The Last Miracle Part 15

"Well, no doubt she will recover," I said.

He pipped a nothing with relief, his lips unwreathed, his teeth shone out happily, and he said: "Oh, well, everything works out nicely in the end, if only things be premeditated by men of grasp and vigour. I a.s.sure you, the longer I live the more I see it--the supremacy of mind in the world. When I was a wild chap of seventeen I said to myself one night: 'go to, now, I will be a man: I will be grand, I will govern my pa.s.sions, and have a hand in history.' And so said, so done. I did it!

here you see me now, I did it very well, very well, oh yes, here I am.

Mind is everything. Look at Mr Edwards, now--nice fellow, powerful fellow, sharp as a falchion! You know, of course, that the Lords have just virtually thrown out Diseased Persons? Tell me now which of the two you think will come off the victor in this duel between Edwards and the archbishop."

"Who can win against the grain of an archbishop under a _regime_ of miracles, Baron Kolar?" I asked.

"What!" said he, eyeing me sternly from top to toe, "but is there to be no term to the insolence of the Church? Remember that this plan of sterilising diseased persons is no new thing: during twenty years it has been under discussion; in Austria, I a.s.sure you, if it had not been for the miracles, diseased persons would at present be consigned to the lethal chamber; but this most moderate bill only ensures their sterilisation. Everywhere such a measure is called for; it is in the very gist of our age; and now when Mr Edwards, by a travail of Hercules, has driven it through his House with a grim majority of twelve--earnest fellow, grand fellow--are we to see his pearl trampled under foot by a herd of bishops? But you shall not see that. I forecast that the bill will be sent back to the Lords a second and a third time, and in the end Edwards will win--oh yes, he will win."

"He may," said I.

"He will," said he: "England will rise to his support; wait, you will see."

He turned off from me, but turned again to ask after the Misses Chambers, then left me to rejoin his friends.

When I mentioned his words the next day at Swandale, Langler said to me: "but since this man is so very sure beforehand of the Prime Minister's victory, may we not at once look for some stroke of policy against the Church on his part--perhaps the showing of the miracles to be none?"

"In that case, Aubrey," said I, for I was excited, "let us be beforehand with him! let both of us now write plainly to our friends that the miracles are probably none, but still are no contrivance of priests----"

But Langler interrupted me, saying: "you would hardly have us, Arthur, appear to our friends in the light of crusaders and quixotes."

"Why quixotes?" said I.

"Wouldn't it be terribly like springing upon them the statement, '_the sky is brown_'? The miracles are now among established things, nor are our suspicions anything but suspicions. Certainly, we should seem pert, if not irrelevant. Letters are perused over the breakfast-cup, and are not expected to be epic."

"However," said I, "this is the one plan which you can carry out without fear of being interfered with and hindered, and by it you wash your hands at once of the whole business and burden."

"Perhaps; but still, frankly, it would not be quite to my taste: I'd rather die than seem _outre_, or strutting, or oracular----"

"But since so much is at stake----"

"Sooner any other plan, Arthur."

"But what other plan--except going to Styria?"

"Hardly again," said he, with closed eyes, "hardly again," and we were silent.

After a while he asked: "does the agent, Barker, still decline to go to Styria alone?"

"Yes," said I; "he and others naturally scent danger in the adventure after what has twice befallen us. If anyone goes, it must be ourselves; so what shall be done?"

"But do you ask me that, Arthur?" cried he, much moved: "how shall I answer you? I have already paid a great price; my heart has wept. The men who are against us are of withering mood, though I do not say wicked men; in fact, they are not, since the mere success of their exploits implies, I think, an erectness of meaning which commands our esteem----"

"Esteem, Aubrey," I murmured: but such was the _finesse_ of Langler's criticism, whose scales no zephyr of pa.s.sion could ever shake, and he derided as cra.s.s and green whoever did not give to the devil his dainty due.

"Yes, I say esteem," said he, "for the misdoer is, and must be, a bungler, so where you have a series of lawlessnesses finely achieved you may look to find behind them a mood of moral erectness. But little the morality of these men concerns me--I was speaking of their power."

"Now, however," said I, "whatever their power, is the hour for us to strike in, if ever: Diseased Persons will soon be back in the Lords; Burton, of course, will not yield--"

"Talking of Burton," said he, "I have two letters of his which I will show you now"--and he rose and got them: one was a letter of sympathy, very feelingly worded, written to Langler on the second wounding of our friend; the other, written only five days before to Percival of Keble, was as follows:--"The Palace, Lambeth. P. + T. My dear Percival,--Forgive my silence, since you are continually in my heart. It is now confirmed that Diseased Persons will be thrown out; and as Israel prevailed over Amalek in Rephidim, so we shall ride over them that rise up against us. Hertford, Jersey, and Ellenborough have declared on our side, and the zeal of young Denman, who now has rooms in the Palace, is profitable to me: the Lord reward them according to their works....

There can be no looking back now, even if we would, being more strongly impelled against the Bill from the side of St Peter than many divine; and, in addition, there are forces, _in their nature subterranean_, which prompt and urge us, and make retreat impossible--even if we would!

Bellini of the Maddallena writes that he does not consider the Bill contrary to Holy Writ! And is it? What say you? Give me of your wisdom.

But however that be, on we must, the force behind is grim and deaf. I say that the whole truth is known to none: you will remember at some future day, if need be, that I have said it to you and to others; nor is what I now give you any whisper between ourselves. But is not the whole truth still good to speak? not the truth only, but the whole? We have Clement of Alexandria on 'uttering a lie, as the Sophists say'; but to utter a lie is it not to tell one? and to tell one is it not to lie? and to lie is it not to be a rotting liar? And to trim, and economise, and keep dark, and be s.h.i.+fty, is it not to utter many lies? To all which I say: 'Get thee behind me, Satan! I will wash my hands in innocency.'

Forgive me if I am curious and obscure to-night, good friend, since I write in some gloom of mind. One short year ago I was a village-priest, and had songs in the night; at present I am full of tossings to and fro till the morning. But my every loss, were it of life and soul, I will count as gain, if only Zion prosper, though I warn you, Percival, of rocks ahead, and fears and doubts not to be formulated; at some hours I see the future dark as c.r.a.pe--I could not tell you. Our victory in Gloucester was ominously close, and here and there in the country one hears Old Adam growling. They must obey! they must submit themselves!

stantes sunt pedes nostri in atriis tuis, Jerusalem: over all uprising we shall ride gloriously, G.o.d help us. Alas! sometimes when I am mightiest, then am I weakest: the solid Pisgah gives way under my feet, the wings of Icarus stream with melting; oh, for faith, and more faith, and still more: pray for me. Still, we shall ride, we shall triumph. As to the Lambeth degrees in medicine, and our right to grant them, this you shall see carried against all the rage of the heathen in the near future, so also as to the proposed new powers of Consistory Courts and of my Court of Audience, so also as to the restoring to Canterbury of her jurisdiction over wills and intestacies, so also as to the condign punishment of Ambrose Rivers: all these. Only, still the sleeplessness, no rest, no shutting of the eyelid, but tossings till the morning, and not poppy nor mandragoras shall medicine me now, I think. Oh, Percival, how happy is the obscure good man, the upright heart and pure, kept unspotted from the world! Down yonder in Ritching parish my garden grew wild, the vicarage was holey and ruined, but very pretty, very homely, and ever for me there was one sweetest, secret cruse of water from Siloa's brook, and my morsel of dry bread was like coriander seed, man, I tell you, and the taste of it like wafers made with honey. Percival, I warn you, fly from preferment: there is one sweeter sluice than all.

Pray write as to the scripturalness of Diseased Persons. Farewell, dear friend.--In haste, yours faithfully in N.D.J.C., JOHN CANTUAR."

"Here, I think," said Langler when I had got through the two letters, "you have a soul in the toils," and we went on talking about Burton and other things, without coming to the point as to what we personally were now to do; moreover, I had promised to be back in London at once, and left Swandale that night, our friend being then definitely on the road to recovery.

I did not, I think, return to Swandale during some two weeks, and meanwhile twice saw Archbishop Burton, once in the Lords on the night when Diseased Persons was being debated for the second time; all the world was there: I saw Mr Edwards peeping behind the throne; I saw Baron Kolar ironing his thigh, while his eyes dwelt upon the primate, who, somehow, denounced the bill less loudly than I had expected to hear. I thought that Dr Burton's girth was less outgrown, his visage less brown than usual; indeed, I have grounds to know that about that time the archbishop was putting himself to cruel tortures with regimen, the thongs of discipline, and other articles of piety. Twice to my knowledge, while speaking, he glanced up at Baron Kolar in the gallery, and I witnessed the meeting of their eyes. Well, the bill, which had been sent up this second time with an ominous drop in Edwards' majority from twelve to nine, was anew mutilated; and at this thing the sort of ecstasy which marked the mood of the country can only be recalled, not described, for Diseased Persons and the Education Bill (setting up _lycees_ on the French model) were the two main items in the King's Speech, the Church withstood both, and the deadlock was complete.

Edwards would not yield, for if ever man knew England and Englishmen it was he, and a sort of world-wide mutter against churchmen, which did not dare express itself, yet could be felt, was abroad. It was at this juncture that I again saw the archbishop one night at a political crush at the d.u.c.h.ess of St Albans'. I was making my way through a throng when I caught a view of Baron Kolar's head above a press of men, and, the hall being full of a noise of tongues, I won near to the group around him to hear, for he was talking; in doing which I caught sight of the robed figure of the archbishop sitting on an ottoman, silent, solitary, but within earshot of the baron's talk; indeed, I fancied that the baron's voice was purposely pitched so that Dr Burton might overhear. As I won near the first words of the baron which reached my ears were: "but Jesus did not believe in the immortality of the soul: no, he didn't believe in it; he never heard of such a thing: not in our sense of the term----"

I stood astonished at this drowsy outrage upon the ears of a devout crowd, though a year previously his words would have been ordinary enough, and I saw Dr Burton's eyes fixed sideward upon the baron with I know not what musketry of meanings in them.

"Oh no," the baron went on, "he had no notion of our 'immortality.' Our notion of a ghost distinct from the body, of 'spirit' distinct from matter, is, of course, an Aryan-Greek one, quite foreign to the Hebrew mind: the very angels of the Hebrews ate mutton like Charles II., their very G.o.d was material, with hind parts and front parts; and you will burrow through the Old Testament in vain for a valid hint that men may live after their body is livid."

No one answered anything; only Dr Burton's eyes aimed a ray of keener and keener meaning at the speaker.

"However," the baron went on, "there arose at a late date a crowd among the Hebrews called Pharisees, who said: 'no, all is not over at death, for some day there will be a resurrection, and we shall then live again'; opposed to whom were the Conservatives--the Sadducees--who denied that there would be a resurrection: and Jesus was a Pharisee in this belief in a resurrection of the body. But as to our fantastic Greek ghost and its immortality, it was quite outlandish to all Hebrews, to Pharisee, Essene, and Sadducee alike: Jesus hardly heard of it."

I glanced toward Dr Burton's face: it had in it reproach, shame, and anger together: and still the baron droned on: "hence the frequency of this word 'resurrection' in the Gospels, in spite of the fact that their writers were tinged with Greek ideas: for Jesus believed that we ceased to live at death, but afterwards should have a 'resurrection': he was a good Hebrew. On the other hand, in the writings of St Paul, who was both a Hebrew and a man learned in Greek ideas, we have a perfect confusion of the two ideas, Greek 'immortality' and Pharisee 'resurrection.'

Sometimes Paul believes in one, sometimes in the other, sometimes somehow in both together. Where he says, 'to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord,' he is a Greek; where he says, 'I have fought a good fight ... henceforth there is laid up for me a crown which the Lord will give me in the day of his appearing,' he is a Hebrew: for he won't get the crown at once, oh no, it is _laid up_ for him till resurrection-day, when he will wake up out of the dust. And so all through that epistle----'"

But at that point the baron stopped, looking with a delicious fat chuckle after the flight of Dr Burton, who was off through the throng.

n.o.body made any reply to the baron's words. I wish that one could describe the man's tones, _his eyes_!--wandering, fishy, light grey, the whites fouled yellowish; but so strong somehow! They would light upon one a moment in a preoccupied way, and wander off again, as if one was not of worth enough to engage their attention. But I'm afraid that my pen was not made to paint. At any rate, his words were always most weighty, living, memorable, and overbearingly authoritative--not in themselves perhaps, but in some way because they came from him.

I happened to overhear a few private words between him and Dr Burton that same night which I should recount, but before then I was in a crowd with Mr Edwards, who was looking rather hara.s.sed, though quick-eyed as ever, and appeared from his talk to be less bitter against Dr Burton's big attacks than against the "pin-p.r.i.c.ks "; "the face of Europe was turned towards the future," one heard him say, "and now come the parsons twisting it about, and saying, 'look back to the past.' It can't be done, you know: neck'll break. And such pettifogging, penny-ha'penny, antediluvian antics! How is an archbishop to grant degrees in medicine at this time of day? As for Ambrose Rivers, all I can say is, if the church-party should succeed in laying a finger upon that harmless lunatic, then the Government will begin to ask itself whether the time is not come to throw up the cards. May the d.i.c.kens fly away----!" he stopped, but I understood him to mean "with the church-party, and all things, save the multiplication-table and the present Prime Minister of England." He was a man of many sterling qualities of mind, and exercised a true influence over his countrymen, perhaps through his very actuality and directness; and though he ever refused to embellish himself with one touch of personal stateliness, he was listened to with attention.

Half-an-hour afterwards I was talking with a man over a balcony rail, where it was dark, when I heard behind me the words: "you should not slacken in your opposition to the bill: the Church must be pushed on and made quite triumphant"; they were spoken by Baron Kolar, and from Dr Burton I heard a murmured reply, but not the words; then I am almost certain that I heard the baron say: "there will be some more miracles"; and I distinctly heard the doctor's reply, halting, wifely: "how do you--know?" and the answer too to this I heard: "I know by faith, doctor," whereupon they turned in their pacing, and their voices were lost. I allowed myself to whisper to the man with me: "Mephisto and Faust!"

Well, what happened next with respect to Diseased Persons happened in a kind of whirlwind, and before I knew where I was I was off to Styria.

Once more the bill was sent up, this time by Lower House majorities of in general seventeen. What Mr Edwards' hope was, whether he was pushed from behind by secret forces, one does not know; certainly by this time the grumble in his favour--on the platform, in the press, in the country--had grown; but still, no one much expected the Church to give way. However, at about two in the afternoon of the very night on which the bill was brought for the third time before the Lords, an old woman, one Madame Ronfaut, who housed close to the Cathedral of Bayeux, found in her cellar a grave, not a new grave, but one newly reopened, and in the grave a cross, and nailed to the cross the remains of a man's body that had been dead at least some months. The news of this thing flew that afternoon like loosened effluvia. What was the precise significance of the find I suppose that n.o.body gave himself the breathing-s.p.a.ce to think; it was felt to be significant: and never was news more dynamic.

That night Diseased Persons had a victory in spite of all the bishops.

I, for my part, flew to Swandale, understanding that the finding of the body and cross was no chance thing, but purposely managed to give a first shock to the faith of men. "Have you heard all?" said I to Langler as I hurried into the cottage. He gazed at me strangely, without answer; I saw his cheek shake; and I cried out: "Aubrey, how is Emily?"

"She is gone, she is gone," said he, with as woeful a smile as ever I beheld.

"Gone, Aubrey," said I, "what do you mean?"

He handed me a note which she had written to him, and I saw that, on hearing of the finding of the body and cross, she had fled from Swandale, alone, weak, hardly yet able to walk. "Dearest Aubrey," she had written, "you will go now to Styria, because you should; and partly to make the leaving of me possible to you, and partly to save you from being stopped this time by any hurt done to me, I am running away to hide myself well somewhere. Have no fear for me, I undertake that no one shall track me, I shall be safely hidden, and get quite well, and be back in Swandale to welcome you when you return. Go at once, will you, for me? with Arthur. 'Quit you like men, be strong'; you are in for it now, poor dear: it has happened so. I take 40 from the casket. But, beloved, if it be only possible, come back to me; and bring him who goes with you. Your Emily."

I found Langler in such a state of powerful, though governed, emotion, that I was unwilling to have him start that night, for his heart was not strong. But he would come, and we reached London at two A.M., went to bed for a time, and started in the morning by private car, so as to catch the first pa.s.sage.

We were safe aboard at Dover, and the boat about to cast her moorings, when a car was seen making down the pier, and an outcry arose for the boat to wait awhile, the men in the car being Baron Kolar and two others. They were barely in time, and soon after the baron had manoeuvred himself aboard I saw his earnest looks clear into a smile.

During the trip across he took not the least notice of our presence, nor we of his.