Front matter (continued 6)

Hadrian read these letters through two or three times, noting the yapping and the yowling of the one, the panting and the whining of the other, the barking of both. He turned to the window and looked at nothing until He had finished His cigarette. His thin lips stiffened in scorn and drew downward into the straight inflexible line. His impulse was to make an end of the male animal in a tank of aquafortis, if such a convenience only had formed part of the pontifical paraphernalia: as for the female, he remembered George Meredith's sentence, and would have liked to squeeze all the acid out of her at one grip and toss her to the divinities who collect exhausted lemons. The next minute, "The dogs, the dirty abject obscene dogs." He spat suddenly; and carried the letters to the safe in the bedroom where He locked them up. He prohibited Himself from taking further note of them. He was conscious that this course was quite wrong. But there it was. He had a busy afternoon before Him; and He diligently read in His breviary to prepare for Himself a convenient frame of mind. Pursuing His policy of emphasizing the difference between the Church and the World, He had summoned the generals of religious orders. To each of these He wished to say some words of admonition, words which would remain in the memory, and be passed from mind to mind, from mystic to thyrsos-bearer, from general to postulant. He rather enjoyed the sticking of labels on people and things now, because He could do it to some purpose. On the other hand, He had a feeling that He only was touching surfaces. Still, here and there the surface might be soft and capable of receiving impression: or here and there might be a crevice or a gap which He could fill with a cartridge. Somehow, anyhow, His words and acts must be made to penetrate to the roots of things, to influence fundamentals.

At fifteen o'clock He mounted the small throne. One by one the generals passed into the Presence: heard apostolic words; and passed out again—Servites, Premonstratensians, Augustinians, Cistercians, Carthusians, Oblates, Marists, Passionists, Carmelites, Dominicans. To the General of Trinitarians, He commended Africa; and ordained that twenty friars should preach as of old in the market-places of England, Canada, and Australasia, for African missions. To the General of the Order of Charity, He would not say anything at present concerning the condemned Forty Propositions: but He would say Love your enemies the Jesuits, and "turn not away thine eye from the needy and give none occasion to curse thee." To the General of Benedictines, He gave command to keep his monks in their monasteries, and to prohibit them from appearing in the correspondence-columns of newspapers, either under their religious names or their renounced secular styles. He reminded the Minister-General of Capuchins of the second minister-general, the apostate Ochino, who had preferred worldly things and had preached polygamy; and also of the fact that playing fast and loose with worldly things continued to produce apostate Capuchins. To the Minister-General of Franciscans, He commended Asia; and ordained that fifty friars should preach as of old in the market-places of England, Canada, and Australasia, for Asiatic missions. Then He shewed the grey scapular and cord which He was wearing next to His skin; and asked that the brotherhood should name Him to Blessed Brother Francis as a little brother who was not gay but sad, not lively but weary, and who had but little love. Hadrian, as Brother Serafino of the Third Order, kissed the Minister-General's naked feet, and begged a blessing. Returning to the throne, the Supreme Pontiff imparted apostolic benediction. And Brother Peter Baptist went out into the noisy antechambers with his clean bright face all-glorious, and light in his serene blue eyes. The Prepositor-general of Jesuits entered with ostentation of the knowledge that, if Hadrian the Seventh was the English White Pope, he himself was the English Black Pope. He had that benevolently truculent manner which women deem adorable. As he made his obeisance, Hadrian noted a little lacquered snuff-box in his hand and a frightful bandanna oozing from the pocket of his cassock. His Holiness instantly carried war into the camp, by reminding Father St. Albans of the bulls of Urban VIII. and Innocent X. which prohibit snuff-taking on pain of excommunication.

"No doubt those bulls are obsolete: but Your Reverency will have the goodness to abstain from practising the filthy habit in Our Presence."

The sallow General pocketed his snuff-box; and produced the stony mild smile which is used upon eccentricity. The Pope remarked that the Company of Jesus appeared to be in a verisimilar position to the Wesleyans, in that they had departed a very long way from the will and spirit of their founder. He used His slowly biting monotone, because He wished to save this General the trouble of misunderstanding Him. He said that, with the word "Borgia" and the word "Nero," the word "Jesuit" perhaps was the eponym for all that was vilest in the world. That was very undesirable. Not that the good opinion of the world was desirable. Far from that. But Christians ought not to enjoy anything, not even an evil reputation, under false pretences. He wished to do something to rectify the erroneous opinion which the world had formed about the Company of Jesus, to straighten-out the tangle, correcting and directing; and, as men were wont to judge more by actions than by words, He did not propose to beat the air with vain expostulations, explanations, expositions of virtue, and so forth. It had been done a thousand times before. Historic calumnies had been refuted from pulpits and in pamphlets with unanswerable logic: but still the man-in-the-street said "Jesuit" when he meant "a foxy wolf." The Pontiff was not going to try to persuade the world away from its nonsense. He wished the Company of Jesus to give the world a proximate occasion of persuading itself. Therefore, He proposed to the General, in private, a return to the observance of the good old rule and a cultivation of the saintly spirit of St. Iñigo Lopez de Recalde. He wished the Jesuits to reconsider their position, as it were: to surcease from the—not always mortally sinful—not always tangibly illegal—but perhaps—generally shady transactions——

The General interrupted. He was prepared to bully.

Hadrian froze him with a glance of blazing supremacy. "Make no mistake," the Pope said: "We are not intending Ourself to punish your Company, nor to degrade your Companions who so diligently degrade themselves, nor to confer fictitious and unmerited importance upon you by decrees of dissolution or suppression. We do not forget the badness of the agents in the goodness of the cause nor the goodness of the cause in the badness of the agents." He was looking through His all-observant half-shut eyes straight at the bridge of the General's fine nose. That is the most exacerbating form of regard: for, while it holds the hearer rigid and intense, it effectually prevents retaliation. Much may be done with the eye in wordy warfare. You may challenge: you may intimidate: you may quell: but you may do none of these things while your opponent refuses to lend his eye to yours. So this sleek General found. The Pontiff held him with an eye which gazed so nearly into his, that he perforce was obliged to lie in wait for the flicker when his own could seize it. Hadrian knew the dodge. He had not watched and dichotomized men and Jesuits from the observatory and in the dissecting-room of His loneliness during twenty years for nothing. At the end of His sentence, His gaze swept right away. He rose and went to the window. Looking out over the roofs of Golden and Immortal Rome, He continued in a milder tone, "We have cited Your Reverency only to hear Our paternal chiding of your naughty ways, to the end that ye may amend the same, returning of your own free will to the observance of the spirit as well as of the letter of those rules of life and conduct which your Father, St. Ignatius, made for you."

He paused. The General, who would have preferred wheeling manure in a barrow at the behest of a novice (A.M.D.G. of course) to listening to this rodent exhortation, took it that the audience was ended; and made shift to get on to his knees.

But the Pope went on. "For, it is of the nature of all human things to deteriorate; and ye have made yourselves a scorn and hissing among men. The Nouvelle Revue states that ye are in great decadence. The statement may be one of your own devices for distracting the attention of the world from your nefarious machinations. Or it may be a fact. In both cases it is damnable and damnatory." He paused again.

"Jube, Domine, benedicere," the General intoned, with a determination to force the apostolic benediction, and to get back to the Via del Seminario as soon as possible. He felt that he had some very important things to say to his socii.

But the pitiless voice probed him again: "Wherefore We admonish you that ye set your house in order while ye have time."

The General's oval jaw took an extra lateral crease. His hands twitched and pattered down and up and down in a talpine manner. Suddenly the inflexible fathomless eyes flashed on him. Axioms like sleet tersely lashed him.

"Remember that ye only exist on sufferance. Dismiss delusions; and see yourselves as ye really are. Strip, man, strip. Search out your own weaknesses: lest, not the Father but, the Enemy discover the sores, and the diamonds, which ye are hiding. For ye do not merit the reputation, which is associated with your name, on the strength of which ye trade."

The glossy black priest jerked to his feet: genuflected; and was backing from the white Presence. The Pontiff, whose mood had become quite pythian, stepped up to him, laying a firm hand on the bow of the ribbons of his ferraiuola. "Wince not, dear son. Three-fourths of you trade upon the reputation of your Company for cunning and learning. One-fourth of you is the Christians of the world. At least be frank with yourselves. Let us have more of the flower of your Christianity. Let us have less of your false pretences. Your erudition is showy enough. Oh yes. But it is so superficial. Your machinations are sly enough. Oh yes. But they are so silly. Ye are not geniuses. Ye are not monsters either of vice or of virtue: but only ridiculous mediocrities, always pitifully burrowing, burrowing like assiduous moles, always seeing your pains mis-spent, your elaborate schemes wrecked, except sometimes, when—to complete the metaphor—quite by accident, ye chance to kill a king. This is not to the Greater Glory of God. Then stop. Stop, here and now."

They were by the door. The Black Pope had one hand under the blue-linen curtain, and was fumbling for the handle. The White Pope quickly clinched His admonition. "Don't pretend to be Superior Persons. Don't give yourselves such airs. Don't gad about in hansom cabs quite so much. Don't play billiards in public-houses. Don't nurture jackals. Try to be honest. Don't oppress the poor. Don't adore the rich. Don't cheat either. Tell the truth: or try to. Love all men, and learn to serve. And don't be vulgar."

Father St. Albans had got the door open. He looked like a flat female with chlorosis. He was green and quite speechless. But he bowed profoundly as the decurial chamberlains came forward to escort him through the antechambers.

"Benedicat te Omnipotens Deus.... Go in peace and pray for Us," purred the Supreme Pontiff, rubbing His left hand with His pocket handkerchief and returning to the window.

CHAPTER XIV

Hadrian was mooning about in the Treasury one morning, wondering why people will persist in using diamonds by themselves instead of as a setting for coloured gems: grieving at the excessive ugliness of most modern goldsmiths' monstrous work: turning with disgust from huge brazenly vulgar masses of bullion shaped like bad dreams of chalices, pyxes, staves, croziers, mitres, tiaras, dishes, jugs, (not beds), and basons. He bathed in the beauty of sea-blue beryls, corundrums, catseyes, and chalcedonyx. A vast rose-alexandrolith mysteriously changed from myrtle-green to purple as He turned it from sunlight to candle-light. He moved to a great round table-moonstone, transparent as water one way: brilliantly clouded with the ethereal blue of a summer-morning sky, the other. These two stones had not the blatant ostentation, the inevitable noisy obviousness of rubies, emeralds, diamonds and pearls. They were apart, chaste, recondite, serene, and permanent. He enjoyed them. His glance again passed over the flaring cupboards. A plan began to crawl out of one of his brain-cells. He took the alexandrolith and the moonstone in His two hands; and sat down profoundly meditating, gazing into the lovely silent mystery in the stones. So He sat for half-an-hour, while His plan unfolded its convolutions. To Him entered Cardinal Semphill, rather ruddier than a cherry, carrying the day-before-yesterday's Times. "Holiness," he said with some animation, "I hope I don't interrupt You. Thank God we've got a King of England at last!" He read from the paper, "'The King's Majesty has been graciously pleased to send autograph letters to all the European sovereigns and prime ministers inviting them to assemble with the President of the United States and the Japanese Emperor at Windsor Castle, in order to concert measures for terminating the present lamentable condition of affairs.'"

"That explains the length of the Japanese Emperor's visit to England, and Roosevelt's arrival last week. Yes, it's very king-like. Statesmanship is all very well up to a point. Then, its force seems to fade; and kingship's chance comes. Lucky England to have a real King!"

"I thought Your Holiness would be pleased. And now what will be the outcome?"

"Who knows?" Hadrian thought for a minute; and then mounted an imaginary pulpit, and preached like a purposeful literary man. "First, they'll quarrel terribly for certain: because five of them are distinct entities, and the others (the nonentities) out of sheer terror will make themselves a nuisance. Secondly, when the nonentities have been reassured, or squashed, the five entities will have to reach a common ground. If they do that, We shall be very much surprised. Thirdly, supposing an agreement to have been reached, Their Majesties and the President will have to get it constitutionally confirmed. Autocracy is supposed to be dead; and the usual constitutional farce will have to be performed."

"Why do You say 'autocracy is supposed to be dead,' Holy Father?"

"Oh because the euphuism 'constitutional monarchy' has taken its place. The twentieth century doesn't like the word Autocrat; and pretends that the thing does not exist. But it does: not in the old hereditary form: but Aristos, the Strong Man, invariably dominates. It's in the order of nature. And Demos likes him for it, only the silly thing won't say so. That's all. Semphill, you might send a marconigraph to the Earl Marshal. We require news of this Congress of Windsor at least once a day."

The Pope returned the gems to the beneficiato in attendance: took the Times with Him and went across the basilica into the gardens. A tramontana bit Him to the bone; and He tightly wrapped His cloak round Him, facing the wind and the blinding glare of the sun. He briskly walked a couple of miles, until blood-warmth stung his mind into activity. By Leo IV.'s ruined wall, He met Cardinal Carvale engaged in a similar exercise, his delicate cheeks fervid and flushed, and his grave eyes blazing. Good priests generally retain their bloom through the full five-and-forty years of youth. Hadrian invited his companionship and conversation for the return to Vatican. They were a pair, these two medium-sized slim athletic men, the one in white and the other in vermilion, both very brilliant in the sunlight, with vivid aspect and vivid gait. They looked like men who really were alive. Their discourse was just the vigorous rather epigrammatic talk of wholesome well-bred men. As they turned into the court of the Belvedere, His Eminency said "Oh, by the bye, Holy Father, perhaps I ought to tell you that they cannot understand at St. Andrew's College why You never have been to see them."

"But you understand:" Hadrian promptly put in.

"Well—yes:" the cardinal responded. In his candid gaze there was intuition, sympathy—and something else.

The Pontiff read it. "When did they tell you that?"

"Yesterday."

"Oh. Do you often go there?"

"About once a fortnight, Holiness."

"Carvale, do you like going there?"

"—Yes, on the whole I do. The youngsters are glad to see me; and the older men" (a radiant smile disclosed his exquisite teeth as he spread an arm)—"they like vermilion to take note of them. And I think it does my soul good" (he spoke gravely) "to visit the old place. I put it off as long as I could: I would have been glad to forget the horrors. Strange to say, I forgot them after I had been there a few times."

Hadrian's heart informed Him. He understood it all quite well. "Carvale let us go to St. Andrew's now. We can get there in time for dinner."

The cardinal instantly looked happy; and the two continued to walk swiftly through the City, going by Tordinona, Orso, Piazza Colonna and the Trevi Fountain. As they passed the crucifix at the corner of an alley, Hadrian bowed. His Eminency did not. "Why don't you salute our Divine Redeemer?" the Pope inquired.

"Well of course I always raise my hat to The Lord in the tabernacle when I pass a church——"

"And you bow to Us, and even to Our handwriting: but—— Listen, Carvale: 'It is idolatry to talk about Holy Church and Holy Father, to bow to fallible sinful man, if you do not bend knee and lip and heart to every thought and image of God manifest as Man——' Is that explicit enough? Well; it was a protestant parson who wrote it—one Arnold of Rugby."

"He was right, Holiness;" said the cardinal turning back and bowing.

They walked on in silence. The Pope was doing a thing which He could not away with. It might be thought that He, a former student, was come to the college (which had expelled Him) to swagger. Of course it would be thought. Let it be thought. Then the hateful memory of every nook and corner, in which, as a student, He had been so fearfully unhappy, surged in His mind: the gaudy chapel where He had received this snub, the ugly refectory where He received that, the corridor where the rector had made coarse jests about His mundity to obsequious grinners, the library where He had found impossible dust-begrimed books, the stairs up which He had staggered in lonely weakness, the dreadful gaunt room which had been His homeless home, the altogether pestilent pretentious bestial insanity of the place—He knew and winced at every stone of it; and wrenched Himself from retrospection. They were going up the narrow Avigonesi. Fifty yards in front, a double file of students in violet cassocks and black sopranos preceded them. A little group of ragamuffins shouted cattivi verbi at the file; and one caught hold of the conventional sleeve of a student's soprano which was streaming in the wind. Cheap cloth rent at a tug. The ragamuffin rushed off with his spoils. But the bereft one furiously followed: retrieved his streamer; and clouted a head which howled, resuming his place in the camerata all unconscious that his act had been observed.

"History repeats itself:" the Pope said, and laughed.

Carvale smiled in reply. "Fancy remembering that."

"We forget no one thing of those days," said Hadrian: "also, the rape of Your Eminency's streamer was effected on one of the only two days when We were permitted to accompany the others to the University. Naturally We remember that. Besides, Carvale, you were in such a blind and naked rage; and We had deemed you such a virtuous little mouse."

"Was I?" the cardinal said. "One had to lie low, as a rule: but sometimes the old Adam——"

"We owe Our one moment of mirth in St. Andrew's College to that old Adam."

"I had to keep in coll. for a week though, afterwards. The boy's father was waiting for me with a knife."

"Yes. Italy had not got over her taste for steel."

"Will she ever get over it, Holiness?"

"Of course She will—when She has killed you—or Us. Nothing but a tragedy will break a habit of centuries:" the Pope said, as He rang the bell at the door of the college.

The old porter Aurelio opened, gasped, dropped on his knees. Hadrian and Cardinal Carvale entered. A long corridor extended right and left. In front, on the right, a wide stone stair ascended: on the left, another stair descended a little way to a glass door leading to a shabby shrubbery. Some students were on the stairs: others were in the shrubbery: two or three lingered in the corridor. At the Pontiff's entrance they all inquisitively turned, gasped, and flopped. It was awfully funny. They resembled violet hares on their forms, rigid, goggle-eyed, ready-to-bound. At the turn of the landing, a sturdy black-a-vised Gael fled upstairs to summon the superiors. The Apostle blessed the others with a shy smile which would be kind, and a wave of the hand which emptied space,—except for an obese little spectacled sharpnosed creature like a violet sparrow who hopped about pertly obsequious. Down came flying the superiors as a bell began to ring and intonations sounded in the upper corridors. The rector was annoyed at being taken unawares: but he presented his vice-rector, a mild anemic of thirty with the face of a good young woman.

"We are come to accept your hospitality, Monsignore, without any ceremony," said Hadrian. They passed into the refectory to the high table. Twenty-nine students followed: and arranged themselves in two lines down the sides of the centre, and in a third line across the end. The dean-of-students intoned the Grace: the rest responded. The Pope placed Himself on the rector's right, with the vice-rector on His Own right: Carvale supported the rector on the left. Soup, boiled meat, vegetables, baked-meat, cheese, apples, appeared and disappeared. The rector conceded to Hadrian the right of signalling to the reader in the pulpit: the Pope kept him reading, because He did not want to talk platitudes, and because He did want to look at the men. He ate little. The food was abundant in quantity: indelicate in quality. They offered Him the best black wine from the college-vineyards: but He preferred a student's little cruet of red, a coarse wine with some body and no bouquet whatever—an unsophisticate wine such as Fabrizio Colonna might have used at the end of the fifteenth century. Most of the diners assiduously and emphatically dined, with one eye on the high table, a nose in their own plate, and the other eye in their neighbour's. Hadrian noted all their physiognomies; and began to select those with whom He would have a word. He passed the weak young thin-nosed dean at the top of the right table, the tall quiet man in black who looked already sacerdotal, the old bald amiability with an air of conventionality who might have been a parson,—yes He would speak to him of the others,—the blubber-lipped gorger who mopped up gravy with a crumb-wedge and gulched the sop—no: the fastidious person who ate bread and drank water and looked so hungry—yes: the florid giant with the fiery wiry mop—no: the dark man with the cruel face of a Redemptorist—no: the sallow lath who had the manners of an attaché—no. On the left, colourless mediocrities—no. Across the end, youngsters:—His Holiness distinguished a black-haired white-skinned one with wet black eyes, certainly an Erse: a crisp-brown-haired muscular hobbledehoy with shining grey eyes and a tanned skin, who would look well in a farm-yard: a big bloom of boyhood yellow-haired, blue-eyed, scarlet and moist-lipped, ardent and modest. The Pope tapped on the table. The reader, to whom no one had listened, ceased; and came down to his dinner. A low murmur of conversation arose. Everybody began to think furiously of what he would do or demand if he had a chance.

"This is a great day for the college, Holy Father," the rector said. The Pope slightly bowed. "Had we known that You intended to honour us, Holy Father, a proper reception——"

"Unnecessary," Hadrian quietly interrupted. "We do not wish to disturb. Our children expect to see Us; and We are here to be seen. They all shall be able to say that they have seen and heard and handled Us, if they please." He spoke lowly, and (the rector perceived) unwillingly, but very officially. They were eating wind-fallen apples. The rector offered an enormous silver snuff-box. Hadrian passed it to the vice-rector, who took a pinch with blushing alacrity. It went the round of the tables; and returned on the rector's left. Hadrian carefully noted the takers. Some took snuff perfunctorily, some customarily, others horribly. The fiery wiry giant stood up and ostentatiously absorbed it with a cringe to the high table. Those to whom the Pope was resolved to speak took none: the fastidious person disdained it. The meal was finished. The students ranked for Grace; and all proceeded to the chapel to visit The Lord in the Sacrament. After five minutes' silent prayer, they emerged on the first corridor. There seemed to be uncertainty: the men congregated on the descent expecting directions. In the ordinary course of things, some would be going to Propaganda for lectures; others, to their own rooms for study or siesta: but, for the next few moments, perhaps a dozen would enjoy horse-play in the shabby shrubbery. A group of the last collected at the stair-head, by the reception-room (with the red-velvet settees and the sham Venetian glass chandeliers), into which the rector was endeavouring to entice the Pope. But Hadrian was looking at the students, mischievously smiling at them. "It is to be hoped that you are not going into the garden to murder a cat:" He said.

Everybody instantly became as red as a scalding-hot capsicum, some with shame, one with disgust, others from sheer fear. Church-students easily are frightened, because there generally is less grace than nature in them; and you only have to disclose a knowledge of the latter for them to desire (as phrenetically as possible) the predominance of the former. This makes for uneasiness, often for hypocrisy—in both cases, for mental and corporeal effort and a sudden flux of blood to the extremities.

"To murder a cat, Holy Father?" the vice-rector ejaculated. He was responsible for discipline.

"Yes. They used to murder stray cats here, just to pass the time. We have seen it. The one thing, which We remember in connection with your shrubbery, is a rush of ramping infuriated boys with spades and pitchforks, chasing and smashing a poor stray cat. We can see the horror now, with its broken back, and one eye hanging out on its whiskers. We can hear its dreadful heart-rending yells. Boys, don't do such things—to cats of all creatures!"

He spoke with fervence. Some savages wondered what the blazes He was driving at. There was a little silence. No one seemed to know how to break it. Then the sparrow-like student appeared with a red chair which he had taken the liberty of extracting from the reception-room; and dragged it behind the Pontiff at the stair-head. It was a welcome interruption. Hadrian sat down; and dismissed Cardinal Car vale with the superiors. He was going to have the college to Himself for half-an-hour. The improvised throne stood alone in the bare corridor: the students clustered up the stairs below it. Hadrian perceived the inevitable odour of hot boy. He produced a sentence wherewith to address them.

"Dear children," he said, feeling as old as Methuselah for the moment, "do learn to love: don't be hard, don't be cruel to any living creature." And that was all.

He beckoned the dean who came and kneeled before Him: laid His hand on the young man's head; and blessed him. The others followed in rotation. In a secret voice, He invited each one to ask a favour. Most asked Him to pray for them and held up their beads for a blessing: some asked for the apostolic benediction in the hour of death for themselves and their relations: the fastidious person asked for nothing.

"Nothing?" the Pope whispered.

"Nothing."

"Nothing?" (very tenderly)

"Everything, O Sanctity:" the stoic responded with a sob and a stony glare. Hadrian inquired for the number of his room; and put a similar question to the other four whom He had noted. When He had blessed all, He sent them away, and sat alone for a minute or two. Then He went to visit the big boy: who looked at Him bravely, with tearful innocent eyes. To Hadrian, it was wonderful to see this great virile virgin of nineteen. He elicited a not unusual and simple tale: a little Gaelic farm, always Catholic through all persecutions, the third of eight sons, the Vocation at twelve years of age, the mother wanted to confess to her own son. It was idyllic. It would come exquisitely in the objective bucolic manner of Theokritos. The long shapely limbs trembled before Him; the grand shoulders bowed. He gave the boy His Own white sash as a present for his mother: bade him be a good priest; and left him wallowing in happiness. Hadrian stopped in the corridor, disappointed because the lad came from a farm: He had placed him beside the sea, and had conceived a mental image of him, bare-legged, in a blue guernsey, at the rudder of a fishing-smack. But the next, the muscular hobbledehoy, really did come from a farm: his skin had the unmistakable tan of the sun on a wheat-field: and his front was bovine. So was his manner. He was so frightened by the importance of his visitor that he spoke with surliness, and in the voice of a child of thirteen. Hadrian was astonished at the discrepancy between the voice and the speaker: He made him less uncomfortable by substituting an official manner for His friendly one (which the hobbledehoy could not understand) asking his name and ordinary questions about his status and addressing him as Mr. Macleod. It was a magnificent animal, incapable of the finer sentimental emotions, likely to conceal fat in a cassock (or in corduroy, if on a farm) before the age of thirty. Privately the Pope wondered what in the world was the sign of this one's Vocation. He Himself could perceive none: but then He was inexperienced; and the youth was secretive. Hadrian tried to draw him out. Was he happy? Oh yes. Did he want anything? Oh no. To what diocese did he belong? To Devana. When did he expect the priesthood? A look of wild terror came into the grey eyes. Hadrian perceived a clue; and pressed on, repeating his inquiry. "I never will be," the creature shrilled.

"Why not?"

No answer: but a rush to the bedside and a face hidden. Hadrian took him by the shoulders, and made an act of will. "Why not?"

"I cannot:" and then the fountains of the great deep were discovered. His veneer of English peeled off: he spoke with the sibilate dental, the clipped deliberation of the Gael. No one ever had told him. He did not know till a month ago. No one knew. He had not mentioned it to his confessor, because it was not a sin. He read of it in Lehmkuhl and Togni. He would be obliged to go back and work on his uncle's farm where he had been brought up. They belonged to the Free Kirk there. He was an orphan. It was his uncle by marriage. Hadrian looked steadily into his eyes:

"Is this the truth, as though you were speaking before kings?"

"It wass the truth ass though she wass speaking pefore kings," the response came in the strongest form of asseveration known to a Gael, deliberately selected and offered by Him Who knew so little, and so much of so many little things. Hadrian comforted him; and bade him pack his bag. His secret was safe. Vatican was the place for him, until some sort of useful happy life could be planned for him.

The Pope very slowly went-up the last two flights of stairs to the top corridor. No man can come into a human tragedy without some vibrance of sentiment; and Hadrian's senses, keen by nature, were intensified by art. He entered the room of the black-haired Erse, who most certainly had kissed the blarney-stone. Och! Blessins on the Howly Forther's blessid head and might the howly saints receive Him into glory. The Pope wrote a blessing in a garish birthday book; and got out of the room as quickly as possible. That such a lovely bit of colour and litheness should be so abject on the floor! His Holiness shut-down the lid on memory; and knocked at another door.

"Come."

He entered a large bare square room with a window which displayed the City from the Quirinal to St. Peter's. He noted the bed, the chest of drawers whose top was arranged as a dressing-table, the writing table, book case, and two chairs. A bath stood under the bed; and there were two large tin cans of water against the wall. The fastidious inmate offered a chair; and remained standing in the Presence. Hadrian signed to him to be seated also.

"Dear son, you are one of the unhappy ones. Will you tell Us your grief?"

"Sanctity, I have not complained."

"No. But, complain."

"I will not complain." The Pope liked him for that; and for an air of distinction which was not breeding. Dialectic should be tried.

"How old are you?"

"Twenty-nine."

"In which month were you born?"

"In July."

"In England?"

"In England." A rapid horoscopical calculation let Hadrian know the lines on which to proceed.

"You find your environment disagreeable?"

"All environments are more or less disagreeable to me."

"All which you have tried up to the present, perhaps. Perhaps the future may be more propitious."

"Sanctity, I earnestly hope so: but I do not expect it."

"Why not?"

"I do not know."

"Don't you find that your circumstances influence your conduct? Don't you find that they prevent you from doing yourself justice?"

"Always."

"In this college, you have found no kindred spirit?"

"That may be my fault."

"More likely your misfortune—and misfortunes are not faults, no matter what fools say. Note that. Note also that misfortunes may be overcome.—But, they do not understand you here?"

"No."

"They mock you?—— They do. Why did they mock you to-day?"

"They did not mock me to-day."

"Yesterday?"

"Because I carry those two cans full of water up two-hundred-and-two steps every day."

"Do you mean to say that there are no baths in this college yet?"

"We may have footbaths once a week, if we apply to the infirmarian. There is nothing else. And I like to tub decently."

"No doubt they say that you must be a very unclean person to need so much washing?"

"Sanctity, You are quoting the rector."

The Pope abruptly laughed. "Have they ever put a snake—a snake—in your water-cans?"

"No they have not done that."

"They did in Ours."

The distance between the two now became considerably lessened. The fastidious person began to feel more at ease. His fastidy evidently was only a chevaux de frise for the discomfiture of intruders; and this delicate tender inquisitor was no intruder, but a very welcome—Apostle.

The Pope continued. "Isn't it very absurd?"

"It is very absurd. Also, it is very disconcerting."

"Of course you try not to let it disconcert you?"

"I try: but I fail. My heart always is on my sleeve; and the daws peck it. At present, I am trying to contain myself and to use myself in isolation."

"That they call 'sulkiness'?"

"Yes."

"How much longer must you remain here?"

"Perhaps one year: perhaps two."

"Can you persecute, can you hold out so long?"

"Oh, I will hold out. Nothing shall deter me. Sanctity, it is not that which makes me afraid."

"Dear son, what makes you afraid?"

"The afterwards. These people are to be my superiors or equals—colleagues for life. I am not afraid of poverty or wickedness among the people to whom I am to minister: but, my brother-priests—I shall be at the orders of some of these people, my rectors, my diocesans even. That makes me afraid."

"Did you not know what kind of people——"

"Yes, I did know: but I did not realize it till I came here."

"Yet you choose to persevere?"

"Sanctity, I must. I am called."

"You are sure of that?"

"It is the only thing in all the world of which I am sure."

"Do you always live on bread and water?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"I think the food beastly. I have been into the kitchen; and I have seen—things. I am afraid to eat anything except boiled eggs. They cannot deposit—sputum inside the shells of boiled eggs. But the servants complained of the extra trouble in boiling eggs especially for me. The bread is not made in the college. In order not to be singular, I eat and drink what I can eat and drink of that which is set before me; and I am deemed more singular than ever."

"Have you said this to the rector?"

"Yes."

"Do you like bread and water?"

"I think them both exceedingly nasty."

"Does it affect your health?"

"Not in the least. It makes my head ache. But I am as strong as a panther."

"Why 'panther'?"

"I really don't know. It seemed to be the just word."

"And you believe that you are able to go on?"

"I intend to go on."

"You know that this college is not the place for you?"

"I suppose not: but my diocesan sent me here; and I intend to serve my sentence."

"Dear son, what is your ambition?"

"Priesthood."

"With a small patrimony, you would be on a more satisfactory footing here; and afterward you need not take the mission oath. The mere fact of the possession of a patrimony would purchase courtesy and consideration for you during your college-life: and would give you an opportunity of cultivating your individuality independently when you reach the priesthood."

"Oh, yes. But I am a church-student."

"So were We."

"And Your Sanctity persevered?"

"Yes."

"So will I."

"What is your name?"

"William Jameson."

Hadrian took a sheet of paper and wrote the apostolic benediction to William Jameson. "You will like to have this? Persevere, dear son; and pray for Us as for your brother-in-the-Lord. And—do you know Cardinal Sterling? Well: come to Vatican whenever you please and make his acquaintance. He will expect you. Good-bye. God bless you."

The Pope went down to the bald old amiability, who was correct and mild enough in expressing a profound sense of the honour. Hadrian spoke to him of himself; and found that a public-school, university, and Anglican parsonage, had dulled what capability of emotion he ever had had, or had taught him the rare art of self-concealment. He was a capital specimen of the ordinary man, stinted, limited: one whose instinct prevented him from asserting an individuality. But he was a gentleman; and a Christian of a kind, actuated by the best intentions, paralysed by the worst conventions.

"We wish to speak to you of Jameson:" at length the Apostle said.

"Ah, poor fellow!"

"Now why do you say that, Mr. Guthrie?"

"Well, Holiness, I'm afraid he's in a most uncomfortable position. I'm sure this is not the place for him. You see he doesn't get on with the men."

"Does he quarrel with them?"

"Oh, dear me no! But he avoids them."

"Perhaps he has his reasons."

"Well, I'm afraid he has. But then it doesn't do to shew them. I often tell him so—try to chaff him into a more come-at-able frame of mind, you know, Holy Father."

"That hardly would be the way."

"No I'm afraid it wasn't. He's so very sensitive, you see. Why he actually got quite angry with me."

"What did he say?"

"Well, he said that he really did think I ought to have known better."

"And what did you say then?"

"Oh I called him a——but I couldn't possibly tell You what I called him, Holy Father."

"Why not?"

"Well really it was too dreadful. I've been regretting it ever since."

"What did you call him?"

"Oh it's quite impossible that I should repeat it to You, Holy Father. I should never be able to hold up my head again."

"Nonsense, Mr. Guthrie. We desire to know it."

"I'm sure I don't know what You'll think of me, Holy Father: but the fact is I went so far as to call him a—no, really I cannot—well—I'm sure I can't think what possessed me to use such an opprobrious term but I was excessively annoyed You see at the moment and the word slipped out before I was quite conscious of what I was saying——"

"What did you call him?"

"Well really if You must have it, Holy Father, I called him a Goose!"

"Oh.... And what did he do to you?"

"Burst into a roar of laughter and shut his door in my face."

"Did you feel pained?"

"Well perhaps just a little at the time: but not when I came to think it over. You see I really can't help feeling sorry for him."

"Why?"

"Well because really he must be very unhappy, You know, Holy Father."

"In your opinion, Mr. Guthrie, he himself is the cause of his own unhappiness?"

"Quite so, Holy Father. You see he doesn't seem to be able to rub along with the other men. He can't come down to their level so to speak. He keeps himself too much to himself: won't or can't conciliate the least little bit. Of course they all think it's pride on his part; and they pay him out with practical jokes of a rather doubtful kind I'm afraid. He's good and kind and clever and all that sort of thing: but he hasn't the slightest idea of making himself popular as a church-student should be among church-students. You see, he's what I may call (if I may be quite frank about him) such a Beastly Fool. The rector doesn't like it I'm sure."

"Then perhaps it would be more accurate to say that the fault is not so much in the man as in his environment?"

"That's what I've always said, Holy Father. His present environment is quite unsuitable for a man of that kind. He must find it extremely unpleasant."

"Mr. Guthrie, won't you try to make it more pleasant for him? Bear with him: defend him: don't seem to form a party with him against the others: but don't give the others the idea that you approve of their attitude to him. Will you do as much as that?"

"I'm sure I'll do anything in my power, Holy Father."

"That at least is in your power.—God bless you."

The Pope went on to the reception room to fetch Cardinal Carvale. Not to neglect the superiors, (although He was very tired) He allowed them to show Him rather dubious and very ugly treasures; and tolerated half-an-hour of vapid conversation. They thought Him so nice. He was bored to death. After conferring the usual favours, He obtained a whole playday for the college: notified the rector that He was carrying off a student: arranged for Mr. Jameson to visit Cardinal Sterling; and took His departure. He put His acquisition into a victoria, and bade him drive to the obelisk in St. Peter's Square.

"Dreadful place!" Hadrian ejaculated to Carvale as they turned down Tritone. "Do you think you could make it decent if you were rector?"

"I would try, Holiness."

"Well: We do not see how We can make you rector, because of Monsignor What's-his-name. But you might do something as protector——"

"Gentilotto is protector, Holiness. St. Andrew's is subject to the Cardinal-Prefect of Propaganda."

"Only for the present, Carvale. You will find that dear old Gentilotto is quite willing. And you yourself are a Kelt. Yes, that's right! A Keltic college should have a Keltic protector. Carvale, you are Protector of St. Andrew's College from this moment, and you shall have your breve directly We get back to Vatican. Now, first of all, go to Oxford and ask Dr. Strong to put you up for a week in coll.: and keep your eyes open. Do that with your first spare fortnight. Then come back and turn your rivers Peneios and Alpheios through that Aygeian stable. Give them baths and sanity, for goodness' sake; and try to get them into cleanly habits. You might make that shrubbery into a gymnasium and swimming bath with a lovely terrace on the top. And, O Carvale, do make friends with them, and see what you can do to take that horrible secretive suppressed look out of their young eyes. Understand?"

"I think so, Holiness."

"We give you a year. If We live as long as this day twelvemonth, We will go again to mark your progress. Remember, you have a free hand. Now here's something else. Tell Sterling that a—but no—We Ourself will tell him."

At the obelisk they picked up Hamish Macleod. Hadrian marched him straight up to the quarters of the gentlemen of the secret chamber. Sir John and Sir Iulo, stripped to the buff were punching a bag.

"John," said the Pope, "Mr. Macleod will be your guest for the present. Get him a room near your own and make him comfortable." He drew the young man outside while Sir Iulo was lavishing his lovely English on the visitor. "And John, reorganize his wardrobe on the scale of your own; and teach him your business."

To Cardinal Sterling, who came to the secret chamber, Hadrian explained the case of William Jameson.

"You have your opportunity," He said to His Eminency.

"And one will not repeat one's previous mistake, Holiness," was the remarkable and thankful reply.

"No, for mercy's sake, don't. And now listen. The Treasurer will pay you on this order the sum of £10,500. You will invest it in the Bank of England on these terms. The transaction is to be secret. The interest on £10,000 is to be paid quarterly to William Jameson as long as he lives. On his death the capital is to revert to the Treasurer for the time being of the Apostolic See. Instruct the bank instantly to send £500 and the vouchers to Jameson, with a statement that it is his patrimony; and to give him no further information."

Then Hadrian shut-up Himself and rested, smoking and reading the Reviews of Unwritten Books in some old numbers of the Monthly Review. One of them caused Him to think. It was called Thucydides' Report of Pericles' Oration at the Incoronation of King Edward the Seventh.

CHAPTER XV

Jerry Sant gnawed his rag of a moustache for a fortnight or so, till it was dripping and jagged. He began to have a notion that Mrs. Crowe would like to have him elsewhere. That did not disturb him: for he knew that he always could compel her services, when he wanted them, by means of a pull on the purse-strings. The mildly elegant exiguity of the circle in which she moved, had no attraction for him. There were not many saxpences there; and he felt out of his depth in a company which he could not lead by the nose. "In the kingdom of the blind, the one-eyed man is king." He knew himself to be "a one-eyed man"; and, in the kingdom of the Liblabs, he naturally had been one of the kings. Here, among the English and Keltic Catholics in Rome, he was no more than tolerated—and awfully worried by people who offered him tracts, of which, for the life of him, he could make neither head nor tail. Further he really seriously was annoyed that the Pope had not accepted his handsome offer—had not even answered his letter. He thought it most rude. It is a fatal and futile thing to leave letters unanswered, especially impertinent letters. Silence does not "choke off": in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, it breeds bile which is bound to be spurted sooner or later. It is a poor kind of a man who cannot indite a letter which is a guillotine, a closure about which there can be no possible mistake. By this means, uncertainty and its vile consequences are prevented. Hadrian perfectly knew how to deliver Himself. His faculty for finding-out other people's thumb-screws had provided Him with blasting powder, if He had desired to be dynamic; and He possessed Bishop Bagshawe's celebrated three-line formula, which never has been known to fail of throttling an importunate correspondent. But He no more could have touched Sant, even with a letter, than He could have touched tripe with tongs. His feeling for the man was ultimate antipathy, which led Him to commit the common error of ignoring what ought to have been annihilated. Hence Sant's sense of spleen. Finally Jerry had the Liblabs to keep quiet. Those extraordinary persons were asking for something definite in the shape of news; and he had no news at all to give them. That was the worst of it. Soon, some treachery or other would be hatched against him behind his back, in the most approved Liblab manner: he would be asked for explanations, for a statement of accounts: he would be hauled over the coals, and so on:—oh he obviously could not let it come to that. He must make a fresh effort. The time had come for playing his next card. And for three days he sat at the Hotel Nike, writing press-copy.

It was the Cardinal-Secretary-of-State who did himself the pleasure of acquainting the Holy Father with the result of Jerry Sant's manœuvre. His Eminency, on the whole, never had had a more congenial duty to perform in all his life. He swirled into the Presence one evening at dusk when Hadrian was waiting for the lamps, sitting by the undraped window watching the dark figures passing over the grey square and the specks of yellow light springing in the houses of the Borgo. Ragna brought a newspaper which he thrust into the Pope's hands.

"See what a scoundrel you are!" he truculently snarled. "Fly! All is discovered! The Catholic Hour is exposing you finely!"

"Oh," said Hadrian, unimpassionately turning from the window, and speaking with extreme frigidity.

"Light some candles, please." He took the paper: put up His left hand to shade His eyes; and looked at the sheet. As He read His pontifical name and His secular name, His blood began to tingle: for He still loathed publicity. As He read on, His blood began to boil. It was a frightful tale which He was reading—frightful, because He saw at a glance that it was quite unanswerable. It was unanswerable because there are some things of which the merest whisper suffices to destroy—whose effect does not depend on truthfulness. It was unanswerable because it was anonymous. It was unanswerable because He never could bring Himself to condescend.... Who could have attacked Him with such malignant ingenuity? The names of half a dozen filthy hounds occurred to Him in as many seconds: but He was not able to recognise any particular paw. He read on. He was conscious that His face was a-flame with indignation: but it was in shadow. Coming to a clear chronological error, He chuckled. That taught Him that His voice was under control; and He remembered that the invidious eyes of Ragna were upon Him. From time to time thereafter, He produced a short contemptuous word or laugh by way of commentary as He came to excessive absurdities; and, so, gradually He possessed Himself again. Thus, He skimmed the article. At the end He looked up at the cardinal. "Yes," He said, "We appear to be a very disreputable character. Now We will go through the thing again, and note the actual errors of fact." He returned to the top of the first column: and began to read more analytically. In progress, He counted aloud "One, two,"—up to "thirty-three absolute and deliberate lies, exclusive of gratuitous or ignorant mispresentations of fact, in a column and three-quarters of print.—Well?" He inquired, with a full straight gaze at the attendant cardinal.

"What are You going to do now?"

"We will ponder the matter which Your Eminency has submitted to Us; and at a convenient time We will declare Our pleasure. The paper may be left with Us. Your Eminency has permission to retire." Ragna strode towards the door. At the threshold, he turned and bayed, "Abdicate!"

"No: We will not abdicate," said Hadrian.

The Secretary-of-State rushed away. As he went swishing, snarling at all and sundry, through the antechamber where the gentlemen were in waiting, Sir Iulo suddenly shot-out his arms straight and rectangularly level with his shoulders, swung-up a stiff right leg in a verisimilar fashion, rigidly sank on his left toes till he sat on his left heel, recovered his first position with a jerk, changed legs and repeated the performance with the right. It was done in a second of time; and his white teeth glittered in a grin as his muscles relaxed. There are few more nerve-shattering spectacles than this of a lithe and graceful young gentleman in scarlet behaving, without any warning whatever, exactly like a monkey on a stick, manifesting the same startling descendent and ascendent angularity, the same imperturbable inevitable intolerable agility. Cardinal Ragna denounced him as a devil where he stood; and swirled away in a vermilion billow of watered-silk.

As soon as He was left alone, Hadrian made the very firmest possible act of will determining neither to bend nor to break. This done, He ate His supper with careful deliberation; sent-away the tray; and ordered a large pot-full of black coffee. Then He locked all doors and allowed Himself a period of disintegration preparatory to redintegration, a period of slackness preparatory to intensification. Now He severely suffered. He read the article on the Strange Career of the Pope again and again, till His head swam with the horror of it. This was the worst thing which ever had happened to Him. His previous experience of newspaper libels was as nothing in comparison. All through the bitter bitter years of His struggle for life, He had known Himself for a fighter. As a fighter, He had expected blows in return for those which He gave. And, when all was said and done, his fighting had not been to Him a source of unmitigated pain. For one thing, He had had pleasure in knowing that He scrupulously fought unscrupulous foes, that He fought a losing battle, that he fought a million times His weight, that He fought bare-handed against armed champions all the time. That knowledge it was—the knowledge that He had contended (not as a hero but) as heroes have contended—which alone had upheld him. And now—— But this—— It depicted Him as simply contemptible. Inspection of the image of Himself, which the Catholic Hour with such ferocious flocculence delineated, brought Him to the verge of physical nausea. But it was not true, real. It was not Himself. No, no. It was an atrocious caricature. Oh yes, it was an atrocious caricature. Everybody would know it for that—— Would they? How many had known the previous libels for libels? How many had dared to proclaim the previous libels for libels? One—out of hundreds.—— Oh how beastly, how beastly! He read the thing again;—and dashed the paper to the ground. If it only had made Him look wicked—or even ridiculous! But no. He categorically was damned, as despicable, low, vulgar, abject, mean, everything which merited contempt. Only a strenuous effort kept Him from shrieking in hysteria. "God, God, am I really like that?" He moaned aloud, with His palms stretched upward and outward and His eyes intent in agony. He lost faith in Himself. Perhaps He was such an one. Perhaps His imagination after all had been deluding Him, and He really was an indefensible creature. It was possible. "Oh, have I ever been such a dirty—beast. Have I?" He moaned again. And then all the being of Him suffused—and whirled—and outraged Nature took Him in hand. The blow to His self-respect, the shattering onslaught on His sensibilities, were more than even His valid virile body could bear. He lay back in His low chair; and swooned into oblivion.

After the lapse of an hour, He began to revive. It would appear that He instantly knew what had happened: for He staggered to the open window that the cold night air might reinvigorate him. Full consciousness by slow degrees returned; and, with it, some measure of serenity. He took up the argument at the point where He had left it.

No: He was not like that. Before Jesus in the pyx on His breast, He was not like that. So He gradually calmed Himself. He had done desperate deeds and foolish deeds: but never ignoble deeds:—stay:—once:—that had nothing whatever to do with the present matter: nor was that one ignoble deed ignoble in the esteem of anyone except Himself: it was "smart" or "clever" in mundane phraseology: no one had been injured by it: it had been atoned-for: but, according to the ideal code which He had made for His Own guidance, it was ignoble. However it was not known, except to Himself, and God, and His angel-guardian: it was not even known to His confessor, for it was not even a venial sin. Well then—— No. No. He had not merited the gibbet of the world's contempt.

Who had gibbeted Him?

He very carefully read the paper again. Who in the world could have collected such a mass of apparently convincing evidence? He was beginning to study the question from His usual stand-point of personal unconcern. His own written words were cited in proof of the allegations here made against Him. He knew them for His own written words. Who in the world so ingeniously could have distorted their signification: so skilfully could have mispresented Him? At some time in His life, He (perhaps inadvertently) must have trodden upon some human worm; and the worm now had turned and stung Him. He sought for a sign, a trace;—and found it—— Of course;—and the motive simultaneously leaped to light. It was payment of a grudge, owed to Him by a detected letter-thief, a professional infidel, whom He had scathed with barbed sarcasms about ten years ago. There was something more than that. Again He studied the paper for corroboration. How came the Catholic Hour, of all papers, to publish a denunciation of Him? He noted that the Catholic Hour pretended its denunciation as being copied from the Devana Radical. And the letter-thief resided at Devana; and engaged in job-journalism: also, he had access to more than much of the information here misused. Not to all of it though. Here and there in the article, Hadrian's literary faculty enabled Him to perceive a change of touch. Here and there were technical opinions and technical modes of expression which could not have emanated from that one. Who was responsible for these? The Pope, of all men on God's fair earth, was qualified to recognize "the fine Roman hand"—the fine Roman hand at least of one of His Own contemporaries at St. Andrew's College, whom He had afflicted with a ridiculous label, a harmless jibe simply composed of the man's own initial and surname joined together:—the fine Roman hand of a pseudonymous editor with whom He had refused to have dealings. Yes, and there too was the obscene touch of the female. "Spretae injuri formae" over again!

At last, He summed up:—

Material Cause. Information, possessed (the gods knew by what means) by the detected letter-thief and the female. Opinions, collected from (perhaps proffered by) Spite desirous of stabbing Scorn in the back.

Formal Cause. Calumny, that is to say Slander which is False.

Efficient Cause. The pontifical treatment of the representatives of the Liblab Fellowship now in the City.

Final Cause. (a) Intimidation. (b) Revenge.

It was as clear as day-light.

Hadrian sat back in his chair; and blamed—Himself. His mind went straight to the root of the matter. It was His Own fault. He had not loved His neighbour. He had been hard, unkind, austere. He had cultivated His natural faculty for rubbing salt upon His neighbour's rawest and most secret sore,—salt in the shape of biting words, satire, sarcasm, corrosive irony, labels which adhered. But, He had done this when fighting, stark-naked and alone, against long odds! No matter. It was part of the struggle for life! No matter. But He would have been killed—not metaphorically but—literally killed, long ago—— How did He know that?—Like all men, He had been trusting in Himself, not in the Maker of the Stars. As a matter of fact, He did not and could not know.—In His Own eyes, as His Own judge, each point of His defence failed. He pleaded guilty. He had not loved His neighbour.

His soul fled up to the divinities who severely sit upon the awful bench: but there was no solace to be obtained from them. He took the beautiful crucifix from His neck: the pyx from His breast: laid them on the table; and kneeled before the Sovereign of the seraphim. He made an act of contrition. He acknowledged His sin: acknowledged that He had merited condign punishment. He very humbly thanked God for giving Him His punishment in this world. "O that my lot might lead me in the path of holy innocence of thought and deed, the path which august laws ordain, laws which had their birth in the highest heaven, neither did the race of mortal man beget them, nor shall oblivion ever put them to sleep: for the Power of God is mighty in them," He prayed, in the verses of Sophokles.

He sent for His confessor.

It had been a dreadful experience. He was conscious of having been shaken seriously. He felt quite old. His youth and strength, His nerve, seemed to have been torn-out of Him. The world seemed to have slipped-away from under Him. Yes—the world—— How should He meet the world?—With equanimity and fortitude. What should He say and do? Nothing.... Nothing....

His confessor arrived; and He confessed that, since His last confession on the previous day, He had been guilty of the sin of anger. Also, He renewed His sorrow for a sin of His past life. He had not loved His neighbour. The bare-footed friar absolved Him; and commanded Him to say, for His penance, one mass for the present and eternal welfare of all whom He had offended.

Hadrian laid-open the Catholic Hour on a table where it was not concealed and whence it would not be removed: tried to turn away His thought and to leave the incident behind Him. That the effect of it would become manifest, that the memory of it would recur, He knew: but neither memory nor effect ever should delay His progress. He spent the rest of the evening in meditation on the future. At bed-time He did not go down to St. Peter's: but said His prayers by His bedside with child-like simplicity and feebleness. And care-dispersing sleep lit on His eyelids, unwakeful, very pleasant, the nearest like death.

CHAPTER XVI

In the morning, Hadrian summoned Gentilotto, Sterling, Whitehead, Carvale, della Volta, Semphill, Van Kristen. He fancied that the gentlemen-of-the-chamber curiously eyed Him. That was so. He guessed in a moment that now He always would have to stand the fire of curious eyes, to overhear the ostentatious whispers of people who wished to be known for nasty thinkers—of people who wished to see the Roman Pontiff wriggling on a white-hot gridiron. Very well. He would stand fire: perhaps, up to a certain point, He would answer questions of general (but not of particular) interest. But there should be no merely human contortuplications.

Their Eminencies came into the throne-room, where the Pope was sitting rather rigidly in a hieratic attitude, His hands on the arms of the chair, His feet and knees closed, His back straight and His head erect. He was a shade more pallid than usual. They each paid their respects in a different manner. Gentilotto's mild pure visage expressed compassion mingled with a sense of personal injury. The assailants of the Pope also had wounded him. Sterling's dark face was locked-up with the look of one who is determined to be righteous under all circumstances, while willing to forward to the proper quarter a recommendation to mercy on behalf of the prisoner at the bar. The Cardinal of St. George-of-the-Golden-Sail contained himself in personal innocence which precluded him from prancing to believe in the guilt of others. Della Volta's pose indicated ordinary but sympathetic curiosity. Carvale was white, and Semphill was red, with impatient indignation. Like Gentilotto, they both were hurt by the attack on their superior: but they were up in arms. Van Kristen was very very sad. His great melancholy eyes swam in a mist of commiseration; and Hadrian noted that his lips rested just an instant longer than usual on the cold pontifical hand.

Chamberlains placed stools for the cardinals and retired. The Pope began to speak in His usual swift and concise tone. By way of emphasizing the essential difference between the Church (a purely missionary association) and the World, He had determined to disperse the Vatican treasures. This was not at all what Their Eminences had expected to hear; and they were rather taken aback. Hadrian gave them a moment; and then went-on.

"Does anyone know whether dear old Cabelli is Minister of Public instruction now?"

Della Volta gave a negative.

"So much the better, because he will be at leisure to do Us a favour. And now" (His Holiness directly addressed the last speaker) "We place this matter in Your Eminency's hands. You shall have a breve of commission; and this is what you will do. First, you will collect Cabelli and Longhi and Manciani as your board of advisers. Secondly, with their assistance, you will procure the services of the chief experts of the world—say five. Thirdly, you will cause these five experts to estimate the maximum and minimum values of each separate piece in the treasury. This list of values you will submit to Us. Fourthly, you will have the pieces arranged, (and the arrangement must be indicated on the list of values,) in three divisions, the historic, the artistic, and the merely valuable on account of weight or character. Fifthly, you instantly will publish everywhere a note to the effect that the sale at fixed prices of these things will take place here from the first to the sixth of January following."

He paused: for He saw that people wanted to speak. He conceded the word to Gentilotto.

"Has Your Holiness considered," said the Red Pope, "that most of the treasures are consecrated to the service of the Church?"

"Yes. We also have considered that the Church exists for the service of God in His creatures: that She does not serve either by keeping pretty and costly things shut-up in cupboards: that the Church which set these things apart by consecration, also can restore them to usefulness by desecration. Technically things consecrate can become desecrate by tapping them with intent to desecrate: We soon will descend to the treasury; and will tap all the sacred things into gems and bullion."

"That can be done;" the Cardinal-Prefect of Propaganda said. His heart pulled him one way: heredity and ecclesiastical prejudice, the other.

"There is one thing which I think it right to mention," put in della Volta: "the present officials of the treasury, and the buildings:—what will become of them?"

"The officials will continue to enjoy the stipends of their benefices. They will have other and more useful occupation than the furbishing of plate provided for them. As for the building—when the cupboards are empty they will be removed; and, the treasury being no longer there, the building will remain the sacristy."

"I should like to get a word in edgeways if I may;" said Semphill. "Doesn't Your Holiness think that the Italian Government will interfere? Isn't there some law which prevents works-of-art from going out of Italy?"

"We should like to see the Italian Government interfere with Us:" Hadrian responded with a strong and illuminating smile. "The Italian Government is neither a Fenian nor a fool."

"No, but——" the cardinal pursued.

"Your Eminency need fear no opposition from that quarter."

"Is nothing to be exempted from this sale?" Sterling thoughtfully asked.

"There will be some exemptions." The Pope turned to Cardinal della Volta. "You will reserve one silver-gilt chalice and paten for every priest in the palace: one silver-gilt pyx for every tabernacle; and one plain set of pontifical regalia which We will indicate to you. Nothing more. Hereafter, the court can use ornaments which are the private possessions of individuals."

"I must say that I think the pontifical regalia deserves a better fate than conversion into bullion and gems," said Gentilotto.

"Nonsense," the Pope sharply retorted. "The pontifical regalia is not sacrosanct like the Carthaginian zaïmph." The frayed edges of His nerves shewed themselves.

"I concede it," the cardinal admitted.

Hadrian rose. "We have summoned the Sacred Consistory for to-morrow morning, when We will issue Our decrees in this matter."

Semphill no longer could contain himself. He exploded with "Of course Your Holiness has seen the Catholic Hour?"

Hadrian thought that He particularly liked this cardinal to-day for some reason. Yes of course, His Eminency looked better during Advent. The ordinary vermilion made his chubby rubicundity appear too blue. That was the reason.

"Oh, yes:" the Pontiff replied.

"Well really I never read anything more abominable in my life!"

"Nor did We."

All the cardinalitial eyes were directed toward the Pope. He remained standing on the step of the throne; and seemed to be changing into alabaster. Semphill lashing himself to fury, continued "I should like to think that something will be done about it."

"So should We."

Semphill prolapsed and stared. "But surely Your Holiness will do something?"

"No."

"What? Not answer them?"

"No."

"One would have thought that there would be some canonical means of bringing the Catholic Hour to book for aspersions against the Pope:" Sterling said.

"There is the bull Exsecrabilis of Pius II. But it is not the Pope Who is aspersed. It is George Arthur Rose:" imperturbably said Hadrian.

"That's drawing it rather fine:" Whitehead said, looking up for the first time.

"Fine enough:" Carvale put in, with appreciation of the distinction.

"Excommunicate the editor, printer, and publisher, by name, I say!" ejaculated Semphill.

Sterling went on, "One finds it difficult to understand what can have persuaded the Catholic Hour to insert——"

Hadrian interrupted, "Just ask yourself this. Is it likely that an Erse periodical,—and, when We say an Erse periodical, We mean a clerical periodical, (for, according to McCarthy, the Erse clergy hold the Catholic press in the hollow of their hand,)—is it likely that an Erse periodical, which has the infernal cheek to dub itself the 'Organ of Catholic Opinion,' and which once called Cardinal Semphill a—what was it, Eminency?—ah yes, 'a scented masher,'—could be expected to forego an opportunity of increasing its circulation at the expense of the Vicar of Christ?"

"Oh very good indeed!" exclaimed Semphill, with a hearty reminiscent shout of laughter.

"But, Holiness," Sterling gravely continued, "one knows that the statements are not true. One knows that the article mispresents You entirely."

"They are not wholly true; and the article entirely mispresents Us."

"One would recommend that that should be made known."

"It is known. Hundreds know it. They are not prevented from saying what they know.—If they dare." Hadrian came down from the throne. A grey shadow hardened the sharpness of the face. The brows and the eyes were drawn into parallels, the latter half-shut; and the thin lips were straight and cruel. Their Eminencies mindfully retired. Van Kristen lingered till the others were gone. "Holy Father," he said, "I guess that You're feeling it about as bad as the next man?"

Hadrian pressed the slim brown hand, on which the cardinalitial sapphire looked so absolutely lovely,

"Perhaps, Percy:" He said.

"I think I won't go back to Dynam House this fall," the cardinal continued. "They can do without me, Holiness. If I'm any good to You here, I'm no quitter so long as my eyes remain black."

"You always are good and useful to Us, Venerable Father," the Pope very stiffly said, as He quickly passed through the curtains of the secret antechamber.

Now the world had something to talk about beside the chances of universal war, and the inferiority of the present Pope. When the dispersal of the treasures of the Vatican was announced in the Sacred Consistory, five cardinals walked straight out to swear, four burst into tears, eight spoke their minds quite freely and (in the case of two) at the top of their voices, and the rest were dumb. Ragna, Berstein, Cacciatore, and Vivole came to the conclusion that Hadrian's new move was a pontifical red-herring intended to divert the scent from the newspaper-calumnies against George Arthur Rose. They went about trying to make people see the thing from their point of view. Kelts and Catholics throughout the world set up howls; and compared Hadrian to Honorius to the advantage of the latter. "From a Catholic point of view," wrote one clerical gentleman (who in youth, as an attaché in Paris, had been known as La Belle Anthropophage), "it is impossible to blame Hadrian too severely." He was ruined, they said with unctuous rectitude; and He was going to sell the Vatican Treasures in order to provide an iniquitous provision for a disreputable and private old age. Naturally they judged by their own standard. All Catholics do.

The Liblab Fellowship congratulated itself on the possession of such a Fellowshipper as Sant. His diplomacy was thought cute. Socialists hourly expected to hear that the Scarlet Unutterable, in sheer despair, had asked to be allowed to seek a refuge in their ranks. Jerry Sant sat-up all night at the Hotel Nike, in case the Pope should be moved to escape from a throne which had been made too hot for Him. In the event of such an escape, of course "His Most Reverent Lordship" would come and try and make peace with them as He had put to so much unnecessary trouble and expense. So the Liblab cut and dried his plans. He would administer the oaths to God's Vicegerent: take His entrance-fee and annual subscription in advance; and admit Him as a Fellowshipper. Then, as His senior comrade, He would order Him back to Vatican to use His popery for carrying out the schemes of Labor against Capital. Incidentally he would take the opportunity of transferring some of the pontifical capital from a man as didn't to a man as did deserve it. However, Jerry gave himself two sleepless nights for nothing. He would have been better, though perhaps not quite so comely, in bed. And then, on the third day, Mrs. Crowe rushed in, displaying a tantrum which was a blend of joy and hate and fear.

"I suppose this is your work, Mr. Sant?" she said, bringing a cutting from the Catholic Hour out of her chain-bag.

"Imphm," Jerry grinned like an oblong gargoyle.

"Oh how could you say such things about Him! I do think it shocking of you!"

"Wumman, hae ye nat telled me maist o' they things yersel'?"

"Yes of course. But I never thought you'd put it all in the papers."

"A havena pit them a'. There's a plenty more—if He hasna had His paiks yet."

"O but I'm sure He has, I expect you've simply stunned Him."

"Maybe I have."

"Haven't you heard from Him yet?"

"A havena. A'm expecting to hear the now."

"Mr. Sant if you've killed my George I'll—I don't know what I'll do: but I'll never forgive you."

"Hech wumman, that won't kill Him: but it may make Him a bit sore and I'll let you know that He'll come here for His plaster."

"I don't mind Him being sore. He deserves it after the way He's behaved to me. But——"

"Now just you tak' yersel' away. I can't have you messing about here when Rose comes. When I'm through with Him I'll forward Him to you. So you be off with you."

"Clumsy beast!" said Mrs. Crowe to herself when she stood in Two Shambles Street again. "You'd much better have left it to me to arrange. I shouldn't be surprised if Georgie did something desperate now. It 'ld be just like Him. And I believe I could have coaxed Him——" She hailed a victoria; and drove to St. Peter's Square to have another look at the window.

The Pope gave the holy order of priesthood to Cardinal Van Kristen on Innocents' Day. His Holiness felt that the sacerdotal prayer of so innocent a one would benefit all. The English and American invasion of Rome beat the record for the winter season. At a carp-and-punch supper at Palazzo Caffarelli on Christmas Eve, it was remarked that the City just then contained all the world's multimillionaires. If war had been carried on in the antique manner, i.e. for ransoms and spoils, and if any power had possessed a sufficient military equipment, a new sack of Rome would have been an exceedingly lucrative undertaking. However, as it was, Rome sacked the multimillionaires. Despite the fact that the coming spring was likely to see the dawn of Armageddon, an astonishing number of people was unable to resist the temptation to purchase the treasures of the Vatican. The list of prices assigned by the experts had been submitted to Hadrian, Who struck the mean between maximum and minimum, greatly to the disgust of curialists who (when once the idea was grasped) were anxious to drive good bargains. They suggested an auction, which the Pope incontinently refused, saying that He was going to compete neither with tradesmen nor with brigands. He made it easy for museums to acquire historic specimens: the merely artistic chiefly went to private collectors; and the world acquired the valuables. The collection of lace alone fetched £785,000; and the total takings, amounting to four-and-thirty millions sterling, were deposited in the Bank of Italy.

Signor Panciera made it a great deal more than convenient to accept another invitation to the Vatican. This time, it was a short visit which he paid, and a fairly momentous one. The Pope did all the talking. His Holiness spoke dryly and concisely from a sheet of manuscript which He afterwards handed to the ambassador, and seemed to be consumed by some internal fire, the signs of which appeared in His white pain-drawn face. He said that He had noted with approbation the scheme of Signor Gigliotti, by which innoculated convicts were employed in the reclamation of malarious Apulia and Calabria. He wished Italy to establish and endow farm-colonies in eucalyptus groves on the Roman Campagna, where a wholesome and industrious life could be found for inoculated boys and girls. He wished Italy to establish and endow almshouses for old people, and free schools where handicrafts would be taught to children. He wished Italy to establish and endow scholarships for the study of Italian archæology, the idea being to foster a spirit of enthusiastic patriotism, by excavating and studying and preserving the buried cities and monuments and treasures of antiquity with which the sacred and glorious and inviolate soil of Italy simply teems. Lastly, He wished Italy to give rewards, say of a thousand lire in cash to every man and woman between twenty and thirty years of age, who had served one master or secular firm since Lady-day 1899, and who cared to claim such a reward. To give effect to His four wishes, He handed to Signor Panciera an order on the Bank of Italy payable to the Prime Minister of Italy for the time being. The value of the order was thirty-three millions sterling. It was an offering in honour of the thirty-three years during which God as Man had laboured for the Love of men. It was to be the nucleus of a national fund which was to be called "The Household of Christ." This fund was to be administered, on the lines stated, by one male member of the Royal Family of Italy, the Prime Minister, and the Minister of the Interior for the time being, and by nine trustees drawn in rotation from the list of nobles in the Golden Book. The first of these twelve was to hold his trusteeship for life, and was to be nominated by the King's Majesty within one year from the present date. The second and third were to be ex-officio trusteeships. Of the nine nobles three would retire each year; and the next three on the roll would succeed them. No ecclesiastics were to be concerned with the fund in any way, unless they were nobles eligible for trusteeship, or unless they were paid servants appointed as chaplains by the Trustees. Hadrian's particular desire was that the "Household of Christ" should become in every sense a department of the government of Italy.

Signor Panciera came out reeling; and furiously drove in the direction of Monte Citorio. Here, he picked up Signor Zanatello; and the two carried their little basketful of news to the Queen-Regent in the Quirinale. Eleven minutes in Her Majesty's music-room sufficed to send the three quickly through the Hall of Birds, and upstairs to the marconigraph office, by which means they announced the scheme to Victor Emanuel at Windsor Castle. The Sovereign's reply was characteristically Italian, and (therefore) splendid.

"I add a million: the Queen adds a million: the Prince of Naples adds a million: all sterling."

The Prime Minister sent the nation's thanks and asked His Majesty to nominate himself as trustee. He got this gorgeous answer.

"The Trustees will be nicknamed the Pope's Twelve Apostles. The Voce della Verità and the Osservatore Romano instantly would assign to me the rôle of Judas."

Signor Panciera sent this message "Sire, there was a thirteenth apostle."

The King retorted "But he was an after-thought." That made Queen Elena laugh. The King continued. "Zanatello, take this money; give a receipt in the name of Italy. The Queen-Regent will issue a royal decree constituting the Household of Christ as a government department: I nominate the Duke of Aosta as the royal trustee: this scheme is just what Italy wants at this moment: give it effect at once."

Zanatello implored His Majesty to become trustee. "No," came the final response. "I will assist most strenuously in an unofficial capacity: when there is room for a thirteenth apostle, I will perpend: meanwhile I engage to double the fund within one year. The King of England will assist."

Hadrian first read about the acceptance of the gift to Italy in the next day's Populo Romano—one of the most respectable papers in the world, He used to say. He felt that He had achieved another step; and instantly proceeded to the next. He summoned the Syndic of Rome, and made over to him, as a free gift to the City, all the moveable sculpture, paintings, tapestry, and archæological specimens then present in the Vatican. Simultaneously, He canonized Dom Bosco and Dante Alighieri and published the Epistle to the Italians. This document was mainly hortatory, and directed against disbelief and secret societies. He bade Italy to consider Herself as the temple of art in Europe; and to set Herself, by the contemplation of masterpieces of human workmanship already in her possession, or to be added to Her possession by future discovery, to produce Herself as a country and a people prepared for The Lord Who is Altogether Lovely. He spoke of the "Mafia" with admiration and with horror. It was a brotherhood rather than a society, He said. It was a brotherhood of individualists each devoted to the service of his brother. Its essential virtues were honesty, mutual help, self-restraint. Nothing could be better. But the Devil had distorted the operation of so excellent a scheme. His Iniquity tempted the "Mafiosi" not only to help each other in good deeds, but in evil—chiefly in evil deeds. They murdered and screened murderers; and forgot "Thou shalt do no murder." They robbed and screened robbers; and forgot "Thou shalt not steal." They alleged that Mazzini had welded them into a corporate body for political purposes; and had given them for a motto "Mazzini Autorizza Furti Incendi Avvelenamenti," from the initials of which phrase they drew their corporate name. In place of that wicked and abominable sentence, He gave them "Madonnina Applaude Fraternità Individualita Amore." Let the Mafia flourish with that motto for its ruling principle.

Italy was seeing the burden of poverty removed from Her children, was seeing Her youth enabled to cultivate talents, was seeing the honest labour of Her manhood and womanhood rewarded, was seeing refuge and provision prepared for old age. Rome set herself nobly to work at housing the treasures of art which Hadrian had given. Immense and splendid palaces were planned for them and began to rise on the Esquiline and Celian Hills; and the gracious forms of the old gods were to stand beneath arcades of marble, white and pure as lilies without, mosaic of bright gold within, amid the groves upon Janiculum. Honest men came by their own. There were no unemployed. Consequently, no hearts were soured while hands were used; and anarchy began to fade away into the obscurity of bad old rubbish rejected. The Epistle to the Italians too! They were in the mood to listen to anything and everything from that dear little piece of omniscient omnipotent omnipresent aloofness whom they called "Papa Inglese." To the strong and simple Italian temper, His words carried conviction by reason of their own essential simplicity and strength.

"He speaks like one's own conscience!" said Caio and Tizio and also Sempronio.

"Hearken and obey Him, then," invected Maria and Elena and also Margherita.

CHAPTER XVII

Italy was not first in the heart of Hadrian. She was third. He served Her, because He saw Her instant need. The second of His loved lands did not know Herself to be in need of Him: hence, He offered Her no more than courtesy. He did not want America to tell Him not to monkey with the buzz-saw. And England was first. And what could He do for England? The thought, that He might do something, alone sustained Him now. Life among the millions of articulately-speaking men had become an ever-present horror to Him. He frequently wondered what prevented Him from hurling Himself from the windows on to the stones of Rome. He actually sent for a case of safety-razors, and banished knives from the pontifical apartments. "O for the wings, for the wings of a dove: then far away, far away, would I fly." There was a boy named Roebuck who sang that, in New College Chapel in Commemoration week five and twenty years before. The golden voice, the incomparable young voice came back to Him in Golden Rome where He was longing to be at rest.

A scarlet arm held back the blue-linen curtain of the door, and Cardinal Leighton entered. "I think we missed this, Holy Father," he said, and offered a more-than-a-month-old copy of the Catholic Hour.

Hadrian in a moment dragged Himself erect physically and psychically: He took the paper and read:

"We have received a long letter from 'D.J.' taking us to task for exposing George Arthur Rose in a way which he calls 'savagely cruel.' He says

'I thank God that I cannot appreciate the humour which speaks gaily of a man enduring eighteen months of semi-starvation, and at the same time struggling hard to earn a livelihood by his pen—for the honesty of his strugglings I can vouch. Whatever his past may have been—and I believe that your article is in the main erroneous—surely it is better to leave it as past. As a convert, he had to endure for the faith that is in him. Once before in his chequered career, at a moment when he had a means of living by his own hands within his grasp, a gratuitous newspaper attack snatched from him the support which he had made himself to lean on. At the present time he is leading an existence which is bitter enough to himself and quite harmless (not to say beneficial) to others; and I feel compelled to tell you that I look upon your onslaught as both criminal and disgraceful.'

Another correspondent writes, 'I was much grieved at your article called Strange Career etc. in your issue of Nov. 18th because I am a great admirer of some books which George Arthur Rose published before he was made Pope. Those books did more to convert me to Catholicism than any others and I am very sorry to read the account that you have printed of their author.'

Yet another correspondent writes, 'It may be well to inform your readers that the Austin White who wrote the very offensive letters headed Rhypokondylose Religion in the Jecorian Courier some few years back is the George Arthur Rose alias the Pope of Rome about whom your readers were so amply enlightened in the columns of your issue of 18th November.'

In reply to 'D.J.' we may say that we hold in our hand a letter which Rose addressed to an excellent priest in 1898. It concludes 'I regret for your sake the exposure which inevitably must take place when her brother-in-law, the bishop, becomes cognizant of the undue influence which you use in order to embezzle these sums from Lady Mostingham. I beg you to make amends and to withdraw from such degrading transactions before it is too late.' If our correspondent 'D.J.' still thinks it was not advisable for us to savagely and cruelly denounce the author of that last letter, we can only say we differ from him."

Hadrian read the screed with indignant scorn. It was the beastly English of the vulgar thing, more than the vile sentiments expressed, which put Him into such a violent rictus of contempt. He looked out of the window at nothing for a moment, to conceal His disgust. Finding that Cardinal Leighton waited, He controlled Himself; and turned round with a gaze of frigid inquiry.

"Yes?" He said.

"'Would to Heaven that You would grant me a trifling favour,'" His Eminency quoted in Greek.

It was a most artful and invariably successful dodge to approach the Pontiff in His favourite tongue. He recognized the quotation; and capped it with the succeeding verse.

"'Tell me as quickly as you can; and I at once shall know.'"

"May I ask a question? Did You write that letter, Holy Father?"

"Which? The last? Yes."

"What did you know?"

"Everything."

"May I say that the amount of knowledge of men which You seem always to possess is quite extraordinary:" said the cardinal, blinking.

"No it is not. 'To those who indeed suffer, Righteousness bringeth knowledge.'" the Pontiff quoted from Aischylos again. "'The greater the detachment from the world, over worldly things the greater power is gained,' some true poet sings. We never were 'a man among men.' We had five senses and We used them. And all the men whom We ever met habitually and voluntarily came and told Us their secrets. We never sought them. They were laid bare before Us. And Our senses perceived them. That is all."

The pontifical voice was hard and cruel: the face was harder and more cruel and also more terrible. The very Presence was like a candent flame. Good honest innocent Leighton looked at Him as at something inhuman: but he persevered.

"Holiness, I want to go on. Do You know who wrote the other letters?"

"Oh yes. D.J. was another 'excellent priest.' He was in philosophy when We were in theology at Maryvale. Why you know him too, Leighton,—he took his B.A. with Ambrose."

"What, 'Gionde'? Yes, of course I knew him."

"That's the man. We have not heard from him for years: but he evidently thought it right to defend Us. Poor chap! A snub rewards him. The Catholic Hour 'differs from him.' ... A tipsy publican wrote the second; and the third was written by a Jesuit jackal, in return for the custom of, and most likely at the dictation of, the very detestable scoundrel to whom We wrote the last."

"What became of him? The bad priest I mean?"

"He ruined himself, as We predicted. He persisted in his career of crime till his bishop found him out. Then he was broken, and disappeared—Maison de santé or something of that sort for a time. He's in one of the colonies now; and he might have been—— Lord Cardinal, We have said too much. It is not Our Will and pleasure to move in this matter."

"But the advantage I derive from hearing Your Holiness—if it is not impertinent—Holiness, I venture to assure you of my eternal fidelity——" Leighton stammered with emotion.

Hadrian shewed him no face: turned to the window which displayed the panorama of Intangible Rome; and presently was alone.

"God! God!" He exclaimed, shaking the paper with terrific violence. "Do you see this brutal cynical unrighteousness—prejudged,—condemned,—the mere suggestion of defence derided and fleered-at——in England, fair-minded England—England the land of the free——"

No: it was not England, but just a handful of the vicious vermin which infest her. England—the word summoned Him to His apostolature again. What was the mind of England now? That question occupied Him. He wished that England would declare Her mind to Him through ambassadors, the mind of the statesmen of England. He had no official acquaintance with any one of them. He could not ask for England's confidence: for, being English, He knew that asking slams the door. Humanly speaking, He had nothing to guide Him in the cosmic crisis of the present, the crisis in which He was certain to be consulted—as a last resort—but certain to be consulted. Of that, He was convinced. A short calculation displayed Jupiter passing through Aries, which signified immense benefit to England. Oh, very good. Then what should be His course of action? He got up and went round the room, looking at the maps and noting them, until it seemed that His mental horizon expanded and enlarged, and He had the whole of the orb of the earth within His vision. What should He say, or do, for England, when she was too shy, too proud, to give Him a sign as to what She wanted Him to say, or do? England, England!—"Land of hope and glory,—how shall We extol thee Who are born of thee?—wider still and wider shall thy bounds be set: God, Who made thee mighty, make thee mightier yet!"