THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES 
 
 IN MEMORY OF 
 MRS. VIRGINIA B. SPORER
 
 THE WHITE ISLAND
 
 BY THE SAME AUTHOR 
 
 THE 
 WILLOW WEAVER 
 
 AND SEVEN OTHER 
 TALES 
 
 Cloth. I2HIO 
 
 $1.25 net 
 
 E/ P. BUTTON & COMPANY 
 
 NEW YORK
 
 THE 
 
 WHITE ISLAND 
 
 BY 
 
 MICHAEL WOOD 
 
 NEW YORK 
 E. P. DUTTON 6- COMPANY 
 
 681 FIFTH AVENUE
 
 PUBLISHED, 1919, 
 BY E. P. BUTTON AND COMPANY 
 
 All Rights Reserved 
 
 Printed In th United States of Americ*
 
 TO ALL WHO KNOW THE WHITE ISLAND 
 AND TO ALL WHO DWELL THERE 
 
 20437,
 
 "Try now . . . and thou wilt not be able to think of 
 aught but God. For I am He alone, Who can bind fast the 
 mind." B. ANGELA OF FOLIGNO. 
 
 "We adore Thee . . . causing light and life to thrill through 
 the dark void of chaos; breathing into man the Breath of Thy 
 Divinity." Short Office of the Holy Ghost. 
 
 "The chariots of God are twenty thousand, even thousands 
 of angels; and the Lord is among them, as in the holy place of 
 Sinai." Psalm Ixviii. 17.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 PROLOGUE. To THE ANGELS OF THE NATIONS i 
 
 I. FATHER ANTHONY STANDISH TO HIS NIECE, 
 
 CATHERINE ARBUTHNOT .... 3 
 
 II. "TRULY" STORIES 6 
 
 III. THE SPRITE FROM ONE HOLLY . . .21 
 
 IV. A WASTED LIFE 27 
 
 V. RN 38 
 
 VI. MRS. CLINTON ASSERTS HERSELF . . . 51 
 
 VII. ANDERSON'S MONGREL 66 
 
 VIII. THE LITTLE BRETHREN 74 
 
 IX. WRECKAGE 84 
 
 X. RALPH FORBES 101 
 
 XI. THE INCARNATE HATE 115 
 
 XII. A KNIGHT OF HEAVEN 127 
 
 XIII. A STRIPPED SOUL 138 
 
 XIV. CHANGES AT BRENT 149 
 
 XV. LADY CLINTON COMES TO BRENT . . . 157 
 
 XVI. THE GUARDIAN OF BRENT CHURCH . . . 170 
 XVII. SIR JAMES CLINTON COMES TO BRENT . .175 
 
 XVIII. A PILGRIMAGE 187 
 
 XIX. THE WHITE GLORY 200 
 
 XX. FATHER ANTHONY'S POSTSCRIPT . . . 207 
 
 L'ENVOI. To THE ANGEL OF THE FLAMING 
 
 SWORD 209
 
 THE WHITE ISLAND
 
 PROLOGUE 
 
 TO THE ANGELS OF THE NATIONS 
 
 LORDS of the nations ! ye who lead 
 By ways of peace and ways of strife, 
 Content to yield a passing good 
 To serve the glory of the Life, 
 Ye lead your peoples through the gloom ; 
 They writhe beneath your heavy rod, 
 That they may rise again and rest 
 In the still Glory of their God. 
 In 'earthly glory, bliss and ease 
 Ye see a foolish passing show. 
 Upon your course ye sternly press, 
 By ways of failure steadfast go. 
 Ye see the Purpose great and high ; 
 The marvel of God's Plan ye know; 
 Why should ye heed the fretful cry 
 Of frail and foolish babes below? 
 To lead the nation of your lot, 
 To serve unmov'd the Hidden Plan 
 For which alone all nature lives, 
 Both plant and angel, beast and man; 
 This is your task, ye mighty Pow'rs, 
 Servants of Him Whose perfect Love 
 Leads men and nations by the Cross 
 To rest within the Height above. 
 Our life is death to you, great lords ; 
 And this is Life and this alone 
 To stand within the Light of God, 
 Upon the footsteps of His Throne.
 
 THE WHITE ISLAND 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 FATHER ANTHONY STANDISH TO HIS NIECE, 
 CATHERINE ARBUTHNOT 
 
 "Mr DEAR CATHERINE, You say you have 
 ceased to believe that Justice is the underlying 
 law of the universe. You are not content with 
 a 'finite God' ; your God must be infinite, eter- 
 nal, all-powerful, changeless, and without be- 
 ginning. Well, I agree with you! Anything 
 less than this is not God. But, you say, if He be 
 thus, He is not Justice. 
 
 "I have heard many a one say this, Cathy, but 
 I have never yet heard any one give the reason 
 you give for your conclusions. I have heard of 
 those who rested in faith in God's Justice in a 
 world of pain, until pain touched them. When 
 
 3
 
 4 THE WHITE ISLAND 
 
 the anguish was their own, and not that of their 
 neighbour, all was changed. They cried, 'He is 
 not just, that / should suffer.' But you, my 
 niece, complain that He is not just because He 
 has spared you suffering. That is what I might 
 have expected from the Catherine Standish of 
 twenty years ago, who turned upon my con- 
 science-stricken brother with crimson cheeks, 
 brimming eyes, and little feet that stamped with 
 rage because he had weakly suffered his young- 
 est daughter, who had participated in the crime 
 of Alice and Teddy, to escape the retribution 
 which fell upon them : namely, bed at 4.30 on a 
 summer day ! You say your husband was need- 
 ed to do important work at home, that your boy 
 is but five years old; that your income is un- 
 touched. The world's anguish has passed you 
 by; and there is nothing you have done, or are 
 ever likely to do, to deserve it. 
 
 "Let us avoid the question as to whether pain 
 is necessarily an evil, and prosperity an invari- 
 able blessing. But I would suggest to you that 
 we can't dogmatise when we do not know all the
 
 THE FATHER TO HIS NIECE 5 
 
 facts. The world we see is but a small corner of 
 all there is to see. Because I know this, I am go- 
 ing, with the permission of those chiefly con- 
 cerned, to tell you a story. You and I have this 
 in common with Peter Pan : we refuse to grow 
 up at any rate where stories are concerned. 
 We shall never outgrow our greed for them. 
 
 "The hero of my story is not unlike him, 
 either, in making the same refusal, though from 
 a different cause. 
 
 "I shall tell you the tale, premising that it 
 will make demands on your credulity, and may 
 even shake your belief in the truthfulness of 
 "Your affectionate uncle, 
 
 "ANTHONY STANDISH."
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 "TRULY" STORIES 
 
 IT was in the early summer of 1899 tnat I re ' 
 ceived a letter from Lady Lansworthy you 
 know her, I think? She is Jesse Cameron's 
 aunt, his father's sister. She wrote to tell me she 
 had let a house which belonged to her to Mr. 
 and Mrs. Clinton. 
 
 The house in question One Holly is about 
 a mile from Brent if you walk "as the crow 
 flies" across the Forest. Lady Lansworthy said 
 the Clintons wanted a house to which they could 
 run down now and then from town. They had 
 taken One Holly for the summer from the pres- 
 ent tenants, with the idea of leasing it, if it 
 suited them, when the lease now running ex- 
 pired, as it would do at Christmas. 
 
 Lady Lansworthy went on to say the Clintons 
 
 would like to make my acquaintance and visit 
 
 6
 
 "TRULY" STORIES 7 
 
 Brent. She asked me whether I would call upon 
 them. She said, using a phrase I dislike, that 
 Mrs. Clinton was "quite a good Church woman," 
 but she feared Mr. Clinton was "rather indiffer- 
 ent to religion, as so many intellectual men ap- 
 pear to be." 
 
 Of course you know Mr. Clinton by repute. 
 At that time he was just beginning to attract at- 
 tention as a brilliant essayist and writer on some 
 burning questions of the day. He had, I believe, 
 an exceptionally distinguished career at Oxford. 
 Altogether he was somewhat of a personage. He 
 was member for Stacktown at the time he took 
 One Holly; people were beginning to predict he 
 would one day be in the Cabinet, a prediction 
 which has never been fulfilled. 
 
 He married a very wealthy woman; she was 
 also handsome, and possessed of just the kind of 
 cleverness which is useful in the wife of such a 
 man as Clinton was. She had all the domestic 
 virtues; and in addition was a social success, 
 tactful, agreeable, a good listener, a woman who 
 knew when to speak and when to be silent. And
 
 8 THE WHITE ISLAND 
 
 she was ambitious, not for herself, but for him. 
 
 I went to call on the Clintons in obedience to 
 Lady Lansworthy's request. The house is not 
 in Brent parish, therefore it is probable I should 
 not have visited them had she not wished me to 
 do so. They were at home ; I found them sitting 
 on the lawn under the cedars. One Holly is a 
 pretty house, not large, but with charming gar- 
 dens full of old trees. The back gate opens di- 
 rectly on to the Forest. 
 
 The Clintons were just a family party; Mr. 
 and Mrs. Clinton, the three children, and the 
 French governess. There was a little girl of ten 
 Margaret; Jane, aged eight; and the boy, 
 Rene, who was six years old. Mr. Clinton's 
 mother was a Frenchwoman ; her Christian name 
 was Renee, and the little grandson was named 
 after her. 
 
 The girls were delightful children; frank, 
 simple, natural, quite at their ease but not at 
 all forward; they were evidently excellently 
 brought up. Nevertheless, charming as they 
 were, it was the boy, Rene, who drew my atten-
 
 "TRULY" STORIES 9 
 
 tion. I do not think I ever saw such a strange 
 little face. He was a little thin shrimp of a 
 child, who had just outgrown the round curves 
 of babyhood. His face had the most curious 
 pallor, and his grey eyes were pale, too. 
 
 I once saw a milk-white mist-wreath lying 
 athwart the Cornish coast; the sun's rays smote 
 it without dispelling the mist, so that it lay 
 luminous life-filled whiteness veiling the 
 coast-line and the rolling, incoming sea. 
 
 Rene Clinton's pallor was like that mist. 
 There was a wraith-like quality about the whole 
 quaint little personality. His hair a thick 
 shock of hair, very fine, and with no curl in it 
 was of a dull gold like that used for aureoles in 
 old missals. But the most curious thing about 
 his whole appearance was that his dominant 
 characteristic was neither colour nor form but 
 light. I am well aware that this sounds like in- 
 cipient insanity, therefore I must explain fur- 
 ther my reason for making such a statement. 
 
 With some people it is their colouring which 
 strikes the eye ; with others their form and out-
 
 10 THE WHITE ISLAND 
 
 line. With Rene it was neither. I gained an 
 impression of luminosity; when I proceeded to 
 investigate and analyse impressions, I realised 
 that the face was small and insignificant, the 
 eyes very light grey, and the hair an unlustrous 
 pale gold. 
 
 When he had shaken hands with me he 
 slipped away from the group and climbed on to 
 the low bough of an old cedar. I could see him, 
 as I talked with his father and mother, sitting 
 there in his little holland blouse and knickers, 
 his thin sunburnt legs and little bare feet 
 dangling from the bough. He was evidently 
 in a private dreamland of his own, and his mov- 
 ing, crooning lips testified that he was "telling 
 himself a story." 
 
 Presently he climbed down and vanished into 
 the bushes ; but when I was saying good-bye to 
 Mr. Clinton at the gate which opens into the 
 Forest, Rene suddenly flitted out of the laurels 
 like an elf, and slipped his hand into his father's. 
 
 "Well, Rene," said I, "did you finish the 
 Story you were telling yourself in the cedar?"
 
 "TRULY" STORIES 11 
 
 He looked up at me with his odd light eyes 
 he had a very steady direct gaze and answered 
 without a trace of shyness : 
 
 "Yes. But it was only a pertence that one !" 
 
 "Will you come over to Brent and tell me a 
 story one day*?" said I. 'Tm very fond of 
 stories. Come before the strawberries have 
 gone." 
 
 "I'll come," he answered solemnly. "Do you 
 like truly or pertence stories best?" 
 
 "It's very kind of you, Father Standish," said 
 Clinton. "But it is a little rash. You must not 
 let him be a nuisance to you. You're perilously 
 near our back gate, you know. Rene, you must 
 not run over to Brent, except when Father 
 Standish is kind enough to ask you." 
 
 "Father Standish did ask me," said Rene, 
 with no abatement of his solemnity. "And I are 
 not going to be a nuisance." 
 
 "That's all right," said Clinton, laughing. "I 
 hope you will let me come too, Father Standish ; 
 though I am afraid I only deal in hard facts." 
 
 I assured him I should be glad to see him, re-
 
 12 THE WHITE ISLAND 
 
 peated my invitation to the mist-child, and took 
 my way home across the Forest. 
 
 Three days later, I was just leaving the chapel 
 when I saw a small holland-clad, sandalled fig- 
 ure standing motionless in the cloister, staring 
 earnestly at a figure of S. Michael which stands 
 in a niche. It is a very fine piece of work. 
 
 We do not talk in the cloister ; so I smiled and 
 nodded, took the child's hand and led him into 
 the turf quadrangle where the Cornish cross 
 stands; you remember it, a big cross of grey 
 granite. 
 
 "That's right, Rene," I said. "That's very 
 kind of you. You've come to tell me my story." 
 
 "I are come to tell you," he said seriously, 
 with a heavy sigh as of one who has successfully 
 combated difficulties. "I 'tickerlily wanted to. 
 I couldn't make them let me before. They said 
 I should be a bother." 
 
 "They were mistaken," I replied. "We will 
 come and have our strawberries in the little gar- 
 den of the Holy Child, and there you shall tell 
 me my story."
 
 "TRULY" STORIES 13 
 
 The garden of the Holy Child is a garden 
 within a garden; it is walled round by an old 
 box hedge, ten feet high, and very closely 
 clipped. The garden has turf walks, and the only 
 flowers in it are a profusion of different kinds of 
 lilies and roses, save in the spring, when snow- 
 drops and scillas reign there in great masses. At 
 one end is a broad grey stone bench facing a lit- 
 tle shrine at the opposite end of the garden, 
 which takes its name from the shrine, for therein 
 is a Figure of the Holy Mother with her Divine 
 Child. 
 
 The Child bends forward from His Mother's 
 arms, His little hand raised in blessing; it is a 
 lovely, gracious and very child-like figure; it is 
 the work of a woman. 
 
 Rene and I sat on the bench, and I had the 
 strawberries brought there, in a big cabbage-leaf, 
 by a gardening boy. 
 
 "Now," said I, "we'll begin with our straw- 
 berries and go on to our story, shall we*?" 
 
 I said this because I supposed the immediate 
 attraction of the red juicy berries would be hard
 
 H THE WHITE ISLAND 
 
 to resist. I saw this was a mistake on my part. 
 Rene was very polite and assented at once ; but 
 evidently the strawberries were to him an unim- 
 portant detail ; he loved better his dreamland. 
 
 He ate the crimson fruit slowly ; and as he ate 
 I talked a little ; asking him questions to draw 
 him out. At last I asked him what he was going 
 to be when he was a man. He paused with a 
 strawberry in his hand and said slowly : 
 
 "I've never thought." 
 
 Then, as though striving to make up to me for 
 his own deficiencies, he said : 
 
 "Margaret says it would be nice to write 
 books; but Jane says it would be nicer to be an 
 engine-driver, 'cause then you'd be always going 
 away somewhere." 
 
 "It's very useful to be an engine-driver," said 
 I. 
 
 "Y-yes," he said doubtfully. "But I 
 shouldn't like always to be going away. And 
 truly stories are useful too." 
 
 "True stories'?" said I. "Well, yes! Some- 
 times they are."
 
 'TRULY" STORIES 15 
 
 "Not true stories," he said quickly. "Truly 
 stories, not pertence." 
 
 "Rene/' said I, "what's the difference be- 
 tween true and truly stories'?" 
 
 "If I was to say there's a drefful dragon to eat 
 you in that bush," he replied, "that's all a per- 
 tence; and you needn't be frightened not un- 
 less you like to be." 
 
 "I see !" I answered. 
 
 "Jane likes to be frightened," he said. "But 
 if she gets too frightened she screams, and Mar- 
 garet tells her she's a silly." 
 
 "But what's a truly story, Rene*?" I asked. 
 
 "If I tell you a very brave thing," said Rene, 
 "that's a truly story ; because there is very brave 
 people, and it makes you feel so." 
 
 He waved his arms skywards with a spacious 
 gesture. 
 
 "And a true story?" 
 
 "If I say what we had for dinner, that's 
 true." 
 
 "I see. A little dull V
 
 16 THE WHITE ISLAND 
 
 "Well ! True stories is generally duller than 
 truly stories." 
 
 "And which will you tell me*?" 
 
 "I should like," he answered slowly and 
 thoughtfully, letting the strawberry he held fall 
 on the grass, "to tell you about the White 
 Island." 
 
 "Is it truly or pretence?" 
 
 "It isn't either. The White Island is true." 
 
 "Is it dull?' 
 
 "No. It's the very truliest place there is." 
 
 "I should like to hear about it. Where is it?" 
 
 "I don't know." 
 
 "You don't know ! Who told you about it?" 
 
 "Not nobody," said Rene with much earnest- 
 ness. 
 
 "Have you been there, then?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Often?" 
 
 "Two times." 
 
 "How did you get there, Rene?" 
 
 "I didn't." 
 
 "Didn't get there?"
 
 "TRULY" STORIES 17 
 
 "No. You don't get there. You're there." 
 "There, without knowing how you get there*? 
 Do you get there after you go to sleep, is that 
 
 it?' 
 
 "No. That's when you dream." 
 
 "And you don't get to the White Island when 
 you dream 1 ?" 
 
 "No. There's dream things there. But you 
 don't dream." 
 
 "Well," said I. "Suppose you tell me what 
 it looks like, Rene." 
 
 "There's water all round it. And it's white 
 as white." 
 
 "Yes?' 
 
 "And the cliffs all round are white." 
 
 "Yes?' 
 
 "And the stream is white." 
 
 He paused, and his eyes roved over the roses, 
 glowing pink, crimson, white and golden in the 
 June sunshine. 
 
 "All the colours come from the White Is- 
 land," he said. 
 
 The words startled me. I began to wonder
 
 18 THE WHITE ISLAND 
 
 what lay behind this queer working of a child- 
 brain. 
 
 "Is there no colour there, then?" I asked. 
 
 "Yes," he replied. "There's green pastures." 
 
 I thought I had the clue. Some one had been 
 reading the Twenty-third Psalm to the dreamy, 
 sensitive little boy. I was right ; in so far that I 
 found he knew it. 
 
 "Sheep in the pasture, I suppose ?" I said. 
 
 "Yes. Black ones and white. And there's a 
 little house. But it's a dream-house. No one 
 lives there." 
 
 "Why is it there, then?" 
 
 " 'Cause it means a secret." 
 
 "What secret does it mean?" 
 
 "What houses do mean." 
 
 "And what do houses mean?" 
 
 "I telled you. They're a secret." 
 
 I felt I was getting out of my depth, and I 
 hastened, as I thought, into the shallows. 
 
 "Is there anything else there?" said I. 
 
 "Yes," answered Rene. "There's the Joyous 
 Shepherd."
 
 "TRULY" STORIES 19 
 
 The words were uttered with such swiftness 
 and certainty, and were so strange from the lips 
 of the child, that I exclaimed involuntarily: 
 
 "Who told you that?" 
 
 "No one telled me," he answered. 
 
 "How do you know the shepherd is joyous, 
 and what does the word mean?" 
 
 For I felt sure the little boy was using a word 
 without knowing its precise meaning. Children 
 often do this; sometimes attaching to a word 
 thus spoken an undisclosed meaning of their 
 own. 
 
 "I don't know," he answered. "And I don't 
 know just what joyous means. But it's what he 
 is. He's the Joyous Shepherd." 
 
 "What does he do? Watch the sheep?" 
 
 "I s'pose so. And I s'pose he makes music." 
 
 "Why do you suppose that?" 
 
 " 'Cause there is a big music. An' there's no 
 one else there to make it." 
 
 I determined to lead the conversation to an- 
 other subject. After a while I made him tell me 
 a "pertence" story of an extremely thrilling
 
 20 THE WHITE ISLAND 
 
 character, and then I took him to see the Persian 
 kittens, and promised to give him one of them 
 later. 
 
 I walked home with him across the Forest, 
 and saw him safely into the back gate at One 
 Holly.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 THE SPRITE FROM ONE HOLLY 
 
 A FEW days later Mr. Clinton came over to 
 Brent to see the farm. I spoke to him of Rene, 
 saying how much I had been struck by the child's 
 play of fancy and quaint thought. He answered 
 with a little touch of fretfulness. 
 
 "Yes, yes," he said, "there's too much play of 
 fancy. However, I think he will soon get rid of 
 all that at school. I shall send him to school as 
 soon as he is eight. He is very backward." 
 
 "But he is only six years old." 
 
 "True ! And I do not think nursery children 
 should be pressed with lessons. Their brains 
 suffer for it later. But he is backward, for all 
 that. The governess can get nothing into his 
 idle little head. I doubt if he can read. But I 
 think all will be well when he is with other 
 boys." 
 
 21
 
 22 THE WHITE ISLAND 
 
 He hesitated. Then he said : 
 
 "Father Standish, did the child tell you his 
 queer 'White Island' fancy*?" 
 
 "He did," I answered. 
 
 "Now I should like your advice as to how to 
 deal with that," said Clinton. "My wife's moth- 
 er, who is of the old school, is terribly shocked. 
 She thinks the child ought to be whipped for ly- 
 ing. I won't allow that. I should be severe in 
 a case of genuine lying, but I do not think this 
 is one. I believe I am fairly tolerant; but I 
 should not like a boy of mine to be a liar. If I 
 thought Rene lied, I should punish him for it. 
 But he is truthful. He is the most accurate in 
 his thought and careful in his statements of the 
 three children. I never hear him make loose and 
 exaggerated reports of anything which has hap- 
 pened." 
 
 "I noticed," I answered, "the perfectly clear 
 distinctions he drew between actual occurrences, 
 tales which were simply personifications of pos- 
 sibilities, and tales with no possible foundation 
 in the world of facts, which were sheer and con-
 
 SPRITE FROM ONE HOLLY 23 
 
 scious creations of fancy. I thought it meant an 
 instinct for truth, and a clarity of thought rather 
 unusual in a child of six." 
 
 "It is true," he said. "I gather you think 
 with me. The boy ought not to be punished for 
 lying 1 ?" 
 
 "I think you would do him a great injustice," 
 I replied. "When a truthful person makes an in- 
 explicable statement, you owe it to him to treat 
 his statement with respect, though you may find 
 it impossible of credence. Rene's 'White Is- 
 land' is real to him. To punish him as a liar 
 would be a gross injustice. Don't let him feel 
 that injustice lies at the root of things in his 
 little world." 
 
 "I am glad you feel that," answered Clinton. 
 "I shall take your advice. I'm sure it's sound. 
 This 'island' idea of his is a queer thing, and I 
 don't like it. But I expect the better plan is to 
 take no notice of it; the fancy will die or get 
 crowded out by facts." 
 
 I assented. At the same time I wondered,
 
 24 THE WHITE ISLAND 
 
 just in passing, whether Rene's White Island 
 was a root fact. 
 
 "There is one thing to be said," went on Clin- 
 ton cheerfully. "The child is a remarkably good 
 boy. He is very obedient, and never out of 
 temper. He is unselfish ; he never wants to keep 
 anything he can give up to the girls. And the 
 little chap has any amount of pluck. I do not 
 know of anything, real or imaginary, that he is 
 afraid of." 
 
 I gave Rene the freedom of Brent, and the 
 quaint little boy took a great fancy to the place. 
 He used to come over alone from One Holly, 
 for he was very independent in his ways, and, 
 as his father said, quite fearless. We became 
 used to the sight of the quiet little figure. He 
 never claimed our attention, nor did he seem to 
 want it. 
 
 Once I found him in the chapel, standing mo- 
 tionless, with his eyes fixed on the white veil of 
 the Tabernacle. But for the most part he flitted 
 about the gardens and the farm lands. 
 
 One day my friend, David Alison, who has
 
 SPRITE FROM ONE HOLLY 25 
 
 rooms in the guest-house, came to my room off 
 the cloister. 
 
 "What is there about that sprite from One 
 Holly that makes me feel Eternity to be man's 
 natural dwelling-place*?" he said suddenly. 
 
 I looked up from my desk with a sense that 
 Alison had given expression to a vague thought 
 which had been lurking in the back of my mind, 
 and troubling me because I could not put it into 
 form. 
 
 "My dear David," said I, "I'm grateful to 
 you. That is what small Rene Clinton does 
 make me feel. That is precisely it! But why? 
 I fear I cannot answer you that." 
 
 "I came across him just now," said Alison. 
 "I went into the garden of the Holy Child to 
 look at the lilies. I saw Rene sitting cross- 
 legged on the grass before the shrine. I said, 
 'Hullo, little chap, what are you doing?' He 
 scrambled up, and said in his portentously 
 solemn way : 'I are telling a truly story to the 
 Holy Child, Mr. Alison.' He looked more like
 
 26 THE WHITE ISLAND 
 
 a little white flame than a flesh-and-blood 
 child." 
 
 Alison's words made me think of the legends 
 I had heard of child saints whose gambols the 
 Holy Babe deigned to join. I wondered wheth- 
 er He had gathered up Rene's little offering of 
 faith and love, his "truly story," and garnered 
 it among His Treasures. 
 
 There came a night, the fourth of September, 
 in the summer of 1917, when I felt sure He had 
 done so.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 A WASTED LIFE 
 
 AT the end of the summer the Clintons left One 
 Holly and did not return there. I do not know 
 whether they did not like the house, or whether 
 some hitch occurred in their arrangements with 
 Lady Lansworthy. 
 
 They went away, and I heard nothing of them 
 for fourteen years. When I say I did not hear 
 of them, I mean I had no personal communica- 
 tion with them. I heard of Clinton from time to 
 time. I read some of his writings. People who 
 came to the guest-house mentioned him, for he 
 was increasingly in the public eye. I heard that 
 his daughter Jane was remarkably beautiful, and 
 I saw in the papers that she was married. It was 
 what is called a "good match." 
 
 I often thought of little Rene; and I prayed 
 27
 
 28 THE WHITE ISLAND 
 
 for him, especially during the years in which I 
 knew he must be growing from youth to man- 
 hood. 
 
 In the spring of 1913, while we were yet liv- 
 ing in our fool's paradise of a false peace, I re- 
 ceived a letter from Mrs. Clinton. She wrote 
 as follows: 
 
 "DEAR FATHER STANDISH, I think you will 
 scarcely remember me ; it is fourteen years, I be- 
 lieve, since we were your neighbours at One 
 Holly. You were very kind then to my boy ; I 
 suppose that is why my mind turns to you now. 
 A very bitter sorrow has fallen upon me and 
 upon my husband. The most bitter and cruel, I 
 think, we could possibly have been called upon 
 to endure. It has utterly undermined my faith. 
 I do not believe in God's Love, nor in His Jus- 
 tice. Perhaps when you read these words you 
 will refuse to help me. For Rene's sake I en- 
 treat you not to refuse. You are the one hope I 
 have. My husband has none. But I have just
 
 A WASTED LIFE 29 
 
 a little hope that you will make my cup less bit- 
 ter. May I come and see you*? 
 
 "Yours very sincerely, 
 
 "THERESA CLINTON." 
 
 I wrote at once, expressing my sympathy, and 
 asking her to choose her own time for coming to 
 Brent. She came to stay at an hotel in Lexmin- 
 ster, and came to Brent in a hired car. She ar- 
 rived at the guest-house, and I went to her at 
 once. She was a very handsome, dignified, and 
 graceful woman; she was then forty- four, and 
 she did not look very much older than she did 
 when I saw her at One Holly. 
 
 Her manner was composed and restrained ; she 
 did not display her emotion during the first five 
 minutes of our interview. She asked after 
 David Alison, and spoke of his books; com- 
 mented on the spring flowers in our gardens, and 
 spoke of the marriage of her daughter Jane to 
 an American. 
 
 Then came a silent pause; during which she 
 sat with her eyes fixed on the floor, I broke iti
 
 30 THE WHITE ISLAND 
 
 "Mrs. Clinton," I said, "I hope you know that 
 if there is anything I can do " 
 
 She rose and walked to the window. Stand- 
 ing with her back to me, she spoke. 
 
 "You have not heard of our great trouble?" 
 she asked. 
 
 "Only from you, and you gave me no de- 
 tails." 
 
 "No," she said, "you are not one to hear 
 gossip. There is gossip enough about it, but 
 they do not readily bring it to you." 
 
 Then she turned. Her face was working with 
 agony. Her hands were clenched. 
 
 "O," she cried, "the pain of knowing the talk 
 and chatter is the least part ! Father Standish, 
 if there be a God, He is cruel ! What can it be 
 but cruelty that stabs us through our child 1 ? 
 What can it be but incompetent folly or malig- 
 nant cruelty? O, I shock you! I shock you! 
 But just look at it! A wasted life! Exquisite 
 pain to me and to my husband. We were not 
 neglectful parents. We were prepared to spare 
 neither pains nor expense to make him a credit
 
 A WASTED LIFE 31 
 
 to us, and a useful member of society. And this 
 happens this! How can you wonder if my 
 faith is dead 4 ?" 
 
 "Faith never dies," I answered, "Faith is that 
 which is brought to birth when God's Touch 
 falls on the spirit of man. It is an immortal 
 thing. Belief is sometimes a name for the non- 
 critical acceptance of statements in which we 
 are not sufficiently interested to inquire whether 
 they are true. That kind of belief cannot 
 weather a storm." 
 
 She looked at me for a moment. 
 
 "You've hit home, Father Standish," she 
 said. "I have accepted things without inquiry 
 because I was not very deeply interested in them. 
 I own that. I am worldly. If the choice had 
 been put before me as to whether Rene should be 
 a S. Francis of Assisi or Prime Minister of Eng- 
 land, I should have chosen the latter. I know 
 that. But doesn't that make it harder for me 
 now 1 ?" 
 
 "It does," I answered. "I gather that your 
 sorrow is caused by Rene. Is it not so?"
 
 32 THE WHITE ISLAND 
 
 She nodded silently. She could not speak /or 
 the moment. When she spoke, her lips trem- 
 bled ; and she found it hard to form her words. 
 
 "You remember him," she said. "He was a 
 strange, dreamy little boy, wasn't he*?" 
 
 "He was. He interested me very much." 
 
 "My husband so built on him," she went on. 
 "We had two girls, and he was so delighted 
 when the boy came. He is an ambitious man, 
 Father Standish, but his ambitions for our son 
 were greater than for himself. You know 
 though I am his wife, I must say it he is very 
 able." 
 
 "Every one knows that," I replied. 
 
 "Margaret is like him," she continued. "You 
 may have heard how brilliant his career was at 
 the University. Hers has been equally so. She 
 went to Newnham; she carried off everything 
 she could. There was no man of her year who 
 did so well as she. My husband does not care 
 much for that kind of cleverness in a woman. He 
 likes a clever woman. He likes a woman who 
 can 'tenir un salon' and help her husband so-
 
 A WASTED LIFE 33 
 
 cially. Jane is more of that type. But he was 
 pleased about Margaret, too." 
 
 She paused for a few seconds. 
 
 "But all his real hopes were for Rene. Think, 
 Father Standish, what an awful blow it was 
 when he found they could never be realised." 
 
 "Why could they not?" 
 
 She sobbed mastered herself by a great ef- 
 fort and went on. 
 
 "It has been quite impossible to teach him 
 anything," she said. 
 
 "Why not?' 
 
 "Because he is not able, apparently, to con- 
 centrate his mind on any of the things he ought 
 to learn. He cannot grasp nor remember them. 
 He could not be sent to a school, nor, of course, 
 to the University. A private tutor was useless 
 too. He has none of the interests, none of the 
 knowledge proper to a boy or a young man. 
 Imagine what it meant to us ! My husband was 
 very angry with him at first. He thought it was 
 wilful idleness. It was terrible for Rene; terri- 
 ble for us all ! But when my husband knew it
 
 34 THE WHITE ISLAND 
 
 was not his fault, he ceased to be angry. He is 
 always fair, and reasonable, and just." 
 
 "But did you not consult a doctor*?" I asked. 
 
 "A doctor, Father Standish ! There's not a 
 brain and nerve specialist in Europe or in Amer- 
 ica we've not consulted." 
 
 "And what is their verdict?" 
 
 "All agree they have never seen such a case. 
 A few the very greatest men men who know 
 too much to mind saying they are ignorant, say 
 frankly they do not understand it, and decline 
 to diagnose. But most say that, for some in- 
 explicable reason, there has been arrested devel- 
 opment of the brain." 
 
 "You thought I might be of some service to 
 you, Mrs. Clinton." 
 
 "I hoped you might. Do you remember my 
 poor boy's fancy of the White Island?" 
 
 "I do. I was much struck by it." 
 
 "He has never lost that childish fancy. He 
 still speaks of it at times, and maintains it is an 
 actual place. That, of course, is an hallucina-
 
 A WASTED LIFE 35 
 
 tion which shows there must be something wrong 
 with the brain." 
 
 I did not answer. I did not feel wholly sure 
 of that. 
 
 "My husband says he cannot have Re*ne at 
 home any longer. He is just twenty now. My 
 husband says it is not solely the fact that the in- 
 tense pain of seeing him is injuring his own 
 work, but he cannot bear that people who come 
 to the house should see his son is mentally de- 
 fective. He suggests that Rene should be 
 placed with a doctor." 
 
 "Not in an asylum?" 
 
 "Not that. But there are doctors who take 
 what are called 'borderland cases.' We went to 
 see such a place last week. It was a nice house 
 and garden and tennis courts, and the doctor 
 and his wife were kind and pleasant. There 
 were three unhappy, queer-looking people who 
 were patients. Oh! I couldn't bear it! I 
 couldn't have Rene sent there as one of them! 
 My husband says I am not reasonable. I don't
 
 36 THE WHITE ISLAND , 
 
 care ! A mother can't be reasonable about her 
 boy." 
 
 "Thank God she cannot !" 
 
 "I was ambitious for him too. I feel that pain 
 as my husband does. But that pain is all, or al- 
 most all, he feels. He loved Rene when he 
 thought he should be proud of him. Now he 
 can't be that, he does his duty by him, and is 
 quite fair and gentle with him. But I love him 
 just as much, though my ambition is dead and 
 my pride in him disappointed; do you see*?" 
 
 "I do. So does God love His children, in 
 whom He is disappointed every day. He is very 
 patient with us !" 
 
 "I felt I could not bear it. When I came 
 home and was looking through a drawer in my 
 desk, I came upon an old photograph of One 
 Holly. It was like an inspiration. I thought of 
 you. O Father Standish ! You were so good to 
 my poor Rene once; will you let him come here 
 now?' 
 
 "For a visit, most gladly," I answered. "I 
 would not promise that Brent should be his
 
 A WASTED LIFE 37 
 
 home till I had seen and talked with him. But 
 if he will come here for a month " 
 
 "O," she broke in passionately, "God has 
 some mercy after all; I could bear to think of 
 him with you, in tHis beautiful still place." 
 
 "If Mr. Clinton will consent to it," said I, "I 
 will gladly receive your son in the guest-house 
 for a month."
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 RENE 
 
 RENE CLINTON arrived at the guest-house one 
 Saturday afternoon. There was nothing in his 
 appearance to suggest "arrested development of 
 the brain," or any want of co-ordination of mind 
 and body. 
 
 He was, in some ways, very little changed. 
 He was of medium height and very slim and 
 lissom. The peculiarities of appearance which 
 I noticed in the child of six had increased rath- 
 er than diminished in the youth of twenty years. 
 He had the same quiet friendly manner, free 
 from all distrust; the same dreamy air of ab- 
 straction ; the same solemn way of fixing his eyes 
 intently on people before he spoke, as though he 
 was slowly travelling towards them from an 
 
 enormous distance. 
 
 38
 
 RENE 39 
 
 I asked him whether he remembered One 
 Holly and Brent. 
 
 "Yes," he replied, "I do. And I remember 
 you." 
 
 He was silent for a moment ; and finally said 
 slowly : 
 
 "It is because you and Brent belong to the 
 things I can remember." 
 
 It was a curious speech. I did not ask him to 
 explain it. I was trying to keep an open mind 
 with regard to Rene; I was anxious not to ac- 
 cept any pronouncement which had been made 
 concerning him; but to remain quite unbiassed 
 in the whole matter. 
 
 He asked me that night whether he might re- 
 ceive Holy Communion the next morning. 
 
 "I always do on the first Sunday in the 
 month," he said, simply. 
 
 I expect this had been his custom since he was 
 confirmed. He was reverent; but he displayed 
 no outward signs of special devotion or fervour. 
 I have no doubt he said his prayers morning and
 
 40 THE WHITE ISLAND 
 
 evening; but I do not think he prayed at any 
 other time save at Mass and Evensong. 
 
 He gave no external signs of great piety; he 
 simply did what his mother, who was, as Lady 
 Lansworthy said, "a good Churchwoman," 
 taught him to do when he was a child and a 
 young boy. 
 
 Noel Cardross, the playwright, was at Brent 
 for the week-end. I am very fond of Noel. He 
 did not know Rene Clinton's name; but he sat 
 opposite to him at the supper-table. That eve- 
 ning I walked a little in the quadrangle with 
 Noel, and he said suddenly : 
 
 "I say, Father Anthony, that boy who was op- 
 posite me at supper is a new guest, isn't he 4 ?" 
 
 "Yes," I replied. "It is his first visit here." 
 
 "He looks fitter for your 'house of peace,' 
 doesn't he?' said Noel. 
 
 "Do you think so 4 ?" 
 
 "Do not you ? He gave me the queerest feel- 
 ing as I sat opposite to him." 
 
 "What was that, Noel?' 
 
 "All the world suddenly became a sort of
 
 RENE 41 
 
 shadow of some other world which was the real 
 thing a sort of Plato's cave." 
 
 "That is rather interesting. Did you feel this 
 long?' 
 
 "Whenever I thought of the boy. I didn't 
 like it. I like to be on solid ground, not sha- 
 dow-land. What is that fellow's name?" 
 
 "Rene Clinton." 
 
 "Rene Clinton ! Not the Clinton's son?" 
 
 "Yes. The Clinton's son." 
 - "But he is half-witted, isn't he?' 
 
 "I do not know, Noel. That is Rene Clin- 
 ton, at all events." 
 
 Noel Cardross stared at me silently. I sup- 
 pose he had heard much chatter and gossip con- 
 cerning Rene Clinton. He knew he must not 
 import them to Brent, for gossip is totally for- 
 bidden here. It is almost the only rule I never 
 relax. He began to talk of other matters. His 
 words rested in my mind; they fitted in with 
 those uttered years ago by Alison respecting "the 
 sprite from One Holly." 
 
 I had no opportunity of talking with Rene
 
 42 THE WHITE ISLAND 
 
 on Sunday. On Monday afternoon I asked him 
 whether he would walk a little way with me in 
 the Forest. 
 
 The salt air from the sea, five miles distant, 
 blew through the pines. There was no sound 
 save the coo of a wood-pigeon, and the soft 
 chanting of the boughs overhead. On the "open 
 Forest" beyond the pines a herd of ponies were 
 feeding. 
 
 We walked in silence. I noted it was a very 
 sympathetic and speechful silence. Both Rene 
 and I were happy in it ; we felt no need to talk. 
 We came to a great circle of barked oaks, ringed 
 round by the pines. They were big trees, and 
 they looked as though carved from frosted sil- 
 ver. One of them had fallen. 
 
 "Let us sit down," said I. 
 
 We did so. There were bushes of black- 
 thorn, white as snow, in the circle. A squirrel 
 skurried across the turf and dashed up a pine 
 tree. Rene broke the silence. 
 
 "I am very glad you have let me come here," 
 he said. "I am very glad my father has not sent
 
 RENE 43 
 
 me to the doctor's. I think I can tell you what 
 I am not able to tell any one else. Something 
 ties my tongue paralyses me. I cannot ex- 
 plain to them. I know their pain. I long to 
 speak. But I cannot. I think I can make you 
 understand. I shall find words. And you will 
 find words to tell them, won't you?" 
 
 "I will try to do so," I said. 
 
 I noticed several things about him as he spoke 
 thus. Firstly, the balanced quietude of his voice 
 and manner. Secondly, I saw he entirely real- 
 ised the position in which he would have been at 
 the doctor's, and it did not trouble him. That 
 is to say, he was not troubled by any feeling of 
 personal pain or wounded vanity at being 
 classed with the mentally unsound. He was 
 quite free from pain which was rooted in self- 
 consciousness, self-assertion or pride. His pain 
 was solely for the pain of his father and mother. 
 That he desired to soothe. 
 
 "Father Standish," he said, his solemn lumi- 
 nous eyes resting steadily on mine, "I can- 
 not learn the things they want me to learn,
 
 44 THE WHITE ISLAND 
 
 nor remember those they want me to remember." 
 
 "Why not?' 
 
 "Because I am held fast by something else. It 
 is something so tremendous, and I am such a 
 speck in comparison, that I do not know how it 
 is I am not blotted out in it entirely. It claims 
 all I am, and all I have; there is not a single 
 thing in me, mind and body, it does not claim. 
 I cannot learn nor remember things which seem 
 to have no real value, no real existence, no life 
 in themselves. That is to say, I cannot learn 
 or remember them while this tremendous Some- 
 thing holds and claims me." 
 
 "What is this Something*?" I asked in a low 
 voice. 
 
 He suddenly blushed like a shy girl. 
 
 "I think," he said, in a whisper, "it is God." 
 
 "Do you mean," I said gently, "that you are 
 always thinking of Him, Rene?" 
 
 "No/* he answered in the same whisper, "I 
 am not thinking of Him, Father Anthony. It is 
 He Who is thinking of me. His Power flows 
 down on me, and I I drown in It !"
 
 RENE 45 
 
 I answered in a voice almost as low as his. It 
 seemed natural to whisper mysteries in that en- 
 chanted circle of the Forest. 
 
 "What has this to do with your White 
 Island?" 
 
 "When He holds me so close it is agony not 
 to see Him," said Rene in a mere breath of 
 sound. "Then sometimes I am there." 
 
 "In the White Island?' 
 
 He nodded. 
 
 "Has it changed since you told me of it be- 
 fore?" 
 
 "It could not change. Because I change I see 
 it differently. That is all." 
 
 "In what way do you see it differently?" 
 
 "I do not see it as an island now. But it is 
 the same place as that in which I was as a child. 
 The only thing I see now is the Whiteness that 
 is Life. In the whiteness I see the Joyous Shep- 
 herd. And I hear music." 
 
 "Do you know now why you call Him thus?" 
 
 "Of course !" he said with a look of surprise. 
 "Victory is joyous,"
 
 4 6 THE WHITE ISLAND 
 
 He bent a little towards me on the oak and 
 sang under his breath these words : 
 
 "Call home My dreaming sheep, 
 My sheep that stray; 
 
 Lost in the dreams they fashion day by day. 
 Sheep black and white are Mine, 
 I shepherd all. 
 
 I hear their crying when for Me they call. 
 I am the Shepherd of all flocks that be, 
 Nor any craft may part My sheep from Me." 
 
 "Do you hear those words'?" I asked. 
 
 "No. No words. But that is the message of 
 the whiteness and the music." 
 
 "Rene," said I, "when you and I know each 
 other even better than we do now; when you 
 have been here a little longer, then I will go and 
 see your parents and try to tell them the truth 
 as far as I see and understand it." 
 
 We sat a little longer in the still oak circle. 
 While we were there we did not speak. But as 
 we walked homewards I spoke of an idea which 
 was slowly shaping itself in my mind. 
 
 The sight of the boy, with his illuminated 
 face, and the hearing of his strange words, re-
 
 RENE 47 
 
 minded me of the legends of those saints of the 
 desert, who, caught into the embrace of God in 
 deep contemplation, had yet woven with their 
 hands palm mats, which they sold, less to supply 
 their own small needs than to fulfil the duty of 
 almsgiving to the poor. 
 
 "Rene," I said, "do you think you could do 
 manual work?" 
 
 "If I did not have to think about it very 
 much, I think I could," he replied. 
 
 "Do you remember the little garden of the 
 Holy Child?" 
 
 "Quite well," he answered. "Yesterday I 
 went in there, and I remembered it at once." 
 
 "Could you keep the grass cut, and the hedges 
 clipped in that garden? We have a gardener, 
 and he would show you what you must do. He 
 needs help ; many of those in the 'house of peace' 
 work in the gardens in their spare time. Would 
 you take care of that little garden?" 
 
 He assented, and seemed to be pleased. The 
 next day I moved him from the guest-house to 
 the House of Peace. He fell into the quiet life
 
 48 THE WHITE ISLAND 
 
 there readily and naturally. Those in that 
 house, though unvowed, are bound by some few 
 and simple rules, more especially of silence. 
 
 I did not tell Rene of those rules. He pre- 
 served silence by reason of that invisible con- 
 straint which held him. He glided in and out of 
 the still house as though it were his natural home 
 and abiding-place. He worked in the garden 
 day by day, and his face grew more and more 
 luminous with a kind of inner rapture. "De- 
 spised and rejected of men," he seemed to have 
 found his haven of waiting. I use those words 
 "haven of waiting" designedly ; I was persuaded 
 then, and I know now, that my duty to God was 
 to provide that haven, where a chosen vessel 
 might wait till the appointed hour; might wait, 
 hidden then as now, till the storm burst and the 
 Day of the Lord declared itself. 
 
 The silent work of God ! The silent, veiled 
 workers in His Vineyard ! How little we know 
 of either, and how little we heed them! The 
 Eternal Sacrifice goes on ; the sacrificial cups are 
 brimmed and poured out to His Glory, and we,
 
 RENE 49 
 
 knowing nothing of the heart of things, pursue 
 our shadow-tasks and say, "See how our works 
 endure." 
 
 There is a man in our house of peace named 
 Gereth Fenton. God has given him a gift. He 
 has a power of intercessory prayer which has, 
 ere now, wrought miracles in souls and bodies. 
 He had lived in our house here for fifteen or six- 
 teen years when Rene Clinton came to live un- 
 der the same roof. 
 
 I saw there was an instant unspoken recogni- 
 tion of each other between these two. They 
 said nothing; but somewhat which lay beyond 
 speech met, and metaphorically clasped hands. 
 They were comrades. 
 
 Fenton works a good deal in the garden in his 
 spare time. 
 
 He was working there one day when I passed 
 by; he was cutting the grass near the garden of 
 the Holy Child. At the same moment I saw 
 Rene. He was standing on a low step-ladder 
 clipping the box hedge ; I could smell the pun- 
 gent scent of the severed boughs.
 
 fo THE WHITE ISLAND 
 
 I paused by Fenton. 
 
 "Gereth," said I, "do you know Rene Clinton 
 is 'a case of arrested development' *?" 
 
 Our eyes met; and we both smiled. Finally 
 Fenton said : 
 
 "It is a case of a crystal cup for Living Water, 
 Father Anthony." 
 
 I nodded ; and passed on in silence.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 r MRS. CLINTON ASSERTS HERSELF 
 
 THE month of Rene's probation at Brent ended 
 early in June. I wrote to Mrs. Clinton saying I 
 was obliged to come to town on business during 
 the first week of August. I said I wished to see 
 her and Mr. Clinton, and to speak with them 
 concerning their son; in the meantime I should 
 be very glad for him to remain at Brent as a 
 guest. 
 
 I received a letter from her, and also one from 
 Clinton. They said, as I expected them to do, 
 that they would be in the country, but would 
 come up to town to meet me. 
 
 I went to their house on the day they ap- 
 pointed. It was a large house ; it was rilled with 
 the beautiful superfluities with which rich peo- 
 ple, possessed of artistic discrimination, burden 
 themselves. 
 
 Si
 
 52 THE WHITE ISLAND 
 
 Mrs. Clinton was occupied in some kind of 
 elaborate fancy work. Her daughter Margaret 
 was with her. She was a very handsome, grace- 
 ful girl ; she certainly looked very vigorous and 
 intellectual. She knew, of course, the object of 
 my visit ; her mother was obviously nervous and 
 acutely anxious. Margaret took command of 
 the situation ; she talked with me easily and nat- 
 urally, so that her mother could maintain si- 
 lence; and almost immediately after her fa- 
 ther's entrance she slipped unobtrusively into 
 the conservatory and vanished. I realised how 
 intensely painful to Clinton must be the con- 
 trast between this capable and self-possessed girl 
 and the boy on whom he had built such hopes. 
 He was very courteous in his manner to me, 
 though rather ceremonious. I guessed the cour- 
 tesy and ceremony veiled an intense annoyance ; 
 springing, not from antagonism to me, but from 
 wounded pride. 
 
 He hated to feel that Rene was with me at 
 Brent. He yielded to his wife in the matter; 
 partly because he loved her, and desired to miti-
 
 MRS. CLINTON ASSERTS HERSELF 53 
 
 gate her pain, though in doing so he increased 
 his own; partly because he was just; he recog- 
 nised her rights in the child she bore and reared ; 
 and he recognised, too, that he owed much to her 
 wealth and her social tact. 
 
 But he would rather Rene had been with 
 a little known physician in a quiet country 
 place, and one among two or three "border- 
 land cases" calling for no remark, and ex- 
 citing no special interest. A great many people 
 come to Brent. Many of them know Clinton 
 personally. All know him by repute. He 
 felt that at Brent Rene's "deficiency" was kept 
 before the public eye. However, his words 
 showed he expected this annoyance was about 
 to end. 
 
 "I told my wife, Father Standish," he said, 
 "that we have been most selfish and incon- 
 siderate towards you." 
 
 "In what way, Mr. Clinton*?" I asked. 
 
 "Brent is obviously not the proper place for 
 Rene," he answered. "We place you in the 
 unpleasant position of having to tell us so.'*
 
 54 THE WHITE ISLAND 
 
 "But Brent is precisely the place where your 
 son ought to be," I replied. 
 
 I saw Mrs. Clinton twist her elaborate work 
 into a bundle, and toss it into a basket with 
 a reckless hand. 
 
 "Ah!" said Clinton. 
 
 He put up his eyebrows in a startled fash- 
 ion. Then he fitted his finger-tips together 
 judicially, and prepared to listen, analyse and 
 detect flaws in my discourse. 
 
 For he saw I was going to discourse, and pre- 
 pared himself with the stolid resignation with 
 which some men brace themselves in their pews 
 when the text is given out. 
 
 "Your son is not in the guest-house now," I 
 said. "I ought to tell you that. I hope you 
 will not disapprove of the arrangement I have 
 made." 
 
 I thought he looked relieved, and rather 
 pleased. 
 
 "Certainly not," he said. "I feel sure we 
 shall approve of anything you have seen fit to
 
 MRS. CLINTON ASSERTS HERSELF 55 
 
 do. I can well understand that with your other 
 guests " 
 
 Mrs. Clinton broke in: 
 
 "Father Standish," she said, "where is 
 Rene?' 
 
 "He is in the other house, Mrs. Clinton," I 
 answered placidly. 
 
 It was rather wicked of me. I am afraid 
 I enjoyed launching a thunderbolt at Clinton. 
 
 "The other " 
 
 "The House of Peace," I said. 
 
 "But that is for for " 
 
 "For people who have special and definite 
 vocation," said I. "Precisely! That is why 
 I have put him there." 
 
 She leaned forward breathlessly. Her eyes 
 were swimming with tears. 
 
 "O tell us! tell us!" she sobbed. 
 
 "Theresa, my dear," said Clinton, rather 
 irritably, "surely it is a pity to give way to 
 emotion. The matter is so exquisitely painful 
 to both of us, as Father Standish will under- 
 stand, that I feel we need to guard against
 
 56 THE WHITE ISLAND 
 
 natural emotion, and try to judge the whole 
 distressing question reasonably and imperson- 
 ally." 
 
 Then he turned to me. 
 
 "I am, of course, very anxious to hear your 
 view, Father Standish," he said politely. 
 
 "I think I understood from Mrs. Clinton," 
 said I, "that the most distinguished amongst 
 the physicians you have consulted were frankly 
 puzzled by your son's case?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "They declined to diagnose. They said they 
 had seen no case like it, and had no data upon 
 which to go?" 
 
 "That is true." 
 
 "The lesser authorities also admitted they 
 had never encountered such a case?" 
 
 "They did." 
 
 "But they were rather more dogmatic. 
 They did diagnose. They thought the de- 
 velopment of the brain must have been ar- 
 rested."
 
 MRS. CLINTON ASSERTS HERSELF 57 
 
 "That is what they said must have hap- 
 pened." 
 
 " Tools rush in where angels fear to tread/ " 
 I said. "That is my own case. For I am going 
 to diagnose." 
 
 "Have you special medical knowledge, 
 Father Standish?" said Clinton, suavely. But 
 there was an edge in his voice, as though he 
 felt instinctively I was about to say something 
 he would oppose. 
 
 "None," said I. "But I've had some little 
 experience along other lines." 
 
 He bowed, and became attentive. 
 
 "So far from your son's brain being under- 
 developed," I went on, "I believe it is ultra- 
 developed. I believe it is an instrument more 
 delicately fashioned and more truly balanced 
 than those of his contemporaries. It is a 
 brain and nervous system in advance of his 
 age. It is abnormal indeed abnormally 
 healthy and sane, or it could not sustain the 
 strain of the prodigious spiritual energy which 
 has been brought to bear upon it. It is a case
 
 58 THE WHITE ISLAND 
 
 of an exceptionally pure, healthy and stable 
 body, brain and nervous system." 
 
 "You do not seriously maintain this, Father 
 Standish?" said Clinton slowly. 
 
 "Your son," I continued, "is in touch with 
 a tremendous Reality; with a Reality so great, 
 so overpowering in its claims, so insistent in 
 its demands, that he is incapable of answering 
 any lesser claims or demands." 
 
 "Do you mean," broke in Mrs. Clinton, "do 
 you mean God*?" 
 
 "My dear Theresa!" said Clinton. 
 
 He seemed to feel she had been guilty of a 
 breach of good taste. It was almost as though 
 she had tactlessly introduced the name of an 
 undesirable acquaintance. 
 
 "I do mean that," I said quietly. "The 
 same Power which said, 'Go thy way, for he 
 is a chosen vessel unto me,' has spoken to you 
 through Rene, if you would hear His Voice." 
 
 "The White Island?" said Clinton in a low 
 voice of intense contempt. "Are we to under- 
 stand er "
 
 MRS. CLINTON ASSERTS HERSELF 59 
 
 "When the intensity of the Touch of that 
 unseen Power becomes intolerable," said I 
 steadily, "when the thirst of the soul is such 
 that it becomes an imperative need, it should 
 be in some measure relieved, if it cannot be 
 quenched ; then it is sometimes able to share 
 imperfectly in the abiding knowledge of the 
 spirit; it becomes aware of something which 
 it can express, imperfectly it is true, in earthly 
 terms." 
 
 "But you do not think," said Mrs. Clinton, 
 "he really goes to to an island?" 
 
 I smiled. 
 
 "Mrs. Clinton," I answered, "if I dream 
 I am walking through the Forest in deep snow, 
 I see the snow, I hear the cracking of the 
 branches, I feel the cold. Then I wake. The 
 wind has shifted to the east. It blows strongly 
 in at my window. I am cold. As cold as 
 snow could make me. That cold is a reality. 
 My dream is my own expression of the reality 
 which has touched me. In dealing with visions 
 I think people make two errors. They either
 
 60 THE WHITE ISLAND 
 
 take the picture the mind has formed for the 
 Reality which inspired it; or, in rejecting the 
 picture as untrue and fallible, they also reject 
 the Inspiration which may be truth and infalli- 
 bility itself." 
 
 I ought to say here that I am not a man of 
 visions. I have had but one vision in my life; 
 and I shall describe it later. I lived for sixty- 
 one years without visions till that experience 
 came to me. 
 
 My friend, David Alison, is a man of knowl- 
 edge in these strange matters. I know him 
 to be sane and truthful; therefore I take his 
 word for it that things unknown to me are 
 possibilities. Alison says my explanation of 
 Rene's childish vision of the "White Island" 
 is, in his view, correct. 
 
 But he also says "visions" are varied in source 
 and nature, and may not be classified under 
 one heading. 
 
 Nor, being a very free-thinking person, is 
 he wholly satisfied by the explanations given
 
 MRS. CLINTON ASSERTS HERSELF 61 
 
 by great mystics and ecstatics, and the classifica- 
 tions of S. Teresa. 
 
 Alison holds that my vision, which I shall 
 tell later, was not, strictly speaking, a vision 
 at all, but simply an exaltation of the physical 
 senses, so that I saw as we shall see when we 
 "rise glorious," or are "caught up to meet 
 the Lord in the air." 
 
 In other words, he believes that what I 
 saw is ever about us as a concrete fact, and 
 not as an image of the mind; that I saw, in 
 effect, the subtler reaches of that divine mys- 
 tery, the material world, under different con- 
 ditions of space and time. 
 
 Alison holds matter to be as holy and glorious 
 as spirit. So that when he speaks of anything 
 as being "material" he intends no lowering 
 of its holiness and worth. Nor does he neces- 
 sarily mean that a thing is holy when he speaks 
 of it as being spiritual. For, as he says, we 
 have the authority of the Apostle to the Gentiles 
 that this is not so; and one whose experience 
 and history were as astounding as those of S.
 
 62 THE WHITE ISLAND 
 
 Paul has a right to be listened to, apart from 
 all question of inspiration. Thus far Alison- 
 I return to my tale. 
 
 "I fear," said Clinton, acidly, "I am at a 
 disadvantage. I am so lamentably ignorant of 
 these matters." (It would be impossible to 
 describe the superiority and rejoicing pride with 
 which he made this humble statement.) "I 
 really know nothing save of facts as they are; 
 of things which are real." 
 
 Mrs. Clinton gave an unsteady laugh ; it was 
 evident her nervous tension was increasing. 
 She pressed her hands together, and her eyes 
 gleamed. 
 
 "I amuse you, Theresa*?" said Clinton, 
 severely. 
 
 "I think Father Standish would say we know 
 nothing of facts as they are, nor of things which 
 are real; and hence our opinions are not worth 
 having." 
 
 "Mrs. Clinton," said I, "you have put some 
 very discourteous and sweeping statements into 
 my mouth."
 
 MRS. CLINTON ASSERTS HERSELF 63 
 
 Clinton made no comment upon his wife's 
 words. His lips set a little harder. I could 
 see he was much displeased, and with some 
 reason. 
 
 "Since I am ignorant," he said, "I have per- 
 haps no right to speak. Nevertheless I hold 
 we have no means of knowledge save that of 
 experience through the senses and by the exer- 
 cise of the reason. To me there is no evidence 
 that your theory is more than the weaving of 
 imagination. You will not, I hope, think me 
 lacking in courtesy if I say this." 
 
 "By no means," I said. "It is a very natural 
 view for you to take." 
 
 "I am grateful to you, Father Standish," 
 went on Clinton. "Exceedingly grateful ! Do 
 not doubt that. But I so entirely disagree 
 with you, I so entirely deny the soundness of 
 your conclusions, that I feel Rene ought not 
 to remain at Brent." 
 
 I was prepared for that. I thought and 
 prayed much before I decided to speak. But 
 I was sure I was not justified in concealing my
 
 64 THE WHITE ISLAND 
 
 view ; and I was pledged to Rene to try whether 
 I could explain his condition to his parents. I 
 was, moreover, quite sure he was in the Hands 
 of One Who would do with him according to 
 His Will. 
 
 "That is, of course, for you to decide," I said 
 gently. "I have told you my view. Rene is 
 living in great peace and contentment at Brent, 
 and he is doing useful work in the garden. I 
 find he can do simple manual work in spite of 
 his intense absorption. But whether he re- 
 mains where he is or not, is for you to decide." 
 
 "Certainly," said Clinton. "I feel I must 
 decide to remove him." 
 
 Then Mrs. Clinton rose. She was a hand- 
 some, dignified woman, as I have said; but at 
 that moment she was transfigured into a maj- 
 esty of passion that, I think, startled her hus- 
 band, as it startled me. 
 
 "It is not for you to decide!" she cried in 
 a voice that thrilled with passionate command. 
 Her eyes were stern, her whole figure dilated. 
 "It is not for me, either. It is decided, and not
 
 MRS. CLINTON ASSERTS HERSELF 65 
 
 by us! Who are we to decide"? Who are 
 you? Who am I"? What is our life, our work, 
 our use in the world? We dress up our per- 
 sonal desires and worldly ambitions in fine 
 phrases, you and I! We talk of our social 
 service, our patriotism, our additions to the sum 
 of human knowledge. Is there any real prob- 
 lem of life or death you and I can solve? 
 Could we help our own child in his need as 
 Father Standish has done? Who is the more 
 likely to be right you and I who only live 
 for this world, its cares, its needs, its petty hates, 
 and pettier loves, or this man who only lives for 
 God and His Life in his neighbour? It is not 
 for you to decide for my child. And you shall 
 not decide it ! At your peril you decide it !"
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 ANDERSON'S MONGREL 
 
 THERE was a hush in the great luxuriously 
 furnished room after Mrs. Clinton had spoken. 
 The distant rumble of the London streets 
 seemed to make the quiet more apparent. It 
 was as though a great tide of power had rushed 
 through the room, and, sweeping away all op- 
 position, left silence behind it. 
 
 Mrs. Clinton sat down and took the 
 crumpled work out of the basket into which she 
 had flung it. Her hand was shaking. 
 
 Presently Clinton spoke. He spoke with 
 dignity and quietude of manner. 
 
 "I did not know, Theresa," he said, "you 
 took so unfavourable a view of the result of 
 my well-meaning efforts. I am quite aware 
 I cannot solve the problems of life and death. 
 I never pretended to do so. Nor, with all 
 
 66
 
 ANDERSON'S MONGREL 67 
 
 respect to Father Standish, do I think any one 
 else has, or is likely to do so. That is beside 
 the question. I fully grant you have a right 
 to have a voice with regard to Rene. I have 
 always done so. I have never unfairly im- 
 posed my will on yours, nor claimed more than 
 my due share of authority over our children." 
 
 She did not answer him. For the moment 
 he had the advantage of her; his manner was 
 calm, his words just and right. I think she 
 was a little ashamed of the passion she had 
 shown; of the lifting of the conventional veil 
 from the real woman beneath it. 
 
 "Father Standish," said Clinton, "we owe 
 you an apology. You have been kindness 
 itself. We ought to apologise, not only for 
 an apparent ingratitude on my part, but for an 
 unedifying scene. If you are good enough to 
 keep Rene at Brent, and my wife desires this, 
 I withdraw all opposition to the plan. I do 
 not agree with you. But it is only opinion 
 against opinion. There's no proof either way ; 
 though I think the evidence is on my side. I
 
 68 THE WHITE ISLAND 
 
 leave Rene in my wife's hands and yours. I 
 must go now. I have an appointment. You 
 will stay a little longer, will you not? My 
 wife will want more news of Rene, I know." 
 
 He shook hands and went away. I think he 
 certainly behaved extremely well. Mrs. Clin- 
 ton looked up at me. There were tears in her 
 eyes. 
 
 "Perhaps I spoke too strongly," she said. "I 
 fear I did. But I could not bear to think of 
 Rene leaving you. I felt desperate. It is 
 wonderful to me that you should learn from 
 him what neither his father, nor I, nor the doc- 
 tors could learn. Do you say he is happy and 
 at work in the garden? Has he talked to you 
 of these things? He never seemed to be able 
 to talk freely nor coherently to us. I suppose 
 it is a kind of spiritual freemasonry." 
 
 I talked awhile with the poor anxious mother; 
 and I returned to Brent the next day. 
 
 The harvest was garnered early at Brent in 
 the autumn of 1913. It was the last harvest 
 my dear son Jesse Cameron reaped. He man-
 
 ANDERSON'S MONGREL 69 
 
 aged the farm for me till he left me a year 
 later. He reaps no earthly harvests more; but 
 I think he has store of sheaves otherwhere. 
 They were stacking the corn as the reaping- 
 machine cast the sheaves forth. The long 
 shadows lay athwart the stubble. I saw Rene 
 in the harvest field. I went to him and told 
 him I had seen his parents, and satisfied them 
 concerning him as far as I could. 
 
 He listened quietly, thanked me, and said he 
 was very glad and grateful. He stood there 
 staring dreamily at the sheaf-stackers. The 
 scene made me think of some lines I once read. 
 They were a recluse's song, the work of a writer 
 of no note. I repeated them to Rene: 
 
 "The little leaves unfolding on the tree 
 Beneath my window, clap their hands to Thee; 
 Softly a-flutter through the purple hours 
 Of midnight stillness ; while the milk-white flow'rs 
 Of yon night-blooming bush send sweetness up, 
 Till voiceless songs to Thee fill my heart's cup. 
 The list'ning air is hanging round the eaves 
 To hear my song to Thee, beloved One; 
 As in the fields they bind the golden sheaves, 
 So garner me and hide me in Thy Heart.
 
 70 THE WHITE ISLAND 
 
 Thy hidden Heart is changeless ; from Its peace 
 Perfume of myrrh and spices flow. 
 Lord, cause their holy incense to increase 
 Within this bitter heart, that I may know 
 The secret fountain whence my life doth flow." 
 
 Rene listened. 
 
 "I think I shall remember them," he said. 
 "I never am sure what I shall remember and 
 what I shan't. It is not in my choice, appar- 
 ently. I suppose that is because I do not really 
 know what is worth remembering and what is 
 not." 
 
 "I should suppose that practically none of 
 us does," I answered. 
 
 Alison met me as I crossed the fields towards 
 the gardens. 
 
 "A queer thing has happened in your absence, 
 Father Anthony," said he. "Do you remem- 
 ber the story of John of the Desert and 
 the tigress?" 
 
 "I do not think I do," I replied. 
 
 "John was a little monk who belonged to 
 a Laura in the desert," said Alison. "There 
 was a tigress who seriously interfered with the
 
 ANDERSON'S MONGREL 71 
 
 comfort of the brethren. The prior, desiring to 
 test John's obedience, told him to bring to him 
 the aggressive beast." 
 
 "Well?" I asked. 
 
 "John, armed with a palm-leaf rope, went 
 in search of the tigress, and led her back in tri- 
 umph to the prior, to his extreme dismay." 
 
 "Why do you tell me that story, David?" 
 I asked. 
 
 "Because of what happened yesterday," he 
 replied. "It made me think of S. Francis and 
 the wolf." 
 
 "What was it?" 
 
 "You know that savage mongrel of Ander- 
 son's. He generally keeps it on the chain, and 
 he is the only person who can go near the brute. 
 It broke loose; his cottage in the village was 
 locked up, and he was away in Lexminster. 
 The dog went hunting in the One Holly woods 
 where they set steel traps for the rabbits, and 
 tore through the gardens here on three legs, 
 howling, with the teeth of the trap fast in his 
 paw. The dog was half mad with pain and
 
 72 THE WHITE ISLAND 
 
 terror; I suppose he tore up here looking for 
 Anderson. He lay down (he's a huge beast, 
 you know) exhausted, dripping with blood, 
 panting and snarling. No one cared to touch 
 him. Anderson was away, and I don't know 
 where Cameron was. Rene came mooning 
 through the garden, and became aware of the 
 dog. He walked up to him ; he was, of course, 
 a perfect stranger to the beast. 'Look out, Clin- 
 ton !' I said. 'Don't touch him, sir,' said one of 
 the men. 'He ain't safe any time, and he's half 
 mad now.' Rene didn't seem to hear. He 
 knelt down, took the dog's leg in hie hands, 
 opened the trap, released the paw, examined it 
 a little to see whether the bone was broken, 
 laid his hand on the beast and 'gentled' him 
 all down his back, flung the trap into a bush, 
 and walked away as though he was in a brown 
 study. The dog snarled at us like a demon, 
 and limped back to the village. The men 
 gasped silently, save one who remarked, Tm 
 Wowed!'"
 
 ANDERSON'S MONGREL 73 
 
 I smiled. Alison said: "Why do you 
 smile?" 
 
 "I was wondering what theory Mr. Clinton 
 would have evolved if he had been present," 
 I answered. "What would his reason have 
 manufactured from the evidence of his senses 
 to account for it? It would be vain to tell him 
 the story. He would not believe it." 
 
 Nevertheless I told it in a letter to Mrs. 
 Clinton. She wrote in reply : 
 
 "I believe it on your word ; but I understand 
 nothing. What is the purpose of this strange 
 dealing? It causes bitter pain, and seems to 
 waste a life which might be of service. What 
 is the use of it, Father Standish? What is 
 being done? It seems sheer waste. Forgive 
 me if I blaspheme." 
 
 I wrote in answer: 
 
 "You have asked me a question I cannot 
 answer. If I ever can answer it I will do so. 
 There must come a day when we shall see what 
 was done. If I ever see it in this life I will 
 tell you what I see."
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE LITTLE BRETHREN 
 
 I WAS not surprised by that question of Mrs. 
 Clinton's. "What is the use of it? What is 
 being done?" 
 
 There are many records of human lives 
 caught into close union with God. But such 
 lives have not been ineffective in action. Mys- 
 tics and also ecstatics have been fruitful of 
 thought. They have not always been able to 
 express in words their highest flights; but on 
 the whole they have had an astonishing power 
 of expressing experiences which transcend those 
 of the normal mind. Many were learned in 
 theology. They were voluminous writers, and 
 eloquent preachers. For example, we have the 
 writings of S. John of the Cross, Ruysbroek, 
 Tauler, and Angela of Foligno. W T e have the 
 wisdom of Julian of Norwich, the keen psycho- 
 
 74
 
 THE LITTLE BRETHREN 75 
 
 logical insight of S. Teresa; the "Dialogues" 
 of that Catherine who swayed the course of his- 
 tory by her will and intellect. 
 
 If some modern critics have suspected them 
 of delusion and hysteria, no one has called them 
 half-witted or ineffective in action. They pro- 
 duced mighty effects on their age : effects which 
 have reached down to the present day. 
 
 But in Rene Clinton there was nothing of 
 this. He had no revelations ; his mind seemed 
 to be preoccupied. 
 
 Nor was he outwardly very devout. He 
 came frequently to Mass. He made his Com- 
 munion once a month. But he was rarely in 
 the chapel at other times. He could not medi- 
 tate. He could not use intercessory prayer, 
 save in the brief simple words of a child; and 
 with no fervour of mind or heart. He read 
 next to nothing; if he tried to do so, he either 
 became abstracted and unable to comprehend 
 the words, or he went to sleep. His strange 
 condition of absorption bore no visible fruit. 
 
 He spent much time out of doors. I never
 
 76 THE WHITE ISLAND 
 
 interfered with his coming and going. Very 
 often he slept in the Forest ; he was particularly 
 fond of sleeping in the great circle of dead oaks. 
 Alison sympathised with him in this; for he too 
 is fond of sleeping under the sky. 
 
 I think every one save Gereth Fenton 
 was surprised that he lived in the House of 
 Peace. 
 
 But there were certain things about him 
 which all noted, which caused them to think 
 him remarkable. 
 
 The incident of the dog, for example, did 
 not stand alone. No wild creatures were afraid 
 of Rene. I am aware that this has been no- 
 ticed in the case of some people of weak intel- 
 lect. 
 
 I have seen birds, not robins or sparrows 
 which are easily tamed, but a shy bird like a 
 wood-pigeon, fly down from a tree and light on 
 his shoulder as he gardened. 
 
 In the summer of 1913 I was standing on 
 a heather-covered barrow in the open Forest, 
 from which I could see rabbits playing in a
 
 THE LITTLE BRETHREN 77 
 
 warren. Rene walked through the warren; no 
 rabbit ran away. He stooped, picked up a 
 young one, and looked at it. 
 
 The little thing did not struggle. When he 
 set it down it skipped happily about his feet. 
 
 Alison told me he met him in the Forest 
 carrying a fox-cub ; the vixen trotted beside him 
 like a dog, quite untroubled. She scented Ali- 
 son and bolted; Rene set the cub down to run 
 after her, which it did with speed. 
 
 Once, in the early spring of 1914, when the 
 Forest was full of primroses, Alison and he 
 walked to the oak circle together. It was warm 
 and sunny. On the fallen oak there lay, sun- 
 ning itself, a little shiny brown snake. 
 
 "That's an adder," said Alison, and looked 
 for a stick. 
 
 Refore he found one, Rene picked the thing 
 up. It writhed round his wrist but did not 
 bite him. He uncoiled it, laid it on the 
 heather, and it slipped away. 
 
 "Don't kill it," said Rene, "it likes to live." 
 
 Fear, twin brother of Hate, fled before him,
 
 78 THE WHITE ISLAND 
 
 He brought with him the peace of the City of 
 God. 
 
 We never discussed these things at Brent. 
 We rarely mentioned them among ourselves; 
 whenever we did so it was but by a passing 
 reference. Outside Brent we never spoke of 
 them at all. We have an unspoken, unwritten 
 law which forbids it. 
 
 We were content to wait. We were not 
 eager to understand. The sense of the presence 
 of a veiled power continually at work is so fa- 
 miliar to many in this place, that they have 
 ceased to be eager to know concerning much 
 which is real and ever-present, but not visible 
 nor tangible. 
 
 It gave me at times a sensation partly of 
 surprise, partly of amusement, partly of sad- 
 ness, when I heard people who took all things 
 at their obvious or face value speak of Rene. 
 It is strange how many there be who take their 
 convictions on many matters from carelessly 
 uttered words, which they have heard, at the 
 time, as carelessly.
 
 THE LITTLE BRETHREN 79 
 
 It makes me wonder whether it is possible to 
 write history, even contemporary history, cor- 
 rectly. We live on the outside of things. We 
 have no measure to gauge the deeps below the 
 surface. We do not know a tithe of what is 
 happening in our very presence. 
 
 In November we had our cottage chrysanthe- 
 mum show. There was a large marquee in the 
 vicarage garden to hold the exhibits. As I 
 walked through and admired the bitter-smell- 
 ing blooms, I met Mrs. Finch. 
 
 She is the wife of the vicar of a neighbour- 
 ing parish; she has many excellent qualities. 
 But she has not, perhaps, a very deep insight 
 into life and character. 
 
 Mrs. Finch said to me : 
 
 "We all think it so very good of you, Father 
 Standish, to take care of that poor half-witted 
 young man." 
 
 "Who is that?" I asked. 
 
 "Why !" she replied, "this poor young Clin- 
 ton, of course. So good of you! Every one 
 says so. Every one is talking about it!"
 
 80 THE WHITE ISLAND 
 
 I made an attempt, at this point, to procest 
 against erroneous ideas. Mrs. Finch thought it 
 was an attempt inspired by my modest depreca- 
 tion of praise, and she went on in spile of me. 
 
 "You know," she said, "I am always sure 
 it is a direct judgment upon Mr. Clinton for 
 his pride of intellect and neglect of religion." 
 
 It is always an abounding source of amaze- 
 ment to me to note the light-hearted way in 
 which many good people refer to that most 
 awful fact of the judgments of God; as though 
 we were in any way capable of differentiating 
 between His judgment and His Mercy. For 
 I cannot but think that much which we call 
 judgment is mercy, and those things we hail as 
 mercy are, in truth, judgments. 
 
 "Mr. Clinton never went to church when they 
 were at One Holly," said Mrs. Finch. 
 
 "Mrs. Clinton did," said I, "she and the 
 children came regularly to Brent church." 
 
 "Mrs. Clinton! Yes, poor woman! Lady 
 Lansworthy says she is a good Churchwoman. 
 But her husband never went, I'm told,"
 
 THE LITTLE BRETHREN 81 
 
 "But the judgment, if it be a judgment, falls 
 just as heavily on her, doesn't it*?" 
 
 "That is true ; and very sad. But I am per- 
 suaded I am right. People cannot neglect re- 
 ligion with impunity." 
 
 "That is an undoubted fact," I replied. 
 "But have you reflected that if the result of 
 non-attendance at church is to have half-witted 
 sons, the larger part of the male population 
 of England would be mentally deficient?" 
 
 "Of course judgments vary in their nature," 
 said Mrs. Finch, with great decision. "But 
 now, Father Standish, do you think you are 
 entirely wise?" 
 
 "I am quite sure I am not," I answered. 
 "Why do you suspect me of such a vain-glorious 
 delusion*?" 
 
 "You are laughing at me," said Mrs. Finch. 
 "It's too bad of you! But, seriously, do you 
 think it safe for him to wander about in the 
 Forest"? I understand he sometimes slept out 
 there during the summer." 
 
 "Why, there's nothing to hurt him in the
 
 82 THE WHITE ISLAND 
 
 Forest, unless it's an adder, or an occasional 
 viper," said I; "and they do not constitute a 
 serious danger, for any one who is moderately 
 careful. There are a few snakes in most coun- 
 try places in England. I don't know of any- 
 thing which could hurt him." 
 
 "Not to hurt him! But suppose he hurt 
 some one else." 
 
 "Hurt some one else !" I exclaimed. I really 
 did not see what she meant. It was dull of 
 me. 
 
 "You can never tell what a poor afflicted 
 creature like that may do," said Mrs. Finch. 
 "He might suddenly take it into his head to kill 
 some one." 
 
 "He might, certainly," I replied. "So might 
 I. So might you. But I do not think we 
 shall, do you?" 
 
 "O, but it is not the same! A half-witted 
 person, poor creature! is never to be depended 
 upon." 
 
 "True!" said I."" "But Re*ne Clinton is not 
 half-witted."
 
 THE LITTLE BRETHREN 83 
 
 "Not! O Father Standish! Not? You 
 don't mean that, surely*?" 
 
 "I certainly do mean it," I answered. 
 
 "O, but surely he is! They all say so!" 
 
 "They are all wrong," I replied, "and you 
 may tell them so decisively on my authority. 
 But I must not discuss the matter. I never 
 discuss those who live at Brent, you know. It 
 is against my rule."
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 WRECKAGE 
 
 I THINK the culmination of the story of Rene 
 will be more easily understood, if I describe 
 one or two incidents which took place at Brent 
 during the winter of 1913 and onwards till 
 the summer of 1917, when the culmination to 
 which I have referred was witnessed by me. 
 When I use the word "culmination" I apply 
 it to the point at which I understood the whole 
 matter much more clearly. For of course his 
 story has not culminated and could not do so. 
 The mystery of Rene is one which does not 
 change and therefore cannot culminate. 
 
 I will now select two or three things which 
 came to pass during the period I have men- 
 tioned. I will set them down in order, so that 
 the nature of the "strange work" may be bet- 
 ter perceived. 
 
 84
 
 WRECKAGE 85 
 
 In the winter of the year in which Rene came 
 to Brent, that is to say in November, 1913, 
 a man was brought to the guest-house who was 
 in a terrible condition of mind and body. 
 
 His story was briefly this: 
 
 He was a man of good birth and education, 
 and some means. He was brought up by his 
 mother, who was a widow, as a strict Calvinist. 
 There was a strong affection between her and 
 her child, but very little understanding on her 
 side. She never guessed how her religious 
 teaching at once impressed and terrified his 
 imagination, till it was a real blight upon his 
 soul. He broke away from this form of faith 
 at Oxford. For a while he was without re- 
 ligion; but he lived a clean and upright life. 
 
 It was a foregone conclusion he would find 
 some form of faith. He was a man to whom 
 life would not have been life without it. He 
 was naturally enthusiastic and idealistic, a man 
 to lead a forlorn hope, or throw away his life 
 recklessly for a noble idea. As a matter of 
 fact he has done so. He lies to-day in an hon-
 
 86 THE WHITE ISLAND 
 
 cured grave in France; and we, for whom he 
 gave his life, pray in love and gratitude for his 
 soul's peace. 
 
 When he left college and went to London he 
 became a Catholic. He was deeply in earnest ; 
 and he believed, after a while, that he was 
 called to the priesthood. He may have been 
 right. 
 
 Just as he was preparing to begin his theo- 
 logical training he met a man, older than him- 
 self, who had a strong influence over the minds 
 of others. He had a most curious and sinister 
 influence over the minds of men younger than 
 himself. He seemed to dazzle and glamour 
 them; he was extremely brilliant in conversa- 
 tion, I believe, and had a great faculty for 
 making black seem white, and vice versa. 
 
 He was either a brilliant madman or ab- 
 normally wicked; for he had an insensate 
 hatred of anything of the nature of religion. 
 If he met a man who had faith, he strove with 
 all his might either to undermine that faith, or 
 to cause the person who adhered to it to do
 
 WRECKAGE 87 
 
 something to disgrace it, and discredit it in the 
 eyes of the world. For you know how a re- 
 ligion is often discredited simply because its 
 professors live in defiance of its teachings; and 
 people cry out that such and such a faith has 
 failed, when it has simply never been put into 
 practice but merely professed with the tongue. 
 
 In the case of the unhappy young fellow 
 whose tale I am telling I will call him Lester; 
 it is not his name nor anything like it he suc- 
 ceeded in doing the latter. 
 
 It is not needful to give details. If I did, 
 you might trace the matter, which I do not de- 
 sire. Suffice it to say that he succeeded very 
 thoroughly indeed. 
 
 There was a terrible scandal. Lester dis- 
 appeared, in an agony of shame and remorse, 
 from the ken of all who knew and loved him. 
 He was very lovable; and there were many 
 who cared for him greatly. His mother, I am 
 thankful to say, was dead. 
 
 At the end of a year one of his friends found
 
 88 THE WHITE ISLAND 
 
 him. He was in a most deplorable condition; 
 not in poverty, for he had some means. 
 
 He was living with the very dregs of the 
 people with the totally submerged. He 
 slept in the lowest common lodging-houses. 
 Sometimes he walked the streets all night, and 
 slept on the grass in Regent's Park all day. 
 
 You have probably seen those people 
 regular habitues of that park. I have seen 
 them sleeping on the sodden wet ground in 
 November and December; lying on the dank 
 grass with a black-yellow fog brooding over 
 them like a pall. At night when the park closes 
 they rise; they drift out and go on their way. 
 They walk the streets by night ; they earn their 
 living during the dark hours by strange and 
 sometimes terrible shifts. 
 
 With these, our unheeded brethren, Lester 
 was living herding with them, rather 
 when his friend found him. He had not taken 
 to drink, thank God ! nor yet to drugs. 
 
 He was clad in filthy rags ; he was unwashed,
 
 WRECKAGE 89 
 
 and his face was covered with a stubbly beard. 
 He looked like the lowest type of tramp. 
 
 In that condition he was brought to Brent. 
 He was in no state for the guest-house. His 
 nervous condition alone would have forbid- 
 den it. When he was clean, and shaven, and 
 decently clad, I put him in the little flat for 
 invalids. 
 
 At first he seemed to be plunged in a depres- 
 sion too deep for speech. He sat, numb and 
 impassive, in the porch room of the flat, look- 
 ing straight in front of him. If I asked him 
 a question he just answered me. Sometimes 
 he did not answer at all, save by an impatient 
 shrug of the shoulders. 
 
 But one day he raised his heavy eyes to my 
 face and said: 
 
 "What sheer waste of time!" 
 
 "What do you mean 4 ?" I asked. 
 
 He replied: 
 
 "Waste of your time! What on earth can 
 it matter whether I'm clean and fed and de- 
 cent in appearance?"
 
 go THE WHITE ISLAND 
 
 "I suppose," I answered, "it matters as much 
 for you as it does for any one, Lester." 
 
 "That's just where you're wrong," he 
 answered. 
 
 "Wherein am I wrong*?" said I. 
 
 "Don't you see what has happened?" asked 
 he. "Do you really not know*?" 
 
 "Know what?" I asked. 
 
 "Know that my soul's past praying for," he 
 replied. "Don't you know it is damned here 
 and now in time, and nothing you or anybody 
 else can do can save it? If you don't know, 
 you must be stone blind !" 
 
 I was very thankful he had begun to talk 
 at last. I found out little by little the ghastly 
 notion which possessed his tortured brain. 
 The old Calvinistic leaven of his babyhood, 
 which terrified his childhood, and had been re- 
 jected by his manhood, was at work. 
 
 Those early impressions made upon the 
 brain and nerves are terribly indelible. They 
 are like the searing of red-hot irons upon the 
 flesh.
 
 WRECKAGE 91 
 
 Reason may reject them; they may be for- 
 gotten in the press of life; but there comes an 
 hour of weakness, a time of overstrain, and 
 they creep back cruel ghosts! out of the 
 shadows, to haunt and bewilder. It was thus 
 with poor Lester. In the weakness produced 
 by his bitter shame and remorse the old beliefs 
 returned. He was quite convinced he was pre- 
 destined to damnation. 
 
 "No," he said, shaking his head, "no argu- 
 ment you can use will persuade me. Look at 
 it for yourself! If I, a Catholic in belief, a 
 Catholic in practice, could, in spite of my faith, 
 in spite of the Sacraments, in spite of prayer, 
 fall into mortal sin, it is a sign that I am 
 willed by God to perish. You sin in trying to 
 save me." 
 
 "That is a most outrageous belief," I said. 
 
 "It is reasonable," he answered. "If it is 
 God's will I should be lost, and you try to 
 save me, you are opposing His Will, and put-* 
 ting yourself in great peril."
 
 92 THE WHITE ISLAND 
 
 I spoke to him of the Sacraments of pen- 
 ance and absolution. 
 
 "There is no absolution for me," he replied. 
 "If I received Holy Communion, it would be 
 sacrilege ; I should increase my eternal torture." 
 
 "Surely," I said, "God is all-powerful. He 
 can save you." 
 
 "He could," he answered, "but, as I tell 
 you, He does not will to do so." 
 
 '"What of repentance?" I asked. 
 
 "Repentance does not avail for me," said 
 Lester. "I do repent. I loathed my sin di- 
 rectly I realised its hideousness. But that 
 makes no difference to my future fate/' 
 
 "How can you dishonour God's Love by 
 such a terrible thought?" I said. 
 
 "His Love is for others," he answered. 
 "For me there is nothing save His Wrath, I 
 think I am glad." 
 
 "Glad!" I exclaimed 
 
 "Glad," he answered. "My betrayal of my 
 faith, and my sin, are so abhorrent to me, I
 
 WRECKAGE 93 
 
 am almost glad to know my anguish and my 
 punishment will never cease." 
 
 This terrible condition of mind lasted 
 throughout the winter. I said all I could think 
 of to help him. I assured him that pardon 
 was his if he repented. I laid before him all 
 the arguments I could, to show how monstrous 
 was the doctrine which possessed his mind. 
 Gereth Fenton spent whole days and nights in 
 prayer for him. Nothing availed. His con- 
 dition grew worse; and I never encountered 
 before such marvellous facility as he possessed 
 for inventing horrible and fantastic possibili- 
 ties which might result from his supposedly 
 hopeless condition. 
 
 There came one of those days which some- 
 times come in February. It was very mild, 
 and the wind was soft and balmy. It was 
 warmer than it often is in June. The little 
 spell of warmth lasted during two or three 
 days. There was a pale blue sky, and the 
 clouds, very light and tenuous, flew low, frail 
 wreaths pf white mist, floating in midair just
 
 94 THE WHITE ISLAND 
 
 over the pine-tree tops; the blue of sky was 
 not veiled by them. We often get such clouds 
 here ; blown in, in light streamers from the sea. 
 
 The catkins were out on the nut-boughs; we 
 have an avenue of old nut-trees in the garden. 
 The "palm" began to show buds like mother 
 o' pearl, not yet dusted with golden pollen. 
 The Garden of the Holy Child was white from 
 end to end with snowdrops. A few golden 
 crocuses peeped up in the gardens; the winter 
 aconite showed its pale green frills and yellow 
 blossoms. In sheltered places in the Forest 
 primroses were in bud. 
 
 Those last few months before the storm 
 broke, and wreckage strewed the world ! 
 
 I persuaded poor Lester to stroll with me 
 in the gardens. It was very difficult, as a rule, 
 to get him to do this. 
 
 As he sat continually brooding, he invented 
 a dreadful fancy that his supposedly lost con- 
 dition* could infect others and drag down their 
 souls to hell with him. 
 
 When he was strongly obsessed by this awful
 
 WRECKAGE 95 
 
 thought he refused to leave the little walled 
 garden attached to his flat. Sometimes he 
 would declare he was having this effect upon 
 me; and he would adjure me solemnly to fly, 
 and leave him. 
 
 But on this occasion I induced him to walk 
 to the Garden of the Holy Child; and we sat 
 down on the broad stone bench where Rene and 
 I ate strawberries nearly fifteen years before. 
 
 As we sat there, Rene came into the garden. 
 He looked intensely absorbed, as though he 
 did not notice us. He had a basket in his hand ; 
 he knelt down and began to pick snowdrops. 
 I found afterwards he was picking them for the 
 chapel of our Lady of Light which Jesse Cam- 
 eron built in the little pine-wood here. 
 
 It had a brass plate on the wall to the mem- 
 ory of Paul Cameron, Jesse's father. It has 
 another now, to the memory of Jesse himself, 
 he who built the place and hallowed it by his 
 vigils and his penitence. 
 
 As Rene knelt in the garden, picking busily 
 the snow-white green-tipped flowers, I became
 
 96 THE WHITE ISLAND 
 
 aware that Lester was leaning back against th 
 closely clipped box hedge which rose like a wall 
 behind the bench. He was slipping sideways, 
 and beginning to breathe very slowly and 
 rhythmically. I looked at him. His eyes 
 were shut; his face was very peaceful; he was 
 going to sleep. I rose softly and lowered him 
 inch by inch on to the bench, without waking 
 him. He was in a profound sleep. I fetched 
 a cushion and slipped it cautiously under his 
 head, and covered him with a rug. He did 
 not stir. He was sleeping very quietly, and 
 his face looked younger ; the lines were smoothed 
 out which were carved between the brows and 
 round the mouth. 
 
 I listened to his slow deep breathing, like 
 that of a child. It was a restful, dreamless 
 sleep and it lasted for more than six hours. 
 It was ten o'clock in the morning when it be- 
 gan, and the sun was just setting when he woke. 
 
 Rene left the gardens with his snowdrops 
 about twenty minutes after Lester went to 
 &leep; but he came back again, and was in and
 
 WRECKAGE 97 
 
 out of the garden all day; he was making a 
 little rockery at the foot of the shrine, and pre- 
 paring there a place to grow some little creep- 
 ing plants. 
 
 When Lester woke, Rene was no longer 
 there. Lester raised himself slowly, looked 
 about him, and drew a long breath. 
 
 I watched him anxiously. I felt sure some- 
 thing had come to pass, during that strange and 
 udden sleep, which would change the situation 
 in some way. But I had no idea what had been 
 effected, nor how it had been done. 
 
 I saw his whole expression was changed. He 
 was another man. He seemed to search his 
 memory for awhile. Then he rose slowly, 
 raised his arms high above his head and 
 stretched his muscles. He looked all round 
 the garden, looked at the pillow and the rug, 
 and then at me. 
 
 "Have I been asleep, Father Standish?" he 
 said. 
 
 His voice was changed. The dull, leaden, 
 hollow sound was gone.
 
 g8 THE WHITE ISLAND 
 
 "Yes," I said, "you slept very soundly." 
 
 "When did I go to sleep?" 
 
 "This morning, after breakfast. It was 
 about ten o'clock." 
 
 "What time is it now?' 
 
 "I think it is nearly five." 
 
 "And how long have I been out of my 
 mind?" 
 
 I hesitated. 
 
 "When was I brought here to Brent?" 
 
 "It was in November." 
 
 "And this month is February, isn't it?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Father Standish," said Lester, "I do not 
 know whether I have really been mad, or 
 possessed by a lying spirit. Perhaps it is the 
 same thing. But I am sane again now. I 
 have sinned, God forgive me, and I shall carry 
 that sorrow to my life's end when I think of it. 
 But I know Who is the Way for me, as for all 
 sinners; I know the way back to Him; I can 
 arise and go to my Father, and He won't cast 
 me out. I know that now. And I know, too,
 
 WRECKAGE 99 
 
 what you have done for me. I can say thank 
 you, and God bless you for it." 
 
 That night, as I knelt before the Tabernacle 
 and gave Him thanks for this great deliver- 
 ance of poor Lester, I saw in a flash, or thought 
 I saw, what had happened to him. I mean I 
 saw wherein his trouble lay, though not the 
 method of his relief. 
 
 The man's soul had long been shriven; it 
 was clean, it was at rest in its repentance, and 
 His pardoning, re-creating Life. But the 
 trouble was with the body, the tortured brain 
 and nerves. 
 
 A Power had touched hint which healed 
 them ; and the torture ceased. In some fashion 
 which I did not then understand at all, Rene 
 was connected with that bodily shriving. 
 
 I wondered whether he was aware of it. I 
 thought I would try to find out whether he 
 knew what had taken place. 
 
 I met him the next day, going about his work 
 as usual. I stopped him, and asked whether 
 he knew Lester by sight.
 
 ioo THE WHITE ISLAND 
 
 He looked at me in his solemn way, per- 
 formed his customary feat of travelling from 
 a vast distance to speak with me, and said : 
 
 "I think not, Father Anthony." 
 
 "I mean the man who was in the Child's Gar- 
 den all day yesterday," said I. 
 
 Rene searched his memory carefully. 
 
 "Was there a man there?" he said. 
 
 "There was. He was sleeping on the bench 
 all day. Did you not see him 1 ?" 
 
 "I must have done, I suppose. But I did 
 not realise it, I think; and I have forgotten it. 
 I am very inattentive and unobservant. I 
 don't notice things. Sleeping there*?" 
 
 "Yes.'' 
 
 "Was he ill?" 
 
 "Yes. He was not at all well." 
 
 "I hope I did not disturb him*?" 
 
 "No," said I, smiling. "Do not be troubled 
 about that. You did not disturb him at all. 
 He was greatly the better for his sleep.** 
 
 "I am glad of that," said Rene.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 RALPH FORBES 
 
 IN the month of March, about three weeks after 
 poor Lester left us, I received a letter exquis- 
 itely spaced, written in a very minute and 
 beautifully legible hand, on very good paper 
 which bore a crest. It was signed Ralph 
 Forbes, and it enclosed a letter of introduction 
 from the Duchess of Garrydale. 
 
 The writer said he wished to spend a short 
 time of quiet and seclusion at Brent, of which 
 he had heard so much. Would I consent to 
 receive him for a fortnight at the guest-house? 
 He would, of course, strictly conform to the 
 rules which prevailed there, whatever they 
 might be. He greatly desired to have a period 
 of reflection and freedom from worldly dis- 
 turbance ; he had heard much of the helpful in- 
 fluences and peaceful atmosphere of Brent. I 
 
 101
 
 102 THE WHITE ISLAND 
 
 did not like the letter; there was something 
 about the phrasing which did not ring true. I 
 disliked the praise of the place, which had in 
 it a tone as of personal flattery. 
 
 But I have never yet refused to receive any 
 one at the guest-house. Whatsoever may be 
 their class or character whether it be high or 
 low I receive them. 
 
 There was no reason why I should refuse to 
 receive this Ralph Forbes. His reason for 
 wishing to come was a legitimate one ; his refer- 
 ence the Duchess of Garrydale, whom I know 
 and respect was unexceptionable. 
 
 I wrote to him accordingly, saying I should 
 be glad to welcome him at the guest-house for 
 a couple of weeks. 
 
 He duly arrived. 
 
 He was a tall, lean, fine-looking, "well- 
 groomed" man of thirty-five. He had very 
 good features, alert eyes, and most agreeable 
 manners. I think some people might have said 
 they were a little too suave ; but that is a mat- 
 ter of taste. Suavity does not mean insincerity
 
 RALPH FORBES 103 
 
 and ulterior motives ; though it is true it some- 
 times suggests them. But the suggestion is, 
 
 C-t7 CJCJ * 
 
 more often than not, a wholly false one. 
 
 I afterwards found out a good deal about 
 Ralph Forbes; which I will set down here. 
 
 He was an Englishman. His father was 
 English, though I suppose his family came 
 originally from Scotland; his mother was an 
 American. He had no profession. He was 
 well off; and he was unmarried. He was edu- 
 cated at Eton and Oxford. He had travelled 
 all over the world, and lived in France, Ger- 
 many, Italy and America; therefore he was 
 very cosmopolitan. He spoke many tongues, 
 was conversant with many customs and ways of 
 living, and did not carry the stamp of nation- 
 ality as most men do. 
 
 He was a man who, having pretty well ex- 
 hausted sensations procured by the obvious and 
 customary, turned, in order to satisfy his crav- 
 ing for knowledge and for sensation in some 
 form, to the less obvious and more unusual. 
 
 Therefore he "went after strange gods."
 
 104 THE WHITE ISLAND 
 
 The worship of God was the one thing it had 
 never occurred to him to try; I think if he had 
 ever thought of it he would have attempted to 
 develop the faculty of worship, simply as a 
 form of self-indulgence. 
 
 He investigated spiritualism, studied Chris- 
 tian Science, joined strange underground sects 
 and cults; cults that avowed themselves to be 
 devil-worshippers; cults that aimed at penetra- 
 ting and reviving the mysteries and "magic" 
 of Egypt. 
 
 He had a morbid craving for wonders, an 
 insatiable curiosity, and an extremely profane 
 mind, veiled by perfectly decorous phrase- 
 ology. 
 
 He met, as a fellow-member of one of his 
 burrowing expeditions into the extraordinary, 
 the man who was mainly responsible for the fall 
 of poor Lester. 
 
 He knew what happened to Lester, and the 
 state he was in. When he returned from Brent, 
 calm, steadfast, ready to face the world, and 
 hopeful in his repentance, this man, Ralph
 
 RALPH FORBES 105 
 
 Forbes, became curious and interested. Of 
 spiritual life, of spiritual power, he knew noth- 
 ing. He called anything spiritual which was 
 inexplicable or "uncanny." He suspected a 
 mystery of "magic" at Brent. He came down 
 to investigate it. 
 
 He was extremely deferential to me ; regard- 
 ing me as the high-priest of an unfamiliar cult. 
 He thought there was an inner organisation at 
 Brent, hidden under orthodox observance. 
 
 He spent a great deal of time in the chapel, 
 kneeling in the most reverent way, after pro- 
 found genuflexions, before the Tabernacle. 
 He would kneel, absolutely immovable, for 
 three or four hours at a stretch. His perse- 
 verance and power of self-discipline were ad- 
 mirable ; I must say that in justice to him. But 
 it was terribly painful to see him; because, 
 though there was nothing to find fault with in 
 his behaviour, I knew well he was simply ex- 
 perimenting in some way. I did not know, at 
 the time, that it was to him a new form of 
 magic. I was sure of this, however, when I
 
 io6 THE WHITE ISLAND 
 
 learned what I afterwards learnt. While he 
 was at Brent I knew none of the details I have 
 just set down. But I was certain there was 
 something amiss, in spite of the blameless, and 
 even praiseworthy, outer practice. 
 
 He was like a miasma in the guest-house. 
 He was the first guest I ever had whom I 
 wished away with all my heart. By the way, 
 I have not given you his real name. 
 
 At the end of three or four days he came 
 to me as I walked across the quadrangle. He 
 had been watching for me from the cloister. 
 
 "Could I speak with you, Father," he said 
 with an air of great reverence and deference. 
 "Your time is precious, I know well " 
 
 "I am quite at your service," said I. 
 "Come to my room, will you not?" 
 
 We left the quadrangle together, and walked 
 silently through the cloister. There is a great 
 Ober-Ammergau crucifix hanging there. Forbes 
 bowed very reverently as he passed the Figure. 
 
 We entered my room, and he declined to sit
 
 RALPH FORBES 107 
 
 down till I was seated. It was done a little 
 ostentatiously. 
 
 He began by lauding the "atmosphere" of 
 Brent ; during the course of all his talk and his 
 song of praise, he slipped in, adroitly, little 
 unexpected questions, as though he thought to 
 surprise some secret, and lead me to betray 
 a knowledge which I wished to hide. 
 
 It puzzled me at the time, because I be- 
 lieved, in my ignorance, that he came to Brent 
 for the reason he assigned; though I realised 
 his long hours in the chapel were not prompted 
 by devotion, but by some other reason which 
 I could not fathom. It was not until the fol- 
 lowing day I realised what the reason was. 
 
 There was no mystery at Brent which I could 
 have betrayed had I desired to do so. There- 
 fore, of course, he surprised nothing and made 
 no discoveries. 
 
 But because he did not believe this, his mind 
 being full of "magic" and "occult secrets," he 
 thought I had deliberately baffled him, and 
 was annoyed.
 
 io8 THE WHITE ISLAND 
 
 At last he said very suavely: 
 
 "I am going to be very presumptuous, 
 Father." 
 
 "I am sorry to hear that," I said, smiling. 
 
 "Will you permit me I know I am asking 
 much will you allow me to hold a vigil in 
 the chapel all night?" 
 
 Since the autumn of 1914 there has been 
 an uninterrupted watch in the chapel at Brent. 
 Although we were short-handed on the farm 
 and in the gardens, so that many, who were 
 commonly employed otherwise, learned to lend 
 a hand in work foreign to them, we neverthe- 
 less maintained our watch night and day, up 
 lifting souls in the storm and stress of the world 
 to God, in Whom is neither storm nor change. 
 Prayer has never ceased for these, since the 
 tempest burst upon us. 
 
 But at the time when Ralph Forbes made 
 his "presumptuous" request, that is to say in 
 March, 1914, the watch was only kept from 
 Prime till Compline. Prime was said at six, 
 and Mass at seven; after Mass the watch went
 
 RALPH FORBES 109 
 
 on till Compline. After Compline, until two 
 o'clock when we met to sing Matins and Lauds, 
 the chapel was unwatched by any visible wor- 
 shipper. 
 
 Gereth Fenton often kept an all-night watch 
 there; I also kept a vigil on occasion; but as 
 a regular thing the chapel was empty from nine 
 till two A.M. In any case I never allowed a 
 guest to watch there alone at night; unless it 
 was for some very special reason. I said this, 
 as politely as I could. Forbes was the last man 
 to whom I would have given permission to do 
 what he desired to do. But there was no need 
 to tell him this; I stated the fact of my usual 
 rule. He was very courteous; declared he 
 quite understood the wisdom of the rule, and 
 then added, tactlessly, that he was, of course, 
 a comparative stranger to me. This little slip 
 on his part showed me he did not believe my 
 words, and thought I was inventing a rule for 
 my own purposes. He was inwardly annoyed 
 at being thwarted. 
 
 We never lock the chapel. In this little
 
 no THE WHITE ISLAND 
 
 quiet place, where I know well every man, 
 woman and child, and we are all one family in 
 our Father's house, there is no reason it should 
 be so. Our Lord keeps open house there night 
 and day for all who would draw near Him. 
 
 I suppose Ralph Forbes found out the chapel 
 was left open. I also suppose he did not know 
 we sang the night office there. The day after I 
 refused him the permission he asked, Gereth 
 Fenton came to me. 
 
 "Father," he said, "I saw something in the 
 chapel last night which you ought to know." 
 
 "What's that, Gereth?" said I. 
 
 I thank God we have no sojourner in our 
 house of peace who is a gossip or a tale-bearer, 
 nor an idle critic of other people's actions; so 
 that I knew Gereth would not come to me thus 
 without very solid reason. 
 
 "I went there at ten o'clock," he replied. 
 "I meant to watch in the Lady Chapel till 
 matins." 
 
 Gereth Fenton often did this, and he had 
 perfect freedom of action from me to do as
 
 RALPH FORBES ill 
 
 he chose in all matters of devotion ; for he was 
 wise and discreet ; he knew his own powers and 
 limitations, and moreover I knew him to be 
 guided of God. 
 
 "I saw some one was already there," went on 
 Gereth. "Some one was kneeling at the fald- 
 stool immediately before the altar. It was 
 rather dark; but I saw at last it was Mr. 
 Forbes. 3 ' 
 
 "Forbes!" said I. 
 
 "I think that is his name. A tall man, and 
 rather striking in appearance." 
 
 "There is a man of that name staying in the 
 guest-house," I answered. 
 
 "I suppose you had given him leave to watch 
 there?" said Gereth. 
 
 "I refused him leave to watch there," I re- 
 plied. 
 
 "Ah! Well, he was there, Father. Since 
 there was already a watcher before the Taber- 
 nacle, I did not draw nearer. I knelt at the 
 back of the chapel. I think Forbes thought 
 he was alone,"
 
 112 THE WHITE ISLAND 
 
 "Why do you think that?" 
 
 "Because of his behaviour." 
 
 "Well! Goon." 
 
 "He got up, and walked up the altar steps. 
 He walked slowly and cautiously, but with- 
 out making any sign of reverence. He drew 
 back the Tabernacle veil, and tried the door 
 to see whether it was open or locked. I can't 
 guess his purpose in such an act." 
 
 "I can," I replied. It was that report of 
 Gereth's which made me understand Forbes* 
 motives; I had felt before that he was explor- 
 ing a new country; but I did not know, till 
 then, his particular line of research. 
 
 "If you understand, so much the better, 
 Father," said Gereth. "I did not; and I don't 
 want to. I thought the action an atrocious 
 piece of sacrilege; but perhaps it was not one 
 in his eyes. When he found the door was 
 locked, he walked back and knelt down again. 
 He kept absolutely immovable, save that I 
 could sometimes hear him draw his breath very 
 slowly and deliberately. He never stirred
 
 RALPH FORBES 113 
 
 hand or foot. There was not the slightest sug- 
 gestion about the man cither of prayer or adora- 
 tion. He might have been conducting a scien- 
 tific experiment." 
 
 "Precisely!" said I. "So he was!" 
 
 "He was!" 
 
 "Go on, Gereth," I said. 
 
 "At five minutes to two I got up and began 
 to ring the bell for Matins. I think he did 
 not know we sang the night office in choir. 
 I saw him leap up in a startled way, and go 
 stealthily and quickly out of the chapel. That 
 made me wonder whether you had given him 
 permission to be there. He got away before 
 you came in." 
 
 "I am glad you were in the chapel last night," 
 I said. "You will not, I know, speak to any 
 one of what you saw." 
 
 "No, Father. Certainly not. I should not 
 dream of doing so." 
 
 I reflected a little. Then I said : 
 
 "I will not mention either his attempted act 
 of sacrilege, or his abuse of hospitality to
 
 114 THE WHITE ISLAND 
 
 Forbes. He will know some one saw him in 
 the chapel. He will probably feel sure I know 
 of it. Did he see and recognise you?" 
 
 "No. The bell is in shadow, as you know. 
 He could not have seen me." 
 
 "You and I will arrange between us that 
 the chapel is never unwatched at night while 
 Forbes is here. No such affront shall be offered 
 Him here again if we can guard against it. I 
 ought to have been more watchful. But I did 
 not suspect Forbes of this. I promised him 
 hospitality for a fortnight. He shall have it. 
 And we will guard the chapel all night till he 
 goes."
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 THE INCARNATE HATE 
 
 DURING the next twenty-four hours I became 
 aware that a very extraordinary change had 
 taken place in Forbes. I must try to explain 
 the nature of that change, for it was a very 
 subtle one, and made itself felt by degrees. 
 
 It was not an external change; his expres- 
 sion was the same; his manner suave and 
 agreeable as usual. Moreover, and this is the 
 chief point to notice, he was himself wholly 
 unaware of it. It is important to notice this, 
 because it is the pivot of the whole thing. The 
 case of Ralph Forbes was, if I may so phrase 
 it, the same case as that of Rene Clinton 
 only at the opposite end of the pole. The law 
 that governed Rene applied equally to Forbes, 
 but with a difference. Neither was his own. 
 Both were equally unconscious of what was be- 
 
 "5
 
 ii6 THE WHITE ISLAND 
 
 ing done through them. The source of the 
 power in Rene's case was Love; in the case of 
 Forbes it was Hate. Hate, as a living, con- 
 scious power, became incarnate in him, with the 
 object of bringing about certain definite results 
 at Brent. 
 
 I should think, perhaps, that what I have 
 stated was simply the weaving of my own 
 imagination, were it not for three things which 
 forbid me to reach that conclusion. In the first 
 place, there were the external effects which 
 were obvious to all ; as plain to those who did 
 not suspect the cause as to those who did sus- 
 pect it. These effects ended as suddenly as 
 they began; they ceased with the termination 
 of Forbes' visit. In the second place, both 
 Alison and Fenton confirm my opinion; they 
 arrived at their conclusions independently of 
 me, and of each other. In the third place, there 
 was the startling conclusion of Forbes' sojourn 
 with us. 
 
 The first time that he and I met after Gereth 
 Fenton told me of what took place in the chapel,
 
 THE INCARNATE HATE 117 
 
 I felt sure Forbes suspected that I knew what he 
 had done. He was a little on the defensive, 
 though he hid it very cleverly. He felt ill at 
 ease, and he felt angry, as one who had been 
 placed, albeit by his own act, in a somewhat 
 humiliating position. It was not pleasant to 
 have been "caught" like a boy out of bounds. 
 It was undignified, to say the least of it. I think 
 he was the more annoyed because I said nothing, 
 and was scrupulously polite. 
 
 But above all things he felt baffled; he 
 thought I was keeping the "secret of Brent" 
 from him ; the secret which had power to restore 
 Lester, and raise him, as it were, from the dead. 
 He did not know that no human creature can 
 either keep or reveal the secret of this place 
 from or to any living soul. 
 
 It is that secret which each man must know 
 in himself; it will never be told to him from 
 without, if it be not revealed to him from with- 
 in. For the secret of Brent is a Royal Secret; 
 it is the Secret of the Kingdom which cometh 
 not by observation.
 
 ii8 THE WHITE ISLAND 
 
 Ralph Forbes was angry. His anger sprang 
 from a natural human pique and irritation. He 
 was angry with me. He was angry with him- 
 self for having been detected in a false position. 
 
 But gradually his anger was merged in some- 
 thing much greater ; something which was cold, 
 implacable, deadly, and crafty. It was a poi- 
 sonous power, like the very breath of death. 
 
 It was not till much later, when the storm- 
 clouds burst, and the Kingdom of Hate was let 
 loose upon the shuddering earth, that I under- 
 stood what that Hate, which was Hot human, 
 attempted to do through the personality of this 
 unwise, curious, shifty man. 
 
 I understood then better the silent patient 
 building of places of peace. They are not built 
 in a day. The building goes on steadily through 
 the years aye! and through the centuries in 
 order that there may be centres of power, pools 
 of the waters of peace, houses not made with 
 hands, whence help may go out to storm-rent 
 souls, hi the days when the great water-floods 
 of anguish, fear, hatred, and sin bid fair to en-
 
 THE INCARNATE HATE 119 
 
 gulf the children of men. It is the office and 
 glory of such places to help unseen unknown 
 unglorified by human tongues. 
 
 Humanity at large cannot realise these 
 things, and few people suspect them. But the 
 powers of hate realise them well and fully; and 
 hence the incarnate Hate went forth to battle 
 against Brent, and all for which Brent stood, in 
 those early months of the year 1914. 
 
 It went forth to destroy, if it might; but at 
 least to establish there a spot of turmoil, bitter- 
 ness, fear, and, if possible, doubt. During 
 those days the forces of the Kingdom of Hate 
 could be felt sweeping through the place in 
 great waves, like the waters of a sea of savage 
 unrest. They would ebb a little, and then re- 
 turn to the assault. 
 
 Sometimes, in the chapel, the assailing power 
 became almost tangible and visible ; like an ice- 
 cold mist of darkness engulfing us. This state of 
 affairs lasted during three days; growing more 
 and more intolerable. 
 
 Every one in the place with one exception
 
 120 THE WHITE ISLAND 
 
 felt the strain. Most of them attributed it 
 to their own moods. They thought it was due 
 to their natural temptations ; to their tendencies 
 to gloom, depression, doubt, restlessness, irrita- 
 bility, envy, despair, anger, and so forth. It 
 was a power which tore apart, stirred up diffi- 
 culties, changed true values for false ones, be- 
 fogged the mind, and made for unrest and dis- 
 integration. 
 
 It was Hate, in short, in its countless ramifi- 
 cations, directed by a will which was not hu- 
 man, through a human tool and pivot of action. 
 
 One person remained unaffected by it. That 
 person was Rene. He remained rather ab- 
 stracted, as usual. He had no varying moods ; 
 he experienced no change, and no struggle. His 
 path seemed to be always simple and clear. 
 
 There were about five or six days left of the 
 fortnight Forbes was to spend with us ; and the 
 strain was waxing terrific. 
 
 It was a clear windy March day ; I came out 
 of the chapel after Terce. The wind was tear- 
 ing through the cloister, and blowing with it
 
 THE INCARNATE HATE 121 
 
 the smell of sweet-briar. There are big bushes 
 of it in the turf quadrangle. 
 
 Forbes was close behind me. As I passed the 
 great Ober-Ammergau Crucifix he came level 
 with me and walked by my side. I was going 
 to my room to attend to my letters. 
 
 Forbes was very punctilious about observing 
 all the rules of the house. He had not expected 
 his deliberate defiance of me in the matter of 
 the chapel to be discovered. One of the strict- 
 est rules is that there is to be no talking in the 
 cloister. 
 
 Therefore I was amazed when the man at 
 my side suddenly called out loudly: 
 
 "Great God! What's that!" 
 
 I looked at him. He was death-white 
 green-white and he was shaking all over, so 
 that I thought he was struck with palsy. 
 
 Then I looked down the cloister in front of 
 us. I saw nothing save Rene. He was at the 
 far end. Rene, in his old gardening suit, his 
 hands covered with earth stains, and carrying a 
 trowel. A more unalarming, insignificant fig-
 
 122 THE WHITE ISLAND 
 
 ure could hardly be imagined. He was too far 
 off for that which was striking in his appearance 
 to be noticeable ; and at all times he was not an 
 impressive or terrifying figure. 
 
 Rene came on quietly, his trowel in one hand, 
 some auricula roots in the other. 
 
 As he passed I saw Forbes shrink flat against 
 the wall. His lips were drawn back in a snarl ; 
 his eyes turned with a sidelong glance, he half 
 crouched. 
 
 He reminded me of Anderson's savage mon- 
 grel when he expects Anderson will thrash him ; 
 and cowers, half threatening, half in dread. 
 
 I felt certain from Rene's face that he did 
 not notice him. I feel sure Forbes himself did 
 not realise what his attitude and expression 
 were. I am equally sure that what he saw was 
 not Rene. 
 
 Rene went into the quadrangle towards the 
 big grey granite cross. 
 
 Forbes straightened himself with an effort 
 and walked through the cloister and out through 
 the doorway into the guest-house garden. I re-
 
 THE INCARNATE HATE 123 
 
 member my feeling of the incongruity of the 
 scene with the extraordinary incident I had just 
 been watching. 
 
 The broad stretch of turf in front of the 
 guest-house ; the two old cedar trees ; the daffo- 
 dils springing in the grass, and the fantail 
 pigeons and the white peacock under the cedars 
 being fed by one of the guests. It all looked 
 natural and unsensational. 
 
 Forbes realised I had followed him. I do not 
 think he saw Rene, but I believe he was begin- 
 ning to realise that some one passed us in the 
 cloister; also that his manner had been unusual. 
 
 4 "Who was the the person who passed us 
 just now, Father Standish?' he asked. "I I 
 was a little startled I I seemed to know his 
 face and " 
 
 His voice trailed off vaguely. I knew he told 
 a lie. He had not seen Rene's face. 
 
 "Sir James Clinton's son," I said. Clinton 
 had been lately knighted. Forbes seemed to be 
 startled. 
 
 "The half-witted son?" he asked.
 
 124 THE WHITE ISLAND 
 
 "Sir James Clinton has but one son, Mr. 
 Forbes," I said, gravely. 
 
 "I beg your pardon," he said apologetically. 
 "I should not have spoken so bluntly." 
 
 Then he suddenly reeled, and clutched his 
 left side. 
 
 "A sudden pain !" he said, gasping. "A a 
 heart attack to which I'm liable." 
 
 "Come to my room," I said. "Let me sup- 
 port you. I will get you some brandy." 
 
 "No," he said, with white lips. "I'll go to 
 my room. I have medicine there. 
 
 He went to his room in the guest-house, and 
 would not let me go with him. He wrote me a 
 note to say he would lie down and keep quiet 
 for the rest of the day. The following morning 
 I received another note to say he had passed a 
 restless night. He feared he must cut short the 
 visit he had so much appreciated. He must go 
 up to town at once to see his doctor; the pain 
 was persistent, though not now severe. 
 
 He left Brent within the hour. He wrote
 
 THE INCARNATE HATE 125 
 
 me a very polite and complimentary letter from 
 town. He sang the praises of Brent ; he said he 
 earnestly hoped I would permit him to visit the 
 place again. I thought, as I read it, that noth- 
 ing would ever induce him to set foot again in 
 these precincts; and, so far, I have been right. 
 
 I asked Rene whether he noticed the man 
 who was in the cloister with me. He replied: 
 
 "I saw there was some one with you, Father. 
 Ought I to have recognized him?" 
 
 "No," I said; "you do not know him. He 
 said he thought he recognised your face." 
 
 I thought I would not mention to any one the 
 episode of the cloister; for I believed no one 
 heard the outcry of Forbes save myself. But I 
 found Alison, who was in the quadrangle, heard 
 it. He was at Terce, and like myself, had but 
 just left the chapel. When I knew he heard 
 Forbes' voice, I told him exactly what hap- 
 pened, so far as I knew it. 
 
 "What do you suggest as the meaning of it, 
 David?" I asked.
 
 126 THE WHITE ISLAND 
 
 Alison answered: 
 
 "I think, Father Anthony, that Ralph Forbes 
 was the weapon of a great rebel; and what he 
 felt was the touch of S. Michael's sword."
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 A KNIGHT OF HEAVEN 
 
 IN the month of May in that year, Sister Mary 
 Monica, Jesse Cameron's sister, came to visit 
 her aunt, Lady Lansworthy. Sister Mary 
 Monica was, when "in the world," Monica 
 Cameron. Her parents were dead. When she 
 had her brief holiday she came to the house of 
 her father's sister. 
 
 Lady Lansworthy, who owned One Holly, 
 lived in a house just beyond Lexminster. It 
 was only a short motor run to Brent. Monica 
 came there, not solely because Lady Lans- 
 worthy was her nearest relative save Jesse, but 
 because it enabled her to see her brother, for 
 whom she has a great love, as he too has for 
 her. For death does not sever love, but strength- 
 ens it, if it be truly love ; so that I am. well as- 
 127
 
 128 THE WHITE ISLAND 
 
 sured Jesse loves her still, as I know she loves 
 him, sorrowing not as one without hope. 
 
 Lady Lansworthy, who is an excellent speci- 
 men of a good, honourable, and somewhat pro- 
 saic English gentlewoman, refused to see her 
 nephew, though she willingly brought her niece 
 to Brent to visit him. She did not see him, she 
 said, not because she was not fond of him, but 
 as a matter of principle ; of protest against the 
 life he led. 
 
 As you know, Jesse Cameron thought, and in 
 my opinion thought rightly, that he was wil- 
 fully responsible for the death of his father, and 
 for that of another man; hence he was leading 
 a life of penance and reparation. Lady Lans- 
 worthy disapproved of this very strongly ; main- 
 ly, I think, because of the gossip and scandal 
 which was talked concerning it, and also be- 
 cause he had renounced all this world's goods. 
 
 Lady Lansworthy dislikes unusual and un- 
 recognised methods of life. She said, "Jesse's 
 proceedings were outre and unheard-of." She 
 regretted that her niece took the veil; for, she
 
 A KNIGHT OF HEAVEN 129 
 
 remarked, "Monica might just as well have 
 been ugly if she was going to do that." How- 
 ever, "to become a Sister," especially one of an 
 active community, was a recognised and not un- 
 usual course of action; therefore Lady Lans- 
 worthy only sighed over Monica with a shadow 
 of regret. 
 
 She saw Jesse and was wholly reconciled to 
 him after the event took place which I am about 
 to describe. After the battle of the Somme was 
 fought she was glad to remember their recon- 
 ciliation. 
 
 Lady Lans worthy was what she called "a 
 good, but moderate, Churchwoman." To doubt 
 any article of the faith was as grievous to her 
 as dropping her h's would have been. I do not 
 use this comparison flippantly; I use it because 
 the two things really did stand level in Lady 
 Lansworthy's mind; though she did not realise 
 this, and would have been shocked to hear the 
 comparison I have just made. Nevertheless, it 
 is a just one. Religious belief was to her a part 
 of the seemliness of life; just as correct gram-
 
 130 THE WHITE ISLAND 
 
 mar and pronunciation were. Religion as a 
 dominant passion Religion as a consuming fire 
 she did not understand. 
 
 If the logical effects on life of certain facts in 
 which she believed were pointed out to her, she 
 would deny they were logical. 
 
 "If So-and-so were permitted to impose his 
 extreme views on society at large/* she said, 
 "the world could not possibly continue on its 
 present lines." 
 
 "But people who, as you admit, are members 
 of a fallen race are largely responsible for its 
 present lines," I replied. "Does it matter if 
 their arrangements are upset?" 
 
 "Oh, Father Standish," she answered, "I feel 
 sure you are too good a man to desire anything 
 of a revolutionary nature." 
 
 'That depends on what you revolutionise," I 
 said. 
 
 "O, but revolutions are always horrid!" she 
 cried. 
 
 "What about the conversions of S. Paul and
 
 A KNIGHT OF HEAVEN 131 
 
 of S. Augustine?" I asked. "Those were revolu- 
 tions." 
 
 "O Father Standish!" she exclaimed, "How 
 can you say so !" 
 
 Lady Lansworthy also disliked, extremes in 
 the matter of piety; she would have been great- 
 ly averse to anything of the nature of mysti- 
 cism, if she had known more of it than the fact 
 that the dictionary contained such a word. She 
 objected to the mind dwelling on any subject 
 connected with the thought of death, or of the 
 unseen worlds. 
 
 "It is much better," she said, "and far health- 
 ier, to be moderate in all things. It is a great 
 mistake to get morbid. It is far better to think 
 of those things which are real; things we can 
 see and really deal with." 
 
 "But you go regularly to church, Lady Lans- 
 worthy," I said. 
 
 "Of course !" she replied. "That is a duty I 
 should never neglect, Father Standish. But 
 you can see a church, and hear the prayers and 
 the singing, and the sermon. It is quite right to
 
 132 THE WHITE ISLAND 
 
 go to church at least once a day on Sunday. 
 And it is very nice and right to pray in modera- 
 tion. What I deprecate are extremes. They 
 are always bad and unpractical." 
 
 She brought her niece to Brent one day in 
 May. When I heard they were in the guest- 
 house I went to them at once. As it was a fine 
 day, I suggested that the Sister should see her 
 brother in the garden, under the cedars on the 
 lawn. They agreed to this. Lady Lansworthy 
 said it was quite wicked to be indoors on such a 
 fine day; she would stroll in the gardens, if I 
 did not mind, till her niece was ready to leave. 
 
 We went to the cedars. Lady Lansworthy 
 left us, and disappeared among the bushes. 
 
 'Monica Cameron (for so I always think of 
 her still) sat on the bench below the tree. Rene 
 was not far off. He was cutting the grass with 
 a little lawn-mower, and I called to him. 
 
 He came at once. I noticed he was far less 
 abstracted than he used to be. 
 
 "Rene," said I, "I wonder whether you 
 would be good enough to go to the farm, find
 
 A KNIGHT OF HEAVEN 133 
 
 Jesse Cameron, and tell him Sister Mary Mon- 
 ica is here, and he will find her under the cedars 
 on the guest-house lawn?" 
 
 "Certainly I will, Father," said Rene. 
 
 He left the lawn at once. I saw the eyes of 
 Monica follow him. 
 
 "Father Anthony," she said, "what a mar- 
 vellous face! It seems to shine with white 
 light." 
 
 "Yes," I answered. "It is a very striking 
 face when it is observed near at hand. He is the 
 son of Sir James Clinton." 
 
 "Of Sir James Clinton!" she said. "I am 
 surprised." 
 
 "Why so?" I asked. 
 
 "Lady Clinton is one of our associates," said 
 she. "She is very generous to our poor. I know 
 her. Aunt Helen was speaking of her as we 
 came; she said they were heavily afflicted in 
 their only son; he was mentally deficient; and 
 you, with your usual readiness to help those in 
 trouble, had made a home for him here." 
 
 "That is the young man in question, Sister,"
 
 134 THE WHITE ISLAND 
 
 said I. "Do you think he looks mentally defi- 
 cient?'* 
 
 The beautiful nun Sister Mary Monica is 
 very beautiful remained thoughtful for a few 
 seconds. At last she said: 
 
 "I think he is a knight of Heaven, Father. 
 I think he is one of S. Michael's warriors, bound 
 on a quest." 
 
 At that moment we saw Jesse coming to- 
 wards the cedars. I rose and left the brother 
 and sister together. 
 
 I intended to seek Lady Lansworthy at once ; 
 but at that moment some one brought me a 
 note which needed an immediate answer. It 
 was not until ten or fifteen minutes later that I 
 went to search for her. 
 
 I looked in one or two places where I thought 
 she might be. At last I turned in the direction 
 of the Garden of the Holy Child. As I drew 
 near Lady Lansworthy dashed out of it. I use 
 the word advisedly. It was a frenzied dash, as 
 of one in extreme terror. She was running at 
 full speed. She is a woman of fifty; but she is
 
 A KNIGHT OF HEAVEN 135 
 
 very strong and lithe ; she plays golf, and skates, 
 and is still a good horsewoman. Nevertheless 
 she is dignified; and I was surprised to see her 
 racing through Brent gardens like a ten-year-old 
 girl; I could not suppose that anything could 
 have happened to alarm her. 
 
 She rushed up to me, fell on her knees before 
 me, and clung with both hands to my arm. 
 
 "Father Standish !" she screamed. "O Father 
 Standish ! Monica ! O help !" 
 
 "Lady Lans worthy !" I exclaimed. "What 
 has frightened you*?" 
 
 She stared up at me ; her face was drawn with 
 fear; she cried out hysterically: 
 
 "Show me something that I know ! Monica, 
 Monica! Show me something that I know!" 
 
 Then she went into hysterics; she screamed, 
 laughed and cried at the same time. 
 
 I was very loth to disturb Jesse and his sis- 
 ter; for their meetings are few and far between; 
 but they heard her cries, and came to us in haste. 
 
 Lady Lansworthy clutched her niece and 
 cried out:
 
 136 THE WHITE ISLAND 
 
 "Take me away! Monica, take me away! 
 Show me something that I know!" 
 
 "You are quite safe, Aunt Helen," said Mon- 
 ica tenderly. "All the things you have about 
 you are things you know quite well. There's 
 nothing here strange or unfamiliar to you. 
 Look for yourself; did you fall asleep and 
 dream?' 
 
 "Take me away!" shrieked her aunt. "O 
 Monica, take me away!" 
 
 "Yes, yes, dear Aunt Helen," said Monica. 
 "We will go at once. Will you tell the chauf- 
 feur, Jesse, to bring the motor down the drive*? 
 then we need only cross the grass. Come, 
 Aunt Helen!" 
 
 Jesse did as she asked him to do. Monica 
 and I supported Lady Lansworthy on either 
 side and placed her in the motor. She leaned 
 back, closed her eyes, and clutched Monica's 
 hand. 
 
 "I will send for the doctor the moment we 
 get home," said Monica in a low voice. "Tell 
 the chauffeur to go quickly. Good-bye, dear
 
 A KNIGHT OF HEAVEN 137 
 
 Jesse. Good-bye, Father Standish. I will send 
 
 a messenger with Dr. Merton's report. Yes, 
 
 Aunt Helen, we are going." 
 
 For Lady Lansworthy moaned and repeated 
 
 her strange words : 
 
 "Show me something that I know." 
 
 As the motor moved swiftly away we could 
 
 hear her uttering the same entreaty.
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 A STRIPPED SOUL 
 
 JESSE and I stared at each other. The whole 
 thing moved so swiftly that we were bewil- 
 dered. At last I said: 
 
 "Come along with me, Jesse; we must search 
 the gardens. We must try to find out what 
 startled Lady Lansworthy." 
 
 "Where was Aunt Helen when she was 
 frightened, Father*?" said Jesse. "We ought to 
 go straight there." 
 
 "She was running out of the Garden of the 
 Holy Child," I replied. 
 
 We entered the little garden. No human 
 being was there. The high box hedges filled 
 the air with pungent perfume, for the sun was 
 drawing out the scent. We saw nothing save 
 the turf walks, the tall lily stalks on which 
 
 green buds were appearing, the roses, already 
 
 138
 
 A STRIPPED SOUL 139 
 
 blooming in that sheltered spot, a white fan- 
 tail pigeon running up and down on little red 
 feet on the old, lichen-splashed, grey stone 
 bench ; two more white pigeons cooing upon the 
 roof of the little shrine of the Mother and 
 Child. 
 
 Nothing else save sunshine, warm air, and 
 great stillness. 
 
 "There is nothing here to alarm the most 
 nervous person," said I. 
 
 Lady Lansworthy was by no means nervous. 
 She was vigorous, matter-of-fact, and thorough- 
 ly sensible. 
 
 We searched the gardens through and 
 through, but could find nothing that was not 
 quite familiar and peaceful. Rene, who had 
 returned to his grass-cutting; the gardener and 
 two boys working in the vegetable garden. An 
 old priest, who was staying in the guest-house, 
 reading placidly under a pergola covered with 
 wistaria and climbing roses. More pigeons, the 
 white peacock, and a Persian kitten which, 
 counterfeiting great terror, tore up a tree and
 
 HO THE WHITE ISLAND 
 
 spat at us. There was nothing more alarming 
 than these. 
 
 "It's a most extraordinary thing," I said. 
 "Do you think your aunt could have been 
 dreaming?" 
 
 I caught an expression on Jesse's face which 
 made me say : 
 
 "You have some theory, Jesse? What is 
 it?" 
 
 "I'm not sure whether it is right to give it, 
 Father," said Jesse. 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 "Well! I've no business to criticise Aunt 
 Helen; she's a downright good sort; she's as 
 honest as daylight ; and I'm not fit to black her 
 boots." 
 
 "Well!" 
 
 "She was always as kind as she could be to 
 me when I was a boy; and she is very fond of 
 Monica." 
 
 "But ?" I asked. 
 
 "But " said Jesse slowly, "you know she 
 doesn't live in God's world at all. It sounds
 
 A STRIPPED SOUL 141 
 
 a queer, almost blasphemous thing to say, 
 Father. Of course in one sense it is not true. I 
 mean she is not aware of any world save one 
 which is purely man-made. She even sees na- 
 ture from that standpoint." 
 
 "How is that?' 
 
 "I have heard her say what a mistake it is 
 that nature, left to itself, does not produce a 
 few big peaches on a tree instead of a lot of 
 little ones. She only looked at a peach-tree, you 
 see, with an eye to dessert; so that nature is not 
 to her 'the handmaid of the Lord,' but a sort of 
 'universal provider' for man." 
 
 "Then what is your theory?" 
 
 "I think she was suddenly touched by some- 
 thing which was absolutely real; it cut all her 
 moorings; she was adrift and terrified." 
 
 Monica kept her promise and sent a messen- 
 ger to Brent after the doctor's visit. The man 
 brought a letter from her. Monica said Lady 
 Lansworthy regained grip of herself before she 
 reached home ; she sent for the doctor but would 
 not let Monica see him save in her presence.
 
 142 THE WHITE ISLAND 
 
 Lady Lansworthy herself told Dr. Merton 
 she had received a shock which for a while un- 
 nerved her. She would not tell the details ; she 
 asked him to give her a sedative to calm her 
 nerves so that she might sleep. 
 
 The next day she wrote to me and asked me 
 for an interview. I replied that I would see her 
 most gladly, but I thought she would be wise to 
 allow me to visit her. Her answer was that she 
 always maintained women had no business to 
 give way to their nerves; she was not going to 
 shift her position because the nerves in question 
 happened to be her own. I gave her an appoint- 
 ment in accordance with this Spartan resolu- 
 tion, and she arrived punctually. I saw her in 
 my room off the cloister. Her account of the 
 incident which so unnerved her was as follows : 
 
 "I went," she said, "into the little garden 
 which has the box hedge all round it. No one 
 was there. I sat down on the bench, and 
 thought how pretty it all was, and how still. 
 I thought, to tell the truth, that you had a very 
 easy, comfortable life here. I thought the men
 
 A STRIPPED SOUL 143 
 
 at the 'house of peace' were a little shirking 
 their duty to society." 
 
 I smiled. 
 
 "Yes, yes," she said, "I was wrong. I know 
 it now. I did not then. I watched the pigeons, 
 and thought I would ask you to give me a pair. 
 They look so nice, running about on the grass. 
 Then I began to think over some of my little 
 plans. I never go up to town for the season 
 now ; the girls are married ; and I am getting to 
 be an old woman. But I was planning to go up 
 for three or four weeks. I thought I would stay 
 at a very comfortable little hotel I know; I 
 would just see old friends, see some pictures, 
 go to a few theatres and concerts, and get my- 
 self some clothes. You can't buy anything to 
 wear in Lexminster; at least 7 think not. I 
 never shop there if I can help it. I was just 
 making these little harmless plans quietly and 
 comfortably there was no harm in them, 
 surely?' 
 
 "Certainly not. They sound quite harmless 
 and justifiable,"
 
 144 THE WHITE ISLAND 
 
 'Yes but then why did it happen?" 
 
 "What did happen, Lady Lansworthy?" 
 
 "A most extraordinary feeling came over me. 
 A horrible feeling!" 
 
 "What was it?" I asked. 
 
 "It is hard to describe it," she said slowly. 
 "It was just as though I a part of me I did not 
 seem to know, but it was still veritably I my- 
 self began to look on at all I was doing and 
 planning. Look at it critically, I mean." 
 
 "What then?" 
 
 "Everything I knew or ever had known was 
 just like a marionette show; I could almost see 
 the queer little strings that jerked the figures 
 about. Everything I thought was real, was not 
 real at all. It was perfectly idiotic. If you can 
 imagine being on a treadmill, the revolutions 
 of which, in the nature of things, took you no- 
 where in particular, and being there in company 
 with a collection of the ghosts of idiots, that 
 would give you some idea of the feeling it pro- 
 duced." 
 
 "And it was this which frightened you?"
 
 A STRIPPED SOUL 145 
 
 "No. This did not frighten me. What fol- 
 lowed frightened me." 
 
 "What was it?' 
 
 "It is very hard to describe. I don't think I 
 can do it." 
 
 "Try." 
 
 "Yes. I wish to try. All that was suddenly 
 blotted out. It went in a flash. It was blotted 
 out by something tremendous. At first it was 
 " She paused. 
 
 "It was whiteness," she said at last. "It 
 was a dazzling whiteness it it burnt into 
 me " 
 
 She stopped again and looked at me help- 
 lessly. 
 
 "You will think me mad," she said. "I say. 
 it was dazzling whiteness, but I did not see it. 
 How could I know what I did not see? And 
 yet it was what I tell you." 
 
 "I accept what you tell me," I said quietly. 
 "I am not criticising nor doubting." 
 
 "Try to imagine," she went on, "something 
 which you could not see, nor hear, nor feel, and
 
 146 THE WHITE ISLAND 
 
 yet which was real, appallingly real. Some- 
 thing that went down to an unthinkable depth, 
 and up to an unthinkable height, and yet there 
 was neither depth nor height, because it had 
 nothing to do with space. Something that 
 stretched back to an unthinkable past, and for- 
 ward to an unthinkable future, and yet did 
 neither, because it had nothing to do with time. 
 Something that was nearer than I was to my- 
 self, and yet had nothing to do with near or far. 
 It blotted everything out except me. I was 
 not blotted out. I was enfolded in this gigantic 
 Something. I could not get away from it; and 
 yet it was the most utter isolation you can im- 
 agine, because I did not know that which held 
 me. It was all there was; but for me it was 
 nothing. It had swept away everything I knew 
 anything about. It was the only thing there 
 was to know ; and I did not know it at all. Then, 
 with a most awful sense of terror and desolation, 
 there came to me this thought: Creation has 
 gone. This in which you are wrapped is Eter- 
 nity. There is no Time. There is no Space.
 
 A STRIPPED SOUL 147 
 
 This is Life uncreated; and because you know 
 nothing of it, for you it is death and desolation. 
 Monica says you met me running. I did not 
 know I was running. I did not know I had 
 moved. I was madly searching for something 
 anything that I knew and could recognise. 
 Then I saw your face. I clutched hold of you, 
 and I shrieked for Monica." 
 
 She leaned forward at this point; she laid 
 her hand on my arm and gripped it. 
 
 "You, who know something I do not know," 
 she said; "you, who are citizen of a country in 
 which I have just learned I am an alien, tell me 
 this: When the fashion of this world passes 
 wholly away, can we know that enfolding 
 Life?' 
 
 "We can," I answered. "Because that en- 
 folding Life has come to meet us here, and His 
 Name is Love. We can know God here and 
 now, because we have in us that which is like 
 unto Him; and because one of the Powers of 
 His Nature is Humanity. He has shown Him- 
 self as Man, that He might destroy the evil
 
 148 THE WHITE ISLAND 
 
 which hides from us that truth, and be for us 
 the Bridge to knowledge. In Eternity His 
 Manhood abides, enfolded, as you were, in His 
 Boundless Life." 
 
 "But," she said in a faltering voice, "we must 
 learn now *? We must begin to know now ?" 
 
 "If we are wise," said I, "we shall begin 
 now." 
 
 This is the story which, with Lady Lans- 
 worthy's consent, I include in the story of Rene. 
 Alison said Forbes was touched by the sword of 
 the great Archangel whose name betokens "Who 
 like God." Monica called Rene one of his war- 
 riors. Perhaps Lady Lansworthy, too, was 
 touched and fired by his flaming sword. It cer- 
 tainly helped to effect in her the thing she once 
 so much deprecated a revolution.
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 CHANGES AT BRENT 
 
 IF I were to say that the autumn of 1914 
 brought no changes to Brent, I shall be misun- 
 derstood. Those who know the place will say 
 my statement is not true. Those who do not 
 know it will say if it is true it ought not to be 
 so. They will both of them be right. 
 
 Therefore in making such a statement for 
 I do make it I must try to explain my mean- 
 ing. 
 
 The heart of the place did not change, simply 
 because it could not do so. I want to make 
 this specially clear, because, if I do not, the 
 meaning of Rene Clinton's life, the very core of 
 its mystery, will be missed and utterly misun- 
 derstood. Every life, I suppose, has its secret, 
 its mystery, its inner meaning and purpose. 
 
 Rene's was no more mysterious than any other. 
 149
 
 150 THE WHITE ISLAND 
 
 But it is the one I have undertaken to explain ; 
 if I can do so, which I sometimes doubt. 
 
 The whole reason for the slow building and 
 establishment throughout the earth of places 
 like Brent, is precisely that they may not change 
 in times of crisis, when the rest of the world 
 rocks, and the minds of men are shaken. 
 
 It is in order to maintain a balance, and es- 
 tablish a pivot round which powers of good and 
 evil may reel in a death-grapple. In such places 
 the Power of God is poured out through angels 
 and men elected for such world-service. 
 
 Brent, then, did not change, and has not 
 changed. But the visible working of the place 
 was altered in some measure. 
 
 In the third week of August of that year, 
 my dear son, Jesse Cameron, went away. He 
 and I alike believed he did the Will which was 
 his law. He went away, and it was a blow to 
 the farm, for he was a good bailiff, and was my 
 right hand in all the outdoor work. 
 
 It was a foregone conclusion that when he 
 went he would draw after him the four farm
 
 CHANGES AT BRENT 151 
 
 pupils, and practically all the young men of this 
 small village; Jesse's was a name to conjure 
 them by. 
 
 Anderson, a middle-aged man, took Jesse's 
 place, and the farm boys etayed where they 
 were. 
 
 Our little company of the house of peace 
 began, like monks both of the past and the 
 present, to labour on the land. They are not 
 monks, as you know; they are all unvowed. 
 They are men called of God to surrender their 
 lives to Him, chiefly in the way of prayer and 
 meditation ; and they do such other work to His 
 Glory as He has given them capacity for doing. 
 They are all laymen. 
 
 David Alison remained with us. For this I 
 was grateful ; for thereby he solved a practical 
 difficulty. 
 
 Anderson is, as he says, "no scholar." The 
 farm accounts were a terror to him. Alison 
 took them off his hands. Moreover, class dis- 
 tinctions loom large in the eyes of Anderson. 
 He told me when I engaged him that he "leaned
 
 THE WHITE ISLAND 
 
 very much to the gentry." When he learned 
 that "the gentlemen," as he calls the sojourners 
 in the house of peace, were going to lend a hand 
 on the farm, this "leaning" caused him to be 
 struck with an awe so great, that reverence for- 
 bade him to point out their mistakes and stu- 
 pidities. 
 
 He could severely reprove error in little Dick 
 Jones from the village, but he could not even 
 mention it to Rene Clinton or Gereth Fenton. 
 Consequently they had no chance of learning 
 what it was needful for them to know if they 
 were to be of any use. 
 
 Here Alison was very useful. As you know, 
 he has a reputation as a writer on matters touch- 
 ing country life and nature. He has great sub- 
 tlety and delicacy of observation. Living here, 
 as he has done for many years, and making a 
 close study of all matters pertaining to his 
 craft, he has, by watching the farming opera- 
 tions at all seasons, and the life of men living 
 on the land and by the land, gained a real, 
 though theoretical, knowledge of such matters.
 
 CHANGES AT BRENT 153 
 
 It is real, because it is obtained at first hand, 
 and not from books or in a lecture room. It is 
 theoretical, because he has never worked on the 
 farm himself. 
 
 He knows what should or should not be done, 
 and the way to carry out all farming operations, 
 as well as Anderson himself does. Hence he 
 made a useful bridge between the awestruck 
 farm bailiff and the distinguished neophytes. 
 
 Gereth Fenton did his best to help. He told 
 me he found the work was no hindrance to the 
 steady current of his prayer, so long as he 
 worked silently. 
 
 He was not really adapted for the work; the 
 others did better than he. All were willing and 
 anxious to save expense, and help on the work 
 Jesse Cameron built up during the years of his 
 long penance. 
 
 But Rene was really valuable. For one 
 thing, he had an extraordinary aptitude for 
 dealing with the animals. He was the best 
 milker on the farm; no cow, however ill-tem- 
 pered or nervous, refused to "give down her
 
 154 THE WHITE ISLAND 
 
 milk" in response to the touch of Rene's slen- 
 der, supple fingers. He taught the infant calves 
 to drink, as though by magic. The prize bull, 
 whose temper was commonly uncertain to his 
 friends, and a continual menace to strangers, 
 became quite philanthropic in his mood under 
 Rene's guidance. 
 
 Rene never had to drive the sheep, or call 
 upon the dog to round them up. He led them. 
 In changing pastures, Rene walked before his 
 flock, whistling a little tune which seemed to 
 appeal to their musical taste ; the sheep scuffled 
 softly along after him with their lambs. With 
 horses, too, he could do anything; and Ander- 
 son's savage dog was, with him, quite gentle. 
 He came up to the farm, whenever he got loose, 
 to look for Rene*, and followed him to and fro; 
 he would lie at his feet; growling when any one 
 else came near. Rene rarely took any notice of 
 him, save when the dog pushed him with his 
 head, or thrust his muzzle into his hand, asking 
 for some recognition. 
 
 So we went forward during those years of
 
 CHANGES AT BRENT 155 
 
 the world's agony. We maintained our watch 
 night and day in the chapel; and we laboured 
 with our hands. We ploughed, sowed, reaped ; 
 we grew vegetables and fruit in greater abun- 
 dance than ever. The poultry yard enlarged its 
 borders. The flocks and herds throve. Our 
 bees hummed and droned in the purple heather 
 and ling, and we took honey at the appointed 
 hour. The open Forest was a sheet of heather, 
 over which the hot air shimmered and drove in 
 gleaming waves ; therefore we had great store of 
 heather honey. The apples shone on the or- 
 chard boughs; and were stacked later on the 
 grass in great heaps scarlet-crimson, crimson, 
 yellow, and russet-brown. 
 
 The fruitful earth, with room for all to live 
 at peace, with rich abundance of food sufficient 
 for the reasonable needs of all men ! 
 
 During the hard winter of 1916 the earth lay 
 buried in snow, and many of the Forest ponies 
 died. But when spring came again with spring- 
 ing blades of young corn, when the swallows re- 
 turned, and the open Forest was rosy with bios-
 
 156 THE WHITE ISLAND 
 
 soming bog myrtle and snowy with bog cotton, 
 we remembered not the cold and death, but only 
 recalled the holy whiteness of the snow-bound 
 land, and the solemn crying and chanting of the 
 wind in the pines, when even the owls were si- 
 lent in the bitter frost, and every pool and 
 streamlet like iron. 
 
 During those years I threw open the doors 
 of the guest-house and vicarage to all who had 
 suffered or were suffering in body or mind, if 
 they cared to enter in and seek rest, comfort, 
 and healing. I ministered to them so far as in 
 me lay. 
 
 Many did enter, and found what they 
 sought; for the peace of the place waxed 
 mightily. It waxed in proportion to the storm 
 without. He Who abode with us gave in abun- 
 dance of Himself; and the very trees and earth 
 seemed to pour forth balm.
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 LADY CLINTON COMES TO BRENT 
 
 IN the summer of 1916 Lady Clinton came to 
 Brent to see Rene. She came to stay with Lady 
 Lansworthy. 
 
 Lady Clinton often came to see her son; I 
 think she came three or four times a year. His 
 father never came. Lady Clinton said he felt 
 the pain of his disappointment more intensely 
 than formerly. He shrank from it more. He 
 could in some degree forget Rene if he did not 
 see him; he could almost think of him as one 
 dead, and he found that more endurable. But 
 to visit him and endure the memory of the hopes 
 he once cherished was more than he could bear. 
 
 It must be remembered that not only did 
 Clinton utterly scout the view I held concern- 
 ing his son, but he had really great reason to dis- 
 believe it. Not only was the attitude of mind,
 
 158 THE WHITE ISLAND 
 
 which made it possible for me to think of Rene 
 as I did, utterly opposed to his own habitual at- 
 titude, but there was real and solid evidence 
 available that I was mistaken. 
 
 To begin with, the existence of a living, ac- 
 tive, potent, conscious world which was imma- 
 terial, was to him a mere fairy-tale. I know 
 very many to whom such a world is theoreti- 
 cally a fact, to whom it is practically as unreal 
 as it was to Sir James Clinton, who denied its 
 existence. There are people who, while affirm- 
 ing such a world exists, will clutch almost 
 eagerly at any pretext for denying the reality of 
 its operations and its influences when evidence 
 of either crosses their path. 
 
 But the strongest reason which Clinton had 
 for rejecting my view lay in the fact that Rene, 
 as we know him at Brent, was practically non- 
 existent for both his parents. Rene, as I knew 
 him when, on rare occasions, he tried to put into 
 words his sense of the reality of the Life which 
 claimed him, was absolutely non-existent for
 
 LADY CLINTON AT BRENT 159 
 
 his father. His parents could not respond to 
 him; he could not express himself to them. 
 
 I believe it to be true that the conditions, 
 both of space and time, under which they lived 
 actually differed as far as their consciousness 
 was concerned. 
 
 During the years in which Rene lived at 
 Brent I saw he was growing to be far less ab- 
 stracted. This does not apply to some occa- 
 sions of special and intense absorption. His 
 environment was suited to his inner state. He 
 could express himself in it. When his surround- 
 ings, especially as regards the trend of thought, 
 were quite incapable of harmonising with that 
 which was going on in his mind and soul, he 
 was in a state of bewilderment, and apparent 
 unintelligence. It was simply because all that 
 was within was pent up. It could not express 
 itself, any more than clear water could pour out 
 freely through a wall of stiff clay. It was, 
 .therefore, natural that Sir James Clinton 
 should think my theory a fantastic imagination ; 
 I think it shows his kindly and just nature tha/
 
 160 THE WHITE ISLAND 
 
 he should have yielded in the matter and al- 
 lowed Rene to remain with me ; for there is no 
 doubt he disliked to do so. 
 
 The periodical visits of the poor mother were 
 an exquisite pain to her. I think they were also 
 an acute suffering to Rene. 
 
 When she was away from him she believed I 
 was right. She longed to believe it, and it be- 
 came for her truth. But when she came to 
 Brent, having built up an image of Rene as I 
 thought of him in her mind, and found him in- 
 articulate and confused in speech, she began to 
 doubt. 
 
 Her mother-love brought her to Brent. Her 
 mother's heart craved to understand her boy, 
 and when she failed to do so she suffered in- 
 tensely. Rene, knowing she suffered and pow- 
 erless to help her, was tortured too. It was very 
 pitiful to see. She was a good-hearted and gen- 
 erous woman. She had much natural compas- 
 sion for the needy and suffering. But I think 
 the reason she became an associate of the Com- 
 munity to which Monica belonged, was because
 
 LADY CLINTON AT BRENT 161 
 
 she thought she might gain something which 
 would help her to understand Rene. 
 
 She dreamed of some deepening of her inner 
 life which would open a door of illumination 
 for her. 
 
 I think Lady Lansworthy helped her. Lady 
 Lansworthy, who was now the leading spirit in 
 all the patriotic works undertaken by the 
 women of the neighbourhood, remained out- 
 wardly much as she used to be. She was a 
 good-natured, sensible woman of the world, ex- 
 tremely practical and competent. Inwardly she 
 was not the same; the revolution had been 
 thorough. 
 
 The searching depth and reality of that ex- 
 perience in the garden, the stripping of soul she 
 underwent there, made her a different woman. 
 Something woke in her which never slept again. 
 Her absolute certainty of the existence of some- 
 thing which lay beneath and beyond all vicissi- 
 tudes of time and space, communicated itself 
 to Rene's mother. It made her feel a vague 
 comfort; and a strength which gripped her
 
 162 THE WHITE ISLAND 
 
 tremulous thought and doubting mind and 
 steadied them. 
 
 All genuine spiritual experience, whatever 
 form it may take in the consciousness of those 
 who receive it, gives a power of carrying at any 
 rate temporary conviction to minds which are 
 not absolutely closed against it. Sometimes it 
 may cause antagonism, but that is because its 
 truth is felt, and for some reason resented. 
 
 When Lady Clinton came to Brent in June, 
 1916, she was happier concerning Rene than I 
 had seen her. I think this was partly due to 
 Lady Lansworthy, who, it appeared, told Lady 
 Clinton her firm conviction that my view was 
 the one to be received as the truth. 
 
 But when I saw Lady Clinton after her inter- 
 view with her son, I knew at once that she was 
 troubled and full of doubts. I did not speak 
 of Rene, nor ask her opinion concerning any- 
 thing at Brent. I asked after Sir James Clin- 
 ton and her daughters. 
 
 "Margaret is very well," she said, "and, of 
 course, immensely busy. Jane is in America,
 
 LADY CLINTON AT BRENT 163 
 
 naturally, with her husband, and her children. 
 She has two such charming babies." 
 
 "And Sir James?" I asked. 
 
 "My husband is working terribly hard," she 
 replied. "He is working at such high pressure. 
 I fear he will break down. He is a strong man ; 
 but there is a limit to all things. He allows 
 himself very little sleep." 
 
 "Some people require very little, you know," 
 I said. 
 
 "I think he requires more than he gets," she 
 answered. "He is working feverishly hard. I 
 sometimes think he does it because he dares not 
 give himself time to think." 
 
 We were sitting in the guest-house when she 
 said this. She was about to leave. Rene had 
 gone to cut some roses for her. 
 
 "I believe many feel that they dare not 
 think," I said. "Hence they give themselves 
 no time, but work till they are tired enough to 
 ensure sleep. But I think they are not wise." 
 
 "I know the feeling myself," she answered. 
 "I should like to work till I dropped. But that
 
 164 THE WHITE ISLAND 
 
 would trouble my husband and Margaret. I 
 dare not think about Rene after I have seen 
 him." 
 
 "Why not?" I said. 
 
 "It is such an utter puzzle to me," she re- 
 plied. "Why could he not have led a good life 
 even a holy, consecrated life without being 
 cut off like this from all we planned for him? 
 My husband would have been sorry, but if 
 Rene had wished to live here like Mr. Fenton 
 he would not have opposed it. It would not be 
 the agony to him it is." 
 
 I pointed out to her certain things such as I 
 have set down here, showing there was some evi- 
 dence that Rene's life was not wholly ineffec- 
 tive, though its effects were produced in a dif- 
 ferent field of action from that his father would 
 have chosen for him. 
 
 She sighed. 
 
 "I am sorry," she said, "but all that seems to 
 me so utterly unreal, Father Standish. It you 
 won't think me rude it is all like a fairy tale 
 to me,"
 
 LADY CLINTON AT BRENT 165 
 
 Rene came in just then with the roses. She 
 took them, kissed him very tenderly, and went 
 back to Lexminster to Lady Lansworthy. 
 
 I could see that Rene, too, was very sad. She 
 had tried hard to get into touch with him ; and 
 he tried to talk with her as he did sometimes 
 with me. Both failed ; he was not able to speak 
 freely; he seemed to be paralysed in thought; 
 and what little he said was an unknown tongue 
 to her. 
 
 I think the fact that he was working on the 
 farm gave her an added pain. She did not 
 realise that high work is the task God gives, and 
 low that which we take for ourselves in defiance 
 of Him. 
 
 If Rene had chosen to come to Brent as a 
 farm pupil, or said he wished to farm in Can- 
 ada or ranch in California, she would have 
 been willing he should do so. If he was now 
 working on the land because of his country's 
 need, that would have satisfied her. But to feel 
 that the only thing he could do was simple
 
 166 THE WHITE ISLAND 
 
 manual work, such as a boy from Brent village 
 could do easily, gave her a pang. 
 
 It is true that Rene's skill with beasts was his 
 own peculiar gift ; but his mother did not realise 
 this ; nor did she know its significance. 
 
 She stayed for a week with Lady Lanswor- 
 thy, and visited Brent thrice. 
 
 On her second visit she was much depressed. 
 When she came the third time the gloom was 
 gone. She told Rene she wanted to have a talk 
 with me alone, and when he left us she spoke 
 freely. 
 
 To me that which she said is as much a ques- 
 tion of supernatural dealing as the more start- 
 ling things which came to pass with regard to 
 Lester, Forbes, and Lady Lansworthy. But it 
 took a quiet, gentle form. 
 
 She went into Lexminster with Lady Lans- 
 worthy, who was going to the hospital. Lex- 
 minster is a quaint old town, lying at the foot 
 of great downs which curve smoothly away, 
 slope upon slope, tier upon tier, towards the sea. 
 
 There is in it a large quiet old church, S.
 
 LADY CLINTON AT BRENT 167 
 
 Itys-in-the-Wall. Legend says its patron was a 
 recluse who had a little chamber in the city 
 wall, which wall has long since crumbled away. 
 However that may be, the peace of the good 
 hermit abides in the church to this day, and I 
 trust the worshippers yet have the help of his 
 prayers. 
 
 Lady Clinton, waiting for her hostess, went 
 into the big, cool old church, and sat there, 
 while her sad, puzzled mind reviewed her own 
 sorrows and those of her friends. 
 
 "Gradually," she said to me, "the great hush 
 of the place, the dim light, and the sight of the 
 tall grey pillars stretching up into the shadows 
 of the roof, seemed to soothe me a little. But 
 my mind was very much puzzled. Suddenly it 
 was just as though some very patient, gentle 
 person began to rearrange my ideas for me. It 
 was as though my mind was not myself, but a 
 machine which I had got badly out of order. It 
 was being gently set right, by some one who un- 
 derstood the machine, and could deal with it. 
 I began to see a great Plan ; I began to see how
 
 168 THE WHITE ISLAND 
 
 people were being used to further it, and were 
 also being dealt with as individuals, with the 
 most astounding skill, patience, and wisdom. 
 It was a real, careful, personal dealing with 
 each one. Wonderful! This gentle explana- 
 tory process went on in my mind till we reached 
 Rene. There it stopped! There came no ex- 
 planation of Rene. The puzzle remained. The 
 matter was just laid down at that point; I was 
 so afraid I should lose the clearness and quie- 
 tude that I got up and left the church." 
 
 "Has the quietude remained*?" I said. 
 
 "Yes. But to-day I gained more. I drove to 
 Brent village in a little pony-cart, left the cart 
 in the village and walked through the woods to 
 the little chapel Mr. Cameron's little In 
 Memoriam chapel among the pines." 
 
 "The shrine of our Lady of Light 1 ?" 
 
 "Yes. I went in there and sat down. The 
 peace and balance of my mind remained, but 
 the puzzle was there too. Rene had not been 
 explained. I saw a little barefooted girl in a 
 very faded blue cotton dress coming towards
 
 LADY CLINTON AT BRENT 169 
 
 the chapel. She was a little sunburnt thing, 
 with sandy hair. She had a big sheaf of white 
 fox-gloves under one arm; and she held in her 
 hand a dull blue jar full of water, which she 
 was carrying very carefully." 
 
 "It was little Maisie Anderson," I said, "a 
 little village girl who adores Jesse Cameron. 
 She goes up there and says a prayer for him 
 every day, and puts some flowers as an offering 
 to the Holy Mother." 
 
 "She did that now. She arranged her fox- 
 gloves very carefully in the jar; she placed the 
 jar at the foot of the statue of our Lady which 
 is at the door. Then she knelt down, folded her 
 little sunburnt hands, and said her prayer. It 
 was then, through the child's prayer, that a 
 thought came to me. It was this : 'A message 
 from a Woman to a woman; "I, too, was 
 amazed, and sought My Son sorrowing." 
 There and then, Father Standish, I was content 
 to be puzzled; and there and then, being con- 
 tent, bewilderment became rest."
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 THE GUARDIAN OF BRENT CHURCH 
 
 DURING the last week of September, 1916, a 
 young priest came to Brent. He was a mem- 
 ber of a Community, and he was en route for 
 France. He has great skill as an artist. He 
 said to me that he should like to paint the in- 
 terior of the village church. That church is 
 dedicated to S. Michael. 
 
 The priest said he wanted to give the sketch 
 to his mother. She has a great love for the 
 church, it seems; she used to stay in Brent vil- 
 lage when she was a young girl ; I think she met 
 the man she married when on one of these visits, 
 and had memories of the church which were con- 
 nected with him. She has also a special devo- 
 tion for the Archangel Patron. 
 
 I think, though he did not say so, that this 
 
 young priest was specially anxious to leave 
 
 170
 
 THE GUARDIAN 171 
 
 something for his mother, which he had painted 
 just before he went away; since he felt it might 
 be his last gift to her. 
 
 The village church at Brent is small. It is 
 very ancient and rather dark. There is an old 
 rood beam, on which the Figures have now been 
 replaced. Those of our Lady and S. John are 
 singularly beautiful. The grief-stricken figure 
 of the Mother stands with bowed head, and 
 helplessly drooping hands; the sword has 
 pierced to the very centre of the stricken soul. 
 But the Beloved Disciple is gazing in ecstasy 
 on the Figure of the Crucified; his eyes the 
 eyes of the seer of Patmos are piercing, eagle- 
 like, beyond the veil ; and in the Crucified Man 
 he sees the Word, eternal and triumphant in 
 the Bosom of the Father. It is a very fine piece 
 of work, and has a wonderful life and power in 
 it. The church has a low doorway. There is in 
 the chancel an old tomb the tomb of a Cru- 
 sader. 
 
 This young priest my guest has special 
 skill in painting the interiors of churches. He
 
 172 THE WHITE ISLAND 
 
 proposed to sketch the altar and the east win- 
 dow, in which there is some old glass and some 
 beautiful stone tracery. 
 
 It was the Feast of S. Michael, our Patron; 
 and we had a Sung Mass in the church at eight 
 o'clock. The young priest, who had said Mass 
 at seven in the chapel, served at the eight o'clock 
 Mass in the Church of S. Michael. When I 
 left the church he was still there. He came 
 back to breakfast, which is with us a silent meal. 
 He went to the church with his painting ma- 
 terials immediately after breakfast. 
 
 I saw him no more till the evening. I sup- 
 posed his artistic frenzy replaced meat and 
 drink. 
 
 When he did come back his eyes looked 
 dazed, as though he had been staring at the 
 sun. 
 
 "Have you sketched the church*?" said I. 
 
 "No," he replied, "I have not sketched the 
 church. I have been in the porch trying to 
 paint from memory something else."
 
 THE GUARDIAN 173 
 
 "I thought you particularly .wanted a sketch 
 of that church for your mother," I said. 
 
 "So I do," he answered. "I will try to make 
 one to-morrow for her. This one I shall leave 
 here with you, if you will have it. You can 
 do with it what you please." 
 
 He took the sketch out, and held it for a 
 few minutes without showing it to me. 
 
 "I saw this," he said slowly, "just as I had 
 got my easel into position and was going to 
 begin. I do not know in the least how long I 
 saw it. I know I fell on my knees and re- 
 mained there for a long time after it all van- 
 ished." 
 
 With these words he handed me the sketch. 
 
 At first I thought it was nothing save white- 
 ness. Then I saw the chancel was sketched 
 there; it was very faintly indicated. But the 
 altar and the window were invisible. They 
 were hidden blotted out by a turmoil of 
 white light. The artist had shown great skill 
 in giving the impression of intense, dazzling
 
 174 THE WHITE ISLAND 
 
 and pure whiteness, and an extraordinary radi- 
 ance and activity. 
 
 Very faintly outlined scarcely visible in- 
 deed in the centre of the light was a tall 
 figure. It was a man in white armour, with a 
 drawn sword, cross-handled and flashing, in his 
 hand. Such was the life of the sketch that it 
 seemed to move; the light appeared to pass in 
 billows over the figure, so that the face was 
 hidden by it. 
 
 I looked at the picture for a long time be- 
 fore I spoke. This recurrent idea of whiteness 
 struck me; I lingered over the sketch, search- 
 ing out all the significance of the recurrence. 
 
 "You saw this?" I asked at last. 
 
 "I saw it," he answered. "This only sug- 
 gests what I saw. It was the Glory that veils 
 the Presence, and the angel who guards It."
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 SIR JAMES CLINTON COMES TO BRENT 
 
 THE harvest of 1917 was a good and early one 
 at Brent. The fields, which we then knew 
 Jesse Cameron would never reap again, bore 
 fruitfully. When our corn was garnered, 
 preparatory to thrashing, that is to say just be- 
 fore the last week in August, there came to us 
 a little appeal, a cry for help. 
 
 It came from an old farmer who rented a 
 farm beyond Lexminister. It was eight miles 
 from Brent village. It lay, tucked away in a 
 fold of the downs, very close to the sea. 
 
 The farmer's sons all left him years ago for 
 work in town. But he had worked his land 
 with hired help up to now. Labour, he said, 
 was scarce ; the men that were left were claimed 
 by other farmers. He asked whether we would 
 lend him a hand to get in his harvest. He also 
 175
 
 176 THE WHITE ISLAND 
 
 made a personal appeal to me to come over 
 and see his eldest daughter. She, poor girl, 
 was in great sorrow. Her husband was a Brent 
 man, and I knew him well. When he went 
 away she returned to her father's house. Now 
 she was a widow with a young baby, and in 
 great distress of mind and feebleness of body. 
 The old man, her father, askecl me to come 
 "and comfort her a bit." 
 
 Alison and Rene said they would go over 
 and lend a hand in the harvest field. It was 
 settled they should work there for three days, 
 and I should go there on the second day 
 I could not well leave Brent before then and 
 return with them the next evening. They 
 started before daybreak on September the third. 
 On the day I was to join them the fourth 
 I found it would be impossible for me to start 
 until late in the day. Both the guest-house 
 and vicarage were filled with those who had 
 need of me. 
 
 I intended to walk the eight miles through 
 the Forest and over the Downs ; for despite my
 
 SIR JAMES CLINTON COMES 177 
 
 sixty-one years I was capable of much more 
 bodily exertion than that. We have never had 
 a motor here ; and the pony was needed by my 
 guests. Therefore I determined to walk, and 
 was looking forward to the quiet solitary jour- 
 ney through the pine forest and over the still 
 
 bare downs. 
 
 I 
 
 As the day wore on I saw I should possibly 
 not reach the farm till dusk. It was obvious 
 I should not be able to start on my way till 
 towards evening, so that, in spite of "summer 
 time" the sun would probably be setting before 
 I reached the farm. I am a steady, but no 
 longer a swift walker. But even if I could not 
 start till evening was come, there would, I 
 knew, be a moon ; therefore I could find my way 
 easily across the Downs. Since I was to stay 
 the night and spend the day there, I could see 
 and try to comfort the poor young widow the 
 next morning, if I was too late to talk much 
 with her on my arrival. 
 
 In the afternoon, immediately after saying 
 None, I left the chapel to go to the guest-house.
 
 178 THE WHITE ISLAND 
 
 I saw a tall man, with a little knapsack slung 
 on his back, enter the quadrangle. I thought 
 I knew him, but I was not quite sure. I went 
 into the quadrangle and walked towards him. 
 
 It was Sir James Clinton. He was rather 
 greyer than he was four years before, and he 
 looked tired and worn. The lines on his brow 
 and round his mouth were deeper and harder. 
 His eyes had a cold glassy look which they 
 never used to wear. Do you know the look 
 which is sometimes in the eyes of one who has 
 seen a sight which has revolted the whole na- 
 ture? It is a kind of fixed glare, the eyes 
 glassily bright, as though they were looking 
 steadily at an object a few feet away. 
 
 The look in Clinton's eyes was like that. He 
 was clad in a very shabby suit ; he wore a flan- 
 nel shirt, thick comfortable-looking boots, and 
 he carried a heavy stick. 
 
 "This is a very uncermonious visit of mine, 
 Father Standish," said he, as he shook hands. 
 "I hope you don't mind my inroad." 
 
 "I am very glad to see you, Sir James," said
 
 SIR JAMES CLINTON COMES 179 
 
 I. "You will stay here, of course"? I am 
 obliged to go away for the night; but I shall 
 be back to-morrow." 
 
 "No, no," he answered, "thank you very 
 much. It is only a flying visit. To tell the 
 truth, I am here by accident." 
 
 "You did not plan to come here, then?" 
 
 "No," he replied, "I did not. I have been 
 fool enough to overdo it. My sleep failed me. 
 I thought I would try a week in the fresh air, 
 walking hard, to try and get it back. I don't 
 want to begin drugs. I know what that 
 means." 
 
 "You're very wise," I answered. 
 
 "Not particularly, I fear," he said. "But 
 I am not yet, I believe, an utter ass. I used 
 to be very fond of a walking tour when I was 
 a young man." 
 
 "It is the best way of seeing the country," 
 I remarked. 
 
 "The only real way," he answered. "Be- 
 sides, to walk in the country restores sanity 
 as nothing else does."
 
 i8o THE WHITE ISLAND 
 
 I noted that he spoke as though sanity had 
 departed from him and must be wooed back; 
 but I naturally did not show I noted it. 
 
 "I am particularly fond of the Forest," said 
 he. "It has a unique charm." 
 
 "Do you know those Downs beyond Lex- 
 minster'?" 
 
 "They are an old love of mine," he replied. 
 "I am en route for them now. I started yes- 
 terday. I took an ordnance map to help me 
 to steer my course. I hate asking my way. I 
 got a little at sea, though. Suddenly I found 
 myself at the back gate of One Holly. Then 
 I knew I was close to Brent. I thought I 
 would come and see Rene " He checked 
 himself, and added, "And you, Father Stand- 
 ish, of course. Can I see him?" 
 
 "This is very unlucky!" I exclaimed. "For 
 Rene is not here. He will be back to-morrow 
 if you could stay. It is the first time he has 
 been away from Brent, even for an hour, since 
 he came here more than four years ago." 
 
 Clinton was certainly in a contradictory
 
 SIR JAMES CLINTON COMES 181 
 
 frame of mind. I saw a look of genuine relief 
 cross his face. Then it faded, and was re- 
 placed by a shade of disappointment. 
 
 I think he came to Brent in a mixed mood. 
 He shrank from seeing his son, because his am- 
 bition for him was thwarted. 
 
 But One Holly gate brought before him the 
 memory of the holland-clad, bare-legged sprite 
 he had loved. That tender memory drove him 
 to Brent. 
 
 When he asked to see Rene the memory of 
 the child faded, and he shrank from that which 
 would bring the prick of pain. 
 
 But directly he knew he could not see him, 
 the tender thought which sent him here re- 
 asserted itself. He was a little sorry Rene was 
 away. 
 
 "It is very unfortunate," he said. "Has he 
 gone far, Father Standish*?" 
 
 "No," I answered. "He and my friend, 
 David Alison, have gone together to help to get 
 in the harvest for an old fellow who has a farm 
 on the Downs beyond Lexminster."
 
 182 THE WHITE ISLAND 
 
 "David Alison the writer?" said Clinton. "I 
 know his books." 
 
 "Yes," I replied. "He lives here. He and 
 Rene have gone about eight or nine miles to 
 lend a hand on this farm. I was going there 
 to-night myself, to see the farmer's daughter, 
 who is ill and in sorrow. I shall return with 
 Rene and Alison to-morrow. Could you not 
 stay here till Rene comes*?" 
 
 "No, no, thank you," said Clinton. "I must 
 push on. You have got in your harvest here, 
 then?" 
 
 "It was carried ten days ago," I answered. 
 "It was an early and a good one, thank God." 
 
 "I am glad Rene is able to do some useful 
 work," said Clinton. "At least" he gave a 
 queer, unpleasant little laugh "if it is useful." 
 
 "Surely it is so," I replied. "It must be use- 
 ful to gather in the corn, Sir James. Without 
 bread the people would starve." 
 
 "Do you think that would be a serious evil?" 
 he said, with an intense cynicism in voice and 
 manner.
 
 SIR JAMES CLINTON COMES 183 
 
 "Surely! Do not you?' 
 
 His only answer was a shrug of the shoul- 
 ders. I let the matter drop. I saw the man 
 was in some evil strait of mind, rather than of 
 body. 
 
 At that moment a thought entered my mind 
 with a decision and clarity which gave me a 
 startled sense that it was one of urgent im- 
 portance. I mean I had a clearly-cut convic- 
 tion it was a matter of vital importance to 
 Sir James Clinton that it should be put before 
 him, and also that he should fall in with it. 
 
 Most people, I believe, have these flashes 
 at times. Women have them more frequently 
 than men do. Some people call them "intui- 
 tions," others call them "guidance." In nine 
 cases out of ten I think it is best to disregard 
 them. In the tenth, perhaps, it is advisable 
 to follow them. Those who regard them as 
 supernatural leadings are commonly led astray 
 by them. I have noted that few such people 
 accept "guidance" which is wholly opposed to 
 their personal wishes, so that it becomes for
 
 184 THE WHITE ISLAND 
 
 them a sort of supernatural sanction for self- 
 will. 
 
 When, therefore, this conviction entered my 
 mind I turned it over and considered it, while I 
 chatted with Clinton. I thought the idea was 
 certainly a harmless one. It seemed to be al- 
 most impossible that it could be as enormously 
 important as it seemed to be. But it could do 
 no harm if it were carried out. Perhaps it 
 might comfort Clinton to see Rene at work 
 with other men. He might feel it was better 
 for him to be at Brent than with the doctor. 
 When I had reached this conclusion I spoke. 
 
 "It is a great pity, isn't it?" said I, taking 
 care to speak rather carelessly, for I knew that 
 if Clinton thought I was urging it upon him 
 he would refuse at once. "Pity, when you 
 came on purpose to see Rene, your plans should 
 be thwarted like this." 
 
 "It is very annoying," he assented. 
 
 I believe the idea that he had an intention 
 which was suddenly opposed by circumstances 
 made him feel a genuine annoyance in the mat-
 
 SIR JAMES CLINTON COMES 185 
 
 ter. The annoyance took birth from the idea. 
 He began to feel a desire to surmount obstacles 
 and carry out his originally lukewarm deter- 
 mination to see Rene. 
 
 "You do not want to delay here," said I. 
 "But I don't see, after all, why your intention 
 should be crossed. You might take the farm 
 on your way across the Downs." 
 
 "Well, really!" said he, "I think I might do 
 that." 
 
 "It's in a most fascinating corner, tucked 
 away in a fold of the Downs. A delightful 
 old farm! The Downs rise above it towards 
 the sea." 
 
 "How far did you say*?" he asked. 
 
 "About eight miles," I answered. "It takes 
 me something under three hours to walk. You 
 would probably be quicker." 
 
 "Could I put up there for the night?" 
 
 "I am sure you could. It is a big, rambling 
 old house, and they are homely, hospitable peo- 
 ple, old-fashioned farmers. There is a tiny 
 hamlet a quarter of a mile off. The vicar there
 
 i86 THE WHITE ISLAND 
 
 is a bachelor with a most amiable cook-house- 
 keeper. I know him. He would give you a 
 bed, if you don't care for the farm." 
 
 "You are walking there yourself?" 
 
 "I am," I answered. "I shall start about four 
 o'clock. Would you care to walk with me, or 
 is solitude a part of your programme? Do 
 not mind saying if it is so. I shall fully un- 
 derstand." 
 
 "Solitude is by no means a part of my pro- 
 gramme if I can get your company, Father 
 Standish," replied he politely. 
 
 I hope this speech was as truthful as it was 
 courtly. He said he would stroll in the gar- 
 dens till I was ready. At five o'clock that 
 afternoon we set out side by side through the 
 still sun-embroidered Forest paths (alas, the 
 trees are dwindling fast!) towards the smooth 
 curved slopes of the Lexminster Downs.
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE 
 
 WE walked slowly. It was warm, and a glori- 
 ous day. We timed our starting by "summer 
 time," and the sun set that night at 7.40 by 
 the same computation. The Downs, when we 
 reached them, were bathed in golden light. The 
 lower slopes were cultivated. Most of the corn 
 was cut, though some was not yet carried. 
 Here and there were fields of barley, oats and 
 wheat yet unreaped. Some were injured by 
 the heavy rains and gales of that August. I 
 remember standing a long time watching the 
 tremble of the wind across a sunlit field of 
 golden barley. Butterflies were skipping over 
 a field of clover through which we passed. It 
 must have been a second crop, I suppose. It 
 was crimson clover. I saw fluttering over the 
 
 flowers tortoiseshell, orange-tip, and little 
 187
 
 i88 THE WHITE ISLAND 
 
 azure-blue butterflies; and one gorgeous pea- 
 cock slowly opening and shutting its wings, 
 perched on a tall grass stalk. We passed a 
 dew-pond on a slope of the Downs; there were 
 dragon-flies flashing to and fro over it; big blue 
 ones, and a smaller, golden brown. 
 
 We talked very little. Clinton seemed to 
 desire silence. I fell in gladly with his mood. 
 It falls to my lot in life to talk a good deal; 
 but I prefer silence. 
 
 Little by little the exquisite peace and beauty 
 of the Downs began to jar on Clinton. He 
 glanced at me. The sight of those Downs, of 
 the smooth curving lines, the great arch of the 
 sky, the living creatures, both plants and in- 
 sects, always makes me realise more intensely 
 that the earth is the Presence Chamber of God. 
 I suppose he saw this in my face. It roused 
 in him a spirit of challenge and revolt. 
 
 He suddenly stopped short, leaned on his 
 stick and spoke : 
 
 "You were surprised when I doubted whether 
 it would be an evil if the people itarved?"
 
 A PILGRIMAGE 189 
 
 "I was," I answered. 
 
 "Why were you surprised 1 ?" said Clinton. 
 There was a nervous, irritable snap in the tones 
 of his voice. 
 
 "Partly because I thought you would not 
 wish it from motives of humanity." 
 
 "And ?" 
 
 "And mainly because it was strange doctrine 
 from you !" 
 
 "Whyfrom me?' 
 
 "Because you are notoriously and confessedly 
 working yourself to the last notch for your 
 country." 
 
 "It is true," he replied. "So I am. But 
 why*?" 
 
 "I suppose from patriotism." 
 
 "Nothing of the sort !" 
 
 I looked at him in surprise, and was silent. 
 
 "It is partly from habit," he said. "It is 
 a trick. It does not spring from conviction. 
 But it is mainly because if this machine" 
 he touched his brow with his fingers "were 
 not given grist to grind, it would grind itself.
 
 190 THE WHITE ISLAND 
 
 I don't want it to do that, for my wife's sake. 
 She's suffered quite enough already." 
 
 He leaned forward a little, looking at me. 
 
 "Since she came back from seeing Rene about 
 a year ago she has been at rest," he said. "I 
 see that, and I am glad of it. Though her 
 reason for restfulness appears to me to be quite 
 inadequate. Still she's a woman. It satisfies 
 her." 
 
 "Women are more easily satisfied than men, 
 you think?" I asked. 
 
 He looked at me more keenly than ever; and 
 the fixed, glassy look in his eyes deepened. 
 
 "Hear a confession !" he said at last, bitterly. 
 "Hear a confession from an impenitent sceptic ! 
 I have never believed in God. But I did once 
 believe in man. Now I believe in neither." 
 
 He paused for a second, as though to see 
 how I should take this. When I remained 
 silent and attentive, he went on. 
 
 "Humanity," he said slowly and deliberately, 
 "is not worth working for, fighting for, think- 
 ing for, living for, dying for, or praying for.
 
 A PILGRIMAGE 191 
 
 The 'other world' is to me a madman's dream ; 
 and this world is an idiot's nightmare. There's 
 my poor boy, Rene, about whom I am not go- 
 ing to make pretty speeches now you talked 
 that amazing balderdash four years ago. It was 
 an awful blow to me, once, that he is as he is. 
 It hurts me now to think of it. But it is utter 
 foolery in me to be hurt. He may just as well 
 be thus as any other way." 
 
 Again he paused, as though for my com- 
 ment. When I made none, he went on. 
 
 "The whole show is an utter failure, an 
 abject futility! My wife was right when she 
 said so four years ago. Look for yourself! 
 Brutality and lying, hypocrisy, greed, intrigue, 
 chicanery, and filth of all kinds ! I had 'faith* 
 once; not in God, but in man. I have none 
 now in anything in heaven or on earth." 
 
 I was still silent. He watched my face for 
 a few seconds. 
 
 "You are shocked, of course," he said. 
 "That goes without saying in a man of your 
 cloth. I suppose you are surprised. I notice
 
 192 THE WHITE ISLAND 
 
 that most people's faith in humanity seems 
 to be increased. It is not so with me. I don't 
 doubt the virtue and heroism of individuals. 
 But humanity in the aggregate seems to me to 
 be a foul, raging sort of a beast ; and all human 
 schemes come to naught in face of that fact. I 
 think mankind is a failure." 
 
 Then I spoke. 
 
 "I am not shocked," I said. "And I am 
 not in the least surprised. I do not see how 
 you can believe in man if you don't believe in 
 God." 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 "Because God and man are joined together 
 in indissoluble marriage. If God goes, man 
 goes with Him ; he has lost his root. My faith 
 in man abides, because my faith in God Who 
 sustains him abides. If I started by not be- 
 lieving in God, I should never have believed 
 in man. Therefore I think you must really 
 have a greater capacity for faith than I." 
 
 "I did not suppose you would take that at- 
 titude," he said slowly. "You " he seemed
 
 A PILGRIMAGE 193 
 
 to search his mind for the right word to ex- 
 press his thought "you are the most unshak- 
 able person I have ever met. It is not that 
 you are outwardly unshaken, nor even that you 
 are inwardly unshaken. You are unshakable. 
 That is the point." 
 
 He punched the turf reflectively with his 
 stick. 
 
 "It's queer," he said, as though to himself. 
 "It's uncommonly queer." 
 
 "What is queer?" I asked. He looked at me 
 again. 
 
 "Your attitude," he answered. 
 
 "What is there in my attitude that strikes 
 you as queer $" 
 
 "You astound me, Father Standish," he re- 
 plied. "I tell you so frankly, and I'll tell you 
 why. I think you are a man of unquestionable 
 ability. I think you are sane and well-bal- 
 anced, as men go. Therefore by what miracle 
 of utter irrationality you seriously maintain 
 the amazing " 
 
 He stopped.
 
 194 THE WHITE ISLAND 
 
 "You know," he said apologetically, "I am 
 a bit overstrained. My tongue has a trifle run 
 away with me. I really have no right to insult 
 your faith, especially as I suppose it has 
 prompted your kindness to my boy." 
 
 I laughed at that. 
 
 "Sir James," I said, "my faith will not be 
 injured by any man's insults. I should like 
 you to speak quite candidly what is in your 
 mind." 
 
 "Then I cannot imagine how you seriously 
 believe the amazing statements " he checked 
 himself "the statements you made about 
 Rene, for example," he continued. "I can- 
 not imagine how you come to believe in a super- 
 natural order, for the existence of which you 
 have no vestige of proof, so far as I can see. I 
 am not surprised at my wife. Women have 
 extraordinary minds; they do not work on the 
 same principles as those of men." 
 
 "Your elder daughter?" I suggested. 
 
 "Margaret?" he said. "Yes. But there are 
 extraordinary gaps and inconsistencies in her
 
 A PILGRIMAGE 195 
 
 reasoning, too. I should not be surprised at 
 anything she believed ; and indeed she has some 
 extraordinarily illogical views. But when I 
 see a man like yourself well ! it astounds me !" 
 
 "You must admit," said I, "that to have 
 such a belief is a great economy of energy." 
 
 "How so?" 
 
 "There is a large amount of nervous wear 
 and tear which one is spared. Hence one has 
 more energy to devote to other things." 
 
 "How do you make that out?" 
 
 "I make it out on your own showing. You 
 say you are suffering from overstrain and lack 
 of sleep, because you are compelled to go on 
 working as on a treadmill; partly from force 
 of habit, but mainly to prevent thought which 
 tends to madness. You have nothing and no 
 one on whom to depend either as a sustainer 
 or as a colleague, because God does not exist, 
 and man is a failure." 
 
 "And you?" said Clinton. 
 
 "I am absolutely convinced that man is not 
 a. failure."
 
 196 THE WHITE ISLAND 
 
 "Why have you that conviction*?" 
 "Because I see God taking infinite pains 
 over his training. I am also absolutely con- 
 vinced that if I am willing to do God's Will 
 He will help me to do it. Those two convic- 
 tions, which are, as you said, unshakable, save 
 me a great deal of wear and tear." 
 
 Clinton did not speak for a little while. At 
 last he said: 
 
 "Well! I suppose we must be going." 
 We walked on slowly. We loitered, so that 
 the sun had just set when we reached the farm. 
 It was a large grey stone house; the roof was 
 covered with lichen, moss and stone-crop. 
 Swallows built under the eaves. There was a 
 sheltered kitchen-garden at one side, in which 
 grew a jumble of vegetables and flowers. For 
 there were dahlias and blush-rose bushes, and 
 masses of lavender and southernwood growing 
 side by side with rows of French beans and 
 scarlet runners. There were apple-trees, too, 
 andi tree? loaded with ripe plums.
 
 A PILGRIMAGE 197 
 
 We saw Alison leaning on the gate with an 
 air about him as of honest toil. 
 
 "We thought you were lost, Father An- 
 thony," he called out. 
 
 "I could not get away from Brent till rather 
 late," I replied. "And we have come very 
 leisurely." 
 
 Then I introduced him to Clinton, and ex- 
 plained that Rene was the object of his quest. 
 
 "He has gone up to the Downs above the 
 sea," said Alison. "He would not stay for the 
 excellent supper you can now smell cooking. 
 He was off directly we struck work." 
 
 "When will he be back?" asked Clinton. 
 
 "Not till morning," said Alison. "He ate 
 a chunk of admirable barley bread which our 
 good hostess bakes; he drank some milk from 
 her dairy, filled his pockets with plums from 
 her garden, and was off. He shares my pas- 
 sion for sleeping under the sky. He has found 
 a little heap of ruins on the Downs overhang- 
 ing the sea. It was once S. Michael's chapel,
 
 198 THE WHITE ISLAND 
 
 and there is a glorious view from it of the coast- 
 line." 
 
 "Will he sleep there to-night?" said Clin- 
 ton. 
 
 "He is sure to do so. It is still half-roofed 
 and can defy a rain-storm. He slept there last 
 night. But you might seek him there after 
 supper, Sir James; he won't have turned in yet. 
 The sun is only just down." 
 
 The farmer came out at that moment, full 
 
 v 
 
 of kindly welcome and hospitality. He would 
 not hear of "Mr. Clinton's father" going to the 
 vicarage for the night. He said there was 
 plenty of room at the farm, if "the gentleman 
 could put up with their plain ways." 
 
 It was a new position for Sir James Clinton 
 to be regarded merely as "Mr. Clinton's father." 
 
 The farmer was full of regret because "the 
 young gentleman had gone off with nothing 
 to eat, like." 
 
 "I will eat his share and my own too, Mr. 
 Allan," said Clinton, cheerily. 
 
 I think he was beginning to feel the sooth-
 
 A PILGRIMAGE 199 
 
 ing magic of the quiet, sweet-smelling, homely 
 place. 
 
 We had a very good supper in the big, clean, 
 farm-house kitchen. 
 
 "And now," said Clinton, when we rose, "we 
 will go and hunt down this shy game this 
 erratic young relative of mine." 
 
 "It is not more than a quarter of an hour's 
 walk," said Alison. "Across a field or two, 
 over the stile yonder, and then up the slope." 
 
 Clinton looked at me. I saw he wished me 
 to go too. 
 
 If he had not done so I should not have gone. 
 
 I had supposed he would go alone, and I 
 should see the poor girl I came to visit. But 
 she was ill and in her room. It was possible, 
 though it was still early, that she was settled 
 for the night. Moreover, I saw Clinton plainly 
 desired to have my company. Therefore we 
 went forth together in the sweet-smelling dusk. 
 We went forth he and I to look for Rene.
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 THE WHITE GLORY 
 
 THE great gale which had recently swept the 
 land was over. It was a still night. In that 
 sheltered hollow of the Downs we felt no wind. 
 It was fair and clear, save for some light clouds 
 which were beginning to drift upwards from the 
 horizon. The dew lay thick and heavy on the 
 grass. The moon was up. As we went out, 
 the church clock struck, and the carillon rang 
 out slowly "The Sicilian Mariners' Hymn." 
 Moonlight and the light of evening fading into 
 night were blended. We walked through a 
 reaped field full of sheaves waiting to be car- 
 ried when day should return. Both at Brent, 
 and hereabouts, the rain and storms did little 
 harm. We passed through an unreaped field 
 of oats. The oats rustled softly in a little 
 
 breeze that touched them. Then we climbed 
 200
 
 THE WHITE GLORY 201 
 
 a stile and walked through a bit of pasture 
 where we could hear the cows feeding. 
 
 A cow-bell at the neck of one of them tinkled 
 as she moved. A dog barked far away on the 
 Downs behind us. A white owl skipped by 
 like a pale shadow ; a night moth flew past. 
 
 We left the pasture for the slopes and began 
 to climb. We climbed silently. The hush 
 was so great that it held us by its unspoken 
 mystery. It was only broken by a drowsy 
 noise of distant waves, and the murmur of a 
 sheepfold very far away on a farm beyond 
 the hamlet. The sounds which broke the quiet 
 of the night only seemed to intensify the silence. 
 
 At last we reached the summit, and paused 
 for a second, looking at the sea and the long 
 line of the coast. 
 
 We could see the broken half-roofed walls 
 and a heap of stones; and we could also see 
 Rene. 
 
 He stood by the stones, looking seawards. 
 He looked very small and insignificant, stand-
 
 202 THE WHITE ISLAND 
 
 ing alone on the great deserted sweep of the 
 down, under the night sky. 
 
 He was not very tall, and he was thin and 
 lightly built. He looked a little thing an 
 atom of no consequence a thread of human- 
 ity lit by a tiny spark of easily extinguished 
 life. 
 
 The scene is extraordinarily clear and vivid 
 in my memory. I see each detail : 
 
 The moonlight on the water and the Downs. 
 The ruined chapel and the heap of stones. 
 Rene standing there with a khaki-coloured 
 blanket lying in a heap at his feet. I can feel, 
 in memory, the cool bitter-sweetness of the 
 wind from the sea, and see the thin grass-stalks 
 and the harebells bending in it; and a night 
 bird that flung itself silently into space from 
 the cliff summit. 
 
 Clinton moved to go forward, and I followed 
 him. 
 
 He walked a few paces, and stopped with 
 a jerk; his stick fell from his hand on to the 
 springy turf with a little thud. I came up
 
 THE WHITE GLORY 103 
 
 level with him and looked at his face. He 
 was staring straight in front of him with a look 
 in his eyes of utter and stunned amazement. 
 I felt a great awe and wonder; and I remem- 
 ber how, even as I looked and marvelled, for 
 I saw he could see something I did not see, my 
 ear was caught by the little familiar sound of a 
 field-cricket's cry on the turf at our feet. 
 
 The next moment the angel of the Lord 
 opened my eyes, and I saw too. 
 
 The plaice where Rene stood was wrapped 
 in a turmoil of white light, such as had blazed 
 before the eyes of the priest-artist in Brent 
 Church. 
 
 It was the divine Substance of Life; it was 
 a living Body, the Handmaid of Him Who 
 made It. I saw it did not wrap Rene round. 
 It flowed through and through him ; so that 
 the pure body and childlike soul became an 
 expression and instrument of the White Glory. 
 I gazed, as I thought, on a foreshadowing of 
 the mystery of the resurrection of the body. I 
 saw holy, divine Power linked in an eternal
 
 204 THE WHITE ISLAND 
 
 marriage with perfected and glorified matter. 
 
 This I saw first; and then I saw something 
 else. For this unspeakable Glory, this white 
 world of the Life of God, was everywhere. I 
 know it is not less there, as I write, because He 
 Who opened my eyes has seen fit to close them 
 again. 
 
 It gleamed like a living rampart along the 
 headlands blazing into life, it shone over the 
 waters of the sea. Over the sleeping fields, the 
 cattle, the little church, the lonely farms it 
 passed; the Glory of God, the Power of the 
 Lord, creating and sustaining. 
 
 As I looked I saw Rene, wholly unseeing of 
 the Glory, kneel down and with folded hands 
 and bowed head say his brief and simple night 
 prayers. I saw him rise, take off his coat and 
 roll it into a pillow for his head, lie down by 
 the stones, pull his khaki blanket over him, 
 and cross himself. He lay there, a little, dark, 
 quiet figure, in the billows of white light. 
 
 Before the vision left me I saw one other 
 thing.
 
 THE WHITE GLORY 205 
 
 Even as before the altar a holy figure shone 
 forth from the whiteness, so now I saw a great 
 and fair company shine forth. To and fro, 
 coming and going, in ceaseless worship and 
 ceaseless service, I saw them. 
 
 The mighty angels, the mighty dead, and 
 with them the "spirits and souls of the right- 
 eous," purified and at peace. I saw the watch- 
 ful guardians who serve the joyous Shepherd 
 of the child's vision. I saw the untiring patrol 
 of land and sea, the watchers who cease not 
 to worship and lift up souls to God in their 
 prayer. 
 
 I saw living and dead, men and angels, 
 bound together in the Communion of Saints, 
 and I saw the binding of them in a Body held 
 as a common heritage, the holy Whiteness of 
 the Life of God. I saw them as the channels 
 of His Power and of His Will patiently and 
 ceaselessly toiling to fashion the visible into 
 the likeness of the invisible. 
 
 Then my eyes were closed again. I saw 
 only the sleeping earth, the star-lit sky, the
 
 THE WHITE ISLAND 
 
 heaving sea, the figure covered by the khaki 
 blanket, and the moonlight resting on it all. 
 And I heard the insect's sharp, fine cry from 
 the dew-wet turf at my feet. 
 
 Clinton turned and stumbled blindly down 
 the slope. I knew he had seen what I saw. 
 I followed him. 
 
 "My God!" I heard him whisper. "My 
 God!" 
 
 As we went our way by the path we had 
 come, I heard him muttering again and again 
 to himself those words : 
 
 "My God ! My God ! My God !" 
 
 I think it was both a Confession and a 
 Prayer.
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 FATHER ANTHONY'S POSTSCRIPT 
 
 AND now, Catherine my niece, you will say: 
 "How does such a story as this prove that the 
 world is governed by Justice?" 
 
 It does not prove it. It did not aim to do 
 so. It suggests it does not give proof, but 
 it suggests that we are not able to judge or 
 decide as to what constitutes justice, when the 
 Justice we are trying to understand has so gi- 
 gantic a field of operation, and an all but in- 
 finite gradation of causes and effects to 
 balance. 
 
 The tale of Rene also suggests to you that 
 as there are no two leaves alike in a wood, 
 so are there no two souls precisely the same, 
 that each has its purpose and its office in the 
 mighty Plan, and is being slowly shaped for 
 
 that office. If that is so, the question of God's 
 207
 
 208 THE WHITE ISLAND 
 
 justice in differing lives sinks out of sight. We 
 are not solely watching the proceedings of an 
 administrator of justice (not that I do not 
 believe in an exact and awful Justice; I simply 
 say I cannot judge of its working, because its 
 scope and sweep are too great for me) ; we are 
 watching a Creative Artist. This story of 
 Rene tends to show an individual care, a con- 
 sidered mode of dealing with each soul brought 
 within the range of a certain influence. Each 
 was different, and each was dealt with accord- 
 ing to its need 
 
 Therefore I say we do not know enough to 
 doubt; we only know enough to believe. 
 
 And as the doors swing wider we see the 
 same stupendous working stretching on into 
 the white reaches of the worlds invisible, until 
 thought drops dead, and vision fails before 
 the Truth of that Eternity in whose most secret 
 Shrine abides Justice.
 
 L' ENVOI. 
 
 TO THE ANGEL OF THE FLAMING SWORD 
 
 KING of an age most mild, 
 When we shall know the Child, 
 
 The Babe of wondrous power; 
 Who in our hearts as One, 
 A little secret Sun, 
 
 Dwells at this hour. 
 Fire these dull hearts, O Lord ! 
 Touch with thy flaming sword ; 
 Till to the Babe All-Wise 
 We lift adoring eyes; 
 
 Giving to Him life's sum, 
 All that we be. 
 Crying: "In Thee we see 
 Perfect simplicity. 
 O Babe ! the warrior's Lord, 
 Great Michael's King ador'd, 
 
 Thy Kingdom come!"