Part 11 (1/2)
”What ecclesiastic?” asked his lords.h.i.+p.
”The priest,” replied the bishop, ”whom I met in the library.”
Upon this Lord Birkenhead's countenance changed somewhat, and, with a casual remark, he put the question by. After dinner, when the ladies had left the men to their wine, Lord Birkenhead showed some curiosity as to ”the ecclesiastic,” and learned that he had seemed somewhat shy and stiff, yet had the air of a man just about to enter into conversation.
”At that moment,” said the bishop, ”I was summoned to the drawing-room, and did not at first notice that my friend the priest had not followed me. He had an interesting and careworn face,” added the bishop.
”You have certainly seen the family ghost,” said Lord Birkenhead; ”he only haunts the library, where, as you may imagine, his retirement is but seldom disturbed.” And, indeed, the habits of the great, in England, are not studious, as a rule.
”Then I must return, Lord Birkenhead, to your library,” said the bishop, ”and that without delay, for this appears to be a matter in which the services of one of the higher clergy, however unworthy, may prove of incalculable benefit.”
”If I could only hope,” answered Lord Birkenhead (who was a Catholic) with a deep sigh, ”that his reverence would recognize Anglican orders!”
The bishop was now, as may be fancied, on his mettle, and without further parley, retired to the library. The rest of the men awaited his return, and beguiled the moments of expectation with princely havannas.
In about half an hour the bishop reappeared, and a close observer might have detected a shade of paleness on his apostolic features, yet his face was radiant like that of a good man who has performed a good action.
Being implored to relieve the anxiety of the company, the worthy prelate spoke as follows:
”On entering the library, which was illuminated by a single lamp, I found myself alone. I drew a chair to the fire, and, taking up a volume of M.
Renan's which chanced to be lying on the table, I composed myself to detect the sophistries of this brilliant but unprincipled writer. Thus, by an effort of will, I distracted myself from that state of 'expectant attention' to which modern science attributes such phantoms and spectral appearances as can neither be explained away by a morbid condition of the liver, nor as caused by the common rat (Mus rattus). I should observe by the way,” said the learned bishop, interrupting his own narrative, ”that scepticism will in vain attempt to account, by the latter cause, namely rats, for the spectres, Lemures, simulacra, and haunted houses of the ancient Greeks and Romans. With these supernatural phenomena, as they prevailed in Athens and Rome, we are well acquainted, not only from the Mostellaria of Plautus, but from the numerous ghost-stories of Pliny, Plutarch, the Philopseudes of Lucian, and similar sources. But it will at once be perceived, and admitted even by candid men of science, that these spiritual phenomena of the cla.s.sical period cannot plausibly, nor even possibly, be attributed to the agency of rats, when we recall the fact that the rat was an animal unknown to the ancients. As the learned M. Selys Longch observes in his Etudes de Micromammalogie (Paris, 1839, p. 59), 'the origin of the rat is obscure, the one thing certain is that the vermin was unknown to the ancients, and that it arrived in Europe, introduced, perhaps, by the Crusaders, after the Middle Ages.' I think,”
added the prelate, looking round, not without satisfaction, ”that I have completely disposed of the rat hypothesis, as far, at least, as the ghosts of cla.s.sical tradition are concerned.”
”Your reasoning, bishop,” replied Lord Birkenhead, ”is worthy of your reputation; but pray pardon the curiosity which entreats you to return from the simulacra of the past to the ghost of the present.”
”I had not long been occupied with M. Renan,” said the bishop, thus adjured, ”when I became aware of the presence of another person in the room. I think my eyes had strayed from the volume, as I turned a page, to the table, on which I perceived the brown strong hand of a young man.
Looking up, I beheld my friend the priest, who was indeed a man of some twenty-seven years of age, with a frank and open, though somewhat careworn, aspect. I at once rose, and asked if I could be of service to him in anything, and I trust I did not betray any wounding suspicion that he was other than a man of flesh and blood.
”'You can, indeed, my lord, relieve me of a great burden,' said the young man, and it was apparent enough that he _did_ acknowledge the validity of Anglican orders. 'Will you kindly take from the shelf that volume of Cicero ”De Officiis,” he said, pointing to a copy of an Elzevir variorum edition,--not the small duodecimo Elzevir,--'remove the paper you will find there, and burn it in the fire on the hearth.'
”'Certainly I will do as you say, but will you reward me by explaining the reason of your request?'
”'In me,' said the appearance, 'you behold Francis Wilton, priest. I was born in 1657, and, after adventures and an education with which I need not trouble you, found myself here as chaplain to the family of the Lord Birkenhead of the period. It chanced one day that I heard in confession, from the lips of Lady Birkenhead, a tale so strange, moving, and, but for the sacred circ.u.mstances of the revelation, so incredible, that my soul had no rest for thinking thereon. At last, neglecting my vow, and fearful that I might become forgetful of any portion of so marvellous a narrative, I took up my pen and committed the confession to the security of ma.n.u.script. Litera scripta manet. Scarcely had I finished my unholy task when the sound of a distant horn told me that the hunt (to which pleasure I was pa.s.sionately given) approached the demesne. I thrust the written confession into that volume of Cicero, hurried to the stable, saddled my horse with my own hands, and rode in the direction whence I heard the music of the hounds. On my way a locked gate barred my progress. I put Rupert at it, he took off badly, fell, and my spirit pa.s.sed away in the fall. But not to the place of repose did my sinful spirit wing its flight. I found myself here in the library, where, naturally, scarcely any one ever comes except the maids. When I would implore them to destroy the unholy doc.u.ment that binds me to earth, they merely scream; nor have I found any scion of the house, nor any guest, except your lords.h.i.+p, of more intrepid resolution or more charitable mood. And now, I trust, you will release me.'
”I rose (for I had seated myself during his narrative), my heart was stirred with pity; I took down the Cicero, and lit on a sheet of yellow paper covered with faded ma.n.u.script, which, of course, I did not read. I turned to the hearth, tossed on the fire the sere old paper, which blazed at once, and then, hearing the words pax vobisc.u.m, I looked round. But I was alone. After a few minutes, devoted to private e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns, I returned to the dining-room; and that is all my story. Your maids need no longer dread the ghost of the library. He is released.”
”Will any one take any more wine?” asked Lord Birkenhead, in tones of deep emotion. ”No? Then suppose we join the ladies.”
”Well,” said one of the ladies, the Girton girl, when the squire had finished the prelate's narrative, ”_I_ don't call that much of a story.
What was Lady Birkenhead's confession about? That's what one really wants to know.”
”The bishop could not possibly have read the paper,” said the Bachelor of Arts, one of the guests; ”not as a gentleman, nor a bishop.”
”I wish _I_ had had the chance,” said the Girton girl.
”Perhaps the confession was in Latin,” said the Bachelor of Arts.
The Girton girl disdained to reply to this unworthy sneer.
”I have often observed,” she said in a reflective voice, ”that the most authentic and best attested bogies don't come to very much. They appear in a desultory manner, without any context, so to speak, and, like other difficulties, require a context to clear up their meaning.”