 buildings which exist for the distribution of poisoned beer and 
 alcohol," said Howard — " hundreds, ay, thousands of men and 
 women must drink till they die ! Otherwise there would be no 
 'profits' ; and the brewing and distilling companies would not 
 be able to feed, like carrion crows, on the bodies slain ! " 
 
 " And what do you think of small country places where the 
 magistrates, as far as the granting of licences goes, are mere 
 slavish tools in the hands of one brewer ? " asked Everton — 
 " I could name you a town where there are public-houses in 
 every street, and each one of those public-houses is ' tied ' to 
 the same brewery. Every penny is made by the one 'Tiust ' 
 concern, — a 'Trust' in the working-man's ruin! Should any 
 publican seek to trade with a different company, the magistrates 
 ' cannot see their way ' to renew his licence. There is a Free- 
 masons' Lodge in the town— but the chief business of its 
 'freemasonry' is to support the one rascally brewer on the 
 gains made by the drunkenness of the people, and in allowing 
 no outside competition." 
 
 Howard nodded comprehensively.
 
 364 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 " You needn't tell me anything on that score," — he said — ■ 
 " I know the devil's whole box of tricks ! Country places are 
 the happy hunting-ground of the pettiest tyrants ; and mayors 
 and corporations, made up as they mostly are of local trades- 
 men, think only of their own pockets and seldom try to 
 serve the wider interests of the ratepayers. Eut what's to be 
 done ? All governing bodies become ' parochial ' by degrees. 
 Even the House of Commons itself grows less and less 
 dignified as time goes on. It shows a tendency, on occasion, 
 to sink to the vague vituperative condition common to old washer- 
 women at the tub's edge. And, by the way, what an amount 
 of casual drinking goes on among the members of that 
 honourable assembly ! In the midst of the nation's business 
 too ! I remember being present once in the capacity of the 
 intelligent stranger at an interesting debate one evening, and 
 I certainly came away with the impression that whisky-soda 
 was more anxiously sought after than the national welfare ! 
 After the debate, I stood in the lobby quarter of an hour, and 
 during even that short space of time five men se\arally asked 
 me to join them in swilling their favourite beverage. When 
 you come to think of it, you know, it's not quite what one 
 expects from the makers of laws for the future of Great 
 Britain ! " 
 
 At that moment they had come to the end of a long narrow 
 street which led to the wider thoroughfares, and the thunder 
 of London's restless motion and unceasing traffic sounded on 
 their ears like the roar of an angry sea. A few yards more 
 brought them into Leicester Square, where the flaring front of 
 the Alhambra Music Hall made a garish fire against the over- 
 head darkness of the night. By some instinctive mutual 
 consent they both paused. 
 
 " It is not indeed what one expects," — said Everton, slowly, 
 answering his companion's last remark — " It is the last thing 
 one should look for or ever see in the Government house of 
 
 our great Empire. And, — if we look yonder " here he 
 
 pointed to the centre of the square, where an insignificant 
 statue of Shakespeare challenges the contempt of every intelli-
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 365 
 
 gent foreigner for its inadequate conception of honour to the 
 world's supremest Genius, — " there is the ' counterfeit present- 
 ment ' of our country's Greatest Poet, who said of our country's 
 curse : ' Oh, that a man should put a thief into his mouth to 
 steal away his brains ! ' " 
 
 " Ah, that's all very well ! " and Howard began to laugh — 
 " But have you ever thought that your very Shakespeare 
 himself, so far as associations with his memory in his own 
 native place are concerned, is literally soaked in Beer? 
 Soaked! — why, yes, I should think he's just pietty well 
 drowned in it ! His townsmen serve him up to you like a bit 
 of toast in a gallon of ale ! " Here he threw back his head and 
 his laughter rang out heartily. " I don't speak without know- 
 ledge, for, of course, like all good Americans, I've been to 
 Stratford-on-Avon. The first thing I heard there from a small 
 boy who was ' touting ' as a guide to the different places of 
 interest, was that 'Shakespeare got droonk at Bidford.' When 
 I had recovered from this dizzying shock, I was hit in the eye 
 by the spectacle of a bizarre theatre on the banks of the classic 
 Avon, a3 inartistic a pile of bricks as ever I beheld, and I was 
 told it had been built by a brewer as a ' memorial ' to 
 Shakespeare. Then I grasped the architectural design, of 
 course, — which is that of a glorified brewery, round vat and 
 all complete. I likewise learned that the said brewer had 
 edited a version of the Immortal Plays, with all the bits he 
 considered ' naughty ' cut out ! But that's not all. A brewer 
 ' manages ' the so-called ' national ' Trust of the Bard's own 
 birthplace — never was there anything national' so purely petty 
 and parochial ! — and actually uses the design of the bust over 
 the historic grave in the church as a ' trade mark ' on the label 
 of his beer-bottles ! Poor ' Gentle Willy ' ! A beery fate 
 pursues his noble ghost, and I have sometimes thought the 
 inscription on his tombstone ought to read thus : — 
 
 " ' Good Frende, for Jesus' sake forbear 
 To mix mine ashes up with Beer, — 
 Blest be ye man who spares my fame, 
 And curst be traders in my name ! ' "
 
 366 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 He recited this with much tragic emphasis, and continued : — 
 
 " A positive fume of beer enshrouds every personal associa- 
 tion with his memory — for a brewer is to put a window in the 
 church where his remains are buried, immediately above the 
 register of his birth and death, — and as if all this were not 
 enough, a brewery stands on the site of his famous ' Globe ' 
 theatre in Southwark ! The thing is almost more than 
 ludicrous ! It seems as if the Muses were mocking at England, 
 and asking derisively : ' Which do you prefer ? Your Greatest 
 Man, or Beer? If you can't make up your heavy, boorish 
 mind, — here ! — take them both together ! ' We ' pushful ' 
 Americans, as we are sometimes called, often make errors of 
 taste, owing to our nation's youth and inexperience, but if 
 Shakespeare had been born in our country, we should have 
 honoured his memory more sacredly in his own native place at 
 least than to have turned him into a Beer-advertisement ! We 
 should have tried to separate the nation's greatest Poet from 
 all connection with the nation's greatest shame — Drink. And 
 what a statue is this in Leicester Square ! Like a shop-walker 
 meditating on an error in a bill ! " 
 
 He gave a half-contemptuous, half-indignant gesture, and 
 added : 
 
 " Let's come out of this ! Shakespeare and the Alhambra 
 do not ' couple ' well ! " 
 
 " Almost as badly as Shakespeare and Beer ! " said Everton, 
 with a smile. 
 
 "Almost! But not quite. For the idea of attaching the 
 native and intimate associations of the world's highest brain (o 
 the world's lowest vice seems to me to be one that should not 
 be tolerated patiently by any self-respecting nation. But you 
 British are a queer people ! Shakespeare's own criticism of you, 
 through the mouth of his 'grave-digger' in Hamlet, when alluding 
 to the soul-sick prince's having been sent into England because 
 he was mad, fits you all up to the present day. ' A' shall recover 
 his wits there, or if a' do not 'tis no great matter there — 'twill 
 not be seen in him there, — there the men are as mad as he ! ' : 
 
 " There's a <rood deal of truth in that," — said Everton — "We 
 
 o >
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 367 
 
 are really an erratic people. We have the reputation of being 
 stolid and phlegmatic, full of sound reason and common sense, 
 — whereas the real truth is that we are very impulsive, credulous, 
 sentimental, and easily led away like children by the rumour of 
 anything strange, monstrous, foolish and fantastical. The 
 blind and stupid ease with which we swallow the lies of the 
 modern press, prove this up to the hilt. We do not greatly 
 appreciate our great men, — and by this I mean that we would 
 not go out of our way to help them or make them happier 
 while they are yet living among us. When they are dead we 
 make just as much ado as may enable us to hold on to the tag- 
 end of their spiritual royal robes ere they are swept away from 
 us into the larger life, — but if they were to come back suddenly, 
 materialised again into human form, and ask us for the loan of 
 ten pounds, we would not give it to them ! Think of Robert 
 Burns ! Think of the oceans of whisky that ha e been drunk 
 to his memory since he died ! And when he was alive he had 
 to humbly ask his cousin James Burness for money ! There 
 is something horribly pathetic in the appeal : ' O James, did 
 you know the pride of my heart you would feel doubly for me ! 
 Alas, I am not used to beg ! ' And I'm sure that if the 
 unhappy, gifted fellow were to return among us to-morrow his 
 experience would be the same. — and that not one of all his 
 whisky-drinking admirers would find so much as five pounds 
 ready to give him. Why, even a kind word might be grudged 
 to him, — for when you come to think of it, how many lonely 
 writers there must be who would be grateful for a kind word 
 from their contemporaries, and they never get it unless they 
 belong to a ' clique,' sworn to ' boom ' each other." 
 
 " That's a fact," — said Howard — " And in your literary 
 sections over here you have a certain overpowering and 
 offensive dilettantism which makes it a rule to sneer at every- 
 thing which is ' popular.' And yet who in Heaven's name 
 is more ' popular ' than Shakespeare ? Did he not ' play to the 
 gallery ' ? Of course he did, — he depended on the gallery for 
 support. He used old and ' popular ' stories, favourites with the 
 ' common ' folk, as the groundwork of his plays, and upon them
 
 368 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 strung his jewels of poesy for the benefit of the ' common ' 
 public. He never thought himself a genius, and never 
 anticipated that the ' literary critic ' would follow humbly in the 
 wake of ' popular ' applause, and crouch at his footstool for all 
 time ! Nowadays we talk of him as we do of all our dead 
 martyrs in the service of art and literature, as a kind of demi- 
 god whom it needs ' high culture ' to appreciate, — but he 
 himself never wrote specially for highly-cultured persons — only 
 for the ' vulgar ' British masses. Fortunately there was then no 
 cheap press on which jejune youths were employed at five or 
 ten shillings a column to sneer down their betters, — but 
 nowadays the ' great ' poet, so admitted by the literary cliques, 
 is he who has buttered the fingers of a friend to ' boom ' him ; 
 while the ' great ' novelist on the same lines is the person 
 who writes a sexual and sensual book unfit for decent-minded 
 men and women to read, and is therefore the ' literary ' star of 
 the carnal-minded section of the ' Upper Ten.' By the way, 
 who ' boomed ' you ? " 
 
 They were nearing their hotel by this time, and Everton 
 stopped in sheer amaze. 
 
 " Boomed me ! " he echoed — " Why, no one ! " 
 
 Howard looked at him with a quizzical, half-laughing 
 expression. 
 
 " Oh, come, come ! " he said ; — " That won't do ! No clergy- 
 man can get his sermons reported in the extensive way yours 
 have been, unless he's friends, — and particular friends too ! 
 — with the press." 
 
 The quick blood flushed to Everton's brows with a sense of 
 something like indignation. 
 
 " I assure you," he declared warmly, — " I do not know a 
 soul connected with any newspaper whatever ! " 
 
 Howard gave a slight shrug of his shoulders. 
 
 " Well ! Then all I can say is that some one is working 
 you on without your knowledge. There's a hand behind the 
 scenes somewhere. Everything you say is reported in several of 
 the leading papers at mere or less length — and do you suppose 
 that could be done without money or private influence ? "
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 369 
 
 This suggestion took Everton completely by surprise. 
 
 " Do you really think," — he began 
 
 " Do I really think you have a friend at court ? " said 
 Howard, good-humouredly — " Why of course I do ! No one, 
 — neither author, preacher nor hero, gets a whole column of 
 ' boom ' unless he pays for it, or is a friend of newspaper 
 proprietors. Muts inglorious Miltons remain mute and 
 inglorious except when they chance to please the ' vulgar ' 
 public. But you are not sufficiently known to this vulgar 
 public yet, to create such a stir as has been made for you ! I 
 am sure you quite deserve it, — still there is evidently some one 
 who knows your merits and has the power to bring them into 
 recognition." 
 
 Everton was silent because he could find nothing to say. 
 He was vaguely annoyed and bewildered. He had thought 
 that such notices as he had received in the press had been 
 solely because something he had said in his sermon had 
 appealed to his hearers, and from them to the wider world. 
 Now, — if such a thing were possible, or could be probable, 
 that some unknown influence was at work to bring himself 
 and his preaching into prominence, why then it was no 
 more than a 'worked-up' fame, — a fictitious interest in him 
 which would cease the moment the ' boom ' dropped. All 
 sorts of conflicting emotions stirred in him, and his face 
 showed the troubled tenor of his thoughts. Howard glanced 
 at him curiously once or twice, — then said, kindly : — 
 
 " Don't take me too seriously, Mr. Everton ! I may be 
 quite wrong. I only form my judgment on the facts of 
 modern newspaper management as presented to me by 
 experience. I came over here five or six years ago on 
 business connected with the purchase of a certain influential 
 journal, — I am fairly wealthy, and I was asked to help 
 re-float the thing. Well ! — I learned a good deal, — much 
 that I was both ashamed and sorry to know. Anyhow, I 
 decided not to put my money into the dirty work of a 
 newspaper ' trust.' For I found that in these kind of 
 commercial news-mongering concerns, no real justice for 
 24
 
 370 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 the people is advocated, but only the interests of ' party ' on 
 the chance of personal emolument Also, that no author, 
 artist or actor is highly praised or recommended unless 
 through some sort of ' pay ' or private influence ; — and I 
 imagine the same rule must apply to preachers; — but, as I 
 say, I may be entirely wrong " 
 
 "I think — nay, I am sure you are !" said Everton, earnestly, 
 "At any rate I hope you are. Such praise as has been 
 bestowed on me by the press, would be not only valueless 
 but actually offensive to my mind if I thought it was not 
 genuine, — and as for 'pay 'or 'influence,' neither I nor any 
 of the friends I have could use either." 
 
 "Well, if there's anything at the bottom of it all you're 
 sure to find it out," — said Howard ; — " I suppose your sermon 
 of to-morrow will be reported ? " 
 
 "As an assistance to the charity for which it pleads, I 
 suppose it will," — answered Everton; — "But for no other 
 reason." 
 
 " What is your text ? " 
 
 "A very familiar one, — 'The poor ye have always with 
 you ; — but Me ye have not always.' I think my arguments 
 deal chiefly with the latter half of the saying." 
 
 " ' Me ye have not always ! ' Ah ! One is almost tempted 
 to alter the words to ' Me ye have not at all ' nowadays," — 
 said Howard ; — " But in what way do you propose to move 
 a London congregation to such a conviction? Rustic folk 
 are easily persuaded ; — but the people, — especially the 
 fashionable people, — of this giant metropolis are of more 
 stubborn material." 
 
 " There I don't agree with you ! " — and Everton laughed 
 a little, — " Rustic folk are among the most obstinate of 
 human beings. I think it would be easier to move the 
 emotions of a London club lounger than those of a Cotswold 
 farmer ! But so far as my sermon may lead me to-morrow, 
 I am not anxious to force any conviction on any one. I 
 merely want to show, if I can, that the giving of alms 
 without the ' Me ', or the Spirit of Christ in the gift, is not
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 371 
 
 true generosity. The majority of people arc proverbially 
 ungrateful for every kind of assistance because it needs a 
 great nature to acknowledge great benefits, — but what I 
 would seek to teach is that if you give at all, have Christ 
 with you in the giving, and then ingratitude cannot hurt you. 
 For I am sure that the Christ-intention to do good is bound 
 to work out to noble issues. It is the 'Me you have not 
 always ' that makes the difference between mere alms-giving 
 without heart, and real charity." 
 
 They had by this time reached their hotel, and entering 
 it they said good-night to each other. As Everton held 
 out his hand, Howard detained it a moment in an extra- 
 cordial pressure. 
 
 "You must forgive me," he said, "for having bored you 
 with my talk ! — but I've wanted some one to 'pour out' to for 
 ever so long ! Most Americans talk too much, and I'm not 
 exempt from my countrymen's little failing. I think you 
 English talk too little; — but that's a matter of opinion. 
 Anyhow, what I want to say just now is that I've taken a 
 great liking to you, and that if I can be of any service to you 
 at any time I hope you'll command me. You may have some 
 scheme for the betterment of your parish, — some plan for 
 improving the general condition of poor humanity," and he 
 laughed ; — " and if you have, do me the favour of letting me 
 help you. I have plenty of money I don't want for myself — 
 that would be a tempting bait to most clergymen ! — but it 
 won't be to you ; — you're too straight. You'll just tell me when 
 you need something dene and you'll find me on the square ! " 
 
 Everton was surprised and touched. 
 
 "It's very good of you," — he began, — but Howard inter- 
 rupted him. 
 
 " No, it isn't ! " he declared, with a whimsical sparkle in his 
 eyes; — "It isn't 'good' of me — it is simply agreeable to 
 me. A mere form of selfish indulgence, I assure you ! Good- 
 night ! " 
 
 He went then to his room, — and Everton soon followed his 
 example. Alone, with the roar of London still making muffled
 
 372 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 thunder on his ears though the hour was so late, he stood 
 looking through the dingy panes of his window at two or 
 three faintly twinkling stars that could just be seen between 
 the dividing lines of a stack of tall chimneys opposite, and he 
 thought of his own quiet Vicarage with its old-world garden, — 
 of the little church with its square ivied tower, and the grassy 
 flower-strewn plot where his murdered wife Azalea lay, 
 mingling her delicate dust with the creative elements of 
 Mother Earth, who so quickly changes what we call death 
 into other forms of life ; — and it seemed to him as if a kind 
 of epoch had rolled away since he had left Shadbrook that 
 morning. Was it possible that he had only been one day 
 in London ? — nay, barely more than half of one day ? Why, 
 it was an age ! — an age since the garden-gate of his country 
 home had swung behind him, shutting away the lovely quiet 
 of fair lawns and full-foliaged trees, — so much had happened 
 since then, — he had seen so much, — heard so much, — and 
 suffered so much ! Suffered ? Ay, w':th a poignancy in- 
 credible, though the agony was nothing more than the 
 compression of a few facts into a few sentences uttered 
 casually by a stranger. Why should he wince at it? What 
 did it all amount to ? Only this ; — that all the pain and 
 doubt and despair of good that had gripped his soul as it 
 were in the clutches of devils when his wife had been brought 
 home to him slain by Dan Kiernan, had returned in full 
 force upon him now with the knowledge that Jacynth was 
 alive and prospering. Somehow he had sub-consciously 
 imagined her going from bad to worse, — becoming perhaps a 
 frequenter of such gin-palaces as he had seen that night, and 
 inhabiting a room in one of those wretched slums. He had 
 never thought to see her as a wealthy woman, with jewels 
 flashing on her breast, and the world of fashion gaping 
 greedily upon her beauty. It was not fair, he told himself 
 angrily, that she should be thus full of pride and vitality, 
 while the innocent Azalea lay dead, — murdered, as surely 
 through her as by Dan Kiernan. And he thought of a 
 phrase in the book of a modern author, — a phrase which,
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 373 
 
 when he had first read it, had shocked and grieved him ; 
 'the dreadful mind of God.' He had considered such an 
 expression biasphemous — and yet — was it not true ? ' The 
 dreadful mind of God ! ' Surely it was a dreadful mind, if it 
 could so give pre-eminence to evil, and doom innocence to 
 destruction ! The vision of Jacynth as she had entered the 
 Savoy dining-room that night, radiant, self-possessed, smiling, 
 supreme in her beauty and egotism, flashed before him as 
 though it were a mirage-picture, sketched in summer lightning. 
 She had recognised him, — of that he felt sure. She had 
 recognised him as quickly and positively as he had recognised 
 her. Her dark luminous eyes had challenged his scrutiny, — 
 had dumbly but insistently commanded his silence as to her 
 past. Even now, in the solitude that environed him, he 
 could see those eyes, — could feel their haunting, passionate 
 dominance. The idea that they mysteriously followed him 
 and looked at him steadfastly like rtars shining out of the 
 misty air, stung him with an angry sense of helplessness ; — 
 and fu'l of strange wrath and pain, with a spirit rising up in 
 indignant protest at what seemed to be the unequitableness 
 of Divine equity, he suddenly threw himself upon his knees 
 and prayed with all his heart and soul that he might never 
 meet her again ! Never, never ! For so it would be best !
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 A CHURCH, crowded wUh ultra-fashionable people, is, to 
 the minds of a few thinkers, always a curious anomaly. 
 It is called the ' House of God,' and in certain forms of faith 
 there are priests who affirm that God Himself, the Creator of 
 Heaven and Earth, is personally present in the compressed 
 form of a consecrated wafer. If this fantastic and superstitious 
 theory finds actual acceptance with sane persons, is it not 
 rather wonderful that in this 'Presence' of God, men and 
 women are so indifferent, irreverent and callous as they, for 
 the most part, show themselves to be during any and every 
 sort of Divine worship ? For even where no eccentric inven- 
 tions of the priesthood are in vogue, — where the ritual is simply 
 one of prayer and praise to that Almighty Power whose eternal 
 force projects the life-currents through interminable oceans of 
 space wherein great planetary systems, like golden argosies, 
 sail on their glorious voyages to pre-determined ports of wider 
 splendour, is it not amazing, even appalling, that a crowd of 
 human units, whose lives hang on the finest hairs of circum- 
 stance, should gather together in a building for the ostensible 
 purpose of acknowledging their ' manifold sins and wickedness,' 
 in the presence, — mark you ! — in the ' Presence ' of this Supreme 
 Omnipotence, and should show themselves less conscious 
 of Divine nearness than they do of their neighbours' looks 
 and clothing? Are they humble? Repentant? Modest in 
 bearing? Not they! Nothing perhaps in all our various 
 mockeries of true religion can equal the ridiculous arrogance, 
 the pitiable conceit of Church congregations in fashionable 
 
 374
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 375 
 
 quarters of London, where the women rustle up to their seats 
 arrayed in all the newest modes, casting glances of envy or 
 scorn at one another, — where the men, not troubling to kneel 
 lest their trousers should grow ' baggy,' say what they dare to 
 call a prayer in the crowns of their hats to the God they thus 
 impudently deride ; — and where the pretentious show of mere 
 mannerism is trebly enhanced when the church is one of those 
 known as 'high,' — and ornate ceremonial assists the general 
 aspect of the over-dressed, self-conscious throng. For then 
 the priests, as well as people, attitudinise and make dumb 
 mimicry of the awful things of life and death, — then they, too, 
 play like children with the danger-signals of the universe and 
 invite disaster on the soul, — then they, too, make show of dress 
 and ornament, and mince and simper before the altar like 
 tawdry puppets on a stage playing for money and applause, 
 forgetful that while Truth may be called the very blood and 
 being of God, Falsehood, as opposed to the spirit of Eternal 
 Law, contains within itself the destruction of every fabric, 
 religious or social, that it attempts to build on its own 
 quicksands of sham. 
 
 It was in one of these highest of ' High Anglican ' churches 
 that Everton found himself called upon to preach on the 
 Sunday morning following his arrival in London, and all 
 through the service, which was little less than Roman 
 Catholic in its character, he was full of a silent, deeply- 
 repressed but all the more poignant regret, shame and sorrow. 
 It was not that he was in any way fanatically prejudiced 
 against the Roman Catholic faith : — on the contrary, should it 
 have chanced that he had been born and brought up in that 
 faith, his very temperament would probably have made him 
 one of its most devoted adherents. He would have obeyed 
 the laws of his Church to the letter, and would never have 
 known what it was to enjoy 'the glorious liberty of the free.' 
 But, being what he was, he could not understand how think- 
 ing, reasonable men, having once cast off the yoke of mere 
 heathen superstition, and having begun to learn some of the 
 magnificent scientific Facts of the Divine Cosmos, could wil-
 
 376 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 fully return again to the slavery of the dark ages with their pagan 
 rites and ceremonials, all of which show as barbaric tawdriness 
 when compared with the pure and quiet spirit of simple piety. 
 
 " If this were a Roman Catholic Church," he thought, — " I 
 should feel nothing but compassionate respect for all who 
 were engaged in performing their devotions according to the 
 measure of their intellectual capabilities ; but when I know it 
 is the ' Church of England ' professing to teach the ' reformed ' 
 faith which our forefathers died to hand down to us, together 
 with the watchword 'The Open Bible,' — I cannot but wonder 
 what my fellow-clergy are about that they so deliberately 
 falsify their mission ! And the Bishops and the Archbishops ! 
 Why do they remain inert? To whom are they truckling? 
 To Rome ? To ' principalities and powers ! ? To themselves 
 and their own love of authority? One thing is certain, — 
 they are not obeying Christ ; — and with disobedience must 
 come downfall ! " 
 
 And he was so full of perplexity and pain that when the 
 time came for him to preach he ascended the pulpit like a 
 man in a dream, looking down on the sea of faces and 
 upturned eyes as part of the shifting and uncertain glamour of 
 a vision briefly presented and soon to vanish in nothingness. 
 He was unconscious of the ripple of interest that ran through 
 the crowded congregation as he appeared, — he could not hear 
 the many whispers cautiously exchanged between various 
 persons such as : — " That's the man whose wife was murdered." 
 " Oh really ! " "I suppose she had a lover ? " " Oh dear no ! 
 She was killed by a drunken labourer, — you see, he's a 
 temperance preacher." " You don't say so ! There must 
 have been some reason for the murder ? " " No — just the 
 drink, — a sort of revenge on a temperance man." " Hope he 
 isn't going to preach temperance to-day?" "No — that isn't 
 his subject — hush-sh-sh ! " 
 
 And every one settled down into decorous silence as Everton's 
 mellow voice rang out over their heads with a clear penetrative 
 tone so unlike the affected drawl of most preachers, that of 
 itself alone it roused and arrested immediate attention. Un-
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 377 
 
 like most preachers, too, was Evertcn himself, with his pale 
 fine face, earnest eyes and rapt expression ; — and before he 
 had spoken for five minutes the whole worldly, egotistical 
 crowd was moved, if not to actual interest, to extreme 
 curiosity. He was 'something new,' — something of which 
 they had latterly lost the knowledge, — something real in 
 eloquence, grace and inspiration. And they listened ; amazed, 
 if not impressed. Here was a country parson, — a stranger to 
 London congregations> whose life, so it was said, had been 
 clouded by a terrible tragedy, — who was Vicar of a very small 
 parish in an obscure corner of the Cotswoids, and who, till 
 the murder of his wife by an irresponsible drunkard, had 
 been absolutely unknown, — here was this very man preaching 
 to a large section of wealthy and exclusive London society 
 with an ease, an elegance, a beauty of phrasing and a boldness 
 of purpose such as had not been heard for many a long day 
 in that church or any other. It was understood that 
 ' Royalty ' in the shape of a German Princess of that or this 
 other 'Hofsburger' was present, and the glances of such 
 toadies and time-servers as bow to the very smell of royal 
 boots, were, for a while, furtively turned on a stout, unpre- 
 possessing lady who occupied a seat immediately opposite 
 the pulpit ; — but presently, as the stout lady remained royally 
 rigid, her aspect became tiresome, and people left off watching 
 the quivering of the short feather in her bonnet which they 
 had at first contemplated reverently as though it were a 
 plume in an angel's wing, and concentrated their entire 
 attention upon the sermon. And gradually they became 
 aware that they were listening to a flow of unusually brilliant 
 and persuasive oratory, — by degrees their vague brains grasped 
 the astonishing fact that n parson preaching in aid of a charity 
 and openly appealing for funds, may, if so gifted and inclined, 
 present his subject in various points of view like the facets of 
 a diamond, — may plead his cause with the picturesqueness 
 of a poet and the subtle power of a philosopher, and may 
 win his way by sheer strength and beauty of rhetoric where 
 doctrinal persuasion would be of no avail. And as Everton
 
 378 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 spoke on and on, the hush in the church grew more strained 
 and intense, — till the smallest interruption, even of the pro- 
 verbial ' church cough,' would have been resented as an 
 almost unpardonable offence by all present. So exceptional 
 a preacher had not been expected to appeal to the congrega- 
 tion on behalf of a benevolent scheme which, on the whole, 
 had been rather difficult to organise, owing to the prevalent 
 custom among ' society ' folk of giving their names by way of 
 assistance and nothing else; and the most callous and 
 indifferent persons who heard Richard Everton's sermon that 
 morning were faintly stirred to reluctant admiration for the 
 strength, sincerity and simplicity of his utterance. With the 
 tenderest pathos he spoke of the miseries of the poor, and 
 with equally tender compassion he compared these with the 
 sufferings of the rich, — the 'sorrowful successful' as he called 
 them, — they who had all this world's goods at their disposal, 
 and cared for nothing save change and a ' new sensation.' 
 
 t; To make others happy," he said, in one passage, — " is the 
 only ' new sensation ' that never tires. It matters nothing 
 at all if these others prove ungrateful for the benefits you 
 bestow upon them. You gain far more than they do, by your 
 simple act of giving. You expand your soul ; it grows nearer 
 to the stature of the Divine. The grudging man, the mean man, 
 dwarfs his spiritual height — cramps his spiritual powers — withers 
 his spiritual fibres, — and becomes the merest pigmy, when he 
 might reach heroic form and heroic attributes. Nothing that 
 is given in a l.oble cause is ever lost — it comes back again to 
 the giver with an additional thousand blessings. You who 
 carefully count your pounds and pence, — you who invest 
 every shilling in something that you imagine may bring you 
 high interest, and as often as not lore all your stakes, have you 
 so little faith in the God you profess to worship as to think 
 He will not richly satisfy you for what you give in His Name ? 
 I say that the richest man among you to-day is likely to be 
 poor if he refuses to help his less fortunate fellow-creatures ; 
 while the poorest who gives what he can with a loving heart 
 in the gift, is more certain of prosperity, swift and continuous,
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 379 
 
 than any present millionaire who denies assistance to those 
 who are in genuine need. I am not pleading for indiscrimin- 
 ate charity. There is nothing I deprecate so much or consider 
 so harmful to the true interests of benevolence as the giving of 
 money to the unworthy, — to the practised begging-letter writer, 
 for example, or to the degraded disciple of the Drink mania, 
 who feigns misery in order to obtain the wherewithal to spend 
 on the poison that transforms him into a thing that is neither 
 man nor beast, — but I say that wherever a real means arises 
 of doing good to our fellow-travellers who are journeying in the 
 same road as ourselves, through life to the larger life beyond, 
 we should never lose the opportunity thus offered to us. 
 Sometimes a kind word is more than gold ; sometimes a gentle 
 look is worth more than millions to the lonely-hearted man or 
 woman ; and of these lonely-hearted there are many among 
 the world's richest inhabitants. In whatever way we are 
 called upon or expected to help and console, let us not grudge 
 our sympathy, — our quick aid, — our utmost love ! Captious 
 critics may say I express myself in mere platitudes ; that we 
 have all heard over and over again to the point of positive 
 tedium that it is good to 'give to the poor and lend to the 
 Lord.' ' We know all that ! ' they exclaim : ' Give us some- 
 thing new ! : Yes ! — you may know all that, — but like the dates 
 and figures of history you learned in childhood, you need to be 
 reminded of a duty which is so obvious that by this very cause 
 alone it falls into neglect. And there is nothing so ' new : in 
 this age, as the doing of a kindness for kindness' sake ! With- 
 out a selfish motive, without egotism, without brag, without 
 any of the smug self-importance and assertiveness which so 
 frequently disfigure the donors of large sums to charities; 
 nothing of all this, — but just kindness for kindness' sake ! 
 love for love's sake ! " He paused here, smitten by a sudden 
 personal emotion. "For, after all," — he continued, slowly; 
 " love is the greatest of all the attributes of God. If we can 
 love our neighbours as ourselves, we have reached a high form 
 of faith, — I repeat 'if we can ! If we can forgive our enemies 
 while they are slaying us with their scorns and slanders, we
 
 380 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 have gone yet a step higher, — and if we can do good to those 
 that despitefully use us, we have touched the hem of the 
 garment of Christ Himself, who when He was being nailed to 
 the Cross said, ' Father, forgive them, for they knew not what 
 they do ! '" 
 
 His voice sank. — and once more he paused. There was 
 a moment's deep silence, and the German ' royalty ' who was 
 seated opposite the pulpit made a rustling movement of her 
 gown, indicative of her readiness to depart. The flicker of a 
 smile crossed Everton's face — he heard and saw the lady's 
 restless stir, but paid no heed. It was not his intention to 
 spoil his sermon for the convenience of any ' Highness ' 
 whatsoever. He had no sympathy with that section of the 
 time-serving clergy who hastily gabble through a prepared 
 sermon for the delectation of exalted personages who decline 
 to listen to any exposition of the Word of God longer than 
 ten minutes. And so, gathering up by degrees all the threads 
 of his discourse, he wove them gradually and without haste 
 into a powerful summary and conclusion, full of ardour and 
 feeling, delivered with such moving earnestness that a kind of 
 lightning thrill ran through the eagerly listening congregation. 
 They were indeed sufficiently warmed by enthusiasm as to 
 have given way to outbursts of applause had the place been 
 any other than a church, — and when the sermon at last came 
 to an end, they were ready to generously and gladly assist 
 the cause for which it had been preached. A collection 
 was made immediately Everton had descended from the 
 pulpit, and over two hundred pounds in loose money was 
 taken in about five minutes, added to a bank note for one 
 hundred pounds which had been dropped in the plate like 
 a crumpled bit of paper by Everton's American acquaintance, 
 Clarence Howard. While the people were filing out of 
 church to the solemn and thunderous strains of a Wagnerian 
 organ voluntary, Everton had to wait a few minutes in the 
 vestry for the Vicar of the parish, whom he had promised to 
 accompany to luncheon with the particular Bishop whose 
 invitation and persuasion had brought him to London. He
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 381 
 
 was a trifle weary ; he had done his best, and yet there was 
 a sense of fatigue and depression upon him ; a kind of un- 
 satisfied query lurking at the bottom of his soul, which said, — 
 " What is the use of it all ? What is the use of charity to the 
 poor? The utmost that can be done is but a drop of relief in 
 the ocean of human misery ; — an ocean so vast and wide and 
 deep that sometimes it seems threatening to swamp the 
 world ! " 
 
 The door of the vestry opened softly, and a verger looked 
 in. 
 
 " Beg pardon, sir ! A lady wishes to speak to you." 
 
 And before he could draw a breath or utter a word, he was 
 face to face with, — Jacynth. 
 
 " How do you do, Mr. Everton ? " she said. 
 
 He was silent. She smiled as his eyes fastened upon her 
 gravely and coldly. She knew how beautiful she looked in 
 her gown of dark clinging velvet with oH lace at her throat 
 and wrists, and a plumed hat such as Gainsborough's ladies 
 might have worn, coquettishly poised on the waving masses of 
 her rich brown hair. 
 
 " I saw you last night at the Savoy/' she went on, in soft 
 slow accents which had the ring of an almost ultra-refinement, 
 " It was quite a surprise, though of course I knew you 
 were in London because I heard you were to preach here 
 to-day. We are all so interested in the charitable scheme 
 which you have pleaded for so splendidly, and see ! — this is to 
 add to the collection on behalf of my husband and myself." 
 And she laid a cheque for five hundred pounds on the little 
 table that stood between them. " It is to be included in the 
 general collection, please ! — and our names are not to be 
 mentioned. I brought it round to the vestry myself in order 
 to explain this to you personally, — and also because, — be- 
 cause I wanted to speak to you again. You remember me, 
 don't you ? " 
 
 " Yes," he answered, quietly — " I remember you perfectly — 
 Jacynth ! " 
 
 As he uttered her name she gave him a quick glance of
 
 382 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 something like amusement. " If you were quite candid with 
 yourself," she thought, in her overweening vanity, "you 
 would say you remember me because you can never forget ! " 
 But his features were perfectly impassive; she could read 
 upon them no expression of either pleasure or pain. 
 
 " So much has happened since we last met," — she went on, 
 lowering her brilliant eyes and heaving a slight sigh ; — " But I 
 often think of poor little Shadbrook " 
 
 A sudden flash of scorn on his face checked her in the 
 middle of her sentence. 
 
 " I should imagine," he said, — " that it would be difficult for 
 you not to think of poor little Shadbrook ! " 
 
 She looked up at him with a musing, almost childlike 
 expression of surprise. Then she laughed a little. 
 
 " You are not a bit changed, Mr. Everton ! You are just 
 the same well-meaning parson trying to make bad folks good ! 
 I wonder you don't get tired of it, for it's no use, you know ! 
 But you are famous now, and that makes such a difference ! 
 Even if people won't be reformed the preacher who tries to 
 reform them always gets the advantage of being talked about." 
 She smiled; — the radiant smile of sweetest self-content. 
 " Come and see me to-morrow, will you ? " 
 
 "Thank-you," he replied, stiffly, "I am returning to 
 Shadbrook to-morrow." 
 
 " Ah, but you will not return if I ask you to remain in town 
 just one more day ! " she said, with a sudden pretty earnest- 
 ness — " Please do me this favour ! I want to have a long talk 
 with you, — I have so much to tell you ! Don't refuse 
 me!" 
 
 She laid her delicately gloved hand on his arm. He 
 shuddered instinctively, trying hard to control the rising wave 
 of bitter wrath that surged through him at the sight of her. 
 Only last night he had prayed God that he might never meet 
 her again. And this was how God had answered his prayer ! 
 Then, were prayers futile ? Or was there in very truth a 
 malicious devil who took delight in intercepting them and 
 bringing them to naught ? He longed to tell this woman what
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 383 
 
 he thought of her, — what evil she had worked on harmless 
 lives, — and yet, — there she stood, foul to the soul's core with 
 vulgarest vice, and lovely as a spring morning ! — smiling at 
 him too with the simplest and most wistful air of perfect 
 innocence ! He lifted her hand from his arm and put it 
 gently aside. 
 
 " If you wish it, I will come," he said — " What hour shall I 
 find you disengaged ? " 
 
 She took out a golden card-case on which an elaborate 
 monogram 'J.N.' sparkled in diamonds, and on one of her 
 visiting cards wrote with a tiny pencil — ' 5.' 
 
 '" There ! " she said — " You must consider ycurself quite a 
 privileged person, for as a rule I never see any callers on 
 Mondays. We'll have a good long ' talk-out ' ! — I want to tell 
 you everything I " 
 
 Almost he smiled. There was something vaguely humorous 
 about her splendid effrontery ; — the effrontery of the position 
 to which she had been raised by the wealth and the whim of 
 a rascal Jew. So contemptible an uplifting ! — and yet in the 
 world's eyes quite sufficient for the subjugation of that Clown 
 with Cap and Bells which is nowadays called 'Society.' 
 Sufficient too, for her, originally a mere village wanton, to 
 assure him that he, her former Vicar, 'was quite a privileged 
 person ' in that he might be permitted to see her on a day not 
 usually granted to visitors ! And through the recesses of his 
 memory rang the echo of a dying man's frenzied scream — 
 'Jacynth! Jacynth! Hold her! See where she goes! Willno 
 one stop her? Running, running, running, — look! — running 
 straight into Hell ! Jacynth ! All the devils at her ! — tearing 
 her lovely body, — her lovely body that God made ! God ! 
 There's no God ! There never was ! It's all a lie ! " 
 
 At that moment the vestry door opened again, and the Vicar 
 for whom he had been waiting, entered. 
 
 " I'm sorry to have left you alone so long, Mr. Everton," — 
 he began, formally ; then with a sudden change of tone he 
 exclaimed — ' ; Mrs. Nordstein ! This is indeed an unexpected 
 pleasure ! "
 
 3S4 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 She held out her hand to him with a graceful air of 
 condescension. 
 
 "I hope you don't mind my coming into the vestry?" she 
 said, and a dazzling smile lit up her lovely face as brilliantly 
 as though the sunshine had illumined it — " I felt that I really 
 must congratulate you on having secured Mr. Everton's services 
 for our good cause. He has given us much to think about, 
 has he not? I have brought an offering from my husband 
 and myself — Mr. Everton will explain " 
 
 She broke off, looking from one to the other in prettily 
 feigned embarrassment, while Everton handed the cheque 
 she had given him to his colleague. 
 
 " Mrs. Nordstein wishes this to be included in the general 
 collection," he said, coldly — "The donors' names are not to 
 be publicly mentioned." 
 
 The Vicar glanced hastily at the sum for which the cheque 
 was inscribed. Then his little eyes twinkled with excitement, 
 and his face, which was full and rubicund, grew rounder and 
 redder. 
 
 " My dear Mrs. Nordstein ! " he murmured, in almost 
 reverential accents, — "This is really too much! You are too 
 generous ! Five Hundred Pounds ! Why, this brings our 
 collection up to eight hundred pounds this morning ! Mr. 
 Everton, are you not delighted with such an excellent result 
 of your good efforts ? It is positively unprecedented ! " 
 
 Everton was looking fixedly at Jacynth, and wondering as 
 he looked, whether any memory of the past, or any prick of 
 conscience troubled her ? Apparently not. 
 
 " I am sure," he said, stiffly, " that Mr. and Mrs. Nordstein 
 would have helped your cause in any case." 
 
 " Ah, do not be too sure about that ! " — and Jacynth laughed 
 softly, — " We have so many appeals that we are obliged to 
 harden our hearts against them all sometimes. But such a 
 grand sermon as you have preached this morning would move 
 the coldest spirit ! Thank you so much for it ! Good-bye ! " 
 
 She extended her hand. He was obliged to take it for 
 civility's sake, — but he dropped it again quickly. She under-
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 385 
 
 stood the repulsion expressed in his movement, and an amused 
 smile lifted the corners of her lovely mouth. Turning from 
 him, she held out the same hand to the Vicar, whose name 
 was Carey, and whose congregations, owing to their 'High' 
 ritualistic practices, were known among the irreverent as 
 1 Mother Carey's chickens.' He grasped it impressively and 
 bent over it. 
 
 " May I ? " he said, and kissed the well-fitting back of her 
 glove Her smile deepened. 
 
 "You remind me of Cardinal Lyall ! " — she said — "He is a 
 perfect courtier, — like yourself ! " 
 
 " Ah, the Cardinal is privileged ! He sees you oftener than 
 I do ! "' answered the Reverend Carey, with a fatuously tender 
 air of reproach. 
 
 "You mean that he calls on me oftener!" she corrected 
 him, laughingly — " But he is not always admitted ! Now if 
 you will let me know next time you are coming to see me, 
 I promise to be at home ! Good-bye ! " 
 
 With a flashing backward glance of her dark eyes at Everton, 
 she moved out of the vestry, and Mr. Carey ambled hastily 
 after her. 
 
 " Allow me to see you to your car ! " he said, eagerly, and, 
 like a portly servitor attendant on a queen he followed in the 
 wake of her trailing velvets and perfumed lace, and disappeared. 
 
 Everton left ulone again for a few moments, was thankful for 
 the brief respite from the strain he had been putting on his 
 nerves. He was astonished and dismayed at the force of the 
 storm that raged within his own soul. He felt as a man deeply 
 and cruelly wronged may feel in the presence of his bitterest 
 foe. Over and over again he asked himself how it was possible 
 that Jacynth, — Jacynth Miller, — Dan Kiernan's light-o'-love, 
 and the toy of other men besides Dan Kiernan, should actually 
 have taken a position in London society ! — a position too in 
 which she could seemingly afford to dictate her ' days for 
 visitors,' as though she were some great celebrity or mover of 
 world's business, to whom time was more precious than 
 money ! He could have laughed at the incongruity of the 
 25
 
 3 86 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 thing, if his thoughts were not so bitter. Jacynth ! — she, 
 whom he had hoped to call 'the best girl in the village' — 
 Jacynth, — who had been a frequenter of the Shadbrock public- 
 houses, — Jacynth whose old 'auntie' still lived en in her tumble- 
 down cottage, drinking and swearing her days away, — Jacynth, 
 the same, the very Jacynth, without heart, without conscience, 
 without pity ! Her half-amused, half-tolerant condescension of 
 manner towards him had stung him to the quick ! But, — he 
 would see her to-morrow. And to-morrow he would tell her 
 the truth of herself ! — the cruelty, the shame, the grief she had 
 brought into other lives than her own, — for though he had 
 prayed God to spare him from any contact with her, God had 
 not consented to his prayer. Therefore, let the worst happen ! 
 The worst ? What was his idea of the worst ? There was no 
 ' worst ' for Jacynth. Divine Order or Divine Chaos had 
 arranged that all should go well with her who served God not 
 at all, — while the same Divine Order or Chaos had equally 
 decreed that all should go ill with him who was God's minister. 
 Then, if it was to be so, God's will be done ! Here his troubled 
 meditations were interrupted by the return of the Reverend 
 'Mother Carey.' 
 
 " Come along now, Mr. Everton," he said, — " I'm sorry we 
 have been delayed a little, — but we shall not be late for the 
 Bishop's luncheon. It's only ten minutes from here, and my 
 brougham is waiting. This way ! " 
 
 They passed out of the vestry and through a side passage of 
 the church into the street, and entering the carriage which, as 
 stated, was in readiness, were rapidly driven away. 
 
 " You know Mrs. Nordstein, I suppose ? " said Carey, 
 then. 
 
 " I have met her," Everton replied, evasively. 
 
 " Charming woman ! — perfectly charming ! — and generous to 
 a fault ! A less simple nature than hers would be spoilt, — ah 
 dear me, yes ! — quite spoilt by the constant adulation she 
 receives in society ; — but she is so young, and so unsophisti- 
 cated ! — so beautifully unconscious of her beauty ! " 
 
 Everton smiled coldly.
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 387 
 
 "You are no doubt a good judge of her character," — he 
 said. 
 
 Mr. Carey beamed all over with self-gratulation. 
 
 " I think so ! I think I may say I know her fairly well," — 
 he answered, placidly " She is always ready to help our church, 
 though she is nut a regular member of our congregation. She 
 has numerous friends among the clergy, and is very catholic in 
 her tastes. You heard her mention Cardinal Lyall?" 
 
 Everton bent his head in assent. 
 
 " He is, as of course you know, a leading light of the Roman 
 Church in England, and she assists his charities quite as much 
 as she does ours. Her husband is a Jew; — an enormously 
 wealthy man ! — enormously wealthy ! " and the reverend 
 gentleman almost smacked his lips as he said the words — 
 "But he leaves her at perfect liberty to follow her own religion, 
 and to help its good works in any way she pleases " 
 
 " Her own religion ? What is that ? " asked Everton. 
 
 " My dear sir ! " And Mr. Carey opened his round 
 eyes in mild wonder — "Was she not in my church this 
 morning ? " 
 
 " That does not make the matter clear to me," — and Everton 
 looked at him, fully and squarely — " Because I do not know 
 what form of faith your church stands for." 
 
 ' Mother Carey ' stared hard. 
 
 " Why, you have just preached there," he began. 
 
 "As I should have preached anywhere in the cause of 
 charity," answered Everton, quietly — " But I do not consider 
 that I have preached in a church which represents the national 
 faith of England. To tell you the truth I am rather puzzled 
 to know what to call it. My density, no doubt ! I should 
 have been glad, however, had I known it was quite ' Roman ' 
 rather than partially so. I should have preached with quite 
 as much heart, — perhaps even with more feeling in a place 
 that showed itself honestly consistent with its own professed 
 doctrines." 
 
 Carey reddened. 
 
 "You speak rather plainly, Mr. Everton," — he said — "And
 
 388 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 were I inclined to be touchy, which I am not, I might say 
 offensively." 
 
 Everton gave a slight deprecatory gesture. 
 
 "You would be right, I am sure!" — he said — "It is my 
 habit to deal bluntly and unsparingly with what I consider a 
 false position, and that I often give offence is my fault as well 
 as my misfortune. But I can make no apology. Our Church 
 is in a very serious state — and I cannot tolerate what I view as 
 ' stagey ' trifling with the noble and simple truths of Christ. 
 Christ Himself is being arraigned before the world's tribunal 
 for the second time in these degenerate days, and I can- 
 not stand idly looking on without protest. ' High ' ritual is 
 theatrical, — theatrical things are sham things, — and God 
 knows we have enough shams in this life without making a 
 sham of the Life Beyond ! " 
 
 " I fail to understand you ! " — and the Reverend Mr. Carey 
 drew himself up rigidly — " But — if you please, we will not 
 argue ! There are at the present day several points of differ- 
 ence among the clergy which it is better we should not discuss. 
 You have done us great service in preaching for our cause this 
 morning, and for the rest," — here he smiled, unctuously — "let 
 us agree to disagree ! Here we are ! " 
 
 The carriage stopped at that moment. They alighted and 
 entered the house where they were expected by the Bishop, 
 who, as one of the chief patrons of the benevolent scheme in 
 which society had interested itself, was responsible for having 
 invited Everton to preach in aid of the cause that morning. 
 This distinguished ecclesiastic was a portly pleasant-looking 
 man, with a kindly, somewhat effusive manner, and humorous 
 twinkling eyes which often belied the utterance of his rather 
 primly set mouth, over which they appeared to keep mis- 
 chievous watch for a chance of contradiction. He was a great 
 favourite with women, because he always managed to impress 
 them with the idea that he was particularly and paternally 
 interested in each individual member of the sex taken severally 
 and apart. Considered as a whole, however, his opinion of 
 them was widely different to that which he simulated, and
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 389 
 
 perhaps if they had known of the not always choice witticisms 
 which he was wont to indulge in at their expense when well 
 out of their vicinity, they might not have subscribed to give 
 him the luxurious motor-car, of which he had lately become 
 possessor, as the result of their admiring homage. Neverthe- 
 less he was quite an agreeable personage, though he was 
 prouder of his own legs than of anything else in his diocese. 
 Let it be said that this vanity was excusable, for the legs were 
 undoubtedly exceptional in their elegant shapeliness. Wherever 
 they moved they commanded attention. Standing upright, or 
 gracefully crossed when the body they so nobly supported was 
 in a sitting attitude, — slightly bent in a posture of attention, or 
 moving forward with an all-conquering stateliness, the legs 
 were the dignity of the Bishop. They advanced now to meet 
 Everton with a bland geniality, and the hand that was proffered 
 at the same moment was quite a poor and secondary affair 
 compared with them. 
 
 " Delighted," — said the Bishop, in rich, warm tones, 
 " delighted to have the pleasure of personally congratulating 
 you on the splendid work you have been doing lately in the 
 cause of temperance, Mr. Everton ! Yes ! And most grateful 
 to you for coming up to town to help us with our little scheme 
 of charitable work. Mr. Carey tells me the collection to-day 
 amounts to eight hundred pounds ! Eight hundred pounds ! 
 Astonishing ! I know of no preacher in London who could 
 have drawn so much out of the pockets of a congregation in 
 one morning ! Let me introduce you to the Archdeacon ! " 
 
 Everton here acknowledged the presence of a handsome 
 man of middle age, about as portly as the Bishop, but rather 
 more symmetrical in height and build, though owning less 
 shapely legs than those of his ecclesiastical superior. He was 
 an impressive individual, with an elocutionary voice and an 
 elocutionary manner, and was highly popular with that partic- 
 ular section of church-going society who like their religious 
 doctrines served up to them like dessert, on painted plates 
 with satin doyleys, and finger-bowls full of rose-water. He 
 greeted Everton with a grave cordiality that became his height
 
 390 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 and general appearance, and as he was the only additional 
 guest whom the Bishop had invited, luncheon was no longer 
 delayed. Seated at table, the four gentlemen in Holy Orders 
 began to exchange ideas on the topics of the day, and though 
 at first Richard took a ready and eloquent part in the con- 
 versation, he soon found himself out of the running and quite 
 behind his companions in what is called the social point of 
 view. Growing more and more silent, he presently sat quietly 
 listening to the flow of talk between the Bishop, the Archdeacon 
 and the Reverend ' Mother Carey ' in more or less pained 
 bewilderment. Money was unquestionably their favourite 
 subject, — the wealth of this, that, or t'other personage being 
 discussed, declared, or denied, — and various ideas for 
 'drawing' congregations were mentioned as being of vital 
 importance. 
 
 " But we must not go quite so far," — said the Archdeacon, 
 in his deep, vibrant tones — " not quite so far as our excellent 
 friends in America ! Over there the sendees are extremely 
 'up-to-date.' One minister in New York has, so I hear, 
 illuminated the outside of his church with arc-lights like a 
 music-hall. He has provided an orchestra instead of an 
 organ and illustrates his sermon with magic-lantern slides. 
 Pretty young women in white gowns show the congregation to 
 their seats, and every worshipper is provided with a picture 
 post-card! Ha-ha! Ha -ha -ha!" The Archdeacon's low 
 laugh had something mellow and juicy about it. " That is a 
 curious, and no doubt effective, form of service ! But I hardly 
 think it would succeed here. A post-card parson ! Ha-ha ! 
 He is a great enthusiast, and calls the primitive Church 
 methods ' the age of the tallow candle.' He says that we in 
 England still pursue the tallow-candle policy, but that he 
 intends to use electric light. Ha.-ha.-ha ! " 
 
 The Bishop and Mr. Carey joined gently in the soft ' Ha- 
 ha ! ' and helped themselves and the Archdeacon to more 
 wine. Everton was very still; his face was pale, and the light 
 in his eyes was cold as the flash of steel. 
 
 " After all," — said Carey — " he's not so far wrong. It's
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 391 
 
 absolutely necessary nowadays to attract the people by some- 
 thing new, and, if possible, 'sensational.' They are tired of 
 plain Gospel preaching. I have often thought of asking Mrs. 
 Nordstein to recite in my church. Some devotional piece, 
 of course — 'Rock of Ages' or 'Abide with me.' She would 
 ' draw ' immensely ! " 
 
 Everton looked up. There was an expression on his fine 
 features that, like a word of command, invoked silence. He 
 waited a moment, — then — addressing himself to the Bishop, 
 said : 
 
 "My lord, will you not speak?" 
 
 The Bishop gave him a placidly surprised smile. 
 
 "Will I not speak?" he echoed — "Is there anything for me 
 to say ? " 
 
 " I should have thought so ! " replied Everton, steadily, 
 though his voice had a strong ring of passion in it — " I should 
 have thought it impossible for you to tolerate patiently the 
 proposal made by a minister of Christ to turn the services of 
 the Church into a ' variety ' entertainment ! " 
 
 The Bishop flushed red with a violent shock of annoyance. 
 
 " But you must not take it quite in that way," — he hastily 
 began. 
 
 "How am I to take it then?" — and Everton, thoroughly 
 roused, flashed a challenging glance at Carey, who merely 
 smiled and shrugged his shoulders with an air of patient 
 tolerance, while the Archdeacon turned his well-trained eyes 
 from one to another as in mild deprecation of any dispute — 
 " A church is a building consecrated to Divine worship. 
 Men are educated and ordained to carry out certain forms of 
 this Divine worship with all possible humility, simplicity and 
 reverence. Yet I gather that Mr. Carey would not consider it 
 beyond his crdainment if he could engage the services of 
 a notorious society woman to play the actress within the 
 so-called ' House of God,' in order to draw a large audience, 
 God Himself not being considered sufficiently attractive ! My 
 lord, if the Christian religion is no longer an honest faith with 
 us, let the Christian churches all be pulled down rather than
 
 392 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 have their ancient and sacred associations desecrated, — but, if 
 we solemnly and truly believe in God and the Incarnate 
 Divinity of Christ, let us beware how we blaspheme ! " 
 
 The Bishop looked confused. He was distinctly uncomfort- 
 able, — anxious as he always was to conciliate ail parties and 
 harmonise conflicting opinions, he found Everton's plain 
 speaking very awkward and difficult to answer. 
 
 " Surely," — said the Archdeacon, coming to the rescue with 
 a bland and pacifying air — "you would not, Mr. Everton, 
 consider the recitation of a hymn in church by a good and 
 beautiful woman, blasphemous ? " 
 
 " I was about to make the same protest," murmured Carey, 
 sipping his wine ; — " Mr. Everton has, if he will pardon me for 
 saying so, become rather suddenly heated in the matter. A 
 great singer does not commit blasphemy because he or she 
 sings an anthem in the church, — nor can I imagine the 
 recitation of a beautiful poem by a sweet and generous lady 
 a more blasphemous performance than the singing of an 
 anthem. It does not do to be too narrow-minded in these 
 days. And I think I may venture to remark that the word 
 'notorious' does not apply to Mrs. Nordstein. She is 
 certainly renowned for her beauty— but her social reputation 
 stands very high — in fact she is a woman of the finest principle 
 and most unblemished character " 
 
 " Unblemished, — positively unblemished ! " agreed the 
 Archdeacon, murmuringly — " It is true that she was for a 
 very short time on the stage as quite a young girl, — but that 
 was the merest episode of accident, and scarcely counts in her 
 life at all." 
 
 Over Everton's face there swept a shadow of stern pain. 
 
 " It matters little what she is," — he said, coldly ; — " I judge 
 no one in this case as either virtuous or vicious. What I say 
 is this— that if any attempt is made to sink the church to the 
 level of the theatre, it will end by making religion a farce. If 
 people cannot be drawn away for one day in the week from 
 all worldly concerns, — from all spectacular shows, costume, 
 theatrical mannerisms, noise, bluster and brag, to consider
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 393 
 
 in prayerful quietness the majesty of that Omnipotence on 
 whom our little lives depend for every breath, — then we 
 clergy are not doing our duty. We may not and dare not 
 blame the people, for it is evident that we alone are in fault. 
 We have lost our hold on them. And I am quite sure that 
 if there is any one of us here present or elsewhere, who feels 
 that he cannot draw his congregation together in the name 
 and for the love of Christ, without any external or fictitious 
 aid, his plain duty is to resign the Church altogether and 
 seek some other means of making his life useful to the 
 world." 
 
 The Archdeacon smiled blandly. 
 
 "You are mediaeval, my dear Mr. Everton ! " he said, in 
 soothing accents — " Really quite mediaeval ! It is very 
 refreshing to meet with any one like you in these days. You 
 are a great gain to the Church ! But you must not expect 
 to find many imitators. St. Francis preached to the little 
 birds. Perhaps you will be another St. Francis. But modern 
 society, alas ! — is not composed of little birds ! " 
 
 The Bishop laughed genially. 
 
 " Live, and let live ! " he said, — " I believe in allowing 
 each man in Holy Orders to formulate his own ideas on 
 the faith to suit the tone and temper of his congregation. 
 Provided the laity are drawn to God," — here he pursed his 
 lips and looked solemn ; — " no objection should be raised 
 to the means whereby this desirable end is effected. We 
 should not deny even to Mrs. Nordstein," — here he smiled 
 again, — " the power to save a soul ! We cannot lay down 
 any fixed law." 
 
 "Not even the law of Christ?" demanded Everton — "It 
 seems to me our sole business is to lay dewn that law, and 
 insist upon it, if we mean to keep our faith firm as a bulwark 
 of our national life." 
 
 " The Higher Criticism," began the Archdeacon, oratorically, 
 " the Pligher Criticism " 
 
 " Is rank blasphemy ! " said Everton, his rich voice ringing 
 out like a clarion. " You call ' higher criticism ' the opinion of
 
 394 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 a set of pigmy scholars, whose knowledge, such as it is, may be 
 proved mere ignorance within the next hundred years of scien- 
 tific discovery ! Assertion and contradiction are the forward 
 and backward swing of time's pendulum, — what the wisest man 
 declares is true to-day may be false to-morrow ; — but the life 
 and death of Christ, — the Perfect Example of Perfect Love, is 
 the same yesterday, to-day and for ever ! And by Him and 
 His command alone we must take our stand, otherwise our 
 calling and election to the ministry is a lie and an affront to 
 Heaven ! " 
 
 There was a moment's dead silence. The Bishop grew red 
 and pale by turns. Eve^ton's plain statement of plain fact was 
 to him visibly unexpected and unpleasant. The Reverend Mr. 
 Carey looked to him for an answer, — the Archdeacon turned a 
 deferential ear towards him. He hummed and hawed ; it was 
 gradually borne in upon him that he ought to say something. 
 He took a hasty gulp of wine, and his contradictory eyes looked 
 down at his mouth in watchful expectancy. 
 
 "You have very strong opinions, Mr. Everton," he said, at 
 last — "And, if you will excuse my frankness, I venture to con- 
 sider them rather too strong ! Were I the Bishop of your 
 diocese I am afraid — I am really afraid I should have to take 
 you to task ! You tread on very delicate and dangerous 
 ground when you assume — mind, I only say ' assume ' to know 
 exactly the meaning of Our Lord's commands, — for He gave as 
 much consideration to the Magdalen as he did to His own 
 mother, — nay perhaps, even more ! — and He consorted ' with 
 publicans and sinners.' Provided we serve God, it matters 
 little how we serve Him. To one person a showy ceremonial 
 may help to salvation ; — to another, a simple service may suffice ; 
 to one a Roman Catholic ritual may appeal, — to another a 
 Methodist meeting, — but provided we have all one great 
 intention " 
 
 "Which is to suit our own convenience," interposed Ever- 
 ton, calmly — " anything may be tolerated. I see ! I under- 
 stand ! But, my lord, your veiled reproof carries no conviction 
 to me. On the contrary, I am bitterly sure that the vacillating
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 395 
 
 conduct of many of the clergy to-day is alienating the people 
 from the comprehension of Christ's true teaching, — and I am 
 equally and sadly positive that we shall be punished for our 
 neglect and apathy very speedily. I hear that there are even men 
 in your high position, my lord, who are disgracing their sacred 
 office, — one I could myself name, who makes a companion and 
 friend of a professing clergyman whose open immorality is the 
 common byword of the country town he frequents, — and 
 another " 
 
 He paused, checked by the startled confusion in the faces 
 of his hearers. The Archdeacon raised an impressive hand in 
 admonition. 
 
 "Pray say no more, Mr. Everton !" he murmured, in grieved 
 accents — " We know to whom you allude. I hardly thought 
 the matter would have reached your ears, but as it has unfor- 
 tunately done so, you surely see the advisability of dropping the 
 subject ? " 
 
 "I should hope," — said the Bishop, solemnly — "that Mr. 
 Everton would not, even in the utmost fervour of his zeal, ever 
 allude to it ! " 
 
 " It would certainly be unwise and regrettable to do so," — 
 added Mr. Carey. 
 
 Everton looked from one to another in momentary surprise. 
 Then a sudden light seemed to flash upon him, and his face 
 grew very cold and stern. 
 
 " I think I comprehend you ! " he said, slowly. " But let 
 me just say that I am absolutely ignorant of the details of the 
 matter which so evidently disturbs your minds. All I know 
 is, that a certain Bishop is, to put it plainly, an infamous 
 criminal, — and that both the Law and the State are con- 
 niving to cover his crime and keep him in his sacred office, 
 when by every canon of honour and decency, he should be 
 cast out of it and publicly disgraced. You ask me not to 
 speak of this scandal. I do not even know the name of the 
 man concerned. But if ever I do know it, I shall not join 
 the conspiracy of silence. Rather shall I do my best to expose 
 this high ecclesiastical fraud as openly as possible."
 
 395 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 The Archdeacon flamed into sudden temper. 
 
 " You will not serve the Church by such an action, sir ! " 
 he exclaimed, warmly; — "You will do infinite harm! You 
 must learn to be diplomatic. The cause of true religion is not 
 served by exposing the weakness of any of its ministers." 
 
 Everton looked full at him. 
 
 " Why then it would seem that we are more careful of our 
 national finance than our national faith!" he said; — "The 
 Government would not permit a thief or a forger to become 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer. Why should the Church permit 
 a criminal to officiate at her altars and tamper with the 
 sacraments of God? It is a position I do not understand, — 
 though I shall make every endeavour to do so ! " Here he 
 addressed the Bishop. " Will you excuse me ? I have several 
 things to attend to this afternoon " 
 
 " One moment ! " and the Bishop rose from table — " Give 
 me a few words with you in my study, Mr. Everton," — and 
 he beamed upon him with a kindly cordiality ; — " I am sure 
 I shall be able to convince you, that in certain matters affecting 
 the clergy's position with the laity, silence is best." 
 
 He led the way cut of the room, and Everton followed. 
 When the two had disappeared the Archdeacon and ' Mother 
 Carey' exchanged glances. Then Carey gave a short angry 
 laugh. 
 
 " An insolent fellow ! " — he said — " A pity the Bishop ever 
 asked him to preach." 
 
 The Archdeacon smiled benignantly. 
 
 "'I should not say that," — he observed, placidly; — "No, I 
 should not say that if I were you ! He is a very powerful 
 preacher, — very powerful indeed. Moreover, he is being 
 ■ boomed ' ; and if the ' boom ' continues, as it is likely to do, 
 London will succumb to one of its epileptic fits of enthusiasm 
 and he will ' draw ' all society. I think she means that he 
 shall do so." 
 
 "She?" echoed Carey, quickly— "Who is she?" 
 
 " Why, Mrs. Nordstein, of course." 
 
 " Mrs. Nordstein ! What has she to do with him ? "
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 397 
 
 "That I am quite unable to inform you," — and the Arch- 
 deacon waved the question away with a graceful valedictory 
 gesture; — "But I am sure she is interested in his career. It 
 was, in fact, she who suggested to the Bishop that he should 
 be asked to preach for our charity." 
 
 Carey's round eyes protruded and his jaw lengthened with 
 an expression of mingled surprise and dismay. 
 
 " Mrs. Nordst in ! " he again repeated — " Dear me ! That 
 makes things rather serious ! He may become a power ! " 
 
 " Well, if her influence can make him so, he will," replied 
 the Archdeacon, walking with quite a stagey elegance to the 
 window and looking out — "I see the Bishop has not detained 
 him very long. He has just gone." 
 
 And as he spoke the Bishop himself reentered the room, 
 graciously smiling. 
 
 " I have allowed our enthusiastic country friend to depart," 
 he said, amicably ; — " He was anxious to get through some 
 pressing correspondence. He's a very remarkable man. And 
 a fine preacher. But perhaps just a little, — a little eccentric." 
 
 "Very much so, I should say ! " agreed Carey ; — " I suppose 
 you told him " 
 
 " Not all." And the Bishop suddenly frowned. " It would 
 not have been safe. He might have started off to rouse all 
 London ! With such a man it is best to temporise." 
 
 " For how long ? " inquired the Archdeacon, with an odd 
 smile. 
 
 The darkness on the episcopal features deepened. 
 
 "I cannot say. He is a difficult character. He has the 
 courage of his opinions." 
 
 "The rashness, rather than the courage," said the Arch- 
 deacon, severely. 
 
 " Possibly ! " 
 
 And while they thus discussed him, Everton, stricken to 
 his heart's core with the horrible amazement and shame 
 which had been roused in his soul by the Bishop's delicately 
 hinted warning as to the real nature of the scandal affecting 
 one of his brothers in office, made his way back to his hotel
 
 398 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 as quickly as he could, there to shut himself in the solitude 
 and silence of his own room and try to think out the incidents 
 of the morning. Even Jacynth, with her irritating smile and 
 lazy languorous eyes, sank in the background of his conscious- 
 ness in face of the greater shock he had received to all the 
 deepest and most sacred emotions of his soul. 
 
 " My God, my God ! " he groaned, in sharp agony of spirit, 
 " If the people only knew ! " 
 
 With this came the lightning flash of a suggestion : 
 
 " Why should I not tell them ? " 
 
 For a moment his mental self sprang upright like a warrior 
 fully armed for battle, — then sank again under the weary 
 weight of a wave of deep depression. A mocking voice 
 seemed whispering in his ears : 
 
 "O fool!"— it said— "Of what avail to speak the truth? 
 No one listens and no one cares ! "
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 IT was with a strong sense of reluctance and misgiving that 
 he found himself next day outside the door of Israel 
 Nordstein's mansion in Portman Square, at the hour Jacynth 
 had appointed to receive him. Twice or three times he had 
 almost decided not to visit her, and to send a written excuse, 
 — then the memory of her mocking glance and light laugh 
 came back upon him and goaded his flagging intention. For, 
 after all, she was only Jacynth ! Only Jacynth, a heartless 
 village wanton, to whom, when in ignorance of her true 
 character, he had given the Holy Communion on many a 
 Sunday, — only Jacynth, whom he had pitied because she had 
 never known father or mother, and because she was just one 
 of those illegitimate waifs and strays cast into the world without 
 their own consent, and for ever after branded with a shame 
 not of their seeking. Only Jacynth ! — and she lived here — 
 here in this big pretentious-looking house, painted a dazzling 
 white, with balconies to every window, filled with flowers, — 
 she whose home in Shadbrook had been a four-roomed cottage 
 which neither she nor her so-called ' auntie ' had ever troubled 
 to keep clean ! Truly time had worked changes in her 
 surroundings. — and for her evil deeds she had received 
 prosperity instead of punishment ! Saddened and half angry 
 with fate and fortune for playing such an incongruous trick, 
 he paused on the wide stone step for a moment, hesitating; 
 then finally rang the bell. The door opened instantly, 
 displaying with considerable effect two gorgeous flunkeys who 
 stood like statues on either side of the interior passage a 
 
 399
 
 400 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 little to the rear, while a stately man in black advanced a 
 step or two with great dignity and then paused, awaiting the 
 statement of the visitor's business. 
 
 " Mrs. Nordstein ? " said Everton, tentatively. 
 
 The man in black put a counter question. 
 
 " Mr. Richard Everton ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 And he presented his visiting-card. 
 
 The man in black immediately relaxed his severity of 
 manner, and became almost obsequious. 
 
 "This way, if your please, sir." 
 
 Waving the flunkeys majestically aside, he preceded Richard 
 through a magnificent hall, rich with paintings and statuary 
 and great marble vases which brimmed over like fountains 
 with a wealth of bloom and colour provided by masses of 
 cut flowers and hot-house plants, — then up a wide, softly- 
 carpeted staircase to the next landing, where, passing through 
 a doorway hung with rich rose silk curtains, he ushered him 
 into a long, light lovely room, exquisitely decorated and 
 furnished, and crowded with the most costly and beautiful 
 objects of art and luxury. 
 
 Here pausing, he said — 
 
 " Will you take a seat, sir. I will tell Mrs. Nordstein you 
 are here." 
 
 And he made his pompous exit, bearing Everton's visiting- 
 card before him on a massive silver salver as though it were 
 a trophy. 
 
 In a daze of sheer bewilderment Everton stood looking 
 about him, trying to realise that all the evidences of a lavish 
 expenditure and easy mode of life which surrounded him 
 were so many incontestable proofs that so far as Jacynth was 
 concerned the result of evil was good. Who in ' society ' 
 knew, or knowing who would wish to remember, that Mrs. 
 Nordstein had been a girl of bad character, now that she was 
 ' respectably ' married to a millionaire ? A wealthy marriage 
 is the oblivion of every woman's past indiscretions ! A sudden 
 sharp regret stung him as he thought of his dead wife Azalea, —
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 401 
 
 of her harmless little vanities, — of her excusable longings for 
 pretty dresses and dainty things which he could not afford to 
 give her, — of the patient way in which she had endured the 
 dullness of Shadbrook when her whole nature was one that 
 instinctively craved for gaiety and freedom from restraint, — 
 and choking tears rose in his throat at the cruelty of fate. To 
 serve God faithfully had been his proudest effort — did such 
 service merit the destruction of all that his Life held dear? 
 There was an unspoken protest in his soul such as that 
 expressed by Omar Khayyam : 
 
 "Almighty Potter on whose wheel of blue, 
 The world is fashioned, and is broken too, 
 
 Why to the race of men is heaven so dire ? 
 In what, O Wheel, have I offended you?" 
 
 Was it right or just that Azalea, his innocent love, the 
 mother of his child, should be done to death for no real 
 fault of her own, — while Jacynth — she for whom there was 
 no God — she who had recklessly and shamelessly abandoned 
 herself to the woild, the flesh and the devil, should be living 
 in the satisfaction of full health and vitality, nourished by 
 everything that could make life fair and pleasant 
 
 Here his bitter thoughts were interrupted by a soft rustling 
 sound caused by the gentle swaying aside of the silken 
 portiere. A door opened and closed again, and a light step 
 approached him. He felt a curious reluctance to raise his 
 eyes till the usages of civility compelled him to do so, — yet 
 he was conscious that Jacynth had entered the room. With 
 a mental effort as strong as though he were lifting his very 
 soul out of a grave where it had been buried alive, he forced 
 himself to look at her. She had advanced towards him till 
 she was within reach of his hand, and she now stood still, 
 smiling as sweetly as one who welcomes a dear friend after 
 long absence. 
 
 "So you have come!" she said; — "I was afraid you 
 wouldn't ! " 
 26
 
 4 02 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 He was silent. He wondered how it was that God could 
 have made an evil thing so beautiful. Her loveliness was 
 like that of a delicate rose opening into summer bloom, and 
 the soft mystery of a gown she wore, which seemed a mere 
 trailing sheath of old lace and silken tissue that clung to her 
 slim figure like the calyx to a flower, defining without too 
 boldly declaring its exquisite outline, was the finishing touch 
 of art to nature. She met his gravely scrutinising glance 
 with charming self-possession, and held out her hand. He 
 barely touched it. 
 
 " Won't you sit down ? " she murmured, moving to a 
 cushioned ottoman close by, and sinking upon it in the 
 languid grace of attitude practised by the stage favourites 
 and toy-women of society. " You look so uncomfortable 
 standing ! " 
 
 Something lightly derisive in her tone sent a flush to his 
 pale face. Her air and manner implied that he appeared 
 more or less ridiculous in her eyes, — that the very cut of his 
 clerical coat amused her, and that she was maliciously bent 
 on making him feel that his presence as the Vicar of a parish 
 where her whole past life was known, did not impress her 
 with the slightest shadow of shame or remorse. Quietly he 
 drew a chair opposite to her, and seated himself. 
 
 " Haven't you a word to throw at me ? " she went on — " I 
 know you hate me — and you are the only man who does ! 
 That's why I am interested in you." She laughed softly, and 
 raised her wonderful eyes appealingly to his. " You mustn't 
 be too hard upon me, Mr. Everton ! I was a hopeless case 
 from the first. I never wanted to be good. I always 
 thought — I think still — that good people seem to have a 
 dull drab time of it. I wanted the joy of life ! — luxury, 
 flattery, wealth, comfort, position ! I have got them all. 
 And you ought to be glad for me, — glad enough to forget 
 the past." 
 
 He looked full at her. 
 
 "The past is not so easily forgotten," he said, in a voice 
 that trembled a little, — " Not by me."
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 403 
 
 She smiled, indulgently. 
 
 " When there is nothing pleasant to remember, it is best to 
 forget," she answered ; — " We should copy Nature. Nature 
 makes haste to cover up and put out of sight every ugly thing. 
 We ought to do the same. You think too much, Mr. Everton. 
 You always did. You are anxious to serve God, — but you do 
 not positively know whether there is a God to serve. He 
 exists in your imagination. Beyond that He gives no sign. 
 You have always been a good man, yet you have had to 
 suffer a great deal of sorrow. I have always been what you 
 call a bad woman ; — and I have suffered nothing ! How is 
 that ? Your God does not care whether you are good or I am 
 bad. Life offers the same joys to both of us." 
 
 Her careless, half-disdainful way of putting her argument 
 sounded almost conclusive. But he caught at her last 
 words. 
 
 "Not the same joys," — he said, quickly; — "Not the same 
 joys by any means ! What you have chosen as happiness, to 
 me would be utter misery." 
 
 " I do not believe you ! " she declared, and her lovely face 
 lighted up with a sudden sparkle of mirth, — " It would be 
 a very strange parson indeed who could be miserable in a 
 beautiful house with plenty of money, if he had the health and 
 strength to enjoy it all. Of course you may be the wonderful 
 exception ! — but it is so odd to think of you as a man without 
 any other wish in the world than to serve God ! It must be 
 such a lonesome sort of feeling ! " 
 
 She smiled at him archly, and went on — 
 
 "I know a great many parsons, — heaps of them, — and they all 
 want ready cash, poor things ! Some of them boldly ask for 
 it ; others prefer to make love to me, — the last predominate in 
 numbers, I think ! " 
 
 She stretched out her arms lazily, and folded them above her 
 head, leaning back on the embroidered cushions behind her. 
 
 " Let's talk of Shadbrook now," she said, " Dull, wretched 
 little Shadbrook ! The most miserable place on earth ! I 
 wonder how you can stand it ! As for saving souls, there are
 
 404 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 no souls to save ! There are a lot of dirty, ugly old women 
 who talk from morning to night about births and deaths and 
 washing-days ; — there are several old men, and a few able- 
 bodied labourers who work eight hours and drink ten ; — and 
 what young people there are in the place get so lonely and 
 miserable that no wonder they go together like the birds, 
 without a priest, for sheer company's sake. That's half the 
 cause of the drinking too. Loneliness, and the want of 
 some one to look at me and admire me, drove me to drink in 
 the old days. I loved it ! It drowned all the dullness of your 
 preaching and teaching, — it sent the colour to my cheeks and 
 made me wild ! Why, the very first time Dan Kiernan kissed 
 me, I was drunk, and so was he ! " 
 
 A sickening shock ran through Everton's nerves. He gazed 
 at her as she lay back on her cushions, a vision of indolent 
 beauty, with her lovely skin, clear eyes, and rose-red lips, and 
 he marvelled at her effrontery. 
 
 "Jacynth — " And his voice almost failed him. 
 "Jacynth—" 
 
 " Jacynth ! Well ! That's me ! " 
 
 " That's you ! Yes, I know ! " he said, in low, tense accents 
 of strong pain; — "Would it were not you! Eut for God's 
 sake, do not speak to me of Dan Kiernan — you forget " 
 
 " No ; — I remember ! " she answered, slowly, — " I remember 
 all. Dan killed your wife. But, — I killed Dan ! " 
 
 "You! You killed Dan ! " 
 
 Every vestige of colour fled from his face, and he sprang 
 up, amazed and horrified. She, however, did not move from 
 her reclining position. 
 
 " How tragic you look ! " she said ; — " I believe you think I 
 am an escaped murderess ! Not quite ! When I say I killed 
 Dan, I mean that it was my motor-car that ran over him. 
 Nobody knows it, of course, — it was pure accident. He was 
 lying in the middle of a high-road in Wiltshire, — drunk, as 
 usual, I suppose. My husband and I were touring ; — we were 
 racing at night against time, in order to reach a house where 
 we were expected to join a party early next day. When the
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 405 
 
 car jolted I made the chauffeur stop, — and I got out and went 
 to see what mischief wc had done. Then I saw Dan. He 
 was quite dead. I had never seen a dead man before, — and 
 well! it was not a pleasant sight! But I recognised Dan at 
 once. And he would have been glad if he had known ! " 
 
 Everton stood staring at her, bewildered by the calm 
 entirely matter-of-fact way in which she had related the whole 
 incident. Had her car crushed a snail or a worm, she could 
 not have spoken more indifferently than she did of the horrid 
 end of her first lover. 
 
 " Glad ! " he echoed, stupidly—" Glad if he had known ? " 
 
 " That it was I, — Jacynth ! " and her voice rang out silver 
 clear as a note of triumph music ; — " That it was I who had 
 driven over him and crushed him to death ! That it was I 
 who looked down at his bleeding face, and rested my foot 
 upon it ! He would have been glad and proud ! He would 
 have wished no better end ! Poor Parson Everton, you seem 
 quite frightened ! I suppose you do not know, in the hum- 
 drum life you lead, that a man — even a brute man such as 
 Dan was — may idolise a woman as he would never idolise God ! 
 Every hair of my head, every inch of my body, was gold and 
 honey to Dan ! Gold and honey, — life and death ! I did not 
 care for him, — no, not a jot ! That is why he cared so much 
 for me ! He made me drink with him because he knew that 
 drink would do with me what he never could do with me 
 himself. Why,"— and she lifted her head from the cushions 
 and drew her slim throat upwards with a swan-like gesture of 
 pride and defiance ; — " do you, even you, think that if I had 
 not been drunk, I would have given myself to Dan ? " 
 
 He was speechless. Who could find reply to such a 
 question ? What man, seeing her and hearing her wild words, 
 could utter commonplaces of regret, pity or reproach ? All 
 the ordinary things of life seemed blurred to his mind ; — Drink 
 only, — Drink, the Black Death of the nation, loomed before 
 him like a wide-spreading cloud of pestilence in which all 
 honest efforts for the betterment of humanity were absorbed 
 into mere blight and miasma, and he stood stricken by the
 
 4 o6 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 utter hopelessness of it, — the despair of it. She rose and went 
 to him, laying both her hands in a half-caressing way upon his 
 arm. 
 
 " Do not look at me like that," — she said, quite gently ; 
 " You seem so sorry ; — and there is no need to be sorry. 
 
 There is nothing to pity me for " 
 
 His heart thrilled with a sudden agony. 
 " Nothing to pity you for ! " he exclaimed — " Oh, Jacynth, 
 Jacynth ! If I had been told the truth, I might have saved 
 you ! " 
 
 Her lovely eyes opened widely upon him in something of 
 amusement. Then she shook her head. 
 
 " Impossible ! I never wanted to be saved," — she said ; 
 " I don't understand the process. I was never a girl that any 
 parson could teach, though I used to come to your Sunday 
 class, and listen to your kind talk, just as I would have listened 
 to a play. You were always so good ! — you are so good ! — 
 and I'm ever so much sorrier for you than you ought to be for 
 me ! Because you see your goodness has brought you a lot 
 of misfortune ; and my badness, if it is badness, has brought 
 me nothing but luck. And, — I've never forgotten you — I've 
 always thought of that day when I met you in the pouring 
 rain, and when you trusted me, — actually trusted me to keep 
 Dan from the drink, — and told me you hoped I would be the 
 best girl in the village. Do you remember ? " 
 
 There was a mist before his eyes as they met hers. 
 " I remember ! " he answered, simply. 
 
 " It was so strange," she went on — " to be trusted in that 
 way ! I laughed at you for it, but I liked you all the same. 
 You seemed such a child in your faith, and in your wish to 
 believe good of everybody. ' The best girl in the village ! ' 
 Now, think for a moment, Mr. Everton ! Suppose I had been 
 'the best girl,' what sort of a life would it have been for me? 
 Look at me ! — and answer me, not according to the Church 
 and the Sunday class, but as a man ! " 
 
 Her white fingers pressed insistently on his arm, — her face, 
 with the soft colour flushing its flower-like delicacy, and made
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 407 
 
 almost luminous by the brilliancy of her star-like eyes, was 
 upturned to his. He could not affect a pharisaical attitude of 
 mind which was not true to his own inward thought, nor 
 would he attempt to suggest, even to himself, the incongruous 
 idea that she, with her graceful personality and physical fascina- 
 tion, could possibly have been content with the attainment of a 
 ' best village girl ' ideal. So he answered quietly : 
 
 " It would have been no life at all for you — not as you 
 have chosen to live. But it might have been happy, and, — 
 innocent ! " 
 
 She laughed, and moving away from him, resumed her 
 former indolent position on the cushioned ottoman. 
 
 "What is it to be happy? What is it to be innocent?" 
 she demanded ; — " Happiness surely consists in doing what is 
 agreeable to one's self in this world as long as health and 
 opportunity last. As for innocence, — you will not find it 
 among village girls ! They read too many newspapers ! " 
 
 Then she looked at him where he stood, and in her eyes 
 there was a touch of compassionate derision. 
 
 " Come and sit down again, Mr. Everton," — she said ; — and 
 as he obeyed her, she added, — " I want a real serious talk with 
 you. I want you to understand me better than you do, be- 
 cause I believe it will help you to understand other people like 
 me." 
 
 " Other people like you ! " asked Everton, incredulously — 
 "Are there any?" 
 
 Her pretty laughter rippled out like a soft cadence of song. 
 
 " Indeed there are ! Hundreds! Especially society people 
 who have given up trying to be good. 1 daresay it seems odd 
 to you to think of me as a ' society person, — but I am, you 
 know ! I always meant to be, and I knew from what the news- 
 papers taught me that the stage was the shortest cut to my 
 ambition. Especially the variety stage. To dance about 
 there with as few clothes on as possible doesn't want much 
 talent ; — and it's the surest way to get the notice of Royalty ! 
 I got it at once. With my face and figure I had no difficulty. 
 You don't know the society world ; — if you did, you would not
 
 4o8 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 find anything surprising in the fact that I, Jacynth, the worst 
 girl in the village of Shadbrook, instead of the best, should 
 have done well for myself. A woman I know who is hand and 
 glove with all the smart set, once kept a bar in a Chicago 
 Hotel, and still gets all her money from the profits of the 
 drink concern. She is no better than I am, — she has no birth, 
 no education and no manners ; — but nobody minds that as long 
 as she rents a big house, entertains, and throws money about. 
 Now I have tried to learn a few things, — as soon as I came to 
 London I spent some of my earnings in being trained and 
 taught ; but the Chicago woman doesnt even know how to 
 speak English properly. And though she's years and years 
 older than I am, and has bleached her hair because a rusty 
 grey was less becoming than all white, she has not done 
 having lovers yet. I've only just begun ! Oh, don't look so 
 shocked ! " 
 
 She folded her hands like a penitent child asking pardon for 
 some naughty prank. 
 
 " Please be patient with me ! " — she said — " I'm not half so 
 bad as some of the ' leaders ' of fashion ! I'm not, really ! 
 And I've thought far more of you than you have of me. Be- 
 cause — " and her eyes darkened with a sudden seriousness, 
 "even in the old days you always had a certain attraction 
 for me." 
 
 He was silent. She went on slowly — 
 
 " I had never seen a good clergyman before I saw you. 
 The former Vicar of Shadbrook was a brute ; — despised by the 
 whole village for his hypocrisy and meanness. When he died, 
 and you came to take his place, people wondered whether you 
 would not perhaps be worse than he. They could not imagine 
 you might be better. They had left off believing in clergymen 
 at all, and it was difficult for them to trust you. But you won 
 them round a good deal ; — they began to like you. I don't 
 think they ever liked your wife. She was too pretty." 
 
 He gave a gesture of pain and offence. 
 
 ''Do not speak of her," — he said, quickly, — "I can bear 
 much — but not that ! — not that from you ! "
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 409 
 
 She sat very still, and did not lift her eyes. 
 
 " I am sorry ! " she murmured, — " But I want to tell you 
 everything " 
 
 " And I want to hear everything," — he answered — " Only- 
 spare me where you can ! " 
 
 She looked at his pale, troubled face for a moment without 
 speaking. Her vanity was vaguely hurt. She saw that his 
 love for his murdered wife was still his paramount passion, — 
 and she was curiously vexed to think that the living presence 
 of her own matchless beauty could not drive from his mind 
 the pale ghost of a dead woman. 
 
 " I was wretchedly brought up, as you know," — she went on, 
 slowly, '-The drunken old thing I called Auntie, — by the way, 
 is she still alive ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " I expect she'll be like Mortar Pike, — go doddering on 
 till she's a hundred," — and Jacynth laughed a little ; — " She is 
 no relative of mine, and she certainly doesn't deserve that I 
 should ever do anything for her. She used to tell me my own 
 story every day with curses and blows. I was a love-child, 
 she said ; — my father was a gentleman, my mother a kitchen- 
 maid. Poor kitchen-maid ! She was young and pretty, and 
 the 'gentleman,' while on a visit to the house where she was 
 in service, took advantage of her youth and stupidity in the 
 approved 'gentlemanlike' fashion. She died when I was 
 born, and left me with the woman who had nursed her. This 
 was ' Auntie,' who for some reason or other kept me till I was 
 big enough to carry wood and coals and water about for her, 
 when she made me a kind of general servant without wages. 
 Of course I took every chance I could to get out of her way 
 whenever it was possible, and to amuse myself as I liked. At 
 the Church school I had been taught to read and write, and I 
 spelt out almost every newspaper I could get hold of. A girl 
 who was in service at Cheltenham used to send me penny 
 ' society ' papers — and 1 loved to read all about the peeresses 
 who had been chorus girls, and the Paris women who make 
 the fashions. I was always thinking and planning how I
 
 4 io HOLY ORDERS 
 
 could start a career of the same kind myself. Once I saw a 
 picture in one of the papers of a woman in a swing, with only 
 a little white drapery about her, — her legs and neck and arms 
 were all bare, — and I read that she was the Honourable 
 Mrs. Brazenly, formerly a 'variety artiste.' That set me on 
 the track of the stage. To have a portrait of one's self taken 
 like that, I thought, was splendid, — no ordinary country girl 
 would dare to show so much of her body to a photographer, — 
 yet this ' variety artiste ' had done it, and had got well married 
 too. I knew I was beautiful — I could see that for myself, 
 though Bob Hadley was the first man who told me how 
 beautiful I was. He was dreadfully in love with me and 
 wanted to marry me— you know all about that ! He was a 
 carpenter — I could not have settled down in Shadbrook as 
 the wife of a consumptive carpenter ! Now, could I ? " 
 
 He looked at her and was silent. She read his expression, 
 and the corners of her mouth went up in a little smile, 
 
 "Then," — she continued, — "then came Dan." Here she 
 paused, and a sudden wave of rich colour rushed to her 
 cheeks and brow. " Dan," — she said, in a lower tone — " was 
 a bold lover, — a man whose passions swept everything before 
 him, — but, — the drink was bolder still ! I remember, — I 
 shall never forget — the first time I was really drunk. Drunk ! 
 Think of it !— a girl of barely sixteen ! Yet I did not take 
 much of the stuff they gave me, — but it made my head burn 
 as though it were on fire, — my hair hurt me, and I undid it 
 and let it fall over my shoulders, — and all the men in the 
 public-house shouted at the sight of it, and Dan took it up 
 and twisted it through his fingers, — and everything seemed 
 going round and round, and I myself whirled and waltzed 
 with the giddy wheel, — and I danced and ran, — danced and 
 ran as hard as ever I could till the ground suddenly slipped 
 away from me, and I fell, — into Dan's arms. Dan caught 
 
 me and took me up, and carried me away " 
 
 "Then — " Everton's voice was hoarse and unsteady;-- 
 
 "it was not your fault " 
 
 She shrugged her shoulders indifferently.
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 411 
 
 " Oh yes, it was ! I knew Dun was a drunkard ; — and I 
 knew he would make me drink with him. 1 went quite 
 willingly. It amused me. There was nothing else to do in 
 Shadbrook. It was so deadly dull ! And the dullest thing of 
 all was when the school teacher, or the district visitor, — such 
 frights of women, both of them ! — came round telling us to 
 read the Bible and say our prayers and go to church and 
 Communion regularly and ask God to make us good ! As if 
 God cared ! Or as if we cared ! " 
 
 His lips moved, — but no sound came from them. Of what 
 avail to speak ? What arguments could be used that this 
 woman would not put to scorn ? What were the conventional 
 moralities of Church discipline to her? 
 
 " Look at the birds and flowers ! " she said, and her voice 
 became tuneful with sudden tenderness ; — " No one calls them 
 wicked for living their own lives in their own way. There is 
 no law condemning them to eternal punishment for mating 
 when and where they will, and as often as their nature inclines 
 them. They are happy, — and every one calls them innocent. 
 Yet if I bend like a rose, or fly like a bird to the hand that 
 would caress me, I am called wicked and corrupt ! I may 
 not mate where I choose, — yet it is merely man's law that 
 imposes this restraint on me, — God is silent about it all ! 
 Only He plainly shows us that the birds and flowers are 
 happier and purer than we ! " 
 
 Her eyes shone with a lovely limpid light,— the sunshine of 
 a smile quivered on her lips. 
 
 Everton rose abruptly and paced the room to and fro. 
 
 "You cannot judge the spiritual by the material," — he 
 began. 
 
 She interrupted him. 
 
 "Why not? It is all we have to go by! Wise men of 
 science tell us that nature is in itself the reflex or outcome 
 of the mind of God. If that be so, the mind of God seems 
 to hold only one idea, which is to make each living thing 
 happy for a little while, — a very little while ! — and then 
 —to kill it ! "
 
 412 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 He came and stood facing her. There was a great 
 wistfulness and sorrow in his eyes. 
 
 "Jacynth," he said, slowly; — "Is it possible you have no 
 faith? Is there nothing in your better self, — for I believe 
 each man and woman has a better self, however much the 
 worser may predominate, — which tells you that death is not 
 all? — that there is a Life Beyond, — an unknown, mysterious, 
 but certain life whose good or ill we must determine for 
 ourselves here and now ? Can it be that when you came to 
 me with the other young girls of Shadbrook to the Sunday 
 class, you did not believe one word of what I was endeavouring 
 to teach? Is it my fault 1 Is it my inefficiency as a minister 
 of Christ that made me too weak to draw you to Him ? Tell 
 me ! If I seemed to you insincere or hypocritical, — a mere 
 clerical humbug whom you could not trust to have any 
 compassion, patience or sympathy with you, I would like to 
 know it. I must have been lacking in some way that you 
 should have been lost ! I cannot bear — " and his voice 
 shook, — "I cannot bear to think that you were a partaker 
 in Our Lord's Communion without believing in Him ! " 
 
 She gazed at him with an incredulous, half-pitying amaze- 
 ment. Then she laughed softly. 
 
 " Poor Mr. Everton ! What a child you are, for a man ! " 
 she said — " You seem to live in a dream of ages far behind 
 our time ! No one believes in Christ nowadays ; — surely you 
 know that ? The Churches have to be kept up, because the 
 clergy don't want to resign their incomes and disband, — but 
 even they don't believe ! If they did, they would act quite 
 differently. Some people are trying to introduce Buddhism 
 and Islamism as a change from Christianity, — but the best 
 thins of all is to be rational and material, and leave trans- 
 cendental nonsense alone. You talk as if the Crucifixion 
 happened yesterday ! " 
 
 " It happens now ! " said Everton, with a strong vibration 
 of emotion in his accents ; — " It happens every time one 
 creature whom Christ's love has redeemed speaks lightly of 
 His name ! If such blasphemers be of the clergy, all the
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 413 
 
 worse for them ! But, Jacynth, I have not asked you what 
 others say or what others accept, — I ask you ! Did you 
 never believe a word I taught you ? " 
 
 She smiled up at him candidly. 
 
 " Never ! " 
 
 He shrank back as though he had received a blow. She 
 watched him curiously. 
 
 "If I had believed, do you think I could have taken to 
 the drink — or to Dan?" she said; — "If I had really thought 
 that there was an Almighty Power that cared for me and 
 watched over me, — if I had really felt that there was a 
 Heaven to which I should be taken after death, do you think 
 I would, or could, have gene to the bad ? But no clergy- 
 man — not even you — has ever persuaded me that such 
 stories are true. I see with my own eyes that God, — if 
 there is a God, — does not care ; that good, really good people 
 are made to suffer terrible things for no fault of their own, 
 and that there is really no law except such as one makes 
 for one's self and one's own convenience. Claude Ferrers 
 told me that." 
 
 " Claude Ferrers ! " cried Everton, — " That brute I saw with 
 you last night at the Savoy " 
 
 " He's not a brute," she interrupted him, with some 
 quickness ; — " He's one of the cleverest men in London. 
 He writes plays and beautiful poetry, — and all the best 
 critics admire him. And — he's a very great friend of mine 
 just now ! " 
 
 He turned from her abruptly. The utter shamelessness, the 
 cool audacity with which she spoke were horrible to him, — and 
 yet — her beauty was as a ravening flame ! A sudden tempta- 
 tion suggested itself to his mind — hideous in its swiftness and 
 subtlety, — why should not he, even he, snatch her away from 
 the life she was leading and save her soul for Heaven ! For 
 one flashing moment it was as though the pit of Hell had 
 opened, — the next, he had sprung back from the edge of the 
 abyss and his spirit was in arms, boldly and ruthlessly telling 
 itself that there was, and could be no saving of the soul of
 
 4 i4 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 Jacynth through him, — but merely an adding of passion to 
 passion and sin to sin. Like a whirlwind the storm of thought 
 went over him and left his heart like a desert heaped with 
 burning sand, but outwardly he showed no sign of emotion, 
 save that his face was very pale and his manner very cold. 
 
 "You've not heard the rest of my story," — Jacynth went 
 on, " I want you to know it all. And though you've asked 
 me not to speak of your wife, I really must say a word or two 
 about her, for I owe her an immense debt of gratitude. Indeed 
 if it had not been for her I might never have left Shadbrook." 
 
 Standing where he was, some little distance apart from her 
 near a grand piano, on which the principal object set forth for 
 notice was the signed portrait of a king, his eyes fastened upon 
 her piteously as though she were a strong magnet drawing all 
 the buried grief of his soul out of the soothing darkness of tears 
 into the fierce light of despair. But he was silent. 
 
 " That night when you were so anxious about Dan, — when I 
 met you and told you that I'd take care he didn't get any more 
 drink," she continued; — "I stayed with him in his cottage, 
 and I promised him that if Jennie died I would be his wife. 
 It was a foolish promise," she hesitated, and the colour 
 sprang to her face in a warm glow, " but — there were reasons 
 for making it. Perhaps, — if Jennie had died then, quickly,— 
 an^ — if m y little child had lived, — I should have been con- 
 tent to settle down in Shadbrook, not because I loved Dan, but 
 because he loved me. It was fine to be loved so utterly and 
 desperately ! — it is not every day that one comes across a man 
 who is willing to give up everything for the love of a girl, — and 
 well ! " — her eyes shot a malicious gleam from under their 
 dark lashes — ' : I don't think Jennie would have lived long any- 
 way ! But next morning your wife came, — and she knew what 
 was being said in the village about me and Dan, and when she 
 heard I had been in the cottage with Dan all night she told 
 Jennie all the tale. That evening when Dan went home, 
 Jennie cried out to him — ' Is it true ? ' — and Dan couldn't 
 understand at first, but when he did he was like a madman. 
 He shook Jennie in her bed till she fainted away, — then he ran
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 415 
 
 out of the house and drank till he was blind and deaf, and 
 black in the face with rage. Then he came to me, storming 
 and cursing. He asked me to go away with him at once from 
 Shadbrook. ' If you don't,' he shouted — 'There'll be murder 
 
 here ! I'll finish off the d d parson and his meddlesome 
 
 wife — and I'll make short work of Jennie ! But if you'll come 
 along with me I'll leave them all alone.' I knew what that 
 meant, — Dan was always a man of his word, even in drink, — 
 but I managed to quiet him for the moment, and I told him 
 I'd go with him in a day or two. I knew the time had come 
 for me to decide my own future, and I wasn't long making up 
 my mind. There was a man I had got acquainted with, a 
 sort of actor-manager who ' coached ' amateur Shakespeare 
 reading-societies, — he told me he did it for the purpose of 
 getting into the houses of the aristocracy, and becoming 
 acquainted with people of title and position who wanted to 
 show themselves off on the stage and who were too stupid to 
 know how to read or to act. He was always talking about 
 duchesses and princesses who sent for him and asked his 
 advice about their amateur theatricals, and he played at being 
 quite the fine gentleman. He had fallen in love with me one 
 day when he met me taking a glass at the ' Ram's Head,' — he 
 was motoring to Cheltenham, — and he said that if I would go 
 to London with him, he'd find me a place on the variety stage. 
 So when your wife had brought everything to a finish for me 
 in Shadbrook, I wrote to him to come and fetch me away. 
 He came, and I went with him straight to London one night, — 
 he had .:is motor waiting in a bye-lane about a mile outside 
 the village, and we did the whole journey at top speed. It 
 was a splendid run ! I was net sorry to go, — I was only just 
 a little sorry for Dan — and you ! " 
 
 Everton started as from a heavy dream. 
 
 " Me ? Sorry for me ? " he echoed — " In what way ? " 
 
 She rose and moved towards him with a lithe, slow grace, 
 and resting one elbow on the piano stood regarding him 
 fixedly. 
 
 "Because I knew you would be disappointed in me," she
 
 4 i6 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 answered, slowly, "because I felt that when you heard all, 
 you would think of me as a beautiful thing broken and 
 spoilt ; that you would be pained and angry, — for I knew, — I 
 couldn't help seeing that though as a parson you could not 
 approve of me, yet as a man you admired me. I know and 
 see that still ! " 
 
 There was a pause. So long it seemed, — so weighted with 
 deep silence that the rays of sunshine dancing on the wall 
 seemed more expressive of sound than light. Her eyes flashed 
 a challenge to his, but they met with no response. She gave 
 a little petulant movement of her shoulders. 
 
 "I'm afraid I'm boring you," she said; — "But there isn't 
 much more to tell. I heard of Jennie Kiernan's death 
 through a girl I knew, — and I felt sure Dan had killed 
 
 her " 
 
 Everton made a slight sign of protest. 
 
 " Do not accuse him of a guilt that was not his," he said, 
 in low, strained accents, — " She died of grief and shock. She 
 should never have been told of her husband's unfaithfulness." 
 Jacynth gave him a glance of open wonderment. 
 
 " You say that ? But it was your wife who told her " 
 
 He checked her by an imperative gesture. 
 " I know it ! " he said — " And my wife is — dead ! " 
 A shadowy pallor made his face look grey and old as he 
 spoke; — instinctively he covered his eyes with one hand. 
 Some faint touch of compunction moved her, and she drew 
 closer to him. 
 
 " Mr. Everton," she murmured ; " I have always been so 
 sorry — it was such a terrible blow to you — you loved 
 
 her " 
 
 He lifted his hand from his eyes and looked at her sadly 
 and searchingly. 
 
 " Yes, I loved her ! " he answered, — " With a love you have 
 never known. With a love you will never know ! " 
 
 Her head drooped. Her slim white hands clasped and 
 unclasped themselves restlessly. 
 
 " Poor Jacynth ! ' he said, in a strange half-sighing tone.
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 417 
 
 "With all your plans for your own happiness you have 
 missed the best of life ! — and I, with all my sorrows, still 
 hold the chief prize ! I would not change my griefs for your 
 joys— no, not for the whole world! I would not lose the 
 memory of the woman I loved — and love — for all your 
 social triumphs ! You do not know what it is to a man to 
 feel that a sweet and sinless woman's life has been linked to 
 his own in the sacrament of marriage; — you do not know, — 
 how should you ! — that even death itself fails to destroy such 
 love if it be true. And with all your wealth and influence and 
 power I pity you ! " 
 
 She smiled. 
 
 " Not half so much," — she said — " as / pity you ! " 
 
 And she threw back her head with an air of sudden defiance. 
 
 " I pity you," she went on, " because you are only 
 half a man, — because your stupid religion has chilled your 
 blood and taught you to measure out natural feelings by rule 
 and line, — because you always turn to the deaf blind Fancy 
 you call God, and ask It whether you may or may not be 
 happy ! It answers nothing ! It does not care ! Yet your 
 own imagination, speaking for It, says : ' No, you shall not do 
 this or that ; — you must not love, — you may not hate ! 
 The lion may tear his prey, — but you must give food to 
 your enemy ! The bird may choose many mates, but you must 
 only have one in youth and in age.' And so you live in 
 restraint and make yourself miserable for a dream ! — while 
 all the world of nature smiles on in perfect happiness without 
 any of man's laws to control it. Its only law is to live, love 
 and die ; — and after death it gives no proof of any further kind 
 of life that any sensible person would wish for. Dead things 
 rot away and breed germs of disease, — I would not care to 
 live again as a bacillus ! " 
 
 Her tragedy-queen expression here broke up into charming 
 dimples of mirth which made her lovely face still lovelier, and 
 she laughed. 
 
 " No, Mr. Everton ! It's no use your looking so solemn ! 
 Neither you nor any man of your calling will ever persuade me 
 27
 
 4 i 8 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 that it is not good to live one's life according to one's own 
 temperament, — it is the lesson of nature, — and if God made 
 nature, then it is the teaching of God. The Bible and all the 
 codes of morality are merely man's work. You see I've read 
 heaps of books since I left Shadbrook ; — and I've had lessons 
 from the best teachers in languages, music, literature, card- 
 playing and all the fine-lady accomplishments, — and I've 
 learned as many ' up-to-date ' things as I can, — but my creed 
 is the same as it always was, — live, love and die ! — and there 
 an end ! It is enough ! " 
 
 He stood quite motionless, wondering a little at the melo- 
 dramatic passion she had thrown into the utterance of her 
 words, — then he remembered she had been on the stage. 
 And he questioned whether her brusque admission of utter 
 atheism was only part of the society role she had elected to 
 play, or whether it was her real attitude of mind. Had she 
 any real attitude of mind? Many a woman has none, pre- 
 ferring to feign the similitude of the mind of another person. 
 This, he divined, was likely to be the case with Jacynth, and 
 her glib utterances concerning nature and God were probably 
 the mere reflection, as in a mirror, of the mind of her ' great 
 friend,' Claude Ferrers. 
 
 " You say I don't know what love is," — she went on, " You 
 are quite right. I don't know what your kind of love is — it 
 must be some idea of your own, for it doesn't exist among the 
 men and women of the world. Love that lasts for ever would 
 be terribly boresome ! " here she smiled enchantingly — " be- 
 sides it doesn't last and can't last ! — if it did, we should not see 
 so many disconsolate widows and widowers marrying again ! 
 And so far as women go, I always notice that if a woman 
 is really fond of a man he at once avoids her and goes after 
 somebody else. Now men rave about me because I don't care 
 for any one of them in particular — they're all alike in my 
 opinion. And that you should pity me, makes me laugh ! It 
 does really ! Because as I've already told you, the one to be 
 pitied is yourself. / am perfectly happy." 
 
 " For how long will your happiness last ? " he asked, suddenly.
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 419 
 
 She gave a playful gesture of indifference. 
 
 "Till I lose my beauty," — she answered, — " But when that 
 happens, a little over-dose of morphia will finish me off 
 prettily before age and ugliness fairly set in." 
 
 "Then with no heart, you have no hope, Jacynth !" he said, 
 sadly. 
 
 Her laughter rang out like a little chime. 
 
 " Heart is a mistake — hope is a mistake," she rejoined, 
 lightly ; — " If you have heart, everybody despises you for a fool, 
 — if you hope for anything, people take pleasure in dis- 
 appointing you ! The only way to live with comfort is to get 
 all you can for yourself out of everything and every one, and 
 enjoy what you get ! In the social life of to-day there's no 
 time for any sentiment." 
 
 She pulled some roses out of a vase close by and began 
 putting them together in a cluster. 
 
 "Ever since I left Shadbrook," she said, "I have had no 
 time to think about the past. The actor I ran away with 
 introduced me to his friends as his pupil, — it was understood 
 that I was studying for the stage under his care. We went to 
 Paris for a time, — and, — Dan's child was born there, — dead. 
 That was a piece of luck for me. But if it had lived I should 
 have sent it to Dan. He was such a curious sort of fellow 
 that I think he would have loved it." 
 
 She paused, half expecting him to speak ; but his face was 
 averted from her, and he said nothing. 
 
 "Well!" she resumed, somewhat impatiently, — "then I 
 came back to London and made an instant success. I had 
 nothing to do but wear lovely frocks and move my arms and 
 legs about in different postures, and crowds came just to stare 
 at me. Israel Nordstein was the owner of the theatre at which 
 I appeared — he had great influence with the ' Upper Ten ' 
 because so many of them borrowed money off him ; and he 
 made me the fashion. And then, — when any number of men 
 were in love with me, peers and statesmen and all sorts, he 
 suddenly took me off the stage and married me. And here 
 I am, — well established for life ! — my husband settled ten
 
 420 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 thousand a year upon me on our marriage, — and he gives me 
 so much besides that I hardly ever touch my own allowance. 
 I have jewels worth a hundred thousand pounds, — horses, 
 carriages, motor-cars, a lovely yacht, a box at the opera and 
 everything I want ; — I was presented at Court by a tiptop 
 peeress who never asked who I was or where I came from, — 
 she owes my husband heaps of money ! — and I got into the 
 swim at once. Just a year after my mavriage the newspapers 
 were full of the account of the murder of your poor wife, — and 
 I was horribly shocked ! I knew Dan must have done it, — and 
 I was a little afraid lest he should come to London and perhaps 
 find me out. But — with my usual good fortune — my car ran 
 over him the very night of the murder ! Wasn't that strange ! 
 It makes one believe in Providence after all ! " 
 
 He looked at her with a sudden and close scrutiny. 
 
 " And have you never thought," — he said — " that you, 
 Jacynth, are mainly responsible for that murder? — more so 
 than for his death?" 
 
 She lifted her head in haughty amaze. 
 
 " I ? " she ejaculated ; — " Why, what had I to do with it ? " 
 
 " You made Dan unfaithful to his wife " 
 
 " No woman makes a man unfaithful to his wife unless he 
 is more than willing to be faithless," — she interrupted him, 
 disdainfully — " I was certainly not to blame for being hand- 
 somer than Jennie ! " 
 
 "You prevaricate," he said, with some annoyance. — "His 
 infidelity killed her " 
 
 She pointed her cluster of roses reproachfully at him. 
 
 " No ! " she said, emphatically, " His infidelity would never 
 have killed her, if she had ?iever knotvn of it ! Who was to 
 blame for telling her ? Your wife ! Your wife ! No one 
 else ! " 
 
 His hand clenched the woodwork of the piano against which 
 he leaned — ,if he could have flung the assertion back at her 
 as a lie it would have relieved the tension of his nerves, but 
 he knew he could not. 
 
 " If ever}' woman in London to-day were told of her
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 421 
 
 husband's infidelities," went on Jacynth, still pointing her ros< s 
 at him, "and died of the news, the streets would be strewn 
 with dead bodies ! " 
 
 And her lips parted in a little peal of laughter. 
 
 " Dear Parson Everton ! I wish you would be happy ! It's 
 so easy ! The world is so pleasant, and so full of pretty 
 things ! The past is past ! Try and like me a little in the 
 future ! " 
 
 Over his pale face swept a shadow ; the shadow of an 
 intense repulsion and futile wrath. 
 
 "Try and like you !" he echoed, bitterly, — "Like you " 
 
 " Yes, — or love me ! — which you please ! " she answered, 
 gaily, the smile dancing with jewel-like radiance in her eyes — 
 " But don't be hard upon me ! You ought to think better of 
 me than you do ! If I had been an ugly woman I should 
 have been good, I suppose. But what's the use of being good 
 and ugly? Christ was very kind to Mary Msgdalen, — she 
 was wicked, but I'm sure she was beautiful. And her sins, 
 winch were many, were forgiven because she loved much. 
 That's me ! I love much ! — I love everything that gives 
 me pleasure ! Not- all the sermons that were ever preached 
 could ever alter me, — I want to be happy as long as I can and 
 in my own way, — " 
 
 " Are you happy in your marriage ? " he demanded, with an 
 almost angry abruptness. 
 
 "Of course! Why should I not be? Isra is devoted to 
 me, — he's old and not much to look at, — but he lets me do 
 just as I like " 
 
 " I see ! " said Everton, with quiet scorn, — " Life, love and 
 death, and all the things belonging to these, are summed up 
 for you in ' doing as you like ' ! " 
 
 She laughed ; — a soft little laugh of perfect satisfaction. 
 
 " Exactly ! " she said — " What can a woman want more ? " 
 And, detaching a rose from the little bouquet she held, she 
 offered it to him—" Will you have it ? " 
 
 Swift as running fire his thoughts flew back to the moment 
 when his wife had pinned a rosebud in his coat before she had
 
 422 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 gone out in all her winsome prettiness innocently and un- 
 wittingly to meet a cruel death, — and he waved away her 
 outstretched hand with a kind of horror. 
 
 " No, — no ! " he said, in low, hoarse tones, — " Keep your 
 roses for the men who let you fool them, Jacynth ! I am not 
 one of them ! " 
 
 She looked at him with a sudden air of serious musing. 
 
 " You are rather unkind," — she said slowly, — " Considering 
 that I have made you famous." 
 
 He started as though he had been stung. 
 
 " You ! You — you have " 
 
 " Worked you up," — she rejoined, with tranquil bluntness. 
 " Given you a big boom in my husband's newspaper syndicate. 
 That's what I've done. Do you suppose you would ever have 
 been heard of as a preacher if I hadn't ? " 
 
 He flung out his hands with an unconsciously desperate 
 action. 
 
 " My God ! " he cried, passionately ;— " This is the hardest 
 blow of all ! I would rather have died than owe anything to 
 you ! "
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 
 A MOMENT'S silence followed. 
 Jjl She looked at him and smiled. Her eyes, large and 
 luminous, seemed to hold strange thoughts and memories 
 mirrored in their wells of living light. 
 
 " Men are proverbially ungrateful," she said at last, her 
 voice breaking the stillness with a charm of honey-sweet sound, 
 " And you are no exception to the rule, Mr. Everton ! You 
 would rather have died than owe anything to me, you say? 
 Well, as it happens, you owe everything to me, — every- 
 thing that makes you known to the world ! Ever since Dan 
 murdered your wife I have pitied you in your loneliness at 
 Shadbrook — and I have tried to help you on in all the best 
 ways I could think of. I have striven to fill your life and 
 make you forget your grief in ambition. I knew you were a 
 clever man and a good man, — and that both your cleverness 
 and goodness were lost in the wretched little village where 
 your lot is cast. When you preached for the first time after 
 your wife's death, I had a special representative of the press 
 sent down to hear you ;— your sermon was reported in quite a 
 dozen newspapers,— and that was the beginning of the ' boom.' 
 It has been very successful so far,— you are named everywhere 
 as one among the few great preachers of the day, — your 
 influence is widening, — your theories are quoted and admired, 
 Dut) — if you are tired of your growing celebrity, it can be 
 easily stopped ! — one word from me, and neither the press nor 
 the world will know you any more ! " 
 
 As she spoke she clenched her hand and unclenched it 
 
 423
 
 424 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 again as though she allowed some worthless thing to fall to 
 the ground. 
 
 He looked full at her. 
 
 " Speak that word then ! " he said, — " And without delay ! 
 I would prefer never to preach again than be degraded by the 
 thought that you are at work to make my preaching known ! 
 I would wish every word I ever utter to sink into oblivion 
 rather than that you should help to keep it in the public 
 memory ! Let me remain in my own obscurity, disregarded 
 and forgotten, — but spare me the indignity and suffering of 
 any obligation to you ! " 
 
 His breath came and went quickly ; he was strongly moved. 
 She gave him a half-amused, half-surprised glance. 
 
 " Why are you so bitter with me ? " she asked ; — " Because 
 I am what I am ? — or — because Dan Kiernan was my lover ? " 
 
 He uttered a sharp exclamation. Something rose in him 
 that would not be gainsaid. He went up to her and took her 
 by the hands almost roughly. 
 
 " If you will have the truth as a man may tell it you," he 
 said — " because Dan Kiernan was your lover ! Because you 
 were a living lie to me when you knelt before me at the Com- 
 munion Table and took God's Holy Name in vain ! Because 
 you, a child, a girl whose aspect was that of purity itself, could 
 give yourself without any thought or after regret to a brutal 
 sot " 
 
 "Have I not told you I was drunk?" — she said — "You 
 forget that ! " 
 
 He dropped her hands. Drunk ! Yes, she had told him. 
 She, — this exquisite dainty woman of perfect form and feature 
 had begun her callous career of shame in Drink. Be- 
 wildering thoughts flew through his brain, — he had meant to 
 reproach her, — should he not rather, in the very name of 
 Christianity itself, compassionate and forgive her? Had he 
 not pronounced a pardon from his own pulpit on his wife's 
 murderer, Dan Kiernan ? The very words he had said came 
 back to him in a flash of recollection : " I fasten no blame 
 on the memory of the evil-doer of the deed that has left me
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 425 
 
 desolate, for he never was, and never could be considered as 
 fully responsible for his actions. A man drugged by poison 
 which the laws of the realm most wickedly allow to be sold 
 to him as pure and wholesome liquor, cannot be held as 
 personally guilty of any crime, — therefore I have only to say 
 that even as God has punished the unhappy sinner, so may 
 God forgive him ! And so may God equally forgive all sinners 
 who are led astray by sinners worse than themselves ! " 
 
 Did not this apply to Jacynth even more than to Dan ? 
 Then he dwelt on the phrase; — ' Even as God has punished 
 the unhappy sinner, so may God forgive him ! ' In Jacynth's 
 case God had not punished sin but had apparently rewarded 
 it. Then was he to be her judge ? And while his mind was 
 swept by cross currents of contradictory feeling, her voice, 
 calm and a little sorrowful, went on : — 
 
 "You make no allowances for me," she said, — "And in 
 that I think you fail in charity ! I know how strongly you 
 have always fought against the drink curse, — and I thought I 
 might perhaps help you, now that I have plenty of money and 
 influence. It has been a hope and dream of mine that I 
 might be useful to you, — and so be a sort of : best girl in the 
 village ' after all ! That is why I have done my utmost to 
 bring your preaching into public notice. I wanted you to be 
 heard in London, and I asked that particular Bishop you met 
 yesterday to write and invite you to preach for the charity in 
 which so many people of distinction are interested " 
 
 a 
 
 You again ! It is through you I came ? " he said, 
 bitterly. 
 
 A flicker of disdain for his slowness of comprehension 
 passed over her face. He was entangled in her mtshes ard 
 yet did not appear to realise his own helplessness. 
 
 "Through me, of course!" she answered, quietly; — "It is 
 generally through a woman that a man makes his mark, 
 though he will never own it ! I wanted your coming to be the 
 beginning of a great social campaign for you, — for there is 
 quite as much to be done among the upper classes as among the 
 lower, where the Drink is concerned. Dan Kiernan was a
 
 42 6 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 drunkard, but he was not more so than many a fine gentleman 
 I could name ! " 
 
 Her delicate eyebrows drew together in a little pucker of 
 
 contempt. 
 
 " The ' lower classes ' ! " she said, — " That is the name given 
 to the best and biggest half of the people ! The ' lower 
 classes ' are ever so much kinder, more patient, and more 
 temperate than the ' upper ten ' of to-day. I say this from my 
 near t ) — I who came from the 'lower' and am now in the 
 'upper' ranks, through the power of my husband's money. 
 The ' lower classes ' drink because they have nothing 
 else to do out of working hours, — and they crowd the public- 
 houses because their homes are often comfortless. But the 
 1 upper-class ' drunkards drink for sheer vice and bestiality, — 
 women as well as men, — and I have seen so much of it since 
 I married that I am angry to think that the poor should 
 always be blamed for this failing, when the rich are often 
 twenty times worse. Most of the men I meet in society seem 
 to use whisky as a perfume ! " 
 
 He looked at her in vague surprise that she could make 
 a jest of the vice that had been her own ruin. She laughed a 
 little. 
 
 " It's a fact ! " she said ; — " Everybody doesn't drink beer, 
 but everybody drinks whisky, even girls and women. Their 
 doctors order it for them, and tell them it's the only ' safe ' 
 drink. Safe ! " And she gave a gesture of cynical impatience. 
 "They might as well say that to put your hand in a lion's 
 mouth is safe if only the lion will promise not to bite ! And 
 whisky, — by medical advice ! — is always on the sideboard in 
 every dining-room or smoke-room, — it would be difficult to 
 find any statesman, politician, diplomat, financier, or for that 
 matter any clergyman, in London who would refuse a glass of 
 whisky-and-soda at any hour of the day. Not all the clergy 
 are set against the drink, you know ! Some of them are good 
 old humbugs, I can tell you ! They talk a lot in their Church 
 congresses about the ' national curse ' — but many of the very 
 fellows who talk, have invested money in breweries and
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 427 
 
 distilleries, and get a good slice of their incomes out of the 
 'curse' they condemn. So encouraging to the cause of 
 religion, isn't it, to see such hypocrites in the pulpit preaching 
 ' truth ' ! " 
 
 Everton was perplexed and embarrassed. It was not easy 
 to answer her or to deny her words. Moreover, she spoke not 
 at all like the Jacynth of the old days, though even then she 
 had always possessed a certain fluency of utterance, but like a 
 woman of the world whose experience had taught her much 
 that could not be contradicted. 
 
 " I never get drunk now," — she continued, with an almost 
 brutal frankness; — " You might perhaps think I do, — so I 
 just tell you at once that I don't. I've plenty of opportunities 
 for drinking — but I don't take them. However, I should not 
 scandalise ' high ' society very much if I did, — because so 
 many ' distinguished ' persons would be in the same boat with 
 me. They don't reel about the street and curse and swear as 
 Dan used to do, — some of them take a drug to counteract all 
 that — but they've got into the habit of a standing-straight, 
 set-faced drunkenness which almost disguises the fact that 
 they are drunk. I know a Duchess who is in that condition 
 nearly every night, and when she goes out to dinner you can 
 always tell if she's very much ' on ' because she tells awful 
 stories that shock every one at table, with a perfectly pale, 
 grave face as though she were reading prayers ! People think 
 she's eccentric, and say ' Poor dear Duchess ! ' — but the 
 matter with the poor dear Duchess is that she's drunk. That's 
 all ! " 
 
 She laughed again, and went on with a kind of quick reck- 
 lessness : 
 
 "The actor who took me away from Shadbrook was a 
 drunkard of the 'artistic' type, — he never turned colour or 
 tumbled about, — he simply sat and talked by the hour to him- 
 self about his own genius till it made one perfectly sick to hear 
 him. I married Israel Nordstein quite as much because he 
 was a sober man as because he was a rich one. He never 
 loses his head — not he ! He would not be so successful in
 
 428 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 money-making if he did. I watch drunken men fall into the 
 financial nets he spreads for them — and I am glad when they are 
 trapped. It serves them right ! " 
 
 A sudden flash of wicked malice lit up her eyes, and Everton 
 saw it. As in a defective mirror which reflects only the 
 ugly distortion of a face, he obtained for one instant the view 
 of her whole nature, and realised that the object she had in 
 using her influence for him and creating a public interest in 
 his name and work, was not, as she had professed, to do him 
 good, but only to serve her own ends, — that she might assume 
 to show to the world a new kind of conquest, — a protege" 
 whom as a preacher she might claim to patronise, and in 
 whose possible success she would assuredly assert her own 
 social share. And, as he mentally got a grasp of the situation, 
 he rose to it with cool resolution and nerve. 
 
 " So, though you tell me that I make no allowance for you, 
 Jacynth, and that I fail in charity towards you," he said; 
 " you yourself have no pity for others who are victimised and 
 fooled by the very same evil that has been your destruction ! 
 And yet you would help me in my work ! Impossible ! I 
 could not travel along your lines ! I should feel compelled to 
 make public protect against your husband's 'trapping' of 
 drugged and poisoned men ! I should judge both your 
 husband and you as ten times worse than they ! " 
 
 Her face crimsoned, — she lifted her beautiful head with a 
 haughty movement of indignation. He held up his hand. 
 
 " Hear me for one moment, Jacyr/h ! Remember that to 
 me you are nothing but the Shadbrook village girl, — that all 
 your wealth makes you no whit better or higher in my eyes, 
 because, if anything, your social position has not improved your 
 character so much as it has hardened it. You speak of the 
 vulgarities and indecencies of that section of upper-class society 
 in which, most strangely, you are now elected to move ! I 
 believe such vulgarities and indecencies do exist, — but why? 
 Because money, — money in millions, such as your husband 
 possesses, buys an entrance into society for women like you ! 
 Women, selfish, cruel and vain !— to whom the heart of an
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 429 
 
 honest man is no more than a clod of clay to trample on, — for 
 whom love is a delusion, and God Himself a fraud ! " 
 
 He spoke with heat and passion, — his voice trembled. She 
 looked at him intently, — there was a faint smile on her 
 lips. 
 
 "You talk of my work," — he went on — "and of your wish 
 to be useful to me. Why, you have cut the very ground from 
 under my feet by telling me that the praise of the press \syour 
 doing! — the mere 'boom' of your husband's syndicated news- 
 papers ! Who, that is sane, cares for any praise in the press if 
 it is only the result of an individual influence?" 
 
 " It never is more than that nowadays," — she murmured, with 
 ironical meekness ; — " Both praise and blame are administered 
 similarly, but the blame is more easily secured, and costs less 
 than the praise ! '"' 
 
 A shadow of stern pain darkened his face. 
 
 "Jacynth," — he said, and his grave blue eyes expressed a 
 mingled sorrow and entreaty — "Wayward girl whom I would 
 have saved from ruin had it been possible ! — I never thought 
 I should have to ask a favour at your hands, but you have 
 thrust this hard position on me ! And so I ask you to alto- 
 gether dismiss me from your thoughts, and never to speak of 
 me to any ' persons of influence ' as you consider them, or 
 attempt to help me, through the press or by any other means 
 whatsoever ! Let me go my own way unaided ; let me sink- 
 back into the obscurity of Shadbrook, from whence I should 
 never have emerged ! " 
 
 She was silent. Some small jewels sewn among the deli- 
 cate laces of her gown sparkled restlessly with the quick 
 heaving of her bosom. 
 
 " I am content," — he went on, slowly — " to persuade and en- 
 courage the few rather than the many. Mine has always been 
 
 the very limited area of labour " 
 
 " I have widened it," — she said, insistently — " You know I 
 have ! And you cannot undo what I have done ! You will 
 always owe something to me ! " 
 
 He sighed heavily. A sense of unreality had come upon
 
 430 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 him like the first vague feeling of ' wandering ' which affects 
 those who sicken for fever. 
 
 " I shall try to discharge the debt," he answered, — " by 
 causing myself to be forgotten as quickly as possible." 
 
 A faint colour flushed her face ; — then ebbed away, leaving 
 her very pale. 
 
 "HoiV unjust you are!" she murmured — "Yes, — how 
 unjust, — how unkind ! You would make others suffer for what 
 to you is a personal matter of annoyance ! — you would deprive 
 the social world of your inspiration and eloquence, simply 
 because I — poor Jacynth ! — have the means and influence to 
 make that world listen to you " 
 
 He made a movement of impatience. 
 
 " It would never listen," — he said — " it never listens. You 
 know that as well as I do. It never listened to Christ Himself. 
 He preached to the People ; not to the ' social world.' The 
 social world battens on lies ; without such provender it would 
 starve. Truth is its spectre of famine, and any preacher of 
 truth — any preacher who disregards personal considerations and 
 conventionalities is excluded from its centres. The very 
 Bishops and Archbishops lend their aid to effectually silence 
 Him ! Do I not know this ? Do you not know it ? You do ! 
 You are as conscious as I am that I could never preach to your 
 1 social ' set without becoming a firebrand of offence. For to 
 ' an evil and adulterous generation ' I should be bound to give 
 the 'sign ' of their coming doom." 
 
 Her eyebrows went up quizzically. 
 
 "How solemn !" she exclaimed, laughingly — "Do you really 
 think a 'doom ' is coming? For them? Forme?" 
 
 He lifted his eyes. There was a deep stillness of thought in 
 them, — a look that he himself was unaware of, — a look that 
 checked the laughter on her lips, and sent a faint tremor 
 though her veins as of sudden cold. 
 
 " A doom is coming ! " he said, slowly — " A doom is 
 coming on the modern world, because a doom is bound to 
 come ! Not because of this or that form of creed or preaching ; 
 not because of the things of prophecy or the progress of time,
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 431 
 
 but because of the Law. The eternal and Obvious Law ! — so 
 much the Obvious that it is passed over as a thing unknown 
 and Unseen ! The Law which steadily makes for good, and 
 as steadily discards evil, — the Lav; which evolves Right and 
 destroys Wrong, — it is always at work, Jacynth ! — and it will 
 work upon you, as upon all, in due season. For even if there 
 were not a God, there is, — without doubt or denial — the in- 
 evitable Law ! " 
 
 He broke off, — something seemed to affect him with a sudden 
 sense of foreboding. " Jacynth," — and he moved a step 
 towards her — " I wish I could hope good things for you " 
 
 " Repentance counts for nothing, I suppose ? " she queried, 
 lightly. 
 
 " Repentance ! You do not repent ! You never will ! " 
 
 " Why should I ? If I have offended God or the Law, the 
 result of my offences is very satisfactory ! " 
 
 He stood still, looking at her. 
 
 " The result is not yet," — he said. 
 
 She smiled. 
 
 " And when my ' doom ' comes, it will be because I am base- 
 born but beautiful enough to make men fall in love with me, 
 and because I got drunk in my girlhood ! " she ejaculated ; — 
 " What a good, kind God it must be that punishes a poor 
 human creature for no heavier faults than these ! One might 
 as well murder a child for being pretty and for eating too many 
 sweets, /would not be so unkind ! — why should the God you 
 preach of be worse than I ? " 
 
 He was silent. The audacious remark of Mrs. Moddley's 
 hopeful son recurred to him — "Please, sir, mother says she 
 don't see 'ow God can bear to live watchin' all the poor 
 folks die what He's made Hisself ! " There was something 
 not without point in the suggestion. Human error, human 
 folly, human happiness or misery seem such slight matters in 
 comparison with the tremendous forces of the Universe, 
 rolling their great wheels eternally through endless space, — 
 and yet we cannot escape from the fact that humanity itself 
 is part of the mystic plan, — so much so that even the thoughts
 
 432 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 of one human brain may revolutionise a nation, or, as in the 
 teaching of Christ, a world. 
 
 "You argue as an animal or an insect might argue if it 
 could speak," he said, presently — " Not as a woman, to 
 whom God has given an immortal soul ! What you have 
 done — what you are doing with that soul is between yourself 
 and God. Between yourself and God ! Remember ! For 
 as surely as we two stand here the moment will come when 
 there will be nothing in life or death for you but this: 
 Yourself and God ! No friend or lover will then be near to 
 counsel or command, — you will be alone, Jacynth, — alone 
 with the Almighty Power whom your very thoughts blaspheme ! " 
 
 She smiled proudly at him. 
 
 " So be it ! " she said — " I shall not care ! For if He is 
 All Mighty, surely He made me what i am ! " 
 
 She drew herself up with an air of defiance, — her beauty 
 seemed to glow and burn with a kind of inward radiance. 
 He gazed at her for a moment, fascinated, — then a faint 
 shuddering sense of repugnance stole over him, and he 
 instinctively recoiled from her as though he had seen some 
 brilliant coloured snake lift its head from a thicket ready to 
 sting. She saw the movement, and bit her rosy under-lip 
 vexedly. 
 
 " How you hate me ! " she murmured — " Not all the good 
 I have tried to do for you would ever move you to a kind 
 thought of me ! Do you think you are quite just ? Or even 
 quite Christian ? But there ! I will not worry you any more. 
 You shall go your own way. You shall keep to your narrow 
 round of work in Shadbrook, — miserable, mean little Shad- 
 brook ! — I promise you that you shall be forgotten, — even by 
 me — after to-day ! " 
 
 He bent his head. 
 
 " So it will be best," he answered. 
 
 Suddenly she went straight up to him and laid a hand on 
 his arm. She raised her face, — that lovely pure oval of 
 perfect pearl and rose, with the large eyes lighting it up like 
 stars, — till it was close to his own.
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 433 
 
 " Parson Everton," she said, in a half whisper, — " I believe 
 you are afraid of me ! " 
 
 He met her bewitching glance ' with a sad steadfastness. 
 He knew his own strength and weakness, and made no 
 hypocritical pretence to himself of being ' not as other 
 men are.' 
 
 "You arc right," he replied, in cold, quiet tones — "I am 
 afraid of you. I am not such a coward as to refuse to 
 admit it." 
 
 A smile trembled on the sweet mouth. 
 
 " You might — even you ! — might love me a little some 
 day ! " she murmured. 
 
 His eyes looked down into hers unflinchingly. 
 
 " If I were made drunk, — as you were when you gave 
 yourself to Dan Kiernan," he said, with stern and deliberate 
 emphasis — " I might love you as other men do, — for the 
 moment ! And that moment would be my soul's dam- 
 nation ! " 
 
 She drew herself away from him with a gesture of anger 
 and offence. Her bosom heaved quickly. 
 
 " Oh, you are cruel — you are brutal ! " she said ; — " You 
 are not a true Christian ! " 
 
 He caught at the words with a sudden passion of 
 feeling. 
 
 " True Christian ! What is that ? Do you know ? Is it 
 to be a man whose broadness of so-called 'Christianity' 
 degenerates into licence? Is it to be like some of the 
 ' true Christian ' clergy who are so anxious for the ' social 
 purity' of the nation that they will crowd music-halls to 
 applaud and approve a half-nude dancer. Is it to dabble 
 secretly in unnameable vice, and yet present an external front 
 of sham virtue to the world ? Is it to tolerate without 
 reproach, women like you, — men like your husband, — who 
 pay large sums of money to Church charities in order that 
 their careers of social vice may be covered and condoned by 
 the support of such members of the ' Christian ' ministry 
 whose consciences can be bought for so much cash down ? 
 28
 
 434 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 Jacynth, the word 'Christian' has been made to stand for 
 many a wicked deed since the hour in which Judas betrayed 
 his Master ! " 
 
 She stood apart, gazing at him in a kind of whimsical 
 surprise. Then she appeared to gather a sort of stage dignity 
 about her — an air such as that assumed by some tinsel queen 
 of the footlights in an impressive role. 
 
 " You are too emotional, Mr. Everton," — she said, with quite 
 a superior air, — " You take the sins of society too seriously. 
 And you are rather hard on your own clerical brethren. They 
 have a very difficult part to play, you know ! They have to 
 preach a religion which very few educated people believe in ; — 
 and then, of course, society doesn't like to be preached 
 at and told disagreeable truths unless it's done in a 
 sort of theatrical way, when they think it's rather fun, — a 
 Sunday morning ' variety entertainment.' But really a clergy- 
 man needs to have plenty of tact to avoid unpleasantness. 
 Take Royal people, for example ! — suppose a parson were to 
 dare to tell them the truth of themselves ! Why, he would 
 never be asked to preach before Royalty again ! Think what 
 a disgrace that would be for him ! Now " — and she nodded 
 at him patronisingly, — " if you had only let me go on helping 
 you, I would have had you preach before the King ! I could 
 easily have arranged it." 
 
 He smiled coldly at her complete effrontery. 
 
 " You would have chosen a most unsuitable preacher," — he 
 said. 
 
 " Not at all ! I could have told you exactly what to say," 
 and she laughed like an amused child — " Pretty and pleasant 
 things, — about peace and universal harmony — things he 
 wouldn't mind hearing just for ten minutes ; how kings are 
 always the Lord's Anointed, and get their places in heaven 
 before any one else has a chance, — and how their very faults 
 only arise from the ' difficulties of their position ' ! That's 
 the sort of thing that doesn't offend. Why, v/ith a little 
 diplomacy and push I would have made you a Bishop in a 
 few years ! Yet you prefer the obscurity of Shadbrook ! "
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 435 
 
 "As one may prefer heaven to hell, I prefer the obscurity of 
 Shadbrook," — he answered. 
 
 " And you shall have it ! " she said, with a sudden burst of 
 impatience — " You shall never again come out of it ! Be 
 quite sure of that ! But to-day, — just for to-day, — be kind 
 to me ! " 
 
 He looked at her. Her eyes filled with tears. They 
 welled up and fell down her fair cheeks. He hesitated, — then 
 went up to her gently and took her hand. 
 
 "Jacynth,"he said — "I cannot be kind — to you. I know 
 you too well ! I doubt you too much ! You asked me to 
 come and see you to-day, and I came, simply as your former 
 Vicar. And in coming, I intended to point out to you what 
 I feel to be the truth, — that if it had not been for your cruelty 
 and heartlessness, and the secret wickedness of your relations 
 with Dan Kiernan, — my wife/' he paused, and a shuddering 
 sigh broke from hirn — "my poor little wife would not have 
 been murdered. I have imagined, — at times, — that her death 
 lies quite as much with you, as with your brutal lover ! " 
 
 She gave a half-sobbing cry. 
 
 " Mr. Everton ! " 
 
 " I say I have imagined it," he continued, with a kind of 
 pathetic weariness ; — " And I cannot think of her, in her inno- 
 cent beauty, dead, — and look ' kindly ' upon yon, living ! I am 
 sorry to be hard, — but I cannot help myself. Of course, after 
 what you have told me, I find that I must set the chief blame 
 on the one devil of mischief that makes havoc of all men and 
 women's souls — the Drink. Well ! — I admit this. But now 
 that I have seen you, — now that I know you have no need of 
 me to help you, advise or console, — now that you show me 
 that you have chosen ways of life in which I can have no 
 sympathy and wish to claim no memory, it only remains for 
 me to go from you for ever. And, Jacynth," here he looked 
 down at the slim white hand he held, on which the marriage 
 ringgleamed, surmounted by a second circlet of purest diamonds, 
 " I cannot say God bless you ! — for I do not think He can, or 
 will ; — but I do say God save you ! "
 
 436 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 The tears were still thick in her eyes ; — she withdrew her 
 hand slowly from his clasp. 
 
 "Thank-you !" she said, and a smile softened the moment- 
 arily vexed lines of her mouth. " You would be such a 
 splendid man, Mr. Everton, if you were not a parson ! You 
 make so much of your religion that you cramp yourself in its 
 fetters, — like a strong, handsome bear dancing in chains ! 
 Poor bear ! " The dewdrops on her lashes melted away in a 
 swift gleam of sunny mirth which rippled into a soft laugh. 
 " But you will never alter ! You will always be the same 
 anxious-to-be-good Church of England man ! " All her gravity 
 vanished, and she went on like a chattering school-girl, 
 " Now if you want to see a real angel, — one who actually 
 'ascends into heaven' before your very eyes, come with me 
 in my car to Hurlingham to-day. I promise to fly most grace- 
 fully away from you ! " 
 
 He turned a questioning glance upon her. 
 
 "I will go and change my gown," — she continued — "And 
 we'll start at once — for I'm due at Hurlingham at half-past 
 seven. It is quite a quick run, and the car can take you back 
 to your hotel after I am gone." 
 
 " Where are you going ? " he asked. 
 
 " Have I not told you ? To Heaven ! ' Up among the 
 clouds so high, Like a diamond in the sky ! ' " 
 
 Her cheeks flushed, and the laughing light upon her face 
 would have been the despair of a Romney. 
 
 " You look so surprised !'" she said — " I am only going up for 
 a couple of hours in Mr. Ferrers's wonderful balloon ' Shooting 
 Star.' It's my favourite way of seeing the world. Such a 
 world as it looks too from the balloon ! — so small a plaything ! 
 With its chequered little patterns of fields and roads, it is just 
 as though a child had laid out a doll's garden on a tea-tray ! 
 And as one soars higher and higher," — here, in real or feigned 
 enthusiasm, she clasped her hands and looked up like a 
 glorified saint approaching the gate of paradise, — " one feels 
 far above all the stupid commonness of everyday things ! — 
 loftier than mountains ! — prouder than oceans ! — supreme and
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 437 
 
 great and powerful ! — almost good ! " She let her hands fall 
 at her sides again and laughed. " Yes, dear Parson Eveiton \ 
 Almost good\ " 
 
 "In the company of Mr. Claude Ferrers?" he queried, with 
 a flash of scorn. 
 
 A light blush flew over her face. 
 
 " Claude Ferrers is a poet ! " she answered, — then, with a 
 sudden theatrical air, she added — " To him the clouds speak 
 and the stars sing ! To him sin is wildly delightful, and 
 corruption ineffably delicious ! He is of the new ' cult ' — 
 (and the most fashionable !) which transfers the dullness of 
 virtue into the fervour of vice ! Ah ! " — and she heaved a 
 profound melodramatic sigh; — "The 'common herd' — the 
 People — cannot understand these subtle shades of fine 
 emotion ! It takes culture, wealth, and an ultra-refinement of 
 training, combined with exquisite languors of idleness, to com- 
 prehend the delicacies of ' smart ' sensuality ! " She broke into 
 a peal of laughter and clapped her hands- " Didn't I do that 
 well ! " she exclaimed — " I might have been on the boards ! 
 That's a bit of Claude Ferrers. He talks in that kind of way 
 when he's been drinking several whisky-sodas, or several 
 brandies and champagnes mixed. But he's really quite a 
 clever man. He designed his own balloon, and it is such a 
 wonderful patent that people say he'll make thousands of 
 pounds with it. He can steer it in any direction, even in a 
 gale of wind. You will come and see me ascend, won 1 you ? " 
 
 He hesitated. A strong instinct urged him to go with her, 
 and yet an equally strong disinclination to be seen in her 
 company held him back. 
 
 " I would rather not," — he began — 
 
 " Oh, nonsense ! It won't take much more of your time ; 
 besides, you've made it perfectly clear that you never wish to 
 see me again after to-day, so you may as well be amiable and 
 finish the afternoon pleasantly ! " She smiled and added — 
 " It will be something for you to think about and remember 
 when you get back to stupid little Shadbrook. Wait here for 
 me, — I won't be long."
 
 433 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 She left the room before he could speak another word ; — 
 and he paced up and down wretchedly, angry with himself 
 that he could do nothing with her, — neither reproach, nor 
 condemn, nor persuade, nor intimidate. He asked himself 
 bitterly of what use was the influence of the Church or the 
 teaching of the Gospel to a woman such as she was, endowed 
 with extraordinary beauty, and now by fortune's hazard, 
 possessed of sufficient wealth to move in whatever social 
 sphere of influence she chose. For it is only necessary to 
 read the lists of guests who are received by King, Queen, and 
 nobility nowadays to realise that it is certainly not distinctive 
 merit or fine character which effect an entrance into the circles 
 once renowned for an honourable exclusiveness, — but simply 
 Cash. The man who pays liberally in one way or the other 
 for a peerage obtains it, — the natural result being that lords 
 are nowadays made up of commons. Very soon the prestige 
 of a name will rest upon its remaining that of a simple 
 squire or dame, untainted by political intrigues or party bribery. 
 According to modern methods of ' honours ' conferred, there 
 was nothing to prevent Jacynth's husband from becoming a 
 peer of the realm if he decided to play the game and give a 
 couple of hundred thousand pounds to a hospital, or for educa- 
 tional purposes, — and nothing to hinder Jacynth herself, though 
 formerly a day-labourer's light-o'-love, from wearing a coronet 
 with the proudest ladies in the land. No one in London knew 
 her early history, and even if it ever came to be known, it was 
 certain that, in the general omnium gatherum of anybodies 
 and everybodies, clean and unclean, moral and immoral, who 
 now compose ' Court and Society ' in Great Britain, no one 
 would care. She was absolutely without a conscience, — if she 
 had ever possessed the germ of one it had been withered in 
 her orgies of drink with Dan Kiernan. Her woman's nature 
 had been warped, and the faculties of her brain perverted by 
 the foul and degrading habit which works disaster on so many 
 thousands of human lives, — and though chance had now placed 
 her in such a position that she might probably, for pure vanity's 
 sake, if for no other cause, resist temptation for a time, there
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 439 
 
 was no certainty that the mischief generated in her blood by 
 the horrible experience of her youth, might not break out in 
 future years all the more violently for its present repression. 
 Drink was the beginning of her career ; Drink would surely be 
 the end ! 
 
 And while his thoughts thus dwelt upon her with a strange 
 sorrow, not altogether unmixed with a poignant and personal 
 bitterness to which he could not give a name, she re-entered 
 the room, clad in a dainty out-of-door costume of ivory- 
 coloured cloth, with a coquettishly contrived hood of the same 
 hue, which she wore closely drawn over her luxuriant hair, 
 and tied with a knot of velvet ribbon under the chin. She 
 looked like the nymph-embodiment of a white rose, — the dull 
 cream of her dress enhancing the delicate tint of her skin and 
 the dark lustre of her wonderful eyes. And Everton, looking 
 at her, was suddenly reminded, though he knew not why, of a 
 verse in the Apocryphal ' Book of Enoch ' — 
 
 'This spirit of light was given unto thee, a virgin clothed 
 with the heavens ; take heed, I charge thee, that thou keep 
 her pure, that thou preserve her from all stain. Let her be 
 free from worldliness and sin, as the snow upon the mountain- 
 top. Let her venerate the Lord God and walk in His holy 
 laws.' 
 
 And his heart ached heavily, for he could not forget that 
 she had been one of his ' little flock ' — and that upon him, 
 perchance, as much as any one had fallen the charge to ' keep 
 her pure ' — to ' preserve her from all stain.' He had been 
 deceived in her ; — but was it not his fault ? Should he not, as 
 her Vicar, when he first went to Shadbrook, have tried to know 
 her better ? Could he not have gained her confidence and by 
 sympathy and help prevented her ruin ? And the cry of Bob 
 Hadley rang again in his ears — " Save Jacynth ! She's lost — 
 lost ! Try if you can do anything — save her from herself ! — 
 from the shame ..." 
 
 Had he obeyed this last request of the dead? Had he 
 1 tried ' to save her ? Had he not rather been like so many 
 country parsons, content to wait the course of events and listen
 
 440 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 to what other people said before going steadily to work to form 
 his own opinion? Surely he might have done some good 
 before all good for her was past his power ! A wave of self- 
 tormenting memory swept over him, while she, all unconscious 
 of his feeling, only saw that he seemed to be looking at her 
 very intently, and in her own mind she decided that he must 
 be admiring the becoming effect of her cream-coloured hood. 
 
 " I'm quite ready," — she said, smiling radiantly ; " And 
 the car is at the door. Come along, Mr. Everton ! We'll get 
 to Hurlingham in less than half an hour. You've no train to 
 catch, have you ? You're not going back to Shadbrook 
 to-night ? " 
 
 " No. Not till to-morrow morning," he replied. 
 
 " You stayed in town a day longer to please me, didn't you ? " 
 she asked, with a sparkling glance at him. 
 
 " I stayed, because you wished it, — certainly," — he said ; 
 then on a sudden impulse he added — " I thought I might 
 perhaps be of some service to you " 
 
 " In reading the Prayers for the Sick, or the Prayers for the 
 Dying?" she queried, lightly. 
 
 His brows darkened. 
 
 " You jest with me, of course," he said ; — " Nothing is of 
 serious import to you any more. Life has become to you a 
 mere comedy in which for the moment you play a leading part. 
 I understand your humour " 
 
 " It is quite a good humour ! " she smilingly assured him. 
 
 " You may think so ; it is the natural outcome of your 
 'social' position and surroundings," — he answered her, with a 
 tinge of scorn, — " The men and women with whom you 
 associate are modern degenerates who have no belief in God 
 or a future state — you imbibe their theories and think them 
 clever — even intellectual, — though there is no more intellect 
 in atheism than there is in the spectacle of an ape chattering at 
 the sun. I cannot change your views ; it would be useless 
 for me to try — now. But I wish you would tell me one 
 thing " 
 
 She drew nearer to him.
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 441 
 
 "What is that?" she asked, with such sudden gentleness 
 that he was vaguely moved and startled. 
 
 "Just this," — and the deep, tender voice trembled; "In the 
 old days, — when I first went to Shadbrook, — when I knew you 
 as a young girl, — a child almost — could I have helped and 
 guided you at any time when I did not ? " 
 
 She looked at him with soft eyes that held an infinity of 
 dreams. 
 
 " Could you have helped and guided me ? " she echoed ; — 
 " I think not ! Unless," — and her lips parted in a slow, 
 enchanting smile — "Unless you had come to Shadbrook 
 unmarried, — unless it had chanced that you had been one of 
 those much-sought-after male creatures, a bachelor parson ! — 
 then I would have made you fall in love with me ! I am 
 sure," and she paused, watching the flush on his face die 
 away into pallor — " it would have been easy ! " She paused 
 again, — and he stood before her mute and rigid. "Then 
 perhaps," — and she laughed, — " You might have married me, 
 and as the children's stories say, we should have been ' happy 
 ever afterwards.' And I should have been good and respect- 
 able, and — dull ! Oh, very dull ! No, Parson Everton, you 
 could never have ' helped ' cr ' guided ' me ! Be quite easy on. 
 that score ! You could never have made me believe anything 
 I didn't want to believe. I was always a ' bad lot ; ! But 
 there are many others equally bad, — quite 'distinguished' 
 ladies too ! Don't look so dreadfully serious ! Come to 
 Hurlingham — we'll say good-bye there ! 
 
 For a moment he stood irresolute ; then, as she went towards 
 the door and beckoned him out of the room, he followed. A 
 certain curiosity impelled him to accompany her, — and also an 
 odd but distinct reluctance to bid her farewell. 
 
 Her car, as she had said, was in waiting, — a luxurious vehicle 
 upholstered in dark blue with gold and ivory fittings, guided 
 by a French chauffeur in livery. She sprang lightly in, her 
 butler or major-domo standing on guard while one of the 
 two attendant flunkeys obsequiously handed her a cloak of 
 superb sables.
 
 442 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 " I shall not be home to dinner," she said to these, her 
 menials, — "Tell your master I have gone ballooning with 
 Mr. Ferrers." 
 
 The butler received the statement with a well-trained bow. 
 What the respectable man thought of her 'ballooning with 
 Mr. Ferrers ' did not appear on his carefully composed 
 countenance. 
 
 " Come, Mr. Everton ! " she called, a trifle imperiously. 
 
 Everton obeyed the summons, and entering the car, took his 
 seat beside her. In another moment they were gliding swiftly 
 out of Fortrnan Square and threading their way through the 
 crowded streets of the metropolis, amid the roar and crush 
 of traffic more dangerous to life and limb than any other 
 known means of hazardous wayfaring. 
 
 " This is not the car that ran over Dan Kiernan," — she 
 then observed, with the simple air of making quite an ordinary 
 remark — " But it is the same chauffeur." 
 
 Everton shuddered. 
 
 " Was it necessary to tell me that ? " he asked. 
 
 She laughed. 
 
 " Have I given you a thrill ? So sorry ! I am always for- 
 getting that you live out of the world and don't ' go ' with the 
 time. But, really, the motor-cars run over and kill so many 
 people that one ceases to think about it. It's part of the fun. 
 And most of the lives are of no value." 
 
 " Except to their families and friends ! " said Everton, 
 with indignant emphasis. 
 
 She laughed again. 
 
 " Families ? Friends ? Oh dear ! Families seem to exist 
 merely to quarrel among themselves ; — see how they'll wrangle 
 over a Will ! And as for friends ! — surely you know what they 
 are ? — pleasant to your face — slanderous behind your back ! " 
 
 "Those are not friends," — he answered: — "They are mere 
 time-servers and hypocrites." 
 
 " Of course ! But they are the only sort of ' friends ' one 
 gets nowadays. People are only kind to you when they fancy 
 you can be useful to them ; when once they are sure you
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 443 
 
 can't or won't be useful, they 'drop' you. That's quite 
 understood." 
 
 " Then you do not believe even in friendship, Jacynth ! " ha 
 said. 
 
 She shook her head. 
 
 " No, indeed ! I'm not so silly ! I've told you my creed— it 
 is — To Enjoy ! Never mind how the enjoyment is got or 
 where it comes in — Enjoy ! I am enjoying myself now ! " 
 
 " In any special way ? n he asked, coldly. 
 
 "Oh yes — in a very special way!" she answered, smiling. 
 " I'm enjoying the company of the dear kind parson who 
 wanted to make me a good girl ! I am, indeed ! It is a 
 pleasure to me to have you beside me. I'm not a good girl, 
 you know, — I'm a bad one, according to your view of life, 
 and I've told you all about myself — yet here you are ! " 
 
 He was silent. She gave him a covert glance. 
 
 " Don't worry, Mr. Everton ! A parson may be seen any- 
 where, and with any one. That's why so many of your calling 
 turn up at the music-halls and hang around the stage- doors! 
 It's all for the Christian saving of souls ! " 
 
 A profound disgust filled him as he heard her. Yet, to 
 defend any position taken up by a woman of her type was 
 mere waste of breath. Even to show offence at her manner 
 of attacking the Christian ministry was to pay her too much 
 honour. He, therefore, kept silence. His calm demeanour 
 evidently irritated her, — his composed face, with just the 
 faintest touch of wondering pity and contempt expressed upon 
 it, conveyed a hint to her mind, full of egotism as she was, 
 that her raillery did not seem to him clever, as she thought it, 
 but merely vulgar. She looked at him once or twice half 
 angrily and hummed a little tune under her breath. 
 
 "I suppose when you go back to Shadbrook tomorrow," 
 she said, presently — " You will stay there all your life ! " 
 
 " I hope so," he answered, quietly. 
 
 " Will you tell them you have seen me?" 
 
 "Tell them? You mean the villagers? No; I shall not 
 mention your name."
 
 444 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 " Why not ? 1 should like them to know how much better 
 off I am than they are ! " 
 
 " No doubt you would ! " — he said — " You would like them 
 to know that the wages of sin is not death in your case, but life, 
 — such life as you live — which is not life at all. You would 
 like them to envy your clothes, your jewels, your posses- 
 sions ; — you would like to sow the seeds of restlessness, evil 
 desire and discontent in the hearts of the girls who knew you, 
 and who, as yet, are innocent of your wrong-doing, — you would 
 like this, — it would be a pleasure to you ! But if such mischief 
 is to be worked I shall have no hand in it. I shall let the 
 village think as it thinks now, that you are among those whom 
 it is best and kindest to forget." 
 
 Her cheeks crimsoned, her eyes flashed. 
 
 " Thank-you ! " she smiled — "It is so easy to forget me, 
 isn't it ! " 
 
 He made no reply. Her beauty was almost aggressive in 
 its brilliancy as she turned her face towards him. The after- 
 noon sunlight set warm ripples of living gold in her rich brown 
 hair, and she looked so lovely, that even as the car raced 
 along, being now out of the more crowded thoroughfares, men 
 turned and stared, amazed by the vision that flew past them. 
 If ever the goddess of a poet's dream could be supposed to 
 take mortal shape, then Jacynth represented in herself the 
 external embodiment of all the love-lyrics of the world. Yet 
 inwardly she was corrupt and cruel ; a very devil in woman's 
 fairest shape ; and Richard Everton, fighting strenuously 
 between the strong attraction of her physical charm and his 
 own spiritual knowledge of her innate wickedness, found the 
 stress of the battle gradually diminishing, and the storm clear- 
 ing to calm. Temptation had assailed him ; but his strength 
 had lain in the consciousness that he was not above tempta- 
 tion. And the victory was now being given into his 
 hands. 
 
 They reached Hurlingham ten minutes before the appointed 
 hour, and on descending from her motor-carriage, Jacynth led 
 the way to an open part of the grounds where several groups
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 445 
 
 of gaily-dressed people were standing and silting about or 
 sauntering round a broad expanse of greensward in the centre 
 of which a huge balloon, nearly filled with gas, was swaying 
 uneasily to and fro as though struggling to release itself and 
 tear asunder its cords from the sand-bags that held it to 
 the ground. The afternoon was one of clear light and 
 warm air, — the London 'season,' though wearing on apace, 
 had not yet closed — and the women who were gathered 
 together to watch the ascent of the aerial monster of the sky 
 were all elegantly, not to say extravagantly attired in dainty 
 muslin and chiffon toilettes, with hats perched on their 
 marvellous artificial coiffures like miniature flower-gardens, and 
 parasols of painted silk designed to match their gowns. Some 
 pretty faces and figures were among them, — but all paled into 
 humblest insignificance when Jacynth, in her plainly cut white 
 cloth frock, with her radiant face smiling out of its coquettish 
 hood, appeared on the scene. Then every man left every 
 other woman to crowd round the fair heroine of the hour, — 
 and the women, in consequence of being so 'left,' looked 
 coldly critical or spitefully derisive, indulging in light raillery 
 among themselves as to the identity and personality of Mrs. 
 Nordstein's companion — " Another clerical capture, my dear ! 
 Just fancy ! I thought Cardinal Lyall was the latest victim ! 
 How many gentlemen of all the Churches does she intend to 
 fool ! " Jacynth herself, conscious of the sensation she made, 
 yet assuming a perfectly graceful ^-consciousness of it, moved 
 among her acquaintances with an easy pleasantness, shaking 
 hands with this person, bowing to that, but introducing Everton 
 to nobody till the massive figure of Claude Ferrers raised 
 itself from somewhere among the ropes and cords of the 
 balloon and advanced to meet her. The ' poet ' and aeronaut 
 looked very pale, and the expression of his glassy blue eyes 
 was a staring enigma. 
 
 ' : Ah, most beautiful lady!" he exclaimed — 'At last! I 
 was beginning to fear you would fail me ! " 
 
 "Have I ever done so?' ; she asked, with a charming 
 upward glance, — then she added — " Fve been talking all the
 
 446 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 afternoon to an old friend who knew me when I was a little 
 girl ! Let me introduce you to each other — Mr. Richard 
 Everton : Mr. Claude Ferrers." 
 
 The two men acknowledged each other by the very slightest 
 salutation. Ferrers looked with a cynical air at Everton's tall 
 slim figure arrayed in its clerical suit — then he said in a slow 
 drawling voice : 
 
 "I see you are of the other-world persuasion, Mr. Everton ! 
 You teach us how to get to heaven after death, — but I and 
 my 'Shooting Star 5 " (and he pointed to the balloon) "will 
 take you there during life! What do you say? Will you 
 
 come ? " 
 
 Everton's clear blue eyes rested upon him fixedly, express- 
 ing in their grave scrutiny a complete comprehension of his 
 temperament and character. 
 
 "Your heaven and mine are possibly dissimilar," he 
 answered, with constrained civility— -" We should probably 
 have to journey in different directions." 
 
 Ferrers laughed softly, and stroked his clean-shaven 
 flabby chin with one fat white hand on which a large diamond 
 
 sparkled. 
 
 " Very much so ! " he agreed, nodding condescendingly — 
 "You would keep to the narrow line of dogma, — I to the 
 broad high-road of science. We should never meet ! " And 
 he turned with a smile to Jacynth— " Magic Crystal, are you 
 
 ready?" 
 
 " Quite ! " she answered, whereupon he made a sign to the 
 men who were busy filling the balloon with gas, to hasten the 
 completion of their work. The scattered people in the grounds 
 of Hurlingham now began to collect in groups, which speedily 
 extended till there was a considerably large crowd watching, 
 like curious children, the turning off of the gas and the 
 removal of the india-rubber pipe which had supplied the 
 balloon with its soaring power. Preparations were now made 
 to fix the wicker car to the bottom of the balloon — and while 
 this business was going on, several persons entered into 
 conversation with both Ferrers and Jacynth, and Everton was
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 447 
 
 left for a moment alone and apart. A vague sense of pain and 
 foreboding crept over him as he looked round upon the brilliant 
 scene ; he wondered how it was that no one present appeared 
 to entertain the slightest anxiety as to the safety of the voyagers 
 who were about to sail the seas of space. It seemed to be 
 taken for granted that to go up in a balloon was as simple and 
 ordinary as to drive in a carnage. And while he was yet 
 considering the various probabilities of risk in the undertaking, 
 Jacynth came up to him with outstretched hand and said : 
 
 " Good-bye ! " 
 
 " Are you going now?" he said. 
 
 " At once." 
 
 " Do you know where you are going? " 
 
 She laughed. 
 
 "Ah, that is never a^ite certain! It depends on Mr. 
 Ferrers." 
 
 " Are you alone with him ? Does no one else accompany 
 you?" 
 
 She opened her large eyes in smiling wonder. 
 
 " Certainly not ! Why should any one go with us ? We 
 have travelled in the sky together scores of times ! " 
 
 " And you have no fear ? " 
 
 "None!" 
 
 His face expressed a certain anxiety, and she saw it. 
 
 "Why, you surely don't mind what becomes of me, do 
 you ? " she said, lightly — " This is cur long good-bye, you must 
 remember ! You wish it to be so." 
 
 "Yes, I wish it to be so," — he repeated, almost mechanic- 
 ally. 
 
 "You wish me to do nothing more at any time to make the 
 world listen to you ? " 
 
 " Nothing more ! Never, never at any time ! " 
 
 " Well, if I never speak to you again or attempt to help you 
 in any way, will you try and think more kindly of me some 
 day ? " 
 
 A thrill of compassion and regret moved him — he gently 
 pressed her hand.
 
 448 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 " I will, Jacynth ! I will do ray best." 
 
 " That's right ! " and all suddenly she moved up closely to 
 him and spoke in swift low accents — " Parson Everton, it is 
 only your God that stands between us ! — the God of the 
 Churches — not the God of Nature ! It is your religion that 
 makes you narrow and miserable ! — a religion that was not 
 strong enough to save Dan — or me ! Think of that ! Think 
 that we both heard you preach of Christ every Sunday, and 
 that neither of us were a bit the better for it ! Think of that, 
 I say, when I am gone ! For it wants thinking about ! " 
 
 And with this she turned and obeyed the beckoning hand 
 of Claude Ferrers, who had been for the past few minutes 
 supervising the final preparations for the ascent of his 
 'Shooting Star.' Everything was now ready, — and Jacynth, 
 amid some cheering and hand-clapping from the concourse of 
 spectators who had gathered round the balloon in a circle, 
 entered the wicker car and waved her hand smilingly to her 
 various acquaintances. Ferrers took his place beside her, and 
 gave the signal to let go. The cords were loosened, and the 
 balloon rose, floating over the surface of the ground in a light 
 wind. Once more Jacynth waved her hand — 
 
 " Parson Everton, good-bye ! " 
 
 He pressed to the edge of the crowd, watching her fair 
 face as it was borne upward into the translucent light and air 
 of which it seemed a part. 
 
 " Good-bye ! " he called. 
 
 And like a silver note of music played afar off and dropping 
 liquidly through space, came the farewell echo of her voice 
 once more — 
 
 " Good-bye ! " 
 
 Up — up — still up, and ever higher the ' Shooting Star ' 
 soared ; and every eye in the crowd was strained to follow its 
 progress till it looked no bigger than a child's kite straying in 
 the sky. Then it began to travel swiftly towards the south- 
 west, with almost as much steadiness as a vessel traversing 
 the ocean, and within less than a quarter of an hour had 
 entirely disappeared. The spectators began to disperse ; the
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 449 
 
 men and women laughing and chatting and laying bets on the 
 distance the balloon would travel, and on the probable point 
 of its descent, while Everton, with a sense of unreality upon 
 him as though he had been, and were still moving in a wild 
 dream, made his way to the spot where Jacynth's motor-car, 
 by her orders, waited to take him back to his hotel. As he 
 walked slowly along his attention was suddenly riveted by 
 some words spoken among a group of persons who were 
 leaving Hurlingham by the same exit as himself. 
 
 " Yes, Ferrers was drunk," — said one man ; — " Not a 
 doubt of it ! But the air will sober him." 
 
 " I'm not so sure of that ! " — said another ; — " If he throws 
 out too much ballast by mistake " 
 
 There was a laugh. 
 
 "Then it will be all U.P.," said the first man— "And 
 no great loss." 
 
 " But the lovely Mrs. Nordstein " 
 
 " Oh, she'll take care of herself, you bet ! She'll bring him 
 down to earth with a bang ! " 
 
 Everton could no longer restrain himself. 
 
 " I beg your pardon ! " — he said, courteously, addressing one 
 of the party ; — " But did I hear you say that Mr. Ferrers, the 
 owner of the balloon that has just gone up, was — was " 
 
 " Not quite as he should be?" finished the man spoken to, 
 with a good-humoured smile — " Yes. I said he was drunk, 
 and he is. But Mr. Ferrers lives in that condition for the 
 most part ; so it is nothing unusual." 
 
 " But — " and Everton looked troubled — " he seemed 
 perfectly sober " 
 
 " Oh, he always seems ! That's the worst part of it. He 
 stands straight, looks straight and talks straight ; — but he's 
 drunk, — and his talk is most clever when he's most drunk." 
 
 " Then — the lady with him, — should she not have been 
 told ? " 
 
 " I presume the lady with him knew all about it," was the 
 careless reply ; — " She ought to if she doesn't ! " 
 
 He laughed again, and Everton drew back. 
 29
 
 4SO HOLY ORDERS 
 
 " There's no danger, I suppose ? " he said, as a last word. 
 
 " Oh, not the least in the world ! If there were, no one 
 could help it ! " 
 
 The group passed on. He felt he could ask no more 
 questions ; and entering with reluctance Jacynth's luxurious 
 motor-car, he was driven at something of a rush back to his 
 hotel, with the sickening consciousness upon him all the time 
 that the chauffeur who raced the car along at such a rate was 
 the very man who had swept the life out of Dan Kiernan. 
 Surely fate had an unkind way of entangling him in unforeseen 
 meshes, and of bringing him into contact with all that he most 
 sought to avoid ! And he who had at one time been disposed 
 to regret the limitation of his ministering efforts to one small 
 field of work, — he of whom a whispering demon of discontent 
 had so often asked : — " Are you going to pass all your life in 
 Shadbrook ? " now longed for Shadbrook as ardently as though 
 the dull little Cotswold village were a paradise on earth. He 
 longed for the quiet of it, — for the murmur of the trees, the 
 scent of the flowers ; he had only been absent from it a bare 
 three days, — and those three days seemed a century ! A cen- 
 tury of strange impressions, and bitter memories, and drifting 
 visions, the last and most vivid of all these being the exquisite 
 face of Jacynth, floating wondrously away into the rose and 
 amber glory of the sunset with a sortly called ' Good-bye ! '
 
 CHAPTER XXII 
 
 NEXT day when he woke from sleep, he felt as though he 
 had been through a sharp attack of fever, in which 
 every nerve had been stretched on a rack and tortured to the 
 last point of endurance, but that now, thanks to some unknown 
 spirit of healing, the suffering was past, and health was rapidly 
 returning. A great peace was upon him ; a sense of re- 
 laxation and ease ; and as he reviewed the experience of the 
 past three days point by point, he saw that his visit to London 
 had been a matter of the Higher Guidance rather than his own 
 choice and volition. For not only had he come, ostensibly to 
 plead for a charitable public cause, but he had been brought 
 to discover the undesirable means whereby his temporary 
 1 celebrity,' such as it was, had been gained ; and he had been 
 able to put a stop to this fictitious ' boom,' as also to Jacynth's 
 intended patronage of him, which to his mind would have 
 been an intolerable indignity. That she, for whose sake and 
 memory his innocent wife had been brutally murdered, should 
 now presume to boast of her ' influence ' in making him 
 known to the world, was a thought too horrible to be borne. 
 Better a thousand times the obscurity of Shadbrook for all the 
 days of his life than such fame, owed to such a woman ! And 
 the impression of her brilliant beauty began to grow dim and 
 to fade from his inward view, even as her face had faded away 
 into the air and light with the balloon which had carried her 
 aloft among the illimitable reaches of the sky, — a mode of 
 leave-taking which he felt sure she had designed purposely for 
 ' sensational ' effect. Her keen desire that he should go with 
 her to witness her ascent from Hurlingham was simply to 
 
 451
 
 452 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 gratify her vanity ; — that he might see her among her 
 1 society ' lovers and friends, and perhaps be led to report her 
 triumphs among her former neighbours when he returned 
 to Shadbrook, — or that he might, at any rate, note how 
 much she was admired, and in turn admire, and compliment 
 her on the nerve and daring she displayed in committing 
 herself to a voyage in mid-air with but one companion, and 
 that companion a drunkard ! For it was not likely she could 
 be ignorant of the vices of Claude Ferrers. She had said he 
 was her 'great friend'; possibly a sort of 'gentleman' Dan 
 Kiernan ! With a thrill of disgust Everton for a moment 
 wondered at what hour the reckless and strangely assorted 
 pair had returned, or would return from their aerial wander- 
 ings ; then he resolutely dismissed the incident from his mind 
 and turned his thoughts to other things, — things grave and 
 sorrowful affecting the safety and stability of the Church, — 
 things scandalous and terrible touching the honour of one 
 at least of the Church's high dignitaries, — and, acting on a 
 sudden impulse, he wrote a letter expressing something of his 
 feeling to the Bishop with whom he had lunched on the 
 previous day. And the letter was as follows : 
 
 " My Lord, — 
 
 " If but half your hint of yesterday respecting the Bishop 
 
 of conveyed any truth, then surely it would be more 
 
 honest of the clergy, as servants of Christ, to search out and 
 verify the facts ; and, when verified, to submit them in private 
 to the Primate of England, urging him to depose from 
 office one who is criminally unfit to officiate at the altars of 
 God. To shield and defend such an one, and above all, to 
 permit him to rule over and instruct others in their sacred 
 duties, is a disgrace to the election and ordainment of all 
 ministers of the Gospel. And though you, my Lord, hold no 
 jurisdiction over me, and probably have no sympathy with my 
 poor efforts to be faithful in the work I have undertaken to 
 perform, I still venture to approach you with a most solemn 
 appeal on behalf of the laity, whose religious beliefs are being
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 453 
 
 undermined and shaken by evil influences from all quarters of 
 the world in these ' last days,' that it shall not be made possible 
 for them to feel that a known criminal has been permitted to 
 lay hands in holy Confirmation on the heads of the innocent, 
 without one protest from the Church he defiles. I understand 
 from you that both Church and Throne dread publicity in this 
 affair ; but there is no need for a wide blazoning of the offence. 
 The offender should, and could be persuaded to quietly resign 
 his post, — and to this end, I hope you, my Lord, and your 
 colleagues will work ; — and not leave it for me, a mere country 
 cleric, to show a greater boldness than should be my portion, 
 and denounce not only the criminal in question, but also the 
 monstrous apathy of the Church that shelters his crime. This 
 letter is, I know, unusual, unconventional, and out of ail rule 
 and order, wherefore your Lordship may, — from the rule and 
 order point of view, — condemn me for writing it. But if 
 Church conventionality can be used to cover Church corrup- 
 tion, I shall not regret that I have tried to break through the 
 barrier which too often fences in a Bishop from the righteous 
 representations of such honest clergy who, aware of scandals in 
 the Church, are given no chance of saving the situation because 
 of the restrictions and formalities imposed upon them by their 
 frequently lax and indolent superiors. — I am, my Lord, 
 Your Lordship's obedient servant, Richard Everton." 
 
 A weight was lifted from his soul with the writing of these 
 plain and audacious words, though he knew the man to whom 
 they were addressed would probably fling them aside with 
 contempt and forget them. Yet he felt he ought to write 
 them : he was convinced that a Bishop ought to be in earnest 
 about more important matters than the shapeliness of his own 
 legs. He went out and posted the letter himself, and on return- 
 ing to the hotel for breakfast, was met by his American acquaint- 
 ance, Clarence Howard, with the morning's paper in his hand. 
 
 " Here's news that will very likely interest you, — he said ; — 
 " Isn't this near your place ? " 
 
 He held out the paper, pointing to a prominent headline.
 
 454 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 Everton stared hard, scarcely believing his eyes. 
 
 GREAT FIRE ON THE COTSWOLDS 
 
 BREWERY BURNT TO THE GROUND 
 
 Eagerly, almost breathlessly, he scanned every word. Was 
 it — could it be true ? 
 
 " The extensive premises of Messrs. Minchin and Co." 
 
 No, no, not possible ! Minchin's Brewery burnt to the 
 ground ! Then was the great Curse of the neighbourhood 
 lifted? Could Heaven be so kind? The printed page swam 
 before him, — his pulses thrilled. 
 
 "Hullo, what's up?" ejaculated Howard — "You look as 
 if you'd been given a fortune ! " 
 
 Everton raised his head. His eyes shone with a great 
 gladness. 
 
 " So I have ! " he answered ; — " If this be true, it means 
 more to me than millions of money ! It means the health and 
 safety, the thrift and honour and peace of the people of my 
 parish, — the people I have devoted my life to serve ! It 
 means, — why, you cannot imagine what it means ! The 
 greatest obstacle to my work is removed, — do you know I 
 can hardly believe it ! For the influence of that brewery in 
 the neighbourhood was as that of a devil in a paradise ! — 
 and that the devil should be so suddenly cast out is something 
 of a positive miracle ! " 
 
 Howard smiled. 
 
 " The devil may come back again," — he said ; — " That is 
 to say Minchin may re-build ! " 
 
 Everton shook his head. 
 
 "They haven't the money. The company has paid no 
 dividends for some time ; — the business has been steadily 
 failing since — " he paused, and a shadow crossed his face, 
 " since my wife was murdered." 
 
 Howard looked at him with kindly sympathy. 
 
 " I have heard the story," — he said, in a low tone. 
 
 "The murderer was a brewery hand," — went on Everton, 
 slowly — "He had been one of my parishioners — but — he
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 455 
 
 left to work for Mr. Minchin. I can only suppose he was 
 drunk when he committed the crime. He was always more 
 or less in that condition — and Mr. Minchin had been warned 
 that he was dangerous. But I believe — " he paused, — 
 " that so far from heeding the warning, he gave the miserable 
 man every possible opportunity to drink all the more. Mr. 
 Howard, there are more causes for evil than are generally 
 supposed ! It is very often not the actual sinner who is most 
 to be blamed, but the man — or woman — who leads that sinner 
 into sin !" 
 
 Howard was silent. 
 
 " Now if I were a rich man," — said Everton, with a sudden 
 smile, glancing again at the newspaper — " I would buy the 
 land on which that brewery stood " 
 
 "Would you?" Howard looked up quickly — "And why?" 
 
 " I would build there a picturesquely gabled School of Arts 
 and Crafts ; — a kind of Guild, formed on the ethics of Ruskin, 
 and it should have a Social Club, where both men and 
 women who were working at their various trades could meet 
 together ; — it should have its own orchestra, — its own folk- 
 lore society — its concerts, its amusements, and a garden 
 where husbands and wives and children could go and sit in 
 the summer-time when work was done, and have their tea or 
 coffee as they do on the Continent, listening to the music ; 
 where they could even have their beer — yes ! — provided 
 it were pure beer and non- intoxicant, such as is sold to 
 the people in Germany. The Germans drink much more 
 beer than the English, yet it does not make them drunk. 
 But we, for a paltry and wicked profit, would rather poison 
 our working-men than see to it that they get wholesome stuff 
 for their money, — and as if poisoned beer were not bad 
 enough, we permit the sale of spirits which are often so 
 heavily adulterated that one glnss taken raw would almost 
 kill a man whose system was not accustomed to drugging. 
 Yes ! If I were a rich man I would do something that 
 would prove of more practical help towards the general sobriety 
 of the nation than all the talking in Parliament ! "
 
 456 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 Howard listened with keen interest. Here was a clergyman 
 who accepted his ' Holy Orders ' in the true spirit of a high 
 command, — who saw in those ' Orders ' a responsibility 
 resting upon himself for the care of the bodies, as well as 
 the souls of those human beings over whom he exercised a 
 pastor's control. And he wondered, supposing that every 
 clergyman in every parish of Great Britain were to take up 
 the Drink question from Everton's practical and earnest point 
 of view, whether greater reforms might not result than from 
 any Government statute ? He said something to this effect, 
 but Everton shook his head. 
 
 "Our hands are tied," — he said — "That is what I want 
 you, and every one else to understand. Our hands are tied. 
 Wherever a brewery or a distillery dominates any particular 
 section of a country, the clergy can seldom do anything to 
 check the drink habits of the community. To begin with, 
 there are the men who work at the brewery or the distillery. 
 These fellows get a certain quantity of ' free ' beer and spirit. 
 What are you to do against that ? Then, there is another point 
 which is never sufficiently considered — the want of method and 
 the thriftlessness of British working-men's wives, who never 
 feed their husbands properly for the hard work of the day. 
 Very few of these women can cook, — efforts have been made 
 to teach them, but they will not learn, — and the majority of 
 working-men, especially agricultural labourers, start off in the 
 early dawn with a mere crust of bread and a jug of badly- 
 made tea or coffee, half cold, — which is not sufficient to keep 
 up their strength for several hours of hard manual labour. 
 Naturally they feel the want of nourishment long before noon, 
 and if there's a public-house handy, they get some beer. 
 The stuff sold to them destroys their appetites for the poor 
 noonday meal their wives send out to them, and it creates an 
 unnatural thirst which must be quenched by more and still 
 more beer. And so the mischief goes on, and will go on. If 
 I had my way there should be movable half-way houses in 
 every part of the country where agricultural labour is 
 employed "
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 457 
 
 " Half-way houses ? " repeated Howard, — " For what pur- 
 pose ? " 
 
 " For the supply of proper food to the tillers of the soil," — 
 said Everton ; — " Where they might for a penny get a proper 
 breakfast, — and for twopence or threepence a proper dinner, 
 with one glass of pure beer to wash it down ! These men are 
 unconscious sufferers from their ignorance of the laws of 
 health, and they cannot be taught all at once ; — besides they 
 have no time to learn. Their wives, for the most part, are 
 unpractical ; — one woman with three or four young children 
 is more often in a ' muddle ' in the early morning than not, and 
 the husband's breakfast is a secondary matter to that of the 
 babies, so that the actual breadwinner frequently goes to his 
 work in a semi-starved condition, while his little ones get the 
 best of whatever there is to eat. I've seen it all, I tell you ! 
 And I say that the British working-man is not to be set 
 down as a chronic drunkard. He would be as sober and 
 straight as any man under the sun, if he could get the proper 
 food to work on. And the proper drink ! We have no right 
 to condemn him for insobriety ; — it is the makers of the stuff 
 he swallows that are the real sinners ! If you feed a man on 
 absinthe, he ends in a lunatic asylum ; in the same way if you 
 feed a man on doctored beer and adulterated whisky, you 
 make him a criminal and the father of criminals. Yet the 
 Government, in their efforts for Temperance Reform, try to lop 
 off the branches of the deadly upas-tree of Drink, and never 
 strike at the root. The root is the Trade adulteration of what 
 should be pure and wholesome." 
 
 " But there are penalties under the law " began Howard. 
 
 "Penalties that are never enacted," — rejoined Everton, 
 quickly ; — " because brewers and distillers are all in league 
 with publicans, wine-merchants and grocers ; we mustn't forget 
 this latter branch of the Drink trade ! — to throw dust in the 
 eyes of the officers of the Excise. These men no doubt 
 do their duty, and are possibly above bribery ; — but they can 
 be cheated in 'sampling' as well as other folks in other trades. 
 The well-known existence of ' brewers' druggists ' ought to be
 
 458 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 sufficient to show that drugging goes on. To me the idea 
 that men should build up huge fortunes out of the sale of 
 liquor that ruins the bodies and souls of their fellow-men, is 
 the most horrible and appalling thing in the world ! " 
 
 " And what of the upper classes ? " asked Howard, presently. 
 " In your zeal for the working-men of Great Britain, you 
 have forgotten the drones ! What kind of reform would you 
 suggest in that direction ? " 
 
 A sudden sternness came into Everton's eyes. 
 
 " The upper classes ? " he echoed, — " The upper 
 classes — " 
 
 " Yes ; — the upper classes," — repeated Howard, with 
 emphasis — " They lead ! They drink like fish in the sea, 
 without the fish necessity. The men swill whisky, — the 
 women do the same, except when they prefer morphia. The 
 extent of the evil is almost measureless, — because half of it 
 is secret. Men drink in secret; — women drink in secret. 
 Only the eye that is trained like a physician's to note the 
 unsteadiness of lip-lines, the nervous contraction of hands, the 
 restlessness of movement and the wandering of attention, can 
 detect the working of the vice on the apparently sober 'lady 
 of fashion ' or ' man about town,' but Drink is as much 
 the curse of the ' Upper Ten ' as it is of the Lowest Million. 
 How would you set about reforming ' Court and Society ' ? 
 Tell me ! For if ever Court and Society were in a bad way 
 they are at this present day ! " 
 
 Everton was silent for a little space. His thoughts returned 
 to Jacynth ; — again he seemed to see the exquisite face 
 fading away into the sunset, beside the heavy sensual counten- 
 ance of Claude Ferrers, — again his inner consciousness told 
 him that for the sins these two were sinning they had no regret 
 and no repentance ; and that for hundreds of other men and 
 women like them there was no hope, because there was no faith. 
 
 " I am afraid," — he said, at last, — " that for Court and 
 Society I can suggest nothing save that remedy which God 
 enforces at given times, — Change ! What change it may be, 
 or how it will be brought about, I cannot even picture. But
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 459 
 
 it is easier to raise the poor to a higher level of thought and 
 feeling than it is to bring so-called ' cultured ' persons down 
 from the summit of supreme Egotism which they appear to 
 have reached at this present time. My work will never lead 
 me into • society ' surroundings," — he paused, and his pale 
 face flushed a little — then he added — "I should perhaps 
 tell you that you were quite right when you said that I was 
 being helped along by a ' boom ' in the press. I found it all 
 out, — yesterday. And I have put a stop to it." 
 
 Howard opened his eyes in astonishment. 
 
 " You have put a stop to it ? " he exclaimed. 
 
 "Yes. I shall not be heard of in the newspapers any 
 more ! " And Everton's smile was very happy as he said 
 this : — " I hope you understand that nothing would more 
 offend my sense of right than a fictitious renown? — to feel 
 that I was being ' backed up ' like a race-horse, by some 
 influence of which I did not approve, and for which I could 
 never be grateful ? I am merely the Vicar of Shadbrook ; — 
 and my preaching is for the people of my parish. The wider 
 world has no need of me." 
 
 Howard looked at him fixedly as though he were some 
 curious natural phenomenon. 
 
 "That's your opinion, is it?" he said, cheerily, — and a 
 broad smile lightened his visage — " Well ! We'll see how 
 far you're proved correct ! Meantime, look here, — if you'll 
 ask me down to this Shadbrook of yours some day, I'll come ! 
 I guess I'll find business there to suit me ! Let me know 
 how you find things when you get back, and, — if this brewery 
 is really burnt out, — tell me when the land's for sale ! " 
 
 Everton laughed and promised, treating his words as a joke. 
 They had some further talk, and then parted on terms of 
 mutual liking, arranging to see each other soon again. Once 
 or twice Everton was haif-inclined to tell so genial an 
 acquaintance of his yesterday's experience, but as it would 
 have involved an explanation of his former knowledge of 
 Jacynth, he decided on the wiser course of silence. 
 
 He left London for Shadbrook that morning before noon,
 
 4 6o HOLY ORDERS 
 
 thinking all the way in the train of the unexpected news that 
 was fraught with such important changes to him and to his 
 parish — the burning down of Minchin's Brewery. When 
 he arrived at the station where his old mare with the high 
 dog-cart awaited him, he was addressed at once by the porter 
 who took his luggage. 
 
 " 'Twas a big blaze at Minchin's last night, sir ! " 
 
 " Yes — I've seen an account of it in the papers," he 
 said ; — " Is the place quite destroyed?" 
 
 " To the very ground, sir ! The fire broke out about half- 
 past seven in the evening, and what was a queer thing, it seemed 
 to come not only from one but from all sides of the Brewery 
 buildings ! We telegraphed all over the place for fire-engines, 
 which as you know, sir, are a terrible time coming when they're 
 wanted in outlying country districts, and when they did come, 
 the fire had got it all its own way. The flames were seen for 
 miles and miles around ! " 
 
 Everton could not look very concerned ; there was too much 
 joy and thankfulness in his eyes. 
 
 "Any cause assigned?" he asked. 
 
 " Well, sir, they do say that Mr. Minchin, being so hard up, 
 set fire to it himself, hoping to get the insurance money ! But 
 you know what a rare place this is for talk, and it's only a 
 tale ! " 
 
 Everton smiled, nodded kindly, and drove off through the 
 scented dewy lanes with a wonderful lightness of heart. Only 
 one saddened thought crossed his mind, — that Azalea was not 
 alive to rejoice with him at the unexpected deliverance now 
 granted to the neighbourhood. And why could not such 
 deliverance have come earlier, before all the trouble and 
 disaster and tragedy had occurred of which the Brewery was 
 the latent cause ? Surely the ways of destiny were hard and 
 past finding out ! As the mare trotted across the bridge 
 between ' old ' Shadbrook and ' new,' a sudden flashing recol- 
 lection of Jacynth came before him, and he saw, as it were, 
 three pictures of her — one as the village girl, in her simple 
 blue cotton frock with the bunch of spring flowers at her
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 461 
 
 throat, another as the ' society ' beauty in her wonderful gown 
 of clinging lace with the sparkle of jewels about her — and 
 last of all, as a face only, a face of exquisite human perfec- 
 tion, vanishing, vanishing into thin air ! 
 
 " So must she vanish from my life ! " he said to his inward 
 self ; — " She, to whom my senses might have yielded had 
 not my soul repelled her, must disappear, — out of my sight 
 for ever ! " 
 
 He turned into the Vicarage gate. His heart thrilled with 
 a quick pang as he thought what a different home-coming his 
 would have been could he have seen Azalea's sweet presence 
 smiling at him from the doorway as he approached the house. 
 But he was not allowed to feel utterly lonely, for half-way 
 along the drive he was met by a little flying figure with curly 
 hair shining like a mop of gold in the sun. 
 
 "Dad! Dad! Home again i Hurra!" 
 
 And Laurence, rosy-cheeked and bright-eyed, with restless 
 feet that danced to and fro for sheer delight at sight of his 
 father, ran alongside the old mare in a state of the wildest 
 excitement. 
 
 " Brewery's all burnt ! " he shouted, breathlessly ; — " Nursie 
 and I couid see all the fire from the windows ! The sky was 
 red — ever so red ! — and such lots of smoke ! " 
 
 Everton drew up at his own house door, and springing down 
 from the dog-cart caught his little son in his arms and kissed 
 him fondly, then lifted him and set him on his shoulder. 
 
 11 Brewery burnt, eh ? " — he said — "A nice big bonfire 
 for you, wasn't it ! Bigger than any bonfire you've ever 
 seen ! " 
 
 " Oh, much, much bigger ! " exclaimed Laurence, enthusi- 
 astically ; — "But nobody was hurted ! It was the beer that 
 was burnt — and the barley, and the hops — and the malt — " 
 
 "And the poison!" finished Everton; — "Well, that's not 
 much loss, my boy ! And how have you got on with the 
 lessons I left you to do?" 
 
 Forthwith Laurence began to chatter, — and by tea-time 
 the Vicar had well-nigh forgotten there was such a place as
 
 462 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 London on the earth, or that he had ever been to it. Sitting 
 peacefully in his own garden, amid a wealth of roses and other 
 summer blossoms, he listened, enchanted, to the child's viva- 
 cious and eager talk about the way the time had passed during 
 his absence ; the little voice, with a sweet ring in it like that 
 of Azalea's, was music to his soul. 
 
 "On Sunday it was a bit slow," said the boy, with a comical 
 expression of solemnity ; — "I don't know what you were 
 doing, but we weren't doing much. The man who preached 
 the sermon in church was all right, but of course he wasn't 
 you. And a lot of old women waited about in the churchyard 
 to grumble — and one of them said to me : ' Good-morning, 
 Master Laurence, I hope your good papa won't be very long 
 away,' — and I said : ' No, ma'am, don't worry, please ; Dad's 
 coming home directly!' — and she said: 'Thank goodness 
 to the Lord, for we misses him badly.' " Here Laurence 
 laughed merrily. "And after dinner Nursie said I was to sit 
 in the garden with a book, so I got Andersen's Tales and read 
 about ' What the Moon Saw.' I like that. But I think I like 
 ' The Shadow ' better. You see the Shadow got all the good 
 things instead of the Learned Man, and I suppose that's likely 
 to be true. Then I read some poetry, and wrote some." 
 
 Everton smiled. 
 
 " You wrote some, did you ? " 
 
 "Oh yes, I often do. Things I think about go into 
 rhyme by themselves. I'll show you how some day. But 
 I've got all my lessons ready for you. Oh, and Dad ! 
 Father Douay came over yesterday afternoon to know 
 when you'd be back, — and he said he'd come again to- 
 day. But the Brewery wasn't burnt then — perhaps he won't 
 come now." 
 
 " Why shouldn't he ? " 
 
 " Well, Nursie says there are some cottages just by the 
 brewery that caught fire too, and Father Douay helped to 
 get all the furniture out. They were awful poor people 
 that had the furniture. They weren't hurted themselves, but 
 they'd have lost all their beds and chairs and tables if it
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 463 
 
 hadn't been for Father Douay. So I expect he's still pretty 
 busy, for the fire isn't all out yet, and the engines are pumping 
 away, and the gardener says everything is ' all of a smoke.' 
 Mr. Minchin's there, but Mrs. Minchin's runned away." 
 
 "Not runned away, boy!" expostulated his father, mildly; 
 " It should be ' run away.' " 
 
 " Run away," repeated Laurence, obediently, — "I know 
 how it should be, but old Peter always says runned." 
 
 ' Old Peter ' was the gardener, with whom Laurence was on 
 terms of the friendliest confidence. 
 Everton smiled. 
 
 "And," the boy added as an after-thought, — "Mr. Mortar 
 Pike in the village says the same. Is Mr. Pike a hundred 
 years old, Dad ? " 
 
 "He's going on that way," answered Everton, laughing 
 a little ; — " He will be, if he holds on a bit longer." 
 " And what will he do then ? " 
 
 "Why, what can he do?" queried Everton, lightly, looking 
 at Laurence's earnest eyes and changeful expression, and 
 thinking how much he just then resembled his mother — 
 " Except make the best of it ! " 
 
 " I expect he'll have a bonfire," — said Laurence, thought- 
 fully, — « it's the only thing for a man of that age ! " 
 " You think so ? " said Everton, amused. 
 " Why yes ! Birthday presents are no use, — he wouldn't 
 know what to do with them. And it's no good saying : 
 1 Many happy returns of the day ! ' A bonfire would be 
 just right." 
 "Why?" 
 
 "Well, you see, the fire would be like the burning up 
 of everything, — all his life, and whatever he had done 
 in it. Then there would be a heap of ashes — like his poor 
 old body when the soul had gone away. And the soul 
 would be the flame of the fire, rising into heaven. Oh yes, 
 a bonfire is the only thing for an old man's birthday ! " 
 
 Just then a bell rang, summoning the small philosopher to 
 his tea, and he ran off, promising to return directly the meal
 
 464 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 was over. His father smiled, watching him scamper into the 
 house, and anon sighed, — wondering for the thousandth time 
 what this child would be when a public school had, as a well- 
 known tutor of the day remarked — ' knocked the nonsense out 
 of him.' The 'nonsense' was very sweet just now. The 
 teasing memory of Jacynth came back to him, — he thought 
 of her yesterday's shameless confession — of her heartless 
 remark concerning the death of her child, — he recalled the 
 lines of Elizabeth Barrett Browning in ' Aurora Leigh ' : — 
 
 ' I thought a child was given to sanctify 
 A woman, — set her in the sight of all 
 The clear-eyed Heavens, a chosen minister 
 To do their business and lead cpirits up 
 The difficult blue heights ! ' 
 
 There was no such ' sanctification ' for Jacynth • — she was 
 probably one of the many who nowadays resent motherhood as 
 an inconvenience. 
 
 " I wish," — he said, half-aloud — " the Church could get rid 
 of that foolish curse on Eve in Genesis — ' In sorrow shalt thou 
 bring forth children, and thy desire shall be to thy husband and 
 he shall rule over thee.' Moses was ill-advised when he set 
 that down, — if he did set it down. It should have read : — 
 1 In gladness shalt thou bring forth children, and thy safety shall 
 be thy husband and he shall cherish thee.' " 
 
 Here an approaching step interrupted his meditations, and 
 looking up he saw Sebastien Douay crossing the gravel path 
 from the Vicarage and coming towards him. He hastened to 
 meet, him, and at once perceived that the little priest was not 
 so cheery as usual, despite his genial smile. 
 
 " So ! You are back again from town, my good Richard ! " 
 he said, — " And such news to greet your arrival ! The devil 
 has destroyed his own in his native element ! " 
 
 " It is amazing news indeed ! " rejoined Everton, — " I saw 
 the first account of it in a London newspaper this morning. 
 I could hardly believe it ! " 
 
 " Nor I at first," and Douay sat down rather wearily in a
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 465 
 
 garden chair beside his friend — " Excuse me if I am lazy ! 
 I have been up all night. No, not even when I saw the flames, 
 could I believe it ! It seemed too good to be true ! The fire 
 broke out at half-past seven. It was half-past eight before the 
 first engine arrived — and then — too late ! The whole place 
 was in a blaze ! Roofs fell in, chimneys toppled and crashed ! 
 — mon Dieu ! — it was a wonderful sight ! No lives lost — and 
 you know what is said ? " 
 
 " That Minchin himself kindled the flames ? ' 
 
 " Exactly. And," — here Douay rubbed his nose very hard 
 as was his habit in perplexity — " I am not so sure the story 
 isn't true. Now I, — par exemple — if the insurance company 
 should seek evidence, could be a most awkward witness. For 
 I saw, — shall I tell you what I saw ? Or shall I involve you — 
 my friend — by hazard in legal trouble ? Will they come to 
 you and say : — ' Were you told by the Reverend Father Douay 
 so-and-so ? ' Or ' What was your impression when the 
 Reverend Father Douay said so-and-so ? ' " 
 
 " It won't matter if they do,'' — laughed Everton. " I wasn't 
 on the scene of action." 
 
 " Ah, you can prove an alibi ! — that is true ! " And Douay's 
 eyes twinkled whimsically — " Well then, I will risk all danger ! 
 And what I can say is this. That the men, most of them 
 casual hands, all left the brewery at six o'clock as is usual. 
 There is a fair, with merry-go-rounds for the children put up 
 about a mile from the village — and many of them went there 
 after work to spend the evening. Everything was quite quiet 
 in the place. I sit by myself in my cottage reading. I look 
 out of the window. I see Mistaire Minchin stroll by. You 
 know the large gateway of the brewery is very nearly opposite 
 to me — and the vans and carts come in and go out there 
 every morning. Mistaire Minchin is not a van or a cart — he 
 is a sly fox, and though he walks on two legs he does it in a 
 way that reminds you of something secret, creeping on all fours. 
 So he, with that creeping step, goes in at the big gate. I stand 
 by my window and wait for him to come out again. But he 
 does not come. And as I watch, I see his face for one 
 30
 
 466 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 moment at an opening up in one of the store-houses. 
 Then it vanish ! I see it no more. All is very still and 
 at peace. I take up my book and read again. All at 
 once I hear a step walking fast, very fast, along the road 
 outside my cottage. I look out — Mistaire Minchin ! His 
 creep has become a run. He goes straight for his own house, 
 and he disappears. Ten minutes after that I see a red flash 
 on my wall ! Another — yet another ! I go to my window 
 and open it. People open more windows — for there are 
 more red flashes. Suddenly some one calls ' Fire ! Fire ! ' and 
 then every one is in the street all at once. A boy rushes off 
 crying : ' Fire ! Fire ! The brewery is on fire ! ' Other 
 persons shout ' Minchin ! Fetch Mistaire Minchin ! ' and then 
 — please consider this, my friend ! — then it turns out that 
 Mistaire Minchin is not at home ! He has been away 
 motoring all the afternoon and has not yet returned ! Now is 
 not that a strange thing ? " And Douay leaned forward in an 
 argumentative manner — " I am not mad — I do not drink — 
 how was it then, that I saw him go into the brewery ? — and 
 afterwards return to his own house ten minutes before the fire 
 broke out ? Yet — he was not at home ! He had not returned ! 
 No one had seen him — no one but this poor little priest, 
 myself ! But there is one thing — I shall not offer to give 
 evidence. If he has burnt down his brewery, it's the best 
 thing he has ever done in his life ! He shall not get into 
 trouble about it through me ! " 
 
 " But if he claims the insurance ? " said Everton. 
 
 "That is the insurance company's affair, not mine," — 
 answered Douay, with a little shrug of his shoulders — " Let 
 their solicitors make enquiry of his solicitors, and let both sides 
 run up long bills for asking questions and answering them ! 
 It is the way for the obtaining of justice ! And it will be a 
 long time before Mistaire Minchin gets his ' claim ' attended 
 to, and still longer before he gets any money paid, if at all. 
 As for me — I shall be far away ! " 
 
 Everton was startled by these last words, and more so by the 
 sorrowful look which accompanied them.
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 467 
 
 " Far away ? " he echoed — " You are not going " 
 
 " Alas, yes, my dear friend ! I am going — and you and I 
 must part for a time — perhaps a long time ! — I do not know ! 
 I have had a letter from one who is my ecclesiastical Superior, 
 — a letter that is not pleasant. He tells me I have failed in 
 my mission. I have been four years and a little longer in this 
 neighbourhood, and I have not made sufficient converts to fill a 
 church. Well ! That is true ! I confess it. It is your fault, 
 my Richard ! For it is not poss-eeble to make converts anywhere 
 in the sphere of your influence ! " 
 
 Everton was silent. His eyes were giave and wistful. 
 
 "You understand!" went on Douay, gently — "It is to 
 your praise — not to your blame — that I have failed. I, the 
 failure, rejoice in your strength ! That I am called elsewhere 
 is perhaps best. I shall be sent where there are the weak, and 
 not the strong. For see ! It is this way — if every minister 
 of what you call your Church Protestant were like you, there 
 would be no other sect poss-eeble — no Methodist, Baptist, 
 Wesleyan, or any other ! — no ! — because where all is 
 simple and true there is no need for differences. Why are 
 there quarrels in religion ? Because one half of the ministers 
 are not sure of Christ ! The illness of unbelief is catching. 
 If the shepherds do not know into which fields to lead their 
 flocks, the flocks copy the wandering habit. Now, you desire 
 to follow Christ like a child — and your sincerity is so great 
 that you are bound to suffer for it. But you will keep many 
 souls safe for Heaven ! " 
 
 Everton stretched out a hand and laid it affectionately on 
 his shoulder. 
 
 " Must you really go ? Could nothing persuade you ? " 
 
 " To disobey my Church ? " queried Douay, smiling a little, 
 " Nothing ! Once a priest, always a priest, mon ami ! I shall 
 
 miss you " A slight tremor interrupted his voice and he 
 
 paused a moment. Then he resumed — " Yes, I shall miss 
 you, Richard ! — more than any man I ever knew ! I shall 
 miss the boy — it will be taking myself away from a home like 
 the one I left in France — where I had learned to love many
 
 468 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 things ! But what would you ? Life is but change ! — I must 
 move like a leaf with the wind ! And perhaps I shall not be 
 sent out of England — we may meet often. But here it is 
 true I can do nothing — I bow to my Superior's decision ! 
 You are master of the situation ! " 
 
 " I cannot bear you to put it in that way," — said Everton, 
 warmly — " It is almost as if I were the cause of banishing 
 my best friend." 
 
 "Ah bah!" exclaimed Douay, good-humouredly — "Think 
 not at all of it so ! It is true you are an opponent of the 
 Church Catholique — and speaking between ourselves, it is 
 right you should be so, if you are a patriot and desire to keep 
 your country free, — but you are no bigot, — you are an 
 honest opponent, and if there were many Church of England 
 ministers like you it would be bad for the Holy Father's 
 British revenues ! But there is no fear ! — you are only one 
 in ten or twenty thousand ! And with all your troubles — 
 your great bereavement — your broken heart — see how the 
 road is cleared for your future labours ! No more brewery ! — 
 the power of the Drink is lessened, — the village is given into 
 your hands. And it is such a stupid village ! What will you 
 do with it ? " 
 
 Everton thought for a moment. Then he answered, 
 slowly : — 
 
 " I will do my best with it. My best is not much — but it 
 will be all my life ! " 
 
 " All your life ! " and Douay sighed — " My friend, it is a 
 martyrdom ! " 
 
 Everton smiled, — a very tender and hopeful smile. 
 
 " No ! " he answered, quietly — " My martyrdom is over." 
 
 And the kindling light of a deep feeling illumined his face, 
 as he went on : — 
 
 " You call it a stupid village. It is. There are thousands 
 of villages like it in dullness and stupidity all over the British 
 Isles! And why? The people are only given just enough 
 'education,' as it is called, to make them restless and discon- 
 tented. And in outlying country places this education is
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 469 
 
 imparted to them by teachers who are only a shade less ignor- 
 ant than themselves. Teachers in rural schools are frequently 
 selected for their posts through ' local ' influence and private 
 wire-working, despite assertions to the contrary ; and very 
 often these inadequate persons rue so ill-fitted for their 
 responsibilities that they have to learn all they will ever 
 know, out of the very school-books from which they are 
 required to teach the children. Of practical training, such 
 as shall serve to fit the youths and maidens for life — such 
 as shall show them how to manage farms, till the soil, 
 and appreciate the bounteous prodigality of nature who so 
 openly invites her offspring to draw from her resources all 
 that they need — of this they get nothing. Nor are they 
 taught any home 'craft' or 'hobby' by which they might 
 feed their minds in vacant hours and find entertainment 
 for themselves in the long winter evenings. The waste of brain 
 and eye and hand, — the waste of power and intellectual 
 capacity of the noble working-classes of Great Britain is 
 enormous, cruel, and lamentable ! For it is not their fault. 
 It is the fault of our governing methods, which leave them 
 without the right encouragement for their labours, or the 
 right entertainment for their minds. Now here — in Shad- 
 brook — I am quietly working along on both those lines " 
 
 " Helas ! I fear you will not succeed ! " said Douay, 
 shaking his head vigorously. 
 
 "I think I shall," — rejoined Everton — "The great obstacle 
 to all sane, healthy and happy living is the Drink, of course. 
 And this was my trouble with my parishioners — but it has 
 been growing less and less — and now — with the sudden 
 destruction of Minchin's brewery, it may die out altogether. 
 Is it not strange that in the first sermon I preached here 
 after my darling's death I should have said these words : — 
 ' I shall pray God daily and nightly that He may see fit, in 
 His wonder-working wisdom, to remove the temptations to sin 
 that abound in this neighbourhood ' ? And I also said : — 
 ' For you only I will ask — that God may give you to me ! 
 That God may show me how to make you happy in your
 
 470 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 labours and your lives — that He may help me to teach your 
 children the sweet unspeakable content that is found in clean, 
 simple and temperate ways ; and that the tears I have shed 
 and the despair I have known may be acceptable to Him as 
 a poor sacrifice of love on my part.' A poor sacrifice of love ! 
 That is — that will be my life in Shadbrook ! " 
 
 Douay's eyes grew dim. 
 
 " You are a good man, my Richard ! " he said, softly — " I 
 think the angels love you ! " 
 
 " I hope one angel does ! " Richard answered, with a musing 
 tenderness — " One that is always near ! " He paused a 
 moment — then continued — " Yes ! — it is as you say a stupid 
 village. Nevertheless, my dear Douay, there is heart in it ! 
 I never thought there was so much, till my wife was taken 
 from me. They — the villagers — misunderstood her, poor 
 little soul ! — she was too pretty and merry and thoughtless — ■ 
 but they are sorry now. And they show me how sorry they 
 are. They try to please me in all the ways they can — they 
 fight against the drink — and in this they are greatly helped by 
 their love for my boy. Douay, it is an odd thing, perhaps, — 
 but do you know I don't believe there's a man in or near 
 Shadbrook who would be seen drunk by my little lad ! " 
 
 "He is your oriflamme," — said Douay. tenderly — "The 
 sign of your Holy Orders ! " 
 
 " Such a little fellow ! " went on Everton — " And yet his 
 influence is extraordinary ! He makes it a habit to run down 
 into the village every day and talk to everybody— he has no 
 fixed time for this, and the consequence is every cottage Is 
 kept clean and tidy at all hours ' in case Master Laurence looks 
 in.' He told the women they should keep flowers in the 
 windows, — well ! — all the boys went to work and knocked up 
 window boxes, and flowers were planted in them, so that the 
 
 village looks florally decorated now " 
 
 " I have noticed that," said Douay — " I thought it was your 
 
 persuasion " 
 
 " Oh no ! ' Master Laurence likes it so.' He suggested to 
 the grocer that the donkey that drew the wood-cart was getting
 
 ' THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 4 ;i 
 
 too old to work and ' Neddy ought to have a good time now 
 like Mr. Mortar Pike ' — that was the way he put it. Neddy is 
 therefore turned out to grass 'to please Master Laurence.'" 
 And Everton laughed. " The child is more active in doing 
 good than a curate ! " 
 
 Douay looked at him thoughtfully. 
 
 "Your way of work is a wise way, Richard," — he said — 
 "You reach your people through the heart — through the 
 sentiment. It is the right way — the only way ! You give 
 yourself to them — yourself, with your home, your child, your 
 hopes, your plans, your strength, your weakness " 
 
 " Ah ! — do not forget my weakness ! " interrupted Everton — 
 " For that is great ! But it helps me to be one with my 
 weakest parishioners — and to sympathise with the 'stupid 
 village ' as I could never sympathise with stupider London ! " 
 
 "Stupider London ! " exclaimed Douay — " My friend, think ! 
 Stupid ! The world's metropolis ! " 
 
 " That is just it — the world's metropolis ! " — and moved 
 by a sudden thrill of passionate indignation, Everton sprang 
 up from his chair and confronted his friend with the eager 
 air of an orator aroused to denounce some national wrong — 
 " The core of civilisation, in which there breeds ' the worm 
 that dieth not ' ! The world's metropolis, where the bulk 
 of the inhabitants find nothing better, higher or nobler to 
 do than scramble for money at the risk of everything else, — 
 honour, principle, feeling, love, duty, faith ! The world's 
 metropolis ! — whose wealthier classes spend all their time in 
 feeding and frivolity ; — when they are not eating, they are 
 sleeping — and when they are neither sleeping nor eating, 
 they are busy with intrigues against the peace and prosperity 
 of their neighbours ; — or else they are breeding the same silk- 
 worm type of human beings as themselves, drone-men and 
 drone women, who expect to live on the fruit and foliage of 
 luxury provided by the drudging toil of the despised Working 
 Million ! Babylon over again ! — one can read the writing of 
 doom upon the wall ! That is why I say ' stupid ' London, — 
 for a city that will not take warning from past history — a city
 
 472 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 that has all the advantages of progress, the graces of culture, 
 the accomplishments of art, the discoveries of science, and 
 yet that cannot ' lead ' in anything but immorality and inde- 
 cency, is ' stupid ' beyond the utmost bounds of stupidity ! It 
 knows, or it should know, that if it allows itself to be swarmed 
 over by Jews and undesirable aliens, like the body of a shot 
 bird swarmed over by vermin, it has nothing to expect but 
 corruption ! It knows, or it should know, that if it condones 
 immorality in the family life, indecency on the stage and in 
 literature, and laxity of principle in the authorities of the State, 
 it is making of itself nothing but a gunpowder magazine which 
 is bound to explode for the disaster of the nation, at the first 
 spark of Revolution ! Stupid London ? Yes, I say stupid, 
 densely stupid London, which allows itself to be led astray and 
 fooled, by a corrupt society and a corruptible press ! " 
 
 He spoke with heat and fervour — and Douay stared at him 
 astonished. After a minute's pause, he threw back his head 
 with a careless gesture and laughed. 
 
 "There! The fit is over!" he said— " Don't look so 
 surprised ! I heard things in town that sickened me — I saw 
 — what I wish to forget ! Even in the Church — but I will not 
 speak of that ! When I worked as a curate in the East End 
 of London I met with plenty of sin and misery — often patiently 
 struggled with, heroically endured, and sometimes overcome, — 
 but I did not quite realise that it was to the well-fed, well- 
 cared - for West End I should turn for the true haunt of 
 irreclaimable criminals ! Come — let us go in ! I don't want 
 to talk about London any more." 
 
 " Will you never preach there again ? " asked Douay, with 
 some curiosity, as he rose and walked by his friend's side 
 through the garden into the house. 
 
 " I think not. Not unless," he paused " unless my 
 
 Orders make it necessary." 
 
 " Your Orders ? " 
 
 Everton smiled gravely. 
 
 " Yes. You take your orders from an ecclesiastical superior, 
 do you not ? He writes that you have failed in your mission
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 473 
 
 here, and that you must go elsewhere to succeed. I take my 
 orders from One who sends me no message but that which is 
 breathed by a voice within me, saying : ' Do this in remembrance 
 of Me ! ' If I feel thus commanded to speak to ' the world's 
 metropolis ' I shall speak. Not otherwise." 
 
 They entered the house then, and remained for some time 
 together, deep in conversation. Everton did not relate the 
 story of his meeting with Jacynth, for he had resolved never 
 to mention her again to any one. And he was too much 
 concerned for the honour of the Church, to speak a word of 
 the infamy attaching to the particular ruling member of it 
 whose moral defects had created so much alarm and anxiety 
 among his episcopal brethren — so that the talk for the most 
 part turned on Douay's own affairs, and certain immediate 
 necessities required by some poor Catholics of the district he 
 was leaving — poor, who would be for a time in temporary 
 difficulties owing to the burning down of Minchin's brewery, 
 and for whose care Everton undertook all responsibility. 
 
 It was quite late when they at last parted. Little Laurence 
 had gone to bed and Everton was left alone. A small pile 
 of correspondence had accumulated on his table during his 
 absence, and he prepared to attend to this, — but before doing 
 so he took up by haphazard the evening paper which had 
 arrived some two hours previously. Glancing casually through 
 the various columns of news, his eye was suddenly caught and 
 his attention riveted by a bold headline : 
 
 MISSING AERONAUTS 
 
 GRAVE ANXIETY 
 
 Slowly, nnd as if he were spelling each word by itself, he read 
 the indicated paragraph which ran as follows : 
 
 "The famous dirigible balloon 'Shooting Star,' belonging 
 to Mr. Claude Ferrers, which started from Hurlingham for a 
 short trip yesterday evening, having in the car its owner, 
 accompanied by Mrs. Israel Nordstein, who, it will be
 
 474 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 remembered, has made several successful ascents, has not 
 yet returned, nor has it been anywhere heard of. When last 
 sighted the ' Shooting Star ' was sailing steadily in a fair wind 
 in a westerly direction towards the Welsh coast. Considerable 
 anxiety is felt for the safety of the passengers." 
 
 The paper dropped from his hands. A coldness chilled 
 his blood as though the breath of a bitter wind were blowing 
 over him. With a kind of nervous trembling in his limbs, he 
 went to the open window and looked out. It was a night of 
 stars, — a calm night in which the densely-blue sky seemed 
 powdered with worlds as though they were gold-dust : 
 
 " How wonderfully has the day gone by ! 
 If only when the stars come we could die 
 And morning find us gathered to our dreams " 
 
 His lips murmured the lines unconsciously — he lifted 
 his eyes up — up — up to the vast dark fathomless dome 
 of space — was it possible that Jacynth was there? Jacynth 
 with her scorn of God — her mockery of good — her over- 
 weening vanity and egotism — was she lost up there? — lost 
 in that illimitable immensity, where her beautiful person 
 was of no more account than a midge's wing in a flame of 
 fire ? A sense of tears was in his throat. Almost he seemed 
 to see her face gleaming out of the misty blue, — a face ex- 
 quisite, provocative, alluring, which blossomed into form and 
 colour through the darkness like a flower, — and involuntarily 
 he stretched out his hands as though to invoke it from the 
 deepening shadows into the light. 
 
 " Oh, Jacynth ! " he half-whispered — " God forgive you ! " 
 
 And he thought he heard a voice ring through the 
 silence — a voice that to his startled fancy had a sob of 
 terror in its sweetness as it called : 
 
 " Parson Everton, — good-bye ! "
 
 CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 INTO the silent depths of the air the ' Shooting Star ' had 
 soared swiftly to the height of some two thousand feet 
 immediately on leaving Hurlingham. Floating among the 
 glorious hues of rose and violet and amber, flung against the 
 fleecy clouds by the rays of the then descending sun, its easy 
 speed seemed to part the atmosphere as the arms of a strong 
 swimmer part the waves of the sea, — and little by little the 
 noise of London's traffic died away from a restless lion-like 
 roar to a far-off buzzing like the humming of a hive of bees. 
 This sound in its turn subsided as the balloon rose higher, till 
 it was no more than a faint moan, like that of a creature in 
 constant pain. Jacynth, seated tranquilly in the wicker car, 
 looked down as she had looked down many times before, on 
 the patterned scene below, which resembled small so^ares of 
 grey and brown and green, brightly illumined here and there 
 by gleams of '.he sunset, and smiled dreamily at the littleness 
 of the world she was apparently leaving. Such a dwarfish 
 world ! — such a poor piece of patchwork ! What did it matter 
 whether one was bad or good in it, wise or foolish? And 
 what a folly it seemed that there should actually be religious 
 creeds in it, and men like Richard Everton who believed in 
 God ! So she thought, laughing softly to herself, as she saw 
 the earth gradually recede from her view like a painted scene 
 withdrawn from a stage. 
 
 " The slugs and snails in a market garden might just as well 
 build churches and worship a god as men ! " she said, inwardly, 
 with contempt. Once or twice she glanced towards Claude 
 
 475
 
 476 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 Ferrers, but as he was busy with his steering apparatus, she 
 did not speak. And she continued to watch, with a fascinated 
 interest peculiar to her own temperament, the swiftly diminish- 
 ing patches of terrestrial colour, till in a little less than an hour, 
 with the on-coming of the dusk, they could no more be dis- 
 tinctly discerned, and the lights of London's hundred-and-fifty 
 square miles alone defined, as with innumerable chains of tiny 
 glistening jewels, the extent and plan of the great Centre of 
 civilisation, where men and women, like ants in an ant-hill, run 
 and crawl, each in his or her separate little line of toil, and 
 struggle persistently with one another for the right to live and 
 eat and breed and die. No more than this ! — no more, if 
 1 New Theologies ' were all ! But thank God that we know 
 these for what they are and for what they have been foretold : 
 1 Many false prophets shall arise and shall deceive many ! ' 
 The fires of the sunset slowly paled, and the skies grew pearly 
 grey with flashes of the after-glow casting sudden luminance 
 here and there like frosted silver and topaz and gold against 
 glimpses of turquoise-blue, and still Jacynth peered over the 
 edge of the car, looking at the wondrous sea of cloudy colour 
 and untroubled by any sense of vertigo, till all at once, with a 
 sudden velocity of motion, the balloon, which had till then 
 travelled but slowly, careered away to the westward and the 
 little illuminated bird's-eye view of London vanished com- 
 pletely from her sight. Then she turned her head and 
 addressed her companion : 
 
 " Where are you going, Claude ? " 
 
 He came and sat beside her, taking her hand in his own 
 and kissing it. 
 
 " Where am I going ? " — he said, in slow, caressing accents — 
 " How should I know ! Why should I know ! Uncertainty 
 is ineffably delightful ! — I would not destroy its charm ! I 
 go where Love leads me ! — perhaps to a fabled paradise in 
 an unexplored star ! — to a land flowing with milk and 
 honey — that bilious Biblical mixture ! To the regions of 
 the sun ! To the Islands of the Blest ! To the Anywhere 
 and the Everywhere ! — so long as I am with you ! "
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 477 
 
 She gave him a quick glance. His face was livid, and his 
 eyes were more than usually protuberant and glassy, but 
 he smiled with a self-conscious expansiveness. She was 
 accustomed to his extravagant language, which he considered 
 poetical and which she did not half understand, — it was 
 always more stilted and high-flown when he had been 
 drinking, and that he had lately used 'whisky as a perfume' 
 was evident. She did not, however, consider him drunk, and 
 she had no fear of him, for she knew by experience that he 
 was one of those men whose wits, like the wits of certain 
 actors, are more sharpened than dulled by strong liquor. 
 She left her hand in his, and waited for a minute. Then 
 she said : 
 
 " You must take me back to-night." 
 
 "Why?" he demanded, drawlingly — "To what would 
 you return ? To a Jew's embrace ! To the kisses of Shadrach, 
 Meshach and Abed-nego in one goat-bearded Israel ! Ah no, 
 enchantress of my soul ! Think of it ! A Jew ! " 
 
 "A Jew who is my husband," — said Jacynth, with a 
 demure smile — "And from whom you have borrowed a 
 good deal of money ! " 
 
 Ferrers stroked his fat chin complacently. 
 
 " Do I not know it ? Is it not the purpose for which Jews 
 are born? — London Jews, at any rate — to lend money at 
 high interest, and sell wives ? ' Search the Scriptures ' and 
 therein you will find both professions most eloquently described, 
 set forth and approved by Jehovah ! As for ourselves, let us 
 go to Paris ! " 
 
 She shook her head decisively. 
 
 " No — Paris is too far. I will not cross the sea. 
 Besides, I must return home to-night — I have many 
 engagements to-morrow." 
 
 He was silent. The balloon was travelling quickly through 
 skies that were rapidly growing darker and darker. Clouds 
 were forming at a lower level than the car, and they thickened 
 at times and again dispersed, showing glimpses of land between 
 their floating grey.
 
 478 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 "Who was that man to whom you called good-bye just 
 now ? " he presently asked — " That parson- 
 She looked at him amusedly. 
 
 " A lover of mine ! " — she answered. 
 
 " Another ! How many more, O fair Faustina ! The cry 
 is ' Still they come ! ' But methinks this mendicant of the 
 Gospel loves you but little to let you venture forth into the 
 clouds with me ! " 
 
 She laughed. 
 
 "He does not know he loves me," — she said— "/know it ! 
 And one day I shall tell him !— I shall show him the secret 
 of himself. Poor devil! If it were not for his Christian 
 Creed he would worship me — even more than you do ! " 
 
 " Christian Creed ! " echoed Ferrers, derisively—" He works 
 at that for his pay, of course ! He doesn't believe in it ! " 
 
 She broke into a little peal of laughter. 
 
 "Oh, but he does believe in it!" she exclaimed — "That's 
 the odd part of it ! He's quite sincere about it. He is really 
 convinced that it's good and right to deprive himself of enjoy- 
 ment and make himself miserable ! " And she laughed again. 
 " He does believe in the Christian Creed. And in God ! " 
 
 " Alas, benighted brain ! " murmured Ferrers, drowsily — 
 " Benighted, empty, idiot brain ! Sad, sad to think that there 
 should be any such fools left in these days of ours when Man, 
 glorious Man, is the supreme conqueror of the earth and the 
 heavens ! — when Man, triumphant Man, is his own maker, 
 his own redeemer, his own instructor, his own spherical 
 splendour ! " — here his voice grew rather indistinct — " There is 
 no room for the God of the childish beliefs any more ! — M-man ! 
 Noble, stupendous M-man ! — he is the only ruler of the 
 universe " 
 
 " Not when he has been drinking," — said Jacynth, suddenly 
 and sharply — " as you have ! " 
 
 He turned his glassy eyes upon her with an air of blandly 
 reproachful astonishment. 
 
 " Drinking? I ? My dear lady ! No more than the gifted 
 Persian who so sweetly sings :
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 479 
 
 1 When I am drunk the sky of life is clear, 
 
 And I gaze into it without a fear; 
 
 As I grow sober, horribly I dread 
 
 The shadows of my vultures drawing near.' 
 
 " ' The shadows of my vultures ! ' There they are ! See ! " 
 
 He pointed to a wreath of fluffy grey clouds which, flitting 
 lightly below the balloon, drifted now and again into weird 
 shapes like cloven wings that rose upright and caught fugitive 
 gleams of colour on their plumy points, and anon, swooping 
 downwards looked like huge birds of prey. 
 
 "My vultures — my vultures!" he hummed as though the 
 words were a tune — " My ' shafts of love or arrows of death, 
 Or the little snakes that eat my heart ! ' And so, dear lady, 
 you would fain return to your useful Jew ! You will not soar 
 with a poet to Paradise ! Ah, women, women ! Give them 
 wings and they straightway desire to crawl ! Let us see where 
 we are ! " 
 
 He rose to make his observations with the aid of the various 
 scientific instruments with which the balloon was provided, and 
 she watched him closely, relieved to think that he was about 
 to prepare for their descent. 
 
 " We are at an altitude of four thousand feet," — he presently 
 announced — " And if almanacs be correct we ought to see a 
 wonderful moonrise. But you prefer your Jew to the moon ! " 
 
 " I prefer to return home just now, certainly," — she said ; 
 " Do be sensible, Claude ! Steer for London." 
 
 He did not answer her at once. The clouds that he had 
 called his vultures suddenly cleared away, and the balloon 
 soared steadily through a dark expanse of dense blue, passing 
 swiftly over tracts of open country, invisible except where a 
 town or a village, with its lighted streets and houses, glittered 
 briefly like a tiny speck of flame on the smooth haze of 
 distance. Jacynth grew restless. She was not nervous, — 
 her exceptional vanity saved her from that, for she could 
 not imagine anything disastrous occurring to so beautiful and 
 desirable a person as herself, — but she wished she knew
 
 4 8o HOLY ORDERS 
 
 how to steer the balloon with her own hands in case of 
 emergency. Moved by this idea she turned towards her 
 companion, who was fumbling with the ropes and cords and 
 appliances of which he boasted that he alone knew the secret 
 action, and said : 
 
 " What are you doing ? Can I help you ? " 
 
 He lifted his head and smiled at her. In the deepening 
 darkness his white flabby face looked like a clay mask moulded 
 into the expression of a fabulous demon. 
 
 "Shall the lily support the oak?" he queried, grandilo- 
 quently — " Or the dove lend her wings to the eagle ? Which 
 simple metaphors mean, my dear lady, that you cannot help 
 me ! Nor for the moment can I help myself ! We have 
 drifted into a strong stream of air — a cross current difficult 
 to navigate — and I fear me that my lovely enchantress will 
 perhaps have to pass the night, not with her gentle Jew, but 
 at some inadequate hotel in Holyhead or Dublin ! " 
 
 Jacynth moved from her seat, her fair brows clouding with 
 vexation. 
 
 " What do you mean ? I thought you could steer anywhere, 
 even in the strongest wind ! " 
 
 His smile became more fixedly bland. 
 
 " So I can — on most occasions," — he replied — " But 
 there are exceptions to every rule — and to-night — is one 
 of those exceptions ! But be not discouraged, dear lady ! 
 All is well! We are, or have been, travelling across the 
 Cotswolds " 
 
 She uttered a little involuntary cry. 
 
 " The Cotswolds ! " 
 
 * I think so ! I imagine so ! Take care ! " 
 
 For she suddenly leaned her head over the edge of the car 
 and peered down into the dark dome of space. 
 
 " I can see nothing ! " she said, petulantly, drawing back 
 her head quickly, — " It is all whirling darkness ! " 
 
 " Even so ! Mere Chaos ! " replied Ferrers, placidly — 
 " The land is there— but to us it might as well not be there, 
 for we see nothing of it ! Even so is the earth to higher
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 481 
 
 worlds ! A speck — a blur ! We make too much of it ! 
 What of the Cotswokls? Did my Maine Crystal ever shine 
 upon them ? " 
 
 "I was there — once!" — she answered, slowly — "and the 
 man who came with me to Hurlingham to-day — he is vicar 
 of a parish there." 
 
 Ferrers gave an airy gesture of contempt. 
 
 " Vicar of a parish ! Oh, narrow boundary for the brain 
 of man ! A country parish ! A community of yokels and 
 ugly rustic wenches ! " 
 
 She laughed — a little low laugh of amusement. 
 
 " True ! There is no danger for his peace of mind ! He 
 would never see a face among those ' rustic wenches ' that 
 might possibly haunt his memory ! " 
 
 She was silent then for a little. Presently she asked : 
 
 " What time is it ? " 
 
 He was a minute or two before replying. Then he said : 
 
 " Nine o'clock." 
 
 " We have been up an hour and a half then. Make for 
 London now." 
 
 He came and put an arm about her. 
 
 " Enchantress, have I not already told you I cannot make 
 for London ? Things are against me." Here he was troubled 
 by a violent hiccough, and the whisky odours of his person 
 immediately created a private atmosphere for his own special 
 environment. She turned her head from him in disgust and 
 pushed his arm away. " You are a-angry with me," — he went 
 on — " A-angry with your p-poor poet ! I c-cannot help it ! 
 We will d - descend now if you like — w - wherever you 
 please ! " 
 
 She stood up in the car. Her heart was beating a little 
 quickly, but she was not afraid. 
 
 "Where are we?" she demanded. 
 
 " Dear lady, I cannot tell you the exact locality ! I know 
 not whether below us lies a town or a village, or the parish 
 where your friend the parson preaches to his bumpkin con- 
 gregation ! We may be soaring over mountains or over 
 
 3«
 
 482 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 lowlands — in this glorious immensity it matters little ! But 
 in any case, if compasses are accurate, we arc travelling 
 towards the coast." 
 
 " Towards the coast ! " she exclaimed, in accents of annoy- 
 ance rather than alarm — " What coast ? " 
 
 " Naturally, the Welsh coast, my angel ! Did I not mention 
 a possible hotel at Holyhead ? Or — if we cross the sea — in 
 Dublin ? One moment ! — I will kindle a flare.'' 
 
 He was so long about this business and did it at last with 
 such uncertain hands, that she grew cold with a sudden access 
 of ' nerves.' A horrid dread came over her lest by some 
 careless movement he should set fire to the balloon. 
 Apparently, however, he had lost nothing of his physical 
 self-control, and the flare was successfully lowered, creating 
 such a marvellous effect as it burned away in the dark 
 dome of night, that though she had seen the same thing 
 often before, she was more than usually thrilled by the 
 magnificence of the spectacle. The great globe of the 
 balloon appeared to shine with an unearthly splendour and 
 to cover nearly half the heavens, while all around it the 
 violet-black of the sky was strewn with glimmering stars. 
 The shadow of the car, and the ropes by which it was 
 suspended were drawn, as with an inky pencil, against the 
 panels of the balloon, and Jacynth gazed upwards, fascinated 
 by the weird brilliancy of the scene till the flare had burnt 
 out and the darkness seemed to grow darker by contrast. 
 
 " That was beautiful ! " she said — " And now, do you know 
 where you are going to descend ? " 
 
 He held up his hand. 
 
 " Listen 1 " 
 
 A faint murmuring sound floated through the air like a 
 choir of small voices singing very softly. It rose and fell — 
 then seemed to cease altogether, and anon to begin again. 
 
 " Is it a town ? " she asked. 
 
 He smiled strangely. 
 
 " No. It is the sea ! " 
 
 " The sea ! "
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 483 
 
 He drew her arm within his own and pointed ahead. There 
 was not a cloud in the sky, and the stars seemed to be growing 
 up in clusters all through the infinite space, like summer 
 blossoms in a field. But below the car a long dark stretch of 
 apparent haze could be discerned, marked by parallel dots of 
 light running divergently till they were lost in distance, while 
 other infinitesimal sparks of luminance were scattered about 
 like the droppings of a spent firework. 
 
 " The lights of ships ! " murmured Ferrers, sleepily — " The 
 signs of Man's mastery of the ocean! 'Roll on, thou deep 
 and dark blue ocean, roll ! ' Dear lady, you should read 
 Byron ! He would amuse you ! A sadly ignorant versifier, 
 yet with flashes — occasional flashes of intelligence ! But his 
 errors are obvious. ' Man marks the earth with ruin ; his 
 control stops with the shore.' That is wrong, of course. 
 Man's control does not stop with the shore, — on the 
 contrary, it extends indefinitely. The lights of ships, — the 
 lights of floating buoys ! — and, if I mistake not, the lights of 
 the Admiralty pier at Holyhead. Shall we descend ? " 
 
 She gave an eager gesture of assent. He held her arm 
 more closely, and stooping over her looked amorously into her 
 eyes. 
 
 " Or shall we cross to the Emerald Isle ? " he murmured. 
 " The land of romance and poverty and Celtic Leagues ! — 
 the land of the Dark Rosaleen ! 
 
 'I could scale the blue air, 
 
 I could plough the high hills, 
 Oh, I could kneel all night in prayer 
 
 To heal your many ills ! 
 And one beamy smile from you 
 
 Would float like light between 
 My toil and me, my own, my true, 
 
 My Dark Rosaleen ! 
 
 My fond Rosaleen ! 
 Would give me life and soul anew, 
 A second life, a soul anew, 
 
 My Dark Rosaleen ! '
 
 484 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 " Ah ! " — and he drew a long breath — " That is poetry ! And 
 you, you beautiful enchantress, are the Dark Rosaleen 
 incarnate ! " 
 
 He kissed her. A tremor ran through her blood, half of 
 pleasure, half of fear. There was something enthralling in 
 this strange love-making in the air, and for the moment she 
 yielded to the animal power which Claude Ferrers possessed 
 over women, — a magnetic force which he boasted of having 
 practised as an art. The distant singing sound of the sea had 
 changed within the last few minutes to a loud sighing moan, — 
 and presently there was a curious noise as of creaking and 
 straining cordage. This was repeated several times ; it did 
 not come from the balloon, which was careering onward with 
 remarkable swiftness and steadiness, but from some contend- 
 ing force in the currents of the air. Ferrers heard it, and an 
 expression of something like alarm flitted over his flabby 
 features. Releasing Jacynth from his hold, he went to the 
 other side of the car. 
 
 " What are you going to do ? " she asked. 
 
 He laughed, somewhat forcedly. 
 
 "The best I can, dear lady!" he answered — "A strong 
 wind is rising, and we are nearing the coast. Sit quite still 
 where you are. There is no danger. I am going to 
 light a couple of flares that will show us to the people 
 below." 
 
 Two or three moments passed, and then the glare of 
 coloured fires, blue and crimson, blazed in the sky, and once 
 again, like a mysterious floating world of light, the ' Shooting 
 Star ' glowed with translucent brilliancy in the thickening air. 
 No answering signal came from earth ; — three or four times 
 Ferrers leaned over the edge of the car and shouted, but there 
 was no response. Profound silence reigned, except for the 
 gradually deepening murmur of waters in perpetual commotion, 
 and the increasing rush of the wind. The balloon was travelling 
 at great speed, and Jacynth almost held her breath, waiting for 
 the next word Ferrers should utter. She hoped and she 
 believed that he was steering their aerial car in a landward
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 485 
 
 direction and that a descent would soon be made. She knew 
 that he was an experienced aeronaut, acquainted with all the 
 possibilities of his own ' dirigible ' apparatus, and he had taught 
 her to consider that there was no more danger in a balloon 
 than in a motor-car, probably not so much. She had made 
 dozens of successful voyages in the 'Shooting Star'; she called 
 it her sky- yacht, and was wont to believe it as safe as any yacht 
 that ever sailed the seas, — yet to-night there was a cold sense 
 of dread upon her, — she wished she had never come. She 
 could not control the restlessness of her thoughts ; they jumped 
 from one thing to another with provoking rapidity, and yet 
 somehow they all centred round Shadbrook, — Shadbrook 
 continually. What where the people doing in that stupid 
 village ? Most of them went to bed at ten. It was not ten 
 yet ; it soon would be. Then the lights would be put out in 
 every little cottage, and the only bright spots in the small dull 
 street would be the two public-houses. They would not close 
 tiil eleven. The wives and children would be all in bed, while 
 the husbands, with women who were not their wives, would be 
 tossing down glass after glass of raw spirit, and singing and 
 dancing and shouting — yes ! — that was the way Dan and 
 she had begun ! Dan ! To think of him now seemed 
 strange, — now, when she was a rich woman of fashion with 
 no end of lovers to pick and choose from 
 
 Here she shook herself out of her meditations impatiently. 
 What was Claude Ferrers about ? She watched him with ill- 
 concealed impatience. He had turned on the switch of his 
 electric lamp and appeared to be studying a chart. Presently 
 she saw him take a large silver flask from his pocket and put it 
 to his mouth. A sudden sick terror seized her. 
 
 " Claude ! " she exclaimed, — " Claude ! " 
 
 He was too busy with the flask to answer her at once. It 
 seemed glued to his lips, and he drank and drank till he had 
 drained it. 
 
 " Claude ! " she cried again. 
 
 He peered round at her with a fatuous smile. 
 
 " ' How silver sweet sound lovers' tongues by night ! '" he
 
 486 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 said — " ' Like softest music to attending ears ! ' Well, my 
 Magic Crystal ! What would you have with me ? " 
 
 Tears of vexation started to her eyes. She saw that it 
 would now be difficult to either argue with, or persuade him. 
 She caught up her cloak of sables and gathered it about her 
 shiveringly. Then she moved round to him. 
 
 " Are you descending ? " she asked. 
 
 " Into the sea ? " he rejoined — " No, dear lady ! I am not 
 so unwise ! We are too close to the coast for a safe descent." 
 
 " What are you going to do then ? " 
 
 Her voice quivered as she spoke, and his glassy blue eyes 
 turned round upon her in questioning wonder. 
 
 " You are crying ? " he said — " You are crying like a child ! 
 What for?" 
 
 " I am cold," — she answered, with a little sob — " And tired. 
 And you worry me." 
 
 " I ? I worry you ? My angel ! " 
 
 He made an amorous grab at her cloak — she drew it 
 away from him. 
 
 " You know I only meant to come up with you for two or 
 three hours," she said — " I wanted to be at home by eleven 
 at the latest. You have taken me much further than you 
 ought. And I don't believe you know where you are." 
 
 " I do — I do know where I am!" he declared, with some 
 excitement — " Why should you think I do not ? " 
 
 She flashed a contemptuous glance at him. 
 
 " You have been drinking again ! " 
 
 He laughed foolishly. 
 
 "Drinking? No! I have simply fortified myself for 
 emergencies ! The merest drop ! — and I needed it, dear lady ! 
 I want all my nerve ! " 
 
 The angry tears still glittered in her eyes. 
 
 " Your nerve ! " she echoed, scornfully. 
 
 " Yes ! My nerve ! " he repeated, and he rose from the 
 seat where he had been studving the chart, and stood up 
 unsteadily. " My nerve must carry us across the sea ! " 
 
 She uttered a sharp cry.
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 487 
 
 " No, no ! Not across the sea ! " 
 
 At that moment a white mystical glory flooded the heavens. 
 In all directions, — at about the same level as that in which 
 the balloon was floating, — there arose masses of fleecy clouds 
 like Alpine snow-peaks, and out of these sprang the moon, 
 round and bright as a silver shield. The sudden effect was 
 weird, startling and unspeakably magnificent, but Jacynth had 
 no eyes for it. Her gaze was turned below, where now, 
 plainly discernible, was the sea, troubled by some threat of 
 storm, for the opaline gleams of the moon could be seen 
 sparkling on the crests of rising and falling waves. For a 
 moment she was dumb with terror — the next she quickly 
 controlled herself and turned to Ferrers. 
 
 " What now ? " she asked, low and breathlessly. 
 
 He did not answer. He was throwing out ballast in 
 reckless haste. In obedience to his action the balloon soared 
 rapidly higher and higher till it seemed to wander like a 
 will-o'-the-wisp among the shining masses of moonlit clouds 
 which now rose in the sky like mountains from a plain, with 
 summits of dazzling whiteness, shadowing into vast ravines 
 and valleys, among which the 'Shooting Star' appeared to 
 glide swiftly, till rising far above them, it floated over what 
 seemed like a double sea. Jacynth, faint and giddy with 
 fear, sat down crouchingly, covering her eyes. She dared 
 not move nor speak. Ferrers had also seated himself, and his 
 hand was on the mechanical contrivance he had designed for 
 steering, and on the faith of which he had proudly announced 
 himself to the world as a ' conqueror of the air.' Presently 
 he looked up and said, in quiet tones : 
 
 " Darling ! There is no danger ! " 
 
 She was silent. She was too angry with him to reply. She 
 felt herself outraged by the extent of this voyage in the air, and 
 its threatening peril — peril which surely, if he had kept all 
 his senses about him, he could have averted. 
 
 " When we get back to town to-morrow," she thought, — 
 " I will tell him just what I think of him ! That he is a 
 drunkard — unfit to be trusted "
 
 4 88 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 On this her mind appeared to pause. ' A drunkard — unfit 
 to be trusted.' That was the character of Dan Kiernan, her 
 first lover. Then was Claude Ferrers, the poet, the voluptuary, 
 the ' soul ' of a decadent society, the ' gentleman ' of education 
 and position, on the same level of weak incapability as the 
 rustic boor ? Shuddering, she drew herself more closely into 
 the soft folds of her sables. She still kept her eyes covered. 
 For it frightened her to look at the gigantic moving scenery of 
 the clouds — at the moon that seemed so near and large and 
 terrible. All she longed for now was the safe descent of the 
 balloon in some accessible spot ; and the only way to this 
 desirable end was, she felt, to leave Ferrers to himself and his 
 own independent action. For, after all, he was no more 
 anxious to lose his life than she was ; and he had said there 
 was no danger. 
 
 So she sat still and waited. The minutes passed slowly till 
 nearly another hour had ebbed away. Throbbing pains in her 
 head began to trouble her, and every now and then she felt as 
 if she could scarcely breathe. Her heart beat violently ; its 
 pulsations were distinctly audible. 
 
 " We must be travelling at an immense height ! " — she 
 thought, suddenly — " There is no sound now — not even the 
 murmur of the sea ! " 
 
 She uncovered her eyes and looked at Ferrers. He was 
 sitting quite motionless — his hand on his steering appliance 
 as before. The electric lamp was burning, and shone brightly 
 above the open chart, while all around the balloon the clouds 
 were grouping in massive and wonderful forms. Some of them 
 were like huge trees growing up from a flat swamp of white 
 mist, their tops inky black against the starry sky. The force 
 of the wind constantly blew these asunder and changed them 
 into the semblance of deep dark lakes surrounded by frosted 
 hills, so that the effect was as though great forests should be at 
 one moment standing upright and at another bent down and 
 broken into chaotic masses. This cloud confusion was 
 inexpressibly frightful in its grandeur, — appalling for human 
 eyes to contemplate, — and Jacynth's brain whirled with the
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 489 
 
 whirling lights and shadows till she began to feel uncertain of 
 her own existence, and such a sense of suffocation overcame 
 her that she almost fainted. 
 
 " Claude ! Claude ! " she cried, gaspingly — " I cannot stand 
 this ! Claude ! " 
 
 He made no answer. Sitting rigidly under the electric lamp, 
 with the open chart before him, his hand was on his steering 
 apparatus in precisely its former position. She leaned towards 
 him — surely he looked strange ! A sudden horror gripped her 
 nerves. 
 
 " Claude ! " she cried again. 
 
 Then she sprang up trembling violently — she felt sick and 
 giddy — her throat and lips went suddenly dry. Slowly, and with 
 shaking limbs, she crept inch by inch from her own place in the 
 car to where Ferrers sat — and stretching out her hand she 
 touched him. He gave no response. Dragging herself still 
 closer she peered with an awful enquiry into his face on which 
 the moon shed a cold white glare. Then she screamed — a 
 loud wild scream of delirious frenzy. 
 
 " Claude ! Claude ! Don't play tricks with me ! — don't 
 frighten me ! You are not dead ! No — no ! Wake ! — wake ! 
 — wake ! It's the drink that makes you sleep like this ! — the 
 drink ! — you should never have touched it ! — Claude — rouse 
 yourself ! — wake ! " 
 
 And in the extremity of her terror she clutched at his coat 
 and shook his inert figure ; — whereat it slowly toppled over and 
 lurched heavily to one side as she sprang back from it, the 
 upper part of the body falling into a reclining posture against the 
 edge of the car and remaining so with its head partially up- 
 turned to the sky. 
 
 And then she realised the horrible truth. That he was 
 dead ! Quite dead. She stared at that ghastly face, with its 
 wide sensual mouth half open, and its glassy eyes frozen on 
 vacancy, and recoiling, leaned against the ropes of the car, trying 
 to steady the wild throbbing of her pulses. How had he died 
 so suddenly and without sound ? She could not tell. Heart- 
 failure might have been the cause, — heart-failure, due perhaps
 
 490 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 to the high altitude of the balloon and the drink he had taken 
 to ensure his ' nerve.' Anyway, he was dead. Quite dead ! 
 
 All at once she found herself laughing hysterically at this. 
 Claude Ferrers — the 'conqueror of the air' — the writer of 
 many books ingeniously composed with the object of proving 
 the supremacy of Man and the nothingness of God — was 
 dead ! From the way in which he had talked to his society 
 friends, it seemed as if he thought he would never die. And 
 yet even he, — the darling of literary cliques, — the voluptuary of 
 idle women's boudoirs, — was there before her, a helpless lump, 
 deprived of sense and motion and of no further use in the 
 world, — only fit to be burnt or buried out of sight and out of 
 mind ! Her breath came in short quick gasps — she pressed 
 her hands against her heart in a futile effort to still its rapid 
 beatings, — and then, like a lightning flash tearing open the 
 heavens, another frightful realisation broke in upon her brain 
 — the hideous maddening realisation that now Ferrers was 
 dead, she was alone ! Alone, all alone with the elements ! — 
 alone in a mere toy-vessel of the sky, without any knowledge of 
 how to guide it or control it, — alone — alone ! — adrift in the 
 immense heavens, and beneath her the sea ! A despairing cry 
 broke from her lips, — a cry which, among the vast spaces where 
 she floated, was no more than the cry of a weak wild bird in a 
 storm, — her limbs sank under her, and she crouched down 
 on the floor of the car, hiding her face in her hands. She 
 could not look any more on the waxen-livid features of the 
 corpse that was now her sole companion — or on the thickening 
 procession of monster clouds which, gathering closely round 
 the balloon, moved above and below it in a sort of solemn 
 moonlit pageantry, like Titan esque shapes of warriors arrayed 
 in order for battle, — and shivering with the deathly cold of 
 utmost fear, she shrouded herself in the folds of her sable 
 cloak and tried to collect her scattered forces — to think — to 
 reason out her awful position. Her breathing had gradually 
 become easier — there was a sense of dampness in the air, and 
 she suddenly remembered how she had been told that if a 
 balloon passed through any wet fog, the moisture would help
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 491 
 
 to bring it to a lower level. This was what indeed had 
 happened; but she had not just then the strength or the 
 courage to get up and read the aneroid, which would have 
 shown her that the balloon, from having been at a height < f 
 nearly twelve thousand feet, had gradually dropped to about 
 six thousand and was still slowly but slightly sinking. The 
 clouds were thick below the car — yet now and then they drifted 
 asunder, showing glimpses of the sea between, dark grey in the 
 moonbeams and covered with almost microscopic waves, which 
 had the appearance of being frozen like the ridges of a glacier. 
 But she saw nothing and almost felt nothing ; the paralysing 
 terror of her situation had deprived her of all sense save the 
 bare consciousness of life and the dread of death. 
 
 Huddling under her cloak she began dreamily to wonder 
 what death was like. Dan Kiernan was dead. She h?d 
 crushed the life out of him under the wheels of her motor-car. 
 It was an accident, — and as she had told Parson Everton a 
 few hours ago — ' motor-cars run over and kill so many people 
 that one ceases to think about it. It's part of the fun.' Part 
 of the fun ! Yes, — and Dan Kieman's death was part of her 
 usual ' luck.' She had looked at him as he lay mangled in the 
 dust, without one throb of pity for his end. He had a horrible 
 dead face ! — horrible dead eyes ! — she could see them still. 
 And now Claude Ferrers was dead — and death had made him 
 almost as hideous as Dan Kiernan. Would she, when she was 
 dead, look hideous ? Would her beauty — that ravishing, 
 exquisite beauty which drew all men to worship it — be dis- 
 figured and destroyed ? At the very thought she began to 
 weep, — and a storm of hysterical sobbing shook her frame. 
 This, and this alone, was what death meant to her, — the loss of 
 beauty. She sobbed and sobbed till she was absolutely ex- 
 hausted, — a weak numbness stole over her limbs, and at last, 
 like a querulous child worn out by peevish crying, she sank 
 into a deep sleep. 
 
 For the next two consecutive hours the balloon wandered 
 on its unguided way, bearing its strange freight of the dead and 
 the living together through the clouds. By midnight the moon
 
 492 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 had disappeared behind a mountainous mass of thick black 
 vapours, and the heavens were rather darkening than lightening 
 towards the first hour of the day. Creeping mists arose from 
 a low-lying coast washed by the sea, and the ' Shooting Star ' 
 falling somewhat rapidly downwards, hovered above the little 
 hills and plains of a land which was scarcely discernible in the 
 gathering gloom. A stormy wind began to blow, and the 
 balloon travelled with incredible swiftness, always at a lower 
 and lower level, till all at once, with a violent crashing and 
 cracking sound, the trail rope caught in the tops of some tall 
 trees, and the car jerked against the boughs. 
 
 The shock woke Jacynth from her stupor and sleep of misery ; 
 she sprang up hardly knowing where she was, and only hearing 
 the noise of the collision. All was dark around her ; she was 
 unable to help herself in any way, — and scarcely had she realised 
 the position of the balloon, when with another terrific jolt it 
 tore away from the trees, swaying the car on one side in such a 
 manner that the body of Claude Ferrers slipped over the edge 
 and fell like a leaden weight to earth. Released of this heavy 
 load, the balloon rose with sudden and frightful rapidity, and 
 tore away at a mad speed, racing with wind and cloud in the 
 darkness, and Jacynth stood alone in the car, with hair blown 
 back and wild eyes staring into the gloom of nothing, — the 
 nothing of life, — the nothing of death — and — dared she say — the 
 nothing of God ? She had slept, — and the sleep had steadied 
 her brain ; she knew now exactly what had happened and 
 that there was no hope. She knew that she had, as it were, 
 almost touched earth — the blessed earth so unvalued by the 
 majority of those that tread upon it — and that if any aeronaut 
 had been with her, it was possible she might have been saved. 
 But it was now too late. Too late ! She also knew, albeit 
 vaguely, that the loss of weight occasioned by the fall of Claude 
 Ferrers' dead body from the car must increase her danger a 
 thousand-fold, and that any strong or continued disturbance of 
 the air would make short work of the balloon's now risky 
 equilibrium. Yet, knowing all, she could not actually believe 
 it likely that she would meet with her own end. That was too
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 493 
 
 impossible for her imagining. ' Luck ' had always favoured 
 her ; she had said of herself: — "My badness, if it is badness, 
 has brought me nothing but luck." Nothing but luck ! Luck 
 would be on her side again, — of that, even lost as she was in 
 the immensities of space, she felt sure ! 
 
 When once this idea impressed itself on her mind, a rush 
 of strength and courage came to her. She was faint and 
 hungry, and by the light of the electric lamp, which, despite 
 all shocks and difficulties, was still steadily burning, she sought 
 among the various things with which the car was provided and 
 came upon a leather pouch, containing some biscuits and a 
 flask of brandy. She ate and drank greedily — the raw fiery 
 liquor which she swallowed as though it were water, sent a 
 thrill of pleasure through her veins, and it was only the 
 thought of Claude Ferrers and his sudden silent death that 
 made her all at once stop drinking and put the flask away 
 with a shudder. But the nourishment, false and only 
 temporary as it wos, gave her a brief access of boldness 
 amounting to bravado ; — she took a firm stand in the middle 
 of the car, and with her right hand resting lightly on one of 
 the suspension ropes to steady herself, she faced the night like 
 a steersman at the wheel of a ship ploughing through dark 
 unknown seas. If only her many lovers could have seen her 
 then, she would have scored a triumph for her beauty greater 
 than any she had yet experienced. With her glorious hair 
 half loosened about her, and her exquisite face, pale as death, 
 illumined by the glimmering glare of the electric lamp which 
 also gave a cold unnatural brilliancy to her dark eyes, and her 
 figure wrapped in the shrouding sables that were like a part of 
 the mists of midnight and morning — she was wonderful to 
 behold, — nothing more wonderful or beautiful in human 
 shape had ever floated solitary between earth and heaven ! 
 
 And she was conscious of this, — for she began to think how 
 the account of her terrific adventure would read in the news- 
 papers. 
 
 " I shall be the most famous woman in the world ! " she 
 thought, with a sudden smile — " London, Paris and New York
 
 494 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 will be at my feet ! One does not need to be good or clever 
 in order to win renown, — clever people are generally dull and 
 good ones always so. But to have such an experience as 
 this ! — this night by myself in a balloon, trusting to chance 
 for a rescue, is enough to make one's name celebrated for 
 ever ! " And her smile deepened. " I wonder what Parson 
 Everton will say ! " 
 
 Thus she talked to herself for a while, with an almost 
 perfect equanimity. She felt confident that since the balloon 
 had come in contact with trees, she was travelling over in- 
 habited country where, with the daylight, she would be seen 
 by those who would immediately use all possible effort for her 
 rescue. How such a rescue could take place, seeing that she 
 was totally ignorant of the management of the balloon, she did 
 not stop to think. But presently her heart began to trouble 
 her with the quick violence of its pulsations, and she again 
 experienced difficulty in breathing. This rather took away her 
 nerve, and she began to look around her with renewed 
 qualms of terror. The balloon, though she knew it not, was 
 at an altitude of nearly fourteen thousand feet. Owing to 
 the terrific speed with which it had ascended after the loss of 
 such ' ballast ' as the corpse of Claude Ferrers had provided 
 for it, it had escaped a threatening storm area, and was now 
 floating at a tolerably even pace above what seemed to be a 
 continent, but was merely a mass of black clouds. Below the 
 clouds lay Ireland asleep — all its childish frets and jars and 
 tears hushed in slumber, like an ailing babe rocked to rest 
 on the bosom of Mother Nature. Moments deepened into 
 hours and still the ' Shooting Star ' glided on, moving slowly 
 with the slow movement of the upper reaches of the air, — 
 there was not a star visible, and Jacynth, as she watched the 
 profound and stirless darkness into which she was plunged, 
 felt her brief courage fast ebbing away. It was horrible ! — 
 this thick gloom ! — this tense silence ! Her head swam, — her 
 pulses beat like quick hammers, and her heart seemed to rise 
 in her bosom with a sense of threatening suffocation. She 
 gave a sobbing cry.
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 495 
 
 " If only the light would come ! " she wailed — " O God, send 
 the day ! " 
 
 Scarcely had the words left her lips when a rush of thought, 
 like a burning flood, filled every nook and cranny of her bruin. 
 God ! Why had she appealed to what she considered non- 
 existent? 'O God, send the day!' What should either the 
 Day or the Night have to do with God? In this deep and 
 awful obscurity,- -this shadow of the grave, — was it of any 
 avail to call or to pray to the vast Unknown Creative- 
 Force which by the human part of its creation is daily 
 1 >lasphemed ? 
 
 She wrung her hands, drawing little tearful breaths of agony. 
 And all at once she heard, or fancied she heard, as though it 
 were speaking from a long distance, a sad and gentle voice 
 saying : — 'Jacynth, is it possible you have no faith ? Is there 
 nothing in your better self which tells you that death is not 
 all? That there is a Life Beyond?' And again — 'As surely 
 as we two stand here, the moment will come when there will 
 be nothing in life or death for you but this — Yourself and 
 God ! No friend or lover will then be near to counsel or 
 command, — you will be alone, Jacynth !— alone with the 
 Almighty Power whom your very thoughts blaspheme ! ' 
 
 Clearly and with grave emphasis these words rang in her 
 ears, — with such insistence that all at once she lost her self- 
 control and cried wildly to the darkness — 
 
 " Parson Everton ! Parson Everton ! Don't look at me 
 like that ! Don't be hard upon me ! " 
 
 And she dropped feebly on her knees, sobbing, laughing, 
 screaming and moaning : 
 
 " Listen, listen ! Parson Everton, listen ! Look at me ! 
 You know how beautiful I am — yes, you know, — you see ! 
 There was never a lovelier face than mine — everybody says so 
 — and Dan — Dan — he went mad for me ! Ah yes ! — he went 
 mad for me, and you would have gone mad for me too — yes, 
 for you're only a man — if it had not been for your God ! And 
 what has your God done for you? Nothing — nothing ! And 
 yet you believe in Him! You talked about Him in Sunday
 
 496 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 school as if He were Everything! You believe in Him! 
 God ! Where is He ? " 
 
 Here her hysterical passion checked itself abruptly as 
 though spent— and with a shuddering sigh she raised herself 
 half-way up from her knees, staring ahead — surely the darkness 
 was breaking ? Surely that was a gleam of light ? Had the 
 day dawned ? There was a coppery red tinge in the cloud- 
 blackness towards the north-east— here and there it broke into 
 dull green, and to the south a soft fine pearly grey began to 
 spread itself in veil-like films across the sky. She looked and 
 looked — and smiled. 
 
 "A doom is coming!" she whispered — "A doom!" 
 Another moment, and her voice shrilled out to a shriek — she 
 sprang up and leaned over the edge of the car—" Do you hear 
 what Parson Everton says? A doom is coming! For me, 
 poor Jacynth, with only a face for a fortune ! A doom is 
 coming! Do you hear it, you clouds? Parson Everton's 
 God is angry with a girl for her sins ! " and she laughed 
 deliriously — " Angry ! If there were a God who knew and saw 
 everything, He could never be angry ! He could only be 
 sorry ! " 
 
 By this time the clouds were rapidly dispersing — and the 
 most miraculously brilliant colours began to burn on all sides 
 of the heavens. The dawn was declaring its approach — and 
 an exquisite pale flush of pink glowed in the east, uncurling 
 like the petal of a rose. It was about four in the morning. 
 As the light grew stronger, Jacynth became calmer, and 
 steadying herself against one of the suspension ropes of the 
 balloon as before, waited expectantly to see what land would 
 appear when the clouds were gone, and whether she was near 
 enough to the earth to attract attention. Breathlessly she 
 watched, as layer after layer of fleecy grey unrolled itself in 
 lengths of soft vapour tinged with the rainbow hues of coming 
 morning — and presently, after what seemed an interminable 
 time of suspense, the first beam of the sun shot upwards like 
 an arrow of gold. Above the balloon the sky showed glimpses 
 of blue, — below, all was yet mysteriously veiled. Conscious
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 497 
 
 now of no other feeling than the longing to know where she 
 was, and already busy in her mind with plans and possibilities 
 of attracting some means of attention and rescue, Jacynth 
 dried the tears from her eyes, bound up her hair and arranged 
 her apparel almost as if she expected to alight in a few- 
 moments among a crowd of applauding and congratulatory 
 friends, — as for Claude Ferrers, she had almost forgotten that 
 he ever lived. Her interest in herself was so unbounded and 
 absorbing that she could see nothing outside the potency of 
 her own beauty, nor did she care to remember anything that 
 seemed to associate that beauty with an unpleasant incident. 
 Her perilous journey was nearly over, she thought — i.he must 
 keep her head and not lose her nerve. So between fear and 
 hope she hovered in mid-air — keeping her eyes fixed intently 
 on the moving panorama of clouds below, — when all suddenly, 
 as though at a word of command, they rolled away in great 
 masses, disclosing what seemed to be a vast white mist, 
 stretching out endlessly from north to south, from east to 
 west. The balloon was now travelling so slowly as to be 
 almost stationary, and Jacynth gazed as from a balcony in 
 heaven upon that great mysterious whiteness which spread 
 itself out underneath her aerial car like a carpet of woven 
 pearl. Slowly, very slowly, it rose in thin, straight lines that 
 shredded themselves away into webs as fine and shimmering 
 as floss silk, — webs and loose threads that twisted and twined 
 and interlaced themselves one with another till, finally lifting 
 and disappearing altogether, they left bare the treasure they 
 had guarded, — the heaving wonder of the ocean ! The broad 
 Atlantic ! — the illimitable expanse of mighty waters — and not 
 a glimpse of land in sight ! Only a few miles away was the 
 coast of Connemara, but it was wrapped in a thick curtain of 
 fog, and the balloon was drifting steadily out to sea. Moreover, 
 it was travelling at a less rate of speed and at a gradually 
 lower level. 
 
 One glance around her and Jacynth understood. This was 
 the thing called death, which fashionable folk made so light of 
 when it came to other people than themselves. This was the 
 32
 
 498 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 great Silence into which Dan Kiernan had passed, with his 
 victim, the poor little 'dolly wife' of Parson Everton — this 
 was the black chasm of cold Nothingness into which she, too, 
 with all her youth and beauty, was about to fall ! 
 
 " I can't believe it ! " she muttered, feebly — " I am not going 
 to die ! No — no ! I cannot die yet ! I haven't lived my 
 life ! " 
 
 She looked around her on all sides. Everywhere the waves 
 roiled and leaped and murmured — there was a solemn and 
 perpetual rush and roar among them like the sound of a great 
 organ. The vast expanse of rough water stretching to the 
 horizon seemed nearer, — was the balloon sinking ! Suddenly 
 she looked up. There was a vacant stare in her eyes — a wild 
 smile on her mouth. She stretched out her hands. 
 
 " Parson Everton ! " she called, as if he were in hearing — 
 " Parson Everton, where shall I find your God ? " 
 
 At that moment, like a fire springing from the sea, the sun 
 rose. Its beams, till now pale, and piercing in golden shafts 
 through rising veils of vapour, flared aloft in a splendid coronal 
 of triumph above the last vanishing cloud left from the night, 
 and in a rosy depth of sky so warm and intense in colour as 
 to crimson the waves below with the clearness of cut rubies, it 
 shed forth the glory of the day upon the world. Between it 
 and surrounding space the sinking balloon with its one frail 
 voyager to the Unknown, hovered tremblingly, — and, leaning 
 from its car, Jacynth still smiled and waved her hands as 
 though in farewell to a friend. Bending down, she listened 
 attentively to the increasing noise of the tumultuous waters as 
 she sank lower and lower, and talked to herself with all the 
 happy unconsciousness of a distraught brain. 
 
 " There go the bells of Shadbrook Church ! " she mur- 
 mured — " Make haste, Dan ! I want you to see me there in 
 my best frock. Don't be late. We must pretend to be good, 
 you know ! It's so easy to deceive Parson Everton ! Come, 
 come ! It's Communion Sunday ! " 
 
 Here suddenly drawing herself up to her full height, she 
 flashed her brilliant jewel eyes in the golden face of the sun.
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 499 
 
 "Yes, Parson Everton," — she said, in gentle accents — "I 
 know my lesson ! ' I believe in God the Father Almighty, 
 Maker of heaven and earth ! ' " 
 
 With that she folded her hands together, and resting them 
 on the edge of the car looked placidly on at the growing 
 splendour of the day. 
 
 And when noon came both sun and sky were clear of 
 anything more strange than the sea-birds flying across the 
 roughening waves, and diving like winged sunbeams among the 
 rising and falling crests of foam.
 
 CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 YEARS passed swiftly away, — and once again Richard 
 Everton stood in a London pulpit, looking down upon 
 one of the largest congregations that had ever filled the great 
 spaces of St. Paul's Cathedral. That vast interior was packed 
 with human beings, and every head was upturned, every eye 
 fixed upon one who had attained the reputation of being not 
 only the finest but also the most daring preacher of the day, 
 — so daring, indeed, that he was constantly being offered 
 1 preferment ' in an attempt to remove him from his own 
 immediate sphere of influence and thus minimise the peril 
 into which his bold and fearless utterances brought less honest 
 men of his calling. All such offers, however, he steadily 
 refused, electing still to remain Vicar of Shadbrook. As 
 Vicar cf Shadbrook, he had become a power in the land ; and 
 as Vicar of Shadbrook he stood now under the dome of St. 
 Paul's, waiting while the lasi veises of the hymn before the 
 sermon were being sung, to address a congregation drawn 
 from all quarters of the metropolis — a congregation pro- 
 foundly interested in the character and personality of the man 
 they were about to hear, — a character and personality which 
 his work in Shadbrook alone had made famous. Shadbrook, 
 limited as it was, had proved sufficient for him ; and Shad- 
 brook had steadily risen to the call his patient love and care 
 had made upon it. It had grown and prospered exceedingly ; 
 the number of its houses and thatched cottages had increased, 
 and art and careful architecture alike had combined, not to 
 destroy but to enhance the beauty of its natural surroundings ; 
 
 even its running stream was now kept so bright and clear that 
 
 soo
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 501 
 
 it had become a rippling joy under the old stone bridge, 
 instead of a source of trouble and infection. Its people were 
 gradually becoming renowned throughout the country as 
 skilful workers in many branches of trade and agriculture, 
 for where Minchin's brewery once stood was now a nobly 
 built and finely proportioned School of Trades, endowed and 
 supported by the munificence of an American millionaire and 
 philanthropist, no other than Everton's chance acquaintance, 
 Clarence Howard. The School of Trades was an entirely 
 novel enterprise. Much money had to be sunk in it before 
 it showed any signs of success, — but it had now ' caught on ' 
 as the saying is, and had attracted so many students and 
 workers from all parts of Britain that it promised to be of 
 real national service as a pioneer of practical education in 
 the needful knowledge of life and business. Erected on the 
 beautiful architectural lines of a grand old Tudor manor, with 
 gabled roof and wide latticed windows, it was surrounded by 
 a glorious garden, — it had its reading and recreation rooms, 
 its dining-hall, its library, its theatre which served for lectures 
 and concerts, and its workshops where every trade was taught 
 and practically mastered, each student receiving diplomas and 
 awards as in other educational systems. Everton was the life 
 and soul of this great organisation, which though not actually 
 situated in his own parish, was still near enough to exert a 
 beneficial influence upon his parishioners, drawing them away 
 from idle lounging and gossiping, teaching them the happiness 
 of intelligent craftsmanship, and arousing in them that creative 
 spirit of unhasting but unresting ambition, which impels a man 
 or woman to do whatever has to be done so truly well that his 
 or her labour shall be honestly worth its price. There was 
 never a case of drunkenness to be reported anywhere in the 
 neighbourhood, and yet drink of a pure and wholesome kind 
 was not withheld. When the men and women workers at the 
 School of Trades met together, as they all did, Sundays included, 
 in their lofty dining-hall, for their mid-day meal, they could have 
 anything they liked to drink in moderation, except raw spirit. 
 Beer, brewed on the premises by some of the workers them-
 
 502 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 selves, according to plain old-fashioned methods and wholly 
 unadulterated, could be had on demand, — the theory of this 
 procedure being the same which was formerly practised by 
 many English landowners, who, while firmly refusing to allow 
 any brewery, distillery or public-house on their ground, yet 
 permitted their tenants to brew such beer as they required for 
 themselves in their own houses, just in the same way of free- 
 dom as they made their own ginger or elder wines. The 
 result of this plan was that while there was no intemperance, 
 there weie equally no complaints of ' teetotal tyranny,' and 
 every one was sober and satisfied. It is a plan that might be 
 followed with safety and advantage in many a rural community 
 if those persons who possess manorial rights would enforce 
 such a simple method of persuasion to temperance. 1'he 
 School of Trades prospered so greatly, and its members were 
 all so happy and healthy and diligently occupied with well- 
 remunerated labour, that young Laurence Everton, now a 
 brilliant scholar, and the pride of his college in Cambridge, 
 used oftentimes to declare that the training there was quite 
 as good as any to be obtained at either of the universities — ■ 
 " and " — he would add, with a toss of his handsome head, and 
 a mischievous flash of his bright eyes, " ever so much more 
 useful ! The Classics are all very well in their way — splendid 
 literature and all that, — but they can't help a fellow much to 
 earn an honest living." And when at home for his holidays 
 he always worked in the School himself, "learning a bit of 
 all the trades in turn ! " he would say, laughingly, and the 
 Shadbrook people, who adored the very sight of him, were 
 wont to remark proudly : " There was nothing Mr. Laurence 
 couldn't do, bless him ! He could shoe a horse, or build a 
 house — either was as easy to him as t'other ! " 
 
 And the Vicar had his hands full. His life, which he had 
 thought no more than a broken reed, had been raised up by 
 divine ordain ment to a stem of prolific blossom. He was not 
 only the spiritual but the material guardian of the whole grow- 
 ing community about him, — he was their triend, their adviser, 
 their helper, — beloved beyond all words, and honoured to the
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 503 
 
 utmost point cf reverence. With the onward flow of time he 
 had altered little, — his hair had grown grey, but his face had 
 retained its firm intellectual outline, and the dark blue eyes 
 so deeply set under the shelving brows had a great tenderness 
 in their quiet depths, — the reflection of a heart's constant 
 sympathy with all sorrow. Since Jacynth's tragic end he had 
 never visited London. In many other parts of the kingdom 
 he had preached ; never there. But now, certain phases in 
 the social aspect of the world had moved him to strong pro- 
 test ; — he heard, or thought he heard, the mystic ' Orders ' he 
 had waited for — "This do in remembrance of Me" — and with 
 his well-earned fame, won by no fictitious ' boom,' but by his 
 own sincerity, power and eloquence, he had easily secured an 
 opportunity of addressing himself to a congregation which he 
 had resolved should be aroused, if he could possibly arouse 
 it, to a sense of the peril which, according to his mind, 
 threatened the nation. 
 
 The sweet music of the choristers' voices rising above the 
 solemn chords of the great orgrn which sustained the melody 
 of the hymn they were singing, floated soothingly around him 
 as he looked down from the pulpit on the close array of 
 upturned faces, some intelligent, some foolish, some gentle, 
 some proud, and the tide of memory swept him back to the 
 day, long years ago, when Jacynth had vanished from his 
 sight for evermore with her last call — "Good-bye, Parson 
 Everton ! " Neither he nor any one else had seen her upon 
 earth again. The body of her companion, Claude Ferrers, 
 had been found, horribly mangled and disfigured, on the edge 
 of a wild moor in Ireland, but the famous balloon with its one 
 remaining passenger had totally disappeared, and its ultimate 
 fate was unknown. The disaster had caused a nine days' 
 society { sensation ' — but it was now forgotten, even by Israel 
 Nordstein, who had married another 'variety' girl. The 
 'cult' of Claude Ferrers, however, was still kept up by a 
 certain ci r cle of decadents, simply because it was a ' cult ' of 
 shameless vice ; his poems, of the sensual-amatory order, were 
 constantly thrust before the public in advertisements of extra
 
 504 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 large type, and one or two of his most revolting plays were 
 produced by managers anxious for a 'draw,' because of their 
 brazen indecency which the 'censor' obligingly condoned, — 
 bat so far as the million were concerned, Ferrers was no more 
 known or thought of than Jacynth. They had been mere 
 useless units in the great mass of humanity, unwanted and 
 therefore unmissed. Even in Shadbrook Jacynth was almost 
 forgotten. Those who remembered her at all had never 
 really known what became of her, and the only association 
 with her that remained in their minds, was her connection 
 with Dan Kiernan, which had been the indirect cause of the 
 murder of their Vicar's wife. They had heard a rumour that 
 she was married ; but they did not know she was dead. Nor 
 did the Vicar tell them. Not even to the wretched old crone, 
 the ' Auntie ' whose habitual drunkenness had made her such 
 an incapable guardian of Jacynth's childhood, and who, when 
 dying, clung to him and screamed out that ' the devils were 
 taking her and that one of them was Jacynth ' — did he reveal 
 the story cf the girl's later history and end. That was a 
 secret he kept to himself. Seldom indeed did he permit his 
 thoughts to dwell upon the past except that portion of it which 
 was endeared to him by his married life and his love for 
 Azalea, — and it was only now — now when after a long lapse of 
 time he found himself again in the great city which when last 
 he had visited it had been the scene of an episode he was 
 never likely to forget, that bitter memories rose again and 
 swept over him like a burning wave, making his heart thrill 
 with an old restless yearning. Two faces hovered like visions 
 in the light before him, — one of a little fair angel with blue 
 eyes and clustering gold curls, and sweet lips that murmured : — 
 " You are my husband — my darling and my best in the whole 
 world ! " — the other that of a bewitchingly beautiful temptress 
 with dark wild passionate eyes and a rose-red mouth that 
 said : — " It is only your God that stands between us — the God 
 of the Churches, not the God of Nature ! It is your religion 
 that makes you narrow and miserable — a religion that was 
 not strong enough to save Dan or me. Think of that ! Think
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 505 
 
 that we both heard you preach of Christ every Sunday and 
 that neither of us was a bit the better for it. Think of that 
 when I am gone ! For it wants thinking about ! " 
 
 Yes ; it wanted thinking about. And he had thought about 
 it all these years. All these years ! He had thought about it 
 and worked at the problem it presented. "A religion that was 
 not strong enough to save Dan or me." That was a hard 
 saying, and he had pondered upon it deeply. " A religion not 
 strong enough." That was not true. It is not religion that 
 is weak, but the human exponents of it. It is they who lack 
 courage and conviction, — they who for the sake of a petty 
 conventionalism are content to be cowards. He, Richard 
 Everton, had determined to take his own way and prove his 
 own power, — and he had succeeded. This enormous crowd 
 gathered under the dome of St Paul's to hear him preach, was 
 an eloquent testimony to that success. And as the singing of 
 the hymn came to an end with its long-drawn gravely-melodious 
 1 Amen ! ' he looked over the great mass of human beings 
 stretching away in dense ranks everywhere below the pulpit, 
 and thought of the starved souls of them all, waiting to be fed 
 with the bread of life, — life which is life indeed, — vigorous, 
 healthy, hopeful, sane and sober life, — life such as God 
 intended should be enjoyed by all His creatures, if they would 
 but follow His laws. Looking upon them thus, he, like his 
 Master, Christ, : had compassion on the multitude ' ; the tears 
 and fire of a passionate pity made smouldering heat in his 
 brain, — he, 'the most fearless preacher of his day,' as he 
 was commonly called, felt that a moment had come when 
 those who were hungering for any crumb of truth should not 
 be sent away unsatisfied. Politicians might shuffle and play 
 tricks with the honour of the nation, — but he, with Christ's 
 holy orders binding upon his conscience, would speak without 
 fear or favour. 
 
 With the cessation of the Cathedral choir there came a great 
 silence, and after the usual brief prefatory prayer he stood for 
 a moment absorbed in thought. Just below him was seated 
 his son Laurence, the pride of his heart, — the handsome
 
 5 o6 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 young face was the stronger image of Azalea's — the clear 
 dark blue eyes the very copies of his own. The lad was 
 looking up at him in awed admiration, and almost he smiled. 
 Then, with a magnetic thrill in his voice which expressed the 
 greater thrill at his heart, he gave out the text of what the 
 current press next day called ' A Startling Sermon,' and which 
 afterwards brought down upon him the withering condemna- 
 tion of that singular section of the community which, by dint 
 of doing nothing but waste time and money, calls itself ' smart 
 society.' 
 
 " Hear, O earth ; behold I will bring evil upon this people, 
 even the fruit of their thoughts." 
 
 After pronouncing these words slowly and with emphasis he 
 waited a moment. The stillness of the congregation was 
 remarkable, — not a man or woman moved, and all eyes 
 were directed towards him. 
 
 " You will find this passage," — he said, " in the Eook of the 
 Prophet Jeremiah, — in the sixth chapter, at the nineteenth 
 verse. I will repeat it again, for I want you all to remember 
 it. ' Hear, O earth ; behold I will bring evil upon this people, 
 even the fruit of their thoughts.' " 
 
 Once more he paused. He had no written notes before 
 him to refer to, — nothing but the open Bible from which he 
 had just read out the quoted verse. And on the pages of the 
 Holy Book he rested one hand as he turned full upon his 
 audience. 
 
 " What is the fruit of a thought ? " he began, and his voice 
 rang clear through the great Cathedral like a silver clarion — 
 " Have we ever rightly understood that a thought can bear 
 fruit at all? We, whose brains in this present generation more 
 resemble empty gourds in which dried peas are put to rattle 
 for the amusement of children, than that complex, beautiful 
 and wonderful God's design of fine cells for the storage of the 
 honey of wisdom, — do we, can we realise the mechanism and 
 evolvement of thought? The fruit of a thought! It is a 
 notable expression, and proves that the prophet who made use 
 of it had a clear conception of what we call our ' latest ' science.
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 507 
 
 For psychology teaches us that thoughts are things; and that 
 the delicate movements of the brain-cells emit invisible fine 
 exhalations containing the seed from which, as from the pollen 
 of a flower, actual forms take shape and grow into substance. 
 The thoughts of a man are the man himself; and according to 
 the way he thinks, so is the life he leads. His thought is the 
 seed, — his life is the 'fruit of his thoughts.' Moreover, he 
 has still a greater and graver responsibility set upon him than 
 that which pertains to his own existence, for his thoughts are 
 not allowed to belong to himself exclusively. He is uncon- 
 sciously compelled to transmit them to others, — to his 
 children, his friends and his neighbours. In his children 
 the 'fruit' of his thoughts yields oftentimes strange harvests 
 for their future good or evil, — in his friends and neighbours it 
 results in a crop of pleasant or unpleasant associations, which 
 spreading from himself as a centre of radiation, make the 
 happiness or unhappiness of a whole community. In the 
 same way a nation, like an individual, is expressed by the 
 'fruit of its thoughts.' The lines on which its people are 
 taught to think are the lines on which its honour is uplifted 
 or its shame disclosed. Its responsibility, too, is the same, for 
 the thoughts on which it dwells now will be the 'fruit' on 
 which the next generation will have to feed, — or starve !" 
 
 He paused for a moment ; then, with a slight change of 
 attitude which brought his eyes more keenly upon the greater 
 bulk of the congregation, he resumed : — 
 
 "It would trouble you too much, and by many of you be 
 considered a wa~te of your time, if I were to ask you to go 
 back with me in history and try to realise the splendours of 
 past civilisation in those great empires and kingdoms of 
 ancient days when Britain was unknown, and which are now 
 mere dust-heaps in the world for occasional antiquarians to 
 explore. Our learned men tell us about them ; our literature 
 teems with speculative matter concerning them, — but the 
 chief point about them to my mind, seems that neither their 
 former-time magnificence, nor their present degradation teaches 
 us in our generation any lesson. Yet, were we to probe to the
 
 5o8 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 very core of the causes involved in the ruin of communities 
 once progressive and prosperous, we should find it to be 
 the ' fruit of their thoughts.' No more and no less ! No 
 extraordinary or unjust visitation of Divine wrath swept 
 the corrupt 'cities of the plain' out of existence as in 
 the smoke of a furnace and covered their ruins with the 
 salt and bitter flood of the Dead Sea, — their destruction 
 was the working of the inviolable Law, — that unalterable 
 Law which is the foundation of all mathematics — ' the fruit 
 of their thoughts.' Thoughts beginning inwardly in im- 
 perceptible brain-throbbings, and from their inward work- 
 ing manifesting themselves outwardly in word and deed, 
 ripened into the poison-fruit of sin; and this fruit becoming 
 the favourite food of the dwellers in those cities, destroyed 
 them according to the natural action of poison. Tyre and 
 Sidon, Carthage and Babylon, all show the same cause and 
 effect. When Jeremiah foretold the doom of Jerusalem, he 
 spoke of thoughts that had ripened into their fruit of deed, 
 thus : — ' I have seen also in the prophets of Jerusalem an 
 horrible thing ; they commit adultery and walk in lies : they 
 strengthen also the hands of evil doers that none doth return 
 from his wickedness ; they are all of them unto me as Sodom 
 and the inhabitants thereof as Gomorrah. Therefore, thus 
 saith the Lord of Hosts — Behold I will feed them with worm- 
 wood and make them drink the water of gall, for from the 
 prophets of Jerusalem is profaneness gone forth into all the 
 land.' In these words, uttered in ancient times of growing 
 evil, do we see no application to ourselves? No fitness as 
 concerns our Church, our Government, our country, our 
 society ? Are our eyes too blinded by egotism to likewise see 
 ' an horrible thing ' among our own ' prophets ' — that is to say 
 among many of our preachers and teachers, who 'commit 
 adultery and walk in lies and strengthen the hands of evil doers 
 that none doth return from his wickedness'? Are not the 
 unnameable sins of the 'cities of the plain' familiar following 
 among our devotees of 'court and society' to-day? — sins, 
 which like foul cancers spread quickly and steadily till they
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 509 
 
 infect the whole body social and politic ? Are we not ripe for 
 another rain of fire from heaven, and the desolate pall of 
 another Dead Sea? We are! — and it is with an unspeakable 
 love for my country and fear for its future destinies, that I 
 seek to remind you to-day of the long-ago pronounced Divine 
 warning: — 'Hear, O earth: behold I will bring evil upon this 
 people, even the fruit of their thoughts.'" 
 
 Again he paused. A faint movement stirred the congre- 
 gation like an expectant sigh. His eyes flashed over the 
 crowd, — his voice grew fuller and more resonant. 
 
 " The fruit of our thoughts ! " he exclaimed — " The fruit of 
 the thoughts of our nation to-day ! Friends, what will it be ? 
 Poison or sweet food to those who come after us ? Whichever 
 it is, it will be our growing, our giving, our responsibility. 
 We alone must decide its nature and quality. Of what are 
 we, as a nation, thinking? "What occupies us most from morn- 
 ing to night ? To what do we give our best of care and toil ? 
 Is it not Self? The pampering of selfish lusts, the humouring 
 of selfish whims, the delight of selfish ends ? We play a blas- 
 phemous farce when we assume for mere appearance' sake to 
 consider God greater than Self, if all our plans of action in 
 this world are conceived and carried out for the advantage of 
 Self only. Sel r must be to our true minds greater than God if 
 we give it most of our time and service. And if our thoughts 
 dwell upon this Self, which is perishable, the 'fruit' of cur 
 thoughts is perishable likewise, and leaves nothing for future 
 generations to live upon. Of what, I ask, is the nation 
 thinking? Question any man we casually meet concerning 
 his thoughts, and we shall find they chiefly turn en money- 
 getting, while with a woman they are bent on money-spending. 
 Little ' fruit ' can be expected from thoughts such as these, the 
 casual surface thoughts of casual surface men and women, — 
 but let us go deeper and try to read thoughts of a different 
 nature, — terrible thoughts that have lately been carelessly and 
 wickedly sown among our once God-fearing people by a terrible 
 press and a terrible literature — a press that makes light of the 
 sanctity of marriage, and publicly condones the ' social ' sway
 
 510 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 of women of easy virtue, — a "literature that teems with indecency 
 and open blasphemy. These are ' thoughts ' whose ' fruit ' is 
 national corruption. The thinkers of such thoughts — the 
 writers of such thoughts are the worst of criminals, — they are 
 the murderers of innocence and the thieves of honour. The 
 ' fruit ' of the brain-seed they scatter will be seen in the 
 degeneration of our country's manhood, and the degradation of 
 its womanhood — it is seen even now, and the evil increases 
 daily and hourly. Amid it ail stands the Church of Christ, 
 which should be a Pharos shedding clear radiance over the 
 dark and troubled waters, — but the light is obscured, for the 
 men who should be on the watch to avert danger to the Ship 
 of State are absent from their posts and asleep — wrapped in 
 a blanket of comfortable conventionalities and too lazy to 
 stir ! " 
 
 He flung the words out with passion, — and a thrill of some- 
 thing like excitement ran through his crowded audience. 
 
 " If you saw," he went on, leaning from the pulpit with one 
 hand outstretched, "if you saw the Mother of Christ repre- 
 sented as a semi-nude dancer on a 'variety' stage, would 
 you resent it ? Would you be shocked and outraged ? 
 I suppose you would. But would you show your indignation 
 publicly by leaving the music-hall where such an exhibition 
 was tolerated, and never entering it again ? Almost I doubt 
 it ! Some of you would watch the dance to a close, — others 
 would say it was ' the reverent poetry of motion ' ! I doubt if 
 one of you would have the courage to rise up and say : ' In 
 the name of the Christian Religion, on which the nation 
 professes to base its law and morality, I protest against this 
 hideous blasphemy.' You might perhaps hold that it was a 
 matter for the censure of the Church. Weil ! Oui Archbishops 
 and Bishops would ' consider ' the position before pronouncing 
 the urgently needed condemnation. And their considera- 
 tion would probably end, as usual, in inaction. They have 
 remained dumb and inert in these latter days when crowds 
 have gathered to see a scene of Gospel history turned into an 
 indecent 'variety ' show. King, Queen, Premier and Court have
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 511 
 
 all tolerated the representation of the daughter of Herodias's 
 dance with the head of John the Baptist, — he who was the 
 herald and forerunner of Christ, — forgetful, apparently, that the 
 episode thus vulgarised is from positive Holy Writ, and is not 
 the diseased emanation of the brain of an unspeakable criminal. 
 Greater honour could scarcely have been paid to a world's 
 noblest thinker, a world's greatest benefactor, a world's highest 
 teacher than the representatives and defenders of England and 
 England's Christian faith have shown to a public exponent of 
 shameless indecency and blasphemy. Such an act on the part 
 of those who should be leaders of principle and supporters of 
 honour, marks our ' Christian ' epoch with a brand of disgrace. 
 But no rebuke is launched from the Church whose Gospel is 
 thus outraged, — and I, a minister of that Church, shall probably 
 be told that I am taking too much upon myself to condemn 
 what the silence of a Primate condones. But for that I do not 
 care. Consider, if you please, that I have no ' tact ' — no skill 
 to seem what I am not, — that I have none of the ' diplo- 
 macy ' practised by such members of my calling as find it con- 
 venient to preach Christ to others while they themselves serve 
 Satan. I held myself responsible for all I say and do to 
 a Master who is above Archbishops and Bishops, — whose 
 commands are clear, and beyond all worldly conventions — and 
 to whom I must render an account of my service in the honour 
 of His Name when I die. And I say straightly and fearlessly 
 that if His words are true, and if Christian England still holds 
 and believes them to be true, then the ' fruit ' of the thoughts 
 that can tolerate such a public mockery of the Gospel as that 
 which our ' social ' leaders have lately approved and applauded, 
 can be but bitter and poisonous, — an evil suggestion to the 
 nation, sinking into the very marrow of life and rotting it to the 
 bone ! " 
 
 The great crowd stirred uneasily. Glances full of fear and 
 amazement were turned upon him, but his own eyes seemed to 
 absorb all the questioning, ail the wonder, and shine back with 
 the brave light of a truth that would not be gainsaid. 
 
 " You shrink at my words," — he said — " because I am bold
 
 512 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 enough to speak my mind on what I consider the wicked and 
 pernicious example shown to the people of this land by those 
 who should be their guides to the noblest heights of conduct. 
 Cramped by conventions as most of you are, you think it is not 
 the business of men in the Church to rebuke persons of rank 
 and position. It is unwise — it is unsafe ! My friends, who is it 
 that an ordained minister is bound to serve ? ' Persons of rank 
 and position ' ? Is it not rather the Man of Nazareth who on 
 earth had no rank or position, and never, so far as we may 
 know, associated with any class save the poor and the suffer- 
 ing ? There is no rank or position before God. No section 
 of a nation is set apart for special honour by the powers of 
 Heaven. But whereas in our class distinctions we make a 
 High and a Low, the social crimes of the higher ranks are ten- 
 fold more mischievous than those of the lower, and deserve 
 more scathing rebuke. For these higher ranks have every 
 advantage and opportunity given them to live in clean and 
 upright ways and to show an example to their less fortunate 
 brethren — and when they voluntarily sink into the slime of 
 demoralisation, they bring upon themselves and their country 
 the ' fruit of their thoughts '—that ' evil ' which breeds anarchy 
 and revolution, ending oftentimes in the complete downfall and 
 destruction of a once great and powerful empire. For the 
 old warning rings down the ages with conviction to this day — 
 ' I will bring evil upon this people, — even the fruit of their 
 thoughts ! ' 
 
 But I freely admit that the Church, as a rule, says little or 
 nothing to 'persons of rank and distinction.' It occupies 
 itself much with reproaches to the already over-reproved poor 
 for their sins and follies and mistakes, which are chiefly the 
 result of the ignorance in which they have for centuries been 
 allowed to live by their ' betters.' The drunkenness, the im- 
 moralities of the poor are themes on which the full-pursed man 
 is never tired of expatiating. On the drunkenness and the 
 immoralities of the rich he preserves a discreet silence. And 
 it may be that some of the money which makes his purse bulge 
 with so much comfortable excess, is drawn from this very
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 513 
 
 drunkenness and immorality which he so unctuously deplores. 
 I find, for example, at this present time a dozen Bishops of 
 the Church of England most strenuously supporting the 
 vested interests of brewers and distillers, and opposing the 
 Government efforts to lessen the material curse of Drink. 
 These gentlemen apparently are not considering the ruin, 
 ill-health and moral degradation of thousands of living men 
 and women and unborn children which must occur if these 
 vested interests in the liquor traffic are to continue un- 
 abated, — their sole thought is ' property ' ! Can any of these 
 shepherds of Christian flocks tell me that this great anxiety 
 about ' property ' is a permitted canon cf the Christian creed ? 
 Was it not Christ who said : ' One thing yet thou lackest ; 
 sell all thou hast and give to the poor, and follow Me ' ? 
 The lives of men and women in this generation, — the health 
 and sanity and strength of the generation to come, depend on 
 the crushing of the tyrannous devil of Drink that holds Great 
 Britain in its grip, and yet certain prelates, professing Christ, 
 do not hesitate to array themselves on the side of ' interest 
 in property,' as if money or land could be matched against 
 the value of one human soul ! And what sort of rights are 
 these in { property ' that has been wrested out of national vice 
 and degradation? It is property that should be flung away 
 in horror and fear, with tears of shame that it was ever 
 held under such conditions, — for the 'evil' brought upon this 
 people by Drink, — the ' fruit of the thoughts ' engendered by 
 Drink, is an evil so vast and terrible that the brain recoils 
 from it, and the heart grows sick. In the streets of this 
 great London, this core of modern civilisation, we are 
 shamed day and night by the crowds of unhappy degraded 
 creatures, the miserable victims of the liquor traffic, who 
 crawl and reel and shuffle their way from one public-house 
 to another, living for the delirium of drink alone, — in 
 Edinburgh, in its very centre thoroughfare of Princes Street, 
 we may meet on any evening groups of young girls barely 
 fifteen, staggering along in companionship with youths as 
 drunken as themselves, — in Glasgow it is still worse, and 
 33
 
 514 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 yet with all this misery visibly increasing around us, — with 
 the knowledge that the money spent by the nation on Drink 
 alone averages one hundred and oixty-six millions of money 
 a year, making nearly four pounds a head for every man, 
 woman and child, — we can still talk of protection for a 
 Trade that fills our lunatic asylums and hospitals, and crams 
 our workhouses with the wastrels and waifs of humanity ! 
 Let such a Trade be ruined a thousand times over than 
 that the nation should be robbed of its moral force and 
 physical well-being 1 No Trade can be called honest that 
 makes its profit from the degradation of a people ! " 
 
 He paused, and a great sadness clouded his features. 
 
 " In my life," he said, " I have seen the full meaning of 
 the ' evil ' which is the fruit of perverted thoughts, — thoughts 
 that were poisoned by drink, — thoughts that were generated, 
 not by the healthful processes of nature, but by the working 
 of the pernicious drags used in the manufacture of pernicious 
 liquor, — adulterous thoughts, murderous thoughts — thoughts 
 that finally fruited into misery and death. I have seen 
 lives ruined by drink, — \ have seen woman's beauty dragged 
 into the mire of swinish sensuality, — all through drink. Drink 
 is the blot on our national scutcheon — may God remove it ! 
 For I fear Man will not ! He lacks courage for the fight ; 
 and many principalities and powers are in league against his 
 struggling efforts to free himself from the chains of the 
 degrading vice that robs him of his self-respect. He is too 
 content to remain the foolish tool of a Trade. With his 
 hard earnings which he wastes in drink, he builds the for- 
 tunes of brewers and distillers, who, by some curious 
 shortsightedness of state authority, are presently landed 
 in the House of Lords to assist in governing the country 
 which they have helped to debase. And cur workhouses 
 continue to be crammed with paupers, half of whom might and 
 would have been respectable self-supporting citizens if the 
 Drink had not fallen upon them like a blight and a curse. 
 The late Dean Farrar once put forward an example of a pauper 
 in the workhouse who stated that he was eighty years of age.
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 515 
 
 Asked if he had ever been a drunkard, he replied No, he had 
 only been accustomed to take three pints of beer a day. Cal- 
 culating on this basis you will find that he, having continued 
 that habit since lie was twenty for sixty years, if he had laid 
 the money by at four per cent., would have had two thousand 
 one hundred and seventy-two pounds, or nearly one hundred 
 pounds a-year of his own for the rest of his life, instead of 
 going into the workhouse. But there is little use in stating 
 these facts, or pointing the moral to adorn the tale. The 
 nation to-day is in the hands of a craven Church and a 
 purchased press. A craven Church ! — yes, I dare to say 
 this in the pulpit of St. Paul's where I am preaching for the 
 first time to-day, and where, for the very frankness of my 
 utterance, I know I shall never preach again. A craven 
 Church ! — I, who am a minister of that Church, blush for its 
 cowardice and for the pusillanimity of many of its clergy ! 
 For, in the midst of perhaps the most perilous time of trouble 
 that has threatened us for centuries, the Church, as a power, 
 does little or nothing. Itself is full of vacillations and un- 
 certainties. It listens to this theory and that theory. It puts 
 on garments borrowed from Rome, and seeks to make up for 
 its lack of faith by an abundance of ritual. It tolerates ' new ' 
 theologies. It revises its old beliefs — puts forward this dogma 
 — suppresses that. And with all its wordy discussions, its 
 contradictions and arguments, it seems to forget that it is 
 wronging its one Divine Foundation, — Jesus Christ, the same 
 yesterday, to-day and for ever, whom we must follow, whom 
 we must obey, if we would find the road to everlasting love 
 and life. It is almost as if we crucified Our Lord for the 
 second time, and watched His Agony with indifference, cry- 
 ing out ' If Thou be the Son of God, come down from tne 
 cross ! ' : ' 
 
 He stood silent for a brief space, — then he slowly closed the 
 Bible which till now had remained open before him. 
 
 "The thoughts that are spreading in our nation to-day," 
 he said, with stern and sorrowful emphasis — " are not the 
 thoughts that build up national welfare. They are thoughts of
 
 5 i6 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 personal greed, personal amusement, personal advantage, 
 sensuality and sin. The old faith, the old honour, the old 
 patriotism — these saving graces no longer adorn the men and 
 women who by fortune and accident of birth are for a time 
 set above the working million to control their destinies. The 
 influence of Judaism sways the throne and the market-place 
 alike, — the alien sits within our gates and robs our native 
 men of their rightful work, — their rightful bread. I have 
 spoken of a craven Church and a purchased press. These 
 exist ; and between them the minds of the people oscillate, — 
 but they trust neither one nor the other. They look every- 
 where for truth, stability, courage, — but they only see Purse and 
 Party. The craven Church has no aspirations as from God to 
 offer them, — only the dry husks of old and conflicting theories 
 containing no support in weakness, no consolation in sorrow. 
 The purchased press chiefly lives to recommend the several aims 
 of its several purchasers; to urge the particular views of its 
 particular syndicate of Jews and others upon the British ' fool 
 public ' as, by them, it is called, — the fool public, which is so 
 piteously trapped into spending its money to make the pros- 
 perity of knaves. For the rest its columns are made up of 
 'thoughts' — thoughts of which the evil fruit can be already 
 seen ripening on the bough. Thoughts that are morbid and 
 unwholesome — thoughts that ' strengthen the hands of evil doers 
 that none doth return from his wickedness' — thoughts from 
 which ' profaneness is gone forth into all the land.' Thoughts 
 that infect the brains of the multitude, breeding swarms of 
 foolish and injurious imaginations, — thoughts which so far from 
 ennobling and dignifying national ideals, tend to degrade and 
 debase them. The power of the press is a power for which 
 those who wield it will be answerable to God. That they do 
 not themselves believe in God matters little — His existence is 
 not destroyed by their incredulity. The men who for money's 
 sake spread false, contaminating, mean or scurrilous thoughts 
 through the masses of the people are traitors to the country 
 and should meet with traitors' punishment. For there is no end 
 to the '• fruit ' of a thought. Its seed plants itself ; it grows and
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 517 
 
 flourishes continually. A great thought sows other great 
 thoughts, — an evil thought sows a spreading crop of evil. If 
 the brains of a people are sound and sane, the thoughts of a 
 people will be sound and sane likewise. How earnestly then 
 should we fight against the curse of Drink, which not only 
 deteriorates the brain bitt finally destroys it ! There are certain 
 unnameable sins practised among the upper classes of society 
 to-day " — he paused,and looked down with unflinchingly full gaze 
 upon the moveless mass of men and women crowded below the 
 pulpit — " I say there are unnameable sins among some of you 
 that should bring the wrath of God down upon you in destroying 
 fire ! Sins of drunkenness, degeneration and vice, — sins which 
 are the ' fruit ' of drunken, vicious and degenerate thought. 
 Beware ! For God is not mocked ! You may mock me, the 
 preacher of God's Word, to your heart's content, — the poor 
 sweated underpaid journalist of Fleet Street, writing for his 
 'trust' press companies, under command, may dismiss my 
 appeal to you in a contemptuous paragraph on what he will 
 easily term a ' jeremiad ' — but I say to you again — Beware ! 
 Rouse yourselves from apathy before it is too late, — do something 
 of yourselves — you, the People of this noble land, — do some- 
 thing to show you are not the fools your Press takes you for ! — 
 that you are in the main brave and honest, — that you would 
 rather be sober than drunken — strong than weak — that you 
 will have your women pure — your homes clean — your children 
 innocent ! Do something, I say, to protest against the growing 
 scorn of the marriage-tie, — the indifference to motherhood — 
 the demoralisation of girlhood — the self-degradation of woman 
 who in screaming for a political vote is losing her highest right 
 — the honour and respect of man ! It is for you to think out 
 the problems that are presented to you to-day — you — the great 
 People of Great Britain. Think well and deeply ! — think of 
 your Church, your press, your Government, your commerce, and 
 fight out corruption in each and all ! — think of the spirit in 
 which your country's work is being done and resolve yourselves 
 as to whether you approve of that spirit or not. And when 
 you have resolved, speak and act fearlessly, letting both speech
 
 5 i8 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 and action be for the betterment of your nation ! For, if you 
 think only for yourselves, only for your own convenience and 
 temporary pleasure, only for your own advantage and the 
 humouring of your own desires, the vengeance of God must 
 fall upon you, — that vengeance which is simply the outcome 
 of natural law. No man is permitted to live for himself alone. 
 I have proved that in my own experience. He must give 
 freely of all he hath, else it shall all be taken from him ! " 
 
 He was silent a moment, — then continued : 
 
 " I have spoken to you, my friends, as perhaps few preachers 
 in this pulpit are allowed to speak, — indeed I think I may say 
 that if the tenor of my discourse had been suspected before I 
 came here, I should have been politely ' suppressed.' For the 
 'higher' clergy, as some of them are called, are anxious to 
 demonstrate to the world the peculiar ' broadness ' of their views 
 on religion and morality, — which ' broadness ' simply means free 
 licence to make of religion and morality what they please. But 
 I am not one of these exalted Church diplomats. I only see 
 the wronged and loving Christ — and the straying million that 
 would serve Him faithfully if they only knew how ! And what 
 I have said to you, I have said from my heart— from my 
 soul, — and with complete indifference to consequences. 
 Attacks will not hurt me, nor reproaches dismay. For it is 
 time to speak,— time to take up a firm stand against the gross 
 selfishness and sensuality of the age. And it is time for you, 
 the People, to think for Yourselves — not to accept the 
 thoughts proffered to you by conflicting creeds, — not to 
 obey the morbid suggestions propounded and discussed by a 
 'sensational' press, — but to think for your country's good, 
 with thoughts that are high and proud and pure ! Otherwise, 
 — if you remain content to let things drift as they are 
 drifting, — if you allow the brains of this and future generations 
 to become obscured by drink and devilment, — if you give 
 way to the inroads of vice, and join with the latter-day 
 degenerate in his or her coarse derision of virtue, you invite 
 terrific disaster upon yourselves, and upon this great empire 
 — disaster more wide and far-reaching than you can dream
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A QUIET LIFE 519 
 
 cf or imagine! For it is by Cod's unalterable Law that the 
 sword must fall ! — and that sword is suspended over us all in 
 this our day by less than a single hair ! Remember the 
 Divine warning : — ' Hear, O earth : I will bring evil upon this 
 people, even the fruit of their thoughts ! ' " 
 
 Out from the Cathedral the huge congregation poured, 
 scattering its sections all over London, talking with heated 
 animation as they went, some angrily, some scornfully, some 
 jeeringly and a few admiringly, but all more or less violently 
 moved from their usual comfortable calm. And avoiding the 
 press of people as much as possible, young Laurence Everton 
 walked through the City streets with a small, giey-haired 
 dapper little man in the garb of a Catholic priest, no other 
 than Sebastien Douay. 
 
 "Ah, my Laurence 1" he exclaimed — "We shall never hear 
 your father preach again in London ! Such a sermon has 
 offended everybody ! " 
 
 Laurence smiled dreamily. 
 
 " Does it matter ? " 
 
 "To him, no ! — but the world " 
 
 "What does he care for the world, except when it calls for 
 his love and pity ? " said Laurence — " The world cannot help 
 him. But he can help the world." 
 
 "He can and he does," — agreed Douay — " But at a certain 
 cost to himself. His Church is afraid of him." 
 
 " Because he speaks truth — I know ! " said Laurence. 
 "Again — does it matter?" 
 
 Douay looked up at the handsome young mail beside him, 
 and thought of a fair little face and blue eyes long ago hidden 
 in the dusty darkness of the grave- 
 
 "No — perhaps not!" he answered — "And you, Laurence, 
 will you also one day be a famous preacher ? " 
 
 Laurence shook his head decisively.
 
 520 HOLY ORDERS 
 
 " Never ! I shall never enter the Church ! M 
 
 " Why ? " 
 
 Laurence stopped in his walk. There was a brightness on 
 his features as of some inward illumination. 
 
 "Because I want too big a pulpit!" he said — "Too large 
 an audience ! There's no cathedral vast enough to hold the 
 congregation I seek to draw ! My strength is limited, — but 
 my ambition is boundless. I shall be a writer, not a preacher. 
 For when the people will not go to church they will read — 
 and when a sermon is forgotten and perishes — sometimes, — 
 only sometimes ! — a Book lives." 
 
 Printed by Morrison & Gibb Limited, Edinburgh
 
 A CATALOGUE OF BOOKS 
 
 PUBLISHED BY METHUEN 
 
 AND COMPANY: LONDON 
 
 36 ESSEX STREET 
 
 W.C. 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 
 
 
 PAGE 
 
 General Literature, . 
 
 2-22 
 
 Little Galleries, 
 
 28 
 
 Ancient Cities, 
 
 22 
 
 
 28 
 
 Antiquary's Books, 
 
 22 
 
 Little Library, 
 
 29 
 
 Arden Shakespeare, 
 
 23 
 
 Little Quarto Shakespeare, 
 
 30 
 
 Beginner's Books, . 
 
 23 
 
 Miniature Library, 
 
 3<> 
 
 Business Books, 
 
 23 
 
 Oxford Biographies, 
 
 30 
 
 Byzantine Texts, . 
 
 24 
 
 School Examination Series, 
 
 31 
 
 Churchman's Bible, 
 
 24 
 
 School Histories, . 
 
 31 
 
 Churchman's Library, . 
 
 24 
 
 Simplified French Texts, . 
 
 3t 
 
 Classical Translations, 
 
 24 
 
 Standard Library, . 
 
 31 
 
 Classics of Art, 
 
 24 
 
 Textbooks of Science, . 
 
 32 
 
 Commercial Series, 
 
 25 
 
 Textbooks of Technology, . 
 
 32 
 
 Connoisseur's Library, 
 
 25 
 
 Handbooks of Theology, 
 
 32 
 
 Illustrated Pocket Library o 
 
 r 
 
 Westminster Commentaries, 
 
 32 
 
 Plain and Coloured Books 
 
 25 
 
 
 
 Junior Examination Series, 
 
 26 
 
 
 
 Junior School-Books, . 
 
 27 
 
 
 33-39 
 
 Leaders of Religion, 
 
 27 
 
 Books for Boys and Girls, 
 
 39 
 
 Library of Devotion, 
 
 27 
 
 Novels of Alexandre Dumas, 
 
 39 
 
 Little Books on Art, 
 
 28 
 
 Methuen's Sixpenny Books, 
 
 39 
 
 AUGUST i 908
 
 A CATALOGUE OF 
 
 Messrs. Methuen's 
 
 PUBLICATIONS 
 
 In this Catalogue the order is according to authors. An asterisk denotes 
 that the book is in the press. 
 
 Colonial Editions are published of all Messrs. Methuen's Novels issued 
 at a price above is. 6d., and similar editions are published of some works of 
 General Literature. These are marked in the Catalogue. Colonial editions 
 are only for circulation in the British Colonies and India. 
 
 All books marked net are not subject to discount, and cannot be bought 
 at less than the published price. Books not marked net are subject to the 
 discount which the bookseller allows. 
 
 Messrs. Methuen's books are kept in stock by all good booksellers. If 
 there is any difficulty in seeing copies, Messrs. Methuen will be very glad to 
 have early information, and specimen copies of any books will be sent on 
 receipt of the published price plus postage for net books, and of the published 
 price for ordinary books. 
 
 I.P.L. represents Illustrated Pocket Library. 
 
 p AR T I. — General Literature 
 
 Abbott (J. H. M.). AN OUTLANDER IN 
 ENGLAND: Second Edition. Cr.Zvo. 6s. 
 A Colonial Edition is also published. 
 
 Abraham (George D.) THECOMPLETE 
 MOUNTAINEER. With 75 Illustrations. 
 Second Edition. _ Demy Zvo. 15s. net. 
 A Co'onial Edition is also published. 
 
 Acatos (M. J.). See Junior School Books. 
 
 Adams(Frank). JACK. SPRAT. With 24 
 Coloured Pictures Super Royal i6mo. is. 
 
 Adeney (W. F.), M.A. See Bennett (W. H.) 
 
 Ady (Cecilia M.). A HISTORY OF 
 MILAN UNDER THE SFORZA. With 
 20 Illustratious and a Map. Demy Zvo. 
 10s. 6d. net. 
 
 /"Eschylus. See Classical Translations. 
 
 /Esop. See I.P.L. 
 
 Ainsworth(W. Harrison). Sec I.P.L. 
 
 Aldis (Janet). THE QUEEN OF 
 LETTER WRITERS, Marqlise de 
 Sevigne, Dame de Bourbilly, 1626-96. 
 With 18 Illustrations. Second Edition. 
 Demy Zvo. 11s. 6d. net. 
 
 A Colonial Edition is also published. 
 
 Alexander (William), D.D., Archbishop 
 of Armagh. THOUGHTS AND 
 COUNSELS OF MANY YEARS. 
 Demy zCtno. is. 6d. 
 
 Aiken (Henry). See I.P.L. 
 
 Allen (Charles C). See Textbooks of 
 Technology. 
 
 Allen (L. Jessie). See Little Books on Art. 
 
 Allen (J. Romilly), F.S.A. See Antiquary's 
 Books. 
 
 Almack (E.), F.S.A. See Little Books on 
 Art. 
 
 Amherst (Lady). A SKETCH OF 
 EGYPTIAN HISTORY FROM THE 
 EARLIEST TIMES TO THE PRE- 
 SENT DAY. With many Illustrations 
 
 and Maps. A New and Cheaper Issue. 
 Demy Zvo. 75. 6d. net. 
 
 Anderson (F. M.). THE STORY OF THE 
 BRITISH EMPIRE FOR CHILDREN. 
 With 42 Illustrations. Cr. Zvo. is. 
 
 Anderson (J. Q.), B.A., NOUVELLE 
 GRAMMAIRE FRANCAISE, a l'usagk 
 des ecolrs Anglaises. Crown Zvo. is. 
 
 EXERCICES DE GRAMMAIRE FRAN- 
 CAISE. Cr. Zvo. is. 6d. 
 
 An'drewes (Bishop. PRECES PRI- 
 YATAE. Translated and edited, with 
 Notes, by F. E. Bright.man. M.A., of 
 Pusey House, Oxford. Cr. Zvo. 6s. 
 See also Library of Devotion. 
 
 'Anglo= Australian.' AFTER-GLOW ME- 
 MORIES. Cr. Zvo. 6s. 
 
 Anon. HEALTH, WEALTH, AND WIS- 
 DOM. Crown Zvo. is.net. 
 
 Aristotle. THE ETHICS OF. Edited, 
 with an Introduction and Notes by John 
 Burnet, M.A., Cheaper issue. Demy Zvo. 
 10s. 6d. net. 
 
 Asman (H. N.), M.A., B.D. See Junior 
 School Books. 
 
 Atkins (H. G.). 
 
 Atkinson (C. M.). 
 Demy Zvo. $s. net. 
 
 ♦Atkinson (C. T.), M.A., Fellow of Exeter 
 College, Oxford, sometime Demy of Mag- 
 dalen College. A HISTORY OF GER- 
 MANY, from 1713 to 1815. With many- 
 Maps. Demy Zvo. i$s. net. 
 
 Atkinson (T. D.l. ENGLISH ARCHI- 
 TECTURE. With 196 Illustrations. 
 Second Edition. Ecafi. Zvo. 3^. 6d. net. 
 
 A GLOSSARY OF TERMS USED IN 
 ENGLISH ARCHITECTURE. With 
 265 Illustrations. Second Edition. Fcap. 
 Zvo. 3*. &d. net. 
 
 See Oxford Biographies. 
 JEREMY BENTHAM.
 
 General Literature 
 
 Auden(T.), M.A. F.S.A. See Ancient Cities. 
 
 Aurelius (Marcus). WORDS OF THE 
 
 ANCIENTWISE. Thoughtsfcoin Epic- 
 
 tetus and Marcus Aurelius. Edited by 
 W. H. 1>. R l E, M.A , Lttt D. I'cap. 
 Zvo. y. 6d. net. 
 
 See also Standard Library. 
 
 Austen (Jam 
 
 Little Library and Mitt. 
 
 Aves (Ernest). CO-OPERATIVE IN- 
 DUSTRY. Croamtvo. is.net. 
 
 Bacon (Francisi. See Standard Library 
 and Little Library. 
 
 Baden-Powell (R. S. S.) THE MATA- 
 BELE (' AMI' AH . . . ', With nearly 
 ioo Illustrations. Fourth Edition. Large 
 Cr. Zvo. 6s. 
 
 Bapot (Richard). THE LAKES OF 
 NORTHERN ITALY. With 37 Illustra- 
 tions and a Map. Fcap. Zvo. 5s.net. 
 
 Bailey (J. C), M.A See Cowper(W.). 
 
 Baker (W. C), M.A See Junior Examina- 
 tion Series. 
 
 Baker (Julian LA, F.I.C., F.C.S. See 
 Bo^ks on I 
 
 Balfour (Graham). T H E L I FE O F 
 ROBE!' EVENSON. With 
 
 a Portrait. Fourth Edition in one Volume. 
 Cr. Zvo. Buckram, 6s. 
 
 A Colonial Edition is also published. 
 
 Ballard (A.), B.A., LL.D. See Antiquary's 
 Books. 
 
 Bally (S. E.). See Commercial Series. 
 
 Banks (Elizabeth L.). THE AUTO- 
 BIOGRAPHY OF A ■NIAVSPAPER 
 GI'.'L.' Second Edition. Cr. Zvo. 6s. 
 
 Barham (R. H.). See Little Library. 
 
 Baring (The Hon. Maurice). WITH 
 
 THE RUSSIANS IN MANCHURIA. 
 
 Third Edition. Demy Zvo. 7s. 6d. net. 
 
 A Colonial Edition is also published. 
 
 V YEAR IN RUSSIA. Second Edition. 
 
 Demy Zvo. 10s. 6d. net. 
 
 A Colonial Edition is also published. 
 
 Baring-Gould (S.). THE LIFE OF 
 NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. Withnearly 
 200 Illustrations, including a Photogravure 
 Frontispiece. Second Edition. Wide 
 RoyalZvo. 10s. 6d. net. 
 A Colonial Edition is also published. 
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF THE C.ESARS: 
 A Study of the Characters of the 
 
 C/ESARS OP THE Jut-IAN AND ClAODIAN 
 
 Houses. With numerous Illustrations from 
 Busts, Gems, Cameos, etc. Sixth Edition. 
 Foval Zvo. 10s. 6d. nc'. 
 
 A BOOK OF FAIRY TALES. With 
 numerous Illustrations by A. J. GASKIN. 
 Third Edition. Cr. Zvo. Buckram. 6s., 
 also Dcmv Zvo. 6d. 
 
 OLD ENGLISH FAIRY TALES. With 
 numerous Illustrations by F. D. Bedford. 
 Third Edition. Cr. Zvo. Buckram. 6s. 
 
 THE YICAR OF MORWENSTOW. Re- 
 vised Edition. With a Portrait. Third 
 Edition. Cr. Zvo. ->,s. 6d. 
 
 OLD COUNTRY LIFE. With 60 Illustra- 
 tions. Fifth Edition. Large Crown Zvo. 6s. 
 
 A GARLAND OF COUNTRY SONG: 
 
 i^> Folk Songs with their Traditional 
 
 Melodies. Collected and arranged by S. 
 
 Baring-Gould and H. F. Sheppard. 
 
 / '. my A,tO. 6s. 
 
 OF THE W] ST : Folk Songs of 
 Devon and Cornwall. Coll- the 
 
 Mori 
 
 M.A. ,.ui.l 1 1. I IKPPARD.M.A. 
 
 New and Revised Edition, under the musical 
 editorship of Ci. 11. J. SHARP. large Im- 
 perial Zvo. 5-r. net. 
 A BOOK <>F"N1 RSERY SONGS AND 
 RHYMES. Edited by S 
 Illustrated. Second and Cheaper Edition. 
 Large Cr. Zvo. is. 6d. net. 
 SI l: \\( .E 1 RVI\ A] Chapters 
 
 in the History of Man. Illustrated. 
 Third Edition. Cr. 8*v. is. 6d. net. 
 YORK-MI 1 I ODITIES : I 
 
 and Strange Events. Fifth Edition. 
 Cr. Zvo. is. fj /. net. 
 
 \ RING-GOULD S FLECTION 
 READER Arranged by G. H. Rose. 
 Illustrated. CrownZvo. is. ( 
 THE BARING-GOULD CONTINUOUS 
 READER. Arranged by G. H. Rose. 
 Illustrated. Crown Zvo. is. 6d. 
 A BOOK OF CORNWALL. With 33 
 Illustrations. Second Edition. Cr.Zvo.6s. 
 A BOOK OF DARTMOi >R. With 60 
 Illustrations. Second Edition. Cr. Zvo. 
 6s. 
 A BOOK OF DEVON. With 35 Illus- 
 trations. Second Edition. Cr.Zvo. 6s. 
 A BOOK OF NORTH WALES. With 49 
 
 Illustrations. Cr. Zvo. 6s. 
 A BOOK OF SOUTH WALES. With 57 
 
 Illustrations. Cr. Zvo. 6s. 
 A BOOK OF BRITTANY. With 69 Illus- 
 trations. Cr. 8?'<?. 6s. 
 A BOOK OF THE RHINE: From Cleve 
 to Mainz. With 8 Illustrations in Colour 
 by Trevor Hadden, and 48 other Illus- 
 trations. Second Edition. Cr. Zvo. 6s. 
 A Colonial Edition is also published. 
 A BOOK OF THE RIVIERA. With 40 
 Illustrations. Cr. Zvo. 6s. 
 
 A Colonial F'riition is also published. 
 A BOOK OF THE PYRENEES. With 
 25 Illustrations. Cr. Zvo. 6s. 
 
 A Colonial Edition is also published. 
 See also Little Guides. 
 Barker (Aldred F.). See Textbooks of 
 
 Technology. 
 Barker (E.), M.A. (Late) Fellow of Merton 
 College, Oxford. THE POLITICAL 
 THOUGHT OF PLATO AND ARIS- 
 TOTI.F. Demy Zvo. jos.6d.net. 
 Barnes (W. E.), D.D. See Churchman's 
 
 ble. 
 Barnett (Mrs. P. A.). See Little Library. 
 Baron(R. R. N.), M.A. FRENCH PROSE 
 COM l'( . Third Edition. Cr. Zvo. 
 
 2s. 6d. Key, $s. net. 
 See also Junior School Books. 
 Barron (H. M.). M.A.. Wadham ColUge, 
 Oxford. TEXTS FOR SERMONS. With
 
 Messrs. Methuen's Catalogue 
 
 a Preface by Canon Scott Holland. 
 Cr. Zvo. 3s. 6d. 
 
 Bartholomew (J. G.), F.R.S.E. See C. G. 
 Robertson. 
 
 Bastable (C. F.), LLD. THE COM- 
 MERCE OF NATIONS. Fourth Ed. 
 Cr. Zvo. is. 6d. 
 
 Bastian (H. Charlton), M.A..M.D., F.R.S. 
 THE EVOLUTION OF LIFE. With 
 Diagrams and many Photomicrographs. 
 Demy Zvo. 7s. 6d. net. 
 
 Batson (Mrs. Stephen). A CONCISE 
 HANDBOOKOFGARDEN FLOWERS. 
 Fcap. Zvo. 3s. 6d. 
 
 THE SUMMER GARDEN OF 
 PLEASURE. With 36 Illustrations in 
 Colour by Osmund Pittman. Wide Demy 
 Zvo. t$s. net. 
 
 Batten (Loring W.), Ph.D., S.T.D. THE 
 HEBREW PROPHET. Cr.Zvo. 3s.6d.net. 
 
 Bayley (R. Child). THE COMPLETE 
 PHOTOGRAPHER. With over 100 
 Illustrations. Third Edition. With Note 
 on Direct Colour Process. Demy Zvo. 
 10s. 6d. net. 
 
 A Colonial Edition is also published. 
 
 Beard (W. S.). EASY EXERCISES IN 
 ALGEBRA FOR BEGINNERS. Cr. Zvo. 
 is. 6d. With Answers, is. gd. 
 
 See also Junior Examination Series and 
 Beginner's Books. 
 
 Beckford (Peter). THOUGHTS ON 
 HUNTING. Edited by J. Otho Paget, 
 and Illustrated by G. H. Jalland. Second 
 Edition. Demy Zvo. 6s. 
 
 Beckford (William). See Little Library. 
 
 Beeching- (H. C), M.A., Canon of West- 
 minster. See Library of Devotion. 
 
 Beerbohm (Max). A BOOK OF CARI- 
 CATURES. Imperial $to. 21s. net. 
 
 Begbie (Harold). MASTER WORKERS. 
 Illustrated. Demy Zvo. ys.6d.net. 
 
 Behmen (Jacob). DIALOGUES ON THE 
 SUPERSENSUAL LIFE. Edited by 
 Bernard Holland. Fcap. Zvo. 3s. 6d. 
 
 Bell (Airs. Arthur G.). THE SKIRTS 
 OF THE GREAT CITY. With 16 Illus- 
 trations in Colour by Arthur G. Bell, 
 17 other Illustrations, and a Map. Second 
 Edition. Cr. Zvo. 6s. 
 
 Belloc (Hilaire), M.P. PARIS. With 
 7 Maps and a Frontispiece in Photogravure. 
 Second Edition, Revised. Cr. Zoo. 6s. 
 
 HILLS AND THE SEA. Second Edition. 
 Crown Zvo. 6s. 
 
 ON NOTHING AND KINDRED SUB- 
 JECTS. Fcap. Zvo. ss. 
 
 A Colonial Edition is also published. 
 
 BelIot(H. H.L.), M.A. See Jones(L. A. A.). 
 
 Bennett (V/. H.), M.A. A PRIMER OF 
 THE BIBLE. With a concise Bibliogra- 
 phy. Fourth Edition. Cr. Zvo. ■zs. 6d. 
 
 Bennett (W. H.)and Adeney(W. F.). A 
 BIBLICAL INTRODUCTION. Fourth 
 Edition. Cr. Zvo. 7s. 6d. 
 
 Benson (Archbishop) GOD'S BOARD 
 Communion Addresses. Second Edition. 
 Fcap. Zvo. y. 6d. net. 
 
 Benson (A. C), M.A. See Oxford Bio- 
 graphies. 
 
 Benson (R. M.). THE WAY OF HOLI- 
 NESS: a Devotional Commentary on the 
 119th Psalm. Cr. Zvo. 5.?. 
 
 Bernard (E. R.), M. A., Canon of Salisbury. 
 THE ENGLISH SUNDAY: its Origins 
 and its Claims. Fcap. Zvo. is. Ca. 
 
 Bertouch (Baroness de). THE LIFE 
 OF FATHER IGNATIUS. Illustrated. 
 Demy Zvo. 10s. 6d. net. 
 
 Beruete(A. de). S?e Classics of Art. 
 
 Betham- Edwards (Miss). HOME LIFE 
 IN FRANCE. With 20 Illustrations. 
 Fifth Edition. Croivn Zvo. 6s. 
 A Colonial Edition is also published. 
 
 Bethune-Baker (J. F.), M.A. See Hand- 
 books of Theology. 
 
 Bidez(J.). See Bvzantine Texts. 
 
 Biggs(C. R. D. ), D. D. See Churchman's Bible. 
 
 Bindley (T. Herbert), B.D. THE OECU- 
 MENICAL DOCUMENTS OF THE 
 FAITH. With Introductions and Notes. 
 Second Edition. Cr. Zvo. 6s. net. 
 
 Binns (H. B.). THE LIFE OF WALT 
 WHITMAN. Illustrated. Demy Zvo. 
 10s. 6d. net. 
 A Colonial Edition is also published. 
 
 Binyon(Mrs. Laurence). NINETEENTH 
 CENTURY PROSE. Selected and ar- 
 ranged by. Crown Zvo. 6s. 
 
 Binyon (Laurence). THE DEATH OF 
 ADAM ANDOTHERPOEMS. Cr. Zvo. 
 3s. 6d. net. 
 
 See also Blake (William). 
 
 Birch (Walter de Gray), LL.D., F.S.A. 
 See Connoisseur's Library. 
 
 Birnstingl (Ethel). See Little Books on Art. 
 
 Blackmantle (Bernard). Seel.P.L. 
 
 Blair (Robert). Seel.P.L. 
 
 Blake (William). THE LETTERS OF 
 WILLIAM BLAKE, together with a 
 Life bv Frederick Tatham. Edited 
 from the Original Manuscripts, with an 
 Introduction and Notes, by Archibald G. 
 B. Russell. With 12 Illustrations. 
 Demy Zvo. js. 6d. net. 
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE BOOK OF 
 JOB. Y.'ith General Introduction by 
 Laurence Binyon. Quarto. 21.?. net. 
 
 See also Blair (Robert), I.P.L., and 
 Little Library. 
 
 Bloom (J. Harvey), M.A. SHAKE- 
 SPEARE'S GARDEN. Illustrated. 
 Fcap. Zvo. 3s. 6d. ; leather, 4s. 6d. net. 
 See also Antiquary's Books 
 
 Blouet (Henri). See Beginner's Books. 
 
 Boardman (T. H.), M.A. See French (W.) 
 
 Bodley (J. E. C), Author of France.' THE 
 CORONATION OF EDWARD VII. 
 Demy Zvo. 21J. net. By Command of the 
 King. 
 
 Body (George), D.D. THE SOUL'S 
 PILGRIMAGE : Devotional Readings 
 from the Published and Unpublished writ- 
 ings of George Body, D.D. Selected and 
 arranged by J. H. Burn, B.D., F.R.S.E. 
 Demy i6mo. 2s. 6d.
 
 General Literature 
 
 3 
 
 Bona (Cardinal). See Library of Devotion. 
 Boon(P. C.)., B.A. ial Series. 
 
 Borrow (George). Sec Little Library. 
 Bos (J. k'it/cma). AGR1C1 1. 1 URAL 
 ZOOLOGY. • undated by J. R. Ains- 
 WORTH Davis, M. A. With 155 Illustrations. 
 Third I Cr. Svo. v. td. 
 
 BottinjjiC. U.), B.A. i GREEK 
 
 EX] Cr. Svo. xs. 
 
 See alio funior Examination Series. 
 Boultin>j(\V.) TASSOANDHIS 1'IMl 3. 
 With 24 Illustrations. J'emySvo. ico. 
 net. 
 Bon. ton (E. S.), M.A. '■■ OMETRY ON 
 
 MODERN 1 Cr. Svo. 2s. 
 
 Boulton (William B.). '1' MO MAS 
 GAINSBOROUGH. His Life and Work, 
 Friends and .fitters. With 40 Illustra- 
 tions. iS /Vmv 8i'U. 7*. 6cj\ 
 SIR JOSH ILDS, I'.K.A. With 
 
 4.J lllu -: i'emySvo. 71. 6d. net. 
 
 Bowden(E. M.). I ri ALIGN OF 
 
 BUDDHA: B Quotations from 
 
 Buddhist Literature for each Day in the 
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 Boyle (W.). CI 11:! 11 1 1 1 ZOO. 
 
 With Verses by W. BOVLB and 24 Coloured 
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 Brabant (F. G.), M.A. See Little Gui 
 Bradley (A. G.). ROl ND ABOUT V, 
 
 SMIRK. With 14 Illustrations, in Colour 
 by T. C. Gotcii, 16 other Illustrations, and 
 a Map. Sei >'. Cr. Svo. 6s. 
 
 A Colon 1 is also publi_-.hed. 
 
 THE ROMANCE OK NORTH1 M 
 
 LAND. With 16 Illustrations in Colour by 
 Frank Southgate, R.B.A., and 12 from 
 Photographs. Demy S-jo. js. 6d net. 
 A Colonial Edition is also published. 
 Bradley (Jobn W.). See Little Books on 
 
 Art. 
 Braid (James), Open Champion, 1901, 1905 
 and 1906. A ED GOLF. With 
 
 88 Photographs and Diagrams. Third 
 Edition. Dc>»y S.o. 10s. 6d. net. 
 A Colonial Edition is also published. 
 Braid (James) and Others. OKI A I 
 GOLFERS 1NTMF MAKING. F.dited 
 by , ACH. With 24 Illustrations. 
 
 Second Edition. Demy Svo. js. 6d. net. 
 A Colonial Edition is also published. 
 Brailsford (H. NO. MACEDONIA: 
 ITS RACES AM; THEIR FUTI 
 With I'h .:• .raphs and Maps. Demy Svo. 
 1 24'. 6d. >:,■■:. 
 Brodrick (Mary) and Morton (A. Ander- 
 son). A CONCISE DICTIONARY OF 
 EGYPTIAN ARCH.KOLOOV. A Hand- 
 Book for Students and Travellers. With 80 
 Illustrations and many Cartouches. Cr. Svo. 
 31. 
 Brooks (E. E.), B.Sc. (Lond), Leicester 
 Municipal Technical School, and James 
 (W. H.N.), A. R.C.S, A.M.I. K.K.,. Muni- 
 cipal School of Technology, Manchester. 
 See Textbooks of Technology. 
 Brooks (E. W.). See Hamilton (F. J.) 
 
 Brown (P. II. 1, LL.D. SCOTLAND 1 
 THET1 '■'• Demy 
 
 Svo. 71. td. net. 
 
 Brown (S. E.), M A., B.Sc, Senior Science 
 Master at Uppingham. A l'RACTICAL 
 CHEMISTRY FOR 
 
 HATRICULATK \KMYCAN- 
 
 DIDAT1 - I y Experiments on the 
 Commoner Sub unices. Lr.tto. '...td.net. 
 
 Brow::(J. Wood). M.A. THEBUILD1 
 OF PLC With 74 Illustrations 
 
 by Herbert Railton. Demytfo. its.net. 
 
 Browne (Sir Thomas). See Standard 
 
 Bro'wneii (C. L.). Till III ART OF 
 I A BAN. Illustrated. Third Edition. 
 Cr. Svo. 6s. ; also Demy Svo. 6d. 
 
 Browning (Robert). See Little Library. 
 
 Bryant (Walter W.), B.A., F.R.A.S.. F.R. 
 
 Met. Soc, of the Royal Obsei I .reen- 
 
 wich. A HISTORY OF ASTRONOMY. 
 
 With 35 Illustrations. DemySvo. -js 6d.net. 
 
 Buckland (Francis T.). < 
 
 OF -I. HI r/ORY. Illu 1. 
 
 by II. B. NEILSON. Cr. Svo. 3s. 6d. 
 
 Buckton (A. M.) THE BURDEN OF 
 I LA. Second Edition. Cr. Svo. 3s. 
 6./. net. 
 
 EAGER HEART : A Mystery Play. Seventh 
 Edition. Cr. Svo. is. net. 
 
 KINGS IN BABYLON: ADrama. Cr. Svo. 
 is. net. 
 
 Si >NGS OF JOY. Cr. Svo. is. net. 
 
 Budge (E. A. \Va!lis). THE GODS OF 
 THE EGYPTIANS. With over 100 
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 Two Volumes. Royal Svo. £3, 3*. net. 
 
 Bull (Paul), Army Chaplain. GOD AND 
 OUR SOLDIERS. Second Edition. 
 Cr. Svo. 6s. 
 
 A Colonial Edition is also published. 
 
 Bulley (Miss). See Dilke (Lady). 
 
 Bunyan (John). See Standard Librat 
 Library of Devotion. 
 
 Burch (Ci. J.), M.A., F.R.S. A MANUAL 
 OF ELECTRICAL SCIENCE. Illus- 
 trated. Cr. Svo. is. 
 
 Burgess (Gelett). GOOPSAND HOW TO 
 BE THEM. Illustrated. Small ^to. 6s. 
 
 Burke (Edmund). See Standard Library. 
 
 Burn (A. E.), D.D., Rector of Handsworth 
 and Prebendary of Lichfield. See Hand- 
 books of Theology. 
 
 Burn (J. H.), B. D., F. R. S. E. THE 
 CHURCHMAN'S TREASURY OF 
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 12 
 
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 13 
 
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 THE CROWN OF LIFE. 
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 PHROSO. 
 
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 ONE ANOTHER'S BURDENS. 
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 MOMENT'S ERROR. 
 
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 H FAITHFUL. 
 
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 THE TWICKENHAM PEERAGE. 
 THE GODDESS. 
 THE JOSS. 
 
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 GRIFF OK GRIFFITHSCOURT 
 SAM'S SWEETHEART. 
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 GILES I NOILLY. 
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 MATTHEW AUSTIN. 
 CLARISSA FURIOSA. 
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 THE RIVER. 
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 GEORGE and THE GENERAL. 
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 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 HIS ISLAND PRINCESS. 
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 THE YELLOW DIAMOND. 
 THE LOVE THAT OVERCAME. 
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 MR. SPONGE'S SPORTING TOUR. 
 ASK MAMMA. 
 
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 COUSINS. 
 THE BABY'S GRANDMOTHER. 
 
 Wallace (General Lew). BEN-HU R. 
 
 THE FAIR GOD. 
 
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 TURERS. 
 Weekes (A. B.). PRISONERS OF WAR 
 Wells (H. G.). THE SEA LADY. 
 White (Percy). A PASSIONATI 
 
 PILGRIM. 


 
 
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