Читать книгу Wood and Stone - John Cowper Powys - Страница 10

Table of Contents

The day following the one whose persuasive influence we have just recorded was not less auspicious. The weather seemed to have effected a transference of its accustomed quality, bringing to the banks of the Yeo and the Parret the atmospheric conditions belonging to those of the Loire or the Arno.

Having finished her tea Valentia Seldom was strolling meditatively up and down the vicarage terrace, alternately stopping to pick off the petals of a dead flower, or to gaze, with a little gloomy frown, upon the grass of the orchard.

Her slender upright figure, in her black silk dress, made a fine contrast to the rich green foliage about her, set on one side with ruby-coloured roses and on the other with yellow buttercups. But the old lady was in no peaceful frame of mind. Every now and then she tapped the gravel impatiently with her ebony stick; and the hand that toyed with the trinkets at her side mechanically closed and unclosed its fingers under the wrist-band of Mechlin lace. It was with something of an irritable start, that she turned round to greet Francis Taxater, as led by the little servant he presented himself to her attention. He moved to greet her with his usual imperturbable gravity, walking sedately along the edge of the flowery border; with one shoulder a little higher than the other and his eyes on the ground.

His formidable prelatical chin seemed more than ever firmly set that afternoon, and his grey waistcoat, under his shabby black coat, was tightly drawn across his emphatic stomach. His coal-black eyes, darkened yet further by the shadow of his hat, glanced furtively to right and left of him as he advanced. In the manner peculiar to persons disciplined by Catholic self-control, his head never followed, by the least movement, the shrewd explorations of these diplomatic eyes.

One would have taken him for a French bishop, of aristocratic race, masquerading, for purposes of discretion, in the dress of a secular scholar.

Everything about Francis Taxater, from the noble intellectual contours of his forehead, down to his small satyr-like feet, smacked of the courtier and the priest; of the learned student, and the urbane frequenter of sacred conclaves. His small white hand, plump and exquisitely shaped, rested heavily on his cane. He carried with him in every movement and gesture that curious air of dramatic weight and importance which men of diplomatic experience are alone able to use without letting it degenerate into mannerism. It was obvious that he, at any rate, according to Mr. Quincunx’s favourite discrimination, “knew Latin.” He seemed to have slid, as it were, into this commercial modern world, from among the contemporaries of Bossuet. One felt that his authors were not Ibsen or Tolstoy, but Horace and Cicero.

One felt also, however, that in sheer psychological astuteness not even Mr. Romer himself would be a match for him. Between those two, the man of modern wisdom and the man of ancient wisdom, any struggle that might chance to occur would be a singularly curious one. If Mr. Taxater really was “on the side of the angels,” he was certainly there with the full weight of organized hierarchies. If he did exert his strength upon the side of “meekness,” it would be a strength of no feverish, spasmodic eruption.

If Satan threw a Borgia in Mr. Taxater’s path, that Borgia, it appeared, would find his Machiavel.

“Yes, it is a lovely day again,” said the old lady, leading her visitor to a seat and placing herself by his side. “But what is our naughty Monsignor doing, playing truant from his consistory? I thought you would be in London this week—at the Eucharist Conference your people are holding? Is it to the loveliness of the weather that we owe this pleasant surprise?”

One almost expected—so formal and old-fashioned were the two interlocutors—that Mr. Taxater would have replied, in the tone of Ivanhoe or the Talisman, “A truce to such jesting, Madam!” No doubt if he had, the lady would hardly have discerned any anachronism. As a matter of fact he did not answer her question at all, but substituted one of his own.

“I met Vennie in the village,” he said. “Do you think she is happier now, in her new English circle?”

“Ah! my friend,” cried the old lady, in a nervous voice, “it is of Vennie that I have been thinking all this afternoon. No, I cannot say I think she is happier. I wonder if it is one thing; and then I wonder if it is another. I cannot get to the bottom of it and it worries me.”

“I expect it is her nerves,” said the diplomatist. “Though the sun is so warm, there has been a constant east wind lately; and, as you know, I put down most of our agitations to the presence of east wind.”

“It will not do, Mr. Taxater; it will not do! It may be the east wind with you and me. It is not the east wind with Vennie. Something is troubling her. I wish I could discern what it is?”

“She isn’t by any chance being vexed by some theological dispute with the Vicar, is she? I know how seriously she takes all his views. And his views are, if I may say so, decidedly confusing. Don’t misunderstand me, dear lady. I respect Mr. Clavering and admire him. I like the shape of his head; especially when he wears his beretta. But I cannot feel much confidence in his wisdom in dealing with a sensitive child like your daughter. He is too impulsive. He is too dogmatic. He lives too entirely in the world of doctrinal controversy. It is dangerous”; here Mr. Taxater luxuriously stretched out his legs and lit a cigarette; “it is dangerous to live only for theology. We have to learn to live for Religion; and that is a much more elaborate affair. That extends very far, Mrs. Seldom.” The old lady let her stick slide to the ground and clasped her hands together. “I want to ask you one thing, Mr. Taxater. And I implore you to be quite direct with me. You do not think, do you, that my girl is tending towards your church—towards Rome? I confess it would be a heavy blow to me, one of the heaviest I have ever had, if anything of that kind happened. I know you are tolerant enough to let me speak like this without scruple. I like you, my dear friend—” Here a soft flush spread over Valentia’s ivory-coloured cheeks and she made a little movement as if to put her hand on her companion’s arm. “I like you yourself, and have the utmost confidence in you. But Oh, it would be a terrible shock to me if Vennie became a Roman Catholic. She would enter a convent; I know she would enter a convent and that would be more than I could bear.” The accumulated distress of many years was in the old lady’s voice and tears stood in her eyes. “I know it is silly,” she went on as Mr. Taxater steadily regarded the landscape. “But I cannot help it. I do so hope—Oh, I can’t tell you how much—that Vennie will marry and have children. It is the secret burden of my life, the thought that, with this frail little thing, our ancient race should disappear. I feel it my deepest duty—my duty to the Past and my duty to the Future—to arrange a happy marriage for her. If only that could be achieved, I should be able to die content.”

“You have no evidence, no authority for thinking,” said Mr. Taxater gravely, “that she is meditating any approach to my church, as you call it, have you?”

“Oh no!” cried the old lady, “quite the contrary. She seems absorbed in the services here. She works with Mr. Clavering, she discusses everything with Mr. Clavering, she helps Mr. Clavering with the poor. I believe”—here Valentia lowered her voice; “I believe she confesses to Mr. Clavering.”

Francis Taxater smiled—the smile of the heir of Christendom’s classic faith at these pathetic fumblings of heresy—and carefully knocked the ashes from his cigarette against the handle of his cane.

“You don’t think, dear lady,” he said, “that by any chance—girls are curiously subtle in these little things—she is ‘in love,’ as they call it, with our nice handsome Vicar?”

Valentia gave an involuntary little start. In her heart there rose up the shadow of a shadow of questioning, whether in this last remark the great secular diplomatist had not lapsed into something approaching a “faux pas.”

“Certainly not,” she answered. “Vennie is not a girl to mix up her religion with things of that sort.”

Francis Taxater permitted the flicker of a smile to cross his face. He slightly protruded his lower lip which gave his countenance a rather sinister expression. His look said, more clearly than words, that in his opinion there was no woman on earth who did not “mix up these things” with her religion.

“I have not yet made my request to you,” continued the old lady, with a certain nervous hesitation. “I am so afraid lest you should think it an evidence of a lack of confidence. It isn’t so! It really isn’t so. I only do it to relieve my mind;—to make my food taste better, if you understand?—and to stop this throbbing in my head.” She paused for a moment, and picking up her stick, prodded the gravel with it, with lowered face. The voices of not less than three wood-pigeons were audible from the apple-orchard. And this soft accompaniment to her words seemed to give her courage. Fate could not, surely, altogether betray her prayers, in a place so brooded over by “the wings of the dove.” In the exquisite hush of the afternoon the birds’ rich voices seemed to take an almost liturgical tone—as though they were the ministers of a great natural temple. To make a solemn request of a dear friend under such conditions was almost as though one were exacting a sacred vow under the very shadow of the altar.

So at least Valentia felt, as she uttered her serious petition; though it may well be that Mr. Taxater, skilled in the mental discipline of Saint Ignatius, knew better how to keep the distracting influences of mere “Nature,” in their proper secondary place.

“I want you faithfully to promise me,” she said, “that you will in no way—in no way at all—use your influence over Vennie to draw her from her English faith.” The old lady’s voice became quite husky in her emotion. “It would be dreadful to me to think,—I could not bear to think”—she went on, “that you should in the smallest degree use your great powers of mind to disturb the child’s present attitude. If she is not happy, it is not—Oh, I assure you, it is not—in any sense due to her being dissatisfied with her religion. It must be something quite different. What it is, I cannot guess; but it must be something quite different from that. Well, dear friend,” and she did now, quite definitely, lay her hand on his arm, “will you promise this for me? You will? I know you will.”

Francis Taxater rose from his seat and stood over her very gravely, leaning upon his cane.

“You have done well to tell me this, Mrs. Seldom,” he said. “Most certainly I shall make no attempt to influence Vennie. It would be indeed contrary to all that I regard as wise and suitable in the relations between us. I never convert people. I believe you will find that very few of those who are born Catholics ever interfere in that way. It is the impetuosity of new-comers into the church that gives us this bad name. They often carry into their new faith the turbulent theological zeal which distinguished them in their old one. I, at any rate, am not like that. I leave people alone. I prefer to watch them develop on their own lines. The last thing I should wish to do would be to meddle with Vennie’s religious taste. It would be a blunder as well as an impertinence. Vennie would be the first to resist any such proceeding. It would destroy her respect for me. It might even destroy her affection for me. It certainly would not move her. Indeed, dear lady, if I wished to plant the child’s soul irrevocably in the soil prepared by our good vicar I could not do anything more effective than try to persuade her of its deficiencies. No, no! You may rely upon me to stand completely aside in this matter. If Vennie were led to join us—which for your sake, dear Mrs. Seldom, I hope will never happen,—you may accept my word of honour it will be from her own spontaneous impulse. I shall make not the least movement in the direction you fear. That I can devoutly promise.”

He turned away his head and regarded with calm, placid detachment the rich, shadowy orchard and the golden buttercups.

The contours of his profile were so noble, and the pose of his head so majestic, that the agitated mother was soothed and awed into complete confidence.

“Thank God!” she exclaimed. “That fear, at any rate, has passed. I shall be grateful to you forever, dear friend, for what you have just now said. It is a direct answer to my prayers.”

“May I, in my turn,” said Mr. Taxater, resuming his seat by her side, “ask you a bold and uncalled for question? What would you do, if in the changes and chances of this life, Vennie did come to regard Mr. Clavering with favour? Would you for a moment consider their union as a possible one?”

Valentia looked not a little embarrassed. Once more, in her heart, she accused the urbane scholar of a lack of delicacy and discretion. These little questions are not the ones to put to a perturbed mother.

However, she answered him plainly enough. “I should not like it, I confess. It would disappoint me. I am not ambitious, but sometimes I catch myself desiring, for my beloved child, a marriage that would give her the position she deserves, the position—pardon a woman’s weakness, sir!—that her ancestors held in this place. But then, again, I am only anxious for her happiness. No, Mr. Taxater. If such a thing did occur I should not oppose it, Mr. Clavering is a gentleman, though a poor one and, in a sense, an eccentric one. But I have no prejudice against the marriage of our clergy. In fact I think they ought to marry. It is so suitable, you know, to have a sensible woman endowed with such opportunities for making her influence felt. I would not wish Vennie to marry beneath her, but sooner than not see her married—well!—That is the kind of feeling I have about it, Mr. Taxater.”

“Thank you—thank you. I fear my question was impertinent; but in return for the solemn oath you exacted from me, I think I deserved some reward, don’t you? But seriously, Mrs. Seldom, I do not think that any of these less desirable fates will befall our dear child. I think she will marry a pillar of the aristocracy, and remain herself a pillar of the Anglican Church! I trust she will not, whatever happens, lose her regard for her old Catholic friend.”

He rose as he spoke and held out his hand. Mrs. Seldom took it in her own and held it for a moment with some emotion. Had he been a real Monsignor, he could not have looked more calm, more tolerant, more kind, than he looked at that moment. He wore the expression that high ecclesiastics must come to wear, when devoted but somewhat troublesome daughters of the church press close to kiss the amethystine ring.

A few minutes later he was passing out of the vicarage gate. The new brood of warblers that flitted about the tall bushes at that spot heard—with perfect unconcern—a mysterious Latin quotation issue from that restrained mouth. They could hardly be blamed for not understanding, even though they had migrated to these fields of heresy from more classic places, that the plain English interpretation of the dark saying was that all things are lawful to him whose motive is the “Potestas Civitatis Dei!”

He crossed the dusty road and was proceeding towards his own house, which was hardly more than a hundred yards away, when he saw through a wide gap in the hedge a pleasant and familiar sight. It was a hay-field, in the final stage of its “making,” surrendering to a great loose stack, built up beneath enormous elm-trees, the last windrows of its sweet-scented harvest.

Pausing for a moment to observe more closely this pleasant scene—for hay-making in Dorsal Field amounted to a village ritual—Mr. Taxater became aware that among the figures scattered in groups about the meadow were the very two whose relation to one another he had just been discussing. Vennie and the young clergyman were engaged in an animated conversation with three of the farm-boys.

Mr. Taxater at once climbed through the gap, and crossing the field approached the group unobserved. It was not till he was quite close that Vennie caught sight of him. Her pale, pinched little face, under its large hat, flushed slightly as she held out her hand; but her great steady grey eyes were full of friendly welcome.

Mr. Clavering too was effusive and demonstrative in his greeting. They chatted a little of indifferent matters, and the theologian was introduced to the shy farm-boys, who stared at him in rustic wonder.

Then Hugh Clavering said, “If you’ll pardon me for a moment, I think I ought to go across and speak to John Goring,” and he indicated the farmer’s figure bending over a new gleaning-machine, at the opposite end of the field. “Don’t go away, please, Mr. Taxater, till I come back. You will keep him, won’t you, Miss Seldom?”

He strode off; and the boys drifted away after him, leaving Mr. Taxater and the girl together, under the unfinished hay-stack. “I was so much wanting to speak to you,” began Vennie at once. “I very nearly ran in to the Gables; but I saw Mrs. Wotnot over the wall, and she told me you were out. I am in serious need of advice upon a thing that is troubling me, and you are the only person who can really help.”

The expression of Mr. Taxater’s face at that moment was so sympathetic, and yet so grave, that one would hardly have been surprised to hear him utter the conventional formula of a priest awaiting confession. Though unuttered, the sacred formula must have been telepathically communicated, for Vennie continued without a pause, holding her hands behind her back, and looking on the ground. “Ever since our last serious conversation—do you remember?—after Easter, I have been thinking so much about that phrase of yours, referring to the Pope, as the eternal living defender of the idea of Love as the secret of the universe. Mr. Clavering talks to me about love—you know what I mean,” she smiled and blushed prettily, with a quick lifting of her head, “but he never gives me the feeling of something real and actual which we can approach on earth—something personal, I mean. And I have been feeling so much lately that this is what I want. Mr. Clavering is very gentle with me when I try to explain my difficulties to him; but I don’t think he really understands. The way he talks is beautiful and inspiring—but it somehow sounds like poetry. It does not give me anything to lay hands on.” And she looked into Mr. Taxater’s face with a pathetic wide-eyed appeal, as if he were able to call down angels from heaven.

“Dear child,” said the diplomatist, “I know only too well what you mean. Yes, that is the unfortunate and necessary limitation of a heretical church. It can only offer mystic and poetic consolations. It has lost touch with the one true Vine, and consequently the full stream of life-giving sap cannot flow through its veins.”

“But I have felt so strengthened,” said Vennie mournfully, “by the sacrament in our Church; so strengthened and inspired! It seems dreadful that it should all be a sort of mockery.”

“Do not speak like that, dear child,” said Mr. Taxater. “God is good; and in his knowledge of our weakness he permits us to taste of his mystery even in forbidden cups. The motive in your heart, the faith in your soul, have been pure; and God has given to them some measure, though but an imperfect one, of what he will grant to your complete obedience.”

Vennie bent down and picking up a swathe of sweet-scented hay twisted it thoughtfully in her fingers. “God has indeed been working miracles on your behalf,” continued Mr. Taxater. “It must have been your guardian angel that led me to speak to you as I did at that time. For in future, I regret to say, I shall be less free. But the good work has been done. The seed has been sown. What follows must be at your own initiative.”

Vennie looked at him, puzzled, and rather alarmed. “Why do you say you will be less free? Are we going to have no more lovely conversations at the bottom of our orchard? Are you going to be too busy to see me at all?”

Mr. Taxater smiled. “Oh no, it isn’t as bad as that,” he said. “It is only that I have just faithfully promised your mother not to convert you to Catholicism.”

“Mother had no right to make you give any such promise,” cried the girl indignantly.

“No,” responded the diplomatist, “she had no such right. No one has a right to demand promises of that kind. It is one of the worst and subtlest forms of persecution.”

“But you did not promise? You surely did not promise?”

“There was no escaping it,” replied Mr. Taxater. “If I had not done so she would have given you no peace, and your future movements would have been mercilessly watched. However,” he went on, smilingly, “a promise exacted under that kind of compulsion must be interpreted in a very large and liberal way. Relatively I must avoid discussing these things with you. In a higher and more absolute sense we will combine our thoughts about them, day and night, until we worship at the same altar.”

Vennie was silent. The noble and exalted sophistry of the subtle scholar puzzled and bewildered her. “But I have no idea of what to do next,” she protested. “I know no Catholics but you. I should feel very nervous on going to the priest in Yeoborough. Besides, I don’t at all like the look of him. And the people here say he is often drunk. You wouldn’t send me to a man like that, would you? Oh, I feel so angry with mother! She had no right to go to you behind my back.”

Francis Taxater laid his hand gently on the girl’s shoulder. “There is no reason for haste,” he said. “There is no cause to agitate yourself. Just remain quietly as you are. Say nothing to your mother. It would only cause her unnecessary distress. I never promised not to lend you books. All my shelves are at your service. Read, my dear Vennie, read and think. My books will supply the place of my words. Indeed, they will serve the purpose much better. In this way we shall at once be obeying your earthly mother, and not disobeying your heavenly mother, who is now—Ave Maria gratiæ plena!—drawing you so strongly towards her.”

“Shall I say anything to Mr. Clavering?”

“Not a word! not a word! And enter as little as possible into argument with him. If he fancies, from your silence, that he has quelled your doubts, let him fancy so. The mistake will be due to his own pride and not to any deception. It is wrong to lie—but we are not called upon to dispel illusions arising from the self-conceit of others.”

“But you—will—think—of me?” pleaded little Vennie. “I may know that you have not deserted me? That you are always ready—always there?”

Mr. Taxater smiled benignly. “Of course I shall be ready, dear child. And you must be ready. That is why I only ask you to read and think. God will answer your prayers if you show patience. He has taught his church never to clamour for hurried conversions. But to wait, with all her reservoirs of mysteries, till they come to her of their own accord. You will come, Vennie, you will come! But it will be in God’s hour and not in ours.”

Vennie Seldom thanked him with a timid glance of infinite gratitude and confidence. A soft luminous happiness suffused her being, into which the scents and sounds of that felicitous hour poured their offerings of subtle contentment. In after years, in strange and remote places, she never forgot the high thrilling exultation, calm, yet passionate as an indrawn wave, of that unrecurring moment.

The security that filled her passed, indeed, only too quickly away. Her face clouded and a little anxious frown puckered her narrow white forehead.

“There is something else I wanted to ask you,” she said hurriedly, “and I must say it quickly because I am afraid of Mr. Clavering coming back. It has to do with Mr. Clavering. I do not think you realize what influence you have over people, what powerful influence! Mr. Clavering adores you. He would do anything for you. He respects you as a thinker. He venerates you as a good man. Now, Mr. Taxater, please, please, use your influence with him to save him—to save him—” She stopped abruptly, and a flood of colour rushed to her cheeks.

“To save him from what, dear child? I am afraid there is no hope of Mr. Clavering coming to our way of thinking.”

“It isn’t that, Mr. Taxater! It’s something else;—something to do with his own happiness, with his own life. Oh, it is so hard for me to tell you!” She clenched her hands tightly together and looked steadily away from him as she spoke. “It is that that dreadful Gladys Romer has been plaguing him so—tempting him to flirt with her, to be silly about her, and all that sort of thing. He does not really like her at all. That I know. But he is passionate and excitable, and easily led away by a girl like that. Oh, it all sounds so absurd, as I say it,” cried poor Vennie, with cheeks that were by this time flaming, “but it’s much, much more serious than it sounds. You see, I know Mr. Clavering very well. I know how simple and pure-minded he is. And I know how desperately he prays against being led away—like this. Gladys does not care for him really a bit. She only does it to amuse herself; to satisfy her wicked, wicked nature! She would like to lead him as far as she possibly could, and then to turn upon him and make him thoroughly miserable. She is the kind of girl—Oh what am I saying to you, Mr. Taxater?—that men always are attracted by. Some men I believe would even call her beautiful. I don’t think she’s that at all. I think she is gross, fleshly, and horrid! But I know what a danger she is to Mr. Clavering. I know the dreadful struggle that goes on in his mind; and the horrible temptation she is to him. I know that after seeing her he always suffers the most cruel remorse. Now, Mr. Taxater, use your influence to strengthen him against this girl’s treachery. She only means him harm, I know she does! And if a person like you, whom he loves and admires so much, talked to him seriously about it, it would be such a help to him. He is so young. He is a mere boy, and absolutely ignorant of the world. He does not even realize that the village has already begun its horrid gossip about them. Do—do, do something, Mr. Taxater. It is like that young Parsifal, in the play, being tempted by the enchantress.”

“But how do they meet?” asked the diplomatist, with unchanged gravity. “I do not see how they are ever alone together.”

“She has arranged it. She is so clever; the bad, bad girl! She goes to him for confirmation lessons. He teaches her in his study twice a week—separately from the others.”

“But her father is a Unitarian.”

“That does not interfere. She does what she likes with Mr. Romer. Her game now is to want to be baptized into our church. She is going to be baptized first, and then confirmed.”

“And the preparation for baptism is as dangerous as the preparation for confirmation,” remarked the scholar; straightening the muscles of his mouth, after the discipline of St. Ignatius.

“The whole thing is horrible—dreadful! It frets me every hour of the day. He is so good and so innocent. He has no idea where she is leading him.”

“But I cannot prevent her wanting to be baptized,” said Mr. Taxater.

“You can talk to him,” answered Vennie, with intense conviction. “You can talk to him and he will listen to you. You can tell him the danger he is in of being made miserable for life.” She drew her breath deeply. “Oh the remorse he will feel; the horrible, horrible remorse!”

Mr. Taxater glanced across the hay-field. The sun, a red globe of fire, was resting on the extreme edge of Leo’s Hill, and seemed like a great blood-shot eye regarding them with lurid interest. Long cool shadows, thrown across the field by the elms in the hedge and by the stack beside them, melted magically into one another, and made the hillocks of still ungathered grass soft and intangible as fairy graves.

“I will do my best,” said the scholar. “I will do my best.” And indicating to Vennie, who was absorbed in her nervous gratitude, the near approach of the object of their saintly conspiracy, he led her forward to meet the young clergyman with an appropriate air of friendly and casual nonchalance.

“I am sorry to have to say it,” was Mr. Clavering’s greeting, “but that farmer-fellow is the only person in my parish for whom I have a complete detestation. I wish to goodness Mr. Romer had never brought him into the place!”

“I don’t like the look of his back, I must say,” answered the theologian, following with his eyes the retreating figure of Mr. John Goring.

“He is,” said the young priest, “without exception the most repulsive human being I have ever met in my life. Our worthy Romer is an angel of light compared with him.”

With Mr. Goring still as their topic, they strolled amicably together towards the same gap in the hedge, through which the apologist of the papacy had emerged an hour before. There they separated; Vennie returning to the vicarage, and the young clergyman carrying off Mr. Taxater to supper with him in his house by the church.

Clavering’s establishment consisted of a middle-aged woman of inordinate volubility, and the woman’s daughter, a girl of twelve.

The supper offered by the priest to his guest was “light and choice”—nor did it lack its mellow accompaniment of carefully selected, if not “Attic,” wine. Of this wine Mr. Taxater did not hesitate to partake freely, sitting, when the meal was over, opposite his host at the open window, through which the pleasant murmurs of the evening, and the voices of the village-street, soothingly and harmoniously floated.

The famous theologian was in an excellent temper. Rich recondite jests pursued one another from his smiling lips, and his white hands folded themselves complacently above the cross on his watch-chain.

Lottie Fringe, the child of Clavering’s servant, tripped sportively in and out of the room, encouraged in her girlish coquetries by the amiable scholar. She was not yet too old to be the kittenish plaything of the lighter moments of a wise and scholarly man, and it was pleasant to watch the zest with which the vicar’s visitor entered into her sportive audacities. Mr. Taxater made her fill and refill his glass, and taking her playfully on his knee, kissed her and fondled her many times. It was the vicar himself, who finally, a little embarrassed by these levities, sent the girl off to the kitchen, apologizing to his guest for the freedom she displayed.

“Do not apologize, dear Mr. Clavering,” said the theologian. “I love all children, especially when they are girls. There is something about the kisses of a young girl—at once amorous and innocent—which reconciles one to the universe, and keeps death at a distance. Could one for a moment think of death, when holding a young thing, so full of life and beauty, on one’s knee?”

The young priest’s face clouded. “To be quite honest with you, Mr. Taxater,” he murmured, in a troubled voice, “I cannot say that I altogether agree. We are both unconventional people, so I may speak freely. I do not think that one does a child any good by encouraging her to be playful and forward, in that particular way. You live with your books; but I live with my people, and I have known so many sad cases of girls being completely ruined by getting a premature taste for coquetry of that kind.”

“I am afraid, my friend,” answered Mr. Taxater, “that the worst of all heresies is lodged deep in your heart.”

“Heresies? God knows,” sighed the priest, “I have enough evil in my heart—but heresies? I am at a loss to catch your meaning.”

In the absence of his playful Clerica—to use the Pantagruelian allusion—the great Homenas of Nevilton was compelled to fill his “tall-boy of extravagant wine” with his own hand. He did so, and continued his explanation.

“By the worst of all heresies I mean the dangerous Puritan idea that pleasure itself is evil and a thing detestable to God. The Catholic doctrine, as I understand it, is that all these things are entirely relative to the persons concerned. Pleasure in itself is, in the Aristotelian sense, a supreme good. Everyone has a right to it. Everyone must have it. The whole thing is a matter of proportion and expediency. If an innocent playful game, of the kind you have just witnessed, was likely in this definite particular case to lead to harm, then you would be justified in your anxiety. But there must be no laying down of hard general rules. There must be no making a virtue of the mere denying ourselves pleasure.”

Mr. Clavering could hardly wait for his guest to finish.

“Then, according to your theory,” he exclaimed, “it would be right for you, or whoever you will,—pardon my making the thing so personal—to indulge in casual levities with any pretty barmaid, as long as you vaguely surmised that she was a sensible girl and would not be harmed?”

“Certainly it would be right,” replied the papal apologist, sipping his wine and inhaling the perfume of the garden, “and not only right, but a plain duty. It is our duty, Mr. Clavering, to make the world happier while we live in it; and the way to make girls happier, especially when their occupations are laborious, is to kiss them; to give them innocent and admiring embraces.”

“I am afraid you are not quite serious, Mr. Taxater,” said the clergyman. “I have an absurd way of being direct and literal in these discussions.”