Brother Copas Part 8

"You fellows hold that a sound religious life will ensure you an eternity of bliss at the end. Very well. You fellows know that the years of a man's life are, roughly, threescore and ten. (Actually it works out far below that figure, but I make you a present of the difference.) Very well again. I take any average Christian aged forty-five, and what sort of premium do I observe him paying--I won't say on a policy of Eternal Bliss--but on any policy a business-like Insurance Company would grant for three hundred pounds? There _is_ the difference too," added Brother Copas, "that _he_ gets the eternal bliss, while the three hundred pounds goes to his widow."

Brother Copas took a second pinch, his eyes on Mr. Simeon's face.

He could not guess the secret of the pang that pa.s.sed over it--that in naming three hundred pounds he had happened on the precise sum in which Mr. Simeon was insured, and that trouble enough the poor man had to find the yearly premium, due now in a fortnight's time.

But he saw that somehow he had given pain, and dexterously slid off the subject, yet without appearing to change it.

"For my part," he went on, "I know a method by which, if made Archbishop of Canterbury and allowed a strong hand, I would undertake to bring, within ten years, every Dissenter in England within the Church's fold."

"What would you do?"

"I would lay, in one pastoral of a dozen sentences, the strictest orders on my clergy to desist from all politics, all fighting; to disdain any cry, any struggle; to accept from Dissent any rebuff, persecution, spoliation--while steadily ignoring it. In every parish my Church's att.i.tude should be this: 'You may deny me, hate me, persecute me, strip me: but you are a Christian of this parish and therefore my paris.h.i.+oner; and therefore I absolutely defy you to escape my forgiveness or my love. Though you flee to the uttermost parts of the earth, you shall not escape these: by these, as surely as I am the Church, you shall be mine in the end.' . . . And do you think, Mr. Simeon, any man in England could for ever resist that appeal? A few of us agnostics, perhaps. But we are human souls, after all; and no one is an agnostic for the fun of it. We should be tempted--sorely tempted--I don't say rightly."

Mr. Simeon's eyes shone. The picture touched him.

"But it would mean that the Church must compromise," he murmured.

"That is precisely what it would not mean. It would mean that all her adversaries must compromise; and with love there is only one compromise, which is surrender. . . . But," continued Brother Copas, resuming his lighter tone, "this presupposes not only a sensible Archbishop but a Church not given up to anarchy as the Church of England is. Let us therefore leave speculating and follow our noses; which with me, Mr. Simeon--and confound you for a pleasant companion!--means an instant necessity to cultivate bad temper."

He picked up his volume from the table and walked off with it to the window-seat.

"You are learning bad temper from a book?" asked Mr. Simeon, taking off his spectacles and following Brother Copas with mild eyes of wonder.

"Certainly. . . . If ever fortune, my good sir, should bring you (which G.o.d forbid!) to end your days in our College of n.o.ble Poverty, you will understand the counsel given by the pilot to Pantagruel and his fellow-voyagers--that considering the gentleness of the breeze and the calm of the current, as also that they stood neither in hope of much good nor in fear of much harm, he advised them to let the s.h.i.+p drive, nor busy themselves with anything but making good cheer.

I have done with all worldly fear and ambition; and therefore in working up a hearty Protestant rage (to which a hasty promise commits me), I can only tackle my pa.s.sion on the intellectual side.

Those fellows down at the Club are no help to me at all. . . . My book? It is the last volume of Mr. Froude's famous _History of England_. Here's a pa.s.sage now--

"'The method of Episcopal appointments, inst.i.tuted by Henry VIII, as a temporary expedient, and abolished under Edward as an unreality, was re-established by Elizabeth, not certainly because she believed that the invocation of the Holy Ghost was required for the completeness of an election which her own choice had already determined, not because the bishops obtained any gifts or graces in their consecration which she herself respected, but because the shadowy form of an election, with a religious ceremony following it, gave them the semblance of spiritual independence, the semblance without the substance, which qualified them to be the instruments of the system which she desired to enforce. They were tempted to presume on their phantom dignity, till a sword of a second Cromwell taught them the true value of their Apostolic descent. . . .

"That's pretty well calculated to annoy, eh? Also, by the way, in its careless rapture it twice misrelates the relative p.r.o.noun; and Froude was a master of style. Or what do you say to this?--

"'But neither Elizabeth nor later politicians of Elizabeth's temperament desired the Church of England to become too genuine.

It has been more convenient to leave an element of unsoundness at the heart of an inst.i.tution which, if sincere, might be dangerously powerful. The wisest and best of its bishops have found their influence impaired, their position made equivocal, by the element of unreality which adheres to them. A feeling approaching to contempt has blended with the reverence attaching to their position, and has prevented them from carrying the weight in the councils of the nation which has been commanded by men of no greater intrinsic eminence in other professions.'

"Yet another faulty relative!

"'Pretensions which many of them would have gladly abandoned have connected their office with a smile. The nature of it has for the most part filled the Sees with men of second-rate abilities.

The latest and most singular theory about them is that of the modern English Neo-Catholic, who disregards his bishop's advice, and despises his censures; but looks on him nevertheless as some high-bred, worn-out animal, useless in himself, but infinitely valuable for some mysterious purpose of spiritual propagation.'"

Brother Copas laid the open volume face-downward on his knee--a trivial action in itself; but he had a conscience about books, and would never have done this to a book he respected.

"Has it struck you, Mr. Simeon," he asked, "that Froude is so diabolically effective just because in every fibre of him he is at one with the thing he attacks?"

"He had been a convert of the Tractarians in his young days, I have heard," said Mr. Simeon.

"Yes, it accounts for much in him. Yet I was not thinking of that-- which was an experience only, though significant. The man's whole cast of mind is priestly despite himself. He has all the priesthood's alleged tricks: you can never be sure that he is not faking evidence or garbling a quotation. . . . My dear Mr. Simeon, truly it behoves us to love our enemies, since in this world they are often the nearest we have to us."

CHAPTER VI.

GAUDY DAY.

In the suns.h.i.+ne, on a lower step of the stone stairway that leads up and through the shadow of a vaulted porch to the Hundred Men's Hall, or refectory, Brother Biscoe stood with a hand-bell and rang to dinner. Brother Biscoe was a charming old man to look upon; very frail and venerable, with a somewhat weak face; and as senior pensioner of the hospital he enjoyed the privilege of ringing to dinner on Gaudy Days--twenty-seven strokes, distinct and separately counted--one for each brother on the two foundations.

The Brethren, however, loitered in groups before their doorways, along the west side of the quadrangle, awaiting a signal from the porter's lodge. Brother Manby, there, had promised to warn them as soon as the Master emerged from his lodging with the other Trustees and a few distinguished guests--including the Bishop of Merchester, Visitor of St. Hospital--on their way to dine. The procession would take at least three minutes coming through the outer court--ample time for the Brethren to scramble up the stairway, take their places, and a.s.sume the right air of reverent expectancy.

As a rule--Brother Copas, standing on the gravel below Brother Biscoe and counting the strokes for him, begged him to note it--they were none so dilatory. But gossip held them. His shrewd glance travelled from group to group, and between the strokes of the bell he counted the women-folk.

"They are all at their doors," he murmured. "For a look at the dear Bishop, think you?"

"They are watching to see what Warboise will do," quavered Brother Biscoe. "Oh, I know!"

"The women don't seem to be taking much truck with Warboise or his Pet.i.tion. See him over there, with Plant and Ibbetson only. . . .

And Ibbetson's only there because his wife has more appetising fish to fry. But she's keeping an eye on him--watch her! Poor woman, for once she's discovering Rumour to be almost too full of tongues."

"I wonder you're not over there too, lending Warboise support,"

suggested Brother Biscoe. "Royle told me last night that you had joined the Protestant swim."

"But I am here, you see," Brother Copas answered sweetly; "and just for the pleasure of doing you a small service."

Even this did not disarm the old man, whose temper was malignant.

"Well, I wish you joy of your crew. A secret drinker like Plant, for instance! And your friend Bonaday, in his second childhood--"

"Bonaday will have nothing to do with us."

"Ah?" Brother Biscoe shot him a sidelong glance. "He's more pleasantly occupied, perhaps?--if it's true what they tell me."

"It never is," said Brother Copas imperturbably; "though I haven't a notion to what you refer."

"But surely you've heard?"

"Nothing: and if it concerns Bonaday, you'd best hold your tongue just now; for here he is."

Brother Bonaday in fact, with Nurse Branscome and Corona, at that moment emerged from the doorway of his lodgings, not ten paces distant from the steps of the Hundred Men's Hall. The three paused, just outside--the Nurse and Corona to await the procession of Visitors, due now at any moment. Brother Bonaday stood and blinked in the strong sunlight: but the child, catching sight of Brother Copas as he left Brother Biscoe and hurried towards her, ran to meet him with a friendly nod.

"I've come out to watch the procession," she announced. "That's all we women are allowed; while you--Branny says there's to be ducks and green peas! Did you know that?"

"Surely you must have observed my elation?"

Brother Copas stood and smiled at her, leaning on his staff.

"The Bishop wears gaiters they tell me; and the Master too. I saw them coming out of Chapel in their surplices, and the Chaplain with the Bishop's staff: but Branny wouldn't let me go to the service.

She said I must be tired after my journey. So I went to the lodge instead and made friends with Brother Manby. I didn't," said Corona candidly, "make very good weather with Brother Manby, just at first.

He began by asking 'Well, and oo's child might _you_ be?'--and when I told him, he said, 'Ow's anyone to know _that_?' That amused me, of course."

"Did it?" asked Brother Copas in slight astonishment.

"Because," the child explained, "I'd been told that English people dropped their h's; but Brother Manby was the first I'd heard doing it, and it seemed too good to be true. _You_ don't drop your h's; and nor does Daddy, nor Branny."