Canon Lucifer. A novel on an English social aspect

Front matter

CANON LUCIFEB CANON LUCIFER Jl ftobel on an (English §otial Aspect BT JOHN DOUGLAS DELILLE La religion s'est enfuie du cœur pour remonter aux levres. (A Layman's view of the Clergy, circa A.n. 1200.) " Mille annis jam peractis Nulla fides est in pac'.is ; Mel in ore, verba lactis, Fei in corde, fraus in sactis." «■ ftonBoii Printed bt GILBERT and RIVINGTON, Limited 52, ST. JOHN'S SQUARE, E.C. Entered at Washington, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1887. All rights reserved. TO MY ESTEEMED AND DISTINGUISHED FRIEND, MORELL MACKENZIE, M.D., (there being in the following pages MEDICAL POINTS OF IMPORTANCE TO THE STORY) I HAVE THOUGHT IT AS APPROPRIATE AS IT IS HIGHLY PLEASURABLE TO INSCRIBE THIS BOOK. J. D. D.

Preface

. Nothing but a profound veneration for religion in its purest form could have prompted me to attack one of its greatest abuses. I am not a too timorous person, yet I confess it is with some dread I launch Canon Lucifer ; for I fear that, to many, his character and career may seem outrageous. Few know better than I do the strength of popular prejudice. It is an adamantine rock, against wliich oceans of hard facts surge harmlessly. I knew Canon Lucifer. I had dined with him, travelled with him, and my life was unfortunately so knit up with his that I even attended his funeral. I could, had it been necessary, have provided him with an epitaph ; but his friends thought it wisest to leave that to the local stone mason. It is possible that those who read the following pages may agree with his friends.

Finally, I would ask those who may feel inclined to let their religious opinions or their prejudice bring their perusal to an untimely close, to remember that it cannot but be commendable to expose religious hypocrisy, or any other, in principle ; even — beatific supposition ! — if it do not exist in practice. J. D. D. CONTENTS.

Epilogue

CHAPTEE

I. THE TWO FANES. Transmuting as they passed through the stained-glass windows, their original gold into rubies, sapphires, and emeralds the sunbeams spread among the aisles of the parish church of Cluckton, Laughtonshire, lighting every face with a variegated glow. Not that the congregation needed any artificial complexion ; for the greater number, belonging to the rustic classes, had sunburnt cheeks ; and the occupants of the pews, in a nicely-graded social climax, long ago had felt the blood rise to their temples under the combined influences of insufficient oxygen and superabundant sermon. Of a truth, the Reverend James Morson was unusually long-winded on this particular Sunday afternoon in June. This was the more inconsiderate of him, seeing (besides its being so hot in his little church) how much his flock longed to get outside, that they might freely indulge in speculations concerning the unprecedented event whicli, only the day before, had shaken Cluckton to its centre.

But, to all appearances sublimely indifferent to their growing desire, if he observed it, the preacher rambled on with his " fourthly " and "fifthly," in reiterative eloquence. An uneasy movement would occasionally betray some of his less-seasoned hearers. Time passed. Still, balancing on alternate legs, the Eeverend Mr. Morson relentlessly pursued his theme unto its uttermost developments — an ecclesiastic Antæos gaining renewed vigour every time that, metaphorically speaking, he touched earth ; which was pretty often. B The sermon had some time ago exceeded the orthodox twenty minutes' span generally imposed by the congre gation's patience and the clergyman's dinner-hour. But yet, like the bear revolving round its stake, the worthy though wordy divine circled about his text, till every one in the holy edifice fell a victim to an epidemic of that most contagious of diseases, the fidgets.

Not absolutely every one, however. In one seat there was no sound or stir noticeable, though it was occupied by a boy, perhaps ten or twelve years of age. He could hardly have been more, so very fresh and sweet was the bloom of youth upon him. Now, in the average human being, the physical and the intellectual life are not coeval by several years of in fantile animality. In the case of this child, however, the natural order did not seem to have been followed : he had be'en wonderfully, even alarmingly precocious from the cradle. Early his mind had rolled round its orbit, till his boyish vision had contemplated, scrutinized many things which never come within the ken of millions of men. The doctor called his brain " unhealthily active," and spoke of it as overbalancing the body ; his tutor, on the contrary, highly approved of his Promethean fire, and considered this favourite pupil in the light of a corrective to the many dunces he had to drill.

Meanwhile, there the boy sat, huddled up on the hard bench, every line in his delicately tinted countenance glowing with intellect, and his long, curling, auburn locks framing in and, as it were, throwing out in relief his broad, white forehead, over-arching the burning black eyes, and the hardly formed nose that divided the fresh, thin cheeks. The child sat alongside his mother, to whom, besides his being, he owed the pious assortment of his Christian to his family name — Emanuel Mildon. Mid-day had chimed some time before. The congregation now began to hold out signals of distress in more ways than one. The example came indeed from a high quarter. Lady Brookage in her velvet-lined pew, suddenly departed from her accustomed automaton-like de portment, by fanning herself, somewhat indignantly, with her embroidered pockethandkerchief.

The note of impatience, struck in so high a key, was of course at once repeated all down the social scale among the congregation. Those fortunate individuals who, from the moral eminence of their reserved pews, could securely and superciliously stare about at their neighbours as at outer Peris, now no longer divided their attention between their prayer books and their fellow-worshippers ; but concentrated it on the Reverend Mr. Morson, in a growing spirit of pro testation at his mercilessness. The organist's wife, who, in virtue of her husband's share in the service, considered herself a privileged being, and, so to speak, behind the scenes, tossed her head in air and whispered to her com panion, she wondered how much longer poor Charles was going to be kept stuck there on that stool before he could play them all out 1 Most of the young men present — even those who, because belonging, as the servile cant term is, to the " gentry," considered that they were conferring a distinction rather than imposing an insult by staring out of countenance the pretty girls of humbler origin near them — even these, and their stid more obnoxious imitators in the gallery, had by this time given over their pleasing and appropriate diversion, and were snatching covert glances at their timepieces.

In spite of the poet's assertion, the watches were unanimous ; that is, in making out the hour, after all this, as close on one o'clock. Suddenly the speaker was observed to hesitate in his discourse. Then a look of decision settled on his face, and closing his sermon with a few brief and pointed phrases, the reverend gentleman lowered his voice, leant forward, and said, fixing his glance in one steady direction : — " My brethren, I have hesitated to raise, in this sacred building, the feelings that I know must be inseparable, especially at so recent a date, from all reference to the horrible crime, the monstrous murder which yesterday spread consternation and commiseration among you, and which to me and mine, is the cause of acute and lasting grief. You may imagine that, as a member of the victim's family, I am acquainted with later facts than you con cerning this atrocious offence and its author or authors ; but I am not.

It unhappily seems a question whether b the detectives may not for long remain as ignorant as we. The murderous hand which committed the awful crime, prepared also every means for escaping its penalty ; and up to now no clue has been found — at least, of which I am aware. Having said thus much on what must be a subject of burning interest to you — the prospect of bringing the wretched criminal to justice — I shall add but few words in commemoration of the deceased gentle man, Sir William Dawlins, so appallingly snatched from a sphere of wliich he was in every way an ornament, and in which he had won the respect, the esteem, and I may even say the affection of every one by the enduring qualities of which he was the fortunate possessor. Ah ! my friends, I know I am addressing a numerous congre gation, including many of different pursuits and different positions.

But nevertheless I do not hesitate to affirm that there are few, if any, among you, who do not appreciate, now that his most cruel death has turned your minds to a contemplation of the many virtues of the departed baronet, what a loss we all suffer thereby, whether we remember him as an unshaken friend, an indulgent landlord, a kind employer, ora never-fading helper in distress. Of the beauty of his domestic life, I, as his sorrowing son in-law, am here the best qualified to speak ; but allusion to the bereavement of the family and of myself, is too in tolerably painful ; and I must close this inadequate tribute to his cherished memory, by a confident appeal for your sorrowing condolence with his afflicted relatives, and above all with his heart-broken only daughter." The congregation had been deeply attentive to this somewhat unexpected address.

Now that it had con cluded, glances of approval were exchanged ; and it was plain that the Rev. James Morson had by his closing funereal oration a la Bossuet, fully compensated for the dreary wastes of the sermon preceding it. During his oratorical effort, the preacher had continued very much in the same attitude as he had at first assumed, his eyes levelled directly at one individual seat. This seat was the one occupied by the child Emanuel Mildon and his mother. If the clergyman's glance had remained fastened upon him (for, strange as it may seem, it was undoubtedly the boy, and not the woman, that the reverend gentleman thus honoured with his steadfast gaze) ; on the other hand, the youthful object of his scrutiny had retaliated in kind most valiantly. There was, however, this distinction between the relative aspect of the parties — that whereas the man's face wore the impenetrable mask that in difference or ingenuity, which comes with age, teaches us to draw over our tell-tale features, the child's countenance bore in every quivering lineament the unmistakable marks of sharp abhorrence — no doubt of the horrible crime to which such ample allusion had been made.

The service was now over. The congregation poured out through the narrow doorways, and each, on attaining the churchyard sunshine and freedom of speech, broke into warm eulogy of the preacher's verbal In Memoriam to the regretted baronet, who had undoubtedly enjoyed great popularity in the small agricultural town of Cluckton and its surrounding villages. Every one appeared to think it a subject for considerable self-congratulation that the reverend gentleman should have shown himself equal to the occasion, and satisfactorily delivered himself of a few more or less appropriate words on the shocking calamity. While some lingerers were yet grouped round the gate, discussing such a welcome pulpit hors d'œuvre, the Reverend Mr. Morson in person issued from a side door, having hastily unrobed and dressed himself; and rapidly strode out of the precincts of the church.

A bevy of ladies at once clustered around him, like bees around their queen. The object of their flattering attentions responded very affably, not to say affectionately ; and indeed was charm ingly patronizing to such of his fervent female admirers as possessed good looks or their equivalent at the banker's. Among this fortunate number might well be counted Mrs. Mildon, who, holding her gifted offspring by the hand, now elbowed her way close up to the besieged pastor. Mrs. Mildon was perhaps not the most distin guished among the harassed clergyman's petticoated satel lites ; but she was far from being the least well off, and was to be conciliated for her genteel hospitality, which moreover was never so lavish as when its object belonged to the church. Mrs. Mildon had a request to prefer to Mr. Morson ; which was, that he would favour her with a few minutes' conference and advice on their way from church, their homes lying in the same direction.

While she was speaking, the reverend gentleman, in spite of the distracting nature of the press around him, listened to her attentively, plunging the while a bright, almost over powering look into the eyes of Mrs. Mildon's son and heir. " Most happy, my dear Mrs. Mildon ! My poor wife being away at a relative's, I have no cause to hurry back — shall be with you at once." So saying, the hero of the hour shook himself free from the galaxy of beauty and wealth surrounding him, and forthwith set out in his friend's company for her somewhat distant home. They had scarcely walked a hundred yards when the lady, after turning her head several times (to enjoy her rivals' manifest discomfiture and envy, thought her clerical companion), suddenly exclaimed, — " How provoking ! Where can Emanuel have got to 1 He slipped his hand out of mine whde I was talking to you,' Mr. Morson, and soon after left my side.

I thought he had forgotten something in church, and that he'd soon catch us up, but he doesn't seem to be coming." " Oh, very provoking indeed ! " answered her religious adviser, with more asperity than the occasion appeared to call for on his part. Then, seeing Mrs. Mildon look up at him in surprise, he quickly added, " Yes, disappointing, for me at least, for I wished to have a serious conversa tion with Emanuel, to advise him to profit by the oppor tunity, and practise on our organ ; with a view, you know, my dear Mrs. Mildon, to assume the present organist's mantle when the old man shall be incapacitated by in firmity or — or death, you know. I had this object at heart, when I hastened away with you, almost as much as the desire to comply with your request for advice. Disappointing, indeed, very !

" '• How strange ! — it was just about that matter of the organ practice that I wanted to consult with you, dear Mr. Morson. It was so kind of you to wish for Emanuel to have the post later on — not that the money is in dispensable to him, as you are aware ; but then the occupation could but deepen his love for the church. This, I am devoutly thankful to say, is already very great, and I think daily increasing. But, you may remember, you had spoken to him casually of this prospect before, and he came back and told me of it quite enthusiastically. So you may imagine how surprised I was this morning, when I referred to the subject, to hear him speak very coldly of your kind offer. I am afraid this is a bad symptom — the first I've ever noticed in my dear boy, and I'm really alarmed by it. Ah, dear me ! a mother's anxieties and misgivings do begin early !

" Mrs. Mildon's escort had listened with but half an ear to her discursive remarks. He now broke out hastily, — " Perhaps Emanuel is gone home. He may have run on, you know — don't you think so ? " Mrs. Mildon could hardly say ; he was such a mother's boy and so sober-paced, that he had never before allowed her to walk home alone. She couldn't think where he had got to, or why he had left her ; " However," she added, " there's one thing certain : he won't be much be hind me in getting home. So perhaps you will be good enough to come in for a short while. I know that when he finds I've walked on, he'll make haste to overtake me and not keep dinner waiting." With this assurance, the reverend gentleman appeared satisfied, and assented to Mrs. Mildon's belief that the child must be in church. The pair then walked on more briskly, engaging in animated conversation about the murder of Sir William Dawlins and the eloquent tribute paid to his memory by 'his clmrchly son-in-law, now present.

Sir William Dawlins had been a Baronet, a very wealthy man, and Justice of the Peace for Cluckton ; but — he was now dead. In the recently-opened taverns, with their nearly square, leaded windows, their squat doors, and the horse-troughs before them, his lowest menials were talking of him with the secret satisfaction of feeling that, however lowly their lot, it at least was preferable to his : they were alive, yet. A homely illustra tion of one of La Fontaine's homely verses, — " Miettx vaut goujat debout qu' empereur enterre'." Cluckton was one of those small agricultural towns so plentiful upon the eastern sea-slope, not far above the parallel of London. It was rustic and quaint, and, unlike those manufacturing centres of the north, where King Coal has a palace in each factory, was surrounded by deep woods, spreading fields, and broad meadows unblighted by smoke in their luxuriant verdure.

Barely ten minutes' walk, setting out from what is the chief point of topical reference in all small localities in England — the church — brought one into the cool shades of the woods, lying to the north-east of Cluckton. The heat on this particular June day was excessive, and all the more inviting, the shadowy path which, suddenly branching off at right angles from the high-backed post road, hurried one down a steepish wooded slope that was soon merged in the main body of the woods. The woods ! What beauty was theirs on this first of summer's glowing noons. Nature awoke that morning, and found it summer. Then she had arrayed herself to fit the season, in her heavenliest hues, her most flowing smiles, her most subtle scents, her softest, tenderest sounds and sighs; and now in all her siren seductions, she stood before man with open arms, beckoning him to her feet, that he might drop on his knees and pray to her far more rationally, poetically, and profitably than the Breton peasant woman to her wayside image of the Holy Virgin.

And yet those simple stone blocks, rearing their weather beaten misshapedness on the solitary plains of Northern France, though the outcome of superstition, vindicate the truth in religion to which enlightenment is not yet arrived — solitude, self-forgetfulness, and unostentatious ness in prayer ! There was no statue of the Virgin, or St. Joseph, or St. Peter — no middleman in stone — to pray to in the Cluckton woods as they lay in the majesty and silence of a summer's noon, when more than at any other time it seems as though the noise of life were hushed that God may hear the murmured appeal. But the liquid gold of the suu shine flowed through the leaves and branches and down the trunks, incrusting them with arabesques of gleam and gloom ; the mighty oaks flung their close -leafed shade around their smaller brethren of the bough ; the deep grass, teeming with a universe of insect life, nestled cool and tempting to the weary frame.

Was not this Nature's fane — columned with lofty oaks, and paved with fragrant grass to prostrate oneself upon 1 And here, moving slowly, haltingly through the woody ways, comes a worshipper, the only figure wanting in the church that God has kept open for so many countless æons. It was the boy Emanuel Mildon, and from his moistened eyes and swelling heart, from the inarticulate prayer that fluttered on his lips, God knew, though some good Christians might not, that he was " in church." - Canon Lucifer. 10

CHAPTER II. THE CAUSE OF THE FUNEREAL ORATION.

Two evenings before the long-remembered date of the Reverend Mr. Morson's triumphant peroration in the pulpit, Laughtonshire revolved into the hemisphere of darkness after the longest twilight of the year. For the coronation day of summer, the weather had not been of appropriate luxuriance. Towards night-fall, indeed, a chilling wind sprang up, and the clouds darkly hustled each other across the fading sky. Gradually everything sank into indistinctness ; then a pall-like white fog stole over the landscape, and the funeral rites had been performed over one more day. It was not a cheerful hour. The moon was not yet risen to enliven the heavens, and the wooded slopes lying round Cluckton were buried in chaotic gloom. On such a shrouding night, Crime may stalk abroad as invisible as though it wore Gyges' blood-stained ring.

But Cluckton, up to the year of our Lord 1874, could boast of no criminal record. It was not a very old established town, having begun to grow but two or three centuries before, thanks to the accidental breaking-up of several large demesnes into smaller and less self-sufficing estates. Consequently, its archives embraced its full history ; and they contained mention of no graver offence than the poacher's, the sole bipeds to suffer therefrom being the pheasants and the partridges. These, year after year, were so thoroughly and expeditiously swept off that it was a pet joke with Lord Brookage, the largest landowner of the county, that, if he wanted to taste his own feathered game, he had to buy it at Farringdon market. The game keepers were under strict orders, of course, to remedy so deplorable a state of things by the exercise of increased i i vigilance and fortitude.

But such were the respective tactics and tendencies of the nocturnal depredators and their hereditary enemies, that there seemed to be no more imminent danger of a sanguinary collision between them, than in the case of the little figures which pivot in and out of those barometers in the form of a two-doored house. All precedent thus lacked for the suggestion of violence or peril. And yet, on this especial night, with its horrifying intensity of darkness, there were doubtless few inhabitants of Cluckton that would have relished a solitary excursion into the depths of the woods where they so very much liked to picnic — in broad daylight ! It was not that, like the Catskill mountain fastnesses, there were hoary legends overspreading them with awe and mystery. Far from it. The woods were a popular resort enough, but only in the proper season.

Such reluctance 'it was that old Worsley felt, the superr annuated hanger-on at Mr. Shrood's, the retired local lawyer, when his master hastily ordered him to go at once to town — that is, to Cluckton, some two miles distant — and bring the doctor back with him. <; Be ye in such a hurry loike, maester 1 " hesitatingly queried old Worsley. " Hurry ! I should say so, you old stock ! Pulse running very high, higher than I've ever found it before. But it's not so pressing as to have the mare put to. You can walk, Thomas, my good fellow ; walk fast. The doctor will bring you back with him, no doubt." By this arrangement, Thomas's last hope was de molished. It had been that, if he were forced to do his errand at once, and not leave it over till morning, at least his master would consider his own case urgent enough to warrant having out the old mare and gig.

But no, now he must foot it all alone through those pitchy woods, and up the long rising road leading to Cluckton from the north side. Thomas soon determined, however, that he would not set out on such a shadowy walk without company. " I seems to feel the need o'it more loike as I gets old," he muttered to himself, in a weak and ineffectual attempt to persuade himself that it was a spirit of socia bility, and not fear, that prompted him to secure a sharer in his ill-timed mission. Whicli goes to show that man is just as averse to appearing a coward in his own eyes as in the eyes of others ! Now, Mr. Shrood's veteran retainer, though he had never quitted his birthplace, and, typical country bump kin, had been duped at many a neighbouring fair, was nevertheless in his own way, quite a rustic Richelieu for diplomacy — as his conduct now proved.

First, he walked to the front door, opened and slammed it, to induce a belief in his employer's mind that he had departed on his errand. Next, he hurried back into the kitchen, where the cook and the stable-lad were just finishing their supper. They looked up in some surprise when he came bustling in, for he was an inveterate slow coach as well as an incorrigible grumbler. And now he was not only bestirring himself, but also was whistling, in a windy way between his stumps, an archaic tune he never indulged the world with save on occasions of great good humour. These, as he rarely had the means or opportunity for compassing intoxication, were infrequent. The cook followed his movements with a curious eye, till, seeing him indisputably making preparations for going out at that late hour, and yet betraying no irritation at his master's mandate, she burst forth with, — " Oh, I do think master's that mean a hangel from 'eaven couldn't a-help telling him on it !

A-sending a poor old body like you out at all hours, just 'cause he fancies hisself ailing ! I pities you, Thomas, sure I do ! " Thomas, however, was not on this occasion in a mood to accept pity, even from such an important personage as the cook. So he promptly retorted, "Pity them as desarves pity, Mrs. Duce — this 'ere pore lad, f'r instance, who be locked up 'ere or in the stables, and never let out the length o' a dog's-ehain, to brisk hisself up a bit ! He be bound to feel queer soon, and no mistake. Pore chap ! " The object of Thomas's commiseration looked very blank. He had been upon the point of chiming in with the cook, and respectfully tendering condolence to his (Lurjk 1 k . Itrn Sot ■-"'-' />» senior fellow-servant on the latter's enforced walk ; but now it seemed that it was he himself, " loitering Jack," as the cook had dubbed him, and not Thomas, that was to be pitied.

He felt sincere pity for himself; most people do, upon the slightest provocation. As for old Thomas, he was to be envied, he was ; going frisking off at all hours, and able to lay in as much fresh air and stale beer as ever he pleased. Yes, indeed, Thomas was to be envied ! Thus, it will be seen, by a very transparent artifice, Mr. Shrood's old stager had successfull)"- emulated the boy who on being set the task of painting his mothor-'s fence, pretended such delight in his employment, that his juvenile friends soon left off jeering him on his enforced industry, and eventually paid for the privilege of taking turns with the brush. Thomas saw the charm had worked. " Look thee 'ere, Jack," he observed with a great show of disinterested kindness, " I 'ud tak' thee along, on'y maester might arsk for 'ee."

That settled it. Jack was not to be restrained by any such prudential considerations as that. He was going, he was — he told Thomas so. Of course, the latter at first demurred ; went so far as to appeal to the cook to second him in repressing such an infraction of the laws of discipline. But Mrs. Duce had been gained over by Thomas's pathetic allusions to the confinement of his fellow-servant ; and she strongly advised Jack to go, promising to say he was in bed, if there was any question asked as to his whereabouts. Mr. Shrood had the trick of inquiring for his servants at unexpected moments, much as the captain goes through the roll-call of his soldiers, to ensure their being at their post. A quarter of an hour later, old Thomas found himself with a comforting companion by his side, on the solitary by-road which, from Mr. Shrood's, was the sole means of communication with the turnpike leading to the town and, what was more cognate to their case, to the local temple of Esculapius.

The two yokels walked along briskly enough under the enjoyable exhilaration produced by the crisp night air and the unwonted sense of liberty. But it was very dark, and by and by the younger man began to feel the effects of such ghostly gloom. He was a native of one of the wildest, least-inhabited parts of England, and as such was born with that abject fear of being out-of-doors at night that causes so many peasants to recoil from merely stepping across the threshold after dusk. At present, the surrounding stillness became for him the more burden some, insufferable even, owing to the depressing taci turnity of his aged companion. The latter felt that, to serve his own ends, he had already been far more amiable to the youth than was consistent with his grey-bearded dignity. So the pair plodded on in silence, almost groping their way ; for the very road, terra firma under their feet, a yard ahead seemed a yawning gulf of blackness.