Chapter III: Part 3

“And again that sound, if I may call it so, was not that of a material object; it was not a cry or a word or a movement. Yet it was in some way the expression of a personality. Shall we say”--he stopped again--“well, do you know what the sound of a flame is? There is not exactly a vibration--not a note--not a roar nor a--nor anything. Well, I do not think I can express it more clearly than by saying that that is the nearest analogy I can name in the world of sense. It was as the note of a vivid and intense personality, and it continued during that period and died noiselessly at the end like a sudden singing in the ears.

“Now, I have taken the sense of hearing as the one which best expresses my experience; but it was not really hearing any more than seeing or tasting or feeling. It seemed to me that if it was true, as scientists tell us, that we have but one common sense expressing itself in five ways, that common sense was indirectly affected in this intense and piercing way only beneath its own plane, if I may say so.

“And one thing more. Although this presence seemed to bring on me a kind of paralysis, so that I did not move or even objectively think, yet beneath, my soul was aware of a repulsion and a hatred that I am entirely unable to describe. As God is Absolute Goodness and Love, so this presence affected me with precisely the opposite instinct.... There, I must leave it at that. I must just ask you to take my word for it that there was present to me during those few seconds a kind of distilled quintessence of all that is not God, under the aspect of a person, and of a person, as I have said, quite apart from human existence.”

The priest’s quiet little voice, speaking now even lower than when he began, yet perfectly articulate and unmoved, ceased, and I leaned back in my chair, drawing a long breath. Again I will speak only for myself, and say that he had seemed to be putting into words for the first time in my experience something which I had never undergone and which yet I recognized as simply true. I doubted it no more than if he had described a walk he had taken in Rome.

He looked round at the motionless faces; then he lifted one knee on to the other and began to nurse it.

“Well, gentlemen, it would be about ten minutes, I suppose, before I stood up. I looked over my shoulder before that, yet knowing I should see nothing; and, indeed, there was nothing to see but the old rock and the sky and the silhouette of the grasses against it. I continued to sit there, because I felt too tired to move. It was a kind of complete languor that took possession of me. I had no actual fear now; I knew that the thing, whatever it was, had withdrawn itself--it had whisked, if I may say so, out of my range as swift as a lizard who knows himself observed. I knew perfectly well that it would approach more cautiously if it should ever approach me again, but that for the present I need not fear.

“There was another curious detail, too. I had--and have now--no reflex horror when I think of it. You see that it had not taken place before my senses; not even, indeed, before my intellect or my conscious powers. It was completely in the transcendent sphere, and, therefore--at least I can only suppose that this is the reason--therefore when the door was shut and I was returned to my human existence, I had no associations or even direct memory of the horror. I knew that it had taken place, but my objective imagination was not tarnished by it. Later it was different; but I shall come to that presently. There was the languor, taking its rise, I suppose, in the very essence of my being where I had experienced and resisted the assault, and this languor communicated itself to my mind, just as weariness of mind communicates itself to the body. Then, after a little rest, I got up and went home. It was curious also that after dining the languor had risen even higher; I felt intolerably tired, and slept dreamlessly in my chair the whole afternoon.

“That, then, gentlemen, was the beginning of my visitation. It was only the beginning, and to some degree differed from its continuation. It seemed to me later when I looked back upon it that the personality had changed its assault somewhat, that at first it had rushed upon me unthinking, impelled by its own passion, and that afterward it laid siege with skill and deliberation.... But are you sure, gentlemen, that I am not boring you with all this?”

Monsignor answered for us. I noticed that he cleared his throat slightly before speaking.

“No, no, Father.... Please go on.”

The old priest paused a moment as if to recollect himself, then still nursing his knee, he began again in his quiet little voice.

“I do not know exactly how long it was before I began to understand my danger; but I think the thought first occurred to me one day during my meditation. Soon after my ordination I had read Mme. Guyon’s book on prayer in order to understand exactly what it was that had been condemned in Quietism, and I suppose it had affected me to some extent. It is indeed a very subtle book and extremely beautiful. At any rate, I had long been accustomed to close my meditation with what she calls the ‘awful silence’ in the Presence of God. I do not think that, normally speaking, there is any harm in this; on the contrary, for active-minded people in danger of intellectualism I think it a very useful exercise. Well, it was one day I should think within a fortnight of my experience by the rock that I first understood that for me there was danger. I was in my little chapel before the Blessed Sacrament. Everything was quite quiet; the men were at work and the women in their houses; it was a hot, sunny morning, I remember, breathlessly still. I had finished my formal meditation and was sitting back in my chair.

“You all know, gentlemen, of course, the way in which one can approach the Silence before God. Of course, the simplest can do it if they will take pains.”

Monsignor Maxwell interrupted, still in that slightly strained voice in which he had spoken just now.

“Please describe it,” he said.

The priest looked up deprecatingly.

“Well, then, first I had withdrawn myself from the world of sense. That takes, as you know, sometimes several minutes; it is necessary to sink down in thought in such a manner that sounds no longer distract the attention, even though they may be heard and even considered and reflected upon. Then the second step is to leave behind all intellectual considerations and images, and that, too, sometimes is troublesome, especially if the mind is naturally active. Well, this day I found an extraordinary ease in both the acts.”

Father Brent leaned forward.

“May I interrupt, Father? But I am not sure that I understand.”

The old man pursed his lips. Then he glanced up at the rest of us almost apologetically.

“Well, it is this, my dear Father.... How can I put it?... It is the introversion of the soul. Instead of considering this object or that, either by looking upon it or reflecting upon it, the soul turns inward. There are the two distinct planes on which many men, especially those who pay little or no attention to the soul, live continually. Either they continually seek distractions--they cannot be devout except in company or before an image--or else--as, indeed, many do who have even the gift of recollection--they dwell entirely upon considerations and mental images. Now the true introversion is beneath all this. The soul sinks, turning inward upon itself ... there are no actual considerations at all; these become in their turn as much distractions to the energy of the soul as external objects to the energy of the mind.... Is that clearer, my dear Father?”

It was all said with a kind of patient and apologetic simplicity. Father Brent nodded pensively two or three times, and dropped his chin again upon his hand. The old priest went on.

“Well, gentlemen, as I said just now, on this morning I came into the Silence without an effort. First the sensible world dropped away; I heard a woman open and shut her door fifty yards away down the street, but it was no more than a sound. Then almost immediately the world of images and considerations went past me and vanished, and I found myself in perfect stillness.

“For an instant it seemed to me that all was well. There was that strange tranquillity all about me.... I cannot put it into words except by saying, as all do who practise that method, that it is a living tranquillity full of a very vital energy. This is not, of course, that to which contemplatives penetrate; St. John of the Cross makes that very plain; it is no more than that in which we ought always to live. It is that Kingdom of God within of which our Blessed Lord tells us, but it is not the Palace itself.... However, as I have said, when one has but learned the way there--and the difficulty of doing so lies only in its extreme and singular simplicity--when one has learned the way there it is full of pleasure and consolation.

“I remained there, as my manner was, drawing a long breath or two, as one is obliged to do. I do not know why--and at first all seemed well. There was that peace about me which may be described under the image of any one of the five senses. I prefer to speak of it now as under the image of light--a very radiant, mellow light full of warmth and sweetness. There was, too, just at first, that sense of profound abasement and adoration which is so familiar.... As I said, gentlemen, I do not, of course, for an instant pretend to the gift of pure contemplation; that is something far beyond.

“Then, all in an instant that sense of adoration vanished.

“Now, it was not that I had risen back again to meditation; there were no images before my attention, no reflections of any formulated kind. It was still the pure perception, and yet all sense of adoration and of God’s majesty was gone. The light and the peace were there still, but--but not God....

“Then I perceived, if I may say so, that something was on the point of disclosure. It was as if something was about to manifest itself. I perceived that the light was not as it had been. It was like that strange, vivid sunlight that we see sometimes when a heavy cloud is overhead. That is the only way in which I can express it. It is for that reason that I called it _light_ rather than sound or touch. For an instant still I hesitated. The thought of what had happened to me by the rock never came to my mind, and with inconceivable swiftness the process passed on. To use an auditory metaphor for a moment it was like the change of an orchestra. The minor note steals in; a light passes over the character of the sound, and simultaneously the volume increases, the chords expand, tearing the heart with them, and the listener perceives that a moment later the climax will break in thunder.”

He had raised his voice a little by now; his eyes glanced this way and that, though still without a trace of self-consciousness. Then again his voice dropped.

“Well, gentlemen, before that final moment came I had remembered; the vision of the rock and the chatter of the stream was before me sharp as a landscape under lightning.... I do not know what I did, but I was aware of making a kind of terrified effort. My soul sprang up as a diver who chokes under water, and in an instant the whole thing was gone. Then I became aware that my eyes were open and that I was standing up. I was still terrified by the suddenness of the experience, and stood there, saying something aloud to Our Lord in the Tabernacle. Then I heard the door open behind me.

“‘Did you cry out, Father?’ said Bridget. ‘Why, Mother of Mercy----’

“I felt myself beginning to sway on my feet. Well, gentlemen, I need not trouble you with all that. The truth was that Bridget, who was washing up my breakfast things in the kitchen, heard me cry out. She told me afterward that when she saw my face she thought that I was dying.... I sat down a little then, and she fetched me something, and presently I was able to walk out.

“Well, gentlemen, that is enough for this evening.”

He stopped abruptly.

We got up and went to night-prayers.

II

“Well, so far,” began Father Girdlestone on the following evening--“so far you see two things had happened to me. First there seems to have been a kind of unpremeditated assault that affected my body, mind, and soul. That was the attack by the rock. Then he began to lay siege more deliberately, and attacked me in my meditation, in what I may call the innermost chamber, that anteroom of the transcendent world. Now, I have to tell you of his next assault.”

There was a rustle of expectation as we settled ourselves to listen. I had found on questioning the others in the morning that they were in the same attitude as myself, impressed, but not convinced--indeed, strangely impressed by the extreme subtlety of the experience related to us. Yet there had been no proof, no tangible evidence, such as we are accustomed to demand, that the incidents had been anything more than subjective. At the same time there had been something remarkable in the priest’s assurance as well as in the precise particularity of his narrative. It seemed now, however, from what he said, that perhaps we were to have more materialistic elements presented to us.

“The result, of course,” continued Father Girdlestone, “of the attack upon my soul was that I became terrified at the thought of any further act of introversion. It seemed to me on reflection that I had probably overstrained my faculties a little and that I had better be more distinctly meditative in devotion.

“I fetched down, therefore, from my shelves a copy of the ‘Spiritual Exercises,’ and set to work. I began with a carefully objective act of the Presence of God, dwelling chiefly upon the Blessed Sacrament, and then pursued carefully the lines laid down. Two or three times every day, I should say, I was tempted to fall back upon the Prayer of Quiet, and each time I resisted it. It was a kind of frightened fascination that I felt for it. It was as if it had been a cupboard where something terrible lurked in silence and darkness, ready to tear me if I opened the door. Of course I should have opened it boldly; any priest of experience would have told me so at once; but I did not fully understand what was wrong. The result was as you shall hear.

“All went well for several days. I meditated with care, making the prescribed considerations--the preludes, the pictures, and all the rest, observing to go straight from the intellectual act to the voluntary. I became soothed and content again. Then, without any warning, the new assault was made. It came about in this fashion:

“I was meditating upon the Particular Judgment, and had formed the picture as vividly as possible of my soul before the Judge. I saw the wounds and the stains on one side, the ineffably piercing grace and holiness on the other. I saw the reproach in the Judge’s face. I seized my soul by the neck, as it were, and crushed it down in humility and penitence. And then suddenly it seemed to me that my hold relaxed, and all faded. Now this assault came to me in intellectual form, yet I cannot remember the arguments. It began, if I may say so, as a blot upon the subject of my meditation, effacing the image of my Judge and of myself, and it spread with inconceivable swiftness over the whole of my faith....”

The priest paused, smiling steadily at the fire.

“How shall I put it?” he said.... “Well, in a word, it was intellectual doubt of the whole thing. A kind of cloud of infidelity seemed to envelop me. I beat against it, but it passed on, thick and black. There seemed to me no Person behind it; it was the very negation of Personality that surrounded me. ‘After all,’ it seemed to say to me, yet without words or intellect, you understand--‘after all, this is a pretty picture, but where is the proof? What shadow of a proof is there that the whole thing is not a dream? If there were objective proof, how could any man doubt? If there is not objective proof, what reason have you to trust in religion at all--far more, to sacrifice your life to it?... Death, too, what is that but the resolving of the elements that issue in what you call the soul? And when the elements resolve the soul disperses.’... And so on, and so on. You know it, gentlemen.... It suggested horrible things against Our Lord when I turned to the Tabernacle. And then, on a sudden, as it had done in the deeper plane, it spread upward to an intolerable climax. I began to see myself as a dying spark in a burning-out world, and there was no escape, for there was nothing but empty space about me--no God, no heaven, not even a devil to hint at life in some form at least after death. I looked during those seconds into the gulf of annihilation.... I cried out in my heart that I would sooner live in hell than die there ... and the vision, if I may call it so, of ultimate eternal blackness cleared every instant before my intellect until it was imminent upon me as a demonstrable certainty; and then, once more, before that loomed out as actually intellectually certain, I struggled and stood up, saying something aloud, the name of God, I think, while the sweat poured down my face.

“It passed then--at least, in its acuteness. There was the little domed tabernacle before me with its white curtains, and the altar-cards and the gilt candlesticks, and a woman went past the window in clogs, and I heard a bird twitter beneath the eaves, and it was all, for a while, natural and peaceful again.”

The priest stopped.

“Now, gentlemen,” he said very slowly, “intellectual difficulties have occurred to most people, I imagine. How should it not be so? If religion were small enough for our intellects it could not be great enough for our soul’s requirements. But this was not just that fleeting transient obscurity that we call intellectual difficulty. It was to ordinary darkness what substance is to imagination, what a visible concrete scene is to a fancy, what life is to dreaming. I know I cannot express what I mean; but I want you to take it on my word that this visitation in the realm of the intellect was a solid blackness, compared with which all other difficulties that I have ever heard of or experienced are as a mere lowering of intellectual lights. It was paralleled only by my experience in introversion. That, too, had not been an emotional withdrawal, or a spiritual dryness, as we commonly use those words. It had been a solid, unutterably heavy burden--real beyond description.... And further, I want you to consider my dilemma. I had been routed in my soul and dared not take refuge there; I had been overwhelmed, too, in my intellect, and even when the first misery had passed it seemed to me that the arguments against the Faith were stronger than those for it. I did not dare to pit one against the other. A heavy deposit had been left upon my understanding. I did not dare to sit down and argue; I did not dare to run for refuge to the Silence of God. I was driven out into the sole thing that was left--the world of sense.”

Again he stopped, still with that tranquil smile. I hardly understood him, though I think I saw very dimly what he had called his dilemma. Yet I did not understand what he meant by the “world of sense.”

After a little pause he went on.

“To the world of sense,” he repeated. “It seemed to me now that this was all that was left. I determined then and there to drop my meditation and to confine myself to mass, office and rosary. I would say the words with my lips, quickly and steadily, keeping my mind fixed upon them rather than upon their meaning, and I would trust that presently the clouds would pass.

“Well, gentlemen, for about two months I continued this. The misery I suffered is simply indescribable. You can imagine all the suggestions I made to myself when I was off my guard. I told myself that I was a coward and a sham--that I had lost my faith and that I continued to act as a priest! What was especially hard to bear was the devotion of my parishioners. As I knelt in front saying the rosary and they responded I could hear the thrill of conviction in every word they uttered. Oh, those Irish! The things they said to me sometimes were like swords for pain ... the masses they asked me to say...!

“I went to a priest at a distance once or twice and told him the bare outline--not as I have told it to you. He laughed at me, kindly, of course. He told me that it was the effect of loneliness, while I knew that at the best it was the work of One who bore me continual company now and who was stronger than I. He told me that all young priests had to win the victory in some form or other; that every priest thought his own case the most desperate.... Yet I knew from every word that he said that he did not understand, and that I could never make him understand. Yet, somehow, I set my teeth; I told God that I was willing to bear this dereliction for as long as He willed--so paradoxical and mysterious is the gift of Faith--if He would but save my soul, and at last, in a kind of defiance, I began to look once more at my designs for the church I was to build.

“You see, gentlemen, what I meant by taking refuge in the world of sense. I deliberately contemplated never daring to face God again interiorly, or even my own soul. I would do my duty as a priest; I would say my mass and office; I would preach strictly what the Church enjoined; I would live and die like that, with my teeth set. Better God beaten and denied than all the world beside in prosperity!”

For the first time in the whole of his narrative Father Girdlestone’s voice trembled a little. He passed his thin old hand over his mouth once or twice, shifted his position and began again.

“It was on the first of October that I took down my plans again. I had not looked at them for two months; I had not the heart to do so.

“Now let me describe to you exactly the room in which I sat, and the other necessary circumstances.

“In the centre of my room stood my table, with two windows on my left, the fire in front, and the door behind me to the right. The windows were hung with serge curtains. I had no carpet, but a little mat only beneath my table and another before the fire.

“It was in the beginning of October--to be accurate, the third of the month--that this thing happened that I am about to tell you.

“I awoke early that morning, said my mass as usual, with attention and care, but no sensible devotion, and after my thanksgiving sat down to breakfast. It was then that I first had any uneasiness.

“I was breakfasting at my table, and beyond me, in front and to the right, stood a large basket-chair. I was reading some book or other, and can honestly say that nothing was further from my mind than my experiences in the summer. Remember, during two months nothing had happened--nothing, at least, beyond that intolerable intellectual darkness. Then the basket-chair suddenly clicked in the way in which they do half an hour after one has sat in them. It distracted my attention for an instant--it was just enough for that; no more. I went on with my book.

“Then it clicked again three or four times, and I looked up, rather annoyed.... Well, to be brief, this went on and on. After breakfast, when Bridget came to fetch the tray, I asked whether she had touched the chair that morning. She told me No. All this time, remember, no thought of anything odd had entered my head. I supposed it was the damp and said so.

“Well, she was still in the room. I went out to fetch my breviary from the chapel, and as I set foot on the stairs, leaving the door open behind me, I heard her, as I thought, come out after me with the tray and follow me, three or four steps behind, all down the staircase. I had no more doubt of that than of the fact that I myself was going downstairs. At the turn of the stairs I did not even look behind. By the sounds--not clear footfalls, you understand, but a kind of shuffling and breathing, and still more by the consciousness that there she was--I judged she was in a hurry, as she often was. At the foot of the stairs I turned to say something, and as I began to turn I will swear that I saw a figure out of the corner of my eye; but when I looked it was simply not there. There was nothing there.... Do you understand, gentlemen? Nothing at all.

“I called up to her, and heard her come across the floor. Then she looked over the banister.

“‘Did you come out of the room just now?’ I said.

“‘No, your reverence.’

“Well, I made my theory, of course. It was to the effect that she had moved in the room as I came out; that I therefore thought she was following me, and that the rest was simply self-suggestion.

“I got my breviary and came out. As I came into the little lobby again there occurred to me the impression that some one was there, waiting in the corner. I looked round me; there was nothing, and I went upstairs.

“Gentlemen, do you know that nervous condition when one feels there is some one in the room? It is generally dissipated by ten minutes’ conversation. Well, I was in that condition all the morning. But there was more than that.

“It was not only that sense of some one there; there were sounds now and then, very faint, but absolutely distinct, coming from all quarters--sounds so minute and unimportant in themselves that I might have heard them a hundred times without giving them another thought if they had not been accompanied by that sense of a presence with me. They were of all kinds. Once or twice a piece of woodwork somewhere in the room clicked, as my basket-chair had done--a sharp, minute rap, such as one hears in damp weather. Once the door became unlatched and slid very softly with the sound of a hush over a piece of matting that lay there. I got up and shut the door again, looking, I must confess, for an instant on to the landing, and as I came back to my chair that clicked twice.

“Gentlemen, I know this sounds absurd. You will be saying, as I said, that I was simply in a nervous condition. Very well, perhaps I was; but please wait. Once, as I sat in my chair drawn sideways near the fireplace, a very slight movement caught my eye. I turned sharply; it was no more than the fringe of the mat under the table lifting in the draught. As I looked it ceased.

“Well, my nerves got worse and worse. I stared every now and then round the room. There was nothing to be seen but the boards, the mats, the familiar furniture, the black and white crucifix over the mantleshelf, my few books, and the vestment-chest near the door. There were the curtains, too, hanging at the windows. That was all. It was a cloudy October day, and rained a little about half-past twelve. I remember starting suddenly as a gust came and dashed the drops against the glass.

“At about a quarter to one Bridget came in to lay dinner.... I am ashamed to say it, but I was extraordinarily relieved when I heard her open the downstairs door. She came in, you remember, three or four times a day to see after me; otherwise I was alone in the house.

“When she came into the room I looked up at her.... She smiled at me, and then it seemed to me that her face took on it rather an odd expression. She stopped smiling, and before she set down the tablecloth and knives she looked round the room rather curiously, I thought.

“‘Well, Bridget,’ I said, ‘what is it?’

“There was just a moment before she answered.

“‘It is nothing, your reverence,’ she said.

“Then she laid dinner. I dined, reading all the while, and she brought in the dishes one by one. I am afraid I hurried rather over dinner. I made up my mind to go out for a long walk; there was something else in my mind, too--well, I may as well tell you; it seemed to me that I should rather like to be out of the house before she was. Yes; it was cowardly; but remember that all this while I was telling myself that I had an attack of the nerves, and that I had better not be alone except in the fresh air.

“Well, nothing at all happened that afternoon. It seemed to me as I went over the moors that all sense of haunting had ceased; I noticed first consciously that it had gone soon after leaving the outskirts of the village; I was entirely happy and serene.

“As I came back into sight of the village at dusk and saw the lights shining over the hill the uneasiness came on me again. It struck me vividly for the first time that a night spent alone in that house would be slightly uncomfortable. By this time, of course, too, the possibility of a connection between my present state and my previous experiences had occurred to my mind; but I had striven to resist this idea as merely one more nervous suggestion.

“My uneasiness grew greater still as I came up the street. I am ashamed to say that I stopped to talk three or four times to my parishioners simply out of that unaccountably strong terror of my own house. I noticed, too, across the street that a face peeped from Bridget’s window and drew back on seeing me. A moment later her door opened and she came out.

“I did not turn or wait for her, but as I reached my door I was conscious of a very distinct relief that she was behind me, and as I went in she came immediately after me.

“‘I am very sorry, Father,’ she said, ‘I haven’t your tea ready yet.’

“I told her to bring it as soon as she could, and went slowly upstairs with the horror deepening at every step. I knew perfectly well now why she had waited; it was that she did not like to enter the empty house alone.... Yet I did not feel that I could ask her what it was she feared. That would be a kind of surrender on my part--an allowing to myself that there was something to fear, and you must remember that I still was trying to tell myself that it was all nerves.”

The Rector leaned forward.

“I am very sorry, Father Girdlestone,” he said softly, “but it is past time for night-prayers.” He paused. “But may we make an exception to-night and hear the rest afterward?”

The old man stood up and motioned with a little smile toward the chapel gallery.

III

“As I went forward into the room,” began the old man again as soon as we had taken our seats in silence, “I knew beyond doubt that I was accompanied. I heard Bridget moving about downstairs, but it was as sound heard through the roar of a train. There went with me something resembling a loud noise--interior, you understand, yet on the brink of manifestation in the world of sense; or you may call it a blackness, or a vast weight, as heavy as heaven and earth, and it was all centred round a personality. It was of such a nature that I should have been surprised at nothing. It appeared to me that all that I looked upon--the serge curtains, my table, my chair, the glow of the fire on the hearth, and the glimmer on the bare boards--all these were but as melting shreds and rays hanging upon some monstrous reality. They were there, they were just in existence, but they were as accidents without substance.

“I do not know if there were definite sounds or not, or even definite appearances, beyond the normal, material sounds and sights. There may have been, but I do not think so.

“I went across the room, walking, it seemed to me, on nothingness. My body was still in sensible relations with matter, but it seemed to me that I was not. I found my chair and sat down in it to wait. I was nerveless now, sunk in a kind of despair that I cannot hope to make plain to you. I imagine that a lost soul on the edge of death must be in that state.

“I looked almost vacantly round the room once or twice; but there was nothing. I understood without consideration what was happening, and the general course of events. It was all one, I perceived now. That which had started up at the rock, which had invaded first the innermost chamber of my soul, and then the intellectual plane, and had established itself there, had now taken its final step forward, and was claiming the world of sense as well. I felt entirely powerless. You will wonder why I did not go downstairs to the Blessed Sacrament. I do not know, but it was impossible. Here was the battlefield, I knew very well.

“I perceived something else, too. It was the reason of the assaults. I did not fully understand it, but I knew that the object was to drive me from the place--to make the village and the neighborhood detestable to me. I knew that I could escape by going away, yet it was not exactly a temptation. I had no interior desire to escape. It was merely a question as to which force would prevail in my soul--that which impelled me away and grace which held me there. I was as a passive dummy between them....

“I do not know how long it was before Bridget pushed open the door. I saw her with the tray come across the room and set it down upon my table. Then I saw her looking at me.

“‘Bridget,’ I said, ‘I shall want no supper to-night. And tell the people that I am unwell and that there will be no night-prayers. There will be mass, I hope, as usual in the morning.’

“I said those words, I believe; but the voice was not as my own. It was as if another spoke. I saw her looking at me across the dusk with an extraordinary terror in her face.

“‘Come away, Father,’ she whispered.

“I shook my head.

“‘Come away,’ she whispered again. ‘This is not a good house to be in.’

“I said nothing.

“‘Shall I fetch Father Donovan to you, Father,’ she whispered, ‘or the doctor?’

“‘Fetch no one,’ I said to her. ‘Tell no one. Ask for prayers, if you will. Go and leave me to myself, Bridget.’

“I think I understood even then what the struggle was she was going through. I do not know if she perceived all that I perceived, but even from her face, without her words, I knew that she was conscious of something. Yet she did not like to leave me alone. She stood perfectly still, looking first at me, then slowly round the room, then back at me again. And as she looked the dusk fell veil on veil.

“Then something happened, I do not know what; I never questioned her afterward, but she was gone. I heard her stumbling and moaning down the stairs. An instant later the street door opened and banged, and I was left alone.

“I cannot tell you what I felt. I knew only that the crisis was come, and that the result was out of my hands. I closed my eyes, I think, and lay right back in my chair. It was as if I were submitting myself to an operation; I wondered vaguely as to what shape it would take.

“All about the room I felt the force gathering. There was no oscillation, no vibration, but a steady, continuous stream concentrating itself within the four walls. With this the sense of the central personality grew every moment more and more intense and vivid. It seemed to me as if I were some tiny, conscious speck of matter in the midst of a life whose vastness and malignance was beyond conception. At times it was this; at other times it was as if I looked within and saw a space full of some indescribable blackness--a space of such a nature that I could not tell whether it was as tiny as a pinhole or as vast as infinity. It was spaceless space, sheer emptiness, but with an emptiness that was a horror, and it was within me.

“Yet it was not simple spirit--it was not the correlative of matter. It was rather spirit in the very throes of manifestation in matter....

“Sometimes then I attended to this; sometimes I lay with every sense at full stretch--at a tenseness that seemed impossible, directed outward. I cannot tell even now whether the room was poised in deathly silence or in an indescribable clamor and roar of tongues. It was one or the other, or it was both at once.

“Or, to take the sense of sight.... Although my eyes were closed, every detail of the room was before me. Sometimes I saw it as rigid as a man at grips with death, in a kind of pallor--the table, the dying fire, the uncurtained windows--all in the pallor--the very names of the books visible--all, as it were, striving to hold themselves in material being under the stress of some enormous destructive force with which they were charged--as rigid and as silent and as significant as an electric wire--and as full of power. Or at times all seemed to me to have gone, simply to have dissolved into nothingness, as a breath fades on a window--to retain but a phantom of themselves....

“Well, well ... words are very useless, gentlemen; ... they are poor things----”

The old priest paused a moment, leaning forward in his chair with his thin, veined hands together. For myself I cannot say what I felt. I seemed to be in somewhat of the same state as that which he was describing; all my senses, too, were stretched to the full by the intensity of my attention. Yet the narrator seemed little affected; he leaned and looked peacefully into the fire, and I caught the glint of light on his deep eyes.

Then he leaned back and went on.

“Now you must picture to yourselves, gentlemen, that this state grew steadily in its energy. I did not know before--and I can scarcely believe it now--that human nature could bear so much. Yet I seemed to myself to be observing my strained faculties from a plane apart from them. It was as the owner of a besieged castle might stand on a keep and watch the figures of his men staring out over the battlements at a sight he could not see. There were my eyes looking, my ears listening, even the touch of my fingers on the chair-arms questioning what it was that they held; and there was I--my very self--far within waiting for communications.

“I suppose that I knew there was no escape. I could not descend into the sphere of reason, for another Power held the keys; I could not sink again to the inner Presence of God, for that chamber, too, was occupied; there was this last stand to be made--the world of sense. If that was lost, all was lost; and I could not lift a finger to help. And, as I said, the strain grew greater each instant, as the opening swell of an organ waxes with a long, steady crescendo to its final roar....

“I do not know at exactly what point I understood the assault, but it became known to me presently that what was intended was to merge the world of sense, so far as I was concerned, into this mighty essence of evil--to burst through, or, rather, to transcend the material. Then I knew I should be wholly lost. I remember, too, that I perceived soon after this that this was what the world calls madness ... and I understood at this moment as never before how that process consummates itself. It begins, as mine did, with the carrying of the inner life by storm; that may come about by deliberate acquiescence in sin. I should suppose that it always does in some degree. Then the intellect is attacked--it may only be in one point--a ‘delusion’ it is called, and with many persons regarded only as eccentric--the process goes no further. But when the triumph is complete the world of sense, too, is lost, and the man raves. I knew at that time for absolute fact that this is the process. The ‘delusions’ of the mad are not non-existent--they are glimpses, horrible or foul or fantastic, of that strange world that we take so quietly for granted, that at this moment and at every moment is perpetually about us, foaming out its waters in lust or violence or mad irresponsible blasphemy against the Most High.

“Well, I saw that this was what threatened, yet I could not move a finger. No thought of flight entered my mind. All had gone too far by now....

“Then, gentlemen, the climax came.”

Again the old priest was silent.

I heard Monsignor’s pipe drop with a clatter, and my nerves thrilled like a struck harp. He made no movement to pick it up. He stared only at the old man.

Then the quiet voice went on.

“This was the climax, gentlemen.... The intensity swelled and swelled;... each moment I thought must be the last--the utmost effort of hell. Then with a crash the full close sounded; and through the rending tear, through the veil of matter that whirled away and was gone, I caught one swift glimpse of all that lay beneath. It was not through one sense that I perceived it; it was through perception pure and simple.... Well, how can I say it? It was this....

“I perceived two vast forces pressed one against the other, as silent and as rigid as ... as the glass of a diver’s helmet against the huge, incumbent, glittering water. It is a wretched simile.... Let us say that the appearance was as the meeting of fire and water without mist or tumult. The forces were absolutely opposed, absolutely alien, yet absolutely one in the plane of being. They could meet as the created and uncreated could not--as flesh and spirit cannot. They met, level, coincident, each rigid to breaking point--each full of an energy to which there is no parallel in this world.

“It seemed to me that all had waited for this. The enemy had been permitted to enter the gate; and at the instant of his triumph the fire of God was upon him, locked in the embrace of utter repulsion....

“And it was given to me to watch that, gentlemen.... On the edge of what the world labels as madness, at the very instant that I hung balanced on that line, I saw that endless war of spirit and spirit, which has been waging since Michael drove Satan from heaven--that ceaseless, writhing conflict in which all that is not for God is against Him, seeking to dethrone and annihilate Him who gave it being. Ah, words ... words ... but I saw it...!”

There was a dead silence in the room. The priest drew one breath.

“Then I saw no more. I was in my chair as before, holding the arms; and the room round me stole back into being--through the pallor of a phantom to the dusk of earthly twilight; and I perceived that my eyes were closed and not open.

“There then I stayed, knowing that the war still waged beneath, yet fainter every moment as the tide crawled back, contesting inch by inch, rolled back by that remorseless power. Twice or three times I heard the murmur of sound in the room; the serge curtains swayed. I could hear them. I heard the door vibrating softly; then once more the quiet silence was there, and I heard the ashes slip by their weight from grate to fender. Nature at least was itself again. Then once more, as into my intellect the light stole back, and I knew that God reigned and that His Son was Incarnate, crucified and risen by many irrefragable proofs, round the house I could hear the murmuring of voices, and saw through closed eyelids of utter repose the glimmer of lanterns on the ceiling.

“Within myself, too, I watched the roar of evil; I drew breath after breath, deep and life-giving, as far down within the secret chambers of my soul the foul filth ebbed and sank, and that spring rising into life everlasting, of which our Saviour spoke, welled up in its stead, filling every cranny and corner of my soul with that strange sweetness, so sweet and so dear that we forget it as the very air we breathe.

“The murmur of conflict was infinitely far away; and it seemed to me that once more I went down, down, in that introversion of which I spoke just now, seeing all clean and sweet about me, down into the Presence of the Lord who rules heaven and earth at His will. Then a door closed, deep, deep below, and I knew that the enemy was gone....

“Well, gentlemen,” said the priest after a pause, leaning back, “that is really the story. But there are a few details to add.

“When the men that Bridget had fetched came upstairs they found me asleep, but they told me afterward there were streaks of foam at the corners of my mouth. Yet she was not gone three minutes.

“I never spoke a word to them of what happened. They knew quite enough for laymen.... We had night-prayers as usual that evening. I said the _Visita quæsumus Domine_ at the end....

“I slept like a child, and I said a mass of thanksgiving next day.”

Father Brent broke the silence that followed. His voice seemed strange.

“And the church, Father?”

The old priest smiled at him full.

“You have guessed it,” he said. “Yes, the church was built thirty years later. It is a basilica, as I said; it presents Our Lord in glory in an apse. It stands, curiously enough, on the rock; but it is in the middle of a huge colliery town, and--well, I may as well say it--there is a grated tribune above the high altar at one side through which a convent of Poor Clares can assist at the holy sacrifice. Poor Clares!

“I ceased to wonder at the assault as soon as the convent was built.”

He stood up, smiling.

VI

_Father Bianchi’s Tale_

Father Bianchi, as the days went on, seemed a little less dogmatic on the theory that miracles (except, of course, those of the saints) did not happen. He was warned by Monsignor Maxwell that his turn was approaching to contribute a story, and suddenly at supper announced that he would prefer to get it over at once that evening.

“But I have nothing to tell,” he cried, expostulating with hands and shoulders, “nothing to tell but the nonsense of an old peasant-woman.”

* * * * *

When we had taken our places upstairs, and the Italian had again apologized and remonstrated with raised eyebrows, he began at last, and I noticed that he spoke with a seriousness that I should not have expected.

“When I was first a priest,” he said, “I was in the south of Italy, and said my first mass in a church in the hills. The village was called Arripezza.”

“Is that true?” said Monsignor suddenly, smiling.

The Italian grinned brilliantly. “Well, no,” he said, “but it is near enough, and I swear to you that the rest is true. It was a village in the hills, ten miles from Naples. They have many strange beliefs there; it is like Father Brent’s Cornwall. All along the coast, as you know, they set lights in the windows on one night of the year, because they relate that our Lady once came walking on the water with her divine Child, and found none to give her shelter. Well, this village that we will call Arripezza was not on the coast. It was inland, but it had its own superstitions to compensate it--superstitions cursed by the Church.

“I knew little of all this when I went there. I had been in the seminary until then.

“The _parrocho_ was an old man, but old! He could say mass sometimes on Sundays and feasts, but that was all, and I went to help him. There were many at my first mass as the custom is, and they all came up to kiss my hands when it was done.

“When I came back from the sacristy again there was an old woman waiting for me, who told me that her name was Giovannina. I had seen her before as she kissed my hands. She was as old as the _parrocho_ himself--I cannot tell how old--yellow and wrinkled as a monkey.

“She put five lire into my hands.

“‘Five masses, Father,’ she said, ‘for a soul in purgatory.’

“‘And the name?’

“‘That does not matter,’ she said. ‘And will you say them, my Father, at the altar of S. Espedito?’

“I took the money and went off, and as I went down the church, I saw her looking after me, as if she wished to speak, but she made no sign, and I went home; and I had a dozen other masses to say, some for my friends, and a couple that the _parrocho_ gave me, and those, therefore, I began to say first. When I had said the fifth of the twelve, Giovannina waited for me again at the door of the sacristy. I could see that she was troubled.

“‘Have you not said them, my Father?’ she asked. ‘He is here still.’

“I did not notice what she said, except the question, and I said no; I had had others to say first. She blinked at me with her old eyes a moment, and I was going on, but she stopped me again.

“‘Ah! Say them at once, my Father,’ she said; ‘he is waiting.’

“Then I remembered what she had said before and I was angry.

“‘Waiting!’ I said; ‘and so are thousands of poor souls.’

“‘Ah, but he is so patient,’ she said; ‘he has waited so long.’

“I said something sharp, I forget what, but the _parrocho_ had told me not to hang about and talk nonsense to women, and I was going on, but she took me by the arm.

“‘Have you not seen him too, my Father?’ she said.