A Second Coming: A Tale of Jesus Christ's in Modern London. Richard Marsh
are not--eh--fortuitous. I cannot sit here and allow my sacred office to be mocked.'
'Mocked! Is it to mock your sacred office to spread abroad the news that He has come again? I am fresh from His presence, and tell you so--you that claim to be His priest.'
Fordham, who had been standing by him all the time, came a little closer.
'Come, Hugh, let's get out of this, you and I, and talk over things quietly together.'
Again Chisholm kept him from him with his outstretched hand.
'In your tone, Fordham, more even than in your words, there is suggestion. Of what? that I am mad? You have known me all my life. Have I struck you as being of the stuff which makes for madness? As a victim of hysteria? As a subject of hallucinations? As a liar? I am as sane as you, as clear-headed, as matter-of-fact, as truthful. I tell you, in very truth and very deed, that to-night I have seen Christ hard by here in the square.'
'My dear fellow, these people have come here to dine.'
'Is, then, dinner more than Christ?'
Smiling his easy, tolerant smile, Fordham touched Chisholm lightly with his fingers on the arm.
'My very dear old chap, this sort of thing is so awfully unlike you, don't you know?'
'You, also, will be changed when you have seen Christ. Fordham, I have seen Christ!'
The intensity of his utterance seemed to strike his hearers a blow. The women shivered, turning pale--even those who were painted. Mr. Warton leaned across the table towards Mrs. Amplett.
'I really think that you ladies had better retire. Our friend seems to be in a curious mood.'
The hostess nodded. She rose from her seat, looking very queerly at Mr. Chisholm, for whom her penchant is well known. The other women followed her example. The rustling concourse fluttered from the room, the Incumbent of St. Ethelburga holding the door open to let them pass, and himself bringing up the rear. The laymen were left alone together, Chisholm and Fordham standing at the head of the table with, on their faces, such very different expressions.
The host seemed snappish.
'You see what you've done? I offer you my congratulations, Mr. Chisholm. I don't know if you call the sort of thing with which you have been favouring us good form.'
'Is good form more than Christ?'
Amplett made an impatient sound with his lips. He stood up.
'Upon my word of honour, Mr. Chisholm, you must be either drunk or mad. I trust, for your own sake, that you are merely mad. Come, gentlemen, let's join the ladies.'
The men quitted the room in a body. Only Clement Fordham stayed with his friend. Chisholm watched them as they went. Then, when the last had gone and the door was closed, he turned to his companion.
'Yet it is the truth that this night I have seen Christ!'
The other laughed.
'Then, in that case, let's hope that you won't see much more of Him-- no impiety intended, I assure you. Now let you and me take our two selves away.'
He slipped his arm through his friend's. As they were about to move, the door opened and a servant entered. It was the man who had dropped the dish. He approached Chisholm with stuttering tongue.
'Pardon me, sir, if I seem to take a liberty, but might I ask if the Second Coming has really come at last? As a Seventh-Day Christian it's a subject in which I take an interest, and the fact is that there's a difference of opinion between my wife and me as to whether it's to be this year or next.'
The man bore ignorance on his countenance written large, and worse. Hugh Chisholm turned from him with repugnance.
'He's your brother,' whispered Fordham in his ear, as they moved towards the door.
The expression of Hugh Chisholm's face was stern.
CHAPTER II
THE WOMAN AND THE COATS
Mr. Davis looked about him with bloodshot eyes. His battered bowler was perched rakishly on the back of his head, and his hands were thrust deep into his trousers pockets. He did not seem to find the aspect of the room enlivening. His wife, standing at a small oblong deal table, was making a parcel of two black coats to which she had just been giving the finishing stitches. The man, the woman, the table, and the coats, practically represented the entire contents of the apartment.
The fact appeared to cause Mr. Davis no slight dissatisfaction. His bearing, his looks, his voice, all betrayed it.
'I want some money,' he observed.
'Then you'll have to want,' returned his wife.
'Ain't you got none?'
'No, nor shan't have, not till I've took these two coats in.'
'Then what'll it be?'
'You know very well what it'll be--three-and-six--one-and-nine apiece--if there ain't no fines.'
'And this is what they call the land of liberty, the 'ome of the free, where people slave and slave--for one-and-nine.'
Mr. Davis seemed conscious that the conclusion of his sentence was slightly impotent, and spat on the floor as if to signify his regret.
''Tain't much slaving you do, anyhow.'
'No, nor it ain't much I'm likely to do; I'm no servile wretch; I'm free-born.'
'Prefers to make your living off me, you do.'
'Well, and why not? Ain't woman the inferior animal? Didn't Nature mean it to be her pride to minister to man? Ain't it only the false veneer of a rotten civilization what's upset all that? If I gives my talents for the good of the species, as I do do, as is well known I do do, ain't it only right that you should give me something in return, if it's only a crust and water? Ain't that law and justice-- natural law, mind you, and natural justice?'
'I don't know nothing about law, natural or otherwise, but I do know it ain't justice.'
Mr. Davis looked at his wife, more in sorrow than in anger. He was silent for some seconds, as if meditating on the peculiar baseness of human nature. When he spoke there was a whine in his raucous voice, which was, perhaps, meant to denote his consciousness of how much he stood in need of sympathy.
'I'm sorry, Matilda, to hear you talk to me like that, because it forces me to do something what I shouldn't otherwise have done. Give me them coats.'
She had just finished packing up the coats in the linen wrapper, and was pinning up one end. Snatching up the parcel, she clasped it to her bosom as if it had been some precious thing.
'No, Tommy, not the coats!'
'Matilda, once more I ask you to give me them coats.'
'What do you want them for?'
'Once more, Matilda, I ask you to give me them coats.'
'No, Tommy, that I won't--never! not if you was to kill me! You know what happened the last time, and all I had to go through; and you promised you'd never do it again, and you shan't, not while I can help it--no, that you shan't!'
Clasping the parcel tightly to her, she drew back towards a corner of the room, like some wild creature standing at bay. Mr. Davis, advancing towards the table, leaned on it, addressing her as if he desired to impress her with the fact that he was endeavouring not to allow his feelings to get the better of his judgment.
'Listen to me, Matilda. I'm soft and tender, as well you know, and should therefore regret having to start knocking you about; but want is want, and I want 'arf a sovereign this day, and have it I must.'
'What do you want it for?'
Mr.