Mr. Trevenna had dropped on to the bench beside him, and put hand upon his arm. The doctor ignored the touch, but pointed, with a shaking cane, at the house and continued his harangue, rising into the medodramatic ranting heard in its perfection only from the mind of a maniac. “There it stands before you, with its creaking bones and empty eyes and the scalp peeling off its bleached occiput! And the folk within come screaming to let them go ghosts, ghosts, once men of learning and women with fair limbs and coquetries-all blasphemies now . . all alike silent to my dead ears. . . . They, they are all that is left of me.. my dead virtues and skill!" Dr. Hoblyn again buried his head in his clawing hands, and rocked himself to and fro. "Man, man!" Mr. Trevenna exclaimed, now standing between the madman and the terrible house, and setting hands upon his shoulders. But he might as reasonably have implored the material ruin itself. Then, as if the truth were suddenly revealed, he shouted to the evil spirit possessing him, " Obmutesce et exi ex eo !"1 Whereat Dr. Ralph leaped to his feet and seized his friend by the shoulders, looked deep into his eyes, and then, his face gleaming with the diabolic smile, exclaimed: "Friend Trevenna! If you have power to cast out devils, get you into the cellar of yonder hell and bring me one little measure of Schiedam . . . for I am afraid! That will exorcise the whole pack of them!" "Go yourself, Dr. Hoblyn, I will have no traffic with your enemy." "I daren't, I tell you! Look look!" he screamed. "There, there! You see him . . . there . . . there, leaning from that window. . . that young corpse in 1 Hold thy peace and come out of him. the crimson figured vest and powdered wig—he's beckoning ! Then in a harsh whisper, "If I go, it will take me fifty years! He'll dig his claws into my heart every mile of the way that paduasoy vest is crimson with my heart's blood! That corpse is me-ME-one of ten thousand tortured ME's in Hades. Go, you fool, and get me the Schiedam ! . . . Ah, God! Shall I never die? Get me the Schiedam, you Bedlam mountebank! The madman had then dropped upon his bench full length. Again he buried his face in his hands and his whole body was convulsed as if in a paroxysm of weeping. Mr. Trevenna went into the ruin and brought out some spirit in a pewter mug. He tapped his friend on the shoulder, bade him drink, and then went back into the ruin. There, regardless of rats and rotting floor, he leaned his hands and forehead against the tottering balustrade of the great oak stair: "Which man wilt thou save? Him who waits upon sick children and heals them when the drink is in his veins ? Or him who, in repentance, blasphemes Thee?" But he went out again to the drunkard, down whose throat the burning stuff was now sped, and found a courteous gentleman. "I really think, Friend Trevenna," said the physician in a tone of patronage, "that I must eschew strong waters altogether!" Luke was not the only one that the Priory hid on that November night. Thither he and the others had already brought their captive, and Lieutenant Norlaw was lying ill on a rough bed, not in any of the chambers of that haunted house, but in a great cave communicating with its cellars. The physician needed all his skill and knowledge, supported by Schiedam, to save this patient who, conscious in rare intervals, was often himself raving in delirium tremens. CHAPTER VIII ORIGINAL SIN R. TREVENNA was so deep in love with human MR. nature that its instability moved him to its service, almost as if himself were responsible for its every failing and anguish. For him, moreover, everything-whether the storms and wreckings of that coast, the caprice of the pilchards, the new industrial conditions, the Revenue officers, the ailments of the cattle, or the rival ideals of Mr. Fox and Mr. Burke anent the French Revolution-everything revolved round the enigma of Good and Evil. He refused to believe in original sin, and the paradox of his canonical claim that baptism was necessary to salvation did not trouble him. A rigid consistency," he would say, "is prerogative of the pedagogue content in his own quagmire of dogma"; and again, "Paradox is at least more illuminating than dogma; if dogma be a lantern to lead men the way they should go, it is a murky one ! " Apropos of Good and Evil, two items from his letters to Lady Evangeline are worth noting. "November 9, 1793. "When I observe the stars above and the flowers of our own wayside; when I listen to the lark's song or the patter of children's bare feet upon the slated floor; why, then I do not believe in a living Sin; nay, and I will not believe in any evil beyond the refuse of things that are done with. You will remember these lines from the Georgics: "Intereunt segetes: subit aspera sylva Lappaeque tribolique, interque nitentia culta "And yet, dear my Lady, neither burrs nor starthistles are poison to asses; while the darnel or ryegrass is heavenly food for silly sheep! Perhaps the wild oats must be allowed Satanic honours: for, with its dark, hairy seed and queer contortions when it touches the water, anglers do make a seductive fly of it for their trout! "Law, prohibitive and retributive, I do often think, is the only Satan; it has but weight-the counterpart of upsoaring life. Do we not live in the midst of creating Love and prohibiting Law? Shall I cite you a case in point? "Two nights ago Charity Hornbuckle and Luke Kellinack became my heart's own flesh and blood. I had known of their courtship and how secretly it was pursued, because Farmer Hornbuckle will not suffer a fisherlad near his homestead, especially since Luke's innocent brother died a felon. I had perceived, moreover, how regularly Cherry had of late come to Church (even if only to get news of her Aunt's toothache or whatsoever of her ailments the day found sufficient unto itself!)— and how Luke also was become devout-no less commendably I allow! and would full often replenish my tarred wood for the cresset, or help me thrash and stack my straw, if perchance Charity might be within reach. 'But why do I name these two simple lovers my soul's flesh and blood? A curious, if not altogether laudable adventure must first be unfolded. A fort 1 The crops perish, a prickly wood shoots up Of burrs and star-thistles; and among the shining corn The miserable darnel and wild oats hold sway. Georgics I, 152–154. night since, Luke and his friends had kidnapped an officer, taken him blindfold to a lonely spot on the shore, and at two o' the clock by moonlight, had given him mock trial upon the heinous charge of a perjury that had hanged Luke's innocent brother, Benjamin, and he but a lad. They had then condemned the lieutenant-not to death as the victim must have expected and possibly deserved--but to some gruesome confinement, of which I may advise you hereafter. But now Luke was the Law's suspect and must come a-wooing in secret. The following evening, I was going round my little farmparticularly to comfort Sukey, from whom at last I had taken her bull calf-when behind the byre I beheld Luke and the maid. Seemingly because of Sukey's bellowings they had not heard my footsteps. Nor could I be blamed for seeing them, Dear Lady! For the knightly tenderness of the gigantic young arms that held her, for the steadfastness of those shining eyes that looked up into his glorified face, I did so fall into love with this pair of turtles that from henceforth they became, as I say, my soul's flesh and blood. How we do love felicity of such pure kind! And now do you perceive my claim? 'Twas but the all-powerful creating Love that brought together this man and maid: 'twas Law, prohibitive and retributive, that transformed their virtue and drove them to disobedience. I sometimes dare even think that Moses mistook the meaning of the apple in Eden, and that what he judged inherent sin was, in the eyes of the cherubim, close akin to original virtue. But I prithee acquaint not thy uncle with my heresy-or I am undone! "On the south side of my chancel where I am now cleaning away the whitewash from certain mural paintings below, I have discovered in some brilliance of colour a black monster's head with wide jaws Hell hath opened her mouth without measure.' Within this perilous chamber stand our naughty first parents, hands E |